The Bill Simmons Podcast
Giannis Trade Advice, Duncan Vs. Kobe, Ohtani Vs. the Babe, the Frugal-ish Yankees, and Life After ‘First Take’ With Max Kellerman
03 Dec 2025
Chapter 1: What topics are introduced at the beginning of the podcast?
The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where you can find a new episode of The Rewatchables. We put up last night, Rocky II. It was the last of the Rocky movies. We did Rocky III, Rocky IV, Rocky I. Rocky II somehow lasts. But it makes sense because it's probably the most polarizing one. Even though me and Chris Ryan, Ben Lathan, we all love it.
Unbelievable last 30 minutes. But we talk a lot about Stallone and boxing movies and a really, really, really fun podcast. So you can check that out. You can watch it. Watch it on Spotify. You can listen to it wherever you get podcasts. So that's it. Rocky II. I'm not sure what's going to happen for next weekend. I will tip you off on the movie maybe on Thursday.
Coming up on this podcast, Max Kellerman has been itching to talk sports for basically almost two years. I think this is the first time he's been on a platform since 2023, just getting takes off. We had a lot to catch up on. He is going to be launching a new podcast with Rich Paul. Next week, we'll have the feed. I'll give you the heads up on Thursday's pod, but you can subscribe to it.
Launching next week, it's going to be called Game Over with Max Comer and Rich Paul. And we're going to do it three days a week. I'm very excited about it. But it's great that Max always wanted to work with him. Really excited to pod with him every once in a while. We had a lot to catch up on. We talk about possible Giannis trades, AD, what's happening in basketball, goat arguments.
what's going to happen in football this year, what happened with Max at the end there at ESPN. We go all over the place. And of course, had to end with some boxing because every time I'm with Max, I got to talk boxing. So one other thing, the Music Box series is coming back on HBO this week. We have a great documentary about Jeff Buckley directed by Amy Berg. It's awesome.
So that's going to be on HBO on Thursday night and then will be available on Netflix. HBO Max all weekend. So get ready, especially if you love Jeff Buckley. But I think even if you don't even know who he is, I think this is a really, really good documentary. So excited to have this back. Four documentaries from us this month. This is the first one. So please check that out when it's up.
All right, we're gonna take a break. Pearl Jam, and then Max. This episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast is presented by State Farm. Having insurance isn't the same as having State Farm. It's like expecting a linebacker on the football field, but getting a line cook. Sure, they both can handle the pressure when it starts heating up, but only one is stopping a touchdown.
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Chapter 2: What is Max Kellerman's perspective on the current NBA season?
You wouldn't settle for just anything for your team, so don't settle for just any insurance when it comes to getting help you need. State Farm. is the real deal. Like a good neighbor, Stay Farm is there. All right, Tuesday morning, Max Kellerman is here. This is the first time you have talked sports on a platform other than you did some boxing for Netflix.
You're talking boxing on a podcast, but this is, you've been itching to go.
It's, you know, when you have an arm waving opinion about everything and you're on the sidelines for two years watching stuff, the news cycle is relentless. Yeah. And it makes this job amazing because like you think of someone like Howard Stern, what he has to do. His show is not based around the news. They have a little segment. They have to create something from nothing every day.
It's incredible, right?
Where we have like Giannis and the Clippers.
We wake up in the morning, read the paper. And the whole outline is already there for you. So like that's every single day. And it's like, oh, my God. And so, you know, my family is sick of hearing about this stuff.
Well, I have, we're going to do a segment later. All the things you're mad you missed out on over the last two years. We'll also talk a little about, you've never really talked about how you left and all that. We can go into it a tiny bit. I want to go topical at the top though, because we have the weirdest NFL season we've had in a while, maybe since like 2008.
We have all hell breaking loose in the NBA. I haven't talked to NBA in this podcast in a week since before Thanksgiving and The Giannis trade stuff, I think, has officially arrived.
He's deleting his social media.
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Chapter 3: What insights does Max share about Giannis trades?
Their snake pit. This is the darkest moment they've ever had. And think of all the knee injuries and terrible, terrible things, terrible trades they've made. They've been the black sheep little brother for the Lakers for...
Even in the window when Kobe was sucking up the salary cap and no one wanted to play for the Lakers and they had Blake and they make the Chris Paul trade and it looks like there's the window.
This is worse. This is worse. So combo of... The least likable, least successful team you could put together. Like, old, unreliable, vets who don't want to be there. Harden was a minus 39 on Sunday night. Kawhi, you don't know what he's going to play. So they just had this team that I thought was the third best team in the league last year, and now is 5-16. They had 52 wins last year?
Yeah, and, you know, toe-to-toe with Denver. I thought it went OKC, Denver. Yeah. And then I would say Clippers third. Who knew?
Like, OK, so this is what's crazy about the Clippers. This is why you just say snake bit. OK, the sports, the basketball gods just don't like them. Yeah. Personnel, like when I think about a franchise and whether it's going to be healthy and good or not. First, I think about human resources. Right. So, for example, Jerry West. spreads his pixie dust over the Lakers and they win forever.
And then he goes to Memphis and they get good. Then he comes back to the Lakers and they're great again. And then he goes up to Golden State. And I said on LA radio at the time, the battle of the five freeway has begun because Jerry West went to Golden State. They're going to be good now.
That never caught on. You tried to trademark it.
It just didn't work. It didn't happen. But because the Lakers didn't hold up their end of the deal, right? But the Warriors became a championship team. Now, Jerry West, even if that's just correlation and it's lazy, that's what we do in sports and team sports. You have to make correlation, right? You don't know if it's exactly causal, but you correlate it wherever this guy goes, they win.
Robert Ori always hits big shots in the, in the playoffs and they always win championships. And, They get Jerry West, right? Like, that's a good idea. The Clippers, doesn't matter. It doesn't matter who you bring in. When they tie Lou, that's, oh, that's the right guy, right? It doesn't matter.
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Chapter 4: How does the discussion shift to the Knicks and their current roster?
It's a sleepy town. Yeah. Why would you take points off for that? You would think your players are getting rest when they get to OKC and everything. So there's no energy when you get there. The teams that they're going to face are not energized. Like they're already thinking, well, you know, in a couple nights, we're going to be in L.A. and we're going to do this and this and this.
And there's no juice.
Is this going to be part of the behind the curtain when you have the pod with Rich? He's going to take us behind the scenes of the mentality of NBA road trips? He can't help it. Whereas Miami is the opposite.
He can't help it. If you talk to Rich Paul for long enough, you will hear something super interesting based on his experience, like information that other people don't have and from a very educated point of view that you have never heard before. You'll hear something new. Like, I hadn't heard that really. But... watching the playoffs.
Indiana, who was a team that kind of played the most like themselves, I thought, through the playoffs. And had a little bit of a horseshoe.
No question. In a good way. No question. They just, they had a way of, good things were happening to them at the right times of games or series. Yeah. They seemed charmed. Charmed.
But that OKC team, I don't know. I'm not 100% convinced that they win the whole thing if Halliburton's in that game.
I don't know. Well, it turns out Jalen Williams was playing hurt the whole playoffs. They didn't even tell us. Because he was kind of a little more inconsistent than he usually was.
But when your best player isn't on the floor... you know, and it's still close. The other interesting thing, you brought up the Celtics and then, and then OKC. And I wonder if this is going to be true going forward. They both had super tall players playing real minutes who were actually really good. Right. Right. Like Chris Stapp's Porzingis, when the Celtics acquired, oh, we're going to get
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Chapter 5: What challenges did Max Kellerman face after leaving ESPN?
Yeah. Then we should mention you were on ESPN for a while. You got bought out as part of the buyout. This also happened to Zach. This has happened to a bunch of people. It happened to me sort of where my last five months when I was there, when they weren't going to renew my contract, And it was kind of a staring contest. I was like, fine. I'll figure out the ringer.
Chapter 6: Why are the Yankees struggling under Hal Steinbrenner's ownership?
I'll take this time.
They didn't buy me out, by the way. I just wrote out my contract.
Right, right. You wrote it out. Yeah. But you didn't get to work. No. You missed out on some topics.
Chapter 7: How does Max Kellerman view the current state of the Lakers?
Yeah. I asked you to send me a list. I'll go through them quick. Or you can stop me whenever you want. Number one, Hal Steinbrenner is too poor to own the Yankees. Yeah. You've been itching for two years to talk about this.
I think Hal is doing... I think he cares. I think he's a good owner. His intentions are good.
Chapter 8: What makes Shohei Ohtani's achievements compared to Babe Ruth significant?
But he's worth a couple billion dollars in a sports environment now where the richest owners are worth...
10 times that and so he's running it like a business that he needs to profit from not just where he enjoys the increase in the equity but he wants to see a profit right and as a result he has turned the Yankees into a generic powerhouse big market team the Yankees have won I don't insist the Yankees win the World Series every year I'm not actually insane but this is my number one sports team out of out of all of them right I do insist on the following though they win more than anyone else
And they certainly win more World Series than the Red Sox and the Dodgers. They're two traditional rivals in the American National League. In this century so far, which is a quarter of the way through, the Yankees have won one World Series, the Red Sox have won four, and the Dodgers have won three. The Yankees are failing. They're failing. They are a powerhouse team every year. They're excellent.
They're generally well-run. Good, generic, big powerhouse, big market team. That is not the New York Yankees. The New York Yankees were, by far and away, the number one franchise in the history of American team sports. They went from 1920 to 1965. Winning half the World Series ever played, right?
Even then after that, they were a powerhouse again in the 70s and they had the greatest dynasty in the history of modern baseball in the late 90s. They won four out of five World Series. They came an out away from winning five out of six World Series.
series it was insane and and from that point basically and the only reason George Steinbrenner is very overrated also and I liked him in a way but the only reason the Yankees got great was because he was kicked out of baseball they couldn't trade away their prospects you know that's why He was colluding with the other owners when Jack Morris and these guys were available and he didn't sign them.
When the Yankees were in inflection point, they could have been a powerhouse again and they weren't because he was in cahoots with the other owners to stick it to the players. But the Yankees brand, which doesn't just mean, hey, we're top notch. It means we're the best by far. We are the standard that every other sports team aspires to be.
He's, he's frittering it away. Well, it's funny because the same thing is happening in Boston where we flip it, right? We have the four world series this year through 2018. And then the team's kind of being run the same way the Yankees are being run. They spend enough money to make it. Yeah. They make, they spend enough money to make it seem like they're spending enough money. Right.
The stadium's packed. they're making shit loads of money, but something's not, it's not as dire. It's not like, because you guys are like someone's house. Cause no, cause your house poor, your owner is team poor. Well, because, yeah, because he is the Fenway Sports Group where they have Liverpool and the Penguins, all this shit.
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