The Success and Legacy of Sicario

This episode is brought to by Netflix. The T mobile homeome runun Derb is right around the corner. might be one of the best showcases of pure power and off sports baseballs Biggest slugggers. along with some legendary Announcers, Puhos, Rizzo, Bs, Sabbathia L Duncin Yeah Hunter Pence, Matt Fas Kirzian, a whole bunch of people. And it's the one night where you don't swing to make contact You swing. to make history. Im interested is see what Bond says about this actually. Anyway, it is all live from Citizens Bank Park In Philly, Watch the T mobile homeome runun there we liive on Netflix this Monday, july thirteenth at eightM Eastern five PM Pacific. This episode of the Bill Smans podcast is presented by PayPal You know a clutch move when you see one, a no look pass, a buzzer beater, a big steel. Well, immagine if your're a wallet pull off moves like that my friends, is PayPal. Right now you can find offers from hundreds of brands like Sony All birds and Vier and save offers before you check out earn unlimited rewards. pllus you can add those rewards on top of credit card points Now that is clutch. downownload the PayPal app today Save those offers, start scoring rewards. Terms and exclusions apply. See payPal d. com slash rewards terms, credit card points subject to issuers terms and conditions. Bill Simons podcast live on Netflix here on Sunday. We have Zach Low right now. He's in a great mood. We have Taylor Sheridan, creator of Yellowstone and a bunch of awesome shows coming in the second half pod Zach is coming off incredible victorious dayay in Philadelphia where he celebrated A World Cup win with a bunch of tall Croatans Very dull I was worried you were going to get crushed in a group hug at some bar last night. but you made it. You're here. I made it home. I may have gotten crushed. There may have been a lot of group hugs. Croatians know how to party and we move on to the round of thirty two' going to be underdogs under Let's find. likeike look, I'm glad if this is it I got to see Luca Modrich summon one last great game start to finish and that was amazing And your're two know in the World Cup this year in person That's been pointed out to be by multiple people associated with the Croatian football team that like I have to go to every game that. I might need to go to Toronto. It's being pushed on me that I might need to and just I'm just putting out there. Mets play bllue Jays the day before in Toronto. I could do a double just skip NBA free agency altogether and just go to be a sports fan. We're going to try to rip through NBA stuff in seventy five minutes, which includes Jaylen Brown I have not given any takeet on the Lameello trades in Minnesota. You did a whole podcast about it. U We're going to talk Charlotte Poenix a little bit. We're going to talk about what happened in LeBron and we're going talk about craziest prediction for the week You have podcasts coming at least tomorrow and probably Wednesday, maybe two, maybe three, I'm going to have at least one more on Thursday. So that is the schedule. Jalen Brown notot traded yet Um information and misinformation flying around Um I don't know if he has lost trade value because teams know they want to trade him or because of his contract or whatever. I thought it would be resolved a little bit quicker. He was in France littleittle pissy about u some advanced metrics tweets G got Mad at Bobby Marks for passing along somethingomet he heard from a front office He's been doing panels, The word on the street on Jalen in France And I know multiple people who were either in his vicinity or whatever is that he was that was was acting like he's done in Boston and that this is it. And I don't think he's very happy with this. Do you think Boston mishandled this in any way? First of all, you have sources on the ground across France. like whatever region region camp. have sour was can. He was he was on sports panels there I don't think he's Really too happy about the last couple of weeks What would the mishhandling have been Tell me what the m handandling with because they w a let's let's not for let's lead with the thing. They won the championship with Jay and Brown and Jason. I'm just talking about this offseason So from literally final buzzer of game seven until right now What is the case that Boston has missand Is it not trading him already Is it even getting into the honest bidding to begin with? Because you can'nt not have that get out And even and it's only and once it gets out that you're interested in Yanis, who is better than Jalen Brown, older but better and addresses Okaykay, fine. We can litigate that if you want Once that gets out There's no other realistic path for this to happen. likeike you don't it doesn't have to be reported anymore that the Celtics are offering Jail and Brown There's no other offer. That's it. It has to be Jailen Brown. It's just math. And so you would let everyone else put the logic together. So what should they should they? I think your only alternative is You just answered your own question. Okay justust trade them right away or or don't get involved with the honest. Those are not hereere's the iss And I've been I think the Celtics have done a great job this decade. I've rarely disagreed with anything they've done. They get into this honest thing. And they make a real offer for him, right? And this is, I think two weeks before he gets traded They're anticipating That because of past dealings with Milwaukee and because of how the league works that This won't get out. This is gonna to stay between us. Well there's a couple of different things that happen this timeer That's a terrible assumption Okay. newew owner. We have Jimmy Haslam in there now. He wasn't really in there like when the Drew holiday stuff was happening a couple of years ago, he wasn't in there yet You also have Milwaukee not knowing whether they wanted to keep Jalen Brown or not. So obviously they're going to be stealth canvassing his value in a couple of different places And that's how the shit gets out. It's the third team that it was supposed thats because they're delighted to tell people, Ohh my God, they checked with us I think the mistake the Celthics made If you're going to do this, you're going to go down the road and actually put Jailin on the table, which they did. And they only made one offer, which I've said multiple times that the offer for the Jailin the picks. anythingything else was a lie. Hugo was never on the table. They never beeeped up their offer. the last week had nothing But if you're gonna to do this I think you just have to put Jalen on the block at that point Because once he's out there, you have to anticipate how he's gonna to react to it This guy already feels like he's the the Jan Brady of the Brady bunch on this team, right? He already feels like he's the little brother. He already feels like it's Tatum's team that his A lot of the stuff that he was saying During and after the season, even the quote about he was the most proud of the season versus any other season. I actually understand his point on that even though I don't think he should have said it that way Everyone counted them out Everyone, the over under was forty one and a half He was the only reliable score and offensive weapon on the team. They went fifty six and twenty three the last sevenenty nine games. They were second in offensive ridating Um And I think he feels disrespected. So you put him in one trade Now you have to trade them And now that there's blood in the water and teams know they have to trade him, you're going to get shitti orer offers. So I would have just done it all at once So Yeah,'m try I'm trying to figure out what you think they should have done because I thought what you were going to is what you were going to say when you started, what I thought you were going to say was, Once you put him in for Yanis, you then just have to make the honest trade, which means swallow Shireman and Gonzaallees or whatever it is. But you're not saying that. You just think let you're saying just open it up and do it immediately. but haven't they opened it up? Isn't that what's happening right now? They did it now, but they did it Now that he's upset about how the process planned out and now that teams know they have to trade him It's a little different than being like, Hey ursuing honest with Jayalen, but we're also open for offers right now. and I just feel like it's a better market if teams feel like, o, shit, Jalen's going to be on the table I'm competing against the possibility that he's going to get traded market for Jianis. Now I don't know who they're competing with. Like you know, and I also feel like having actually watched the Celtic games last year and like most of the people who are online just doing analytics and on off shit and stuff like that, like As you know, and I've said this many times I really value the reliability of a durable star who over and over again. has to carry this burden Night after night. he's got to be the best player. He's got to match against the other teams best player. and it's like, oh, the on off was not great when he was Well, the Celtics had an awesome bench That was one of the best assets of the team. When their bench came in, their bench was better than just about every other bench in the league and that's going to skew those stats a little bit. Well, you can't capture and go back and look at his game loog goingo against a trait San Antonio. OKC pick one of the best te the Nicks pick one of the best teams in the league last year He was the only guy that I knew was going to show up in the game. I didn't know if Derek White, I Peyton Pritchards. You know, as good as he is, he's trick or treat. sometometimes he just doesn't have it All these bench guys, Kita, it was basically just Jalen. So I think weirdly he's become underrated and I don't really understand it. I mean, a lot of it has to do the let my brain is just can't do the analytics thing. I can't do it. I don't want to do it. So let's just park that over here. A lot of it is just a contract, right? And I think like this is the difference between This is one of this ties into why the hornets traded Lello ball now when he's on his second contract and not when they've potentially signed him to the third one that can get much bigger. I don't think you would get much bigger in Lamelo's case, but with Jayen because he made all NBA and they won the championship and all that. It's now at a point where it's like sixty, sixty five, like these are just hard deals to trade for someone who's not one of the I don't want to get into where to rank him, but he's not a top five player in like a no brainer with a bullet top five but one of the top fifteen He sure is and yeah I mean, he was last year. We would have to sit down and do it, But he was in my top fifteen on the last Ring or one hundred we did coming off last season It's just it's it's a hard trade to make and It's if you don't get Yanis Now you're staring at Is there a deal out there that we can sell our fan base and we can sell the current players on the team that like, hey, wait, we traded him for what? like that does that not make us worse this season? Like, yo, it's cool that we cleaned up to the capapset and got a couple of picks, but like what's the headliner that we got that helps thr last season. So you're throwing away a second season in a row basically a chance to contend after you've won the twenty four title I I just feel like They must have known We listen, you and I both talked to a million people about Tatum and Jaylen and do they get along? Do they not get along? Is it good like work relationship but not friends, like you could go into it a million different ways People around them that always cause the problems. I think for the most part. I'm sure those two guys are fine together, but the circles around the people are the ones that start half this shit Do you think it's notable that Jalen didn't really say a lot about Tatum during the season It was not about you never heard like I can't wait to get my brother back. There was none of that stuff And then after the season and especially the last three weeks Where's Tatom He hasn't say anything Hen't said anything this off season. Jalen said at one point Tatum was coming on his his Twitch or whatever. He hasn't come on How about the last couple of weeks about The guy who could actually squash this is the alleged leader of the team, the franchise, Tatum who could come in and say, I don't want them to trade Jayalen. We won the title together two years ago I can't control the front office I want to try to win more titles with them or that's my guy, nothing It's been dead silence, which makes me think that the team has felt At some point either during the season or right after This is a wrap And that Jalen just wants his own team and Tatum probably wants him to have his own team and that's probably the answer, right I mean having your own team being like have we not reached a point where I guess there's just no. what is the star duo This is a great question for you. That has gotten the closest to being Aual equal peers. like not one A one B, but like one A, one A. is it Shack and Kobe Like what's the one that that transformed from Pipp and Jordan to something because I look at these guys and I'm like Why can't they both average twenty seven points a game? Like why does it like it's is that not on the table? Does it have to be someone's team I? someomeone's always going to be considered. B right? a better all around player, whatever. But in terms of whose team it is, who controls the ball Like I don't know, when Tatum came back last year, obbviously, he's easing into it, but I didn't feel like there was any sort of Oh wow, things have changed so dramatically for Jam. felt in the playoffs though in some games did p explode and it just felt a little more tain a thing. too answer your question Honestly, you have to go back to the sixties with Eldred and Jerry, I think. I think that's the last time where it's like, I don't even know who's better between these two. And Shaq and Kobe were there a little bit But Shq always had that trrump card of like in a playoff series that there wasn't a team that could guard Shq He just ran a moock. I mean, his his three final stats were at a whole other level than Kobbe. I mean, Steph rant, but those that team just existed on a plane of of its own You know, don't That's a good one though because I think Steph is a better guy all time than Durant, but I do feel like Durant was the best guy in those two teams. Now, part of it was because Steph took took a real step back. and really let Durant kind of be more of the guy on those teams, but That's that's a good one though. And by the way, how long did those guys last together? Th yearsue. And I think I think that's a good parallel to this because I think the reason I'm always going to think this Rant no matter how many panels he goes on with rich climen in different countries talking about the future of sports and entertainment and business. I'm always going to feel this way I think he thought after he went head t with LeBron and beat him in the twenty seventeen title He was going to get his flowers and his just due as one of the great guys not only this century, but maybe the best guy in the league And it didn't happen And it was like, noope, you joined Steph's team. That's why you won And I think it got to the point where he's like, I can't win here. to leave. I wonder if Jalen's at that point a little bit too, where he's like, we won a title. I'm finals NVP. I'm conference, Finals MVP. I carried our team last year And now the momentatum gets back. they're like, Thankks, Jaylen, we're going to trade you for Gianas now And I think he wants to leave. I don't I don't think he feels like he was respected in the right way. Now, there's a million things you and I don't know about about is there behind the scenes stuff Are there signals that he sent to Ja and tell him go explore a deal for us But the reality is he's twenty nine years old. did his best season ever last year played twenty six hundred minutes in ten year, twenty six thousand minutes in ten years, almost five thousand playoff minutes The guy's really fucking good Like even if you're going like You know, he's one hundred and forty two playoff games. I think he's twenty a game in the playoffs Um And if you're going like one hundred and twenty five games and up it's a list of like fifteen guys and all of them are awesome. And I just can't believe some of the trades that I think people seem to think what iss worth. It's like Portland won't give up D of and Klinging. They won't For Jalen Brown, that's going to be a deal breaker for you, like. So I I've never seen anything like this and I don't know how it plays out. I think it's more likely he ends up coming back to the team Um I mean, someone has to play center for the Blazers, right if they trade for Jill and Row, you need to have a functional center on your team. let me make a couple of parallels. And I don't think I don't think any of these are good parallels. comeome People just today when talking about the challenge of trading a player making as much money as Jalen Brown, who's a very good player, but again, not a he's a he's on the MVP ballot every year kind of player U Anthony Davis was thrown out, Trey Young was thrown out. I rejected both those out of hand. I'm like he's younger than Anthony Davis, a million times more durable. He's much bigger than Trey Young and he's a two way player and he's in his prime. I reject them The best one I heard was Carl Anthony Towns U who the wolves felt like We have we're like this contract is really hard to move and we're in a financial prison with the Apron and all the other guys we have. This is the most palatableable deal we have on paper. it's like really not that sexy. It's Julius Randall, Di Mincenzo and one first round pick Um it's it's going to land like a little bit of a bomb with our fans and it could go badly and it has gone badly. But they felt like they kind of had to do it and it's the best one they could do. And I thought that was a very good parallel to this situation just in terms of where the player is or was in the hierarchy. I think Jalen's last season was better than any season Towns has had start to finish justust generally wear. But here's the difference Could toowns have ever gone fifty six and twenty six with the two through fifteen that Jayen had last year? No, I there's any way. I't think so. No, I don't think so. I just think Jayen should get more credit for the season last year. And I don't understand like he was twenty nine a game played all the time. And he's to see him being like, I don't know if he's how good is he? I don't know about that contract. It's like, well He's one of the fifteen best guys in the league and all of those guys have max contracts So why wouldn't he have a max cut? What' he going to be playing for thirty five million a year I get it. I get it and it's going to be That's why all those parallels to me are either wildly wrong or slightly imperfect like the Towns one. But yeah I think the Celtics are going to have a choice very difficult choice unless something changes between now and whenever between taking an offer for Jalen Brown that is going to be, let's say, not super well received by the fan base, maybe not I'm not saying it's going to be Bash or it's to be poorly received, but it's not going to be like the bananza package that you would expect trading a player of this caliber O right Trying like hell to put the toothpace back in the tube and just say, Hey, you know what? We're gonna have to figure it out you guys have played all well together for many, many years That I mean, this is like this is why Mizoula behind the scenes is one of the most respected beloved coaches Like this a guy that During the twenty twenty four Olympics when Tatum, his playing time was getting yanked around and he wasn't Zul flew to France to make sure he was like This is a guy who has been at tune with those dudes the whole time. I'm sure he's talking to Jayalen all the time. And if anybody could just get those two dudes in a room ike lookook, man, let's work this out. Like we still have it. We can still be the best team in the East Like forget about all the shit that happened in the past. The problem is, I don't know if Jalen is just reached the point of no return because the difference here is that they've won the title It can't be one of those things like I don't have a ring yet. He's he already has the ring. He already has the respect from last year. Now he wants to respect from the team in the city. And I think deep down he probably knows like That's going to be always going to be Tatum's toown and not mine. the way it is. C I throw what if at you What does this look like if Tatum never gets hurt, but they lose to New York anyway in the second round, the year that he got hurt U And like how does the what the next calendar year play out because like It's still quote unquote, Tatum's team more than Jalen's team. But it's they're both still healthy and play like I just would be interested to see how that plays out because Tatum's injury is what has changed this dynamic. I mean, that's obvious, but Um, I just don't like, do we end up in the same place anyway or or O or God. I don't know the answer to that Well, if we were one of Jaylen Browns, every every ABA star has funkies around them, right? Wh's just like, you're great. Let's go to dinner the checks are you better pay Um if we were two of Jaya Brown'srunkies Wouldn't we be like, why are you the one being traded? Why wouldn't Tatum be traded? It's coming off a major injury. His contracts as big as yours. You just carried the team to fifty six. Like you're just planning that stuff in his head constantly, right? I mean, I would Wh you? Wh not Tatum? Why just you? I would like I feel like I would be a more valuable member of of a friend group than that. I would be a more reasonable member of the friend group But I did is why this is why I ask you Devil's advocate two weeks ago or last week, whenever we said this I said, if I'm Jalen Brown, I'm looking around being like, why is it just assume that if we have to break up, I'm the one that goes likeike this guy just is coming off an Achilles injury. Now I say that I think Jason Tatum is a better all around basketball player than Jayen Brown. I think I think that as well that's been proven out. So I get why if the Celtics are making a choice, it is Tatum But if I also get Jalen Brown being like, what else do I have to do? Like what else do you need me to do to be of worth of he's there He's he's there right now. He's like, you guys were going to tank last season We were building our way to a top three seed, and you traded dZiamonds for the corpse of Vusovich to save more money. And then you you threw JT back in there, you played him too many minutes and he couldn't even play in game seven. like There's no blood on my hands for anything that happened last season H when you talked about what What trade would the Southx fan base accept An example of one they wouldn't if it was Zach Levine's expiring in a boatload of Kings picks like three first, two swaps, whatever. that's not flying Same for Brooklyn if it was Porters expiring and a bunch Brooklyn pick swaps. That's not flying either New Orleans, which I think maybe you would have said a month ago Murphy with Zion and maybe even a pick I think that prices dropped now and I think Pool has to be in it as an expiring. I think that's Murphy and Pool and maybe two firsts and And I don't even know if New Orleans says yes to that because New Or, what are we going to do? We're not to win the title with Jalen You don't think New Orleans would say us to Tay Murphy Jordan Pool who is Jordan Pool is just Jordan Pool expir. thirty four million dollars of expiring money and two unpotected picks, which seems like a pretty fair trade No one in the league seems to know if New Orleans is like open for business if they're just like they're out If they're out for h already like with anyone there? Well, here's the Portland trade too. So these last three are the ones that I was centered on. that New Orleans one For Portland, I think Drew has to be in the trade. I don't want Jeremy Grant. can put Jeremy Grant's contract for two years can't be in the trade. It's the same just Drew holiday. It's exact same contract. basically. I'd much rather have Drew holiday. who's already been in Boston. I don't disagree with you, but I don't I think I mean Jeremy Grant's aailability has been an issue. He actually shot it pretty well last year. I don't think he's just sort of like dead money by any means Well, about this? Drew Haudde, Kamar and Ps for Jaywen That's a trit I can talk myself into from a basketball standpoint. How many threeree really good guards. I don't know That's look, I mean that how many picks is Kamara worth att least two but two and a half. But that's the kind of trade where you are going to be met with The talk radio or whatever backlash of like We just traded a finals MVP For who's the headliner? the thirty six, thirty seven year old guard who we already had on the team once and he's fine. He's good and like Tamani, who Like Toney what? Like the bosts the Boston casual fans have no idea who that is and like, okay, some picks like that's what we got for Jayen Brown. And I don't like I don't think you're off base pitching that is like the structure of a trade That makes some sense for both teams though. I don't know if Portland loves the Avdia Jaen Brown fit personally, but It's it would be, I'll tell you this it would be a bitch to play against. A lot of downhill force. This is the trade. We've been texting about this this week There's a lot of a lot of smoke illowing around Denver in general Some I believe, some I don't believe Murray and Cam Johnson. for Jalen and Hauser which would save Denver ten million dollars this share The Celtics could take Kam Johnson and their trade exception. Murray is fifty million this year, fifty four and fifty seven So he's about eight million behind Jalen in each of those years. But same amount of years. Same amount of years, but I'm shaving off seven eight million. m I'm adding Kam Johnson who I can either keep or spin in a trade And I am getting somebody who I still think is one of the best twenty five players in the league back for Jalen Um And I think in I think'm on Boston. I'm signing up for that trade F Denver I'm at least having a six hour meeting and it's a reconstruction of of of a team because you're going to remove the Murayoage pick and roll, but you could run a lot of that offense through Joker. You resign Payton Watson with the extra money you have him more involved offensively and you could argue that that team's better. It's bigger, it's deeper You have Yokage and Cord and And Jaylen is your front line Um, You're just, you have more flexibility and you have somebody who can really step in if Gordon gets hurt But you gets hurt every year and now you're not getting destroyed if that happens and you're under the tax and you can Get Watson. That trade makes a ton of sense to me Zach It's It's a very it's a good trade U It's a well, well done Picasso. Um Boston gets a little smaller, I think depending on whether Cam Johnson, you know six around the team. They get a l although they played with only one of the Jays almost all of last year anyway Um It's a good trade. they. I mean, Jamamari addresses a need for Boston I allows them to go allows them to go three guards at the same time, which is something they could only really do last year when Simons was on the team and then couldn't And also like the reason they got into this Yonest thing in general was because they felt like Hugo and Sireman And maybe even Hauser Walsh, like they just felt like they could patch the minutes together that Jalen had with worse stats, but at least like two way stuff And then Tatum would take some of the offensive slack But really, they wanted to unleash Sugo, which is why he was untouchable in that trade. So they would cover the wings. there' st, they would still need a center It's an interesting team. and honestly I think Murray's a great bad. I thought he had too much of a burden on the nuggets. It was basically Hammer Yokich doing everything and he's in the West And I thought he was really good last year and I thought he wore down as as March April we got into the playoffs Selz could put them on a thirty minute game. Teline with white. red and I just feel like they could manage his minutes better. Here's my obstacle if I'm Denver. is I have no Christian Brown is now my only proven rotation, playoff level guard on the whole team out of out of anyone. Now I can do maybe bring back Guce Brown on the minimum whatever it sounds like Tim Hardaway Jr. going to have some suitors It may be out of their price range. Jail and Picket is the only point guard on the team. like the only one. Um And that makes me a little bit they have their mid level in this though or or at least like some frage and stuff. It's pretty tight, but I'd have to sit and redo the math, but they could because they're shaving some money off. I mean, they'd get guys I also think there'd be a learning curve of like, fitting Jayen and Brown's game with the point you're going all in on point Yokach, like almost all in depending on who you get in free agency and sort of fitting Jal and Brown into that universe, I think would be a little sticky at times kind of went all in on that anyway, didn't they? Well, the Murray Yokach pick and roll and like Murray is is like a failafe. likeike all right, let's tonight's Jamal' just cooking. You can run that all that stuff with Jay and Brown. It it just feels a little a little different than me to me then and that's maybe that's fine. and you obviously get bigger and there's something kind of fun about like Yokit and a bunch of wings and like tween or forwards just takaking up the entire court with their arms. Right littleittle more flexibility. That was my favorite fake one of all those. Who do you think has a longer meeting about that trade So it's just Murr and Kam Johnson for Jalen and Hauser. That's it Who has a longer meeting about it That trade alone, I think Denver has the longer meaneting because they are They are at some sort of crossroads where they need to figure out We're really good. We fell short. We had a lot of health issues Aaron Gordon again. Um know the two teams that were above us and the tenings are just so goddamn good that and we have this all time great player in the middle of his prime and have has what we do grow in stale? is is it time to make change almost for change sake? Is it time to just sort of risk a little bit of like instability in the way we play just to get our upside up a little bit or is that is that too risky? I don't know. But I think they are at a major crossroads as a franchise I don also to bring back Pyton Watson by the way, which we had we didn't up. But I think that's that's part of that trade, right? that saving ten million makes it way easier to bring him. I mean, just imagine a lineup of Christian Brown, Jayen Brown Peyton Watson, Aaron Gordon and Nicole Yokich like I have no idea how that works on offense other than Yok she answers every question on offense that has ever been posed to him, but that's that's a pretty funky lineup And that would be like five would I would pay a lot of money to watch that Watch them work that out Well, basically, you'd be getting weird which is we're going to talk about Minnesota after the break, but It's the same kind of principle. To me If I'm them, I don't think team I have I can beat OKC in San Antonio and they're fucking pitball guards on both teams And I don't think I can get Jamal Murray through two straight rounds of that plus Minnesota, maybe two with McDaniels and Edwards like I just You could see them wearing down in real time, I thought last year. So that would be the reason. but That would be a weird one for me, because obviously yolkge and curry are my two favoritees uh non Celtics and to have Jayen on a Yokage team and You know, I'm about as pro jailin as you're going to find Um, I he really I thought he was just awesome last year and I love the fact that best quality about him and this is what advanced Analytics isn't going to measure is he really is up for the challenge If somebody else is a good team with a really good player He takes it personally and wants to outplay that person in a game. And it sounds like a really dumb thing to say, but there's just not enough guys in the league that are wired like that you know, where it's like, oh This guy, I've circled this game. I've been dying to go against this team tonight. So anyway, all right We're going take a break and then I'm going to unleash my Lameello trade opinions Yeah wit. The Bill Simmononss podcast is brought to you by Fandel. Fandel making the USA's run even more exciting and it's starting to become a run by the way. Every match, every goal, every step toward the knockout stage. There is more on the line And now new customers can bet just one dollar two hundred and fifty dollars cash If youSA Our team reaches round of sixteen. That's right. that one dollar get two hundred and fifty dollars in cash If USA advances whether you're betting match winners, goal scores, same game parlays Whatever floats your boat. Fandal has you covered. visit fandal. com slash Bs to get started and back USA's run pllus, states are eighteen plus DC, Kentucky, Wyoming restrictions, supplyy terms at sportsbook dot fer dot com d game P problem c one hundred gamer call eight eight, seventy nine sevenenty seven seven seven or visitpG dot org slash chat Cnecticut This episode is brought to you by Micolobe Ultra. We're in the heart The World Cup. Look at these little special bottles for Micola Baltra. Every play matters here. FIFA, World Cup twenty six for you Mistakes are just aside. Mich Lobach are the official beer sponsor of FIFA World Cup twenty six is giving you a chance to win one million dollars worth of tickets and prizes Micolobltra pitch. Four periors worth playing for. Eter now at Miclob Ultra. com slash superior access slash FIFA World Cup two six Micolo Bulttra a F four World Cup twenty six superior access Purchase necessary, open a US Ridence twenty one plus begins on december first, twenty twenty five Es On july thirty first, twenty twenty six multiple entry periods Visit wWW d. miclobulttra. com slash superior access slash FIFA World Cup twenty six for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes, and details One last point I wanted to make in that Jalen trade We didn't have a Houston trade in there because Houston has literally been telling everybody, we want no part of Jalen. We're not interested U That team was a Bravo show last year. How were they How were they drawing the line Jaylen Brown would make us weird. You guys had the weirdest team in the planet. you know what Jaylen Brown would do is actually show up for games and not roll over in a playoff series. anyyway Lello. Okay it's just like settled down.'s the number one were a disaster last year. Educate me. What's the number one Bravo show In your life. What's what's a Bravo show Re housewives. Re houseives So all the real housewives of any variety of that's all Bravo. Everyone's' still spinning off cities. They did Rhode Island I that's if you go to Rich Newport, Rhode Island, there's probably some good stuff going on there Some good accents too. My wife's a big below deck fan Lello trade. You already gave your take. I did Do I'm going to give the cliff notes of your take or do you want to just give your Y forty five second take. I want to hear the Bill Simmons clliff. Let's filter let's filter it through your your pod. It was a very entertaining pod. I listened on a nice little power walk, very hot LA and You were bullished on the trade for for both teams actually. I think's like I think it's like a B for both teams. if I were a trade grade guy that's what I would, that's about what I would do M I'm at A minus or A for Charlotte. I'll go into the reasons in a second. I couldn't believe the trade for Minnesota. I fucking hated it I hated it. I just couldn't believe it. You do this trade, I wrote down some notes You do this trade if you want to become the most beloved NBA team with under twenty five fans who play video games and are online a lot m It's a two K merchandise Jersey selling trade. and I get it You don't want teams to double Anthony Edwards anymore. I feel like I feel like I get it Kind of an important qualifier to I hate the fucking trade I get it on paper Lameello Ball would solve a lot of problems that you had with the Anthony Edwards last year. There's one problem He doesn't fucking play He's played two seasons of the last six. Last year Charlotte Brilliantly Only he played big minutes early, got hurt, came back. I watched a ton of Charlotte last year as you know. They were using him like a race car on Sundays, just driving him slowly around the block He averaged twenty seven point five minutes a game for Mid November onZac. They were really, really careful about not getting him hurt again, almost like they knew they were going to trade him this summer. Fawed midwenties superstar Um, what does that mean Well, just that's how you that's how you're able to get a guy like this for Nz Reed the first round pick and a swap And I get it from the Minnesota side where on paper makes sense. Now they could play Lameello and IO together against these smaller lineups against San Antonio and against OKC, which they didn't have the option to do last year And the only thing I really understand from it is that They built that previous team to be Denver, right? Conll is like, we have to be Denver. What is the team we can put together to beat Denver And now it seems like they've built this new team. to beat O say in San Antonio who are going to have more talent than them. Well how do you beat them? two three point shooters And we can guard with with Io and McDaniels and Goberar hopefully protecting Lameello And we're going to have three point shooting variants with these two guys who in any game can get super hot. I just don't trust Lamo at all. And if you're wrong, and Saving And by the way, Tim Conolly might be leaving too. He's got a year left on his deal. And if I'm Tim Connelly I'm cool making this trade because if it doesn't work out, I'm seeing you guys anyway, I'm going to be out He's got a year left on his deal So this to me feels like a Hil mary trade. Your fans are going to like because LMo is the best player in it. The Charlotte fans are mad because they love LamMelo. LMelo doesn't fucking play. I wrote down He's the least durable good guard of the last twenty five years. Six seasons, nine thousand four hundred minutes, zero playoff games which puts him On this crazy list of guys who have averaged twenty points a game in their first six seasons, but have played less than ten thousand minutes and it's basically just him and John Moran and Zion And that's it He's not reliable He has a I think he has metal in his ankle. Like this is not like, oh, Steph Curry had ankle injuries too. L metal's injuries are way worse than Steph Curry's were And I just wouldn't have bet on it. I thought this was a crazy trade Okay I mean, that's it. That's why I've landed. Well, and I landed there right away. Um All that like all the availability stuff is a thousand percent. Fair game. Also, u Something I probably should have mentioned more when I when I reacted the other day was there is this sort of like drip, drip, drip trickle down effect of Minnesota transactions kind of chasing their own tail a little bit. simimilar to how Dallas had to chase its own tail when like all right, we we left J and Brnt We let J and Brunntso. We got to trade for Kaaire, the Grant Williamson blew up on our face We got to trade him and a pick to replace him with There's like a little element of that of like we gotics. We traded everything for Gobert We're a little asset poor Yeah, we're now we're really expensive. We're probably going to have to trade towns. We trade towns. Okay, that didn't really work. Now we have to do something else. So there's a little bit of element of like chasing their tail a bit I get I get all of the the concerns. I guess my If you're worried about Anthony Edwards happiness level Um I guess my question would be what you just hold for something else down the line and go and do do not make the Randall trade? Like what what do you do if you're Bill Simmons Timberves GM Well the rando trade, they clear was clearly a money dump, right And you could say it was a two part trade, but and it opened the door for Lameelo. But I also think they just wanted to get away from Randall and not not pay this crazy luxury tax thing. I have real questions about them spending a ton of money in general I mean, they're spending right now. The payroll is going to be high. I think they're going to add. I think they're also not done. I think that's important to say. They're not done rounding out the team for next year But the town's trade was that financial trade period. Yeah That was it That was we got to get off some of this money and do it. and it turned out to be a really crazy trade. They have I think eleven million to spend on four guys They don't have their own first, control their own first for seven years What did you think of that IO contract was the other one that I was kind of shocked by fiveive years, one hundred and twelve million? What What's going on there? What do you I mean that's what I like them, but Kobe White got the same annual actually a little more an less years, but same annualite got three for seventy four. Yeah, less years twenty five a year. I was like twenty two and a half a year I've just watch five years though Well the ye, I mean, this like don't you want So you can't win with these contracts, right? Like if they're too short, you're like, oh man, we only got that guy and he's going to be extension eligible this and that. And now it's this one's too long for you. The guy How old is Io I just if I had told I know I like him too and I thought he was really good in the playoffs. If I had told you in February when he got traded for a second round pick that he was going to sign for a five year one hundred twelve million dollars deal in the second apron thing. I just would have been surprised by it. He's twenty six years old. I You can't win. Like if it's a two or three year do you want a three year deal? just right down the middle? That's it. That's the perfect length I just thought it was interesting. He they properly maybe even splurged a little on Io, but they've been cutting corners with some of these other stuff. And you know, Randall was a guy who made Well second team on in BAs And the reason that he went sideways after the Allar break because they fucking try to trade him right for the trade deadline for Yianas and the other never the same after that. The other drip drip drip thing I neglected to mention in the drip, drip drip of assets is the Dillingham pick not working out was a big, a big R. Well at least that turn in Ia. right Like but they had to get they had to throw picks and all their they're chasing Not just mistakes, because I don't know if the Rudy trade can be classified as a mistake anywhere, but they're chasing They're just it's like a it's like a bet that is losing and keeps chasing and keeps spending the It's like a ponzi scheme blackjack thing First of all, they missed their title window. They were a conference finals team twice in a row and the West was weaker and they had a real chance and they couldn't get there and you go back to that Dallas series I think was really probably their best chance when you think about that matchup, and they couldn't beat them U I didn't mention this in my Lameello case. or anti LameMello trade case. And I really liked watching Lameello last year and I enjoyed the hell out of the hornets We have Zero repeat zero evidence that Lamelo Bal can hold up for one playoff series withith the swoopside Q or the physicality of a playoff series, much less for what Minnesota is trying to do with a trade like this. win four playoff rounds or at least three to get to the finals We've never seen him play at the level of the playoffs we just watched with the physicality of the teams that we watched and basketball is like, you're going to need this is like the Wby conversation If this is your second best player, sorry, buddy. you can't play twenty seven point five minutes each game, you know, in a series. like We're need you for thirty seven now and it's going to be really physical and you're going to get bang down. you're get knocked in the basket sport. You can't take the thirty footer with thir with thirty seconds left in the game down one you know, twenty seconds left in the shot clock, like You have to become a smarter, better player. I thought he made a lot of strides last year. But that Miami playing game was a roller coaster M think of how nuts we went after that game. then The next game they got blown out, but I just We have no evidence that this is a guy who could handle a playoffs series against San Antonio Oro. But this is exactly why the were a trade. E exactly what I said on my show is like they just the physicality, toughness, all that stuff you just said Plus I do and I said this too, I do think theirir record in the play in tournament It's only been four games and three of them have been like absolutely disastrous blowout losses. And in the Miami one, he did have thirty points but I think he shot twelve of thirty one. Also fair to note like he's a rookie, but Con was a disaster down the stretch of the season and including was hurt though. I mean, Con hurt his back. He wasn't in the same though I the playff. Don't you talk about my son that way. Wh I was going to say, I don't know what would happen if he was hurt though. I don't know like Hugo Hugo Hugo versus Khan is becoming like the battle for your heart is is getting a little it's getting it's they both have They both have some work to do to prove themselves to you. Listen. I love them like I love both my children. We don't pick. When you when you have two kids, you just support. And So it's an easy out for you because when the horn is play the Celtics, when one team plays the other, you're going to cheer for the Celtics because that's your team. Like we need Hugo going to get traded for another team. That's the true test whogo in the bus of who of who you love your real love goes to, but that's exactly why the hornets, I think trade. I think it boy. you can make the case about picks and salaries and all this stuff I think it really just boiled down to We watch the playoffs and we just don't think he can hang at that level. And that Th those are all fair Those are all you tm physically or physically two guys. I think sixteen playoff games in this guy. I think you can get over the IQ stuff because like you said, I think it trended well last year. I think being the second the clear second best guy on a team is going to really kind of force him to recalibrate some of the ways he plays. Um But I think it's more of the physicality stuff. And I think that's a completely fair bet for Charlotte I think when you combine this trade with the bridges trade that happened today that we're going to talk about, I think Charlotte has come out looking awesome to like put those together. great work by the hornets who continue to just kill it under their new regime U For for Minnesota, I would just can I would just ask again What are what what path I mean, according to John Krzinski, they tried to get jail in Brown and they couldn't get you know, like this package was not going to get them jail in Brown So Do you're trying to compete with San Antonio, Oklahoma City You're on the clock with Anthony Edwards The status quo is not acceptable Right? Like that's that like we Clearly they didn't think You're lay out you're laying out al the loic for some of the worst big NBA trades we've had over the last forty years. I like, Well, we got to do something. I I don'tuff in LMelo Ball. I don't disagree. F first of all, I think LMoo Ball, I think a lot of this has to do with what your prior is on Lamoiball. and you and I have disagreed about Lamo Ball for like five years. I just think he's better than you think he is I've always thought he's been better yourability, though That's fine. I like when guys play. like it's one of my weird things. I' weird in the M on of basketball. It's not weir But you got to do I guess you're saying just do nothing and just figure it out later, which is a completely like logical way to go about it. I think the wolves had concluded that that wasn't an option for them The I think they're going to be good. I think this is going to work and I think they're going to be good. If your bar is, well, can they beat San Antonio four times out of seven or Oklahoma City four times out of seven. It's a pretty tough bar to hit. you know, I just, but I think offensively this is That's my bar for the for all the trades they made because I felt like last year one of the reasons They didn't look better in the playoffs was they had a bunch of injuries at a bad time. Well theyward h in the playoffs. I was gotot her during the playoffs and De Francenzo got her during the playoffs. Like to me This feels like an overreaction to all that. And so the thatat I had before First six seasons less than ten K minutes. just guys who average eighteen points a game Basically merger on It's Jh Lomeello, Zion and Clark Kellogg That's it. Those are all the guys in the last like forty five years. He turns twenty five in August And if you're trying to make the case for Minnesota You would say, look, we've seen a lot of success with immature, injury prone. ed guys in the first like five, six years of their career who went to a different team put it together And I think there's going to be nights with this team And I'm sure the Minnesota fans will be on high alert and even people I have in my life like Nate Tice, who like Minnesota. There's going to be nights when they're on TV on a on Thursday night And they're playing somebody awesome and Lameelo hits eight threeres and Aunt hits nine and they beat somebody by eighteen and they look awesome and they're doing like chest bumps and All kinds of stuff from in court. P peopleople Oh how's that Lill lookade now? I'm just telling you And there's going talk to me in April and May There's going be Will Simmons poo pooing it No man Just wait real April in May I don't care what happens October through March. I just don't. Here's the real question with Minnesota. I don't People think this question has been answered because They made two straight conference finals and been such a woey gone franchise for so long between Garnet and those two conference finals. People think the question has been answered definitively as a yes They should have made the Rudy G Beer trade If you just reeverse time. If you if you assume that the G Bear acquisition is why they ultimately had to dump towns And we all said when they traded for Rudig Go Bear, Town's deal looks inevitable because of the financial realities and the fact that he's a center and all this. L we all said it at the time. L as soon as that trade happened, even before it happened, I remember saying, if they do this The towns trade is the next domino that will come eventually Did they give up on Ant plus towns? too early by making the gober trade. I think is still kind of an open question because it not only robbed you of a lot of assets. I think they over they clearly overpaid for Gobert. like it it both got them team success to a point that people have already stopped questioning whether they should have made the trade or not and that's okay But they clearly overpaid either way And it forced their hand on Kat. And we just didn't get to see all that much of like Anthony Edwards plus Carl, Anthony Towns is the foundation of a team. I think it's just an interesting question I hated the Go Bar trade as much as any trade I've ever ever that's been made They made two conference finals with it I don't know if I was wrong I think I the finals. That's the I gave up too much. but that's the thing. I don't know if you were wrong. And like I was on TV that moment and I I said on ESPN I am in disbelief at how much they gave up for Rudy Gubert. and I was as puzzled as you were. I maybe didn't hate it, hateated as much as you did And I'm not even sure you were wrong despite the conference. I guess you are wrong because of the conference finals, but like this this all of this starts with that trade With all that said about the Blameello trade, I never would have done it. I would have thrown my body in front of it I'm really excited to watch them this show. I think they'll be really fun Well but that's the problem. They'll be really fun as a regular season team and I don't think as constructed I think they've reduced their ods to win three straight playoff rounds in the West I don't think they have the same odds. They added variants, but I don't think they went the durability and I just don't trust the How high doesn't it scare you that Charlotte's like Of course. Yeah, we're good Yeah, take them He's not even on a max. He's at forty three million in Charlotte Charlotte By the way, just could have brought back Kobe White and tried to do what they did last year and they're like, we're good We're going to move on now U It was a classic sell and high There was something else I wanted to ask you and now I forgot what it was I'm sorry about no about d trade. By the way, the other thing with this trade that I thought was interesting that everybody missed Josh Green was just shoved in this trade. I mean, he's like fifteen million year. He was irrevant for the hornets. I was was I was listening in the trade. I was listening to one pod where they were like, Oh, this is a great like, you know, they that Josh Green, you know, Minnesota got a lot of depth in this. That was a good get. But they like good get. This was like a must. You have to take him. That was like Charlotte like we if you're doing this, you're taking this. Oh, that's what I was going to ask you is Let's let's try to just put this trade in a vacuum I know that's not possible, but like in a vacuum boat with Timberwolves history And like C ramifications and all that Do you think Lameello for Nas Read One unprotected pick and a a few swaps that may not even like it's unclear if they're going Is that actually too high of a price for Lamello ball likeike is that that much that you're giving up if you're Minnesota? A sixix man of the year who is now going to start is a good player has some defensive issues someome swaps that may or may not be anything. a really good pick and some seconds. Is that actually that high of a price Think about where we were in September, October when we' were talking about Lomeelo, Ja and Trey Young all together. When I was the one saying LomeMello has the most value of the three and it's not cle. We had this conversation. I thought it was a little closer than you did, but I thought those were the three and it seemed like he had the best chance to be redeemed and maybe traded instead of given away Tan was given away John Morant not only can't be given away That's that's the other subpline is like You're going to have to add a pick to get rid of him. Lameello, they rehabilitated his trade value U ennough to where they got. I thought You know, I think you would have taken that in September. evenven if it would have made the fans manad, it's like, look, we don't know if this dud's ever going to play. They were to get two thousand minutes out of them and they werere able to trade him. My only point is if you isolate the trade, which you can't, I get that. But ye I don't think they like overpaid for Lameella Ball to some crazy level. I think it's like a fair But you have to throw the rando into it Yeah. Randal has to be part of the trade. They traded Randall Nos Read And I guess that's fair. The pick in the swap for Josh Green and Lameello is the traade And that's I don't know. I feel bad for the Minnesota fans. They haven't won a title since nineteen ninety one. And Lameello is this is going to be a very seductive combo. I'm telling you, there's going to be nights where you're like, holy shit Ant and Lameello had twenty threees combined. This has never happened in the history. There's going to be nights. They're going to be really fun together Um we'll see, we'll see how long he can play from a Charlotte side And they did another trade today. they So they traded mouse Bridges for Grace and Allen and Royce O'Neill and won that trade They won that trade just with the three players in it Miles Bridges for Grays and Allen and Royisa Neil. I've won the trade No, how about this I'll throw in the worst of my twenty twenty nine swap Youll get the less favorable version of that And you give me your unprotected first and thirty three And Phoenix is like That sounds great Let's do it. What a fucking terrible trade by them That was why I mean, I just depicts explain it to me. I mean Do I have to? A are you making me do that How can nobody how about top? I guess you can't put protections on the ps anymore, but I checked. I checked I was like I texted lots of people. I was like, no protection on it, N anything. top, nothing, top, okay year of Miles Bridg. He's a free So here's the. it's not going to be a year of Miles Bridges. You know that. They're going to resign Miles Brides and you have to price that into the trade as well. and that could make your evaluation of it. Bill Simmons even worse depending on what the number is and they're probably going to extend Dyan Brooks to and all of a sudden, this teams going to be pretty expensive I don't want to explain the trade to you. I don't like a trade for Phoenix They did it because they didn't have a real power forward. They got one now. They did it probably because Miles Bridges is a Michigan state guy Great. Cgratulations and they did it because they saved money. They save money this year and they get twenty nine million dollars of Grace Now plus Roy Soo, who they view as just sort of fungible whatever seventh guys off the books and they get a start where he's good He's going to start Andign those guys just out curiosity U The sunons signed both. Oh, so the sons now have to get off the money that they gave to these guys. If I was a Suns fan, I'd be losing my mind. I How did you give these contracts? made me be ish be a spokesperson. You assigned me the fucking job. So let me do it without interruption. So I tried my best to do it. I don't like the trade. I think it's an awesome trade for Charlotte who loses Lamelo ball, right? So they lose like the the high wage start a guy that I think should have gotten all NBA consideration this year like third team all NBA. He was in the mix for that. They lose they don't get back a player in Kobe white read res signing Plus Grace now and plus Roy O'eil. that's anywhere near as good as L Mella ball. But Kobe Whiteess good and is a viable starter. I think they lose some play making and passing. they're going to have to make up. But what they have now is so much depth If those guys are all healthy that they don't have to speed up Steinbach. They don't have to speed up Christian Anderson, but those guys maybe already. They have like a lot of good players on this team And in the regular season, that's really important and just sort of getting through the season and they kick the pickout they owe to twenty twenty nine. So they're not under a huge amount of pressure and it's a swap thing anyway So it's not like a huge They have the best collection of picks probably in the eastern confonerence now. And Phoenix that unprotected twenty thirty three. I get what they're doing. What they're doing is we're exchanging a future pick for a now pick because we've traded all of our now picks our near window picks for Durant and we need we need to be able to do stuff in this period of time when Devin Booker is approaching thirty or whatever he is That twenty thirty three pick just like the twenty thirty one Sns pick that Memphis, I believe has or there's bucks picks that Portland has that it's like, oh, that's nine years from now. What do we care? And then it's like, oh that now they're coming. Ipant to state, we don't know what the rules are going to be in terms of trading draft picks and lotteryuff But but those picks are going to be extremely valuable trade ships I don' It's not like Phoenix has any roadmap to being a title contender in the next three or four years. So I don't Well, I have a follow up idea for them that you're going to do the thing where you Speak for a minute U But Charlotte's picks So they have the twenty seven Dallas first top two protected next two They have a Miami pick that's going to be unprotected in twenty eight They can swap with Minnesota in twenty eight. They have a bunch of swap stuff. U and they have unprotected Minnesota Charlotte in twenty thirty three. onn top of a shitload of flexibility that they have now because Zach Low they traded Lameello, Green and Bridges, seventy eight million dollars Turned that into Nas, O'Neill and Grace now and fifty two million. and they also have a forty one million dollars trade exception with all these picks They have their mid level still U From some of the reporting, it seems like Kobe White was not a slam dunk to come back as like a third guard and when they traded Lomeello all of a sudden that Kobe Whitee was done. They're going to have O'Neil who can play three four. They're going to have Naz who can play three four five really Uh Graysason Allen coming off the bench as yet another shooter. and by the way, where did Graysason Allen go to colle, Zack Where did you go to college? The team I always cheer against in a tournament, I think Duke University located in North Carolina. and where did Kobe White go to college? Wh did Rick North Carolina? Where did Rich Sneall go to college And So they have coming off the bench. Allan N Anderson, if he's good, Culk Brenner signeinback A year at Grant Williams. D. I'm so impressed by I've been saying this for two years. I've been so impressed. Every move they've made, I'm like, another good one. up, like that. Great one there Is this the team you would want to be in the East now for the next seven years over everybody else? next two next seven seven years. I get my pick. of teams Just for how they're loaded locked and loaded right now. I like mer and I like the city too I like the larness. Okay, so let's can I give you some candidates? Yeah. By the way, I didn't prep you for this because I wanted to see your agonized reaction. No, this is great because I'd love to imagine like this is like a like where would I want to work Off the top Charlotte is definitely maybe number one If I trusted the Rhindorfs at all, the bulls with Caleb Wilson and Swayain are like now kind of interesting And like if I were the person that's and Bzeous I could like save the bulls like what a legend I would be and how fun Chicago is and all that, but you know, I don't trust the owners And they don't have that same level of assets and you have owners that aren't going to ever spend. The wizards, despite getting De Bana and having all this stuff they're just so the wizards. I can't put them above these teams. Their uniforms stink. The arena is dead. I can't I can't do it. T Ting for four years. I'll tell you, I'll tell you two cities I a city I like, I mean, if you give me seven years Seven years I'm saying seven years of assets, players you have now, chance to win a title. You got to factor all it in I just like Philly a lot. I like the city of Philly a lot. Seven years let's me ride out the Mbed things So you have J VJ Maxi. I'm going to have expirings with Ibed in Georgia here I have a fan base that the moment anything goes wrong, I'm going to be blamed and tortured Yeah. It's weird thatlanta is a good one. It's weird that you've mentioned teams and didn't mention Boston, which I think speaks to maybe where. Well I'm just seven years. I'm just going fun. I want some warm weather too. So Atlanta's a good one Um I want good weather It's clearly Charlotte Charlotte flipped us around. They were the worst run team in the league or in the top three year after year for fifteen straight years L time to ever w a playoff series and like a entire time I've known you. and now One of the things I like about this is You know, I think there's a lot of reasons they probably I don't have inside sources with Charlotte. Like I'm sure there's a lot of reasons why you would be like it's time to move on from Lameello. I guess one of the main reasons would be we What we saw from Miller and what we saw from Kon as a rookie, which is the worst he's ever going to be Is there more there from a ball handling play making? Can we run more of the offense? Can we have more movement Um, can we be more unpredictable? Can we just have like a twelve man team? Can we Can we start to look a little Okayish without the shade piece of it And we have shooting interchangeable guys and then You guys, I was really glad Krzinsky talked about this on the pod. I thought he was excellent that you did on Thursday Um talalking about Nas Reed, what a fucking great guy he is. I mean Other than KG, the most beloved and I guess an probablyrobably a top three most beloved timimber wolf ever Um, Unbelievable behind the scenes guy. Uh selfless like was one of the like really could have torpedoed or allow what happened with them in the last couple of years and just didn't And I'm just a huge fan. We know what he looks like in the playoffs Um I just think team needed more adults and less kids and they feel like they haveve now flipped that with Kobe and with Nas and I'm sure there's another vet coming, but I really like where they're sitting They have the hornets are in an unbelievable position and it's not like we, I don't think you're missing anything about why they did this trade in the myriad of factors, including faith and Miller and Kan to level up even a little bit I think part of it is also like U We're not We're not going to get carried away with what happened in the last three months of last season. right We're not going to push all in for twenty six, twenty seven. We're actually willing if we do end up taking a small step back We're actually willing to do that and we're fine with that. And you know, if we do miss the playoffs or something like that, like the new lottery rules are pretty good for us in a lot of different ways. And so We're not going to accelerate for For short term gain, we're okay with that. if we think it's the right move And we sold high in a guy that might never play two thousand minutes again for all we know in Lameello It's a big one Fandu only has reggular season win ods for two teams, just by the way Interesting. fififty plus wins for Minnesota's plus one hundred eight So that means they think they're right on the fifty win level forty five plus for Miami is minus two ten and fifty plus is Plus one hundred forty, which means they think Miami is probably in the forty six, forty seven range Um The more I think about that trade for Miami, Have you really like just spent five minutes in your brain thinking about an offense with Janis and Bam or where they go? Yeah. J just the geometry of whereere they going to be every possession Yes, of course. That I did a whole podcast. did I said I know you did a podcast. I said come with an actual answer. The number one reason that I'm skeptical that this is a championship contender. Now we got to see how they round out the we don't know anything, right? We don't know Powell. We don't know Wiggins, We don't know like we're going to learn all about what their team like By the way, Powell, I think they started cutting his minutes as We got closer to the playoffs and in the playoffs. I think he's out. Well, I mean, that was a Powell hero. We have no faith that we can defend with those two guys on the floor together thing. But I mean, it's going to be very hard for them to make a competitive offer to Nan Powell. I would also bet on him being elsewhere at the beginning of the season. But we my point is we don't know what the teams going like. but the number one reason I said, I'm skeptical that they can build an actual contender out of this like a true blue finals championship contender is I just think at heart Bam and Janis are too duplicative on offense. And I know that that sounds crazy because Janis is this bulldozer to the rim and Bam shot seven threes a againame last year and all that their best. they are still guys who want to operate in the middle of the floor. That's what they do. They do it differently stylistically, but that's where they want to live And despite Bam taking a ton of threes and all that, that's where they really should live. likeike I don't think any Bam's got to get much better as a three point shooter for defenses to treat him Like he's a real threat out there. and even so I don't see that. I'm just like, do you want Bam out of? he's not Carl Anthonyowns like I want Carl Anthy toowns shooting ten threes a game. He's thatad good of a shooter want an interior bruiser like that. Wh's just an okay shooter shooting eight to ten threerees a game. I'm not sure that I want that. And so it reminds me a little when Houston tried to make it work with Hakim and Barcleay in the late nineties You know it worked somewhat and they did make the Western finals, but Barkley had to move out and Barkley had to shoot more threes and he was never a good three point shooter. And it just I always thought was clumsy. and then remember they had Pippin that one year and then it was like, oh my go. And like to be clear, I think Miami is going to be really good. I think defensively they have a chance to be special. I think the East is is going to be very interesting, but also very deep next year I just win the finals and that's the goal when you make a trade like this, I just it's going to be really hard. And that's before you get into the Jonest who seems to be injured at the end of every season for five of the last six seasons I do not think Miami is going to be very good I mean I think I think I'll be fine. I think they'll be like between forty three and forty seven wins depending on how much you expl. Again, the price is palatable and you just have to You know, there's three paths. There's the status quo, which clearly wasn't going anywhere. There's this path, which may go in any number of directions. And then there's the what if we use all these assets on someone else path and I just don't know if they saw path anywhere else down the line. and in the meantime, I don't know what the upside was. So I get it I'll tell you if I was eight years old, I definitely would have made the trade U D B back to Phoenix for a second. Sure John Morant for Jayalen Green. What else do you want me to throw in if I'm ememphis Okay. All right. I mean, now we've reached a point where is it an unprotected pick So have a lot of picks. Memphis gets jail and green. Straight up. this is a one for one who has thirty six this year and a player option for thirty six the next year Yeah And I get off of a rant And I have to throw in a first an unprotected first I'm asking what I need to throw in. because I have better picks than that. I could give you Best of Minnesota, Cleveland or Utah in twenty seven I I could give you my Orlando first in twenty eight or thirty. you tell me what you want. Let me flip it around. Why is Phoenix doing that because they can get an extra pick And they roll the dice with John Morant for a year and hope change the scenery. Devin Booker Um, A really good fan base. And Maybe we, you know, hereere's myere's my job for job basically. Here's my answer if I'm Memphis. I'm throwing in nothing That's my offer It's John Mrant for Joen and Green. I'd probably do that just to clean the slate and I get an interesting prospect to not even a prospect, interesting young player to take a shot on a player who is not Re covered himself you're doing the Michael Corleone, my offer is nothing. Yeah, my offer is Jamar in You either want them or we don't make a deal. because if they have the equivalent contract, I feel like Um, they're like equally sort of unknown in different ways as just assets going forward or whatever. Like Joh Morand has obviously reached a level in the NBA that's well above anything Jail and Green has done, but he's older and has a whole boatload of issues that come with him Um But like they have their contracts are the same length and John makes eight million dollars more a year, whatever. Like I don't like I'm not I'm not interested in I'm not that psyched about exchanging him for Jail and Green, even if it's completely toxic with him on the team. then I'm throwing you any good draft assets. So you get nothing. That's deal with that. You either want John Maran or you don't Do you like the idea of Joh Morant, Devin Booker Miles brridges. No there centers and a couple other swings inards. Let's just how about Phoenix? just chill. like feel good season. you brought back all your key role players who everybody fell in love with Cong Gesy and Jordan goodood. Let's just take a take a beat now. Okaykay. takeake a break. Controversial transaction today on a bunch of different levels Let's chill out. No more team sparty. Like let's just chill I would do it if I could get a real good pickback from Memphis. You're not getting one for me if I' Zach Clemment. I'm hanging up the ph Sorry cllimbing boozer. Toward I'm happy I this is what I'm saying. Ohm happy I hadn't talked about this on the pot either. you already did, but they got beef stew They're just back, baby. What do we We had great and grind, grizzlies What do we have what is this version of the Chz? They didn't nickname Verno, come up with the nickname for these guys. It's not you can't do grit and grind again. It's got to be something else It's like the don't fuck with us, grizzies. My favorite moment of There's like three men in a front line. My favorite moment of your draft recap podcast with Groggy House and draft beatnick Jay Kyle Man. just a great odd couple of guests. Yeah. My favorite moment was it pivoted from house saying something housey to like about Camboozer and the pick and and to Kyle Man being like listing off the players Cambooer was going to help make better in Memphis like guys, I think he's really going to like Camp Spencer and Campboo are going to have a good good chemistry gamp.ike weve camp Spencer like's and it's going to be a big winner. I think I transitioned from all the foods that you had ordered and how you were trying to keep house awake by mentioning food to J Oh man, hard pivoted into camp Spencer and I was gonna fit. And everybody woke up I mean, I woke up. I was like, wow we ordered a pizza too. That's a big night Joh Maran is a no go for you if you're any of the other twenty nine teams at this point. I don't think they have anything for Joh Maran right now I mean, who's the team, right? Like you go through the list of teams that need point cards. Toronto wasnt on Lameelo. I don't sense that they're an on John Morant. Minnesota made its move. I don't mean Sacramento just drafted a point card. I don't think they need to be in the business. If you're Minnesota, would you rather Now actually, I would rather done the meello Just Nas read for Joh Marant, basically. I mean, I think Eemphis would have been thrilled to do that. although Mphis have been delighted. I think they would have thrown a pick for that. All right, beforefore we go, a couple of quick things. sure June twenty eighth What happens with Lebron I wish I had a h goodood answer for you. I don't I don't know. I really don't. I'm surprised how many people in my life have asked me what I thought was gonna to happen with him. And that realize like he's J James I just there's these giant chess pieces Either, you know, there's Kawi Mica traded, Jayalen Brown, Jamal Murray, Detroit has all this cap sped. There are all these things as we head toward Any first Anthony David, we You and I think out of all these ones, Anthony Davis is that would be my bet bet my life. You hate when I bet my life. I don't know I would bet my life on the day on the AD trade this summer over all the other famous m. The only thing the only time I ever said that phrase out loud about sports. was when Croatia was in a penalty kick game in the last World Cup and Luca Modrich walked up and said, I would bet my life on Lua Modrich, baby. I bet he made it, of course Um So I have said Golden State for three months. You're sicking with it I'm sticking with it. I'm sticking with the expendables that includes Anthony Davis, which I guess that would have to be Butler in the twenty twenty seven first or I don't even know what it needs. I'm sure Washingon has to get some pickback Um Have we bought house in Anthony Davis Wizards Jersey Like we got to pull some money and get them one House is treating Anthony Davis like he's in like when somebody steps into the White House because the president got pushed out or died or impeached or something. and it' somebody like Jerald Ford Jerd Ford. Anthony Davis is Jerald Ford for house. He's just here for a year. He's going to do a job. Anthony Davis is inexplicably Whington. He's not staying and 're going to turn them into a pant hopefully. What's going to be more fondly remembered in the Anthony Davis era in Washington and all the great fashion the Dallas or the one and a half quarters that he played in his Dallas debut were the back Chamber. why This is why we did't trade. This is it. Will Chamberlain for forty minutes for like a Super Bowl weekend. They clung to those like remember those two quarters. That was division That was crazy. So I would say goolden state. wonder if the clippers who have both cap space and flexibility in a bunch of different ways to add him I just don't know if LeBron James would ever play for the Cippers. Now he did He did go to Miami, that was a surprise. He did go back to Cleveland and Dan Gilbert. that was a surprise He went to the Lakers, which was Kobe Brian's team. when he went over there and and Kinda, by the way, still is. Um So I I rule him out going anywhere Ruppper solved the most issues for him for get stay in LA. a lot of golf courses, doesn't have to leave his house Golden state's a fifty minute flight from her Um, and Golden State, as you know, is famamously Lack of daaysical about making sure guys are around all the time. So if LeBron wanted to kind of come in and out, I think he'd be able to But this in terms of living in San Francisco, you mean like that's like after the guy shows up five hours before every game and it you he' every I'm not I'm just saying like after a home game at night. I'm going to fly back to LA. I'll be back tomorrow. Okay, Leron, we'll see tomorrow.ike it's one of those twoams. There's flexibility built in with the vets. Okay. Question for me because the most fun team for him to go to is San Antonio How This is where Eduardo right now is like Ding ding, ding, ding, here's my social clip U It's inar Uh San Antonio, he solves actual issues for him for them and could actually win the title with them Would it be perceived as a ring chase or not to you Well, also, and I think this is important visa via the cllippers discussion It's a franchise that is dignified and I think befits LeBron's perception rightfully so of himself and the kind of teams and franchises he should be on. Um Yeah, you could sell that really fast like Pops there, I've had a long relationship with him. This team's close. I could be the missing piece. I watch them in the finals for five games They were missing that one veteran leader And by the way, it could be a trade where it's like cornette And Keldon Johnson's expiring and then you could figure out how to pay LeBron thirty million a year for two years. But do you think it would be perceived as a ring chase or not I think he's forty one and a half years old and anything he does in the direction of a ring is going to be accepted as like pretty crazy that guy is still a good player in the NBA. if he wants to chase another ring and have a new adventure, That's fine. I don't think this is not not to go back, but this is not a twenty nine year old superstar signing with a seventy three win team. I just think if that's what it is and that's what he wants to do, I don't think anyone begrudges him and people get more into like, o, how's that going to work? That's kind of exciting Zachlo We are in one hundred percent agreents. Oh, we are Yeah, I think If I was if I was like his conciliary, I would I would walk through San Antonio and Golden State Denver is interesting too, but I actually don't think that cements anything. D watching Joker would be amazing. They flirted with. I mean, you know, Denver has been interested in him before. They tried to get him in for a free agent meeting at one point, I think or something like that. I can't remember exactly. But the money doesn't work. with San Antonio works because they actually have flexibility They actually could pay him is the thing we always Forget with these guys. They're not taking a pay cut. He's not going to go work for point two million dollars veteran minimum expension. You like this is why Kobe signed up for forty and forty the last two years. Like these guys They want to be compensated. They go to a franchise like they're going to sell Lerone Spurs jerseys I really like the idea of him on that team and I wouldn't consider it a ring chase because if I'm him, I want to keep playing. I'm still really good. This Lakers thing is fizzled out. It's they obviously don't want him to come back. it's's You know, it's it's been an uneasy dance for six months. They want to turn the team over to Luca And San Antonioount of needs him If he hadd been in that Nick series I think they would have won All right, I'm not prepared to go reimagine the whole finals that we just had with LeBron James as a sppur. That's a bridge too far this at this hour for me. It the next one in five games and I'm give him all the Kevin Johnson Louke Cordette minutes. He's out there in crunch time. You can't just let the Nick be happy. We We're already. All due respect to. I'm doing a hypothetical alternate universe. I'm just saying if they had LeBron last year, that was kind of what they werere missing because I don't think Fox plays at that point. I think LeBron is in the Fx spot and I think Better decisions are made There were several poor decisions. Would he want to live in San Antonio? I don't know. The Golden State case would be You and Curry ride out in the sunset together. The team is just, especially if they got Davis to, the team is just good enough that it's kind of fun You're going to sell out everywhere. This will be like When the Eagles had their reunion tour in nineteen ninety five. It's the Health freezes overver tour. It's just every place you go, it's going to be the biggest thing that happened in that city in a long time from a basketball standpoint, really since the the Curry Warriors in the mid two ten s. Uness it's a back to back on the road Cful. Yeah true I forgot about that part Maybe mayaybe Cry in the mine just alternate, but All right, so so pick Where do you want to see him go make a pick Where do I want tona see him go? Yeah, whereere do you want to him go? Basketball fan Zach Loe. I think I think I think Golden Sate is the most fun. I think that him and Curry together is the most I've transitioned from it feels like sacrilegious to see them go from like sometimes bitter rivals during those four finals. like no got there was likeon' bitter. Yeah to what we saw with Team USA in the last two games at the twenty four Olympics to let let's just have some fun and we're probably not going to win, but it's going to be fun. Like I think that'd be That'd be the most fun The two times I've been the most shocked sitting in my seat for a basketball game when Bird and doctor Jay got in the fight I was there I still can't believe that happened. And then twenty eighteen in I think it was the OT a game one, the J.R Smith game Bron and Curry got really mad at each other And there was like a split second where it felt like they might actually into something and just watching it was like, oh my Lebron was so mad He was so mad about the Jair Smith play He was so mad. he had just played the best game probably of his life and they were going to lose. and he like hardfouled Steph or did something and Steph got really bad Oh yeah, was good. I think all camera angles have been destroyed. What I do remember is in the sixteen finals in one of the Cleveland games and I want to say it was game six Um, He has a block on Cry at the rim And it's emphatic and he kind of poses a little bit over it afterwards, not like directly over him, but kind of makes it makes a show out of it, makes a meal out of it. And I remember thinking like that felt like a Yeah'm I'm the best fucking guy. I'm bigger than you. I'm stronger than you and this has been cool and you might still win this series, but remember, I'm the best fucking guy whichich is also what he did in twenty eighteen in that first game. He just physically overpowered them like shack in the finals. so it was nuts U All right, so you're We're both sayangol in state. I would like the San Antonio thing though. That'd be fun. And by the way, if he went to Denver, I would talk myself into that in two seconds. Hard not to If they did the Jalen trade we mentioned earlier and then they're like, oh, and our new point card is forty one year old LeBron James. We're just going to try to figure it out the fly. What is your craziest prediction for the week before we go Craziest prediction for the week I don't I don't have a but like I'll go like What's is there going to be something this week that makes you go whoa. Well it's too late fori a Kawai trade, right? Like that's already been murmured about enough that that wouldn't be like, Oh my God. Kawai got traded unbelievable I will say Coola why going to Toronto would get that reaction from me I'm going to say Denver is going to do something big and I don't know what it is, but I'll say a Denver moves that leaves people like, wow That's what they did. I'll say that I was going to say I was going to say Imagine if the Sixers found a trade for himbed, but I just don't don't I don't think it's possible I'm going to I have Detroit as my wow team. I think they're up to stuff. goodood wow team. The Stewart trade was really suspicious I didn't really understand it Um, it felt like they were clearing some cap. but then they Also got Isaiah Joe. So that On cleared half to cat mayaybe there wass more to that story just feels like I think they should takeen a swing last February and they didn't and now And now they're probably well. be my guess. And then then Lebrono and somewhere weird would be the other. The other wow thing. If it wasn't Golden State or some of the other teams we mentioned Would be like, wow,' He's going to Cleveland on the minimum. Can they even sign him to the minimum? Utah is a veteran mentor What That would be now that would get a big wow. My other wow would be Jalen Brown just not getting traded, which I actually think wouldn't get a wow because I think it's conceivable he doesn't That's done They're just like We've seen them put the toothpaste back in the tube in the NBA a lot of times This is done, it's over. It's like All right, let's we But we had dinner and things are better This is like this is like you go and buy like a Costco case of like eight tubes of toothpaste and you step on all of them and it's all over your bathroom and all the tubes are out. it's a lot of toothpaste When's the next Croatia game I believe Thursday versus Portugal. Wow. Yeah we got got We got a bad draw. We got a bad and the winner likely plays Spain. This is the opposite of the draw. Croatia got to counter. I don't think he got that bad of a draw. Portugal is is is tied to the bitter end to to an aging star. We've seen how this goes I think's good for you guys. Winner get Spain is tough. That's tough. But Croatia had a very good draw two World Cups too when we got to the finals. like the bracket broke exactly right. So like, you know, what goes around comes around I think you should do pods Monday, Wednesday and you have to go the game because you're two and know this year. I don't know. It's in Toronto. It's not like it's in no, but's going to be free agencies is going to be going hot and heavy. You're encouraging me to do this to skip out on day two on Wednesday of NBA Wednesday You got to go the game. You can't is once every four years. I've already been to two man. It's more two more World Cup games than I ever thought I would go to. So you got to go. I think you should go. All right I would my wife. Let's go. All right, Zachlo, a true pleasure. We're going to take a break We're going to come back with Taylor Sheridan. I want to warn people he He did this from his ranch in, I think Wyoming and So Wi Fi is a little spotty. so there's times when it cuts in and out a little bit. We did the best we could with it. I thought it was an awesome interview had a great time with him, but just just bear with it the there's going to be a couple times it gets choppy Anway we're going to take a break comeome back with the one and only Taylor Saredon Our roll battery is the same It's like castking ev full socer players are the same Take Messi, the most decorated player ever. Is there any other player who has achieved that? No, just him. Now take Duracl. Is there any other battery with power boost ingredients inside? No, just Duracl. Remember, goats only trust goats because they're built different, and Messi only trusts Duracl This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a fifty page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online makes sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responssees setup required compatibility and availability varies eighteen plus All right so I never ask for a lot of guests. We have a We have a great booker named Alison who's always like, do you want this person? you want that person? I always send her a very short list. And Taylor Sheridan has always been the on the list. I've always wanted to talk to you Really admire your career everything you've done and and your productivity and now all of a sudden you wrote a book too. just when I was like, What's up with this guy? How does he keep doing it? How does he keep turning this stuff out? now you're coming after books. U I have so many questions for you, but what made you want to write a book on top of everything else you're doing Well, so it's a bit of a long story. Luckily, you've got a long podcast, so we have time for it. It's time So, so you got to go back two thousand three about Okay, M Yeah, four I'm living in LA And there was a gym about, o Two thirds of a mile from this apartment that I had Me and my roommate run over there and work out every day because we're actors witht anything else to do until we go to whatever shitty job we're going to And there was a guy that started working out there And and this dude was he looked very different than the typical West Hollywood gym crowd I mean this dude was Jacked with all these Prison tats, not the tribal bullshit that a bunch of Hollywood actors get. Like this stuff was done home. G Anyway, so he would he was very fascinated with fitness. He'd ask me this and I'd ask him that. we kind of became friends over over the court, you know, just in the gym and then he became a personal trainer there, got certified and did all that deal. And he actually trained my They actually trained my wife U So we became pretty good friends one day. We were talking and he Bullshitting over lunch and he kind of casually mentioned. I think I'd mentioned a movie or something and he hadn't seen it. I'm mentioning All right And I'm like, Where have you been in a cave for the past seventeen or twenty years? He's like, No, I was in prison. And I said, Oh Well walk me through that. what happened was some kind of accident he go no, no, no. I was a I was a criminal You know, I was a career criminal. I was a drug dealing, armed robbing, burglaring criminal Um And so I spent most of my life in prison or most of my adult life And then I discovered fitness in prison and that's really, I didn't want to spend my whole terrible place And u, And so I got clean, got clean, got straight, really focused on fitness And now I'm a personal trainer and someday you watch, I'm going to have my own gym And within I'd say Five years of that he did have his own gyem. And u and It became the biggest privately owned personal training gym in LA, which is saying something because there's nothing in LA but gyms you know, fricaking laser surgery. they just the stuff that's in L.A Coo It was very different than the gyms in LA. It felt like a gym, right? He's playing The m the only music he knew. So like eighties rock and seventies rock and it was a really cool place. And he was doing really well and I started haaving success with storytelling and then I got the hell out. I moved out of LA in twenty thirteen. moved up to Wyoming And u And we check in every so often And and he actually wrote a screenplay about his L, right? There is life of crime. ty good. He said it to me once and I'm like, pretty good, man. Not that ever came of that for him, but but it stayed in my mind. y Keep moving forward to twenty twenty and COVID hits And and I'm the only Film production, TV production in in America Filming I'm the first one to go back to work And the way I was able to convince the screen actor's guuild and the director's Gild and all these kilds. is the safest place this crew can be is on a big ranch in Montana Right? There's no If everyone's negative when we get there, we can't give it to anybody as long as nobody leaves So They said that's fine stay on the ranch. So then I wanted to I wanted that So we didn't all go crazy. call I wanted to build a gym on the on the ranch. So I called Tom and said, Hey, can you give me a connection to whoever you get your gym equipment from I need to buy a bunch And mine, they shut me down And I said, you mean they shut you down? He goes, We're closed They shut LA shut down Well every business is shut down. You can't have a gym right now. We're in lockdown And and I said, Well, don't sell all your equipment. What are you going to do when it opens back up. Just sign up for that PPE stuff. and and, uh, and You know, New some sending money to everybody else They probably send something to you. and he's like They're not sending it to white X consons, buddy. I'm I've already applied. I'm not getting any money And I said, okay, I'll send a flat bed. And I sent a flat bed that, I bought a pile of Talk to him again, you know, years go by And he reached out Um You know, by this point, I got so many shows going. I'm so busy. it's, you know, someone's got to call me ten times for me to actually get a chance to call him back. and I finally reached back out to him and said, Hey, how's it going? And he said Man, I'm in a I'm in a real bad way, Julia Co. kind of handle that that's com up the road I said, what do you mean? And they said, Well They found a mass single father, his his his partner had died U and he's trying to raise this five year old girl and he's He's an ex con, he's a felon and he cannot find any work, reliable work that with enough day care to take care of this kid. And so he was asking me about the movie business. Is there anything that he could do for me And I said, I mean, I can probably get you some stunt work or or something, you know transportation department. I don't know, S something, but you're going to be working fourteen hour days, you're not going to be with your kids I don't know how that's help And and he asked me, he said, can you Can you give me a loan? I mean, I got one more month's rent. Can you get me a loan to figure it out? And I told him, I said, Look, I have a one hundred percent failure rate of loaning money to friends and them still being friends. So I can't do that I' not a bank Um I said, but let me think There's everyone has a story Right? And your story has value. So let me just think about that would be. And there's a book that I had read Many, many years prior to this called The World's Most Dangerous Places. And it was written by a guy named Robert Pelton Young, and it's the most fascinating thing I'd ever read. It's essentially a travel guide for war correspondence about every single place where there's a war going on in the world. And this is a very accomplished war correspondent who wrote it. and it's And at times it was very cynical and at times it was it was laugh out loud, funny And then at times, it was it was very thoughtful. And I thought we're mad for a buck and and and he's not the only one who's done something like that. You could look at You'll remember this from the eighties that Oh, anything for dummies, right filming for dummies, Spanish for dummies, you know, whatever it is And they had taken a similar format and made it very digestible So I just thought, how interesting And and B if we wrote a travel guide for prison. And and and to be for the most part, I think is a really good deterrence to someone from going there, right But also if someone did happen to do something dumb, now their're career criminal, this book isn't for them and they know it anyway. It's really, it's really for a guy like you and me because everyone's always wondered If you've ever watched locked U or any of these shows, what would I do How would I navigate that world if I find myself in it Um And so here's an expert in that, right? Here's someone who spent seventeen years in state and federal prison in security prisons and had to navigate the worst of the worst and came out came out came out not a criminal made those choices a success story call them back and I said, lookook, here's what we're going to do and it's going to be work All right We're going to write a book And it's going to be How to not die in prison And we're going to use your experience and I've done a ton of research about prisons because I've got a TV show about prisons. U But that's research. It's not firstation of a storyteller and a guy who's already proven to me that he's good at telling stories coming together to explore this world and how to get through it or hopefully had to never go. So that's what we did. So we wrote the first three chapters And I write the intro and then he writes the body and together we shappe the body of that And I And we took that out sent it to all the publishers and Simon and Juicer stuck their hand up And Simon and Schuster said, we want to put this out. We want to do it And u I said said great. And Tom rolled up his sleeves and I rolled up mine and we sat down and And we came up with this If we were doing this in person, I would have interrupted you like ten times as you were telling that because I thought this book was so interesting. U All of my experience from Knowing anything about prisoners is just from TV and movies Right? And it's And it yes If you go from like Shaw Shank to the show you did or a million things, Jericho Mle going way back U This is like so detailed. It's almost like you have glossaries in there. you have all these, do not do this, do not I thought it was really u that was really interesting And I've never read a book like it. It's one of those things where Prisons have been such a huge part of any society, but nobody really knows anything that happens in there other than what they basically watch or read Yeah,, you know, so And I talk about this in the book There is a scene in episode three of the first season of Mayor of K where A man is arrested for killing a child U and And it actually is a parole violation. So the guy doesn't go to county. he goes straight back. prison immediately And uh And when he comes in, there's this frenzy, right? becausecause A child killer is the one person in prison everyone can look at and say, I may have done this, but I never did that And so there's a bullse eye on these guys And uh We filmed this scene where they this And after the first take, Um I start hearing buzz over the radio All right We need a Madic Right Actually, we need two Medics. and I run upstairs to see what happened, how Why do we need a medic someomeone have a heart attack and mostost of the extras in in this in this scene were ex consons who had actually stayed in this prison, which had been decommissioned, so now it's empty Of course we're paying, you know, hundred bucks a day to these guys and there's not any work because it's COVID U And so they jumped at it, right? And And Two of them had panic attacks that were so bad that they had to go to they had to go to the hospital And then there was a third one You know, we closed them in and locked them in the cells And this guy starts screaming, you got to let me out. I can't do this And we let him out And he's like, I starts takaking off and it's like, I'm sorry, I can't You know, you don't have to pay me. I said, no, no, no, for what I just put you through, we're going to pay you. U And they left. they were done. they wanted absolutely no part of even reenacting it So that was the first thing, obbviously we all can imagine and surmise that it's a terrible place, right?'s designed to rehabilitate U It's, u It's a whole lot of people have proven to society that they can't get along with society and we crammed them all together along with each other So it's it's a model that that isn't designed to in any way I rehabilitate. it's just They're on a big old time out for however long that may be, right U But it was so fascinating to me that I thought What a really rich world to explore and I would imagine somebody reads this book and they're thinking about losing their temper or they're thinking about I'll have another drink. I can still drive Be here's the very real world consequences of that. Yeah, Oz Oz beat that out of me, but my five years or six years, whatever it was watching Oz. I love that show Fountain' restore it. The story with you, which everybody knows at this point, was you came late into the writing thing, right? You were an actor, then you were coach all that and you didn't really start writing until forty one. And then you became Probably the most prolific writer of the last fifteen years in all the shows and movies that you've done, really in the last ade and a half, basically Yeah. didid you I have a million questions about this, but did you were you writing before age forty? or did you just dive into it then? I didn't understand that part. No No. notot in any way that No It's not it's not a skill that I had developed But you have to remember, I'd read I don't know by that point. thousand scripts, ten thousand scripts And of those scripts Nine hundredundred, nine hundred, ninety four were bad You know, I can I can I can recount For the fifteen years that I was in Hollywood, I can recount To this day, the exxcellent scripts that I read I still remember and there were very few. that I read and I thought wow, That's That's going to be some U So most of them are bad And and so I knew when I started writing was to simply not do what everyone else was doing And what everyone else was doing was taking shortcuts essentially breaking all the very basic fundamental rules of storytelling because they couldn't figure out their story And So what by that I mean this When it was a movie You're supposed to show me What's happening camera is supposed to move the story dialogue is supposed to tell me how the people in this world feel about what's happening or what they hope to do or what they wish they hadn't done or had done So if you stick to that one very basic rule from the from the beginning Never have a character tell me something camera should show me And and if you go back and watch movies that Maybe you like the premise and maybe you like the way it started and then toward the end, something happened. it's just And it just felt a little easy because they couldn't figure out an intelligent way in the story to show me something. So they just had this character say it. All these Marvel movies do it at Nauseum where they where they will just information dumps that you have to follow to get to the action rather than actually moving plot with action And then The other thing that I did was Basically find the most interesting thing, most interesting way to say anything U I'll take a scene from Heller Highwater where u where you have Jeff Bridge's character walk in and he's questioning All right this waitress about the two boys that just robbed the bank across the street And he says You know, describe them and and that she doesn't mention height or hair color She mentions, you know, They they they look, you know young enough to know better, but you're too old to know better and but you still, you know and they look brokeer than these guys over here, but better than these guys over here. And so just find interesting ways of saying they're in their mid thirties and they were dressed casually and ones got blonde hair and ones got red hair. Rights just's the what's the more interesting way of describing something for somebody U And then I think the other thing that that I try to do and this probably comes from me having been a journeyman actor, which means most of my roles were smallmer roles or guest star roles. I always try to make those packs to the overall story. In other words, those individuals They are just there to push the plot along. somehow have an impact on our lead character, whether they make them recognize something about this place or feel something or mirror something in their own lives, that these all these little people have a big impact on our on our main character, on our protagonist And then that allows the audience to feel completely submmerersed in a world Because now everybody has a point of view. everyone The guy at the gas station, the waitress, the You know What you said about letting the people show you versus writing all the dialogue for them to tell the thing Tarantino had this thing about Steve McQueen about Um how a lot of the stuff that he would do was just him reading situations and just him being a movie star and just the concept of like movie stardom sometimes doesn't have to be about dialogue, but just about seememing like you're a movie star on a screen and soaking things in and stuff you do with your eyes. I notice like with your shows A lot of times it's about Like even even the show, the Michelle P Feiffer show. off course I love because I enjoy other shows, but A lot of it is sometimes it'll just be her staring out You know, having a glass of wine at the end of their show and just trying to process stuff, you know, and thinking about things. Yeah. Like there's moments like that And I don't know if I don't know if shows and movies are doing that in the same way anymore. They're always like, especially now in the streaming era Everything's in a rush. Everything's like they have to tell you, hereere's the murder that we have to solve. and you're going to see the murder in the first three minutes and we're going But it seems like your show is a way more patient. Yeah, they' they're And there's there's a few I think explanations for that. Okay And one is I think the most important one is writing these stories Okay, and I isn't an indictment of other writers. I. But where are they Well, if they're in L.A, or they're in New York and and And if you're a produc are, if you allow this business to do it to you, you are from the second that you wake up t the second you go to bed You are going You're meeting this, that meeting, this meeting, tone meeting, prop meeting, casting, this, then I got to go my room of writers, and we're going to put a bunch of stuff on a whiteboard and we're going to outline and you take this and I'll write that and you do this and then I gott to go home to my kids and or my wife or my husband or whoever. And we're going to try and carve out two hours of meaningful relationship. and then off to bed we go. Wherein that is the time to reflect I live I live in a country in the middle of nowhere Before I start writing every day, I take about a thirty minute walk And there's no there's no T traffic because the road's mine, it's on my ranch I and And I just think And and and I and I'm also not scared to leave my phone behind All right So So I had time to reflect. and actually think like a character The bigger challenge and I'm veryit, canan you hold down in that this regard When you're reflecting, are you thinking about ideas for shows or show like or are you just thinking about life? L what are you thinking about It depends U it depends Sometimes I'm just And I think this is with any storyteller. When you can get to a quiet place and I don't mean a physical quiet place, a quiet place inside yourself, the ideas come You don't have to go huntem to just come So, you know, fortunately, I'm the only person around 'cause If I wasn't, people would think there was this on this dirt road talking to himself I and u But that's what happens, you, you know, I just My my routine It is very set and and when I'm writing, I always return I'm in the This is the first place I ever bought this house. up here in Wyoming and it is an eighteen hundred square feet And I always come back here because this is where I can control client And this is where I can get the most done m The second probably greater influence upon writers into the industry and it didn't used to be this way when Steve McQueen was a movie star at Paramount, right? And Bobby Evans ran the ran the studio because he Writers were turned loose, directors were turned completely loose There weren't endless rewrites. There weren't meetings with executives about tone and mood and all this nonsense, right And then you didn't have a lot of people. And by the way, the studio executives and the network executives native groups in the industry These are marketing executives for the most part. or maybe they Whatever they studied law, whatever. thenen they came and they got a job in the mail room at CIA or WME and hated that shit. And so then they ended up as an intern And then through attrition, they find themselves thehead of develop Well, what do you know about developing story? You know nothing. So so they get terrified Can it? the audience won't get it because they actually have no storytellers. So they don't get it So it needs to be written on the page. There's all this stuff. They want backstory. they want Basically they want synopsies of who all these characters' lives are before we meet the character, none of which is applicable u to to to the whatever conflict the character iss facing I've had many actors come up and ask me, so what's my backstory I said, you have cart launch You don't have a backstory. That character did not exist until I rode them on that horse on that hill Didn't exist So I'm looking through very narrow windows but our business at this point is truly governed by these executives because They're the ones that are going to determine whether or not your script is going to go into production And they're going to try and control every element of that. The greatest thing that I have is I came up in independent film Right. So so the first movie that I made wasicario, that's an independent movie. Uh, Thunder road Basiliz Wanock, he went out and raised the money from u and They just gave us a chunk of cash We went and hired who we wanted to hire and made it the same thing with Hell or Highwater and the same thing with Wind River With Wind River, I mean, that money came from an Indian tribe in Louisiana they're just here go do it I never saw a producer. One time I was talking to my My DP werere standing on the top of this mountain and I said, you know, we've never met anyone who gave us this money I have no idea Never met him. I don't know We could just leave. We could go We don't even have to make the movie. We just think This is a tremendous amount of responsibility for someone who's never done it before A But I so every decision that I got to make, I made And I got to make it what I thought was best for the story. and since I wrote the story, I felt the most qualified to do that. So when I made my deal with Paramount, I made that same deal I said this is not a democracy. There's no committee You're gonna pay me And you're going to give me a bunch of money and I'm going to deliver you these shows. One of them because I'm just not that special prettyret common And I'm going to tell stories that common people are going to understand, and that's most of America You're not going to win no Emmies with me, but I'm not trying to win Eemmies. That's not my goal My goal is to sit somebody on their couch and move them. makeake them think. They could laugh, scare the shit out of them, excite them. That's what I want to do, because that's what I want from a show Right? I don't want to I don't want to be I don't want to preach to I don't want someone to tell me how to think or why I shouldn't think this or should think look through this rectangle box and go to another world and escape and So I have suchuch a streamlined systemystem U that I'm able to create this massive volume of of product And I bet I work less than guy who has onene or two shows on the air. I want to talk about that system, but something you said earlier. This is like the biggest passion point of mind with anything with TV. Because over and over again the best shows or the best ideas or the most successful things seem to come from like, One vision, one voice, maybe two, but usually it's one person And those are the best shows that we care about the most And over and over again, all the streamers in the studios, they seem like they ignore that instead of like the one voice, it's like, well, now here are ideas. And now it's like you're trying to do creativity back consensus whichich is the exact opposite of all the greatest shows we have. So why do we do it that way The reason they do it that way is to justify their jobs And they're not wrong So when I first started at Paramount, there was a huge development department Right? There were all these people whoosese job it was to sit there and give me notes and Tell me what to do and how to do it and this and that and the other And after four years They got rid of that department. So all those people got fired Right Be they didn't need them They had no job because I wasn't returning their calls I wasn't I wanted I didn't I didn't respect Because they're not, they don't do what I do You know, It's job job justification Yeah, What do you do all day? I give Taylor Sheridan notes. What do you give not? What are you giving him notes for? He doesn't need your notes And if you look at if you look at some of the real Bellweather shows Right? S of the some of the shows that that really and there's a number of them. you can go back to to Early Stephen Bachco, David Milch and these guys that Uh, think were David E. Kelly's another one that that Right? No one gave dude notes And he was a one man band. He writes all ees. That guy was writing Chicago Hope. That's twenty two episodes of television And what's the other one that he had on He had three shows on the air at the same time. All Kie McBeal B practices.enses And he's writing every word himself. making every decision And he'd obviously built a very tight team of filmmakers around him, right U the shows was excellent Ex. When you talk about your system I think this is part of the genius of what you've figured out You've had all the same people basically that you had You know, your first movie And you have this whole like infrastructure in place so that when you're making stuff, you have like a shorthand It doesn't need to be three months to set up. You can do it in four weeks. Um and that's the biggest reason you have all these shows, right It's even better than, you know, I have editors' assistants that are now senior editors I have I have production assistants, you know, guys that were running around getting coffee that are now first assistant directors. Arg one of the top three most important people on the set I have camera operators that are now directors I have an editor who's now a director. have I have directors who are now also producer directors and executive directors. I promote from within exclusively I have a lead costume designer that used to be an assistant costume I have a literally Not even probably not even supposed to be in props a kid's like fifteen years old. He's just helping his dad. Now he's a prop master So as his sister and they only know one way to do it. They only know the way that we do it So there's no arguing or debating about what cameras we're going to use There's no debating about about the lens package. There's no I don't have to teach anyone the color palette They know what I like and don't like And so the system is so streamlined Our days are so much easier. I had to learn this Wind River was incredibly difficult for me to do The first two seasons of Yellowstone were incredibly difficult And then I figured it out So and I had to get rid of a lot of people along the way. I had to fire a lot of people didn't see it my way and wanted me to conform to the way that the business does it. opposed to the way that I wanted to do it And so all we really do is make everything the exact same way We made Wind River just on a much larger scale That was a that was a gorilla. Now we make two hundred and thirty five dollars thirty five million dollars Gorilla Television series Well one of the things you're good at is targeting who actors, lead actors who have had real success but you somehow work well with them and now because you've had success, they want to work with you. So now If somebody like Billy Bob You have Land man. He's like literally the perfect guy on the planet to be in Landman But he also wants to be in Landman, which I don't Maybe in twenty fifteen, you're not able to convince them, but You know, now now it seems like you're getting whatever actors and actresses you want, right I was getting I was getting whatever I wanted. Day one as far as actors goes with Scario, I mean those are those were our top choices, right? S really same Oh yeah, sameame with Hell or High waterater mean, I told I told David McKenzie, I said, Look, I wrote this role I wrote it for Ben Ben Foster, a wrote for Ben Foster And they kept looking for Everybody and I said, I don't know. you could just h you do that. And then He actually went on a on a he got on a yacht and went for a week trip with his family were had no cell service and they still hadn't pulled the trigger on Ben And I just said I'm hiring him So I just called this agent up and said he's hired We got it. Is it really I said, Yeahah I had no authority to do it whatsoever So then I got just called the costume when I was called Call Bin Foss or get his sizes because it with Sag as soon as the costume designer calls your book So when he got off the boat But it was the perfect choice So yes I've been fortunate to get the actors that I wanted But I was an actor. I write for actors. I write words that they want to say And now I do it even differently. So with Billy Bob, Kurt Russell N Michelle Harrison Ford, Helen Mirin That's who I had envisioned for the roles, but I hadn't written a word And I told Billy Bob, I said, hereere's my idea This is the show I want to do. to do it if you don't want to play the role I'm not going to go try and fit a circle in a square, but I'll write it for you And he said, Okaykay, Helen and Harrison said the same thing, Michelle a little bit tougher sell, but she finally acquiesced And she was terrified to commit to something. she'd never read a word Um when a writer is writing specifically for an actor. Right in a role that that they were born to play, how can that not work Wait a second, you have to tell the audience exactly what you told Billy Bob Landman was becausecause I actually know this and I thought it was great. So what did you tell them I said, I want to make a drama with Bad Santa running an oil company And he was like, I'm in He's like, That's the greatest fucking thing I've ever heard in my life. Yeah, let's do it So when you're coming up with these ideas Do you have a piece of the idea? Do you have the whole thing played out or you is it just as simple as that where you're like Bad Sand and runs an oil company. Okaykay, that's something or is it Like are there cases where you're like, oh no, I'm way more into this It's always a lightning bolt Every time it's a lightning bolt. So for landman a buddy of mine from high school worked out in Odessa Midland and he and he was He was essentially No Oh some type of site manager would be the term Right? the title, But essentially he's just a problem solver. He's a crisis manager. of which they're and I'm watching TV and some guy, some wing nuts driving through the streets of Odessa shooting off a gun, shoots like seven or eight people before the police run him down and kill him And I knew my buddy was In Odessa and I knew he was always driving around. So I just called him and said, Hey, making sure you good. He said What do he talk about? And I said, well, there's some lunatic running around the desk just shooting people And it's all over the news and he just starts laughing and he says, that happens here every day very day He goes, it just happens out in the patch He goes this place You don't understand what this place is. He started telling me stories That's when I got the idea for Landman and then coincidentally, not six weeks later so I pitched the idea to paramount Um And not six weeks later this podcast drops that Christian Wallace from Texas Mthsley had done And I and I listen to it and u My aartment, you know, the, hey, have you heard about this podcast? I said, I'm listening to it right now. It's awesome And he said, We're worried that someone's going to try and buy that and make a competing show And I said, well, then you buy it. I mean, this is endless stories we can explore. Let me talk to this Christian guy. So I talked to Christian who had He had been a rough night All and was a very thoughtful, good writer and All right He didn't know how to write screenplay, but I didn't need him to. I just needed I just needed someone to me manage the aiffus often and make sure that we tell the story I'm a big believer in holding a mirror up to the world and writing down the reflection and not having any judgment on it and making it Truly, truly authentic. Like this is what it is If I make a movie about a ranching family in Montana. I have to make that movie for professional cowboys They have to sign off on it first If I make a movie about the military and the CIA, those guys have to watch it and wonder All right. this guy know about? It has to feel that real? So the same thing with this, I need experts. I need experts that can help me get immersed in the world to deeply understand it. So yeah, no, it but it did start out And that's kind of why it's totally So schizophrenic land manan, which I like. I like a show to make me think and then do something that's Almost vaudevillian, All right? It's cartoonish Beause all of our lives are kind of cartoonish, if you think about it, right U So these ridiculous dinners that are that are Angela's fantasy of what and And they're so preposterous and nobody wants to do them and which is a repeating theme, but she keeps doing it because you know, it's her fantasy of what of what of what a family' supposed to do, but her family's so non traditional It's so ridiculous. All these strangers living in this house together U So it's a lot of fun to do that show. You also another thing you do that I've never seen anybody else do, youll grab these really good actors or known actors And maybe their schedule won't allow them to be in the show as much as you need them in the first season or maybe you want them for season two. I used the M more In Landman, it was like she's one of the stars of Landman and she wasn't in it that much But your whole idea for her was season two That's when you were going to need was And I told her When I met with Deme about that, I said, lookook, here's the thing You're going to be an extra in this show for seven episodes. You're an extra. And the critics are gonna fuck They are going to come after me. I'm underutilizing this, C't write for women, all this nonsense. And then I'm going to kill your husband and you're going to have to run the oil company I said, but And I and I I have a very, you know, The critics in me, I don't care what they think And it annoys the shit out of them that I don't care. And and I'll be the first to tell you that there are things I do that that rage bate them a bit. and this is one of them Right? U and episodes to where they could have watched it and realized that flip, but I did, and I just sent them the first three U This is fuckking honestly, right? And And so u with with to me, I knew that when we put it all on her shoulders from an audience standpoint You've just seen her in little snippets as this housewife Right in the background, living this fantasy So we've we've set her up Biomission. to be someone that the audience is already predisposed to believe can't do this, capable of doing this job. Right. And so not only does she have to overcome All overcome every character in this world's opinion of her But now she has to overcome the audience's predetermined opinion of her And I let her do it in the first scene of season two I giveave her a monologue that basically says You gave her two. I' meaner than my husband Wh I where I say, you know I I'm essentially, I'm the biger bear and you're about to learn it. I me questions it at times that she's a true wildcatatter like her husband betting everything on this impossible drill, which is what And that and that's actually based on an actual, there's a woman who runs an oil company in Texas, a wildcatter and and she herer rig that I filmed that shallow rig And the story of that rig blowing U and then that insurance money being used to double down That actually happened And and she's risked billion dollars she does not have both the character and the real person, the character's based on on a lottery ticket It's and it's insanity. But if the lottery ticket hits It's, you know, you're talking You're talking not just generational wealth. you're talking I don't even it's hard to comprehend the numbers you' tght And it and that's the riverboat gambler ict that these wildcatters have, it's fascinating Think of the fortunes that think the Hunt family, for example You know, that's in the nineteen twenties did the same thing whilecatting And uh a hundred years later you the family still this institution in North Texas Pays checkout is offered by your banks and credit unions. So when you shop online at participating merchants, your cards appear in one place, ready to use and kept up to date. And the best part, your actual card number isn't shared when you check out because boundaries are healthy. Like no work emails after six. One small step for boundaries. one big leap for check out. PS. It checks out. Aivation required. See pays. com to learn more. Terms and conditions apply.. Your summer weekends fill up fast, but Crocs has your back. Road trips, beach days, last minute getaways, whatever's on the agenda, swing by your local store and find your new goat too. Try it, style it, make it yours. becausecause the right pair doesn't just show up, it shows off Wock out ready for whatever's next. Visit your nearest croc store today So you'll throw because I felt that you were doing this. There's sometimes you'll throw stuff in a show specifically as like a This to the critics or just to mess with them. and it does feel like you're tweaking sometimes Hagan Pagan roommate For one of the few times the network and even some of the actors called me and said, you sure that you don't want to compress the resolution of Pagan and Ainsley, you know, what you do at episode can? u where they become friends and you don't want to put that in episode nine said no No, for for exactly for the reason that you're asking I want to piss you off a little And then oh, how dare I? And then you watch the next week and you go, o Uh oh G at me to judge what I Yeah. that's the difference between TV and a movie It's the TV show's not over. So to sit there and treat an episode as though we've completed anything is ridiculous Right? It's not done I'm not done storytelling You just saw a little sliver You can't judge the thing tntil it's done It's not like a movie How many seasons are like you're doing Landman or I don't know, pick a show Are you planning how many reasons ahead? For me five years Fers Five years max. Because beyond that, now it's just probleblem of the week Go back to Remember that show Beverly Hills nine ero two z I love that Chin show way back. Right So think about that show for a minute. So Jason Priestley's the big heart frob and he's this he's the guy and And They take him on this story arc and then everyone gets a little tired of Jason Prucy. So then their guy now. he's the heart throb, he's this. And then that kind of peters out. and then they take Brian Austin Green. It's his turn do the same exact thing we did with the other two. So your lead characters that you've been following have fallen back and this next one takes place and Ian Zeeringss next And now it's just romance of the week because it went too long. So if you go into them knowing this is the the length of time We're going we're going to explore and then have the courage to end it point in time Now you have a completed thing and it stands up and you can rewatch it, the amount of people that re watchatch eighteen eighty three and nineteen twenty three in these in these basically long form movies. are that are just designed to be digested over a short perod. Madison is the same way. It's a six episode season. So you I mean, I I know where that I know where every show ends. I know how they all end U And I think you have to know how they end Or if you don't, how do you know where you're going U You may not have the ending, but you need to know thematically how does this world resolve What are you what are you what are we saying Right U And and if you know that, then you can write toward that And and, you know withith Yellowstone Kevin was only supposed to be in the first three seasons That was in his contract. Um in my mind That's that's when All right his youngest son takes over. and then we have to watch this and and lose that ranch over a you know or not lose the ranch, whatever the case is going to be. U But the network was so scared of not having Kevin be a part of it E look Kevin was ready. He was ready to go. He had other things he wanted to do, but he stayed on for another two seasons U And that was just because the show was such a behemmoth. It was such a huge hit the notion of giving up a hit before it had run out of and juice to squeeze is very foreign to a network And there was even pressure from some of the cable companies wanting to put it in their deals that they were going to get an X number of seasons of Yellowstone to re up with whatever this cable company is. I mean, that's the power of a really big hit show creatively that can run in opposition. And and finally Kevin hit a point where he's like, I gott to do my own thing. And I'm like I got to do my own thing too. So so but we We had originally conceived it together that it was three seasons and then and then the baton is handed I if that wouldn't have been better for the show because we had to tread water for a bit there. I think it was pretty evident. I think COVID. COVID balloon that show. It was already a big show. And then I felt like in COVID when everybody was trying to catch up on stuff and What the fuck am I gonna do for four months? I've watched another show I haven't seen yet All of a sudden it fel like Yellowstone was somehow growing. It was crazy They they yeah, I mean, that what was there to do Everybody was stuck at home. think And then then when Everwards was different in different places, you know Big cities were shut down for, you know LA was shut down for over a year Yeah at New York for maybe six months or more I don't know how long I didn't go to either of them, but, you know, I had friends in in LA still driving around with a fucking mask on in twenty three. you know, what are you guys doing? It's over We call them Lsore Yeah Yeah, I was driving my daughter to Arizona for soccer tournaments. because they wouldn't let anyone Even in the fall of twenty twenty, they wouldn't let like and he serted High school club soccer stuff happens So you'd have to drive across the line to where it was So L the good news is we got to spend a lot of time together. It was an interesting disease. It's, you know, it's the first disease in history doesn't spread at protests I don't know if you're aware of Yeah, it's we found that out. Yeah. Wait, to add a couple more questions for you about actors Cole Hauser, who I always love You seem to find over and over again these people where I'm like, o, I was like that person. Like Kathy Riley was She was she was unbelievable in flight. She'd been in some good stuff. So I wasn't surprised she took off But Cole Hauser like he was in goodoodwell hunting with Affleck and Damon and Sool t us like He was around for a while and nobody unlocked him and then you unlocked him. So how'd you unlock him The movie that I saw that made me And I remember him from Daysason confonfused, right? great rother but he did Um But it was it was he played in pitch black with Vin Diesel Bred. Gretch and mul And u And he was so good And he was such a he was such a Heavy actor Understood nuance And and what I mean by that is There's actors who could convey emotion. there's an actors who can Just their essence feels believable And then there's Wdsmiths, someone that understands Wh syllable of a word you stress changes the meaning or the emphasis and and And there aren't as many that have that Right? And to have that and have an emotional presence Those are the great ones and and he has that B. And maybe he has it. He's not a traditional looking prettyty boy leading man And that may be one of the reasons that the business Be he's a he's a dude. He's a man's man and time, he came up at a time when they were buying pretty and androgynous. They didn't want in a man. and our business didn't foster that. They didn't they didn't develop that. They really wanted something that they felt was a little safer or more relatable, whatever the case may be. U And he felt a little more throwback. He felt a little more seventies. as an actor, that style And u which is which is what I grew up with That's that's what acting that I I was always drawn to. U And and so he's the He didn't even audition I just we just I just knew it was Yeah I just knew When you're approaching like a TV show or a movie are because I always feel like the best way somethingomething's going to succeed is like, you're bringing me into a world I don't know anything about this world. Like Gand Man Z ig iss example of this. It's like I don't fuck know anything about how they make oil in Texas. L, so you're just pulling me into that It seems like you're the best at this. E E TV show or movie you do pulling me into something that I don't really know that much about. So is that intentional or is that just the outcome? you have to understand for me the landscape is is the main character the world that everyone's reacting to What's the star of the Madison? the Madison River this idyllic place P this inccredible ability to heal All right which is It's it's it is the land. It is It is land that's so peopleeople would Soill for that they would die for. It has so much value and is so grand Same thing with twenty three, same thing with eighty three. with the story of the mayor of Kingstown's the opposite Here's hereere's a place that is broken. it's a it's a it's a complete failed society when your last business going to is human incarceration. as as a city, you're done. attracting prisons, if that's the business you're getting thenen look what you're attracting with those prisons and now you've sunk your city Right? So even though it's the city is really the antagonist in that one It's still the main character. with lioness it is the is the Forget Good or better. It's stated constantly The main character of that is our societal survival perceived through people who do not apply morality to those decisions Morality is another agency. Their job is is to make sure that the United States remains the United States. cararry it into the story, someomeone else's job to interpret if the way we do that is good or bad. you know, so Those to me are really interesting landscapes So then for for lionist for an example, we've seen that a version of that world a number of times juxtaposed it and made The James Bond character a woman And let's watch a woman deal with having two daughters that she's not present to raise And that that the husband has to be the one that stays at home and and be passive and question why she has to do this. And let's watch that discussion and that debate from a different perspective. Yeah, and another thing that I love about your shows is You find yourself like my wife, we loved eighteen eighty three and nineteen twenty. We lo those shows. But my wife was always, we would watch eighteen eighty three. And my wife was like, I would have been really good in the eighteen hundreds. I just think that that could have been my best time. I would have like known how to make stuff. I could have defended myself like I just would have owned eighteen eighty three and I'm like Yeah,'s partart of the greatness of these shows is you just put yourself in. I would have done terrible because I had bad eyesight. I feel like I just would have been killed I just would have been done immediately. She would have been great. She probably would have been running a small town But it's funny like watching these different things and being like Yeah how did I have fit in in this Where would I fit in the Yellowstone? Where would I fit in the landman? Um justust because I don't know anything about those worlds. But I'm sure you get that all the time. People like, I would have been awesome in the eighteen eighties. But we all, I mean, isn't that part of the joy of of storytelling and witnessing it, whether it's whether you read it in a book or whether it's a TV show or a movie. or wondering what that character's life is like right after the movie's over. What did they do after that That's fascinating anything. And that's the greatest compliment you can give the storyteller. because They successfully built a world for you Right. Well you are so you comp You also flip something like an there's stuff in those shows that you always knew, but you didn't really think about So like in the eighteen eighties There's really no rules Right? You go somewhere And It It's not like they have a set of laws or anything in place and people can just fucking go nuts. And so you're defending yourself totally different level at all times. I' just never really thought about that that much. And then I'm watching this show. like fuck, what would It was completely self policing You had to determine what your own boundaries were If if you as an armed gunman You know, you're traveling across the planes. And you come across weak man and his wife and two daughters. D only There are no consequences of actions other than losing the gunfight which you can assess pretty quickly whether you're going to do that. So what's going to keep you from Killing the dude And Rbbing and blind killing the wife, raped the wife, selling the kid. What's gonna keep you only you That's it. There were there was no law reat This was a great sh and a pretty terrible time because there were plenty of people that didn't have There was no boundary for that And Did you ever think in your wildest dreams, Yellowstone would turn into what it turned into Like not only a massive probablyrobably the biggest show of in the last ten years, but also a universe that went backwards and forwards? likeike when did you realize What the fuck look when HBO When I, you know, I sold this show to HBO first. told them in twenty fifteen f on television. told them that You told down told it' going to be the bigest show in telev period in the story And and when and when the executives at Paramount read it Couldn't believe it was available. couldn't believe it They were shocked that no one saw it And it's scared everybody And and I had the argument many times that They said, look, they just tried to do this. They made that They made that movie Cowboys and aliens and the cowboys are't dead What's dead is D movies about cowboys and aliens. That's a bad genre. Maybe don't do that But every time someone makes a good Western, it's a fucking hint Every time. Unforgiven Rend to Yuma, Silver Aado all hits Because it's a very uniquely American thing to explore. That period's fascinating to us to look at at And it's the closest thing that we had to in medieval times Right that our Dark ages. Our medieval period was the mid eighteen, post Civil War, eighteen hundreds Are there any shows in the last ten years that you've been jealous of I got to be honest with you I haven't seen anything I haven't watched any other shows Oh, you're just locked into all your bow. doing seven shows, you probably have to Well, I mean, Here's how I explain it You're a dentist Okay When you cough us, do you look at pictures of teeth Right You know, Yeah. I don't want to watch anyone. I don't want to watch my own shows when I come home. I got to you know, I don't so So no, I haven't seen anything And We have to end because I know you're running low on time. We have to end on Sicario which is an incredibly important movie in the Grand Land Ringer universe that I am in. That's my Yellowstone universe. We did it for reatchables This movie podcast we have a couple months ago It's a movie that people really liked when it came out And it feels like it's gaining steam and growing as the years pass and has become I think one of the best movies of the twenty thousand ten s I'm sure you knew it was good when you were doing it, but did you ever think it would have a tail like it had I mean, and I don't want this to sound Gitch Um I've never taken a movie out I never, you know, all my scripts are specs. In other words, I don't get hired to write them. I have an idea. I sit and I go sell it and sell it with the intention of making it. So typically with my projects There's I either put into them a penalty which makes it like if you're not going to make it, I'm going to make it really painful for you to not make it Yeah I'm going to mandate in the contract that you make it But you have no choice And So I don't take something out If I don't think it's going to be a hit and it's going to be really, really impactful then I don't make it Th to me, it's not ready to be taken out And there's a lot of people I'm very fortunate in the fact that When I first started screenwriting I didn't I didn't fall into the dangers. There's traps in any business, right? You could say that if you're an actor, the big trap is getting on some sitcom that goes for ten or twelve years and you and you may have yeah, you made money All right and you had a stable job But is it fulfilling you creatively? And are you going have to overcome that typecasting when you get out I was having a cl friend of mine who called me for advice today about this, where she got offered This job, it's a money job. She doesn't really want to do it. that she was conflicted. What do I do? I've got two kids And I and I I asked her. I said, Okay, are you behind on your mortgage No Will you behind on your mortgage in six months No Okay then you don't need to take a money job None of us got into this to make money. The fact that it pays well is pretty shocking to all of us. None of us. Nobody got thinking I certainly didn't get into screenwriting for the money, I got into it because I was tired of compromising and I wanted to control my own destiny No idea that it paid well I got my first residual check for Searo. I was like, oh shit. Iish wish I'd done this fifteen years ago So with Sicario I wanted to write something that was unique in every way I wanted the structure to be unique. I wanted to really play with of who is the protagonist? And I wanted to give the one character with a moral compass No power And then it's probably the first time that I was already fucking with critics because I made that character also a woman. which which means instantly, they're going to assume The reason I I did that is because I think women are powerless when it is actually morality B sir. It wasn't gender. It was the fact that she believed in right and wrong. She believed in playing by the rules in a sphere where there are no rules No one is playinged by it The cartels aren't playing by the rules. The cartels don't even have rules They may have their own codes amongst themselves, but they have no rules And so now the federal government decided that they were going to play with no rules, which would not be the first time our governments decided to do that You can ask Maduro about that. and And so here's what it looks like. What if they treated criminals like into me combatants And so I wrote that script on a five ax structure instead of a three ax structure. Um play with the your youre pre you have a preconceived your condition When you watch a movie to know. seventeen minutes in, there's going to be a big revelation And I'm going to know what this movie is about. And then we're going to go off on the journey and Th an hour in ten in We're on the mission We've found the villain, we found the gold, we found the thing and we're on a mission And for the next fifteen, twenty minutes, we're going to see if we Uh if we can, achieve the mission, whatever that is And we typically know, even though it's exciting to watch, We know they're going to get the girl or they're going to win the fight or they're going to conquer the hill or whatever it's going to be. We know But if you start playing with that structure, And I don't really tell you what the goal is until the the end of that three O Well, that feels very different You know, the shootout that happens on the border is is really in the the the the end of the second act Okay and built that battle within Its own little five ax structure. If you watch it, you could sit there and find the beats to it And did that to completely disorient the audience about How in the world? I we're only forty minutes in. I think everyone's about to die. I don't think anyone's safe for a ha a movie videoo. And And then you've got an audience that's truly jarred and on the edge of their seat And And I knew when I wrote it that I had effectively done that and the way that you know that You can read it and look at it yourself but the reaction of the town. Hollywood win nuts for that scriit. It scared the shit out of everybody. Nobody wanted to make it Um producer who decided to make it, was was his name's Basil and he had made the town U you know, the movie that Ben did, greatreat movie. And and again I paper That's a pretty dark film All right It wasn't one that the whole world was running around saying, we gott to make this movie People would read that script and go, damn, this is a great script I don't even want to begin to think of it, I'm making it, but damn I can't wait to see it And and Basil Didn't hesitate And the first director we sent it to was Deny Villanv And and when Denee read it, he he had I had to make it. I knew I had to make it. And when we had Denee I knew I had a director that could execute I the way that I had structured the script, he would get it. He would understand it. because he's very comfortable telling complicated stories So when we had those pieces and then the cast just fell together We think we all move We all knew what it was It's interesting. I mean ye I'm I surprised I was surprised that the way that Lionions Gate released it. I think if it had been really hit domestically I think that I think that They they decided to make an awards play Um And I wouldn't have done that. I would have treated it like a summer movie And then you walk and you think you've seen this exciting thing and it slaps you in the face and you walk out of there going, What in the world did I just see? You know, they did that they did that with pllatoon Brilliant to treat that, you know to not tell the world, we're about to punch you in the stomach Right. It's interesting because obviously You made all your success and you bet on yourself in all these different ways. but Um You know, a little a tiny bit of luck helps every once in a while, right? Like you get the director for Scaria who turns out to be one of the best directors of the last fifteen years and he likes the movie I can't think of anyone else who would have directed it Looking back and he was perfect for I would say it for Fudis You make your own luck, right? B Lucky is been Fortunous is a better wor onto your shitty screp Yeah, he signs ono your shitty script and and now it's great and it goes out and it's a hit and through no Th nothing that you now you're lucky Well Lucky. Here's another example. What if you had just gotten a job? on some show that locked you down in twenty ten where you were doing well. Like what if you were on I don't know CSI, New Orleans. And you were the third lead and that's just what your job was. Would you even have written Well, remember, I quit sons of Anarchy too right Okay twenty ten, I would on a show. And and thank God that they had so little respect for me that they offered me Garbage Garbage. They made it really easy to walk away. because it was easy for me to to sit there and say, okay, I'm going to do this for the next six or seven years And I'm and I'm still going to have a second job with the junk they're paying me. And I'm going to miss my chance to be a creator, a chance to tellell a story That's also if they hadn't if they hadn't treated me so disrespectfully I would have never They hit me over the head with a mallet that made it so clear only way I was going to get to be an effective storyteller was if I because actors are storytellers Yeah It was if I told my own stories I was never going to get the opportunity as an actor And look I'm not saying I was a good enough actor that I deserved it. I guess I didn't I guess I didn't because fifteen years in this business and I never had that opportunity. So I guess I was doing exactly the acting I That's all the acting I should have been doing. They helped me see that Was there a fork in the road roll that you came close to getting or you'd think like, man, if that had happened maybe I'm going this way instead Yeah, there was one There was one But I was I was a couple Um there was There was this movie called American History X with Ed Norton Um And and and the role that Stacy Keach played was written as Ed Norton character's best friend U And uh and and they were they had tapped me for that. And then either the director n or Ed or whoever made a decision that that if it was His friend betrayed him. and they're not wrong, by the way. But if the friend had betrayed him, it didn't make a greater statement about All right they were really focusing on which was you know, racism at an extreme, um And so if it's just How does his best friend being a fucker betraying him lead to this epiphany that everything that he believed about race was a lie Right. So so they so they as a storyteller, they rightfully back and address the script and changed it to make this character much more of a leader and a father figure and not so much an equal to to u and more part of an organized racistite supremacist opposed to a bunch of skinhead drug dealers, which was what it was originally, right U probably the right decision for them from a story standpoint. All right. But it cost me a job Have you have you ever been? one What was our I got pretty far down the road on walking dead and Berurnfall beat me out of that role. Really Yeah Yeah, so it was on When he did Wind River, you know, we were talking and I'm like, you know, you You saved my ass de. I was damn here I was going I was Damer still an actor Oh man. And then he ends up in Scaria too So you never thought about I mean, you've popped in popped in Yellowstone, but you never thought about writing one thing that you would be like one of the stars in or that bug is gone The funny thing is, oh, no, I play a character on Oh not off and he's sort of one of these career ground banch Just a u just a I just a hammer. he's just a He's just a hammer and yeah and it's fun to do those stunts and to run around and, you know, shoot the guns and play play that. It's And I get, you know, if I didn't even An episode a half of that a season then I've scratched that edch. But I've ironically been offered roles you know, sense and and I haven't I've turned it all down I don't have any interest in spend four months Would you have interest doing rewatchables if you're ever in L.A. Because we would love to have you talk about one of your favorite movies. I feel like you'd be really good at it. If you ever do rewatchables in Fort Worth, Texas, I'll do it I might have to come you might I might have to get like F choices. I'll come. I'll come to you because I think you'd be really good at this I've made it pretty clear like the only way you're getting me back to Los Angeles is if it secedes from the Union and I'm drafted into the army to take it back That's the only way That's good. A lot of people feel that way about Los Angeles. My friend William Goldman, who's sadly not with us anymore, Never wanted to come back here. It was like New York, New York. I never want to come back. That's it. Some people just that's it. they're done I love New York I love New York. Do't That city's way way stronger than whatever political wind is blowing it in any direction, right? Whereas LA's built on sand. It ain't strong. There's no foundation there. That's sorry, suucker. It's tried that way book is called I did not die in prison It is out. It's out on hardcover right now twenty third. I'm going to have to come to Fort Worth to see you America heard you say, if I came down and you do a rewatchable, but it's great to talk to. I really admire everything you bu Yeah, we'll figure out something, but congrats on everything though. It's been fun to watch from afar Thank you. Thank you Appreciate it Must be twenty one plus in President select states for Kansas and affiliation with Kansas Star Casino. Or eighteen plus in President DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Optten required must wager in designated offer market, max wager twenty five dollars. restrictions applies see full terms at sportsbook. fandle.ot comot Game a problem call one hundred gam or one eight hundred My reset. Call eight eight sevenenty nine seven seven seven seven or visit ccpg dot org slash chat in Connecticut Md gamblinghelp. org in Maryland. Hope is here. 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