A Crazy NBA Month With Zach Lowe, Plus Taylor Sheridan on Building a TV Empire and the Problems With Hollywood

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The Bill Simmons 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 of the pod.

Zach is coming off an incredible Victoria's Day in Philadelphia, where he celebrated a

World Cup win with a bunch of tall Croatians. Very dull. I was worried you were going to crush 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 don't have a party, and we move on to the round of 32. We're going to be underdogs. But it's fine.

Like look, I'm glad if this is it. I got to see Luca Muldrich summon one last great game. Start to finish, and that was amazing. And you're 2-0 in the World Cup this year in person. Yeah, that's been pointed out to be my multiple people associated with the Croatian football

team. I had to go to the game. 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 their Met's Play Blue Jays the day before in Toronto.

I could do a double, just skip NBA free agency all together and just go to be a sports fan. We're going to try to rip through NBA stuff in 75 minutes, which includes Jaling Brown. I have not given any take it on the Lamello Traits in Minnesota. Yeah, you did a whole podcast about it.

We're going to talk Charlotte Phoenix a little bit. We're going to talk about what happened on LeBron. And we're going to 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. Jaling Brown, not traded yet information and misinformation flying around. 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, a little pissy about some advanced metrics, tweets, got mad at Bobby

Marx for passing along something he heard from a front office. He's been doing panels, the word on the street on Jaling in France, and I know multiple people who were in his vicinity or whatever, is that he 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 miss handled this in any way?

First of all, you have sources on the ground across France like it would never be

good. Can you read it? I was kidding. Yeah, it was on sports panels there. I don't think he's really too happy about the last couple of things.

What would the miss handling have been? Tell me what the miss handling would because they want to let's let's not for Lee, let's lead with the thing. They won the championship with Jaling 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 missed him?”

Not is it not trading him already? Is it even getting into the honest bidding to begin with? Because you can't not have that get out. And even it's only, and once he gets out that you're interested in Janis, who is better than Jaling Brown, older, but better, and addresses it, okay, fine.

We can litigate that if you want. Once that gets out, there's no other realistic path for this to happen.

no other offer. That's it.

It has to be Jaling Brown is just math.

And so you let everyone else put the logic together.

“So what should they, I think you're only alternative, you just answered your own question.”

Okay, just trade them right away or don't get involved with Janis, those are the two things. No, he's the issue. 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 Janis thing and they make a real offer form, 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 going to stay between us. Well, here, there's a couple of different things that happen this summer. Terrible.

That's a terrible assumption. Well, okay. But new owner, we have Jimmy Hazelman there now. He wasn't really in there like when the Drew Halt has 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 Jaling Brown or not. So obviously, they're going to be stealth-candressing his value in a couple different places. And that's how the shit gets out.

It's the third team that it was supposed this because they're delighted to tell people, oh, my God, they checked with us. Whatever.

“So I think the mistake the Celtics made, if you're going to do this, you're going to go”

down the road and actually put Jaling on the table, which they did. And the only made one offer, which I've said multiple times, the offer for the Jaling the picks. Anything else was a lie?

He goes never on the table.

They never beat up their offer the last week and nothing. But if you're going to do this, I think you just have to put Jaling on the block at that point. Because once he's out there, you have to anticipate how he's going to react to it. This guy already feels like he's 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 not 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 for any other season, I actually understand his point on that, even though I don't think he should have said it that way.

One counter them out, everyone that over under was 41 and a half, he was the only reliable score or an offensive weapon on the team. They went 56 and 23, the last seven night games, they were second and offensive rating.

“And I think he feels this respected, so you put them 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 them, you're going to get shitty or offers. So I would have just done it all once. So yeah, I'm trying, I'm trying to figure out what you think they should have done, because

I thought what you were going to, what you were going to say when you started, what I thought you were going to say was, once you put them in for Janice, you then just have to make the honest trade, which means swallow, shiremen, and goods allus or whatever it is. But you're not saying that. You just think like you're saying, just open it up and do it immediately, but I 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 them, it's a little different than being like, hey, we're pursuing Janice with Jalen, but we're also open for offers right now. And I just feel like it's a better market if teams feel like, oh, shit, Jalen's going

to be on the table. I'm competing against the possibility that he's going to get traded to block you for Janice. 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 that 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, right? 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.

What you can't capture and go back and look at his game log going against Detroit, San Antonio, okay, see, pick one of the best in the next. Pick one of the best teams in the league last year. He was their only guy that I knew was going to show up in the game. I didn't know if Derek White, I didn't paint and preachers, you know, as good as he is,

he's trick or treat, sometimes he just doesn't have it.

All these bench guys, Keda, it was basically just Jalen.

So I think weirdly he's become underrated, I don't really understand it. I mean, a lot of it has to do, I, 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 the contract, right? And I think like this is the difference between, this is one of this ties into why the hornets traded the mellow 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 he would get much bigger in the mellows case, but with Jalen because he made

all NBA and they won the championship and all that. It's now at a point where it's like 60, 65, like these are just hard deals to trade for

a top five player, like a no-brainer with a bullet top five. But he's one of the top 15. He sure is. And yeah, I mean, he was last year, I, we would have to sit down and do it. And he was in my top 15 on the last ring or 100, 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 Janice, 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, for what?

“Like, that does that not make us worse this season?”

Like, y'all, it's cool that we cleaned up the cap sheet and got a couple of picks. But like, what's the headliner that we got that helped us? Now we last season. So you're throwing away a second season in row, basically, a chance to contend after you've won the 24 title. I, I just feel like they must have known that we, listen, we, you and I have both

talked to a million people about Tatum and, and Jaylin and do they get along? Do they not get along? Is it, are they good, like, work relationship, but not friends? Like, you could go into a million different ways.

It's the people around them that always cost 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 the shit. I do think it's notable that Jaylin didn't really say a lot about Tatum during the season. It was not about not that 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 Tatum?”

He hasn't said anything. He's said anything in the soft season. Jaylin said at one point, Tatum was coming on his, his twitch or whatever, he hasn't come on. How about the last couple 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 Jaylin. We won the title together two years ago.

I can't control the front office, but 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 that this is a wrap. And that Jaylin just wants his own team and Tatum probably wants something to have his own team. And that's probably the answer, right?

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 actual equal peers, like not one A1B, but like one A1A is a check and Kobe, like what's the one that transformed from Pippin Jordan to some, because I look at these guys and I'm like,

why can't they both average 27 points a game? Like, why does it, like, is that not on the table?

Does it have to be someone's team? Is someone's always going to be considered better, right?

A better all around player, whatever, but in terms of who's team, it is who controls the ball. Like, I don't know when Tatum came back, unless you're obviously he's easing into it, but I didn't feel like there was any sort of, oh, wow, things have changed so dramatically for Jaylin. You felt in the playoffs though? In some games you did, you played it slow and just have felt a little more attain a thing. To answer your question,

I honestly have to go back to the '60s with Elgin and Jerry, I think. I think that's the last time where it's like, I don't even know who's better between this two. And Shack and Kobe were there a little bit, but Shack always had that trump card of like in a playoff series that there wasn't a team that could guard Shack. He just ran a mock. I mean, his three final stats were at a whole other level than Kobe. I mean, Steph, they ran, but those

that team just existed on a plane of, of its own, you know, the one that was there. 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 that, 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?

Three years. True. And I think, I think that's a good parallel to this, because I think the

reason I'm always going to think this and Durant, no matter how many panels he goes on with rich

climate and different countries talking about the future sports and entertainment of business, I'm always going to feel this way. I think he thought after he went ahead, tied with the broader beat him in the 2017 title, that he was going to get his flowers and his just do as one of the great guys, not only of the century, but maybe the best guy in the league.

“And it didn't happen. And it was like, no, you joined Steph's team. That's why he won.”

And I think it got to the point where he's like, I can't win here. I have to leave. I wonder if Jaylons at that point a little bit too, where he's like, we want to title, I'm finals MVP. I'm conference finals MVP. I carried our team last year. And now the moment Tatum gets back. They're like, thanks, Jaylons. We're going to trade you for Yannis now. And I think he wants to leave. I don't think he feels like he was respected in the right way.

stuff? Are there signals that he sent to Jaylons tell him, go explore and deal for us?

But the reality is he's 29 years old. He is best season ever last year.

He's played 2600 minutes in 10 year, 26,000 minutes in 10 years, almost 5,000 playoff minutes. The guy's really fucking good. Even if you're going like, he's 142 playoff games. I think he's 20 a game in the playoffs. And if you're going like 125 games enough, it's a list of like 15 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 he's worth. It's like Portland won't give up that event clinging. They won't

for Jaylon Brown. That's going to be a deal breaker for you. So 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. I mean, someone has to play center for the Blazers, right? If they if they trade for

“Jaylon Brown, 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. Come, people just today, when talking about the challenge of trading a player, making his much money as Jaylon 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. Anthony Davis was throwing out. Trayon was throwing out. I rejected

both of those out of hand. I'm like he's younger than Anthony Davis a million times more durable.

He's much bigger than Trayon. And he's a two way player. He's in his prime. I reject them. The best one I heard was Carl Anthony Towns who the wolves felt like we have we were 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 palatable deal we have on paper. It's like really not that sexy. It's Julius Randall demon chenzo and one first round pick. It's, it's gonna 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 Jaylon's last season was better than any season Towns is had start to finish. But just generally where you're, but here's the difference. Could Towns have ever gone 56 and 26 with the two through 15 that Jaylon had last year.

No, there's anyway. I think so. No, I don't think so. I just think Jaylon should get more credit for this season last year. And I don't understand like he was 29 again played all the time. And he's a whole year to see him being like, I don't know if he's, how good is it? I don't know about that contract. It's like, well, he's one of the 15 best guys in the league and all of those guys have max contracts. So why wouldn't he have a max cut? What's he going to be playing for 35

“million a year? I get it. I get it. And it's going to be, that's why all those parallels to be”

are either wildly wrong or slightly imperfect like the Towns one. But yeah, I think the Celtics are going to have a choice, a very difficult choice unless something changes between now and whenever between taking an offer for Jaylon Brown that is going to be, let's say, not super well received by the fan base, maybe. Now, I'm not saying it's going to be bashed. It's going to be poorly received. But it's not going to be like the bananas package that you would expect trading a player

of this caliber or trying like hell to put the toothpaste back in the tube and just say, hey, you know what, we're going to have to figure it out. You guys have played all well together for many years. I mean, this is like, this is why Mazula behind the scenes is one of the most respected beloved coaches at this guy that during the 2024 Olympics, when Tatum is playing time is getting yanked around and he wasn't put that little flute of France to make sure he was like, this is a guy

“who has been a tune with those dudes the whole time. I'm sure he's talking to Jaylon all the time.”

And if anybody could just get those two dudes in a room and just be like, look, 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 Jaylon is just reached a point and no return because the difference here is that they won the title. So it can't be one of those things. Like, I don't have a ring yet. He's like, here he has the ring.

He already has the respect from last year. Now he wants the 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 town and not mine. That's just the way it is. Can I throw a what if at you? Yeah, what is this look like if

Tatum never gets hurt, but they lose to New York anyway in the second round of year that he got hurt.

And like, how does what does that 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 platelet. Like, I just would be interested to see how that plays out because Tatum's injury is what has changed

anyway, or or or or not? I don't know the answer to that. Well, if we were one of Jaylon Brown's

every every NBA star has funky around them, right? It's just like you're great. Let's go to dinner of the Czechs area, better pay. If we were to of Jaylon Brown's fronties, wouldn't we be like, why why are you the one being traded? Why wouldn't Tatum be traded? It's coming up from major injury. His contract is as big as yours. You just carried the team to 50, like you're just planning that stuff in his head constantly, right? I mean, I would why you

why not Tatum? Why just you? I would just like, I feel like I would be a more valuable member of a, of the franchise of a friend group than that. That would be a more reasonable member of the friend group. But this is why I asked you devil's advocate two weeks ago or last week, whenever we said this, I said, if I'm jail and Brown, I'm looking around being like, why is it just assumed that if we have to break up, I'm the one that goes like, I, this guy just is coming off in a killies injury.

Now, I say that, I think Jaylon Tatum is a better all around basketball player than jail and Brown.

“I think that's what that's been proven out. So I get why if the Celtics are making a choice,”

it is Tatum. But if I also get jail and Brown being like, what else do I have to do? Like, what else do you need me to do to be of worth of, of his there? He's there right now. He's like, you guys, we're going to tank last season. We were building our way to a top three seed and you traded diamonds for the corpse of Vusobitch to save more money. And then you threw Jay T back in there. You played him too many minutes and he could even play in game seven. Like, there's no blood on my hands

for anything that happened last season. When you talked about what, what trade would the Celtics fan base accept? An example of one they wouldn't if it was Zach Levine's expiring in a boat load of of King's picks. It'd like three first two swaps, whatever. That's not flying. Same for Brooklyn if it was Porter's expiring and a bunch of 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 drop now and I think pool has to be in it as an expiring. I think that's Murphy and pool and maybe two first. And I don't even know if New Orleans says yes to that, because New Orleans says, well, what are we going to do? We're not going to win the title of Jaylin. You don't think New Orleans would say us to train Murphy Jordan pool.

Who is Jordan pool is just Jordan pool expiring. 34 million dollars of expiring money.

Plus two picks. And two on protective 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 if they're out for the holiday weekend or any 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 won. For Portland, I think Drew has to be in the trade. I don't want Jeremy Grant. Can't put Jeremy Grant's contract for two years.

Can't be in the trade. It's the same. If you could just be through holidays, it's the 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 availability has been an issue. You actually shot it pretty well last year. I don't I don't think he's just sort of like dead money by any means. Well, how about this? Drew Holiday, Kamara and picks for Jaylin. That's a trade I can talk myself into

from a basketball standpoint. How many now is three really good guards? I don't know.

“Look, I mean, that's how many picks is Kamara worth at 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 36, 37 year old guard who we already had on the team once and he's fine. He's good. And like, Tomani, who? Yeah, Tomani what? Like the Boston casual fans that have no idea who that is. And like, okay, some picks. Like that's what we got for Jaylin 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. Well, I don't know if Portland loves the Obdia, Jaylin 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. Whoa, this is the trade. We've been texting about this this week. And there's a lot of a lot of smoke, billowing around Denver in general. Some, I believe, some I don't believe. Murray and Cam Johnson for Jaylin and Houser,

which would save Denver 10 million dollars this year. The Celtics could take Cam Johnson in their

trade exception. Murray is 50 million this year of 54 and 57. So he's about 8 million behind Jaylin

7.8 million. I'm adding Cam Johnson who I can either keep or spin in a trade. And I'm getting

somebody who I still think is one of the best 25 players in the league back for Jaylin.

“And I think I'm I'm Boston. I'm signing up for that trade. If I'm Denver,”

at least having a six hour meeting. And it's a reconstruction of of of of a team because you're going to remove the Murray Oakage Pick and Roll, but you could run a lot of that offense through Joker. You re-sign paint Watson with the extra money. You have him more involved offensively. And you could argue that that team is better. It's bigger and steeper. You have Yokeage and Gordon and and Jaylin as your frontline. You're just you have more flexibility and you have somebody who

can really step in if Gordon gets hurt, which you get 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. It's a well well done Picasso trade. Boston gets a little smaller. I think depending on whether Cam Johnson, you know, six around the team, they get a little, although they played with only one of the Jay's almost

all of last year anyway. It's a good trade. I mean, Jabal Murray addresses a need for Boston.

“I think it allows them to go, allows them to go three guards at the same time,”

which is something they can only really do last year when Simon's was on the team and then couldn't. And also like the reason they got into this youngest thing in general was because they felt like Hugo and Shireman and maybe even has her walls. Like they just felt like they could patch the minutes together that Jaylin had with worst stats, but at least like two way stuff. And then Tatum would take some of the offensive slack, but really they wanted to unleash Hugo, which is why

he was untouchable in that trade. So they would cover the wings. They're state they would still need a center. But it's an interesting team. And I honestly, I think Murray's a great bed. I thought

he had too much of a bird and on the nuggets. He was basically hammered Yokek's 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. Selts could put him on a 30 minute game from timeline with weight and portrayed in that. 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 with Brown on the minimum, whatever. It sounds like Tim Hardaway Jr's going to have some suitors. And maybe out of their price range. Jaylin pick it is the only point guard on the team. Like the only one. And that makes me a little bit more than their mid level in the store. And at least like some praises stuff. It's pretty tight, but I 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 Jaylin Brown's game with the Yoke point. You're going all in on point Yokek, like almost all in, depending on who you get in free agency and sort of fitting Jaylin Brown into that universe. I think would be a little sticky at time. I'm kind of winning all in on that anyway. Didn't they? Well, the Murray Yokek pick and roll and like Murray is like a fail safe. Like, all right, let's do tonight's Jamal's

just cooking. Now you can run that all that stuff with Jaylin Brown. It's just it just feels a little a little different than me to to me. And then, and that's maybe that's fine. And you obviously get bigger and there's something kind of fun about like Yokek's in a bunch of wings and like tween her forward. It's just taken up the entire core with their arms. Right, a little 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 Murray and Cam Johnson for Jaylin and Houser. That's it. Who has a longer meeting about it? About that trade alone, I think Denver has the longer meeting because that they are so to 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 there in Gordon again. You know, the two teams that were above us and the tenies are just so goddamn good and we have this all-time great player in the middle of

his prime. Has what we do growing stale? Is it time to make change almost for change? Sake is a 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. And where is that? Is that too risky? I don't know, but I think they are at a major crossroads as a franchise. I also have to bring back Peyton Watson by the way,

“which we have, we didn't bring up like that. But I think that's that's part of that trade, right?”

That saving 10 million makes a ways to bring him back. I mean, just imagine a lineup of Christian

Brown, Jalen Brown, Peyton Watson, Aaron Gordon and Nicole Yokech. I have no idea how that works on

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. Yeah. 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 the team I have, I can be okay seeing San Antonio and they're fucking pitbull 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 McDonald's and Edwards. I just, you could see I'm 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 I'd be say Yokech and Courier are my two favorite non-Saltix and to have Jalen on Yokech team. And you know, I'm about as pro Jalen is you're going to find. He really, I thought he was just awesome last year. And I love the fact that the 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 to take a break and then I'm going to unleash my lamello trade opinions. I can't wait. The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by Fandwell, Fandwell, making USA's run even more exciting.

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from the pitch to the poor. Superior's worth playing for. Enter now at Mikkelob Ultra.com/suppereaccess/fifa World Cup 26. Mikkelob Ultra, FIFA World Cup 26. Superior access, no purchase necessary. Open a US residence 20 plus begins on December 1st, 2025 ends. On July 31st, 2021, Mikkelob Ultra.com/suppereaccess/fifa World Cup 26 for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes and details. One last point I wanted to make on that jailan trade. We didn't have a Houston trade in there because Houston is literally

been telling everybody we want no part of jailan. We're not interested. That team was a Bravo show last year. How are they driving the lead at? Oh, jailan Brown would make us weird. You guys had the weirdest team in the planet. You know what jailan Brown would do is actually show up for games and not roll over in a playoff series. Anyway, lamella. It's just like settled down. What's the number one for a disaster last year? Educate me. What's the number one Bravo

show in your life? What's what's a Bravo show that we all have? Real has our eyes. Also, all the reals have housewives of any variety that's all Bravo. Everyone's so late. They're still spinning off cities. They did Rhode Island. That's if you go to rich new Port Rhode Island, there's probably some good stuff going on there. Some good accents too. My wife's a big blow deck fan. All right, lamella 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 45 second take? No, I want to hear the

Bill Simmons cliff. Let's filter it. Let's filter it through your ear. I was in your pod. It was a very entertaining pod. I listed it on a nice little power walk, a very hot LA. And you were

“bullish on the trade for both teams, actually. 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. I'm at A minus or A for Charlotte.

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 25 fans who play”

video games and are online a lot. It's a 2K merchandise jersey selling trade. I get it. You don't want teams to double Anthony Edwards anymore. I feel like I get it. It's kind of an important qualifier to make the fucking trade. I get it on paper. Lamella ball would solve a lot of problems that you had when 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. He got hurt. Came back. I watched a ton of Charlotte last years. You know, they weren't using him like a race car on Sundays just driving him slowly around the block. He averaged 27.5 minutes a game from mid November on Zach. They were really, really careful about not getting him hurt again. Almost like they knew they're going to trade him this summer.

“Flood mid 20 superstars. What does that mean? Well, just that's how you that's how you're able”

to get a guy like this for Nas Reed. I'm going to first run pick and a swap. And I get it from the

Minnesota side where I'm paper makes sense. Now, that could play Lamello and Aunt and I owe together against these smaller lineups against San Antonio and against OKC, which didn't have the option due last year. The only thing I really understand from it is that they built that previous team to beat Denver, right? Conno is like, we have to beat Denver. What is the team we can put together to beat Denver? And now it seems like they built this new team to beat OKC and San Antonio,

who are going to have more talent than them. How do you beat them? These two three point shooters and we can guard with with I/O and McDaniels and go bear hopefully protecting Lamello. 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 Lamello at all and if you're wrong, Aunt's leaving. And by the way, Tim Connolly might be leaving too. He's got a year left on his deal and if I'm Tim Connolly,

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 Hail Mary trade that your fans are going to like because Lamello is the best player in it. The Charlotte fans are mad because they love Lamello. Lamello doesn't fucking play. I wrote down he's the least durable good guard of the last 25 years. Six seasons, 9,400 minutes, zero playoff games, which puts him on this crazy list of guys who

have averaged 20 points of game in their first six seasons, but have played less than 10,000 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. This is not like, oh, Steph Curry at ankle injuries, too. Lamello's injuries are way worse than Steph Curry's where and I just wouldn't have bet on it.

“I thought this was a crazy trade. Okay. I mean, that's it. That's what I've landed. Well,”

and I landed it right away. All of that, like all the availability stuff is a thousand percent fair game. Also, um, something I probably should have mentioned more when I, when I reacted to the other day was there is this sort of like drip drip trickle down effect of Minnesota transactions, kind of chasing their own tail a little bit similar to how Dallas had to chase its own tail. When like, all right, we love, we left jail and brought, we let you on brunch. We got a trade for Kyrie,

the Grant Williams thing blew up on our face. We got to trade him and a pick to replace him with it. There's like a little element of that of like, we got it. We traded everything for Go Bear, we're a little asset for, yeah, we're now we're really expensive. We're probably gonna 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, what do you do if your Bill Simmons timbrels GM? Well, the Randall trade, they clear it was clearly a money dump, right? And you could say it was a two-part trade, but and it opened the door for the mellow, but I asked something 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. Um, I mean, they're spending right now. The payroll is going to be high. I think they're going to add it. Right. I think they're also not done. I think that's important to say they're not done routing out the team for next season. But the town's trade was that financial trade period. Yeah. That was it. That was it. That was, we've got to get off some of this money and do it.

They don't have their own first controller on first for seven years. What did you think in that

Io contract was the other one that I was kind of shocked by. Five years, 112 million? What's going on there?

“What do you, I mean, that's what I like them, but Kobe White got the same annual, so actually a little”

more in less years, but same annual. So I've got three for 74. Yeah, less years, 25 a year. I was like 22 and a half a year. I'm just five years though. Well, the, yeah. 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. They got what? How old is Io? I just, if I had told it, I know I, I like

them too. And I thought he was really good in the playoffs. If I had told you in February when he got

traded for second round pick that he was going to sign for a five year 112 million dollar deal

in the second apron thing, I just would have been surprised by it. He's 26 years old. You can't win. Like, if it's a two or three year, I do want a three year deal. Just write down the middle. That's it. That's the perfect length. I just thought it was interesting. They, 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 multiple second team on BAs

and the reason that he went sideways after the Oscar break, because they fucking tried to trade them right before the, treat that line for Janus and he was never the same after that. The other drip drip drip thing I neglected to mention in the drip drip of assets is the Dilling hand pick now working out was a big, a big, a big place. At least that turn in a Io. Right. But they had to get, they had to throw picks and all their chasing, not just mistakes,

because I don't know if the Rudy trade can be classified as a mistake anymore, but they're chasing, they're just, it's like a, it's like a better that is losing and keeps chasing and keeps spending more. The Ponzi scheme Blackjack thing. First of all, they missed their title window. They were a conference final 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 the Dallas series. I think was really”

probably their best chance when you think about that matchup and they couldn't beat them. I didn't mention this in my limelope case or anti limelope trade case. And I really like watching limelope last year and I enjoyed the hell out of the hornets. We have zero. I repeat zero evidence that limelope can hold up for one playoff series with the swoops IQ or the physicality of a playoff series, much less for what Minnesota is trying to do with

the trade like this when 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 watch with the physicality of

the teams that we watched and just what basketball's like, you're going to need this is like the Wembe conversation. If this is your second best player, sorry buddy. You can play 27.5 minutes each game in a series. We're in need of for 37 now and it's going to be really physical and you're going to bang down. You're getting knocked in the basket sport. You can't take the 30 footer with

“30 seconds left in the game down one with 20 seconds left in a shot clock. 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. I mean, 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 playoff series against San Antonio or okay. But this is exactly why they weren't a trade-ins. Exactly what I said on my show is like the physicality toughness. All that stuff you just said. Plus, I do,

and I said this too, I do think they're record in the play 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 30 points, but I think he shot 12 of 31. I also fair to note like he's a rookie, but Conno is a disaster and down the stretch of the season and including those games. I mean, Conno heard his back. He wasn't the same though I think. The play. Don't you talk about my son

that way. I was going to say, I don't know what would happen if he was hurt though. I don't know like Hugo versus Hugo versus Con is becoming like the battle for your heart 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 me. And so it's an easy out for you because when the horn display the

Celtics, when they're one team plays the other, you're going to cheer for the Celtics because that's your team. Like we do Hugo get a traded for another team. That's the true test of who of who you're, your real love goes to. But that's exactly why the hornets, I think, trade, I think it boy, you can make it the case about picks and salaries and all this stuff. I think it really just boiled down to we watched the playoffs and we just don't think he can

hang at that level. And those are all fair, those are all fairs and physically or physically.

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.

“But I think it's more of the physicality stuff. And I think that's a completely fair bet for”

childhood. 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 just to like put those together, great work by the hornets who continue to just kill it under their new regime. For a minute, sort of, I would just ask again, what, what path, I mean, according to design prison scheme, they tried to get jail and brown and they couldn't get, you know, like this package was not

going to get them jail and brown. So what, what do you, you're trying to compete with San Antonio, Oklahoma City, you're on the clock with Anthony Edwards, what the status quo was not acceptable, right, like that's that like we clearly didn't think so. You're laying out all that, you're laying out of the logic for some of the worst big NBA trades we've had over the last 40 years. I don't like, well, we got to do something. I don't agree. I don't disagree. I don't disagree. I don't disagree.

“I don't disagree. I don't disagree. I don't disagree. I don't disagree. I think a lot of this has to”

do with what your prior is unlimelable and you and I have disagreed about limelable for like five years.

I just think he's better than you think he is. I've always thought he's been better than you think.

There's no ability, though. That's fine. I like one guy's play. It's one of my weird things. I'm not weird. I'm not weird. I'm not weird. I'm not weird. I guess you're saying just do nothing and just figure it out later, which is a completely like a logical way to go about it. I think the wolves had concluded that that wasn't an option for them. 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. But I think offensively this is going to be it. That's my bar for for all the trades I 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. I was hurt in the playoffs. I was got hurt during the playoffs and different sends out got hurt during the playoffs. Like to me,

this feels like an over-action all that. So that's that I had before. First six seasons,

less than 10k minutes. Just guys who average 18 points a game basically merge on. It's John Lemelo Zion and Clark Kellogg. That's it. Those are all the guys in the last like 45 years. He turns 25 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, talented guys in the first like five, six years of their career who went to a different team

“and put it together. And I think there's going to be nights with this team. And I'm sure the”

Minnesota fans will be in a high alert. And even people have in my life, like Nate Tyson, like Minnesota, there's going to be nights when they're on TV on a Thursday night. And they're playing somebody awesome and Lemelo hits eight threes and ant hits nine and they beat somebody by 18 and they look awesome. And they're doing like chess bumps and all kinds of stuff made court. People are oh, how's that Lemelo trade now? I'm just telling you. And there's going to be

to me in April and May. Just let me build Simmons, poop, pooping it. Yeah, just wait. Just talk to real question. April and May. I don't care what happens October through March. I just don't. Here's the real question with Minnesota. And I don't. I think people think this question has been answered because they made two stray conference finals. And there had been such a well-being on franchise for so long between Garnet and those two

conference finals that people think the question has been answered definitively as a yes, they should have made the Rudy Gobert trade. If you just reverse time, like if you if you assume that the Gobert acquisition is why they ultimately had the dump towns. And we all said when they traded for Rudy Gobert, a town's deal looks inevitable because of the financial realities and the fact that he's a center and all this. Like we all said it at the time,

like as soon as the trade happened, even before it happened, I remember saying if they do this, the town's trade is the next domino that will come eventually. Did they give up on ant plus towns too early by making the Gobert trade? I think it's 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 both got them team success to point that people have already stopped questioning whether

they should have made the trade or not. And that's okay. But they clearly overpaid you their way and it forced their hand on cat. And we just didn't get to see all that much of like anti-need worst plus car-alancing to towns as the foundation of a team. I think it's just an interesting question. I hated the Gobert trade as much as any trade I've ever ever that's been made.

That's the thing. I don't know if you were wrong. And like I was on TV, that moment, and I said on ESPN, I am in disbelief at how much they gave up for Rudy Gobert. And I was as puzzled as you were. I maybe didn't hate it, hated 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 Llamila trade, I never would have done

I would have thrown my body in front of it. I'm really excited to watch them this year. I think they'll be really fun. 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 odds to win three straight play our friends in the West. I don't think they have the same odds. They added variants. But I don't think they win the durability. And I just don't trust Leila. How high does that scare you that

Charlotte's like, of course. Yeah, we're good. Yeah, take him. He's done even on a max. He's at 43 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 we're going to move on now. It was a classic, selling high. There was something else I wanted to ask you now. I forgot what it was about. No, about about the trades. 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 50 million here. He was irrelevant for the hornets. Well, I was just saying,

I was just doing the trade. I was listening to one pod where they were like, oh, this is a great, like, you know, they, they Josh Green, you know, Minnesota got a lot of depth in this.

“That was a good get better than a good get. This was like a must. You have to take him. That was”

like, Charlotte, like, we're done. 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, both with timber wolves history and like cap ramifications and all that, do you think? Lamello for Nas Reed and one unprotected pick and a cup of few swaps that may not even like it's unclear if they're going to, is that actually too high of a price

for Lamello ball? Like is that that much that you're giving up if you're Minnesota a six man of the year is now going to start as a good player, as some defensive issues, some 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 Lamello, jaw and tray young all together. When I was the one saying, Lamello has the most value of the

three and it's not crazy. We had this conversation. I thought I 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 giving away. Training was given away. John Morrent, not only can't be given away. That's the other subplot. You're going to have to add a pick to get rid of him. Lamello, they rehabilitated his trade value. Enough to where they got, I thought,

you know, I think you would have taken that in September. Even if it were made the fans man, it's like, look, we don't know if this dude's ever going to play it. They were going to get 2,000 minutes out of him and they're able to trade him. My only point is if you isolate the trade, which you can't, I get that. But I don't think they like overpaid for Lamello ball to some crazy

“level. I think it took a fair, but you have to throw the Randall into it. Yeah, Randall has to be”

part of the trade. They traded Randall, Nasrid, and I guess that's fair. The pick and the swap for Josh Green and Lamello is the trade. Right. And that's, I don't know. I feel bad for the Minnesota fans. They have a one of Titles and Stank to 91. And Lamello is going, 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.

And in Lamello had 23 combined. This is never happened in the history. There's going to be

nights. They're going to be really fun together. We'll see. We'll see how long you can play from a Charlotte side. And they did another trade today. They, so they traded mouse bridges for Grayson Allen and Rueso Neil and won that trade. They won that trade just with the three players of it. Just mouse bridges for Grayson Allen and Rueso Neil. I've won the trade. No, how about this? I'll throw in the worst of my twenty twenty nine swap. You'll get the less favorable version of that.

“And you give me your unprotected first and thirty three. And Phoenix is like, that's how it's great.”

Let's do it. What a fucking terrible trade by them. That was why, I mean, I just the picks. I explained it to me. I mean, do I have to. Are you making me do that? How can nobody have a top? I guess you can't put protections on the picks anymore. But I checked. I checked. I was like,

Look, I know you're of mouse bridges. He's a free. So here's the thing. It's not going to be a

“year of mouse bridges. You know that they're going to respond mouse bridges 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 Dylan Brooks too. And all of a sudden, this team's going to be pretty expensive. I don't want to explain the trade to you. I don't like the 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

congratulations. And they did it because they saved money. They saved money this year. And they get $29 million of grace now. Plus Roy Sonio, who they view is just sort of funjable. Whatever seventh guys off the books. And they get a start. He's going to start. And assign those guys. Just that curiosity. The sons signed both of them. Oh, so the sons now have to get off the money that they gave to these guys. I'm like, if I was a sons fan, I'd be losing my mind. I said,

what if you give these countries made me be ish be a spokesperson. You assign me the fucking job. So let me do it without an eruption. 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 lamello ball. Right. So they lose like”

the the high wattage star. A guy that I think should have gotten all NBA consideration is your like 30 mall NBA using the mix for that. They they don't get back a player in Kobe white reads resigning plus grace now and plus Roy Sonio that's anywhere near is good is lamello ball. But Kobe white's good and is a viable starter. I think they lose some playmaking 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 may be already they have like a lot of good players on this team. And in a regular season, that's really important and just sort of getting through the season and they kick the pick out. They owe to 2029. So they're not under huge amount of pressure and it's a swap thing anyway. So it's not like a huge risk. They had the best collection of picks. Probably in the eastern

conference now. And Phoenix said, unprotected 2033, 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 Devon Booker is approaching 30 or whatever he is. That 233 pick just like the 231 son's

“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. Important to state. We don't know what the rules are going to be in terms of trading draft picks and lottery, but those picks are going to be extremely valuable trade ships. And I don't it's not like Phoenix has any road map 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

can't speak for a minute. Okay. But Charlotte's picks. So they have the 27 Dallas first top two

protected next year. They have a Miami pick that's going to be unprotected in 28. They can swap with Minnesota and 28. They have a bunch of swap stuff. And they have a unprotected Minnesota Charlotte in 233 on top of a shitload of flexibility that they have now because Zach Low, they traded Lamello Green and Bridges, $78 million. Turn that into Nozo Niel and Grace Now in 52 million. And they also have 41 million dollar trade exception with all these picks. They have their mid-level

still. 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 Lamello, all of the sudden that Kobe White deal was done, they're going to have O'Neil who can play three four. They're going to have Nozo, can play three four five really. Grace Now in coming up the bench as yet another shooter. And by the way, we're the great thing. I don't go to college, Zach. We're going to go to college. The team I

always cheer against in the tournament, I think. Duke University located in North Carolina.

Well, in Kobe White, go to college. Where did Rick's all go to college? So they have coming up the bench. Alan Noss, Anderson, if he's good, Calpriner, Simon Bach, a year Grant Williams. I'm so impressed by her. I've been saying this for two years. I've been so impressed. Every move they made. I'm like, another good one. 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? No, next two. Next seven years,

I get my pick of teams. Just for how they're loaded, locked and loaded right now. I like the city too. I like the marches. Okay. So it can I give you some candidates? Yeah. I'd by the way, I didn't prep

like this is like a like where could where would I want to work off the top? Charlotte is definitely

maybe number one. If I trusted the Ryan Storfs at all, the bulls with Caleb Wilson and Swain are like now kind of interesting and like if I were the person that's in Buzellus, I could like save the bulls. Like what a legend I would be and how fun Chicago isn't all that, but you know, I don't trust the owners and they don't have that same level assets and you have owners that aren't going to ever spend. The wizards despite getting debons and having all this stuff, they're just silver wizards.

I can't put them above these teams. They're uniform stink. The arena is dead. I can't, I can't do it. Um, train training 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, seven years, seven years, seven years of assets

players you have now chance to win a title, you got to factor all of it in. All right. I just like Philly a lot. I like the city of Philly a lot. Seven years, it looks to be right out the Embed thing. So you've been VJ Maxi. I'm going to have expirings with Embed in Georgia. I have a fan base that the moment anything goes wrong. I'm going to be blamed and tortured. Yeah. Okay. It's where the boss is. It's where they mentioned eight teams and didn't mention Boston,

“which I think speaks to maybe where. Well, I'm just filling 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 clear. It's clear. It's clear. It's clear. Sure. They flipped this around. They were the worst run team in the league or in the top three year after year for 15 straight years. Right? Long time to everyone. I play off series and like. It's hard time out knowing you. And now one of the things I like about this is I, 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 La Mello. I would guess one of the main reasons would be we what we saw from Miller and what we saw from Con as a rookie, which is the worst he's ever going to be. Is there more there from a ball handling playmaking? Can we run more of the offense? Can we have more movement? Um, can we be more unpredictable? Can we just have like a 12-band team? Can we can we start to look a

“little okay seeish without the shape piece of it? Can we have depth, shooting, interchangeable guys?”

And then you guys, I was really glad, presents Kate talked about this on the pot. I thought he was excellent that you did on Thursday. Um, talking about Nas Reed, what a fucking great guy he is. I mean, other than KG, the most beloved, and I guess aunt, but probably a top three, most beloved, Timberwolf ever. Um, unbelievable behind the scenes guy, uh, selfless, like, was one of the, like, really could have torpedoed or allow, what happened with that in the last couple

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 that team needed more adults in less kids. And they feel like they have now flipped out with Kobe and with with Nas. And I'm sure there's another comment, but I really like where they're sitting. Uh, 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 Khan to level up even a little bit. I think part of it is also like, um, 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 26, 27. 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

2,000 minutes again for all we know in the Miller. Right. So big one. Fiendu only has regular season when odds for two teams just by the way. Okay. Interesting. Fifty plus wins for Minnesota's plus 108. So that means they think they're right on the 50 win level. 45 plus for Miami is minus 210 and 50 plus is plus 140, which means they think Miami is probably in the 46 47 range. Um, the more I think about that trade for Miami, I have you really, like, just spent five

minutes in your brain thinking about an offense with Janice and Bam. And where they go, just just the geometry of where they're going to be every possession. Yes, of course. That's it. I did a whole podcast about that. I said, I said, you did a podcast. I said you

contender. Now we got to see how they round out did 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 is going to look. By the way, Powell, I think they started cutting his minutes as we got closer to the playoffs and then 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. But I mean, it's going to be

very hard for them to make a competitive offer to know our Powell. I would also bet on him being elsewhere at the beginning of the season. So we don't, my point is we don't know what the team's going to like it. 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 Janice are too duplicative on offense. And I know that that sounds crazy because Janice's

this bulldozer to the rim and BAM shot seven threes a game last year and all that they at their best.

“They are still guys who want to operate in the middle of the floor. That's what they do. They do a”

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. Like 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 say that. I'm just like, do you want BAM out of it? He's not Carlante towns. I want Carlante in town shooting 10 threes a game. He's that good of a shooter. I don't want

an interior bruiser like that. Who's just an okay shooter shooting 8 to 10 threes again? I'm not sure that I want that. And so he reminds me a little when Houston tried to make a work with a team in Barclay in the late 90s. You know, it works somewhat and they did make the

western finals. But Barclay had to move out and Barclay at the shoot more threes and he was never

a good three point shooter. And I just I always thought was clumsy. And then remember they had

“pippin that one year and then it was like, oh my god. And like to be clear, I think Miami's going to be”

really good. I think defensively they have a chance to be special. I think the east is is like going to be very interesting. But also a very deep next year. And 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 Janice 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 it's like

I'll be fine. I think that'll be like between forty three and forty seven wins depending on how much Janice plays. 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 that path anywhere else down the line. And in the meantime, I don't know what the

upset was. So I get it. I'll tell you if I was 80 years old, I definitely wouldn't have made the trade.

That's the the back to Phoenix for a second. Sure.

“Jomerant for Jalen Green, what else do you want me to throw in if I'm Memphis?”

Okay. All right. I mean, now we've reached a point where we're, is that it, and unprotected pick? So, I have a lot of picks. Memphis gets Jalen Green. Straight up. This is a one for one. Who has 36 this year in a player option for 36 the next year. Yeah. And I get off from a rant. And I have to throw in a first and unprotected first. I'm asking what I need to throw in. Because I have better picks than that. I could give you my best of Minnesota Cleveland or Utah in

27. I could give you my Orlando first in 28 or 30. Let me flip it around. Why is Phoenix doing that? Because they can get an extra pick and they can roll the dice with Jomerant for a year and hope changes scenery, Devon Booker, a really good fan base. And maybe we, you know, here's my, here's my, your stop for job, basically. Here's my answer if I'm Memphis. I'm throwing in nothing. That's my offer. It's Jomerant for Jalen Green. I, I 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 really covered himself. So you're doing the Michael Carley on my offer is nothing. Yeah, my offer is Jomerant. You either want them or we don't make a deal. Because if they have the equivalent contract, I feel like they're like just equally sort of unknown in different ways. It's just assets going forward or whatever. Like Jomerant is obviously reached the level in the NBA. That's well above anything

Jalen Green is done, but he's older and has a whole bold load of issues that come with him.

But like they have their contracts or 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 Jalen 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 a deal with that. You either want Jomerant or

and a couple other swings. Not in the garden. But 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”

conglest B and Jordan. Good. Let's just take a beat now. Okay. Take 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'm Zach Climbing. I'm hanging up the phone. Sorry. Zach Climbing. Booser. Coward. I'm happy. I mean, this is what I'm saying. Oh, I hadn't talked about this on the

party either. You already did, but they got beef stew. They're just back, baby. What do we, we had grit and grind Grizzlies? What do we have? What is this version of the Grizz? They didn't nick them. Vernal, come up with a 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 Grizzlies. My favorite moment is just like three men in a front line. My favorite moment of your draft recap podcast with

groggie house and draft beat Nick J. Kyle, man. Just a great odd couple of yeah, my favorite moment was it pivoted from a house saying something housey to like about camp Booser and the pick and to Kyle Man being like listing off the players. Camp Booser was

“going to help make better in Memphis. Like, I think he's really going to like camp Spencer”

and camp Booser are going to have a good good chemistry. We've camp Spencer like that and can be a big winner. I think the transition from all the foods that you had ordered and how you were trying to keep house awake by mentioning food to keep Kyle Man hard pivot into camp Spencer. And everybody woke up. I mean, I woke up. I was like, why are we order the pizza too? That's a big night. John Moran is a no go for you if you're any of the other 29 teams at this

point. I don't think they have anything for John Moran right now. I mean, who's the team, right? Like, you go through the list of teams that need point cards. Toronto isn't on Lamello. I don't sense it. They're in on John Moran. Minnesota made its move. I 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, Haxi? I would rather done Lamello. Just Nas Reed for John Moran, basically.

I mean, I think an emphasis would have been thrilled to do that. Although, I think they would have thrown a pick for that. All right. But before we go, a couple quick things. Sure. It's June 28th. What happens with LeBron? I wish I had a hot good answer for you. I don't. I don't know. I really don't know. I'm surprised how many people in my life have asked me what I thought was going to happen with him. And he's like, he's the one James. I just

these giant chess pieces, either, you know, there's Kowai Micah traded jail of brown, Jumal Murray, Detroit as all this cap space. They're all these things as we head toward into the first. Anthony David. We, you and I think out of all these ones, Anthony Davis is that would be my bet that my, you hate when I bet my life. I don't know. I would just let

“me on the 80 trade this summer over all the other famous. 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 row cup in Luca Moderich walked up. And I would bet my life on Luca Moderich. Baby, I've been em made it, of course. So I have said go and stay for three months. You're sticking 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 2027 first, or I don't even know what

it is. I'm sure Washington has to get some pickback. Um, but if 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 like, like, like, when somebody steps into the White House, because the president got, you know, pushed out or died or and peached or something. And then somebody, like, you're on floor, you're on floor. Anthony Davis is jammed for a house. He's just here for a year. He's going to do a job.

Anthony Davis is, it'd explain could be a watch to these, that's staying. And what can it be in an opaque, hopefully? What's going to be more fondly remembered. In the Anthony Davis era in Washington, and all the great fashion. Oh, no, the Dallas or the one and a half quarters that he played in his Dallas debut with the back of the chamber. Why this is why we did trade this thing. We'll Chamberlain for 40 minutes for like a year. That was a super bow weekend. They clung to those,

like, remember those two corners. That was division. That was crazy. Um, so I would say golden state. I wonder if the clippers, who have both cap space and flexibility and a bunch of different ways to add him, I just don't know if LeBron James would ever play for the clippers. Now he did,

surprise. He went to the Lakers, which was Kobe Bryant's team when he went over there and kind of

by the way still is. Um, so I wouldn't rule him out going anywhere. The clippers solve the most issues for him for get stay in LA. A lot of golf courses does that to leave his house. But golden states of 50 minutes flight from here. Um, and golden state, as you know, is famously lack of days ago about making sure guys are around all the time. So if LeBron wanted to kind of come in and out and think he'd be able to. But this, um, in terms of living in San Francisco, he'd be like,

I'm like, hey, after the, the guy shows up five hours before every game and it's just saying, like, after a home game at night, I'm going to fly back to LA. I'll be back tomorrow. Okay, LeBron will see tomorrow, like it's one of those days. There's, there's flexibility built in with the vets. Okay. Um, the question for me, because the most fun team for him to go to is San Antonio. Wow. This is where Eduardo right now is like, ding, ding, ding, ding. Here's my social

clip. Um, what's up, Eduardo? 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. These are the clipers discussion. It's a franchise that”

is dignified and I think be fits 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, have had a long relationship with him. This team's close. I could be the missing piece. I watch him 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 cornet and killed in Johnson's expiring and then you could

figure out how to pay LeBron 30 million a year for two years. But do you think it would be perceived

as a ring chase or not? I think he's 41 and a half years old and anything he does in the direction of a ring is going to be accepted. It's like, it's pretty crazy that the guy is still a good player in the NBA. If you want 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 29 year old superstar signing

“with the 73 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 until like, oh, how's that going to work? That's kind of exciting. Is that low? We are 100% agrients. Oh, we are. Yeah, I think if I was, if I was like his conciliary, I would, I would walk through San Antonio and go and state Denver is interesting too, but I actually don't think that cement anything. Just watching what Joe Crow would be amazing. They flirted with, I mean, you know Denver has been interested in him before. They try to get him

in for a free agent meeting at one point. I think I have something like that. I can't remember exactly. But the money does work with San Antonio works because they actually have flexibility. They actually

could pay him because the thing we always forget with these guys, they're not taking a pay cut. He's not

going to go work for 2.2 million dollar veteran minimum expansion. Like this is why Kobe signed up for 40 and 40 the last two years. Like these guys, they want to be compensated. They go to a franchise. Like they're going to sell the bronze spurs, jerseys. I really like the idea 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 lake or thing is fizzled out. They obviously don't want him to come back. They,

it's, you know, it's been an uneasy dance for six months. They want to turn the team over to Luka. In San Antonio kind of needs them. If he'd been in that next series,

“I think they would have won. All right. I'm not prepared to go reimagined the old”

finals that we just had with the bronze James as a spur. That's a bridge too far at this hour for me. It's a mix one of the five games. And I'm giving him all that Kelvin Johnson, Luke court at minutes. He's out there and crunched. He can't just let the next be happy. We were already listening. All due respect. And then I'm doing a hypothetical through New Universe. I'm just saying they had LeBron last year that was kind of what they're missing.

Because I don't think Fox plays at that point. I think LeBron is in the Fox spot. And I think better decisions are made. But 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, especially if they got Davis, too, 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

1995. It's the health freezes over towards just every place you go. It's going to be the biggest thing that happened in that city in a long, long time from a basketball standpoint. Really

Careful. Yeah, true. I forgot about that part. Maybe Curry and LeBron just alternate. But

“all right. So, so pick. Where do you want to seem go? Make a pick. Where do I want to see him go?”

Yeah. Where do you want to see him go? Basketball fans act low. I think I think I think golden state is the most fun. I think that the him and Curry together is the most. I've transitioned from it. It feels like sacrily just to see them go from like sometimes bitter rivals during those four finals. No, because there was like that's not the only one. He's better. Yeah. Yeah. To what we saw with Team USA in the last two games at the 24 Olympics to let's glitches 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 Dr. J got in the fight. I was there. I still can't believe that happened. And then 2018 in I think it was the OT, a game on the JR Smith game. LeBron and Curry got really mad at each

other. And there was like a split second where it felt like they might actually get into something.

And it just watching was like, oh my LeBron was so mad. He was so mad about the JR 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 let hardfowd staff or did something and stuff got really mad. And oh yeah, it was good.

“I think all camera angles have been destroyed. What I do remember is in the 16 finals in one of”

the Cleveland games. And I want to say it was games six. He has a block on Curry at the rim. And it's emphatic. And he kind of poses a little bit over and afterwards, not like directly over. But kind of makes a show out of it. Makes it be a lot of it. And I remember thinking like that felt like a, 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 the series. But remember, I'm the best fucking guy, which is also what

he did in 2018 in that first game. He just physically overpowered them like shack in the final. So

it was nuts. All right. So we're both saying Golden State, I would like the San Antonio thing though. Don't 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 41 year old, the broad and 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 have a, but like I'll go, like, what's, is there going to be something this week that makes you go? Whoa. Let's too late for a colliatrade, right? Like, that's already been remembered about enough that that wouldn't be like, oh my God, colliatrade, I'm believable. I will say, I think a while going to Toronto would get that reaction for 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 six are found a trade for him beat, but I just don't, I don't, I don't think it's possible. I'm going to, I have Detroit as my wild team. I think they're up to stuff. Good wild team. The Stewart trade was really suspicious. I didn't really understand it. It felt like they were clearing some cap, but then they also got Isaiah Joe, so that only cleared half the cap. Maybe there was more to that story. Just feels like I think they should

take in a swing last February, and they didn't, and now they're probably will be my guess. And then LeBron going somewhere weird would be the other, the other wild thing. If it wasn't gold state or some of the other teams we mentioned would be like, wow, he's, he's going to Cleveland on the minimum. Can they even sign them to the minimum? Utah is a veteran mentor. Why? That would be, that would get a big, well, my other route would be Jalen Brown just not getting

traded, which I actually think wouldn't get away because I think it's conceivable he doesn't. That's done there. We've seen them put the toothpaste back in the tube in the NBA a lot of times. It was like, this is done. It's over. It's like, all right. Let's, what we had dinner and things are better. It's happened. 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,

that all the tubes are out. It's a lot of toothpaste. When's the next Croatian game? Leave Thursday versus Portugal. Wow. We got a bad draw. We got a bad, and the winner likely plays Spain. This is the opposite of the draw, Croatia got two worlds. I don't think you got that bad of a draw. Portugal is tied to the bitter end to an aging star. You've seen how this goes

had a very good draw to roll cups to go when we got to the finals. Like, the bracket broke exactly

“right. So like, you know, what goes around comes around comes around. I think you should do pods Monday,”

Wednesday, and you have to go to the game because you too know this year. I don't know. It's been Toronto. It's not like it's in. No, but it's going to be free. He's going to be going hot and heavy. You're encouraging me to do this to skip out on day two. Do it on Wednesday of NBA. It's Wednesday. All right. You got to go the game. You can't. This 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 go my way. Let's go. All right, Zac Lo, 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 did this from his ranch in I think Wyoming. And the 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. I had a great time with him. But just just bear with it. There's

going to be a couple of times where it gets choppy. Anyway, we're going to take a break. Come back with the one and only Taylor Sheridan. Fighting, I'll set him a fight to the highlights. Be a house of the dragon and wake it.

And it's up to us now. All right, so I never asked for a lot of guests. We have a great

“book or name Allison who's always like, do you want this person, you know, at that person?”

And I always send her a very short list. And Taylor Sheridan has always been on the list. I've always wanted to talk to you. Really admire your career, everything you've done. 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 the stuff out? And now you're coming after books. I have so many questions for you. But what, what made you

want to write a book on top 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 to 2003 about, okay, yeah, before I'm living in LA. And there was a gym about oh, two thirds of a mile from this apartment that I had. I mean, my roommate had run over there and work out every day because we're actors when 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 and this dude was he looked very

different than the typical West Hollywood gym crowd. I mean, the student was jacked with all these prison tests, not the not the tribal bullshit that a bunch of Hollywood actors get. Like, like, let's stuff was done all day. Okay. Anyway, so he would, he was very fascinating with fitness. He'd asked me this and I'd asked 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, he actually trained my wife. So it became pretty good friends. One day we were talking and he just bullshitting over lunch. He kind of casually mentioned.

“I think I'd mentioned a movie or something and he hadn't seen it. I mentioned in there.”

And I'm like, wherever you've been on a cave for the past 17 or 20 years, he's like, no, I was in prison. And I said, oh, well, what, what me through that, what happened was some kind of accident. He goes, 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 in prison and the 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, um, and so I got clean, got clean, got clean, got straight, really focused on fitness. And now in 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 gym. And, and it became the biggest privately owned personal training gym in LA, which is say it's something because there's nothing in LA, but gyms. And, you know, freaking laser surgery, they just,

the stuff that's in LA. Coffee. It was very different than the gyms in LA, it felt like a gym, right? He's playing the music, the only music he knew. So like 80's rocket seven is rocket. It was a really cool place. Uh, and he was doing really well. And, and I started having success

And, um, and we check in every so often, uh, any, any actually wrote a screenplay about his

“life, right? His life of crime. Pretty good. He said it to me once and I'm like, it's pretty good, man.”

Nothing ever came of that for him, but, but it stayed in my mind, uh, keep moving forward at 2020, 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 actors

killed in the director's killed in all these guilds is the safest place. This crew can be as 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 it, so we did not go crazy. I called, 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? If I need to buy a bunch. And mine, they shut me down. And, and I said, you mean they shut

you down? We're closed. They shut, they shut down. Well, every business is shut down. You can't have

a gym right now. We're on lockdown. And, and I said, we'll don't sell all your equipment. What are you going to do in it? Open's back up. Just sign up for that PPE stuff. And, and, and, you know, new some sending money to everybody else, surprise send something to you. And he's like, they're not sending it to whitex cons buddy. I'm like, I've already applied. I'm not getting any money. And I said, okay, I'll send a flatbed. And I sent a flatbed down. I bought a pilot. So I didn't talk to them again,

you know, years go by. And he reached out. And, 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 about 10 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, and he said,

man, I'm in a, I'm in a real bad way. Julia, go kind of handle that. It's coming up a road. But, I said, what do you mean? He said, well, they found a mass-angle father. His, his, his partner had died. And he's trying to raise this five-year-old girl. And he said, he's an ex-con. He's a felon. And, and he cannot find any work. Reliable work that, with enough day care to take care of this kid.

“And so he was asked to be 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 depart. I don't know. I something. But you're going to be working 14-hour days. You're not going to be with your kid. I don't know how that's helpful. And, and he asked me, so can you, can you, can you get me alone? I mean, I got one more month's rent. Can you get me alone to figure it out? And I told him, I said, look, I have a 100% failure rate of loan and money

to friends and then still be in friends. So I can't do that. I'm not a bank. I said, but let me think, there's everyone has a story, right? And your story has value. So let me just think about what 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 correspondents about every single

place where there's a war going on in the world. And, and this is a very accomplished war correspondent who wrote it. And it's, and it times it was very cynical and it times it was, it was laughout loud funny. And then at times it was, it was very thoughtful. And I thought, more Matt, for a book. 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 80s, the old, anything for dummies, right? House building for dummies.

The 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 would it be if we wrote a travel guide

“for prison? And, and, and, and to be for the most part, I think, is a really good deterrence to”

someone from going there, right? But, but also if someone did happen to do something dumb, now the career criminal, this book isn't for them, and they know it anyway. It's, it's really,

locked up or any of these shows, what would I do? How would I navigate that world if I find myself in it? And so here's an expert in that, right? Here's someone who spent 17 years in state and federal prison on security prisons and had to navigate the worst of the worst. And came out, came out, good, came out, not a criminal, right? Made those choices, a success story. So I call them back and

I said, look, here's what we're going to do, and it's going to be work. 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. But that's research. It's not first ancient 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 it never go. And 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 shape the body of that. And we took that out, sent it to all the publishers and Simon and Jews just stuck their hand up. And so I'm going to choose just said, we want to put this out, we want to do it. And I said, great. And Tom rolled up his leaves and I rolled up wine, mine and we sat down and we came up with this. So if we were doing this in person, I would have interrupted you like ten times. I thought this book was so interesting.

All of my experience from knowing anything about prison is just from TV and movies, right? And it's like, if you go from like Shawshang to to show you data or a million things, Jericho, Myel, going way back. But 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, 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, you know, 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 Mayer of Care, a man has arrested for killing a child. And it actually is a parole violation. So the guy doesn't go to county. He

“goes straight back to prison immediately. And when he comes in, there's this frenzy, right?”

Because 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, right? And so there's a bullseye on these guys. And we filmed

this scene where this isn't. And after the first take, I start hearing buzz over the radio. We need a medic. Actually, we need two medics. And I run upstairs to see what happened. How why do we need a medic? So I want to have a heart attack. And most of the extras in the scene, War X cons, who had actually stayed in this prison, which had been decommissioned. So now it's empty. Of course, we're paying, you know, a few hundred bucks a day to these guys. And there's not any work

because it's COVID. And so they jumped at it, right? 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”

who, you know, we close 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 start taking off. And it's like, I'm sorry. I can't, you know, you don't have to pay me. And I said, no, no, no, for what I just put you through, we're going to pay you. And they left. They were done. They want to absolutely no part of even reenacting it. So that was the first thing. Obviously, we all

can imagine and surmise that it's a terrible place, right? It's not designed to rehabilitate. It's a whole lot of people have proven the society that they can't get along with society and we crammed them all together and along with each other. So it's a, it's a, it's a model that, that, that isn't designed to, in any way, rehabilitate, it's just, they're on a big old time out for however long that may be, right? But it was so fascinating to me that I thought just what

about losing their temper or they're thinking about, I'll have another drink. I can still drive, ah, because there's the very real world consequences of that. Yeah, as, as beat that out of me, but my five guys are six years, whatever was watching us, I love that show. So yeah, that was great. The story, the story with you, which everybody knows at this point, was you, you came late into the writing thing, right? You were an actor than you were acting coach all

that. And you didn't really start writing until '41. And then you became, probably the most prolific writer of the last 15 years and all the shows and movies that you've done, really in the last

spend like decade and a half, basically. Um, did you? I have a million questions about this,

but did you were you writing before age 40, like, or did you just dive into it then? I didn't understand that part. No, no, not 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, five, five thousand scripts,”

ten thousand scripts. Uh, and, and all those scripts, nine, hundred, nine, nine, four were bad. You know, I can, I can, I can recount for the 15 years that I was in Hollywood. I can recount to this day the, the excellent scripts that I read, right? I still remember. And, and there were very few that I read and I thought, wow. Uh, that's, that's going to be something. Um, so most of them were bad. And, 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 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. The 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, what they wish they hadn't done or had done, right? So, so,

if, if you stick to that one very basic rule from the, from the beginning, never have a character

tell me something that the camera should show me. And, and, and if you go back and watch movies that, um, 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's just felt a little easy because they couldn't figure out an intelligent way and the story to show me something. So, they just had this character say it. All of these Marvel movies do it, uh, at nauseam where they, where they will just have information

“dumps that you have to follow to get to the action rather than than actually moving plot with action,”

right? Uh, and then the other thing that I did was basically find the most interesting thing most interesting way to say anything. Um, I'll take a scene from Hell or High Water, where, uh, where you have Jeff Bridges character walk in and he's questioning, uh, this waitress about the two boys that just robbed the bank across the street. And he says, uh, you know, describe them. And, and she doesn't mention hype or hair color. She mentions, you know, they look, you know,

they're young enough to know better, but you're too old to know better and, but you still and, you know, and they look brokered and these guys over here, but the, but better and these guys over here and, and so just find interesting ways of saying they're in their mid-30s and they were dressed casually and the ones got blonde hair and ones got red hair. Right? So just what's the,

“what's the more interesting way of describing something or somebody? Um, and then I think the other”

thing that I, that I try to do and this probably comes from me, having been a journeyman actor,

which means most of my roles were smaller roles or guest star roles. I always try to make the

impact to the overall story. In other words, those individuals that 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

you, everyone, the guy to cast stations, the waitress, the, right? You know, what you said about

“that in the people show you versus writing all the dialogue for them to tell the thing,”

Tarantino had this thing about Steve McQueen about 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 stars, sometimes doesn't have to be about dialogue, but just about seeming like you're a movie star in 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 though the show, the Michelle five for show,

which of course I love because I enjoy other shows, but a lot of it is sometimes it would just be her staring out, you know, having to go as a line at the end of the show and just trying to process stuff, you know, and thinking about things. 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, here'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 to, but it seems like your show's a way more patient.

“Yeah, and there's a few, I think explanations for that. Okay, and one is, I think the most important”

one is who's writing these stories? Okay, and this is an indictment of other writers, but where are they? Well, if they're in LA or they're in New York, and if you're a pretty

sure, if you allow this business to do it to you, you are from the second you wake up to the

second you go to bed, you are, you're going, you're meeting this, that meeting this meeting, tone meeting, prop meeting, casting this, then I got to go sick with my room of writers and we're going to put a bunch of stuff on a white board and we're going to outline and you take this and all right that you do this and then I got to go home to my kids 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. Where in that is the time to reflect? I live, I live in the country, in the middle of nowhere. So before I start writing every day, I take about a 30-minute walk and there's no traffic 'cause the roads mine, it's all my ranch, and I just think and I'm also not scared to leave my phone behind. So I had time to reflect and actually think like a character. The bigger challenge and I'm very, can you hold on to that one thing? When you're reflecting

are you thinking about ideas for shows or shows like, or are you just thinking about life? Like what are you thinking about? It depends, 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 put on them, right? They just come. Fortunately, I'm the only person around because if I wasn't, people would think there's this

“on this dirt road talking to himself. But that's what happens. My routine is very set and when I'm”

writing, I always return, I'm in the first place I ever bought this house up here in Wyoming,

and it is an 1800 square feet. I always come back here because this is where I can control the quiet. This is where I can get the most done. The second problem we'd greater influence upon writers in the industry and it didn't use to be this way when Steve McQueen was a movie star at Paramount and Bobby Evans ran the studio because writers were turned loose, directors were turned completely loose. There weren't endless rewrites. There weren't meetings with executives about

tone and mood in 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 made of group in the industry, right? These are marketing executives for the most part, or maybe they said, whatever they studied law, whatever, then they came and they got a job in the mail room at CAA or WME and hated that shit. And so then they ended up as an intern at some network. And then through a tradition, they find themselves

the head of development. Well, what do you know about developing story? You know nothing. So they get

So they don't get it. So it needs to be written on the page. There's all this stuff. They want back

“story. They want basically the one synopsies of who all these characters lives are before we meet”

the character, none of which is applicable to the whatever conflict the character's 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 wrote them on that horse on that hill. Didn't exist. So I'm looking for 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 and independent film. Right? So the first movie that I made with Cicario, that's an independent movie.

“The Thunder Road Basil is Monica. He went out and raised the money from and they just gave us a”

chunk of cash and we went and hired who we wanted to hire and made it. The same thing with Hell or High Water and the same thing with Wind River. With Wind River, I mean that money came from

a Indian tribe in Louisiana. And they're just here. Go do it. I never saw produce or at one time I was

talking to my DP. We're standing on the top of this mountain. And I said, you know, we never met anyone who gave us this money. Like, 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're just... This is a tremendous amount of responsibility for someone who's never done it before. But so every decision that I got to make, I made, and I got to make it for what I thought was best for the story. Since I wrote the story,

I felt the most qualified to do that. So when I made it by deal with Paramount, I made that same deal. I said, this is not a democracy. There's no committee. You're going to pay me and you're going to give me a bunch of money. And I'm going to deliver you these show. One of them, because I'm just not that special. I'm pretty 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 Emmys with me, but I'm not trying

to win Emmys. That's not my goal. My goal is to sit somebody on their couch and move them,

“make them think, make a 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. I don't want to be... I don't want to be preach too. I don't want someone to tell me how to think or why I shouldn't think this or should thing look through this rectangle box and go to another world and escape. And so I have such a streamlined system that I'm able to create this massive volume of product and I bet I work less than a guy who has one 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 are the best ideas of the most successful things. Seems 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 and 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 by consensus, which 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? And we're all these people whose 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. Because 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. Right. You know,

the job job justification. Yeah, and if you do that, I give Taylor shared a notes. What are you giving them notes for? He doesn't need your notes. No. And if you look at, if you look at some of the real bellweather shows, right? Some of the shows that really, there's a number of them. You can go back to early Stephen Bosco, David Milch, and these guys that that were David he

man band. He writes all his shows. That guy was writing Chicago Holt. That's 22 episodes of television.

And what's the other one that he had on? He had three shows on the earth at the same time. All the other people, the practice. Yeah. Yeah. And he's writing every word himself,

“making every decision. And he'd obviously built a very tight team of filmmakers around him, right?”

But shows was excellent. Right. Well, 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. And that's the biggest reason you have all the shows,

right? It's even better than, you know, I have editors assistants that are now a senior editors. I have production assistants. You know, guys, it were running around getting coffee that are now

first assistant directors. This is 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.”

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 customer. I have a literally not even probably not even supposed to be in props. It kids like 15 years old. He's just helping his dad. Now he's a prop master. So this is 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. Nothing. 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, right? When River was incredibly difficult for me to do. The first two seasons of Yellowstone were incredibly difficult. And then I figured it out. And I had to get rid of a lot of people along the way. I had to fire a lot of people

who didn't see it my way and wanted me to conform to the way that the business does it as 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 when River just on a much larger scale. Right? That was a gorilla. Now we make $235 or 35 million

gorilla television series. Right. Well one of the things you're good at is you're targeting people who have 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 you have somebody like Billy Bob, you have landman. He's like literally the perfect guy in the planet to be in landman. But he also wants to be in landman, which I don't maybe in 2015 you're not able to convince them. But

“you know now it now it seems like you're getting whatever actors and actresses you want, right?”

I was getting whatever I wanted from day one as far as actors goes with cerario. I mean those are those were our top choices. Right? Oh really? The same. Oh yeah same with hell or high water. I mean I told David McKinsey I said look I wrote this role. I wrote it for Ben Foster. I wrote it for Ben Foster. And they kept looking for everybody and I said I don't know you could just hire what you do that. And then he actually went on a he got on a yacht and went for a week trip with

his family. We're in a cell service and they still hadn't pulled the trigger on Ben and I just said fuck it I'm hiring him. So I just called this agent up and said he's hired. We got him. Is it really? I said yeah. I had no authority to do it whatsoever. So then I got just called the costume around us called Ben Foster get his sizes because with sag as soon as the costume designer calls your book. Your book. So when he got off the boat. But it was a perfect choice. So yes, I've been fortunate

to get the actors that I've wanted but I wasn't actor. I write for actors. I write words that they want to say. And now I do it even differently. So with Billy Bob with Kurt Russell and Michelle, Harrison Ford, Helen Mirren, that's who I envisioned for the roles but I hadn't written a word. And I told Billy Bob I said here's my idea. This is the show I wanted to do.

in a square but I'll write it for you. And he said okay Helen and Harrison said the same thing, Michelle was a little bit tougher sell but she finally acquiesced and she was terrified to commit

to something she'd never read a word. But when a writer is writing specifically for an actor

“right in a role 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 because I actually know this and I thought it was great. So what did you tell him? I said I want to make a drama with Bad Sand at running an old company. And he was like I'm in? He's like that's a greatest fucking thing I've ever heard my life. Yeah, let's do it. So when you, 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 is it just as simple

as that where you're like bad sand and runs an oil company? Okay, that's something or is it

like are there cases where you're like oh no I'm way more into that. It's always a lightning bolt.

All right, every time it's a lightning bolt. So for Landman, a buddy of mine from high school

“worked out in a decimid, and he, and he was, he was essentially, a, a, a, a, some type of site manager”

would be the term, right, with the title. But essentially he's just a problem solver. He's a crisis manager, right, which they're, and I'm watching TV and some guy, some wing that's 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's always driving around, so I just called him and said hey, he's making sure you're good. He said good,

what are you talking about? And I said well, they're sublunetic running around and that's the shooting people. And it's all over the news and he just starts laughing and he says that happens here every day, every day. He goes, it just happens out in the patch because this place, you don't

“understand what this place is. He started telling me stories and that's when I got the IP here.”

For landmen, and then coincidentally, not six weeks later, so I'd pitch the idea to paramount and not six weeks later, this podcast drops. The Christian Wallace from Texas Monthly had done. And I listened to it and by my apartment, 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 been at he had been a rough neck. And was a very thoughtful, good writer. And he didn't know how to write a screenplay, but I didn't need him to. I just needed someone to help me manage the authenticity 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. But 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, how did 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 tonally, so it's a frenic landman, which I like. I like a show to make me think and then do something that's almost bought villain, right? That's cartoonish. Because all of our lives are kind of cartoonish if you think about it, right? 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, 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. So it's, it's a lot of fun to

do that show. Well, you also, another thing you do that I've never seen anybody else do,

you'll grab these really good actors or known actors, and maybe their schedule won't

for season two? Like, how you used to be more in landman, it was like, she's one of the stars in 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 it. And I told her, when I met with the me about that, I said, look, here's the thing,”

you're going to be an extra in this show for seven episodes. You're an extra and a critics or kind of thoughts, they are going to come after me. I'm underutilizing this, can't write for one, but all this nonsense. And then I'm going to kill your husband and you're going to have to run the old company. But I said, but, and I have a very, you know, the critics and me, I don't care what they think, and it annoys the shit out of them that I don't care,

and I'll be the first to tell you that there are things I do that rage-batham a bit,

and this is one of them, right? And episodes where they could have watched it and realized that flip, but I did, and I just sent them the first three. Because it's fucking honestly, right? And so

“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 set her up by omission to be someone that the audience has already predisposed to believe can't do this, capable of doing this job. And so not only does she have to overcome, 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,

right? I give her a monologue that basically says, you gave her two. I meaner than my, and yeah, where I say, you know, I'm essentially, I'm the bigger bear and you're about to learn it. I'm a question's at a time, that she's a true wild cat or 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 all company in Texas, a wild cat or, and, and she, that was her rig that I felt, that shallow rig, and the story of that rig blowing, and then that insurance money being used to double down, that, that actually happened,

and, and she's risked $2 billion, 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 a lottery ticket hits, it's, you know, you're talking, you're talking, not just generational wealth, you're talking, I don't even, I'd start to comprehend the numbers you're talking, and it's, and that's the riverboat gambler, addiction that these wild caters have, it's fascinating. Think of the fortunes that it, think the hunt family, for example, you know, that's in the 1920s, did the same thing while

cutting, and, and, and a hundred years later, you did the family still, this institution in North Texas. 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, of this to the critics, or just to mess with them, and that's, that's fair, like, you're tweaking sometimes. Hagen, pagan, uh, roommate. Right. That's one of the few times that, that 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 10, where they've become friends, and you don't want to put that in Episode 9, I said, no, no, for, for, exactly for the reason, that you're asking, like, I want to piss you off a little, and then, oh, how dare I, and then you watch the next week, you go, oh, oh, got out of me to judge Web9. Yeah, that's the difference between

TV and a movie, right? The TV shows not over, so to sit there and treat an episode as though we've completed anything as ridiculous, right? It's not done. I'm not done storytelling. You just saw a little sliver. You can't judge the thing till it's done. How, not like a movie. How many seasons are, like, you're doing landmanner? I don't know, pick a show. Are you planning, how many seasons ahead? For me, five years, five years max, then because beyond that,

not Beverly Hills, not O210. I love that show, way back. Right. So think about that show for a minute.

“So Jason Priestley's the big heart frog and he's this, he's the guy and, and they take him on the”

story arc and then everyone gets a little tired of Jason Priestley. So then they're nine now. He's the heart frog. He's this. And then that kind of Peter's 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 in this next one takes place. And Ian's earrings next. And now it's just romance of the week, right, because it went too long. So if you go into them knowing, this is the

the length of time that we're going to explore and then have the courage to end it at that point in time. Now you have a completed thing and it stands up and you can rewatch it. The amount of people that rewatch

1883 and 1923 and these in these these basically long form movies that are that are just designed to be

digested over a short Madison is the same way. It's a six-episode season, right? Yeah. So you, I mean, I know where that, I know where every show ends, I know how they all end.

“And I think you have to know how they end or if you don't, how do you know where you're going?”

You may not have the ending, but you need to know thematically. How does this world result? What are you, what are we saying? Right? And, and if you know that that you can write toward that. And, and, and you know, with Yellowstone, Kevin was only supposed to be in the first three seasons. That was in his contract. In, in my mind, that's that's when when his youngest son takes over. And then we have to watch those and and lose that ranch over of, you know, or not lose the ranch,

whatever the case is going to be. But the network was so scared of not having Kevin be a part of it. Even though Kevin was ready, he was ready to go yet other things he wanted to do, but he stayed on for another two seasons. And, and that was just because the show was such a behemoth. It was such a huge hit that the notion of, of giving up a hit before it had run out of, of, of 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, but creatively that that couldn't run in opposition.

And, and finally Kevin hit a point stories like, I kind of got to get some out of thing and I'm like,

I got to do my own thing too. So, so, but, but we, we had originally conceived it together that it was three seasons and then, and then the baton is handed. Or 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. Well, I think COVID ballooned that show was already a big show,”

and then I felt like in COVID when everybody was trying to catch up on stuff and with the fuck am I going to do for four months? And I've watched another show I haven't seen yet. And also, and it felt like Yellowstone was somehow growing. It was crazy. Yeah. Oh. Yeah. I mean, that, what was there to do? Everybody was stuck at home. Yeah. And then, and then, whenever, which was a different and different places,

you know, the big cities were shut down for, you know, LA was shut down for over a year. Yeah. And New York for maybe six months or more. I don't know how long I need to go to either of them, but I, you know, I had friends in LA still driving around with a fucking mask on in 23. You know, what are you guys doing? It's over. We call them moving to do that anymore. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was driving my daughter to Arizona for soccer tournaments because they

wouldn't let anyone, even in the fall of 2020, they wouldn't let like any sort of high school club soccer stuff happen. So you'd have to drive across the line to where it was. So the good news, we've got to spend a lot of time together. It's, you know, it's the first disease in history that doesn't spread it protests. I don't know if you're aware of that. Yeah. We thought that out. Yeah. Um, wait, I had a couple more questions for you about actors.

Cole Houser, who I always loved, you seem to find over and over again these people where I'm like,

oh, I was like that person. The Kathy Rally 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 Houser,

around for a while and nobody unlocked them and then you unlocked them. So how'd you unlock them?

“The movie that I saw that made me, and I remember him from days and confused, right? That was a”

great run. But he did. But it was, it was he played in pitch black with Vin Diesel, he was such a heavy actor that understood nuance. 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 wordsmiths. Someone that understands

which syllable of a word you stress changes the meaning or the emphasis. 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 he has that. And maybe he has it. He's not a traditional looking, pretty boy leading man. And that may be one of the reasons that the business, he's a dude. He's a man's man. And at a time, he came up at a time when they were buying sort of pretty and undrogynous. They didn't want that in a man. And our business didn't foster that. They didn't develop that. They really wanted

something that they felt was a little safer or more relatable. Whatever the case may be. And he felt a little more throwback. He felt a little more 70s as an actor that style.

“And which is what I grew up with. Right? That's what acting that I was always drawn to.”

And so he didn't even audition. I just we just knew it was. Yeah. I just knew. So when you're approaching like a TV show or a movie, or because I was feeling like the best way something's going to succeed is like you're bringing me into a world. I don't know anything about this world. Like Landman Z is the example of this. It's like, I don't fucking know anything about how they make oil on Texas. So you just pulling me into that. It seems like you're the best at this.

Every TV show or movie you do, you're pulling me into something that I don't really know that

“much about. So is that intentional or is that just the outcome? Yeah. You have to understand,”

for me, the landscape is the main character that everyone's reacting to. So what's the star of

the Madison, the Madison River, this idyllic place, that has this incredible ability to heal. Right?

Done. Which is, it is the land. It is land that so that people would kill for, that they would die for. Right? It has so much value and is so grand. Same thing with 23. Same thing with 83. But the story of the mayor of King sounds the opposite. Right? Here's a place that is broken. It's a, it's a complete failed society. When your last business going to is human incarceration, as a, as a city, you're done. Right. That's it. Attracting prisons. If that's the business

you're getting, then look what you're attracting with those prisons. And now you've sunk your city. Right? So so even though it's, the city is really the antagonist and that one, it's still the main character. With, with, with lioness, that it is, it is the, it is the, forget, good or battle, it's, it's stated constantly. The, the main character of that is our, our societal survival, as perceived through people who do not apply morality to those decisions. Morality is another agency.

These, their job is, is to make sure that the United States remains the United States. Period in the story. Someone 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 to then for, for lioness for an example, we've seen that a version of that world a number of times. I just juxtaposed it and made

that she's not present to raise. And, and that the, that the husband has to, 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, another thing that I love about your shows is you find yourself like my what we love 1883 and 1920, we love those shows. But my wife

was always we would watch 1883 and my wife was like, I would have been really good in the 1800s.

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 1883 and I'm like, yeah, this part part part of the greatness of these shows. You just put yourself in, I would have done terrible because I bad I say it. I feel like I just would have been killed. I just was 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, how would I fit in in this, where would I fit in in Yellowstone? Where would I fit in the landman? Just 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 1880s. But we all, I mean, isn't that part of the great joy 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 is over. What did they do after that?”

Like that's fascinating. And that's the greatest compliment you can give the storyteller because they successfully built a world for you. You also flip something like an 1880. There's

stuff in those shows that you always knew, but you didn't really think about. So like in the 1880s,

there's really no rules. You go somewhere and 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 on a totally different level at all times. I've just never really thought about that that much. And then I'm watching the show. Yeah. Fuck. What would I do? It was completely self-policing. You had to determine what your own boundaries were. If you as an armed gunman, you're traveling

“across the plains and you come across weekman and his wife and two daughters and the 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 robbing him blind, kill the wife, rape the wife, selling the kid, what's going to keep you only you.

Right. That's it. There was no law. That's great. That's amazing. And a pretty terrible

time because there were plenty of people that didn't have, there was no boundary for that. Right. Um, did you ever think in your route to streams Yellowstone would turn into what it turned into? Like not only a massive, probably the biggest show of the last 10 years, but also a universe that went backwards and forwards. Like when did you realize what the fuck look when HBO when I get I sold this show to HBO first and I told them in 2015 going television. I told them that

you told them and I told them it's going to be the biggest show on television period in a story and and when and when the executives at Paramount read it, they couldn't believe it. They were shocked that no one saw it. And it scared everybody and I 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 not dead. What's dead is dumb movies about Cowboys and Aliens. That's a bad genre.

They didn't talk to that. Right. But every time someone makes a good Western, it's a fucking hit. Every time, unforgiven, pretend to humor, silver auto, they're all hits. Right. Because it's a very uniquely American thing to explore. That period's fascinating to us to look at and it's the closest thing that we had to admit evil times. Right. That is our dark ages, our medieval period was the mid-18 possible war 1800s. Are there any shows in the last 10 years that you've been jealous of?

Oh, you're just locked into all your, well, you're doing seven shows. You probably have to concentrate. Well, I mean, look, here's how I explain it. You're a dentist. Okay. When you call for us, do you look at pictures of teeth? Right. You know, I don't want any one. I don't want to watch my own shows when I come. Oh, I got to. Right. You know, I don't. So, so no, I haven't seen anything. We have to end because I know you're running low on time. We have to end on Sequario,

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 rewatchables. This movie podcast we have a couple of 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 it's become, I think one of the best movies of the 2010s. When 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 said? I mean, and I don't want this to sound arrogant. I've never taken a movie out,

but 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 in I go sell it and and sell it with the intention of making it. So, typically with my projects, there's I either put into a mobility, 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. Or I'm going to mandate in the contract that you make it, that you have no choice. Yeah. 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. Then for to me, it's not ready to be taken out. I can't, and there's a lot of people. I'm very

fortunate. In the fact that when I first started screenwriting, 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 10 or 12 years. And you, and you may have, yeah, you made money and you had a stable job, but is it fulfilling you creatively? And are you going to have to overcome that typecasting when you get out? I was having a conference in mind who called me for advice today about this, or she got offered this job. It's a money job, but she doesn't really

want to do it, right? This 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 be behind on your mortgage in six months?”

No. Okay. Then you don't need to take a money job. Right. 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, you know, 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. I had no idea that it paid well. Right? I forgot my first residual check for Sakario. I was like, oh, shit.

I actually wish I had done this 15 years ago. But, but so with Sakario, I wanted to write something that was unique in every way. I wanted the structure to be unique. I wanted to really play with the 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 means instantly, they're going to assume the reason I did that

“is because I think women are powerless. When it is actually morality that froze her, it wasn't gender.”

It was the fact that she believed in writing wrong. She believed in playing by the rules in a sphere where there are no rules. No one is playing by the rules. 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 government decided to do that.

You can ask Maduro about that. And so here's what it looks like, what if they treated criminals

like enemy combatants? And so I wrote that script on a five-act structure instead of a three-act structure to play with the, you're, you're pretty, you have a preconceived, you're

and I'm going to know what this movie is about. And then we're going to go off on the journey,

and about an hour and 10 in, we're on the mission. We found the villain, we found the goal, we found the thing, and we're on a mission. And for the next 15, 20 minutes, we're going to see if we, 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 hell, or whatever it's going to be. We know, right? But if you

start playing with that structure, and I don't really tell you what the goal is until the end of that three-act four, well that feels very different. You know, the shootout that happens on the

border is really in the, the, the end of the second act. Okay, and, and I built that battle within

it's own little five-act structure. If you watch it, you could sit there and find the beats to it. And, and, and I did that to completely disorient the audience about how in the world,

“I mean, it's, it's worldly 40 minutes in. I think everyone's about to die. I don't think anyone's”

safe for that. I could really be over. And, and, and then you've got an audience that's truly jarred, and on the edge of their seat. And, and, and, and I knew when I wrote it, that I had effectively done that, and the, and the way that you know that, you can read it and look at it yourself, but the reaction of the town, like Hollywood went nuts for that script. It scared the shit out of everybody, nobody wanted to make it. The producer who decided to make it was, was, uh, his name's Basil,

and he had made the town, um, with the, you know, the movie that Ben did, great movie. And, and, again, uh, on paper, that's a pretty dark film, uh, it, it wasn't one that the whole world was running around saying we got 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, and Basil, didn't hesitate, and the first director we sent it to was

Denis Villenive, and, and when Denis read it, he, he, I had, I had to, I had to make it, I knew I had to make it, and when we had Denis, I knew I had a director that could execute, uh, the way that I had structure the script he would get it, he would understand it, because he's, he's very comfortable telling complicated stories. So, when we had those pieces, and then the cash just fell together,

“we had to do it. We all knew what it was. Well, it's interesting. I mean, you have to think”

of the surprise, I was surprised that the, that the way that lions get released it, I think if it had been really hurt hit domestically, I think that, I think that they, they decided to make it a 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 slapped you in the face, and you walk out of the going, what in the world did I just see? You know, they did that, they did

that with platoon, which was brilliant, to treat that, you know, to not tell the world. We're about to punch you in the stomach. Right. But 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 scarier who turns out to be one of the best directors of the last 15 years, and he likes the movie. I can't think of anyone

else who would have directed it, like looking back. It was perfect. I would say it for goodness. You make your own luck, right? Um, lucky is, and for two, it's a better one. It's on to your shitty script. Yeah. He signs on to your shitty scripts, and now it's great, and it goes out, and it's a hit, and through no, through nothing that you, now you're lucky, right? That's a lucky. Here's another example. What if you had just gotten a job acting on some show that locked you down

in 2010, 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, would you even have written?”

Well, remember I quit sons of Anarchy, too, right? I'm 2010. I was on a show, 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 sit there and say, okay, I'm going to do this for the next six or seven

to miss my chance to be a creator, a chance to tell a story. That's also, 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

“that the only way I was going to get to be an effective storyteller was if I, because actors are”

storytellers, it was if I told my own stories. I was never going to get the opportunity as an actor, and, and look, I'm not saying I'm was a good enough actor that I deserved it. I guess I didn't, right? I guess I didn't, because 15 years in this business, and I never had that opportunity, so I guess I was doing exactly the acting. That's all the acting I should have been doing. They helped me see that. Was there fork in the road role that you came close to getting or you'd

think like, man, if that had happened, maybe go in this way instead? Yeah, there was one. There was one. I was, I was a couple, but there was, there was this movie called American History X with Ed Norton, and, and the role that Stacy Keech played was, as Ed Norton,

“characters best friend, um, and, and they were, they had tapped me for that, and then”

either the director and her ad or whoever made a decision that they did 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 what they were really focusing on, which was, you know, racism at an extreme, and so if it's just how does his best friend being a fucker and betraying him lead to this epiphany that everything that he believed about race was alike, right? So, so they,

so they, as a storyteller, they rightfully went back and addressed the script and changed it to make this character much more of a leader and a father figure and, and not so much equal to, to, uh, and, and more part of an organized racist like supremacist, as opposed to a bunch of skin-head drug dealers, which was what it was originally, right? So, probably the right decision for them from a story standpoint, uh, but, but it, but it cost me a job. Have you, have you ever did? I don't, the other one

was, uh, I got pretty far down the road on walking dead and, and, and burn fall beat me out of that role. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, so he was on, when he did win river, you know, we were talking and I'm like, you know, you saved my attitude. I was damn here. I was going to, I was damn here,

still an actor. Oh, man. What? And then he ends up in the cario too. Yeah. Yeah. So, you never thought about,

I mean, you've popped in, you popped in Yellowstone, but you never thought about writing one thing that you would be like one of the stars, and you're, you, that bug is gone. The funny thing is, oh, no, I play a character on, on, uh, um, and he's sort of one of these career career out of banch, just a, just a, just a hammer. He's just a, he's just a hammer, uh, and, and it's fun to 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 do an episode a half of that, a season, then I've scratched that edge. But I've, ironically, been offered roles, uh, you know, sense, and, and I, I haven't, I've turned it all down. Yeah. I don't have any interest in spending four months off. Would you have interest doing rewatchables if you're at Bernoulli? 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, five choices. I'll, I'll come. I'll come to you, because I think you'd be really good at this,

“'cause I've made it pretty clear. Like the only way you're getting me back to Los Angeles”

is if it succeeds from the union, and I'm drafted into the army to take it back. That's the only way. All right. That's good. A lot of people feel that way about Los Angeles.

My friend William Goldman, who's sadly not with us anymore, but never wanted to come back,

Harry, 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. Yeah. No. I love New York. I love New York. Doesn't, that, that's

L.A. is built on Sam. It ain't strong. There's no foundation there. That's sorry, sucker. It's

“right. That's right. The book is called, added not dying prison. It is out. It's out on a hard”

cover right now. June 23rd. I'm going to have to come to Fort Worth to see you. America heard you say

if I came down, you'd do a rewatchable, but it's great to talk to. I really admire everything you built.

“Yeah. We'll figure out something, but it congrats on everything, though. It's been fun to watch”

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