The Knicks (and a Crowded East) With Zach Lowe, Plus Anthony Jeselnik on Book Clubs, Roasts, and Stand-Up Comedy in 2026

Bill Simmons (0:00)

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The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by Fandool. We are also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where I put up a new episode of The Re-Watchables on Monday night. We did Law-Abiding Citizen, a movie that I never expected would be on The Re-Watchables, and yet I kept getting sucked into it, and so did Van Lathan, and we decided to podcast about it. So that went up on Monday night. Really fun one, actually. Craig Korolbeck joined us as well. Coming up on this podcast, Zach Lowe was in town. We had lunch. We said, fuck it. Let's turn on the mics. Let's turn on the cameras. Let's go. So we talked about basketball for an hour. And then Anthony Jeselnik, who has a new podcast coming with us at the end of the month, Jeselnik Book Club, which has been a YouTube series for him that we are now bringing to The Ringer and Spotify as well. And that's launching at the end of the month. And if you wanted to see him, by the way, he's doing standup all over the place. Go to anthonyjeselnik.com and see where the tour dates are. He's even going to be in Portchester and Philly this week. So, yeah, if there's not a Nor'easter.

All right, so we're going to take a break. We're going to bring in Pearl Jam, and then my friend, Zach Lowe.

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Zach Lowe is in town. We're taping this on a Monday afternoon. You were just here, we had lunch. I was like, we're near the studio, we should just tape something. And then we were like, what should we record? What do we do? So we have an idea. But I did dawn on me as we were eating lunch.

I have known you now for 15 years, dating back to the, kind of heading into the 2011 season, when we tried to hire you for Grantland for year one. And I don't remember what happened, but you ended up staying at SI.

Zach Lowe (3:08)

I chickened out is what happened.

Bill Simmons (3:09)

Something got screwed up.

Anthony Jeselnik (3:11)

No, I think I screwed up, but I chickened out. No, it's chickened out.

Zach Lowe (3:13)

You chickened out? Yeah, I just chickened out.

Bill Simmons (3:14)

I thought we screwed it up.

Zach Lowe (3:15)

I was like, this is this new thing. Is it gonna work? Sports Illustrated is this like hallowed brand. It was like just a very backwards way of looking at. It's not spotting the trends. I didn't spot the trends very well.

Bill Simmons (3:27)

Interesting, because for this whole time, I felt like we effed it up. And then a year passed and I was like, that's it. That was our one chance. It's not your fault. They're gonna figure out how good he is.

Zach Lowe (3:37)

It's not your fault, Bill.

Bill Simmons (3:38)

We stayed in contact, and then the next summer, that was it. And we worked together for the last three years there. But I'm trying to remember, what were the things I told you?

I'm trying to remember the advice I gave you, other than don't make yourself crazy. Because the big thing was you were writing like, you were writing like two, three times a day.

Zach Lowe (3:58)

Oh, at SI? Yeah.

I think your advice was like, so you're talking advice to like, I was like, all right, here's what I think can happen. Yeah, I think you were big on just, you're writing too much, you're trapped in this blog cycle. Like when blogs were a thing, that was what I was doing.

Bill Simmons (4:14)

I caught at the hamster wheel.

Zach Lowe (4:15)

Yeah, and you need to get out and meet people and like spend more time doing that and less time just churning out every bit of content possible. Because that's the only way you're going to write things that are truly meaningful or, you know. Then your other advice after that was start a podcast. And I said, no, I don't want to start a podcast. And it turned out to be.