A Jokic Fest, the Worry Scale, Rather Have, and Favorite Movie Girlfriends LIVE From Denver With Ryen Russillo
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Coming up, Russo and I did a live show in Denver and you're about to listen to it next. This episode is brought to you by the all new reimagined Nissan Kicks. From the bold new exterior to the performance and tech features like intelligent all wheel drive and a Bose personal plus sound system. Cars, where I live, I live in the Los Angeles area and cars are one of the most important things you can have because you're in them a lot because you got to drive around all over the place. You know what's fun?

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Eight and a half years in with that website and couldn't be more proud of it. Go check out the ringer movies, YouTube channels. Well, we watchables has come back next week. The bill Simmons, YouTube channel, where we run all the clips of videos from this podcast. Hey, million dollar picks. So I am going to do a podcast after Packers lions tomorrow night. So that we are ending up doing three episodes this week. The one today right now that you're listening to. And then,

After that Packers line is a reaction with some other stuff that I have banked that I'm pretty excited about. But I wanted to get a million dollar pick on the board for that game because I'm in Denver right now. Fando is legal here and I could not resist betting on the Packers plus four and a half adjusted would love to throw at least 200 yards. That is minus one on one as a parlay. We are putting $200,000 on that for million dollar picks purposes coming off the best week we had all season. We went $870,000.

last week. Out of our seven big bets, we hit six and we're up 1.213 million fake dollars for the year. Doing pretty well this year. So we're going to throw 200K on Packers plus four and a half with love to throw for at least 200 yards. And the rest of the picks will be in the third podcast of the week tomorrow night. What you're about to listen to is me and Ryan Rosillo at the Fillmore in Denver

in front of an awesome crowd. So glad we did this. And if you want to hear two guys talk about Nikola Jokic for a couple of minutes, you've come to the right place. Rossello and Simmons live from Denver. Next, first, our friends from Pearl Jam. ♪

I should have worked out today. I feel scrawny. Thanks for coming out. Thank you to State Farm because I always forget to thank them before we start this stuff. But Owen Story, thank you to Story. Here's how this show happened. I texted Brasillo and I said, Jokic is playing Golden State in the NBA Cup game on a Tuesday. Live show? And he was like, fuck yeah. Why do you love Denver so much?

Uh, you know, I think it was, uh, I had a bunch of friends, like there's a big Vermont, Colorado thing. There you go. And I think once they were like, all right, I've kind of done the JV version of things in Vermont. I'm going to head out to Colorado. And when I left ESPN and I was kind of going like, all right, Manhattan beach or Denver, it was like really close. Was it a toss up? It was, it was ocean or friendship. And then friendship lost out to the ocean.

I think that people in Denver, every time I'm here, they're disarmingly nice. That's what I notice over and over again. I'm like, oh, man, people are just nice here. I wonder... I think those are my friends, by the way. Then I wonder if it was just their stoned. Friendship. Friendship. So...

We're going to try to do a version of the pod that we would do on Sunday nights. Cause we haven't done Sunday nights this year. Cause that's right. You should wait till when the, when the NFL is over. Yeah. We have a lot of basketball stuff to talk about, but the real reason we're here, let's be honest. We're still, and I both love Nicole. The Oakage. We're not going to hide it. We love how the guy plays.

He's about as reliable as it gets from an entertainment standpoint. Not just sports, music, movies, TV. I feel like Succession got to this point for me, Succession episodes, where I was like, I just know this is going to be a good episode. We just love Jokic, and we wanted to surround ourselves with 1,100 people who also loved Jokic. Which is why this first segment is going to be called Jokic Porn. We're just going to porn it up. We don't have a slideshow for this, right? Oh my God.

He did. We were sitting behind the scores table yesterday and he came up and we were just kind of marveling at him. We're like, look at that guy. Oh, man. Just amazing. Where do you want to start? Do you want to start with notes from last night? Do you want to go big picture? Where do you where do you want to go?

The only thing I would say is that, you know, Bill and I have been doing this, whether it's together or separately for a really long time, that I know personally, like players that I start to like or start to hate have a lot to do with how the fans talk to us. So there's just players I know nothing about and I despise them just because of what their fan base has said the entire time.

And Denver and Nuggets fans are seriously maybe the only like modern history intensely annoying fan base about one guy. And you were totally right about that.

So I think that needs to be said because more often than not, I'm like, nah, you were wrong. You guys are just annoying about the whole thing. And I don't think it was ever that we didn't – they just got to appreciate him, I think, quicker than we did because you were watching it happen and whether it was the draft and you're like, hey, that fat guy is kind of like fun to watch. Yeah. But what's he really going to be? And then you're like, oh, he's going to be like without question. I mean, the list starts at one and I don't even –

Like, I love Giannis. We all love Luka and everything. But the gap between him and the next guy right now, I think, is significant. This is great. I'm already having a great time. I think what's crazy about this year is he somehow got better. I mean, he already won three MVPs and a title.

See, I told you we're going to porn it up with Jokic. And I think the best friend of mine described it, and I'm going to steal it from him, where Jokic was always playing chess when he was out there, right? He was always like two, three moves ahead. He was just so smart. It was always so admirable to watch how he just processed the game. But then Minnesota, boo.

Minnesota threw some stuff at him, right? They were like, yeah, we're actually fine with you taking those threes. We're going to beat you up. We're just going to throw big guys at you. We're going to try to wear you down. And now this season, it feels like he's moved into the speed chess mode.

Where it's not just chess. He's now solving stuff instantaneously and watching him in person last night. I mean, Golden State was like, you're not doing the thing you always do. We're not giving you 14 assists tonight. Right. You're going to, we're going to take away everybody else and you're going to have to do the thing you hate to do, which is score a lot. And he's like, all right, fine. Fuck. And ends up with 38. He's six for seven in the fourth quarter, makes all the big shots. But I just feel like he's solving stuff faster. Does that make sense? Yeah.

Yeah, because I think he knows he needs to. And I think that first week, like I both hated and loved it. Like we all get geared up for the start of the season. We all know we were worried about the bench. Look at me. I'm saying we like I actually moved here. But when you knew there were going to be some serious problems with the depth and letting KCP go and the draft picks, you know, still kind of like a massive question mark about whether or not they're viable rotation pieces. And he took, I think, 13 shots in that opener against OKC and they get smoked.

The next two games, he takes 27 and 26 shots. And I was so happy about it because it was like this immediate thing within 48 hours where he went, I guess this is what I'm going to have to do. I mean, he's not shooting it that much, but he's shooting it more now this season than at any other point in his career. And yet his efficiency is in line with the best season he's ever had, which is probably the one he had two years ago. So he can unlock anything in every single game at that size in a way that I don't know that we've ever seen before.

I haven't seen him in Denver. I've seen him obviously all over the place, but not here. He did two things last night. You know, you can pick up most of it on TV. One of the things was he was just trying to read what Golden State was going to do from what Kerr was telling his players. So he would like run down and he'd be in the paint on the Golden State side, just watching Kerr, what he was saying and what he was flashing. And then he was yelling to his teammates, they're running 5-3. And Kerr would be like, what the fuck? You're cheating.

He was getting bad, but he was calling out all their plays, everything they're doing with Curry, which has been a recurring theme. So that was one. The other one they're up to, there's like, what, 16 seconds left. They're playing keep away and he gets the ball at the top of the key. Normally when a guy gets it,

They either throw it back out or they dribble out. They're just trying to, they know they're going to get fouled. And he was like, oh, they're going to foul me. I'm actually going to lurch forward, drive into this guy and see if I can get a three point play, which I don't think I'd ever seen anyone process it that fast. So two little things, but we left, we were just like beaming. We didn't even know what to do. We were like, that was amazing.

It was like the Chris Farley show with Paul McCartney. Remember when we saw Jokic? That was awesome. Yeah. If he had been in town and would have declined the request, because he would have, if we would ever get the chance, like, I think I would be such a loser in that interview. It'd be like, remember when you did that thing? Like what, what, what were you thinking about when you did it? And,

And I think, honestly, I think like the hard part with it too. And it's the same back to his draft thing. Like when the draft comes around, I'm an athlete snob and you go, I don't know, is, is this, is this going to work? And then it starts working and then you start comparing them. And we had all those nasty MVP conversations, which I just made me root for him. I think even more because it just, well, it just was ridiculous. Like some of the stuff, and I know it turns into propaganda and it becomes really political and it's like, okay, but if you're any of your points are tearing this guy down, like,

you just you're not you're either not watching you're not being fair you're not being honest you can't see the things and i think it's such a visual thing with him that we've talked about in the past is other basketball players have done things that are just aesthetically more pleasing i've seen him get back in transition where i thought he was going to have a heart attack i was like does he have does he have like polio like what the fuck is wrong with him right now and

And yet he's always in position. He knows everybody, everybody, what they're going to be doing ahead of time. And, you know, when I say no one, he's unlocked the game at his size. I mean, certainly LeBron and I'm just giving his yoga just got an inch on him or two and then magic the same thing. But like to be straight up a center and then know, OK, well, if they're doubling me, then it's all of these things. If they're not doubling me, he's just sitting there in the triple threat at the free throw line going up against LeBron.

TJD. And he's just, he's just been like, all right, if you're going to give me one-on-one and I'm just going to just jab step you and hit this free throw. Like I would like a night where he just did it 35 times, like score 60. Right. They won by four last night. He played 40 minutes and was plus 23. So try to figure that one out.

They were minus 19 when he didn't play. Well, those first three minutes of the fourth quarter, as you know, are the most horrifying. You're just panicking. There are horror movies that are more fun than those three minutes of every fourth quarter. They were minus eight in those three minutes. I'm like, Golden State has to win this, and they won it, and then they still lose the game because he comes back in. One thing, sorry to get big picture on this, but one thing I was thinking with him, there's still mystery with him.

I don't know a lot about him. And people are trying to figure out like NBA ratings are going down a little bit. What does this mean to people like the product as much? Is it too easy to follow the sport?

without actually watching the games, game in and game out. But I do think a piece of it is there's no mystery with any of these guys. They're all on social media. You know, they're doing like the infomercial documentaries about themselves. They're all over the place. They're super available. And I feel like I know all of them. And when you think like when we were growing up, we didn't know anything about anybody we watched. And Jokic is like one of the last, I know he's got two brothers. I know, I know he likes horses.

I know he goes to Serbia as soon as the season ends and that's it. Like, I don't even know, like what kind of car does he drive? Nothing. Right. What do you know? Do you know anything other than that? I know. I think it pisses everybody else off.

That this guy is this dominant and there's not going to be a workout program that he's going to share. Right. Like there's not going to be a mama mentality rip off of Jokic that it's like, you know, I remember, I know Mike Singer wrote the book about him and I was listening to an interview that he did. So there were some excerpts and it was, he hated practice. He didn't want to do any of these things. So it's, it's like the opposite of everything that you would tell your kid. Yeah.

Like this guy hated all of the extra stuff and yet he's this dominant, but it's, it's about his instincts and his vision and just simple things like watching people play basketball. Like I have now for, for like 40 years and you watch the ball come out of his hands. And like, even when it's off, it's like, no, it's just soft. It's perfectly soft. And it like cuddles with the rim a little bit. And then it falls back in. It's his hands. Like I know that it was the water polo thing, but like, however he was taught to look at the game, uh,

It's really special stuff because he just sees it in a way that you have to kind of be born with that I just don't, I don't even know if that can be taught. See, I told you it was going to be Jokic porn. You guys didn't believe me. You guys were like, oh, they'll do five minutes.

Yeah, it would be interesting if Jokic started doing stuff that the other players do, how startling it would be. Whereas Jokic just formed a production company. Like what? He wants to make independent movies. I want to tell stories about underserved stories. Right. Or he has an IT band thing on Instagram. All of a sudden, he's running. No days off. And you're like, what? Jokic just bought a woman's soccer team. He did? Big picture. Yeah.

Well, it's 20 games. We're not going to do the, he's going to win the MVP. He's certainly on pace. He's averaging 30 and 13 and 10. He's shooting 56%. He's shooting 52% from three, which is more than half in case you can't do math. And if he gets a fourth MVP here, now we're in the club with Jordan, LeBron, Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Will Chamberlain. And that's it. What's interesting, two things are in play now. Well, one, he's kind of clinched the best guy of the 2020s.

Because now... Well, we have some time still. Well, we got... So when...

We're halfway through the decade. We're heading toward the second half. I don't know who could make a run at him in the second half. If you just look at the candidates, like the resume he already has, if he won four MVPs, like who would be able to match that in the second half of the decade? We're talking, this is a lot to ask for the mellow balls. My point. Yeah. He has some work to do, you know, scoring a lot. I think we'll get to him maybe later in the show, but yeah, you're right. I mean, that's kind of why it gets back to even, uh,

I've never rooted for the nuggets necessarily. Like I'm never, I don't have some thing that back in the day I would have probably started two years ago and tapped out after this off season, but, um, that's coming up later too. Uh,

There could be somebody that gets, well, you're right. We're halfway through it. So who gets a second ring? That would be the dumb ring count thing that gets in the way. I think of just being honest about who players are sometimes. So you're right. You might have to be a guy that has to admit that is in their twenties. That makes a huge leap over the next three years. So like, I'm not, well, when B, would he have enough time?

So you guys are going to laugh, but the only guy I think could, could be in the running is my guy, Jason Tatum. Yeah, I said it just, just hit the Celtics. Won a bunch of titles. That's it. But I don't think that's going to happen. All right. Is Tatum a more athletic Jokic? There's no bad ideas in a brainstorm. Come on. Yeah, but no, no one has ever looked. Tatum, I think is actually underrated at this point, but don't worry. Don't worry. Don't worry.

He's never once and never will be considered the best player in the world. Right. That's why it's not going to happen. Best center since Kareem is in play for him too. But yeah, I was looking back at the- What else is in play? You're good at- Well, I was looking- I think you update this stuff a lot. I do. But I like it. You're keeping track. It's one of my things when I'm bored on an airplane when we haven't taken off it. I'm like, I think I'll work on the Pantheon. How many times have you ranked the top 20 players of all time in your life? I just did it four hours ago.

He sent me the text. It's interesting. I mean, doing best player by decade isn't totally fair because sometimes people can peak starting in the middle of decade or whatever. But if you go back, like 2010s is LeBron and Curry and probably in that order, right? It's LeBron. Yeah. LeBron Curry second. We can do the ring count thing, but even if Curry was winning MVPs and I thought he had better seasons, he was never. Somebody at a sports bar could make a Curry case. He wouldn't be right. He'd be a bad one.

In 2000s, it's Duncan and Kobe. And that's a bloodbath argument that we're not going to have right now. Shouldn't be. Yeah, I have Duncan, but other people would say Kobe. 1990s is MJ alone. There's no other person in the combo. 80s is Magic and Bird. 70s is Kareem. Is it Magic? And 60s is Russell Wilt. Longer run, those Pistons finals. Yeah.

Kareem in the 70s, Russell in the 60s. The point is Jokic doesn't even really have a rival for the 2020s yet, which I think is interesting. I guess it would be Giannis if he could. I think Giannis is the second best player. As much as I'm in love with the Jokic part of it, there's a health element to the Giannis discussion. How he'll age. The playoffs the last couple of years were tough. Yeah. Well, here's the problem. Dramatic pause.

I think he's had the worst luck with teammates of any great player. If you're talking about the top 15, never played with an NBA guy. Murray gets hurt when he got hurt, cost two playoffs. Now he's got Murray and Porter taking up 40% of the cap. And I hate to say it. I hope he's not here. I doubt he is, but the owner was fucking cheapskate. Like spend some money. Give him the Koliokic on your team. You have one of the best 15 players of all time in his prime.

Go into the second apron, motherfucker. So you have him 14th as of today? For all time? Yeah. I need to see how this plays out, but he is in the 9-13 range for me now. You could make an argument for him as the ninth best player of all time today. If he wins a fourth MVP, I think it's in play. Here's where I landed, though. Can we hear the eight and see who he's hypothetically in range with? I'll give you the list. Just because you guys all... Jordan first, because he's the GOAT until I die.

LeBron, Russell, Kareem. That would be the Mount Rushmore. Magic Bird, Duncan, Wilt. And then it's like I originally had Curry, Kobe, West, and then Hakeem, Shaq, Moses, and Jokic is somewhere in that last six. But if he wins a fourth MVP and he carries this Denver team to the Western Finals or better with what we watched last night, where he can't even come out of the game for two and a half minutes, he literally couldn't come out of the game. Mike Malone had to call timeout because the team was cratering.

Um, so I think he's somewhere in that range, but I think for me, just as somebody who's watched basketball my whole life, I like he's, he does the same stuff bird of magic that I, and he's been doing it now for six, seven years.

Do you think he... See, this is the ring counting thing. But this matters. The ring part matters, though. All those other guys won rings. Especially when you put together that list. I mean, Moses just has the one. Right. Hakeem's got the two. So then... Shaq's got four. Right. He has the fourth. West only had one, though. Yeah, but the West won when you're losing to the Celtics every single year in the finals. I almost think we should just round it up to three for him. Yeah.

When it's all said and done, if he stays in this pace, like say another four years as the MVP, I think the simpletons will just count the rings and be like, you can't put him ahead of those guys. But from just impacting a game at that level, and again, we're assuming a lot in the next few years, but the guy stays healthy. It's not like he's this wiry dude who has all these muscle pulls all the time, right? Well, what happens if he does... Remember Larry Bird that one year when he came, I think it was the 87, 88 season? Not as well as you do. Well...

All of a sudden there was the big off season storyline was Larry Bird has quit drinking beer and he's in phenomenal shape. And he showed up for the season. He had this follow-up two hand dunk at a preseason game. We're like, Oh my God, the legend he's in shape. And then he got hurt with it. I don't know if I believe the quit drinking beer part.

Well, probably not. But to me, Jokic apparently has never really lifted. I don't even know what his offseason change program would be. Whatever he's doing, it's fine. Keep it going. Sometimes I think the guys, it's like the old quarterback thing where Dilfer used to tell me, like, I want to come in like 20 pounds overweight. He's like, I wanted a little spare tire down there so that I could

as I tapered off, I at least had something to take the damage. I'm not necessarily saying like, that's what does that too. I think he's been trying. He's like, this is ridiculous. Um, you know, there was those next five guys that when you get to eight or whatever, like it's just a player, uh,

I don't know. I mean, it's tough for me to put anybody above Duncan just because of how perfect he was and how sustained it was and how long it went. But the fact I'm even suggesting it's possible is the win as of today. So you loved Moses and you loved Hakeem. I love Moses. And Shaq. But Jokic is at least swimming in that. I don't think I appreciated Shaq enough, but I was also like a shithead kid and he was on the Lakers. Yeah, we had some weird things against Shaq where he was like...

He made a rap album. We're like, what's he doing? He made Shazam or Kazam, whatever that movie was. We're like, what a dick. And then Dwight tried to do all of it. We're like, all right, you're definitely a dick. Yeah, you were the dick. I actually appreciate Shaq like way more now than I think I did. And that might have been just a Boston weirdo thing that some of us grow out of. All right. Last section of Jokic porn.

We were saying like, we try not to have biases, especially because we have votes for all NBA. And I like to think I'm level-headed even like with the Celtics. Like I know in the Celtics. No, listen, let me, let me talk this out. Right down the middle. There's been seasons where I'm like, they don't have it this year. Something's wrong. I don't like this. Like I try to be objective.

Um, it's really hard for me to be objective with, with Jokic and I think it is you too. So what are your other actual basketball biases that you can admit? Do you want to go back and forth? Yeah. So we're admitting that we both want Jokic to get that second ring. So, um,

the commoners as long as it's not at the expense of the Celtics yeah like if the Celtics can't win I would hope that he would be the one that won would be my bias yeah because like the Curry fourth ring for me was such a big deal and him too but um I felt in that order I felt like it just changed it gave I don't even know that that many people hate Curry I mean if you want to find hey it's pretty easy to find right now but

with Curry, it just kind of changed. I think it changed a lot of the way he was looked at. He needed it. Yeah, it was very similar to like the John Elway Super Bowl. Oh, I forgot we're in Denver. The John Elway Super Bowl. But John Elway was like this stats, couldn't get it done. And they could drag a team to the precipice, but not. And then all of a sudden he won and we never talked about it again. And Curry was the same thing. It's like, oh, well, he had Duran and that one year in 2015, all the Cavs got hurt. And there was always an excuse. Now there's no excuses.

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All right. So by me, another bass, I'll give you, I'll give you a small one. I'm rooting for the Pistons. I have a lot invested in my K to Cunningham position. I think that that's come around after some scary, like early developments, Jaden Ivy being allowed to play in front of Killian Hayes seems to be the right decision. I wonder if Monte Williams has watched one Pistons game on league pass because I know he didn't watch one before he got the head coaching job.

If I own the Pistons, I might have been like, we're going to fire you. You're going to keep the 75 million, but you're going to be an analyst for 45 games this year.

So his is not in the league. No. And they had the same records, the wizards last year. Think about that. The same record. And like, nobody wants to hear your pistons are sneaky kind of good. You know, we never did that monologue luckily, but I would go, how there's no way, like just even if all these guys are morons, they're way more talented. There's no way they're the wizards. And we've seen with a little shooting balance, a little spacing that, uh,

If you don't lace them up for the Pistons on the wrong night. Yeah. So I just like that this year. I like seeing a team that is more like I just I just like them being somewhat more entertaining because I probably watch too many Pistons game because it's always the first game on in the West Coast, like a four o'clock when I don't want to be inside.

My first bias that I'll admit won't be a surprise to any of you. Hate's a strong word with sports. I always liked the word sports hate. I don't actually hate anything. So it's in the context of sports hate. I hate the Lakers. I just...

I just do. And I think it's healthy. I think it's a good thing. I think there should be teams that you just don't like. And part of it's their fans. Like they started out well, right? First couple of weeks and their fans got super chirpy about how we took the under, right? Yeah. They lost by 40 tonight.

Maybe like 41. But it's just more, it's more fun for me personally when they're not doing well. And I might be a bad person. I can apologize. It is weird. You know, when you're from the Northeast, you don't think anybody cares about sports as much as you do. And there's some elements of that. But then when you go out to LA and you're like, oh, these guys are all soft or whatever. The Lakers thing is very real. Yeah. They have good, passionate fans. I got to hand it to them. The other thing I've never understood is that there's just Kobe fans that aren't Lakers fans.

Yeah. They just hang out, you know? And I remember there was like a Lakers, like it was a big Lakers game and I think I was recording it. So I was like, I'm going to go out, get outside. I'm going to go to the beach. And then I just see all these guys in Kobe jerseys at the beach. And I'm thinking like, this is a huge game. Yeah. What are you guys doing? It's like, well, you know, talking Kobe. Yeah. One bias we have together.

So there was nothing else that Lakers thing. There's no, like, is there a version of that that you want? Like, do you have kind of a thing you don't want to share what you hope happens this season? Um, the, the Lakers panic trade would be really fun. Like if they talked themselves into, you know, Zach Levine's contract, something like that.

Just like taking more money on to try to save. But I think they know. I think they're so bad on defense. They're one of the top four worst defenses in the league. That'll be a weird time, though, before the deadline. Because when you're 30 and you're LeBron, or hell, even when you're 35 and LeBron, you can kind of get away with putting the pressure on them. But so far, the Lakers have kind of shown like, yeah, we're not. Like the picks became eligible. They didn't do anything. I actually think they did a great job in the draft. Yeah, me too. There's a version of a rotation here that should work.

where they're in the playoffs, but if they go through a weird stretch and they don't, they're not active or anything, the subliminal messages and that kind of stuff, like you're going to have a good couple of weeks. If you're a scoring point guard or a scoring wing and the Lakers are on your schedule, you're fucking pumped. You're like calling family members like, Hey, make sure you watch tonight. I'm going to have 48. One of our biases we share. Okay. We both are rationally rude for scoot Henderson. We're still, and I have a pretty big scoop position.

And unfortunately we live in the era of people could just cut out clips from your video podcast and then torment you with them over the next two to 20 years. And we had some, some pretty passionate pro scoot takes during the draft and they're not aging. Well, you got off to a good start. I thought he looked bigger. I'm like, this is great. They're bringing it off the bench, sort of like a mental reset. The numbers are just as bad as they were last year. Yeah. Uh,

I even got so desperate. I called like one GM that I'm pretty close with what I don't think lies to me. I was like, you like scoot too, though, right? He's like, is this off the record? I'm like, no, I just just tell me that you liked him too, right? It's like, well, a team took him third. So I think a lot of people liked him. I'm not giving up, but I'm not giving up on preparing myself for the day. I have to like when I had Jalen Suggs on last year because Jalen Suggs had

Whatever it was, it was the worst offensive rating of any single player his rookie year. Anybody that actually played. And then I was looking up historically who else had done it. Scoot did. And then I was like, oh, well, Jalen Suggs did. And then we had Jalen Suggs on after that, and he's turned it around. And I brought up that entire stat profile to him. And then I was like, what do you think about Scoot? And he was raving about Scoot. He's going to be so good. I was like, all these guys. What is he going to say? Like, no, he actually sucks, dude. Yeah.

So you don't think like eight years from now we'll be in Portland doing a scoot porn intro to our live podcast? Probably not ruling that out. We probably get the venue now. Yeah. If tickets are available. What else? Give me another bias. I'm not sad about the Sixers. And it actually circles back to the Embiid Jokic propaganda year where

I don't even know who I'm really mad at. I think Daryl's a great GM. He and I don't exactly... I don't think we like each other that much anymore. But it's okay. We'll get through it. But they did such a good job. And yet all of us that have been around it long enough, you're like, all right, I can see the good version of this.

But are you investing in the right people? But you also do have a choice to invest in other people and you don't. And then when Embiid took the extension like that, and it was kind of lost in all the mayhem, I think it may have been lost in the Woj wake of him being out, you know, and then the Embiid extension happens. And it's almost one of those extensions where when it's done, you wonder if you're the team, you're like, he took it.

He was like, yeah, sure. With tack on three more years. Yeah. Keep adding them. We were texting a lot during that time. And the Sixers were checking a lot of boxes that I would say I would call Rosillo trigger boxes. The guy saying just openly that it's all about April now and not playing back to backs anymore. The offseason workout stuff.

The victory lapping before we've seen the team yet is when that will trigger you from time to time. What else did they do? Well, then they also had Embiid. Everybody kind of knew that he wasn't really the locked in guy that you need to be. Like, if you look, it's a very simple timeline in the NBA.

top draft pick, score a bunch of points. You're going to get your max extension. And then it's like year seven or eight. I think something kicks in for a lot of the special players. We're like, okay, maybe it's not about all the points and I'm going to get the accolades and I'm going to make all-star and all this stuff. But like,

I almost have to figure out a way to be a more productive basketball player that's not just about the stat line. And I think there's a lot of stat line players out there that people talk about being really special that I'm like, I don't know. I know they're good at scoring, but I don't know that they're great at all the things that you need to do. Do they affect winning? Right. And as talented as Embiid is, and I've always really liked his game, I loved him before the draft, but we knew there was the weird injury stuff with him. I actually always loved his personality. I liked that he cried after the Kawhi shot. Right.

losing to toronto when he got shit for that i was like that's ridiculous like this this matters to him that's a great sign so there was all these things for him that i was kind of rooting for and then you started hearing more and more of like he's actually not taking this stuff serious enough and you were wondering if that story was going to get out and then it gets out within the own team meeting leaking yeah and then he's like i don't know who said this is like you know what he got mad about the leak yeah you can be mad about the leak but be mad like

you at some point you have to get more mad at yourself and i know he's had all these different injuries and all these things but i've just there was like a tipping point for me and you when i did the preview show with you where i went i cleared the floor for you because i remember zach low like yeah i just was waving everybody to the side yeah he was like iso well just like lamello but i i i remember zach low who we love like did his top five players and it was this like

unarguable list of the five guys of Jokic, Giannis, Luka, SGA, and Embiid. And I think we need to stop just penciling him in despite that we know what he was statistically to start that year. And I think people are starting to... It's not like, hey, finally, we're all on the same page or realizing, but get out of the second round. That's it. We don't...

We don't value durability enough when we talk about players is one of my big lessons of the 2020s. That's why Boston's so good. It's all hypothetical and not, yeah. Those two guys for Boston play all the time. They take it seriously. Yeah, they want to show up. They play back-to-backs. Quick biases for me. I want Seattle to have an NBA team again, and I'll root for that team. And along what you just said,

If you're not in shape, it's really hard for me to like you that much. And I feel that way about Luca. Thanks man. No, not you. But I just feel like when these guys are making the money they're making, it'd be nice if, if, if you worked out in the off season, it doesn't seem crazy to me. Right. It's your job. Which is weird because Ben Simmons works out more than anybody. Right. Um,

My other bias is quickly, I still defend Kevin Durant. I don't know why. It's like being in a bad marriage. Like he flies out the end on social and I'm like, you don't understand. He was upset. They lost last night. Cause if you wanted to just like, if you were forced in like debate class, like you have to be the anti Durant guy. Yeah. This is going to be easy actually. Right. And I don't want to be that guy. So I understand that bias. I have two more biases. What do you have before? Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead.

Well, one of them is yours too. I hate heliocentric basketball. I'm just never going to like it. I'm just not. And I really respect what Harden the Clippers are doing this year. It's, it's way better than I thought the rubber under was 37 and a half. They, I, it was almost a lock for me. Um, and he's playing great. I just don't personally like watching it that much.

And that's not going to change. And then my last one is I want Jordan to stay the goat. And I just feel like he's the best and the years pass and people forget. And I just think he still levitates above anyone I've seen in person, even Jokic. I have one last one, a little off the menu. I was so happy that you were able to witness not just the greatness of Jokic. It wasn't the best Curry game, but it's all right. We'll get through it.

to see Tyler Ford handle a review. He's, he's my favorite official in the NBA and we had a front row seat to it and I kept nudging the group. I'm like, watch this. He doesn't fuck around. Yeah, I didn't realize you had a referee bias. Yeah, well, I mean, he knows how much I love him. Like, he gave me the shout out before the game starts and my friends are like, the officials say hi to you and, uh,

Yeah, he asked us when the Sunday pod was coming back. I was fired up. Yeah, and I think the other guy I tweeted a picture of being like, I like french fry potatoes or whatever. And then I was like, so then he was kind of like, fuck him, Priscilla. But Tyler, you know, Bill Kennedy, I think has a SAG card when he does the reviews. He's doing a one-man show. Right. And then Tyler Ford is like,

efficiency, efficiency, efficiency. If you don't know who Tyler Ford is, he looks a lot like Jim from the town, which is one of the reasons Rosillo loves him. It's also a plus. Because he looks like he's going to at any time say, who's cow we taking? All right. New gimmick here. We're moving out of Jokic porn. We're moving to what we're calling the worry scale where I'm going to list some topics.

You were having fun the first 30 minutes. I didn't want to lose the crowd, but he might be coming up at some point. The worry scale, one to 10. Curry ever getting a fifth title? One to 10. How worried are you? Well, worried because it's probably not going to happen. But the fourth one, like I don't worry about his next ring the way I would about somebody who I think deserves a recognition. Ties Kobe though. Yeah, but well, I guess the number one option thing is

Kobe was the number one option for what? Two of them. Two of them. Yeah. Two for Steph. I'm a nine out of 10. I don't know how they do it with this Warriors team. I don't know how they do it either. Do you think he'll ever be on another team? I don't. Do you think Lakeup is just... I got to say, I think, not to suck up to the crowd, but I don't think Jokic is ever not going to be on Denver. I don't think... I don't think Curry will ever not be on Golden State. And I honestly don't think Tatum will ever not be on Boston. I think...

I think those are the three that I see staying whole career. Luca is an interesting one. I don't know if I would bet on Luca staying in Dallas. I keep waiting for the first mad international guy because it hasn't really happened yet. Yeah, who's a bad guy? I mean, Nurkic seems to get upset, but he's not really on the level of what we're talking about here. But when you look at the next pissed off NBA star that forces his way out of something...

I don't say this because I think it'll never happen, but it's just something that you notice that it hasn't happened yet. I think you're nuts to put Tatum in that group with the other two guys, by the way. You think he would leave? I just think he's still so young. Never on another team? I just think those would be my three if I had to pick three. Try Young Hawks, because if they haven't traded him yet. LaMelo Charlotte. Next Warrior Scale.

Houston fucking up this cool Rockets roster that we love. How worried are you? On a scale of one to ten, it's a three because it's an awesome problem to have. But I like you. They're one of my favorite league pass. They might be my go to. They're the MVP. Right. Because I'm not only entertained, I'm trying to figure out how they're going to figure it out. And email is the best coach for this because it's just like, hey, guess what?

You're benched for the fourth quarter. Yeah. And he'll bench Jalen Green. He'll bench Jabari. They have to play Van Vliet. They kind of make this defensive decision where they'll go with Thompson over Jalen in some of these spots. Then Tara Eason comes in and wreck shop. They're like, all right, we don't need Jabari spacing. So there's lineup stuff that they're matching their long-term. I don't know how, like,

Like they're probably better off getting out of the depth for the next guy. I don't know who the next guy is. Cause what'll happen is you're going to end up ruining the value of your own guys. Cause they're just not going to be enough minutes for dudes. Yeah. So it's a concern, but not concerning enough that they look, they're winning games too. So it's like a three. So the rockets, they're in the, uh, they're in the NBA cup. They play golden state.

And I think they're seven to one on FanDuel to win it. I think they're a pretty live bet. I was, I watched their OKC game on Sunday the next day because it was against football. And they reminded me a lot of Minnesota last year where we, nobody wanted to say that Minnesota was ready in like December, January, but they kind of were. And it was like, wow, this would be soon.

And then it just kept going. And I think Houston, that's how I feel when I watch them. They're so good defensively and they're so athletic and they have so many different lineups that there's just a bitch to play. I love that game because it was one of those, you know, we've had some really cool regular season games and I feel like Houston's in a lot of them just because of the effort alone. But with no chat, like I didn't, that game will be so different with the chat decision and how they want to pull, uh,

Shingun away or maybe they close with Jabari like that's what I love is that Eman's like I know where you were drafted I know you get paid this you don't get paid this is what I'm going to do tonight and it's he's actually the tough love no bullshit thing is the best version when normally it's like the hand holder for all the young guys that game if you guys didn't see it

You ever see those Instagram videos when the two cats are fighting and it's just like amazing to watch the, how athletic the cats are. And you're like, Oh my God, wow. They just jumped off a table. You watching a lot of cat videos. I think the algorithm knows that I liked them. Um, but they, he picks up your phone. You're like, I'm no longer worried.

but they were just so young and athletic. It was, it was a treat to watch next warrior scale towns in New York. I was probably an eight before the season. I think I'm like a two now. It seems like they like them and he's playing really well.

I think the defensive part of it, though, like their identity, their identities entirely changed. So maybe that's what happens when you trade for Carl Anthony Towns. True. Which is funny that he's not on Minnesota and now their defense isn't what it's supposed to be, which doesn't really make a ton of sense, even though I think like, look, nobody stops Jokic. But in that series, like he bodied him up. And the fact that it stayed in front of him is better for Towns than having to move around. The Mitchell thing is another one of those things I can't wait to see because

Because Tibbs won't care. The cat's already paid. Yeah. You know, he might have closing lineups where he's like, I don't want spacing. I don't want five out. I want some resistance at the rim. Or maybe the Knicks are like, as long as we're top five in offense and 15th on defense, we have a chance. But yeah, and he hasn't. Look, if they lose, then they're going to get on his case. They'll be like, what's up with these interviews?

But right now, everybody likes it. He's kind of thrown a no-hitter right now. I don't think he's had one weird interview yet. I keep waiting for it. Maybe the PR just keeps turning down all of these invites and not even telling him. Smart. Well, conversely, you mentioned Minnesota. Ant Minnesota, where is he? I'm like an eight and a half. Yeah, seven. That team, the body language doctor does not like what he's saying with Minnesota. And then Ant called it out.

And to have that press conference after he was like, we were all we're too negative. We're all doing our own thing. It was really kind of crazy. Yeah. Look, they started 16 and four last year. Yeah. And they were the best defensive team in the NBA. So, I mean, this is like Nick's.

like to another level of disappointment to who they are defensively, but they moved out cat. They didn't bring them in. So that part of it's really weird, but look, there's nights where ant doesn't look like he loves playing defense. And even though he's making a ton of threes, I'd rather him not take 11 a game. Even Jenzo hasn't been good and Randall puts up numbers, but it's, it's all kind of on his terms a little bit. So they look very disconnected and it's a team offensively that I thought may get in their way of preventing them even making it to the Western conference finals as much as I like some of the guys on the team.

Last year, it really felt like they had an identity. I knew what it was. I didn't know if it was going to translate to winning four playoff rounds, but there was something unique about them. I don't know. When I watched them, I don't know. They just seemed like another team. Well, at least they had the defense. They knew they could rely. They could take out Jokic as well as anyone. Nobody takes them out, but they were at least big guys they had a real effect on. And they could guard Jalen and Jason as well as anybody. Now it's...

I don't know. I don't see it. I don't think it gets better either. Where does Randall rank for you on guys? You wouldn't want to play pickup basketball with four hours a week. It's like, oh man, I'm on Julius's team. Fuck. Oh, he saw me. You know, he's waving me over.

I always think it's funny is when like people just knock the NBA product and you know, there's always like this weird push. There was even an NFL push this year, even though there was a few Sundays where I was like, this wasn't that much fun, but it's like, Hey, the NFL product, it's always somebody with some kind of agenda, but there's a lot of the NBA part of it. And I'll have nights too, where I'll watch a game and like, there's way too much three point shooting tonight. Or why is that guy taking that shot? And then I go, do you miss post-ups? Do you miss them? Do you watch these games and be like,

I miss an Al Jefferson entry pass so bad. And Randall backs guys down. It's like, hey, it's right there for you. Right. There you go. If you miss it. I had this coming up later, but I'm glad you're bringing it up now. This became that one clip went around that was like two minutes. It was the Lakers-Suns. It was bad. You guys must have seen that, right? And it was just terrible three, terrible three. And people were like, this is basketball now. And I'm watching it because...

I'm old. And I'm like, you guys don't understand how bad the nineties were like watching Bobby Phil's trying to post up whoever watching Anthony Mason, trying to split a double team. Like they had a Mark Jackson rule because your post-ups took too long and how slow it was. And like that, remember that Cleveland team with Brevin night where they Fratello, like his whole goal. No, remember he slowed it down.

slowed it down and try to have like 65 field goals a game. Like there's 90. I hope there's one person in this audience is YouTubing Brevin night possessions. No, someone in the back is like, finally Brevin night is, but no, but I was thinking like that clip sucked. All right. And if you show that clip and there's plenty of games, there's some D'Angelo Russell warriors games where I go, I might have to take a year off from this team before they get rid of them. But then I think like, okay, what are you talking about that you miss?

And there was no movement. So much slower. Like, even last night's a nice reminder. And I hate this. This is my thing. But somebody posts one clip of a Pistons hard foul, and they act like that was every fucking possession of every game from, like, 1978 to 1996. And you're like, actually, that's just a really hard foul. And we thought that was hard when it happened at the time. And then you're watching guys cut and how physical even last night's game is. Yeah, we were...

With two teams that wouldn't even be suggested as like, oh, those are the two most physical basketball teams. The guys are so much bigger. They're so much fat. Like they're hitting each other off the ball. The game is so physical. And yet these dudes on TV just never want to admit that it might be as tough, even if there's more space. Somebody did a study about how much more running there is now.

And it's, I just think basketball, it's way harder to play basketball now. It's great as that stuff and how much we can get nostalgic over it. Like I'll watch a Celtics playoff game from the eighties and

Once the ball is crossed half court, everyone stops. Everybody stops. There's times I'm talking about like big playoff moments where they're not picking somebody up who has the ball in transition. They're letting them because there wasn't, you know, the, the, I would say the lengthening of the quarter, the threat of deeper shots because people just didn't take shots back then the way they do now, but they would just almost let people get in to setting up what they wanted to do. And I would challenge anybody to,

Like go watch some of that stuff for 30 minutes. And it's hysterical how different it actually is in the way people talk about it today. Yeah. We have a league where somebody is trying to win the fourth MVP and he's shooting 52% on threes and his tennisist and he's a center. People are like, this sucks. And everyone forgets that the mid two thousands, when we, we actually, it was like a crisis.

With the pace of the game and just how much it sucked to watch that they had to change his rules. Anyway, next one for the worry scale. We just got to get it over with. Jamal Murray. Listen, we're all friends here. Let's talk it out. I don't want this to be like the Sopranos intervention where somebody charges me. Let's just let's talk it out. Jamal Murray, how worried are you?

Not as worried as you are. I don't know if I'm bad at it or you're dangerous. But you went in and you were like, I don't think he's moving well. And I went, he's not peak Westbrook. So it's always a bit shifty into his spot. I studied a lot. I studied how he was walking. He couldn't stop talking about him. He actually, I think the quote was,

He's not the same anymore. And I went forever. And then he goes now. So we decided. No, that was a game. Doesn't have it right now or doesn't have it anymore. Right. Are two separate things. Right. But you said. So we're right now. Because he looks slow. It doesn't look like he's in the same shape. He was bad last night. It was bad to see live. He walks. I'm going to do some walking for the camera. Oh, here we go. He does a.

He just looks creaky. Like, you know, I want my guys to walk around the court like guys making $40 million a year with their chests out. I just was worried. I left the game thinking, that guy doesn't seem 100% healthy to me. I don't know if I'm right or wrong, but that was what I saw. Beginning of last year when he came back, it looked different because he was coming off the injury, right? Yeah. And then...

I think you could tell when it, when you try not to just go by like, Oh, he's scoring more. Everything is fine now, but he's a tougher one. I'm not as good at this as you are. I'm admitting I, I can't because he is not somebody. It's not like I have my own CBS show where I'm like the mentalist. Would you turn it down? Mentalist? That sounds great. The T here, the two things I noticed that he used to have elevator pitch doesn't seem to have the same way when he's going coast to coast and he's going fast and he's got the defender on his hip.

He always had like a little super blast where he could get ahead of that guy and get his shot. And he doesn't seem like he totally has that yet. And then he has that little, where he goes to his right, that little 12 foot or the Chris Paul shot, which always used to go in and was like his kind of like, that was a shot.

And it's not going in anymore. And it doesn't seem like he has the same lift on it. So that's just what I saw in person. We'll see if it's fixed, but it's here. The nuggets, like your ceiling depends on what happens with him over the next four months. Cause you know what you have with the other guys.

Yeah, and he's been so great in huge playoff spots. Everybody knows that. When you can do that, that tells me everything about you, that even if you don't have the accolades of the other guys. I think the no all-star team thing is completely overblown because if you go through it every single year and look where he was and when he was healthy and when he wasn't, the other guards that made the team, it's not as egregious as it's always pitched every time it's a national broadcast, which seems to be some rule like Jalen Hurts squatting. You have to bring up that Jalen Hurts.

Jamal Murray hasn't made an all-star game, but I, well, the all-timer was Kershaw and Stafford went to high school together. Oh, that's a good one. Jim Harbaugh and John Harbaugh. Russell Wilson one. Yeah. Uh, I am yell Russell Wilson trying to throw us up. I have a, I'm an eight and a half for Jamal Murray for word. Put me down as a 6.5.

He's too young. He's too young. He's conservative with this. I'm always like more panicky and you're more conservative. Yeah. Yeah. And be George Philly just as a group removing all your whatever. I'm like an eight and a half. See, I think you're right. This is why it's an eight. It's not a 10. Okay. The Pelicans are an 11. Yeah. Philly. There is, despite the time we just been talking to him, there's a version of it coming together.

Well, the thing is, they only have to be like the 10 seed. That could be 34 wins. With Maxie, George, Embiid. Yeah, the Sally.

And McCain. Yeah, they have talent. I mean, Oubre, who I can't stand, has been pretty good for them for a couple of years. I'm not crossing him off, but it's not great. Like when Oubre has to play somebody tough defensively with all that length, like he's into it. He's kind of a different cat now, so I got to give it to him. So at least with Philadelphia, as bad as it is, it's kind of like the Clippers thing. Yes, it's a huge worry, but dot, dot, dot. Now, it never worked out for them, and maybe it doesn't where the odds are against Philadelphia, but there's something there in place where

I don't see why they couldn't put together a couple of months and we start talking about them being like, Hey, that's going to be a weird, that could be a weird one. Eight. Here's why eight and a half might be low because Embiid was in the Olympics. Look slow, looked creaky. Um, do his walk. That, that one will be tough. I don't know if I could do that one. Um, then before the season, it's like, we're taking it easy with him, but he's doing great. His knees. Good. Sign the extension.

That was a red flag. It was like, why did he grab that extension so fast? That was weird. Then it was the ESPN sent, who was it, to write the big feature about their whole master plan for it's all about April, May, and June now. I was like, that's weird. Why are they telling us that? And then all of a sudden, Embiid, not playing tonight. It's like, ah, the season started. That seems like a problem. And then he played. He looked terrible. Then he got hurt.

Then he was mad at his team. The team meeting happened. And then we haven't seen him since. He got suspended for shoving a report. Oh, and he got in a fight with the reporter. Not the fight, but the shoving thing. And then I saw today another red flag. Embiid is ramping up. What does that mean? It generally means you've been disappointing. What other life... Parents should start using it. How's Doug? Ramping up this summer.

Like if my son's grades, if I'm like, Hey Ben, how are your grades? And he's like, yes, I'm ramping up. But how are your grades? As long as you're ramping up. Like, how's it going with the ladies? I'm ramping up. So you're single. LaMelo ball, worry scale. Where are you? Really high. You're high. He's averaging 30 a game. He's second in the league in scoring and I'm worried. Now I know there's a large segment.

Not the great city of Denver. Never want to hear Bill and I talk about LaMelo. Speaking of scoot takes. And that's totally fair. I didn't like the Australia footage. Don't know how many times I can say it. Having said that, he's an incredibly talented guy at that size. The passing, the I talk about time, like his size, the start, stop, start again thing is just stupid. But when I watch the games and I see like he took 35 the other night and I'm like, you know, it's not a good shot is a one foot.

three from 30 feet out with 16 seconds left in the shot clock. And I think when you're allowed to just do that forever, because he is their attraction, he is kind of the Trey Young thing in Atlanta where this may not be great, but the kids love him.

I wonder now on another coach who was supposed to be the guy. And by the way, when he benched him in that Nets game, I don't think it was about the fourth quarter because I went back. I was like, where is the moment where Charles Lee's like, I'm benching you in a tight game. He made nine more substitutions in under four minutes. He was subbing in for offense. He was subbing in for defense, and he never put Lamello back in the game. And I thought it was about...

the overall approach that he has to have. He's obviously more talented and a more productive player than I thought he would be before the draft. But I think there's a tendency of like, he just kind of gets out there and does his own thing. I think it sucks to play with. And I think it's losing basketball. And this is a habit that he has to break to be something in this league other than just a box score guy. Year five, good stats, bad team guy. He's probably the captain. And his stats are awesome.

Stats are great. Like even, even with the bad threes, like look at the three point, like the numbers, he's a better shooter in the NBA now than he was at any other level. Like, and it was immediate. I've made this joke before and I'm going to make it again. His destiny might be social media 15 years from now with clips of people saying, LaBello ball was a problem. And just like a one minute highlight tape of crazy shots he made. And that's where we land. We'll see. Next one.

Worry scale, a stringer Avon situation with Franz and Paolo. When Paolo comes back, are they going to be in the balcony together? Franz is like, this is kind of my team now. Here's why I'm not worried about it at all. Because when you watch Paolo at Duke, he actually wanted to get other guys involved, even though he was clearly the best player. It was going to be the number one pick. Yeah. So he likes this. Paolo is totally fine.

getting other people involved, which is why I like him probably. I mean, women, Yama's in his own planet, right? But how low to be that good, that young and not have to have the seven year run of, I guess I have to kind of find a way to play with other people like that's in him already. So with this front, I think this is just a nice Franz reminder tour of,

of what he is and how pissed people got him at the Cavs series. So I'm not worried. I think this is actually one of those weird injuries where it may be better for the rest of the magic. It certainly helped Franz. Yeah. Because he, Olympics wasn't great. Start of the season wasn't great. The Cavs series, people were acting like he sucked. I was one of them. No, it's good. Orlando's on my radar. I'm the most worried about the Cavs in the East, obviously, because I think they're really good.

But I think I'd put Orlando next for teams I'm worried about because if Franz keeps up for Boston or in general Boston, so you keep this up. The Boston threats are Cleveland Orlando to you. I think Orlando because of the defense and because if Franz can be the second guy that you never know who's going to have the 35 point game.

I'm not as, I just can't be as scared of Milwaukee with the, with not knowing what I'm getting from Middleton. I just don't know if we're ever seeing. No, but it's good to see that they turn it around because Giannis has been insane. And the Knicks are honestly just not good enough defensively. It's never worked. Once you get to round three, round four, you have to be able to get stops. And I don't know if they can. Next one, worry scale. LeBron going 89 Kareem on us as this year goes along.

revisit 89 Kareem for those that don't remember. So it was 36 years ago. It was the farewell tour season. Um, Kareem was amazing. I mean, he was, he had one of the most amazing careers in any sport. He was the finals MVP, I think in 71 and 85 in 87, they ran the biggest play of the game for him in game four. He made it, he got fouled 88 Piston series, biggest play of the entire series. They ran for him. He was like 42, uh,

So he was an amazing aging player, but he was obviously old. And then all of a sudden, 89, it was grim. It was bad. And LeBron, he put up 29 today. And offensively, he can still do it. The defense is, you can't even call it defense because he's not playing it. So basically, he's become a DH in basketball. And you still play pickup. And I think you have a lot of pride in your pickup.

I, you're trying to figure out how to be insulted by that. I had a run and pick up when I was in my early forties where I really tried to keep it going. And then eventually you start learning all these tricks to survive in a pickup game when you're old. And LeBron's doing a lot of those tricks now where I'm like, I used to do that where he'd be like on defense, you know,

Under the basket where he's just kind of doing this. And then, no, get that, get that guy. And he's just not covering ground. This is the worst comparison you've ever made. Thank you. Look, I can tell when somebody's trying to conserve their energy at a basketball court because I did it. Comparing it to your pickup game in the 40s. I'm an only child. What do you want?

I hope someone that despises you tweets that you said this at this show tonight with no context whatsoever. I might even retweet it. You know what I mean, though. I know exactly what you mean. I know exactly what you mean. You're supposed to be my friend on stage, and now you're undermining me. Well, I think it's always good to be, you know, every now and then I got to disagree with you. No, but you know what I mean, though, when people don't move. I do know what you mean. I know what you mean. But I mean, if I said like, hey, man, I always hit the cutoff guy in softball,

nobody trust me as somebody that tried to do that a few times like I was trying to explain why my Tyson's train what's that do you still move on defense and pick up I mean it depends on I usually will like if you make three I'm like shit like Matt Leinart's kid just destroyed me a couple weeks ago so how many years left for LeBron in your opinion

Well, everything you said is right, but don't you feel guilty holding them to a standard that we shouldn't hold them to? Well, it's year 22. Yeah, that's what I mean. So, I mean, some of this defensive stuff he's been doing for a while. I mean, he's had the worst defensive assignment for years, which I think is smart to try to pace him. But now they have Austin Reeves and Connect out there too. And it's like, ah.

And D'Angelo Russell. Lock it down. Anybody? I, I think I'm at a stage and I've, I've talked about this before, but I'm, I'm with you. Everything you said is right. And when Denver played them, they had,

LeBron's guy stay baseline. So LeBron was the baseline help kind of in the dunker spot and they were running these cuts like it was a handoff at the high post and then somebody would cut down off of it. LeBron just never ever rotated over and we're just going to keep doing this over and over and over again. He's had some tough fast break defense plays. What I mean, I thought he I thought he'd be on TV three years ago, you

You know, go back to 2010 and we're talking about him and holding him to the standard defensively. So this part I actually feel guilty about, even though you're right. I guess my reaction is based on the dialogue about him heading into the season and all the people in the media were like, he's still a top five guy. The answer is no. Where do you have him in your top 100?

He was not in the top 20. Whoa, that seems low. I'm sorry. I like defense. Rudy three. Next, next worry scale. You still have worries. I have one more. All right. The Celtics ending up with a crappy owner. All right. I'm laying out. Let's talk this out. Well, no, go. Because this is your world. I don't know what's going to happen. You're like an owner's insider.

I'm always nervous when I have a good owner and now I don't know what I'm getting with the next owner. I'm just going to naturally be nervous about that. So I'm like a seven. What if the next guy comes in and it's like a, a rod Mark Laurie's situation where I'm like, Hey, we got to trade towns. We got to trade towns. He's too expensive. Like that. That's the shit that's happening. What if it's John Henry? Those guys have won. We're moving on.

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I'm going to save rather have right now because I want to get to your top five movie TV girlfriends. I asked for a solo. We're going to break up the slide, break up the hoop of the little pop culture, five movie TV girlfriends that when you watch the show or the movie, you were like, I'm in. Well, Megan Mark is available again, right? Is she available? Can you believe the word in the street after? I think that podcast thing didn't work out. I think she's still married though.

No, but we played in a celebrity flag football game together. And it was all of the swimsuit models. So nobody was really paying any attention to Markle. So I was like, that's my lane. She's probably down herself a little bit right now. And she's never been more obtainable. And then, I mean, I got the game-winning touchdown over Deion Sanders. No big deal. And I was like, yeah, you know, I shot her a DM.

Shout out to him. Yeah. And then somebody was like, do you know who she's dating? I was like, I don't know. I don't pay attention to any stuff. And it didn't work out. And no, it's the funniest thing. And so then the joke kept going because when Pierce Morgan would lose his shit about it, I would always quote tweet above and be like, it gets better, man.

Like, don't worry. And I was basically only doing it for like Sarah Walsh and Carissa Thompson because they knew the story. They thought it was so funny. So like nobody really knew what the joke was. And I kept doing it over. Like, again, I don't do it that often, but maybe once a year, Pierce Morgan would have some other Meghan Markle thing come up. And then I would just be like, don't worry, dude, I'm here. If you need to talk ever. And he never responded. And the funniest person ever.

You will never guess this. The funniest person ever to reach out to me after one of those Piers Morgan tweets was like, dude, what is wrong with you? She's not that great. Like, have you paid attention to this hairy thing? Like, you're way better. And first of all, you realize she wasn't going to go out with me. Right. So there's that part. Jeff Van Gundy. Come on. Jeff Van Gundy texted me to tell me that I was better off without Meghan Markle. That's a thing that actually happened.

And I was so like, I was at home solo. I'm on, you know, I'm like, what's Van Gundy want? Cause I don't, we don't text a lot. And I was like, oh no, he thinks that Pierce Morgan tweet is real. So then I had to explain the whole thing to him. And he was like, I've lost interest now.

Then Mark Jackson texted hand down, man down. I don't think Mark Jackson, I don't think he was ever going to text me after that. That one monologue that I did where I was like, why does everyone keep asking why he's not getting a head coaching job? And I just went through like a 10 year timeline. So not, not on your speed dial thing is too, is I loved him. He's a Johnny. Wait, one more question. Yes. What was the DM to make a Margo? Is it like, was it like what shaken? It was not what, how are you?

No, it was really, it was Ryan. No, it was a soft, very soft sell. It was, Hey, I know the new season of suits is coming out. If you ever want to come on the show, come on the show. Yeah. It was really professional. And it was like a gauging of interest. Like if I got an emoji back, who knows? And I didn't, it was ice cold. It was, Oh, I don't know anything about sports, but thanks for the offer. Next one. So mega Marco, who else? Yeah.

Well, is it weird to go all the way back to the Goonies? No. I left the movie theater in love with that girl. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? Not the one with the glasses, but the other one. Yeah, I don't know what the deal was. It just never happened. Yeah, and who was that? Brolin? Was Brolin the bad guy? Brolin might have stepped in, yeah. I was like, what is she seeing him? He had a car, though, and I think I was like 10. Yeah.

So I think that was the first one where I went to a movie and felt a little different after I left. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? You don't know what the hell is going on, but you're like, why am I looking at Bop magazine at the CVS the next week with her on the cover of that?

So that's one. Did you have ones that we don't have a slideshow for this, right? Because this now feels incredibly awkward after I told the Markle thing. Slideshow would have been good. My moment for that was the Charlie's Angels Hawaii episode. I was like, I'm just a different person now. What about the town? All right, let's just get to it instead because I don't... So Blake Lively...

In that movie, I had a stretch where I was in Boston where I would see the Blake Livelys. It's one of the most accurate characters in the history of movies. When you guys do the Oscar revisit thing, have you ever nominated her for supporting actress? I mean, we don't even need to. It's just a given. She nails it because she's so dangerous. She's the worst idea ever. And you know that you're in.

And I thought... And has a kid. With one of the most dangerous gang members in town. I love kids. So is somebody smoking? We're in Denver. Everything's possible. I think she might be back there smoking. She would smoke in the car when she met your parents the first time. The reason why she was modeled... She was modeled after these girls that none of us really knew how to talk to. But at the same time, you never...

I wanted to date one and have every one of my friends tell me how terrible it was. I wanted to lie to my parents that I wasn't seeing anybody. And I wanted to date her all the time. And I wanted to go up to like Medford. I wanted to go to these dangers. Like I went to Revere one night when I was in my twenties to scope this out. Like, I was like, I'm going to Revere. I just want to see it for real. And I was like, I think I'm going to get my ass kicked here tonight. So I'm going to have to leave. So,

it never really quite worked out for me. I knew what kind of hair was going to be like a bad dye job, like sort of a Jennifer Aniston thing that was way out of style. And then the streaks that weren't blended properly because she went to some cheap place in a strip mall. Like I had, I was like, look, I'm on TV for the Celtics. There has to be something like, oh, he gets, he gets fucking great seats. Yeah. You know, but I was losing my hair and I was losing my confidence a little bit. So never happened. She's still the ideal though, right? I think I have a little different standards now.

Should we tell the story about when we met? Yeah. Cause that guy, that guy would have loved the Blake loudly character. That guy. I actually was to be totally honest. There was one deal that was sort of close and I got dumped because she got on a reality show. I wasn't bummed out. That was the best thing is that, you know, it's bad for you. And when you get dumped, you don't even care like a cable show or a network show. No, it was like fairly, fairly popular prominent show. Yeah. And then when she was, I was like, you didn't even win.

Now you want me back? Yeah. So we met. Oh yeah. You can tell that story. Well, it was, it was the first great Celtics moment in nine years. It was the game when the playoff game against the nets game three, where they were down like 25 came back really ugly game, but really fun. And it was, everyone was just so happy. The Celtics had a nice, happy playoff moment. It was like, it just literally nine years is forever. And it was a day game and,

And everyone went out. And it was one of those just drunk, drunk, drunk Boston days. And that's where I met Rosillo. And he was not sober. It wasn't that game. I thought it was. No. Was it a different game? It was a Pacers playoff game. That was the week. That was also a great game.

That was the Paul Pierce over. I knew it was a playoff game from back then. So are you sure it wasn't that night? I think I might be right. No, because you were getting married that week. You're right. And I had just started at that station, the zone in Boston. Yeah. And you had just left and gone on to other things. And so we had just kind of missed each other, like just missed each other. He came on, like did a phone or he was nice enough to.

to find some time for us and then i hadn't actually met him and a bunch of my guys from vermont came down because it was like the first time i had ever been able to like do my friends a favor with a hookup so i got us like four seats in the suite and like you know that age you're just gonna get after it because your friends are in town and then i was like tight white t-shirt i mean i looked like an extra that i remember the outsiders and bills there with like

His soon-to-be wife. I think her parents, your parents. It was at the fours, I think. It was at the fours. I have a completely different memory. And so he was down... This is great. It's like one of those movies where it's two different stories. He was down a few tables and I was like, well, we're colleagues. So I'll go say something. And I was like, hey, the...

Heathcliff Slocum trade for Veritech and Lowe was the best since Andy Dufresne bought that rock hammer from Redline, man. I'm like, that was something else. And I've got a Coors Light. And I'm like, yeah, well, we're getting married tomorrow, so...

You were nice, but it was over. And I realized 30 seconds later after it was over, I was like, oh, I guess this is over now. And that was the beginning of this. It's funny. That's not what I remembered. This is what happens when you get old. You have these memories and then they morph into a different memory. It'd be really weird if we had met after that Nets game. But I know where I was after the Nets game. Can we play some Rather Have right now? Yeah. I got a list. I'm excited.

Embiid or Kawhi? Who would you rather have? I have the same one down for you. That's hilarious. Embiid because he doesn't have a ring. I think I would rather have Embiid too. What's the Kawhi argument? My Clippers guy was telling me Kawhi's coming back before Christmas. I think he's ramped up. He's ramped up, ready to go. But I think the Embiid thing...

Just doesn't feel like it's headed toward a good place. Right. Like what? What? Give me the best case scenario for the Embiid situation. Like comes back. He's like, you know, the team meeting. I really I did some soul searching. He needs to follow the Duncan model. He has to get lighter. All right. Well, that's not gonna be this season. Zion or Trey? Yeah, it's actually Trey. I mean, it's Zion. Can you believe that? You were like Zion's number one guy. I'm no longer his number one guy.

What about Zion or jaw? Jaw. August. Would you said jaw? See, to me, the Willies. Should we have done the live show at shotgun Willies? Oh, I know a guy. Apparently. Yes. Jesus. See, I had John John Halliburton jaw or Halliburton. I think this room's a little high on jaw. I'm still in on jaw.

He's awesome, but he basically said the other day he's going to stop dunking. That seems alarming. Yeah. Because I do. Every time I'd watch him, I'd go, I love this. Those Grizzlies spikes that didn't really amount to anything because they were always hurt, they put together some really nice stretches. Maybe this five, and I think the front office does a really good job with everybody, but I thought there was a jaw Zion off the court thing. Did you see Zion hit up that ring girl from Alabama? Yeah.

I did. I guess the question for me is... Who knows? Maybe I could take a couple lessons. If they could get out of the Zion contract after this year, do you do it? Is a question I can't believe we're even asking, but I think it's a serious question. He's going to be re-evaluated in two weeks, so I'm excited for that. But that story today that the Pelicans aren't going to waive him, there's some times where you're like, maybe this isn't really updated information. Like, no shit, you're not going to waive him. Next, I'd rather have...

Bo Nix or Jaden Daniels? Jaden. I agree, but can you believe this is an argument? No. Bo Nix looks like Drew Brees. It's like Peyton has just sprinkled Drew Brees Kool-Aid all over him for eight weeks. Well, think about this. McShay and I did this two weeks ago of...

All right. So it's six quarterbacks in the top 12. Panics hasn't played. JJ was hurt. So we've got Caleb. We've got Jaden. We've got Drake. We've got Bo. And if I asked you right now, hey, if in five years, any one of them were the best of this group, it's all still on the table. Right. Except it's not because it's going to be Drake May. Hey, I'll fucking leave. Drake May is amazing. I'll say this with Knicks. I watched that Jets game.

What do you have 60 yards and the bad weather and the jets kicker missed the field goal and the Broncos somehow one was before the Broncos turned the season around. Um, and it looked like he was going to be like out of the league in three weeks. And you watched the guy the last couple of weeks, uh,

And he just looks completely legit to me. Like he can make every throw he runs around. He'll make like two mistakes, but I like his leadership. I like that. He gets in fights with the other team, starts barking at defensive linemen. That Max Prosby highlight. He just has it. I think he's got it. I think he's got charisma. I like him.

I don't know what the ceiling is and that I know he's like 25 and maybe this is the ceiling already, but he's, he's a, he's an average to above average starting quarterback. I'm serious. Like if he ends up being like a real guy, you know what I mean? You know, we're talking about here signing up for 10 years. I, you know, I don't know if we started counting Superbowl rings here, but he answers your quarterback question for a decade, which is really what you're hoping for with, with any of these guys.

you may have to just start drafting guys, but like how many games have you played? You haven't played 50 in college. We don't want anything to do with you because they keep getting it wrong. And when you look at how many games he's played, how many games Jaden's played, like maybe it's just trends and it all kind of changes year to year, but it seems like there's real value in avoiding, at least avoiding the guys that have like 25 starts to their, their career in college. The situation piece, which everyone talks about,

I mean, he came into an incredible spot too, which can't be understated, right? Like Sean Payton is like, I'm taking this guy 12th. I'm making this work. I'm going to turn him into a QB. This is all I care about. And it actually happened. I also thought it was... He's going to be in the playoffs. Yeah, like when he got to do it with Sean Payton, then it kind of turned into a thing where it was like, oh, so Bo Nix can do this, but Russell Wilson can't. And I just wanted to be like, maybe Bo Nix isn't the most annoying human being in the NFL. Yeah.

What did you have? All right. Um, Matherin or Peyton Pritchard? Let's just say I handed in a ringer 100 top players list. No, you didn't. Oh, not only did I, I put him in the eighties.

He's been incredible. He's the best. He's the best bench guy in the league. He's been awesome. I mean, there's metric when I was going through my top 100 and doing it. And I was looking at like, you know, just all the different things you want to prioritize or are there any secrets in here? Some of the metric stuff for Pritchard. I'm like, how is he? He's up here with these guys. And by the way, I got scratched the other day and I was like, Pritchard's going off, man. Watch it. And he had like twenty nine.

I can't believe you're not in on this. He's been the best bench guy in the league. It's 20 games. 80th best player in the NBA. It's a 350 player league. It's in the top quarter. Or 450. McCain or Scoot? Pass. Okay. We don't pass, Tina. How about Tatum or SGA? SGA. The advanced stuff is like... You used to be on the Tatum side of that. Mm-hmm.

No, I love Tatum. I think Tatum doesn't get enough credit for... Sorry to steal your routine here, but...

His setting the table, like even some of the bad shooting nights through the playoffs last year, like watching those, you know, the Curry MVP thing in 15 to this day is going to bother me the rest of my life. When I die, I hope the first thing someone says will be he was still really mad about Iguodala getting the 2015 MVP because everything that happened was dictated off of what they were doing to Curry. Like, you know, and Iguodala got it because LeBron was held to 40.

And so when I think about Tatum's impact versus all the other people that benefit from it, I think that part of Tatum's game isn't discussed enough because he also can be a bucket whenever he wants. But the SGA thing is it's kind of hard to deny some of the advanced stuff there that he's just at a double the level than Tatum. I have Tatum's slight edge. All right. Shocked.

I listen, I had SGA over him. I thought the last month Tatum played was the best I've seen him play on both ends. Everything he's doing. I just feel like he's gotten to another level. His shot, he fixed it. Rebounds. He plays hard every night. I just think it's harder to find six, nine guys than guards. Is he East Coast Yoke? No, I would never say that. Played center on defense in the NBA finals, played point guard on offense. Yeah.

Does he love horses? I got one for you. Jordan pool or Draymond green as a roommate. I think that would be a fun one for road trip. Jordan pool on my basketball team. Probably Draymond green dinner. Interesting. Maybe Draymond Draymond. I'd have a couple of good stories. Yeah. How about Otani or Connor McDavid? Give me McJesus.

I think I agree. I started putting Oilers games up on while they're NBA playoffs games, and I had to turn off McJesus because I would turn back to the NBA games. You were missing it. I was like, I haven't watched 20 minutes. I have no idea what happened. Anthony Edwards or Drake May. I don't care about the Patriots anymore. So post Brady. Don't care. And 100 times. Drake May has it. You've heard me.

Did you say any of these things about Mac Jones? He's comparing him to rookie Mac Jones is insane. He's so much better than Mac Jones. Mac Jones had a good first three months. He was good. I remember hearing like a little Mac is giving off early Brady vibes. It was 2001 Brady vibes. That's right. Game manager vibes. Game manager. I always love that. It's amazing. It's a great Peyton Manning rule and I need to do these. I'm going to track these, maybe write a small book on it, but

Whenever a rookie QB has a million interceptions, they're like, well, Peyton had 30. I'm like, okay, I guess he's going to be Peyton Manning. And anytime a quarterback didn't do a ton, but they just won games, you're like, great. I guess it'll be Tom Brady. You or me here. I got a couple left. I got like two left. Go ahead. Mobley or Lively? Mobley. You like Lively that much? I just wanted to see where you were at with it. I'm still, I kept my Mobley position. But you're aware he's not going to be like,

That right. I'm not giving up. I'm an optimistic guy. We'll see. Okay. Team's playing well. How about this one? Sean Payton or Jim Harbaugh? Wow. A lot of Harbaugh's. Harbaugh's my new neighbor. Give me Harbaugh. I think I would take Harbaugh too, but I think Payton's done a really good job with the Broncos. Jamal Murray or Dame Lillard? I thought Malone's comments last night were pretty good.

It's like Jamal was getting hunted late in the game. Like that was the primary thing that Golden State wanted to get into. And then Malone was like, I hope he knows. And he takes pride in the fact and like, make sure that doesn't keep happening. Having said that, Dame will be hunted defensively. He's hunted on the way to the game. So he's probably a better like peak. Holy shit score. But see, as I say that, like Dame's had more of that in his career. But those Jamal playoff games are a huge deal for me.

So Jamal and the age thing. I would take Jamal because I feel like there's another level to where he can get to where Dame is, where he is now at the age he's at and who he is. Dame's a much worse foul baiter too. It drives me crazy. Roger Goodell or Adam Silver? Well, if we both pick Silver, people are going to think we're doing... Although if you pick Silver, I think people would understand why. I'm going to go with Silver.

Just because I felt like the NFL had a stretch there. And again, the commissioner is the mouthpiece of ownership. So you always have to remember that. But the NFL ownership run there was just so gross and so arrogant and so dismissive of people like the NBA has never had a run like that. That's well put. I think if I was an owner, I would rather have Goodell. Is that because as a human being, I would rather have Adam Silver.

But if it's somebody to run my business, like right now, like, uh, cause Paramount got bought. The NFL has it out in their deal. And you just know Goodell is going to be like fucking Tony Soprano with it. Like,

He's like, you're going to pay us more and that's how it's going to play out. And he's just, it's who he is. Yeah. The TV thing is a lot like college football to me. Cause anybody that's heard this rant, I'm not, I promise I'm not going to do it again right now, but like there has to be a point of diminishing returns of having, I don't know, Cal play SMU in an ACC fucking game. All right. So,

When I look at people losing track of who's where and how dumb and imbalanced the schedules are and leading to all sorts of nonsensical results from the season, it's like, okay, how much further can college football push the money grab to where it maybe start turning people off? And clearly the NFL is there. Well, no, because I think the live rights thing is we both know, you know, whether it's our time at ESPN and understanding of being the priority, which it should have been, but they're treating it like cocaine.

And they are cutting it up as much as they possibly can. And they're putting it on every single corner. And you're like, I still have an NBC streaming subscription. I'm like, how did that happen?

And when they did that last round of packages, it's like they don't even care. And it's actually kind of smart. It's like, why are we doing deals with two or three networks? Put it on eight and everybody will get their little piece and that'll drive up the price. And I always wonder if there's a moment in time where it's like we did too much of it and it actually kind of hurt it.

I don't know. I don't know. I wondered that as well. And then I was so excited. There was a black Friday game. I was like, Hey, I apparently they could have the NFL every day of the week. Yeah. Three Thanksgiving games. It was like, wait, the Raiders are playing. I get to watch, uh, Aiden O'Connell. I'll never, it's a chief's team that doesn't care. I'm in. Do you guys remember that Denver Thursday night or two years ago? The Colts, right? Denver Colts. I was in Vermont. I was in a hotel room.

I'm watching it on my laptop because I couldn't get Prime on the TV. And it was one of the worst things I've ever watched. And I remember this amazing, empowering moment where I went, I'm going to turn this off. Yeah.

Like, I don't have to watch. I think they've done a better job with the Thursday schedule this year. Thursday schedule is way better. It's Packers Lions on Thursday. That's the other thing the NFL does. The NFL is like, as soon as you get a couple of games, you're like, we're going to give you some really weak product. Yeah. The first. Well, even like the Christmas games, the games are pretty good. Well, Casey Pittsburgh might actually matter. The nice thing about the NFL doing their Christmas thing is that Goodell told us that it was because football is family.

I'll say this. It really bothered me that the NBA got rid of Thanksgiving games and that they're so scared of the NFL now. Well, what about the Thursday TNT thing? Like we have to wait basically now. And look, I used to love betting on Aaron Brooks at UVA in college when it was the Virginia Thursday night ACC thing. Like that was my shit.

And that was one of the great college games. And it was so awesome to have that on a Thursday. And now again, everyone's just so terrified of them, but I thought the NBA, I thought it was nice to have those two. And instead they have 15 games on a Wednesday. You can't watch, you know, as you can't watch all of them at the same time. And I just, I don't know, like, I feel like they've moved too far away. They already got the TV deal. It's not like, Oh, ratings are down. People always love to do this with the email. The ratings are down. Well, who cares? They just signed an 11 year deal. You think they give a shit?

Like they got the money already. So put more games on times when I want to watch. I don't even know what ratings being down means. Cause every time it happens, then the TV deal triples the previous one. I don't either. I don't know. I've never been a ratings guy when you have them. No, I'm just like when it became like a thing about, Oh, ratings are down 12%. I was like, all right. I like fastest growing show in America. Oh, that's a good one. There was a couple of shows at ESPN that just were at a zero and

And they were ramping up. Or they replaced the worst show possible. Yeah. Right. And then I'd be like, who keeps track of fasting show in America? That would seem like a huge deal. It's like, well, if you start at zero, who can really say that? I have one more for you. Yeah. Would you rather watch 90s NBA players at the TNT desk after a Wizards Hornets game or an MSNBC panel after the election? Can I pass up both?

I got one more for you. Yellowstone or Landman? Early Yellowstone, there's a version of events where if I had moved out here, I would have modeled my entire thing after Rip. Dually, super inefficient gasoline, the wind visor, hat probably, would definitely get my ass kicked more than Rip did. But

We can be a certain age, but this is all a little make-believe, I would hope, some of us. So yeah, early Yellowstone rip is really high up there for me. Although I think the show, its tentacles went into a bunch of different directions there. I love Landman. Have you watched? I've seen the clips. I've not dug in yet. Landman is unbelievable. It's Billy Bob Thornton clearing out LaMelo on the Charlotte Hornet style.

He's just like, can I shoot 35 times today? And Taylor Sheridan's like, you can. And Allie Larder comes in and she's like, can I just be like a way crazier Varsity Blues older person version of that? He's like, absolutely. And then they're like, should we do stuff with the daughter that's kind of inappropriate with older characters on the show? And Taylor Sheridan's like, done.

And then things blow up every once in a while. It's great. Where are you with Jon Hamm texting? Can you text him after an episode? I would not. I would not. Yeah, but I think that's like a real... I would text him if I liked it, but I wouldn't be like, I don't know about episode four. Well, I didn't expect you to do that. That would actually be an amazing friendship. The funniest thing is... Did you realize you peaked?

The funniest thing is Demi Moore's in this show. Good for her. I actually like what Sheridan's casting is awesome. She doesn't have any lines. Oh, I haven't watched it. I think she's had like five lines in four episodes, but they make it seem like she's in it. But she's kind of like Joel Embiid on the Sixers where it's like, is that he's not playing again?

Um, so I don't, I don't know whether they were doing her a favor or she couldn't be for the first five episodes or what's going on. Maybe it's a deal. We want your comeback story to be this, but you don't have to do anything. I haven't watched it. I'm in a, I'm in a deficit here. I really liked it, but you do watch old succession episodes.

Yeah, I love it. I think I had an epiphany recently where it has surpassed everything else is my favorite show. And like we could all go with The Wire and Sopranos and I love Mad Men. I loved it. But there's something about succession where the show found a way to put stuff in it that it didn't need. Like I'll use a small example here. I promise not to go too long on it. But the election night episode where they already have everything they need. Right. It's going to be this close election thing.

The Roys are going to have to be put in a situation where they're going to have to make this decision and call the election for Mencken. And Shiv is going to fight against him. So they've got the back and forth. And Tom has just lost in all of it. But the fact that in that dramatic, I don't know, hour-long show, but in that moment, it's a few minutes, that Greg gets wasabi from...

on something so that their data guy like their Nate Silver yeah wasabi in his eyes and Greg is dumping lemon flavored LaCroix into his eyes and in the script Greg is yelling it's not that lemony it's just a hint of lemon yeah

The brilliance to be able to write like all the stuff that matter. And that, that episode could have not had that. And it still would have been a great episode and the tension of the election night. And now what's at stake and how wrong they could have got it and everything that develops off of that, that they were like, let's just have a moment where Greg gets wasabi in the data guy's eyes.

It's just not a lot of shows. It's great. So you've been binging succession. I've been binging Sopranos and I might have to, I, I, I did the full circle. I started on like writer at the end of season four, went all the way through to finish. Cause there was a marathon. I'm like, all right, I want to keep watching. And I got to the end and I was like,

Season one. And then now my, and my wife is just furious now. She's like, what the really, again, you just did this two years ago. So maybe I need to shift the succession. Cause I feel the same way about the Sopranos that you do about succession where I can just watch the same episode over and over again and just learn, find new things. You know what I love on a rewatch? And I think AJ was awesome. Yeah, he really was. He was so good. AJ got booed.

That doesn't seem very nice. He didn't know. Well, let's, let's end with this. How many cities could you have actually lived in? And I mean, actual cities, they can't be like, you can't say, right. Like cities that have to have at least one sports team. How many could you have a sports team? You have to have at least one. Yeah. Hartford's out. That's right. Hartford was going to be one of my go-tos. Uh,

Well, I always wanted to move to Manhattan Beach. Accomplished. I did want to live here. It was close, but I could live here. I love it here. Great group of friends. I've just never had a bad time coming to Colorado. Wyoming, we're 0 for 1. I just got that one. For me, Boston and LA, which I've already done. I absolutely could live here. I really like it here. What about San Antone? Texas, I'm out. Chicago? Chicago.

The extreme weather, I'm out. That's why I love Boston. Seattle, if they had an NBA team, I'd really consider it. And that's about it. It would take a lot to get me to leave LA. On Thanksgiving, it was 70 degrees. What about where the Panthers play? Where's that? I don't know.

So that's it. So you could move here, but you would. Well, once you said NBA town, it screwed up my whole St. Bart's thing. I didn't say NBA. You could have any team. No, because I think. Cause some people are like Nashville's getting momentum now. No. Cause you guys think I bought this boat for like luxury purposes and it's actually my exit strategy. St. Bart's rye boat captain.

NBA pod once a week to cover the boat excise tax. From the boat? No. It just needs something to cover the taxes, which I know I'm not supposed to bring up anymore. So you'd have the boat in St. Barts. I don't know. I would live there. But you'd have YouTube TV? Yeah. Unless they do some weird thing of like, are you here permanently? Because you just keep clicking on visiting.

This would all lead to you disappear. And we do like an eight episode ringer podcast thing about what happened to you. There was a South of France thing where I was looking at something on Zillow where I was like, I could just have the worst schedule ever and do NBA pods from here. Like at five in the morning, I don't have anything telling me I can't do it. And then, um, I think something came up and I was like, I can't, what was the shortest amount of time where you decided that you were flying somewhere and

That wasn't in this country. And then you were actually going on the plane. All right. This is actually kind of funny because when I flew to Reykjavik in Iceland, the flight from Minneapolis to Reykjavik is like five hours, 445. And I was like, dude, if I meet just some smoke show from Reykjavik, like I could just

It's not that bad of flight. It's two and a half to Minneapolis from LA. So you could live in Minnesota. You got the Timberwolves. No, I could live in LA and I could commute through and then I could be in Reykjavik. We'd split time.

You went through this thought process. I just couldn't. It was like you sit in the... I remember when I flew to Greece once, I was all pumped up and I turned to the guy next to me. I was like, what do we got? Like six, seven hours here? Because I was so used to the East Coast Europe thing. The guy's like 11. I went, fuck. I have not mentally prepared myself for 11. So what was the fastest you've gone on a trip though? Right. So that was...

That was the Iceland one. Once I sat down and I saw the thing on the graphic, I'm like, 445? Should I look at property? Yeah. And it was all because it wasn't seven hours. It was under five. It was really stupid. I mean, all these things are stupid that I do. San Sebastian, applying for a job. Do you tell people when you're all of a sudden on your way to some country? Are there five people you're like, hey...

Just FYI, I'm going to be in Spain for a while. No, I actually was in New Zealand hopping on this prop plane over Milford Sound, and you had to sign all these waivers. And I was like, I probably should tell somebody. So I remember I forwarded my trust and will to my brother, and I was like, hey, I'm in New Zealand. I was like, did you get that email? And he's like, what the fuck are you doing right now? He's like, are you all right? I was like, no, I'm fine. I'm going to where they fill more of the rings.

You're like, so Scoot Hennerson gets 10%. You get 40. 5% to Yoka just so you can buy another horse. I just hope Scoot gets a second contract and he won't need any of my money. Last thing. What's your prediction for the Denver Nuggets this season? How many rounds? I don't know. I don't know what you're trading unless you just pull the plug on Michael Porter Jr. and you think it's an upgrade.

You look at the contracts, it's got to be Porter. Who's the impactful person that then makes you better? Because Gordon, like I love Gordon on this team so much. I don't know that I would. Actually, there's no version of him I would like as much as this one because of Jokic and the baseline stuff and all that stuff.

Well, the other thing is it's harder to make trades now, which I didn't... I'm still kind of figuring out the machinations because we got to get ready for when we start doing fake trades in about a month. Yeah, but it's not even what the penalties are in place. It's the fear of what the next one will do to you. But even also just matching the contracts and be like, no, no, you actually can't do that because you're over this apron. So you can only... I didn't get into sports to actually have to figure out fucking math. I'll tell you that much. And it's the most confusing it's ever been. But like even...

You look at it and you go, well, why wouldn't they trade Michael Porter for Zach Levine? That would be an interesting trade, right? And it's like, no, you can't because then you got to give him Zeke Najee. It's a hypothetical. Some Porter fans, huh? Jimmy Butler's another one. I think it's a matchup thing. Like, I think some teams still have real, like, question mark. There's some teams that want to close small all the time. Like, I'm noticing it more and more where teams will just, like, match each other with small lineups. I'm like, here we go again. So...

It depends on the draw, but they're certainly not the favorites. But here's Phoenix, who's falling apart again. Well, how many West teams do you really like? Because for me, it's like assuming check comes back, which we have no idea. OKC is the only one I feel great about. Yeah, Dallas is turning it around. They're going to be good, but I don't know if they're locked in. It was a two seed. But if it were Dallas, Denver, I mean, it also has to see how it looks in March and April, but

I'm trying to think of a single team in the West that would be psyched to see Jokic. I'm going to say the answer is zero, but okay. See would be, you know, they're just like, take your 40. We'll take out everybody else. We have a way better team than you. And I, that'd be a really tough one.

So I would have OKC and then I just think it's TBD. I liked Phoenix and we went big on them in the over-unders and Durant's been hurt twice now already. We're not even in- When they're together, they're really good. Mid-December. Yeah, but it might be one of those- They did a good job, yeah. One of the things I'm thinking about with this season is just, do we count on these mid-30s guys too much? Forget about LeBron, the age he's at, but do we even- Curry 36, Durant,

And the 2007 draft on and on. And we see like the best case version of them when they're actually playing. But the season's like too fucking hard now. All these teams are good. The style of play is really hard to play and flying up and down. Then you got four playoff rounds. It's like maybe, you know, somebody like Curry, how realistic is it that he could get through a season like this where he's carrying the burden he's carrying and then win four straight playoff rounds? No way. Look, I want to defend Curry all the time. The second player isn't good enough. I don't even know who it is.

For a playoff team to get through multiple rounds in this West two years ago or two and a half years ago, they barely got there and they got a lot of luck. But, you know, I just wonder if this is the year where it's like Boston Cleveland. Okay. See these young, talented, hungry teams. And it's just, those are going to be the three. I think Cleveland's in the conversation though. I believe in them.

I do, but I do think it's going to be tough to close with those two bigs. And that's why they're benching Jared Allen down those stretches. And I think that's what it'll look like. And that's probably their best chance to not. I just don't know how you can play three out with two non-shooters in a game in the playoffs in today's league. But I'm not done with Minnesota. Phoenix is a tough gamble. Denver's in that mix with those teams. You're not done with Minnesota. No. It's December 4th. I'm done if this is the roster. I'm not. Who booed?

I thought you guys all hated Minnesota. They knocked you out last year. There's a lot of transplants in Denver, Bill. I do not like the body language or the ball movement on the Minnesota Timberwolves. You know what I want from you? I don't like the dueling banjos. Your turn, my turn. I'm out. When we get ready, when we do our first NBA Sunday pod, I want your five favorite body language teams.

Five favorite bad body language teams. No, five favorite body language teams. Oh. Like raving about high fives. Oh my God. I thought Golden State was great last night. Everybody was standing. Body language doctor noticed that. OKC, I like when they all do the post-game interview together. Heartwarming. Boston, I think has great stuff. Everybody's pulling for each other. You can see. You can tell which teams like each other. Looks like you already did the segment. Be easy to prep. Hey, Denver, this was great. I'm glad we came.

We got an incredible Jokic game. That was the other reason we came. He delivered. He was great to watch in person. What a treasure. I hope you guys appreciate him. We love being here. Any last words? We'll see you at the gun. We will not see you at Shotgun Willie's. Thank you, Denver. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Kyle Creighton and Steve Cerruti for producing.

Thanks to Rosillo for joining me in Denver. Thanks to Elizabeth Fehrman as well. Thanks to everybody who came out for the show. It was great. Don't forget to check out the ringer.com relaunch. And don't forget third podcast of the week coming Thursday night. Well, after that Packers Lions game and don't forget million dollar picks Packers plus four and a half would love to throw for at least 200 yards, but 200 K and that.

That is a very, very nice parlay. Minus 101 on Fandle, wherever you can find Fandle. That's it. I will see you in 24 hours.