A Clippers Rebrand, an NFL Mini-Mailbag, and Best MLB Story Lines With Rob Mahoney, Anthony Dabbundo, and Billy Gil

The Bill Simmons Podcast

Bill Simmons discusses the Clippers' post-scandal rebranding possibilities with Rob Mahoney, tackles a mini NFL mailbag, and dives into stan

Key takeaways

• The Clippers' recent scandal has led to questions about whether a full rebrand—like changing their name to 'Hollywood Knights'—is necessary despite lacking historical legacy to protect.
• Kawhi Leonard's trade to Toronto was surprisingly lucrative for the Clippers, netting two unprotected first-round picks and a swap, which is seen as a major win given his injury history and off-court issues.

Main topics

• Clippers rebranding debate
• Kawhi Leonard trade analysis

Notable quotes

"Is it just time to start over? They don't even have a retired number, Rob. They've never made the finals."

"You're out five firsts, your owner is suspended for a year... I guess, what else are you going to do at this point other than shuffle some deck chairs around?"

Conclusion

The episode reflects on major shifts in sports franchises—from the Clipper

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:06) The Bill Simmons podcast brought to you by the ringer podcast network, where I put up a new rewatchables on Monday night. We did Rambo first part two. It was me and Kyle Brandt. I had a fantastic time. Uh, sliced alone's 13th rewatchables, which puts him in third place. All time. He's sniffing Cruz. Cruz has a pretty big lead. Cruz is at 18. He's almost at 20 with a lot of good cruise movies left, but, uh, Stallone is he's battling. He's trying to get to 20 before Cruz. Uh, very fun podcast. So go check it out on Netflix or Spotify or wherever you get your podcast coming up on this episode at the very top. I'm talking to Rob Mahoney about, uh, the Clippers post-co-I trade. What do we do now? What do we do with this Clippers team? What happens? Um, that's first second. I have a little mini NFL mailbag. Uh, I got a lot of good questions and had some more NFL stuff today. I wanted to chime in on the chiefs game on Monday night. So we have that. And then last but not least, Anthony Dibundo, Billy Gill. We haven't talked baseball in a while. We have less than two weeks left in this season. The playoffs are going to be pretty cool. This has been a pretty bizarre, super fun, crazy baseball season. It might be our last for a while. So we wanted to talk about our favorite things from this season. That is all coming up next. First, a break Speaker 2 (1:22) and our friends from Pearl Jam. Speaker 4 (1:24) The Bill Simmons Podcast is presented by FanDuel. The NFL is here and it's the most rewarding season ever on FanDuel with the all-time FanDuel Rewards Club. Every eligible bet can earn you points. Win or lose, you still get points. The more points, the bigger the rewards you can unlock. Head to FanDuel.com slash BS to start earning with Speaker 2 (1:47) FanDuel Rewards Club. Speaker 4 (1:49) 21 plus select states are 18 plus DC, Kentucky, Wyoming. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. Speaker 4 (2:26) All right, we're recording on early Tuesday afternoon. Rob Mahoney is here. It's been a while. I just realized you hadn't been on in a while. It's like, just come on. Let's talk basketball. Basketball starting in five weeks somehow. I know. I Speaker 1 (2:37) know. Speaker 4 (2:37) I just feel like I did all my football prep. We only had week one of a football season. NBA is coming. And there's lots of time to talk about where we're going, who's going to win. Jalen Brown playing with LeBron, Paul Georgia in the Celtics. Just a million subplots. I got to put the Clipper stuff to bed. I know you already talked about it on Ringer NBA show, but just a couple of things here. My big question for you as I look at this and I talked to the press Clipper fans and all of us wonder, should we keep paying for tickets for them and all these things? Should they just change their name? Is this it? Speaker 3 (3:13) You think that would cleanse whatever's going on with them? Speaker 4 (3:16) Is it rebrand time? And have we had a rebrand over the years in the NBA that has actually worked? And the answer for that is maybe not because we had like the Brooklyn Nets with the New Orleans Pelicans. We had kind of a Charlotte rebrand with the expansion team. Do rebrands work? Is it just a way like it works with products? Can it work with a sports franchise? Speaker 3 (3:42) The fact that this is the solution, it's like you're out five firsts, your owner is suspended for a year, half the front office can't even go to the arena. It's like. I guess, what else are you going to do at this point other than shuffle some deck chairs around, hire a graphic designer, and call it good? Speaker 4 (3:56) Yeah, and would you call it LA or would you go, I always thought they should be called the Hollywood Knights, even though they're not in Hollywood, and just have a Knights with a K, or you could just call it Hollywood Knights with an N, but either way, it just would feel completely different. I think they need to do something like that. Now, granted, everybody who would be involved in that decision is suspended for a year. Yeah. So, uh, I don't even know if they can do it, but I just wonder how we run the course has 50 years of the Clippers just being, um, a train wreck and coming up with scandals that we didn't even know could exist. Is it just time to start over? They don't even have a retired number, Rob. They've never made the finals. You just reset this right now in some way. Speaker 3 (4:38) Yeah, there's no history to protect. And whatever history they had, they just spat in Chris Paul's face to give Bradley Peel his number. They really did. It's just awful. I went through this exercise, too, because I was trying to think about, with all of these penalties, when is the next time we will see a relevant Clippers team? When's the next time they'll make the second round of the playoffs? And I realize they've done it like six times in 50 years to begin with. So I guess it's just kind of business as usual anyway, even if they don't have these picks. Speaker 4 (5:04) Yeah, you think like all the terrible and weird and dumbfounding things that's happened to them, the reality of them having the best team they've ever had during the COVID year, then getting shut down and then going into the bubble and being the team that most famously out of all the teams just quit in the bubble, right? And then the next year they come back and they finally do make a run and have a real chance to make it. Kawhi gets hurt. But as that's happening, all their fans are wearing COVID masks. in the stands or deciding whether they want to pull them down or up. And that's like the best Western conference finals memory they have. Um, I, I just don't know what they do. I would vote for a rebrand, but maybe we have to wait a year. The other question is, what do you do with this team? The Kauai trade went through, which was one of the things I wanted to talk to you about. And I was actually genuinely surprised how much they got for Kauai, a guy who was in the 2011 draft who has a pretty checkered injury history who just kind of orchestrated one of the biggest scandals in the history of the league. And then it's like, I didn't know. It's people around me. I didn't know what happened. And now he's going to Toronto at age 35 to try to turn them into a contender and they get a swap. They get two unprotected first, much later. I thought that was kind of a miracle for them, right? Speaker 3 (6:22) Well, there was all that. I wouldn't even say fuss or hubbub, but like there were people wondering if there was going to be a renegotiation. If everything that happened with the penalties would bring both teams back to the table, I think there's a million reasons why that didn't really happen in that form, why it didn't turn into the Raptors squeezing the Clippers as hard as they possibly could. But you're right. Given who Kawhi has been and the damage he's dealt to now multiple organizations in the process and the fact that you can't rely on him to be available at basically any time, this was quite a coup under the circumstances. Speaker 4 (6:55) I couldn't decide. Who should have backed out and had more leverage? Which is one of the reasons I didn't think the trade was going to happen because I thought you could have made a case for both. The Raptors could have said, well, obviously you can't bring him back. Speaker 3 (7:11) Yeah. Speaker 4 (7:11) So for us, this is like a 50 % off sale now. And you have nowhere else to trade him. You weren't honest about what happened with us. And we had to postpone it anyway because we didn't feel like we knew what the suspensions were going to be for him. Turns out there weren't. But how about just a first rounder and we'll call it a... call it a we'll call it a wrap the Clippers could have been like Fuck him. We're not trading them Like your final penance will be, you're just going to have to play out one more year here and then not have a get out of jail free card. Speaker 3 (7:45) Fail, like flunk Grady Dick's physical. And it's like, sorry, our hands are really tied. Sorry, Speaker 4 (7:49) Kawhi. Enjoy the year. Speaker 3 (7:51) But if it's only one year, I mean, how bad could it really be for him? Speaker 4 (7:55) How does he get more? He's in complete turmoil and so is the franchise and somehow fetches more than Jalen Brown did will be one of the enduring questions of the entire 2020s. I can't believe it was two firsts unprotected, much less two firsts and a swap. I don't know if there was a little bit of a tax for having Brandon Mingerman in it, who's basically two years, 81 million in a league where they seem that's kind of the area where nobody is excited to pay that unless you're like an all NBA player. But it leaves us with a really weird Clipper team where they have Garland for 42 and 44. They have Ingram for 40 and 41. And those two guys are basically locked in for the next two years at about. 82 million. Yeah. I'm going to not put that twosome as one of the best two-man combos in the league, much less one of the best 20. I'm going to say that's in the bottom third. If you're just ranking everybody's two-man combos, their best, most expensive players. I think we could come up with 20 teams right now that would be better than that, right? Speaker 3 (9:04) You don't think that's in the season ticket renewal brochure? Like in the materials that those two fronts center? I don't. I mean, it's Blake. Honestly, even including Brandon Ingram as any important or relevant part of this team, I think is just not realistic. It wasn't realistic even before all these punishments came down. To me, it's Darius Garland. It's Keaton Wagler, who they just drafted. It's maybe guys like Yannick Conan-Niederhauser when he comes back from injury. Some of the younger prospects on the team, which they don't have very many. And that's kind of it. And then Brandon Ingram. yet again is at a way station before he gets flipped to yet another team for a couple of picks. He's just going to go around that particular carousel for a long time. And I just don't think he's a solution of any kind for the Clippers. Speaker 4 (9:49) Yeah, he's this is the perfect situation for him because really nobody wanted him for the last couple years. And then clutch finally found a team for him. And Toronto actually needed a forward who could score like that. I think he probably served their purpose. But yeah, there's not a lot of. Teams that need a guy making 40 million who's like 22 a game. Kind of a surprisingly solid crunch time end of the game guy who has a couple spots and he can score a proven score. But it seems like all the smarter teams were not that enamored by him. Including Golden State who had multiple chances to trade for him and wanted no part of him. Boston didn't want any part of him in a Jalen thing. So you have Garland and Ingram. You have the three young guys you mentioned, Miller, Sanders, and Niederhauser, who I love Niederhauser. You have the artist formerly known as Bradley Beal wearing Chris Paul's number. You're rolling the dice with Wagler one way or the other now where... it's weird to say this, but I don't know if any other rookie from that class has more pressure on him than Wagler. Oh, really? Yeah. Here's why. Because if he doesn't work out and he feels busty or he feels bad these first two months combined with everything else that has happened to this team, I just think that will be, um, just talk about it already crestfallen fan base. He's the one thing they're holding onto. Like, well, if he's good and you know, we'll have cap space and we got some of these Toronto picks, but if he's not good coming out of the gate, now you're just, this is as bleak as it gets. Speaker 3 (11:29) See, I see it the other way where we just need to go in accepting that the Clippers are cooked for the foreseeable future. And if that's true, Keaton Wagler has found money. If he turns out to be a really good player, if he turns out to be the kind of star they can build around or at least to compliment other stars, that's a feather in their cap. I don't know that that cap is accomplishing anything because it's still going to be hard to bring free agents or lure other good players to the Clippers given their circumstances. I don't know that there's going to be that much pressure on him because it seems so accepted that this is a death penalty for the Clippers. And if that is true, how could you possibly hang anything around Keaton Wagler's neck? Speaker 4 (12:07) Counter. For the next seven years, when do they have another chance to get a blue chip guy? Speaker 3 (12:14) Yeah. Speaker 4 (12:16) Well, that would Speaker 3 (12:17) be depressing if Keaton Wagler disappoints the Clippers and the Pacers, if one ping pong ball had gone differently, could have gotten a top four pick. Like the fact that this particular pick and its trajectory managed to disappoint two entirely separate franchises, if it goes that way, would be pretty tragic. I Speaker 4 (12:35) think he's going to be pretty good. But the bigger point to me is if he's not good and now you have no draft picks forever. Yeah. And then on top of it, no free agent's going to really want to go there unless it's one of those situations where, oh, they had the most money and I didn't have a better option. So I'm going to begrudgingly go there. Sure. Speaker 3 (12:54) Or like Rui Hachimura. I just want to stay in LA and also cash a check, which I think there's a non-insignificant number of NBA players who do want to do that. So I think they'll be in the mid-level market. It's just, how are they going to get the high-end guys? That's always the question. Speaker 4 (13:09) Well, they have $61 million in expirings. Max Drews, Hachimura, Derek Jones, Lopez, Grady Dick, done. Yeah. Put any sort of combination in them, which leads to my next question for you. Are the Clippers... Speaker 4 (13:28) with the move, if we're running the Clippers, you and I, because they don't have a GM there. Well, I guess they hired an interim person, but no, like, what do you think we should do? My advice would be to take all those expirings and try to take somebody else's big contract and give me more picks to take the contract. Right. So you're looking at somebody like Embiid in December. If the Sixers like, wow, this guy's probably never going to be healthy again. Maybe you're like, well, we're here and you know, if you want to wet our beak, we're happy to take him for a bunch of expirings. Sure. Um, Paul George for the Celtics coincidentally, but two years left, 54 and 55. Could you load all the expirings, get Boston and give you a pick or two back, um, to basically take the extra year of Paul George. And then if you're the Celtics, you've basically rebooted. I don't know why they would do that. Cause they seem like they like Paul George. There's Sabonis in Sacramento, which would just be two ships passing in the night. Here's the one that's interesting to me, though. De'Aaron Fox. You think his value is that low? Starting a four-year, $221 million deal. Yeah. If I'm the Clippers, I'm at least calling the Spurs and being like, yo, we have Garland. We love them. But if you want to talk about flipping four years of Fox for two years of Garland and throwing some of your stuff at us, we're happy to have the conversation. Okay. Right. And then if you're the Spurs, you're like, well, we, we messed up this Fox thing. We didn't realize we're going to get Harper when we, when we did the, you know, the wink wink with the Fox extension. Um, we were going to have to have money to pay Wemby and castle and eventually Harper. Um, could Garland be a two year stop gap now instead of four? And could we use some of our picks and other stuff to, to basically get out of those last two years? And if you're the Clippers, you're like, well, Darren Fox, veteran guy. Speaker 4 (15:27) who with Wagner kind of weirdly makes sense as a combo. We've seen both of those guys play off the ball. And we could grab some more picks. And I don't know. It was just a thought. This is how bleak it's been because this was the most excited I was for any quipper I did. Speaker 3 (15:42) I mean, I think if you're the Spurs, you got me on the phone. Like the Darius Garland pick, I thought you were just talking Fox for picks basically and salary. But if Garland is involved, I think that's something San Antonio could really think about. I mean, really, what the Clippers need to do is figure out what the Raptors were able to do with Ingram, I think is very instructive. I did not like it when the Raptors traded for Brandon Ingram in the first place. As an expiring contract, gave him that deal, turned him and some supplementary pieces and picks into Kawhi now. That's a great swing for them in the trajectory of their franchise, especially with how impressive they looked in the playoffs. The Clippers kind of have to do both of those things, though. Like, they have a Brandon Ingram, clearly, but they need the picks to supplement the deal. Like, they do need to reload the coffers in that way. So it's like, even the deals you can conceptualize are like three moves away before you can even get to the move that actually changes what this team is. Like, they need to get the picks in the door. They need to flip all of that into something more of value, whether they get a De'Aaron Fox or not and parlay a player like that into another deal down the line. It's just like... The chain of events that now needs to happen for the Clippers to be good is so dizzying that I really can't imagine how they dig themselves out of this in any kind of near-term future. Speaker 4 (16:58) We said that about Brooklyn, right? In 2016-17 range, when Boston had their picks. There was at least an end of the line where it's like, well, we'll have cap space. At some point, we will have our picks. Speaker 3 (17:09) And free agency still existed then, so it's at least plausible. Speaker 4 (17:13) One of the crazy things with this Clippers situation is it's like they took away five picks, but those five picks haven't even, we're not even on the clock with them yet. Like, I don't understand how OKC still has a chance to get more Clipper picks, but they do. This year they can swap yet again. They can either take their pick or Denver's pick and swap it with whatever happens with the Clippers. Then the Clippers will take that worst pick and could potentially swap it with Toronto. Somehow this OKC deal is still going. I mean, I thought we were done already and we're not. And that leads me to my next question for you is you can't even really tank because you don't have your pick. Speaker 3 (17:53) No. Speaker 4 (17:54) And I'm not sure why you would want to tank. But if you wanted a spite tank, which we've never seen before. Who is being spited though? The Clippers, if they got into the bottom three. Yeah. It's only two ping pong balls instead of three. So you could basically say, well, what do we care? We don't have it anyway. Like, let's like really tank. We'll play all our young guys. We'll do, we'll try to trade. Basically just Wagler. We'll try to dump the rest of the contracts we have and just kind of bottom out. Would be another like meeting I would have if I was running the Clippers. Like, our fan base hates us. We have their money for this year anyway. Do we just completely bottom out so we don't get screwed by this OKC pick? Because the worst case scenario is you end up like seventh. Sure. And now you're turning over potentially the number one pick in next year's draft as the final piece of this. But like Speaker 3 (18:47) that, that cost has sunk. Like the ship has sailed. You are not getting that pick back. It's out of your hands at this point. Honestly, I'm not even sure you need to have that meeting because sitting here today, going into the season, how many Western Conference teams are we sure are worse than the Clippers? I would say the Kings definitively. Sacramento. Other than them, are we sure any other team is worse than this Clippers team? Speaker 4 (19:11) No. I would have them... What about in the East? Speaker 3 (19:17) I mean, Brooklyn probably, but even then, like if you told me they went on a random spirited Julius Randall run, that seems more likely than the Clippers putting anything together. Speaker 4 (19:27) All right. So these are two separate questions. One is the long-term piece, but the other is the short-term piece of just who has a worse roster than them. So you would say Brooklyn and Milwaukee, I think in the East would be the candidates. And I'm just looking at the Fando odds. The three worst odds are Sacramento, Memphis, and then the Clippers. And obviously you'd much rather be Memphis. You'd much rather be New Orleans. So. They're also not a ton of depth. Death was a Freudian slip. Too much death, frankly. Right. The Kings, at least, they have Levine on an expiring, which he might actually play really well this year because he's playing for one more deal. It seems like Sabonis wants to get out of there. But if you're telling me what team would I rather be this year from a talent standpoint, I think I'd rather be the Kings. Like this Clippers thing, I'm putting all my eggs in the Wagler basket. Like, and this is somebody that was not even, I don't think a top 50 prospect two years ago who had a meteoric rise. And I like him. I have high hopes for his NBA future, but I don't know what it's going to look like this year. He's got this whole ball dominant hesitation, you know, kind of the balls on a string. He's trying to beat people. He's shooting threes. Like that's going to be really hard to do in the NBA consistently night after night. So, and plus you're playing with Garland and sharing the ball with them. Speaker 3 (21:00) Everything you say is true, but the alternative is DeAndre Hunter as your starting small forward. Damanis Sabonis, warts and all, is the best player on your team with a bullet. I mean, Darius Acuff, I know you're a fan. The rookie point guard experience, at minimum, comes with its ups and downs. We'll see how all that goes, but I'm not signing up for Sacramento's roster against, frankly, anybody's except maybe Milwaukee, which is just a collection of... random guys who don't really fit together at all with no real organizational principle. Those to me are the two worst roster situations in the league, depending on how you want to slice it. Speaker 4 (21:38) I'm not like doing backflips about Brooklyn either. But at least they have guys who, in this new format where you don't want to be in the bottom three, they have some stat guys. Yeah. Right? Randall will go get some stats at least. He'll put up 23 and 10. Speaker 3 (21:54) And Yegor and Brown, I think, make sense together. That's a backcourt I think a fan base should rightly be really excited about. Speaker 4 (22:01) So it sounds like you think Sacramento is going to be the worst team in the league. Speaker 3 (22:06) I think Milwaukee will probably be the worst team in the league, but Sacramento in the West feels obvious to me. Speaker 4 (22:13) Yeah, I'm looking at, so if Fando, you do the 20-plus win odds, Sacramento is minus 140 if you want to bet on them to have 20-plus wins. Brooklyn's minus 320. Milwaukee's minus 475, and New Orleans is minus 900. Clippers are 11-1. So Fando agrees with you. Now Memphis, I actually think could be... a little bit better than, you know, the typical bad young team because they have a bunch of gamers and they're going to have a specific identity. That Milwaukee team, that Milwaukee teams, I don't know what to make of that team. It's just, it's, it's like a randomized NBA 2K team that's just like, Hey, they're going to have a bunch of centers and a bunch of shooters and don't know what to make of it. What, uh, even though we're five weeks away, what are you the most excited about this season? Speaker 3 (23:07) I think it's got to be Philly. Every time I look at that, I mean, every time I'm reminded of just everybody they have on that team, I have to see it. I have to see it in person. I need to see it as often as possible. I don't know if it's going to work. I don't know if Joel is ever going to be healthy, but the star power, the supporting players they picked up, I mean, is that not your number one? Where are you starting? Speaker 4 (23:29) I'm definitely number one from... Speaker 4 (23:32) I need to see this a few times just to let this sink into my brain what this is. I Speaker 3 (23:38) think Speaker 4 (23:39) out of all the teams that feel different than last year, that's the number one. I just don't really fully understand how this is going to work. I'm fascinated by it. The upside is so high. The floor is even fairly high just because with their two injured, Embiid is an injured guy and LeBron is an old guy. Even if those guys aren't playing a lot, you still have those other three guys that can play big minutes. I think the Celtics piece is going to be interesting too, because well, you would, well, but I'm saying from a. usually they've been more of a feel good team or the up and coming team, but this is a city that really didn't like that trade. And depending on how those first two, three weeks go, I think could be a team to watch. Now they could come out and be great and everybody could like them and, you know, Paul George could fit in. And, but if they, if they start out like seven and eight and Paul George looks old, I, the fans are pretty gamey about this trade still. And they, you know, Paul George did a press conference. He's there. And I think he's saying all the right things, but it's the first really unpopular move of the Stevens era. Speaker 3 (24:51) Well, even if they're, let's say they come out and they're really good. Do you think any of the scar tissue from last season will pop up and be like, you know, this is a really good regular season. This is a nice run, but is this real? Is that going to be hanging over them all year? Do you think? Speaker 4 (25:05) I think that, I think. just monitoring Tatum, what we're getting out of him for a full year when he didn't even make it through the Sixers series. And then the thing Steven said about... Speaker 4 (25:19) He said it in so many words. If you decoded it, you knew what he was saying. He was like, we ran our course with those two guys. We didn't feel like we were in the title mix anymore, paying those two guys $130 million a year to play basketball. It wasn't going to work anymore. So it's a pretty big bet. I've announced a couple weeks ago, I don't know if you saw, I talked myself into it. Took over 50 days. It's impressive. Speaker 1 (25:43) Yeah. Speaker 4 (25:44) It was, you know, there was some therapy. There were some hypnotic tapes at night to listen to, but yeah. Speaker 3 (25:50) How did we not turn? I mean, you kind of did turn it into content, but how did we not just like lock you in a padded room for 72 hours until you came out ready to believe in the Celtics? It Speaker 4 (25:59) sounds like an Apple TV series. It's like the new Apple TV drama from Vince Gilligan. So Philly in the East. Yeah. Who's your team in the West then that you can't wait for? Speaker 3 (26:09) Oh, it's got to be Minnesota. Yeah. I'm ready. LaMelo and Ant. I mean, sign me the fuck up for that. That sounds like exactly what I am tuning in for and the process of who they're going to be in the regular season, how they figure out incorporating Jonathan Kuminga being a totally different style of team, making all these pieces fit together, figuring out how they're going to replace Dante DiVincenzo is probably going to be out for the year. Chris Finch has done this kind of thing many times of like... here's a new formula. Go figure it out since he's been with the Wolves. But to me, this is easily the most exciting version of that. Speaker 4 (26:43) It does feel Minnesota and Philly have one thing in common where you're going to catch them on the right night where they look incredible. Yeah. You know, it'll be like game 17, whatever location. Like, oh my God, Minnesota made 29 threes last night. That'd be a record. They had an interesting summer though because it just felt like they were in on everybody. They were like the guy in your fantasy draft that is just bidding on every guy. And you're like, what's your plan? You just, you've got, you've gone into the twenties on 15 straight guys. Like, did you come in with any sort of plan? I really didn't. Uh, Minnesota was like that too, where it's like coming is available. Whoever like Jalen Brown's available. LeBron's available. Is Kevin Durant available? They, they just were flying around trying to make anything happen. And as on top of it, going through an ownership change that they kept pretty secret. But isn't that what a team in their Speaker 3 (27:34) position should do? Like if you kind of ran into the wall and you have one of the most exciting stars in the league and a supporting cast that also worked, but also kind of ran its course and the Julius thing clearly was over. Nas Reed was valuable to them, but I can understand why they wanted to diversify their roster a little bit, thin out the bigs. That leads you to chase every star on the market. It's honestly kind of what we want. Teams of Minnesota's market size, this is what we want them to do is to chase after things when they get real. Speaker 4 (28:05) I just would have been, if we're in that meeting and it's getting close and we're starting to really talk about this, at some point you have to look around and go, why does Charlotte want to give this guy up? Under contract, pretty fair contract for somebody that is a top 30 guy. Yep. Beloved by the fan base. Kind of the best driver for whatever engine they had for this three-point kind of up-and-down team. Perfect for that. Why do they want to trade him? I don't know if I would have gotten past that. Speaker 3 (28:41) I understand it as a sticking point. And frankly, look, I'm a Lomelo believer. Who he is as a playmaker, very powerful to me. I see the vision, if you'll pardon the pun. For me, it's the health. It's the ankles. It's the injuries. That's the part that freaks me out more than can Lomelo Ball be a winning player? Because we've seen him have a transformative effect, not just last season, but basically every season he's played on Charlotte's offense. And so that feels real. That is a tangible thing. You can see it in games. You can see it if you want to dig into the data. I think he can be a serious basketball player in a slightly different context. I'm eager to see if this group can kind of nudge him in that direction. But I just need him to stay healthy. That is my biggest concern for the Wolves, for sure. Speaker 4 (29:24) Well, I mean, that's the concern. Well, but Speaker 3 (29:27) there's a whole different school that's just skeptical of him as a basketball talent. And I'm thinking, that's not where I'm coming from. Speaker 4 (29:33) I'm in that school, Speaker 3 (29:33) too. Yeah. You can have both, I guess. Yeah, Speaker 4 (29:36) I'm in both. I actually, I'm doing a mailbag in the next segment. And I got this email from Brian from the DMV who I've been talking a lot for football about Justin Herbert and Jordan Love are like the nerd King, the King of the nerds, basically QBs. All their advanced stuff is great. All the NFL nerds are like, even when they have a bad game, they're like, no, no, it was actually a good game. And the question from Brian was who's the NBA version of this? And he said, my nominee is LaMelo ball. Incredible advanced stats has never made the playoffs or contributed to winning. The nerd community would tell you none of that matters, despite the fact that it's parentheses checks notes about to be year seven for him. So do Speaker 3 (30:16) you think, Speaker 4 (30:16) do you think LaMelo is the nerd King of the NBA right now with the NBA nerds? I Speaker 3 (30:21) don't Speaker 4 (30:21) think Speaker 3 (30:21) you can be the nerd King. If you're also very popular with like 12 and 13 year olds, like that's two separate things, but that can't be the split demographic. That doesn't make sense. I would say the Nerd King... Does the Speaker 4 (30:32) lamello ball make sense? Well, Speaker 3 (30:34) often not. But to me, the Nerd King is much more like a Derek White type than it is a lamello ball type. Speaker 4 (30:40) The difference is Derek White has actually won a title doing nerd stuff. Sure. Speaker 3 (30:45) So I was Speaker 4 (30:46) wondering, if it's not lamello, because he might be in this separate camp, Speaker 3 (30:50) could Speaker 4 (30:51) Trey Murphy be our Nerd King? Speaker 3 (30:53) Oh, I like that one. Yeah. Speaker 4 (30:55) Trey Murphy's a great one. Incredible stats. Just put him in anywhere. He'd be additive. It's like, we've never seen him... in a winning situation ever. Why are we so sure? Speaker 3 (31:03) Well, the only thing nerds love more than valuing undervalued players is trying to find them new teams via the trade machine. And like Trey Murphy's been living in it for five years straight. So he feels like a, if not a king, then certainly a prince of the nerds. Speaker 4 (31:16) I do think the nerds, like I think Zach voted for, not to call Zach a nerd, but he dabbles in the nerd stats. This is a nerd stat thing, not a nerd thing. But I think he voted for LaMelo, third team all NBA. or seriously thought about it because of his impact just for the 28 minutes. Whereas I I'm a profound durability guy. Yeah. I just feel like, yeah. I think if you actually had to rely on that dude night after night for 35 minutes, like some of these other dudes, um, I don't know if you could do it, but we'll see. That to me is why it's like what Speaker 3 (31:49) LaMelo does well. is obvious. He's Speaker 1 (31:52) a Speaker 3 (31:52) highlight machine. He's not... I think, to me, if you're making the Nerd King case, it's always like, oh, the secret value of this player is this thing that you're not seeing in the box score, this thing you're not seeing when you watch. You're Shane Battier. You're Derek White. LaMelo is front and center, highlight, neon. Everything he does is so blatant that I don't think he could take that title. Speaker 4 (32:15) Yeah, because in the NFL, the QBs are in your face every play because they're the face of the team. So that's why LaMelo, like a point guard who has the ball all the time, is probably a good analogy. Before we go, you've been doing a lot of Prestige TV episodes. What's the show of the year so far? We're through mid-September. We have a bunch of good stuff going. Is it Widows whatever? Yeah, Widows whatever. After crushing Speaker 3 (32:39) the Emmys, you can't even get the full title out? Speaker 4 (32:42) Widows something? Widows Speaker 3 (32:43) Bay. Widows Bay. It has to be the show that you're incredibly decorated this week, but also just the best show top to bottom. I think the best formulated, the best written, incredible performances. I think you could argue Pluribus or The Pit still is in that running for me. There's been a lot of really good TV this year, but Widows Bay feels the most cohesive. Speaker 4 (33:05) I didn't tell you. I was keeping it a