Ryen Russillo, OKC Thunder Center Isaiah Hartenstein, Mt Rushmore Of M Things + Listener Submitted FAQ'S
02:45:36 Share

Hey, Pardon My Take listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. On today's Pardon My Take, we have a lot. We have Mount Rushmore season. It is back. We have the Mount Rushmore of words that start with M.

Gets a little contentious, which is good. We have Ryan Russillo on to talk NBA draft. A little cleanup from the NBA finals. We have Oklahoma City Thunder NBA champion Isaiah Hartenstein. And we are going to do FAQs and also talk about Hank Celtics being dismantled. And who's better? Sorry, hot seat, chill throne. So before we get to all of that,

DraftKings, nothing beats relaxing on a hot summer day and watching baseball. And the simplest way to get in on the action is to download the Pick 6 app from DraftKings. It's crazy simple. Just pick more or less on the stats for two or more of your favorite players and boom, you're in the mix for big cash prizes.

No gimmicks, no weird rules, just ball. Nail your picks and you're heating up. Pick 6 brings upside with payouts up to 500 times. Pick 6 is live in a ton of states, Texas, Cali, Georgia, Missouri, and lots more. Don't settle for a smaller payout. Switch to Pick 6, and right now new customers can take advantage of a special sign-up offer.

Pick six from DraftKings is the most fun way to play fantasy sports. Download the DraftKings Pick 6 app now. Use code TAKE, that's code TAKE, for new customers to get a special sign-up offer, better payouts, bigger wins, only with Pick 6 from DraftKings. The crown is yours. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. Help is available for problem gambling. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org in Connecticut. Must be 18 and over.

age and eligibility restrictions vary by jurisdiction. Pick 6 is not available everywhere, including New York and Ontario. Void where prohibited. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see pick6.draftkings.com slash promos. Okay, let's go.

Welcome to part of my take presented by DraftKings Pick 6. Pick 6 from DraftKings, the most fun way to play fantasy sports. Download the DraftKings Pick 6 app now. Use code TAKE, that's code TAKE, for new customers to get a special sign-up offer, better payouts, bigger wins, only with Pick 6 from DraftKings. The crown is yours. Today is Wednesday, June 25th, and boys, it's Mount Rushmore season.

Let's go. It's Mount Rushmore season. Best time of the year. Did you guys see our good friend, friend of the program, Alex Caruso at the Oklahoma City Thunder Championship Parade with a Mount Rushmore shirt on?

all four of the heads being Alex Caruso. That's old school. That's awesome. I like that a lot. Alex Caruso for president. Alex Caruso for president. So yeah, the Thunder had their parade today. It was funny watching Chet Holmgren get really drunk. How many beers do you think it takes Chet to get drunk? I think he's a toucan. Yeah, I was going to say three, maybe four. I think two beers and a cigarette, and he was puking. He was very drunk. He was a Mitchell Lobotril's.

Yeah, they were. And the press conference was like, I got my Mitchell Lobotros. It's also just weird seeing a Gonzaga player win. It is. That's kind of strange. Never been to a Final Four, never won an NBA championship. Yeah. Jalen Williams, I think, said that he had his first drink ever. That's got to be the best. I think we've done best beers on Mount Rushmore before, but

Having your first beer ever be after winning an NBA title has to fucking rule. That's got to be kind of cool. But then the hangover that he got, he seemed like he was never going to drink again. Yeah. But do you remember drinking your first beer and just being annihilated after one beer? That's got to be so much fun. What I'm saying for him is he should not say he's never going to drink again. Oh, yeah. Because you should drink just only when you win an NBA championship. Yeah.

Yeah. I'll see you next year, beer. He said, he said, I drank a little bit, took a couple shots, champagne. I had a beer. It was all disgusting. I'm going to stick to Shirley Temple. He was ripping shots of champagne. Yeah, I guess so. Damn. It's pretty crazy. Also the thunder. Everyone gets a day. I don't know if you guys saw this, but the mayor of Oklahoma City, he gave every single person on the team a day. So I don't know if you want to get your calendar out, but Alex Caruso and Lou Dort are back to back July 24th and July 25th.

Lou Dort Day, Alex Caruso Day. That's very cool. It's pretty crazy that everyone gets a day, though. Even Clay Bennett got a day. Well, Clay Bennett a day. Listen, respect. I would say every day is his day. Respect to Clay Bennett. Yeah, respect. What hasn't he accomplished so far in life? A lot of respect. Yeah, no, the parade was great. I like to see a city that really gets behind a team like that. Yeah. Yes, Hank?

We can celebrate Alex Caruso Day and the officers have everyone... Shave their heads. Trip over the gauntlet. Do their best version of what he did. Yeah. Win a ring that doesn't count. He did say, like, I finally have a real one. Yeah, he was joking. But at the core of every joke, therein lies a serious truth. I'd like to think that maybe he was thinking of us in that moment. Yeah.

Real one. Like Alex Curso is now an NBA champion. Yeah, he is. He's a one time NBA champion. Uh, but yeah, it was cool seeing, we, we did also get the, uh, the classic online argument of, is your parade worthy enough? Are there enough people at the aerial shot of your parade? Uh,

Florida actually showed up pretty well for the Panthers, but Oklahoma City, there were some people who were laughing at them. I love that because it basically is admitting you're a loser and you're going to basically say all I have left is be like, you don't have enough people at your place. Well, you can also say we have real jobs that we have to go to during the week. True. These are oil pumping hours in the middle of the day. Now, when it comes to Oklahoma City, we've given shout outs to obviously Thunder,

Worthy of all the praise. Thunder Prince's brick man wasn't able to come on part of my take. He's a rocket scientist, so he was fielding a rocket science call.

But then there's also Delbert Jenkins, Oklahoma City superfan. And shout out Bunky Perkins, who always puts this on the timeline. But Delbert Jenkins is the funniest NBA fan that I've ever seen with his flat top hanging on for dear life. It's like a Lego falling off the back of his head. Yep. And this guy. His name is Delbert. His name is Delbert. Delbert Jenkins. And you have to say it like a Delbert.

And he is the man and he is a world champion right now. So I hope Delbert, wherever you are, I hope you're having a good time celebrating. I also have good news for you boys. I know that game seven was a bummer because Tyrese Halliburton got hurt and it kind of robbed of us of what we thought was going to be an all time finish. Do you guys want to guess how many people watched? Million people watched? How many millions of people watched?

3.8. I'm going to guess because earlier it was 2.8 billion, right? Yeah. Game one. I think this one took a backseat a little bit. I'm going to go 3 million. Okay. 16.35 million watched game seven peaked at 19.28 million. So congrats to us for watching something that other people watched. I guess we know. Feels good. Okay.

I guess we know ball. It was, I believe, the highest NBA finals game since Warriors Raptors in 2019, but it also was down 9.3% from like last year. So nobody knows how to measure ratings anymore when it comes to the Internet, when it comes to phones. We're all just kind of guessing.

Yeah, 5 billion views is what they're saying across all social media platforms. 5 billion views? 5 billion. Almost everyone in the world watches. Up 215% versus last year. That's pretty good. Did they just tweet more?

Yeah. Like that could probably be it. You could do that. You could do that. Like, hey, let's just flood the zone. Yeah. Let's just get everything out there. That's a good possibility. The real NBA news, though, is Hank, your Celtics, the championship team. Yeah. On a duck boat with pretty much almost a year to like the day. Year to the day. Two days ago. Two days ago is no more. Chris stops gone. Drew Holiday gone. Are they done? And also, how do you feel?

So these aren't done. People are saying Brad Stevens fleece, the trailblazers, uh,

For Anthony Simmons? I really, I'm not going to say that that's true because I know. It was breakdown. Nothing, nothing. I know that people online were telling me that he's better than Drew Holiday currently. I don't necessarily believe that. He is younger, so I can buy in on that. He's cheaper, and we got a ton of cap space because we're going to be paying Drew Holiday for the next four years. Trailblazers are going to be paying Drew Holiday $40 million when he's 37. So that's good. It's sad. It's just sad.

A year ago to the day I was on the duck boat and this team felt like a core team that for the next three to four years, we're going to be in the hunt. We're going to be going for the championship again, repeat, even going into the playoffs. It was like, we're going to repeat. And so it did flip quickly where it's like, oh shit, Tatum's hurt.

We kind of knew we were going to have to get rid of Drew Holiday or Porzingis. But after the injury, it was like, we're going to get rid of both of them. We're going to rebuild. And this is part of those process. George Yang, I'm happy about that. I'm happy about that. So let me ask you this, Hank. Are they done? Are they done trading? Yeah. Probably not.

I think Brad Stevens has got one more trick in his bag. I really hope we keep Derek White. I really hope we keep Derek White. He's the other person that gets thrown around a lot. I mean, even Jalen Brown. But I'm going to say no. I'm probably going to say no. And that scares me. Yeah, it should. I feel like we're not done. Did you learn any lessons?

Good question. Have you learned a lesson? Have you learned any lessons? From how you felt last year? Yeah. Have you learned any lessons? To where you're at right now? No. This is... You didn't learn shit. If I learn my lesson, this is why you enjoy every last second. If you ever get a chance to be in that spot, you live it up and you do it up because it might never happen again. Yeah. So you did learn a lesson. Yeah. I'm happy I did what I did. Can you grade each trade? The Drew Holiday trade, I'll give a B+. Okay. Tell the truth.

And I mean, George Yang is, you know, Boston guy, local guy, recurring guest, AWL. Minivan. Great dude. Great dude. So I'm going to give that one an A. Oh, okay. So you guys did well. So you hate Przingis.

No, but I like George a lot. The important part of all of this is, and you said it at the start there. Jeff Goodman said he loves George Yang, the boss, an elite locker room guy, high IQ, will give the Celtics a shooter off the bench. Just got to keep him out of the north end. Jeff Goodman knows hoops. Yeah. The important part of all this, though, was you buried the lead. You did happen to see at least a couple tweets saying you guys fleeced the Blazers.

Yeah. Then you're good. That's it. I saw a lot of tweets. Oh, then you're good. Everyone was like, how did the Blazers let this happen? As long as the first couple of replies. My reaction was like, oh my God, fuck. And then I went online and everyone was like, this is the best trade possible for the Celtics. Yeah, yeah. I was like, yeah.

Obviously. All you need for a trade is for one of the top three replies to Shams or Schefter to be fleeced. Dude, fleeced is my favorite reaction to any trade ever in sports because you can just say fleeced about it, and you're going to be right because you're not saying which team got fleeced. You say, man, fleecing. And then two years from now, I'll be like, look, I was right about the fleecing. My favorite is seeing someone be like fleeced

And then under that, we'll be like, by who? And then there'll be immediate replies by Portland Fleece, Celtics Fleece, Portland. It's just everyone has different. But Fleece. Then you let them fight it out. Yeah. As long as the fleecing occurred. Yeah. Somebody got fleeced. Yeah. If you're not the one doing the fleecing, you're the one getting fleeced. That's facts. PFT, you got CJ McCollum. We got CJ McCollum. I'm pumped about that. Huge. The Wizards turning things around. That's sad for CJ. What? What?

Playing on the Wizards? Yeah. You're trading away all your best friends, Hank. Set this one out. I mean, you did say when we're about to have the interview with Rosillo, you're like,

when guys go and play on the wizards they like lose their love to play basketball well that's a fact in the past that could that could never happen with cj that's happening that's happening in like one hour from now in the show i'm uh when he puts the uniform on for the official team picture he's just gonna be like man i'm just here to cash a check oh that was like chris middleton picking up his option from the wizards yeah 33 million it's like yeah no shit yeah of course you would pat conantin picked up his from the box and it was like uh no

Yeah, so I mean, I'm excited that I have a player on the Wizards that I really enjoy as a human being that I get to root for. He does run our fantasy league. So I hope Jerry O'Connell doesn't burn that bridge and make CJ hate me. But yeah, I like CJ a lot. I'm excited to watch him as a wizard. I think there's a good chance that we might get Ace Bailey.

So listen, I'm slowly realizing that maybe the Wizards might not be complete dog shit over the course of the next two years. There you go. Yeah. I mean, listen, the steal the draft will be the Mavericks have already won the draft, which we're doing our draft preview with Rosillo in a minute. But I don't know if you guys knew this. Cooper flag is like LeBron James and Kevin Garnett having a baby. Who said that? Happy pride. Who said that?

You should both get this. Skip. No. Colin Coward. No. ESPN, you should both get it. Scott Van Pelt. Come on. Oh, Stanford Steve. No. Kendrick Perkins, obviously. Okay, all right. Carry the hell on. LeBron James and Kevin Garnett having a baby. I'm shocked. You get Cooper Flagg. If you had said, like, having a damn baby...

I would have been like, yeah, that's Perk. Now I carry the hell on. The only other thing I had was I just love that Kevin Durant just keeps owning Emmanuel Acho, which is the best. Because Emmanuel Acho put out his legacy formula, which...

Bro thought he did something. The legacy formula. Yeah, you didn't see the legacy formula? No, but I got to prepare myself for this. This is like, I feel like I'm Matt Damon walking through the halls of MIT and I'm stumbling across a blackboard. Yeah. What's the formula? So just so we're clear, there's a disclaimer here. For clarity, legacy and talent are not the same.

Okay. All right. Just want to get you guys ready for that going in. All right. The legacy formula is championships one divided by teams played for equals teams like team legacy. That's it? Yes. That's it? So Kobe Bryant has a legacy of five. He won five championships for one team. Tim Duncan also has a legacy of five.

Then you go down the list. Steph has a legacy of four. LeBron has a legacy of 1.3. Yeah, I like this. Dirk has a legacy of one. And Kevin Durant has a whopping legacy of 0.4.

Okay. Two championships, five teams. He might have done something. What about... You think bro did something? If you go to the NFL, what does that mean for Peyton Manning and Tom Brady's legacies? Yeah. Jordan did it. He ruined his legacy going to the Wizards. He would have had a six. Yeah, they actually don't have the legacy that we thought they wanted to take. Yeah, it got divided in half. Yeah.

That's a good formula. No, Brady's legacy still stands up, though. I love the idea of three and a half is still higher than everyone else's. It's not higher than six. But it's still like... It would have been six. Mahomes can pay him. But Manning's goes cut in half. But if Mahomes wins one more and stays with the Chiefs, he now has a higher legacy. That's true. So that's it. I mean, Joe Montana, oh no, he played for the Chiefs. Yeah.

Okay. I love the idea of Emmanuel Acho sitting down at a table in a white lab coat like he's Oppenheimer, like coming up with this formula. And he's like, no, no, it's all shit crumpling up pieces, throwing away and coming out with a two factor legacy authentication. Yeah, that's awesome. So I'm glad that's good for sports. Okay. But all right. So you like the Emmanuel Acho legacy formula. Can I interest you in a different formula?

Yeah. Okay. Here it is. This is the great Kevin Durant's legacy formula. Okay. And this is how this formula is decided. This is from Kevin Durant. According to the great Kevin Durant's legacy formula that was created in the best labs at MIT, Emmanuel is the worst linebacker of all time. You sure you want to listen to this guy about greatness? That's what he came back with. I love it. That's good. Good for Kevin Durant. Kevin Durant's formula only rates one person and it's Emmanuel Acho and it's the worst. Yeah, that's good.

Good for him. This is such a sign we need football back. We have legacy formulas dropping. I'm very excited for football coming back. Do you see Florio's thing? Yeah, so I...

All right. So last night, Florio tweeted out, I expect some big news to be happening tomorrow. As Mike Studd will do. As Mike Studd does. And I actually got a text from Mike last night being like, I'm glad that you saw this. And then I was like, Mike, what are we talking about? Is this Bengals related news? Is this extension related news for some player? And he was like, nope, it's a niche issue that not many will care about, but it will be earth shattering. Okay.

And so I was like, okay, I can't wait. Basically, he said, this is the greatest news for me personally, Mike Florio. Yeah, like if Mike Florio had not been a part of this news happening, this would be Mike Florio's dream story to cover as a journalist. And then it came out this morning. He went on the podcast with Pablo Torre and they got exclusive access to the league's collusion settlement that they had. Yeah.

And they proved that the league actually was colluding against players after the Deshaun Watson signing where he got so much guaranteed money that now the other owners got together and they're like, we're not paying these guys guaranteed money like that anymore. Jimmy Haslam's a piece of shit.

we're we all have to agree that we're not gonna we're not gonna do that because it's gonna fuck everything up so apparently at the center of this was russell wilson kyler murray and i believe there was one other quarterback yeah and lamar and lamar jackson yeah so i feel like i feel like florio's all his theories all roads always lead back to lamar back to lamar and like his contract yeah it might it might but with the uh with the kyler murray thing and the

The fact that the owners are getting together to discuss, like, do not pay these guys fully guaranteed contracts. I do think that that's a pretty big deal. Yeah. No, I agree. It's big that all the teams who have an antitrust exemption to be getting together and discussing this. But again, yeah, this is Mike Florio's dream story that he could possibly write about. Right. And he was also part of also dropping it on a summer Friday or summer Tuesday. Yeah.

Feels like a Friday. Summer. He dropped it in the summer. We are far away from Friday, buddy. Mike, why'd you drop this news in the summer? This news would have banged if it was November. Look at his face right now. It's summer Friday. Wait, Hank, I have a question, though. It is Tuesday, brother. I have a question, Hank. If he dropped it on a Friday, what's the big deal? That's still a weekday. It's not like it's the weekend. It's summer. No one cares. It's summer. Summer Friday. All summer. Summer. Cut the Friday. How did you get? It's Tuesday.

That's Tuesday. We are golfing. We're doing the Ryder Cup. There's not going to be any spoilers coming out later this, what, in August. So that's why you're watching us in, I don't even know what to describe. Beautiful cabin. A beautiful cabin. What? What was that, Max? It's literally as far away from Friday as you could possibly be. Yeah, actually. It's either Monday or Tuesday are both equally as far away from Friday. Hank, where'd that come from? Where'd the Friday part come from?

Because we're golfing. We're golfing. We're golfing. I'm golfing. Your brain goes to Friday as soon as we start golfing. Yeah, no, it's on me. Hand up. Hand up. Delete that. We're going to cut that.

We're basically playing maximum amount of golf this week for content and for our jobs. Yeah. Hossie Cool Throne. Hank is very excited about that. Did you just try to move us on? Yeah, he did. All right. We'll move on. We'll move on. But one last thing. Aaron Rodgers, he's doing a retirement tour. I don't know that he is. He says he is. Do you think Aaron Rodgers is going to get to in this season and the Steelers make the playoffs and then he's going to fade quietly into the sunset? Probably not. Like go buy a bungalow in Costa Rica? Probably. I don't think he is.

Yeah, probably not. I feel like he's just saying this maybe to gain favor from Steelers fans being like, hey, I'm not going to torture you guys for too long. I mean, what does that mean for his legacy, though? Oh, man. Two teams. Yeah. Well, he's got a legacy of .3. Yeah. What about Benedict Arnold? Zero championships, two teams. That's crazy. It's bad. Yeah, he's a negative. Although you can't divide by zero. No, I think if you leave a team and then they immediately win after you leave,

and then your new team doesn't win anything, then that's negative legacy. Brian Whitney. Oh, fuck. God damn it, Hank. Why would you bring him up? Bryce Harper. Shit. Brian Whitney will be on the show on Friday. I've confirmed that booking. Not because he's staying in a cabin with me in PFT. And I said to him, hey, can you come on Friday? He said, yeah. He is not looking forward to it. He's not. He's like, what, so you can beat me up? Yeah. Like, yeah, dude. I had a dumb thought.

This might be the dumbest thought maybe I've ever said. Okay. Yeah. No, it's dumber. Rollerblading from LA to San Diego. Dunking from the free throw line. Taking a fan boat from...

New Orleans to Baton Rouge after LSU won a championship. You're describing awesome things. In the middle of the night, as if we would be like... Every word you say makes me sound cool. As if LSU fans would be like, oh shit, PFT and Big Cat are here. Now the party starts. Oh, it wasn't about the... It was about the journey.

The fan boat journey. It was about showing up on the fan boat. But go ahead. Yeah. So this might be the dumbest idea ever. Deep in the second round of the NBA draft. Let's just say the Pacers got the last pick in the second round of the NBA draft. Maybe they're a little bit worried about selling tickets. Oh, I know where you're going with this. Maybe a little bit worried about selling tickets. This isn't dumb. Next season. This is not dumb. Halliburton's not going to be back. This is not dumb.

Why don't they draft Kaitlyn Clark? This is not dumb. This is not dumb. I do not think this is dumb at all. Put her in the late second half of a blowout. Either way, maybe like a handful of games here or there. Are they allowed to do that? I know that you can pay her. Yeah, I don't think this is dumb. I think she'd sell tickets. I do not think that's dumb at all. Now, is she at the ability level to be an NBA player? No, obviously not. But sell tickets. She can go out there. Ball and hoop. She can hit a couple threes. Ball and hoop.

Hank, what do you think? Floor space. How dumb is that idea? It would sell tickets. It would sell tickets. Yeah. Like, honestly, the Wizards should draft her. It would be so funny. The Wizards should draft. I'm going to say this right now. The Washington Wizards, second round pick, whatever your last second round pick is, draft Caitlin Clark. Yeah. You want people to go to your games? That's, I mean, it's not a dumb idea. So I'm throwing out the rollerblades was dumber. Zach, was that a dumb idea?

Kind of a solid game plan to sell some tickets, get Caelan Clark in the building. Sell some jerseys? Yeah. Definitely sell some jerseys. Definitely. They're pumping merch. They pick Caelan Clark up. Yeah, Pacers, Caelan Clark jerseys would go crazy. Dude, they would go hard. Yeah. That would be sick. All right, Hank, you want to do Hot Seat Chiltrown? Yeah. Or you still think it's Friday? No, let's do Hot Seat Chiltrown. All right, Hot Seat Chiltrown. Wait, we're at Firefest?

This segment is brought to you by Body Armor Sports Drink. This summer, cool off with Body Armor Chill, a bold new way to hydrate with no artificial dyes, flavors, or sweeteners. Enjoy a new refreshing cooling sensation in three impossibly cold flavors, frozen berry, frozen cherry, and frozen orange.

Available for a limited time. Grab yours at 7-Eleven or store near you. Hot seat, chill, throw and get body armor today. Available for a limited time. Grab yours at 7-Eleven or store near you. You can't. I was literally reading the ad and I saw Max giggling. Like I saw his body in the background giggling and I started to giggle. It's Friday. This guy. I just can't believe that. That's going to be an all time. That's going to be.

It's one of the most ridiculous things ever said. It's so good. It's so good. It's bad. I just started thinking about it. I'm going to be giggling about it probably for the rest of the week. For sure. I'm going to wake up tomorrow and try to get donuts. That was worse than Billy asking Whitney, how was your weekend on a Tuesday? On a Tuesday.

No, you asked what your plans for the weekend. How was your weekend? How was your Saturday? How was your Saturday? Okay, I forgot that it was how was your Saturday. Just as bad, though. Hank, hot seat children. No, yeah, that made me never want to speak on this podcast again. Good thing you're up. Yeah, my hot seat is Jokic. Yeah. Yep.

Out of nowhere, basically, the Nuggets owner was doing a press conference and said there's a nightmare scenario where the wrong player gets injured and the season apron could force them to consider the possibility of trading Nikola Jokic. What nightmare scenario is that? Basically, like, Jamal Murray gets... Oh, no. Will he get injured again, like, every year?

That was me and sorry, Jamal Murray. But that's, I mean, that's basically like in the Celtics, you know, they were paying, they were doing the luxury tax. Like that's, the Celtics did the same thing where...

The nightmare scenario happened and they had to deal with it. They weren't talking about the nightmare scenario beforehand. This guy got completely unprompted. They were like, yep, it could happen. Like, why would you do that? I feel like on a summer Friday. Yeah. I feel like he was at home. You don't try to take this back. Don't try to repurpose it and make a joke out of it. Do not.

I feel like he came from a meeting where they maybe like some like an accountant looked at it was like, hey, if you traded your kitchen Friday.

All right, that's our Yoko's discussion. Well, okay, I have a spin zone. I got a cool throne. Wait, wait. Chill throne. Quick spin zone for that, though. I got a chill throne. If you're the GM of the night, your job is to literally think through nightmare scenarios, right? Not Sam. Not Sam. Yes, not Sam. Do you know what I'm saying? No, yes, yes. That's true. It's good that you thought about it. That's true. Just don't say it. I think what happened was, though, I think he was literally in a meeting right before the press conference with an accountant, the head of payroll, right?

And he was like, can you just give me a, like, show me what we got right now. Yeah. And he saw Jokic at the top. He's like, oh, well, and then it just came out. I think his job, a good GM should be thinking. It's not GM owner, Josh Kroenke said this. Owner. A good owner. A good owner. If they're in lockstep with a GM should be thinking through all the worst case scenarios. They should have a plan for whatever happens.

I think maybe he had a meeting where they were going through the worst case scenarios and that scenario stood out to him so much. He's literally had nightmares about him. Like it has become a nightmare scenario for him. Yeah. And so now he's just like thinking about it nonstop. So he had to say it. You should not say that, but you should think about it. Never say it. Never. Never. My chill throne.

tight end university yeah yeah taylor swift they got taylor t swifty wow she was at we were we were at this or no i don't think you guys came me and billy were at this party we were upstairs we were at this party two years ago i would we have gotten the invite if we were there this year i think it might have i think it might have i we did get the invite this year but we'll yeah

I think us not going, maybe. That was my first reaction. I think there might be a chance. If we were there, would she have gone? Yes. And how would it have gone for us? Yes, she would have gone. I think there's a... But they would have kept... We would have been put in a corner. Yeah. We would have probably been given a fake... I also think we would have borderline knockout invited. Yeah, we might have been given a fake location.

They go, yeah, the party's over here. But that's a huge, huge. Is she doing drills with him? I don't know. It's crazy. It's a crazy, crazy get. Yeah, it is. I might even, dare I say, I think Travis Kelsey and Taylor Swift are officially dating in my eyes. That's huge. Yeah. People forget the other part of that clip was me saying if she ever goes to T.E.U. Have we seen video evidence of her at T.E.U. or just pictures? I assume there's video evidence as well. I'll find it. Well, Hank gets caught with a lot of questionable video evidence. Sure.

Did you see the dog scuba diving? Yeah. That was sick. This is a big bubble. And the shark came up and hit him. And the cats. Off the diving board. Yeah, that was sick. That one was real. Yeah, yeah. Okay, PFT, your hot seat shelter. My hot seat is Antonio Brown. Oh. Antonio Brown's on the hot seat. We didn't talk about this. Dude is on the run right now because he's wanted for attempted murder.

That's not good. But Antonio Brown has done a great job of just putting so much weird shit out there that the attempted murder thing kind of just gets lumped in with all the other stuff that he's done. Right. Where you're jacking off in a pool in front of a family. Yeah, I remember that. Where you're spray painting your mustache gold and then touching the Jeff Darlington. The jack off pool one. Was that in Abu Dhabi or something?

Like a country where you're allowed to jack off? No, no, no. I'm not saying that. But I feel like there was something where he was in a foreign country. So that's why people were like, oh, whatever. I feel like in Abu Dhabi, they would cut your hand off. I agree. I can't remember where it happened. But yeah, so Antonio Brown, he's accused of attempted murder for firing a gun after whatever that stream fight was. I didn't have...

I didn't have the attention span to really dig into who was at that fight. Um, but I guess Aiden Ross, Aiden Ross. Yeah. Yeah. So he's, he's on the run. Uh, and he's also still tweeting while he's on the run. Well, his account, his account is still tweeting. Yes. But he's still posting. Like there's been videos and stuff. At some point, Antonio Brown is going to give away his location, right? Yeah. It was Dubai. Dubai. Okay. Like when, um, uh,

Who was it? Was it Andrew Tate that gave away his location by posting a selfie video of him? I think it was like a pizza box or something. And there's a pizza box in the background. Antonio Brown is going to do that exact same thing. He's going to make it easier. He's going to make it way easier. He's going to just post himself up at a very well-known place. Yeah, in front of the Eiffel Tower. He's in Times Square. Yeah. So yeah, Antonio Brown, hot seat.

And then my cool throne is my fear of heights. Chill throne. Chill throne is my fear of heights. Because on the plane ride here, shout out to the pilot that we had today. He let me sit up front. I was basically like a five-year-old that he let into the cockpit. And he was like showing me all the stuff that he was doing. And he was like, okay, well, I'm going to turn the radio on. And you're going to get to hear all the navigation info. And look, look over there. That's where the airstrip is.

And he talked me into taking flying lessons. Hell yes. I think I'm going to take flying lessons from this guy. Nice. From this guy, Marty. I think I'm going to finally do it and get behind the stick for playing. Please don't die.

Well, no, I said flying lessons, not crashing lessons. Well, I'm just saying, please don't die. I'm going to try not to die. I'm going to try my best. I'm getting a lot of blank stares in this room from people that are like, oh, PFT is not going to do this. No, no, no. What did I just say? I think you're going to do it. I'm saying, please do not die. I think you're going to get a flying license. I think you're going to get a pilot's license. I think you're going to buy a plane. And then you might die. Correct.

That's the concern. That's where I'm worried about the debt. I'm never going to buy a plane. Okay. But I already own several on my computer. And I don't want you to die. Yeah. This is me. I'm saying people who just fly on their own do die. No, but I was watching him and I was asking the best questions to him. He kept turning around. You know what he would say to me? Great question. Oh, nice. I'd be like, what's our landing speed? What's our stall speed? Great question. At this altitude? Great question.

I could tell he was impressed. Yes, Max? What is the point of taking flying lessons if you don't intend to use them? It doesn't mean I'm not going to fly a plane. It just means I'm not going to... Good question. Bad question. You would learn how to fly, and then you'd be like, you know, it would be actually sick if I could just, instead of go to traffic to my lake house, I could just...

fly to the lake and then you'd be like oh yeah i found this fucking plane on plane b&b yeah right that is a very valid concern that hank had of me working hard getting a pilot's license and then cheaping out on a plane because i got a deal

I'm like, this guy's practically giving it away. So is my initial inclination not correct when I said please don't do this? That's where my brain went right away. It was just like, you're going to end up flying a small plane by yourself.

Please don't die. The El Camino in the air. But dangerous. Oh, my God. Yeah. Well. Yeah. Hey, guess what? When you run out of gas. That's another good point. When you run out of gas with your plane, that's not good. That's another good point by Max, which is if the El Camino has any bearing on how I evaluate motors. I'm not going to buy a plane. I have no intention. I will. I'm just considering taking flight lessons. You and Chef Donnie are never allowed to buy a plane. Why? Why?

You both would crash. Yes. I just think he will try and convince you on this podcast. We should be nurturing each other's interests and hobbies. And this is an opportunity I have to do something incredible. And I think I'm going to take flying lessons. Okay. All right. Can I say it one more time? Please don't die. All right. Hank, you should laugh. You can't fucking get 10 feet off the ground. Well, 10 feet off the ground would be way more than knocking.

All right. That was my chill throne. Chill throne is flying, baby. Take him to the skies. All right. My hot seat is our good friend, Joe Burrow, because we didn't talk about this on Sunday, but the baseball throw. What happened there? We have to defend Joe. We love Joe. What happened? It's Sun Tzu. Have you read The Art of War, Big Cat? Okay. Yeah. Make your enemies believe you're weak when you are, in fact, strong. That you can't throw a baseball? Yeah. Well, he's so focused on throwing a football. Yeah, that's true. It was a football motion. All right.

Like, he doesn't have the... Like, I don't... He might not have played baseball, so he just only knows how to throw overhand like a football. My spin zone is... I can't throw a football because I can only throw a baseball. Yeah, my spin zone is that Michael Rubin just paid off every single person that had anything to do with Fanatics Fest and, like, checked off, like, all right, Brady, you're going to... Or Manning, you're going to fake tackle Brady. Kevin Durant, we're going to get you traded. Joe Burrow, you're going to throw a baseball poorly. I actually think that he probably...

bought viral moments. Yeah, so that's what I'm going with. So I think Joe Burrow... Livvy Dunn broke the World Cup. Yep, the guy spilled the soda next to Livvy Dunn. I think Joe Burrow, incredible entrepreneur, capitalist. You made a lot of money to throw a baseball like that. That's my take. I actually don't think that you're wrong. Yeah. I think that if you look at everything that came out of that weekend...

There was a lot of plan. There was a lot of planned viral moments that like they probably were like they actually probably there's probably a contract somewhere that's like it's titled Joe Burrow throws a baseball poorly. And here's the offer sheet. How much money do you think it would take for if you were Joe Burrow? I'm not saying you're you. I'm saying you're an NFL quarterback. How much money would it take for you to put that tape out there?

I think just a couple of a million. I was gonna say a couple of millions. Joe Burrow doesn't seem phased by what other people think. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think a couple of million that should get it done. Like one baseball pitch for seven for 1 million. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you're going into a contract year, price goes up. Yep. Agreed. Um,

Also, have you guys seen these Italian DJs online? Have you seen them? Are those guys real? Yeah. What is that? Are they industry plants? They're everywhere right now. I mean, okay. Have you seen them? I've not seen them, but are those the guys that use people's heads? No, they're basically, it's like they wear 80s clothes and they're usually synth pop.

It's these guys. They're usually in a bathroom or a kitchen, and they're doing 80s techno music. Is that what an industry plant is? I wish I knew what industry plants were before someone was like, hey, that's an industry plant. I wish I could see it myself. Like the Bobby Alltop. She was an industry plant, right? I don't think she was either. I think people throw that around. People get popular. I think these guys just got a unique vibe, and they're popping off. I also had a moment where I was like, are they AI? Yeah.

That bummed me out. Yeah. I was like, that's a problem in today's society. Yeah. No. Yeah. Because they have good beats. I've done more research than that guy that I thought might have been AI. I think he's actually AI.

Oh, the singer songwriter that I was like, this dude's next up. Yeah. So that's kind of what this is like. This could easily be AI. Yeah. Fuck. All right. My children is a quick embrace the debate that I saw online today. Do you guys when you guys go to the bathroom, do you piss with your balls out or in? I thought it was a really funny balls. He's debate balls in you separate. Yeah.

I think I piss with my balls out. No, it's a need-to-know basis. My balls don't need to know that I'm pissing. Completely dependent on pants. That's a good point. Like jeans, I'll probably go balls in. If I'm wearing sweatpants, it's definitely balls out. Oh, yeah. If you go sweatpants, you got to pull down to get everything over the top. No, but even some like the pants I have on now, I'd probably just go balls out. Balls out? Yeah. Yeah. Just flop them over? Yeah, I think I go balls in.

Yeah, so when I piss... I'm like, I'm pretty... I'm pretty sure I'm balls out, except for when it's a zipper. Then if you put your balls through a zipper, that's crazy. You're crazy, yeah. That feels like little tiny razor blades. But yeah, if you're pissing, that's the penis' job. Also, if I'm drunk enough. If you're having sex, then that's... Balls out. The balls need to be out. Nobody just goes penis only. You go all the way down to your... You go like seven-year-old? Yeah. Yeah.

Not to my ankles, but like, yeah, just fucking... I don't care. Are you balls out or balls in? It's dependent on the pants. Like, if we're doing like elastic waistband, more athletic feels, probably balls out. If we're doing jeans, probably balls in. You guys ever pissed to the side? Like, down the leg of the shorts, if you're wearing shorts. I don't have that kind yet. Well, you take a knee for it. What? Now what are we talking about? Like, if you're playing...

Oh, on a field? Yeah, on a field. Yeah, I've done that on a beach before. Yeah, when I used to play rugby, it's like during the game, you go off to the corner of the field, you just pull your little pecker through the side, and then you piss, and then hopefully somebody gets tackled right there, and you all share a good laugh. I took a piss today on the golf course behind a tree, and you know when you just pick the wrong tree? I started pissing, and then I looked to my left, and there was like five different angles of people being able to look at me. I was like, well, that didn't do it.

I saw memes pissing outside today on the course, just in somebody's front yard. Memes was just standing and he pulls his pants below his ass. Balls out below his ass. Just pissing in somebody's front yard. This poor family balls out. Zach finishes off hot seat. Chiltrong also. Congrats, Zach. He didn't die today on the plane.

the plane. Everybody survived. Someone was telling me the pilot had several decades of experience with commercial airlines. That was super reassuring. I was like, oh, this guy's got skin in the game. He's a professional guy. He wants to get back to the family. And you got a free kiss from Jerry anytime you want. I do have one of those banged for a bad day. He banged a kiss from Jerry because I told Zach, I was like, hey, if we're going down, do you like

are you worried that maybe you'll think in your head, man, I'm about to die and I never kissed a boy. And I was like, what boy would you kiss? And Jerry was like, I'll do it. And,

And he said that offer stands. He said permanently stands. So I'll keep that card back pocket. Nice. Never know. Huge. Okay. What do you got? So I do have a hot seat. You guys are familiar with like the... Originally when the AI video started coming out, it was like wonky eyes, wonky hands. You could tell, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then last couple months, you guys saw the videos where the koalas are vlogging and the yetis are vlogging through the city and everything. Yep. Now have you seen the AI test videos to where it's like, okay, they'll give you five scenarios, five people or five news reporters. And then you have to pick like...

is this AI before and after the video? Yeah. Like go through like five of them? Yeah. My hot seat is pretty much everybody on earth, we probably need to come together and realize that we can't tell anymore. No. And I thought this would be like a decade, 15, 20 years from now. I think it's in the next six months. It's here. We're absolutely finished and there's no need to like, there's no need to get on the internet because you have no clue what you're looking at. Correct. Yeah, yeah. Very, very soon. Yeah. Exactly. Agreed. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. The cat's high diving.

Yes. The kittens high diving. No, that was real. Wait, did you fail the test? I felt like I felt several of them on there. Yeah. Yeah. It's insanely difficult sometimes. Extremely. It's pretty scary. Zach, would you be interested in an app that goes on your phone that flags every AI created video as being AI before it plays?

Yes, if that's already a... This is what I'm working on right now. That's huge. Yeah. It's called KOAI and I'm working on it. Let me get the beta on that. I think that would be a good app to have. But yes, for the last, I'd say four months...

it's just scary now we're just i'm just terrified online all the time i thought we had tons of time maybe maybe like the way younger people's problem you know i mean like the smaller kids not no we're all absolutely fucked yeah absolutely and i know i might be late to that but here recently i'm like all right i said internet's finished it's been going on for a while they've been good for a long time it even will get you to confuse which day it is sometimes it's tuesday sometimes friday i saw this trend it's happening on tiktok right now it's

ASMR is visual AI ASMR. So it's people cutting into like jello and fruits and shit, but it's all AI.

And it's supposed to make you feel good while you're watching it. But the entire thing is AI. It's just you're now officially a zombie if you watch those videos and you just stare at it and feel good. You're not even a person anymore at that point. There's like AI influencers on Instagram with like hundreds of thousands of followers. And their comment sections are just a bunch of horny dudes who have no clue that it's not a real woman. I actually think that's not the worst thing in the world. I saw one of those girls the other day.

I think you get a bunch of weirdos. Really hot. Like moth to a flame around an AI chick that's at least not harassing a real girl. Was it obviously fake or no? No, I had to really dive deep and figure out. I was like, I'm pretty sure this girl's fake. I'm pretty sure I'd follow an AI on Instagram, but guess what? She's so hot. Doesn't really bother me. Every time I see them, I'm like, well, those huge cans. They really figured out the nipples way before they figured out the thumbs. Yeah.

All right, your children. I do have a children. This might be piggybacking a little bit off of what you guys talked about earlier in the episode. We all saw the Friday thing that Hank did. We're cut that. Friday's coming up in most in a lot of days, but it is Australia, Australia, China. It's Friday in China. No, it's not.

I don't even think with the furthest time change, it could be relatively close. Well, when they're listening now. Zach, you're right. No, still no. How far ahead do you think? Like two days or something. You think there's a place on Earth that's two days ahead? 18 hours? How many time zones do you think there are? There's eight time zones. 12. There are not 12. There are not eight. Think about what a day is. There's 24 time zones? It's Friday. You want to know a crazy fact?

China only has one time zone. That's crazy. Yeah. It's pretty, but China's China should have like six or seven. But you just mean they don't change their clocks. Yeah. You know, what's, what's crazy though is like, why don't we just have one time where it's the same time everywhere on earth? Yeah. I mean, but just if you're, if, if you say it's like 12 noon,

in England, in London, or wherever Greenwich Mean Time is. Then 12 noon in England is sunny. And then 12 noon in Alaska is nighttime. What do we do about the 9 to 5? What do we do for...

I guess it still would be five o'clock somewhere. That's actually a good point. Yeah. It's not five o'clock somewhere. Yeah. If we only have one time zone. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, no, it would be. Oh, yeah. One time zone. Yeah. It would literally only be five o'clock in one place. One place. The whole earth. There should be a country where it's always five o'clock. Yeah. Okay.

Your chill turn. Oh, gotcha. I would like to say honorable mention chill turn. I think it is pretty chill to already be on Friday. So that is huge. But just to piggyback off what you guys were talking about a little earlier. I know OKC had the parade. It's huge. SGA is running through the streets with the trophy, which I thought was kind of a wild move on the concrete. You know, everybody's having a great time. They're on the buses. They're popping the bottles of champagne.

But I was Caruso with the Lakers ring as the chain. Oh, yeah. With the Mount Rushmore tee and the big bottles of 42. He's having a splendid day. The bubble ring allegations are gone forever. What? No. I think they got harder. No. You don't think so? No. His ring is just a piece of like it's a necklace. It's not even real anymore.

So I guess you can maybe say, okay, maybe the allegations of that championship aren't gone, but he has another one to say, hey, well, I also have this one. Is that fair to say? Yeah. I mean, now he's treating his own like it's no better than a shark's tooth. I'll say this. I'll say this. I think he went from zero rings to one and a half rings. I don't know if that makes sense. In a way, because it validates the first ring. For a half. Yeah. How many has LeBron won since the bubble? Zero. Interesting. Fair. You big LeBron guy.

I think LeBron's great at basketball for sure. Okay. Sounds like you're a big LeBron guy. LeBron's a good athlete. Okay. Carmelo though over LeBron? Yeah, 100%. Amari Stoudemire? One guy to go. Amari Stoudemire or LeBron James? In what capacity? One guy to go. Basketball? Yeah.

Can we rotate with someone else? This is an hard question. All right, last question, then we're going to go to Mount Rushmore, and then we have our two interviews. Melo versus LeBron to 11 one-on-one. Melo.

That's what I thought. All right. We're going to do Mount Rushmore of M things. And then we have Ryan Rosillo and then Isaiah Hartenstein. And we'll finish up with FAQs. Okay. Before we get to Mount Rushmore Mountain Dew, guess what? It's summer. It's about Rushmore season. It's summer season. It's drinking Mountain Dew and warm weather season. Uh,

There is nothing better than an ice cold Mountain Dew when the weather gets warm, start of the golf season, out at the beach, barbecue in your backyard. Mountain Dew is the perfect thing to go with all of those. It is delicious. They have the throwback cans, which we absolutely love. Nothing goes better with Mount Rushmore, with golf, with barbecues.

And hanging with your friends in refreshing citrusy kick of Mountain Dew. Look at these cans. They're absolutely gorgeous. It's nostalgia in a can. Love that they brought these back. Mountain Dew. Absolutely delicious. And basically the perfect drink for a hot summer day. It is Mountain Dew. So go grab...

The Mountain Dew new cans, old cans, but new cans. And grab a Dew in this warm weather. Summer season is back. Grab a Dew in the new packaging and enjoy the refreshing citrus kick of Mountain Dew. We're also going to be at Barstool Camp later this year.

Mountain Dew is going to be with us. We're so excited for it. It's summer. It's camp season. It's basically the best time of year to be outside and drink a Mountain Dew. So go grab a Mountain Dew. Grab a Dew in the new packaging and enjoy the refreshing citrus kick. Okay, it is time. It is Mount Rushmore season. We are here. Best time of the year. Best time of the year. A reminder, it is PFT and Hank.

Max and memes and me and Zach and we will post do we want to talk about posting the polls because it feels like every single year we have an issue with that what time are we posting them they're gonna be blind we're gonna go off the votes we're not allowed to interact with the polls correct whatsoever not not even a retweet we're not we've done retweets in the past I don't care I don't think we are okay I mean we can whatever rules we make it we can retweet it we can retweet yeah

Do you want as many people voting as possible? No. Nice. No retweets. Yeah. No retweets. No interaction. I think Hank's right. I think what we're seeing from Hank is actually just growth. Max, good eye. Yeah. Good eye, Max. All right. So we'll post them on the Pardon My Takes Twitter every day. What time? Do we know?

11 or 11 central, 11 central. So people have time to, to listen to the show hour long vote. Uh, is it usually? Yeah. There are two hours, two hours, two hours. Uh, and then this year we've decided we're going to do something for the punishment where there's going to be four punishments. Uh, one is going to be what we knew. We know one in four. We don't know two and three. We got to figure that out, which we can, anyone who has ideas, throw them out there. So we decided, uh,

There will be four punishments that we'll choose from. We're going to use the lottery ball machine at the end of Mount Rushmore season, so the losing team will have an equal chance to get one of the four punishments. One of the punishments will be those two guys have to drive to Mount Rushmore and back, no stopping or sleeping over, and basically live stream the whole thing. Take a picture of Mount Rushmore, of them in front of Mount Rushmore, and then drive right back.

And then the fourth punishment will be the first and second place team will have to buy a vacation for the losing team. So there's one really bad, one really good. And then two and three, we got to figure out they got to be kind of medium punishments that can be interactive for the fans. And then to decide which punishment we get, we're going to use the lotto system, right? Kind of like there should be a lottery ball machine. It's going to be weighted like the NBA draft. So it's a higher percentage that you get.

punishments two and three than the punishment that's really just a vacation. It would be the same, that you get two or the vacation or three or the vacation. It would be 25% each. Oh, it's going to be 25% for each one. We can change it. Okay. We can change that. I thought it was going to be equal. There's four punishments. What's the point of doing Mount Rushmore? Well, because you could have a really bad one or a really good one. But if you come in dead last. You're having to do the lottery ball no matter what.

For 25 for no advantage. No, it's just you're getting selected something. So you have a one in four chance of going on vacation. You have a three and four chance of being punished. I think it should be weighted a little bit. So if it's not weighted, then I don't. Yeah. What's the point? Yeah. Well, it's weighted in the fact that three out of four are not good, but there's no incentive to do well in Mount Rushmore season.

Well, yeah, you don't want to lose and go into the lottery. I think it should be like 10% chance you get the vacation. That's fine. I agree with that, too. That's fine. Vacation should be. That's fine. But you understand what I'm saying. Even if you lose, you have to do the lottery ball and three out of four suck. Yeah. So there is an incentive to not lose. There is. But 25% are you just saying you're guaranteed to get the vacation? Never mind. Never mind. What?

I just, yeah, I thought everyone was doing it. Oh, no, no. I thought it was like, I thought three teams were losing. We did throw around a bunch of different ideas. No, it's just a losing team is going to the lottery ball. And yeah, we can make the vacation 10% and the other ones 30%. Yeah, I like that. Okay, I like that.

Okay, so we're going to start Mount Rushmore season. And by the way, if you have a good Mount Rushmore, if you have an idea for a good Mount Rushmore, please tweet us, send us an email. We have a lot of topics we need to get through. We have a lot of Mount Rushmores we'd love to do. But we're going to start with something that's very open-ended to give us a way to get into the flow. It's a Mount Rushmore of things that start with M. M. M. M. M.

As in moo. As in moo. Breaking moos. How are we doing draft order? I think we go lotto ball. We go one team gets one through 25, zero through 25. One team gets 26 through 50.

One team gets 51 through 75. The other team gets 76 through 100. And then whoever gets picked. There's only three teams. Yeah, that's right. Okay, 33. I was like, where are you going with this? 33. We split the lotto ball up into three teams, and then whoever gets that ball, first pick, clockwise from there. Okay. So. Zero to 33, 33 to 66. Is zero in there?

Sure. No, no. One to 33. Yeah. 34. 34 to 66. Yeah. 67 to 100. Okay. All right. So who gets what? Three. We don't want it. We'll take the middles. I don't care. Yeah, we'll take the end. So we have, Zach, we have 34 to 66. If I get three, this counts. Agreed. I can't do math. I feel like we have less numbers.

What do you have? 34 to 66. I feel like 67 to 100 has more numbers, but that's just a vibe thing.

No, I think that counts. I think that's true. Yeah. I think you have one more number. Because it's 33.3%. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever. So you have to 99. Okay, fine. Yeah, deal. 100 means we end the show forever. Okay? Deal. Deal. 100 means this is the last part of my take. Literally, the mic will cut out and that'll be it. We'll never do another episode. At least we won't do Mount Rushmore ever. Zach will just give us his Mount Rushmore. I'm not rooting for 100.

I hope it's three. Three counts for Hank. 55. 55. So you guys first. Do we get to decide if we want to go first? Sure. No, we can give it. I think you guys just get to pick the order. Yeah, yeah. Okay. By the way, Hank and I in lockstep. Oh, I love that. You guys have said that so many times. We got such a good thing going right now. We do. Zach, should we go first? You want to go first?

If you feel good about going first, I'm down to go first. Yeah, I feel good about going first. Let's ride. Fuck it. We'll go first, and then who's going second? You choose. Oh. All right. Well, it's kind of... Yeah, because they're sitting across from each other. We're sitting across from each other. Max and Memes can go second. Yes. Love that. You guys go third. Hank and I are in lockstep. And we're going to change every day. It just keeps changing. So does first go to second after the next show? No.

I can't remember. Yes. I can't remember at all. No, second goes to first. Yeah, that's right. Second goes to first. Yeah. Listen, we're a little rusty. We're a little rusty. Not us. Yeah. We're in lockstep. You guys keep saying you're in lockstep. Zach, would you like to make the first pick of Mount Rushmore season? I think we go with our 1-1. Zach, you do the honors. You think we got a 1-1 here? I think we go 1-1. Three. First pick we would like to elect...

Music. We're taking all of music. That's a good pick. All of music. Had that. Music is very important in life. Good pick. Love music. Zach and I, we both said music when we had our meeting. A little twinkle in our eye. We're like, this might work out the two of us. Zach, what's your favorite music? Favorite music, I like rap music, country music, and pop music. Favorite would have to be, depending on the day, heavy metal.

Today I listen to more rap than country music today. Okay. Okay. Okay. So it's day to day. Yes. With the change with the mood, but I would like to say music predates language. Music is in everyone's hearts and souls and music is a great one. One. Wow. Way to go. That felt good. I can't compete. It's in everyone's hearts. Thank God. That was tough. That was tough. Dude,

There you go, Zach. I told Zach, I was like, hey, how this works is we're going to make our pick. We've got to give a little bit of a razzmatazz. I didn't think he had that at all. What about deaf people, Zach? What about all our deaf listeners out there? They can actually feel the vibrations. They sit down and it changes for them and shit. They can feel the beat? Yeah. Feel the bass. Okay. Good pick. You guys have the second pick? No, we have the second pick. Yes.

We are going to go money with our second pick. Materialistic, but that's fine. Money is the root of all evil. Money everything? Yeah, you guys hate money. Why don't you guys just get rid of all your money over there? Listen. If you guys don't want money, we will take the money. PFDR, literally trying to one golf vacation at a time for Hank. That's a fact. We signed the billionaire's pledge. Yep.

If I ever become a billionaire, I will sign that pledge. That's my pledge. We have money on our list. Yeah, but ours is pretty far down. There's so many more important things in life than money. And it's sad that some people haven't figured that out yet. Okay. One day. One, one. We are going to go with moms. Okay. Mothers. Most important thing in the world. Shout out moms. None of us would be here without our mom. Shout out to my mom. Love you. Shout out mom. Love you, mom. Good pick.

And our second pick, we're going to go with March Madness. Good pick. March Madness. Moms and March Madness. Yeah. Hank, I love her picks. Same. Okay. Yeah, I had March Madness high. It doesn't seem like you liked that. No, I did. I absolutely had it. Some people are asking, is Big Cat even like March Madness? I would take music before March Madness, but I had March Madness up there. Okay. Not me. Mount Rushmore, yeah.

It's my favorite week of the year. Oh, yeah. You're really tuned in. You're really fucking watching every second. We like it so much we took it with our second pick. Yeah. All right. You guys are up? Memes, you got this one? When is he going to take meatballs? In our pre-meeting, I said that. I was like, he's going to take meatballs. We're going to go with movies. Oh, good. All movies. We had that there. Every movie. Okay. Zach, that was our second pick overall. Zach. Zach.

What are we thinking here? I think I'd like to go seven. I'd like to go seven. Seven's a great pick. Yeah. And then I think we hit them with the okie-dokie and maybe go with our four. Two hitters. Yeah. You want to say them? After you, sir. All right. I'll start. Our next pick is going to be meat. All meat. Good pick. Need meat. We had meat. Yep. Steak, chicken, pork, whatever you want. Meat. You need meat. Zach, go ahead. Caveman fact?

We don't have a caveman fact. Yeah, yeah. All the meat stones. Yeah, yeah. And then we'd also like to take MILFs. Yeah, we're going to take MILFs. We took moms, but that's fine. Yeah, but we specifically would like MILFs. Like hot moms. Okay, we had MILFs on our board. I thought we didn't want to go there after moms was picked, but that's fine. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's... No, no, no, that's fine. That's fine. That's fine. Moms is in the name, MILF. I understand, but it's... Well, it could be Man, I Love Football. Which is it? It's not.

They said moms. You just said certain moms. Yeah. You're excluding a lot of moms out there. Including all the fictitious MILFs as well. Yes. Great point, Zach. Including all the fictitious MILFs. MILFs can't be on there with moms. Why? You're just mad because you didn't take it. You get every fictitious mom. It was...

we didn't take it because they said moms. But it's mothers that like to fuck. What's the first word? It's totally different. What's the first word? It's totally different. They're just taking moms. They're being sappy. You took mothers. You guys are really going to take this away right away? I think you can't have moms and moms. What if we took a genre of music like rock music? Okay, well, that starts with an R.

That's a good point. I mean, that's debunked right there. Listen, this room has just gotten chaotic without a president. You know what? We'll pick something else. Where's Pug? We'll pick something else after that, after Max did his little crybaby shit. Okay. Back to the drawing board. That was bullshit. I would have said that. I appreciate that, PFT. I think you realize there's a difference between moms and MILFs. Can you explain to me a MILF? Yeah. Yeah. What's the first word? Yeah, that's what I thought. Yeah, yeah. What I'd like to fuck.

Oh, so if moms and milfs are the same, you have a milf? What? Your mom is a milf. This is... Well, you just fucking said they're the same thing. It is a genre of mom. They're totally different. It is a genre of mom. Not every milf out there is technically a mom. Every milf is a mom. That's not true. The fictitious milfs are not always moms. They're fictitious moms. But they're not always actual moms. They're fictitious... Hank...

I'd like to have you put this on the bonk list for Big Cat. That's fine. We had memes on our team. You don't think that we wanted to take MILFs? You should have taken MILFs. Memes is an undercover horny guy. This is way too early for this to be this contentious. I would like to see that. Don't take a pick that somebody else already took. The Oxford's Language Dictionary defines MILF as a sexually attractive woman who has children or is early middle age. Oh, interesting. That's just my definition. That is my definition. There's a lot of MILFs there that are not technically moms.

Your argument falls apart there. Why? Because every MILF is a mother. No, but there's... We all watch fucking porn. Those are actresses. Yeah, okay. So they're MILFs. They're fictitious moms. They're MILFs, and they're Zach...

Good pick. Wait, so you say, so officially you say that you don't want this pick. I mean, it already got taken off. Yeah, I know, but you stand for something. I said that I would have allowed it. Yeah, I would have allowed it. So Max is the one that everyone should be allowed. Max is the bad guy, not me. Yep, fine. I'm happy to be it. All right, Zach, what do we do now? For the record, that was an awesome pick. It was a great pick. And Max is just mad because he didn't pick it. And I would have fought for him. It was like our first pick, and then I got nervous. To be fair, Max got nervous. He got nervous.

Okay. All right. So meat is in. You got a problem with that? No problem. Yeah, meat. Meat clears. Meat plays. Okay, meat plays. Zach, I don't know what to do now. They fucked us. We could go... You guys just... We could go 10. No, that's duplicate, Zach. Well, let's either take meatballs right now or just get back into the argument. Yeah, meat and meatballs. All right. We are going to go with...

milkshakes good milk shakes cream team yeah that feels good strong pink yeah uh we're gonna go with michael jordan okay good pick we had michael jordan on the list we had him on our list too right so we get two we get two hank we can do this i love where we're at i'm gonna i'm gonna do the last one whatever you want to do and then what else do we want on there we'll do that one last we'll do that one the last one last good call

We're gonna go with mouth stuff It's a good pick that's a good pick you like mouth stuff are you no that stuff's great you sucking dick to getting well getting it yeah No that's good given taking mouth stuff now your root canals oh

Oh, good point. My boy. It's a great point. Brew canals suck. Eating counts as mouth stuff. Getting fish hooked. Getting fish hooked. Kissing. Yep. Mouth stuff. And then our last pick, Mr. Brightside coming on after 10 beers. Okay.

That sounds like music to me. Oh, that sounds like music. But that's a bad pick, so I'm going to allow it. That sounds like music. I don't think it's a bad pick. But how is that any different? No, it is. It's the same exact thing. It's the same argument you guys just made against us with milk. But I wanted him. But you want him to take that pick because it's a terrible pick. There's a difference. He's right, though. No, no, no. The pick stands. I just wanted to show the hypocrisy in this room. Well, yes, because it's a bad pick. You can't allow that. I don't know. I'm fine with the pick, but.

No, the pick's in. Yeah, the pick's in. You're arguing against your own pick, Hank. No, I'm not. I'm more just like, you can't be the decider on what goes and based off if it's a good pick or not. That is hypocrisy. I know. Take it off. Take it off. I want it. You want to take it off? Yeah, let's take it off. Do you not see how it's the exact same as the same debate? No, here's why it's different. Because MILF has the word mother in it. Okay, and Mr. Brightside is a...

It's a song. Oh, yes. It's music. It's music. We took music. So if somebody takes music, you can't take anything that makes a musical sound. Correct. We took music. I disagree. You guys took Mothers. I couldn't take MILFs. We took music. That's because the M in MILF stands for mother, literally. But it's a song. It's music.

It's the same argument. This is a reach. That is literally the exact same argument. It's literally not. That's not the same thing at all. And those don't have to have kids. Yes. Thank you, Zach. Sorry. We still have a great list. You guys can keep it. I have no problem with it. Max, should we keep it on? I don't want an asterisk. No, there's zero asterisks. We got a winning board right now. There's zero asterisks. So I'm going to take it off because I don't want the asterisks.

Okay. You guys fought it. No, I didn't. I was just saying it's very funny because it's basically the same thing. You win. This feels good. I just want to say this feels good. No, you guys fought it. So we'll switch it up. We'll go Mexican food. Okay. It's a good one. Good pick. Yeah. Good pick. Deep board. Never a doubt. Yeah. Lockstep. We're going to take McDonald's. We had it on there. Good pick. Good pick. A lot of meat at McDonald's. That's fair.

There's also a lot of them eating Mexican food. McDonald's also. McDonald's sounds like mouth stuff. I'm sucking it. Zach, we got to make the final pick.

You feel strongly about anything in the other category right now? The other category is tricky. The other category is tricky. We got another category. Yeah, we have it. Well, we, we, we, we, we tiered it because we were all over the place in our discussion. I have some funny, funny ideas that Zach threw out there that I was just like, what are you talking about? I think 14 is what we just go with.

Just cover it all. Let 14 rip. That's a great. Yeah. Say it's solid. Yeah. We're gonna go with magic. Magic. Magic just covers everything. Yeah. No, Zach. When you sat down, I think one of the first things he said to me was math.

He's like, math is the building blocks for everything. I was like, I hate math. You would add two universal languages. Maybe you rip our honorable mentions. Do you want to hear? Yeah, here's Zach's and then we can go all honorable mentions. We thought about taking men.

But then we're like, well, what happens if they throw out Hitler and Jeffrey Epstein? So that becomes all men. And then so at one point, Zach told me he's like, we should take males. And then he also said we should take male, like letter males. Yeah.

I was like, okay. We use mail all the time. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, really? Email. Yeah. Physical mail. Letters. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sweepstakes. Sweepstakes. Zach also wanted to... He threw out there Matt Damon and Ben Affleck as a duo. Okay. It's a great duo. Mild Wings. Mild Wings.

That would have been bad pick. Bad pick. I told him I was like, that's a bad, good pick for him. I like where your heart's at. Yeah. We were workshopping. Yeah, we were workshopping. Michelin star restaurants. Okay. Not really for me. And then what was the other one? Oh, you had Miss Universe, which wasn't a bad pick. Yeah. Jordan. All right. So what do we got for honorable mentions? Hank, you want to say ours?

This one probably would have got contentious. The Masters. Oh, why? Because it's dumb. We didn't know. Oh, somebody would have fought over that. I would not have fought over that. Max would have fought over that. Masters is a very good pick. Yeah, Masters is a good pick. Me and PFT, we're both in agreement on this, but it's divisive in today's day and age. Mint chocolate chip ice cream. I like mint chocolate chip ice cream. Love mint chocolate chip ice cream. I love it. Yep. Yep.

Uh, marriage. Yup. Mixed drinks. Yup. Millennium Falcon. Margaritas. Margaritas. Oh, that's a good one. Marijuana. Yup. Oh, good one. Missed marijuana. Well, we had marijuana. Yeah. Uh,

Massachusetts. Yeah. I was just trying to guess my boy. Did anyone think about masturbation? Because we tossed around and we did not have that. Jack and I did it a little to each other and they were like, nah, this isn't for us. Cranking off. Yeah. Mini golf. How'd you forget that, Hank? It's not. Wow. You don't really want mini golf. Not really. Okay. Okay. Do you think make it out would have been better than mouse stuff?

No. No? Yes. Yeah, probably. No, Mata Stuff is a great pick. Middle linebackers? Kind of a throwback. He also get Will Compton, so. Yeah. Oh, Zach had a great one. Zach, throw yours out there. Number 13 on our list. You thought of this one.

Oh, a microwave. Yeah. Microwave. Needed for everything. That's a good one. Microwave time. Yeah. We had motorcycles. He got into his own head, though. He was like, but then they could say air fryers better. I was like, that's a good point. You're thinking two moves ahead. He is. He's got some chess moves going. We had mac and cheese. Yep. Mashed potatoes. Yep. Mr. Brightside coming on after 10 beers. Yep. Muhammad Ali. Yep. Good pick. Messi.

Messi is a good pick. Yeah, I missed that. Maradona. We had Miracle on ice. Oh, that's a good one. Mobile phone. Michael Jackson's music. What do you guys think about military? Every military. Kind of cool. ISIS. Badass. True. You also get ISIS. You guys' picks are based off of what society needs to function. It's very deep. We tossed around machinery. We were thinking about just taking every machine ever.

Mountain Dew. Mountain Dew is an easy one. Shout out Mountain Dew. Love that. Mids. You know, sometimes you don't want to get too high by trying to hang out with the boys. Now you're speaking my language. Maction. Maction. Good one. Fuck. Hank put Moneyball. Moneyball.

the book and movie that they did where they just forgot to tell everyone that they had like three of the best starters ever. Yep. Oops. This is how you build a team off of guys that are cast offs and they get a lot of walks. Oh yeah. Also you need incredible starting pitch. Also Miguel Tejada. Yeah. We have the league MVP and Miguel Tejada. We have Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder and Barry Zito. Yeah. But let's talk about Euclid's how he walks. He's got a bad body, but he walks. This guy walks.

Figured it out. Okay. Any other ones? We had MLB. MLB is a good one. Mickey Mouse. Mozzarella sticks. Mickey Mantle. Mickey Mantle. That's just a good double M. Marilyn Monroe. Yeah. Miley Cyrus. Meatballs, obviously. Meatballs. I thought you were going to say meatballs. I thought this whole draft was so you could take meatballs. I know. I said it to memes. I just said dot, dot, dot, meatballs, dot, dot, dot. And then we just decided that they're...

M is a heavy hitter. It is. There's some really, really good options out there. Mushrooms. Yeah, big miss. I like normal mushrooms. I like some sautéed mushrooms as well. Zach, did you have any others that were on the chopping board?

I've got a couple of misdemeanors, just like a little bit of trouble. I like that a lot. I like that too. That's great. I like that too. That's actually a good pick that you can spin being like, just a tiny bit of trouble. That's crazy. Yeah. It'll get expunged. Yeah. I've also got a Melidia Bentes in the coffee filter. I don't know if you guys like caffeine or coffee, but probably not inventors.

Did you know that off rip? Did you throw out? I was researching. When we were doing our powwow, did you throw out? No bad ideas. Did you throw out Mia Khalifa at one point? I did. I did throw out Mia Khalifa. I started Megan Fox, and then I went Mila Kunis, and then I went, I was like, a little hotter, and then I went Mia Khalifa. Yeah. My list got a little horny, but I cleaned it up. Cleaned it up.

All right. No, also, horny are the better for Mount Rushmore. Yeah, that's true. Horny does play on the graphic. Yeah. Yeah, the people like the horny. Okay, let's get to our interviews. We've got Ryan Rosillo and then NBA champ Isaiah Hartenstein. Before we get to Rosillo, he's brought to you by NASCAR. There's nothing like seeing NASCAR roar through the streets of downtown Chicago, a race experience unlike any other. Catch the stars of NASCAR as they take on a one-of-a-kind street course surrounded by skyscrapers and lakefront views.

40 drivers, including Chase Elliott and Denny Hamlin, battling it out on the most unique track of the season. The energy is electric. Race day adrenaline meets festival vibes in the heart of the city. Don't miss Zac Brown Band, live from the start-finish line on Saturday night, part of the Bush Light Summer Music Series. It's more than a race. It's Chicago's ultimate summer weekend. Grab your tickets now before they're gone. NASCAR takes over Chicago. Street racing, skyline views, music, and more. Get your tickets now at NASCAR.com for the ultimate summer weekend.

Check it out. The NASCAR Street Race right here in Chicago. Ursula is also brought to you by our great friends over at Truly and their Truly Unruly Lemonade. It combines the high-alcohol fun of Truly Unruly with everyone's favorite, lemonade. It's lemonade let loose. 8% ABV, but 100% delicious. Four supercharged lemonade flavors. They got the Bumpin' Blue Raz. That's my favorite. The OG original lemonade, the punched-up pineapple, the wild pink. It is the best to drink professionally.

Pre-game, ready to go out with the boys. Crack open a Truly Unruly lemonade. I say again, it's 8% ABV, but it's 100% delicious. The official hard seltzer part of my take, level up your lemonade with Truly Unruly. And now, here's Ryan Russillo. Okay, we now welcome on a very, very, very special guest. He's one of our best friends in the whole wide world. It is Ryan Russillo. We're going to talk some draft. We're going to do a little NBA Finals cleanup. Ryguy.

That game seven was a bummer. Is it, does it feel, let's start here. Does it feel like the Thunder got a little bit robbed of their moment because of Halliburton's injury? Because I felt, I woke up on Monday morning. I was like, well, that kind of sucked for the Thunder. Like, I know they don't care, but still the big conversation coming out of game seven was like, what if Halliburton doesn't get hurt?

Yeah, that's all fair. But I really think this is when we're at our worst talking about this stuff. Like the next 24, 48 hours, it happens in the Super Bowl all the time. No, you're really good about it, PFT. We actually brought that up last night. Zach Lowe mentioned that. But it's just so hard to win a championship. It's so hard. And the way we treat some of these guys at the very top of the game without a championship, and some of it's on them and some of it's just circumstance. So,

Whenever a team wins, I'm not really necessarily in a hurry to try to figure out all the ways that it's not as valuable as other championships. Because I was thinking about this the other day, and this is already some real spiritual thought stuff, but we're not impressed by anything anymore. Yeah. And I was looking at some stand-up comedian was doing this whole bit about this game called Crossfire.

And they ran the whole ad and it was this game where like ball bearings, you're just shooting them at the other guy. And if these fidget spinners and if you had enough, like went over to him, then it was like you won the game. All right. And the thing probably broke. It probably sucked. Probably not great. But like, I just remember being a kid thinking, holy shit.

Like my life is going to suck if I don't have that. Now, maybe that's marketing. Maybe that's just being young and being super impressionable. But now I feel like we've seen so much stuff. Okay. There's so much stuff that happens just on any given day that we're really difficult to be impressed by anything. And it's actually, I kind of missed being impressed by things. And now it's, I don't even know if that's real, right? Is that really a dog scuba diving? Yeah.

Who knows? Oh, I saw that video. Yeah, I saw that video. And immediately you were like fake, which I appreciate because now I don't have to cross-reference this whole thing. So when a team wins a championship, I think it's really, really hard. I understand what you guys are saying because it's like, all right, he goes down. The crazy thing is I thought in the first half OKC was more affected than

negatively than the Pacers were. Cause it was almost like the Thunder just sleepwalking through the game, expecting to win, expecting to win at home. Their best player is out. And it took them, I don't know, like another 45 minutes to an hour to wake up and then put together that great third quarter. So I, I, my default position is usually like, let's remind ourselves how hard it is to do this and how much we beat up on the people and teams that never get here. Yeah. And I, I agree a hundred percent like the Thunder incredible season wire to wire. Uh,

Shea had maybe the best season, like when you stack it all up, like one of the top ten seasons, if you want to call it, all time. They're so good. It was more like I was so geared up for a game seven that it wasn't taking away from the others. Like, man, I really wish that game had seen Tyrese Halliburton in the end. Let's do it real quick, though. What impresses you in sports right now? Let's do the spin zone. Me, Savannah Bananas. How do they keep doing it?

Who's their choreographer? Paula Abdul? No, our guy Cal Raleigh impresses me. He was here. The fact he's got 31 home runs as a catcher, that's like, I think if he gets 60 home runs, it's going to be like, holy shit. Huge ass. Big ass. Yeah.

baseball player ass no even like for a baseball player it's it's out there yeah okay but i look your guy sammy suser he is back in the good graces of the city of chicago perhaps long overdue right i was thinking about him because it was like news right and they're welcoming back first time in 21 years when i first started espn we were cutting into his home runs yeah still

And that was like a normal programming thing. And then I think wherever he was getting close to 600, somebody that was still kind of manning the decisions on the weekend department was like, hey, we got to make sure we go live. And all the hosts were like, why? No one gives a shit anymore. And especially post all of the steroid stuff that baseball went through in the late 90s, early 2000s.

Like no one cared. And yet you mentioned anybody now chasing 60 home runs. And again, it went decades before we had seen it until the late nineties. So maybe it's a simple math thing with baseball, but I think generally like we're not impressed with much. You want to know what I'm impressed with today? I'll tell you a story. Okay. I was ready to attack this week. I was so fired up. Wanted to actually do this podcast from the boat, but the charts just told me it was probably not a great decision.

And, you know, safety is the first thing you're thinking about. Number one. Not women. Yeah, not women with a boat. So I went to the gym because like right now is my Tuesday. I got after this Monday so hard, so fucking hard to start the day. Prepped a bunch of stuff. Aaron's phone calls, adult stuff. And then Matt Leinart was at the gym. I went really early. He's a dad, so I'm sure he wanted to get out of the house. And he's got this buddy who's jacked. And I was doing shoulders. And then he put on 365 pounds.

And was like, we're solo. You want in on this? And I had to say no, because I can't do it. And it was it was like, that's I'm not used to that happening to me there. And he just alpha the fuck out of me. And then I watched him because, you know, really, I would come up with a clothing line. It says focus on your own reps. But I had to sneak a peek, like being in the urinal. I had to look. And it was just filthy. That impressed me today. And I knew it was real.

That's huge. That's huge. I'm impressed by you saying no. Safety first. Yeah. The old Ryan would have been like, fuck it, I'll put that up. You would have tried. No. I know my limits. That's a little north of me. So what impresses you right now in the NBA? Things you actually like. Sam Presti? Yeah. Yeah.

Incredible story. I mean, the fact that he's been this good for this long and then finally gets his championship. And what? He's 47 years old? Like, that's... He's got so much in front of him, and he's got a shitload of picks. Yeah, Conker Cotterlisle. Shout out. I love that he now, officially, in the way we talk about players and coaches and stuff, it's like, well, if he was that good. And everybody that knew about what this guy is doing and how he was just a step ahead of everybody...

Everybody knew he was probably the best guy doing it, but now it's official. Like we get to say it. And for me, like who finds some of this stuff stupid, I'm glad we can eliminate that stupid part of it because he's been incredible. And when you think about the draft, I mean, the SGA thing works out beyond anybody's imagination.

even belief in SGA. It's amazing how many times in life you're faced with this really difficult challenge where Paul George wants out and it's the best thing that can ever happen to the Thunder because the Clippers are willing to do anything to guarantee that they're also getting Kawhi, which you revisit that one. No one had a problem with that at the time. Then you nail the Chet and Jalen Williams pick in the same draft. Within two years, even though Chet was up and down in the finals, he was great defensively last night. Jalen Williams, I still think, will be a

probably a more consistent offensive player. And then to build this all out, it's like, okay, what was the problem last year? All right, well, let's get giddy out of here because nobody wants to defend him in the playoffs. Let's bring in a spacing demon on defense in Caruso. He hires Dagnall. He's got the Spurs background stuff. He is...

He is a special, special person as far as it comes to building a roster. And I'm just glad he can now officially get a ring where imagine if you told Thunder fans like in 2012 with that group that lost in five games in Miami Heat with Durant, with Serge, with Harden, with Westbrook. And you're like, actually, this is the best it's ever going to get. Yeah, I like that. So it's good to have something that we're actually positive about. What if we did the opposite, though, and we said how disappointing would this have been for the Thunder team?

If they had lost. Yeah. If they had lost, like Halliburton gets injured, Pacers up at halftime, Pacers close it out. How disappointed are you in the Oklahoma City Thunder? Very. Yeah. Frauds? Yeah. Worst loss ever. Presti overrated. How about bringing somebody into some emotion? Yeah. Come on, man. You had the opportunity to make a move. You know what? Not to go all ESPN on you. Presti needs to step up. Yeah. Yeah.

Look, I mean, you want to do a draft of the guys on TV that would spend this week being like, here's the 10 guys I would take over Presti right now. Yeah. So look, the funniest thing, like I wrote this down last night when we did the bill and Zach thing, um,

Okay. See, during the playoffs, the rebounding rate was 11th out of 16 teams. Defensive rebounding rate was even worse than that. Their assist ratio was 11th three point shooting. They were 13th or 14th out of 16 teams. They fouled at the third highest rate. They had, I think nine games at like 31, 30% or under from three point range. And they went five and four in those nine games. Okay.

This team to do this, to win a title with some of those things, it's like, I thought you guys could shoot. Like, what the hell's going on? Their defense was actually that special. So...

I would have probably gone in. Maybe you need a little bit more shooting or shooters that can show up shooters that can show up on the road because that's what the Pacers are doing. They're just like, fine. Game six, everybody stays with SGA. Cheat off of everybody else. Stop SGA. Hope he doesn't pass. And we don't think any of those guys are going to make enough shots. And that's exactly what happened in game six. They hoped it would happen in game seven. SGA just as he passed better. But it was funny because PFT, I was thinking like if they lose this game,

Yeah.

Yeah. Just the fact that they shot that bad is – I saw someone talking about it today, and I don't know if you know the inner workings of the Oklahoma City Thunder better than we do, but they said they have an analytics department that basically like two of their big things are trying to figure out the trends and where the league's going in terms of like what's valuable, what's not, and then also just trying to figure out who's going to suck in four years and then getting their picks. Yeah.

And I was like, I read that. I was like, well, that's genius. Why aren't more teams doing that? Just like, let's just collect the picks for the teams that we expect to suck soon. And there'll be very good assets. Yeah, I know that, you know, they seem to really probably they're incredibly private. First of all, like the most private probably group ever. I don't.

You know, I've joked that I've seen Presti at the Combine. You know, again, when I used to do it, I don't know that it happens now, but like he wouldn't even stand near anybody else. Like normally, this is a pretty social event. You know, you don't just because you're sitting there, someone doesn't mean to be like, hey, I'm actually really want to trade this player. And he wouldn't even stand near anybody else. Woj introduced us years ago, about the same age, both from Mass.

some similar interests. And I was like, Hey, what's going on? And it was like, no way. Like you asked me a basketball question, you dick.

And I was like, all right, you know, lesson learned on this one. But I do think that there's a lot of truth, Big Cat, in what you said. I mean, you know, if we sat around for half an hour and try to predict which team's picks are going to be more valuable moving forward, we could probably come up with a little bit of a list here. You know, it could be perhaps a little overstated, but there's also something to be said that he was on the competition committee, Presti, I believe. And like he knew once they were putting in some of the second apron stuff,

that it was going to mean way more to just be able to draft replacements for guys that got more expensive. Because we kept waiting around going, when are they going to package these picks? When are they going to package? And if they had lost, if they had blown game seven, maybe they don't get to the NBA finals, say, then you're going to be like, does this mean they give the godfather offer to the Bucks for Giannis just going like, hey, this is how we have to do it. That's how the NBA has operated in the past. And I remember somebody explaining to me, it's going to be a bit more like

continuing to flip the picks forward so that you always have that flexibility and then drafting potentially like a replacement for somebody who goes north of 20 million, who's your fourth or fifth option. So that may be the strategy more so than like, hey, when are you going to trade all those picks? Because if they had lost, can you imagine? It's like, hey, cool picks. Yeah.

And yet they're still a really good team. They had blown game seven. Yeah. So we wanted to do just an hour and a half with you about Kevin Durant and what this means for his legacy that he goes to the Houston Rockets. We can cut that down to 45 minutes if you'd like.

But from your perspective, how does this fit work? Because we were watching the NBA Finals yesterday and the Kevin Durant news breaks over the weekend. And it feels like a lot of people were just spending time analyzing that trade instead of appreciating Game 7 in the NBA Finals that we have right now. But looking ahead, you think that the Rockets got a whole lot better? You think it's a good fit?

Yeah, I think it's a great fit for him. Minnesota was my favorite fit for him just because I still think he could have gone to Minnesota and kind of draft off the attention of Anthony Edwards, where at this stage, if you're asking Durant, who's going to turn 37 in September, to come in and fix you, I don't know if he's that guy. I mean, he wasn't that guy in Phoenix, but...

it looked like he was flirting with being that guy in Brooklyn but then he soured there so if you go back to that Houston series like Houston was the two seed and they had the weirdest like stat clutch stuff where they had all of these clutch wins but their clutch offense still sucked it was really weird now we know they're a really good defensive team but you look at that kind of thing and you're like is that something that's going to bite you in the ass the last five minutes of a tight playoff game because you don't really feel great about who your number one scoring option is and

and they would have loved for it to mend Jalen Green. He's given four years of rope here, high usage rate, like just go out there. And even though Jalen Green certainly has his moments because he's a really talented player, he was not that guy against Golden State. And I don't want to completely like write him off as a player because of a bad series and his first playoff taste, but it just wasn't very good. Then you've got Van Vliet like scrambling around and he put up some huge numbers against Golden State, but you could just see like

they need something else on the wing that they can really depend on. And considering they don't have to trade Jabari, they don't have to trade Tari, a men's a non-starter. There's no Reed Shepard in the deal. Like,

And they, I think, got rid of the less favorable pick. So I love the trade for Houston. Their GM Stone is on an absolute heater now. I mean, every single move this guy makes, it seems like usually you're just going to get one wrong because of the way sports work. So they didn't pay a ton. They're obviously probably going to have to extend him. I think Durant's happier in Houston than some of the other options. So the thing I did like about Minnesota is that he could probably –

allow ant to still be the focal point of all of the attention where in houston a lot is going to be expected of him but he's desperately what they needed on offense like go get us those closing playoff moment buckets see i have the opposite take i think phoenix got a whole lot better i love what they're building down at phoenix the whole thing i love that they got the big four is what they're calling it i think i think bradley beal is poised for a breakout season yeah

Where? It's got to be in Phoenix. It's got to be in Phoenix. Is that the worst no-trade clause ever given to a player? We said yesterday that his name has now become Bradley Beal's no-trade clause. Because anytime you say his name, it's always in that context. Is that the worst no-trade clause ever given out? Yeah, I mean, it's got to be. I mean, because he's just so checked out. He's totally... I think the scary thing about him is that, you know, I think anybody...

you think like if you're this good, then there has to be some competitive pride in you. And he may have the least, there may be the biggest gap between just talent and how much he doesn't care of any, like they tried to bench him and bring him off the bench, like hoping, Hey, if we make this really ugly, will he actually say, Hey, I want out of here. And then I had heard is like, no, he just loves Phoenix. A lot of guys love the Phoenix area. He loves it. He might love his life. He might actually be the happiest guy in the NBA.

You talk about every player is unhappy. I think you're onto something. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. He might be the happiest dude. Yeah. Do you subscribe to my theory that Ispia was like, we know we're not going to get a lot for Kevin Durant, but if you just make the second round picks five of them, everyone's going to look at the tweet and be like, holy shit, that's a lot of picks. I just see Hinky's sub stack. He was like, this is great.

Look at all these second rounders. Yeah. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. But it was like, you see five second round picks. You're like, oh man, that's a lot of picks. Then you're like, wait a second. They're second round picks. This means nothing. He should have asked for like 15.

There was a stretch where I felt like so many writers just love second round picks. You're like, look at all the flexibility. You're like, look at the historical data of like how often these guys, you know, learn China, buddy. Speaking of though, Dylan Brooks, who again was like that guy got 80 million after people were laughing about him being out of the league and he deserves the contract that he got. And he actually matters because he's got some edge to him.

theory working theory they brought in dylan brooks just to match up against beal in practice oh to piss him off get that dog back in him reignite the fire yeah or ask out or ask out like i can't deal with this guy good point yeah that's actually i like that theory a lot to make like if you if you can't force the guy to be traded just make him hate his job so much that he's gonna play anywhere else

Yeah, like they signed, like, hey, we just signed Thanasis, and he's going to shadow you on the court and off the court. Yeah. And Beal's just like, I'm not going to, I can't, I can't do this. All right, now you've got me. I want to go back to the Wizards where I'm comfortable. Well, I actually think that there is some truth to the fact that playing for the Wizards organization historically, it will suck the life out of your desire to be great at basketball. It just will. You're going to end up not caring as soon as you get through, like, one season there.

So you're telling me you're selling your Alex Sarr and Bub Carrington stock? No, I like Bub. I like Bub a lot. And I was almost a diehard Wizards fan for the NBA draft lottery. What about Kula Bali? Kula Bali.

If we're going to get Cooper Flagg, I was in. But now, and maybe we can transition into NBA draft talk a little bit. Now I'm thinking Ace Bailey might be the perfect fit. He wants to go somewhere. He's the guy. The killer bees. The superstar. Maybe the Wizards might be the perfect fit. So tell us what's going on with Ace Bailey and why has he dropped so much in this draft?

I think the NBA draft, the players are a lot like a movie that you hear about ahead of time. Like Draft Day? Right. Yeah, it's a good comp. Costner's best movie? Yeah, I'd say easily. I always say if that movie didn't have the licensing for the official NFL logos, it might be the worst movie of all time. But because they had Cleveland Browns, Jacksonville Jaguars, I'm watching and I'm like, I'm pretty much watching football right now. This is awesome. Yeah, they do the flyover of the stadiums. You're like, dude, this rocks. Football. Football.

I don't know if you understand the references we just did as we're football guys. Yeah. Yeah, no, I saw you guys. You were like, oh, my God, so many weekends before college football. I'm losing my mind. It's like you guys. No, I'm like, some people like football. You guys really like football. I love football. It's so cool. Anyway. Thank you.

See, you're getting a little too snarky. I can tell you don't actually really love football. You would have made that joke if you really loved it. I don't like it as much as you guys do. That's for sure. Don't forget that. I've never questioned it. All right. So, yeah. So, Ace Bailey, why is he going from being like second or third pick to now we're thinking he might be fifth, sixth? Glad you asked, PFT. This is the movie thing. Like,

There ever been a movie in your life? You're like, this movie sucks. And you're like, what does it? It's terrible. And you go in thinking everybody that, you know, even if a couple of people that you trust, I mean, there's some people that we're friends with. We're like, if you don't like something that I know I will like it. Ace Bailey feels like this movie that,

And I'm late to it. I've explained to you guys and just to remind the audience, like I can't do the draft stuff year round. I love it. It's my favorite week of the year. So I get crash course into all this stuff and watch as much as I can and go to the combine and all that kind of stuff. So, you know, you just heard so many people trashing him that I went into the theater going like, this guy's going to suck.

He's good. He is. I think the conversation around him with Sharif Cooper's dad repping him and, you know, this being a bit abnormal where a lot of teams are really pissed about the way they're treating this process is,

And who's to know? Are they trying to navigate this thing to get Bailey from three to, say, six because they feel like there's a ton of shots and a ton of points and traditional counting stats for him so that when he's extended in four years, he's going to make back all the money that he loses dropping a few slots?

Brooklyn would be significant going three to eight. But when you watch him, sure, we can go over the bad stuff. There's plenty of shots. You're like, what the hell were you doing there? I think I saw one game where he had two shots where his heels were on the three-point line. There's times where one play I saw him, just three guys were right in his face, and he's in the triple threat, and he wants to drive, he wants to drive. And you're like, well, you're not going to drive. There's nowhere to go. There's nowhere to go right now. It's like, yeah, I'm going to drive.

But I watched the Bama game from November this morning, and there's just a lot of stuff this guy can do at 6'8". That's really impressive. And it's not like he's just a 6'8 project, right? This isn't like Salon who goes last year in the top 10. This is somebody that...

The high-end shot-making is really impressive. It's not necessarily like Trey Johnson, Texas, who could go ahead of him. But I feel like all of the conversation around Ace and the Rutgers season being a disaster and Harper clearly being the number two guy, that means Ace and his is good. I'm not telling you he's perfect. It seemed like he didn't love playing off the ball as much as he had to because Harper was just so good. And the more and more you watch Harper, you're just like, all right, I totally get it. He's got all this NBA scoring stuff down already to the high pick and roll.

But I feel like Ace has become far more damaged, probably because of the handling of this. And apparently, unless there's a secret workout, being the only American prospect that hasn't worked out or shown up to visit with anybody, which is just unheard of. So why is he doing that? Has his camp made any statements about it? Like, this is why we're approaching the draft in this way. I know it's weird, but here's our strategy.

Yeah, I think because Philly, you know, landing the number three pick is weird. Like we can all sit here and say like, well, they need to trade it because of the timeline and what they're facing. And granted, like if you're a Sixers fan right now, you should probably feel much better about your place in the East, considering all the guys that are going down and the injuries that we've had throughout the playoffs. And, you know, you include Dame too at the end, but yeah.

You look at Ace Bale or even Avija and you're like, how does this guy play for a Sixers team? The way he plays is probably because one of the Sixers guys are going to get hurt, so you throw him out there anyway. But I just can't imagine Nick Nurse trusting a ton of possessions with Ace Bailey, where if he's on Brooklyn and there's no one else, and you're like, okay, that's buckets. New Orleans, Trey Murphy is still a preferred option over Ace Bailey at this point. There just seems like there's more room for him for touches where –

It feels like the camp was afraid that if he ended up in Charlotte with Lamello and Miller already there, Utah should be plenty of room, but there's a ton of guys that they've drafted and a lot of on-the-ball guards. Maybe they're simply looking at this as the vacancy of other people that would get in his way. That has to be the reason behind it because it doesn't really make a lot of sense of why you try to be going –

fifth or eighth instead of third. Yeah. All right. The Duke guys, Moloch, Cooper flag, conk nipple. They're going to go. What? Like,

All three of them maybe go by, what, seven, eight? What's the ceiling for all these guys, and is it high enough that they could go down as, like, the how did they not win a championship team? Because that's all I'm rooting for. Like, man, can you believe that? They can't win it all? That's crazy. You want to hear something funny? I watched the Houston game again.

And I took a picture of when they had the ball up, what, 67-61 with 58 seconds left, 57 seconds left. And we already know the outcome because we all watched the game. And even when I was rewatching it months later, I'm thinking, they lost this? Yeah, it was awesome. I almost posted the picture and said they lost this game. And then we had John Shire confirm for two days later. And I was like, all right, I can't.

I can't do that. Smart. It's a fact. They did lose that game. They did lose that game. But how good are these guys? Like, I think they're all really, really good. Obviously, we know Cooper Flagg and Conn Krimple is like he's going to be very good pro. And Malawak, his size is like he kind of fits that new NBA where he could run with anyone and he could protect the rim. So is it are all three of these guys like no doubt, hey, you're going to get a really good player out of them?

I like all three guys a lot. I think Cooper flag, the Jesus comp seem a little outrageous. Um, maybe Tom chambers, not Jesus. No, uh,

Like Cooper, the only thing that you would say, and I asked Shire this, and of course, like he was going to say the other stuff that this guy did in practice, like, don't even worry about it is you go, okay, if you're taking somebody number one, and he's supposed to be the face of a franchise in like four or five years, that also means that he's the number one scoring option likely, you know, granted, there are some players that are a little bit more unique.

But, I mean, is he going to have that kind of offensive game? And I think the people that are around him, whether it was high school and this year at Duke, they're like, he could do more of that stuff if he wanted to. But he actually is like a really willing teammate and passer and speaks to all the other guys that he wanted to get involved. So every time you watch Cooper, like the biggest thing too, it's not just the size, the athleticism, his anticipation, the defense. I mean, it's just his passing, all this stuff is that he's a real competitor.

Like, it's not a joke. He's not telling you that he wants to win. He is expressing to you the urgency with which he plays basketball, how bad he wants to win. And so it's hard to not just pay attention to him when you're just watching a Duke game. And then I went back and did the knipple tape. And I thought like, oh, yeah, you know, he'll probably be, you know, in that in that five to eight range or something like that because he's big. He scored a lot, scored even more in high school. He had to defer a little bit.

I'll tell you, after really digging into him, I am so incredibly impressed with the way this guy sees the game. His off-ball cutting, how he's setting up defenders off the ball. The best way I could describe him is that if you have Knipple on your team and then you just pick whoever the other four are, he would look at who the other four guys are, figure out what they needed, and then he would play. He would adapt his game to who the other four guys that he was sharing the floor with.

And he showed that when Flag was out. He showed it when Flag was obviously in. And he is so smart. Like, Vijay's got probably more motherfucker in him. Trey Johnson makes the most NBA-impressive level shots. But I think Knipple's approach to the game is the thing that's the most impressive from him. So I don't know if that's enough for him to go ahead of Vijay and go number three. But it seems impossible that he would go outside of three, four, and five.

And then Malawach, you know, he hasn't played the game for a really long time. And as much as it feels like he's just this incredible lob threat, two things really stood out. He had a switch in a college game where the point guard hadn't played like they didn't know the Skyrim report on Malawach at all.

And he switches. He gets him in the switch like, all right, here we go. Like, the guard's going to go right past this big guy. Malowatch stays in front of him by moving his feet. It's not even his wingspan. Like, the guard couldn't do anything and was, like, freaked because you could just, like, what the fuck was this? Like, I can't go around this guy. So it feels like Knipple's in that three to five range. Malowatch...

You know, some people say the floor is Toronto unless they're going to go with SNG, which is somebody from France who I don't like all that much. But he just fell down a lot. So, you know how I get about those players, even when they're good. I'm like, stop falling down all the time. But those three guys are really special prospects. But yeah, Big Cat, you're going to be right. You're going to be able to say, how did that team not win a title? It's going to be awesome. It's going to be like looking at the old Oklahoma City Thunder.

Same thing. Right. Except those guys. Well, I mean, who left quicker? The freshmen or? Yeah. So. Yeah. I mean, those guys are still Durant and Westbrook were still running things in 2016. All ended up being Rockets. Is that one in a draft? What?

Should the Rockets sign Serge Ibaka? Yes. Yeah. Get the gang back together? I'll end up being Rockets. I kind of like that, yeah. What about Jeremiah Fierce? Because a month ago, if you'd asked me who would I want on my team, I was feeling I like watching Jeremiah Fierce play, the way that he controls the game at point guard. Are we hearing that he's going to slip a little bit? No, and there's a lot of people who think that Utah would take him as far as can you get past a defender, and there's a lot of guys that think they can.

that are like big time scorers and come in with all the accolades. And he's another one like Cooper that reclassified. So he should have been a senior in high school this year. And he comes in and no one can stay in front of him. Like nobody can stay in front of him. And some of the stuff that he does, the anticipation of the passing is really special. So if you are in the room and you're arguing,

Hey, this guy has a chance. Cause this will happen a lot with the draft, which we always have to remind ourselves of is like, you're sitting there at seven or eight. You're like, okay, this guy's a better player. We know he could probably be in the rotation with us. It's a safer pick, but we can't get any stars of free agency. We can't trade for anybody. Nobody wants to come to our city. Is there a chance? Is there a chance that this person develops into somebody that like becomes an elite level score where maybe he makes an all-star game because a couple other guys ask out of it. Uh,

Yeah, I could see that fierce conversation. Like I could see that being part of the conversation for fears. A lot of people do think Utah likes him, but if you wanted to shit on him, you go, okay, cool. He's really small. He turned it more, turn it over more than any other player in the sec. He shot 28% from three last year. I looked at his high school stats again, high school stats. I can't believe it's 2025. We can't have a better database for this kind of stuff, but from what I could find and then double checking some of the stuff, like he wasn't over 30% from three there either. So yeah,

I'm usually not in a hurry to be like, hey, small guard can't shoot, turns it over a ton, probably can't defend anybody. Yeah, let's go. Number five, hand in the cart. So Jeremiah Fears' ceiling is Tyler Huntley? I would say a more better condition. Pro bowler? Better conditioned. Okay. Okay. Yeah, I mean, he's awesome. The shooting thing. Like, how bad...

Let me ask you this. If you're a team and you talk to these guys, like, is there some level of, hey, we can figure out a way to get him to shoot better? Or is it like your shot kind of is your shot and it's it's you're not going to all of a sudden go from a 25 percent three point shooter to, oh, man, you're hitting 39 percent.

Yeah. Most people will tell you, you can work on it. Like if you want to figure this out, like a golf swing, you can probably get better at it. And you know, percentages can be misleading too, because there are NBA shooters who put up a really nice percentage, but they can only shoot in like one scenario where it's the muscle memory is down. It's the catch. There's no dribble. It's from like one spot where they're comfortable. And actually there's a,

incredible value in just that. But then there's other guys that can shoot from anywhere. I can shoot a catch, shoot off the dribble. They can calibrate their body and change the shot based on like what they think they need. And that's, that's like the real elite stuff. So, you know, there's times where I look at percentages for trap prospects and I'll think the player is actually like a good shooter. Like Dylan Harper shot 33% from three this year. All right. He's going to be better than the 33% shooter. Cause a lot of the shots were, Hey, we're not that good.

I'm a five-star. I'm the big deal. I'm the number one option. Like some of these kids, I don't really blame them. Like they're in love with taking some, hey, take a look at this, three-pointer. I mean, you know, it's just what the game has become post-Steph. So there's –

There's a lot of shot selection stuff that will happen with some kids where I look at their form. Is it quick enough? Are they getting it off? Like, you know, again, Halliburton had probably one of the funkier deliveries ever. And all he's done is shot 40% from three, basically every season. So, yeah.

You know, there's more to it than I think than just what are your percentages, where then you have Demin at BYU who apparently is lighting it up in these pre-workout. And I loved him at 6'8 and a half and playing point guard in some of his passing. But he's not – I mean, he didn't just miss this year. He like – I was kidding, but like his misses are violent.

like violent misses from three. So where I look at his percentage, I'm like, that seems to make more sense, even though apparently, again, he's, I guess, killing it in some of these pre-draft workouts, which is shocking because in game, it was pretty rough. So besides him, who outside of the consensus top eight are you looking at and saying, I like that guy more than what the experts are ranking Matt?

Well, it's funny because I don't look at Vassini's stuff until I feel like I'm comfortable. I don't want to look at his and then do all my work. And then I was watching Cedric Cowart started D3, was at Eastern Washington, played six games this year for Washington State because his coach came over, had a shoulder injury, was shut down for the season. I still don't even think he's cleared for three-on-three stuff right now. And I watched him and I'm like, am I losing my mind? But

Is this guy incredible? And I text Vassini. I was like, Hey, what do you got on? Like, just like, do you like this dude? He's like, yeah, I have a ninth. All right. And now, you know, people are seeing that going. That's insane. You guys are nuts. Cause we were raving about him last week on my pod. And, um,

And it's just like, look, the competition is not very good. The only good team he played was Iowa last year, and it was probably his worst of the six games. So maybe I'm getting a little carried away. But when you look at the physicality, the shooting numbers, which are incredible across the board, how he just was this wing who seemed like he can score on everybody. And then one game it was like, hey, I'm just going to post up dudes right now just to show you that I have the full arsenal. He makes a lot of sense probably outside of that –

eight to nine range into the uncertainty of what the rest of the lottery and teams are going to be. Cause that's where I think it's going to be a little bit more wild. You got a favorite Euro guy. I feel like America's back. We kind of, we're dominating this draft after a couple that we didn't, but do you have a favorite Euro guy? Well, Traore is like watching a cult being born. We're like, is it going to run away and look beautiful or is it going to fall down? Yeah.

He doesn't shoot it great. It reminds me of Mello a little, but when he's out there, you feel him, right? He's this lanky point guard running around. Again, he hasn't shot it great, but he plays with such incredible energy that sometimes it's like, man, that's a lot of energy you're playing with. Essengay, who I mentioned, is a French kid who's playing in the German league. And I can tell, like, I'll look at some of the reports on him, and I think, did you guys watch him? Or are you just looking? Because his free throw rate was nuts.

He was like, oh, this guy's so efficient. He lives at the line. The shit he got called in his favor, like I can't – I just can't imagine an NBA ref going, yeah, let's send him to two for the line. Like you deserve that. Where he's not even facing the hoop on some of these shots. Yeah. And he's like turning around and then chucks it. Like Dame Lillard would be embarrassed. Dame would be like, dude, don't ruin this for the rest of us. Some teams really like him. Some teams think he could go in the top ten.

I'm as not, I'm not as big of a fan. I might be totally wrong. We'll see his team still playing. So we don't even know if he's going to make it to the draft or not, but he's definitely going in the first round. Barringer is the other French kid who like plays center and he actually plays center.

Like he's, he's somebody I like at least for the fact that he knows exactly who he's going to be instead of some of these six, 10, six, 11 guys that want to be small forwards. And they're not, um, this guy's a center. He set a screen on a guard in this game I watched last week where it was such a violent screen. And I thought it was legal.

they call the foul on him and the officials looking at him basically being like, that guy's so banged up like a car crash after he ran into your screen. Like, I think I have to give him this call right now. And he's looking at him going like, what? Like the first, I think, 12 makes that I saw from him were all just right at the rim, dunked. He has no interest in doing anything else. And sometimes that can actually be a good thing for a team because it's like he doesn't want to show you what he's capable of in a few years. He already understands the assignment.

Yeah. I got a question for you about the New York Knicks and their coaching search. You think they're to the point where they pick up the phone, make it called Alabama, Nate Oates? Man, is Izzo, what about Condoleezza Rice? Are they going to get a coach for real? This is a shit show. Yeah, I don't think any of it matters. I think it's something that's really easy to make fun of. Very easy. If they win games, which they're going to,

No one is going to be talking about this in a year. No one. So I don't know why they would necessarily do this to embarrass themselves. But to me, this is not like...

This is one of your buddies that's a great guy that does something embarrassing, and it's just not going to hang on him as opposed to somebody else. It's also the Knicks, so people like to shit on them. I think there's a lot of good one-liners out of all this stuff, but ultimately none of this is ever going to matter. It's just not. If you want to pile on, you can use it. I would like to pile on. We're going to pile on. I know, man. You love to get on top. I do. Love to. You know me. Stay on top.

That's what we say on this podcast. Piledriver. Get on top, stay on top. I just wanted to get on top of the Knicks, and then I also wanted to get on top of Rico at the same time, which is why I thought maybe Nate Oates to the Knicks could make everybody happy. Was it Izzo that was going to fix everybody there for a while? Remember when Izzo was going to coach the Michigan State football team? Yes. Yes. Yes. He was going to fix it all. We are so fucking stupid sometimes. But I love it.

I love it because it's also like maybe he could. I don't know. That guy can coach. Nothing's better than the Condoleezza Rice Browns. No, I still can't believe it's real. I think about it once a week. I think about it. I text you every now and then. Like, what are you doing? Like thinking about Condoleezza Rice with a headset on. This is real. They need a CEO. That's really what it is. We need a head coach as a CEO.

Who would you guys most want to coach the Knicks? It's all on the table. Probably Jay Wright. Rick Brunson would be funny. It would. It would be very funny. You'd have to admit it would be very funny. If Cuomo doesn't win the election, probably him. Yeah. How about those numbers? Yeah. Wild. The real answer is I would love... I'm not super political, but I just saw it today. I would love for them to strike out and then have to rehire Tibbs. That would be... Would you take it? Tibbs would do it. Yeah. Why not? If they pay you.

It's a rum situation. Yeah, fuck it. I knew they hated me. Tim strikes me as a guy who it's not like he's walking around being like, everyone fucking loves me in this building. So I don't think it would change much.

Tibbs loves basketball so much he would probably do it. Yeah. Yeah. He loves basketball so much. We've told this story. I mean, you probably know it. Like the fact that he was going to get married and he was like, yeah, actually, I'm not getting married because you are going to make me not be able to be a basketball coach all the time. And he just had the foresight to be like, yeah, we're just not going to do this.

I did it because of podcasting. Yeah. Married to the gang. Exactly. That's commitment. That's commitment. You know how many fights I've avoided by just like, I've actually done society a favor by being resilient in my solitude because I just know the arguments that I've avoided. And you know, who knows? I mean, the butterfly effect, say I had a wife and she's like, I can't believe he's watching another fucking game. And then she crashes into somebody at Ralph's grocery store and

You know? Yeah. Who knows? You've made so many women so happy by not marrying them. I've done more for women than anybody. That's facts. You love women more than, yeah, any married man. You're a feminist at heart. Have you ever played solitaire during an NBA playoff game? At home on my couch? Probably. You're a solitaire guy? No. No.

I don't think so. I mean, back in the day with ESPN every now and then, you remember that golf game that they used to have, that mini golf game on ESPN.com in the early 2000s? There was always that one hole that was like, if you could get that in a hole-in-one, then once you started breaking it. I think the lowest score you could get was a North Korean score, wherever you hole was a hole-in-one.

But it was really, really hard to do. So we used to do that sometimes during the break because those shows were six hours long, remember? Yeah. On those Saturday night overnights. But during a game, like, look, I'll admit, you know, you get a little distracted on your phone live at a game every now and then. You know, is that dog actually underwater? Yeah.

It was a cool video. And I'll say that, like, at the beginning of the video, I was like, wait, is this real? And then when we could audibly hear the dog barking at the shark as the shark banged into his scuba. You don't think the dog would bark? No, I think the dog would bark. I don't think we'd be able to hear it.

Well, we don't know how it was miked. That's true. That's true. It might have been miked up. You guys are in audio. Yeah, I missed that. What are you really asking me, by the way? What? About Solitaire? Yeah. Just wondering what your thoughts were on Solitaire Gate. You zagged pretty hard. I was just curious. I want to know. You're in the biz, Ryan. I just can't imagine you ever playing a game on your computer during an NBA Finals game. Let's just say, if that were to happen...

I would be pretty bummed out with myself. Yeah. Unless it was a really good solitary game. Cause that's the part that people miss. The Stephen A. Smith actually had a really good solitary game going. How does he not see that six over there? I, I would be, I think the lesson in all of this is that some people are to a level where there's like this acceptance of it doesn't even matter. Like nothing even matters. Yeah.

which I don't know if that's good or bad. Well, but okay. So it did matter a little. And I didn't say this on Monday's show, but Stephen A. Smith, his daughter's a little too old to be using her as a shield. He really needed his daughter to be like five.

I'm not getting any of that. Let's talk about it this way. I'm not. It's the truth. Hypothetically, what would Stephen A. Smith say about an NBA player if he made the organization go out of their way to bring that player's child into the organization? If that were to ever happen in the NBA, do you think Stephen would have a problem with it? Can the kids shoot? Not that great. Did you guys already do this segment? No. No. No.

I was ruminating on that take. Usually when people bring out their kids as shields, being like, I'm facing a little controversy, it's like, you know, the kid's running around really cute. Everyone's like, oh, look at this cute kid. It's not like a full-blown adult. I have nothing to add to this. I'm staying out of it. All right, we'll do the Roback question. R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com. Promo code TAKE. 20% off your first purchase. Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts. Roback.com. Promo code TAKE. 20% off. My last question for you, Ryan, is...

Are you going to run a six minute mile this year? You and I talked about it. This is a big, big controversy on the show where make it quick. I don't do a great job with that, but like it just, what would you be excited about? Right. If like, what would you be excited? You'd be excited to rep out.

I think you'd be excited for most people to bench 225 once. If you could rep 135 one time, like good for you. You're in there. Never going to be critical to anybody. That's aging. That's understanding that like, Hey, we're all in this together. I don't want to be a orphan of society. And yeah,

Yet, when I brought up the mile, just off the top of my head, I was like, yeah, I think like a six-minute mile, like if you run. But nobody just runs a mile. Nobody runs a mile to just test themselves. And then it turned into the marathon crowd being like, are you guys out of your mind? 730 is like the best split. And then, of course, that's what happens. People consistently prove their selfishness to me all the time that their argument was only about what it was that they were doing in the normal thing.

So Big Cat and I talked about this. Big Cat, which I appreciate. I don't think it was the friendship. He was like, you're 100% right about this whole thing. Like, nobody would run one mile and then come to work on Monday being like, 742, dudes. He'd be like, wait, you ran one of them? That's a fact. At some point, like, you stop worrying about your mile time. I would say that that age is maybe 10th grade, and you don't really care what you can run one mile in. Unless you run it.

Yeah, unless you're on a track team. But then you reach the age where it's like, okay, I'm going to run more than a mile because I'm trying to stay in shape. I'm not trying to run 600 meters. Yeah, right. There's just very few people being like, I'm going to figure this thing out. Although Big Cat told me

And again, because he was on my side. But you went out and ran a mile just to prove that you could do it because nobody thought you could do it, right? Yeah, no, people were like, oh, you can't. It's over 10 minutes easy. I went out. I ran like a 740. It killed me. I was crushed. I felt like crap. I wanted to die. Did you go out too fast? I went. I just pushed myself to the limit. I'm not in good shape. But I do think people, like, if you've done anything wrong,

If you're, if you've done anything in your life, that's like remotely athletic, you could, you still have a baseline that like seven 40 is not. And I did, I didn't go around bragging to people be like, Hey dude, I ran a seven 40. If someone tells you they ran a six minute mile, I would be like, dude, that's fucking crazy. Like that's fast. That's a really fast. That's sprinting like as fast as you can. Yeah. It's a 10 on the treadmill the whole time. It's crazy. And I used to try to do it when I was younger. Um,

And I don't think I ever, I don't think I ever got it. I think I'd get to like the 0.08 and then I would just be like, you're going to, something's going to blow. Like you've got to, the treadmill is driving you. You're not even running right now. And it's going to be really bad. Am I going to train for it? I've wanted to just to kind of do a, Hey, everybody fuck off. Cause like whenever any of us talk about any of this stuff, they seem to think that like, that's impossible. And I'm like, I probably could, but you know, I'd get, I'd get a lot skinnier.

And I don't want to do that. It's taking me forever to have this much mass. I'm not ready to give it up. That's why I'm not going on Love Island. Good point. You're finally at a place in life where you're happy with your body. Yeah. And you've got a great body. I have a great body. Fuck everybody. Don't apologize for that. Yeah. No, I mean, I look, I was checking myself out the other day. I was like, the reason I'm single is I don't know if anybody deserves this. Yeah. And you can fuck yourself.

I've seen videos, but I don't know if they're real. Oh, the dog scuba diving. Hank got got by that. He got got by the kittens jumping off the high dive. That one was real. The kittens in the Olympics? Yeah, that one was real. Well, there was like an AI roided up DeChambeau on threads. Yes.

I think Big Gag can understand. I just wrote fake. And the guy was like, dude, I'm just having fun. It's great, though. We've got to keep modest. Yeah, right. We don't need this shit because people are now being desensitized. I think there's something to be said. I don't know if it's a book or a TED Talk or whatever, but

No one's impressed with anything anymore. Yeah. And sometimes every now and then allow yourself to be impressed. I am impressed with the Oklahoma City Thunder and their organization. That's a great. Yeah. Great tie back. Great. Stuck the landing. There was one guy online. I saw yesterday I had a picture of him and his mom from he was like he was like four years old in this picture. And his mom was obviously like a grown lady. He's like, this is the most good fantastic thing use case I've ever seen for A.I.,

And then he turned that picture into a video of his mom and him hugging. And he's like, this is now one of my most cherished memories that I have. A fake video of him hugging his mom. Oh, that's actually pretty sad. Yeah. Very sad. It's really sad. Yeah. I apologize about trying to keep up with the banter. It was so sad. I have nothing to add. It's just like the solitaire topic. I have nothing to add. Yeah. I was impressed by that fan at the LSU game. Yeah. Yeah.

I looked at that twice. All right, Ryan, you're the best. We love you. Enjoy vacation wherever you're going. Yeah, I've been looking at St. Helena. Okay. Napoleon Exile. Okay. Yeah. I was going to put myself through the same exile. Minus. I got a picture or I got a piece of Napoleon's DNA. You want to bring it there?

bought it for 250 yeah okay no 250 online get a piece of his hair did you spend half a million napoleon's dick in its face that's irrelevant i did i did i love when connor like logan asked connor about him spending money on a fake napoleon dick and he's like that's irrelevant all right thanks ryan appreciate it racilla was brought to you by cachava this is a good sponsor for ryan racillo he's working out

Getting swole. And whether you're on or off the field, you need the kind of nourishment that keeps up with your game. Kachava's Whole Body Meal Shakes will keep your body and your mind nourished all day. It's a great all-in-one shake. They got proteins, greens, vegetables.

It fuels your game. It's a whole body meal with plant-based protein that actually tastes delicious. 25 grams of 100% plant-based protein and available in five indulgent flavors. Chocolate, vanilla, chai, matcha, and coconut acai. All the good stuff your mind and body crave for whole body health. With every two scoops of cachava, you get 85 plus superfoods, nutrients, and plant-based ingredients. No artificial flavors, no colors, no sweeteners.

Thank you.

Fuel your game with Cachava. Go to Cachava.com. Use promo code PMT for 15% off your next order. That's K-A-C-H-A-V-A.com. Promo code PMT. 15% off your next order. Let's get the boys on some Cachava shakes. Let's get those in the studio. We're hitting the gym. We're working out. Let's drink some Cachava. Cachava.com. Promo code PMT. 15% off. Priscilla was also brought to you by our great friends at Proper 12.

I'm making my Irish entrance with proper number 12 Irish whiskey. How do you make an Irish entrance, you might ask? It starts with a shot of proper number 12 Irish whiskey because real friends don't let friends Irish exit a party without a story to tell. Original proper number 12 is a rich and smooth blend of golden grain and single malt aged four years in bourbon barrels. Mixed up with some ginger ale for a classic and refreshing proper ginger. In the mood for something smooth but a little sweeter?

Try Proper Irish Apple. It's a delicious blend of Proper's award-winning Irish whiskey with crisp, fresh notes of apple. So get out there and make your Irish entrance. Anything else just wouldn't be proper. Make your Irish entrance with Proper No. 12 Irish Whiskey. And now here's Isaiah Hartenstein. Ooh.

Okay. We now welcome on a very, very, very special guest. He is an NBA champ. As of less than 24 hours ago, it is Isaiah Hartenstein from the Oklahoma city thunder. Uh,

I mean, it's crazy. We're talking to you. It's been 12 hours. Does it feel like, have you been doing media? Like, are we the first to say you're an NBA champ? I mean, right after the game, you heard it a couple times. But, I mean, now, y'all, the next day, definitely the first, for sure. Yeah. So, you win. Let's talk Game 7. You win.

Game seven, everything's happening. Did you ever in your wildest imagination be like, I'm going to someday win an NBA title and then my son is going to go viral for sleeping? Oh, yeah. Wait, he's awake actually right now. Okay. Oh, this is good. He's finally awake. We'll give him a little cameo. Oh, yeah. Can you break the news to him that dad's a champion?

He could care less. All he wanted to do was go home and listen to Elmo. He didn't care about anything about the NBA championship. That's hilarious. It was an awesome moment. Wait, how old is he?

He's one. He just turned one. Okay, because I had your back in the moment because I have three kids. I was like, dude, they sleep when they sleep. Like, this is actually a good thing. You just, you know, when they're ready to sleep, just let them sleep. Yeah, that was amazing. I mean, I might need, like, the arena sound now for the crib because –

He was dead asleep. Like, he doesn't even sleep that good at home. So I'm like, I need to figure this out or something. But it was an amazing moment. And now he's up, up. There we go. Yeah, the moment when I think Shea was the one who, like, tried to pick up his head a little was very funny. Oh, yeah. I was very...

Very bad at multitasking. She was asking questions, his head was falling to the side. But I have great teammates who helped me with my father and everything. So it was good. So what happens after you guys win? What was last night like for you guys? I mean, first of all, you just feel the great emotions. I mean, I think just as a group, you're with these guys probably more than your family. So just kind of experiencing that together.

was something truly amazing. And then after that, we went to, we tried to do the champagne, whatever it's called, party, but no one knew how to do it. Like, we were all trying to figure out, and ACU was trying to explain to us how to do it, so it was probably the worst champagne shower probably in NBA history, but we had fun with that for sure. I love that. You seem so young, and then you're like, hey, Unc, Alex Caruso, who's, how old is he? Oh, yeah, he's...

Yeah, the old man on the team. Like, you're the only one who knows how to open up a bottle of champagne. Yeah. The crazy thing is, I think it was like for like three people, it was like the first time they even drank alcohol. Oh, that is nuts. That is crazy. Did they get hammered? First-timers? I mean, yes, yeah. Some guys got a little fun last night, but they earned it for sure. Yeah. In terms of the actual game...

It was weird because obviously the Halliburton injury happens and it kind of takes a little of the air out of the whole game seven. Did you feel it affect your side as well? Because you guys were down at half where it was not so much that you're feeling bad for him, but it's just kind of weird. You plan on playing this guy who's been incredible and had this insane run, and then he's out for the rest of the game. You're like, all right, what are we doing here? We got TJ McConnell now for extended minutes. Did it feel weird after he went down?

I mean, first of all, like, my prayers just go out to him. I think having an injury like that is always something sad to see. He was amazing all playoffs. But I think for us, it was kind of just getting back to, I mean, yeah, you never want to see it, but we were trying to get back to zero. I mean, that's been our kind of motto all season, get back to that zero-zero mentality. And, yeah, even without a great team, I mean, TJ McCollum was –

Felt like Michael Jordan had some – he would have some stretches where he was going. I mean, he was really impressive this whole playoffs. But, yeah, we just wanted to make sure that we just stayed locked in and got it done. Yeah. Can you take me back to last year, July 1st, 2024, when you decided that you were going to sign with the Thunder? Yeah.

And what was going through your head, why you made that decision? Did things play out the way that you thought they would, or was there, you know, you thought that it was the right place for you to be, but maybe even you were surprised with how this year went. Um, I think I was more surprised. I mean, you always saw the culture from the outside. Like you saw Sam Pressley always built a great culture with the, with the thunder, but then really being in it to see how amazing the culture really is. Um, we really just have to focus on basketball here. Um,

And I think he's done a great job just building that out. And so now being here, winning a championship, I mean, it was always a goal, but it's never promised. And so, yeah, I mean, for me, it worked out perfectly. It worked out perfectly. Yeah, there was a take when you decided to sign with Oklahoma City. This is from Nick Central that posted this in reaction to the news.

Welp, Isaiah Hardenstein went for the short-term money and not for the chance to win a championship at NYC and be a legend for eternity and have long-term money. Enjoy Irrelevance. Are you enjoying Irrelevance? Yeah, it feels pretty good. Like the champagne, it feels... The confetti coming down holding the trophy, it feels pretty good. But I got love for my Knicks people, man. They're so passionate. They're so good for basketball, so...

I'll take that comment and I'll take my ring in a couple months too. Yeah, but the Thunder have some incredible fans as well. At any point during the season, did you see Thunder out there with his shirt off and his belly painted? Because I feel like this is partially his championship too. And pretty much everyone who put on a shirt. Anyone who puts on a shirt in your guys' arena, they won this championship as well. Yeah.

I mean, the first time I saw him was he had his shirt off in summer league. Like he was ready to go in summer league. I was like, what is going on here? But they're amazing, man. The community is so behind us. They give us a push every game. I mean...

every game, every home game, everyone's wearing a shirt. It could be an 80 year old person or it could be a four year old. No one cares. They were wearing a shirt. And I think it just gave us really a boost, especially at home. I think our home record was in the playoff. It was like 12 and two or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. And the two were just insane. Like losses at the end of the nuggets and the Pacers. Yeah. Yeah. It was crazy. I mean, Aaron Gordon was,

Yeah, the crazy game-winner, Alabama crazy game-winner. But, yeah, our fans are amazing.

So you lose game one, kind of a crazy comeback. That's what the Pacers have been doing all postseason. Was that – could you spin zone that and say it was actually a good thing we lost game one because it shocked us and it made us ready to play for full game for every single other game that we had against them? I mean, we kind of knew it coming into it. I mean, they were doing it all playoffs. I mean, the comebacks they had –

I mean, you would watch and you would... I don't even know how they came back from that. So we also kind of knew it. But, yeah, I mean, it kind of helped us for sure. I mean, I think that was kind of our mentality throughout these playoffs. I mean, throughout the series is how can we stay locked in 48 minutes? They're a great team. And even when you feel like the game's...

You have control of the game. They can come back just with their pace and the way they play. And so, yeah. Yeah. I got a basketball question for you. So in these playoffs, especially in these finals, you went from starting to coming off the bench for a few of the games to start the series. How hard is that as a player to be like –

I'm now starting the game on the bench was in its credit to you. Like it felt like the thunder had that type of team chemistry where guys can be interchangeable. Guys can play different amount of minutes, but is that difficult to be like, all right, I'm used to starting and now I'm going to have to come off the bench in like these high leverage situations. Yeah. I think if you want to win, you have to sacrifice. And so I think knowing that I was able to put my ego aside and,

And I trust Mark fully. I mean, Mark's been great for us all season. I trust the decisions he's making. So it's more, I just want to win so bad. And if it's me playing one minute, me playing 40 minutes, to me, it doesn't matter. I think just, I mean, if you look at our whole team, each series, someone else sacrificed. And so I think that's what made us special again.

And it was no egos involved. No one was in the locker room pouting because he played, let's say, 10 less minutes in the series before. It was, how can I help the team win? And I think that that's what also makes us so connected too. Aura. That's right. Aura Ring. New sponsor alert. Here's an easy question. How are you feeling today?

Now a harder question, why? If you had an aura ring on your finger, it wouldn't be such a mystery. Aura gives you personalized updates about your sleep, stress, activity, heart health, recovery, and more, all from a sleek, smart ring. You'll get incredible data about your body, including long-term trends and feedback on the stats that matter for living a long, healthy life.

That's why everywhere I look, I see more and more people wearing one. Since the Oura Ring looks like a normal ring, you're getting all the benefits of health tracking without looking like you're wearing a gadget. It's accurate, it's comfortable, it's durable, and with up to eight days of battery life, you can forget you're even wearing it. That's a game changer. Eight days of battery life on the Oura Ring. Getting old has never looked so good. Now give Oura the finger. Learn more at OuraRing.com slash PMT. That's

That's O-U-R-A-R-I-N-G dot com slash PMT. Yeah. If you played one-on-one versus Lou Dort, are you scoring a point? Yeah. Are you sure? Yeah. Lou Dort would probably lock you down. No. Yeah. That's right. That's right. Yeah. No, that's like...

But I feel like Lou Dort, he doesn't get enough credit in your whole team. Like, can you feel when you guys were playing at your highest level, the defense was just so insane.

Would you look at each other and say, hey, we got them now? We know what... Because it was demoralizing to watch what you would do to other teams where it's not always the offense. It's just like you're so suffocating, hands everywhere, loose balls, all that stuff. Could you feel like you're taking the will of other teams during the season? Yeah. I mean, I think there was times throughout the season where, I mean, even throughout the playoffs where we weren't shooting good, but we knew we could...

rely on our defense. I think for us, it's special that we, to me, I don't think we really had a weak link on defense. I mean, even Shea's a great defender to me. So it's like when you have five guys on the court at all time, I mean, when Lou, Lou door comes out, you have,

Alex Caruso, Casey Wallace. And so probably as the guards, every time I look to the bench or see someone getting subbed in, I call it, oh, damn, he's coming in. Oh, damn, another one. So it's, I think it's something that really made us throughout the year because we always had that energy. It's always someone coming in. And I've probably never played on a team where

Top to bottom, we all had great defenders. Yeah, just wave after wave of guys. I got a dumb question for you. Have you ever thought about talking to SGA and being like, hey, man, maybe you shouldn't sign 500 autographs before a game?

That might be too many autographs. I saw that video the NBA posted it. Yeah. There was like a ticker. I'm like, I would be exhausted. Yeah. I mean, he's a great dude. Like just to do that, like he's so humble and then like he's so connected to the fans. But like I got tired of watching it.

I'm like, but I don't know. He has, I guess, stamina for days. My hand would have been cramping by probably like 200. Yeah. It was crazy. Yeah. Actually, on a serious level, I think that my hand would be too injured to play basketball if I had to write my name 500 times. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if he would have went to our docs and be like, hey, doc, I can't play. I just strained my hand signing autographs, I think.

I think people will be pissed around the organization for sure. Dumb question because it happened before the game, but were you aware of the video that was going around about the buses being painted for the championship parade? Because obviously that's something that we're sitting here on our phone being like, uh-oh, this is a problem. Did you guys, did anyone in the locker room see that video?

I mean, I saw it, but I feel like they have to do it. Like before, probably Indiana, they're probably doing the same thing. Yes. Our bus just got leaked. Right. Right. I mean, it wasn't like they were going to do it like a day before and try to do it as fast as possible. So it was probably, they were, both teams were doing it, but our team just got leaked. But I mean, I don't know. Yeah. You can't have it leaked. You got to take care of that in-house. Yeah. You can't, you can't. Cause you're right. Like, did you have to make the plans?

But was there ever – did anyone talk about it before the game? Like, hey, look at this. This was like we're getting a little ahead of ourselves. No, we didn't really. I mean, we were just focused on the game. I mean, you have enough emotion going into game seven that kind of stuff like that you just kind of push to the side. So what were the emotions that you were feeling before that game? I mean, it's human nature. You have a certain nervousness to you because you know how –

drastic of a change it would be. I mean, if you win, you're in the happiest. I mean, I'm like grateful beyond measures, happy beyond measures. But if you lose, I mean, I told my wife, I'm like, if we look like if this goes the other way, I might be in my room for three weeks, not talking to you, depressing my room. So it's really like those two big different sways about it. So you have that nervous to you, but I think

The pressure is also a privilege. You grow up wanting to play.

in these high stake games. And so that's kind of where I got back to being more calm, just noticing that the pressure is a privilege. How many times did you go to the bathroom before the game? I would go to the bathroom a hundred times before the game. I ain't gonna lie, I went like five times. Yeah, yeah. And you're like, oh, I have no piss left, but I still got to do it. I'd be the other way. Yeah. Well, I mean, do both. But like, you know, like when you have that like nervousness, like I'm just going to go check if I have to piss again.

Yeah, it was good. It was a couple more than usual, for sure. Yeah, that's just human nature. Was there anyone who was just living in the bathroom? Please don't tell me it was Alex Russo. I mean, I didn't really track that. I wasn't really following everyone to the bathroom. So I'll ask my teammates after you get back to it. I feel like it was Chet. Chet was probably... Yeah, you didn't have to track it. Just like, did you see anyone more than once? Where you're like, you're going five times. Did you see anyone like, oh, here we are again? No.

Not really. I might have been the most thing because I was kind of by myself a lot. So I might have been up there. Yeah. You know, AC's old bladder, he might have been...

He's got some kidney stones he's got to pass. Did you guys talk at all about, there was a play, I think it was maybe game five, when Alex Crusoe, who's a friend of ours, he basically was trying to swim on the floor to get a loose ball, and he looked psychotic. Did anyone make fun of him after that? I mean, we're used to it. He's a psychopath. I mean, he's amazing, man. I mean, the passion he has for the game, the

The grit and hustle he plays with all playoffs, he's made huge plays. And yeah, for us, he's been amazing. He's been...

The old guy for us, the bald guy for us. He keeps his head shining for sure. All right, so now that you get to actually plan the parade and you get to use those very beautiful buses that you guys painted like five months ago, who's going to be in charge on your team? Who's the guy that's going to be like the social director being like, hey, we're going to meet up here. Here's where we're going to pregame. How is that going to get pulled together?

I mean, most of us are recovering right now. I mean, a couple guys are trying to survive right now. J. Will is the most social guy, probably. So J. Will probably is going to be the guy to get everything started.

And yeah, and then after that, I don't know. I mean, I don't even know what's going on, to be honest. Yeah. They said show up at 8.30, and I guess we're just going to figure it out from there, so I don't know. So it was a group chat this morning. It was like three guys being like, I am so fucking hungover right now. Yeah, never drinking again. Unless we win another championship, I'm never drinking again. That was the whole group chat. I said, I'm done drinking. I hate alcohol.

Yeah, that was the whole group chat this morning. I have one more question about the series. We mentioned him, T.J. McConnell. Were there moments where you're like, how the hell is this guy doing this? I'm like a foot taller than him. And he would just dribble around, like underneath everyone and around. And just like, he had such an impact on the series. And it was crazy to watch. Yeah, it was. I felt like he just played like a madman out there. It was like, I mean, like you would watch him, like how is he doing this at times?

And then you would go defend him, and you'd be like, oh, okay, I get it. I get it. It's not as easy as I thought it was. Like, there's maybe sometimes, like, I watch players, I'm like, how does he get by him the whole time? And then when you really get on him, it's a different ballgame. But he was amazing. I mean, even defensively, he had, like, I think it was one away game, he had, like, five steals off the inbound. Yeah. Like, I don't know how we... Like, we watched the film, like, how did we...

turning these balls over. But, I don't know, he was amazing. A lot of respect to him. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, it was impressive. You guys were a great team all season. Was there a point during the season where you thought, yeah, this could be, we could definitely win a championship with this squad? I mean, I think we had confidence from the beginning. But I think when we went on that, I think it was like 15-game winning streak, I think that's when we were like, hey, we have a good chance. We were beating teams.

I feel like by like 20 every night. And I think that's when we like kind of looked at each other like, hey, we got a chance to really do it. But we also have very like present focused team. So we never try to get too far ahead. And I think that's what

made us great all season. Mark talks about having that 0-0 mentality. And so for us just being present throughout the season, I think that helped a lot. Is it easy to keep the 0-0 mentality? Like hypothetically, if you're beating the Memphis Grizzlies by like 60 points,

Is he still like, Hey guys, it's zero, zero. Yeah. He's a, he's like, he's like one of them psychopath coaches who's who like shows us like animals before we play like animals hunting and stuff like that. So he's definitely, he's definitely one of the guys that were up by 60. We got the zero, zero mentality. I like that. I love that. All right. Well,

Isaiah, I have one last question. It's the rowback question. R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com, promo code TAKE. 20% off your first purchase. Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts, rowback.com, promo code TAKE. I got a stat for you that's going to probably wow you from this season. You ready for it? Yeah, let's do it. You gave SGA 2,475 high fives at the free throw line this year. What?

That real set. No, I made that up. Oh, good. Yeah, but there's no fucking way that's a real set. I was like, whoever's tracking that has no life. Whoever's at home, got their little piece of paper and is like, all right, one, two, has no life. Did you ever skip any? Are you always giving them out?

no i make sure i make sure my hand's always out there i mean okay i would say you want the ball every now and then so you can't you know thank you that's more impressive than him signing 500 autographs yeah your hand should be exhausted at the end of this year i know they should like count how many times that we be clapping and stuff like that that's wearing terror man that counts yeah um well isaiah congrats again man uh awesome awesome season

incredible accomplishment you guys were I mean second most wins all time of a championship team in a season hell of a team so congrats and have fun at the parade thank you appreciate y'all

Okay, before we get to FAQs in basketball, the great players don't just do it alone. They have teammates, coaches, and a solid support system behind them. It's kind of like insurance because, let's face it, a lot of us probably aren't great at doing that alone either. And that's where State Farm comes in. State Farm is a teammate always ready to assist, help you find the coverage you need, and help you recover from the unexpected challenges.

from fender benders to storm damage, or even just a question about your policy. State Farm is there to help provide an assist when you need it through the State Farm mobile app, a network of 19,000 local agents and online at statefarm.com. So don't just go at it alone. When you need help protecting what matters most, State Farm is there. State Farm with the assist. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability and eligibility vary by state. Okay, Hank.

Let's wrap it up with FAQs. Do you guys have big numbers outside the U.S.? I'm a listener from Brazil, and I'm curious about it. American sports are pretty global these days. When you comment, do you say J-A-J-A-J-A-J-A when something's funny? That always seems funnier. Does anyone know the answer to that? We have some Australian, European, Indian. Maybe I'm just making up. I feel like we had a lot of Netherlands for some reason.

I think we have a lot of English, British. Definitely a lot of Australian. Some Irish. Sound off if you're from abroad. Yeah. I love it. I think number two in Canada. Yep. Let's go Canada. Chicklets number one. Our guys. Yep. We love them. What about Italy? How are the Italian numbers? Got to be strong. I mean, all the soccer talk. Yeah, we'll get Rick Pitino on. All the soccer talk. All the meatball talk. Mount Rushmore season probably blows up there. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know what our...

One of our strongest countries. It would be interesting to see. I think it's Australia. It is? I'm pretty sure. Australia. Good eye. That makes me feel good because Australians rule. If they like us, I feel like we're doing something right. Yeah, Australians are the best. Yeah. And it totally isn't just people from America who live there. No, it's criminals from England. Yeah, it's totally... It's actually all the people that were so cool that they got kicked out of England when it sucked. Yeah. All right, he's looking right now. We're not...

We're okay in Australia, maybe. What's the number one sports podcast in Australia? There's a lot of scrolling. We got to get, yeah. I mean, the kangaroo jack. All right, we got to get bigger in Australia. Number one podcast is Dan Does Footy. Oh, love that. That's awesome. We should get Dan Does Footy on. We should get him on, yeah. Dan Does Footy. A little crossover. Probably Aussie Rules Footy, maybe. Up the magpies. Okay. Hey there. Oh, Monaco.

You're huge in Monaco. No. M's. Oh, for Mount Rushmore? Monaco? Yeah, we're going to get a good one. Yeah, I mean, you said that Michelin-starred restaurants didn't make the cut. Yeah. Monaco is like the city equivalent of that. I agree, but it's just a bunch of casinos and like... It does rock. I was just thinking. The richest people in the world. Monaco, yeah. Actually, we should try... We should try to grow our audience in Monaco. Yeah, we should. I think that'd be a good idea. Miami would have been a decent one. Remote broadcast on site. Yeah.

Hey there, Big Cat PFT and Soul Patch Max. Once a Soul Patch guy, always a Soul Patch guy. Big Cat, it seems you've reached a point of nirvana now that you have a soft serve machine. What is the next goal for the office? Slide. We need to slide. We need to slide from the second floor to the first floor. You don't want... Did you see that look? I mean, I wouldn't poo-poo a slide. Did you see that look? I wouldn't yuck another man's yum. Did you see that look?

I mean, that was talked about in construction designs. Yeah, I know. I'm now ready for a slide. That makes no sense. Why? Batting cage. Batting cage, but we need more space for batting cage. I'll forever say batting cage. Oh, yeah. I mean, if we get more space, batting cage is one-one going to happen. We have so many baseball guys coming in now. Yeah. Batting cage would be so sick. Batting cage would be sick. What do you think they would do? You think they would let you pitch batting practice to them? I mean, I think they said...

I don't know. Should I say the guy? Oh, yeah. Yeah, they were here. Yeah. Merrill Kelly said he said we got to try that. Yeah. During the interview. Yeah. Okay. Slide, though. I still think Gravitron. I actually saw Gravitron for sale for $70,000. Yeah. If we could find the space. Practically giving it away. You wouldn't like a slide from the second floor all the way to the first floor? You wouldn't slide down that slide? It doesn't make logistical sense. What do you mean?

There'd be no room. Stairs suck. Slides are awesome. But it would just take up a lot of space. How would it take up a lot of space? Where would it end? It would end right in front of the golf simulator. That's a long slide. So? If we had one like the slide that the cop went down in Boston, that would be fun. Like a risk-reward slide. Okay, we could figure that out. What about a fireman's pole?

That sounds dangerous. Yeah, that does sound dangerous. Okay. So you're out on the slide. That idea. I think if we get a slide, we should have a ladder. Actually, no, I'm in. You're in on a slide. Yeah. Why? Because otherwise you're going to get one. You're smart. But think about it. If you had a choice of how to get to the second floor and your options were stairs or a ladder that just goes up to that balcony, I think I'd take the ladder every time. I'd probably take the ladder. Yeah. And I would definitely take the slide. If you're going down. Up. I'd probably walk up the slide every now and then just for fun.

We have an elevator. You don't have to use the stairs. But you have to go all the way in the corner for it. I take it every day. It's slow. The problem with the elevator is you have to walk so much further to the elevator, you might as well take the stairs. So then what's the next thing, Hank? I don't know. Ice cream kind of was the dog chasing the car. Caught it. Ball pit. Ball pit. Batting cages. But batting cages, again, batting cages are not like, do we want it or not? We want it. We just don't have the space for it. I know. If we had the space for it, we'd have a batting cage tomorrow.

I understand, but they ask what's the dream. That's the dream, at least for me. That's the dream. Shooting range. Shooting range would be interesting. I wouldn't be opposed. Bowling lane. Bowling lane would be awesome if we could bowl. Holy shit. That's a really good one. I guarantee that would break twice a day. Oh, yeah. Well, we would just have Zach. Pinboys. Zach just becomes a mechanic in his office. Is that something you could do, Zach?

That would take more time to master than the ice cream. For sure. Way more time. What is everyone's top four sports by ability? Max mentioned basketball isn't even in his top ten, and he still hit that three in Hank's eye. That's not true. No, that was in your eye. The video showed. It was in your eye. I don't know if we need to do four because it falls off a cliff. Yeah. See, the thing is, like, all of our fourth best sports are very, very bad. Spikeball. I would say basketball, wiffleball.

Golf. Or softball. And the golf's not there for me. Swimming. I'm a good swimmer. People were getting at me for the Barstool camp. They were like, oh, didn't you almost die swimming? It's like, dude, I went too fast for my body. Like, figure it out. My body went to a higher level. You're a good dart thrower. Darts. Decent dart thrower. Pole vaulting. Yeah. Good frisbee golf. Yeah. Yeah.

It's not great. What about you, PFT? I think, is this like what you're good at relative to other people? By your ability. Top four sports by ability. The top four sports you feel confident, be like, yeah, I could do this. Rugby would probably be number one. Foot golf. I'm a very strong foot golfer. I played once, but I feel like I could be good at that. Okay. Kicking.

Kicking footballs. That counts. Yeah, being a kicker. And then, I don't know, golf. Yeah, mindset. Golf. Golf is actually number one. Could I throw out there just like catch? Good job, coach. I'm very good at catch. Good hand-eye coordination. I could play catch forever. And I'm like, I'll throw it to where it needs to be.

I'll catch it. Yeah, like shooting around. Catch is pretty simple. There are a lot of people who are not going to catch bats. That is true. You have to have a nice smooth stroke. You know the people who aren't going to catch. It's like, all right, I don't want to play catch with you anymore. I'm great at shooting around. I'm not great at basketball. I'm not great at basketball either, but if I had to pick a game I could jump into a game, it'd be basketball. Zach, what are yours?

I hate to say it, but my strongest sport probably is basketball, and I'm not very good at basketball. Oh, no. I'm okay at pickleball, duos. The 1v1, not very good. We're doing duos on the pickleball court. Relatively decent. I'm okay with a dink. And then I like darts. If darts plays, I'll go darts three. Okay. Hank, you should have said ping pong. Yeah, ping pong. Ping pong. Bocce. Max, are you baseball? Baseball. Fishing? Football. Not fishing. Basketball. Basketball. Darts.

Like crushing Dana in Oklahoma drills? That counts. I'm like bad at most things football, but I mean, I'm good in the trenches. Yeah, you could just select Oklahoma drills. Yeah. I'd say you're like top 1%. Yeah, it's just the sports that I played growing up. Memes, lacrosse. Yeah, lacrosse, indoor, outdoor. Oh, both. Box. Box. Women's. I like playing basketball the most. Oh, I guess I would...

women's arm wrestling. I am a champion. So that would be, I need to start sending that clip to people online being like, this is why we can't have men competing in women's sports from 10 years ago. Or just tweet it like you're like a girl's name has won a competition. Yeah.

uh hey p&t jack mac jack mac put it out there so good my favorite long-running bit of the show is a good great good question back and forth between bickett and pft your question

During interviews, have you ever thought about incorporating this into a year-long competition? Whoever gets the most that's a good question response is from guests. During the year of interviews, wins, loser has to do something. Thanks and love the show. I think that would be like a decent thing for somebody to track, but I don't want to make it a competition. No, it's about gassing each other up. It's about gassing our boys up. It's about letting the other person know that it was a great question, not at all just the person stalling for time before they ask the question. It's also like, you know, it's like the Carlisle saying they had motivation after seeing the

buses like you don't need motivations to want to have a good question also if we have an interview and PFT gets a bunch of good questions that's awesome because that means the interview rocked yeah like the listeners like we are a team as much as Mount Rushmore will show otherwise we are a team I'm pumped when he gets good questions

When we get back-to-back good questions, I'm like, I hit another level. I feel like... I'm just like, holy shit, we're fucking firing. I feel like I'm Dwayne Wade throwing the ball up to LeBron. Good question, good question. That was a good question by her. You're right. It has nothing to do with the person stalling. No, they know exactly how they're going to answer. They just want to let us know, wow, I'm just really impressed with how you guys do your job before I answer that question. Yeah. Now to answer it. Now, when someone says, oh, great question.

That usually is a stall. Yeah. That's a stall. You can tell. But good question. That's as sincere as possible. Yeah, they just want to let us know. Yeah. Is that it? Yeah. All right. Good show, boys. Thanks for pulling that up, Zach. Yeah. That's us in an interview right there. That was Max. Great job, Max. Way to go, Max. All right, numbers. I think that was memes. 99. Memes, is that you? Yeah. You sure? 99, Pug. I'll go six. I'll go 15. 15.

I wasn't paying attention to anyone else's numbers. You'll be okay. I'm going to go 84. Okay. Zach? I'll go 46. Did somebody say six? I want to make sure that all of them are six. 69. Memes. No, it's 99. Is that in your rotation memes? 69? Mouth stuff. It should be. It should be. Mouth stuff. It should be.

I remember the first lottery ball. It went like 69-69. Like the first lottery ball you let me pick, it was 69. And you guys told me I should have picked 69. Nobody's really won since we all started taking memes as numbers just to troll them. Have you noticed that? No, I won the other. Remember I won with the AR? Yeah. It's not hard, memes. All you got to do is pick the number and then have the number come up. That makes sense. Let's try. Let's try.