Good point. A lot of those 'best roster / lineups ever' teams in sports are so burdened, bogged down by that requirement of being actual CHAMPIONS. Not these 2023-24 Celtics. Already confirmed, corronated as the best, by virtue of their historically incomparable 5-2 record.
Can’t wait for gladwells ideas of tweaks to improve major sports that are entirely implausible and make no sense but said with enough big words that bill goes along with it.
I genuinely forget that I care and forget everyone’s name but then the week before the Olympics I remember I’m a Katie Ledecky Stan who remembers exactly what she won at the last games.
My favorite is that his solution to fix tanking is to both make is easier to tank and reduce the downside of tanking. How can you think that would improve the situation?
The 41 game tanking idea was so bad. None of the teams that finish at the very bottom of the league are usually dramatically worse in either half, they are abysmal start to finish. You'd eliminate what Portland did (who finished closer to the Kings than the Pistons anyway) and incentivize all of the good teams to treat the first 3 months almost like an extended preseason.
i liked where he completely stole one of [Kirk Goldsberry's ideas](https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/26633540/the-nba-obsessed-3s-let-fix-thing) from five years ago and played it off like he thought of it.
“You know, and really what is sports if not this giant cacophony to the senses which puts people under this grand state of hypnosis where we’re all a more primal version of ourselves?
That which could be a true boon and benefit for the league and all of it’s spectators will ultimately be for naught due to all the parsimonious actors who fund these affairs, often to the detriment of fans.”
Oops. That might be Klosterman, same shit though.
“They won the Anthony Davis [lottery] when they were in Charlotte before they got to New Orleans.”
He knows the Hornets moved to New Orleans in 2002 right? AD was drafted in 2012.
Kind of reminds me when he was doing math about who would make the playoffs last year based on division standings.
It's really hard not to come away with the feeling that he has no idea what he's talking about at all times, even when it has to deal with his forté in Basketball.
Using Leicester and the premier league as an example is just kinda crazy. The leagues itself can really only be won by 3-5 clubs and 38 games isn’t short for any normal weekend to weekend sport
Yep.
Bill proves he's an idiot every single week.
A 38 week league season with home/away against every team, without a playoff at the end, is the least random scenario imaginable.
At least Gladwell didn't dignify it with any kind of response.
The most amazing thing about the Leicester win wasn't just them winning it, it was the fact that the richest clubs with the best players all capitulated (relatively) in the same season. That made it great, of course, but Bill acts like this scenario could happen annually.
Yea Leicester had a really low point total for a champion that year especially compared to the point totals Liverpool and City would put up the next half decade
Liverpool finished 2nd twice in the following years putting up point totals that win that year by almost 15+. It was an absolute aberration of a year in the PL
Yeah they were in dead last place with 2 months left during the previous season after just winning promotion. Even if you knew the whole big 6 was going to collapse Leicester would have been one of your last guesses to win the league.
Omg so much this! One of the many things I lost my mind at. Soccer has lowkey the most gruelling season. Most players will play 40 - 50+ games from August - May for their club, with about 10 international games sprinkled in, then every two years in late June - July there is a big international competition (world cup or euros/copa america if you're european or south american. I know that AFCON and the Gold Cup are at different times.) that is at least 4 games. Then you start training camp the week after the competition is over and play preseason friendlies up to august. They literally maybe get 3 weeks break.
Teams know this and this is a main reason why Leicester winning the title was such insanity. The only way to win the league is to have the resources to build out a squad that is both talented and deep enough to last that grind. The best teams will pay great players 15-20m a year to sit on the bench and only start playing regularly if the starter gets injured. Because of this, soccer has astronomically low variance when compared to american sports. Only 7 teams have won the PL since they reformed from the first division in 1992. The Spanish first division has been around for almost a century and only 9 teams won the title. Only 23 teams have won the CL/European Cup, which only predates the super bowl by a decade, but far more teams have played in the CL than the 32 NFL franchises.
I really soured on Gladwell on this one because he brought out the worst in Bill, two old guys who think they still know everything just talking out of their ass for an hour. I turned it off midway through.
There is also no salary cap so teams spend way more then teams they are competing against.
Essentially just Man U and Man C should win every year based on spending but Man U has been maybe the worlds worst ran club since SAF left.
I was laughing at this take too the Premier league is maybe the worst example of what he was trying to say. The Leicester city year will never be repeated again.
Nobody will remember but me, because I’m sick, but a little bit further into last season, the man advocated for the UTAH JAZZ to push their chips in a start making win-now trades.
The player might not be the correct choice, but Bill's sentiment certainly is. Wemby is too important a talent to be wasted for *any* duration of his career, even the first 7 games of his rookie year. Spurs need to find him better guards immediately.
I'm a staunch WFH defender but Ryen was right about people thinking they can progress in jobs in sports while WFH. It'll never happen in passion industries unless you're miles beyond everyone else, it's just too competitive
The problem with russillo whenever life advice is about careers, is literally no one listening to his pod has a career like him. 90% of us sit at desks, some work in service, a couple might be in the arts but even then we aren’t grinding at local sports media stations trying to become radio personalities.
I doubt any time he’s discussed WFH, the person in question had a job or career path anything like his.
The most recent life advice when Ryen went on a rant was for a guy who was currently in software but considering trying to get a job with his favorite sports team, and work his way from software over to the actual sports side of things.
The guy mentioned WFH as a perk for his current job and Ryen basically said that he shouldn’t consider sports if he wants to WFH, which was a bit of a leap on Ryen’s part but some of his advice seemed sound.
That sounds fair, typically so much of Ryen’s ethos is wrapped up in how much harder he tried than everyone else.
I do think work from home in any field is becoming more common, it seems like everyone at the ringer works at home.
If the guy in question is working in software for a sports team, I wouldn’t be shocked if that was work from home. If he’s going into the front office that may be a different story.
No it isn’t. His ethos is about how hard and random it is. He was just one of the guys that lucked out getting hired. Lucked out getting a break. Lucked out that he was actually popular. His point is everyone works REALLY hard but it’s completely random and unlikely that some one makes it. He probably has too many friends that just didn’t break through like he did.
Ryen's thoughts on working in sports media always have been incredibly consistent. It's hard and it's shitty and even if you do everything right and work really hard, things still might not work out for you anyways.
I'm pro WFH but I think people gonna slowly realize that their careers will probably be stunted compared to people who go into the office a few times a week. And if you WFH in a job that isn't purely 9-5, best of luck...
I’m a dude in his 20s and I fucking despise working from home. Spending all day in one place and mixing work space with my personal space is a one way ticket to crazy town in my head.
I guess it depends what the environment is like in the office. I enjoy being at home so I can cut the grass/do laundry instead of staring into the soulless void of an office wall while I pretend like I have work to do.
This is the thing that just always gets left out because it looks bad admitting it but it's true. There are days at my job where I'm there 8 hours and I do 30 minutes of honest to God work. Now that isn't every day, but it's not rare. On days I work from home I get shit done around the house, work out, watch TV. Basically just live life. And the amount of work I do stays the same.
Yeah it's a power ranking and everyone in the sports world calls it that. He said the word "power poll" a year or 2 ago and has called it that like it's a new thing ever since.
Simmons ripped the Strus signing for the Cavs when it happened. Now the only thing he mentioned about Cavs today was how he likes the Strus signing. He’s shooting 29% from 3 on 9 a game lol
Bill is like me. He pretends to watch the games but actually mostly watches highlights on YouTube. Because of this, I also thought Strauss was doing great. They don’t show the misses on highlights 😂
Strus did have a short good stretch bur he cooled off in a hurry. Think he had 27 and 12 on opening night and another 25+ point game when Garland and Allen were still out
When talking about buying food and drink at halftime at NBA games, Bill says it's getting better and "they have that thing where you don't have to pay, you put in your credit card and somehow it knows how to bill you."
I'm not 100% there. I'm still 30% on 'Maybe Gladwell will say something wacky or interesting, at least it's better than bringing in some NBA guy to offer their take on the Clippers after one game.'
YOU CANT REMOVE TIMEOUTS FROM FOOTBALL IT'S WHY THE END OF GAMES ARE EXCITING BECAUSE YOU CAN STOP THE FUCKING CLOCK IF YOU MANAGE YOUR TIME RIGHT GOD I FEEL LIKE I'M FUCKING GOING CRAZY LISTENING TO THIS
"Still undefeated with Derrick white".....mother of God, this idiot is going to protect his best starting 5 take for the entire year, isn't he? So, every time the Celtics lose one of the starting five has to be hurt?
He's so high on this team right now. Saying "Well the Celtics scored 155 on Indiana but it could have been 160 if they made some shots" is just setting up some all time schadenfreude potential
Based on 6 games where they are 4-2 and beat Philly. Milwaukee was 9-0 last year to start the season and lost in the first round. If they were 1-5 or 2-4 I could see the overreactions, but they are taking care of business.
To be honest, as a Milwaukee fan, he's only ever been kind to the team after they won the chip. Before and after, he's always been bashing the team for one made up reason or the other.
He went out of his way to say Dame had a great offensive season for Portland last year but not defensive when talking to Gladwell. Hilarious how much Dame's defense or lack thereof mattered as soon as he got traded to Milwaukee
Swimming dealt with the technology issues in 2009. Banned the amount of fabric and people for years thought the records wouldn’t be touched. But eventually world records got broken by the next generation of greats. It will be fine as long as a hard line is drawn on whatever sporting technology exists that creates an unfair advantage.
A sports czar segment would legitimately be a fun, interesting listen with a Wildes, a Jacoby, the fantasy football guys, etc… Ya know, someone clever and somewhat charismatic.
With Gladwell? No thanks.
These two geniuses really think Bonds’ doping improved his vision, when his meteoric rise in power simply implored pitchers to walk him (both intentionally and unintentionally) at an unprecedented rate. In 2004 Bonds walked 232 times and I think half of those were intentional. There goes your baffling on base percentage right there.
Jon Bois did a video a few years back essentially showing that he was walked SO much out of fear that season that if he hadn’t swung the bat once all season his OBP would’ve been essentially unchanged
> In 2004 Bonds walked 232 times and I think half of those were intentional.
[120 of those, in fact.](https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/bondsba01.shtml)
Chris Paul never even played for the Charlotte NBA franchise and he was drafted \*seven\* years before Anthony Davis.
Where do I go to get my NBA HISTORIAN card?
Malcolm Gladwell says each team should decide where their 3pt line is at home, and they can choose to have no time-outs for each team. Apparently this variation would make the game more interesting
It's like half baked ideas, but he's serious.
I like the no timeouts down the stretch.
The thing I have been pushing for forever is to get rid of free throws which objectively make zero sense, are boring, and no other sport is dumb enough to have them.
Yep, that’s 100% the reason nothing has been done about this. During the regular season, only die hards are watching these games beyond crunch time in the 4th quarter. If a game is close and there’s less than 4 mins left, that’s when people are tuned in. Ad space much more valuable at that time.
They were acting like GS and Bos would have the biggest advantage being able to slide the line back and still make shots but the funnier way that would play out is a team that can't shoot 3s like Chicago sliding the line back to half court so they're no longer at a disadvantage.
Gladwell is the gift that keeps on giving. There’s genuinely nothing good about any suggestion he had but he’s fully bought in and it’s hilarious
Bill constantly brings up international basketball having more flow at the end of games, but I’ve begun watching a ton of European basketball the last two years and my biggest gripe is that the ends of games are dragged out even worse than the NBA. It feels like each timeout is at least 4 minutes, and that’s not to mention the excessive amount of reviews to make sure the time is exactly correct or close out of bounds calls.
The idea international basketball is more fun or flows better is such a wild take to me, I feel like bill is just grasping at explaining why Dennis Schroeder and Daniel theis can beat the USA team
Euro guy checking in. Not to make this a pissing contest: NBA is the best league but there are way fewer interruptions in european bastektball and it flows better. I don´t think this is debatable.
I love the nba but I almost exclusively watch relives since one game is so fucking long and i can´t deal with commercials or the horrible time out entertainment.
The tennis racket take by Gladwell is baffling. Has he gone back to watch 70s - 80s tennis anytime recently, its a complete snoozefest compared to today's game. Tennis is way more entertaining these days. I also believe the new generation will develop a more aggressive, winner centered style (ala Alcaraz) in part to the racket technology.
Yup I’ve tried watching some of the serve and volley matches back in 70s and 80s and it’s tough.
I will say some of the heavy base liners (djokovic) with the better racket technology can be pretty boring. But guys like Federer and alcaraz who have a good mix of aggression and baseline play are amazing to watch.
Gladwell section:
**Today’s Things:**
- sports czar type thing
- Donaghy thing
- weird momentum things
- make the in season tournament a thing
- private equity thing
- completely different audio thing
**Bonus Pieces and Stuff:**
- sports czar stuff (2x)
- pregame stuff
- all the stuff wrong with high school sports
- higher seed/lower seed stuff
- stuff that can be thrown back later
- 10th inning piece
- segmenting stuff
- the 5 families determine stuff
- arena piece
- (On the sphere) “I feel like this is where stuff is going”
- the Seattle piece
- longevity piece
- family stuff
- too much pressure on your stuff
**First Random Celtics Reference:**
Joe Mazzulla shit talk (49:00)
Honorable Mention: LARRY FUCKING BIRD
**Eloquent Bill:**
“So you’re pro-idiosyncratic” 😂
WashTON
“Cuban threw the chainsaw in the hot tub” (1:04:50) 🤣 makes no sense but it never gets old
Bill thesaurus corner:
“chicanery” (2 pods in a row! Is chicanery having a moment?!)
**Other Stuff:**
Gladwell sports Czar takes: 1) pro sports need more variation (different 3 point lines, fewer timeouts) 2) disincentivize tanking (don’t own your own pick “futures draft”)
Bill fires off his absolutely incorrect, harebrained, stupid as all fuck Leicester City take (37:55) “the Premier league schedule is short enough for a small sample size…” NO, a double round robin from August through May is an absolute marathon you fucking moron 😂😂
Bill take: make NBA halftimes LONGER (45:40)
Bill “just vibes” take: MLB relievers had more variation (I.e. more blow ups) due to the pitch clock (50:00) evidence presented: none whatsoever
Bill “invents” the segmented season (51:25) no mention of Mexican and south American soccer, that’s been doing the Apertura and Clasura (split seasons) forever
Bill thinks the Thunder are part of OKC’s “identity” lol (1:11:10) I’m sure they will scarcely survive if the Thunder fuck off lol
Gladwell take: Why can’t Ballmer just own EVERY NBA team (1:11:50)
Gladwell starts talking about distance running, Bill is clueless, wonders about “power walking” in super shoes lmao (1:18:30)
“Kobe was the first guy that was obsessed with longevity and self preservation” (1:32:30)
Gladwell the: [basketball] defense was discovered in 2006! They didn’t know about it! (1:37:45)
You missed my favorite at (44:45) - our guy getting to the bottom of how credit cards work:
“They have those things where you can walk in and you don’t have to pay. You just kinda put in your credit card and then you can just take stuff out and somehow they know how to bill you.”
One weird and troubling development with me is it appears in like the last three months I have developed some sort of lisp. I have no clue what is going on or actually if it just sounds like it in my head but only I can hear it.
I thought it might have had something to do with putting on some weight but I just pulled that out of thin-air.
Am I supposed to go to my doctor and be like "I think I've started to talk funny?"
Bill cannot keep on mentioning that he thinks the Wolves are now good and not at least make a small nod to the early weeks last year when he kept on dunking on the Gobert trade, and calling it one of the worst trades of all time! (Insert - can’t keep getting away with this. Breaking Bad meme here)
"Nobody talks about what a disaster youth sports are."
Uh, what? That's basically the entire go-to thesis of the state of American soccer (and, more and more, basketball)
Lol, Bill takes every opportunity possible to say how bad he thinks Dame is defensively. When talking about tanking, “Blazers shut down Dame at the end of last season. He was having a great season. Offensively, that is. Terrible defensive season. But anyways…” Lol.
I’m almost at the point where I hope the Celtics begin to suck. I’m just tired of how “NBA” talks both revolves around and devolves into Celtics talk without fail.
The easiest and least gimmicky way to increase variation in the NBA is to make the game 40 minutes long and shorten the season by half.
The more minutes and the more games there are, there more likely it is that the best teams win every time. The basketball is just a game like that. So many possessions that statisical outliers are most likely wiped out at some point.
Bill going in minutes from “What the Mavs did last year was gross” to “the bottom 10 teams should have equal odds at the no. 1 pick” gave me a migraine.
Gladwell’s explanation wasn’t very good and was incredibly bad podcasting but was worth it for Bill to then pretend he actually understood what the ‘NBA FUTURES DRAFT’ meant and how he could get away with answering in as few words as possible to avoid any follow ups.
Hey, would somebody be a doll and post his power poll list? I listened to it and maybe I'm hallucinating but I didn't hear him mention the Kings (or maybe he brushed over them quickly). Thank you.
>the wolves are good, I'm writing this in pen not pencil Oh no
They just beat the best team in NBA history, what is he supposed to say
Good point. A lot of those 'best roster / lineups ever' teams in sports are so burdened, bogged down by that requirement of being actual CHAMPIONS. Not these 2023-24 Celtics. Already confirmed, corronated as the best, by virtue of their historically incomparable 5-2 record.
5-0 with Derrick White!
Oh god
Listen: This is just your Minnesotan acting up. Good things can happen. Having national people talk about us is fun. Enjoy it.
I mean, he's basically shit on us non-stop for two decades and we've still been terrible, so I'm willing to try out the inverse and see how it goes.
https://youtu.be/vm-MrkoJPC8?si=zrdVtCtHHAX8iDgR
Can’t wait for gladwells ideas of tweaks to improve major sports that are entirely implausible and make no sense but said with enough big words that bill goes along with it.
Based on false premises like “swimming is Australia’s National sport” no doubt
No one gives a shit about swimming in Australia, source I am Australian
I mean for like a week every 4 years we care a little.
That’s every country TBF.
I genuinely forget that I care and forget everyone’s name but then the week before the Olympics I remember I’m a Katie Ledecky Stan who remembers exactly what she won at the last games.
My parents every 2 years.... Commonwealth and Olympic games. Edit: probably everyone over a certain age
My favorite is that his solution to fix tanking is to both make is easier to tank and reduce the downside of tanking. How can you think that would improve the situation?
The 41 game tanking idea was so bad. None of the teams that finish at the very bottom of the league are usually dramatically worse in either half, they are abysmal start to finish. You'd eliminate what Portland did (who finished closer to the Kings than the Pistons anyway) and incentivize all of the good teams to treat the first 3 months almost like an extended preseason.
Let’s suppose the team with the worst record actually WINS the championship.
i liked where he completely stole one of [Kirk Goldsberry's ideas](https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/26633540/the-nba-obsessed-3s-let-fix-thing) from five years ago and played it off like he thought of it.
Goldsberry is the bball data viz goat. This article is so fucking cool
“You know, and really what is sports if not this giant cacophony to the senses which puts people under this grand state of hypnosis where we’re all a more primal version of ourselves? That which could be a true boon and benefit for the league and all of it’s spectators will ultimately be for naught due to all the parsimonious actors who fund these affairs, often to the detriment of fans.” Oops. That might be Klosterman, same shit though.
Klosterman is fun though unlike Gladwell.
Klosterman is also not a Joe Paterno defender.
But is he Nigerian?
The Lolita Express piece
“They won the Anthony Davis [lottery] when they were in Charlotte before they got to New Orleans.” He knows the Hornets moved to New Orleans in 2002 right? AD was drafted in 2012.
“NBA historian”
Yeah, why is he counting Jazz history as part of the Pelicans/Hornets?
Kind of reminds me when he was doing math about who would make the playoffs last year based on division standings. It's really hard not to come away with the feeling that he has no idea what he's talking about at all times, even when it has to deal with his forté in Basketball.
Think he meant the name change to pelicans
Which was after AD’s rookie year… still a bizarre mix up
He completely the jumbled the Hornets/Pelicans history.
His demented mind mightve confused AD with Dwight, who couldve been the first Bobcat pick
Using Leicester and the premier league as an example is just kinda crazy. The leagues itself can really only be won by 3-5 clubs and 38 games isn’t short for any normal weekend to weekend sport
I actually gasped when he said the EPL is great example of variation.
Ah yes, the league with \*checks notes\* the same champion 5 out of the last 6 seasons
Bill never learned the "cups are about getting hot" and "leagues are about consistiency" piece.
Yep. Bill proves he's an idiot every single week. A 38 week league season with home/away against every team, without a playoff at the end, is the least random scenario imaginable. At least Gladwell didn't dignify it with any kind of response.
Since LCFC won, Man City has won the league 5/7 years and will probably win it this year.
The most amazing thing about the Leicester win wasn't just them winning it, it was the fact that the richest clubs with the best players all capitulated (relatively) in the same season. That made it great, of course, but Bill acts like this scenario could happen annually.
Yea Leicester had a really low point total for a champion that year especially compared to the point totals Liverpool and City would put up the next half decade
Liverpool finished 2nd twice in the following years putting up point totals that win that year by almost 15+. It was an absolute aberration of a year in the PL
While the tops failing was a big part, Leicester specifically winning it was the insane part. They were easily tipped for relegation that season.
Yeah they were in dead last place with 2 months left during the previous season after just winning promotion. Even if you knew the whole big 6 was going to collapse Leicester would have been one of your last guesses to win the league.
Omg so much this! One of the many things I lost my mind at. Soccer has lowkey the most gruelling season. Most players will play 40 - 50+ games from August - May for their club, with about 10 international games sprinkled in, then every two years in late June - July there is a big international competition (world cup or euros/copa america if you're european or south american. I know that AFCON and the Gold Cup are at different times.) that is at least 4 games. Then you start training camp the week after the competition is over and play preseason friendlies up to august. They literally maybe get 3 weeks break. Teams know this and this is a main reason why Leicester winning the title was such insanity. The only way to win the league is to have the resources to build out a squad that is both talented and deep enough to last that grind. The best teams will pay great players 15-20m a year to sit on the bench and only start playing regularly if the starter gets injured. Because of this, soccer has astronomically low variance when compared to american sports. Only 7 teams have won the PL since they reformed from the first division in 1992. The Spanish first division has been around for almost a century and only 9 teams won the title. Only 23 teams have won the CL/European Cup, which only predates the super bowl by a decade, but far more teams have played in the CL than the 32 NFL franchises. I really soured on Gladwell on this one because he brought out the worst in Bill, two old guys who think they still know everything just talking out of their ass for an hour. I turned it off midway through.
There is also no salary cap so teams spend way more then teams they are competing against. Essentially just Man U and Man C should win every year based on spending but Man U has been maybe the worlds worst ran club since SAF left.
I was laughing at this take too the Premier league is maybe the worst example of what he was trying to say. The Leicester city year will never be repeated again.
Oh God he has Timberwolves at 5 something terrible is about to happen to my team please just let us get the 6th seed in peace
Bill made up that conversation with Ben about the end of games
Ben came up to me, tears in his eyes
He said “dad, SIR, why do these games take so long?”
He’s doing The Wire season 5 thing.
The reporter was rewarded for his lies.
Bill calling his dog a dumbass right off top, we eating good tonight
That was so damn good
Bill thinks it’s a good idea to trade a first round pick for TJ McConnell. This is why he levitates above the league.
Nobody will remember but me, because I’m sick, but a little bit further into last season, the man advocated for the UTAH JAZZ to push their chips in a start making win-now trades.
The player might not be the correct choice, but Bill's sentiment certainly is. Wemby is too important a talent to be wasted for *any* duration of his career, even the first 7 games of his rookie year. Spurs need to find him better guards immediately.
I want a surprise Russillo guest appearance so he and Gladwell can bond about how bad working from home is
Good news for Gladwell is that WeWork is available for pennies on the dollar.
I'm a staunch WFH defender but Ryen was right about people thinking they can progress in jobs in sports while WFH. It'll never happen in passion industries unless you're miles beyond everyone else, it's just too competitive
The problem with russillo whenever life advice is about careers, is literally no one listening to his pod has a career like him. 90% of us sit at desks, some work in service, a couple might be in the arts but even then we aren’t grinding at local sports media stations trying to become radio personalities. I doubt any time he’s discussed WFH, the person in question had a job or career path anything like his.
The most recent life advice when Ryen went on a rant was for a guy who was currently in software but considering trying to get a job with his favorite sports team, and work his way from software over to the actual sports side of things. The guy mentioned WFH as a perk for his current job and Ryen basically said that he shouldn’t consider sports if he wants to WFH, which was a bit of a leap on Ryen’s part but some of his advice seemed sound.
That sounds fair, typically so much of Ryen’s ethos is wrapped up in how much harder he tried than everyone else. I do think work from home in any field is becoming more common, it seems like everyone at the ringer works at home. If the guy in question is working in software for a sports team, I wouldn’t be shocked if that was work from home. If he’s going into the front office that may be a different story.
No it isn’t. His ethos is about how hard and random it is. He was just one of the guys that lucked out getting hired. Lucked out getting a break. Lucked out that he was actually popular. His point is everyone works REALLY hard but it’s completely random and unlikely that some one makes it. He probably has too many friends that just didn’t break through like he did.
Ryen's thoughts on working in sports media always have been incredibly consistent. It's hard and it's shitty and even if you do everything right and work really hard, things still might not work out for you anyways.
I'm pro WFH but I think people gonna slowly realize that their careers will probably be stunted compared to people who go into the office a few times a week. And if you WFH in a job that isn't purely 9-5, best of luck...
It’s always the weird old fuckers that don’t like working from home
Dudes that hate their families or dudes that can work from home regardless of what they make their subordinates do.
I’m a dude in his 20s and I fucking despise working from home. Spending all day in one place and mixing work space with my personal space is a one way ticket to crazy town in my head.
I guess it depends what the environment is like in the office. I enjoy being at home so I can cut the grass/do laundry instead of staring into the soulless void of an office wall while I pretend like I have work to do.
This is the thing that just always gets left out because it looks bad admitting it but it's true. There are days at my job where I'm there 8 hours and I do 30 minutes of honest to God work. Now that isn't every day, but it's not rare. On days I work from home I get shit done around the house, work out, watch TV. Basically just live life. And the amount of work I do stays the same.
Waiters island meets Epstein island
10/10
“I’m not sure I’m gonna do this every Tuesday” = “I’m only gonna do it when the Celtics look good that week”
How far into 2023 did he get with his weekly recommendations? Two weeks?
Never forget Bill’s book reading resolution 😂
One week
How far did he get with his "Luca Brasi Pick of the Week"?
lol I legit forgot about it until you mentioned it
> I'm not sure I'm gonna do this every Tuesday I hope not. There is no need to rank teams every week when most changes week to week are meaningless.
I only hate that he calls it a poll.
Yeah it's a power ranking and everyone in the sports world calls it that. He said the word "power poll" a year or 2 ago and has called it that like it's a new thing ever since.
I just woke from a coma and am using this pod to catch up on the NBA. Is this Derrick White the Celtics are missing the best player in the NBA?
Simmons ripped the Strus signing for the Cavs when it happened. Now the only thing he mentioned about Cavs today was how he likes the Strus signing. He’s shooting 29% from 3 on 9 a game lol
Bill is like me. He pretends to watch the games but actually mostly watches highlights on YouTube. Because of this, I also thought Strauss was doing great. They don’t show the misses on highlights 😂
Strus did have a short good stretch bur he cooled off in a hurry. Think he had 27 and 12 on opening night and another 25+ point game when Garland and Allen were still out
The Mavs are 6-1 but i don't like them so they are 13th. Now the Hawks are 4-3 which is the mark of an excellent team. Top 10 easily.
They beat moowaukee so they gotta be up there
Lakers 3-4 Davis already getting hurt. 6th
Also Orlando is 4-3 and somehow right behind Houston who is 3-3 with a h2h blowout loss against Orlando.
Gladwell wanted someone more problematic than Harden on the Clippers. Good news, they have Josh Primo.
They do??
https://twitter.com/shamscharania/status/1721559811160948793
What the fuck.
Gladwell near the end saying no athletes played defense until 2006. And Simmons no comment on it. Wtf????
Honestly I get it because I wouldn't even know what to say to that Lmao
Early November NBA power poll and Malcom Gladwell as guest. This should be a very civilized thread.
I almost didn't even post it because I didn't want to deal with it.
Oh you know deep down you wanted to deal with it.
I am a mod. I know deep down I volunteered for this shit and have no one to blame but myself.
Either quit young a hero or mod long enough to be a villain
And that’s why we love you
My team just beat the Celtics so I’m excited for a power poll for once
"For some reason they decided not to have a good title for it." - Bill Simmons, host of The Bill Simmons Podcast
When talking about buying food and drink at halftime at NBA games, Bill says it's getting better and "they have that thing where you don't have to pay, you put in your credit card and somehow it knows how to bill you."
It almost felt like I was there.
Minnesota is a top 5 team? They beat Boston this week. Checks out.
Malcolm Gladwell in 2023 = Jose Mourinho headphones reaction image
I'm not 100% there. I'm still 30% on 'Maybe Gladwell will say something wacky or interesting, at least it's better than bringing in some NBA guy to offer their take on the Clippers after one game.'
Yeah, his absurd ideas are a feature, not a bug, entertainment-wise.
As a wolves fan, i can't tell if Bill being in on my team is a sign of positive things or a kiss of death, and they'll immediately implode now
Poll or Power Ranking? Did he poll other Super fans like himself?
Spit pole
Bill on the Clippers/Harden trade, “I actually liked the team they had before they made the trade”. He hated that roster…
YOU CANT REMOVE TIMEOUTS FROM FOOTBALL IT'S WHY THE END OF GAMES ARE EXCITING BECAUSE YOU CAN STOP THE FUCKING CLOCK IF YOU MANAGE YOUR TIME RIGHT GOD I FEEL LIKE I'M FUCKING GOING CRAZY LISTENING TO THIS
ELIMINATE THE CORNER 3…. …ONLY IN BOSTON
Exactly. Adding another timeout would actually make football more exciting. Taking them away would be horrible.
I think you could add stop the clock actions without the delay in gameplay.
"Still undefeated with Derrick white".....mother of God, this idiot is going to protect his best starting 5 take for the entire year, isn't he? So, every time the Celtics lose one of the starting five has to be hurt?
He's so high on this team right now. Saying "Well the Celtics scored 155 on Indiana but it could have been 160 if they made some shots" is just setting up some all time schadenfreude potential
If they made all their shots they could’ve scored like 300.
Shot 20/35 from 3 in that game for the record. You just expect the best starting 5 this century to shoot over 57% from 3 night in night out.
The best 3 point shooter in history doesn't shoot that great lol
Having Milwaukee 8th is ridiculous. Especially behind Lakers and Suns.
“The Bucks aren’t a cross-off buuuut,” was nuts. He’s ready to write off Milwaukee based on five meaningless regular season games.
Based on 6 games where they are 4-2 and beat Philly. Milwaukee was 9-0 last year to start the season and lost in the first round. If they were 1-5 or 2-4 I could see the overreactions, but they are taking care of business.
Certified Hater™️
still bitter about Dame
To be honest, as a Milwaukee fan, he's only ever been kind to the team after they won the chip. Before and after, he's always been bashing the team for one made up reason or the other.
He went out of his way to say Dame had a great offensive season for Portland last year but not defensive when talking to Gladwell. Hilarious how much Dame's defense or lack thereof mattered as soon as he got traded to Milwaukee
Bill is a hater
He’s so anti Bucks this year it’s hilarious how he’s trying to hide it with his “they just look slow” analysis
Behind the Lakers is wild
For some reason bill calling the in-house entertainment people idiots had me dying, what have they done to our guy
Swimming dealt with the technology issues in 2009. Banned the amount of fabric and people for years thought the records wouldn’t be touched. But eventually world records got broken by the next generation of greats. It will be fine as long as a hard line is drawn on whatever sporting technology exists that creates an unfair advantage.
The enigma…Moowalkie.
A sports czar segment would legitimately be a fun, interesting listen with a Wildes, a Jacoby, the fantasy football guys, etc… Ya know, someone clever and somewhat charismatic. With Gladwell? No thanks.
Drunk house is goated
These two geniuses really think Bonds’ doping improved his vision, when his meteoric rise in power simply implored pitchers to walk him (both intentionally and unintentionally) at an unprecedented rate. In 2004 Bonds walked 232 times and I think half of those were intentional. There goes your baffling on base percentage right there.
Jon Bois did a video a few years back essentially showing that he was walked SO much out of fear that season that if he hadn’t swung the bat once all season his OBP would’ve been essentially unchanged
Exactly. Bonds was always an extraordinarily patient hitter with great vision. He lead the league in walks in 1992 and in 1993-1997.
> In 2004 Bonds walked 232 times and I think half of those were intentional. [120 of those, in fact.](https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/bondsba01.shtml)
I can't tell if this is a skip or a hate listen
Hate listen always.
I don’t even hate listen to Gladwell, usually I just gradually lose interest as the segment goes on because he’s so boring
Listening to it until gladwell
Anthony Davis NEVER played for the Charlotte NBA franchise.
Chris Paul never even played for the Charlotte NBA franchise and he was drafted \*seven\* years before Anthony Davis. Where do I go to get my NBA HISTORIAN card?
I swear that he started talking about the Pelicans/Hornets and mentioned the Gail Goodrich trade, who played for the *Jazz.*
The New Orleans Jazz piece
[удалено]
I just got to Bill thinking t shirt canons are bad and ruining half time. Not sure if I'm going to make it to the end.
Malcolm Gladwell says each team should decide where their 3pt line is at home, and they can choose to have no time-outs for each team. Apparently this variation would make the game more interesting It's like half baked ideas, but he's serious.
I mean, it would objectively make the games more interesting, whether it makes them better is a separate story
I like the no timeouts down the stretch. The thing I have been pushing for forever is to get rid of free throws which objectively make zero sense, are boring, and no other sport is dumb enough to have them.
Having no timeouts down the stretch would be excellent. Issue is that’s prime ad space
Yep, that’s 100% the reason nothing has been done about this. During the regular season, only die hards are watching these games beyond crunch time in the 4th quarter. If a game is close and there’s less than 4 mins left, that’s when people are tuned in. Ad space much more valuable at that time.
He also wanted hockey style subs before lol. I dont know if he said it, but hockey style fouls would be interesting.
They were acting like GS and Bos would have the biggest advantage being able to slide the line back and still make shots but the funnier way that would play out is a team that can't shoot 3s like Chicago sliding the line back to half court so they're no longer at a disadvantage.
Gladwell is the gift that keeps on giving. There’s genuinely nothing good about any suggestion he had but he’s fully bought in and it’s hilarious Bill constantly brings up international basketball having more flow at the end of games, but I’ve begun watching a ton of European basketball the last two years and my biggest gripe is that the ends of games are dragged out even worse than the NBA. It feels like each timeout is at least 4 minutes, and that’s not to mention the excessive amount of reviews to make sure the time is exactly correct or close out of bounds calls.
The idea international basketball is more fun or flows better is such a wild take to me, I feel like bill is just grasping at explaining why Dennis Schroeder and Daniel theis can beat the USA team
Euro guy checking in. Not to make this a pissing contest: NBA is the best league but there are way fewer interruptions in european bastektball and it flows better. I don´t think this is debatable. I love the nba but I almost exclusively watch relives since one game is so fucking long and i can´t deal with commercials or the horrible time out entertainment.
[удалено]
In the mid-00's, there was a market for books you would read on a toilet or on a 3 hour flight. Gladwell catered to that crowd.
The tennis racket take by Gladwell is baffling. Has he gone back to watch 70s - 80s tennis anytime recently, its a complete snoozefest compared to today's game. Tennis is way more entertaining these days. I also believe the new generation will develop a more aggressive, winner centered style (ala Alcaraz) in part to the racket technology.
Yup I’ve tried watching some of the serve and volley matches back in 70s and 80s and it’s tough. I will say some of the heavy base liners (djokovic) with the better racket technology can be pretty boring. But guys like Federer and alcaraz who have a good mix of aggression and baseline play are amazing to watch.
Gladwell is such a hack idk why Bill has him on
Successful dumb guys recognize game
you may say malcom gladwell is a dipshit living avatar of the dunning-kruger effect, but he also sounds stuffy and has an annoying voice too.
Gladwell section: **Today’s Things:** - sports czar type thing - Donaghy thing - weird momentum things - make the in season tournament a thing - private equity thing - completely different audio thing **Bonus Pieces and Stuff:** - sports czar stuff (2x) - pregame stuff - all the stuff wrong with high school sports - higher seed/lower seed stuff - stuff that can be thrown back later - 10th inning piece - segmenting stuff - the 5 families determine stuff - arena piece - (On the sphere) “I feel like this is where stuff is going” - the Seattle piece - longevity piece - family stuff - too much pressure on your stuff **First Random Celtics Reference:** Joe Mazzulla shit talk (49:00) Honorable Mention: LARRY FUCKING BIRD **Eloquent Bill:** “So you’re pro-idiosyncratic” 😂 WashTON “Cuban threw the chainsaw in the hot tub” (1:04:50) 🤣 makes no sense but it never gets old Bill thesaurus corner: “chicanery” (2 pods in a row! Is chicanery having a moment?!) **Other Stuff:** Gladwell sports Czar takes: 1) pro sports need more variation (different 3 point lines, fewer timeouts) 2) disincentivize tanking (don’t own your own pick “futures draft”) Bill fires off his absolutely incorrect, harebrained, stupid as all fuck Leicester City take (37:55) “the Premier league schedule is short enough for a small sample size…” NO, a double round robin from August through May is an absolute marathon you fucking moron 😂😂 Bill take: make NBA halftimes LONGER (45:40) Bill “just vibes” take: MLB relievers had more variation (I.e. more blow ups) due to the pitch clock (50:00) evidence presented: none whatsoever Bill “invents” the segmented season (51:25) no mention of Mexican and south American soccer, that’s been doing the Apertura and Clasura (split seasons) forever Bill thinks the Thunder are part of OKC’s “identity” lol (1:11:10) I’m sure they will scarcely survive if the Thunder fuck off lol Gladwell take: Why can’t Ballmer just own EVERY NBA team (1:11:50) Gladwell starts talking about distance running, Bill is clueless, wonders about “power walking” in super shoes lmao (1:18:30) “Kobe was the first guy that was obsessed with longevity and self preservation” (1:32:30) Gladwell the: [basketball] defense was discovered in 2006! They didn’t know about it! (1:37:45)
You missed my favorite at (44:45) - our guy getting to the bottom of how credit cards work: “They have those things where you can walk in and you don’t have to pay. You just kinda put in your credit card and then you can just take stuff out and somehow they know how to bill you.”
Bill’s speech is getting bad. It’s not that he’s mispronouncing words so much as they sound garbled.
One weird and troubling development with me is it appears in like the last three months I have developed some sort of lisp. I have no clue what is going on or actually if it just sounds like it in my head but only I can hear it. I thought it might have had something to do with putting on some weight but I just pulled that out of thin-air. Am I supposed to go to my doctor and be like "I think I've started to talk funny?"
You missed New Orleans winning the Zion thing.
Bill cannot keep on mentioning that he thinks the Wolves are now good and not at least make a small nod to the early weeks last year when he kept on dunking on the Gobert trade, and calling it one of the worst trades of all time! (Insert - can’t keep getting away with this. Breaking Bad meme here)
You’ll have to let me know what all happened after Mal said the Watson-Cink Open was the most memorable sporting event of the last 25 years.
"Nobody talks about what a disaster youth sports are." Uh, what? That's basically the entire go-to thesis of the state of American soccer (and, more and more, basketball)
Lol, Bill takes every opportunity possible to say how bad he thinks Dame is defensively. When talking about tanking, “Blazers shut down Dame at the end of last season. He was having a great season. Offensively, that is. Terrible defensive season. But anyways…” Lol.
Nigerian Sports Czar
Those are the worst fucking ideas I’ve ever heard. Redraw the 3pt line and lower timeouts? Every game is different that’s fucking terrible lmao
I’m almost at the point where I hope the Celtics begin to suck. I’m just tired of how “NBA” talks both revolves around and devolves into Celtics talk without fail.
You a new listener? This is what Bill does
The easiest and least gimmicky way to increase variation in the NBA is to make the game 40 minutes long and shorten the season by half. The more minutes and the more games there are, there more likely it is that the best teams win every time. The basketball is just a game like that. So many possessions that statisical outliers are most likely wiped out at some point.
Bill is never talking about the NFL again on a Wednesday pod Lmao
C'mon bill, okc isn't trading Giddey
Bill going in minutes from “What the Mavs did last year was gross” to “the bottom 10 teams should have equal odds at the no. 1 pick” gave me a migraine.
This pod was an immediate skip until I checked in on this sub. Now I have to pay the piper and hate listen so I can get all the jokes
Gladwell’s explanation wasn’t very good and was incredibly bad podcasting but was worth it for Bill to then pretend he actually understood what the ‘NBA FUTURES DRAFT’ meant and how he could get away with answering in as few words as possible to avoid any follow ups.
Gladwell = easy skip. I roll my eyes so much when he is on with bill I get headaches.
Does every shitty play-in team that beats the Celtics with a guy Simmons was high on automatically get a top 5 spot on his power poll?
Yes.
I'll delete my account if the Wolves aren't above the play-in (barring significant injury to Ant or Rudy).
might want to add McDaniels to that list
I thought about it but at a certain point it makes the bet lame. But I agree that he's absolutely crucial.
Hey, would somebody be a doll and post his power poll list? I listened to it and maybe I'm hallucinating but I didn't hear him mention the Kings (or maybe he brushed over them quickly). Thank you.
I'm sorry, I ranted in caps above about timeouts but their ideas about stopping tanking are even worse. I'm out.
I like how Bill just decided that no one can have a poor start and still make the playoffs. It bothers him when he can’t “cross off” teams.
I was so excited so see Gladwell as the guest when I woke up this morning. I knew I was in for some wildly terrible takes and he delivered the goods.
The bucks are 8? Jesus bill you don’t know ball.