Coming up, talking hoops for a long, long time with Doc Rivers. Next. We're also brought to you by the Ringer podcast network, where we put up Officer and a gentleman on The Rewatchables this week. An early '80s classic, Richard Gere, Deborah Winger, Oscar winner, Luke Asset, a famous theme song, just bringing a whole bunch of stuff to the table. Most importantly, Byron Mayo, a new character now on The Rewatchables, who's also in this movie, but had a great time. We did it for How much did that movie make this month? You always have to make your voice go high when you do that one. On The Rewatchable, so check that out. Check out prestige TV, where they're breaking down the crown, getting ready for the last season on Netflix. Mally Rubin, Joanna Robinson, we brought up the big guns, and they're going to be doing The Crown as it keeps going. Also, if you like the non-prestige stuff, we created The Guilty Pleasure Feat on Ring or Dish, where Juliet and Amanda, who have another podcast on The Ring or Dish called Jam Session, which has been a staple of our network really for the last seven years.

But I think they had the most Jam Session-y podcast they've ever done this Monday. The title is Lauren Sanchez's Vogue profile, Leonardo DiCapro's 49th birthday bash, and Taylor Swift's Travis shoutout. Those are three topics. It's really Juliet's masterpiece. Itry to just picture her beaming as she writes that out as the title. Congrats to both of them. Great podcast. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Check out all the podcasts to the Merrill Podcast Network. I am not talking football today in the podcast. I'm going to save everything for Thursday. I have a lot of thoughts. That Bill's Denver game last night was just incredible. Denver, seven and a half point underdogs. We had them for million dollar picks. And they're basically playing for their season because if they fall to three and six, it's not happening for them. And the Bills are just doing every dumb thing possible and culminating in Denver drives down. For some reason, Denver decides to kill the ball twice, kill the ball third time, then rush the field goal unit on, which I'm just fundamentally, I don't know what the analytics say, shout out to Seth Walder. I'm just fundamentally against that. I don't care what the...

The rushing the field goal unit out, it just never feels right. Guy misses it. Bills have 12 in on the field. They lose. They drop to five and five. I was pretty all over the place with my preseason stuff. I had some things that I liked, like Miami for the division. I did not like Buffalo this year. I bet on Buffalo not to make the playoffs. I was anti-chargers and I was anti-jags. And I had Tennessee winning that division. I think I had the wrong team. It's going to end up being Houston. The Lions were the one I was way wrong about because I thought somebody else was going to steal that division. But The Lions are good. I had Philly to make the Super Bowl and I had them for most points. I was all in on that Philly team, so I think I got that right. I like Seattle to make the playoffs. The biggest misses for me were Detroit and then thinking the giants and the Pats could sneak in as playoff teams. And one of the reasons I thought the Pats could sneak in was because I just didn't like this Buffalo team.

Now, they've had some things go against them. They had some injuries in the defense. But just in general, it just felt like a lot of bark and no bite with them. And they never really had any playoff success. I thought they got overpowered by Cincinnati last year in the playoffs. I thought that was a terrible sign. I just never sold on them. And now it's like, well, you have Sean McDermott. I tweeted that it was like in Cliffhanger when John Littkau starts turning on his own crew. You have McDermott firing his offensive coordinator. Basically, there's nobody left to blame, and he's going to be the one that gets bounced at the end of the year. But with these NFL windows, you have these four-year windows. I think we had five of them with The Patriots, where we had the early 2000s window, and then it was the late 2000s window. It's like four or five years. And it really does feel like Buffalo missed their window now where they had this awesome quarterback. They did the Diggs move. They were right there against the Chiefs with 13 seconds left, and it didn't happen. And now you just...

You look at it from far away and you go, Man, maybe they just missed it. They're getting passed by all these other teams. You got Houston on the rise, you got Cincinnati is there, you got KC, and then Miami in their own division. So we'll see. There's always one team in the last eight games of the season who either comes out of nowhere or turns their season around. It could be Buffalo. But from what we've seen all year, they just don't seem physical enough. The Broncos yesterday, they just had the ball. They rushed about 38 times. They had 24 completion. Anytime you're over 60 combined on that number, you're probably going to win the game or come close. I think the Bulls are in trouble. Honestly, I'm the most focused on the Path and this giant's game two weeks from now. You're not going to believe the threads I've been on text-wise. The giant's Path game is basically our anti-Super Bowl. And I actually typed the words on a text that I think they have to rest bar more and Remandre and make up fake injuries for them for this game. When you're texting your friends that we have to intentionally set Christian Barmore for an NFL game, you know your season has hit rock bottom.

I feel like the Mac Jones of fans. So we'll see what happens with that in two weeks. But Millionaire Picks signs of life the last couple of weeks. We'll see. We'll be doing that on Thursday, and we'll have a whole bunch of fun stuff on Thursday. Coming up, we're going to talk about basketball with Doc Rivers. We taped it before the in-season tournament games on Tuesday night. Our friend Matt Balloney from the town, we're going to talk about Netflix's massive, massive game changing 2023 and what it means for people like us to watch TV going forward. That's next. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, Doc Rivers is here. We're typing this Tuesday morning, so it's before all the Tuesday in-season tournament games. I have to ask you about the in-season tournament because I know you have to announce it. I think we both generally like it. At least it's something to do in November, December. But if you were coaching one of these teams, what is the difference between these games and other games? What would you be telling them in the locker room or would you be telling them nothing? I think you would.

I think you would tell them something. I think if I was coaching one of these teams, if I had never won a title, I would want to win. If I'm a team that has a chance to win, if you're Philadelphia, if you're Boston who hasn't won Minnesota, then I'm going for this. And I have found that that to be true. I heard Frank Blogle talking about it to the Phoenix Suns. Hey, guys, let's win everything this year. Let's win this title. Let's win the next title. I think what could be a really interesting scenario is let's say the Boston Celtics and pick them in the West, whoever you want in the West.

We'll say Denver. Or let's say Minnesota. Yeah, Boston and Minnesota. Okay.

Played in the championship. That will mean something if they meet. It will. It just will. The one team that wins the trophy will believe that they're better than that team, even though it's the regular season and it's early. And the other team will remember them holding up that trophy. So I do think that this is going to work out. I think it's still for fans, and even for me at times, it's going to take time. I'm one of the few people that actually like the ugly courts.

I didn't mind them either.

Yeah, I like them because I think it tells you that it's different. When you see that court now and for now on, you're going to know that this is not a regular-season game, even though it is. I think Steve Kerr was telling me last week, he said, Listen, it's a two thing. Number one, we're playing a team that hasn't lost. They were playing Dallas or somebody at the time. We want to beat them, period. We may see them in the playoffs, so we want to beat them. Number two, we want to win or get to the tournament, so we want to beat them. So I do think it's working already. And I just think each year, it'll get better and better.

The thing I like about it, and I still don't understand from a player standpoint other than what you just laid out, why the players ultimately are going to care that much, like Chase and Tata makes $38 million a year. Is he going to really ultimately, Oh, my God, I can make another 500. It seems like the competitive piece will be the piece. And I do think that's fair. I'm going to go to Vegas for the semifinal games and the finals games because to me, it's a little like what I always wanted the All-Star Game to be, and it could never totally live up to it, where it's a snapshot of who matters. If the All-Star Game worked correctly, you'd be like, All right, these are the 10 players in the league that matter right now, and they're going to play really hard for eight minutes, and let's see what this looks like. And I think about that week in Vegas, if there's four teams left, let's say it's Minnesota, Denver, Boston, and Philly, it's going to feel like it matters. And there's going to be stuff going on where it's like, All right, this is now a playoff game.

Things are slowing down. What if they do this? So I do think there's going to be value. I think I'm with you.

Yeah. What else is going to be... Because I coach Philly, so let's use Phil it up. Right? They've never been to the finals. The media attention at the finals is enormous. It's going to be the same thing at this mid-season tournament. So now you're getting practice. Now you're getting used to that. That will be great. That'll be a great experience. The other thing that I think, and it's going to be interesting to see, is how the coaches substitute. If it's the playoffs and it's the finals, you may cut your roster down to six or seven. Right.

But your six-person rule, what is it? Play eight, whatever, and then trust six?

Yeah. Get comfortable with seven, trust six. You can say it any way you want. And most coaches do that. With the Celtics, I think the year we won, and we're at eight, which is great. That's rare, though. That's rare that you can do that. The question will be, will a coach be willing to do that this early? Because you don't want to create any issues the rest of the season. Now, if it's in the playoffs, you're willing to do that. You're trying to win. You're trying to win it all. So that's going to be a really interesting thing. Which coach decides to go to his championship rotation? And which coach will stay with his regular-season rotation no matter that you're in the tournament. So it'll be an interesting thing.

So like Joe Maz, let's say, Pritchard continues to be up and down, and they get to those last two games. And all of a sudden, he basically goes starting five plus Horford plus Hauser. And then he starts staggering White and holiday a little bit to keep one of them out there. Pritchard plays four minutes in the semifinals and four minutes in the finals. And now you got next week. It's like, Hey, man, we need you back. We need you as a made again.

But I would use it that way. I would go the other way. I would absolutely cut it. It's a message. I remember the year, I don't know what year it was, probably 2009, I made a speech to the team. We have seven guys. I need eight.

Yeah.

And one of you guys are going to win. Well, for the rest of the year, Tony Allen did not let Marques Daniels practice. He literally wouldn't let him on the floor. And that was the message. Tony was like, Oh, I'm getting these minutes. So in some ways, you could use it as a great motivator. Hey, guys, listen, right now, I'm very comfortable with seven. The championship game is going to be the one that you all... Someone's going to do it. One of the two coaches is like, I'm playing Joel and me 42 minutes a night. Tobias Harris, 46. I mean, I take Tyrese out of the game. Right. And then there's going to be a couple of guys who used to be playing don't play at all. And the message there is, Yeah, we would love to play you, but you got to earn it. So you can use it either way. It'll be interesting.

Give me your two top teams in the east and the two top teams in the west. We're at the three week mark. The two teams in each conference you think are ready to actually be in the finals?

Right now, ready to be in the finals? That's a different question. But I would say.

Boston, Philly, and the West. All right. So we'll go top two in each right now. So you got Boston, Philly, and the East.

Boston, Philly, and the East. In the West, Denver, for sure. Man, I swear I want to say Minnesota. And I may actually, right now, right now, after three weeks, it'd be Denver, Minnesota.

So I have the same four. And I did on my podcast last week, I did a Powerpull after two weeks. And I had a Minnesota fifth because I watched that Denver game and I was just stunned by the size and just how uncomfortable they made Denver. Now, it wasn't a complete Denver team, but there's a size element to the League now. And I talked about this on the Thursday pod. I'm not sure the way Phoenix and the Clippers are constructed. They're constructed in the ways that worked in the mid-2010s. I'm not sure you can have teams like that anymore because you're going against Denver and Philly and Boston, even Boston with Porezingus, he made Miami look super small in that game. It was the first time that there was an overpowering aspect to the Celtics. And I just wonder, is that mid-2010 style, is that going away?

It's going away. Everything goes in, you know how it works, right? Yeah. So I think unless you are a super team with super players, you can still get away with playing any style. You can make a case that Golden State is really small, but when they're really good, they're hard to beat. They're just hard to beat. No one wants to chase them around. They have some size, but they're not a big team. Chris Paul makes them even smaller. Philly with Maxie. But what even is it out for Philly? I think what's happened with them and why you like them is everybody else is switchable. They have a very switchable basketball team. Even Joel can switch. Boston is the ultimate switch team. Denver has been doing it. Those teams are very effective. They're all long... You think about it last year, Denver overpowered by him. They were more talented, too, but just the size. Everybody Butler ran up against was big. He had to deal with a lot of size. I remember Tibbs and I sitting in a meeting one day and we couldn't figure out how... Every time I was against the Lakers, we got every shot we wanted, but we weren't making anything.

And when you looked at it, if you look at that team, the Lakers, they were huge. They were long. And so when you look at the jump shots, yeah, we're open, but there's a lone guy challenging length matters, especially in the playoffs.

Yeah. That's one of the things I'm concerned about with Golden State because Denver, Yoke edge just owns them. They might be able to beat Denver, but he's going to put up 35 and 17 and 12 assists. They just don't have any answer for him whatsoever. And then the Minnesota game was interesting, too, this month where they just seem small. And you could get away with that Draymond, Loney and Wiggins as your power forward two years ago. And I'm not sure there's too many teams now. If you're trying to beat, you're trying to win 16 games over four rounds. There's going to be at least two teams now that just are big. I thought the Lakers overpowered them last year. And the Lakers, I don't even think we're as talented as that Minnesota team this year.

No, they were, but they literally overpowered them. And you think about Minnesota. I like bringing up Minnesota because Austin last year was playing on Minnesota, and he made the point as to the playoffs. He said, Listen, Denver beat us, but they also beat us without McDaniels and Naz Reed. And if you add Mc Daniels to that team and you add Naz Reed, who no one talks about. Yeah. And he's a... Naz Reed coming off the bench is a problem. And then you look at Philadelphia and Denver in another light, they're the only two teams that they have two guys that you just can't guard. There's nothing you can do to stop Yokey. There's nothing you can do to stop Joel and me. There just isn't. One of the things I think, Philly is doing a better job this year than when I think nick has gotten Joel to be a better passing. He's passing the ball. Now I had him passing, but he's actually willing, and that's a lot of Joel as well. But he's passing the ball. And Joel passing the ball, I'm telling you, there were games last year when he just did it.

He gave it up freely instead of sticking. It's hard to play them when he plays like that. It's like a scorned version of Yokeage. That is a bit of a passing, but that is passing, and that's the problem.

I just like to fit a maxi next to him as the number two guy more than Harden because- Yeah.

I did too.

They're just harder to play because the problem with maxi, when the Celtics played them last week, is there's a speed element in the halfcourt and his ability over and over again to get in the paint. But it also felt like people were moving and they just see more active offensively. Like Tobias is back. I was buying all the Tobias stock last summer because I just felt like he was standing in the corner. It's interesting. You're taking some blame for this, too, because people are like, Oh, last year, the team didn't move. But I think we're already seeing it with Harden on the clipper. It's just he plays a certain style, and that's the style, and that's it.

You're a prisoner of your style. You really are. The thing with Tobias, and I'll tell you two quick stories, and I talked to him last... I'm just proud of him. I really am because of this. Last year, the year before last, and the two years before last, Tobias is averaging the exact same numbers that he's averaging right now. Last year, I had to go to Tobias and say, Hey, listen, you're now the fourth guy. Right. All right. Max is our third guy. And so you're not going to get as many shots. I need you to play the role. And he did it, Bill. His numbers were down because he didn't get half the shots he did. He stood in the corner. Is that the way to play Tobias? No, but that was the only way to play him when you add James with Joel and Maxie. So what Tobias is doing is what he's really done his four or five years under me were his best four years of his career, and he's back to doing that. And talked to him last week. He just said, Man, it's so good to be free again. And it's great for him.

I'm happy for him. In terms of Tyrese, you knew this.

Was going to happen. Yeah, you said this on the pod three weeks ago. This is your big prediction.

Yeah, that he was going to have a breakout year. Now, I did say it with the knowledge that I really felt that we knew James wasn't going to be there. I wouldn't have made that prediction the other way because he wouldn't have the ball in his hands. And Tyrese Maxi is a fast break, or he puts so much pressure on you. And if you look at some of the games without James last year and with him pushing the ball, where I think he's made his biggest improvement, though, and I called him after his 50, we talked after his 50 the other day, is he's passing. He's making plays. That was probably the one thing that was his final step with Sam, who worked with him, and Sam and Spencer, my son, was seeing the floor and making plays. And he's doing that. I think part of that is he has the ball in his hands more, and part of that is his growth. And it's just awesome to watch.

So against Boston, I was more impressed by the Boston game last week. And he didn't shoot the lights out in that game, but he got all the shots he wanted. And this was a team that has Drew, Halladay and Derrick White on it and some size right at the challenge. But I felt like over and over again, he was getting to the spots he wanted. And it's like, there's like, what, four guards in the league that you would want to guard, Maxie? The Celtics have two of them, Alex Carusso, maybe Gary Payton. It's not a long list, but he was still getting to the spots he wanted. I was like, Oh, man. Because last week on... I remember Rahim, who works for us, he bet on Philly to win the East last week. They were like nine to one. And I don't think people were really realizing it. But then Maxie had the 50, and that was the announcement. But I felt like the pieces were there the whole time. Just when he's getting the spots he wants, that's what I'm always looking for with Guards. So you're getting to know where you want, and it just feels like he can do it.

And they have the right fit. It's funny, when we had been, and obviously we won the East in the regular season that year with Ben Simmons at the guard, and Tyrese was coming up. And then that summer when Ben decided not to play, basically.

To go to Europe?

Yeah. My push was like, Man, if we can get road players, if we can get just amazing road players, because we already knew, I had made the announcement, if you remember, before the second year that if Ben comes back on that maxi start. I didn't know how I was going to do that at the time, but I was going to do it because I just thought it was time for this kid to grow. And I always look back on that and said, What if we had to trade it then for two just perfect role players. Right. Because Ben had value at that point. But instead, we went the other way in the rest of history.

I think that was the mentality of the League, really, up until this year where it's like, Well, I need the three stars. Now I think the League is so deep, you need two stars and you need depth and you need some consistency. Even the trade they ended up making for Harden, which I don't think is the Darryl wanted to ultimately make. No, probably not. I think the owners were like, You got to trade this guy. We got to get moving this season. Because in Bid, there were some breadcrumbs with him that first week where it's like, Oh, man, this could get bad with them, Bid. We have to do this. So they do it. And they get these two role players, Covington and Batom, who are fine. They're eighth and ninth men. But they also brought something to the team that they needed against a team like Boston. So you get rid of Harden. Now, Max, he gets all shots. That's a win. Now, Maxie gets to spread his wings. Great. Now, he has more size on the wings to go against Tatum, Jaylen Brown, all the guys you need to beat in the east.

And now Tobias can.

Get back to you. Now, Tobias gets more shots. And now you still have the chance to get like, I don't know, could you get Alex Carusso in two weeks? You can get one more piece and you're off.

Yeah, that's exactly right. But when you look at it for Harden and Ben Simmons, you ended up with Betune. I mean.

When you think about it- And Covington and some picks, yeah.

Yeah, that's not great. But sometimes that is in traction. That is an addition. And in this case, it is. Let's be honest, it didn't look like Joel and James had a great summer. So sometimes you just got to cut your losses. And I think that's what they did.

I thought James in the first game, and I said this after the game, I was concerned... I'm sorry, Joel. I was concerned with what I was seeing because it was like he was playing, he was out there, but it didn't seem like he was completely invested. He made some dumb plays down the stretch and it didn't look awesome. I was like, Well, this isn't good.

The Milwaukee game.

Yeah, the Milwaukee game. Three weeks later, he looks completely, and I think he loves Maxi. But you guys, I mean, you got a front row seat of watching those two guys. So I'm sure you're not.

Surprised by that. Everyone loves Maxi. Maxi is a unhatable player. He really is. I mean, I don't know. You rarely hear negative things about him. Defensively, our defensive coach had some things to say about him, but his spirit makes you forget it. I'm telling you, Bill, there's very few people that I've coached, and I coached a long time. There's no one with the ability that has the same spirit that he has. The names that I was thinking like Darryl Armstrong when I coached at Magic. I mean, this guy, his motor, he was like he was on 20 cups of coffee every day. Just happy. No bad days. Bring Sunshine to your team. When Daryl Armstrong walked into the Magic locker room, it was a good day for everybody. And Maxie has that same... That's who you are. There's very few people like that. And in the three years I was there, I'm going to say two bad days.

I.

Have two bad days a week. I mean, really. It's amazing. They're in the golf course. Yeah. Later, I'm going to be upset because I don't go golf.

Well, one of the things that the hard and piece of it, and we're going to talk about them in the next segment because I want to talk about the quippers. But I obviously have some tentacles out there and I've heard some things. And it's the day-to-day not knowing what personality you're getting from one of your best guys that I think you can get away with for a year. But I'm not sure once you get into year three of it where it's like, is he going to be happy today? Is something going to set him off? You had to do with that.

Yeah, I think that is true. Now, one thing I will say about James that I actually really liked, he's a baller like he did like to play. Overall, he liked to practice, love practice after practice, love the one-on-one games and stuff. And that can be a good thing for your team. And I thought he did that. And there's things that I didn't like, obviously, about James. One thing I did like, especially the first half of the year, he was very invested. He worked. And his work ethic is way... It's underestimated how hard he works. He puts in time. I'll give him that.

Yeah. All right, we'll take a break. I want to talk about the Clippers. Cash in. I'm balling out this NBA season with America's number one sports book. Right now, new customers get $150 bonus bets with any winning five-dollar money line bet. That is a $150 if your team wins. I'm going to be posting some parlay on Wednesday on my Twitter feed. I'm looking at Timberwolves Suns. I think the Timberwolves are too big for the Suns. So I'm probably going to do something with that game, assuming nothing happens in the Warriors Timberwolves game tonight. So stay tuned for that. If you've been thinking about joining Fando, there's no better time than right now. The app is easy to use. Wide range of ways to bet, including quick bets, live same game, parlay, to parlay hub, and more. Visit fando. Com/bs and turn dimes into dollars this season. Fando, official sportsbook partner of the NBA. First online real money wage or only $5 pre-gain money line wage or required. First online real money wage or only $10 first deposit required, bonus issued as non-withtravel bonus that expires seven days after receipt, see terms at sportsbook. Fando. Com.

All right. So we don't know what's going to happen to the Clippers tonight. They're playing Denver. I assume they're going to lose, but they're at the point now. They're five-point underdogs without Jamal Murray. It just looks like a classic. They might zag and actually pulling off. But watching them, and it takes a while when you throw players together, especially really good players. You have four guys in that team who are used to having the ball, right? So they got to figure out that aspect.

The rust- Five of you had Norman Powell.

Right. Five with Norman Powell. Yeah. And my big criticism of the trade, I thought the trade was ludicrous and stupid by them. I just didn't understand it. And one of the reasons was there's just not enough balls. All these guys are at their best when they have the ball. And then when you watch it, basically, on Sunday in the game that they lost against Memphis, James was almost unpredictable on both ends. And they brought him back in and they just had him in the corner in the Tobiasair spot, basically.

I.

Can guarantee he's not going to be happy there. I don't think Kauai is happy if he doesn't have the ball. Paul George has turned into a really nice point-forwardy. I actually really like our offense when it runs to them. And then Russ is good. When he has it and he's going, I just don't see how it's going to work. I know Tai Liu is a really good coach, but I just don't see it. And the more I watch them, I still don't see it. So what do you see?

Well, I see a lot of things. One of the things you said in the earlier is about, do you need two players or do you need three players? And what I was going to say is three superstars are great as long as one of them understands that they're going to have to accept a role. All you have to do is study the game. There are certain things, and I always talk about it, no one's ever won a title with one guy just dominate the ball over and over and dribble. It has never happened and it never will happen. You need a team to win. The other thing is there's that old saying, for the team to win, the individual has to lose. There's some truth to that. And it's really true with the third guy and the fourth guy. They have to give up. I asked Tobias to give up offense. And in a contract year, he did it. Do you know how unusual that is? There's very few people who are going to do that. And it's especially hard for a superstar to do that. So when you look at the Clippers, who's going to be that third guy?

And before they played, the first guy that I said may struggle would be Paul George, because if James is going to have the ball, one of the things that I didn't see in Tysaw was that put the ball in Paul George's hands. Now, I didn't have him for many practices, but what I didn't like about Paul handling the ball was he's really good, but he also was a high turnover guy, and turnovers will kill you. Having said that, when you look at it, he does far more good than bad. So at the end of the day, you put the ball in Paul George's hands. That was the right decision by time. Now if you put the ball in James' hands, you're turning Paul George back into what I use him a lot as like a Ray Allen. And he didn't enjoy that role. He didn't prosper in that role because he needs the ball. Kauai, don't think you have to worry about it. Kauai is getting the ball.

He's like, I'll just take it.

Yeah, I'll take it and I'm getting it. Kauai is going to get the ball. So if they can figure that piece out, then they have a chance. But then the fourth person is Russell Westbrook. We haven't even mentioned him yet. And Russell is going to do Russell things. He's going to rebound. He's going to push the ball off the floor. James wants the ball in transition. James wants you to throw it to him. He'll run in your way to get it, right? Russ and him didn't get along in Houston because when Russ got it, he just broke out.

And.

James was left behind. And then the other thing that the Ty is an excellent defensive coach as well. And we don't talk about that. Everyone talks about the fit offensively where they switch everything and they have length. One of the things they lost in that trade is switchable players. I thought Batuyn was a very important player for them because he had the ability to switch. He can switch on fives. The last game we played them last year, we beat them pretty big. But at the end, they put Batuyn on Joel at times because he's smart enough, he can do that. They've lost that element with that. So it'll be interesting how it fits not only in the offensive end but on the defensive end.

Yeah, and Covington was playing better this year. That was another guy who can do some of that. If I were them, considering they had enough offense already, I would have been happier to put Powell in the trade. I like Powell as a player. I would rather kept the tune because I saw the same thing you did. There's a couple of things. You mentioned Russell. How do you figure out Russell Westbrook in this? They're going to figure out by trading him. And he's going to be on Miami in three weeks. He's... That's how this plays out.

I agree. He's going to turn out to be the fall guy, and he shouldn't be.

No, but you can already see it. The breadcrumbs are already being laid out. And by the way, if I was Miami, I would go get him. I actually think that that's somebody who could really help them. He plays at a crazy intensity, which I love. He can help with the rebounding. He gives them Lowry insurance. Lowry is 37. He's going to get hurt at some point. And if they could just steal his-.

The shooting is the only factor. But he does. He makes plays. He competes. He's not a great defensive player. That's an area you always thought he should be, but he's not. And the biggest thing in Miami, he would pass the body fat test every week. There's no doubt about that.

I'm glad you mentioned the offensive players' piece with the Clippers because, listen, I had the same... I was pretty consistent on this on Milwaukee. I didn't see it defensively. So you've gotten rid of Drew, who's almost a one-on-one. You've replaced him with Damian who can't guard anybody. All your wings are too slow. And I don't see how you're going to play defense. And now three weeks in, I can't play defense. With the Clippers, I just don't see it. I don't think they have enough size. I don't think they can switch. I think there's certain types of players that are just going to kill them, especially... Wait till Maxi plays that team. Holy shit. Who's going to guard Maxi in that team? And then on top of it, the too many balls thing, and you can see it already, the standing around. I don't think that's not how they were playing two weeks ago. And on top of it, to not have somebody when you're going against Yokeage and Bide, the Go Bear towns, Nas Reed, Threesome, night after night. And you're just like, you're Zubots with no plumbly. They have no size at all. I think they could be out of the playoff picture in six weeks.

Yeah, I don't know. I'm still going to say, Jureyal because of their talent. But I agree. I do think Zoub is an underrated player. I think he's a terrific player. He's just not.

Joel and me. For 22 minutes a game.

Not 40. Yeah. He's not either one of those guys. And so that's going to be a problem. I think the biggest part of offense, other than the ball holding, is the pace. My biggest frustration with us last year is I tried to get us to get the ball up, throw the ball up the floor, and then if we didn't have anything, then get it back to James. But a lot of times James went and got the ball, and so you were forced to play at a pace you don't want to play at. The Clippers were playing at a really high pace, and now they're slow again. And as I've always said, the slower you are, the bigger you better be. Because the slower you are, now the other team can get their hands on you.

Right. You're going to be like the Lakers. You have to have Davis and LeBron and Rui Hatchemore, and then you can go slow.

You can play any pace you want. You know? So that's going to be interesting. It's their pace of play, how will it change? And then the biggest factor will be how much Paul George has the ball in his hands. Because if they can figure that piece out and still use James and offensively, they could be really good. It's just going to take time. And I don't know if it'll work. And I'm with you on that.

I don't think it's going to work. I've said that from the get-go. And then James had that press conference, which I thought made me feel worse about everything from a Clipper standpoint, where he's like, I'm not a system player. I am the system. It seemed like he was complaining about how he was used last year. And it's like, you played with a guy who won the MVP. He averaged 33 points again. You guys were 46 at 19 in the last 65 games.

Yeah. And he led the league in minutes with the ball at the time of possession.

I thought that was alarming that those were his feelings on last year. They literally gave you the car keys and the car, and there wasn't even a backup driver.

Well, Joel actually said that. Joel, one thing I've always loved about him, and actually I did like about him at the same time, his passive aggressiveness.

He.

Makes some great comments. And that was funny as heck when he said, I don't know what you mean. I thought it was hilarious. But then in the same token, you wish you would say that if you're the best player, when guys are there, just speak up. I think he's doing that. Tyrese told me he's doing that more. And I told you, each year he got better. Joel is not a natural leader. He's just not. And watching him the growth, we forget how young he is, and each year he's starting to do it and give himself to the team just a little bit more. Or if he makes that step, Bill, watch out, NBA. Do you.

Feel like that hard and trade was a bomber trade or like an organization everybody was all in, let's do this thing? Yeah, that.

One I don't know. I'd probably say 50-50 on that one. I think, yeah, just watching Steve's enjoyment walking down the hallway when he came, it told me that Steve had to be involved a lot. I'm not involved on that one.

Because, man- You don't know. -especially if you have to give him an extension and you're giving up those picks, and now you have no drafts for the rest of the decade, basically, it's a pretty bold trade.

They're going all in. And you, and me, and a lot of other people don't know if they went in the right way, they're going into a new arena next year. I think Steve and his dreams, if you could tap in to Steve Ballmer's head, his dream is to go into that new arena, putting up a banner. That's his dream. And so you get desperate at times and you make, I don't know if desperate is the right word, but you start making moves maybe that you would make if you want to be more patient. And they can't be patient. And when you look at the age of Paul and Kauai, it's been three years now, four years they've been together, this almost has to be the year.

Can I correct you on something? Yeah. Desperate is 100 % the right word. It is absolutely the perfect word. I'm going to read you West Teams right now. So we're typing this, the Clippers are three and six. They are tied for the 11th seed there with Portland, and San Antonio, and Utah, Memphis. The west is so good this year. You had, what was that year? What was it? 48 wins? Was the eighth seed in the west? And Phoenix didn't make it that year. They were 48 and 34, and they didn't make it. I don't know if it's going to be that high, but I do think it's going to be in the 45, 46 range. I look at Memphis, and if Memphis is seven and 18 when Joc comes back, that's a cross-off. They're not going to be able to get to 45 wins. I'm going to read you these West teams, and you stop when I list a team that you think the Clippers might be better then, okay?

Oh, that's good. I like that.

Denver, Minnesota, Dallas.

I think they could be Dallas, even though Dallas owns them right now. I do think that the Clippers can be Dallas.

Do you think they could have a better record than Dallas this season? With how Dallas is constructed, Dallas is eight and two right now heading into tonight.

I don't. And the only reason I don't is because if they do get it figured out, it's still going to take time in dropping those gains, they're going to have a lot to make up. And in the West, if you get behind, it's going to be hard to make up.

All right. So we have Oklahoma City?

I think that's another team they'll be. You're higher on Oklahoma City than I am.

I am. Sacramento? They're five and four right now, but they got Fox back.

I think that's another team they can beat.

Golden State?

Not right now, no.

Lakers?

Not right now.

Phoenix Suns?

No.

New Orleans, who seems like a mess. Okay.

Yeah.

So you think the vulnerable teams, I just listed nine, not counting the quippers, you think potentially Oklahoma... Oh, we didn't mention Houston.

I think you have to a little bit, but no, I think the Clippers are better than them right now. But it's awesome watching them play.

All right. So you think there's a chance they get in the top eight still? I'm dubious, and I think this is going to get worse before it gets better. Let's quickly talk about some West Teams that have been surprising. We talked about Minnesota a little bit. Towns is still the X factor, but they have Schmuck and with Towns with Naz Reed, right? Yes. Like, Hey, Towns, we're really good. So either get on the bandwagon and stop doing dumb shit in the last eight minutes of games and stop getting in foul trouble. We're just going to play Naz Reed over you and we'll be fine. Go Bear, though, seemed unsalvageable last season. It seemed like one of the worst trades in the history of the League. And I still feel like what they gave up was insane. I will believe that till the day I die. But when you go to last summer, they would have had to attach more picks just to trade him, it felt like. But now it feels different. So what happened?

I don't know. It's the question. I think Anthony Edwards happened. And I think just like in our world, especially right now, a balance of power is important. That team was Towns team or Dianne-Gil Russell's team. It's now Edwards' team, and there's no doubt about that. And're not that serious. So now that team is taking on Edwards' personality. Edwards is serious. Edwards is dead serious. He's tough. I love him because he says whatever he says.

Did you see him going to Draymond last week or two days ago? It was great. I loved.

It even more. After that, he took the game over. He said before the year, he wants to play Golden State. He said that before the year, he wants to play Golden State in the playoffs because Draymond runs his mouth too much. He's a guy. I think people get him mixed up, Bill, because he says some of the damn funniest things ever said. They get him mixed up with his competitiveness. He is a deadly competitive person. He's got the killer in him. He's got the Kobe, Michael Jordan killer in him. And most people on Earth don't have that. He has shown that over and over again, and he showed it the other night again. He showed it in Boston.

Oh, I want to talk about that. One of the reasons I was against that trade was because I felt that time... I mean, the picks they gave up was one of the stupidest things. I'll never get over that. But I just felt like the timetable was off. Where you have Edwards, they make the trade. He's turning 21. And it's like the history of the NBA says '24, '25 is when it starts happening, right? So now that's like year three, year four of Go Bear at that point. So it's like you're trading all this stuff, but your guy that is eventually going to be your franchise guy is still three years away from being the franchise guy. The revelation was Team USA and then the first three weeks of this season. And Kerr was on, I'm sure you've talked to Kerr about it. He was just like, This guy is incredible. We had no idea that he was this. And you start hearing that now the timetable is up where it's not 2026. It might be 2024 with him, which this NBA history is really unusual for a 22-year-old to be the best guy in a contender.

Yeah.

I think that may be ticking a little bit earlier now because guys come in earlier, guys, so many more guys are young. And these high school guys, I'm on a global committee about trying to improve our game. And I think one of the guys who tracked it said these guys play 110 games a summer, the high school guys.

Oh, my God.

110 games, which is absurd. It really is. And the difference is the European players play like 60 or 50 games and they practice all the time, and that's the difference. And so anyway, I do think these young guys are grownups more when they come to League. But I just think Ever is different. I just think his improvement, Bill, his shot, his improvement in his shot from one year to the next is unbelievable. His body. He's got LeBron, Michael, body. And then his intensity and his toughness. Steve Kerb. Going into the Olympics, Steve Kerr and Ty and Spoh and Grant Hill, they thought that Anthony Edwards would be the guy that came off the bench and be a role player and the seventh or eighth guy. They had the one exhibition game. And then from that point on, Anthony Edwards started, and he was the number one guy. He talked about elite. That was just this summer. It's amazing.

I can't believe it. I'm thinking about takeover ability, which I don't know. I might have just made that verb. But an NBA player that can take over four minutes of a game on both sides, right? That's the last level if you're a superstar. And all the great players we've had over the last 40 years could just grab a game and that's it. They were just taking it. And this is something that Embiid was starting to do last year, too. It's really rare for a guard to do it. You're talking about- And Michael did it. Michael did it? Dwayne Wade in the mid-2,000s could do it. It's crazy to say this, but I feel like Isiah Thomas could do it. You're Isiah Thomas, not the mid-2,000s, but he could stamp his imprint on a game for half a quarter.

He could do it defensively, but he could definitely do it with his intensity and his drive. You know, it's funny with Edwards, though. Austin, a year and a half ago or beginning of last year, we were just telling my players and he told me two guys. He said, Hey, dad, if you can get, you got to get Nas read, you got toget him. He's a starter, but he'll come off the bench, you'll be great. And then he said, I'm going to tell you something that you're just going to say that I'm nuts. Anthony Edwards is going to be a top five player within the next year. And when he wants to, he's the number one non-center defensive player in the League. And I said, get out of here. That's the one I said, get out of here. He said, I'm telling you. He said he wants to. He asks every game, I want to guard that guy. He wants to be on those guys. And I actually threw at Holiday. And he said, Okay, I'll lay at him. But I'm telling you, when he turns it up, you're not going to score on him. Yeah.

And I think I was maybe right on that.

Well, that was the revelation from the Celtic game because they had him and McDaniels, who, as mentioned earlier, they had Mc Daniels for the playoffs because he punched a wall. But they have those two guys to throw at Brown and Tatum, and the Celtics, they couldn't get within 25 feet of the basket. And you throw that combined with Gobert just patrolling the paint. It's like, All right, this is something. And I'm a guy that thought that trade was one of the dumbest trades ever. But when you're watching the theory of it, you're like, All right, this looks like they might get there. Connolly is the big swing guy for them if they can get nine months out of here.

Yeah, he's the swing guy.

And so is Towns. Because Towns has to just play right. That doesn't mean he has to dominate. That doesn't even mean he has to be an All-Star player, which at times he can be. He's not a good shooter. He's a great 3-point shooter. He just has to play right and he has to play smart.

Good luck with that. He's 28 years old.

He's 28 years old.

He might be who you are at this point.

But the last couple of years, though, he's been the best player, so everything goes through him. Now with him not being, I think you can probably get him in a role that may fit him even better. Before you had to give him the ball, you had to play through him. Everything went through him. Now that's not the case. And so it'll be interesting how he handles it and how he can flourish in it if he does have it.

Well, I like how you put it about how it was Towns team, and that was part of the problem. And now it's just clearly Edwards's team. And the shit that he was talking in the Boston game to Tatum and backing it up. And when he took over that game, and then same thing with Golden State, it made me think a little bit. You had this happen with the Clippers in the 2015 season, which was dramatically assassinated by Josh Smith and Corey Brewer. But something happened with Blake that year where Blake was all of a sudden, I don't know, one of the four best guys in the league. Maybe he was number three, maybe he was number four, but it became his team, and you can feel it. And it had been Chris's team. And then it was like, Oh, wait, something's happening here with Blake. And that was what made it seem like you guys are going to make the finals that year. Then it just falls apart in nine minutes. But we have seen teams where the torch moves to somebody else. And I do think that's happened with this. But could you feel that when it was happening with Blake that year?

Yeah. It's because we decided to play through Blake a lot, if you remember. Blake, when I got there, they put him on a post a lot. And watching him pass, I don't know, one of the scouts, I want to say Dave Severs, is an old clipper scout, and I was sitting there talking to him when I first took the job. He said, You know, Blake is an elite passing. I said, elite? He said, No, he's an elite passing, and no one knows it. Then I called Tony Brown, who was an assistant coach for years in different teams. Tony had Blake his rookie year. And I wanted to know about him. I said, What do you think about his passing? He said, He's one of the best passers in the League. They just don't play through him. You remember moving to the elbow and playing Blake through the elbow, he was unbelievable at that spot. Like great passing. Him and Chris had their thing, which was not great because Chris needed the ball too, but they worked it out pretty well. And yeah, we were really good. The difference is here is so far, and I don't know this because I'm not in Minnesota, it looks like Towns is accepting it.

He's good. It does. Yeah. And I'm telling you, that's what ruins teams. I always use that as the Beatles or the band theory. All these great bands all break up because of egos. How many bands stay together? No, Rolling Stones may be the only one. And even at times, guys, that's what ruins teams. That's what ruin great bands, is egos when role players want to be the stars. And all of a sudden, the guy who started the band is no longer the star, someone else in the band is. And if you got the right ego, you can have longevity and you can be champions. But if you don't, you can't win.

I remember the third Miami, I wrote a piece about what you just laid out about the concept of Chris Bosh, and it's a band and LeBron and Wade are the lead singer and the lead guitarists. But Chris Bosh has to accept that he's the bassist. He did. And we'll play your one song per concert. You'll get your four minutes. The lead singer will go take a drink of water and you get to play your one song. But this is who you are on the band, and that's it. You're not going to be in the front. You're going to be over to the side a little bit. People respect you. But to make the band work, you have to be this. And it's amazing how many NBA teams have fallen apart. You had it a little bit with Ray, which we've talked about where Ray had to accept like, Hey, it wasn't quite the basis. But it was like, Hey, man, sometimes you're going to be over there. You're not going to be in the front of the stage. And that's it.

Yeah, the third guy always does. Just look at the history of the game. It's the third guy. And it all comes down to if the third guy... I always use Clay Thompson as a better example, even than Ray. Right. Clay Thompson had already won a title. And then Kevin Durant comes and Clay's numbers dropped. That was because he had to be the third guy, but he accepted it and they kept winning. Ray accepted it. Ray didn't like it. Clay didn't like it. No one likes it because their ego still tells them I could be the number one guy, but I'm going to do what the coach asked me to do. And I remember Pat Riley said it years ago, is cooperation is the key to winning. If you have a team that cooperates, when you hear the players talking about us and meaning coaches and players, and the coaches talking about us, meaning coaches and players, you're on the something. And you see it every year in the finals. And so that's going to be the key with all these teams that we're talking about. Boston has figured theirs out.

Tate-om and- Totally agree.

That's the advantage that they have, the chemistry.

Hold on. There's one thing they haven't figured out. There's been a couple... I just signed a $304 million contract. I'm going to take this shot, Jaylen Brown moment. I'm monitoring. I'm not worried about it yet, but the Minnesota game was interesting. 10 seconds left, they get a stop and he ends up with the ball midcourt. And I thought Matt should have called timeout. He didn't. And then Jaylen is like, I'm just going to take the end of the game. I just don't think he would have done that last year. So I'm just monitoring. I'm not nervous.

About it yet. I think he should have done that last year at times. It's all I would say. You're going to go to Jason Caneem nine out of ten times. But the one time that Jaylen Brown does have it, he's got to feel confident enough that I can do it. You know what.

Itell you? I didn't feel confident about his chances against J. D. Mc. Daniels on ISO. I know. I know. I was a go nuts about that one. We're going to take one more break. I'm going to throw three more things at you. All right. Just quickly. The NBA title odds. This is Fandall. This is Tuesday morning. And some of this has to do with what's already been bet. The Bucks have the second best odds, which is stupid. The Bucks have better odds than Denver, which is just completely insane. But Minnesota, which was 50 to 1 two weeks ago, is still at 28 to 1. And I still don't think people totally see it. I like your in-season tournament thing. I do feel like that's a team I could see winning the in-season tournament. Then people going, Wait a second. What's going on here? We got to talk about Houston because you love coaching. You're a coach. You're a coaches' coach. You're one of the deans of the coaches. So Imei goes in. We don't have to talk about what happened in Boston, but goes to Houston. Houston was a train wreck last year. I'm sure when you're playing them, you're like, Hey, guys, enjoy today.

They don't play defense and whoever gets the ball and the rockets over half-court just gets to shoot. That's the rule of.

That team. It was an AU game.

Yeah, it was an AU game. And within three weeks, they look like a professional basketball team. They're playing defense. He's doing all that. I love DMA when he was a Celtics coach. I thought he did an awesome job because that was not an easy team to coach. And he treated the dudes like men. He yelled at them. He got pissed. He did a great job. And I can already see it. Like, Jaylen Green, the other night, they still win. Jaylen Green is 1 and 13. And there was a couple of times when he just pulls Jaylen Green. He's trying to motivate him, keep him focused. But he'll also chew him out if he has to. And then everything's running through shengun, who grew two inches and now looks like discount yokeage. But I actually think this Houston team is real. I don't know. I think they're at least a playing team, right?

Yeah, they are.

And.

Listen, bringing EMA in and paying him, and I know that sounds nuts, but it's very important, and paying him and giving him a five-year deal told every player that not only there's a new sheriff in town, but this sheriff has two guns. He has two guns. And it's so important, the messaging that franchises and an organization give. When you don't do that, let's say, Steven Silas, who I think could have been an excellent coach, didn't pay him a lot, never backed him, came in with a new GM, a bunch of new players, no chance. He had no chance in that situation.

And what he has done- It's like the Washton Coach right now. Yeah. It's like talk about a tough job, West Sunsell Junior. Good luck on that team.

Yeah, you got Jordan Pool throwing towels already. I'm telling you, Wes is an excellent coach, but he's got to deal with this stuff. And so he may come in and he does two things. Number one, the players know he has two guns. Number two, the organization, it looks like, has gotten out of his way and said, You're going to be the culture driver. And you can tell, he went out and got just ballers, toughness, and pros. Jeff Green. Now, no one talks about that. It's a good sign. Just an excellent guy in the locker room.

This.

Couldn't be a more perfect place for Brooks. Brooks is nuts. I love him because he's nuts. But what he is, he's deadly serious about competition. He's deadly serious, Bill, about competition. And these young players, and this is something I'm telling we're going to have to talk about in another show, is these young American players better watch out because the European players are better players coming into the league. They're better prepared coming into the league, and they're competitors. And a lot of our young guys are not. They play six games in a day. They come to the league and they want to put on the show. Kevin Garnett always told my story in the locker room because I would walk in every time we played in LA, every single time. All right, this is not a show. This is a competition. Anybody here that wants to put on the show for all the Hollywood actors, you're not playing tonight. This is going to be a competition. And I think that's what Brooks brings. That's what Imei brings. That's what Ben Fleet brings. That's what Jeff Green brings. And now these young guys are playing in games to compete, and they're different.

They're just watching them. Even the first week, they're like, Man, they're different. They have a different walk and they're playing right. I don't know how good they can be, how deep they are, but it's just great to see. And Jaylen Green, I'm honest, I didn't know if he could be this guy. I didn't. The jury was out for me. I'm like, Can he ever turn into a serious basketball player? Or is his image and doing all the other stuff more important? Watching him, I think he's going to turn into what we wanted him to turn into.

Well, he's lucky because he met EMA at the crucial point of his career.

I think.

There's another version where he's a good stats bad team guy. But I really like watching the Rockets. I think that's one of my three or four favorite League Pass teams, and I like what I've seen from him. He's doing stuff. He can have a bad game and still impact the game, which I just don't think he would have known how to do last year. I'm glad you mentioned the competitive thing in the foreign. I actually talked to Austin about the foreign player versus the culture that we've created thing. And even if you looked at Team USA, like the guys on that team that stood out, they all had these unconventional backgrounds. They weren't like that typical I was in AU since age nine. And then you see these foreign guys come in, and I don't know, I think there's something to it. Even somebody like Shane Goon, these guys are tough, they're competitive. And it's the opposite of when you were playing. We were like, Oh, the foreign guys are soft.

Yeah, they all were soft. You saw a foreign guy, you had a good game. That was funny. It's like the Larry Byrd thing. Are you going to put this guy on me? This is embarrassing. But you think about it. In our conversation, I didn't even know this, but our conversation yesterday, it was me and Coach K, Nico Harrison, Troy Weaver. There's a bunch of people on this thing. And the one guy who charts the game says that the American players in the summer, high school kids, play six games a week and they have one practice. The European players have one game a week and they have six practice. And then the second part is because you have all these games, you stop being competitive. I watched Austin play. And growing up and it hurt him. Number one, this stupid ranking stuff. You're the number one player in the country. Who knows where you're at. Number two, you play three or four games in a day. I used to drive me crazy because Austin was not even at a half-time. He wouldn't take a shot. We just sit. And I remember walking across the court one day, and I was not that type of bear.

I said, Hey, you're going to shoot some free throws. You're going to warm up. He said, Dad, I got five more games today.

I'm.

Going to play 48 minutes because the stars in the EU never come out. They could be a 40 if they're not coming out. And so it drove me nuts watching this. And it's even worse now. And so it has to be fixed because we have the talent. What we've lost, the players are far more talented than we ever were. It's not even close. But they don't know how to play. They don't know how to play team basketball. Everyone has these individual coaches. And in Europe, they have team coaches. They do three-on-three stuff. And we got to get back to that, or I'm telling you, American players, you're going to lose jobs. Who is the last five MVP?

You're.

Getting off. Oh, yeah. My old guy thing looks at it and goes, All right, well, part of this is the season's too long. And I know some people have said this where I talked to Steve Kerr about it. When you have 82 games over six months and you're just moving from place to place, you have no time to practice, right? So you're stuck with the team you have in November. How are you going to change it? There's no way to change it. Now, they fixed a couple of the things about it, but they haven't really fixed it. And if they really gave a shit the NBA, I think the schedule would be 70 games and they would cut 12 out and it would just be a better product.

Yeah, 70 games would be great. The practice, I'm talking more high school.

No, I know. But I'm saying even in the NBA, you're still not practicing.

You're still not practicing enough. And when you do, especially now, and this is every coach I talk to now, it's the same frustration. You look at your schedule and you have three days off. All right, man, we're going to have great practice. We're going to have two great practices. You show up for practice and then you see walking across the court, your medical team walking toward your office. If I could close and lock my door, you want to do it because you know they're not coming to say hi. They're coming to give you a list. All right, Doc, today- Capstrain. Yeah. Or their loads are too high, and we feel like today would be another off day. And I would say, Well, we had yesterday off. And so a lot of that is going on.

So you have no practice at the NBA level. You have no practice with the youth players because they're just playing games. And then the other thing, to me, it's a spiritual thing. The AAU just teaches people to jump around and just hop on the next best team. And oh, those and you go over there. And then that's who you become as a professional athlete. You're just used to bouncing around from the time you're age 10.

And.

It's so much harder to have a team concept. And I think it's interesting that the guys like the Curry types are the anomalies now. The Curry, Draymond Kwait, that might be the last stand for people like that.

But you think about all the winning teams have it. And I keep going back, the Potion hasn't changed since Larry, since Koozy. The Potion is still the same as what Redaw about thought. You have to play team ball. You have to sacrifice. You have to play together.

And you need continuity.

And you need continuity. And so we don't teach that enough, and we have to get back to doing that.

Yeah. So you're in on Houston as a playing team?

I am.

Last thing on my list. Are you worried about Milwaukee yet? Did you see him in person yet?

I have not seen him in person. I'm not worried about him as far as they're still going to be in that top three category. The two things that I saw in the trade, and I said it to you, I said it right away. Number one, they're going to win close games now. If it's a one-point game, they have a closure. And I thought Milwaukee's weakness is they never had a closure. You look at that Miami series. Last year, every game came down the stretch of the game. Milwaukee couldn't make shots, and Jimmy Butler did. Well, now they're a team of Dan, and Daane is going to make shots at the end of the game. Then I said, But number two, they're going to take a major hit defensively. And not just because of Daane. Daane is not a defensive player like Drew Holiday or not even the same, right? Yeah. But I don't think Giannis is as good as he was defensively. I think Lopis has gotten older. Each one of their guys have taken a little bit.

Of a step back. Why do you think Giannis is in the same? I haven't heard that one before. What are you seeing?

Yeah. I just think he does so much now it adds up. I think at times it can be at the end of a game if Giannis is fresh. And that's where I'm hoping that Lillard helped Giannis because Giannis won't feel the need to do as much offensively and may be pressure at the end of games. That's where I think Lillard could help, especially in the playoffs.

So it's super early. I don't want to over-panic or anything. But two things that I was worried about with the dame trade, like whoever got them. One was the defense. And it's just like when maxi plays that team, he's just going to light them up. They don't.

Have a.

And unfortunately for the Bucks, there's 10-12 guys who are at least in that maxi sphere. The other thing when you get older, you know this because you became an old NBA player once- Quickly.

I'm.

Good three times a week. That drops to two times a week, and then it drops to one time a week. And you look at some of these Dane Box scores. He was 3 for 17 last night. He had a 2 for 12 before. He had a 5 for 15. Those are three of the eight games he's played. I just don't think as you get older, especially when you're a guard, he can still get to the line. But I just think when you hit your mid-30s as a guard, it's not a three times a week or anything anymore.

Yeah, it is. I think they are in way better shape than we were. I'll say that. Well, that's true. I also think we can't forget that Dave didn't play last year for the most part. And so that's where I said early on, give him a month or two just to getback to, When you miss a year, I don't care who you are, it takes a minute. So I do think offensively, especially in new team for the first time in his career, I think it's going to take a minute for him to get comfortable offensively. But you're right. The thing about what you just said that's funny about the three games. I remember when I was in my last couple of years, I wish I could actually choose which nights they were.

Right.

That's the thing that people don't understand.

I wish it would just be the Thursday nights or whatever.

Tonight I'm going to not have it. But there were games that I would show up late in my career. I remember Bob Hill and even Pop because Pop was the GM. They all talk about it. I was a defensive player in my last year. I just came in and got stopped and we're playing Detroit and Allen Huston was on fire. I used to joke with Vinny down there. I used to call him Keresie because whenever I came in the game, the guy who was guard was on fire and I had to put it out. Well, I come in the game, three possessions in a row, Alan Hill said, Shoot, shoot. Just flying behind me. I call the time-out. Matt Bob Hill, I call the time-out. I say, Hey, come get me. I'm too old. My legs are not working today. I'm sorry. That's how you felt like I'm trying. I just don't have it today. That's the thing when you get older and that's when you see these fluxes. Even with LeBron, as dominant as he is, every once in a while, he will have one of those. What we used to call as a player, he's having an old game.

Right, old game.

And the smart guys like LeBron can still have an impact because he can pass. He can rebound. He can do other things. But when you're just an offensive guy, those old games stand out more.

The J. Crowder injury should not mean as much as it meant to that team, but he was actually guarding the best perimeter dude on the other team in the games that I was watching. So now he's out for eight weeks. So it's not like they're going to miss the playoffs, but I don't think they're going to have a top two record.

I agree with that.

Yeah. I think it's going to take a while for them. I still don't want to see them in April. The only other thing that's interesting with the contenders is just how bad Denver's free throw shooting has been. I like teams that... That's one thing with Milwaukee. You get the ball to Dame, he's just going to end the game. He's got that. The Celtic is making free throws this year. And then they have the Aaron Gordon piece, too, and now Murray is out. And I feel like it's a little easier for them to blow games late. All right, before we go- They.

Also lost two guys, and no one's talking about that. And I'm telling you, this Murray thing is something we better keep a watch on because they're not the same team with Murray. Without Murray, they're just not. The two-man game with anybody else is not the same with Murray. So if they could drop quickly until Murray comes back.

Yeah. The one thing with the West is everybody might just be in the high 40s. The one seed might have 51 wins. But it is good for... Dallas had an easy schedule, but they also got their feet under them. Lucas Mine, great. Kyrie hasn't done anything crazy yet. Knock on wood, we're at the 10-game mark. But it is ripe for one of these teams that they can just stay healthy and keep banking wins. All of a sudden, we look up and we're like, Oh, my God. All right, before we go, I wanted to do a quick segment at the end of every pod we do, because you're going to be on every three weeks, some NBA history story from the '80s, '90s. So I want you to tell this time, and you can pick the story next time, but I want you to tell the story this time of how you were healthy enough to be in the 93 Finals, but they didn't put you on the playoff roster?

That's a great story. I'm trying to make it quick. I tore my ACL on Christmas, right before Christmas. And Riley had promised me. We did this crazy program, Bill, where there was a car in my driveway every morning at 4:30 in the morning. I would get up, I would drive, it would take me to the city, and I would work out until I got home in the darkness. It was an intense program. Well, playoffs come and I'm cleared. But they said I wouldn't be cleared until the Eastern Finals. Right back.

Then- So that year, that's Michael Jordan. This is the Charles Smith game season.

Yeah. That year, no, that was the following year because, Michael, that was his retirement year.

Oh, so this is the '94 season.

This is the year we went to the finals.

Oh, got you. This is the Indiana Reggie Miller that whole thing? Exactly. Yeah.

So, Michael, I mean, Pat, back then you had to set your roster, which is insane. And that's why it's called the Doc Rivers Row. You had to set your roster before the playoff started, and you couldn't change it anymore. And so Riley brings me into the office and tells me, Listen, I know you're going to be healthy. I just don't know how good you'll be by the Eastern Finals.

And by the way- By the way, it's only 12 players back then. It's not 50. Yeah, it's only 12. So it's 12 spots. So if he plays you, he only has 11 for the playoffs.

And he was worried that if one of the guards went down, then they would be in trouble. So he told me he wasn't going to activate me. And that was the big... He read... Riley even put it in his book, Jeff and Gandhi actually said him and Dick Harder were standing at the door because they thought Riley and I were going to come to bloke. I mean, it was one nasty fight argument because I was promised in any way. And I got as a coach when I became a coach, actually understood a lot more that it was a harder decision. Well, anyway, we get to the Eastern Finals and we're practicing and I'm rolling. I'm playing unbelievable. We get to the Finals, and I remember the practice in Houston. I was just having a huge practice, but I couldn't play. And I always think that's one of the years. You remember, Starks goes two for 18.

Yeah.

And Rolando Blackman and Coach got into an argument, and so he was on ice. And the only reason Starks stayed in that game is because I was in street club. And that bugs me to this.

Day still. Oh, my God.

Yeah.

Did Riley ever say? Did he ever say after?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Like I.

Blew it? I'm a stubborn. I can be stubborn as hell. And me and Riley, I'm going to say we had a five-year no-talk. Riley would send me stuff like little letters or quotes. I was not having it. I was not talking. I was done. And we finally broke the ice. And then we've become really close again. But yeah, he actually said it in one of his books. He said the worst decision he's ever made. He said, When I thought about it, it was Corey Gains, who we're going to play him anyway. Right. You know what I mean? And then following the NBA changed the rule, where now I think then it changed the rule to each series and now it's game to game, which always should have been. But that rule killed me.

That's a stupid rule. So they need the rule after you.

Yeah, that's what coaches call it. And I remember David Stern calling it the Doc River's Rule, sarcastic with, of course. Right.

Brad, man, that's a tough one. Well, you got the ring anyway, eventually.

I got the ring eventually, yeah.

All right. All right. That was it for Doc River's story time. Doc, this was fun. Next time I see you or talk to you on this podcast, we'll be right around the end-season tournament.

It'll be right there for end-season Championship time.

Yeah. All right. How are you enjoying the ESP and stuff, by the way? You like.

All the games? I'm having a ball. I really am, Bill. It's great. It's actually good for me, too, because I get to watch these other teams and other practices. I don't know who said it. I want to say, get harder. I said, Never underestimate someone else's crap. When you're coaching a head coach, you think, man, our team, we're falling apart. These guys don't get along. And then you talk to another coach the next day and you realize, Oh, our team is pretty.

Good right now.

Right, you're feeling great. I find that every time I talk to these coaches.

Are they talking to you during the games? Are people walking by and saying like, What's up, Doc?

Oh, yeah. I'm getting a lot of the assistants. You know, it's funny. I guess if I have a regret as a coach, I pretty much stuck to my group. Didn't care to want to know about anybody else's coaches, teams. And it's interesting now I'm getting to meet all these different coaches that I have never met. And so it's been really a cool journey.

Oh, that's awesome. All right, well, we'll talk to you in December. Good to see you. Happy holidays.

Thank you. You too.

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It truly is the best place to keep up with all your favorite teams out of market Sunday afternoon games. And now you can watch up to half of the NFL season for half the price. Get NFL Sunday ticket for only $174 when bundled with YouTube TV, where you get even more football. Sign up now at YouTube. Com/bs. Terms, embarkos, device and content restrictions apply. No cancelations. All right, our friend Matt Bellene is here. You can read him on Puck. You can listen to his podcast, The Town. I don't have you on this podcast enough because I always feel like you're covering things on The Town that we would have talked about.

Well, I am always available to you whenever you would like me.

Well, I'm double dipping a topic you've covered, but I'm really fascinated by it. I wanted to talk about it on this podcast about what happened with Netflix in 2023. When we were growing up in the '70s and early '80s, the monoculture was three TV networks. It was ABC and it was CBS and it was NBA. And all the programming that came out of those three places set the tone for all pop culture stuff, things people had in common at school.

Or in college. In the '80s, episodes of The Cosby show would get a 50 share. That means that 50 % of the televisions that were on at that time were watching The Cosby show.

So when I got to college and I'm writing a column and I could drop references from braided Bunch shows I watched or Battle Network Stars, all these things because I knew everybody else had watched it. Now we're hitting this point with people like my kids where they have TikTok, they have YouTube, they have 700 million different TV channels, all the 70 years of movies you'd watch. And it just felt like everything was splintering. And I think one interesting thing that's happened in 2023 is Netflix has brought that monoculture back, which is something you talked about on The Pod. We were having a streaming war, and we felt like there was going to be four people left at the end. I'm starting to feel like there's going to be one, and it's going to be Netflix. And Netflix is going to be the Premier League, basically. And then all these other places are the other places, and they're just not going to matter as much. Or maybe a better example is Netflix is the NBA, and then everybody else is like, the Euroleague and all these different places. Is it crazy to think that that's what happening?

Or do you see that too?

It's certainly going that direction. I don't know that it'll be that drastic in the sense that other streamers won't have viable businesses. There'll probably be three or four viable streaming businesses that continue. But the moat that Netflix is drawing around itself right now is pretty impressive. And it's happening for a number of reasons. First and foremost, the way that the streaming economy is evolving, all of the other players are being forced to cut costs. Warner Brothers Discovery, which owns Max, they are in an awful situation where they are being forced to license some of their biggest titles to Netflix to generate money to pay down debt. So you're seeing HBO shows on Netflix. You're seeing the DC movies on Netflix. These were the prime drivers of the value proposition on the max service. And now you're seeing them on Netflix. So you're just contributing to the feeling amongst the consumer that it's all going to be on Netflix. That's one thing. And then Disney is in the same problem where they can't invest as much in their streaming service because they've got all these other problems going on in the rest of the company, and they need to get to profitability on the streaming service.

And all these other companies are losing money and Netflix is making money on their streamer. And then I think the global thing, the fact that Netflix got to scale, got to 250,000,000 subscribers worldwide, it's really hard to catch up to that. And none of these other companies have figured out how to grow in all these different countries around the world. Because remember, only a third of Netflix subscribers are in the US. Most are around the world, and they like the Hollywood content, and a lot of the American shows travel. But Netflix is producing originals in all of these different countries, and they're just pulling away. So It's to a degree, the ability to have a global hit and a water-cooler moment, it's increasingly Netflix and then maybe Disney for some of the big Marvel, Star Wars stuff, but it's pretty much Netflix and everyone else.

Which was not the case at the start of the year. And that's why I feel like something significant happened this year. And you mentioned the key thing, WB selling HBO shows and other stuff to Netflix, I thought it was absolutely startling because I remember, and I talked about this before, but when ESP was selling 30-30 initially, and I think it was 2011 or 2012, and we were selling the old shows to Netflix that we had already done, we're like, Oh, my God. We got more money for this. This is crazy. It's free money. And nobody was realizing this was how Netflix was building their business. They're like, Hey, we'll take that. We'll take that. Here's some money for that. And everybody was just delighted to take it. Oh, great. You'll take that from me? Awesome. And then eventually in the mid-2010s, people all looked at each other and went, Wait a second.

What are we doing?

Yeah, what are we doing? We've created a monster. We've got to beat these guys. And that led to the late 2010s and then the COVID era where it did feel like people are going toe to toe with that. And it felt like Netflix was weakening. Well, there was a big correction. Remember the stock was going down? And it just felt like, Oh, man, people have caught up to them.

Right. In early 2022, there was the great Netflix correction where the stock market essentially turned on Netflix for a while and said, You know what? All of this spend, spend, spend to grow, grow, grow mentality, that's not what we want anymore. You missed your subscriber numbers, the interest rates are rising, cheap money is not going to last forever. So you need to show some profitability here. And there was a time, I think, for most of 2022 where people were like, What are they doing? They've spent so much. It's just a firehose of content. They scramble. They launched an advertising tier on the.

Service, which is- That ad tier felt panicky.

It was something they said they would never do. And all of a sudden it's like, Nope, we love ads now. We're going to do it. That's why I think the sports thing is the next frontier. Netflix keeps saying over and over again, We are not interested in sports. We are very happy doing this ancillary shoulder content like Beckham and all the sports docs. We do not want live sports, but it's inevitable. It's inevitable.

Well, two things were with them. One was they were going to crack down on the subscriber things, which they finally did. And that was if you're going to criticize anything they've done in the last 10 years, waiting as long as they did to crack down on that stuff was pretty stupid in retrospect.

Well, they felt they didn't need to. The growth narrative was still there. And there was that infamous tweet, Love is sharing a password, where they were winking and actively encouraging that because they wanted to get the Netflix brand to be ubiquitous and everyone to equate streaming with Netflix. So in that way, it worked, but it created a culture of piracy, essentially amongst Netflix fans. And then they had to crack down. And I think it's actually been working. The evidence is that people are being nudged into subscribing. You're allowed to add people for a certain extra fee, and they have this ad tier now that's cheaper. So if you don't want to be in the full boat. The weird dynamic is that Netflix actually makes more money if you are paying less but taking ads. So they're encouraging people to take the ad tier, which seems counterint, because you pay them less money, but they really want to build up this ads business and get it to scale now because it's still a very small portion of their subscriber base. And you know what would be great for an ads business? Live sports.

Well, I was at my mother-in-law's house yesterday with my wife. Three days ago, we logged in Netflix and something flashed up and it said, Is this your home address? Is this where you run your Netflix accounts?

She might.

As well say, Are you.

A freeloader?

I was like, Yes, it is my home address. So we're at my mother-in-law's house and her Netflix doesn't work anymore. She was watching some show. She's like, No, that's okay. I don't need it. We're like, Let us get you Netflix. We went through the whole process. We signed her up. All of a sudden, there were these three tiers and it was like, You can get the ads or it's like the two account tier. And then it was like, you had six accounts and the best possible quality. And we're arguing about it. We're like, Oh, we'll get the middle tier at six. All of a sudden, she had Netflix. And it was like, this is happening all over the country, especially with people over 60 and people under 20 who were glomming on to their parents, Netflix or their friends or whatever. It's over. And I just feel like the subscriber numbers are going to just climb.

I talk about this with producer Craig all the time because he's still glomming on to his parents. I'm like, Dude, you're going to be 30 years old soon. You're a married man. Get your own subscriber base here.

At least go to the $15 tier, Craig. Come on. They did that, and I think that was a big piece of it. But then what's happened with HBO this year is another story. Success goes away in June. This is the longest, I think, in my entire life that HBO hasn't had a water-cooler show.

It's funny you say that because this time I feel like early in this year and last year, we were talking about how they had a trifecta in a row. They had White Lotus, they had Last of Us, and they had House of the Dragon, which was a.

Big hit- And then succession.

And then succession. And then I think because of the strike, I mean, they basically said this-.

Well, they pushed everything-.

They pushed a lot of stuff. And they're trying to essentially make the toothpaste last for six months instead of three months because of the strike. So they're stretching it out and diluting it down where they said on the earnings call this past couple of weeks ago that because of that, their subscriber numbers were actually down at max. And they just depend on that HBO content so much. There was supposed to be The True Detective. That was to come back, Jody Foster and True Detective. There were supposed to be a couple other shows that they pushed. And max is so dependent on this that it really shows. Plus, now they're signaling to their customer base that if you want to watch these movies or these old HBO shows, you could just go to Netflix.

It's unbelievable. So you think where the heights, they were with succession. And six months later, they have no signature show. The whole concept of a Sunday night and Sunday Night Mattering, and this has been the works for a couple of years, but now I'm really feeling it. It feels like that Thursday night, Friday morning when new stuff goes on the streamers and the new video on-demand stuff comes. That feels like the new Sunday night in a lot of ways that sets the tone for the weekend. You could feel that happen in the last few years. I remember talking about it when we were trying to figure out Music Box for season 1. I was like, We're actually better off on Thursdays heading into the weekend because that's when a lot of people consume stuff. But I wonder the concept of, first of all, nobody under 25 goes to cable stations anymore. So could HBO Sunday Night be in trouble potentially because Sunday Night isn't a thing anymore?

I don't know. The one thing they do have back is John Oliver, and the engagement numbers on John Oliver on Sundays and Mondays are really, really good.

I mean, Bill Mar on Friday is same thing. That's true. I don't think it's a Sunday night thing for Oliver or not.

Yeah, it's true. But I'm just saying those two shows keep bringing people back. They're so valuable to the platform because they are a regular habit for people. Clearly, you're not watching The Gilded Age, season two.

Of The Gild- No, but a lot of people my life are. Yeah, I know it's a show, but it's.

Not- It's a thing, whatever. But it's not the prestige, the thing that everybody associates with HBO. I think part of that is they have had a little lull, and it's strike related. They're just dragging it out. We'll see. I'm not worried about the HBO creative engine. They will deliver. They will.

Have- Don't be bad. Yeah, you're right. You're betting on a four-decade infrastructure. This is just the first time to me that they felt legitimately vulnerable, especially farming out shows to Netflix, who's the place they're trying to beat. I thought it was crazy. I also.

Thought like- The truth is, they're not trying to beat Netflix anymore. They've really just turned the wagons on that ambition. They're not trying to be the global television network. Really, only Netflix is trying to be the global television network. And all of the others, their ambition is less because they have to be less.

So if the strike never happened, is that still the case? Or does this happen anyway?

I think it happens anyways because the market turned before the strike and the era of peak TV ended before the strike. Everybody cost cutting is the new scale spending. You can't make the argument to Wall Street anymore that you are trying to build up your streaming service for the next 10 years. You have to make the argument that you are cutting costs and driving profitability. And they made the announcement on the earnings call for Warned Discovery that they are profitable in streaming. Now, a lot of people call BS on that because they lump HBO into that. And HBO has a lot of subscribers, both linear and on digital. So it's a BS number. But all of these companies are trying to not lose as much money on streaming as they have over the past couple of years. And that necessarily means lower spending on shows, fewer shows, fewer movies, and we're going to see it across the board. Now, some would argue that's a good thing that we've been overwhelmed by shows, and this will allow the shows that are made to have more focus, be better, and be more impactful when they land. But we'll see.

Well, that was like that joke you had in your newsletter two weeks ago about, what was it? Wolf like me?

Oh.

Yeah.

The Were wolf romcom on Peacock that has a season two. I have never heard of this show until I went on there to watch some SNL clips. I went on Peacock, and I'm like, What the fuck is this?

You put that in the newsletter and I thought you were kidding. I Googled it. I was like, Oh, they're not kidding. That's actually a.

Real show. I was like, Oh, my God, Josh Gatt is in this. I love Josh Gatt. I like Ila Fisher. These are real actors that I like. They're on a show called Wolf Like Me. This is not just a one-off. This was a second season of Wolf Like Me.

Well, that was what Sean and I were talking. We did the prestige TV pod. We did episode one of The Curse. And part of what we ended up talking about was, does a show like this have a chance anymore with the infrastructure we have now? Where if you launch something on Showtime and Paramount because you're saying there's less shows now, things can cut through. I'm not sure because The Curse is a really good show, and it's the type of show that I think 10 years ago would have hit. I don't know what the audience for it.

That's a great example to talk about because we have two Nathan Fielder shows. The rehearsal from earlier this year, which did hit, at least with a certain audience. I don't know that it was certainly not charting on Nielsen, but people did see it. I heard about it from a ton of people. I watched it because it was on HBO. I trust that brand. I just don't know that people who get Paramount Plus for the Yellowstone spinoffs and CSI, I don't think those people are interested in The Curse. So it's on the wrong platform. And the Showtime brand has basically been gutted and is on its way to dying because they're taking away all the funding for shows. They're not doing the traditional Showtime programming anymore, and they are essentially folding it into Paramount Plus. But I don't know that the Paramount Plus audience wants.

The curse. And what is the Paramount Plus audience? It's basically people that love Yellowstone and The Challenge and the Elkwood- Well, the Elkwood.

As we know, Yellowstone is not on Paramount Plus. It is on Peacock, who's some crazy deal. But the Spin offs are. The Taylor Sheridan shows are on Paramount Plus.

The Universe is on.

The Universe. I think people are going there for that. They're going there for the kids programming, the Nicolodean stuff. My kid watches the movies. The movies and the CBS shows. You can watch CSI and Surviver and all that stuff on Paramount Plus, and they're actually growing. Paramount Plus, by relative standards, is doing okay on growth. I don't know how long it will exist. It will likely merge with one of the other streaming companies, whether it's Max or Peacock or something's got to happen the next couple of years in those because Netflix is pulling away from everybody, and they got to get some level of scale there.

It feels like Disney is the only one that has enough assets to actually compete with Netflix because now that they have Hulu, you add Disney Plus, you add ESPN, and they've been pretty open about that ESPN is going to go right to consumer by 2025.

Well, Disney- You put.

All those three together.

Disney has the brand as well. To a certain audience, Disney is a utility. If you have children under 10, you got... And Disney is a very different model than Netflix, which is just a firehose of content. The stuff that matters on Disney is the library, all the old movies. It's the Marvel and the Star Wars shows. It's the stuff that people associate with Disney, and they don't have to make something new every week for people to feel value there. So it's a different thing from Netflix.

Well, I do think that you could see the ceiling of it. I look at Amazon and they're spending money on stuff, but I don't know what the strategy is. And it really seems like it's heading more toward... What they're doing with the Black Friday game to me seems like the future of whatever Amazon is, where it's like this big event. They're going to pull these different things in it. They're going to try to get you to buy stuff on Amazon Prime as you're watching. And that's the future of that. I could not tell you for the life of me what Apple's plan is at this point.

They want to be HBO. They want to be the old HBO where it's not for everybody, but for the people that it is for that you feel it's essential that they have high quality star-driven prestige shows that a certain audience is really into.

Was HBO canceling John Stewart episodes? Because I don't remember that part of the HBO experience.

But HBO doesn't have a trillion dollar hardware business in China.

Yes. I just don't take it seriously because it just seems like they want to make big, splashy deals with famous people or they'll buy a movie. But I don't think ultimately, what are they ultimately going to be? To me, they're like, Steve Ballmer being like, Oh, I love James Harden. I'll trade for him.

That's the knock on Apple is that there's no real business imperative for this. Why are they even doing it? The services business at Apple is growing. And services is music, it's games.

It's- And Apple TV.

And Apple TV, yeah. They see this as a component of a services bundle that people will find valuable. Now, Apple also just raised its price significantly. It's now 10 bucks a month, and it was seven bucks a month. And they're just spending money on... This F1 movie they're doing with Brad Pitt is enormously expensive. They have three movies that are coming out. The Killers of the flower and Moon, the Scorsese movie, they're going to lose tens of millions of dollars.

On this movie. Tens of millions? They're going to lose nine figures.

I mean, it depends. If you just calculate the box office, yes. And the movie cost, depending on who you believe, somewhere between $2.25 and $2.75. Oh, my God. And it's three and a half hours long. The box office, it's at like, $60 million in the US. It's probably not going to get to 200 million worldwide. And that's a gigantic loser because they've marketed it. They've done the whole thing. Now, is that a small price to pay for what will probably be a ton of Oscar nominations? And Tim Cook can wear his nicest tuxedo to the Oscars this year and be very proud of the pictures that run of him with Martin Scorsese and Leo DiCaprio? Maybe that's the price you pay.

For doing that thing. It's like buying a 200-foot yacht. You're like, Look at my yacht.

I did it. Yeah. And maybe that's worth it. If I was an Apple shareholder, I don't know if I would be that excited for this an endeavor, but it's not the only one. At least they'll get Oscars for that one. Napoleon, the Joachim Phoenix movie that's about to come out, that's an Apple movie as well. Also very expensive. They're using Sony to release it. But who knows if that movie is even going to get awards attention, and they're spending a ton of money on it, trying to get people to see it in theaters, and then it'll drop on the service. They have another movie in the winter, Argyle, that's a similar type thing. Apple is giving theatrical releases to movies to try to get big filmmakers and prestige titles to work with them. And that's their advantage over Netflix is that you get theaters. But you're also, by putting these movies in theaters, you're risking losing a bunch of money if they don't hit.

And you didn't even talk about the fact that the morning show per episode costs more than Game of Thrones did.

Oh, my God. That's my favorite. Are you pro morning show or anti morning show?

I'm pro hate watching every week. I think it's one of the worst shows of the past 10 years, but I've watched every minute of it.

I totally agree. On the prestige pod, have you guys.

Broken down? No, we demoted it. We demoted it from prestige to The Ring or Dish, guilty pleasure podcast. We removed the prestige from The Morning Show. Amazing. We wouldn't allow it on the feed anymore. It was that bad.

Was it the soft, focused sex scene that did it? The John Ham, Jennifer Aniston, Tastefully.

Done- The 1980s Top Gun sex scene?

Yes, where they show the shoulder and then they're showing a soft focus far away. I guarantee you that scene took.

A week to shoot. A week and a half to come. It was 17 intimacy coordinators. They also had two straight episodes where somebody was on camera doing a live TV show and broke the show and stayed into the camera and lost their minds. Back to back weeks.

The first episode of this season where Reed Witherspoon goes to space, if you're in after that, you know exactly what you're getting.

She went to space on January sixth in the same season.

She did. It was amazing stuff. Yes. There's a million things. Also, the whole fact that they're debating whether a deal is going to go through and they're talking about it openly with the press and everything. It's just so unrealistic. None of that would ever happen.

The only really great thing Apple's done is they bought two movies that both used the same Joni Mitchell song, which is a really great song, Coda. And then I don't know, did you see the movie with Bonal's daughter? It's actually pretty good. Florence's son?

I have not.

Seen that, no. The Johnny Mitchell song is prominently involved in both. I was thinking about how Beckham came out a month ago back to the Monoculture Netflix thing. And it felt like Beckham was a thing for five days in a row. Right? It was like, just I don't know how many people watched it, but the command that they had with that subject. But also if you break it down, it's the perfect streaming 2023 type thing where you got the Square, you got the Beckham, the title, you got the picture of Beckham. And basically, it's like a giant Blockbuster store. And we just go in and we look at the squares and we're like, Oh, that square seems interesting. And you click on the square. And Netflix is doing that better than everybody, too. Even when you go to these other streaming services, even the don't look as appetized in the quick on. They've mastered all of these subtle things to just suck you in and keep you there. But the last piece of licensing shows that already succeeded from other places and turning them into bigger things on Netflix. Oh, way bigger. None of us could have predicted that.

What happened with suits was the story of the year.

The suits thing is insane because it was popular when it aired on USA. It was a thing. But that's the thing, is Netflix can take a show like that and it can supercharge it in a way that I don't think... Not only can you not do that on another platform today, I don't know that you could do that on any platform ever. Shows have gone into syndication before and become hits. Maybe the only other example might be Baywatch. Baywatch was not a big hit when it premiered and then became a phenomenon when it was in syndication. But that was more like a foreign thing where people were discovering Pamela Anderson in Germany and things.

Like that. And a horny teenage college thing.

Exactly. Yeah. I don't know that you could ever think of an example of something that became this big through a licensing window. The reruns of other shows, yes, they always play, and this has been a business throughout the history of television. But it's interesting. It actually puts Netflix in such a powerful position because think about it. If they're looking at shows to buy, they're going to get discounts on stuff. Everyone's like, Oh, Netflix should pay more because they are such an audience and everyone's watching these shows. No, that's not how it works. These shows, the goal is to increase the currency for shows. And if Netflix can go in there and say, Oh, yeah, you can do a deal with Peacock and nobody will watch that and it will flounder. Or you can do a deal with Netflix and not only will we make this a gigantic hit around the world, it's going to benefit everybody else. Bbc now wants to do another show with The Suites guy. They're trying desperately. They're putting out this other... There was a suit spinoff called Pierson that nobody watched. Now Peacock is endlessly trying to make that a thing because they know everybody's watching suits and there's an appetite for more of that character.

There's like a halo around these shows that go on Netflix and become big that I think is unprecedented and also unmatched. You can't promise that anywhere else.

Yeah, there's a rejuvenation piece. I don't know what else they're syndicating from HBO.

Right now, it's like Ballers, Six Feet Under, Insecure, Band of Brothers in the Pacific, more are coming. I would not be surprised if entourage was next.

Well, so I was thinking if they do entourage, that show is going to crush on Netflix. Totally. And it will lead... Doug Elland is probably just waiting. Oh, God.

Assistant to Doug is standing by. Oh, my God.

And I think Girls is another one. I was wondering if they could rejuvenate how to make it in America. The show that I was like- Yeah, I did like that. -could they breathe life in that? Last Netflix question, because we saw the same sports story. I feel like Doc Rivers and I talked about the NBA in season tournament earlier, and nobody knows exactly what it is, but I think everybody's going to at least watch it and give it a test drive. I personally think they created it to sell it to Amazon or Apple or Netflix. That's why they even named it the NBA's in-season tournament, because it's eventually going to be called the Netflix Winter Classic or whatever they call it. That's how it's going to play out. Netflix has always said they weren't going to get sports, but yet sports has really succeeded with them in all these different ways, including that quarterback show they had that fun. And they've always been about, Yeah, we're going to be on the side sucking the fumes of live sports, but not actually having live sports. But to me, this is like Ben Affleck decided to become Batman.

The hubris move is to be like, You know what? It's game over once we get sports and we have the money. Let's fucking go get it. My money would be on them diving into sports. Where do you stand?

I totally agree. It is the dagger that they can just- It's the silver bullet. You cannot be a global television network. Long term, you cannot be a global television network without sports. It's got to be part of the plan. Now, Netflix has said many times that they are in the business of owning things they want to own. And when you are airing sports, you are renting those rights. It's the problem that ESPN is having right now. It built up this massive audience and is charging people $10 a month on their cable bill to get ESPN, but they don't actually own anything. The leagues own these, and they've caused the price of sports rights to go up so much so that they're now having to bring in a tech partners or one of the leagues to partner with them to be able to afford the beast that they created. And can you imagine if sports ended up on Netflix and the audience just went through the roof, the value of that rights package would probably go up because Netflix is now giving them a huge audience. They have always said they're not interested. I just don't believe them.

I think that they are interested. This is their toe in the water. Today, they're doing this golf tournament in Vegas with PGA pros and F1 guys. It's called the Netflix Cup. It's like a fake golf tournament. And this is like one after another, they are going to do these things until they decide to dive in. Now, how that takes place? I don't know. It could be that they go for foreign rights first, maybe a league that they could pick up and own. We know that they looked at some of these more minor leagues to actually buy. They looked at the Surf League, and they looked at Pickleball, and they looked at some of these other the Ocho leagues that they could potentially own. But I think if they were to buy Paramount, let's say, Paramount is a studio that owns CBS. Cbs has NFL until 2033, I believe. So if they were to buy that, then all of a sudden, maybe Netflix has a package of Sunday NFL games that they could put on. And they just fold Paramount Plus and have it all be on Netflix. That's one scenario. They could also just go in and like, these media companies, traditional companies are going to start dying off or merging or becoming super desperate.

Maybe Fox or one of the others decides they can't afford the football rights anymore. So Netflix goes in or MLB does a package or the NBA rights deal that's coming up. Maybe Netflix becomes a bitter there. I just think it's inevitable.

Or the network is so desperate to keep the sport that they overpay for it, and then it has all this cataclysmic damage to the rest of their business because it's like, Well, we can't lose football. And then all of a sudden, they're just getting annihilated.

But that's already happening, right?

Right.

The prices that the traditional networks paid to keep NFL in the last round were so extraordinary that their businesses don't really justify it either. And it's going to become tougher and tougher to justify it as these cable bundles decline and decline and decline.

Well, I wonder the quarterbacks thing did so well for them. And whether that was a good show or not, we can debate that another time. But people really liked it. I had people in my life who were like, I really liked it. I didn't know Kurt Cousins better. Okay. They're doing an NBA version of it, too, with some major stars like it. There's been rumors that LeBron is going to be in it, and Jason Tatom and Jimmy Butler, and that those guys are famous anyway. I don't know who the final three will be or final four, but that show will be massive. When you think you could also have the games and this other thing with the athletes, this running reality show that's tied to the games, that's a whole other level of sports coverage that we haven't seen. Nobody has been able to pull off that version of it. It also seems like the leagues are way more receptive to some of this stuff than they were even five years ago. We did that court side show on HBO for the finals, and it was like we couldn't get access to anything. Now the leagues are like, Take it.

Just as long as the check clear, so you can have what you want.

I think the big differentiator was what Netflix did to F1. That show put F1 on the map in this country and raised the profile of that league so much-.

That we're in Vegas this weekend with F1 stuff.

I mean, that is all traceable to The Netflix Show. And all the other leagues looked at that and said, Holy shit, this is the platform to be in business with. So they're going to get whatever they want. They're going to get access. They're going to get... And it's not just them. I mean, Hard Knocks is doing in-season Hard Knocks now. Do you ever think that would happen? That the league would just say, Yeah, come into the locker room during the season and we'll air it during the season?

By the way, Hard Knocks crushed for HBO by Hard Knocks ratings purposes. But if that had been a Netflix show, what is it, 50 times bigger of an audience? Yeah, but.

You can say that now. This gets back to your point. You can say that about everything now. Right. That's a great show. Imagine if Ted Lasso was on Netflix.

Imagine how big that would be. We weren't talking about this a year ago, though. And I think that's, to me, the legacy of 2023. It's like, for whatever reason, we could come up with 20, Netflix is now you have to have it. Everything feels bigger when it goes on there. And they're even resuscitating shows that already happened. I know. And if they get into sports, it's over. So we went from thinking like... I'm sure you heard in the industry, a lot of people like, Netflix has no money. They're all debt. It's a house of cards. Remember, that was the thing for three years. The debt.

Thing was- Yeah, they're never going to be able to get over that debt hurdle.

That was the narrative. Remember it was the whole Ponzi scheme thing. And now it's definitely not a Ponzi scheme. All right, Matt Bellany, you're covering all this stuff on The Town, which is a fantastic podcast. What do you have coming up this week?

This week we're talking about Fox. We've got Brian Stelter, who has a Fox book out. We're talking with Justine Bateman in a day or two about the AI component of the Actors Deal. And she's not a fan of the protections that the Guild negotiated for AI for Actors. I'm going to grill her on that. We're head into the year and stuff. We're going to do the townies again who won the year in entertainment.

Can't wait. I never get invited on, so I just have to listen.

Oh, stop. You've been on. You came on to talk about SNL, but that was like a year ago.

I don't remember the last invite. That's all right. You come on this podcast. All right, I'm done. I had a Craig. Good to see you. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Kyle, Creighton and Steve Saruddy and Jesse Lopez today as well. Thanks to Doc Rivers. I will see you on this feed on Thursday. Must be 21 plus and President select states, Fando is offering online sports wager in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino, LLC. Gambling problem? Call 1-800, gambler, or visit fandu. Com/rg in Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, and Virginia. You can call 1-800 next step or text next step to 5-3-3-4-2 in Arizona. Call 1-800-789-777 or visit ccp. Org/chat in Connecticut. 1-800-9 with it in Indiana 1-800-5-2-2-4-7-00 or visit KsGamblingHelp. Com in Kansas 1-8-7-7-7-0 stop in Louisiana. Md. Gamblinghelp. Org, Maryland. 1-800. Gambler. Net in West Virginia or 1-800-522-4,700 in Wyoming. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelp. Linema. Org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts, or call 1-8-7-7-8, Hope N-Y or text Hope N-Y in New York.