Steph in Purgatory, a LeBron Mini-Mailbag, Jaylen Trade What-Ifs, and the Revived Red Sox With Joe House and Bill’s Dad

The Bill Simmons Podcast

Bill Simmons discusses LeBron's move to the Sixers, analyzing key losers like Steph Curry and the Warriors, debating Jalen Brown's trade impact, and exploring Boston sports' revival with his dad. The episode features a m

Key takeaways

• Warriors' failure to pursue LeBron cost them relevance

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by PayPal. We're also brought to you by the Ringer podcast Network, where I had an unexpected Friday podcast, if you missed it. LeBron picked the Sixers. I had Zach Lowe coming out anyway to take redraftables for this podcast, but we're running all of it on Friday. So if you wanted to hear our gut reactions to that, that's what went up on Friday. Zach did something on his podcast as well. Rewatchable's obsession live on Netflix at 7 o'clock Eastern, 4 o'clock Pacific. It's going to be me and Chris Ryan and Joanna Robinson, who is fresh from Comic-Con. Can't wait to talk about that movie. It is the first same-year movie we've done for 2026. I'm sure we ended up doing The Odyssey at some point. But we try to do one movie from the year itself every year. And this seemed like a good one. There's been really fun movie to talk about. I loved it. So that is tomorrow. Stay tuned for that. Coming up on this podcast, House and I are going to talk about the losers of the LeBron saga. And then I have a big-ass mailbag with a lot of good questions. So thanks to everybody who mailed in that stuff. And then after House, my dad finally agreeing to come on three weeks after the Jalen Brown trade, was so mad about the Jalen Brown trade, refused to come on. and now he's going to finally come on. And we're going to talk about the state of Boston sports for the last 35, 40 minutes of this podcast. So it's a little Sunday surprise for you. I know I said I was going to have a podcast on Sunday, but we're going to do it. I am not sure about the rest of the week yet, so stay tuned on now. You might not be seeing me until next Sunday, but we will see. Anyway, let's take a break, Pearl Jam, and then my buddy, Joe has. This episode of the Bill Simmons podcast is presented by PayPal. You know a clutch move when you see one, a no look pass, a buzzer beater, a big steel. Well, imagine if your wallet could pull off moves like that. That, my friends, is PayPal. Right now, you can find offers from hundreds of brands like Sony, all birds, and Viator, and save offers before you check out, earn unlimited rewards. Plus, you can add those rewards on top of credit card points. Now, that is clutch. Download the PayPal app today. Save those offers. start scoring rewards terms and exclusions apply see paypal.com slash rewards terms credit card points subject to issuers terms and conditions All right, taping this Sunday afternoon, Joe House is here. Our baseball team's made a trade last night. Yeah, baseball. You liked Mead. I liked early. I'm happy for both of us. Speaker 5 (3:12) There we go. And I'm happy to have baseball back in my life. Washington hasn't been competitive since 2019 when they won the World Series. And they weren't supposed to be competitive this year, which is why they have a historically bad bullpen. Yeah, really bad. Speaker 3 (3:27) I saw it when they played the Red Sox. You didn't have a single guy. Speaker 5 (3:30) You enjoyed it. Speaker 3 (3:31) Yeah. You saw it and you enjoyed it. Yeah, we made a trade. Anyway, it's good. Speaker 5 (3:35) Baseball. Let's go. Speaker 3 (3:36) We're going to do a mailbag. But before we do that, I want to talk about the LeBron signing to Philly happened on Friday. And I wanted to do a quick thing about the biggest losers from the LeBron signing. Speaker 5 (3:49) Well, hold on a second. It's warm. Let me get a little warm up here. Speaker 3 (3:52) It's a little warm. Oh, my God. I didn't know they actually sold those. I thought that was a joke. Speaker 5 (4:04) Well, now they need to do the Caleb Wilson Jizz Room one. And we'll really be cooking. What a July. Speaker 3 (4:14) That was a fun one because that got aggregated in a way that made me sound like a psycho, which I kind of enjoyed. Speaker 4 (4:22) Aggregated. Speaker 2 (4:22) I was trying to make a joke about how excited the Bulls fans were and then I was trying to make you laugh and then all of a sudden I'm going to it was ejaculated. Speaker 5 (4:32) Ejacula graded. I loved it. As you know, I don't care. Speaker 3 (4:37) Of course. The LeBron Saga. Biggest loser in your opinion. I have a list. I have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven losers. Who is the biggest loser of the LeBron Saga? Speaker 5 (4:50) It's close. It's close. But I'm going to say, the Golden State Warriors. So I had number one. See, this is why. We wavelength. I mean, Steph Curry had as my number one loser. It's Steph. And ownership didn't help by coming out, you know, over the last handful of days and making a non-commitment. Like, are we putting Steph in NBA hospice? Is that what we're doing? Speaker 3 (5:19) It's his last chance for relevance and it's gone. I wrote down it is the saddest older NBA superstar situation since 2011 Nash on the Suns and 2007 Garnett before he got traded to Boston of just guys now in purgatory who clearly have more to offer and it's not going to happen there's a couple pieces to this one is why didn't they trade for J. Lambrow Speaker 4 (5:46) they weren't interested Speaker 3 (5:48) they weren't interested they were like they didn't even counter. That was when the Celtics were canvassing the league doing the Jalen fire sale, which I'm going to talk about with my dad later, um, warriors by all accounts, both sides, just not interested for Jimmy Butler's expiring and some picks. And the irony is if they do Speaker 5 (6:07) that, I think LeBron goes there, right? I agree. I mean, the stories of LeBron playing golf with Draymond every single day in Los Angeles, those are true. And, and not only, only are, you know, from sources on the ground. Our own Nathan Hubbard observed it with his own two eyes. Speaker 3 (6:27) Right. Right. So there's so many things I don't understand about that. One is like, who do the Warriors think they were going to get with Jimmy Butler's expiring and first-round picks if it wasn't Anthony Davis or Jalen Brown? And why are you so desperate just to waste the end of the Steph era? You already did this. You held out in a Wiseman and Cominga too long. Right. Do they just think maybe Steph can't be the best guy in a championship team anymore? 22 can never happen again. So even stack in the deck, they have no chance against San Antonio in OKC. Isn't he entitled to find out? Well, he's never, the best thing about him is he's like, Duncan, he's never going to bitch about this. Right. Yeah. He's just not. He's not going to go. Speaker 5 (7:15) But we'll do it on his behalf. We'll bitch on his behalf. Speaker 3 (7:18) I think it's outrageous. It is. We saw it in the Olympics. Like, this is somebody who should have more relevant basketball moments than it shouldn't be in a playing game. And I don't know what they're doing. I don't understand Butler's not helping them this year. Even if he comes back, it's not like he can play 40 minutes a game. It's almost like they know they're going to get their money from Steph for the season tickets and the suites. They make the most revenue in the league. They make more revenue. I think they make more than the next to from their situation with the stadium and the tickets and everything. So it's like they don't want to live the afterlife of, oh, we gave all this stuff away to have Steph have one last run and it didn't work out. I would have traded for Davis. Speaker 5 (7:59) Well, the only feasible and reasonable explanation is that they think that keeping their powder dry now gives them an opportunity once the season gets going. And we can do a ranking at some point. We are in these summer months of who are the top three or four guys that will be discontent and malcontent over. for the first third of the season that the warriors can drop in. It's going to be a long list. Speaker 3 (8:24) Yeah, no doubt. Well, but if you look at the conference odds on Fanduel, they are, let's see, San Antonio, Oklahoma City, Denver, Minnesota, Houston, Lakers. Golden State is seventh best odds to win the conference at 27 to 1. And I honestly, I would book that bet right now with, because I don't think there are moves left. Is there like a Duren sign-in trade move? I don't know. Anyway, Steph will never say it. And maybe he doesn't care. He won the four titles. He got his 22 title. He wants to end in the Bay Area. And you see it when San Antonio made that run. And Duncan's there and Manu. And, you know, that like when you go start to finish with a team like that, you're just there for your whole life. And maybe that's all he wants and doesn't care. Very fair. You know, it's not fair. not fucking trading anything. You and I feel the same way. What would you have traded Davis for as a whiz fan? What would have commanded your attention from Golden State? Speaker 5 (9:28) Yoxel and Picks. I would have taken Yaxel in Picks. Speaker 3 (9:32) So you wouldn't have taken the Butler expiring? Speaker 5 (9:35) You have to take the Butler expiring. Speaker 3 (9:37) That's the requirement for the money. 29, 31, a 30 swap, something like that. No Yaxil. I don't know. I mean, Anthony Davis doesn't really play basketball. Speaker 5 (9:49) The problem is you need a commitment from Jimmy Butler to do some mentoring. This team is super, this Washington team has a very rosy picture of the mentoring role. Yeah. The Davis is going to play. We'll see. He's a good guy. Speaker 3 (10:05) Everybody likes them. Yeah. I thought trading for not trading for Jalen was irresponsible. My next loser was Jalen Brown, who could have been the guy in Brooklyn or Milwaukee. could have gone to Gold State, could have gone to Charlotte, could just stayed in Boston, but clearly was feeling it. And now he's the fourth option on the Sixers trying to figure out how to be like basically there do it all, big minutes, okay, I'll take over these three minutes in the third quarter, but, you know, the fourth scoring option on this team, basically, right? Speaker 5 (10:40) I, you think this is good for him? I dramatically disagree with you. Okay. Yeah, he's not a loser, in any way, shape, or form. I think you are. In the first place, I think he's going to get the extension that he wants. So that makes him a winner. I do. Speaker 3 (10:56) I do. Well, if he gets that, he's off the loser list. I would find that hard press to think they're going to pay him, Max, and Edgecombe, max contracts. Speaker 5 (11:05) I think that's part of the calculus for bringing him in. But more importantly, in terms of the basketball proposition, I don't know that I really agree with this idea that he wanted to be the lead guy on a team. His expression of enthusiasm for the way that this particular Celtic circumstance played out to me doesn't extrapolate into this is what he wants in his basketball career. It was a unique circumstance. He was really good. He played a great role in dragging a team that was forecast to be much worse into a superior position and how fun is this that he's that he's about to embark upon this situation in Philadelphia. They are the traveling road show. Everybody in America can't wait to see them. Hopefully, good points. You know, LeBron and Embed can play some games on the road for some of these high wattage matchups. Speaker 3 (12:09) But you think he's going to get a ton of rod, too. 18.2 usage rate this year? it's fine it doesn't matter winning is what matters all right i'm being relevant is what matters all right so let's make these guys the second biggest losers then Miami they got dick t's nice and hard by lebron and his camp they really yeah they have they had that eight and a half million uh spot burning a hole in their pocket and now they're looking at bradley beel and debartersan well that those guys deserve eight and a half million Speaker 5 (12:39) lebron deserves 80 and a half million but yeah those they they i almost said Miami me as my number one biggest loser because there's nothing they can do. They're so fucked. Like there is nothing in terms of assets, roster moves going forward. They just needed. They just did it. They made all their moves. Yeah, that was it. Speaker 3 (13:02) Right now, so they're still seventh, 13 to 1, seventh best odds to win the east. Speaker 4 (13:10) That feels right. Yeah, it's interesting. I'd have Indiana over them too. Speaker 3 (13:18) Right now it's Nix plus 320 all the way through Philly, Boston, Toronto, Detroit, Cleveland's 12 to 1, Miami's 13 to 1. Indiana. Indiana's 14 to 1. Speaker 5 (13:28) Okay. I mean, that's fair. Speaker 3 (13:29) Like, if I give you a choice, bet on the conference finals, you can have Miami or Indiana. Are you ever taking Miami over Indiana? Under no circumstances. Would you take Orlando over Miami? Speaker 5 (13:41) No, no. We've got to see Franz Wagner. Speaker 3 (13:44) play. Would you take Atlanta at 20 to 1 over Miami? That price I might. Because Atlanta, Speaker 5 (13:52) Atlanta is not done. Atlanta is trying. They have done a really interesting job in terms of, you know, building a team. And it feels like the ceiling is pretty high. 20 to 1 is kind of a good price, Speaker 3 (14:04) in my opinion. It's not bad because they have room to do other stuff. Yeah, they have room to do stuff. I have to say at gunpoint right now, I would have Nick San Antonio. the rare finals rematch. Speaker 5 (14:16) Oh, how great would that be? Speaker 3 (14:18) Yeah. Somebody asked me that this weekend. Who do you think would, like, if you had to guess right now, what would the finals be? And I was like, I think it's a run-it-back. That would be awesome. Like Miami-St. Antonio and 13 and 14. Speaker 5 (14:31) I'm going to go on to Fandle. They offer the final matchup market. It's probably not there yet, but I'm definitely. Speaker 3 (14:40) I'll tell you what it is right now. Who do you want? Speaker 5 (14:43) Oh. Philly and OKC. Speaker 3 (14:47) Philly in OKC. Speaker 1 (14:49) Yeah. Speaker 3 (14:49) That would be 11-1. Speaker 5 (14:54) Oh, no way. Speaker 3 (14:55) No chance. No chance. Speaker 5 (14:56) No, no chance. Speaker 3 (14:57) Bad odds. No, thank you. Okay. Well, I didn't... Miami forgot the part that it ended badly with LeBron there and he won two titles there. And it became clearer and clearer that... you know, he wants to win the title. That's why he did this. I admire it. Great job by him. It was a title chase pick. And Philly had more to offer than Miami. My next loser is Philadelphia has a place to live. And this comes from Jeff in San Francisco, this email. Isn't LeBron choosing Philly and then immediately declaring the need that he'll be living in New York City, the ultimate, pooling a pond, the pond is good for you moment, Katashack? Philly is some of the proudest dedicated fans in sports. I can't imagine this will sit well with them. I just wanted to read that email because Philly's definitely strutting around. He doesn't even want to live there. He wants he's going to live in like New Jersey or New York. Settle down. Golden State in general as a loser. They have Butler coming back in March. They have K.P. and Horford as their center combo. I don't trust either guy. No. Dremont opted out. Now they're going to have to, you might just leave or they'll have to opt back in. And they have no actual point guard in their roster right now that I can find. Speaker 4 (16:24) You know who needs a backup center? The Sixers. Draman? Who likes playing golf together? Speaker 3 (16:31) Dramon and LeBron. He's not, he's still in the money accumulation mode. Speaker 5 (16:37) Yeah. Understandable. I'm just saying. Speaker 3 (16:40) I do wonder if there's a, if, if there's, some sort of Jayland Duren dream on something. Because he, you know, he went to college of Michigan. Would be fun on the Pistons, put him in the East. But yeah, the Golden State in general. Here's my question. I know he doesn't want to get traded. I know he wants to retire there. Are there Curry trades you would entertain? Speaker 5 (17:11) Absolutely, yes. I mean, I had this conversation last year. It was on the table last year. Really as soon as Jimmy Butler got hurt, why wouldn't Golden State? I understand all of the economic impact that goes well beyond, you know, just playing basketball games. Well, the tickets are paid for this year. But, yeah, I mean, that's the most rational move, the most rational, the rational economic actor, the rational basketball franchise move is to trade Steph Curry. Speaker 3 (17:42) It's undeniable. If he's getting traded, is he going for a ring or is it just he goes home to Charlotte? I don't think he's ever getting traded just for the record. Speaker 5 (17:50) I understand. But I don't think he's going to trade either. Who knows? I think he would want to play with a competitive team. It's not, I wouldn't call it ring chasing. I wouldn't, you know, impugn Steph Curry's motivations in that manner. He wanted to play with a competitive team. The same way that the bronze choice was the most competitive team, according, you know, and not Minnesota, that's all. Speaker 4 (18:14) Can I throw a scenario at you? I'm listening. It's not a ring chase. But what if San Antonio with Fox Speaker 3 (18:26) and all of the picks they have just said, fuck it. And went to go and stay and we're like, we'll do Fox. You put the picks together or any way you want for a couple years of Steph here. And now we're trying to acquire 2004 Olympic Steph, and he goes to San Antonio and tries to grab a couple more. It's pretty interesting. Speaker 5 (18:54) I mean, speaking of the traveling circus, it's already, San Antonio is already, you know, must see when they come to your town. You have to go see them, hoping that Wemby's going to play. Speaker 3 (19:07) Yeah, because people always say, like, oh, they trade them back to Sharks, He's not doing that. He's not winning anything in Charlotte. But with San Antonio, who has Atlanta's first round pick, they have a swap with Boston, they have swaps with Dallas or Minnesota in 2030. They have a 2030 swap with Sacramento, and they have all their first, and they have other stuff too. You know, I don't think they'd put Castle and Dylan Harper. Those guys would not be on the table, but maybe Carter Bryant would be, I don't know. You think Sam Presti's working on a package right now? Speaker 5 (19:38) I think he has a stuff. package? Like, just so you guys know, I have a package. Speaker 2 (19:44) I pressed his on a heater. He's, he, he loaded Atlanta. He loaded Atlanta. Speaker 3 (19:50) Yeah. He, um, he squeezed the shit out of Denver pick. And then he squeezed Denver with that Spencer Jones thing. I love it. Yeah, he did. We've talked about that. I tweeted about this day. We talked about this forever. Why don't teams try to screw each other over, right? Just go for Jay Wend Duren, day one of free agency. Just offer them four years, 200, $30 million, whatever the max is, knowing that they're going to match it anyway. Why not? You're competing against all these teams. You're trying to win a title. A couple more losers, quit Cleveland. Yeah. Left at the altar by LeBron for the third time. Eh. I will always, for the rest of my life, think that his plan was to go there. And he was under the assumption things would be able to change on the team before he got there and nothing can change because they can't trade James Harding because they obviously did a wink-wink deal with them and nobody wanted the other guys and he just wasn't playing for Dan Gilbert on the minimum. Okay. Yeah. From a basketball standpoint, much better chance to win a title in Philly than I think Cleveland, right? We agree on that. No doubt about that. I never liked the Cleveland fit. Speaker 5 (20:58) If Brad Stevens hadn't given Jalen Brown away at the very first moment, he could come up with it. Speaker 3 (21:09) Brad Stevens is a loser. I have him and I have the Celtics who basically traded Philly. Jalen Brown and LeBron James for Paul George the two first. That's what he did. Speaker 5 (21:19) Tough trade. LeBron to Cleveland makes more sense because Cleveland was in Eastern Conference final last year. And then the narrative plays out a little bit better. Jalen Brown F the whole thing up. Speaker 3 (21:35) I have a couple of Celtic fans in my life who saw The Odyssey and think that Jailen Brad, Philly trade has Trojan horse potential. Here's our gift. Speaker 2 (21:45) It's Jalen Brown. Speaker 5 (21:46) Good. Speaker 3 (21:47) And then you'll get LeBron, too. Listen, we're grasped for straws here. Speaker 5 (21:51) Keep enjoying those edibles. Speaker 3 (21:52) Last loser I have is the Lakers. This is an email from Peter in Orange County, California. Hi, Bill. You've spent a material amount of your professional capital fairly and unfairly dunking on the Lakers. Not untrue. The Lakers tossed you a Carmelina's meatball and you didn't even swing. LeBron signing for four million years is an enormous fail for the Lakers. When are we supposed to see the Mark Walters effect? This feels like a continuation of the bus kids in their delusional ineptitude from Peter and Orange County. It is interesting. It does make you think, like, could they have played this LeBron thing better? Or, which would be my theory, they clearly wanted it to end. Right? It feels like from January and February, they, were like, you know what, we're good with this whole LeBron thing. We've kind of had it. But they could have had Walker Kessler and Reeves and LeBron. Speaker 5 (22:49) And to be fair, like LeBron did deliver a playoff series win for the franchise as his parting gift. Like, it's not a small thing that they beat Houston. Yeah. With just effing LeBron. I mean, it's stunning. It's a real indictment of Houston. It was a real indictment of Houston. No KD. Speaker 3 (23:08) but it's funny i didn't see any of those games being replayed on mbate tv it's like oh it's game three Speaker 5 (23:15) houston lakers oh sit down um it's just rock fight did you watch the w nba all-star game last me oh that i saw the video that was a rock fight um speaking up the uh i do wonder if there's a Speaker 3 (23:29) what if if the rockets just win that series does lebron even say that's it maybe i don't have it left to offer. I do think that gave him the idea that he could maybe be a bigger part of a Speaker 5 (23:44) championship team. It felt like to me no matter what he was going east. As he taking in all the circumstances of the way that these playoffs played out. I forgot to give you your victory lap. Speaker 3 (23:56) On what? You said on the podcast last week, you said he was going to Philadelphia and I mocked you Speaker 5 (24:01) and made fun of you and we bet dinner. Well, the victory lap is dinner. And this is the funniest thing. I didn't get a chance to text our good buddies, Chang and Nathan, but you know where we're going. No. Speaker 4 (24:16) We're going back to Capo, baby. That's the dinner, motherfucker. Speaker 2 (24:22) Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I mean, that's a pre-spect credit card limit. Speaker 5 (24:29) That's hilarious. A lot of rigor NBA people, by the way. Jay Kyle Mann had it in early July. even Rahim the Dream. Rahim the Dream had a dream. Reim the Dream was driving his car and had a vision. Both of those preceded me coming on your show and saying that I thought was going to go to Philly. But I'm the only one that bet with you. So we're going to have a great dinner. Speaker 3 (24:50) I wish I had thought of the whole he could live not in Philly and playing Philly piece. That would have at least, because I was just, no way, Philly, get the fuck out of here. But he's clearly going to live in New York and then have some I don't know, some nice condo and the Philly Ritz or wherever and he can stay there some nights or live in New York. Speaker 5 (25:12) Yeah. The other element of that, super short flight down to West Palm. So there is magnificent golf in Philly, New Jersey, and New York. Of course, it gets to be cold. Yeah. And then there isn't golf. But jumping in the PJ and going down to West Palm and then knocking out all the bangers that are down there. Or you go to Charlotte. He could go to Charlotte. Right. Anyway, he go to Charlotte. Georgia. Yeah. Tremendous golf. Short PJ ride away, straight down the East Coast. Speaker 3 (25:40) I have a mailbag. There's a lot of LeBron questions. So I want to take a break. Let's go. And then we're going to do a really fun mailback. All right, mailbag time. Thanks to everybody who sends in questions. I truly appreciate it. It is BSPodcast33 at gmail.com. First one comes from Martin. He asked, like you, I want to see LeBron and Golden State. But it seems like he realized he couldn't win a ring there without staying tied with Steph. any chance that was a disincentive to go there. This is something I heard for the last month about LeBron not wanting to go to Steph's team, Steph's city. And anytime I mention the expendables, people always poo-pood it because of that. I think he was going to go. The more we learned about this, he was going to the team that gave him his best chance to win the NBA title and there was no other reason. Speaker 5 (26:29) I agree with that. I don't think that this notion of going to Steph's team was a disincentive. incentive. I think the idea of him coming, those two guys joining forces. What a magnificent story. I don't think that he thinks about, you know, that it would be a coattails kind of Speaker 3 (26:47) situation. Yeah. So the three best teams in the league didn't want them. Oklahoma City, San Antonio, New York, right? So those three are out. He's never going to Boston. He hates Boston. He's not going to Detroit. So there's five teams. He decided he couldn't win in Miami. They're out. That leaves Cleveland. Minnesota, Philly, Golden State. Minnesota's too cold. He's not going there. They're out. Cleveland can't trade hard and he's not playing a minimum for Dan Gover. They're out. Golden State won't trade for AD and didn't trade for Jalen Brown. So from a pure, I want to win the title, Philly was the move. Of course, I realize that now. I could have realized that five days ago. The fifth title, this, does this, he took some ring chase abuse. I don't think it was fair because I think he loves playing back. basketball, I think a ring chase would have been going to San Antonio. Sure. Agreed. That's a ring chase. Speaker 5 (27:41) Or Oklahoma City. Speaker 3 (27:43) Those are the two ring chase teams. Speaker 5 (27:44) Or the Knicks. He could have gone to the Knicks at the price. He agreed to go to Philly. Speaker 3 (27:48) He's not doing that. No, he's not doing that. That's right. We're going without you. You're right. You could have come here 10 times. Speaker 5 (27:53) No, it is a different Knicks team. And we'll have the opportunity to talk this through. The impact of Mitchell Robinson not being on that team is it's not immaterial. It is material. And they don't have. an answer yet. They, I, you know, sort of trust. I implicitly. Speaker 3 (28:11) Did they get drumming? They got drumming, right? Speaker 5 (28:14) Okay. Speaker 3 (28:16) I mean, they have a live body, is my point. Speaker 5 (28:18) He doesn't lead the NBA in offensive rebounding rate. Speaker 3 (28:22) This happened with the Celtics when we lost Posey. And even though it was probably the right move, he sounded like a five-year deal with New Orleans and I think was good for maybe another year and a half. and then his career kind of died. But we would have a much better chance in 2009 if we had Posey, right? You have to make these decisions money-wise and second apron or not. Next question's from Rob. It's a Steph-related one. He asked for a conspiracy bill. Conspiracy bill has had a great summer. A lot of people checking in with him. What if LeBron was secretly being a double agent to the Warriors to keep Steph stuck at four rings while he chases his fifth? Yeah. Conspiracy will look at this one. I don't think I don't think LeBron's measuring himself against Steph with rings or any of that stuff. I don't think so either. I'm going to pass on that one. I got another email. Oh, I accidentally deleted. I'm sorry I deleted. The person who sent this was asking if LeBron could win the assist title on Philly. So my bad for not giving you credit. It's a great question. I forgot this because I forgot everything that happened in 2020 because I don't remember one thing that happened that year. He won the assist title in 2020. Do you remember this? Speaker 5 (29:45) I did not remember that. Speaker 3 (29:46) He did 10.2 assists a game on the Lakers team that won the title. That is phenomenal. Won the assist title. It wasn't by like, you know, an inch. He won by like the next guy was like 9.3. So our leaders that year, just sent me down a rabbit hole. the 2020 leaders James Harden 34.3 points a game was the points leader. Andre Drummond 15.2 rebounds a game rebounds. Believeable. LeBron and assists. Hassan Whiteside in blocks 2.9. George Hill 46 points, 46 percentage for threes. 46.0. Can you guess who led the league in steals in 2000? You're not going to be able to, so I'll give you the answer. No. Jimmy Butler. Ben Simmons. Oh, amazing. So I tried to figure out that was the weirdest combination of people that ever led the league in the major categories. Don't ask why, but I went through basketball reference. I went through everybody. And I landed on 1978. Does that count? I knew you would like this. Speaker 5 (31:00) Yeah, there's some bullets involved. Speaker 3 (31:01) The only normal one was George Gert. and 27.2 points a game won the scoring title. Made sense. He won like five or six scoring titles. Our rebounding leader was Truck Robinson at 15.2. Leonard Truck Robinson. Good job, Truck. Assists. Kevin Porter, former bullet, 10.2. Ron Lee led the league in steals, 2.7, and George Johnson was our block leader at 3.4. So if you're going to make a starting five of points, steals, rebounds, assists, and blocks, and you make the weirdest starting possible. It's 1978. George Gervin, Truck Robinson, Kevin Porter, Rodney, and George Johnson. Is that even like a 35-win team? Speaker 5 (31:41) What was that? Yeah, what was that 82-0 game or whatever? Speaker 3 (31:44) The 82-0 game, yeah, that had a fun run. Speaker 5 (31:45) Those guys in that thing. Let's see how many games they win. Speaker 3 (31:48) Who wins a series with them or Drummond, Ben Simmons, LeBron, Whiteside, and James Hardin. They win in four. Yeah, sure. That's a sweep. Yeah, nobody's beating 19-70. 20-sweeps it. Yeah. All right. This is one of