The Bill Simmons Podcast
Ageless LeBron, Kawhi’s Crazy Career and NFL Draft Burning Questions With Zach Lowe and Peter Schrager
Wed, 23 Apr 2025
The Ringer’s Bill Simmons talks about going to Game 2 of the playoff series between the Lakers and the Timberwolves (2:29). Then, Bill is joined by Zach Lowe to discuss what-ifs regarding Kawhi Leonard and the Clippers' matchup with the Nuggets (17:56). Finally, Bill talks all things NFL draft with Peter Schrager (01:03:00). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Zack Lowe and Peter Schrager Producers: Chia Hao Tat, Jessie Lopez, and Steve Ceruti Presented by the all-new 2025 Nissan Armada. Learn more at https://www.nissanusa.com/vehicles/crossovers-suvs/armada/html. 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 were Bill Simmons' key takeaways from Lakers vs. Timberwolves Game 2?
It is 10 o'clock at night, almost. Just got home from Lakers, Minnesota. Game two played in Los Angeles, California at the Crypto. Used to be called Staples. I still call it Staples. It's Crypto. A must-win game for the Lakers. They did win. It was a weird one. I really wanted to have like some sort of awesome take to play off of or some grand thing to say.
And I could do the first take thing and just list all the guys who need to step up. Nas Reed. Nas Reed, nine points. He's got to step up. Dante DiVincenzo, four points. You got to step up. I'm not going to do that. I have two takeaways. One slightly negative, one slightly positive. Other than the Lakers were supposed to win tonight. They took care of business.
39?
Somewhere in that vicinity. 39 minutes. Rui Hachimura, who got hit in the face. He's wearing like a Batman mask. 34 minutes. Finney Smith, 38 minutes. So they basically did a Tibbs on this game. And the positive comment here is just the LeBron stuff is just incredible. He's 21-11-7. Big energy plays. Big defense. And I'm watching it going...
Chapter 2: How has LeBron James' game evolved over his career?
This team is in basically the same situation the Warriors are in, where they're going to have to go small to be truly effective, right? The Warriors have Draymond, who is this undersized center. You can kind of get away with it. And they're always at their best when Draymond's at the five and they can surround him with shooters and stuff and do that thing.
This Lakers team, by default, is at their best when they're basically playing LeBron and Rui as the quote-unquote centers, even though they're not centers. And they're just scrambling, hustling on defense. And they're just trying to protect the rim. They're trying to get away with the physicality that you can get away with when you have LeBron James and Luka Doncic on your team.
And just be physical from the gate and just keep scrambling, keep trying, keep trying, keep having energy. And LeBron was playing so freaking hard. I don't know if it came across the same way on TV, but he was playing like it was a game seven when Minnesota was trying to come back there near the end. And I was thinking there's been so many iterations of him over the years.
He comes into Cleveland the first six, seven years, and it's like, what is this? He's Magic Johnson crossed with... Dr. J. That's what it seemed like. That's where we were headed. And then it's like, well, wait, he's more of a scorer than we thought. He had that 48-point game against Detroit. So the 1.0 version was like, what is this? Well, wait, there's some Jordan stuff here too.
He's putting up 27-7-7 every game. What is this? Then he has the four MVPs in five years.
and basically moves into like queen of the chess i remember writing a column about it like queen of the chessboard where he just masters um the ability he's like the swiss army knife crossed with the best all-around offensive player in the league he can score when he needs to he's setting people up he's the best athlete in the league and he's just mastered whatever version that is then he goes to cleveland
puts on more weight. Now he's got this weird post-up power game and that's where he kind of moves through the mid-2010s there where it's like he's still the magic, not really Doc anymore hybrid. It's more like a magic Karl Malone hybrid with a little Jordan thrown in, not that much, but really magic in Karl Malone's body using the physicality.
And that peaked in the 2018 season where he's bully balling anybody. And that's basically where He's been, he added the three-point shot. So like the 3.50 version of this was that Carl Malone magic combo with the three-point shot. I don't know what this version is.
And I don't know if he really knows either because they have this incredible offensive player on their team, Doncic, who 31-12-9 tonight. And all they're doing the whole game is trying to get Gobert to get switched on to Luka. That's it. That's the offensive strategy for the most part. Where's Conley? Can we torture him? Oh, he's not in. Let's go after Gobert.
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Chapter 3: What are the Lakers' chances moving forward in the playoffs?
Can the Lakers get away with playing those four guys as many minutes as they played them tonight? Because I think they're going to have to to win four games. That's one. And then the second is, does Ian have it in him to be the best player in this series? because I don't see another scenario that they win three more games unless he can rise up a level.
He had that incredible dunk in the third quarter. That was breathtaking. But this feels like it's an Ant versus Lucas series. That was my takeaway tonight. I think LeBron is going to do what he did tonight, and he's going to... He's a fixed cost in this series. I know what I'm getting from him for the most part.
The threes are gonna come and go, but for the most part, we're gonna get the energy and the creativity like we had tonight. Luka is the wild card because he might have 45 points in game three. And then Ant on the other end, what can he create? And how much can they survive this weird Gobert thing? He was really bad today.
He was six and six, some Butterfinger moments, and they just kept attacking him and attacking him and attacking him. And ultimately, who's their best five? So this is why we love seven-game series. This is going to keep moving and keep changing. But when I think back to this game, during the summer, I'm going to think of just how fucking hard LeBron played. I really respect it.
Guys, you know, it's like the Brady thing. You know, when Brady was at the tail end of his career, he just, the competitiveness almost went up because there's legacy stuff and you're comparing your career to like the best parts ever. And there's some sort of drive that has to kick in to keep the process going.
And what we saw from LeBron tonight was really, I know the box score was pretty pedestrian, but, um, man, he really gives a shit. I really respect it. Uh, we're going to take a break and we're going to come back and Zach Lowe and I are going to talk about Kawhi Leonard. The NBA playoffs in full swing. There's no better way to be part of the action with FanDuel, America's number one sports book.
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Chapter 4: What makes Kawhi Leonard's career unique and filled with 'what-ifs'?
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anything you throw at it. Learn more at the all new 2025 Nissan Armada at nissanusa.com. Towing capacity varies by configuration. See Nissan Towing Guide and Owner's Manual for additional information. Always secure cargo. All right, taping this part of the podcast with Zach Lowe. It is 1220 afternoon ET. So we don't know anything that happened in the Tuesday night games.
We're going to look backward, but look big picture. I want to talk Clippers Nuggets with you, and I want to talk about Kawhi Leonard with you. Clippers Nuggets is everything we want from a round one playoff series. Who do you think is going to win this series, by the way, now that you've seen two games?
So I picked Nuggets in seven, which is your tell for don't feel great about it. Went home court advantage and best player in the world. And I listened to you and Ryan after game one. I felt exactly the same way you guys did that. The Nuggets kind of stole that game. And I would feel really good about the series if I were a Clippers fan. And then they won game two.
Obviously, we're doing this right after that.
uh i would feel good if i were a clippers fan i'm gonna stand by my pick obviously because you know i don't repick repick series halfway through but um i think clippers have outplayed them and if they're gonna have we're gonna talk about kawaii and if they're gonna have one guy in each game and it was hardened in game one kawaii game two who's essentially like on par with yokich they're gonna win the series right they just need somebody to cancel him out numbers wise in some way um
They got out-rebounded by 18 last night and won. They survived a really great Michael Porter performance compared to his complete no-show in game one, and that didn't matter. But the Kawhi piece was the piece, and it got me thinking, you and I have known each other for basically Kawhi's entire career. I think we first...
met each other at least like on email or wherever in 2011, which is here he was drafted. I thought one of the best pieces you ever wrote for Grantland was the Kawhi George Hill trade piece, which was, I think, I just remember when you wrote it, I was like, I feel like this is where basketball writing is heading. It's not just like, this is some sort of... It was sourced. Why did they do this?
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Chapter 5: How does Kawhi Leonard compare to other NBA greats statistically?
We saw enough in the two and a half quarters of that game to be like, okay, he's going to give them a puncher's chance in all these games. They'll probably lose 4-2 or 4-1, but this isn't going to be like a walkover like everything else they had that year.
Yeah, he's going to be throwing punches. What if he signs off on the 2018 Boston trade? It's a really good what if. When Boston was trying to come after him.
Take me, that's your world.
Well, that at least would have been Jalen Brown and some other stuff. I think Boston was really hesitant to actually consider talking about it because he was making it so clear this is a one-year thing.
I'm going to LA.
And wink, wink, I'm going to a different city after when Toronto didn't care. There's the what if Kawhi just re-signs with Toronto in 2019 because they had a pretty good nucleus. Yes. you know, and you think like the league was a little bit weird there in 20 and 21, 22, could they have gotten back?
They won 50 something games the next year. They were one of the best story. I think, did Nick Nurse win coach of the year that year?
I think after, yeah. Um, There's the what if Kawhi signs with LeBron and the Lakers in 2019, which is what we thought was going to happen. And I don't even know, can they get Anthony Davis at that point? Probably, I don't know if they could, maybe they could have fit all this.
I can't remember the details of it, but maybe if you get Kawhi, you don't need Anthony Davis and you're using those picks for other things. You're building around those two guys. Those two guys make sense together. What if he starts getting hurt? Within a couple months after that trade, and now LeBron has no running mate.
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Chapter 6: What impact has Kawhi Leonard had on the Clippers and their playoff prospects?
From the what if career standpoint, Walton's still number one for me because he just wins multiple titles in the late 70s and goes down as one of the best 15 guys ever. He, Kawhi is second. And then my other two for my lifetime were Andrew Toney, who really only played five years and then his feet went on him.
But I just think would have been a hall of fame two guard and probably the second best two guard in the league behind Jordan. And then Bernard King was the other one, the 28, he's 28 years old when he blew out his knee. He's averaging 33 a game that year, which in 19, mid 80s standards is like 40.
And came back, but was never really the same, but he was the forward scoring Michael Jordan of that era. And then the only other one I have is Yao.
I'm glad you brought up Yao because I want to bring him up later.
Yao is the one where it's like, ah, man, we kind of forget that Yao only played like eight years.
Ralph Sampson?
Samson's a good one. I don't... I'm not sure he knew where... Yeah, he got hurt, but I'm not... I've always felt like he spent four years in college and then it's like, am I a center? Why am I on the perimeter this month? I'm never sure he totally figured that out from like a ceiling standpoint. Yao could have been... 23 and 10 for like 15 years. But I think the China national team murdered him.
And then there's some other ones. There's like the TMAC and C-Web. But those are guys like they had good careers and they got hurt a little bit later. But I think those are my five. Anybody else you have?
Well, there are some. It depends how how what if you want to, I mean, Len bias. Yeah. So I'm glad you brought up y'all because I just did, I just did to, to point to your point about how unique Kawhi's career is. I just did a search on best law reference people in the hall of fame. with player efficiency ratings for their career. PER, everyone craps on it now.
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Chapter 7: What is the current state of the Clippers vs. Nuggets playoff series?
And it's Dr. J, who obviously played in the ABA, too. So he's got other. Yeah, like there's just there's a 10,000 minute gap between those two guys. And Kawhi is right in the middle of it.
Well, and then you think there's only three guys who ever won finals MVP for two teams and the other two are LeBron and Kareem. I have my 42 club that I still stand by as one of the dumbest, but accurate.
Wait, is that the one that cuts off Karl Malone?
Yeah, I got to 42 because it was the best way to cut off as many Karl Malone seasons as possible. Points, rebounds, and assists.
Poor guy.
Sorry, Karl.
No, don't be sorry.
If you go 42 club who made the finals... Since Michael Jordan. Shaq has three. LeBron has six. Kobe once in 01. Iverson once in 01, didn't win the title. Duncan in 03, 45.4. Kawhi in 19, 45.4. Giannis in 21, 48.1. Jokic in 23, 53.5. And Luka last year, 47.0. Gives you a sense of, first of all, how great that 19 season was. But then also like, That's where we are.
And the only outlier in all that is probably Iverson, who just, he took a ton of shots, but wasn't like a points, rebounds, assists like some of these other ones. Even Kobe only made it once. And then the other thing with Kawhi, well, how many guys have gone from incredible glue guy to awesome A-plus list scorer. I was trying to think like SGA. Kawhi was a better glue guy than SGA.
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Chapter 8: What are the expectations and challenges for the upcoming NFL Draft with Peter Schrager?
Where he was the go-to guy, if you were talking about, you know who I really love? And he was the guy. Who's that now in 2025 where the, you know who I really love? It's like a Jalen Johnson, but on a better team.
Could have been like Evan Mobley or Cade Cunningham before this year.
Right, right.
But maybe not even quite that.
But he didn't have the pedigree of those guys, right? But it was one of those things coming out of the gate where they were like, yeah, there's something here with this guy. But I always thought his, I thought he was going to be Pippen. And Pippen was a better, like, kind of passer, creator than him. He had the ball more than Kawhi did.
But to me, the best, still to this day, the best three perimeter players I've ever seen in person. And maybe, maybe a man Thompson can get here. Wow. Maybe. I don't know. What is he, 22? But the best I've ever seen in person, Pippen won, Kawhi, and Rodman.
Are you talking about athleticism?
I need a long athletic perimeter to shut down this score. Who am I picking? Those are the three guys. And then after that, we can argue, but those three guys have to be on the list. Is there anybody else you would add?
for defense, I'd have, I'd have to sit and think about it for a second, but I mean, you know, Gary Payton wasn't big enough to, to be in this conversation, right?
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