Hey, it's Resilow, fans of the Ryan Resilow show from Arsenal Sports. You can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon music, or Netflix. This one's brought to you by TickPick. Ever actually read a ticket receipt, service fee, processing fee, convenience fee, convenient for who? That's an extra 30 bucks a ticket. TickPick doesn't do that. Never has, never will. No fees means the exact same seat, same section, same row. Cost less on TickPick. Fans trust TickPick for all their live events, check to reviews yourself. So why overpay for the exact same seat, download the TickPick app, and never pay another service fee again. And for new TickPick customers, take $20 off your first order with promo code PMT20 in the TickPick app. That's PMT20 at checkout for $20 off your first order. The Ryan Resilow show is presented by draftings all of our episodes available on Netflix. The pack show for you today, Brian Winhorse on the NBA. How much the West has changed in just a few weeks and how maybe that motivates teams. Also, he had two names that he had mentioned is potential trade targets for contenders. I don't know if those guys are even available. So we'll find out about that. The college football playoff rankings, the first edition came out and there is one team in particular. Everybody's pissed off about and who's going to get the job of Florida State? That's with Bruce Feldman. I've got an NFL quarterly report on the AFC East and we've got life advice and a little movie review. Yep. I saw the documentary. Football has a way of turning one game into a full week of conversation and draft kings keeps you close to all of it. The drafting sports app is now live in all 50 states. That means from Texas to California to Florida, every fan is in on the excitement. Follow the teams you love. Keep up with the biggest games and experience the excitement of football all week long. 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Nation went based on sportsbook predictions and free-to-play sports contest availability. Varies by state. Brian Winhorse here to talk some hoops, he is of course a long term member of ESPN's coverage of the NBA. Of course, the host of my favorite basketball podcast, the hoop collective, out. I can't even keep up. That's how many of these guys are throwing out there all the time. It's good to see you, Harry. Thank you for always saying that. You don't have to say it, but I always appreciate that you say that. I do. I love the pot. I'm always excited. There's not many podcasts that are like routine for me, because usually when I'm done doing my show, I don't then want to listen to other sports podcasts, but you guys are incredibly informed. So it's always a huge help. So let's start with the West. I want to start with O.K.C. in particular, because I think there's a very nasty habit that all of us have or it's like, "Okay, well, this is really bad." The J.M. Williams part of it. Then you go with Wallace and then Chet and you're like, "Okay, what are they going to do?" And the likely answer, especially knowing Presti's routine, the likely thing is we go, "We have really bad luck this year. We love our team. We love what we're capable of." And there isn't some lever to pull. Do you think that's the most likely scenario, despite all of us theorizing on things they could do? I think there's two things going on. I think one, they definitely are hearketing back to the 2014-15 season, which that was the year that Durant had three surgeries. You know, he had the Jones fractures that had like a pin put in and then a pin taken out or whatever. He didn't play. And Westbrook played a lot of the season, but I think it was knee issues. He missed like 20 games. And they missed the playoff. They had a good season. They won 40-something games. They missed the playoffs. And at the time, you know, I don't remember, don't hold me to this. But I think there were calls from folks like me and you saying, "Boy, they need to trade Sergio Paca. They need to trade these first round picks or whatever to salvage this season." And that was a team that just, they just said, "Hey, we've got also Westbrook and Kevin Durant and they're young and they're going to be fine. They're going to get over these injuries and we believe in it." And by the way, the next year is the year that they beat the 67 win spurs in the playoffs and then had the, you know, the Warriors on the ropes. They did bounce back very strongly. And, you know, if Durant had resigned, maybe that team wins a championship. But they didn't, they didn't feel the need at that time to do much of that team. And so I think that's what they're leaning on right now, that this is a young team. And that they believe that these guys will get over these injuries. Now, look, man, I mean, you're a Celtics guy. If I was a Celtics guy and I was a Celtics fan and I saw this injury that Jaylen Williams had, you know, Gordon Hayward was not the same player. But Jaylen is a younger, he's younger and, you know, techniques are a decade better. So they believe that Jaylen will recover and be that all NBA level player again. And because this team has already proven as a champion and because they're so young, they have the quote unquote luxury of taking this year and just in not stressing about it. Now the second part is that they are going to absolutely try to make the best of it. In talking to people around the organization, they're not yielding at all. And I watched them play against Cleveland on Monday night. I was in Cleveland and, and I'm not an ex as a no, as anybody will tell you, I'm not an ex as a no guy. But I watched them play that game and Mark Dagenald had a whole new package of plays with Isaiah Hartenstein handling the ball at the high pokes, like, you know, kind of like Carl Townes did in a playoff last year. Like, it wasn't like the whole game, but all of a sudden there was like, I don't know, seven to ten possessions where he was doing that. And you can tell Dagenalds got his sleeves rolled up and he's going to try to find stuff in the game plan to try to get little edges. And they should not have won that game in that particular game. The calves had more free throws, more three pointers, fewer turnovers. I invite scorn by saying this, but analytically, analytically, they should have been ahead. But the thunder rebounded the hell out of the ball and, you know, they got three threes from Bennett Sturts. He comes into the game in the second half, hits three threes. They missed 20 shots, 20 shots, and they pull out a win in Cleveland. Now Cleveland was missing some guys too, but, um, and I think what you're going to see, you're going to see them scrap and claw and fight. And if they get to the end and they're not, you know, and they're in the play in, okay, if they get to the end and they're in fifth, wow, but that's, that's who they are. That's what they're going to do. Yeah, it was a fascinating game because, you know, there's certain teams that would lose a bunch of players. And I think this does speak. I think culture can be thrown around far too often. I think it's really annoying when it's a bad team and then someone will say, like, hey, they don't have an identity. I'm like, well, no, they do. They're a bad team. That's their idea. Uh, but I do think the culture part of O K C is the kind of culture that everyone would want and watching him maybe for a night, playing that hard, granted Cleveland missing ten free throws also helped too. But, yeah, it was a fascinating game in that they are not going to accept their challenges. And there's a lot of teams where, if I heard a coach or a GM say that, I'd probably roll my eyes with them. I think it's very real. So this is now a bigger part of how quickly things can change and why we love this stuff so much is that, you know, you just go on paper, beginning of October, hey, this is what's going to happen. The Lakers will be fun, but it won't really matter, although I do want to spend some time with you on Houston, but just overall between O K C between Minnesota's challenges here, like, what are you willing to believe on, like, what's possible now for some of these other teams who weren't thinking about getting in front of San Antonio in O K C? Yeah. So I've spent time already this year with the Spurs and the Rockets. And I will just say the Spurs are a team that's, you know, transitioning a little bit. They're playing, you know, they're starting for guards and, you know, not every game. I want to be clear about this. I'm not, you know, I'm not making a blanket statement, but there are times when they start these games and then they bring in Julian Champeni and then all of a sudden their team sort of gets better aligned. They look better and you say, um, what about that? Although I will say this. I was talking to a head coach just this week and he goes, you know, there's a whole bunch of teams that are routinely playing three and even four guards now like, yeah, the Spurs are the team that are doing it to start the game, but they're not completely ridiculously out of line. They're the teams that are doing that. But the Spurs are implementing a new offense again, I am not, um, I am not an X is a no guy. I will, I will lose. I will get overwhelmed very quickly by, you know, by, if I run into someone who's a real X, a no guy.
And so I'm not trying to present myself as that. But the Spurs are running a different offense. They've changed the way that they want to play. And that's kind of mildly controversial, as in they were in the finals last year, but they didn't feel like their team was resilient enough the way they were playing before. So they're changing their offense. So they're getting going now. Victor, he had 43 the other night. He's getting going now. But he's sort of got off to a bit of a slow start. They got kind of off to a slow start defensively. Mitch Johnson, I was at a game in Dallas about a week and a half ago. And they won the game. And Mitch kind of low level jumped them for being poor defensively. They lost their first two games. This is their first win. And it reminded me of Greg Popovich, because Popovich used to criticize the team when they were winning. And then when they were losing, sometimes he would go light on them. He would kind of keep, he would cross things up sometimes. And so I was interesting, I saw a pop of its trait in Mitch Johnson. They win this first game and he's sort of coming out afterwards and kind of ripping them defensively. But they're in transition offensively and they're defensively. They started off not playing Spurs basketball. So the Spurs are healthy, but sluggish, based on their situation. Obviously the Thunder are wounded. The Timberwolves are now wounded. I think there's good optimism. The Ant will be able to return back, but they're wounded. So you have the rockets jumping out, blaring, like, oh my god. And look, I spent a week with the rockets in China. It was a month ago. But I talked to some of their players. I talked to their leadership. I watched them play. And here's the thing. I mean, this is kind of surface level, I realize. But for all the issues that they had last year, and all of us beat them till they were black and blue. And rightfully so, like, some of the stuff that was happening in April, you were like, how is this still happening in April? Like, you know, they deserved to be questioned the way they played last year. But when you took a step back, they still won 52 games. They had a lot going for them last year. And so now, when you watch them play, they have a pretty good camaraderie going on there. There's something clicking there. And they're really impressive. Now, I did not-- I was involved with that. I was sort of involved with that Cavs thunder game the other night, so I did not see their performance against the Celtics. I obviously saw the box score and studied it and was like, I see. So very clearly here in the first week of November, they are the red letter team that you are saying, wow. Because I think in the East, the team is that I've been studying most closely and watching the most closely is Philly, who are doing it despite having issues. Houston's doing it with muscles and finesse and force. They look like, right now, the team that we're going to keep an eye on during the course of the season. We're going to get to Philly, because I'm agreeing with a lot of what you're saying here. I think the thing that jumps out with me in Houston is the shingoon part of it is him being the central hub. It's the best version of them. And then when they didn't have him in that Dallas game, you saw, oh, hey, wow, this is how good it's looked. Because there have been times like, what is he really going to be? Is he going to be kind of this subonus type where it's-- wow, he's so talented. There's all these things I kind of like. But then you can play off series and you feel like this is a liability. That's not what I'm thinking about when I watch him. I think a man really quickly-- I don't know if he's ever going to be quite as good as everybody wants him to be. But the shocking part is usually-- and I touched on this week-- but if you look at your bar, Smith, in year 5, his aggressiveness-- I don't know that I can think of too many players. I don't know if it's real or not. I hope it's real, because it changes who they are. But usually, if you're kind of like, hey, he's a nice player, he's big, he's athletic, he can shoot it a little bit. But there's just this level of aggressiveness that he's not ever going to get to that's going to limit him as a player. I don't know that I can think of a lot of players. It was like, after four years, I was pretty sure I knew who exactly who you were. And what he has been now, the first few weeks, I think, changes them dramatically. And I'd add to that. It was really weird. And I kind of want to ask you this. Durant, I noticed, as I'm watching him, like, man, they don't even need Durant right now in this Celtics game, OK? So it goes to five to six. I thought that was a massive positive, as opposed to all the other positions that we've seen in the past where it's like, hey, good team are going up against here. You have to kind of bail us out. Apparently, they had a little bit of a padding there. But then when Durant asked about it, he immediately goes into this attack mode on the reporter. I don't know if you heard the sound. I don't know, again, I try to remind myself this. I'm not around the team. Maybe that reporter in Durant have a history. He seems to not like ever being talked about by anybody in the media, but it really was a positive. That was like, this is an awesome sign that Durant was not somebody that they desperately needed to get this win, which speaks to kind of this overall package of their offense that I think is exciting. And clearly, Durant took it totally the wrong way. Or again, I wasn't in the room. And maybe there was something prior that would lead him to be so quick with someone. Well, as somebody who's been in the crosshairs of Kevin for, and one of the things that, and I get it, it's fine. One of the things that irritates Kevin quickly is when anybody tries to assume or portray what he's feeling and thinking. So I would, I heard about it. I would have to hear the way the question was if you hear it, and I'm not mislead, there's nothing at least in the clip that's out there that he would, it was just kind of like, hey, you own any jumpsome almost being like, is it a bad thing I only took six shots? Like, how come you're not saying this or not saying that? And I, it was funny because I felt like the reporter, because it was my notes of everything is like, this is a great sign that he only had it. It wasn't, hey, why did you only take six? It was, this is, this is great for the long-term thing with this team. Well, you know, part of the Kevin Durant experience is sometimes getting into combat of back and forth. Also, part of the Kevin Durant experience is having one of the greatest offensive players in the history of the sport. They both come, they come part of the package. The Jabari thing, you know, when we talk about Philly, I want to remind me about something about Tyrese Maxi. Yes, Jabari, you know, you kind of had the thought of him as a certain player, and he's come back and his confidence level playing offense looks elevated. And look, he's shooting the heck out of it right now. He has started the season in Red Hot. In fact, their whole team has, they are, they are, they are, it's far, the last time I checked, I don't know if it's this way at this exact second, but they were the number one in the league in three-point shooting. Their whole team has come out really shooting it great. I don't want to assume that's going to continue, although I remember two years ago, like the Cleveland Cavs came out and just had this incredible three-point shooting season. And I was waiting, saying, well, maybe they're just running hot, so they weren't. They shot over 60%, now all these games, and they're over 40% from three, like all these games. So I don't know if it's going to last or not, but when you look at Jabari, the guy is crushing from three-point range right now, and it's changing the way people play him, and it's changing his options when he gets the ball. He's playing with a lot of confidence, and he's definitely elevated his game. That's definitely the case. And, you know, Shenguin, like you could tell that the whole Rockets organization knew that this was going to be a pivotal year for Shenguin. And, you know, Rafael Stone went over and spent like a long time with, he didn't just make like a check-in, like let's, I'm gonna, I'm my way back from the Greek islands, I'm gonna stop in Turkey, and I'll have a long layover and then go to dinner. No, he was there for like, I don't know, like seven to 10 days, like spending time with Shenguin talking to him, and I just think there was like this sense that, you know, this was the time that Alpin needed to step up, and he obviously has his averaging aid assists again. And so they're, you know, we know they defend. The thing about it is like, again, when you take a step back and take away all of the preposterous performances that they had at the end of games last year, which was, you know, it's kind of like a baseball team that has a great lineup and a great starting staff, and then their bullpen keeps blowing games, and it brings down the entire team. If you've got a bad bullpen, not only does it cost you wins and losses, but it ruins the morale of the entire team. When you can't close as a team, it ruins the morale of so much stuff that you do right. And, but when again, when you take a step back, they were a top 10 offense last year. Despite not having spread them late, they were a top 10 offense. And of course, a great defensive team. And so again, you know, they're a top 10 offense that won 52 games, and now you're getting your point guard back. Plus, you know, like, look, I don't, you know, it's hard to know how healthy Marcus Smart will stay. It's hard to know how healthy Bogdan Bogdanovitch will stay because their last few years have been derailed by injuries, but they lost something when they traded Dylan Brooks. And Marcus Smart has brought a little, they're not exactly the same player to be clear, but he's brought some of that edge back, some of that defensive edge, some of that swagger, some of that leadership. You know, whatever he wants to say about Dylan Brooks, he is a leader, you know, he leads by the way he operates. Sometimes he leads you in the wrong direction, but a lot of times he leads you in a positive way. And Bogdanovitch has also shot the ball great. This is the guy who had trouble getting on the court.
For the Clippers and you know had all these injuries. He has shot the ball grades for the additions that they made have been great so far Shandgoon's taking a step forward Jabari's taking a step forward and they and you know Stephen Adams is still not he's still dealing with injury It's a different injury now, but but eventually they're hoping to get him full power And then you get shred van Vley back when you when you take a look at it and say well, wait a minute This team won 52 games was number eight on offense and added all those pieces Kind of no wonder that they're playing so well Yeah, smart. I say this about teams all the time like if you expect to be a really good team You need one absolute wild card an emotional wild card a tough guy and I don't necessarily love watching him play because the antics in the Boston game were just it tries to be crazy I turned the game off and was like I'll come back and watch us in the fourth quarter in the morning Because I'd already watched like hours and hours of basketball and it was a market smart experience for like two straight minutes Where I went I can't end my night on this one. Um, but I think he's a really important sign to them I'll stay on this topic is the Kevin thing. Who's your favorite superstar that you've got to know And I'm not talking like it's friends, but to cover of all the guys that are like on that it list It may be one point of being in the conversation the best friend Lee. Who's the one that you felt like was the one you enjoy covering the most? It's a really good question One of my favorite teams I ever covered was the spacers of the of the teams The team that couldn't get past the heat, you know, they lost him three times in a row in the playoffs with Paul George Roy Hibbert David West George Hill Lance Stevenson. I Loved going in that locker room. I loved I really enjoyed covering that Frank Vogel I really enjoyed covering that team and They you know, they kept you know, they really kept running into the calves and in that way and it was it was tough It's a really good question Man, I mean The 2022 finals Covering the Warriors during the 2022 finals That was such a rewarding moment for them Steph has a couple of performances that I mean like The man it was a two-time MVP Greatest shooter in history of the game. He didn't need it But the way he delivered in those finals and what it meant to those guys I mean, let's just be honest with you know Not only did they fall all the way down to one of the worst teams in the league when they had the injuries and they did the rebuild But they're two thousand seventeen and eighteen titles were thought of as is somewhat diminished because Durant came You know the irony of the way that whole thing goes is that they were so good and so dominant That Durant doesn't get proper credit for it and then the rest of the team doesn't get proper credit for it Well, well, how does this work if your team is awesome? Well, where is the credit supposed to go? You know, I like I've never understood that That's one of the things that triggers me I've done this on television shows. I've done this on podcast Taking anything away from those two thousand those two teams they were awesome, but you know people didn't give them They didn't give them the credit for being a dynasty because they were like well, you have Durant So for them to win that championship to come back and they were down in that series they were down to one playing game for in Boston and Steph delivers one of the great performances of his career and the story that I remember very well is When they're flying back to Boston for game six, they're on the plane and there's four guys sitting around together and it's Dremon Steph Dremon Clay Steph and Bob Myers and they at this five hour flight and they're talking about how rare it is that they're all still together after a decade And they stuck together and you know Dremon and Steph joke about how Clay was like, you know, he was like a sleep under his hat But like it is very rare to stay together and for them to be up and then come down and then come back up again You know that championship was You know a You know a championship that was you know just terrific. I enjoyed covering the 2019 Raptors I loved being in Toronto for those games and how it engaged that city and engaged that town Kauai Kauai in 2019 was It felt like what it must have been like to cover Jordan in the 90s He was so at the top of his game and so impervious You know, he didn't have the personality that Jordan did and and and the flair but that that run That run, you know, you know, basically pre-Clippers Kauai, you know draw the line there You know one of the great moments of LeBron's career one of the most fascinating moments of just little slices of LeBron's career Comes during the 2014 finals when these spurs have overwhelmed the heat And LeBron is by the way, go back and look at LeBron's numbers from the 2014 finals. They're they're pretty phenomenal And look I think that's a version of him as a player was was those those heat years, but Yes, the 27 game win streak. There's a couple of months that that 27 game win streak LeBron puts now The stats are all wanked a little bit because back then if you average 26 points, it was like awesome Now there is a cup is averaging 26 points. No offense to there is a cup, but like you know like Yeah, you know, you know, but I'm just I don't want to take a shot at there is a cup I'd not do I'm just saying no, it's a very clear movement of like prioritizing usage and then the pace and then every year We said a new offensive efficiency record, okay, like it is very clear that like 30 today is not 30 I mean how do you want to go back even further than 10 years ago? Like we we look at 30 now and go like oh, hey There's like four guys at 30 again. That used to be something kids would talk about it recess Yes, you have one guy in a decade who would average 30 so So just there's some there's some statistics from LeBron there are a couple of months When he won those back-to-back MVPs in Miami where he had where he was averaging like 27 9 and 8 and shooting 59 percent With Wade and Bosch both averaging 20 like So yes, so he's trying LeBron is trying like crazy to get the heat any traction at all in the 2014 finals And he's trying to pull a comeback. I think it was in game five in He's trying to hold the series up. They're down three one this game five in San Antonio He's trying to lead a run and he's at the foul line. You can find this on YouTube He's at the foul line and you hear the buzzer go off Dedicated substitution between free throws and you see over LeBron's shoulder Kauai entered the game So LeBron now knows the Kauai is coming in the game on the bronch yeah, and It's like how could LeBron give a better Comp up into a player so Kauai that he's the MVP of that finals, but in 2019 he's premium Kauai So I I loved covering the 2019 Raptors Again, part of it was I had been with them in 17 and 18 when they could not get past the caps to tell me I got to tell you I got to tell you this solo In 2018 the Raptors were the number one seat Okay, they had focused all of their energy on how do we possibly beat LeBron in the Cavs because the year before they had gone to six with them And they said we we can beat it. We can do it. We can climb the mountain and they spent the whole year focused on it Okay, and they get the number one seat. They've got home quartered managed. They've got him in the second round and the Cavs Obliterate them for nothing. Obliterate them for nothing LeBron hits a game winner I think in game three where he just one of the most impressive game winners every goes coast to coast and just runs down the lane and hits Like this banked in shot. He's at the you know, he's at the peak of his powers And I remember being down in the hallway by the Raptors locker room after they got eliminated and by the way They had to make changes. They traded to Marta Rose and they fired to Wayne Casey's when Casey's coach of the year and he gets fired And I remember being in that locker being in a hallway going, you know, this this team is toast. They're cooked and Then next year they're winning the championship. Like it's up. It's kind of like like Philly. Philly was not a good team last year They had they were a good team by comparison to The league average, but they they were they were underachieving You know embades hurt and whatever Paul George gets suspended They had this great win in the playoffs over Boston because Tatum went down, but they were they were they were sort of middleing and Like look at what one-off season did look at him now, okay? Look what one-off season did in the Raptors 2018 and 19. That's why you know, I Know I'm all for four-year plans, but there's something to be said for willing up your sleeves and actually doing it. So That Raptors team I really enjoyed covering. I really enjoyed covering that team I don't you know, I didn't care about covering Kauai I'm not answering your your question. I really enjoyed the 2022 warriors. I really enjoyed the 2019 Raptors and of course 2016 Cavs, you know, that's the pit of me You know the first 12 years of my career was spent building towards that that championship So those are the teams that you know, I think and think of in the near past that I really liked I can go two directions here I'm gonna ask you silly questions So don't worry because if they have to be talked about what's
record, but I got to stand quiet just real quick. Because like, I start to look at this, and you want to be fair, especially when you're on the air, especially with somebody like you who's come from the reporter background of like, okay, if somebody's dealing with an injury here, I can't be skeptical the way an opinion is can be skeptical on a radio show or a TV show that's just about opinions. But I couldn't help be like, are they, is he really going to fucking do this again? And the history tells us this is exactly what he's going to do. He's the only guy that ever saw the entire spurs culture and organization was like, you know what, I'm good. I don't want to do this. You know, when he made it to Toronto, he bounces. I think there were plenty of teams that were willing to get involved with him the way the Clippers did to be honest with you with the pursuit of Kauai with stuff that you hear. The Clippers thing, we don't have to go through the entire history, but I remember like one time talking to somebody about it was like, is he coming back? You're like, he, he was working out in the facility. He looked incredible. And it's like, well, can you not go up and ask him if he's ready to go? And it's like, that's just not how it works. And I don't think he played for another month after he was working out in front of other players. And like, everybody could see him and saw how great he looked. Then he puts together this career year, which coincides with him wanting an extension. Then you hear about like other teams that had interest. And it was like, this makes all the sense in the world that he would go to Toronto, because he knows he didn't just get an extension. He got a race with somebody with this injury history. He's able to survive all the Clipper stuff because like they weren't really going to find a way to come down on the player except for some expenses that apparently had to pay back the public statements. But Joe, I would love to have been in that meeting where they figured out what they were going to charge him. Right. Right. The, I don't expect anybody going through a PR thing to give us anything that we want. We all know how this game has played, but it was an unbelievable string of sentences, which I'm sure you didn't even write where it's like, I take full responsibility, except that all these people around me did it without me knowing about it. So I'm actually taking no responsibility whatsoever. Okay, that's fine. So when it was going down this off season, and it's important to remind myself here that this was a trade acquisition with the Clippers and Raptors here. This wasn't like he was a free agent, citing where he wanted to go, but with other teams who would have interest, they'd go, why wouldn't he have any interest in joining that group? And I can't help but think that he knew Toronto because of his history because of everything you just talked about in 2019 that they're like, we'll do whatever you want. And we'll give you the extension. We'll give you a $6 million raise off of the last remaining deal, which is this year. So with two more years, I think it totals like $1,516 million. And then we don't even get into a week, and then it's a mysterious injury again. So I don't want to be unfair, but I can't help myself, based on somebody's track record of like, did he go there knowing they wouldn't even get mad at me, the way another team will, because he's just, he might be wired in a way that we've never given him credit for because we've never got to know him. Yeah, I mean, he doesn't want to let anybody ends. He doesn't have to. I just goes to the premium reality in the NBA that if you've got supreme talent, you can write your own rules. Now, that has been true for a long time, and some guys have taken full advantage of it. Some guys have have held that opportunity and botched it. Some guys have overplayed their hand, but Kawaii's had a legendary career of maximizing his, his leverage. And he had a great year last year. And let's, let's remember, we now know that the Raptors were trading a guy with the tournament killers. Okay, this is, this didn't come out until later. There was, you know, this, you know, I did not know as a tournament killers. I knew that Brandon Ingram was not going to be ready for the start of training camp. I knew that the, that the injury that he had had in the spring was ended up, the only thing I knew was it was more severe than, than we was initially believed. I did not know as a tournament killer. They say partially torn, but you can say whatever you want is the killies, it's a tournament killies. So Toronto is like, all right, we're in the Eastern Conference where we've got, there's this power up happening, you know, Boston is still really good. Obviously, the Knicks are the champs. Philly is making this big move. Detroit is, you know, a power. Cleveland was in the conference finals last year. Like they're, they're a team that the Raptors couldn't be. They lost in seven. And they're highest paid player. And if you're not their highest paiders second, they're second most important player has a torn Achilles. All right. So this is the hand that they're holding. Also, I think it's important to realize that they got new ownership over the off season. They have a, they have a new governor that took over control of the team. It was brokered long in advance, but Larry Tannenbaum was out and there's a, there's a new governor. So, you know, if you're running the team, you're like, I got a new boss. And, you know, this is a thing like, why I was there was a deal they could do. Like how, you know, they had a whole bunch of players on their roster who have big long contracts that was going to be hard to, to, to trade them and, and upgrade, you know, like, you know, who you trading RJ Barrett for were you for sure getting better? You could trade RJ Barrett, but where you're, you're upgrading in class. Yaka Purdle's contract is, you know, is viewed as a toxic contract. Okay. You know, quickly is making a league average for a starting point guard. Are you trading him and getting better? I mean, you could trade him. You know, Scotty Barnes is your franchise player. Tell me the, the scenario that you're making a deal and improving your team. And so now your second best player, second highest paid player. I think he's your second highest paid player. He's got a torn Achilles. This is a problem. And, whatever you want to say, Kauai has routinely been able to leverage himself into great positions. The Clippers wanted so badly to beat the Lakers. They wanted so badly to be able to say we're going to win over the Lakers. The, you could argue that the hubris of being the little brother afflicted the nets and the Clippers in the same way. And it's kind of similar that Procarof, you know, bought the nets and was obsessed with making the nets, the star of New York. He moved them to Brooklyn. I know they were going to move anyway, but he moves them Brooklyn. Remember they did this whole campaign, you know, they put in JZ ads outside the garden and they were so determined to be the basketball team of New York. And, you know, so that leads them to this Celtics trade. You know, they try to get LeBron. They try to get Carmelo. They can't get anything. And they're like, we just want to be, we want to be this team. You know, they got JZ because they wanted to be cool, right? They turn their colors to black and white because it's so cool. The Barclays Center is going to be so cool, Brooklyn. So cool. And it drives them to this insane Celtics trade. And it's the same little brother syndrome that drove the Celtics or the Clippers into doing this Kawaii Paul George deal. You know, Balmer's going to build his own arena. You know, I we can't be the little brother in the arena. We want our own arena. You know, they did this whole eye advertising campaign LAR way. They put it outside the Lakers, all the Lakers stuff, you know, LAR way. And, you know, they were so focused on, you know, we want to we want to prove that we're an L we're the LAT. It drove the same set of decisions making. But Kawaii saw that understood the situation and completely leveraged it. He completely leveraged the situation to his benefit, all right? So he sees Toronto. It's not the same scenario, but Toronto is feeling the need to improve. And he totally leverages the situation where he comes in upgrades a team and he's able to drive a a new contract like listen, man, the guy is a is a two time finals MVP and an all time leverage guy. And you know, you got to give, I don't know on the pie chart, whether it's 12% or 34% or whatever, but you got to give Uncle Dennis credit for that. However, he bumbled and stumbled his way and was clumsy. And, you know, if he was a true master mind, he wouldn't have made it KL to aspire. Because, you know, that was, you know, if KL to aspire isn't called KL to aspire and they don't apply for the thing, you know, Pablo doesn't find out, or it's not as easy. I don't think Pablo to trace it because that's where it started. It started because KL to aspire said you owe me 30 million dollars or whatever. All right. So I'm not trying to say that this is, you know, the second coming of the, you know, the greatest intelligence force of all time. But how do you not give credit for the guy to totally maximizing his leverage? No no matter what you think about what he did to these teams from a from a maximizing leverage standpoint, which by the way, he had leverage with the league because the league needed to have a deal with him so that the Clippers couldn't go to arbitration. Because the last time this happened, when Joe Smith was caught, the league applied the penalty to Joe Smith and the wolves together. And Joe Smith was able to go to arbitration and the wolves were able to fight with Joe Smith. And they ended up having to cut a deal with the wolves where they gave him backs and drafts. Okay. So the league learned from that. They needed to why he understood he had leverage in that situation. So my God, like no matter what you think of him, you cannot deny that the man has driven some incredible bargains and totally maximized what the desire for his talent creates. Fair. You didn't sell
me undophonic because you are, you disagree with my theory that he watched the raptors close out with extreme ball pressure on every single possession and then was like October, like I'm not doing this right now, October. Run this one by McMahon. He'll like this. He'll like this. Well, I don't know. I can't, I don't have any such effort that he may have been like, guys, a little early, little early for me to be doing this. I have no intelligence on why I wish I could, I'd have no idea. All I know is this. He was, he was not on the injury report and then he was out. And the day before, do they play the Clippers tonight? Uh, check it right now. Stay. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. It's the L.A. trip that was coming up. You wonder, yeah, I will not connect these things that will just state statements effect. Why was not an injury report period? Why was on the injury report? And then was going to be out for several weeks. Period. Yeah. This happened at the same, this happened at the same time as the Raptors were playing in L.A. Period. Right after the L.A. The right after the Clipper game, they gave an update that said he's going to be back soon. Period. These are just statements of fact. I, I, I am not in position to connect them. This episode is brought to you by Raising Cains started back in the day by our friend Todd Grace. Look, if you're ordering Cains, you already know the move. You get the box combo. That's four hand battered chicken fingers, golden crinkle cut fries, Texas toast and a side of cane sauce. They stick strictly to high quality chicken finger meals, made fresh and cooked order, parot with a freshly squeezed lemonade or iced tea and you're set. Cains is all about providing unique and unforgettable experiences, whether it's at your local Raising Cains or at some of the most premium events throughout the year. Cains is always in the action, keeping it fresh from co-hosting tailgates at notable college campuses such as the Georgia Bulldogs to earning a Guinness World Record for the heaviest jaco lantern weighing in it over 3,156 pounds. I saw that. Watch the video. Professional carvers. There's a whole team of them out there. Head to your local Raising Cains or order on the app. Raising Cains chicken fingers, one love. Sixers. I like what you said there because Houston, it's like, okay, I can see this with Philly, I know what the record is and this is going to be, maybe I'm just wrong about this, but it is going to have to be like late in the year. It's going to have to be like a month of like awesome basketball for me to feel like, hey, they should, the statement is they should win the Eastern Conference. You? Okay, so whenever a new team, I don't like saying super team, but it sort of covers it. Whenever a new team like this with multiple star players comes together, typically you see them not do well at all in the clutch that when you get the clutch spots, there's a territory thing and sometimes it's even like, like yielding, like I remember when it's not just in Miami, like obviously that Miami is the classic cases, but I remember when when Kyrie got trade or when Luca, when Kyrie got traded to Dallas, I was there for the first, some of the first games and they were playing hot potato with the ball. They played a bunch of close games right out of the gate and they were playing hot potato with the ball, not because they were trying to, not because they were afraid to shoot or not because they were trying to hog it because they were, they were trying to be cognizant of the of the other. And I remember watching because at the time there were great media seats in Dallas. You set right on the court and I remember watching. I mean, obviously, you know, the coach was signaling in the play, but you would, you could actually see Luca and Kyrie come up the court making eye contact with each other, trying to forget what they were going to do. It's natural for this to happen. And so for the fact that the 76ers have come out of the gate and are the league's best clutch team is very unexpected to me. And I don't know whether it's because this is an incredible, this is a group that fits together beautifully or it's just, this is the thing about clutch play. Sometimes clutch play is a result of ice cold players with a great coach and great chemistry and sometimes it's luck. But what I see from the clipper, what I see from the, from the six years so far is that Tyres Maxi has taken a step forward. We all knew what Tyres Maxi was. It's an all-star player. He's an all-in-b.a. level player. The player that Maxi has come back as is not the player we last saw. And so what you're thinking about when these trades happen in the little Braun acquisition happens. You're thinking about boy, how are these guys going to share, you know, we're all watching very closely. What's happened is Maxi came back in as so much better. Everybody's just letting him lead. Now, is that going to happen in April? Is that going to happen in January? I do not know. But not only that, typically the other thing that you see with new teams, because new, new star level teams, the, the Durant Warriors were the outlier here. Just for a bunch of different reasons, I think Kerr was a reason, Steph and Clay being eagle list, Durant really coming in wanting to fit in. They were the outlier here. But typically when you see new super teams, they also turn the ball over. The clipper or the, the, the sixers, I think are either first or second league and few as turnovers. So here we have a team that is winning close games, even though their offense is not operating a super high level. Right now, they have an alpha and the alpha is Tyree's Maxi. Now, we'll see how Jalen Brown grows into that role and he gets more, you know, comfortable, you know, whether that becomes the thing. But at the end of these games, it's Maxi who's doing it. And you also see them like showing like chemistry together, like, you know, not turn the ball over and everything. So yeah, it could just be they have a fortune at start, but they've had a couple of really nice wins, including being the next twice in, in clutch time. And the next, as you know, have chemistry in our good clutch team. It's, you know, LeBron's relationship with nurse is on a much better footing than I watch with his relationship with Eric Spolstra or certainly David Blatt. They're on a better footing, better than David Blatt. I know. LeBron did give David Blatt about 30 seconds before he started undercutting him. You were telling David Blatt stories the other day, I don't want to derail what we're doing. But when you start going down memory lane on David Blatt stuff, when he said that he compared coaching to that being a fighter pilot, where you have 200 high level decisions that you have to make in real time, when he almost called a timeout that he didn't have, I just, he kind of was like a lot of fun. He was a lot of fun to have around because it was such an, it was impossible spot for him to be in. So he was going to be insecure about it. And it was just entertaining. But I don't want to be them up because he's been really pounded on. And we just had the 10th anniversary of the championship. So he's been pounded on. But he just didn't, you know, he couldn't, you know, he was a player at Princeton. And I, and I wonder if, if was a player he ever got a free layup and passed it up because that was one of the things he would do as a coach. Like, I remember Tristan Thompson set the Cavs record for consecutive games played. It was a very important record to Tristan. You know, I don't know how many years it had been four or five years, he'd never missed a game. And, you know, we asked him about this is a layup, Ryan. You say, oh man, Tristan has worked so hard in his body. I mean, he's like, well, he's like, he's nowhere close to the, you know, the, the, the overall record like AC Green, you know, it's like thousands of games like, you know, you know, the one game president Obama comes to the game. And, uh, president is at the game. It's a really changes your term. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's, let's, let's not talk about politics right now. Let's just, it's the president at the game. It was not a little super part of political time. He gets asked, isn't it cool that the president came to the game? Again, this is a layup. You say, oh, it's always an honor when the president comes. It's, this is a layup. He's like, I've played in front of many world leaders. You know, because, yeah, he did have a relationship with Netanyahu. When he did have a relationship with Putin because he was a Russian national team coach. Putin gave him a, um, an honorary medal at one point because he led the, led the Russians to the bronze at the Olympic Olympics. Um, you know, he just always couldn't get over that he, you know, he wanted everybody to know that he was super accomplished in Europe. And the players just did not care. But that was the thing. Like, he couldn't take a layup. He couldn't. That said, LeBron did undercut him from day one. And now he, and look, look, Nick, Nick Nurse is a championship coach. Nick Nurse comes in. He doesn't have the same profile as David Blatt, you know, Nick Nurse walks into a room and he has the respect of the players in the room. Even if you don't like him, uh, that the decision that he makes and you may be angry at him for a minute, he certainly walks into the room with your respect. But LeBron is absolutely totally buying into what they're doing. Um, and he, he has a great relationship with Maxi, the relationship with Maxi. Like, it's one thing to have a great relationship with Dwayne Wade. They are peers. And Dwayne had accomplished more in his career, at least as a team than LeBron had. Um, and it was
It took Dwayne to say, LeBron, you need to be our alpha. LeBron has come in with Maxi. Maxi is the better player at this point in their careers. And LeBron is like, Tyrese, how can I empower you? He's doing everything he can to help Tyrese and the team. It's really of all the different epics and chapters that LeBron has had. This is really interesting to watch in a good way. Watch how he's supporting his coach. He knows, even if he felt that he needed to do what he did to blad for the betterment of the team or he needed to do something. However, he treated Luke Walton out of the gate. LeBron's absolutely doing everything what he thinks he needs for the team. You need him to be defensive center. It's like, I'll do it. You need him to be a fast break. I'll leave the fast break. He's like, I'll do it. Like, he's just, he's totally doing it and he's totally supporting Maxi. And Maxi is like spreading his wings. And like you're talking about how Jabari Smith has taken stuff forward. I say, look at Tyrese, Maxi and how he's entered this situation where like, how's everybody going to share and fit together? And Maxi instead of stepped forward and said, I'm going to be the best that I can possibly be. I'm going to be confident. I'm going to be the leader. I'm going to do it. And I'm going to do it all with a smile. I'm going to do it all in an inclusive way. And everybody's going to like me when it happens. What Maxi is doing right now is one of the stories of the league. And I slap an asterisk on this because it's November 4th. And when I really don't want to say something on November 4th that I look like an idiot on December 4th, much less February 4th. But as we sit here and do this, we talk about the league, which is what our charge is. I'm watching Tyrese Maxi and what he's doing and saying, this is one of the most relevant things that's happening in the league right now. Yeah, I've already noticed, too, like there was a bit of a shift because I felt like out of the gate, teams were prioritizing stopping in B. And what's crazy about this record, if you say Philly has a number one record in the East, what do you think's happened? It's like, well, Mbid must have come in and looked terrific. And unfortunately, I think he still looks bad. And he is now, for the first time in his career, very early. But if you go box score plus minus, which is usually a very telling stat, even for like a good player, a bad team, sometimes he's a negative right now, for the first time ever. If you were to tell me, hey, they're seven and one, what do you think is happening? I'm like, OK, probably great on offense. But with LeBron and Mbid and then smaller guards, probably terrible on defense. They're 19th on offense. They're third on defense. And as I watch them, again, I watch every single game, every single possession. But I noticed even in the Chicago game, it wasn't a close game. It was like, OK, is Maxi actually going to become the focal point defensively for the other team? Because that's what should be happening. Maybe you don't have to double. Maybe you don't have to send all this help to Mbid all the time. And sometimes when you do that, he's going to burn you anyway. So this is such a terrific pass there. So maybe there's a silver lining. And like the way people go about it, there might be more opportunities for Mbid. If then Maxi becomes the focal point of the defense, it's just so hard knowing over the years how Mbid has been as a player is like where you start with that. We've let's start with figuring out how we're going to defend him, the worry about the rest of it. If you do that now, then you're just inviting Maxi to have a really easy night. And I shouldn't say easy, but when you're not the focus of the opponent's defense, but I noticed something in Chicago was like, oh, it looks like they're keeping more guys with him now. It looks like if there's a curl, like, hey, let's just make sure we keep two with Maxi. Just try to cut off this guy's driving or even hope we get back into the contest. So it'll be interesting how that plays out because he's been easily their best player. Because I didn't expect LeBron to be taking 20 shots of game. I don't think he wants to. We'll see when Jalen's in there. He missed, I think that game. So it was a little bit easier as well. But it's going to take me-- and maybe I'll be wrong about this, but it's going to take me like them having a run for a couple of months where I'm like, OK, this is exactly who they are. And now I think they're the favorites in the East. And it's also a credit to a bunch of other teams I really like in the East, too. So I think that's all part of it. I want to stay on something that you touched on in the pod. Because we kind of hit on it. And then I hadn't really thought of it. Sometimes I hate that in the moment where it's like, hey, ranked things. And then I go, am I going to regret this in 30 minutes when I have a little bit more clarity? I know. I know. Oh my god, I wake up the next day and I get texts. I'm like, what did I say? Yeah, right. I mean, nobody has any sympathy for us because there's some of these things with the NBA. It's like, no, you should have these lists on you at all times. I know. I know. I misspeak about something. And I'm like, I'm sorry, but then the whole fan base descends on me like Locus. So-- But that's OK. We're all on the same page about-- I just hope like, you know, different fans that are out there. It's only been a couple weeks. I'm sure you're watching Chimo time. But like, Cooper flag has become-- if you've got a couple quarters to spare, change the channel and watch what this guy is doing, which I still think is miraculous because the shot hasn't happened. And I know he couldn't even come close. But Dallas, there's a Dallas story of like, hey, what if that team like has some things falling in place? Or what if Cooper and Kyrie are actually this good? Are they so good together in complimentary? And Kyrie's been really good. Like, they're actually kind of this weird, you know, 6 to 10s. Like, is that even possible? But I want to ask the bigger question, because we kind of touched on it. I just wasn't ready. But how many players are you taking ahead of Cooper right now in the NBA? One. Jaylen Brown? Yeah, exactly. Me and the situation. It's only Wembee and you're defiant almost in your tone. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it could be wrong. I mean, I don't do player evaluation for a living, nor is it exactly controversial to say, what Cooper flag is good? Like, you know, obviously people have been keeping an eye on his every step since he was 16. When I went, again, when I went to China and watched him, I had never seen him play live before. Just I didn't get, you know, I didn't see him at Duke. I don't go to college games. And I just didn't see the Mavericks last year in person. I go to, I've probably seen so far this year. I probably either been at or been around eight teams. And, you know, just last year, the way everything fell, I never saw the Mavericks. So one of the things that really stuck out to me, sitting courtside in China watching him play, was how vocal he was defensively. So what I mean by that is not only calling out to his teammates where the screens are coming from, you know, whatever, but calling out to his teammates, coverages and instructing them. In other words, the quarterbacking of the defense. I'm watching him out there, basically using his voice to be sort of, you know, and I don't know exactly know what the schemes are that I don't want to imply. I'm not an X's or knows guy. And one of the things about modern NBA defense, you really need to know the inside of what's going on because sometimes you look at and go, boy, that guy screwed up and the truth is, the scheme was a totally different person. When I started in the league, you could, the defenses weren't that complex. You could figure out who screwed up. But hearing him vocally on the court has a 19 year old. I was like, wow. And then watching how his teammates already, like this is, I mean, I keep comparing him to LeBron and I know it's irritating to people, but I'm sorry, I can't help it. This is, by the time LeBron was 19, everybody on the team yielded to him. That team was bad, but they all followed his lead. And he wasn't trying to be egotistical and arrogant. And that's the thing, like, what I know about Cooper, what I've seen in his interviews, what I hear when I, you know, he's about all the right stuff. By the way, that's what Wendy's like, you know, Wendy's like kind of all about the right stuff. But Cooper is, you know, I can't identify much of an ego. In fact, I would almost say that if there's something he needs to do more of, it's to have more of an ego. And, you know, I think it'll happen. Incredible size, credible defense wants to compete at the defense event. Incredibly competitive period. This is, when you talk to his coaches and their executives, the team, then some of his teammates I talk about how it's competitive. How competitive he is, even in drills and stuff like that. And then obviously, incredibly skilled and talented. And I wasn't sure how much of an offensive player he was going to be. You know, he didn't put up huge scoring numbers at Duke. He, you know, he was one of these guys who you saw his competitiveness and his defensive playmaking. Obviously, the man is incredibly talented offensive player. And that is without having a good jump shot. Although, you can tell he's working on the mechanics. You can see it and improve it. He's working on it. So, like, he checks every box for me. He checks every box for me. So, you know, that's the thing. Like, you know, I would just spend some time in Dallas. Silo, they're just, they're still scar tissue there with Luca. I get it. I'm not saying that they shouldn't still have that scar tissue. You say Nico's name and people still get red in the face. And watching the way Luca is playing, I mean, Luca is playing the best of his career to this point. Like, you know, maybe the playoff run, obviously, 'cause of the stakes were so high, the run to the finals. Okay, I'll give that, you know, you can't compare it to November. But Luca's playing at a very high level. And if you're watching it in your, in your, [BLANK_AUDIO]
Luke of fan you're in Dallas you still are are chewing glass. I get it. But I implore the Maverick's fans to stop worrying about the past and focus on the present. Not even the future. Future fine. Focus on the present with this guy. My God is he good. Now at the start of the season, I think if you asked most executives in the league, they would say, listen, even if Kyrie looks great. And even if Kyrie and Cooper have a really good relationship together, which by all the counts, I think they do. This is the conversations that I'm having. Kyrie is 15 years older than him. 15, like even when you hear it, you're like, that's not right. It's right. Maybe it's 14 and a half. Whatever it is, it's like 15 years older. And so you're like, one guy's 19, one guy's 34, like, I don't know, like, you know, even if it's a good blend, like that just doesn't make sense. And if Kyrie has value, like, you know, the Mavericks need help with some stuff. Like, don't you think they're eventually going to trade Kyrie? I mean, that's the that's the thing. Like at the start of the season, people are like, are the Mavericks trading Kyrie or one of the Mavericks trading Kyrie? What's the Kyrie trade? They're off to a great start and Kyrie looks really good. So the night I was happened to be in Dallas. I've been to three Mavericks games this year and I haven't seen them both play yet. I did. I take it back to the second game in China. They played a little bit together. They didn't play that night. Cooper had the shoulder injury. He missed that game. But they're doing some good stuff. You know, they're doing some good stuff. So, you know, I'm open-minded on that. But Cooper flag, man. Awesome. Because I still felt like if the market were good for Kyrie and he's kind of a couple years removed from what you think you're inheriting with the Kyrie drama, a contract extension would probably solve. But I mean, he is at one point, not at one point, at multiple points through his career where you're like, I just don't want to business with this guy. Like, I wouldn't, you know, and oh, cool. He's not long term. Okay. But if he's not long term, is that actually make it worse? And now, if I give him the extension, to give him the securities, now that empower him to do it every once, it feels good. At least for the Kyrie timeline to go, hey, it's been a couple of years since we've had to deal with any of that stuff. So I don't know if that, well, it has to help the market because at one point the market would have been so bad or so many teams would have been turned off. I would still think like a smart team and they have a smart group now down there where you go, all right, who are we really? Like, we can get something here before February. That's why we brought it. Yeah, in a vacuum, in a vacuum is kind of a no brainer, isn't it? It is. It is because it's like, what are we really signing up for? Are we signing up for like, because there's other teams where I always have to remind myself of this. It's like, hey, how come they did that? Like, if it were, it's a perfect segue in Anthony Davis. I think the Anthony Davis maneuver makes less sense even though clearly he wants the contract, but that the Wizards is basically as an organization signed off. And it's an ownership down thing, which is what was happening last year of like, hey, we need to just be hopefully good, like enough of this stuff. We need to hopefully be good. So that's why they did last year with Trey, although I hate to contract. And that's what they did with AD. And why, you know, he'd probably be fine there if he thought he was going to get some sort of contract, which is probably not going to be in line with what his average shower has been. But their goals, like where their place is an organization, AD is still probably part of whatever that is after this deadline. So it would have to be a disaster for Washington, which it has not been like, you watch them and go, yeah, they're probably going to hang around all season long, unless, you know, AD gets hurt, which is always a possibility. That acquisition for another team, at least today seems to make far less sense than the way we could talk ourselves through a Kyrie transaction. Right. There are sort of a different junctures. The AD thing is just totally fascinating because of the Trey young element. They tanked, look, from the treetops, they tanked a season two years ago and ended up with the six pick. That's true Johnson pick, right? Yeah, which, you know, Trey Johnson made it being a fine player, but, you know, that, okay, line trade. It's a few other guys out there right now. Yeah. Okay. So I think he's coming off the bench for them right now. So, so they're going through last year, tanking again. And the reality is, like, you know, they don't, you know, they don't want to Philadelphia 76ers process process. They, you know, they tanked again because they had to because the draft class was too good. And they were afraid of, and they pick on the outside in. So they hedge their bets. They hedge their bets. It's actually very simple. It's very simple what they did. So they traded for two all-star level players and then didn't play them so that they could hedge their bets so that if they didn't get lucky in the lottery, that they would still be able to put a team that could be competitive on the court. And that is a very simple concept that is a very messy execution. And so they executed it. And not only did they execute it well, because if you look at what they gave up for AD and Trey, they were good traits. Okay. They were now, you know, we don't know what a lot, we know there's picks out there that we don't know what are going to be in the future. They were good traits. I don't like to Trey Young what they paid him. I've been hard on the record about that. But what they gave up for, I'm like, you know, CJ McCollum, CJ McCollum was helping them win games. By trading CJ McCollum and getting Trey Young back and then Trey not playing, it helped them get AG to Bonsa. It was a good transaction. The contract is a different story. So they're dealing with the mess of what they executed, but they executed well. They have turned it. They went one in 27 to finish the year last year. They're four in three. They took them six weeks, seven weeks to win four games last year. Probably took them 10 weeks. Their last four wins probably came over 10 weeks at the end. Already right now, if you want to go to a wizard's game, you are going to get a way better product. And I'm sure that Ted Leones is much happier going to a wizard's game now than he was for the last couple of years. And let's be honest, that's a factor. They don't like to talk about that, but that's a factor in this. So they've pulled this off, but they've left this residue that they've got to clean up. And so they're trying to work through it. But let's be honest, Anthony Davis, the top of his game is still a different spanking player. And so the question is, is he going to be a different spanking player for Washington? Is he going to be a different spanking player somewhere else? Here's my guess. This is my guess. This is not me reporting anything. My guess is not only will it be Washington's status come January? Are they a play in team? Are they a playoff team? Are they in 13th place? Right now, it looks like they could be messed around between six and 10. Absolutely. Why not? And the most important thing, what they get offered, you know, they're going to take your phone call. They're not going to advertise they're going to take your phone call. But what are they going to get offered? If there's a team out there that thinks that they're going to pick up Anthony Davis for cheap, because he may opt out of his contract, I don't think the wizards you're playing that came and the wizards were like, we'll be fine keeping Anthony Davis, which is why they have to start the season. So we're going to wait 20 or 30 games. If you really want Anthony Davis and you're willing to call and make a real offer, that's a different story. And I don't think we have the answer on that yet. All right. I'm going to let you go here in a little bit. I still have like three things that I need to ask you. So let's just do five minutes on these next three things. Is there any way we can do that? Can we extend you? Did you honest pick a warmer Milwaukee? Again, when you have star players come together, you expect offensively for them to struggle. So the fact that the heat are struggling offensively, and they haven't shot the ball great, even though I do think they have good shooters. Okay, offensively, it'll take bolster by the figure now. They're in bottom three defensive team. That nobody saw coming. Now you can say, yeah, honest isn't the player. He was defensively that he wasn't the one defensive player of the year award. You can say this that the other, you know, they're trying to, they're starting clay Thompson and he's not a good, you know, you can say a lot of things. There is no way, no way, anybody thought they were going to be giving up 125 to 135 points routinely. They gave up 80 points in the first half to the Lakers the other night. 80. And that is a problem. And I don't have, I haven't talked to enough scouts in order to why I have the requisite knowledge to figure out exactly why I will in the coming weeks. It can't stay this bad. The basis of the heat team was, we're going to defend, you know, Davey Mitchell is a rugged perimeter defender. BAM, I voted, I have voted in the past for BAM for defensive player of the year. The defense is what's severely alarming there. It's Denver a bit like, well, I'm using Milwaukee again. Here's an example, but I said this about Milwaukee where, you know, sometimes you just know like, hey, it's over. It's over for you. They may know it. They're never going to say it. They can't concede it. They can't operate as if it's over. Is Denver's window like closer to closed than we want to admit?
So I've hated watching them to start this year and look, I know that Bryce Hopkins was in the rotation. They just got came back. We've talked about the Christian Brown thing at Nazim, you know, Brazil actually looks like he's he's kind of confided in a different spiral. He's worried about the next year and go, yeah, no, it's nice pick, good size like yeah. It feels so disrespectful to go. You know what, it's it's over and it's kind of been over for two years and none of you guys want to admit it. There's this Serbian mentality and there's a word for it and I and I don't have it a tip of my tongue and that and that's okay. We're going to let that. There's word for the Serbian mentality that even if you know that you're going to lose, there is a pride in almost a defiance in fighting with it. You know, this is the case through their generations. You know, when they. When they fought the Turks, you know, when, you know, when, you know, it's a Serbian mentality. I've spent a little time in Serbia. I have immense respect for the Serbian mindset and basketball. I've covered their national team across the planet. So when Nikola Yokic says, I am resigning here. And I know that he is Serbian through and through. He is the pinnacle of the Serbian mindset and the triumph of Serbian athletics. I can't rule out that maybe Yokic doesn't care what anybody says and doesn't care what anybody thinks. And even if his team is weakening around him, we can have a look, the results speak for themselves. They're, they're every year that goes by, they have been weaker, there has also been weaker. And so, you know, and he also is not a plotter, Nikola Yokic doesn't plot, you know, the American way of plotting to, he's not plotting in free agency to do something. You know, it's just, that's not, that is not how Nikola Yokic rolls. I think, I think Yokic talks like seven people in the whole world, okay, other than his teammates. I do think it's interesting he's doing these sprite ads. I like the sprite ads, he's spreading his wings a little bit in that way, that's interesting. Normally, if a player of Yokic's age and talent level didn't sign his contract, it would be a three alarm fire, we, we talking about it on NBA today, weekly. And no one is saying anything. And they're saying it, they're not doing it because Yokic is on the record multiple times over saying I'm going to be a nugget. But this set of circumstances, you know, you know, if this was it, I'm respecting what the man said, I'm respecting that he is a proud Serbian, I'm respecting his word and his bond. But every other instinct in my, in my NBA journalist fiber says red flag. But I'm respecting that Yokic has said, okay. Anybody else you're absolutely right with his standing in the game, you know, depending on the night, you're like, Hey, is he still the best player in the world? You know, I've struggled not voting for him for MVP, even last year, like I had, I still had a hard time. His first two months, his first three months last year were some of the best basketball that's been played that I've ever watched. Yeah. Anybody else where like he's gone, I do think he overplays that I just want to go to my horses and stuff. I think he's way more competitive. I think he knows it's a bit of an act and it's kind of his routine. It's a glimpse in his personality. So I know there's a messaging out there of like, this guy doesn't care about all those things, like he's happy in Denver, he's just going like this. But yes, but I can't ever get past like if you were truly as competitive as I think he is, because I think he is like off the charts competitive that you would go, all right, I'm going to sign up for another extension here. We would never, ever give another player of his standing in the direction, this is going, this kind of benefit for the doubt. All right. Final thing, because I've kept it too long. I know you have a flight. Let's or no, the Lakers can win the West. God, I don't think so with the way they defend, but I will say this. I felt the same way last year and over the course of the season, JJ got them into a better place defensively into the point where at the end of last season, they were passable and it was one of the reasons they got to the second round. That said, they were an e on a way from the thunder. They were not competitive with the thunder and the thunder didn't win the West. So part of me thinks that ultimately their defense will hold them back, but I don't know what the state of the West is going to be. So I would not bet on it, but I would not rule it out and I will say this. If you're a Laker fan, you're going to have a fun season if these guys stay reasonably healthy because Luca is going to put up huge numbers. They are already rebalancing how they do their lineup. The game the other night, I can't remember. They played the heat and the raptor is back to back and I can't remember what day is they played who I think I guess they played the heat on Monday, I think. They took no, they all of their every single one of their baskets was either in the painter at the three point line, all of them. Because now they have the Reeves, Luca, Kessler, Triumvirate and they have the ability to leverage the three of them and they're going to have games where they're going to just be awesome to watch and Luca is going to be awesome to watch and Luca is trying hard on defense. He took three charges the other night. He's getting steals. I think it's going to be a real fun season to be a Laker's fan. I think you're going to really enjoy watching them. I'm programmed to not believe a team that defense at that level can win four playoff series or three in this case. But I don't like taking stuff off the table for great players and Luca is in great shape and he's really motivated and he's in a really good place mentally. That was another thing. I went to Laker's media day this year and Luca was in such a good place mentally and I don't think it was an act. I believed it. Maybe I'm a fool but I believed it and it's playing out on the court. When you're a superstar player is feeling good and he's clearly put a lot into his body and he's really good mentally and he has a great relationship with Austin, like the two of them or just as far as I can tell are Genu-Winley in it together like they want each other to succeed and they should. They're both taking care of you know Austin's a max player now. I think it's bad business to say what a superstar player can't do but it would really, really help if they could get some better perimeter defense. It would really, really help. I don't know how they can. They've traded about everything but we'll see. It's funny. That first quarter he had against Toronto which is the game he had. The charge is steel. See it. Two steels. I think in the quarter he had a block. I'm going to remember that first quarter for the rest of my basketball like because that's how stupid it is and he's had multiple quarters this year where you watch and we go. The game against, they lost the game in Golden State. He had 21. Yeah. He had 21 and I want to say six assists. I was like he's scoring 60. Now it didn't work out that way. The warrior slipped the game credit to them. I was like he might score 60 this game and it was awesome. And to bring it full circle as we finish here, the Raptors game was, he was so good in the beginning of it because he was doing everything and then you can see like I'll be at this level where he's in this zone where he starts like messing with the game like doing stuff where you're like you can't even believe you're, you know, Steph used to have this. Sometimes I asked him this one time. I go I watch you every night and this is like prime step and I went. I think you get bored, you're so good and you start like screwing around a little bit to like see if you, what if this will work? Now he can't answer me honestly. He can't say, yeah, I actually get bored during NBA games. I'm not saying that it's bored, boredom is the wrong word because we know with Luca it's not boredom because he's on edge the entire time. But there's a mastery at times that we see from the special players where it's like you're just toying with this and it was funny because I was thinking about the game I was driving through the woods. I was in this forest and to speak to your mass fans not being able to turn the page, it hit me again where I'll just have a moment every now and then where I'm like, I can't fucking believe they traded him. Look, there are things about him that can wear on you. Sure. You do not give up on a guy at that level and the thing about it is is that Luca spends so much of the game angry, but the best is when Luca is laughing at you. Like when Luca is laughing at you, like with the smile, that's when you know you're in trouble. I got, I got obviously if he gets motivated, he starts scoring on you and he's talking trash to you like, you know, you can do some damage, but those moments when he's smiling at you,
Boy, as you do, you would much rather have him angry than have him laughing at you. Because when he's smiling at you, he knows he's dying. Big smile on my face. Over an hour with my guy, Brian Winhorse, the hoop collective. Check it out. Three days a week. Right? Yes. Monday, Wednesday, Friday. All right. Subscribe, do a show. Check it out. He and the crew. Thanks. As always, man. Thanks. We'll see you soon. I remember when my brother called me to say, hey, I'm going to be a dad. And he's my younger brother. So I was obviously thrilled for him. And I think there was also some like reservation of like, hey, I now I guess I have to be a grown-up. And I think one of the first things that he said about that was, what are some of the things that you're supposed to do? And I remember a coworker had just had twins. And I walked a new studio. I was like, what are you doing? And he's like, I need to buy more life insurance. I mean, he just had twin babies. And the first thing he was thinking of is I need to find more life insurance. Ethos makes getting life insurance fast and easy. It's 100% online. You can get a quote in seconds, apply in minutes and get same day coverage. There's no medical exam. You just answer a few simple health questions. You can get up to three million in coverage. Some policies are as low as $30 a month and you'll get your lowest rate from their network of trusted carriers. Ethos has a 4.9 out of five stars on trust pilot with over 5,500 reviews, takes 10 minutes to get covered today with life insurance through ethos. Get your free quote at ethos.com/ryon that is ETHOS.com/ryon, RYEN. Application times may vary, rates may vary. College football rankings out last night will run through it really quickly. The first issue of rankings from the committee, Miami won Georgia 2, Utah 3, Indiana 4, Alabama 5, Kentucky 6, Texas 7, UCLA 8, BYU 9, Ole Miss 10, Notre Dame 11, Ohio State 12, who would actually be left out, Boise State in the group six scenario. Bruce Feldman from Fox Sports and the athletic joins us right now. Okay. We've had last night. I saw you and Stu going at it. The biggest issue you have with the first rankings from last night. If I was a Tennessee balls fan, Ryan, I'd be pretty ticked off at the committee because just a few weeks ago, they played Alabama and they beat Alabama pretty good. They won by 16 points and they played a lot better than the tie did that day and they're sitting there like a way down, you'd even mention them, to where they would get an Alabama's number five. And by the way, Alabama hasn't played well in like a month. I remember this time last year, the first rankings are out and the committee really dinged Miami and they did it where Miami was coming off, you know, their two worst performance of the year, but it was fresh in people's minds and so they were nowhere near Notre Dame, the team they beat, you know, head to head in the rankings and the committee's rationale and explanation. And last night we heard it from Hunter Yurichek, the committee chair, was well, they're not even in the same group so we don't compare them. Well then you're just, you're just really given yourself an excuse. I mean, that doesn't fly. Again, Alabama hasn't played well in a month. The last time they played really well was against Mississippi State and to be honest, Mario Taylor was hurt coming into that game and he really hadn't been the same since. So if you're going to tell me Alabama's five and Tennessee's nowhere near five and they have the same record and one beat the other and it wasn't like really that close, your committee kind of I think is missing the boat. Yeah, I made a mistake when I talked about Bama on Mondays because I wasn't giving them enough credit for the Kentucky win, you know, because that Kentucky game was very strange in that it was kind of ugly. It felt like Kentucky was totally in it and then very quickly it was over for a bunch of different reasons where you're like, okay, well, that one kind of got out of hand. And I actually need to do to me the way I was talking about Alabama Monday when I was doing my rankings thing because I was, I was with you a little bit here being like, okay, what's the good win? Well, it's Kentucky. Kentucky wins a good win if they beat the number six team at their place. The Tennessee game was all Tennessee, like that wasn't close. I thought they were in the Georgia game, maybe more you're giving them credit for and at least in the A&M game, but an A&M team that nobody likes anymore for good reason. But I thought it was the killing Russell that you're like, okay, well, when this is right in the second half, getting the two touchdowns in the fourth quarter, like that's when I felt like really good, it was the first time I felt good about Alabama collectively again, probably against an A&M team that maybe nobody even cares about and would say, well, fine, who cares it's A&M? Yeah, I mean, look, and it's all that A&M stinks right now. And it wasn't like Alabama, would they average like two and a half yards of carry? I mean, in that game, that wasn't like a very impressive win. They were, I think, you know, the game was tighter, they were trailing, you know, pretty far into the game. Yeah, 17 at the half, yeah. You know, so right, they were down in the second half. Yeah, so I'm looking at it going, you know, like I'm not giving them any credit off of that win. Uh, again, you're just putting up at number five. Now we're splitting hairs on this because who is tennis is going to play this weekend? They're going to play Kentucky. If they beat Kentucky, they're either going to shoot up the rankings and it's also probably going to make that Kentucky win not quite as much of a chip in Alabama's pocket. Um, and look, Alabama's going to play a really good LSU team on the road. So there's, I think the way this works out if you're in the SEC, there's enough stuff that's going to happen where you're probably not, I don't want to say, you probably shouldn't be too aggrieved on the first rankings. The other big takeaway I had Ryan was, we know for sure this is a must win game coming up for Notre Dame when Miami comes in there. They're down at 11. I mean, whoever's doing the TV game, I think it's NBC, um, for this Miami Notre Dame game. It was a one versus four matchup about 24 hours ago. Now it's a one versus 11 matchup and, you know, it's like, right, yeah, people are going to still watch. I mean, it's, it should be a great game. I'm sitting there thinking, all right, Notre Dame was my preseason pick to win the national title. I still think Notre Dame is going to beat Miami. Um, Miami's had trouble, you know, in the secondary, uh, they looked really bad against Billy Edwards and North Carolina last week. They looked really bad against Florida State and CJ cars are much better quarterback than both of those guys. And it's on the road, um, in a tough place to play, but if Notre Dame does not win that game, they lost their only other really good opponent matchup. And that was at BYU. What are they going to have to show for it if they're 10 and two and lose to Miami at home and lost to BYU? Yabita, an SMU team that couldn't even beat Syracuse, that's not going to sell anybody. You got to win the games and you got to schedule better. And I think that's the big message to Notre Dame right now. Let me just stay on that game then. Are you, you know, we've been doing this long enough, like the certainty, my biggest thing with like Notre Dame in Miami is everything you just said about this Miami secondary, looking what's happened last month or pit through for 334 against them. Now some of the passing yards rankings for Miami's defense, we could also say, hey, it's a little unfair because they're killing all these teams. So every team has to drop back and pass all the time. But like I watched the Florida State game, I watched the UNC game. It's a UNC online that is even considered all that great for most of the season. That was sort of an issue, even though Billy Edwards looked like a hall of fame on Saturday night. It was, it was incredible. I feel like the Notre Dame part of it with Freeman, Freeman gave an answer at half time of the Navy game where I was like, oh my God, he gave us a great answer. But hey, what's the problem on what's going on with some of these long drives from Navy? He goes, we need to stay in calls that are not confusing. We need to be basic on calls because it going up against his offense and he was kind of calling out of his defensive plan. And I was like, he actually gave us a real answer and then something that he's going to do. And it just, and it's exactly what happened. They were terrific in the second half. I am such a fan of Freeman that you would think like messaging leading up week of the messaging must be so on point in South Bend, being like, these are the people that left us out of a chance of winning a national championship last year. Do you want to talk about bulletin, the word, material and all the bullshit that normally teams make way too big of a deal about that's fake? This is real. And, you know, I don't want to just fall into, hey, they have revenge on their mind and they're at home because I have like so much of the other parts of Miami this season. But that's been kind of the overriding factor for me of picking Notre Dame. Yeah. And to, you know, on your point about Freeman and the messaging and I know guys on that staff who talk about Marcus Freeman in a way that just they pedestal him in terms of like he is so much of a better guy than anybody I've ever worked for in terms of accountability, in terms of how he relates to players and families and is kind of a, seems to be a normal guy. And a professional where very few people are normal. Every time with him, you're such a great point because they go, oh, he, that was a normal reaction. And I know they all lost their mind when they were left out of the playoff last year. He's mad at him. That's fine. Like, I get why. But that was the, but that was the work. Yeah. And again, administration more than him. That was the administration. The A.D. did like a circuit. You know, it was like on the Sunday after, you know, he, he vented to Ross on the Monday. He vented to somebody else on the Tuesday to press conference and was like, man, you know, this isn't the Brian Kelly old days where everybody hates you guys or, you know, like we're [BLANK_AUDIO]
where a lot of people have come around on Notre Dame and a big reason for it's Marcus Freeman. And I think, you know, your bigger point, which was they will respond to him. I think is part of what I'm hanging my hat on. 'Cause again, they have a really good quarterback. Tommy Carr was not great, or Tommy Carr, sorry. The C.J. Carr was not great when they played BYU. And that was one of those like lesser performances. But he was actually pretty good against Miami last year on the road, Tusspot, not experienced. And I think he will get it done. 'Cause again, they have good, you know, their backs are good out of the backfield. They have some weapons. I know they're banged up on defense. I mean, they're missing probably their best linebacker. They're missing, you know, Tay Johnson's a terrific safety hadn't played forever now. And they've missed him and they're, so, you know, and Miami's got like their own get out of jail free card and you know, Malachite Tony, he's unguardable. Whenever you really need him, now they can't play him at defense of back, we don't think they can. But you know, that's the thing with Miami, you know, like they are, they're gonna be a tough team to slow down because they have a bruising running game. You know, it's Fletcher, it's Mallory. Their, their O'Line isn't as good as it was last year. But it's, but it is a good O'Line and they are physical and then they have some other like pieces. They're tight-end, you saw him last week in North Carolina. He's a dynamic athlete. He's not like, he's not your traditional kind of tight-end, but he's a weapon. And they just have enough where I think this is, to me, this is kind of the game of the year so far. And it's, there's even more stakes on it, just 'cause the way the committee basically, and I get why they did it. And I think they were right to do it. It's just kind of said Notre Dame. This is it, you know, this is a must win game. You know, and do it, we're not gonna see you for the rest of the year. Yeah, I definitely like Notre Dame more than the committee, maybe because I ended up liking BYU a little bit more, although there's like multiple data points after that BYU win, whether it's UCF loss, what happened to UCF after they beat BYU, BYU's last game with the officiating mistake that the big 12-minute two with all this stuff. I just was really impressed. And maybe this is a warning sign for this Notre Dame Miami game. I thought BYU's O'Line and D-Line were the better fronts in that game against Notre Dame. And I realized that Notre Dame lost the best edge guy who was ejected from the game in that matchup. But that was the thing that was a little bit more surprising. Not that I don't expect BYU to be really tough in the trenches overall. But I think going up against Notre Dame at least for this year, I was like, "Oh, that's a tad alarming." And maybe that's part of the calculus for the committee here. So I'm with the on-bama. When I saw that, I was really happy, or maybe I should have wished I was still doing a show with Danny Cannell, because I know like historically me with the SEC stuff at times I know I was annoying, but I felt like I was on the right side of the argument and annoying. And a lot of my stuff was like positioning because I was dealing with PT, DKSD. Where, you know, the last couple of years, I'm like, "Hey, man, the results aren't there." The draft picks are there fine, but the results aren't there. The quarterbacks aren't there. So when I see this, there's two points. One is, who did you want them to put in the top 12? When you see what's happened with the Big 10 this year, you see what the Big 10's record is, the worst of all of the major conferences against the other P4 teams, including Notre Dame. You want to take that out, it's still a bad record. The ACC, which feels like a one-team league. And yeah, I like the Big 12 this year, but not more than the SEC. So I don't blame the committee for having a ton of these teams in there, but Bama, to me, is just, we're aligned. I think it's way too high. But if Danny Cannell were doing the Bama rant for five minutes with me on a Wednesday after this happened, I would have just as much ammo and being like, what the fuck are they doing with Indiana? - Yeah, it's fair. I mean, look, one of the things you said in there was about the quarterbacks. And the quarterbacks in the SEC are very inconsistent, right? You see it, Lanoris is Superman sometimes. He's like a Marvel character. And he can beat teams, but then there's other times where he, you know, he turns it over a bunch. You know, you have this arch. Arch can be really good and he can be maddening with some like bone-headed turnovers. You have it, you know, Keelan Russell, better excuse for him. He's young. It's his first year as a starter. And those are just the top line guys. Obviously, Sam Levin is that way. - Levin's a genre what you're talking about. - Yeah, so you have that inconsistency, but then you go on the flip side of it. The Big 10 quarterbacks aren't even really physically there anymore. Julian Sand, out for the year, sorry, but that's, you know, now we got to value to Ohio State as an O and one team, not the team that beat Indiana. You have Dante Moore out for the year, like Oregon, Lisa, have an experienced quarterback. It was good enough to beat USC. We'll see if it's good enough to beat Ohio State and keep you back in the playoffs. So those three, I mean, UCLA is doing all this with the backup quarterback who might be actually a better fifth than Nicole E. Maliavo was for them, but that's more of a UCLA thing. I don't know if anybody's looking, yes, should be in the play. Yeah, I don't know if anybody's looking at him as a real title contender, Michigan had fell apart before it even started with Bryce Underwood and that fit. And then you got, you know, you got Indiana and, you know, we trusted in Signetti 'cause he's never gotten it wrong. And maybe this was his best option, Josh Hoover. But like, even before he got banged up, you're starting to be like, there were some concerns and then he's gotten banged up. And he's got two first-round receivers, Charlie Becker to me should be like, I got three Heisman in my top three and our Heisman Strupple are all receivers. It's Malikai, it's Jeremiah Smith and it's Charlie Becker. I think those are the three most outstanding players in college football right now 'cause they bring it every week and you know what you're getting. Indiana, we don't know. I mean, I think they're really good on defense. They were last year, they are this year. But the quarterback play is concerning, right? And so now you got a guy, you know, Grant Wilson, seventh year guy, started his career out at Fordham, didn't really play there and then went to ODU and got beaten out by Colton Joseph. And now, you know, it would be fitting honestly in a worked way if he ends up being the guy and ends up leading Indiana to like a back-to-back because he's seventh year guy who nobody ever heard of when he went to Fordham. And if he ends up, you know, and this is Farfetch, but everything's Farfetch and who thought we were gonna see back-to-back 60-yard field goals last week in that game either. You know, there's some kind of, there's some kind of charmed existence that Signetti has and is brought to Indiana. I mean, I don't think they're the fourth best team in the country, but you gotta have somebody number four and I could see why they did it because, you know, 'cause they were like, they should have lost that game. Sigged kind of last week against Minnesota, really bungled the clock management. But he got bailed out by a kicker who, clearly they believe in each other and there's something to be said for that. - There was no way you were gonna get through this, especially what we've seen through two months and you weren't gonna be able to, I mean, this is the whole point. Anybody that has to rank their 12, it's like, all right, well, what would you do? You know, and then we would sit there and be able to tear it apart. I would just think like with Alabama over the years, feeling that they were always rounded up. And then you see them at five and you go, you're gonna do it this year? This is the year you're gonna do it with Alabama? Like I kind of got it back in the day 'cause the fault was, they're probably still better than everybody else except for maybe a couple teams. And I don't know that that wasn't even wrong back then, but with this Bamba team, you're like, I have no idea if you're gonna be able to run the football week to week. I still think there's a lot of stuff with them where I felt like, you know, you're again, you're always comparing it to like, saving the most buttoned up operation. And there's just games sometimes. So I'm like, are they not on the same page for this entire series? Like what is happening to this team? But they don't like and tucky enough. And with the head to head, the Texas thing feels high. But then I'm like, so wait a minute, I want UCLA ahead at all these teams. And I don't. UCLA stories awesome, but I don't think they're better than these teams and they're resume to this point, however you wanna do conference stuff. You know, you're looking at like somewhere around the 80s on strength and schedule with these things. So is there any argument you can make? Instead of us just saying, hey, all these things are wrong where you would go, you know what? Old Miss should be here or Notre Dame should be here or even BYU should be here. Is there something that you feel strongly about on just based on being around the country and watching all of these teams? They're just wrong about this team as opposed to whatever mechanism they did with their rankings. - Not really, I mean, like I said, my biggest outrage was the Tennessee versus Alabama piece of it. I think that looking at Ohio State 12, well, Ohio State is a much different team and they just lost to USC and they played terrible. They had a bunch of penalties and defense didn't tackle and they were bad on special teams. In a lot of ways, they look like USC tends to look at when they go into it, right? And I think Oregon, to me, is interesting at 23. I feel like we've written this team off a bunch times. They fired the offensive coordinator, starting quarterback, you know, who a lot of us thought when the Heismaner would be right there didn't really have a season, you know? And now you're like, man, the defense, I still don't know if I trust the secondary because, basically, 'cause Koi Parach is not Dylan Thineman and look, a lot of people aren't Dylan Thineman. He's the first run pick and he was a great player and then something's missing there. And every other night watching him for the pair, she's like, you know? - Yeah, you know? Yeah, good on Purdue for finding him, you know? I remember, they sent me him on Freaks List the first couple of years and he's a hell of a player and Koi Parach is a solid player. He's just not that guy. And you know, when you watch a organ, you're like, okay, who's going to show up for the receivers is some
going to be in the, somebody going to be in the doghouse because, you know, they were, they were doing what they do in Georgia and, and just kind of like, cut loose on the road and just like, but they're, but they are a team that, and it's crazy because this is the one you see like good win. They went there and beat them. But it's like, all right, is this the one team out of the big 10 that is dangerous? I feel like I'm watching Iowa and they look good last week, obviously against Wisconsin. They went 30 to nothing and we know they usually play good defense. And now they have a functional offense. I don't want to, it's not like it's, you know, it's, it's not the 80, 19 or a 2019 LSU team, but, you know, they can, and they're starting running backs out for the years, Camarri and Molten, but they do have a couple of pieces. They do some funky stuff getting the tight end of the ball and getting Tony Diaz of ball. Am I really going to, you know, bank on Iowa and I'm saying all that to get to this, it's not out of the realm of possibility that there's only two big 10 teams that make the playoffs because if, if Indiana Sputters, USC's won loss from being out of the mix and they got, you know, a couple of big games still left. And I don't know if I trust you, USC on the road, UCLA, I feel like it's just a function of like they're just better than the bad teams, which there's something to be said for that. And then it's like, okay, am I believe in an Oregon again? Am I really believe in and Dylan Ryall would look like he did against USC against everybody else? I don't know. Well, he hasn't looked like that guy because that's what's so surprising about Reo in that game against SC because I haven't liked him for a while. And maybe I didn't like him based on like what the thoughts were about what he could be. And I was like, well, he's not necessarily that. He's probably better than I was giving him credit for it in Nebraska. It's like, all right, it's not awesome, but it's also not terrible. And then in that half, I was like, wait, Oregon might be fine with all these receivers, but I think the biggest issue has been about what it was this summer. It's like, so they have two new tackles and it's just all going to be fine. And plenty of programs, it has been fine. But with the guys that they were bringing in, they weren't bringing in some of these blue chip transfer portal guys at the offensive line position that I think some of the other teams were. And it's just always at least something for me that I'm going to remember where I go. Hey, maybe you can't just give the benefit of the doubt to the uniform because they're just telling you that these transfer portal guys, it's super important positions up front. Oh, like, oh, they're good. We're going to be fine. It's like, all right. That just seems like a weird position where there's so much uncertainty around it the entire time. I'm with you, though, because I was trying to figure out some path of like, if LSU gets Bama this weekend, but then LSU loses to Texas, then could Texas lose to Missouri? Does Ole Miss get Georgia? Like, if we have a collection of all of these like weird two to three loss SEC teams, will the big 10 benefit from that? Or are they better off like having two of these SEC teams lose like two more games each is just get them totally eliminated from this because the reason we have this many SEC teams is just kind of back to your big 10 point. It's Michigan's out of the mix. You know, who knows what's going to happen here with Ohio State? If you run through like five of the top six teams or even the top teams that we consider, if you want to put Oregon in that, they're all on their backup quarterbacks. I mean, even Illinois, I was back to the starter, but they had to play the back up UCLA with deepened box to your point with Iamaliava out. That's a backup. I'm trying to think of like the only team that has their starter in the Maya. It's my off. It's my off. Right. Or a child's with Northwestern. Yeah. Yeah. And look, child's is fit in chips system pretty well. You know, they're, to me, they're a little bit like UCLA, not like his old UCLA team, but like this one in where, you know what, they are better than the bad teams because they execute. And, you know, the quarterback has definitely gotten a lot better and he's not taking exactly. He's not turning it over and feel like he's shown to be more resilient. I think some of that should come with played a lot. You go through all that stuff and you're sitting there going, man, nobody, it's a lot like Notre Dame, except Notre Dame had, you know, had one loss and that's all they can afford one more. This is like, okay, if USC loses another game out, if Oregon loses another game, they're definitely out. If Ohio State loses another game, just because they've already there, they don't have people are not going to evaluate them on the wins entirely from saying because he's not there. I think Ohio State is out. You know, Indiana has some wiggle room. I don't know if Iowa does either. I was a two lost team, you know, that it's, somebody has got to come from the, from the big 10, right? I assume it's going to be UCLA unless the bottom drops out. And that's one. And then I would imagine it's going to be Indiana because they still only have one loss. But after that, I mean, I would not want to be a three lost team if you're coming out of the big 10 this year. I just think it's a hard sell because these other SEC teams are going to, are going to be slotted in front of you. And there's going to probably be a bunch of them because of what you said just a minute ago. SC feels like the key to it because they still have Indiana and then UCLA at the end. I wonder if UCLA could survive two losses if SC would have to lose Indiana. Maybe they'd have to have another surprise in there. That would be eliminating Ohio State based on how the committee feels about them. Luke Fahey to this point. Maybe that changes a little bit. But all right. Last one before we let you go. And I just all college football fans rebruces peace on the athletic that comes out at the end of the week is a Thursday or Friday. It's usually Friday. I'm going to steer people away from that and just to say, Hey, I did a story. It's a 25th anniversary of the 2001 Miami Hurricanes. The defining moment of that team actually happened in the locker room. It's the famed Ed Read. I'm hurt dog speech. We have an oral history on it. It's a really fun story. Go check it out today. OK. I will check that out. But I also think that you're end of week like leading into the weekend thoughts news and I appreciate it. It's actually like a great resource for me of like getting ready for the weekend and going, OK, Hey, here's something else I need to pay attention to. Bruce, I did notice though for your who's going to Florida State with Mike Norval being out. There was a picture of Jimbo Fisher. I'm like, there's no way that's going to happen. So just run through it right now. What's a real possibly the names down in Tallahassee? By the way, the Jimbo thing. So I did something and I kind of retweeted the story in a different way and brought up Jimbo. And I was surprised how many FSU fans just have reverence for him, but think it's a viable option. I think it's, yes, there are a lot of Florida state fans. I don't think it's the bulk of them. I don't think you're going to hear from Danny canal. But I think there's a bunch of them go, you know what? He can recruit. I don't want to hear that he was going up against now golden. He knows what it looks like. We could take the money that he's not going to need and and re reposition it inside the program. Now again, I think that's still a long shot. I think you're looking at many Diaz who went to Florida state and broken the coaching there. He knows the ACC and done a really good job at Duke. The issue on that one is like the optics of can you really hire the guy your arch rival just fired? And I don't know the answer to that. That doesn't mean you should listen to the optics. He's a really smart coach. He's doing a good job. Jake Dickert also a really good coach in the ACC from Wake Forest. I don't know if Jake Dickert looks at this and goes, you know what? There's a lot uncertainty with Florida state. I don't know if I trust it. I may hold my fire for a better job. You know, you start to look at some of the other options. Kenny Dillingham had been an office coordinator at Florida state. Do it done a really good job at Arizona state. I don't know if he thinks it's going to be, you know what? I know what Florida state can be as opposed to the bang in my head against the wall resource wise at ASU. I think that's a, you know, definitely an option. Then you start getting into like the coordinators. Shannon Dawson at Miami. Really good. You know, he's had great offenses. Also, you'll weaken Miami if you take him away from there. Glenn Schum and defense coordinator George is another guy. I think that is on a lot of people's radar. And then maybe a wild card in this is Jason. I think he's, I think he's as good a coach as there is going to be on the market killing it at New Mexico. Did a really good job at Idaho. He's formed a big ten offensive line minute at Wisconsin. Everybody's intrigued by him. I don't know who pulls the trigger. I'm not sure if he sits there and goes, you know what? I'd rather be at. I don't, I don't see him necessarily as a fit it baler. He's not a Texas guy. He's a big personality. I'm not sure if that fits it baler. I don't know if he would want Maryland. And it feels like NC State's probably going to go to Philip Rivers. So this isn't a big cycle maybe for Jason Actico. You know what? My alma mater may come open sooner than later at Wisconsin or maybe I wait for Michigan because I don't feel like how waiting him's going to be there much longer. And maybe that's a spot. So interesting times on the carousel right now. Check out his 25th anniversary piece on maybe the most talented roster the sport has ever seen. I certainly think it's the most talented roster on the Canes. He knows the Canes program well. That is Bruce Filman. You can see him this weekend on Fox. So thanks as always man. My pleasure Ryan. Thanks for having me. When we right back after a quick word from our sponsors, feel lucky. You should be meet the new lucky one sweet tea from mispeaches. 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use in 2026. So if you love true sweet tea, this one's a no brainer. Pick up a lucky one sweet tea today and give back one can at a time. We got away from him for a little bit, but the NFL quarter of the ports, it's not really the joke that we're not going to do all 32 teams after one quarter, but let's run through it. The AFC East. All right, so the concept is, I tell you a little bit about the team. One, when we know topic, sometimes it's a bad TV graphic, and then we'll close with the worst team, but we start with the best team and that's the bill. So the one seed in the AFC right now, they have the fourth best point differential in the NFL, resume wins. If you wanted to do a little tough college football, I know everybody's in the mood for that after the first 12 teams from the playoff selection committee announced late last night, because really, if you decide that you want to just dump on anybody's resume, you can definitely do that in college football. I think we're a little cooler about it in the NFL, but if you wanted to, with the bills, you could say, okay, well, the Houston win that we all thought was huge is not the Rams Monday night football game, which maybe it'll be hard to think that won't be one of the five best games of the entire 26 season, but then you're like, okay, but then the Rams lost to Arizona the next week. And even though the Rams beat the chargers because everybody beats the chargers, do you realize that was five possessions? The first five possessions of that game for the Rams, they didn't score all five possessions with three plays. So either a three now, interception or a field goal, which technically would be the fourth play. So that's the first time that happened in a phase career. So are we talking about the Rams here that we're still or the bills? Okay, so let's keep going with the resume. Dad and the Ravens that we thought was going to be this showdown, Lamar is back, they end up going through three quarterbacks. So you could poke some holes in, okay, what are they really if every one of those wins is not really as impressive as you would think it was supposed to be. Let's give him credit for Detroit. They're up 27 seven in the first half. Detroit got back into the game, which is maybe a sign of like Detroit's fight and how Detroit season has gone with some of their limitations defensively. But the bills got Minnesota this week. They've got Kansas City at home. They're at New England. And that was the only Pats loss over 16 games when they split. So last year Buffalo lost at home, they won in New England. And that win in New England again was the only loss over 16 game stretch for New England regular season in the playoffs. Look, that stretch, I mean, they still have at Green Bay, they're against Chicago at home at Denver. Somehow, this is only considered the 15th toughest remaining screening schedule when you factor in some of the bad teams that are in the division with the Jets and dolphins. So it bounces all out. This is, I find that scheduled to be kind of brutal. So we either already know because I think we're all on the same page here, this is one of the best teams, but it's not, it's not because they're the one seed today and have the best quarterback in football. That they're this overwhelming one seed, right? Because if you think about how the rest of the AFC stacks up, if they don't get to the Super Bowl this year, because New England, even though being the representative of the AFC last year, I don't think we look at them like as a roadblock team. I mean, hell, they didn't pull that one out against Miami, which is always historically a weird spot for them, no matter how good they are. We'd be talking about a 500 team, but New England was not a 500 team, okay? The rest of it, if you look at Kansas City, which feels still not like fully formed, which is kind of the story of this team for the last couple of years, although if they held on or not had a fall start and pulled that one off in Denver, there's six and one. Are we looking at Kansas City as like the real team to beat? That's probably the Monday overreaction pattern that we get to with the NFL, but you have a home still not feeling right, like the best version of it, which I don't know when eight years, I'm going to keep saying that. Baltimore is a mess. So who else is happening in the AFC that feels like they're really in Buffalo's way in years that we've had in the past, we were like, okay, Buffalo's really good, but I'm not picking them against this team. Pittsburgh's the three seed in the AFC, right? And then there's Jacksonville who never really gets enough credit, but there are two years removed from a disastrous season. They're a year removed from Buffalo eliminating this team in the playoffs. And Trevor Lawrence has had three playoff games. He's one and two and the one game that he won he threw four interceptions. And people get more mad about Herbert in that playoff game than they do ever give Trevor any credit for coming back in that one, which again is his only playoff win. So the teams around Buffalo here in the AFC, it feels like a collective easier path halfway through the season than maybe what we thought would be there on paper. So here's kind of the topic though for this team. If you were programming TV show, is this defense, which catapulted itself from potentially the worst depending on which stat you want to look at to like in the mid 20s to the the high 20s? I guess you'd really say the low 20s. So still a bad defense after that Baltimore game where they went through all the different quarterbacks. They're so bad on defense that if you go by like the expected points added per play and what they allow, it's essentially the same as what Joe Burrow does for an offense every single play. It's kind of like between my homes and Burrow, which are not the highest rated quarterbacks in this one stat that I'm talking about, but definitely in kind of that top five to seven range. And I don't know why it gets better. There's a couple players that I think we all like. We've liked the past rush more. We hate the secondary. I don't know how that necessarily gets fixed because there's definitely the dumbass TV topic of Alan. If he's eliminated before the bills get in the Super Bowl, it's like, Hey, you know, I thought, well, this goes to MVP and you're like, dude, I know he had the fumble last year against Denver. Okay. I Josh apologizes. I apologize about it too. He is an even better quarterback once he gets into the playoffs statistically than the best version of him in the regular season. So I mean, we're talking about somebody who actually doesn't turn the football over the interception percentage drops in half. I mean, go back and look at the numbers and I bring it up constantly all the time. He's like, well, he still hasn't beaten the cheese. He's like, dude, when a defense that usually during the McDermott years, because they had what six top 10 defensive finishes as far as yards allowed during McDermott's run there, when they went up against some of the big boys, they got absolutely smoked and usually Alan had a great game. So there could be two different topics on what do we do with Alan? If he's eliminated in the AFC, which if he has a great game and they're eliminated because this defense is even worse than some of the ones they went to battle with in the past and got smoked, it'll probably be still becoming an Alan conversation, but you could even though it'd be wrong because it was probably going in the wrong direction. Anyway, be like, well, Brady replaces McDermott and McDermott at least had a defense that you thought he could go to battle with and this thing's been a disaster all season long, but it is lining up for this team right now in a way where it feels like they're less challenged in this conference than some of the other big bills years. New England rough start, right? I don't want to call it a reset year, but it was probably a reset year based on like last year was way ahead of schedule. Not ahead of schedule the way the spurs were because when you started watching the spurs going like, where's the bench? It's like, well, I think that we're going to be in the NBA finals. I don't think the NFL works that way, necessarily. You're trying to build your team. You're trying to overhaul this roster that was one of the least talented rosters in the league for a long time. Well, you know, there was some an end of the Belichex stuff. It was a pretty bad roster, but Drake Maye turns into one of the two best statistical quarterbacks in the season in 25. So after a rough start, a turnover fest from May, which didn't make a lot of sense because you're like, so he's just going to be a like mistake guy now. Like 25's that much of a flute. Like that's kind of a, you can have a bad year, but now he's just stupid. And guess what? He's not because he's had, I'd say three great games, two really good games during this entire time. So the turnovers are down, the sacks are down. And now we're left with a question of like, when will we really know? Depends on what you thought about the paths, but the general conversation about New England before the season started. Not many people were going like, yeah, they'll be even better than they're going to go back. I thought they could be a better team. I was certain they would have a worse record because of the historically easy schedule they had last year. So I think we already know now. I think they're at least for me personally. And I know they're a game away from being 500. But May has been so good that that's probably going to be enough. New England's going to be in the playoffs. And I'll get to that point here in a second. Now, if there's a topic for television on this, it's that the AJ Brown acquisition has been a massive disappointment. Now, Granny's only played three games. Okay. So I would not have the ISO came on me and screamed that AJ Brown needs to step up because you already know that. I don't understand why that's like an interesting thing. Here's what is interesting. And maybe it's just him coming back because he's questionable this week with a name ankle injury. But when you finally give your young quarterback, something some teams are great at doing going, Hey, we've got a young guy here, kind of a collection of pieces. It sort of work, but we need a true number one option. And that's what AJ Brown feels like at his best. Well, that's not what it's been. And maybe it's just that he was played in the first game gets her doesn't play a ton, but his drop rate, like there's no way this number is real. If you look at receivers in their drop rate, you know, what percentage of passes do they drop that are thrown to them? You know, it's, it's like for AJ Brown, it's 3.7% of the passes thrown to him in his career that he's dropped. Well, right now it's at 15%. Okay. It's such an absurd number that I mean, I'm sharing it with you to just point out how bad this has been. It's been so bad. But that can't be real. You just hope that he can have a stretch of healthy games and start getting back to who he is because they've
use, you know, a major resource on him. The average depth of target for AJ Brown still in line. It's actually even further than what it normally is because that's the whole point of AJ Brown. It's like let me be able to truly not just based on fast guys running routes, but a real threat down the field that defenses have to think about loosens up some of that other stuff and makes maybe even a hunter henner even better than he's been for many so far. I'm going to say based on this five C to eight seed range that New England's in right now. You've got two teams at four and four with Vegas and Baltimore. I would say probably going in the wrong direction. Then it drops off the two and five. I mean, I'm not going to say it's 100% certainty, but I'll be shocked if New England doesn't make a class. Based on what I've seen from them, may's turn around and you know, where their position with Baltimore and likely Vegas having to make some decisions here. You know, maybe it's best still a 500 team. So the way that five through eight shakes out, like I said, I'd be shocked if New England was not one of those final seats in the AFC. Jets, strange ass team, two and five. They're in every game except for Chicago. They weren't really in that game. You could do some score stuff and say, hey, they were they were battling Beijing out there. And maybe a couple calls go a different way on some of the turnovers that weren't actually turnovers. I don't know. They didn't feel great in that game, but the point is they've been in all these other games. So they're easy to dismiss, right? It's the Jets. It's Geno. And I'm sitting there going like, you've watched a lot of these games somehow. I don't know why I didn't mean to, but maybe it's because there's so many close games and you're like, okay, here's a close one. Let's make sure I know what's happening here in the fourth quarter. But I was trying to find like, why is it that I kind of like them despite being two and five? So I went through the numbers. They're 19th on D 12th on offense. Is that enough to get you excited? Passing yards. Not really. I mean, Geno's on the in the front half. If you split the league in half amongst quarterbacks on passing yards, third down percentage. No, it's not that rushing. Not really. Although we like the one two combination that they have with Breesaw coming back healthy. Red zone touchdown percentage. Like sometimes you'd be like, oh, maybe they're tricking us into thinking they're more competitive. They're not because they have an amazing like strange because sometimes the red zone touchdown percentage defense offense is exactly who you are. And sometimes it means you just have a special quarterback. And sometimes it like tricks us because you just it's worked out versus not working out on a bunch of random things in limited possessions. Well, it's not that. And it's not their red zone defense. Okay, they're last on red zone offense in touchdown percentage turnover margin. They're plus two. So that's good. It's not bad. It's not a Geno QBR thing. It's not an old line pass block run block grade. It's not a pass rush grade. It's none of those things. So I couldn't really find anything that was all that exciting other than maybe just that they've had a lead against Green Bay Detroit Cleveland, New England and Vegas. They were tied with Miami. Technically, every team is tied in every game at some point. So it's really only the Chicago games that bad. So here's the topic with the Jets. Is this the reverse of getting the QB right and then figuring out the rest of it because it feels like they have a lot of stuff where if they do get the QB right, like did they do the reverse not by design where they got the skill position stuff right? You go through their depth chart. They're for the fantasy names. Like there's a lot of good players on this football team. And Bailey looks like he's going to be a game record for 10 years off the edge out of Texas Tech. So it looks like they got that pick. Right. So I don't know if Club Nick already being on the roster. Just remember, he was potentially the number one overall pick in August of 25 or do they play Club Nick to go ahead and tank their own pick? Because this is as Jets fans already know, but to remind a worldwide audience, the Jets are in line to have three top 10 picks, which has never happened in the modern era going back to 1970. That's never happened in the NFL. So this team, oddly enough, again, it all comes back to the quarterback. We know that. But if they were to get that right, this could be a quicker turnaround for this team, which I know is always in the past going, Hey, head coach, ownership, Jets, Jets, Jets. I don't blame anybody for thinking like they'll still find a way to fuck this up. But there's way more to like about this team than I think he would expect if you're not paying attention to him. All right. Finally, Miami. They've been playing better since week four. Malik Willis is going to play in the league for a long time. I don't know if that means it's him as a starter, but he's going to be on NFL rosters forever. And I'll admit, there's sometimes in games that I kind of like him a little bit. He's 14th in QBR. He's been better again. Like I said, since it's the start of the season, he had 99 QBR against the Jets. I'll remember that game forever eliminated. Yes, that's right. I had to take the Jets in the survivor. Pull didn't like doing it. Hey, did the result. Oli Gordon, it running back looks like a defensive end out there. Caleb Douglas is pretty good. He's only played four games. Chop Robinson off the edge. He's the number one pass rush edge guy as far as win rate in the entire NFL, winning 36% of his past rushes. So we could ask the when will we know question about this team? We probably knew in August that they weren't going to be very good with Alan and May. And then the Jets, if they get this draft right in 27, like they could be long term doomed to be behind all these other teams. If they don't have a quarterback that's at least in the top half, but I don't know where that's coming from. I don't know if it's Malik Willis, right? But even if there's some things where you go, it was a gap year for them, the results of the gap year made maybe insignificant in comparison to everything else that they're going up against the division. Quarterback exercise, Hertz, Alan, Alan, Hertz, May, May, Gino Hertz, Hertz, Malik Willis, Hertz, we'll go Jalen Hertz. All right, so two for two or two out of four for Jalen Hertz on this one. And since the worst team will send out our investor letter on the Miami Dolphins position right now, if just focusing on the past seven outcomes, we would concede that the results are not in line with expectations. However, considering August pricing models, we are not that far from our own in-house projections. On a higher level, positives are user growth of 5, 10 percent year over year, with over 18 million users in the overall sector, on which we are positioned. In which we are positioned, we will be not paying out a dividend, however, not as an indicator of cash flow restrictions, but more to focus capital on long term R&D. We'll be right back after a quick word from our sponsors. For most of us cold weather is back, but I'm not dreading it this year because I've got bombas. Bombas is something for everyone. And if you're looking for gifts this season, bombas is cozy socks and slippers, cushy footwear, and sports socks for runners and skiers alike. 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[email protected]. That's the email we've got. Whoa, an upside down hat from Kyle. My wife's hat actually. Yeah, I just grabbed it. I was like, you know, I think this matches my shirt exactly today. So, uh, I almost tried to talk her out of it. And now, I don't know, I think I think glad she pulled the trigger. I like it. When do you think the upside down hat things over? I mean, that's kind of why I didn't want her to do it. But, um, I don't know. I might be, yeah, I might be changing my mind. I think it's more than the same thing. You know, it's like, it was in my, you know, my elementary school gym yesterday voting and stuff. So, I'm like, yeah, I am. Yeah, active citizen. They remember you? No, dude, I didn't actually remember the place either. I was a little bummed out because I was like, we had like one of those like kindergarten to second grade. I just couldn't really put the pieces together. Remember, I think I got a huge smaller. Yeah, I think I got a huge, yeah, that's right. I remember getting a huge splinter on their like wooden monstrosity on the playground. But that's about it. I don't know if it was like a man Kyle. He was like, you know, hat trick, effort, hat trick, and handball. I was a legitimate. No, I don't remember much other than apparently my kindergarten teacher was like my mortal enemy. That was like, I was a huge problem for her, I think, but that's all it's like, that's all anyone tells me about those. I hate that I, that I'm like, yeah, that track, that track, that's kind of track. I mean, I got along with a lot of teachers, but apparently kindergarten was just rough. Hey, listen, some kids mature later, you know? Yeah, I was in there at four, you know, so I mean, I was at a disadvantage. Me too. I didn't do that anymore. For, for having passion, man, early on. I just died that right tunnel. Passionate about you can see everything went to theater solo last night, watched it, and three hours. It's long, but it works, and it was awesome. And, uh,
I don't want to ruin anything for anybody, but I would say go see it if you're like a little movie. All right. Well, I was kind of thinking the opposite. Yeah. I mean, you don't, you don't have to. I mean, this isn't like watching Done Kirk. Even I, who loves this topic with Elizabeth Holmes, read the first book, Bad Blood, didn't know a ton about Theranos, okay? But I love reading about frauds. And then I was on this fraud kick where I couldn't stop reading about like, what's the next fraud book, right? But that one I was super into was listening to the podcast had formed all sorts of opinions could have talked about it for two hours. And did not do that on the pod, obviously, but so I went in like fired up and you're just kind of thinking about Nathan Fielder, who there was not for everybody. I wouldn't even tell you I love all of his stuff, but when his stuff is awesome, I think it's incredible because I think his instincts is an observer like that's basically like his gift. He's like this great observer. And he's also incredibly smart in asking the perfect question, even though it's not that difficult of a question is somebody who sat through the 24-hour seminar on how to learn to ask questions at ESPN where honestly they could have done 30 minutes and just say, just keep asking me what happened and why would you do that or why did that happen and then we're like, can we cool, can I leave now? Because Fielder does a lot of that. Why did you say that? Why would you feel that way? What did you mean by that? And it's kind of perfect. But then you know, there's always this other thing with Fielder Ward like the other layer is coming. Like how is this three hours? How is this going to work? Because he can't just go in and light her up for like, hey, you're a liar, you're going to jail all these different reasons. And I think both from getting what he needs, he needs them to warm up to him, although the boyfriend Billy of Elizabeth Holmes apparently picked Fielder, which was a tactical mistake. Like he just that fucking guy. Like the best thing that happened to Elizabeth Holmes is having her boyfriend be in the fucking movie because there's not one person that leaves that movie being like that guy's cool. So watching it, you're kind of like, okay, well, how are they going to craft this? Like basically the entire point is, is there a way we can tell her story that will leave the audience in suspense of trying to figure out if she is actually this evil person or if her way of kind of seeing the world led her to this situation where, you know, she's like a doofus. Like what? Like is that? Well, I was trying to figure out you, you know, you definitely did not like her. No, I didn't like her. And I didn't like her. I didn't like her. I didn't like the way people talked about her where it was like, oh, they're only doing this because she said, well, I'm not, they're doing because it's a half a billion dollars in fraud. Like what are you talking about? You could argue the reason she succeeded was because she was a woman and people were so desperate for this Steve Jobs female version where apparently at one point on paper, she was the first self-made, or the youngest self-made billionaire in the history of the world, right? A lot of people. A lot of people having a product. I don't imagine that she had a concept. Well, that's kind of the thing, is like, do you believe her and that she invented? It'd be like me kind of saying, I invented a time machine and they're like, where is it? I'm like, no, I invented that way. I'm here right now, right? Yeah. I have a machine that I've designed. There's something in my head. I've invented the concept of the time machine and that's kind of her default way of arguing that she did in fact invent this testing possibility of testing one drop of blood. The problem is when you read the book and guys are going to Walmart in fucking Arizona to use this thermos device that she got somebody to sign off on because these old guys just thought she was like, "Cute shit." Then there's somebody's grandmother who thinks she has AIDS and there's somebody else who's diagnosed with terminal cancer and cancels all these trips and then they're just like, "Yeah, sorry, our bad." It wasn't just like, "Hey, it's a startup company based on tech and now the tech doesn't work." It's a startup company that's based on medical tech that's also giving diagnosis that are completely derailing the health or even people that were unhealthy that you were told, like, "Hey, you're fine." To me, there was always that extra layers. This isn't a TV that doesn't work. This isn't the medical field. I don't know. I don't know if I'd read to you. I wonder if I had known nothing about her if I would have had more of an open mind. The movie challenges you to have an open mind about her and for me, that part was going to be impossible, but I loved the movie. I thought it was awesome. Yeah, I might see it Friday. We got some rain coming here and maybe a matinee situation kids are at school, but you had floated to me because you called me last night, like, maybe best picture, which that's damn, because this year, what we got out of see, we got doomed, by the way, the doomed three reviews and everyone who talks about it is just like, I'm trying to keep the hopes, like, the expectations low, but it's hard. But you floated best picture for this and I was like, damn, it's that good. I wonder if it'll be nominated. I don't think it'll win it, but I wonder because it checks like a lot of boxes, you know, I think fielders like an approved guy in that world, and they do a phenomenal job of like adding this extra layer to how they try to like navigate the story, which is a very fielder thing to do, which I'm not going to share, because I don't want to ruin it for anybody, but I don't. I just wonder if the way they did it is enough for for people to nominate this and to have it. I don't, I don't think whatever win, I don't think a documentary would ever win, but let's all, you know, I know Ryan texted the crew last night, he was like, just, just left the theater incredible and I, I, I must have missed the context and I was just like, what the homestockity goes, drummer boy, and I looked at him. I must have been the other part of that conversation, but I had a good laugh last night. I would say drummer boy, the trailer, did not have me excited. Do you know what that drum means to these men? Let's, let's get to a couple of emails here. Lawn care liar. Hey fellas, 58170 used to run a half marathon, listen to hours, I then had kids, no player comp, I'll try to keep it brief, spare too many details. About six months ago, I moved to a new house, about 30 minutes away, closer to a new job, and to get my son in a better school district, the old house is still for sale. Anyway, I don't want to truck, so I've been paying, I got 75 dollars to cut my grass every two weeks, instead of hauling my own lawnmower back and forth in our minivan. That probably makes sense. How often he often forgets to let us know it's been cut and to pay him, sometimes several days ago by, I don't have to ask him, it was cut, he usually responds, yes, I'll send over payment. I believe him to be fairly honest and confirmed, he did just forget two or three times. I've told him several times to please let me know when he cuts it since I don't know as I'm not visiting the old house very often, he agrees and then typically forgets. Now a month or so has gone by, I go visit the old house, still for sale, the grass has obviously not been cut, I reach out to him no response. Now I work in health care, twist. At the only hospital in my new town, I go on rounds and found out he is currently one of my patients. I learned this guy's in his mid 40s and has a genetic disorder. I'm going to leave out the specifics of what this is, but he's told he likely will live another five to ten years at best. I realize this is likely why he wasn't responding and assume him taking care of my yard is over. Now about three weeks have gone by and I've been making other arrangements for the yard. He texts me out of the blue and tells me I own for two cuts. I ask him when it was cut and he tells me today and about two weeks ago, maybe Thursday. This is obviously a lie. Not only because I know he was admitted, but also because I went by the house and the grass is not cut. He had no idea I was a part of his care team and I had no personal interaction with him when it admitted. I've never actually met him in person. So the question is, do I just pay him? He's obviously lying, but the season is ending and I likely won't need his services again, hopefully my house sells soon. I also saw in his chart that he was struggling financially and worried about his business while admitted. So I guess when they just ask you that stuff, like, hey, anything else bugging you? I don't know. I've ever been admitted. Yeah. My wife says, yes, the 75 is in the huge deal to us in the grand scheme of things. It's more about the principle of lying though. What do you guys think? Love the show, despite the LSU bias. This is muddy because there's HIPAA involved now. You can't know some of the things you know and bring it into the outside world. I don't think this guy would be litigious, but I just think if you're, you know, you took the oath, I think that gang seems like it's pretty important to them. So you can't say that you know what you know. Five to 10 years? I don't know. It's not like three. So you're saying if you have 15 years to live, you call them out in the lie. I would just say, get fucked maybe in a nice way. You know, just like don't need your services anymore. It's not true. You can just say, like, lie. I just lie and say, like, listen, my neighbor said that nobody's been there in in three weeks. So this is a lie and I think we're going to be done here. Don't worry about it. I don't know. What is it? 150? He'd have to give up knowing he's being lied to. The tough part.
the swallow, especially not being able to say here's why I know you're lying. So I'm paying it. You're paying it. It's clean enough is all the pills. Anyway, I'm not paying it. There's no. I'm not. This is a karma situation. I'm just not not messing with. No, like close guys. If you're on care guys, totally as five or 10 years to live, it's okay. If he's fibbed on a couple, couple weeks. Well, that's a good rule. I think that's a good rule, by the way. I would also say because they're hopefully is a clear end game to this. Like this is kind of it. Like this is like hopefully a one-time charge. Like you can sell the damn house. That would be great. You know, but like, you know, if it was bleeding in the next year and it was all this other confusion, like there's, if it's a longer-term issue than maybe, but like if it's just like the end of the season, this is it. Like I'm not, I'm not messing with this. Not a chance. I don't even know how I could say. Well, here's how you do it. You know, I mean, or you really, is the email really allowing yourself to like understand what kind of news that must be like to go, "Hey, hey, man. You're in your 40s. And you're not going to make it to 25." And I'm not, like I know what I realize what you're saying is like the guy just straight up lied to me. And I don't want to reward him for that because of this other thing. But it just, it just feels so wrong. Like could, I mean, could you go, "Hey, can you just double check on like your thing because I drove by the house?" And I don't think it was cut the second time that you're saying that. But what date are you saying? Because I could be mistaken. And then maybe he realizes like, oh, he drove by the house or like, yeah, let's just make it one. Like, are you going to feel better? Because you said something. Because more often than not, like, I think I would feel better if I knocked it down to 75s that I'm getting, I don't know. I think it comes down to like, "In societies, this is mean that this guy gets to do whatever he wants." No. I would say if it doesn't bother you, if the 150 isn't going to bother you, I would be like, dude, just pay the guy. Because maybe one thing though, if he was like, like, you have an on record basically that he's having financial issues, clearly this is like a horrible situation. He's one thing he was just scamming you and he was just like some 20-something-year-old kid who was just a fuckboy, like this guy is obviously going through it. So I, it's kind of a donation to just like being a good person, maybe, in a way. It's a clean end to it all. Yeah. Like, if you liked him and he started to go fund me, you probably donate more than 150. Right. Great point. So, great point. I don't even know if that's a great point. I was just trying to figure that one out. All right. It's usually the second email. That was a heavy first one. Yeah, it was. It's actually where we end up. Let's see here. The overage trick or treater emailer hit us up, by the way. He listened to life advice, wanted to provide an update on the other trick or treater that you are desperately not wanting. He did not trick or treat this year and I actually heard him discussing plans with the customer at the grocery store that he's going to be hanging out with some buddies on Halloween. So maybe things are all right for this kid. I got to win great follow-up. That's a great follow-up. I ruined the vibe by saying could he be lying while he's bagging groceries to a customer? That would be great. I get all sorts of plans. Damn. So, you overheard him. You didn't even ask him what's up this year? I mean, you over. Yeah, I know. Like, we're not going to see Doug. All right. King checking in. He says short king. I kind of hate the term short king for the short kings out there. Although a short king, a way to be like, yeah, you're shorter, but you just run shit. Is that how you become a short king? Or is it just everybody below? It's everyone's a short king, aren't they? Yeah. I hate it. Yeah. I hate it. I heard you guys. You should earn that title. Not everyone should be called a king. Like, if you're a short king, that's great. You got to be like Mugsie Boat. You got to have something. Okay. All right. I see what you're saying. Like, if someone called me, I mean, I'm 5'10". I'm short in some circles. I know. But like, I'm short in this circle. Not in the Paulian's age. You're right. But if someone was like, what's up, short king, taller than people think. Imagine if everybody had a historical reference about you that's gone on for a couple hundred years. I was like, Oh, he's getting a polling complex. You were like, what? Above average height for my times. Yeah. Now I got a buddy who's 5'8". He liked to heal. He's always like, it's average on the national average. Yeah. Yeah. I bet you know that. Yeah. You wouldn't know exactly. Pakistan. Sounds like somebody who's short would say. But no, like, if you're, yeah, if you're short and you're just a dude, you got nothing going on and you're, he kind of suck like in why are you a king? I don't understand. He doesn't know. So you wanted to be like a luminary of some sort for that sort of, yeah. Okay. You should have some sort of accomplishment to be a short king. Not three short kings ever. Yeah. Not the polling. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, average US height is 5'9". Pakistan is 5'6" and a half. Right. Don't need that. Yeah. I don't need that one. Yeah. The Napoleon thing. He was painted with his royal guards and you had to be over certain. You had to like be abnormally tall, like 5'10" or taller for back then. So Napoleon is painted with other people. He's, he's above average height for his times. And he appreciates size. Right. And we're going on 200 years of calling short guys with tempers, having Napoleon complex. And I think the short guys with tempers should be with their, yeah, a little Napoleon complex and be like, what? A leader of men, incredible infrastructure, emphasis on the arts and efficiency. I'm a city planner. You know, there's a lot I've done. Survived on an island for a while. Right. Didn't you do that? Oh, yeah. Big time. Got it all back. Military tactics. Questionable love interests, I would say. But yeah, any of the short guys out there, if you get called the Napoleon, just write some of the shit down. It's not that bad. It's too highly correct and be like, wow, above average. Great. Cool. That's that. That was pretty handsome. Thank you for the compliment. So our guys 5, 7, 1, 50 currently doing a ton of F 45 class is pick up comp, not applicable due to lack of height. I'm Braden Smith played 40 minutes last night or two nights ago. I'm a short king lucky enough to have found the love of my life recently got engaged and couldn't be happier. We started a plan or wedding and are having trouble finding a date on the calendar that works for us. Our families in a venue in a large East Coast city, dates and names have been changed. My fiance has always dreamed of a spring wedding. This is really the only thing she wants and she isn't fussy about anything else. She's a great friend, Megan, who already has a wedding date during the spring time frame. They'll be bridesmaids for each other. To be considered, we told Megan that we were looking to get married in the same season and didn't want to add to our own wedding, planning, stress. That's nice. She told us we can't do the week after the wedding since she will be in a week long, mini moon. Dude. Hey, Paul, because of a mini moon, what's a honeymoon, two weeks? Damn. I don't think that's mini. Yeah. It means like a week and Instagram will have you think no one is ever home. Yeah. We went on our mini moon and this was packed with protein. She also said we should not do the two weekends prior to her dates since she will be in hiding a bit to avoid getting sick and it wants to be fully present for each other leading up to the big day. Yeah, it sounds like that. She has the month, right? Two weeks before the week, the mini moon, which is in the pre-workout of, yeah, of honeymoon, apparently. Our wedding will be local. Hers will be on the west coast where she grew up. I think she's being incredibly selfish to not let us even consider a date full two weeks before hers. It's been really hard to find venues that will fit our party. And she's blocking off four full weekends. Should I push my fiancee to consider the date two weeks before Megan's wedding or just let it go. We're in her 30s. I don't want to wait two years just so we can make my bride spring wedding dream come true. I think everyone will kind of learn what's important about what's important to them together as you go searching for venues and stuff like that. I mean, is it the best spring month? You know what I mean? Like Northeast. Some of those spring months are kind of hard. Kind of throwaways, dude. So like we're talking like May. It sounds like probably May. It's probably the moon for them, right? I mean, April could be, like you said, a total wildcard gray, very way colder. Is that snow? Holy shit. Yeah, April seems super dangerous. Northeast May is going to nice ring to it. June NBA finals draft. So that's what I did. People were pissed. That's why it's what I get married six, nine dude. Pretty sick. Wow. Is it? No, no. Engage for 20 though, both total accidents. What? Quite a stat. That's not even a weed guy. No, no, I know. I know. So. Uh, wow.
- Yeah. - Never forget those though. - No, that's pretty amazing. - Is, yeah, springs, springs, I'm not a spring guy. So, it just, - Just don't like the whole season. - You're out of the whole season. - I think it sucks. Yeah, I think spring is the worst. - Spring sucks. - Slippling, gliriaid people outside. - It's hot and cold. - It's a teaser, like it's like, oh man, like it's the first 65 of your day. I'm outside and then it rains with three weeks. And you're like, all right, great. Cool, now it's cold. Oh, it's snowed again. Amazing. I mean, we're talking about the North. We're trying to talk them out of spring like. - Yeah, so maybe, I, yeah. - He's got like a super cool bride to be who's basically like, listen, we get this thing, everything else will figure itself out around it. So I understand why he wants to do that. I mean, it sounds like you had extensive talks with her. You're just like, how important is this, is this thing to you? If you want to do it in spring, I think we should do it and, you know, in this, like we need, we need a venue and we need, you know, a price point and we need a date. So if all those things can only happen in this four weeks that your friend blocked off, I think the, I think the two weeks before it totally fine. I understand she doesn't want it. So you're basically saying, if that girl's not coming to the wedding, it's because she's hiding so she doesn't want to get sick, not because she's got a thing booked already. So I think those two weeks are silly and you could just say, hey, sorry. You know how it is trying to plan a wedding. - I think you try to accommodate it. Like what, you know, you're saying you're looking around it's hard to find venues that fit your, like if, if, but if that's like the only option and you guys want to do this, then like it's your life. Like she, she has to deal with your decision. Like if she's gonna alter how she goes to your wedding 'cause it's two weeks before her wedding, then like, I don't know, you can only control which you can control. But is this weirder than like, 'cause like what's, I was trying to like, like this is kind of only like a girl's thing but it's like a due to equivalent of this, like, you know, guys being like, oh, you can't get married on a satirator in college for a ball season, you know. - This is bright. - So some people that are like, that is the, the like number one cardinal sin is like, do not get married and fall on the South on that. - Some people take that very seriously. - I was about to say, I didn't understand where, yeah, I didn't know anything about that until I started going down this. I mean, you two TV is so far though. So I mean, dudes are just under the table with. - But there's probably nothing worse than like having, well, I guess maybe you wouldn't notice it the like, when you're, it's your wedding and everyone's just like on their phone watching a game. (laughs) - Or topical art and everyone's at the bar. - He did, wow. - Yeah, he did and then he set up TV 'cause there was like a huge game that day. And then of course, my date was like, what? Are you serious, dude? - Don't know, I'm doing cupid shuffle out there. What the hell? - Yeah. - Yeah, I don't know. - Ophogato station, come on, let's go. - Well, I guess the other thing is like, this is probably, I'm not like totally in sync with the mind of how women are with each other and weddings and stuff, but this seems like something only like a really best friend would ask of you or even tell you with their thought process about like, I'd hope you'd hope so. - Such an insane four month block off or four week block off there that like, maybe that plays into it, but I think the two weeks prior before is unreasonable. And if that lines up all the things you need to get this wedding planning started, I'd just say sorry, it is what it is. Appreciate you understanding. - Just to point, Devils advocate, like it would be annoying. Like there's a, I didn't plan a ton of it. You know, I had a few things that I liked, but like I was mostly just like, hey, like whatever you want, you know, I know you have good taste, you'll figure it out. But like, you know, I know how stressed my wife was like during that time, just like, you know, like family's coming in and just like, make sure everything is all right, then you're checking the weather. Like there's just like a lot going on. And if you have to, if you have to add two weeks before a wedding that you're also in in a significant part, like I'm not gonna say you're gonna tell you wouldn't suck, it probably would suck, but this is also why it's your best friend. - She's gonna lose her mind if you do what any of the weeks prior to hers, all right? 'Cause like you can't do hers, you can't do the mini moon, you can't do the week prior. So it's really the only one two weeks prior and she's still gonna be pissed about that, okay? So I don't know if you like can it be moved to like how long spring? - Dude, June is lovely, yeah. - Yeah. - We love June, July, maybe not. But June, yeah. - Fourth of July weddings, I just like, you're more important than America. - Okay, dude, I gotta do it. I gotta do it. I gotta do it. - Yeah, fourth of July, I think the holiday weekend thing, like sometimes it's cool depending on the group, there's like a lot of people, it's like okay, so like the last Labor Day, like the last three day weekend I get, it's yours, 'cause you get a discount. Anyway, all right, that'll do it for the show today. Thanks to Tom, Kevin, Kyle, and Seruti. We will be releasing another episode with Brea, which will be kind of that Thursday Friday thing that we'll be doing. So please subscribe, all of our shows available on Netflix Riders of the Show, First of Sports. (upbeat music)
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