Transcript of The Mailbag: Dangerous NBA Teams, Lottery Tweaks, the KD Files, The Oscars, and Cruise vs. Pacino | With Chris Ryan and Joe House New

The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. We're also brought to you by the Ringer podcast Network, where I have a new episode of the Rewatchables that went up Monday night. We did a Bond movie. We did Goldeneye. It was me and Sean Fantecy and Chris Ryan. Had a lot of fun talking about the movie, the video game, CR on Earth, the new impression that he's never done before. We had a lot of laughs, a lot of Go check it out on Netflix, on Spotify, wherever you got your pods. Next rewatchable is going to be Crazy Stupid Love because we had to do one Valentine's Day adjacent movie before we get into March. I have an exciting announcement for March on the rewatchables, but we're going to wait for our first guest. Chris Ryan is coming on. He's going to do half of the mailbag with me. I have just unbelievable mailbag questions, so many. I had to use this time as there's no sports whatsoever other than Winter Olympics to bang out some mailbag questions. Chris Ryan going to join me for the first half. Our old friend Joe House is going to come on for the second half where we do some NBA stuff.

That is the podcast. It's all next. We're going to take a break. Pearl Jam. And then CR, Chris Ryan. The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. The football season may be coming to an end, but things are only getting started on the court, on the hardwood, on the wood, as some people call it. Fanduel, the number one choice for same game, part of that is live betting. And much more during the NBA season. Don't forget, with FanDuel, you get paid instantly when you win. Download the FanDuel Sportsbook app right now and play your game. 21 plus in President Select States or 18 plus in President DC, Kentucky, Wyoming. Get in the problem call, 100 Gambler, or visit rg-help. Com. Call 888-789-7777, or visit ccpg. Org/chat in Connecticut.

All right, we are recording mid-afternoon Pacific Time.

There's no sports going on other than the Winter Olympics. What country are you rooting for, Chris Ryan? America?

I'm just rooting for fun frozen competition. Yeah, sure. I'm rooting broadly for America. What about you?

Well, you and I, we did the two-man looge together in 2014, but that was fun.

Is that what you're calling the Black Hat pod?

Yeah, it's the two-minute loogeer. No, it's all right. There's a lot of looge, bobsled skiing. I have trouble keeping track of which events are more important than the other ones. Then they're like, Oh, it's It's the figure skating, short session, free skate, whatever. I'm like, Oh, that's an important one. That's the Tanya Harding one. I feel like they came up with too many terms.

I'm getting killed by just finding out what happens early in the day so that I can't watch primed time. That's my fault. It's just when I open up the New York Times or ESPN or the Athletic, and it's just like, Here's everything that happened that you were going to watch at 8: 00 PM today. I just wind up losing a little bit of juice for it.

Yeah, I do wonder, was it better in the '70s and early '80s when We had no mechanism to find out what happened and everything was a constant surprise, and we never knew what was live and taped. It might have just been a better way to live.

Absolutely. Read the news once every day.

Yeah, sounds great. We're going to do I have a two-part mailbag. I'm going to do half with you and half with house. I sent you a couple of questions. I kept some questions away from you. But basically, all the mailbag questions I'm getting right now, and please stop sending these to bspodcast33@gmail. Com. I'm good with the tanking solutions. We have so many, and I can't think of another sports debate topic where everybody's like, I've got it. Is there anything else like this where you could be in a bar and somebody's like, No, no, here's what they should do, and everybody's all of a sudden the expert and nobody has it?

I found the limit of what I'm interested in in sports, and I think it's solutions to tanking. God bless you. I was listening to you and Zack on Sunday, and I could tell even you were losing your own mind trying to figure it out because...

There's no answer.

There's no answer. And also the answer is we need a bad draft. So this draft is too good and too many people want to get in on EJ and Darren and Boozer. We just need to have better basketball to think about because I think we're just getting a little too distracted with how to fix something that ultimately is pretty good. But I do think some of the stakeholders involved to have different objectives that may be the common NBA fan. That's why I think it causes so much frustration.

I think the biggest problem for the NBA, we talked about it Thursday night in the live show, is that football ends and you basketball finally has center stage and it should just be more positive stuff instead of all of us like, How do we fix this? What's wrong with this thing? Even Mark Cuban today came out as pro-tanking, which I enjoyed. It just feels like he's trying to stick it to everybody these days.

That's exactly what I mean. Where Cuban's comments, while very well-informed from his perspective as a former owner was like, nobody remembers shots and dunks. They remember the experience of an NBA game. I can just assure him I'm the exact opposite. I actually don't really love going to NBA games. I like it when the basketball is good, but as a personal consumer experience, I can think of a lot of better ways to spend my money than having 22-year-old rap music blared at me for three hours. I I thought he misidentified what was an issue there.

Yeah, we could be going to Black Hat at the New Beverly Cinema. We could be spending our time in a much better way. All right, mailback questions. These are all real questions. First one, the KD Twitter burner Account Scandal is the first scandal to reference the Epstein files instead of Watergate. Everyone is calling it the KD files is blank, gate, dead. That's from Don H. Basically, what he's saying, CR, Watergate, the 52-year run here of just gates. I went on Wikipedia and I went and looked at all the gates and they had them broken down in a sports, culture, politics, tech. There's just a lot of gates. The Epstein files have basically said, move over, buddy. There's a new Sheriff in town, and now we're using files. Are you buying this? Is gate done?

I thought that this question was pretty poignant, maybe unwittingly, in the wake of the mass WAPO, Washington Post layoffs. That's Obviously, where a lot of the original Watergate reporting happened with Woodward and Bernstein. I think that we used to rely on these institutions to ferret out this information through investigative reporting and then interpret the information and tell us, Hey, here's what's important. Here's why you should care about this. Here's what might happen because of it. Now, especially with the Epstein stuff, you're basically getting raw intel on social media. You're looking at redacted files. You're looking at basically the stuff that a journalist would look at to interpret. You're being asked to do it yourself. Sometimes you have to battle against the sheer amount of it in the case the Epstein files. Also, whether or not some of it is real or not, because that's obviously starting to come up.

I was going to say that's the biggest thing, the AI.

The Katie thing is a good example of that. I think it's hilarious, but I'm not 100% sure it's him, and I don't really even understand where it came from and what's on here? Where's your head at with this?

We'll never know. He hasn't said anything. If I had to bet my life one way or the other, I would bet yes. Triple Double Cocaine Bear is one of the funniest things anyone's written on any platform in the last 30 years. I don't think we'll ever find out the true answer.

You think KD is throwing around Hitler and Stalin jokes in his group chat?

I don't know, man. I don't judge anyone's group chats. It's a private space. You You just never know what's going on in there. It could be a combo of some real stuff with some AI stuff. And that's like you laid out, this is the problem in 2026. Always trying to decipher what's real, what's really. You can feel Instagram changing in real times where you're like, Oh, my God, that Cheetah climbed into a kid's bump bed. And it's like, Oh, that probably didn't happen.

That cat sing Sinatra perfectly with its meows.

That cat was in the dunk contest. I have my top five gates ever. That's where this question inspired. In no particular order, I didn't want to really rank these, but Spygate, Nipplegate, Deflategate, Bountygate, and Poopgate, when the Dave Matthews Band emptied the sewage tank on a Chicago barge, and they called it Poopgate.

You have Poopgate above Iran Contra.

Yeah, but here's my question. Iran Contra, I I feel like we just called that Iran Contra.

Or like an affair, the Iran Contra there.

I don't think that was really a gate. I really thought about that because that was the biggest one after Watergate, but I don't ever remember. There was some Contra Gate, but I really feel like that became Iran Contra. Does a gate necessitate it being broken by journalists, or does it just sound cool if you put gate at the end of it? Well, so that's what I thought was interesting. Nipplegate and Poopgate are culture gates, right? This is just Timberlake pulling Janet Jackson's thing off at the Super Bowl and then poop. Then Spotgate, Deflategate, and Bountygate were all these football scandals that we just put gate on at the end because it was funny, but that's what the names became. You go through all the other ones The gate never really stuck. It didn't stick like I thought.

No. Deflated Ball Affair does not have the same...

No.

It doesn't have the same ring to it.

I think Scandal stepped in, too. Anyway, those are the best gates. Next question from David from Flemington, New Jersey. With more KD Burner account news, allegedly, coming out, who of the pre-social media pantheon guys do you think would have also had Burner accounts if they existed at the time, if any? I had one in particular that I'm positive would have had, but what do you have for this?

I was thinking about this because a lot of the people who I think are the most opinionated, I also think would have had better things to do than tweet or text a lot. Barkley is like, I get to say stuff. I'm not going to be on a group chat saying what I really think.

Kobe, I think would have been good, but I also don't think he would have done it.

Kobe was right on that. He was right on the border between social media being something where you're just like, Oh, my God, the next one, and now laying in on AI all the time.

Kobe was also a call whoever out of the blue. He called me out of the blue once. He would do that to everybody.

It's supposed to be practice, Mitch.

Or send you a long email, or he would call, he'd read a piece that... So he was more of a direct to direct, not like in the shadows.

Yeah. I wish Durant would try that. He should just call Jabbari Smith and tell him how he feels about his shot selection.

Here's my one that I definitely think would add a burner account. There's no question. I'm positive he would have had it. I'm as positive as that could be about a theoretical concept of something that's impossible to prove. Will Chamberlain. Will Chamberlain, I was fascinated by him when I did my book. I read all the books that he wrote. I read all the magazine profiles. It was back in the air in the '60s. You would do your first-person magazine piece for Sport magazine or Sports Illustrated, and he would just trash everybody. He would trash his teammates, his coaches. He would blame everybody else. This was one of the main reasons I wrote a whole chapter about Russell overwilt because he... And this is why all the other players didn't like him, that he got traded twice. People would always take shots at him, his rivals. I just I think he absolutely would have been had burner accounts and he would have been like, Bill Russell sucks, man. He has no left hand. It would have been like some Dipper 69. That would have been his account. Dipper 69.

The real 100? Yeah.

He was the most sensitive, always trying to patch his legacy on the fly person that we've had. Kd just loves it. He just loves being in the middle of all this stuff and rolling up his sleeves. So whether this was his account or not, I think what's a little more interesting is that he has enough out there already that people just believe it because it was like, of course, it's him because he did all these other things, too.

I think that there's also like, aren't people basically lining up? There's like, allegedly, This was discovered by the Rockets a little while ago, and that's right around when the Rockets fell off a cliff.

Which leads to next question from geo in New York. Is Kevin Durant becoming the modern day Rick Berry, accomplished player but difficult teammate? I'll take this one first. Rick Berry was really disliked when he played by teammates, and there's a lot of documented evidence that I covered in my book. He was just a very polarizing player in real-time. The interesting thing about Durant, even though if you go back basically to the 2018 Warriors, most of the teams, really every team, except maybe the 22 Nets, felt like there was an unhappiness about them or something sliding sideways. Never really knew what was going on. But you never hear the guys badmouth him. That's the difference. Even the Warriors thing, which got so weird in 2018 and 2019 in a whole bunch of different ways. He had the famous blow up with Draymon in the Cooper game. But those guys, they didn't talk shit about him after. They didn't throw him under the bus. I can't really think of a lot of instance. Even after he left Phoenix, people weren't afterwards. They were like, Yeah, we're just trying to change the identity of the team. They basically just got rid of two guys.

They're like, We're a completely different team now. This is the sons brand we want. But this also wasn't Durant and Bill's fault. What are you trying to say about last year? I never added that up. But I do think people like him. It's really complicated.

I've stopped thinking that I think about NBA players the same way NBA players think about each other. Harden is a really good example where Harden is He normally greeted every team he goes to. It seems like. Teams do love harder. Yeah. Yeah. Just because I have bad feelings about him because of Philly or because Rockets fans might not like him or Brooklyn fans might not like him, ultimately, he's obviously very popular among his coworkers, which probably tells us more than we could ever write or say on a podcast. As far as Durant goes, I wanted to ask you, let's say this goes as bad as it possibly could, hypothetically.

Houston goes in the tank.

Houston Craters. He has a ham string and he's like, I'm done. Eme is like, Fuck this guy. Whatever happens. How many more stops does this guy have on the world tour? At a certain point, I would imagine he's got to stick out a situation that doesn't go right. He's got to be like, This is where I've put down stakes, and I'm here to fix this team. Maybe I made mistakes, but they made mistakes. I don't see him washing up in Charlotte and playing somewhere else next season. Do you?

I thought this Houston stop was going to be the stop. I loved how they were playing the first six weeks, and I really felt like it was the perfect team for him. He was a leader, but they also had a lot of different ways to go. But what you're describing Basically is when do you hit the Chris Paul zone of people are just like, Yeah, we're good. You're not worth it, basically. But with Chris Paul, that happened because he wasn't good enough anymore.

To take on all the other stuff. We're not talking a guy- That is allegedly sitting there. We're not talking about a guy who's like, I can give you 18 serviceable minutes and be a good leader. I mean, Kevin Durant is still an elite player. So it's strange to be in this situation where it's like, Would you rather just get off of this to not make your whole locker room toxic.

Let's say this was true, this burner thing. What's his move if we're his PR team? Just wait for it to go away, pretend it never happened?

I would probably, if I were him, come clean about it just because it's like he's just too online. He's not going to not see the entire internet talking about this. He already responds to people as Kevin Durant. For him to be like, I haven't really been paying attention. I'm going zero dark 30 here. That's not going to fly with people. I'd probably either just be like, Look, it's bullshit. It's not me. If I want to say something on I put my name on it. But yeah, this is just such a mystery to me.

It would be weird if he went on the counter attack and did the... These were private text threads. I'm not going to apologize for them. Do you all Would you all want your private text threads to come out? Yes. I bet you wouldn't. And people are like, Yeah. All right, let's move on. All right, here's from Jared Blank. He had an idea for the NBA lottery. There's a a 15th ping-pong ball, and if that ball is picked as one of the four balls, the team with the first pick now gets the 32nd pick. It's the ping-pong ball death. Would you tank if you knew there was a one in four chance that you'd basically lose your first round pick? Now, I wouldn't do one in four chance ball of death, but it would be interesting if there was a ball of death and it could move you from one to 14. You're just at the end of the ladder if you get it, or you just move to the 10th pick if you get it. It's certainly a more entertaining version of when you're watching the lottery and you're like, Oh, my God, did we just lose our pick?

Wait a second. Maybe we just moved fully 10 picks up, which has happened a couple of times. Again, All of these lottery and taking solutions, I could lose me on the third step of advanced chest, so I'm not sure. But, Jared, I like the idea of Austin Ainge's head exploding. Oh, no.

There's a little skeleton logo on it. They got the ping pong ball in death. This is from Joe on Brisbane, Australia. I thought I'd do a couple of Super Bowl emails for you.

I'm here for you, man. You know how I feel about the Patriots.

Here for me or here for you because you deserve it. Joel said, tough watch. Jake May looked over one by the moment. The Seattle defense reminds me of Draymond Green stealing Jalen Brown's heart in the '22 NBA Finals. We, I guess he's a Celtic fan, weren't ready to win just like Jake May. He knows he what it takes to get there but needs to learn how to win just like the Jays did. I've heard this take before. Do you think there... You're a neutral observer. You hate the Celtics. You don't really care. Do you think there's some positive legacy from that '22 Finals where it's not quite ready yet, got your job punched a couple of times, tasted your own blood. Now you have to come back a couple of years later? Is this a sports thing you would believe in? Because you've had the opposite way where that to the Benzemaids, Joel Embiid, Sixers, and they tasted their own blood. And guess what? They didn't like it.

I think a better example would probably be like, Kurt's losing to Mahomes, the Eagles's losing to the Chiefs, taking out that L, finding out what fine differences there are between winning and losing sometimes because of the penalty that happened at the end of that game and then coming back even stronger. So, yeah, I believe in moral losses sometimes. I got to admit, I hadn't really considered what the Warriors' triumphant Championship really meant to Jalen Brown.

I think those guys... Because game 4, game 5, game 6, those guys were just... It was a heavyweight fight, and they were just in the corner getting violated.

I never wished that you were back on ESPN more than right now and the idea of the warriors win the title, and you're like, I'm just thinking about Jalen Brown and what he's going to do.

You know what's a great example of this? Magic in the '84 Finals. When he really falls apart, and one of his nicknames that he got after that final was Tragic Johnson. But it turned out, it turned out to be the best thing for his career. All of a sudden gave him the eye of the Tiger. It was the Rocky 3 scenario. That's happened a few times with the greats over the years where they get their teeth kicked in, and all that does is make them figure out, How do I get better? There's some cases where the guys get the teeth kicked in and never get the chance to even get back there.

I think that between the impatience of fans in front offices and also the churn of title contenders in any sport, but especially even in the NBA, it's tough. It is interesting that the Celtics have been this good for so long that they can go through that narrative of ups and downs.

This one's really for you. I didn't give you this one either. It's from Marco. What do you think of Super Bowl 60 being known as the It Follows Super Bowl? Sam Darnold, well known for seeing Ghost of the Past. It was obvious during the game, they had been passed on to May. Now we wait to see who May passes them onto in a big game. I love this.

For a second, you meant Sam Darnold and Drake May were both virgins.

Well, they were maybe big game virgins. I like the It Follows concept, though.

Who does Drake May pass the It Follows thing down to? God.

Well, so now that would have to be like, the bangles are good again. I guess Joe Burrow has already been in the Super Bowl. He's already been. Maybe it's Bo Nicks.

Yeah, Bo Nicks is good.

Or Caleb Williams, the Pats on the Bears play next year. Maybe in a big game, Caleb Williams just gets it, goes in a complete fuck. I like the It Follows thing's funny. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Imagine a game. We are on the court solo. No coach, no teammate, no one in the stands, no opponent. It's just you. Stressful, right? Well, sometimes life can feel like that, too. That's when State Farm, that's when they come in. They're on the bench ready to help you find the right coverage when it matters most through an agent online or on the app, State Farm with the assist. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability and eligibility vary by state. This is from Edward. Is industry not enough of a big deal or just the right enough of a big deal? I look forward to this show like nothing since Breaking Bad, but have nobody to talk about it with other than The Watch and Katie Baker's Recaps. Two Ringer plugs.

Thank you for listening.

My girlfriend thinks the show is depraved and none of my friends care. That's from Redbird.

I think for industry fans, we're eating well. This is exactly where we want the show to be, and it actually is building out a future for itself where it can be like anything at once. When you think about where the show started about these probationary finance executives in this training program, and now it's about international espionage, it's pretty incredible. But I totally understand if somebody is just like, there's just too many threesomes on this show and too much ketamine. I think it's right where it needs to be. It's like building towards the future, but it's It still weeds out the squares.

Yeah, just when you think the show is going to calm down, all of a sudden there's a giant strap on Dildo and you're like, Oh, okay, we're doing this again in the first episode. I think this season and last season, I've watched every season. The first time I was fine I enjoyed. I wasn't going to tell my grandkids about them. I thought last season was superb, and I think this season has been otherworldly. Almost to the point I'm starting to go scientology on it with getting mad when people in my life who I know would like it haven't watched it. We're hitting that point with it.

What do you think is the resistance people have to it? Is it the raciness of it or is it the Britishness of it?

What is it? I think people feel like it's not an American show, so it's a strike against it. It's like, Oh, yeah. It's hedge fund show set in England. No, thanks.

Two of the main characters are American. It is pretty easy to access that way.

It doesn't have giant stars.

Sure.

But it's just exceptionally well- acted. I thought the storyline this year.

Harrington is so good this season.

Yeah. Jon Snow from Thrones is in the show in a completely different... Just physically looks different. Everything's about him different. I wrote this down, CR. Well, first of all, is this a Coastal Elite Bubble Show?

Probably.

Is the studio a Coastal Elite Bubble Show?

Definitely. I'm sure that both of those shows probably appeal to anyone, anywhere. Studio is funny. Studio has lots of fun manic gags. And industry has sex and drugs and nail-biting, thrilling moments of corporate and international crime. But I think largely the languages that they're spoken in and the concerns that they have are probably limited to a certain coastal elite, if you think that that's a real thing.

I wrote this down just for you. If you told me in 2011, 15 years ago, that in 2026, LeBron would be playing in the All-Star Game. Trump would be in year two of his second term, you and I would be doing a video podcast on Spotify and Netflix, or there would be a superb HBO show that featured Sally Draper blowing John Snow. What would have blown your mind the most out of those four things?

It would be the latter.

I feel like, you know what?

Lebron takes care of himself.

Yeah. Trump, who knows? Yeah, who knows where this podcast is going to go, but wait, Sally Draper, who cares? I just can't get over it. Oh, wait. I have another tanking question for you.

Okay.

It was a sliding scale with Rookies Choice. I talked about this. This is from Imran in San Francisco. I talked about this with Zack a little bit about could rookies get autonomy with where they go, especially in the high picks. His idea was a scale that slides from 20 million to three, and the athlete can actually just pick what number is the combo with the right team. I think, and this is what I said to Zack, and I've refined a little bit, but if the five worst teams, whoever wins the lottery, or you could just be the bottom five, if it's just a ticket to be in the top five, and then when the first pick comes up. It's like the five teams have decided that they would take Cooper Flag in this spot. Okay, so the Jazz- They send their list. They all send their list. Here's who we would take. It's like, by consensus, Cooper Flag would be the pick here. Cooper, come on up. You could go here, here. You go Sixers, Spurs, Mavericks, Hornets, or Jazz. Your call.

Okay.

Then he just gets to pick.

This is like the voice?

Now it's become Love is Blind, cross with the NBA draft.

It would be amazing if they made the number one pick, like Darren Peterson comes out from behind the wall and he's waiting to see what GM meets him on the carpet.

It's like, oh my God, it's Danny H.

It's Danny H. Cool.

I love Salt Lake City. It'll never happen, but I really like that idea. I got a few questions about this, but Mitchell Epner, who's been in a bunch of mailbags over the years, he called me the media personality who's done the most to dramatize the question of who gets the hammer during the In Memorial segment of the Oscars. You really have. You know what? I'll take credit for that. It's something I've always cared about. I really feel like it's an important thing. He mentioned he sends this before the tragic death of 95-year-old Big Shot Bob DuVall.

Yeah.

He said he sees three incredible choices in order of passing. He's not ranking them. Robert Redford, Diane Keaton, Rob Reiner. Now we have Duval. It sent me a long thing of pros and cons, where it would go. I would have said Redford before the Duval thing. I don't remember we've had four like this in the same Oscars thing. I don't what they do, CR.

Yeah, I mean, you could make an argument for any of the people, the big names that you've mentioned, could get their own- Their own little area. On the show. Yeah. I would argue that that would probably be quite meaningful if every 10, 15, 20 minutes, Konan took a break and was just like, We just want to pay tribute to the work and life of Redford, Keaton, Duval, and Reiner. You could have somebody come talk. You could do a montage. It almost feels like the immemorium is not enough.

That's where I landed as well. If we're doing maybe Redford, it's the last one of all the ones they do. But man, I can't remember four like that.

I just hope that Duval gets the hammer in the last scene is just that guy going, Let me tell you something, my Kraut, Big friend.

Jack Walsh. If you take the two godfathers out, what's your Duval, Mount Rushmore?

I love him in Apocalypse. Now, I love him in Network. A period one that I really enjoy him in is the paper. I'm trying to think of one that's a funky... Oh, the TV film version of Wonsum Dove.

Yeah, so I somehow never saw that. My dad loves it. I might actually bang it out.

He's amazing in it. Him and Tommy Lee, five or six of the best hours you can spend is watching that. It's so good.

I have Apocalypse. Santini has to be on there. That's a once in a decade crazy performance. I really love him in Days of Thunder. I just love that he did the movie. Plus, there's that famous story of him just pitching Tony Scott out for 10 minutes, being furious at him. Then my last one would be Invasion of the Body Stature, which he's in for 10 seconds on a swing in a priest outfit, just being fucking crazy, just for no reason at all. They just throw him in there. This is from Spencer. After listening to Bill and CR talk about Miami Vice to show for years, I finally bought the entire series on Blu-ray. I just finished a season one episode called Home Invaders, about a group of robbers that left Chicago and continued their MO of breaking homes in affluent neighborhoods, blah, blah, blah.

Basically, he, too.

That's his point. He said, Gathering info from one of their members who's a valet at a shopping complex. I thought it sounded familiar, the exact storyline as part of he, too. Michael Mann, Breaking Out the Old Hits. I don't even care because it's so great. Do you care?

I don't care. To love Michael Mann is to love Michael Mann motifs. I was just watching Man Hunter last night with my wife and the great Samurai man staring out over water. Even William Peterson's house in Captiva looks a lot like Neil's house in LA, where it's all blue, very minimal. I think that you go to Mann because he has these recurring themes and recurring bits of information, and he shares them across I think there's connective tissue from Thief to Manhunter to Heat to Collateral. It's actually one of the best parts about loving his movies.

I think you could go through the first season and a half of Miami Vice and probably pull 10 movies out of there. The Bruce Willis episode, 100% a movie. The Great McCarthy episode, 100% a movie. Lombard, that Dennis Farina character, the mob boss, you could have easily turned that into a two-hour or something. There are two two-hour movies in Miami Vice in the first season. That's right. You just keep going and going.

What are we just going to do it? Which one? What are we just going to say, Fuck it and just do a rewatch of it?

Of the entire first season? Yeah. Are you throwing this out of me?

This summer, should we just say, Fuck it?

They just do 20 minutes an episode? Yeah. Well, we did called our revenge on rewatchables. I do get the email from time to time, people wondering why we haven't done the pilot.

That would also be a rewatchable to me.

Which peaks with... I mean, there's a couple of great moments, but it does peak with Tubs dancing with his buttons open to Rockwell, somebody watching me in a strip joint.

Is it streaming right now? I don't think it is.

No, it is. I think it's on Pluto and Paramount. But you can bang these out. They'll have sales on Fandango, and it's like 99 for the series. I know. I started doing that. I did it. I I banged it out. I just was like, I'm taking this down. I'm going to have to think about that.

Just putting it out there.

Maybe we'll have America vote on this and top five tanking. John S. Wants to know, is Taylor I was Sheridan, basically, white Tyler Perry? I checked with Van and Van had some thoughts.

What were Van's thoughts?

I want to know that. Van had some thoughts. Van was like, We've talked about this. I was like, I don't know if we had. Here's the thing. I think both of them are creating content driven toward certain bases/pieces of turf that are available. Sheridan, we talked about earlier with the coastal loop bubble, Sheridan's like, There's like 45 states out here that are underserved. I'm just going to make shows for them. But I actually do think I wouldn't say it's like, these aren't all white shows. There's a lot of stuff going on. They definitely veered toward conservative. I didn't watch Lioness, but said Lioness got super conservative at one point.

I think there are ways in which- I think there are ways in which- I think there are ways in which- Had a couple of moments. Yeah.

But in general, I don't think Tyler Perry could have written Sicaria. That's my answer. Okay.

I would I'd love to see a big dinner party with all the characters from Perry and Sheridan just hanging out.

Maybe they should just do a movie where they just merge worlds.

Yes. Mediah's Lioness.

Speaking of rewatchables, this is from Garrett from Ohio. I am listening to the Center of a Woman, Rewatchable. Craig, producer Craig, asked, Who is more important to the pod, meaning the Rewatchables, Cruz or Pacino. This made me think, if the rewatchables is the NBA, Cruz is LeBron and Pacino is Steph Curry, he keeps going. It's mostly believed Steph influenced the league more, although LeBron went to and won more titles and is the better overall player. By the way, they win the same amount of titles. Cruz has made more appearances and probably won more movies, but Pacino has shaped the podcast more. Vincent Hannah is like Steph's long pull-up three in OKC in 2016. The League and the Pod are in the spots they are today because of it. It's from Garrett from Ohio. I think he's right that Pacino probably means more to the pod, even though Cruise has been in more movies.

Yeah, I think that I get more I get out of bad Pacino movies than I get out of bad Cruise movies, of which there aren't that many. But for instance, I'd rather watch The Devil's Own than Oblivion. I just really think that Al Pacino represents what I love about taking a big swing on a piece of shit and trying something when you're playing the devil. He's just Tom Cruise every time. You know what I mean? He fits himself into certain things and you can watch him in Eyes Wide Shut and you can watch him Mission Impossible. It's consistency there. I guess that is LeBron. I think this is a good metaphor.

Yeah, the LeBron-Cruise thing is a pretty good combo. When you think about just reliable year after year, sometimes they'll take a swing at something. Cruise will be like, Fuck it, I'll do this Stanley Kubrick movie in London for a year and a half. Lebron is like, I'm going to try to go back to Cleveland and I'll get them to trade for Kevin Love. We'll see how this works.

When's the last time you watch Eyes Wide Shut? Just out of curiosity.

You watched it last weekend, right? We did it for a rewatch was a while ago. Now it is this movie that it was number 12 on iTunes.

It was a canary in the coal nine movie now.

Well, Tubi was running it. I saw, too, that it was most popular on Tubi. People are revisiting it based on certain real-life things. Did you learn anything this time around?

I think that it just is one of those movies that it could be another hour longer and I would not blink. It just could go on forever. I think it's just also one of the great movies to read about after you get done a watch is to go on and just go through every single symbol, every single frame that it's like, look, you put a pentagram behind him, and you're just like, holy shit, did he? It's just one of the great texts, but obviously pretty relevant now.

Yeah, my son watched... He'd already seen The Shining a million times, but then he watched 2001, and then he watched Full Metal Jacket, and he was with his friends. It was like a four-day weekend. He's like, Which Kubrick movie should we watch? I was like, Full Metal Jacket. Then the next day, he came back because they were all sleeping in somebody's house. He came back and he was like, Yo. I was like, You liked it? He was just like, Hey, Joker. I was like, You liked it, didn't you? He was like, What an amazing movie.

Was he doing Dinafrio? Yeah, okay.

I looked for the rewatch and was like, Couldn't I'm in a world of shit. I was like, How have you not done rewatching? I haven't done that yet? He's really into it. So on Sunday, we watched Room to 37, which I think is in the running for one of the best documentaries in the past 20 years for me. Amazing stuff. It's just the craziest documentary.

But you don't want to do Eyes Wide with him. Too uncomfortable.

With Ben?

Yeah.

My wife and I talked about it because he wanted to watch it with us, and we were like, We're good. There's There's still some lines we don't want to cross with you. Eyes Wide Shut might be one. Maybe solo that one or watch with your girlfriend, but we're going to pass. Oh, my God. But yeah, Room 337. I don't know how they pulled it off where they just take all these people who's in. You can find it basically anywhere, but all these different people who interpret different things about the shining. I actually think this would be a good rewatchable. This is the Room 237, or it would just be a good segment because there's a couple of guys where I'm like, the Calumet Cans guy. I'm like, this is pretty good. He does only put it in the background twice. This has to mean something.

The thing that everybody is obsessed with is the final scene of Eyes Wide Shut.

Oh, yeah.

And whether Helena looks back.

Because they gave their kid away.

Or she's We did a pretty close second spectrum watch of that the other night.

Here's the thing with Kubrick. By all accounts, just an amazing preparation guy. Even in room 2, They talked about how he went to the hotel that he was gone in for three months and just checked out every part of it. Everything that's in the shining, the carpet, the fact that the boss that goes to see about the job, he's got a window in his office. There's no way there would be a window in that part of the hotel. It's like everything happens for a reason. But then you could also go, maybe Kubrick was just old and he just didn't realize that that room should have a window. It's like, I don't think so. I think he really did think about every aspect of this.

I fully think he thought about every single thing. But it's funny because when you're watching Eyes Wide Shut and you're like, this feels so otherworldly, it's because he rebuilt New York City for the on English downstages. He did it detail perfect to where the newspaper boxes would be. You're like, What was he trying to say? It's like, Well, he also hated flying, so he didn't want to shoot New York. I guess it's It can be both.

Yeah, eyes wide shut, you could say he's trying to tell us all the stuff that we're now finding out about in the Epstein files. Or he just wanted to make a movie about a fucked up marriage and what would happen if something went sideways. Who knows? Somebody named CP, didn't give his full name, asked if he's too late on the potential of a month long theme month called the re Whackables and suggested two Moon Junction in Tarzan. I thought with Bo Derek, I thought I'd leave you with that one. I rejected Rewackables. I think that could be the end of the podcast. I had no comment. We're not going to do Rewackables. Oh, my God. But yeah, that's it. That's all I have for you, CR. How are you feeling about the Sixers heading into the end of the All-Star break?

Well, I'm glad we're not Houston.

Good to see you. Oh, by the way, last thing before we go. I told you this yesterday. March is going to be CR month on the rewatch. It really is.

What made you do this? Just like it's time, finally, you were worried about my wandering- No, it was time.

No, there's a couple of movies that we were doing, and it's going to kick off on March second. On Netflix, we're going to do a live Sicario. I won't spoil the other movies, but we're going live Sicario, Me, You, and Fantasy on March second.

It doesn't feel real. I'm not going to believe until we're actually live.

Are you going to be nervous for this? Is this going to be more nerve-wracking than a live show?

I've been trading for this my whole life.

Live Sicario on March second. All right, Ciar, good to see you. Thanks.

We're going to keep going on the mailbag with Joe House, who's here. Hello, Joe House. Hey. Highlighting a huge opportunity on FanDuel through March first. We talked about our NBA Futures at the beginning of the season. Had some good ones, had some bad ones. Right now, your Futures pick could actually land you at the NBA Finals. Just use your profit boost on any eligible NBA Futures selection, you're automatically entered for a chance to win a trip for two to the Finals plus NBA Store credit. We're going to talk about a couple over-unders that we love. We also love the Charlotte Hornets for the division. There are a couple of games behind Orlando, but that's still in the 4: 1 range house, and I don't really fully understand it.

Well, they have a little bit of a difficult schedule. Sure. They have to jump over the heat as well, don't they?

Yeah, they have to jump over both of them. But right now, it is Orlando's 28 and 25, Miami is 29 and 27, and Charlotte's 26 and 29. So 27 games left, they'd have to make up four losses, basically. I I actually think that's 4 to 1. I think that's relatively reasonable to me. Anyway, we're about to talk about a bunch of these in one second. It's a perfect time to lock in those predictions, potentially secure your seat at the NBA Finals. Head to Fandil Sportsbook. Place your PBT wager before March first. Fandil, play your game. All right, house, we're going to do a mailbag in a second. But I talked about over-unders. So the season comes back on Thursday. And you and me and Sal and Hentjian spend a bunch of time trying to figure out bets we made. You guys do a stuff, which I'm not allowed to bet on. But we did wonder, the Cooper flag rookie of the era did seem really high, considering I don't trust if Dallas is going to shut them down. On FanDuel, there's some teams that have tanking potential. You can't even find the over-unders. I sent you eight, and I want to go through the three honorable mention for me for over-unders, just for win totals.

And then the five I like. But these three stood out to me. Charlotte, who is 26 and 29. Their under is 42 and a half. They basically have to go 16 and 11 or worse to basically go 42 and 40 or worse. 17 and 10 beats the over-under. My question for you, house, is 17 and 10. That seems high for Charlotte. I was looking at just the last 25 games in the league, the only team that went 18 and seven was Detroit. Five teams had 17 wins or 16 wins. We just have more parity. Seventy 17 and 10, I just think it's going to be hard, but I also don't want to bet against Charlotte, so I think it's a stay away.

Yeah, I like the idea of staying away. I think the number is fine at 42. So the under makes sense to me. 41, 42 feels like the right number. But we don't want to bet the under. Right. That's the karma. And we already have cash in pocket with a beautiful over for Charlotte this season. So let's keep the karma headed in the right direction.

Golden State is 29 and 26. Their over-under is 43 and a half. If you go over, that means they only have to go 15 and 12 the rest of the way. It looks like the Metta Porzingas back. I think it's a stay away just because I don't trust them from a health standpoint. But I also don't think they're going to tank.

I'm violently opposed to Golden State success. I'm heavily invested in them missing the playoffs. I don't think that they have any rational incentive to to bust ass through the balance of this season. The mileage on Steph, you can't get it back. So the right thing to do is to get to the end of the season, try and over the course of the summer, figure out how you're going to be competitive next year. Is there something that can be done with Jimmy Butler over the course of the summer and go from there?

I agree. It's a stay away. And I also think this next one is a stay away, but I thought the number was intriguing. The Lakers right now are 33 and 21. The over-under for them was 48 and a half, which means they would have to go 16 and 11 down the stretch to go over. The only reason I mentioned that is because I think the Lakers are the hardest record team to figure out, where you catch them on the wrong night and then they just suck. You're just like, What is this team? And it almost feels like two losses, but it's only one loss. And then they'll have other games where they suck for three quarters, and then they just have Luka and LeBron on their team, and they just figure it out down the stretch. I find it hard to believe they're not going to go 16 or 11, but I also don't want to bet on it.

They're an under for me. Their schedule is backloaded to take advantage of the fact that they become a primetime team in these Saturday games, these Amazon Prime games, these NBC games. Lebron is not playing in any back to backs.

Oh, that's a good point, too.

Their strength of schedule is inside the top 10 in terms of what they have to face over the balance of this season.

We'll stay away. 15 and 12 would be under for them. Okay, here are the five I like. Cleveland. Right now, 34 and 21, the over is 52 and a half. They would have to go 19 and 8 over their last 27 games. Last 25 games house, they're 18 and 7, fifth in net. They added Harden, they added Schroeder. I really like the Harden thing. They haven't been healthy all year. I think, to me, that's a 60 plus win team, especially with Harden, the fact that he's durable and they could have somebody take a night off and he could just run the offense. Everything could run through him. They'd have to go 19 and 8 to beat that over and under. I like it. I like the, I'm over for them.

I like it, too. The crazy thing is with the 18 and 7 over their last 25 and then us projecting them out to win basically another 20 games. That's them playing at a 70 % win percentage north of that, which they just did. Over the last 25 games, 72 % win percentage, but they have to hold in and at that level. Now, I think the way that they reinforce their depth, the obviously hardened and what that means in terms of taking off load for Mitchell. But more importantly, Schroeder backup, competent guy, guy that can consume minutes. And the Ellis piece of this is super underrated. We're barely scratch the surface of what Ellis is going to be for them. I think that they are loaded and their schedule is great. They get Brooklyn twice, they get Dallas twice, they have the Bucks twice, and then all of the bums, Chicago, the Pelicans, the Whizz, the Pacers, Utah. I really like the way that Cleveland's lined up here.

All right. Cleveland over 52 and a half That's first. Second one, CR and I talked about Houston and the KD burner scandal earlier. Bernergate, Berner files. Houston's 33 and 20. Their over-under is 51 and a half. Eighteen and eleven or worse hits the under. I love the Under. I just think they're a different team with Adams out, and they haven't had Van Biet all year. And Adams with Schengen was their superpower. Talked about this with Zack on Sunday. That's gone. I don't know what injury risk they can afford either at this point. They have some weird off-the-court stuff. They're in a harder conference. There's less teams throwing games away in that conference. Just in general, 18, 11, 17, 12, 16, and 13, I feel like they're in there, and I'm under house.

Yeah, it's a strong under for me. I said on this program, I think it was this program- You said it three weeks ago. I love them under 53 and a half. That number ticked down to 52 and a half, and now it's sitting at 51 and a half, and it's still an under. In addition to the points that you just made, Kevin Durant is third in the NBA in minutes per game. That is not sustainable. That does not make any sense. That's not a path to success as you enter this playoff run. And the reason that he is in that position is because they can't score at the end of games. They really, really miss Dylan Brooks. Think about that. But it's FVV and Dylan Brooks both missing. The perimeter scoring just isn't there.

There's some tough Schengen stats. Thompson can't shoot at all. Teams aren't even guarding him anymore. I don't want to cross them off because I still think they might be a bitch to play in the playoffs, but I think for a regular season, hard under. Next one, I'm a hard over for. Minnesota is 34 and 22. Their over is 49 and a half, which means 16 and 10 hits it. And notice, Houston has 29 games left. Cleveland has 27. Everybody has 27, 28, 29 left. Minnesota only has 26. Schedule is spread out. They got to soon new. They, I think, have underachieved a little bit at 34 and 22 anyway. I like the team. I like the durability of the team. And 16 and 10, with also them trying to get into the top four, which is another piece with them because you get top four, you get to host home courts. So I have this marked down as Minnesota over.

I am right there with you. They are jumping over Houston in my lineup there. I don't count the Lakers as a top 14, but for the reasons I just mentioned. So Minnesota into that top four makes sense. They're incented. And the thing that is the remains to be seen, two pieces. Anthony Edwards reminding us on a national stage that he is that dude. And Minnesota does get a bunch of primetime games down through the balance of this schedule. And I think that AO acquisition is just going to be... We're going to really feel it.

I love it so much. And somehow they got Mike Conley back with the most obscure rule I've never heard of in my life, that if you trade a guy and then he gets traded a second team and waved, you get him back. Who knew that was a rule?

That's a rule?

I thought if you traded a guy, we weren't able to get him back for the rest of the year. Now it's like, if you trade him and trade him again, I get him back?

That was insane. Nobody wants him. Nobody wants him. He has a home in Minnesota.

I may do this. I may do you and Sal and Hinch this. If you do a West final four right now, who are going to be the four West semifinal teams. If you win, okay, see Denver, San Antonio, Minnesota, that's plus 652. And I think that's way too high. I think that's one of the best bets on the board because I think that's the top four. So somebody's going to have to beat them not having game seven at home. We've seen the higher seed. Somebody will blow it. We saw it last year with Cleveland. We saw Milwaukee a couple of years ago. It's not like it doesn't happen, but I just think that's going to be the final four.

Those are the four best teams in the West as we sit here today.

The only thing would be... Like, Minnesota-Lakers, if that's the four or five, I think it's just terrible outcome for the Lakers.

They cook the Lakers. That's a nightmare. We just watched this last year. It's a 4-1 at best for the Lakers.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

They win one game.

With the Lakers over and under, I was almost wondering, would they try to tank to get to the six just to get away from Minnesota? All right, next one. Two more. Nicks, 35 and 20 right now. Over his 52 and a half, and they'd have to go 18 and nine the rest of the way in 27 games. Some of the same stuff you have in the East with a bunch of teams. I love the Alvarados thing when it happened. I thought he was one of the best stealth guys to get at the deadline. I wanted the Celtics to get him. You could already feel how different they look with him. They have a better bench. I just feel like they're going to take off. It's weird to say you would like the overs for both the Knicks and Cleveland, but I think by the end of the year, it's going to be a top three with those three, and I like the over.

It makes sense. It's what their prior is lined up. And we took overs for both Cleveland and the Knicks at the outside of the season. I had the Knicks getting the 53 or 54 wins this season, and I had Cleveland in the 58 win category. And so the fact that they had the hiccups that they had regular season-wise, but now they're poised. They have the rosters lined up, especially Cleveland, depth-wise. We just need Ogie to get more healthy than not. If we get Ogie, if you tell me Ogie is going to play 75 % of these Knicks games down the stretch, then I love it.

So the last one, I just had to look on Fando again to make sure the odds didn't change because I can't believe this one.

It's an insane number.

I'm stupified by it. Orlando is 28 and 25 right now. Their over-under is 45 and a half wins, which means they would have to go 18 and 11 to be over. If you get 17 and 12 or worse and you win the under, 16 and 13, 15 and 14 house, last 25 games, they had the 24th net rating They have not passed the eye test all year. It is not once. It has looked like a team that has had something wrong with them for four months. I don't know what's going to change. And I have no idea why anyone would think they're going to go 18 or 11. I thought this was insane.

I said not once. They did beat the Knicks in Masson Square Garden. Right.

And we were like, Oh, maybe here comes Orlando. And then they lost to somebody shitty, like two days later.

What's the Franz forecast? That's the most important thing for this.

When does he come back?

Yes. Will he come back?

Put it this way. This number has it built in that he's coming back. So if he doesn't come back, that helps the number.

No, this is a huge under for me. This team, offensively, has been one of the most dysfunctional in the entire NBA, which is so weird to say because the Bane acquisition was successful. And the emergence of Black, he's really effing good. And Palo has numbers, but they're empty calories for some reason. They still have two games against Cleveland, two games against Detroit, two games against Minnesota, Oklahoma City, and Boston. Give me the under, baby.

I honestly, I keep checking it to try to understand what's happening. All right, so we're over Cleveland, 52. 5, under Houston, 51. 5, over Minnesota, 49. 5, over next 52. 5, and under Orlando, 45. 5. I think those are five good ones. We're going to take one more break, come back, and do the rest of the mailback. Now it's time for the Paradox Playbook presented by Pepsi. Have you heard about the Pepsi Paradox? It's this idea that when labels and bias disappear in blind taste tests, 66% of people in last year's Pepsi challenge preferred the taste of Pepsi zero sugar over Coca-Cola zero sugar. Well, if your favorite team had that winning percentage, they would almost always make the playoffs, right? Which got me thinking, sports is full of paradoxes like this. You see this every year, especially in the NBA. The NBA season is so long. We always see a team that we don't really take seriously. Around the 50 game mark. I remember this happened with the 2022 Celtics, '25 and '25. You just forget about them. And yet every year, there's that one late bloomer. It happens in the NFL, too. And there was the Celtics, the Mavericks, the year Luca made the finals with them.

And as you're looking at the NBA season this year, just look around the landscape. Who hasn't peaked yet? Who might peak? It doesn't make a lot of sense. You would think the good teams would reveal themselves before Christmas, but sometimes that doesn't happen. That's the paradox. Well, let me ask you this question. Are you picking the zero sugar cola that you actually prefer, or are you settling for the label that you think you prefer? Go out and try Pepsi zero sugar today. Let your taste decide. All right, house, have some good mailback questions. I tried to not give you any of the tanking ones. This is a long email from somebody named Marco P in British Columbia.

Oh, Canada.

It's one of the One of our interesting theories I've gotten in a while, and I can't wait to read it to you as a fellow lover of NBA history. He says, I don't think you can win a title with your best player resting. If your best player plays less than 60 games, you cannot win a ring. I pulled that number straight out of my ass. Then I went through the last 45 years of NBA history. Apparently, my ass has great aim. Now, he mentions the 21 Bucks Championship. Giannis played 61, but there was a post-COVID, it was a 72 game season. So cross that off. Yeah. 2019, Raptors, Kawhi played '60 games. Then he writes, That's it. Since 1980, no other team won a ring if their best player played less than '60 games. Why do I bring this up? I have Wemby in the rookie draft by fantasy League. He's a five-year keeper. I'm increasingly realizing I'll never win with him. My theory is you can't win a title with your best player playing under 60 is that the team develops chemistry and identity without your star. When he comes back, the action is halting and awkward, especially in the playoffs.

Then he says, Yes, I'm aware. Curry played 51 in the 2018 Championship, but we all know who the best player was on that team. Shots fired, but also not wrong.

Love that.

So he says, Unless you're a historical super team with 1A, 1B options like Curry and Durant, you cannot let your best player miss more than a quarter of his games. You cannot afford to rest them. That's what history says. So I went back further and I looked at everything basically since Bill Russell. The most anyone missed was Bill Walton in 1977. He played 65 games, missed 17. Is there something to this? We have Basically, the only outlier we've ever had is this completely insane 2019 Raptors title, which I want to go in with you in a second. Other than that, we've never seen it happen otherwise with resting in a title. Why is that?

I'm shocked that you took the time to go investigate even further and really test this. It feels self-evident to me. I don't mean to be Captain obvious here. Yeah. Yeah. Playing 70% of the games feels pretty effing important to me with your best player for the reasons that the author of the email shares.

But have you ever heard somebody mention this in the Discord? Where it's like, if you don't play this guy enough, history says you actually won't win the title. I've never heard anyone say that before.

Here's what's annoying and depressing and disappointing. We're only talking about it because of the last five years of the effing NBA. I know. The arrival of load management and the arrival of the guys looking for opportunities, the teams looking for opportunities to rest their players. And then you can't have the combination of load management and injury, which is basically the last five years of Kawhi Leonard. This is why Kawhi with the Clippers is a complete bust.

So the 2019 Raptors, legitimate title they won, and I actually I ended up really liking that team. I respect the title. It's also an incredible outlier, right? Where you had LeBron goes to the West that year, Cleveland blows up. Celtics have all that talent. Gordon Hayward comes back, second year of Kyrie, Brown, Tatum, they blow up for whatever reason. Giannis is a year away, not quite there yet. Lakers are a year away from getting AD. Houston and Golden State are probably the two best teams. Houston can't get by Golden State, even though KD is hurt. And Golden State loses KD in the playoffs. Then we get to the finals and KD comes back and blows out as Achilles in game five, followed by Clay Thompson blowing out as ACL during a hot streak in the third quarter of game six. Now, you could say this was how five-year little NBA dynasties are supposed to end. It's too much wear and tear. It's all that. It was an iconic Kauai playoff. Fred Bain in the finals, had a just insane heat check. Curry stunk in game six, but partly because he was the only guy they had to guard, they threw everything on him.

He was exhausted. He was every other game, Curry at that point.

We've seen it with the '89 Lakers, the '87 Celtics, the '04 Lakers. We've seen these great teams at the tail-end, they can't sustain it. The Raps had a great player. They had luck from injury, no injuries. Seven really good guys, all who could create their own shot, and a couple of wild card heat checks, and they deserve to win. With that said, I still can't believe what happened to the Warriors, and I almost think of them first when I think of that, playoffs, right? It's like, what are the odds? Kd and Klay are going to go down in the playoffs? That was fucking insane.

Yes. I mean, it's the only thing I can think of that's in the neighborhood. I'm probably missing something obvious, but I think of Isaiah Thomas.

Yeah, right of the angle.

Yeah. Against the Lakers.

Yeah, that's a really good one.

And what impact that had.

So that brings us, by the way, with Kauai, they also had that game seven against Philly with the crazy shot in the corner. And that game is nuts when you go back and actually look at that game. Kauai took 39 shots in that game. Vanvleet was in an absolute shooting coma. Nobody else stepped up. I think maybe Abaka stepped up, and Kauai just basically carried everybody. That leads to our next question. What Boston sports moment would you compare the game seven Halliburton injury to? We were so close yet to quote Dan Campbell, it may have been our only shot. I am a fan of the 26, 27 NBA champion, Indiana Pacers. Corbin H wrote that. There's no Boston sports moment. The only one would be if When braided blew out his ACL, that happened in the Patsh Giants Super Bowl. There's no way to compare it to game seven, your best player gets hurt as you have the lead in the first half. I think the only one you can compare it to is that, Isiah again. Because same situation situation that when he sprains his ankle in game 6 against the Lakers, comes back, they almost win, and it gets pulled away from them at the end, and then he's too hurt to really do anything in game 7.

Detroit had never won the title before, like Indiana. That's the only one I can think of where it's like, wow, if that didn't happen, we might have won.

I'm more disappointed in you taking the bait of picking one that asks about a Boston sports moment and relates it to- That scene was just trying to get the mailbag. Come on. I understand that. He's smart.

He was well played by him.

The crass pandering. It was well played. You bite down hook line and sinker on it.

I was trying to think, what would be the other game that was like this anywhere? You need the best part in the team going down. I think it would have to be a team that's never won. That rules out Katie and Quay going down and back to back gears. You have to go to sports movies. You have to go to Pele and victory getting hurt. Even he came back and tied the game. The Halliburton thing is like, What? It's over here. Not to make it seem like it's comedy, but it's so fucking crazy that that happened. I can't wrap my head around it still. All right. I didn't want to throw a bunch of tanking things at you, but I really like this idea from nick and Nebraska, and I think you're the perfect guy to mention this.

nick and Nebraska.

nick and Nebraska. No relation to nick Iida. He talked about college football, play-up bracket, and how committee gets in a room and proclaims the rankings. Rankings. The committee says, Here are the rankings from 1 through 12. There's a narrative. They buy into it. Good wins and good losses matter, he writes. The draft lottery has been a breeding ground for conspiracies. Like Ken Lung in industry, you go straight to the problem. Determine the draft order by a committee that makes the order based on who deserves what pick. It incentivizes the best behavior. Karma becomes a real thing. Think of the content. Now, I don't think they're going to do that, but it did inspire an idea that I want to throw at you.

Okay.

So I think we have a thousand and one ping pong combos for the lottery. All right. I think that's what it is.

Great.

Whatever it is. I think it's a thousand. What if we had a karma rankings committee? I was doing the lottery karma rankings every year. Where I was like, who actually deserves the number one pick based on how they handle their business during the season? Did they have bad luck with injuries? Is it their fault they're in this situation? Did they conduct themselves with grace and competitiveness and sportsmanship? If we had a karma rankings committee and we put another 250 balls in the lottery, and we had a committee and they actually voted 150 balls to first place, 75 for second, and 25 for third place, and those balls just went in the lottery. Would you like that? Extra balls. Extra balls with committee and stuff to argue about and content for us.

I really feel like you're baiting me right now because of what happened last Last year with, I won't curse, the Dallas Mavericks, the least deserving team in the history of the NBA draft, in the history of the NBA lottery.

Nobody had- They would have had balls taken away. They would have lost 100 balls in this. They should have had no balls.

They should have been unix.

So my thought was 250 balls go in, 150 for first place, 75 second, 25 third. But we also vote on on two teams that should lose balls.

Yeah, now we're talking.

We take away 150 balls. Takes them away. 100 from the first place and 50 for second place. So if we voted right now for the karma, for I want to give these guys more lottery balls. They deserve them. Indiana has to be the first choice.

Why? Why do they have to be first?

They've had a ton of injuries. Have you watched them? They still give a shit. They're trying to win some of these games. Now they do.

They went on a strategy match there. As soon as Matherin went out, they went on an all-time, all-tank. I mean, it was Mcconnell was hurt, I know, but the Matherin thing- That was their best guy in a game seven last year.

Well, I would vote for them first. So who would you vote for first?

Washington, obviously. I had them second.

But Washington, I think, has handled the season with relative dignity.

They've tried to compete within reason, and it's a super young team. And they've given some veterans an opportunity to go out and distinguish themselves. Maybe Marvin Bagby III will get another contract out of the fact that he showed decent for Washington, now got traded.

Now it's Dallas killing it for them. So I'd have them second. I would actually, Milwaukee, I would give 25 extra ping-pong balls. None of this was their fault. They traded. They amnestyed whatever they did with Dame Lillard. They tried to get Miles Turner.

You don't think that's their fault? The extraordinarily poor front office management.

Yeah, but they weren't in the title with what they did, though. They're in this position partly because they did that Drew holiday trade and then did the Dame trade because they were constantly trying to actually compete.

The Dame trade turned out to be an act of desperation that didn't pay off, but you want to reward them for taking the swing, the big swing.

Listen, is there a guy available who can hoop, who might have some personal issues? They welcome them in Milwaukee. It's like, Nobody wants Kim Thomas. We'll take him. I like- They're going to win the game. I would go Indiana, Washington, Milwaukee. Your order would be Washington, Indiana, and who?

I would have said Charlotte, but too good.

Yeah, Charlotte That's too good. They're not going to be in a lottery. You only have two boats. Then for the takeaway pingpongs, Utah has to be number one.

I honestly think that... I'm sorry. I would reward the Pelicans, maybe. I don't think the Pelicans- Yeah, because it's almost like a You feel bad because of Joe Dumont giving their pick away?

Yes. But the thing is you reward them, and then that pick just goes to somebody else. That's a great point. So you're rewarding Atlanta. Atlanta is like, Please reward us.

Atlanta gets even more.

So if you're taking the balls away, Utah would be my number one pick to be penalized here.

Well, they have to be because they did the most dishonorable thing at exactly the wrong time. The true mistake for Utah, they can compete. They can win on lots of nights. I love your idea of this threshold wins, 27 wins. This Utah team is in the mix. They have enough talent to compete for mid 20s wins all the way up to potentially- Oh, I think they could be in the 30s.

I think they could do what Portland did Where at least they could go 32 and 50 if they really went for it. With Kessler out.

I mean, the West is tough and Kessler is out. I think 27 is secretly a great number. But their true mistake is the whole sports world is about to shift its attention away from football. So you can't do the open and notorious tank right as we're all starting to pay attention. You go straight from a cousin, Sal, you're crying in your hot water. That's right here. The cousin is mostly kind to you about it.

The cousin was terrible to me. A lot of people mentioning. People are asking if we're okay.

He was terrible. I think he was fine. But that was the Sunday pod. And then the Tuesday pod is you losing your mind with nick Wright, entirely appropriate, entirely deserved- About Adam Silver. And the bum ass Utah Jazz, because the Bumass Utah Jazz did that thing right before the... The whole league is going to be together for the All-Star break. Why would you do it right before the All-Star break?

I like when they were the owner who we actually like, but the owner was like, Hey, we won the game. What did we do wrong? We're getting fined for winning a game. It's like, come on. I like the idea of taking ping pong balls away, and I would love the chance to vote on that. I'd like to volunteer both of us to be in the voting committee if they wanted to do this.

Yeah, I volunteer.

Honestly, Instead of all the taking ideas, I think this is my single favorite of karma ping pong balls one way or the other as a way to just ding people that don't behave properly. There's no better way to do it. Just slap you on the hand. Quin G from Denver. You're really the perfect person for this question. He sold this from Twitter, he says, but was curious in your thoughts. He's calling it the Palo Theory. The idea that drafting a good, not great player with a top pick is more detrimental than drafting a bust because said players are likely to be overcommitted by cap resources, especially on the second contract. It's almost a branch of the Ewing theory, right? Who's lived this more than you?

Yeah.

I mean, you had John Wall and Bradley Bill.

Well, Bradley Bill wasn't the number one overall pick. He was a third pick.

No, but I just like the idea of a top pick, like a top...

A top five pick.

Bradley Bill is third pick. Yeah, that's what I mean. Like a top three, top five pick that then gets a giant contract. Second contract, because the team doesn't 100% have a choice. Sorry. Sorry to bring up some bad memories.

I I mean, we've said this however many times on this pod, the single biggest sin you can commit in the previous iteration of the NBA and the current iteration is to play a superstar or a very good player like he's a super duper star. That's the thing that hurts you more than anything. That's why we have a worst contracts draft on this program.

I would name the theory after Zack Levine, personally. Sure. And I would open it up so it's not just top pick, but it's that conundrum that these teams get into where it's like, well... And I've been... You can go through all the podcasts I've done and everything I've written. This has been one that I've been, slam my fist down every time. I would just never do it. I would never pay the non-superstar, superstar money. There's no track record of this ever working. Find me the player where this was a good idea for it. It does not exist.

It's terrible. It does not exist. Can't find one.

Josh from Dallas writes, None of my four kids have ever been a big basketball fan. I'm a huge Mavs fan. Yesterday, my 10-year-old son came downstairs, said, Hey, dad, can we watch the dunk contest? I was a little dumbfounded. Here were the highlights. My 10-year-old, who are these guys? Is LeBron in this? My 15-year-old, after Keisha Johnson missed his attempts but danced. Why is he dancing? That was bad. My 10-year-old later, why aren't any of the Thunder doing this. My eight-year-old moaning after Carter Bryant missed his final dunk. This is so boring. They then asked me why none of the good players were in it. Meaning players they know and hear about at school. I was mad at the NBA. The dunk contest offended me. Josh from Dallas. So you I have a 15-year-old kid who is right in the dunk contest wheelhouse. I think was 15 when the dunk contest came. Maybe I was 14 in 1984. You were 15. It was easily one of the most exciting things that happened that year for me. Not a lot of girls for either of us back then.

No, not at that age. No.

But it was just like, Oh, my God. Now, all these years later, I think it comes down to, how do you get kids to watch something where they don't know any of the players? Did James house watch the dunk contest?

No, no. And I would not for one second, suggest to him. He's doing whatever he's doing online with his crew. You know what would have gotten his attention and what we would have watched is Max McClung. Mcclung would have been going for his fourth. Mcclung is an Internet sensation. His reputation preceded him. It was a stroke of genius for the league to leverage into a cult hero, an Internet cult hero, and have him available for it. We have to find those guys. Find the interesting stories. I mean, with all due respect to the competitors that gave it a go this year, that was the least compelling, the least interesting. The only reason to watch it at all is to send the snarky-ass jokes that we send back and forth to each other.

Also, no more centers, please.

There's a way to do it. No.

But raise the rim. Make it the 12-foot rim.

No. If the guys are incented, a couple of times over the last couple of weeks, you guys, you and maybe nick and maybe Zack, all the dunks have been done. I disagree with that. All the dunks have not been done. When you get the real elevated competition, that Zack Levine, Aaron Gordon competition, they're variations, right? But there was some genuine innovation, but passing it underneath the butt with the leg straight out that Aaron Gordon did. I'll never forget that. That's up there for me in terms of a wild dunk that I don't feel like I'd seen before. And McClung, because of his size and the way that the ferocity of that, those are Those are unique dunks. Those belong to him, and those withstand the test of time, in my opinion.

So you want a wild card, a traditional dunker in there, even if it was somebody who's not in the NBA or the G League?

That would It's going to be fine. Yes. Somebody that resonates with the culture. I don't know who that is. Now, I haven't been watching. Yeah, we're too old. N1 isn't out there.

You only know what resonates with golf. Like your guy, Anthony Kim, when he did a live tour action.

That was amazing. I stayed up till 145 in the morning East Coast watching Anthony Kim.

A reader named Kyle proposes a new category for the Trade Value List, the Missing Peace overpay for borderline All-stars and elite role players who would theoretically be the missing piece for a title team. Some examples, Zubats of the Pacers, Bane of the Magic, Gober of the Wolves, holiday of the Bucks, and Mikael Bridges. I like this. This almost should be its own category.

It should, yes.

For four teams in the league, these guys are worth 40% more than for everybody else. I got to figure out how to factor that in. Doug K from Brooklyn wants to know why we count All-Star selections, either for guys who got voted and didn't play or the guys that were the placements. He says, Seriously, in 10 years, we're going to look back and say, Wow, Brandon Ingram was an all-star in 2026. Wouldn't It would be useful to know that he was the fourth fucking replacement? No, he wasn't better than Yannis that year. That's from Doug K. Brooklyn. I stand by this. When I look by... I actually agree with Doug. When I look at the basketball references and you look at the All-Star games he played, there's no context for replacement players.

I don't know- You can look that up. It's knowable.

It's knowable, but hard to find out.

This doesn't bother me as much because when you're evaluating... It bothers me. But you think about it in the context as the true NBA historian that you are, you're looking for benchmarks. And one of the benchmarks is all-star appearances. And it's okay. You're not looking singularly at one all-star appearance that has an asterisk next to it because that tells you what a player that you would remember. If Brandon Ingram only makes one all-star game, then you're going to know that that was the context.

So you wouldn't give him an asterisk. Okay. Did you like my idea for at the end of the All-Star game, they vote for the top five guys who gave the most shits? Sponsored by State Farm?

I don't know. It feels like we could get a little more on the nose with Dude Wipes. I bet Dude Wipes could be a good sponsor for that.

I was thinking because Zack and I went right after the All-Star Game. I think what really worked was that the first three quarters, there was a crunch to shine at the end of every quarter. We might have said that during the pod, I don't remember. But that having the dopamine of, Oh, shit, there's two minutes left. Oh, this is... I felt like you could see it in the game. You could feel it. The guys, all of a sudden, it felt like basketball. I know you enjoyed it as well.

I did. It reminded me of how well the All-Star game, was it in the bubble or after the bubble when we had the Elam ending?

Oh, yeah.

They played hard as fuck. That was within the last half a decade. That game also shared the giving a shit attribute.

Edmund Johnson said, I saw this on Reddit, so I can't take credit for it, but what are your thoughts? And I swear he uses your team here. If the Washington Wizards were able to have one normal person, a non-MBA player on their roster who is able to wield a metal bat, could they win the this season? Please note the standard foul flagrant rules would apply, aka an attack by the bat to someone without the ball would still result in shots after the bonus, etc. Hope to hear your thoughts. Go Wolves. That's from Evan Johnson.

I hope to hear your thoughts. This is murder ball. Why do we have to do the Wizards? A normal person with a bat, a normal person isn't going to be able to really wreak any havoc. You need a... Washington Nationals are very available.

Cousin Sal has a bat and he's in a Wizards' jersey.

Cousin Sal is not a normal person.

And he's just going around with the bat, trying to... What would you... You try to take out legs, right? I feel like they would win the title. I would pick them to win the title. Yeah.

You got knees and ankles. What the problem is that a normal person can't keep up. And who's to say, are the players prohibited from killing the normal person? You can't put a normal person on a basketball.

He didn't have the rules.

On a court, a regular person trying to move at the speed that those guys move at, they may be dead.

No, he said, Please note the standard foul, flagrant foul rules would still apply. Oh, good.

It was a flagrant, too.

So if you hit somebody with the bat, you're out, and then would you get suspended? I think you would probably get suspended, probably more than Isaiah Stuart got. So you really only get to do it once.

You would save it. I don't think that the percentage of success would be so low. The guys are such good athletes, and a normal person is just a normal person. There's no way that a normal person could go out with a bat and hit a player in a way that to cause... It would be just sheer dumb luck. You can't keep up. Also, the players would just beat the shit out of you and take the bat and beat you over the head with it. That's what I would expect. A normal person with a bat. Oh, guess what happens? Even a bum, even Kalele Ware would take the bat and beat the dude over the head.

So you tried in game one of the finals. You'd probably say back guy, so we're going to get suspended for the season. Yeah, you'd immediately go after the best part on the other team. Back guy gets suspended, but now you've removed the guy from the team.

As soon as you took a step towards them. Imagine if the Pistons were in the finals, what would B. Steu do? What would Duren do? What would Holland do? Let Holland. Holland would go murder this person.

See, in this scenario, I think back guy would probably be on the Pistons. I think he would fit in with that team.

Bad guy.

Robert McNamara asked, Adrian Peterson, Big Ben, and Antonio Brown all become Hall of Fame eligible next year. That got me thinking, The Purge, Hall of Fame edition. Every 10 years, voters just ignore morality and vote in all the assholes. How to deal with baseball story there is solved. Tell Gronk to wait here and think about how pissed Belichick and Kraft would be getting in with The Purge class. So much spite. I love this. In the seventh year of every decade, it's a purge Hall of Fame, and it's like, Here we go. Bonds, Clemens, come on down. I really like this idea. It's one of the best ones in a while. Me, too. Huge sums up. Tuvia writes in, Thanks for bringing back the mailbag. Now my younger kids will know what's happening when they hear laughter from the bathroom. Peace and blessings. I was begging bathrooms once upon a time.

He's pretty well. Phones go into bathrooms.

Yeah. All right.

I saw this on the internet that if you go into the bathroom without your phone, it's like taking a '90s shit.

All right, two more. We got to end with some goofy ones because that's how the mailbag usually goes. Kevin Dodson writes, If your penis was an NBA player, who would you want it to be and who is it really? I think most of us want to be an undeniable force like Yannis when we're probably just Reid Sheppard. I don't really have an answer for this one.

It's true. Thanks. I want to be Darryl Dawkins.

Breaking backwards.

You know it.

Leo, Joe from Austin, Texas, and France writes in, Bill, I have two words from you. Minority divorce. Think minority report, but the precogs anticipate divorce. Think about how easy it would be if married couples could agree on separation and splitting stuff before it becomes a big mess. The cops and lawyers show up even as you're getting ready to get married and they say, You should end the relationship amicably by February ninth. Otherwise, it'll be a mess. Picture the faces of the spouse being dumbfounded. It's a half baked idea, of course, but you know how this pitch works. Minority divorce, the sequel to Minority Report. They just come in and just blow up relationships.

Half baked. Well, they wouldn't, but they know the relationship has a ticking time bomb. Precox. That's the element of it, right?

Would the precogs be better to say crime or divorce? I don't know. It's a tough one.

But the two are linked.

Oh, good point. Anything else to cover before we go? You got to drive your son to a basketball game. The middle bag is back. It's really good. We got a guy in the Wizards hitting people with the middle bag.

You didn't answer which player your penis would be.

I I got to think about it more. I like the Darryl Dawkins. Yeah, you'd want to be like, wouldn't you want to be Will Chamberlain, the Big Dipper?

Yeah, well, that's a very, very strong one. Shaq feels good.

Any golf things for us to think about as we head toward what golf season right now?

It's Riviera. We just went from Pebble Beach. An amazing weekend at Pebble Beach. Colin Morkawa wins for the first time on US soil in four and a half years. To Riviera in your backyard, I gave out on the FanDuel Sportsbook on the Fairway Roll and Golf Podcast program on Netflix as well, a parlay of Rory McElroy and Scottie Scheffler to finish inside the top five, available right now at +475 because the heart wants what the heart wants, I want to see Rory McElroy and Scottie Scheffler going head to head down the stretch Sunday afternoon in your backyard and let all of America watch it prime time in LA. It's going to be awesome.

That sounds great. And as you mentioned, Fairway Rolling, available on Netflix now. You can watch it as a video on Netflix or Spotify. Haas, great to see you as always.

Always my pleasure.

All right. Thanks to CR and Haas and Gehao and Eduardo. Don't forget, new rewatchables went up on Monday Night GoldenEye. You can watch the movie on Netflix, then watch the rewatchables on Netflix or watch it wherever you get your podcast, including Spotify. Next week, Crazy Steeple Love. That is also on Netflix. So stay tuned for that one as we count the days down until CR month. I can't wait. I'm going to be back Thursday, I think. Pretty sure with one more podcast. If not, I'll see you Sunday. Must be 21 plus in President Select States for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus in President DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-Gambler. Or visit rg-help. Com. Call 888-79-7777 or visit ccpg. Org/chat-in-connect or md-gamblinghelp. Org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gambling helpline ma. Org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts, or call 877-8 Hope, NY, or text Hope, NY, in New York, for Louisiana. Call 877-770-7867.