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

Hey, we're still a listeners. You can find every episode on Apple podcast and Spotify. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon music. 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 T 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 touch screen. 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 putt Equinox is built to do more so you can focus on the game. The Ryder Sillo Show is presented by DraftKings. Surudi and I kick off the show just talking a little bit about US men's soccer and then we have a Neenal Hassler. 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 to little deeper on that. We've got Lakers, Summer League stories as you get ready for AJ versus Peterson and Rob Stone, the coolest guy in the South Bay, gives us more perspective on the World Cup, including the US, but then moving forward with the final eight teams and a longer live advice live in Montana. When I go home, that's it. The 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 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, RY EN in partnership with DraftKings. The crown is yours. Bet with DK Sportsbook, gambling problem called 1-800-Gamber, 1-800-My Reset, Connecticut called 888-789-7777, or visit ccpg.org. On behalf of Boot Hill Casino and Kansas, that 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, and July 19th, terms at dkng.co/audio Because of the schedule this week, we didn't get a chance to talk about the US 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 want to talk about. I loved it. I love this run. I love this tournament. I'll keep watching the games, even though the US 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 loss for the US men's team. 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. 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 the guy's kind of laughed. You go in early, so you can watch the bands. I was like, yeah, I just think 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 10 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. Even though I didn't really care about the outcomes, I just was enamored with all of it. I'm waiting around kind of planning my day around when the US band's team is going to play because of these games and how much fun I've had watching it. When they tied against Belgium, it's bad as the first well, well, entire game suck, but tying it up and I'm like, yeah, I'm excited. I'm 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 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 Brisbee's 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 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 played basketball, if you played baseball, you always looked down on soccer guy. And I had mentioned this before, but my turn off to soccer wasn't even really the sport itself. It was just always soccer guy. It was incredibly fucking annoying to me. I used to kind of observe that. I was like, 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. It's like, no, shit, like I wouldn't understand a book I never read. I wouldn't understand. There's very few things any of us understand without experiencing it. So there's like a disconnective, okay, all you casuals are watching, but 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 gaming 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. So complicated. I don't know. It's not that complicated. I just don't watch it that much, but I loved it. I love starting to understand it. Sure, I wish there was a little bit more scoring and it does feel like it sucks when one team's 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 what Seroody going through some of our least favorite soccer drive by tweets. But I realized I'd 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, I've read the tweets and I'm like, Jesus, you could also not say anything. But very few of us, the 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 lose in the round of 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. We'll bring Seroody here in a moment, but like Taylor Twelman after the Paraguay game, however he's 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 defense 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, seeing 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 won a wild card game. Like, I don't think this guys the goods, but I, I find that it's almost like this. I'll, I'll end here and then bring to you. And 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 states your favorite team. They go nine and three and one season. You're like, they're not that good. And they may go nine and three to another season. You feel entirely different about the season that you just watched, because I think the team is totally, it's just better. Maybe you beat arrival. A lot of it schedule 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 Saruti, who I imagine. I don't know. I've really talked to you about this. If 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 spot like they don't, they're not able to just 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 is more unpredictable. But yeah, like I I struggled with it because like it's like, Hey, all right. You know, we've got bounce in the round of 16 again, right? Success or failure. And you're like, you feel like an idiot. If you're like, oh, it's kind of a success because it's on our home, it's on our home nation. We had an embarrassing loss and we obviously reach 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 that group stage in 20, if you compare the two group stages alone, right? In 2022, we drew Wales, one, one. Wales is not a good team. They had Gareth Bale, but he was older and they're just not that good. One, one. We had a kind of a miracle draw, Nill, Nill, England. England was the most passive, weird. They just like didn't do anything. And I know people were going to come at me and say, well, doesn't the US is a credit for that. I actually don't think we played well in that game either. I think that was just like a weird Nill, Nill 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 a scratch of one Nill victory just to make it through the group. And then we get, you know, kind of pumped a little bit by another one. So I think it's 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. And almost still got a point out of that. We smashed Bosnia. Bosnia is 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, it's like it's hard for me to argue that like, hey, yeah, we definitely exceeded expectations and did better in this tournament because it 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 that 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 Parcels quote about like you are who you, you are what your record says you are. And I'm like, it actually isn't true. It feels like there's no line. There's no nuance to it. It is. Yeah, like it's like Parcels are such a God that we just like repeated all these Parcels isms. Remember, it's like if you get the quarterback wrong in the first round, it's such a franchise back 10 years, you're like 10 years bill, 10 years, there's no recovery. And, you know, again, 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 think, you know how many times you'll see an NFL team with a 401 record and you're like, they stink. I think they got lucky on turnovers. Their schedule's been really easy. And there'll be another three and two team and, you know, like that teams way better than that 401. Yeah, you'll see. 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? You know, crazy stuff happens. I don't know. Yeah. You're right. The one and 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 Port Nou here. But I, 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. So did you probably get sucked in again? This is going to get sucked in. Yeah, like he's going to get sucked in. Yeah, it's okay. 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 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 tournament. 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. Okay. Now there are some teams. Obviously, Holland is a 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 D to 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 setup. Right. Everyone's got to fix you soccer. And 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 ass. I'll never agree with you guys about the best athletes playing different sports things. I'm sorry. It's just it's a math thing. If there was no American football. Athleticism and 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 12 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 what'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. So regret or you know Martell was so hot that people just didn't even then there's Trevor but there was never you were never like really that afraid. And in soccer these guys 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 the way you push back on that though is anybody going to do anything the NBA. Those guys are like come on dude those guys like that that's two 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 true. Well nobody really wants to do it and get fine and lose game money and all that kind of stuff because there's so much money but they there's certain teams to like there's certain countries I will now dislike forever. Based on the way they handle themselves especially when they're down in 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 was vacationing to some of these places anyway I'm sorry without without messy Argentine is not a very likeable team. They're just not. I'll hand up I'll be the first one to admit that that turkey was a little spicy there. That was weird though because they were I mean that was like they were already limited that was like they're super white 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 I and I'm not talking about you've convinced me again of this I'm not talking about like some D end. Okay, yeah, you got me there 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 US women's team like well they don't have American football as an option. They're also incredibly it's an incredibly resource group in comparison to who they're competing against we should be comparing it to how you like the world. Like really they they've had that disappointing world cup obviously I mean they had like a I mean you know I'm not trying to like get in this a little bit but like there's a very big argument that like title nine was huge 30 years ago like 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 US women not that they're not awesome still but it's just there's it's more competitive. But think about that there's like a good parallel to now we're just talking about international sports here but when the dream team was put together basketball in 92 because we're 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 else 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 the other when you're at 90 in the other place is starting at zero like it's much easier to get closer to you than is just for you to maintain any kind of that gap which speaks to your US 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 sport and like the confusing thing I'm 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 sports is going to be on your ass in five minutes. You know we don't that's like you was actually know what the read is so you can talk about like all soccer you guys will never figure it out like I don't know if I watched it for a year like nonstop I think I think I may not have like the ultimate of the kind of like the basketball thing where it's like hey that guy scored 25 points he must be really good you're like actually know 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 off soccer acumen what's that the off like the offside thing where people are like well why should a toe over this line. and dictate whether a goal was 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 gotta be a line. - It just sucks that it's going through it. - Yeah, I don't know. - Okay, but like, I'm not getting anything on that one either. - It's probably not super pumped about about where the line was drawn. I don't know, like his puts on line. I mean, Kevin Durant, I'm not saying it's apples to apples, but like, you gotta draw a line somewhere. So like, what does it matter where the line is? If it's high on the guy, we're gonna be arguing about the off-sides calls or 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 on 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 is we're arguing about it. - Off-sides should be, you have to be completely clear of someone's body. - Right. - Okay. - So if your even or your arm is out in front of them, none of that should ever be off-sides. - I would actually want it so hard to score in this sport. - I don't think that change is one single thing though. Because again, we're just gonna be drawing the line in a different spot and dudes are gonna be arguing on X, Twitter, and wherever about the same, about just a line that's two feet in front of it and set two feet behind. It's the same thing. - As someone who cares about it once every four years, it mattered me. - That's your right, that's your prerogative. I really like that you, I'm happy you enjoyed it. It's been an awesome tournament. I hope people keep watching the sport. You know, I've had a lot of people feel like, "Hey, what team show root for us?" So I don't know, I don't like to make those decisions, 'cause that's kind of personal, but it's fun, man. It's really fun. - We'll be right back after a quick word from our sponsors. - Football is back. And with Draft King Sportsbook, September comes with a boost. All September long, opt in and get a 50% profit boost every game day with the Draft King's game day boost pass. New Draft King Sportsbook customers sign up with a code BSS and get 50% profit boost every game day. That's code BSS and partnership with Draft Kings. The crown is yours. Gambling problem, call 1-800-Gambler. 1-800-My-Reset, Connecticut call 888-7897-777. Visit ccpg.org. On behalf of Boothill Casino in Kansas, wager tax pass-through may apply in Illinois, 21+ in most states, void in Canada, one football boost per customer, maximum bet limits and wagering restrictions apply. Tokens are single use and expire at the end of the final select game each day win offered. Terms at sportsbook.draftkings.com/promos. - Good friend. And a guy I love working with at Meenel Hassan joins the show. We're gonna talk some hoops. You can check them out on NBA radio, which is where I catch 'em all the time. Basketball, Luminati, and Cinephob, which I don't know if you and Adian Burke are still on speaking terms, but I hope so. - Better be. - That was a sinister laugh. So who knows, who knows. Let's just start with the headline. Let's start with LeBron, where do you think he goes? - 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 like they know behind the scenes. And I think the big thing for LeBron is, we can play this out like it's, ooh, 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 gotta 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 a nation 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, which I think is a really important part of the Sunday you wanna jump in, so go. - Can I be selfish? Selfishly, I do want him to go to the Warriors. I know they're old. I know the chances of them all getting to April, healthy is slim than 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. Now it started in '22 before I started rooting. Man, I've never cared where a player gone before, but it would be really cool to see Steph and LeBron play on the same team. - Yeah, I think 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. 'Cause I think that's probably the most fun destination for him. But this process, it kind of reminds me like, why do we think this is gonna go any other way? I think he is gonna have a really hard time with retirement, okay? He has pushed the boundaries of what we think is even possible for a basketball player. So there's some basketball stuff I'd ask you about, but I'll admit that I probably was like, oh, why did you think this was gonna 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, 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 is famously said, I'm hands off. I'm gonna hire the guy Mike Gansy. 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 performance art, but it's all designed for one thing. It's like, hey, we will control the monetization of this story in a way that we haven't seen done before. And rightly, 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 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 don't you go to Macau? Like dudes are just saying Macau and NBA worlds right now over and over and over again. There are so many things that immediately are like, that's definitely not happening. 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 and like, this is not up to the standard. I think Bob is like a really lighthearted guy who was fantastic at the job and thought it would be kind of fun to do it. Now Bob has taken all sorts of shit, which is hilarious 'cause 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 'cause then I went and looked up Clay Thompson's stats again and I'm like, yeah, his analytics were not good. His win shares 48 are way below what you think. Box score plus minus with all those teams is lower than you think. P-E-R, which I know no one likes anymore. But that's what Bob and I 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 seeing there with Rich Paul as if they were somehow breaking the rules about how this Brown pursuit's going to be 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-endal. 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 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 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 greatness in individuality, it's like, all right, that gives an extra boost. So I think when it comes to Jalen Brown, I'm obviously the Bobby Marxist 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 on crack country. 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 behind Celtic success over his entire career? It does not mean that he's not gonna come to Philly and be incredible. It just means that, hey, maybe you guys have him up here and he's really a little bit lower than that. - Yeah, I kind of pivoted as too hard to the Jalen thing, which I still have some more LeBron thoughts, but since we're on it, we'll stay with it. 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 that you should have to give a two picks and Jalen Brown for the Sixers to get off the Paul George contract, 'cause I think it would have taken the two picks to get off the Paul George's contract just to the vacuum. But you know, there are certain people in basketball, and we always have to remind ourselves of this. But 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 power. high. And then you'll find out like six months of 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, 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 Jaylen Brown, he's not worth the money in this new world. Right. To me. So this, this is a point that's very near and dear to my heart. Cause I worked with the Phoenix sons and Robert Sarve was our owner. And we had all sorts of owners of 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 from pigs. 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 a cut. We got a cut. We got a cut. And Steve Kerr, I believe this was like his first official act as general manager. He got swindled in essence by by San Presley. San Presley understood the pressure that Steve was under and he 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 turned it back up. I could turn it to all the depots 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. Well, you cannot tell me that we had to trade them 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 had to happen now. And if it didn't happen now, all hell is 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 Yannis talks? Because I know you know these guys as well Brad Stevens, Mike Zarin, Dave Loon, 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 leak for a long time. There's no way you tell me that they thought that this was the 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, me in there a long time, 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 that, I think the reaction is, wait, you don't you don't ever do stuff like this. If 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 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 it 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 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 hardens 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 energy clearly to the fan base. But in terms of does this put them over the next? 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 the honest. I don't know if it puts some head and shoulders at anywhere, but I see obviously you do the deal if you're Cleveland. This is, I mean, the check rights itself pretty much. Yeah, I wonder, you know, I was listening to Brian Winhorse this week and he was talking about how like when their LeBron was going to come back and Cleveland had Gordon Hayward like on the premises. Yeah. Ready to sign. And then LeBron's came up 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 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 and it's 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 in 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 hard reason I accept. Yeah, right. The hard thing, like if you accepted, this feels a very tray 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, your Kobe Altman going like, do I really have to give this guy two years and 80 million? But I mean, think, but if you think of James Harden is like, again, the whole reason I came here, like you said, is this, but also I opted out, I could write it 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, 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 everybody 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 sports center 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 man. 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. Dream on is not going anywhere. It's not like, oh, he 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 Dream on this. So I don't know how all of this is going to play out for Cleveland regardless of if LeBron gets there or not. The minimum thing was weird because then I would go like, well, then just stay in L.A. Then now you have a center. You have other on-ball guys like, yeah, I got really expensive. I don't like the Walker Kessler price at all. Like I'm looking through some of the deals and maybe we can spend a couple 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 hard 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, okay, 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 you sure you really want to do this? And Darryl, depending on which side of that story you believe, I mean, again, Harden took the $13 million pay cut. Usually you don't do that unless there's some sort of understanding. And maybe Darryl was actually the guy that goes, you know what? I don't want to then give him the money. And that's why you called him a liar. And then look, as soon as I say this, I mean, the six 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 this. And I go, all right, fine. But again, so that means an NBA player took a $13 million pay cut for no reason whatsoever. But 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. 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, it isn't gonna be the third string guy to to Luke and Austin Reeves I felt 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 Hardin 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 of a massive key to this because you Rightfully if you take hard and off the off the table Now it's LeBron and Donovan Mitchell Evan Moby just is does not seem to have the temperament to be a guy who the workhorse that you know 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's out 46 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 nights where it's like all right fellas you take it from here, right? I'll I'll do this. I'll be 39-year-old Karl Malone out of the high high post in a in a triangle offense in L.A And and I'll just do you know feeling the gaps here and there I'll still get my 28 and six by the way We're just amazing that he can do it, but not just not in the way where it's like given the ball and everyone's what that's Good that 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's 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 design 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. He's absolutely capable of doing it 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 hard and Mitchell thing in the place 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 Harden sit at 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 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 to Mitchell possessions and good LeBron possessions to have a Harden Who's not going to change he's not going to change the way that he plays are you bring him in if it's those three guys real 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. He's 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 on in that Harden played so poorly and so many of those games That I find myself kind of Confused what's happening here? Why I saw the same thing you did. I'm like why isn't he saying something? Why isn't you? 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 Kyrie, you know, you could have argued. Oh, what if LeBron takes the ball out of Kyrie's hands? Well, you didn't really like it was just hey Kyrie I'm going to a leave you of a lot of the duties that you would have Make it like easier man. Yeah, you just get to go out there and be you and I think what Donovan I absolutely that hardness a different story Can a hardened 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 realize you don't know how Russell Westward 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 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 The reality set in and he's like oh, this is awful and I keep going back to it was at McMenderman that asked them 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 is a point guard? I'll point guard on 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 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 in hard and stays and they put together a nice regular season It's gonna like I don't know if they'll end up being the favors. I don't know 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 And 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 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 then 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 sick like Donovan may have let it happen to you Well, let it happen Kenny may have let it happen. I'm not letting it happen. It's like this might be my last run at it 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 Mamo comp where he's a full 52 million guarantee with a player option when he was making I think 2.6 Average annual salary rookie scale. He had a qualifying offer. This is right. This is an entirely fair and look Hey, the Colin sex and things at 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 Mamo can do a lot of different things. I think he's a really nice basketball player. That seems expensive Where are you with all of these modes? So Grimes. I'm okay with because 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 yokeaches and the the imbeads when you look at the next caliber of center What mr. Robinson sign for or what I say a heart sign sign for I think that Tracks for Sandro I think the big one that we all What kind of say? 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. Hey doesn't have delusions of grander But that's the number where it's like Okay, if he doesn't pan out for whatever reason we're gonna be sitting here in the same way that Mazgov you know 10 years ago If you were saying really that much for Mazgov, huh? Who's not invited? I'm gonna ask him. I see him working out every now and then I run into him in Manhattan Beach, Mazgov And I got to ask him like how could how could you have not the Mazgov call is a great one because you're like what Like man, I kind of liked him. I'm 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 air and mince deal. It is so clear that it's like hey, yeah, you five years 140 Yeah, most people would sign that and be happy to do it We're gonna get more and we're gonna get a player option and we're gonna 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 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 restrictive for agency at work, right? If you're a max player Restricted for 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 than it would have been how we just offered you max to start with, right? Restrictive reagency 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. Because we can only pay Austenery so much, there's a fall off trickle of money and, you know, Walker Kessler is the recipient as such, but you're saying like, "Oh, I would want someone like that." If it was someone like that, which is basically dealing during, 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 restrictive reagent, 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 available. Yeah, right. He's not available. Yeah, exactly. That guy's not available. He's put up the numbers, not only having missed most of last year, but in fact, on top of it, he's put up these numbers in one of the worst environments. This is the quintessential Luder 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 transfer over to a winning environment? Is this transfer over to possessions that matter? Is this transfer over to playoffs?" I honestly can't sit here and say, "Yes or no for Walter Kessler because I've never seen him in that environment." What I do know is, it's not like he was Deleu Leufeur, where it's like, "Yeah, you got to give me the ball on the block and for me to feel good. This is a guy who's 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 that the Wizards already screwed this up, which feels incredibly unfair to the Wizards, but is 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 of Summer League. I watched him walk you roster 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 overreaction story before you bounce, because I know you're in Vegas for it tonight. Yeah. So the Peterson thing is, he went to, he didn't drop the 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 Darren Peterson smear campaign because, "Oh, he doesn't want to play and he doesn't care." And I'm like, "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 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 something that we're going to start asking questions and dissecting a whole lot closer. All right, so give me a front-off of his Summer League deal. There's never going to be a 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 us like, "Oh, Bill Self, kind of bump heads with him whatever." He comes out after his freshman year, despite now having a great year. He goes in the second round. So everyone was like, "Well, yeah, you know, I didn't really show and prove whatever." Comes to Summer League, has a monster that was a 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 he needed us to say his career didn't go much of anywhere. The flip side is I was there for Jeremy Lind versus John Wall. And I was the guy sitting there like, "Guys, it's Summer League. Who cares?" And, you know, turned out, the play, turned out they're a pretty good player. Ah, 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. Amino Hassan, NBA radio, basketball, luminati, and Cinephal. Thanks, man. Thanks, Ryan. And we'll be right back after a quick word from our sponsors. It's Fran from Chicks in the Office. The weather is getting cooler and Abercrombie's fall drop has everything I need for the season. The best-selling A&F Sloan Taylor pant is a closet staple for me. I'm always wearing it to work events, happy hour, anytime I want to be a bit more dressed up. And the viral Dillon dress is easy, one-and-done perfection. But my fall uniform will always be denim pair with a Henley sweater, a bra-free top. It's comfortable, effortless, it just never fails. Find your fall capsule at Abercrombie, shop in the app online and in stores. He has been the face that has welcomed you into the world of soccer, the covers of the World Cup for Fox Sports. It is my neighbor, Rob Stone, and Simsbury Legend. He's getting a Simsbury legend in there, right off the bat. How many pounds did you have in Simsbury? Didn't you? I mean, what were your stats? Didn't you? Let's see. Well, I played soccer in basketball at Simsbury High School. I was a two-year dude on the basketball team. I was like the floor burn guy. I was the sixth man only because we only had five guys that could really play. I love my. I love high school basketball, so much fun. Soccer, yeah, I played varsity for three years, played state team, regional team, Colgate, blah, blah, blah. Soccer was my DNA, as far as playing. But I still got a good little. It's from Diving on the Hardwood at practice, not in a game at practice, right? 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 we started the pod. I've enjoyed the hell out of it. I've obviously pivoted, however many years once I started really appreciating the sport, spectacle and everything. I went to the game against Turkey, it was even better than I thought. My expectations were really high to see that stadium, to see just it be on fire and the venue looked incredible and everything. It's obviously disappointed in a Belgium and that being debated with a lot of me included, a lot of drive by soccer fans. So as somebody who lives, breathes this every single day, what do you make of the exit and what this run means to where U.S. soccer is? So let's start with the exit, okay? The good news, 30 million people watched it on Fox. Bad news, 30 million people watched that 90 minute performance from the U.S. men's national team. It was just such an ugly, unfortunate exit that had multiple moments where people will just kind of snapshot it and go, there you are, that's U.S. soccer. Look at these guys, they can't figure themselves out, they'll never be anything. So that's the frustrating part because if you go back to the other games, you were like, wow, I'm inspired by these guys. This is really good, entertaining, attacking soccer that people could latch onto. Clearly they did. Millions and millions of more people came into this World Cup 10th, this U.S. men's national team 10th and were there before things started. So I hate the way that it ended. I just wish it was like a tight two-one game. I wish there was no political discourse about it. I don't love the fact that there's that perception that our president put his thumb on the scale a little bit to turn things. But yet then there's a part of me that's 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, they weren't sending Bill Clinton. It was Al Gore. I'm like, let's get the main dude in town, this is a big deal. So at least that 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 come to a close and the round of 69 always felt like the landing spot. 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 thanks for everything. But if you're able to step away from 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, it was tremendous. And I think I'd said at one point in Seattle, I've never seen anything like this in my life because I've been around soccer a long time and it hadn't been there for American soccer. Yeah, there'd been fans and a bunch of the little ponytail mafia followers. following the women's team in '99 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, you know, my text chains were just like nonstop about World Cup. I had to mute several text chains from my people, my friends, because I couldn't handle it anymore. I'm like, I'm going to get to you in two hours, but like right now, I got to focus on this game and people just wanted to talk soccer 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 was a win, a disappointing exit, but overall, it was a win for you as soccer. There's no denying from the attention, the growth of the game and all of the factors you just brought up, but from just a team standpoint, 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. It looks like we have more guys that can attack, it 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 having a quarterback on third and seventh. We were like, we never convert these ever. And that's what U.S. men's soccer felt like. Yeah. By the way, trust your eyes. You're a smart guy. Like you, you, you're spot on, you, you totally nailed it. You know, there was a lot of hand-ringing 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 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 in expanded tournament. You know, we're put in, in the, the pool of a team. So we're automatically avoiding, you know, 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 of it. Like, we had everything gifted to us. But I was worried. And those last two tuneups 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, those Americans aren't so bad actually. And, and to me, like the one thing was, and I think you spot, you hit it spot on 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. The 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 they're not winning those one V one battles. That created these early starts and these early goals. So yeah, optimism was flying high, man, as, and it is addictive. It is a drug, you know, and you start drinking a little bit, maybe too much of the cool aid rather than sipping it. There was a couple little, like, just down it and we were beating who we needed to be. But we always knew that there was a big boy down the corner. We always knew reality was coming knocking and how would we handle that situation and that situation or for sure, it was Belgium. Who's the favorite? France? I mean, they have to be. I don't know how they couldn't, you know, they've taken every punch. They play with just this swagger and this confidence and this, 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, you know, knife us in the back of the half-time tunnel. Yeah. It didn't work. You know, 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 quickly in L messy in Argentina is remarkable. I can't believe that they're recreating the summer that they gave us four years ago. You know, the, 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 insane to watch. It's just, it's, it's magical, magical drama that messy keeps providing us. Can you explain to me because they're going to that Belcher game, I was so fired up to watch their legends and then I'm like, the brunette's not even playing. Yeah. So on the bench, the cock who comes in, what he came in late and had the goal, right? But guys of beast. Yeah. I was, was that Belgium going? We're, it looked like maybe they were going to sub them in if they felt like the game was so lopsided, even at the one one school. Yeah. I don't know if that was all factory in it, but were they looking ahead? Is that kind of changed 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 like there's a Tom Rinaldi feature that's trying to make you cry. And I'm like, we're looking at this thing and I'm like, I go down the sub. So 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. And I'm like, 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 just totally change things. So it showed to me, it verified to me 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-term long, like, I don't know where we go, you know, what we do. It's hard to find those strikers and Florian Baligan has been an absolute dream. 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. How do you make a 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 how those 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 quarter final team and they're there. I definitely feel a little bit more like, wow, they've 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, 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 them 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 taught them 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, 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 a, they had an international window coming up and, you know, like 80th minute of their primarily 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, 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 expectations suffocating them to bring it home. 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. Here is Pickford, as far as goalkeepers, like Rank, like what are we talking about right now? I can't help. He's not high. That was one of the concerns about this team coming in, but to me, he had a great game last time out. He's all over the place. I can't tell if it's good or if it's bad. Yes, yes, yes, totally fair, totally fair. 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 gold tender 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 in his glove saves and whatever. He was smothering everything. Keepers are weird dudes. It doesn't matter what sport they are. You're 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 beat around him. But when you get one of those guys that's on a roll, you know, great things can happen and they feel it. Like there's pick for it 100% feels it right now, right? Like he's in his pick for 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 US team about Matt Freeze. It's not a knock on the guy. I just didn't have that confidence in our goalkeeping situation that I have had in the past. And we've grown to expect that as fans of the US men's national team. 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 mistake in the Belgian game. I felt like that was something that was going to bite us eventually because at some point you need your keeper to make saves that are going to keep you in a game and in a contest and in the 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 to go, I probably don't have a pick for three years. Can you start trusting your eyes? That's the big takeaway of today. Trust yourself. You got fed eyes for this man. You know what's happening. You see it too. Well, you know, heart will five, six years old, not the same as a Simsbury captain seat, but 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 you know, it's, it was a really interesting game against Paraguay because I ended up going like, all right, I realize you're up on the penalty. 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 0 0 or it's one one. Yeah, I'm mad at Paraguay, by the way, the way they played. Did that frustrated? I thought it was disgusting. Yeah. I hated it. And I get being, that to me was not being competitive. That was being pissy losers. So take that pair. Right. 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 players jumping in, literally trying to get themselves thrown out, but to get a French player thrown out at the same time, right? That was yeah. That's what I kept seeing. Like, hey, we're going to do a light 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 you like, they were just trying to bait these French players constantly. And again, that goes to my point. Like, that was that French little smile. Like, no, not today, my friend, not today, mon on me, 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 in 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 US and really cared and had questions and dynamics. And why did they do this? And I love when I could see a play build up and the set pieces when there was really definition and what they were trying to do. But the flopping Rob, 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 mayor, 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 are from Paraguay. And my guess is there's a pretty decent population of the Paraguayians too. We're like, man, 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 year 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'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 in the studio show that's not your studio show is getting all sorts of commentary with Terry Henri, he brought him a bitch and obviously Alexi Wallace, who he worked with a really long time. And I wonder if when you bring in guys that are like as close to God 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 Ibrahimovich once he loosened up a little bit kind of got there because I know he has his stick. I know, Wallace isn't for everybody. But I think that's a lot of free determined ideas on where he's at. And maybe it filters into not actually listening what he's talking about with the soccer stuff, but it seems like he and Terry Henri 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 can 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 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. 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 still root to this day that I didn't take Spanish in high school. That seems very high school. I signed up for French. And that served me great at World Cup 98. But since then, it's been a drain on me. And, and, and I talked to guys like landed on it and 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, maybe for that moment. So I think some of that can get lost 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. Also, American television is so different than international television, particularly on the soccer seat. 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 has 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. 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 that at for nine minutes. You know, and we never have 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. And Alexi's a master at it. And, and he understands also what, what cuts through, what reverberates, what will catch your ear and your eye. And, you know, some of it is a performance art, but 100% Alexi believes what he's, what he's talking about. And 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 dude's really tired. They had a log day and a quick flight back and up early. That plays on things. These guys are banging out real hard shifts. I think it's been a really interesting learning curve for everybody on that set. 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. There's a lot of pro wrestling. I mean, like the whole, you know, Harvard Civic Center. I'm sure you were there as a kid. Yeah, I was at the ball a ton of times watching a Hillbilly gym or a Blackjack Mulligan and Bob Backlin. Connecticut. Great. Bob Backlin. But the wrestling parallel is if you come out and nobody is booing or nobody is 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 if 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 I get really frustrated by it. The announcing teams are incredible. The deaths that you have for on game calls are terrific. So which is the most important part of the game, right? Right. I used to think, you know, look, that 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 into 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. Because Musburger, even though he wasn't in his prime, and I'm not being critical of him, he did minute because 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 worked seamlessly. And it felt like an international event that, I mean, Glenn, I get that it's the World Cup and it already is. So 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 take that. It's, it's a really cool parallel that you bring about that Saturday night prime time game. You know, and again, there was less college football out there back then, less competition, right? On, on, on, on, yeah, 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 of people 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 is this tribe. It's this, this generation of 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, Rayal 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 is, is to tap into that, you know, again, for a fox thing, that big new kickoff type energy. You know, I mean, this is, this is the stuff that I get to see on Saturdays. And I love it. 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, 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 US fans, particularly that first game in Seattle, 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 decades. I can't say anymore. I just thought it was great. And I know some people who listen to probably like, well, why wouldn't it have been a big deal? It's the world cup like dummy. Because 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 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 of Sofie, I was like, if you told me I was London or somewhere else, I would believe you, because this is what it feels like. It felt like the first time that on American soil, it didn't feel American. And I mean, that kind of is a compliment that it wasn't, it wasn't like, hey, this is all these American settings. Maybe that's why Fifu was so adamant about all the signage and all that other stuff. Because 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 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 you walk into, where have I been with them? Dallas, Kansas City, Miami. You're like, I might be in Buenos Aries. I don't know. Am I? Is this how it feels? Because it's, you know, 90, 95% 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 maze and blue. We know who we know who are watching. Scarlett, right? We know who are watching. There's the light blue and white stripe. We know who are watching, right? And I think that's, that's part of it as well, but the atmosphere has been amazing. And 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 discuss soccer. 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 have 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. And as always, let's have you over the house next time we do this. All right. And it won't be four years promise. I can't wait. All right. That is Rob Stone, which made just my friendship alone made me stop saying Sims boring, whenever his hometown was referenced. Thanks Rob. Anytime. We'll be right back after a quick word from our sponsors. Football seasons here. And whether you're grinding your way through the week or gearing up for kickoff, there's one ride that's always game ready. The Chevy Silverado. There's a reason Chevy is called the heartbeat of America and Silverado keeps that heartbeat strong. Whether you're towing, hauling or tailgating. Silverado lets you show up strong and tackle any task with best in class standard torque, the most functional bed and the advanced tech that's football guy approved. Check out offers on the 2026 Silverado at Chevy.com You want details? Bye. I drive a Ferrari 355 cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every tour you can possibly imagine and best of all kids. I am liquid So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. We have a little extra time today. So before we get to the life of vice I'm headed back to LA tonight and Finish up a nice little fly fishing run through Montana. So back in big sky Which I have it's been a few years, but I usually come to Montana every summer I haven't been back in this part starting Boseman work my way down on the Madison day one yellowstone river day two and I feel like I've finally Finally turned a coat turned a corner as a as a as I guess I would say is someone that's yeah I just I've been doing it for a while and when you do it and frequently like imagine if you golf three times a year and then you were annoyed you weren't better That's probably where I've been at and then I think the last two days I've I've turned a corner. I feel good Yeah, yeah, that wasn't a tripod Instagram situation, right. You got a fish and buddy or is that a guide? Oh, felt you might delete felt bute might delete felt lame putting that in the caption so lame I even check with serrudy ahead of time You did and I even I think that's the coolest Serrudy 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 just I just say hey man. 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 at a time, but that's definitely one where it's like I don't know if anybody's gonna get this subute Montana Oh, that's actually what you're up. Okay Yeah, I think people get that is it a cool though like doesn't it feel good when you do It's I don't know if fishing's like a manly task, but it's like a all right It's like a it's like a I'm 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 today. Hell yeah I don't know if I put it at the same level of like building a deck Um, but there's a primal itchy scratch 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 rain Well fly fishing is hard though like if you don't know you're doing yeah, here's a step 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 of the hook no no my mom when I was a kid we go by the train track Never caught a fish no dude when I was a kid we go by the train tracks She had some like rough friends and they let me like poke the eyes out of the fish. They caught but like 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 because yeah, yeah does what's up wait What were you we're using like worms what were we using for bait dude we went like we went to like came Art and got like a whole fucking set of shit like you know like we're gonna get this one this summer never got on And then I just stopped to stop trying because it's a tough day when Dude's catch fish and you don't it's a tough day also everybody else did 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 persons rod and I just couldn't couldn't get anything So wait a minute was the last time you had a you actually went fishing Went fishing. I don't even it was like 14 or something 15. I don't know all right man That's all right to grow. It's not for me Well, it's not meant for me. It's not meant for me. I understand why people like it. Yeah, it's kind of meant for you Hardly me Not to do it. Yeah, the boys sounds like it sounds like a golf cart to me. I don't know exactly what my golf days like now You're way more of a fishing guy than a golf guy just on the surface. I'm happy you're in the 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 Maybe I'll bring it back. I don't know. Maybe we'll do a Fishing video, you know, just do a video that could be about Netflix, you know Kyle If I don't catch a fish, we have to scrap the video. I don't know that might be the video though Catch the fish. Someone say that's better like a gym or I am situation. Yeah season three is gonna happen or what? All right So I had two guides First guide his name was Carson check them out gallatin river ride 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 We're 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 and I Started talking about this book that I'd read about like settling the West and it went through all the kick Carson stuff And he's like I was named after kick Carson. 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 nice rainbows couple 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 Drives dry nymph down low tight casts Whole deal starts to rain Catch a 16 inch rainbow cotta another brown Another white fish, I think a cut so anyway Talking to him we started talking about books he asked me if I'd read loads some dove. 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 what happens when you're out there though crazy what they're doing up here, right? Yeah, good job by you being like yeah I know what you're talking about because 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 Your name Dr. Kyle Petty swear to God We just kind of found this out kind of a middleing race car driver dude I'm not kidding. I'm my mom's a huge NASCAR fan named after Kyle Petty She was like back then there weren't that many cows 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? Let's look up his standings a couple years prior to he like wasn't awesome, but I guess yeah, let's see His dad was the king, but uh, I don't know So he was she a Richard Petty fan and then she was an error 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. Oh man in the dark tough tough Is your mom in concussion protocol? No You know what's funny about that. It's not fun. It's like that. That was Your mom didn't go to work for four days after dealing her cry. Maybe it was three days. She certainly I know I know I was going to school I think I maybe it wasn't the summer. I don't know, but I remember I was standing out too Mom's door is closed. I just can't go down the hallway. That was a tough tough week in our house In the hindsight though that was insane. I don't feel was 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 I was like that was I remember watching now and watch NASCAR and it just happened. It's like oh, yeah You got and it's like what? And younger you just understand that I remember where I was the whole thing, but I mean obviously Kyle's never gonna 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 I was like I'm it's called Swerver die didn't read it, but she was like thought thought maybe you'd like this I gotta be honest. I mixed up payment as dad. I didn't I thought with Richard Petty. Oh, dude. Well, I don't king No, I know. I thought that's I don't know. I knew Petty and I was like, okay, I know the petty guy 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 A lot to respect famously the only driver in cup series history to win his 600th career start That's a bit you got to really dig to find a stat like that, but uh, you won't sing that old guy still got it. That's good Tell your mom I feel bad about deal because I don't want to make it seem like I don't think I'm gonna bring it up honestly We're in a good place. So no, no, that's a good spot. I don't really know what to do about 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 pointless You let me leave by the train tracks. I'm named after Kyle Petty and you look 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 Loving big sky village though. Man, what a little farmers 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, 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 we're just going to run, run through it. In same clown posse concert or lose my friends, that obviously caused 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, 6 1 1 90. 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 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. It's still hang out with them in 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. 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 a groundhog day in Pux-Sentoni, Pennsylvania. You set a budget for that time. You used invocation days to go to Pux-Sentoni Village. Jesus. Informal attire was another part of that sentence to Pux-Sentoni. To date, every loser's completed the punishment. Breaking news is 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 cleaning, with the guys usually, is to attend an insane clown posse concert. That is awful. I mean, unless they're going to play the early stuff. But 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 at work. My concern is that if I don't complete the punishment, I'll be relegated from the league and 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 I see peak it's brought up, it turns into an argument. By the way, she should never be thrilled about this. That's a good sign, my wife. 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 could take it on the chin and convince her to let me go. The problem is ICPs are meaning scheduled. They only have two July shows. 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 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 think you just want to hit the country fair on this one. I don't know if you want Sturgis and ICP. Max, Missouri. That's a good thing. There's two August. They'll probably be good there. Yeah. Gathering of juggalers. Yeah. I'm kind of defeated at this point. Do I accept the doghouse Sacrifice Labor Day weekend, get trampled a mosh and find a way to make the trip happen. Do I ask the lead for an extension of a full season of risk looking soft or do I bail and accept potentially getting kicked out of the league? Any thoughts here? There's 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 went, well, we all had nothing to lose. It was, you know, totally understandable that there's a hard date on this stuff. You know, you can find a waffle house anywhere, but now I got to, 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. Rockfest, 2026 in July. It's like right around the corner. He said he couldn't do that, right? 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, you know, they just really don't pick up towards October. It seems like September October is when they're really putting a date hard to the mental. Do they really? Yep. Come on. You probably bring the whole family. Who knows? What if the kid? What if she ends up liking them? Hard for a huge on Instagram, so yeah. Yeah, you can do like a whole hard for 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 paint his mind? 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 saw. Yeah. Yeah. I hope this on court doesn't go too long. You know, like, I don't know. That's a pretty massive step to fly, to go to insane clown positive concert. Have it be documented. You did it. I don't, I mean, again, I can't speculate that no, no, you have to be the whole time. You have to dump fego on your face. You have to get in the mosh pit. You have to paint up everything to make out with a 1.5. Does he have kids? Did he say one? Yeah. That's the issue. I mean, you have to get it. Go ahead. Go ahead. All right. Fine. 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. Just having a kid, though. So she can't really travel. Then you can then yeah, then. Full hit man. 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 Tordates, which is it was like, you've already looked this up. 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 football season 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. 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 be putting it off and putting it off. I don't think you're going to get kicked out of the league. Go up to him. Be reasonable in me like, look, they played zero shows until August 14th. I can't go to Sturgis. I can't give a 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 again, it matters to have your buddies. Yeah, but maybe put a put another a new end point. It's like, how about the trade deadline? NFL trade deadline. November 10th'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 you might have bought it. I don't think you got it. If you just buy the ticket, you, hey guys, this is the date and going like it's on the books. Then you're fine. No one's, I don't think anyone's going to be like, oh man, it's not within the passport ploy here. I think you're fine. But you got to I think you got to purchase the ticket and show proof you got each other's seat. 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. So when I go, oh, I didn't know. And maybe you just totally go the ignorant route. I have a hard time. I think guys are going to be a hard time if you have a ticket to something in the future. They're going to be alright. Live tweeted. You like chicken hunting to open. What is a jug below on core boogie woogie woogie. You know, I feel we're talking about. Yeah. I'm afraid some's going to happen to us. Yeah. I've never seen a jug below 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 now yeah, they know, they totally know. Okay. The rig of the jug was man. That's funny. All right. I've watched, I've watched multiple like 30 minute things on it. I can't wait for the party. Yeah. I'm older. They too. They're off for a while. Right. Long time. I'm reading here. They were dropped by Disney and that's how Boogie Woogie Wu that was the one inspired that song. - 1989. - Wow, gotta give it to 'em, man. - Damn. - I wonder how many like one hit wonders would go, would you rather be a one hit wonder or have the run to the jugalosapad? Really, I mean, technically the same 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, 5, 11, 200. Used to put up 275 of the bench at college before a torn labor room took me out of the game for a while. Player of comp is in mixed between TJ McConnell and Ty Lawson's crappy point guard who can shoot a little, but is always looking for the right play. - Is Ty Lawson jacked now? - They're gonna mind you. - Might be. - Might be, might be. (laughing) - Peace. - You've tied my baby. - Ty Lawson, dude. I was thinking about the move that bus guy, never mind. That's why I was laughing. I'm sorry. - Do you guys not know about the white baby thing? He is huge. - Oh yeah, I've seen it. - Yeah, no, come on. - Okay. - Did you talk to him? - Ty doesn't think I'm monitoring that stuff for years. All right, here's some context with my situation. My girlfriend and I have 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's origin story? - Midwest? - I'm Swiss, what's going on? - Some special about that. Maybe this, I don't know, let's say, but it's probably not hard for it. I can tell you that call. Too many options, too many options. You're like, I don't want to get married. Why do you think I'm still single? I can still get that hard for it in me. - Too much time in hard for it. You can't get that steak off you. - We always knew that there were feelings there, but the time we never worked until after college. I think that's incredible. You guys best friends, seventh grade, decided to get together right after college. And now, boom, here you go. 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 way of also being dead serious at the same time. - Not joking. Yeah, explicit talk about time lines for babies, not joking. - Yeah, financially both do very well. She makes roughly six figures and makes lately 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. - Yeah, that is true. And, quote, let's just do it. It will be fun. End quote. Let me be clear. She will be a fantastic mom and partner. She's the oldest of four in age range where her youngest brother is 14. So she should be 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 the ton of time, energy and money, et cetera. 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? Seruti figured he would jump in as a father, love the show, SVP days. How about this? 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 nine, but closer to 15 years old. Anyway, Seruti, you want to take the lead? I think he's got to be honest with her, like, yeah. She is correct. I don't think I was like, hey, I'm really ready for this kid. You just kind of like have the kid and then you figure it out. And you can convince yourself that you're ready, but there's just a bunch. It's like there's just bolts flying everywhere. You don't know what's going on. And like, babies are kind of insane. So like, 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. 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'm on the same page. I want to have kids with you. You'd be a great mom and throw that in a few, a few times. [LAUGHS] Yeah, just a little bit of that. And, but like, just be honest, he's the best policy here, man. I don't know if there's any way to like, con your way out of this. You just have to like tell her how you feel, unfortunately. And I think, you know, the fact that you are on the same page as 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 been okay. Then we have to rethink our entire relationship. It's not like that. But 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, it's 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 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 think sororities, 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 of you, if you just sound like a dude with a plan and not a guy who's like, you know, shluffing 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 were actually just trying to, you know, quietly kick this can down the 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 on-torn things before this is one thing 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 the opposite of what you want to see here. To the email or 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 good reason. Okay, you love this woman. This is an incredible backstory. You want to have kids. 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'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 has just been being stupid and 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 could back together with this person, I'm gonna 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 Creighton barrel catalog, but I wanted to be that as a person. I wanted there to be like zero doubt, zero 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. And I don't sit back here like years later. I'm just younger and was less educated about it. So this is not with remorse that 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 stuck. - Yeah. - It's not like, yeah, don't let good get the way 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, like 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 it 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 gonna 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 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 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 gonna love it. I, my guess would be, you're gonna love it because your wife is gonna be even happier than she is now. It's happy she makes you now. You're gonna be making her so incredibly happy. So, look, if you wanna 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. Talk about just starting a new job. Hey, we're bought in a house. I'm gonna 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 wanna have all these check all these boxes so that you feel better and we have a better chance to success here. But, I don't know, I would tell you more often than not. Like, the number one thing they're thinking about is babies. - You were right, just be honest. It's okay. And be, be, be, be a- - Be secure time one. - Don't let's do it when you do this. Can totally get away from it. - How about you, buddy? - It's cool. with you over there. Well, it's certainly, it's certainly, I'd say, coming down the pike at some point, speaking of what's going on in the future, I don't know. We signed three-year deals, so, you know, you know, you had any heads up for me. That'd be, that'd be nice. But, well, I think you'll have a job. I think so too, but I definitely don't know it. So, it's not 100%. Yeah, if there were some sort of email, maybe you're like a PDF that's. I kind of would love you to be on part of my take for like six months in like an exchange program. Who do we get back at? 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, I don't know, what would have to, who would have to throw in cash? Would I have to throw in cash for Zach? Or would they have to throw in cash? Yeah, I think so. I don't think so. Really? You're pretty remarkable. Is that Dale Earnhardt's shit today? Kyle Petty? Come on. Yeah, I mean, I might be tapped out by the time the trade does through, you know what I mean? It might be just like at the appreciating assets. So, I don't know. I'd like you to think they have to kick in a little sweetener. But I think both teams value their guy more than the other one. 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 an episode. See how it goes. I think I'm flatter. Thank you. Good. I'm glad you're flatter. Okay, that'll do it. That'll do it. Shout out to Finn and Feathers. Shout out to Gallatin River Guides. What a, what a crew of Guides, 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 a ton, Kevin. Sorry to you. Kyle. Yeah. Ryan Russela Show. Arsenal Sports. See you.