The Bill Simmons Podcast
The Memphis Lowdown, and Forgotten NBA Playoff Teams With Ryen Russillo and Chris Vernon
Mon, 31 Mar 2025
The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo and Chris Vernon to discuss the Grizzlies firing head coach Taylor Jenkins in the final stretch of the regular season (3:05), and Western Conference contenders (41:20).Then, Bill and Ryen wonder if they should be taking the Pistons seriously; the Pacers as a playoff threat, Bucks postseason concerns (0:00), a March Madness check-in (01:09:43), and more. Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Ryen Russillo and Chris Vernon 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: Why did the Grizzlies fire their coach Taylor Jenkins?
But, Verno, before we find out from you what happened, Russillo, give us your 30-second reaction to finding out Memphis had fired their coach with three weeks left in the season when they were a top-five seed.
It made all the offseason stuff make sense. When you blast out a guy's entire assistant staff and don't really consult him to bring in the new assistants and then run an offense that I don't think he wanted to run, that they won too many games for them to do something ultimately that they really wanted to do.
And for them to do this when everybody thinks he's a pretty good coach and considering the injuries, for them to do this, this means they've wanted to fire him for over a year is my outside take.
All right. Now, Verno's inside take. Verno, you're in Memphis. You also host the mismatch for us. But you're in Memphis. You're doing all the pregame shows. You have the radio show. This is your city. Were you surprised?
Absolutely stunned. Stunned. Stunned. Okay. Yeah. Oh, yes. Absolutely stunned. Not that nobody fires their coach with nine games to go. I think we were all of the opinion. I agree with Ryan, right? Like, okay, this has gone the wrong way, but teams go the wrong way a lot during NBA seasons. We've seen it over and over again where you're just not playing.
You're not playing anywhere near your best basketball at the end of the year. And sometimes the coach can beat it, but you're deciding on a pie chart how much the coach is to blame. But one of the things that is common is that you play it out and then in the offseason something takes place. Because you're that far down the line. Because how many big changes can happen with nine games left to go?
And the answer, I guess, is still to be found out. Because... What they're attempting to do is throw on the emergency break here at the end and say, look, you got nine games left. You don't want to be or I guess eight games now after last night against the Lakers. But you don't want to be in a play in situation. You're probably going to have to get to at least, say, 48 games.
wins in order to not be in a play-in situation. So that means you got to play 500 and you haven't played 500 in a long time. You haven't beaten a team over 500 since February 2nd. And so it's like, yeah, this is way late in the season, but it's kind of nut cutting time. Like if you're, if you're going to not be in the play-in and if,
Unfortunately for them in the playoffs, you have to play a good team. So if you want to be able to beat a good team, like then you want to try something different, even if it is this late. But it's the I think I think I fall in line with everybody. It's not that they did it. It's when they did it. The timing of this. Usually you don't get this late in the season before a guy is let go.
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Chapter 2: Can the Memphis Grizzlies still contend in the Western Conference?
I don't agree because I was in, unfortunately, with my mismatched brethren, Jacoby, in New York City, and I was there watching the Knicks beat the Grizzlies by 1,000. And what happened is you started running an offense that famously – you can go find every article –
doesn't run ball screens they run less ball screens than any team in the entire NBA so guess what happened this year what happens is team comes out and they say all right we're gonna guard you with Mikel Bridges who's six foot nine and has a 7'10 wingspan and he's gonna be guarding you the entire time and guess who you're never gonna get off of you because your team doesn't
use ball screens and so next thing you know john morant standing in the corner playing thumb wars with mikhail bridges and the whole world is like what is going on this guy's one of the best players in the world so then they tried to save it this year in well i mean in march hold that point In March, he's averaged, what, 38-5 while shooting 50% from the field in the games that he's played, right?
But if you go back and watch, they've started running all these high ball screens again. They've moved it back because it got to such a breaking point, and it's like, hold on now. We've got an offense that is good for – players six through 10, maybe players four through 10, but is it not one through three, but is it the best thing for your best player? Right.
And, and it obviously, and it hasn't been the best for Desmond Bain either. Right. Like, so there's been a push and pull to this. And obviously when they play against good teams, it's been all year. They haven't been able to beat good teams. Their record is based upon them beating up bad teams.
Enough foreplay. This to me is a whole Joss situation. And Joss doesn't play enough and Joss is not reliable enough. And I wrote down, can you actually compete for a title if you can't count on your best guy emotionally or physically? Now think about like Embiid is in that class, right? Kawhi and the Clippers. Not Kawhi before the Clippers, but Kawhi during the Clippers.
Is he going to be out there? What am I getting? Is he going to be out there in April? I have no idea. C-Web on the Kings after the 0-1 playoffs. Is he playing? Is he not playing? I don't know. Vince Carter, Allen Iverson, Kyrie before Dallas, Zion right now. If you don't have that reliability with your best guy, can you even have a chance to win a title? And I think the answer is no. He's 25 now.
He made all NBA second team three years ago. And this year he's missed 30 games already. And it's not even like a Brunson thing where he got hurt. And he's out for six weeks. He'll miss eight games. He'll miss six games. He'll miss three games. When you go to work, do you even know if Ja's playing? That's the season he's had.
Yeah, no. And that has been frustrating across the board, right? Because he had this... He started off well and then he got hurt and he got clipped out of the air by Christian Coloco. Then he came back. Then he was playing a game in New Orleans and he ran into a Daniel Tice screen and his shoulder got screwed up again. And then he's I mean, it's just been one thing after another.
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Chapter 3: Is Ja Morant reliable enough for the Grizzlies' success?
Well, there's two questions, right? Can he grow up and mature? We've seen guys do it, especially as they hit their mid-20s. The other problem is the durability thing. I was shocked. I was looking at his basketball reference. I thought there was one season when he played. He hasn't played more than 2,100 minutes in a season ever. I look at something like that.
And then you look at like the three point shootings, not better. The free throw attempts are going down from where they were a couple of years ago. I just, all that stuff worries me. The team's getting worse. This coach just got fired. And it seems like, you know, I don't know if this is, I was asking around trying to get, trying to get basically gossip about the situation from people.
What do you think happened? And the consensus, which may or may not be true, is that the organization and the GM was higher on Ja as the face of a franchise than the coach was. And that became a real issue between the two sides.
I don't know if that's true. I don't think that's true at all.
You don't think that's true?
No. Taylor loved Ja. Loved him.
Do you think Taylor felt like he could succeed with Ja long term?
Yes. I think Ja was probably the least of the issues. Ja's availability... is a serious issue, right? So what are the issues then? Like, what can you tell us? Ja's availability would be the issue.
But that is an issue, though. That's part of the Ja thing, that you're building a franchise around a guy who you don't know if he's going to be out there or not. That's a real thing.
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Chapter 4: What are the potential solutions for the Grizzlies' locker room issues?
Can you walk us through how much he means to Memphis? Because that's the part we're still in. I can get like what? Like how popular is he on a scale of one to ten? What does he mean? Big picture.
I mean, I would say, yeah, he's for sure the biggest athlete we've ever had here. It's not even close. Yeah, it's not even close. It's not even close. I mean, Penny in college, but I mean, that was a local thing, right? But I mean, Ja is a worldwide thing. And I would say, I mean, like, let's just say, I would tell you this.
There's probably, if I went, if I dropped my kid off at school tomorrow, I would say, I'd say 60% of that class, boys and girls, have had a pair of Jaws. I'd say at least 60%. At least. And I would say most have the jersey. Most. None of this surprises me.
He's that much fun. I mean, when he is right, it's one of the most fun things in the NBA. But... I, I can only share like personally, like how I felt watching. And I, over the course of this season, I went from hopeful to, I kind of couldn't stand it anymore.
And I totally get that because look, he is frustrated to be too. I will say this. What was crazy is when I say people change, I was at the game last night, watch a Memphis play against the Lakers. And last year I did this whole bit about how I can't take this Luca thing anymore. I don't care that they're winning. He is perpetually aggrieved. Do you remember? I text you this Ryan.
When I was talking about jaw earlier this year, like everything is, I'm just pissy about everything. Like, and I see it in your body language. I saw Lucas teeth more last night playing for the Lakers than I've seen in all those. I mean, he's like happy. He's like, he was jovial with the refs last night. Like,
that's not every night you caught him on a good night maybe i just caught him on a good night you did because he's he's been back to pretty much normal now he's all over the place once he got back in his shape he was more that was the funniest thing about him when he came back with the lakers he was just so exhausted he didn't have time to complain about anything
I went to the Chicago game a week ago. He was fighting with literally every ref. He was arguing with the players of the other team.
So you understand, and the listeners understand, this isn't about me talking about off-the-court stuff. I mean, I'm sorry, but I think there's a lot of guys that are probably really immature that we never hear anything about, and they're some of our favorite basketball players. So I'm not even really putting this into it. What I'm saying is, I think there's...
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Chapter 5: Which Western Conference teams are emerging as contenders?
Yeah, Cade's missed four straight with an injury that shouldn't be that big of a deal. But the Pacers, if you want to do the 51 games with them, because I was doing it like, all right, what's your low point record-wise, right? And then what are you since then? So the Pacers, at one point, We're below .500.
I guess I don't have the record stuff in front of me, but they are 34-17 since December 5th, the same number. I guess now the Pistons are 33-18. Some of their ranking stuff isn't actually as impressive as Detroit's is, but that expanded standing stuff that I always like looking at, like how do you do against those teams over .500,
Other than Cleveland and Boston, who have really good records, if you look at the East, the Pacers are 16-15. The Knicks are 12-18. Detroit's 10-20. Milwaukee's 11-20. This has been a really good team since that stretch as well, but the wins against the 500 teams tells us the Pacers are better, but I still think it's open for discussion, which I'm now going to pivot it back to you.
Do you like one team?
I'll start with the Pistons. Okay. I think Cade is the best player in a Pistons Pacers series. As good as Halliburton's been the last two months. I just, I think Cade is, I think he's a top 10 to 12 guy. So you got that. Pistons can rebound and defend. They're plus four, plus five rebounding every single game.
And they have multiple guys that can... I think Schroeder's a huge pest in a Pacers series. And by the way, the reason we're talking Pistons-Pacers is it looks like this is going to be the 4-5. Beasley and Hardaway are making six threes a game, 40%. And they make big threes at the end of games. They run plays for them.
I mean, one of their plays, they'll be down, you know, 1.40 seconds left, and they'll run a big play to send Beasley coming off some sort of screen, and he'll make it.
And remember, Hardaway was just out of the rotation last year, too, and at times, you can't roll him out there, just see what happens. They weren't done with him.
Um, and I like that. I know Kate's missed a couple of games here, but their best guys for the most part play unless they're got suspended for fighting, which is going to happen today. Um, I think they're a real team. I was really excited for them to play the Knicks because I genuinely thought they could beat the Knicks in a series. Pacers is a little more interesting.
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Chapter 6: How does Minnesota's performance impact their playoff prospects?
go the whole game being like i guess i'll just shoot it from here again because we can't get past the perimeter guys we're never getting into the paint we can't post it up against these guys even if we get a screening we get some angle malawatch is coming over here this dude started playing basketball four years ago and he's seven foot two and he's altering every shot at the rim um
Yeah, look, I I've loved watching this tournament, even if it hasn't been the buzzer beater and the drama stuff. So and I need more than I always say this kind of stuff, but like I need more than one year results. Just say this is now the new normal. Now, it's very clear the mid-major programs.
The strength that they had, the advantage that they had against some of the other higher-profile programs was that they had continuity, that a lot of their guys were playing together multiple years, maybe even a little bit older, and sticking around. We ignore that in basketball far too often. It's the same thing in the NBA. Like, have these guys actually played together for a long time?
Like, that's a massive advantage that I feel like is never, ever talked about. Or at least we've diminished the importance of that continuity. And so maybe this is the first year of the new normal, but I would need it to be like this. And in a single elimination, like, we're definitely going to have Cinderella teams again. We're just going to have weird scores that'll happen.
It just didn't happen this year. And the top of the field, as we knew going in, was historic anyway, and it's played out that way.
I like watching really good basketball teams. I'm a snob. I like watching good sporting events and good teams. And the quality does seem a little higher. But Duke is like... When you watch them, the ceiling of the guys they're putting out there and how they play together... which is I talked about this with Tate and Kyle the other day.
Like, it's not just like, oh, they have four, like that 2000, what was that? 2019 Duke team. And it was like Zion and RJ Barrett. And it's like, look at all these lottery prospects, but it didn't feel like a team. this Duke team now feels like an actual basketball team that you would have put together like a GM, like the way they play together.
I think that's been really interesting to watch because I had just gotten to the point with college basketball. I was like, this all feels fucking random. Everyone's just chucking up threes and some of them will go and some of them won't. But that, but I think the quality has been higher.
And the other thing is some of the teams feel like they have different identities almost, which is the way college, when we really love college in the eighties and nineties, the teams would have these, different personas like St. John's is like, Oh, the pressing team, Texas tech was like, these guys are just fucking huge. Like they're just like big bully ball team.
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Chapter 7: Can the Denver Nuggets overcome their late-season struggles?
And the Kentucky even has, or excuse me, I think Tennessee had the ball down 10 making this run and they played so hard to close this game, which is a credit to Rick Barnes and everybody with Tennessee. So I'm going to say nice about something about the team that lost here. I don't know how many other teams in college basketball are able to hold off the effort that Tennessee was playing with.
And yet Houston was able to get it back up to 20 because there was about this six or eight minute stretch where I'm like, is Tennessee going to find a way to actually get back in this game? And if you can appreciate the effort and obviously the pageantry, which we've always talked about in the past, it helps you get over
some of the moments where there's just such a gap between the shot making ability and you know how clunky the college game can look at times because a lot of it times like these guys are busting their asses every single rebound is a wrestling match I think the shot making is I just wonder if basketball is just going to another level as we're watching it just at all levels like you watch some of the drives and the finishes that the college guys have
And some of these guys aren't even going to potentially even play in the NBA or some of the threes, like the threes that Clayton Jr. is making. The artistry feels like it's gone up a level versus where we were before. Now, some stuff has changed. When we did Blue Chips for the rewatchables and you watch Bobby Hurley is in that movie and he's just like the old school classic point guard head up.
I'm just going to set up. Those guys seem to be kind of gone and they've just been replaced by these... all these different shooting point guards that all seem like they, they, every team has like three of them. And then flag is another one who just seems like a complete anomaly for what we're watching. But for the most part, like you watch some of the shop making and it's, it's really high level.
I just wonder if, Maybe it's the camps. Maybe it's people following like the previous generations and stealing the best things from them as they watch and they're playing when they're eight years old. But it just seems like people are getting better at basketball. Is that crazy? Like there'll be finishes in traffic where guys are bouncing off each other and doing like spin, spin layups.
Like Jesus Christ, that's like a round two NBA playoff shot. This guy's like the fucking fourth guy in Florida.
Now, wait, if you're missing Bobby Hurley, do you feel like you didn't spend enough time with Steven Ashworth this year or Creighton?
I probably didn't. And probably not the Illinois guy either, the pick and roll guy with the long last name. I didn't spend enough time with him either. But that's why we have YouTube when I'm jumping in late on the draft, falling in love with different people.
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Chapter 8: What are the playoff implications for the Houston Rockets?
You just can't use aluminum bats seems to be the only, and you can't cork your bat. Those seem to be the two rules. I don't get it. And of course, it's the Yankees that have figured this out. So we're off to a great start.
Did you see Nestor came in and gave up three home runs on three straight pitches? Yeah. Torpedo bats or did they hate him?
And I saw Judge wondering, should he get a torpedo bat? Because it's been working for him the last two years. He doesn't want to change it up. I just think when you have something called a torpedo bat, it's probably going to get banned from the league within a year. Just the name itself. It's like, how long is this going to last? Probably over under three months.
What could you have named it to prevent the pushback, though? Something less hostile, the human bat? Like big barrel bat.
No, I don't think you could do that. I think that's too aggressive. Barrel. The natural resource bat. Barrel. Big barrel. Did you pick a side in Stephen A versus LeBron or did you set it up? It reminded me of a lot of political debates. I was like, I have to pick one. So you set it up.
Yeah, dude, we've talked about Stephen A. How many weeks on this pod?
I'm ready to move on right now. Good. Just to know if you picked a side.
I didn't. I think some quotes, like anything with me, I thought some of the quotes made sense. I thought some of the quotes were ridiculous. And I'm sick of talking about them.
Um, any last things before we go that you wanted to hit anything weird, any book you're reading, what'd you read in the plane home?
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