Chapter 1: What is the significance of the mailbag's return?
The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where we put up a new Rewatchables on Monday night. I did Weird Science with Kyle Brandt. It is a 1985 movie. John Hughes. It's both unbelievable that it happened, but also kind of delightful that it happened. It straddles both worlds. 1985, very weird year in general. I put up a tweet a couple days ago of the...
Billy Ocean song from it's either Jewel of the Nile or Romance in the Stone where he does he sings it with Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito and Michael Douglas and they're in the background and then at some point Danny DeVito grabs a trumpet or a sax and starts the sax and starts pretending to play the sax and it's just bonkers.
And I put it up and for some reason it became a really popular tweet because I think everybody was like, what was going on in 1985? What was going on in 1985 was things like word science. So check out that rewatchables. I'm not sure what we're doing next week yet. I am recording this mailbag on a Monday.
So if anything crazy happens, we're running it on Tuesday, but if anything bonkers happens, don't blame me. But I asked for mailbag questions at bspodcast33 at gmail.com. People sent a lot of questions and we're going to tackle them right after this break and right after Pearl Jam. The listener mailbag is back. 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 needing the protection of an offensive guard on the football field, but getting an elementary school crossing guard. Sure, they're both guards, but you can only trust one to keep your quarterback safe when the game is on the line. So don't settle for just any insurance.
When you can have State Farm, like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. All right, the mailbag. Here's the history of the mailbag because it started in 1997 and now it's 2025. I can't believe this is still going. But when I started, I had the old Boston Sports Guy website and I was looking for things that would, you know,
Little gimmicks that would make me feel different than the newspaper columnist. The easy one was a mailbag that readers could email on questions. It was modeled after David Letterman's viewer mail that he was doing in the 80s, which I always loved, which I always tried to get in, never got in there. Then it became one of the staples for me.
When I had my old website, when I went to ESPN, it was one of the things that I knew was going to work. I got so many questions those first couple years at ESPN that I actually had to hire an intern. And Jamie, shout out to Jamie, who eventually ended up working for Jimmy Kimmel Show. And he was going through all those things and sending me choices and I would sift through it.
And it just kind of kept going all the way through to 2015 when I left ESPN. I think I did a couple more at The Ringer. And then we tried some on the podcast. And then I don't really know why. I just kind of stopped doing them, the listener mailbags, somewhere before COVID. It's coming back. This is time. Heading into 2026.
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Chapter 2: What memories does Bill Simmons share about the mailbag's history?
W-A-R-C. But I really enjoy Warm. Warm's funnier. And by the way, the Falcons should be better. They went 8-9 last year. They had, I think they had the 15th pick and then they traded the 26th pick or they traded for the 26 pick and traded their 2026 first to the Rams so they could pick 26, take these two rookie pass rushers. They really went for it.
And now they're three and seven and their injury prone quarterback, Michael Penix got hurt. I do wonder, we talked about this at the time, whether Belichick would have been a better pick for them. Now, granted, Belichick might just have lost his mind, but in theory, they don't pick Belichick.
They spent $40 million a year on Kirk Cousins, who's coming off a torn Achilles and didn't have a lot of mobility to begin with. They then drafted an injury-prone Michael Penix, eighth, who's now hurt. And they traded their 2026 unprotected first for a second-level rookie pass rusher. And I am not sure Belichick could have done worse than that, even if Jordan Hudson was the GM. So there you go.
Speaking of war... Which actor or actress had the highest war for a role they played? This is from Patrick Broderick. Someone doing at a level way above what any other actor could have done with the same role. So he throws out Gandolfini. He said Gandolfini doing something as Tony Soprano that no one else could have truly done.
Was it the Seinfeld main cast, the TV version of the Phillies Four Aces? I like that. And then he said his pick is Jon Hamm as Don Draper on Mad Men. Excellent actor, actually tall, classically handsome. More importantly, a complete unknown, which is true. You needed that for the role. I think I've talked about this before.
The highest war ever for a TV show, and war, if you don't know what that means, it's wins above replacement. So if you take, it started in baseball. Take a baseball player, like a shortstop. and let's say it's A-Rod in 1999, and you just put an average person in that spot, how much better is A-Rod than that average person? They have a good metric for this.
It's one of the, I think, the best nerd stats we have in sports is war. So the answer here is clearly Gandolfini. It's not even a question. He had the most important role on one of the four or five greatest TV shows ever. I personally think it's the greatest TV acting performance of all time. I have it number one.
Um, we could argue about it, but if we're doing a list, he has to be mentioned pretty quickly as you're going down your list. I think it's first, but then the other finalists for that role, and there's been a lot of stuff written and talked about with this was Michael Raspoli, Michael Raspoli, who we just covered on snake eyes in the rewatchable spot on, on Monday, actually, um, had a,
Bit roll on that. He, you probably remember he's been, he's one of those guys, but, uh, you probably remember him as grandma in rounders that really seedy guy with the pit bulls and wanted worms money. That was the other choice. And I'll do respect to Michael Rispoli. I'm sure he's an awesome guy. Seems like a very good character actor.
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Chapter 3: What are the most interesting listener questions about sports?
And that necklace, which was worth roughly seven kajillion dollars, maybe could have Maybe could have generated some future wealth for future generations of this family she allegedly cared about. Nope, throws the necklace in the water. That's number four. Number three, saving Private Ryan. This was the flaw of saving Private Ryan. What was the point of this?
Because all of his brothers died and now we have to make sure he's the only brother that's left. So we're going to go back into battle and potentially risk hundreds of soldiers to save this one guy. Stupid. Number two, this one still bothers me. Fredo pretending he didn't know Johnny Ola in Godfather II.
There's just no way Michael's not going to find out at some point that he actually knew Johnny Ola. I have no idea why he lied. Johnny Ola's right there. Just say, oh yeah, I know Johnny. These guys are all in the same mafia circles together. Like, just stop. Just say you knew him. Instead, he doesn't say he knows him. But, you know, every family member, every family has a Fredo. Number one.
This is easy. Mayor Vaughn. demanding to keep the Amity beaches open in Jaws, even after there's been an attack. This was, if you could pick one thing from a movie that directly parallels the Luca trade, it's Mervon keeping the beaches open. And somehow keeping his job for Jaws 2, which I never really figured out. But Mervon, Nico Harrison, dead even.
At least in the Mavericks case, they inadvertently ended up with Cooper Flagg. I don't know what happened in Jaws 2. Just more murders. Anyway, we're going to take a break and then we'll keep going with the mailbag. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. FanDuel is putting you in control right from tip-off. That's right. You get to choose your reward. Play it safe. Go for it.
Feel them bold. That's your move. Whatever your style, you're in control. It's part of the basketball season where you should just keep track of what's going on in the league and ride the same team for a few games. I think Orlando's in a good streak right now where it feels like they're starting to find their identity again. Atlanta playing without Trey Young. I think they're 7-2 since...
at least through the weekend's games. But with size and athleticism and defense, it feels like they're kind of hitting their stride. So those are two teams that I really think Houston's good. I think it's going to take a couple weeks for people to realize that Houston's for real. No matter how you play, FanDuel is giving you the power to choose your reward and own your game this NBA season.
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Chapter 4: How does Bill Simmons view player trades in the NBA?
Just guessing. But he probably couldn't have done both. But I think the answer to this, and I really thought about it, I was trying to think about something that was realistic and something that would just drive at least a certain, either a franchise crazy or the fans of a league crazy or something. And I think it would be Trump messing with the Masters and Augusta. Like Trump just deciding that
some sort of obscure rule or maybe this land belongs to somebody else or he's going to push through some rule where somebody can buy Augusta and completely change it and modernize it. I think that would make people absolutely bonkers. Trump messing with Augusta is the answer to that question. This is from my friend Ben.
who texted me last night because I'd put up a YouTube short of me in the sauna making a Patrick Mahomes joke, which I called sauna takes. And he said, you wear a t-shirt in the sauna? Are you a sociopath? And we started arguing about if it's okay to wear a t-shirt in the sauna. So this could go one of two ways. I think if you're in a health club, you go in probably shirtless with the towel.
If you have one of those little mini saunas, which is what we have, I actually like wearing the t-shirt because then I can wipe my face with it. I don't like wiping my face with a towel in the sauna. I actually like having the sweat and wiping it, but I'm also not defending it. Like it actually made me do a reevaluation wondering if I was actually a sociopath. T-shirt in the sauna.
Maybe not for everybody. Maybe that's what we've learned. Okay. In the 21st century, this is from Joe Goldstein, which of these two events do you consider to be the bigger sliding doors moment in terms of overall impact to the NBA? His first choice is the 2003 NBA draft where Detroit selected Darko basically over Carmelo.
People now, after the fact, throwing Dwayne Wade into this, but there was no way Dwayne Wade was going second in this draft. He just wasn't. It was either LeBron or Carmelo. And Darko was the other pick. And Darko gained a lot of steam. And as usual with sports, we have a lot of revisionist history in there. Darko was the fast riser. It was LeBron. Then it was Carmelo. And it was those three.
So Wade wasn't going second. Carmelo. I said at the time, I thought they should have taken Carmelo. I couldn't believe they didn't. I actually think it would have been the greatest thing that ever happened in Carmelo's career, which I think ultimately for what his talent was and how good of a scorer he was, was pretty disappointing.
He, you know, made the conference finals once in his entire career in 2009. And actually the Lakers 2-2 and then...
um couldn't pull off either of the last two games but i think for the most part if you did carmelo's career 10 times the version we ended up with might be the most disappointing version um i always thought i said the same thing when dirk won the title in 2011 um i always thought that could have been the model for carmelo where you have he was an awesome scorer you could have built the right team around him and you actually could have won the title with him i've always thought that um so detroit selecting darko instead of carmelo
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Chapter 5: Who does Bill Simmons consider the greatest players in NBA history?
But the big one is LeBron not winning in Cleveland. And if he hadn't won in Cleveland in 16, 17, 18, would he have just stayed? Would he have just been like, I can't leave until this happens? And that just would have been like a Jenga stack. They didn't have a lot of picks and a lot of ways to get better and Then he never goes to the Lakers.
What happens to the Lakers with Lonzo and Brandon Ingram and Julius Randall, all these guys they had, would they have just tried to go young? Would they have eventually gone all in on Kawhi? That is the best sliding doors of the last 10 years, no question. And it all comes back to Draymond, who may or may not have intentionally hit LeBron on the balls. There you go.
Okay, this is from Adam in Lafayette, Colorado. How many of the past six Super Bowls Would you give up in exchange for them finishing off the 18-0 season in 07-08 going 19-0 and beating the Giants? And which one of the six would you give up? First of all, thank you for asking. I thought about it.
I think the 19-0 season, you almost have to think about this like a football trade where when somebody trades up in football for a quarterback, they're giving up everything. their current first, a future first, and something else at the very least. So obviously trading the 2005 Eagles Super Bowl because they'd already won in the year before and then in the 2001, the miracle season.
So even though beating Pittsburgh that year was great, the actual Super Bowl against the Eagles wasn't like the greatest game. Kind of more remembered for Donovan McBabb, Brendan, the two-minute drill for 10 minutes. So I'd sacrifice that one for 19-0 in a heartbeat, but I think I'd have to throw in more. I'd be willing to throw in the last Belichick-Brady Super Bowl when they beat the Rams 13-3.
Maybe lose that game
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Chapter 6: What conspiracy theories does Bill Simmons discuss regarding the NBA?
But you beat the Chiefs the round before, which was the real Super Bowl, holding off Mahomes for one more year, giving Brady that. And then I would also, if I had to throw in anything else, making the 2012 Super Bowl, which was they ended up sneaking by the Ravens in the AFC title game.
Lee Evans got stripped when he caught what seemed to be the game-winning touchdown and then got stripped right after he caught it. And then Billy Cundiff missed an easy field goal. All of a sudden, the Pats were in the Super Bowl. Gronkowski was hurt. It wasn't a great Pats team. So I would trade 2005, 2019, and I'd lose in the AFC title game.
I'd turn all of those into losses for the chance to go 19-0, achieve immortality, never having the helmet catch, and keeping Eli Manning out of the Hall of Fame. Yeah. It's not even a question. So if that, in this scenario, in the Super Bowl trade scenario, we'd win five Super Bowls instead of six. We'd make eight Super Bowls instead of nine. The helmet catch never happened. 19-0 did happen.
And Eli stays out of the Hall of Fame. That sounds great. Next question from John Walsh. John J-O-N, not the John Walsh who was my mentor. I know the NBA has shelved its plan for expansion. But assuming they do add teams in Seattle and Las Vegas, how would you realign the conferences? You know, this is a really interesting NBA question.
And I've talked about this with different NBA people who probably won't talk to me now after the LeBron nut shot thing. But Memphis and New Orleans go east. I think that happens. And I think Milwaukee has to go west. And what's interesting is Milwaukee... was initially West and then somehow switched back and became East. I don't know how we decided to do that, but, uh, I would switch those three.
Then you add Seattle and Las Vegas, you put them on the, on the, uh, Western conference side. I'll just rip through this super quick. Um, four 18 divisions. You have the East, Boston, New York, Brooklyn, Philly, Washington, Toronto, Detroit, Cleveland. Those are all pretty close together. You have the South, Chicago, Indiana, Charlotte, Orlando, Miami, Atlanta, New Orleans, Memphis.
You have the North, Milwaukee, Denver, Minnesota, Utah, San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, OKC. And then the West, Seattle, Portland, Phoenix, Vegas, LA, LA, Sacramento, Golden State. I just solved it. Unfortunately, we're not getting expansion. Although... Although there is some Vegas buzz building again.
I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that the league adds one more team, not two, that they have 31 teams and that they jump on this Vegas market while there's like a real opportunity and real money behind it and a lot of groups and a lot of interest and the price would have to be My guess, what I've been told, is somewhere between $7 and $8 billion.
At least $7 because that's what, it's basically what the Celtics got when you put in all the other stuff, all the puts the minority owners had. So let's say it's, let's go $7.5 billion for a new Vegas team.
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Chapter 7: What are Bill Simmons' thoughts on current NBA teams and players?
That would mean 30 times 250. Every team gets $250 million cash. They don't have to share it with the players. Right? Just money into their pockets. And they'd be sacrificing going from a 130th meteorite to a 131st meteorite. But they'd be getting this $250 million up front. And if you think about it, how long are you going to own an NBA team? It's weird. The expansion was dead.
I think they moved toward this NBA Europe thing. But there's some Vegas buzz again. I'm just telling you. And I look forward to other people reporting this down the road. and not mentioned in this podcast, but there's some Vegas buzz. Next question from Jeremy Alexander. Oh, it's another reordering question with teams.
He says, Indy moves to the AFC North, Baltimore moves to the AFC East, and Miami moves to the AFC South. Who says no? I looked at this and I was like, wait, why isn't that the way they've done it? Why is Miami in the AFC East instead of the AFC South? Baltimore is right next to Washington.
So you could basically, the AFC East, they would have Buffalo, New England, the Jets, and Baltimore, all of whom are next to each other. And then Indy in the AFC North, that makes sense too. They'd be with Pittsburgh and Cincinnati and Cleveland. Of course. And then Miami is in the AFC South with Jacksonville and Houston and Tennessee. Of course. Why wouldn't they do this? Come on, Goodell.
Next question is from Albert Stern. He said, a basic Google search about steroids say they weaken tendons and increase the risk of rupture. Why does no one talk about this? Albert, what are we doing? We're trying to ease the mailbag in here. Settle down. Settle down. Let's not get in trouble in the first mailbag.
Jack G, he wonders if you could pick one game to be able to rewatch like it had never happened before, what would it be? And if you could pick any game in history to attend in person, what would it be? So I actually did this with my son once. During COVID, we watched a Christian Laettner game against Kentucky. And he had no idea what was happening.
And I was like, let's just watch the second half. This game is awesome. Like, just watch this. He's like, who won? I'm like, I'm not going to tell you. So we watched it, all the back and forth stuff. And then Laettner hits the shot at the end. And my son was like, just his head was doing 360s. He couldn't believe this was an actual sporting event.
So that made me think like, that's a great, that's at least a finalist for this. But the actual answer is the 1980 Olympic hockey game between, uh, the U S and the USSR. That's, that's the answer. That's the game you would've wanted to be at. There's no, no game in the history of sports you would rather have wanted to be at than that game. Um, that's also the game.
If you didn't know what happened and you came out of a coma and you just put that on, you wouldn't believe it happened. So I think that is the answer on both ways. Okay. Kevin from Las Vegas asks with the Celtics hanging around 500, not looking like they'll tank, which is true.
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Chapter 8: How does Bill Simmons analyze the impact of injuries on player performance?
So I would be a little more proactive. And the thing I was thinking. So they have this Anthony Simons contract. He makes like $27.5 million. I actually like Simons. I don't think Mazua likes him. Simons had in Orlando a week from Sunday, he had 25 points in the first half. And then in the three and a half games since, he scored 23. And he played 11 minutes on Sunday and basically got benched.
But I do think he's something. And the team that really needs him more than anyone else is the Clippers, who I saw in person on... Wednesday. And they thought Kawhi, you just never know when he's going to play. He's hurt. And who knows when he's coming back. And then they traded Norm Powell because he was about to, he was going into his extension year. They would have to decide on it.
They didn't want to pay him. So they trade him and they get John Collins back and then decide that they'll sign Bradley Beal and Bradley Beal will be the Norm Powell and Bradley Beal gets hurt. And like, Two days, and by the way, his career was probably over two years ago. they need a second scorer, they're in a lot of trouble.
They don't have their pick, which is the biggest NBA crisis right now is that OKC has the Clippers first round pick. And if you look at it right now, the Clippers are 11th in the West and Sacramento and New Orleans are always going to be lower than them. I think Memphis will be too and Utah will be probably, but the Clippers are not a top 10 team in the West. So they really need a scorer.
They really need to do something. And as weird as this sounds, They actually really need somebody like Simons. Their offense is so hard and dependent that Simons is kind of perfect for them. They have Bogdan Bogdanovich. I can't remember which Bogdanovich is which. They have Bogdanovich. He's an expiring. They have Derek Jones, who makes like $10 million a year for this year and next.
So the salaries, obviously... add up for a Simons trade for the Celtics, but I would get friskier than that. Here's my fake trade. Picasso's in the studio for this one. Clippers get Anthony Simons and Sadiq Bey from New Orleans. The Pelicans get Bogdanovich's expiring plus Derrick Jones. The Celtics get Trey Murphy.
The Pelicans from the Celtics get the Celtics' first pick this year, which could... might be a lottery pick, might be a high lottery pick if it's in the lottery. They get the right to grab, the Celtics have a swap with the Spurs in 2028. So the Pelicans, whichever pick the Celtics end up with in that swap, Pelicans would get that. And then the Boston's unprotected 2031 pick.
for Trey Murphy, who's on a great contract, who I think is a really good player, who has been in the worst possible situation in New Orleans from the time he got there. That's the most poorly run organization in the league. They, for some reason, wouldn't sign him to an extension a year ago. He ends up getting hurt after he gets the extension. The perfect prototypical mid-20s NBA player.
40% three-point shooter, maybe even better. Knows how to play, what to do. Underrated asset because he's been on New Orleans. So we've never even really seen him in the right situation. And if you're the Celtics, if you could do whatever it took to turn Simons into Trey Murphy and spend some picks and then have the foundation of White and Pritchard and Tatum and Brown and Trey Murphy,
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