Herbert’s Future, a Week 6 NFL Preview, Plus an NBA Deep Dive With Cam Johnson, Tommy Alter, Tom Pelissero, and Joe House

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Had a whole bunch of NFL storylines we wanted to get through. House came on just to do the Ringer 107 picks. Last but not least, Cam Johnson and Tommy Alter came in to talk hoops with me for, it was almost an hour and a half, and a really, really, really fun podcast. Obviously, you've probably heard Cam on a couple different shows over the years. He's just the rare player who, you know, as a podcast hang, seems just like, somebody you would have on a podcast anyway, but it's really good. So a lot of content for you this weekend. We didn't get to baseball. I am really excited for a Brewers. Cleveland, Tampa, doesn't really matter, but Brewers, Cleveland would be the sweet spot for me because Cleveland hasn't won since the late 40s. I don't think the Brewers, not only have they never won, I don't even remember the last time they've even been to the World Series. I have some Brewers friends in my life, including my, my old college roommate, Chip Kane, who's over the moon and beside himself. So the baseball has been really fun. We have the WNBA finals is finally starting this weekend after they completely botched, let's see, the schedule, the arena. Other than that, great job, WNBA. We talk about it later with Cam and Tommy, but very, very fun stretch coming up here. We taped all of this before Niners Broncos. So hopefully nothing crazy happened in that game. But if you missed the, over under podcast I did with Zach and house two parts, West and East, it's been up for a couple of days. So that's why we have pivoted forward here to some football and some, some NBA talk. It's all next. We're gonna take a break, Pearl jam. And then Tom Pilser. This is the Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel. Make every NFL week more rewarding with FanDuel Rewards Club. 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Connecticut. all right this segment's brought to you by uber eats we're recording late thursday afternoon pacific time tom pelissero is here you can read the sweep newsletter you can listen to him on the ringer nfl show a lot of eagles news out of nowhere jalen hurts it was already uh the year from hell in a lot of different ways for the eagles and now it's gotten worse and did you hear about this before today what what was the process before we get into the six pack so he popped up on the injury report on friday with a calf which is where the the blood clot is but like there were no alarm bells about he's not going to play he was listed as a full participant he it was not didn't have a game designation last week so it's one of those things that you kind of file away like all right something going on but you didn't see anything in the game that was like askew you didn't think like oh this guy's like limping around and then it was on wednesday when jalen had his presser and he started saying like this was kind of a unique thing remember he was a full participant in practice yesterday after all this he played in the game the team put out a very detailed statement going through you know the doctors and the initial evaluation and it was a super important statement and it was a super important statement and it was a super important statement and it was a super important statement and it was a super important statement and it was a superficial blood clot they put him through more testing on wednesday night to check on it the blood clot had moved so basically now they're getting him on whatever treatment protocol medication to try to deal with it he's not going to play this week against the panthers we'll see if they make an injured reserve move with them uh over the weekend like could be a serious deal it sounds like it wasn't something that was a high enough concern that they felt like they needed to pull him out of the game remember he got like a seven hour flight back and forth to which that's the other plots right it's not a big deal but it's a big deal and it's a big deal and it's a big deal it's not super ideal but it wasn't something that was bothering jalen so much he didn't play in the game or even though he didn't practice yesterday but it got to the point where all right we need to we need to slow this thing down and get a handle on it so it's gonna be tanner mckee playing this week probably still without saquon maybe still without davante smith all moving parts on the offensive line and you know that division's so bad that you know i don't even know that like taking a couple losses while you're waiting for the quarterback to come back necessarily kills you in this thing right you can be eight and nine and win the division it's the new nfc south it's it's a race of like even the commanders we'll get to them i'm sure later but they're sitting there at one three and one but it's like and they're in a way to get a win this weekend like who knows like it's just it's totally wide open right now so that line the eagles line i think moved five points with jalen hurts to mckee which i was interested by when the quarterbacks like if josh allen leaves the bills i think that's the highest line move it's like it becomes eight points but the jalen hurts being five i thought i i don't know it's not like their offense was that good right so just staring at that game like okay it's not like losing josh allen so we'll see we'll see if they can win in carolina this week and how he's always been a big tanner mckee fan right here's his shot to like go out and play in an offense that quite frankly he on paper is probably a better player than josh allen i think that's the highest line move it's like it becomes eight points but josh allen is a better player fit for yeah than jalen hurts i mean i thought that game on on sunday obviously ends in bizarre fashion but like you saw the defense step up jalen carter was the best player on the field throughout the game and jalen with like nobody around him with all the injuries like he played pretty well so it's unfortunate timing to to have this happen right now and you're just hoping obviously for jalen but also for you know if you've got hope in the eagles that it's not going to end up being a long-term thing six pack let's start with something we talked about last week and i think it's going to be a lot of fun and i think it's going to be last week um the oh no we didn't talk about it last week because it would happen before you talked about in the sweep but the uh the whole marvin harrison thing yeah so you you basically you broke the story that shit was going down and then shit didn't go down until after they beat the titans so was it that simple that was like hey if we don't beat the titans we're not doing this trade what was the backstory it wasn't it wasn't contingent on the outcome and nick cassero actually went on the radio and talked about this that they got the deal done going into the weekend and monty austin for the cardinals gm was like hey we just need to like slow it down don't put anything out which makes it all the funnier that post game while the cardinals haven't even played yet demico ryan's finally breaks down and goes you want to know yeah we traded for marvin harrison wow and that's how it ends up yeah coming out but so there were a lot of moving parts there are a bunch of teams whenever you start to hear that there's a price you know that this is moving toward eventually a trade you know the wild thing was if you go back and you look at the responses because i put out the sweep i file it friday night it comes out saturday morning and i've got in there the lead is basically they want a second round pick and more for marvin harrison everyone's being like what no chance like it's gonna be a fifth at most but yeah former number four overall pick like you trade them early the reason teams move on from those assets early is because they're still intrigued the further you get into the this guy isn't what you evaluated coming out the harder it is to get value for him and so you know they're betting a second round pick it ends up because the pick swap is actually a little bit less than the second round pick meaning the cardinals kind of said okay we're willing to take the best that we can get it was just in a place with marvin harrison jr where it wasn't it wasn't going to play out in arizona we'll see there's a lot of reasons you look at the you know the advanced stats the limited separation that he gets from he's never open he just he doesn't get open like data to back that up yeah he played with cj stroud in in college and so we'll see if that opens some things up but it was weird the whole sequence of events and the the report of they've told him hey you're being traded but they're not telling you who the one thing and it always registers in my mind an agent told me years ago when like i was holding something and it came out and he was he just goes everything leaks in other words the moment you tell a player they tell so many people they group text their teammates they tell their agents they tell their teammates they tell their like it spreads like wildfire. So this idea like, You were going to talk to Marvin Harrison Jr. on Saturday morning and say, hey, you're going to be inactive for the game because we're going to trade you in 48 hours was going to hold. It got out like within the hour. And from there, it was just a matter of by Saturday night, other teams that were caller being told, dude, it's done. Like, don't even bother making an offer. We got a deal. So neither of us know if this is true or not. Conspiracy bill kicked the tires on this entire story. And there's an incredible conspiracy that Marvin Harrison was absolutely miserable in Arizona and was basically not going full speed and kind of tanking the Arizona experience, saving himself for the trade. I don't know if it's true. And maybe I don't think professional athletes work this way, but it is going to be interesting if he goes to Houston and all of a sudden he's separated from people and looking like the guy that we thought he was going to be coming out of the draft. So I'm just monitoring it. It's on the conspiracy bill desk, and I'm just going to see how it plays out the first couple of weeks. This is like the, uh, Jerry bringing all of his shoes to the mom and pop shop to get them fixed. And then like they're in business for 40 years and then abscond with his shoes. Yeah. If Marvin Harrison was setting this up for two and a half years that I'm going to under produce and underperform solely to get myself a long con, that would be a long con. If there ever was one, it's a little, we'll see, like, he's just his personality, like everybody, people like him, but he's a, he's very much an introverted type of a guy. You know, like maybe he comes out and he's just super motivated to prove everybody wrong and be back with this guy at quarterback. We'll see. They're obviously betting a very high pick on it and probably also responding to the fact that, you know, when Nico Collins was out, that Texans offense was bad. And when Nico's in there, they're pretty good. So now at least you have a number two who can exploit, you know, another bigger bodied guy who can exploit some of those mismatches. You hope if it's the same Marvin Harrison in Houston, that it wasn't Arizona, people are going to be sitting there and going wide. They give up. It's a second round pick. Well, it was the Randy Moss 2006 example, right? He's on the Raiders. He's miserable. And people are wondering if he's washed up, what's going on with him. Patriots ended up getting him for a fourth rounder. And then he goes to the Patriots. He's immediately Randy Moss again. So the difference is what you pointed out. Harrison has been like this the entire time he was in Arizona. There hasn't really been a stretch, like a four game, anything where you're like, oh my God. But yet every, every year in fantasy, he's. Always a sexy pick, but even this year, like people were treating him like at least he was in like the Parker Washington range of like receivers that could be potential Lebanon. So we'll see the CJ Stroud piece. I like to, um, and it feels like Houston must have some sort of inside info that this is a place he wanted to be. Cause that second round pick isn't nothing for somebody who wasn't jumping out of the TV at all when you watch it. But that's also. That also goes into the it's recent enough. It's two years ago. They're like, we had a top 10 grade on the guy. Yeah. Now we can get them for a second and plug them into a position of need. Like I, I understand the reasoning on it. You're just betting the environment's gonna be different. It's, it's wild to think back on that draft because if you, you know, I did, I talked to people league wide and there were three receivers in that draft. If you remember the people had up high and it was Marvin Harrison, it was Roma dunes. And it was Malik neighbors and everybody had them different on the draft. It was Malik neighbors was probably one as the player that people like the most, but like he had what shot himself on bourbon street. And they were like kind of the, you know, what guy are you bringing in? He was the absolute alpha dog in that program. Brian Thomas jr. Was in that draft too. They were teammates. Brian Thomas is like highlight reel was unbelievable. Yeah. But Malik neighbors was the guy who ran the place. Marvin Harrison was, he came with the pedigree obviously in the name, but it was like, is he. As far above and beyond as everybody thought in college, it was like, oh, this guy's obvious. Like Jeremiah Smith, like, oh, obviously he's going to be the number one receiver in the class. And then once people dug into the tape, it was like, there were varying opinions between all three of those guys right now. You'd probably say if the neighbors was the best of the three, but he's just been hurt so much just in terms of that thing to catch with him in the draft though, that people worried about the durability with him was a big piece. Right. And then he got hurt and the other stuff and the yada, yada. Yeah. What's the NFL draft for that and the other stuff. Yeah. The, the off field concerns, but people got comfortable with it because they liked like the football character was really good. It was like, all right, we just got to get our handle on the guy. Roma dunes. He was a great dude was his tape, you know, at that, at that same level. And now, you know, here we are two years later and you're getting traded for a second router. It's funny. You bring up the Randy Moss one, because that was part of, I was on the Packers beat at the green Bay press Gazette at that time. And Randy Moss was part of a string of near misses for the Packers. Ted Thompson was the GM. Just, he, he rarely made trades. He really did anything in free agency. He would occasionally sign a Charles Woodson because he's sitting out there a month after, but like they were in the Randy Moss sweepstakes and Moss on at least some level, like really wanted to go there and play with Favre and it got to, would they offer a fourth rounder? And it was, eh, we're not going to go there. Like we'll go to a fifth. We're not going to go to a fifth. We're not going to go to a fourth. And then he goes to new England and scores 21 touchdowns or whatever it was the following year. And that, that used to drive certain people in green Bay crazy because they were always in these different trade things. They never got them done. And you just wonder, like you go back in time and the history of that, because that ended up being a really good Packers team in oh seven that under different circumstances, it could have been Patriots Packers in that super bowl. You know, they ended up rolling out there with a bunch of young receivers. It worked out well for green Bay too. But they were right on the precipice of doing that deal. The draft pack stuff is interesting. Mike Lombardi has this theory that because of all the NIL stuff and people staying longer in college, that anybody outside the top hundred in a draft, like you'd be able to steal these four, fifth, six rounders, these kinds of wildcard guys that you just didn't know, or you got them a year early. And, but now it's because these guys stayed so long that there's a better kind of grasp on who the top hundred is. So that's why with the second rounder, it's like, it's probably going to be a good pick. You can even see it from the way the draft unfolded, like the guys that are playing from that 26 draft in this year, like the Patriots got somebody then the first round who came in at left tackle and will Campbell got hurt and was lights out. Right. This was, I think it was like the 31st pick or 30th pick. I can't even remember. But I just wonder, like, are we going to, our team's going to start valuing these second rounders more because they're going to understand the draft better than they did. Who knows? Well, last year's draft was definitely like that. I mean, after the top 100, it was a, it was a cliff. And even in the first round, there were far fewer clear first round picks than there had ever been. I'd have to go back to my notes at the time, but I want to say like in an average draft, it's like 20 to 22 guys will actually have legit first round grades for the league. You may not in different rooms, you're playing different schemes. You may not have all of them up there, but okay. If we're grading for the league, it's like 20 to 22 this year, it was like 14 to 16. Like it was a super short list. The 20, 27 draft is actually regarded as a lot better and deeper. It's not just the quarterbacks. It's the whole draft. So to your point, given up a 20, 27 second, like that's, that's gold to Monty Austin Ford of go and try to get another player. And for Casario, you know, whatever you want to call it here of why they do it. You know, I don't say, I don't think it's desperation, but it's definitely like, Hey, we got a window with a really good team and we can do some of these things. Cause Stroud's still on his rookie contract. Like let's go for it. Go for it. And we'll see, you know, they got a win last week to get the one in four Stroud's playing really well. I've been really impressed by him this year. I think he's been excellent. Um, especially in the games Niko has played, you know, there was a little bit of a dip for offense, but like when Niko Collins has been out there now with tank Dell was finally a full participant in practice. Like that's CJ's guy. And you had Marvin Harrison and like, they can be a dangerous offense with a defense that despite how they, you know, they let three, two minute, uh, you know, leads go away. In the first four weeks of the season. That's why they were rolling for why they switched defensive play colors and all that. But they're still super talented. And Willie Anderson is still, you know, potential defensive player of the year. Well, this will be the week last week, hard to say, cause they play the Titans, right? They killed the Titans and they needed the win. Not surprising. But this year, this week you're in London. It's a really good Jags team. And this will be a nice test for them. All right. Next thing in the six pack, I'll say we're at three. Oh, it's our annual weekly chat about Justin Herbert and Jim Harbaugh. and Jim Harbaugh? What's changed? Is there anything? I would say, well, for the fact that they're 0-5 and now you have one game before the bye to try to get something going, or you're going to be 0-6, and it's going to be where do you go from here and how do you approach it? Do you start turning the page? The biggest thing, and I saw your conversation with Sal the other day about Jim Harbaugh. That's definitely something that is talked about within the league. I would just say, I would just say, I don't get any sense. I have no reason to believe that this is going to be like downhill and Jim Harbaugh's gone and they start over in 2027. I'd be shocked if it goes that way because they won games the past two years because they're doing something totally different offensively. The biggest red flag right now is Justin Herbert's playing the worst he ever has. And yeah, you're five weeks in. It's a long season. It's a very different offense, but he's throwing picks that you just wouldn't expect to see. So I know, you know, Harbaugh has made some, you know, he's tweaked up like the schedule and different things that they're doing in practice and trying to make some of those small things, but he can't come in and fix Mike's offense. offense. It has to be McDaniel has to adapt to what they're doing. Like, are they going to try to trade Justin Herbert? Like, no, they're not going to do that. But the real question becomes how much do they say to Mike McDaniel, especially if you get into the buy, like we got to strip it down. We got to make it simpler. We got to reintegrate more of the Greg Roman type stuff. Remember Jim Harbaugh until this year had only had one offensive coordinator in the NFL. It was Greg Roman the whole time in San Francisco. It was Greg Roman the first two years with the chargers. And despite the fact that, especially in the San Francisco days, like Jim had the marker member around his neck at all times and like had the big place. He like, he wasn't calling it. It wasn't like it was his system. It was Greg Roman's offense. So this is the first time in the NFL that Jim Harbaugh doesn't necessarily have a feel for what they're even trying to be offensively. You know, the personnel doesn't quite fit the parts. And it's a lot of Miami guys too. It's not just McDaniel. Like there's some other guys from, you know, that team too. I, I, if I was the common sense coordinator for the chargers and they're like, bill, what do you think? I'd be like, Hey, can we just, what about that year? When her birth, when Herbert threw for 5,100 yards, why don't we run that offense? Seemed pretty good in that one. Maybe that's the offense. Like it's almost like what the Patriots did with Drake may a couple of weeks ago where I was like, man, this guy's really good. What are we doing wrong? All right. We'll do more motion. We're going to reduce his ability to think about stuff. And, and we're going to be more aggressive. Like we're going to try to give him a personality transplant in two weeks. He was a different guy. So how do you make, how do you make Herbert a different guy than what we've seen? I also think he's taken too many hits. Well, there's, there's no doubt about that. And that's been going on forever. Like one of the, the interesting things is the chargers have like, they've made a conscious effort. And I verified this with like one of my medical data people earlier today, like they've made a conscious effort to draft dudes in recent years who are healthy in college. Like if you look at like time missed, these guys were like super durable dudes at the college level, Joe Alt being an example, like just absolutely reliable. All of a sudden the Joe Alts of the world are getting hurt. Yeah. So like, why is that happening? You, you spent at the left tackle, right tackle in terms of left tackle with a pick right tackle. You spend the money you spend on the center of this off season. They're all gone. They're all hurt. So of course the quarterback's going to get the kicked out of him. It's like, why is that happening? I, I would have to imagine they're looking into everything in terms of how they're training. They don't really play in the preseason. It's a pretty light training camp. I know they kind of ramp up in the season. Is there a corollary there? So like they're looking at all that stuff, but to go back to how do you make Justin Herbert different? The biggest thing with Drake may was you'd already seen him in this offense. You knew he could play at that level with Josh, with Mike, there's no proof of concept right now. And as much as you'd like to think, okay, you know, we're gonna, the arrow's gonna be pointing up. Like with Herbert specifically, it's gone down. So you're trying to reinstill some type of confidence, which like when we talked about with Drake, the way you do that in the season is you have some success. You make some good plays. You stop turning the ball over in ridiculous situations. I think you're also seeing Jim Harbaugh trying to do that for the whole team by like, what was it? Fourth and one from his own 40 last week. And you go for it with a seven point lead. You don't get it. And then that flips the entire game. So as much as we see quarterbacks press, may was doing it. Herbert's doing it. Like Jim Harbaugh's pressing right now too. Like everyone's trying to get this thing right. And, and the reality is there was always gonna be a transition phase. It's leaked over into five straight losses. So even those signs of progress, like the fact that now they're using Kamani Vidal more, they're using, um, you know, the other running back more Keaton Mitchell, but they're getting the ball to him in space. Those guys are, they're probably a better fit. It's not enough. They're still losing now these one score games. And I mean, I, you hate to say the season's on the line, cuz the season might already be shot, frankly, for the chargers, but you better get a win this week at Kansas city or else it's gonna be your own six and everybody in the world's gonna be calling your GM saying, you know, let's trade for your entire roster. I have a news flash for you. They're not gonna win in Kansas city this weekend. That's not, they're not happening. They're capable. It's not, their schedule's brutal too. If you look at the charges, I think they faced three teams this year coming off bi-weeks. They have like three early window kickoffs on the east coast. Well, every year, they're gonna lose the first two games losing the first two. It's like, and then Raiders and Cardinals at home. You can't lose those games. Who's the Vikings GM right now. Nolan Teasley came from Seattle. Are we pretend to be Nolan Teasley for a second? Yeah, absolutely. Hey, it's Jim Harbaugh. I'm just calling you out of the blue here. If we did move Justin, could I get three first from you? I'm doing the long pause for dramatic effect, which is exactly what Nolan would do. Okay. I'd have to have to think about that. That's a staff meeting. That's, that's really it. Yeah. I'd have to, I'd have to think about that. There's a lot of things that would go in. First of all, Herbert has no trade clause. You'd have to get his permission to go from LA to Minnesota. That would be an interesting move when he has his famous celebrity LA girlfriend. I don't know how that would be. Does he want to leave that community? I'll just ride this out, but it is like, I wouldn't do it if I was Minnesota, if it was two firsts, I'd definitely have a longer staff meeting about it. But, um, also if you're the Vikings right now and you're winning with your defense and just kind of, let's make this the fourth one in the six pack. If you're the Vikings right now, dot, dot, dot, what do you do? I mean, you're five and oh, you are getting, um, increasingly efficient play from Kyler Murray. Like he played pretty well in new Orleans last week, even though he didn't have new Orleans is terrible though. I mean, they've had so many injuries. They're just, they're like a shell of themselves, but like he's playing, if you look at, you know, the EPA and all that, like it was his, by far his best game, Jefferson's not a hundred percent, no Addison TJ Hawkinson gets a concussion on the second drive. And you don't have your left tackle or your left guard. And he still played pretty well. If I'm Minnesota, like big picture, eventually you want to solidify the quarterback. That's why they took the swing on JJ McCarthy a couple of years ago, but like their most successful seasons have in part been driven by factors that had nothing to do with, oh, we got a young quarterback. And so we can spend on the other positions with Kyler. He's on the minimum deal. When Sam Darnold came, he was on a very cheap deal that alone gave them the flexibility to go out and do it. And like, they've got the best defensive coordinator in Brian Flores who we'll see, but you know, right now it seems like he's going to be there. We can win in different ways. Maybe we don't have to spend, like it would be the exact opposite of how everyone in the league has been where it's you just, you try to draft one, you win for the three years of the rookie contract. And now, oh, we got to pay him $60 million a year. Well, I guess the rest of the team around a business is going to be as good. I I'm not saying that Kevin O'Connell doesn't want to get off this carousel and just stop having to do it and start from scratch and go through the growing pains all the time, but it's not a bad formula for the way that they are. Structured because it gives them, um, those other opportunities. If you bring in Justin Herbert, you're paying them a lot of money. He frankly is in line for a new contract at some point because the market, especially after next off season, when he got Caleb and Jaden Daniels and Drake May and Bo Nix that, and Lamar for a new deal, CJ Stroud, Bryce young, the market's going out way out pace where Justin Herbert's at now. So let's say we got to pay him 60 million a year and give up three first round picks. And oh, by the way, we're also going to continue to kick everyone's ass on defense. We may not need him to go out and score 30 points a game. It's an honest conversation. I think it's different a few years ago, but right now, Kevin runs a pretty similar offense to what Mike does. There've been changes in the blocking scheme because O'Connell comes out of the McVay where like they make more protection checks. Kyle just kind of gives the quarterback answers of like, screw the protection. You're just going to get the ball out to here, but it's, it's a similar vein of offense. If Justin's not a good fit for what McDaniels is, then it's going to be a good fit. I don't know how good of a fit he is for what O'Connell's doing. So they'd really have to do a deep dive and decide if that's the right thing for him. I wouldn't, I wouldn't trade for Herbert right now because I'm really worried, especially when you look at the history. I talked about this a little on Sunday night, the history of these really talented franchise QBs who just get the kicked out of them for a couple of years. Sometimes it you're not the same. Like I, and I, I mentioned this on Sunday night. Like I do feel like this happened in blood. So I thought he really got beaten up in the late nineties and especially the 2000 season. And I just think he just thought he took a lot of hits and then it all culminated with the Mo Lewis hit. But if you're Minnesota, you're 30th and DBOA for offense and you're first in defense and first in special teams. So this is just about as weird of a team as you can, as you could have. And they're, and they've leaned into it. They really have, like there's times where they're just like, we're not going to, we've got a seven point lead. Like this game is over. We're just going to, you know, play conservatively run the football check downs. Like don't make mistake. It's, it's part of the genius of what O'Connell did with Sam Darnold back in 2024, the like revived Darnold was he only asked Sam as good as they were. And that was a better offensive team, but he only asked him to make like four or five above the line throws in a game. Everything was just like simple throws. And I was like, all right, there's a few times we're going to dial something up and you're going to have to make that throw into a tight window. But other than that, we're just giving you easy throws. It's check downs. It's just keep the thing moving. They did it at a, you know, a really high level with Herbert. I'd say it's still, and you're right on the, like the, you know, the getting hit stuff. That does matter. I look at Stafford as kind of the flip side of it, which was, you know how much shit Stafford played through? Like, how many injuries he had early in his career? And they were just an awful team every single season, like, just never in the playoffs. It seemed risky when they traded for him because it was like, was there too much damage already? He's like 30, what was he, 34 years old or something at that point, and he'd had every different injury in the book, but he all of a sudden went to a place where the offense was just so elevated, and the way he and McVay worked together, he was able to put years onto his career. With Herbert, like, I think it's still possible. We've seen him play at a really high level. It's even possible they figure it out in L.A. You know, Matt Ryan wasn't a great fit with Kyle Shanahan in that first year because Kyle took the keys away from him and said, you're going to play my offense, be automatic, throw the ball where it's supposed to go. Matt didn't like it. They still won a bunch of games, which protected this whole conversation from landing there. Year two, they go, and win the Super Bowl. We won't talk about what happened there, but, like, they went to the Super Bowl and Matt Ryan was the MVP. It does take time if you're used to playing one style. I just don't know how patient they're willing to be as opposed to, we were 1-11 games the last two years playing a different style. Let's just go back and do that stuff. Why can't we talk about what happened in the Super Bowl? That's one of my favorite conversations. Patriots were down 28-3. 28-3, Devontae Freeman missed a block. I think the Minnesota thing, they're moving into nobody believes in us zone. I think they're moving into fan base and players where it's like if they're 6-0, 7-0, and people are like, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. I think that's a good thing for them. How much money a year can Flores make as a defensive coordinator? Like, could he be paid as a head coach even though he's a defensive coordinator? Like, he is, right? He's being paid at the lower end head coach market. The top coordinators are making 6-6 plus, and the low end of head coaches are in that same range. That's where he is. Two more six-pack things. Fernanda Mendoza's on the list. He got his first taste of it. I feel like we're closer to Mendoza range than I think people might think. It's like, oh, he's going to sit out of here. Kirk Cousins. It's like, eh. I don't know. After like six, seven games, the Patriots brought Drake May in during his rookie year. It was around week five, and it was like there was a good spot for it, and Brissette wasn't playing well, and it just seemed like, okay, this makes sense. And he ran for his life, but I thought he learned a lot of stuff. I'm not sold on Mendoza just sitting out a year being good for anybody, and I don't mind their team. I know they got their ass kicked last week, but if they have a bad game this week with Cousins against a terrible Bills defense, or he's not great, or like, could we see Mendoza sooner? What are you hearing? The big difference from, and you said it was Brissette was playing bad. Like, Cousins is playing really well. At this stage in his career, he's playing, he knows that offense so well. He's playing at a really high level. He's showing he can still, I mean, you know, he's thrown drift his whole career. He's made $500 million just making that throw, and he's still doing it. And so I think as long as you are in this thing and he's playing well, it's hard to make the move. Where this gets really interesting to me is if any of these teams that has a quarterback issue or an injury. What do you mean? Like, eight teams have quarterbacks. Quarterback issues. But if we're getting closer to these teams that are in the playoff race, especially one of the teams that's like half the league that runs that style, like the Shanahan, McVay, O'Connell, like that blend of offense. If you have an injury, how are you not calling on Kirk Cousins? So give me a top three teams that you could see him seamlessly fitting in. I mean, any of those teams that come out of that, if, again, God forbid, I don't like to predict injuries, but like, Trevor Lawrence goes down in Jacksonville. Oh, you're saying like that. Yeah. Like, we're a good team who lost our QB. Right. I don't think you're trotting Quinn Ewers out there with all respect to Quinn Ewers and saying, you're going to play the next 10 games on a Super Bowl-ready team. You know, something happens to Purdy. They have Mack there. That's why they have him. You know, something happens to Stafford. You know, the Rams were interested in bringing in Cousins as the backup in the offseason. So if you get there, and then if the calculus is for the Raiders, you can get a really high pick. I don't know if it's a first. That's like a third. Might be a second or a third. A third. And if we make round. A quarterback. Yeah. If we make round three becomes a second, like one of those deals. Yeah. Or even goes to a first if we win the Super Bowl. Yeah. And you get offered that as the Raiders, and you're hanging, let's say they're around 500 at the deadline. If you're down Spytek, like, you got to seriously consider it. Because we all know Mendoza's the future. Cousins is on. He's got that weird option thing in his deal. So like, hypothetically, they could try to trade him in March. Like, a cleaner thing to do would be if we get a really good offer now, let's trade him and let's put Mendoza in. Now, only they know in that building how close Mendoza really is to going out and starting. But I don't foresee a benching Kirk Cousins scenario as long as they're in the playoff chase. I believe they ride this thing out. It's not going to be Kurt Warner to Eli Manning and you're five and four and just, ah, we got to play the rookie. I don't think it's that because Clint's a big believer in waiting. But if you had a trade offer that makes. that makes sense and you think Fernando is ready to go, I wouldn't put it past him even if the Raiders are still in the playoff chase just because we all know that's the future. And think about if you get that high pick, what that could do to continue to build the whole thing at a time that. Look at the Raiders roster, the offensive line, the receiver group, certain spots on defense. There's still places they need to add. Get an extra high draft pick. It can help you. When's the trade deadline? November 10th. Oh. Yeah, so we have. We got. We got three, four weeks, right? Four weeks of games. I think the last thing I want to do for the six-pack, which you have in here, but I think we can tweak it. The coaching. There were so many bad coaching things last week. Game management stuff. And it was. Every time we had football, Thursday night, I had the Bulls thing. That was nuts. Like, going forward, up 14 with eight. It was just insane. All the stuff Sunday, you know, culminating in Thursday night, the Dan Quinn, Jaden Daniels disaster. And then Monday, McVay with, honestly, one of the worst coach games I think he's ever had, if not the worst. And I don't understand why coaching is getting. Why game management coaching is getting worse. So what. I know you've probably talked to some people around the league, like, what's happening? It's one of my favorite things to do every week is I follow up with some of the game management coaches for the teams that were not involved and ask them about these decisions. So, like, with the Bulls one, and I wrote about this in the sweep, like, everyone was like, yeah, no. It's not. You do have to have, like, a gut feel, and that stuff does come in. But in that situation, up for. The difference between 14 and 17 is so much greater. It's a. Normally, that would be a clear go. Normally, you know, just first quarter, that's a clear go. But it's about possessions at that point. The odds of them getting. I think there was, like, seven minutes left. The odds of them getting three scoring possessions, in that time, is so much lower than two possessions. It's. Basically, it's not worth it. So that was a case where he went against the analytics. Todd said himself, you know, he got greedy. The Sirianni one was fascinating because it was so similar to the Schottenheimer decision. Yeah. And yet, different because of the timeout that was on the board. And so, you can certainly make the argument that in that spot, you don't run the risk of the kickoff return because there's no timeout. So, that one was like kind of a coin flip. I actually know. I defended him Sunday night. And then, some Eagle fans I know who heard it were like, yeah, you left out the part that half our teams hurt and we had second and third stringers playing special teams. And that's why we gave up, you know, a 55-yard return to. What was his name? Amir Abdullah? Right. Yeah. That's why that happened. And we didn't have our best players out there. So, I don't know. I still. You're giving up a. You're basically putting your faith that your kick return team can prevent a guy from going half the field. Like, I'm still going to make that bet. And all these things are such low percentage chances. You know, like, we all focus on the coaching decision. And as long as it's like within the realm, again, like, what Bulls did was just not within the realm of the game management like what you would do. Right. This was like, it's a coin flip. You can go either way on this one. It's kind of the strategy. But I said this on the Ringer NFL show. At some point, like, how about we make a fucking play? How about don't give up a 55-yard kick return? How about Cowboys defense? Don't give up a 37-yard completion wide open in the middle of the field. Like, make a play. You know, in terms of the. But that's what made the Rams thing so frustrating because they could not stop any pass play by the Rams. And they get to that spot and he turtles for this kicker that nobody trusted. And in the moment, you're going, what are you doing? Just keep. Get closer. I don't trust this guy. And I. It was almost like. McVay's done this before. I think he's, like, really. As great of an offensive mind as he is, I think he's really shaky as a game management guy. This has been a thing his whole career. The special teams has been a thing. And he's cycled through different coordinators and, like, in terms of the investment in that. In those spots. It's not as been at that high of a level. Yeah, the. The running the football. I mean, it was kind of like what John Harbaugh had done earlier in the day where he just keeps running the ball with Cam Scadaboo. But that's because it's. pouring rain, he's trying to get closer. The Rams, it felt like they were just completely comfortable. They weren't running to gain extra yards. They're just running because like, all right, we're just going to run the plays and then kick. What was a 44, 45 yard field goal with Harris? He was dead. I mean, that game was over. They would have gotten 20 more yards. It's not like, you know, rookie Ty Simpson is out there. Like it's Matthew Stafford. You can trust Matthew Stafford to do what Jaden Daniels did it. And like Matthew, we just want like a seven yard out here. It's not there. Throw it out of bounds. You can trust him to make that pass and going for that kick. You'd already missed one earlier in the game. If you go back and you watch the tape, one thing the bills were doing that whole game was they were grabbing on all the kick plays. They were grabbing the offensive line, which was how you create the separation. So sure. You're not supposed to do that. Of course. Yeah. But on that last one, you can kind of see I've been being pulled apart. And all of a sudden, Greg Russo is able to get enough penetration to block the kick. The commander's thing. That was a everyone in the league. That I talked to was just like, it is absolutely incomprehensible how that can happen at every level. It's, you know, Dan Quinn, ultimately it stops with him, right? Because he's the one on the sideline. There's 55 seconds left when they go out of bounds. Yeah. Clock is stopped. You've got time to go. Okay. What are we going to do here? Now, Dan doesn't interfere with his coordinators. He gives them a lot of autonomy. He's also got a first time coordinator in David Blau up there who clearly whether it's because he's newer at this or he's just trying to do a little bit too much, but he calls a run and then the next snap calls for a complete personnel change. They get big personnel. They're motioning. There's 20 seconds, 15. They got a guy in motion back and forth. And then Jaden not having any awareness. It seemed of we have no timeouts, even though one of the offensive linemen said we, yeah, we talked about it in the huddle. There's no timeouts. Like why? You would think you can slide. Like there's, there's clear tags that coordinators put in. So at the end of that play, like one of the common calls is ozone, which means out of bounds or end zone. In other words, don't throw anything in the field of play. We got no timeout. So just, you know, you give the play call and then ozone. All right. Everyone knows what that means. I have to think David Blau gave him that call and somehow he's still running. There's just, it's a complete and total system failure and it, it puts a huge spotlight on Dan Quinn who's next game, by the way, Monday night in San Francisco before a buy, if there were ever a spot where you're like your team better show up for you, not just use the words like Jaden did today, you know, taking responsibility, saying we love DQ, like these guys better show up and play, or, you know, there's going to be some bigger problems than just ending up in the tie. One thing on the Rams really quickly before we go two and three, it's fine. Schedule's pretty easy. Next couple of weeks, home, Arizona at Las Vegas, home chargers at Washington home, Arizona could be seven and three and five weeks, but they don't have room for error now. And they're in a division with, you know, Seattle, who I think has just pissed away a couple of games, but it's clearly really good. And then San Francisco who just has, that just seems like they can pull out any win, but I, you know, this happens sometimes with these super teams, them being two and three, two and three with an old QB Puka, who knows, um, and miles Garrett, no, no idea when he's coming back. Probably a few weeks still. Then missing the playoffs would be one of the great failures in recent NFL history. It really would. Like when you think of all the capital they spent and, you know, even trading Jared verse and, and the picks that gave up for Garrett, like those are like damaging trades. If this doesn't pay off and then. I'm playing all the way through January, much less not making the playoffs. So, holy shit. I mean, the stakes feel like huge right now for them. There's no question they're they're 20, 26 first round picks. They had two of them. They traded one for Trent McDuffie, who was, you know, played well, but like, isn't a complete game changer. He's a really good corner. They use the other one on Ty Simpson, who's currently the third string quarterback doesn't play 20, 27 first belongs to Cleveland, 20, 28, second and 20, 29, third also belong to Cleveland. And the team, the Rams have been the lowest cash spend team over the last five years. Now they're one of the highest, like this is how they operate and keep their cap healthy. Like this was the go for it. This is pushing every chip in their exposure was miles. Garrett's an older player. Stafford's older. Devante Adams is older. You know, Pook is not older, but there's a lot of things, right? There's a lot of questions with, he's been dealing like he looked like he was in pain the other night. Like every time he'd get up off the ground, he's dealing with that groin thing. Yeah. Patrick Jackson gets himself suspended, ended up being one game for punching Bradley Chubb after the game, he still could get suspended over the personal conduct investigation as well. There's just, you're right. That division is so tough. I mean, the 49ers are kind of stringing it together, even though they keep piling up injuries. I'm not counting them out anymore. Like I just feel like the Niners, I don't want to bet against them. I don't want to ever assume they're not going to be a playoff team, but you feel like Niner Seattle, there's going to be one NFCS team. So then the question will be, are there three playoff teams in the NFC north or not? And that's basically who the Rams would be positioned against if they can't turn this record around. They're looking at Detroit, green Bay, Chicago, Minnesota, all of them. And I wouldn't rule out any of those teams. Yeah. All of them probably think they can make the playoffs. You know, Minnesota is already five and oh, Chicago is getting their quarterback this week. So yeah, this is, I mean, the schedule is perfect for them, but you know, at Las Vegas, if you're banged up next week, that's not the easiest. The biggest shock for me is just, I don't think the Rams had been well coached this year. Like the special teams has been horrific. I don't understand what they were doing with John, the way they were defending Josh Allen on Monday night. I thought it was insane. Like why are you letting him run around and do whatever the fuck he wants? Like have you ever watched Josh Allen play? So one thing I'm taking away is you're not going to be able to do this. I am not going to let you do this. Beat me with all the. And they just let him do it. Well, they, and they were trying at times if you, if you watch it, it were like, it would be all right. Here it is. We're spying on him. One guy. And then Josh Allen like makes a, makes a juke. It was right. It was the wrong guy. I mean, maybe you don't, maybe you don't feel like you've got the right, you know, the right personnel to, to be able to go up against him and actually spy him effectively. Yeah. He, I mean, middle of the third quarter, he was like five of 12 for 60 yards with an interception that whole game. The first three quarters were total horseshit. Yeah. 100 yards and penalties, neither offense is playing well. And then the reason I haven't lost faith in the bills, even though they've been bumpy the past three weeks or the Rams is once those two quarterbacks heat up, there's not a whole lot of offenses that are better. Those two guys can single handedly take over a game. And so, yeah, both of them have stuff to clean up and the Rams definitely have put themselves in a hole. But in the end, especially if miles gets actually fully healthy, cause he was not himself in week one, if he's fully healthy. I still think they're super dangerous, Tom pal, Sarah ringer, NFL show tomorrow, the sweep on Saturday. Let's see if we can keep the streak going every, every week. You just throw a fucking grenade out there and get, get the whole 24 hour cycle going. It's been really fun to be a part of it. Great to see you. Thanks man. Appreciate it. This episode is brought to you by PayPal. The holiday rush is coming and you can get ahead of it with PayPal. Shop your favorite online stores with PayPal this season, like eBay for collectibles fanatics, for team gear, Walmart for tech, check out the flexibility to pay now or pay later and split your payments with pay in four with no interest, no late fees shop now with PayPal paying for subject to approval. Learn more at paypal.com/paying for PayPal, Inc NMLS 9 1 0 4 5 7 today's ringer 107 brought to you by FanDuel make this your most rewarding season ever download the FanDuel app to check out all of our 107 picks and boosted teasers. Every week this season, Joe house is here. We make picks every week. Normally we'd go longer. We do some mailbag stuff, but you and I did five hours of content on Tuesday with Zach Lowe on TV. I'm still winded. I'm still tired. We did. We did go. And I took you to a secret smash burger place after that you were like, can I do social media? Can I? I'm like, no, you actually can't. You're not allowed. It wasn't. The only thing I'll reveal is that it wasn't a smash burger place. It is a secret. Don't say no more. And the way you can have it. No, no, no more. You can have the smash burger. You can't say anything else. That's all I said. It's like Fight Club. Yeah, we've had enough quality time. We've had enough quality time. You can't talk about it. That's enough. It was amazing though. Top three burger I've ever had. The highlight of the entire week, of course, which dissected on Ringer Wise guys this week was Dave Chang making his beef stew. I didn't talk about this with you on Sunday night because I wanted to save it for the Ringer Wise guys show. Okay. DeBundo not trying the stew. And Chang had no idea. And then near the end, it's like, you're going to have the stew? He's like, no, no, I already ate. And we thought this was the funniest thing ever that apparently the muffin that he got in the hotel bakery was enough to not try Dave Chang's stew. Dave Chang, one of the most famous chefs in the world, made us two different types of stew. And DeBundo's like, no, I already ate. We could not have gotten more jokes about this. It was so enjoyable. Cousin Sal, who hosted a beautiful live stream for Monday Night Football on Twitch with the guys, called Dave Chang completely out of the blue and described to him, and Dave Chang mother-effed Dibundo right there live on set about seven times. Because I didn't tell Chang. I wanted Sal to break the news to him. But yeah, Chang goes, he's dead to me. But when Chang says that, it's real. Dibundo's actually dead to Chang. That's a Korean template. Yeah, we know with Chang. Speaking of dead to me, there's some teams from last week that are now dead to me, thanks to what they did to me in Ringer 107, including Sean McVay, who I just talked about, Tom Palacero. I'll never forget that. Oh, I didn't have the Rams, and you had the Rams in Ringer 107. I had them in a parlay. Yeah, same difference. But yeah, and we're watching it together, and we're so excited that they're in field goal range. They're going to steal this game, and they're just going to move the ball 20 yards down. Nope. Turtled and did all this stupid stuff. I also got to watch your team blow the game on Sunday. That was really fun. You don't like this slate for week six, and this is the first slate. I've liked in a while, so it's kind of funny that we saw this differently, but I had this is the first time in five weeks that I've had more picks than spots for Ringer 107. Yeah, I'm kind of on the other side. I have a ton of teaser legs. I love the card for teasers. I don't love the card for sides. I'm going to start because it's week six. We do odd even week. I am one game under 500. What are you? Three games under 500 because I went to win three. Everyone's on the edge of their seats waiting for Rams. Wait for our picks when we're not. I'm so due for a good week. Sean McVay can eat a fat dick. Is that who is that who's handing it this week? That's the whole. I just did the whole segment. Sean McVay. Enjoy a fat one. I'm so glad you brought this up because a reader sent me what the trophy should look like. The Stanley cock. Somebody superimpose Sean McVay's face next to that. That's for week five. That's who gets it. Somebody I got to find. I got to give the reader credit for this. It was it was Joshua. A thank you. Thank you, Joshua. What a magnificent Stanley. He had some help, but he made the Stanley cock award for us. So who is it this week? Is it Sean McVay or is it somebody else? Just get it out of the way. It's definitely McVay. Sean McVay. You're the golden boy. Entire media behind you. Everybody thinks you're a great coach and you've won a Super Bowl and you're a super smart guy. Apparently. Why are you so bad at game management? And why do you throw away special teams year after year? And why do you let Josh Allen run around when he's the most dangerous guy in the I thought that we talked about that whole night. It was one of the weirdest coach games of the year. It's like that's on Chris Shula. Like they never went to man. Why wouldn't you go to man? Just just three or four times so you can have somebody watch Josh Allen. The conversion rate on third down because they were like, well, Josh Allen's got the whole field open in front of them. Let's see if he can run. Well, there he goes again. 120 effing yards for Josh. Great job by Josh Allen, by the way. Daniel Ocean from Toronto said you and house need to do an end of NBA season of people invited to the all you can eat a fat dick fest. He thinks it's going to be like, like Tony Wilbon doing Thanksgiving for the turkeys. I don't know if we can get that sponsored, but well, I'll talk to Jeff. Welcome. Okay. I have the first pick ringer 107. I am taking the Dallas Cowboys in Lambeau. Um, I, on Sunday, I took the bears in Lambeau and it was stupid. I couldn't find a fifth pick and I didn't feel good about it. And then I felt terrible about it as they got killed. I'm still not sold on this grim, this green Bay team at all. And I actually think because they look good last week, that's a nice, this is a nice spot for this game. They lost Hargrave, which is not great. They have interesting injuries all over the place. Yeah. 10 days rest for Dallas green Bay's defense. This is before the latest injury on third down, giving up 55%. Dallas is 52% Dax by any metric been one of the three best QBs in the league this year. And I look back at that Packers. They threw the ball. They connected on some deep passes against Chicago's terrible past defense. That's like a five turnovers. That was an everything went right game. I personally don't think the Packers are a playoff team. And I thought Dallas fell asleep at the wheel in that Tampa game. It was just a Sunday after Thursday, after a Sunday weird game, they're playing on for Tampa rookie QB didn't take the game seriously. They were sleepwalking through it. And I think they're going to be really good offensively. I just think this team's a fucking juggernaut offensively. So I am, it's a wagon. It's a wagon offensively. And to your point on the sleepwalking note that they, that Tampa game was their third game in 12 days. Right. And, and coming off of a Brazil trip. So they went to Brazil. They, they came home. They, they, they had a terrific performance against Houston on the road and then short turnaround had the host Tampa QB with not a lot of film, a really stupid Bucky Irving long run that kind of flipped the game. So there, this is Tic Tac zone. They're minus one and a half in green Bay. And I think the Cowboys are a playoff team and I don't think green Bay is, and this is, I'm just, I'm just long-term big picture. This is a game. I think the Cowboys should win. And by the way, green Bay is going to have the brewers in the world series. And I don't think they really, I don't think it really matters that they lose this game. Well, one thing that you're going to be happy about Dallas is getting points. I didn't, you just say that there were, did I have that? I wanted it either way. Did I write that down wrong? Well, I understand you should want it either way, but it's better for them to be getting points. I'm looking at, at Dallas plus one and a half on the fan, those sports book. Okay. But did that change though? I want to make sure. So, because I have them as a teaser leg, potentially they're in my teaser. You know, it's possible. I can't see. And I wrote it down wrong either way. Tic Tac zone. I'm happy to take the plus one and a half Cowboys plus old guy radio Cowboys plus one and a half in green Bay. Sounds wonderful. I will take it minus or plus either way. That's my first pick Cowboys against. I got super close. I got super close and I was like, God damn it. What held you back? Just, just Lambo, just outdoors at Lambo and the concern around, I mean, Dallas is doing stuff like bringing in Mike Pateen. Like they're, they're, they're taking Christian Parker from the field. He's going up to the booth. This guy, Mike, Mike Patton's involved now trying to give some oversight, some insight. And the, the true reason that I moved off of it at the end of the day, I will have Dallas and I'll have Dallas and some teaser legs, but I'm not putting into the one at one Oh seven. I'm not putting into the one at one Oh seven. And I can't. All right. What's your first pick? I am rolling with the dirty birds. I like the Atlanta Falcons getting points at home against the Chicago bears. This line moved a few points because of Caleb Williams. The news reports say that Caleb Williams is going to play quarterback for the Chicago bears. I, that actually helps me with the handicap here. I'm kind of like the idea of a rusty Caleb Williams coming in, but really there isn't. I, I'm kind of like the idea of a rusty Caleb Williams coming in, but really there isn't. at getting pressure we don't know how they're doing it but they are they are doing it and if caleb is at all hesitant to get out and run because you know his first game back post hamstring i like that angle as well so i don't mind grabbing the points with atlanta at home i looked at it long and hard i still might take it all right my second pick i think i picked them every week in ringer 107 except for last week because it was a thursday game and i haven't really enjoyed the fruits of the tampa bay buccaneers yet they're going to be plus two and a half at home against the traveling pittsburgh steelers coming off 10 days rest i like that steelers coming off a really nice win where they're feeling great about themselves i like that and i think the bucks are pretty good the the advanced stats kind of back it up they're 12th and dvoa they have the fifth defense 18th offense they have better dboa than pittsburgh they're home they need the game and i there's a couple extra things with this i just think pittsburgh is always going to be within one win or loss from 500 the entire year i don't think they'll ever be too up i don't think they'll ever be too down i think they'll be four and three four and four maybe they'll be four and five oh we're back up to six and five i just think they're going to be right there but i really like that quarterback as like just random back up who played six years in college and uh i thought he seemed really comfortable they can run the ball i don't mind some of their weapons i think i think there's some energy around this team i don't know what this is going to mean for the baker mayfield extension they just gave out but uh it means the money's gone that's what it means that might be what it means but i don't the steelers secondary has been awful um and i think against aaron rogers on the road it makes sense to me that tampa could could stick it to them a little bit shut down their run go after him make him be 42 year old aaron rogers because he's not going to be good every week right when you're old we know this firsthand it goes up and down depending on the week and i think this would be a crazy spot for pittsburgh wins pittsburgh really going to be foreign too to me it's more likely we haven't heard the last of the nfc south and we're just going to be we're going to be merry-go-round in that top spot and tampa is two and four after this weekend and we're like holy shit tampa's back in this so i'm taking bucks plus two and a half i thought about waiting until sunday and hoping it goes to three but i don't i think it goes the other way i think it ends at one and a half i led with an nfc south team and i'm right here joining you with yet another nfc so you're taking them too i sure am they were sitting right there for me um i like everything that you just observed there are some good numbers in terms of you know todd bowles and aaron rogers haven't faced each other a ton but aaron rogers only one and two against todd bowles but what i really like inside the x's and o's is the um tampa bay buccaneers like to play cover three yeah and aaron rogers historically not a fan of cover three number 31 epa number 30 success rate it's just it's it's not something he's been very ineffective on third down uh this season his completion rate is way down on third down tampa uh pittsburgh not great third down conversions but i i like what we saw out of tampa in terms of some innovation on offense all of a sudden all the weapons came to life against that quarterbacks moving around a little bit making shit happen like pittsburgh pittsburgh's low on receivers too yes because i picked up roman wilson last week he got hurt in the first quarter now jeremy bernard is the new guy that's been coming in but they they basically have a receiver and a half fryer muth fryer muth playing receiver for them they're getting these crazy jaylen warren explosive plays every game that if they continue he's going to end up with one of the great running back seasons of all time and i don't think it's going to continue this week take him out force them into these third and longs go after rogers and take care of business they can get pressure bucks ahoy we did it two and a half of us both taking them yeah well that leads me to well i'll do a tease now um i just want to mention wait i mentioned to you way back when when i'm gambling on football in the mid 90s with my buddy jeff gallo and we had somebody we called the bets in because it was the mid 90s and he had a friend conversation i'm not going to say his full name but his last name was stymonds and i think stymond he either bet with us or i can't remember the details but he would have a good time with us and i think he would have a good time with us and i think he would have a pick every week and we would just be like where the fuck did that come from and and jeff used to this imitation of stymonds calling calling in the pick to us and being like i don't know i just kind of like the chargers plus six and a half so i'm going to start flagging the stymonds picks every week i'm not taking it yet but if this works maybe i'll start i'm listening titans plus six and a half is the stymonds pick who's taking that who wants that who's like you know i really like this week the titans they scored three points out last week and their qb is a bust and both their coaches are getting fired i like the titans and yet like i you can't make the case for them but the should the colts be favored by almost a touchdown over anybody i know that one stuck out to me if that one hits i'm gonna do a stymonds pick next week and make it one of my one of my five um okay my third one this is a pure i have the line in my head different than what the line is for the game okay i feel okay putting this in because it's not a tease or a parlay it's a straight up pick which means by rules i can wade into the london waters oh my god i can't believe this yeah go ahead did win last week but it did take years off uh my life houston's plus two and a half in london against the jags it's a neutral field even though allegedly the jags are the home team and i get the texans are one and four these teams seem dead even to me i think this game whether it should be a pick them or not i don't know but to me like jags jags minus one maybe it's the high highest i'd go jags minus one and a half even seems aggressive the texans basically half to win this game this is a kitchen sink playoff game for them i think they underachieved with you know who they are they're 11th in dboa and they're one and four which is nuts the jags are second in dbo and i'm very good this year and i've picked them a couple times but i i just i like how they played the jet the jags in the past and more it's i like the houston in general i want to keep riding them and i like that i'm getting points if this was a pick them i would take you to the game i would take them to the game i would take you to houston so i'm getting plus two and a half i'm gonna bet on their defense i'm gonna bet on the london game i like their kicker and i think this is a lower scoring like a 19 to 16 kind of ugly there'll be a couple turnovers but i'm betting on the jags by the way are we we are seeing marvin harrison this week right yeah we are he's playing you know he's gonna do something i don't know what to do here because i i'll try and show america this says atlanta houston tampa oh you have houston that's fine am i allowed to do that yeah is america going to be mad that we have two of the same picks well we're probably gonna have the same team too because i i mean i love houston inside the numbers some of the things that you're observing there um they pressure trevor lawrence very effectively trevor lawrence's completion rate against houston is low the familiarity of this houston defense with what trevor lawrence and and that offense for jacksonville wants to do trevor lawrence under pressure his splits are bad and he has a very low uh efficiency rate against this houston um defense but on the other side of the ball cj stroud stroud super try and say that 10 times cj stroud super below the radar it feels like the season and i talked about it in the last segment i think he's been genuinely good this year i agree with like weird weapons and no running game whatsoever and not the best offensive line i think he's i think he's looked great so the thing that jacksonville's good at is take away the run they genuinely do have a good run defense so the f what yeah houston doesn't care about that they'll have woody marks you know oh they're missing david mccarney so what woody marks will run for 50 yards or whatever it doesn't matter they have nico and they have whatever marvin harrison is going to be i think it's a a net positive for this houston offense at least give them some physical stuff maybe you know they'll throw to him a couple times i love yeah the fact that he played with stroud with the car in college i love but yeah i just this is a need game too jacksonville's been there for two weeks there are three games behind jack behind the jack yeah they pulled a win out of their absolute assholes last week against phillips yes right even before what happened at the end like lauren's Washington. on a pretty crazy pass down the side that he had to make an insane 9 out of 10 catch on. But the Jags were dying to blow that game for a while. Sirianni had other ideas. FYI, it was not like that was a good Eagles team. It was basically like Jalen Carter taking them up by himself. It's a pretty good Eagles defense. Jalen Carter was going nuts. The only thing that gives pause on this. Brown went out with a concussion during the game. I don't know. A lot of things went right for them. There's been three other occasions where Jacksonville is on the second of back-to-back in London. They're 3-0 in that context. I think they've covered all three times. The last two, they've blown the doors off the teams that they played. So that would be the concern. It's Houston flying across. But I'm not really cowed by that. It's factored into the very fair plus 2.5. Because I think these teams are super even. The original point you made at the top, this is like a minus one. Pick them would be fine with me. Yeah, it's free. Anytime you're grabbing an extra point beyond where you think it should be, grab it. Okay, tease. I'm glad that you let me do that. Because I was prepared to pivot. But now I don't have to take the Giants. You double piggybacked it. I was going to take the Giants at home. We're keeping track of the piggybacks for the year. Yeah. So, tease time. I hit last week. I'm two and three on teases. You're not good on teases this year, right? I'm three and two. What are you talking about? Yeah. You're not good with your wise wagers. I'm not going to lose anymore the way I lost last week. I'll tell you that much. The Patriots against the Jets is an easy leg for a tease. I know it's chalk. I know whatever. No, it's good. The Pats. Gonzalez is coming back. You look at the injury report for the Pats and you go, oh, no. They're missing Will Campbell. The rookie left tackle came in and was lights out last week. Loma is, he's, he's looks like we're going to be fine on that side. Henderson's out. It's fine. We can, we can patch it together without him, but we really seems like we could get AJ Brown. I didn't factor that into that pick. That's a bonus. Even if he's out there for 2025, I think they've found something with this receiver group. They seem like they've gained trust. Kyle Williams, even somebody like Chisholm. Chisholm. The tight ends. I'm still waiting on the big rared. And I think I was calling him when we were watching the games the other day. I, I just think there's, there's a, there's a breakout game for him and they're playing the Jets. The Jets have a bunch of injuries. Vrabel hates the Jets. And I just, I would be shocked if the Pats didn't win that game by three. Okay. So that's one for the other leg to make this the chalkiest leg that ever existed. I gotta do it. The chiefs. Understand. Three down to two and a half against the chargers who seem like they just want to go home for the season. Mandatory chiefs coming off a buy. That's right. All the numbers, all the end charges looking terrible. Like, yeah, I, they're not going to win by three. So I, I hate doing it. The other one I was looking at long and hard was the under in the Browns Ravens game, which could, you could get basically take that up to 49. I'm glad you did. Don't do a total in the teas. Don't do it. You can. It's legal. I know it's just, I'm just telling you, don't do it. I like what you did. Thought about that. Thought about the Niners against your stupid team as well. But your stupid team is like not terrible. Yep. So they are stupid though. They are stupid. So Pat's down to minus one and a half and chiefs down to minus two and a half. That's my shocker. By the way, I will say this with the teasers, the teasers have had re been really tough the first five weeks in general for a variety of reasons. And I, we're going to have some normalcy for a couple of weeks at some point. We'll be back with some of this. I think so too. I, I, um, lost last week, my teaser, because I put the shit saints into a tease and which was, I was reminded, oh, wait a minute. It took me all the way to week five to remember, don't put shitty teams in teasers and ask for back with a bunch of injuries. Yeah. That's another thing I like about Pat's chiefs. These are two playoff teams at home. Yeah. Going against two teams that are not going to go 500 this year. So, so I, I obviously have the chiefs as well. The chiefs, we know with the extra rest, the chargers coming off of yet another blown, not just an opportunity to win the game, but, but blown cover. Yeah. They keep inventing ways to not cover. So no issue whatsoever. We don't have to discuss the chiefs leg any further. And I'm a thousand percent taking the Niners minus one and a half. Okay. Kidding me from seven and a half down to one and a half. My stupid team is going to fly cross country. If this was at home in Washington. I wouldn't mess with it because you know what, what we saw out of Washington against that Seattle team, you know, they're, they're, they're fighting. Those guys are, are, are, but it's, it's way too much work in progress on both sides of the ball with the new coordinators. Um, the defensive coordinator, especially they went super conservative in the fourth quarter and let the giants, let James come back from 14 points. Just not making adjustments the way that they ought to be making adjustments because they're just not all on the same page. So Niners minus one and a half is the other side of, of, uh, my T's leg. Yeah. Never a bad idea to put some money on Brock Purdy. So you have Brock Purdy in my homes. I have Drake May in my homes feeling good. He, he cooks against base defense and Washington likes base defense. So that, that's another element to this. He's it's a sneaky angle that, uh, our boy Warren sharp pointed it out. I, I, I love it. Uh, I think the Niners are going to cook. All right. So ringer one Oh seven. We both have the bucks. Plus two and a half at home against the Steelers. Yeah. We both have the Texans plus two and a half in London against the Jaguars go wrong. What could go wrong? You have the Falcons. I do. What's that line again? Plus one and a half. They're getting a point and a half at home against the bears. And I have the Cowboys plus one and a half in Lambeau against green Bay. I was taking it at minus one and a half and you reminded me it was actually plus one and a half on FanDuel. So that was great. My T's is doing going down to minus one and a half and Casey down to minus two and a half. Remember if you can wager, uh, in a FanDuel state, you get the minus one, 10 juice for that because we talked FanDuel into that. Uh, that is today's ringer. One Oh seven was brought to you by FanDuel. Download the ad now to find all of our one Oh seven picks like this. Your most rewarding season ever. FanDuel player game odds subject to change. What was the biggest feedback you got from the two part NBA over-unders? Was anybody mad? I don't know. I don't know. Was anybody mad? The only people that were mad were folks that are in the lamello ball hive. They thought I went a tiny bit too far. You called them clowny McFarty pants. I did now. I mean, I just want to be very explicit about this. This is purely basketball driven. I don't know anything about the young man. I wish him well. I hope he has a successful career. it's delicious it's right there it's right outside all i mean it should be because brooklyn has some of the most incredible pizza on planet earth by the way you left yesterday yeah and i started eating healthy the next day it's probably five weeks until thanksgiving yeah no more bread no more dessert you did a great job of eating we there was multiple bagels involved we had sandwiches i turned it on for you cheeseburgers there was stew we did the whole the whole thing it was great it was a good run big big waffle house i will see you next week hopefully uh we do well on our picks and we even share a couple of them great to see you and we'll five and listen to you on uh ringer wise guys the big friday show which has been absolutely spectacular all season uh we're gonna take a break we're gonna come back with cam johnson and my friend tommy alter in studio we go for a while it's a great basketball conversation right after this this episode is brought to you by tiktok when you watch a football game you follow the ball right well there's a video on tiktok where this guy says to watch the players without the ball watch the routes and the action away from the play i'll change how you see the game guess what he's not wrong that's the thing about discovery on tiktok one video can change the way you see the game you can learn something new or see things in a completely different way your next discovery is waiting on tiktok visit tiktok.com slash discover more this episode is brought to you by expedia you know how at the end of the season your team goes to cancun sometimes earlier than expected sometimes after blowing a 3-1 series lead but what if you went to cancun with expedia save up to 30 when you bundle and save you can book the flight or the hotel now then book the rest later in all fairness though hopefully your team doesn't go to cancun one two three cancun or if they do you go with them expedia the one place you go to go places sign in to save savings vary this episode is brought to you by core power protein shakes you know how we always talk about the little things that separate great athletes post-workout recovery is a big factor core power protein shakes help you keep going after your workout with high quality protein to build muscle and electrolytes to help hydrate it's all you need for your recovery one bottle available in 26 and 42 gram protein options to pick what works best for you visit corepower.com to learn more all right so we're recording thursday afternoon cam johnson is here from the denver nuggets tommy alter is here we've worked together for a long time the most mysterious man in show business i forced you to come on i didn't even tell you somewhat somewhat said i'm not sure i'm not sure i'm not sure i'm not sure would you have dressed differently or no no i would want this exact same thing yeah i figured yeah thank you for having us yeah this is great uh we'd always talked about doing something when cam was in town season started next week and you play for my uh adopted western conference team the denver nuggets because my favorite non-seltic is yokich so you've been this is year two with him yeah just give it to me what's it like did you have to get used to the passing and the angles and all that shit like is there like a process yeah you have to get used to the passing and the angles and all that shit like is there like a process yeah you have to get used to it i don't think i think like you look at the passes like the the pass in boulder that he made yeah on the back pass it's not about getting used to that it's about getting used to the flow of playing with somebody like him because you never have before yeah and even if you have a five like that is skilled and can like you you don't nobody does the game like yokish does the game so the figuring out is more of a spacing when to move when to play off all those other things but those surprise passes and stuff are actually kind of the easier ones because like as long as you understand the spacing of the court yeah like you can kind of feel when you're when you yourself are open and he always feels it right he always knows yeah that's the thing he always knows so like he can be looking left actually going left if he and if i'm on the right corner and he catches my man drifting in too far and you can see it because he can survey the court very easily very steadily very very like you know just efficiently without having to be sped up and then he can hold so it's like okay if he's there one more second i'm throwing throws it right corner i'm ready those are the easier ones the more of the learning curve was just like how our offense flows when you have somebody you want the ball in yokich's hands you want the ball in jamal murray's hands and so it's like okay um how can i be as efficient as possible to complement what we have going on and to to continue to raise our our ceiling as an offense and that's where i started to find my groove essentially so how long did it take it was like it was a slow start it felt like by april range well that's the thing you could tell you had it was a slow start and then i felt like i was figuring out i had a little knee injury in december when i come back then you know i think by early mid middish march is when i was like all right like i'm i feel very comfortable in what we're doing right now um and i think it's i think it's going to continue to grow too like i just you know getting the second preseason in and i just feel like i just remember think back to how i felt last year and i feel i feel a lot better about it right now don't you think there's something with we talked about this with like timmy last year yeah there's something with shooters in this offense about how you just can't think like you just have to when you get the ball you just have to get it up and it's what made him so good for them last year was he's just a he's just an assassin like he comes in he doesn't think about it he's like getting five jacks up right away yeah yeah yeah i mean that's just a valuable skill in the nba in general because like anybody technically probably could do it like you could just get the ball and fire it but to do it and be efficient enough to where they keep telling you like yes this is a good behavior continue to do it there's plenty of guys that have that mentality but you don't really see it because the coaches are like okay that's enough you know so for tim especially that's it's a great example because he can do it and he's efficient shot about 40 last year on just those like unconscious just let it fly let it fly guy yeah it's like constant heat check mode even though it's not a heat check he's just coming yeah he's like he does the first possession yeah in the first quarter he just comes in and ripping it and he can do that because he's a professional shooter so like that's part of it that's an nba skill professional shooter not not like anything besides the fact that like this guy whenever the opportunity to shoot presents itself he doesn't need the situation to be going his way or not going he could miss four he could miss five or he could have made the last three or four he's going to shoot it the same well that's like a podcast thing when you talk you don't want to self-edit yourself as you talk because then you start thinking about how you talk tim hardaway comes in it's like boom no it's like just letting it fly it's not a rational confidence because he's a great shooter so it's rational but it is like confidence yeah it is like i don't care what happened i'm coming in and getting these up shireman had that for the celtics last year and you could see it evolving over the course of the playoffs and everybody's afraid to be in fucking mode yeah yeah no but boston was still letting it rip in the playoffs yeah but and they just live and die by the result it's not going well that's when you know they still did it like they played through it and you hear a lot of back and forth about like change your strategy stop shooting so many like this is what they do so the ideal thing is like you know you get you just you let it rip you're struggling struggling then the the the script flips at some point but like they have to like they put that in as their system so much so yeah and i respect it like it it's it it won the title exactly it works the problem is when it's not working you feel like you're in quicksand you can't change it though it's like fuck we're 10 for 48 why are we firing this up when it's not working i think even not forget last year the the when they uh lost the nick series it kills your home crowd there's something that is like particularly fans get super shooting like nine for 40 from three is so what do you think you think that you think at that point do you change or do you continue what you do you still need you still need something else it can't just be the threes you still need either somebody who can create his own shot or be the centrifugal force to create shots for others they have it now tatum and then with brown they had it but i think it just got rocky when tatum got back they never figured out the seesaw with those guys because they didn't have enough time you know he came back he played for 16 games this year and i meant to ask you this i'm just gonna ask you now it feels like preseason matters more this year do you feel that it feels like like teams are playing their guys in their lineups more like the celtics have played you don't you don't agree with this because it feels like the practice time got condensed i do and they're just throwing they're actually like treating these games real yeah it feels like it's part of camp yeah it's um extended practices outside of your training camp that gives you like just another opponent like it's it's more like you we like for example you take us we're figuring a lot out in preseason we're we're at least we're we're trying to execute our scheme we're trying to implement new concepts and then you have new guys too yeah and then for me it's like i'm going to go out there and try to do these the best i can go back to the tape and see how it looks on tape and see like and just see how that process plays itself out well the other problem is every it's not a problem it's a strength too everybody's so fucking deep now i can't believe how deep these rosters are that the clippers they waved cam christie yesterday because they had he had some guarantee coming and it's like that guy's definitely an nba player i don't know if he would have been in their top 10 but everybody's so deep now and it seems like like that this can be a big advantage for the celtics where they can just pick 10 guys every night and rest for and still the 10 you're gonna notice the celtics are gonna get worked into no i have a lot of these But I do think the deeper rosters for this 82-game season with all the. the wear and tear and the injuries like do you feel like there's more running now than there was when you got in the league or you feel like it's the same do you feel like that's harder to play now it depends on who you are for me i don't think it's harder to play but i think it has maybe a but maybe a slightly different physical effect yeah like you can trade some of the some of the ground and pound for cross-country mileage you know there's just a little bit different where wear and tear yeah um maybe the speed of the game is different maybe the sets we run are a little bit different the pace is definitely different the pace is different um the personnel on court is maybe the bigger one like when i got to the league it was definitely mid-change of two traditional bigs but i remember like if you were the four in our phoenix offense my first year like you were kind of playing like on the elbow a little bit you know what i mean and so it's like you had to play there the rookie year yeah me and mikhail bridges were like who's the four this time down the court like looking at each other it was so funny you'd be like i don't want to be there you be there um but you can feel that like it's just you know that's another thing i love is like just going back and seeing which sets worked and then if they worked how many teams adopted it okay mostly adopted and then the defense would catch up um so i think in just all of this like you see a lot more guard guard action now than you did when i when i first got into the league you see a lot more guard guard action meaning pick guard setting guard setting pick for guards it just is it's just our listeners it's chaotic chaotic um it's become such a dominant screening game a dominant pick and roll game a dominant um double pick two picks i would argue it's become a dominant illegal screen game but apparently they're going to fix that this year i think the legal screening is no longer at its peak i think it was at its peak pre my time in the nba i think oh like in 2010s yeah because if i go back and watch those games like they were doing some crazy stuff with the screens i think gradually they've been cracking down on it a little bit more yeah but people are just trying to different ways started there's also the guard big screen i mean you have to do it with yeah guard big screens are really cool because now like these bigs are that's everyone who plays with zion has to do that that's how he gets to the rambi yokich like these guys are really good at it kind of makes sense ball handler yeah it's it's kind of illogical but nobody thought to do it for the first seven years of the week it's very hard to guard too um guard guard actions i'm trying to think who the first one it might have been the clippers used to do with chris paul and jamal sometimes how much of that is also just the pure the guards are bigger i mean you have to have a level of size to do this it's like if you're like this the shea size yeah you have to be six four six five and and strong to set the pick either way or built like jalen brunson where you're just a fire hydrant no because it you don't even have to be able to set the picks yeah you just have to be able to go in there with enough intention and enough kind of pace to make the defense have to react to your presence being there you don't have to be a strong screen setter necessarily so like even if it's a smaller guy like if you get hit hard on the screen they'll fall they'll call like a defensive foul so it's more like um i want to say if i were to just kind of guess here it's kind of maybe based off of matchup hunting yeah you know as matchup hunting and these isos became more prevalent it's like we want to we want to force this matchup we want to force this matchup you're doing it by bringing guards in so then you start to realize maybe okay you bring these guards into the actions and it just causes confusion if you have a guy that wants that doesn't want to switch and you put him in a in a position where he kind of has to or he has to shut like and then and then everybody on the team gets um a lot better at either playing in the short roll or playing off those slip outs and pops then you just create that natural advantage and so everything on offense is just about creating an advantage and then playing off of that and it's so funny watching the old games but i don't know i'm a dork so i'll watch the old games and actually have a good time and the 2008 finals was on this summer because doc made the hall yeah i was watching and uh and it felt this way in the moment but we didn't really know how to crystallize it but we had this awesome small ball lineup and every time they needed to come back he would play the lineup and it was like posey and garnett and alice alan rondo and eddie house basically sometimes pierce would be in there for one of them but and that would be they'd shoot threes they'd spread the floor but that wasn't how you played basketball in 2008 so it always felt like a gimmick but now you watch and you're like why the fuck didn't we do this three-fourths of the game like they can't they can't guard it it's perfect for kg it's like the perfect five so it felt like like when i wrote my basketball book the paperback was 10 and that was the celtic lakers the second finals i felt like everything in basketball changed after that that was like curry comes in the threes change the six foot six power forwards are just gone lineups go smaller yeah and it's like three guards it's guys like you playing the four even though you're not a power forward and then and then centers who could shoot and then it just flips and and now where you are where we are now i'm just lucky yeah like you could have played in any era though i'm but i'm really lucky that like as my upbringing through high school and college the league is like things are shifting the league is like tall shoot tall shoot you just naturally have a lot higher of a chance so like i'm just i'm really fortunate that i landed where i did i'm trying to think of guys like you before this flipped i mean there's plenty they just maybe did like shooting forwards with size well you just might have had to adjust how you approach your approach based on the league i feel like he would have taken shit because it's like well he doesn't post up yeah exactly i'm much more guard yeah yeah i was little growing up right hey sorry what so he doesn't really rebound hey so that's the i was little i was little growing up i was little like i was always the smallest on the court growing up that's why i shot threes i was the smallest play i played up and i was even i was small so you know freshman year high school i'm five eight i'm a point guard i played point guard and then like i was a shooter so i'd play like a combo off guard to shoot yeah all the way until college college was the first time that i ever got put at a three i was one and two only until college and then my fifth year in college was the first time that i had ever been on the lineup as a four and that's just because we had younger guys and we would teach them less and i knew more of our offense so i would just slide to the four in terms of like placeholder on offense because i knew how to execute what we were doing it just made the system a lot easier so i was a shooter so i played like a combo off guard to shoot yeah all the way until college so when i get to the nba and i have pf next to my name it's the funniest thing to like my family members myself because it's just like yeah like it so the rebounding thing well also isn't it i mean i would say you're i would say aaron gordon is like the dream four he's a four for current basketball for current basketball can play in any offense and now the fact that he's as good a shooter as he is makes him actually perfect no matter how you play but it is funny because it's so different and obviously physically you're so different and so it's funny putting you in a position where you are basically having to be like oh you're playing you're playing a similar role to he is when you couldn't really be any more different yeah now you get to be a three yeah legit three it's all the same though it's all the same in today's game maybe in denver it's a little bit different because we like to play aaron in the dunker and you know if it's not aaron like we put spencer in the dunker and we will put like last year it would be bruce in the dunker a lot um so that's the difference but most teams i mean since i got in the league like like i said originally our offense in phoenix felt the four fell a little bit more like a little bit more like an older four but since that year everything has seemed like it doesn't matter if you're the two the three or the four it's really what it's really match up who you'll be guarding you'll be guarding either uh maybe a bigger wing somebody who likes to post up um it could be more of an old-timey traditional four that's just really good that has stood the test of time um so it's really not a lot of those left but offensively what you call you can put anybody in any action well especially your team exactly it's a point guard yeah anybody can be in any so like if you're running screen and rolls if you're running um dho backside handoffs if any of these actions we are all interchangeable so it doesn't matter offensively can young guys just go into that or it takes a while it takes a while it takes a while some guys are talented so talent floats you some guys are smart and they can figure it out and then they let the game you know they're figuring out of the game um kind of buoy them but i think in general it takes it takes a little bit to be it's why it's gonna get to efficiency to get to watch demar because demar is just he's so smart he's so smart and he's such a pro so like watching that adaptation and how he's already we're talking about this the other night like how he's already adapting to something which is very different than what he's had to do in the past and i think that's really important because i think that's what he's had to do the last couple years he scored 25 000 points you know what i love about figure it out like his game is always the same i think basketball is just easy for him a lot of guys but for demar basketball is easy and simple like so give us an example he can just he doesn't get sped up whoever's guarding him he doesn't get sped up and i've had these conversations with him over camp to get his insight like i want to learn how do you score 26 000 points you know i'm pretty far off at this point you know i'm pretty far off at this point you know i'm pretty far off at this point of that. So it's like, I want to get some tricks to get this thing going. And it's just like, you watch him, you guard him, you talk to him. He doesn't get sped up. He understands angles. He understands contact. But like, it's just the flow to his game. You know, he's going to hit you with the between. He's going to hang. You get close to him. He's going to make you pay. He'll bump you. He'll go around. He has neutralizing bumps. He can create space. He's got his spots, too. He got his spots. All the old guys have spots, too. It's almost like it's just like a chill game for him. It's chill. He's 37 now, I think. Like, the game still just looks easy for him. And he can roll off points in a hurry. That's what I was like when I came back and pick up in my late 30s. Did you feel like you figured it out? I actually felt like… Is there like an aha moment? I felt like I was so much smarter. And it was just like I could… I was physically so shot. But mentally, I kind of knew everything that was happening. I was like, man. Isn't it a shame? I wish I could put my brain in my old body. Youth is wasting on you. I mean, seriously. But Chris Paul was like that, too. Watching him on the Clippers. He had like his four things he wanted to do. And he would just do them over. He was like a diner that had like four things on the menu. And he's like, all right. I'm just going to get my jumper and my foul lines. Elbow, right elbow. Yeah. I'm just going to go there. The other team knew he was going to do it. And he would just get it anyway. And then he would run back down with a pissed off look on his face. I was like, yeah, Chris Paul. It's cool. It's cool when you sort of come across young guys who have that already. And you can just… I think A.J. Mitchell has it on Thunder. Yeah. I'm just like, you watched the playoffs last year. I think it's like a little bit of Shea tutelage, too. Yeah. Because he's… I think a big part of his game is that ability to play off of… That's a huge thing. Ability to play off of contact. Like, play off of contact in terms of how to draw it to draw the fouls. And then how to use it to create your space. And when they teeter that fine line and players are able to understand the difference there. Yeah. Offense unlocks. Well, that's… When you play with somebody… You're like a sponge, right? Uh-huh. You're a young guy and you're watching somebody who's really good. It's like Tommy in podcasting while just being in the room with me for four years. Just learning how to do it. I wouldn't say. I wouldn't compare myself to A.J. Mitchell. I'm not there yet. It's like Tommy's like A.J. Mitchell. It's just… He was next to Shea, the MVP, for a couple years. Like, the stuff that he's doing in his games. Learning his moves. He's adding. Yeah. He's constantly adding in what he showed last year versus, you know… It's like, okay, he's definitely working on something. It is funny, though. It's the crazy thing about Joker to me is he… You could watch him every day for ten… The stuff he does is just insane. Like, even… I was going to even ask you about the pass. Like, I called you about this the other day. Did you feel pressure hitting that shot? Because you're like, this is… I have to get in the greatest pass of all time. This is a top three pass of all time. Okay, at the time. So, I've had to answer this… Yeah. …20 times. It's crazy. It's a preseason game one pass. People lost their shit. And it got this much hype. Yeah. Right? Like, I was not surprised by the pass at all. As a matter of fact, I expected it. As crazy as it sounds, I expected it because he looked. And, like, if you see the angle of, like, the baseline with him in the front, like, as soon as he gets the ball and he looks, I slide a little bit more to the corner because I'm like, okay, if a pass is coming, this is the angle that it's going to come from because he can execute any pass. Like I said, like, you just find the windows and the ball will find you. So, you know he saw you, so now you're ready. Yeah, he looked over his shoulder when he caught the ball, then got into his back down. He, like, that's what I said. He can scan the court more efficiently than anybody I've ever seen. And, like, he freezes people. He sees the court. He got the picture. He requires so much attention that, like, okay, you're not going to bring anybody. I can score on this person in front of me. But as soon as dominoes start falling… There was a pass against Chicago the other day, a preseason game last Sunday, where he gets the ball in the pocket. I'm at the top. A.G.'s in the corner. A.G. floods to the rim. He gets the ball. He slowly and very deliberately holds, allows A.G. to cut, allows my guy to crash down on him. I take two steps down towards the, you know, to the corner. Yeah. He knows you're going there. And he just… And those types of, like, plays, it's a small, simple, probably easily looked over play. But he just processes the game differently. He's just, you know, ultra basketball processing chip in there in terms of, like, an ability to keep the ball, to manipulate the ball. It's one thing you see with his rebounding. Like, his hands go overhead, and he can manipulate the ball kind of anywhere. Yeah. These touch shots, like, you combine these skills, and, like, he's pretty unstoppable. So what he just said, so when Bird, his first couple years as coach, was Bill Fitch, and Bill Fitch used to call him Kodak because he would just watch him every day, and he was like, I swear, like, Bird's brain takes pictures of the court as we're playing offense, and the picture tells him where all the guys are, and then as he plays, and then he goes back to where the picture was, and he finds the guy. So his nickname for him was Kodak, but it sounds like what you just said with Jokic. Same thing, exactly. 100%. I think Magic was like that, too. I mean, this is, like, less than six guys in the history of the league that can see shit like that. That's why I love watching him, because I grew up watching Bird and Jokic, you know, same thing. I feel like he can play until he's 45, because it's not like he's going to get slow, but I don't think he will. He can, though. He could, right? I don't see, yeah, I don't see. Because Bird could have, too, but he got hurt. His back went out. I just, Jokic, all of his skills are just, like, they look like they can stand the test of time. It's almost like the quarterback position. Like, I'm sure you're a Bengals fan. I'm sure, like, some of the stuff Burrow does during games is in the vicinity of a Jokic thing. Yeah, yeah. I just, like, I just, the one thing I appreciate about Burrow the most is, like, he's kind of just a relentless competitor, and you can see that out there. And one of the things I've come to respect about him the most is, like, I've never seen him pass blame on anybody or anything. Like, we've had some crazy losses. Yeah. Over the years, and, like, questionable losses, but he never, ever will say, like, put the blame on a receiver. Weird coaching decision, receiver job. A ref. Yeah. There was a game against Baltimore a few years back where, like, it was a two-point conversion to basically win the game. And as he throws, he gets hit in the face, which is an obvious penalty. Doesn't mention anything about it. Just, like, we got to win the game. Like, he kind of is built different, and he just has an ability to win football games. You know why he's a Bengals fan? This is a one-shoot from Pittsburgh? I am. I mean, that's immediately weird. Yeah. It does look like you're trying to sacrifice something. It's extremely weird. Give me two minutes, and it'll make sense. Okay. My dad's from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Yeah. Grew up a Cowboys fan just because on TV. No Carolina team at the time. And then just kind of built a dislike for the Steelers because… Cowboys-Steelers. So when he goes to Pittsburgh for college, still doesn't like the Steelers, but when I'm a kid, they have Cordell Stewart as their quarterback. He kind of likes Cordell Stewart. You know, cheer for the black quarterback. Yeah. Pretty cool. They kind of got… They got rid of Cordell Stewart after a 14-2 year and whatever was going on there. They get rid of him. You know what was going on? The Belichick Patriots. That was what was going on. We kicked his ass. Okay. And we… And I think my dad had a little bit of anger in that move that put some salt back into Steelers for him. And that was it. So he's talking bad about the Steelers now. And at the time, I'm impressionable. I'm a child. Yeah. And so I'm like, I don't like Steelers either. And the Bengals had Chad Johnson. They had just got those jerseys with the bigger tiger stripes on the sleeves. Black and orange. A jersey that says C. Johnson. I want to be a pro athlete one day. Like, that's going to be… I'm literally wearing a pro athlete jersey with my name on it. And Chad is entertaining. So you're in the Pittsburgh area and now you're a Bengals fan. And now I have a Chad Johnson jersey. I'm eight years old because I begged for one for Christmas forever. Yeah. And I got it. And then after that, I just became a diehard Bengals fan. And it's… Actually, unfortunately, it's for the worst. Steelers win two Super Bowls in my time there. And it's just miserable. It causes fights and, you know… Yeah, the Bengals really only had the game when they beat Mahomes. But do you not remember the wild card in 06? Perfect. Montez Perfect. No, that's the wild card in 15. No, that was 16. No, that was 17. No, 16. That was 16. 06, we saw… You just have to remind me because I definitely bet on it. We start up off 14-0. 75-yard bomb to Chris Henry. Rest in peace. Hmm. Kimo Van Ohoffen rolls up on Carson Palmer's knee. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. John Kitna couldn't hold the lead. We were the best team that year. Steelers won the Super Bowl that year. We were out about… 06 in Detroit versus the Seahawks. That would have been us. The NFL and the NBA are very similar in that. There's a lot of what-if injuries. What-ifs. Tons. Because I think we would have won in 08 with the Pats, but that was Brady we lost in eight minutes. You think you guys would have beat the Rams in a neutral stadium? Yeah. I mean, you almost won anyways. That was the weirdest Super Bowl. I think that would have been enough of a… Did you go to that game? Yeah. Yeah. It was terrible. Cup was great. Why do you call it terrible? Terrible's harsh. I just… Have you… Terrible in terms of… By the way, I would feel this this way if the Rams got there this way. I don't like… It's terrible for Tommy because he didn't know any of the players on either team. I don't like the… He didn't like his suite. I don't like my seat. I don't like the… He didn't like the colors of the red shirt. I don't like hometown teams being in it. I think it felt like a normal game. Like, it didn't even feel… It is a little weird. - I agree with Tommy on that one. - It didn't feel like even like a NFC championship game. How many Super Bowls have you been to before that? One or two. Because that was my first, so I didn't have anything to compare it to in terms of actual environment. It's weird. Like, I felt like when they won. It's kind of a weird production, right? Remember they won at the end? Like, it was a good game. Yeah, very good game. Big drive at the end. Yeah, they won at the end. It felt a little bit like if they had won the other night on Monday night. But do you think that's also an LA effect? Yeah, but that Super Bowl at the halftime show, which was one of the best ones ever. It just didn't feel like there were the stakes as if they were randomly playing in Atlanta or New Orleans and all the fans. Anyone who travels to go to a game. I think that's an LA effect too, though. I think that's an LA fan base effect. I also think it was two teams that we didn't have a lot of history with. Yeah. Which sometimes that'll happen. Where you just have these two. I wonder how Pat's Seahawks felt last year. Even though those teams have history, it felt kind of weird. I'll give you a hypothetical. And this would be awesome in certain ways, so I don't think it's a direct comparison. When Dallas gets the Super Bowl, whenever that is. If the Cowboys are in it. It's going to be crazy, but it's also not really going to feel like the Super Bowl. It's going to be like, oh, this is this Dallas crowd. It's not going to be fun for the casual fan. They're going to be like, you're just watching. Well, this has only happened once. Yeah. So I don't know. It could happen this year, though. It could happen this year. It's no one's fault. I just think it was. I wouldn't want to. Wait. Okay, but Tampa Bay won in Tampa, but that was with no crowd? Yeah, that was a no-crowder. Oh, that was a weird game too. Tommy's ideal matchup is. That game sucks. That game sucks. It's Fever Liberty, where he just knows everybody on both sides. I like the Chiefs. I'm going to the Chiefs game this weekend. Yeah, Chiefs. I like the Chiefs Super Bowl. I'm not a Chiefs fan. You're from the NFC. Chiefs AFC, you're from the NFC. I'm Bears, but. Yeah, but they're not making it. But the Chiefs. The Chiefs fans are great. I got to say, Tommy is a legitimate Bears fan. I got to hand that to him. He is. Yeah. I was thinking about that when you were talking about quarterbacks with Case. That guy just rolls off the street and just knows how to play quarterback. Yeah, I was trying to think who the basketball club owner that is. Those guys are so. Those quarterbacks are so. Who is that? They're such studied football players that their brains can float them. Who's the NBA equivalent of the 39-year-old backup? It's Mike Conley, isn't it? Yeah. Beloved Celtic already. You know who reminded me? This is an old one. They're really fucking loved by everybody. He's like. Mike's a great guy. Pritchard's adopted him as his surrogate uncle already. This is an old one, but remember John Salmons? Yeah. Yeah. Guys like that. The guys who are just like pro scorers who you can just put in at any point. Joe Johnson. Joe Johnson's a good one. Just revive, come back, get a couple buckets, go back to retirement. 40 years old, go back. You know what I mean? Boogie a little bit. I thought Cam Thomas could be like that. Maybe there's still time, but there's certain guys that just get hoops. Cam Thomas can get a good bucket in any scenario. That's not. That's never the question. That's why your guy. I still have my Cam Whitmore stock, but I think he's another one who could be like that. Freak athlete. Just get. He can just get buckets. Yeah. Freak athlete. He looks like a football player. Yeah. He looks like he could have been an elite football player. He does some stuff where just drive down the line, boom, rise up above everybody. You know who's kind of like this now? Who? I mean, he's not. He's still sort of in his prime, so he's not full of that yet. I think Norm Powell's like that. I think any team you put. He's going to get a hoop. Any time. Any team you put him on, he'll be good in the bowls. Anywhere he goes. He'll score. He's going to score like 18, 20 points. Because he doesn't need a certain environment to score. He can manufacture. Who was it? Excuse me. Portland. In his Portland stint, he was in the corner a ton. But like, you give him the ball in the corner. It was like on the scout. Yeah. He can score in a variety of ways from that corner. Well, that's why Toronto screwed up. Toronto screwed up with him because they didn't get him the ball. Like, this guy is really good at this. Yeah, they made a dumb trade too. Yeah. He was a beloved clipper. Like, he got. You know, he was on a team with Kawhi and Harden and they were going to him for six-minute stretches. Yeah. Taking over and stuff. We haven't talked about your Bulls team. What about them? I'm out of Bulls. There's some energy. I'm out of Bulls. I've given up on the Bulls. Come on. That's the one. Because doing the show, I can't be a fan of any team. Yeah. It's like douchey. It's still Chicago though. Yeah, but I'm Cubs, Bears, Blackhawks, I guess. You're not Blackhawks. I'm not a Bulls fan. You can name six Blackhawks. I respect the Bulls franchise. He's like Fever, Liberty, Lynx. I can't do it. Like, I want them to win. Like, I want when the. He roots for his friends. If the Nuggets are playing the Bulls, I'm rooting for the Nuggets. Yeah, like, that's just the. That's going to. Like, I root for the Pacers. Tommy's worst case scenario would be a Nuggets-Pelicans finals with you versus Trey Murphy. He would be. I don't think that that's the likely scenario. Given that we're both in the West. I don't think a Western Conference finals is happening. A Western finals. Denver, New York. No, if we had. If it was Denver, Denver-Indy would be tough. I had a tough one with Nick Spurs. Like, I like people on both those teams. That was a tough. It's a win and. You just have to have the mindset I'm going to win. Like, I win no matter what. I just. I want to watch quality hoops. He's happy for everybody. Happy for. He wins. I feel like we say this sometimes, but I really genuinely feel this year that this is the most fun NBA season in a while with all the talent. It seems pretty even, too. I mean, these guys are. Like, Boozer's going to be good right away. Like, Acuff, he's going to have terrible nights, but he's really talented. Your boy, Caleb. He said that draft night. Caleb's ridiculous. He said draft night. He's like, Caleb's going to be a monster. Yeah, Caleb's T-Mac. He's a freak. Yeah, he's a freak. He's 6'10 T-Mac. He's a freak. AJ's. And then AJ has been saying and doing all the right things. That team's going to be fun. I think another, like, big part of it is the fact that the East seems so strong. This is a strong, a super strong East. It's impossible to figure out. We just did our big preview podcast this week, and there's 11 playoff teams, and there's six spots and four playing spots, and somebody's just not going to make the playoffs. Who's your prediction that won't make it? I had Charlotte, but they. I like Charlotte, but they have all these injuries already, so they're going to start out, you know, missing a couple guys, and they could start out, like, 2-8 or something, and I don't know if you can recover if you have a 2-8. Because those teams above them are going to keep widening the gap, and it's just, at a certain point, you're going to be like. There was a Phoenix year this. before you got there. I think it was with Dragic and Isaiah Thomas and those guys. They won 48 games and didn't make it. Yeah, so I think you could see, like, the 11th seed in the East go, like, 44 and 38 and just not make the play-in. I think it's going to be whoever feels themselves being 11 is going to drop it. Because of the tanking rules? I don't know. I just feel like it's most likely. Like, if you feel yourself fighting at 10, I think there's going to be a bigger gap between 10 and 11, and then 7, 8, 9, and 10 are going to be. Jocking for that spot. Where'd you put Toronto? Really tough. I had them for the over. I had them in, like, the 4-6 range. I think it was, like, 46 wins, something like that. That's a lot of good teams out East. They're going to be good, I think. Like, this is a lot of good teams in general, I feel like. And you kind of have to pick and choose. Like you said, a lot of talent. A lot of talent. Yeah, because, like, Detroit won 60 games last year. Their over-under was 47 and a half. So Vegas is saying, coming out of the gate, this team's 12 wins worse. And they have their best three guys back. So it's like, they can't be that much worse, but then you look at everybody else. And those guys are just getting better. Like, Kade's just going to get better. Like, we talked about Atlanta a bunch. I like all the stuff they did. I don't have them as a playoff team. You think they'll be on the outside? I think they're going to be a play-in team, like, 9 or 10 range. And that's a team that. If Florence is good. Washington, I was. I think they. I need to see it. I need to see those two guys play. The question. Orlando. Orlando was the hardest one because they have a new coach. And I didn't like how they were coached last year. And. If they're happier and healthier, why wouldn't they have, like, 48 wins? I had you guys over 50. I just feel like last year, you were like, you're from hell. Okay, Jokic got hurt in December. Yeah, right. You got hurt. In December. Jamal put crazy miles on himself. Gordon got hurt. He missed time. CB. Yeah. Then you lost Watson down the stretch. Everybody got hurt. Yeah, we still managed 54 wins. Yeah. Yeah. And now the conference is probably weaker. I think Bain will be one of those scorers, too. Whether he stays there or somewhere else. Anywhere he goes, I think he will be, like. He's just a guy that, like, it will age well. I agree. Who is. See, this is, like, the generic NBA podcast question. Who was the one when you got in the league that you were like, holy shit, for just covering somebody? Just to guard? Yeah, just for, like. In terms of how difficult they are to guard? Or, like, the cool factor? Just, like, oh, my God. No, like, how good they were. James Harden in Houston. Just trying to figure out his yo-yo shit? Yo-yo shit? I hope that tape gets buried forever. It's probably a November game, maybe. Yeah. So it's early in my career. I just. If I could, like, delete that tape of the first half. Well, don't worry. It's probably on YouTube. It was like. Cut it and clip it. I'll sum it up by saying this. Why were you guarding him, by the way? Just how the game goes. Yeah. Was he hunting you? Maybe. Hunting the rook. It's like, get this. Bring him over. Yeah. I don't remember. I don't really. It's bringing up bad memories. But let's just say, like, the bench is telling you to keep your hands back, keep your hands up, keep your hands out, keep your feet moving, keep your feet still. It's like. Mikael Bridges comes over to me at halftime. I'm pissed. Yeah. He comes over to me at halftime, puts his arm around me, and is like, it's okay, bud. He's like, the coach just wanted me to talk to you. It's okay, bud. But that's why all the players love Harden. Because they've all had to play against him. A lot of respect. Yeah. A ton of respect. We actually know. A ton of respect for James. A ton of respect. I think a crazy NBA what-if. You've definitely talked about it a bunch. is the when CP got hurt in that Warriors series because of how good James was playing and think about James' legacy if that flipped because the Warriors are ready to be had too they were going to beat them they had them on ropes think about CP's legacy and James' legacy if that flipped and they are as good as they looked and they win that series they would but that said they did miss about 75 threes in game 7 happens well that's your live by the three that was the same thing that was the weekend because I went to Celtics Cavs game 7 when LeBron played all 48 it was amazing but we went like 9 for 48 from 3 or something he was unbelievable that day he was great well that was when we talk about when you get when you get smarter when you get older in 2018 he really figured out how to game manage a two and a half hour basketball game where he was basically not getting tired but doing everything and went to like pick his spots and try hard not try hard take over this moment and stay out there it was amazing to watch because they were like banged up you think that's peak LeBron? no I think 2013 is because the physicality aspect? I just think I've never seen anything like 2013 he was so you say Miami late Miami Heat LeBron was better than I think third year Miami Heat was the best second Cleveland St. LeBron yeah I thought I felt like he ascended to a different stratosphere he was shooting that third year he was shooting 60% for like three months the first three months of the season it actually seemed like he was trying to become a 60-40-80 guy and he was also the best defensive swing in the league and that was the year he should have won the defensive player of the year what do you think? I think the game one of the 2017 the one where he scored 2018 I went to that game yeah we both did yeah and then they got swept he got hurt that's the best game I've ever seen where he was just going one on five the JR one he was just going one on five and he was and they should have won and I was like it's a debate it's a real debate we were talking about that Warriors team the other night because I mean you can say it but it was basically just how how they just like they transcended what great basketball looked like the 17th he did the team with KD he coops we were talking about it last night and like if you go back to 2008 you'll see you'll see some things with the game that you can say okay the NBA players are better now at this or the game is different at that the skill is a little different you can go back to 2001 90s so on and so forth 2026 right now if you go back to that 2017 it's not better today those guys are good and so I think as long as basketball goes on you'll go back to like watch those games and the skill level was absurd what those guys are doing Klay's catching fire Steph's catching fire Daryl's catching fire Daryl's catching fire he's doing what he does KD ultimate skill on the Cavs Kyrie's ability to do what he was doing and we're probably not going to have another team like that the difference with the way I think the three best teams I've ever seen that was Kevin Love like these guys are ultra everybody on the court was ultra skilled yeah yeah the 17 Warriors I think are the best team in the last 25 years in my opinion it's fair but it felt watching it it felt unfair which is the only time I remember feeling that way in a while but it was such good that's what I said to him how do you have spacing like this and you have Durant who can get any shot he wants one on one and he stopped us all those guys can like hit the toughest of threes and they're generating easy ones it's funny we did what did we do six pods with Durant during that stretch and the first one he did was midway through the first season where he was just like this is the greatest experience of my life and then we kind of rode the roller coaster over the next two years by the time we did one after the 18 finals it's just so hard to win back to back and you could just see like the weight of I also think people want different challenges at a certain point no question you just become like we know we can do this we've already done it you think so yeah you won two championships I don't think so I don't think everybody does but I think that what's the counter there's other factors than wanting a different challenge yeah there's new challenges that pop up in what you're doing whether it's personal agendas whether it's relationships whether it's disagreements anything like that I think those are the bigger glaring issues that start to I think anybody in a perfect in a contained isolated environment if you could say you're going to continue this team is good enough to continue winning and everything else will be in line I don't think anybody would say no to that well that's what was funny about Curry during that stretch because KD clearly had some I don't know I've talked about this in the pod my theory was always that after they won the first title and KD went toe to toe with LeBron and beat him he was like now we'll get my flowers and then all of it was well you just you went so that's my point so then I guess we can say it's the same thing but like the personal agenda of I want to do it myself for sure I want to be the number one he's like I can't win the way I want to because I already did it here now I have to prove it on my own remember his last year there he got hurt in the finals but it was it got sour before that yeah and then Clay got hurt too so it also just became like it became sort of like this thing is ending either way what we knew is I went to the game when him and Draymond got into it on the court I've been to a lot of basketball games like you know you can tell the difference between oh those guys had a disagreement to like ooh this is bad you can see it and and I don't feel like that was I think that was it from that but they didn't think he was staying and I think it was you know we talk about I think this is why basketball podcasts there's so many of them and it's so much of the topics but it's the most fun sport to talk about the people not knowing anything about what's going on with the people it's like we're all we're all fucking gossipers it really is it's live action reality TV with a lot of athleticism and there's a lot of personalities and a lot of this stuff is visible the interactions between players on court and on the bench it's naked faces are visible processes are visible rumors coming out of here coming out of there transactions like it's very visible very visible reality TV everybody's got their three to seven people in their lives they all talk to different people if anything's unhappy it's gonna come out I was on TV back then with the Clippers with the Blake and Chris and I knew that it wasn't a good situation and I would talk about it on TV and then everyone was mad at me and I was like why are you saying that and it's like cause I know this isn't going great and then after it ended everyone was like yeah it was really tough with blah blah blah but you could see it when you're at the games you can tell when basketball players are on the same page or they're jockeying for stuff and the crazy part is it's kind of a big part of what keeps the NBA the NBA it keeps the entertainment value a lot of the entertainment value is in this sort of thing where player movement and the the like if everybody was kind of like extremely compliant and stuff I think people gravitate towards that entertainment wise where like there's drama and there's storylines like real storylines that come out of the NBA I remember when that shifted cause I had my comedy it was pinned from 01 to 15 had the podcast from 07 to now it shifted around the decision and that was when basketball became a 12 month sport it was the first time the season ended and we were still talking about basketball and I was like oh after the season like the season was still going on and I think the league likes it I think so too it's now it's not a 12 month sport but it's a 10 and a half it's good for it it's good for every team yes I understand the I understand the player frustration though about the gossip and the locker room stuff becoming public in part because just like we all know there have been in the last 5 or 6 years there have been teams where like guys don't get along and they end up winning a championship like you don't you don't have to like all your co-workers for you to be successful in any part of life you don't have to be all getting along at all times so it is there is something frustrating about like any job you have where it's just being like all of a sudden it's public that you don't like the VP of marketing you know what I mean you're just like we can still do the job without us being best friends but then it becomes it's own thing and then it's like the players are they're in question and like why are people even care about this like we don't care about that was the Jalen Jason thing that all the noise from the outside eventually was coming into the inside but it wasn't like that initially I don't think just more noise from the outside yeah it just becomes it just becomes a thing where it ultimately it only matters when it affects the performance if they're like if people aren't speaking and the team is bad then yes that's a thing that you know can be talked about but if the if the on-court performance is good it's sort of like who cares if we don't like hang out you watch the last dance sometimes you need the power of friendship Jordan wasn't friends with any of those dudes he would go that was one of the great things about the last dance all the footage they have of he just hanging out with like the two security guards that he would play cards with those were his friends he wasn't friends with Pippen he was friends with Oakley Rodman was at Vegas the whole time right he had Oakley wasn't even on the team but like that stuff didn't as much as people might have known or heard or seen that stuff it wasn't it didn't get out the same as it does now the thing that it's weird the thing that he dealt with that the last dance went into a little was the the 92-93 the gambling stuff and some of the off-the-court stuff that You know, it definitely, I think, was one of the reasons he probably left. I don't think people would care the same way now. It would be like if people, it was something about LeBron, and that was all people talked, like the Michael Rubin story this week, and people were focused on that, like it was the biggest story that ever happened. There's just more stuff to talk about now. So then these things happen, and it just gets replaced by the next thing six hours later. The only comp to this, because I would say there's nothing to me in the U.S. that's like this, but I think European soccer has a similar thing. Totally. It might even be worse with the gossip stuff. I think the gossip there is worse, because they live for it. They live for it. And that also gets worse too, because they bring in like girlfriends and personal stuff that people here even know to kind of stay away from. They're relentless with it. And media is more cutthroat. The media is more cutthroat, more, yeah. We talked about this, because he just went over to London last month to go to some games, but like I know of a bunch of like super good, best players in the world who just don't want to play in England because of this. They could get paid three times as much money, and they don't want to play in England because you're dealing with the media and the craziness. So they're like, I'd rather hang out in Madrid. Well, think about it. If you're in London, it would be like if all four sports were happening as one sport. Yeah. It's like if football, basketball, baseball, and hockey were all the same sport, and that was all we talked about. All the eyes are there, yeah. Yeah. I talked to, I talked to, one of the Arsenal guys once about like, if we could ever do a pod similar to like what we've done sort of in the NBA. Yeah. And he was like into it, but he basically was like, if the second we lose, not only are they going to kill me, they're going to kill you. They're going to kill anyone. They're going to kill you. Anyone involved in this thing is going to go. So he's just like the upside of like, of like providing behind the scenes is not worth the anger of the fans. If you're doing anything that's going to fuck up like a potential game. And yeah, you know, it's so it's when we started doing that Katie step, that was almost 10 years ago. And now I feel like every basketball player has some sort of platform and there's so much content now. I don't even, it's really hard to cut through with it for more than four hours. And then it gets replaced by the next thing. And then you have all the ex players. They're like, they're like the retired professional wrestlers where it's like Patrick Beverly's saying this about so-and-so. And then it's just, it's who? It's funny. We've been talking about this because Cam just did a thing. Like we put it out like two weeks ago, but he filmed it over the summer in Phoenix. And it's literally like a 14 minute video with like Puff, his brother and these guys. It's just him breaking down shooting. Like it's not a podcast. It's not an interview. It's not a like, it's really not anything, but just almost just like an explanation of like where your elbow should go, all kinds of different shooting things. And it did like, it performed super well from way better. Than any pod we've done has done. And I think a lot of it is because there's really like, the thing has become so oversaturated that it's hard to, it's really hard to break through unless you're trolling, unless you're doing something that is like trying to get controversy. And when you're just doing educational stuff, there is still an appetite for that. And I like that stuff too. Like I, if like, I just think of the, you know, average person out there that maybe doesn't know quite as much of what goes on, but has a, has a, has a taste for basketball and the NBA. It's like, I can provide a little glimpse into like the inner workings of, of how we try to be who we are and play the way we do. And somebody gravitates towards that. Like, I love that stuff. And I, I like the stuff I did in the videos, stuff I I've told that stuff to hundreds of people, anybody, anybody that's willing to listen. If you want to ask me about shooting, if you want to ask me about offense, defense, like this is where my brain is. Most of the time, you know, my basketball is better fundamentally. It's because you guys have way more information. It's all, all like the shot chart stuff, the percentages in the different spots, um, being able to study tendencies, being able to study your own tendencies. I think about it in 40 years together is zero. Yeah. You know, you would have no idea like, Oh, I shouldn't shoot from this part of the circle. Cause I'm shooting 22% from there. I should move down three feet that way. You know what? Some of it also is though, is you guys are more comfortable. Sharing details that you don't treat it. Like it's like super proprietary information. Like I think about, we did a app with a peak or Armstrong off season before this year. So we obviously had this great year, but we did it in like February. And he was like, Tommy getting in early. I'm somebody is there. Meteoric rise from grabbing them right here. That's our guy. So that's his neighbor. That's our guy. That's our guy. But he, uh, dope guy. Amazing. He basically, he basically like yeah, he's LA guy. He was, but he was talking about, about the different changes he's made and the swing and things like that. And I just think in the baseball world, they're not comfortable be like, if they, if they discover something in the cage, they're not going to go talk about it. They're going to be like, I have an edge. The margins are too thin. Yeah. Like I have an edge. I don't feel the need to go game. Yeah. It's like golf. Like golfers are probably not going to say publicly what they're doing. Whereas in basketball, it's a little bit like, I'll tell you, cause I still got to do it. Yeah. I still gotta do it. I'm not sure you can do it. Even if I tell you it. Exactly. That's easy. Kim would really hate my shot. No, I wouldn't. No, you, you would hate it. It's good though. Really? If it goes in, it's fine. I kind of push it up a little, but I ended in the right spot. But it kind of starts here. I don't think you'd like it. If it goes in. If it goes in. Joe came. To the, the, an opposite example of that would be, I remember there was a podcast. I think it was CJ Stroud and Michael Parsons, just kind of chatting on a podcast about offense versus defense. And how it, and then they were kind of building a little offensive versus defensive scenario and just the way they were able to rattle off their off CJ's offensive concepts and who he was putting where and why. And Mike is saying like, okay, I can counter it with this and we're gonna do this. So how are you gonna write like to me, that stuff is so cool. Yeah, that's cool. As watching somebody as somebody who's loved football, played football to hear these guys who are, who have PhDs in their specific areas, like the ultimate these, these football players watch film. They, they, they know football to a tee and to hear them be able to explain it to me is always cool. So like, if I can offer anything like that to somebody who likes basketball, I'm all in. - Yeah. The quarterback position is fun. I mean, that has to be the hardest sports position in all the sports. I would guess. - It is. It has to be. - And athletically you have like the Josh Allen and Lamar outliers, but for the most part, their ability to process is 90% of what matters in that position. And you can either do, and think about like the difference between a starter and a backup. And then the difference between a backup and somebody who's on the outsides practice squad, not 34 strength. - Yeah. - And it's, it's the differences is so even to be a backup, you have to be so good to just be able to go in there and barely manage. - You're one of the 60 best people in the world. - But just to, just to make sure the game doesn't get, just to make sure the game doesn't get out of hand. You have to be like baseline game manager. Like the most simple throws, execution, organization. Like even that is extremely difficult. - You have to study every day, be ready. You're sitting there on the sideline. You don't know if you're going in or not every play. - And they get in and it's just like, don't let the game, don't do anything crazy. Don't let the game get out of hand. - And then the young ones, the young guys, like Mendoza is so lucky to get to watch cousins, like getting to learn this stuff. - I'll be watching him for about one more week. - Yeah, but whatever. - You think so? - I don't think so. - I think, I think he's coming in. - I don't think so. - I think it's, but I think that there's a, - All right, gentleman's bet. - I think there's something nice about just being able to process this stuff and not be thrown in. - Why, yeah, why rush him? - When did Drake, when did Drake start? - Drake was like week five, yeah. - I thought it was later. - It was like week five, week six. No, we did a little earlier 'cause Brissette wasn't playing well and. - But it's like having the, if he had started week one or two and just gotten, and was just completely overwhelmed, it could have thrown off his whole trajectory. - That was this year. We already had, we had, we belatedly had that. - He had already had enough success to know that he could. - But you still, adversity is an interesting thing for great athletes. - It is. - You still have to. - And it's really linear. - Get your teeth kicked in. How do you handle it? Do you pick up your teeth? Are you ready to go? - You think you could have made the NBA? - I don't know. I mean, I look at Luke and Luke is really, really good. Making the NBA is hard. - Youngest brother, which always helps. - Youngest brother, but Luke is super, like Luke is really good and he was a, you know, G league kind of fringe guy that went overseas. And I don't know if he's better than Luke as a basketball player, given that he put so much into football. - Drake's like six, five. - Six, smaller. Yeah. - Yeah. So he would have been a two guard. - But all I know for a fact that as I met him, Luke said, this kid's gonna be a damn good quarterback. He has it. He said that from the beginning, he has it. So it was cool to watch it. And I saw him play in high school. Like it was cool to watch it. - I was psyched when we got him. 'Cause I liked that he could have transferred his, before his last North Carolina year. - If you knew the Mays, you'd know. - Yeah, yeah. And he was, there was no way it was happening. So when we got him, it's like, this guy will always be a Patriot. - 'Cause you gotta know where his priorities lie too. And I think if people really knew him as a person, I think everybody would just, he would be very loved. 'Cause he's as simple, salt of the earth, kind of people, family guy that there is. - Well, that's why those first couple of weeks, the Pats were worried 'cause he lost his confidence, right? And it's like, how do you rebuild this guy? Who's obviously one of the most talented QBs in the league. How do we get him back? So it seems like they got him back. the last two took took two weeks but that happens with that position too cordell was like cordell going back to the steelers like cordell was awesome and then just kind of lost it and sometimes that'll happen this episode is brought to you by searchlight pictures wild horse nine john malkovich and sam rockwell i like those guys star in the sharp-witted comedy thriller from academy award winner martin mcdonough writer director of the banshees of minnesharen and three billboards outside ebbing missouri set in the 1970s filmed on location on easter island malkovich and rockwell play cia agents chris and lee who are caught in a dangerous game of secrets and survival also starring steve buscemi another one of my guys parker posey and tom waits wild horse nine is being hailed by critics as a revitalizing shot of pure entertainment and easily one of the best films of the year don't miss wild horse nine only in theaters november 6th get tickets now this episode is brought to you by weather tech whether it's a pumpkin spice coffee that goes splat in your seat or a weekend tailgate that leaves your trunk full of gear and who knows what you're going to want weather tech in your vehicle whether you call it fall autumn or spooky season whether the mess is your fault the kids the dogs or the weather's fault you're going to want weather tech for american-made floor liners and a cargo liner that laugh in the face of fall weather visit weathertech.com today i had to ask you about the suns when you're here the 21 suns because you show up and you're in the finals yeah but it's a weird finals yeah and it's like this finals now that we don't really know how to process the 20 and 21 finals where they're the these covid seasons and yeah you know people i was going to clipper games because clippers almost made the finals that year um you know people were in masks in the stands you would pull your mask down it was just weird energy but you guys came really close and that the the drew holiday stripping booker and then the play is one of the great plays in nba history but never gets mentioned ever but do you feel like if booker like if he just scores on that play do you think you win the title like did that really come down to one play or what happens i think you can simplify it that much yeah i think it's very rare for the finals to have a single play you can point to five game five and if we win that one we're up three one you're up three two three two yeah like you're you're you're in a much better position there and it was like both teams are so fucking close but the the thing is like um you learn i learned this about playoff basketball this year that made me love that aspect of it where like the margins are super thin and you game plan so your game plan is so detailed sometimes you have clear answers like i felt like our game plan maybe versus the lakers or versus the clippers had a lot more or nuggets like we we had very clear answers the bucks it felt like it was a lot more like how are we going to slow down yannis well how are we going to slow down yannis while trying to keep drew and chris in check yeah and those were tougher questions that was great but the games were so the margins of all of them i can point to two or three plays every game that's like what game four we are up um 85 76 maybe in the fourth and it's like defensive stop but pj tucker offensive rebound kick out conaton dagger three it takes the game from a you know nine point game or whatever to a six point game and yeah 10 minutes left boom it's back like that but imagine a stop and a run out and you're up 11 it's a completely different ball game and those are like killer plays and the strip and um um what was also the one where chris lost it in transition late in game four game was the honest that yannis or is that game six that he lost in transition i don't know one of those he blends in their block on da that was four or six that was big yeah the block lob that was huge the four and six kind of run together but those games were close well the alley-oop choice was insane drew throw like when you actually watch how hard of first of all if it had gone out of bounds or gone off top of the backboard and you get the one where chris fouled him and five and yeah yeah and chris trying to foul so he can't dunk it right it's an and he gets an m1 sequence and then they get the offensive rebound and then in game six yannis just makes all these free throws points 16 for 17 from the line 50 i looked up with two minutes left in the game yeah they have 98 points yeah he has 50 i'm like what happened the next year and and uh dallas yeah but well you guys were talking about the the playoffs but you guys were awesome we won 66 games that's what i said it's the same thing you said averse is going to hit that's what you just said averse is going to hit that's what you just said averse is going to hit that's what happened and that's when it happened if you look at us from my rookie year as like that's my starting point it's super linear for us the year before i got there as a 19 win team monty comes in we go to the bubble um and i'm just saying like i'm i'm just i'm grateful that these are the people that i was surrounded with to start my career like that's that's where that comes in we go to the bubble we're 26 and 39 going to the bubble we are not world beaters but we're a little bit better than the team was last year but we're not world beaters we win eight games rarely can you leave a season not making the playoffs but feeling like you're in momentum 500 and being like yeah because we won eight in a row really removed from the regular season we felt like a new team yeah it's energy like our practices were high energy like our we felt good about ourselves that's so weird your rookie season was the covid but it was all i knew so it's like it wasn't too bad for me i was just like okay whatever cool let's go and so we come back next year you know ricky was great for us rubio we add all so it's like we go 51 and 21 get a 2c that's linear progression make it to the finals you lose it's like okay but look how much we accomplish in a span of two years we come back for a third season we are we start off slow because that finals ended in late july the season picks up normal the next season so it's like a nine week off season so we start a little slow but then we win 20 straight and it's like we got to figure it out we got a good group we got to figure it out take it all the way we kind of control the the the one spot for a very long time we run up and against we we beat new orleans in the first round they're really scrappy 4-2 yeah um you run into dallas dallas obviously has luca and they have a lot of a lot of good players jb jb but we had beat them a lot like if you were to go back and mark through we had beat them a lot of times before that we had beat them all that year we had beat them the previous years we felt good about it we win the first two pretty They come back swinging like they don't go down without a fight. And you have to give them a ton of credit because it's hard. Going home 2-0 to keep your head and to make it 2-2. We come back in game five and beat them again bad at home, 3-2. They win game six. It's like whoever's home wins. I wish it didn't happen that way, and that's how it happened. Game seven, they obliterated us, and it hits you hard because it's like, no, no, no, we were supposed to get back to the finals, and we had made a step, made a step, made a step, and we're in process of finishing that step. It's like, no, no, no, no, no, we were supposed to make the finals. So when game seven happened, and it's like halftime, and we're down 35, you're just like the shock of the same thing I told you. The success is hardly ever perfectly linear, and maybe you see that with certain teams. Detroit's an interesting example of this because how do you follow up a 61 season? Well, the odds have them finishing lower. It's really hard to just perfectly smoothly. The interesting thing about you guys is you probably shouldn't have made it in 21, and you should have made it in 22. You can say that. You can very much say that. Because there's a Patriot season like that too where 97 should have been our best team, but we made it in 96. Here's my counter, though, is you want the window to continue to get there because it's really hard to capture it. Oh, no question. Like, look at the Thunder last year. They were… Arguably better than they were the year before. I just thought 21 should have been the Clippers' year, and 22 should have been your year. No, I disagree. But they won the series without them against the Jazz. But against you guys. They were humming. They were humming, though. Yeah. They were humming. I'm not saying one thing or another, but the team was not like they became a… They still became a good team to take down the number one seed, which was the Jazz. Then the Bucs had, you could argue, that could have been the Nets here. Yeah. Okay, so… It's just weird. Yeah, for sure. Three inches. Katie's foot's three inches back. Well, and then they had the injuries, too. The other thing was, you mentioned earlier, like, those three seasons together were really like three seasons in two years. Yeah. So it's just… I think there's going to be a whole bunch of weird shit that happens when you have that. And then to put a bow on it, we come back in the following season, have a ton of injuries. Yeah. But when I got back from my knee, I felt like we were in a good place. Like, I felt like it was coming back together. Traded. You know who was the big… It's over. Just like that. The big beneficiary of all this was the 22 Warriors because they tossed away the two seasons before. So they were, like, the freshest. Everybody else, it was like carnage. Who did they beat? Teams falling apart. Who did they beat that year? They beat, like, Memphis. They beat Dallas in the Western Finals. Nuggets, maybe? Early. Somebody was hurt, though. Was Murray hurt at that point? Oh, yeah. Murray was out. Yeah. They beat the Nuggets. Yeah, they had the… Then they beat the Grizzlies. It was like the Patriots schedule last year. The Seas part. Nuggets, Grizzlies. And Boston probably wasn't ready. We weren't ready. Yeah, Boston wasn't ready. So it was like… Yeah, but Golden State was really good that whole year, too. So… Yeah, Wiggins was good. great that year. They were good. I'm still mad about that finals, but I'm mad about all the ones we didn't win. But that one especially, like, we just weren't ready. Why are you mad about it? Because we won game one, and I felt like we could have, I think we could have taken game two, and I think we could have ended it. So that's 22. 23 was the loss of the Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals. That one doesn't hurt more? No, because 22, they, I don't think, and I think Tatum would say this if he was here, and you lived through it with those four playoff rounds, I don't think he realized how, those guys, you don't know until you go through it. By the time they got to game six of that 22 finals, Tatum was like fucking zombie. Like, he was completely done. I feel like I can understand your point and the fact that it could be really, really draining. Because, like, that first round that year, he killed Durant. Durant was healthy. He went head-to-head with Durant. He outplayed him and beat him. Did they 4-0 him? Yeah. And then by the time you get. That was the end of Brooklyn. Yeah. By the time you get to round four, and you've been doing it now for a hundred games, and you don't realize what the spotlight and the thing, I don't. But by 24, you're ready. And it's a warrior's machine that had that success. You guys just got, you just got staffed. The staff gave four. We got staffed and honestly, they beat us up. That's what it takes. Yeah. They got super physical. The team wasn't ready for it. But in 24, they were. But you won a finals in 24, so isn't it. It seasoned them for 24. Isn't it? Like, doesn't that make it all fine? Yeah. Yeah. It all worked out. Like, that group, the Jalens, they won. It was a weird one for me, because Steph and Joker are my two favorite, non-Celtics of, like, the last 20 years. Watching Steph in Boston win one. Just, Jokic won in 23. How much do you think, with all the stuff, I've been, we've been talking a lot about the W playoffs this year, too, and this has definitely been the case with them. So much of the stuff is matchup dependent. We're just like, so, for example, the year you guys beat Dallas in the finals a couple years ago, who did Dallas beat? OKC? No, they beat Minnesota. I'm not sure you beat Minnesota. I'm not sure you beat either of those teams. Like, it's just, Dallas was a very. But Minnesota was in the same thing where Edwards had never been through the 2-0. But Dallas was a particularly good. I think they would. I think Boston was the best. Yeah, Boston was the best. I think Boston was the best team that year. Analytically, we were amazing. And, like, that was a no surprise. That was, like, the best. I felt like that was, like, the best team one year. Yeah. The analytics would back it up. And yet, when I was in Dallas for Game 3, and Luka fouled out with five minutes left, and it was like, oh, Kyrie's gonna carry Dallas. I was fucking shitting bricks. It's like, of course, Kyrie's gonna kill us. Like, this is how this has to come full circle. But he didn't. That Boston team was crazy. I remember Game 1. It was a crazy team. With Porzingis off the bench. Porzingis was out. He was out the whole playoff. He comes back, and he hits, like, two threes. That's one of the loudest crowds I've heard, was that. Well, Pritchard's half court shot to end the half was, I think, the loudest I can remember the last however many years. Really good team. Well, the other thing is, and I know you love these guys, but Drew is, like, that's why I, if, I don't know what Portland's game plan is, but if Drew's sitting there for one of these good teams, that's, like, the perfect guy to have on your team. Elevates your ceiling so much. Just doesn't care about his numbers, anything. All he wants to do is, like, how do we win? That's a good example. Like, he's a Hall of Fame player, but he's, like, a, he's, like, one of these vet QBs. Like, anywhere you, anywhere you put him, any team you plug him on, they're gonna be super elevated, just from him just being around. The South African fans love Drew. Huh? Yeah. Because he just didn't, he could take four shots and he was happy. And he was stuck in New Orleans for so long. And it was, like, if he had been, and it's such a, it was such a shit show when he was down there, if he had been somewhere else, like on a, just, 15 other teams. Yeah. Because he was doing this the whole time down there. I remember uh, who was it? The year they got to the, they, they played the, the Warriors. One good AD year. Yeah, they played the Warriors in the playoffs and he had to switch guarding Steph playing KD the whole game. Well, remember he demolished, he demolished Portland. Yeah. And he basically, he was, like, the one guy who could defend any of them. And so they basically, he was, like, a free safety having to guard all three of them at the same time. And you were just, like, this guy defensively is, like, on another planet from everybody else. He's great. Is there a team you're looking at this year that you think is undervalued? Um, that you're just like, wow, I like, I like the guys on this team. Anywhere? Yeah, either conference. Let me think about it. There's always tricky questions to answer. I'll probably stay away from answering a Western conference. Conference team? Yeah, probably a good idea. Just naturally? Um. The funny thing with the league. Maybe Toronto. Yeah, that's what I think. When we did the preview, if they're putting out Murray Boyles and Kawhi and Barnes and Crunch Time, it's a fucking nightmare. And they play hard. I think Kawhi's gonna have a big year. They play hard. And you have Kawhi? He's gonna have a big year. Is it? Like, but East is tough, so. It's always tough with these old guys. The math is against the old guys as they keep getting older. Like, just being able. It's not the regular season as much as, can you do it for nine months? And the nine months favors the young guys. Which is good for, like, a team like San Antonio. You guys gave Indy love. Indy's gonna be good. I think it's Indy or New York for the finals. You put Indy that high? I do. But I'm probably too high. Why are you so high on them? Because they did it. Same. And they. You had Zu. And they added Zu. And I didn't mind the Oubre, just as their ninth or tenth man. A punch. And I think and it just feels like people are sleeping on how how tight that team was offensively and everything. I reasoned so much. They just kind of know who they are. You know him? Are you forced to be friends with him through Tommy? No, he's just a good guy. Easy to be friends with in general. You set them up? No, they did USA. Team USA. Oh, that's right. You know, I was in a lot in practice. I was with Tyrese. That was a good team. It's like, you know how Jokic may seem easy? Tyrese is a different kind, but obviously a much different player, but like it's like I like playing with this guy. That team was him, Mikael, Brunson, Ant, Tyrese. It was like all the Kessler. It was all sort of like the younger, good players. I always think they should do that. I would put this. Nobody agrees with me, but I would have it be like 27 and under for all the for all the American teams. Even Olympic? Yeah. Really? And I would want to have younger guys in there because I think the experience is incredible for them. You think they should make them play whoever's going to play in 28 play in FIBA next summer? No. If you're going to follow his model, then yeah. If you're not going to follow his model, then no. I just think that. I think that. I know what you're saying. I know where you're going. I think that the reason why we continuously either lose in FIBA like that team lost to Germany or have these super close calls in the Olympics and France is only going to be better. Serbia is still going to be really good. It's because it's a brand new team every time. And those other teams are like well with machines. They're like locked in. Like who was it? Valanciunas' team, Lithuania? They smacked them. It was Valanciunas and a bunch of guys who were playing Europe. It's my favorite. They run machine-like offense. These guys have been playing together for a long time. I love it. It's cool as a basketball. You gotta go in 28. Diehard basketball fan. It's the best. It's like such a unique perspective that we're not really privy to in the United States as much where these teams like they approach the game different. And I respect it a lot. One of my things I would do as a GM is I would try to get as many guys as possible from the same country. Because I think they're. This was always I always felt this way with Spain in the late 2000s. I would have tried to get both Gasol and Juan Carlos Navarro. Ricky Rubio. A young Ricky Rubio. I was wondering why Denver never got Bogdanovich. Rudy Fernandez. I agree with you. We saw it in the World Cup this year. He's been playing with Jokic since they were like 12. A big reason why Spain was so good in the World Cup was all those guys play together. They all play together all the time. So they're all locked in versus you're just putting people together. It's like if you were playing with the North Carolina guys that you played with when you were 20. It's a super valid point of NBA roster building. This is a whole other box we can get into is like I would also have an all lefty team. Why? I just think it would fuck. It would really fuck with. It would really fuck with teams because as you know. Your eyes will get crossed on defense. Well you always you're going to have three moments a game where you forget the guys left handed just because you're tired. But if you're all lefty hand then I mean if you're all lefty team and you're guarding them then you wouldn't forget. You're just breaking the other team's braids. He's the all lefty team. There's so many good lefties now. It's like a lefty renaissance. JB is the captain. Who are the three and fours? Just trying to think about like I know the guards. Who's your five? AJ's on it. Well RJ Barrett's on it. RJ Barrett. Who's your five? Oh you got Hartenstein. Isn't he lefty? Hartenstein's lefty. I'm just throwing out like random ish. It'd be funny. You know for the Olympics in 28. The quarter finals. It's four games in a row. I think it's the best basketball day. Of the four years. Especially now that the countries are good. I remember in London going and I was just like I can't believe I'm here for this. Who do you expect to see in the quarter finals? Early prediction. 2026. October 26th. I assume Jokic will be in there. Serbia? US. US. France. France definitely. Spain definitely. Argentina will figure out a way to be in there somehow. If Giannis is still Giannis. Greece has to be taken seriously. Canada. Canada, definitely. Canada should be top three to me. But Canada's like the Buffalo Bills, though. They can't, when they get in the competition. Canada, they just need to lock in. It never works out for them. They have to put in that system where you have to commit now to play through. So they're doing what kind of like you suggested. And then there'll be some wild card. What about like a Slovenia, like a Luka? Yeah, yeah, one of those. It would be great if the Canadians are so mad at the U.S. in general, in life, that if they were like, our goal is to beat them in basketball in the U.S. This is it, we're going to take it from there? As revenge. Especially because we just beat them in hockey. So it'd be like, you guys beat us in hockey, we're going to beat you in basketball. Do you think Webby would care more about beating the U.S. in a gold medal game or winning the title? Title. Probably title. Especially after last year. Yeah, probably title. He's another one that tasted his own blood. You can taste your own blood. But it's like, character arc, development arc. It's good. All the great ones, including Magic, choked in the 84 finals. It was the best thing that ever happened to him. Yeah, and it's why we love the game, it's why we love sports. Because there only can be one person that wins. So that means a lot of other people who were good enough or thought they were, aren't going to do it. So it's like, continue to chase it, continue to chase it, continue to chase it until your time is over. Well, that's why I like the Joker this year. It's only his one title. Yeah, come on. It's one of the 10 best players of all time. Let's buy some stock. How about it? This is it. Any last question for Tommy before we go? No. Let's keep his. What's the most Tommy sentence you've ever heard? The most Tommy sentence I've ever heard? Hey man, we're going to dinner tonight at XYZ Spa. And name five people who you can't believe. I'm like, they're. Yes. And it'll be the. It's with Don Cheadle. Don Cheadle, Steven Castle. Exactly. And Jay-Z. Because there's going to be a randomness to it, but also like a. Like, how did you. Get everybody on the same page? How did you get everybody on the same. I also don't usually know who's coming. I just tell. Just be like, whatever, we're having dinner at this time. Like, tonight. Like, I wanted him to come. I wanted you to come. You guys are busy. But I'm just like, you just throw out a bunch of. Where are you going? Wait, don't. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll talk about it after. Just throw out a bunch of. Just be like, come if you want. And then what happens sometimes, which is unfortunate, is we'll get a table for like five, and then nine people will show up. And you're just like. Oh, so unfortunate. Oh, so. No, it's unfortunate for the restaurant. Oh, so unfortunate. It's like, it's not. That's rude to them to be like, we have a table for this and everyone's got to squeeze in. Do you want to come tonight? It's me, Cooper Hoffman, and Jalen Brunson. He's been to some random. And it's cool. New York is more random than here, for sure. That's actually the reason why. So, like, I'm not a New York City person. I hated New York. That's. Okay. Yes. I don't live in the suburbs of Pittsburgh. Like, I'm not a city guy. It's not in my DNA. He lived on the outskirts. I don't live near there. I wouldn't call it the outskirts because I was very centrally located between my destinations. I lived in Brooklyn, like, close to the Price City, close to the arena. Yeah. I was a little bit removed from the action because I didn't care to be in the action. That's not really me. But, like, as my last season in Brooklyn went on, like, we're going to these places, you know, Tommy bringing. Like, it's fun. And I was like, I kind of like New York, then traded. Boom. Oh, that was it? Yeah. You got an extra. I thought you were getting traded at the deadline. So, you got a reprieve of, like, four months. We had a podcast app that we were doing on the deadline, on the day of the deadline. With Duncan. And it's like. Well, Duncan told me because we were scheduled. Time out. Like, we were scheduled to do. We were sitting next to the phones, like, am I going to have to leave? I was coming up from D.C. and we were scheduled to do it at, like, 5 p.m. or something. And, like, they obviously know each other. So, it was all sort of, like, good to go. And Duncan and I were called. He called me at, like, 12. And I was like, hey, I'm pretty sure Cam's getting traded. We're still taping this episode. And I called him and he was like. Just stay tuned, man. Just keep it on the schedule for now. And if I get traded, we'll change. If he gets traded, we'll still do it. He's just going to be moving the next day. Well, you knew leading to the deadline that that was. You talking about. Yeah. You always. But you don't know. Especially being out in Brooklyn. You don't know what's going to happen or what's not going to happen. I didn't get traded until the summer. I finished the season in Brooklyn. Do you keep track of that stuff or not when you're in the trade rumors? No. I don't get information about it. It's not even try to ignore it. It's almost like I detach. Yeah. Like, when I hear the rumors, you're talking about somebody else, not me. Because so many of them, like, 99% of them don't happen. I've been traded twice, sure. But, like, of all the rumors I've ever heard, it's a lot. So, like, I detach and almost look at it like it's somebody else. And I'm like, oh, okay. And so it becomes reality. Because if I get attached to any of these potential outcomes, like. You start going. You start doing mental gymnastics. Yeah. Oh, I've done that before. He's in an Orlando Redfin checking out condos. Oh, okay. I have done that before. I will admit it. Like, if a rumor pops up, it'd be like, let's say to a random city. Minnesota, Dallas, Portland. I'd be like, what is it? Where would I be in Portland? Okay, let's check the Zillow listings in Portland. But it is funny because when the Phoenix. When they got traded to Brooklyn, that trade had been, like, talked about over the summer. And then there was nothing. There was nothing for, like, four months. Because I remember they were out here right before that happened. And what he was saying before about that season, it was like, oh, we're loaded up. Like, we're. We're getting our mojo back. Yeah, this is a team that can make a run. Then all of a sudden, it's like. That's the reality of the NBA, though. Putting you in that trade was malpractice. Yeah, you can say it one way or another, but it happened. You get KD and you keep Cam Johnson. Would have been the move. I don't know if that would have flown, though. I guess, like, they needed bridges as. No, they put in 10 draft picks or whatever. I don't know, but. I think that's a crazy trade. I think it's. That was the Nets being smart. Yeah, if Brooklyn says. The Nets do get credit for that. If Brooklyn says. Okay, if Phoenix Suns, powers that be, say they want Kevin Durant, period. And the Brooklyn Nets. And Kevin Durant says, I am only going to Phoenix. Yes. And the Brooklyn Nets say they want Mikael Bridges and myself. And the Suns say, no, we're keeping one of them. Like, you're going to put me in the teal, then. I think you played poker at some point with this. And it's like, KD has decided he's coming to Phoenix. And Phoenix has decided, you know. And Brooklyn has decided they're trading him. That was at the deadline, right? Yeah. No, it was like two weeks before the deadline. Or a week before. Oh, I thought it was. What? The trade. It was leading toward the deadline, but it wasn't at the deadline. The trade? Yeah. The trade was on the deadline. Yeah, it was. Oh, but the rumors started. No, the rumors started the summer before. No, the rumors started in the summer. And then they died because nothing ever happened. The rumors started in June. But then when Kai got traded, and everything seemed. It seemed sketchy. Then the rumors. And this was a day before the deadline. Then the rumors shot up. But then it's just like, okay, we've heard the rumors for nine months. How much truth is there to it? And then the trade occurred. If the deadline was at 2 p.m. on the 6th, the trade occurred at 2 a.m. Also, the ownership thing switched over that day. Yeah, it occurred 10 hours before the trade deadline. So it's like all you had to do was survive one more sleep, and you were good. Well, now he has a new identity this year. It's Cam Johnson's expiring contract That is my identity. That's your superhero identity this year. You think you should do Cam or Cameron? For the expiring contract? Cameron Johnson's expiring. Yeah, what do you think? No, I like Cam. I just think I've become Cam Johnson. Like, it's become. Like, that's my name. No, it's the right move. Like, you know. Cameron Johnson sounds like you're trying to get serious and start, like, a company. That's what I said. It's like an auteur. It's like Cameron Crowe. It's like a direct. Cameron is what you do when you're an artist. For what you're doing, Cam's probably better. It's lighter. Do you like the second apron? Do I like the second apron? Yeah. Not really, no. It didn't seem very player-friendly. It's not. I'm not. I could be a lot better versed in the CBA and all those things, and I probably really should have a better dive so I can articulate better opinions. But I know my personal experience and how it shapes how management approaches. It makes it harder to maintain a team. So, if you. If you win, you win. And what happens when you win? Guys look good, and so guys then get paid. But then it becomes difficult because you can't keep them all. So then being good is a way of getting yourself up and out of where you're playing. You know? It's almost like there's a level of being mid. good mid enough that, like, you don't outgrow the salary problems, but you can keep your team. Like, that's how you stay in a spot. But if everybody gets too good or whatever, then, like, it's like. Like New York right now. Yes. And they're going to have some real problems with that. We had it. We won the title, and within a year and a half, Porzingis and Drew are gone. Exactly. That's the way it goes. But that would have happened regardless. You guys had four max. You had four max guys. And some sub-maxes. Yeah. And Pritchard and those guys hadn't even gotten paid yet. Like, at a certain point. In an ideal world, you don't have to get rid of two of your best five guys. That would be my preference. But I've said this on the pod. I feel like franchise guys should get more of a cap discount for the team. I respect that. So, if I have Jokic, I draft Jokic. He wants to be in Denver. I shouldn't have to then be penalized that he's making $60 million a year. It counts as 50 on the sheet. Yeah, or 40. It's two-thirds. Okay, see, that's the. Is that the number you're sticking with? Two-thirds? Whatever. Three-fourths, two-thirds? Like, Curry and the Warriors. And then Curry has to take a discount. I mean, he didn't take a huge discount, but at that point, Curry's been on that team for. No, I really respect that take because it promotes things. I don't know. I would like the fan perspective, too. I think. Like, guys like Curry, guys like Jokic that stick around. If it's the same team. Your Kobe's the same team. team. Booker, it means something. Booker, same thing. It means something, though. Like, to keep those guys around, like, the fan bases rally around them and they become, you know, when you have the teams that. We're going to have that with Cato. When you have the teams, yeah, exactly. You have the teams that shuffle them around a lot. I feel like it's harder, naturally, for the fans to get attached to the team the same. If football has it where the quarterbacks, there's continuity. But football, you're also. And you can push the money ahead and be like, Joe Burrow now has a $480 million deal and it's just the money's nudged. Such creative accounting. You can't really do that in basketball. Football is so creative accounting. Just pay a dollar every year. But then also, football's a different kind of game where, like, you really are fans of the team over the players. And there's less movement of maybe your quarterbacks and your receivers and your running backs. There's just less movement. We have to go because we went way too long. But I had a good time. So did I. What's your first game? 22nd in OKC. Oh! Jesus! Come out swinging. God damn. It's a good open. At OKC? Smoke off the rip. You guys have Christmas games? At Warriors. Late night game. That's a good one. They got some good ones. Yeah, but you know what? That road Christmas game I've had it once in Denver. When you have that, like, 8pm tip-off and it's Christmas. You basically have no Christmas. It's like, it's a weird Christmas because you wake up and you just wait for the game. All day. The best Christmas game is a. The Knicks noon game. If you're a player, I'd actually say it's the 2 o'clock game. 3 o'clock game. It depends on what time zone you're in. Because you can wake up and maybe you can have family in town and have breakfast with the family and like a slower Christmas morning. And then you also have like Christmas dinner. Like, I think it's. We had one versus the Warriors in 22, let's just say. Or 21. Christmas of 21. And it was like super dope. Did Celtics have it? Yeah. Who are they? Phillies, Lakers. Phillies, I know, is here. I can't remember. We're on there, though. Knicks-Spurs was the noon one. That'd be a good one. You know, they put the Knicks first, which I didn't really love because they're the champs, but I do think they've tried to establish it like a Detroit Thanksgiving Lions tradition. Those games are also. The first game is always the Knicks. For whatever reason, in at least the last couple years, those games have always been awesome. Yeah. Like, they're always like, last year. Cleveland. When Kolek brought them back. And then the year before it was San Antonio. Yeah, Kale went off against San Antonio. Like, every year they have, like, some crazy comeback in it. You know what's a cool game now? They did it last year with the Celtics, and I think they're doing it again. It's the Wednesday before Thanksgiving afternoon game, which is on in prime time in Europe. Is that when you got hurt last year? No, it was. I got hurt on the 21st, I think. Oh, you got hurt before Christmas. Or 22nd. I got hurt right before Christmas. Because with the streamers. Back-to-back, 21-22, I got hurt on 22. Oh, no, I got hurt on 23. The streamers like these early afternoon games, because it's prime time in all these different countries, so they put. Well, that's what they're doing. Like, they want to put, like, Wemby on at, like, 2 o'clock on a Saturday. Boston's on in the afternoon before Sixers, Knicks next week. Same thing, because our game last year. Yeah. I like. The NBA's figured out the schedule, and the WNBA has somehow gotten worse at it. It took eight days off before the finals for reasons that are made unclear. There's no sports this week. Scheduling every game against NFL Sunday is not the. Scheduling every game against NFL Sunday is an NBA tip-off. How is that not a game on a Wednesday night? It's an NBA tip-off. Why didn't they go Wednesday, Friday, Monday, and you could have three games before the NBA starts? Where nobody else is competing with you. What the fuck are you doing? Like, this is, like, basic shit. How do you screw this up? And then, the freaking Golden State owner has to intervene, because Atlanta has 3,500 fans for their games, and he's like, this isn't right. It's like, you have no leadership in the league? It's crazy. They don't. We're trying, man. This league, despite itself, is. He wants to be commissioner. You want to be commissioner of the WNBA? I definitely do not want to be commissioner. He's volunteering himself to be commissioner. What I want to do is what I'm doing right now. Didn't Cassie say she's stepping down? Yeah, she's done. That is a tough job. You were navigating a lot of stuff. My number one thing. You're a tough guy. It'll be a generational pivot. My number one move would be controversial. Let's hear it. Caitlin, you're going to play in LA now. Here we go. You're not getting the job. Yeah. LA is going to trade five first-round picks for Caitlin, and that's how we're going to do it. Keep doing the pod. It's going to be your press conference. Your pod is going to be your weekly address. I'll give you the state of address every time. Still doing NFL picks? I'm going to go full WNBA. It's kind of a side job. Come on, man. I'm going to go full 90s stern. I'm just going to be. Controlling everything. Fixing the lottery. Caitlin, you're on LA now. Trading people. Blocking trade. Indiana's fine. They love the team. It's like the White House press secretary is going to have a job for nine days. Get out of here. That's it. That would be fun. Cam Johnson, good luck this season. Thank you, sir. Tommy, good luck with all of your projects and friendships and dinners. Great to see you as always. We'll see you there. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Pellicero and House. Thanks to Cam and Tommy as well. Thanks to Eduardo and Gahal and Chris and Jack and everybody on the Spotify side. I'm going to see you on Sunday night. We're going to be live on Netflix. Me and Sal right after hopefully a rollicking bunch of Week 6 games. We'll see you then. Must be 21 plus and President select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and President D.C. or Wyoming. Give them a problem call 1-800-GAMBLE or 1-800-MY-RESET. Call 888-79-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 877-8 HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York. For Louisiana, call 877-770-7867. Before this, there's this. As you celebrate the game, take a deeper look at its roots. The people grow in the grass, pave in the lots, weld in the goalposts, inspecting every football. The hardworking people that make every Sunday possible. Carhartt is proud to outfit the crews behind the game. Visit carhartt.com slash join the trades to learn more. $10 drinks. $10 for $10 wings. Every Sunday, Monday, and Thursday. Only at Dave & Buster's. Now this is football. Other restrictions may apply. Visit daveandbusters.com for full terms and conditions.