An NBA Mailbag, LeBron’s Next Move, and the Wild Paramount-WBD Merger With David Jacoby and Matt Belloni

[00:00] For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. [00:07] Tremphaya offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tremphaya is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject Tremphaya, proper training is required. [00:30] of Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Trimphia today. Call [redacted phone] to learn more or visit TrimphiaRadio.com. [01:01] . [01:06] The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. We are also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where on the rewatchables, it is officially... [01:15] CR month. That's right. Chris Ryan. [01:18] We picked a bunch of movies. We did Sicario on Monday night. We did it live on Netflix. You can watch it on Netflix. You can watch it on Spotify, wherever you're podcasting. [01:26] We have Fargo. [01:28] I mean, next Monday. [01:29] And then the next one after that is going to be To Live and Die in L.A.,

[01:34] which we've been waiting to do forever, a classic. [01:37] And then the fifth one is going to be LA Confidential. And we're going to let everybody vote for the fourth one. So if you follow... [01:42] the rewatchables on Twitter. [01:44] We'll have some choices for the fourth one. There's some pretty good, we're going to have 12 movies. [01:48] Vote every day for one of the four, and then we'll make the finals the fourth day between the three winners. [01:55] So that's what we're doing. Coming up on this podcast... [01:58] Dave Jacoby, my old friend from my Grantland days, my ESPN days, he is coming on to do a mailbag with me. We have like two-thirds of a mailbag, but some really, really fun basketball questions, some good nickname stuff as well. And then Matt Bellany, who you can hear. [02:12] on the town. [02:14] We are going to talk about the... [02:16] Warner Brothers, [02:18] Paramount, Crazy Merger, and all the ramifications and ripple effects. So, action-packed podcast for you today. We're going to take a break, bring in Pearl Jam, and then... [02:28] My old friend, Dave Jacoby. [02:30] This episode is brought to you by Expedia. You gotta love a good deal, whether that's a quarterback, [02:36] on a short, [02:37] low-risk contracts, [02:39] who competes like a top-tier quarterback. [02:41] like a Brock Purdy once upon a time. [02:44] Or Expedia's bundle and save feature, which allows you to combine flights, hotels, and cars into one package for impressive discounts. And not just that, [02:51] But if you're a member, [02:52] You can book an item now, add select items later. [02:56] and still enjoy bundled savings. For instance, if you're a football fan, you want to go to the championship, conference championships, the Super Bowl, wherever it is, [03:04] and you don't know your team's going to be in, all of a sudden they're in, what do you got to do?

[03:07] I got to get a hotel. I get a flight. I get a car. Expedia can do all three. [03:12] You never know when your team's going to be in a big game. [03:14] Use Expedia. Now that is a winning strategy book now. [03:18] with Expedia. [03:46] Dave Jacoby is here on a Tuesday afternoon. You're the first person who doesn't like the [03:50] like the chairs. [03:51] I don't like the way they look. I especially don't like the way they feel. [03:53] You don't like the way they look? What's wrong with the way they look? I sink into them too much. [03:58] Right? [03:58] And I like a high top. [04:00] that's been my posture will be better. [04:02] Less poochy pooch. And right now my knees and nipples are at the same plane. [04:07] I want knees below nipples. [04:10] Dating back to Jalen and Jacoby when we had the first chairs and I would make fun of you that you were an invertebrate with the camera angle. Well, there's someone who wrote a very serious email. [04:19] that was like, you've got serious problems. Who wrote that? It was a stranger. [04:25] And if you're just listening to this, Bill has something that I had in like, [04:30] 1992, what is that thing? This lap dance? Yeah, you've got the bean bag underneath the- Well, because I like to- we're about to do a mailbag. I'm very excited. Okay. I didn't want to have the mailbag too low on my lap because then I'm doing this and coming up. Oh. So it's out of necessity. It's a posture move. And plus later my wife's going to bring me dinner and I'm just going to eat it right next like this. It's a posture move. Yeah.

[04:54] So I did a whole thing about nicknames when Max Kellerman was here. Mm-hmm. [04:59] People pointed out some nicknames that I missed, including Downtown Freddie Brown. I'd like to apologize to him. I'd like to also shout out Downtown Julie Brown. [05:08] Who stole it from downtown Freddie Brown. Slick Watts, the Boston Strangler, Andrew Toney. Great one. Dr. Duncanstein. Remember loving that as a kid? The Microwave, Vinnie Johnson, the Mailman, the Chief. White Chocolate was a big miss. The Glove, Big Country, AK-47. And then currently, Greek Freak, Time Lord, and Slow Mo. I bring all of this up because the whole point of the initial thing was we're just not good at nicknames anymore. Yeah. [05:33] We're lazy. [05:35] We do initials, we do acronyms, and we just don't put any thought into it. [05:40] I've got a take on this. Let's hear it. [05:43] One thing about the sports media world that really bothers me is, [05:48] is when athletes launch their brand or their logo, it's either their number or their initials. No one has done this right since Kobe Bryant, who just like stole it from a swerved, [05:59] on Kill Bill. Who had a couple chances. He tried a couple different gimmicks. It's always just initials. It's just like DA7 or something. It's just like, why can't we be more creative than this? Well, that's... So... [06:11] Imran from San Francisco has a theory on this that we've gotten lazy. Oh. He blames Kevin Durant. Tough year for Kevin Durant. [06:21] Imran. He says Kevin Durant deserves blame for rejecting a potential Pantheon level nickname, the Slim Reaper. Slim Reaper. And instead asking people to call him the servant, which no one wanted to do.

[06:35] players realized they could just reject nicknames that didn't fit their brand. And now we have these vanilla corporate nicknames instead. Just a thought. [06:42] Do we put this on Kevin Durant's last thing? I don't think it's really fair, but Durantula was great. Slim Weeper was great. And then he's like, I'm the easy money sniper. [06:51] Okay. [06:52] Easy money sniper. Slim Reaper was an all time great nickname. We could have called him Slim. We could have called him Reaper. And it also visualizes it. Like if slow mo is a great nickname, but you can't like see it. You know what I mean? But you can see him. They've got the graphics of him in the hood and with the sickle and everything. [07:10] So yeah, maybe it is Kevin Durant's fault. [07:12] My thing with nicknames... [07:13] Like Slick Watts is a good example. The nickname has to become how we say the person's name. [07:19] It can't like that. We've had some nicknames over the years when it's like, [07:22] The nicknames over here. I even didn't really love the answer for Allen Iverson. It was just easier to call him AI. [07:28] I know people like to push the answer. [07:30] I never personally called him the answer. I always call him Iverson or AI. It doesn't roll off the tongue. Ultimately, where you want to be is like Clyde the Glide. Yes. Neek. Earl Pearl. Shorten your name, whatever. So anyway... [07:43] Peter T., [07:44] had an idea. There was a lot of conch nipple suggestions, which people know how to get into the mailbag. [07:50] You sent me some of the questions. I was like, oh, these people are just... [07:55] tailoring it right for Bill. It's a human algorithm. Peter T. said... [08:01] He said mailbag nickname submission, Con Snow. [08:05] Bill's the legitimate son in Charlotte, like John Stone in Game of Thrones.

[08:10] He said, as a Duke fan in Colorado, I love that your pod is now 25% yokage and knipple talk. [08:15] I resent that because I feel like it's 50% Boston talk, 25%. I'm taking the over on the 50. Okay. Okay. Now let's get to the good stuff. [08:25] There was a lot of Stefan Castle... [08:28] What are we doing here? This guy needs a nickname. I think people agree, right? [08:32] Can I push back? Khan is a unique name in itself, and Castle is a great last name. Why do we need to upgrade these? Well, just wait. [08:40] Jude from Westport. [08:42] said it had to be something castle or medieval related. He proposes the dungeon. [08:46] he's locking someone down. He's sending them to the dungeon. Like I'm not against it. You've been locked down the dungeon. [08:53] Jacob, [08:54] And a few people suggested this. One, it's called the moat. [08:58] because the mode is perimeter defense for a castle. [09:02] So it's like, you can't cross the moat. Do you know one you haven't thought of? [09:05] But you didn't bring up off night. [09:08] Damien Mitchell. That's a great nickname. You don't like Mike Breen yelling, nobody is crossing the moat. [09:15] A few people suggested this though And I think it's the winner [09:19] for Stefan Castle. [09:21] uh, [09:22] Checkmate. [09:24] Thank you. [09:25] Sure. [09:26] You don't like it? No, I like it. [09:28] I like it. [09:29] And checkmate rises to the occasion. I don't know. I want to hear somebody test drive it. [09:34] Khan [09:36] A lot of people go in DEFCON 3 or DEFCON 7, which is his number.

[09:41] Not quite there. Conair doesn't really work. [09:45] No. [09:45] And then a couple of people suggested 2K. [09:50] 2K's good. 2K's not bad. 2K's good. [09:54] 2K is not bad. 2K had 35 last night. That's not bad. [09:58] That's as good as we've heard in a while. That's one thing about the answer. The word answer doesn't roll off the tongue the same way that 2K does. [10:06] Did you see 2K hit 9 threes last night? [10:08] It's pretty good. The question, the bigger question is, [10:11] Do you need a nickname if your name's Khan? No. Which is, so if we had a nickname, the nickname star would probably be like, we're good. His name's Khan. It stands out. [10:18] Yeah, it'd be so hard. I mean, if you're going to do something with conca nipples, you know, [10:23] Name. [10:24] Yeah. Nips is right there. [10:26] Nipsey? Nipsey? [10:29] It's right there. We had an Ipsy Russell. A bunch of people for Jalen Duren suggested Bull Duren. [10:35] Sure. Not bad. Sure. [10:39] This was the best one. I can't believe how good it is. [10:42] more than one suggestion, so I don't want to give anyone credit. Josh Giddey. [10:47] Don't. [10:47] Just don't. [10:52] Josh Giddey, the Giddler. [10:55] Thank you. [10:56] The Kidler had a triple-double last night. [10:59] He could have the old 90s poster with like he's dressed as the Riddler, but it's instead of a question mark, it's a G. [11:06] I'm not sure, maybe like October, [11:09] Josh Giddey deserved this nickname. The Gidler?

[11:11] But like... [11:13] It's too close to something else. All right. So your favorite is 2K. [11:17] Yes. [11:18] Dan from Denman Island in Canada. [11:21] suggested he was one of the checkmate suggestions for castle where's danman island i don't know it's in canada [11:28] He wanted to, he suggested for Kaysan Wallace, twitch, because he has such fast twitch reflexes. [11:35] I would just start calling him Twist. I don't think he needs a nickname. There's a motocross metal militia guy named Twitch. Okay. Okay. [11:43] He was great. [11:44] This is the best one. I don't think he has the right person for this, but it's one of the best names I've ever heard. [11:49] He said for Jalen Brown to call him jalapeno. [11:52] because this is what my group of friends who have a basketball draft call him because of a typo, but it also fits for when he's on a heater. [11:59] That's a better name for somebody you play pickup basketball with. [12:03] It's like our friend Juan, we call him jalapeno because he just gets hot in these games. [12:08] You don't like jalapeno? A typo? I don't... [12:12] Any nickname you have to sort of like explain with more than one sentence, I'm out. [12:16] Do you like jalapeno as a huge check nickname though? Only for like one of my friends. Okay. Yeah. So our best one is 2K. [12:23] It's okay. All right. [12:25] Um, [12:26] So Alex Lyons wrote in. There's this guy, Robbie Avila from St. Louis, the guy with the goggles, the 6'10 center. You've seen him, college basketball. [12:34] He has three nicknames. [12:36] Kareem Abdul-Jabbar [12:38] I'm in. Steph Blurry and Milt Chamberlain. All of them.

[12:44] So maybe he'll save the dick. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is it? Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Stepler is pretty good, too. Okay. [12:51] Next question is from D. Bob in New York. [12:54] Who do you think will be the top five players in the league five years from now? [12:58] So that would be the 2030-31 season. He said, it's a fun exercise. You never would have predicted Shea or Wemby. [13:04] top five five years ago the top five players in 2021 were Giannis, Jokic, Embiid, Curry, Luka, LeBron in some order [13:13] Um, [13:14] To me, in 2031, there's two locks, Aunt Luca, [13:17] But anyway, he's basically like, who do you have? This was harder than I thought it would be. I agree. This was harder than I thought it would be. [13:25] And one thing that I'm not going to allow is Hugo Gonzalez being part of the conversation. [13:30] Did you see him last night? It's 16 rebounds. I did. Yeah. But this was harder than I thought. Because my question for you is, [13:39] Like there's a couple, there's a bunch of 29 year olds who will still be in their prime. [13:42] But when I'm looking at some players, I'm like, [13:45] Luca will be 32. Well, can we do the chalk picks? [13:50] So if we're just going chalk, [13:51] It's Wemby and [13:53] Luca. [13:55] SGA. Whoa. [13:58] Luka and SGA are 32 years old. I'm just saying Chalk. [14:03] Safe as bets for five years from now. Safe as bets. [14:07] Okay. [14:08] And I would have Cooper Flagg as my fifth chalk guy. [14:12] He'll be 24 at that point.

[14:14] Everything we've seen, how much better he's gotten just in the last two years. [14:19] Luca and Shea at 32, I started to think that [14:24] There are others out there. We're not. Yoke, it's going to be 36. He probably want to be playing. He's out. Yeah. Um, [14:30] I wrote down, I had different categories, Cade and Maxie. [14:34] There's a lot of 29-year-olds. Caden Max, you're on my list as well. [14:36] And Edwards, but he's in. Edwards, so... [14:39] Can we put Wemby and Ant in bold? [14:42] Yes, absolutely. [14:44] Can we put Cooper Flagg in bold or no? [14:47] He'll be 24. [14:50] Yes, you can. I think there's no way he's not awesome in five years. [14:54] There would have to be some sort of knock on wood. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we're not even having that conversation. Wemby's in. So Wemby and Flagg. [15:02] Yes. I could offer you AJ DeBansa. [15:05] Darren Peterson. [15:07] DP, D&P, Chet. [15:10] Ahmed Thompson, Jalen Johnson, Paolo with a big resurgence. [15:14] Anybody else? Jalen Johnson is on my list. [15:18] I'm glad you didn't bring up Tatum. [15:21] He's going to be too old. He'll be like 33. I did write him down just for karma. But there's a little bit of me that's looking at Maxie like, [15:29] I don't know, could we top five? [15:31] Because you have to play defense too. [15:34] He'd have to be in the low 30s. [15:37] point-wise for like four straight years in a row. Basically where Mitchell is now. You wouldn't even put Mitchell in the top five right now. No. [15:43] So probably not.

[15:45] Is there a world in which Jalen Johnson becomes like an all around. [15:48] Jack of all trades, nine assists and like 25 points a night guy. [15:53] The problem is you have to really win to be in this conversation. His Duke season didn't go well, and he's never won anything with Atlanta. So you're really projecting. [16:02] with this. [16:04] Yeah, I think we're there. I don't think there's anybody else on the list that we're missing. Okay, so Wemby and... It's interesting that you would put... [16:10] Cooper. [16:11] In bold, [16:13] Guaranteed. [16:14] And not even mention Nipsey. [16:19] I didn't want to put that on 2K. [16:21] It's a lot. It's a lot to ask of 2K. [16:24] I think Cade should be in there, though. Cade will be high 20s at that point. [16:28] Yes. Like 20, 28, 29. So I think he would be my fourth pick. [16:33] And I'm sorry, I think Luka's still going to be there. It'll be year 13, Luka. [16:37] 32 years old. He already moves like a 39-year-old. When I think about Luca and Jokic, is he good or bad? [16:47] Maxi relies on athleticism that diminishes over time. Luca doesn't do anything athletic. So you wouldn't have SGA if he was still this good in five years? You're now talking about the best [16:57] guard career anyone's had other than Michael Jordan. [17:00] It would be better than Jerry West. [17:03] It would be better than every guard we've ever had. I also think they're going to win a lot, too. [17:07] That's why you might put him in. He's borderline there. So two spots for Cade, Luca, SGA.

[17:16] I think... [17:17] God, it's hard. This is a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. Well, here's the other thing. There might be somebody... [17:22] We have no idea. We wouldn't have said Anthony Edwards in 2021. He's the number one pick. [17:28] We wouldn't have said Anthony Edwards will be one of the five best guys. [17:32] And both Edwards and Cade didn't have the kind of like Cooper rookie year. [17:37] I'm going to say Cade. [17:39] Ah, shit. [17:40] It's hard to leave out SGA. [17:43] Especially now that they're the villains that we need in the NBA. [17:47] I started that on Sunday. [17:51] What? [17:52] Explain to me why Cade won't be better at 29 in five years. [17:56] than SGA. The case would be [17:59] Really physical style, putting miles on in the next four or five years physically might break down. [18:05] Okay. Those big physical guards, it's almost like a big physical receiver or something would be the case. I don't believe that. [18:12] His team's going to be good. [18:14] He's going to have Bull Dern the whole time. They're going to bring in a second creator. Yeah, they'll have somebody. Bull Dern and Beef Stew. Beef Stew. That's a great nickname. Beef Stew is a great one. It's a great nickname. [18:25] I'm going to say Cade... [18:28] You know what? I'm going to say SGA over Luca. [18:30] I don't know about Luca at 32. [18:35] That video the other day, which I actually thought was kind of a big deal, and normally I'm like, don't overreact to when guys get mad at each other on the bench. I could talk about that for hours. [18:43] Here was the key piece. [18:45] that I didn't think enough play. There was, I think it was Vanderbilt's. Yeah, it was Vanderbilt's.

[18:50] And he was watching the whole thing. If you watch the video, he's watching them go. And he's kind of like this. There was one important thing that Van Doe did all year. [18:56] He's watching and he's watching, he's watching. JJ walks away and it looks like Luca went out to put his arm out, but JJ walked away. [19:02] And JJ didn't seem to put the arm out. [19:04] as Luke was putting out, [19:06] And Luka got mad and stood up and... [19:09] I think it was Vando. It was Vando. He's watching out of the corner of his eye and stands up with Luca to block him from chasing... [19:17] JJ down the sideline. If you watch everything he's doing, it's the stuff like we're at a bar at two 30 in the morning and our buddy is like, don't let him go over there. And we're just kind of watching him the whole time. It's like, there he goes. We gotta get him out. That was the vibe. I didn't think it was good. I don't think it was good at all. And the first person that it made me think of, [19:37] was Nico Harris. [19:39] And I've said this on The Mismatch, but I've always felt like there's just more to the story of what happened in Dallas. And I think that they hated each other. And he was like, guess what? You can be gone. I have that kind of power. Yeah. I think it was personal. And I think it was vindictive. And I think that he hated seeing Luka every single day. And I think that Luka was disrespectful towards him and probably vice versa. They clearly thought he was a dick. Exactly. And you know what I mean? These things aren't reported. I'm not reporting anything. But I think that that happened. I think there's a lot of incidents like this [20:09] behind the scenes that we didn't see. [20:11] There's two types of people. [20:14] And I'm in the wrong camp with this. Like my wife instantly... [20:19] If something's happening, she knows.

[20:21] right? Like if, [20:23] Like when you have little kids and the kid is going down the pool, walking towards, crawling toward the pool or something. [20:29] And there's the type that goes, oh, no, that's bad. And then you act. [20:33] Or there's the person who sees that and they're moving immediately. [20:37] That was Jared Vanderbilt. [20:39] He saw it immediately – [20:42] I don't think I would have stood up in time. What's the second type of person? What are you? I'm the one who would have, I would have sat there for the extra second, been like, [20:49] This is bad, and Luca would have walked by me before I realized – [20:53] that I should be stopping it. Because you, I don't like to compliment you, but you're an excellent room reader and floor seer. Not the instinctive, this is bad, this is bad. [21:03] What are you? Which side are you? [21:04] You know I rush to conflict. [21:07] I enjoy the conflict. I enjoy tension. I enjoy the, just the weirdness of it all. And like saying things that I can't take back and probably shouldn't say. [21:15] The best version of this I've ever seen was, uh, [21:18] Our friend Jalen Rose. There was one time... [21:21] one of the NBA shows we were doing, and there was... [21:24] People were arguing. I was one of the people arguing. [21:27] And we're walking off after the thing. And Jalen goes, turn your mic off, Bill. Like he just, we didn't turn the mic off. He's great at that. He immediately, like, read the tea leaves. I know you don't have to say it. I know you're going to say something that you can't regret. And that microphone is going to broadcast to the truck. Shout out to him. Yeah. [21:47] All right, next question. [21:49] Gus from Texas. [21:51] I saved this for if we're ever going to do a mailbag together. He said, long time BS pod fan. Thanks, Gus.

[21:56] Long time fan of the challenge. Always loved when those two worlds collide, but it's been a minute. [22:01] If the NBA did a rival style season like the challenge, who would your favorite pairings be? [22:06] Who would be the CT West team that would dominate? Who would be the messiest? [22:09] Funny. So I sent this to you. I just want to tell Gus that I love him very much. It's a great question. It's a great question. So two-man teams, this is the rivals thing that we love. So would they have to be rivals? Yeah. [22:19] I spent more time answering this question this afternoon to myself than I did. And then I put into anything I've done professionally in 10 years. You were the right part. This is it. This is your vortex. All the things you care about. I have found the perfect pairing from the NBA to go to the challenge. But one thing I was thinking, rivals are just a challenge. He said rivals, right? So I did think of sort of pairings that, [22:42] Would be... [22:44] mismatched, we'll say. They're not real rivals. Oh, Diabate and Beef Sue, that's not going to work. You know what I mean? Or like Dylan Brooks and LeBron, that's not going to work. But I was thinking, they did something like this. Do you remember [22:57] The season that had like Sean Merriman and CM Punk and like Lolo Jones. Yeah, that was great. I remember thinking, I was like, this is a- Lolo quit. Yeah. And then she came back another time. But I remember sitting there being like, [23:08] This can't work. [23:10] But the, [23:11] athletes weren't as good at the challenges that you would think. And of course, this first person that came to my mind with Johnny Bananas, the goat of the challenges and like what makes him good at this and what makes him good at doing this is he's in great shape. So you can run the final, but he's really good at room reading. Like we were talking about earlier and playing the social game.

[23:30] and finding out who's aligned with who, getting the right people out at the right times. So I was thinking of a strategist. So my first answer is going to be a team that I think would be successful. So not Kevin Durant. [23:41] Not Kevin Durant. Okay. [23:43] But the fun answer is a team that I really want to see. I'll give you that next. I think that I landed on teammates. [23:50] They're not rivals, but it would be Cade and Ron Holland. Because Cade is very mature, very measured. He's very... [23:57] intelligent and articulate. Kate and Ron Holland. I was not expecting this. This is where I ended up. I've got a fun one, though. Okay. The fun one is obviously. So why Ron Holland, though, over other people on the team? [24:09] I think that Ron Hollins... Because he's such a good athlete? Yes. I think that his type of athleticism, he can climb up stuff. And Cade will be the puzzle guy. Yes, exactly. Obviously, your mind goes to beef stew or whatever, but I think he might be just a little too big for this. And I think that Ron Hollins has a nice little level of crazy. I think Cade will be the brains of the operation. Holland will be a little intimidating and a little wild card. So they'll be in the bunk beds and Cade will be like, let's bring over Draymond Green. We've got to align with him. Yes. [24:39] favorite pairing for this. I used a coach. [24:42] is LaMelo Ball and Joe Missoula. [24:45] Bye. [24:47] Just imagine like Joe Mazzullo. He's got like a blindfold on and Lomelo balls outside the fence. It's to your right. It's to your right. And Joe Mazzullo is just like, what the fuck Lomelo? He just rips the blindfold off and just chases after Lomelo who's just laughing and running around in circles. Like that pairing to me would be the one I would want to see the most. That's great. It would be perfect. Joe Mazzullo should be on the challenge. I think this is.

[25:13] This would be an unbelievable vehicle for Draymond Green, too. [25:17] I think Draymond would be great. I think he'd be the most compelling character ever. [25:21] Um, [25:22] He'd definitely get kicked out of at least, if he did 10 seasons, he'd get kicked out of three of them. [25:26] He'd complained about all kinds of stuff. He'd probably get into it with TJ. [25:31] At least once or twice. I wouldn't mind Durant either. You see him with Tyler Hero and the Miami Bench. I watched that Starting Five show. Yeah, but Durant, they would just team up and get out in the first episode. What would you do to Draymond? He'd be like Cara Maria. [25:46] see that nobody nobody nobody watching this knows what we're talking about we're not talking to alternate language who would who'd be the laurel of this the big bully [25:56] Oh, yeah. [25:58] I love Laurel so much. Probably Draymond. Draymond's more of like... [26:05] Laura's nasty though. I guess he is more the Laurel. Laura's nasty. She will dress you down for no reason. [26:11] Who would be the good guy? Would it be Curry? [26:14] Everybody likes Cove. Like how everybody loves Mark Long? Everybody loves Mark Long. Remember when he came to your house one time? That was fun. Thanks, guys. [26:23] Sean from North Carolina, I wanted this question for you because you have kids. [26:26] I only sent you a couple questions. You don't know a lot of these. - I know. - You said we used to live in a proper country. I would catch all sorts of classics on TV, including the slightly sanitized version of Die Hard on TBS. [26:36] Streaming services are great, [26:38] but I wish they had a cable edit option [26:41] That way I could show my 10-year-old kid Terminator, Terminator 2 without it being inappropriate.

[26:46] Do you think Netflix should add this? [26:48] the parent cut of different movies. [26:51] Well, I don't know. [26:52] And would you watch this with your kids? You have older kids. [26:56] And I was around when they were younger. And I learned one thing that I've taken from the Simmons household is just like, you want to see Halloween and you're six years old? Cool. Here's a kitchen knife. You know what I mean? It was just like cursing in front of your kids. You were very like thrown into the fire. You know what I mean? And I do that at my house as well when it comes to content. [27:18] Like, me and my son, he's 12. We watched Psycho Killer over the weekend. [27:22] Oh, you know what I mean? Like horror movies. [27:24] sex scenes, I'll be like, close your eyes. You know what I mean? But he doesn't really do it. So that's the thing. You have to know where the bad parts are in your cover. So I don't think we need the edit option. It's not necessary to do this. I took a page from your book. It's just like, let the kids watch whatever. [27:39] They're going to do it anyway. Yeah, it's fine. You can either put your head in the sand and pretend like you're controlling it or do it with them and just kind of put hands over their face. One of my daughters gets super scared, so she won't watch. Fine. You're watching Terminator with your kid. [27:54] And all of a sudden that guy's like, I came across time for you, Sarah. And you know, they're about to get it on. [28:00] Like, you know what? We're going to fast forward this part. Yeah. I'll just tell you that it's going to get romantic here. We're not going to watch it together. And you just move on. My kids will, won't watch things from the 20th century. [28:11] I came across time for you, Sarah, one of the great pickup lines in the history of movies. Like, what woman's not at least making out with you after that? You came across time? I came across time for you, Sarah. This is great. Thank you.

[28:22] This is from Alex in Delray Beach. [28:25] And I've gotten this email a bunch of times from people about the 0304 Kings. You familiar with them? Chris Weber's out for his torn ACL in the postseason previous year. [28:36] And Peja has his random MVP season, one of the most random top four MVPs ever. Before I mentioned White Chocolate, right? [28:43] No, he's gone by then. They have Mike Bibby. They're 43-15 through 58 games. Weber comes back and as Alex points out, [28:52] The return was disastrous. Stjákovich's efficiency plummeted. [28:56] The Kings lost 10 of their final 16, fell to the fourth seed, bounced in round one. [29:01] Now Tatum is coming back. [29:03] Is history destined to repeat itself? [29:06] So there is a doppelganger for this comeback that I forgot about. [29:10] Bill. [29:12] I thought we were going to talk about the Kings. Okay. And then at the very end, you're just like, Oh, do you remember this Kings thing? Not really. [29:19] Yeah, I didn't really remember it either. I don't remember the Peja piece, but it wasn't a crazy piece. I remember Lakers series and Divac and that kind of pre... Give us your quick, we'll Tatum screw up the Celtics take. I know you've done it on this match already. [29:32] No. [29:33] Adding good players to your team, it helps. Is he better than Bailey Sharman? Yeah, he might play like 14 minutes, too. Adding good players to basketball teams doesn't screw them up. Did they say one thing in the weird documentary they've made about his comeback? Wait, you're watching that? [29:48] No, this was a thing on Celtics Reddit. He said he didn't come back to be a role player. It's like, oh.

[29:56] it's fine. Okay. This one, one of my basketball philosophies is like, there's only one ball. I hate there's only one ball. [30:03] Share the ball. If you score, I score. Jason Tatum makes teams better. [30:08] We'll be fine. Yeah. Steve B writes... [30:11] What if Steve Kerr does not have a contract for next year because Steph is winding down [30:15] And Wemby is winding up. [30:17] And he's replacing George Popovich to make a second run in the dynasty. I just like that he called him George Popovich. George Popovich. I like Steve B, too. Steve B. I was wondering, like, so Kerr, let's say he leaves this year. [30:31] And the Warriors are going to be out of the playoffs. I think they're going to shut Steph down. My spidey senses are like, [30:37] He said, yeah, it's going to be like 10 more days. There's only... [30:41] 39 days left in the season. [30:45] Even when he comes back, they already lost Jimmy Butler. They're not good to begin with. What are they going to [30:50] play two playing games with Steph with a not 100% need. Like that team should go for a lottery pick. KP's already got illnesses. Yeah. KP's not coming back. Like that season's watch. Is Horford going to carry you to the second round of the playoffs? Kurt leaves. Thanks for everything. I'm going to take a year off. I'll do media. Hopefully it comes to the ringer. [31:07] Then San Antonio, who knows? And if anything ever happens on that team, then... [31:12] You wait for that or you wait for the Knicks or some awesome job. [31:17] You just do media for a year. When you do media for a year, your stock just rises. [31:21] You see that every time. Yeah. Right? [31:24] So you don't think he's going to replace George Popovich? I don't think he's going to replace George Popovich because Mitch Johnson's doing a good job. No, Mitch Johnson's doing a good job. That's the problem. I don't think that's going to be available to him. And Mitch Johnson wasn't supposed to be the head coach of the Spurs.

[31:37] No. [31:38] He wasn't. [31:39] Thank you. [31:40] Could you see a front office thing? [31:42] Maybe. Where it's like he's not on the bench, but he's just sort of like part of the thing. I can see. I honestly, my honest answer for this is I don't think he coaches again after this. [31:51] I think he did it since 14, 15. [31:55] did 11 years. [31:56] He set up his son to potentially be a coach down the road. [32:00] He won four titles? Mm-hmm. [32:04] He won... [32:05] How many did he win with? He won... [32:08] One, two, three, five with the Bulls and Spurs. [32:12] Yes, what, nine titles? [32:14] It's done. It's a wrap. Just do media. Somebody's going to be on the rewatchables. I'd love to have Steve on the rewatchables. Martin in New York writes, where does Al Horford rank on the I left my marriage for the stripper twice and to no one's surprise it didn't work out less? [32:30] You saved that one for me. You saved that one for me. He left the Celtics twice because he thought the title window was closed only to be instantly proven wrong. 20 games into the season and he did it twice. It is a tough beat for Al. [32:44] going to go chase the title with Golden State part. [32:46] What title do you think he was chasing? You're in a conference with OKC. [32:50] What do you think is going to happen over there? [32:52] Also, like, they need you. [32:54] Yeah. Because it's like post is sort of their other big at the time before they got KP. I'm back to the Warriors. I never really saw it this season for the Warriors. I thought they'd go over the 46 or whatever, but I didn't think they would. But what did everybody say?

[33:07] Last year, after they added Jimmy Butler, if you look at the numbers, they were the best team in the history of the NBA. I was kind of like, yeah, they were in a playoff game for two months in a row to kind of get in. [33:17] to the plan. [33:18] The thing about NBA history, the older you get, the harder your chance is to win the NBA title. That's one of the things I've learned. And the only chance you have is if it's like a weird down year for the league where there's not a lot of stars and there's a couple bad drafts. Some of the younger players didn't pan out. [33:35] then you can kind of sneak in. The league's not like that right now. The league's fucking loaded. No. You're not winning at, like I even look at Durant on Houston, and Houston, [33:44] We'll see what happens with them. They've hung around. They're going to be a three seed, but they're still going to have to rely on Durant for 10 straight weeks in the playoffs to win a title, and he's 37. [33:53] I just think it's unrealistic. We saw in 22, remember Tatum took it to him in that net series? He was 33 in that series. He's four years older than that. [34:02] Um, let's take a break and then I have some more mailbag questions for you. [34:06] The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. FanDuel's putting you in control right from tip-off. [34:11] That's right. You get to choose your reward. Play it safe, go for it, whatever your style. [34:16] You're in control. [34:17] I'm going to figure out some sort of bet for the Celtics-Charlotte game. [34:21] But I think it's going to be a close game. [34:24] I think it's going to have a lot of points. [34:26] And I predict... [34:27] My guy, 2K, Conk Nipple, some threes from him. But just in general, I think it's going to be a fast-paced, a lot of points game. [34:35] I'll figure out what my final play is. Check it out on my Twitter account. No matter how you play, Fando is giving you the power to choose your word, own your game this NBA season.

[34:44] Head to Fando.com slash BS to make your pick. [34:46] Get in the game. [34:48] Play it your way. [34:49] 21 plus select states are 18 plus DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fando.com. Game or problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER. Call [redacted phone] or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. [35:03] This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. [35:07] What makes basketball so exciting? [35:09] all the superior skill on the court. This has been the case my whole life. [35:13] The craziest thing, I mean, Wemby, stuff he's doing every game, there's two things. [35:18] three Wemby moments a game. We're like, I don't know if I've ever seen that. [35:21] The number one thing for me is when he does the screen and roll, he's going to the basket. Somebody throws him an alley-oop, and he just catches it and dunks it without jumping. It's an alley-oop, but it's not an oop. It's just kind of an alley-oop. [35:34] And every time he does it, I'm like, I've, [35:36] Definitely 100% never seen that anymore. It's a superior play. [35:39] Superior plays aren't just for the NBA, though. Try Michelob Ultra. [35:43] the official beer partner, [35:45] of the NBA. [35:46] And, [35:47] A crisp, refreshing, superior light beer. It's the beer of Max Kellerman. He just told me that. Plus, they're giving you a chance to win courtside seats, custom merch, and more. Michelob Ultra, superior, is worth playing for. Enter now at MichelobUltra.com. [36:01] slash [36:03] fourth side. [36:04] Michelob Ultra Courtside 25-26, no purchase necessary, open to U.S. Residents 21+. Begins on October 1st, 2025, ends on June 30th, 2026. Multiple entry periods, see official rules at MichelobUltra.com slash Courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, and prizes and details.

[36:22] All right, more mailbag with Jacoby. Mercury P. I don't know if that's a nickname or a real name. [36:28] I'm so glad you're here for this question. He's proposing two new end of the season awards. [36:32] The Marcus Morris Award for Worst Best Brother. [36:36] Oh, so you're the best brother, but you're the worst player of all the best brothers. [36:41] The worst best brother? [36:43] Out of all the best brothers of the combos, you're the worst one of all the best brothers. Oh, so the Lonzo Ball would win this year. [36:49] No, that, no. [36:51] We'll go into it. But he also has... [36:54] The Seth Curry Award for Best Worst Brother. [36:57] I am so confused. Mercury P has got me thrown through a loop here. No, no, we're going to walk it through. So there's really three categories. [37:05] There's worst, worst brother, which would be Giannis' brothers. [37:08] They would win the, sadly, they're nice guys, but they would win the award for worst brothers for players. [37:16] But they're the worst players. How do you go out for coffee with the Atleticoke brothers? If we had all the brothers and we did a draft, they would get picked last. Yes. [37:24] Best Worst Brother is [37:27] So of all the second best brothers, who is the best second best brother? That's got to be Osar Thompson, right? [37:34] Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to think. I'll give you the other candidate. Mo Wagner, Champagny. [37:41] Aaron Holiday, [37:43] Not a lot there. Yeah, Champagne. It's not fair. The Thompson twins are, you know. Cam Christie. [37:50] One of the Spencers, pick one.

[37:53] So yeah, but here's where it gets interesting. [37:55] worst best brother [37:58] The better brother. The better brother. Who's the worst better brother? Oh, God. So I'll give you five candidates. [38:07] Keegan Murray. [38:08] and his brother Chris. [38:11] Max Christie, [38:12] and his brother Cam. [38:14] Caleb Martin, Brother Cody, [38:16] Tyus Jones, Brother Trey, [38:19] Or Justin Champagny and his brother Julian? I think the answer is Tyus Jones. [38:25] It's a little unfair because Jones and the Martin twins are kind of on the other side of their peak. [38:30] The answer is the answer. We're doing the awards at the end of the year. It's probably Tyus Jones. It wouldn't have been Tyus Jones last year. [38:38] Because he was just playing better. [38:40] Yeah. [38:43] Interesting. Best... [38:45] Worst best brother. Here are the nominees. [38:50] Wait, do you know how many brothers there are in the league right now? More than there's ever been in the past. [38:54] 19 brother combos [38:56] Combos? Yeah. [38:57] 19 sets, two brothers, yeah. [39:01] Wow. [39:02] That's wait 19 combos. That's 38 people. [39:05] 38 plus we have some threes. We have three holidays and three in it to cupos. We have 40 brothers. [39:10] So if there's 50... [39:12] And there's 500, it's like 10% of the league. [39:15] Turns out DNA is important. Yeah. [39:19] Matt T., [39:21] Says me and Nick Wright missed the most obvious coaches for the black versus white all-star game gimmick that Nick suggested. I'm not at liberty to speak on this idea. No, hold on.

[39:33] He said, Larry Bird should coach the black team and Magic Johnson should coach the white team. [39:39] and then bridge generational divides. [39:42] And then you flip it with the coaches. All right. [39:45] I really like that idea. I'm going to push back on this. [39:50] One of the scenarios, because I've thought about this a lot too, [39:53] um, [39:54] It's not going to work. I've played this hypothetically in my head. Three days of traction. Over and over again. I was like, this is not going to work. But one of my favorite hypothetical scenarios in this, [40:05] hypothetical game is the white team jumps out to like a 10 point lead in the first three minutes. Black team calls a timeout. And in that huddle, the discussion that black team has [40:15] is just to be a fly on the wall, listen to that. I think if you have a Caucasian head coach, you don't get that same conversation. [40:23] That's my concern there. [40:25] And also the race war that would come along. [40:28] This is from William McGlynn in Sydney, Australia. [40:31] Oh. [40:33] He said he just watched K to go for 27 and 17 and thought about how he got waived for no reason by the Sacramento Kings. [40:40] Um, [40:41] He mentions how it's interesting that this has happened more than you think. [40:46] The Cavs waved Isaiah Hartenstein. The Grizzlies waved Steven Jackson. [40:51] Danny Green got weighed by the Cavs, picked up by the Spurs. Alex Caruso got weighed by OKC, picked up by the Lakers. [40:58] And he asked what my favorite one of all of those were. And I think it's interesting. I think it's Steven Jackson.

[41:05] Because they actually win the 0-3 title because of how Steven Jackson played in the playoffs. Yes. If you go back and look at that team, Robinson's got a bad back. Danny Green as well. [41:15] 2013, but they don't win in the finals that he gets hot. [41:19] Remember game one, game two, he had like 35 and 40 points. He was the MVP heading into game six. That's wild. That's just completely forgotten in history that Danny Green was the best player on the floor. Yeah, he was. But I think it's Steven Jackson because he actually swung the title. [41:34] If you go back and watch those games, he's like the number two guy on the Spurs. And he brings us all the smoke. [41:40] And he brought us a bunch of joy. He was very pivotal in the melee. He's also really fun to have around the office when I was at ESPN in LA. We gave him his first media chance on the Grantland Basketball Hour. He had a real presence. [41:54] You had a real presence around the office. You knew when the elevator doors opened and stat came out. Yeah. [42:00] It was a good time. [42:02] Glenn Sheppard says, I'm listening to the podcast with Kellerman. [42:05] Crazy that you went from discussing nicknames into discussing Darren Peterson's Ted Till Michael Myers – [42:11] And the boogeyman is sitting right there as an incredible nickname. [42:15] Do you like Darren Peterson more if his nickname was the Boogeyman? And we also haven't had a Boogeyman. [42:22] Boogie man is pretty good because we had boogie. [42:25] Yes. [42:27] Boogeyman's pretty good. The Boogeyman had 45 last night. There's been a resurgence of Boogeyman lore because of John Wick and Baba Yaga.

[42:36] So like it is time to come back. That's the nickname. Bobby Yaga. [42:40] Too hard to say. Baba Yaga goes to Baba. Baba. Yeah. But Boogeyman would be a really good nickname, but I think that person has to be scary. [42:50] Multiple readers were disappointed in me that I didn't stick up for Darren Peterson more when he has a Michael Myers tattoo. [42:56] And I'd like to apologize to everybody. I had no idea he had a Michael Myers tattoo. It's a pretty strong statement. [43:01] Ryan in Chicago wants to know, what five events would you include if there was a Winter Olympics pentathlon? [43:08] Distance speed skating, cross-country skiing, and downhill skiing are the most obvious three. [43:14] Would you round it out with ski jumping and luge? Ski jumping, definitely. [43:19] I don't know about luge. Sea jumping and luge. [43:22] But so you have... [43:23] distance, speed skating. I think you have to do the fast speed skating too, right? The short track. The short track. [43:30] Cross-country skiing would be the last event. Downhill skiing, [43:34] I think ski jumping's the fifth, and I think we're good. [43:37] Ski jumping would be amazing. So what are we creating exactly? The best five? Some pentathlon. Just a random pentathlon. We're not going to do any figure skating. You can't do 10. I think 10 is good. We're not hockey. No hockey, no figure skating. Okay. This is just like, so it's sort of like one athlete can do all of these things. Yeah, because when you think about the kathalon, it's like, [43:55] jumping, running, endurance. - A little shot putty here and there. - Strength, it's all these things. So for Winter Olympics, [44:03] It would have to be skiing, skating, skating, [44:06] endurance would have to be the five. I don't think you get the ten. The jump would be nice. I like a little jump. The jump would be, so the jump's not fun anymore because everybody, there's no danger and everybody's good at it. But if you had these guys where it's like,

[44:17] The justice is weakest. [44:20] He hasn't trained much for the job. [44:24] Okay. [44:27] This is from Joshua Tabor, College Station, Texas. [44:30] If you had to bet your entire net worth on one current NBA player to win at least three championships over the next... [44:36] 10 years. [44:37] Who are you taking? [44:39] Thank you. [44:40] Okay, well, it's a different proposal for each of us. [44:42] because the net worth part but um [44:46] I had trouble with this. [44:48] I think the only answer is Victor Wimbanyama. [44:50] I had SGA and then Wemby. I thought about SGA too. I think SGA because of the OKC situation. Exactly. They're going to cycle in more young players. [44:59] So they'll stay under the cap. - It's gonna be an interesting Fando future that they couldn't do because you'd have to realize it over 10 years. But I think SGA would be like a minus 150 favorite. - I think so too. And I wrote down in my notes just institutional knowledge. [45:11] Just like, [45:12] They've won a championship before. [45:14] Same front office, same coaching staff. [45:17] You know, they're going to have to cycle through some roster spots, but they've got tons of picks. Sorber and Popich are the last two first round picks don't even play. [45:27] You know what's funny about Sorber? [45:29] So the Clippers and OKC, they had the pick swap as part of the Kawhi trade last year. Mm-hmm. [45:34] OKC gets Clippers pick, they take Sorber. [45:37] I think this is what happened. And then the Quips got number 30. And they took... [45:42] Niederhauser. I bought stock last week. Had a whole argument with Mike Tolan in my seats about it because we went to the Minnesota game and I'm like, I really like this guy. And he's like, no way. And I'm like, I'm buying the stock right now. So Tolan's my witness.

[45:55] He's good. He's young and runs and jumps. I fucking like him. I feel like they were like Zubac, you had a great year for us last year. It's not exactly working this year. There's some Ewing theory stuff. But we've got Cannon Neuserheiser, John Jacob Jiggleheimer Schmidt coming off the bench. He's good. He's good. Clippers are kind of interesting. [46:15] If Garland can come back and actually look like the Garland from the first 50 games of last year, which we haven't seen in over a year. Yeah, I know. [46:22] Like them though. [46:24] I don't. [46:25] I understand why they did what they did. They're kind of interesting. That trade was great. For everybody. [46:30] If you get somewhere 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th pick, I've started to work on this draft [46:36] So they get the Pacers pick if it's five through nine. Otherwise, it gets pushed like six years. Mm-hmm. [46:41] There's like fucking awesome scores in that range. Every guy from five to nine is a guy who could average like 25 points a game in the NBA at some point. Maybe. Seems like there's a 40 point game in college basketball. Like every week. These guys are like real. Every week. Acuff's my favorite out of all of them. Like Acuff's going to come in the league and immediately be a guy. [47:00] So anyway, I thought that was a good trade. So we have SGA and Wemby. [47:03] Who would you put third, Ant? [47:06] Um, [47:07] Or Hugo Gonzalez. [47:11] I can't make a case for flag, really. I think it's SGA and Wimby. It's too hard to say with Dallas. Three, though. Think about it. Three. Three. [47:18] Three championships in 10 years. [47:21] Last guy to win three titles. [47:24] What do you mean?

[47:26] Last guy to win three titles. Is there a question mark at the end of that? Yeah. Oh, Steph Curry? Yeah. [47:31] It doesn't happen a lot. No. [47:33] If you're talking generationally, I had no idea you were asking me a question. You're like, last got him in three titles. It's like, what? Step one, four. Duncan won five. Kobe won five. [47:46] If you're just going this century, three is like a lot. Like, Bird only went three. LeBron. [47:51] LeBron won four. Yeah. Yeah. It's hard. [47:55] But still Obama's in the 03 draft. We're talking about the next 10 years. Yeah. Yeah. [47:59] Curry's the last modern guy who won three titles. [48:03] Even Durant, only two. [48:05] Clay Thompson heads are like, what about Clay? There's second parts of this question from Joshua Tabor in College Station, Texas. [48:12] If you had to pick one current NBA star... [48:15] whose legacy is most at risk of looking completely different in 10 years, either way better or way worse. [48:22] Who is it and why? I had a specific guy. Okay, please. No, you go. I wait. You're the guest. My problem with this question is all of my answers were negative. [48:30] That's where my head went through too. I was like, all of my answers were just like, [48:34] Bad answers. Mine were Zion and Jock. [48:38] Oh, interesting. I've already given up on those guys. To me, that would be a positive if it changed. Well, I think Zion, it could be like 10 years now, it could be like, do you remember that guy, Zion Williamson, who played in the NBA? I think Luka's the answer to this. Oh!

[48:53] Zach and I did a thing on the Sunday pod, something I noticed with Luca's MVPs, how he only had a top three and a top four. I heard that. And I wasn't doing that because... I'm intrigued. But I wasn't doing it because I was like, he should have more. It's like, because we do that with LeBron, it's stupid. The only person who you could definitively say... [49:11] should have more MVPs than they won. [49:14] is Michael Jordan. He should have three more MVPs. He should have won nine. I think he won six, whatever it was. But the three that he didn't get, it's fucking stupid when you go back. It's like, I can't believe he didn't win that year. Michael Jordan. Yeah, but also like, would you rather have Karl Malone? The 97 one is one of the worst ones, but the 93 was ridiculous when Barkley won. There was another one in like 89 or 90. [49:35] But with Luca, [49:37] This is next year's gonna be year nine. I'm intrigued by this bill. But what if he just turns out to be like Dominique Wilkins who made the finals once? [49:46] And it's like statistically the most awesome. And he's in there with all these greats. And then it's like, [49:51] He had one top three MVP, one top four MVP, only made the finals once, and that's just kind of his career. All right, counterpoint. [49:59] Counterpoint is the ceiling's still high. Well, not only that, it's his style of play. We were just like 10 minutes ago talking about him in five years being one of the best players in the league. And I also think that what happened to him in this trade, however it happened or whatever really happened behind the scenes, I have no idea what actually happened. But he ended up, he like teleported to the Lakers. You know what I mean? And this team is not built for him. So we saw what happened when Nico did a very good job building a team for Luka Doncic. Oh, a pro-Niko stance. Yeah.

[50:29] a really good job. We're all celebrating this guy with the P.J. Washington and Gafford or whatever. The Lakers are not built for Luka to be successful, and I think that when LeBron is gone, they will build a team for Luka to be successful, and they'll have some good years. [50:44] I see your glass half full on that. I am. [50:46] I think there's a Tatum... [50:48] Tatum coming off the Achilles in a possibly negative way. [50:52] Just like he made first team all NBA a few times. He has two top four MVPs, but. [50:57] Can he get back to where he was or was that the peak? Or like Jalen Brown sort of like stays in this number one spot and he sort of perpetually sort of goes into like a role. [51:07] The other guy I had was Lamella. [51:10] What if LaMelo... [51:12] What if Zach had some good stuff about him on my pod Sunday night? What if we are now at this... [51:17] awesome LaMelo moment where he's just going to be really good for like nine years. [51:22] And he's remembered as this really fun guy who's in a lot of playoffs. Talk to me. And it's just like, oh, man, remember when we were worried about LaMelo? He's awesome. You know I love LaMelo so much. He brings me so much joy to watch. I'm so glad that you're now on this team. We argued about LaMelo before he was drafted. [51:37] Do you remember that? It took me six years to warm up. I was in on LaMelo early. And I said this on this match. Every time he has the ball, he's just looking around. He's like, what's the coolest thing I can do with basketball right now? That's all he wants to do is cool stuff. As they've gotten better, he's pulled it back a little bit. [51:54] He's become more of a winning player, I think, than just I'm out here to have fun and make highlights. Yes. And one lamella thing. With that said, he did drive the Hummer across the yellow lines into that car. That was very concerning.

[52:09] Like that was crazy bad driving. I am looking at my phone. [52:12] Because I saw it and I was just like, that makes no sense. It's not an intersection. He's not making a turn. Wasn't great. [52:18] I would say that [52:20] The judgment still scares me, but I like where it's heading. I know you're watching a lot of Hornets games. I do. And I do want to get your take on this. This weird substitution patterns in the end of the fourth quarter with LaMelo Ball. [52:30] Well, I think they're trying to... [52:31] It's 27 minutes a game. [52:34] I think sometimes they'll put a more defense lineup [52:37] It's not offense defense though. [52:40] So it was last year. That was one of the things where they just started benching within the games. [52:44] They seem very concerned about putting too many minutes on them and [52:48] kind of like [52:50] It's like when you have kids and you have a win with the kids and you're like, we're having a really fun time with Bob. Let's go. Before something bad happens. Of course. I just feel sometimes like, [53:00] He'll be not in there with three minutes left. And I'm like, oh, I guess they're going to finish without LaMelo. And then with like two minutes left, they'll put him in. [53:07] Yeah, it's weird. [53:08] Thank you. [53:09] Corey Wallace writes, [53:11] Just listen to the Alien Rewatchables. [53:13] Bravo for pointing out how much cats suck in general. [53:19] I like to tell people that the bigger cats get, the more likely they are to hunt you for sport. [53:24] The bigger dogs get, they still lick your face and want... [53:27] what pets like up [53:29] Good boys do. Also, I could go on and on. Cat shit indoors. They cover said shit with their paws. They walk on tables and counters. [53:36] What are we doing here? There needs to be more negative coverage of cats in media. This is wild. First of all, I just want to say Mallory Rubin is very important to me. And I can't go anti-cat and be as pro-Mallory Rubin as I am.

[53:51] So that puts me in a bad spot. I was in the same spot even worried about doing this email in general. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is a good point, though, when you – especially if – [54:00] Is your Instagram algorithm ever send you cats? [54:03] Like cats hitting dogs in the face and stuff. I did get that same clips, those AI clips that you got where it was like, [54:10] - Oh, is it real? - It's like cats fighting bears. - Yeah, yeah. - In the first 20 seconds, you're like, oh my God, cats can beat up bears, and then you're like, oh, this is just fake. - It is an interesting point that the bigger cats get, the more they become predators. - Okay. - And the cats that we have as pets, [54:25] are just the mini version of those predators. The first thing that came to mind was, I think it was that Liam Neeson movie, when the wolves were, the gray, I think it's called. Do you remember the wolves in that movie? So that could be dogs. Those are dogs. [54:37] And they are pack hunters, and Liam Neeson was at the edge of his life for two hours in the cold. I remember, this was in the 90s, I was dating this girl and her family had a cat. We were staying at our house, and I went down to get a water. [54:50] And I heard this weird noise. [54:52] And in the foyer of her house, the cat had a mouse trapped. [54:56] And it was like doing the Michael Madsen and Reservoir Dogs. It's like, I'm not going to kill you yet. Stuck in the middle of you. I was really enjoying it. The cat didn't know I was there and I was watching it. It was like just torturing this mouse before I finally took it down. I was like, this cat's a fucking psycho. I love how much you were enjoying it, like a voyeur. I couldn't believe it. The cat didn't even know I was watching. I was like, Reservoir Dogs. He was like, I got you stuck in the corner.

[55:24] Um, [55:26] Yeah, cats. I don't know. I've never had a tough go with cats. I had there's two cats. They were Siamese cats, but they're their twins. So they're Siamese twins, but they were not conjoined. That makes sense. And they just sat in this this. [55:37] closet in my parents' room and they hissed at you if you walked by. And I'm like, what is the point of this? [55:42] Yeah, that's like, what are we doing? [55:44] Steven in Ohio wants to know, he was reminiscing about the Ricky Davis year before LeBron came, which would have been a great 30 for 30. [55:51] By the way, with the way they're picking 30 for 30 topics these days, might actually be a 30 for 30. I'll leave that alone. [55:57] He averaged 20.6 points per game. It was the year he had the fake triple-double. [56:02] Um, [56:03] And he said, I know you've talked about how easy it is for a lot of people to get to 20 points on a bad team. But he did want to know who is the worst player to ever average 20 points per game in a season. [56:13] So I didn't tell you this question. I'm not prepped for this one, yeah. I prepped for it. I went on basketball reference. [56:18] Okay. First of all, I was very surprised how hard it is to average 20 games. It was like less people than I thought. And I had to do a lot of different stuff with the basketball reference. I'm trying to think is. [56:28] So I went, [56:30] I tried to figure out like, uh, [56:32] between 20 and 22 points a game seemed like a good, because there were so many people I had to like, [56:37] narrowed down the sample size. And then they'd buy win shares and PERs. [56:42] Let me ask you a follow-up question that I know you're going to know. [56:45] Yeah. [56:45] We're in the middle of a scoring boom right now. Is this the scoring peak? Or was this a previous boom in a previous era where it was like 150, 160? There was another one, right? Yeah, that was in the early 60s. Yeah. Yeah. We're taking those people out of the pool. So all I did was go back to the merger season. Copy that.

[57:04] I'll give you six players who will average 20 points a game. [57:07] Mike James. [57:09] 20.3. [57:10] Ricky Davis, 20.6. Dana Barrows, 20.6. Made the all-star team that year. Dana Barrows. [57:16] Never nervous Purvis Ellison? [57:19] 20.0 one year. [57:21] Huh. [57:22] Tony Campbell, two years in a row in the expansion Minnesota Timberwolves. [57:26] But I think our answer at 20.3 points a game, Jordan Poole. [57:31] Jordan Poole averaged 20 points a game. [57:35] Counterpoint. [57:36] On a certain night, Jordan Poole looks really good. And the other counter would be he actually really helped them in the NBA Finals, helped them win a title. Yeah. So maybe it's Mike James? I'm kind of looking at Never Nervous Purpose. So the other thing that was interesting about that, it was the only time he ever averaged anything close to that. [57:55] He had like one big year, but for the most part, he was like between seven and 13. [57:59] So maybe that's the answer. Never nervous. Yeah, that's my answer. It's just he's not he doesn't exactly jump off the screen when you watch him play basketball. He doesn't exactly jump when you watch him play basketball either. [58:08] Ricky ended up on the Celtics, which I know you remember. Of course. [58:11] You have nights where you're like, wow, this guy might be an all-NBA player. Yes. And that's my pool. That's my pool retort, too. Yeah. Is like. Jordan Poole had nights. On a certain night. Yeah. They're putting up 40. Yeah. [58:24] All right, so... [58:26] There's two more great questions. Okay, let's do it. [58:28] I'm going to give you the second best one first. [58:31] And then I'm really excited about the last one. This is from Jay in Charlotte.

[58:35] He heard the Hornets deep dive that Zach Lowe and I did. [58:38] and about Zach was joking about raising a divisional banner. [58:42] wanted to know who had the saddest rafters in the American sports scene. So I just concentrated on basketball. [58:48] As a Hornets season ticket owner, he has to nominate, he calls it the Spectrum Center. [58:53] Currently, the Hornets have three things hanging in the rafters. Number six for Bill Russell, which everybody has. [58:59] Number 13 for Bobby Philz, who tragically died in a drag racing accident. [59:03] And the Charlotte Sting jersey number 32 for Andrea Stinson, who averaged 12 points a game in the WNBA. [59:10] They've never won their division, made an Eastern Conference Finals, or won a playoff series since the arena opened. [59:15] The most famous basketball moment in the arena is a drunk guy in a purple shirt taunting Dwayne Wade and hitting... [59:21] two threes and a game six to close out the game when he had seven threes in the year. Is there a sadder rafters in American sports? So I did the research on this, but I just wanted to present that Charlotte case for you. So Bill Russell, who didn't play for them, Bobby Fills, who tragically passed away and a WNBA player. [59:37] and no division or conference title or anything. [59:39] I don't think you can get sadder than that. [59:42] I'll present to you the Memphis Grizzlies. [59:45] But. [59:45] No, no any rafters either. Bill Russell, Zach Randolph, Tony Allen. [59:52] I'd still go with Charlotte. [59:55] Minnesota, Bill Russell and Malik Saleh, who tragically passed away. And that's really it. [1:00:01] I don't think they have anything else. [1:00:03] They're going to do Garnett. [1:00:05] They haven't done it yet. Yeah, but didn't they just sort of like... Orlando only has Bill Russell and Shaq, but they must have the 95 Eastern Conference title, whatever.

[1:00:15] And they made it in 09, so they're up too. [1:00:18] The answer is actually the LA Clippers. [1:00:23] Oh. [1:00:24] zero anything. They have no retired numbers. What? And they've never won anything. [1:00:30] They've never won a conference finals. They have nothing. [1:00:32] What about like a brand or something? They have nothing. They put high school uniforms of California players in their thing. I'm not kidding. They don't have a single retired number. [1:00:42] I'm trying to think. [1:00:44] They didn't retire Bob McAdoo's number, who won an MVP in the Buffalo Braves. [1:00:49] They didn't retire... [1:00:51] Basically name anybody. Chris Paul? [1:00:53] Chris Paul maybe will be the first one, but they just, he had this terrible experience with them. [1:00:58] Blake Griffin? Maybe you get to a point where you're talking about Chris Paul Blake Griffin? I think you do that. [1:01:03] That's pretty sad, though. Couldn't you at least retire Darius Miles and Quentin Richardson together? Just have... [1:01:09] That was a great year. It was a really fun year. We enjoyed it. But yeah, the Clippers have nothing. That's sad. So they are the most impressive. [1:01:17] I feel like, [1:01:19] If we're just going with just rafters, you might be right. [1:01:23] But it really touched me when he was like, nothing's even happened in this arena, notable. [1:01:29] Yeah. In Charlotte. I was thinking about the one thing would be LeBron staring at Michael Jordan before he dunks in a playoff game. [1:01:34] That would be like the most notable thing that's happened in that arena in my memory. Well, now 2K is going to be reigning threes. 2K. They should put him in the rafter already. [1:01:42] This is a little sorbet appetizer for the last email. John from Jersey City had an email for a

[1:01:48] Conspiracy Bill. [1:01:51] I thought I could turn you on to the latest NBA conspiracy, the Nets rigging the 2026 lottery. [1:01:58] I'm a net season ticket holder. This is the upcoming ladder. [1:02:03] When I got my ticket renewal price for next season, I was shocked. [1:02:07] They raised prices 24% for the same seats next season. Last year, they raised it 3%. [1:02:13] The only rationale I can think of is to upcharge their season ticket holders who have sat through the mess of the last two years because they must know something. [1:02:19] The rest of us don't. [1:02:21] Thank you. [1:02:22] I'll tell you this. Conspiracy Bill did darken the room and smoked the pipe a little bit and thought about this one. Why would they raise ticket prices? [1:02:31] 24%. [1:02:32] coming off a terrible season. [1:02:34] They don't have a single signature player other than Michael Porter Jr. Michael Porter Jr. Yegor Joman. Yegor Demmon. What made them raise prices? But it's a large... It's a sizable league. Yeah. [1:02:51] Conspiracy Bell is intrigued. Huh. [1:02:55] Kyler Dickey, by the way, wanted to know. I'm not buying that one, though. [1:03:00] the, [1:03:00] Ring the lottery. Listen, Conspiracy Bill got his people together. They had a meeting about it. [1:03:05] Thank you. [1:03:06] Tyler Dickey is another sorbet. Um, [1:03:10] He said, when you talk about crazy stories of the season, everyone's like, Katie's burners. That was the craziest. Won't get crazy that. He points out, [1:03:18] The Trailblazers head coach got arrested by the FBI one game into the season.

[1:03:24] I'm not the historian of the game that you are, but I've never seen or heard anything quite like this. No one cares about Portland, so this is easily swept under the rug. [1:03:32] Did Chauncey actually mess with our players' playing times and development and control outcomes? Did he cut minutes so player props would hit unders? Why is this not a huge deal to anyone else? [1:03:41] I don't know. Why isn't this a huge deal? [1:03:44] I don't know. Ramona just wrote a huge piece about him today, about how he had to, like, [1:03:49] sell his house and he'd get a $5 billion bail. This is like a major... [1:03:54] major gambling investigation and he was in the poker and alleged say, I know Chauncey that well, but he was around ESPN when I was there and he is like, [1:04:02] just like the most responsible measured person I've been around in a professional setting. I worked with him too. I thought he was the nicest guy. Yeah. Like it's not like some of the stuff you hear about like Malik Deasley, you're like, Oh, that's a little weird. But like Chauncey was just like, [1:04:13] A sweetheart. [1:04:15] It's a good point. [1:04:16] This one kind of just went away. Not sure why. It was so long ago. And also the Katie Burder thing, like... [1:04:22] He made a Twitter account and it was in like a group chat. [1:04:26] You know what I mean? So he's not like, it's not even like public facing tweets. Yeah. Somebody in his group chat just violated his privacy. Somebody betrayed the chat. Yeah. That seems to be what happened. Yeah. Okay. Last question from Dan in Manhattan Beach. [1:04:39] Thank you. [1:04:40] I can't wait for your reaction. I didn't send this to you. [1:04:42] What if instead of signing with any one team for next season, [1:04:46] LeBron makes his retirement tour an actual retirement tour. [1:04:50] by signing a one-week contract with all 30 teams. [1:04:54] Every team gets one LeBron home game where he starts and plays, and they sell thousands of limited jerseys.

[1:05:00] New York finally gets Knicks LeBron. Minnesota gets an Ant LeBron team up. Miami gets Heat Reunion LeBron. We just keep going. He's not going to win the title no matter where he goes. Why not generate news in every local market? [1:05:13] Never happy. Great idea. [1:05:15] I couldn't pin holes in it. [1:05:19] There's also this thing hanging on where it's like, I have no idea where LeBron's going to play next year. So it's just like, there's no sort of like natural... [1:05:27] I did this on the pod. Yeah, I saw. To be so exact. You did the Golden State thing. Well, because I don't think Cleveland – I think Cleveland has a chance to win the title every year, and it's Donovan Mitchell's team, and he's not going to be like, cool, let's add LeBron. [1:05:39] Like it's his team, Jalen Brunson, it's his team. These guys don't want the LeBron retirement circus team. [1:05:45] coming into their thing, they'd rather just win the title. [1:05:48] Be my guess. If he goes to the Warriors per conspiracy bill, [1:05:53] Does that team a championship team? No, but it's like a Curry and LeBron last ride. Chris Dasporzingas and Jimmy Butler off an injury and like, [1:06:02] That team is not that competitive. One last ride, Curry goes to Charlotte to end his career. So... [1:06:08] I tried to think about could this 10-day thing work, and I actually think it could. Hold on. Kerr going to Charlotte, that's going to take shots away from NIPSS. [1:06:16] It's an older... Oh, it's like a mentor. 2K will be fine. I'll be the best shooter. 2K and him will work it out. 2K, kind of like a Chris Paul Wemby thing. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, he's there to shepherd him into superstardom. [1:06:29] So if it was 30, he'd have to play for 30 teams.

[1:06:35] it's, it's, [1:06:36] 60 games total. [1:06:38] Right. So you play one home game, one road game or two home games. Why the road games? Maybe just the home game. Maybe it's a two game homestand. [1:06:46] Limited edition jerseys. You'd have two jerseys for everything. It's like a fucking cash cow. [1:06:51] It would actually be kind of amazing. [1:06:54] And the Celtics would be like, whoa, our LeBron game is coming up on March 4th. Oh, the tickets would go out of control. That's why they raised the ticket prices in Brooklyn. [1:07:04] Because of the LeBron game next year. Or is LeBron just going there next year? No. For a eventual piece of the team? Or J.J. Gorgelman? [1:07:13] Just said, that's it. That's his thing. So if he played on every team, this would, first of all, it would be an amazing. Nobody's done it before. The league just brought in two new partners. [1:07:24] and took billions of their dollars. Yeah. And this is a little gift they can give back. [1:07:29] How about this? LeBron's in the golf now. [1:07:32] Mmm. [1:07:33] plays in these different cities, two home games, and you can sample the best courses in each city over the course of two days. This will never happen, but it should happen. [1:07:43] I thought it was an almost unassailable idea. I loved it. [1:07:46] Because, [1:07:47] And then he ends up on the last team. [1:07:50] And that's the team that has a chance to win the title. And you just kind of slide in. It's like, I had a really good time when I was on Minnesota in December. Guarantees a ring for LeBron. [1:08:00] Yeah. [1:08:00] I only played one game. [1:08:02] They won the title. [1:08:04] I didn't even think he's a ring.

[1:08:07] Yeah, everyone who played for the team gets a ring. [1:08:09] I mean, this is on the level of you and house talking about a guy with a metal baseball bat playing for the Wizards. This will never happen, but it is intriguing. It's one of those things where it's like, okay, this won't happen. But if it did. [1:08:23] Thank you. [1:08:23] What's the problem? [1:08:25] It would be cool if he started out with the shitty teams and then gradually got to... [1:08:30] And then OKC was like, we'll do it, but [1:08:33] It's got to be in December. We don't want to screw with our team too much. Because I was thinking about him on the Jazz. And I was like, ugh. [1:08:40] You know what I mean? I was just like, well, I don't know if I'm going to even tune in for that one. Or like the Wizards. I did think, could there be a scenario where he only picks 12 teams? [1:08:48] But then I think the other 18, there'd be some fan base that would be like, what the fuck? And I do like the idea of him having the one game in Memphis. It's just fucking weird. He's wearing a Grizzly jersey. But the thing is, that city's on absolute fire. It's like basically... [1:09:03] Taylor Swift's eras tour, but basketball and LeBron is basically what it is. [1:09:08] Every game would be an event. I think Bronny also has to come, so it's two 10-day contracts. You have to get both guys. Every text thread. [1:09:16] that I am on. [1:09:17] would be which LeBron game are we going to? [1:09:20] Right. It was like the second the schedule is released, it was every text thread that I'm on would be like, so when are we going? He does Nick's Nets back to back. So he has next week and then next week. He's in New York for two weeks. He's doing all the shows. Oh, yeah. This is amazing. Yeah. It's a great idea. This is a brilliant idea.

[1:09:38] Dave Jacoby, you can hear and watch him on The Mismatch with Vernaud Chris Vernon. [1:09:43] How's Verno handling another tanking season? [1:09:46] You know what? [1:09:48] He's not handling it well, but I think that we're doing everything that we can to support him. [1:09:54] It's tough when you're whole, when you put your stake in the ground out, we are going to tank. We got Triple J and Joe and they play together. Exactly. And yeah, it's going, it's not going great. He's watching a lot of college basketball. [1:10:08] Oh, that's good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Good to see you, my friend. Good to see you, too. [1:10:12] Now it's time for a special segment of the show. It's called Value Mount Rushmore, and it's brought to you by Domino's. I love Domino's. [1:10:18] I'm going to talk about real value, no hype, no buzz, just decisions in the game that actually get you more than you pay for. [1:10:24] Like how Domino's best day will ever get you any pizza with any toppings for $9.99. What a steal. Now strap in. [1:10:31] I break down my top four [1:10:33] value plays. The Clippers just did this. My first one would be when the Clippers traded Zubats, was making 20 million a year, so they could start playing the rookie center more, Niederhauser, [1:10:43] who makes like, [1:10:45] $2 million a year. What a deal. If Niederhauser can put up most of the stats that Zubats puts up, [1:10:51] Great. I just saved 18 million. That was a good one. Late round fantasy sleepers. Always awesome. I always like to do running backs. [1:10:58] at the end of drafts because you just draft the backups or rookies and just hope you strike oil. [1:11:04] with one of them. [1:11:07] Futures...

[1:11:08] I like with the, like looking for futures ahead for like the NBA NFL season. NFL, you always look for the bad team that has a good schedule the next year. [1:11:16] And a new coach is a good one. [1:11:18] for the NBA, the team that starts to stack the lottery picks and then all of a sudden, [1:11:23] Even though people don't have high expectations like Charlotte this year, maybe they'll make it jump up. So that's a good one. [1:11:29] And then the fourth one, Glue Guys. [1:11:32] Always good when you're, if you're building a sports team, invest in those glue guys. Um, the Celtics have a couple of good ones. Jordan Walsh, Hugo Gonzalez, Hugo Gonzalez, sorry. Uh, [1:11:42] Just people that [1:11:43] They're not going to be max contract guys, but you can throw them out and rely on them over and over again for 20 minutes a game. [1:11:50] Anyway. [1:11:51] The highest tier move you can make for your wallet is Domino's Best Deal Ever. Order any pizza with any toppings for only $9.99. [1:11:58] I always do thin. [1:12:00] I like the... [1:12:02] I like the gluten-free crust. I like it well done. [1:12:05] And I like the double pepperoni with extra cheese is my favorite. Get Domino's best deal ever today. [1:12:12] Prices higher in some locations. Select this online only offer from February 23rd until April 6th. [1:12:18] Size availability varies by crust type, max seven toppings, six for New York style, and pan crust. [1:12:23] Stuffed crust extra excludes excellent specialty pizzas. Minimum purchase required for delivery prices. Participation, delivery area, and charges may vary. This episode is brought to you by Boar's Head. What if we told you the taste of deep fried turkey is now available at your local deli? Well, Boar's Head just did that. Bursting with flavor, perfectly seasoned with that indulgent taste that usually means planning your whole day around it.

[1:12:47] Presenting the Friars Turkey Breast only from Boar's Head. [1:12:51] Backyard tradition now available behind the counter. [1:12:53] Visit your local deli today. Discover the craftsmanship behind every bite. Boreshead, committed to craft since 1905. [1:13:02] This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market. [1:13:04] Spring is here, so celebrate it with fresh, juicy, seasonal produce and some very tasty limited time flavors. [1:13:11] New Whole Foods Market Peach Apricot Rose Italian Soda. [1:13:16] Perfect for a picnic or brunch, as is their trending mango yuzu chantilly cake. [1:13:22] But if you're on the go, new 365 strawberry pretzels make a great sweet snack. That sounds delicious. Get savings with yellow sales signs store-wide and everyday low prices on 365 brand items. Enjoy the fresh flavors of spring. Save at Whole Foods Market. [1:13:41] All right, my friend Matt Bellini is here. You can hear him three times a week on The Town, which you can also watch with his fancy video set up. [1:13:48] It's a great podcast. You can also read his... [1:13:51] His newsletter. [1:13:52] part of the puck newsletter world. Very essential, especially lately. There's always stuff going on. And just recently... [1:14:01] Warner Brothers, which has been passed around like a Yankees Christmas gift since 2001. [1:14:06] Seems to have finally found a home. Somebody finally wanted the snow globe. They wanted to keep it. Finally. I don't know if it's finally. We may be doing this all again in five years. Uh-oh. Well, today the Paramount stock got downgraded to junk status. So everything they just paid. Their debt was downgraded. Yes.

[1:14:24] Alright, so... [1:14:25] I have so many ways to go here. [1:14:27] I don't think there's been enough talk about the merger name. [1:14:32] You've been joking about this on your pod because they can do the acronym. They can do PWB. [1:14:38] Uh-huh. [1:14:39] They could do Warner Mount, which you've said a couple of times. Yeah, that's my preference. [1:14:43] Does the Paw Brothers interest you at all? Paw Brothers or Paw? [1:14:47] Just calling it paw with like a paw print? I thought you were going to go Peace Guy. That's their current monitor. It's Paramount Skydance. They do Peace Guy, which Craig Horlbeck loves. So do you think Paramount just absorbs it and it just stays Paramount and that's like kind of their ultimate trump card? [1:15:04] I think ultimately – [1:15:06] Perhaps that will be the route. The funny thing is, though, the Warner Brothers is much larger than Paramount. So if you're really looking at what the brand is and what to do moving forward, you call the whole company Warner's or Warner Brothers or Warner's Paramount. And then you keep the streaming service as HBO or HBO Max and just kind of fold Paramount into it. [1:15:29] Well, none of us were ever happy with WBD, Warner Brothers Discovery. It was just a complete mess. And everything Zaslav did was just bizarre and crazy, and including his victory lap last week, which you excoriated him for. And yet he's going to walk away with like $800 million. It is unbelievable. The company lost two-thirds of its value under his leadership. The only thing that [1:15:54] raise the stock.

[1:15:55] was the prospect of it being sold. And he lucked out. He has the world's fourth richest man who's got a son who happens to love Hollywood. It's the greatest thing in the world. And all of a sudden, there's a bidding war because Netflix is like, oh, we'll take that. We'll take HBO and Warner Brothers if it's for sale. And all of a sudden, you've got a bidding war. All you need is two bidders. And then next thing you know, the stock goes from $7 a share to $31 a share at the sale. [1:16:25] it when it was like 18, 19, hoping that we did get to the mid 20s. [1:16:30] This is a good example. [1:16:31] So I was really trying to think about this and I was thinking about real life and culture. [1:16:36] Is this the most faith anyone has ever shown in their son? [1:16:41] Well, I don't think anyone in the history of the world has had the wherewithal that Larry Ellison does in terms of just sheer wealth. I mean, I guess Elon has what, like 10, 12 kids that will someday be old enough to have to deal with his money. But this is like in Game of Thrones, Queen Cersei's like... [1:17:00] Joffrey, we're riding with you, baby. We know you're 17 and we know you're a sociopath, but I think you can handle the seven kingdoms. [1:17:07] You'll see this in culture, but not in real life. [1:17:10] Wait till Don Jr. runs for president. Then we'll really see what's going on there. Well, I was going to say the Bushes would be the other analogy, right? Like senior Bush, like kind of grooming junior Bush, but not. [1:17:22] in a situation where you basically incur 79 billion in debt, plus the junk, which is now 3% on top of the 79 million,

[1:17:32] Um, I've never seen anything like this and I, I gotta be honest, I'm not smart enough really from a mass standpoint to understand it. [1:17:38] Well, isn't there a correlation in sports? Aren't there legendary sports? I mean, Dr. Buss, perfect example. [1:17:45] Dr. Buss, you know, and his kids running roughshod over his empire. I mean, there's got to be a million examples of very savvy sports owners who turn their entire kingdom over to their kids and all hell breaks loose. Here's the difference. So I did think about that. And we see this in sports all the time. And almost always it goes horribly. And the kids... [1:18:04] basically their qualifications for the job is [1:18:08] I'm related to my dad and he's the rich guy who made all these things. They're not self-made, all this stuff. [1:18:13] In this case, David Ellison has tried to put in the time. [1:18:18] for the last 10 to 12 years to try to figure out like, [1:18:21] I want to be a content mogul. So it's a little different than in sports sometimes when somebody's like, okay, I'm [1:18:28] I am... [1:18:28] I'm going to fold shop. Here's my son. He's now the CEO and he'll be in charge of all of our basketball moves. You're like, Oh no. David Ellison really does seem like he's, [1:18:38] He's ready for the moment. I don't know if anybody else thinks he is, but it seems like he has a point of view of [1:18:44] And a style and a take on this, right? [1:18:48] Certainly. And he definitely put in the time. We can argue about how successful Skydance was because their biggest successes have been essentially putting up money and glomming on to... [1:19:00] original franchises at Paramount. He had Top Gun, he's done Mission Impossibles, he had the Terminator franchise, and he did those movies to varying degrees of success. So he hasn't made a huge impact via Skydance, but he's put a lot of money into movies and he's made a lot of TV shows. So in that sense, he has been kind of auditioning for this, but now he is in

[1:19:30] a guy with a semi-successful production company to [1:19:34] arguably the second or third most powerful person in Hollywood. Yeah. Cause I'm trying, there's been so much glass half empty. [1:19:42] I'm trying to think like, okay, what is the glass half full side? What are his wins so far? He gets credit for the Tom Cruise relationship and Top Gun Maverick, which he actually produced and made happen. And he gets credit for, I mean, Mission Impossible, these last couple of Mission Impossibles lost money. So, but they were kind of plagued by COVID charges and ended up being some of the most expensive movies of all time. He has built, the TV business is not bad. He actually, he's done Reacher. [1:20:12] Grace and Frankie, which lasted seven seasons on Netflix, which is kind of unheard of. So he has had wins in TV. [1:20:21] He's a producer. Some producers, you know, some... [1:20:24] Shows are hits. Some movies are hits. Some aren't. [1:20:27] That's very different from what he is now. He is an owner-operator of the two of the five legacy studios. And it's just unbelievable how much power he's amassed. He has news now. He's never had news before. He's got sports. I mean, he's now the proprietor of arguably the most lucrative NFL package, the AFC package on Sundays. He's got UFC. He's got golf. He's got March Madness. [1:20:57] madness. I mean, it's pretty unbelievable. [1:21:00] Yeah, so I wrote down all the stuff that they have now, the content empire.

[1:21:04] Right? [1:21:05] 200 plus million subs. [1:21:07] Now, I don't know how many of those are repetitive. I guess you find that out. [1:21:11] In the U.S., Antenna just did a study where it's 7.5 million subs overlap in the U.S. I don't know about overseas, but it's less overlap than with HBO and Netflix. There's a much bigger overlap there. HBO, Paramount+, CBS... [1:21:28] Uh, [1:21:29] An entity that I think got just discounted during this whole process, Pluto. [1:21:33] Yeah. They got Pluto. One of my favorites. TNT, TBS. They own Dino 2 and 0. That's a big thing for you. They have all the challenges. TNT, TBS, Comedy Central, Discovery, MTV, all those. [1:21:47] which I guess can just run as ghost ships on cable for as long as we have cable. [1:21:51] Yeah, there's zombies. There's zombie networks, and they will just milk them for the ridiculousness money, and that's it. [1:21:59] CNN and CBS News. [1:22:03] which who knows if they're even going to decide they want to be in news. And if you're going to talk about ways to cut debt, [1:22:09] If they don't care about news to begin with, that could be just a place that sadly they would just shop. [1:22:14] They're going to chop. I don't think they're going to kill it. CNN still throws off a lot of money from affiliate fees because you can't not carry CNN for like the five times a year that people tune in to watch some kind of breaking news moment. Like this weekend. Exactly. But there are about 3,000 people that work at CNN. And there is a big overlap in terms of the product with CBS News. So that is the perfect place to start cutting.

[1:22:44] MSIP, including DC Comics, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Looney Tunes, Game of Thrones, Top Gun, Mission Impossible, Star Trek, etc., [1:22:51] And that's the biggest thing that shifted, I would say, this century with the studio's [1:22:57] valuing that old IP more than ever, and now we're moving into the AI era, and it's even... [1:23:03] Probably twice as valuable as it was. [1:23:05] If we look at what's going on with AI, and there's soon going to be anybody can create anything at any time, right? And YouTube is about to be flooded with AI-generated content. So in a sea where everything is possible, what isn't possible to recreate? And it's known intellectual property. You cannot recreate Batman with AI unless it's licensed, which they may do, but they will own Batman. And you can do whatever you want with Batman. [1:23:35] why Netflix was so interested in buying Warner Brothers because Netflix is increasingly taking on YouTube. They're doing podcasts. They're doing all these other things that eat up innings and eat up time on the service. And if they see AI coming in, they wanted... [1:23:52] all of that IP, in addition to the 100 years of movies in the library to put on the service. Right. So like, for instance, saying The Godfather... [1:24:01] there's a world where you could just do your own Godfather sequel between Godfather 2 and Godfather 3 and create all of the AI. And it sounds insane and awful. [1:24:10] But like this weekend I saw a commercial where somebody used – [1:24:14] was Airbnb, they use Golden Slumbers from the Beatles for a commercial. And I'm like,

[1:24:19] That song's kind of sacred. This is now a commercial song, but we're just used to this now. All the songs we grew up with in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s are just commercial jingles now. Yeah, but they're getting paid. Right. That's the difference. You have to pay for that. But people will get paid for this Godfather kind of stuff, too. It just feels weird, but... [1:24:36] I guess. I mean, Disney just did a deal with OpenAI to hand over all their characters for do-it-yourself content. And interestingly, in that deal, they did not give the voices and they did not give the actual physical human likenesses of the characters that are human. So if you have Luke Skywalker, it's the animated Luke Skywalker. It's not Mark Hamill. And that's because of the guild, the union. [1:25:02] They don't let you do that. You have to pay money for that. And Disney just said, okay, you can have Lightning McQueen and Yoda, but they're not going to sound like Lightning McQueen and Yoda because that's still intellectual property that's controlled. And this is the Wild Wild West coming up where we don't know... [1:25:18] What if Fox just says, hey, The Simpsons. [1:25:21] Go to town. Just make sure you pay us. And all of a sudden there's just Homer Simpson is involved in this open idea. Yeah. Not Homer's voice because you have to get the voice separate from that, that, uh, that image, but you're going to be able to do Homer Simpson videos on open AI and Disney plus very soon. [1:25:41] You also get the Paramount Library, the WB Library, and two giant studio lots. [1:25:46] So here's the thing. So $79 billion in debt.

[1:25:50] Plus the 3% junk piece. So that's even higher. [1:25:55] Paramount only controls two things right now when they merge these companies, which will take a year, assuming they merge. [1:26:02] Headcount, [1:26:03] and subscription prices. [1:26:05] Right? [1:26:05] Other than that, they have no idea how this is going to go. [1:26:08] But those are the two things that they can finagle the price however they want. Like they could shop... [1:26:14] 60% of both companies merge it into some smaller company. They could also raise the subscription price [1:26:21] to some crazy number and do a little like what Disney and Hulu and Fox have tried to do, which has been really confusing. [1:26:27] Like you can't, [1:26:28] It's been really hard to get one of them. You kind of have to get all three and they dangle the deal. They're pushing people to the bundle. Yeah, which is where we're headed with this, right? And it'd be like $35 a month. [1:26:39] And you get HBO and Paramount and you get to watch football on CBS and, [1:26:43] That's where we're headed, right? What they are saying is that there will only be one app. It will not be a bundle. It won't be like the Disney, Hulu, ESPN situation. They are saying that these are going to be combined into one, they're calling it a super app, and that it will be something like, let's call it HBO Max, and then you go open it, and then there's Paramount Plus Tile, and there's an HBO Tile, and there's a CBS Sports Tile, that kind of thing. Yeah. [1:27:11] We've never really seen a deal like this with somebody that is a really proud tech person. [1:27:17] that cares about this stuff and is like, we are going to innovate and do all, we have all these different ideas.

[1:27:23] Like Netflix has a great name page. [1:27:26] You go to Netflix, it knows what you like. It knows how to push things in front of you, and they're the best at it. You go to other pages, like Peacock is just a quagmire. You go to Peacock. Peacock still doesn't know that I go there every Sunday morning to watch SNL. It's like, I just want to watch the NBA game. How do I do it? Can you guys tell me? It's unbelievable. It's the worst app of all time. And then you finally get to SNL, and it shows you the last 10 minutes of the episode that you previously watched. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. [1:27:56] never watched the last 10 minutes of SNL because I turn it off after weekend update. I want, just show me the latest episode. What's the new one? What's the new traders? They just can't figure it out. [1:28:07] So subscription price would be one way to make the money back. I still don't know. Like I've heard you, you've talked on different pods about how do you get this, this debt down, all this stuff. Seven, nine billion. It's like a brain breaker. [1:28:18] It's a lot. That's, [1:28:20] That's basically the entire Western Conference of NBA teams. Yeah. Honestly, they're going to have to cut a shit ton of costs. They're saying $6 billion that they're going to take out. It's going to be more than that. And they're saying that there's a lot of synergies and that they will probably move everybody to one of the two physical lots and sell the other one. That's a couple billion dollars there. There's a lot of things they can do, merging CBS News and CNN. [1:28:50] result in headcount reductions, but also just like physical presence reduction and costs of office space and things like that. So you'll start to see those that come down. But the real risk here is that it can't come down enough and that this company just essentially becomes all about paying off debt. And they're just cutting costs and reducing output and servicing the debt.

[1:29:20] productive company like you should be. [1:29:23] which is, I can't remember the first time I came on your pod and we talked about this. This goes to the heart of how stupid these media mergers are. [1:29:30] I just don't understand them. [1:29:32] They never work. [1:29:34] Even when you look at Disney and Fox, I don't know, would Disney run that back if they could do that one over again? Would they? I'd love to know if you'd give them truth serum. [1:29:43] Certain quarters of Disney would run that back. Bob Iger insists it's great. And I don't think the final... Listen, I go back and forth on this. I don't know if Disney is where it is today as one of the companies that you assume will survive the streaming wars if it didn't acquire all the content engines from FX and from Hulu and from the Fox properties, putting The Simpsons on Disney+. I don't know about that. [1:30:13] above my pay grade. There's probably some McKinsey study locked in the vault with Walt Disney's head somewhere. Just like, this is what we got out of Fox. But- [1:30:24] They spent a lot of money and it caused a lot of debt issues for Disney. And they're still kind of digging out of that. They got Avatar, though. They got they got a lot out of it, but it was a lot. Now, we have a better example in Warner Brothers Discovery, because that was a transaction that produced about fifty five billion dollars in debt. And Zasloff and his team essentially spent the next three years trying to pay that down. [1:30:45] And then that's where we had, you know, cutting the Batgirl movie and firing thousands of people and all these things that kind of, they took a hit to the brand. And luckily for them, they found someone to come along and buy this company. But if they hadn't,

[1:31:01] it would have been a downward spiral, I think. So would you say the best analogy for what Zaslav did here is... [1:31:08] He bought this house he couldn't afford in a neighborhood that he liked. [1:31:13] knew right away basically that he couldn't afford to keep the house clean. [1:31:18] And that this was going to go really badly unless somebody else was driving down the street and said, whoa, I really love that house. And that was his only out. That's basically what happened. Yeah. The rich kid. Yeah. The rich kid in school. He happened to befriend and he just decided that he'd really like that. And then another guy said, I'd also like it. I don't want the rich kid to have it. [1:31:36] And then all of a sudden it's a bidding war. I mean, if you look at the initial projections for Warner Brothers Discovery, they said that they were going to have $14 billion a year in EBITDA, which is a metric for profits. And it never even delivered in that first year. That first year came in under their estimates. [1:32:06] Participate it. [1:32:06] or that they let on. So they're like, oh, wait, we thought we were going to have 14 billion. Now we only have 12 this year, and next year we have 10. And finally, when they're selling this company this past year, it's down to 8.5. [1:32:17] And it just keeps melting, melting, melting. And it just throws the entire business trajectory off. They had to find a buyer. [1:32:24] Who didn't know that the linear TV was going to die dramatically? Like we knew this 10 years ago. What are we doing? It's a matter of how fast it melts. As soon as high-speed internet was here, it was a matter of time. I think one other thing with these mergers that never gets enough credit, and I say this as somebody who's worked in a couple of big companies.

[1:32:44] They're so destabilizing. [1:32:46] And I don't think people, you wouldn't know unless you were, [1:32:50] working in a company and they either got acquired or acquired somebody else. But from the moment it happens, it's, [1:32:55] It's Hunger Games. [1:32:57] And you have repetitive departments all over the place. And you have people looking over their shoulder and people looking for other jobs because they don't know if their job is going to exist. And it's just this amount of tension. Like if Spotify merged with somebody tomorrow, I'd be terrified. I know what I'm dealing with now. I don't know what I'm dealing with another company. Right. And if you look at these Warner Brothers and HBO people, they have different bosses all the time. Right. [1:33:27] Thank you. [1:33:27] And in a creative business, it's really hard to operate from a position of uncertainty and change. You look at some of the most stable places like Universal, which has had the same ownership for the past 15, 16 years. The film studio at Universal was able to build up these franchises and build up the illumination business to have Minions and Super Mario. And they had the relationship with Christopher Nolan. Yeah, you take a bet on Oppenheimer and then he's going to give you the Odyssey. [1:33:57] you've got the biggest filmmaker, they have the Spielberg relationship, all these things. It takes a lot and it takes a stable team to do. And when you are changing the rudder every couple of years, it's just a lot more difficult. Well, look at Amazon right now. Amazon's been trying to get into all kinds of different things. And every three months they have another reword. It's amazing. I know. And they still haven't gotten what they want out of that entire purchase

[1:34:27] buy out the broccoli family because they essentially refused to make any movies for them because they hated them. Right. [1:34:33] I want to do some winners and losers. [1:34:37] Winner, the first winner, we talked about him before, but David Ellison. [1:34:40] Who, I gotta say... [1:34:43] I've only heard at least decent things. He's not like a King Joffrey character where people are like, what a prick. [1:34:50] Oh my God. Actually, very nice guy. Very nice guy. Everybody seems to like him. I don't know if he should... [1:34:56] be running one of the biggest content, whatever, monoliths we've ever seen. But he at least seems like not like a Zaslav thing where he's in it, [1:35:06] to get some sort of payoff at the end. I don't think that's his intention. No, he seems to be in it because he genuinely likes this business and wants to make good things. Now, we can argue about his taste. He's made a lot of movies that are not great. And he has much more commercial taste than, say, his sister, Megan Ellison, who was a great auteur, producer, and financier of movies, until she ran out of money and her father basically said enough's enough. That would make her not a good financier, by the way. [1:35:33] Who? I would say Megan Ellison. Baby wasn't a good financer because the movie's lost money. No, no. Great taste. Great taste. Yes. Made some very good movies. Yeah. But I'd put her rewatchable number up against David Ellison's and I bet she has more. That would be an interesting battle. All right. Winners and losers. [1:35:53] First of all, $79 billion in debt. I'm just staggering. I'm giving that a winner just because I didn't even know that was possible. That sounds like fucking out of Star Wars. You made the debt a winner? I think it's going to be a record. I think that's it. I think we've paid. I don't think anyone's paid in this. I guess these lenders like Apollo and these big lenders. Yeah, whatever. I think $79 is going to be. This is like Barry Bonds hitting 73 homers. We're never topping. I'm making it a winner. And much like that, we will come to question how it all happened.

[1:36:23] Loser, everyone's scared of AI and what it might do to content. [1:36:26] This is like your D-Day. [1:36:28] Because this is now the first time somebody that has, and Brian Phillips wrote about this for The Ringer this week. [1:36:34] Somebody with [1:36:35] real insight [1:36:37] and awareness and ability to use data, surveillance, name anything evil that we're all afraid of. TikTok. Don't forget, David Ellison's father, Larry, is one of the investors in the US version of TikTok. And they still are talking about this magical digital fairy dust that they're going to sprinkle over the whole company and turn it into a big tech media powerhouse. And not sure quite how that's going to happen, but I'm sure it'll be bad for the culture and our [1:37:07] these other things. Well, it's going to be... [1:37:09] AI is going to probably come in a bunch of different ways for content. I think... [1:37:14] for when you're talking about editing movies and producing movies and some of the stuff that has just [1:37:21] jobs that have existed for 120 years, I'm sure that's part of their plan, right? We can cut the costs here, here, here. We could just have... [1:37:29] Instead of having 200 people on this movie, we could have 70. [1:37:33] And that's throughout Hollywood, though. Yes. I mean, there is a push right now. [1:37:37] The thinking is these movies cannot continue to cost $200 million to make, especially in animation. But even in other sci-fi effects driven movies, they've got to bring the cost down. And AI is going to be a big part of that. [1:37:49] All right, I have a controversial winner.

[1:37:53] People who make content. [1:37:55] Because, [1:37:56] Yeah, all right. I'm going to land this plane. You're going to be confused for most of the time. I think if Netflix got Warner Brothers... [1:38:03] I think we would have moved into a dangerous place with content. [1:38:06] that I would compare to this. [1:38:08] And I'm in an AL keeper fantasy league. [1:38:11] where we can keep guy, we can keep 10 keepers, we have minor leaguers and all that. And sometimes somebody will get a big lead in like July. [1:38:18] And you have to decide, like, do I want to chase this guy or would it be stupid to chase this guy and make trades? [1:38:24] you know what, I'm going to let them win the title, and I have a better chance next year. I think Netflix's lead would have been [1:38:31] especially like with the know-how and the intelligence they have, I actually think it could have turned into a situation where everybody else is like, yeah, we're just going to pick our spots. [1:38:40] We can't compete with those guys. [1:38:42] And I don't know if it would have been great for people who do movies, television shows, and documentaries specifically, because who's bidding against them if... [1:38:50] everybody is just going to be careful because they can't beat Netflix. Not a bad take. I agree. And obviously – [1:38:57] If this merged company can get attacked together and become that third or fourth [1:39:04] big player alongside Netflix and Amazon and Disney, that ultimately creates a more robust market if there are four real players that can buy your project at any given time. And then God knows what [1:39:17] Apple is doing. Plus Apple, if you're a relatively famous person who looks good in a giant thumbnail. Exactly. And they're going to overspend on whatever you want to do. Jennifer Lawrence, come on up. We got an Apple show for you. Pose. Take a picture. Yes, yes, yes. I know. But you're a divorced mom and your husband's been murdered.

[1:39:37] The the. [1:39:39] That is essentially what Ellison has been arguing and what they're going to argue to regulators to approve this deal is that this was a necessary evil to to get Hollywood modernized for the tech era and that these are globally scaled companies. And Hollywood has never faced globally scaled media companies before. It's always been an oligopoly of only these five or six studios can distribute movies worldwide. [1:40:09] they stayed in existence for 100 years. Now that's all gone with the internet. And you have scaled television companies, and they need to combine to chase that. And it's going to be painful in the short term. It's not no question. [1:40:23] Taking these buyers out, like when Warners and HBO were competing against Paramount and all the rest, [1:40:30] It was just better for buyers. But if this goes through, it will be painful. And then maybe this company can build up and become a real scaled player. [1:40:38] You're certainly not taking your best projects to Paramount right now. [1:40:42] Right. And if you think about 2017, 18, 19, pre-COVID, [1:40:47] They were just [1:40:48] A lot of people that had money and wanted to do stuff and were competing against each other. And then that slowly died after COVID. Well, there was television. [1:40:56] There was cable television still making original shows. Now that's all gone. Cable television, not making original shows, certainly not inscripted. So it's just the streaming players and a little bit of broadcast TV in there. You know, it's just it's just a lot less.

[1:41:12] Felonies, I decided to watch the Survivor season for the first time in a while because it's Survivor 50. It was a three-hour season premiere. [1:41:21] - CBS is basically like, guys, we gotta go three hours. We have two police shows, two doctor shows. [1:41:27] Two fire shows. [1:41:29] We have football. We don't really have a lot going on. So we're just going to have this from 8 to 11 tonight. Sorry. [1:41:35] And guess what? I watched it. Fast forwarded through all the commercials. And you know what? They're doing a shorter shoot. Jeff Probst came on the town and was talking about how they do a shorter shoot on location now than they used to. And then the episodes are now often longer than they used to. Right. [1:41:51] And he is now AI. I don't know if he announced that on the pod. He's AI. It would not surprise me. He does not age. Um, [1:41:57] Anyway, that's my glass half full is that maybe this will lead to two heavyweights competing for projects constantly, which I'm not against. I might be wrong. Another one. One loser. I think I have losers coming. Continue. Continue. Well, I have another winner. [1:42:14] The NFL. [1:42:16] Because Goodell, [1:42:17] who's just a genius with this stuff, puts that little thing in like, hey, if there's a merger, we get to redo our deal. [1:42:23] So now... [1:42:24] Now, Skydance in the NFL, you don't need to... [1:42:28] you know, it's not hard to figure out that they're going to be, have the hometown advantage. Yeah. But nobody really has an advantage with Goodell and whatever he wants to do to get more money, he's going to do it. So if he decides like, I've decided we have Friday night football and we're going to use AFC teams and sorry, CBS, you're just going to have to eat shit because we're going to have good games on Friday night. CBS will be like, okay, fine.

[1:42:50] Yeah. All right. Not much you can do. I mean, they've been slowly taking games away from those big packages. The one thing I would say is that I do think the NFL still needs broadcasts. [1:43:02] I don't think you're going to see them completely abandon CBS. I don't think you will either. Go to Netflix or something like that. They know their customer and the customer viewer still wants that broadcast experience. [1:43:18] This episode is brought to you by Fox One. Watch all 104 matches of the FIFA World Cup live in 4K for just $19.99 a month with three days free. Build your own multi-view, choose up to three streams, and follow player spotlights. Stay on top of every moment with live stats, highlights, and instant replays. The FIFA World Cup, streaming live on Fox One, offers a subject to change. See fox.com for complete terms and conditions. [1:43:46] Study, and play. Come together on a Windows 11 PC. And for a limited time, college students get the best of both worlds. Get the Unreal College Deal. Everything you need to study and play with select Windows 11 PCs. Eligible students get a year of Microsoft 365 Premium and a year of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate with a custom color Xbox Wireless Controller. Learn more at windows.com slash student offer. While supplies last, ends June 30th. Terms at aka.ms slash college PC. [1:44:16] Yeah. [1:44:17] So I have seven... [1:44:19] Seven suitors for the NFL when this all opens up.

[1:44:23] You tell me... [1:44:25] Absolutely have to have it. [1:44:27] I'd love to have it. [1:44:29] or this is a luxury? Those are the three answers. [1:44:31] CBS Paramount, I feel like that's a we absolutely have to have it. [1:44:36] Right. 100% agree. [1:44:37] NBC? [1:44:41] yes agreed all right we're two that is they have the number one program in all of television it's an anchor of their entire sales strategy and the olympics are only every four years nba so far has not performed as much as they want it to what do you talk about every game ever is the most watched game we've ever had yeah these deals are numbers let's see next year when the big data is compared against the big data but uh [1:45:06] So it's a little less than CBS, but I still think NFLs must have for NBC. [1:45:11] Well, we agree. So that's two. Fox, I think, is must. Oh, it's mission critical. [1:45:19] What is Fox without NFL? [1:45:22] What are they? They have to have it. And they've seen... [1:45:25] They've seen both realities when they've had it and when they haven't had it and they don't want to go back. No, that's what the Bank of America analysts, they just downgraded Fox because of this whole prospect of the rights going up because there's what are they going to do? They have to just eat it. [1:45:42] ESPN. [1:45:45] Yeah. [1:45:45] I think they're a have to. We have four half to habits. We're four for four. [1:45:50] I think they're a half-ton. With all the plans that ESPN is making and how much time they have put NFL on ABC as well, like that was not supposed to be the case. And they've renegotiated those deals to put Monday Night Football on ABC a lot. So I think it's a must-have.

[1:46:08] more on them in a second. Um, [1:46:12] Amazon is our fifth suitor. [1:46:15] I would put them in the... [1:46:17] need to have it, but it's not a game breaker. Yeah, I'm putting it in the middle category. I think it's a like to have. Now, they love it. And it's one of the only things that consistently works on Amazon. And they feel that they've made great strides in getting better games, and the productions are better. And they've finally, they've convinced that last cohort of people to watch, you know, when they first started and took the games from Fox, the ratings went down just because some people in this country didn't know where to find the game. So they forgot about [1:46:47] Now they're bringing in more of those people and it's sort of a cornerstone of their offerings. But like with anything with Amazon, it's a luxury. They are a sales platform. [1:46:59] They want you to buy more toilet paper. And all of this content is just in service of buying more toilet paper. [1:47:05] and they need three or four things [1:47:09] Like the NFL to accomplish that goal. I agree. I wouldn't say they're on the level of the first four, but they're one level below. And then the last two are Netflix and YouTube. [1:47:18] which I would say... [1:47:19] are luxury needed, but you're not crying yourself to sleep if you don't get it. [1:47:24] Exactly. You'll be fine. [1:47:25] I agree. And especially Netflix, because they see the numbers and they have a big initiative to increase their advertising sales. And the NFL can do that. But they're just not going to fall over themselves to steal away a full package of games unless it makes sense. Unless it's like bespoke, you know, the international games.

[1:47:55] of the 17 weeks or something like that. And they will carve out those games for a 9 a.m., [1:48:01] or 8 a.m. game every week, and it will be on Netflix because it will be global. [1:48:08] So 12 international games, Netflix owns all 12. And by the way, some of those are already on NFL Network. [1:48:15] They could just easily sell them to Netflix. Take the Germany game. [1:48:19] Take them away from CBS or Fox. So be it. Yeah. And by the way, [1:48:24] The NFL would tell CBS, "Hey, we're gonna take these games." [1:48:29] You want to fight? CBS is like, okay, take them. Yeah. All right, so that's five. There are no other suitors, right? That's seven. [1:48:37] Well, where's Apple? [1:48:38] Yeah, where is Apple? [1:48:40] Where's Apple? You tell me. Are they even in this? That is the eternal question. [1:48:44] Are they interested? They have not wanted to dabble. [1:48:48] They have said that they like their F1 deal that they just did. They like their MLS deal. The MLS might have a word about that. [1:48:57] But they have not they have not wanted to just get a game or two here or there. And we'll see. You know, the MLB did a whole Friday night baseball thing with them. I mean, who knows if that works? There's just so many MLB games. But the bigger problem is how many people have Apple TV, I think, is the scarier question, because I don't think it's a lot. [1:49:18] It's not a lot. And they're now doing things about that. They're putting, they're selling through other things. They just did a deal with Roku to sell Roku. They capitulate and they sell through Amazon now. I'm glad you brought that up. I thought that Roku thing was fascinating.

[1:49:31] Because that's their main competitor. Yeah, it was it was a wave in the white flag, basically. Absolutely. And they did it earlier with Amazon. They basically came out guns blazing, saying we are Apple Incorporated. We are the platform that everybody has to have. And everyone's like, not really when it comes to premium video. And they basically raised the right white flag and said, OK, we'll sell via Amazon and we'll sell via Roku. And hopefully we'll raise our numbers. [1:49:56] I like Roku. Um, [1:49:58] One more winner here. [1:50:00] Well, I have a couple more, actually. Netflix... [1:50:03] who, [1:50:04] Look. [1:50:05] I love the spin and you've been on it too about like, well, this is all along. They were trying to push this deal and if they didn't get it, it still was great for them because they sat on it. [1:50:15] I don't think that's true. They spent a lot of time on this. Nobody likes to spend a lot of time to not get something. But they did. And have your stock go down 30%. Yeah. But they did. [1:50:25] They did get $2.8 billion as a breakup fee, which they can just put toward those international NFL games you mentioned and other stuff. [1:50:33] And a big competitor has taken on almost $80 billion in debt. [1:50:37] to go after this deal. So they got them that. They also, you know, the Ellisons wanted to buy this company for $19 a share in the fall. Right. And it went up by, what is that, 40%? [1:50:48] Just because Netflix was involved in $19 to $31, [1:50:52] So that's a lot. It would be funny if the Mavericks had been able to use this strategy with the Luca trade. [1:50:59] where the trade went through and then the other teams were like, you didn't get enough. And then the Mavericks like, we didn't get enough. The deal is now we're accepting bids still. And it was like, the Lakers are like, wait, we had a deal. What happened? Can you imagine if that were true in sports? If you could,

[1:51:14] accept a trade and then everybody could react and up the offer. Right. Because all it would do is create a lane there for fan bases to go completely nuts when a trade was made and then the ownership would have to respond. Right. Well, that was why they never wanted to leak it out. Loser. [1:51:29] Everyone at HBO probably because they can spend this all they want. [1:51:34] We've been in this scenario before, ironically, with HBO, with AT&T. [1:51:39] where everybody's like, no, no, it's going to be great. Everybody's going to work together. [1:51:42] I'm going to go glass half empty on this. We'll see. [1:51:46] But you mentioned on your podcast how Casey Bloys is, I think, probably the most respected TV executive or one of them. [1:51:53] his contract's up next year. [1:51:55] I think he saw what happened to Richard Pepler. [1:51:58] in the 2010s when Stanky and AT&T took over. [1:52:02] And, uh, [1:52:04] This is, I want to see how this plays out for me. [1:52:07] Listen, Casey has it in his contract that he reports to the CEO of the company. So, [1:52:12] If Paramount wants to honor that and have him report to David Ellison and not have to report to all the streaming executives that Ellison has hired, including a woman, Cindy Holland, who was at Netflix, who I don't think she and Casey would mix well together, maybe that will work out. [1:52:28] Ellison said straight up, [1:52:30] HBO should stay HBO, do what they do best, [1:52:34] Easier said than done. What happens if they're bidding on the same project? [1:52:38] Exactly. What happens then? I mean, there have been examples of that. Netflix famously has a culture where you can get a no from one division of the company and then you can get a yes from another. So they do have competing arms there within the same company. I don't know what would happen there if that situation existed. I don't know if they'll have the resources to continue to do what they do.

[1:53:08] Right. And start over. We just we had Rachel Sennett on the town with I Love L.A. They completely reshot that pilot. Yeah. And most places would just say just cut bait and be like, OK, busted pilot. We're done. But with HBO, you know, famously with Game of Thrones and like they just they work it a lot longer. And you can see in the product. And I don't know if that's going to be allowed anymore. Glass Hat Full Bill would say HBO is so different than Paramount from the audiences they're going for that maybe this can work. [1:53:37] It's definitely complimentary. [1:53:39] You know, they have that CBS style audience on Paramount Plus. They have NFL viewers. They have, you know, the sports people. And HBO is not that. They have a different cohort of people. And maybe one plus one will be three here. [1:53:55] Maybe. Strong emphasis on the M. Maybe. The winner, the sports piece of Paramount, which now has the NFL, the AFC side, MLB, NHL, Champions League, March Madness, the Masters, [1:54:07] UFC, Zepha boxing, which they just [1:54:10] launched like, [1:54:12] I mean, I'll throw this in with loser ESPN who has Monday Night Football, college football, and college football playoffs, college hoops, Wimbledon, U.S. Open, NBA, NBA Finals, hockey, [1:54:21] wrestling pay-per-views, it's kind of even when you add all the Paramount stuff against ESPN and suddenly ESPN doesn't look worldwide leader-ish. [1:54:30] In the same way, right? [1:54:32] And here's the interesting thing. It's in these deals where Paramount can start to deploy these sports across all of these new cable networks that they own. So you're going to see UFC on TNT or maybe even HBO. And you're going to see them try to get the most out of these sports deals and keep the price of those cable networks as high as possible for as long as possible because that's where they make their money. Yeah.

[1:54:59] uh, [1:55:01] Winner, NBCUniversal, just because they can position themselves as, we're over here. [1:55:06] You don't like some of the politics of Parameda, all that stuff? We're just trying to do good stuff and be here, and we have stability, and... [1:55:15] I don't know if I agree on that one. I was trying to lose her. Listen, remember, they were in. They made a bid. [1:55:21] on Warners. It wasn't a very good bid. And I think it was just to get a look at their books. But NBCUniversal doesn't have a global streaming product. [1:55:32] They have Peacock, which is only domestic. And in fact, their leadership just said today that they're not even trying to be global. They're good with domestic. [1:55:40] That is not a long-term strategy. They need something. They need some kind of transformative deal, I think, if they want to be considered one of the global players here. Otherwise, they're just going to get left behind. They have a great movie studio, though. Great app, though. Peacock app. Oh, my God. Takes 20 minutes to find anything. [1:55:58] I don't know. I feel like they can still position themselves as like the underdog that could. [1:56:03] against this and try to... [1:56:06] align with some other people and be like, everyone's spending so much money in this arms race and we're over here and we're disciplined and we have this business. Might work, who knows? Maybe they'll do a joint venture with Amazon to get global or something. I don't know. Or get bought. [1:56:22] Or get bought. They have a great movie studio. They have NBC. They've got [1:56:28] A lot of sports still. So it's not like they're bad. They've been bulking up on sports. They got NBA and MLB. So it's not like they're not players. It's just the global streaming strategy piece is really tough. But is it okay to just,

[1:56:41] have a good business and not try to conquer the universe. - Well look at Sony. [1:56:46] Sony doesn't have any global streamer at all. Yeah, they don't have a general and they have crunchy roll. But Sony didn't even try to enter the streaming wars. And they prefer the arms dealers strategy where they just sell their stuff to everybody else. And it seems to be working out well for them. They had K-pop Demon Hunters on Netflix, biggest movie of all time. They have their movies now. They got seven billion dollars to license their movies. [1:57:09] to Netflix. - Wow. - Now it's a multi-year deal and it's global. [1:57:13] But that's a pretty big vote of confidence in your studio to get Netflix to pay you $7 billion to get the first run on the new movies and to be able to air some of the old movies as well. That's why these companies are worth what they are worth, because they have a 100-year library of movies. I would rather be them than Paramount with $89 billion in debt, just for the record. Well, and then what's going to happen if Netflix goes after them? They're not officially for sale, Sony. [1:57:43] if you want a company that's at least semi comparable to Warner brothers as a studio, not the streaming component, Sony is sitting right there. They're not for sale. They're owned by a Japanese company, but who knows? Sony and NBC universal and that kind of level. I think it's okay. I think it's like in sports. You don't have to be the Dodgers spending $700 million on salary every year. You might be okay being in the NL central and just banging out wins and playoff appearances. If that's good enough for you, then that's fine. I prefer the Dodgers.

[1:58:12] Loser, everyone that works at Warner Brothers, this is just brutal. [1:58:15] It's awful. This is like in all time. And the gut punch. They were kind of coming around to Netflix. Yeah. Netflix was saying the right things. We believe in theatrical now. And this is going to be a vertical merger. We're not going to fire everybody. We love what you do. We're going to sell to other platforms. Then boom, within 48 hours, it's like yanked away from Netflix. And all of a sudden, it's not only the Ellisons who have turned CBS into more like Fox News, [1:58:45] Warner lot do not like. And then they say, uh, [1:58:49] All of a sudden, they're going to smash together two studios and fire thousands of people. [1:58:54] Loser movie theaters. [1:58:56] Because... [1:58:57] Ellison basically said, we're going to do 30 movies over the... I don't believe that number at all. That seems aspirational. Let's just say that. Yeah, I don't believe that. I mean, Netflix tried to make 30 movies a year. And literally, you watch some of those movies, they're not even finished. They were just pumping them out to get them out because they needed that engagement machine. And to put 30 movies a year in theaters... [1:59:22] You got to have a higher bar than just kind of some of the Netflix slop. [1:59:27] It's two studios, though, so it's really 15 movies from each studio. It is, but that's more than each of those studios produces currently. Fair. [1:59:36] Winner is Zasloff. I hate making him a winner. He's going to make a crazy amount of money. It's unbelievable this worked out for him.

[1:59:42] Bill, you're going to say crazy. I'm going to say grotesque. A guy should not make $800 million off of a financial transaction that causes thousands of jobs to be lost. [1:59:55] Like, what are we doing? I know it's all about the shareholders and he delivered for the shareholders and that's where his compensation was set. If the shareholders do well, he does well. But it feels like, [2:00:09] Insane. [2:00:10] that this guy who managed the company down, down, down, and then got lucky when someone wanted to buy it, [2:00:16] can make that kind of money. [2:00:17] It's almost like a plot out of succession. [2:00:21] Absolutely. It's like a season three, season four plot where they're like, we'll buy it, we'll ruin the company, and then blah, blah, blah. [2:00:27] My last loser... [2:00:30] is the city of Los Angeles. [2:00:32] Because... [2:00:34] We're going to have a ton of people that are... [2:00:36] that are going to lose their jobs out of all this, which is terrible. [2:00:40] You have these two lots. I'm still suspicious they're going to keep both lots in the same kind of [2:00:45] Who knows what's going to happen with that? I think they'll sell one. The question is, will they sell one to Netflix? Who are they selling it to? Well, maybe. [2:00:51] Netflix has wanted the Paramount lot. So maybe Ellison will sell. This was Craig's idea on the town, by the way. It's brilliant. They should sell the Paramount lot to Netflix, have them move in, and then everybody at [2:01:03] Paramount Warner Brothers goes to Warner Brothers. [2:01:06] Interesting. [2:01:07] We found out on your pod the other day, Craig loves the Saudis. We found that on the Friday pod. Oh, he's a big Saudi fan. Pro-Saudi. Yeah. They've got to be winners here. The Saudis, if this deal goes through, we don't know what the money configuration is, but it was announced a few months ago that the Saudis, the Qataris, and the Abu Dhabians, they have funds that are in this deal. So all of a sudden, they're going to own a piece of CNN.

[2:01:33] and CBS News and all of these outlets that are pretty powerful in terms of potential propaganda. Well, they already own the Lakers, so nobody's going to care about that. No, but where Los Angeles is now, this whole decade, COVID-19. [2:01:49] Um, the Hollywood just all hell breaking loose over and over again, all the strikes, the fires, which, um, the lack of accountability basically from everybody that runs the city and the state, which has just been disgusting to watch over and over again, the coverups afterwards that people are reporting about, not even noticing. Um, I've never felt more uncertain about the future of this city. Um, yeah. [2:02:14] the city that [2:02:15] You have Netflix building an entire campus in New Jersey so they can get better tax credits and build a bunch of stuff there. And all these people bolting, these studios empty no matter. You could go to Sunset Gower. You could go to all these places that used to be packed and they're just not anymore. Nobody has a plan for any of it. [2:02:32] the governor of the state is now running for a 2028 election instead of worrying about the state he's in now. [2:02:38] And it's just the worst shape we've ever been in with all this stuff. Now on top of it, all these people are going to lose their jobs. [2:02:44] I agree with you to a point. I am I'm from Southern California and I'm old enough to remember like the late 80s, early 90s with the riots and the gang wars. Right. Where you literally I was from Orange County. You literally would not go to L.A.

[2:03:14] the economy. It's not the only driver. There's many, many different things about LA that make it what it is. But I think it's an underrated aspect of what makes LA LA is this creative class of people that come here to work in the entertainment business and that needs a boost. It needs some kind of incentive or maybe the city should declare both of these lots to be landmarks that cannot be developed so we don't get the Paramount lot turned into condos. [2:03:44] So that when this industry does come back, whether it's a new version that is AI powered or creator driven, or these studios get their acts together and there is a growth mode that they can come back and all these places can get filled with activity again. I do think it will happen. It's just cyclical. And we are in a very big down cycle right now. It's awful. I mean, they built this bridge in downtown LA that they lit up every night. They spent... [2:04:10] years and years building it. And within a year, everybody stole the copper from it. And now it doesn't light up at night. And it was like, what was all the traffic for, for five years? Like, I don't see a lot of planning and strategy with, [2:04:23] I remember when I moved here in 2002, I was a kid. [2:04:26] Um, [2:04:27] You'd meet people and you'd meet people in your kids pre-K and stuff. What do you do? Oh, I'm a writer. Oh, I'm an entertainment lawyer. Oh, I do props for movies. And everybody seemed to work in the industry somehow. And the more that these jobs and these companies push that stuff, either they're pushing to leave LA and go somewhere else.

[2:04:46] or their jobs are disappearing. I just think LA is going to lose a lot of what made it LA. It's just not the same city if that happens. I agree. But I do think things are changing. Yeah. How many people do you know that work in the podcast business? [2:05:01] A lot now. A lot. [2:05:03] A lot of those are here. [2:05:04] How many people do you know that work in the creator business? There are full-on agencies and production studios. And YouTube has a huge presence here. These are things that were not in L.A., [2:05:16] 10 years ago. So the entire notion of the business is changing. There's no pilot season anymore, although they're doing some pilots, but pilot season used to be a thing. People would move here because there were a hundred pilots of TV shows that were made between January and March every year. And it was like a boom town. That doesn't happen anymore. Every year too, by the way, it was like the NFL playoffs. You knew it was happening. You could rely. Now we don't even have upfronts. Wasn't that your idea to have a Pluto channel, [2:05:46] for Busted Pilots. Oh, yeah. [2:05:49] Yeah, I think we could still do it. Do you just play old pilots? Yeah, we could still do it. There's a million of them. [2:05:54] And you'd see big actors who were on bad pilots before they became famous. I just think we just did Fargo for rewatchables for next week. [2:06:02] And one of the tidbits was that Edie Falco was in the Fargo TV series developed the year after the movie. [2:06:08] And if it had become a TV series, she's not Carmela Soprano. [2:06:12] Amazing. Right? And it's like there's a million stories like that, and now we barely make any –

[2:06:17] TV pilots, but I think when you have... [2:06:20] Like the New Jersey thing I thought was alarming. [2:06:23] When Netflix feels like this is just better for us to do this than to stay here, that's when you know. Okay, but that... [2:06:30] But the days of Netflix building a production studio in LA, there's just not the land for that. They got a swath of land there to essentially run roughshod on whatever they wanted to do. They did the same thing in Albuquerque. We could have given them City of Industry. I still don't know what happens there. Just give them the whole place. You could. Yes, you could. But there's not the infrastructure here. There should be. I agree that there should be incentives in place here. [2:07:00] little bit with some of these production incentives. It's better than it used to be, but it's not. [2:07:04] competitive with these other places. They want it more. And they're going to get it because there's been this acceptance that people in LA will just like, they will be filled anyways. And they're not filled. These studios are not filled. It's crazy to watch what's happening. These places were packed all the time and they're just not. Well, one guy who really wanted it, David Ellison, [2:07:26] He has a chance now. He can build a huge production studio in LA if he wants. [2:07:31] where's he going to get the money he's already got a 79 million plus three percent of debt yeah billion yeah well that the other thing is they're involved peripherally with a bunch of the sports stuff too [2:07:44] These European teams, the NBA Europe League, there's all kinds of IP that can come from that.

[2:07:49] It's a, it's, [2:07:50] It's a daunting job. I don't know if he's ready for it. He certainly doesn't have the life experience or the work experience to do. [2:07:58] run anything like that, but I also don't know if anyone does. I don't know [2:08:02] Who could have done this? You're talking about Bob Iger. Listen, it's out of another era. We take it for granted these days that these CEOs and people who run Hollywood are in their 60s and 70s. But in the 80s and 90s, the people running the studios were like 32 years old. Jeffrey Gatzenberg was reinventing the Disney Animation Group when he was in his 30s. He was in his 30s, but at Paramount, he was in his 20s. And it used to be normal that you ran companies in your early 40s. Now it's less so. [2:08:32] Well, we did a good job of not talking about Trump. I'm glad for both of us. Matt Bellamy, [2:08:38] You have a Monday, Wednesday, Friday, every week and producer Craig, we keep throwing under the bus and saying he loves the Saudis, but it's fine. We share him. We share custody of Craig. The heart wants what the heart wants. And I am happy for Craig and he'll live very, he'll live in comfort for his entire life. If we were being held off a cliff, like the kids in the good son at the end and Craig was holding on to us, who does he let go? We're going to have to give him true sentiment and find out. Me, of course. I don't know. I don't know. Are you kidding? You take him everywhere. You take him to these parties. [2:09:08] I do. I do take him to parties. You put him one time because you live on the same side of LA with him. That's true. But you made him a star. You gave him a fantasy football show. He's very good at that. All right. Tony, good to see you. Thanks for all the time.

[2:09:21] Yes, thank you. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Jacoby. Thanks to Bellany. Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo as well. I'm going to be back on this feed on Thursday. Don't forget about Rewatchables. [2:09:34] Sicario, that's already up. Fargo coming next week. It's CR month. Buckle up. Hold on to your seats. Good times. I'll see you on Thursday. [2:09:51] I don't have to feel it with him. [2:09:59] with us. [2:10:01] So I. [2:10:02] Thank you. [2:10:04] 21 plus in present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus in present in D.C., Kentucky or Wyoming. Opt-in required. Rewards are non-withdrawable. Restrictions apply, including bonus and token expiration leg requirements and max wager amounts. See terms at sportsbook.fando.com. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLE or 1-800-MY-RESET. Call [redacted government id] or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. [2:10:34] line ma.org or call [redacted phone] for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 877-8-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York for Louisiana. Call [redacted phone]. [2:10:48] Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same premium wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities, so do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to do at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of $45 for three-month plan equivalent to $15 per month required. Intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available.

[2:11:18] Thank you.