The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Basketball Movie Character Draft LIVE From Austin, Texas, With Shea Serrano, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
Thu, 20 Feb 2025
It's a Grantland reunion! The Ringer's Bill Simmons is LIVE in Austin, Texas, and he is joined by Shea Serrano, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey to hit a myriad of topics before drafting a basketball team of movie characters. Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Shea Serrano, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey Producers: Kyle Crichton, Chia Hao Tat, and Steve Ceruti The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Order Michelob ULTRA today, available on Doordash! ENJOY RESPONSIBLY © 2025 ANHEUSER-BUSCH, MICHELOB ULTRA® LIGHT BEER, ST. LOUIS, MO. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is the purpose of this Grantland reunion in Austin?
this sunday i think i hope hopefully hopefully russo knows we'll have to tell him uh anyway what you're about to listen to is me and sean fennessey and chris ryan and shay serrano going to austin texas where for some reason it's 30 degrees was not on the agenda for me but uh we're here anyway and we put together a big show at the paramount theater uh there was 1100 people
apparently that are coming to this. I'm taping this before the show. I hope it goes well. Wish us luck. Let's bring in Pearl Jam. Why the fuck is it so cold? What the hell? We could've gone to Chicago or Winnipeg. Thanks to Michelob Ultra for sponsoring this. We're so happy to be here. We love being in Austin. I'm gonna introduce, you guys don't know who's here tonight, right?
First up, the Prince of Philadelphia, Chris Ryan. Next up, the self-proclaimed king of Letterboxd, Sean Fennessey. And last but not least, from the heart of Texas, the one, the only, Shea Serrano. It's a Grantland reunion, everybody. How you feeling, Shay? I feel fantastic. I feel so good. Sean went to a DVD store for like two hours today. What store was that, Sean?
I went to Waterloo Records. Shout out Waterloo. Yeah. And I spent $184 on Blu-rays.
We almost died on the way there and back, yeah. It was fucking cold.
Yeah, what is up, Austin? So I was here for the Dallas Super Bowl in Texas. When was that, like 2010? 2010. And it snowed like an inch and nobody could get anywhere because they had no snow plows. And that was when I realized, oh, yeah, Texas doesn't do well with cold weather. We are going to do a bunch of stuff with you guys today.
We have a big, fun, crazy draft in the second part of this podcast. But we're going to start. We're going to do a hodgepodge thing. Let's start with All-Star Weekend because it just happened. Sure. Boom. Oh, wow. Tough beat. Second lowest ratings ever.
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Chapter 2: Can NBA All-Star Weekend be saved?
Shay, is this a sunk cost? Can it be fixed? It can be fixed. And I'm going to tell you how it's going to be fixed. There's a man, a 7'5 man in San Antonio. And he's going to save it. What's going to happen is the same thing that we saw happen with the in-season tournament where LeBron said, hey, guess what? I care about this. And then everybody else went, okay, cool. We care about it too.
So that's Wimby.
That's going to happen with Wimby.
He's going to... There's another 7'5 guy in the tournament. He's going to take it over.
I didn't know there was another one coming.
Right now, Joker is the guy. And he's like, I don't care about any of this at all. I don't care one single percent. So everybody else falls in line. When Wimby's the guy... He's going to care, and they're all going to care.
CR, what did you think of my idea that we split the game up and the Sunday game is just guys from the top five seeds and they play for home court advantage in the playoffs?
I liked it to the extent, but it's really going to have to just convince these guys to want to play more basketball and to play more hard basketball. I was thinking about this. I just think that this is probably entering the Pro Bowl zone where you just got to move it to the end of the season after the season. I just feel like you guys want to play. We'll have like seven foot rims.
You can do somersaults, you know, like whenever you can get trampolines out there. Like it could be like basketball, but I don't know about like the mid season after Luka gets traded. Let's all stop, go to this place and pretend like we care about this game.
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Chapter 3: Who are the top contenders for the NBA Finals this year?
Well, there's a lot of sex in that movie. There is.
What did you think of that?
And a lot of old people that vote for the Oscars.
Did you like those scenes?
I thought they were very well done. Yeah. Very tasteful. Very tasteful. Very tasteful. Yeah. I thought for the character it made a lot of sense. It did. It did. Really strong writing. So the last movie that did those three but then didn't win Best Picture was Crash.
It was Crash, yeah. Well, Brokeback Mountain won those three awards in 2005. Oh, yeah. Brokeback Mountain won the three and didn't get the last one. And then Crash won on Oscar night, which is the first time I gouged my eyes out and then had a reconstructive surgery.
So Nora... What if it's not an aura?
Bill, how many times have you seen the Brutalists in theaters?
So...
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Chapter 4: Why are fictional basketball player drafts entertaining?
And then immediately, immediately, she fucking starts putting them in the blender. Just bucket after bucket after bucket. And then she's going up for one bucket. Quincy has gotten fed up. He shoves her in the back. She falls down. Her face drags on the floor. She picks it up. It's covered in blood. And then we cut to her in the house cleaning it, and she's fucking smiling. I'm like, hell yeah.
That's a hooper. That's the only person who can play point guard on a team with a guy with an Uzi in his Adidas bag. That's who I need. I'm feeling real good about my team right now.
Well, you went for toughness. Yeah. Wood Harris, Bonham McCall, and a 7'6 guy who played one game.
Who do you have, Sean? I'll also be selecting a stretch five, another incredible athlete with a gift we've not seen before. I'll be taking Sandy Lyle from Along Came Polly as portrayed by Philip Seymour Hoffman.
I'm putting him in your bench spot. Okay. Well, I don't know what you mean by that, because raindrop! I had him on my board. What do you have, CR? Disney, your turn? No, it's... I picked... No, you're doing two now. All right.
He hasn't picked in a while, right? Did I screw this up? Yeah, you went this way. Then we went that way. You picked two. Then you went back to me. Then we went this way. Then you went... This is going great. It's your turn. It's your turn. No, it's...
Fantasy's third pick was what? Did you make a third pick?
I just took Sandy Lyle, yeah. Yeah, so you have three. Yeah, we're doing this correctly. You go, and then Bill goes two, and then you go back. My turn.
My turn? Kyle, cut this out of the pod. I can't believe this is still happening. Kyle, cut this. No, you go, and then I go.
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Chapter 5: Who are the best basketball movie characters of all time?
I don't know what his name was, and I don't even know if he was in the credits, but if you watch, he's like 15, 12, and 5 in the final game. This is an iconic draft from you. So I'm going number 45 on Teen Wolf as my fourth pick. Chris, you're up.
I'm up again? Yeah. Okay. I'll take Shep from above the rim. Our advanced analytics team loves this. 40 points in two minutes. He's 14 for 14 from the field. Just like bombing away from three way before three and D was a thing. In corduroy pants.
I know.
He was still in his work clothes.
Imagine if he was wearing shorts. This guy's wilt. You know, now if they did above the rim now, those would be all threes. Yeah. There was a couple of threes in there, though, wasn't there? He had 10 threes. Yeah. In that game. 10 for 10. I thought he was just taking like 17 footers.
No, no, no. Go back and watch the tape, man. Come on. We studied it.
Get on second spectrum. Use money from the top of the key. So I have Shep from above the rim. I like that. That's a really good pick. And he goes in with your team of quitters. Jimmy Chip would quit. Shep quit. Neon tried to quit.
Billy Hoyle tried to quit his relationship. You're up, Sean. I'm going to take a more recent vintage player and the most recent great basketball movie, Hustle, starring Adam Sandler. Oh, I like this. And I'll take Bo Cruz as portrayed by Wancho Hernan Gomez. Yes. He's on the board. Great pick. Wancho, need a big man. Obviously, a bit of an unknown coming overseas.
Really needed a strong voice, an advocate for his game. And frankly, we need his size on our squad. Need size, unselfish.
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Chapter 6: How do heist movie characters make good sports team managers?
That's right.
I feel somehow emboldened.
I don't know why. That's a good laugh, Phil.
I have two picks. It's a big part of the draft for me. I need a guard. Right now I have number 45 from Team Wolfe at center, Moses Guthrie, Hustler, and Neil McCauley as my GM. And I'm going to take Butch McCray from Blue Chips. Keeping my philosophy of real-life basketball players playing characters, this is Penny Hardaway. He had not ended up on Orlando yet.
And I just want to tell you, because this was over 30 years ago, them drafting Penny Hardaway... No! To play with Shaq, but they were both in a movie together. Might have been the single coolest thing in 1993. I think that's why they drafted him.
That hit all of my interest points at the same time.
Anyway, so we'll take him. And then I can't believe he's still on the board. I think I'm going to use him as my bench guy. But Fletch during the dream sequence. Fletch with the afro. You know, it's not a long scene, but you can see there's a lot going on there. He's just a force. The other team didn't know what was happening, so Fletch with the afro is my bench guy. What do you got, CR?
I'll take Tupac from above the rim as my coach. Oh, birdie. Birdie. Interesting motivational techniques, communication style, and I just think that this is a team of guys like you've mentioned, quitters, and perhaps Tupac will motivate them to do otherwise.
A little razor blade.
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Chapter 7: What is the cultural impact of Caitlin Clark and other young athletes?
It's not a long-term project.
not trying to build anything here joe cabot we saw what happened to the last team he had they all shot each other so this could be complicated shay you have the last pick and it's an assistant coach and then i'm going to read everyone on the teams and the crowd can decide all right well you know what i'm a sucker for a magic trick i want a guy around who could do magic give me uh jesse eisenberg's character j daniel atlas from now you see me
High-pressure situation, we're in the playoffs, and he's like, hey, check this out. Ta-da! Some sleight-of-hand magic in the finals. What movie was that? Now You See Me. I don't like the face that you made when I said that. It's a good movie.
Yeah, a lot to watch tonight, Bill. Now You See Me, Ambulance.
Now You See Me was a movie that came out in the theater? Yeah. It made like $300 million. It's a good movie. Is that not on the list for you? Now You See Me? So people who didn't get taken... Junior from Coach Carter did not get taken. The guy from the year up there did not get taken. Sala.
Flatch from Hoosiers, who all he did was go through a trophy case, put a bandage on it, and keep going, trying to rebound. He didn't go. We mentioned American History X guy. Lewis Scott from Celtic Pride. Nobody jumped on that. Buddy from Hoosiers who quit the team came back and really became a lockdown defender. Shades of Dyson Daniels on the Hawks this year. Nobody took the like Mike guy.
Calvin Cambridge. Nobody took Andre 3000's character from Semi-Pro, Clarence Withers. Yeah, Chris took Jackie Moon. I thought... Nobody took the kid from Finding Forrester. Yeah, Jamal Wallace. Liked his game. How about Odin James from O? Was he on anyone's board? No, but that's funny.
Yeah, just as Billy Shakespeare imagined it. High school basketball player.
This is a rough podcast for Eddie because there were no Eddie picks, including Stacey Patton, played by Malik Sealy. Would you have included Kevin Garnett from Uncut Gems as eligible? Yeah, that could have been a good pick. Nobody took Quincy McCall. You took his wife. Quincy was a bust. Strap from Hoosiers and Chubby from Teen Wolf were the big bench guys that I think were pretty shocked by.
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