Clippers Rock Bottom 9.0, Plus Charles Barkley on the Clips, 76ers, Lakers, ESPN, and Why He Loves Josh Allen

**Bill Simmons** (0:00)
This episode is brought to you by NBA 2K27. We just had one of the craziest off-seasons we've had in the NBA, which is perfect for 2K, because every 2K season could be one of the craziest off-seasons. The whole league shifted in real life, it could shift to an NBA 2K27. The best place to compete with these new look rosters, and also try to figure out who's on what roster. You can see how new teams and new dynamic duos match up. You can play Philly, feel what it's like to have all of their new guys with the old guys, and you can also take a struggling franchise to the NBA Finals if you want, because it'll never happen in real life for a couple of the struggling franchises. You know how I'm talking about. Anyway, NBA 2K lets you experience every transaction and storyline right from your home. Pick up your copy of NBA 2K27 right now.
The Bill Simmons Podcast brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network, where I put up a new rewatchable on Monday. We did Aliens, one of the most requested movies of the last couple of years. We have Talladega Nights coming next Monday. That's going to be The Ringer Fantasy Football Guys taking over the pod on that. Bunch of football stuff next week. Sunday, me and Sal are going to do Guest the Lines week one, and we're going to do all of our NFL futures. I'm going to have a podcast on Tuesday, going Wednesday night after the Patriots game, and then Thursday night after Rams and 49ers in Australia. Sunday, Wednesday, Thursday will all be live on Netflix, so stay tuned for that. I'm in Boston, Massachusetts, where I went to Fenway Park yesterday with my dad and my son and my daughter's boyfriend, who has had an interesting week.
We got to see a Mariners loss, but we had a great time, and it was great to be at Fenway, one of my favorite places on the earth. Not really enjoying the allergies these days.
Went to my daughter's game on Tuesday. They won their first game of the season. She scored a goal, so that was fun. It's been an interesting week, up and down week in a lot of different ways, but that's the thing. When you've been in the limelight for a while, shit happens. Anyway, Barkley is coming up in a little bit. That's right, Charles Barkley. Every September right before football season comes on the pod. We had him randomly booked, and yet in the last 48 hours, all hell broke loose with the Clippers. That's 24 hours, that's 36 hours, whatever it was. We got to hear him talk about the Clippers. I am going to talk at the top of the podcast, all my thoughts on the Clippers. It's going to be right after the break, right after Pearl Jam, and then me talking about the Clippers, and then after that, Charles Barkley.

**Charles Barkley** (2:44)
That's next.

**Bill Simmons** (2:45)
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All right. I'm recording the top part of the podcast here, early Thursday afternoon. I went to the Red Sox yesterday. My phone started blowing up, and it was because the verdict finally came in on the Clippers from the law firm of Wachtel, Lipton, Rosen, and Katz, and the Clippers were in trouble. This was the biggest punishment ever handed out in the National Basketball Association. You know all of it at this point. Five first-round picks, Balmer's out for a year. Lawrence Frank, six months, $30 million fine for Balmer. Can't go to his own arena, the arena that he just spent five years slaving over, trying to figure out how to make the best basketball arena possible. Can't go to the games next year. This was a phenomenal level of incompetence from Balmer and the Clippers. When you think back to 2019, where LeBron had shown up in LA the year before, the Clippers were so desperate to be relevant again in year five of Balmer, that they literally whored themselves out in every way they could. Not only did they do everything it took to get Kawhi, they trade SGA and all those picks for Paul George because that's the only way you can get them together. Instead of just playing poker with Kawhi, which I still don't know where else he would have gone, regardless they get fleeced in the Paul George trade, which was defensible when it happened, but six years later it looks like one of the worst trades in the history of the league. They got fleeced by somebody named Uncle Dennis, who is no longer allowed near any kind of league business for the next five years. They got screwed over by Kawhi Leonard, I think. You think about who didn't get punished in this? How about Kawhi? He only had to pay a $700,000 fine. He got to go back to Toronto, the team he should have ended up with anyway. Didn't really lose any money. Didn't get suspended for 20 games without pay. And why'd they do this? Because obviously the players union, and maybe even Kawhi too, it's like, hey, if you're easy on Kawhi, we won't challenge this. And as soon as the players union can't challenge it, the Clippers have no recourse, because they had agreed to abide by whatever the NBA found in the investigation. So if the players union's not suing and nobody's suing, this is kind of what they're stuck with. They have screwed up almost a decade and a half of their franchise, dating back to this summer of 2019 Like, they're not gonna have their pick in 2032 That would be 13 years after the Kawhi signing. They could basically throw a bar mitzvah in 2032 for how fucking stupid they are. They've turned themselves into the Southern California Brooklyn Nets.