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cover of episode NBA Playoffs With Brian Windhorst, Actor Josh Duhamel, The Bulls Lost Twice In The Play In, Lee Corso Retires Plus Fyre Fest

NBA Playoffs With Brian Windhorst, Actor Josh Duhamel, The Bulls Lost Twice In The Play In, Lee Corso Retires Plus Fyre Fest

2025/4/18
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Pardon My Take

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The show discusses the Chicago Bulls' disappointing season, their play-in losses, and the team's questionable management decisions. The hosts debate the Bulls' future and the possibility of a lottery win.
  • Bulls lost twice in the play-in tournament
  • Bulls' 47% win percentage
  • Questionable front office decisions regarding player contracts
  • Debate on whether the Bulls should rebuild

Shownotes Transcript

Hey, Pardon My Take listeners. You can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music.

On today's part of my take, we have a twofer for the people. We have Brian Windhorst getting ready for all the game ones this weekend in the NBA playoffs. And then we have our good friend, Josh Dumo, the most attractive guest we have on. He joins us again. I think it's his third time on. Great chat with him. We're going to talk NBA playoffs. We're going to talk the play-in games. We have Aaron Rodgers' update that's not really in an update.

Lee Corso is retiring and we're going to finish off with Firefest of the Week. Sending you into the weekend and we are brought to you by our friends at DraftKings.com

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Okay, let's go. ♪♪

Welcome to Part of My Take, presented by DraftKings. Make it a playoff run to remember with DraftKings. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app and use code TAKE. That's code TAKE for new customers to get $200 in bonus bets when you bet just $5 only on DraftKings. The crown is yours. Today is Friday, April 18th.

And both Bulls teams lost in the playing games on Wednesday night. The Bulls, the regular Bulls and the West Coast Bulls. West Coast Bulls. Yes. To further cement how stupid the Bulls are as an organization. Yeah, it was basically, let's watch the real Bulls play, lose by a lot at home, and then let's watch the core that was built around Zach Levine and DeMar DeRozan play out West, lose by a shitload at home. Yeah, so now Dallas advances to play against Memphis. Yep. And I want Dallas in the playoffs.

I do too. I really do. I think that'd be fun. Klay Thompson avenged last year's, he went 0 for 10, I believe, last year. Yeah, I remember. I bet it. I was like, Klay Thompson is a big game player. He's not going to go out like this 0 for 10. He went out like that. Yeah, he went out like that. But he's back like that now. Also, the Kings, they're kind of lost in space. No idea what's going to happen with them. I feel like a couple years ago, we had to light the beam. Everyone was pumped about the Kings. Yeah.

They did something on Wednesday night that you can't do if you're going to lose at home by, I think they ended up losing by like 16, but they were down by 23 at half. Did you see the player introductions? They played the My Little Pony theme song for the Mavs, which is very funny.

But you can't do it then lose. You can't. You absolutely cannot do that. You cannot. At least they brought back the gun emoji. So if you do beat the Mavs, you can shoot the horse. That's true. So that's good. Yeah. Anthony Davis was awesome in the regular Bulls game. Tyler Hero was awesome.

Can I see red for a minute? Yeah, I was going to say welcome to the lottery. Yeah, I'm excited to be in the lottery. Let's sim one. All right. Because you guys, like this was a situation where you guys have been playing the lottery game. Now someone has jumped into the game. Welcome to the party. With a 1.2% chance, which I think will go up if...

Dallas makes the playoffs or Miami makes the playoffs. So I'm rooting for that. We might get all the way up to like 2%. That's huge. And that would be quite something if I somehow pulled off the lottery win in your guy's face. Yeah. So Max has already disavowed and denied taking Cooper flag if they get the first overall pick. Big Cat, I don't think that you did. I did not. So you're still in. I said I wanted him. He's still in on Cooper flag. Yeah. Even though he is a choker. Yeah.

That's fine. By the way, did you guys see Texas Twitter has found our list of not win the big one guys. Oh, I didn't see that. Are they happy about it? They were not happy about the Arch Manning. They kept on saying he's only played two games and won both games. I'm just saying that was a future call. And I also was like, so you're saying he's not good enough to start. Sounds like how are you going to win? How are you going to win the big one from the bench? Let me ask you this big cat in the playoffs. When you had a must score situation against the Ohio State University, was he on the field? No. Hmm.

On the bench. All right, Simit. Okay. Washington. There you go. All right. Do one more. We're just going to keep Simit. Utah, boo. Boo. Okay, one more. New Orleans, boo. That's no. Next one wins. Next one wins. Well, I already won. Okay, do it again. New Orleans again, boo. Portland, boo. San Antonio, boo. Double boo. Charlotte, boo. Who cares? Utah, boo. Stop.

This sucks. Oh, there we go. Double win. You won. Yeah, let me see red for a second, though, because I actually, for the first time in a while, I did not fall for Jerry Reinsdorf and Michael Reinsdorf's tricks and AK, the front office, a bunch of fucking morons.

I didn't fall for it this year, and I'm happy I didn't fall for it because I didn't let myself fall for the tricks that they pull every single year. PFT, I got some stats I went through. The Bulls winning percentage this year was 47%. They were a 47% winning percentage team. They finished 39 and 43. Not great. Below 500 at home. Below 500 at home. So that's not a good team. That's not a team that is building anything. But guess what the trick is?

like every year, from the last day in February to the end of the season, the Bulls went 16-7. Holy shit. That's a great mark. They're doing it. 70% winning percentage. Bulls marching. If you take out the wins against all the teams that were actively tanking, your Washingtons, your Phillies, your Brooklands,

And then you take out the two wins against teams where they were sitting their star player, the Denver Nuggets with Jokic and the Pacers with Halliburton. The Bulls winning percentage from February 28th to the end of the year. What was it?

43 percent 46 percent okay they were the same team the whole time and to pretend that it's anything different is ridiculous march and april nba basketball does not matter and uh the argument would be well they got some young guys and it's different than the last couple of years which i would agree uh booze list looks awesome and i i'm excited about that draft pick they

They also have a guy named Josh Giddey who they're going to probably pay $35 million to, which would be a very big mistake. What do you think about the trade? The trade? Like in retrospect, who is so Giddey? They should have gotten picks. Yeah. They should have gotten picks. I had Giddey over 17 and a half last night that cashed. Yeah, he was not the problem. Kobe White, I think, was like five for 20. He should also be traded because you have one more year of him. But what the Bulls are going to do is they're going to say, well, we went 70% down the stretch.

And we have Josh Giddey who's about to get paid. We have Boozles. We have Kobe White. Let's build around this young nucleus. And what they're going to do is they're going to sign Josh Giddey to $30, $35 million a year. And Josh Giddey is just good enough to get you in the playing game and not the playoffs. And Josh Giddey, so I already pointed out that the last month and a half should not really be counted, but the Bulls obviously count it and they look at it like we're building something.

Josh Giddey, the first four months of the year, averaged 12.5, 6.5, and 7.5. That's obviously points, assists, rebounds. I should have done it the other way. Question, is he getting more minutes in Chicago? He's getting more minutes, a lot more usage. Turns out when you are on a good team and you don't play, that's probably because you're not as good as the good team players. He was also like a redundant player on that good team. Yeah. So, again, first four months, 12.5, 6.5.

7.5, 6.5 points, rebounds, assists. The last two months, which I've already established shouldn't count and is you're playing against teams that don't matter, he almost averaged a triple-double. 20, 10, and 9.5. And they're going to fucking pay him for that. Would you rather he not have almost averaged a triple-double? I would have rather them take it. When I think about it, I think Jokic, Westbrook, was it Moses Malone or Oscar Robertson? Yeah. And Giddey.

It's they're doing the same thing yet again. Josh Giddey will be just a younger Zach Levine where you just pay a guy a ton of money because you're like, well, what are the other options? And Zach Levine, who is a good basketball player on paper, uh,

But a losing basketball paper or basketball player in reality is exactly what the Bulls love to have because it keeps you competitive enough to get into the playing game, not in the playoffs or compete for anything. This is the third year in a row they've been in the playing game. They have not made it to the playoffs. They do not know how to tank. They do not know how to win.

We are now a decade since the Bulls last won a playoff series. We're 11 years since the Bulls last won a home playoff game, which I was at. It was a Derrick Rose buzzer beater. This franchise is a joke, and it should be called out as a joke.

and stop pretending that March and April basketball means something and actually pick a lane and go for it and be like, hey, we're going to be bad for a little bit because if they came in front of the fan base and said, we're going to suck for the next three or four years, but we're going to have a shot at a couple, one or two or three picks,

people would be like okay let's do it yeah it's way better to do that yeah like having a plan having a plan to do that is what every bad team should do and they have you're not going to get good in the nba unless one you're a destination city where you feel confident that you can attract an already cemented superstar correct to want to go to your city or two you're just really shitty and you get the first pick in the in the draft correct or i guess you could also hit

on somebody in the draft later on, but that's so hard to do in the NBA. Or you just make trades and get picks that eventually end up as lottery picks. They finally do own all their picks again, which they had to trade to get one of their picks back. But what you guys said is exactly correct. The opposite plan that you should do is paying guys that are...

decently average basketball players $30-plus million to win 39 games a year. Right, that's the worst. Which is what they've done, which I loved last night because it was like the front office, it was an indictment on the front office in two separate play-in games. It was the Bulls, and then it was, oh yeah, the last iteration of the Bulls was Zach Levine and DeMar DeRozan. You fucked up twice. Let me just say this, Big Cat. If I don't win the draft lottery, and I very much hope that I do,

I hope you win it. Thank you. I hope Chicago gets it. If I don't win it, I hope you win it. Thank you. I appreciate that. That'd be great. I'm probably not going to win it. That'd be great to have Cooper flag in Chicago. Yeah. If I can't have them in DC, it would be a lot of fun. Yeah. But yeah, I was frustrated. Again, I was happy that I didn't fall for it because usually like when a team finishes a season 60 and 70, you're like, Oh my God. And they're younger than they have been in the past.

but it's all the same. And Jerry Reinsdorf and Michael Reinsdorf are scumbags, and all they care about is selling out the United Center, which sells out. It's lead the league in attendance every single year. And it's just bullshit. They have no plan, and they have no path forward, and they're just going to stay in this middle ground forever and try to sell everyone on a really good March and April where they finish strong and lost in the play-in. Being in the play-in game three years in a row and not making it to the playoffs, that should, like...

There should be a punishment. I don't know what it should be, but there should be a punishment. Ban from future play in tournaments. Like the Hawks being in their fourth straight playing game. Like there should be some type of punishment for fucking up so bad that you just end up in the same spot every year. But I think it's worse for the Hawks.

And here's why with the Hawks, you have a guy that you in theory could build around and make a good team around. Right. I think, I think that Trey young is good enough where you can, you can get to that next level, which is maybe being like a four seat or a five seat. If you put the right pieces around him, the bulls, you don't have that. You gotta, you gotta go scorched earth at this point. No, they're going to pay Josh Giddey. And again, it's not really like Josh Giddey's fine. He could be your third or fourth best player, but they're going to pay him way too much money.

And they're going to be like, well, he's 22 years old. He's going to get way better. Okay. And you're going to be in the same spot. Like, the ceiling is going to be the eighth seed play in game. Yeah. You get two home playing games. So, yeah, that was my sea reg. Hank was trying to say that we could beat the Cavs a week ago. What did I say? Well, you guys finished so hot.

You guys are trending so often. Yeah, you fell for it. You fell for it. I'm trying to speak into existence. We've done this before, but the halftime lead for the Heat was 71-47, and that is pretty much the largest 24-point deficit you could have. Yeah, because you rarely see it with those numbers that high. It feels like 30. Yeah, that's a big one. Yeah, and people were asking me what the smallest was, and I said in basketball, I feel like it's like 59-35.

because you can get on a little quick run. If you go a 7-0 run, 59-42, you're in that game. Yeah. So it was a 24-point lead? 24-point lead. 36-12, too, because it's so early. Yeah, 36-12 is a good one. I would even say 30s. Like 36-12 in the NBA means nothing. Nothing. But 71-47 is like, what the hell is happening right now? You're not even at 50, and they're in the 70s? If you can jump over multiple digits of 10, that's when it appears so much larger. Yeah. Yeah, so...

Yeah, and it was very funny because the Mavs were up 71-48. Yeah. Which, just idiots. I hate the play-in tournament. I hate it. It's stupid. Because the very best thing you can hope for is that you get a great game, and then the fans are like, we wish that we had more of this matchup because the team's matchup's so well. At worst is what we saw last night, which is just uninteresting, boring, depressing basketball. And nobody wants to watch that. No. Although the one good thing, I'll say this,

Watching the play-in tournament right after March Madness is kind of cool because for a while you forget what good basketball looks like. And you just get amazed at the shots that are going. Shots going. Yeah, no, the play-in tournament, I can't... I hate it so much. And I hate it, obviously, personally, just because it was made specifically for owners like Jerry Reinsdorf to be like, hey, we made the play-in tournament. But I just... How could you...

If you told someone there's a league with 30 teams, 15 in each conference, and 10 out of 15 make the postseason? Yeah. It's so stupid. You play 82 games. Yeah, wasn't the play-in tournament designed because they wanted to make sure that Zion Williamson could get in it for ratings? I think so. I think that's when they did it, yeah. And I guess you could obviously—the Heat fucked it up for everyone. The Heat going to the finals from a play-in tournament fucked it up for everyone. But that was also—was that Mickey Mouse? Yeah.

No, that was the year, what, two years ago? Were they a playing team then? They must have been because they were the eighth seed, right? Yeah. You guys were the one seed? Yeah. Was that first round? No. But I'm just saying a team that goes from the play-in to the finals, people are like, look, see? That team could get hot. But yeah, no, you're right. That's not the argument. It should be if a nine or a ten. Right. A team that would be left out if they actually advance in the playoffs. The seven and the eight are in the playoffs. They should be in the playoffs. So, so stupid. Yeah.

Okay, so speaking of that, we have two more playing games. Yeah, can't wait. Awesome. I'm looking forward to the Grizzlies-Mavericks game a little bit. That thing is...

the actual games, I'm not going to argue can be fun. The Grizzlies warriors game was fun. So it's like, once we get to, if they're going to force it, I'm going to watch it. I'm going to enjoy it. But if you ask me what I like it, I'd say no. Yeah. Miami, Atlanta. Um, I think this is where he culture takes over. I feel like he culture gets the nod. Kevin love one last rodeo. Uh, he's not playing. Damn it. Yeah. He's still on the team. Tyler hero. Yeah. Uh,

All right, let's do a first basket. What are we doing, Max? First basket? We all got to pick a first basket? This is for Friday's games. This is for Friday's games. And it's brought to you by DraftKings. The NBA playoffs are finally here. It's about to get wild. High stakes drama. Insane buzzer beaters. Jaw-dropping dunks. And the excitement you live for. And guess what? DraftKings Sportsbook, an official sports betting part of the NBA, is giving you a chance to boost your winnings every single game during playoffs this year.

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21 and over. Age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction. Boyd in Ontario. Get one NBA profit boost per game after opt-in. Boost expires at the end of each game. Boosts, bet criteria, and maximum bet limits vary. See terms at sportsbook.draftkings.com slash promos. Okay, so we're doing a contest between all four of us. Max, are you in this? Yes. Okay. Every single week, we're going to do... Everyone's going to pick a first basket score, and then the winner gets a bonus bet. So we're going to give them out. I'm going to do...

Anthony Davis, first basket score. Plus 500. Okay, love it. I'm taking Desmond Bain plus 750. Okay, juicy. I'm going John Morant plus 550. All eyes on this game. And I'm going to go Zach Eadie plus 750. Wait, we're all doing that game? Let's get nuts. Somebody's got to win. Let's get nuts. I think the Mavs might win. I agree with you, PFT. I want the Mavs in the playoffs. Yeah, just for the fans. Yeah.

Yeah. Did you guys see the story of the pastor in South Africa? Yeah. South Africa. So good. He was kidnapped gunpoint and he was saved and they like talk to him on the phone. And I think they told him like, hey, try to talk about lighthearted stuff. Yeah. And he's

one of his friends brought up the Nico NIL stuff and he was like bullshit about it. Yeah. After being kidnapped in South Africa, he was very upset about it. And then at the end of the interview, the pastor that was on the phone with him held up his copy of the Bible that he keeps in his office. Yeah. And it's an orange Bible with the power T on it. It's so awesome. Yeah. Yeah. He, uh, after being safely rescued, Sullivan was taken to see his family. He then began touching base with some back in East Tennessee and,

Pastor Tom Hatley said one of the first things he heard from those in South Africa was he was upset over Nico. Yeah. He's like, send me back. That's a football guy. Let those guys take me. I don't want to come back. Yeah. Also, Nico got, I think, 1.5 mil. Oh, good deal. Well, the nice thing is that the cost of living in California is much less than in Tennessee.

Yeah. So he actually ended up losing, I'm going to guess, like 80% of his earning power when you take into account the cost of living in L.A. and the state income tax in California as opposed to Tennessee, which doesn't have any. So the art of the deal by Nico's dad. I also heard that his dad was saying that the Tennessee offense put handcuffs on him, and it's like we're –

It's the hot dog world trying to find the guy who did it. Maybe it was the inaccurate quarterback. Yeah, that's the best place. Yeah, that's the best place he could possibly be. Yeah, but I'm saying like he had to have handcuffs because he couldn't throw.

Yes. That's also true. It wasn't the offense. It was that they were like, hey, this guy can't throw to open receivers. We're going to have to change the offense. Yeah, so I know that Tennessee fans are pumped about it because they're like, ha, you got less money and you're going to a school that's not going to be nearly as good for you as we were. Yeah, and they're going to get killed in the Big Ten. Probably, yeah. I keep forgetting that UCLA is in the Big Ten. They are. Still makes no sense. Lee Corso retiring. So first week of game day, legend of the game.

Sad. He's all in for week one. All in for week one. He's got a big summer to prep for Ohio State, Texas. Yeah, so I guess... It'll be Waterworks City on that first week. Yeah, they wanted to do it where he did... The first ever mascot that he put on was Brutus. And so they wanted to maybe bookend it. I still think...

They should have given him like a late October, early November game. Ideally, that would be nice. Because like that August 1st or the first week and last week of August, but week one, it's football, but it's also like that weird. Everyone's still on summer vacation. Like football's on. I'm watching, but like,

It just doesn't feel like game day. It doesn't feel like Corso. You know what? It should have been week two. That's when usually some of the power schools schedule the cupcakes. Oh, yeah. Week one is going to be... Yeah, week one, it's like a celebration that college football is back. So we're all super pumped about that. Week two, we look at the slate and we're like, oh, shit. This isn't nearly as good as week one. Week two could have just been a big celebration of Lee Corso. Yeah. He probably...

Maybe should have retired a couple of years ago, but it doesn't matter. I love whenever he wants. Yeah. Like that's one of those guys that he's, he's in that Dickie V camp, the Fanta Dickie V Lee Corso, the guys that are basically holding up a sport with just genuine enthusiasm for that sport and

That's what I think a lot of people got drawn to first. And then they get cynical as the years go on. And I always loved when Kirk Herbstreet would just support him on stage. It actually made Kirk way more likable to the average viewer, too. So, yeah, it's going to be different. I don't know if they're going to fill the chair with somebody else or just move on because they've got a pretty good team. So I don't know. But you can't really fill Lee Corso's shoes. No. It's not going to be the same if Nick Saban is putting on mascot headgear.

No, definitely not. I don't think he would. It should do the headgear on Kirk's dogs. That would be awesome. That would be sick. I would love to see that. But yeah, legend of the game. And yeah, I mean, I don't think anyone's ever said anything bad about Lee Corso. No, he's... What is the...

The only criticism would be maybe he should have retired a few years ago, but guess what? Everyone should be as lucky to be able to do it as long as he has done it and be able to just keep having fun. So I love Lee Corso. Yeah, he's the best. You can't say anything bad about him. Memes, did you have something bad to say about him? No, I love Lee Corso. Okay. Hank, did you have something bad to say about him? No. Okay. Max, you want to say something bad about him? Now's the time. Oh.

do you want me to say something bad about it? If you have something bad in your head, what the internet needs is for somebody to get mad about and take out all of them. Cause right now we feel sad. Right. And as men, that makes us feel vulnerable. So we have anger that we would like to release. So if you say something bad, then we can just hate you. Uh,

He called that little kid a midget. Yeah, that was messed up. Play that clip. That was a great clip. That wasn't messed up. That was awesome. Was that when I was on college game day? That was Corso at his finest. Was that about me? I'm 5'8", Lee. I love it. If you're listening and not watching, it's like a five-year-old kid

On the desk with him. Uggs. Yale Bulldogs. Wow. Not so fast, midget. Yeah, little guy. Hey, not so fast. That's a five-year-old. Yeah. Oh, that's great. Hank, you have something bad? I don't. I mean, if you want a quote card to get the internet stirring, Good Riddance. Oh.

Good riddance. Do you want to do that? Meme says no. Meme says no. He's not going to do it. You don't want that smoke. You don't want that smoke. College football fans would be... Oh, now I think we got to do it. Yeah. Now we got to do it. Memes. But then it's going to look like our entire show is saying this. Yeah.

How about you ask for it? How about you include this? Make Hank's name even bigger than the quote. How about you include this? Hank, that's messed up. Yeah. Dash PFT. Hank, and then include mine. Hank, you're wrong. We all love Lee Corso. Sounds good to me. That quote card is going to bang. That's going to do numbies. Maybe also just put out another one saying Arch Manning can't win the big one. Yeah.

Lock it up. Just throw it out there. Arch Manning, the world's biggest choke artist. These are all good. Yeah. Okay. Aaron Rodgers.

He showed up again. It was an illuminating interview. Did you watch it? He went on McAfee. I did not. So can you give me the rundown? Yeah, I've never. I thought he was banned from McAfee. If he was still on the Jets. Yeah, but he's not on the Jets anymore. I thought it was illuminating. I thought that I've never heard one person say as many words without saying anything at all. As I heard Aaron Rodgers say on Pat McAfee today, I think it was probably 20 minutes of Aaron just kind of saying, I'm up for anything. Down for whatever.

So there's absolutely no news that came out of it. He, he, it does sound like he's dealing with a personal issue. They kept going back to that. So if it is something serious that he's dealing with, like family or friends, then obviously he's, you know, doing the right thing by taking that time before moving on with his professional career.

But it just sounded like he was, he's just waiting. He's just, he's waiting for the universe to speak to him. Okay. I think he's waiting for like a dog to walk down the street and talk to him. And then that will be his sign that it's time to join the Steelers. So it's, he's waiting for the universe to talk to him. Is he also maybe waiting for the draft to

happen. I don't know. Why would you wait for the draft to happen? Because if the Steelers maybe extend, overextend themselves and get Shadur Sanders, he's like, why would I go to the Steelers? Yeah, but if they got Rodgers before the draft, wouldn't they then not overextend? Well, Kirk Cousins...

Well, I think that's why. Yeah, I think that's why Rogers is waiting because he doesn't want to have a Kirk Cousins situation where he signs somewhere, they draft someone, and then they're like, oh, yeah, it's your job. Maybe. Is he kind of also fucking over? I feel like that's something you can talk about in negotiations. Kirk Cousins. Is he fucking over Kirk Cousins right now? Did they specifically state that, though? I mean, it's happened. I mean, Mike Glennon.

He was promised a starting job by the Bears. Also, Aaron Rodgers is 41, right? So even if he went to the Steelers, it would be reasonable, I think, for them to draft a quarterback. Right. But, I mean, I just think he's probably waiting for the draft because he just doesn't want to be in a situation where— But do you actually think that the longer he waits out, the worse the situation becomes for Kirk Cousins? Because obviously there are teams that would be interested in Aaron Rodgers that might also be interested in trading for Kirk. I think they're also waiting for the draft.

Okay. Because Kirk Cousins doesn't want to have it happen again to him. Because it'd be very funny. That's a good point. But it'd be very funny if Aaron Rodgers was doing this just to stick it to Kirk. That would be funny. But yeah, like Kirk Cousins, if he went to the Giants right now and then the Giants drafted Shador Sanders, he's just sideshow Bob stepping into a rake. That would also be funny. Yeah. So I feel like all this is going to get settled right after the draft.

Yeah, but he didn't say anything. Actually, I take that back. He did say something very interesting. He just spent like five minutes dumping on the Jets. Oh. Just like going scorched earth on the Jets. He said that he flew out on his own dime to meet with the Jets' new front office. Okay. And Aaron Glenn met with him for like 20 seconds, ran out of the room, got the GM, brought the GM back in there and told him, we're moving in a different direction without you. Whoa. So that's what he says happens. Meeves, do you believe that? I believe that it was over-exaggerated.

Okay. What part? I believe that Aaron Rodgers has no sense of time. You think Aaron Glenn was only in there for 10 seconds? No, he was in there for probably an hour. And the way Aaron Rodgers talks, he just talked for like...

30 minutes and aaron glenn was just like all right we're firing you so let's go get the gm let's get the show on the road and then they had uh memes things that aaron rogers he perceives time at a different pace from everybody else memes thinks that he when he's speaking then time moves very quickly god somebody else is speaking time moves moves very slowly got it so what was the source off uh no there was a you don't know me off between him and the gm oh okay how did that go

So Darren Moogie said, do you like football? Do you still want to play football? Aaron Rodgers said yes. And then there was just a back and forth of you don't know me. I know you don't know me.

That was it. Wow. They just kept on saying that back and forth to each other? You don't know me? And then Aaron Rodgers was like, let's get to know each other. And they were like, no, we're moving in a different direction. So it was you don't know me and you don't even want to know me? Yeah. It was just you don't know me. You don't know me. So Aaron was pissed off that he had to fly across the country for a 20-second meeting that could have been an email. Got it. But the Jets also would have gotten dragged if they just called him.

Yeah, it would have been like the Jets didn't respect Aaron Rodgers enough to do this face-to-face. Are you saying you don't owe me or you don't know me? You don't know me. You don't know me? You don't know me. I don't know what he's saying. You don't know me. You don't know me. Got it. Does anybody really know Aaron, though? No. Universe. Yeah, how could one man really know another man? That's a really good question. That's a good point. That's a really good question. Yeah, think about it. Okay.

I want to see him play. Yeah, of course. I would love to see Aaron Roberts. I'd like to see him still play football. As long as it's not the NFC North. The other thing I took away from this interview was he loves Ashton Genting. Really? If you find a clip of him talking about seeing Ashton Genting in person, he really loves that guy. Like a lot. Loves his build. Oh. Like is obsessed with looking at the guy.

He does have a nice build. Can we find that clip? Can you see if that exists out there? Because, man, Aaron really, really likes Ashton Kutcher a lot. He's got a nice build. A lot. I mean, he does have a nice build. Yeah, he is apparently just really well put together. Yeah. While you find that, Hank, did you see Brown's GM, Andrew Barry? I did. Said that he compared Travis Hunter to Shohei Otani. Mm-hmm. So do you feel good...

Being in the same conversation as the Browns front office? Yeah, definitely. Oh, okay. I'm going to be vindicated. I welcomed the hate when it came, but two years' time, I'm going to be sitting pretty. You think Travis Hunter will be more impressive than Shohei Otani? Definitely. Wow. Okay. Shohei Otani's going to pitch soon again. How many touchdowns and picks would he have to have to have a Shohei-type season?

10 receiving touchdowns, 5 picks, and maybe 2 touchdowns. 2 pick 6s? Yeah. That's doable. That doesn't even seem that crazy. It is pretty crazy, in fact. Right. Yeah. But it's doable. I don't think this clip exists. Okay. All right.

By the way, draft week next week. We're going to have Daniel Jeremiah on Monday, and then we'll have our good friend Todd McShay on Wednesday. Do you have a big board? I have a big board. I have a big board. Yeah. Can you tell me who's number one on your big board? Well, it's Mason Graham, but he's not going to be there. Yep. Guys who will be there? Probably Kelvin Banks. Okay. Even though we made fun of the name Kelvin. That's fine. Just two weeks ago. It might be a boy named Sue. Yeah. Probably him.

My number one, I think it's Malachi Starks at safety. Okay. And, you know, it goes back from watching his very first game that he played in college. I think that was against Oregon. Yep. Where he had just an incredible pick. And I made a mental note. I was like, put a pin in this guy. Would love to see this guy play on my team in the NFL. Then I've kind of like casually watched him over the last couple years. But I just go back to that one play. I like that. I want that guy. Yeah, what does it have right now is the – if we did –

Tyler Warren to the Bears. Okay. Hank, what are you looking at it for? I want the best athlete. Like, I feel like, you know, obviously we have they're going to probably take a lineman or defensive lineman. But I would like, obviously, Abdul Carter, Travis Hunter. Mason Graham's really good.

Yeah, I guess. I need you to. I want Abdul Carter. I want to make it Abdul Carter. Why? You don't want the Giants? Yeah, I don't like all the Penn State guys just go to NFC. Yeah, but they go to the Eagles. Yeah. So you just got that. Michael will probably end up in Eagle. Memes, what are you thinking about?

Membaugh, the right tackle for Mizzou. Okay. He had numbers like Trent Williams. So that'd be cool to have a right tackle for the next 10, 15 years. That would be cool. I just know I have to take Malachi Starks because if I don't, then Max is going to get him. Yeah. System guy. Yeah. Okay, yeah. So we're going to do draft stuff all next week. You'll probably trade him to us. Shut the fuck up, Max. Probably will. All of a sudden, Villanova just took JMU's best player. Oh, no.

You're a real piece of shit, Max. You know that? Oh, no. You are. It was breaking news. It was boop, boop, boop, boop. Oh, that was a mean breaking news. That's not even the right breaking news sound. You did, like, lasers. Well, it wasn't, like, a full-on breaking news because it's pretty low news. So it was, like, lasers. Who'd they get? I mean, it's really high news for this show. You just got money.

yeah so you got maryland's coach why don't you why don't you grow your own program we're also about to take one of maryland's best players to grow your own no you're a homie hopper yeah you are big time that's college sports uh personally if he doesn't want to be a duke i don't want him there you go i think it's one of your favorite weekends coming up this one you always love to start an nba and nhl playoffs yeah still a little next once i think next weekend is the start of the best like

Three-week stretch. When you have, like, you know, not game ones. Yeah. I do love this weekend, though, where it's just...

Oh, we're portaling boys. He's writing a tweet right now. You're portaling boys? We're portaling boys? No, you said we're portaling boys. You guys can say whatever. You wrote, we're portaling boys. This sounds like an admission of sex trafficking. Wrong. We're portaling boys. No, that's not what you wrote. This is like something that Diddy would say. Wrong. What? We're portaling boys? I'm keeping it. I stand by it. We're portaling boys. Okay. Okay.

So, Max Epstein over here. Yeah. We're portaling. Memes, can you do a quick Photoshop for me? I don't even know where that... Would there be a comma in there somewhere? Yes. Yes. Exactly where you'd be. That's exactly it. Who uses commas? I agree. Memes, do a Photoshop real quick for me of Diddy and then the speech bubble underneath so then I can quote tweet Max's tweet and it looks like it's Diddy saying that. Yeah. You know the one. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Let's talk some NBA with Brian Windhorse. And then we have Josh Duhamel. And then we'll do Firefest. We also have a special guest for the end of the show, our boy Shane, who's going to be going to Italy. We're going to send him off. He's going to Italy by himself. So I told him he had to come on at the end of the show. What? What is his plan? Nothing. We want to send him off. I mean, he's going on a European vacation by himself.

That's crazy. It's true. I'm still shocked by it. I don't think it's that crazy. I think it's crazy. Russillo does it all the time. No, no. When I say crazy, I'm not saying like you're crazy. I'm like crazy. I would never have the balls to do that. Like I'm impressed. I told him that. It's very cool. Confidence to go on vacation by yourself. And yes, Russillo does do it all the time. And he is actually the model of how everyone should operate. Yeah. Confident move. Okay. Let's talk some NBA playoffs with Brian Windhorst.

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We love KFC. We love the Dunkin' Bucket. Hank, you had the dunk contest. It went great. Went great. I've been dunking in the Dunkin' Bucket for the last month. It's one of my favorite menu items ever created. It's revolutionized the game. It's the Dunkin' Bucket from KFC. KFC Dunkin' Challenge may be over, but you can still dunk, dip, and devour with the KFC Dunkin' Bucket.

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You can still do it. You can still dunk, dip, and devour with the KFC Dunkin' Bucket. Go check it out now. We're also brought to you by our friends at GameTime. NBA playoffs are here, and the only place to buy hard-to-get playoff tickets is GameTime, the official ticketing partner of Barstool Sports. With killer last-minute deals, all-in prices, views from your seat, and their lowest price guarantee, GameTime takes the guesswork out of buying NBA playoff tickets. Prices on the app actually go down the closer it gets to tip-off. You can save up to 60% when buying last-minute tickets.

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Okay, we now welcome on a very special guest, recurring guest, one of our favorite guys to talk NBA with. It is Brian Windhorst. You can hear him on The Hoop Collective, great podcast. You can see him on ESPN all throughout the playoffs. You can go buy his book. He's got two of them, Return of the King and LeBron Inc. In which one of those books, Wendy, do you talk about your averages in high school when you were playing with LeBron? It's a good question.

It's on, it's on a special edition, um, where you have to crack open the back cover and it's, there's like a little slip of paper back there. And if you, you're really lucky, you can find it, but you know, it's like, it's rare. It's like a Pokemon. Yeah. Putting it at the back of the book is a good way for LeBron to never having read it. Yeah. There you go. Yes. You got it. Yes. Oh my God. Beautiful. Yeah. Wait, so we haven't talked to you since then. Was that just the weirdest, uh, experience for you to be called out using the word weird? Yeah. Big cat. Yeah. Uh,

I did not see that one coming. You know, like LeBron could probably be angry at me for like 15 or 20 things and like, like legitimately be like, that take was wrong. What you did here was, was BS. I remember the first time he got really mad at me was when he was a rookie with the Cavs, the newspaper that I, that I was working for at the time, the Akron Beacon Journal, he bought a house in Akron and he,

we in the newspaper published his address and a little map of how to get to his house. And he was like, I remember he pulled me aside and he was like, this is some super fucking bullshit. And I had to agree with him. Yeah. Even though I had nothing to do with it. Like sometimes I was the conduit for that. But listen,

He could have been mad at me about a bunch of things. What he actually got mad at me about, I didn't think was right. But he doesn't owe me anything. If he wants to be mad at me, fine. Over the course of 25 years, he's going to get mad at me

I'm going to annoy him, whatever. We'll get through it. It's fine. He also, I mean, we didn't throw this out there, but like, and I'm sure you've talked about it enough, but like there might be a chance that LeBron is just jealous of your hair because your hair is fantastic. I feel like it gets better every single day. I've got nothing physically on him except for that. He's got me on everything else. So I guess I'll take it. That's a big thing though. Like LeBron wakes up every day. He's, you know, one of the best players of all time. He's got all these accolades, but...

He doesn't have Wendy's hair. Do you, you guys probably don't remember this, but there was like a moment, I think it was in the off season. Maybe somebody can find it. I don't know. Maybe he deleted the tweet, but there was like this, there was like this moment, like one day where he just like announced that,

I'm giving up on the hair. Yeah. It stuck with me. We did great. Thank you very much to me. He had some sort of witty and I was kind of like a quasi announcement. And then we saw him next season. It was very clear. He had not given up. Yeah. He, he had just begun to fight. So I don't know what that was all about. Maybe we'll wait for his book where he can explain what that was about. Yeah. He probably had a couple of glasses of wine and decided to hop online. It happens to everybody. Yeah. So when you were at his house for taco Tuesday this week,

How did he tell you he was feeling going to the playoffs? Don't be ridiculous. I'm going on Sunday for Easter. Okay. All right. So let's talk some playoffs. We're very excited. Let's start here. Tell us the series you're most excited for in the East and the West. Am I excited for any series in the East? Let me think about that. It's a little tougher in the East.

I got assigned to go do the Cleveland series, and boy, am I excited. Listen, the Cavs are good. I mean, that's fun. Yeah, I know. I know. I typically try to stay home in the first round. Stay home. It's not like, you know, come to L.A. or whatever because –

The first round, first off, I don't know if you guys heard the NFL drafts is next week. Like on Monday, like ESPN, I'll forget my name for like six days and then they'll crawl out from the sixth or seventh round and, you know, Greenberg will hang them up and they'll be like, wait a minute. Is there an, is the NBA still playing? Yeah. But you know, the first round,

It's really spread out. There's like a lot of days off. I'm not really, it's, it's, it's not the most exciting, you know, everybody gets excited for the start of the playoffs and then the first round kind of drags. Yeah. But I am very excited about the West series, but specifically Clippers nuggets. Yeah. The Clippers finished the season 18 and three. And I went to a couple of their games and Kawhi looks awesome.

Yeah. I remember the 2019, the 2019 finals when he was playing for the Raptors, that one year play for the Raptors.

I watched Kawhi go through some pregame shooting routines where he was as impressive. The Steph routines are legendary because he does all these dribbling tricks and sometimes he hits like 27 threes in a row and he throws up half court shots and he throws up shots from the tunnel. Well, as you can imagine, the Kawhi ones are boring, but all Kawhi does is look like a machine. And I remember watching him make like, I don't know, like,

96 out of a hundred, like 17 footers. Um, they was, he would, he would need two assistant coaches. This is pregame. This is not on a practice day. This is like two hours before game time where he would go through so many shots that the, the assistant coaches would, would have to tap out because like they were kind of guarding him or whatever. Yeah. I'm like, he never missed.

He never missed. And like, that's what Kawhi looks like right now. Yeah. And so I'm excited about what he can do. And then obviously Jokic is like a incredible force. So that series to me,

is really interesting. And I'm going to try to see if I can watch all those games. Yeah. What do we make of, of the two teams in the West that fired their coaches right before the playoffs started? So are they, did they do it for the same reasons? Like, I think that the nuggets explanation was that they were planning on moving on from Michael Malone anyways. Yeah.

So they wanted to fire him before he had a chance to save his job. That's pretty much exactly the sentiment. It seems really strange to do that, especially if he can win two championships for the Denver Nuggets. Hypothetically, if they go in and run this postseason, they're going to be like, ah, damn, we really wanted to fire this guy, but now we can't because he won again. So is that kind of the same thing that happened with Memphis, or is that a different story? I don't think so. And I mean, to be honest with you, I don't have 100% confidence

There's some stories out there about what happened with Memphis, but I don't feel comfortable enough to say them on a worldwide famous podcast. But I will say that part of the reason I think they did it was because the general manager, Zach Kleiman, really, really likes this guy, Tuomas Izalo, who's the Finnish guy who they hired as an assistant. And I... It was like...

it's kind of a crazy story like he he he did in europe kind of what um uh what's the football coach from indiana um signetti yeah signetti he kind of signetti kind of stole it from him so he so this he had his team in germany in bonn germany and they were like really good i don't don't ask what division they were in but they won some championship

And then this team in Paris, Paris basket, who's kind of like a big team, but they're kind of like an underdog, even though they're in a big city, they don't have a ton of money and they've just done. Okay. So they hired him and he brought six players from that German team to his Paris team. Cause in Europe, it's kind of like college right now. It's like most guys have one year contracts.

Yeah, there's some players who get multi-year deals, but most guys have one-year contracts. So he's like, I'm bringing my whole team with me. We're going into the transfer portal and we're bringing this team to Paris. And like he brought in those six guys and they won a championship there. He got noticed by the Grizzlies. They were obsessed with hiring him. The Wizards wanted to hire him and it was like a bidding war. Plus he was under contract for Paris Basket and they had to pay, buy out his contract. It is crazy.

The more I talk about, the more it feels like college basketball. And they get him to come over to be this lead assistant. And I think they just thought that they just think this guy's a genius. And maybe he will be proven to that. Maybe he won't. But like, I think part of what was going on there is they were like, look, I think it was kind of the same thing. I think they were worried that somebody else thought he was a genius too. And if they got to the end of the season, somebody else is going to hire him. Right.

And so they were like, let's hire him now. Even though the guy they had in there had a pretty good record, Taylor Jenkins. So, but I got to agree with you. I got to agree with you. I don't,

I don't, I I've never seen two guys get fired that late, especially with teams that have winning records or going to the playoffs. Yeah. It's bizarre. Yeah, it is. It's very bizarre. All right. So I agree with you. The, the West playoffs, especially early on look like the matchups are going to be a lot more fun because the East is a little top heavy. Let's do this exercise. How many teams would it not shock you for them to win the title this year? Because I feel like it's two in the East and,

and a lot in the West. So this is how I vote. This is how I vote with my mouse. I decide that a team has a chance to win the title when I book hotel reservations in that city. Because here's the thing. As you know, most hotel reservations you can cancel. So there's no penalty for making a hotel reservation. And number one, I want to get into a certain hotel. And what happens in the playoffs is

You never know when all of a sudden 5,000 people want to come into town for a game. All of a sudden, sometimes hotels get sold out. Sometimes they quadruple their prices, but they don't pay attention. They don't seem to know that their basketball teams are good. And the finals schedule is out in the fall. So I booked a certain hotel that I want in Boston. I booked it in October.

Wow. I like this list. The wind, Wendy's hotels, like where we can, this could be Bolton board for all the other teams. Yeah. And I booked the, the, the, for the, for the Boston hotel for the whole final. So whether they're the home or the, you know, wherever they're at, cause I was like, they're going to, they're going to probably be there. I booked it out. Okay. Um, like probably January, February, December, January, Oklahoma city.

Booked that out. Booked that sucker. Did they call you? Were they like, I think you made a mistake, sir. You booked a hotel in Oklahoma City. Sir, you booked a hotel in Oklahoma City for two and a half weeks. Are you sure you meant to do this? We think that you may have made an error. So I had Boston and I had Oklahoma City. Then the Cavs, you know, they started 15-0, but okay, some teams start hot. The Cavs went on this winning streak in January.

And they went through this like stretch. And every time they played a team, the other team would come into the post game and be like, holy shit. Like they're like Giannis did it. Michael Malone did it. JJ Redick was like, do you know what you got to do to like beat these guys? Like, like there was like this stretch of like, they went on like this one of their winning streaks. And like, it was like uncanny every game, a team, a coach would come in or a player would come in and be like, this team is good. I was like, all right.

Cleveland on the list booked, you know, but, but by then I could figure out like if the, if the, if the Cavs won the East, they were probably going to have a really good record. So I think I only booked home games, but you know what? No, I probably did book it all out. So I booked out Cleveland. So how many more have I booked? That's that's now we're at the nitty gritty. How many more have I booked? All right. I have Los Angeles booked, but did I book for Inglewood? Yeah.

Where the Clippers play or did I book for downtown? That's the question. That's a bit. Wouldn't you like to know? Fingers up. Where did Wendy book in LA? Did you book both? Did you book in the middle of both? I booked downtown because our studio is here. I mean, I just wanted to mess around. So I booked LA because there's a where there's a world where I could see the Clippers or the Lakers doing it. I would, I favor the Clippers to do it more than the Lakers, but the Lakers draw, uh,

of all the draws you could have, the Lakers draw is probably kind of favorable because not that I'm looking down on the wolves. In fact, the wolves are staying at the same hotel I'm at now. I just saw them all on my way over here. And so I'm not saying anything bad about them because if, you know, I'm sure they're listeners and I'm going to see them, you know, at the Starbucks and there may be words, I'm not looking for that. I'm not looking for that heat. So, um, uh,

no, I booked in downtown LA and, and I booked Denver before Michael Malone got fired. I should have, should have reevaluated that because I just have so much respect, so much respect for, for Jokic. So that's my list. Is it, is it a, is it an exhaustive list? I didn't, I did not book out San Francisco. I'm not there yet. Cause they're just so small, the warriors. Yep. And yeah,

You know, that's my list. It's probably actually bigger. Usually it's only about it's more than normal. Yeah. Because I know that L.A. probably would book up like crazy. So L.A. is probably borderline. I probably really didn't need to do that. I don't feel that strongly about that. But yeah, that's my that's my list. So what happens in the finals? You've got the two cities ideally booked out well ahead of time. Do you cancel the days in between where you're not going to be there or do you just have an empty hotel room?

No, obviously I cancel. I cancel. But yeah, it's like, because you look at my account and there's like 39 reservations. And you're like, what the heck is going on here? And as we get closer and closer, I start canceling. It's like refreshing. I'm getting...

Cause you're also getting towards the end of the season, you know, you're, you're finalizing it down, but yeah, that's like my, you know, my, I couldn't give you a higher compliment than booking a hotel three months out in your city. I love this. I think we need like this. I would hope that you would be in for this, but like, I want to make this a recurring thing on PMT next year where you book a hotel, you let us know and we'll do a breaking news. So I have all these rules about things that I want when I, during the first off, I want to take flights that I don't think people are going to be on.

Okay. Because, I mean, look, if it's Oklahoma City and Boston, you're not going to have 75 options, right? So maybe that. But I like to take a flight that I don't think other people are going to be on because I don't want to sit there and talk about the series for three hours or in the gate area or whatever. I'd rather...

break from it when i'm not doing it right and i try you can't always do this because sometimes you're in a city we don't have a choice i try to stay in a hotel that i don't think people are going to stay in yeah okay i i don't when i'm not at the arena or whatever i don't want and i also have this rule during the finals and i stole it from greg popovich rule of five uh no dinner is more than five people oh um i will maybe sometimes allow a sixth

If it's somebody's spouse, because the last thing, cause you know, sometimes the spouses come to the playoffs and I don't want like somebody to be like making a choice between like a work dinner and like going with their wife or husband or boyfriend or girlfriend. So I will sometimes bend, but generally it's five. Cause this is what happens. Cause you know, there's a whole bunch of people traveling. There's all these different groups of people.

A lot of people who don't travel during the year and they'll be like, oh, we're going so-and-so. Hey, can we bring along so-and-so? Can we bring along so-and-so? The next thing you got 12 people, you can't get in. The tables are all messed up. You know, the bill comes and somebody's had six bottles of wine and now I'm paying $1,000

you know, $745. I can't talk to those seven people down there. I want everybody at the table to hear the other people rule of five. And if I am go, if I go to a dinner and there's like five and I say, how many people are there? And they go, Oh, there's four of us. You'd be the fifth. I go, okay. And then if they call back later and they go, Hey, we're adding so-and-so and so-and-so I don't care who it is. I'm like, okay, you guys have fun. I'll go someplace else. I love it. That's a good rule. What if you show up and the party has expanded from when you were invited? Yeah, it's happened. And you go on my list. Yeah.

You don't want to be on that list. You're a big list guy. There's, you know, these two individuals don't know, but these two individuals invited me to a dinner at the last finals. It was in Cleveland in 2018. I got there. There were people on the roster that I hadn't known about. The table was bigger.

Done. We haven't gone since. Maybe they know. Maybe they figured it out. Maybe they haven't. Done. Don't do that. I have limited time. I can't be bothered with this. And here's the other thing. If it's a big party, I am not afraid to do the Irish goodbye. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I am not afraid. Like, I will specifically not order. Like, I have done this where I've sat down and all of a sudden it's 12 people, you know? Yeah.

water. We had to drink water. All right. I'm going to go to the bathroom. Goodbye. I didn't sign up for 12 people. And I, you know, I didn't order like an appetizer. I didn't pay. Yeah.

These are my rules. Yeah. These are my rules. Guys, I've been covering Lake for 23 years. Yeah. Do you know how many road trips I've gone on? Do you know how many dinners I've gone on on the road? I don't need it in my life. Thank you. Man's got to have a code. You're smart. All right. One team you didn't put on there, the Houston Rockets. Is it too young? Because I do think...

The NBA is the one league where you can confidently be like, this team's very talented, incredible season from the Rockets. They have some really, really awesome young players, but they're just too young because that's how the NBA works. You get battle tested. You got to climb the mountain. The Thunder were that team last year, and now this year they could be in the finals. So is that it? Is it they're just too young? Typically, yeah. You know, they're...

I don't want to disrespect them. Like they could like, look, man, if they like beat the, they beat the warriors like four, one or something, we might sign on and see what, uh, see what reservations are available in June in Houston. Um, I've, I reserved the right to, uh, to add to that list or delete from that list. Um, but, um,

Yeah, but I will say this. They are built for the playoffs. Like if you look at the guys that they've drafted, like you guys are actually good. You guys are actually good people to to ask about this because you guys follow the NBA, but you don't like get into the NBA super, super like, well, you guys, you guys bet. So you guys know. All right. What do you guys know about Ahmed Thompson? He's a freak.

Okay, so you guys, that's a bad example. You guys, that's a bad example. And I'm excited to watch him guard Steph Curry because that's going to be awesome. So I feel like the world, I mean, obviously if you're a Rocket fan, you love him. If you're an NBA fan, you may be a little bit aware of him, but I feel like

The basketball public is going to figure out who Ahmed Thompson is over the next two, three weeks. Yeah. This guy is a absolute freak amongst freaks. Like all the great athletes that you see in the NBA. He's like the, the great athletes, great athlete. And he is going to be attacking stuff. Um, Steph has seen every defender in the world. Um,

I think KD had that great line in that documentary about the Olympics, um, where he was sort of mocking the other teams, um, you know, having camaraderie and, you know, growing up playing together. He's like, how's that going to help you when you guard Steph? I agree. Like you can be the most physically, uh, imposing defender in the history of the sport. If you lose Steph Curry, he gets the corner turned on you. You're giving up a three. I don't care what you say, but, um,

They are built with defensive minded players, which you need in the postseason. The other thing is like the Warriors real weapon is Jimmy Butler. And the one thing that you can do on Jimmy Butler that can maybe kind of bother him a little bit is put like really big size on him. This happened in the finals two years ago. You know, Jimmy had that great run where he led the heat all the way to the finals and

And look, Jokic was untouchable, but they had Aaron Gordon, who just has enormous size. Like, I think he's like 6'10". They put him on Butler. And like, Butler isn't... Very, very rarely can you find a guy who can physically impose Jimmy Butler.

And Gordon could kind of do that. And so like they have players like that. They have, you know, Dylan Brooks, they have, uh, I'm in Thompson. Um, you know, they have Jabari Smith. They have, you know, these guys who have got good size. So while they don't have star power and they don't have like experience, uh, although Fred Van Vliet is there like their leader and he's got a ring, um, they do have some things going for them. So I wouldn't count them out. I actually think that other than whoever Oklahoma city plays in the one eight, uh,

I think you can take the little numbers next to the teams, the seeds, and you can throw them out. Because I don't think there's a discernible difference between the two, the three, the four, the five, the six. Obviously, you get home court if you're the higher seed. But Golden State is favored in this series, I think, in the sports books. On one hand, I respect it because I don't think there's that much of a difference between the teams. On the other hand, that is not...

not acknowledging what Houston's got going for him. Yeah. Also, my favorite thing about the Rockets is Jeff Green's still playing basketball, and he's on the Rockets. It's crazy. He's had, I don't even know how long, what, it's like 20 years now? 19 years? I think he's played with double-digit teams. If it's not double-digit teams, it's got to be like nine. Yeah. I want to know the percentage of players...

all time that have ever played in the NBA that have played on a team with Jeff Green. It's a lot. It's got to be higher than you would think. Like the Kevin Bacon? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's two Seattle Supersonics left in the league.

KD and Jeff Green. Guys who play with the Sonics. Yeah. And I think it's KD and Jeff Green because Westbrook's first year was with the – he was in Oklahoma City, I'm pretty sure. Yeah. So I think Uncle Jeff and KD are the last two Sonics who had Sonics jerseys. I'm looking forward to seeing Dylan Brooks and Draymond Green on the court at the same time in this series. Like somebody's getting thrown out, right? Yeah.

Here's something else. Houston plays like super physical. Like that's how their coach email Doka, like teaches them to play. He wants them to play physical. And so, you know, officiating is going to be a deal in this series. You know that how Houston gets officiated is going to be something. So, you know, that from the opening tip off, Draymond green is going to be working it. And like, obviously sometimes Draymond goes over the edge, but if you look on balance, the warriors might tell you that on balance, uh,

He's way ahead because he does sometimes intimidate officials. Now the officials that you see in the post season are more veteran. It's maybe not going to happen, but,

But Draymond, I could see Draymond going to work here because he knows from the beginning of the series that the way games are officiated are going to matter. And he has a whole game within the game of what he's doing with the referees. I got a question for you, Wendy. Maybe we do east-west, so we'll start with the east. Kind of a broader question, and I have an answer in mind, but I'm curious yours. What team or player has the most pressure on them in the east?

You sound like you're a first take producer. Yeah. That is exactly. It popped in my head. Do you want me to go with mine first? And then you can answer and tell me if it's stupid. Yeah. I think there's a lot of pressure on the current iteration of the Bucs because it does feel like they're at the end of something. And if they don't maybe win a couple series here, it's like, where are we as a franchise? Good. Very good. Agree. Okay. What is yours?

Um, so I think there's, I'm at, let me just say who I don't think there's pressure on that. You may be, maybe not you, but the fans may, I don't think there's a lot of pressure on the Lakers. Okay. Um, that's not what people are going to think. They're going to think, Oh my God, like the lake, you know, if LeBron doesn't win, like, uh, you know, there goes the Jordan comparison. Um, uh, I think the Lakers are better, are going to be better next year. And I think this year is all about them.

getting the reps in together and learning to play with each other under pressure and figuring out how LeBron and Luca and Austin Reeves are going to share the load. They're not equipped really to handle it. I say handle it. That's the wrong word. They're not equipped. They're not built. The roster isn't built out to win 12 playoff games to win the West. In my opinion, they could prove me wrong and then laugh at me. I could get called weird again, but I, I, I don't think there's a lot of pressure on them.

Um, I don't think there's a lot of pressure really on the warriors because I think they're kind of in a free roll. Jimmy has his contract. The warriors have their titles. Like if they can make a run, um,

They, they did it, man. They, they, they, you know, Seth has four rings. What was it? If he gets a fifth, like that's supposed to like take him to upper echelon. They want to win. They did great. You know, Jimmy doesn't have a ring, but no one's going to say that Jimmy Butler isn't a, isn't a great pressure player. Like his, he obviously would want to win, but his reputation is, he's kind of secure.

I think there could be a little bit of pressure on Donovan Mitchell because Donovan Mitchell, when he was in Utah several times, I'm not sure he had two 60 win teams. He definitely had one 61 team in Utah and they've never, he never made it to the conference finals and it wasn't always his fault, but he is not always delivered at the highest. He's sort of been up and down. He's had some playoff games where he's been amazing, but his team has never like over even achieved much. That's overachieved.

And he is, by the way, he has spent this whole year as the Cavs racked up 64 or 65 wins, whatever they had saying, none of this matters. This 15 game winning streak to start the season doesn't matter. The 16 game win streak they had in the, in the, after the all-star break doesn't matter. The three all-stars doesn't matter. Him making all NBA doesn't matter. He's like, because I've been on great teams before and it doesn't matter if you don't win. And I think that's true. And look, I don't favor them to win the East.

But if they stub their toe and like, don't get to the, to the conference finals, or if they get to the conference finals and they've built out this team, this team is like set up. They, you know, they went and made a mid season trade for Deandre Hunter, which, you know, is costing them a lot of money in the future. And they like get blasted by Boston for one, like they got beat for one by Boston a year ago. Then I think people are going to look at him and go, well, can you, are you really a difference making player? Like, are you really a type of guy who can carry a team?

So while I don't look at them as favorites in the East, I think there's pressure on Donovan to have a great playoff run and to carry the Cavs with him. I don't think there's pressure on the Celtics per se. However, if they get to the finals, there will be pressure on Jason Tatum to have a great final because he wasn't great in the 2022 finals. And then last year, he was good. He led the Celtics in points, rebounds, and assists.

in the finals. He did not play poorly. He just didn't shoot the ball well and he wasn't amazing. Like this is the one thing people always make the mistake. They're like, oh, Jalen Brown won the MVP. Jason Tatum must've sucked. No, there was 11 votes for finals MVP. There's 11 voters. It was seven to four.

You know, there were people who thought Jason Tatum was the finals MVP. He just didn't play amazing and awesome, but he has played in two finals. He hasn't been amazing and awesome in those two finals, even though he's got a ring. So I do think if he gets there, especially if the Celtics crush the East, like last year, I think they went through the East 12 and two.

If they do something like that again this year, it's going to be like, okay, Jason, now you got to show up in the finals to solidify where you need to be as a player. Yeah. You haven't mentioned the Knicks on your pressure teams. No pressure on New York? What do you think? I mean, there's pressure if they're in trouble in the first round. Yeah. I feel like, yeah, given what they've done against the good teams in the East, I

I think most Knicks fans are not going into this playoffs being like, yeah, this is our year. We can do it. We're gritty, scrappy underdogs. We can do it. I think they're kind of guarded going into it, but I do think that they need to at least win a series. They better win that series. Detroit won 13 games last year or something, 14 games. They've got a couple of guys on their team who –

have playoff experience like Tobias Harris, you know, Tim Hardaway Jr. But like, you know, the guys that they're relying on, you know, Cade Cunningham, you know, Jalen Duren, the guys that they're relying on have never done this before. So,

If the Knicks screw around in that first series, that would potentially create some pressure. I'll give you that. Yeah, they're pressured to not flame out. Yeah, because they're playing – there's certain teams, the Magic, the Pistons, the T-Wolves a little different because obviously they went deep last year, or the Rockets, where it's if they lose –

The future is bright and they're building something and they're getting to somewhere. It's a free roll. Right. The Knicks are in that weird spot where it's like they made the moves to try to get better and...

They aren't really seriously contending in the East, so it's kind of a weird spot. Oklahoma City is kind of going that route because Oklahoma City is the youngest team in the league. How often do you ever see the youngest team in the league be the best team in the league? We almost never see it. It's actually the reason why Oklahoma City, not maybe the reason, but it's a reason. The thing I've noticed about Oklahoma City is that the players don't respect them.

Um, like they're not afraid of them. Um, even though they won 57 games last year and they won 68 games this year, like nobody who wins those, that many games over two years is not a championship team.

but they're the youngest team. So you just don't respect young guys who haven't done it before, no matter how many regular season wins they get. So they're going in, they are actually favored. I, the reason I think that they're favorite, you guys know the gambling way better than I do. I can't honestly say that they should be favored to beat Boston four out of seven, but I must, they, the sports books must be getting so much money on the Celtics that they're trying to get money on the,

Thunder is that maybe what's happened? I don't understand it, but I would say that the Thunder being favorite. I don't think that's the way the players in the league based on my conversations. If the Thunder don't win it this year, specifically if they don't get to the finals,

you will see it flip on them. You will then see people like me saying the Thunder better get this done. Do the Thunder need to make a trade or whatever? Right now, they kind of live in a zone where they're not having expectations. Like, well, you better back this 68-win season up by getting to the finals and almost winning it. Otherwise, it doesn't matter. They don't really live in that world right now. They live in a bit of a not-that-stressful-of-a-world. But that will change if they...

if they stub their toe and go out early like they did last year. Yeah, that is kind of weird that they're the favorites to win it all. Because usually you would see that – you would expect that team to be coming out of the East, where it might be a little bit easier to get to the finals. It could be also Jalen Brown's knee, which, I mean, you think he's going to be fine, but that always – any injury news could always change it a little too. Yeah, he did have a treatment, but they were playing him. It's not like they shut him down, so –

He definitely has been talking about it. And when the player talks about it, like that's a sign. Like it's one thing if the team says, oh yeah, he's dealing with something and the player doesn't say anything. When the player says something about it, like I'm dealing with something, I pay more attention, but they were playing him. Yeah. Like up until their seed, you know, he played straight through until they're, until they knew they had the second seed. So I don't, it's not my knee. I don't know how it feels. You know, he had like an injection in it, but.

But, you know, in all honesty, Boston might not need him for a month anyway. Yeah. What are we hearing on the health front from Dame? So he apparently responded to the treatments for the blood clots a lot faster than anybody thought that he would. Is there a chance that he plays in the first series? Yeah, I think so. I think he's I mean, you know, you never want to assume anything. But I think the intent is for him to play sometime next week. He's not going to play in the first game.

So look, I had a blood clot 15 years ago. I am not an athlete quite clearly. When I had the blood clot, like they wanted you to be on the medication for at least three months. The medication sucks, has a bunch of side effects, like drags you down. Nobody likes it.

but you got to be careful, but it's life-saving. You know, the thing about a blood clot I know from just having one is that the big thing is to, is to diagnose it. That's because the problem is people die when blood clots, when they don't know they're feeling sick, they don't know why people die when blood clots are not diagnosed. So the big challenge is diagnose a blood clot. Then you deal with it. So they, so what Shams Charania said, like is that Dame started blood thinning medication for,

Two weeks before they actually found the blood clot. Oh, wow. Now, this obviously creates some follow up questions that we would all like to have. And Dane hasn't done an interview yet. And by the way, like aspirin, I think, can theoretically be called blood thinning medication. So I don't want to sound like but something that he did when he started feeling this issue was.

helped mitigate this. And even that, like, I mean, he was, he was going to the Mayo clinic, like they know what they're doing. So it is kind of amazing. Like when I heard he had a blood clot and like the bucks were saying like, no, we think he can come back. I thought they were just like trying to put up a front, like trying to keep, you know, trying not to let anybody have information. Cause you don't do that in the playoffs, but sure enough, he's been cleared by, by the Mayo clinic.

So that the Bucks have had nothing but bad news on the injury front for the last three years, two, three years ago when they were the defending champs, Middleton got hurt in the first round. He, he, he went down to like the first game and put his hand on the ground and sprained his wrist or something like that. And he, and they had blues in his six games or seven games to the Celtics the year they went to the finals and,

Next year, Giannis gets hurt in the first round. They go out to Miami. Miami ends up going to the finals. If Giannis doesn't get hurt, maybe the Bucks are back in the finals. I don't know. You know, I don't know. Then last year, you remember Giannis, like it's 10 days before the end of the season. He takes an inbound, turns to run up the court and falls down. Hurts his calf. Giannis has played in two playoff games last two years. So they've had nothing but rotten injury luck for three straight years. It's really short-circuited.

this team's opportunity to win another title. Yeah. Yeah. And so for them to get unexpectedly positive injury news, I would say karma was on their side for that to happen. So I'm, I hope he's fine and I'm glad to hear it. All right. I got a couple of last questions. We talked about Ahmed Thompson.

Give me another name that you think the national, like, world is going to be like, oh, man. Because, you know, this is why we love the playoffs. Guys, everyone knew who Anthony Edwards was, but last year was, you know, holy shit, this guy is unreal. Jalen Brunson a couple years ago. Like, this is the stage that names start to become bigger and guys get talked about in a different light. So do you have one or two guys where you're like, hey, this could be a big, big moment for them?

So a bit of zoo bots from the Clippers. I don't know. Is he a big enough? Is he, is he a big name? I mean like he played, so this guy is having an absolutely incredible season and he's just big, strong, brute player who, I mean, he's been in the league like seven, eight years. It's not like he's unheard of, but he took a leap forward this year. And I think part of it is because like James Harden does a great job, like bringing a lot out of centers. Like he did this with Clint Capella years ago in Houston and,

Part of it, I think, is that Harden was like the full-time point guard for the full season. But Zubats is just a beast. And I wouldn't say he's had success against Jokic, but out of all the guys who have played Jokic a bunch of times, Zubats has actually been able to check the box and say, I did a good job in this game the most.

So he is going to be front and center in that series. He is been one of the best defensive players in the league. He's a beast on the interior. He doesn't mess around. You know, like we're in this era where everybody and their brother shoots threes. Zoo doesn't do that. Zoo's like, forget about that. I am playing that game. I will come in and I will shoot my 65% on the interior. So it's a great opportunity for the, the world to kind of be introduced to zoo. And I don't know, like, again, I don't,

Cade Cunningham has been an all-star, but he hasn't been on the sort of the front page. Okay. Cunningham was like a borderline MVP candidate this year. He was so good for the Pistons and the Pistons haven't made the playoffs in like seven years. So like, and they weren't on national TV a lot. So like, there's a chance again, if you're a casual NBA fan, you haven't really seen Cade Cunningham. So I hate to give this to a guy who was an all-star and is going to be on the all NBA team, but I,

I feel like Cade Cunningham, especially playing in New York, playing at the Garden, I think he has a chance to sort of have his profile really elevated. Yeah, no, that's a good answer because if they beat – if the Pistons win a series, Cade Cunningham will be talked about in a different light going forward. I agree. You remember that happened with Trey Young? Yeah. I mean, Trey Young was a major college star. I mean, I guess Cade was too. He was the number one overall pick. Yeah.

Trey Young went into another level because of that playoff series with the Knicks a few years ago. Yeah. If you had a gun to your head right now, or I guess if your credit card company called you up and they said, you have to cancel. You can't have all these hotel rooms. There's a housing crisis in America. We need some of these hotel rooms back. And they only gave you two options. You can only pick one from the West. Oklahoma City and Boston. That's where you're keeping it? Okay. That's your finals pick. And I say that as someone who's from Cleveland, who spends a lot of time in Cleveland and, you know,

makes a lot of appearances in Cleveland. They're not going to be happy that I say that, but like you got to knock the champ out. And they did, they went two and two against them this year. And Donovan Mitchell averaged like 32 points against the Celtics this year. Like there's a world where this happens for Donovan, but he's got to prove to do it. He, you know, and so,

Those were the two that I made, the first two that I made. But you also have a lot of friends in Cleveland. You could just say that, like you'll crash at their place so you can cancel the hotel. I am staying with my mother in Akron on Saturday night. ESPN will not have to pay

From my hotel rooms in Cleveland this upcoming week. I love it. I love it. All right, Wendy, this has been so much fun. We love having you on. I got one last question. It's a Roback question. R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com, promo code TAKE. Love Roback. Yes, the best. 20% off your first purchase. Use promo code TAKE. Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts, the best. Roback.com, promo code TAKE.

I know this is in playoffs, but I just want to be, I want to feel seen for a minute because we've already taped the rest of the show and I did a rant at the beginning of the show about the Bulls. Rightfully so. It's just ridiculous that people actually look at March and April NBA basketball and say, oh, that team's building something. Is that fair? Because that was my whole thing. Like they were a 47% win percentage team for the season. They won 70% of their games down the stretch and

And if you take out all the teams that were tanking or were sitting load management guys, they won 46% of those games. They never changed as a team. They just started playing teams that were actively trying to lose. Cat, what would you say is the most important thing that the Bulls need? A guy.

Absolutely. How do you get them? Yes. The lottery. Ah, yes. Thank you. Checkmark, checkmark. I'm ready to hire you as GM. Oh, what did the bulls absolutely not do this year? They didn't get their lottery odds up. Um, what I, the way I said it, I declared this like 18 months ago, the bulls are in a rebuild and they don't know they're in a rebuild. Yep.

And that's almost the worst position to be in. I will say this. You could be the Sacramento Kings who have a bunch of Bulls players making tons of money that didn't work with Chicago and are now convinced they're going to work in Sacramento, so convinced that they're firing coaches and GMs.

saying, why isn't this working? Why are we not in the... And by the way, I have nothing against Zach Levine and DeMar DeRozan. I know them a little bit. I think they're good guys. They just didn't work together in Chicago. Why would they... Anyway, that's another story. I said that. I said it was the Bulls front office lost two playing games on Wednesday night. They did. I know. Here's the thing. The Bulls got booed off the floor, and so did Sacramento. I know. The Bulls, ex-Bulls players got booed off. And AK is sitting there like, oh, this is crazy. I can't believe this happened.

I can't explain. Um, one of my podcast partners, um, uh, Tim McMahon, he says, boy, he has a line. He goes, boy, you came in third, like the bulls in a three team trade. I love saying that. Um,

And I didn't see Arturis Kanishavis' press conference today. I'm going to follow it up. I was working. Somebody told me he said something to the effect of, this may not be an exact quote, hey, just give us some time. We're building. Timeline. Yeah. Yeah. Tough.

It's okay. All right. I feel seen. Thank you. Because I, I, you fight against it and I know like people inherently don't want to see their team tank, but the NBA, if you are three, I was saying actually the start of the show, if you get in the, if you're in the plan three or four years in a row, like the bulls and Hawks, there should be like a punishment on your team because that's, you're basically admitting to everyone that you don't know what you're doing and you're doing this all wrong.

So a couple of, I don't know, maybe a month ago we ranked like at ESPN, we use like these seven different ways to rank the rebuilding teams. Like there was like, I don't know, we call them 10 rebuilding teams. Like we all rolled up our sleeves and we did all this analysis, looked at all these stats and everything like that. And we ranked them. And really the only difference between the teams who are doing successful rebuilds, like the Spurs and teams that are doing unsuccessful rebuilds, well, the bulls technically aren't rebuilding, but whatever, uh,

are the fact that they got lucky in the lottery. Right. Like if you, if you looked at this, you could be like, the only way to do this is to get lucky in the lottery. So maybe they will get lucky in the lottery and Cooper flag will be showing up in the summer. And if that happens, it would be amazing because Kobe white is good. Josh Giddy does have promise, uh, but zealous, their rookie, like would potentially be like a pretty good fourth guy. But, uh,

If you don't have the dude, you're not going anywhere. So you got to kill yourself to get the dude. And the Bulls aren't doing things to get the dude. That's what would drive me crazy if I was a Bulls fan. So who do you have winning the lottery? What would be the best option? I mean, if the Bulls won the lottery, I mean, now they're like, what are they? They'd have like the 12th best odds or something like that. I think they're 1% right now. Could jump up to 2%. Yeah. It would be amazing if Cooper Flagg went to Chicago. Yeah. Like for the league.

Why'd you say that? For the league? For the league, because I don't know if you heard, it would be better if the Bulls are good for the league. It would be better for the league, but they've done their best not to get it. What I kind of don't want is the 76ers to win it. Because they were...

What the way that the way they got to that seat, they finished the season five and 31. Yeah. Is there any chance that silver steps in and he's like, Hey,

We told you not to do this. You kept doing it. I'm taking away a couple of your percentage points, giving it to the Bulls. You know, like one of the most amazing parts of the NFL season for me, I don't follow it that closely, was that one game where who were the Eagles playing where they kept doing the tush push and like it kept being penalties and the referee was like, look, if you jump, okay, I'm sorry, PFT. I didn't mean to interrupt. I seriously didn't want to inflict damage on you. But like when that referee said,

Look, if you do it again, we're just giving them the touchdown. Yeah.

Like what you're saying is Adam Silver should have that. Yes. You know, like they're all celebrating. He just steps in. I'm sorry. I'm just going to use my, my powers here. Yeah. We're taking away. You're going down to like 5% in the lottery. The bulls jump up to like 6% and maybe the wizards get the rest. I don't know. Yeah. That seems fair. It would, it wouldn't be the worst idea in the world for the wizards to get Cooper flag. That would kind of be cool. The nation's capital hasn't had a good team in like decades. Yeah. It's been a long time, but it'll probably be Charlotte.

Yeah. Okay. We will. All right. Well, Wendy, you're the best. We love having you on. We'll do it again later on in the playoffs. And I love the idea of the windy hotel. So we'll make a graphic for you and we'll start doing five, five people at dinner. If five people at dinner, I love that. I don't care. Like if there's four of us at the table and you two show up and

And you're offering to pay. I say, thank you. Keep on walking. I love it. I can tell you're very passionate about this, but it comes from a place of experience where you've had some bad situations. I can tell that there's trauma in your past. And you're so right about like the conversation. If you're at a dinner with 10 people, you don't talk to half of the table. It just doesn't happen. Right. And like, look, that's fine for other people. For me, five, five, six. If it's somebody's boyfriend or girlfriend, I don't want to leave them out. That's the only time I'll go there.

All right. Thanks so much, Wendy. We'll talk soon. Take care, guys.

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at 47brand.com. Save 20% off, 47brand.com and promo code PMT. And now here's recurring guest and handsome man, Josh Duhamel. Ooh.

Okay, we now welcome on a very special guest, recurring guest, the most attractive guest that we have in Pardon My Take history. Skip Bayless. Skip Bayless or Josh Duhamel. Josh, always great to see you. Always great to have you on. You have a new show out April 17th, Ransom Canyon on Netflix. It looks like you're ready to do just like a full day of press junkets. How many interviews do you have today?

Oh, gosh. I don't know. I'm here until 1. They got me fully loaded. I know that much. Okay. So we're number... By the way, we're at this new Netflix building that they built just for junkets like this. Okay. We used to be at a hotel, and now they have... They built actual hotel rooms with room service in a room like this, and they just run us through like a car wash. That's unreal. Can you get a room in the Netflix hotel junket? Yeah. It's a beautiful room. It's like...

It's like, you know, five star. Yeah. All right. So bad because we can't sleep. Yeah. So we're interview one. You're going to do a bunch of interviews today. I would hope that we ask the dumbest questions that you get today. And I'll start with a really dumb one. So Ransom Canyon. I watched the trailer. Looks awesome. Texas romance. Western got everything. How many horses did you ride? And did you have like a specific horse you loved?

I did. I rode a horse called JC. We all had our own horse. We actually went to a cowboy camp for a couple of weeks before we started shooting. I hadn't been, you know, I'm from North Dakota. We talked about this last time. So I was around farms and ranches pretty much my whole life, but I hadn't been on a horse for 20 years probably. So yeah, I was, I was a little rusty, but it was, you know, it was, and I'm not going to lie. I wasn't a huge horse guy, but,

But for whatever reason, I don't know if it was Clay and the guys over there that sort of run this cowboy camp. I really started to love it again for the first time in maybe forever. I like it. So JC was your horse. So that was your horse every single time. Yep. Okay. Now, this is a dumb question, but do horses have to act? Do they have like a coach? Well, they're really well trained. I can tell you that much. Some more than others. JC was a really, he was an older veteran horse. So he was...

very well behaved, which I liked. I didn't feel like I was going to get bucked off at any minute. Yeah. That's good. I feel like Kevin Costner, his roles recently have just been like, get me to a place where I can ride horses around while I'm on the set because that's what I want to be doing anyways. It's actually a really cool strategy if that's what you love. Yeah. Right. It is fun. You know, in this whole, you know, there's something about the vibe of this show that I just...

Loved because I was actually at my place at my cabin when April Blair the showrunner called so I was kind of in this mode anyway I was I think I was on my tractor and my side-by-side or something and and we just started talking about this character and you know, this guy is You know, he's been through it the last couple of years lost his wife a couple years ago and then lost his son About a year to the day. We start the show so he's been through it and

And I think that, you know, that's really what I love is this guy was not just he doesn't have it all together. He's pretty broken. He's pretty surly.

And, you know, that fits my character. I fit right into that. Yeah. The other thing I noticed, another dumb question from the trailer, which it looks awesome. I'm definitely going to watch this show. There was a line in it, and you've been in a lot of movies, a lot of shows, where I think a police officer said to a woman, you stay away from that boy. Has that ever worked? Has anyone ever stayed away from the boy? No.

That's a pretty good indicator that she's not going to stay with you. I feel like I picked up. I'm not the smartest guy, but I feel like I picked up. There might be something going on with the boy.

You're like the Pink Panther. Yeah, I'm like those Reddit threads for White Lotus or Severance where everyone's piecing every single thing in the background. I'm like, I should just start a thread being like, I think there's something going to happen with this boy and this girl. I don't know. Speak.

Speaking of your place that you have up in Minnesota, I watched the tour that you gave of your cabin, your property that you have up there. That looks awesome. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm actually envious of what you did to that place because maybe you can tell the story, but you bought a spot for what, like 75 grand? And then you spent the last couple years fixing it up. It looks incredible. By the way, you guys are always welcome. It is a lot of fun. I don't want to like overplay the relationship, but my follow-up question was going to be, if there is an apocalypse, I'm going to go to your cabin. Is that cool? I'm ready. Okay. I'm ready. It truly is my happy place. We bought that place.

I bought the place like 15, 16 years ago with nothing on it. It was literally, the first thing I bought was a floating dock. And then the property next to that went up for sale and had a little hunting shack with no electricity or water. And then a couple of years after that, another one went up for sale right next door with a little cabin right on the water. So then I suddenly had two little cabins, no water, no wells, but one of them had electricity. So for the first 10 years, we would be

You know, it was outhouses and it was washing dishes in the lake. Yeah. And finally, we built something that's actually, you know, a little bit more

suited for modern times and and we have running water now and we have wells and we have showers and We even have a dishwasher. So, you know, we're living a really posh life out there. Yeah, it looks amazing We're people calling you insane when you said hey I'm gonna buy this place fix it up and spend a lot of time out there because it's so far away from everything I get it But I imagine that a lot of people that you work around that might not have been like their ideal situation to live Yeah, have we lost Josh? Is he gone? No

At times, yeah, I think people do wonder that. It is, you know, it was just something that I felt like I wanted to do. I'd never, you know, I didn't grow up with a lake cabin. I didn't have anything like that, but I had friends who did and I always loved it. I loved that lake life. So it just became the place, and especially during COVID, we spent a lot of time just because nothing was going on. We just lived out there and we're building and, you know, cutting trails and

and just sort of shaping it and then over the last few years especially it's really come along so yeah it's it's it's it's a lot of fun is it is it fully doomsday prepped are you ready to go if there's an apocalypse well i'm getting there uh you know the whole thing runs on propane if i need it to the generator and i got solar i got wells so i have enough water

I'm not much of a hunter yet. I'm working on that. But there's plenty that you could hunt and eat and fish if you had to.

I could probably survive two weeks. Okay. We're getting there. Two weeks is pretty good. Yeah. Because I know that if there's an apocalypse, I would just walk outside and be like, just take me now. I'm not down for the fight. I'd give up very quickly. It's always been a fear of mine, like the idea that something happens and everything goes sideways. The problem is, how would I get there? Because the freeways in L.A. can lock up pretty quickly.

So I've gone through all these scenarios where

Do I get a dirt bike and take the canyons over to a boat that I have rented in a slip over in the marina? And do I drive the boat up the coast where I have a car parked that I can drive from there? You know, it's a whole. I've thought this thing through. I haven't done any of that yet, but it is part of the plan. I've been watching The Last of Us. You could just walk. That's kind of what they do. They just walked across the entire country. It doesn't take that long. Walk from L.A. to Fargo? Yeah, or get a pilot's license.

just fly there oh yeah not a bad idea do you think people look at you a little sideways when you say that you're prepped like this like they're like all right dude because there is a little bit comes with being a doomsday prepper where people are like okay man sounds good crazy yeah like all the people who bought stuff like in 1999 they've been like this 2000 thing is gonna fuck everything up and then they yeah and they woke up and they're like whoops i probably shouldn't be living in the woods

Well, yeah, I'm guessing they do probably look at me a little sideways because, but it's not like I'm out there, you know, I don't have like an underground bunker and things like that. It's just mostly, honestly, what it is, is a place that my kids love to go. Right. My sister's kids, my, both my sister's kids love.

And, you know, hopefully their kids someday will find it, you know, a place that they can all go to. So I built it not only for me and a place to get away to, but also something I can pass on to them. Yeah. And it's nice. It's a short commute from your real house in North Dakota. So you can just drive over there every day and come right back. Hop on over. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

Wait, so last time we had you on, you told us about your guys trip every year. Are you still doing it where you guys go and basically play a bunch of sports and hopefully don't get injured? Are you still keeping the tradition? Oh, yeah, we do it every year, every third weekend of August. I love it. Buddy games this year. I think we're doing it in Montana. Okay. Get out of my cabin last year. Bob, the Bob father likes to make sure that we take.

A year off from my place. I don't know if it's because he wants to make sure that he still runs it and I don't. Yeah. But he's very possessive about his buddy games. So, so last year we did it at my cabin. This year, I think we're going to Montana. Yeah.

But, you know, every year is like Christmas. The guys put it on the calendar and they all show up. Yeah. So any injuries last year? Because, like, you guys, when you described it to us, it was every sport you could think of. And, you know, we're all getting up in age. Were there any issues with someone? Like, has there been a retirement? That would be sad. Someone had to do, like, a real retirement, like, you know, raise their banner to the rafters.

No, we did introduce the Hall of Fame last year. Chad Hornbarker got the maroon jacket. Love it. As far as injuries, Chris Watson woke up to go take a piss in the middle of the night, stood up, passed out, and like literally –

broke the left side of his face. Oh my God. Like, Oh my God, what is, you know? So I don't know if that's an indicator that we're, we are getting old or what, but he was, but he, he still competed. Oh, I love that. That's, that's how dedicated he was. That's hockey tough. Yeah. I love that. It's amazing. What events did we do last year? We did, we did the, the usuals golf, wiffle ball. We built a wiffle ball field down on the, it was sort of half in the lake, half in the, half on land.

We had a chipping contest where we'd chip from this upper ridge down onto the beach, and you had to lay there, spread eagle, and you got to wear a motorcycle helmet, but that was it. That and your underwear. Oh, did we get a nut shot? See, this is like... This is too drunk. There was a shin shot. We didn't quite get the nut shot, but yeah, you know, you send one up about 80 yards and it comes down, that ball's moving by the time it hits. So yeah, it was...

It wasn't our most ridiculous event, but we also did this amazing croquet where I mowed fairways all through the yard and all the undulations. We literally met a golf course and did it like a croquet field. Oh.

And that, surprisingly, was the favorite event last year. Well, yeah, that's... Another indicator that we may be getting old. Yeah, that's the old. Like, being like, yeah, the event where we stand around and have to, like, lightly swing something, I would say that's maybe getting old. That's actually a genius idea, though, doing croquet golf. Just a giant-sized croquet field. I'm surprised. I don't know if anyone's done that before, if you invented it, but that sounds like the best time ever. We mowed fairways the whole thing. So if you got off track, you're in the rough.

It was actually really fun. Yeah. I know it doesn't sound like it, but it was one of the best events. How did you do? And if you have a lackluster Buddy Games, do you find yourself beating yourself up for the next year? Like, God, I really, really left a lot of opportunities out there. We did win last year. It's still under protest. I'd imagine that most wins are under protest, right, for the Buddy Games? Me and my team did win it last year, but of course, you know,

These guys, you know, they're just a bunch of babies. Well, it sounds – we do something similar here at Barstool. Like we just completed – we did an 18-hole mini golf tournament in our office. We built 18 mini golf holes. Okay. And it was 12-on-12, like Ryder Cup style. And the way I describe it is like you could create a mini golf rule book that is 1,000-page long.

Once you get all of us in the same setting, it will take maybe 30 minutes before we find a loophole and start arguing nonstop with each other. And that's what I'd imagine the buddy games is. Yeah, it really is. And Chad Kelly. Yeah, I'm calling you out. Chad Kelly was the biggest culprit last year, man. He was he was tripping the whole time. Anyway.

Yeah, they seem to find loopholes. Everybody desperately wants to win this thing. It's hilarious. That's the fun, though. When you take it so seriously. We did this mini golf competition. I found myself, our team lost, and I was actually kind of depressed. I woke up in a bad mood. I was like, you got to be kidding me, man. You got three kids, you got a great life, and you're getting upset about mini golf? But that's how I felt. I can't deny how I felt. Your competitor. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, it's just how you're wired. We got to talk about some NFL stuff here because your Vikings, let me just ask you this. Would you want Aaron Rodgers on your Vikings? Yes and no. I mean, I've run into Aaron a bunch over the years, and he's actually a really fun dude. He loves to give it to me about the Vikings, especially when he was with the Packers. So it just didn't, it kind of feel like it did when Favre came.

Yeah, Favre maybe had his best year of all his whole career, but it didn't feel like he was fully one of the Vikings, you know? So I don't think I could, I don't think, you know, even if we did win, it feels like it would almost need an asterisk next to it or something. Yeah, yeah. I don't know what JJ's going to do. Look, I saw him on the sidelines when I was at the, well, I went to the, what did I do? I went to the Lions game, last game of the season, and then I went to the, no, I went to the Packers, then the Lions. And...

J.J.'s a hell of a quarterback, but, man, he doesn't look very big down there. He looks like he's about 16 years old. Yeah, he does look young. Yeah. He's a hell of a quarterback, so we'll see. Did you find yourself falling for the Sam Darnold situation? Did you fully buy in that that was like, hey, this is who he is now? He's just the best? I was really impressed. I did not see that. I don't think any Vikings fan saw last year coming.

We thought it was going to be a 500 year and it turned out to be one of the most exciting years we've had. And Sam Donald was a big reason for that. Now, you know, I don't want to blame him entirely for that. Those last couple of games, he did not play well, but you know, he was also, he also got pressured like crazy. Yeah. I think that, I think that, you know, the pressure of the game, the situation, and then, you know, the amount of pressure he was getting from the, from the defense, I think was, was a little bit too much pressure.

But apparently we did reload on the offensive line, which is good. Did you guys see that? Yes. Yeah, big time. Yeah, you guys definitely added a lot of pieces on the offensive line. The line looks good. And I think that we definitely have the weapons on offense with J.J. and Addison and who else we got? Hawkinson. Hawkinson. Yeah. It's a really high-powered offense. Defense is going to be good.

But then again, you've got Caleb coming up with the Bears. You've got Jordan Love with the Packers. And the Lions are going to be good. They're going to be really good. So I don't know. We could be first or we could be last. Iron sharpens iron. Yeah. It must be nice, though, having a head coach where you can convince yourself no matter who plays quarterback, you're going to be like, yeah, that guy's going to be a pro bowler just because the coach is that good.

Yeah. I think that's the perfect tire for the Bears, too. Yeah, Ben Johnson, yeah. We've said that many years, haven't we? Yeah, a lot of times. But this time's different. This time is totally different. What do you guys think of Caleb? I love him. Tough first year. Very, very tough. Did not have the setup that I thought he was going to have going into it. The coach...

Everything just basically was a disaster. So I'm hoping fresh start. Ben Johnson, smart guy, fresh start. He feels good. Um,

Is that your team? Yeah, that's my team. You're a best guy. I didn't know that. Yeah, and it's – listen, last year was – I said a lot of things in the summer that I regret deeply about how they were set up to win right now, and then they basically fell off a cliff halfway through the season. But New Year – and I'm staying cautiously optimistic now. I'm not going to start writing checks that I can't cash later on in the year.

Yeah, but Caleb looked good at times too. He did, but he also looked bad. Let's see how talented that dude is. Yeah, he's got talent. We need the coaching and some of the other things to finally go in the right direction. They're a dysfunctional organization through and through, so just trying to get out of our own way for once. What do they have as receivers? DJ Moore, Roma Dunze, probably maybe draft someone, so we'll see. Pretty good. Yeah, maybe get a running back. I don't know. Who would you want in the draft?

I was in London for the last several months. I normally follow the draft months in advance, but I don't know much about it this year. It stinks, so you're not off. It's not a good draft. What do the Vikes need? I think it's maybe a safety after Harrison leaves. Yeah. Malachi Starks. Malachi Starks. Georgia would be good. Yeah. I don't know. What were you doing in London?

I was directing a movie called Preschool. Oh, okay. That's cool. About these two dads who are fighting to get their kid into this last spot in this preschool. Do you like directing? Is that a nice change of pace? I do. It is all-encompassing. It is very time-consuming, and it's a lot of work, but it's a lot of fun because you get to kind of...

Tell the story the way you see it. Yeah. I think that that is something I've always wanted to do. You know, I couldn't just do that because I really like spending time with my family too. And when you're doing that, you're pretty much, you know, belong to the whatever production it is.

But it is a lot of fun. The movie's turning out great. It's funny. I love that premise for a movie because I don't, you know, we are back in Chicago now, but when we were living in New York and my youngest was two in Brooklyn, we like went to a, he had to do like an actual interview for preschool. Oh, yeah. And they denied him. And I was like,

what did he do wrong like did he he's two how is this possible but that's how it got rejected yeah he got rejected at two did he bring a copy of his resume he did when we went to the interview um it was kind of right around uh like right after covid so we did it outside and he did trip when we were like walking up and i actually think that might have been what did it you can't have a clumsy kid i

Because I don't know what else you judge a two-year-old on. Yeah, the principal's like, that smells like a lawsuit. It's like, this is crazy. He bit somebody, didn't he? He bit somebody. He was never a biter, but I was just like, I didn't ultimately care because it was like, this is a preposterous thing to have to do an interview for a two-year-old. But there was a part of me walking away being like,

What the fuck? How do you deny a two-year-old? I was like a little pissed off. But that's how competitive those schools are. That's my boy. It's your boy, right? Yeah, it's my boy. Bullshit. You know, when I had kids, I never thought that I'd get caught up in all of it. But you can't help but to, you know, because, you know, where I grew up, there was no private school. We just, everybody went to public school. And when I had my first son, you know, getting into...

I figured he's going to be fine. He'll go to the public school down the street. And sure enough, when it came time where we were getting caught up in the whole thing of, you know, will he get into this school? He wouldn't get into that school. And sure enough, there we are. So I think that it's, it's a, it's a premise that a lot of people who have kids or know people who have kids will,

we'll find funny and relate to in some way. Yeah. Is it tough to not micromanage the actors while you're directing? As an actor, I feel like I would always want to give advice or here's how I would do that scene. It is a tricky situation, right? Because on the one hand, you're an actor with them. You're working together. This is one of your...

your uh you know one of your mates and then you have to turn around and say like hey could you do that a little bit differently you would never do that if you're just acting right you know i could give him a note if it's just he and i in the scene together but i so the key is just to find really really good actors and i got great ones for i mean when you shoot in london it's just full of them like everybody's west end trained and shakespearean and they just have all this

education. So I was blessed with really, really good actors. And so I didn't necessarily have to give many notes other than just like sort of general stuff. I was the one who needed the notes to be honest. Yeah. A dumb question about acting. How much of your

Like how many, how many lines do you memorize at once? I'm always impressed by that because like we'll do stupid, like social commercials or something. And I can't keep more than like two lines in my head at once, like at max. So what do you do? Do you read, do you have like pages and pages memorized? You know, well, I couldn't do what you do. I couldn't read off a paper. I have to, I have to memorize them. Yeah. Cause I can't, you know, I'm not a, I can never be a news anchor. Um,

But it's just a muscle that you get. You just start to learn how to do it. It's about, honestly, it's about remembering the verbs and the adverbs. And that connects the thoughts. Right. That's how I do it. Right. And then if it's a big speech, I will learn that thing well in advance. So when the time comes to shoot it, it's second nature. Some people can just...

look at it and know it and just go. But I've never been able to do that. So are you like when you go shoot on Ransom Canyon for like a day, do you have multiple pages already memorized in your head and you're just running around with those? Because I don't think I could walk with that in my head. Well, it's not really the words as much as it is knowing because we literally shot 10 episodes all out of order because we had ridiculous weather for the first episode.

four months we were shooting this thing. We were supposed to, you know, the scene called for a sunny meadow with, you know, wildflowers and we had two feet of snow. Right. So we had to wait and push all that stuff to the end of the year. So we ended up shooting all these different episodes simultaneously. You know, we're shooting it, we're shooting, you know, episode 10 today and we're shooting episode three because we got to pick up a scene from three and we got to start whatever in the same location. So

So it's more about figuring out when, you know, where you are in the progression of the character's arc. You know, like what happened before this? What happened in episode four that made me say this in episode 10? Right. And so that's really the hard part. It's not really memorizing the lines. It's just keeping everything straight and making sure that everything is going to track because you're shooting things four episodes ahead of

And you have to imagine what happened three episodes before that when you haven't even shot them yet. Right. That becomes the most difficult part is to kind of track how you're going to perform things well in advance or something that happened three months ago. Another dumb question I guarantee you won't get today. What's the catering situation like on set? Do they vary it a lot so that you don't get bored with it? It's usually a fish and a chicken and a steak. Okay. But they're not like one day. Are they one day like, hey, Chinese?

actually on on ransom can we had an amazing chef okay wish i could remember his name now but it was one of the best uh it was one of the best catering companies i've ever had they were just unbelievable um so yeah i mean every day is different it's like a whole spread i love no wonder you put on 10 pounds every time you go shoot you know any any ice cream

Yeah, there's all kinds of, there's like several dessert options. Love that. Love that. That should be an actor. How do you say no to it? These fresh cookies they make every day. If I was shooting a Western though, I feel like I would only eat the steak. Yeah. It feels like, yeah. Because you're a method actor. Exactly. I go full method. I like that. The idea of being like a Daniel Day-Lewis, but only for food. Yeah.

You eat the steak that you grew out on the range. Yeah, I'm going to eat my steak, and then to drink, I'll just have whiskey. Just neat. I'll just sip some whiskey. He drunk the whole time. The nice thing about doing a Western, too, is you get to wear the hat, the cowboy hat. I feel like that helps a lot with acting. You can be very emotional, like taking the hat off, tugging on the bill of the hat. It does. It is a valuable crutch. Yeah. Were there notes in the script, like, at this point, you're going to adjust your hat, or was that all feel? No.

No, that's all me, man. Yeah. Oh, hell yes. That's why you're the best. Hell yes. Best ad actor in the world. Hell yes. The show does really look amazing. I mean, they did a beautiful job. The show is beautifully shot. Minka and the cast are fantastic in it.

I think that people are really going to dig it. I really do. I'm excited. So I have one last question for you. It's always fun to have you on, Josh. Roback question, R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com, promo code TAKE. 20% off your first purchase, Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts, roback.com, promo code TAKE. Go see Ransom Canyon. Netflix, not go see, just turn it on at home. Netflix, April 17th. Tell us, 1 to 10, how hot you looked in the show.

Pretty hot. Okay, all right. I mean, I saw the trailer. You look pretty hot. I mean, you put a tight pair of, like, Wranglers on this ass. Yeah. And it's pretty hot. You had, like, there was one look that you had maybe the jacket, like the jean jacket with, like, the fur, the fake fur underneath. And I was like, damn, Josh is putting some looks out there for this show. Yeah.

Some looks out there. Yeah, you are. You were serving some. You knew that you were. Yeah, you knew you were on one. You're like, I'm going to get on this horse. Yeah. Take my time. I'm going to rock this. Howdy, man. Yeah. All right. Well, Josh, anytime you want to come back on, man, we'd love having you on. And we're going to watch this. And anytime you're in Chicago, stop by. We'll come up with some random game we can compete against you with.

All right, boys. Go check out Gatlin.com. Okay. What's that? What's that? Like the gun? Just a little thing that I got going. Oh. Talk about it next time. Okay, I love it. You gave us a little homework. Hottest teacher I ever had. But if the apocalypse happens, like I'm going to your cabin. Just know that. All right. You're welcome. You got to be able to contribute, though.

I almost feel like you're... Or medical, or building, or farming, or camping. Podcasting. Yeah, the world will need takes. Yeah, we're a podcast economy here. So we'll bring the podcast, and then you'll have that covered. I feel like Josh is inviting us out there so he can eat us. He just said, like, he doesn't know how to hunt. He's like, yeah, you guys can come out. We'll just show up, and he's like, who are you guys? Yeah. We'll show up to your front door with a microphone being like, see, remember us? Podcast.

Podcast. Living off the fat of the land. That's right. All right. Thanks so much, Josh. Appreciate it, man. See you. Later, boys. Josh Duhamel is brought to you by our special friends over at Chevy. Chevy's packed more capability into the Silverado Trail Boss so that you can pack more fun into your weekend. Have yourself a Fri-yay, a Saturday-yay, a Sunday-yay, Sunday-fun-yay with a truck that says no to nothing. Tailgates, spontaneous camping trips, DIY projects, bring it on.

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If you find yourself in the middle of your very own Fyre Fest, you just might need America's largest injury firm in your corner. We all know that life comes at you fast. One minute, you're preparing to dunk. The next minute, you're owing me and Big Cat a lot of money. Well, in reality, Morgan & Morgan will fight for the people. They might not be able to help you claw back any money that you make making stupid bets.

but they do help with your real life fire fest for over 35 years with Morgan and Morgan. It's easy to get started. Their fee is free unless they win. You can check them out at for the people.com slash PMT. That's for the people.com slash PMT. Okay. Fire fest of the week, Henry. Yeah, you're up. Yeah, let's do it. Uh, fire fest of the week.

I mean, it's not really a firefresh because I survived, but we did the KFC Dunk It Challenge dunk contest here on Wednesday. And one of the contestants asked, he's like, hey, can I jump over you for one of the dunks? He was a big AWL and I felt bad saying no. And he was jumping pretty high, so I trusted him. And so I had to stand with, I didn't even see him coming up. My back was like he was running towards my back, so I couldn't see anything. I just had to hold the ball above my head.

First time he tried it, he landed on my neck, and I was like, all right, did he dunk it? He did not dunk it. So then he asked me to move back. I had to do it again. Second time was even worse. I felt like I basically was holding on my shoulder for a second, missed again, and then he was like, oh, we got to do it a third time, and he missed again. I survived, but it was not great. Touch and go? Yeah, it wasn't...

Could have gone a lot worse. Did it give you any respect for dunkers? So much respect for dunkers. These guys were jumping out of the gym. Very inspirational. I got a lot of work to do to get on their level. But yeah, it was cool to see some real athletes in this office. What? What does that mean? It was cool to see some real athletes able to do some cool athletic feats in this office. The fuck? We're not real athletes? No.

God, no. I thought you did a terrible job judging. Yeah, you were chirping me from the cheap seats. Man in the arena, as a wise man once said. Well, no, you were judging men in the arena, and you were doing a bad job judging the men in the arena. Right, but man in the arena, you weren't in the arena judging. You were chirping the man in the arena who was judging the men in the arena. And I was in the arena because I was judging you to judge. I'm confused where the arena is right now. You were in the nosebleeds chirping the man who was actually in the arena who was judging the men in the arena.

I thought you did a poor job on awarding scores. I thought that your scoring system was way off. Next time you're a dunk contest judge for, I don't know, pool dunking. For you, you should be amazed that anybody's able to dunk given your performance last year. Everything should be a 10. Yeah, it was impressive. I wanted to give my guys room to grow.

That's huge of you. Yeah. Yeah. All right, PFT? My Fyre Fest... Well, number one, Fyre Fest 2.0 has been postponed. So that's kind of a Fyre Fest. My Fyre Fest is your tweet about the Fyre Fest 2.0. Yeah, so I offer... Also, Mr. Beast, by the way, is doing his own Fyre Fest right now. I saw that. There's a BeastCon out in Las Vegas that Mr. Beast didn't show up to. So now everybody's in the lobby of the hotel being like, yo, where's Mr. Beast? Why isn't he at BeastCon? Yeah. Which I don't know what you say or do,

Or do, if you go to BeastCon in general, do you just like meet people in the lobby and you're like, so do you like Mr. Beast too? Yeah. I don't get BeastCon. Anyways. You remember that? Yeah. How long could you have stayed in the supermarket? Yeah. Probably a little bit longer. Yeah. Do you think you could have been locked underground for 30 days for a million dollars? If I was locked in that room, I would have found ways to make the canned chicken taste different. Yeah.

So, yeah, what Hank's alluding to is I offered up the Barstool Chicago office for Firefest if they need a new location because it sounds like the government of Mexico wasn't playing ball. We're getting double booked right now. Okay. So why? On the act, we offered up the Chicago office for John Arbuckle Con. Arbuckle Fest. Oh, from Garfield. Yeah. Okay. Because Garfield gets all the shine. Yeah. But Arbuckle. Nothing. Nothing.

Why not have a festival for him? He was a great dude. Yeah. But yeah, Firefest, if... We could do it together. Listen, Billy McFarlane, I consider him to be an acquaintance. We're friendly with each other. I've offered it to him. If he would like to accept, I think we could do a good job hosting Firefest 2.0 here. Okay. What do you think, Hank? I hate it. I hate that idea. Why? Are you in for Arbucklefest? I guess. Not really. If you had to pick one of the two. If I had to pick one of the two, Arbucklefest? Yes.

Why are you so out on one of the premier concert destinations in the history of the world? Have you not seen the Phoenix package? It's at 1.5 million for a ticket. For one ticket? For a ticket, yeah. It's a great ticket. All right. Maybe once Billy gives us the rev share, we can look into it. Yeah, let's talk, Billy. This is an office space for people to work. Our Buckle Fest is going to be like four dudes. That's kind of, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

My other Firefest of the week is that apparently all the boys are on a softball team. All the boys are on a softball team. We have them. Yeah. I found out today Max came into the studio and he was like, we won our softball game last night. I was like, sick. And then he started to give me the box score. And he's like, yeah, Big Cat did this. Hank did this. Memes did this. Pug was a manager. Shane's on the team. So everyone, part of my take is on the softball team.

And I didn't even know about it. It's not my softball team, by the way. It's not mine either. I forced myself on it. When you say we didn't know about it, we talked about it a lot last year. We did talk about it a lot last year. I knew that they played on the softball team. The reason Big Cat is on this team. So you're just mad that Big Cat's on the softball team. Before Big Cat was on the team, you didn't care. I just got...

How did I even get at it? We had a game that we didn't want to go to. That's right. And you were like, put me in the group chat. I'll say you can't go. Right. And then you stayed in the group chat. And then when we started to talk about it for next year, you're like, I'm in. I'm in if we play 16-inch. So I forced my way in. So 16-inch softball is awesome. But it was. Oh, yeah, I'm sure it is. For the record, they were all on the team last year. We talked about it on the show. A lot. Oh, yeah, yeah. I knew that you guys had a team.

I knew that for sure. You want me to be off the team? No, I don't want you off the team. I think I have no choice but to just put together my own team and beat the fuck out of you guys. You should join. Kadek's got a team. Just of ringers. And just dominate you guys. May 7th. But me and Big Hat both won't be at that game. By the way, I was upset. The real reason I was upset is I'm definitely so much better than Hank.

At softball. I don't think so. I'm definitely so much better than Hank at 16-inch softball. I don't think so. I guarantee you. This sounds like we're going to have to film something. I know you both very well. Hank's better than you at softball. I can hit a golf ball like 50 yards further than him. That's a fair point. That's true. But Hank's better at softball. I can slap singles. I'm faster than Hank. Good at softball.

How good are you? He's pretty good. I mean, he played an awesome first base last night. What order did you hit? That's Pug. Pug sets the order. I hit seventh. I did hit a dinger, two singles. I mean, I had a bomb. Yeah, and he locked down first base. He did really good yesterday. Yeah. I mean, we played softball in New York. Yeah, we did. And I was better than you there, too. That's true. Yeah, I was also. I was hurt. I had a broken foot. That's true.

Pretty much. What did he say about what I did on the mound? He came in. I was excited. Max gave me a full post-game report. Yeah, the vibes were high. And I was listening to it at first. I was like, okay, Big Cat was a good pitcher. Hank did good. I was like, cool. And then he proceeded to name everybody.

You should just be on the team. Why not? I'll put you on the text chain. Well, then Max was like, do you want to play in a game? I was like, no. That's what I said. Not anymore. But I just forced myself on the team. So you should just force yourself on the team. No, I'm out for blood now. I want you on the team. I'm taking this personal. This is going to be the biggest mistake you've ever made. I'll tell you what. You're definitely better than some people on the team. That's fact. All right. I want names. Who am I better than? Tom Lund. Tom Lund.

That's fucked up. He's going to be so mad. I only played one game with Tom Lee. He had three errors in the first inning. I only gave up one earned run, two unearned. The two unearned was because he dropped three consecutive balls for a force out at second base. Okay. But I love Tom.

But he made your stat line look worse. Well, no, I only gave up one earned run. Okay. I gave up one earned run. We won 17 to six. And you'd be like, how the hell do we give up six with only one earned run? Hank did pitch the last inning. He gave up three runs. Okay. So Hank made your stat line appear worse. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Camp Barstool last summer was sucking up fly balls in the outfield like a vacuum.

This is awkward. I'll say it. This is awkward. Why? I don't feel awkward. I'll give you a list of the guys you're better than. Why does Hank feel awkward? I don't know. I'll have to see your game. I'll mash some taters. Also, I only saw Tom play one game. He could be way worse than that.

He hit well. He did hit well. He hit well. He hit well. But it's also 16. We can have... We need more guys. Yeah, there's going to be lots of games that people can't play. I'm out on this team. I did feel like young again. It was fun. Playing...

Softball, it took me back to my 20s. I'm pumped. I got the green light to play in more games because I was going to initially not play in any games that were 630 or 730. I now get 730. There's only one 630 game. Love it. I'll be out.

Also, we played the whole team was stoolies yesterday. Oh, yeah. They're going to be so fired up listening to this right now. Yeah, they suck. They sucked. You who are listening right now. Yeah, you guys. Thank you for giving us our confidence because you guys were really bad. Yeah. How many games did you guys win last year? In the summer, we won zero. Summer. Yeah. Summer was tough because summer was a joke. I will say for the I honestly thought I was never playing with this team again. So

16 inches. 12 inch. I almost died in the last game I pitched. So this is how I really got on the team, PFT, was when they were playing again and I was still on this group chat, which is kind of awkward that I'm on this group chat because they'll be like, anyone want to meet up at a bar on a Saturday night? And I'll just be sitting there with my kids being like, yeah, I do, but no. But anyway, they started the group chat and they're like,

We're going to sign up to play softball again. And I just like basically heavy handed. I was like, if you play 16 inch, I'm in. And then I started paying off people on the team to say they'd play 16 inch. And so then that's how I got it. Because I would not have played for 12 inch. I would have absolutely not played. So you should just I'll add you the group chat. No, I'm like, I'm it again. I don't I don't want a pity spot on this roster. I'm doing my own pity spot. I'm doing my own team. And we're going to beat the fuck out of you guys. It's not a pity spot. Texting Kadesh right now.

Well, that wouldn't be your own team. That would be Kadesh's team. I don't care. We also, me and Big Cat both won't be at that game. Yeah. But Hank will. So already ducking me. Hank will be pitching. Yeah. Okay. So Hank will be pitching. Hank will be pitching in that game. You're going to get shelled, Hank. Bring it. Yeah, let's go. What's really going to be awkward is the day after that, after I take you deep three times. Hmm.

I'm looking forward to it. The stoolie that was pitching against us, I did talk to him after. I gave him some tips. I think he's going to be... I think he has the makings of a good pitcher. He just needs to... I was doing the hop step, and they were getting so... They're like, why does he keep doing that? The backspin fucks you up. And I was standing behind the left-handed hitters, but...

Yeah, I feel young again. I feel like I miss playing softball, especially 60. 60 inches is the best game created. It was a lot of fun. It's so much fun. It was 40 degrees. So much fun. The stoolies that we played, very bad. Very bad. We had a blast. So that's why we're having... They were worse than Tom. Yeah.

To put it into perspective, how mad is Tom going to be? He's going to be so upset. We might leave the group touch. Should we bleep his name out? No, you can't. Or he's going to be like, I know it's me. I know they're talking about me. Yeah, because it really couldn't be. No. Maybe TJ, but no, he's fine. He played well. He was a catcher.

I want you on the team, PFT. I'll leave this team and go on your team. It's good to have a quest. It is true, though, that they did have a full team that we talked about a lot last summer. They talked about it nonstop. Well, yeah, but that was like you guys. That was all the producers. It still is. Yeah. It still is. It was just the addition of me by forcing my way in because I was like, I want to play 16-inch again. The team hasn't changed at all. I asked you to play last summer, too.

Oh, no. We needed guys. Oh, no. We had to settle for Jacob. Oh, no. Now it is awkward, Hank. I don't remember that. Wow. We had to get Jacob, and he was just smoking cigarettes in the outfield. Oh, no, PFT. I don't remember. I must have had something going on, because you know me. I love 16-inch softball. No. No, it was 12-inch last time. Yeah. You probably would have come to post-game beers.

Yeah, I definitely would have. We had post-game beers last night. The group chat sounds like a lot of fun, too. It's not. It's not. The group chat's so fun. They just do, like, birthday parties. Male birthday parties. It's weird. You got another spot. That was fun. No, there's at least two. There's at least two male birthday parties in that group chat. And every time I was like, what? They're like, well, I'm having a birthday party.

It was Quigs and Pug. They both had birthday parties. Pug did not have a birthday party. Both times I was like, this is fucking weird. Quigs had a birthday party, but he was turning 30. Yeah. Pug has seven birthday parties a year. At 30 you get a birthday party. Okay. All right. My fire fest was going to be that I'm sore from softball.

So that's awkward. That sucks. Yeah. But my real fire fest is, well, it's a good thing, but then part of the internet I didn't really know existed. So I got into card collecting for two days this week, and I pulled an 86 rookie, not his rookie season, but the rookie card, Michael Jordan, which is like an elusive card that could be worth like 20 grand.

And then I had the entire card community come after me and they do not like me and they are fucking losers. That's not a good part of the internet. No. Card collecting is something that I respect. Guys, you have to have hobbies. If you really love it, that's cool. I hope you enjoy it. It's something that has never appealed to me. It's every niche hobby. It's not like the majority of people who are card collecting for the fun and love of it. It's the gatekeepers. Yeah. The guys who are like, actually, this, I mean...

you can guess who, who chimed in, uh, our, our e-sports correspondent, Darren Revell, uh, and his clit network. He, uh, but they were all coming after me, upset, angry, mad saying I, it was an ad deal that I plant planted. I don't know. Yeah. I'm going to, I'll tell you what the card community has, has kind of forced my hand. I'm like 75% chance. I'm just going to end up eating this card. And I, when I say eating, literally eating this card,

You should also just... You guys can all have a bite. You should do very, very obviously planted great cards that you pull out and keep trying to say that they're real. Yeah. And just to troll them, just to be like, fuck you. They already think that. So it's like they already think that I planted this card. Yeah.

I did pull a sick Gremlin card the other day, though. Oh, hell yes. George the Mogwai. Yeah. Pretty good from the Gremlins 2 movie. I think it's worth like three bucks. Hell yes. The best part about old packs of cards is the 30-year-old chewing gum that comes with it. Yeah. Yeah, I guess there's like a very elusive Michael Jordan rookie card that has the chewing gum attached to it.

That's like rated a zero, but it sold for a lot because what does that mean rating? Because I keep hearing people say you can rate anything. It's PSA rating. I don't know what they do, how they do it. I just know that if it comes back an eight, it's probably worth 10 grand. If it comes back at nine or 10, which it won't.

It could be worth like 40, 50 grand. It's like the guys in Pawn Stars. It's like the corners. It's the cut, which I didn't realize because back in 1986, it was literally a guy at Fleer smoking a cigarette, just cutting the cards. Love that. So I think my card is a little off center, people were saying. I don't know. But I thought Eric cards are worth more like the Billy Ripken fuck face card.

Yeah, but this is like it's the correct card. It's just like a little bit not perfect. Okay. So I don't know. I was in the card collecting game for two days, and I pulled that. I guess I pulled the Charles Barkley rookie card too, which and a Hakeem rookie. It's pretty good. Yeah. Sounds fake. It does sound rigged. Yeah. Sounds very rigged. Okay. Shane, our boy Shane. He's got a piss. Hank's got a piss.

You've been peeing a lot recently, Hank. Yeah, what's up? I've just been hydrated. But yeah, I shouldn't have to pee this often. Do you have a kidney stone? You are next. Shane, can PFT play in your spot next week when you're in Italy? Of course. Love that. I refuse. Shane, you're going to Italy by yourself. Yes, sir. For how many days?

Nine, but that counts tonight, which my flight's a red-eye. And Shane, for everyone who doesn't know Shane, he's one of our very talented graphics guys. He created the famous A. Two years ago, yep. Shane, you've never been on an airplane, and you're going to Italy. Yeah. Have you ever eaten Alfredo sauce?

I have had it. Yeah. Oh, I heard that you hadn't. So what's the plan? Solo traveling. I'm very intrigued and impressed. There isn't much of a plan. I booked the flight two months ago, and I just got my Airbnbs two days ago. Oh, you're doing an Airbnb solo? Yeah. Not doing the hostel. Do you speak Italian? I did Duolingo for a little bit, but like... Talk to me. I can order a coffee. All right. Try it. That's it.

Oh, with sugar. Okay. Sir, here's your cup of cum. Dude, don't make that mistake because they will give you cum. They're an island full of... Or not an island. A peninsula? Are you going to Sicily? Peninsula full of perverts. Yeah. You got to talk with your hands more, too. They like to do constant sign language. Are you worried about the mob? Um...

I'm getting more worried about it, yeah. I feel like there's some mob at AWLs, so maybe we could just be like, hey, he's our friend. Are you going to come back with really stylish clothes? Do I have to check in with somebody? I don't know. We'll find out. But if you're a mafia at AWL, specifically in northern Italy, let us know so our boy can tap in. Please.

We'll give you some cash that you can give as like a little safe travels. Yeah, who's the guy in Italy right now? Who's the... Max Homa? Do you have to tap in with Max Homa? I don't know. Okay. He's Latin maybe? So what's the plan? You're going to go to a few different cities? Yeah, I'm going to check out some different cities. I'm going to go to an AC Milan game. Hell yes. I actually... I just booked a tour for the Coliseum, but I booked it based off weather and...

After I booked it, I looked at the weather I was looking at, and it was Rome, Georgia. Oh, no. I thought it was going to be 80 degrees in Italy, and it's going to be like thundering 55 degrees. Oh, no. All right. Well...

Be safe. Don't get kidnapped. Don't get kidnapped. We've already talked about that. If you do, it would be good for numbers, though. It would be. It would be good for numbers. Before you go, can you make a graphic of your face behind bars that just says kidnapped? Just in case. Yeah, just in case. It will load it up as a draft. Just in case. And also maybe make one being like, Shane fucked. Just in case. And then a third said Shane accidentally ordered cum.

Don't get into an Amanda Knox situation, though. We're very serious about that. God, that would be so good for downloads. It would be. We do true crime. Yeah. You become the new Brittany Griner. Yeah. Pug. Pug. Why didn't you invite PFT on your softball team? I am not the owner. I am the manager. What's the team name? The owner puts together. The owner puts together. What's the team name? The Pugs. Oh. Who's the owner? The owner.

Jost? He sends invites, puts the roster together. I'm just the acting manager. Pug will not look in the direction of PFT right now. Oh, no. It's blocked off. That's exactly what my dog does when he chews something up in the house. Bad boy. Newspaper, hit you on the nose. He's looking in the complete opposite direction. We just said, whose job is it? Everybody stared at the dog that did do it. The dog that did do it looks away.

hmm it's not my fault okay that's okay it's all right i'll see you in the playoffs yeah we'll see you good show boys let's do uh numbers shane get this right 77 17 3 65 1 99 15 21 jack's not on the team nope pft jack's not no all right and neither is pug

This is. Manager. Manager. It's called the Pugs. Except I wasn't there last night. I'll be there. It's like 86. A little bit of a. 80s. Oh, Jordan. MJ. I'm going to eat that card. Love you guys.