Transcript of Belichick’s ‘Legacy,' a Texas NBA Gauntlet, Boston’s 3 Party, Ja’s Big Season, and Week 6 NFL Picks With Kirk Goldsberry, Chris Vernon, and Joe House

The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. We are also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. I put up a new rewatchable. It was Monday. We did Jeremiah Johnson for Robert Redford Month. Monday, another Redford movie, a little more modern this time around, Sneakers. People love this movie. This is, I think, probably the most requested Redford movie ever since we said we were doing Redford Month. So that's going to be on Monday. And it's going to be three people, including myself, who have never done a podcast together. So there's your hint for that. But you have a whole weekend to watch Sneakers. Speaking of the Ringer Podcast Network, we're launching a new podcast called Welcome to None of My Business. It is with Sophia Benoit and Kelsey June-Jensen. And this is This is the first time we have gone into the sex life advice area. We'll see how it goes. I actually think this has a high upside for a pot, but we will see. As always, podcasts are about chemistry in the host, not the idea. And this is a good idea, and we think the chemistry in the host are going to be good.

So check that one out. I think it's launching either this weekend or early next week, but you can subscribe, follow on Spotify, where we get your podcast. So there you go. I wanted to say one thing about Bill Belichick because I've been watching people just delightedly pile on him. Look, I'm biased. He was my favorite football coach. We won six Super Bowl's with him, had two plus decades with him, and two of those decades were fantastic. But I keep seeing, I don't know how this North Carolina thing is going to go. Obviously, it's not going well. It's probably even going worse than we thought. And will he be coaching there next year? If I had to bet my life one way or the other, I'd bet that he will not be coaching there next year. And I bet that it's probably headed toward an Urban Meyer, Jacksonville. This was a bad idea. Let's just get out of this. Maybe NFL coaches shouldn't coach college. Maybe college Why don't you shouldn't coach NFL? I don't know the answer. I do know Belichex in his mid-70s, and more importantly, I do know this. Nothing that happens to him at North Carolina, short of him pulling his pants down and tweaking on fentanyl on the sidelines during an ACC game is going to change everything he did when he was at the Patriots and all the stuff he did in the NFL.

It doesn't really matter. And what is annoying to me about all of this, we always talk about legacy in sports. Now, I'm not saying I'm innocent. I've certainly brought it up a few times. But it's legacy, legacy, legacy. What is this going to mean for his legacy? We don't even understand how to talk about legacy. We don't know what a legacy is because think about some of the great players, coaches we've had over the last 100 plus years of professional sports. Did it matter how the end happened for a lot of them? Do you care that Babe Ruth played for the Boston Braves? Do you care that Vince Lombardi coached the Washington Redskins? Do you care that Michael Jordan played for the Washington Wizards for two years, didn't make the playoffs either year? Can you name all the teams Wayne Gretske played for in hockey after the Oilers and after the Kings? Because you can keep going. It was like the Rangers and the Blues and a couple of others. This happens over and over again. Can you name all the people Muhammad Ali fought after the third Frazier fight? I can name them because I was there watching most of them.

He was my first favorite fighter. But do you remember after Larry Holmes, the most depressing fight in the history of that he fought again, that he fought in the Bahamas against Trevor Burbick, and he was even more depressing. None of this shit... Once the years passed, people remember the best stuff. They don't remember like Payton Manning in that last year with the Broncos when he had the noodle arm. They remember All the great stuff he did on the Colts and the Broncos. And this is just how sports goes. Nobody remembers the last couple of years when Kobe was on the Lakers and they didn't win anything and the team was a complete train wreck. It doesn't matter. So when I hear about, is this going to hurt Belichick's legacy? See, look, it's not awesome. I'm not doing backflips about it as somebody who likes Belichick and was hoping he would do well. But ultimately, it's not going to change what happened in the 2000s and the 2010s. It doesn't change what we thought about Belichick and braided together as a tandem. That's another stupid take I've seen. Well, since he's doing badly at North Carolina, that maybe we have to reassess Brady's involvement in the Super Bowl.

No, we don't. We don't have to reassess We have to reassess nothing. The first three Super Bowl, Belichick was probably a little more responsible. The second three, braided was probably a little more responsible, but they needed each other the whole time. Braided has talked about this over and over again, how much he learned from Belichick, how much Belichick coached him, taught him about defenses, worked through tape with him the first couple of years. They needed each other. To say one deserve more credit than the other is just typical sports media talk bullshit that we do. They both want all those titles together. I don't feel like either of them was that much more important than the other. They needed each other, and that was that. Even in the last three, when braided clearly was the dominant force in football and the biggest reason they won those Super Bowl, there's no question. But what happened in the last Super Bowl? They won. Perfect defensive game plan that completely cut Sean McVay's legs out. Braided, I think the Pats scored 13 points in that game, something like that. Belichick won that Super Bowl. Katie won the game before against the Chiefs when they kept scoring, when it became a shootout and they had to get points.

That's the thing. They needed each other. And I don't care what happened in North Carolina. I really don't. If he's going to leave, he's going to go back to media. Look, this was the whole thing with the Jordan Hudson story this spring and why I thought I didn't like the story. I didn't want to listen to it, read it, because I just feel like the dude's in his mid-70s now. He's clearly past his prime. And sadly, sometimes this is how it for people in sports. We've seen it over and over again, and he's the latest. And guess what? There's going to be more after him. So whether he finishes North Carolina or not, whether he finishes the season, maybe he'll miraculously turn around next year. I thought he was going to do way better than this. There's a lot that goes into college sports with the recruiting, with what you promise people. How do you build a program? Coming right into that, just trying to... Obviously, way harder than anyone expected even him. But ultimately, he's going to leave. The years are going to pass, and nobody's going to care about this. Nobody. Allen Iverson is doing a media tour right now.

Allen Iverson won six playoff series in his entire career. Nobody cares anymore. People remember 2001. They remember how much fun it was to watch him. He's certainly one of the best players I've ever seen in person. We don't talk about what's up with Allen Iverson's legacy. He only made the finals once. He only had one play off run. It doesn't matter. He was one of the greats. Belichick is the greatest NFL coach ever. I I don't care what happened in North Carolina. Anyway, that's my rant. Coming up on this podcast, we're going to talk to Kurt Goldsbury about the three Texas NBA teams, and then he's going to tell us one trend that we should look for for the NBA season. Then after that, Joe House and I with the ice cold Ringer 107 Picks. Just a comedy of errors. We're bringing in some... It's like a marriage. We're sprucing it up. We're bringing a threesome partner. Chris Vernon is going to come on and try to change our luck. So that's all next. We're going to take a break, then Pearl Jam, and then Kurt Goldsbury. This is the Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel.

If you're betting on the NFL, come on. Fandool is the place to do it. They've got everything. Same game parlays, quick bets for when you want to jump in live. Your way, so you can set your own lines on just about anything. The app's fast, it's easy to use, and best of all, when you win, you get paid instantly. I've been in Boston, Massachusetts, recently. Guess what I did? Use Fandool. Super fun. Download the Fandool app or go to fandil. Com/bs to get started. Must be 21 18 plus, President Select States, 18 plus in DC, Kentucky, and Wyoming. Get in and call 1-800 Gamble. Or visit rg-help. Com. Call 888-789-777 or visit ccpg. Org/chat in Connecticut. Kireg Goldsbury here, taping this mid-afternoon Pacific Time on a Thursday. First of all, haven't seen you in a while. Good to see you. You're wearing the Grantland hoodie. I'm excited to see that. I'm excited to talk Texas teams with you. That was the first assignment we had. You were in the Texas Triangle. Some are calling you the King of Texas. Yeah. This is the first time, Kerb Goldsbury, that all three Texas teams have a chance to be genuinely good.

Since when? What year do you think was the last year?

Oh, man.

Not that long ago. I thought 2018? Nope. 2015.

Okay, 2015.

Yeah, it's been 10 years. 2015, Houston was 56-26 with that Howard-Harden combo when they beat the Clippers, made the Western Finals. San Antonio was 55-27. Then Dallas, their last decent year with aging Dirk, they were 15-32. But really, to get all three of these teams together as contenders has not happened. I don't think ever. We've always had two or three. I'm not saying it's going to happen this year. But I ask you, do you share my enthusiasm for the Texas Triangle this year? Because to share it, you must believe Dallas is going to be way better than the over-under odds and all that stuff.

Yeah, I do. I think those three Three franchises we have here in Texas are pretty proud franchises. I know it's been a while since all three have been good, but all three have won titles. One of the things I appreciated, Bill, when I worked at the Spurs is these are real rivalries, too. The Houston-San Antonio rivalry was much bigger than I expected as an outsider. But I'm also pretty high on all three teams. I think there's some commonalities, dude. I think the biggest one is they all have a very exciting young player at the of the story right now. Ahmed Thompson, no disrespect, is the lowest on that one. But he's very exciting, according to the GM survey that came out this week. I saw that.

I wanted to ask you about that later.

He's the most likely player to have a break out season, so they're very excited about him, and rightfully so. But then you have Wemby and Cooper Flag here in Texas as well. So I think it just sets the stage not only for this season, but for the rest of the 2020s, Bill, for these Texas teams to be pretty optimistic.

Yeah, you'd put Wemby at the top of the chart because I think he has the chance to have the generational superstar tag at some point. Then I think you would put Flag second, who is the best American player that I think we've had come into the league, probably since AD. And then It's interesting. You said Thompson's third. I would argue for a Thompson-Shengun combo. That's right. To be at the same thing because, you know, Shengun is only 23. The Euro Basket, everything he did there got people more excited for him. I I don't know. I'm on the fence with how much more I think you can get out of this because I think he's going to always be a little bit of a defensive liability. But he's been a '99, '2010 guy. I don't know what the ceiling is because if you just study the basketball reference in the jump that guys make as they hit their mid-20s. It would tell you that '24 and '12 is realistic for him, but I don't know. What do you think?

I'm very high on him. I think they played great defense last year with him at the center position. I think they were top five defense when it was all said and done. I think Eme Adoka is always going to emphasize defense. That's another person that we should mention. I think Houston might have the best coach of these three teams and one of the best coaches in the league. What he's been able to do there over the last couple of years is completely change the culture and define a vibe that is very important in Houston. But yeah, I would say I'm a bit of a San Gunn defensive skeptic, but the numbers last year suggest we shouldn't be. I mean, they played top five defense. Steven Adams is another character to watch there. I think wherever he goes, there's great rebounds. If he has anything left, he'll give him a nice physical piece to put in that frontcourt, too. And then obviously, Kevin Durant showing up changes the vibe there as well.

Yeah. I wrote down this triangle that we have now in Texas, where you have Wemby. You have Castle and Harper on top of Thompson as these three young impact guys that I all feel like the ceiling is really high. I had somebody in my life claiming that Castle was going to be the Leap guy this year, not Thompson. And just being like, why does Castle not get mentioned in any of this stuff? The guy had a really good rookie year. He was awesome at Yukon. We've seen year two jumps before, and yet he's just being buried behind Wemby and Fox and Harper, and people aren't of talking about him as a leap guy. I thought that was it. We could talk about him in a second. Schengen, this would be the leap year for him if he has it. I think either this year, maybe next year. Kd, one of the 21st century's five best guys, going for one last ride, trying to find happiness yet again. He's like one of those Hollywood actresses that just keeps... It's like when Elizabeth Taylor got married eight times when I was a kid. Flag, we mentioned. Ad and Kyrie, we did not mention.

Two guys still trying to win a title without LeBron. And then Fox finally getting a spotlight. And then here's the other piece that we can talk about later. But I'd argue these are three of the four Yannis Trade Destinations.

Oh, wow. Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's fair to say. And I think- These three in New York, right?

This is it. These are our four because Dallas, if Milwaukee wants to stay good, AD has to be in the deal.

Yeah.

San Antonio, I think, is the one that makes the most sense on paper. And then Houston, we had always talked about as a on this spot.

Yeah, they all have either future assets or great young talent that would be attractive for a rebuild in Milwaukee. So I think that's fair to say. They're just stacked. And I think you mentioned it. I mean, I don't even know where you want to start, but there are three also huge questions. They all share a big question coming into this season at the point guard position.

You didn't even mention Deer and Fox. Yeah, let's do it. I agree. They share the same...

Yeah. At the most important position, arguably in the sport, which is the point guard. Obviously, Houston had a pretty bad injury to Fred VanVleet before the season. That's making us ask, is Reid Shepper ready to do this or can Ahmen Thompson do this? I think people aren't even talking about the loss of Jalen Green, who I don't think either you or me thought was a great offensive weapon. But he led the team in pick and role plays last year. Fred VanVleet was second. And so now that both of those quarterbacks are gone, you have Reid Shepper, Ahmen Thompson, Kevin Durant can run pick and roll, but that's a big question. Then San Antonio, Jaren Fox- Can we hold that Houston thing for a second? Yeah.

My fear with them, I'm really glad you brought up those pick and roll stats. My fear with them is that this is not going to be a fun team to watch, even though they have all these players that I really like because of how stagnant in my head they might be offensively, where it's like, oh, we're going to dump it down to Schengen on this play. Here's the Dump it to KD play. Here's the awkward spread the floor for Thompson play. But they don't have that connective guy. And I do think KD has it in him because we saw him do it in Brooklyn. And in Phoenix, he was just being used so weird. We went to that game in February last year. It's like, See that rim protector What's going on with this? So if maybe he's more of a connector, you don't think Schengen has any... I mean, everybody was jokes about Baby Joker, but can you run an actual offense through him that people will be moving around and cutting?

Yeah. Could he be Mini Joker or at least the more Mini Jokich-ish than he has been in the past. I think he is a great passer for his position. I think that's one of the options they have to fill those Van Fleet touches to try to run the offense through him. But yeah, there's a clear core there of offensive weapons with Ahmed Thompson now, Kevin Durant, and then Shangoon. And I think there is going to be enough offense. I was just looking at my notes. They were 12th in offense in the league last year, but they lose Both of their quarterbacks, essentially, with Jalen Green and Fred Vanvleet going away. Dylan Brooks, who's a vibe, if nothing else, also has to be mentioned as a big departure. Like a heat check, something.

Yeah.

So there's a big uncertainty. I don't know what they're going to be looking like to watch. I think they'll be better than last year if you're just looking for beautiful offense, simply because they have Kevin Durant, who is incredible talent to watch. They didn't have somebody like that last year. I'm pretty bullish on them, Bill Simmons, if the big question about the 37-year-old dude staying healthy is a yes. And I think that's the biggest question other than the Reid Sheppard one. I think those are the two big questions I would put in Houston. Is KD still going to be KD and healthy? Healthy, and is Reid Sheppard going to be up to a promotion? And what did you say about Reid Sheppard the other day?

A friend of mine texted me. He was like, watching a rich kid in an AAU tournament. It was the scouter report. That made me nervous.

That's brutal.

But we had our college dudes really liked him. So I...

The draft nerds loved him. When that draft happened, every nerd in the NBA who does a draft model and looks at this stuff pretty deeply, was like, Reid Sheppard, he's going to be very good at basketball. Eimear Doke obviously didn't trust him. I think he had four DNPs in the Golden State series. He He's forced into a position I don't think he's ready for.

Well, that's when we all suffer from next season amnesia, especially happens in the NFL, where you just forget what happened last year. They were so bad offensively in some of that Golden State stretches. And now they don't have Van Vliet, who I was never a giant fan of, but I worry about the chopinus. All right, so that's our question for them. San Antonio, I interrupted you. You're about to say, let me guess, the shooting shooting around Wemby, all these guys, none of them are knock-down shooters. What is that actually going to look like with all these guards?

I think shooting is one, but I'll paraphrase the sports guy himself. The biggest question there for me is, De'Aaron Fox, are we sure he's good? Because they just went all in on this guy. I'm not sure it's going to work. I'm not saying it won't work. I'm just saying the biggest question there is, De'Aaron Fox, finally the piece that's going to bring a healthy offense to San Antonio, because Victor Wembenyama is immediately going to make that team a very good defense starting this year. Last year, when he was on the court, Bill, they had the third best defense in the NBA, according to the defensive rating, when he was on the floor. When he was off the floor, they went to 28th. The problem is going to be on offense. And anybody who's watched Wembe play knows that that's a huge growth area for him as an individual. He could really use He's a veteran point guard. Chris Paul was big there last year, but De'Aaron Fox could be bigger, he's younger and faster. So the big question for me, eager to hear what you say, Bill, can De'Aaron Fox really fix that offense?

I mean, he was good on that 48-win Sacramento team. He was a clutch score, which they would clearly need. And I do like the idea of him running pick and rolls with Wemby and then Wemby rolling in the basket. By the way, congrats to the Spurs for finally admitting he's 7'5. Oh, that's right. It's just a little baby steps until everybody finally admits he's 7'6, which is what he actually is. But at least we're going with 7'5 now. Kareem always lied. Bill Walton always lied. This is a whole... Durant is another height liar. These height liars know who they are. Kevin Durant is at least 7'1. What does he say he is, like 6'10?

It's interesting. The height liars, they bookend each other because they're short guys who say they're an inch or two taller than they are. Iverson.

Iverson is like 5'10. Chris Paul is like 5'10. The height liars. This would be a good All-Star team.

Yeah. So I think AOC called out Sean Miller for being a heightlier this week, but I don't think we want to go there. So let's keep with the shooting. De Aaron Fox, one thing he doesn't have, which would be very convenient if he did, it was three-point shooting. So you brought this up. I think the other big question there is, is there enough shooting talent around Victor on the perimeter? And Julian Champagne is great, but he's a bench player. So really, it comes down to Castle, who could be a good shooter. He's definitely not there yet. Devon Vasselle, who's Okay, Harrison Barnes is a great knock-down shooter. But in a world where you have some younger off-ball players who aren't great shooters, your point guard really should be. And De Aaron Fox has never been a very good three-point shooter. So I think it's It's fair to say the biggest question mark overall on the offense is De Aaron Fox and three-point shooting. What were they rank last year in offense? I had to hear my notes. I think they were 19th in offense. They need to be better than that to make the playoffs.

And Wemby missed what? The last two and a half months?

Yeah. Again, that happened, I think, when you were in town in Austin. Those were the first games he missed in February. And so, yeah, he play February, March, and April.

Fando has an unbelievable prop for Wemby, by the way.

Tell me.

Will Wemby average 25 points, 12 plus rebounds, four plus assists, and lead the league in blocks this season? Which are four things that sound realistic to me.

Yeah, I hate to judge the preseason.

Twenty-five, twelve, four, plus 750. It's year three. Plus 750 are the odds for that. I was trying to think which one I'd be the most worried about. I think it's the 12 plus rebounds.

Yeah, that's fair. Because he's so far from the basket. There's nobody else on the team that rebounds. And that's another weakness is if Harrison Barnes is your four, there's a lot of rebounds to be collected.

I genuinely think Cornet is going to play real minutes for this team. Cornet is good. He's not a starter, but if he's like your seventh man and he's playing 20 to 25, they just didn't have anyone like that last year. And they can play him with Wemby, which I think they know. That's why they overpaid for him.

How do you How do you tell Spurs fans what to expect with the Luke Cornet experience?

Every once in a while, he looks like he's the 23rd best player in the league. You just have to know that. You don't know when it's coming. It could be any game. You'll watch him on the right night and you'll be like, This guy should be making $30 million a year. What a steal that we have him. Then there'll be another game where you didn't realize he played. I loved him, though. I thought he was such a good bench guy, and the Celts are obviously going to really miss him. But the Spurs were smart. They used their cap space proactively. I don't know why they didn't get Yaba Sela. I keep mentioning that. But another fun prop for Wemby, by the way, is will he average more blocks than assists next season? Well, that's what I was going to say. So blocks would be five?

I would say four or five blocks. And if you're watching these Spurs preseason games against one Chinese team in the Miami Heat last night, you're going to notice that Victor is making a lot more passes. And Part of that is every point guard on the roster is missing the preseason or at least the first part of the preseason. So they're running offense through him. But when he gets two sent out, he makes the right play. He is a typical European big man in that sense. So I think he can get to five or six assists, but we might be seeing a little bit of a red herring in the preseason. I have these two stats from the GM survey about Wemby that I think should get Spurs fans excited. If you were starting a franchise today and could sign any NBA player in the NBA, who would it be? Victor Wembenyama received 83 % of the votes from the GM.

By the way, who are the 17 % that had another pick?

Well, Jokuj got at least one.

Jokuj is 30.

And then SGA got three or four. So again, that is a huge sign. Maybe not this year. Maybe we're two years away from being two years away. But that's a great sign that people around the league who build basketball teams are pointing at the guy in San Antonio and being like, that's the best guy to start a team with.

When be to record a quadruple double this season, which I'm not sure has ever happened. What is the odds? 18 to one. When be to record When we do a five by five in any game this year, which means at least five points in the five categories, that's plus 340. I feel like he's going to do that in November. I would bet all these Wemby things. The question for me is, how many games is he going to play? Forget the stats. Can we just keep them on the floor? Can we keep him on the floor for 70 games? That's what they're over and under, which we're going to cover in more detail next week in this pod. But 44 and a half, which I thought was right. That's right around the right number. We forgot they have a back, too, now.

I know. It's a bunch of former Celtic stretchy bigs in the Spurs ecosystem. All right.

So what was your big Dallas question, other than the obvious of when the hell is Kyrie coming back?

Well, I can't wait to talk to you about Cooper Flag. The one question that has been the number one question for any Anthony Davis team over the last 15 years since you and I have known each other is what? Can this guy stay right? I mean, if he's right, if he's healthy, they're going to be good. And I think that's a boring one. So let's lean in to the second one, which is, is Cooper Flag going to be great right away?

Let's fucking go. I'm so ready for this. I'm so ready. Let's take a break. And then come back and really hit this. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. Every football season, the same thing happens. The game somehow makes everybody really hungry. Quarterback scramble is clearly assigned for breakfast burritos. Yeah. Turnover, suddenly dessert at 2: 00 PM doesn't sound so crazy. Wing formations? Well, those can only mean Buffalo wings as if they're ever not in play. Even the goalposts start looking suspiciously like French fries. It's almost like football sending a message to eat. Eat more food. Yeah, the good news Uber Eats makes those cravings easy to satisfy with game day deals all season long. From wings and pizza to chips, drinks, and even last minute grocery runs. Don't sleep on those. You'll find savings on all your favorites delivered straight to your door. Order now on Uber Eats. All right, so Kurt Goldsbury asked me before the break, is Cooper flagged ready to be great right away? I'm doing all my basketball stuff next week. I don't want to step on any take, any opinion, any over-under prediction, anything. But I'm going to do it just for this because I can't believe their over-under is 41.

5. Last year, they were 39 and 43, but they had the Luka trade halfway in January, whenever it was. And Davis played a game and got hurt, completely messed up year. And they bring in Dilo, at least for first half of the season. Kyrie, hopefully, comes in. I don't see any scenario. 41 and a half means basically 42 and 40. It means they're going to have a winning season. I don't see any scenario where Dallas is 500 or under this season. They're going to be too fucking good defensively. And the reason is because Cooper Flag, who's an overcompetitive psycho, who you would have known that if you watched that Duke or followed him in high school or anything. He's a maniac. And they're going to have him with Davis, with Lively, with Gaffard, with P. J. Washington. This team is going to be such a bitch to try to score against, get offense against. They're going to win 43 games just on defense. So I'm in. I'm in on a bunch of Dallas stuff, but that one was the one that jumped out. And to answer your question again, I think I think it's going to be good right away.

I think he's going to be genuinely noticeably impactful, and it's going to be every game because of the way he's wired.

Yeah. And I did that big feature with him for the Ringer right before the draft, which I got meet him and spend time with his people up in Maine, and it was thrilling for me. But I also fell in love with the subject, and I love this guy, and I'm a believer now, too. The first preseason look only solidified my stance that he is going to be impactful right away. When we were asked to do the Ringer 100 rankings, I had a really tough time figuring out where to put him. I ended up putting him at 31, Bill, because I think he's going to be really good Good right away. And again, you can roast me all you want, but this dude is going to be a two-way force.

I had him 34.

Oh, see? What a great...

And by the way, I initially had him. I sent it to house to one other friend I have for a list, and I had him in the '20s, and both of them had an intervention. They were like, he's never played a game. You can't put him in the '20s. You can't put him against real guys. I'm like, I don't know, man. This is going to be one of the most additive guys that has come into the league this century. Everything he does helps the team win.

I'll tell you the stat that Joe House needs to hear, which is Cooper Flag was the youngest or second youngest player in all of college basketball last year, and he won the Naisman Trophy. He was 17. His twin brother is just starting at the University of Maine this fall. He's a baby, and he was the best player in college hoops. He's a freak.

It's actually not a big enough story. I don't think this is a fucking prodigy coming in here.

He's turning 19 in December.

My only fear with him is I just want them to use him correctly and not try to do this thing where they're trying to teach him how to be a point forward. And some of the stuff we saw Durant's first year in Seattle. They're like, You're a two guard. And all of a sudden, they were using him as a two guard. That was stupid. Yannis had that stretch, which I think ultimately long term helped him. But short term was really ugly to watch when Jason Kade was trying to make point guard. And with Flag, I just ease him into it. This is not who the offense should be running around. All these young guards are going to be diving at his legs and trying to steal the ball from him. It took Tatum until year six to be a point forward or year five.

He'll make the right plays. And that's what I think. His summer league debut captured that, too. He's not making his shots, but he's still the best player on the court because he's making every other play. He doesn't care. I mean, it's a cliché. He doesn't care about his own points. He cares about winning, as you alluded to earlier. He's the most competitive prospect.

He's the most additive prospect. I can't think of another one in the last 15 years. Davis is probably the closest. What Davis was in Kentucky She's like, Oh, yeah, you can put that anywhere and figure out how to make it work. The thing about Flag, I really do think he can play the three with them. I do think they could play Davis with the center and then have him at the three. And his ability, he's going to be like what Tatum was like last year for the Celtics. We're just able to guard every position on the court. He's going to be able to guard guards. He's going to be able to guard small forwards. And there's going to be teams that come in to play Dallas that are just going to be like, What the hell? We can't get a shot within 15 feet of the basket. And every time we think we have something, somebody switches on to a guy. That's why I feel like the Dilo Kyrie thing, I don't even really care. Because Because ultimately, they're going to have so much size and length and switchability and just all things that we know works in the NBA.

Yeah, I'm with you on the over-unders. It's fascinating to me that their number is lower than the San Antonio number because I just compare those teams. That seems backwards to me because I think the Mavericks do have a signature thing, which is one of the best front courts, if not the best front court in the NBA, because I love Lively, Gafford is great. Then you have AD, Cooper Flag, PJ Washington. I think this is just a deeper, more physical, athletic team than people realize. And I think they have a chip on their shoulder, too. They weren't happy with how last year went down. They're looking at this year as a chance to reframe the conversation.

I didn't realize you were going to agree with me on this. I thought we were going to argue about it. I'm like a 10 out of 10 bullish on them this season. I looked at the odds, they're 27 to one to win the West. And I'm I'm not saying they're going to win the West. But Golden State is 16 to one, and the Lakers are 10 to one, and the Clippers are 10 to one, and Houston with Novan Vliet is 10 to one. I just think if Kyrie is back and able to give them something combined with what they're getting from Flag, which is basically we both think he's going to be one of the best 35 guys in the league. You're just putting that in there and somebody that's going to Swiss army knife everything they're doing. Okc in Denver, I have up there, and I have Minnesota, Houston, 3A, 3B. And then after that, I don't see any reason why they couldn't be as good or better than any of those other teams.

Yeah, I went through the West myself. Okc in Denver, we agree, are on a separate plane. Okc probably above Denver. And then there's a clump. And there was a clump last year, and Houston was at the top of the clump, but just barely. And I think that's still the case. It's Minnesota, the Clippers, the Warriors, the Lakers. You have to put them there, the Rockets. But I like the Mavs. Again, they have a robust set of players. But I think that depth is one of the most important things in the current NBA, and they're deep. And Dilo, by the way, who's never been my favorite player, but is in another contract-year situation. I think he has an option next season. He's going to want to prove maybe to the Mavericks or maybe to the rest of the league that he's worth a bigger deal than the one year, six and a half million deal or whatever they're paying him on with that option.

So I think- You know who Dilo He's your buddy that comes to visit, and it's really great when he's only there for one day. And by day six, you're like, I'm ready for him to leave. That's Dilo. Dilo will be great for the one day, which in this case will be two months of his first season with the Mavericks, and they'll go through all the stages of Dilo, right? They're going to be like, Wow, what a steal. My God, Dilo at 35 tonight. He's amazing. They're not going to have to worry about the playoff version of him because Kyrie will be back by then.

And he's got Jason Kidd, too. And I think Jason Kidd deserves a mention, too, right, Bill? It's like, okay, can he get through to Dilo? Maybe not, but he's played with AD before.

I don't know if anyone's getting through Dilo at this point.

That's fair. And I do think... But there's a chance Kyrie comes back in February or March, and they have one of the deepest teams in the West if the health gods bless them this year.

So they are over the first apron, under the second apron.

We didn't even mention Cri Thompson, dude.

Sure. I didn't have him. He's a nice player. No, he's a nice rotation guy. But when I think about their defensive apex with the five guys, I don't have him out there. But yeah, I think Dallas is going to be really good. I'm really excited about it. I can't wait for Flag. I think they're going to be a potential must watch. I had one more thing on this. So if you had to, would you rank Dallas ahead of San Antonio right now?

A hundred %. And that's not shade against my friends in San Antonio. I'm worried about the deer and fox thing. The ham string, you can tell me he's going to miss a week or two. But like a younger Chris Paul, once the ham string starts going, that's his thing. He needs speed. He needs those muscles to be going at full speed to play the deer and fox game. So, yeah, I think there's less question marks in the Dallas rotation than there are in the San Antonio rotation.

You know it's funny. San Antonio at 44 and a half, I could totally see them being really good this year because just Wemby just becomes awesome. Of all the MVP guys, because MVP is going to come down in the same four guys it always comes down to. But Wemby is like the wild card at 12 to one. Where it's like, yeah, we might be one weekend in the season, that might be three to one because he just had 49 points and 12 blocks against somebody. I think from From a fun standpoint, I probably have Houston third. But what about if I asked you, you could be any of these three teams for the rest of the decade? You'd pick San Antonio, correct?

I would pick San Antonio, and it's not for the current year or even maybe the next year. But the same reason those GMs are saying that, it's because I got the alien at the center of my roster under cost control. I think he's making 13 14% of the cap. And another group to watch are my old friends in the San Antonio front office. They have a really high stakes moment here, Bill, to surround Victor Wemenyama with a talented enough group to do what he's capable of doing and not end up in a LeBron in the first Cleveland administration era.

Well, you know where that got hosed? They played that DeJante Murray trade perfectly. They had those Hawks' picks. And yet the Hawks are now going to be good. So you have like, Oh, yeah, someday we'll have the Hawks' Picks. And it's like, that's not going to really help you because the Hawks are probably going to be a four-seed.

Well, let me give it some love. There's a poetic thing behind what you just said is my guy, Ansi Salah, the new GM of the Hawks, is a protege of RC Buford, and he learned. And just like Sam Presty, you learn in San Antonio, and then you start becoming a problem for San Antonio. But, yeah, you're exactly right with those Hawks' Picks.

So the GM survey you mentioned, John Schumann, shout out to him. Always enjoy all his stuff during the year on mba. Com, especially the Monday Power Poll, I think is a must read. So they asked the last question in the GM survey was, what rule, parentheses, regarding play schedule, draft, lottery, play-off format, roster construction, et cetera, most needs to change. And they said number one at 26% was roster construction. And some of the things mentioned were, April rules too harsh. Add a cap discount for own drafted players. Mentioned that multiple times in this podcast. Allow trading partial salaries and make all minimum contracts the same. We all agree that the apric rules are so stupid that I actually think Adam Silver needs to pop some chest hair and maybe reopen this and be like, We fucked this up. Is there a way to fix this before next season? Because this is too prohibitive. This is stupid. He won't, but he should. Allow trading partial salaries almost broke my brain. So I guess that means I can trade somebody, but only 15 million of him... Like somebody is making 30 million. I trade 15 million, I'll still carry my cap, and you have to carry the 15 million on yours.

Baseball has trades like this. Basketball doesn't. I thought it was a pretty good idea. I was mad. I never thought of Right?

Yeah. It's just a general reaction to front offices are having a hard time right now. And we can't build out teams the way we want to with this rule. Because I've written earlier this summer, this is a hard cap. The second apron is a hard cap. What do we have? One team over it right now?

It's always been a hard cap.

Right. And it hasn't been good for players. And it's really harsh on general managers who are trying to build teams. But the trading partial salaries, they would have to amend the CBA on my understanding. And it's just like, that's not going to happen.

No, nothing that would actually be logical can happen. The second thing was draft schedule. They said back to one day or only lottery on day one or do it after free agency. That got 19 %. And then game flow, which would have been the other one I did. Continuous fast review, hockey style subs, no live ball timeouts. I was talking to Zack this week, and the game flow thing is the number one thing because we were talking about how much we've enjoyed baseball the last couple of years since the changes, and especially playoff baseball has been great. And with the NBA, if they figure out how to change the last three minutes to a way that's actually fun to watch, I think it would have the same impact that it had with baseball where people look at each other and go, wow, this is way better. I'm glad they did this. The NBA hasn't tried to do anything like that for us in a long time. I don't know why they won't fix Yeah, I think there was a Celtics Cavs game last year around December or January or something, where the last few minutes took 27 minutes or something.

And that was the game that put me over the edge. And then another thing is you spend the summer watching Euro Basket or whatever, and you see an alternative where the last two minutes take four minutes of real time, and you're just left being like, What are we doing? I do think that's really unfortunate, something that they should... If I I voted on this, that would be one I would have voted for because it's something that I think the Commissioner could change and make the product in a Theo Epstein sense a lot more attractive to us, consumers.

I'd also make halftime three more minutes.

Longer.

And I'd get rid of a time out in the second half. In that GM survey, what team has the most promising young core? Okc got 50%, San Antonio got 12, 27 %. The next two teams were tied at 10 %. Houston, I would have guessed. Detroit surprised me.

Yeah.

No, it's only 10 %, but I would not have had them on the list. And I don't know, 10 % seem tight. Did that surprise you or no?

The Thompson twins are... Everybody's high on the Thompson twins right now. Everyone's high on us are, yeah. Yeah. And then I think Jalen Duren, who, if you go see the NBA in person, this guy leaps off the floor. Old-school. Old-school, big guy, and then obviously, Cade and Ivy. So I could see it. They are very good. They have a very good young core. I think Trajan Langdon has completely, in the same way Emei reinvented the Rockets really quickly, Trajan deserves some credit for getting this Detroit situation right real fast.

I have some questions. Which team's level of success this season is toughest to predict? Philly was number one with 47%, so they almost had half of the votes. Then there was seven teams tied at 7% for second. I was shocked that Philly won because I actually don't think Philly season is that tough to predict because we all know how it's going to go. What's tough to predict? Yeah, if a million things go right, then it'd be good. To me, it's Indiana. I would have said Indiana. That would have been my answer for this. I don't know what to expect from them. I know they lost Halliburton, but I'm also not going to pour dirt on them yet.

I could make the case for Philly, Bill.

Okay.

I know you love to roast Joel Embiid and Paul George and our old friend Darryl for these contracts. But there is a world where Joel plays 60 games or 55 games and Paul George plays seven.

Is this an AI world?

And V. J. Edgecom, by the way, some very exciting early highlights from V. J.

Okay, he's a guard.

Tyrese Maxi.

He's a guard.

I do think they're very hard to predict because ultimately, I side with you. I would not wager a lot of confidence with Joel Embiid's availability. And without him, their MVP, it is pretty easy to predict where they're going to land. But it's clearly the league is hedging on Joel Embiid playing somewhere around 56 games.

What makes Does anyone think that that's going to happen? I don't mean to dick, but it's gotten to the point if he plays 60 games, I think that would be genuinely shocking.

At this point- What are the odds? What is his over-under in your head if you're setting it for how many games Joel and Beat would play? Thirty-five. You hear that fan duel? We need an over-under for Joel and Beat games played.

And then here's the other one, Paul George, whose 2020s look like this, 48 games, 54, 31, 56, 74, 41. The basketball reference, when you have that hard drop, when you're later in your career, mid-30s, 15th season, 16th season, and you have the hard stat drop, it ain't coming back. It just point me to the guy who's like, Oh, remember that amazing comeback season that guy had at age 37?

When all the signs were going- Did he go back to Bernard King?

Yeah, but Bernard King didn't play. He came back and He still had the stats, but it wasn't like... Because I remember in the 2000s, I was writing about this for three straight years with Jermaine O'Neill, where there was this three-year stretch where people were still treating Jermaine O'Neill like he was a 24 and 10 guy, and that guy was gone. They're like, Oh, they got Jermaine O'Neill, Important Center. It's like, he's not Jermaine O'Neill anymore. I don't personally think Paul George is Paul George anymore.

And this, to give you credit, I've been reading you for 20 years now, whatever, 25 years. But you've been talking about age curves before they were common. And one of my favorite sites on the Internet, shout out to Darko, the NBA stats app. They have these aging curves that are really, really strong for publicly available. And if you look at Joel and Paul George's career trajectory, you'll see exactly what you just outlined. Very troubling declines in their 30s. Not unusual, by the way. Nba players rarely make it to 36, 37 in one piece and playing is better. And LeBron has deformed our expectations in this regard.

He doesn't count.

Yeah, he's over at the site. He doesn't count. And Kevin even, I mean, playing this well at age 37. So some of these guys are distracting us from a more common rank and file reality of aging. And Paul George is definitely on that typical downturn.

Yeah, a good example is Karl Malone, who was always in the 27 and 10 range. And then by that last Utah year, he was down to a 20 and 8 guy. And then the Lakers signed him, and then he dropped down to 13 after that. But usually when you're at a certain point in your estate, we even saw Chris Paul. Chris Paul was always like a 20 and 10, 19 and 11 type guy. And then it did down to that 15 and whatever. Anyway, I don't think Paul George is going to be a 20 and 6 with 40 %. I could talk about Philly all day. On that There was one more thing on that GM poll that I was excited about, but now I just couldn't find it. Which team has the best homecourt advantage? Denver was 43 %, OKC was 43 %, and nobody else. The Knicks were 7%, third. And that was the one where I was like, they've nailed it with this. Denver's got the altitude. Okc is the loudest fucking fans you've ever heard. And those are clearly the two best now.

South Beach is undefeated, as they say. But I agree. I mean, the hardest place I had to go with the Spurs was OKC. That's insane. In terms of the crowd impact, it is definitely OKC. Elevation and then the cultural impacts in Miami, I think, are hard to beat. But I do think that they nailed that one.

Yeah. So I asked you to give me a trend that you're excited about heading into the '25, '26 season. We have now reached the point in the podcast where you're going to unveil the trend.

Excited about, I don't know, but one of the craziest stats that's come out last year was that for the first time in NBA history, more rebounds are coming from missed three-point shots than missed two-point shots. In other words, the quintessential rebound. Now, if you're teaching a young player to get rebounds, you're teaching them how to rebound three-point shots, which is crazy.

So you're teaching them like a corner three, move to the other side of the basket. Yeah, positioning yourself It's going to bounce toward the baseline, be near the baseline, you can grab it.

Yeah. So I think the art of rebound. We've gone from a Moses Malone reality. If you picture Moses, probably the greatest rebounder of my youth growing up, watching those Sixers teams at the end of his career. But he wasn't getting a lot of missed threes in his diet. It was all six footers that bounced off, and he was pushing around another giant person. But there's a paradigm, ship Bill, that rebounding at himself is now about getting longer rebounds. And people like Yannis are perfectly built for this task. You're more athletic, you're rangey, or you have these arms. Victor Wemenyama is going to be great at this.

So speed and length.

Speed and length. And it's not as much about strength as it used to be. I think strength is very important. But I would say speed and length have entered the chat in terms of being being a complete rebounder, where missed corner threes, missed 30 footers. That's a different art form than what we grew up with, grabbing missed eight footers. And the data back it up. Again, for the first time in NBA history, more rebound Rebounds are coming off threes than twos.

Jesus.

And it's going to continue to increase. So it's just interesting. If you're teaching young players to get rebounds in college basketball, you're teaching them to rebound miss threes, which It was crazy.

This was my dramatic Lazarus-like return in the early 2010s to pick up basketball with Dave Jacobi, playing at USA for a couple of years. Yeah, I remember. It was twos and ones.

Yes.

But then that's what I thought it was going to be. But at USA, it was just once. But then people would just shoot threes anyway. And I was always fascinated. This is right as the three-point influence was starting and people were just jacking up threes. And it was just the experience of rebounding rounding threes and trying to figure out where they were going. It would always be the same four or five spots. I wonder if this is a math efficiency that these coaches are secretly trying. There's a heat chart map with clusters of they shoot here because it was always top of the key could go anywhere. But if somebody was top of the key to the right, it was either bouncing back to them or it was bouncing off the back of the rim and going almost toward the baseline. So you knew where to go.

I remember I did that. I remember I There are two pieces of Grantland that are relevant to this. One was where rebounds go. So we mapped out 100,000 rebounds and based on where the shot was, and statistically, a lot more rebounds on corner threes go to the weak side. Top of the key, as you alluded to, a little harder to predict. Generally, the physics is going to take it to the other side. But one of them are secretly viral pieces. I think Jacobi helped with this a little bit at Grantland. I wrote about the tyranny of ones and twos in pick up basketball because it was taking... It It was a perverse incentive for terrible shooters to shoot more and more.

It was the worst thing that ever happened.

People either loved this piece or hated it, but it got... I don't know how we counted it back in those days. I remember that piece. Facebook shares or whatever. But it was like people... I was like, we should be playing twos and threes in pickups, Bill. Yeah, no kidding.

And instead of playing 11, play it at 21 or play it at 18 or whatever we want to get to.

Yeah, because we're incentivizing terrible shooters to shoot more and more threes. The other trend I had, which was darker, was just... And I wanted to get your take on this.

The return of cocaine? How dark are we getting?

What's dark about that? No, I was just saying With the LeBron news, the trend, and I want to shout out Tom Haverstrow for finding this last year, and I think it's going to continue this year, is just the sheer amount of missed games from the league's best players. And I know that's a darker trend, but what are your thoughts on this? Do you think we're going to continue to see more and more guys, De Aaron Fox missing the opening of the season, obviously, Fred Van Fleet. Are we going to see more and more of these injuries taken away from the greatness of the regular season?

I just think I've said this a million times, I think basketball is too hard to play now. It doesn't. The way how hard it is to play compared to what the schedule is, is not compatible. And eventually we'll realize this, but we just haven't gotten to that point yet. I think college football is hitting this point right now with the amount of games they have on the schedule. I don't think it's sustainable for people in 18, 19, 20, 21. They're going to be playing 14, 15 playoff games or 15 games. That's insane. But I think with the basketball, I just think it's too much running. I don't think it's a coincidence that we've had these injuries to younger guys like Tatum and Halliburton that we never had before. I think it's too much stress on people's legs.

Yeah, I think the interactions. People don't talk about that. You've talked about it for a while now, but the interaction between the style that we're playing, pace and space, the 82 games that we're playing.

And the workouts are the other piece because that's not part of the games. But the workouts these guys do to, quote, unquote, get an awesome shape. I don't know. Nobody worked that harder than Tatum and his Achilles fucking snapped.

Yeah, it's an interesting thing. And I know we talked a lot about the schedule last year, but maybe we'll look more into this. But I do think that's something the league needs to really look at seriously is the availability of these top players.

They don't care. They could have addressed it, and they just don't give a shit. Can I give you my trend?

Yeah, dude.

This is good. I haven't unvailed this yet.

I love it.

I feel like this steps a little on the preview pods next week, but I just feel like somebody's going to say this before we do the pod, and I just have to get it out there. I think the Celtics are going to be absolutely deranged this year on offense. They averaged 48 threes a game last year. I think they're going to average 55 threes a game. I think we're They're going to have games where they shoot 70. I think the pace that they're going to play with is going to be genuinely shocking to people. And it's almost like whatever that Paul West had, Denver Nuggets team, when they were just like, We're going to run and gun, but they had no system or style anything they were doing. I think the Celtics actually have a system, and I think they're going to play faster because they don't have Tatum. And this is the one caveat with Tatum that he was particular. He did slow the ball sometimes. He did take his time. Nobody's going to be taking their time anymore. This team is going to be like the run and shoot offense in the NFL.

They're just going to be spreading the floor with five receivers and fucking throwing it and keeping the other defense on the field. And I don't think people understand how crazy going to be. I think it's going to be insane.

Do you know how many threes they shot in their preseason game this week against the Grizzlies?

Probably, I think it was over 50, right? Like 55? Yeah, 53. Yeah, and that was with the scrubs.

So who's taking more shots for your team this year than they did last year?

So here's one. Here's one for you, Kurt Goldsbury. Here's a little future I'll give to my long-time listeners on FanDuel. Pritchard is 25 to one to hit the most threes this year. 25 to one. White's 18 to one. Pritchard finished fifth last year, and he's going to play more, and he's going to have the ball more. I I think he could lead the league in threes. But I think if Simon's, if they keep him, Derek White, Jalen is going to be like... I mean, go all the overs for him if you like betting overs. Is Jalen on the 30 points of game list? No, he shouldn't. Yeah, he is. 7: 01. He averaged 30 points a game. It's four more points a game than he averaged last year. He's going to have way more shots with a faster pace. But I just think they're going to be jack in threes. And I think they're not tanking. Missoula is a maniac, and they're going to be like, We're going to try to system this. And Tatum is not going to be denied. He's coming back. I mean, it was breaking news today. Anyone who follows the team or knows anything about it, this has been brewing for two months.

He's coming back. They're not going to be able to stop it.

No. I was just going to say Pritchard, Sam Hauzer is going to play more, shoot more.

Hauzer is going to shoot a shitload of them.

I could see this.

Shyreman, wait till you see. And also all the centers they have, like Luca Garza. They're all going to be firing up threes, all of them.

And I would guess Joe Missoula's philosophy is this. Without Jason Tatum, we have to do everything we can to optimize our offensive efficiency, guys. We have to do everything we can.

We can win with math. We can win with threes and pace.

What's his math quote? That's exactly right. And so you can lean into that. And if you look at his trajectory in three-point rate, which has already broken the record. Last year's team broke the record for three-point rate in NBA history. I think that's a good take. And I think it'll be Prichard, Sam House. Derek White might shoot 10 a night. And I know that sounds crazy, but he might shoot 10 a night because Tatum, I think, was shooting 10 or 12 a game, wasn't he? Nine a game? Well, yeah, those shots are gone, so somebody else is going to do it. And some of the guys getting those minutes and those shots are three-point assassins. I wish there was- Taylor Shyverman?

Well, there was one game, I can't find it. There was one game last year where Tatum didn't play, and they played fast. Because one of the things with me and why I can't count out Indiana and Boston this year is coaches who are really competitive, who have systems, are used to playing without their stars. The Celtics played multiple games without Tatum last year intentionally, and they would play differently when they didn't have them. And Indiana would do the same. And I just think they're going to try to win more than people think. I think they're over and there's maybe 42 and a half, something like that.

It's one of my favorite things, right? It's like when you have a great coach or a great team and somebody rests, like when Tim Duncan rested, teams would be like, Oh, this is going to be easy. No, it's not. They're still going to beat you. I do think Rick Carlyle and Joe Missoula deserve that level of respect in these teams. Nobody thought Indiana was going to be good last year.

The one guy who's not going to like it is my dad because he already thought they shot too many threes anyway. I don't think he has any idea what's going to happen this year. Jalen Brown just jacking up threes with 19 seconds left in the shot clock because that's what's going to happen. This is who they're going to be for 50 games.

They'll break the record. My bold prediction is they'll break the record for most threes in a game this year. That would be mine.

What is that record?

I'm going to guess it's 75. I don't know. I'm looking it up.

Well, they set the record last year for Threes Attempted. It was almost I'm going to say it was almost 4,000, something like that.

Yeah. They tied the record with 29 made and attempted at 63.

63?

Yeah. That's a big number in Boston. For the Celtics history.

They will so easily break that. Mark that down. Yeah, I think that's right. They will definitely shoot more than 63 threes in one of the games this year. Yeah, that's right. I think Pritchard could have a game where he shoots like 23s.

Where does he land this year? Do you think he's going to score 20 points a game?

Well, the points have to come from somewhere, right? I agree. Tatum's leaving 28 points for everybody else, and they're going to have to divvy up some Some of them. And they don't... Like, Simon will step in on some of them, assuming he's on the team for a while. So maybe that's 16, 17 of them. Pritchard's an extra 4 to 5. Jalen's an extra 3 to 4. Wait, I just don't... I don't know if it's in him to just gun and shoot. Maybe it'll be a little more. But then it comes down to a Hauser situation. I think Hauser is going to play 30 minutes a game. I don't know. They're going to be weird to play if you're doing an NBA schedule and it's like, We're going here, we're in Toronto, then we play the Knicks, then we have Philly, and then it's like, Oh, we're playing that weird Boston team. Get ready. Put your sneakers on because we'll be running.

I think that's right. And I think Payton is going to be good. But I told Zack on his podcast, I think Derrick White does have it in him to be a three-point every other. To score more. Interesting. Yeah. He's a very smart player, and he'll know what they need to win games. And you're exactly right. With Tatum out, he is the most qualified guy to take that step forward. Him and Payton Pritchard, I expect to be bigger volume scores.

I agree. Kurt Goldsbury, great to see you. What do you got?

That's just a stress ball. It's a basketball. No big deal. I got an article on the Ringer tomorrow, the seven charts that define the quarter century in the NBA. So check that out.

Oh, sounds great. Great to see you. Thanks for coming up.

Thank you, Bill.

All right, recording later afternoon Pacific Time. Joe House here, as always, to do our really sad Ringer 107. We're going to try to turn around this week. We brought in some help. We're not sad. We're going to have a threesome this week, House. Married couples sometimes need to spice it up.

Oh, boy. Oh, no.

Our friend Chris Vernon to spice it up with us. But I do want to tell you. So you weren't here when I had Kirk Goldsbrown. We talked basketball. I did my whole thing about how I thought the Celtics were going to be deranged in a good way on offense, and people don't realize they're actually going to be pretty fun and better than people think. I talked to my dad who watched the game, and my dad goes, You know who I loved? I thought he was going to say, I don't know, Payton Pritchard or whatever. He's like, Hugo Gonzales. He's going to be really good right away. I'm like, Basketball season is here. My dad has adopted the 13th man on the team as allegedly going to be helping us. But, Vernon, you saw the game.

I agree with your father. Oh, yeah. I'm in on Hugo. You're in. Oh, yeah. Ball came off the rim. There At that point, your animal instinct comes in, right? There's some guys that fade away, and there's some guys that hold on to it, and there's some guys that start ripping the ball away. They just got this extra level of aggression. That was Gonzales. Also got a ball on the break and hammered it, hammered it on a break away. I was like, Okay, Hugo Gonzales. But your team is going to stink. But Hugo Gonzales is going to be fun.

We're going to shoot 60 plus 3s a game, and it's going to be awesome. Jason Tatum is coming back. He said it today.

Last night was an absolute abomination before the eyes of God and man. It was 60 fouls and 76 free throws in a preseason game. I mean, it's unwatchable. It's totally unwatchable.

What's the referee agenda this year? What are they trying to crack down on?

Could you even tell? No, I could not tell.

Not with 60 effing fouls. What are we talking about?

Sixty fouls. I know, right?

Because a couple of years ago- Who was that for? What point are we making?

It was terrible. It was terrible to watch. No, you got a big guy you can find. You didn't got no big guys.

My dad and I mentioned that before I hung up on it to do this part of the podcast. We're like, I'm excited to watch the team. We don't have anyone who can rebound. A crucial part of basketball.

I mean, you can't run out Tillman and Garza. Again, when the other teams have When you're playing on a Tuesday night and you're going up against Alper and Schengen and Steven Adams, you might not touch the ball.

These are all very fair points, and I'm still going over for the Celtics, and you know I'm going over.

Hey, I listened to your pod last week. I don't hate the Jalen Brown tops in the league in scoring. I mean, who else is going to score? Seriously, I went and looked it up tonight. He's averaged 27 a game in games without Tatum. And that's when they had other real players on the team. Who is he worried about passing to on that team?

I said to Goldsbury, one of my favorite FanDuel bets, I don't think I've given this to Joe House either. House, you should make this bet live on the show. House just checked out.

The book's open. Hold on. I'm open to that.

Payton Pritchard for most threes this 25 to 1.

25 to one. Payton Pritchard, most threes.

Guess what he finished last year for threes. Fifth.

Payton Pritchard.

They're all going to be divvying up Tatum's shots and points. It's like dad didn't come home for dinner and you get extra food.

I will say, I thought it was cool. Tateam was here. He was with the team and was over at the University of Memphis, and he visited with Penny Hardaway. Yeah, he was bopping around. I always think there's something to that, right? He could be away. He could be just staying at all. Why is he traveling to preseason games?

I think he's been in the facility every day since he got hurt. House and I are doing over next week. I don't want to step on that, but we do have Chris Vernon here, Mr. Memphis. Fanduel gave Memphis the all-time FU over-undertotal of 40 and a half house. You could go 500 and get a with this. They went 40 and 34 last year, but you have some injuries even before the season starts. But what do we expect from the Grizz?

I think that they will be... They're going over that. That's appalling. Come on. Is it? It's going to be a break. Look, again, you can always do the, and you could do this with every team, if so and so is healthy. But they had Marant for 50 games last year, and look at what their record was.

Well, Can you walk us through the injuries? Walk us through the injuries for this year.

Okay, Jackson will be back.

He'll be fine. But when does he come back? When does Edie come back?

Within the first week of the season. He might be back for opening night, but he'll be back. I would be stunned if Jaron Jackson Jr. Misses more than four games. I don't think he'll even miss four. How about Edie? Probably December, I'd guess.

That means January.

They're just going to be super careful with that because it was a foot surgery. But he was at the game last night, and he's walking around without a boot.

How's Memphis Grizzlies to make the playoffs, plus 154.

I don't know. I mean, look at the roster.

I think that's a no for me, too. They're minus 210 for a no. I think it's a no for me, Vernon. Make the case. You were like, swing us.

When they have had John Marant and Jaron Jackson Jr, they've always won over 60% of their Last year, they were the two seed until the last month of the season when they totally collapsed. The two previous years, when they were both healthy, they were the two seed, both of those years. Then, of course, they had the season from hell where the whole team got hurt, and then they got the lottery pick, and then they move into this year. And again, when John Morant plays, they win. When Jaron Jackson plays, they win. So if you want to hedge and bet against them playing, but they have been good enough to even win despite John Morant only playing 50 games last year.

When Jaron Jackson plays, they win unless it's Team USA.

Oh, stop. Stop. Come on.

That was just for house. I did enjoy it. I got a police house every once in a while. I did enjoy it. Is it fair to say this is your starting five, Berna? Jaron Jackson, Santee, No, I don't think so.

I think at the very beginning of the season, possibly.

Let's go backwards. Jaron Jackson and Ja, who were the other three people starting for the Grizzly's?

Coldwell Pope. Maybe Wells. If it's not Wells, I'd imagine the 10th pick, Cedric Howard.

And then- Cedric Howard starting?

No, no, no, no, no. It'll be Wells at the beginning.

Okay.

That's what I think. I think it'll be Wells at the beginning, and then Howard eventually. That's what I'd guess.

And Ty Jerome as six Correct.

And then it'll be Ed. But in the absence of Edy, it'll be Landell at the beginning of the season. It'll be Joc Landell, who's just going to set screens and be a poor man, Steven Adams.

And you still have Pippin.

Correct. Still at Pippin.

Unless you trade him to the Rockets for one of those Netspicks or something. Try to hijack them.

I suppose anything is possible that you could try to change. And then they need one of these These guys- They're not getting a Nets pick for Pippin, by the way. I just need one of these guys that was pretty good two years ago, Gigi Jackson or- Yeah. Vince Williams to pop. They need one of them to be able to go. And then off the bench, They're going to have, we mentioned, Santee Aldama, Scottie Pippen Jr, Ty Jerome. They got good players.

House, this was not a compelling case. You don't seem compelled at all.

If you want to sell me on 41 wins for this team, and that's an over, right?

Is over. Yeah, 41 is over.

Then I think I can work my way there.

But this team- It's all dependent on what your level of belief in Marant is. My level is obviously going to be greater than yours. That's true. I think when he plays, he is a superstar that makes everybody better.

I can't believe what I watched from this team defensively last year at the end of the season. It was appalling. I just can't believe it.

The coach got fired, House.

Congratulations. He deserved it.

So John Moran now, 26 years old, House.

Yeah.

This is right around when it's got to happen or it's not going to happen.

It's got to happen.

It's got to happen. He's got to play. Set the over and under for number of games that John Moran is going to play, and then I'll tell you how many games are going to win. Tell me how many games he's going to play.

Let's say he gets to the number. Let's say he gets to 65.

That'd be almost a career high.

That's true. It will be.

Literally, that would be a career high. He played 67. It's his career high.

I don't know. And he's gotten beat up for it. Look, there's a lot of guys that have gotten beat up for their injuries. It's interesting the way it plays out. It's also when you get injured, if you're not able to finish out seasons like he didn't last year when he got clipped in the Oklahoma City series. Because they do these rankings, and you see on the rankings, you never bring up that Chad Holmgren doesn't play, do you? Never. Chet Holmgren's average what? 30 games a year, and it's three years in the NBA?

So I'm in the playoffs for four straight rounds.

That's what I'm saying. It's all dependent on when you get hurt.

House, do you think Ja Morant career games combined with Zion Williamson career games added together is more than Joel Embiid's career games?

Yes.

You I think yes.

No way. Those two... Yeah, well, because they're still both young. And Joel Embiid has one year left.

What do you think, Vernon? Joel Embiid career games versus Up to this point? Yeah, right now.

Oh, I misunderstood. I thought you were saying career-wise. No, no, no. Okay, I I understand.

Yeah, career-wise. Zion's career games plus Ja's career games versus Embiid's career games. What number is higher?

I mean, Embiid, he's been in the league so much longer. Right.

I agree.

So it'll have to be Embiid.

The answer is Zion plus Ja Morant together.

Wow. Yeah.

That's incredible. Embiid's played 452 games. In how many years? Zion has played 214 in 11 years. Zion's at 214, and Ja Morant is at a zesty 307. 523 combined. 67, 63, 57, 61, 9, and 50. I'm going to say this is the year.

Listen, the reason I get upset about the Morant stuff, Moran has led and carried a team to the playoffs.

To winning stuff.

Don't talk about him. You talk about Zion, you talk about LaMelo, you talk about all these other guys that haven't done nothing. When he scored, whatever, 49 points in a playoff game, he went head to head. He knocked out Golden State on their home floor out of the playoffs. Steph Curry, Draymond Green, the year before they won the title, it is the long forgotten moment that they played in the play-in, and he went heads up with them and won on their home floor. When he has been healthy, he has been able to perform at a level that very, very, very few guys in the NBA can match. And again, if you want to bet against this health, I cannot convince you otherwise. I think it's fair.

Obviously, it's fair. How's that? That was spoken? Like a man who has a lot of John Morant I remember Billy in his son's room.

I should turn this camera around. Oh, my God. This game room got too much.

It's better for the league if Ja Morant's healthy, so I'm rooting for it. I'm never not rooting for Ja Morant.

Ja Morant, Zion, and LaMelo. The season's more fun if all those guys can just fucking play for six straight months. Yes. True story. Especially LaMelo. I don't know if we've ever really even seen it for six straight months. At least with Ja, we've seen it. With Zion, we saw it for half a year once.

We need it badly, too. They come out with these lists, and none of the top five guys are even American.

There you go. That's exactly right.

We need some of these American guys to stay healthy and pop and become superstars.

Well, thank God for our 18-year-old Cooper Flag. Yeah. He's here to save the nation. Oh, God. He's here to guard five positions on a 55-win Dallas Mavericks team.

Oh, my God.

What?

That I just... Now, I'm just talking crazy. No. But I do think they are I do think they're going to be a play-off team.

You do?

I do. I don't know- Hey, who did they play in the play-in last year? They got murdered by Memphis. Oh. Yeah.

That's right.

The one I don't understand, and I think has the biggest variance all over the place is Golden State.

Because Pelton had- I don't know how variance that is.

Well, Pelton's projection system had them for 57 wins, which he admittedly was like, I don't know what to make of this.

But- They got awesome players.

They're old.

I got it. But if you go from the time that they acquired Butler to the day that Curry got hurt, They were 31 and 11.

I mean, 31 and 11. I'm going to be rooting for them even more than usual because they have my guy, Al Horford, beloved Celtic.

So I'm not saying that they're going to win 30 or 40 games. I think that Look, every game mattered to them at the end of the season because they were just trying to scrap a claw into the playoffs. And they're probably a vet team that'll probably take nights off. But I mean, they have shown Between those three, there's not some... Unless it shows up this year, they haven't had a big letdown in talent. I mean, Curry, Draymon, and Butler all still perform at a very, very high level despite their age.

House, what's your dream Yannis Trade location? You even told me this. Oh, wow. I haven't really- You can send them anywhere. Where would you send them?

Denver. I would love to see.

That can't happen. Realistic. Which is basically the three Texas teams, the Knicks. I don't know.

Even maybe Golden State. I can't really say without having a perspective on who has to go to the Bucks in exchange? Who would he be playing with?

I thought the most exciting one, the more and more I thought about it, was if San Antonio just said, Fuck it. Just the thought of him and Wemby on the same team would be just so weird to watch those two guys together.

Who can San Antonio send to Milwaukee that Milwaukee would take?

They have all those pics, plus they have young guys. There's a trade they can put together. They have a bunch of assets.

And Fox is the big contract.

Maybe Fox is the big I got you. Fox already hurt. I was making a face.

I don't like it.

What are you most excited about for the season? Because we're less than two weeks away now. What's your number one non-Mimpus thing?

The rookie class. Unbelievable. I don't know. Again, it's all football, football, football right now. But obviously, in the interest of getting ready for the mismatch with me and Jacobi, I have been paying attention in a ridiculous way to this preseason in a way that I would not normally. I've been trying to catch up on all the games, watch the highlights, whatever. Last year was such a colossal dud. Alex Saar, Risa Shay, the third pick, Reid Sheppard didn't even play. It was like a G-figure. It just stunk. This year, oh, my God. I mean, in between the Ace Bailey highlights last night, I mean, freakish. He had 25, and he looks like frigging Durant out there. I mean, it's unbelievable. I can't believe how he moved for a 610 guy. You've got him, you've got Cooper Flag, you've got the Yacachunas, the kid from Miami, had 10 assists in their game.

That was my favorite pick.

Good assist, too. Good assist. I mean, just up and down. Coward Hugo Gonzales. I saw both of them last night.

How about Dylan Harper? Buried in the in San Antonio bench, probably playing 50 minutes a game.

I just think up and down, especially after we got...

It is so much- Hey, Verno, you got to mention House's new guy.

No, it's fine. Trey Johnson.

Trey Johnson, he's fine. That's going to be good. He was going to say it.

They haven't played any preseason games yet, why? I got to be honest.

Just talk for two seconds. They haven't played any.

They don't play that much.

Trey Johnson. Just give him a look.

It's fine. Trey Johnson is going to knock down shots. I'm a little upset about the Wizards. You know, House has delivered it to me before. I've got friends with the Wizards. They have the most unbelievable bobbleheads. That's what they do. Very good bobbleheads. True story. If your team's going to stink, you might as well have good bobbleheads, That's what I've always thought. Because then people want to come to your games like Cool bobblehead. In fact, look, I'll show you an example. Look at this. This is from the Wizards last year.

There you go.

That's a push-a-tea bobblehead. They had Francis TFO. They had all kinds of cool ones, right? So I go look at their promotional schedule this year. I'm like, I cannot. One of the things I really look forward to is Washington Wizards' Bubbleheads. They have the Kyle Kuzma in the pink sweater. You have that?

Yeah, I did because I brought it to you.

Yep. Unbelievable ones. They have one frigging bobblehead night this year.

Oh, they come back. Cut the budget.

It's Kyshawn George. Kishon. What? Whatever. Who cares? It's like a thousand Hawaiian shirt nights of different colleges. Then a Spongebob Square Pants jersey, which It was admittedly awesome.

Yes, I'll get you one of those.

They're one of the teams that does great bobbleheads.

I'm getting you an Alex Sahr, Spongebob Jersey.

I feel like they've abandoned me.

You know what I mean? What happened? Are they saving money? What's going on?

No, definitely not. I don't have a good explanation.

Talk to the Leo to spend my touch.

They ran out of people. Nobody's going to come for the player.

I'll be at the games. I'll be there.

Hey, then you know what you got to get me this year? A pair of Bob Carrington Pajamas. That's one of the nights.

Okay, done.

There you go. Bob Carrington Pajama Night? That's it, mate?

Bob Carrington Pajamas are at least as good as a bobblehead.

Bob Carrington Pajama Night. That's pretty good.

That's a thing. Sounds like X rated.

No, no, no, no, no. It's real. That was a different era. That was the Gilbert Arena era.

It's a real thing. But anyways, yeah, I was really upset with the Wizards. But yeah, super excited to watch Trey Johnson.

How are you at the seven stages of Trey Johnson? We're still in the happy honeymoon phase?

Well, I was skeptical. I wanted the big kid from Duke. I wanted a rim protector for the young defense. But all the indications The reasons are that he's the hardest worker. He's the first one in the gym and the last one out. He's in there for getting up thousands of shots. They have to turn out the lights to drive them out of there.

That should be a website where every team lists who first went in the gym, last one to leave is for the team. Just stuff I'd want to know.

Good information.

So he's the first one to get to the gym on the Wizards?

So they say. That's what the stories are.

Okay, Vernon. I think he's going to score lots of points.

Me too. I agree with that.

I don't know if your team is going to win games, but I think he's going to be fun to watch.

I think they're going to win 22. It's an over for me this year.

Oh, my God.

22 games.

That's more appalling than my over. No, it's not.

They went right around 19 or 20 last year. We're only asking to win two or three more.

You had Jordan pool.

How has he enjoyed Jordan pool? Is that a good thing? How has he wish him his best when he left?

I sure did. C. J. Mccollum and Chris Middleton are on team for at least the first two months.

House, what's your number one thing you're most excited about this season? Non-wizards related. Do you have that?

Oh, yeah. At the top of your head. For sure. No joke. All BS aside, it's Denver. It's seeing Denver, seeing the Joker finally with the thing that everybody's been begging Denver to do. They finally figured it out. They finally put somebody in charge. Cronky stepped up like, okay, I'll be the guy. We're not going to keep having the coach in the front office fighting over the direction of the team. And now they have a full compliment. So we're just knocking on wood for good health over the course of the season for Denver, because that should be an awesome fucking basketball team in the West, with a West that is an awesome fucking Western conference. So let's go.

I agree. They could have very easily tried to just keep it going, right? Like, Oh, we lost in game seven, and Eric Gordon got hurt, and this happened. Instead, they remade it. They remade the team.

They didn't even spend that much money. They're still under the aprons and stuff. They still have a little room to do even more.

But we see this every year. Teams just stick with it, and then they make excuses for why they lost. Instead of saying, Okay, we need to go a different route in order to get where we want to go. It's not good enough. And they looked at it and said, It's not good enough. So I give them credit. This is what you're supposed to do when you've got a generational player.

Yes, exactly.

Denver was my number one, closely by number two, the Celtics just rolling out five white guys. Five white guys. Just unabashedly just jacking up threes. People are going to think they're at a YMCA. I thought I was in an NBA game. How much in five white guys jacking up threes.

What happened? I don't think it worked in 2025.

Probably not. We're going to take a quick break, and then we're going to do Ringer 107, the real reason we brought Vernon. All right, Vernon. Yeah. House and I are 10 and 15 in this Ringer 107 contest.

That's things.

In seven of those picks, we thought we had the game. We blew a lead, and the other team won on our fourth quarter comfort behind drive. We have not had that happen for us yet this season, but seven times it's happened the other way. Most recently, week five, Jags 31, Kansas City 28. We had the Chiefs. That game was 14-0 with the Chiefs about to score again. Bucs 38, Seahawks 35, and then Bronco's 18, eagles 17. This all started in week one when we had the Ravens, and I texted house, All right, we're going to go to our way to three and two or four and one, whatever. And then that Apocalypse happened. And We just had to change our juju, so we invited you on. You're more of a degenerate gambler than I think either of us are.

At least equal. He's an equal. At least equal, yeah.

You're at least a kindred spirit. Yes. So we're going to walk through some pics. I asked you to bring a pick. I'm going to rip through... Well, first of all, the games we're staying away from, unless you guys vehemently object, the London game. I'm not doing that again. Bronco's Jets. Just no more 9: 30 AM, PT. I'm out. I just can't. Can't win them.

It's my game.

Oh, that's your game? All right. That's my game. We'll come back to it. We'll come back to it. I guess we'll come back to it.

Love it.

You have to. You have to come back to it.

The Raven's Kitchen Sink versus the Rams game. I don't want either way. I'm out. I'd stay away. Totally fine. Line's too high. Dolphins, Chargers. The chargers can't block anymore. They've lost their offensive line and seem like they're cratering. And then the Dolphins, if they lose this game, Mike Betano is going to get fired. I would just rather stay away. I don't know what's going to happen in that game. Titans, Raiders, stay away. Packers, minus 14 and a half against the Bengals, stay away. I had a couple maybes willing to be talked about any of these. Seahawks plus one and a half at Jacksonville. Jacksonville coming off the biggest win they've had all decade. And the reason it was... I was leaning Seahawks, but the defense, I don't know who's playing for Seattle. Did you have this one marked as?

I considered strongly trying to make the case for Seattle. Yeah, can't get that. That's the secondary thing, because indeed, it's right to be skeptical of Jacksonville, the history of Trevor Lawrence and his Jacksonville Jaguars team tells us, don't let them get too full of themselves.

They line you up to then kick you in the nuts. There's some good stats for Seattle where their fifth in the past, Jacksonville's defense is 27th against the past. They're third on the run, Seattle's defense is 50 against third. I'm just staying away. Ferno, you agree that's stay away, correct? Yes. Okay. Niners Bucks. Now this is Mac Jones. Niners plus three three over the Bucks.

Bucks are nothing. There's no way I'd touch the 49ers with all those injuries.

Also, it feels like it's a classic whoever has the ball with three minutes left. I don't want any part of it. Tampa have with no real wins this year. They've lost once, and they've had four games that could have gone either way. They still haven't had a convincing win, staying away all the way around. Bear's Washington house. Bear's plus four and a half. It's the Hale Mary game rematch. There's some good stats in the Washington favor. Did you have this marked?

I didn't have it marked, but if you had come in, prepared to make the case, I have lots of good Washington angles to support it. I certainly would not endorse Chicago and the points, even though they're coming off of a buy. I don't care. I don't think they're very good. I don't think their defense is very good. And Caleb's wearing a knee brace. The thing that is underrated about Washington, they have a pass rush. If you look at the numbers inside the trenches, they're good at stopping the run, and they are putting pressure on. They had five Five sacks. Now, you can say whatever you want about the chargers and all the injuries to the offensive line. They were at home. They knew about the injuries. They couldn't do anything about the Washington pass rush. Nobody was saying, Oh, coming into the season, let's look at the Washington pass rush, right?

Well, you also are first running the ball. Chicago's 31st.

Bill.

Yeah. That's him.

No. It's Bill. That's the guy. Bill. Our Bill, the guy that went crazy when Tom braided interviewed him after the game. He almost started crying after the game. He was so excited to talk to Tom braided.

Who can blame him? So handsome, Tom braided.

This is a maybe that almost became impossible for me, and I'm happy to be talked into it as one of the five picks. The Cleveland Browns plus five and a half in Pittsburgh.

No chance. No chance. It's a- Billy Gabriel?

Well, that's why I marked down right underneath it. Rooky QB on the road, three question marks. That's why not to do it.

It's a never happened in history spot for the Browns. It's their third straight road game. They're coming back off of an international game. They did not take a break, and the Steelers are coming off their buy. This has never happened before in the history of the league. And so the play, to me, if you wanted to have anything to do with this game, just play Pittsburgh on the money line. It's a money line play. Not doing that. Okay, it's fine. You don't have to.

I'm tired of losing money on Pittsburgh, marking that out. All right, we'll go to the problems. So make your London game case, Ferno. Let's hear it.

All right, so here's my case. Number one, I think the Broncos are going to kill the Jets. The line is what? Seven, seven and a half right now?

We settled at six and a half.

Wow. Oh, God.

I mean, that's- Neutral field, London.

A gift, an absolute gift. Look, I am a Cowboys fan, so I settled in and watched the entire game last week. That Jets team is the worst team in the league. That You go look at the score.

There's some competition.

That game was 30 to three. My team can't sack anybody, and they were on field's ass the entire game. Denver is going to maul him. Denver is a fantastic team that has tricked people by this record. They should be four and one, and people would think about them differently.

I said this to house last week, and he talked me out of it, made us take the fucking eagles.

They got the leverage thing against the Colts, which is the worst call of the entire NFL season. It is true. The leverage call at the end. So that's four and one. The guy missed the kick right before that. So that would be four and one. And look at their loss. It's not a bad... The two losses are super close losses.

It's the chargers where Herbert made two crazy, awesome throws to beat them.

I think the Broncos are better than their record shows, and I I think the Jets are absolutely abominable. I'm just going to give you... I know you want to stay away from international games. In international games, if you just blindfolded, took heavy favorites in these games. A lot of the games, they don't feature a heavy favorite. It'll be like the Jaguars versus somebody, and it's a four. In all of the games, there's been 15 times that an international game has posted a line six or above. The favorite has covered that line, it's 12 and three. So if they post it where somebody is supposed to win by a countdown, I mean, 12 out of the 15 times that has happened. So when I know those are the numbers and that Typically, the big favorites do perform extremely well in the international games. And I already thought on the front end, oh, my God. Look, I have a realistic approach to what my team is, Dallas. They're okay. They're fine. Their offense is good. Their defense stinks. Their defense looked like a freaking doomsday against this Jets team. They can't block anybody. You don't even know the guys that were getting sacks.

My son is looking them up on Wikipedia. Where did he come from? I already had it in my mind. Oh, God. I think Denver is way better than Dallas. I think they are going to maul them. And so this one is... To me, this is an easy one, which I know is a famous last words in the NFL. I just think the Jets are horrendous. Like, truly Horrendous.

Well, we have... Denver's got a top four running attack. Jets are 27th against the run. There's all these good offensive protection stats for the Denver offensive line, and the Jets can't rush the passer. House, this is where you mentioned that the longer a team stays winless, the stupider it is to bet against them.

Yeah. And part of the thing that concerns me, here are the concerns. The Jets have zero forced turnovers. They have no interceptions and no recovered fumbles.

They do. London games always have turnovers.

The other thing that scares me is that big of a number when the total is low. The total is 43 three and a half. You need to win by a shutdown in a game that's not expecting many points. I don't have any problem with the idea of Denver winning the football game, but the Jets keep beating themselves by beating themselves. They don't force any turnovers. They commit a shit ton of penalties. They are undisciplined. They make bad mistakes on special teams. But the penalties in the special teams things, if they get it right one week, somehow, if you look at the success rates for the Jets, they are a top 10 team by the success measurement on both sides of the ball.

Something that comes with like, they're doing their best work when they're down 20 in the last hour of the game.

No, it's two things. Their first two drives of every game have been outstanding. They have a script for the first two drives, the Jets. And then, to your point, which is very astute, at the end of games, they just rack up all this efficiency because they're not within reach.

Well, Verno, you watch that game. When Hall fumbled, all of a sudden, the game was over. All of a sudden, the Cowboys had scored a bunch of points for it, and then it was like, Oh, I can take this off the multibu.

Keep in mind, Let me just give a little point of reference here. Dallas had four offensive linemen out. Four. There's only five on the offensive line. Four of them were out.

It didn't even matter.

Their best player is CeeDee Lamb. He was out. Maybe their second best weapon is Kavante Turpin. He was out.

And Michael Parsons was out because they fucking traded him.

And they were up 30 to three.

That is crazy. Let me ask this.

Come on. Let me ask this.

I have no respect for that. One more thing on this. Go ahead. Fields 0 and 26 when the other team scores 21 points. Can the Broncos just get the 21 points? Because we could also money line parlay them with somebody else.

Yeah. So I am willing to play Denver on the money line. What do you think about the fact that the look ahead line, the line this summer was six and a half. And we're saying that this game right now, having seen five weeks of football, is also just right there at six and a half.

There's two things of that. One is, as Vernon pointed out so eloquently, Denver is still underrated. It's a three and two team that should be like four and a half and a half if you were going to redo the record. And then the Jets, these dumb metrics make it seem like they're better than they are. I think the Jets are also terrible. I like that pick, Vernon. We're going to add it to the pile.

I mean, if I talk to you into getting a London game, because look, that way you're either super happy by the time the other game comes.

I'm just ready. This is how I wake up on Sunday. How's that going We can be together on Sunday. We can watch this pick be terrible together.

So I happened to be in Arizona on Sunday when the game started. I don't know how you... This is unbelievable. I woke up because of my body clock. I woke up at 6: 25, and five minutes later, the freaking football game started. I was like, People watch football at 6: 30 out here? This is crazy.

I put it on. I woke up and put it on in my bedroom, and I was like, I thought I would get I was watching the first quarter and my wife was like, Get that off. I was like, What is that? To wake up, go downstairs.

Oh, she was talking about the TV. Yeah. Okay.

House, what's your favorite pick this week?

Hold on. Let me look real quick.

One that we didn't mention. Chiefs. Okay.

Going back to the Chiefs.

Going back to the Chiefs. House, I changed our tactics this week. I didn't text do any picks.

True story, you any pics. True story. You did not.

And I kept the... There was five that I liked. The top one on the list was Chiefs minus 2 and a half against the Lions. Great. This is like a miracle, this line. First of all, Vernon, are the Chiefs really going to go two and four? Would the League ever let that happen in a million years? No. Casey Jags wasn't the dumbest loss of the season, but it was in the top three. What an insane loss.

The guy fell down.

The guy fell down on the game-winning countdown. Mahomes threw a 99-yard pick six on a throw that, I don't know, five QBs in the League would be stupid enough to make. He got completely rope-ed up by the Jags' linebacker. I'm going to make a prediction, guys. I think KC will be 6 and 3 heading into week 11 at Denver.

I don't think they lose again. I will say, I mean, Detroit has done nothing wrong since that first game. Everything they- All right, but they beat counter.

I got it. They beat Chicago, they beat the zombie Ravens, they beat Cleveland, a team that immediately traded the quarterback who started the game, to the next team, they beat Cynthia, who traded for the shitty quarterback that started the Cleveland game. Those are their four wins.

I got it. But that at Ravens was... Come on, that's a great one. It was a good one.

It was impressive. They had a good defensive game plan. They had a nice spy on Lamar, and it was very effective.

And the Ravens defense is terrible. Lions have a bunch of OL and DB injuries. And then the Lions-It's the secondary.

That's the part that makes it appealing to me.

The secondary is in bad, bad, bad, bad shape.

It's also like Mahomes, I mean, good, under a field goal. Right.

Yeah. Do you know what that against the spread record is? I'll tell you if you don't know. At home? Yeah. No, just in general. What is it? Mahomes at less than a field goal, 19 and three against the spread.

Oh, my God.

The Lions have this game this week and then Tampa the next week. Then they go, Manny in Washington and Philly. We're going to find out if the Lions are actually what's going on with them. All right, so I like the Chiefs. The next one I like, ironically, because Berno already half made the case about how bad the Cowboys were and the Jets lost to them. So that means they must be really, really bad. I don't think the Cowboys are very good, even though I think the quarterback has been good this year. Panthers plus three.

Oh, come on.

Panthers plus three.

Panthers?

Panthers plus three against Dallas. Chris Vernon. Panthers, Frisky. At home. Stop. For almost the last year.

What's his name? Rico Doudal Revenge?

I didn't even think of that. It could be a little bit of Rico Doudal Revenge.

He had 200 yards last week, I saw.

Last five home games last year for Carolina, They went two and three, but they covered four of them, including against KC in Tampa. They're two and 0 at home this year. It's going to be 75 degrees and Balmy in Carolina. Dallas, they have to play with the air conditioning on in their stupid dome. There's some fun Cowboys, Panthers history, Burno, that's not favorable to the Cowboys. And Dallas's defense is awful, and you have a shitload of injuries all over the place, including on your offensive line. I just like the spot for Carolina. I like the plus three. I think it's a field goal I think they could win.

I bet it's a shootout.

I like that.

I bet it could be. I bet it's a shootout. I mean, who's offensive repertority you like better? I mean, these are the games the Cowboys are going to play in, same way they did against the Giants, same way they did. They can't stop anybody. Again, that's why the Jets are so horrible. That's the only team that they could stop somehow. I think if If you believe in Carolina, I think the over-under is... Yeah, it's almost 50, for God's sakes. So you're just going back and forth. Cowboys' offense is unbelievable. Their defense is terrible. That leads to these fun, super high-scoring games. You might be right. It might be 38, 38, 35, somebody. But I'd imagine it turns into a shootout. That's what I'd guess.

So it was when we lines locked at... When we sent these out this morning house. It was plus three, and now it's minus two and a half, but we get it at plus three house. What's your take? Let's hear it.

Yeah. I mean, Carolina hasn't lost at home. Their offense with Canales, he simplified things for Bryce Young, and we're starting to see him move out of the pocket and feel comfortable. If you want to be real glass half full about it with Carolina, you'd say he's seeing the field better.

Jalen Coker might come back. Fully cross the zone.

But you guys say this like, Oh, they haven't lost at home. But they played Atlanta and Miami.

Atlanta is a real football team.

Miami is not.

Your team beat them by 30, Bill.

I know, but here's the thing about that game. They played really well, the Panthers, for the first quarter. Oh, stop. No, listen, for the first quarter and a half of that game, they I controlled the game, and we were like, What's going on? And then, a countdown kick return, and the wheels came off. They fell apart. But I don't know. I watched that Atlanta game. They killed House and I in week three. That was our worst pick of the year. They just dominated Atlanta. I thought they were pretty good last week. So that's one. Falcons, we mentioned them. Falcons plus four and a half against Buffalo. This is our last week to bet against Buffalo before they get the suspended defensive line guys back in at Oliver. They're 28th against the Rush. The Falcons, there's some really good defensive metrics.

No, you just talked about Atlanta burning you.

And it's in Atlanta.

And it's in Atlanta. You can only bet Atlanta at home. You can only bet on them in Atlanta. You can bet on them on the road. That's the important thing.

You can bet on them on the road.

I don't think you can bet Atlanta at all.

Why? House, what are your thoughts?

Come on, there's better choices than Atlanta.

It's really not. It's pretty weak, weak.

I like Atlanta. I like this spot for I like you.

You guys brought me on because you lose. Come on, I'm trying to talk you out of this stuff.

We already gave you a pick.

You want to know why you lose? Could you pick the fucking Falcons and pick the Panthers? Then you pick the Panthers and a half at home. Then you go to bed at night. They're like, Oh, my God, I can't believe we lost. We had the Falcons and the Panthers. We took the Chiefs.

We took the three-time champion Chiefs.

I got it. Just stick with the good teams. These teams stink. Carolina and Atlanta.

The problem is, who are the good You tell me who the good teams are. The problem is, who are the good teams?

Yeah, because- In the NF.

Chiefs were a good team, and then Jacksonville went down the field.

We crossed off Seahawks, Jags, Niners, Bucks. The Bills are good. In Washington.

The Broncos are good. The Chargers are good.

We're taking the Broncos.

The Kansas City Chiefs are good.

We took two of those teams.

All right.

And then I'll say this, especially after watching the bills pretty carefully and having been involved in a couple of their games from a gambling standpoint. They have not played a good start to finish game yet. I don't think they have a killer weapon other than Cooke, who the Patriots took out. We'll see if the Falcons can take them out. But I don't know. The Pats were able to move the ball up and down on them. And it was a Sunday night spot with a young QB and Ramondre with another murderous fumble in that game. And they hung around, hung around. And then when they really needed to, they moved the ball on them. I just think the Falcons are going to be able to do it at home.

All right.

I have it marked down. How else do you agree? Falcons plus 4 and F?

Yeah, it's one of my favorite ones. So take that.

Last one.

It's Monday night football, and you're going to bet Michael Michael Penix over Josh Allen. Okay.

I mean, that- It's just the number. Is that a fan alert? Do they remind us that we're about to do that?

You get the buzzer. Trust me, this text, when you guys are down nothing. Five minutes into the game, I cannot wait to fire this off. Michael Penix, you did it.

Last one is Pat's Saints. A possible on paper, a trap game for the Pats at minus three and a half.

Oh, Don't pour about this. The Saints are pitiful.

Well, here's- I don't think they are. So, Kamara- What?

I don't think they are. Kamara. I don't think they are. Spencer Rattler. Look at their against the spread record. Oh, God. They've only gotten blown up in one game.

Vernon, they do hang around. That's why that hook is tough. Here's the thing. The Saints against Buffalo, they ran for 34 for 189 and against the Giants, 34-88, but they're able to control the game. Against Seattle, they're 27 rushes for nine yards. I think that's what the Pats are going to do, though. I don't think they're going to be run on the Pats. The Pats run defense has been excellent. They're fourth with rushing yards, but every team has tried to test them and nobody's been able to run on them, which means, Spencer Rattler is going to have to beat them. I just don't think he will.

It is in New Orleans.

The most important thing for New England is Gonzales.

Who they held out of They were a little easy with them in practice.

Hey, how much do Patriots fans travel?

A lot? I don't know for a regular season game.

I will tell you this, and I don't know how big the brand got nationally, but my producer here, Roser, went down. He's a 49er fan. He went down to that 49er Saints game earlier this year. He said it was 80/20 49er fans in New Orleans. I think we'll get some. I just wonder how many Patriots fans will be in there because they're filling out a stadium up with road fans. I don't know. It used to be you play in New Orleans, and it was obviously a very serious home field advantage, and that's just not so anymore.

Well, you can make it a weekend, too. So House and I lost a bet last week because we did a parlay that included the Eagles money line. And what we should have done is made the Eagles money line, Eagles plus one and a half, because under the rules of Ringer 107, you could do a parlay up to minus 120. House, we can do Pat's plus one and a half for this with the Colts money line. Fine. And that is minus 120, and that could be our parlay this week.

I want to say out loud, I'm also perfectly fine with just laying it with the Colts.

Can we do this? Can we do this?

Well, this could be our last pick if you want to do it.

Don't rub this in-house. We can't.

What do you mean?

I mean, this has been the death of me. Me and House, in the interest of full disclosure, me and House are in a league together, a Skins League, where we have to pick teams wins and losses. We have six teams. One of our great picks for season was Colts' losses, and it has been the bane of my existence watching this team every week.

They're legitimately good at that. They're good. They should be five and up or could be five and up.

They're going to battle out Jackson for the freaking division.

They should have lost to Denver. It worked out.

Yeah. They should have lost it then. Yeah, you're right. They should have lost to Denver. So Four and one is the red record. You're right, House. Well, the Cardinals who had the worst loss of the year, and then their coach got fined for pushing his player on the sidelines.

Ps, me and House have Cardinals wins.

Yeah, think about that.

That's why I said, as soon as you mentioned this game, I'm like, House, this is going to beat us both ways.

And then Kyler Murray might be a little bit hurt, maybe. This line seems a little high to me because it's a little bit of a desperation game for Arizona coming off that awful loss to Tennessee. But I like the idea of Colts Money Line with the Pats plus one and a half.

How did the Cardinals respond to their coach punching one of their teammates?

It seemed like a punch. It was like a hard shove borderline. Un Unbelievable. We said on the Wednesday, gambling show that they need a tent on the sidelines for the coaches to take the players, the ass-whipping tent.

Beat them up. You have the blue tent for injuries. What color should the ass-whipping tent be? Like a dark purple? Yeah, the purple tent. The purple like a bruise.

I got to tell you guys, this It's interesting. This past week, I told you I was in Arizona, so we were in Phoenix. And the last time I had been in Phoenix, it was sun stuff everywhere. This is after they had gotten Durant, right? And it was like Durant, Booker, and Bill and just omnipresent sun stuff everywhere. This time when I went, there were Cardinals things everywhere. I thought it was so strange. I know it's football season, but again, I was there during football season the last time. People walking around were wearing Cardinal stuff, and you would go into stores and it was Kyler Murray jerseys and Marvin Harrison Jr. Jerseys and James Connor jerseys and whoever. It was just very odd. I always have this keen awareness of when I go to these different cities, how long does it take before I know that you've got a big-time basketball team? And the answer was two seconds. And I just wonder, I mean, I guess Booker is the only thing left with that Suns team.

I don't think that Suns owner has helped.

It's so crazy how much that has switched, and it's so crazy that he has turned out to be what he has been. I thought he was great on your pod. When he first got that job, you remember you had him on? Yeah, he was really good. I was like, Man, this guy seems like the owner you'd want. He's been terrible.

Then he did 29 terrible things.

He hired their GM who was a guy that I covered when Memphis played South Florida in the American... He got fired from Georgia Tech in South Florida. He's a college basketball coach, and he's now the GM of the Suns. It's all so strange.

So for Ringer 107, let me test drive this. We do KC minus two and a half, Panthers plus three, Oh, God. Broncos minus six and a half, Falcons plus four and a half, and then a little parlay of Colts Money Line with Pats plus one and a half. House. Does that sound in the vicinity for you, or is there somebody else we're missing?

No, I think it's in the vicinity. I really think that the Steelers are going to take care of business against the Browns, but I can't do it because I'm too afraid of that Browns defense against a team.

Did you see that stat, Aaron Rodgers? We- This confirmed what we talked about, where he's got the least amount of distance of every pass. It's like he averages four yards distance per passes.

That's not an indictment. That's the game plan. That's how they beat Minnesota. I get it. But the Browns have a good defense. So Minnesota allegedly did as well.

They couldn't put any pressure on him. But they're missing Vin Gingle and Cashman, though.

They couldn't put any pressure on him. They're missing two real guys. It was supposed to be the Minnesota Blitz that flustered Pittsburgh abroad, and it flustered nobody.

I like that Judkins.

He did his thing.

So, Verne, are you good with that five?

No.

What do you want to replace? You want to take out the Falcons and put the Steavers against the Browns?

He doesn't want the Panthers in there. I'm telling you right now, he does not want the Falcons.

That's just because you're a cowboy fan.

Or the Falcons. I want either of those teams. Those teams stink.

Listen, we gave you a pick. You should be happy. You got to pick a Ringer 107 pick.

I'm in. Look, my whole reputation rides on the Broncos.

You get to come back again to do it.

And then, A, I promise you, bring me back next week and I'll pick against the Jets. I'm riding this thing. They are awful.

Today's Ringer 107 is brought to you by FanDuel. And here's what we're doing for week 6. We're 10 and 15 for the year. You know what, House? I'm okay with the... I just think we've had incredible bad luck. There's seven games where a team blew it near the end and it went to the other thing. We should at least go like two and five in those, not zero and seven.

Didn't we just discuss this when we gave the Nuggets credit for acknowledging, you know what? It's not bad luck. We've got to change things up.

I'm just saying I like our process.

Stop betting on bad teams.

There's only so many team games to bet on.

Yeah, Bruno, last week, we lost on the Chiefs and the Eagles. Were those bad teams?

The Broncos are good.

The Seahawks are a bad team. We picked them, too, and they lost.

It was Bo Nicks on the road, Bruno.

I got you, but the Broncos are good.

We were 17 to three with the alleged awesome running attack.

No.

Week 6, Picks. Chiefs minus two and a half over the Alliance. Come on, Kansas City. Really? You're going to go two and four heading into week seven. Just take care of business. Lines are banged up on the O-line and the D-backs. Panthers plus three over. Vernon's Cowboys. You tried to get us not to do this. Ten minutes before you tried to get us not to do this. You talked about how bad the Dallas Cowboys were and how many injuries they've had. Panthers at home, hot, humid. Broncos minus six and a half against the Jets in London. This is Vernon's pick.

By the way, it's so unfair because, yes, I was talking about how my team's not that good, but I wasn't sitting there telling you the Panthers are. Panthers are terrible, too. Your team beat that team by 30, Bill. That happened. I don't care if you say they controlled the game for the first 10 They stink.

Panthers plus three. Broncos minus six and a half in London. We're going back to the overseas house. We're on two in the overseas.

We're going to wake up Sunday morning and wait to... Berno, if we wake up...

When I tell you my Ringer's off, you have no idea.

Falcons plus four and a half at home against Buffalo. Berno tried to throw his body in front of this. How did I like that in the Falcons at home? We'll never bet on them on the road again, but at home, Kind of like it. And then last but not least, a little parlay. Colts Money Line against Arizona, maybe not with Kyla Murray, with the Patriots, moved to plus one and a half in New Orleans. Room for the stupidest loss ever, but maybe they lose by one. We have a little room that is minus 120 on FanDuel, and those are going to be- I'll tell you this.

They said what? That Murray didn't practice yesterday, right? Isn't that right? Then it could You got to watch out, Bill. Could be Jacobi present revenge game.

It could be. I watched Jacobi last year. We're fine. Today's Ringer 107 brought to you by FanDuel. Od subject to change.

Virna, Five or Five.

The Mismatch with you and Dave Jacobi twice a week on the Ringer podcast Network. Joe House, we can find you on the Ringer Gambling Show. We can find you on Fairway rolling. We'll find you next week because we're doing Over-unders next week.

We are doing that thing.

I heard Zack Lo say he's going to be on there. Is that right?

Yeah, we're going to lose Zack Lo next week. Let's go. Did you win or lose money on golf this year?

I mean, lost. I think if you probably check my account, it's probably a loss. I probably lost. I don't know if I hit any of the big tournaments. I think I caught a couple of the after day 2, Scottie Scheffler got good odds. You know what I mean? I got on that streak where it was like he opened up it plus 150 for the tournament. And it was a lot like Tiger back in the day. And then by the time you're going into moving day, you could catch him at plus 400. And so I won some of those.

Do you know House won over $150,000 on Europe in the Ryder Cup?

That's not true.

All numbers approximate.

I wouldn't be sitting here.

He told me. This is how you know we're bad. I texted him something about... It had to do with this Skins League that we're in together. Oh, no, no. I take that back. I text him about the Ryder Cup, and I was like, Oh, my God, what a disaster. About what it was.

How's it going to feel that way?

No, he text back about our Skins League, and it was like, Yeah, we should have never taken the Cardinals or whoever we have in the thing. I was like, I'm talking about the Ryder Cup. But he's like, I bet on Europe. I was like, You, you communists, what are we doing?

Just making money. What are you doing? Just making money, buddy. Just out here making money.

That's all. That's unbelievable.

Listen, house that I bet on the Argentina in the 2004 Olympics was our greatest one.

No regrets.

We were so mad at the roster and Team USA put together that we put a giant 10 to 1 Argentina bet on and cashed it in. Yes, sir. It was beautiful. It was great.

You guys were wearing baby blue for Argentina.

It was fine. The real problem with the Ryder Cup, which I think we discussed on both of our pods house, is that Europe had most of the golfers that I like. How about this? You really got to work on that. Can we get Can you get some more fun American golfers, please?

A lot of American golf fans preferred the Euro personalities to the US personalities. I mean, all due respect to the Henley family and the English family, but Harris English and Russell Henley, not putting buts in seats. Let's just put it that way. Not putting buts in seats.

I mean, when they were listening off because they got the auto qualifiers, I was watching the Golf channel right before that week that it was about to get going, and they were like, And here's the captain's pick. So basically, the bench for Europe. And they're like, John Rom, Victor Hovland. I'm like, Oh, my God. What is going on here? It was just a... Matt Fitzpatrick. I was like, Bro, it's all major winners.

Major winners. That's right.

Crazy. Ferno, great to see you. Good luck with the grizzly season. House, I'll see you in LA this weekend. Thanks for coming up, Phyllis. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Kurt Goldsbury. Thanks to House and Ferno as Well, thanks to Geha and Eduardo. As always, I'm going to be off all weekend until Sunday night with the Cus talking about week 6 NFL. And then four podcasts next week because we have a bunch of NBA stuff planned plus NFL. This is my favorite time of year. Enjoy the weekend. I will see you on Sunday. Must be 21 plus in President Select States for a Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus in President DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Game problem, call 1-100 Gamble or visit rg-help. Com. Call 888-79-7777 or visit ccpg. Org/chat-n-kneticat or md-gamblinghelp. Org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelp-line-ma. Org, or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts, or call 877-8 Hope, N-Y, or text Hope, N-Y, in New.