Scottie Scheffler
01:19:29 Share

It's the most magical time of the year, and I'm not talking about Christmas. I'm talking about the NFL season. So make sure you're ready with NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV. Get the most live NFL games all in one place. Right now, you can save $85 when you bundle NFL Sunday Ticket with YouTube TV. Sign up today at youtubetv.com slash Spotify. Device and content restrictions apply. Discount apply to first four months of YouTube TV, then $72.99 a month. Ends August 29th. Terms, restrictions, and embargoes apply. No refunds. If Scotty Scheffler had not been arrested...

he would have won the PGA. Here we go. This is the Skip Bayless Show, episode 114. This, as always, is the undisputed, everything I cannot share with you during the two and a half hour debate show that is undisputed.

Today, I will delve into Scotty Scheffler, best golfer in the world, charged with felony assault of a police officer. Today, I will tell you why I should lie to you about the Dallas Cowboys and I just can't. Today, I will answer several of your sensational questions, including why

What do I do every day after Undisputed for the rest of the day? And finally today, spoiler alert, I will tell you the obvious problem I had with Apple TV's hit season one of Sugar, starring the great Colin Farrell. Spoiler alert. But first up, as always, it is not to be skipped. Look, I know a lot of you aren't huge golf fans.

But what happened to Scotty Scheffler last Friday had zero to do with golf, even though Scotty Scheffler is the number one golfer in the world. No matter what the exact details were or were not of what transpired, Scotty Scheffler was just so wrong to challenge or defy the police detective who was directing traffic that fateful Friday,

Even though Scotty Scheffler obviously was right in what he was trying to explain to said traffic cop. Let me explain. First and foremost, this confrontation had very, very little to do with so many incidents in this country that have cost so many unarmed black people their lives at the hands of white policemen and policewomen. Hopefully...

There's been enough media attention, enough has been focused on this staggering problem that white policemen and policewomen will maybe, hopefully be just a little less trigger happy when dealing with black people they've pulled over or detained or even arrested. The Scottie Scheffler incident involved a white driver, that was Scottie Scheffler, and a white policeman.

So, Scotty Scheffler, if you don't know much of the story, was on his way to Valhalla, which was the site of this year's PGA Championship. It's a major championship, one of four each year. This was about 5 a.m. on Friday morning. He was on his way to work out and do a stretching routine ahead of his tea time. And understand, Scheffler, who was driving himself in a courtesy car...

is driven, driven. He strictly and staunchly follows a routine, as we always say on Undisputed. Scotty Scheffler has that dog in him. He is a baller of a golfer, extremely intense competitor. To me, he has the most major tournament killer in him of any golfer ever.

since Tiger Woods was relatively healthy and slaying field after field after field back in his heyday. But the dog in Scotty Scheffler is beyond Rory or Rom or Kapka, name them. Scotty's got that dog in him, intensely driven. Yet when Scotty Scheffler approached the entrance to Valhalla a week ago Friday morning, here was this traffic cop wearing a yellow safety vest wearing

clearly a traffic cop, signaling for Scotty Scheffler to detour away from Valhalla. There had just been an accident, a tragic accident, that had cost a 69-year-old tournament volunteer his life when he was struck by a tournament minibus on its way to deliver others to work at the tournament. So this traffic cop obviously considered this area now a crime scene

and was turning Scotty Scheffler away from said crime scene. I'm assuming that Scotty Scheffler showed the cop his credential, held it up for him, his player's credential. But I doubt, I seriously doubt, I could be wrong, but I seriously doubt that Scotty played the do-you-know-who-I-am card. By all accounts, Scotty Scheffler is a good guy, humble guy, just an extremely competitive guy who just wanted to get around the trouble himself.

and go work out and stay right on schedule. After all, he was the favorite to win this tournament. He had just won the Masters, this being the PGA, the second major tournament of the year. But now for the irony. Scotty Scheffler is still a relatively faceless new face of golf, mostly unrecognizable to any but diehard golf fans.

Let's just say if this had been Tiger Woods, especially in his heyday, but even Tiger Woods now, surely, surely this cop would have said, oh, Mr. Woods, let me see what I can figure out here. But no, I don't know exactly how hard Scotty Scheffler pushed back. I don't know exactly what words, maybe magic words he said. I don't know exactly what the cop said back to him.

that could have infuriated Scotty. I have no idea what the back and forth dialogue consisted of. So let's take a quick look at Scotty's background. Did he grow up a spoiled, rich, white kid? Okay, so he spent his first six years in New Jersey. His dad was a stay-at-home dad. He's got three sisters, Scotty does. Mom was the chief operating officer of a Manhattan law firm.

The family moved out of New Jersey to Dallas, Texas, right after 9-11 happened. So Scotty did go to a high school with at least a rich kid reputation. It's Highland Park High School. I know it well from my days in Dallas. I have a lot of friends who went to Highland Park High School. It gave us Clayton Kershaw. It gave us Matt Stafford. But I will say this.

Scotty grew up from six years of age on in Dallas, learning to play golf at Royal Oaks Country Club, a little more of a middle-of-the-road country club, not a super-rich country club. That would be Dallas Country Club or Brook Hollow. So obviously the family didn't go there. They went to Royal Oaks. Again, a little more middle-classy country club, if you will. And for what it's worth...

Scotty Scheffler is, by all accounts, a Christian. He's a Catholic, faithful member, driving force of the Tour Bible Study. Okay, so now let's take a quick look at the traffic cop. Detective Brian Gillis looks to be in his mid-40s, graduate of the University of Phoenix, staff sergeant in the U.S. Army, worked in New Orleans for a while before moving to Louisville in 2007.

owns and operates a collision investigation company, did receive the governor's award for impaired driving enforcement. So clearly, Detective Gillis was signaling for Scotty Scheffler. No, no, no, no, no. To go that way, not this way, that way.

And Scotty Scheffler was pretty frantically, I'm assuming, trying to explain, no, no, no, no, no, I'm a player. I need to go around the trouble. I need to get into the player's parking lot. I don't know exactly what transpired from that moment forward. We do know via the mayor of Louisville that Detective Gillis did not activate his body cam as the conversation escalated.

into what Scotty Scheffler finally eventually termed just a big misunderstanding. And I'm sure it was. Now, reportedly, Scotty Scheffler wanted to drive up onto a sidewalk that would allow him to get around whatever issues were still remaining from the tragic fatality and then get down into the player's parking lot at Valhalla. And reportedly, Detective Gillis said

As Scotty began to accelerate forward, actually reached, I believe this is accurate, this is what was reported, through the driver's side window into the vehicle and tried to move the steering wheel away. Well, now, as Scotty Scheffler eventually said later, we've got complete chaos. So somehow Detective Gillis lost his balance and

and he was dragged. I don't know how far he was dragged, some short distance, and he did suffer some injuries that did require him to be taken to hospital. I have no idea how serious those injuries were or are, but of course, at that point,

Scotty Scheffler was told by other policemen to get out of his vehicle. He was handcuffed. He was taken downtown to the police station. He was booked. He was detained, finally released without bail.

He did make it back to his tee time only because all the tee times for Friday had been pushed back an hour and a half because of the tragic fatality that hung over, obviously, the entire golf tournament at that point. So Scotty Scheffler on just pure adrenaline, I assume, played great on Friday, but obviously being emotionally drained as he slept into Saturday morning,

Saturday afternoon, he fell apart, especially on the front nine. Then he returned, reinvigorated on Sunday, played great again. Look, if Scotty Scheffler had not been arrested, he would have won the PGA. He would have been two for the first two in this year's four majors, which brings me to my point. Scotty Scheffler should have done exactly what the traffic cop was telling him to do because...

You rarely, if ever, win with those guys. Scotty Scheffler should have gone the other way, then pulled over. I'm sure he had his cell phone with him. Should have called somebody on his team or somebody inside Valhalla at PGA headquarters and simply said, hey, I have a problem. Can somebody please come out and help me? Simple as that. Obviously, I'm no Scotty Scheffler, but trust me on this.

I have dealt in my career, my lengthy career at golf tournaments and sporting events all over the globe with these kinds of traffic cops, dozens and dozens. I can't tell you how many times, especially trying to get into these remote country clubs where they play major tournaments. These wing foots in New York, these Shinnecocks out on the tip of Long Island, they're not made for

for crowds. They're made for elite country clubbers who get there on two-lane streets because there's never any traffic to get to Valhalla except when you bring the PGA to Valhalla. Then all of a sudden, the two lanes approaching Valhalla become huge crowd control issues. And if there's any kind of incident, see Tragic Fatality,

You have a nightmare on your hand. You have a gridlocked nightmare on your hand. Golfers are going to miss their tee times. I've been there and done this so many times elsewhere when the smallest little fender bender created chaos that reverberated all day through the golf tournament.

I've been there at British Opens in Scotland and England when the only way in and out was a little meandering two lane. I've been there at so many big sporting events, sea to shining sea, and dealt with so many of these traffic cops. Nope, nope, you can't. Wait, I have a credential. I got a press pack. Nope, you got to go this way. Go this way.

You just have to give it up because in the end, it's just not worth it. They are in charge. They are feeling empowered. This is their one chance, their one moment to play God, to control lives. Maybe they don't make a lot of money. Maybe they're frustrated with their lives. So they want to make yours just as miserable. So you just got to let them. You defy, you lose.

I show my credential. Nope, this way. Okay, okay, okay, you got me. It's not worth it. Turn the other cheek, Scotty. Go the other way. Take back the power. This too shall pass. Every time I've been pulled over by a policeman or policewoman, and I've been pulled over my fair share in my life and times.

I have always taken the highest road because it ain't worth it to take the low one. Yes, sir. No, sir. Yes, ma'am. No, ma'am. I was wrong. Yes, I was. Yes, I was wrong. You got me occasionally. Heck, many times it's paid off for me. Just try to be as nice as you can be because they have the power. Even the one time.

I got pulled over in my hometown of Oklahoma City. Not that I didn't get stopped for speeding when I was in high school, but since I've gone away, go back every summer, July or August for a week, visit friends and family. This was 10 years ago. My wife Ernestine was with me. It was early evening. Sun was still up. We were on our way back to our hotel, but I was driving the only rent car that was left in the lot,

when we landed very late at night on the previous Friday night. It was a Mustang with black rims and tinted windows. Didn't have a big engine. It had like a sewing machine engine. It was a putt-putt, but it looked badass. So I exited the highway, no problem, turned left onto Surface Street, looked in my mirror. Cops behind me with this light on. Huh? Huh?

So I pull over on the first residential street and I stop and he pulls up and he stops. And all of a sudden I see a second police car pull up behind him and stop. And I'm saying, what is going on here? So my wife, Ernestine, if you don't know this already, is a fiery fighter. She was outraged. What is this?

You weren't speeding? No, I wasn't speeding at all. My car is not capable of speeding. I thought for a second and I said to her, I think we just got profiled. And before the words had barely left my mouth, before I could reach across and hold on to Ernestine, she was throwing open her passenger side door and exiting our vehicle, outraged. No, I'm trying to hold on to her. No, no, no.

You just can't. You can't. So as fate would have it, two police people had exited their vehicle, the one parked just behind us. One side on my side was a white male police officer. On the other side was a black female police officer, both of them exiting, approaching. And to the black female police officer's credit, she said these words to my wife, Ernestine, get your ass back in the car.

Because you can't get out. You know and I know you can't get out. It's just too dangerous for all parties involved. Especially if you're outraged. I get goosebumps when I'm talking about it. Fortunately, for all involved, my wife Ernestine came to her senses and got her ass back in the car. And I rolled down my window, license in hand, rental registration in hand.

Yes, sir, handed them to the white male cop who took one look and then looked at me. And I guess fortunately, he recognized me. And I guess fortunately, he knew, quote unquote, who I was without me having to say, do you know who I am? I'm no Scotty Scheffler. But I could see the look on his face change.

And he said, look, we've had some problems in this neighborhood. And I knew exactly what he was talking about. Yep, we had gotten profiled. That's fine. I get it. I accept it. He didn't even go back and check, run any check on my license. He just quietly handed it back to me and said, what brings you to Oklahoma City? And I said, we're visiting family and friends. And he said, great.

I hope you have a great rest of your stay here. And that was that. We were very lucky. Could have escalated. Could have become a big misunderstanding. And we could have wound up downtown being booked and detained. And how would that have looked? It's just not worth it. First question comes from Adam from Ohio. How many teams in the NFC East...

are making the playoffs next season? Look, Adam, from my heart, from my soul, this is truly a painful question for me with an excruciatingly obvious answer. I cannot tell a lie. I wish I could, but I cannot tell a lie. I can't fake it.

to protect my cowboy-loving brand. Oh, Skip's a cowboy fan. Skip hangs in there with those cowboys. Skip supports those cowboys. Skip, skip, skip. Skip it. Just skip it. My ratings are ratings at Fox, in part, maybe large part, depend on the success of the Dallas Cowboys. I'll admit it. And I have truly loved this team with all my heart and soul.

Since I attended my first game when I was 10 years of age, I attended my first game when I was 10. Never recovered from it. But at this point, I'm sorry. I just have to be honest because I've seen enough. I have suffered enough. No more Cowboy stars in my eyes. No more just wait until next year. No more Super Bowl, here they come. No more blind loyalty. No more in Jerry I trust.

Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, no more. The Dallas Cowboys are not making next year's playoffs. The Dallas Cowboys are not winning next year's NFC East. The Dallas Cowboys are not even going to win more games than they lose next year. I have them going eight and nine. I'll say it again, eight and nine.

And I'll be honest with you, I'm actually wearing metallic blue glasses. I'm looking through metallic blue glasses when I make that pick. Seriously, it wouldn't surprise me. It would not surprise me at all if they lose at Atlanta, a game I have them winning in the eight. It won't surprise me if they lose at home to Baker Mayfield in the Tampa Bay Bucs later in the year.

I'm giving him that game of the eight that I predicted that they would win. But if they lose those two swing games, they could easily finish 6-11. My point is to you, Washington is way better. Jaden Daniels, I think he's really good. Maybe not as good as Keyshawn Johnson thinks he's going to be, but he'll be really good really quickly. Their coach used to be my defensive coordinator. He was really good as a head coach, as you know, in Atlanta, Tennessee.

Got his team all the way to 28-3 up on Brady and Belichick in the Super Bowl. And you know what happened. But he did that. Did my ex-defensive coordinator. They've made so many nice moves. They're under such strong, smart, new ownership and management, including Magic Johnson. Would it shock me if they won, I don't know, seven games? Would it shock me if Daniel Jones returns today?

Throwing to Malik Nabors, and all of a sudden the Giants are pretty good. Just two years ago when Daniel Jones stayed upright the whole year, they actually won a playoff game over Kirk Cousins at Minnesota. Could they win seven, eight games? Sure they could. Is it possible my Dallas Cowboys could finish last in the East next year? Yes, it is. I'm here to tell you. Eight wins could turn into six.

If I take off my metallic blue colored glasses and Adam from Ohio, the answer to your question is very simple and very obvious. Only one team from the NFC East will make the playoffs next year. And that obviously is the Philadelphia Eagles who will run away with this division, run away with it, including, I fear, I'm just being honest.

For once, I'm being honest with myself. I'm looking in the mirror. I think the Eagles will beat the Cowboys twice next year. They're way better than the Cowboys as we speak. In fact, I have the Eagles winning six more games than the Dallas Cowboys. Six more games. Commanders, Giants. Is it possible that the Dallas Cowboys, once quarterbacked by Don Meredith, Roger Staubach, Troy Aikman...

Finish last in the East? It's highly possible. Trust me on this. I'm just being painfully honest. So every morning when I arrive here on the Fox lot, FS1, come up from the parking garage, elevator opens, nobody's around. It's four o'clock in the morning. I always see the overnight guard, Derek. He's a huge Cowboy fan from New York. Many, many Cowboy fans from New York.

like so many who just fell in love watching the Cowboys on TV with those uniforms, that star on the side of the helmet, that shade of metallic blue playing off the white and the silver stars in his eyes. Derek, huge Cowboy fan. So every morning he gets up from behind his post and his desk, comes over, greets me, how you feeling? How was your run this morning? And then he walks me to my dressing room door and

And all along the way, every single morning, he's doing fan talk to me. You know, what if we, how about if we, do you think if we, he's just looking for a shred, a glimmer of hope, of off-season hope. He even asked me the other day, hey, do you know when they release the dates of exactly when they're going to be at training camp out in Oxnard? It's, I don't know, what, a couple hours from here?

Derek wants to go out to Oxnard this year to see his Cowboys. Want to come? Would you come with me? Eh, I don't know. Probably would have last year. I thought they were going to the Super Bowl last year. Derek's just a big fan. For him, hope springs eternal. But I've tried to tell him, Derek, I've just hit the wall. I can't even humor Derek anymore. It has come to this for me with this franchise.

Hope springs infernal. It does. That's what it feels like, infernal. My Dallas Cowboys haven't been to an NFC championship game since the 1995 season, the season in which I wrote a book about that season called Hellbent.

What a team that was. They won in spite of themselves, all of their shenanigans, off-field issues, internal issues. They won it all fairly easily because they were just so good. Won the NFC Championship game that year, won the Super Bowl over Pittsburgh that year out in Phoenix. And now it feels like we're farther than ever from an NFC Championship game.

Yet and still, the Derricks of the world, the delusional Cowboy fans, I'm sure they just keep saying, next year is our year, except for me. Would it help Undisputed Ratings if I were just wildly optimistic the way I was just a year ago when we had signed Stephon Gilmore, Brandon Cooks,

I even liked our draft because I love a later round choice. By the name of Deuce Vaughn, I thought he was going to be a third down difference maker because I watched him year after year at Kansas State destroy my Oklahoma Sooners, and I said, we got Deuce. Say deuces to the Eagles. But that, as you well know, did not materialize. Little Deuce couldn't get untracked early on, and he got lost on the bench. Would it help our ratings if...

Cowboy fan Skip started to spew bogus hope. I guess so. I assume so. But one year ago, sitting right here right now, one year ago, I truly believed we were going to the Super Bowl. I didn't go so far as to say we'd win it because I didn't want to jinx it. I just thought that was a Super Bowl team. And right now, as I sit here, I truly believe we're headed for the toilet bowl. I cannot tell a lie.

I am sick and tired of talking about this, but we were down in a home playoff game against the youngest team in the playoffs, youngest team in the league, a seven seed. We were a two seed against a seven seed. We were down 27 to nothing before halftime. We were down 48 to 16 early in the fourth quarter. There's something rotten to the core about that, about that team last year.

I'll say it again. You can't go get blown out at San Francisco and get blown out at Buffalo. Heck, you can't go to Arizona and lose to Joshua Dobbs. You just can't. That all happened last year, and then we got much worse. Think about this. Then we got much worse. We did next to nothing in free agency. Well, we did bring back Ezekiel Elliott. Once upon a time, Zeke was the best running back in the NFL. That was his rookie year.

He was a little worse his second year and slightly worse his third year. And we gave him all that money, made him the highest paid running back in the league. And now entering year nine, Zeke is more washed than my oldest pair of Levi's. And he just might be our best running back at this moment. We could have signed Derrick Henry. He lives in Dallas, Texas in the offseason.

We could have drafted Blake Corham, but we chose not to. We could have drafted Marshawn Lynch. I'm sorry, Lloyd. Hope he turns into Marshawn Lynch. Marshawn Lloyd, every time I turned on the USC games to watch Caleb, I said, that running back, he can play. Nope, nope, nope again. The Eagles won free agency, as you well know. They won the draft, in my humble estimation.

And then the Eagles got every single key piece on their roster signed, sealed and delivered. Every one of them.

We still haven't signed CeeDee Lamb, our best player, our one baller, the one guy I really trust. He's got that dog in him, and he's holding out at this point of the OTAs because he's still unsigned. Eagles did everybody because I guess the Eagles salary cap is, what, five times the size of Dallas's? That's what it looks like. That's what it feels like. That's what it smells like.

CD not signed, and I continue to hear speculation that Jerry is working on a deal to extend Dak Prescott, my worst nightmare. He's two and five in playoff games as Dak Prescott, and we're going to extend our misery, throw great money after bad? Really? I was thinking last night about a guy I knew pretty well, a guy I covered. Danny White tried to follow in the footsteps of

The winged cleats of Roger Staubach, greatest Cowboy quarterback ever. Danny White was pretty good. Then I started thinking, well, Danny White was better than Dak Prescott. He was. I know the team was really good, but he got those teams to three straight NFC Championship games. Danny White did that. Yeah, they lost on the road at Philly. They lost the catch game to Dwight Clark and Joe Montana at Candlestick.

They lost the next year, strike year, at Washington in the NFC Championship game, but he got them to all three. That's better than Dak's ever thought about being. Cowboys didn't draft one single player I think will immediately make them much better. Maybe that Cooper Beebe kid, the third rounder out of Kansas State, if he can figure out how to play center, maybe he can be pretty good, but...

I'm looking at the L's on this schedule. I'm sorry, at Cleveland. I don't think they can beat Deshaun in the opener. I just don't. I think they'll lose to Baltimore, lose at Pittsburgh, lose at home to Detroit. They should have last year. Obviously lose to San Francisco, lose to Philly the first time, lose to Houston, lose to Cincinnati, lose at Philly. That's nine. The dubs, the wins I got, New Orleans, at Giants, at Atlanta.

At Washington, Giants on Thanksgiving. Yeah, that's a W. At Carolina, Tampa, Washington. Yeah, I got them beating Giants in Washington twice each, and I don't know if they're capable of doing that. I'm not sure about that, but I'm going to look at the bright side. I'm going to give them those dubs, but that's eight and nine. I'm sorry. I cannot tell a lie, especially to myself.

We're driven by the search for better. But when it comes to hiring, the best way to search for a candidate isn't a search at all. Don't search, match with Indeed. If you need to hire, you need Indeed. Indeed is your matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors, according to Indeed data, and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates for

Thank you.

This is Jackson from Georgia. What is the Cowboys' single biggest game of the season next year? Easy. November 10th.

Home 435 Eastern, Eagles at Cowboys. Make or break? I believe it will be break. Vance from Houston asks, if all players go to Cancun after being eliminated, where would you go? That's an interesting question. You know, I've been blessed, Vance. I've been able to go all over the world, Hawaii and the Bahamas and various islands and

various destinations in Mexico, including Cancun. I've been there, I've done that. Of all those places, my favorite is actually within the continental United States. All those places, for me, to tell you the truth, they're just too far to fly. I have flown, whew, for my first 20 years in this business, I will match my frequent flyer miles with anybody. And I finally hit the flying wall.

to the point that if I can get my car and drive from where we live on the west side of Los Angeles for

hour and a half, two hours to Palm Springs, I'll take Palm Springs. It is sensational. For me, there's more to do in Palm Springs and I like the weather even more than I like any of those island venues, any of those Cancun, Puerto Vallarta, Cabo venues in Mexico and I've been there and done all of that. I'll take Palm Springs. But if you wanna know the truth about me, Vance, as I said, the longer I live, the less I want to travel,

But here's where I've really been blessed. I actually love where I live. I love our place. I love our giant TV screens. I love our millions of channels, movies, series, all at your fingertips. You can't get that at resorts. Can't get it. We love Friday nights to watch whatever we want to watch. And we have every choice under the sun tonight.

Speaking of sun, I love the LA weather. I just do. I love the golf club I belong to, Brentwood. I love my friends here in LA. I love the restaurants here in LA. I really do. I know I get a bad rap, but I love many of them. And I love spending time with my quote unquote daughter, my Hazel, our Maltese. I love spending time with my wife, Ernestine, at home. I just do. So when it's time for vacation...

I don't say 1-2-3 Cancun. I say 1-2-3 home, and I mean that. So speaking of 1-2-3 Cancun, quick thought about a game that I watched last Saturday night featuring an Oklahoma City Thunder team I fell in love with. I've told you before, found it hard to love the KD Westbrook James Harden Thunder, the 2012 NBA Finals Thunder.

Because they just weren't very lovable. They were already starting to be at each other's throats. They had three future MVPs. That's impossibly great. But I just couldn't get my arm around those teams. And finally, KD and Russ fell completely apart. And KD said, I'll never win a championship.

With that man as my primary decision maker and my point guard. And you know what happened. He went to Golden State and won two in which he was the finals MVP. Way to go, Kevin. I didn't condemn him for that. I applauded him. But I fell in love with this team because it was really a basketball team. It had a star in Shea Gilgis Alexander, whom I pushed for MVP this year because he deserved it. He didn't have a co-star. He didn't have a Jamal Murray.

He didn't have a Kyrie. It was SGA, SOS. When it was time, he had to be the man, and he often was for a team that won the West in the regular season, 57-25. I did pick the Thunder to upset the Dallas Mavericks, and they gave the Mavericks all they wanted to the point that right after the closeout game six in Dallas last Saturday night, Kyrie Irving said,

On ABC, in his stand-up on-court interview, that was as hard a series as I've ever been in. Whew! That was validation for my thunder. But allow me to get this off my chest because I'm not sure I'm ever going to quite get over this. With 2.5 seconds left, my thunder had a one-point lead, but Dallas did have the basketball.

win and you force a game seven back in Oklahoma City. And I would like to think that that time, that game seven, Oklahoma City would have beaten Luka and Kyrie and company. I'll never know because it did not happen. Because my best player, my smartest player, the leader of my team, the most experienced star on my team, Shea Gilgis-Alexander,

went flying by P.J. Washington and hacked him right across the hand as P.J. was about to release a three-point shot from the corner. I have no idea what would possess my MVP, one of the smartest players in the league, my unquestioned leader, to commit that blunder at that moment in that game. I cannot process it. I cannot fathom it.

I cannot reconcile my deepest emotions with what happened because it makes no sense to me. Yes, P.J. Washington had made two threes in that fourth quarter. Yes, he had made a lot of big shots in that series to the point that after game two, in an off-day interview, Shea Gilgis Alexander said of P.J. Washington, we have to turn that water off.

maybe that's what he was thinking as he left his feet. I don't know how far back SGA goes, but I go way back, and I do remember from that very corner in that same arena a shot that Vince Carter, half man, half amazing, made against a team that I love, my San Antonio Spurs, back in April of 2014. Do you remember the game?

It was the first game of a first-round series in Dallas, so it was game three. And at the buzzer, half-man, half-amazing, over Manu Ginobili, who was all over him, hotly, heavily contested the shot. Vince Carter made it from the corner to win the game at the buzzer and bring down the house.

and send me sprawling onto my carpet in New York City where I lived at that time working at ESPN. Yeah, I thought about that shot. I don't know if SGA thought about it also, but something, some deep, dark demon lurking in his psyche possessed him to hack P.J. Washington across the hand.

It was an obvious foul. There was none of this, well, the ball is gone. It was irrelevant contact. No, it was relevant. Yet my young coach, Mark Dagnall, was possessed to the point that he couldn't control himself and he challenged. I knew as soon as he challenged, there's no way you're going to win this one. There is no way. And he lost his last time out, which was...

took away Oklahoma City's possibility of calling said timeout to advance the ball to midcourt and get a potential game-winning three. Instead, you know what happened. P.J., to his credit, he marches right to the free throw line and he goes, swish, swish, brick. Intentional brick because we don't have a timeout. So just throw it up off the glass, bang it off the rim, ricochet it sideways, and

Because even if we get the rebound, we're not going to be able to do anything with it. And we could not game over game set and match to the Dallas Mavericks. So what if SGA flies by but does not contact skin? Does P.J. make that Vince Carter memorial shot from the corner? Maybe. What if he didn't?

I know we were getting bullied on the back boards because Chet Holmgren, I love Chet, is still a stick figure with very little meat on his bones. He was getting ragdolled, especially in the fourth quarter. Is it possible that Dallas would have gotten the offensive rebound because they had six in the fourth quarter alone? Sure, it's very possible.

But is it possible my thunder would have somehow corralled that rebound? Jalen Williams, somebody, Lou Dort, somebody would have fought, scratched, clawed for that rebound. Very possible. And if we had secured a missed shot rebound, we would have been going home to game seven. That one will stick with me a long time. It's up there in my psyche forever.

Demonically, with the shot that Ray Allen made at the buzzer in regulation of game six in Miami in 2013, shot me right in the heart, tied the game. After LeBron had LeBrick to three, long rebound to Chris Bosh, no Tim Duncan in the game, explain, please pop.

Sweet dish to the corner. Ray Allen somehow got his feet just behind the three-point line and launched and ripped my heart out.

I'll never forget that, and I'll never forget the night SGA fouled P.J. Washington. A shock I will never get over or explain. School is back, and Dick's Sporting Goods has what you need to win your year. We've got everything from cleats to sambas, dunks, and more. Plus, the hottest looks from Nike, Jordan, and Adidas. Find your first day fits in-store or online at Dick's.com.

This is Nolan from Sacramento. When you're done with Undisputed, what do you do with the rest of the day? That's an interesting question. Monday, I'll be brief with this, it's always meeting day for me. This past Monday, it was meeting. I had several big meetings I had to attend. Whatever meetings I have, I try to schedule for Monday.

maybe post-show meetings with my man Witt here at FS1, often on Mondays, sometimes on Fridays. Whatever I need to do business-wise, it's always on Monday. Then I try to get home sometime early afternoon, two-ish, three-ish, try to get in an hour and a half of nap because I get up at two o'clock in the morning.

Then I always on Monday lift for an hour and a half. It's usually sort of 4ish to 5.30ish. And then I prep. I read all of our night notes, our night list. I call my man Tyler Korn. We go over what should and should not be in the show. Later I write all my leads or all that I can for the next morning. And then I watch game after game after game. Tuesdays.

I do give myself a little break. I go straight from Undisputed to my golf course, Brentwood Country Club. It is always on Tuesday, Ladies' Day. It's usually pretty crowded. I mostly hit balls. If I'm lucky, I get to play nine holes on a Tuesday. Remember, I can't play golf on a Saturday or a Sunday. There are just too many games, and frankly, the course is just too crowded. Wednesday,

I immediately leave Undisputed and prep for this show every Wednesday. I tape this show around 11.30 until around 12.30 out here in Los Angeles, Pacific time. I go home, I eat a quick lunch, I take an hour and a half nap, and every Wednesday, without fail, I lift weights for an hour and a half.

Thursday, I give myself a little break after a very long, hard Wednesday, and I go to the golf course, straight from Undisputed to the golf course. If I am really, really lucky on a Thursday and nobody's out at Brentwood Country Club, I might be able to squeeze in a three-hour 18-hole round. If I'm really lucky, I'm usually not. Maybe I get in 12 holes. That's more likely.

There's a loop you can play on the back nine of 10, 11, and 12 that comes back toward the clubhouse. Usually it's 12. My golf is my salvation. It's my escape. Brentwood is my sanctuary. My only shots are right after the shows on Tuesday and Thursday.

Friday can be hair day if I need to get my hair trimmed, if I need to get some highlights in my hair, I do it on Friday. Often there are more meetings on Friday. If I ever have any doctor, dentist, I always try to do them on Friday. If I'm really lucky, Ernestine and I squeeze in a movie later Friday afternoon, 2 to 3ish.

And then I go straight home after that and I lift without fail. I lift weights, usually around five or six o'clock on a Friday evening, which leads me into date night. We watch Jeopardy that we've taped the five Jeopardy episodes or whatever movie or TV series we are most involved in. This is Oliver from Tallahassee.

Are you an inbox zero guy or do you have thousands and thousands of unread emails? Oliver, I am here to publicly state I have zero in my inbox. Maybe three times a day I read and I delete. That should tell you all you need to know about me. And finally, speaking of those lifts, this is Jody from North Carolina. How much can you bench press? Wow.

Jody, I'm sure nobody cares except you, but I do appreciate your question. I am, I'll admit it. I am vainly proud of my strength and I'm proud of my physique because I do do the work. I never miss. I haven't missed a weight workout Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

Since I began lifting in 1982, I have not missed a single day. I've told you before, I've missed a couple of days over that span of cardio, which I do every single day, seven days a week, and I've told those stories. But that's every single day for cardio. This is Monday, Wednesday, Friday, without fail. I've been blessed not to miss a single weight workout because the key at my age and stage of my existence on this planet is

is to stay healthy. Aha, that's my goal. Stay healthy. Stay fit, but stay healthy. If you hurt yourself, you can't lift, you can't run, which brings me to bench pressing, which was never my strong suit from day one. So Jody, just so you get this, my arms are long for my body. I don't know if that's a blessing or a curse.

Basketball, baseball is actually pretty good. Some advantage. I'm 5'11". My arms are way too long to bench press because to be a good bench presser, to be successful at that movement, you have to have a T-Rex kind of body. You have to have short arms and a barrel chest. That's how you power the barbell up with your short explosive arms.

I tried early on in my weightlifting to bench press, talking about the barbell lying down on my back to bench up. I just couldn't do it. Guys who were helping me, guys who were teaching me said, "Your body just wasn't built to bench." I think I maxed out and stopped at 180 pounds. I think it was around 180, which was overpowering to me, overpowered me.

I just couldn't do it. I wasn't built for it. But I did find right away I could bench press with the dumbbells, with the two independent dumbbells. And I believe, this is quite a ways back, but I believe after about five great years of dumbbells, I think I maxed out at getting four reps up, four clean reps at 95 pounds a piece in the dumbbells. I was very proud of that. But...

Soon after, my shoulders began to ache on a daily basis. And I will tell you the truth, they still ache pretty much on a daily basis. I use an ointment, sort of an over-the-counter anti-inflamm topical called Voltaren gel. Voltaren, I do recommend it. I don't get paid by Voltaren, but I'll tell you, I recommend it. I use it every night on my knees and my shoulders because they do hurt.

So what I've found hurts my shoulders the least is to do a standing bench press at my universal where I'm using the pulleys and the handles and I do the bench press this way. And I don't know, it makes me feel strong but I'm probably not very strong that way. But I start off at four plates on the universal and I go to five, six.

seven. And then if I'm feeling really good, I go to eight plates, but I will tell you what I'm doing. I'm doing high reps, my age and stage high reps. I'm doing 30 reps per movement, three sets of 30 at whatever on this one, it's up to six sets. When I do, I do different sort of

depth of it. I can move obviously the handles up and down, the pulleys up and down. So you're hitting your pecs a little different ways, but I'm doing high reps every movement, at least 30 reps every movement. And my pecs end up still looking pretty good and making me feel like I'm still reasonably strong.

my strong suits are my biceps and my lats. So my best movements, my strongest movements by far are any bicep curl and any back pull down or pull, obviously. Those, I'm doing the whole stack of the universal on all my back movements. But bench press, barbell bench press, nope. Jody, you got me, no.

Okay, final topic. This is spoiler alert, spoiler alert, spoiler alert. If you do plan at some point to watch season one of Sugar on Apple TV starring Colin Farrell, the hit season one of Sugar, if you do plan to, please turn me off now. Turn me off now. Then again, it's possible what I'm about to tell you

you will find so bizarre, so laughably out there that you'll say, I've just got to check that out. And if that happens, God bless. Okay, so we know Colin Farrell is a classic Hollywood leading man who rarely chooses to do mainstream box office, wide release, leading man kind of movies. Nope, Colin Farrell does films, not movies, films.

He's more about taking risks than he is making money. And I certainly appreciate and admire that. I honor that. See Colin Farrell in The Lobster and in Bruges and The Banshees of Inisharan and Roman J. Israel and The Killing of the Sacred Deer. I could go on and on. See Colin Farrell as the Penguin in The Batman and now in a new series.

Colin Farrell is the penguin. I mean, he's such a good looking guy. You want to put all that makeup on and not even look like Colin? That's what he does. OK, so now you'll get what I'm about to tell you. So given all that, when my wife Ernestine and I started to see the ads for sugar, this show called Sugar.

wait, Colin Farrell as a private detective tooling around Los Angeles in this 1966 Nassau blue Corvette Stingray? I said, hey, I'm in. If nothing else for the car alone, I'm in. And right away we were hooked. We were enthralled. We were captivated by the use of classic film noir movie clips regularly dropped in

to so beautifully amplify what sugar, Colin Farrell, is thinking in sugar. Now, you have to understand about Ernst and I, we love, we, listen, we live for old movies. We appreciate old movies. I saw a quote from the creator of sugar. I hope I can say his name right. It's Mark Protasevich. I think that's right.

And Mark said, it's disappointing to me that there are so many young people and even people who want to get into making films who don't know the history of the medium, who don't have an understanding of what great films came from the silent era through the 30s and 40s and 50s and 60s. Hip, hip, hooray, I say to Mark, because that's what Ernestine and I believe. There are so many great old movies that

If kids today would just start watching, they'd say, God, is this great? But it might be in black and white. So Colin Farrell in Sugar plays a modern-day L.A. private eye who stepped right out of the 30s or 40s, like a throwback of Humphrey Bogart's Sam Spade character in The Maltese Falcon. He's very cool. Did I ever buy Colin Farrell...

in that Corvette, driving around L.A. as a private eye in search of a missing granddaughter of a powerful Hollywood producer. It's just riveting. Yet, I couldn't quite understand this woman who sort of manages Sugar, who assigns his cases, seems to have a deeper connection with him. Is it romantic? It was unclear. But somehow,

periodically, Sugar goes to her house for these weird meetings of some kind of, we couldn't figure it out, some kind of secret society. It was just completely unclear what it was. Okay, but then Sugar at one point gets in a big battle. The action's great in this. And he winds up getting stabbed in the stomach with a big butcher knife right in the stomach.

But he refused to go to a hospital. That's odd. And he winds up just driving himself home. He did pass out. But then the next day, he's just fine. Like, really? Just fine? Wouldn't he lose a lot of blood? He's a tough guy, Sugar. John Sugar is his name. Like John Shaft, right? Then after another long, hard day, this is, I think, end of episode six out of eight,

I'm watching along. Sugar's standing in his bathroom, in front of his bathroom mirror, and he basically says to himself, you know what, I deserve this. And he takes out a syringe. I'm thinking, God, is he a druggie? And he injects himself, and spoiler alert! If you want to watch it, stop listening to me right now. I'm about to go heavy spoiler alert. John Sugar, at the end of episode six...

turns into an alien, this reptilian-looking alien. That secret society, they're all aliens from the same planet. And I'm looking next to me on the couch and my wife Ernestine, I'm saying, seriously? He's an alien?

And I'm sorry, I laughed out loud. And I started laughing and I could not stop laughing. I was really loving my sugar until that moment. He's an alien? So, wait a second. So, somebody, Mark, had to go in and pitch this to Apple TV. I was told that he pitched it to several and he got laughed out of several offices or Zoom calls.

But he had to say, yeah, I've got Colin Farrell attached to play this private eye who stepped right out of the 40s in present day L.A. He's got this really deep, dark case he's trying to crack. But in the end, it's revealed he's an alien. He's a what? I was loving John Sugar just the way he was. If if he were not an alien, I would tell you.

Sugar, I'd give it at least an A. I might give it a straight, full-on A. It was really gripping. Plot was tremendous, seedy, creepy, evil. I didn't need him to be an alien. I didn't need all of his friends to be aliens from another planet. And yet...

Ernstein has concluded she's just fine with a private eye straight out of the 40s who's actually an alien. She's good with it. She can't wait for season two. Oh, yeah. He's an alien. He's a what? I'm sorry, but there was more. So the aliens get found out and they're going to get outed unless Sugar, John Sugar, dies.

quits looking for this daughter of the powerful producer, the missing granddaughter. But Sugar won't stop until he finds her. And when he does, that means that all the aliens must return to their planet because they're all going to get found out and killed on Earth. I think that's what was happening. I don't know. I'm just laughing at this point. And then to throw one last curveball,

At the end of, I guess it's the last episode was eight. We get a Chinatown, if you know the movie Chinatown, plot twist, a sort of John Huston, Faye Dunaway plot twist because the grandfather, the powerful producer, it's suggested is actually the father of the now found granddaughter who's only 20 years old. What? What? So Sugar, John Sugar, ends up driving to some remote airport and

Where the alien humans are, I guess, boarding a plane to go home. And I'm asking Ernstine, do they just like start flying and then they just keep going up and up and they just leave our atmosphere and just fly home on air Mars? I don't know where they're from. It's unclear where they're from. But what did you do to my sugar? The aliens are all going home. But John Sugar says, no, I must stay.

To fight the evil on this planet. And by the way, there is one evil alien who's disappeared into the dark recesses of Los Angeles and he's not going home either. And then we're hit with the final weird plot twist. Somehow that evil alien had something to do with the disappearance of John Sugar or Colin Farrell's sister while they were back on their planet. Somehow she disappeared and it was...

Because of him, or so it's suggested. So now John's out to find the evil alien who's still lurking among, in our midst here on Earth. And I'm saying, what? What has happened? So this classic film noir has turned into so bad it's funny good sci-fi B-movie. And that's not what I signed up for.

I was so invested and I then felt like I'd wasted whatever it took, six hours of my life for this. It had so much potential. And by the way, how exactly did an alien decide to be a 1940s private eye driving a 1966 Corvette in 2024 LA? I have no idea. And at one point, Sugar, when he's thinking about going back to his planet, he says his one regret is he can't take his 1966 Corvette with him. What? What?

Sugar winds up being preposterous lunacy. The great Amy Ryan, she is so good. She has a big role in this. It's kind of his love interest. She's wasted with C-movie dialogue. Mostly consists of, pardon my language, what the fuck is going on, Sugar? Precisely my question in the final two episodes. Yet Ernestine says she's all in for season two. And now I'm starting to wonder...

if Ernestine is an alien. That's it for episode 114. Thank you for listening and or watching. Thanks to Jonathan Berger and his All Pro team for making this show go. Thanks to Tyler Korn for producing. Please remember, Undisputed, every weekday, 9.30 to noon Eastern, the Skip Bayless Show, every week.