The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Fall of the Chiefs (Maybe), SGA Superstar Tips, the Wildes-Greeny Feud, and Week 15 Picks
12 Dec 2025
Chapter 1: What podcast episode is being discussed?
The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. I put up a new Rewatchables on Monday. One of the most fun ones we did this year, we did Shampoo with Cameron Crowe and Sean Fantasy. And Cameron Crowe just told a bunch of stories about movies I love, like Singles and Jerry Maguire, and of course, Almost Famous, Say Anything.
But we did it all through the context of the movie. It was a great podcast. Next week's Rewatchables, we recorded yesterday. It was four people. You heard me mention it with Rob Mahoney. We did... High Fidelity. 25 years since that movie came out. John Cusack. Just a lot going on. Kind of the end of Gen X. We hit a lot of good topics with that one. So that is coming on Monday.
We're running out of Mondays for the rewatchables. We're heading into mid-December. We are not running out of Music Box documentaries. Jeff Buckley was last week. This week... Wizkid, by the time this pod goes up, it'll probably already have been up on HBO, but it'll be on HBO Max soon. Really, really cool doc. You get to learn about the history of Afrobeats and he's an incredible artist.
So this is a really well done. You will enjoy it and you will learn a lot. So go check that out on HBO. Coming up on this podcast, Nick Wright. We've been circling each other for a long, long time. And we're going to argue now that Patrick Mahomes' career is over, we're going to argue about it on this podcast. Plus a lot of other fun sports takes.
And then a bruised batter, Joe House, really fighting for his job here on the BS Podcast. We cannot get good gambling picks. He's doing better on the Sunday show than he's doing on this show. And his job's on the line. I don't know what else to say. If it doesn't work out this week, I'm going to make other arrangements as we head into the playoffs. So Joe has to come through this week.
We're talking about that. We're talking about some hoops and a whole bunch more. It's all coming up next.
First, a break and our friends from Pearl Jam.
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.
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, State Farm is there. All right. I wanted to wait until the Chiefs dynasty and Patrick Mahomes' career was over before I had this guy on, Nick Wright.
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Chapter 2: How are the Chiefs being evaluated this season?
He played hurt. And Bogut went down halfway through the series. That's how we ended up with Festus Azealian in game seven, trying to guard LeBron two times in a row.
That part did happen. But the Steph Curry protectionism, he's an all-time great player. Everybody knows it. But the Steph Curry protectionism of he can come back against Portland, set the all-time record in his first game back from the injury for points in overtime, literally bellowed to the crowd, I'm back.
Had everyone, you, as you were just saying, four games into the series being like, this team is unstoppable. Steph's amazing about to win a championship. And then he doesn't play well in a game seven. It's like, oh, Steph was injured. Give me a break. Give me a break.
That's what I think the LeBron fans have done that with a couple of years too. Here's the thing. This is going back to OKC.
LeBron broke his hand in 2018 and heroically hit it from everyone.
I forgot about that.
After the greatest game you've ever seen. Go ahead. Sorry.
We're talking about how OKC could be stopped. And to me, the parallels. I mentioned this the other day with Mahoney. I want to dive into it because I'm interested in your take. The 07 Pats. The streak. Yeah. The pressure of that. Playing a playoff game basically every week. And they wore down. And they really weren't, even before that Super Bowl, the playoffs, it wasn't the most inspiring.
That team peaked in week 12. No question.
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Chapter 3: What are the implications of Mahomes' career trajectory?
I mean, you could argue even with Shea, it might be like a 60 win team.
Well, that would be the most.
I mean, honestly, they just put Mitchell in there. They'd run more stuff through Jalen Williams. Their defense would still probably make them win 75% of their games.
Nothing would be more confusing to the NBA ranking stuff that you were talking about at the start. I'm not hoping for this, obviously. But if a week before the playoffs, Shea went out, And it was done for the year and they won the title. Like that would be sneaky, terrible, but for shit.
I mean, right. Would they be like still favored? Probably not, but they'd be one of like the three favorites in the West.
Yes, absolutely. And so I just don't, I don't know. So the, the like, Oh, it's long seasons guy can go down. They seem immune to it. And the fact that, They are just to get to them in the West. One of these teams is going to have to play a war in round two. Feels like, man, how is it not going to happen?
And I don't want- Yeah, it feels like we're headed for Denver, Houston, just hitting each other with two by fours for two solid weeks. And then the winner gets to play OKC.
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Chapter 4: What insights are shared about SGA's performance?
And it's also why the most interesting thing to me about the Western Conference playoff race, if you will, is there is massive incentive to be the three seed or the two seed. Like there is such a penalty if you're the four. Like that Lakers lost to that. I know the Lakers, you don't believe in them probably quite as much as I do. But that loss to the Spurs last night is like low key devastating.
It's devastating. If you thought, you know, avoid OKC as long as possible, being the 4-5 is a disaster. It's just a disaster.
Well, they've had the same... Rich talked about this on Monday on the pod about there's these young, long athletic teams that are just kryptonite for this Lakers group. And, like, they got killed by Atlanta earlier in the year, San Antonio yesterday. There's a certain type of team with a ton of energy that I think is going to be a problem for them on the schedule. But they're still...
They're still a 50-win team. I guess the thing I want to figure out is how you balance with now that LeBron is back and you saw Reeves kind of fall back a little bit. And suddenly it doesn't look like Reeves anymore. Can you have those three guys? How do you make all three of them happy and get the right amount of production out of all three? And then how do you hide them on defense?
Would be the other question. The defensive piece is, I don't think there's a fix to. They're just going to be a bad defensive team for the most part. I think you could add a piece. But that team's strength has to be, we're going to score 130. We're just going to be a monster offensively. I think that when LeBron first came back, Austin was still crushing.
And the night LeBron streak ended, Austin had 40. I do, and I know you probably think I'm biased on this, I do think LeBron, at this point, especially because the streak's over... is to a degree post stats in what he cares about. Like he has all the records. There's nobody, nobody. There's nothing else for him to chase in that.
And because he missed all those games, because I do think he cares about all NBA stuff, but he's going to be ineligible.
He wasn't going to make it anyway.
Right. Well, I mean, again, he made it last year, but this year he's going to be an elephant. It wasn't happening. Right. And so I do think he's going to be fine being like jack of all trades guy. And I think Reeves and Luka are a really good offensive, really good one-two punch with LeBron filling in the blanks. I just don't know how they can guard anybody.
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Chapter 5: What draft picks could the Rams trade for Joe Burrow?
The two other ones that involve draft picks are, because in the NFL, the most first-round picks you can trade is three, unless you have extra picks one year. You know who has an extra pick?
You mean like the Rams?
The Rams. If Stafford retires, I could see the Rams trading four firsts and three seconds for Joe Burrow.
Well, the Rams got that Falcons pick.
That's what I'm saying.
For the 26th last year, that's now like the eighth pick in the draft.
Eighth pick. So I think the Rams would trade four firsts for Joe Burrow. And I think the Vikings would trade three firsts, three seconds, and J.J. McCarthy. And Joe Burrow gets to be with college teammate Justin Jefferson. I just know he's not happy. It's year six, and he's saying, if I want to keep playing. That's terrifying.
I got to say, if I was a QB trying to look at my next 10 years, I would want to be warm weather endorse. I think Brady was an anomaly. I think Mahomes has been an anomaly, but just in general, especially when you get to these December, January games, like Tee Higgins, his head hits, like he's just a concussion. Like you're playing on a concrete parking lot, basically.
I have some quick questions before we go, because I already kept you for an hour. Why do you think Kevin Wilds hates conflict so much? Do you think it's like a childhood thing?
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Chapter 6: Why does Kevin Wilds avoid conflict in sports debates?
So, I mean, I've known Wilds for almost 20 years. You did this whole thing about media rivals, like your weight class, your generation of sports media rivals. When did you do that?
So I did that. And, you know, that was the first domino in a thing that landed yesterday. Oh, the Pablo thing. Yeah.
You talked about all the people your age range.
Yeah. I said anyone who does what I do or similar to what I do that is my age or younger, I consider a rival. And I want to vanquish them cheek and I will vanquish them like I need to be. In my head atop that, like I don't I've never really felt like I'm competing with you because I grew up reading you or whatever. I feel like you're competing with Colin and with Dan, you know what I mean?
Like that you're that generation. And I, I know you and Colin do different things, but like, I do it like Colin Levitar, Dan Patrick, to me, we're all like competing for the same turf. I, so I had that for me. I disagree.
I don't, I don't feel like I compete with any of those guys.
Well, you're in a, I don't even think about shit like that.
I like how you're thinking of it though. Like you're rising up. You're rising up the ranks. These other people are rising up the ranks and you want to destroy them as you're rising up the ranks.
Correct. And I tried to convince Wilds.
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Chapter 7: What are the predictions for the upcoming NFL games?
Fine. You know, nothing crazy this year. Like I, I think the C I disagree with rich. I think the ceiling is the conference finals, but they would have to get, you know, pretty lucky in the seating and all of it. I just think, I think Lou, I think people sometimes forget how great Luca is. That's more of a Luca take than a LeBron take.
But for this year to not have anything crazy LeBron to be healthy,
um and and then where's next year what's your dream next year cleveland or new york one year feels like cleveland's the move it right new york it's not like cleveland's lights out right now i mean they're kind of a mess right and they'll be in that kind of we gotta shake things up maybe he goes in plays for a minimum
And I guess my other dream would be that if somehow he rallies this year and once again makes an all-NBA team that Bill Simmons ringer 100 rankings going into the season.
There's no way. Too many good players this year. No. Well, that's true. That's fair.
Guy was sixth in MVP voting last year. How many times do I have to hear about how Kevin Durant's better than LeBron James when he's never been better than LeBron James one year of his life from the guy that wrote the book of basketball? I got to listen to how LeBron's an injury risk. I'm like, I don't know. Durant's not healthy all that much. LeBron's problem with games.
Every team Durant goes to is miserable. And I got to listen to how Durant's 12 and LeBron is competing. He's like, I don't know. I don't know where to put LeBron. 24 felt good to me. Well, he got hurt. Is he better than Alex Caruso? We do the rankings because he's 41. He's 41.
We don't know if he can play 40 games.
Last year, he was awesome. He was awesome last year. Yeah, we put him up.
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Chapter 8: How does LeBron James' future impact the NBA landscape?
I had the Ravens marked down as well as a minus two and a half. Maybe we'll use it. Yeah.
It makes sense. The season's over if they don't win.
Just quickly, do any of these games, did you have any of these games written down? Rams, Saints, Colts, Browns, Giants, Eagles, Jaguars, Texans, Niners, Cowboys, or that's it. Any of those on your list?
I did have Rams.
Rams minus six and a half at home against the Lions.
I thought it was five and a half, but in either way, it's fine. I think that they are capable of... Winning by margin. This is just a brutal situation for the Detroit defense. The Brian Branch injury, you can't overstate how meaningful that is. They are on their fourth string and fifth string safeties right now. Terry Arnold's been out for a bit. They don't get pressure anyhow.
Is this going to be on the Sunday show?
Is this a Rams 30 plus points? It might be.
It's going to be one of your picks? It might be. There's two candidates for that where I'm going to alt spread. I might do both. We'll see. Rams is definitely one of them, especially the way they took care of business against the Cardinals.
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