A Two-Week NBA Power Poll, Plus Drake Maye, Best Candy, and Half-Baked Ideas With Kevin Wildes AI transcript and summary - episode of podcast The Bill Simmons Podcast

November 6, 2024 · 122 min read

Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (A Two-Week NBA Power Poll, Plus Drake Maye, Best Candy, and Half-Baked Ideas With Kevin Wildes) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.

Go to PodExtra AI's podcast page (The Bill Simmons Podcast) to view the AI-processed content of all episodes of this podcast.

The Bill Simmons Podcast episodes list: view full AI transcripts and summaries of this podcast on the blog

Episode: A Two-Week NBA Power Poll, Plus Drake Maye, Best Candy, and Half-Baked Ideas With Kevin Wildes

A Two-Week NBA Power Poll, Plus Drake Maye, Best Candy, and Half-Baked Ideas With Kevin Wildes

Author: The Ringer
Duration: 02:04:06

Episode Shownotes

The Ringer's Bill Simmons reveals his NBA power poll of all 30 teams through two weeks (2:11), before he is joined by FS1's Kevin Wildes to argue about Halloween candy, discuss Patrick Mahomes's MVP case, and talk about Drake Maye bliss for Patriots fans (53:43). Then they bring back an

old favorite, another edition of Half-Baked Ideas (1:25:57). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Kevin Wildes Producer: Kyle Crichton The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Summary

In this episode of 'The Bill Simmons Podcast,' Bill Simmons shares his NBA power poll, evaluating the performance of all 30 teams after two weeks, highlighting struggles with Utah's offensive issues and defensive performance from teams like Toronto and Washington. Joined by Kevin Wildes, they discuss a range of topics including Halloween candy preferences, MVP discussions for Patrick Mahomes, and excitement around quarterback Drake Maye for the Patriots. They also engage in a fan-favorite segment, 'Half-Baked Ideas,' making the episode a blend of insightful sports analysis and lighthearted fun.

Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (A Two-Week NBA Power Poll, Plus Drake Maye, Best Candy, and Half-Baked Ideas With Kevin Wildes) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.

Full Transcript

00:00:01 Speaker_02
Coming up, a two-week MBA PowerPoll plus half-baked ideas next. This episode is brought to you by SimpliSafe. With the holidays coming up, the last thing you should be worrying about is keeping your home and loved ones safe.

00:00:12 Speaker_02
So don't get peace of mind and use SimpliSafe. I have it in my house. Absolutely love it. I like the cameras. You need them for the holidays. Try out SimpliSafe today and make sure your home is safe this holiday season.

00:00:24 Speaker_02
Right now, SimpliSafe is extending its Black Friday deal for my listeners, this week only. Get 50% off any new system with a select professional monitoring plan at SimpliSafe.com slash BS. That is SimpliSafe with two I's. SimpliSafe.com slash BS.

00:00:40 Speaker_02
There's no safe like SimpliSafe. This episode is brought to you by Uber Reserve. You know, it's a game changer for travel. Booking my ride in advance to the airport with Uber Reserve. Uber Reserve makes it easy to plan my whole trip. I just did this.

00:00:55 Speaker_02
Booking rides up to 90 days in advance to help squeeze the most out of traveling, especially if you're doing odd hours, rush hours, like early in the morning, you got to do it.

00:01:05 Speaker_02
Plus with Uber Reserve, you'll get an assigned driver, you get upfront pricing, and you get extra wait time included. So go ahead, plan like a pro. Reserve your Uber ride up to 90 days in advance. See app for details.

00:01:20 Speaker_02
We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. Put up a new rewatchables on Monday night. It is the 40th anniversary, give or take a couple of weeks of Body Double, the belated Brian De Palma classic. Had such a good time on this one.

00:01:32 Speaker_02
Me, Chris Ryan, Sean Fantasy, a lot of laughs. Some lines were crossed. You can watch it on the Ringer Movies YouTube channel as well. You can watch all the clips and videos from this podcast. on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel.

00:01:47 Speaker_02
Coming up on this pod, I'm going to do a two-week NBA Power Pull. There's no games tonight, and there were 15 games last night. So, wrote down a bunch of notes. I was working on this the last two days. We're going to count down the teams from 30 to one.

00:02:02 Speaker_02
And then after that, our old friend Kevin Wilds is coming on. We're going to talk candy for actually a long time, Drake May, Patrick Mahomes, and then a heaping healthy batch of half-baked ideas.

00:02:15 Speaker_02
I want to put this up early today because I'm hoping everybody is out there voting. You can listen to this when you're in line on your headphones. on your AirPods, whatever you listen to. In my case, the Wirepods.

00:02:27 Speaker_02
Have we come up with the name of those yet? You can listen to them when you're driving to go vote, when you're taking the bus or the train to go vote. But I hope you're voting.

00:02:36 Speaker_02
And I stayed out of the election this time around on the podcast, but you know where I stand. It's the same place I stood every four years. But I thought this time around, we would keep the podcast around the stuff that people come forward for.

00:02:49 Speaker_02
And if you wanna consume politics, there's plenty of places to do it, but you know where I stand. Anyway, we're gonna bring in the PowerPoll in one second. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, I'm taping this Tuesday morning.

00:03:26 Speaker_02
There are no NBA games today, which is the perfect time to do a PowerPoll after two weeks. We did this last year. We did this the year before. Counting backwards with tiers from 30 to one, we have a nice little two-week sample size here.

00:03:40 Speaker_02
So, first category, there's only one team in it, and it's called Poop for Coop. You could also have talked me into Sag for Flag. You could have talked me into Poop Scooper for Cooper. But I think poop for coop is the right one for this.

00:03:55 Speaker_02
And this is basically just Utah. 30th offense, minus 14.4 net rating already. I don't know what's going on with this team. And I think the thing is, they know. They wanna stink.

00:04:09 Speaker_02
One of the things they're doing, they're putting a lot of eggs in the Keyante George basket, who I actually, I'm not against, like he might have potential down the road, but he has the ball a lot. He's shooting 33%, 29% from three.

00:04:22 Speaker_02
When he's out there, minus 22.3 net, and he's a young player that you're getting good reps for, so it's actually like he's probably one of the best tanking assets in the league, because maybe four years from now he'll be really good.

00:04:34 Speaker_02
There is no path for this team to be good. They're in a conference that's way better than the other conference. If you look at the standings, I think there's only two teams in the East that have an above 500 record right now.

00:04:43 Speaker_02
The West is absolutely ridiculously loaded. And Utah is the stinker in the West. So they are number 30. Next category is the pre-tankers. I think these are teams that haven't admitted yet that they wanna tank, but they'll get there.

00:05:01 Speaker_02
They're gonna get there, especially as Cooper Flagg starts looking better and better in these Duke games. Number 29, Toronto. So 29th in defense, and it feels worse. They've lost Scottie Barnes for at least three weeks.

00:05:15 Speaker_02
Rosella talked about this when we did the Over Under podcast. There's really no path for them to be good, especially defensively. I don't really know what this team is. I do know that I like Grady Dick, so you got that going.

00:05:27 Speaker_02
But I wonder, like, as the season goes along, does Jacoperto become a trade piece for them? Anyway, not a very fun team to watch, not a fan.

00:05:35 Speaker_02
Number 28, Washington, who I watched a lot of last night in the Golden State game, which they hung around, they hung around. They might've nailed the draft. House was texting me about this. This is the 2024 draft, legendarily bad.

00:05:49 Speaker_02
I don't think we have a rookie averaging 11 points a game right now. And everybody is either kind of lukewarm or kind of okay with who they picked. Washington's fired up. Saar, Bob Carrington, George, who's grown to 6'8".

00:06:04 Speaker_02
They were talking about how his growth plates, he might be able to get to 6'10". The guy averaged like seven points a game last year at Miami. But this team plays hard. Draymond called it out after the game last night.

00:06:16 Speaker_02
He just talked about that was the hardest he'd seen a Wizards team play in a while. Now that's gonna change when Kyle Kuzma comes back. Shots at Kyle, sorry. But I also like Kulibaly, I like Kispert, and there's something here.

00:06:30 Speaker_02
So this is like a very fun, bad team that I think at least has a little bit of hope, maybe get another top three pick. I'm not against this team. Number 27, Charlotte, 30th defensive rating, feels worse.

00:06:43 Speaker_02
This is a team you can catch for a quarter on league pass and they look great, but ultimately they can't stop anybody. LaMelo. Good stats, bad team, we might have to wait the five year waiting period for the Hall of Fame.

00:06:57 Speaker_02
He's putting up giant stats and the team loses and this has just been his entire career. Now, you could argue if you just switched him with Halliburton in Indiana, could he be really good on the Pacers?

00:07:07 Speaker_02
Probably, but I'm just, from a results standpoint, it has not been great for him. And then the last team, number 26 in the pre-tankers, the Atlanta Hawks. Oh no, they can't tank, they don't have their pick.

00:07:21 Speaker_02
Yikes, I really like this team on opening night. Since then they've lost Bogdanovich, they lost Hunter, they lost Buffkin. They basically lost a lot of their wings, which I think is what made them interesting.

00:07:34 Speaker_02
And they also are having Trae Young's worst year ever. Like all his shooting stats have been awful. I still kind of like this team.

00:07:41 Speaker_02
I wanna see when everybody comes back, but the problem for them is there's, you could say if they had their number one pick, it'd be like, oh shit, well, let's zag the other way, but you can't zag when you don't have a pick, so.

00:07:52 Speaker_02
They're in the pre-tanker category without a first round pick, I don't know what to tell you. Next category, potentially frisky, probably harmless. Portland, number 25. They have size, they have wings who can create shots,

00:08:09 Speaker_02
They have Scoot who is starting to go downhill a little bit more. Russel and I, this is probably one third of our tax because I think we own all the Scoot stock at this point.

00:08:21 Speaker_02
It's like a dollar stock, but he looks better than he did last year and they kind of need him. I'm not against this team. I actually kind of like watching them. I think they've been a really strong league pass team on the West Coast.

00:08:35 Speaker_02
28th on offense, feels like that could be better, so we'll see. They'll probably end up tanking one more time, but there's some pieces here, and there's some trade bay pieces too, plus Robert Williams coming back.

00:08:45 Speaker_02
Number 24, Detroit beat the Lakers last night. Good news for them, they have a coach that's not in a coma, so that's a bonus. Cade and Ivy averaging almost 43 points a game, and this team rebounds. They're out-rebounding teams by seven a game.

00:09:00 Speaker_02
They were kinda standing up to the Lakers physically last night, and they legitimately beat the Lakers. I didn't even think Detroit played amazing, I just think they had a deeper team with some size.

00:09:12 Speaker_02
Even though Davis went off, they still won the game. Detroit's interesting, because Tobias hasn't shot well yet. I think he's shooting like 18% from three.

00:09:19 Speaker_02
So I'm watching them because that's like a night-to-night, they're like a 10-point underdog against whoever and they win the game. There's something dangerous about them. And Cade's been good, but he's still at five turnovers a game.

00:09:33 Speaker_02
I feel like there's another level for him. I kind of like Detroit. Chicago, number 23. This has been a league pass revelation. They are first in pace. They were 28th last year. They just pushed the ball and shoot threes.

00:09:47 Speaker_02
They're 43.1, three point shots a game. They're making over 16. They're shooting 38%. Levine is averaging 22 a game, 50, 46, 82 percentages, and just dying for somebody to panic trade for them. Maybe it'll be the Lakers.

00:10:04 Speaker_02
On the flip side, somebody is scoring 70 points on them this year. And I don't know who it is, there's about nine candidates, but they're gonna give up a 70 point game this year because they can't stop anything. But I kinda like how they play.

00:10:15 Speaker_02
They play like one of those European Olympic teams that just pushes the ball, that has a center that can pass and create shots, and they can do small ball lineups. I've enjoyed the Bulls, thumbs up.

00:10:28 Speaker_02
Good to see Josh Giddey finally on a team that's given him the car keys a little bit too. Number 22, the biggest surprise of the season, Brooklyn.

00:10:35 Speaker_02
Now, House and I went over for them 18 and a half wins before the season because we thought they had a lot of competent basketball players and as the season has unfolded here for two weeks,

00:10:48 Speaker_02
Schroeder, Claxton, Cam Thomas is like 27 a game, Cam Johnson, Finney Smith, the 20 minutes of Simmons a game, like they're actually a little too confident.

00:10:59 Speaker_02
And you think about the trades that they made before the year where they got their own pick back and it seemed like there was this whole tanking plan. I don't know what they're gonna do now, because the East just isn't good.

00:11:11 Speaker_02
Like we have, you know, seven, eight teams, and then it's like this massive drop-off to everybody else, and there's gonna be a playing team that's like, all right, fine, we'll make the play-in. It might be Brooklyn. Schroeder's playing great.

00:11:24 Speaker_02
Schroeder is a legitimate trade asset. I think he's at 12 million. He's a fun one for a bunch of different teams. I would've said Orlando, but I kinda want them to just ride with Anthony Black. Anyway, could they package Schroeder and Finney Smith

00:11:37 Speaker_02
to the Lakers for the DLO contract, Christian Wood, something else, and get one of those first round picks from the Lakers that they're still hoarding, they probably could. Would that be a good trade for the Lakers? It actually would be.

00:11:50 Speaker_02
I'll get to that later. But Brooklyn at 22, and you could make a case they should be higher because I have some teams that have been playing awful ahead of them. Number 21, the last team in this group, San Antonio,

00:12:01 Speaker_02
28th offensive rating, ninth on defense. The when beyond off stats are like genuinely hilarious. I think they're like, it's like a plus 40 swing or something crazy. They're shooting 32% from three. Devon Vassell has been out.

00:12:15 Speaker_02
Sohan made a little mini-leap now that they're not forcing him to bring the ball up. I'm not sure what this team is yet, but defensively, I don't know. They're not nothing. They blew a huge lead to the Clippers last night.

00:12:27 Speaker_02
I haven't loved what I've seen from Wembley this year, and he doesn't really seem any different to me from last year. And I was talking to Termini and Eddie about this on their serious show the other day.

00:12:36 Speaker_02
It just feels like he's too far from the basket again.

00:12:39 Speaker_02
And last year they rectified this in the, like basically the last two months of the season, they just had him around the basket more, where he can use his size, his length, his long arms, his Freddy Krueger arms, and just kind of be around the rim.

00:12:51 Speaker_02
And this year, they seem like they've doubled down on making him more of a ball hitter, and I don't like it. So, Chris Paul, not washed. I can't say he's the point guard anymore, but not terrible.

00:13:08 Speaker_02
We'll see whether he makes sense for them or somebody else, but the West is so good, it's probably gonna make sense for them to try to tank and do one more tanking session. All right, the next category is fantastic.

00:13:19 Speaker_02
There's five teams in it, and it's called panic time with three exclamation points. It's not just panic time, it's panic time with three exclamation points. Number 20, New Orleans.

00:13:32 Speaker_03
But just guys keep getting hurt.

00:13:35 Speaker_02
Murphy's been out the whole year, Herb Jones got hurt, CJ's out. Not the worst thing in the world, because now it's Jordan Hawkins' time, and I like Jordan Hawkins, even though he's not good on defense.

00:13:45 Speaker_02
But Missy's not bad as a center, but they still need a center, and they have Ingram doing an amazing trade bait season, where he's basically 24 a night.

00:13:56 Speaker_02
He's borderline 50-40-90 guy, and he's an expiring contract, and somebody will talk themselves into him, because it doesn't seem like they want to pay him.

00:14:05 Speaker_02
I guess the big, and it's early, it's two weeks, but the thing that's concerning to me is Zion year five. Is it year five? Year five, year six? Can't even remember how many years it's been in a week. Field goal percentage is rough.

00:14:21 Speaker_02
Remember he was like a 60% field goal guy. So last three years 61%, last year 57%, and this year he's 44%. And his shot's just not going in. And I actually thought he would be a better scorer. As his career aged, he seemed like he was in good shape.

00:14:37 Speaker_02
So I'm just watching that, it's early. In general, super early with New Orleans. They have a bunch of trade possibilities. Year six for Zions, it reminds me. They have a bunch of picks and things they can do.

00:14:53 Speaker_02
The problem in the West is it might make more sense for them to punt on the year if they fall way behind with all these injuries. We'll see what happens. Not counting them out yet. Milwaukee, number 19. They're tied for the worst record in the league.

00:15:06 Speaker_02
They're one and six. Their over under has dropped to 45 and a half on FanDuel. And I watched their last two games closely against the Cavs, including last night where they did not have Giannis. They're basically the Midwest Lakers.

00:15:22 Speaker_02
They have an awesome big man. They have an aging offensive star who doesn't play defense. They have nobody else on the team who can play defense. And they have no bench. And unlike the Lakers, there's no fixes.

00:15:36 Speaker_02
Because if you look at what they can do, they can trade Dame, I guess. They have Connaughton and Portis at 22 million combined for this year and next year. And Portis has been really bad this year. The net rating stats with him are terrible.

00:15:50 Speaker_02
The eye test, defensively, he's really hurting them. And that's really all they can do is package those guys together with, I don't even know what, because they don't have any picks left.

00:16:02 Speaker_02
I keep thinking about Doc, who is in such a great spot here in LA. He was coming on my podcast, he was playing golf, he was doing TV, great times.

00:16:12 Speaker_02
And then Giannis got dangled in front of him, and he jumped at it, and he's on this team that I don't see any conceivable way this team is a contender. I felt that way fairly strongly before the year, except for the Giannis piece.

00:16:26 Speaker_02
Giannis has been awesome, and they're one and six. I don't see a fix. Defensively, we've talked about it already in this pod, but it's an atrocious defensive team. You look at every night after night after night after night. Last night it was Garland.

00:16:41 Speaker_02
Garland was getting whatever he wanted. They had no chance. They're playing guys in crunch time that would not even play for the Celtics or the Thunder. So I don't know what the fix is. I'm not counting out anything with Giannis yet.

00:16:53 Speaker_02
That's why I have him 19 and not 28 or 27 where they should be. Really rough, really rough with no fixes. And Doc, come back to the podcast. Just move back to L.A. Make believe this was like a dream sequence on The Sopranos. Just come back.

00:17:10 Speaker_02
Get out of there. Number 18, the L.A. Clippers. I saw these guys on Saturday night. They played Oklahoma City, they played really well for about a quarter and a half, two quarters.

00:17:22 Speaker_02
And unfortunately for them, OKC is just a ridiculous beast of a team where they bring in their bench and their bench is Alex Caruso and Kason Wallace. And those are their defensive guards coming off the bench.

00:17:37 Speaker_02
So poor Hardin, who is having a great season, like for him. He's averaging almost a triple-double. He's 21-9-10. Three-point shots down to below 30%. And he's on a team that has no chance to do anything, but he's having a great time.

00:17:51 Speaker_02
He has the ball all the time. He's with Norm Powell, who's somehow averaging 25 points a game, not sure that's sustainable.

00:17:58 Speaker_02
But you go against a team like OKC and you realize what a chasm it is, where the Clippers, where they are without Kawhi, versus teams like the Celtics and OKC and Cleveland, these teams that have really good starting fives and depth, and the Clippers are a million miles away.

00:18:15 Speaker_02
I still don't understand why they didn't sign Paul George.

00:18:18 Speaker_02
Um, I, when you go into that arena, the amount of money they spent, which it just seems like one of those like crazy mansions you see in the Rob report where you're like, wow, that guy spent $200 million on a house.

00:18:30 Speaker_02
That's what thought bomber did with that arena. And yet Paul George, he was like, ah, too rich for my blood. Doesn't really make sense. This team has no path.

00:18:39 Speaker_02
It was weird seeing Kawhi there on the, uh, on the bench, just kind of being like, Hey guys, go get them. And I don't see a path for him to be an All-NBA player anymore. It just seems like there's been too many knee injuries.

00:18:55 Speaker_02
So anyway, the biggest problem with them just as a night-to-night team, because they're really good defensively when they wanna be, but their starting lineup's terrible. Nobody can create a shot for anyone else except for Harden.

00:19:08 Speaker_02
And they're not a very good three point shooting team either. 12 for 34 basically every game for the season. So this is going to be a lottery team.

00:19:16 Speaker_02
I had them under 37 and a half wins in the over under as a lock and I still feel good about that because I do not see enough talent on this team. Number 17, sadly Orlando. I would have had them number six before the Palo injury, just a huge bummer.

00:19:33 Speaker_02
They're saying four to six weeks, which in NBA speak means two months. that ruins his all NBA chances, because he's not going to play enough games.

00:19:42 Speaker_02
I think it also ruins their chance to be a top three seed, which they absolutely positively would have been. No question. now offensively they're challenged. And I guess if you're gonna spin into a positive, no palo means, hey Franz, let's see it.

00:19:57 Speaker_02
Step up. Can you be a crunch time guy near the end of games? Anthony Black, can you create some shots in the fourth quarter? Suggs, how much is in there? I mean, I have Suggs. Suggs to me is now a top 50 guy. Like we're handing in Ringer 100 next week.

00:20:12 Speaker_02
I don't know how high Suggs is gonna be, but he is in that 40 to 50 range at least. He's probably the best defensive guard in the league.

00:20:20 Speaker_02
And offensively, he's gotten better every year and he's, I think, 18 points a game and creating offense for them sometimes. So could they patch something together that would give them confidence when Paolo comes back? Maybe.

00:20:34 Speaker_02
I was thinking, speaking of Suggs, the 2021 redraft, if you're gonna do it. Just quickly, this would probably have been a better podcast, but I'm just gonna go quick, because I was like, where would Suggs go if they redrafted that draft?

00:20:46 Speaker_02
Mobley, I think, is still first. And I'm not just saying that because I'm over leveraged with Evan Mobley's stock. He's been awesome this year for him. Cade, I think, has to be second. And I have Suggs third. Suggs was the fifth pick in the draft.

00:21:00 Speaker_02
I think he goes three if we do it again. Jalen Johnson, I have fourth. Shengun's fifth, he went 16th in the draft. Jalen Johnson went 20. So those would be the top five. Then I got Scottie.

00:21:13 Speaker_02
Trey Murphy, Franz, Herb Jones, Jalen Greene, that's three year run of putting Herb Jones ahead of Jalen Greene for me, and then Josh Giddey. I think that would be the redraft. Now people would argue with the Jalen Greene part, maybe put him up.

00:21:30 Speaker_02
And I'm willing to accept that argument. I wanna see a couple more weeks because that Houston team, as we'll get to after the break, is still trying to figure out what they're doing. Anyway, the point is,

00:21:40 Speaker_02
I think if we're doing that draft again, Suggs would be third, because he's that good, and he's been that important to them, and he's that unusual as a player. I mean, could he be the third best player on the title team? I think he could.

00:21:50 Speaker_01
Number 16, the Lakers. 25th defensive rating. I left the Detroit game last night thinking, how do we get Anthony Davis more help?

00:22:01 Speaker_02
It was a joke. D'Lo, Reeves, LeBron, Rui, and Davis as your crunch time team. Good luck getting stops. If you're a wing or a point guard, it's much like the Milwaukee situation. You're scoring on everybody that team has. And

00:22:25 Speaker_02
Really the reason, I mean they beat Phoenix twice because Davis just owns Nerkidge and both of those games are pretty close, but the real reason their record isn't as bad as I think it probably should be considering their bench is so bad that JJ could become a player coach like what we used to have in the 1970s and he'd probably be like the eighth man on the team.

00:22:47 Speaker_02
The reason their record is better than maybe it should be, and maybe the eye test says that they're a little better than I think they are, is they just shoot a ton of free throws.

00:22:58 Speaker_02
They're shooting almost 10 free throws attempts more than their opponents. 9.7 to be exact. For the season, 207 free throw attempts to 132.

00:23:09 Speaker_02
I'm positive they don't go to the rim that much more than everybody else, but that's part of what happens when you're the Lakers, and you have LeBron on your team and you're 22, you're gonna get some calls.

00:23:19 Speaker_02
But with the free throw attempt luck that they've had, if you wanna call it luck, you could also call it something else. I think the fact that they're basically a 500 team, Not a great sign for the Lakers.

00:23:33 Speaker_02
And this is another, much like Milwaukee, what's the fix? You hope Jared Vanderbilt comes back. That's not gonna help them with three-point shooting.

00:23:42 Speaker_02
Rui, I've been saying this, especially after the first two games when Rui looked really good and all the Laker fans were like, oh, Rui, oh, Rui! Rue is trick or treat. That's just who he is.

00:23:52 Speaker_02
Rue is the same guy who will go one for five in a game like he did last night. That's just who he is. He's in his mid-20s now. He's been in the league for a few years. That's who he is. You just gotta accept it.

00:24:05 Speaker_02
The defense, the health of LeBron in year 22, can he play 70 games? Davis fell down last night, it looked like he was gonna be out, then he got back up. But I still, they over under was 42 and a half. JJ is definitely a better coach than Darbenham.

00:24:22 Speaker_02
They might need to start playing connect more, that's not gonna help with their defense, but at least it'll help them with the shooting. They still have a D-low trade to make, which I'm sure we'll be getting passive aggressive hints about fairly soon.

00:24:35 Speaker_02
I have it on my calendar for November 15th. But to me, they just seem pretty far away from the best teams in the league at this point. So that's what I have. That's the top 15.

00:24:48 Speaker_02
We're gonna take a break and we're gonna come back with the rest of the list. The NBA is back and FanDuel is America's number one sports book. They want you to catch all the action right now. FanDuel giving everyone three months of NBA League Pass.

00:25:04 Speaker_02
All you have to do to catch every tip-off and buzzer beater is to place a $5 bet on the NBA. And it could be any $5 bet. You could say to yourself, you know what, I'm kind of enjoying how frisky Brooklyn is. Start of the season, that's too many points.

00:25:19 Speaker_02
Just grab Brooklyn plus 10 against a better team and watch. crunch time, all of a sudden they're kind of lingering around there. I have enjoyed a bunch of these teams, especially watching, is Cleveland real? Are they a contender?

00:25:32 Speaker_02
Well, we're gonna find out. You can bet on them, you can throw them in a parlay. Next time you get a hunch on who's gonna win or how many points a player will score, watch your picks come to live, live.

00:25:42 Speaker_02
Just visit fando.com slash bs and get three months of NBA league pass, courtesy of Fando. of FanDuel, once again, fanduel.com slash BS. Make every moment more with FanDuel, an official Sportsbook partner of the NBA.

00:25:56 Speaker_02
You must be 21 plus and president of select states or 18 plus and president of DC. After three month free trial, the full price of League Pass will be automatically charged monthly. Cancel any time, no refunds. Terms, restrictions, and embargoes apply.

00:26:09 Speaker_02
Limit one pass per customer. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. This episode is brought to you by State Farm.

00:26:20 Speaker_02
State Farm helps you score an affordable price when you choose to bundle home and auto insurance with the personal price plan. Bundling home and auto, that's a pro move. Just another way you can save on your insurance needs.

00:26:32 Speaker_02
Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can bundle and save with the personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer.

00:26:48 Speaker_02
Availability, amount of discounts and savings, and eligibility vary by state. Coming back from a break. So Rudy said that during the break that the Scotty Barnes fans are gonna be mad that I had Suggs over him in a redraft. And you know what?

00:27:03 Speaker_02
I put real thought into it and I'd rather have Suggs. Sorry, I think Suggs is a winning player. We'll see with Scotty Barnes. He might be, but I haven't seen him yet. All right, the top 15. This tier is called Feeling It Out.

00:27:16 Speaker_02
And I'm not even sure what we're feeling. But we have number 15, the Miami Heat. They beat Washington and Charlotte and Detroit. Congratulations. I think it's very possible they're the good bad team, much like the Denver Broncos.

00:27:35 Speaker_02
I said this on Termini and Eddie's show, and I genuinely believe it. I think it's over for these guys. I think the league just got better and they stayed the same. And I watched them and they don't seem that special.

00:27:50 Speaker_02
Defensively, I don't think they seem like, you know, really good or anything. Crunch time, I always feel like the guy on the other team has just as good of a chance of scoring whoever the best guy is that they're playing as the guys that they have.

00:28:04 Speaker_02
And they just seem like they missed their window, which was a great window, by the way. They made the finals in 2020. They made the finals in 2023. They had a really nice four-year run. They battled Boston. This was great. But now Butler's 35.

00:28:21 Speaker_02
They put a lot of eggs in the Jovich basket. I'm not seeing it. There's panic trades to make. Would Milwaukee accept Hero and Duncan Robinson in a pick for Dame tomorrow? They probably would. But I don't see it with them.

00:28:40 Speaker_02
And I don't think that's a controversial opinion. I just feel like they're at a different phase of whatever journey they're on. They're gonna be mentioned in the honest a ton. Get ready for that machine to start.

00:28:54 Speaker_02
And basically that would be, Adubayo would have to be in the trade. plus picks, and you know, is that a better situation than the one Giannis is in now? If Bam's in the trade, I don't know.

00:29:07 Speaker_02
But I think this team's gonna be a lot of trade rumors, and I'm gonna be really interested to see if Butler's on this team in February, because if I had to bet, I would say it's 50-50, and I would probably bet on no. We will see. Memphis, number 14.

00:29:23 Speaker_02
This is a classic feeling it out team. You know, Jha's not even playing 30 minutes a game yet. Last night he had a couple Jha highlight real plays that only he can do.

00:29:35 Speaker_02
I think he's ready to take his corner back from Edwards as the most beloved under 26 American guy in the league. Their 10th offensive rating.

00:29:44 Speaker_02
They lucked out again, but it's not luck, because Memphis keeps doing this, but Scottie Pippen Jr., who I saw in person last year when I took my daughter to an absolutely terrible Celtics-Grizzlies game, and Scottie Pippen Jr.

00:29:57 Speaker_02
just looked like an NBA player, and that kind of filed it away. I was like, hmm, that's interesting. He's turned into a legitimately good backup player, and then Huff,

00:30:06 Speaker_02
who I'd never heard of, and I watched the NBA every night, and I barely remember that he was in Denver last year, and they've turned him into a really good backup pick. Hard to believe the Nuggets didn't have use for him.

00:30:18 Speaker_02
Somebody get Calvin Booth some coffee. We'll see, Bain is hurt, Smart's hurt. Now, Smart was 23% field goal, 17% from three before he got hurt, and looked slow and doughy to me.

00:30:33 Speaker_02
We'll see if he's at a different point in his career, because I have a feeling he is, but maybe they have three, four months to ramp him up and get him where they need him to be.

00:30:41 Speaker_02
This team, you could pick any direction for them, and I would believe it. You could tell me they're never gonna get their shit together, you could tell me they're gonna win 49 games, I'll believe anything. Pretty fun league pass team, though.

00:30:53 Speaker_02
All their games seem to be close. I don't think they're the same defensively as they used to be, but we'll see when they get everybody back. The last feeling it out team is Philadelphia. So Paul George came back last night against the suns.

00:31:07 Speaker_02
and some really interesting crunch time stuff with them, because the Suns couldn't stop Maxie, and then in the last four minutes, Maxie just never had the ball.

00:31:17 Speaker_02
Yabasele took a few shots in a row, and then the biggest shot of the game, Paul George took, and it was a contested 21-footer, and of course he missed it, and I think he was four for 14 for the game, and I was watching Maxie's body language just standing on the side as Paul George decided the game, and he was kind of like, what the fuck is going on?

00:31:36 Speaker_02
It made me think when Embiid comes back, that's going to be even more notable with what happens there. I was thinking about Philly a lot before this season. I meant to say this on the Over Under pod and I didn't.

00:31:49 Speaker_02
But when you put three guys together like this, there has to be some sort of sacrifice in place with the three, right? Now, think about the 2008 Celtics as a good example, not to bring the Celtics into this. I swear I wasn't looking for an excuse.

00:32:03 Speaker_02
But go back and read anything about that team that year. You can watch the documentary we have coming in six months, five months, four months, whatever it is. KG, Paul Pearce, Ray Allen.

00:32:19 Speaker_02
And Doc brought him in, and Doc was like, you guys are gonna have to sacrifice. You don't all get to shoot 20 shots a game anymore.

00:32:25 Speaker_02
They were all at the point of their career that they were ready to make sacrifices because they'd all done a bunch of great stuff on their own, right? Paul Pierce had been the best player in the Celtics for almost a decade. He'd averaged 26 a game.

00:32:37 Speaker_02
Ray Allen had almost made the finals in 2001, and it got rudely taken from him by the refs and David Stern. We don't have to talk about that now. But he had been a real guy on his own and had plenty of shots.

00:32:49 Speaker_02
Garnett had been an MVP in Minnesota in 2004, and just wanted to win. And all those guys were at the point in their career where they wanted to give up something.

00:32:59 Speaker_02
So you look at the Sixers team, you could argue Paul George is at that point in his career, right? He's been on a bunch of good teams, he's been close, maybe that's somebody who will sacrifice. And Bede, no comment.

00:33:14 Speaker_02
And then Maxie is the one that's interesting, because when you're asking three guys to sacrifice and be, all right, this game, you're going to be the one that stands on the side. You're going to be the one that only shoots 12 times.

00:33:25 Speaker_02
Maxie doesn't know who he is as a player yet. He doesn't know how good he is yet. For all he knows, he might be one of the 10 best players in the league a year from now, and he's just blossoming and figuring out Like, what is the ceiling?

00:33:39 Speaker_02
How many floors does this go up? And now you're asking him to sacrifice, and he's sacrificing something that he hasn't even achieved yet.

00:33:48 Speaker_02
So I'm just flagging it, because when you're asking young players who haven't hit their potential yet, and he's a special player, I think he's the most beloved Sixer, I don't think there's any question.

00:34:00 Speaker_02
I think if you're asking Sixers fans, protect one person on this team, they'd pick Maxey. And he's still figuring out who he is as a player. So from a sacrifice element, that's the main thing I'm watching.

00:34:12 Speaker_02
You're asking three guys to sacrifice and they're not at the right point in their careers as a threesome yet. The supporting cast, Yabasele I think was a good signing. I like Caleb Martin.

00:34:25 Speaker_02
Not willing to rule this team out, especially when there's only two above 500 East teams right now. The Embiid thing is just gonna be a soap opera all season, and they weren't honest about it before the year.

00:34:35 Speaker_02
There had been rumors, and they weren't even rumors, because people were telling me this in September, that his knee wasn't right. So we'll see. He's had a bunch of surgeries, he's had a bunch of things happen to him, and I just don't think

00:34:48 Speaker_02
you can count on him week to week as a reliable person who's gonna be in the rotation. It only matters in the playoffs, but I also think this is what the Clippers did with Kawhi for four years and it never worked out. So we'll see how it goes.

00:35:00 Speaker_02
But I'm really interested in the sacrifice piece of it. I was thinking about it last night as Maxie's just standing there on the side watching Paul George. And Maxie's probably thinking, this should be my team. We'll see how it plays out.

00:35:12 Speaker_02
Next category, trust the process. Number 12, Sacramento. Fifth in offensive rating, even though they're only 33% from three. This is a team, you watch them at the end of games and they almost have too many crunch time options, right?

00:35:29 Speaker_02
Malik Monk, they have Fox, and now they have DeRozan. All three guys I really like with the ball, with like a minute left in a one-point game. So they have to navigate that piece.

00:35:39 Speaker_02
They also, I don't love their bench, even though Herter's playing better this year. Lyles, Lynn, McDermott, it just feels like a six-man team, and that's depending on how you feel about Ellis.

00:35:50 Speaker_02
But they missed on Davion Mitchell in 2021 with the ninth pick, and then they took Carter 13th, in June and he's not coming back till some point in the winter. But it feels like they're a guy short. They have picks, they have things to trade.

00:36:07 Speaker_02
I'm watching them. That's a possible trade partner for Brooklyn or any of these other teams that have some sort of veteran between like nine million and 18 million. Utah's another one with Clarkson and Sexton. We'll see what they do.

00:36:20 Speaker_02
Number 11, I have Indiana, who has the 25th defensive rating, and is just getting a weird Halliburton season. He looked more like himself last night against Dallas, he had a 24 and 12.

00:36:31 Speaker_02
You think last year, the first 31 games of the year, he was 24 and 13, 50% shooting, 41% from three, and was probably the most fun guard in the league. And then he got hurt, and never really came back. And this year, before the Dallas game last night,

00:36:49 Speaker_02
He was 33%, 24% from three, 14 and seven. And it was worse than that because if you watched it, it didn't seem like he had the same confidence in his legs. It didn't seem like he was going downhill the same way.

00:37:03 Speaker_02
It didn't, that crazy 25 foot three point shot that he would take that always went in last year. It didn't seem like he even thought I was going in this year.

00:37:11 Speaker_02
So, um, you know, I'm not panicking about him yet, but it's notable that, uh, he hasn't been that good because Matherin came back 16 points a game for him and is a crunch time guy. Nisman just got hurt.

00:37:25 Speaker_02
Uh, not sure when he's coming back, but I'd still believe in these guys. I have an 11th, but really only because we haven't seen them all healthy yet. They had a couple of bench guys go down.

00:37:38 Speaker_02
I still believe in these guys and I still think night to night, they're scary to play and they know who they are. They have an identity. They beat the Celtics in OT already. So 11 seems right for them. 10th, Houston.

00:37:49 Speaker_02
Ninth in offense, 10 in defense for the ratings. They're shooting 43s a game, they're only making 32%, partly because Van Vliet has kind of sucked this year. He's 28% from three. I'm not positive he should be in their best lineup.

00:38:05 Speaker_02
You could talk me into them just going bigger and just playing, having Jalen Green bring the ball up when there's four minutes left and just go with wings and size. It's a really interesting team to coach.

00:38:16 Speaker_02
And I don't think Udoka knows who his guys are yet. And he's been experimenting, like Shengun, I think he played only 21 minutes in the Warriors game. Last night he played a bunch. He seems like he really likes...

00:38:31 Speaker_02
Eason and Ahman Thompson, and guess what? Join the club, because I really like those guys too. Those guys are hard to keep out of the game in crunch time because of the defense and the versatility and the athleticism.

00:38:44 Speaker_02
Ahman Thompson, I threw him in a butler trade if they want to do a three for one like, I don't know, a week ago. I'd like to recant that. He might be a top 40 trade value guy for me at this point.

00:38:57 Speaker_02
I'm not sure what their, what the version of their best team is yet.

00:39:01 Speaker_02
And whether they need to turn Brooks and Cam Wentmore and I don't know what else and to end some picks into one more awesome piece or whether they just ride it this year because they're not going to win the title. They're a top five league pass team.

00:39:16 Speaker_02
Whitmore had a DNP on Monday night, which I thought was notable, because I feel like they could get something for him.

00:39:22 Speaker_02
I think he could really help somebody off the bench, but this is a team that has different looks night to night, and I think they might be the league-past MVP for me. I never know who's finishing games for them. Shengun might have a 30-20 any night.

00:39:36 Speaker_02
Jalen Greene might have 40 points any night. Every time Reed Shepard's in, I'm mesmerized. because he's basically Mark Price on the 1991 Cavaliers back. Really like this Houston team. They're in a great spot. Congratulations, Houston fans.

00:39:52 Speaker_02
Number nine, last person in this trust the process category, last team, is Denver. So, You know, there's been a lot of KCP stuff this first couple weeks. Brown's been good. Their starting lineup is plus 14.9 net.

00:40:07 Speaker_02
It's been their bench that's killing them. The fact that the Westbrook was pretty good last night playing for Murray. The bench hasn't been good enough. And then Murray's just not the same guy. And that's it.

00:40:19 Speaker_02
We could talk about the bench, we could talk about the league getting better, but Murray in the 2023 playoffs was 26 a game, 47% field goal, 40% three, 7.1 assists, and this year he's 16 points a game, 4.4 assists, 37%, 30% from three.

00:40:36 Speaker_02
And ITest backs it up. He just looks slower, he has trouble getting a shot off, and that's the guy to watch. Because if he's not back to 2023 Murray by April, this team has no chance of winning the title, no matter how good Jokic is.

00:40:51 Speaker_02
Next category, the sleeper. So this was my hardest one in the PowerPool. Golden State, who I think you could argue probably should be in the top five with how they've looked. And I just, I don't wanna shoot my wad on that one yet.

00:41:07 Speaker_02
They got Boston, Cleveland, OKC as their next three games. Not great. That's probably one of the all-time gauntlets you're gonna have in a regular season this decade.

00:41:17 Speaker_02
Their second in defensive rating, which is something Steve Kerr was talking about a lot in the preseason, that he really liked how this team was defending. They're playing Draymond with TJD a little bit.

00:41:29 Speaker_02
He played 12 guys the first couple games, which I don't know if that was a trade bait thing or what the plan was with that. As you know, I'm morally opposed to 12 man rotations, but I think he kind of wanted to see what he had.

00:41:41 Speaker_02
Almost treated it like a college team. The big thing for them is the buddy healed in the clay spot has been amazing. He's 22 a game in 25.5 minutes, making five threes a game.

00:41:53 Speaker_02
For all-time heat check seasons, the pantheon all-time heat check season ever was John Drew in 1983, averaging 21.2 points a game in 27 minutes.

00:42:05 Speaker_02
one of my favorites, Freeman Williams of 1980, 18.6 points a game and 25.8 minutes, but he's 22 and 25 and a half minutes, which might be as close as we've gotten to minutes and points for anyone playing under 27 a game, but they've unleashed him.

00:42:21 Speaker_02
I think they really believe in him. The shooting coach was his coach for the Bahamas, and they've just basically running all the clay stuff for him, and it's going great. Curry came back. This team's better than I thought it was gonna be.

00:42:34 Speaker_02
I think I went over, didn't do a lock or anything, but with their depth, which you need in the regular season, I think this team, this is a high 40s team. I think they have a lot of options and they have courage.

00:42:45 Speaker_02
Okay, next category, definitely lurking. So we have four teams in here. Number seven is the Knicks. This is weird. Third offensive rating, 19th defensive rating. Fifth overall.

00:43:01 Speaker_02
I don't know if you saw Townes last week, but he eviscerated Bam out of bio and it was notable. And I don't know if there was a history with those guys or what was happening, but he absolutely destroyed them.

00:43:14 Speaker_02
That plus the Townes Brunson high screen, which I think is probably a top five unstoppable NBA player right now.

00:43:22 Speaker_02
I don't really know what you do, because you basically have to settle for town shooting from 25 feet wide open, because you don't want to have Brunson basically attacking your big guy. That plays great. I love how Townsend's fit in. Their bench sucks.

00:43:36 Speaker_02
Their 7, 8, 9, 10 right now is Payne, Sims, Dadier, and Huckporty. I know the Knicks fans are like, well, we got Butcher Robinson coming back. Well, he gets hurt every year. The big thing for me is what was the point of the Bridges trade?

00:43:51 Speaker_02
For all the stuff they gave up, which I know they had to, but they gave up a fucking shitload for him. And then when you watch the Knicks play, he's basically Nikhil Alexander Walker on the side.

00:44:04 Speaker_02
And for what they gave up for him, for how kind of little they use him, it's kind of shocking. Like he's like a 15 points a game guy. He just stands in the corner on crunch time. I thought he would be way more involved with their offense.

00:44:17 Speaker_02
And you think like Vianas is really going to be available over these next couple of weeks, months. They shot their wad on this bridges package and they could have just done the towns thing.

00:44:32 Speaker_02
They could've kept everything else they had and kinda waited, but they went all in. I defended it last summer, it made sense to me, but I also thought they'd use Bridges as more than just like this complimentary player.

00:44:44 Speaker_02
So maybe it's gotta sort itself out, but I'm just watching that, because he just seems irrelevant sometimes for them, and I don't like it. So if you're gonna give up that many picks for somebody, maybe use him. Number six, Minnesota.

00:44:59 Speaker_02
Minus 0.4 net, 18th defense. Edwards has been the story because of all the threes he's taken, which by the way, if he's gonna take 12 threes a game and make 43% of them, knock yourself out. I like how Randles looked offensively for them.

00:45:13 Speaker_02
He's almost 23 a game. It's a little clumsy sometimes, but their defense is obviously worse. One of the reasons it's worse is McDaniels is basically unplayable. He's sucked since the Dallas series.

00:45:26 Speaker_02
McDaniels, DeFrancisco, and Conley are basically at 30% shooting threes this year, and that's why I think they haven't looked like maybe we thought they'd look yet.

00:45:37 Speaker_02
But I'm watching the McDaniels thing, because they gave him an extension, and Alexander Walker's just outplaying him. So is he a possible trade piece for them? Can they get him going?

00:45:47 Speaker_02
But this started in the playoffs last year, and it hasn't gotten better.

00:45:50 Speaker_02
And you think like one of the reasons their defense looked like one of the best defenses in the last 20 years in the first rounds of the playoffs was because the size of Townsend Gobert and then what McDaniels and Edwards were able to do together.

00:46:02 Speaker_02
And now McDaniels is in a complete funk. So watch out for that one. Number five is Phoenix.

00:46:10 Speaker_02
Somehow only a 16th offensive rating, which doesn't make sense when you're watching them because KD and Booker and Beal are almost nine threes a game, 42% from three. KD's 27 a game, 55% shooting. His crunch time stuff is as good as it's ever been.

00:46:28 Speaker_02
It's unbelievable. I mean, he was in the 2007 draft. I think everybody from that draft is gone except for Horford and Conley who are like role players at this point. KD's like beating double teams off the dribble and he's going by whoever he wants.

00:46:43 Speaker_02
He's been awesome. I think he's, he might be, it's him and Tatum I think as the MVP through two weeks just because of how much they've meant to their teams and how good they've been. So it turns out having a point guard helps.

00:46:58 Speaker_02
Who could've guessed, we only had 77 years of basketball history there. They now get fast breaks, they now get KD rolling off stuff. Still some weird fourth quarter shit with them.

00:47:08 Speaker_02
The Nerkich thing I still don't love against certain teams, like Davis owns him, but I think Phoenix is where they wanna be. That was one of the teams we went big on before the season. And they have one loss, they're doing great.

00:47:21 Speaker_02
So I almost put them in the contender category, but I still don't think they know who their fifth guy is. They were putting Ryan Dunn in there, but teams started leaving him open, and they need to figure out Beal, KD, Booker, Nerkidge, O'Neal.

00:47:37 Speaker_02
I guess that's the five. I kinda like it more sometimes when Nerkidge isn't in there, and they just go smaller, and they have shooting all over the place. I'm feeling good about Phoenix. Good to see Coach Bud on the sidelines again.

00:47:53 Speaker_02
The contenders, I have Dallas four. Other people would have them a little further back, because they haven't been playing that great. They're 15th in offense, eighth in defense.

00:48:03 Speaker_02
PJ Washington, who beat OKC last year, because he made all those corner threes, and they haven't gone in since. The big thing for me is Luka, who the MVP is sitting there for him now. like Yannis is out.

00:48:21 Speaker_02
Jokic is going to be out because Denver is not going to be good enough and beats not going to play enough. Tatum, who has, I think he's averaging 13 points a game in the first quarters, but the Celtics are blowing all these teams out.

00:48:34 Speaker_02
So he's not even playing enough minutes to like pad his stats, but he's been great. Katie's in there, but it just feels like Luca, If he goes on a tear, he's gonna be the easy MVP favorite. He's only 28 a game, 40% field goal, 31% from three.

00:48:50 Speaker_02
So I'm sure that's gonna flip. I'm sure he's gonna have like 72 points against the Bulls and all of a sudden all those numbers will go up. But just feels first two weeks hasn't gotten it going. It's fun to see Klay on this team.

00:49:04 Speaker_02
I still feel like he's a little too involved. because he's Klay Thompson, but you know, in crunch time, I kind of want the ball with Luka and Kyrie and just stand in the corner of Klay Thompson. But their starting lineups suck too.

00:49:17 Speaker_02
So they gotta figure that piece out. Why do they get better as soon as Leibniz comes in? Maybe he should just start and play more minutes. Number three, Cleveland. Home run first two weeks for them. They're eight now.

00:49:29 Speaker_02
This was another team we went big on before this season. Second in offense, fifth in defense. They're plus 12.7 net. They haven't had Struis all year, but Levert's been good for them. They've gotten good shooting from Dean Wade, people like that.

00:49:41 Speaker_02
But the big thing is Garland's back. And we flagged this, we talked about it extensively in the Over Under pod. Garland broke his jaw last year. It was a weird year in general. They didn't know if Mitchell was staying or not.

00:49:52 Speaker_02
This year, Garland's 53%, 45% for three. He absolutely obliterated Milwaukee last night. Now granted, it's Milwaukee in its name, but he's back to getting wherever he wants to go.

00:50:03 Speaker_02
And what I really like, and what I think is really potentially special about this team, maybe Kenny Atkinson has a little bit to do with it, maybe the fact that Mitchell re-signed with them.

00:50:12 Speaker_02
But there's a real generosity with Garland and Mitchell now. Like last night, it was Garland's name. Mitchell deferred. He let him kind of run the show the last four or five minutes, and if they needed Mitchell, he was there.

00:50:25 Speaker_02
I don't know if that was as seamless last year, and I think these guys have been together a couple years now. They had two huge crunch time wins over Milwaukee. Mitchell made the big shot on Saturday. Garland made all the big plays yesterday.

00:50:36 Speaker_02
But I like the combo of them, and I think the combo of Mobley and Allen, who were wondering should they trade one of those guys, Don't touch this team. This team, this is unequivocally the third best team in the league right now.

00:50:49 Speaker_02
So number two, I have OKC, even though they are first in defensive rating at 93.2, which is 8.3 points lower than anyone else.

00:51:00 Speaker_02
I don't even, like if we were gonna say that's an NFL team, that would be like an NFL team giving up seven points a game for the first two months of the season.

00:51:09 Speaker_02
When they play Caruso and SGA together, all the advanced metrics, they're basically the 96 bulls. Chet is averaging almost five stocks a game. He's over three blocks, he's getting steals.

00:51:22 Speaker_02
They haven't played a close crunch time game yet, they're just dominating these games. And by the way, they're not shooting that well.

00:51:28 Speaker_02
From three point percentages, Chet's under 30, SGA's under 30, Caruso's under 20, Wallace is under 33, so there's a level for them to go with the three point shooting. Defensively, they're unbelievable.

00:51:41 Speaker_02
I just couldn't believe watching them on Saturday night in person. It just never ends, that's the thing.

00:51:50 Speaker_02
I know they have all these good defensive players and it makes sense that they're awesome on defense, but when you see it over the course of two and a half hours with your own eyes in person, it never lets up.

00:51:59 Speaker_02
It's like watching a defense in football where the defense is just blitzing every single down and the offense is picking up for the first quarter and a half of the game, and then by the third quarter, the quarterback's just getting pounded.

00:52:14 Speaker_02
That's what it felt like watching them. They have so many options. Everybody can switch onto a different guy. There's nobody to attack. It's funny watching these NBA teams where we're like, who the fuck do we attack out of these guys?

00:52:27 Speaker_02
Every person we want to get into a pick and roll can also guard the person that's dribbling. So that, plus how good Chet's looked this year, this has a chance to be a really special regular season team. We'll see about the playoffs.

00:52:42 Speaker_02
This is a team that could win mid to high 60s, I think, because night to night, the youth, the legs, the defense, the Clippers played really well on Saturday night for about an hour, and it didn't matter.

00:52:53 Speaker_02
They were losing double digits in the fourth quarter. Then the favorite still has to be the Celtics. They've only lost once. They won the title last year at their fourth in defensive rating without Porzingis, 14.1 net rating.

00:53:06 Speaker_02
Really good back to back wins against an annoying Charlotte team over the weekend that I thought were meaningful because the second game was a classic. You forget to show up and you just kind of fuck the game up.

00:53:16 Speaker_02
But Grant Williams had done a hard foul of Tatum. That was a cheap shot at the end of the game. Celtics were pissed about it and they came out and they laid the smack down on Saturday. This is something that Steve Kerr

00:53:28 Speaker_02
talked about with me once upon a time when I was doing my book about the year after you win the title, you have this different confidence and swagger to you because you've done it. You've climbed the mountain.

00:53:39 Speaker_02
You believe in the infrastructure of who you are. And he's like, there's this invincibility that develops. And it feels like the Celtics are tapping into that a little bit. Now Jalen got a little banged up.

00:53:52 Speaker_02
Porzingis probably isn't coming back till December. And then there's this Horford piece where he's playing 25 minutes a game. He's fine, he's eight and five. They're just trying to basically pace him for the playoffs.

00:54:04 Speaker_02
He hasn't shot a free throw yet this year in two weeks. So last four years free throws, 95, 21, 30 last year, and then zero this year. So they're really patching together the center position with him and Cornette and Cata.

00:54:19 Speaker_02
Cata's been really big for them from a shot blocking standpoint. And as a regular season team, I still think they're in their 60s if Tatum and White and Holiday are out playing and Jalen plays enough games. Tatum's been on a mission.

00:54:35 Speaker_02
And the three isn't even going in every game, but he's just peak of his powers at this point. game to game, quarter to quarter that he's ever been offensively. He really knows how to attack, what he wants to do, how to be a point forward.

00:54:50 Speaker_02
And this is still the best team in the league. When Porzingis comes back, this is a 18 game winning streak kind of a team. And I think OKC is too. And I think my big lesson from the first two weeks is that Boston and OKC

00:55:06 Speaker_02
in my opinion, are levitating above everybody else. Maybe Cleveland can kinda tap at their shoes a little bit, but it's Boston and OKC, and that's why I picked before this season to make the finals.

00:55:16 Speaker_02
I haven't seen one thing to make me think that's not gonna be our finals. So there you go. That is our two-week Power Poll. We're gonna take a break and come back with my old friend, Kevin Wilds.

00:55:31 Speaker_00
This episode is brought to you by Old El Paso. Does game day hosting feel like an extreme sport? Not anymore. With Old El Paso, feeding your hungry crowd is oh so easy.

00:55:41 Speaker_00
Old El Paso's crunchy stand-in stuffed shells, bold seasonings, and squeezable sauces are fumble-free, flavor-packed, and perfect for cheering on your team. Football season is taco season with Old El Paso. Level up your next tailgater watch party.

00:55:55 Speaker_00
Shop game day essentials at oldelpaso.com.

00:56:00 Speaker_02
This episode is brought to you by Empower. You got money questions like, can I retire early? What are my best savings options? Can I afford to pay for my kid's education? Luckily, Empower has all the answers.

00:56:11 Speaker_02
With Empower's real-time dashboard and real live conversations, you get clarity. on your real life financial goals. So join 18 million Americans at Empower, what's next?

00:56:21 Speaker_02
Start today at empower.com, tap the banner or visit this episode's page to learn more. Sponsored by Empower, not an endorsement or statement of satisfaction by a client. All right, we're taping this late Monday afternoon, Eastern time.

00:56:36 Speaker_02
I got Kevin Wilds right after he taped First Things First. This is when I like him. He's just done a two-hour live TV show. He's groggy. He's not really thinking anymore. He's just reacting, ad-libbing, not overthinking his takes.

00:56:51 Speaker_02
And I want to start here, Wilds. You posted a picture of your favorite candies, Pyramid style. And you had Reese's at the top. You did this during Halloween week. and I had a lot of problems with the pyramid.

00:57:07 Speaker_04
A lot of people had problems with the pyramid. It was meant to provoke discussion, but it felt like nobody had a problem with Reese's being number one.

00:57:18 Speaker_04
The problem that everybody had was, and I didn't realize, I was the only one that thought this, that plain M&Ms are better than peanut M&Ms. Turns out I was wrong.

00:57:27 Speaker_04
It wasn't one of those things like, well, that's just your opinion, Wilds, you're allowed to have it. Every single person said I was wrong. So I said, you know what? I'll fold my hand on that one. I was wrong about that.

00:57:37 Speaker_04
I would flip those if I did it again.

00:57:39 Speaker_02
So people have peanut M&Ms over plain M&Ms.

00:57:42 Speaker_04
No, I was the only person. So I folded my hand on that. If I was next tune in next year to see where they rank.

00:57:48 Speaker_02
See, I feel like those two, are kind of their own candies. I don't feel like they're even like brothers or siblings or sisters or even cousins. I just feel like they're over here and over here. They're so different.

00:58:02 Speaker_02
And when I, like I went to the Clipper game on, on Saturday and they had the plain M&Ms and the peanut M&Ms. And I really thought about it. I'm like, am I in a plain M&M mood or peanut M&M mood? I was like, you know what? I'm in a peanut M&M mood.

00:58:15 Speaker_02
I grabbed those instead, but I don't feel like they swim in the same pool.

00:58:19 Speaker_04
See, here's my, Here's my argument if I was to make it. If I want chocolate, I'll go with the Reese's. I already have that, the box checked on that. And if I want M&Ms, I'll go with an M&M. The peanut M&M is living in the middle of that somewhere.

00:58:38 Speaker_04
So for me, it doesn't work. And a lot of people will say, well, what about the candy shell? I would just, I get that from the M&M. So I don't need the peanut M&M to even exist, but everyone's mad at me.

00:58:52 Speaker_02
So here is my biggest, uh, my biggest pick. I think the a hundred grand bar is the best chocolate bar on the planet. And I think everybody really deep down thinks this, but nobody wants to admit it.

00:59:04 Speaker_02
And if you put like, we have, we have a candy jar in our house and you've been to our house and there's two full jars of candy. Cause for some reason, my wife likes having candy in the house. The a hundred grands are always gone.

00:59:16 Speaker_02
And we start out equally and they just get pulled out. I don't know anybody who's against a hundred grand. I think it's the perfect chocolate bar. And I actually think they market it badly.

00:59:26 Speaker_02
I feel like their campaign, almost how like LeBron has been marketing himself as like since the last dance as like the goat. And he's just done all of these different things to kind of push this whole, well, look at my whole career.

00:59:37 Speaker_02
Look at what, what else can I do? I'm still playing 22 year, a hundred grand needs to hire like a media strategist to really grab the corner of the go candy bar, because I don't think it's there yet.

00:59:47 Speaker_04
You're saying just being named after a denomination of money is, isn't really, uh, getting it done for the hundred grand bar.

00:59:55 Speaker_02
No, I think people mispronounce it. I think some people call it the 100,000 grand bar or they can't remember which one it is. But then when they have it, it's delicious. You go into like a Rite Aid or you go into a CVS.

01:00:08 Speaker_02
Sometimes you can't even find them.

01:00:10 Speaker_04
No. Can I tell you something? A little ugly for a candy.

01:00:14 Speaker_02
Yeah, maybe they need a complete rebrand.

01:00:16 Speaker_04
It's kind of bumpy. It's not sure of itself. Versus when you take out, for example, kiss, aesthetically, the Hershey kiss is just perfect. It's silver, it's got the little hat on it for the- Yeah, you get to interact with it, you get to unwrap it.

01:00:31 Speaker_04
Exactly. A hundred grand bar, you take it out, you're like, what's going on here? It's just, it's all over the place. It's just feels like it's like a, like when you see an alien trying to be born onto something, it's like, it's kind of emerging.

01:00:44 Speaker_04
So I could see that being an issue. Nobody knows what it is. People get confused, like, what does that have, rice crisps in it? It's like, yeah, I think so. It's like, is there a peanut butter base, something in there? Like, I'm not 100% sure.

01:00:59 Speaker_04
I don't know even what's in the 100-gram bar versus, is it a Milky Way with rice crisps?

01:01:06 Speaker_02
Rice crisps and caramel. Three things that everybody likes. Everybody likes caramel with a chocolate bar. Nobody's like, oh man, there's caramel in this, I'm not eating it. That's a good point.

01:01:17 Speaker_02
Reese's, I think part of what the success with Reese's is, first of all, great name. Second, people know what it is. It's chocolate with a peanut in it. It could be different sizes. It has brand recognition.

01:01:31 Speaker_02
It's had a great media strategist over the last 80 years, where it's like the 100 grand bar, not as much.

01:01:36 Speaker_04
They advertise aggressively. Reese's is out here getting it done with the orange wrappers. They're really making moves.

01:01:43 Speaker_02
I haven't gone into ice cream. There's like, there's like Reese's ice cream. Like they're really like aggressively trying to expand the brand. A hundred grand is just kind of like, we might be at CVS. We might not.

01:01:54 Speaker_04
Yeah. It's like a hundred grand. If I was to do a, uh, you know what, like remember when Tarantino got Travolta, I'm like, you know what, this guy's great. And everybody's forgotten about him. If I was to grab the trouble, a hundred grand a day.

01:02:10 Speaker_04
Probably Baby Ruth. I'd give Crackle a shot. If I was a Tarantino-esque director, I'd give Crackle a run.

01:02:21 Speaker_01
So here's the one you're missing.

01:02:22 Speaker_04
Keith Barr.

01:02:25 Speaker_02
I think the Travolta Pulp Fiction is the Rolo. The Rolo bar. I think everybody loves Rolo bars. You can't find them anywhere. What do you mean no one?

01:02:34 Speaker_04
No one likes Rolos. Rolo has a bad texture to it. Rolos are slippery. A Rolo, again, doesn't know what it wants to be. It's like, eh. We're, we're, uh, you know, a cylinder, like what, like, get out of here. Rollo.

01:02:53 Speaker_02
Wow. This is like your, my least favorite wilds take probably ever.

01:02:57 Speaker_03
If you want rollo bars, um,

01:03:04 Speaker_04
What is it? It's a candy. You pull it apart. It's a caramel comes. It's kind of, it's kind of like bisected.

01:03:10 Speaker_02
Yeah. It's almost like a star. It's like starbursts. Like you buy, like, it's like a room.

01:03:15 Speaker_04
No, those are bad. That's Caramello. You want Caramello. versus Rolo head to head, that would be like Ravensbills. You think that they're both on the same level until you see them head to head. Caramello would wash Rolo.

01:03:31 Speaker_02
I love Caramello bars, but I never see those anymore. I thought those were just gone.

01:03:34 Speaker_04
I don't know. That's the problem. What happened to Caramello?

01:03:41 Speaker_02
Well, do your thing about Crackle, because I really want to dive into this. I thought it was one of your best and most important takes. We've known each other since 2006? Yeah, yeah.

01:03:52 Speaker_04
I guess somewhere in there. This is one of my best takes.

01:03:56 Speaker_02
I thought it was the one that resonated with me personally, as hard as anything, as any of your recent albums. Your recent work, even when we did a little country there for a second, a little hillbilly rock.

01:04:08 Speaker_04
I still like this one. Both a compliment and an insult. My crackle take was one of my best takes. Look, every year, you get the Hershey's Fun Bag mix, and there's crackle. You open it up, You have the Crackle, you think, this is great.

01:04:26 Speaker_04
There's no reason Crackle can't have the career that the Crunch Bar is having. And Crunch Bar is up here with a trophy case filled of most improved candy, most valuable candy, finals candy, MVP.

01:04:42 Speaker_02
Also like Hershey Bar with s'mores, like it's got this whole second career where it's like you have to have it with the s'mores.

01:04:50 Speaker_04
It's an ice cream. I've had Hershey Crunch and there's Crackle out here. pop in a game, give you, you know, 25 one night and then disappear for weeks on end.

01:05:04 Speaker_04
What could crackle pop up throw for 300 yards when you gain three touchdowns and then just gone. So I, I don't know what to do with crackle.

01:05:13 Speaker_04
Part of me thinks that crackle, I don't want to say this, but I, part of me thinks that crackle doesn't have the heart. got all the tools, but just might not have the motor or crackle on it. Here's the other thing about crackle might not want it.

01:05:30 Speaker_04
If afraid of the bright lights on Halloween, one of the ideas I had was like, crackle, maybe you should bail on Halloween. Try to find another holiday like peeps did. Peeps couldn't compete on Halloween. Peeps like we got to be out.

01:05:43 Speaker_04
We got to go to Easter. Candy canes saw the lineup and Halloween that compete here. We need to go to Christmas and just try to dominate Christmas. Maybe Crackle looks around and says, hey, you know what? Thanksgiving. We can take after dinner mints.

01:06:00 Speaker_04
But right now, Crackle can't cut it. Can't cut it on Halloween.

01:06:04 Speaker_02
I was thinking you made me think about crackle, which I had really never truly thought about. And I'm with you. It would always be in the chocolate bags and be like, Oh, crackle. Yeah, there you are. Game manager. Um, yeah.

01:06:16 Speaker_02
Reminded me of a couple of actors over the years that seemed to have all the tools and something was missing. Like right now it's Chris Helmsworth.

01:06:26 Speaker_02
I don't know why Chris Helmsworth isn't one of the, Chris Helmsworth, I just called him Helmsworth, maybe that's part of the problem. Chris Helmsworth, like I loved him in Rush.

01:06:34 Speaker_02
I really liked the movie Rush, the race car movie about Nicky Lotta and the other guy. But James Cook, whatever his name was, the Bill's running back. He's got everything you need. He's 6'3", handsome. Be a leading man.

01:06:50 Speaker_02
He was in Black Hat with Michael Mann. He could be in a rom-com. He can kind of do it all, but it's never really happened. And if he's opening a movie, I don't think it's probably going to do well because he's the star of it.

01:07:01 Speaker_02
But Ryan Reynolds was in this zone for 10, 12 years. And then I think he escaped. Cause it feels like he's an A plus lister. So I don't know, maybe that's.

01:07:11 Speaker_04
Oh, Ryan Reynolds said definitely. So you're saying, but Ryan Reynolds, it was, I feel like, and I'm not a Ryan Reynolds expert, although I'm a fan, it feels like Deadpool pushed him, pushed him beyond. He's like, you know what?

01:07:23 Speaker_04
I'm not going to try to be for everybody. I'm going to be a little more foul and then that will allow my personality. So maybe, so I don't know how that plays for Crackle.

01:07:32 Speaker_01
Crackle needs it's Deadpool.

01:07:38 Speaker_02
Here's what I think Crackle, here's what it needs. It needs to be in a show, like a Stranger Things season four, like a Euphoria season three.

01:07:47 Speaker_02
And there's some episode where the character is like really obsessed, just loves Crackle, like a big Crackle fan. You know how those shows sometimes that our kids watch can just get momentum with weird shit? Crackle just needs its moment.

01:08:03 Speaker_02
It's some sort of moment. It's just never had it.

01:08:07 Speaker_04
I mean, this is going to hurt if you work at Crackle, but I don't think the leading characters in any film are going to love Crackle.

01:08:17 Speaker_03
Yeah.

01:08:18 Speaker_04
Like a secondary character or some, you know. a supporting character. It's like, man, my weird friend loves crackle.

01:08:26 Speaker_02
The comic relief. Yeah. Yeah. Comic relief guy loves crack. Oh, isn't that weird?

01:08:30 Speaker_04
It's like, how did you get even 12 crackle? You have to buy. There's only come three to a bag. Hershey's doesn't believe in crackle either or Nestle. I don't even know who the parent company is, but they don't believe in crackle.

01:08:45 Speaker_04
They don't think Crackle has it either. So if you're not getting support from management, all right, everyone's given up on Crackle. Honestly, maybe this is Crackle's moment.

01:08:57 Speaker_04
Maybe you should just be the change you believe in and just start eating Crackles all the time. But again, probably not bad for the podcast, though, because of the stupid rice crisps.

01:09:09 Speaker_02
I think it's like a Formula One situation where Hershey is the preferred driver of the Formula One team and Krakow is like the number two team.

01:09:19 Speaker_02
Maybe if you gave it the number one car, maybe it could drive it, but it's just not going to get there the way it is. I would do a rebrand. I think the K hurts it.

01:09:29 Speaker_02
Maybe go back to the C. I think when people do goofy spelling for food or, you know, like things you have to purchase, sometimes there's a backlash with that. And maybe the sizes have to be different. Maybe thinner, maybe fatter.

01:09:45 Speaker_02
Like you think about Kit Kat.

01:09:47 Speaker_04
Can't go thinner. Thinner is the score bar. S-K-O-R. Get out of here. Nobody wants a score. You can't go thinner. Messing with the shapes, It, it, it, it comes across as desperate. Once you start.

01:10:02 Speaker_02
Counter KitKat has done a lot of renovation stuff with the KitKat. Like they'll have like a white chocolate KitKat they'll have during Halloween season. I'm like a spooky KitKat and it kind of works. It's like, Oh, I'll try that.

01:10:16 Speaker_04
But KitKat is operating from a position of strength. KitKat that's like the lions running trick plays. Like we can do so much stuff. We're so good at the fundamentals. We're running other stuff. Yeah, that's fair.

01:10:29 Speaker_04
Crackle can't go out there doing, you know, the Philly special. Like, you just got to work on blocking and tackling right now, Crackle.

01:10:39 Speaker_02
I think Kit Kat's on the Mount Rushmore. I think almost everybody likes Kit Kat. I think part of the success is

01:10:47 Speaker_02
the double piece, like you can burn, you can, you can share it, be like, you want to have my half of my KitKat, cut it out, give one person the bar, you keep the other one. It's just, it's good name, memorable. It's just really good.

01:10:59 Speaker_04
Okay. I think that is 100% marketing. I bet less than 1% of KitKats are shared and You want the option to share it, but I think anyone's gotta, no one's, hey, do you want, hey, I already got this Kit Kat, do you want one? I think that rarely happens.

01:11:19 Speaker_04
You can share any candy. I can break a Twix in half too, but nobody does that.

01:11:24 Speaker_02
Twix is another one. I think Twix has had a really good, really since we've been kids, really good run.

01:11:30 Speaker_04
Great run, great frozen. So who's on your Mount Rushmore Kit Kat?

01:11:37 Speaker_02
I have a hundred grand, Kit Kat, M&M's, Hershey, and Twix. No, I just like the regular, the Hershey bar. I have five in the Mount Rushmore because Twix has to be on there. I really respect the Hershey though.

01:11:53 Speaker_02
I like that the little squares, you can have half of it, two thirds. As you know, I make raw dog s'mores where I don't actually microwave them. I just put like a graham cracker, two marshmallows, and like half a Hershey and I just eat it.

01:12:06 Speaker_04
Well, it's Snickers on?

01:12:09 Speaker_01
I don't do Snickers.

01:12:10 Speaker_04
Wow.

01:12:11 Speaker_01
Not a Snickers guy.

01:12:12 Speaker_03
Wow. Okay. What was your Mount Rushmore?

01:12:17 Speaker_04
I mean, the Mount Rushmore for me personally, or what I think should be- No, your personal Mount Rushmore. You can go five, not four. It's not going to be well received. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. You ready?

01:12:35 Speaker_01
Yeah.

01:12:36 Speaker_04
York Peppermint Patties.

01:12:38 Speaker_01
Yeah. It's really weird.

01:12:40 Speaker_04
It's getting worse. Neko wafers. Okay. I love a dry wafer. And then I'll probably go, I'll probably just go plain M&Ms. I like, I like, I like, it's the York that is really, uh, that is really off-putting to people. And the wafers.

01:13:04 Speaker_01
The York's just gross.

01:13:05 Speaker_04
I don't know how to say that.

01:13:07 Speaker_02
Did you, did you ever have the Reggie bar when Reggie Jackson had his candy bar?

01:13:11 Speaker_04
No, no, I never got, I never, that's a little before my time. And then I, I don't think I've ever seen them for sale.

01:13:20 Speaker_02
I remember eating them as a kid and liking them even though he was Yankee. But, um, it was basically a hundred grand bars. My memory of it. It was right on the corner. Very similar.

01:13:31 Speaker_04
Maybe. Yeah. Celebrity endorsement. Love them.

01:13:37 Speaker_02
I mean, it's a good Anthony Edwards thing. Maybe this is the key is, you remember when LeBron attached himself to Blaze Pizza and we didn't know what Blaze Pizza was and we were like, wait, what's he doing?

01:13:48 Speaker_02
And then it was like, oh, Blaze Pizza, that's the one. And all of a sudden Blaze Pizza was worth a billion dollars. Maybe Anthony Edwards needs to do with the crackle.

01:13:56 Speaker_02
He's just eating, he takes, Anthony Edwards takes 13 threes in a game, sits in his locker room after, makes five funny comments to media members as he's eating a Crackle, and people are like, something's happened with Crackle.

01:14:09 Speaker_04
That would work. That would 100% work. That's the longest anyone's ever talked about Crackle, and that includes inside the Crackle building. Can we just move on to Mr. Goodbar?

01:14:23 Speaker_02
Maybe they took some notes. It's take season for you right now on First Things First, and I'm catching right after Dak was scratched for five to six weeks. Is it better if the Cowboys are awful, mediocre, or good?

01:14:39 Speaker_04
Good with flaws, I would say, is the best.

01:14:41 Speaker_01
That's the ideal?

01:14:42 Speaker_04
Good with flaws. every marquee team when they're good, with flaws makes it the most interesting.

01:14:52 Speaker_04
And not to be like too philosophical about it, but like a superhero, like a Superman thing, like a superhero with a kryptonite, I think is the most interesting team.

01:15:04 Speaker_04
That's why I think, I know we're talking basketball, that's why I think Tatum is interesting.

01:15:09 Speaker_04
Like, oh, I think superhero with flaws is fascinating, but a mediocre team that could get hot, interesting, but just a bad team, a marquee team that is bad, that's the worst.

01:15:21 Speaker_04
There's no takes that you can generate, that is the dry, arid land that no takes can grow from.

01:15:31 Speaker_01
Is that same for Lakers?

01:15:33 Speaker_04
No, the Lakers, I think are fascinating, but I always thought the Lake, the Lakers punchers chance for the last few years. And now that they're running interesting stuff, it's like, Oh, two top 10 players. Like maybe, maybe they can make a little run.

01:15:47 Speaker_04
I think the Lakers are always interesting.

01:15:48 Speaker_02
Cause LeBron top 10 players. Who's the second one?

01:15:52 Speaker_04
Where are you putting AD?

01:15:54 Speaker_02
I would have it.

01:15:54 Speaker_01
You could talk to me, not LeBron.

01:15:57 Speaker_04
What do you have? What do you have? LeBron? It's not in the top 10, 15. Yeah. Okay. Two. All right. But how many, but every team with two top 15 players has a chance at the title except them for the last few years.

01:16:10 Speaker_04
But maybe JJ can work some magic and maybe it'll work.

01:16:14 Speaker_01
They're not good defensively.

01:16:17 Speaker_04
No. I haven't watched enough this year yet. I've been so locked in on football. I haven't like switched over and we were, I was locked in on the world series. I got to switch over to basketball to get totally locked in.

01:16:28 Speaker_02
Who would have expected the Yankees Dodgers became like an actual spectacle. It got like 15 million people watching every baseball game is bigger than the NBA finals. It was as big as like a round one NFL game.

01:16:42 Speaker_04
And for, I was trying to,

01:16:45 Speaker_04
Maybe you'll be able to pull this off the top of your head, but for a five game series, super tight and compelling versus usually thought like great series, seven, six, like, Oh, it's like every game was good moments again, superstar with a flaw with Aaron judge.

01:17:02 Speaker_04
You're always pulling for him to pull out of it. Oh, Connie kind of battling back on a Willis Reedy, although he'd never had like the big moment. trying to get in a home run all the time. I thought it was just awesome.

01:17:14 Speaker_04
I thought it was just World Series baseball, just fantastic.

01:17:17 Speaker_02
Well, it's funny, because we always would have this in the NHL and in baseball, where we're like, oh man, if it's only these two teams, and then it's never the two teams.

01:17:25 Speaker_01
Yeah.

01:17:25 Speaker_02
So it was like one of the two teams. And this time, we actually got the two teams, and it was awesome. And anecdotally, everybody, I mean, I'm in LA, so obviously, I'm a little...

01:17:35 Speaker_02
bias cause everybody I knew out here cared about it, but it just felt like anecdotally you realize how many Yankee and Dodger fans you just have in your life.

01:17:44 Speaker_02
If you're even whether you're East Coast, West Coast, you know, those, those two teams and the Red Sox probably have the most fans.

01:17:52 Speaker_04
Yeah, there's there was we went to the regular season. Yankees Dodgers game because it was on Fox. And there was a ton of Dodgers fans.

01:18:01 Speaker_04
And I guess you can chalk some of it up to like, Oh, my dad was a Brooklyn or my grandfather was a Brooklyn Dodgers fan. And that kind of like there's some of that still like rooted here. Like a mad dog is like a New York old New York Giants fan.

01:18:15 Speaker_04
But there was tons of diet. There's a lot of Dodgers fans at the World Series games too. So it was, and Yankees fans are obviously everywhere, but I thought it was, I just thought it was awesome. I loved it. And I know I'm supposed to be a Red Sox.

01:18:26 Speaker_04
Well, I am a Red Sox fan. I'm supposed to be a Yankee.

01:18:28 Speaker_02
We don't count you in any way, shape or form anymore. You're like a fucking Chiefs fan now. You might as well like put a Chiefs jersey on.

01:18:35 Speaker_04
Okay. Do I love, I love sports.

01:18:36 Speaker_02
You've sold your soul to the church at Nick Wright. It's fucking terrible.

01:18:40 Speaker_04
I can't hate, I might as well like Aaron Judge. Oh, I'm a Hobs. Oh, this is terrible.

01:18:46 Speaker_02
I thought you were aligned with me.

01:18:49 Speaker_04
a great player. I'm going to I'm going to be a fan of the great players. I'm not going to sit here and I already has anyone shed more blood and tears for Mac Jones than me. I'm out here. Get a little respite. Breath of fresh air after watching match.

01:19:05 Speaker_04
I'm still on Mac Jones Island by myself. Filtrating my own water. Volleyball all day. No one's here. Just me.

01:19:16 Speaker_03
Mac Jones Island.

01:19:20 Speaker_02
Well, I was critical of Brady's Sunday broadcasting performance, and even that made me feel like I was gonna get hit by lightning, and I was super ungrateful. But to me, it's apples and oranges. Now the sports career's over.

01:19:31 Speaker_02
I prayed to the church at Tom Brady as a quarterback, and now it is what it is.

01:19:38 Speaker_04
I'm still there.

01:19:39 Speaker_02
I will say,

01:19:41 Speaker_02
I do like that Mahomes has been a little, now we're taping this before the Monday Night Games, so maybe he'll have 15 touchdowns tonight, but I do like that he's been a little off this year, because he's hitting this point in his career where Brady was just awesome year after year, except for the year that he blew out his ACL.

01:19:59 Speaker_02
And people are like, well, Mahomes doesn't have the same weapons. Well, I urge people to go back and look at Brady's weapons in 2006 and 2009. He had years where he had literally nobody to throw to.

01:20:11 Speaker_04
If the Chiefs go undefeated or if they lose one game, but Mahomes statistically counting stats are pretty bland. But I guess there's other stats that we pulled off where it's like, you know, sort of must have moments, need to get it moments.

01:20:29 Speaker_04
And he's great in those moments, clutch moments. But if his counting stats are bland, would you give him the MVP? It'd be 16 and one house.

01:20:38 Speaker_02
And I talked about this on Thursday about what would their record have to be for him to just get it no matter what the stats are. And I think it would have to be 16 and one or 17.

01:20:46 Speaker_04
How about, how about, well, so yeah. How about 15 and one and they sit and they sit week 18 and they, and Carson Wentz loses the game, but he only lost one game.

01:20:58 Speaker_02
15, I mean, the thing is nobody's grabbed it.

01:21:02 Speaker_04
I'm gonna keep walking you back. All right, how about 14?

01:21:06 Speaker_02
Well, I've watched every, I feel like I haven't missed a frame of this season. Lamar is the best part I've seen this season. Yeah. And I think he means the most to his team. The record doesn't really back it up, but Lamar is just week to week.

01:21:20 Speaker_02
And I don't know if there's going to be voter fatigue with him or not. Allen is doing a lot too in Buffalo with what he has, but they, I, you know, they have some talent. Their schedule has been a little easier. Uh, what Lamar is doing week to week.

01:21:34 Speaker_02
I talked about this on Sunday's pod, I made the mistake of knocking that game off the multi-view with like 40 seconds left in the first half against Denver when it was 17-10.

01:21:42 Speaker_02
So I just thought they were going to halftime, forgetting that he could just easily get a 60 yard touchdown if he wanted to, which he did, and I felt pretty stupid. But he's been amazing.

01:21:52 Speaker_04
You don't care about head-to-head, because I do. Like two MVPs going head-to-head, whoever won. So I put Mahomes over Lamar and I put Lamar over Josh.

01:22:01 Speaker_02
I only care about it when it's self-serving to the team I root for, like with the Brady-Manning years. Brady would beat Manning, and I'd be like, look at the head-to-head, and then Manning beat him a couple times, it's like. It's one game.

01:22:13 Speaker_02
Way better team.

01:22:14 Speaker_04
He's got to have a Hedger, James, and Harrison win. I'm sorry, does he play defense too? He's supposed to be Travis Hunter out there? It's nothing to do with it.

01:22:25 Speaker_02
I think what's cool about the Mahomes-Chiefs thing is that we just, just immediately replaced, almost in real time, whatever the Pats meant to the league year to year as this kind of arbitrary, you know, thing that's in front that you have to chase.

01:22:42 Speaker_02
And this is the team you have to get by. And when you play them, this is the game that matters the most. And this is the line you have to cross. And the Pats were that way for almost two decades. And then the Chiefs were like, okay, thanks.

01:22:52 Speaker_02
And that's who they've been since. Like even you look at the Lions versus the Chiefs and it's just like, yeah, I believe in the Lions, but can they beat the Chiefs? Like you don't almost think about, I'm not thinking, can they beat Baltimore?

01:23:04 Speaker_02
Can they beat Philly? Like it's just about the Chiefs.

01:23:07 Speaker_04
You know what, I realized it when I, this is going to be a, this is like the biggest compliment I can give to my homes.

01:23:14 Speaker_04
When other teams have the ball with a chance to win the game, I will either think a, they're not going to do it or B, this will be challenging to do it. But if it was my home, they're like, oh, game's over.

01:23:29 Speaker_04
And everybody, you go, you go to DraftKings or it's like, Oh, or FanDuel or like, yeah, game. Everybody thinks this game is over now. And the Chiefs are behind. Right.

01:23:39 Speaker_04
But I mean, I, you know what, I felt a little bit like that with Drake May a little bit. I was like, oh, we're getting the ball back?

01:23:45 Speaker_02
I'm out of my mind. I've never been, we won six Super Bowls and made nine, and I've never been more locked into the week to week of the season, but I also think that technology is better.

01:23:55 Speaker_02
Watching the all 22 tapes of him on Monday, some of the throws that he made.

01:24:00 Speaker_04
You see what Drake did? Drake saw this, and this is why he threw it. Love it, love it.

01:24:05 Speaker_02
His receivers are terrible, the play calling's terrible, his offensive line's terrible, and he's doing 12 to 13 things a week that we've never seen a Patriots QB do some of the things he's doing because we haven't had an incredible athlete at QB in 50 years.

01:24:22 Speaker_04
Yes. What do you think about this, Dick? I'm like, how do I feel about Drake May? Part of me feels like, a little bit of a stretch, how my parents view my kids. They're like, Oh, they're like, so excited to want a grandparent energy. Yeah.

01:24:43 Speaker_04
Grandparent energy towards Drake May. Like I've already lived my adult life with Tom Brady, so to speak, and my kid life with like Tony Eason and Steve Grogan.

01:24:55 Speaker_04
And then a big chunk of my life when I was really in it with Brady, but now I get to, I've already seen it all. I've seen how it all happens. And now like Drake is like, I've got grandparent energy. Like, look at this. This is great. Like, yeah, he lost.

01:25:12 Speaker_04
He fell down and scraped his knee. That's okay. He's learning. I can see, it's going to be great. I'm like, oh, you're in for a great time. Grandparent energy towards Drake Mack.

01:25:23 Speaker_02
I love it, because you've been through all the ups and downs, all the checkpoints, and you're just kind of there to give gifts on the holidays and just be supportive and not overreact.

01:25:34 Speaker_04
But if you're a parent, like, oh, would you be worried about the interception? He threw a game-ending interception. If you're a parent, like first kid parent, oh, what am I doing? Oh, this and that. It's not a big deal.

01:25:48 Speaker_04
It's not, trust me, he'll learn to clap. We had, we freaked out, because Russell, we were like, is he, this is a real conversation, is he clapping on time? We read some stupid thing.

01:25:57 Speaker_04
You should be clapping at, you know, 12, no, is he clapping on, that's so stupid. And grandparent, no, don't worry about it, that's really good for him.

01:26:07 Speaker_02
That's fantastic. Yeah, the grandparent energy, you're talking about your little boy, your grandparent energy with little boys are like, they're all idiots until they're like seven, don't worry about it. You're fine.

01:26:15 Speaker_02
Nobody's fired up about how mentally acute their four-year-old boy is. They're just worried all the time. Why is my kid so stupid? Grandparent energy, you're just like, hey, he'll be fine.

01:26:31 Speaker_04
We had a poop journal for our first baby. Okay, what time, we were writing down. Come on.

01:26:38 Speaker_01
You know, one of the best things with Drake, I mean, there's been a lot of great things, it really seems like he has a chance to be pretty special for like 15, 16, 17 years.

01:26:52 Speaker_02
And we, having lived through that, knowing how long it is, and it was kind of happening with Tatum a little bit, like Tatum had that first year, and he went head to head with LeBron, he had the block on LeBron in the game seven, made a couple shots, and you're just watching it going, this is a really good sign.

01:27:08 Speaker_02
this is a really good checkpoint for him to hit. I'm excited for this journey. And then he kept making those steps, and then they finally win the title. But I'm just excited to go on that journey again with the QB, because it was incredible with Brady.

01:27:21 Speaker_02
So the problem here is that the infrastructure the IQ infrastructure of the behind the scenes Patriots, like, I just don't trust it. Like, are they going to do this correctly? Are they, like, they have to get a left tackle.

01:27:34 Speaker_02
They have to get a number one receiver. Like, are they going to know all the, once you have this, this is the number one gift you can get in football is to have a guy like this.

01:27:42 Speaker_02
Every decision has to be about maximizing this guy, which I love Belichick, but I feel like he didn't always do that with Brady, you know?

01:27:49 Speaker_04
No, he was just defense first. I think we're just trading down. We're going to have a great pick. We're going to trade down for multiple picks, probably be get, you know, bolster the offensive line.

01:28:01 Speaker_04
And then I don't know how we're getting a number one receiver.

01:28:05 Speaker_02
Yeah, but if I'm an important receiver, I'd want to play it. I'm glad you're using Wii because the Mahomes, I gotta be honest, the Mahomes thing really worries me. Oh, come on. Do you want me to play it?

01:28:12 Speaker_02
It's like, it's like you're, you're going to Chiefs. You're literally going to Chiefs games. Going to Kansas City to Chiefs games. Don't think I didn't fucking notice.

01:28:21 Speaker_04
I didn't go to a Chiefs game.

01:28:22 Speaker_02
You did. You went to a Chiefs game.

01:28:24 Speaker_04
I went to the Chiefs parade multiple times. You did that too. Yeah. I've been back to heroin. I went to Patriot. I took my kids to Foxborough to see Patrick Mahomes. What am I supposed to do? Modern day Brady.

01:28:38 Speaker_02
Keep it in check. We're gonna take a break and do half-baked ideas. This episode is brought to you by SimpliSafe. When it comes to the safety of me and my family, there's only one home security system I trust, and that's SimpliSafe.

01:28:53 Speaker_02
I love having it in my home. Helps protect every inch of it inside and out. And if you want to try it for yourself right now, perfect time to get it. There's an amazing Black Friday sale going on for my listeners. I am talking 50% off here, everybody.

01:29:07 Speaker_02
Also, reasons to have SimpliSafe. Holiday season's coming. Talk about this every year on the BS pod. Guess what happens during holiday season? People start kind of casing your house a little bit on Wednesdays before Thanksgiving. Are they home?

01:29:21 Speaker_02
Did they go away? Oh wait, there's no cars in the driveway anymore. I'm moving in. Christmas, packages. Maybe they're gonna try to steal those. Well, they won't if you have SimpliSafe because you're gonna be guarded against the porch pilots.

01:29:34 Speaker_02
SimpliSafe helps to stop crime before it happens. Professional monitoring agents that can see, speak to, and deter intruders. And if someone's lurking around or acting suspiciously, they can and will take action. So check out SimpliSafe today.

01:29:47 Speaker_02
Keep your home, your family, and your peace of mind protected. And remember. A massive Black Friday sale is being extended by SimpliSafe.

01:29:54 Speaker_02
For my listeners, this week only, you can take off 50% off any new system with a select professional monitoring plan. It's your last chance to claim the best offer of the year, so don't wait. Head to simplisafe.com slash bs to claim your discount.

01:30:07 Speaker_02
Make sure your home is safe this season. Once again, simplisafe.com slash bs, SimpliSafe with two i's, simplisafe.com slash bs. There's no safe like SimpliSafe.

01:30:19 Speaker_02
This episode is brought to you by the all new reimagined Nissan Kicks from the bold new exterior to the performance and tech features like intelligent all wheel drive and a Bose personal plus sound system.

01:30:31 Speaker_02
Cars where I live, I live in the Los Angeles area and cars. are one of the most important things you can have, because you're in them a lot, because you got to drive around all over the place. You know what's fun?

01:30:40 Speaker_02
To have a nice car for an everyday commute, to have music and the ability to do hands-free stuff, and just to feel safe. You can do it. Drive the all-new reimagined Nissan Kicks today. Head over to Nissan USA.

01:30:52 Speaker_02
To learn more, Bose Personal Plus Sound System is an available feature. Bose is a registered trademark of the Bose Corporation. Intelligent all-wheel drive cannot prevent collisions or provide enhanced traction in all conditions.

01:31:05 Speaker_02
Always monitor traffic and weather conditions. All right, so Wilds, ever since I've had a podcast, which was 2007, Wilds would come on and do half-baked ideas. And I don't remember the first time he did it, but many of them are on YouTube from

01:31:22 Speaker_02
08, 09, 2010, then on this pod when we brought it to the ringer, same thing, he's popped on. Now he's a busier guy, but every once in a while we have to grab him for the half-bakes.

01:31:32 Speaker_02
And the concept of a half-baked idea, it's not a fully baked idea, but there's enough in there that it makes you go, hmm, I like that. All right, so what's your first half-baked idea?

01:31:44 Speaker_04
So I got a colonoscopy. with the idea, go out and get your colonoscopy if you need one. And everybody needs to get it checked out. The idea being you might think you're fine, but you might be dying inside.

01:31:57 Speaker_04
That's the concept that we'll run through this storyline. Also, hard stop. Second part of the story. I know two families that recently got dogs and they're like, They didn't want dogs for a long time. We're not dog people, this and that.

01:32:13 Speaker_04
Then they made the jump, got a dog. And then of course, they say, I can't believe we were ever in this house without a dog. Thus, the half baked idea is, I'm calling it the I don't even know how to pronounce it. Get an arian.

01:32:32 Speaker_04
Okay, it's like veterinary, get an arian. You have to go just like you have to go to a colonoscopy doctor every five years. Every five years, you need to go to a veterinarian.

01:32:43 Speaker_04
And it's kind of like a therapist, you sit and you talk, or maybe they come to your house, and you talk about whether or not you need a pet in your life. So even if you already have a dog, you should have to talk about getting another dog.

01:32:58 Speaker_04
So you can go, all right, maybe you get a dog, maybe you get a cat, maybe you get a snake, maybe you get something, but it's an outside consultant that you have to go to.

01:33:06 Speaker_04
Every American, it's gonna be in federal law, every American needs to go to a veterinarian and they ask, figure out if you need a dog that will make your life better.

01:33:15 Speaker_02
All right, so this is really interesting because I've had people in my life who've gotten pets and I just thought it was a mistake.

01:33:25 Speaker_04
Oh, it could probably go the other way, too. Like, do not get a dog. You're more of a fish person.

01:33:29 Speaker_02
Well, I think the veterinarian should be really candid. Oh, yeah. Like, I've looked at you. You've been living alone your whole life. You seem like you're having a pretty fun life. You do a lot of traveling. Like, you can't have a dog.

01:33:43 Speaker_02
The dog's gonna be alone. You're gonna be always, like, either putting it, like, having somebody stay at your house with the dog or putting them up in one of those dog places. Like, don't get a dog. It's mean to the dog. You travel too much.

01:33:54 Speaker_04
Yeah, that's prime reptile right there. No, you don't, but if you need a dog, so how many dogs do you have right now? Two?

01:34:02 Speaker_01
We have two, and probably gonna be two going forward.

01:34:06 Speaker_04
Okay, I know you think that, but you should probably go to the Getanarian and be like, hey man, we ran the numbers. You're actually a three dog household. I'm not saying it's a guarantee, but you should get checked out.

01:34:21 Speaker_02
My wife wants to get a third dog. It's very argument right now. Cause we basically lost our kids. Like we went one kid in college and another kid who never wants to be home. It's just us now. So it's like a third dog.

01:34:34 Speaker_02
So I'm thinking about like, Oh, I've always loved those Bernice mountain dogs.

01:34:37 Speaker_04
Exactly. I was just going to say that, you know, you're going to get a huge dog.

01:34:42 Speaker_02
Yeah. You gotta get small, medium, large. Oh yeah.

01:34:47 Speaker_04
That's a ton of food.

01:34:48 Speaker_02
Get there. All right, do one more, unless you want me to chime in with some quickies.

01:34:51 Speaker_04
I've got one more that I think you're either gonna love or really hate, which is the key sweet spot for a half-baked idea. I've got an appetite to consume more media than I have time to consume.

01:35:08 Speaker_04
Just like I have an appetite to consume all of the Sunday football games with but I can't watch everything live, so I have Red Zone.

01:35:20 Speaker_04
But shows that I have started, Gladiator I started, The Boys, Penguin, Yellowstone, those four shows, I've watched a bit of all of those shows.

01:35:31 Speaker_04
But I'm not going to, I find myself, well maybe I'll get the flu and I'll be laid out, that's no way to live, rooting for the flu so I can bang through all these shows.

01:35:42 Speaker_04
some sort of Scott Hanson, Hanson zone, I'm calling some sort of Scott Hanson red zone thing where he's up there. But all right, let's go to the penguin. Oh, the penguin just killed this guy. Oh my god. Boom, quick shot.

01:35:55 Speaker_04
Well, all right, we got to go back. Now we're going over to Yellowstone. Oh my goodness. There's some real estate deal coming back. All right, let's go to the boys. We're on season one of what And it's just for you. Maybe it's AI, but I'm bouncing around.

01:36:07 Speaker_04
I don't need to see every little, you know, piece of plot. I just need the big moment so I can be conversant. I get a little emotional about, oh, my God, I can't believe, you know, Rip killed this guy in Yellowstone. Red zone for serialized television.

01:36:23 Speaker_02
Let's go over to Tell Me Lies, where Brie has just fucked her professor, but the wife knows about it.

01:36:28 Speaker_04
I don't even know that show. I gotta put that on the list, I guess. That's Hanson's job. That's the idea. I really need this in my life.

01:36:38 Speaker_02
Yeah, I don't really have any notes. I don't even think that's a half-baked idea. I think that's a fully-baked idea.

01:36:45 Speaker_04
Thank you. And just like, you know how YouTube has, you can pick, they don't let you pick the multi-view, they're like, here are the four shows. That's what you go into. It's like, we're gonna start season one of these four shows.

01:36:57 Speaker_04
Click it, you're in there for an hour.

01:37:00 Speaker_02
This is talk soup, but you're now taking all the prestige TV shows, which we have way too many of. And we just zip it through.

01:37:07 Speaker_02
I don't know what's going on with the penguin, but I would love to know just enough to be able to chime in at a holiday party in two months. I was stunned when he did that in episode seven.

01:37:18 Speaker_04
Yeah. Can you believe that? Like, yes, exactly right. Rip away a lot of the art of it. Like, ah, here's the penguin walking through Gotham in this beautiful scene. I get it. But also, that Hanson's taken out of the show for me.

01:37:33 Speaker_04
Boom, I'm out there, red zone Hanson.

01:37:35 Speaker_02
See, I thought you were gonna say it's AI TV takes where you just listen to this podcast and they give you five things to then say like if you're going to a holiday party.

01:37:48 Speaker_02
I don't know if Tell Me Lies season two was as good as season one and here are my three points and it makes it seem like you watched it but you really didn't. That's way more of a half-baked idea.

01:37:58 Speaker_04
Yeah, there was an idea that I had for since the show is that we, you know, it's produced.

01:38:05 Speaker_01
Yeah.

01:38:05 Speaker_04
The first thing sort of, obviously pretty, we can kind of know what we're saying and we have like notes and stats and full screen. And here's my point. And here's my thing. I've never said this before.

01:38:14 Speaker_04
Like I come over and like produce your Thanksgiving dinner. It's like, all right, Bill, what do you want to talk about? Like, all right, I gotta talk about, you know, the landscape and my neighbor's house.

01:38:24 Speaker_04
Yeah, it's like, all right, what's your issue with the landscape and everything? Like, these trees are too tall. I'm like, those trees are too tall. Like, the average tree is this.

01:38:31 Speaker_04
I'm gonna make you a full screen and say the average tree is this, and this is blocking your view of whatever. Like, what else? And this, and we've got lots, and I'm throwing stuff up.

01:38:39 Speaker_02
Well, yeah, but I'm also got to be in the middle because Bob can go either way. It's like on TV when the middle seat is an important seat on a studio show.

01:38:47 Speaker_04
And I'm in Bob's ear. I'm like, hey, Bob, don't forget. Don't forget. Bill said this the other day. Stick it to him. Like, right.

01:38:54 Speaker_02
Don't bring up the election to Aunt Louise.

01:38:57 Speaker_04
No, that's a no go.

01:38:58 Speaker_02
She'll go nuts. I have a couple, I have three tiny ones. I have two that I like, but I'll give you a quick ones. I don't even know if this is a half-baked idea. Full service gas stations. Just come back. Yeah.

01:39:14 Speaker_04
I think they got to move to New Jersey. But how many are, how many full service gas stations are in California? None.

01:39:22 Speaker_02
Not really. Everyone's on their own with gas. And I just kind of miss having the guy like, do my windshield and just pump the gas for me. Apparently there's one place in Beverly Hills that does it, but I miss full service gas stations.

01:39:36 Speaker_02
I was trying to think, is there like a 2.0 version of those? Cause they had those in like the forties and fifties. Like maybe in LA it's standup comics who were doing gas, but they're also doing like three minutes of their act.

01:39:46 Speaker_04
Oh God.

01:39:47 Speaker_02
Yeah. I don't know. That's why it's half baked. Yeah. Um, 10 day Westbrook. So Westbrook pops on all these different teams for a year and then he kind of wears that as welcome. Right.

01:39:59 Speaker_02
But everybody's really excited when he shows up cause it's like Westbrook second unit, he'll be able to run the offense himself and he puts up all these stats and he'll change the energy. And each year a team talks himself into it.

01:40:13 Speaker_02
but by like midway through the year, everybody's like, ah, wish we didn't have Russell Westbrook.

01:40:19 Speaker_04
It also revitalizes your superstar. Like every superstar is like, Russ changes the art team. He's like Joker the other day. He's like, Oh yeah, this is what he does for us. Like, all right.

01:40:30 Speaker_02
Does that sound back it up? And he's shooting 20%. If he's just 10 day contract Westbrook, He's just like Memphis right now has a bunch of injuries or New Orleans. And it's like, Oh, 10 day rest is here. Comes in. He's a hall of famer.

01:40:44 Speaker_02
He's padding stats, instant offense. But then, then you, you kind of, he just kind of leaves. It's like having leftovers in the fridge. He's just gone after 10 days.

01:40:54 Speaker_04
This will be the second old fiction reference, but kind of like, like the wolf, like Westbrook, like I'm here.

01:41:03 Speaker_03
Oh, wow.

01:41:05 Speaker_04
Yeah.

01:41:05 Speaker_03
Oh, we got you bringing Russ.

01:41:08 Speaker_04
Oh, yeah. Shows up there super fast. He's always dressed really well.

01:41:15 Speaker_02
And the key is he so he signs with these teams so he can make like three, four or five million a year, whatever he gets. So 10 day Westbrook would just be more expensive than the salary cap would be.

01:41:25 Speaker_02
He's basically getting paid like one hundred thousand a game. And you just sign in and it's like, oh, I'll do 10 day Westbrook for four games. We got Jaren Jackson's out and Jaws hurt and we need whatever. Great.

01:41:39 Speaker_01
And then I have a NBA announcer navigation systems. Okay.

01:41:47 Speaker_04
Oh, for your GPS?

01:41:49 Speaker_02
Well, just for specific moments, like when you're parking, and you could just, like, switch to Ryan Rucco mode, and he's like, he's gonna parallel park in the back, can he get it?

01:41:59 Speaker_03
You bet! No? He's gonna run this red light, is he gonna get caught? Bang!

01:42:12 Speaker_04
I actually like that one a lot. This one is super depressing. You want a depressing one or a stupid one? Give us both. I'll start with the depressing one. We're trying to go to Hawaii for our next vacation. I'll be, uh, probably after my birthday.

01:42:41 Speaker_04
So I'll be like 47. It's a long way from the East coast. I know we're going to pit stop and then we can go any of that. Yeah. Brine funeral photo time for me. Brian, not not too young, like, like, right on my casket right there. What photo you got?

01:43:05 Speaker_04
It's that photo we took on vacation in Hawaii. I'm thinking about it. So right now, I don't know if there's photographers that specialize in this. So you get perfect, you get exposed to a professional

01:43:17 Speaker_04
photographer a few times in your life, you're born, you usually get like a nice photo, then K through 12, a guy or woman shows up every every photo day. Yeah, that's good.

01:43:30 Speaker_04
Then you're in a pretty much of a dry spell there until your wedding wedding day, boom. And then you're pretty much on your own. Like there's very few times you're going to run into a perfect maybe at a going down a roller coaster.

01:43:44 Speaker_04
And that's probably a robot. But that's it. for all K through 12, your wedding, and if you're going down a water slide with a scary face, that's the only time you're getting professional photos.

01:43:54 Speaker_04
So when you die, your poor loved ones had already have the stress of dealing with your departure. Now they have another stress of going through How many pictures of me are there? 3,000 pictures on my iPhone?

01:44:08 Speaker_04
You got to go through 3,000 pictures and try to find the one?

01:44:11 Speaker_02
No. So they have to figure out your passwords. Oh, it's a disaster. Yeah. Like just a whole bunch of things and then a photo on top of it.

01:44:18 Speaker_04
Exactly. And a few things. One, got to be solo. You gotta be on the casket, you can't have two people like, hold on, two people, what happened here? Was this some sort of accident?

01:44:28 Speaker_02
Like that was just. Or you have like your arms around somebody and it's like the cutoff stump of your arm.

01:44:32 Speaker_04
Yeah, no, that's a no-go. Gotta be solo, it's gotta be sort of a candid photo. Like, oh, look at this. Which, you know, normal people have a hard time capturing. You can pose on a photo, sure, but just like a candid photo, and who am I laughing with?

01:44:46 Speaker_04
Like, that person's taking the picture, gotta need a pro, gotta be smiling, obviously, and I need a lived life to the fullest background. Can't just have it, you know, just walking down the street at the coffee shop.

01:44:57 Speaker_04
I have to have, wow, oh, look at that. Remember he went to Hawaii? That's a great moment for him. And then part of me, and this is just an idea here, I have no proof of this.

01:45:08 Speaker_04
Part of me thinks that when you go to heaven or whatever you may believe in, and if you are a physical entity there, that you need to put a recommendation up into the management at Hemel on how you would like to be perceived.

01:45:21 Speaker_02
Right, do you want to be 28 year old wilds? Do you want to be mid thirties wilds, 47 year old wilds?

01:45:26 Speaker_04
Yeah, you got to be, cause it's also confusing for everybody else. Like I was just thinking like, I go to Benjamin Franklin, he's 20 years old. I'm like, who are you? Like Ben Franklin, like Ben Franklin, bro, who are you?

01:45:37 Speaker_04
And he's like playing basketball. I'm like, dude, no, you have to be, you need your special. He's just like this young, like strapping dude, like, no, dude, where you're stocking.

01:45:49 Speaker_04
So anyways, it's, I called it, he taken, but since it's like the idea of the clock is ticking, tick tock, it's called, no, it's the, I called it either weight gram, casket gram or tick tock. But it's a photographer that only does funeral.

01:46:04 Speaker_02
So you can start with the photographer and he's, he's like great spot at the top of this mountain and Kauai. Um, we'll get background, there's like a volcano over your right shoulder, it could do that.

01:46:17 Speaker_02
Or I'm thinking maybe hotel bar, just with a big drink and you're looking at somebody laughing and there's like the ocean behind you.

01:46:26 Speaker_04
Love it, love it. I wouldn't do it honestly for that if you were the photographer, I'd be like, let's do the bar because I think the clouds at the top a little too on the nose, so let's do the hotel bar, good lighting, and it'll be great.

01:46:41 Speaker_04
Save it, and if you hear about my demise, let's print that out.

01:46:45 Speaker_02
Well, you know how they have these national days that I hate? It's like National Daughter's Day, and then you have to feel bad if you don't post a picture of your daughter, because it's this arbitrary holiday that we've created five years ago.

01:46:57 Speaker_02
Maybe it should be, here's the photo I want shown at my funeral when I died day. I mean, then whoever dies, you're just like, what, what did wilds want first photo? Oh, that hotel bar one. And now that's a great one. I really like this. This is good.

01:47:16 Speaker_02
This is almost a fully baked idea.

01:47:17 Speaker_04
Good. I'm glad. I thought that was going to be more depressing.

01:47:21 Speaker_01
I thought it was uplifting.

01:47:23 Speaker_04
Uh, all right. This is, this is stupider.

01:47:28 Speaker_01
Okay.

01:47:31 Speaker_04
NFL game. You're going over the game. What are you wearing? Jersey. NBA game, wearing a jersey. Soccer, wearing a jersey. Baseball game, hats and jerseys. Kentucky Derby, full suit.

01:47:46 Speaker_04
Kentucky Derby, either jockey jerseys, little checkerboard action with the hat and the pants, or dress like the horse. Outfits where it's like, oh, nice markings, with a shirt with a mane that goes down your spine.

01:48:01 Speaker_04
Like, oh, sick, you dress like your favorite horse. You don't have to wear a dress or some fancy suit. Dress like the jockey. Got a shirt with a number on it. Some of those shirts look great. Green checkerboard with the numbers.

01:48:14 Speaker_02
So you think jockey shirt, almost like when soccer jerseys took off like 10 years ago. Yes, yes. And all of a sudden, soccer jerseys were the rage. Yes, they're coming back. So you're saying jockey jerseys haven't had a moment yet.

01:48:24 Speaker_02
I don't know about the horse part.

01:48:26 Speaker_04
Okay, horse, you might not wanna dress as the horse, but certainly you can dress like the jockey, they look great.

01:48:32 Speaker_04
And part of this is born, I started riding, I bought a bike, so I'm riding a bike, and the first hurdle to get over after you buy the bike is like, alright, am I really gonna buy the, you know.

01:48:42 Speaker_01
Are you gonna dress like one of those guys?

01:48:44 Speaker_04
Bill? I look fantastic.

01:48:48 Speaker_02
Oh, you're dressing like one of those guys now. Oh my God.

01:48:52 Speaker_04
No, I look great.

01:48:53 Speaker_02
Oh, I was on a rim. My car.

01:48:54 Speaker_04
One of those guys. If you did, I would look great. That would be my funeral pick. And I was like, that dude looks fantastic. And it's slimming. You're squeezed in there. You're looking aerodynamic. You're in bright colors.

01:49:11 Speaker_04
You just look like you're out here living life. I look fantastic in my biking outfit.

01:49:17 Speaker_02
You just made me think that this should be an AI feature where I just get updates about my friends and everybody has to sign up and it'll just be like the Tuesday edition of your newsletter of all the people you know. Kevin Wilds, now a bike guy.

01:49:31 Speaker_02
And that's how I just find out from the newsletter.

01:49:33 Speaker_04
I'll post some stuff of me looking like, You look muscular in them. It's like, they're like Spanx in there. And once you start biking, you start to get, you know, cut off a little bit. It's great. Wow.

01:49:45 Speaker_01
I can't believe you're a bike guy. That's unbelievable.

01:49:48 Speaker_04
But being a bike guy, it's been fantastic. The other part of this is, and this is a half big idea subhead. Lower body. For fanatics. It's really like, got basketball sneakers, that's taken care of. Hats, so, you know, tip to toe, that's taken care of.

01:50:12 Speaker_04
The whole upper body's taken care of. All sorts occasionally, but the lower body is there for you if you wanna wear a Yankees pinstripe pants.

01:50:23 Speaker_01
Nope. Definitely wouldn't wanna do that.

01:50:25 Speaker_04
Well, I'm just saying, like, the lower body is available for, is an open piece of real estate for fanatics to jump on. I'd wear personally, I'd wear the little jockey shorts, jockey and high boots. I look great.

01:50:39 Speaker_02
I have, I have two that I really liked that I'll go fast on, but one that's not even half baked. It just struck me with the NFL trade deadline. Yeah. How much content we get from it, how I just wish it existed in other parts of life.

01:50:55 Speaker_02
Like it'd be like my wife, my, my wife and like all her friends, it was like Tuesdays. trade deadline might get rid of like one of my friends. It's like, really? Which one? Oh my God. And it just like the conversations it would provoke.

01:51:09 Speaker_02
My God, you're getting rid of Helen. Yeah. Well, you know, I, she hasn't been doing as much this year. She stopped drinking. Um, and we just go anyway. All right, here are my two.

01:51:22 Speaker_04
Can I, can I spin one off of that?

01:51:24 Speaker_02
Yeah.

01:51:25 Speaker_04
I read a study. It was about like loneliness is like, you know, epidemic. It was like, uh, 58% of men haven't made a friend in the last year, a new friend in the last year. I was like 58. I would, I would put that at 99.

01:51:37 Speaker_04
I didn't realize like, everyone's like getting these new friends, like a draft day of like, Hey, you know, draft is coming up and you just call a guy that, you know, your kids, you know, a kid's your,

01:51:50 Speaker_04
It's a friend's father that you've seen in like, Hey man, I just want to let you know, uh, I took you in the second round of my friend draft. Uh, we're going to let you happy to walk in a board of friends. You're going to bite it too.

01:52:03 Speaker_04
We're going to go out for a beer too. And like mandated, you got to get new friends.

01:52:09 Speaker_02
I always announce at the end of my year to my wife who my favorite new friend of the year was, but you're getting new friends all the time. Yes. Somehow I always end up with a new friend.

01:52:18 Speaker_04
Oh, geez, I'm stuck. I've just been rolling off.

01:52:20 Speaker_02
We're in New York. Everybody's just, it's like freaking Game of Thrones.

01:52:24 Speaker_04
I've been rolling with the same friends for a while. I'm like just trying to think of a team that's just like, yeah, we're running it back again. Like, really? We all got a year older. I gotta get some new blood.

01:52:34 Speaker_04
I'm thinking about, I met one of Billy's soccer friends' dads.

01:52:41 Speaker_02
Could be a new friend.

01:52:42 Speaker_04
Might be a new friend. Might be a new friend.

01:52:45 Speaker_02
The parents of the kids usually end up being a very fertile new fan base.

01:52:50 Speaker_04
That's my only, you know, that's my only ground. I don't know, like a guy on the street, like, hey, buddy, I did meet a random guy. Like, buddy, we should be friends. Right.

01:53:03 Speaker_02
It's weird. Cause guys being like, Hey, you want to go to a sports bar or watch the Laker game? All right. Here are my favorite two that I had. I'll make them quick. I feel like VHS players need to make a comeback vinyl came back. Right.

01:53:18 Speaker_02
All of a sudden vinyl is as big as it's ever been. It's like, man, that's weird. Oh man, I shouldn't have thrown out my vinyl. Oh, I kept some. Oh, there's some over there. And now it's become this whole thing that's happened.

01:53:28 Speaker_02
And Sean fantasy for, you know, um, he's been a big physical media guy forever with blue rays and DVDs, but there was this whole VHS era forever. And it wasn't just with buying movies and TV shows. It was also like,

01:53:44 Speaker_02
you know, if you had a video camera and you videotaped like your kids or people in college and you just have these VHS tapes and then all of a sudden the VCR player just died and you couldn't even buy them and that none of them work with HDMI cords and then you go on Amazon and they like refurbish them and it all feels super shady.

01:54:04 Speaker_02
I just want them to come back. So then I was thinking, I also don't like how annoying it is to have DVDs and to stand up instead of just like with my remote. I'm like, I'm going to watch something on Amazon. I just press a button.

01:54:16 Speaker_04
You like, you like, you like doing that. Let the scroll to find stuff.

01:54:20 Speaker_02
I would rather not move when I'm about to pick a movie, but with the DVD player, you have to get up, you have to go, you put the DVD in, you got to press the button.

01:54:28 Speaker_02
So then I was thinking, could they just have these VHS DVD players that are attached to the side of the TV? So you have like this, you know, like these long thin TVs that would put on the walls. maybe on the left side, it's like this little DVD thing.

01:54:42 Speaker_02
I just plop on the side. It's like a little VHS thing and it's part of the TV and that would encourage people to bring VHS and DVD. Okay.

01:54:50 Speaker_04
So that is not only a half baked idea. I believe that is a full baked idea. I stayed at a hotel.

01:54:57 Speaker_04
I stayed at a hotel like in the Catskills and they had like a little library there of VHS's and then it was included in the thing and it was like literally.

01:55:06 Speaker_02
Was it part of the TV though? I think being part of the TV is.

01:55:10 Speaker_04
I think it was one unit.

01:55:12 Speaker_02
Oh, interesting. All right. Bad idea then. Nobody has this idea.

01:55:17 Speaker_04
It's a great idea, but it's.

01:55:18 Speaker_02
This is my best idea.

01:55:20 Speaker_04
Okay, here we go.

01:55:22 Speaker_02
So we're on these Zooms. Right.

01:55:25 Speaker_02
And sometimes you're on a zoom and I'll do like, I, as you know, I walk around, so sometimes I'll be walking around when I'm on a zoom, but then I was thinking it would be great if AI, which I think we're all afraid of, but also has some really good fertile things that could also help all of us.

01:55:42 Speaker_02
I'm more pro AI the most. I was thinking of AI could basically replace and replicate my face on a zoom.

01:55:51 Speaker_02
so that the Zoom's happening and AI Bill is just there like nodding every once in a while and like a laugh and it just can kind of react to the cues of the Zoom. But I'm not actually there. I'm just in another room. I'm not even on the Zoom.

01:56:04 Speaker_02
Or I'm on the Zoom but I didn't feel like being on the Zoom so I just did AI Bill for the Zoom. And I'm just over there listening and I'm not really on the Zoom. AI Bill is pretending to be me on the Zoom.

01:56:18 Speaker_02
It feels like AI is good enough that we could pull this off. And I think we should use AI for good. And part of AI for good is let's figure out ways to cheat on Zoom so people don't know we are not actually on the Zoom.

01:56:30 Speaker_04
Can I ask you a question, because I do very few Zooms now, do you feel the need that Zoom replace conference calls? Like why are you just on a conference call? Why do you need to see everybody?

01:56:42 Speaker_02
I don't, because it's a leftover COVID thing. People like seeing everybody.

01:56:47 Speaker_04
but no one likes to be seen.

01:56:50 Speaker_02
Or maybe they kind of do because nobody goes to an office anymore or very few or less people go. And it's like, this is interaction time.

01:56:57 Speaker_04
We're in the, yeah, I guess so.

01:56:59 Speaker_02
We're in the office. You're having a typical situation.

01:57:02 Speaker_04
Uh, we're in the office and then the, with the zoom that we have, everyone's cameras off. I'm like, we're actually just having a conference call. The poor conference call industry is just really falling off.

01:57:11 Speaker_02
Conference calls are done. Yeah, dial in, press this pin, it's over. It's just Zooms now. Anyway, AI face for Zooms. Let's work on it. What do you have for your last half bake? You going rapid fire? Just gonna shoot three until I pick one?

01:57:25 Speaker_04
I have two, hold on. All right. I have this one from... Hutchinson was injured, uh, and he went to the game and I said, sports bar, and he looked very comfortable as he recovers.

01:57:39 Speaker_04
Um, so Godspeed Aiden Hutchinson, uh, sports bar, but the seating looks like you just had major surgery. It's more of like, you're just kind of being pampered, but even like an Alamo draft house sports bar.

01:57:51 Speaker_04
Yeah, but you're, but it looks like you just had surgery. So you're really, it's really just, I mean, it's really short for, It's a bar where you put your feet up and take your shoes off. I think that's kind of the underlying current.

01:58:04 Speaker_01
Final one.

01:58:08 Speaker_04
I don't like self-checkout. I'm not a huge fan of that. I hate it as well. I'm like, all right, I have to work here too now. I'm not a fan. However, you cook my own food at your dining establishment. So all buffets, love it, element of fun.

01:58:28 Speaker_04
The movie theater, for my own sodas, fantastic. There's like a yogurt shop in town. You can make your own yogurts, do that, that's great. Those like little like hibachi place, a little teriyaki where you like have a little open flame, fantastic.

01:58:44 Speaker_04
Is, I don't have, this is a quarter bake. Is there another food that is ripe for that treatment? Where it's like, yeah, you actually go and you just do it yourself. I'm like, what? They don't do it for you? Like, no, you have to do it.

01:59:00 Speaker_04
They give you all the tools, but you get to do it. I'm like, great, but I don't know what the food is.

01:59:06 Speaker_02
So this is happening with pizza, at least with this 2.0 version of pizza, where they give you these giant, heavy, sharp scissors, and they just bring the pizza out, and it's just a circle, and then you have to cut the slices with the scissors.

01:59:20 Speaker_02
A bunch of other pizza places out there do it.

01:59:22 Speaker_04
But that's just like the ninth inning. I'm not gonna buy one. I'd come in and support it.

01:59:25 Speaker_02
So you're saying they give you the ingredients for a soup, And you stand in the bowl and you like make a soup or you make like your own tomato sauce.

01:59:35 Speaker_04
I wouldn't mind being the guy who threw the pizza.

01:59:39 Speaker_02
Oh, you want to literally make your own pizza?

01:59:42 Speaker_04
But I don't just like a lot of times make your own pizza just means throw some basil on it. I wouldn't mind. I don't know. I'm trying to find out the best thing. A very hot steak. I don't know. But I know I like pouring my own sodas and I know I like

01:59:57 Speaker_04
you know, cooking my own hibachi.

02:00:00 Speaker_02
So I don't know where you're grilling your own hot dogs and burgers. You just get your own grill.

02:00:07 Speaker_04
Oh, that's not a bad idea.

02:00:09 Speaker_02
You just say you're just on there and then you're, you're, you're like Tony Soprano.

02:00:14 Speaker_04
That's what it is. It's a giant sports bar and it's almost set up like pop golf.

02:00:20 Speaker_04
and you go in there, it's like, here's your station, here's your grill, maybe you have like a huge smoker, maybe you have a pig on a spit, and it's like, this is your little area, you gotta do it.

02:00:31 Speaker_04
And you're making friends, and you're like, hey buddy, wanna be friends, come over. Have some pork.

02:00:36 Speaker_02
So you're basically like, you get to be Adam Perry Lang for like four hours.

02:00:39 Speaker_04
Yeah, it's high end, I got a big grill, I'm like, hey buddy, because I'm grilling by myself. Making friends and grilling. You're like, you're competing, other guys, more for high end grills. That's pretty good.

02:00:52 Speaker_04
Get anything like anybody had this that we solved it.

02:00:55 Speaker_02
Kevin Wilds, you can see him on First Things First every single day. We're aligned on Drake May for the next 20 years. Can't wait. Can't wait to see your your funeral photo.

02:01:07 Speaker_01
Oh, thank you.

02:01:08 Speaker_02
Mine later. I think I have a good one from Hawaii last summer. I have a lay on when you have a lay on. Isn't that like that's like always points.

02:01:17 Speaker_04
Yeah. You're always having a blast.

02:01:19 Speaker_02
Yeah.

02:01:19 Speaker_04
This guy really live.

02:01:21 Speaker_02
Yeah, all right, good to see you, Wiles.

02:01:22 Speaker_04
All right, good to see you.

02:01:23 Speaker_02
All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Kevin Wiles, thanks to Kyle Creighton and Steve Cerruti as well. Don't forget, you can watch all the clips and videos from this podcast on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel.

02:01:35 Speaker_02
You can watch the new Rewatchables episode on the Ringer Movies YouTube channel. I hope you're voting today. I hope when I come back on Thursday to do the third podcast of the week, I hope the country's in a good place. We will see. Go out and vote.

02:01:49 Speaker_02
See you on Thursday.

02:01:55 Speaker_05
On the wayside, I never said I don't have feelings with him On the wayside, on the roadside, I never said

02:02:14 Speaker_02
Must be 21 plus and president select states for Kansas and affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and president DC. Gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org.

02:02:32 Speaker_02
or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here, visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8-HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York.

The Bill Simmons Podcast episodes list: view full AI transcripts and summaries of this podcast on the blog​

Episode: A Two-Week NBA Power Poll, Plus Drake Maye, Best Candy, and Half-Baked Ideas With Kevin Wildes​

Episode Shownotes​

Summary​

Full Transcript​

The Bill Simmons Podcast episodes list: view full AI transcripts and summaries of this podcast on the blog

Episode: A Two-Week NBA Power Poll, Plus Drake Maye, Best Candy, and Half-Baked Ideas With Kevin Wildes

Episode Shownotes

Summary

Full Transcript