The Bill Simmons Podcast
A Rare NBA Sea-Change Season, the Haliburton What-Ifs, and a 2020 Redraft With Ryen Russillo
Sun, 25 May 2025
The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss what the NBA teams may look like next year (1:43). Then, they react to OKC-Timberwolves Game 3 and discuss Bill’s theory that something has shifted with the NBA this season (30:38). Finally, they discuss Tyrese Haliburton, have a quick 2020 redraft, and predict one wild move this summer (01:05:20). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Ryen Russillo Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo #ULTRACourtside could get you closer to the game! michelobultra.com/courtside 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 shifts are happening in the NBA this season?
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Coming up, a little Memorial Day weekend basketball talk with Ryan Russillo next. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where we have new rewatchables coming for you on Monday night. It is the last episode of Big Ass 7 News Month. We did Heaven Can Wait. It was me and Van Lathan and Chris Ryan. So that's coming Monday night.
And you can watch it on the Ringer Movies YouTube channel as well. You can watch all the videos and clips from this podcast on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel, or you can watch it as a video podcast on Spotify. Ryan Russillo is next. We taped this. Sunday morning before the Pacers next game three. So it's coming up next. First, our friends from All right, we were recording this.
It is a little past 11 in the morning Pacific time on Sunday. We are not doing this after Pacers Knicks because it's Memorial Day weekend. And sometimes real life takes over the podcast schedule. I don't know what to say, but Ryan Rosillo is here. We have a bunch of fun stuff we're going to talk to.
We're going to be able to talk about these playoffs, even not knowing what's happening in game three tonight, which started out pretty shocking with the Pacers taking a 2-0 lead. I'm going to start here, Rosillo. Indiana and OKC, if that ends up being our finals.
What's interesting, big picture, is you could argue each of those teams is the team you would want to be for the next four to five years in their conferences. And I think the OKC is a pretty easy argument for the West, unless you want to throw San Antonio at me.
But for Indiana, the fact that we are now, I don't know, two plus games in the conference finals, the thought of them being the team you would most envy in the East was like 50 to one odds, I would say in January. How did we get here?
Look, the Thunder thing, you're right, whether it's roster or the flexibility of what all these future draft picks are going to be. And, you know, look in the future draft pick stuff. Sometimes it's like, oh, that didn't work out. And then there's like a pick in 2029 and you go, oh, my God, I can't believe that ended up happening. and you're going to have to sell me a little harder on the Pacers.
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Chapter 2: How will the Pacers and Thunder shape the future of their conferences?
On your OKC point, they're shooting 32.4% from three in these 14 games. And it was something they've just been killing everybody, and their defense is so great. But it's also a team that if they fall behind by 20, I feel like they just can't come back because they're not explosive enough, right?
And part of the reason they fall behind by 20 is because their younger guys are usually not playing well. But when they fell behind by Minnesota... In game three, it just feels like they don't have that same kind of explosiveness unless it comes from their defense. And their defense, what did you see in that game that you felt like Minnesota unlocked? Anything?
Well, the number one rule that I always have is you can't fake desperate. And if you're any good and you're down 2-0 and you're going home, there's just no way the other team's going to come out of the tunnel with the same desperation that you have. Game two, Finch and the staff threw the kitchen sink defensively at OKC. And Finch talked about going back and watching the Denver series.
Because if there was one concept for the Denver series, it was like once they got settled into that zone, they're like, look. if we can at least stop the first thing that they want to do, which is SGA coming downhill at the top of the key and Denver deserves credit for disrupting that part of it.
And that's where the stuff we were talking about earlier with the gamble that you're willing to take going. I don't know if the guys around, SGA are going to hit enough threes and they still really haven't. I mean, you're right. Like these offensive numbers, I mean, 32% in the playoffs is 13 out of the 16 playoff teams. They were six best in the NBA this season.
Granted, you know, the number doesn't feel like it's that big of a difference at 37%. The offensive rating is okay. The defensive rating is off the charts. It's even two points better per 100 possessions than it was in the regular season when it was historically one of the best defensive ratings a team has had based on the differential from,
the average defensive rating so they've cranked that part of it up even more but back to the original thing of like what you'd ask Minnesota clearly when they were just dazed again in that third quarter you could see like Finch's pulled Rudy then he's put him back in he's had him in drop I thought that they did less drop in game three when they went to zone they were a fucking mess because they know they don't play it and Finch had even said like we saw them do the zone stuff
so it was like hey we'll do some of that too and then minnesota's letting caruso and chet and these guys get this super easy catch that once you have that catch in the paint inside of the zone then everybody's scrambling and if you don't play it then it's just even nba players are going to be making mistakes being like wait where's like who am i helping off of or if i'm helping here am i is there somebody behind me and so that turned out to be a disaster so
Look, it's great when Ant comes out and scores 16 points. It's great when the team starts shooting threes because so many of their guys have been abysmal on the Minnesota side of shooting threes in those first two games. But they were so much more aggressive to kind of getting back to who they are of just letting their athletes get after the ball handler. Your guy Shannon played.
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Chapter 3: What are the implications of the 2020 NBA redraft?
Would Detroit try to, and they might not have enough space with the way that Cade's contract goes up a little bit here, but would they just go, Hey, we'll give you the full four years to Miles Turner. You know, we have a stretch five to go with Duren. If you want to switch this and try to take away from a team that we're competing against.
I was looking at him. We know the center market and it's in the, it's around 20. That's where these guys land over and over again, except with the exception of Sabonis. So we think it's 20, but then we know with free agents, especially when there's not a lot of them out there, all of a sudden somebody gets some crazy deal. Do you think Miles Turner's worth more than $20 million a year?
I think he is when there aren't any other good free agents out there. I mean, he's still only 29 years old. He just turned 29 two months ago. Um, even though it felt like, again, we said this at the top, it felt like he was available there for a long time, but he was available in that way where it's like, well, we don't wanna just give him away.
Like whatever you may think about his deficiencies, there's still a lot of really good stuff about it. And now here they are two games away from the NBA finals.
But he was available partly cuz he got, kept getting thrown into Laker trades that seemed like they were just coming from Laker fans. You know, where they're like, oh, they're going to trade for Miles Turner and Buddy Hill. It's like, are they?
I don't know. Why is Indiana doing that?
I believe he was available for a while, but they weren't just going to give him away. But they weren't going to give him away, though.
They wanted to get a good player back for him. All right, I'm going to give you mine. I didn't really give you one. You didn't have one. You didn't have one.
I got, you know what though? 20 plus years of doing this. We got a few minutes out of it anyway. So thanks in advance.
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Chapter 5: How do the Celtics and other teams stack up in the East?
And another guy comes in. How about your backpedaling though? Like that guy looked like he was ready to, he was on the longest drive at some charity event after like a couple nooners.
It was not me.
I swear.
I swear in the lives of my kids, I've never played pickleball.
I'm glad we could clear that up. Yeah. Thanks.
Thank you for clearing that up. I didn't know this was a thing. This is amazing. Yeah. I hate pickleball. I'm already on the record. I think it's one of the worst things that's happened in the last 10 years from a competitive sports standpoint. I don't like hearing the noises. I don't like the people that play.
There's a ton of injuries with them because people feel like they're playing adult ping pong and don't realize they're going to blow out their ligaments and Achilles. It's fucking stupid. Just play tennis. Just play tennis. Tennis is great. We've had tennis forever. There's tennis courts everywhere. Pick up a tennis court. You'll get more exercise.
That's where I stand on pickleball. Well, it seems like some people take it a little too seriously.
So that's another thing. Apparently. For your argument.
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