An NBA Mailbag, LeBron’s Next Move, and the Wild Paramount-WBD Merger With David Jacoby and Matt Belloni

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We have like two thirds of a mailbag,

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MUSIC

David Jacobi is here on a Tuesday afternoon.

You're the first person who doesn't like the chairs.

I do not like the chairs.

I don't like the way they look, especially

don't like the way they feel.

I don't like the way they look.

I think sync into them too much, right?

And I like a high top that's been my posture will be better,

less poochie pooch.

And right now my knees and nipples are the same plane.

I want you to have a posture thing.

Below nipples.

Dating back to Jalen and Jacobi,

when we had the first chairs,

and I would make fun of you that you were

in a vertebrae with the camera angle.

Well, there's someone who wrote a very serious email

that was like, you've got serious problems.

Who wrote that?

It was a stranger.

Yes.

And if you're just listening to this, Bill has something

that I had in like 1992, what is that thing?

Dislap?

Yeah, when you've got the bean bag underneath the...

Well, because I like to, we're about to do a mail bag.

I'm very excited.

OK.

I didn't want to have the mail bag too low on my lap,

because then I'm doing this and coming up.

So it's added necessity.

It's a posture move.

And plus later, my wife's going to ring me dinner,

and I'm just going to eat it.

It's a posture move.

So I did a whole thing about nicknames

with Max Keller, when we was here.

People pointed out some nicknames that I missed,

including downtown Freddie Brown.

I'd like to apologize to him.

I'd like to also shout out downtown Julie Brown,

who stole from downtown Freddie Brown.

Well, well, well, well, well.

Slick Watts, the Boston Strangler, Andrew Tony, great one.

Dr. Duncan Steen, remember loving that as a kid?

The microwave Vinny Johnson, the mail man, the chief.

White chocolate was a big mess.

The glove, big country, AK-47.

And then currently Greek-free time lord and slomo.

I bring off this up because the whole point

of the initial thing was, we're just not good at nicknames anymore.

We're lazy.

We do initials.

We do acronyms.

And we just don't put any thought into it.

I've got to take on this.

Let's hear.

One thing about the sports media world

that really bothers me is when athletes

launch their brand or their logo,

it's either their number or their initials.

No one has done this right since Kobe Bryant,

who's like stole it from a swore on like kill bill.

Who had a couple of chances.

Yeah, but like had a couple of different events.

Always just initials.

It's just like, or like DA7 or something.

It's just like, why can't we be more creative than this?

Well, that's so Imran from San Francisco has a theory on this

that we've gotten lazy.

He blames Kevin Durant.

Tough here for Kevin Durant.

I'm wrong.

He says Kevin Durant deserves blame for rejecting

a potential pantheon level nickname, the Slim Reaper.

Slim Reaper.

And instead asking people to call him the servant,

which no one wanted to do.

Players realized they could just reject nicknames

that didn't fit their brand.

And now we have these vanilla corporate nicknames instead,

just a thought.

Do we put this on Kevin Durant?

I don't think it's a big fair.

But Durantula was great.

Slim Reaper was great.

And then he's like, I'm the easy money sniper.

Okay.

Easy money sniper.

Slim Reaper was an all time great nickname.

We could have called him Slim.

We could have called him Reaper.

And it also visualizes it.

Like if slow mo is a great nickname, but you can't like see it.

You know what I mean?

But you could see him.

They've got the graphics of him in the hood

and with the sickle and everything.

So yeah, maybe it is Kevin Durant's fault.

My thing with nicknames, like slick Watts is a good example.

The nickname has to become how we say the person's name.

It can't like that.

We've had some nicknames over the years

when it's like the nicknames over here.

I even didn't really love the answer for Alan Iverson.

And he just, it was just he's your calm AI.

I know people like to push the answer.

I never personally called him the answer.

I always call him Iverson or AI.

It doesn't roll off the tongue.

You ultimately where you want to be

is like Clyde, the glad.

Yes.

You know, short in your name, whatever.

So anyway, Peter T had an idea.

There was a lot of concnipal suggestions,

which people know people know how to get it in the mailbag.

He's playing concnipal.

You said me some of the questions.

I was like, oh, these people are just

paintering it.

Yeah, listen, yeah, it's it's it's a human algorithm.

Peter T said, he said mailbag nicknames submission.

Con Snow, Bill's illegitimate son in Charlotte,

like John Snow and

he said, as a Duke fan in Colorado, I love that your pod is now

25% Yoke itching knipple talk.

I resent that because I feel like it's 50% Boston talk.

25% I'm taking the over on the 50.

Okay.

Okay, here.

Now let's get to the good stuff.

There was a lot of Stefan castle.

What are we doing here?

This guy needs a nickname.

I think people agree, right?

Can I push back?

Con is a unique name in itself.

And castle is a great last name.

Like, why do we need to upgrade these?

Well, just wait, Jude from Westport said it had to be something

castle or a medieval related.

He proposes the dungeon.

He's locking someone down.

He's sending them to the dungeon.

Like, I'm not against it.

You've been locked down the dungeon.

Jacob, and a few people suggested this wanted to calm the mode

because the mode is perimeter defense for a castle.

So it's like, you can't cross the mode.

Oh, do you know one you haven't thought of?

What?

Off night.

Oh, for a...

Maybe a Mitchell.

That's a great nickname.

You don't like defensive nickname.

Mike Brienelli, nobody is crossing the mode.

Nobody's crossing.

A few people suggested this though,

and I think it's the winner for Stefan castle.

Checkmate.

Sure.

You don't like it?

No, I like it.

I like it.

And checkmate.

Briezz is through the occasionally.

I don't know.

I wanna hear somebody test drive it.

Con, a lot of people go in Defcon 3 or Defcon 7,

which is his number, not quite there.

Con air doesn't really work.

No.

And then a couple of people suggested 2K.

2K is good.

2K is not bad.

2K is good.

2K is not bad.

2K had 35 last thing.

That's not bad.

It's as good as 2 syllables.

That's one thing about the answer.

It does the word answer doesn't roll off the tongue

the same way that 2K does.

Do you see 2K hit 9-3s the last night?

It's pretty good.

The bigger question is,

do you need a nickname if your name's Con?

No.

So if we had a nickname Zara,

the nickname Zara would probably be like,

we're good, his name's Con, it stands out.

Yeah.

It'd be so hard.

I mean, if you're going to do something

with Con, could Nipples name?

Yeah, Nipps is right there.

Nippsie?

Nippsie.

It's right there.

We had a Nippsie wrestle.

A bunch of people for Jalen Duran suggested Bull Duran.

Sure.

Not bad.

This was the best one.

I can't believe how good it is.

More than one suggestion.

So I don't want to give any regret.

Josh Giddy.

Don't.

Just don't.

Josh Giddy, the Gidler.

The Gidler had a triple double last night.

He could have the old 90s poster

with like, he's dressed as the Riddler,

but it's instead of a question mark, it's a G.

I'm not sure.

Maybe like October.

Josh Giddy deserved this nickname.

The Gidler.

But like, it's too close to something else.

All right.

So your favorite is 2K.

Yes.

Dan from Denman Island in Canada suggested

that he was one of the checkmate suggestions for Castle.

Where's Dan from?

Denman Island.

I don't know.

It's in Canada.

He wanted to, he suggested for Case On Wall as Twitch,

because he has such fast Twitch reflexes.

I would just start calling him twists.

I don't think he needs anything.

There's an exa, a motocross, mental militia guy named Twitch.

Okay. He was great.

This is the best one.

I don't think he has the right person for this,

but it's one of the best names I've ever heard.

He said for Jalen Brown to call him jalapeno,

because this is what my group of friends

who have a basketball draft call him

because of a typo,

but it also fits for when he's on a heater.

That's a better name for somebody you play pick up basketball with.

It's like a friend one.

We call him jalapeno, because he just gets hot

in this game.

He saved me.

You don't like jalapeno?

Maybe a typo?

Any nickname you have to sort of explain

with more than one sentence, I'm out.

Do you like jalapeno as a heat check nickname?

Only for like one of my friends.

Okay.

So our best one is 2K.

2K.

All right.

So Alex Lyons wrote in,

there's this guy, Robbie Avila from St. Louis,

the guy with goggles, the 6th and 10th Center.

You've seen him call him basketball.

He has three nicknames.

Cream Abdul-Jabbar.

I'm in.

Steph Blurry and Milk Chamberlain.

Steph.

All of them.

So maybe he'll say to the cream Abdul-Jabbar is it?

Cream Abdul-Jabbar.

Steph Blur is pretty good too.

Okay.

Next question is from D-Bob in New York.

Who do you think will be the top five players

in the league five years from now?

So I'd be the 2030-31 season.

He said it's a fun exercise.

You never would have predicted Shay or Wembee

top five, five years ago.

The top five players in 2021 were Yannis, Yoke, Jim Bied,

Curry, Luca, LeBron, and some order.

To me in 2031, there's two locks, Ant, Luca,

but anyway, he's basically like, who do you have?

If this is, this was harder than I thought it would be.

I thought I'd agree.

This was harder than I thought it would be.

And one thing that I'm not going to allow

is Hugo Gonzalez being part of the conversation.

Do you see him last time?

It's 16 rebounds.

I did, I did, I did.

But this was harder than I thought.

Because my question for you is,

like there's a couple, there's a bunch of 29 year olds

who will still be in their prime.

But when I'm looking at some players, I'm like,

Luca will be 32.

Well, can we do the chalk picks?

So if we're just going chalk, it's Wembee, Ant,

Luca, SGA.

Whoa.

Luca and SGA are 32 years old.

I'm just saying chalk.

Safest bets for five years from now.

Safest bets.

Okay.

And I would have Cooper flag as my fifth chalk guy.

It would be 24 at that point.

Everything we've seen how much better he's gotten

just in the last two years.

I'd Luca and Shay at 32.

I started to think that there are others out there.

Yoke, it's just going to be 36.

You probably want to be playing.

He's out.

I wrote down, I had different categories.

Kade and Maxi.

There's a lot of 29 year olds.

Kade and Maxi are on my list as well.

And Edwards, but he's in.

Edwards, so can we put Wembee and Ant and Bold?

Yes.

Absolutely.

Can we put Cooper flag and bold or no?

He'll be 24.

Yes, you can.

I think there's no way he's not awesome in five years.

There would have to be some sort of knock on with Turbo.

Yeah, but we're not even having that conversation.

Wembee's in.

So Wembee and Flag.

Yes.

I could offer you AJ DeBanza, Darren Peterson, D.P., D.N.P.,

Chat.

I'm in Thompson, Jalen Johnson, Palo with a big resurgence.

Anybody else?

Jalen Johnson is on my list.

I'm glad you didn't bring up Tatum.

He's going to be two old, he'll be like 33.

There's a little bit of me.

I did write him down just for probably.

Yeah, but there's a little bit of me

that's looking at Maxi like, I don't know, could be top five.

Cause you have to play defense too.

He'd have to be in the low 30s, point wise,

for like four straight years in a row.

Basically where Mitchell is now,

you wouldn't even put Mitchell in the top five, right?

No.

So probably not.

Is there a world in which Jalen Johnson becomes

like an all around jack of all trades,

nine assists and like 25 points a night guy?

The problem is you have to really win

to be in this conversation.

His Duke season didn't go well

and he's never won anything with Atlantis.

So you're really projecting with this.

Yeah, I think we're there.

I don't think there's anybody else in the list

that we're missing.

Okay, so Wembee, it's interesting

that you would put Cooper in bold,

guaranteed and not even mentioned Nipsey.

I didn't want to put that on 2K.

It's a lot.

It's a lot to ask of 2K.

I think Cage should be in there though.

Kato be high 20s at that point.

Yes.

Like 20, 28, 29.

So I think he would be my fourth pick.

And I'm sorry, I think Lucas's still gonna be there,

but year 13, Luca.

32 years old.

He's already moves like a 39 year old.

Yeah, that's when I think about.

And you know, it's like a good or bad.

So it doesn't like, like Maxi relies on

athleticism that diminishes over time.

Luca doesn't do anything I like.

So you wouldn't have SGA if he was still this good

in five years.

You're now talking about the best guard career

anyone's had other than Michael Jordan.

It would be, it would be better than Jerry West.

It would be better than every guard we've ever had.

I also think they're gonna win a lot too.

But that's why he might put them in.

So they're gonna be, he's borderline there.

So two spots for Cade Luca SGA.

I think, it's hard.

This is a lot harder than I thought it was going to be.

Well, here's the other thing.

There might be somebody.

I would, yeah.

Like we wouldn't have said Anthony Edwards in 2021.

There's a number one pick.

But we wouldn't have said Anthony Edwards

would be one of the five best guys.

And both Edwards and Cade didn't have

the kind of like Cooper Rook year.

I'm gonna say Cade, ah shit.

And it's hard to leave out SGA, especially now

that they're at the villains that we'd need in the NBA.

I started that on Sunday.

Explain to me why Cade won't be better at 29 in five years

than SGA.

The case would be really physical style,

putting miles in in the next four or five years,

physically might break down.

Okay.

Those big physical guards, it's almost like a big physical

receiver or something would be the case.

I don't believe that.

His team's going to be good.

He's going to have their, he's going to have bolder

in the whole time.

They're going to bring in a second creator.

Yeah, they'll have somebody on us.

They're going to be bolder and be bolder.

That's a great nickname, dude.

Beef stew is a great name.

It's a great nickname.

I'm going to say Cade.

You know what?

I'm going to say SGA or Reluca.

I don't know about Reluca.

I'm about Reluca at 32.

That video the other day, which I actually thought was

kind of a big deal.

Normally, I'm like, don't overreacto when guys

get mad at each other in the bench.

I could talk about that for hours.

Here, he was the key piece that I didn't think enough play.

There was, I think it was Vanderbilt sitting next to him.

Yeah, it was Vando.

And he was watching the whole thing.

If you watch the video, he's watching them go.

And he's, I don't like that.

It was a poor thing that Vando did all year.

He's watching and he's watching, he's watching.

JJ walks away and it looks like Luka went out

to put his arm out, but JJ walked away.

And JJ didn't seem to put the arm out as Luka was putting out.

And Luka got mad and stood up.

And I think it was Vando.

He was Vando.

He's watching on the corner of his eye

and stands up with Luka to block him

from chasing JJ down the sideline.

If you watch everything he's doing, it's the stuff.

Like we're at a bar at 2.30 in the morning

and our buddy is like, don't let him go over there.

And we're just kind of watching him the whole time.

It's like, up there he goes, we gotta get him out.

That was the vibe.

I didn't think it was good.

I don't think it was good at all.

And the first person that it made me think of

was Nico Harris.

And I've said this on the mismatch,

but I've always felt like there's just more

to the story of what happened in Dallas.

And I think that they hated each other.

And he was like, guess what, you can be gone.

I have that kind of power.

I think it was personal and I think it was vindictive.

And I think that he hated seeing Luka every single day.

And I think that Luka was disrespectful towards him

and probably vice versa.

This is all-

Clearly I thought he was a dick.

Exactly.

These things aren't reporting anything,

but I think that that happened.

I think there's a lot of incidents like this

behind the scenes that we didn't see.

There's two types of people

and I'm in the wrong camp with this.

Like my wife instantly,

if something's happening, she knows, right?

Like when you have little kids

and the kid is going down the pool,

walking towards crawling toward the pool or something.

And there's the type of goes,

oh no, that's bad.

And then you act or there's the person who sees that

and they're moving immediately.

That was Jared Vanderbilt.

He saw it immediately.

I don't think I would have stood up the time.

What's the second time?

I would have been like, what are you?

I'm the one who would have,

I would have sat there for the extra second

and been like, this is bad.

And Luka would have walked by me before I realized

that I should be stopping it.

Because you, I don't like to compliment you.

You're an excellent room reader.

And for sure.

But not this year.

Not me instinctive, this is going,

this is bad.

What are you?

Which side are you?

You know, I've rushed to conflicts.

I enjoy the conflict.

I enjoy tension.

I enjoy the just the weirdness of it all

and like saying things that I can't take back

and probably shouldn't say.

The best version of this I've ever seen

was our friend, Jalen Rose.

There was one time one of the NBA shows we're doing

and there was people are arguing.

I was one of the people arguing.

And we're walking off after the thing

and Jalen goes, turn your mic off, Bill.

Like he just said, we need to turn your mic off.

He's great at that.

He's great at that.

He's great at that.

He's great at that.

I know you don't have to say it.

I know you're going to say something

that you can't regret.

Turn your mic off.

And that microphone is going to

broadcast to the truck.

Shout out to him.

All right, next question.

Gus from Texas.

I saved this for if we're ever gonna do a mail back together.

He said, long time BS pod fan, thanks Gus.

Long time fan of the challenge.

I always love when those two worlds collide,

but it's been a minute.

If the NBA did a rival style season like the challenge,

who would your favorite pairings be?

Who would be the CT West team now dominate?

Who would be the messiest?

Funny.

So I sent this to you.

I just want to tell Gus that I love him very much.

It's a great question.

It's a great question.

So two man teams, this is the rival's thing that we love.

So would they have to be rivals?

I spent more time answering this question this afternoon

to myself.

Then I did it and then I put into anything

I've done professionally in 10 years.

You were the right part.

This is it.

This is your vortex.

A lot of the things you care about.

I have found the perfect pairing from the NBA

to go to the challenge.

But I was thinking rivals are just the best things.

He said rivals, right?

So I did think of sort of pairings

that would be mismatched.

We'll say, right?

Like they're not real rivals.

Cause they, oh, do you about tell you like,

beef stew, that's not gonna work.

Yeah, I mean, like Dylan Brooks and LeBron,

that's not gonna work.

But I was thinking I was like, they did something like this.

Do you remember the season that had like Sean Merrimon

and CM Punk and like Lolo Jones?

Yeah, that was great.

I remember thinking I was like,

this is a Lolo quit.

Yeah.

And then she came back another time.

But I remember sitting there being like,

this can't work.

But the athletes weren't as good at the challenges

than you would think.

And of course, this first person that came to my mind

with Johnny bananas, the goat of the challenges.

And like what makes him good at this?

And what makes him good at doing this is he's in great shape

so you can run the final.

But he's really good at room reading,

like we were talking about earlier,

and playing the social game.

And finding out who's aligned with who,

getting the right people out at the right times.

So I was thinking of a strategist.

So my first answer is going to be a team

that I think would be successful.

So not Kevin Durant.

Not Kevin Durant.

Okay.

But the fun answer is a team that I really wanna see.

I'll give you that next.

I think that I landed on teammates.

They're not rivals, but it would be Cade and Ron Holland.

Because Cade is very mature, very measured.

He's very intelligent and articulate.

Cade and Ron Holland.

I'm not expecting that.

This is where I ended up.

And I've got a fun one though.

Okay.

The fun one is obviously.

So why Ron Holland though over other people on the team?

I think that Ron Holland is a good athlete.

Yes.

I think that his type of athleticism,

he can climb up stuff.

And Cade will be like the puzzle guy.

Yes, exactly.

Because obviously your mind goes to beef stew or whatever,

but I think he might be just a little too big for this.

And I think that Ron Holland's got a nice little level of crazy.

And I think Cade will be sort of like the brains of the operation.

Holland will be like a little intimidating

and like a little wild card.

So that being the bunk beds and Cade will be like,

let's bring over Dremont Green.

We got to land with them.

Yes, and my favorite pairing for this.

And I used to coach is Lamello Ball and Joe Mizzula.

Just imagine like Joe Mizzula.

Joe Mizzula is crazy.

He's got like a blindfold on and Lamello Balls outside of the fence.

Like it's to get right, it's to get right.

And Joe Mizzula is just like, what the fuck am I doing?

He just rips the blindfold off and just cases after Lamello

is just laughing and running around in circles.

Like that pairing to me would be the one I would want to see the most.

That's great.

It would be perfect.

And Joe Mizzula should be on the challenge.

I think this is, this would be an unbelievable vehicle

for Dremont Green too.

I think Dremont would be great.

I think he'd be the most compelling character.

He definitely get kicked out of at least.

If you did 10 seasons, he'd get kicked out of three of them.

He'd complained about all kinds of stuff.

He'd probably get into a TJ at least once or twice.

I wouldn't mind Dremont either.

Well, you see me with him with Tyler Hero in the Miami bench.

And like, yeah, I watched that starting five show.

Yeah, but Dremont they would just team up and get out in the first episode.

What would you do to Dremont?

He'd be able to car Maria.

See, nobody, nobody, nobody, no, nobody watching this.

Those were talking about, we're not talking to alternate language.

Who would be the Laurel of this, the big bully?

Oh, I love Laurel so much.

That probably beefsteak.

Yeah, probably beefsteak.

But Dremont's more of like, the Laurel's nasty is more the Laurel's nasty.

She will, she will dress you down for no reason.

Who would be the good guy?

Who would be Currie?

Everybody likes Currie.

Everybody loves Mark Long.

Everybody loves Mark Long.

Everybody can be your husband.

That was fun.

That was fun.

Thanks, Gus.

Sean from North Carolina.

I wanted this question for you because you have kids.

I only say you have a couple questions.

You don't know a lot of this.

I know.

So we used to live in a proper country.

I would catch all sorts of classics on TV, including the slightly sanitized version of

Die Heart on TBS.

Streaming services are great.

But I wish they had a cable edit option.

That way I could show my 10 year old kid Terminator Terminator 2 without it being in

appropriate.

Do you think Netflix should add this a parent cut of different movies?

Well, and would you have older kids with your kids?

You have older kids.

And I was around when they were younger.

And I learned one thing that I've taken from the Simmons household is just like,

do you want to see Halloween and you're six years old?

Cool.

Here's a kitchen knife.

You know what I mean?

It's just like, you're like cursing in front of your kids.

You were very like.

We can't put into the fire.

You know what I mean?

And I do that at my house as well when it comes to content.

Like, I mean, my son, he's 12.

We watch Psycho Killer over the weekend.

Oh.

You know what I mean?

Like horror movies, sex scenes, I'll be like close your eyes.

You know what I mean?

But he doesn't really do it.

So that's the thing.

You have to know where the bad parts are.

Yeah.

So I don't think we need the edit option.

It's not necessary to do this.

Yeah.

And I also took a page from your book.

It's just like, let the kids watch whatever.

They're going to do it anyway.

Yeah.

It's fine.

Like put your head in the sand and pretend like you're controlling it.

Or do it with them and just kind of put hands over there.

One of my daughters gets super scared.

So she won't watch.

Fine.

Like, you're watching Terminator with your kid.

And all of a sudden that guy's like, I came across time for you, Sarah.

And you know they're about to get it on.

Like, you know what?

We're in a fast forward this part.

Yeah.

I'll just tell you that it's going to get romantic here.

We're not going to watch it together.

And you just move on.

My kids won't watch things from the 20th century.

I came across time for you, Sarah, one of the great pickup lines in the history of movies.

Like, what woman's not at least making out with you after that?

You came across time.

I came across.

Sorry for you, Sarah.

This is great.

Thank you.

This is from Alex and Delray Beach.

And I've gotten this email a bunch of times from people about the 0304 Kings.

Are you familiar with them?

Mm-hmm.

Chris Weber is out for his tour in ACL on the postseason previous year.

Pasia has his NBA, random MV PCs and one of the most random top 4 MVPs ever.

aforementioned white chocolate, right?

No, he's gone by them.

They might be.

They're 43 and 15 through 58 games.

Weber comes back.

And as Alex points out, the return was disastrous.

St. Ackovich's efficiency plummeted.

The Kings lost 10 of their final 16.

Felt of the four seed bounced in round one.

Now Tatum is coming back.

It's history destined to repeat itself.

So there is a doppelganger for this comeback that I forgot about.

Bill, I thought we were going to talk about the Kings.

Okay.

And then at the very end, you're just like, uh, the Celtics.

Do you remember that?

Do you remember this Kings thing though?

Yeah, not really.

Yeah, I didn't really remember either.

Yeah.

I didn't remember the Pasia piece.

But I remember like Lake a series and like Divots and like the kind of free.

Give us your quick.

We'll Tatum's grow up to Celtics take.

I know you've done on the Span Charity.

Um, no.

Adding good players to your team.

And that's why it helps.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, play like 14 minutes too.

It's like adding good players to basketball teams doesn't screw them up.

Sorry.

Let's say one thing in the weird documentary they've made about his comeback.

Wait, you're watching the other.

No, this is a thing on Celtics reddit.

He said he didn't come back to be a role player.

It's like, oh.

It's fine.

Okay.

This one, one of my basketball philosophies is like, there's only one ball.

I hate there's only one ball.

Yeah.

Share the ball.

I guess what?

If you score ice core, Jason Tatum makes teams better.

We'll be fine.

Yeah.

Steve B writes, what if Steve Kurt does not have a contract for next year because Steph is winding down

and Wembee is winding up.

And he's replacing George Popovich to make a second run in a dynasty.

I just like that he called him George Popovich.

I think Steve B too.

Steve B.

So I was wondering like, so Kerr, let's say he leaves this year.

And the words are going to be out of the playoffs.

Like they're, they're, I think they're going to shut a step down.

I just, my spidey senses are like, he said, yeah, it's going to be like 10 more days.

There's only 39 days left in the season.

What are they going to, even when he comes back, they already lost Jimmy Butler.

They're not good to begin with.

What are they going to play two playing games with Steph with a not 100% need?

Like that team should go for a lottery pick.

KP's already got illnesses.

Yeah.

KP's not coming back.

Like that, that's isn't as well.

Is Horford going to carry you to the second?

Kerr leaves.

Kerr leaves.

Thanks for everything.

I'm going to take a year off.

I'll do media.

Hopefully comes to the ringer.

Then San Antonio who knows.

And if anything ever happens on that team, then you wait for that or you wait for the next or some awesome job.

You just do media for a year.

When you media for your, your stock just rises.

You see that every time.

Yeah.

Right.

So you don't think he's going to replace George Popovich.

Yeah.

I don't think he's going to replace George Popovich because Mitch Johnson is doing a good job.

No.

That's the problem.

Yeah.

I think that's going to be available to him.

And Mitch Johnson wasn't supposed to be the head coach.

Maybe he.

No.

He wasn't.

Could you see a front office thing?

Maybe.

Where it's like he's not on the bench, but he's just sort of like part of the.

I can't say I honestly.

My honest answer for this is I don't think he coaches again after this.

I think he did.

He did.

He did it since 1415.

Did 11 years.

He set up his son to potentially be a coach down the road.

Um, 14.

He won four titles.

Mm-hmm.

He won.

How many do you win with the he won?

One, two, three, five with the bulls and spurs.

Yes.

With nine titles.

It's done.

It's a wrap.

Just two media.

Is there anything else you can be on the rewatchables?

It's great.

I would love to have you.

Martin in New York rates.

Where does Elhorford rank on the.

I left my marriage for the stripper twice and to know what surprise it didn't work out

this.

You saved that one for me.

You saved that one for me.

He left the Celtic twice because he thought the title window was closed only to be instantly

proven wrong.

20 games into the season.

He did it twice.

It is a tough beat for Al.

I never understood the I'm going to go chase the title with Golden State part.

What title would you think he was chasing?

You're in a conference with OKC.

What do you think is going to happen over there?

Also, like, they need you.

Yeah.

Because it's like post.

It's sort of they're other big at the time before they got KP.

I'm back to the worst.

I never really saw it this season for the Warriors.

I thought they'd go over the 46th or whatever, but I didn't think they did.

But what did everybody say last year after they added Jimmy Butler, if you look at the numbers,

they were the best team in the history of the NBA.

And I was kind of like, yeah, they were like in a playoff game for like two months in a row

to kind of like get in to the plan.

The thing about NBA history.

The older you get, the harder your chances to win the NBA title.

That's one of the things I've learned.

And the only chance you have is if it's like a weird down year for the league where there's not a lot of stars

and there's a couple of bad drafts.

Some of the younger players didn't pan out.

Then you can kind of sneak in.

Leagues don't like that right now.

The league's fucking loaded.

No.

You're not winning it.

Like, I even look at Doran on Houston.

And Houston, you know, we'll see what happens with them.

They've hung around.

They're going to be a three seed.

But they're still going to have to rely on Doran for 10 straight weeks in the playoffs to win a title.

And he's 37.

I just think it's unrealistic.

We saw in 22.

Remember Tatum took it to him in that net series.

He was 33 in that series.

There's four years older than that.

Let's take a break and then I have some more male bad questions for you.

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All right.

More mailbag with Jacobi.

Mercury P.

I don't know if that's a nickname or a real name.

I'm so glad you're here for this question.

He's proposing two new end of the season of words.

The Marcus Morris award for worst best brother.

Oh.

So you're the best brother, but you're the worst part of all the best brothers.

Wait, the worst best brother?

Out of all the best brothers of the combos, you're the worst one of all the best brothers.

Oh, so the Lonzo Ball would win this year.

No, that no.

We'll go into it.

And but he also has the Seth Curry award for best worst brother.

I am so confused.

I am so confused.

Mercury P.

He's got himself for a loop here.

No, we're going back there.

There's three.

So there's really three categories.

There's worst worst brother, which would be y'all's brothers.

Finaces.

They would win the sad.

They're nice guys, but they would win the award for worst.

Worst brothers for players.

They're nice guys.

Well, they don't have the worst players.

How do you go out for coffee with the cool brothers?

If we had all the brothers and we did a draft, they would give a big blast.

Yes.

Best worst brother.

So of all the second best brothers.

Who is the best second best brother?

That's got to be Oscar Thompson, right?

Yeah, I'm trying to think.

I'll give you the other Kenny.

Mo Wagner, Champaign, Aaron Holiday.

Not a lot there.

Yeah, Champaign.

But the top of the three of us are, you know, Cam Christie.

One of the Spencer's pick one.

So, yeah, but here's where it gets interesting.

Worst best brother.

So the brother.

The better brother.

The better brother.

Who's the worst better brother?

Oh, God.

Okay.

So I'll give you five candidates.

Okay.

Keegan Murray and his brother Chris.

Max Christie and his brother Cam.

Caleb Martin, brother Cody.

Tyus Jones, brother Trey.

Or Justin Champaign and his brother Julian.

I think the answer is Tyus Jones.

It's a little unfair because Jones and the Martin twins are kind of on the other side of their

peak.

You know what I mean?

It's probably Tyus Jones.

Yes.

It's probably Tyus Jones.

It wouldn't have been Tyus Jones last year.

Or two years ago.

Or two years ago.

Or he was just playing better.

Yeah.

Interesting.

Best.

Worst best brother.

Here are the nominees.

But do you know how many brothers are in the league right now?

More than there's ever been in the past.

It's 19 brother combos.

Combos?

Yeah.

Or 19 sets.

Two brothers.

Yeah.

Wow.

That's wait.

19 combos.

That's 38 people.

38.

There's a five hundred.

There's a five hundred.

We have three holidays and three hundred to coupos.

We have 40 brothers.

So if there's 50 and there's five hundred, it's like 10% of the league.

Turns out DNA is important.

Yeah.

Matt T.

Says, me and Nick Wright, Mr. Most obvious coaches for the Black versus White All-Star Game

gimmick that Nick suggested.

I'm not at liberty to speak on this idea.

No.

In your microphone.

He said Larry Bird should coach the Black team and Magic Johnson should coach the White

team and then bridge generational divides and then you flip it with the coaches.

All right.

I really like that idea.

No, I didn't see.

I'm going to push back on this.

Yeah.

One of the scenarios, because I've thought about this a lot too, it's not going to work.

I have played this right.

This is not going to work.

But one of my favorite hypothetical scenarios in this hypothetical game is the white team jumps

out.

So like a 10 point lead in the first three minutes.

Black team calls the timeout.

And in that huddle, the discussion that Black team has, is just to be a fly on the wall

to listen to that.

I think if you have a Caucasian head coach, you don't get that same conversation.

That's my concern there.

turn there. And also the race war that would come along.

This is from William McGlin in Sydney, Australia. Oh, he said he just watched K to go for 27

and 17 and thought about how he got waived for no reason by the Sacramento Kings. He mentions

how it's interesting that this has happened more than you think. The calves waived Isaiah

Heart and Stein. The grizzlies waived Stephen Jackson. Danny Green got waived by the calves

picked up by the spurs. Alex Kruse got waived by OKC picked up by the Lakers. And he asked

what my favorite one of all of those were. And I think it's interesting. I think it's Stephen Jackson

because they actually win the O3 title because it has Stephen Jackson played in the playoffs.

Yes. If you go back and let me say Danny Brown, he's got a bad bad Danny Green as well.

2013, but they don't win in the finals that he gets hot.

Remember game one game two, he had like 35 and 40 feet in the game six. That's just completely

forgotten in history. The Danny Green was the best player on the four. But I think it's Stephen

Jackson because he actually swung the title. Yes. If you go back and watch those games, it's

he's like the number two guy in the spurs and he brings us all the smoke. And he brought us a bunch

of joy. He was very pivotal in the melee. He's also really fun to have around the office when I was

at ESPN in L.A. We gave him his first media chance on the Grantland basketball. He would he

had a real presence. He had a real presence around the office. Like you knew you knew when the

elevator doors opened and and stat came out. Yeah. It was a good time. Uh Glen Shepherd says

I'm listening to the podcast with Kellerman. Crazy that you went from discussing nicknames

in the discussing Darren Peterson's tattoo Michael Myers. And the boogie man is sitting right

there as an incredible nickname. Do you like Darren Peterson more if his nickname was the boogie man.

And we also haven't had a boogie man. Boogie man's pretty good because we had boogie. Yes.

Boogie man's pretty good. The boogie man had 45 last night. And the boogie. There's been

a resurgence of boogie man lore because of John Wick and Bobby Yaga. So like it is time to come

back. That's the next name. Bobby Yaga. Too hard to say. Bobby Yaga goes to Bobby.

Bobby. Yeah. But boogie man would be a really good nickname. But I don't I think that person has

to be scary. Multiple readers were disappointed in me that I didn't stick up for Darren Peterson

more when he has a Michael Myers tattoo. And I like to apologize to everybody. I know I do

hit a Michael Myers tattoo. It's a pretty strong statement. All right. Ryan and Chicago wants to

know what five events would you include if there was a winter Olympics pentathlon?

Distance speed skating cross country skiing and downhill skiing or the most obvious three

would you round it out with ski jumping and loose ski jumping definitely.

I don't know about loose jumping and lose. But so you have distance speed skating. I think

you have to do the fast speed skating too, right? Cross country skiing would be the last event.

Downhill skiing. I think ski jumping is the fifth and I think we're good.

Amazing. So what are we creating exactly the best five? Some pentathlon. Just a random pentathlon.

We're not going to do any figure skating. You can't do 10. I think 10. You know, no hockey, no

figure skating. Okay. So it's sort of like one athlete can do all of these things. Yeah,

because when you think about the cat on it's like jumping, running, endurance,

shot putty here and there. It's all these things. So for winter Olympics, it would have to be

skiing, skating, endurance would have to be the five. I like a little jump. The jump would be,

so the jump's not fun anymore because everybody, there's no danger and everybody's good at it.

But if you had these guys where it's like, the jump was weakest to that. Yeah, it's a train to much

for the jump. Yeah. Okay. This is from Joshua, Tabor, College, Station, Texas. If you had to

bet your entire net worth on one current NBA part of win at least three championships over the next

10 years, who are you taking? Okay. Well, it's a different proposal for each of us,

because the net worth part. But I had trouble with this. I think the only answer is Victor

Wembenjama. I had SGA and then Wembee. I thought about SGA too. I think SGA, because of the

OKC situation. Exactly. They're going to cycle in more young players. So they'll stay under the cap.

It's been interesting, Fando a future that they couldn't do because you'd have to realize it over

10 years. But I think SGA would be like a minus 150 favorite. I think so too. And I wrote down

in my notes, just institutional knowledge. Just like they've won a championship before, same front

office, same coaching staff. You know, they're going to have to cycle through some roster spots,

but they've got tons of picks. Sorber and hope it's the last two first round picks. Don't even play.

You know, that's funny about Sorber. So the Clippers and OKC, they had the pick swap as part of

the Kuwait trade last year. OKC gets Clippers picked. They take Sorber. I think this is what happened.

And then the quip Scott, number 30. And they took

Neater house. I bought stock last week. Had a whole argument with Mike Tolen and my seats

about it because we went to the Minnesota game. And I'm like, I really like this guy. And he's

like, no way. And I'm like, I'm buying the stock right now. So Tolen's by witness. He's good.

He's young and run jumps. And I fucking like it. I feel like they were like, Zubach, you had a

great year for us last year. They're not exactly working this year. But we've got

Canon New Year highs, or John Jacob G. Lamar Schmidt coming off the bench. He's good. He's good.

Clippers are kind of interested. If Garland can come back and actually look like the

Garland from the first 50 games last year, which we haven't seen in over a year. Yeah, I know.

Like them though. I understand why they did what they did. They're kind of interesting.

But that trade was great for everybody. If you get the somewhere of 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,

pick, I've started to work on this draft. So they get the Pacers pick. If it's 5 through 9,

otherwise it gets pushed like six years. There's like fucking awesome scores in that range.

Every guy from 5 to 9 is a guy who could average like 25 points a game in the NBA at some point.

Maybe she's like, there's a 40 point game in college basketball like every week.

These guys are like real every week eight cups. My favorite out of all of them. Like eight cups

going to come in the week and immediately be a guy. So anyway, I thought that was a good trade.

So we have S.J. and Wembee. Who would you put third, Ant?

Or Hugo Gonzalez?

I can't make a case for flag, really. I think it's SGA and Wembee.

Two hearts. Three. Three championships in 10 years. Last guy to win three titles.

What do you mean? Last guy to win three titles. Is there a question mark at the end of that?

Yeah. Oh, Steph Curry. Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't happen a lot. No.

If you're talking generally, generally, generally, generationally.

I had no idea you were asking me. The last question was like, last guy to win three titles. It's like,

what? Step one, four, dunk in one, five, Kobe one, five. If you're just going this century,

three is like a lot. Like Bird only went three. LeBron. LeBron one, four. Yeah. Yeah.

It's hard. But the LeBron was in the O3 draft. We're talking about the next 10 years. Yeah.

Curry's the last modern guy who won three titles, even Durant only two. Clay Thompson heads.

We're like, what about Clay? There's second parts of this question from Joshua Taber and

College Station, Texas. If you had to pick one current NBA star whose legacy is most at risk

of looking completely different in 10 years, either way better or way worse. Who is it and why?

I had a specific guy. Okay, please. No, you go. I want you to guess. My problem with this question

is all of my answers were negative. And I was like, that's where my head went. You know what I mean?

I was like, all my answers were just like bad answers. Mine were Zion and jaw.

Oh, interesting. I've already given up on those guys. To me, that would be a positive

of a change. Well, I think Zion, it could be like 10 years now. It could be like, do you remember

that guy's I'm losing the NBA? I think Lucas the answer to this. Oh.

Is that related to the thing on on the Sunday pod, something I noticed with Lucas MPPs?

How we only had a top three and a top four? I heard that. And I wasn't doing that because

I mean, tree, but I wasn't doing it because I was like, he should have more. It's like,

because we do that with LeBron. It's stupid. The only person who can you divinitably say

should have more MPs than they want is Michael Jordan. He should have three more MPs. He should

have won nine. I think he won six, whatever one is. But the three that he didn't get,

it's fucking stupid when you go back. It's like, it's like, I can't believe we he didn't win that

year. Michael Jordan. Yeah, awesome. Like, would you rather call him a little? The nine to seven

one is one of the worst ones. But the 93 was ridiculous from Barclay one. There was another one

in like 89 or 90. But with Luca, this is next year's going to be year nine. I'm intrigued by

this bill. But what if he just turns out to be like Dominic Wilkins who made the finals once.

And it's like statistically the most awesome. And he's in there with all these grades. And then

it's like at one top three MVP, one top four MVP only made the finals once. And that's just

this kind of his career. All right, counterpoint. Counterpoint is the ceiling still high.

Well, it's not that is his style of play. We were just like 10 minutes ago talking about him in

five years being one of the best players in the league. And I also think that what happened to him

in this trade, however, it happened or whatever really happened behind the scenes. I have no idea

what actually happened. But he ended up, he like teleported to the Lakers. You know what I mean?

And this team is not built for him. So we saw what happened. Winneco did a very good job building

a team for Luca Dongett. Pro Nika stance. Yeah. Yeah. He did a really good job. We were all

celebrating this guy, you know, with the PJ Washington Gafford or whatever. If you did the Lakers

are not built for Luca to be successful. And I think that when LeBron is gone, they will build a

team for Luca to be successful. And they'll have some good years. I see your glass half full on that.

I am. I think there's a Tatum. Tatum coming off the Achilles in a possibly negative way.

Just like he made first team on B.A. a few times. He has two top four MVP's. But

can he get back to where he was or was that the peak or like Jalen Brown sort of like stays in

this number one spot. And he sort of perpetually just sort of goes into like a role.

The other guy I had was Lamella. What if Lamella? What if Zach had some good stuff about him

on my podcast tonight? What if we are now at this awesome Lamella moment where he's just

going to be really good for like nine years. And he's remembered as this really fun guy who's

a lot of. Talk to me. Talk to me. Talk to me. Oh, man. Remember, we were worried about Lamella. He's

awesome. You know, I know I love Lamella so much. I know. He brings me so much joy to watch. I'm

so glad that you're now on this team. We argued about Lamella before he was drafted. Do you remember

that? It took me six years to warm up. I was in on Lamella early. Yeah. And I said to

something just match. Every time he has the ball, he's just looking around. He's like, what's the

coolest thing I can do with the basketball right now? But all he wants to do is cool stuff. As

they've gotten better, he's pulled it back a little bit. He's like he's become more of a winning

player. I think then just I'm out here to have fun and make highlights. Yes. And one Lamella thing.

He said he did drive the Hummer across the Guardian into or across the yellow lines into that

car. That was very concerning. Like that was that was crazy. I'm looking at my phone because

because I saw it. I was just like, that makes no sense. It's not an intersection. He's not

making a turn. Wasn't great. I would say that I watch. It still scares me, but I like where it's

heading. I know you're watching a lot of Hornets games. I do. And I do want to get your take on this.

This weird substitution patterns in the end of the fourth quarter with Lamella ball.

Well, I think they're trying to. It's 27 minutes a game. I think sometimes they'll put a more

defense lineup. It's not offense defense though. It was last year. That was one of the things where

they just started benching within the games. They seem very concerned about putting too many minutes

on them and kind of like it's like when you have when you have kids and you have a win with the kids

and you're like, we're having a really fun time with them all. Let's go. Yeah. Before something bad

happens. Yeah. Of course. I just feel sometimes like he'll be not in there with three minutes left.

And I'm like, oh, I guess they're going to finish without Lamella. And then with like two minutes

left, they'll put them in. Yeah. It's weird. Cory Wallace writes, just listen to the alien rewatchables.

Bravo for pointing out how much cat suck in general. I like to tell people that the bigger cats get

the more likely they are to hunt you for sport. The bigger dogs get, they still lick your face

and want what pets like all good boys do. Also, I could go on and on. Cat shit indoors.

They cover said shit with their paws. They walk on tables and counters. What are we doing here?

There needs to be more negative coverage of cats and media. This is wild. First of all, I just

want to say Mallory Rubin is very important to me. And you just can't. I can't go anti cat and

be pro as pro Mallory Rubin as I am. So that puts me in a bad spot. I was in the same spot,

even worried about doing this in general. It is a good point though. When you, especially if

is your Instagram algorithm ever send you cats like cat's like hitting dogs in the face and stuff.

I did get that same clips. Those AI clips that you got where was like, oh, it's a cat's

cat's fighting bears for the first 20 seconds. You're like, oh my god, cats can beat up bears.

And you're like, oh, this is just fake. It is interesting point that the bigger cats get the more

they become predators. Okay. And the cats that we have as pets are just the mini version of

those predators. But the first thing that came to mind was I think it was that Liam Neeson movie

when the wolves were the gray. I think it's called. Yeah. Do you remember the wolves in that movie?

The dogs. Those are dogs. And they're they are pack hunters and Liam Neeson was at the edge of his

life for two two hours in the cold. I remember I was this is in the 90s. I was dated in this girl

and her family had a cat. We were staying in her house and I went down to get a water and I heard

this weird noise. And in the forever house, the cat had a mouse trapped. And it was like doing

the Michael Madsen and reservoir dogs. Like it's like, I'm not going to kill you yet.

Duck in the middle. I'm really enjoying it. The cat that I was there and I was watching it. It was

like just torturing this mouse. Before I finally took it to that, I was like, it's cats have

fucking psycho. I love how much you were enjoying it. Like a fluoy or a cat didn't even know I was

watching it. It's like I got you stuck in the corner. Yeah, cats. I don't know. I had a tough

go with cats. I had there's two cats. They were Symees cats, but they were twins. So they're

Symees twins, but they were not conjoined. That makes sense. And they just sat in this this

closet in my parents room and they hissed at you if you walk by. And I'm like, what is the point of

this? Yeah, that's not like what are we doing? Steven Ohio wants to know he was reminiscing about

the Ricky Davis here before LeBron came, which would have been a great 30 for 30. By the way,

with the way they're picking 30 for 30 topics these days, it might actually be a 30 for 30.

He averaged 20.6 points per game. It was the area of the fake triple double.

And he said, I know you've talked about how easy it is for a lot of people to get to 20 points

on a bad team, but he did want to know who was the worst player to ever average 20 points per

game in a season. So I did. I didn't tell you this one. Yeah. I prepped for it. I went on basketball

reference. Okay. First of all, I was very surprised how hard it is to average 20 games. It was like

less people than I thought. And I had to do a lot of different stuff with the basketball reference.

I'm trying to think is. So I went. I tried to figure out like between 20 and 22 points of

games, seemed like a good because there were so many people I had to like narrow down the sample

size. And then they'd buy windshares and PR. Let me ask you a follow-up question to give you six

points. I know you're going to know. Yeah. We're in the middle of like a scoring boom right now,

but is this the scoring peak or was this a previous boom in a previous era where it was like

150, 160? There was another one, right? 60s. Yeah. Yeah. So we're back. We're taking those people out

of the pool. So all I did was go back to 19th the mergers season. Copy that.

I'll give you six players who are average 20 points of game. Mike James, 20.3. Ricky Davis, 20.6.

Dana Barros, 20.6. Made the all-star team that year. Never nervous Purvis Allison, 20.0 one year.

Tony Campbell, two years at a row in the expansion Minnesota, Timberloves. But I think our answer

at 20.3 points of game, Jordan Pool. Jordan Pool average, 20 points of game.

Counterpoint. On a certain night, Jordan Pool looks really good. Well, the end of the other

counter would be he actually really helped with the NBA finals, helped them win a title. So maybe

it's Mike James. I'm kind of looking at never nervous Purvis Allison. So the other thing that

was interesting about that, it was the only time he ever averaged anything close to that.

He's like one big year, but for the most part, he was like between seven and 13. So maybe that's

the answer. Never nervous. Yeah, that's my answer. It's just he's not he doesn't exactly jump off

the screen when you watch him play basketball. He doesn't exactly jump when you watch him play basketball

either. Ricky ended up on the Celtics, which I know you remember. Of course. Yeah, Knights,

where you're like, wow, this guy might be an OMBA player. Yes. And that's my pool. That's my pool

retort to. Yeah, is like Jordan, put it nice on a certain night. Yeah, they're putting up 40.

All right. So there's two more great questions because to it, I'm going to give you the second

best one first. And then I'm really excited about the last one. This is from Jay and Charlotte.

He heard the Hornets deep dive that Zach Lone I did and about Zach was joking about raising a

divisional banner. Wanted to know who had the saddest rafters in the American sports scene.

So I just concentrate on basketball. As a Hornets season ticket holder, he has to nominate. He

calls it the spectrum center. Currently, the Hornets have three things hanging the rafters.

Number six for Bill Russell, which everybody has. Number 13 for Bobby Phills, who tragically

died in a drag racing accident. And the Charlotte Sting, Jersey number 32 for Andrea Stinson,

who averaged 12 points again in the WNBA. They've never won their division made an Eastern

conference finals or won a playoff series since the arena opened. The most famous basketball

woman in the arena is a drunk guy in a purple shirt, taunting Dwayne Wade and hitting two

threes in a game six to close out the game when he had seven threes in the year. Is there a

sadder rafters in American sports? So I did the research on this, but I just wanted to present

that chair in the case for you. So Bill Russell didn't play for them. Bobby Phills who tragically

passed away in a WNBA player and no division or conference title or anything. I don't think

you can get sadder than that. I'll present to you the Memphis Grizzlies. No no any rafters either.

Bill Russell, Zach Randolph, Tony Allen, it still goes with Charlotte. Minnesota, Bill Russell

and Malik Saley who tragically passed away. And that's really it. I don't think they have anything else.

They're going to do. They haven't done yet. Yeah, but they just didn't think just sort of like

Orlando only has Bill Russell and Shaq, but they must have the 95 Eastern conference title,

whatever. And they made it no nine. So they'd have two. The answer is actually the LA Clippers.

Zero anything. They have no retired numbers. What? And they've never won anything.

They've never won a conference finals. They've nothing. What about like a brand or something?

They've nothing. They put high school uniforms of California players. They don't have a single

retired number. I'm trying to think. They didn't retire. Bob McAdoo's number who won an MVP in the

Buffalo Braves. They didn't retire basically name anybody. Chris Paul. Chris Paul maybe will be

the first one, but they just he had this terrible experience with them. Blake Griffin,

maybe you get to a point where you're yeah. Chris Paul Blake Griffin. I think you do that.

That's pretty sad though. Couldn't you at least retire a deris miles and quit Richardson together?

Just have just that was a great year. That was a really fun year. We enjoyed it. But yeah,

the Quippers have nothing. That's so they are the most impressive. I feel like just if we're just

going with just raptors, you might be right. But it really touched me when he was like nothing's

even happened in this arena notable. Yeah, with in Charlottes. I was thinking about the one thing

would be LeBron staring at Michael Jordan before he dunks in a playoff game. That would be like the

most notable thing that's happened in that arena in my memory. Well, now 2k is going to be

raining three two K. They should put him in the Raptor already. This is a little sorbet appetizer

for the last email. John from Jersey City had an email for conspiracy bill. I thought I could turn

you on to the latest NBA conspiracy. The net's rigging the 2026 lottery.

I'm a net season ticket holder. This is the upcoming line. When I got my ticket renewal price

for next season, I was shocked. It raised prices 24% for the same seats next season. Last year,

they raised it 3%. The only rationale I could think of is to upcharge their season ticket holders

who have sat through the mess of the last two years because they must know something. The rest of us

don't. I'll tell you this conspiracy bill did darken the room and smoke the pipe a little bit

and thought about this one. Why would they raise ticket prices 24% coming off a terrible season.

They don't have a single signature player. They're like Michael Porter Jr.

Egg or Joe.

Egg or Demand. What made them raise prices? But it's a large.

It's a sizable leader. Yeah.

Conspiracy bill is intrigued.

Tyler Dickie, by the way, wanted to know. I'm not buying that one though.

They've rigged lottery. Conspiracy bill got his people together. Yeah, they had a meeting about it.

Tyler Dickie is another sorbet. He said, when you talk about crazy stories of the season,

everyone's like Katie's burners. That was the craziest. Won't get crazy. That. He points out

the trailblazers head coach got arrested by the MFDI one game in the season.

I'm not the historian of the game that you are, but I've never seen or heard anything quite like

this. No one cares about Portland. So this is easily swept under the rug. Did Chauncey actually

mess with our players playing times in development and control outcomes that he cut minutes,

so player props or dead unders? Why is this not a huge deal to anyone else? I don't know. Why

isn't this a huge deal? I don't know. Ramona just wrote a huge piece about him today about how he

had to like sell his house and he'd be $5 billion bail. Like this is like a major major gambling

investigation. And he was in the poker and alleged say I know Chauncey that well, but he was

a round ESPN when I was there. And he is like just like the most responsible measured person

I've been around in. I worked with him too. I was like the nicest guy. Yeah, like it's not like

some of the stuff you hear about like believe me. He's like, oh, that's a little weird. But like

Chauncey was just like a sweetheart. It's a good point. This one kind of just went away. Not

sure why. It feels so long ago. And also the Katie butter thing like he made a Twitter account

and was in like a group chat. You know what I mean? So he's not like, it's not even like public

facing tweets. Yeah. Somebody in his group chat just violated his privacy. Somebody betrayed

the chat. Yeah. Seems that seems to be what happened. Yeah. Okay. Last question. From Dan and

Manhattan Beach. I can't wait for your reaction. I didn't send this to you. What if instead of

signing with any one team for next season? LeBron makes his retirement or an actual retirement

tour by signing a one week contract with all 30 teams. Every team gets one LeBron home game where

he starts and plays and they sell thousands of limited or jerseys. New York finally gets next

next next LeBron. Minnesota gets an ant LeBron team up. Miami gets heat reunion LeBron. We just

keep going. He's not going to win the title no matter where he goes when I generate news in every

local market. Never happy. Great idea. I couldn't I couldn't pin holes in it. There's also this

thing hanging on where it's like, I have no idea where LeBron is going to play next year. So it's

just like there's no sort of like natural. I did just end up on the pod. Yeah. So exactly.

You did a golden state thing. Well, because I don't think Cleveland, I think Cleveland has a chance to

win the title every year and it's done of a Mitchell's team and he's not going to be like, cool,

what's that LeBron? Like, it's his team. Jalen Brunson. It's his team. These guys don't want the

LeBron retirement circus coming into their thing. They'd rather just win the title. It does

be my guess. Does if he goes to the Warriors, per conspiracy bill.

Does that team a championship team? No, but it's, it's like a curry in LeBron. The last

first as porzingus and like Jimmy Butler, often injury and like that team is not that one has

ride. Curry goes to Charlotte's and his career. So I tried to think about could this 10 day thing

work and I actually think it could hold on. Curry going to Charlotte. That's going to take

shots away from nips. It's an older mentor. I'll be the best shooter. I'll have that

torsus. I'm kind of like a Chris Paul Wembe thing. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. He's there to shepherd him.

It's super start. So if it was 30, he'd have to play for 30 teams.

It's 60 games total. Right. So he'd play one home game, one road game or two home games.

Why the road games? Maybe just the home game. Yeah. Maybe it's a two game home stand,

limited edition jerseys, TDF, two jerseys for everything. It's like a fucking cash cow.

It would be actually be kind of amazing. And the Celtics would be like, whoa, our LeBron

game is coming up on March 4th. Oh, the tickets would go out of control. That's why they raised

the ticket prices in Brooklyn because of the LeBron game next year. Or is LeBron just going there

next year for a virtual piece of the team? Just say that's it. That's the thing. So if he played

on every team, this would, first of all, it would be an amazing. Nobody's done it before. The league

just brought in two new partners and took billions of their dollars. Yeah. And this is a little gift

they can give back. How about this? LeBron's in a golf now. Plays in these different cities,

two home games, and you can sample the best courses in each city over the course of two days.

This will never happen, but it should happen. I thought it was an almost unassailable idea.

I loved it because and then he ends up on the last team. And it's and it's and that's the team

that has a chance to win the title. And you just kind of slide in. It's like, oh, I had a really

good time when I was on Minnesota in December. Guarantees are ringing for LeBron. Yeah.

I only played one game. They won the title. I didn't even think that he's a ring.

Yeah. Everyone who played for the team gets a ring. I mean, this is on the level of

you and how's talking about a guy with a metal baseball bat playing for the research.

This will never happen, but it isn't intriguing. It's one of those things where it's like, okay,

this won't happen. But if it did, what's the problem? It would be cool if he started out with

the shitty teams and then gradually got to and then, okay, so he was like, we'll do it, but

it's got to be in December. You don't want to screw with our team too much.

Because I was thinking about like him on the jazz. And I was like, uh, you know, I mean,

I was just like, well, I don't know if I'm going to even tune in for that one or like the wizards.

I did think could there be a scenario where he only picks 12 teams. But then I think the other

18, there'd be some fan base. I'd be like, what the fuck? And I do like the idea of him having

the one game in like Memphis, just fucking weird. He's wearing a jersey. But the thing is,

is that city's on absolute fire. It is like a, it's like basically Taylor Swift's errors to her,

but basketball and LeBron is basically what it is. Every game would be an event. I think

Bronnie also has to come. So it's cool. It's two 10 day contracts. You have to give both guys.

Every text read that I am on would be which LeBron game are we going to?

Right. It would like the second the schedule is released, it would every text read that I'm on

would be like, so we don't want to be going. He does Nick's nets back to back. So he has

Nick's week and then next week he's in New York for two weeks. He's doing all the shows. Oh,

yeah, this is amazing. It's so cool. Yeah, it's a great idea. This is a brilliant idea.

Dave Jacobi, you can hear him on the miss here and watch him on the mismatch with Vernon,

Chris Vernon, has Vernon handling another tanking season. You know what? He's not handling it well.

Yeah. But I think that we're doing everything we can to support him.

It's tough when you're whole, when you put your stake in the grand out, we are in a tank.

We got triple J and Joe and they play together. You're exactly. Yeah. It's not going great. He's

watching a lot of college basketball. Oh, that's good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good to see you,

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entry deadlines and prizes and details. All right my friend Matt Bellini is here you can hear him three

times a week on the town which you can also watch with his fancy video setup. It's a great podcast

you can also read his newsletter part of the puck newsletter world very essential especially

lately. There's always stuff going on and just recently Warner Brothers which has been passed

around like a Yankees Christmas gift since 2001 seems to have finally found a home.

Somebody wanted finally wanted the snow globe they wanted to keep it and finally I don't know

if it's finally we may be doing this all again in five years uh-oh well today that the paramounts

that got downgraded to junk status so everything they're dead their their debt was downgraded yes

all right so I have so many ways to go here I have I don't think there's been enough talk about the

the merger name you got you've been joking about this on your pod because they can do the acronym

they can do PWB they can do Warner Mount which you've said a couple times yeah that's my preference

uh do you does the paw brothers interesting at all paw brothers or paw just paw with like a paw

print I thought you were going to go peace guy that's their current their current monitor with

paramount skydance they do peace guy which Craig Horlbeck loves so do you think paramount just

absorbs it and it just stays paramount and that's like kind of their ultimate trump card

I think ultimately perhaps that will be the the route the funny thing is though the Warner

Brothers is much larger yeah paramount so if you're really looking at the you know what the brand is

and what to do moving forward you call the whole company warners or Warner Brothers or warners paramount

and then you keep the streaming service as HBO or HBO max right and just kind of full paramount

into it well none of us were ever happy with WBD Warner Brothers discovery it was just a complete mess

and everything's as left did was just bizarre and crazy and including his victory lap last week

which you excoriate them for oh my god oh my god it's gonna walk away with like 800 million dollars

it's it is unbelievable the company lost two thirds of its value under his leadership the only thing

that raised the stock was the prospect of it being sold and he locked out he has these the

the world's fourth richest man who's got a son who happens to love Hollywood it's the it's

the greatest thing in the world and all the sudden there's a bidding war because Netflix is like oh

well we'll we'll take that we'll take HBO and Warner Brothers if it's for sale and all the sudden

you got a bidding war all you need is two bidders and then next thing you know the stock goes from

$7 a share to $31 a share at the sale unbelievable and some people were buying it when it was like

18 19 hoping that would it get to the mid 20s this so I was really trying to think about this

and I was thinking about real life and culture is this the most faith anyone has ever shown in their

son well I don't think anyone in the history of the world has had the wherewithal that Larry

Ellison does in terms of just sheer wealth I mean I guess Elon has what like 10 12 kids that will

someday be old enough to have to deal with his money but this is like in Game of Thrones Queen

Cersei's like Jeffrey we're riding with you baby I know you're 17 and we know you're a sociopath

but I think you can handle the seven kingdoms yeah we'll see this in culture but not in real life

wait till Don junior runs for president then we'll really see what what's going on there

well I was gonna say the the bushes would be the other analogy right like like senior bush like

kind of grooming junior bush but not in a situation where you basically incur $79 million

$79 billion in debt plus the junk which is now 3% on top of the $79 million I've never seen

anything like this and I I gotta be honest I'm not smart enough really from a mass standpoint

to understand it well isn't there a correlation in sports aren't there legendary sports I mean

Dr. bus perfect example Dr. bus you know in his kids running rough shot over his empire

when there's got to be a million examples of very savvy sports owners who turn their entire

kingdom over to their kids and all hell breaks loose here's the difference so I did think about

that and we see this in sports all the time and almost always it goes horribly and the kids you

know they're basically their their qualifications for the job is I'm related to my dad and he's

the rich guy who made all these things they're not self made all this stuff in this case

David Ellison has tried to put in the time for the last 10 to 12 years to try to figure out like

I want to be a content mogo so it's it's a little different than in sports sometimes when some

is like okay I'm I'm gonna fold shop here's my son he's now the CEO and he'll be in charge of

all of our basketball moves you're like oh no yeah David Ellison really does seem like he's he's

ready for the moment I don't know if anybody else thinks he is but it seems like he has a point of

view and and and a style and a take on this right certainly and he definitely put in the time we

can argue about how successful skydance was because their biggest successes have been essentially

putting up money and glomming on to original franchises at paramount right had you know you had

top gun he's done mission of possible he had the terminator franchise and he did those movies to

varying degrees of success so he hasn't made a huge impact via skydance but he's put a lot of

money into movies and he's made a lot of TV shows so in that sense he has been kind of auditioning

for this but now he is in the absolute big league right he's gone in a in a year and change

from being a guy with a semi successful production company to arguably the second or third most

powerful person in Hollywood yeah because I'm trying there's been so much glass half empty I'm

trying to think like okay what is the glass half full side what are his wins so far he gets credit

for the the Tom Cruise relationship and top gun maverick which he actually produced and made happen

and he gets credit for I mean mission impossible these last couple mission of possible lost money

so but they were kind of plagued by covid charges and ended up being some of the most expensive

movies of all time yeah he has built the TV business is not bad he actually he's done richer

he's done gracey and grace and Frankie which lasted seven seasons on Netflix which is kind of

unheard of so he has had wins in TV um he's a producer produce some producers you know some

shows are hits some movies are hit some aren't that's very different from what he is now he is

an owner operator of the two of the five legacy studios and it's just it's unbelievable how much

power he's a mass he has news now he's never had news right before he's got sports I mean he's

now the proprietor of the arguably the most lucrative NFL package the ASC package on Sundays he's got

USC he's got golf he's got March madness now he owns all of March madness I mean it's pretty

unbelievable yeah so I wrote down all the stuffy that they have now the content empire right 200 plus

million subs now I don't know how many of those are repetitive I guess you find that out

in the US in the US and 10 I just did a study where it's 7.5 million subs overlap in the US I

don't know about overseas okay but it's less overlap than with HBO and Netflix there's a much

bigger overlap there HBO Paramount plus CBS an entity that I think got just discounted during

this whole process Pluto yeah they got Pluto one of my favorites TNT TBS they own 902 and oh that's

a big thing for you know they have all the challenges TNT TBS Comedy Central Discovery MTV all

those which I guess can just run as ghost ships on cable for as long as we have cable yeah

there's zombies yeah there's obby networks and they will just milk them for the ridiculousness

money and that's it CNN and CBS news which who knows if they're even going to decide they want to

be a news and if you're going to talk about ways to cut debt if they don't care about news to begin

with that could be just a place that sadly they would just chop they're going to chop I don't think

they're going to kill it CBS CNN CNN still throws off a lot of money from affiliate fees because

it's a you can't not carry CNN for like the five times a year that people tune in to watch some

kind of breaking to breaking news moment yeah like this weekend exactly but there are about 3,000

people that work at CNN yeah and there's a big overlap in terms of the product with CBS news so

that is a the perfect place to start cutting yeah sadly bleeds report that they have all this

IP including DC Comics Harry Potter Lord of the Rings Looney Tunes Game of Thrones Top Gun

Mission Impossible Star Trek etc and that's the biggest thing that shifted I would say this

century with with the studios valuing that old IP more than ever and now we're moving into the AI

era and it's even probably yeah if we look at what's going on with AI and there soon going to be

anybody can create anything at any time right and YouTube is about to be flooded with AI generated

content so in a sea where everything is possible what isn't possible to recreate and it's

known intellectual property you cannot recreate Batman with AI unless it's license which they may do

but they will own Batman and you can do whatever you want with Batman and I think that's honestly why

Netflix was so interested in buying Warner Brothers because Netflix is increasingly taking on YouTube

yeah they're doing podcasts they're doing all these other things that eat up innings and eat up

time on the service and if they see AI coming in they wanted all of that IP in addition to the

hundred years of movies in the library to put on the service right so like friends and stay on the

godfather there's a world where you could just do your own godfather sequel between godfather

two and godfather three and create all of the AI and it sounds insane and awful but like this

week and I saw a commercial where somebody used was Airbnb they use golden slumbers from the Beatles

for commercial and I'm like that song's kind of sacred this is now a commercial song but we're

just used to this now all the songs we grew up with in the 60s 70s 80s 90s are just commercial

jingles now but they're getting paid right that's the difference you have to pay for that but people

will get paid for this godfather kind of stuff too it just feels weird but I guess I mean dizzy

just did a deal with open AI to hand over all their characters for do it yourself content

right and interestingly in that deal they did not give the voices and they did not give the actual

physical human likenesses of the characters that are human so if you have Luke Skywalker it's the

animated Luke Skywalker it's not Mark Hamill right that's because of the guild the union

regulations they don't let you do that you have to pay money for that and dizzy just say okay

you can have lightning McQueen and Yoda but you're not they're not going to sound like

lightning McQueen and Yoda because they that's still intellectual property that's controlled

so the and this is the wild god west coming up where we don't know you know what a fox just says

hey the Simpsons go to town just make sure you pay us and all of a sudden there's just

Well that's dissing yeah Homer Simpson is involved in this open AI deal yeah not Homer's voice

because you have to get the voice separate from that that that image but you're going to be able

to do Homer Simpson videos on open AI and dizzy plus very soon you also get the paramount library

the wb library and two giant studio lots um here's the thing so 79 million 79 billion in debt plus

the 3% junk piece so that's even higher paramount only controls two things right now when they

emerge these companies which they'll take a year assuming they merge headcount and subscription

prices right other than that they have no idea how this is going to go but they those are the two

things that they can finagle the price however they want like they could chop 60% of both companies

and merge it into some small company they could also raise the subscription price to some crazy

number and and do a little like with disney and hulu and fox have tried to do which has been really

confusing like you can't it's been really hard to get one of them you kind of have to get all

three and they don't pushing people to the bundle yeah which is what we're we're headed with this

right and it'd be like 35 dollars a month and you get HBO and paramount and you get to watch

football and CBS and that's where we're headed right what what they are saying is that there will

only be one app it will not be a bundle it won't be like the disney hulu ESPN situation yeah they

are saying that they're these are going to be combined into one they're calling it a super app

and that it will be something like let's call it HBO max and then you go open it and then there's

paramount plus tile and there's an HBO tile and there's a CBS sports tile yeah that kind of thing

so we've never really seen a deal like this with somebody that is a really proud tech person

that cares about this stuff and is like we're gonna innovate do all we have all these different

ideas like Netflix has a great main page you know Netflix it it knows what you like it knows how

to push things in front of you and they're the best at it you go to other pages like peacock is

just a quagmire you got a peacock still doesn't know that I go there every Sunday morning to watch

snl it's like I just want to see a big game how do I how do I do it can you guys it's unbelievable

and like app of all time and then you finally get to snl and it shows you the last 10 minutes

of the episode that you previously watched and I'm like no no no no no I never watched the last

10 minutes of snl because I turn it off after we get up day I want just show me the latest episode

what's the new one what's the new traders like they just can't figure it out so subscription price

will be one way to make the money back I still don't know like I've heard you you've talked at

different pods about how do you get this this debt down all this stuff 79 billion is like a brain

breaker it's a lot that's that's basically the entire western conference of MBA teams yeah

honestly they're gonna have to cut a shit ton of costs they're saying six billion that they're

gonna take out it's gonna be more than that and they're saying that there's a lot of synergies

and that they you know they will probably move everybody to one of the two physical lots and sell

the other one that's a couple billion dollars there there's a lot of things they can do merging

CBS news and CNN there's things that are gonna result in headcount reductions but also just like

physical prem you know a presence reduction and costs of you know office space and things like

that so you'll start to see those that that come down but the real risk here is that they can't come

down enough and that this company just essentially becomes all about paying off debt and they're just

cutting costs and reducing output and servicing the debt and it's they're not actually investing in

making this a good you know productive company like you should be which is I can't remember the

first time I came on your pot and we talked about this this goes to the heart of how stupid these

media mergers are yes I just don't understand them they never work I don't I think even when you

look at Disney and Fox like I don't know with Disney run that back if they if they could do that one

over again would they but certain quarters serum certain quarters of Disney would run that back

Bob Iger Bob Iger insists it's great and I don't think was it final I listen I go back and forth

on this I don't know if Disney is where it is today as one of the companies that you assume will

survive the streaming wars if it didn't acquire all the content engines from FX and from Hulu and from

you know the the Fox properties putting the Simpsons on Disney plus I don't know about that that is

that is above my pay grade there's probably some McKinsey study locked in the vault with Walt

Disney's head somewhere just like that this is what we got out of Fox yeah but they spent a lot

of money and it caused a lot of debt issues for Disney and they're still kind of digging out of

that they got avatar though they got they got a lot out of it but it was a lot now we have a better

example in Warner Brothers Discovery because that was a transaction that produced about 55 billion

dollars in debt and Zazloff and his team essentially spent the next three years trying to pay that

and then that's where we had you know cutting the back girl movie and firing thousands of people

and all these things that kind of they took a hit to the brand and luckily for them they found

someone to come along and buy this company but if they hadn't it would have been a downward spiral

I think. So would you say the best analogy for Woods Zazloff did here is he bought this house he

couldn't afford in a neighborhood that he liked real new right away basically that he couldn't

afford to keep the house and that this was going to go really badly unless somebody else was driving

down the street and said whoa I really love that house and that was his only out that's basically

what happened right the rich kid the rich kid in school he happened to befriend and he just decided

that he'd really like that and then another guy said I'd also like it I don't want the rich

kid to have it and then all of a sudden it's a bidding war I mean if you look at the initial

projections for Warner Brothers Discovery they said that they were going to have $14 billion a year

in EBITDA which is a metric for profits and it never even delivered in that first year that first

year came in under their estimates and it's because the linear TV business which is where these

companies make most of their money still the linear TV business is collapsing faster than people

anticipated or that they let on so they're like oh wait we thought we were going to have $14 billion

now we only have 12 this year and next year we have 10 and finally when they're selling this

company in this past year it's down to 8.5 and it just keeps melting melting melting and that's

it just throws the entire business trajectory off they had to find a buyer who didn't know that the

linear TV was going to die dramatically like we knew this 10 years ago what it would do it

it's a it's a matter of how fast it knows high speed internet was here like it was it was a matter

of time I I think one other thing with these mergers that never gets enough credit and I say this

is somebody who's worked in a couple big companies they're so destabilizing and I don't think

people you wouldn't know unless you were working in a company and they got acquired or acquired

somebody else but from the moment it happens it's it's hunger games and you have a lot of

departments all over the place and you have people looking over their shoulder and people looking

for other jobs because they don't know if their jobs going to exist and it's just this this

amount of tension like if Spotify merged with somebody tomorrow I'd be terrified I know what I'm

dealing with now I don't know what's what I'm dealing with another company right and if you look at

these Warner Brothers and HBO people they just they have different bosses all the time right and

with different bosses come different objectives different strategies and in a creative business

it's really hard to operate from a position of uncertainty and change you look at some of the

most stable places like Universal which has had the same ownership for the past 15 16 years

the film studio universal was able to build up these franchises and build up the illumination

business to have minions and super Mario and they had the relationship with Christopher Nolan yeah

you take a bet on Oppenheimer and then he's going to give you the Odyssey and all of a sudden you've

got the biggest filmmaker they have the Spielberg relationship all these things it takes a lot and

it takes a stable team to do and when you are changing the rudder every couple of years it's

just a lot more difficult well look at Amazon right now Amazon's been trying to get to know all

kinds of different things and every three months they have another rework it's amazing I know and

they still haven't gotten what they want out of that entire purchase of MGM which is a freaking James

Bond movie right and they have to buy out they had to buy out the broccoli family because they

were essentially refused to make any movies for them because they hated them right I want to do

some winners and losers winner the first winner we talked about him before but David Ellison

who I got to say I only heard like at least decent things I don't he's not like a King

Joffrey character where people are like what a prick oh my god actually very nice guy

very nice guy everybody seems to like him I don't know if he should be running one of the biggest

content uh whatever model list we've ever seen but he at least seems like not like a Zazloff

thing where he's in it to get some sort of payoff at the end I don't think that's his intention

no he seems to be in it because he genuinely likes this business and wants to make good things now

we can argue about his taste he's made a lot of movies that are not great right and he has much more

commercial tastes than say like his sister Megan Ellison who was a great auteur producer and financier

of movies until she ran out of money and her father basically said enoughs enough but

they make her not a good financier by the way who I would say Megan Ellison baby wasn't a good

financier because no no great taste no great taste yes great some very good movies yeah but I put

her rewatchable number up against David Ellison's and I bet she has more that would be an interesting

battle all right winners and losers first of all 79 billion in debt I just staggering I'm giving

that a winner and just because I didn't even know it was possible that sounds like you're at a

star worse you made the debt a winner I think it's going to be a record I think that's it I think

we've paid I don't think any of this I guess these lenders like Apollo and these these big lenders

sure 79 is going to be this is like like Barry Bond sitting 73 homers we're never talking I'm

making it in a winner and much like that we will come to question how it all happened

uh loser everyone scared of AI and what it might do to content this is like your D day

because this is now the first time somebody that has and Brian Phillips wrote about this for

the ringer this week somebody with real insight and awareness and ability to use data surveillance

name anything evil that that we're all afraid of tick-tock and don't forget yeah David Ellison's

Larry is one of the investors in the US version of tick-tock and they still are talking about this

like magical digital fairy dust that they're going to sprinkle over the whole company and turn it

into a big tech media powerhouse and not sure quite how that's going to happen but I'm sure it'll be

bad for the culture and our data and all these other things well it's going to be AI is going to

probably come in a bunch of different ways for content I think for when you're talking about

editing movies and producing movies and some of some of the stuff that has just jobs that have

existed for 120 years I'm sure that's part of their plan right we could have the cause here here

here we could just have instead of having 200 people on this movie we could have 70 and that's

throughout Hollywood though yes I mean there is a push right now that the thinking is these movies

cannot continue to cost $200 million to make especially in animation but even in other you know

sci-fi effects driven movies they've got to bring the cost down and AI is going to be a big part of

that all right I have a controversial winner people who make content because yeah all right I'm

gonna land this plane you're gonna be confused for most of the time I think if Netflix got Warner

Brothers I think we would have moved into a dangerous place with content that I would compare to

this and I'm in an AL keeper fantasy league where we have we can keep guy we can keep 10 keepers

with minor lagers and all that and sometimes somebody will get a big lead in like July and you

have to decide like do I want to chase this guy or to be stupid to chase this guy and make trades

you know I'm gonna let him win the title and I I have a better chance next year I think Netflix's

lead would have been especially like with the know how and the intelligence they have I actually

think it could have turned into a situation where everybody else is like yeah we're just gonna

pick our spots we can't compete with those guys and I don't know if it would have been great for

people who do movies television shows and documentaries specifically because who's bidding against them

if everybody is just gonna be careful because they can't beat Netflix not a bad take I agree

and you're and obviously if this merged company can get attacked together and become that third

or fourth big player alongside Netflix and Amazon and Disney yeah that creates a ultimately

creates a more robust market if there are four real players that can buy your project at any given

time and then God knows what Apple is doing they're gonna take a lot of your a relatively famous

person who looks good in a giant thumbnail exactly and and they're gonna overspend on whatever you

want to do Jennifer Lawrence come on up we got an apple show for your pose yeah big picture yes yes

I know but you're a divorce mom and your your husband's been murdered go the the that is essentially

what Ellison has been arguing and what they're going to argue to regulators to approve this deal

is that this was a necessary evil to to get Hollywood modernized for the tech era and that these

are globally scaled companies and Hollywood has never faced globally scaled media companies before

it's always been an oligopoly of only these five or six studios can distribute movies worldwide

but that's why frankly that's why they stayed in existence for a hundred years now that's all

gone with the internet and you have scaled television companies and they need to combine to chase that

it's going to be painful in the short term it's not no question taking these buyers out like

when warners and HBO were competing against paramount and all the rest it was just better for buyers

but if this goes through it will be painful and then maybe this company can build up and become a

real scale player because I like you're certainly not taking your best projects to paramount right now

and if you think about 2017 18 19 pre-COVID there were just a lot of people that had money

and wanted to do stuff and we're competing it's each other and then that slowly died after COVID

well there was television right there was cable television still making original shows now that's

all gone cable television not making original shows certainly not inscripted so it's just the streaming

players and a little bit of broadcast TV and there you know it's just it's just a lot less

felonies I decided to watch the survivor season for the first time in a while because it's

around 50 it was a three hour season premiere CBS is basically like guys we got to go three hours

we have two police shows two doctor shows two fire shows we we have football we don't really have a

lot going on so we're just going to have this from eight to 11 tonight sorry

I guess what I watched it fast forward to throw all the commercials and you know what they're

doing a shorter shoot Jeff probes came on the town and was talking about how they do a shorter

shoot on location now than they used to and then the episodes are now often longer than they used to

right and he's now AI I don't know if he announced that on the pop he's AI surprise me he does not age

anyway that's my glass half full is that maybe this will lead to two heavyweights competing for

projects constantly which I'm not against I might be wrong another one loser I think I have

lose this coming continue continue well I have another winner the NFL because goodell

who's just a genius with this stuff puts that little thing in like hey if there's a merger we

get to redo our deal yeah so now now Skydance and the NFL you don't need to you know it's not

hard to get that they're going to be have the hometown advantage yeah but nobody really has an

advantage with caddell and whatever he wants to do to get more money he's going to do it so if he

decides like I've decided we have Friday night football and we're going to use AFC teams and sorry

CBS you're just going to have to eat shit because we're going to have good games of Friday night CBS

to be like okay fine yeah all right not much you can do I mean I've been slowly taking games

away from those big packages the one thing I would say is that I do think the NFL still needs

broadcast I don't think you're going to see them completely abandoned CBS I don't think you will

either go to Netflix or something like that it would they know their customer and the customer

viewers still wants that broadcast experience this episode is brought to by LinkedIn ads

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Foods Market so I have seven seven suitors for the NFL when this all opens up you tell me

absolutely have to have it I'd love to have it or this is a luxury those are the three answers

CBS Paramount I feel like that so we absolutely have to have it right 100% agree NBC

yes agreed all right we're too pretty they have the number one program in all of television

it's an anchor of their entire sales strategy and the Olympics are only every four years NBA

so far has not performed as much as they wanted to what do you talk about every game ever is the

most watch game we've ever had yeah they still for numbers let's see next year when the big

data is compared against the big data but I it's a little less the CBS but I still think NFLs

must have for NBC well we agree so that's two Fox I think is must oh there it's it's it's mission

critical if what is Fox without NFL what what are they they have to have it and they've yes they've

seen they've seen both realities when they've had it when they haven't had it and they don't want

to go back no that's what the Bank of America analyst they just downgraded Fox because of this

whole prospect of the rights going up because there's what are they going to do they have to just

eat it ESPN yeah I think there are have to we have four have to have it we're four for four I think

there have to with all the plans that ESPN is making and how much time they have put NFL on ABC

as well yeah like that was not supposed to be the case and they've renegotiated those deals to put

money in football and see on ABC a lot so I think it's a must have more on them in a second

Amazon is our fifth suitor I would put them in the need to have it but it's not a game breaker

yeah I'm putting them in the middle category I think it's a like to have now they love it

and it's one of the only things that consistently works on Amazon and they feel that they've made

great strides and getting better games the productions are better and they've finally they've convinced

that last cohort of people to watch you know when when they first started and took the games from Fox

the ratings went down just because some people in this country didn't know where to find the game

so they forgot about it or whatever now they're bringing in more of those people and they it's sort

of a cornerstone of their offerings but like with anything with Amazon it's a it's it's a luxury

they are a sales platform they want you to buy more toilet paper and all of this content is

just in service of buying more toilet paper and they need three or four things like the NFL

yeah to accomplish that go I agree I wouldn't say they're on the level of the first four but they're

one level below and then the last two are Netflix and YouTube which I would say our luxury need it

but you're not crying yourself to sleep if you don't get it exactly you'll be fine I agree

and especially Netflix because they see the numbers and they have a big initiative to increase

their advertising sales and the NFL can do that but they're just not going to fall over themselves

to steal away a full package of games unless it makes sense unless it's like bespoke you know

the international games I when I've always thought that they're gonna they're gonna eventually evolve

into one international game per week or for you know 12 of the 17 weeks or something like that

and they will carve out those games for a 9 a.m. or or 8 a.m. game every week and it will be on Netflix

because it will be global so 12 international games Netflix owns all 12 and by the way some of

those are already on NFL Network they could just easily sell them to Netflix yeah take the journey

and take away from CBS or Fox so be it yeah and by the way the NFL would tell CBS hey we're

gonna take these games you want to fight CBS but okay take them yeah all right so that's five there

are no other suitors right that's seven well where's Apple yeah where is Apple where's Apple you

tell me that is the that is the eternal question are they interested they have not wanted to dabble

they they have said that you know they like their their F1 deal that they just did they want

they like their MLS deal of the MLS might have a word about that but they have not they have not

wanted to just get a game or two here or there and we'll see you know the MLB did a whole Friday

night baseball thing with them I mean I who knows if that works there's just so many MLB games

but how many people have Apple TV I think is the scarier question because I don't think it's a

lot it's not a lot and they're now doing things about that they're putting they're selling

through other things they just did a deal with Roku to sell Roku they capitulated and they

sell through Amazon I thought that up I thought that Roku thing was fascinating it's because that's

their main competitor yeah it was it was a wave in the white flag basically absolutely and they

did it earlier with Amazon yeah they basically came out guns blazing saying we are Apple incorporated

we are the platform that everybody has to have and everyone's like not really when it comes to

premium video and they basically raised the right white flag and said okay we'll sell

via Amazon and we'll sell via Roku and hopefully we'll raise our numbers I like Roku one more

winner here well I have a couple more actually Netflix who look I love the spin and you've been

on it too about like well this is all along they were they were trying to push this deal and if

they didn't get it it still was great for them because they sat on it I don't think that's true

they spent a lot of time on this nobody likes to spend a lot of time to not get something

but they didn't have your stock go down 30% yeah but they did they did get 2.8 billion dollars

as a breakup fee which they can just put toward toward those international NFL games you mentioned

the other stuff and a big competitor has taken on almost 80 billion dollars in debt to go after

this deal yeah so they got them that they also you know the Ellison's wanted to buy this company

for 19 dollars a share in the fall right and it went up by what is that 40% just because Netflix

was involved in 30 you know 19 to 31 dollars so that's a lot it would be funny if the Mavericks

had been able to use this strategy with the Luca trade where the trade went through and then

the other teams were like you didn't get enough and then the Mavericks like we didn't get enough

to deal is now we're accepting bid still and it was like the Lakers are like wait we hadn't

deal what happened can you imagine if that were true in sports if you could accept a trade and

then everybody could react and up the offer right because they all it would do is create a lane

there for fan bases to go completely nuts right when a trade is made and then the ownership would

have to respond right well that was why they never wanted to leak it out loser everyone at HBO

probably because I they could spin this all they want we've been in this scenario before ironically

with HBO with AT&T wherever is it no no it's going to be great everybody's going to work together

I'm going to go glass half empty on this we'll see but you mentioned on your podcast

how Casey Blois who's I think probably the most respected TV executive or one of them

he has contracts up next year yeah I think he saw what happened a Richard Puppler

in the 2010s when Stanky and AT&T took over and this is I want to see how this

plays out for me listen Casey has it in his contract that he reports the CEO of the company

so if Paramount wants to honor that and have him report to David Ellison and not have to report

to all the streaming executives that Ellison has hired including a woman Cindy Holland who was

at Netflix so I don't think he and she and Casey would would mix well together maybe that will work

out Ellison said straight up HBO should stay HBO do what they do best easier said than done

what happens if they're bidding on the same project exactly what what happens then I mean

it's there happen examples of that Netflix famously has a culture where you can get a know

from one division of the company and then you can get a yes from another so they do have competing

arms there within the same company I don't know what would happen there if they had if that

that situation existed I don't know if they'll have the resources to continue to do what they do

the HBO process is really rigorous they don't just put stuff on they are not afraid to scrap

a pilot and start over we just we had Rachel sent it on the town with I love LA they completely

reshot that pilot yeah and most places would just say just cut bait and be like okay busted pilot

were done but with HBO you know famously with great game of thrones and like they just they work it

a lot longer and you can see in the product and I don't know if that's gonna be allowed anymore

glass hat full bill would say HBO is so different than paramount from the audiences they're going

for that maybe this can work it's definitely complimentary you know they have that CBS style

audience on paramount plus they have NFL viewers they have you know the sports people yeah and HBO is

not that they have a different cohort of people and maybe one plus one will be three here maybe

strong emphasis on the M and maybe the winner the sports piece of paramount which now has the NFL

the AFC side MLB NHL Champions League March Madness the Masters UFC Zephyl Boxing which they just

launched like I mean I'll throw the swim with loser ESPN who has banana football college football

and college football playoffs college tubes Wimbledon US Open NBA NBA finals hockey

wrestling paper views like it's kind of even when you add all the paramount stuff against ESPN

and and suddenly ESPN doesn't look worldwide literish in the same way right and here's the

interesting thing it's in these deals where paramount can start to deploy these sports across all of

these new cable networks that they own so you're gonna see UFC on TNT or maybe even HBO and you're

gonna see them try to get the most out of these sports deals and keep the price of those cable

networks as high as possible for as long as possible because that's where they make their money.

Yeah winner NBC Universal just because they can position themselves as we're over here

you don't like some of the politics of paramount all that stuff we're just trying to do good stuff

and and be here and we we have stability and come this way. I don't know if I agree on that one.

Okay, I was trying to put them in a loser they listen you remember they were in they made a bid

on Warner's it wasn't a very good bid and I think it was just to get the you know a look at their

books but NBC Universal doesn't have a global streaming product they have peacock which is only

domestic and in fact their leadership just said today that they're not even trying to be global

they're they're good with domestic that is not a long-term strategy they need something they

need some kind of transformative deal I think if they want to be considered one of the global

players here otherwise they're just gonna get left behind well they have a great movie studio though

great app though peacock app oh my god takes 20 minutes to find anything I don't know I feel I

feel like they can still position themselves as like the underdog that could against this and try

try to align with some other people and be like all these everyone spending so much money

in this arms race and we're over here and we're disciplined and we have this business

might work who knows maybe maybe they'll do a joint venture with Amazon to get global or something

I I don't know but or get bought or get bought they have movie studio yeah they have you know they