This was in the latest Bill Simmons podcast around the, it was around the 52-53 minute mark. I'll link it here for reference:

I’m not even a hater I listen to his podcast weekly but OH MAN this guy sometimes... on this weeks episode of SI Podcast he literally tried to tell Sergio Mora that Canelo would possibly move up to heavyweight to fight Usyk if he managed to win all the belts up there... is this dude smoking rocks?

Seriously. The dude wasn't just wrong about the Cs trading Smart; what happened was literally the opposite of what he reported. From literally

Brad Stevens has been “frustrated by Smart’s unpredictable play in recent years.”

So frustrated that GM Brad put a trade kicker in Marcus Smart's max contract? GTFO.

Then the idea that we would -- a great player but one who makes literally no sense with the Celtics' timeline?

Even before the trade deadline he was about how we were close to trade for Aaron Gordon and then The Athletic that we "weren't close" to trading for Gordon or Vooch.

Seriously, I know it's great to feel like we have a "team insider" and are getting all the best scoops but we're being fed some almond milk ass ice cream, y'all.

Source:

Transcript:

Imma throw a scenario out there, one that is fictional but could be rooted in reality if we look ahead a few months. Let's say Oklahoma City is gangbusters to start the season. Let's say they win like 60-something percent of their games through January where they're sitting in the third or fourth seed in the Western Conference-- which is not outrageous because, organically they're going to grow.

Chet Holmgren is gonna be really good. Lot of good players in Oklahoma City. Let's say they're sitting there and-- Oklahoma City knows they can't pay all these guys on their roster. They've got a surplus of young talent. They've got a surplus of draft picks. What's to stop Sam Presti from saying, “You know what? Damian Lillard’s got 3.5 years left on his deal? Let's go get him! Let's put Lillard in a backcourt with Shai and with Lu Dort as the three man and let's see how that works.”

I think that'd be pretty damn good. Personally, I think Shai can defend two guards. Lu Dort is strong enough to defend threes and fours when he has to. You know, if you're Portland, you've got to be thinking about that scenario or something like that in the next three or four months. Not like “Let's get Lillard off the roster and take whatever Miami's going to give."

Mock Trade:

Oklahoma City receives:

Damian Lillard

Portland receives:

• Cason Wallace

• Ousmane Dieng

• Aleksej Pokusevski

• Kenrich Williams

• Davis Bertans

• 2024 1st via HOU

• 2024 1st via LAC

• 2025 1st via MIA

• 2027 1st via DEN

• 3-4 2nd round picks

Is this better than the rumored Miami package?

How far could a starting lineup of Damian Lillard, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Josh Giddey, Jalen Williams, and Chet Holmgren go next season?

For 12 years in Houston, Rosas worked under Daryl Morey, an analytics-savvy GM. Wiggins is not an analytics-friendly player. But Rosas was also a teacher, with experience coaching at the high school and college level. And in Wiggins, he had a player seemingly teeming with untapped potential.

He (Wiggins) spent more time in Minnesota this summer than in any previous offseason, Saunders says. He was a regular at the Timberwolves facility. Staffers recall Wiggins walking around the gym, mumbling: Gotta get better.

The results weren’t immediate. Wiggins struggled in the preseason. He made 33.3% of his shots. He connected on 31.6% of his three’s. Most teams bring players in for exit interviews after the season. Rosas held them with each player after the preseason. Wiggins sat with Saunders and Rosas. They crunched the numbers. They told him they loved how hard he was working. But they could see him fighting the new system. They could see him get down when the shots didn’t fall. Stick with it, they told Wiggins. It will come.

And it has. The traditional numbers have improved. Rosas cites Wiggins assist ratio, which is a career-high. His shot block ratio is, too. With the ball in his hands more, Wiggins is averaging less than two turnovers per game. As his usage rate has gone up, so too has his efficiency. After shooting 21.7% from three in October, Wiggins is up to 38% in November.

So according to Sports Illustrated, both Ryan Saunders and Gersson Rosas rebuilt the way the Timberwolves organization worked and added in analytics to bring out Andrew Wiggins' full potential. Hopefully this is a sustainable change and Andrew Wiggins can finally win an MVP award.

Comments clipped below, but really infuriating to see a national media guy frame an extremely entertaining basketball team as uninteresting because, effectively, they don't generate enough off-court drama and aren't in a big enough market. That's really his big takeaway.

He talks about it so bluntly, that the sport he covers has to be reduced to soap opera cliches in order for audiences (or I guess maybe just him personally) to find it engaging. Why is the national media in the NBA more or less all driven by this mindset? It's not like this in other sports.

And to BS' credit he's not quite in the Mannix camp. He's 100% susceptible to this way of thinking but does find compelling ways to discuss the Nuggets more than other national media people. People like Mannix need to find a different line of work if they can't find a way to be compelled basketball-wise from what Denver is doing