Same Old USMNT? World Cup w/ Rob Stone. Plus LeBron's Next Team & Peterson's Summer League Show w/ Amin Elhassan.

Hey, Rosillo listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything. You can go deep, keep it on the ground, or drop something nobody sees coming. And whether you want to run a flea flicker or the tush push, you need a plan to fit your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you, so they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget. Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. The Ryan Rosillo Show is presented by DraftKings. Saruti and I kick off the show just talking a little bit about U.S. men's soccer. And then we have Anil Hassanar, who we talk to about LeBron's decision. Some more basketball stuff. I actually had a lot of fun with this because you're going a little deeper on that. We've got Lakers, Summer League stories. As you get ready for A.J. vs. Peterson. And Rob Stone, the coolest guy in the South Bay, gives us more perspective on the World Cup, including the U.S., but then moving forward with the final eight teams. And a longer life advice, live in Montana. Winner go home. That's it. The Cup knockout round is now, and DraftKings has you covered for every single match. The DraftKings app is now available in all 50 states and includes all markets, bringing the game straight to your fingertips wherever you are. From Florida to Texas to California, you're in on the excitement at the speed of sports. Follow every knockout round thriller, every penalty shootout, every stoppage time moment that ends a nation's run. Sweat the matches that matter in real time with a seamless experience built for the world's biggest stage. No matter where you're watching, you're always connected and in the game with one app. New DraftKings customers, sign up with the code Ryan. Spend five bucks to get 200 in rewards within 21 days. That's code Ryan, R-Y-E-N. In partnership with DraftKings, the crown is yours. Bet with DK Sportsbook. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER, 1-800-MY-RESET. Connecticut, call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org. On behalf of Boothill Casino in Kansas, bet tax pass-through may apply in Illinois, 21 and over, void in Canada. Event contract trading with DraftKings predictions involves risk of loss. Availability varies. Bet to get bonus bets that expire in seven days. Trade to get $50 in predictions dollars that expire in one year. Issued every seven days via click-to-claim for 21 days. One non-withdrawable reward redeemable. Predictions offer void in New York ends July 19th. Terms at dkng.co/audio. Because of the schedule this week, we didn't get a chance to talk about the U.S. men's national team being eliminated from the World Cup because you did a Monday NBA thing. We'll do some more NBA today on a Thursday, but I just had a couple thoughts that I wanted to talk about. I loved it. I love this run. I love this tournament. I'll keep watching the games, even though the U.S. is eliminated from the entire thing. I'm a sucker for the pageantry, getting to go to the game against now Turkey A in person, even though it was like a last second. Even though the U.S. is eliminated from the entire thing, I'm a sucker for the pageantry, getting to go to the game against now Turkey A in person, even though it was like a last second. Even though it was like a last second. loss for the U.S. men's team. It was just it was more fun than I imagined that I was even going to have. I was glued to the entire thing walking into SoFi before kind of what you would expect that it's just the world stage here. And everyone is paying attention, which is even more so than we have in just the sports that I generally talk about 99% of the time. I know back in the day, it was kind of funny when I first started traveling for college game day for radio, I would go in early just to watch the entire band come out and do whatever routine it was depending on where you were. Maybe it's a sign of what I'm going to be into when I'm older. I don't know because guys kind of laughed like you go in early so you can watch the bands. I was like, yeah, I just think it's this is sick. Especially I think for me growing up in the Northeast and not having anything like that when you're in the South or you're in Big Ten country or in Texas, wherever, wherever college football really matters. And I think college football matters, especially to some of these communities that don't have anything. Else it's obsessive in a way and even though I didn't really care about the outcomes. I just was enamored with all of it. So, you know, I'm waiting around kind of planning my day around when the US men's team is going to play because of these games and how much fun I've had watching it. And when they tied it against Belgium as bad as the first, well, the entire game suck, but, you know, tying it up and I'm like, yeah, I'm excited, you know, sitting there and I'm like, I can't believe I care this much about it. But I'll admit now that it's over. I have a lot of admiration for a fair weather fans for the casuals as the kids call them. Now you get excited. You convince yourself that you care and then you move on. It must be. It must be a lot easier. It's not like me back in the day screaming that Vincent brisbees never had a thousand receiving yards in a season to my buddies and then thinking less of them when they didn't realize that so it's a very stress-free existence and I admire you for it. And, you know, there's always been kind of at least for me and I think this would speak to anybody that played. Like, you know how you are, right? If you played football, if you play basketball, if you played baseball, you always look down on soccer guy and I'd mentioned this before but my turn off to soccer wasn't even really the sport itself. It was just always soccer guy was incredibly fucking annoying to me. I used to kind of observe that I was like, are you do you have a game today? Why are you dressed like that? And there was kind of this elitist like you won't understand. It's like no shit. Like I wouldn't understand a book. I never read. I wouldn't understand. There's there's very few things any of us understand without experiencing it. So there's like a disconnect of okay. All you casuals are watching if you don't really know what's going on. I don't know. I watch it for a few weeks every day. You start to figure some shit out, especially when you watch sports for a living. You start to notice. Things like who's good on the first touch who's bad on the first touch who can win one-on-ones who seems to take good chances in the upper third and who takes pointless chances in the upper third. Who's the guy that never wants to try anything? Then you have the game against Belgium. You're like, so wait a minute. Now, we don't have the ball as much. We can't seem to keep it. This doesn't seem all that good. So I'm sure like if I watched it all the time, I would figure some stuff out. So I think all of us could. Just kind of push back on that like, oh, you'll never understand. It's so complicated. I don't know. It's like it's not that complicated. I just don't watch it that much, but I loved it. I loved starting to understand and sure. I wish there was a little bit more scoring and it does feel like it sucks when one teams down two goals and you're like, this is never like you're just out of it in a way. Some of the other sports. You probably don't feel you're as out of it when it's that kind of score. But here's the thing that I've learned at least on them being eliminated this week is if I were a soccer guy. This is where I have sympathy for soccer guy. If I were a soccer guy and everybody's doing this four-year drive by telling me what's wrong with my sport, I would lose my fucking mind. Can you imagine listening to me do a podcast where basketball only mattered for a handful of games once every four years? And then I got some guy from Good Morning America telling me what's wrong with my sport when he hasn't talked about it for four years. And I'm not even thinking about one specific person from Good Morning America. I was thinking about was Rudy going through some of our least favorite. Soccer drive-by tweets, but I realized that probably make a few enemies or I would alert my enemies that they exist. So we don't need to do that because a couple of my friends and I read the tweets and I'm like Jesus, you could also not say anything. But very few of us to talk for a living can find a way to not say something when something is this significant, but that would suck soccer guy. So I feel you because we are simple. I'm coming to this conclusion more and more every single day you losing the round. Is 16. You can't be any better than any of the teams that also lost in the round of 16. So it's like up. Here we go again. Same old same old and it's not the same and that is my uneducated view of this will bring Cerruti here in a moment. But like Taylor Twelman after the Paraguay game, however is pronouncing their country. It it looked different. It looked different to me like, oh wait, we have guys that can make plays. We have guys that can like win one-on-ones. We have guys that like multiple guys that can score. As opposed to playing defensive and just hoping that your goalkeeper is better than everybody else. So I thought that there was real improvement and I know it's again. It's I just think it's way too simple to go out round of 16. Same old this sucks, you know, see in four years. We never do anything. Maybe it's American arrogance. Maybe it's because we look so good in the group stage that we got our hopes up, which is totally fine. It's totally fine to also be disappointed, but I think it's wrong to then treat it like the quarterback, right? It's kind of like the quarterback who maybe we just don't believe in and they win a playoff game. And then we know they're going to have like two more chances to disappoint us. So we can still feel like we're right. And then we never want to give that quarterback any credit. And look, I've done that with certain quarterbacks that I just I'm like, I don't know. All right, it's cool. They want a wild card game. Like I don't think this guy's the goods but I I find that it's almost like this. I'll end here and then bring Cerruti in. If you're a college football fan, you have a season where your team went nine and three and you're like, eh, and then you'll have another team. The same I'm talking about your same team. Like just imagine if it's like Oklahoma State or something like that. Okay, Oklahoma State your favorite team. They go nine and three in one season. You're like they're not that good and they may go nine and three in another season. You feel entirely different about the season. You just watch because you think the team is totally it's just better. Maybe you beat a rival. A lot of it's schedule II a little bit with the college football stuff, but I refuse to believe that this thing is just the same based on the way this team played despite being eliminated as much as the Belgium game suck. All right, let's bring in Cerruti. who I imagine I don't know. I haven't really talked to you about this. I'm just going to hammer the NBA thing again. I would lose my shit if five NBA games mattered once every four years. And then I had all sorts of people telling me, like, what is what is real and what needs to be done? And it's like, you're not you're not going to have another soccer tweet for like 40 months. And like international soccer is also so much different than club soccer. So even if you did get into like club soccer, you know, it's much more organized. The teams are more balanced. Like the beauty of like the World Cup and the Euros or whatever is that these teams are so flawed. Like they don't they're not able to buy someone in a market to fix the left back situation. Right. They just have to figure it out. And I think that's what's cool. But the game also is way more open. It's kind of more in some ways it's more unpredictable. But yeah, like I I struggle with it because like it's like, hey, all right. You know, we got bounced around 16 again. Right. Success or failure. And you're like you feel like an idiot if you're like, oh, it's kind of. It's a success because it's on our home. It's on our home nation. We had an embarrassing loss and we obviously reached the same round with Greg Berhalter in 2022. And people were like, we got to get him out of here. But I don't know, man. Like in in that group stage in 20, if you compare the two group stages alone. Right. In 2022, we drew Wales 1-1. Wales, not a good team. They had Gareth Bale, but he was older and they're just not that good. 1-1. We had a kind of a miracle draw. 0-0 of England. England was the most passive, weird. They just like didn't do anything. And I know people are going to come at me and say, well, doesn't the U.S. deserve credit for that? I actually don't think we played well in that game either. I think that was just like a weird 0-0 game. And then so we basically needed to go into the Iran game who are, again, are decent, but not great. We should be beating them. And we had to scratch a 1-0 victory just to make it through the group. And then we get, you know, kind of pumped a little bit by Netherlands, who I think is probably equal to what this Belgium team is. So and then you compare it to this. We smashed Paraguay. We looked good against Australia. We played a B team against. Turkey ain't almost still got a point out of that. We smashed Bosnia. Bosnia's not good, but that's fine. And then we have an embarrassing loss on the way out. So, like, I do think that the team was better. I think it is trending in the right direction. But I, you know, like, it's hard for me to argue that, like, hey, yeah, we definitely exceeded expectations and did better in this tournament. Because that obviously sounds stupid. Yeah, I mean, even the Turkey loss, they were the better team, clearly. So they were so much better in the group stage this time around than they were four years ago. So. I just don't. I don't like that. If you've only won this many games, it's kind of like I've always hated the Parcells quote about like you are who you are, what your record says you are. And I'm like, it actually isn't true. It feels like there's no nuance to it. It is. Yeah. It's like Parcells is such a God that we just like repeated all these Parcells isms. Remember, it's like if you get the quarterback wrong in the first round, it sets your franchise back 10 years. You're like 10 years, Bill. 10 years. There's no recovery. And, you know, again, he's such. He's such a legend in his sport. We kept repeating this shit all the time. And then I remember like the first time I pushed back, you know how many times you'll see an NFL team with a 4-1-1 record and you're like, they stink. Like they got lucky on turnovers. Their schedule's been really easy. And there'll be another three and two team. And you're like, that team's way better than that 4-1-1 team. Yeah, you'll see a team. Joe Flacco makes a super run. You're like, did I just see what I just saw? Are we sure that he's any good? What's going on here? You know, crazy stuff happens. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. The one in four years, like there's so many narratives and people are just going to go back in their cave. And I said, it's funny. I'm not going to pick on Portnoy here, but he was like, oh, in four years, don't let me get, you know, I got I got sucked in. Right. In four years, don't let me get sucked in again. It's like, you're probably gonna get sucked in again. This is why it's fun. He's gonna get sucked in. He knows he's gonna get sucked in. Yeah, it's OK. I will say just to your point on like the people that parachute in every four years. And again, I didn't play. So like I'm not claiming that I know the I don't have the answers to the questions, but I don't really try to always answer them. And I certainly don't like proclaim that I'm some expert after watching a couple of group stage games of teams and guys that I've never heard of. But like the drop in and be like our best athletes thing. Like we talked about the 12 minute. It's absolutely insane. Look at Spain's team, dude. It's a bunch of accountants. Like there's just a bunch of random like small dudes who are just like wizards with the ball. OK, now there are some teams. Obviously, Holland is an is a is a freak of nature. I did see a very funny tweet that was like America needs its own version of Holland. It's like if Holland was was American, he'd be like a D2 basketball player. You know, like. That's where that's where he would get funneled into the system. But so that's a dumb one. I think the other thing is now everybody wants to fix the youth set up. Right. Everyone's got to fix youth soccer. It's like you guys don't know. Everyone's arguing about different things. No one's even on the same page because nobody knows. Because if there was an easy answer to this, we've already done it. It would be done. But we just don't we don't have that answer. So I don't know. Every four years we have to bring this up. And I just kind of like roll my eyes. I'll never agree with you guys about the best athletes playing different sports things. I'm sorry. It's just it's. It's a math thing. If there was no American football. Athleticism in soccer, though, is not. It's not the differentiator. It helps. Yeah, but you develop it. This is where I would even push back on Twelman and the whole skills thing. If we're talking about the best athletes not playing soccer because our best athletes are not playing soccer. If they didn't have other options, the best athletes would figure out all the soccer skills. And I'm not even talking about like the six, seven, six, nine guy. You've convinced me there's too many short guys running around. There's a fitness element to this. You don't need to be jacked. You don't need to be in anything like these guys are all, you know, it's kind of funny. I was thinking about this. Soccer kind of reminds me of when I went to UVM. UVM, you didn't really have to worry about it all that much because there wasn't that many bad asses, except for maybe like Sorg, Ruid, or, you know, Martel was so hot that people just didn't even. Then there was Trevor. But there was never, you were never like really that afraid. And in soccer, these guys, fuck with you. They fuck with each other so much because there's really not anybody out there that's going to do anything to you. So you've convinced me on the size thing, right? Wait, wait, let me push back on that, though. Is anybody going to do anything in the NBA? Those guys are like, come on, dude. Those guys, like, that's the hold me back crew. Like, everybody in the NBA is like yelling at someone as soon as somebody has their arms around you. Then they want to be the top guy. Well, nobody really wants to do it and get fined and lose game money and all that kind of stuff because there's so much money. But they. There's certain teams, too. Like, there's certain countries I will now dislike forever based on the way they handled themselves. Especially when they're down and the game is over. And now it's just 20 minutes of we're going to fuck with you and, like, get our money's worth on the way out of here. And, again, I don't know that I was vacationing to some of these places anyway. I'm sorry. Without Messi, Argentina is not a very likable team. They're just not. There's a few of them. I'll hand up. I'll be the first one to admit that. I thought Turkey was a little spicy there. That was weird, though, because they were. I mean, that was, like. They were already eliminated and that was, like, their Super Bowl. It's like, why don't you guys just pick now to start trying? Cool. That's fun. Yeah. I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree on that one. And I'm not talking about. You've convinced me again of this. I'm not talking about, like, some D-end. Okay. I'm running around. If Javon Purse just plays soccer. Yeah. Yeah, right. You've got me there. All right? But I still think Westbrook would have figured it out if Westbrook was like, I like soccer and I don't have all these other options. I'm never going to agree with anyone on that kind of thing. And then when people bring up, like, the U.S. women's team, it's like, well, they don't have American football as an option. They're also incredibly. It's an incredibly resourced group in comparison to who they're competing against. We should be comparing it to how U.S. women is compared. Right, and the world is caught up to them. Like, really. They've had. They had a disappointing World Cup, obviously. I mean, they had, like, a. I mean, you know, I'm not trying to, like, get into this a little bit. But, like, there's a very big argument that, like, Title IX was huge 30 years ago. Like, that. That really gave them a leg up on the rest of the world. And the rest of the world is actually kind of caught up to the U.S. women. Not that they're not awesome still, but it's just. It's more competitive. But think about that. There's, like, a good parallel, too. Now we're just talking about international sports here. But, you know, when the Dream Team was put together in basketball in 92, because we were just so sick of being embarrassed, it was brutal. You know? It was like an NBA team playing high school teams. And when you're starting from such a low point for everywhere. Like, the pace with which you're able to kind of become competitive, even if the overall talent is still, I think, heavily favors the United States for basketball, when you're at 90 and the other place is starting at zero, like, it's much easier to get closer to you than it is for you to maintain any kind of that gap, which speaks to your U.S. women's team thing. But, look, I love this tournament, and I think I love it more and more every time it rolls around. And I think that's the best part of the sport. And, like, the. The confusing thing of, like, oh, you guys have never figured out. American football is way harder to figure out than soccer. I still. I've been watching the NFL or college football. There's still stuff. I'm like, I mean, heaven forbid you say something about an offensive lineman, and then Jeff Schwartz is going to be on your ass in five minutes. You know? We don't. Well, that's like. Very few of us actually know what the read is. So, you could talk about, like, oh, soccer, you guys will never figure it out. I'm like, I don't know. If I watched it for a year, like, nonstop, I think I. I may not have, like, the ultimate of. Kind of like the basketball thing, where it's like, hey, that guy scored 25 points. He must be really good. And you're like, actually, no. He isn't good. He's not good for winning. I may not get to that point unless I was watching it my entire lifetime. But I don't know. That's like the offside. I feel like my soccer acumen. What's that? Like the offside thing, where people are like, well, why should a toe over this line dictate whether a goal is good or not? It's like, you realize we do that in football with, like, the end zone and the sidelines, right? Like, this is not different. Like, it's the same. Like, there's got to be a line somewhere. It just sucks that it's closed, though. Yeah, I don't know. know the toe thing i'm not getting on that one either he's probably not super pumped about about where the line was drawn i don't know like his foot's on the line i mean kevin duran i'm not saying it's apples to apples but like you got to draw a line somewhere so like i don't what what does it matter where the line is if it's behind the guy we're going to be arguing about the offsides calls no matter if it's if it's at the front of the body or the back of the body there's a line somewhere that's it it should be like the beyond the line of scrimmage throw where you're still allowed to throw it if any part of your body is at the line of scrimmage but there's still a line yeah so what i'm saying we are arguing about it offside should be you have to be completely clear of of someone's body of right okay so if you're even or your arm is out in front of them none of that should ever be offside especially when it's so hard to score in this sport i don't think that changes one single thing though because again you're not going to be able to throw it if any part of your body is at the line of scrimmage we're just going to be drawing the line in a different spot and dudes are going to be arguing on x twitter and wherever about the same about just a line that's two feet in front of it instead of two feet behind it's the same thing it's as someone who cares about it once every four years it would matter to me that's you're right that's your prerogative i really like that you i'm happy you enjoyed it it's been an awesome tournament um i hope people keep watching the sport uh you know i've had a lot of people feel like hey what team should i root for so i don't know i don't like to make those decisions because it's kind of personal but it's fun man it's really you know me it takes a lot they promise big rewards and then it's like you actually have to eat 50 sandwiches to get one free one i don't want to do that but here's the thing the shell fuel rewards program is actually super practical you're already getting gas you're already grabbing takeout you're already buying snacks you definitely don't need but you absolutely deserve with shell fuel rewards you just get rewarded for that and not in a fake point you're never going to use way savings on gas and the savings stack so it's not like one sad little discount it's you fill up you eat you shop and it all piles up in a real savings at the pump joining takes less than three minutes in the shell app i did it the other day i was like look at me what a great partner yeah i got the app that's real and you're gonna save on every fill after that along with me literally every single one join the shell fuel rewards program and save good friend and a guy i love working with amin al-hassan joins the show we're going to talk some hoops you can check them out on nba radio which is where i catch them all the time basketball illuminati and cinephobe which uh i don't know if you and adnan burke are still on speaking terms but i hope so better be that was a that was a sinister laugh so who knows who knows uh let's just start with the headline let's start with lebron where do you think he goes uh i think it's cleveland i think it's been cleveland all along i think he knows he's been known everyone knows everyone's talking about it like they know behind the scenes and i think the big thing for lebron is you know we can play this out like it's oh should i go to miami should i go to golden state but i think honestly it's just about having a domain over the space right now the world is locked fixated on the world cup and i think lebron recognizes hey even my announcement won't break through that noise he's got to let this thing play out so we got a couple more weeks in the meantime he's gonna do this thing where he golfs here and he golfs there and we're like oh i think he's gonna go there but i think ultimately it's cleveland i agree with you i don't have information on it i just think it's the easiest place for him to kind of relaunch where he knows it's kind of still on his terms uh which i think is a really important part of this i know you want to jump in so go can i be selfish selfishly i do want to go to warriors i know they're old i know the chances of them all getting to april healthy is slim to none but i just i keep going back to 2024 and watching him and steph curry play together on the same team and it's how seamless it was it looked like those guys have been playing together forever and i said this might be the most perfect two-man basketball i've ever seen and we should be so lucky i've now i it started in 2024 i started rooting man i've never cared where a player gone before but it would be really cool to see stephan lebron play on the same team you're welcome yeah it would be the biggest story and it would be if you're talking about like the business entertainment side of it that would be the kind of thing where you would see a spike in attention being paid to just regular season golden state games because i think that's that's probably the the most fun destination for him um but this process it kind of reminds me like why do we think this is going to go any other way like i think he is going to have a really hard time with retirement okay he is he is pushing himself and he's pushing himself and he's pushing himself he's pushing the boundaries of what we think is even possible for a basketball player uh so there's some basketball stuff i'd ask you about but i'll admit that i i probably was like oh why did you think this was going to be a quick thing like this is him getting all of the attention in a way that he's shown us time and time again like this is very very important to him and man when he is not playing it's i don't know what he's going to do to fill that void that is a very important part of him yeah you know and and a big part of it is their ability to monetize this whether the money goes to charity or not as it did in 2010 or in 2026 through rich paul's podcast with max kellerman getting more attention they had bob myers on to do a pitch and i said there's no chance this is a real pitch if bob myers first of all bob myers has famously said i'm hands off i'm going to hire the guy mike gansey he runs the sixers my job is the greater kind of harris sports and entertainment complex so bob myers sitting there and doing the sales pitch i'm like this is all pretty good i'm going to hire the guy mike gansey he runs the sixers my job is the greater performance art but it's all designed for one thing it's a hey we will control the monetization of this story in a way that we haven't seen done before and rightly or i'm not here to judge it or criticize it or praise it i'm just saying that lebron does have a tendency to kind of extend out like what are the parameters of how big this circus can be and this is no no different i don't think i've actually on the other side of it enjoyed some of the rich paul stuff the whiteboard thing was hysterical the reasons behind why you go to macau like dudes are just saying macau and nba world right now over and over and over again um there there are so many things that immediately like that's definitely not happening uh i think bob did it because he thought it'd be fun really i don't think it's anything as sinister we're all convinced that everything's like all of these things are being done in the back channels they're like this is not going to happen this is not going to happen this is this is not up to the standard i think bob is like a really light-hearted guy who was fantastic at the job and thought it would be kind of fun to do it and now bob has taken all sorts of shit um which is hilarious because then people were mad at him about the clay thompson comment about analytics with jalen brown it was like i thought i was losing my mind because then i went and looked up clay thompson stats again and i'm like yeah his analytics were not good his win shares 48 or way below what you think box score plus minus with all those teams is lower than you think per which i know no one likes anymore but that's what bob myers was saying and the people were arguing that he was making that up as well because people were just so pissed that bob myers was sitting there with rich paul as if they were somehow breaking the rules about how this lebron pursuit's going to go yeah i mean i think that the thing that people i think have a poor grasp on is that any analytical metric does not represent a be-all end-all it represents a certain point of view and that point of view can be accurate and it can be overstated right so when we talk about clay for for example we think of as a great defensive player was a great defensive player when he was in his prime but there's arguments that it's like yeah but like we're maybe overstating that part of it he was he was really good was he good enough to impact on a team level on a macro level a team defense probably not but because we recognize the individuality the the greatness in individuality it's like all right that gives it an extra boost so i think when it comes to jalen brown i'm obviously the the you know uh bobby marks's source that said he's the seventh best player on the team that would represent an extreme of the opinion but the prevailing opinion is he may not be as good as people have him cracked up to me that does not mean he's not good that does not mean he's not an asset does that not mean he wasn't one of the driving forces by behind celtic success over the you know over his entirety of career it does not mean that he's not going to come to philly and be incredible it just means that hey maybe maybe you guys have him up here and he's really like a little bit lower than that yeah i kind of pivoted as too hard to um the jam thing which i still have some more lebron thoughts but since we're on it and we'll stay with it uh you know the market firm was bad and there are bad trades where you're like i can't believe this happened this is the bad trade because i just still don't think about it you should have to give up two picks and jalen brown for the sixers to get off the paul george contract because i think it would have taken the two picks to get off the paul george's contract just in a vacuum but um you know there's certain people in basketball and we always have to remind ourselves of this like can you imagine the stuff like what we think we know and then the stuff we absolutely never know and that second part is such a bigger part of the the pie and then you'll find out like six months a year later it's like hey you know we were actually offered this or we could have done this and all these different things and you start getting like more information on it so it's a trade i still can't believe that happened but i understand why it happened because This trade was proof of how bad the market was. This trade wasn't done because they wanted to turn down something better. This was signifying, to your point, that whatever you think of Jalen Brown, he's not worth the money in this new world. Right. To me, so this is a point that's very near and dear to my heart because I worked for the Phoenix Suns when Robert Sarver was our owner. And we had all sorts of ownership pressures that made us do deals that on the outset are just as ridiculous as this, except they weren't with stars. We traded Kurt Thomas to Oklahoma City along with two first round picks. And that was just because our luxury tax bill was what it was going to be at the end of the year. But the summer before that year, our owner is on our head. We got to cut. We got to cut. We got to cut. And Steve Kerr, I believe this was like his first official act as general manager. He got swindled, in essence, by Sam Presti. Sam Presti understood the pressure that Steve was under, and he exploited it, much to his credit. And you could trace a lot of today's Oklahoma City thunder back to that original transaction because I think those picks turn into Ibaka. Ibaka turns into Oladipo, et cetera, et cetera. So, but my point is, you can tell me, hey, we got to trade Jalen Brown. You can tell me, hey, the Jalen Brown market wasn't that great. What you cannot tell me is that we had to trade him. Right now for this, because as you said, Paul George in a vacuum, you got to give me picks just to take that deal. Just just taking Paul George off your hands, let alone giving up an asset in Jalen Brown, even if it's an asset that you're going to have to pay in a couple of years. So I just don't understand. Other than my owner was on my ass, the idea that there was a sense of urgency that it had to happen now, and if it didn't happen now, all hell was going to break loose. And I wonder. Is it internal dynamics? Is it a reticence to deal with an uncomfortable conversation with Jalen Brown, reintegrating him in there after the Yanis talks? Because I know, you know, these guys as well. Brad Stevens, Mike Zarin, Dave Lewin, these guys are smart guys, man. These are smart dudes. They don't do deals like that. They're not guys that just got on the job a year ago. They've been around the league for a long time. There's no way you tell me that they they thought that this was the best. Best deal. And it happened to happen had to happen right now. My guess would be they were probably like, this sucks. But to your point, those three guys are really smart guys, and they have an incredible track record, whether it's Dave being there a long time, who's who's really good on players. Mike's been there forever. I used to know him when I lived in Boston. And of course, then it's Brad Stevens, who, you know, part of I think the reaction is, wait, you don't you don't ever do stuff like this. You're always doing smart things. So how would a smart person do something like this? And I think that's kind of like what your conclusion is, is that you go, I don't I don't think these guys like even having to do this deal. Do it now and do it for the package that came back. This may play into the East thing. So let me just pivot back to LeBron, because is there. Is him landing anywhere significant for that team's prospects? Like, how different do you look at Cleveland going into? The 27 playoffs with the health of LeBron versus what we just saw? I'll be honest with you. I don't think it changes much for them. I think they're they're better. Yes. But in terms of the grand scheme of things, does this take Cleveland to a championship level? I don't think so. Obviously, if he gets there, there's a lot of conjecture about what's going to happen in order for him to get there. Does that mean Harden is on his way out? Does that mean Jared Allen might be also on the way out? I think it's a different team. It brings an excitement and an energy clearly to the fan base. But. In terms of does this put them over the Knicks? Does this put them over the Sixers? Hell, there's arguments or there's some other teams in the East that are up and coming like Atlanta. Like, we don't even know what Miami is going to look like after they're done, you know, filling out the roster on Giannis. I don't know if it puts them head and shoulders at anywhere. But I see. Obviously, you do the deal if you're Cleveland. This is, I mean, the check writes itself pretty much. Yeah. I. I wonder, you know, I was listening to Brian Windhorst this week and he was talking about how, like, when they're LeBron was going to come back. And Cleveland had Gordon Hayward, like, on the premises. Yeah. Ready to sign. And then LeBron's camp calls like, what are you doing? Yeah. And they're like, well, what are you doing? You know, can you let us know what you're doing? It's like, well, of course not. Like, they take such great pride in this. It's like a tight circle of like, let's fuck with everybody and what what I think is especially like when you're turning 42 and I don't know if he's I still think he like wants the mid level, which is going to be really hard for Cleveland to try to figure out because it was the most expensive roster in the NBA last year. And and maybe, you know, we wait. Dean Wade leaving is like, all right, well, like we have to kind of make moves here to allow ourselves the flexibility of this whole thing. So if it's the minimum, clearly it's. We can keep this team together, I'd imagine. But if he wants more than that, you know, this is where if you're another guy on the team, like if you're Jared Allen going like, am I going to get traded in August? If you're James Harden, you're going, hey, the whole reason I accept. Yeah, right. The Harden thing, like if you accepted, this feels a very Trey Youngish. I mean, where if you were like, yeah, actually, I will go to Cleveland, even though I'm not going to get the extension here in the Clippers, like an NBA speak. That means that there's already something that's been decided, even if it feels like after the playoffs, you're Colby Altman. Going like, do I really have to give this guy two years and 80 million? But I mean, but if you think of James Harden, it's like, again, the whole reason I came here, like you said, is this. But also I opted out. I could have opted in and just said, all right, whatever. Like, you guys don't want to extend me. Cool. I'm opting in and then we'll just play it out. Or you can trade me somewhere that where they're going to pay me. But he opted out. Like, there's a scenario. I don't think this is going to happen, but there is a scenario where they just renounce his bird rights. And that cap hold comes off the books. And now, miraculously, they're a lot closer, if not under the threshold that allows them to give LeBron mid-level exception. Go ahead. It's just like that. Right. And that's a scenario that obviously Harden does not want. That's a nightmare scenario. But it highlights kind of what LeBron is doing by doing this is that he is really throwing a wrench into a lot of people's planning because every day that Harden is not signed. That's one less dollar elsewhere because everyone else is getting picked up. So there's a lot of moving parts. And then the big thing, though, is this year, unlike 2014, 2014, I remember I had to do SportsCenter and I flew to Bristol. And they just kept me there because no decision was made. And we just kept waiting and waiting and waiting. Now, this is a little different. People went ahead and did their transactions. No one really waited to see if LeBron was going to do something or not. The only teams that are. Kind of in the lurch here are Cleveland and Golden State. But Golden State has a pretty clear idea. Draymond's not going anywhere. It's not like, oh, we had him decline the option. Now we might lose him. He's staying. Harden is a different one. Right. It's like how he's more mercurial, let's say, in temperament. And his relationship with the organization is nowhere near as long rooted and successful as Draymond's is. So I don't know how all of this. Is going to play out for Cleveland, regardless of if LeBron gets there or not. Yeah, the minimum thing was weird because then I would believe, well, then just stay in L.A. Then now you have a center. You have other on ball guys like, yeah, it got really expensive. I don't like the Walker Kessler price at all. Like I'm looking through some of the deals. Maybe we can spend a couple of minutes on the Lakers here, but I still want to just stay on the headline of the LeBron part of it. It's like, well, if you were going to do the minimum, you probably should have just then taken the minimum with the Lakers. And you likely would have a far more well-rounded team. The hardened part of this. And God, if that's really. I'm with you. I don't think this happens, but the scenario of like Dwayne Wade opting out years ago. And then, you know, he always says he didn't know. And then I had asked Wade about the money part of it. And he like looked at me and said, I'm going to get my money. And that was on the air. So I was like, OK, I don't know what that means. But. Just with hardness history of the money that he's cost himself on some of these decisions. And then the faith in Philadelphia. That it was all going to work out. And then they very similar to like this post Cleveland, this postseason run. Like, are we sure we really want to do this? And Daryl, depending on which side of that story you believe. I mean, again, Harden took the 13 million dollar pay cut. Usually you don't do that unless there's some sort of understanding. And maybe Daryl was actually the guy that goes, you know what? I don't want to then give him the money. And that's why he called him a liar. And then look, as soon as I say this, I mean, the Sixers are probably so sick of me anyway. But in the past, I'd be like, hey, it was investigated. Like nothing ever happened. You're wrong about it. You're wrong about this. And I go, all right, fine. Like, but again, so that means an NBA player took a 13 million dollar pay cut for no reason whatsoever. But that NBA player, that NBA player, that guy who lost all that money deciding to forego the extensions in the past, thinking he was going to make it up. So to say it one more time, I don't think that this is going to happen to Harden because I would think if LeBron wants to go to Cleveland, he wants Harden to be there. He would want him to be there to just everyone kind of make like maintenance of the regular season and then figure out the rest of it because there's a basketball part of this where people go like, oh, he doesn't want to be the third string guy to Luke and Austin Reeves. I felt like like he was comfortable giving up possessions throughout the regular season i think he's really smart about what it takes for his own maintenance throughout a six-month schedule so if he goes to cleveland and then they don't have harden i'd be surprised if that's his preference to get his way of going to where he most wants to sign for like the mid-level instead of having just a better chance at winning the east i the maintenance part is massive right the idea that i don't have to be superman every night is is a massive key to this because you rightfully if you take harden off the off the table now it's lebron and donovan mitchell evan mobley just is does not seem to have the temperament to be a guy who is a workhorse that you know be 28 usage and all that on a regular basis so he's off the table and then outside of that who's a creator who's someone for them that does that it would be lebron and donovan mitchell which means they got to be there every night and if one of them goes down if donovan sprains an ankle or something he's out four to six weeks now it's lebron doing this every single night i cannot believe that's what he wants he wants and he wants a scenario where he can be himself and have those moments where he reminds everyone how great he is but also have a lot of all right fellas you take it from here right i'll i'll do this i'll be 39 year old carl malone out of the high high post in a in a triangle offense in in la and and i'll just do you know fill in the gaps here and there i'll still get my 28 and six by the way which is just amazing that he can do it but not just not in the way where it's like give them the ball and everyone's one that's good we know this all these stats are not created equally you can get 28 and six in the flow and you get 28 and six because you are the dominant purpose of that and while most people say oh yeah that second one sounds a lot better a lot cooler a lot more prestigious it's tiring man that's a slog every night to be number one on the on the scouting report and then have every scheme designed to take stuff away from you and it's just it's so much easier to get to do it the other way if you're capable of doing it and he's absolutely capable of doing that i do wonder though maybe you know we're talking this out if he's thinking about the playoffs going okay because like one of my issues with the harden mitchell thing in the playoffs is like man this is mitchell watching a lot of stuff here okay and the whole idea was that it was going to make mitchell's life easier having hardened instead of garland or that garland was too on the ball and mitchell was watching and i'm telling you that that playoff run i'm like this is a lot of mitchell watching harden here so what what's going on and if you throw lebron into that you know look lebron is so brilliant at all of this he figures out a way to plug in the gas but are you actually going to sacrifice like good mitchell possessions and good lebron possessions to have a harden who's not going to be able to do that he's not going to change he's not going to change the way that he plays are you bringing him in if it's those three guys we're like hey this is really good in the regular season but in the playoffs this is a lot of people watching harden figure out which way he's going to attack and that was confusing to me too because again kenny is both a really bright coach and also a very he's not a wallflower we know that i mean that's why he got out of brooklyn because he wanted to coach and those guys weren't necessarily receptive to him coaching in that fashion yeah that's being nice donovan similarly is also a guy who's never never passed up a shot he's like he's a pretty aggressive guy and a confident guy and then lump onto that harden played so poorly in so many of those games that i find myself kind of confused what's happening here why like i saw the same thing you did i'm like why isn't he saying something why isn't it no no no give me the ball get out of the way that you're it's not going for you tonight why isn't why isn't kenny taking the ball out of his hands so in that respect i think lebron like you said is smart enough to come in and figure out how i'm going to make everybody better in the same way that with kairi you know you could argue oh what if lebron takes the ball out of kairi's hands you didn't really like it was just hey kairi i'm going to leave you of a lot of the duties that you would have yeah i'm gonna make your life easier man yeah you just get to go out there and be you and i think what donovan i absolutely believe that harden is a different story can harden exist as a guy who does not have the ball in his hands and can he accept that right can he exist theoretically sure can he accept that because that's a hard part for a lot of these guys it's like you you say yeah yeah i can and then you have to do and you you realize you don't know how russell westbrook going to lakers was a great example of this where russell's like oh they act like i can't play with other great players no it's cool and like hey i i don't doubt your sincerity i believe that russell westbrook thought i could come in here and just play off the ball and figure everything out and then uh the reality set in and he's like oh this is awful and i keep going back to was it mcmanaman that asked him about being a point guard and he kind of scoffed at the question i don't even think the question was about russ he was asking about some young player on another team hey you know what what advice there's a point guard oh point guard oh now i'm a point guard it was but it was indicative of like hey we can promise a lot of things to people and mean it and then when the time comes when the time comes figure out oh this might be a bigger promise than i can then i can hold up to yeah it'll be if he ends up going there and harden stays and they put together a nice regular season it's gonna like i don't know if they'll end up being the favorites i don't know if vegas will fall for it but i have a feeling they're gonna look they'll look very different there'll be a different offensive attack like it might just be so much if they're able to keep those five guys together you're like hey that's a really good basketball team and it's gonna put together 50 plus wins and they're gonna have some awesome offensive numbers um but then i'll have to remind myself in april of next year to go remember how you felt about this and knowing that the playoffs it would look entirely different because and i'm not just talking about like harden's history here just will lebron saying game four of a series go hey guess what like i'm not like donovan may have let it happen to you let it happen kenny may have let it happen i'm i'm not letting it happen because i'm not letting it happen because i'm not letting it happen because i'm not letting it happen because i'm not letting it happen because i'm not letting this might be my last run at it uh okay let's um let's get to the lakers here i was looking at the numbers again today so that's grimes 60 million full guarantee with a player option he was coming off the rookie scale so it's not entirely fair to do maybe the the mamu comp where he's a full 52 million guarantee with a player option when he was making i think 2.6 average annual salary he had a qualifying offer this is right this is an entirely fair and look hey the colin sex's thing is a discount so at 9 million a year that's half of what he was making before when he got that big extension and then it's walk kessler 130 and all of the picks i appreciate that this is outside of kessler more on ball initiators that these are guys that can like i think mamu can do a lot of different things um i think he's a really nice basketball player that seems expensive um where are you with all of these moves so grimes i'm okay i think that's that's basically a hair under mid-level for him so that's about where he is as a player sandro same thing the center market we see what you know obviously you get past the yokiches and the the imbeds when you look at the next caliber of center what mitchell robinson signed for what isaiah hartenstein signed for i think that tracks for sandro i think the big one that we all are kind of saying that's a that's a big walker kessler that is a massive um commitment to a player who i love his game like he's a guy who knows what he's supposed to do and trust me ladies and gentlemen that is so big in today's nba is just a guy who doesn't have delusions of grandeur but that's the number where it's like okay if he doesn't pan out for whatever reason we're going to be able to win the game we're going to be able to win the game we're going to be able to be sitting here in the same way that mozgov you know 10 years ago people say really that much for mozgov huh who was not invited i'm going to ask him i see him working out every now and then i run into him in manhattan beach mozgov and i gotta ask him like how could how could you have not the mozgov call is a great one because you're like what like man i kind of liked him like what is that deal and of course like you just have to deal with inflation and the cap increasing to make it a comparable number to to what kessler's but kessler has to be awesome he can't be okay he has to be awesome with this kind of commitment to him and i still think he's a bit i don't know if it's unknown but do you have any reservation like despite the numbers he's put up especially the advanced stuff and this is such an aaron mince deal it is so clear that's like hey yeah five years 140 yeah most people would sign that and be happy to do it we're going to get more and we're going to get a player option and we're going to go to a different market and you're going to make it happen and this is like this is why mince is one of the best i'm going to go to a different market and you're going to make it happen and this is obviously but i'll i would have rather done this for somebody who i've known has put up like four years of sick numbers and has always been available with like maybe one all-star team in there and i think he's still kind of an unknown a little bit it was it was a gamble and this is restricted free agency at work right if you're a max player restricted free agency does not work right because all that means is just they're waiting for someone to give you a max offer sheet so that we can match and our number now is lower you then it would have been how we just offered you max to start with right restricted free agency is about the players who are making less than max right that weird gray area like what does he work because we have this ridiculous maximum salary if we didn't have max salaries i think this whole thing would look so different because players would be getting paid what they're actually worth and then we'd figure out how much money you want to actually allocate but because we can only pay austin reese so much there's there's a fall-off trickle of money and you know uh walker kessler is the recipient as such but you're saying like oh i i would want someone like that if it was someone like that which is basically jalen duran it's a max deal that detroit's going to match you have to almost put your ass show your ass a little bit when you're going after a restricted free agent because you're saying i got to make it in a way that they're not going to want to match and that's what the lakers did now the flip side of that is you're right we're taking a little bit of a risk on a guy if he was a short thing he would have got the money but he's not yeah right he's not going to make it in a way that they're not going to want to match he's not available right yeah exactly that guy's not available he's put up the numbers not only having missed most of last year but we'll factor on top of it he's put up these numbers in one of the worst environments the this is the quintessential looter in a riot i'm not saying he's not good i'm just saying his numbers come with the tint of yeah nobody cares we're actively trying to lose games here and so we ask hey is this does this transfer over to a winning environment does this transfer over to possessions that matter does this transfer over to playoffs i i honestly can't sit here and say yes or no for walker kessler because i've never seen him in that environment what i do know is he's it's not like he was uh jaleel okafor where it's like yeah i kind of you got to give me the ball on the block and for me to feel good this is a guy who subsisted on i set screens i roll hard i box out i rebound and those tend to transfer over i know you have to run because you're at summer league and i want to do two things here it's pretty quick out of the salt lake games that you have the basketball world going like wait a minute is peterson all-time generational guy did the wizards already screw this up which feels incredibly unfair to the wizards but as a peterson guy i have to admit when i watch him score in as many different ways as he can with the ease with which he scored knowing the essence summer league i watched him at walkie rochester the other night i was like i don't know i shouldn't be able to say this but i don't know if there's like i think they have six guys i don't know who they are and that's bad for me because i cover this league so you have to take that into consideration so i want you to give me a little bit of your peterson aj thing after a couple peterson games under his belt and then give me your best front office summer league maybe over reaction story before you bounce because i know you're in vegas for it tonight yeah so so the peterson thing is he went to he didn't this isn't a situation you know he didn't drop to like 20 or 14 or whatever he went to so i think he is performing as we would have expected i think i don't think the wizards are like oh my god he's that good they knew it's just that aj for his position and his size and whatever other intangibles happen in the meetings and the workouts and all that stuff the interviews that's a side but there's no i don't think there's any part of this that is shocking to the washington wizards and it's to me it's more shocking to the public because we went through this weird daring peterson smear campaign because oh he doesn't want to play and he doesn't care and i'm like you guys what are you talking about because it was just so over the top and hyper focused on a couple of isolated incidents that i think we were kind of being ridiculous about that but yeah he looks great this is the sad part about summer league you can look great and it really doesn't mean anything but if you look bad that's that's something that we're going to start asking questions and dissecting a whole lot closer you all right so give me um a front office summer league deal there's there's never going to be an josh selby that's always going to be number one on my list he was coming out of high school he was either the number one or the number two ranked kid in the country he goes to kansas he's okay at kansas but it's like a lot of it's like oh bill self uh kind of bump heads with him whatever so he comes out after his freshman year despite not having a great year he goes in the second round so everyone's like well yeah you know you guy didn't really show and prove whatever comes to summer league has a monster gap was it 40 or something like that and everyone was like oh my god they all missed on and how could you miss on them and you guys fell for the bill self and needless to say his career didn't go much of anywhere the flip side is i was there for jeremy lynn versus uh john wall and i was the guy sitting there like guys it's summer league who cares and you know it turned out he played turned out to a pretty good player uh that's good i love it hopefully some more stories from the next few nights always that's every year every year we get one of these amin el-hassan nba radio basketball illuminati and cinephile thanks man thanks ryan something big is coming on september 2nd draft kings game day arrives with massive deals exclusive deals and an all-day celebration built for sports fans the countdown has been going on for a long time all roads lead to game day the draft king sports app is now live in all 50 states that means from texas to california to florida every fan is in on the excitement one app every sport all 50 states draft kings game day is yours get ready to celebrate new draft kings customers sign up with code bss spend five bucks to get 200 in rewards within 21 days that's code bss in partnership with draft kings the crown is yours event trading offered by drafting predictions a cftc registered introducing broker trading involves risk of loss market availability varies eligibility restrictions apply fifty dollars every seven days by click to claim issued a non-withdrawable prediction dollars that expire in one year terms dkng.co slash predictions promo nationwide based on sportsbook predictions and free-to-play sports contest availability varies by state he has been the face that has welcomed you into the world of soccer the coverage of the world cup for fox sports it is my neighbor rob stone and simsbury legend getting a simsbury legend in there right off the bat i don't know how many caps did you have i don't know if i'm a legend in simsbury i don't know if i'm a legend in simsbury didn't you i mean what are you what were your stats didn't you let's see uh well i played soccer and basketball at simsbury high school uh i was a two-year dude on the basketball team i was i was like the floorburn guy i was the sixth man only because we only had five guys that could really play um i loved my car i loved high school basketball so much fun uh soccer yeah i was i played varsity for three years played state team regional team colgate blah blah blah so soccer was my soccer was my dna soccer was my dna um as far as playing but uh i still got a good little this that's from diving on the diving on the hardwood at practice not in a game at practice brian that's the kind of teammate you are and why everybody's always loved working with you all the way back to the espn days so uh we started the pod you know i've enjoyed the hell out of it i've obviously pivoted you know however many years once i started really appreciating the sport spectacle and everything i went to the game against turkey a uh it was it was even better than i thought my expectations were really high to see that game and i was like i'm gonna do it i'm gonna do it i'm gonna do it i'm gonna do it i'm gonna do it i'm gonna do it i'm gonna do it i'm gonna do it i'm gonna do it i'm gonna do it to see just to be on fire and the venue looked incredible and everything but obviously disappointed in belgium and that being debated with a lot of me included a lot of drive-by soccer fans so as somebody who lives breeze this every single day what do you make of of the exit and what this run means to where u.s soccer is so let's start with the exit okay um you know the good news 30 million people watched it on fox bad news 30 million million people watched you know that 90-minute performance from the u.s men's national team i think that's the part that that stings that it was just such an ugly unfortunate exit that had multiple moments where people will just kind of snapshot it and go there they are that's u.s soccer look at these guys they can't figure themselves out they'll never be anything so that that's the frustrating part because if you go back to the other games um you know you were like wow i'm inspired by these guys this is really good entertaining attacking soccer that people could latch on to and clearly they did you know millions and millions of more people came into this world cup tent this u.s men's national team tent than were there before things started so i i hate the way that it ended you know i just wish it was like a tight two-one game you know i wish there was no political discourse about it you know i i don't love the fact that there's that that perception that you know our president put his thumb on the scale a little bit to to turn things but yet then there's a part of me that's like i don't like well at least we have some government leadership that kind of cares about the world cup because you go back to 1994 and i remember you know they weren't sending bill clinton it was al gore you know i'm like let's get let's get the main dude in town right this is a big deal so at least that you know our our leader cares enough or knows enough that it's happening so very conflicted torn in the end though it just it pains me that that's the way it ended it doesn't pain me that it ended because i knew it was going to be a big deal but i didn't know it was going to be a big deal i knew it was going to come to a close and and the round of 69 always felt like the landing spot like this kind of felt like this is when we're going to bring her in and put her down for a nice soft landing and and thanks for everything but if you're able to step away from that that performance on the field and look at the crowds that we had following us whether that was in la or seattle or the bay area um it was tremendous and you know i think i'd said at one point in seattle you know i've never seen anything like this in my life because i've been around soccer a long time and it it hadn't been there for american soccer yeah there have been fans and you know a bunch of you know the little ponytail mafia following the women's team in in 99 and and the FOMO of what 94 was it was just a curiosity but to see it really grow up and be there and to hear it and see it and witness it behind me or inside the stadiums and and you know my text chains were just like non-stop about world cup like I had to mute several text chains from from my my people my friends because I just I couldn't I couldn't handle it anymore I'm like I'm gonna get to you in two hours but like right now I gotta focus on this game and people just wanted to talk soccer and and they want to be a part of this world cup and be part of this national team so I think in the end it's a long way of going it it was a win a disappointing exit but overall it was a win for U.S. soccer there's no denying from the attention the growth of the game and all the factors that you just brought up but from just a team standpoint like again I don't really know what I'm watching but even going back to the first game against Paraguay I was like this looks different this looks like they have more guys that can attack has more guys that can finish a possession like I don't remember seeing this I always felt like a little bit of it's almost like I'm having a quarterback on third and seven we're like we never convert these ever and that's what U.S. men's soccer felt like by the way trust your eyes you're a smart guy like you you're spot on you you totally nailed it you know there was a lot of hand-wringing around this national team in the months leading up to this world cup and and I was one of them you know and I listen I'll be honest I was softly suffocating it you know I wanted to be positive and upbeat but I didn't want to be a part of it I didn't want to be a part of it I didn't down deep I was like I'm really worried you know I'm worried about this because we have been handed the best possible opportunity to have success at a world cup that arguably we may ever have an expanded tournament you know we're put in in the the pool of a team so we're automatically avoiding you know the some of the top nations in our group stage we know where our games are and they were you know lined up on the west coast for a reason we knew what our path was we had this home field event like we had everything gifted to us um but I was worried and those last two tune-ups before the world cup you know a win and then a loss to Germany I was like wait a second my eyes saw what your eyes saw like this is this is different this is a confident team this is a team that we can drop on a stage and international viewers who are who are here watching this team and and overseas will go well those Americans aren't so bad actually and and to me like the one thing was and I think you spot on you hit it spot was we're attacking dudes like we're going after you one v one like there's no better way to win a sport basketball football soccer hockey than beating your opponent one versus one changes the dynamics you get by that dude then everybody else has to readjust and you're controlling the cards us hasn't done that for years and done that for years and they were doing that with regularity and with fearlessness and more times than not winning those 1v1 battles that created these um you know you know there's a lot of good things that we've done in the last couple of years and I think we've done a lot of good things and I think we've done a lot of good things in the last couple of years and I think we've done a lot of good things in the last couple of years and I think we've done a lot of good things in the last couple of years and I think we've done a lot of good things in the last couple of years and I think we've done a lot of good things in the last couple of years and I think we've done a lot of good things in the last couple of years and I think we've done a lot of good things in the last couple of years and I think we've done a lot of good things in the last couple of years and I think we've done a lot of good things in the last couple of years and I think we've France, I mean, they have to be. I don't know how they couldn't. They've taken every punch. They play with just this swagger and this confidence and this almost like smile, right? But it's not a smile like, hey, we're having a good day. It's a smile of like, yeah, good luck, right? Hey, Paraguay, you guys are going to try to knife us in the back of the halftime tunnel. Yeah, it didn't work, did it? We're good. We're good. We can handle any situation we're dropped in. I think you'd be a fool to say that France isn't the favorite, but you'd also be a fool to say, hey, Spain, hey, whatever is happening with Lionel Messi in Argentina is remarkable. I can't believe that they're recreating the summer that they gave us four years ago. The way they've won their last two games as the number one team in the world and the defending World Cup champion, and they've got a GOAT who just won't let them lose, is incredible. Insane to watch. It's just, it's magical, magical drama that Messi keeps providing us. Can you explain to me, because going to that Belgium game, I was so fired up to watch their legends, and then I'm like, De Bruyne is not even playing. Yeah, Lukaku on the bench. Lukaku comes in, what, he came in late and had the goal, right? That guy's a beast. Yeah. Was that Belgium going weird? It looked like maybe they were going to sub them in if they felt like the game was so lopsided, even at the 1-1 score. I don't know if that was all factoring into it, but were they looking ahead? Does that kind of change the way you look at them being able to match up with Spain, knowing that those guys got a break? Yeah, it does a little bit. You know, they had Doku on the bench too. So I remember when that starting lineup came out and, you know, we get it kind of like on a list of paper and it's usually like handed to us during a commercial, or maybe there's a Tom Rinaldi feature that's trying to make you cry. And I'm like, we're going to go down the subs. I'm like, boom. And I literally, the first things I circled were those three guys. And we kind of knew Lukaku would be on the bench, but I'm like, wow, wow, how beautifully arrogant of Belgium to be able to do this and to have the confidence and to have the depth. So I read that and I was like, number one, US has to hit Belgium hard and fast because the cavalry is on the bench that can come in and save the day. And number two, if we don't hit them hard and fast, we're in big trouble because the cavalry is on the bench and they can come out and, you know, just totally change things. So it showed to me, it verified to me, you know, that we just don't have enough talent. We don't have that depth. There wasn't like you look at every position. You're like, okay, here's your backup. Here's your backup. Here's your backup. Oh, we're great bringing this guy off the bench. He's going to elevate things. When we needed offense off the bench, and we've been saying this all tournament long, like, I don't know. I don't know where we go, you know, what we do. And it's hard to find those strikers and Florida, you know, Foyle and Baligan has been an absolute dream. You know, we actually have a striker that can put fear in the opposition, but beyond him, it was just a fall off a cliff. And that's where US soccer has to get better. We got to have more players that play like that. We have to be deeper and we can't just kind of collapse in these moments where we have rare opportunities to make a real impact. What do you make of England's run so far? Pretty impressive. You know, I'll be honest, I thought they were slightly overrated coming into this tournament. I thought the summer, I thought the summer would get to those boys. You know, I thought the heat and the humidity and the smog and the altitude of Mexico City would bang them up. You know, they're going to Miami right now. I mean, listen, England versus Norway in Miami, you know, like the run on sunblock in South Bay right now must be insane. You know, how those poor people are going to survive that, their fans and their players. They have impressed me for sure. You know, I think I always felt that they were at a minimum a quarterfinal team and they're there. I definitely feel a little bit more like, wow, they got a chance, a chance to get to that final. But, you know, again, I look at what Spain and France and Argentina are doing. To me, they're the big three. And England is probably loving the fact that for some reason, folks still aren't talking about them enough. You know, we kind of have a fetish with talking about English soccer. And, you know, it comes from, you know, so many viewers in the United States watching the Premier League and their relationship with those players. And they've seen him so long. And I know Harry Kane plays in Germany right now, but he's, you know, he spent so much time in England with Tottenham that, you know, so many viewers are accustomed to him. So people, I think, just kind of gravitate towards that English national team. And the fact that the media for years back home in England has just been so brutal on these guys and just wears them down and grinds them and beats them up. And the players feel the weight of that when they put on that jersey. I remember hearing stories from some other players like, you know, English, there were some guys on the English national team who just, they didn't want that call in because they didn't want to deal with that fan base. And they didn't want to deal with that media where they knew like they had an international window coming up and, you know, like, 80th minute of their Premier League game a couple days before they'd be like, oh, yeah, right. Felt something. I don't know. It felt something kind of here because they didn't want to, they didn't want to do this. They didn't want to have to put up with that. It was if they felt like my perception was it sounded like it was a no win situation. I do feel like the last couple of years, the media and the fans still expect great things from England, but they've toned it down a little bit to the point now where they're happy they're there. And there's not these two teams that are going to come out and say, you know what, we're going to do this. We're going to do this. And I think they're playing freer and looser. And they're kind of an underdog, which is crazy to say. And if you're England, you're loving that role. You are absolutely loving that role. Where is Pickford as far as goalkeepers, like rank? Like, what are we talking about? Yeah, I can't help. He's not high. That was one of the concerns about this team coming in. But, you know, to me, he had a great game last time out. He was all over the place. Yeah, I can't tell if it's like good or right that. yes yes um totally fair totally fair i i think there's always been this parallel with soccer tournaments to like stanley cup playoffs and how many times do you see a team ride a hot goaltender deep into the stanley cup or to the point where they're raising the trophy and you're like i don't know where that dude has been for the last six months but he is standing on his head and i had no idea he could split like that and his glove saves and whatever he was smothering everything keepers are weird dudes and it doesn't matter what sport they are you are a different cat if you want to stick yourself in goal and have people fire things at you right like you're just there's something off like i've been working with peter schmeichel all summer long i love the dude there's just a little something that's off just and he knows it too and we know it and we feel it being around him um but when you get one of those guys that's on a roll you know great things can happen and they feel it you know like there's you know there's a lot of people that are on a roll and they feel it you know like there's pickford 100 feels it right now right like he's in his pickford zone or whatever it is and the guys in front of him on the back line feel it as well and they're like oh you know what i'm a little bit more comfortable with him behind me where i can maybe make a dangerous pass or an extra run forward because i feel really good with what i got back there i never felt that just to spin it back to the u.s team about matt freeze it's not a knock on the guy i just didn't have that confidence in our situation that i have had in the past and we've grown to expect that as fans of the u.s men's national team and and the fact that we were just kind of like i don't know who's going to start for us leading into the tournament and even when we named that starter i'm not feeling totally confident and then we see how it ends up for him with that that mistake in the belgian game um i i felt like that was something that was going to bite us eventually because at some point you need your keeper to make saves at a you're going to keep you in a game and in a contest and in a tournament and right now england kind of has that in pickford i'm glad that you at least understand vaguely what i'm trying to reference there because i was like is he did he have to do that and i was like maybe that's just the energy that he plays with and then i would go wait a minute and again i was just always like a little hesitant go i probably don't have a pick for hey man can you start trusting your eyes that's the big takeaway of today trust yourself you got good eyes for this man you know what's happening you see it too well you know heart well five six years old i'm not gonna not the same as a simsbury captaincy but yeah let's let's just kind of dig into the path here then if you're telling me it's france and it's their depth and it's like what they can do and and you know it's it was a really interesting game against paraguay because i ended up going like all right i realize you're you're up on the penalty um and this sport is kind of funny in the way that it can be so clear how much better the other team is and it's still zero zero or it's one one were you mad at paraguay by the way the way they played did that frustrate i thought it was disgusting yeah i i hated it and i i get being that to me was not being competitive that was being pissy losers so take that your eyes are right you're you're three for three yeah it annoyed the hell out of me too and it was it was disgraceful it was poor sportsmanship it was jumping in, literally trying to get themselves thrown out, but to get a French player thrown out at the same time. That's what I kept seeing. Like, hey, we're going to do a like for like. I'm going to take me out who's not like you. And we're both going to go sit on the bench and my team's going to be better because they were just trying to bait these French players constantly. And again, that goes to my point. That was that French little smile like, no, not today, my friend. Not today, mon ami. You can do your little thing. I'm not going to buy for it. I'm going to be pissed off and I'm going to do some things that will tell you how I really feel, but I am not going to retaliate. And games like that, teams like that, performances like that agitate me as a viewer, but I think they agitate me as an American soccer fan because I want to see this sport grow. And there was such a great opportunity and it has grown this summer. There's no doubt about it, but I just got done doing my podcast with Urban Meyer and Mark Ingram. And Mark has been a soccer fan for decades. And Urban has not been a soccer fan for decades, right? He doesn't get it. What are we doing and this and that? But he came around this summer and he was watching games and watching the U.S. and really cared and had questions and dynamics. And why do they do this? And I love when I can see a play build up and, you know, the set pieces when there was really, you know, definition of what they were trying to do. But the flopping, Rob, you know, the rolling around, the agitating, like I don't get it. I can't get by it. And for me, that has always been this obstacle, like this, this ugly wall that a big sect of American soccer viewers can't get past. And I get it and I understand it. I'm sympathetic to it. So to see it playing out in that Paraguay game frustrated the hell out of me because I think anybody watching that hated what they were seeing unless you were from Paraguay. And my guess is there's a pretty decent population of the U.S. that are like, do we have to go this way? Right. Do we have to do this route? So it's moments like that where I just love France because I always feel like they're ahead of the game. They're ahead of the curve. We know what you're doing, Paraguay. We're good with it. Hey, we're in third gear right now and we're cruising. But if we need to get to fourth or fifth, cool, we can do it and they can snap it as well. Okay. So France, I have one question and I don't know. I haven't, I'm going to start with a theory and then it'll be a question because it relates to, you know, Fox. It relates to all the coverage and the studio show that's not your studio show is getting all sorts of commentary with Thierry Henry, Ibrahimovic, and obviously Alexi Lalas, who we've worked with a really long time. And I wonder if when you bring in guys that are like as close to gods as you can be as a mortal man, if that actually makes for a less compromising or less willing television analyst. And I don't know what is going on on that show, but I, I see these moments and I've watched a lot of it. So I'm not just watching the clips where I'm like, do they, do they not get like what the job is? And there are times of some really great conversation. I think Ibrahimovic, once he loosened up a little bit, kind of got there because I know he has his shtick. I know Lalas isn't for everybody, but I think that's a where he's at and maybe it filters into not actually listening to what he's talking about with the soccer stuff. But it seems like he and Thierry Henry were going at it quite a bit on the red card thing. And, you know, look, it's a studio show. We're here to discuss things. If we disagree, you know, whatever. So I'm not, I don't want to put you in a spot where you're gonna be critical of your teammates, but I guess I'm trying to understand, is this perhaps a little different because it'd be like asking Michael Jordan once every four years to jump on an NBA finals discussion show. And it'd just be like, Hey, a lot of this stuff I might feel like is beneath me. And I don't even have the reps to do it right. I don't know if it's beneath them because it's clear that those guys have a passion for the sport. Uh, I think the reps is a big thing. The language barrier is a big thing as well. You know, I mean, as well-spoken as those two gentlemen are, you know, English is not their first language. Right. And I, I, I still root to this day that I didn't take Spanish in high school at Simsbury high school. I signed up for French and that served me great at world cup 98. But since then it's been a bit of a drain on me. And, and, and I talked to guys, um, like Landon Donovan has done things in Spanish and he says, you know, obviously how hard it is, right? Like that seems like a no brainer, but the breadth of the vocabulary that you have as a second or a third language just can't be the same as the first. So you're trying to get some points out and you know the word in your native language, but you don't know what it is in English. And so I think it's a little bit of a for that moment. So I think some of that can get lost where, where these, these players are just like, I know what I need to say that will resonate and cut through everything, but this is the best I can come up with right now. Um, also American television is so different than international television, particularly on the soccer scene. And there is a real kind of a class going on in real time where a lot of players who do work in England or Germany or Italy or wherever it is come to us. And they're like, wait, what's happening? You know? And I'm like, no, no, hold on. We got our American express starting lineups. Hey, we got it. We got to get this sponsorship in here. Um, you know, we got to get to commercial. Hey, we've got to hit these. Like, it's just a different animal where they're used to just like red lights on and go have at it for nine minutes, you know? And we never have that. That, that is, that is an absolute luxury. So for them, they're learning in real time, like, oh, I need to take my thought that is this and get it down to here. Uh, and Alexi's a master at it. And, and he understands also what, what cuts through, um, what reverberates, what will catch your ear and your eye. And, you know, some of it is a performance art, but a hundred percent of Lexi believes what he's, what he cares about this sport immensely. So you talked about that one, that one moment the other day about the red card in the situation. I think some of that too, is the dudes are really tired and, you know, they had had a long day and a quick flight back and up early and, you know, that plays on things, you know, these guys are, are banging out real hard shifts. So I think it's been a really interesting learning curve for everybody on that set. And again, I'm not there, so I can't speak of it, but just from what I see and listen from a distance, but I also know there's great respect among all of them and they understand everybody's job. And by the way, I think it's great that you're talking about it, right? Because if you're not talking about it, then it's a total failure. I'm a wrestling guy, right? I love pro wrestling. Huge in Hartford. I mean, it's like the home, you know, it's Hartford Civic Center. I'm sure you were there as a kid. Yeah, I was at the mall a ton of times watching Hillbilly Jim or Blackjack Mulligan and Bob Backlund, Connecticut, great Bob Backlund. But the wrestling parallel is, if you come out and nobody's booing or nobody's cheering you, you're screwed, right? Like you haven't done your job. But if you're talking about our studio shows, whether you hate it or you love it, you're talking about it. And that's a win. And that's a win. And you know, people talk about, you know, the NBA show that's now on ESPN. They talk about those guys all the time. So they, they resonate, they cut through things. They either make you happy or they make you mad, or they make you smile. They make you question, but they're doing something right. So I think India and our World Cup studio is absolutely doing something right. I've loved the just overall coverage. What have you loved about it? Because I'm always interested about other people's take. You know, we in the industry can, can hate watch sometimes and be angry that we don't have that right. And we have to sit at home and watch this event, you know, and we could do it better and blah, blah, blah. And, you know, Fox, has a way of doing things. So I'm curious, what is it that you've, you've liked about the broadcast? Because I hear, I hear both sides. I love it. And, and I get really frustrated by it. The announcing teams are incredible. The depth that you have for on game calls is terrific. So which is the most important part, the game, right? Right. Um, I used to think, you know, look, you worked at ESPN. I was there a really long time. There's plenty of things that we did that I didn't like. We did a million things. So of course, like any reasonable person be like, Hey, I wish we did a better job with this, or I didn't really love this. I thought ESPN was the best at making you feel like that Saturday night at a college football stadium was the biggest thing going on in the world at that moment. So when you came into that shot, it's actually why I think they brought back Brent Musburger for a while. Cause Musburger, even though he wasn't in his prime and I'm not being credible, critical of him, he'd admit it. Cause he even talked about like stuff that he would do his voice, that shot over the stadium, Saturday night, somewhere where everything was, on the line in college football, his voice bringing you in that felt like I don't, I can't be, I don't, it's not that I don't want it. I can't be anywhere else right now. And I thought that your, your buildup and, you know, sometimes you can overdo it. It's like, Hey, we got three guys here. We got five guys here. We got six guys there. I think it works seamlessly. And it felt like an international event that, I mean, granted, I get that it's the world cup and it already is. Maybe there's this default buy-in, but you want the television production to match that. Like I'm already in, I'm already expecting something and I need you to match that moment. And I think Fox did an awesome job with that kind of stuff. That's, that's, that's an amazing compliment. I'm sure everybody in our network will, will take that. It's, it's a really cool parallel that you bring about that Saturday night primetime game, you know, and again, there was less college football out there back then, less competition, right. On, on, on the television for the eyeballs, but you're right. You know, like I can see that I can go to Tallahassee and I'm just seeing thousands and thousands. Doing this and nothing has started. That's that's soccer, right? Like what you, what you're seeing every Saturday in big 10 or sec or big 12 stadiums is, is international soccer is world cup. It's this tribe. It's this, this generational love. It's this care. It's this passion. It's the same thing. And, and I've been saying that for years, like these are kissing cousins, man, college football and big time international soccer, or, or, you know, major showdowns, you know, Real Madrid versus Barcelona. Yes. Please give it to me. Like this really, really matters in that, in that community, in that country, in that state, whatever it may be. So I think this was the first time and because it was on home soil where we really had the opportunity to, to sell those crowds and that energy and that atmosphere. And that's one of the reasons, you know, we've been on the road so much as is to tap into that, you know, again, for a Fox thing, that big noon kickoff type energy, you know, I mean, this is, this is the stuff. That I get to see on Saturdays and I love, and it puts a smile on my face and it makes me happy and it lifts you up. And it's two hours that just go by like that because of everything that's going on behind you. And, and you know it because you're sitting there, but you need to make sure it translates to your audience, to your viewers and they see it and they hear it. And the U S fans, particularly that first game in Seattle, um, they did it. You know, I, I just, you know, my brain kept saying like, don't talk. There's, there's nothing you can say that is better than what that crowd is showing and exhibiting in the moment. And that element, I think we've been able to bring to our world cup coverage that maybe hasn't been there to that level over the past couple of decades. I can't say anymore. I just thought it was great. And I know some people are listening and probably like, well, why wouldn't it have been a big deal? It's the world cup, like dummy. It hasn't always been a big deal. It's been a fight. I've seen broadcast partners mess it up. You know, I've seen them go like, all right, we're just going to take all of this for granted. And, you know, I all admit Rob, I even had moments. I know it sounds stupid. I forgot that it was here. I forgot that it was in the United States. Like when I was inside a sofa, I was like, if you told me I was in London or somewhere else, I would believe you. Cause this is what it feels like. It felt like the first time that on American soil, um, it didn't feel American. And I mean that kind of as a compliment that it wasn't, it wasn't like, Hey, this is all these American settings. Maybe that's why FIFA was so adamant about all the signage and all that other stuff. Cause it felt like, Hey, where do you think that game is? I'm like, I, you know, if I didn't know, I wouldn't know. And I think that helped it feel like a bigger deal. Yeah. That's a good point. And, and listen, the American fans have been a big part of that, right? This is not just the traveling armies of these nations. Having said that, like when Argentina plays, I've been to, I can't remember how many messy games, three or four Argentina games. And when you walk into, where have I been with them? Dallas, Kansas city, Miami, you're like, I might be in Buenos Aires. I don't know. Am I, is this how it feels? Because it's, you know, 90, 95% of those Argentinian fans and they are chanting and singing and standing and wearing that light blue and white, you know, those iconic colors again, going to college football, right? Like, Oh, there's the maize and blue. We know who we know who are watching Scarlet and gray. We know who we're watching. There's the light blue and white stripe. We know who we're watching, right? Um, and I think that's, that's part of it as well, but the atmospheres have been amazing. And, uh, I think I'm trying to think if there's anything that hasn't surpassed the expectations for this world cup. And I don't think there is, you know, the coverage has been there and that's not just television, that's everywhere. You know, people wanting to talk about it in places that never discussed soccer. Um, the FOMO factor is off the charts. Nobody does FOMO like Americans, by the way. And, and, you know, my friends, my people, folks in the neighborhood, people I've run across, like, they just want to get to a game. How can I do it? How do I get there? Oh, what time is game? I got to be there to at least watch it at this viewing party, or I got to do this. And it's now part of their, you know, their daily calendar, you know, like pick up laundry, go to the gym, make sure you watch four to five hours of world cup soccer. Like yesterday I was lost. I kept like, where's the game. And I went to FS2 and I'm like, there's a rear and I'm good. I'm going to just kind of sit and watch a game that I already saw. And I know what happened, but I'm going to give it another take. It's been great. I can't wait to see how this finishes out. Um, and as always, let's have you over the house next time we do this. All right. And it won't be four years. Can't wait. All right. That is Rob Stone, which made me just my friendship alone made me stop saying Sims boring whenever his hometown was referenced. Thanks Rob. Anytime. The course is calling and your Chevy Equinox can take on whatever the day throws at you. Stylish and ready for anything. Equinox handles your commute weekend trips. And even those last minute tee times easily load up your clubs and gear with plenty of cargo space, plus hidden storage under the rear floor to keep things neat. And with a big standout touchscreen, the Equinox puts all your tech right where you need it. Bold and confident Equinox looks just as good on the road as it does down the back roads from the first drive to the final pot. Equinox is built to do more so you can focus on the game. It's brought to you by TickPick. Ever actually read a ticket receipt, service fee, processing fee, convenience fee, convenient for who? That's an extra 30 bucks a ticket. TickPick doesn't do that. Never has, never will. 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So back in big sky, which I have, uh, it's been a few years, but I usually come to Montana every summer, but I haven't been back in this part. Started in Bozeman, worked my way down on the Madison day one Yellowstone river. And, uh, I feel like I finally, finally turned a coat, turned a corner as a, as a, as I guess I would say is someone that's yeah, it just, I've been doing it for a while. And when you do it infrequently, like imagine if you golfed three times a year and then you were annoyed, you weren't better. Um, that's probably where I've been at. And then I, I think the last two days I've, I've turned a corner. I feel good. Flip the switch. As they say. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some stuff. That wasn't a tripod Instagram situation, right? You got a fishing buddy or is that a guide? Oh, felt beaut might delete. Felt beaut might delete. Felt lame putting that in the caption. So lame. I even checked with Saruti ahead of time. He did. Oh really? Yeah, he did. And I, I even, I even. Well, Saruti is like, I think that's the coolest. Saruti and his wife was in the background being like, do it. It's the coolest caption we've ever heard of. Oh, I forgot. I supposed to pay attention to your captions. I'm kidding. I just say, Hey man, if you like it, let it ride, man. Don't worry about what other people say. Well, I don't know that I've worried about that a ton, but that's definitely one where it's like, I don't know if anybody's going to get this. It's a beaut Montana. Ah, oh, that's actually what you wrote. Okay. Yeah. I think people get that. Isn't it cool though? Like, doesn't it feel good when you do, I don't know, fishing is like a manly task, but it's like a, all right. It's like a, it's like a, um, one with wilderness or like if you build a shed or you fix something at your house, there's just kind of no feeling like that. As a dude, you're like, man, I did something bad. I did something bad. You're like, man, I did something today. Hell yeah. I don't know if I'd put it at the same level of like building a deck. Um, but there's a primal itch you scratched there, I think. Right. Yeah. Look, it's not that hard. It's not like I went on some hike or, you know, you're battling the elements or anything like that, even though it does kind of sporadically brain fly fishing is hard though. Like if you don't know what you're doing. Yeah. Here's a stat for you. I've never caught a fish and I've been, I've been, I had a pole in my hands a few times. Never caught one with a hook. No, no. My mom, when I was a kid, we'd go by the train tracks. You've never caught a fish? No, dude. When I was a kid, we'd go by the train tracks and she had some like rough friends and they'd let me like poke the eyes out of the fish they caught. But like, uh, I never, I was just watching these guys sitting by the train tracks, never catching a fish. I had like a tackle box and everything. Never caught one. You live near train tracks? Yeah. Metro North runs right through. Yeah. Hell yeah, it does. What's up? Wait, what were you, were you using like worms? What were we using for bait? Dude, we went like, we went to like Kmart and got like a whole fucking set of shit. Like, you know, like we're going to get this one this summer. Never gone. And then I just stopped, just stopped trying because it's just, it's a tough day when dudes catch fish and you don't. It's a tough day. Also everybody else did and you just didn't. Well, these were like grown men with like tattoos and you know, beards and shit. And they were, they were like doing it. And I had my little like, you know, smaller person's rod and I just couldn't, couldn't get anything. Well, so wait a minute. When's the last time you had a, you actually went fishing? I don't know. Maybe I was like 14 or something. 15. I don't know. Man. That's all right. It's not for me. It's not meant for me. I understand why people like it. Yeah. It's kind of meant for you. Harder than hitting me. Day beers. Six going. Yeah. The boys. Sounds like a golf cart to me. I don't know exactly what my golf day is like. No, you're way more of a fishing guy than a golf guy. Just on the surface. I'm happy that you're into golf, but. Well, Hey, listen, I'm back in the Northeast. There's a lot of, a lot of places where fish reside that you're allowed to fish in. So, uh, maybe I'll, maybe I'll bring it back. I don't know. Maybe we'll do a, a fishing video, you know, just do a video that could be put up on Netflix, you know, Kyle, if I don't catch a fish, we have to scrap the video. That might be the video though. Will you ever catch the fish? Some would say that's better. Like a Jim and Pam situation, you know, season three is going to happen or what? All right. So I had two guides. First guide, his name was Carson. Check them out at Gallatin river guides. Do you want to, I don't know if there's a second company called river rides, but Gallatin river guides, Carson. So we're talking and talking about books, talking about how cattle, you know, cattle drives kind of settled these States and why there's a lot of things that identify with Texas. Um, and I started talking about this book that I'd read about like settling the West and it went through all the Kit Carson stuff. And he's like, I was named after Kit Carson. And I was like, dude, that's bad-ass. Right. So shout out to him. He was great doing a lot of waiting that day. A lot of nymphing caught a couple of nice rainbows, a couple of brown, one white fish, which are sort of gross, even though white fish is, a great town. And then the second day out on the float working, everything dries, dry nymph down low, tight casts, whole deal starts to rain, catch a 16 inch rainbow, caught a another brown, another white fish. And I think a cut. So anyway, um, talking to him, we started talking about books. He asked me if I'd, I read Lonesome Dove and I was like, I just read it last year. His name is Gus and he's like, I'm named after Gus in the book. Back to back guides. Are you kidding me? Crazy. This is what happens when you're out there though. Yeah. Crazy what they're doing up here. Right? Yeah. Good job by you being like, yeah, I know what you're talking about. Cause that's a bummer. You know, if I'm like, dude, you know, Kyle Petty is I'm named after that driver. They're like, don't know him. It's like, that's a bummer. You're named after Kyle Petty. I swear to God. We just found this out. Kind of a middling race car driver, dude. I'm not kidding. My mom's a huge NASCAR fan named after Kyle Petty. She was like back then there weren't that many Kyles. And then like, there was like six of my class. I don't think they were named after Kyle Petty, but he had a great run. Did you look up what his record was? Like let's look up his standings a couple of years prior to he wasn't awesome, but I guess, yeah, let's see. His dad was the king, but, uh, I don't know. So was she, a Richard Petty fan and then she was an earner for sure. But I think maybe that I don't, I'm glad I'm not Dale. What was that like at the house? Uh, dude, she didn't go to work for like four days in the dark. Tough, tough. Is your mom a concussion protocol? No. You know, what's funny about that? It's not funny. That was, uh, your mom didn't go to work for four days after Dale was three days. She certainly, I know, I know I was going to school. I think maybe it wasn't the summer. I don't know, but I remember I was heading out to not mom's doors closed. You just can't go down the hallway. That was a tough, tough week at our house. In hindsight though, that was insane. I don't feel like I understood how insane that was for someone to just die in a sporting event like that. Like we talked about this in the NFL and other stuff like that was, I remember watching that. I don't even watch NASCAR and it just happened. It's like, Oh yeah, he died. And it's like, what? And younger, you just don't really understand that. I remember where I was the whole thing, but I mean, obviously Kyle's never going to forget his best points. Finish was fifth. And that was in 1992 and 93. So when I was born at the end of 93, so two good runs there. Um, yeah, but not, not very notable. I gotta say she bought me his book like two years ago. It was like, I met it's called swerve or die. Didn't read it, but she was like, thought, thought maybe you'd like this. It's like, I gotta be honest. I mixed up him and his dad. I didn't, I didn't, I thought with Richard Petty. Oh dude. Well, I don't know. I know. I thought that's, I don't know. I knew petty and I was like, okay, I know, I know the petty guy. And I, you're like, oh yeah, Richard's dad. That's the guy who I was thinking of. I don't even know Kyle. Sorry. With all due respect, famously the only driver in cup series history to win his 600th career start. That's a bit, you gotta really dig to find a stat like that, but, uh, he won't sing that old guy still got it. That's good. Tell your mom. I feel bad about deal. Cause I don't want to make it seem, I don't think I'm going to bring it up. Honestly, we're in a good place. So no, no, it's a good spot. I don't really know Montana anymore. Now after these, I'm sorry. Do not apologize for anything you just did. I just don't know how to, I thought I had some good stories and now I just, I'm like, this is fucking pointless. You learned to live by the train tracks and named after Kyle Petty. And you're looking at me different now. I don't like this. I'm not looking at you different. I'm just adding it to the dossier, put it in the bank. Yeah. So, um, loving big sky village though, man, what a little farmer's market going on. Nice little community. I've been here before though, but usually I'm in some different parts, but just South of Yellowstone club. probably won't make it up there at any point so there you go all right um let's get to a heater of an email that i did look up to see if it was fake there's a chance he's using some other idea that has happened in this world to write the email but um we're just gonna run run through it insane clown posse concert or lose my friends that obviously caught kyle's attention when we were filtering these guys love the show need your help name is jack he offers up his name too which i don't know 32 years old 6190 my wife and i live in charleston south carolina both originally from north carolina we have a one and a half year old boy and expecting a girl in october we are a fairly social couple but i definitely suffer from the fomo complex more than she does we've been in charleston for a long time and we've been in charleston for a long time and we've been in charleston for a long time and we've been in charleston for a long time and we've been in charleston for 10 years and ever since we moved here i've been in a fantasy football league with a great group of guys who are mostly from charleston unfortunately with life happening i see them less and less stay active in the group text and still hang out with them on occasion although i consider them really good friends i'm definitely heading toward that fringe friend zone uh-oh there's a non-native maybe i don't know what has really kept me tied to the group is this fantasy football league every year we do a live draft usually golf or a beach weekend and i've never missed one this weekend in itself plus the year-long banter is important for the connections and good for the soul i think you're right on these are important things to keep working on uh the rub the punishment for last place in this league is taken very seriously which i actually appreciate every year it's something different and the stakes seem to scale annually we've evolved from your standard waffle house challenge to making someone attend groundhog day in puxentani pennsylvania you got you got you set a budget for this punishment using vacation days to go some jesus informal attire was another part of that sentence to puxentani um to date every loser's completed the punishment breaking news this past season i finished last for the first time my punishment which was loosely decided sometime after midnight at last year's draft myrtle beach midnight midnight planning with the guys usually is to attend an insane clown posse concert that is that is an awful i mean unless it's they're gonna play the early stuff but um full transparency i'm a little nervous but i'm also completely willing to do it it would be a real bummer to leave my family behind and get stabbed but i understand the point of league punishments and i don't want to be the first guy who bails unfortunately i've stalled i haven't been able to lock down a show date i travel a lot for work we already have a family vacation plan it's becoming increasingly difficult to find a weekend that works my concern is that if i don't complete the punishment i'll be relegated from the league and i'm not going to be able to do it again i'm not going to be able to do it again replaced by another friend these threats have already been made at that point i will lose the camaraderie and i worry that those friendships will naturally fade the elephant my wife is clearly not thrilled about any of this and every time icp gets brought up it turns into an argument by the way she should never be thrilled about this that's a good sign my wife uh to her credit she acknowledges my concern about losing touch with these guys but she also thinks her side of the argument carries a lot more weight and honestly she's probably right ultimately if i found the right date i think i'm going to lose touch with these guys and i'm going to lose touch with these guys i think i could take it on the chin and convince her to let me go the problem is icp's remaining schedule they only have two july shows oh wait they have two july shows that i can't make i'm looking at it right now yeah and then they don't pick back up until september the only real their only realistic option is flying to columbus ohio over labor day weekend for a friday night show about a month before our second child is due dude i'm looking at sturgis south dakota august 14th right now sturgis that's yeah i i think you just want to hit the country fair on this one i don't know if you want sturgis and icp max creek missouri that's a good venue two august they'll probably be good there yeah uh gathering of juggalos yeah i'm kind of defeated at this point do i accept the doghouse sacrifice labor day weekend get trampled in a mosh uh and find a way to make the trip happen do i ask the league for an extension of football season and risk looking soft or do i bail and accept potentially getting kicked out of the league any thoughts here uh some sort of escrow you can do like put something up be like i will do this i just please don't like i do have a family like i understand that you know 10 years ago when we were well we all had nothing to lose it was you know totally understandable that there's a hard date on this stuff um you know you can find a waffle house anywhere but now i gotta you know the icp is not everywhere although later in the year it looks like they really do say they kind of are though they do pick up later in the year um rock fest 2026 in july that's like right around the corner he said he couldn't do that right um i think maybe there's some sort of plea you can be like is there something i could give you to prove like you know can you pawn this thing off for a second and then just you know get it done because i understand the feeling like respected rules it should be done before the season starts but uh you know they just really don't pick up towards october it seems like september october is when they're really putting a date to the medal do you say really yep come hang you probably bring the whole family who knows what if the kid what if she ends up liking them harford's huge on instagram so yeah yeah you can do like a whole harford thing make a week of it airbnb whole deal but i don't know if you want to fill out like reason for in town icp shows does he have to go full clown makeup too did he say that does he have to like i'm wondering because what does it mean like i still think it would be enough for you to actually buy a ticket show up take a picture of yourself you went to it and that should be enough i don't think you should have yeah yeah you're good like i hope this encore doesn't go too long you know like i don't i don't know that's a pretty massive step to fly to go to insane clown posse concert have it be documented you did it i don't i mean again i don't i can't speculate that no no you have to be there the whole time you have to dump fago on your face you have to get in the mosh pit you have to paint up make out with a 1.5 does he have kids hi did he say yeah another one on the way so maybe you can go ahead go ahead all right fine uh you have to get obviously your wife's approval on this but you could you could try to make a little family trip i see you want to take your kids to see the arch september 5th school doesn't start yet and then i think you go off having a kid though so she can't really travel then i missed that part yeah then full hitman mode you fly up get there in the afternoon walk into the show buy the ticket get back to your hotel first flight back to south carolina you're not going to miss all of labor day weekend for this so that's being a little dramatic but if i see this right i'm googling icp 2026 tour dates which is it was like you've already looked this up um if they really didn't get started until one show in sturgis which is august so they have been dormant they haven't toured since the end of to one show at sturgis full throttle saloon august 14th for those interested and then they don't play another show until september 4th and then it's only shows from september 4th to closing it out in detroit october 31st which is what they normally do each right if you're talking about two month window that's in the next football season i think they should give you a little bit of grace here of like i promise i'll do it you've known them 10 years if they believe you as a guy that'll do it as opposed to the other guys are just going to keep putting it off and putting it off i don't think you'll get kicked out of league go up to him be reasonable and be like look they played zero shows until august 14th i can't go to sturgis i can't give up labor day i will do one of these shorter distance late september early october hit it and quit it and if it means i have to do face paint to get the grace then maybe you have to offer that up as some negotiating ploy here because i don't want you kicked out of the league because i it matters to have uh your buddies yeah maybe put a put another a new end point it's like all right how about the trade deadline nfl trade deadline november 10th it's got to be done i think if you just buy the ticket they're going to get off your ass you can do amazing things with ai too maybe if you just buy the ticket hey guys this is the date i'm going like it's on the books like then you're fine no one's i don't think anyone's going to be able to buy the ticket oh man it's not within the past football year i think you're fine but you gotta i think you gotta purchase the ticket and show proof you gotta show the receipt yeah maybe act a little ignorant it's like oh dude i bought the ticket before the season started you know maybe you could do that you're like oh i didn't know and maybe you just totally go the ignorant route i have a hard time just thinking guys are gonna give you a hard time if you if you have a ticket to something in the future they're gonna be live tweet it be like chicken hunting to open what is a juggalo encore boogie woogie woo you know i feel like we're talking about yeah i i'm afraid something's gonna happen to us yeah i don't i've never seen a juggalo in the wild so i've wanted to go to the gathering when i was younger with a buddy just to walk around and say we did it but i think they can tell immediately that you're not there for the right reasons and then it's now yeah they know they totally know okay the ring of the juggalos man that's funny all right i've watched i've watched multiple like 30 minute things on it i can't get enough of the content yeah how old are they too they've been around for a while right long time i'm reading here they were dropped by disney and that's how boogie woogie woo that was what inspired that song 1989 wow gotta give it to him man damn crazy i wonder how many like one hit wonders would go would you rather be a one hit wonder or have the run to juggalo's pad really i mean technically saint clown posse but yeah something to be said about longevity all right how to delay the baby talk different email what's up fellas 26 511 200 used to put up 275 of the bench at college before a torn labrum took me out of the game for a while player comp is a mix between t.j mcconnell and ty lawson scrappy point guard who can shoot a little but is always looking for the right play is ty lawson jack now i think he might be my baby he's huge i lost and dude i was thinking about the uh the move that bus guy never mind that's why i was laughing i'm sorry do you guys not know about the mike bibby thing he's huge oh yeah i've seen yeah no come on who are you talking to i don't think i'm monitoring that stuff for years all right here's some context of my situation my girlfriend and i've been together for almost four years living together about three and a half so that's what 22 we've been best friends since seventh grade man how about two people two lovers knowing each other story midwest midwest what's going on something special about that are you the south um i don't know doesn't say but it's probably not hartford i can tell you that call it's too many options too many options you're like i gotta i don't want to get married why do you think i'm still single i still get that hartford too much time and i can't get that steak coffee um we always knew there were feelings there but the timing never worked until after college i think that's incredible you guys best friends seventh grade decide to get together and have a really good time together right after college and now boom here you go uh she's still my best friend i love her very much we're closing on our first house together next week i'm planning on proposing when we go on vacation in august lots of adult life changes going on naturally it's brought up the child discussion especially given the fact that her two cousins who she's very close with both have two-year-olds and are pregnant currently she's seriously mentioned to me multiple times that she would like to get pregnant within the next year half joking but in that woman serious at the same time i'm joking yeah explicit talk about uh timelines for babies not joking yeah financially both do very well she makes roughly six figures and makes slightly less however she's in a much more stable place than i am as i recently started my career back in january i'm very hesitant on the baby thing while i do envision us having a family together i feel that we are still young and i would rather enjoy a couple more years of the dink life before making this life-changing decision she counters with quote no one is ever ready she does make a good point there that is true and quote let's just do it it will be fun end quote let me be clear she will be fantastic mom and partner she's the oldest of four in age range where her youngest brother is 14 so she's been taken care of and been around babies her whole life i have not and while i do enjoy spending time with her baby cousins i'm finding out in small sample sizes that is a ton of time energy and money etc yeah man your research checks out it does change some things all right so that brings us to my question do i tough it out until the proposal next month leaning on a wedding taking up the majority of her focus and naturally delaying the baby talk or is there a way to have that conversation without running the risk of hurting her feelings creating doubt or should i have a kid next year so rudy figured he would jump in as a father love the show svp days how about this guy's 26 svp days we stopped doing the show 11 years ago we started 17 years ago which is wild so this guy was locked into us from maybe maybe not so much in the past but he was locked into us nine but closer to 15 years old anyway uh sir you want to take the lead i think you just got to be honest with her like yes she is she is correct like i don't think i was like hey yeah i'm really ready for this kid um you just kind of like have the kid and then you figure it out and you know you can convince yourself that you're ready but you you know there's just a bunch it's like it's just bolts flying everywhere you don't know what's going on and like you know babies are kind of insane so i got to be like oh yeah i'm definitely ready i think people say that but i don't think it's really true it's also kind of a cop-out um but if you just are honest with her and be like hey i'd like to enjoy just being married for a little bit like a year or two i understand the timeline but like i i'm on the same page i want to have kids with you you'd be a great mom i'd throw that a few a few times um uh yeah just a little bit of that and uh but like just yeah i think i think honesty is the best policy here man like i don't i don't know that there's any way to like like con your way out of this you just have to like tell her how you feel unfortunately um and i think i think you know the fact that you are on the same page of long-term goals is great so like i don't think that's like it's not like hey i actually don't even know if i want kids like that's then okay then we have to rethink our entire relationship it's not like that but um i do think i do think you should give her a timeline and try to stick to that if you're going to be honest with yourself yeah if you come off sounding more like you have a plan rather than like yeah i'd still like to be able to dart out to the golf course or the happy hour whenever i want i'm sure that's not your only reasons but like if you don't have a plan like her brain's going to go probably to like reason she would think that you're trying to put this off if you're if you're like man i'm 26 i just got kicked off my parents health insurance like maybe we could do a couple of you know i i think saruti's like i'd like to enjoy marriage a little bit if you like if you had like an age that you thought it would be good or like you know a couple of things you want to accomplish in the meantime or whatever like i think if you if you just sound like a dude with a plan and not a guy who's like you know sloughing this off i think it'll go a lot better with you but i do think you have to be honest so it's like the shoe was on the other foot and you went into a marriage thinking one thing and then it's just like you're actually just trying to you know quietly kick this can down the road and you're like i don't know what road it was like a pretty important can then like you would be a little you might even feel betrayed so i would definitely well i've been known to give some advice to do some maybe untoward things before this is one thing i would i would probably be as upfront as you can and just you know get your bullet points down so you don't look like a fool when you're trying to tell her the opposite of what she wants to hear to the emailer though if you're worried about you being a little unsettled as opposed to like wishing you were a little bit more stable that's not a you know she's going to be a great mom so the hey are you ready every single one of my friends in the early process of it like hey what's it like so it's like you know you you're never ready you want to get to this point of like being ready that doesn't really exist and then it just all sort of happens and you figure it out and it works out and that's it and i can speak to at least part of this because and again this is just me being stupid i'm not trying to get into some like deeper thing here of like where i'm at my headspace right now but when i was younger and i was close to being married and i knew it was like okay if i get back together with this person i'm going to be married i wanted to be like turnkey man i wanted to be a brand new build turnkey everything is set up i wanted my place to look like the back of a crate and barrel catalog but i wanted to be that as a person i wanted there to be like zero doubt zero like lack of stability because i never wanted it to not work out i was like if i do this it has to work out it has to be perfect and the thing is it's a stupid concept it's a fucking dumb thing to aspire to be uh and i don't sit back here like i'm just younger and was less educated about it so this is not with remorse that i'm i'm using this minor storytelling here thing and when you think about it as it relates to kids is okay i want to make sure like all of these things are set up it's just fucking dumb it's a waste of time like if you want to have kids with this woman that you're in love with like don't be probably gonna be so yeah it's not gonna be yeah don't let good get in the way of perfect now if the main thing is like hey i'm kind of like on dick around time here for another year or two no one understands that more than me, brother. Okay. I get it. I was at a fly shop. Wait, what's working? Then I was like, oh shit, a seven weight. I was like, I don't have one of those. I was like, why don't you rig one up? Fuck it. Put something nice on it. And the guys were like, really? I'm like, yeah. Cause I don't have a kid. And I was like, fuck it. I'm just going to get this right now. And so that is a very empty thing to be like, I didn't get in the car going, man, I'm awesome. I just bought a seven weight, nine foot rod that I might not even use. Cause it's too big. I don't, I don't sit there going like, this is sick. So I'm just telling you, like, even though you're 26, you're kind of like, I still like to maybe do this or go on this trip or whatever. I, again, I understand, but. You're, you're really, you could likely be sacrificing things that are very, very irrelevant on the grand scheme of things. When you decide, like, you're probably going to love it. You, you, I, my guess would be, you're going to love it because your wife is going to be even happier than she is now as happy as she makes you. Now you're going to be making her so incredibly happy. So look, if you want to give it a year or whatever, but really try to examine the reasons for your delay. Like part of it's probably being scared. Part of it's the lack of stability. You've talked about just starting a new job. Hey, we're bought a house. I'm going to propose here next month. Like, can we slow things down a little bit? I'll tell you, I think if it's somebody who wants a family, they care about the kids more than they care about the house and the ring, which is the opposite of like what I think a guy is always planning on where it's like, I want to have all these, check all these boxes so that you feel better and we have a better chance of success here. But, um, I don't know. I w I would tell you more often than not, like the number one thing is babies. You were right. Just be honest. It's okay. And be, be, be, uh, be smart. Don't listen stupid when you do this can totally get away from you Kyle how about you buddy what's going on with you over there well it's certainly it's certainly I'd say coming down the pike at some point um speaking of what's going on in the future I don't know we signed three-year deals so you know you got you got any heads up for me that'd be uh that'd be nice but uh well I think you'll have a job I think so too but I definitely don't know it so that's not 100% sure yeah if there was some sort of email maybe or like a pdf that's I kind of would love you to be on part of my take for like six months and like an exchange program who do we get who would you take Zach probably Zach yeah I would think Zach would be more your speed yeah I think it would be Zach nothing against I love all the guys in the show but I think Zach we would probably but I don't know you would have to who would have to throw in cash would I have to throw in cash for Zach or would they have probably yeah I think so I don't think really you're pretty established that Dale Earnhardt shit today Kyle Penny I mean come on yeah I mean I might be tapped out by the time the trade goes through you know I mean it might be just like a depreciating asset so I don't know shouldn't I'd like to think they have to kick in a little sweetener but I think both teams value their guy more than the other one right that's what I would say you know I don't know I think there's some I kind of want you to go on with them at least for a day we should do an exchange program just for for an episode see how it goes I think I'm flattered thank you good I'm glad you're flattered okay that'll do it that'll do it shout out to Finn and Feathers shout out to Gallatin River Guides how what a what a crew of guys with those names but again that story came to a screeching halt because Kyle's was just so much better sometimes you have to bend the knee to better content thanks to Tom, Kevin, Suri, Kyle yeah Ryan Russillo Show, Barstool Sports Thank you.