The Bill Simmons Podcast
A 2024 NBA Redraft, Plus 2020s Sliding Doors With Ryen Russillo
Sun, 23 Mar 2025
The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss the Bulls shocking the Lakers on Saturday night and reexamine the 2024 NBA draft class (4:01). Then they discuss the Cavaliers' four-game losing streak and wonder whether Donovan Mitchell could lose his first-team All-NBA spot to Anthony Edwards (35:43). Finally, they discuss their biggest NBA "sliding doors" moments of the 2020s (58:49). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Ryen Russillo Producers: Kyle Crichton and Chia Hao Tat Order Michelob ULTRA today, available on Doordash! ENJOY RESPONSIBLY © 2025 ANHEUSER-BUSCH, MICHELOB ULTRA® LIGHT BEER, ST. LOUIS, MO. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What happened in the Bulls vs. Lakers game?
I also wanted to tell you about the Bulls-Lakers game I went to last night. Did you happen to see any minutes of that game? Yeah, I watched the entire second half. So the Bulls, first of all, are turning into a very belatedly fun end-of-the-season league pass team because they kind of know who they are, and they play really fast, and they have two good guards that attack, attack, attack.
And you could tell pretty early this wasn't going to be the Lakers' night with the way how hard the Bulls were playing and how much they were attacking the rim. They're out setting threes. Yeah. It did make me wonder if there was a little bit of a blueprint in there to beat this Lakers team with go, go, go, keep pushing, keep pushing, keep attacking. They don't really have a rim protector.
They don't really want to run up and down. They want to slow things down. And I was trying to think of anyone else in the West That could basically replicate that. And it's obviously OKC. And it may be last night.
And I don't know if it's overreaction or not, but last night made me really think like I think I think they would be in a heap of trouble in an OKC series with the athletes and the speed. And I'm not positive they can match it.
A couple things. The Bulls were incredible last night. And the Lakers' defense is terrible, but it's the first game back with LeBron. Those games when he was out, their net rating was negative. Their offense was 21st. Their defense was 19th. They still went 3-4, I believe, is the record. But that was like an all-time game. I mean, Bezelis is so much fun. That baseline move he had on Luka was...
was awesome. I mean, Giddey was close to a quadruple double, the first one since David Robinson.
They kept him in near the end. We were driving home and they were like, they're keeping Giddey in in case he can get two more steals. I was like, whoa. Giddey was incredible. And by the way, let's take a victory lap. We were like the only two people in America who liked that trade for the Bulls last summer. So I'm victory lapping that.
And by the way, I have the people scouting tracks for the scoot victory lap near the end of the season. And improbable, I'd given up, but we both never sold our stock. And now I'm ready to run around the track and wave to our fans. I'm not ready for that one yet.
Cause I think we liked him so much. It was on the path to stardom, but yeah, it's pretty clear. He's not going to be the worst player that plays minutes in the NBA and he might stick around for a little while.
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Chapter 2: What are potential strategies against the Lakers?
Right. He wants to kill everyone in the other uniform the entire time he's out there. And it just, it's a bit like the Garnett thing because he keeps losing in the playoffs. You have to start questioning him. And I think the only thing that was fair.
Two bad luck injuries with him too in the playoffs, like at the wrong times.
If you were doing the full scope of it, it's like, look, as great as Garnett was, he probably couldn't have always been the number one scoring option to close out a tied playoff game because he was always probably a little bit more apprehensive offensively than I wish that he was. But to suggest that he was a loser because he was losing all the time, was wrong.
Are people actually doing that? Cause I remember him just being this incredibly sympathetic figure, basically, you know, cause Glenn Taylor, he lost all those picks and the Joe Smith thing, Marbury left. And then it was just like, his supporting cast was so bad. At least the stuff I was writing back then was like, we got to rescue this guy from Minnesota almost became the narrative.
Giannis, I think has had more help than KG did.
Yeah, I mean, those teams, you just go through it and you see who's like... I always like looking up who took the third most shots for this team. You're like Trenton Hassel.
Right, they got one really good Cassell year and it felt like a miracle. It's like, oh my God, their point guard's averaging 17 and 8.
But I want to finish the point, though, only because it would crush me as a basketball fan to watch the way Giannis plays and with all of the great things that we just talked about, right? All of the great things that it would then lead to... there's something wrong with him if he didn't have the ring.
So I think you could make a really good argument for which guy would take more shit sans a ring here because Jokic is... like touching a totally different historic tier. I think Giannis is when it's all said and done, like, what is this guy going to be? Because the standard for him would be higher because of the way we're talking about him.
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