Transcript of The NBA’s Danger Cycle, Plus Usyk Is Invincible, ‘Landman’ Can’t Lose, and Chalamet Will Win the Oscar With Chris Mannix and Chris Ryan

Coming up, talking NBA Cup and the state of the NBA, boxing, land man, Timothy Chalamet. This is a great podcast. Let's all next. We're also brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network where I put up a new rewatchables last night. Chris Ryan and I did The Gambler, a a movie that came out 10 years ago with Mark Wahlberg, 1 of our favorite gambling movies, a really kinda deep fun movie to talk about and make fun of and also appreciate.

So you can watch that on the Ringer movies YouTube channel as well. Next week on the rewatchables, I think from next week is the 1st week we're going to be video pod on Spotify for the rewatchables. So you can watch it on our YouTube channel on ringer movies, but more importantly, you could watch it on Spotify as you're listening to it. You can just see our beautiful faces. So stay tuned for that.

On this podcast, I'm gonna start at the top with, some thoughts about the NBA Cup, the final game, and also the state of the NBA because it's been a big topic lately, and I have I have some big picture thoughts about that. Chris Mannix joined us to talk about, just the Jimmy Butler trade buzz in Vegas and some other, NBA topics. And then, really, I had him on to talk about boxing because we have a big card this weekend. My guy Usyk is fighting Fury, the rematch, so we're gonna talk about that and some of the big heavyweight fights coming up. And then last but not least, CR, Chris Ryan.

We did a couple things in studio yesterday that I taped for this podcast. 1 is about, Landman, which is my favorite TV show of the decade, just hands down. Succession really started last decade, so I could say my favorite new show of this decade. And then, we talked about Timothee Chalamet and the Bob Dylan movie and Chalamet's chances to win an Oscar. What should he do next?

And more importantly, why hasn't he come on my fucking podcast yet? So we're gonna hit all that. First, our friends from Projek. Alright. I am taping this after the NBA Cup final in Vegas.

The Milwaukee Bucks, they destroyed the Oklahoma City Thunder who could not hit a shot. It happens. They looked young. They looked a little nervous. They looked like a team of young guys from Oklahoma City who had just spent the last 5 days in Las Vegas.

They looked like a team that, didn't realize they were at the adult table where Giannis was sitting, who proceeded to, unleash holy hell on them, which he's been doing basically for over a month now. I think the last 16 games, he's something like 34, 15, and 7. He doesn't shoot threes anymore, which I think, you know, not like he was jacking up 10 a game, but he was always shooting 3. He, you know, would always kinda test it out, but now he's just like, I'm gonna be early 2000 Shaq cross to Spider Man. And I think he's as I'm recording this, he's plus 600 for MVP on FanDuel, and and, you know, he's closed the gap with him and Jokic as great as Jokic has been.

But Waki seems like a real contender. OKC still seems like a contender. This is the league now. If you don't make threes, you know, you're probably not gonna win if you're shooting 35 to 50 threes a game. If they're not going in, you don't have a chance, which ties into a bigger theme with what's going on with basketball right now.

The last couple weeks have been peak people asking me what's going on with the NBA. And, you know, part of it is the ratings because everyone loves to talk about ratings even though the NBA just signed a $76,000,000,000 deal, and the ratings don't ultimately really matter. It's an American thing more than a worldwide thing because the league's doing well globally. But when you look at big picture, what's going on with the league, you know, LeBron and Curry, they're old. They're making desperate changes.

They just changed the all star game again. They're they just did the NBA Cup in Vegas. Too many foreign stars. That's another thing you keep hearing. The schedule is too long.

Been saying that for 20 years. We can't find any under 30 American superstars to carry the torch from LeBron and Curry. That's a valid thing. Too many threes. Too much sameness in the game.

Can't really counter that. Too woke. The league's too woke. It's driven off a lot of, a lot of possible fans. I'm not touching that 1.

It's an American problem, and it's not a worldwide problem. Because, again, worldwide, internationally, the league is doing really well. But it's an American problem. And yet, the franchise values are the highest it's ever been. They just got the highest meteorites deal they've ever gotten.

They have, I would say, 35 to 40 completely recognizable stars, whereas football might have 10. So it's not like this is a disaster, but this is what we do with the NBA. We love to panic. We love to talk about how things are bad. And it's a little like what how what SNL was like, where everybody's like, SNL's dead.

SNL's done. And then guess what? SNL's gonna have its 50th year. This is an American problem, and this is 8 decades of a recurring theme that I would call the NBA is in danger, that we're now living through again in December 2024. I wanna go backwards.

I wanna go through 8 decades of NBA history to show that for the most part, this is a league that's kind of always a little bit in danger. Like, football dating back to the John Unitas beating the Giants in the late fifties, the the greatest game ever played to that point. Football has always been solid. 50, 60, seventies, Super Bowl, the merger. It's just been going and going.

The only time I ever remember people even wondering what the future of football is gonna be like, and I was 1 of the ones wondering, was the early 2000 tens with concussions, Goodell. We had to add a bunch of stuff with Gates after it. It seemed like they had to change the way the football was being played because it was too violent. And there was a moment there where it was like, where's football? Are you gonna let your sons play play football?

Are we gonna be watching this in 20 years? And guess what? COVID happened, and everybody was like, you know what? I love football. And now football feels like it's the biggest it's ever been.

If you're talking about basketball, it's always been on the line of being in danger. So you go back to the forties and fifties, the first 15 years of the league. They the league by by the time we got to 1954, the league was in complete chaos. The pace was too slow. There was no shot clock.

People were just fouling each other, trying to dribble at the clock. George Mikan was dominating everything, and the league kinda sucked. And then they came up with a shot clock. That fixed some of it. It was still really violent.

It was a lot like hockey back then. There wasn't nearly enough scoring. They had a big betting scandal that would that was a a big thing. There were barely any black players kind of a problem. All the best black players were playing for the Harlem Globetrotters, other places because they wouldn't let them in the league.

And when you think back to where the NBA was, even in the mid fifties when Russell showed up, it was regional. Everything was in the East Coast or like the, you know, like the Pennsylvania area, the fringes of the Midwest. There were no West Coast teams. And the NFL was bigger. College football and college basketball were bigger.

Baseball was bigger. Boxing, horse racing, name a sport. It was probably dead even with hockey. Get to the sixties, Russell's in there, we start finally getting some black stars, we get Elgin Baylor, we get Oscar, we get Wilt Chamberlain, and the sixties becomes, you know, Wilt versus Russell, Celtics dominance. It's still not going awesome.

We still don't have, like, a definitive, the league is fine moment. And at the same time, this is 1 of the most tumultuous decades in American history. There's a whole civil rights battle happening. There's assassinations all over the place, and, you know, a a league that's becoming a mostly black league had had a pretty strange fit among all of that, especially as Russell is becoming 1 of the dominant athletes we've ever had and a huge spokesman along with Ollie and Jim Brown and some others. So the league is is gaining steam from an impact standpoint, but it still hasn't hit the popular piece yet.

And then we have our first unicorn situation. There's 5 unicorn situations total, and I want you to remember this because we're gonna tie it back in at the end. So this first unicorn situation, the 1969 finals, which turned out to be Russell's last NBA finals, he's going for his 11th title. They're underdogs against the Lakers. We finally have a California team.

We have Jerry West and Wilt Chamberlain and Elgin Baylor, and the Lakers are favored to win game 7 in LA. Russell beats them, and it turns out to be, like, the first great modern NBA finals game that we had. The next year, the Knicks, everyone in New York is, like, so delighted the Knicks are finally good at basketball. Like, the Celtics are gone. They have a chance to win the title.

1970 finals, Willis gets hurt, comes back game 7, becomes 1 of the most famous games in NBA history. Also, Will kinda chokes. So we have that. Kareem enters the league that same year, and then in 1971, he wins the title. He's the most ballyhoo ballyhooed college player, to that point, to somebody that's considered to be a successor to Russell and Wilt.

So he's in the league. And then the next year, 71, 72, the Lakers went 33 straight. Jerry West finally wins the title. So you have this 4 year unicorn run, all these crazy events, and it propels the league up a level. And all of a sudden now, the NBA is is looking really good.

Well, we have to go back to the danger zone again. From 1973 to 1976, they overexpand. They make the classic mistake of they just add too many teams. The ABA has formed and is stealing a lot of the young players. So all of a sudden, the quality of the play is starting to go down.

The quality of officiating is starting to go down. ABC loses the NBA to CBS because CBS kinda double crosses Roone Arledge, who's the most important sports executive probably of all time. And Roone Arledge is pissed and decides to counter program the living shit out of the NBA. College football, college college basketball, Wide World of Sports, the superstars competition, and he just makes it his life's mission to set the NBA backwards. There's a salary boom that happens where you're all of a sudden you have, some guys that aren't doing that well who are making a lot of money and everyone's really aware of it.

Sydney Wicks, Pete Maravich, Spencer Haywood. So there's animosity toward basketball players for the first time. The Knicks and Lakers are are are done at that point by the time we get to the mid seventies. And they have the the future of the league, or so we would have thought on paper, doctor Jay, Julius Erving, he's in the ABA. He's not even on television.

So the NBA not only is getting older with some of their older stars like, you know, Havlicek, Jerry West, all all the guys from previous generation, Oscar. But Doc, the guy who's supposed to come in and carry the league with Kareem, is in the wrong league and not on TV. And I'm a young kid in Boston. I would have loved watching Doctor J, not on TV. So, again, we're in danger, and then what happens?

19 we have a second unicorn situation. The 1976 finals. Havocic and Cowan's on Boston, 2 of the most famous guys in the league. They're playing Phoenix, triple overtime game. I was lucky enough to be at the game with my dad.

I was 6 years old. I might have slept through the Q4 in the first 2 overtimes. But, it turns out to be the greatest game in the history of the league. Celtics win the title. The NBA is back.

The ABA merges into the NBA that summer. All of a sudden, we have doctor j, David Thompson, George Gervin, George McGinnis, all the Moses Malone, all these guys are now in the NBA, and the NBA is 22 teams and stacked, and it's awesome. And that leads to Kareem jumping to Kareem's already in LA. Walton's on the blazers. The blazers take off that year.

And it's a late run. Second half of the year into the playoffs, they beat the beat Kareem. Then a beating doctor j in Philly in the finals. Bill Walton, turns out maybe he's the next Bill Russell. Everybody's in love with the guy.

He's got the beard. He's takes the jersey off after they win. So this is unicorn number 2 situation. 76 finals, 77 finals. Basketball seems like it's in the best shape that it's been in maybe ever.

What happens? We go back to the danger zone, the late seventies into the early eighties. Wong gets hurt the next year. It never really recovers, and I I I it would be like when Badama won the title this year and then just got hurt, and we didn't see him for 6 years. The cocaine era happens.

And the cocaine, that's hitting all the sports, that's hitting Hollywood, that's hitting the comedy circles. Cocaine starts to wipe out pretty much everybody starting in 1978, and it does some real damage to the NBA and cut short some careers, changes the course of some careers, some young stars that they're counting on go sideways. So you have that. You have the Kermit Washington punch in late 1977 or that 77, 78 season where he punches Rudy Tomjanovich, a white guy, and all this ugly stuff surfaces up. All the casual racism that people felt toward, you know, a mostly black league being being catered and sold to mostly white fans, that all pops up.

And this crazy 2 year run of of you can go back and read some of the old Sports Illustrated things about the league's too black, that it's never gonna work. And it's just it it fucking goes crazy in a bad, bad, bad way. In a way that even as a little kid, I was kinda noticing the way they were talking about it. It was not great. We had the dumb owner Apex back then.

This is when basically anybody could buy an NBA team, and you just had these dumb like, the Celtics for a year had John White Brown. He was terrible. Just dumb owners, making dumb trades, not trying to build anything. So the teams that are just in constant chaos, you have the dumb commissioner Apex too, Larry O'Brien, who is awful. David Stern comes in and looks a 100 times better compared to him a few years later.

You have CBS fucking up the playoffs either do tape delay in the prime time games or making the NBA schedule weekend playoff games so that you're playing game 3 and game 4 of a series back to back days so they they could care less about the health of the players. They really didn't wanna show the NBA because it wasn't doing that well. So you had that. You had college hoops, the NFL, baseball, NHL boxing, college football, and horse racing are all more popular in the NBA by the end of the seventies because they have the Washington Seattle finals twice a row, which is great basketball finals, but not exactly a a marquee finals. And all of it is eventually captured in Breaks of the Game by David Halberstein, the best sports book of all time that comes out, I think, in 82.

But the NBA, like, they're like, the Lakers play the sixers, I think, in 82 and 83. And some of those games weren't even on live television. They weren't on until 11:30 on the East Coast. That's how bad it was for the NBA. So I'm gonna say a little more dangerous than right now.

Leading to our 3rd unicorn situation, the 1984 finals. We had Bird and Magic in the league for a while. They don't play against each other in the finals even though they have this great rivalry dating back to 79 when college basketball was way bigger in the NBA. Bird and Magic play each other during the same year as CBS is like, you know what? We're showing all of these finals games live now.

We're gonna show them in prime time. We're gonna really try to get behind the league, and they get Bird and Magic. They get a 7 game series. They get 1 of the great series in the history of the week. That happens.

They have Michael Jordan on the Olympic team that summer coming into the league on the Chicago Bulls, the 3rd biggest market they have. MJ happens, and then we're off. We get David Stern. We get cable. We have USA and ESPN by that point.

So as as a little kid on the east coast, all of a sudden I'm able, I couldn't see George Gervin and David Thompson or whoever in the seventies, unless I went to the Boston garden to see them. Now in the eighties, I can just pop on cable. I can see Dominique Wilkins. I could see Isaiah Thomas. I could see Adrian Danley.

Whoever I want, I can see. I could see Magic Johnson on the other coast. So that's happening. They're figuring out how to brand stuff better. And once MJ really gets going with the Bulls, the NBA takes off.

We get the NBA fantastic commercials. And we have this incredible unicorn 15 year run. Bird versus Magic. Jordan, 6 titles. We have the Riley Knicks and Hakeem and Barkley and Isaiah's Pistons, the Blazers, Sean Kemp and GP, Stockton and Malone.

I didn't really like watching them that much, but I'm gonna throw them in anyway. On and on and on it went, and it was the watershed time to ever be a basketball fan. It was the most talent concentrated into 1 area. Everyone's playing super hard. The league was the most fun, I would say, in the late eighties, early nineties, and it just keep Jordan retires.

They're fine because the Knicks make it that year. Jordan comes back. It becomes the biggest story, really, of anything other than maybe the decision with LeBron. Jordan wins 3 straight titles in row and the bulls, including the 72 win bulls, and the NBA just goes it's just arrow pointing up. All of it's captured in the last dance.

Well, what happens? We hit the danger zone again. MJ retires. Right after he retires, lockout. No basketball for 6, 7 months.

People are pissed because these guys are making so much money. The the young guys are able to switch teams 3, 4 years. Everyone starts getting mad. All the ugly casual racism stuff starts, like, percolating a little bit again. It's like as hip cult hip hop culture infected the NBA.

Stern puts in a dress code. Wasn't great. Not great times. Well, what happens? We don't have an MJ successor.

Grant Hill, KG, Tim Duncan, C Webb, Iverson, Shaq. We're an MJ successors. And then, 2,000, Kobe and Shaq. So we have Shaq and Kobe together. We kinda know something's happening with Kobe.

And in the 2000 season, that's unicorn number 4. Shaq and Kobe. Shaq fouls out of game 4 of the finals. Kobe comes in, puts on the Superman cape, wins the game. They end up winning the title.

This is after they escaped against Portland the previous round. And now we have this crazy Kobe and Shaq run. That was, like, real drama, real theater. They were great. The 2,001 Laker team is probably 1 of the 2 best teams of the century.

As of that's happening, a phenom named LeBron James is in high school. He's gonna be in the 2003 draft with Carmelo and some others, and the league looks great from 2,000 to 2,003. That is our unicorn number 4 moment, Shaq and Kobe ending up on the same team in Los Angeles, California on the Lakers. Couldn't have worked out better. Well, we immediately hit the danger zone again in 2003.

We have the Kobe, incident and the trial. Not great. We have the 2003 and 2004 finals, which were rock fights, and ESPN classic and NBA TV hardware classics, I think, are banned from showing any of those games. Defense got too good. The game got too physical.

We had Kobe and Shaq falling apart. The game slowed down. The pace slowed down, to the point that after 2004 season, they had to add all these rule changes and these other, you know, legal defense stuff just to try to quicken stuff up again. And you had a league that was built around Tim Duncan. I think he's 1 of the 7 best players of all time.

Didn't really resonate with people like he should have. Dirk Nowitzki, German. KG, mostly stuck on bad teams except for o 4. CWB, Dwayne Wade, angry Kobe, young LeBron on crappy Cavs teams. It was grim.

And I I if you remember, like, when I was writing for page 2 back when my fingers worked, I used to have a joke about how I was 1 of the last 20 NBA fans. And the joke was that the NBA kinda sucks now, but I still love it. And I this was a gimmick that I would do because we were in real danger with the league, culminating in the 06 finals where we had the referee controversy with Dallas and Miami. And, we've all agreed not to talk about the 2006 finals. Then the 2007 finals where the east was, like, in such bad shape, LeBron ends up making the finals.

He's a heroic performance by him with with just an awful Cavs team that I think would be a 14 seed if we had them in in the season now. So things are grim. Things are bad. There's a lot of what's wrong. You can go back and search for my column archives, multiple what's wrong with the NBA com.

What happens? Well, unicorn number 5 situation happens, 2008 to 2019. In short order, we get the probably illegal Pau Gasol trade where the Lakers just steal Pau Gasol, and that nobody even else knows he's available. Thanks again to Chris Wallace for creating the 2nd mini Kobe dynasty. Gasol and the Lakers.

Now the Lakers are a contender. KG's already been traded to Boston. Now Boston's a contender. All of a sudden, we have Celtics Lakers in 2,008, and we're off, baby. We're back.

We have, we Kobe Kobe loses in 08, but wins the next 2 finals. Celtics are in there in 2010 against them. After 2010, LeBron, who can't get it done with Cleveland, the decision. Probably the single biggest off the court NBA moment that we've had other than MJ retiring. The decision.

He changes teams. People lose their fucking minds. Goes to Miami. Also, we have Miami, LeBron. We have aging, but still fun Kobe on a contender Lakers.

Aging, but still fun Celtics. A bunch of great young players coming up like KD and Russ on the Thunder. It's just going and going and going. And then what happens? Curry and the warriors show up.

Curry reinvents basketball. He's hitting threes from all over the place with Klay Thompson. They have their little run. This goes all the way through 2019. 2019 finals is the tipping point.

Durant gets hurt, Klay gets hurt, that Warriors dynasty ends. Durant, we lose we lose a year at his prime. We lose a whole year of Curry's prime with the Warriors, really 2 years. But that that was our last unicorn stretch, 2008 to 2019. And then what happens?

We're in danger again starting in 2020. The bubble. The bubble ends this really fun NBA season we're having where LeBron and the Lakers, Kawhi and the Clippers, Giannis is on his way up, Jokic is on his way up, Embiid's on his way up, Tatum and Brown are on Boston, and it just feels like, and then boom. The bubble, weird. The the player movement becomes out of control.

It just feels like every year, guys are switching teams. It starts to feel a little more like, NBA 2 k. Load management becomes a bigger story. The schedule's too long. We all hate it.

They won't do anything about it. The 3 point stuff just gets worse and worse and worse. Now we're at, like, we have the Celtics shooting over 50 threes. So there's a sameness to a lot of the games that I think a lot of people are down on. I would encourage people to go back and watch some of the terrible post ups in the eighties nineties and see if you still don't don't, like threes.

But there's definitely a Curry effect with how the game is being played. The foreign stars are now all the best under 30 guys, and this is a league that dating back to Hakim, who was just 1 of the best parts I've ever seen in my life, but he wasn't from here. And he never resonated like an American guy. Now we have Jokic, and Giannis and Luca and Embiid and Wenby and maybe even SGA if he can bounce back and from from the terrible NBA Cup and, and become, you know, a real guy this year, maybe take OKC to the finals. Those are 6 6 guys that aren't from here, and we're talking about when is next star.

This is a league that's so beholden to the LeBron Curry Durant era, and seems so afraid to pass the torch to the under 30 guys. You could see with the TV schedule. OKC is in on TV this year less than the Lakers, less than the Warriors because they keep feeding us LeBron and Curry. You watch ESPN. You you know, all the all the content they're doing on 1st take and on the NBA today, it's always Lakers, Lakers, Lakers.

Like, they're playing the hits, and it's coming at the expense of trying to build up these these new stars, which we even saw in the Olympics. I love the Olympics. I thought I thought LeBron and Curry and Durant watching those guys, like, fend off Serbia and France. Like, that was amazing stuff. But it did come at the expense of the next generation of guys who kinda needed a moment like that.

You know? And I think this league is if there if there's a criticism that I think is valid, it's it's pushing these guys that have kinda already had their moment that were already great and trying to extract more great moments from them when there's probably not a lot of greatness left versus rolling the dice with some of the new guys, which is, you know, I I see why they do it, but at the same time, like, they gotta be pushing the younger guys more. And at the same time, like, you have somebody like Edwards who is such a unique and original guy, and then he shows up for this season. He's shooting 12 threes a game, and he's starting to look like everybody else I'm watching. So there's a sameness to the new guys, and then you have somebody like Jokic, who is really bird and magic trapped in a Serbian 7 foot doughy body, but he's not from here.

And for whatever reason, he doesn't cook with fans, I don't think, the way he should. So my point, big picture, is that we've had 5 unicorn moments, and now we're due for a 6th. And this league has been around for 8 decades. And every time a unicorn moment, we're not even in the in the middle of 1 or we don't have 1 coming, everybody thinks the NBA is in trouble. They're in danger.

It's over. This is just the DNA of the league and here's what's gonna happen. There's gonna be some new new player that comes in some new team, some new event. It's gonna shift this. And all of a sudden we'll be like, oh.

You know? It's it's like when we did the Vince McMahon documentary, triple h had this great quote about, when he was talking about with when, when Stone Cold and Vince and that whole era, and he was like, I felt it's like an earthquake. It's like, did I feel that? Did did something move? And you just kinda know from a narrative standpoint something has moved.

And that's what the NBA needs right now. I don't know what that's gonna be, but I'm gonna bet on the 80 year history of the league and the fact that internationally, it's fine. This is an American problem. People are losing interest in America because they can, you know, watch 4th quarters of games in the NBA app. They could follow it like what Derek Thompson said on my podcast.

You could follow the league without really watching it. So the ratings are down, but I'm not sure the interest is down. What they're missing, ironically, is is what women's college basketball with the WNBA had, where Caitlyn became somebody that people just wanted to watch. They just wanted to watch her games. Didn't care who she was playing.

Didn't care what the stakes were. They wanted to watch her. And that's why I think you could really make the case. She's more valuable than anyone in the NBA has because she's the only must watch basketball player right now other than the old guys in the NBA. So they have to figure out what is their unicorn moment.

But my prediction is that it's the NBA. It's been 80 years. It's looked bleak before. They always bounce back. This is the league we have chosen.

We're gonna take a break, and we are going to come back with Chris Mannix. FanDuel wants you to win even bigger this NFL Thursday night. Right now, all customers can get a 30% catch a pass profit boost on the Thursday night football game. That means you can boost your NFL catch a pass bet by 30%, take home even more winnings during the game, bet on over under spreads, player props, and so much more. Plus, if you win, you'll get paid instantly.

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See terms for both offers at sports book.fando.com. Gambit problem called 1 800gamble or visit rgdashhelp.com. Alright. Chris Mannix is here. You can read him on Sports Illustrated.

You can listen to his, excellent boxing pod. He's got a basketball pod too. He's in Vegas. We're we're taping this before the NBA Cup tonight. So we're gonna avoid that.

You really came on to talk boxing. I'm gonna save that. I'm gonna put that over. Just quickly some basketball stuff because you've been in Vegas for a couple days. What's the big buzz?

What are what's what are what are all the kids talking about?

Well, the NBA really wants you to care about the NBA Cup. That that's for sure. K. We'll see how much that sticks. But but, really, you know, when you talk to people, with different teams, the the buzz nowadays is is Jimmy Butler.

Right? And and and what exactly is gonna happen down there in Miami? It's it's pretty clear at this point that there'll be a few teams that express some level of interest in Jimmy Butler. And now I think the question is, what kind of motivation does Miami have to to do a deal here? Like, Miami's playing some pretty good basketball.

Jimmy just went for 35 the other night, and and we know the heat when they they just believe when they get to the playoffs, they can beat anybody, and they've got a decent track record of of well, well, they they in 2022, they did. Right? Like, they got

It's not happening this year. Yeah.

Probably not. No. I I I don't agree with you. And if you look at their roster, like, Jimmy doesn't fit the timeline. Like, everybody, including Bam Adebayo, is 27 and younger.

So you figure the Heat will would have to get motivated to do a deal. The question is when who's gonna be on the table? What kind of offers are are there? That's really kind of the most interesting thing, I think, in the league right now.

So I watched the Q4 in OT of the game last night against Detroit that they ended up losing in OT. He was incredible in that game. I think he had, like, a 35, 19, and 12, something like that. But we looked like playoff Jimmy was really trying hard. That team has a weird identity issue with with Hero, who's been excellent.

And it seems like over and over again at the end of games, it's just these Hero 27 footers or Butler. Bam's not involved really at all. And, it's just it's just a weird team to watch. It's not a team that's gonna win 4 straight playoff rounds. But it seems like to me, we've seen this go a couple different ways with the guy who maybe doesn't wanna be there anymore, he's got, you know, he's gonna be afraid at the end of the year, maybe he's not he's not happy the team didn't give him an extension.

He seems like he's moved toward the, I'm actually mad I didn't get the extension, and now I'm leaving after the year. I'm gonna show everybody how awesome I I am. And to me, I I said this on the pod the other day. Houston's the team. And you watch Houston.

You were you there for the NBA Cup semifinals?

I I I was not at that game. No. But I I do think, Bill, Houston, they they doth protest too much about how they're gonna keep this team together. Right? Like, every time you you see, like, a quote from Rafael Stone or some reporting coming out of Houston, it's we wanna keep this team together and and see what it has.

And I get that. I I understand wanting to see how a young team fits over 82 games, how a young team plays in the postseason, and kinda using that as as a data point to to build off of. But if you have a chance to supercharge your your roster with a a defensive minded veteran that would fit in pretty well, I think, in Ime Udoka's system and his culture, I think you've got to at least take a swing.

Well and and the other big part is an end of the game guy, which they don't have. They you really feel it. Like, they have no chance in an OKC playoff series. They're just not gonna be able to get shots they want. OKC just strangled them.

You know, it's like we're gonna talk boxing later. It was like watching the boxer who just doesn't let the other guy breathe, and the guy just is trapped in the corner against the ropes just just trying to hang on. That's how I felt watching them offensively. Shangun is probably the safest bet. No.

I don't trust any of their perimeter guys. And they don't have that 1 guy who's, like, alright. 1 point game, 3 minutes left, like, kinda take us home. They go to Fred VanVleet. I don't trust Jalen Green at all.

Like, you go on down the line. But I like a lot of their players and I do think they have an identity, and what's interesting is he fits in with the identity so perfectly. So I was saying a couple days ago about Butler with Rozier, and then Van Vliet's expirings in there, and you load it with, you know, guys to make that they have a bunch of expirings to make it work, and then they have picks. And for Miami, it's just a reboot. They get cap space this summer.

Nobody has cap space this summer. It's 1 of the crazy things, like Yeah. Yeah. And and 1 other team. Right?

It's like Washington or say, there's I think there's only 2 teams with 30,000,000 and up. Miami could rig this so all of a sudden, they could have the most cap space and be. To me, it's a reboot destination. All of a sudden next year, they're a different team and a little more dangerous, and we've seen them do this multiple times in the last 20 years. Right?

Where it seems bleak, then all of a sudden they're they're back. So I'm working under the assumption they're trading them. You don't think they would possibly think that they could beat the the Celtics and the cavaliers and the OKC? I I just can't believe they would think that.

I think they could they probably think they could be competitive with Cleveland, because there are things you can exploit against the Cavs in a 7 game series. They they can't believe they're on Boston's level. They're they're not. And and that's really the bar. Right?

Like Yeah. They they could look. As of right now, today, they could extend Jimmy Butler. They can give him 2 years, buck 13. Like, you you've got to think till June 30th to do that if you really wanted to.

They don't want to. They you know, he's he's 35 years old, and no matter how he's playing right now, like, the idea of attacking 2 more years on to to that option year, it it doesn't make any sense to them. And I get that. Like, how many teams over the last 12 months have handed out extensions they wish they didn't? Right?

Like, Denver and Jamal Murray. The sixers and Joel Embiid even. Like, you don't Even that that's

a number an extension debate.

I was trying to be nice. I was trying to be nice. Like Embiid at least has, like, an MVP track record. Murray had never even been an all star. Like, he was coming off that absolute crap of a of a Olympic run.

But yeah. There was those guys are just examples of of of guys you give extensions to way too early. Miami, they're on a different path here. Jimmy's not gonna be on it. I think my question would be, Bill, is if, like, like, the draft capital move is is probably the right way to go.

The expiring contract is probably the right way to go. Reboot. Use that cap flexibility. But can you get interested in Michael Porter junior if if that's a deal with Denver? Like, I

I saw you had that last week. I as a Jokic guy, I loved it. And I was trying to talk myself into it, but I that can't be the centerpiece. I mean, you don't think that, do you? Is Porter the centerpiece of a Butler

trade? I mean, he's such a good offensive player. And and I just think in that Miami system, you could unlock even more in him. Like, you can force

him. Space next year. I do that. I'm You don't.

I'm I'm I'm

I'm committed to That's

what I'm saying.

Those 3 guys.

You're throwing out your the cap flexibility stuff. You're you're you're going, you know, 2 boys 2 more years at a big number for Michael Porter After

this year. Yeah.

Yeah. After this year. Right. It it's a tough call. I I just I love his his offensive dynamic.

Like, just just everything he can do offensively, I I love. And he's kinda shaken off the injury bug from the last couple of years. Yeah. I I just I wondered. He kinda fits the timeline too.

What is he like? 25, 26 years old. All of a sudden, you're adding MPJ in with all these young guys, throw Jaime Hawkins into that mix. You've you're can you I guess, can you get something better than Porter Junior in free agency? It would be kinda my question over the next couple of summers.

I I don't know the answer to that.

You know who'd root for that trade is the Celtics, because they'd be like, oh, wait. You're gonna have Porter and Hero on the same team in crunch time?

The problem. This is great.

It's like an all you can eat for who we're gonna attack. I I'm with you in the sense that I do like Porter as an asset a little more than I think other people. The contract, the back issues, like, there's there's real things to be scared about, like the defense, the fact that he's been replaced during games and crunch time for Russell Westbrook for defensive purposes. Like, there's red flags. I love that he's played with Jokic for this long because that's like getting your fucking masters for how to play basketball.

Right? There does seem like there's more there offensively. But to me, that's a guy I I like, I'm looking at a team like Brooklyn or some of the other, like, Eastern Conference also runs. And if you're looking at Porter thinking like, you know what? This is a guy who might be a 25 point game point of game scorer on a different team.

You know? Right now, he's in the corner a lot or he's, like, just trying to play. Jokic and Murray are running everything. So what might that look like on a crappier team? What could that look like on, like, the Pistons with what we watched you know, with with Tim Hardaway and Beasley are doing and then that and Tobias Harris are doing that kinda shooting forward spot.

What if you put Porter in there? So, yeah. Listen. I would love to see Denver somehow improve this. I just don't know.

I I don't think Porter's enough to get somebody like Butler. And then Golden State feels like they shot their wide with the mountain thing. Now they can't put the salaries together.

Yeah. Well, you can still I I well, I guess, rules wise, put Schroeder into a deal, and and I don't know who's gonna want Schroeder on the expiring. And they've got some the problem with Denver is they have no draft capital. Right? Like, you'd have to throw, like, Zeke Naji into that and hope somebody wants him.

But, man, the yeah. I you watch them, and I've watched a lot of them the last couple weeks. Like, they need something. Like, they need somebody with an edge. They need somebody to bring some energy to that team.

I know Murray's had a good couple of games, like, 48 over the last 2, but, you know, he looks awful. His shooting numbers are all down. Jokic, I mean, I don't wanna dump on the guy because he's having a ridiculous offensive season, but, defensively, he's terrible. Right? And that's a big reason why, you know, they've sunk as far as they have defensively.

So they they just need infusion of something if they're gonna maximize this, you know, these last not last, but these few years of Jokic playing at an MVP level. And I don't know if if Butler's the guy because all of a sudden you can't shoot at multiple positions, but his edge and and his like, the way he plays, I think that would be something that Denver needs.

He's certainly the most fun for the platform. I can't believe you said Jokic's defense was terrible. That really hurt my feelings as a number 1 Jokic lover. Because I'm because I'm It's conditionally terrible because he's got great hands. He's he's jumping passing lanes.

He gets steals. Like, he's very active. He's good at breaking 2 on ones. There's things he does well, but then you watch a game like the Kings last night where they're just getting basically whatever they want and, you know, his lack of rim protection becomes more of a problem.

Well, what this is this is the problem, well, among the problems. And and I was talking to to an assistant coach that that went up against him in the last couple of weeks. And, you know, part of it is Michael Malone is just running him out there for, like, 38 minutes a game.

Yeah. Because he has to.

If you're carrying that heavy and offensive burden, it's gonna cost you something on the other end no matter who you are.

Yep.

And I

think it's cost him there. The other thing I keep hearing, and and I haven't been around him personally enough to see it, but people keep saying he's heavy. Right? Like, he's not in in the kind of shape you've seen him in in years past. And all those things have, you know, caused him to go from being a guy that people saw trending towards, like, an average to good defender.

Like, he's never gonna be elite, but an average to good defender to now, he he's kinda taken a step back into that that below average defensive range. And, look, it it doesn't really matter for their purposes because he is so dynamic offensively, but, you know, you look at their defensive problems, and and some of them are solved with Aaron Gordon back in the mix. But Jokic, Murray getting killed on the point of attack, some of the guys off the bench, not delivering. They're they're not good defensive team for all those reasons.

Well and I think that the too many minutes thing is a big problem too. Is there is there any other Butler team? Because you you threw out Denver the other day. Golden State and Houston were the 2 I was focusing on in the content I did. Is there is there anybody else we're not thinking of?

Because it doesn't seem

to be as

Do you do you I I get amused by how many times I keep hearing Phoenix thrown in this discussion like it makes any sense for anybody to do a deal like that. Like, Phoenix would have to trade Bradley Beal, and and Miami would have to want Bradley Beal. And I don't know why

Miami have to wait, but no trade clause, and he's not Bradley Beal anymore. Like, he's Uh-oh. If it was 3 years ago Bradley Beal, I I guess, we could talk about it, but not the guy now. I don't he doesn't seem like he can play for 3 straight weeks.

No. I I see a lot of of just, you know, going down through hoops. I it's like Phoenix interested in in Jimmy Butler. Dallas. How?

Yeah. Dallas too. That's another 1. Like, that's not gonna happen. No.

I mean, I could see Golden State taking a swing. Like, Golden State and Denver are the 2 teams that probably aren't all that concerned about, you know, Jimmy Butler next year. It's all about this year. You wanna maximize a window. And if Golden State can get him for some combination of Andrew Wiggins and Brandon Podgemski, then you'd probably jump at that if you're the Warriors.

And if Denver can get him, you know, just for Michael Porter Junior and some filler, you'd probably jump at that if you're if you're the Nuggets. At least you should because you're you're you're not looking at 2, 3 years down the line. You're looking at now to win something.

I thought I was gonna at Thursday, I had the Cam Johnson, Dennis Schroder, Golden State. I did a whole thing about it. And I really thought that was gonna be how it played out. And then they got Schroder 2 days later. They didn't get Cam Johnson, and then they're reporting people were saying they didn't wanna put Kuminga on the table in a Kim Johnson trade.

I was really surprised by that because the contract that Cam Johnson's on versus what Kamminga is probably gonna get for HD next year, 30,000,000, I'm guessing. Johnson's, like, at 22. I would just rather have Cam Johnson. I think he's a better asset. And I thought if they and that's why I don't feel like that's dead yet because I think the more you stare at that, the more you think, Kim Johnson at 22 is just a good asset.

That's like, if I was doing, like, top 30 best contracts in the week for non rookie contract guys, Kim Johnson's in, like, the top 12 making 22 a year. So I I I don't think that's dead yet.

Do you think they're holding on to Kamminga, though, to see if there's something better out there than Kim Johnson? That

yeah. I think they're holding on. The problem, though, you mentioned Schroder before. I don't know if they can trade him in a in a trade where he's with other players because it's the trade deadline's early this year. It's, like, February 6th.

So I think the trade they did for Schroder, it's not in that 2 month window where then you can repackage the guy for multiple

assets. Though.

Did they change

the rule for that?

I I I'm not smart enough to remember all the new rules there, but I I think Maybe they changed it. From what I heard coming out of this was that they can package Schroder as for another in another deal. So it's basically your it's the same contract as D'Anthony Mount. The 2nd round capital, they swap means nothing.

Great then. So then so they could do Kuminga, Wiggins, Schroder, and they'd have to send find a a 4th guy somewhere like Pod Zemski, who I think they overvalued over the summer. I think it was 1 of the lessons of the summer. That was either making basically an untouchable, and he's just been really bad this year. Not totally his fault.

He's playing out of position, but he has been good.

Was he low thirties from 3 point range? He's he's he's really cratered, in that sense. Schroder is interesting, but, I mean, if he gets traded again, would it be 9 teams in 8 years?

Oh, what god?

I know. Why do you think it didn't work for him in Boston? Because this version of Schroder now, I really like. But in Boston, it just didn't work.

Yeah. I I I it's probably more to do with style of play. I I don't really remember all the I don't think there were any issues in the locker room. He had some of those early in his career, but I think he's moved past them.

Yeah. It seemed like they liked him.

Yeah. And and getting moved from Brooklyn is more about, like, hey. We want a guy that can't play more than we want a guy that can. So I I don't know. But, you know, he offensively, I I think he's gonna help the warriors to bring it full circle, like, in the short term.

I think having another ball handler is good. And having another score is good. A guy that can make shots in clutch situations. Obviously, you know, Kerr likes him. I think he's gonna help, but I I don't think he's untouchable over these next couple of months either.

I really like him too because competitive, a good defensive player, like, just feisty. So the feistiness now, you have him and you have Draymond, and Kamiga gets a little feisty sometimes. Curry talks shit. Like, there's a little more of an identity with the team. The only other Butler I I was looking at it trying to figure out anyway was the Cavs.

Just is is that even does that even make sense? Do they have the contracts? I just couldn't figure it out. And I'm I'm not confident that they would do anything major anyway because they have great chemistry right now, and I don't think you'd wanna fuck with that.

Don't the the the Cavs to me, they've got great they're a great regular season team. Right? Like, they're built to win a whole bunch of regular season games because they'll play 11 guys, and that's awesome in in the regular season. But that's not really consequential in the playoffs. I I love Michelin Garland right now, but smallish guards in the postseason can get exploited.

We've seen it happen even Yeah. In Cleveland before. So, you know, any deal with Butler and and Cleveland would have to, I assume, involve Garland. Do you want Garland if you're Miami? Does that make any sense that you brought up brought up defensive issues with Hero and Porter?

It's the same kind of situation if you bring Garland into that mix. I don't know. I don't if I'm I don't think that's the move if if I'm Cleveland, but I I I don't know that I'd I'd make Cleveland a threat to Boston yet either despite the fact they played really well against them in those 2 games.

Let me ask you. If salaries if you could throw out salaries when you made trades, do you think the Celtics would trade Peyton Pritchard straight up for Giannis?

I mean, yes. But the fact that we're even asking that question

How about Payton Pritchard for for Jimmy Butler?

I don't know, man. This is

an unbelievable season that he's having. I mean, this is beyond 6 man of the year. Like, his per 36 stats now are nuts. Incredible. Stats are nuts.

He's in the running for 1 of the best 6 man seasons anyone's had since, like, John Havlicek for the Celtics. I can't believe what I'm watching.

The short answer to Pritchard for Butler is I think Boston would say no because Butler doesn't shoot threes. And if you play for the Celtics, you you have to shoot at least 8 threes a game to Right. Or be able to to to do. I mean, he's he's been awesome. And what a contract he's on too.

Like, you'd have to you couldn't do a Butler deal, because Butler's making, like, what, 46,000,000 and Payton's making 8. So No. You can't even you

can barely put him in any trade. I would say if you're doing best contracts in the league, he's gotta be in, like, the top 3. He might even be number 1. His 6 man of the year at $7,000,000 and also gives them the luxury of, like, oh, Derek White's a little banged up tonight. We'll just play Pritchard.

He'll score 29 in the starting spot. It's can you it's really great. I mean, the the the ceiling of this regular season Celtics team when everybody's back, I do feel like they have, like, a 16, 18 game winning streak in there somewhere before the season ends.

Can can you think of a player I can't think of a player that's had the kind of, like, 3 year stretch of Payton Pritchard where it's like he's not playing. Joe Masula doesn't like him. He wants to be traded. All of a sudden, he's getting opportunity, and now he's in the 6th man of the year. I'm sure guys have had these this kind of roller coaster ride, but I haven't seen 1 like Peyton Pritchard.

To to get to this level, you'd said couple years ago, this was where we what we'll be talking about, Peyton Pritchard, where would you trade him for Giannis or Jimmy Butler? It's Well,

it does for jokes, but yeah.

I know. But I don't think Butler's a joke. I wouldn't trade him for Jimmy Butler. I mean, it's gonna come off crazy, but, like, Peyton Pritchard fits what this team is doing. Peyton Pritchard can come off the bench and knock down, you know, 6 threes, 2 of them at the buzzer.

Like, he's he's he's just the perfect fit for what they wanna do.

Yeah. If you're talking 7,000,000 for Payton Pritchard or 48 for Jimmy Butler, I think for the way the Celtics team's constructed. It is it's it really feels like you see this happen sometimes in basketball, in in football, in baseball, in boxing. It seems like the game slowed down for him a little bit. He'll have these moments where all of a sudden he's doing old man post up plays on shorter guards.

He's around the rim. He's like, oh, I'm gonna do old man pickup basketball and just, like, shoot a jump hook over this guy. It's been really impressive to watch. Speaking of boxing, big fight this weekend. My guy, who I bet on, every time he fights, I just parlay him with football teams, Usyk, is, the rematch against Fury.

Usyk's never lost. Everybody's been looking forward to this fight. Is it is this t to you? Is this, will he finally get the credit he deserves as a main draw fight? Or is this, what does Tyson Fury have left fight?

I think it's more of a what does Tyson Fury have left fight. I do think that for a broader audience, Usyk is, you know, getting some of the credit that he deserved back at cruiserweight when he became the 1st ever undisputed champion in the 4 belt era. Comes to heavyweight, beats AJ, your guy, twice.

That guy that guy who no matter where I bet, I lose. 4 against him, like, over my last 6.

You I get a text from you every time Anthony Joshua fights. And it's usually like, I can't believe I bet on that guy.

That's Or I can't believe I I didn't bet on him or whatever. Yeah. Every time.

Yeah. I I think as much as as he is getting some of the exposure that he deserves, and and I had, like, a 2 hour conversation with him last month for a story that's coming out on Friday. He he's really a remarkable guy with a remarkable backstory. This is more about Tyson Fury, and what does Tyson Fury have left in the tank? I mean, he has overcome a ton of stuff over the last 10 years.

You know, whether it's off the outside the ring issues, weight issues, depression issues, coming back from tough fights, you know, a whole bunch of different things. He's never had to come off a loss before. And I talked to Tyson for a while last week. I've watched a lot of clips of him over the last couple of weeks, and I I do wonder kinda what is his mindset coming into this fight. Like, how how much does he have left at 36 years old, which is chronologically younger than Oggs and Usyk, but he's been through physically and perhaps mentally so much more.

I mean, I saw an interview Tyson did this week where he said that he hasn't talked to his wife, Paris, in 3 months. Like, didn't really elaborate on that, but said he hadn't talked to his wife in 3 months. And I'm I'm watching the interview. I'm going, what? Like, this this is a big family.

They were on that Netflix series. Like, they they are intertwined, those 2. Hasn't talked to her in 3 months? Now, maybe it's because, hey, I'm I'm just totally locked in. I don't know if I I buy that, but I'm I'm wondering what Fury has left here.

Because if you're not a 100%, if you don't have your a game, Usyk's gonna beat you. I think Usyk is a generational great. You know, I think he's 1 of those rare guys that only come along once every 20, 25 years that are so skilled, so strong, doesn't matter what weight class you put him in, he's gonna dominate. Big guys, small guys, he's gonna beat you, with his discipline and with his game plan. And if you don't have everything going for you the right way, you're gonna get beaten.

And that that I'm not so sure about with Tyson Fury.

Well, the interesting thing about the first fight is the scorecards had it closer than I think I had it in my head when I was watching. I mean, Fury almost got knocked out. It seemed like it was a wrap, and he really got the shit kicked out of him. I think it was the 9th round. And then kinda around he definitely won the 12th round.

The 11th round, I remember 2 of the judges gave it to him. 1 judge didn't, which was super suspicious. But, I don't know. It was a split decision, but it really wasn't. Like, I I don't think anybody watching that fight thought, oh, I wonder who won.

Fury's face looked worse. Everything looked worse. I I just think who's sick reminds me so much of, Pereira in the UFC where it's you just watch him and you're like, I don't know what the answer is to try to beat this guy. At least in UFC, you could try to take the guy down and get him on the ground. I with Usyk, I almost feel like it's gotta be somebody like Bicoli just overpowering him and using, like, a huge size.

You know I'd bring Bicoli up. It's just a huge size disadvantage because he is, like, a blown up cruiserweight, and maybe that's how to beat him. I just don't see Fury doing it.

You gotta first of all, at some point, you should sit down with Picoli because he's an incredibly engaging guy, and I know you love him. He's he's, he's interesting. Usyk would beat Bicconi 12 zip, by the way. Like, Usyk would not make the same mistakes Jared Anderson made and stay within range of that right hand. He would just He would

just be zipping around.

He'd be zipping around him using feints inside, outside,

and disparage Piccoli.

There's a lot of guys on the left side. Fight. I he's he's a really funny guy. But he's And fun to watch.

Nobody wants to fight Piccoli. He couldn't even get on the February 22nd card. They had to, like, push him to the next card, but he was supposed to I mean, it seemed like Dubois was gonna be the natural whatever. He didn't wanna fight him. He just

fight just part of it. Wanna fight. Dubois does not wanna fight Marc Biccole. Not not with, like, Dubois sitting out there going, like, alright. There's maybe a rematch with AJ, which is worth 8 figures.

There's maybe a unification fight with the winner of Fury Newsick that can be worth 8 figures. I am not getting in the ring with Martin Biccole and risking getting my head taken off. When I'm I've already had some issues with knockouts in the past. You're you're you're not doing that. So, look, Usyk what I love about Usyk is that he kinda gives away the game plan before every fight.

Like, when he makes these jokes where he's like, don't be afraid, Tyson. I'm I'm not gonna leave you alone. That is is him telling you that he's gonna be applying pressure all night, and pressure comes in different ways. Like, it doesn't have to be this overwhelming, I'm gonna put you in a headlock during every round type of pressure that we've seen from some brawlers. It can just be staying in your face and making you keep your hands up at all times and making you stay on your toes at all times.

That's exhausting. Like Tyson Fury, I thought, won the first half of that, of that fight with Usyk. 42 could have been 33, but the pressure Usyk put on was overwhelming. And in the 9th round, it it got up to him. When Usyk landed that first straight left hand, you know, that was that was the fight right there.

So he's gonna do the exact same thing again, and if again, it goes back to Fury. If he's not as sharp as he's been at his very best, I think he's gonna have a lot of problems in this fight.

Usyk has a lot of pieces of things that I've loved from guys in the past. Like, he as the fight goes on, it just seems like he shrinks the ring and and figures out the exact distance, how to hit the guy with the little tiny punches that don't seem like a big deal, and then they kinda add up. But there's, like, pieces of Hopkins in there, there's pieces of Cesar Chavez in there. Like, they're just those guys that just there's 1 fight the first 4 rounds and then the fight starts to shift and you can kinda feel it. And I don't really know what the answer is to beating him, but I just know I'm gonna be betting on him every time he fights.

He's 37. I don't know how many more of these he has left, but, I mean, he if you look back at his he's 22 and o. He beat Joshua twice, beat Dubois, beat Fury already, could be beating him again. He was dominant as a cruiserweight. Go back to the 2012 gold medal in that whole era.

Like, he was beating all those guys. And I don't like, if he wins this, like, what's next? Because you could fight Du Bo and Parker fighting February 22nd. So Jeong and Cabell. So maybe it's 1 of those 2.

I I don't what who's the next fight?

It it's it's not going to be AJ who wants nothing to do with with Ussik. And a AJ to me, like, they they keep talking about, like, if Fury loses, you can make the AJ fight. Like, we didn't just see AJ get clobbered over 5 rounds to Danny Dubois. Like, like, we're just gonna forget about that that happened. Remember the 3 in a row AJ won and not not that 1.

So it's not gonna be AJ. You beat Fury again. It's not gonna be Fury. Dubois would certainly do it, but, like yeah. I mean, I think Ussick, if there was enough money on the table, would certainly fight Dan Du Bois again, become undisputed champion once again.

There could be, like, events out there for him. Like, everybody in boxing has been trying to find a way to do a fight with Zhai Lizeng on Mainland China. Like, the amount of times I've heard about Zhong going back to the bird's nest in Beijing in front of a 100000 people. You know, for a while, it was Anthony Joshua. Well, hey.

It could be Oleg and Usyk that fights him there if Zhong can get a win, in his next fight. So maybe it's something like that, but he will have quite literally have cleaned out the heavyweight division if he beats Tyson Fury for the 2nd time. Or there'll be guys he hasn't beaten, but beaten those 2 top guys twice, that will be an accomplishment. And you you asked me, like, how do you beat Usyk? To me, there's only 1 way to do it, and that's to just apply unrelenting pressure to him.

Because there have been times where Usyk has been in trouble. Like, at Cruiserweight, he had a I think it was a split decision win over Maris Briedis, who's a physical guy at Cruiserweight. The times that AJ had success against him was when he was the 1 putting pressure. He was the 1 letting his right hand go. I think it was, like, 9th or 10th round of that second fight.

We had Usyk in real trouble. Even early on, Fury landed some good shots on Usyk. Just didn't follow-up and chase him down. Go back even further. Derek Tesoro of all people.

Derek Tesoro might have given Usyk his toughest fight at heavyweight because through 6 rounds, he was just, you know, lumbering after him, you know, in that fight. So if you are willing to to just, you know, go all in and commit on a pressure style, you can have success against Usyk. But if you try to box him, you're gonna lose every single time because he is a better boxer than everyone at cruiserweight and everyone in heavyweight.

Which is 1 of the things that made Fury special was at his size. He was, like, kind of a sneaky good boxer, but not compared to this good. I'm glad I'm glad you brought up Chisora. I think he's lost to everybody in the division at this point. Right?

He's still going.

So it's not over yet. So is there a cruiserweight that could move up?

Not I mean, look. So Gilberto Ramirez is now a unified champion, and Gilberto is someone that people in the US know a little bit about. Former champ at 168, title contender at 175, lost to Beboule back in 2022 over at Abu Dhabi. He's a name in that division. And, you know, Usyk's fought in the US in the past.

That would probably be a pretty big fight if if Ramirez wins 1 or 2 more fights. The other guy in that division is Jayapatayah, who's super athletic, good power at that weight class. Still trying to build a name, I think, that's big enough to to get someone like Usyk that's interested. So those are conceivable possible fights, but I I would make Usyk a big favorite against both those guys. I'd you know, Usyk too, Bill.

The last fight, I forget what his exact weight was, but you could tell that in what was, I think, his 5th fight at heavyweight, he had grown into the weight class. Before, he was just going up in weight, and he was, like, 212, 213, 218. He was solid in the last fight. Like, he is a full fledged heavyweight right now. And if he takes on a cruiserweight like Ramirez or Rapatayo coming up, they're gonna have problems with his size.

So, yeah, there are some some decent names there, but nobody that that I would make a threat at this point to Usyk.

Yeah. I remember that happened with Holyfield. It took him a couple to feel like he was a heavyweight, and then it happened. Well, on FanDuel right now, he's minus 166 but 166 Usyk, which I just think is nuts. I don't understand, at this point in his career from everything we've seen, how he's not minus 250 against everyone else in that division, just blind.

There's not 1 person that he shouldn't be minus 250 against. So

I worry, Bill, but I worry about some of the like, the scorecards were too close last time. You know, Usyk, he needed that knockdown to to pull out a decision. Right. You know, there's a lot of money in a trilogy. That's a reality.

Right? Like, if if Fury wins, there's a whole pile of money. I I don't I don't wanna do it, but I've seen enough in boxing to wonder, you know, what could happen in a circumstance like this. I think it was just something happening.

Gets fishy sometimes?

It gets very fishy. It gets very fishy. And I think more importantly, there's there's some bad judges in boxing. Like, really bad judges. And judging boxing is hard.

I have to do it on an unofficial capacity, you know, every week at DAZN. But some strange things happen on scorecards in boxing, and I I hope we don't get that in this fight. I hope the the right man comes out the winner.

Yeah. Probably the maddest people get at you is is either something you wrote about LeBron or they didn't like how you scored round 4 and not the the 3rd to last fight on a disown thing. Right? People just go nuts about the scoring. I had to go nuts watching it.

I get so mad.

There so but it's always it's always on a micro level. Right? It's like, I can't believe you scored the 4th round for for such and such. Right. I'll go back and rewatch that, and I'll rescore it.

But it's it like, it's hard, especially some of these rounds where there's not a ton of action. And and I think it was like Fury. Some of those rounds were hard to score, especially in the first half of of the fight when there wasn't the kind of obvious action you saw in the second half. But, I mean, I just hope there's no controversy to this 1. If Fury wins, great.

Let's have a trilogy. I think it'll be awesome. But if Husek wins, you know, hope he wins clean.

Well, the other thing when you're sitting close, you might miss, like, the biggest punch of the round because the ref blocked you or you know, it's it's not an exact science. Before we go, we gotta talk about the super card in February 26th February 22nd. I don't know if there's been a card like this. Like, the the 3rd, 4th best fight on this card would be the best fight on a Saturday night. We talked we talked in the past about how the Saudis and all this overseas money, and they're just like, we want everybody good to fight each other, and that's what we want.

And that's this seems like the full culmination of that. This is 1 1 of the best boxing cards of all time. When you saw it all laid out, were you shocked? Like, they didn't have room for Biccole. They were like, no.

We're moving you over. Moving your fight later. This is 1 of the we have super middleweight, lightweight, welterweight, better be up against b ball, Dubois against Parker, Zhang's fighting Cabiel. Like, this it's a fucking crazy card.

It's the deepest card that I've ever seen. You go back to the 19 nineties, and Don King put on some unbelievable pay per view cards where they were 4 fights deep, championship level, high level stuff. We've never had a card that on paper goes 7 fights deep with all headliners, night after night. And this is this is an example of the positive impact of of the Saudi's entry into boxing. What we're gonna see in the main event, on on Saturday is an example.

I mean, having 2 fights between Fury and Usyk in 1 year is remarkable. Even more remarkable is the headliner of the February 22nd card. I mean, we had to wait 6 years 6 years both Betterbeef and Beevol were world champions. And they didn't fight each other because there's no money in it. Because they're the 1 who has a real fan base.

Saudis come along. They make a fight in October, and less than 6 months later, we're getting a rematch. Like, that is that that's there's a huge net positive, for the Saudis being involved in boxing for boxing. I I would say this, though. I don't know how necessary it is to have 7 fights like this on a card because it's great if you wanna watch all 7.

If you are a true purist, if you're a die hard, yeah, you sit down at 11 o'clock in the morning on the West Coast, and you're watching, you know, Zhang fight, or you're watching Virgil Ortiz fight. It's great. Like, I would I will spend my entire day, if I'm not there, watching that particular card. But especially in the US, not a lot of people are probably gonna do that. And I do think there's something to the idea of spreading this stuff out.

Right? Like, having 2 or 3 great fights on a card. And then a month, month and a half from that then, having the other 2 or 3 great fights. Like, having sort of a a schedule starting to build up.

A month.

Yeah. So you get these guys

this is UFC, though. Like, UFC has changed the thinking on this because there will be some UFC cards that you could watch for 5 straight hours, and they they kinda want that.

Yeah. But UFC is able to do that month after month. Right? Like, I don't know what the boxing schedule is after February 22nd. Like, there are some fights I'm looking forward to, but, you know, nothing with the kind of depth that we're gonna see on the 22nd.

Like, even like Shakur Stevenson, Floyd Schofield is a fun fight that would headline in Newark or in New York. Virgil and Madromov, good fight in Texas. Like, I I think it it's look. The I'm excited to watch every single 1 of these fights. I wouldn't argue though with the idea of, like, hey.

Let's push a few of them, you know, a month from now and maybe a couple others. Yes. Just just divvy it up. Give these guys a chance for for a little more exposure. It's great that they're getting the money.

Like, all these guys are getting paid, and in a sport like this, you deserve it. But, you know, I I just worry about the exposure of a guy that's gonna be fighting at noon Pacific in in the US. That's the only thing I would I would

quibble with. Counter. This is like Thanksgiving. It's like, should we have sweet potatoes and mashed potatoes and stuffing and, like, fuck it. Let's just let's just go for it.

I'd to me, this is like a once in a decade kinda card. I don't know if they'll be able to replicate this many fights in a row. I've never seen anything like this where you literally can't miss the first of 7 fights. And the best thing is Stevenson, who I think is my least favorite good guy to watch, and now he's buried on this card with 6 other fights. So I don't have to, you know, be like, ah, do I get it?

I don't really like watching this guy, and now it's like he's just 1 of the many. But somehow they left out my guy, Bicoli. So I have to get do I have to get Bicoli on a podcast? Try to try to pump him up? What do I need to do?

I I think you should. I think he'd fly to Los Angeles to do it. I mean, he's got, like, this incredible story where he's from Africa, but he's kinda Scottish now, and he's got this great personality that comes with it. He's been so avoided for for so many years. So just to put a button on on the card, it's a great problem to have.

Right? Like, I'm I'm excited about it. I wanna see it. You're working. Right?

Are you working it? I believe so.

Yeah. Let's see. They we haven't figured that out yet. But, yeah, I I was at the last Better Be A Bebo fight. Yeah.

Yeah. It it it's a great problem to have. 7 hours of high level boxing is gonna be awesome for the boxing fans out there. Like, ultimately, that's that's what it comes down to.

I wonder, like, this card's so good. I wonder if you almost need 2 play by play guys. I don't is it too much to ask? 1 play it's almost like you have to go WWF where they have the 2 different play by play guys for the 5 hour card. It that's like that's I don't even know if Gus Johnson would be able to go for 7 straight hours with boxing with that.

We did that whole, Riyadh season card in LA, which I think was, like, 6 fights. Like, that was a lot of because that was, you know, that was a pretty deep 1. You had, you know, David Morell fighting low on that card. You had a pretty good slobber knocker of a fight with Jarrell Miller and Andy Ruiz, you know, low on that card. So, yeah, it's it's these are are long days, but they're if you are, like, a true purist and someone that just wants to sit down on your couch and is willing to invest 7 hours, it's 1 of the it'll be 1 of the better days you'll you'll have.

February 22nd. February turning into a surprisingly good sports month. It used to be like the dead month, but now all these different places have figured out, like, the tray they moved the trade deadline up somehow against the Super Bowl and then a whole bunch of stuff happening. Chris Mannix, great to see you. Have fun at the NBA Cup tonight.

Hope all is well with you.

You got it, man. Thanks.

Alright. Coming up, you're gonna hear 2 things I taped with Chris Ryan on Monday. The first is about Timothy Chalamet in the Bob Dylan movie. Tried not to have any spoilers in this, so, we're gonna play that. And then after that, we're gonna move right to land man, my favorite new show of the 2020.

So me and Chris Ryan right now. Alright. I'm here with Chris Ryan. It is less than 10 days until the Bob Dylan movie comes out with Chalamet. A complete unknown.

You've seen it. I have. I saw it over the weekend on the Producers Guild app. Must be nice. Low expectations.

I don't wanna step on your pod, Vashon, because I know you have a big pod coming out on Christmas.

The

thing that jumped out to me was how good Chalamet was. Yeah. And I I intentionally tried not to read anything. I wasn't that excited about the movie because I've I've never, like, loved Bob Dylan just because my entire life, everyone's just talked about what kind of a He's he's got a dick is.

Perfect example of English teacher guy, English student. You know? Lot lot of reading, lot

of floss,

why is it?

It. My parents really liked him. He means a lot to my mom, but we kinda know him, the older version of Bob Dylan, where he's just, like, kinda kinda mutters and does anyway, Chalamet was great. Yes. As you know, I love when people sing in movies.

Val Kilmer in the doors. He's 1 of those. I always thought, like, it never got enough credit.

Cooper in A Star is Born. Yeah.

Does the singing. Yeah. He does a really good job, and I I don't understand why he's not, like, a prohibitive best actor fan.

Enough people have seen the movie yet. I think when he is actually like, first of all, this is he's already doing the Lord's work on the promo tour, which we're gonna talk about.

Yeah.

But once people see this movie, I think that he might slingshot ahead of Ralph Fiennes and Adrian Brody.

So what are the cases for Ralph Fiennes and Adrian Brody?

So Ralph is probably a he deserves it. Body of work. Conclave's really good. Body of work.

Like, a Jordan Bead type thing. It was 2 years ago.

He's never

won.

Okay. Okay. I'm wearing a Thunder hat. Yeah. I don't even acknowledge that.

Yeah, body of work for Ralph Fiennes. And I think for Adrian Brody, it would be like, this is it. This is the performance of a lifetime even though he's already won, which I think will probably count against him.

Already won. That's a strike. Shalomay, this is great for the Oscars. Yeah. He'll definitely get nominated, and it it will feel like a younger hip Oscars.

But I gotta be honest. I didn't wasn't positive he had a performance like this in him. I didn't see a musical side of Chalamet.

It's the first movie that I feel like this and Dune, but I definitely Dune 2, where it kinda like it's like Tim's a Timmy's a man now. Like, he's, like, actually a convincing guy in his late twenties now.

Well, remember when this happened to Leo? Yeah. It was, like, the catch me if you can air where I was like, oh, Leo's an adult now.

We're He'd done the beach and a couple of other things to try and move into, like, out of heartthrob and into adult.

And, you know I remember this happened to you when we went to the ringer. Yeah. You shed, like, your Grantland teen idol.

That was That was my blood diamond.

He went right up. But yeah. No. So so now this this opens up. He has this.

I think he's gonna win the Oscar. Yeah. I'd be surprised if he didn't. I think he'll get a lot of momentum because it's so surprising how good he is in this.

Yes.

In a movie that probably shouldn't work and a movie I'm not even positive I don't wanna step on your take because you have the whole pop, but I'm not positive I love the movie that much, but I love the performances in it. I thought he was great. I thought, the what's the top gun lady's name?

Monica Monica Barbaro. Monica Barbaro. Yeah.

Yeah. She was great. She plays Joan Baez. Norton?

Yeah. Norton is Pete Seeger. I think it's a movie that'll probably be, like, a lot of people are like, I love the performances. I love the music. I don't know if there's, like, a huge story there.

And But that's been a lot of musical biographies in general. Yeah. Like, Walk the Line, the same thing. People are like, I love Phoenix. I love Reese.

Movies was

so wild.

A little bit more inherent tragedy built into it, but I think that this 1 is just gonna really blow people away. Because if you see the trailer and if you just look at Timothy Chalamet, like, in his day to day life, you probably wouldn't guess that he could pull this off.

It has something in common with The Star is Born when we heard word about this, and then there was, like, the initial clips, and you think, oh, no.

Oh, brother.

Oh, boy. Here we go. You know? We've seen people make go this way and make the mistake. Yeah.

But, but, anyway, you mentioned the press tour with Shalomay.

So Shalomay is using the opportunity that he might have here where he's, odds on or he's gonna be an odds on Oscar favorite, if not, like, the prohibitive favorite. And he seems to be taking most of that time to make it clear how much he loves sports. Yeah. And I love it. Now there's a very, know, not famous, but infamous clip of him on Kimmel from, like, 8 years ago or whatever it was, where he talks about how much he loves you.

Right?

Yeah.

He's done Theo Vonn. He's done game day. He's done He was good on the nightshades. He was great on game day. When are we getting Timmy on the bill pod?

I put the request in. Okay. I've wanted to have him on for years. I know he's a big Knicks fan. He seems like a genuine sports fan.

He seems like a nut.

And we put the stuff out. I don't know how his team decides, but

So this is the Chalamet, the challenge. Yeah.

Chalamet, come on the pod. Let's find out once and for all how much sports you know. I saw you on college game day. It was convincing. But I also know he's an actor.

Yeah.

And he could memorize, what, 4, 5 pages of script of dialog in 1 day. So the flip He couldn't he couldn't have remembered, like, 6 pics that his buddy gave him, and I wanna, like, really dive in with the Chalamet sports experience.

The flip side is that, like, there are photos of him, like, autograph hounding Amari Stoudemire. Like, I think he might

Let's talk about it. Okay. Let's find out this side of you, the sports side. It's not coming out in the Theo Von podcast.

What do you think would you would do to him? Would you just put him on Guess the Lines, like, blind? Would you

I wanna go full, like, 80 minutes. Let's talk let's have the deep dive Yeah. News combo that you've never really had on a podcast with me.

Hunter, how does he translate to the NFL?

Real college hoops? Do you gamble? Where do you gamble? What sites do you use? Are you are you a friend of FanDuel?

Do you do you how'd you do it last week on NFL picks? Like, how deep does this go? Do you play fantasy football?

What if he's not coming on your pod because he has lost most of the money he's made following $1,000,000 picks?

No. I'm doing well this year. I just had a bad last week because you're team the Eagles. Yeah. Come on.

Let's really see it once and for all. Do you have takes on the Super Bowl? Lions' defense is banged up.

What do

you think, Chalamet? Let's go. What why is NBA Couch football player picks. Down? NBA ratings down.

Why? What are your reasons? LeBron and Curry and Durant stayed too long? What what's your take?

There are threes. Are we getting too much of an homogeneous product with threes? Yeah. This is what the people want, Shalamet.

Yeah. Come on the pot.

We don't want you talking about how you've just been building your whole acting career towards playing Bob Dylan. We wanna know whether or not you think Jalen Hurts can win a Super Bowl.

And I wanna pitch him, which I've done in the past that did with Michael b Jordan to much success. A couple roles that I think he should play now if he wins the best actor. What's next? Heist movie. Really well done romcom, and then what would be the third 1?

Just stuff for us.

So I had pitched Heist movie.

Is he what is he bad? Such

a sports movie. Sports movie, coach. Greenwald, I pitched him Timothy Chalamet as a, iconoclastic offensive coordinator, like the Ben Johnson story.

Oh, like a Like a

guy who's coming up through Texas as a football

ball. More fun? Yeah. He just kinda unravels because he was his quarterback. He would read so many slants.

If we find out, like, that Mike McDaniel got involved in, like, some crazy Scarface coke thing in Miami.

Mike McDaniel crossed with pain and gain Yes. Starring Chalamet as the offensive coordinator to the Dolphins who's fallen behind with Gamers.

It's like, we love these these these plays you're calling, but our wide receivers keep getting killed out there.

Another one's down. So sports movie, heist movie. Yeah. Does he need to be in a there's something wrong with the house movie?

Oh, like a horror?

Yeah.

I think that this movie, when you see him in Dylan, he's got a little hair on his chest, and I think he needs to be back in the mix for heat 2 conversations. I don't know what part, but I'm just saying he could be in the conversations. And then I think I think you're right. A horror movie would be incredible.

Or, like, if we're I'm having fun with this, but if we're if he's gonna do the Leo playbook, just check mark best director 1 after the other. You work with all the greats. That's what Leo did all the greats.

Anything from, like Has

he done Fincher yet? He hasn't.

He hasn't done Fincher yet. No. It's Villeneuve. It's it's James Mangold for Complete Unknown. Yeah.

I don't know. I mean, Timothy Timothy Chalamet, the New Jersey drone story.

Oh, that would be great.

It's like a guy just a guy in Jersey. Chalamet.

Just the trailers. Just the

trailers. He could be, like, Spielberg, like, Close Encounters or War of the World? Yeah. That sounds great. Yeah.

Close Encounters of the drone kind.

If he wants to cash in, though, you've you've come up with some spy franchise.

Oh, like a Bourne kinda thing?

Yeah. You come up with your own or Mission Impossible. You come up with your own I mean version. Tom Costas. Mix it with sports.

Oh. Maybe he's a sports spy. Maybe he's like So

he's like Connor Stallions.

Yeah. He's rich Paul crossed with a spy. It's like clutches a front for all the espionage work

he's doing. The young Scott Boris

story. Maybe he plays Scott Boris. Yeah. That could be a sports movie. Sure.

That would be a great transformation. It'd be like when Leo played Jay Edgar.

Well, out of all these ideas, the best idea is Mike McDaniel across the painting game. Because we get Miami. Yeah. There's drugs.

You could you could you could embed him in the Miami football scene. You could be you could make it be like it could be like Teddy Bridgewater is hanging out and stuff like that. It would be awesome.

Well, whatever the case, Shalomay. Come on the podcast. Let's let's do this once and for all. Let's talk about future roles. Let's talk sports.

Can't hide, Jimmy.

Let's talk a Amar Stoudemire. Yeah. Let's talk Carmelo. Does he have thoughts on the Carmelo Maropod? Like, I wanna know all this stuff.

Just come on the pod.

Come open a 6 pack with Bill.

Come on. You're gonna win best actor. Come on the pod. Alright. We're taping this after the 6th episode of land man ran, So there's spoilers in this.

Yep. Sierra is making my all time TV rankings.

All time, like, anything ever broadcast on television or streaming.

Yeah. I think land man's, like, 3rd. This is the greatest show Yeah. Of this decade. I can't believe how much I love it.

It's the first show in a while that when we're getting toward there's 5 minutes left, 7 minutes left, I'm like, oh, man. There's only 7 minutes left.

Leave Cooper like that. No.

You got I can't wait a week. This 6th episode was the best episode of the season. It was incredible. It's everything we want from a dumb TV show like this.

I don't know how good it is, but I know that I haven't had any more fun talking about a TV show this year. Like, literally, like, every conversation I have about land man seems to go 20 minutes, and it's just like we're hysterically laughing, but also deeply, deeply involved in the plot. This is Taylor Sheridan's like, I didn't know that he was ever gonna have, like, a home run again after Yellowstone. I thought he would have, like

Much shows a grand slam?

That niche people, like, you know, like, people love lioness, people like mayor Kingstown, Tulsa King, whatever, the Yellowstone spin offs. This feels like it could be the biggest show he made. Like, I don't Billy Bob's no no Kevin Costner in terms of, like, the matinee idol department. But in terms of, like, the amount of people watching it and the amount of times where you're just like, there's something in here for everyone. Like, you can be into this because it's, like, Friday night lights.

You can be into this because it's, like, Sicario. You can be into this because it's, like, Dallas. I don't know, man. I I love this show.

Think of the 3 things you just mentioned, and it's like a hybrid above those things. 1 of the things because we were talking to Fantasy about it. He'd only watched the first 3, and he's in, like, movies run now. And I I feel like he hasn't paid a 100% attention. Because if he did because if he did, he would he would understand.

Yeah.

But I do feel like the second 3 episodes, the show really fell into place. It was almost like shared and needed to get a feel for the actors that he had. And and once he realized, like, I just gotta let Billy Bob and Ally Larder cook in every single possible, This is the most I've liked Billy Bob literally in 20 plus years.

The first 2 episodes, Ali Larter mostly just appears on FaceTime. Right. Which is

It was like she hadn't finished her previous job yet.

Yeah. And

they're like, well, can you FaceTime in?

It would be, like, basically being like, we're gonna have Sangoon just, like, only only only check-in from the locker room. Yeah. She's not gonna play at all.

Yeah.

It's an incredible performance by her, but you're right. Like, after the first 2 episodes, I think the show teaches you how to watch it, which is essentially, like, there are gonna be 3 or 4 scenes where Billy Bob absolutely monologs and cooks. And the only time that doesn't happen is when Ham calls him to yell at him. Right. And then there's all this domestic drama between Billy Bob's character, Tommy, and her character, his his ex wife, now current wife.

And they're just amazing. The funny thing is if you notice that, like, no one's giving Taylor Sheridan notes this is Andy's big thing, Greenwald's big thing. There are scenes where you're like, how much longer is this scene gonna go? Like, the dinner scene from Yeah. Episode 4, I think, where she makes the wild boar bolognese.

Yeah. And then he's like, are you on your period? And, like, there's just and you're like, how fucking long is this happening for? And it feels like you're just, like, in some sort of experimental drama.

Well alright. So let's unwind this. So Billy Bob, this is basically the same theme as as what he struck away with with Coster in Yellowstone. Yeah. A really good, likable, charismatic actor who hadn't been really great in a role in a while and then Sheridan just unlocks it.

He just wrote wrote it for him. It's in his voice.

All of the things I love about Billy Bob Thornton, and even, like, there's a little of the Friday Night Lights coach in here.

A little bit of the NASA guy from Armageddon. Right. Yeah.

Just and this guy's been around forever. And when he's in the right role, he's perfect. But in this, he's, like, super perfect. Then Ally Larter, who I think all of us have who had the varsity blues run, then she had the heroes run. And I think everybody likes her, but I hadn't seen her in anything.

And this is I was saying to you earlier, like, there's that story about Starship Troopers Yeah. That Casper Van Diem. He thought he was in a a serious drama, like a Spielberg movie, and everybody else knew what it was actually was.

Movie. Yeah.

And I don't know what Ally Larter thinks the show is, but whatever she's doing, I love it.

But the show seems to be bending towards her now. Like, in the beginning, I was like,

this is insane.

Like, she's in insane. Like, she's in a bikini on performance. FaceTime crying every scene. And now it seems like she is an integral part of the drama and is, like, in every scene even when guys are getting absolutely murdered by falling pipes.

Right. She's Dion Waiters multiplied by 700, and her and Billy Bob are great together.

What's weird is that Demi Moore is in this show.

Yeah.

And if you would watch the trailer or if it was just the call sheet, you'd be like, yeah. Demi Moore's gonna have a much bigger part in the show than Ally Larter.

Ally Larter's part is a 100 times bigger than Yeah. Demi Moore's had 8 lines, and they filmed her from, like, 30 yards away in every scene.

Yeah. And I

don't know why she's in the show other than maybe they needed the extra name. But, so those 2. And then the the actor who plays Billy Bob's son in this

Jacob Laughlin. Yeah. So he was in this movie really good. Yeah. He was in a movie a while back, just Jeff Nichols movie called Mud.

That's really, really good when he was a kid actor. And I haven't really seen him recently, and he's awesome. Yeah. Like, he is kind of like the Matt Saracen character. Like, the That's

a good that's a good comparison. Yeah.

Like, son who wants to be an oil man, but doesn't wanna do it on his dad's back. And he's just really soulful, really good. It could be really bad. This show would not work if he wasn't doing a good job.

And he's he's wiry, and I don't know how tall he is, but yet still believable when he stands up for himself. And I was attached to him within 2 episodes. So I he starts hanging out the way first of all, we did mention Michael Pena, who's in the credits in the first episode. Yes. And my shit detector's going off the whole time.

Well, he doesn't say it's weird. Live forever McBain speech in the middle of that Oh, yeah. Episode.

Yeah. But they basically did the same thing they did with Kyle Chandler.

On Cape Town. Yeah. Where they he was on, Yellowstone.

Yeah. So he dies. And then that sets off, like, his widow, all of a sudden, is and then and you just know it's like, oh, man. This is gonna go up. His his friends, the dead guy's friends didn't like they don't like where the and you just kinda know.

Yeah. But I still love it. The 1 of the

best parts about this show, which is so refreshing, is that it's not a overall mystery or overall plot that you have to keep track of all these different moving pieces.

Great point.

You're just like, there's a problem every week.

Dead body in the oil well Yeah. That we gotta figure out. Yeah. We got another clue.

Yeah. We it's it's it's just every week, it's like West Wing or like Grey's Anatomy or like any big really successful drama. They just give you a problem that Billy Bob has to solve by the end of the episode or not. You know? Or he's like, we're fucked, and Jon Hamm's gonna get mad at me.

And I feel like he has complete handle on who his character is, what what, like, his baggage is as a human being, who he has to answer to, that he can get mean. That's why episode 6 was so big because it was like, I know there this there's a dark side with this guy, and we haven't really seen it a 100% in the show. And then in episode 6, you see it. And the whole show's leading up to him confronting these guys who beat up his son. And the moment he locks in, you're just like the the honestly, it's like watching, like, a Michael Mann movie or something.

Awesome. It was so good.

1 other thing I wanted to mention is that I think I've realized that I'm a secret huge fan of shows where people have to travel a huge distance to have a very simple conversation. This was a big thing for Ozark where it was like, I need to see you, and they'd have to drive all the way around the lake to the resort or all the way back. Scenes. This scene this show is basically like, they need to have a conversation. You have to get on a private plane

Yeah.

And fly from the Peruvian Basin to Dallas Yeah. To get yelled at for 5 minutes. Right. And I was just like, if we had that at the ringer, if the ringer was based in West Texas, and you were like, I'm gonna need to talk to you. Yeah.

And I'm like, I gotta go.

How fast can you get from Fort Worth to Houston?

If a private plane leaves Permian, I fly to Dallas, and you're like, I didn't much care for that Celtics team yesterday.

Let's talk about it. And then, like, we said about Tatum.

Well, I know you're emotional, but don't ever yell at me. I'm your boss.

This show checks so many boxes that just work for a TV show. Like, what is this world? This weird oil world. Yeah. I don't really know this.

Oh, now you're bringing me into it. Now I kinda feel like, what's it like for the crews that work, you know, on these oil rigs or, like, they're like, oh, this is, like, this whole little community with these little mini houses. Then it's like the ham part. What's it like if you own this thing? Yeah.

Who's who do you deal with? The ham the ham part's interesting because I don't feel like that's fully baked yet, and I'm not sure how much time Ham had to film the show.

Yeah. But I think that he does a really good job explaining things for people who might be looking at this more from the business perspective. Like, the 2 speeches he's given well, the 1 You talked about Ham. Yeah. Ham.

The 1 where he's like, this business is, like, constant crisis Yeah. Punctuated by extraordinary success. I'm like, that sounds like an incredible idea for a show. And 2, like, when he's just like, I'm the bad guy. Like, everybody hates I've accepted the fact that the oil industry is the villain, so all my job is to do is keep oil between this number and this number.

Well and then the lawyer Oh, yeah. Who, was getting a little flirty with Billy Bob and then Ally Larter's character squashed it, but she's just a an assassin. Yeah. And so in episode 6, she goes to see the widow, and they're like, here's the check. And then they're doing a little back and forth, and the widow smartly asked, well, wait a second.

What do you guys get out of this? And she's like, just lays it out as cold as possible. So there's 5 or then the daughter is the other 1. There's 5 or 6 really good characters Yeah. That I wanna know more about that I'm willing to go on a couple journeys with.

But the most important thing to me, this is the best show Jon Hamm's ever done. You know, people say mad men. Don't it's gonna get aggregated now. No.

Yeah. I mean, that's going on hoopsite.

People say mad men. I say watch land man

for a

couple episodes. Yeah. No. I'm I'm psyched for him that, that I I can't even tell, like, maybe he only had, like, 5 shooting days in a month. I I Billy Bob seems to be the only 1 who was fully committed to this concept.

Memorize, like, 5 pages of of a monolog. Like, it's it's an incredible feat athletically. I do agree. Ham seems to be always getting off a plane, getting off on his mobile phone, and then hanging it up and then Yeah.

They're like, John, can you film from 2 to 5? Yeah.

We just

need to get off a plane.

I saw

You're yelling at somebody.

Ham was on Eisen, and he was asking about how it was to shoot this, and he was like, great. Yeah. I put on a suit. I got off a plane. I talked to him.

It did it did me more. I was like, I loved it.

Yeah. 2 day shoot. I think that this show did does really remind me that it's okay for TV to be a lot of fun. Like, we have had a nice long stretch of prestige television that's very serious, very, like, this is about important issues. There are important issues in layman, but you can take them as seriously as you want.

There is, like, at least 3 things in this each episode where you're like, what did I just watch?

Well and the thing with Sheridan, and he figured out he laid the groundwork for her with the first couple years at Yellowstone. He's made a bunch of shows, obviously. But to me, this is his apex. This is just like he's taken all the lessons he's done on all these different shows, and he's like, how can I make the most entertaining show possible about the oil world in Texas with and just let some actors cook?

But the father son story is, like, definitely, really affecting. Like, I really, really like it.

Yeah. Yeah. And the ex wife stuff, you know that's not gonna last, how that's gonna be, but That There's so many good touches. Like, she goes back to get divorced, right, in episode 6.

Yeah. Are you gonna say the line? Go ahead. There's a there's been a couple of lines that are

Oh, yeah.

They'll put I

was, like, pushing almost an r.

Yeah. Yeah. She what does she so she says I may have to suck Victor's dick to get my family.

And he's and he's like, well, bring your toothbrush. Yes. And she goes, there's a whole party in the back, but they the other thing is I like the houses. Like, it's just these weird crazy mansions you would never see in any other walk of life. They've done a good job with that.

For Sheridan, though, I just feel like he's figured it out once and for all. I I think this is gonna be the biggest show he's ever had, and I know Yellowstone was the biggest show in the last 10 years.

I I I honestly wouldn't be surprised. I wouldn't be surprised. I mean, I think that Yellowstone was like a phenomenon where there wasn't really anything like that. There was no western on TV at that moment, I don't think. This is a little bit more familiar to people, but I think as it keeps going, they're probably only gonna be it's so popular.

I wouldn't be surprised if some, like, huge star does a guest star next year.

That's I was gonna bring that up.

Andy Garcia is supposed to be on this season. You know? Like, it's gonna be getting bigger

this season.

Iteration of this is some big ass stars coming in because that's some somewhat what happened with Yellowstone. But I think Yellowstone was a big show that we're all like, wait. Is that a big show? And we kinda people are kinda stealth watching.

People are actually watching Yellowstone. Yeah.

Right now. And then COVID, it felt like everybody caught up, and then all of a sudden that became the biggest TV show. But, you know, it definitely went a little sideways once the costume thing got weird.

You know what's crazy about this show too is how fast they made a couple of the sets become, like, instantly recognizable and kind of iconic. Like, the bar, where it's like everyone's drinking all day long because they have, like, crazy shifts. And then, like you said, the McMansion and the country club, you're kinda like, I already know this world. Like, this is it usually takes a a show, like, years to be like, oh, and you know this place and you know that place. And it's like, no.

They instantly kind of hit all of

that stuff. Yeah. So this is like there's the prestige TV stuff that we talk about that we have the podcast named after it, and there's a certain, like, just elite script Yeah.

White Lotus kinda thing.

And then there's, like, the Yellowstone side of stuff. There's this middle ground between those 2 worlds that's the hardest thing to, like, straddle both lines. And I thought this is 1 of the only shows that has done that. Yeah. You know?

Where it's like, this this show is, like, not far away from being, like, a real prestige show, but it doesn't wanna be. Yeah. It wants to be funny and entertaining and goofy. Yeah. So where does it go?

Where does it go where? From here?

Yeah. The rest of the season.

I think that they'll probably keep playing out, like, the adversarial relationship between Monty and and Tommy, but I think that the cool thing about this series is that it'll probably like Yellowstone where there's, like, a big bad every season. And so there will be, like, a big plot for each season, but all of the parts will stay the same.

1 of the big lessons I've learned that if my son ever watches this is maybe don't get involved with the widow as a kid. Just just just point blank.

What what other lessons

is that you spend taking stuff? Friends that are threatening you with guns the moment you, like, spend you're just raking goes in most of

your life.

Your front yard. There's multiple maybe, like, fine. There's lots of fish in the sea, buddy. Yeah. No.

I like I think all the actors in this are really good too. That's the other thing. Yeah. Like, she's good, the the actress who plays the widow. All across

the world.

Office. Yeah.

And they, the daughter is just going for it.

She's the sister of a woman who is on The Bachelorette.

Oh, is that true?

And, yes, is 28 I mean, she's 28 years old. She's playing, like, an 18 year old. I I it is it is an extraordinary bit that she's just like, I'm nude in this house while, like, the lawyer guy is, like, looking nude. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So who what's the competition all time for a show like this? All time? I'm saying, like, that that middle ground between prestige and, like, just going for it. I'm trying to

think of other shows that were

like this because, like, White Lotus was way more on the prestige side. You know? Was goofy

having a session is way more prestige. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's just this is the hardest hardest 1 to thread.

I think it's more it would be something that, like, David e Kelly did. It would be, like, Big Little Lies, maybe. That's good. Like, that kind of, like, this is very pop. It's got big people in it.

People will just like looking at the furniture. Shows literally for everybody.

There's not 1 person in my life who wouldn't like Landman. And if they didn't like Landman, I don't I'd have to reevaluate my relationship with them.

Be like you would like a part of this. You'll like the oil stuff. You'll like the, the Cooper stuff. You'll like the love affair between Ally Larter and Billy Bob Thornton. There's something in here that

you will like. I couldn't get my dad to watch it. And because he's like, ah, Yellowstone. I got sports. I got a lot of I'm like, dad, if you don't fucking watch land man, I'm gonna, like, fly to Boston, and I'm gonna just put tie you up in front of the sofa and make you watch episodes.

That's how he checked it out. So he started watching. Of course, he's on my Paramount because he doesn't know how to how to pay for any streamer. And so he's like, yeah. I watched the first too.

It's good. And then he watched the third 1. He's like, 3rd 1 was good. And then the 4th 1 is, like, texting me, did you see land man? So I went to watch 1 last night after I did my pod on Sunday night.

It had already been watched. I had to, like, start over. My dad was just like, great. Yeah. So I was like, oh, he's all in.

My mom's like that with Lioness. She was like, I have you've heard about this Lioness show? And I'm like, yeah. I have. Right.

And then all of a sudden, it was like, All my episodes were done.

So do you think Taylor Sheridan took, like, the limitless pill? There's no other explanation for how he's gonna produce this.

At least 40 hours of television per se.

I don't exactly know how he does it. I don't get it. Nobody is there other people? Does he have, like, 5 people under him?

I don't know.

So this is Kendall?

We haven't seen a run like this since Sorkin

where Sorkin wrote every episode of West Wing. Can you imagine?

And this show, honestly, it kinda reminds me of West Wing a little bit. It's a lot of people, like, walking and talking and solving problems. Eric, it was comparison.

Yeah. And West Wing was close to the prestige side too, but it was just a really well done,

well acted function show. Good plots per episode of West Wing.

Yeah.

There would be, like, an overarching thing where it's like the president's sick or whatever. But, like, for the most part, it would be, like, Josh is gonna solve something, Sam's gonna do something, and, like, CJ is gonna do something. And then you

get a big speech from the president. And just picture Sheridan in the writers' room, and he's like, man There is no writers' room. Show. Well, he's by himself with a dog, and he's just like, man, I haven't I haven't had anyone blow up or had some terrible thing happen in an episode and a half. Yeah.

I'm just gonna have this guy step on a bunch of pipes and then fall under and get crushed

on you.

What is unprecedented. It's unprecedented for someone to have the biggest show on TV end while possibly 1 of the biggest shows on TVs is beginning, and you're responsible for both of them. I can't think of another time that's happened. Unbelievable. That you were writing both of them.

It'd be funny if we had, like, the first take type of infrastructure for TV show runners, And it was just like, it's Sheridan the goat. That's coming up next.

I

thought you were gonna be, like, first take, but for, like, actual land man.

Oh, that'd be amazing.

Should Cooper have kept it in his pants? Coming up.

That would be great. Yeah. Just an entire first take about the different Wind power.

Does it use more energy than we think?

What's Ali Larter's character's name?

Oh, I can't even remember. I just refer to her as Ali Larter. Let's look. She

just need a name. I think her name is Ali Larter on the show. Angela. Angela. Yeah.

Yeah. It's Ali Larter's Instagram. She's like, Angela's back episode 4.

What a win for her. I'm so happy for her. I'm happy for Billy Bob. I'm happy for everyone on the show. I'm happy for us.

Yeah. How

about so it's 10 episodes?

I think so. Yeah.

The odds of Mallory loving the show are a 100%.

She loves she texts me on Saturday saying 6 hours to layman. I'm like, Lamar Jackson's on.

I think this is the most ringery show that's come out since, probably White Lotus. So when when was that? 2021? Yeah. Yeah.

This is a beloved piece of art.

Watchland, man. It's really good. Alright. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Chris Mannix.

Thanks to Chris Ryan. Thanks Thanks to Kyle Crane and Steve Sarutti. As always, thanks to Jack Sanders for helping out last night with Craig Corlbeck as we tape some stuff with CR. And I will be back on Thursday with another podcast. See that?

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