The Bill Simmons Podcast
Phoenix in Shambles, Cleveland’s Ceiling, Best Third Bananas, NBA Refs, St. John’s, and ‘Season on the Brink’ With Ryen Russillo
Mon, 17 Mar 2025
The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss the continued disaster that is the Phoenix Suns' season, what Kevin Durant's trade options will be this summer, and whether Devin Booker should be untouchable (03:02). Then, they play a game of "I Just Don't Have An Answer" for a few NBA questions, including whether the Nuggets are actually good, Thibs's coaching ability, and are there some experience concerns for the Cavs come playoff time (26:51). Finally, they talk about the latest episode of 'Celtics City' and whether Bill Russell has become underrated as time goes on (01:35:21), before closing it out with some thoughts on March Madness (01:59:59). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Ryen Russillo Producers: Kyle Circhton, 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
Why are the Phoenix Suns struggling this season?
At one point, Wisconsin had outscored Phoenix through like 24 minutes of real basketball. I was keeping track of it. And rarely will I ever be at home going, when does Atlanta-Brooklyn start? Cause that's, that's where I was with, with them. And I know they kind of pretended it was close bill. They fuck up on defense so many times that I can't even, sometimes I can't figure out who was wrong.
Yeah. Like I have too many suspects. Yeah. Like I'll have these plays written down and be like, what happened on that one? And then at the very end, there's a, I think it's a Dorian Finney Smith three where it looked like youth league basketball where three guys were on Luca. And, you know, they don't, I just, I hate watching them. I've obviously expressed that.
We don't need to spend a lot of time on this.
They hate having you watch them.
They hate playing together.
They hate watching each other as they play basketball together. It's a pretty rare situation of a team that seems reasonably talented on paper that we have these teams that bring the best out of each other. And this team just brings the worst out of each other for whatever reason. I have no answer for it. I was going to have a little segment.
It should never be this bad. It should never be this bad. Like as bad as they are, people can make fun of it or whatever. It's ridiculous. They're this bad.
Like coming out of the gate, you would think you have between 52 and 56 points per game from two guys. You should be in every game at that point, no matter how bad your defense is, whatever you're missing. You should at least be hanging around. They're down 10, 15, 20. Nobody seems to care. I was going to do a little segment later, but we can do it now called, I just don't have the answer.
And if I had like a son's friend who was like, what do you think's wrong with this team? And I was like, I honestly don't know. I don't know why it's even worse than it was last year when it was like, oh, it's Vogel's fault. Maybe it's Nurkic's fault. Well, they traded Nurkic. It's still bad. I don't understand it.
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