A Clippers Rebrand, an NFL Mini-Mailbag, and Best MLB Story Lines With Rob Mahoney, Anthony Dabbundo, and Billy Gil

Bill Simmons (0:00)

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The Bill Simmons Podcast brought to you by Ringer Podcast Network, where I put up a new rewatchables on Monday night. We did Rambo First Blood Part 2 It was me and Kyle Brandt. I had a fantastic time. Sly Stallone's 13th rewatchables, which puts him in third place all time. He's sniffing Cruz. Cruz has a pretty big lead. Cruz is at 18, he's almost at 20, with a lot of good Cruz movies left. But Stallone is, he's battling. He's trying to get to 20 before Cruz. Very fun podcast, so go check it out on Netflix or Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Coming up on this episode, at the very top, I'm talking to Rob Mahoney about the Clippers post-Kuai trade. What do we do now? What do we do with this Clippers team? What happens?

That's first. Second, I have a little mini NFL mailbag. I got a lot of good questions and had some more NFL stuff today. I wanted to chime in on the Chiefs game on Monday night. So we have that. And then last but not least, Anthony Dabbundo, Billy Gil. We haven't talked baseball in a while. We have less than two weeks left in this season. The playoffs are going to be pretty cool. This has been a pretty bizarre, super fun, crazy baseball season. It might be our last for a while. So we wanted to talk about our favorite things from this season. That is all coming up next. First, a break and our friends from Pearl Jam.

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All right. We're recording on early Tuesday afternoon. Rob Mahoney is here. It's been a while. I just realized you hadn't been on in a while. I was like, just come on. Let's talk basketball. Basketball starting in five weeks somehow. I know. I know. I just feel like I did all my football prep. We only had week one of a football season. NBA is coming. And there's lots of time to talk about where we're going, who's gonna win. Jalen Brown playing with LeBron, Paul George at the Celtics. Just a million subplots.

I gotta put the Clippers stuff to bed. I know you already talked about it during our NBA show, but just a couple of things here. My big question for you as I look at this and I talk to the Press Quipper fans and all of us wonder, should we keep paying for tickets for them and all these things? Should they just change their name? Is this it?

Rob Mahoney (3:34)

You think that would cleanse whatever's going on with them?

Bill Simmons (3:37)

Is it rebrand time? And have we had a rebrand over the years in the NBA that has actually worked? And the answer for that is maybe not, because we had like the Brooklyn Nets with the New Orleans Pelicans. We had kind of a Charlotte rebrand with the expansion team. Do rebrands work?

Is it just a way? Like it works with products. Can it work with a sports franchise?

Rob Mahoney (4:03)

The fact that this is the solution. It's like you're out five firsts, your owner is suspended for a year, half the front office can't even go to the arena. It's like, I guess what else are you going to do at this point, other than shuffle some deck chairs around, hire a graphic designer and call it good?

Bill Simmons (4:16)

Yeah, and would you call it LA or would you go, I always thought they should be called the Hollywood Nights, even though they're not in Hollywood, and just have like a Nights with a K, or you could just call it Hollywood Nights with an N, but either way, like it just would feel completely different. I think they need to do something like that. Now, granted, everybody who would be involved in that decision is suspended for a year.