The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Two-Week NBA Power Poll, Plus Drake Maye, Best Candy, and Half-Baked Ideas With Kevin Wildes
Tue, 05 Nov 2024
The Ringer's Bill Simmons reveals his NBA power poll of all 30 teams through two weeks (2:11), before he is joined by FS1's Kevin Wildes to argue about Halloween candy, discuss Patrick Mahomes's MVP case, and talk about Drake Maye bliss for Patriots fans (53:43). Then they bring back an old favorite, another edition of Half-Baked Ideas (1:25:57). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Kevin Wildes Producer: Kyle Crichton The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is the focus of the NBA Power Poll?
You could have talked me into Poop Scooper for Cooper. But I think poop for coop is the right one for this. And this is basically just Utah. 30th offense. Minus 14.4 net rating already. I don't know what's going on with this team. And I think the thing is they know. They want to stink. One of the things they're doing, they're putting a lot of eggs in the Keontae George basket. Who I actually...
I'm not against, like he might have potential down the road, but he has the ball a lot. He's shooting 33%, 29% from three. When he's out there, minus 22.3 net. And he's a young player that you're getting good reps for. So it's actually like, he's probably one of the best tanking assets in the league because maybe four years from now, he'll be really good.
There is no path for this team to be good. They're in a conference that's way better than the other conference. If you look at the standings, I think there's only two teams in the East that have an above 500 record right now. The West is absolutely ridiculously loaded. And Utah is the stinker in the West. So they are number 30. Next category is the pre-tankers.
I think these are teams that haven't admitted yet that they want to tank, but they'll get there. They're going to get there, especially as Cooper Flagg starts looking better and better in these Duke games. Number 29, Toronto. So 29th in defense, and it feels worse. They've lost Scotty Barnes for at least three weeks. Russillo talked about this when we did the Over Under podcast.
Chapter 2: How are the NBA teams ranked after two weeks?
There's really no path for them to be good, especially defensively. I don't really know what this team is. I do know that I like Grady Dick. So you got that going, but I wonder like, as the season goes along, does Yaka Perto become a trade piece for them? Anyway, that not a very fun team to watch. Not a fan.
Number 28, Washington, who I watched a lot of last night in the, uh, the golden state game, which they hung around, they hung around, they might've nailed the draft. House was texting me about this. This is the 2024 draft, legendarily bad. I don't think we have a rookie averaging 11 points a game right now. And everybody is either kind of lukewarm or kind of okay with who they picked.
Washington's fired up. Saar, Bub Carrington, George, who's grown to 6'8". They were talking about how his growth plates, he might be able to get to 6'10". The guy averaged like seven points a game last year at Miami. But this team plays hard. Draymond called it out after the game last night. He just talked about that was the hardest he'd seen a Wizards team play in a while.
Now that's going to change when Kyle Kuzma comes back. Shots at Kyle, sorry. But I also like Koulibaly. I like Kispert. And there's something here. So this is like a very fun, bad team that I think at least has a little bit of hope. Maybe get another top three pick. I'm not against this team. Number 27, Charlotte. 30th defensive rating. Feels worse.
This is a team you can catch for a quarter on league pass, and they look great. But ultimately, they can't stop anybody. LaMelo... Good stats, bad team. We might have to wait the five-year waiting period for the Hall of Fame. He's putting up giant stats and the team loses and this has just been his entire career.
Now, you could argue if you just switched him with Halliburton in Indiana, could he be really good on the Pacers? Probably, but I'm just, from a results standpoint, it has not been great for him. And then the last team, number 26 in the pre-tankers, the Atlanta Hawks. Oh no, they can't tank. They don't have their pick. Yikes. I really like this team on opening night.
Since then, they've lost Bogdanovich. They lost Hunter. They lost Bufkin. They basically lost a lot of their wings, which I think is what made them interesting. And they also are having Trae Young's worst year ever. Like all his shooting stats have been awful. I still kind of like this team. I want to see when everybody comes back.
But the problem for them is there's, you could say if they had their number one pick, it's like, oh shit, well, let's zag the other way. But you can't zag when you don't have a pick. So they're in the pre-tanker category without a first round pick. I don't know what to tell you. Next category, potentially frisky, probably harmless. Portland, number 25. They have size.
They have wings who can create shots. They have Scoot, who is starting to go downhill a little bit more. Russell and I, this is probably one-third of our tax because I think we own all the Scoot stock at this point. It's like dollar stock, but he looks better than he did last year, and they kind of need him. I'm not against this team. I actually kind of like watching them.
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Chapter 3: What is the Halloween candy debate about?
So every, you can go, all right, maybe you get a dog, maybe you get a cat, maybe you get a snake, maybe you get something, but it's an outside consultant that you have to go to every, every American. It's going to be in federal law. Every American needs to go to a get an Aryan and they ask, figure out if you need a dog that will make your life better.
All right. So this is really interesting because I've had people in my life who've gotten pets and I just thought it was a mistake.
Oh, it could probably go the other way too. Like do not get a dog. You are more of a fish person.
Well, I think if you did the Gettinarian should be really candid. Oh yeah. Like I, I've looked at you, you've been living alone your whole life. Um, you seem like you're having a pretty fun life. You do a lot of traveling. Like you can't have a dog. The dog's gonna be alone.
You're going to be always like either putting it, like having somebody stay at your house with the dog or putting them up in one of those dog places. Like don't get a dog. It's mean to the dog. You travel too much.
Yeah, that's prime reptile right there. No, you don't. But if you need a dog, how many dogs do you have right now? Two?
We have two and probably going to be two going forward.
Okay. I know you think that, but you should probably go to the getting area and be like, hey, man, we ran the numbers. You're actually a three-dog household. I'm not saying it's a guarantee, but you should get checked out.
My wife wants to get a third dog. It's very argument right now. Cause we basically lost our kids. Like we went one kid in college and another kid who never wants to be home. It's just us now. So it's like a third dog. And I bet about like, Oh, I've always loved those Bernese mountain dogs.
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Chapter 4: What are the best and worst candies according to the hosts?
Yeah.
You got to get small, medium, large. Oh yeah. Yeah.
Alright, do one more. Unless you want me to chime in with some quickies.
I've got one more that I think you're either going to love or really hate, which is the key sweet spot for half-baked ideas. I've got an appetite to consume more media than I have time to consume. Just like I have an appetite to consume all of the Sunday football games with but I can't watch everything, you know, live. So I have Red Zone.
But shows that I've started, Gladiator I started, The Boys, Penguin, Yellowstone, those four shows, I've watched a bit of all of those shows. But I'm not going to, you know, I find myself, well, maybe I'll get the flu and I'll be laid out. That's no way to live, rooting for the flu so I can bang through all these shows.
Yeah.
Some sort of Scott Hanson, Hanson zone. I'm calling some sort of Scott Hanson red zone thing where he's up there, but all right, let's go to the penguin. Oh, the penguin just killed this guy. Oh my God. Boom. Quick shot. Boom. All right. We got to go back. Now we're going over to Yellowstone. Oh my goodness. There's some real estate deal coming back. All right. Let's go to the boys.
We're on season one of what? And it's just for you. Maybe it's AI, but I'm bouncing around. I don't need to see every little, you know, piece of plot. I just need the big moment so I can be conversant. I get a little emotional about, oh my God, I can't believe, you know, Rip killed this guy on Yellowstone. Red zone for serialized television.
Let's go over to Tell Me Lies, where Brie has just fucked her professor, but the wife knows about it.
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Chapter 5: How does the Lakers' performance impact their season?
All right. This is, this is stupider.
Okay.
NFL game. You're going to the game. What are you wearing? Jersey. NBA game, wearing a jersey. Soccer, wearing a jersey. Baseball game, hats and jerseys. Kentucky Derby, full suit. Kentucky Derby, either jockey jerseys, little checkerboard action with the hat and the pants, or dress like the horse. Outfits where it's like, oh, nice markings, with a shirt with a mane that goes down your spine.
Like, oh, sick, you dress like your favorite horse. You don't have to wear a dress or some like fancy suit. Dress like the jockey. Got a shirt with a number on. Some of those shirts look great. Green checkerboard with like the number.
So you think jockey shirt, almost like when soccer jerseys took off like 10 years ago. Yes. And all of a sudden soccer jerseys were the rage.
Yes.
So you're saying jockey jerseys happen out of momnia. I don't know about the horse part.
Okay, horse, you might not want to dress as the horse, but certainly you can dress like the jockey. They look great. And part of this is born, I started riding, I bought a bike, so I'm riding a bike. And the first hurdle to get over after you buy the bike, it's like, all right, am I really going to buy the, you know.
Are you going to dress like one of those guys?
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