NBA Preview With Ryen Russillo, USA Hockey Is The Best, NBA All Star Weekend + Who's Back Of The Week

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.
This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. In 2025, maybe you're ready for a plot twist.
Maybe there's a part of your story that you've been wanting to revise. Think about therapy as your editorial partner.
It helps you write new chapters and creates the meaningful story that you deserve to live. I've personally used therapy in the past as a tool to help me get through some times of loss and to also help me prioritize what was important in my life and help me focus on those and create a future that I was very happy in and very confident in.
Therapy has been a great tool for me. I personally recommend it.
If you're thinking about starting therapy, I couldn't recommend it more. Give it a try.

BetterHelp is fully online, making therapy affordable and convenient,

serving over 5 million people worldwide.

Access a diverse network of more than 30,000 credentialed therapists

with a wide range of specialties.

You can easily switch therapists at any time for no extra cost.

Write your own story with BetterHelp.

Visit BetterHelp.com slash PMT today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash PMT.
On today's part of my take, we are back sort of. We're not all together yet.
We'll be all together on Wednesday's show, but we are back to talk about the weekend. And we also have our big NBA preview with our favorite guest in the whole wide world Ryan Russillo oh excuse me I got something in my throat that was a chip I've been eating a lot of chips uh Ryan Russillo on the show NBA preview can't miss it also talk about all kinds of things I think we talked maybe 20 basketball basketball, 80% everything else.
So it's great

interview. And we're going to talk about this weekend, Four Nations, the NBA All-Star Weekend,

everything else that's going on, a little hot seat, cool thrown. It is brought to you by our

friends at DraftKings, who's scoring big in the NBA this season. You are with all the new ways to get in on the action at DraftKings Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NBA.
DraftKings is the home of NBA player props, so you can get behind your favorite players any which way from Monster Slams to Dishing the Rock to Cleaning the Glass. It's super easy for first-timers to get started.
Try betting on something simple like picking an NBA player prop. Here's something special for first timers.
New DraftKings customers bet $5, get $150 in bonus bets instantly. Take it to the rack with DraftKings Sportsbook.
Every point counts. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app.
Use code TAKE. That's code TAKE for new customers to get $150 in bonus bets when you bet just $5 only on DraftKings.
The crown is yours. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER.
In New York, call 877-8-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY-467-369. In Connecticut, help is available for problem gambling.
Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org. Please play responsibly.
On behalf of Boothill Casino and Resort in Kansas, 21 and over, age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction, void in Ontario. Bonus, bets expire 168 hours after issuance.
For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see dkng.co slash audio. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app and use code T that's code take for new customers get 150 in bonus bets when you bet just five bucks only on draft kings the crown is yours today is monday february 17th and guess what we're the best fucking country in the world in hockey again usa we're so back.
USA. Well, we got the Stanley Cup.
Right now,

as of the second,

we're the,

we're so back usa until well we got the early cup we have we right now as of the second we're the we're still and still the best hockey country in the world we got the cup they're not getting it back that was an ass kicking uh now the nhl got it right hats off to the nhl oh i mean the nhl this this entire sports weekend so the first weekend without football and uh i did see our good friend chris long uh making fun of everyone who posted like i miss football guess what dude i do miss football sunday was weird today it was weird waking up and not being able like you know i wanted to get in on the football action it's just so it's weird to have our bodies change but yeah listen guys can miss football. Real ones misses football because we're married to the game.
Yeah, exactly. The, the, the story though, for the first weekend without football was, and listen, he's our good friend, Adam Silver now, cause we did have a great interview with him on part of my take on Wednesday, but the NHL absolutely bodied the NBA in terms of getting it right and what they did, what they've done with the four nations tournament instead of the all-star game versus everything that's been going on for the NBA all-star game.
It's not even close. That was such a cool.
I mean, it's still going on. We have a game Monday night.
There's the finals on Thursday, but it's the nhl knocked this out of the park and it was the guys cared a lot and it was so much fun to watch usa canada on saturday night it was the complete opposite of the all-star game right from the first whistle i think were there three fights in the first 10 seconds of the game nine that's awesome nine seconds there's nothing like a little pure unadulterated nationalism to really get people going yeah the nba like scratched the surface a little bit with that by doing the the different teams with the guys from uh from tnt but it's not the same it's not the same like having just usa against canada uh it gets the blood going just i don't think the nba didn't even come close to scratching that being like, oh, who cares about Chuck versus Shaq?

That dad doesn't do it at all.

They should try to do the countries.

One of the teams was like European international guys.

Well, it was the rising stars.

So it was like the young guys.

No, but there were four teams, right?

Right.

I think there was team Chuck, team Shaq, team Kenny, and then the Rising Stars. One of the teams was, I want to say it was Team Mitch.
Either Chuck or Shaq had the international guys. He just drafted them because they did a draft, so he just did that on purpose.
Yeah. Got it.
And we also had LeBron James decide he's not playing in the All-Star game two hours before the all-star game which look I don't I mean I'm not gonna people people made this this huge debate like I can't believe he did this it's more just like dude just say you're gonna do this five days ago you know what I mean like don't do it two hours before the all-star game and people do want to see you play and and it's probably you're you're at the end of your career it's just of a lame move. He's probably injured, but still, just give everyone a little more of a heads up.
He was sitting out with foot and ankle discomfort. I don't know about you, but we have a producer on this show that broke their foot and didn't miss a single episode.
Yeah, that's a fact. LeBron James has to bow out at the last second for the All-Star game.
But yeah, the moral of the story is that the NBA cucked the NFL during Super Bowl week, and the NHL cucked the NBA during All-Star week. NHL is king.
Yeah, NHL is king. They crushed it.
They absolutely crushed it. They should never go back to anything else.
It should always be four nations every single year. I know Olympics coming up next year, but this is the best.
What are you going to say, Hank? What about Russia? He's trying to make a motion what about russia russia got banned because of they got banned because of the whole war in ukraine next question no i know i just think that russia should have been the best hockey players are russian if we're doing a talent showcase like oh no that argument was made because it was like Germanyany was i think in the top 10 in the in the rankings yeah germany was in the top uh 10 in the rankings russia and they they germany didn't i think have enough current nhl players to feel the team so that was why they didn't get in but yeah expand it and make it better. Just do the Olympics every year.
It would be fun with only NHL players.

I agree.

And somehow Freebird has become our national song again.

Back in like 1977, it was once king.

Now it's king again.

I don't know how that became the USA song.

I think it was in the juniors, right?

It was like the song that played after the goals.

But it just fucking rocks tweeting out a clip of Freebird every time we score.

Where do you guys land on the booing of the national anthem debate?

I don't like us. We don't like them.
We're going to boo them in the finals if we meet them in Boston. Like I have no problem with it.
I like all of it. Yeah.
No, I'm fine with it. Don't boo.
Vote. I like the fact that there's some bad blood there.
Like for a while, USA-Canada, we've been buddy-buddy. I think after the game game's over they're probably cool with each other where our nations have a long stored history together but to like actually drum up some hate for your opponent i think is really good it's awesome yeah i i completely like i just it was fun i and and and just seeing there was it was a weird mix of like it was actually very funny because it was perfect for both countries.
It was it was I saw people being like, I can't believe they booed. This is absolute bullshit.
And then there was Canadians apologizing for it, being like, we shouldn't have booed. It's like, no, fuck that.
Everyone like this is fine. If you get your feelings hurt over your anthem being booed, you're an absolute pussy.
Like that's it. it it's it's it's enemy territory it would obviously be a different story if it happened in america and they booed the national anthem in america but it's enemy territory i have i like this this it makes it makes you feel like you're in rocky four that's what i want all sports events to feel like yeah i i like that there was some booing and then there was people that booed the booers Yeah.
So you no idea who was booing who by the end of it but just boo i'm a big fan of booze in general i i said i i hope this starts a major boo off and i hope that on thursday if usa plays canada it's the loudest booze you've ever heard i don't want to even hear a second of oh canada i just want to hear booze yeah that would make me so happy boo canada yeah remember also rough and rowdy when i tried to do oh canada and i just started getting booed and i started laughing so hard that was an awesome moment national anthems need to be easier to sing i i could understand booing the star spangled banner just because it's it's a it's a tough one to get through um but i i can't believe we didn't lead with the fact that wimby made a mockery of the all-star skills competition this weekend that's what people are really upset about yeah well i'm i'm more upset that wimby didn't he had literally the greatest fall guy of all time in chris paul as his teammate for people who didn't watch uh the so on saturday night they to the dunk contest shout out mac mcclung that's pretty much his whole job in life is just to win the dunk contest um they had uh the three-point contest tyler hero white boys are having a moment cooper de jean tyler hero mac mcclung all in a week and then they had the skills competition and in the skills competition it's like you know pass a basketball dribble basketball go take three shots at the top of the key at the side whatever and Wemby figured out that he didn't actually have to take the shots he just had to throw the ball at the rim as fast as possible and it made it look completely ridiculous and a complete mockery of the thing but But my biggest issue was he was teamed with Chris Paul, and everyone immediately assumed Chris Paul was the mastermind behind this because Chris Paul does that type of shit. But Wemby took full ownership of it, and he was like, yeah, it was my idea.
Yeah, we thought that Chris Paul was foul baiting the skills competition. Yeah.
And then afterwards, Wemby was like, no, I went around, I asked all the refs, and they told told me I could just throw him and how come when Ben Simmons attempts a shot that looks like that we all feel bad for him when Wimby does it we kick him out of the tournament doesn't make sense to me doesn't add up I agree uh it was it was very funny that they thought that they had a loophole and then they were just like no this is bush league shit get out of here but yeah Paul, I think everybody thought it was Chris Paul's idea until after the fact.

Yeah, and then Wemby, and then it turns out that Wemby, he did go around basically asking every ref if this is okay

and can he do this, and they all were like, okay, yeah, I guess so.

And then the minute they did it, they kicked him out.

By the way, Team Shaq is about to win.

So congrats to Team Shaq.

They're going to beat Chuck's team.

That's huge. Big upset.

Huge upset.

Where were you for Team

Shaq? They were like, I think,

maybe one and a half point underdogs.

So where were you for Team Shaq's

big upset? Okay, so I do

like the play to 40 rule.

I think that's a good rule. The Elam ending? Yeah.
Well, no, I think they're just doing first to 40. Yeah, it like the play to 40 rule i think that's a good elum ending yeah well no i think they're just not yeah yeah it's just first to 40 the court looks like shit the court i do not like but yeah i i like that as well um also do you see that john morant saw mac mcclung and he was like yeah we got to do this shit next year i'm in count me in and then he tried to get zach lavine to say that he was in.
And then I think Giannis also tweeted that he'd be down. This happens every year though.
Something cool happens in the slam dunk competition. And then all the stars that you want to see and are like, yeah, we're going to, we're going to definitely do this next year.
And it's a good night because like you can, you're just making a future problem for yourself that you're going to cancel anyways. But for that night, you feel like you're a hero.
It's like, thanks for saving the slam dunk competition, John Morant. I've been there.
Yeah, so I want you to do it. I mean, there were people complaining about Mac McClung being like a two-way guy shouldn't get to compete in the dunk contest.
I got to tell you, if you're thinking that hard about the dunk contest and you're that much of a stickler for the rules for the dunk contest, you can't take this away from Mac McClung. It's literally all he has.
He's three times in a row. He jumped over a car.
He did the Blake Griffin. He did the Blake Griffin.
I mean, that's kind of justice for the kid I was hanging out with on Christmas, which is when stop talking about Mac McClung deserving to be on an NBA roster. Get him on an active roster because I think he's on the two-way contract right now, right? Yeah.
Yeah, he is. All right.
So, yeah, shout out Team Shaq. Huge.
Where were you when Team Shaq won the NBA All-Star Game? Everyone will probably put that down as one of the greatest All-Star Games out there. Beat Team Chuck, which was the – it was a semi – it's a semi foreign team, not all foreign guys.

Yeah.

I mean, if, if the NBA all-star game Shaq versus Chuck in the, in the final game started out the

way that USA versus Canada started out where there were three just full on brawls on the court in

the first 10 seconds, we would be having a discussion for six months of like, has, what

does Adam Silver need to do to save the NBA and its image problem?

Here's the thing with the NBA, and if they wanted, they have one thing they could do to replicate the Four Nations, and I think we all know what it is, but they can't do it. We should talk about it.
They can't do it, but that would replicate the hype for Four Nations. Listen, it would be very, very bad for the world, but it would be fun to watch.
Let's just say we're not going to say it, but I would enjoy watching Alex Caruso play in the NBA All-Star game. He would put forth a lot of effort.
We'd have to get minutes from him. We'd have to get some minutes from him.

I mean, can you imagine?

No way would LeBron James back out an hour before that game.

All right, so other things have been going on.

Max, how are you feeling?

Your one-week anniversary for the Super Bowl, you feel good?

You're about to go on vacation when we all get back?

Yep. I mean, some people had to do some stuff while you guys were on vacation.
That's fine. What'd you have to do? Edit D&D.
You just didn't plan your vacation the same week. Yeah, no, I fucked up on my dates on the vacation.
That's fine. Sometimes you get bad scheduling and it happens.
I didn't even go to the parade, which... Oh, no.
Oh, parade what was the highlight i mean i saw howie roseman got got uh hit in the head in the forehead with a beer that was kind of badass he probably got some football guy street cred in the locker room uh yeah no there was a lot of beers being thrown no one went on the floats they all just decided to get absolutely wasted and just walk the entire parade, which was cool. Quinion Mitchell was super fucked up.
Had no idea what he was saying when getting interviewed on the side of the street. Nolan Smith Jr.
I think he got sent home early. He was so drunk.
Yeah. Like he was just going up to every single person in the stands.
And every someone said shotgun this beer he would shotgun that beer so that was cool um a lot of f-bombs in the speeches that the local news just had no idea what to do when broadcasting the game or broadcasting the speeches they would cut out like audio for the entire speech and then they would come back in and then an F-bomb would immediately come after it. So that was good.
There wasn't any big Jason Kelsey speech, but it was good. It was fun to watch.
I like Saquon when he went to the side. I think he was doing a lot of walking, and he saw one of the ball boys was just on the side, and he grabbed him, pulled him over the stands.
It was like, yeah, you're walking with us. That was awesome.
I saw that. That was cool.
He also went to Barstool Sansom right after the raid it was like yeah you're walking with us that was awesome i saw that that was cool he also went to barstool sansum right after right after oh yes and was just partying right next to all of all of my co-workers would you i would have liked to have been there with and you would have been there with and i would have been there with correct you would have been there with um would you like to say anything about uh the hanging of kermit the frog classless i i honestly didn't even see that the only thing i saw was a debate it's like boo the national word having a furious debate what that's

like yeah well there was like this is racist and i was like i i get i get why you could like get

there but like it's also just a frog like they're just there it's philly and they're just they're

hanging a frog it's literally kermit the frog i honestly didn't see that the only one i saw was the the pig roast that someone put 15 in the side of that was that was that was the that i saw that people were getting angry of i think that's fine yeah the only the the funniest thing i saw the trend i saw was it was a lot of Chiefs fans essentially being like when we win championships, we don't take shots at anyone. And Philly's just taking shots at people like the CJ Gardner Johnson doing the Taylor Swift Swifties can licks my balls like that kind of stuff.
They're like, they're just taking shots at us and we never take shots at people when we win titles. I was like, are you class off on how to win a fucking title who cares yeah they're doing to act like you've been there before if you win you can do whatever you want also isn't kermit the frog isn't it one of those marionettes so it's like always kind of hanging true good point and yeah and i just can't stress this enough when if philly wins a championship like it's ends it's an NC-17 movie when you tune into any coverage of like...
If you have any type of softness to you in terms of like, I don't want them making fun of my team or my players, don't tune into any of the coverage because it's Philly and they're going to do that. They're going to roast a pig with number 15 on it and say, Swifties

licks my balls. Yeah, this television show

is rated Philly. Yeah,

exactly. So

I had no problem with Philly

just being all Philly. What are you going to say, Max?

The

CJ Gardner Johnson shirt was hilarious.

Oh, so good. It was hilarious.

I mean, you're only going to get

LIX once

for the Zoom role. It's perfect.

You have to just tip your hat and it's

Thank you. Oh, so good.
It was hilarious. I mean, you're only going to get LIX once for the Zoom role.
It's perfect. You have to just tip your hat.
And it's Swifty. Swifty's have to be able to take it the same way they give it.
They fucking go after people and they gave all the terrible reviews to his mom's restaurant. I didn't see him complaining about that.
He just went back at the Swifty's. This whole episode is just like fair fair's fair boo tell people to lick your balls roast pigs do it all it's sports it's fun agreed yeah i don't know i have nothing else to say other than funny is funny and i i respect funny yeah yep yeah yeah swifty licks my.
I like that a lot. Memes.
Aaron Rodgers is officially not a Jet. It's good that you guys decided to part ways.
He's officially gone. Gone forever.
Top three Aaron Rodgers moments as a Jet. Him walking out with the flag.
Well, running out with the flag. Yeah, that's a good one.
The most excited I've ever been to watch a football game. The first drive on that Monday night football game of this season, I thought we were going to the Super Bowl.
And the Devontae Adams Hail Mary. That was a good one.
Okay. Okay.
Yeah. What were your bottom three moments? Him tearing his Achilles? Mm-hmm.
That's pretty much it.

That's the only bad time.

Yep.

Yeah, the Denver Broncos game.

That was brutal.

The Vikings interception.

That was brutal.

Mm-hmm.

That Broncos game.

And you guys won that Broncos game, right?

Didn't you?

No, we would have if Greg Zerline made the kick.

Oh, okay.

It would have changed everything.

Yeah, Aaron Rodgers would probably still be a Jet if Greg Zerline made a couple kicks.

One of the craziest what-ifs in sports history.

You blew six fourth-quarter leads.

You win those games.

You're in the playoffs.

Yeah, that's true.

Thank you. in sports history.
You blew six fourth quarter leads. You win those games.
You're in the playoffs. And then all bets are off.
Me and Max in New Orleans for the Super Bowl. Oh, man.
What if? You're so close. Who do you want memes? Who's the quarterback? Justin Fields? Sounds like you're very confident in that one oh no baby baby no no no no yeah but if he comes and does good yeah well no big cat you didn't think about that what if he was good that's a really good that's a really good point i did not consider no memes no no no don't do that don't do that to yourself get him rusty just do a little quarterback swap if it's Kirk Cousins I'll kill myself oh no it could very well be Kirk Cousins everybody else is better than Zach Wilson so that's fine but kirk cousins is uh just a lateral move from what about to kirk cousins what what would be worse kirk cousins or sam darnold kirk cousins but sam darnold kirk cousins fell off a cliff i mean he had his achilles injury yeah but he started the season off so good and then he fell off a cliff also So Sche, he had his Achilles injury.
Yeah, but he started the season off so good, and then he fell off a cliff.

Also, Shepard said that Sam Darnold's most likely Raiders or Vikings.

Also, he didn't really start off the season so good.

He had two incredible games against the Bucs.

Beat the Super Bowl champion.

He had that one drive where it was like, okay, Kirk, go out there,

and we're just not going to run anything from the playbook. Just do no huddle.
Yeah, yeah. Okay, last story I had before we do Who's Back, Richie Incognito.
What a day for Richie. I mean, that was – so for people who missed it, there was this pretty good article about Jonathan Martinathan martin i think we're right around the

10-year anniversary where he essentially was like yeah a lot of that stuff i i i never really thought i got bullied um and that by the way that was kind of our take from you know we had we've had richie on the show a couple times i actually texted i was like this day's got to feel really good he's like thanks thanks for having my back

and he like Richie

is not for everyone

Richie on the show a couple of times. I actually texted him.
I was like, this day's got to feel really good. He's like, thanks.

Thanks for having my back.

And he like Richie is not for everyone. Richie also, I think, was put in a spot where he was an easy target to be the face of bullying.
And this story that just came out essentially explained it that Jonathan Martin's mom put the words bullying onto the whole thing. And then it just kind of took an entire left turn where it became this thing that was so much bigger than just a locker room uh and rich incognito became the face of like you know this this anti-bullying campaign that was was just not real for what jonathan martin said today yeah so in this article he was like yeah i was not bullied was not bullied.
Bullying was never really what it was about. I think Jonathan Martin, he's had his fair share of issues off the field in the last 10 years.
I hope he's doing well. He seems like he's at least in a space where he wants to clear everything up and try to move forward.
There was a lot of stuff, a lot of meaning that got put onto this story that probably should should have been it should have become like a wide cultural issue correct that nfl players and fellow offensive linemen were talking a lot of shit to each other and some of the stuff went like way over the line for sure but like it was not ganging up and and bullying one person and like driving them to the point of going insane it was dudes shit talking each other and And it became so much bigger than just that story. Like, I feel like this same thing has probably happened hundreds of times in the NFL.
And if anything, like a player might get like a one game suspension for conduct detrimental to the team, or they might get fined. And then you never hear about it.
But it became a fucking Ted Wells report where you had like the fbi investigating it and it just got it it got insane yeah and it it i i think my um interpretation from the jump and we've talked about it on the show before and like i said we've had richie on the show multiple times is that if you ever when you try to take the outside world and judge a locker room and how it operates and basically put it into corporate America or a classroom or any type of place where people gather together and there's a little bit more decorum, you're always going to be shocked by the locker room. The locker room is not the same as everything else in the world because it's a violent sport.
It's guys all together getting paid a lot of money, busting each other's balls, shit that gets said in the locker room. If it gets said at your, you know, fortune 500 company, yeah, people would get fired, but that's not, you can't judge it that way.
It just never works that way. And I thought the whole thing was a lot of people trying to put their workplace into an NFL locker room and having the standards match.
And they just won't. They'll never be the same.
Yeah. Do you walk around naked after lunch break with the other people in sales? Yeah.
You guys shower together? Yeah. 99% of football is technically bully.
Right. Well, it's even, you know, if you had your text messages with your closest friends in the world just put out there, people are like, do these guys hate each other or do they like each other? I can't tell.
You know, and there's relation. These relationships are deeper and have a different complexity than just a text message or a snippet that you take a capture of.
And you're like, oh, that's exactly how they acted all the time. They would know that we hated Hank, though, before shit came out.
That's true. But yeah, I'm happy Richie got a little satisfaction for it.
I do hope Jonathan Martin is doing well. It seems like he's doing well.
He's big into Bitcoin. He's got a ton of degrees.
Seems way smarter than I'll ever be. But it did...
Did you read the story, PFT? Yeah, I did. That part where he...
I think he had a falling out with his mom over this. It seemed like they hadn't talked for a while.
And I understand his mom was trying to protect him, but also it's a's a mother trying to protect a grown man which that gets a little weird but the whole situation definitely went in a direction that removed itself from the reality of what a locker room is and what those guys were going through together yeah the narrative at the time was like richie incognito basically killed one of his teammates by being such an asshole.

And it was not at all based on what the truth of the situation was. And it does suck for him that it took 10 years for this to come out.
And so he's doing a victory lap, as he should at this point, which is like, yeah, I was painted as like the worst person in professional sports. Yeah, he was made the face of it all.
Still the funniest When we went to Buffalo

And interviewed Richie after the game. Remember, we went to the tailgate.
So this is for old AWLs who remember this, but we went to the tailgate after. So the Bills have like a player's tailgate in the player's lot.
It was basically Eric Wood, other offensive linemen. And Richie was like, meet me there, and then we'll go to my house and we'll do the interview and we went there and we sat there drinking beers and hanging out with the bills offensive line for like two hours while i kept on texting richie and then finally he's like oh dude i went home right after the game it's like oh okay and like okay we'll meet you there he's like i been home for two hours.
I don't know why you guys have been standing there in, like, 20-degree weather drinking beers in the parking lot. But I am happy that Richie got a little vindication in this.
Yeah, he was definitely made the face of it because Richie, everything that went along with Richie, it was like he was the easiest person to believe that could be a huge bully just on how he played sometimes. we'd always be like right up against that edge um so i i hope i hope he's feeling good today i hope that jonathan martin's doing okay because it seems like he's kind of all over the map and uh i i hope i hope he's happy right now yeah and and i bet you richie if richie talked there's probably some things that he would like to take back as well because not he's i never don't think we ever said, I don't think Richie ever said that he was a model citizen that never did anything wrong.
It's just, he became the face of like this, you know, horrible bullying campaign that just wasn't really based in any reality. Yeah.
Okay. Anything else before we do who's back in the week? There was a report from Pete Thamel, I think, expanding the NCAA tournament.
So he says that for the 2026 season, the tournament could expand and the likely option would be to 76 teams. 76 teams in the NCAA tournament.
At first I saw this and I thought, dear God, no. 64 to me is still the perfect number.
It's a nice, clean bracket. I'm a simple man.
I can divide by eight. I like looking at a 64-team bracket.
Now, the only way that I would be okay with it if it was 76 teams is if you had the eight teams outside of the 64 that were all at-large bids. Well, that would be what they were.
No, because sometimes you get the conference tournament winners. What do you mean? I'm saying like if in the play in games.
Oh, in the play in games. I didn't understand what you're saying.
I thought you meant just the extra eight are all at large because they would all be at large. Right, right.
No, but I mean that we have obviously the Dayton play. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then they would do another site that was not on the East Coast. It would be somewhere out West for, I don't know, time zones.
But yeah, if all the play-in games were at large teams, then I'll be okay with it. I think it's less that and it's more that if they expand it, so they expand eight

teams, it has to be, there has to be a rule that it's four and four big conference, small conference, because what I don't want is an expansion of eight teams. And then you get the seventh best ACC team and the 10th best big 10 team over an Indiana state from last year.
So if they made it, Hey, we're expanding it to eight more teams,

but it has to be four teams that are lower conference teams, and I could deal with that because that would be fun. A team that got their bid stolen, their automatic bid stolen in the championship game.
I don't want it to be just like a middle-of-the-road big conference team that everyone complains about and is really not deserving of it.

I would rather have it be like a Villanova or something where they're on the

bubble and I don't need them in.

I'd like Indiana State.

Right.

Yeah, I just don't like I hate it when they have the conference winners and

they have to play in the playing game.

That sucks.

Yeah.

Agreed.

Max, are you on the bubble or is not on the bubble

they are the others very well below the bubble wait below the bubble or are you inside the bubble or outside of the bubble they were starting to creep up into bubble land after beating st john's last week and then they just got absolutely smoked and embarrassed by providence on Saturday.

Man.

Good news for the sickos and perverts

who are left edging from Max in the Super Bowl. I officially believe that this Badger team could make a run.
So that will be where you get the heartbreak and the sadness and me lashing out. That's going to happen.
I think they are really good, really fun. They're projected a three seed.
They did a mock committee thing, and then they went out and beat Purdue at Purdue. I fully believe they could be an Elite Eight team, and that's always a disaster for me.
Hank, are you going to cheer for the Magic this year? No, he's Cooper Flagg. An Elite Eight run would be fun.
Yeah, you want me to. Yeah, you want me to.
You need it. Everyone.
Because when I say Sickos and Perverts, Hank is definitely like the number one leader of the Sickos and Perverts. And he knows that he got blue balls for Max's Super Bowl run.
He's just got to put a future on your squad. Yeah, no, I love the birds.
That's the difference maker. All right, let's do who's back of the week, and then we're going to kick it to Ryan Russillo.
And like I said, we'll be back in studio all together for Wednesday's show on Tuesday. So we'll be back from vacation then.
But before we do that, who's back of the week is brought to you by our friends at Truly. Truly unruly is the first high ABV hard seltzer that actually tastes good.
Truly unruly is a hard seltzer that breaks all the rules, drinks light parties hard with 8% ABV. It hit, it's hits hard, but still tastes amazing.
Strawberry smash. That's my personal favorite.
I love it. We were drinking it in new Orleans.
It's great. You have a truly unruly.
Maybe on the golf course, you feel great. And it's the official hard seltzer.
Pardon my take. Find truly unruly at a store near you or visit www.trulyhardseltzer.com.
Shout out to truly, by the way. They were on the ice for Four Nations.
I saw it as one of the sponsors. So big stuff.
Love Truly Unruly. All right, Hank, who's back of the week? My who's back of the week was about to be cable, but I just found out that a deal has been made between YouTube TV and Paramount Plus.
Yeah, I don't think they made the deal. I think they just delayed it.
I made the switch to YouTube TV like two months ago, and I like it, and then I think it was on Friday or a couple days ago that YouTube TV said they weren't going to be carrying Paramount Plus, which could be an issue for March Madness, so that would have been a disaster. Right.
Yeah. So they, I think they have the structure of an extent.
It's like what the PGA tour and live keeps doing where it's like, yeah, we have, we have an agreement to framework. So there might not be March Madness on YouTube TV.
I mean, that would be a, that'd be a disaster. Yeah.
It would be a complete a complete disaster i mean that's especially because youtube tv you can watch on your you know on your phone pull up on your phone for people at work or on your computer and you get the four boxes like total disaster they got they can't i i'm not gonna get political but that does feel like something trump should just get involved in if to that point, if we're right before it, I feel like one tweet from him could solve that. Yeah.
So cable cable might be back. Yeah.
Okay. PFT, you're who's back the week.
My who's back of the week is Giancarlo Stanton. He's back on the injury report.
He's going to start the season on the injury report.

Might not play in the first game.

He's got double elbow tendinitis.

So both of his elbows are fucked up.

That's what Blake had.

So if he does play, he's going to be in a cone

and probably sedated a little bit.

But it's so perfectly Giancarlo Stan

to go into the spring training.

Yankees feeling good about themselves again.

And then, oh, yeah, he's still Giancarlo Stan.

That's like Rendon having another surgery as well.

Yeah.

All-time finesse job.

Yeah.

How many games has he played on this contract?

Yeah.

I think three or four.

I mean, you can look at his highlights on the Angels, and it's when he slapped that fan. Yeah, pretty much.
That's probably the coolest thing that he's done. Yeah.
Okay, my Who's Back of the Week is National Sports Podcast because I wanted to talk real quick. Did you guys see – I had two things from college – or three things from college saturday auburn goes into alabama beats alabama awesome awesome game two incredible teams that was like there was a moment in the last maybe four minutes where it was just trading deep threes back and forth that was just so much fun to watch um so credit to auburn they're really really good and then did you guys see terrence shannon's jersey getting retired yep uh upside down all time i don't know how that happens i really don't how do you put that how do you attach the jersey upside down and then actually pull it up that means that it's in distress when they raise it upside down i don't know the gasp from the audience was very very funny when they all realized at the same time oh shit, this whole thing it upside down.
I don't know. The gasp from the audience was very, very funny when they all realized at the same time, oh, shit, this whole thing's upside down.
I don't know. Yeah.
Yeah. But what I do – Go ahead.
The discourse that I really like after the Auburn-Alabama game is people immediately saying, let's do this again three more times this season. Oh, yeah.
If we don't get Auburn-Alabama four times total in college basketball this year, people are going to be very upset. I think the schedule makers will do everything in their power if it does come to bracket time.
Make sure that we have a strong possibility of seeing those two teams match up in the Elite Eight. I think also Carl Ravitch did fall for the SEC is 500 since January 4th stat.
He said that live on air a couple days ago. But the SEC is very, very good.
And that showed it. Also, in the Illinois-Michigan State game, I don't know if you guys saw the end of the game, but I can't remember.
I think it was with about five minutes left in the game. It was 67-66.
Sorry, it was like six and a half minutes left in the game. It was 67-66 Illinois over Michigan State, and the final score was 79-65 Michigan State.
So in the last six and a half minutes, Illinois actually had minus two points because they went and reviewed a basket for a goaltending from earlier and took off points. So you can see there's a screenshot where they're up 67-66 with six minutes left and they lost 79-65.
Never been done before. It was crazy.
It's so infuriating if you bet on them. So infuriating.
But yeah, that Auburn-Alabama game was awesome. And I don't know if there's any other college basketball.
Also, shout out Pug. Oh, yeah.
Oh, boy, was that awesome. Oh, boy, was that a bad ending for UConn.
Holy shit.

They just pissed down their leg.

Pug, you're back.

Seeing all one-game win streak.

There we go.

We could get hot.

You could get hot?

Let's build off that.

Just put us in the Big East tournament.

Just put us in the Big East tournament.

Anything can happen.

Okay.

The Big East tournament, everyone makes it, right?

Everyone makes it. Yeah.
Not everyone makes a Big Ten tournament. Really? Yeah, because we've had so many teams now.
There's a few teams that don't make it. Pug, you should do bracketology for the Big East tournament.
Last four in, Seton Hall. Okay.
You're in. Yeah.
Yeah, we're in. We're going to win it.
No, that was a bad loss for UConn because Seton Hall is not good at all. Seton Hall is horrendous.
Yeah. Very, very bad loss.
Very, very bad loss. Okay.
Any other national sports podcast stuff? I mean, we got Russillo for an hour and a half plus. Yeah, he's going to get into a lot of national sports podcast stuff, mostly about World War II.
But yeah, I think one thing that I saw that caught my eye earlier today was Calipari just yelling at people for – he was basically saying my team sucks.

Yeah.

He's not having a great time.

He's having a bad time.

He says like my team sucks.

They're soft.

I have to treat them delicately.

This is me treating them delicately, but I need to get in their ass somehow. So I won't be hard.
It doesn't look good. It doesn't look good for Cal.
No, it does not. Not, not a great first year for him in Arkansas, but all right, we're going to be back all of us together on.
We'll meet Max. When do you leave for your fitness vacation? Wednesday night.
Okay.

So we'll be back, all of us together,

on Tuesday, and we're going to try

to get Biz on to talk, hopefully,

USA-Canada. Now,

oh, last thing.

If the Canada-

Finland game goes to

overtime, does the US

basically take a dive and let

Sweden advance?

So that's how the tiebreakers work out.

So Canada, I think

I don the U.S. game on Monday night means nothing if Canada wins their game in regulation it will just be USA Canada we're already in we're already in Thursday night so I think if as long as if Canada wins in regulation uh our game means nothing but if Canada wins in overtime, I think they get two points, and then Sweden could potentially jump them by the U.S.
taking a dive and Sweden beating us in regulation. Do we do it? My United States of America is not a coward.
I'd love to do it, though. It would be so funny if Team Canada didn't even get into the finals.
I just want to say for the record, you've got to beat the best. Anybody, anytime, anywhere.
Yeah. But, yes, we should definitely take it.
We should definitely take it. Hey, what are you doing with – Are you paid off by Putin? Hank, we're in an article.
Hank is so bad. I'm like, four nations.
I want to hear – Obviously, Russia is one of the four nations. They have to be in this.
And they're like, no, they're not. I was like, that's crazy.
They are the four nations. You're right.
I want to hear about this article you read, Hank. No, this is – that's a raw reaction.
I was just like, i feel like russia has great hockey players they're probably heated yeah if it was up to me i i would play against russia right now yep right me too like agreed i don't want the asterisk i'm not putting an asterisk true but russians you know russians might come at you how many russians do you see on a day-to-day that are going to be like well that four nations was bullshit true i think you'll be okay yeah hey i don't even know i i don't know what russians you're coming across that would be that passionate about it but i i am sorry for you if you're going to get shit for it it's the ones that you don't see coming that you have to worry about with the russians true true we gotta find a canadian for thursday night that we can heckle do we have a canadian guy at the office i was trying to think we had one yeah there's greer there's uh there's biz but he's gonna be there right yeah do we have a canadian it was just rent a canadian a day. I'm pretty sure Greer's rooting for America anyway.
That's funny to nobody except for the people that are in this room. Yes.
Yes. But listen, judging by our laughs, you know that was funny.
Isn't Brendan Walker Canadian? Yeah. Let's make him Canadian.
I like that. Yeah.
We should tie him up and put a Canadian tuxedo on him. Yeah.
Okay. All right.
Let's get to our interview with Ryan Russillo, NBA preview. Okay, before we get to our good friend Ryan Russillo for NBA preview, we're brought to you by our friends at Chevy.
Chevy has packed more capability into the Silverado Trail Boss so that you can pack more fun into your weekend. Have yourself a Friday, Saturday, and Sunday with a truck that says no to nothing.
Tailgates? Spontaneous camping trips? DIY projects? Bring it on! What about a cross-country road trip? Silverado was the perfect ride for last year's Grit Week out West. Recently, they helped us give fullbacks the recognition they deserve with the low man award well the silverado trail boss is built like a fullback we're talking 495 pounds a feet of torque hold on your sodas max plus the trail boss gives you an extra two inch lift so maybe hank can finally dunk silverado brings the grit then pairs it with all the latest truck tech inside and out the result a truck that can do it all then show up on a monday with a story to tell so learn more about the silver out of trail boss chevy.com chevrolet together let's drive we're also uh brought to you by our friends at mountain dew add a blast a refreshing tropical lime flavor to your game day with mountain dew baja blast mountain dew baja blast is part of my game day ritual your game day with Mountain Dew Baja Blast.
Mountain Dew Baja Blast is part of my game day ritual. I love Mountain Dew.
I love Baja Blast. If you're sitting watching games, I know it's football season.
Now it's basketball season. We're going to get into the NBA with Ryan Russillo.
Grab a Mountain Dew Baja Blast. Tournament's coming up.
Mountain Dew Baja Blast. Do it.
The tropical lime flavor of Mountain Dew Baja Blast is refreshing as maybe hitting a parlay or a pick six or a buzzer beater. Now that it's basketball season, hitting your free throws and one and one while hitting a three.
Four point play. That's a Mountain Dew Baja Blast.
Mountain Dew Baja Blast is the four point play of sodas. Say it right now.
So ride the Baja wave on game day and grab Mountain Dew Baja Blast. Mountain Dew Baja Blast is the four-point play of sodas.
Say it right now. So ride the Baja wave on game day and grab Mountain Dew Baja Blast.
For you and your crew, wherever refreshing beverages are sold, thank you to Mountain Dew. Thank you to Mountain Dew Baja Blast for changing our lives.
That's the meme, right, memes? You changed my life. And then she says, I'm literally Mountain Dew Baja Blast.
So that's how i feel when i talk when i talk about mountain dew baja blast okay here he is ryan rusillo nba preview okay we now welcome on a very very very special guest he's one of our best friends in the whole wide world it is ryan rusillo from the ryan rusillo podcast go listen right now uh nba preview so we're running this on february the week of the combine maybe 17th february 17th nba preview uh what do you think ruka's gonna get traded i look i'm not an insider i think just there was a younger version of me egotistically maybe a little insecure in the business where i was like well i heard then i got to know woge i got to know his daily sacrifice and i was like it's wrong of me to dip my toes into his world yep right just because i have access right like i don't go on cnbc right because i day trade so are you good at it here's what i'm telling you uh if i put the right if i had more screens i'd be better yeah but i'm hearing big time rumblings of luca my favorite was when chomps was on sports under the other day and they had a camera on him backstage when they were getting ready to bring him out to the desk and it was like a tunnel entrance to an nba game the camera was like going around him 360 degrees he's like shaking his neck out they're like we'll go to chomps in a second he's getting pumped up to go out there then he goes out there he sits down all fired up he's like league circles just can't believe what they're hearing right now what is the league circle uh Just whoever you have a contact with in the league because I've never talked to more teams than those 48 hours after that trade on Saturday night. Like I was hearing from guys I hadn't talked to in years.
It's still, I know that, you know, the dust is settled. It still makes no sense, right? So look, we've been in New Orleans all week.
Every single thing I've gone to all anybody wants to talk about is luca yeah because it's i mean the the original reporting of it when shams reporter is like i'm not hacked because it was so bad of a deal bobby marks had to be like he's not hacked yeah like i need a third source to confirm this about the original tweet this is not NBA central this is an actual trade what can you because if it is central we joked on saturday after it happened that bronnie would have been in it yeah yeah that would be a much better trade but what do you think lebron would have said no they would have had to let no no he would have said yes he'd be like luca send my prime trade my own son for luca yeah is it is it like everything i read, it just basically boils down to Nico Harrison, the GM for the Mavs, almost went rogue and he doesn't like Luca. Probably doesn't like fat people.
I know that must have hurt. Well, I mean, I've been defending Luca when everyone's like, he's 270.
You're just cursy, dude. You're not even fat.
But he's like, he's 270. He's 6'7".
270's not bad. 270's not bad at all.
On 6'7"? I'd be 270 if I could. Yeah.
I'm not even 6'7". If you look at BMI, he's like morbidly obese.
Yeah, but BMI, there was a new thing I read today. It was like, finally, you're like, oh, you think it might be a little outdated for jack people? Right.
Scientists. Yeah.
Muscle. But is it just he hated Luca? It seems like it.
I mean, I think everything is out. There's other conspiracy theories.
And I love, you know, when somebody is really smart and they're really good at making a point. And then everybody was like, hey, did you hear about this like casino thing and like moving around? And then you're like, OK, maybe, maybe or because it's so convincing.
Right. But I always have this issue like, making this simple thing difficult.
And I think those of us that do this for a living like to do that at times. And that's not even, this guy wasn't even, I don't even think a media member.
But you're like, do you think they want to leave Dallas? Do you think they want to leave the Dallas market? And so we get a major league on our hands here? Like, of course they don't. They want the expansion teams.
Yeah, but they want the money paid. When you expand, those two new owners have to write these massive checks.
Yeah, but they can still do that. They move to Vegas, and then the expansion team is Dallas.
Yeah, I don't think— I don't know if you've heard about this one. Of course I've heard about it.
I've had it sent to me by people being like, checks out. That's the thrill of a conspiracy theory, because if you see it early enough, you can tell other people, and they're like, wow,'re like wow you're a deep and then they think that you came up with it like yeah big cat just told me this thing i like when somebody shares it with you like they got it and a source that no one else has already seen a hundred times like hey it's like one reddit post yeah right everybody sees it for 69 came up with it and everyone's like he's had a good track he makes a lot of good points yeah put another put another nickel in the fartarts in there for 69 was right jar yeah but it's crazy this trade is crazy it makes no sense here's here's what i think is like the funniest part about it is that i guess nico wanted to keep it a secret because he was afraid people would get mad if they found out i don't i don't know but he was like don't tell anyone yeah he thanked palenka for keeping it quiet and you're like what'd you think palenka was gonna do start telling other people the other thing that i always think is insane with like rebuilds in the nba is like we need everybody to be kind of on the same timeline like age-wise so you go so if like in theory aunt were available he's too young to play next to kairi now granted positionally a fit center when ad and kairi it's very clear that nico's background in the that he's had relationships with, like he said, I don't do anything scary.
I'm like, you did the single scariest transaction in the NBA two years ago by being the one team that's like, yeah, we'll trade stuff for Kyrie Irving. And it's worked out.
And I think it's worked out because of that relationship. Clearly, the AD relationship goes all the way back.
The Palenka relationship goes back 20 plus years. Everybody's read all's read all the same stuff about how like Nico was obsessed with Kobe made it work.
The Palenka Kobe deal or Kobe's like telling Palenka, go start your own thing. I'm coming with you.
Like these guys have been, um, you know, and not a weird way, but like collectively in bed in this basketball world for a really long time. But like at some point you have to have someone close to you that can that can go hey even if you don't love luca even if you love ad silence is not the play here you know like every time there's a big trade and granted it's more in the nba than any other sports but it used to happen in baseball when it was a more active trade deadline but when the insider goes on tv like just happened with dearon fox shams Fox.
Shams goes on, Windhorse goes on, whoever goes on.

It's like, look, people around the league are starting to tell you, Sacramento definitely looking at offers and maybe open for business on De'Aaron Fox. A lot of times that comes from the team.
They want the guy to go on, advertise to the rest of the league that this guy is available. The idea that if it got out, it hurts their leverage is bullshit.
This is unfathomable to so many different teams around the league this should be an auction it should be a public auction it should be updated every fucking day the lakers as windhorse reported saying that they went to dallas and said we can't give you the second first because we don't know if he'll sign an extension yeah then if you're nico So you okay then then you can walk away from acquiring luka donchich at 25 years old in a trade that is unprecedented historically yeah i'm offering you gold and you're gonna break my ball you can say no to me yeah instead nico was like yeah you're right okay so the other thing that blows my mind the other thing that could make sense with it is that he's just obsessed with ad and he just loved ad and and needed him on that team. I don't know.
Get somebody else involved. It's also crazy because he's like, oh, yeah, we just went to the finals with Luka being an absolute force offensively.
You know what we should do is go defense. Well, that's the other thing is that I spend a lot of time.
I mean, I don't really talk to anybody about it, but they're like, oh, look at this guy's numbers. And you're like, that guy's a loser.
Oh, he had 30 points again? Cool. You watch all the other shit that he does wrong.
This guy has a laundry list of losing plays inside of a basketball game. Like, I know you're upset about the Zach Levine thing.
No, I'm not upset. But, you know, he's played in, what, four playoff games in his career? So, like, we're sitting around, this league has a lot of dudes that put up huge, huge numbers, but they do it on their own terms.
They don't pay attention to anything else. They've never even heard of an off-ball cut to save their lives.
It sounds like you're talking about Jordan Poole. No.
It sounds very mean. Well, Jordan Poole is, like, I joke that if he went to confession, he'd be like, what is this? Because there's just no.
No conscience. There's zero.
I mean, he's the most dangerous player in the NBA. I love him.
I love watching him play. It's actually not entertaining.
No, it is. Because you're just is you're just like this is i can't imagine being a teammate like i want to get on the plane

at one point like are you fucking serious man so anyway the point is is there's a lot of players

that get a lot of pub that were like well he must be good because look at his line and look at all

these things he's done and they've done nothing they've never sniffed anything maybe a playoff

fluky run luca with a team three years ago that's third option was reggie bullock okay like

Thank you. these things he's done and they've done nothing they've never sniffed anything maybe a playoff fluky run Luca with a team three years ago that's third option was Reggie Bullock okay like that team made it to the Western Conference Finals and then this team gets through OKC it gets through Minnesota and it plays you know it's a bad matchup against Boston that Boston team is really really good but um this guy was actually going on the playoff runs right so all these other guys are like I can think you know sometimes I think there's guys that are good that are on bad teams and other guys I think that are frauds.
This guy's not a fraud. And I think it was Haralobob, I say his name wrong.
Haralobob. Haralobob, who said it, which was, I feel like it had to be said, even though it's very obvious.
He was like, yeah, people post clips of Luka being a traffic cone and getting blown by. Post the same amount of clips, if not more, of Luka having three guys guard him and still hitting the shot.
That's what he brings. Right.
I mean, that was alarming. It was also weird because I think the Celtics knew.
Because, I mean, it's pretty obvious by their approach. They're like, we're going to just kill this guy.
We're going to wear him out. The Celtics also had like five to seven guys with a ball in their hands that you actually have to worry about off the dribble, not just spot up guys.

So you can make a target that you're hunting move more

when you're as good as the Celtics are.

So those video clips, like, okay, fine.

But I can do the same thing with a ton of other players

that don't even sniff the first or second round. Right.
And I don't think his defense was that bad late on in the playoffs. I feel like once he started to play hard, he wasn't a great defender, but he wasn't a complete liability all the time.
That matchup was tough for him, but I think just team to team, it was a tough matchup because it was like the first team. I mean, they had Tatum guarding their center while Tatum was playing point guard.
And like I was at two of the games and it was funny because Dallas at one point was like, oh, wait, maybe we can attack Tatum on the post. And it's like, cool, you're going to run Gafford post-ups and take the ball out of Lucas' hands, take the ball out of Kyrie's hands.
Like you're playing right into what they want to do. But I think PFT, your point is this, like, okay, you want to call him fat? Fine.
You want to say he's not committed enough? Fine. You want to say he argues the ref argues the refs like dude pick a guy that doesn't argue with the refs like it's always shocking when you go oh so and so doesn't argue all that much i mean sure okay fine all all great stuff call other fucking teams right right the process is bad you're 100 correct like if they knew that luca was was up for being traded you would have every gm most GMs in the league making their final best offers, and you would get an enormous haul for them.
I think Ainge would have done like Tatum after he won an NBA championship with him. Yeah? I don't know.
I mean, he never would tell you the truth or anything. I don't know if Boston could after just winning with Tatum, knowing that Tatum's always in shape, plays every game, plays defense.
You just want a title. Their window is still open.
Well, Brown's the alpha. MVP.
He's got the aura. Batman Robin talk.
Yeah. Max aura.
Not your max. Unattainable aura.
Do you want to do Batman Robin for the Lakers now? Who takes the last shot? I love that discussion. I love that first take.
Whose team is it? Yeah, whose team is that? Brownie. When Dwayne Wade spent like two years doing interviews and then like another 10 years after, he's like, well, the team didn't really click until I sacrificed.
Yeah. I was like, oh, you sacrificed against the guy who at the time is the best version we've ever seen of him.
It's arguably like, again, we know we're sitting here. He's number two probably all the time.
There's definitely a clip that runs in two years, right? Luke is out of shape. He gets hurt again.
There's questions about the extension. He's miserable.
He actually doesn't like L.A., which would be shocking to me. I think he's probably going to hang out with all the hockey players and move to Manhattan Beach.
But we know what it could be. I mean, maybe Dallas goes on.
I really liked this team when they were healthy this year. It was a good team.
They had an awesome offseason. The trades were great for them.
There is a version of events that can definitely happen. It's like, remember how everybody thought this, and Nico was right, whatever.
That could happen. I'm open to it.
The fans showing up and protesting, like trying to kill him, bringing the casket out. Then the Mavericks go on and win a championship.
Dude, how about Allie LaForce on the call of the Mavs Celtics game last night, like having a moment where she was like, you know, everybody just wants to remind you that Saturday night's home game for Dallas. Like, these people have families.

Just be responsible.

Right.

I know.

And like, this is quite the message.

Anyway, having said all those things, you still will never be able to defend the process.

Right.

The process is bad.

The execution of this is indefensible.

But then I think about Luka.

Like, is this this wake up call for him? And he's going to be next to LeBron. He's going to get him in shape.
Right, like Sula. That's not really that much of a wake-up call where it's like, hey, we're going to send you to L.A.
You're going to play with LeBron, and you're going to be the face of the Lakers. More taxes.
That'll show you. A lot more taxes.
A lot of taxes. 13.5% state.
13.5% state? Yeah, I think so. Over a million, yeah.
The one thing I in defense of nico uh is that he does have a job for life probably now because rob palinka will just hire him he has to like if that we find out if he gets fired in two years and then he's just part of the lakers organization i think there'll be part of me being like all right i guess he was just looking out for himself that's not the worst this does remind me of roman times though yeah same i was gonna say

same sulla where he was like i thought you're talking about jim no there's no friend that's ever served me no enemy that's ever wronged me whom i whom i have not repaid in full it's powerful that is powerful that's what that's the first thing i thought about when i saw that luke was going to la yeah are you doing roman empire right now just finished the trilogy but i can't get the authors on. I wanted to do like a three-part

thing. Were they dead? No, I did

PAX. I did Rubicon.
I did Storm Before the Storm. So I just wanted to, you know, what I do is I chart it out.
And then I'm like, which years am I missing? Are you still single? When somebody says like, how often do boys think about the Roman Empire? That's just you weighing it down for everybody else i never think about it but no i actually when i saw them when i saw the memes i felt a responsibility do your research i was like you know what like a lot of people think this is funny yeah but it isn't and if you look at like the different forms of government like is it better to live under the guise of democracy with than a you know ultimately a dictatorship yeah Yeah. You know, which again speaks to...
Bread and circus. Do you feel strongly about the republic versus democracy debate? You know, I don't know, man.
At some point, I mean, not to go full dictator on you, but I think at some point somebody has to make the final decision. Yeah.
Yeah, that's true. Why'd you use that term? Well, because I just think that, you know, there's a lot of stuff in history.
You go through it and you're like, you think this is a collective. Have you been to any good museums recently, Ryan? Yeah.
World War II museum yesterday in New Orleans went by myself. I was shocked.
It wasn't busier with people from the media. Some people like to party with booze and drugs and women.
And I like to party with history. Ryan sent me a picture of just an airplane.
Yeah, you sent me a picture of like a... Just an airplane? I took like 20 pictures.
You bought it? Oh, you got us stuff from the World War II? Well, thank you, Ryan. The shirt, and that's my dog tag.
Oh, wow. A one bar from the World War II.
Yeah, that's an MRE right there. This is a beautiful shirt.
We're splitting this shirt? Look at this. This is for me and Big Cat.
It's a Keep Them Flying U.S. Army Air Forces shirt.
Love that. It's so good.
I was there. Me and Big Cat both love planes.
Yeah. I'll wear it on odd days.
You wear it on either. Okay.
I love it. At first, I was afraid I would die, and then I was afraid I wouldn't.
Oh, that's good. And now I'm a soldier of World War II.
We'll get back to Ryan Russillo in a second. He's brought to you by Sleep Number.
Listen up. We're talking about something that's just as important as game day.
Sleep. Did you know that 80% of NFL players have a Sleep Number smart bed? That's right.
These guys aren't just elite athletes on the field. They're recovering like pros off it too.
Here's why. The Sleep Number smart bed is all about customization.
You can adjust the firmness on each side so couples don't have to fight over who gets the better setup. It's like having a referee for your bed, but no whistles, just comfort.
If you're waking up tired or feeling like you got tackled in your sleep, this bed's got your back. Literally, it has your back.
It contours to your body and even adjusts to keep you comfortable all night long. Plus, the new Climate Cool feature is a total game changer.

It keeps you up to 15 degrees cooler.

So no more sweaty nights tossing and turning.

The bottom line, if it's good enough for the NFL, you have to check it out.

Right now, you can save 50% on the new Sleep Number Limited Edition Smart Bed.

It's half off.

Head to Sleep Number store or sleepnumber.com to learn more.

Sleep Number, because your best sleep is your best performance. Go get it.
Rosillo is also brought to you by BetterHelp. This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp.
We often hear about red flags we should avoid, but what if we focus more on looking for green flags in friends and partners? If you're not sure what they look like, therapy can help you identify green flags, actively practice them in your relationships, and embody the green flag energy yourself. Whether you're dating, married, building a friendship, or just working on yourself, it's time to form relationships that love you back.
I've personally benefited from using therapy in the past. I think a lot of people out there might be able to experience the same positive changes that I've experienced through using therapy as an effective tool.
BetterHelp is fully online, making therapy affordable and convenient, serving over 5 million people worldwide. You can access a diverse network of more than 30,000 credentialed therapists with a wide range of specialties.
Discover your relationship green flags with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash PMT today to get 10% off your first month.
That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash PMT. And now here's more Ron Russillo.
Anyway, how about that central division? Central division. Let's discuss.
Well, yeah. Tell us who's going to win the title.
I feel like there's five teams, six teams. I like that.
We just did this the other day, the surprise list. So who's not a surprise? OKC's not a surprise.
Boston's not a surprise. Cleveland's not a surprise.
I think Denver's the fourth team. When Denver has Aaron Gordon and this version of Jamal Murray, even with a diminished bench, it's like you can't rule – especially, you know, look at the depth, the extra days off, depth isn't as big of an issue.
You know, Michael Porter Jr. is like hit or miss to me.
I think I like him less and less, even though he's so important of what they do because of stretching the floor. Westbrook has been like really good in these minutes because of the energy.
I think he's finally kind of accepted who he is a little bit, so it doesn't force the issue the way he would with some of the other guys. I think he's more differential to Jokic than anyone he's ever been playing next to.

And the great thing with playing with Jokic is like, dude,

if you just keep moving and cutting,

there's free baskets all over the place because he's going to find you.

So I would put Denver in there because that's just how special I think Jokic is.

Memphis?

No, I'm not quite there yet.

Houston?

No, no. I have a hard time believing Houston will win four series.
The Knicks? I probably have the Knicks over Houston, even though I enjoy watching Houston the most. As the taping of this, Houston's really going through a weird stretch.
They haven't had Van Vliet. They have these awesome clutch record numbers, but they have some awful clutch metrics, which is really weird how off the two things are and i wonder offensively if they would have enough to like keep up with some of the the other high profile teams but you know one of the questions i have about okc is will there be a second score that is more reliable than the first version that we saw in jaylor williams which is totally understandable because it was first time i feel like Chet has to – yeah, because they do have – I feel like they do get killed by big power forwards right now.
Yeah, the rebounding stuff has been an issue now for a while with them, but I worry more – their defense is so good. They are so smart.
Like, they made Wemby look terrible. It was very early in the season, but it was – you know, if you hold the ball and you wait around against okc they just swarm you and everybody's bought in like the culture of that team uh is is almost like an unobtainable thing in the nba so i'm impressed with all of it i just want the second or maybe even another guy which isn't going to happen now someone to be that reliable like third creator in those minutes where maybe one of the other guys is subbed out or some of the things bogged down.
But now I'm nitpicking. I'm nitpicking with him.
There's little things that I can nitpick with Cleveland. But I thought the DeAndre Hunter trade addressed probably the biggest issue is that when they start a game against the Celtics, like Struis is getting defensive minutes against Jalen Brown or Jason Tatum because they want Struis' spacing.
And then the rest of the assignments, you're like, what do we do? Do we put Mobley on a wing and feel like we're wasting him because you kind of have to if Boston doesn't want to play with double bigs like they do sometimes? So I'm really, really impressed with Cleveland, and even though Hunter's expensive as far as what they'll have to pay him and all the tax stuff, it's a no-brainer. Not that he's a lockdown guy, but it's just a way better defensive option because playoff series are crazy, man.
You can see a game one result and everybody sits there and be like oh this is over and then game two of the same guys plays out an entirely different way so at least they have an option as opposed to what they had so in the west you got denver okay see yeah who else that's it i think the after that it would be a surprise to me if the houston rockets won an nba championship this year it would be a surprise to me if Memphis won an NBA championship. And the Lakers, yeah, I think it's a surprise.
To me, this is a reset. I mean, Doncic becomes available.
You stop worrying about how you match up in the 25 playoffs, and it's pretty clear. And even if they spent real assets on acquiring Mark Williams, he needs to be better.
Granny's only played like half the available games of his career but the defensive numbers for him are atrocious and when you watch him it the good sign might be I just like you'd not care yeah like I don't I know it sounds crazy I want guys to care all the time but is it easier to fix it when it's like hey your effort sucks and now you're you're with LeBron. Yeah, you're playing with the Lakers now.

You can hide in Charlotte on league pass, but you can't anymore.

What about the Bucs?

I hate just missing Giannis just because I think on the best nights

he's the second best player in the world.

He's been even better this year.

Last year he wins the MVP in a lot of seasons

if it's not for this epic run that Jokic is on um you know they've they've reinvented themselves a bit uh kuzma's probably got a little bit more juice to him than middleton does at this point i think middleton defensively with some of the wing matchups worries them but like kuzma doesn't necessarily solve those problems how do you evaluate kuzma when he's basically in siberia with the yeah for so long i mean mean, that team was such a mess, and the minutes were all over the place, and the priorities were different than Kuzma. When Kuzma's been good, he's pretty good, man.
He's not the most athletic guy. It's not like you're letting him initiate a ton of offense off the dribble on his own.
And defensively, he can probably get caught in some stuff where he's not athletically matching like another guy that he's assigned to but i i like him because i think they can just count on him more than they could middleton at this point right i'm worried about like the dame stuff at the top i think brooke lopez like it's kind of over man yeah it's getting up there yeah so the yannis thing is is terrific and you know I just fucking love that guy I love like you knew when it was the Wemby matchup earlier you're like oh I can't wait to watch this game tonight because he's gonna be like I'm gonna go right at this dude and Wemby blocked him twice at the start of the first game and Giannis is like all right now I'm even more pissed where a lot of guys like with his profile be like all right I don't want to get embarrassed and right'm not going to do that again like he couldn't wait so i always kind of like i think i probably stubbornly have respect for yana so much that normally i would keep him live in this but i think the reality is the nba stories the way they go like their their windows probably already closed damn hmm so why do you have a play on them no i was just wondering because i i i don't like the bucks but i like y Giannis. Like Giannis is so much fun to watch when he's right, you know? Yeah, he's everything that I would want.
Like all the stuff that we've talked about with Luka and the funny part too is like there's been way more rumblings about Giannis' fragile future in Milwaukee than Luka. I mean, you know, the Luka thing was like maybe, you know, oh, 26, this team's clearing cap space.
All right, fine. But this Giannis stuff has always been this weird lingering, like, oh, they have to do this.
This is why they did the Dame deal. This is why they did the coach thing.
And who knows? And would he ever say, hey, I'm at this side of 30. Like, I'm out of here? Because it doesn't mean it's never going to happen.
But the American guys are usually the guys that do it. international guys don't again an international guy at some point who's a superstar is going to be like get me out of here yeah um go ahead i think we've talked about this i've i don't maybe we haven't but i always thought the dame thing with portland not to be harsh kind of made him a loser how he liked being like the man in a team that really never had expectations or had to compete for anything he's like I'm the man I've run this franchise we're not going anywhere and then it gets spun as loyalty it's just like I don't know I I don't know I mean it's probably harsh because it's hypocritical of me because I don't love when when guys are like i gotta go team up with another superstar but maybe towards the end where it's just like dude be a little selfish while you have some some gas left in the tank you're an unbelievable player go compete and try to win a championship with someone isn't it funny that i mean it's like okay then he can't win he can't win at all i know i know that's what i'm saying i know that it's a little harsh and it's hypocritical but i always

was like dude especially at the end like go get it somewhere you're you're so good you're fun in

crunch time and it's like dame time stuff like i don't want i don't care about dame time in the

middle of february when you guys are a 500 team in portland well there's definitely truth to him

liking his role with the trailblazers all those years. Right.
And whenever you talk to people out there and granted the regime has changed over, but it was, you know, is he ever going to get a little like annoyed with all this stuff? It's like, no, he likes being the main attraction, like everything's sort of on his terms, not in like a, like, I think the OKC stuff with Westbrook was like absurd towards the end where everything was so on his terms and they had just lost durant i mean he had bigs just getting out of his way so he could get extra rebounds he's the highest the highest like usage rate in like modern history and you start to realize like he still gets rebounds other guards will never get because he's so incredibly gifted athletic and his determination all that kind of of stuff. But like everything started feeling so catered to Westbrook.

You're like, is this actually the recipe for success?

Now that team didn't have any success in the playoffs.

Dame certainly had a couple of moments.

The OKC shot once Paul George was there, the Houston series.

There's just a lot of stuff in there that I thought was a lot of fun.

They had a Western Conference finals run that I think is one of those that

falls under the kind of fluky category.

Yeah, it was COVID, right? Well, no, it was 19. Yeah, it was the year before.
That's right. So I totally get your point.
And there was always this Bradley Beal thing that's very similar. It's like, this guy's not asking out yet.
And then people go, well, you know, he's a pretty content guy. And he's pretty close to qualifying for the five-year max right so he may just get that

and then he's gonna bounce and that's exactly what happened so i don't think i don't think you're wrong it just feels so fucking unfair right i don't really want to say oh yeah this guy actually was a loser the whole time you know what's crazy the whole time yeah imagine if he had gotten his way and gone to miami i know like do you think butler would have been like okay i'll chill out now without the extension.

Yeah.

I mean, I like it when players do that when they say I like this city I want to be a one jersey guy I want to stay here if we're going to try to win but if we don't win you know I'm going to give it my all and that's okay I think that's good I think that's good for the league as a whole I liked it too I've been saying all the good players the last like two years where it's like you still because he did he was already past 30 when he went to the box right like and he's i mean yeah yeah so he it was like it just felt like oh man if you if you'd maybe asked out like a year or two earlier okay this could have been something the one you can get on dame for though and this was starting to happen and i remember like the first time explained to me, they were like, this is just the transfer portal now because people don't care about getting the free agency to maximize their opportunities or leverage, all that stuff. They're just signing the extension and then saying, okay.
And then saying, I want out. Yeah, and that sucks.
That sucks. Yeah, and he had four years to go on his, the same way Durant had four years to go on his when he decided he wanted out of the nets and they wouldn't trade him, they wouldn't fire everybody, then they had to trade him to Phoenix anyway, and they ended up getting a haul.
And honestly, looking back at that, it's an unbelievable deal for what the Nets were able to pull off for a guy that's unhappy within 18 months of every place that he's gone. Like, I was kidding around the other day, but I was like, who's been happier at, like, his peak basketball moments throughout his career, Kyrie or Durantrie Kyrie with the 2016 Cavs I think I mean I feel like I think Kyrie by the way I'm going to take back my Dame take you guys convinced me that was probably that was probably a take I understand the four year extension not kicking in and then saying I want to be traded here and I only want to go to Miami right and that And that's not a blast.
Yeah, no, that's not a blast.

But I do think Durant was genuinely happy in Golden State.

I know that everyone was like, oh, well, it's always going to be Steph's team.

I do think Durant is so addicted to just the game of basketball

and not all the other stuff that the basketball they were playing

was so beautiful that I think he was happy there.

I think he was probably happy in OKC when it was all new to him. Yeah.
You know, 12 finals run. Yeah.
When he wasn't online as much, that's when he was the happiest. You don't think he was happy in Golden State? Just basketball.
I know he left, but like from a, from a basketball perspective, that team was just playing like the highest form of basketball you could play. Best starting five I've ever seen.
Yeah. Making sure.
I just thought you were going to argue. No, I know.
I was thinking of the dream team. The Pistons.
The old four Pistons. Oh, yeah.
That was a great team. All All-Stars.
Kayshaun Prince. Yeah, Rip.
That was the best debate ever. Should they all be All-Stars? I love that.
That's not even the worst one. Remember the Atlanta Hawks team with all those guys? Yeah, Corver.
Yeah, Corver and Joe Johnson. They're like, well, they're in first place.
Was Josh Smith on that team? It's pronounced Josh Smith. Smith.
He was my all-time, like, he's just going to chuck a few threes. I think he was on Detroit by then.

It might have been, yeah.

It might have been, like, 27% from three.

I love that he would do it, though.

He'd be like, you just got to pencil in that he's going to chuck some threes,

and they're not going to go in.

I like those guys.

That's a valiant flea that dare eat his breakfast on the lip of a lion.

Henry V.

Oh, okay.

You're dropping knowledge on this.

Yeah, you are.

You've been reading a lot, haven't you?

A lot.

You know what people don't talk about enough is Shakespeare's depiction of Henry V is so fucked. I agree.
Totally. Yeah, right? We actually were talking about that earlier.
That's good. Yeah.
Because it's like, oh, Billy Shakespeare, he couldn't get it wrong. Are you serious? Yeah.
Have you ever fucking talked to writers? No. Have you ever read anything about Henry V? It's completely misleading.
Yeah. I agree.
You know what it is? It's an oversimplification of him. Yeah, when he was just straight up efficiency.
I mean, granted, he got a bit of a god complex and just saying France was his and it was his right. I would love to be arrogant enough.
Like, we're here Super Bowl week and there's some guys who are like, we need to fucking simmer down. Like, cool daytime readings.
But. It's one very specific person i i look at henry the fifth and i think imagine just being like hey this isn't me just being a dick it is my birthright france is mine god told me yeah how do you how do you run errands that With that kind of, with that kind of like idea of where you are in the world.
Yeah. Nobody, it's hard to negotiate against that position.
There's really nothing you can say. Yeah.
Be like, Hey, this sucks. We're in the woods still and we're digging ditches and guys have malaria and dudes are dying and we don't have any food and we might have to start eating the horses.
And I haven't even seen a boob in two years. Like this fucking sucks.
And he's like, don't worry about it. God said we're going to win.
Yeah, we got it. God did.
He probably had one chick that he liked from France and he was like, I kind of want the whole country now. Yeah.
Well, he did marry the daughter of the Mad King, which was arranged. He did seem to like her, though.
Yeah, that's nice. They were goals totally totally like kate and jay-z yeah you're like kate's you know good for kate i think kate middleton's approval ratings through the roof yeah but i don't know dude henry v i just think it's funny to look at maps you guys don't ever look at maps i love maps i bought a shirt with a map on it yesterday yeah maps are the best what's your favorite projection are you mccator guy you're gonna have to explain to me you don't you're talking about maps you don't about projections you seem like a map casual i i kind of like my haters they're fun to look at they're fun to look at but they wildly distort how big greenland is oh yeah yeah do you ever do that do you ever see that site where you can pull greenland and it's like the size of, you know...
It's like Greenland... It's like Louisiana.
Isn't that Trump.com where you just pull Greenland and you bring it left? That's ours. That shit's ours now.
I do want Greenland. Do you? Yeah, why not? Does Greenland want Greenland? No.
There is something to be said. Well, I don't know.
This will probably bring up something else, but like... Go on.
When you read Henry V, you're like, we do invade each other less. Yeah.
Yeah. That's a positive.
And that never gets talked about. Well, the wars then were a little bit different, too.
It's like if there's big countries, world powers invading other world powers right now, it's like eventually you're going to start a nuclear war. Back then it was like, we're going to send seven horses and five guys with swords.
And then they're going to duke it out on the border for a little bit.

I'm shocked about some of that stuff from Agincourt in late 1300s, early 1400s.

And you're like, you invaded France with 2,000 guys and some boats?

Like, what the fuck?

Imagine, we're good.

We're going into the whole country.

And the numbers were really limited.

And then they started going nuts.

I mean, granted, you've got to go centuries napoleon just being like let's go for russia um but yeah i uh i don't know maybe i just wore top of mind right now after the museum visit yesterday and uh everything but yeah i i don't know that that back to the henry fifth thing completely miss misjudged shakes fucked him. What were your blind spots in the Pacific Theater?

Do you know about the ice cream boat?

I don't think I do.

Explain it to me.

The U.S. had such incredible industrial power during World War II

that we were creating boats at such a level

that they created a boat that just served ice cream to the Navy

that was in the Pacific Theater.

I don't feel bad not knowing that.

It's a real thing.

We were, we just... at such a level that they created a boat that just served ice cream to the Navy that was in the Pacific Theater.
I don't feel bad not knowing that. It's a real thing.
We just were shitting out boats. That's how fast we were making them.
They were like, all right, this one will just be soft serve. I think, I mean, if you want to be completely serious about all this stuff.
No, the ice cream boat is serious. I don't really like how you've kind of diminished it.

What flavors do you think they had?

I think they had them all.

Chocolate and vanilla in 1945.

I think they had them all.

I bet they had strawberry or a malt.

That's just running up the score, though.

I mean, Japan's fighting with wooden boats,

and we're like, we have an ice cream boat.

Japan's resources were strained pretty quickly.

Pretty quickly.

Small islands.

They got it a little over their head. First time they'd surrendered in 2,500 years.
It's crazy. They thought the emperor was God.
Well, he was called the God Emperor. Yeah.
Another guy. Probably read Henry V.
Yeah, he did. He's like this guy.
Oh, this guy too? The naval battles in the Philippines. There's some crazy shit that went on there too.
Yeah, I was watching the videos about it yesterday, but I don't know. I mean, this is where being the war historian like you could say a fact but i'm gonna go i didn't know that i'm the war historian no ice cream no i didn't just went to a world war ii museum i'm supposed to know all of it i'm supposed to know every maneuver from the runways to manila the manila decision i think it's vanilla and chocolate that's my only fact it's so good that we can't even do anything now with it.
The one thing that you contributed to this was ice cream. Ice cream bowl.
It was ice cream. Dude, ice cream bowl.
With that line. We need to take a moment to understand how good that line was right there.
It's solid. That's even the capital of the Philippines.
The whole World War II theater is just me thinking about ice cream. But when Oppenheimer came out, and some people just can't.
They send a tweet, and it's like, oh, we're celebrating this now? Do you want to fucking do this? Do you want to do this? Do you want to do this? Are we going to do this? Do you want to talk about the coast of China? Yeah. Do you want to talk inland? Are we going to do the thing where we just ignore the rape of nanking dude there's video they didn't show the video but there are stills of like practicing bayonet work with live chinese prisoners so look history is littered with all of this stuff but like the artsy person that decides they're taking this stand without ever reading a fucking book or deciding that they're just going to ignore the, like, I'm not saying necessarily like who's right, but who put you in charge of saying who's wrong.
Right. Yep.
Is a Cooper flag the real deal? I haven't watched enough of them. Um, Boston college.
You've watched a lot of, you probably watched more Cooper flag than almost anyone. No, that's definitely not true.
I don't have a ton of time for college hoops right now. I've watched, I don't know, two full games.
Boston College seemed to not like him a couple weeks ago. They were letting him have it, elbowing him in the face.
He's a perfect Duke guy. This is where I wish guys had to stay for a couple more years, especially at Duke, just because I want to get the heat up for Cooper Flagg.
But one year's not enough. Yeah, you're right.
It just doesn't feel, you know what I mean? That he's a main guy, though, for me. I'm just going to have a hard time being anti.
Would I hate Duncan Robinson? I couldn't do that. New Hampshire guy.
Duncan Robinson is a good dude. He'd be the first white American since 1976, I want to say, drafted one overall.
Cooper. The white flag.
Yeah. We were on this a few years ago, which is kind of weird that we were on this, but we were.
That'd be the first white American drafted number one overall. This is our future.
Yeah, but think about it. We literally did that bit.
The white flag would also be a much better name for a french player well by the way yeah it would and i hate the whole capture the flag thing that they're doing for like you know the suck for luck they're doing capture the flag it's lame i don't like that yeah yeah uh there haven't been any good ones that i've heard yet i don't think um i just i haven't i haven't heard anything that's all that great i would root for the new england guy no matter what um but we look the white guys have had a weird stretch in the nba yeah i mean there was a time when you were like okay who are the five white american guys one through five and like dudes would get to four going is it still Doug McDermott, who we love we love shout out to doug mcdermott but buckets i this is you know trump's back in office flag goes one you know you gotta wonder you had that baron baron trump could he could also go one next year the that's true that woman in the walmart ad with buster rhymes around christmas when she dropped the verse at the end yep so things are i don't know i don't know where we are on the pendulum it's all happening wait so would you so you don't know totally you haven't watched it enough but like the way that people talk about him and people you trust like is he one of those guys like guaranteed he's going to be awesome in the n happen, you know, in the draft every couple of years where you're like, okay, like Zion. But Zion, if he played.
Zion's not that guy. Yeah, well, yeah, but I mean, the thing is, is like the more you really dug into, like, Zion when he was at Duke.
I mean, not that it was breaking news because everybody knew he was going number one. But I think for me, there was this whole other level of like, oh, my God.
Like, this is going to be awesome. And the thing is, is once he played, he was that dominant of a player.
And you didn't really have to do anything with him except just make sure there was a little bit of spacing for him, which they could have with this new version of the team. But whatever.
I don't think he's talked about – like, we're coming off a Wimanyama deal where the buildup to that, even though Flagg has been on everybody's radar here for a couple years, and I think that there's the other two guys that are kind of part of the conversation. Like you'll hear every now and then of somebody.
So I don't think it's this unanimous praise, but if I'm comparing to Wimbanyama, Wimbanyama is the most anticipated pick since LeBron. So it's been 20 years.
So this is not one. I have not watched him enough.
I don't feel comfortable talking about it based on what I think. And I think it's been 20 years so uh this is not one i have not watched him enough i don't feel comfortable talking about it based on what i think and i think it's been assumed that he's the number one guy and for good reason because he's side the size and the athleticism and a little bit more of the vision where it's not just he's a straight scorer but i mean look you've watched him more than i have he's he's very good he's very very good uh and i also appreciate that you were like hey i't watch, so I can't give an expert opinion.
We're the opposite. I think you agree, PFT.
He's probably the best prospect ever. Yeah, number one.
Yeah. Do you think that's sort of part of that prideful nationalism that you're feeling right now? No.
I don't know what you're talking about. What's prideful nationalism? So, wait, I had another question about Cooper Flagg, too.
Oh, yeah. Why? No, because I cooper flag too oh yeah why no no i think you'll find this interesting he's got a twin brother oh i didn't know that yeah that is interesting he's got a twin brother i think they might i don't know if they're identical but they're uh he's also like big he's huge he's in the stands he wears his jersey that's his identical twin are his twin brother yeah they he plays basketball too he's not very good well i guess he's not as good well He's in the stands.
He wears his jersey. That's his identical twin? Or his twin brother.
Yeah, he plays basketball too. He's not very good.
Well, I guess he's not as good. Well, he's in the stands.
They did an article about it. I think it was in The Athletic a couple months ago.
They're twins? It was like, this guy kind of stinks at basketball, but his brother's really good. How does he live? Damn.
We should do an episode where it's like, interview Cooper Flagg's brother, Trevor Lawrence's brother. You've got to go opposite.
You've got to go like Trevor Lawrence's brother brother where you're like, I'm just gonna do something totally different than what my brother is. Ace Flagg? Is that his name? Ace Flagg? That's a pretty cool name.
Yeah, but it's not... He's not twins? Oh, they are twins.
They're twins. What? And he's not even playing? He's not very good.
He's transferred around a bunch. I think he's like a...
How is he transferred? If they're the same age? Maybe it was high school. Okay.
He moved to a couple different schools, yeah. he was committed think he's like a well how's he transferred if they're same age maybe it was high school okay a couple different schools yeah uh he was committed or he's committed to main i don't know yeah i mean that's gonna be tough that's gonna be tough you don't know anything about cooper flag let's ask about his twin brother yeah i know i didn't i didn't know i just always feel like no matter what you know your mom's going like hey your path is different and yeah you know It you're special in your own way and you're like yeah my brother's gonna be the number one pick in the draft so yeah yeah just become best friends and what so i i think cooper reclassified so that he could go to college early oh so that's why in high school so he's still in high school that's why he's committed to me.
I'm like 80% sure that that's what happened. Got it.

I like that.

That's great.

Producing by Max.

I got a question for you about the NBA as a whole.

Is the NBA in trouble?

Good question.

Trouble how?

So I can answer it properly.

I don't know.

I'm not a ratings guy.

But it does feel like, I don't know. The league.
The ratings are down. The ratings are down.
The ratings are down, and it feels like there's obviously a few teams that can win every year. There's not as much parity, and there's also, I don't know, like when you turn on a game in the middle of February, is it the best product? I don't know.
I mean, the three point, the debate about the three points where it's like, hey, everyone's just chucking constantly. Is the NBA in trouble? I'm going to sound like somebody who loves the NBA and therefore is going to protect it.
But I think what I would do, because you know me, is that I would like defend something against what I think are bullshit arguments. um one the first ratings quarter that was destroyed by everybody went up against all of our election coverage.
And the most important election of our time was the tease, I believe. Democracy was at stake.
Do you realize I've been alive for every one of the most important elections of our time? Yeah. That's fucking incredible.
I'd be that lucky. Carter Reagan.
I was there. I was there for that.
And I was shit and then the next year in four years excuse me the next election they were like no this is and i was like i'm on the hottest fucking streak of elections of anybody you've ever known so um i think that that was a little unfair um i think the three-point thing even though there's nights where i kind of feel that way i also don also don't miss Mark Jackson post-ups that took 17 seconds. Yeah.
I think whenever people start comparing all these clips of what it is today, what it is back then, yeah, every Jordan clip looks fucking awesome. You know what? There was also a million other games that Tuesday night that sucked and weren't as visually appealing as that clip.
Why are we comparing that clip to a full slate of games on a Tuesday? I also think that there's a like I've talked about this before it's the polling of one and it's not just one but it's still a really small sample size of people who are like I haven't watched it since they did that bubble woke shit and it's like okay is that true like in that moment you went group economics jersey which again was stupid but you went group economics jersey and you were like that's it I'm fucking out on these guys now those people were never in right that person exists certainly and that person loves telling you that they exist and they've done all of those things but what i would argue is did that make you change the channel or did you already change the channel and now you love pointing to that as the reason why you've already done something okay same thing happened with all the kaepernick shit right right wing people going like i'm never watching that sport again and remember there was a bit bit of a ratings dip and there was decline and right wing media was all over it being like, see, see, see. All right.
Well, at some point there's going to be some ebbs and flows of ratings and all that kind of stuff. So look, if you tell me, all right, Ryan, compare the finals to 10 years ago finals.
Well, am I comparing it to LeBron and Steph in that window? I mean, you know, we're also talking about LeBron and Kawhi. We're talking about Steph going up against LeBron and that one where everybody kind of got hurt in the entire series.
So is that the best way to do it? I'd also ask people like, have you ever cared about sports or games or teams, you know, today, the way you did 20 or 30 years ago, right? But do you care about movies the same way? Do you go to many times did you go to the movie theater this year? How many times did you used to go? Is there an appointment viewing on television? Is there anything that's like the Sopranos? So many options. Right.
Like, remember the Sopranos? You stopped what you were doing. Oh, yes.
You made sure your phone was... My TV went out.
Right. Watched it live.
You made sure your food was ready to go, whatever you were grabbing. Like, I'm sitting...
Like, nothing is disrupting this moment. I don't know if those moments exist anymore.

So I think the NBA has some things aesthetically about it that are concerning.

I think there's some ratings intel that is a small piece that if it were to continue is alarming.

But I also think there's just so many people that love dunking on that league for a variety of different reasons

that I think it becomes really skewed coverage.

I think the NHL is down 28%.

Is it too woke?

Like, of course not.

It's also like the NFL just is swallowing everything.

It is.

I mean, that's why they're going to 18 games.

That's why they were like, you know, Christmas football family.

No, it isn't.

You're just like, fuck the NBA.

Which is within their rights to do.

I think at one point we'll have NFL on every single night. I think that's what their goal is and that's what they'll look to do so that will rock um yeah nobody's lost money on a team in like 40 plus years they want to add more teams because people want to get into the business the television contract was reported to come in like three billion less than it actually did so maybe maybe looking at traditional ratings like as much as You can go, oh, look at that or look at that number or this product sucks or all these different things.
I think the global part isn't discussed enough. I think the new consumer and the younger consumer, the idea of sitting down at 25 years old and watching a two and a half hour game start to finish is like absurd to them.
Agreed. So I think there's a lot of factors here, but I think unfortunately the loudest voice is usually the one that already hates the NBA telling you this league is dying, and I don't think that's true.
And I think most of the people that are saying, I used to watch the games change so much, I can't watch this shit anymore. You know, they're like 45 and above, I would say, for the most part.
And, of course, you like shit that you got to watch when you were 20 years old better than the stuff you get to see. Yeah, right.
I mean, he asked that guy to be like, are you going to Vegas still? no shit right like yeah the the steph lebron kd thing too i think is important because they are in a transition this happens in the nba it happens every league where it's like these guys are getting older they were they had this run that is you know lebron's 20 plus years um yeah i don't think the nba is in trouble i just because i still love i mean especially. I love the playoffs.
I think there's just the biggest, the best argument I think you made is there's just so much stuff now, and it's so hard to capture like a massive attention unless you're football. I can never tell if I'm like the best taste like.
I should have screwed this up. Yeah, you're the best.
You are the best. Just stop.
You have the best taste. Thanks, guys.
If I am the one you should listen to or the one you should listen to the least, because I'm watching no matter what, right? This is my job. I have a good job.
I have a good life. I'm lucky to have the life that I have.
Okay. But there are times where when I'm watching all these games, there's all these stoppages and they add a challenge and they have the time out before the three minutes that everybody's figured out all this stuff like the dramatic back and forth moment and it's happened in football too where it's like is that the game winning touchdown oh my god it's the game winning touchdown wait let me wait for a review and now i'm excited but there's no way the excitement after the delay of what you think if it's happening you're seeing the replay and getting confirmation there's no way that excitement ever matched what we used to have in that moment where you were like this is like oh my god it happened and basketball as much as i love the ncaa double tournament like there can be a score and scenario where you get maybe that possession possession possession moment but it feels like it never happens anymore in basketball and i think that's a a problem except they just are going to tell the tv partners like yeah we'll figure out a way to get another stoppage in there you know college football like we can't call the two-minute warning we'll call it the two-minute time out pretty good yeah because you know we're our own thing it's like no we'll just call it the extra stop because espn just renewed the package yeah i actually think they should ban following up three i'm up for any of the the elam ending thing no relation to matt i thought like at first like a lot of people like oh whoa that'll change everything okay yeah like i would love to have those dramatic back and forth moments like i think baseball may actually provide the best drama tension because you can't disrupt it right the way you disrupt these game winning football plays and all the basketball stuff so when i say like i can't tell if i'm the best of the words like i can be on game seven and i'll know like uh here we get another stop we do all this stuff and like i start dicking around i'm looking at my phone maybe i'm like looking up something like what is deandre hunter shooting you know like i'm sitting there and then i look up and like four plays have happened because I'd already kind of like removed myself from paying attention to the game.
So I'm like, if I'm doing that, what the hell is somebody doing that doesn't do this for a living? Right. We'll get back to Russo in a second.
He's brought to you by The Farmer's Dog. This year, healthy habits don't only apply to humans.
Give your dog a fresh start too. The Farmer's Dog makes feeding real healthy dog food easy and convenient, and your dog will absolutely love it.
Blake loves the Farmer's Dog. He leads me downstairs.
He knows exactly where to go. It's dinner time.
It's breakfast time. Time to eat.
Stella is a Farmer's Dog dog as well. Both these pups are living happy, healthy lives because of the Farmer's Dog.
It's a big part of it. The pre-portioned meals are personalized for your dog's needs, so it's simple to help your dog reach and maintain a healthy weight.
If you've ever thought about making the switch, now is the time. It's made from human-grade real meat and veggies that are gently cooked with the safety and quality standards of human food.
It doesn't matter if your dog is young or old, it's always the right time to begin investing in their health. That means more happy, healthy, and full years together.
You can get 50% off your first box of fresh healthy food at thefarmersdog.com slash PMT. Plus you get free shipping.
Just go to thefarmersdog.com slash PMT to get 50% off. That's thefarmersdog.com slash PMT.
Priscilla is also brought to you by Aroxon. Let's talk about the elephant in the room, erectile dysfunction.
One in four men 18 years and up experience ED. That means that you or someone close to you might be experiencing it.
That's why I want to tell you about this new ED treatment gel called Aroxon. It's the first ED treatment gel with clinically proven results that you can get over the counter.
While it might not work for everyone, studies showed success in over 60% of men. The best part, no prescriptions or online questionnaires are needed.
Why wait? Try Araxon today. Available in stores and online.
Visit araxon.us to learn more. That's E-R-O-X-O-N dot U-S to learn more.
Now here's more Ron Rusillo. What team's in the worst spot right now uh i think charlotte's actually in a pretty bad spot even though they've done a good job of because they've got to make a lamello decision yeah you know i mean i looked it up the other day his shots per 100 is the highest we've seen since kobe bryant's in 2006 well lamello's the same player as Kobe.
Yeah, it was like he's the number one fan voting. If I were to ever get in an argument with somebody who's a Hornets fan, I'd be like, do your parents know you have the phone? So Hornets are in a bad spot.
Bulls are in a terrible spot. Well, I think the Hornets in like a weird Atlanta Hawks spot where it's like we have this attraction and we have something we can put on billboards and we have something that makes the fans excited he sells jerseys and everything but like is this really going to be the guy it's never going to work can you explain to me why we're still doing All-Star Weekend and why that's a big thing yeah I think it's a huge corporate thing yeah what happens at all-star weekend what kind of conversation i don't go anymore um you're not going this year where is it this year it's uh san francisco i think yeah yeah well with the no game week thing i did uh the live show in utah two years ago and then i went why am i working there's no games right i'm gonna take i'm gonna take some of this time off so So I went to Aspen last year.
It's pretty nice. Yeah, I've heard.
Very nice. It's rich.
A lot of rich people. PFT.
How was the powder? Is that a cocaine joke? It was. It was.
Trying to fuck with me. But also ski.
I'm just really excited that Josh Allen won the MVP. You think guy was pumped.
He was dialed in. He was barely sleeping.
He was nervous, too. Before they announced, he was grinding his teeth.
He was like, come on. Oh, it's got to be Josh.
My bladder feels small. I've got to go to the bathroom again.
I don't know, man. We're not even on a course.
It's kind of like a mini Super Bowl week, to be honest with you. That's what I'm saying.
They try to market it like a mini Super Bowl week, but every year is the same thing where it's like, oh, yeah, shit, the weird skills competition's on and the dunk contest that's going to suck is here. I do love, though, when people complain about the All-Star game sucking now.
It's like, okay, you were that invested before? It's unwatchable. I don't watch it.
I mean, I can't even tell you the last time I watched an NBA All-Star game.

I don't watch it. I think it's for kids.

I think it's for kids. I think it's for corporate sponsorships.

I think it's like whatever we deal with every night of like your options in New Orleans or Super Bowl week.

It's like I can go to this party. I can go to this dinner.

And like there's plenty of shit I can't even get into.

But like if you go to the hotel lobby at the Four Seasons, you're like, cool, I'm going to see like 20 people.

I don't get to see unless I come to this every single year. So to me, it's a mini version of that for NBA people complaining about the game.
It's just not fixable. It's not fixable because these guys do not give a shit.
There has always been something about basketball that's bothered me is that if you're good, it's like lame to try at times. Like the guy who's really good in a pickup game that almost thinks it's insulting to try against you.

And you're like, this is way more insulting

than you killing us.

You're really good.

And now you're pretending you don't care

just in case somebody were to cross you up

or somebody were to stick a three in your face.

Like this is your never look uncool moment.

That's why none of the guys do the dunk contest.

That's why some of the guys

don't do the three-point thing.

That feels like a shot at Mark Titus.

Oh.

Why? We're talking about Mark. No, I'm just kidding.
No, he actually does try. When we pick up, he just kills all of us.
I could see him being a not try guy. No, what he does is he...
He reminds you? No, he gets into the game, and he's a not try guy. And then as soon as the game starts, he's like, wait, I'm trying, and I'm going to win.
And then he wins. He's good.
I can't imagine how good he is. I mean, if you're good enough to walk on or was it an offer? I think it was a walk on, but he can hit every time there's an open three.
He's big, too. I just saw him in the hallway.
Did you know he got drafted by the Globetrotters? I didn't know that. Dead serious.
Look at the Harlem Globetrotters Wikipedia page. It like a DEI hire though now.
It does. Yeah.
Definitely. It does.
But I think he thought they would do these draft picks every year as like a promo thing, like press release. Look who we drafted.
And Mark had like a YouTube channel at the time. So they just wanted to include his name and be like, hey, we drafted Mark Titus.
You've seen him on YouTube. He's funny.
And then Titus was like, yeah, okay. Yeah, I'll show up and play.
And they're like, oh, you're taking it seriously. And Titus was like, fuck yeah, I got drafted by the Globetrotters.
I'm going to play for the Harlem Globetrotters. Yeah, it didn't work out.
First white American to be drafted by the Harlem Globetrotters ever. Wow.
God, you're all over these white draft facts. I just made that one up.
That one was invented. But, but it's probably also true.
Uh-huh. Those are the best stats when you just make something up and you're right.
They sound true. Have you ever gotten lucky with a take? Like, you say something, and then later on you're like, fuck, that was a stupid thing to say, and then it comes true later? No.
It's a pretty good feeling. All your takes are right.
We said Josh Allen's going to be the MVP. Eventually.
Yeah. Yeah.
You do have a high rate of eventually. You have a very high rate of just wait.
Yeah, I have to. And then it turns out to be right.
They're at the gates, and it's like, no way you're going to be right. No way you're going to be right.
Like the trade and bead thing, I got killed for. Yeah.
You were right. I haven't brought this up yet because it's Super Bowl week.
Thanks for not bringing it up. This is the first time ever.
We won't bring it up, but you were right. What the fuck do they do? Sulk.
That's it? I mean, Embiid is like, he doesn't, what was his stat? You said something. It was, he, if you look at the course of their careers, Tom Brady has a better chance of making it to the Super Bowl in any given year than Joel Embiid does of playing a game on game night.
Yeah, right. That's what it was.
Percentage of games that he's actually played. Yeah.
Percentage of Super Bowls that Brady played in during his career. Yeah.
It's fucking crazy. It's nuts.
Yeah, there was that other set that was like, it was side by side. It was like, Joel Embiid, 450 games played, 415 missed.
Yeah, no, it was his first, it was his 400th game that he missed. Oh, yeah, yeah.
So they put the graphic up graphic up like when he got to 400 dudes were making a graphic like it was an accomplishment yeah uh i've always been kind of like protective of him and uh i was out once he started foul baiting the olympics i was like are you fucking serious dude like i got mad i was mad at home by myself because i didn't nobody wanted to come over and watch me watch the olympics during the day like said something about maybe getting a drink one time. I was like, do you want to watch them play Serbia? It's going to be a good game.
Yeah. I got so frustrated.
And look, I think Embiid played for Team USA because he gets a gold medal, adds to the legacy because it's like, it's probably not that likely that he's winning a title at any point. There's arguments that I would hear about, you know, Harden's meltdowns, Simmons having an absolute meltdown in that Atlanta series, just being shot and thinking, like, who has Embiid been able to rely on? But, you know, whether it's – like, there was a situation this week, like – or not this week, this season.
We're going through all the hell stuff. And, by the way, when he had been playing during that stretch, he didn't look right.
Okay. Even though he's putting up numbers, he doesn't look right.

He doesn't move unless he has the basketball.

So you hope he's hurt.

And he was hurt because that's why he shut it down again. The newest news about his knee.
And then I just like, why were you guys in a hurry to even do this extension with him on top of everything else you already owe him? but when he

basically like sat out

the Cleveland game and then played

in the Charlotte game

I'm like dude I can't But when he basically sat out the Cleveland game

and then played in the Charlotte game,

I'm like, dude, I can't do it anymore with you.

I can't do it anymore with you.

After all he's done for the city?

Yeah.

I do feel like we're getting closer to the sit-down

with whoever it is at ESPN.

It's like a countdown.

Maybe it's Malika or something. And it's MB sitting there in the stool.
And it was like, when did you know it was over for you in Philadelphia? And then it's like black and white footage of like yelling at the ref or him yelling at a reporter or the quote saying like, I've done so much for the city. If you were to say this story, course it's on i don't know that redemption feels like the one that's more likely to land on i love those interviews too because they always sit so close together and they zoom out and they're just in an empty room yeah you're like why are you guys knee to knee that's the jeff darlington yeah i was talking to darlington last night he's like remember when you guys talked about my interview with antonio brown and was dick to dick with him? He was.
Yeah, you were. It was an enormous room and they were just dick to dick.
Yeah. Just like right next to each other.
It was close to me and Big Cat. These are the things we notice.
Yeah. No, I know.
You ever gone dick to dick with a guy? I'm trying to be sincere and think about, like, have you?

Dick to dick.

I don't know.

There's some pledging shit I'm not psyched about.

Max, do you have any comments about Ryan's comments regarding Joel Embiid?

I don't know.

That's my take.

That's a good take.

Your take should be birds right now.

Yeah, your take should be birds. Yeah, I mean, it feels like a dumpster firester fire if you had to guess how do you think the sixer season ends this year bad i mean it's not gonna be good what do you mean you like they're gonna beat somebody in the plan yeah i mean that's not if they're all healthy and they're all ready to go honestly like even with all the mb stuff because he's the guy he's supposed to be the franchise guy um there's a bit of me too that's just's just so sick of all the Embiid propaganda people over the years where it's like, you know, you guys are being such dicks about the Jokic thing when Embiid was never better than him.
He deserved to win the MVP. I'm fine with it.
I never thought Embiid was the better basketball player. If you voted for Jokic that year for MVP, I couldn't necessarily tell you you were wrong.
Like, sometimes I still kind of think about, like, you know, did Embiid prioritize the MVP? and that's why you felt like you went in that direction and Jokic kind of not giving a shit the last few weeks of the season was that the deciding factor you know I don't know that wasn't an easy vote a lot of the years for me I haven't had a vote that long it hasn't been something where I'm like yep perfect score totally right zero arguments against any of this stuff but um I that wasn't even Joel's fault as much as it was the people around him pushing this thing where it wasn't like just sticking up for your guy. It was shitting on Jokic so much, and that really, really bothered me because I can't understand how anybody could spend their life in basketball and watch these two dudes play and think that it's the same thing.
Yeah. And I also think the Embiid foul hunting stuff that Daryl loves because he loved it with Harden and all these guys, oh, look at your true.
Look at your efficiency. Like, look at all this stuff.
Look at your points per 100 and all this. It's crazy.
He doesn't play basketball naturally anymore. He's always thinking about, like, how can he get the contact? How can he fall? Like, there's a very choppy way that he goes about it.
But then it's like, oh, he had 34 and 12 again. He must be fucking awesome awesome and i think that stuff is easier to pull off in the regular season i think there are times even though he had that 50 against the knicks there were times he was not comfortable with the basketball late he still stinks when like a double comes to him so yeah i'm just i'm over it and even with all that said paul george is tobias with better branding.
Whoa. Yeah.
I mean, they're all back tonight. First time back in forever.
Let's go. But like Paul George, I know he had a better January, but he needs to be a dude while Embiid is out through all of this.
And instead, he's totally comfortable getting his ISO 17-footer up because he's so talented and it's great and all the shit that he can do. But there's no consistent flow.
Where's the aggressiveness? You're being tasked with get them through this really tough stretch, and he wanted nothing to do with it from what I saw. Yeah.
He barely played. He was hurt.
It was Maxie the whole time. Yeah, and then Maxie took like 25 shots a game, and I don't think his numbers are a true reflection of like – I don't think he's a declining player, obviously.
He was just going for it. It was the only way to score.
They needed him. And Yabu.
They should have been selling at the deadline. Whatever.
I'll stop talking. But they're going to lose in the play-in.
Lose in the play-in. Which is – I'm with you, too.
That's another take that you have, the more playoffs. I hate the play-in.
I think it's stupid because it just gives more franchises a chance, and the Bulls are specifically that. Are you talking Hoosiers football right now? What? Hoosiers football.
I mean, they – Yeah, all right. They competed against Notre Dame.
They did. They lost by 10.
I did see the final score. I've never seen a final score more, to be honest with you.
Yeah, you have. I'm sure people have made you aware of that final score a lot.
But the playing game. The most impressive final score on the losing side in the history of fucking sports.
It was a great, great final score. The way that Sig got that game to be engineered as a 10-point loss is very impressive.
Did you see when he posted his own AP voting results where he had Indiana slash Penn State 4, Penn State slash Indiana 5? That's cool. You haven't seen that? No, I haven't seen that.
Jesus. I gave Sig one year where I'm like, I'm glad that he got a power five job.
Like, that's cool. If we're going to be a stepping stone i want to be yeah the best stepping stone right so like he's rating i i want him to go to indiana put indiana in a great place that would be awesome for jmu i think i gave him one year and then he continues to raid the jmu players no i have to wash my hands of them but the plan's bullshit um the plan is uh not something i'm in favor of but i think back to kind of the ratings discussion like march madness right now is one of the best products in all sports right we agree it translates over to the person that would never care about this and even though the regular season of college basketball has i don't even know what the declining numbers numbers are there.
But, I mean, it's just true. Like, I don't watch a ton of it anymore.
But when I do dabble, I can't believe how bad the product is. There's no continuity whatsoever.
I love that about it. That's great.
That's great. But there are nights where you're like, are they going to score? No, it's bad basketball.
What is going on here? I don't really know. You know, you can't team build for a lot of the programs, right? At least a lot of the ones on TV with the higher profile players.
And, you know, I like the one and done stuff because I just think it's the right thing to do. I think not having to go to college at all would be the right thing to do.
I just think it's wrong to tell people like, you can't just go pursue this because I don't know. Um, whatever, that's a whole different discussion, but college hoops when I've watched it over the years even though i liked it more than the nba when i was younger it's it's a tough watch but at least they have this moment and what you're seeing with what silver is doing is the play-in was we have this moment um the in-season tournament which is now the emirates cup that's a moment it actually wasn't very disruptive and some of those games this year were terrific so i think what you your goal is like baseball's goal is okay make fun of how long our season is we don't give a shit we're selling 162 game inventory six months of the year and it rates really really high in local markets and all the local market stuff like this is a product they can put on and pull a better number than reruns of fucking wheel of fortune maybe i don't know the fortune's pretty popular but with college basketball like they have their moment um i think the baseball playoffs are incredible but that might just be their moment like you're never going to be able to compete with the nfl is but because soccer i think silver's so influenced by a lot of the international soccer stuff i think that they want to have these moments that they can sell and package in a different way, like as extra inventory.
So I don't like the play-in. There's going to be teams that have no business.
Be like, you just had this season you had, and now you get another chance of potentially getting a playoff. Like in the times that Steph's been eliminated, you're like, cool.
Yeah. Great.
And the owners can just sell it like, oh, yeah, we made the play-in. made the plan and like oh yeah yeah that's bullshit that's like when they talk about expanding the the tournament you just go no you don't need to do it but then the coaches argue for it and it's like do you guys want to argue for it so you can say like oh you know like the bowl made the tournament four years in a row give me my extension bowl eligible the last five years you're like dude yeah by the way what johnny's are good johnny's are really good their defense is legit i was looking at uh some numbers the other day and their their profile is like you know you can do you can i think it's on campon you can basically do or might might be part torvik you can do like what do they most look like in terms of tournament teams and it was like an elite eight or final four team johnny's are good people knock the schedule maybe you can help me out with patino a little bit because family goes way back on the father's side of the providence ties and when rick was the head coach of that providence fires team this is a little early for you guys pop lewis billy donovan.
I had a t-shirt that said Rick Pitino for president. I think I was like nine.
That aged well? Yeah, he was gone. Went to the Knicks.
Family despised him. Yeah.
And then he left the Knicks, right? Kentucky worked out. Worked out pretty well.
Went to Boston. Family despised him even more after that.
And then... Louisville.
You then everything else that goes with it a lot of stops I know you guys have some history with it too but I would be tempted because I'm excited potentially about like the St. John's right because the guy can coach I mean he's unbelievable but I did the Celtics documentary for Bill and HBO and I came in and did the Patino years and I wasn't nice.

So I feel guilty about being in the documentary and then being offered Patino and being like, let's talk St. John's.
Oh, but by the way, I wasn't sweet about your Celtics run that's going to be in the documentary. So me and Big Cat had a similar situation.
I think it was nastier than what I would potentially have. Yeah said some things about his penis over the years.
Yeah, I never talked about his penis in the doc. Yeah, so we heavily did.
That was most of our Patino content actually was the whole ejaculatory system. Are you guys even going to do this again right now or do you feel like you've worked through it? I'm just saying we had him on and we basically said we've said bad stuff about you.
We buried the hatchet. Yeah.
You guys are good at that. You have to tell them to their face.
And then Rick gets it. He'll laugh a little bit.
He might still hate you a little bit, but he'll laugh about it. You just got to be like, I was a dick to you about the Celtics documentary.
But at least I didn't talk about your balls. Yeah.
You're like those PMT guys. They really suck.
Maybe I start with that. Yeah, you should.
He'd probably be like, yeah, you're right. No, but they're good, though.
They're good. They're going to be a force in the tournament.
I told somebody that at the party last night. They said, who do you like in college basketball? I said, I like what Rick Pitino's got going on.
And they just laughed at me and walked away. And I was like, I'm actually, I think I'm right.
No, you are. Wait, which party? CAA party.
Yeah. Who would laugh at that response? I don't understand.
I don't know. How could you be that offended by it or entertained by the absurdity of it? That is very weird.
My guess is that he thought I was making a Patino joke. Why would he think that? Because of our history with Patino.
Now I'm talking through. He probably laughed and it wasn't laughing at me.
He was probably like, oh, that's so funny. Classic PFT.
Ha, ha, ha. Like, it's not even a joke.
But he's like, oh, PFT's talking about Patino again. But I was serious.
Yeah. Yeah.
I think we got to the bottom of that one. Who is your favorite player that people wouldn't think of, like, not, you know, a Jokic, Wemby to watch night to night? Put us on to someone.
Put us on on to someone you know who I really like is Aaron Wiggins Oklahoma City okay now he's not a superstar not even close but does his job and there'll be stretches with the thunder where I'm like god I think I really like Aaron Wiggins not Andrew he's a Wiggins. Speaking of trades and where Wiggins is now, is that now where the rookie from Miami, from Indiana, he's been terrific since he's been a regular part of the rotation.
I've been really excited about Scoot's resurgence. Okay.
year for my guy was very invested had some takes that were watered regularly not showing a lot of life uh there's still some limitations on the rim finishing and not being like you know he's like oh he's not derrick rose you're like well this is the reason why we were so enthralled with Derrick Rose because he was Derrick Rose. But Scoot's been really good.
Scoot's put together like a nice five, six weeks here. What else are you looking for? Are you looking for like Isaiah Stewart, who I think would fight people? I appreciate that.
I love what Cade has done this year. I actually think the Wizards with Koulibaly and Bub and even George a little bit.
I guess you could throw Sarr in there. Little is the number two pick.
They stink, but they play really hard. There's a few guys in that Wizards team that play.
I love Bub. I don't know that somebody's like, hey, what do you hey what do you want to do tonight hey I'm gonna stay in because we're still listed the Wizards play but a lot of activity so so let's do that um been really happy with um Mobley but I don't know if he'll hit like some of the like Simmons was so crazy about what Mobley could do when he started comparing him to Duncan or KG.
Then you kind of are like, well, I like him,

but I don't like him that much. And then it makes it feel like you're dissing a guy

that you actually like.

Like the strokes.

You like the strokes, Big Cat,

but the way PFT talks about the strokes,

you're like, Jesus Christ, the run wasn't that long.

Whenever I say that, I'm actually making a Patino joke.

There it is.

So you're never having him back on. No, we will.
Yeah. We will.
That would be kind of nasty. What? That would be kind of nasty.
You guys could LSU me. Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah. We'll let you have him on first, bash us, and then we'll come on and be like, yeah, that Russo guy, he's losing his brain.
I don't know what he said. I did go to the museum by myself, so I don't know that you'd be totally totally wrong on that who would be most likely in the media to have joined me if i'd said hey do you want to go to the world war ii museum probably me yeah or i'd probably be the second or third option i would never ask you to go that because you wouldn't do it i would it wouldn't be cool enough for you i'm doing such cool stuff i've been going to i watch wake force and in stanford till 12 30 at night on wednesday and then was like i'm so tired why am i so tired oh yeah you watch wake force and stanford i'm the coolest did you win i did win the over i did not win stanford i bet last night live odds what i was watching celtics mavs before i had dinner last night and celtics getting destroyed And normally I would be like, okay, well, they're not going to get killed like this bad.
Let me look at the live odds. I feel like Hank has made like millions doing that.
Yeah. Just betting the Celtics when they're down.
Is he sleeping back there? I didn't even know he was in the room. I thought he was on his flight.
It is like every been here? It is like every other night. Oh, my God.
Hank is sleeping at the back of the room. No, that's his voice when you wake him up.
That was so funny. But yeah, Hank, every other night, he's like, Celtics are down.
Just put a nuke on him. Yeah.
And it works out. He just wins every time.
It wouldn't work last night because it was like plus six and a half, minus six and a half when I looked at it. And I thought the number was too small, even though they were down 20.
Yeah. So I was watching it and like I waited and I waited and I go, this might be just a mail it in night from these guys.
And I ended up laying it on the Mavs and they got up 27 and then won by seven. Celtics won in a 14-0 run.
So you covered. I covered, but from the point of like, I'm so smart.
Yeah-0 run where you're like there's still four minutes in and all the backups are playing their ass off right now and Dallas has already shut it off mentally. I'm with Hank on that.
I think if you watch enough, I would look for live odds on the better team that's down. They're going to make the run.
Let me see if they were minus seven before tonight, now I'm getting them at plus three.

I think I just have to do that with a certain amount of time left in the game.

But I actually hedged myself last night.

It just felt good to be back in it.

Yeah, it does.

A 20-point lead in the NBA feels like nothing sometimes.

Yeah, that went to 27.

Yeah, that's crazy.

I would text the guys whenever the Wizards would be up by double digits.

Be like, hey, Wizards are up by 14 points.

Hammer the money line. And it usually hit like 90% of the time.
On the other team? On the other team, yeah. I wrote down a list of topics and it's just one topic that I think I would like to just hear your opinion on.
Nothing to do with basketball. But I just want to let you cook on this.
What are your thoughts on crypto? Oh. Okay.
I have no investments in crypto. I've thought about it a little bit more recently, but I think does they're like oh it's at 100 now it's at 106 now i feel like a fucking loser uh i had to get my brains beaten in a bunch of different times with trades for me to then become numb to the ups and downs or that stupid math that you do when you invest you're like if i had only done this and then i had this many shares like i used to do all that shit when i was younger um i've had some bad losses i've had some nice wins uh my wins have been bigger like my takes yeah you know my wins you know may not you may not see how the path you get there and you're like how the fuck is that going to work out but then you do there's some there's some losses i wish i could have back that ruined me emotionally for long stretches but also when you're by yourself and you day trade and you have a fucking horrible horrible stretch there's no one to tell you how insane you're being so you just accept your own demise it's like nico exactly it's just like nico he didn't have anybody to tell him yeah he didn't have anybody to tell me like i remember i was on vacation once in hawaii with a date and i checked the pre-markets at like three in the morning because i was so locked into it and i I think I was down like half a million dollars because of just like this news.
And I ran out onto the balcony and screamed, motherfucker, motherfucker, motherfucker, like a hundred times. And she came running out.
She was like, did your father die? And I was like, no, it's worse. She's like, are you seriously setting your alarm to check the pre-market? So I i was pretty into it there for a little while anyway um crypto try to read everything i could didn't understand in the beginning like everybody else now i fully understand it the problem was throughout the entire time the people i trust the absolute least were all the biggest people that were about crypto so i missed the window or maybe the window still continues i think the the premise of it its utility all of those things make a ton of fucking sense so i believe in it except it has always scared the shit out of me okay i think that's a very very good take yeah good job how about you guys uh wait what you just said yeah that's as much research as i've done right there I bought a Bitcoin in 2016.
Don't know how to access it.

I... uh wait what you just said yeah that's as much research as i've done right there bought a bought a bitcoin in 2016 don't know how to access it i uh i bought doge as a pretty good return though back in like 2020 or 2021 and then it went up like 7 000 but i only spent like 50 bucks on doge yeah i was just like look i got 50 bucks worth of doge that turned into like i don't know four grand four grand, which is pretty cool.
Then it went down to like two grand. That's all I know about crypto.
I like real estate better. Some of you put your hands on.
I think it's more fun. Don't make new land.
Sopranos. It's free real estate.
Even though people on the other side love touching a button and then it's done. Now I have it all.
Whatever it says on the screen, I push a button and then button and then i have it i totally understand people like that's the only way i would want to do business but i like real estate because i think it's a little like if i were to read all the materials and stocks and stuff and all the different options i could read it all i know that my full grasp of the understanding would be like, okay, so you now think like, I'm just

doing my own research. I don't need any help Schwab.
I don't know that I've ever felt like truly comfortable going, oh, I've read about all this thing. This technology makes sense.
Like a lot of it feels like the wins can be common sense, but it's always common sense after the fact, at least with like different markets and real estate, I can go, this is a desirable place. I know what this house is.
I know because I've looked at this town so many different times, or I know people that live here or whatever. So I just think that's an easier understanding, even if it's certainly not any kind of guarantee.
I can't believe we're on this right now. Great job.
Do you have another one? No, that was the only topic. Yeah.
Okay. The only topic I want to hear.
Are you guys doing life advice without announcing it? World War II, but we covered that. Yep.
Thanks for the Napoleon book. I haven't read a single page in the last, what, a year and a half ago you sent it? Love is a distraction of the warrior.
But I'm taking it on vacation. It's a nice, light vacation read, the biography of Napoleon.
Yeah, any of those books that are that massive, like theurnow stuff yeah daunting the first 200 is where you fucking that's the wax on wax off phase in the movie there's gonna be there's gonna be several parts in the first i'd say 50 pages where i i will be strongly tempted to throw the book away look i love churnow as much as any sports podcaster probably in the country i put myself i'm a one seed of ron churn out fans yeah okay and i know when i dig in i'm like i've already read them all i think warbugs is the only one i haven't read uh i'm like these first hundred 180 be tough sledding washington gets off to a burning start but he but you know like me these long-winded stories and answers, I'm like, I have to give you the prologue before I can give you the answer. I'll get better one day, I hope.
No, you won't. I can't.
I don't want you to change. Yeah, this is the best.
I can't. The prologue is the best part.
I need to know what George was like as a rascalian. I need to know what.
and I think Chernow is the storyteller in the same case with Andrew Roberts and Napoleon. Hey, you've got to learn that Napoleon was an awkward, small dude, failed writer, maybe smelled chicks.
Didn't like him. Like no wonder he fucking ran a country and the world for a little bit there.
Like what's more motivating than never having chicks like you? Yeah, that's it. He was the first incel.
He was. He's just tweeting away.
B minus tweets, C plus stuff. Apparently his writing sucked.
Really? Yeah. All right.
I'm going to read. All right.
Rowback question.

Last question.

R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com.

Promo code TAKE.

20% off your first purchase.

Q-Zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts.

Rowback.com.

Promo code TAKE.

I know it's February.

Give us your finals and your winner.

Thunder over Boston.

In six, seven?

It would be seven.

Thunder, get it at home.

Okay. Okay.

Okay.

Hank, what are your thoughts on that?

I can see it happening.

I can see it happening.

Are you leaving tonight?

No, tomorrow morning.

Oh, you're out tonight?

No.

Yeah, I have to stay tonight for dinner, but then I'm free.

Is tonight the night?

Yeah.

Neil Young? Yeah. Tonight's the night.
Let's go i'm i got i'm free is tonight the night yeah neil young yeah tonight's the night let's go tonight tonight yeah i booked two flights on saturday one a little way too early and then one how early is the early one i think it's like 8 a.m you could do it if you wanted to 10 a.m but i also like i also not going home to sleep and like just be like oh yeah now i'm gonna come home and nap all day i can't imagine how hard you nap when you have kids it's gotta be the best you know what it's gotta be unbelievable and like you turn your brain off the best thing that like i just had this ability that came up from having kids is i can crush like a nine minute nap like you'd never believe and it's just and then i usually wake up and i'm

like yeah hank i usually wake up and i'm like oh shit i was supposed to be watching my kids do you ever wake up and go i could see hank he might be in the night he's on minute 90 be honest it doesn't mean you don't love your wife or your family but do you ever have a moment you're like I don't want to go back no

on I can't believe you were sleeping that whole time. Be honest.
It doesn't mean you don't love your wife or your family, but do you ever have a moment where you're like, I don't want to go back? No, honestly, it's like 24 hours after being away, I'm always like, I want to go back. First 24 hours, if you hit me in the first 24 hours, you'd be like, yeah, this is pretty sweet.
And then after 24 hours, I'm like, get me back. That's how it always goes.
Whenever we do these trips or go somewhere. Monday night, we went out to dinner, all of us.
It was awesome. I don't want to ever go back.
By Tuesday afternoon, I was like, get me the fuck out of here. This place can do it to you.
But I think you guys have been here so many times. And I know we're wrapping up here.
We love Louisiana. Everything about it.
Yeah. The colleges.
And I love that you guys like. I was like i was like those guys really like it i'll check it out but once you get like south of poydras all you have to do is like walk five minutes yeah south of canal and you go oh this is why like these people that are like successful and you know big cats known all these cats for a long time and he's like i gotta introduce you to

rusillo and you see all these guys hey todd graves meet my friend ryan right no i know i mean that was huge for me because i love chicken so much but what i think is just so funny he's like you'll meet all these people and then people think that new orleans is only canal street and like bourbon yeah and they go dude that place sucks you're like you know there's other streets no there's There's so many cool bars and spots.

It's awesome.

I'm going to work my way south.

Okay.

All right. Which is uptown.
Ironically. I'm in.
Yeah, I'm staying. All right.
We'll see each other tonight. All right.
Ryan Russillo. Go subscribe to Ryan Russillo podcast.
He's the best. Got a new sub stack.
Live studio audience with Hank. Before we get to lottery ball Brought to you by our great friends at Planet Fitness Everybody can get strong at Planet Fitness They've got a high value membership That supports any fitness journey As low as 15 bucks a month Planet Fitness has over 2,700 club locations Most clubs are open 24 hours It's a judgment free environment They have best class equipment.
It's the same high quality equipment as other more expensive gyms. So you get a full workout from strength training to cardio, stretching.
They've got it all there. And it's very convenient.
Open 24 hours, a lot of them. That means that depending on what your schedule is, sometimes it's not conducive to going to the gym.
You can make it work with Planet Fitness. They won't judge you.
They have friendly, welcoming staff, unlimited free fitness training, and they've got the PF app that has tons of free workouts. We've got a Planet Fitness gym here in the Barstool office.
We got free weights, dumbbells, barbells. We have the cable towers, the chin-up, pull-up bar, Smith machine.
I was on the stair climber earlier today.

Treadmill, the core elevate thing.

I like doing the upright rows with the barbells.

Good workout.

Always, you feel sore the next day in a great way.

We're all strong on this planet.

Join today in club, online, or on the free PF app.

Hours, amenities, and offers vary by club.

Check out planetfitness.com or stop by your local

club for more information must be 18 years old to enroll or you can be 13 to 17 with parent or guardian

numbers one five sixty one eleven three

i'm gonna get it right now what if you hit it right now, memes? Have you ever gotten this? I guessed it one time No, you haven't No, you didn't You didn't get it I guessed it one time Never Fuck you Oh, Hank Oh, Hank Hank, walk on Hank That means I'm hitting a hole-in-one this weekend Whoa Jelling her That's a great Hank Congrats, one. Hank, congrats, man.
Good job, Hank. You got it.
How many times you got this? Memes, if I could give this to you, I would because I already have. I've already got it.
That's so generous. You cannot.
You can't. I can't.
But if I could, I would, Memes. I want you to win.
How many times you've gotten this, Hank? I don't even know. Probably four, three or four.
And Memes, you've never? I guessed it they write one time and Hank was the guy who never

had gotten it now look at him

it took so long for Hank to get it

he didn't even stand up

that's so easy

I want memes to feel it

the thing about Hank is he expects

excellence he says wake me up at the

end of the show

that's when it really starts

alright see everyone on Wednesday.

Love you guys. Thank you.
Thank you.