Transcript of Caleb Wilson Fever, 2020 NBA Redraftables, and the ‘Odyssey’ MVP Rankings With Joe House, J. Kyle Mann, and Jason Concepcion

The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by PayPal. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where I put up a new rewatchables on Monday. We did Hitch, the Will Smith movie. It is, uh, 21 years old, one of the last really, really killer rom-coms. So we had fun breaking that down. Next week on Monday, we're going to be doing a live Rewatchables on Netflix on Monday, sometime in the afternoon. And I'm not going to tell you what the movie is yet. I'll tell you over the weekend what we're doing, but there's a really, really good chance you've seen it. So we're going to be going live on Netflix, Rewatchables, Monday afternoon Pacific time. So stay tuned for that. Um, I have no Red Sox on this episode. Because they've won 15 straight. As I'm taping this intro, it's afternoon Wednesday. They, they had a doubleheader today.

They won one.

This is one of the craziest Red Sox experiences in the history of the franchise. The team was dead the day I had my colonoscopy, the day Jaylen Brown got traded. The Red Sox lost that day. They were 37 and 48. It was my least favorite Red Sox season we've ever, probably ever had in my lifetime. There was not a single thing to like. Guys getting hurt. Roman Anthony was supposed to be the next Ted Williams. He's out. Um, Crochet got hurt. Trevor Story, I think, was the most expensive of the team. He's hurt. Um, and things just flipped over the last 3 weeks, and it's been incredible to watch. I think I'm gonna— I'll do something in the last segment on Sunday about it with my dad or my friend Hansh or somebody. But, um, it's been so much fun to watch. And my favorite guy, Wilson Contreras, comes in, um, and is carrying himself— he's the new guy. Comes in in April and, uh, has this intensity in him and it doesn't fit in with the rest of the team. They have a bunch, like, the team's a mess. We can't hit lefties and Roman Anthony and, and Marcelo Meyer, like, they're supposed to be the young guys that come up and they're doing nothing.

And, um, and he has this intensity and he's around and almost seemed like he was on the wrong team for 2 months. And then they sweep the Yankees. There's the stuff that happens with the Nationals where he gets kicked out of 2 games in a row and something flipped and he's at the center of all of it. And he's my favorite Red Sox player probably since, probably since they traded Mookie because he's just a maniac. And needless to say, the Boston fans love him. He's like, somebody hits a big home run, he's out of the dugout. He's the first guy, he's doing these, like he's just, I really feel like he's transformed the team watching him. So anyway, it's, that's been great. And I'm glad the Red Sox are good because there's no sports coming on. That's why for this podcast, you know, it's July 22nd. We are doing a redraft of the 2020 NBA draft with Kyle Mann and Joe House after we talk a little Summer League. I haven't done a redraft in a while, but we're gonna do that. And then Jason Katsepsion came on. I have a big thing about The Odyssey.

I'm gonna unleash my MVP ballot for The Odyssey because I've now seen it twice. So if you haven't seen it yet, no problem. If you wanna listen to the redraft and then pop out. Um, if you have seen The Odyssey, I would highly encourage you, um, to listen to that part with me and Jason. So that is the podcast. We're gonna take a break, Pearl Jam, and then Joe House and Kyle Mann. This episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast is presented by PayPal. You know a clutch move when you see one, a no-look pass, a buzzer beater, a big steal. Well, imagine if your wallet could pull off moves like that. That, my friends, is PayPal. Right now you can find offers from hundreds of brands. Like Sony, Allbirds, and Viator, and save offers before you check out. Earn unlimited rewards. Plus you can add those rewards on top of credit card points. Now that is clutch. Download the PayPal app today. Save those offers. Start scoring rewards. Terms and exclusions apply. See paypal.com/rewardsterms. Credit card points subject to issuer's terms and conditions. July 22nd, 2026. It can only mean one thing. Filler content. It's the one for us section of the BS Podcast.

Joe House is here. Kyle Mann is here. We're gonna talk about, we're gonna do a redraft. Haven't done a redraft in forever. I'll explain what we're doing in a second. Quickly wanna hit Summer League 'cause Kyle Mann ingested a bunch of it. Joe House had, I would say a successful Wizards— AJ D'Abonsa, I like literally lost no fans, no mojo, nothing, right?

I mean, wildly successful for the Wizards. Not only did AJ come out and, and cause my, uh, text threads to, to stop being populated with Darren Peterson clips— everybody could F right off as soon as AJ showed up— but on top of that, on top of that both Trey Johnson and Will Riley showed out. Like, that was to me as, as important a revelation as anything because that's really— those are the elemental pieces of the trajectory for this upcoming Wizards season.

It's going to be hilarious 10 years from now when people are listening to this just for the 2020 redraft and they're like, how's this excited for Will Riley? Where is he? Is he in China now? It's funny with that top 4, wherever you stood on the top 4, you kind of gotta win, Kyle. Like if you were a Boozer guy, big win. He did everything that he normally does. They made the finals. He was consistent and really good. Peterson had moments where it was like, oh, this was high school Kobe version Peterson. DeBonce looked great.

He had some moments, he had some moments where we went, oh, and then he had some ooh moments. But overall it was good.

Yeah.

Yeah. He had a 6 for 18. He wasn't perfect, but he definitely, You know, and I thought it was interesting where he talked about, finally I'm on the ball. And there was like some veiled fuck you, Bill Self stuff that, you know, it seemed like he was a little more unhappy during the college season. But then the big revelation, which was not a revelation to any of us, I was on the record as saying I thought Caleb Wilson was the most undervalued guy at the draft, even at 4. I think there was a real case to just trade back and he might be the best player anyway, which I don't ever normally feel that way with the draft. And he comes in and he hits threes. House, I gotta say, we're a little older than Kyle. He looked very T-Mac-ish to me. Ooh, that was the one that jumped out to me. I was like, I love this. This is like watching T-Mac again. Like, he's a little taller, he's like 6'10", but same kind of skinny inside, outside, but then is adding this explosive Sean Kemp side too. And if I was a Bulls fan, I would have no sperm left in my body.

It would just be ejaculate in every room of my house. I would lose my mind.

You need a jizz room for what that man did.

I did. It's a complete— it's like when we had the colonoscopy. It was when they give you the stuff to clean your colon out. That's what Caleb Wilson was for. Cleaning your nut sack. Oh my God.

How many minutes in are we?

Yeah, it's summer season. We're in the summer season.

We're getting drunk.

Let's talk about it.

Sure.

Why not?

How's—

did you hear? Yeah. Well, here's my question for JKM, because the thing that jumped off the screen, and he validated it through the sustained outstanding performance— I'm so glad you broke the fuck label right away because I want to curse. This motherfucker, his shooting stroke is so Beautiful. It's so beautiful. And this was not something that we saw, at least, you know, us normies, JKM, out of his North Carolina performance, right? If he had that stroke, he had to have had that stroke the whole time he was at North Carolina because he wasn't there for very long. But holy cow, he can shoot and it's absolutely effortless. He has the best stroke. He has a better looking stroke to me than Peterson.

And I mean, I'll go ahead and fight somebody on that. I'll fight somebody on this. Peterson's—

I hate to fight you, Hal.

Peterson's just like this. It's gone 25 feet. But yeah, but that was the—

Hey, did you see where that man was shooting from?

I know.

Did you see where Caleb was shooting from?

But people were dinging Wilson with the shooting stuff. And I remember saying this to you a couple times during the pre-draft process. Like, guy's a great athlete and he's competitive. He's gonna figure it out. It's not like he's gonna have this broken jumper for his whole career. What we didn't expect was he would figure it out in July.

I hesitate to go like overboard and say like, oh my God, he's just learned, he just learned with— there's a before and an after kind of thing. I think he worked on it in that window between, you know, he broke his hand, he had some time off that, you know, I know he really wanted to play. Um, I would say this, I was more excited about like the defensive stuff that he did where he was just swallowing up people. Um, his drives and things, they were a little chaotic. He, he showed me glimpses. I'm cautious— not even cautiously, I'm very optimistic, I would say. I hesitate to like really read into the shooting stuff because he took some wild ones, they went in. Credit to him for that. His shot does look good. The free throw percentage is solid. There's always been workable stuff to make you have confidence. I don't think anybody was ever— there may be some people out there who were just like, it's never going to happen. But when you would watch him do his little rip-through fake stuff in the mid-range to get to his like turnaround stuff, that it always looked good.

So it was just kind of a an opportunity thing here. I think it wouldn't surprise me if we come out a little bumpy, you know, because this was just such a crazy first. But I mean, I came out of this event being like, yeah, this, this dude is absolutely in the taxonomy of the K— I wouldn't, I don't know if I'd go T-Mac because I don't know that he's quite as like T-Mac's handle.

T-Mac's handle was so polished, you know, remember T-Mac year 2 Raptors, go back and watch T-Mac back then. Like he wasn't anywhere close to anything that he became. Let me, 'cause you were there, House and I weren't. What was like the it factor with him? Just being in the room with him, seeing his effect, like how he carried himself on the court during free throws, during timeouts, people with their eyes on the gym on him. What, what was, give us the verdict on that.

I mean, he wanted the moment clearly, and I think that's true of all the top guys. All the top dudes were to the point where they were chasing it a little bit and it got a little ugly as a result of that. But I don't really begrudge it. They were wanting to put on a show. And that's what summer league's for, you know. Cam Boozer didn't really do that because he just doesn't do that. You know, you remember last year, um, you know, Cooper— even Cooper, as competitive and psychotic as he is, he got caught up in the bright lights and tried to put on a show. But Caleb just has a smiley confidence about him, um, and he's just very sure of the work that he's put in. Um, even, even if it's chaotic this year in terms of like the percentages and the outcome and stuff like that, it'd be really hard to bet against him not having just a continued upward trajectory. I was, I was going to say he's kind of in that taxonomy of like a KG type body and maybe, and put the Sean Kemp in there too. If you just watch him, I clipped this out on, on Twitter.

If you just watch where he starts and where he finishes without much momentum, without bending his knees at all, Wilson can get to ceilings that other people can't get to. And he does it faster. Like he doesn't really need much of a load up or a runway to do it. He's just such an impressive athlete, man. Like breathtaking.

How's FanDuel Rookie of the Year odds right now? I'm not allowed to bet. Who do you think is the favorite? Um, Boozer. That is correct. Plus 290. Who do you think is second? Uh, Caleb Peterson, plus 310.

Okay.

And then Caleb and AJ tied at 4 to 1.

Huh.

But I don't remember a Rookie of the Year where we had 4 choices kind of clustered together as the top 4. And I honestly don't know what the best bet is, but I would say from even what we saw in summer league and what we saw the teams do in the summer, the Wizards are going to be a little bit more of a complete team. I don't know if AJ's going to have the usage rate and they, they seem, I don't know whether Davis is saying all the right things because they're actually going to trade him and he's playing the game right now or whatever, but All those guys were there. They made a big show of like, hey, we think we're gonna be pretty good this year. So you have that. Boozer's gonna be on a Memphis team that I think he's gonna be exactly what we thought, 19-10, 20-10, somewhere in there. Peterson, who knows? And then Caleb is the one to me that I just feel like he's gonna have the ball a lot and they're gonna put everything on him in year one. I don't know, and I don't know why they wouldn't, and I think he wants it.

And it's not like, it's not like there's a ton of stuff on the Bulls anyway where it's like, oh, that guy's gonna take stuff or this guy. I just think if I was a Bulls fan, I'd be outta my mind. They've been waiting for this since Derrick Rose got hurt basically. So who would you take outta those 4? Just outta curiosity, Kyle.

For Rookie of the Year?

Yeah, right now.

I think there are gonna be high highs of like scoring output from Peterson. It's gonna be pretty predictable, I think, and probably why they have Cam Boozer number 1. I just think Cam's gonna be very productive and very steady and really contribute to winning. Like, I think he's going to make that Grizzlies team make a lot of sense in a more direct— like, DeBonce is not going to have the opportunity to do this directly and like be the centerpiece guy. I, on the Ringer NBA Show, I compared it to the way that Tatum came in. Granted, not one-to-one, it's just you got some older players ahead and like he's gonna come in and be this very talented dude but not just like overtly given the keys immediately in the way that, um, in the way that Boozer will. So I, I understand having Boozer number 1, and I'd probably pick him for that reason.

Yeah, Tatum was over a lot of times just in the corner, like a stretch 4-3 and D type guy. And they would have to kind of nudge him to be more involved. And you know, I remember even writing a column about it during the playoffs, like, yo, like, let's give this guy the car keys a little bit. Like, there's more here. We actually need the offense. I think AJ will probably want it. And then the other big winner, you know, Brown did what we would've expected. I still think the question for him was never talent, but durability. We'll see in December, January. But Burrys was the one that I think surprised some people. Not us, we were calling for it. But, you know, he had the ball more and guess what? Like, that's how he played his whole career except for last year. House, if you're the Clippers, are you gritting your teeth at all right now? That you didn't take the obvious 2 guard that was sitting there and you got seduced by this Wogler and now you're playing him and Garland together when you just had this very obvious 2 guard you could have put in.

It's hard to say because the Clippers are on a project timeline now, right? Aren't they officially like their win total?

And Adam Silver is ramming it in our bumholes. Project? What project is it?

They are not poised to be successful this season or next season or any season that I can think of in the next 5 seasons. So the investment in— and I mean, Wadler's so young, he still has a little bit of the baby deer look to him, um, the way he's coming out. Burrys is, uh, literally the only shining hope for, for an equally horrible Bucs team that is also going to be excruciating over the next 5 years.

And, uh, Tyler Harrow, sure, a little chip on his shoulder and a little tiny welt under his eye after he got it.

You're right about that. I just want to make the case for Caleb Wilson to win Rookie of the Year, and I'm going to bet it a little bit now and then we'll see how everything shakes out. I do agree with both of you guys in terms of AJ not getting enough opportunity usage. The Wiz are too far along. I wonder about Peterson getting enough opportunities.

I think the Jazz will try to get him a lot of shots on that team.

All right. Yeah.

And that's a pretty polished team. Like, we, we all are pretty, pretty bullish on their playoff prospects. I don't think they're just going to turn the ball over to Peterson. Um, Caleb, this is the thing with the Rookie of the Year, it is a narrative award. Like, it's counting stats and narrative. So if Caleb shows us a couple, a handful of spectacular games, he has some 40-point scoring output, you're like, Boozer's gonna be 19-10. And Caleb layers on top of that a handful of these games where these blocks come from absolutely out of nowhere And if he averages like 2 blocks a game or something like that, which feels kind of reasonable to me, you made the right point. The Bulls have absolutely nothing to showcase other than this dude. And it's Tiago Splitter at the helm who will understand the mission, I think, and just ushered in a guy that we're about to talk about on this podcast. He knows how to take a guy, you know, the ascending, and give— turn the whole thing over to that ascending guy. Denny Avdija certainly enjoyed Tiago Splitter's time. Tiago at the helm of this Bulls team with, with Caleb and what they want to do in terms of engendering some enthusiasm.

I'm just, just him at that 4-to-1 range feels like a tiny bit of value to me.

You left out the single best case for Caleb Wilson.

Let's hear it.

He's gonna, out of all these guys, he's gonna be the social media guy. He's gonna have 50 plays during this season that my son will know happened.

Right. Well, that's what I meant, spectacular.

But this is a whole different element to—

great point—

who owns the Rookie of the Year. It's like, can my son Ben Simmons, the only working Ben Simmons right now, can my son Ben Simmons know you did something? Because he's not gonna be watching Bulls games on League Pass. But if you do something that's gonna be on TikTok or Instagram, he's gonna see it. And I think Caleb, it's not just like he might have a game where he might hit 10 threes, he might have the dunk in traffic. He might have the spin boot move double clutch Sean Kemp dunk. He might have some crazy pin block on the backboard, but he's got to kill on all that stuff. Listen, my rule as always is never overreact to Summer League, and we're trying not to, but I do think Caleb hitting threes was the one big picture, like, oh wow, like, this is holy shit. There's nobody in the league like this guy. House, really quickly, Washington Wizards, 35+ wins. -110.

I mean, that makes exactly perfect sense, right? They're a 35-win team. I, I have— I'm on record, I think they're going to come in last in the Southeast Division and win between 35 and 39 games and contend for the play-in. Contend for the play-in. That's what I think.

40 wins, +240.

Nah.

No, if you keep Davis all year and he plays like 68 games.

So that's the bet. That's the bet, right?

Davis plays 65 to 68 games. I think you're a 40-win team.

I don't want to bet on any one of those things defensively, man.

I've said this throughout. I think it could be pretty interesting if you can have, if you can have DeBonce, Sarr, and Davis at your 3-4-5. That is a rangy, disruptive defensive group. I mean, you think about all the other teams in the East. I mean, Miami, obviously with the addition of Giannis. I'm just trying to rattle through and think of the teams that can compare, compete with that. Pretty, pretty promising. Pretty, pretty good.

Boston with Paul George.

Um, uh, we forgot to say Giddy.

Giddy, so much fun.

Yeah, with, with Caleb Wilson, that is going to be a very fun toy to throw because one thing Giddy— and well, I was just saying, one thing Giddy can do is throw lobs, and I think that's going to be— that alone is going to be a social media phenomenon, those two together, for sure.

The other one that jumped out was Yaxel, which was no surprise because he's he's almost 24 years old. But I think if you're a Warriors fan, you know you're at least getting somebody who's gonna be playing 25 to 28 minutes a game that you didn't have last year. And we'll see what happens with LeBron. But you know, if Butler comes back February, March range, still not enough. But you know, can, can Steph Curry at least get to the playoffs and be relatively interesting? Yaxel's gonna help, but they, I still think they need LeBron.

Did you, Did you like the Yaxel Boozer rivalry? I feel like this is a budding thing that people aren't talking about.

Yeah, I like it.

Their personalities are just so polar opposite. You know, Yaxel just can't not say whatever he's thinking, and Boozer's just quietly, intensely staring at— you could tell they don't— I don't know for sure. I just, I don't suspect they like each other competitively. I'm just keeping an eye on that one. And they matched up twice in the, in the Summer League.

Well, the only thing, the only real big picture thing left is wherever LeBron goes. And it's just, you know, I went on Game Over yesterday with Rich and Max 'cause I was in the office and I was there. I ended up going on for 45 minutes. But the, the really red flag thing about this LeBron thing, which I don't really feel like is gonna swing the title odds in any direction, at least for me, but it is notable that James Harden hasn't signed and Draymond hasn't signed. So you have two teams that are definitely going, ah, you know, Golden State doing nothing is also doesn't mean nothing. It means they must feel like they're in this. So we'll see what happens with that. I still, I still hope it's Golden State, but, um, I still have a feeling it's going to be Cleveland all along. I do have a house before we do the redraft. I had, I had a great email for you. This is from Harry, who who did, uh, he paged Conspiracy Bill, who's always available.

Do you wear a beeper for that?

No, but he's, he's, he's just, every time there's an email, Conspiracy Bill, Conspiracy Bill jostles. He mentioned, uh, Presti, OKC roster crunch. They have to get rid of, they got rid of Isaiah Joe, they got rid of Aaron Wiggins, right? And then, uh, we knew they were gonna probably get rid of Lou Dort, which they did. They got 3 second rounders for him. Harry says, I 100% believe Sam Presti sought out not one but two Hawks deals to beef them up this season and knock their first-round pick owned by San Antonio down a few spots.

Very good.

Pretty good. Very, very good. Like he stamped that one immediately. I liked it. Absolutely.

I endorse this.

It felt like he got a lot for Lou Dort, right? He's got a couple seconds. I'm sure there were a few teams that would've offered that, but I wonder, so you think Presti is that devious?

Sure. Anything. They understand who their nemesis is. Of course.

That doesn't even sound like conspiracy to me. That just sounds like strategy. That sounds smart.

JKM is right. JKM is right. I want to go on record on LeBron. I think he's going to Philadelphia. Just want to say, get it out there.

Oh wow. I would bet anything against that.

Okay.

That's fine.

I just want to be on record. Okay.

What do you want to bet?

Let's bet something good. We'll bet a dinner that has food.

Yes.

Done.

And then there's another Conspiracy Bill email. Stuart from Perth, Australia said, um, does Conspiracy Bill think Dumars was sent to the Pelicans by the NBA where he worked to make the Pelicans so bad that they would have to relocate to Seattle? Um, I was watching the movie Major League and couldn't help but think they took notes watching on how to get a team relocated. What team goes 26-56 and literally does nothing in the offseason? It's a very solid point.

They went 26-56 and did nothing other than signed DeAndre Jordan to an amazing contract. Yes, they did. That's not nothing.

Yeah, it's a bet on development. That's— I think that's what it is.

That is literally— now that it's them going to Seattle makes no sense whatsoever because Seattle is going to get one of the expansion teams. But what markets are ripe for an NBA team? Seattle and Vegas obviously lead, but where, where should new The Pelicans go, they should go somewhere.

Honestly, Kansas City's, I think, a bigger factor than people— interesting. They just hosted World Cup. That city's built for like big events now, and they used to have basketball before. I think Kyle's neck of the woods is another one. I think Nashville, even though it's too close to Memphis, is possible. I wouldn't rule out St. Louis. I think there's a lot of cities. Like, we never would have said Oklahoma City in the mid-2000s. You know, if you have if you have hungry local rich people and you have some sort of arena, you could make a play for a basketball team. Conspiracy Bill got another one.

Hmm.

Mike in New Orleans wanted to know if the Blazers owner, did Conspiracy Bill think the league wants to get back in Seattle, gave this guy the team, he was going to force his way out and barge them to Seattle. I actually don't believe that one because I don't think the Seattle fans want Portland's team. I think they would rather have their own expansion team and start over, and they know what it's like to have your team ripped from you. And I don't think they want Portland's team. And I also don't think that's why he's doing this. I just think he's super cheap, and this is what he did with the Hurricanes. He, he has a specific method of he cut costs all over the place. And, you know, he's, he's basically like, you guys should help me buy an arena. Or I might move. So how much do you want the Blazers here? I don't agree with what he's doing. It's absolutely the most cutthroat thing you can do, but I don't think there's some master plan. I just think the guy's cutthroat across the board and that's why he's handling it. Well, speaking of cutthroat, we're gonna take a break.

We are gonna do our first redraft on the BS Podcast, I think since the 2018 we did, uh, 2022 range. Is that 2023? We did it 3 years ago.

You didn't do one since then?

No, there hasn't been. We did one in honor of charts. So we're going to bring up in this one we're about to do. But when we come back, the 2020 NBA redraft next.

Sehr gut, sehr gut, sehr gut. Sehr gut? Wieso, Steuer ist sehr gut.

Das sagen ganz viele.

Wer sagt das?

Stiftung Warentest, Computerbild, Focus Money, Chip, Finanztipp.

Such dir was aus.

Mega. Das ist doch bestimmt kompliziert.

Nö, einfach Foto von der Lohnsteuerbescheinigung machen und fertig.

Klingt sehr gut.

Ist sehr gut. Mit WISO Steuer bis zum 31.

Juli abgeben.

Alright, so as you know, I remember nothing from 2020 or 2021. I have no memory at all. Apparently I did 14 NBA Redraft Podcasts. You guys were on a bunch of them.

Sure.

We did 14 on my podcast and on the Book of Basketball Podcast, where a lot of them are, and it was super fun. And never did them again. And during the summer, because there's, um, absolutely nothing going on for the next couple weeks, we're gonna do a couple redrafts. And I texted you guys and we talked about possibilities, and the one we landed on is the single weirdest draft in the history of the league, other than maybe 1986. What's weirder, 1986 or 2020, House?

Uh, 2020 is super weird.

1986 had like, not only the tragedy of the limb bias, but half the guys in that draft became drug guys or You know, it was like the most jinxed, weird draft ever, but we didn't know that as it was happening. 2020, we knew right away. So 2020 COVID draft takes place on November 18th, 2020. Let's start there. It's—

I forgot about that.

Yeah.

I was thinking it was June. Yeah, that's right.

6 weeks after the NBA Finals in the bubble, which was even weirder. Uh, the season started 5 weeks later. They had no March Madness to study because there was no March Madness. They had no draft combine 'cause they couldn't have draft combine. They had, for the most part, Zoom interviews. They had prospects only going one-on-zero workouts basically with masks on a lot of the times. These guys, they went from getting ready for March Madness to there's no more college basketball to I'm just gonna work out by myself in a gym for 4 to 5 months basically. They kind of ramp up the process near the end and they're basically, House, they're just fucking grasping at straws. It's the only draft where we can honestly say NBA teams were just like us. They're just watching YouTube and just kind of piecing things together and guessing.

You can't overstate how weird it was. I'm glad, you know, you, it's not fair to compare this to 1986. The whole world was upended and every single element of, you know, an evaluation of talent for a professional sports league. It's kind of asinine in a way, except it's the business, it's the industry, and there's no other way to do it. They did it. They did it. And I'm thrilled that they did it. I actually kind of loved the way that that season played out because we had so much basketball in our, in our lives. There was no dead moment, you know, there was no, uh, let's say, I'll take a breather. It went from, wow, it was really fun to have the bubble. That was— gave us something to look at and compare notes on and talk about.

Yeah.

Right into this super weird draft. And then right into a season that began— was it like Christmas-ish? Right after Christmas?

Yeah. I think there was a real physical toll on some of the players that lasted long in the playoffs and then had to start the season. That was the only downside. For the fans, it was great because we had nothing going on. It's like, oh, thank you.

I remember.

I have things to watch again.

Well, I remember the burnout among people covering it. I remember when they came back, you know, granted the physical toll is a whole different thing, but I just remember when they came back at Christmas and then at the end of that season, I guess extending it to Summer League and free agency, I just remember the fried look in people's eyes from, from the toll of that because we were trying to stay busy during that gap where the season ended. I remember we were doing all kinds of stuff like the redrafts, and I did a bunch of historical stuff. Granted, we remember the the wind in our sails with The Last Dance and all that stuff, man. I think one of the things with The Last Dance that people forget is how bad we needed that shit, man. I mean, like, people were just so desperate for anything, and that alone kept us busy, that big Jordan sort of sweeping win that came in for a while there.

Yeah, Russell and I were doing live podcasts after the 2 episodes of The Last Dance like they were sporting events because we had literally nothing else going. So the actual draft when you look back at who the best players— and we're gonna do the redraft and people can hear it in real time— but I think it's the most off teams have been for who actually turned out to be the good players versus where they were drafted. Like, for instance, so in the actual draft, Edwards was 1, LaMelo was 3, uh, Tyrese Maxey was 21, Desmond Bain was 30. Right. So Wiseman went too, and Wiseman is the guy I think to think about when you think about this draft, because they're basically going off 3 Memphis games and nothing else. And now you're going back to high school tape, and now you're just looking at raw tools. And it's one of those things where if we had had March Madness. I just think so much of this is different. Like, what if Haliburton goes on a run, you know, in the tournament and makes like the Final Four or the Final Eight? What if Wiseman gets knocked out in the first round?

What if LaMelo's terrible? Oh no, LaMelo was in New Zealand. Yeah. So that LaMelo's even out on that.

Yeah.

What if, what if Edwards like gets knocked out in the first? Like, I do think March Madness swings this stuff one way or the other, but in this case it didn't. And And, but Wiseman is the one, Kyle, that I think we had the toughest time trying to figure out. I went back and our old friend Sharks, who did all the draft grades after, and the Warriors take Wiseman second, and Sharks writes, this is simultaneously the safest pick and biggest gamble at the top of the draft. Quality big men are easy to find in the modern NBA. Wiseman has to be elite to be worth going this high. So where did you stand when they took Wiseman? Did you feel like he had a chance to be elite?

I remember having a similar sort of trepidation that Charks did, granted, because we were talking about the draft constantly around that time. I had watched Wiseman a whole lot in high school coming up to that weird Memphis season. The other thing too is just the fact that it was the Warriors making that pick. That was the thing that made me the most suspicious because the things that are the most worried, because the things that Wiseman needed to work on this— the Warriors kind of conversation about them extending this window. Like, House, I was watching your face as Bill was talking about the Warriors potentially being in the playoffs, and he had a like, no fucking way look on his face. But I mean, at that point we were like, hey, I think there's still some more soap in that rag.

And there was.

Like, they went and won a title despite this not working out. But the things that he needed to work on subsequently— Kuminga the following year, I think it was '21. I was looking at those dudes and just thinking, man, offensively raw. Absolutely not ready for the speed of the way the Warriors want to play. That worried me. And then you combine— it was a lot of fog. If you're projecting the tape, the college development that we didn't really get to see, even at the time it was risky. I think I thought that it was— I thought that he could become a good player. I did not expect him to fall off a cliff the way that he did. And you know, not even in the league now.

So House, my biggest win from this draft was I absolutely loved Halliburton and thought he should have gone way higher than he did and went nuts about that the whole draft. So that was a huge W for me. My biggest loss was I liked the Wiseman pick for the Warriors. I was like, great pick. Like passing center, unbelievable specimen. The guy a year ago would've been hands down the number one pick in the draft. And this is amazing that they got a franchise center. And it just didn't work out for a variety of reasons. But I, I think the biggest one is I don't, I just don't think they had enough tape. And you start drafting the premise of a player versus what the actual player is, you know, what'd you think of it when that happened?

At that point, the Warriors had engendered so much, you know, confidence and trust in a kind of approach to both, you know, player development, player acquisition that I didn't know anything about Wiseman, but gave them the benefit of the doubt.

Me too.

But there is a through line all the way up to right now, this very moment, and my wild skepticism about the Warriors making the playoffs this upcoming season, between missing on that pick and, and today, the end of Steph's career that we've been experiencing— lost seasons, missed playoffs after they won the title. They did eke out one more title, so God bless them, in 2022 with, with, uh, what they were able to put together.

James Wiseman, NBA champion.

I feel, I feel like we, you know, we're missing out on something because of the toll on Steph and, you know, the way that Steph's career is, is, is gonna end. If that pick had been somebody solid, somebody credible, what would that have meant for the Warriors franchise and ultimately for Steph, who's really the only guy I care about?

Bill, did you see the thing that I wrote in that draft guide? Did the specific thing that I said about Halliburton was like, the league should be doing everything they can to not let this kid end up with Golden State. I specifically said that 'cause that was, he would've been perfect for their style of play.

He was who I wanted them to take, but they could not trade back and they weren't gonna take him at 2. But I think they knew outta anybody in this top 12, that's the guy that if he's on our team would fit perfectly with us and could play on the ball, off the ball. But I don't, nobody wanted to, you know, they tried to trade back. Nobody was trying to trade up 'cause nobody could figure out the top 7 or 8 in this draft, especially like He had Patrick Williams there, he had Okoro. Nobody could unlock LaMelo at all. The Warriors thought about LaMelo too, and I've talked about this before on the pod, but they had a Zoom interview with him that was so bad, like they felt like he, you know, was tanking the interview not to go there. And I, he probably might have, that might've been what happened. I don't think he wanted to play for them. So they were kind of stuck. They weren't gonna take Patrick Williams or Okoro. They weren't gonna take a Kongu, they weren't gonna take Killian Hayes. So if you can't trade back, I don't know what you do.

So they took the swing with Wiseman and they're still paying for it.

Can you like think about what an abandonment of philosophy— I've said this so many times, but you get Steph under these circumstances where this guy is misevaluated in terms of where the league is going level to level, and they get so lucky that, that Khan takes, you know, Johnny Flynn and Ricky Rubio ahead, and just with its backward-facing thinking. And then you get this opportunity to take this guy Tyrese Halliburton, and you say to yourself, well, 2's too high. I just feel like anytime you have that type of conversation with yourself about a player where you're like, well, that's, that's too high to take that guy, if you like that person, just take them. Like, figure out a way to get them, even if it's like go back a couple spots. Like, it just, it's such a, like, a shocking, remarkable abandonment of philosophy that they would strike gold with Steph and then fail to see what happened there and then not take Tyrese Halliburton. Well, there was so clearly the guy like gonna be a good player.

There was one thing though, there was one thing that teams didn't like about him. I remember specifically one team in the top 10 telling me this. Teams were worried he wouldn't be able to get his release off on his shot in the pros. And they were like, in the college, fine. In the pros, at that hitch, it just takes too long to unfurl. It's not gonna happen. And you know, I, I remember saying this at the time, it goes in. Like, what the fuck do you guys want? Like, the shot goes in. It's not like this is a long baseball swing that you get to the majors and you're not gonna be able to catch up at 98. Like, his shot was weird, but it always went in. And the advanced stats were unbelievable for him. You know, I remember Haral Bob talked about this. He was like, doing everything possible to try to get Dallas to try to trade up, especially, you know, the biggest legacy of this draft is Halliburton falls and keeps falling and then ends up going to, ironically, Sacramento, a team that could never do anything right in the draft.

So he goes 12. So to recap the top 15 for people, Edwards goes to Minnesota, Wiseman, Golden State, number 2, LaMelo Ball to Charlotte. Then we have the Patrick Williams, Isaac Okoro shit sandwich combo, 4-5. Chicago-Cleveland, who then ended up getting traded for each other a couple years later, and both teams still unhappy after that. Uh, Okonwu at 6, Killian Hayes at 7. Uh, shout out to our friend KOC, but this was— poor KOC's had so many wins, he still carries the Killian Hayes like a scarlet letter. This was his worst one, but he's also had a lot of good ones. Um, Obi Toppin, 8, to the Knicks. And that really should have been a Halliburton team. Like, first of all, Detroit taking Killian Hayes over Tyrese Halliburton is fireable and everyone did get fired. Obi Toppin versus Halliburton when the Knicks, they didn't have Brunson yet.

Like, oh man, they needed playmaking if I remember correctly at that point.

They, he was perfect for them.

He did though, in fairness, Toppin felt like the surest thing at the moment. What did you write about Toppin, JKM?

I wasn't writing the guide at that point, but he, he was just crazy. He was a little older. He played 4 years at Dayton, I remember. And, uh, he was, he was just this elite athlete that we thought could turn into a big-time defender. And I mean, there's more stuff to unpack in relation to Halliburton specifically, I think, that's interesting as we like re-rank these guys. But no, uh, Kevin and Charks were doing the writing at that point on, on the guys.

Got it, got it, got it. I think Sharks had a— hold on, I'm calling it up. Sharks had a great draft guide. He basically— all the A's he handed out were the right A's except for, um, except for, uh, Killian Hayes. Killian, that was the bad one. But yeah, I remember he said something about Toppin, like he's the oldest and most ready pro player but can't guard anybody. Like, he's athletic, there's clearly a way for him to succeed in the NBA, but Just remember, he will not be able to guard anybody in the court. And that's how it bore out. So Toppin went to the Knicks. At number 9, your Wizards house, Steny Avdia. Solid pick in retrospect.

Great pick. One of the best of the decade, for sure.

It's too bad you gave him away 4 years later.

They, it was a franchise in transition. The pick was right.

At number 10, the worst and most egregious mistake in this draft. An incredible what-if. A fireable offense. Phoenix takes Jalen Smith instead of taking Tyrese Halliburton when they already had Chris Paul and they had Devin Booker, and they go on to make the finals anyway in 2021. And Halliburton could have been the third guard in that team., and I'm guessing he swings the finals if he's on the— I feel like that's worth one of those 6 games. If you just go from Jalen Smith, who you're getting nothing for, to Tyrese Haliburton as a rookie coming off the bench and being able to— it's, it, it was terrible and it happened. I can't believe they did it. So take him 10 and then Devin Vassell is 11, which I was okay with just 'cause I felt like he dropped too. I would take Halliburton there too. And then finally Sacramento, 12. And then after that, the draft gets weird. Kira Lewis to New Orleans, Aaron Neesmith to Boston at 14, Cole Anthony at 15 to Orlando, Stewart at 16 to Portland. And then we can end on number 17, Poku, who became an incredible source of comedy all the way around.

But there's more stuff coming. Let's do the redraft. Which one of you guys wants the number 1 pick?

JKM can have it.

All right, so we'll go, we'll go snake fashion. JKM goes 1, House goes 2, I'll take 3 and 4, and then we'll snake it back and we'll see who can come up with the best team. So who is your number 1 pick in the 2020 redraft, Kyle Mann?

This, this was an interesting back and forth because I'd put these guys in tiers. There are two guys in my top tier. It's Anthony Edwards is ultimately who I'm going to pick. Although I will say this is very, very close for me. And the only thing that tipped it Ant's way is the fact that I'm not sure that Halliburton's gonna be, I don't know what he's gonna be after this injury. As I was sitting down and kind of looking at their paths as players, like developmentally, they're really interesting sides of an offensive coin where Halliburton came into the league as this like super, super advanced passer processor who we were like, if he can score the ball, we just weren't sure about it. We were like, well, you know, we know he has all these gifts, but if he's gonna be a superstar, and I don't feel like he even answered that question until like a few years into his NBA career. There was still doubt about it. It was, you know, once he got to the Pacers, it was like, okay, this guy is a system in and of himself. And I don't think you can say that necessarily about Ant.

You know, I don't know that Ant's impact on a team like chemistry-wise and the way he played plays. I don't think he elevates and adds value to other players the same way that Haliburton does. That said, Ant is one of the best, you know, he's— I think in this class he's the leader in made threes. He's— when he wants to, he can be an on-ball terror. He's one of the most athletic creative scorers in the league. He's ultra competitive. Um, it's very, very close, but just tilting towards Ant health-wise, uh, is, is what I'll ultimately do here, even though it's a pretty tough choice. But those two guys to me are in the top tier.

I had that as well. And 2 conference finals, 26 a game in the playoffs, 2 second team All-NBAs on the, uh, '24 Olympic team. House, not 25 years old left, uh, yet has scored over 10,000 points. 10,854. That's a list of 7 guys who scored 10,000 points before they turned 25. The other guys in that list are LeBron James, Luka, T-Mac, Kevin Durant, Kobe, and Carmelo. Nice list.

Pretty good list.

Yeah. So he's, he's on his way. He's averaging 25, 4, and 5 for his career. Sharks wrote that he's an elite athlete with a better feel for the game than advertised. All the physical tools necessary to become an all-star caliber wing. And I actually think he's probably a notch above that. He, he's been twice now, he's been a franchise guy on a Final Four team, which I think is notable. Debatable. So did you have him first?

Oh, what kind of question is that? Yes, he's facing the league shit.

I mean, Kyle was waffling.

No, I understand the analysis.

I really do.

Let's set some parameters here because, um, this will factor into, uh, I have my selection for, for 2 overall, but are we basing this on at the time what the team needed, the trajectory of the player? Are we basing this on kind of now? We have a lot of information about these players and we know what these players— no, I'll tell you, have in front of them.

We're in a time machine. We're going back to November 18th, 2020, but we know everything that's happened the last 6 years. So what do you do?

It's still Edwards. It's not even close to me.

To me. And the reason for that either is because he is on another level.

To me in terms of the, the force of will. I mean, Halliburton was a revelation in last year's playoffs. Absolutely, positively. He finally got to the stage. He finally ascended to where he could show what he brought to the table. All of those intangibles, all of those shots at the end of game. But Edwards, the— he accelerated Minnesota because of who he was when he arrived. With that dog in him, with the incredible charisma, a leader at his young age, taking the team. Now, I mean, there's a lot of leadership qualities in Halliburton as well, but if you're trying to build, you want a cornerstone for a franchise, Edwards to me, a lot easier call than Halliburton. That's the way I think about it.

If Halliburton doesn't get hurt in Game 7 and Indiana beats OKC, and he just plays last season and he's fine. Is he the number 1 pick in this?

It's an awesome conversation. It is an incredible conversation.

I think he'd have to be at that point, but we'll never know. It's a great what if. Well, you're gonna take him 2nd, I'm guessing?

I am, but I would just wanna make a case for Maxie, which is—

I'll take Maxie 3rd and we can talk about it. Hal Burton at number 2, best guy in a Finals team already. 38 playoff games in '24 and '25, 18-5-8. Some incredible clutch heroics, and then one of the saddest moments in the history of the league when he gets hurt in Game 7. We talked about all the what-ifs with him in the draft. Golden State at 2, Detroit 7, Knicks 8, Phoenix 10. There's another what-if where Philly could have traded Ben Simmons for him instead of how it turned out, where Haliburton goes with the Sacramento-Indiana straight up. Philly could have been in on that and ended up with, you know, Sabonis going into Indiana or whatever it turned out. Or they could have just done the straight up and sent Ben Simmons to Sacramento and you could have had Maxey, who's going to be the third guy in this draft with, with Halliburton.

Philly also could have had Shay and Mikal Bridges, if I'm not mistaken. They've got some pretty tough—

Yeah, they have a lot of—

I mean, they literally drafted Mikal Bridges. They did draft him.

Took him, he did, he put a Philly hat on.

Sharks wrote that he's the perfect, this is Halburn, he's the perfect analytical selection, an uber-efficient scorer who never takes bad shots or turns the ball over and who also racks up defensive stats.

Let me ask, can I make another case for, oh, go ahead. I've cut off the Sharks. My bad, my bad.

No, we're done.

If you, if you look at the way— when I was going back and looking at these guys and how we think about them now, and you look at Kne Smith, granted, I don't know if it's necessarily as true about Kne Smith as it is about Obi Toppin. Haliburton affects other players' value in a way that is similar to like a Steve Nash, or it's, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a quality that very few guys have. And I think he, he, any situation that he comes into, I don't think he's as hard to build around because his 0.5-ness just shine. It, it shines a light. He shares the light and it doesn't have to be shining brightly on him all the time. So even though Ant scores more, you know, I think that their offensive endpoint is the same because I, I think that Halliburton makes everybody better because he's able to make reads and play this like 0.5 style where he gets off the ball fast and he produces as much offense as Ant does. I think in the end, I think the stats back that up. So I, I think it's a lot closer than you guys do.

Really.

I have Maxey at 3. He went 21st in this draft, which is incredible. Last 3 years, 27 points a game, 6 assists, uh, 45-36-88%ages. So in this draft, Minnesota passed on 17 and taken him and traded back. They could add Edwards and Maxey in the same draft, which is out of control. OKC had the 17th pick and took Poku over him. They could have had Maxey with SGA. Brooklyn at 19 could have taken him and put him with Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant. That would've been weird. And then the crazy one to me, House, Miami had 20 coming off the 2020 Finals. And I think, I can't remember if they lost Dragic or he was hurt or whatever, but they just could have taken him and added him to that 2020 Finals team. They did not do that. And he ended up being the 21st pick. Sharks loved it. Called him a combo guard who could play on and off the ball. Great combination of team fit and best player available. And he said the only reason he's not a lottery pick is that he's 6'3" and won't be a primary ball handler in the NBA.

Well, it turned out he's a primary ball handler in the NBA. He fixed that one. So why did you almost take him second, House?

Because he feels to me like he's just scratching the surface of who he can be. That's why. Because I feel like You know, these guys, when we're trying to, you know, parse the top of this, are there still levels to what they're, they're capable of? And Maxie, to me, is the easiest to say, yes, there's still a whole nother— he just played the most minutes of his entire career, was an absolute warrior through, through all of that.

Yeah.

Single-handedly drug a team that, that had no business whatsoever winning 45 games. But they, they, you know, the combination of the incredible good luck the Sixers had, those dogs with VJ Edgecomb and they're going to say Jaylen Brown. Well, that's, that wasn't good luck. That, that's your GM, Stevens. That's, that's his, his player talent evaluation. But I would say what, what Maxie showed us that there is a whole nother element to his game. And I mean, I think this is part of why I just love this upcoming Philadelphia season. Um, him with, with J— like, the innings that he and Jaylen Brown and VJ Edgecomb are going to be able to eat together creates so much room for Joel Embiid to be whoever he's going to be in whatever capacity he needs to be. And it's also why I think it makes the most sense for LeBron. LeBron could land there, play 45, 50 games, however many nights, Friday nights or Saturday nights, are on Prime and NBC, Sunday night NBC. Oh, it's a LeBron game, here's Philly. I understand, but I'm just making the case out of all the situations, it's the I made the same case.

I made the same case, House. I think the basketball fit's fun in Philly with LeBron. He, he got all these guys buzzing around him that he can feed with Vijay and with Maxi, and those guys tilt towards scoring. And with Jalen, I think it, it kind of makes a lot of sense to me. But you think it won't happen, Bill?

If he's going basketball fit, you go to Minnesota. I think that's a team where he could actually, like, they could actually win the title if he went there. He's not going there.

He's not playing with LaMelo Ball. I know he doesn't do clowns.

He'd be choking him like Homer choking Bart half the season, just like LaMelo's neck.

There's, there's two reasons I think it would be fun if he went to Miami. One is that I think that's a terrible fit of all those guys together. And two, they're annoying fans. They're even more annoying media will be going nuts that they think they're gonna win the title. And it's gonna be really fun to watch that crash and burn.

So more annoying media. Little shot.

This is my favorite. What a hater.

It's not annoying media.

What are you talking about?

He just went to the website in there.

The most annoying media.

They know. The hater. This is my favorite version.

They know it. That's the only— that's the only way they get attention.

Hater. I love—

I have the number 4 pick as well. Deni Avdija will be my pick at number 4. He went 9th overall. He's an All-Star last year, 24-7-7. Used to be on the Wizards. To House's credit, he always said Deni Avdija was good. He was always a fan. Never understood why he didn't have the ball more and why they didn't use him, kind of unleash him. And then when he went to Portland, was like, I bet he is gonna be really good there. So House, take a bow.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah. You always like, Denny, let Denny take the bow. I mean, he, he's become the version, the best version of himself. It'll be super interesting this upcoming season for them, especially with this, this crazy-ass owner. Like, you know, will he get that same usage? It was really important. We saw it in those playoff games for him to be the on-ball, the creative playmaker. How does that coexist with Ja Morant? That's a—

I thought they should have traded for Jalen. I don't know why they didn't, but if the choices were what they did versus like maybe moving some of the resources differently and getting Jalen and trying— I just think Jalen and Denny would have been kind of a bitch to play against.

Wow.

These two physical downhill forwards that night after night I think would've, would've been an attack. So I had, there were two other guys I thought about there, but I thought with the way Denny, with the arrow pointing up with him, and he had the best season out of anybody left in this, in this redraft. So House, you have 5, who do you have?

I'll take LaMelo here. I think that, that, that's, that's, that's fair.

I mean, I gotta say he was not next on my board, but go ahead.

Well, the offensive engine proposition, and we get to see it. We're gonna— now, is it true? I saw news reports. Is LaMelo Ball living with Anthony Edwards right now? Is that accurate? Oh, nice.

That's the best thing I've ever heard.

There's some news out there. I suggest you—

even if it's not true, put it out there.

As LaMelo gets himself, you know, sort of oriented around his new thing, those guys are spending some time together. If that's true and there's not a camera involved, then, then, you know, what are we even doing?

I hope that there's a driver involved.

Well, that it could be Anthony Edwards or, or, or his own driver.

House, LaMelo Ball played 52+ games twice outta 6 years.

Yeah.

0 playoff wins.

Yes.

6 years, 303 games, 9,392 minutes.

Sure.

By the way, we did, we should've mentioned this earlier, way more fun if Golden State just says fuck it and takes him second. Right? Like, we know you don't wanna be here, but that's fine. We'll figure it out. We're gonna put you in. We're gonna basically make you what Jordan Poole became as this kind of heat check guy off the bench, instant offense. Let's see if we can fit you into our system. And it just would've been a fun experiment. I don't even know if it would've worked. Who knows?

Well, they had to have had an, an opinion. You know, they, they, they clearly consulted, you know, the, the vets in the room. Do we think that we can take a, a, a spin with a, with a teenager, and it's not just a teenager, but like, do you, you really think they consulted anyone?

I don't think they did. No, I don't. I, to me, the LaMelo thing was more he played in New Zealand, his family was weird.

Okay, the family part was still very in play. It's easy to forget that was still a big point.

It's like, is this guy an N1 player or a real player? Like, there was some real stuff 6 years ago.

We need this circus.

Yeah, can this guy be professional?

Yeah.

Which by the way, we're still not 100% positive, but, so House, you're, you're in on LaMelo here. Would you have taken him higher? Would you have taken him 4?

No, no, no, no, no, no. He's not, I mean, Denny Avdija for where, where he seems to be headed, I, I would like to invest in him more than LaMelo.

Sharks had some interesting thoughts on him. 6'7" point guard with an elite passing ability who will be a triple-double threat from day one. The question is whether he will ever be a threat to make threes instead of just take them. Bell will like, or Ball will likely be an inefficient offensive player for the first few years of his career, but he will make everyone around him better. All true. I mean, last year when he played, which was only 28 minutes a game, but he did, you know, all the offensive stats, the eye tests. Like, I, I thought he had a really good season for him, for them last year, but They were very careful about how they used him, and Minnesota's not gonna be able to be as careful. You know, it's gonna be like the 28 minutes a game is out. You're up to 35 now, and we're gonna need 70, and we are gonna need 2, 3, or 4 rounds from you in the playoffs. I have no idea if you can do it.

I wonder if Charlotte in the playing game just saw something. They just opened the, the patient and saw cancer in terms of their, their, their chances to be like a, because the rim pressure is the thing. 'Cause I had it written, you know, dove on a lot of these guys and I was, I wrote down that LaMelo, you know, Charks mentioned the shooting, and it— I think he, he's proven himself over time where, uh, let's see, 9 players this past year attempted 300 or more threes off the dribble, and only Jamal Murray had a higher percentage than LaMelo in that group. So the wildness was good, but just getting to the rim, I, I rewatched some of the Orlando game, and it's just like, you can't have that guy as like your, your primary option. And maybe Charlotte thinks that they're not going to lose a ton with their passing and stuff with Miller and Con, but he was 46.4% from 2, and inside the arc he was like 50— like at the restricted area he was like 51%. It's really bad. So you're not getting free throws. He just can't be your primary option.

So I kind of wonder if he's closer to Jamal Murray, honestly, in terms of like what we should expect from him, like star status-wise.

Listen, there's so many fascinating things about this season that is now 1, 2, 3 months away. Um, LaMelo playing on Minnesota with real expectations is in I mean, that you have Jaylen Brown in Philly, you're gonna have wherever LeBron ends up. You're gonna have like the new era Luka and Lakers and Kessler and the, and the snowtime Lakers, the Celtics with Paul. There's this league, I don't know how over and over again, dude, they just, you didn't even mention the snow globe, the rookies, all the rookies.

It's eggplant emoji time, bro. I mean, right now, mid-July, I'm ready. Yeah. Can't wait.

You know what I'm really ready for though?

Football. I can't wait.

I can't wait to put some bets down. Kyle Mann has, has 2 picks in a row. Kyle Mann.

I was gonna say, House, have you thought at all about how you guys let go of Avdija, this big physical wing who gets downhill, and you just basically reset with the— like, DeBansa is just sort of the spiritual reset of what you all would've had. So you're kind of— turned out pretty well for you. I, I'm sure you're aware of that.

Yeah.

You tanked, you tanked so you could basically get Deni Avdija again as a Well, that's the basketball gods shining their good light down on this franchise for that sound decision-making, because the franchise wasn't ready for this version of Denny. It would not have made any sense. He would not have risen to these heights. He was being held back by the, you know, the direction that the franchise was going. And I give the front office credit for recognizing he was on a different timeline than the franchise was on. They need to be building up with these guys that are all between the age of 19 and 21. We have 6 or 7 of them now, and they're all in the same contract. That's why, you know, we'll, we'll make fun of Trae Young's contract for the balance of the season, but Trae Young's contract, Anthony Davis, the Anthony Davis extension that Washington will probably pay for, it doesn't really matter because they have everybody else is on a rookie contract. They have to reach a certain floor, salary floor, as required by the CBA.

The funniest moment of this season is going to be the 3rd, 4th, 5th, or 6th game this season. Trae Young's gonna have 39 points and hit a big 3 and do this with the Wizards jersey. And House is gonna be like, we're back, baby.

I already have his jersey. I mean, you know, you're the best.

And we're gonna be studying the still frames and in the background. Yeah. AJ's just gonna have his hands on his shoulders looking off into the distance. I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be magnifying glass following that. The Blazers should bring Moran off the bench. I just wanted to throw that in. My next two, I have Jaden McDaniels. He was 5th on my board.

That's fine.

5th on mine as well, Kyle, man.

Very fair.

This is— we get into a team— my second tier I wanted to say was playoff-level primaries. That was Maxey and Avdija. Now we're into elite specialists. Yeah, McDaniels, he became a much better catch-and-shoot player from 3 this past year. He's one of the most dynamic. He's really, really good off the ball chasing defensively, like navigating screens and things like that. Very slinky and spindly and explosive, but he's He's also very good on the ball. His matchup difficulty consistently through the roof. And he's also just one of the meanest fuckers in basketball. If you just watch his face, I sometimes just want to pat him on the back and be like, Jaden, dude, it's cool, man. It's all right. Like he's just such a maniacal competitor. I love the dude. He's one of my favorite players in the league.

We should be able to vote on that when we do awards at the end of the year. There should be a meanest fucker first team.

Well, he revealed that in that—

Joker's on there every year. Joker's got a dark side.

It's just like, are you okay?

Yeah.

McDaniels definitely is, is a mean motherfucker.

That Spurs series pulled it out of him. Yeah, in a way, like it was personal for him, uh, against Denver as well. The thing that I wonder, and I will wonder this entire upcoming season, is why Minnesota didn't just run it back. And I do get the idea of moving on this offseason. Yeah, like getting rid of Randle is kind of fine. You can kind of run it back without Randle, uh, although speaking of inning eaters, he has been pretty durable. He has played and giving them, you know, minutes over the course. But I, it's a very weird decision for them to, to go in the direction that, that they've gone, especially in the face of, of, of a Wemby West. That, that's the thing.

I hated it.

I still hate it. I'm always gonna hate it. I thought they overreacted to some injuries and some bad luck and underreacted to the fact that they had made two conference finals in a row and had a pretty young team for the most part. McDaniels, a couple things with him.

He—

Sharks wrote this: the biggest surprise of the night might be that the Thunder traded McDaniels instead of keeping them for himself— for themselves. He could have been on OKC. He's like the quintessential Presti guy. The Lakers ended up with the 28th pick and traded it with Danny Green for Dennis Schroeder, and then OKC flipped the pick after that. So the Lakers also could end— now it took them a couple years to get going. And then the other piece And I certainly made fun of him at the time when Minnesota gave up all that stuff for Rudy Gobert and then put out— they were adamant about keeping Jaden McDaniels. It's like, oh cool, congrats, you just gave up 100 first-round picks. Turned out to be the right move. I'll take the L. Who'd you have for the other pick, Kyle, man?

I was going to note an inefficiency I think that was going on among like Washington, which is where he played wings. They played zone a lot, weirdly, for those few years, and they happen to have two of the best like perimeter defensive prospects in Matisse Thybulle and Jayden McDaniels. So I think that was maybe a reason why he fell. Who knows? I really liked him in that draft. My next guy, uh, is Devin Vassell, actually. Uh, yeah, I'm going two-way guys who can shoot the shit out of the ball. Had a pretty interesting arc where, um, when they were tanking and rebuilding, he was— his primacy has gone down as this team has gotten better, but I actually think it's the sweet spot for him. Where that stuff was all invaluable for him. But I, I'd like him a lot. I mean, he's, he's a shot maker, um, going to be central to what they're doing going forward on a championship level team. I think we've seen that now.

Sharks said he was the best 3-and-D prospect in this year's draft and has more shots created, more shot creating talent than he showed in college. I was really surprised the Knicks didn't take him. I thought they were going to end up with him. All right, so we have so far, we have Edwards, Halliburton, Maxey, Avdija, LaMelo, Jayden McDaniels, and Devin Vassell as our top 7. And Desmond Bain, he's like, I have to have another chip on my shoulder. I went 30 in this draft. You guys are gonna do— you're gonna disrespect me again. Are you taking him here, House?

I am not.

You're not?

Sorry, this is so disrespectful. Who are you taking?

I'm taking a Kang Woo. I, I really feel like that guy's got You know, there's a ceiling yet to be explored.

I had him lower on my board.

Just, I get it. I get it. Yeah. So, I mean, I'm taking him at 8. The problem I have with Bain is just watched a lot of him in a playoff series and on a team where it just felt like that impact should have been more, you know, the, he Orlando. Plenty of things going on with Orlando.

Yeah.

Yes. He, he, it should have been a wonderful fit. There is a reason that the forecast for Orlando was upper tier of the Eastern Conference and 50-plus wins.

And I didn't see it every night from him.

I went in to watch Washington play Orlando and he played significant minutes in that game.

Was it a, you forgot he was out there performance?

The Wizards beat Orlando the night that I went. In fact, it was right on the precipice of the Wizards trading, trading CJ McCollum because it was the Wizards' 5th win in 7 games.

Starting to get too good.

They're like, wait a minute, hold up.

So last 5 years he was 21-5-5, 39% from 3. And that was his calling card in the draft was he's gonna be a good 3-point shooter. He turned out to be a way better player. I mean, when you think about it, the Grizzlies take him 30, they get 5 years out of him and some playoff series, then they flip him for 4 first-round picks. So that's like, if you're like a, I don't know, a stockbroker or a hedge fund person and you're buying low on something and then selling high, that's like the ultimate value you ever could have gotten for somebody. But I think he's a little better than House. I can't, I can't say he's been on the perfect team the last couple years. Like we've still never really seen him with than a normal type of point guard. I, speaking of, well, I'm gonna take him here at 10 and then I, oh no, is it 10? Yeah.

9.

9. At 9. And then I'm gonna take Peyton Pritchard at 10. Okay.

26.

26th pick in the draft. Little bit controversial. It was like a Danny Ainge check pick. They had, the Celtics had 14 and 26 in this draft coming off coming off a 2020 making the conference— I think they made the conference finals. And it felt like this was gonna be a really important draft for their depth. Pritchard took 'em a couple years. I always liked him more than it seemed like the coaches liked him, and it was always unclear why he wasn't getting the car keys a little bit more. And I think the team liked him 'cause they gave him a contract even before he had kind of become who he became. And then he just became, you know, one of the best bench guards in the league. Last year moved into a whole different level where he was 17 a game and is really one of the best get-into-the-lane guard scorers we have in the league, which is just weird. He's a little hit or miss. There's a question whether there's like another, is there a second leap for him? A la Jalen Brunson leaving Dallas. Think so. But there's really good stats with him.

Jarx was a big fan. Jarx said, uh, should instantly be an excellent backup point guard, has the confidence and skill to knock down shots in big playoff games. So nice job by him. But anyway, so I have Bain and Pritchard, and now it's starting to get a little dicey, House.

Yeah, and I, I, I recognize my role in this podcast today as as a little bit of an outlier with, with some of my perceptions.

There's no wrong picks in a redraft.

I'm valuing—

stand strong, House.

Some size here.

Well, I mean, I didn't really make—

I, I loved Okongwu where I took him because I think that his flexibility, what he adds to a team in terms of frontcourt depth, and he shot, you know, he averaged 2 threes a game and he shot 38% from 3. So that, that's floor spacing, especially for that Atlanta team. And they really, really need that.

Are you taking Beef Stew right here? Is that what you're telling us?

I'm taking Beef Stew.

That's exactly right.

I sure am. You know me better than anybody. You're fucking A-right. I'm taking Beef Stew.

I had him either him or one other guy that I'm sure Kyle's gonna take, but Beef Stew went 16th in this draft, was an excellent bench big guy. And then really from the fight last year on, just got weird with him in Detroit. There's an Athletic article talking about he got into it with the coach during the playoff series, and he only played 11 minutes a game, I think, in their playoff series. So something funky happened and then they basically dumped him, gave him, gave him away.

It'd probably be like a shorter article to like write, like who he hasn't gotten into it with.

Right.

It'd be better. 'Cause he, he's gotten into it with everybody from, from what I understand.

Yeah. I mean, honestly, San Antonio should have got, it's exactly who San Antonio needed. They needed a fuck you guy on their team and he's a fuck you and a half guy. So Memphis is gonna have him, he's gonna fit in perfectly with them. And that couldn't have worked out better. I didn't mind the pick. Who do you have next, Kyle?

I have Aaron Neesmith next.

Yeah, I did.

Good, good player. Good player. Play drafted by Boston. Isn't that right?

He just couldn't fit in.

Too many dudes, right? Yeah.

I had a couple jokes about tweets and podcasts. I always liked them and I felt like they completely marginalized them. It's a good example of like bad team, wrong fit where you'd go to the games and he would just kind of run up and down and stand in the corner and do nothing. They didn't trust him to do anything. He never knew when he was gonna play or not. His minutes were getting yanked around. He just had no confidence. And he goes to Indiana and becomes this awesome 3-and-D guy. And you know, people think the Halliburton game was the Halliburton game, but it was really the Neesmith game.

Yeah.

That, you know, Halliburton made the famous shot in the game, but it was Neesmith making like 4 heat check 3s. And proved himself as somebody who could play in a Finals at a high level, guard the best players in the other team. And that's the key. Yeah.

He's a really, that's why he does really deserves to be here.

Well, this next pick will be interesting. It's starting to drop off. Kyle, who do you have?

Let's see. This is my, these are my starters, my playoff starters. And my next one is, and I'm, I'm a little waffly on this one, but Immanuel Quickley was my next pick.

I had him as well.

50-50.

Yeah, yeah. Funny because, you know, quickly when he was traded from the Knicks was still like ascendant and, you know, everybody was like, okay, well, this guy's on a rocket just going upwards and then has a couple of seasons in a row where he misses a lot of time and then he comes back and play. It just has a really quiet season this past year. So I don't know if the— I don't know if the star bet is still there with him. I don't know if the star confidence is still there as much as it was with him. They gave him a gigantic, crazy contract. But he's a starter player. He's a good shooter. I don't know that I'm gonna run my offense through him like maybe people hope that they would, but probably already said too much about Immanuel Quickley, honestly. Well, that—

no, there's one other thing. He got a stupid contract, so he's in the worst contracts draft every year. And then you start to hang that around your, your collar that you have this dumb contract, but he's still a playoff guy who can come off the bench and, you know, he just shouldn't make $30 million a year.

They missed him. I mean, he, he couldn't play in that playoff series this year. And that's the, that's the lingering taste, which makes him, you know, at least for me when I was looking working through is like, can I— but when you look at his resume, for the most part, he's played a lot of basketball. He missed like, you know, he scores two-thirds of whatever that season was 2 years ago. Um, but otherwise, you know, he's in between 65 and, and low 70s in terms of the number of games played. Yeah, I, I, I— he's a, a net positive for me.

I had dinner with Doc last night, and he was talking about how he always liked to have one guy, one guard, come off the bench Like the Eddie House, Lou Williams type that was just like, no shot is a bad shot. I'm just, I'm just firing it up. And he was like, I always loved those guys. I would never tell them it was a bad shot. I would just kind of take them out if they didn't have it. But I would always tell them, go, go, go. I think Quickly, if Toronto's good, Quickly could be one of those guys, right? He comes in, if he doesn't have it, he doesn't have it. If he does have it, you can ride it for 6, 7 minutes. I I, there was a moment there when we felt like maybe he was more than that, but I don't know if he is, but it's fine.

He's probably a 2 in a 1's body, you know? Yeah. He likes to score and that's kind of, that's his destiny.

I think I'm taking Obi Toppin here and he's really the last guy that I think we know for sure could play in a top 7 of a really good playoff team because we saw that in Indiana 2 years ago. He, he was really valuable for them. I like him and especially seeing him in person was not afraid of the moment guy, which I think, you know, for— he's an undersized— I don't even know, he's a 4, is he 5? Who fucking knows? He can't really guard anyone, but he plays really hard and I think he feeds off the crowd and I just thought he was a really good bench guy for them. So House, would he— do I have another pick? Oh yeah, I do. I have 2. Wow, this gets really hard.

Wait, did House get his turn? Like, does he get his two in a row?

Did we—

No, I don't get two in a row because where I am on the snake. Yeah, that's right.

I get two in a row and I'm kind of screwed now. Well, there's only a couple picks left. I have, this is my last pick.

Oh man.

I can't believe I'm at this point.

There's two guys that are really good that can go away.

Why am I agonizing over this? I'll take Sadiq Bae here.

Oh wow, that's fair. Yeah, I had two other guys.

I don't, I don't hold it against him that he got hurt.

Okay.

I like his game. I thought, you know, he's buried on that terrible Pelicans team last year, and I thought he actually played well for them. I thought he did. I thought a playoff team could have not only traded for him, but he could have really helped them, and it just wasn't meant to be, I guess. But But I like, I've always liked him. I think he's a tough wing. I think he's got a little fuck you in him and it's not his fault he got hurt. So that's my next pick.

I like it. He could still help somebody. I will take, I'll take Isaiah Joe. Cause I feel like that's a guy. Here's the skill that he possesses. This was the 4th consecutive season that he shot north of 40% from 3. That's an important skill in the NBA.

That's, that's, you know what, I wish I had taken him. That was a good pick.

I wondered if you might.

Yeah.

Yeah. No, that's a good one. Well, the thing is we just don't know, right? We'll know on Detroit this year. Can he play 25 to 27 minutes a game? Can he shoot 42%? Can he actually be somebody they look for in the last 2 minutes of a game? We have no answers for him cuz we've never really seen him in big moments. Who's your last pick here, Kyle?

If I know Isaiah, Isaiah Joe, he's gonna make threes. He's, uh, yeah, he's been one of the better volume shooters in the league. Like, he's been great.

Skill.

Yeah. Uh, this is— I mean, there's only like 2 guys left that I would take. Um, but for me, it's between Sam Merrill and Paul Reed.

I'll lean—

I'll lean Sam Merrill here, uh, just because we've seen him play in the playoffs. It really, really falls off though here. This, we get to the guys who like are on the roster optimistic and on the roster pessimistic. Those are my next two tiers. So, but Merrill is a guy I'm just like, who runs a pick and roll, can make shots. He's dynamic, he's smart, plays hard. Yeah.

I had him here too. I, he was 60 in this draft house. All right. So guys that didn't get taken, Cole Anthony, which this would've been shocking 2 years ago that he didn't get drafted.

He's outta the league.

He's basically outta the league, didn't make it. He was the 15th pick. Playoff Paul was the other one. Paul Reed.

Yeah. B-ball Paul. B-ball Paul. Playoff Paul.

I'm screwing up my nicknames.

No, well, you can call him Playoff, Playoff Pete.

Number 58 pick. But we've at least seen him playing in playoff series and being somewhat relevant. And then here's what we have for the not drafted. Wiseman at number 2. Patrick Williams at number 4 is a $90 million contract right now, not drafted. I never understood the Patrick Williams thing, even as it was happening in 2020 with the draft. It was like, he's a physical wing, but he can't shoot. But if he ever learns how to score— like, it's one thing when it's like a Caleb Wilson. Is he gonna— how's his stroke gonna be 5 years from now? But when it's like, this guy can't score, but if he could score, it's like, that usually never works out. Same thing for Isaac Okoro. Who I thought was gonna be better as like a defensive shutdown guy. I did too. He's just not. Killian Hayes at 7. Jalen Smith at 10. I think if we had gone 20 picks, maybe he gets taken. He's turned into at least a backup big. Kira Lewis at 15. There was a moment when it seemed like he was gonna be the fastest guy in the league and a great change of pace guy.

It just never happened for him. He went into the Pelicans Volcano. Poku at 17, who I think could have gotten a championship ring in '25 for his incredible tanking exploits when they turned the entire offense over to him for 30 games. One of the funniest tanking moments of all time. Josh Green at 18. Precious Achiua at 20, who is—

he's still playing.

He's virgin on having moments, but never totally. Zeke Najee at 22. Xavier Tillman at 35. I think if we did this 3 years ago, would have gotten drafted, but his knees went on him unfortunately.

How many players in the league are a senior? He's Xavier Tillman Senior, and he seemed like he was 40 years old when he came into the league. I'm trying to think how many seniors there are in the league.

And then the last one we could have drafted was Nick Richards at 42. Uh, I think if the draft was 25 picks, like, he's somebody who we've seen play on different teams and get minutes.

And poor, poor Najee Marshall, undrafted in this draft and undrafted in the NBA draft in 2020.

All right, so Kyle, if we had to grade this draft overall, like a, like a B+. We have 3 franchise guys in this draft. We had Edwards, Haliburton, Lamelo, who are all franchise guys. I mean, I'm sorry, Edwards, Maxey, and Haliburton. Franchise guys on teams that could make a Final Four with those guys as their best guys. So to me, that's a hugely successful draft. And then you throw in a bunch of the role players. This is for, as weird as the COVID draft was, I think it's a B+.

Yeah. I mean, I, like I said, I, I have Edwards and Haliburton a tier above Maxie and Avdiye, but it's just sort of like, these are contending level franchise players who, you know, worthy of max contracts. And I think in any draft, if you can get that, it's just the depth. It's not great. It's really funny to think about back what we, what we were thinking. We were going into that draft. It's, it's a funny time machine that, uh, this is the only COVID time machine that I'm willing to go into willingly.

House, what's your grade for this draft?

Yeah, I think it's a solid B because when I look at how many All-NBA, uh, recommendations, uh, recognitions are we going to get out of this draft?— that I think it's like a dozen ultimately. I think we'll get to, by the time these guys are done, you add up those top sort of 4 guys, I think we'll get to around 12 All-NBA teams out of Maxey and Halliburton. And, and I mean, so we only have, we're about 5 or 6 now, right?

Yeah. We have 5 All-Stars. We have 3 guys who've made an All-NBA team. We have 1 guy who led a team to the finals. And we have 3 NBA champs. Can you name the 3?

Wiseman got a ring from, for Golden State, didn't he?

James Wiseman.

Peyton Pritchard.

Peyton Pritchard. And the other guy got drafted for us. Isaiah Joe.

Oh, oh yeah. Great player. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. With the Thunder. Yeah.

We also only had 10 guys who played 10K minutes so far. In this draft. 10K minutes in 6 years, not a lot, right? That feels right though. 1,500 a year, but we've only had 10. All right, so the final redraft: Edwards won, Halliburton, Maxey, Avdija, LaMelo Ball, our top 5. McDaniels, Devin Vassell, Okonwu, Bain, Pritchard rounding out the top 10. And then we did, uh, Stewart, Neesmith, Quickly, Toppin, Bay, Isaiah Joe and Sam Merrill. I don't even think that's the right amount of— somehow that's 17 players. We probably skipped a guy at some point, but that was, uh, that was our redraft. And then the closest to getting drafted, probably Paul Reed. He was our bubble guy.

Yeah, you guys both liked him.

I feel like Kyle Mann has not given up on Okoro yet.

What?

Based on what? I think, I think you're still holding out hope for him as a defensive shutdown guy.

Didn't we get valuable playoff minutes from Najee Marshall. I feel like Najee Marshall's being overlooked here.

Was he in this?

I'm a little flabbergasted by that accusation, Bill.

I don't know, you, you said— I saw a glimmer of hope with when Corral's name got brought up.

No, that was just the sun reflecting off my glasses.

Where was Najee Marshall in this draft? Did I miss this?

Undrafted.

Oh, he's an undraft. So the undrafted were him and Deshaun Tate. Yeah, Najee Marshall could have been picked. I actually think he was arrow pointing up out of some of these guys we mentioned.

Yeah, Facundo Campazo. And no love.

Joe House.

Yeah.

Enjoy the golf.

Thank you.

Kyle Mann, enjoy the time off before the, for the playoffs get really kicking here. It was a pleasure to do a redraft. Hey, I have a feeling I'll be seeing the two of you again for another redraft this summer. 'Cause I really enjoy this. Thank you, fellas. We're gonna take a break. Come back with Jason Concepcion. Jason Concepcion is here for one of the most important moments of the year on the Bill Simmons Podcast. I'm gonna unleash my MVP ballot for The Odyssey. Okay, I haven't prepped you at all. I didn't send it to you, and we're going from 100 to 1. Now I'm gonna skip some spots.

Okay, okay.

Yeah, we're going backwards. How many times have you seen this movie, once or twice?

I've only seen it once. I'm going a second time with my wife, uh, this week coming up.

I saw it yesterday at 10 AM. Showing at the Grove with CR himself, Chris Ryan, and my son Ben, who was completely blown away and tried to get tickets for last night and was like, Dad, there are no tickets. And I'm like, yeah, there's not going to be tickets for a while at night. Yeah, we're not going to find those. But before we get into the MVP ballot, so you're obviously— you did binge mode for us with Mallory. You're a Game of Thrones aficionado. Do these worlds overlap at all for you? Are they like— do you feel like there's some sort of DNA strands? Together?

In the sense that this is based on history. These are epic poems from a period of Western history, the dawn of history, but that within that, it's also from an age of legends. You're unclear what actually happened and what is fantastical. Yes, I think about them in the same way, which is something I've been telling people. I think about this movie as when I was a kid, you'd turn on basic cable and it would be like The Dark Crystal or Labyrinth or any number of movies that this movie reminded me of. This is a movie where if I was 13 years old and I turned on TV and it was 2 hours into the movie, I'm like, well, I'm, I'm here for the rest of the 55 minutes.

Well, this is gonna be one of the all-time rewatchables. I'm sure we'll do it at some point this year. I gotta wait till it's on streaming or cable so I can really study it and take a bunch of notes and stuff. But, um, it's, I, I love that we're gonna do a lot of spoilers for this. So if you haven't seen it yet, uh, no offense, you can leave, come back after you've watched it. But one of the things I love about it, other than it's just so ambitious and they use technology perfectly and it's almost impeccably cast with a couple of exceptions we'll get into.

But the—

the— well, I have— there's one I'm gonna— yeah, there's somebody that fares very poorly on the MVP ballot, and his name rhymes with Bom Boland. Um, yeah, I told you.

Interesting.

Okay, but I think what I really love and what's great from a riwatchable standpoint, it's got 4 like set pieces Yes. Where it's like, all right, okay, buckle up, 10 minutes, get ready. And, you know, when we see Cyclops for the first time, and the movie's like kind of moving along, it's like we're bringing in all these different characters. We're just kind of going along. It's like, oh, let's get some food. Hey, there's a sheep. Let's follow him up the hill. And you just have no idea what's about to happen. And from that point on, the movie just just goes nuts.

It goes absolutely nuts.

Yes.

Um, I, I loved it. I can't wait to— I, I cannot wait to see where we go with this MVP. 100% MVP.

Yeah, we're— I'm gonna skip some spots. Um, okay, coming in at number 100, so just react off me after I give you a chance.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you got it.

After— at 100, finishing last, Bitchy Internet People.

Yes.

They're 100 on the MVP ballot. Um, complaining that only 41 theaters can show IMAX. Sorry. Uh, the casting was too woke. That's been a big thing. Nolan wasn't faithful to Homer. Um, just shut the fuck up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

We can't complain about everything.

Let's—

when somebody spends this amount of time and money and makes a great movie like this, we can't also bitch about it and find reasons that it sucks.

Faithful to Homer is hilarious because first of all, Homer is not a guy. A, Homer is a collection of unknown amounts of anonymous poets. There was no actual Homer guy. Yeah. And two, the things that people choose to be mad about, the wokeness of it, it's like, you know what's not— what's barely in the Odyssey? The horse. The horse is mentioned in a line, and you certainly don't see what goes on inside of it. So it's just very interesting to me, the stuff that people choose to be upset about, and then the people people, even with the trailer, who were like, that's not what Agamemnon's helmet would have looked like. It's— get out of here, please stop it.

It's— it's—

listen, there's a lot of people out there who need a nice 24-ounce glass of settle down juice. They know who they are. All right, we're dropping down to number 58 on the MVP ballot. Benny Safdie as Agamemnon.

Oh wow.

Okay, here's why. Didn't even know it was him the first time I watched it. No idea. He, he could have been anybody. And then it was like Benny Safdie was in it. I was like, he was? So now I'm watching it and I guess you can kind of see him at two different points. But, um, I really— you just needed like a tall imposing guy. I would have gone with Con Kinnipal, like just going somebody 6'7".

Of course you would have gone with Con Kinnipal. You know, here's the thing about the Benny Safdie casting, you know, it was like— it's a mythic depiction. You know, Agamemnon's like a foot and a half taller than everybody. He's almost as tall as the giants that they end up running from. And it's, to me— and I'm gonna unveil this theory at the right moment in this podcast.

I can't wait.

To me, Nolan has done something incredibly creative and thoughtful with all of his— with most of his casting choices. And I would include Safdie because he's like the most normal guy of the major characters in this cast. And they shoot him like Darth Vader, this mythic figure, but then when he speaks, it's just like a guy. So it's like this collision of myth and feet of clay that I think is really interesting. I thought it was really fascinating. But I agree, you don't even know it's him.

Would you have gone with Walker Kessler? Would you have just gone 7-footer?

Talk about a guy that we also haven't seen very much of in recent years.

James Wiseman.

Wiseman. Talk about another guy that we also haven't seen much of.

Darko Milicic. Yeah, just go with any 7-footer who's not on an NBA team anymore, because you're going for like a big, giant, tall guy, right? I don't know why you need Benny Safdie anyway. I didn't know he was in it. All right, number 47, Tom Holland as Temeculus.

Okay, okay.

Um, I'll just start here, Jason.

Sure, go ahead.

To me, this is a 2002-range Heath Ledger role where it's like, this is somebody I could see someday becoming this badass gladiator, but right now he's in, you know, he's, it's like a pup still trying to figure out the world. Tom Holland, too way too short to be like the next guy who runs the whole thing, to be like this warrior. Uh, just not cool enough. I never bought the American accent the whole time. I didn't feel like he was related to Matt Damon, and he's trying and they're trying to make it work, but I just find it hard to believe that this is Temeculus.

Um, here's— here, I'll unveil my theory here. So I think Nolan— I think Nolan is playing with our— Sean Fantasy mentioned this on the pod. You guys talked about this. The Odyssey from last week. I think Nolan is, in a fascinating way, playing with our perceptions of these people and the characters they have played. For instance, Tom Holland, who is almost eternally now associated with Peter Parker, Spider-Man, who is a teenager forever, here plays a character who their entire struggle is, "Why won't anybody see me as a man, as a full-grown man, as a person who could be king?" He's trying to grow out of that that image that we have placed him in because of his association with Peter Parker. And that's my Tom Holland example for why Nolan picked Tom Holland. And personally, I think it worked. I think it was— I, I think that kind of nod and a wink to the way we perceive Holland in this role, it, it, it worked for me. It worked for me.

Interesting. People are really split on it. That's why I knew putting him 47 And I thought there was one scene when Anne Hathaway just blew him off the screen. It was just— it was because she's great in this movie. Obviously we'll get to her much later, but, um, I, I had some questions with the age too because Odysseus was gone for, it seemed like, 20 years, right? The dog is like barely holding on at the end, but then we have flashbacks of he sees his, his little kid there who's like 4, seems like 4 or 5 in the flashback. So that puts, um, Temekos at like 24, 25 range.

Yes, that would be—

but he's treated in the movie like he's 16. I just don't— I don't— I just didn't— this was the one thing that really didn't work for me.

I— well, you know, it's like ancient Greek culture. He can't grow a beard. I think they just don't see you as—

that's it, they're out.

Okay, until you can grow a full-fledged beard.

Okay. Uh, at number 43, I have Poseidon. Um, not a great dad. Negligent dad leaves his Cyclops son just in a cave. Son has to finally get stabbed and attacked and has to call out for him. He's like, all right, fine, I'll do some stuff for you.

Uh, it's a good point. I would add that every single Greek god who's a, a male Greek god from Greek myths is a bad dad. All they do is go out, sire children with regular human women after meeting them in disguise and being like, "Hey, I'm just a really handsome guy. I'm not Zeus at all, by the way." And then just abandoning them and never raising them. So this is the culture of the pantheon of the Greek gods. This is just what they do.

He's at a dinner party and they're like, "What's up with Cyclops?" He's like, like, you know, he's doing all right. He's, uh, you know, the cave's going well except the 12 sheep.

Yeah, he's got a job. He's, he's, uh, he's making his own way as a sheepherder on an island. He's doing really, really well. Works really hard at it.

Obviously one eye is tough, but, um, okay, number 40. Bear with me because we're not allowed to be critical of this person at all, and I'm not going to be, but I'll give explanation. Number 40, Zendaya. Zendaya. The goddess of wisdom, warfare, and handicraft in this movie is Athena, which is also— people don't know this— Malorie Rubin's title at the Ringer.

Yes.

Malorie's the goddess of wisdom, warfare, and handicraft.

Yes.

Listen, sometimes you can have too much star power in a movie. I'm not sure we need her for who she's playing in this movie. And I get it. Nolan's just like, I'm— he probably grew up on '70s movies, and we're just getting stars all over the place. She's basically here. It feels like she filmed her scenes in 2 days. She's making the Rue face from Euphoria in 4 different scenes and then calling it a day. It's like, you have Zendaya here. She's one of the most famous actresses in the world. She barely gets the ball. They don't run any plays for her.

I liked it because you're meant to wonder what it could mean that she's here. She barely speaks throughout the movie. She says a couple things. At one point, Odysseus is like, "Why can't the gods speak plainly and just say normal stuff?" And she's like, "Listen, I don't know what to tell you. The gods work in mysterious ways. We're doing the best we can." And so for me, it was like, you want to be starstruck by that face. It's a lot like the Charlize casting, where it's like, I just want to be dazzled by this character. And I think that was appropriate. And with the ending— listen, we're spoiling it, right?

We can break it down. We're spoiling everything.

Yeah, yeah. With the way— with the reveal of who Zendaya is in the movie, which is a woman who was killed during the sack of Troy, adding to Odysseus's guilt, that reveal after all this time wondering, "What does Athena want? Is she going to be more plain spoken about it?" really hits for me. And secondarily, a lot of the talk in this movie between the characters is, "Hey, remember, the gods can just show up in disguise as a beggar or as a normal person." So I think Odysseus at the end is meant to have wondered all these years, "Oh man, did we accidentally— did we kill Athena in disguise? Did we insult her? Did I insult her with this Trojan horse.

So you're saying we need somebody, we need more star power because there's a mystery of how important she was. Yeah, that's not bad because I was gonna suggest Sophie Cunningham here where she's just, she's just doing the point.

I mean, that's a, that's a great idea. And by the way, yeah, like Pat Riley needs to trademark the point. Quickly.

Yeah, no question. Uh, number 38, James Remar. Um, another one I didn't realize it was him the first time I saw the movie and then was looking for him the second time. He's in the dead people scene. It's after, uh, after the Elliot Page comes back and yeah, says all this stuff, and then we see Remar's in the bottom. I just want to give you his IMDb here.

Please, please, please.

He's in the movie for 90 seconds, which is why he's not higher. He's Ajax in The Warriors.

He's incredible.

He's Gantz in 48 Hours, one of the great villains in action movie history. He's Dexter's dad in Dexter. He's Sex and the City, the best sex Samantha ever had. He's in Oppenheimer, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Pineapple Express, and What Lies Beneath. He's in Miami Vice in an episode, and he's in Cruising. James Remar, incredible, incredible turn. All-time IMDb. Anyway, kudos to him.

Okay.

Okay, down to number 33, I have the giant Lastragonians. So these are the big giant mutant robots that kill most of Odysseus's crew. Um, yes, no backstory. I don't know what they're so upset about. I don't know where they came from. If I'm gonna cut anything in this movie, this might have been where I cut. I might have just had a boat capsize instead. I don't know.

Um, here's why I loved it. Okay, because It turns out that Nolan shot that with no special effects. They did the forced perspective trick from the Lord of the Rings, where they took— they replaced Daemon and cast with 5-foot-tall stunt people, and then they cast 7-foot-2 Serbian centers as the last Dragonians, and then shot— Like from a low angle up. So that's all legit. There's no CGI in that.

Okay, you talked me into it. I just didn't understand what was going on in that scene, but that's— you're kind of holding on for dear life for half of this movie anyway.

Yeah.

Um, number 32, I mentioned the Elliot Page character, Sinon.

Sinon, tough job, tough one, tough, tough coaching here by Odysseus.

You know, um, it's like, hey, we're all going to be in the horse. You're going to be out there. It's going to be fine though. Nothing's going to happen. But he knows it's tough.

I mean, to be fair to Odysseus, when he found out that Sinon volunteered for this, was like, whoa, whoa, why did you do that? Like, right, it— I, I didn't want it to be you. Why did you have to do But there again, I think, is this example of Nolan's really interesting casting. Here's a character that is cut loose and sacrificed by their entire community and society, lied to, and then left to die in order for this mission to actually work. And so I thought that was like— Yeah, that really hit me. That was good. That was good. That was like, yeah.

Felt bad. I mean, who knows? Sinon could have been much higher in the ballot, but you know who didn't want him, want him higher? Who? Odysseus just left about to die.

Uh, it was brutal. Brutal by Odysseus. And they had to listen to it from inside the horse.

Number 30, the spoiler alert people. We can't spoil the Odyssey. We all read the book. We all know it happens. There's no, there's nothing to spoil. It already happened. It's not like, hey, I guess I wonder how this plays out. Number 27. All right, now we're starting to get into some real candidates here. Number 27, okay, Mia Goth as the, uh, the handmaid, the untrusting, uh, yes, Anne Hathaway's— turns out she's got something going with Pattinson. Um, I, I wanted a little more from her, I got to be honest. She was— she felt like the most Game of Thrones character in this movie other than maybe Pattinson. And definitely was the only one who seemed like she was a little bit horny. This is not a horny movie.

Not at all. There was that one moment where you realize that she is with Pattinson's character when he's just come to the police station.

Yeah, they do a sloppy kiss.

And they were just like, "Oh my God." You're like, "Yeah." And that's about as horny as it gets. Well, there's the entire preamble of Odysseus With, you know, Calypso on the beach that feels like—

like there's been editing.

Like it's been— like it's— the horniness was 20 minutes ago and now we're past that and we're just like rehydrating and basking in the glow.

I'm glad you brought that up. There's an R-rated version of this movie. There's definitely a Calypso scene. There's probably a scene with Odysseus and Penelope in the first 20 minutes. There's 100% a Mia Goth and Pattinson scene. And then there's probably some sort of feast/orgy if we went Game of Thrones style. There's probably a Littlefinger running a brothel right outside of— Yeah, there's something like that.

There's a 1:00 AM on Showtime or Cinemax in 1996 cut of this that comes after, like, you know, The Hitcher or whatever, like The Red Shoe Diaries or something.

Bob Guccione produced it.

Yeah, right, was shot in the Netherlands. Absolutely, there is a cut of this movie that is possible.

Yeah, I think Mia Goth was probably like, this is— I was, I was ready for more. I guess, I guess nothing's happened. All right, at number 25, The Dog, Argos.

Uh, RIP.

So I said, first time I saw this was with, uh, your former binge mode partner Mallory Rubin, and the moment we saw the dog, she And she was just terrified. And, um, and then the dog dies at the end. I thought Mallory was gonna be reduced to a puddle. Odysseus comes back, just touches the dog. The dog's like, you're back.

Oh, this just drops dead from—

I thought Mallory was, was also maybe gonna drop dead. Um, I—

my big—

the note I wrote down here is, I, you know, Murph is now 6, my dog. This is how I want Murph to go. Age 20, I'm away for a while. He holds on till I come back. I touch, then he dies. And just as— this is what a relationship.

How did she do when they were kicking the dogs, like, in the dinner scene?

You know Mallory. How do you think she did? She threw up the boat. She did one of those with the— like, guarding her eyes. I will say, the reason Argus isn't higher is I wanted one more flashback scene. This dog was such a great hunting dog. Let's see it. We saw, like, for a split second. I kind of wanted to see him cook. A little bit. I don't know, maybe Nolan, not a dog guy. All right, number 24, Corey Hawkins. He's Polybus. He's Pattinson's kind of sidekick. Honestly, possible Dion Waiters candidate. I thought he really jumped out. I thought he was really good.

Huge reaction. I don't know about you. Huge reaction in my theater when he buys it. The audience absolutely loved it. To have that kind of impact in— what does he have, like 3 lines? And he's probably on screen for like 2 and a half minutes. Yeah, to have that kind of impact in 2 and a half minutes, I, I gotta respect it. Crowd loved seeing him die.

He kind of came in like he's out of the Bad Boy Pistons. He's just kind of crazy. He's just trying, trying to get a tech, just trying to start shit with people.

Um, right, he's like any member of, uh, of the Argentina World Cup squad, like, in the final. Like—

he's already got a yellow card. He doesn't care if he might get kicked out. Number 22, Lupita Nyong'o playing twins, playing hot twins. One has scars on her face, the other doesn't. The other is Shanks, Agribebdan. Honestly, need a little more with this. This was kind of the untraveled side of her getting— the evil sister getting the revenge at the end. But there's— in the books, there's a whole backstory for why she did that. And just kind of comes and goes. And I don't know, I felt like I could have gone another 10 minutes with it.

This, for me, is the kind of your mileage may vary thing. I think what Nolan was trying to do here is say through this character whose face launched the original Trojan War— Right. —is to say, "Oh, Helen has thoughts about this too." Because she keeps wanting to say something. She pulls Tom Holland aside at one point and gives him some very important information. And then at the feast, keeps trying to interject, but Menelaus just won't let her speak. And to me, that was a meta statement about war and about this entire conflict within this movie. But I agree that— I like it. You have Lupita and you just kind of want more.

I thought that was a perfectly cast because she's one of the most beautiful actresses we have. And that's like, in your head, Helena Troy has to be— yes, like, oh yeah, I get it. Uh, number 20, Mentor. Yeah, original Mentor. They named everything else after him. Unbelievable. I never realized they're— I, or I'd forgotten because I read these books in high school, but they— the original Mentor It's just kind of, oh yeah, that's a good one.

Here's my, uh, here's my Nolan casting theory applied to John Leguizamo. Mentor.

Um, I have, by the way, I have Leguizamo coming later if you want to save this. Oh, okay.

No, I'll save it.

I just had the concept of mentor as number 20. Yeah, we're gonna hit Leguizamo in a second. Number 19. The big lesson of The Odyssey is my number 19 MVP. Winning isn't everything. You know what? Trojan horse, great idea. You offered somebody a gift. Yeah, you turned it and you ended up winning the war because you shanked them with this gift. But Odysseus, as the movie goes on, he realizes, was it worth it? It's the nicest thing you can do for another human being is give them a gift. And we did that, and then we betrayed them with it. And I don't know if I would do that again. I thought he was the proper amount of doubt and skepticism about whether that was the good move. I think that's absolutely right.

I think that one of the things that we know about Odysseus is not only how clever he is, which everybody says throughout the movie, but also that he is fair. He thrums that bow with that classic Christopher Nolan bass drop sound moment. And Penelope asks him why he does that, and he's like, "Well, I want to give— I think it's only fair and honorable to give the animal I'm hunting fair warning that I'm coming." But he doesn't do that with Troy. He plays it underhanded. He never gives them the warning that actually the hunt is still on. And that's a big reason why he's so guilty. He feels like he insulted Athena.

The parallels to Bill Belichick and Spygate, maybe a little bit. Like, how far do you want to go to win? And sometimes you can have regrets. Yeah, how much is too much? There are repercussions. Coming in at number 18, Matt Damon's beard. Uh, authentic real beard. It's weird because he can't— I don't know if they were trimming the upper lip part, but the beard itself, um, I'm just gonna ask you because it's one of the most important questions of the Better or worse beard than Tom Hanks in Castaway? Also a natural beard.

There are different kinds of beards. Odysseus's beard was more— both are wild, but it, it was more manicured. Hmm. It, it, and it seemed more, air quotes, Greek, whereas Tom Hanks just had that crazy thing. He had the Survivor beard, basically. He had the Survivor beard. I'm gonna give it a push. Push? I'm going to give it a push with the edge to Daemon because of the dedication of how long it's— It's like a year of your life to do this. Pretty impressive to me.

It makes you realize when we've had fake beards in movies— Yes. —how bad the fake beards are. There's one point when he gets wet and the beard kind of stiffens up. It's like, "Oh, that's a fucking real beard, man." I knew he grew the real beard, but there's moments where this is why you spend a year growing a beard.

Can I ask you, Bill? Yeah. So I was listening to your, um, DiCaprio or Damon conversation, and can we just say right now that The Boston Connection had nothing to do with it? There wasn't any— it didn't factor in at all?

Maybe a little, maybe a tiny bit.

Okay, because I, I, I'm not saying I disagree with the, with the, with where you landed with it. I think it's an interesting conversation, but I wanted it acknowledged at least a little bit, you know.

DiCaprio, Laker fan. Well, that is true. It's funny, I got so many emails from the listeners saying like, do you realize you've been a lifelong Jordan over LeBron fan, and then you did Leo versus Damon and you picked LeBron over Jordan? Basically, you pick career resume more movies, more minutes, more games, more everything, versus the heights of Leo, which was the exact opposite of your strategy with Jordan. I'm like, you know what? Checkmate. You got me. I don't have a counter on that one. Number 17, Himesh Patel.

Is that how you say his name? Himesh Patel. Himesh Patel.

Officially a Nolan guy. Congrats to him. Like, no one's making a movie he's in. I really liked him in this. I thought that— is this a mutiny? It doesn't have to be. Uh, like, he had a couple really good moments. I thought the way he was like watching Odysseus and you could see him losing faith, but I just thought it was kind of not the most exciting part, but I thought he kind of crushed it. I liked him.

I, I loved it as well. He just brings up more With a guy like Odysseus, who's the mastermind, the brilliant guy, you need that character who's like, "Okay, I'm going to take all these brilliant plans of yours and somehow make it happen." And you felt that chemistry through their interactions in the movie.

Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Number 16, this goes to the crossbow and arrow trick. Okay. So this movie has to hinge on this stupid bow thing that he does in the beginning that everybody's like, "Oh, wow, he did it again." And everybody's just like, "Oh my God." Oh my God, this is fucking amazing. And they have to plant that seed for later. And it's like an all-time comes back. It's like, oh, she's going to have them do it. She's going to have— she knows the suitors won't be able to do this. And she's kind of secretly hoping that Beggar is Odysseus. I just thought phenomenal. And by the way, I would watch this as a 2-hour ESPN event of just bending the bow and then shooting through the axes. I want to see people bend the bow. How many people can do it? And then you have to shoot through the axes. I'm in for 2 hours.

Through the Ax is incredibly underrated. Totally. Just be glossed over. Just be completely glossed over. Like, obviously no one has done stringing the bow except for Odysseus. Yeah. But once you climb that mountain, there's arguably an even higher mountain after that. It's just impossible.

I love that they brought it back. I loved it. Um, okay, now we're in the top 15. This is the really good stuff here. Okay, number 15. I put this in partly for you. Drunken, menacing, bordering on violent feasts. Really, this was the most Game of Thrones DNA here, where we just have a bunch of people eating together and people drinking bad wine and just getting bombed, and they don't know how to interact. What are they talking about? None of them have any hobbies. They can't be like, hey, what do you think about the playoffs tonight? The only goal is just to get drunk and maybe get in a fight with somebody. And it was just fun to be back. It made me— brought me back to Thrones.

What an incredible collection of bad hang individuals that have been hanging out. Yeah. Not for a week, not for a month, 3 years, but for like years they've been here eating Penelope out of house and home, bullying her son, kicking dogs, spitting in the face of beggars, and just trying to hook up with her for years.

Terrible, terrible. That is a maybe just poison everybody kind of moment for her.

At some point, just—

At some point, it's like, "Hey, I got some special steak tonight." Um, number 14, Samantha Morton as Cersei. Oh my God. So, another— also, like, Thrones Cersei versus Cersei. I'm like, that can't be a coincidence, right?

I mean, I think that there's— significant thematic connections for sure. Yeah.

Um, what performance was creepier for you? Samantha Morton as the creepy lady who lives on a hill and can turn everybody into pigs and knows a lot of shit and just has kind of a dark energy about her, or who she played in Minority Report? The pods, one of the, the bald pods in the underwater, one of the freakiest characters of all time.

This is clearly a juicier role. I think this is the spookier role, just because the eating scene when they're feasting on the food and you're just like, "This can't be good. Whatever's about to happen, it's gonna be bad." And the way they, again, with the practical effects, she's reaching into their cheeks, stretching their mouths, turning them into pigs. It is so unsettling and magnetic, but also really just gross on a base level that I mean, I was blown away by this. This is a creepier role just because is she eating the people? So she's feeding people to people in the form of animals. To eventually eat them. And also very underrated part of this is she has her sister as a crow just in a cage forever.

Yeah. So she's a cannibal witch. And also not a great sister. Not a great sister. I saw this the first time. The second time, 3-hour movie. I'm going to drink it in giant water. At some point, I got to go to the bathroom. Timed it for when she turned everybody into pigs. I'm like, I don't want to watch this. Get me out of this. I had another question for you. Turning people into pigs. Yeah. Top 10 worst superpower. Like, if you had to pick, like, oh cool, I get a superpower, what am I getting? Well, you're gonna have to turn people into pigs and then you eat them. That's your superpower.

Well, with regards to your mentor, Paul, the first mentor, is this the first Men Are Pigs?

Oh, I like it. Maybe. Yeah, I mean, yeah, because she's like, she's calling her shot too. She's like, they're pigs, they're getting what they're Deserved, right? Yeah. Yeah, you're right.

I mean, we're really just, like, in the origin stories of so many tropes.

It is true. Number 13, Zeus. I wrote down, "He's a little like Adam Silver. He has a bunch of laws, we mostly don't know what they are, and the punishment is either not nearly enough or way worse than it should be." That's exactly right.

No notes. I have no notes. That's perfect.

Adam Silver.

That's exactly correct. Yes.

Did we violate the laws with the Aspiration scandal?

I— you will find out. I don't know. Is this king that I have put in place the cheapest king, the worst king ever?

Yes. Oh, the Portland King. The King of Portland.

The King of Portland.

I didn't realize he was so cheap, even though he did exactly the same thing in Carolina.

Ha! He might be the King of Las Vegas very soon. Who we are, we have no idea. Mm.

All right, now we're really getting there. Number 12, Jon Bernthal. Arguably could have been 5 spots higher. He's the king of Sparta in this movie. So I mentioned this last week, I intentionally avoided all spoilers, everything. I literally didn't know he was in the movie. I gasped when I saw him. I got so excited. Could he have played Odysseus if we were doing, like, slightly cheaper budget? We can't afford Matt Damon. We need to go second-level actors. Could you have bought Jon Bernthal as Odysseus? Because I would've.

He could have done it, but here's why I think Nolan did it the way he did. This is part of my Nolan theory. With regards to Bernthal, as an occasional, little more than occasional listener to his podcast, he is always— he's a very pro-veterans issues figure. He's always talking about the sacrifice of vets. He's always platforming ex-Delta Force guys, ex-SEAL Team Six guys on his podcast and talking about the things that warfighters go through. And here, I think Nolan very specifically playing with that, cast him as the character who's like, "Trojan War was awesome, man. Oh, what's that? Your dad was in the Trojan War? Come here, sit next to me. I want to talk to you. Let me tell you about the horse. Let me tell you from inside the horse." course. I'll tell you what that was about. And he's the guy who's the most, um, concerned with what happened to the Trojan War veterans as they left the war and what they're up to now. And I think this is— could he have been Odysseus? Yes. But I think Nolan wanted him specifically for this kind of part.

It's an awesome point. Number 11, I have Homer, who, as you mentioned, isn't a complete person. No, it's not. Um, great stuff nonetheless, and the legend of Homer continues. Great job by him. Great job by him, them, however many Homers there were. We have no idea. But yeah, you know, Homer, they'll be reading it forever. It was enjoyable in high school. Um, just really laid it down. Great to have him back. All right, number 10. This got really tough. Okay, number 10, the Trojan Horse. Trojan Horse. Just an all-time— I know Ultimately Evil and Odysseus had a lot of regrets about it, but just fundamentally, probably the greatest war idea of all time.

The fact that we're talking about it 5,000 years later proves the point, and that it's become— the word Trojan Horse has become the byword for something that contains a hidden poison, some sort of ambush within it. I think you're exactly right. And let's be honest, Bill, if we were there like Menelaus or any of these other characters, we'd never stop talking about the horse, ever.

Right. That's it.

I wouldn't have to do anything else.

I would just be telling Trojan Horse stories to everybody I met. Yeah, I was in there.

Let me tell you, every single podcast, the comments would be like, Guess what? Bill managed to tie it back to the horse.

He did it again.

He did it again. He's— it's the horse. What's— guess what? He's in the horse and the water level is rising. He'll never guess it's the horse.

I think Kevin Wilde's half-baked ideas— the Trojan horse is the greatest half-baked idea ever, where they were like, all right, here's my idea, I only have half of it, we just build a horse Right. And we all climb into it and somehow they pull it up. And then when we're inside, we'll come out of the horse and they're like, okay, uh, they try to work with it and somehow it works. So the movie lays out a really key point about the Trojan, because it's been romanticized over the years. Like, yeah, they were in a horse.

That really has. Yeah.

Bad times in the horse. I mean, not fun. A bad— as bad as it gets, where they're just pissing and shitting on themselves. There's water in the horse. People are drowning in the horse. They're suffocated in there. They also have no idea how long they're going to be in there. Uh, I'm gonna say one of the worst hangs of all time. It might not work at all.

You're just— they might leave it there. Like, you don't know. It's a, it's a Hail Mary pass for sure. You're getting stabbed in the horse. Then there's the guy who's like, I've got to also wipe the blood off the blade before it pulls out, or this whole thing is is, is gonna be ruined. Very— one of the all-time worst times in the horse, which is why, again, Bill, you would not stop talking about the horse. It's right.

It was— it's the Warriors figuring out how to get KD in 2016 multiplied by like 200. One of the great things ever. I— the smell by day 4 had to be—

oh my God, all-time worse.

You think anybody was like, yo, I know we're not supposed to open that little opening that we get out of, but what if we did?

Yeah, I think Odysseus very strategically put himself by that little opening because I think he's sneaking breaths.

Yeah, no question. All right, number 9, Robert Pattinson as Antonis. This is the Billy Zane part. We have these big movies and it's like, oh, you're the Billy Zane part in this. And in, in Titanic, Billy Zane is over the top and He's just one of the most ridiculous characters in the history of movie, but it's great. This is a really good performance. And here's the thing, Jasonception. This is an actual fact from Robert Pattinson. He based his performance on James Woods in Casino.

That's actually a great pull.

He said this in an interview. Wow! "I watched Casino, and I decided, 'What if he was Antonis and I just was Lester Diamond?'" And that's who I was. And it's like, "Holy shit." So I found that out between the first and second movies, times I watched.

I watched it the second time, him as Lester, and I was like, "This is fucking out of control." There's a moment in this performance, obviously, he's so almost cartoonishly evil throughout, but then they get to the final, the test with the bow and the 10 axes, and everybody's failing, failing, failing. It comes around to Antonin. And he's like, he does this fascinating thing where he gives this speech where he's like, "Hold on. None of us could ever imagine that we could replace Odysseus. Odysseus is a giant. Odysseus won the Trojan War. I would never deem to take his place. We can only hope to be selected by you, Penelope. So I'm not going to even try to do it." I don't want to disgrace the boat. I won't disgrace the boat with that kind of performance. And I was like, man, that is, on the one hand, so slimy. And also, that would have worked on me. I would have been like, you know what? Maybe he's not such a bad guy. Maybe did I have him wrong?

Maybe I had him wrong. I think he should get nominated for this. If I was going to do supporting actor, and Leguizamo is the next person we're going to mention, but it— and maybe both. I don't know what the categories are going to look like. You know, the Academy and just in general, the over-the-top villain part like this never gets actual award recognition. I thought he was awesome. And Pattinson's been in our life now for— since my kids were young and, you know, the fucking Twilight movies were coming out. This is like almost a 20-year career now for him. He's just a really good actor. I think this is the best he's been in a movie. He's really good in this.

He's always Especially post-Twilight, it seems like he's reveled in taking these really interesting roles. And I don't think, Bill, there is a better actor currently working at that specific kind of sniveling, two-faced villain. Yeah. Obviously, like a cartoon mustache-twirling villain, but also has the wherewithal to understand, "My villainy is revolting to people, so I need to put a mask on it." And then the— is there a better actor at these really dynamic physical moments where the fight is unfolding and he's hiding behind a pillar like, "Get him! Get the shield and get him with the shield!" It's like there's nobody better at this stuff. He's great.

He's really good in Good Time. I mean, he's been in a bunch of good stuff. But I love that he keeps— he's all over the map. I don't know what to expect from him anymore with movie parts that he plays. And in this one, you know, 10 years ago you would have said he would have been the Tom Holland part, right? It's like, that's the kind of— but he zagged, and now it's— I just think he's doing a really good job. All right, number 8, Leguizamo. Uh, another one, didn't know he was going to be in the movie. Saw him and I was like, oh, Leguizamo, that's cool, he got in a scene. And it's like, no, he's actually a big part of this movie and is probably gonna get nominated for an Oscar. I He fucking crushed it. I thought he was so good in this movie. And I do think he's going to get nominated, right? I think that would be my bet for this category for him.

Completely agree. My favorite role of his since Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet, the '90s Romeo and Juliet. Wow. Yeah. And is one of those roles where you're like, "Damn, Leguizamo, I forgot." He can really do it. He can really act. And with my Nolan casting theory, I don't think it's a— I think it's very specifically chosen that Leguizamo is now in a second movie where the death of a dog is the huge turning point in the movie. Just like in John Wick. And just like in John Wick, He is that character in John Wick who's like, "Listen, you don't know what you've done. When John Wick gets here, you guys are fucked." He's the same character in this. It's like, "Listen, when Odysseus gets back, you—" That's really interesting.

I missed that completely. He's going to wipe the floor with you guys. Yes. I did not miss the John Wick parallels in this movie, but I missed the Leguizamo connection. That's a really good connection. I thought he was tremendous.

Congrats to him. He's tremendous.

Completely agree. Number 7, arguably could have been one. Charlize. Oh my God, another one I had no idea was in the movie. She's Calypso. It's a role that probably should not have worked. 7 years of great sex and lotus flowers, and he's like, I— my heart's somewhere else, I'm gonna leave. I, I would have stayed. Um, I don't know how she got the part to work like it does, but she's She's really great in this, and it's like the perfect kind of heat check. She comes off the bench, hits a couple threes, grabs some boards, dunks over somebody, and then she's out.

I don't know that she's looked better in a movie than this movie.

I don't know if she has either.

And she's great in every movie. And with regards to the Nolan theory, she's been the face of Dior for 20 years, this kind of ageless, immortal beauty. And from that perspective, the casting makes sense. She's been very public on numerous podcasts talking about how she's single by choice, that it's a source of strength for her, that she would, in fact, never date in the entertainment industry because she's been through that. It's too—

She loves one-night stands. Too much baggage. One-night stands are great for her?

That's right. And here she is in this movie, an ageless beauty who ends up alone at the end and kind of by choice. She says to him— Okay, I've kept you here long enough. If you want to leave, you can leave. And so I think once again, Nolan is playing with our idea of who this person is and using that creatively in the casting. And she was absolutely incredible.

This was the best casting in the movie for me. And I don't know what other actress would've been a better— sometimes we'll have somebody in this and it's like, "Nah, not quite." But this one is like, "Wow." And then I, I had this in my notes, Jason. This is 4 decades now of heat check performances from her, going back to Reindeer Games and Devil's Advocate. Like, we're talking her basketball reference page now is like, goddamn, this is— it's crazy. 32 years now of this. Fast and the Furious.

I mean, it just goes on and on, like the amount of things that she has done. Yeah, it's pretty incredible. Like And to your point, career launched, you know, in a, in a basically a Tarantino rip-off movie. Like, that's how long she's been at this thing. Yeah, incredible, incredible performance by her.

Great casting. And the concept of Calypso— like, there's 7 different movies that could have spun off from this movie and just been like, all right, let's go there for an hour and a half. They're just the concept of Calypso just on this island waiting for people to wash up pretty great. Uh, number 6, I don't want to get too film dorky, but the editor Jennifer Lame, the, the person who did the score, Ludwig Göransson. Um, I'm not sure who killed it more, so I have them as 6A and 6B here. Um, the editing, and Chris and Sean talked about that when they did the pod last week, about in the later Nolan movies where he does this kind of flashback edit thing that that just kind of seamlessly goes into where we are now. But I got to say, the score in a couple of these scenes, the— and the sound of Cyclops calling for Poseidon. Yeah. The Trojan Horse, the music of that scene when they're breaking out, and it's like, it's just like building up. This is just an A+ special teams movie.

I would bet a lot that Goransson wins the Oscar for this. I would hope so. For this score. I also think, just like Sean and Chris said, what I loved about this movie, one of the things, is that Nolan put in all of his classic Nolanisms, but in the most creative versions of those things that I've seen yet. There is the big Inception-level bass drop. The bwah sound is all throughout, but more creatively with the bow. There's the little Little metal tokens that are given to other characters, uh, parents and children, uh, sad wives, uh, circular storytelling. All of that stuff is here, um, but at the highest level that I've ever seen from him.

Number 5, Anne Hathaway, who's absolutely tremendous. Yeah. And I think needed this big picture um, just for her. Yeah, I think this, this was a little capper. This was like making that last first All-NBA team. Um, I don't know if she gets nominated for Best Actress or Best Supporting.

I think they'll give her best. I think it's Best Actress.

Yeah, right, it's probably Best Actress. She's in enough of the movie that she could probably go for it. I thought she was awesome. I've been a long time season ticket holder. Same. Um, It's interesting if you said the first 4 movies— let's say she stopped acting tomorrow and 50 years from now passes away, um, maybe 80 years from now, um, what are the first 4 movies mentioned in her obituary? What are, what are the 4 that pop to mind? Are we counting this? Yeah.

Are we counting this?

I think this would have to be one of the 4.

I think The Odyssey. I think The Princess Diaries is the breakout. Had that as I think, uh, Les Mis and I think The Devil Wears Prada.

So I had those four. You also— you on the cutting room floor— Brokeback, Interstellar, Dark Knight Rises, and Rachel Getting Married, which I think she got nominated for. I loved Rachel. But I think you have the right four. Yeah, we're gonna do this later. Yeah, but those are the big four for her, and she kind of needed this one And she's also, by my calculations, has never been in a Best Picture winner.

Brokeback should have won but didn't. I think you're right. I'll say this too. There was a period— you remember the Hathaway hate? This must have been 12 years ago now where it was like—

It made me mad. I didn't like it.

So the hate, which I never understood, was that she loved what she was doing. Like, that was it.

She loved being an actor. Yeah, it was like she wasn't authentic. She was like, oh, it wasn't authentic how much she liked acting. And it's like, maybe she just likes acting.

Yeah, maybe she just loves what she does. Like, get out of here. I never understood that. I've always been a longtime fan as well.

I thought this movie used all the best pieces of her.

Yeah, she was great.

And she had a couple really great, like, woof, like Meryl Streep-level scenes.

There's that speech she gives Telemachus after he tells her, like, maybe, I don't know, maybe you should marry the guy. I don't know, where she just blows up at him about, I've been the queen of this place for 10 years, nobody treats me as the queen. And she's like, you know what I'd like to do? I'd like to shut the doors, kill everybody. I was like, whoa, incredible stuff from Hathaway.

Number 4, we're now in the top 4 of the MVP ballot. See, you didn't think this was going to work and you're having a good time.

It did.

It absolutely worked. I used to do this with the NBA when I had my column. I would do a 400-person MVP ballot, but really only have 28 people on Number 4, Cyclops. This is one of the holy shit. It was so fun going the second time with my son, and the movie's great and it's going along, but I'm like, I can't fucking wait for the Cyclops scene. And to just— when it ended, he just looked at me and it was like he just watched a Waymo fly in the air with a family of 6 and just fly around our house for— it was just awesome. And also important to note, I just don't think it works before we have all the technology we have now. I don't think this scene works in 2012. I just think it would have felt fake.

I would have loved to see, you know, as, as we talked about, I think Nolan's done a lot of practical stuff. I would love to know how he did that. Um, but I, I was like blown away, not just by the feel of the scale of the giant, but the creativity of his face, the way the eye is kind of sideways. And then at the end, you're like, "Fuck, man. They really screwed that Cyclops." I feel bad for the guy. Right. It's terrible. That was awful what happened to him. He was just at home tending his sheep.

Yeah. He didn't ask for you guys to show up. It was terrible. It also has this great I mean, everything about that whole section is unbelievable, but it has that great thing of they also have to figure out how to get the fuck out of there. Yeah. And they're gonna kill him. They're like, wait, if we kill him, we're just gonna die in this cave. We can't do that. So how do we— and they, you know, then all of a sudden it turns into like an NFL strategy. How do we, how do we attack Cyclops deep?

I mean, classic Odysseus once again, like the man with the plan. Everybody's like, well You got us in here, Odysseus. You have to— how do we get out? Oh, I got it. We, uh, we all act like sheep.

And then he figured it out, but then makes the fatal mistake of he shoots him. I mean, that was his pride.

That was his pride talking.

He got mad. Cyclops took a couple away, played by Bill Irwin, by the way, who weirdly played Anne Hathaway's dad in Rachel Getting Married.

And, uh, and one of our— one of our famed clowns. In entertainment, like has that, that kind of physical presence of, uh, of, of classic clowning, vaudevillian clowning.

So when I saw this the first time, I didn't know— I didn't make the Bill Roman connection. I didn't know they used an actual actor to play him. And then not only did they, but he was, you know, they really went all in on it. Anyway, all right, 3 left. Number 3, the 75— 70mm/IMAX experience of this movie, which is just been— honestly, it's saved movies in some ways with making it an experience where you feel like you have to go. This is what they try to do with 3D 15 years ago, and it didn't work. And now it's at the point where it's now working. And I know it's not everywhere yet, but— and I still feel like if you see this on a normal awesome movie theater, it's still an awesome movie. Yeah. But the experience of seeing it the way Nolan wants you to see it, there's nothing like it.

It's so overpowering to see it in that 70mm IMAX. Words cannot describe the power of it. It is like that, you know, the cinema meme come to life, the Scorsese picture where he's got his arms out. That's what it is. To see somebody's Anne Hathaway giving a fire monologue with her face 40 feet tall, you're just like, man, this is the movies. This is what it's about.

Combined with the sound, which has also gotten really better in these movie theaters too. And there's some great sound in this movie, but just an experience. And it's so funny when you think back to that 3D era where they're like, this is how we're going to have to keep people in theaters and we're going to have them put these fucking glasses on that give you a headache. But it's gonna feel different than being at home. And it's like, right, no, you could actually just have the screen be way better and, you know, spend more money on the cameras.

The thing that I hated about the 3D, the, the attempt to make 3D happen, like the attempt to make Fetch happen, was it was so forced. There was always a forced moment where like some bad guy gets his arm cut off and then it— the arm has to float right towards the screen, towards you. There always had to be that, and it was like, oh great, here's the, here's the scene that the 3D manufacturers made them put in to show how the 3D worked. You don't need that with IMAX. You just need the power of the movies.

I remember seeing Friday the 13th 3D in the early '80s at a movie theater, and they have the— what you just mentioned was a specific scene. Yeah, Jason has like a bow and arrow on fire and shoots the arrow and it comes right toward the camera and it was like the big 3D moment. Guess what? Didn't need the glasses for that. I, uh, I, you know, they talk about how movie tickets get more expensive and all this stuff. I would double down on this. I would have like the IMAX, the 7:30 showings. I would make them 5, 6 times as much in the big cities for the first couple weeks. Like, I, I would like to see these movies make more money because then they'll make more of these movies. So if they have to rig rig the first couple weeks with the tickets and drive it up and drive interest. Like, I'm all for it if you're gonna make more, more of The Odyssey, you know.

I love this idea. Let's rig the box office. Let's do it. Let's rig it. I mean, let's be—

I'm for it. Listen, in LA, like last night, if they had charged for those four, for those four rows in the middle, if they just said, yeah, these are $150 tonight, that would happen. Like, my daughter wanted to go to the Red Sox game tonight because, by the way, they won 15 straight. The tickets are through the roof. Like, you can't find them because everybody wants to go. It's like, why don't we have that mentality with movies? I would just have specific rows where they could make more money, because if they make more money, they'll make more movies like this. I don't think it's rocket science. And not like you have to pay for those tickets. Like, pay for them wherever.

I was thinking about how fortunate we are to live in LA where there's multiple IMAX theaters. My brother-in-law lives in London. There's only one in the whole country.

Right. Right. Yeah. Kyle Mann, who was on here before you, was saying he would have to drive somewhere just to see it on like a B+ movie screen, right? In Boston, there's like two. And it'll still look great. Yeah. In Boston, there's two. Like if you live in, if you're like vacationing in Wyoming right now or something, you're not getting the great experience, but I'm sure we'll have more. The fact that they're consistently coming out with these now. Um, like Spider-Man's coming in 2 weeks. That's going to be an IMAX movie. And so there's going to be a regular cycle of these, which makes me think they'll have more. All right, last 2. Who do you think was 2 and who do you think was 1 between Damon and Nolan?

I think Damon is 2.

I think Nolan is 1. Uh, that was what I had in my bet. So I talked about Damon and Leo for 35 minutes with CR on Sunday. I don't need to keep talking about Damon. But we want to hear your Matt Damon thoughts.

Well, here's my Nolan theory. This is the culmination of everything that Damon has been doing over the course of his career. Broke out as a young actor as a boy genius, right, in Good Will Hunting. Here, plays the grizzled old genius. Everybody talking about, like, how brilliant he is as a guy. Um, In this movie, plays a noted trickster, a liar, kind of a conman, pulling from his Tom Ripley performance. He's also Jason Bourne, the amnesiac trying to get home somewhere and trying to remember who he is.

With fight scenes.

With fight scenes. And he's also The Martian, the man who is stranded, living by his wits, who who is trying to figure out a way off, in this case, the island, but in that case, Mars. This is everything that he's been doing up to now in one movie.

And a little We Bought a Zoo with the dog.

A little bit. A little bit. With a sprinkling of We Bought a Zoo.

His love for animals. We worked that in as well. Maybe a little bit of Invictus. Sure. Yeah. Fighting in front of large groups of people. Um, all right, Damon was just as good the second time. I'm proud of Matt Damon. All right, Nolan, who— I mean, this is, this is the— I think this is the best movie he's ever done. Other people would argue with it, but I just feel like degree of difficulty— everybody who worked on this movie was like, I can't even tell you how hard that was. I, I can't believe how grueling that was. I'm glad I did it. I'll never do anything like that ever again. Um, he just went for it, which I love. But he's hit this point in his career where he's made enough movies now where I think everybody has a different top 4 for him. Like, mine would be The Odyssey, Dark Knight, Memento, and I think Dark Knight Rises would be my 4th. Okay, but you probably have a different 4, and I think Sean and Chris would probably have a different 4, and name anybody, Horlbeck would have a different 4. Because he's had enough of these now.

Yeah, I would go— for me, it's The Odyssey, Dunkirk, Dark Knight, Batman Begins. But there's a lot of other— I think all the other ones are valid. It's just incredible. I think this is like if you had bought Spielberg stock after E.T., this is the heat check that he's on. This is his E.T. moment.

You know, Dark Knight's '08. Yes. This is '26. So you're talking— and I thought Dark Knight is in the running for best movies of the first 25 years. I completely agree. Um, it's at least in the conversation, and at some point it becomes subjective and not objective, but, um, it's in the running. This will be in the— this will be in the mix for the next 25 years. But to have two of those 18 years apart That's also not a long list. I mean, you're going into the Scorsese, Spielberg area of, did you put two kick-ass, awesome, memorable all-timers but 20 years apart, basically?

It's not easy. I mean, with The Dark Knight, as a comics guy, that changed the way the Joker was depicted in the comics. They were like— and that's never really happened before. Obviously, Jack Nicholson, iconic Joker, they didn't They didn't change the way the Joker looked in the comics after Heath Ledger's performance. They were like, "Actually, that's incredible.

Let's do him like that in the comic books." One of the things I've heard people are talking about, this is the movie industry has changed. Now the directors are the IP. Now this is a theme now of instead of the comic book and the suits and the capes, The directors are now going to be the ones. I was like, that's always been the case, man. I went to see Jackie Brown in New York City in 1997 because Tarantino had a new movie coming out. Like, that's, that's never changed. We just have more good directors now. We're in a nice little run of talent.

The trailer, I believe the trailer for Jackie Brown was like, one of the first frames was the new film from Quentin Tarantino. It's, it's always been like the latest from Steven Spielberg. You know, it's Steven Spielberg's Jaws.

The closure day just now, it was— this is a Spielberg movie. I think the difference with Nolan is he's making movies that are big, big scale for as many people as possible, but also the best possible version of, you know, reaching the most people, basically, which is the hardest thing to do. This is why Spielberg is the best ever. Spielberg was able to make big-ass movies for the most people possible that made a ton of money that were also really, really, really good. And that's the hardest level of this. All right. That's my MVP ballot. Did we leave anything else out?

Um, no, I think that's it. That's comprehensive. We did a hundred—

it's a hundred. We did a hundred, give or take 50.

Yeah. I didn't think it was possible. Much like Odysseus's journey home, I did not think it was possible and it was— we accomplished it.

All right, Chase Concepcion, you still basking in the glow of the Knicks? It will—

I will not stop basking until the season starts. I'm absolutely basking.

I'll be interested to see how they screw up the, uh, the first game, the first home game. It's like, don't overthink it, James Dolan. Just, just throw some pitches down the middle. All they want— all the fans want to do is see the rings and the band.

Like, don't, don't Don't, don't overthink it. You think he makes a speech?

Just be careful. I— the parade, I thought the parade, definitely the mic was getting passed around, and I, I just, just, you know, you almost can't screw up the night when you raise the banner. It's, it's almost an unassailable night.

It is disconcerting to see him moving around with this much confidence and freedom.

Where do you want LeBron to go? Where do you want LeBron to go, by You know what?

And I said this previously and I mean it. I think Cleveland makes the most sense. And also, I want him to go there because it will be incredibly satisfying when the Knicks— Beat Cleveland. —wash the Cleveland Cavaliers once again, but this time with LeBron James.

With the ball movement as LeBron and Harden are just like, "What's happening? The ball keeps going over there.

No, no, it's there." Um, I mean, I think at this point they should just like do like the Pope smoke for when it actually happens because we're just like waiting.

Just let us know. Now he's milking the summer now. All right, thanks for doing that with me, Jason. I had a good time. Good to see you. Thanks for having me. All right, all right. Thanks so much to House and Kyle and Concepción and Gajao and Eduardo and everybody at Spotify. If you missed it, I went on the Game Over podcast with Rich and Max, by the way. It was really fun. I was just in the office when they were about to do it, so I ended up crashing I think I'm gonna be on Amina Kimes's podcast. I think that's running this week as well. And I'm probably not gonna talk about the ESPN stuff, but Press Box with the Press Box podcast with, uh, Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker did a really good job talking about that. So I'm gonna be back on this podcast on Sunday and then, uh, live rewatchables on Monday. So enjoy the rest of the week. Week. See you this weekend. Must be 21+ and present in select states for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino. Or 18+ and present in D.C., Kentucky, or Wyoming, get in problem call 1-800-GAMBLER or 1-800-MY-RESET.

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