Danny Ainge In Studio, Celtics In The Finals, Mavs Up 3-0, Remembering Bill Walton And 35 Minutes From Our 2017 Interview With Him

Speaker 1 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.

Speaker 2 This episode is brought to you by Body Armor Flash IV. When you're pushing your limits this fall, rehydrate with Body Armor Flash IV with over 2,200 milligrams of electrolytes.

Speaker 2 Flash IV delivers faster, longer-lasting hydration without any artificial dyes, flavors, or sweeteners like the other drinks.

Speaker 2 So whether you're grinding through a workout or just grinding through your day, work hard and hydrate hard with Body Armor Flash IV. Available now at your local 7-Eleven convenience store.

Speaker 1 On today's part in my take, we are back from the long weekend. We got a lot of basketball to talk about and we have an awesome in-person interview with Danny Ainge.

Speaker 1 We also are going to talk about the passing of the legend Bill Walton and we have some unreleased

Speaker 1 footage from our interview with him, which we never actually put it out on video. So that'll be at the end of the episode.
We have 35 minutes.

Speaker 4 It was back in 2017 in Las Vegas before the Pac-12 Championship, the Conference of Champions. Yes.
And it was an unforgettable experience.

Speaker 4 So we've condensed it down into about 30 minutes, but I think it was much longer than that. Yeah, because it was like two and a half hours.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because there's a lot of people who probably didn't hear it. I know there's a lot of people who didn't see it because it was before we released every podcast on video.

Speaker 1 So that will be in video as well. At the end, we're going to talk.

Speaker 1 Half of the NBA Finals is set. Cocky Hank gets paid off.
Also, the Mavs are up 3-0.

Speaker 1 Some hockey, some hot seat, cool throne.

Speaker 1 And we're happy to be back. We're excited to be back.
Extra long show because we're not going to have a show on Wednesday. Our next show will be Friday.
So we have an extra long show for the people.

Speaker 1 When Cool Creamy Ranch meets tangy, bold buffalo, the whole is greater than the sum of its sauce. Say howdy, partner, to new Buffalo Ranch sauce only at McDonald's for a limited time.

Speaker 1 At participating, McDonald's.

Speaker 1 Okay,

Speaker 1 let's go.

Speaker 1 Oh no, we're gonna rock it down to Electric Avenue.

Speaker 1 And then we'll take it higher.

Speaker 1 Oh, we're gonna ride down to Elaine.

Speaker 5 It's part of my take.

Speaker 1 Presented by Marshall Sports.

Speaker 1 Welcome to part of my take, presented by DraftKings. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app.
Now use code TAKE. That's code take for new customers.

Speaker 1 Get a no-sweat bet up to $1,500 if your first bet doesn't hit. Only on DraftKings.
The crown is yours. Today is Tuesday, May 28th, and we have lost the legend.
Bill Walton

Speaker 1 passed away on Monday. Kind of shocking.
Yeah. I didn't know he was battling cancer.
And it was also shocking in the fact that, you know, we don't,

Speaker 1 we'll talk about celebrity deaths.

Speaker 1 I think this might be the first one that's ever led the show. And I think it's appropriate because this one, I don't know about you, PFT, but like when I saw it hit, the news hit, I was...

Speaker 1 really, really like affected and bummed out because I loved Bill Walton. And we, I'm like so happy that we were actually able to interview him and he just was

Speaker 1 he was just walking joy and it was like really sad to see that news yeah I don't really get emotional about celebrity deaths

Speaker 4 I did cry when I found out about Bill because he was such a positive person and when we had the opportunity to meet him we met him for one day in 2017 one day we spent about two hours with him just a blip on his radar and I've missed Bill ever since then.

Speaker 1 Like, I've missed.

Speaker 4 I actually miss hanging out with Bill Walton. And he was so fun to be around and such a unique person and just larger than life in every single aspect.

Speaker 4 The joy that he brought countless people, the joy that he was able to exude. He was without a doubt a one-of-a-kind human being.
They've never made anybody like Bill Walton.

Speaker 4 They're never going to make anybody like Bill Walton again. And so, for that reason, I'm sad that the world no longer has that unique person in it.

Speaker 4 But Bill Walton would probably get very mad mad at us if he heard us being sad about him yeah that's not his vibe i am going to be sad because that's just how it makes me feel um

Speaker 4 the only good part of today was we got to hear hours and hours of bill walton's stories yes which was very nice to hear because everyone everyone that met bill is like

Speaker 1 he changed their lives he he was authentically bill like he was uh the same person when we got when we were lucky enough to interview him he was just exactly what we expected.

Speaker 1 You know, I said at the beginning of the show, if you skip through it, we interviewed him in 2017. This was early, early days.
First year of pardon my take. So it was just the three of us.

Speaker 4 I think that was right after the Evander Holyfield interview.

Speaker 1 Right after we got duped by Evander Holyfield.

Speaker 1 But it was just the three of us. So we didn't release the podcast on video.

Speaker 1 So we were able to find the hard drive and we'll have the video of the 35 minutes we're going to put at the end of this show. If you're new AWL, listen to it.
It was a joy.

Speaker 1 It also, I mean, I've told this story before, but the two things that were so great when we interviewed him. One, he asked me beforehand if it's okay if he brings his own chair.

Speaker 1 And then he said it's the greatest chair ever. And if you watch the video,

Speaker 1 it's, I think, for his back, because he obviously had so many surgeries on his back. He's just towering over us.
And the second was we interviewed him.

Speaker 1 We both were very, like, not anxious, but like nervous going into this interview because we wanted to nail it. I wrote down all these questions.

Speaker 1 I think I might have asked two of them because Bill just talked and about two hours in, he's like, how long does this go? And we're like, it's kind of up to you, Bill. Like, we're having a great time.

Speaker 1 And so he just was the best. Like, I was just smiling the entire interview.
And you're right. Like, all these stories that have come out.

Speaker 1 I also, like,

Speaker 1 as great as he was as a broadcaster, I loved just his little corner of the world where it's like it's a late-night game on the west coast, and Bill Walton's going to get weird, and he's just going to be fun.

Speaker 1 It's crazy how good he was at basketball and how injuries took away so much of it. People should watch.

Speaker 1 There's a four-part documentary, Luckiest Man in the World, that he that came out a couple of years ago. I actually think maybe because I remember when it came out, I was like, this is kind of weird.

Speaker 1 It's out.

Speaker 1 It might have been because he was battling cancer.

Speaker 1 But he was one of the greatest college basketball players of all time.

Speaker 1 If he hadn't had to deal with injuries his entire career in the NBA, he very well could have been a top five, seven player of all time because of like he won a title with Portland, who never wins anything, won an MVP, then was part of the 86 Celtics.

Speaker 4 All the Portland fans at home right now are just catching the biggest ricochet.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's true, though, but

Speaker 1 it is, yeah. And like, he was that good of a basketball player, and then his life touched everyone after being in broadcasting and all his Grateful Dead stories.

Speaker 1 It's just like he was, he saw a thousand shows, all one song.

Speaker 4 It's all one song. That's what I'll always remember.

Speaker 4 And it makes sense when he says it's all one song.

Speaker 4 I tapped into his worldview. You can't stay there because it's only Bill's brain and he only truly understands what he's saying.
But what he's talking about, yeah, it is all one song in a very

Speaker 4 spiritual sense. I know we're getting sappy, but like I am sad.

Speaker 1 No, I was sad.

Speaker 4 I'm deeply sad about Bill Walton. And

Speaker 4 not only did he won, I think, three Naismith Player of the Years in college, which is crazy. And then he won NBA MVP, and he also won NBA Sixth Man of the Year.
Yeah, for the Celtics.

Speaker 4 For the Celtics, which is probably, that's got to be a very small list, I would imagine, of players that have done both.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and in a serendipitous moment, there's a minor serendipitous moment, the fact that we interviewed Danny Ainge in person two weeks ago, and we had been holding it because we're like, oh, this is such a great interview.

Speaker 1 Let's wait till we come back for Memorial Day. He has some great Bill Walton stories in there that obviously now they feel even more important.

Speaker 1 And then, of course, the fact that Bill Walton passed away a day after the Pac-12 played their last sporting event ever. I was legitimately like, what is going to happen?

Speaker 1 He loves that conference so much.

Speaker 1 What's going to happen? And now he's just, I don't believe in heaven, but I do with Bill Walton. He's probably hanging out with Jerry Garcia right now.

Speaker 4 And the Pac-12 is on 24-7. Yeah.
He's loving it. Yeah.
It's like, yeah, the Pac-12 ends. Bill's like, well, my work here is done.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I'll share one last thing.

Speaker 1 So we tried to get him on a couple other times in the last few years, and every time he would text back, he was so Bill Walton and so nice.

Speaker 1 But the one time that I laugh about when we tried to get him back on a few years ago, and he just wrote back,

Speaker 1 thanks, Big Cat, for your kindness and my life.

Speaker 1 You guys are amazing, and you have an incredible audience.

Speaker 1 I still get more positive and interesting comments/slash feedback from your show than from almost anything, any other thing I have ever done in my life.

Speaker 1 Please, I am sadly ricocheting through the universe on the business road through Memorial Day. Sorry.

Speaker 1 Hopefully, next time you're back through the promised land, shine on, dream on, build on, carry on, beat up. Love that.
Bill with two L's.

Speaker 4 Yeah, Bill with Two L's, and he always spelled his wife's name,

Speaker 1 L-O-R-I, Lori.

Speaker 4 I'm the luckiest man in the world, he used to always say.

Speaker 4 Did he give us nicknames?

Speaker 1 I I think.

Speaker 5 I think so.

Speaker 4 I thought he did something to remember our names by.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 I don't remember. I also had.

Speaker 4 I also have to imagine that he texts everybody that way. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, no, that's something that's authentically.

Speaker 4 He's very, very positive to say to close out every conversation with everyone. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And he just meant so much to us as sports fans.

Speaker 1 You mentioned all the stories. I did see one that I wanted to share that was very funny from Vince Mancini.

Speaker 1 He said, my favorite Bill Walton story was Luke Walton telling how for Christmas, his dad would just wrap up some free swag he collected.

Speaker 1 And one year, Luke Walton's stocking was just huge and overstuffed, and he was all excited to open it. And then when he did, it was all power bars inside.

Speaker 4 That's awesome. Perfectly.
Vince Mancini is very funny, too. I like that guy.
Film drunk. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 1 legend, absolute legend.

Speaker 1 Like I said,

Speaker 1 we don't usually start the show or even talk about death, but Bill Walton felt like it was someone we had to. So tune in for Danny Ainge.

Speaker 1 Danny Ainge tells a great, great Bill Walton story that I had never heard about chess.

Speaker 4 Yeah, and just also bear in mind that during the interview, we did pre-tape it. So when he's talking about Bill,

Speaker 1 he had no idea that he passed away. Right.
And then at the end of the show, after lottery ball, we will have the 35 minutes of our interview with Bill Walton.

Speaker 1 So please listen to it if you never listened to it. If you have, listen to it again because it will make you happy and smile.

Speaker 1 And he was the best.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Hank? Yes.

Speaker 1 Congratulations on being in the NBA finals. Thank you.

Speaker 4 Some might say Eastern Conference Merchant, but that's fine. You play who you play.

Speaker 1 Cash the under. Remember when

Speaker 1 I said the line would be four and a half? That was way too high. Way too high.
They lost two games in their path to the finals.

Speaker 1 Also, like... People are like, oh man, the Pacers, they were right there because, you know, game one, they threw away.
Game three,

Speaker 1 Rick Carlisle just was like i have the youngest team and i'm not going to use a timeout but guess what i actually look at the other way the celtics are a seasoned team that knows how to make big plays and that's what they did time and time again in this series yeah yeah i mean there was a lot of adversity for a sweep okay it was this the hardest sweep ever no but it was it was a well-earned hard-fought sweep the pacers showed up they didn't give up uh but the celtics like like bitcat said

Speaker 6 overcame it in the past when it feels like they turtle up in close games and kind of you know turn into more iso ball selfish stuff, they didn't do that at all. They found a way to win.

Speaker 6 They made plays when they had to, and they won three games where they were down late in the fourth quarter

Speaker 6 in a sweep against an inferior team. That's all you can ask for.

Speaker 1 The Pacers didn't score for the last three and a half minutes in this game tonight on Monday night.

Speaker 6 Jalen Brown, Easter Conference Finals. You could tell when he got the trophy, like he wasn't expecting it, and that meant a lot to him.

Speaker 4 I think he deserved it. Wait, Jason Tatum didn't win? No, I think Jalen Brown deserved this one big time.

Speaker 1 Jason Tatum had a great game three.

Speaker 6 So did Jalen Brown. Jalen Brown had a great game too.
He had the big shot in game two.

Speaker 4 Jalen Brown is so good.

Speaker 1 You know who could have won it? It's Drew Holiday because he was his defense. That was, that's why you make that trade.

Speaker 1 And like that type of player who can make the big moment plays on defense, like, he was awesome.

Speaker 4 Was that at the end of game three, the little poker way that he had there? Steal, yeah.

Speaker 1 Also, and the rebound tonight. Yep.

Speaker 4 Shout out to Rick Carlisle, by the way, for that end-of-game play that he drew up in game three. He just basically turned into a football football coach.
And they almost had that one.

Speaker 4 That was like, you know, just inches away from going in.

Speaker 1 Yeah, four verts. Yeah, I love that play.

Speaker 4 So keep running that, Rick. But yeah, Hank, you guys were the much better team.

Speaker 1 Cocky Hank deserves this.

Speaker 6 I'm ready. I mean, that's that's the

Speaker 6 Drew Holiday and Porzingis. Like, those are two huge, huge difference makers that we didn't have last time we were in the finals.
There, you know, Drew Holiday's won the NBA championship.

Speaker 6 Porzingis is amazing. I'm, I feel great.

Speaker 1 I'm ready.

Speaker 4 Now, would it affect you at all?

Speaker 4 Porzingis isn't back yet. Would it affect how ready you are if maybe hypothetically the Maverick sweep and then the timetable for the NBA Finals gets moved up? You guys are playing later on this week.

Speaker 1 That's not how it works.

Speaker 4 Oh, wait. That's not how it works because the NBA is a bunch of fucking idiots and they're going to make us wait until June 6th to tip off.

Speaker 1 No matter what.

Speaker 7 No matter what.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 what are we supposed to do with these two weeks here?

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's crazy. I said it on Sunday night.
I was like, I'm rooting for a double sweep just so we can make fun of the NBA's scheduling. Yeah, it's...

Speaker 1 And then someone pointed out that fans have to book their hotels. They booked their hotels and tickets months ago.
It's like for all

Speaker 1 permutations of this.

Speaker 4 Celtics fans did, knowing that they would be.

Speaker 1 But imagine if they did that last year? Yeah. There's no way anyone, any fan, books their hotels and

Speaker 1 plane tickets for the NBA Finals months in advance.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 1 It doesn't make any sense.

Speaker 4 Now, if I know the NBA, I would expect the other series to go a little bit longer, burn up some of that time.

Speaker 1 Irie, though, has never lost a closeout.

Speaker 4 Never lost a closeout game.

Speaker 1 Never lost a closeout. So, Hank, you feel confident.
Very confident. And now you're obviously rooting for the Wolves.

Speaker 6 Yeah, I think it's going to be Mavs no matter what. So I don't really care.

Speaker 6 And, you know, they're going to have enough rest, even if it goes seven. I mean, if it goes seven, that would maybe affect things, but it doesn't really matter.
Yeah. I'm ready for the Mavs.

Speaker 4 So Lucky wants his revenge. How much...
It will be a talking point. It will be a storyline if it is Mavs Celtics.

Speaker 4 How big of a factor is the stomping unlucky in your head?

Speaker 6 It's a huge factor. I mean, we talk about it with Danny Ainge, but that was, you know, as disrespectful as it gets.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Also, revenge game for Christopse. Yeah.
Former Dallas Maverick. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 We got some messages from a friend of the program,

Speaker 1 Jerry O'Connell.

Speaker 4 He wanted to send you a few statements, Hank. Should we read them to him, big guy?

Speaker 1 You can read them, yeah.

Speaker 1 He really wants you to read it. I think it's supposed to be.

Speaker 8 It's supposed to be a Hank reading them in a Boston accent.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. Okay, okay.

Speaker 4 Would you like to read them? Tell Hank to read these certificates. But

Speaker 1 the Mavs are not set yet, so

Speaker 1 we should save it.

Speaker 4 Yeah. Yeah, yeah, we'll save these.

Speaker 4 There's a lot of them.

Speaker 8 He kept adding throughout the day.

Speaker 1 I got an email out of nowhere. Everyone,

Speaker 1 all the Swifties that came after me for the Travis Kelsey Taylor Swift video idea that I threw out there,

Speaker 1 what they thought I was doing,

Speaker 1 that is literally what Jerry O'Connell's doing with Hank and Tiffany Gomas. Yes.
He wants that.

Speaker 4 He does. And he wants to see it to a weird level.

Speaker 4 He wants to ride on a helicopter

Speaker 4 and watch Hank shoot his nut out of the helicopter and hit Tiffany with it.

Speaker 1 Are you a little worried that you're going to have to go against Tiff?

Speaker 6 House divided. I mean, it is what it is.

Speaker 6 Celtics. Celtics are more important.

Speaker 4 Split jersey.

Speaker 1 But congratulations, Hank. Thank you.

Speaker 1 Don't apologize. I mean,

Speaker 1 we'll see what happens in the finals, but the Celtics were just better than everyone in the East. You can't apologize for that.
They just were the better team by far.

Speaker 6 They have been all year.

Speaker 4 This is exactly how you drew it up, too.

Speaker 1 Yeah, two losses.

Speaker 4 You know ball. That's it.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And now they...
And shaft. And now they're going to go and hopefully we have a good NBA Finals.

Speaker 6 Yeah, I'm fine with another Celtic suite.

Speaker 1 That would be crazy because then everyone would have to just switch if the Celtics swept the finals and be like, are they an all-time great team? Yeah.

Speaker 4 We'd have to have the conversation for people. You'd have to have the conversation.

Speaker 1 That's on the table for you.

Speaker 4 Especially if they beat maybe the best offensive backcourt of all time in the finals.

Speaker 4 Was that Kenny the Jet that first said that? Yeah. One of the guys on TNT said that about the Mavericks.
Kyrie and Luca, the best offensive backcourt of all time. And people laughed at him.

Speaker 4 And then they played three games and they're like, maybe it's not that far off.

Speaker 1 Are we permission to to glaze the Mavericks, Hank, without thinking that we're saying anything bad about the Celtics?

Speaker 6 Yeah, of course. I mean, the glazing was coming.
That was never a question.

Speaker 1 Right, but can we separate...

Speaker 1 Do you have any other thoughts on the Celtics before we move to the Mavs Wolves? Because I don't want this to get ⁇

Speaker 1 I don't want

Speaker 1 thoughts to get... twisted here.
No, but when we compliment and comments. When we compliment the Mavs, it's separate than the Celtics.
Max, what are you shaking your head about?

Speaker 9 I have hated everything that Hank has said in the past 10 minutes, but that's fine.

Speaker 1 What would you have said if you were him?

Speaker 9 I mean, he just talked about how it was a hard-fought battle against a great Patriots team without mentioning that their best player didn't fucking play.

Speaker 1 So, yes. Wait, who smoked 15 cigs? I don't know.

Speaker 1 Us or you've smoked in a while.

Speaker 4 Oh, yeah, we should say that. We did the John Daly challenge earlier today.
So I think me, Big Cat, and Hank are averaging somewhere between 13 and 15 cigarettes each.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I feel a little weird. I feel great.
Yeah. I feel a little weird.
I have a headache. That video is coming out.
Tweet it, Max. He'll get the video out as fast as possible.

Speaker 4 It's already tweaked. It's already edited.
He's just waiting for somebody to tell him to press the button. Yep.

Speaker 1 If no one says press the button, he will not put that out. But if you say it enough, say it a thousand times, it will happen.

Speaker 4 Max just interrupted the glazing. Yeah.
All right.

Speaker 9 I'm ready for the Mavs glazing.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 9 And I wanted to be personal towards Hank.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 4 they call Hank Nicky Glazer.

Speaker 1 All right. So, Max, if you want to take notes at the end and just you can add a personal slant towards Hank, you're more than welcome to.
The Mavericks, so we obviously have been off since Friday.

Speaker 1 We saw Luca on Friday night completely emasculate Rudy Gobert, hit the game-winning shot in his face.

Speaker 1 With Rudy doing the, I thought the saddest part was Rudy like doing the double jump to try to get there, and his body just couldn't get there.

Speaker 1 And then Luca saying, you can't fucking guard me.

Speaker 1 You can't guard me. And then on Sunday night,

Speaker 1 in a similar fashion, Luca and Kyrie completely took over the game. The Wolves look like the moment is too big for them.
Anthony Edwards looks gassed.

Speaker 1 And weirdly, like, in the fourth quarters has been kind of just, there was a couple possessions, especially Sunday night, where he just had no urgency and just passed the ball at the last second.

Speaker 1 Like, Kyle Anderson made that crazy shot that he like crossed court. Like, here, you take it.
Uh, Carl Anthony Towns cannot possibly be playing worse. He was 0 for 8 from 3.

Speaker 1 He's 3 for 22 in this series.

Speaker 4 I love that he kept shooting, though. Yeah.
He was just like, next one's going in. That's insulin.

Speaker 1 That's a cat. Some of them, it's not like he was like, yeah, there's just kind of some bounces aren't going my way.
It's like, no, dude, some of them look really, really bad. Very bad.

Speaker 1 One of them looked like he was throwing a medicine ball.

Speaker 4 But he's got so much confidence. I yearn to have confidence in anything the way that Carl Anthony Towns has confidence in his three-point shot.
Yes. Like watching him just, next one's going in.

Speaker 4 Next Next one's going in. And yeah, Anthony Edwards seemed like he was panicking a little bit in the fourth quarter.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 He would get, I think he had like two or three turnovers in the last five minutes of the game.

Speaker 4 He would just throw the ball away because he was trying to make an ill-advised pass at the last second because their offense looks completely disjointed and nothing like what we've seen from them.

Speaker 4 They don't know what to do offensively at the end of games. If you just take away those last five minutes of the game, they're playing really good against the Mavericks.

Speaker 4 So yeah, except for Carl Anthony Towns' shot making.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Carl Anthony Towns shot making and Rudy Gobert also

Speaker 1 just

Speaker 1 I

Speaker 1 don't think I feel bad for Rudy Gobert, but it's getting very close because every year he wins the defensive play of the year and then every year he gets in the playoffs and he gets completely

Speaker 1 like roasted, cooked. He had, I actually, so this is the craziest thing.
On Friday night, you had the one-on-one with Luca, who hits the game-winning shot. Incredible play.

Speaker 1 Luca is so good, he'll cook anyone. So like that one, I'm like, all right, you know what? Like Luca is that good.
That's not Rudy. Rudy Gobert in space against Luka Doncic is just a huge mismatch.

Speaker 1 That's not fully on Rudy. Like they have to figure out a way to not have that be a switch or at least double team get the ball out of his hands.

Speaker 1 I thought the worst thing for Rudy Gobert, I don't know if you guys noticed this, on Sunday night, like maybe two and a half minutes left in the third quarter.

Speaker 1 Jaden Hardy had the ball and tried to pass it back to Luca at the top of the key.

Speaker 1 And Luca waved him off because Jaden Hardy had a one-on-one in space with Rudy and then got him on like a bad foul jumping up. But Luca was literally like, no, you take it.
It's fine.

Speaker 1 Whatever's going to happen here is going to work because it's Rudy Gobert against a shiftier guy in space. And that was like, man, this sucks for him.

Speaker 4 I've noticed this, though. A lot of players really like to go after Rudy Gobert.
Being the defensive player of the year, There's a line out the door of guys that are just like,

Speaker 4 I want to embarrass him. I want to take him.
I want to emasculate Rudy Gobert on national television. Then I want to celebrate in his face.

Speaker 4 I can't name another defensive player of the year that's ever had that giant target.

Speaker 4 Normally, if it's a defensive player of the year, you're like, well, let's try to figure out a way to avoid him, if at all possible.

Speaker 1 Well, he's so good at rim protecting, but when you get him away from the basket, and this has happened time and time again with him in the playoffs, getting him in pick and rolls, and then just exposing him, and it just keeps happening.

Speaker 1 And here we are, and it's like the big three,

Speaker 1 shout out Kat, of the Timberwolves, have completely let them down. Nas Reed, if you could build the whole plane out of Nas Reed, the Wolves would be in the finals.

Speaker 4 Give me all, like, every starting player should be your sixth man. Yeah.
And then, yes, I agree. Nas Reid plays so fucking hard.
I love watching him.

Speaker 1 It does feel like one of those stories where, hey, the Wolves, it was the moment was too big for them in this.

Speaker 1 Like, they had a franchise-altering win in game seven against the Nuggets, and that series

Speaker 1 propels them to being a serious title contender going forward. But this series and Anthony Edwards and everything that's come along with these playoffs, it kind of got ahead of them.

Speaker 4 Ant and Kat, I don't think they can play worse. And I think that with lively out, he's probably going to be out, I would imagine.
When he got hit, and they said that's a neck sprain,

Speaker 4 that's like some NFL math. And he's going on right there.

Speaker 1 He's the best player plus-minus in this series. Yeah, I.
In the playoffs, I believe.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I'm going to do the announcement thing where where they say we never want to speculate on injuries, and then they go ahead and they speculate on injuries. Yeah.

Speaker 4 I don't think that was a next spray. Yeah.
I feel like he might be out for this next game. And if he is, again, I don't think that Anthony Edwards and Carl Anthony Towns can play worse.

Speaker 4 They can't shoot worse than they've been shooting. And this goes back,

Speaker 4 it was like game seven, I think, or game six against the Nuggets. Neither one of them have been on their AA game for a while.

Speaker 4 But

Speaker 4 I feel like something's going to give, and the Timberwolves have been leading, I think, in every fourth quarter

Speaker 4 of the series. I feel like it's not going to be a sweep.

Speaker 1 Okay, but here's the thing: it's been every game, it's been a close series, but the Mavericks have better players in Luka and Kyrie who are absolute killers. The Lukas stare down.

Speaker 1 That's when a series is over. He's done it.
And whenever he wins these series, he just goes right up next to the guy and just kind of looks at him. He did that to Anthony Edwards on Sunday night.

Speaker 1 But here are the stats. So, Dallas is the Mavs are plus 13 in the series.
So they're like, that's, to be up 3-0 and have the difference be 13 points is pretty crazy. That means it's tight.

Speaker 1 In the fourth quarter, semi-con, so this is from Seth Partno, semi-contested shots, which means a defender is within 4-6 feet of space. The league average is 33% on those shots.

Speaker 1 Luca and Kyrie are 7 for 9.

Speaker 1 The rest of all of Minnesota, six guys, are 3 for 13. That's the difference.
They have killers who in the fourth quarter, like the fourth quarter on Sunday night, the Mavs scored 29 points.

Speaker 1 21 of them were Luca and Kyrie. Six of them were Luca and Kyrie assists.
And then there was two points. I think it was Daniel Gafford tip in.
So like that's it.

Speaker 1 The fourth quarter comes around and they just take over the game. And whether it's them shooting, they're going my turn, your turn, or them like that Luca lobb to finish the game.

Speaker 1 It's just they're so much better and they know what these big moments are and they are coming through whereas the Timberwolves are not.

Speaker 4 And the pick and roll is a big problem for the T-Wolves, too.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Big, big problem.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 They are not. I don't know what their switching scheme is, but it's not working.
And I don't think that they've changed it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they just can't. Luca is just out of this world.

Speaker 1 He sees the game so well.

Speaker 1 If you double team him, he'll get the ball. He'll make the correct pass.
If you

Speaker 1 try to show a fake double team,

Speaker 1 he'll make the right move. His footwork, everything.
Sorry, Hank, this is glazing. You want, oh, he's shaking his head.

Speaker 4 Oh, he's making notes.

Speaker 1 He's making notes. This one, this tweet, are you making notes? No, I'm just listening.
Okay. This one comes from Andrew Bailey.
That was a crazy stat.

Speaker 1 Luca has played his 43rd career playoff game on Sunday. He has 1,336 points, 400 rebounds, and 355 assists in his first 43 career playoff games.

Speaker 1 No one else has those three totals in their first 43 playoff games. And if you took away

Speaker 1 236

Speaker 1 points, so made it 1,100 points, you take away 100 rebounds to make it 300 rebounds and 300 assists, the list is just Luca, LeBron, Oscar Robinson.

Speaker 1 So you have to basically take away so much, like 200 points, 100 rebounds, and 50 assists.

Speaker 1 And then finally, there are two other guys, LeBron James, ever heard of him, and Oscar Robinson, who have who join his category of their first 43 playoff games and how good he's been.

Speaker 4 I feel like we also need to go back and watch some tape of Oscar Robertson because triple double. He's Mr.
Triple Double.

Speaker 4 And he's in all these stats. Yeah.
He's always the guy in these stats.

Speaker 4 It's like, okay, there's two guys from like one guy from the 90s, two guys from the 2000s, two guys from the 2010s, and then there's Oscar. Yeah.
I feel like we need to go watch some Oscar shit.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we should watch some Oscar. But it's crazy what Luca has done, and

Speaker 1 he's just ascending to be one of, if not the best players in the NBA.

Speaker 4 Yeah, and when he screams at you,

Speaker 4 he really wants you to die.

Speaker 1 And he's annoying.

Speaker 1 I'll back anyone up who says that he's annoying with how much he complains to the refs. I will not disagree.
I just like watching him play basketball. Like

Speaker 1 that fadeaway he had,

Speaker 1 where his footwork was just so perfect. And even that Rudy Gobert, the step back, where it's like he knew he had him, and there was just nothing Rudy could do.

Speaker 1 And he had the perfect, like, got him off balance. And then that two-step back, It's just, it's fun to watch.
Sorry, Hank. No, it is.
He's a great player.

Speaker 4 Tell you what, Kevin Love would have put the clamps on him. Kevin Love.
That was like pretty much the exact same scenario he had against Steph Curry.

Speaker 5 Yeah, true.

Speaker 4 Kevin Love, better defender than Rudy Gobert. Write it down.

Speaker 1 So are you worried, Hank?

Speaker 6 No, I'm excited. He's good.
I think the Celtics are a better team. Great defense.

Speaker 6 Just as much star power.

Speaker 4 Just as much. Wait, but we got Kyrie and we got Luca.

Speaker 6 Two stars. Jalen Brown, Jason Tatum.

Speaker 4 You think they're equals?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think, yeah.

Speaker 4 I think the supporting cast in Boston,

Speaker 4 you could talk me into saying that they have an advantage with the supporting cast. Although Dallas, yeah, I know what you're about to say.
I mean,

Speaker 1 P.J. Washington has hit 100 big shot corner threes in the fourth quarter in these playoffs.

Speaker 1 It's every single time it's like, oh, PJ Washington is there and he's going to just fucking be so wet from the corner.

Speaker 4 You're forgetting about KP, though. Chris Stopps.
I know.

Speaker 1 I think it's going to be an incredible finals. It's got everything you want.
Star power, like storylines, the Kyrie versus Boston.

Speaker 1 It's going to be every like whoever comes out of this, Tatum or immortality's on the line. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Immortality.

Speaker 1 Immortality.

Speaker 4 Immortality, Hank.

Speaker 4 Never going to die.

Speaker 6 No, you win a finals. Banners Hank Forever.
No, that is true.

Speaker 1 That's a fact. That's a fact.
Max,

Speaker 1 did you think that the glazing was fair? Yeah, I mean, the Mavs have the best player on the court. Are you okay? Yeah, I swear to God, he smoked a six.

Speaker 9 I smoked no six. He's got like the Mavs have the best player on the court, and they probably have the second-best player on the court.
And you say that the Mavs don't have experience.

Speaker 9 Well, the Mavs have someone who have actually won a finals.

Speaker 6 Yeah, they have one player who's been in the finals.

Speaker 9 Well, who's won the finals?

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 6 Finals experience.

Speaker 9 Okay. I just wanted to make sure that that was stated.

Speaker 6 Stated. Noted.

Speaker 1 Also,

Speaker 1 was Mark Keith Morris not on one of those Cleveland teams? No.

Speaker 1 Drew Holiday may have won. Drew Holiday definitely has.
Drew Holiday definitely has.

Speaker 4 He's a very big part of that championship.

Speaker 1 He's 100%. Yeah, but Kyrie.

Speaker 8 Mark Morris was on the Lakers bubble team, which you guys have always said is a real title.

Speaker 1 No. Nope.

Speaker 1 Okay, so

Speaker 1 yeah, Drew Holiday definitely counts big time as a guy who's won something big.

Speaker 6 Good point, though, Max.

Speaker 1 Max, you were supposed to get in this and like give us something good, and then you just owned yourself.

Speaker 9 But Kyrie's better.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 5 All right.

Speaker 1 That's fair. Yeah.

Speaker 4 He's better.

Speaker 1 Who's he better than? Than Tatum? Than Drew Holiday. Oh, than Drew Holiday.
Yeah. Okay, because they don't think he's better than Tatum.
But their guy's been playing out of his mind.

Speaker 4 Their championship experience supersedes the Celtics because their championship guy is better.

Speaker 1 Correct. Okay, got it.

Speaker 4 Correct. I want to make sure the numbers are right here.

Speaker 6 So their number two guy on a championship team is better than the Bucs number two guy.

Speaker 1 Yes. Got it.
Or the Bucs number three guy on that championship team, Chris Middleton, was pretty good.

Speaker 4 And Pat Conaton.

Speaker 1 And Pat Conaton. Don't forget Pat Conaton.

Speaker 4 Kevin Love. Deli? No, Deli wasn't on that team.
But Deli would have been the number two.

Speaker 1 It's going to be pretty awesome.

Speaker 4 Was Deli not on that team? I don't think he was on the Bucs team, but he was on the Cleveland team when he won a championship.

Speaker 6 He was the number two on that team.

Speaker 4 He was the number two on that team.

Speaker 1 He was the number two on that team.

Speaker 4 It was like two Batmans.

Speaker 4 You had Australian Batman and then kid from Cleveland Batman.

Speaker 1 All right. I'm excited.
So you think the Wolves are going to win a game? I

Speaker 1 may

Speaker 4 put a little future on the Wolves to be the first team to come back.

Speaker 1 And well, Anthony Edwards did say,

Speaker 1 which I don't know if I agree with. I love his confidence.
He is a breath of fresh air in confidence and very vocal about it.

Speaker 1 But him saying after the game, I still don't feel like they can beat us, bro.

Speaker 1 We haven't all been clicking at one time, one game, one game.

Speaker 1 I mean, the Mavs have proven they can beat them.

Speaker 4 I like the confidence, though.

Speaker 1 I still don't think they can. They need to get beat us.
They need to, bro.

Speaker 4 How many games a series, big cat?

Speaker 1 It is true. He said, well, we're here now.

Speaker 7 Versus of four.

Speaker 1 What are we going to do?

Speaker 4 All right, Timberwolves plus 1,000.

Speaker 1 Carl Anthony Towns probably just giggled.

Speaker 4 They just can't be any worse. And the thing is, they're not playing that.

Speaker 4 Don't get me wrong. They're not playing good, but they're still building leads into the fourth quarter.

Speaker 4 And I feel like with Lively Out, that's a big factor. That is a big factor.

Speaker 1 But he was out for the majority of that game.

Speaker 4 Yeah, they played. Again, until the last, like, three minutes of the game, they played pretty good.
But that's when you have Luca and Kyrie. That's when you have

Speaker 1 Luca and Kyrie on the other team.

Speaker 4 Now you've got to build a little bit of a lead. Yeah.
And let Luca and Kyrie do their thing, and hopefully it won't affect.

Speaker 4 I'm just going to sprinkle it.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 All right. Well, Hank, I'm excited.
Was that an okay amount of glazing that was nothing to do with the Celtics? Jason Tatum's a very good player. Jalen Brown's a very good player.

Speaker 1 Drew Holiday is a very good player. Derek White, friend of the program.

Speaker 6 Amazing player. Amazing player.

Speaker 1 Clutch. Clutch.
Yeah, that was good. That was good.
You okay? Yeah.

Speaker 1 So I don't want you to get your feelings hurt.

Speaker 5 Nope.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 6 I'm excited.

Speaker 1 See you in two weeks.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Forever from now.

Speaker 1 Should we talk a little hockey memes? You're in trouble.

Speaker 4 The Rangers.

Speaker 1 The Rangers.

Speaker 1 Yeah, the Panthers. Whoa.
Two overtime wins in a row. Team of Destiny.

Speaker 4 Yeah, the Rangers feel like they might be. Like, the Rangers, New York should be showing the same enthusiasm to the Rangers that they were showing to the Knicks.
Like, the Rangers are the real deal.

Speaker 1 And they got their overtime goal,

Speaker 1 nice, dirty overtime goal to win game three.

Speaker 1 You got to be worried. Although the Stars look awesome.

Speaker 4 Well,

Speaker 4 the Rangers didn't even play that well to win that game. Yeah.

Speaker 1 The Stars do look awesome. Yep.

Speaker 1 The Stars were down 2-0 in the blink of an eye tonight. And it's like, nope, now it's 3-2.

Speaker 1 And they did that in game two as well, where they were down early, and it doesn't matter. Yeah.

Speaker 4 McDavid's going to have some answering to do.

Speaker 6 Wow. We need Rangers Oilers, though, for the vibes.

Speaker 1 Rangers Oilers would be great. Also, are you a little worried that if the the Mavs and the Stars were in, that people would say Title Town?

Speaker 6 They'd have to win.

Speaker 4 I would love that. I would actually win.

Speaker 1 Well, you don't have to win to claim Titletown. Max taught us that.

Speaker 4 That's a good point.

Speaker 4 I would love it. I would love nothing more.
My wet dream is if we get the Stars win the Stanley Cup and we have the Rangers as the MLB champions and we have the Mavericks as the NBA champions. Yeah.

Speaker 4 And then the Cowboys go out there and they lose in the first round of the playoffs.

Speaker 1 And it's all anyone cares about. I know that, obviously, Dallas fans, You're passionate about all your sports teams, but you'd give it all up for a Cowboys Super.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 And for all those in America besides Cowboys fans, we're going to come. Oh, yeah.
We're going to come if that happens. Oh, we're coming.

Speaker 1 We're coming when that happens. Big time.
We might go to the dual parade. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 That would be sick.

Speaker 4 We might, when that happens, we might have to raise banners of all the Dallas championships in here. Yeah.
And then just have one empty spot.

Speaker 1 Title Town minus the Cowboys. Yeah.
Jerry Jones' worst nightmare.

Speaker 4 It was was at Arlington. They'll just disassociate from the Cowboys.
These should be the Arlington Cowboys.

Speaker 1 Do you think he's definitely rooting against them, right?

Speaker 4 I think in his heart of hearts, he has to be.

Speaker 1 Like, deep down, he's got to be like, this cannot happen.

Speaker 4 I just said he has a heart. That was a mistake.
In his soul. No, that's not good.

Speaker 4 In the back, the brainstem, the part that makes you like mad or horny, that's the part where Jerry Jones is like, I hope they lose.

Speaker 1 In the shoe with cum in it.

Speaker 4 In the shoe, yes. Yeah.

Speaker 1 In his cum shoe. I really, really lose it.
He's a real cumbershoe, that Jerry Jones.

Speaker 8 Also, the Dallas Wings, they went to the WNBA finals against the Vegas Aces. So a lot of championship experience

Speaker 1 in terms of making runs. Oh.

Speaker 1 The WNBA is in trouble.

Speaker 4 Are they in trouble?

Speaker 1 Why?

Speaker 1 Because I think that Caitlin Clark is

Speaker 1 adding so many new fans, and there's a lot of fans that are just taking the fun out of sports. Yeah.
Because everything that happens in the WNBA now has to be a fucking bigger cultural talking point.

Speaker 1 It's like, hey, it's fucking sports. Shut the fuck up.

Speaker 4 That's what we were saying on Friday.

Speaker 4 There's seven think pieces after every game she plays. Correct.
And I actually feel bad for Caitlin Clark. And it's cool.
I really do.

Speaker 4 Because what's happening is there's no way that she can tune out all this stuff.

Speaker 4 She's all that's being talked about in terms of the WNBA. She's probably uncomfortable with that because she's like, I'm a rookie.
I haven't done anything in the NBA yet.

Speaker 4 I want to have a successful career in the WNBA.

Speaker 4 And it's going to be a big, big distraction if every time I go out there and I lose a game, then I've got seven people on slate.com writing about why Caitlin Clark is problematic for the league and how the league has a marketing problem.

Speaker 4 I feel bad for her.

Speaker 4 I miss the days when Greg Doyle was just being a sexual harassment creep on her.

Speaker 1 Those are the good old days. I wish we knew it was the good old days, when it was the good old days.
But it's spread to everywhere in the WNBA because it's a new... With new fans come

Speaker 1 new opinions, and the new opinions are not about sports anymore because they came like with Caitlin Clark. Did you see the Alyssa Thomas foul on Angel Reese? And I don't know if it was a sky game.

Speaker 1 This person had 5,000 retweets. I was just like, what is going on?

Speaker 1 She said, unpopular opinion, Alyssa Thomas throwing Angel Reese down on the court is exactly how older black women treat younger black women in many industries, both professional and personal.

Speaker 1 It's not tough, love, it's envy.

Speaker 4 Stay out of sports.

Speaker 1 It was a hard foul. You shouldn't watch it.
Relax.

Speaker 4 Please stop watching sports.

Speaker 1 This is not fun anymore.

Speaker 4 Listen, we love sports.

Speaker 4 We know it's stupid as shit.

Speaker 1 But we love it. Please don't ruin this.
I saw my brain just started to just be paralyzed. I rub my head, and I don't get migraines, but I got a migraine in that moment.

Speaker 8 Self-correction, Dallas Wings lost in the semis last year.

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 I don't know if you could tell I didn't care.

Speaker 1 You could have told me they won it, and I would have been like, okay.

Speaker 4 So Angel Reese did have a tweet alluding to Caitlin Clark the other night.

Speaker 1 Did you see this? Yes, of course I saw it. She said she deleted it.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it was after they won. And that's on getting a win in a packed arena, not just because of one player on our charter flight.
Yeah. Kiss emoji, hashtag Skytown.

Speaker 4 Don't delete that. Why'd she delete it?

Speaker 1 It's just not becoming fun anymore.

Speaker 4 But if she leaves that up, then she's talking shit and she's like, yeah, I'm talking shit about Caitlin Clark.

Speaker 4 It's a good rivalry. It's a continuation of the rivalry they had in college.
That's good for the league. If you're going to talk shit, that's fine.
You guys are going to play each other again.

Speaker 4 And then you're going to have, you know, somebody else is going to win. They're going to talk shit back to you.
That's what sports would be about.

Speaker 4 But instead, now she deleted it because she's afraid of all the other outrage going on around the Caitlin Clark narrative.

Speaker 1 Correct.

Speaker 4 Yeah. If I was Caitlin Clark, I'd retire.
Yeah. I'd be like, listen, this.

Speaker 1 I'd go to the big three.

Speaker 4 I don't mind getting, you know, hard-fouled. I don't mind getting hit in the face.
I don't mind getting knocked down.

Speaker 4 I don't mind, you know, not making that much money to play in a professional sports league. But I'm just sick of all you losers writing columns about it.

Speaker 1 Right, right. Just let me play basketball.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 She should actually reverse it and be like, hey, can you guys just shut up and let me dribble?

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 You know what?

Speaker 1 She should, you know what she should say?

Speaker 4 She should say, shut up and scribble. Yeah.
To the fucking heroes that are that are taking all the fun out of it. Little scribble.
Shut up and scribble.

Speaker 1 Little scribble, scrabble. Yeah.

Speaker 1 My daughter always is like, hey, can I do some scribble, scrabble? I'm like, sure. Hand her a pen.

Speaker 1 Literally, that's all it is.

Speaker 5 She just scribbles.

Speaker 1 Nothing.

Speaker 4 Just scribbling. Sounds like you're disappointed.

Speaker 1 For like a half hour. Well, yeah, it'd be nice if she could just like draw me or something.
She's scribble, scrabble.

Speaker 1 She says, like, I'm scribble, scrabbling. It's like, okay.
That's what Greg Doyle's doing right now.

Speaker 4 And scribbling. Sitting by himself.

Speaker 1 Imagine it's scribble, scrabbling.

Speaker 4 It takes that man is cooking up in his brain with all this time to just think. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. What are you going to say, Max?

Speaker 1 So the Ranger, the Rangers game? What dumb?

Speaker 1 It's all one song. Yeah.
So it says Rangers. So the Rangers game.

Speaker 4 The Rangers are a very good hockey team.

Speaker 1 That was quite a tangent. Memes, you are in hell.
I thought you guys were going to blow right by it. Also, memes, memes' new thing is he just does all caps.

Speaker 1 So he'll just tweet it and be all caps to be like, look, I'm excited for the Rangers. But it's all caps in the most monotone, like, Rangers win in overtime, but it's all caps.

Speaker 4 Oh, and Memes has been on that shit for a while. Oh, yeah, but

Speaker 4 every postseason.

Speaker 1 All caps is a new part that he's doing where he's like trying to get people off the scent. Like, hey, I'm not editorializing it.
Yeah. But it's just the same nothing, but just all caps.

Speaker 4 So it's by far Memes' least favorite part of his job, and that includes cleaning up turtle shit, is having to post a clean.

Speaker 1 Oh, he loves his little mystery.

Speaker 4 He does love that, but he hates more than anything having to post Rangers' highlights.

Speaker 1 Memes, speaking of which, how mad were you at me on Sunday when I tweeted at you, hey, are we covering the Rangers game when they went up, like, would they go up 4-2?

Speaker 4 Yeah, I was pretty fired up about it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and he hadn't tweeted anything. And I just tweeted at him.
I was like, hey, are we covering the Rangers game right now?

Speaker 4 I think when they went up 2-1, you tweeted it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you just weren't going to cover them?

Speaker 8 No, I was covering them.

Speaker 1 I think I only tweeted out Rangers' goals. Oh, wow.
Reverse it on them. You're trying to jinx or something.

Speaker 1 No, they were playing really good. Their goal is really good.

Speaker 7 The Panthers just can't make a fucking shot.

Speaker 1 They had 108 shots, and they couldn't get five in.

Speaker 1 That's pretty crazy.

Speaker 4 108. They win the Stanley Cup.
How many on goal?

Speaker 4 4

Speaker 1 to 48, one of those numbers.

Speaker 4 If the Rangers win the Stanley Cup, not only should we send Miami to the parade to cover it, we should also also hang a banner just over his head in that glass room.

Speaker 4 That'd be nice. We should also put Hank's banner in there right above Max if the Celtics won.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that'd be a nice touch. Just, yeah, that will be our trophy case.
Yeah. The booth is, yeah, the canyon of heroes

Speaker 1 in the booth. I like that.
Yeah, you like that? You like that?

Speaker 1 Max, by the way, is out for blood in this NBA Finals.

Speaker 6 Yeah, which is honestly a good thing.

Speaker 6 Hop on board of the Mavericks train.

Speaker 9 I just want to know how you're going to hurt Luca in the second game of the series.

Speaker 4 Why do you say that, Max?

Speaker 1 Oh, because that's how every series has gone for the Celtics.

Speaker 4 That's why.

Speaker 6 And Hank just doesn't talk about it.

Speaker 4 Yeah, you don't talk about that.

Speaker 6 I mean, we have talked about every time you play who's play who's on the floor in front of you.

Speaker 9 I mean, you were talking about how it was a hard-fought game against the Pacers and how they were a really good team, and they didn't say that Tyrus Halliburton didn't play the last two games.

Speaker 4 That's a good point.

Speaker 1 Big advocate. Both of those things can be true.

Speaker 4 If you're a detective and a woman's been married five times and all four of her ex-husbands have been murdered mysteriously, this is a Tiger King lady. Yeah, it's like Carol Bassett.
Okay, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 So now we're looking at the Celtics, and we've got Jimmy Butler. We've got the entire New York Knicks.
Or excuse me, the Celtics not played him. I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 I'm thinking about Nick.

Speaker 4 I'm thinking about

Speaker 1 Donovan Mitchell, who got very hurt. And Jared Allen.

Speaker 4 Jared Allen got hurt. And now I'm thinking of Tyrese Halberton on the Pacers.
There's one common thing. Rick

Speaker 1 brain.

Speaker 4 Yeah, his brain.

Speaker 1 His brain was very hurt.

Speaker 6 Again,

Speaker 6 I don't want Luca to get hurt. I'm not rooting for injuries.
I want to beat the Mavs.

Speaker 4 You tried to injure TJ McConnell tonight, too.

Speaker 1 It is funny because we started this whole playoffs when you were clearly rooting for the Nuggets to get hurt.

Speaker 1 So it is full circle.

Speaker 6 I have never, I have never once said anything about rooting for injuries.

Speaker 1 I'm going to side with Hank that you can't apologize for other teams getting injured.

Speaker 4 Yeah, but it's fun to ask him.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you can't apologize for that. No, fuck no.

Speaker 1 But if you were, would you?

Speaker 1 No. If you could apologize, would you? Absolutely not.

Speaker 4 Well, Hank, you've said you said numerous times that Luca is a much better player than Kyrie Irving, right? You have Luca ranked well ahead of him.

Speaker 4 Which player would you rather see get injured on the mavericks? Neither.

Speaker 1 Kyrie, there's the lucky factor. Neither.

Speaker 6 What if it was his lucky stomping foot that I want to beat them full strength?

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Do we have anything else before we get to hot seat cool turn? There's a lot of sports stuff. Oh, shout out the Indy 500.
It happened.

Speaker 1 Wouldn't it be crazy, PFT, if you were someone who, let's say, quote-unquote has shit for brains,

Speaker 1 watched last year's Indy 500 for a solid like 20 minutes, not realizing it was in rain delay. Wouldn't that be crazy?

Speaker 4 We did that one time with the Royal Rumble.

Speaker 1 I fucking, I watched it for 20 minutes, kind of zoning out, and then I saw that like an hour and a half later, like the rain is cleared. We're about to start the race.

Speaker 1 What the fuck? Yeah. I was rooting for it, too.
I bet it, and I was like, oh, man, my guy's in seventh. This is pretty good.

Speaker 4 There's no way to know that's last year's race. It's the same cars going around the same circle.

Speaker 1 It's not even a circle. I felt really dumb on that.

Speaker 4 Indie fans will get mad at me for saying it's a circle. Going around the same track.

Speaker 1 Only two cars. Only 200 laps, though.

Speaker 1 Making sense. Yeah.
Asterisks. Big time asterisks.

Speaker 1 Okay, let's do hot seat cool throw because I think we have a lot of other sports topics to talk about, and then we'll get to our great interview with Danny Ainge.

Speaker 4 Hey, it's PFT here, reminding you that Boarshead makes game day entertaining elevated and effortless.

Speaker 4 Whether you order catering platters ahead from your local Boars Head retailer, or you create your own spread at home with Boar's Head premium deli meats and cheeses, you are sure to impress your guests.

Speaker 4 My favorites like oven gold turkey or blazing buffalo-style chicken, paired with their classic Vermont cheddar or creamy Munster cheese, are sure to score big and help me elevate my entertainment every time, whether it's for a tailgate or a home gating celebration.

Speaker 4 Seriously, guys, it's a game-changing flavor for every gathering. Boarshead, committed to craft since 1905.

Speaker 2 The Pro Football Football Show is presented by the Chevy Silverado. Built for the hustle, ready for the game, Chevy Silverado is America's most dependable full-size truck.

Speaker 2 Whether you're grinding through the week or gearing up for kickoff, the Silverado is one ride that's always game-ready. Just like football, it's about grit, grind, and getting it done.

Speaker 2 Head to Chevy.com to learn more and build your own Chevy Silverado.

Speaker 1 Hot seat, cool throne. Hank, my hot seat is Rafa.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Ugh. Ugh.

Speaker 1 Ah.

Speaker 6 End of an era.

Speaker 6 King of clay.

Speaker 4 Yeah,

Speaker 4 not anymore.

Speaker 6 Went down.

Speaker 6 People are saying it's probably his last one.

Speaker 1 First round, right? First round.

Speaker 8 He got screwed on the draw.

Speaker 1 Oh, he played.

Speaker 1 Oh, now we're talking.

Speaker 4 That's loser talking.

Speaker 7 He lost in the first round.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's Varev.

Speaker 1 Four seeds. If If Jokovich lost in the first round, you would have been like,

Speaker 1 kick him out of the country. He's not vaxed.
Well, that's what happened at the Aussie Open. Yeah, I know.

Speaker 1 Point me.

Speaker 1 Joker was. I'm up 15 love right now, Jake.

Speaker 8 Joker was watching Rafa because he appreciates greatness.

Speaker 1 Is he playing in the French Open? Yes. Oh, so who cares? He fucking had a day off.

Speaker 1 30 love. Me.

Speaker 1 What are you talking about?

Speaker 1 Everyone,

Speaker 1 when they play tournament games, the team goes and watches after the game or before the game. They watch who they're playing.

Speaker 1 Depends. Yeah.
He's probably scouting. He's there.
It would be cool if he flew in just to see it. No,

Speaker 1 he was just hanging out. He's like, I'll go watch Rafael.

Speaker 4 No, he was probably scouting

Speaker 4 Sverd?

Speaker 1 Sheriff. Yeah, of course he was.

Speaker 1 30 love me.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Any other brain? Any other shots you want me to hit back at you? For him, backhand?

Speaker 8 1124 is his French Open record.

Speaker 1 Okay, and what is he lately?

Speaker 1 What's his last one?

Speaker 1 0-1. Oh, 40 love me.

Speaker 4 This tennis shit is easy. I do feel like if Clay, if he doesn't have Clay anymore,

Speaker 1 he can't be long done.

Speaker 1 No, that is a crazy record. What is it? 1-4?

Speaker 8 1-12-4.

Speaker 1 That's nuts. That's insane.

Speaker 4 How can he be that good on that surface?

Speaker 1 Who did he lose to?

Speaker 1 So, how many

Speaker 1 French opens has he won?

Speaker 8 I think around a dozen.

Speaker 1 And who has he lost to in the finals before?

Speaker 1 Was it Joker? No, I'm asking. No, I honestly don't know.
I know this was a first-round loss.

Speaker 8 14 French opens. And

Speaker 1 did he lose to anyone? Because he obviously is the king of the clay. That's not up for discussion.
But did he ever lose in the finals or was it always upsets in the first round?

Speaker 8 Standby.

Speaker 1 Okay, here we go. Okay,

Speaker 1 Joker in 2015 quarterfinals.

Speaker 7 Joker?

Speaker 8 Joker 2015 quarterfinals.

Speaker 1 Game me.

Speaker 1 That was easy. Game point.

Speaker 8 In 2016, he had to withdraw before his third round match.

Speaker 6 Okay.

Speaker 8 Joker, semifinals, 2021.

Speaker 1 Whoops.

Speaker 8 And Zverev today.

Speaker 1 Straight sets.

Speaker 4 Jake, there's no way that you did not know what Big Cat was saying. No, I mean, I know.

Speaker 1 Of course I knew. Game me.
You didn't even score a point. You got loved.
Okay, but you got loved

Speaker 1 a very small portion of the set. Oh, you want to do a set? You want to do a set? How much time have we got?

Speaker 4 Do an entire podcast.

Speaker 1 Just me scoring points. No, it actually is insane.
112 and 4 is crazy. Is that all you had, Hank? Just that he lost? Yeah.
Kind of a hater move.

Speaker 6 End of an era. Hot seat.

Speaker 8 Yeah, true. I had him on the cool throne.
Is he done? For losers? No, not officially.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 4 Yeah, but he's done if he loses in the first round of the French Open.

Speaker 1 But a bad draw. Bad draw.

Speaker 1 Bad draw might be the biggest loser stock ever. Everyone was saying all the kind of stuff.

Speaker 4 I would never lose in the first round.

Speaker 1 Never. Too much pride.

Speaker 6 My other hot seat is Max.

Speaker 6 He is performing this weekend with Pup Punk. He's nervous about it.
He's been pacing around the office. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Jerusalem Weed, one of my favorite places in all of Chicago.

Speaker 4 Very excited about this.

Speaker 6 I'm excited for a home crowd concert, Pup Punk.

Speaker 4 Yes. There's a bunch of people from Barstall are going out there, and it's going to be a blast.
These are always one of the most fun times that we have as a company. And Max is singing a song.

Speaker 4 I'm not going to say what song he's singing. Yeah.

Speaker 9 I'm nervous.

Speaker 9 Memorizing sounds scary.

Speaker 4 He's got a good voice. What's the song?

Speaker 1 I don't want to. It'll be good.
It'll be good.

Speaker 4 Some people have said that Max looks like fat Dave Grohl.

Speaker 1 Some people have said that. Some people have said that.
So what are we going to do? Dave Rohl.

Speaker 1 Dave Roll. So what are we going to do?

Speaker 4 So he might be doing it. Max would sing for the Food Fighters.

Speaker 1 The Food Fighters. Got it.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I'm very excited. It is, I mean,

Speaker 1 not to glaze PFT, I'm going to glaze him because I love him. He's really fucking good at guitar, and their band is really good.
So it's like a very fun

Speaker 1 night out. So if you want live music, and it's not that expensive.

Speaker 4 It's not that expensive. Buy tickets to the business.

Speaker 1 And Josephine Weed is awesome.

Speaker 4 Joseph Weed is a great place. Roan is an awesome front man.
Roan kicks ass at everything that he does.

Speaker 4 He's a very good front man for a band. We got Robbie on bass, Frankie on drums, who's also going to be singing.

Speaker 4 Frankie's got got some pipes on he does he's a good singer and then uh we got nick hamilton on keyboards guitars and then caroline's also singing love it's gonna be a good time come out to joe's on weed hell yes friday night good cool throne hank thank you uh my

Speaker 6 no that was my hot seat max oh hot seat max what song my cool throne is uh spoil it no joe people get excited about it my cool throne is mark davis

Speaker 6 yes good call yeah mark davis a report came out that he got uh his 27-year-old girlfriend pregnant,

Speaker 6 but then she came out on Instagram and said, the reports of Mark Davis being the father of my child are wildly untrue.

Speaker 1 Oh.

Speaker 1 Oh. How is this cool throwing Mark Davis?

Speaker 6 I don't think you want to be a new father at 70.

Speaker 4 That's exactly when you want to be a new dad.

Speaker 1 Don't think you want a woman being so repulsed that she has to issue a press release being like, I sat next to him in a concert or a football game once. He is not the father of my child.

Speaker 4 Is that all we had to go on? Was that there was a

Speaker 1 single thing? I mean, Dove, Dove's been getting into some weird, like, breaking news. Like, I don't know if he actually broke it.
If someone else broke it, then he caught it.

Speaker 1 He probably, yeah, that's probably exactly how it went.

Speaker 4 Yeah, no, Dove.

Speaker 1 Yeah. But someone just saw, she posted I'm pregnant announcement, and then they're like, oh, she was at a Raiders game with Mark Davis two years ago.
Must be Mark Davis.

Speaker 6 I pictured sitting next to him at a game in 2022, and I've endured false rumors of romantic relationships since. I was just a guest sitting in the owner's box with other friends.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so that's where I feel like it sucks to be Mark Davis that this woman's like, ew, no, everyone stop saying this. I just saw him once.

Speaker 4 Yeah, Mark Davis was...

Speaker 1 She's like, basically...

Speaker 1 She's basically publicly made an announcement of like Friend Zone.

Speaker 4 He got a nice little boost. I think that just having people assume that he was the father was good for him.
He's probably relishing in that.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 So I don't know. I kind of feel bad for Mark Davis in this one.
Arts are so hot seat. Yeah, because you don't.
I mean, think about it. That is

Speaker 1 to be like, oh, we're not dating.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 He's a really nice guy. Right.
Basically, what she said.

Speaker 1 Like, he would make a great father, just not for me. Yeah.
Not for my child.

Speaker 4 Make some woman very, very lucky one day. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It would have rocked if he was a seven-year-old dad just because

Speaker 1 he'd have a kid and come out right with a bull cut. Yeah.
V. Cute little.
DF Chang's wristband. It would have been heir apparent to the Raiders.

Speaker 4 The way

Speaker 4 I wish she should have done this would be if she said, that's not his baby. We just did it in the butt.

Speaker 7 Yeah. That's what she should have said.

Speaker 1 Only mouth stuff.

Speaker 1 What do you know about that?

Speaker 1 Only mouth stuff. That would have been nice for Mark Davis.
Instead, it was just the ew, no way. Yeah.
I never, I never.

Speaker 1 It's sad.

Speaker 4 It's sad billionaires can't even get laid anymore.

Speaker 1 Seriously.

Speaker 1 Well, you know what? Mark Davis, let us interview on.

Speaker 1 Pardon my take, and we'll go out on the town and we'll be your wingman.

Speaker 4 Yeah, we'll find you a nice girl.

Speaker 1 We'll fucking

Speaker 1 talk you up.

Speaker 1 We'll talk you up so crazy.

Speaker 1 My boy over the thinkster cute.

Speaker 4 It's literally Mark Davis.

Speaker 1 See my boy over there? In a white suit. Yeah.
Actually,

Speaker 1 it's actually kind of a pretty popular haircut right now.

Speaker 1 You know, Mark Davis, Jeff Nadue. It's kind of actually hot on the internet.

Speaker 4 They called that the Caesar

Speaker 4 back in the day because he's the most powerful person in the world.

Speaker 1 See my boy over there? He owns the Raiders. Well, his mom does, but he kind of does.

Speaker 4 But his dad used to own the Raiders, and everyone.

Speaker 4 His dad was a hell of a guy.

Speaker 1 See my boy over there?

Speaker 1 He's so confident. He wears all white while eating buffalo wings.

Speaker 4 See, my gosh, look how good he looks now that he's no longer wearing the propeller hat bean.

Speaker 1 Oh, man.

Speaker 1 Yeah. See my boy over there?

Speaker 5 He drives a conversion van.

Speaker 1 Bet you'd never guess that. No, actually, I would.
All right, yeah. All right, Mark Davis, we got you, Mark.

Speaker 4 My boy, my boy over there, he can drink seven sweet teas at P.F. Chang's before the appetizers come out.

Speaker 1 Yeah, if you're asking,

Speaker 1 if you're asking if the carpet

Speaker 1 matches the drapes, they do.

Speaker 1 He's got a bowl cut for his penis.

Speaker 4 You ever seen a dick with freckles on it before?

Speaker 1 Now you have. All right, yeah, we got this.
Oh boy. We got this.
All right, your hot seat, cool throne.

Speaker 4 My hot seat is complaining about umpires.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Because

Speaker 4 the MLB world lost a real one today. Angel Hernandez.
Angel got his wings.

Speaker 1 I'm sad about this.

Speaker 4 He's not dead. He's retiring.
Angel Hernandez,

Speaker 4 Major League Baseball umpire,

Speaker 4 much, much better human being. Yeah.
Even better of a human being than he is as an umpire.

Speaker 7 Way better.

Speaker 4 So he retired today.

Speaker 1 And probably not a great human being.

Speaker 4 Much, much better.

Speaker 1 Way better.

Speaker 4 He retired kind of abruptly, and he said, starting with my first major league game in 1991, that's a long-ass time. Yeah, that is.
His eyes can't be. Well, they're definitely not good anymore.

Speaker 4 I have had the very good experience of living out my childhood dream of umpiring the major leagues. I treasured the camaraderie of my colleagues and the friendships I've made along the way.

Speaker 4 I've decided that I want to spend more time with my family.

Speaker 4 So it sounds like he, it sounds like this is his decision that he's leaving to spend more time with his family all of a sudden in the middle of Major League Baseball season. That happens all the time.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I'm going to miss him. Of course.

Speaker 4 Of course you're going to miss him.

Speaker 1 You can't have guys like this.

Speaker 1 Like,

Speaker 1 we need at least a couple Diva umps out there. We lost Joe West.
Now we lose Angel Hernandez. It was always good for just...

Speaker 1 you know, having a moment where we're like, can you believe Angel Hernandez did this?

Speaker 4 Yeah, it felt like Major League Baseball media really hated him, but outside the MLB tight-knit circle, it's like you can appreciate art.

Speaker 1 Yeah, right.

Speaker 1 How ridiculously bad he is.

Speaker 4 Angel Hernandez took bad umpiring to an art that we haven't seen before. I don't know if we'll see it again, but yeah, it's always good.
It's always good to have one guy like that.

Speaker 4 You can't have two or three guys like that at the same time. It's like when Joey Crawford retired, next man up, Scott Foster.
Right, right. New guy.
So who's next up?

Speaker 4 Who's the next umpire that we got to hit? Find someone.

Speaker 1 I feel like a lot of people don't like C.B.

Speaker 8 Buckner.

Speaker 1 Okay, great. All right, it's him.

Speaker 4 Yeah, fuck Stevie Buckner.

Speaker 1 You're on the list. I hate him.
CB. CB.

Speaker 4 Oh, CB. Yeah.
C.B. Buckner.
Yeah. That's a 10-4.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Angel Hernandez was so bad, but again, if you're going to be bad, just be the worst. Yeah.
And he was the worst. By far.
Which is, I tip my hat. If you're like,

Speaker 1 you don't want to be bad in a mix of other bad guys. You want everyone to be like, Angel Hernandez, that guy's the worst.
Yep.

Speaker 4 Fact.

Speaker 4 My cool throne is misogynistic NFL kickers.

Speaker 4 So former Jaguars kicker Brandon McManus got accused of groping two flight attendants on the team chartered flight from Jacksonville to England to go play their London game last year.

Speaker 4 And apparently he was like throwing money at him, making him dance like strippers on the team playing.

Speaker 4 This seems like it would have been an urban Meyer culture type move. Maybe just a little bit left over from that.

Speaker 4 I actually know Urban would have missed a flight. He would have stayed home and found some strange on his own.

Speaker 1 I got a question.

Speaker 4 Former Jaguars kicker. Former Jaguars.

Speaker 1 Who does he play for now?

Speaker 4 Former Jaguars kicker.

Speaker 1 Who does he play for now?

Speaker 4 Former Jaguars kicker.

Speaker 1 Jake, who does he play for now?

Speaker 4 When these actions occurred, he was a member of the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Speaker 1 But he got signed by a team after doing this?

Speaker 4 Well, no, the accusations just came to light right now. So whatever team signed him is doing a full thorough investigation into these allegations.

Speaker 4 And you can rest assured they'll leave no stone unturned because whatever team that has him is the type of organization that does not tolerate that sort of thing.

Speaker 1 He is the kicker of the Washington Command.

Speaker 4 Oh, former Jaguars kicker. Dang.
That's how he's being labeled. I'm going to continue to refer to him as such.

Speaker 4 We'll see where the investigation takes us. If it's true, he should be cut.
And I think he will be cut if it's true.

Speaker 1 He's got to be the only commander ever who's like, man, I wish Dan Snyder was still the owner.

Speaker 4 Yeah, that's the thing. It's like if he was.

Speaker 1 You know, the whole like, I was born in the wrong era? Yeah. Brandon McMahon is signed with the Commanders in the wrong era by a year.

Speaker 4 He would have been kicker for life.

Speaker 8 Is your team about to have an open position for your position?

Speaker 4 I retired from kicking, Jake.

Speaker 8 I thought this is a dream opportunity.

Speaker 4 If they ask me to camp, I will attend.

Speaker 1 I also feel like it's not a dream opportunity because, like, what if you lost a game for them?

Speaker 4 I would actually much

Speaker 4 rather be a kicker on the Cowboys than on the Commanders because then I could just lose games. Right.

Speaker 1 Like, you'd have a double whammy if you missed the kick. Like, oh, not only did I lose, but my team lost, and now I have to podcast about it.

Speaker 4 If they're looking for some camp fodder for, you know, just some live bodies to bring out during training camp,

Speaker 1 I will kick.

Speaker 4 But

Speaker 4 he was really happy about this, probably Harrison Bucker. Actually, I bet you there's a lot of people saying, why don't you keep that same energy? No one's talking about Brandon McManus.

Speaker 4 Everyone talked about Harrison Bucker. Let those people know on the record we were talking about Brandon McManus.
Right.

Speaker 4 Although Harrison Bucker Bucker would probably be like, well, if they had just been home with a family and not working as a flight attendant, this wouldn't have happened.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 He shouldn't have been in a room with a woman. Yeah, correct.
Yes. That isn't his wife.
Yeah. Old Mike Pence.
Agreed.

Speaker 1 Okay, good hot seat, cool thrown.

Speaker 1 My hot seat is NBA players because Draymond Green says that the NBA does not set up NBA players to retire with wealth. Okay.

Speaker 1 Draymond Green made $177 million so far.

Speaker 1 Now, he said it was because taxes, which everyone pays,

Speaker 1 but also the fine system is basically trying to keep NBA players poor.

Speaker 4 Did Draymond Green, did he accrue a larger than usual amount of fines over the course of the season? He did.

Speaker 1 He did. He did.

Speaker 1 But he also quoted, like, he's like, yeah, I got a technical $2,000 fine.

Speaker 1 Okay, $2,000,

Speaker 1 Not an insignificant amount of money unless you've made $177 million.

Speaker 1 But yeah, I looked it up, PFT, just because I was curious. And he has been fined over $2 million.

Speaker 1 But some of the fines, let's just throw them out there.

Speaker 1 Conduct detrimental to the team. That was when he knocked out Jordan Poole.

Speaker 1 That feels like... That was on you, Draymond Green.
You could have easily avoided that fine by not punching your teammate in the face.

Speaker 1 How about this one stepping on the chest of DeMontis Sabonis during the Warriors-Kings game?

Speaker 1 Also very avoidable. For escalating on-court altercation during Minnesota Golden State game, that was when he choked Rudy Gobert.
Kind of on you, Draymond. And then the last one for striking

Speaker 1 Yusuf Kirkuk in the face during the Golden State Suns game where he just punched him in the face. Again on you.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of stuff that Draymond's done that probably

Speaker 4 ended up being deserved of fines. Is this a case of being like, it's the wrong messenger saying it? Does he have a point? I don't know.
I don't know what the NBA does or does not do.

Speaker 4 I don't think that Draymond is probably the one to say, hey, you know, with all these crazy fines that they're leveling out, it's really taken away from our ability to have a career post.

Speaker 4 Draymond doesn't need a career post. I mean, his career is he was in the NBA, and he does whatever the fuck he wants.
Correct.

Speaker 4 But what about, I know, like, with NFL players, your window is so small, and the last guy on the bench, they don't make that much money. Definitely not enough to set them up for life.

Speaker 4 And they get like two years at it sometimes. In the NBA, what does a 10th man make in the NBA?

Speaker 1 A lot of money. A lot of money.
A lot of money. I mean, remember when Tony Snell signed like a $40 million

Speaker 1 contract? Yeah. Tony Snell.
They make a lot of money. They make a ton of money.
And it's all guaranteed.

Speaker 1 I have a theory. I think Draymond Green knows it's over, and he's going out really sad.

Speaker 1 Just complaining, like trying to, you know, he made it weirdly kind of personal with Rudy Gobert inside the NBA and Carl Anthony Towns.

Speaker 1 I think Draymond Green has had an insane amount of success. He's an interesting guy.
He's made $177 million minus fines.

Speaker 1 I think there might be a small part of him when he goes to bed at night. He's like, did I cost Steph like a couple rings?

Speaker 4 He might. You might think that way.

Speaker 1 A little bit.

Speaker 4 But he also had it yet a great career. And it's over.
He had a great career, though.

Speaker 1 Incredible career. He's, I mean,

Speaker 1 an incredible player, incredible career, four rings. But I do think there's a little bit of it's over, and he's grasping it whatever he can to try to keep it going.

Speaker 4 I see his point, though.

Speaker 4 It's a little misleading to call punching Jordan Poole in the face and knocking him out detrimental to the team. Yeah.

Speaker 4 That finally

Speaker 1 should have been reversed. But like Clay did this last year.
Remember when Clay was like, I don't want to come off the bench? And then Clay kind of realized, like, you know what?

Speaker 1 I've had a really good career. I'm just going to

Speaker 1 just be around. I'm not going to

Speaker 1 rock the boat here. Yeah.
I'm going to rock the boat part.

Speaker 4 Maybe he hasn't been great with his money. Maybe that's why he's doing

Speaker 4 TNT. I don't know.
I don't know what his circumstances are. But yeah, for him to say that the fines are the big problem.
Yeah, the NBA is just willy-nilly assigning fine.

Speaker 4 You never know when you step on the court. You might get an envelope in your locker after the game for no reason.

Speaker 1 Yeah, quite something. And then my other hot seat was the Braves because Ronald Decunia tours ACL.
That sucks a lot.

Speaker 1 Also, he went.

Speaker 1 How do we judge this one? He went on Twitter and said, sorry. You don't have to apologize.

Speaker 4 It's very Canadian of him. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Also, kind of gives you like everyone saying, don't worry, you don't have to apologize.

Speaker 4 I think that for him.

Speaker 1 He just wanted to feel the support.

Speaker 4 For him, it might be like he also had a devastating injury the year they won the World Series. Yeah.
So he's probably bummed out that he's not going to get another crack at it again.

Speaker 1 But he shouldn't have to feel like he has to apologize. Injuries happen.
It sucks.

Speaker 4 Is it the same ACL as the last time? I don't know. It sucks, though.
Yeah, it does suck.

Speaker 5 Sucks.

Speaker 1 Okay, and then my cool throne is Conor McGregor because you wouldn't tell that he's got a fight in six weeks with some of the clips that have come out from Memorial Day weekend.

Speaker 1 And I love this energy. I think he's probably going to lose to Michael Chandler, but I like the fact that Conor McGregor, just like us, is like, it's Memorial Day weekend.
Like, Diet starts Tuesday.

Speaker 1 Yeah, okay. Fight camp starts Tuesday.

Speaker 4 This is how the Irish train for fights.

Speaker 1 Was that his wife?

Speaker 4 I think it was. I'm going to say yes.
Yeah. I think it was.
Yes, definitely.

Speaker 1 So good for them. They're very much in love.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Very much.

Speaker 4 This is how the Irish do, man. You go out, you party, you have a good time.
Yeah. You just show up.

Speaker 1 He's having a great time. A great time.
Okay, Jake.

Speaker 8 My hot seat's Barry Bonds.

Speaker 8 Jose Ramirez, he was pitched around with the bases loaded, and someone after the game said, you received the Barry Bonds treatment. And he said, I'm better than Barry Bonds.

Speaker 1 What?

Speaker 4 Interesting.

Speaker 8 That's confidence.

Speaker 1 Well, that's embrace debate.

Speaker 4 How many career home runs does he have?

Speaker 4 Not even close to not the most ever?

Speaker 1 Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 4 All right, then no, he's not. Yeah.
I'll just settle that one real quick.

Speaker 1 No, he is not

Speaker 1 as good or better than Barry Bonds.

Speaker 8 He has 231.

Speaker 4 All right. How much does Barry Bonds have? Is it more?

Speaker 8 Seven something. Okay.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 Barry Bonds is better.

Speaker 1 I saw a stat that was like,

Speaker 1 fuck, I'm going to try to find it.

Speaker 4 Take away the seven MVP.

Speaker 6 Yeah, seven.

Speaker 1 Yeah, take away the seven MVP seasons.

Speaker 6 So it's like 490 home runs.

Speaker 1 It was, yeah, it was exactly that. It was like, take away the seven MVP seasons, and he had

Speaker 1 440 home runs and 359 stolen bases.

Speaker 4 Yeah, pretty insane.

Speaker 1 And Barry Bonds.

Speaker 1 His seven best seasons, and he still is like an incredible

Speaker 4 baseball player. And even before the steroids, he was probably a Hall of Famer at that point.

Speaker 1 It's nuts that he's not in the Hall of Fame.

Speaker 4 it's nuts so in 2004 if barry bonds went up to the plate without a bat if he didn't have a bat in his hand he would have had an on base percentage of 60

Speaker 4 without a bat it's crazy it's crazy and you know what that would have been the best in baseball history yeah without a bat he's so good

Speaker 1 he should be in the hall of fame Okay, best player of all time.

Speaker 8 My cool throne is College Lacrosse. Notre Dame goes back to back, men's side, and BC wins on the women's side.
So Notre Dame, men's lacrosse, becoming a wagon.

Speaker 1 Yeah, the Kavanaugh brothers, right? Yeah.

Speaker 8 And then there's a guy who used to play quarterback at Alabama who transferred and is now...

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, he was not. Buckner? Yeah, Buckner.
Is that his name? Tyler Buckner? Yeah. Maybe.

Speaker 4 A lot of people are having the conversation. Could Notre Dame lacrosse beat the Whipsnakes?

Speaker 4 Yeah. Whipsnakes are so bad.

Speaker 8 It's game week, by the way.

Speaker 1 It is Tyler Buckner. I nailed that.
Opening week.

Speaker 8 Dogs. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Billy Array. Opening week.
Dogs.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I watched some of that game. Kind of wish they had scored more goals, but that is what it is.
Yeah. Sometimes it just doesn't happen.

Speaker 1 They killed. Yeah, they killed Maryland.
Pretty damn good. Wake up the echoes.
Okay.

Speaker 1 We have a great interview with Danny Ainge in person. Been a long time coming.
Shout out to Hank for working on getting us this interview for like five years.

Speaker 1 But yeah, great interview. Great stories.
Great Bill Walton stories. And before we do that, PFT, you had a couple ads.

Speaker 11 Whether I'm hosting Game Day at my place or taking my talents to the tailgate, Boar's Head is my go-to for a spread that's as exciting as the game itself. Their platters are a hit every time.

Speaker 11 They've got everything you need to keep your guests coming back for more. And if you want to take it up a notch, grab a few dips.

Speaker 11 My personal favorite, the Blazing Buffalo Chicken, Hummus, or even one of their charcuterie collections for game-changing flavor.

Speaker 11 Boarshead helps me elevate my entertaining every time, whether it's for a tailgate or a home gating celebration.

Speaker 11 To upgrade your spread, visit your local Boarshead deli for platter options or build your own to make it perfect for your crowd. Boarshead, committed to craft since 1905.

Speaker 4 And now, here's Danny Ainge.

Speaker 1 Okay, we now welcome on an absolute legend, a very, very, very special guest. It is Danny Ainge.
He is, are you just the president of everything for the jazz now? You've had a million titles.

Speaker 5 I'm CEO of the Jazz.

Speaker 1 CEO of the Jazz, was obviously a long time with the Celtics, played baseball, was an incredible football player, which I want to get into.

Speaker 1 Thank you for joining us. Appreciate it.
Good to be here. Yes.

Speaker 5 Yeah, it's fun to break from

Speaker 5 all the basketball down at the Combine Camp.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I actually, you want to start with football? Because I talked to your son earlier and he said that that was the one thing that no one ever asked.

Speaker 1 They're like, he, you know, he was like, everyone talks about how Danny Ainge was incredible, you know, NBA champion, longtime Celtic, played Major League Baseball.

Speaker 1 No one talks about the fact that he was actually an incredible high school football player that had a ton of offers to play football.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 I played football too. Yeah.

Speaker 1 That's so you were really good at everything.

Speaker 4 Is there any sport that you weren't good at growing up?

Speaker 5 I wasn't very good at tennis.

Speaker 1 Okay, that's fine. You could throw that one out.
Yeah, tennis.

Speaker 5 I tried playing tennis. My father played some tennis, and I didn't know which hand to use because I was I'm kind of ampidextrous and I don't know what hand, left or right hand.

Speaker 1 I heard you too. Yeah, that you hit with both hands when you play tennis.
Yeah. Which that is, that means you're probably good at tennis, even though you're not.
I'm not very good.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 1 But so when you were coming out of high school, was there ever a thought that you were going to maybe play football? And like, because that was obviously something you were really, really good at?

Speaker 1 Or was it always just baseball, basketball?

Speaker 5 Yeah, when I I was coming out of high school, I thought that I might try to play two sports in college. And so, yeah, I went on some recruiting trips in football and took it very seriously.

Speaker 5 I mean, I loved, loved high school football. I was mostly a receiver

Speaker 5 and a defensive on a corner and safety. And then, and so it was interesting how different parts of the country would recruit me as a receiver.
And other conference teams would recruit me as a safety.

Speaker 5 And then I played my whole senior year as a quarterback just because our quarterback got hurt. And that was fun too.
Yeah. That was a blast.
But I was mostly recruited as a receiver.

Speaker 4 So when did you decide that football is not something I'm going to pursue anymore? I'm just going to focus on basketball.

Speaker 5 I think when basketball season started,

Speaker 5 after football was over, I went back on the basketball court and I just felt like basketball. Basketball was always going to be in the equation.
You know, football and baseball go the best together.

Speaker 5 But yeah, I was never going to give up basketball it was going to be basketball and baseball or football and basketball do you have you seen any of the discourse going on right now about uh you know how many nfl players could play in the nba right now and vice versa because you might be the answer to all these questions like oh well danny ainge could probably play in all the all the leagues at his prime yeah i mean i i don't know about that i mean i think it's disrespectful to the football to just say that basketball players could play in there but i mean i think that the great athletes and i think that the you know there's a lot of great athletes in the NBA, of course.

Speaker 5 And have they chose a different path to play football? I don't think they go play football right now.

Speaker 5 I think it's you got to learn that craft.

Speaker 5 But I think the same in football. Every now and then you see good football players that play basketball in college, but they're not as good.

Speaker 5 You guys are too old, but I remember when the Cowboys back you know, when I was a kid,

Speaker 5 they drafted some basketball players to play on those Cowboy teams.

Speaker 5 And when Tom Landry was coaching, and I know that's ancient times for you, but I do believe that, I mean, you take guys like I'm watching right here, Jalen Brown.

Speaker 5 I mean, he feels like he could be a football player if that's what he wanted to be.

Speaker 5 So I don't know what the argument is necessarily, but

Speaker 5 there's some great athletes out there that could play different sports for sure had they started at a younger age.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I guess the discussion was like, are there players that could translate from either league directly right now to the other? And our point was, yeah, there's some great athletes in the NBA.

Speaker 4 If they loved football, if they wanted to play football, they put their minds to it. If you're one of these big guys,

Speaker 4 you can be a tight end with enough practice if you have that competitive mentality to you.

Speaker 4 But we also thought it'd be harder for a football player to become a professional basketball player because of the skill aspect, dribbling, shooting, things that don't necessarily translate.

Speaker 4 to football. But yeah, it was one of those discussions that you talk about, usually like the second week of July when there's nothing going on in sports.
But for some reason, it just cropped up.

Speaker 4 Actually, Actually, you're a good person to ask this question, too, because you've seen so much basketball.

Speaker 5 Well, there's a player named Caleb Lohner who played at Baylor basketball the last couple of years, played at BYU before, and he's headed to Utah to play tight end.

Speaker 5 It's a great school for him, I think, because Utah really uses their tight ends well. Yeah.
And so, you know, we'll see firsthand. Like, he's a starting or he's a bench player for...

Speaker 5 Baylor right now, but four-year college player who's going to try college football.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4 It's going going to be interesting to watch. So you've seen so much basketball.
You've been in and around basketball for your entire life.

Speaker 4 So let's just start with who's the best player that you've ever played against or watched play?

Speaker 5 Well, Michael Jordan.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 It's a good answer. Yeah, I would say that's fair.
I heard that you might have something to do with his greatness, or at least with

Speaker 4 one of his all-time great performances.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 You played golf against him and pissed him off.

Speaker 5 Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 5 Got him a little frustrated.

Speaker 5 He had 63 on us the next night. I had to guard him for a share of that.
But my kids have abused me on that one. And we've gone back and watched the film.
I think I gave up 12 of the 63.

Speaker 1 Oh, so you're fine.

Speaker 5 I'm fine, but like Walton fouled out, and he's never forgiven me because I switched a lot. I'm guarding Michael in the screen, like you got him, Bill.

Speaker 5 And Walton fouled out.

Speaker 1 And he was like, guard your own man.

Speaker 1 I watched a clip of MJ talking about you as a golfer. And he said that you are his favorite person to golf with because because you give him shit more than anyone else.

Speaker 1 Like you'll talk trash to him more than anyone else. Is that fair to say? I mean, you obviously, you know, from your basketball career, you fight anyone.
You got dirty.

Speaker 1 But when you're on the golf course with Michael Jordan, you're not intimidated whatsoever.

Speaker 5 No, not at all. I mean, Michael is so fun to play with.

Speaker 5 He's a great competitor, as we all know. And him and I were golf junkies when we were playing in the NBA.
And so we got together like we did.

Speaker 5 That was his second year in the league when he had the 63 against us in the Boston Garden. And that's when it started.

Speaker 5 We had two media buddies that were, that knew each other and they got us together and we played. And then we'd play every summer here and there.

Speaker 5 I'd run into him in San Diego and in Chicago and Boston. And

Speaker 5 it was fun. He's a great,

Speaker 5 and he's a golf junkie like I am.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Wait, so how bad did you beat him in these 36 holes before he dropped?

Speaker 5 Oh, not bad. I mean, I think our matches are always pretty close.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And that's why it's so fun and so competitive yeah so all right so your enter entry to the nba obviously you you played you were playing college basketball and major league baseball at the same time which i feel like if that story happened today people would be like what's going on this is incredible like i mean it was incredible then but now even more like people being able to play multiple sports doesn't happen as much but your entry to the nba uh what was it like at coming from playing baseball and then you're walking onto a celtics team that has Larry Bird, that has Kevin McHale, that's won a title?

Speaker 1 Were you like, oh, man, I can't hang with these guys? Or you're instantly like, no, I'm here. I'm where I belong.

Speaker 5 You know, when I played, I think playing in Yankee Stadium and in Fenway Park and against those great Yankee teams, Billy Martin managing.

Speaker 5 That was pretty special. I mean, I was a kid and it was lifetime great memories of playing in those games.
But

Speaker 5 it didn't feel like I was playing under the same kind of pressure when I got to the NBA, even though I was playing for the Celtics.

Speaker 5 I came in mid-season because of my baseball contract, and that was a very good team, like you said. And so I had to pay my dues.
I sat and sat that

Speaker 5 first year and was dying to play, and then I started my second year. But yeah, I didn't feel that pressure.
I think that I got kind of that.

Speaker 5 that youthful anxiety maybe out of the way when I was playing baseball in those big ballparks in front of big crowds. That was fun.

Speaker 1 And yeah, I mean, that actually makes sense because baseball is the ultimate solo sport. And the fact that you're there, it's pitcher versus batter.
And, you know, you strike out and

Speaker 1 you fail whatever, you know, three quarters of the time. And then you're on a team with the Celtics.

Speaker 5 They made me fail 75% of the time.

Speaker 1 75%. Yeah.

Speaker 5 That's what you said. Three quarters.

Speaker 1 What was your batting average?

Speaker 5 We won't talk about that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so I think I actually maybe gave you a couple points there. Okay.
That might be true.

Speaker 4 It's actually not a bad strategy.

Speaker 1 I was being nice for player development.

Speaker 4 Make them go play baseball for you. Yeah, there you go.

Speaker 4 Go up there and fail.

Speaker 1 The hardest mental sport.

Speaker 1 Would you say baseball is the hardest mental sport?

Speaker 5 I think hitting a baseball is tough, yeah. I mean, pitching is tough, too, but

Speaker 5 I think hitting the pitchers is

Speaker 5 there's so many good pitchers are different. And, you know, pitchers are getting stronger and stronger all the time.
And I love watching baseball.

Speaker 5 I wish the game somehow could figure out a way to have pitchers, you know, matchups a little bit last a little longer than they do. I know.

Speaker 5 I don't really like the three-start inning or three-starter innings, but

Speaker 1 yeah, I love baseball. Yeah.
So at what point when you got to the Celtics did you feel like you were accepted by a Larry Bird and the rest of the team?

Speaker 1 Did it take that, you know, putting in your dues? Like, what did you have a moment where you're like, okay, they can trust me and I can trust them?

Speaker 5 I think my second year. Yeah.
Yeah. I think that it got through that first year.
I wasn't playing a lot. And

Speaker 5 I don't think that there was much I did to convince anybody that I deserved to play a lot more.

Speaker 5 In my own mind, I was deserving, but you just got to pay your dues, and I did, and I think my second year I earned their respect. Yeah.

Speaker 4 What was it like forming that relationship with the city of Boston as a whole? Because it's a good sports town. We always talk about good sports towns, bad sports towns.

Speaker 4 Boston's a great sports town, but the fans can be hard on you. But you have to develop a relationship.
You watch that with players that come into the league, especially I'd say in Boston and Philly.

Speaker 4 You have to kind of like learn how to adapt to the city that you're in. So what was it like ingratiating yourself to the city of Boston?

Speaker 5 I loved Boston. I mean, it's a great sports town.
I mean,

Speaker 5 you know, they're anti-New York and anti-Philly, and they love cheering against those teams as much as they like cheering for their own teams. But I think just having the Bruins and the Patriots and

Speaker 5 the Red Sox, I mean, there's just a lot of competition, and I think it's healthy competition.

Speaker 5 And knowing the athletes in the different sports was a fun experience, and there's just there's always sport on all the time. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Was there, uh, I would imagine knowing your game, you were a trash talker from time to time playing basketball. When you saw Larry Bird, you're like, oh, this is a different level of trash talking?

Speaker 5 Oh, yeah, Larry was funny.

Speaker 5 Larry wasn't like always a trash talker. I mean, always talking trash.
He was selective. He wasn't.

Speaker 5 We had guys like Cedric Maxwell and M. L.
Carr. I mean, they never stopped talking trash.
He was always talking trash. And then Kevin McHale, just being around them, he was always talking trash.

Speaker 5 And so Larry wasn't talking as often as them, but... Larry said some funny stuff.

Speaker 1 That's got to be like when like your

Speaker 1 dad gets like raises his voice. You're like, oh, no, this is serious now.
When Larry decides to start talking trash, he's using it for a real reason.

Speaker 5 I think he's using it for his own motivation more than anything. I think some of Larry's trash talk just felt like he wanted to get motivated.
I remember him telling Hubie Brown

Speaker 5 as he's walking to the sidelines and he says,

Speaker 5 you know, Huby, are you serious? This is the only guy that you got that can guard me?

Speaker 1 And the whole bench hears it.

Speaker 5 And, you know, I'm just sitting there smiling and laughing. But Larry's so confident in his game.
And Huby puts Johnny Newman in the game for me. Larry, like, are you serious?

Speaker 1 That's what you got. Trash talking coaches is next level.

Speaker 5 Yeah, yeah. I remember one time that we're playing in San Antonio, and I don't remember the kid's name, but a young center coming off the bench.

Speaker 5 He runs in the game with all this excitement, enthusiasm, the crowds going crazy. And Larry says, who are you garden?

Speaker 1 And the kid points to Chief.

Speaker 5 He goes, oh, crap. Chief, you're bald now.

Speaker 4 It's got to be even more intimidating if he's got that mustache, too.

Speaker 1 You try to focus.

Speaker 4 It feels like it'd be hard to be intimidating with that mustache, but he was able to achieve that.

Speaker 5 Well, he was able to achieve, probably not with the mustache, but with his play. He was a lot more than the mustache.
That was not very intimidating.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, but

Speaker 4 elevating

Speaker 4 your trash talk to a different level that makes the mustache go from like, that's a weird-looking thing, to I'm scared of that mustache, is a pretty good accomplishment. Yeah.

Speaker 4 So your teammates loved you in Boston. Who were you closest with there?

Speaker 5 I was closest with Kevin. Yeah.
He was my closest teammate. I mean, I still keep in touch with Larry and Kevin here and there.
And,

Speaker 5 you know, Kevin's really into the NBA still. I talked less to Larry, but we stay in touch over the years.

Speaker 5 I was close with DJ for a while, but he passed away.

Speaker 5 He was a great and fun teammate as well.

Speaker 1 Yeah. What about Bill Walton as a teammate? Because we've had the honor of being able to interview Bill Walton.

Speaker 1 We've told this story before, but we got, I think, about two and a half hours in, and Bill Walton said to us, he's like, how long does this go? And we're like, as long as you want.

Speaker 1 And so I don't think we wrote down all these questions. I think I maybe asked one of the questions that I wrote down because he just, he can talk.
Was he always eccentric and out there like that?

Speaker 5 You know, Bill, when we got Bill, I mean, first of all, we lost Cedric Maxwell. So that was tough because I love Cedric.
He was a great teammate.

Speaker 5 But Bill was, he was who like Larry and Kevin and I looked up to when we were younger in high school and college. and he was a legend in all of our minds.

Speaker 5 And so he's coming to the Celtics, even though he hasn't played a lot of basketball over the last few years.

Speaker 5 We were very excited to get him. But for me, it was great because I was like Larry and Kevin's little brother.
And so I got picked on a lot.

Speaker 5 And when Walton showed up, all the attention went to him, and they were picking on him. And it was fun.

Speaker 5 But Bill was a great teammate. I mean, he was one of the most unselfish players I've ever played with,

Speaker 5 although he didn't really have any of his skills left at that time, so

Speaker 5 he had to use his passing the most more than scoring. But he was a great shot blocker, rebounder, but he was all about winning.
That's all he cared about, and I think that rubbed off on everybody.

Speaker 1 So I have a dumb question about that 86 Celtics team because they're up there with some of the greatest teams of all time, the 96 Bulls, the. No, no, no, not up there.

Speaker 5 It's above there.

Speaker 1 Oh, okay, above there. Okay.
Greatest team of all time. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, you didn't play the Lakers in the finals. Well, I know, because they didn't make the final.

Speaker 1 That wasn't going to happen to us. I've heard you talk about that, and it's crazy to say, but I think that probably speaks to the confidence of the team.

Speaker 1 And I've heard, you know, I think Kevin McHale even said this as well, where it's like, you guys were mad that the Lakers lost, even though they should have been the second-best team.

Speaker 1 You were mad that you didn't get a chance to beat them. Most teams are like, well, we'd like to win the championship no matter what.
But you were upset that they lost the Rockets.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I mean, I think that because the Lakers beat us in 85, and we felt we were better. Yeah.
And in 84, maybe the Lakers were a little better at that moment in time, and we won that series.

Speaker 5 But 86, we've planned all year to play the Lakers.

Speaker 5 We just assumed that's what was going to happen. So it was a little disappointing, but

Speaker 5 we weren't going to lose either way.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so the question is, it's a dumb question, but maybe you can describe it and make it a great answer. How fun was it to play on a team that was that good?

Speaker 1 Because it does feel like there are certain points in NBA history that certain teams reach that almost higher level of basketball where it's like everything comes together and what they're doing is so good and it's such a different level that they can't be stopped.

Speaker 1 Did you feel that day in and day out? I did feel that.

Speaker 5 I felt that all year long in 86. And I think,

Speaker 5 you know, it was, you know, you know all the names on the team, but it was, you know, the prime of my career. It was the prime of Larry Bird's career.

Speaker 5 He was, you know, MVP of the league with Magic and Kareem and Elajuan and Jordan and all these guys in the league. I mean, Larry was the MVP, and it was the prime of Kevin McHale's career.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 And DJ wasn't past his prime yet. Robert was the only one that was a little older and Walton.
And they were able to split that time at center, and they were still great, great players.

Speaker 5 So we had a good bench. Jerry Seasting was a great shooter.
Scott Wedman had been an all-star and was the highest paid player.

Speaker 5 And not very many people know that story, but he was the highest paid player in the league when the Celtics got him from Cleveland, and he was an all-star in Kansas City.

Speaker 5 But he was Larry's backup, so he didn't get to play. Not very many people knew, but Larry reminded him and was very frustrated.

Speaker 1 I can't believe you make more money than me. That would piss me off.
Yeah. Yeah.
So

Speaker 1 you could feel it like just the level of basketball and night in and night out being like, you guys, what was your record at home? Did you lose one game at home or something?

Speaker 5 Yeah, we were 50 and one. That's insane.

Speaker 4 Who did you lose to?

Speaker 5 We lost to Portland in December, December, middle of December.

Speaker 1 What happened there? Yeah, what happened there?

Speaker 5 Road management? No, Portland was, they just caught us on, you know, we weren't our best, but they were a good team.

Speaker 5 That was the legendary story when we went back to Portland where Larry was going to beat him with his left hand.

Speaker 5 And he had like 32 points with his left hand that night.

Speaker 4 So he said that before the game. He said that before the game.
I'm just going to shoot left hand.

Speaker 5 I'm saving my right hand for the Lakers tomorrow night.

Speaker 1 And he actually did it. He did it.
That's incredible. And while you're watching, you're like, maybe mix in one right-handed shot? Like, no, just keep going.

Speaker 5 I mean, Larry was like me, he was left-handed. Right.
He did a lot of things left-handed, but he played basketball right-handed, but that was still an amazing feat. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Was there respect between you and the Lakers, or did you just hate them?

Speaker 5 I didn't hate him. I mean, our fans hated him, but I mean, I grew up a Laker fan as a kid.

Speaker 5 And, you know, I ran into Magic Johnson, who was the same age I was coming out of high school, and we played in an AAU tournament. And like, I was in awe of magic.
It was, it was unbelievable.

Speaker 5 Seeing him for the first time as an 18-year-old was, was incredible.

Speaker 5 So I'd followed him.

Speaker 5 But no, I wasn't, I didn't hate him, but they were just, it's like playing against Michael. Like

Speaker 5 they're the best. Like, let's go.

Speaker 5 This is the ultimate challenge.

Speaker 5 But I know that there was hatred mostly felt by the fans. And, you know, what we're playing for, there's a lot of intensity.
And you couldn't ever be caught

Speaker 5 talking to him, being friendly to him, picking them up off the floor. After Mikael did the Kurt Rambus

Speaker 5 throat shot, it was

Speaker 5 a little bit more intense.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And before that,

Speaker 1 didn't Larry call the whole team like a bunch of pussies or something? Before the Kurt Rambus throat shot?

Speaker 5 I don't know. He called us.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 5 Maybe not. But I'm not sure he called the Lakers.

Speaker 1 No, no, you guys. Yeah, yeah.
He called his own team.

Speaker 10 Like, we're playing yeah like women right that was in 84 yeah we came back and won that series which was miraculous actually but yeah all protein bars generally taste the same but not one bars one made protein bars are actually delicious with reese's and hersheys only one reese's peanut butter lover's protein bar is made with reese's peanut butter and only one hershey's cookies and cream protein bars is made with hershey's cookie bits while delivering 18 grams of protein and three grams of sugar one bars are the perfect protein bar to get you through your busy day whether you need a quick pick-ney-up between meetings or you need some fuel to power you through your next workout.

Speaker 10 One also has other delicious flavors like birthday cake, maple glazed donut, and blueberry cobbler. Find all one bars at a retailer near you or on amazon.com.

Speaker 13 That's the sound of extremely processed dog food, which is the norm at most pet food companies. But at the Farmer's Dog, we do things differently.
We gently cook our food without ultra-processing.

Speaker 13 It's developed by our team of board-certified nutritionists, made to human-grade safety standards, and portioned for your dog, then delivered right to your door.

Speaker 5 How does that sound to you?

Speaker 13 Get 50% off your first box, available only at thefarmersdog.com.

Speaker 1 So, all right, so just fast forwarding, because we also want to talk about you as an executive. I have a bunch of questions about that.

Speaker 1 But playing at the end of your career with Charles Barkley and the Sons,

Speaker 1 that's another like bigger-than-life kind of character. What was it like playing with Charles Barkley? Especially that was, you know, one of his MVP years was in there, go to the finals.

Speaker 1 Was it as fun as we all see Charles on TV and we're like, man, we want to hang out with that guy?

Speaker 5 Yes, Charles made me laugh every single day. Yeah.
He didn't practice a lot.

Speaker 5 You know, my favorite Charles story was we're getting ready to play a game, and Coach Westfall was great. I loved him, but

Speaker 5 he knew who was in charge of our team. He knew Charles was in charge most of the time.
And

Speaker 5 we look up, we're getting ready 35 minutes before tip-off, and we're stretching. Westphal comes in, sits on his stool, and we go through our pregame.

Speaker 5 Well, he's waiting and waiting, and we all kind of look over. Charles's locker still has his uniform hanging up.
He hasn't arrived yet. And so

Speaker 5 we wait, and everyone knows exactly why we're waiting.

Speaker 5 Nothing's said.

Speaker 5 Finally, Coach Westfall, with nothing about the pregame, he says,

Speaker 5 if he's not here by 7:10, he's not starting. 7.10 was the tip-off time.

Speaker 1 And he walked out of the room.

Speaker 5 It was classic. And I mean, but that was Paul.
He was just like, he was loose.

Speaker 5 He kept us loose. But Charles made everybody laugh all the time.
I mean, he was a lot of fun to play with.

Speaker 5 I had a great joy playing with him.

Speaker 4 He's a great player and also like a great glue guy, great guy just in the locker room yeah i mean he was he was fun he he made it he made it fun yeah yeah so um he was also your co-star in space jam yeah i appreciate it

Speaker 4 a lot of people don't talk about you being in space jam yeah what was that like um

Speaker 5 I don't remember much about Space Jam. My grandkids have told me about Space Jam more than I remember about Space Jam.

Speaker 4 It was a scene where they stole all of Charles Barkley's talent, right?

Speaker 5 Yeah, all of his power away.

Speaker 4 Yeah, you were a great cameo in on that.

Speaker 1 Did you get in any of the scrimmages that MJ would run on the set of Space Jam? I know it was, when was it filmed? Was it right after you retired?

Speaker 5 No, it was during my career.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 5 we did play on some of the sets.

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 1 it feels like those are legendary, just any pickup game with MJ, just taking it way too seriously at all times.

Speaker 4 Elbowing Bill Murray in the face.

Speaker 1 All right, so as an executive, when you decided to, well, you were a coach and then you actually were on TV for a year. You didn't like TV?

Speaker 5 Yeah, I was on TV for three years. Okay.
One year before I coached and then I did it three years after I coached.

Speaker 1 And what did you think about being on the media side?

Speaker 1 I loved it.

Speaker 5 Really? I loved it. Yeah.
Really? Yeah. I mean, it was hard for me to leave that life.
I mean, I was working one day a week.

Speaker 5 I didn't really have to do much preparation because I'd just been a player and then I coached. and

Speaker 5 I mean I knew all the players all the teams all the tendencies I you know I didn't really need to prepare for games and so I'd fly in the day of the game and fly out the next day yeah was it hard to criticize players that maybe you had played with or coached against I guess you don't know me very well, but it should have been harder, but it wasn't so hard.

Speaker 5 I mean, criticizing versus kind of trash talking is probably different.

Speaker 5 I mean, I respect all the players and all they do, but sometimes we do things that are, as players, that are funny and entertaining and probably picked on guys a little bit too much for that.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 All right. So I have a bunch of questions about your long time as executive for the Celtics, but I wanted to start with the jazz right now.

Speaker 1 From your perspective, when Brian Winhorse did the jazz are up to something,

Speaker 1 did you see that clip and you were like, God damn it, Winhorse just blew my cover? Do you remember that?

Speaker 5 I don't remember it.

Speaker 1 So it was when you traded the Royce O'Neill trade and then

Speaker 1 he basically was like, Look, when Danny Ainge did, you know, made a trade right before getting Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen, and like, you know, all these things, he's like, the jazz are up to something, and I don't know what they're up to, and everyone's trying to figure it out.

Speaker 1 And Danny Ainge is up to something. I was hoping

Speaker 1 you saw it and like, oh, man, he blew my cover because I'm clearly up to something.

Speaker 5 Yeah, no, that's really not how it is.

Speaker 5 You know, when I went to the jazz,

Speaker 5 I wasn't really

Speaker 5 going to Utah to work for the jazz. I mean, Ryan is a great friend and I've known him for years.

Speaker 5 And I told him on numerous occasions that, you know,

Speaker 5 you got me or my advice anytime you want. Then call me.
We're friends.

Speaker 5 You don't need to pay me to work. I didn't really want to work get back in the NBA.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 5 when that happened, I mean, when the jazz were making the changes, or we were all making the changes, it was,

Speaker 5 I'm just helping the people that are there. Like, Dennis Lindsey had a great staff and great people working there.
Justin Zanik is fantastic.

Speaker 5 And I just, and Ryan was, you know, wanting to know my opinion of what we should do. So I was just helping facilitate what they're doing.
It wasn't like I came in with like this plan.

Speaker 5 I'm going to blow the team up and we're going to start over.

Speaker 5 That was many other people's ideas.

Speaker 1 But you do, you would say it's fair to say you like draft picks. You love draft picks.

Speaker 5 I like good players, yeah.

Speaker 1 But you like draft picks, you've gotten a lot of draft picks, yeah, but some really smart moves have gotten you a lot of draft picks, right?

Speaker 5 But I would say that I like good players much more than draft picks, yeah.

Speaker 4 You like draft picks that turn into good players, yeah. You look at every draft pick like that's a future good player.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I mean, some are some we've we did some good ones and some not so good ones, like everybody. But um,

Speaker 5 yeah, I mean, I think I like draft picks because I think they're they're currency,

Speaker 5 and you need to take swings at the the plate with some of these new players. I mean, every team has both.
I mean, every team has players they've drafted and turned out to be better than you thought,

Speaker 5 and also players that they've traded for or signed.

Speaker 1 Yeah, well, I mean, that's I would say that's one of the more interesting parts of your career is that you've kind of done it both ways, you know, with

Speaker 1 the Ray Allen, Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Celtics that win a title that you know, trade the big three, and then to rebuild it all kind of homegrown with Tatum and Brown and all the guys and Marcus Smart.

Speaker 1 So,

Speaker 1 how did you maneuver the first iteration of it with the big three with Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, and Kevin Garnett pulling that off and having basically a team have that success out of, you know, they were a little, the sellers were a little lost for a while with Paul Pierce in the early 2000s?

Speaker 5 Yeah, I mean, I think that there was a lot of good fortune that went that way. I mean, obviously, we would have loved to get KG a lot sooner, Ray Allen, but those guys just were never available.

Speaker 5 And And then they came available. You know, KG, Paul, and Ray were all teams, playing for teams in the lottery.
And all three of those teams were looking to go a different direction.

Speaker 5 Seattle at the time where Ray was playing, they were looking to draft Kevin Durant and move on from their veteran guys, their older guys.

Speaker 5 And we were the beneficiaries of that.

Speaker 5 gotten the second pick that year in the draft, you know, we probably wouldn't have done that. I probably would have kept Kevin Durant.

Speaker 5 But

Speaker 5 as it turned out, we didn't. We got the fifth pick in the draft, and we moved that and got Ray Allen.
And then we eventually moved Al Jefferson and

Speaker 5 other players, and we ended up with KG. So, I mean, that just turned everything.
KG's presence just gave Paul hope, Doc hope, the city of Boston hope.

Speaker 5 Ray was more excited than I'd ever seen him play, and it was just, there was a lot of electricity in that, that, that whole time there. We only won one championship.

Speaker 5 We should have won a couple, but injuries and we lose game seven in L.A. But I think that that era was a lot of fun.

Speaker 4 Yeah, we just talked to Perk the other day, and he said if he didn't get hurt, you guys win another championship that year. He said, no question about it.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I think so. I think that's probably right.

Speaker 4 Yeah, so you guys get the big three together. And I feel like from that point forward in NBA history, we've always talked about getting a big three, getting a big three to win a championship.

Speaker 4 I don't know if that's necessarily the blueprint to do it, because we've seen time and time again, it's harder than you would think to put together a super team in quotes that would end up working out.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 you have Paul Pierce, who I think one person voted as the best basketball player of all time, right? Was that you?

Speaker 4 Somebody who was like, all the votes were either MJ or LeBron, and then one person voted Paul Pierce. He's a great player.

Speaker 4 But so you have a bona fide superstar and Paul Pierce, and then you get Kevin Garnett, also superstar, Ray Allen, superstar at the time.

Speaker 4 What was that like gelling those three guys together and having having them try to commit to being a team and not just three great players?

Speaker 5 I just think they were together at the right time of their careers. I mean, I think that getting guys together, sometimes you get players that are too old, you know, managing older players.

Speaker 5 They're the last ones to see the decline in their games.

Speaker 5 Sometimes you get players when they're too young and they really want to be all-stars and all-NBA and, you know, get paid as much money as they possibly can, which is all understandable.

Speaker 5 But those guys were, they only cared about one thing at that stage of their lives and careers. None of them had won a title and they were desperate for one.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 And they played that way, they practiced that way. And it was fun to watch.
It's fun to watch that electricity and

Speaker 5 the way that they played. I mean, it wasn't always rosy,

Speaker 5 you know, but they they it was always about team. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You you mentioned something there that I'm interested in.

Speaker 1 Would would you say that's one of the hardest parts about being an executive is having to basically tell a guy who might be a little past their prime, like, hey, this is we're moving on from you, or this is not going to work the same way that you think it works, because it is usually the guy himself is the last to know.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I think that I haven't had to do that. Um, I mean, when I moved uh, Paul and KG,

Speaker 5 they could have vetoed the trades. Yeah, um, we talked it through, and you know, they ended up being mutually beneficial for them, and we were rebuilding and starting over, and so

Speaker 5 they were willing to be traded to Brooklyn. And that was good for us.
Yeah, very good.

Speaker 5 I didn't have to tell them that you guys are really old and we need to check the expiration date on the bottom of your shoes. But,

Speaker 5 you know, they were great. And, you know, those guys, their willingness to do that.
for the Boston Celtics at that time was huge. And it's, you know, paying dividends even to this day.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so when you did make that trade and then you have years where you're rebuilding and you do such a great job of it, were there any moments in that rebuild where you're like, this is a lot harder than I thought it would be, or we're farther away than I thought we were going to be?

Speaker 1 Just because that is a very difficult thing to pull off in any professional league.

Speaker 5 It is.

Speaker 5 You know, again, we were, we were, we were very fortunate. And, you know, the Brooklyn didn't turn out as good as I thought they were going to be.

Speaker 5 I thought it was actually a really good trade for Brooklyn to get Paul and KG with a couple of years left, veterans, good locker room guys, all about winning to go play with that core group down up in Brooklyn.

Speaker 5 But,

Speaker 5 you know, I just think that our team was,

Speaker 5 we got Jalen and Jason, and then we brought in Kyrie, and then we brought in Gordon Hayward, and we were good.

Speaker 5 I mean,

Speaker 5 and in training camp, I'm going, man, this team is powerful and explosive, and these young players are better than we think. Terry Rogier was part of that group.

Speaker 5 And then, you know, we lost Gordon on day one, game one.

Speaker 5 And that was devastating to us. But that meant Jason and Jalen got much more opportunities.

Speaker 5 And they, you know, but that team, and then Kyrie got hurt late in the year, wasn't able to play in the playoffs.

Speaker 5 And then, and, and Rogier at 20, and Tatum and Brown at 20, 19 and 20, I think, took us to the conference finals. Yeah.
So.

Speaker 5 You know, when that, when those other guys came back, I mean, they're realizing that these young guys are pretty special and pretty good. And I don't think that was easy.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So in terms of Tatum and Brown,

Speaker 1 we know now they're incredible basketball players, they're incredible NBA players. But when you drafted them, there were people who were like, what is going on?

Speaker 1 Because I know Jalen Brown was, people thought that was a reach.

Speaker 1 His Cal year, like, he had obviously all the tools, but it wasn't the smoothest year in his one year in college. And then Jason Tatum,

Speaker 1 I think very, like, there's only been a couple times in NBA history where a team is traded out of the number one pick. Um,

Speaker 1 when you have those moments where you're just like, I know, I feel it, I know it. This is who we like, and uh, forget everyone else.

Speaker 1 Because it is funny to look back and be like, at the moment, at that time, people were like, Danny Ainge is kind of crazy.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I mean, I feel like

Speaker 5 you don't ever know, but there are times that it's more fun. Like, there's somebody that you just really like, and you just feel like, you feel like it's a fit.

Speaker 5 I wish that were the way, the case every year, but

Speaker 5 with Jalen, I watched him play a lot that year. I mean, I got to games at 4.30, 7 o'clock tip-off, and I'm watching him out shoot before the game and watching his work ethic.

Speaker 5 And then I watched their team play, and he did not have a good finish to that freshman year.

Speaker 5 But, you know, we had had him as the number two or number three pick before the season started. And then I watched his team play so much, I knew they had a point guard that wasn't a good shooter.

Speaker 5 They had two seven-footers that weren't good offensive players. And

Speaker 5 they just, they didn't have enough shooting, enough spacing for him. And I really thought,

Speaker 5 you know, like, man, you get him in an NBA court, in the open court.

Speaker 5 And so we brought him in for two workouts. And in those two workouts, he convinced all of us.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 Our whole organization that he was a guy that we wanted to go to. go to bat with.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and then Jason is the other one where it's like people, you know, like you trade the number one pick. Everyone thought Markel Fultz was the guy.

Speaker 1 Philly fans have to look back at that constantly. Our producer Max is they probably hate you.
They get to play the game of like imagine.

Speaker 5 You don't hate me, do you, Max?

Speaker 4 He does.

Speaker 1 No, everything turned out fair. No, Max is saying everything turned out fair, man.

Speaker 9 We traded Markel Fultz for the pick that got Tyrese Max out.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, and there you go. He said that's success.

Speaker 4 Yes, but no, Max was

Speaker 4 cussing you out before you got it.

Speaker 1 Good recovery. Incorrect.
Incorrect. Yeah, he hates you.
But that pick, like, you're out on an island because everyone's like, this is crazy.

Speaker 1 Markel Fultz was the guy for a while there, and you trade out of it and take Jason Tatum. But was that a similar feeling? We're like, we know that this guy is the best guy in this draft.

Speaker 5 I mean, I loved Markel. I watched Markel play a lot his senior year in college, and that was really a hard decision.
I mean,

Speaker 5 but

Speaker 5 I felt Jason

Speaker 5 was the guy for us. You know, Markel,

Speaker 5 if you needed a franchise point guard, that might have been the guy. But I felt like Tatum was more important for us to get at that moment.
And it worked out great for us. It was,

Speaker 5 you know, Markel, I think, had injuries, but he's shown to be an outstanding player.

Speaker 5 And I think he's still got a lot of basketball left in him. Yeah.

Speaker 4 When you're scouting, you can't scout high school players anymore in the NBA, but back when you could, were there any special tricks that you used to use when you'd go into a gym, watch a high school player play?

Speaker 4 Maybe somebody might get nervous if they're like, Danny Agent.

Speaker 1 Did someone give you that tip?

Speaker 4 No, I asked the question to every guest that we have.

Speaker 1 I want to purchase that.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 But they're like, man, Danny Age is here. I might get nervous.
I hope I don't play bad.

Speaker 5 I can't give my secrets, but I've been to high school gyms, and but I was grateful that my boys, I had four boys that played AAU basketball and was able to go into the gyms at all the major tournaments for a lot of years.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 So no

Speaker 4 disguise that was worn, no glasses, fake nose.

Speaker 4 The groucho marks or nothing, whatever whatever it was.

Speaker 5 Oh, my gosh, I'm going to kill Crew.

Speaker 4 To me, that disguise makes you stick out even more. It's like, who's this guy that's wearing a disguise?

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's a good disguise.

Speaker 5 You got to be good at your disguise.

Speaker 4 You just have to believe it.

Speaker 1 Would you ever throw on a weight?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I've done that before.

Speaker 5 You've done the weight?

Speaker 4 Are people afraid to take your calls?

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 4 I would be. If I was a GM, I would be afraid to take your calls.
I'd be like, he knows something that I don't know.

Speaker 1 Well, you get on the phone with Danny Ainge and then all of a sudden your picks for the next 10 years are gone. Yeah.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Like, if I get a call,

Speaker 4 if you call me right now, I'd be like, what? We're sending, we're sending Hank to the McAfee show.

Speaker 1 He did it to us right here where he's like, I don't love picks. Yeah.
Like, yeah. And then you're going to walk out of here and be like, wait, did we just give up three picks?

Speaker 1 What the hell just happened?

Speaker 5 No,

Speaker 5 I think that, like, I believe that the trades were fair. I really do.
I mean, some of them worked out for us in Boston, that Jason Tatum trade.

Speaker 5 I mean, it was unfortunate that Markell got hurt, but I felt like that was a really fair deal. And the same thing with KG and Paul.

Speaker 5 Like, they had Darren Williams and Brooke Lopez and Joe Johnson still in his prime. Like, I think that that team I thought was going to be a very special team.

Speaker 5 I thought they were going to be one of the top four or five teams in the league. So it just worked out different.

Speaker 5 I mean, we just were fortunate that they gave us the number three picks for Jalen and Jason. Like, I don't, I never had, I had an idea that would happen.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 All right. Another story that I was told from inside sources.

Speaker 1 Your wife, when you met her at BYU, the story goes that you might have met her and her boyfriend at the time at a party, and then the boyfriend invited you to play on the flag football team, and you went and played on the flag football team, and you're Danny Ainge, and you were the best player by far.

Speaker 1 And then your wife was like, oh, I kind of like this guy more. Is that fair to say? That's close.
That's close.

Speaker 1 What an idiot that guy was to invite you to his flag football team.

Speaker 5 Yeah, he played center.

Speaker 1 I played quarterback.

Speaker 5 And yeah,

Speaker 5 that's what I claimed to my wife. That's when she fell for me.
But yeah, I wasn't supposed to be playing flag football. It was, you know, our basketball players were not allowed to.

Speaker 5 And someone eventually tattled on me like right before the championship game.

Speaker 1 No way. Oh, that was definitely someone, an opponent.
Yeah. Yeah.
They were like, we don't want to, we're sick of watching Danny David.

Speaker 5 The coach got news that we're getting ready for the championship intermurial game. And yeah, I wasn't able to play.

Speaker 1 Oh, no way. That's hilarious.

Speaker 4 Might have been the starting center.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it probably was. He's like, God damn it.
I mean, that was a really poor choice by him to invite you. I mean, I guess you did get him to the championship game, but he lost his girlfriend.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I don't know. I mean, yeah, they were not dating for very long.

Speaker 1 I mean, yeah, don't invite Danny Hinge on your flag football team. Did you play? I also heard that you, when you were playing quarterback, you would throw it lefty and righty.

Speaker 5 I threw it righty.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but you would, if you were rolling over. You throw a little bit left, yeah.
Yeah. I mean, he would throw it naturally.
He's a legend. Yeah.
He's Patrick Mahomes before Patrick Mahomes.

Speaker 1 You taught Patrick Mahomes everything he knows.

Speaker 5 No, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 Is that something that you look for?

Speaker 4 If there's an up-and-coming player and they've played lots of sports at a high level growing up, is that something that you look at and you're like, I like that because they've developed all these other areas of athleticism that will help them be a better basketball player?

Speaker 1 I think so.

Speaker 5 I mean, it's not a make-or-break deal.

Speaker 5 I mean, there's not everybody that played other sports, but yeah, I think that I get a kick out of guys that have played other sports and had success, especially at their young ages.

Speaker 5 But that's less and less nowadays. There's just not as many.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Was there a certain age where you it clicked and you were like, oh, I'm better than everyone?

Speaker 5 No.

Speaker 5 I would say that the first, the, the most confident that I got was when I was playing in that Magic Johnson tournament. I made all-tournament team there back in Boca Raton, Florida, and

Speaker 5 some of the best, you know, Albert King from New York and Gene Banks,

Speaker 5 were the high school players of the year. And I held my own and played really well in that series, AAU series.
And that's when I kind of believed, like, man, this is real.

Speaker 5 But when Walton was playing with the Blazers, I would go up and play with some of them too. That same summer, I would play pickup in their camps.

Speaker 1 How old were you?

Speaker 5 I was 17.

Speaker 1 And you were playing with NBA players?

Speaker 5 Playing with NBA players. Wow.
And

Speaker 5 I felt like I could hold my own. I felt like I could play with those guys.

Speaker 1 That's pretty badass.

Speaker 4 And when Walton was talking to you, did it ever seem like a riddle that you had to deal with before you answered it?

Speaker 4 Because I feel like if I'm 17 years old talking to Bill Walton, it's going to take me about a minute to process what he said.

Speaker 4 Then, if you think about it hard enough, you're like, yeah, he's making a good point. But you have to take a meandering road to get there sometimes.

Speaker 1 Oh, I got a great Bill Walton story. Oh, let's go.

Speaker 5 So, Bill, when he was first with us, he would take a chess set, like his own computer chess set with him. And he'd be sitting in his airplane seat.

Speaker 5 And he would, and we're flying commercial in these days. And he's sitting in the first class section, but he's playing computer chess.

Speaker 5 And, you know, so we're, and then we're stretching in the mornings, and he's like telling us about Bobby Fisher and Boris Spassky and, you know, Queen 3 to.

Speaker 5 Jack 7.

Speaker 5 It was crazy stuff. We don't know what he's talking about, but he's like talking about the brilliant moves that these players are making.
So we thought he was like a chess genius.

Speaker 5 He's with that board all the time.

Speaker 5 So finally, one day I challenged to play him

Speaker 5 and I beat him.

Speaker 5 And then Jerry Seasting challenged to play him and he beat him.

Speaker 5 And we said, you can't ever talk chess again.

Speaker 1 You are not good. Yeah, what was he doing with that board? I don't know.
He was like playing against a computer.

Speaker 5 Must have been at like level one.

Speaker 4 He's dominating, and then he's thinking that he's on the same level as like the Bobby Fisher. Bobby Fischer.

Speaker 4 The famous blunder, I think. That was like a famous tournament that he was in.
And so he reads a story about it.

Speaker 1 He just gets his ass kicked. Perfect.

Speaker 4 We should let Hank ask a couple questions. Hank is a die-hard Celtics fan.
Born-raised.

Speaker 1 He sure is going to love you.

Speaker 4 Yeah, he does love you. As much as Max.

Speaker 5 Is Hank the guy that made the bet, the big bet for dunking? Yep. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 We'll actually, after this, we'll have him go show you his progress.

Speaker 5 But Hank, aren't you like, are you six feet?

Speaker 1 I'm six feet. Okay.
Yeah.

Speaker 6 I've been trading.

Speaker 1 How old are you, Hank? I'm 30.

Speaker 5 Okay, just a pop.

Speaker 6 I got about eight months to get about seven inches.

Speaker 5 But have you ever dunked before? No. No.

Speaker 1 Not even close. Hank.

Speaker 1 He deadpan asked Derek White, he's like, hey, Derek, when did you first dunk? I was like, Hank, are you asking Derek White when he first dunked? I don't think you can compare the two.

Speaker 5 Well, Hank.

Speaker 5 HGH in the rules.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. He actually said September, October is when he's going to start mixing in the steroids if he doesn't make progress.
Yeah, we're trying.

Speaker 6 I mean, we're getting progress, but we're going to, you know, we're going to go through it the natural way. And then if it gets to like October, November, we might start going the alternate routes.

Speaker 6 Okay.

Speaker 5 Well, you can come out to Utah and

Speaker 1 get the elevated thin air, jump thin air on some trampolines. All right.
So, yeah, Hank, what are your questions?

Speaker 6 Yeah, obviously, you know, when you're in Boston, everyone called you Trader Danny. But one trade I didn't even know was possible until it happened was when you traded the coach.

Speaker 6 Was that like a different negotiation,

Speaker 6 you know, talking to teams versus when you're talking about players and being like, hey, you want a coach?

Speaker 5 Well, what happened there was, you know, Doc had been with us for nine years and he knew we were, and he had gone through a rebuild with us before we got made the big trade. And

Speaker 5 so he was just not in the mood to do it again. And I completely understood

Speaker 5 where he was. And so the Clippers opportunity came to him.
And, you know, he's under contract. I can't just let my coach go.

Speaker 5 So, you know, I don't think Doc was happy at first, but I think he understood where we stood. And

Speaker 5 we got a first-round pick for our coach. But Doc got to go do what he wanted to do, was go coach Chris Paul and Blake Griffin.
And they obviously had a lot of promise there, Clippers.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 6 I mean, this isn't really a question either. And, you know, he didn't pan out, but he was a fan favorite.
He was always one of my favorites, Gershon Yabusele.

Speaker 1 I just like Yannis. Yabasele.
I just like saying the name.

Speaker 6 Yabaselele. You can say it right.
Right.

Speaker 1 It's Gershon Yabasele.

Speaker 1 Yabusole. He's still playing.

Speaker 5 He's still playing really well overseas right now. But he didn't, you know, what happened with Gershon is

Speaker 5 he had some tight Achilles tendon. And so he got surgery on them.
And, you know, they

Speaker 5 messed up his whole rookie year.

Speaker 5 And we knew that going in, trying to

Speaker 5 do what was best for him and his health. But it didn't really help.

Speaker 5 And he was not the same even in the second year. But watching him play now, I wish we had that Gershon.
The last few years he's been playing in Europe from that health standpoint.

Speaker 5 But by the time he really did get healthy, we just had a stacked team.

Speaker 5 But Gershon was a great, fun kid and had a lot of talent.

Speaker 1 What's the number one trait you look for in

Speaker 4 prospects?

Speaker 1 Is it size? Is it explosiveness? Shooting ability?

Speaker 5 I mean,

Speaker 5 there's not. I'm asked that question a lot.
I don't think there's one. I mean, but talent overrides a lot.
Yeah. You know, when guys are really talented, you can

Speaker 5 look the other way on other things sometimes.

Speaker 1 I guess that would be a better question is what's the one thing you can look the other way on being like, they can probably get better at this?

Speaker 5 I mean, if a guy is a great athlete and a good player, has a good brain, but can't shoot, I think that that's a he's got a set to be a good bat.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 5 Like, you know, like Scotty Pippen, Magic Johnson, all those guys, they weren't great shooters. Jason Kidd, one of my favorites that I ever coached was Jason Kidd or been around.

Speaker 5 But he was, you know, what a special player he was.

Speaker 5 Him, Gary Payton, Scottie Pippen, Matt Medic,

Speaker 5 if they never learned to shoot, which they all did learn to shoot, they still would have been great players.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 So, what's the recipe for that? Just is it a numbers game? Just get in the gym, work for Tip, put up this amount of shots every day.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I mean, Kawhi Leonard was another guy that wasn't a great shooter in college and turned out to be one of the best. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 How many shots a day do I need to get good? You saw me shoot a little bit. I think I break the layout.

Speaker 5 I'm not sure. I'm not sure that'll happen.

Speaker 1 He's about the same odds as him as

Speaker 1 Hank Duncan. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Who's the one guy you,

Speaker 1 I don't want to say missed on, but you're like, man,

Speaker 1 I was thinking about drafting him and it just didn't work out. And I obviously turned out to be great.

Speaker 5 I would say Jimmy Butler is the first one that comes to mind. It was, you know, he was a late first-round pick, and he was seriously in our thoughts of drafting.

Speaker 5 And we went another direction, and Jimmy turned out to be a great player. Yeah.
And that's probably the one I regret the most.

Speaker 1 What about Giannis?

Speaker 5 Giannis Giannis was different. Like,

Speaker 5 it's not like it's hard to regret, like, but I saw.

Speaker 1 Everyone missed on Giannis.

Speaker 5 Right. I mean, I saw Giannis play like three months before the draft, maybe four months before the draft, and I liked him.
I loved his enthusiasm for the game.

Speaker 5 And then I saw him in the summer league, and it was like he's three inches taller.

Speaker 1 Like, he actually has muscles in his arm.

Speaker 5 Like, it was incredible transformation over that time. But, I mean, what a great story Giannis is.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 I went over to Greece to watch him play. And I mean, he was a joy to watch, but never in a million years could I imagined him being an MVP, NBA champion that he's become.
But it's fun to see.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so you've lived your whole life in basketball.

Speaker 1 Can you notice, like, going overseas now, just how much the game has grown and how much better the guys are, just like on a baseline level?

Speaker 5 Yeah, I mean, I think it's been that way for the last 20 years. Yeah.

Speaker 5 It's big. I mean, people talk about

Speaker 5 Jokic and how he's the best player in the game today. But I remember when, well, Drazen Petrovich was a superstar over there years ago.

Speaker 5 I played with Drazen for a year in Portland, but and then Sabonis. Sabonis, before he had his Achilles tendon injury when he was 20, 21 years old, I mean, he was so special.

Speaker 5 He passed the ball like Jokic. He could shoot.
He was 7-2. I mean, he was an amazing, amazing young player.
Yeah. I mean, it's been good over there for quite a while.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 But are there different countries that have different strengths? Like, is one country known, hey, they produce really great point guards? One country is like, you got to get like a Serbian big man.

Speaker 5 No, I don't think so. I think that there's,

Speaker 5 I think they come from all the countries over there. And I mean, you got Doncic and Jokic from the same country, but they're...
completely different positions.

Speaker 5 But, you know, those guys are very special. I mean, I don't know why they grew those two players, but it's a big country and actually a small country.
But

Speaker 1 it actually is remarkable that both those guys.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I mean, they had good basketball roots and you could just see how smart they were at a very young age.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 All right. Well, this has been great.
I have a like a couple last questions.

Speaker 3 Aldi is now on Uber Eats. So whether your fridge is empty and you're too tired to shop, or you just ran out of essential ingredients, don't worry.
We got you.

Speaker 3 Get 40% off your first Aldi order on Uber Eats with code new LD25. Orders $30 or more.
Save up to $25 and it's 1231. See ya for details.

Speaker 1 I don't know if you know this, Danny, but we've been trying to get you on the show for a long time. So this is

Speaker 1 a thrill for us. Hank has been bothering your son for how many years, Hank?

Speaker 7 Four or five? Six?

Speaker 1 Six? Six years?

Speaker 1 That's so funny.

Speaker 1 And I feel, I hope you had a good time where it's like, oh, we could have probably done this. No, it was good.

Speaker 5 It was way better than anything else I'm doing in Chicago tonight. So I've been sitting watching basketball, so this is fun.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so last couple questions.

Speaker 1 Is there, so

Speaker 1 you got some scraps in the NBA. You know, it is funny watching back some of these old videos where you were completely unafraid, and it doesn't matter who the guy was, you weren't going to take shit.

Speaker 1 But you famously got bit in a fight by Tree Rollins. What was going through your head while you were getting bit? Were you like,

Speaker 1 is he actually biting me right now? Is this actually happening?

Speaker 5 Yeah, I mean, so Tree was a physical player. It was a playoff game.
And, you know, like he set screens. I think that's part of their thing.
They're going to hit us on screens.

Speaker 5 In those days, they didn't call him like they do today. I mean, they let guys really screen and move and hit.

Speaker 5 And Tree had knocked out Quinn Buckner earlier in the game. And, you know, just with an elbow.
And Quinn went down. And so

Speaker 5 I just gave him an elbow as he was running back down the court. He's running by me, and I just like gave him an elbow because he's been doing that all night.
But he turned and started coming at me.

Speaker 5 I mean, I basically had two options to run to the locker room or tackle tree. And so I went and tackled tree, and we're in a dog pile,

Speaker 5 all the players on the floor, and my finger is in his mouth. And I swear, I thought he was going to bite it off.

Speaker 1 Jesus. I thought he was gnawing at my finger to bite it off.
Yeah, that's got to be terrifying.

Speaker 5 It was crazy, but I don't think that he could move. I think we were all kind of paralyzed with all the bodies around, and that was his way of getting at me, I guess, at that moment.

Speaker 5 My hand must have been up close to his face, and he just like chose to bite it, almost bite it off.

Speaker 1 But it was crazy.

Speaker 5 I looked down at my hand, and I could see it hadn't started bleeding. And so I could see my finger, the it lift up.
I could see all the way to the tendons. Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 Really, bitch?

Speaker 4 Do you have teeth marks on your finger still?

Speaker 5 I have a scar on the middle of my finger right here.

Speaker 1 That's a pretty cool scar.

Speaker 4 It is, yeah. A man bit me.

Speaker 1 A man bit me in an NBA game.

Speaker 5 I still say when I play golf, when I hit a tree, that Tree Rollins blocked my shot.

Speaker 1 And then in terms of all the fights or the scraps or the physical play, was there ever a time where Larry Bird got mad at you and was like, no,

Speaker 1 we shouldn't fight today? Because Larry got in fights too.

Speaker 5 Yeah, Larry had some fights, but no. A matter of fact,

Speaker 5 we kind of had a team rule that

Speaker 5 if you go downswinging, you got to take someone equal or better on the other team with you. That's good.

Speaker 1 That's a good rule.

Speaker 5 But other than that, I think that it was,

Speaker 5 I mean, I could score 35 in a game, and Red would come in and pat me on the butt, say, nice job, way to go.

Speaker 5 But if I got in a fight, like he wanted to celebrate. He wanted to take me out to dinner and throw a party for me.
Like, it was unbelievable how excited Red was when the fights happened. That's great.

Speaker 5 And he just, you know, he loved that. He loved that intensity.
And,

Speaker 5 you know, I didn't. I mean, I played 14 years in the NBA.
And I mean, I think I had like six of them, but they were usually at times when they were memorable.

Speaker 1 Like, if you go, I just googled Danny Ainge fighting before, you know, earlier this morning. I was like, damn, he was, he would throw with anyone.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I didn't win very many.

Speaker 1 Yeah, the one where you got knocked out. But you actually got up.
Yeah. You doubted it.
Yeah. Yeah.
You got up fast. That was credit to you.
That was a big time.

Speaker 1 I'm not injured. I'm not injured, but you're clearly injured move.

Speaker 5 Yeah. No, I wasn't injured.
I was

Speaker 1 actually dizzy. Yeah.

Speaker 5 I was chasing him and I felt like my body was like tilting the whole time running after Siddell.

Speaker 5 And someone asked me,

Speaker 5 you know, like what were the greatest shots you ever made in the NBA? And it was those two free throws.

Speaker 5 I saw two baskets. Philly fans are going crazy.
And I made both the technical free throws. But was that that was yeah he also those days you'd have been you know

Speaker 5 cushion concussion protocol for two weeks or whatever

Speaker 1 you he also he escalated that very quickly it was like a push and then he's like you know what i'm just gonna i'm gonna just punch danny h in the face yeah it was a sucker punch yeah he got me good yeah he did but you got up he landed you got up landed the punch though did i did he won the fight yeah did tree ever reach out and apologize Was he like, hey, my bad for biting you?

Speaker 5 No, no, but I mean, everybody that I know that's played with Tree says he's a great guy. Like, I don't hold anything against fighting and those things that happen in a battle.

Speaker 4 What about as a talent evaluator? Do you like a guy that fights on your team?

Speaker 1 It's kind of phased out of the game.

Speaker 5 I mean, it's harder to fight now just because it's so penal. But I think

Speaker 5 I like guys that fight. I mean, not literal fight, but guys that'll fight for what they can and take it as far as they can.

Speaker 1 You like guys with the... Do you actually.

Speaker 5 I like instigators.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Can you tell if a guy has the dog in him? I don't know if you know that. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 I mean, I think some of my favorite draft picks were Avery Bradley,

Speaker 5 Tony Allen, Delante West. Like they were, they were big time instigators.

Speaker 1 They got the dog. Do you have like an analytics department that has the like, you know, you pull up all the charts and you're like, all right, he's got 95% dog.
Yeah. We could be that for you.

Speaker 1 Okay, we're going to

Speaker 5 do some dog evaluation.

Speaker 1 You just give us a guy, have him come by.

Speaker 5 I hear my scouts talk about it all the time, but like we need to like, is it 20%?

Speaker 1 Yeah, put a number on it.

Speaker 4 75%. And you need to know what kind of dog, too.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I have a scout, Leo Papille, who I worked with in Boston, and he used to always say he's the wrong kind of cat. He's a house cat.

Speaker 5 Say, is he a la cat or is he a house cat?

Speaker 1 Yeah, indoor cat, outdoor cat. Yeah, you want to.
You need Rottweilers, Pit Bulls.

Speaker 4 It was John Thompson that said, like, you can, you can get one of those guys and win a championship. If you have two of them on the same team, they can get you fired, though.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So be careful with two. They're all fighting each other.
That's interesting. Yeah.
Hank, you got one last question?

Speaker 6 Yeah, the only thing I was going to ask about is just I like hearing the stories about the old garden versus the new garden, like the home, the homecorn advantage, the heat.

Speaker 6 I always wish I got to go there.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I mean, that Lakers game, you know, where it was 100 and something degrees. Yeah, that was crazy.

Speaker 5 But the old garden was just more, it was just steeper.

Speaker 5 It felt like they were right on top of you. You know, we had the smoke going on in the arena.

Speaker 5 You had all the dead spots all over the floor.

Speaker 1 Would you know you knew all the dead spots?

Speaker 5 No, no. Like we didn't know the dead spots because we never practiced there, but we knew there were dead spots.

Speaker 5 And so I think that's an advantage. I mean, there was a guy, I remember Isaiah Thomas coming down one time and, you know, doing his dance with the ball, and he loses the ball.

Speaker 5 Like, we knew not to do that. Right.
You know, like, it's not a normal floor. So, but that might have been our only advantage, but we didn't know where the dead spots were.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. That's a good question.

Speaker 5 None of us were that good at ball handlers anyway.

Speaker 1 Kyrie Kyrie would have to know.

Speaker 4 Is Kyrie the most talented ball handler you've ever seen?

Speaker 5 He's up there for sure. I'm trying to think.
There's a lot of good ones.

Speaker 5 But, I mean, Kyrie was, he's a magician with the ball. He's really fun to watch.
And he has really strong hands. So, like, you know, in traffic, he hardly ever loses the ball.

Speaker 5 And, yeah, he's a beautiful player. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Did you get as personally offended when he stomped on Lucky as Hank did? Hank was like, you couldn't talk to him for a week.

Speaker 5 Is that right?

Speaker 4 Yeah, he was so upset what's your stat like after he stomped on lucky he hasn't won a game there

Speaker 6 pretty sure that's yeah

Speaker 5 good stats i'm not i mean um i'm grateful that kyrie gave us a chance and he uh he he was he was great for the first year and a half and like there's some things went wrong he talked with me about it and like i don't hold any grudges at all okay so hank will just hold the grudge for stomping on lucky hank will get over it yeah no he won't

Speaker 1 he definitely won't like it can also be for giving but he stepped on Lucky. That's the difference between players and executives and guys who are on that side versus fans.
Fans will never get over it.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I mean, I would get over it just because I know all the circumstance and I know Kyrie and

Speaker 5 what he did to help us. And

Speaker 5 yeah, I hold no grudges.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but stumping on Lucky.

Speaker 4 Yeah, he stepped right on right on that leprechaun's face.

Speaker 1 Lucky shouldn't have been standing there. Yeah.
What did Lucky was the Lucky do to instigate that? That's what we need to ask. It's a symbol.
It's a symbol.

Speaker 4 I do have one last, last question. How often do you get unsolicited advice from fans on what to do with this?

Speaker 1 Oh, wow. All the time.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 Yeah. And I like it.
I think it's fun. Really? Yeah.
There's some good ideas. There's some not-so-good ideas, but there's, but fans, they love that stuff.

Speaker 5 I mean, the fans care more in the world we live in today more about.

Speaker 5 the trades and the draft and the free agency and lottery than they do the games. It's incredible how much of a following there is in the NBA and in the NFL just with all of that chatter.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 And so I like it. I enjoy it.

Speaker 4 Has there been like a really good suggestion that somebody's given you?

Speaker 5 Yeah, I mean, I get them sometimes from kids at schools,

Speaker 5 going to watch games, and college kids, they come up with some very good ideas. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Here's a suggestion. Let's bring back some paint play and maybe some mid-range.
Just zig while everyone zags. No more threes.

Speaker 5 Well, there's teams that are doing that. I think it's getting,

Speaker 5 coming that direction. I think that it's not like exclusively threes, but

Speaker 5 I think there was a three craze, and I think the three is still a great thing if you've got great three-point shooters. But you have to have both.
You've got to be able to score in lots of ways.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I just don't want to see basketball become like baseball where it's some teams and more like college teams are playing this way where it's like no shots that aren't threes or layups.

Speaker 1 It's like, I mean, there's got to be something more. There has to be something more.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I mean, I've always fought the analytics on that. You know, the analytics will say the mid-range shot is a 40-something percent shot or around there.
And

Speaker 5 like, get better at it then. Yeah.
Shoot 50%. Shoot 55%.

Speaker 1 You know, like there's a lot of Durant. There's a Margaroza.

Speaker 5 Yeah, there's a lot of players that shoot a higher percentage than that

Speaker 5 that can be very efficient with your team at mid-range, and especially at times of the game.

Speaker 5 There's times of the game where two points is crucial or one point. Like you got a seven or eight point lead, and it's hard, like get the get the 55% shot instead of the 40% shot.

Speaker 5 So, um, yeah, I think that it's coming in that direction.

Speaker 1 Yeah. All right.
Well, Danny, thank you so much. This was honestly, we've like I said, we've been trying to get you on for a while now, and this didn't disappoint.
We appreciate it very much.

Speaker 1 Anytime you're in Chicago, we'd love to have you back on. Okay.
And let's

Speaker 5 get crew on.

Speaker 5 We need to get crew on.

Speaker 1 We also need to go. Let's go judge Hank's dunking ability.
Oh, yeah. Give us the scouts' take on this.

Speaker 5 Hank, I gotta see how far you are.

Speaker 1 It's gonna be great. Bear in mind.

Speaker 4 Bear in mind that what you're watching today is probably like five inches better than what it was three months ago.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I worked out this morning, too.

Speaker 1 Oh, here comes the excuse. Yeah, so like you're giving an excuse to Danny Ainge, who was basically the best at every single sport.
Yeah, you worked out today.

Speaker 4 Yeah, just go do it.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 1 All right. Thanks, Danny.
All right. Thank you.

Speaker 14 This college football season, we are feeling the cheesyest with Cheez-It, the ultimate irresistible football watching snack.

Speaker 2 Cheez-It brings 100% real cheese and deliciousness to every game.

Speaker 14 Fuel your game day cravings with cheesy, crunchy, salty deliciousness. And fuel your Cheez-It fandom at Cheez-It.com.
Use code STOOL25 for 20% off your order.

Speaker 1 Okay, let's wrap it up with some pardon your take.

Speaker 1 Reminder,

Speaker 1 we're back on Friday, and we also have 35 minutes of Bill Walton from our 2017 interview after numbers here coming up.

Speaker 6 Hey, Big Big Cat PFT and the boys.

Speaker 1 I have a college football fanbase question.

Speaker 6 Left out a co-host. I'm a massive Colorado Buffalo fan.

Speaker 6 I have always been, even before Deion showed up, I've enjoyed seeing Colorado being brought out more in conversation, but now it's mainly people just hating on Colorado.

Speaker 6 Would you rather be a fan of a team that no one talks about or be a fan of the team that everyone hates?

Speaker 4 That's a good question.

Speaker 1 I would rather be a fan of a team that everyone hates if the hate was because we were winning.

Speaker 1 This isn't that.

Speaker 4 If the hate was because you talked a big game and you never did anything. You didn't win.
That'd be tough. Yeah.
That'd be really tough.

Speaker 4 Right now, as a fan of many teams that nobody cares about, it's not that bad.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Colorado is so weird to me because Colorado...

Speaker 1 And this is maybe just, you know, the 90s kidding me. Like, I remember when Colorado was a big deal and Cordell Stewart and all those teams and Rashawn Salam

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 Westbrook. Yeah, Westbrook.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 it's crazy they're not good because Boulder is like the coolest place on earth and their colors are awesome and their stadium is awesome.

Speaker 1 I know that doesn't actually make a college football program and in my dumb brain it does. Like, do you have a cool stadium, cool colors?

Speaker 1 And is it a cool place to go to school? Okay, you should be good at football.

Speaker 4 Well, that's also what would make people hate it more if you were also good at football. Yeah.
It's like you can't have everything.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think that this type of hate is not the best hate. You want to like people,

Speaker 1 if you're Alabama, you probably love being hated. That's a fun hate to have.
Because you can always. Georgia, fun hate.

Speaker 4 You can always just be like, well, we're going to kick your ass. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Michigan this past year, that's a very fun hate. Us against the world and you're winning.

Speaker 1 But this one is not as fun of a hate. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Yeah. For a while, for my teams, it's been us against the world and we've just gotten our teeth kicked in by the world.

Speaker 6 The world keeps winning.

Speaker 4 The world minus 2000. Yeah.

Speaker 6 I know it's late, but Max's Sixers ruined the NBA lottery.

Speaker 6 The process has failed like everything in Philly lately, and it pisses me off even more that because of those losers, they changed the whole lottery system.

Speaker 6 I've watched so much bad basketball and I never got to see Blake Dunk because he was hurt, and Detroit is in its longest championship drought as a city ever.

Speaker 6 I hope that Wemby could save us, but instead all I got was another kick to the dick. Fuck the NBA, fuck the lottery, fuck the Sixers, and fuck you, Max.

Speaker 4 Did Philly ruin the Detroit Pistons? That's a fair part in your take.

Speaker 1 Yes. Like, if you're a Pistons fan, you have a fair gripe to be like, hey,

Speaker 1 the way the lottery worked for all these years, we should have been in that lottery and we should have gotten Wemby.

Speaker 9 How about you just be better? Well, no,

Speaker 1 but you didn't do that. But the process, that's what I didn't, you didn't.

Speaker 1 You literally were worse

Speaker 1 to game the system.

Speaker 4 You ruined it for the rest of us.

Speaker 1 You pulled the ladder up on everyone else.

Speaker 1 That's not true. Yeah, you did.
You climbed the ladder by getting number one.

Speaker 1 You sucked.

Speaker 4 You sucked so flagrantly that you ruined every other shitty team ever.

Speaker 1 You're the baby boomers of NBA. That's the only team that admitted it.

Speaker 1 But you understand this Pistons point. This is a fair pardon-your take.

Speaker 1 They have suffered, and they just wanted a shot, a good shot at Wemby for being so bad, and all they keep getting is the fifth pick.

Speaker 9 Sorry.

Speaker 1 I don't give a fuck about it. Yeah, you don't sound sorry.
I don't give a fuck about it.

Speaker 1 Also, one correction on this guy's take. The process isn't over yet, right?

Speaker 1 We're still processing? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 The process of the process is not concluded yet.

Speaker 1 Sorry, that was a cigarette Snickers, Burp.

Speaker 4 The process of the process worked. The results of the process

Speaker 4 are still out. Thank you.

Speaker 1 We still have not decided if the process worked or not.

Speaker 1 Until Joel Mbi, until how many more years?

Speaker 1 Unfortunately, PFT, I think it's in perpetuity because it's until Joel Mbi will play for the Sixers, then he'll demand to leave because the Sixers fans will be so mean to him, and then his trade assets will be part of the process.

Speaker 1 Got it. And then the next guy will be

Speaker 1 drafted. So they're in a process for the Sixers fans, as long as some piece of the process is still alive and they win a title in 50 years, they can be like, the process worked.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Precisely.

Speaker 1 Jesus.

Speaker 9 Precisely.

Speaker 4 I do feel bad, but if it's any consolation to Detroit, San Antonio was always going to get Wimby. Yeah.
That's just, that's how it was going to work. And you, Jared.

Speaker 1 You know what we need? We need all the current Sixers right now to just retire. Then the process is over.

Speaker 1 How would that not be?

Speaker 9 Disbanded them. No, I just don't want.

Speaker 9 I disagree.

Speaker 1 Right, but if they did that, then we would be done with the process.

Speaker 4 Sure. But also, if they disbanded the team and they all quit, then you would never have another playoff loss again, and that would be a win.

Speaker 9 Or if the Sixers just win, the process is done.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we don't want that. Yeah, you do.
No, we don't.

Speaker 6 All right, when with this one.

Speaker 1 Imagine if Max won.

Speaker 4 What's next? He's going to get the loss.

Speaker 1 I haven't won. I know I haven't.
Well, actually, technically, I have won on this show. Yeah, Cubs.
Won a World Series. That's huge.

Speaker 4 But

Speaker 9 the Hank Celtis have seen nothing but success. I have seen nothing but success.

Speaker 4 Raise your hand if your teams won a championship on part of my take.

Speaker 1 Pug, what are you raising your hand for? Oh, the NIT. Yes, Pug.
Yes, the NIT.

Speaker 1 Oh, Pug.

Speaker 1 Memes?

Speaker 1 Georgia won back-to-back national championship. Oh, yeah.
Georgia fan. Yep.
Yep. Hell yes.

Speaker 1 Max, did you want to raise your hand?

Speaker 9 Next part of your take.

Speaker 4 Okay. And Jake's P's are still in it.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Still in it. Still in it.

Speaker 8 Now I'm just won by being on this podcast. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Are they still?

Speaker 4 Are they calling him the P's now? I think that's slowly Brooks kept going. But it started to spread a little bit.
I've seen like three or four other people call him Psyche.

Speaker 1 It feels weird. Yeah, but when Brooks said it on here,

Speaker 4 I just went with it. Yeah.

Speaker 8 But I've never heard that before that.

Speaker 1 Shane is going to win because he's got Jim Harbaugh. Yep.
So, Max, yeah. Have you ever gotten this in real life? No.

Speaker 6 Close, though. Would you rather, last one,

Speaker 6 a series, NBA or NHL, that ends in a sweep, but all four games were closely contested and entertaining throughout, relatable, or a series that goes seven games, but the first six games were all blowouts.

Speaker 6 Cheers, Tyler.

Speaker 4 Is it which would you rather watch?

Speaker 6 Would you rather?

Speaker 1 Seven.

Speaker 1 Because he said the seventh game could be great.

Speaker 6 It just says the first six were all blowouts.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so seven. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Also, in a seven-game series, you get a lot of weird storylines that pop up and creep up and a lot of stuff to talk about and get excited about.

Speaker 1 A four-game sweep where all games were closely contested and entertaining throughout is a great experience. I wonder why you're saying that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I'm over that. We call that the Lakers.

Speaker 1 How far away were the Lakers?

Speaker 4 Two years in a row. Back-to-back,

Speaker 4 almost best team in the NBA. They lost.

Speaker 1 That didn't. They lost the team that lost to the team that lost to the team.

Speaker 1 But that didn't even. If the Nuggets Nuggets won it all, the Lakers could be like, we were so close.

Speaker 1 But they literally, if the Mavs lose to the Celtics, the Lakers lost to the maximum amount of teams.

Speaker 4 But that's so small-minded of you, Big Cat. The only reason that the Nuggets lost in seven games, by the way, is because they were exhausted

Speaker 4 playing against the Lakers.

Speaker 1 But I just realized that it would be the maximum amount of teams that they lost to.

Speaker 1 Tough,

Speaker 1 yeah, every team after lost.

Speaker 1 Tough.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Max, do I I owe you a number? This is the last one? No. That was last week.
All right.

Speaker 1 I wanted 20 so bad to happen. Yeah, but it would have been great.

Speaker 1 All right. Let's do numbers for 32.

Speaker 5 18.

Speaker 1 56. Wow.

Speaker 6 Banner 18, Jake. 6.

Speaker 1 Ooh, nice.

Speaker 6 I gave you a second.

Speaker 1 Max, would you like to trade 20 for 56 right now? One for one? No. Three.
Are you sure? Yes.

Speaker 1 Never give a man two numbers that you like.

Speaker 5 99 pug.

Speaker 1 What was your number, PFT? 32. I'm looking at 56.

Speaker 9 Three. I'm looking at 56 right now, though.
I don't like that.

Speaker 1 I'm picking three.

Speaker 4 Max, this lottery machine is so far in your head.

Speaker 1 So far in his head.

Speaker 1 What'd you say, Max?

Speaker 1 What'd you say? I didn't say anything. What'd you pick? Oh, 20.

Speaker 1 And I have 56, his other number. Okay.
I'm picking three.

Speaker 1 35.

Speaker 4 We're good for half a second.

Speaker 1 35.

Speaker 4 Love you guys.

Speaker 1 I thought that said 56.

Speaker 1 Okay, we have our special re-release of our 2017 interview with Bill Walton. If you missed it when we did the interview, it's must listen.
There's 35 minutes of it.

Speaker 1 Also, like I said, we never released it on video, so go watch it where we have all the video. So, y'all know that we're big fans of Cracker Barrel.

Speaker 1 And this holiday season, I will be sat at their table with a big plate of country-fried turkey.

Speaker 2 And Brandon, I'll be right there with you, and I'll check it off my Christmas list in the country store while I'm at it. It'll make a nice holiday tradition.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's so cute of you.

Speaker 2 Enjoy all the more holiday traditions only at Cracker Barrel.

Speaker 1 All right. Wow.

Speaker 1 I am the luckiest guy on earth. I'm at the MGM Grand.
I've got a view of the Statue of Liberty outside my room. I'm fired up, and I'm with a couple of guys named Dan.

Speaker 1 Dan, right? Yeah. Big Cat.
Big Cat? Yeah. Dan? How many names you have? Two.
And PFT? You nailed it. Is that like a restaurant, like PF Chang's or something? Yeah, you can think of it that way.

Speaker 4 You actually, you know, my name better than our lawyer does.

Speaker 1 So, thanks. So I'm sure everyone can tell.

Speaker 1 I'm sure everyone can tell the man on the mic. I'm Bill.
That's Bill with two L. From San Diego.
From San Diego. And I'm the luckiest guy on earth.
NBA legend, college basketball legend.

Speaker 1 No, no, no, man. I was lucky.
Oh, you're a legend. I was lucky because I had

Speaker 1 fantastic parents. My first coach was the greatest coach I ever had.
The message in my life was Chick Hearn, the most positive, optimistic, happy guy, a guy who had a lot of reason to be sad.

Speaker 1 Chick lost both his children when they were in their 30s and 40s. And then John Wooden.

Speaker 1 John Wooden was this remarkable person that I had no idea what I had because I grew up thinking that everything was perfect. Did John Wooden's ears always, were they always very large?

Speaker 1 I never noticed that. Did you notice at the end is the lobes got I think that's something that just happened

Speaker 1 in old age. Yeah.
I never noticed that.

Speaker 1 I made a conscious decision in my life when I was 21 and I graduated. I was Coach Wooden's easiest recruit.
I became his worst nightmare and I drove the poor guy to an early grave at 99.

Speaker 1 But here was a guy who,

Speaker 1 when I was 21, when I graduated from UCLA, you know, he had his pyramid of success, which we thought was crazy. He had his seven-point creed, which we thought was, what's this?

Speaker 1 He had his two sets of threes that did make sense. Don't lie, don't cheat, don't steal, don't whine, don't complain, don't make excuses.
He had his endless maxims.

Speaker 1 He had his tools to overcome the adversity and the tough times. I mean, he wrote everything down.

Speaker 1 And he was an English teacher by profession who happened to have young people under his athletic supervision in the afternoon. But here was this guy who on the day I graduated,

Speaker 1 he wrote a maxim for me to Bill Walton. It's the things you learn after you know it all that count.
John Wooden. And that still sits on my desk at home.

Speaker 1 And although home these days is at the MGM Grand. Where it's just like spectacular.
Where we are.

Speaker 1 And right behind me, we have...

Speaker 1 Red Rock Canyon State College.

Speaker 1 You actually said it. So when you came in, you sat down and you said, I don't want to look.
I want my seat to have its back to the window. Otherwise, I'm just going to stare out there.

Speaker 1 Concentration, focus, discipline. That's what I really need work on.
Okay. And then the clock.
What about the clock?

Speaker 1 I live by the clock. You sat down and you put a clock

Speaker 1 preparing to fail. Okay.
And you got to know what the time is because you have to know. And this was another thing I got from John Wooden.

Speaker 1 Because when we would go play as children, and I played all the time, basketball was my religion.

Speaker 1 The gym was my church. I love basketball.

Speaker 1 It was the easiest thing I've ever done, besides academics in my life. And

Speaker 1 my challenges have been orthopedic health. I've had 37 orthopedic surgeries.
Both my ankles are fused. I've got a replaced knee as well now.

Speaker 1 And now I have a replaced and brand new, reconstructed, rebuilt spine. My other big challenge in life was...

Speaker 1 My speech impediment. I'm a lifelong stutterer.
And I couldn't say a word. I couldn't say hello.
I I couldn't say thank you until I was 28 years old.

Speaker 1 And then Marty Glickman, one of the greatest broadcasters, one of the greatest human beings ever. Please check out his book, Fastest Kid on the Block.
Please check out his movie on HBO, Glickman.

Speaker 1 Marty's now passed. And when Marty did pass,

Speaker 1 they came to Coach Wooden for a comment. Because, you know, Coach is so...

Speaker 1 He is so experienced, so worldly, and so old that he knew everybody.

Speaker 1 And so Marty, who completely changed changed the world of broadcasting and humanity and spirit and ethics and moral clarity, when he passed, they asked Coach Wooden about him and Coach was going on and telling the story about how great a person and humanitarian and philanthropist and broadcaster and really everything that Marty Lickman was.

Speaker 1 But then he said, he turned it and he said, but I've got a problem with Marty because Marty, he taught Bill Walton how to speak, but now he's passed away and he didn't tell Bill Walton how to stop talking.

Speaker 1 That's a fair thing. So Dan,

Speaker 1 Big Cat, PFT. Yes.
How's the restaurant business? The restaurant's going well. Go ahead.

Speaker 1 I love to eat.

Speaker 1 I eat so much. I wish I didn't have to eat so much.

Speaker 4 If I were to open a restaurant, it would just be nachos. Just nachos and buffalo wings.
Really? You'd have a deep fry.

Speaker 1 You guys are so young. You're probably not into health food, man.
You've got to get into health. You got to get into sustainability.

Speaker 4 What does that mean? I'm not into health food or do you think that I'm going to call me fat?

Speaker 1 Is that what you're saying? No. Okay.

Speaker 1 I know that you're really

Speaker 1 into health food. You're a text, right? You're fat.
You're a bicyclist, right?

Speaker 4 You're an avid bicyclist. I love bicyclists.
So me and you, we actually have a little connection here.

Speaker 4 You lost your bike when you went to Hawaii. You remember that?

Speaker 1 Oh, one of the worst. No, not one of the worst customer experience ever.
But I got it. That's why we have Twitter accounts.
Yeah, I saw you on Twitter and I called the resort.

Speaker 4 I called the resort for you. Thank you.
And I was like, my friend Bill lost his bike. You have to help him get it back.
So I essentially found your bike for you.

Speaker 1 PFT, you're my man. Statue Statue of Liberty, shining the light.
There we go in hand here. Have you guys seen that picture at the Bill Graham Traveling Exhibit?

Speaker 1 Bill Graham, the guy who created the concert world experience that we have today. I was at Desert Trip.
How about you guys? It was over the top.

Speaker 1 You have become somewhat of a viral phenomenon.

Speaker 1 What is I have a

Speaker 1 virus now?

Speaker 1 No, viral. Yeah, so

Speaker 1 I L E.

Speaker 1 I just had viral pneumonia, but it was the worst.

Speaker 1 Let's put it this way: you are wholly unique in the way you announce games and you do your color play with Dave Pash. Who? Are there moments where you

Speaker 1 who's the guy you mentioned?

Speaker 1 Your co-host.

Speaker 1 What's his name? Is it not Dave Pash? I don't know. He's messing with you, Big Cat.

Speaker 1 He screwed up the name before.

Speaker 4 Oh, now we're going to deflect it onto the cat.

Speaker 1 No, but that's why now I'm name conscious. Good radio.
So you're Big Cat. I feel with two L's as a PFT.
You nailed it. Pure, fine, and talent.

Speaker 1 So go on, when you go off in the middle of the broadcast, do you ever get lost in your own mind and you almost forget where you are? I get lost all the time. And

Speaker 1 it's unbelievable to listen to. People love to listen to it.
It's late night on the East Coast.

Speaker 1 It's fun to get lost.

Speaker 1 And it's important to get lost.

Speaker 5 But

Speaker 1 getting lost

Speaker 1 implies that I know where I am to begin with.

Speaker 1 And that's a giant leap of faith right there.

Speaker 5 But

Speaker 1 I love education. I love knowledge.
I love science. I love facts.
I love politics. I love music.
I was just upstairs

Speaker 1 before I came down here, and I woke up at the crack of dawn. I was up late last night working, and I woke up at the crack of dawn knowing that I had a chance to be on this special show.

Speaker 1 And so as I'm clearing my life and trying to wash away the sins, trying to cleanse the stains of my life and try to come down here and be able to shine that light.

Speaker 1 Because as that light comes in, you can't keep it. Your job, your duty is to reflect it.
And so

Speaker 1 I put on my iTunes and I found John Fogarty and he was singing and he had guys singing with him, and it was just over the top, and it took me back to a new place.

Speaker 4 Saw a sound bite the other day or heard a sound bite the other day of you saying that there's a lot of synchronicity between the NBA and your favorite band, The Grateful Dead.

Speaker 1 Yeah. It's not just the NBA, it's basketball.
Basketball sport. So I want to play quickly.
Basketball more than any other sport. Because, see, the other sports, you're standing around.

Speaker 1 Cycling, I like speed. Right.
I'm a speed freak. I want to keep going.

Speaker 1 It's a drop.

Speaker 1 It makes you. Cycling rush.

Speaker 1 Kind of progress.

Speaker 1 But it makes you so high.

Speaker 1 When you're riding your bike, you see those mountains over there. When you're riding your bike straight up those mountains, that makes you so high.

Speaker 1 When you're playing basketball and there's 20,000 people there yelling and screaming, even if there's no people there, it's the greatest thing in the world because you're moving and you're doing something and you can make a positive contribution on every single play.

Speaker 1 These other sports, they just stand around.

Speaker 1 They stop all that. I hate that.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I want to play a quick game with you in that vein.

Speaker 1 Who's the ref?

Speaker 4 I'm going to name four NBA teams, and you tell me which Grateful Dead song matches up best with MS soundtrack.

Speaker 1 Let me just say

Speaker 1 that I am not good at thinking on my feet.

Speaker 1 I would disagree with you. I'll help you.
I'm not good at thinking on my feet. And so the answers I'm going to give now.
No wrong answers.

Speaker 1 What's your favorite Grateful Dead year, by the way, before we start this game? This year. Okay.
Next one. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's like, first of all, it's all one song. I remember it.
We were there.

Speaker 1 It was at Pauly Pavilion, right? Life is just one long song. Right.
It's just different. Versus.

Speaker 1 Just wait a second. Let me tell this story real quick.
We're at Pauly Pavilion, right? And the Grateful Dead, every year we're at UCLA. The Grateful Dead would come and play at Pauly Pavilion.

Speaker 1 I didn't know him at the time. I was too shy.
I had opportunities to meet him. I became a fan, which is my first dead show when I was 15, 1967, Summer of Love.
It was just incredibly great.

Speaker 1 And so

Speaker 1 my life was never the same again.

Speaker 1 And then over the years, there's was always these opportunities to meet him, but I was just too shy. And I couldn't talk.

Speaker 1 And I just, so I, I just, I was a very, I was very much of a loner as a person on the stage, on the court. It's fantastic.
You know, the lights all shining on me.

Speaker 1 Otherwise, I'm heading back to my hotel room. I'm going to the library.
I'm going to read a book. I'm going to go to the beach by myself.
I'm going to just be by myself.

Speaker 1 And so, but that changed when I learned how to speak. Anyway, so Coach Wooden,

Speaker 1 when the Great Food would come in and play at Pavilion, they would use our locker rooms as their dressing room. And Coach Wooden would come in the next day.

Speaker 1 And he'd say, what's that smell? I said, nothing, Coach. There's nothing to see here.
And so,

Speaker 1 but

Speaker 1 we were out in the audience. We had in the audience one of these shows at Pauly Pavilion.

Speaker 1 The Great Foot Dead were just all over the place. Just one of those spectacular ricocheting journeys through the universe, right?

Speaker 1 Where you're bouncing off Pluto and Mars and going into other solar systems. And it's just like, wow, let's go.
And then they would come back and go out and come back.

Speaker 1 And somebody in the crowd said, wow, hey, you know, they already played that song. And somebody else said, hey, man, it's all one song.
That would blow my mind right there.

Speaker 4 Love it. That's an all-time moment.

Speaker 1 That's the one you might never.

Speaker 1 That's the kind of stuff that happens in my life every day.

Speaker 4 That sounds amazing.

Speaker 1 Every day.

Speaker 4 We're going to play a quick game. I'm going to name an NBA team, and you're going to tell me which Grateful Dead song it makes.

Speaker 1 Okay, i'll try but bear in mind that if for the people listening at home the people keeping score at home if you write these answers down

Speaker 1 tomorrow there might be different answers yeah i'm just going to tap into your brain right at this very moment okay because that's one of the problems that's one of the problems in my life is the test is always changing right the test the answers change the questions change and and i love that yeah okay so first one we'll go we'll make an easy one san antio spurs

Speaker 1 i'm gonna play this game with you Yeah, okay. San Antonio Spurs.
Okay.

Speaker 1 I love Griffin. Touch of Grey.

Speaker 1 I love Greg Popovich.

Speaker 1 That guy is awesome. And I don't know if you know Peter Holt's story, the owner of the team.
That guy. Do we have time to tell this team? Yeah, of course.
We have as much time as you want.

Speaker 1 We have nowhere to go. Okay, so Peter, you know, you talk about,

Speaker 1 you know, the song. You talk about the...

Speaker 1 the sustainability and the dream and something special. I mean, this franchise was just floundering.
They were going to fold. They had nothing going on.

Speaker 1 Peter Holt, he is an heir to the Caterpillar Tractor family.

Speaker 1 He is, you know, at the top. And so Peter,

Speaker 1 somehow, some way, he ends up in Vietnam

Speaker 1 in the fight. And, you know, don't ever let anybody tell you that Vietnam was fun or that Vietnam was good.

Speaker 1 It was the epitome of evil and selfishness and greed and crony capitalism and war profiteering and just

Speaker 1 all the worst of the worst. That was Vietnam.

Speaker 1 And so Peter,

Speaker 1 fortunately for him, he survives. But he comes back and ends up in San Francisco, as so many people did.
And California meet me on the burning shore, the promised land, just knocking on heaven's door.

Speaker 1 And Peter goes there and

Speaker 1 his life is never the same again.

Speaker 1 But he loses a lot if not everything

Speaker 1 including uh his family connections because the family basically just cut him out and he was just out on his own so peter like marty clickman when he had his challenges and his problems like so many of us try to do peter was able to get back up and

Speaker 1 and he got back up and started over again and he took

Speaker 1 and this is the ultimate challenge in life and this is what i've tried to do many times

Speaker 1 by taking the worst things that ever happened to you and make them into the best things that ever happened to you. When my spine failed February 24th,

Speaker 1 2008, and I went from the top, even though I had been slowly

Speaker 1 debilitating physically and I was getting worse and worse and worse, but it was on February 24th, 2008, that I got off the plane and could no no longer move.

Speaker 1 And I spent the next four and a half years trying to get back up and trying to go. And I tried everything.
And I did not understand the concept of everything until my spine.

Speaker 1 I thought I knew a lot of stuff. But when your spine fails and you're lying on that ground and you would just rather be dead.

Speaker 1 That was me. If I had a gun, I would have used it.
There was no reason for me to ever think that I was going to get better, that I had a chance. But I am all better now.

Speaker 1 And so during that time, I got fired from my job, lost my health insurance, lost everything, my dignity, self-regulation. I lost everything and just lying on the ground, nothing I could do about it.

Speaker 1 And, but now here I am. That's what, that's nine years ago.

Speaker 1 And, you know, so, and, and so, I have been able to learn this time and take it back to the other times when my ankle fusions, knee replacements, all that kind of stuff, and personal personal failures, financial failures, but to learn to take those failures and turn it around to becomes the best thing in your life.

Speaker 1 And that's what Peter Holt did. And he climbed back up, he got back in,

Speaker 1 and he bought the San Antonio Spurs. And he has created this culture, this culture of excellence, a culture of success.

Speaker 1 a culture of genius. And that's what I want to be a part of in my life.
I don't want to be a part of negativity. I don't want to be a part of intimidation.
I don't want to be a part of anger.

Speaker 1 I want to be a part of joy, of happiness. And so as we think of the song you said touch a gray, I mean, I don't know.
I can't think quickly enough. I'm going to go with trucking.
Trucking?

Speaker 1 That's true. Because of the owner and also the Spurs.
Every year they're there. They're all good.
They just keep on going. They're all good.
Okay. Okay.
What was your question, PFTI?

Speaker 4 Lakers. Now we'll do the Lakers.

Speaker 4 A little close to home for you.

Speaker 1 Do you think magic was the right hire? Absolutely. We love Magic.

Speaker 1 Everything Magic does is fit. You know, Magic is, you know, he's one of those rare beacons of hope.
I mean, look, come on. They told Magic he was going to die.
And now look at him. He's just like,

Speaker 1 magic is perfect. And you talk to David Stern.
And David Stern, all the things he's done in his life said the best thing he ever did was with Magic Johnson.

Speaker 1 And when Magic Johnson went and played in that 1992 All-Star game, Dick Enberg, our college broadcaster, one of my best friends.

Speaker 1 Dick Enver envert called that game and then don nelson coached that game and magic went out there it just was fantastic and what he's done and okay so i love magic johnson but the lakers and a great

Speaker 1 see

Speaker 1 you guys are i'm not sure you guys are deadheads i i am i don't yeah pft is not well no she's he appreciates that right i was saying like being a deadhead is a personal choice right and you know i when i first went i you know i i had listened i had heard him on the radio and the dj the dj he was the one that prompted me to go.

Speaker 1 It was Gabriel Wisdom. It was 1967.
And he said, hey, man, there's a new band. They're going to have a concert.
Let's go. Everybody got in free and it was fantastic.

Speaker 1 And I got to the front of the stage and just happiness and joy and love and peace and singing Uncle John's band.

Speaker 1 The first days are the hardest days. Don't you worry about it? No.

Speaker 1 When life looks like Easy Street, there's danger at your door. What I want to know is, are you kind and will you come with me? Come here,

Speaker 1 Uncle John's band. There we go.
I love the Lakers.

Speaker 1 So for me, my

Speaker 1 love for the Grateful Dead has always been

Speaker 1 like I'll float around and listen to other music and like other music, but whenever I turn on, whenever I put in, you know, a Grateful Dead concert or Dick's pics when it was back in those CDs,

Speaker 1 there's just something different. You know what I mean? It just feels different than all other music that you're listening listening to.
There's nothing like a Grateful Dead.

Speaker 1 There's nothing like a Grateful Dead concert. Door Graham said it best.
The Grateful Dead,

Speaker 1 they're not the best at what they do. They're the only ones that do what they do.
And you talked about Dick's pick, so you know Dick Lamphila. Yeah.
Okay. So let me tell you how this works.

Speaker 1 Because, you know, I'm not sure. How old are you? Are you 92? I'm 32.
No way. Yeah.
See the gray hairs? By the way, do you hate Donna? Who? Donna gotcha. I love Donna.
Come on.

Speaker 1 Be honest. I love Donna.

Speaker 1 Please. Okay.

Speaker 1 No time to hate. Okay.

Speaker 1 Only positive.

Speaker 1 All right. All right.
Okay.

Speaker 1 I'm not a Donna fan, if you couldn't tell.

Speaker 4 He'll listen to you whine one time, but get it. I thought she was.

Speaker 1 I'm not a Donna.

Speaker 1 Brent McLean was my favorite. One of my favorites.

Speaker 1 I wish they would play his songs again. They don't play them anymore.
And I'm just sad because I love those songs. But let me tell you the story of Dick Lottville.

Speaker 1 And this is sort of how this whole life works. That was actually, by the way, the first time you didn't smile in the entire interview was when I bashed Donna.

Speaker 1 No. I'm standing up for Donna.
Yeah, I know. I appreciate that.
I love that's a ride or die guy. And as soon as they turn this camera off, I'm going to punch you in the face.

Speaker 1 So we're on tour with the dead, and we're up at Red Rocks. And I think it was in the 80s.
I'm not sure. Somebody will know.

Speaker 1 Red Rocks, fantastic. Three days, three nights in a row.
And everybody's there. Camping, parties, hotels.
Let's go. Just having the time of our lives.
Show starts first night.

Speaker 1 Bam, the heavens explode. Thunder, lightning, just torrential historic, epic, monumental rain, right? Just pounding all night long.

Speaker 1 And, but the fans, they all just stayed. It was, they, not a one left.
And it was, it was the Grateful Dead. And it was just better than perfect.
And what we live for, it was our team.

Speaker 1 It was our guys. It was our leaders.
It was our beacons. And let's go to the promised land and let's celebrate.

Speaker 1 And so, but it just rained, all just floods, water, rivers coming right down through the Red Rocks amphitheater bowl there, this phenomenal place.

Speaker 1 And so everybody, the concert's over and everybody goes back and they're looking at the weather report and talking to the guys and the police and everything.

Speaker 1 And they just said, look, this rain is going to keep going for the next three days. And so at two or three o'clock in the morning,

Speaker 1 the band makes the decision, look, let's cancel Red Rocks and move the whole show downtown to McNichols Arena, which was the NBA Arena at the time.

Speaker 1 And so everybody in the middle of the night gets up, drives back out to Red Rocks, works all night through the dawn, tearing everything. Grateful that that's a big production.
That's a big show.

Speaker 1 And tons of equipment, tons of lighting, everything.

Speaker 1 Work all day, tear it down, drive it down into town, set it up at McNichols. And at the announced starting time,

Speaker 1 they were ready. And they come out on the, and it just, but everybody's beat, and everybody's dead tired, and the all the deadheads, we're all still wet from the night before.

Speaker 1 But the music starts up, and the joy, and the happiness, and the rainbows, and the people, and the smiles, and the love, and the spinners, and just everything is just fantastic, right?

Speaker 1 So I'm just cruising through the whole arena, just listening to the music play and riding the wave, and just having the time of my life as they're just going through, again, ricocheting off the comets and the stars and the planets and the universe, whichever one we're in that night.

Speaker 1 And I come around this corner, and there's this guy.

Speaker 1 Looks a lot like you, big cat.

Speaker 1 And he's walking right toward me. He's got these dazed, glazed eyes, and he's just like fierce and just intense.
And I can just feel it. I can smash it.
Sweaty man. Sweaty.
And sweaty.

Speaker 1 And I look at him. I'm powerful, handsome.

Speaker 1 I look at him. And he has got this shirt on.
And

Speaker 1 I stop. We come face to face.
So we stop. And I look at him.
And I said, that is the coolest shirt I've ever seen in my life.

Speaker 1 This was like an airbrushed history of the world through the prism of the Grateful Dead.

Speaker 1 Pyramids and exploding bus stops, rainbows, serpents coming out. And it was just as wild a shirt as you could possibly imagine.
I said, that's the coolest shirt I've ever seen.

Speaker 1 I had no idea who he was. He just looks at me, doesn't say a word, and rips off his shirt and gives it to me.
Wow. And then he just goes on his way.
Was he also

Speaker 1 suits all? Did it shoot it? No, no.

Speaker 1 He was like a little short guy like Big Cat.

Speaker 1 And so

Speaker 1 the night goes on and I put the shirt on, right? And I'm wearing the shirt. And so, and it was a fantastic shirt.
People are

Speaker 1 talking all night long about my shirt. And

Speaker 1 the show's over. And so now

Speaker 1 we're all leaving. We're down the stage, out the back door, through the the gauntlet, all the fans reaching and grabbing and trying to get to all the autographs and take the pictures.

Speaker 1 And the vans are waiting right there. And we're getting in the vans.
And I look over and there's that guy who gave me the shirt.

Speaker 1 And he's standing on the front of the rail, reaching in, looking still with no shirt on. Yes.

Speaker 1 And I look at him and I said, you're coming with us. And so I picked him up by the back of the neck and lifted him up over the barrier, threw him in the van and says, let's go.

Speaker 1 We got back to the hotel. I introduced him to everybody all around.
They looked at my shirt and said, oh my God, that's the coolest shirt ever, Bill. And they hired him on the spot.

Speaker 1 That was Dick Latvilla, and he went on to become the curator of the vault. Wow.

Speaker 4 That's amazing. Wow.
You never know.

Speaker 1 So, people who don't know, Dick, he basically was the librarian for all of Grateful Dead's music.

Speaker 1 His job was to sit in the vault all day long and listen to all the old concerts and decide which ones were good enough to put out as as re-releases.

Speaker 4 Sometimes the universe just kind of works together like that, doesn't it?

Speaker 1 That's the way all of our universe works. We just have to keep our eyes open and we just have to keep our shoulders back and our heads up.

Speaker 1 That's also the most Grateful Dead story ever because they basically pick like the highest guy in the world to listen to all their music. No, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 That's the way it always works with Grateful Dead. I promise.
Pain is no good, and don't ever discount pain because the challenge in life

Speaker 1 is to get out of pain.

Speaker 4 Gotcha.

Speaker 1 No, we're busy in here, please.

Speaker 1 I'm with PFT and Big Cat.

Speaker 4 Housekeeping is trying to get in.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they're breaking into our room. Okay, the Forces of Evil.

Speaker 1 Let's do another team. Oh, yeah.
I forgot about it.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's like team.

Speaker 4 We jump back.

Speaker 1 And we get a story, which is exactly what we wanted this interview to be. No, thank you.

Speaker 1 No, thank you. We're busy.
Force of Evil. I have a gift called Professor.
A gift. Oh, a gift.
Okay. Let's see what it is.
all right well let's see what the gift is hank is gonna go check it out

Speaker 1 by the way please please have the security forces check this please these forces of evil they get at you in lots of different ways

Speaker 1 what do we got for the gap yeah

Speaker 4 oh it's a can of beer nuts let's open it up do you

Speaker 1 save pash ever have a talk about the fact that he doesn't believe in evolution

Speaker 4 Thank you.

Speaker 1 I had to wait till a gift came in to ask you the hardest thing. Oh, my gosh.
Do you have that bottle of champagne that just came in?

Speaker 5 I love discourse.

Speaker 1 Okay. I love it.

Speaker 4 I love. Oh, I meant intercourse, but yeah, discourse.

Speaker 1 I love that too.

Speaker 1 I love my wife.

Speaker 1 My wife is fantastic. Can you imagine being married to me? What are they bringing you guys?

Speaker 1 A bottle of tequila, some chocolates and stuff. Oh, my gosh.
If you can't do it for breakfast, you can't do it all day long, don't do it at all, guys. That's right.

Speaker 1 So, do you talk to them at all about the fact that we don't believe in evolution?

Speaker 1 No, no, no, man. I don't care.
No, no.

Speaker 1 You've been to the Galapagos, right? Oh, one of the great trips ever. Yes.

Speaker 1 You need to take him there. I didn't know him, man.
No, he's not. He should take him there.
He's very young. He's very young.

Speaker 1 Look, you know,

Speaker 1 look,

Speaker 1 we're trying to bring people along. We're trying to get...

Speaker 1 My job... in life is to be a human forklift and a human solar panel.

Speaker 6 I'm a road grader. Wow.

Speaker 1 So like, well, I'm more one of those traffic cones that's kind of like got dirt on it. And everyone's like, that's the saddest traffic cone.
But think of the forklift.

Speaker 1 A forklift picks things and people up and puts them in a better place.

Speaker 1 Think of it as a solar. Solar energy is the biggest no-brainer in the history of the world.
Are you kidding?

Speaker 1 It's so sunny out there. Right.
More solar energy hits the earth every day. But now let me stop here.
Every day. Don't whine.

Speaker 4 Don't complain.

Speaker 1 You could do the sun or we could just go and burn coal. We could start another war in the Middle East.
Right. I'm choosing the sun.
Okay. I'm choosing salt.
Tomato tomato here.

Speaker 4 Or we could start a new ice age, kill all the humans, and then dinosaurs come back, then they die, then millions of years after that, we've got more oil.

Speaker 6 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And maybe Dave Pash will believe in our minds. What kind of trip are you guys? Yeah, we play it.
You guys sound like Dave. You guys love coal.

Speaker 4 I actually read a story yesterday, the New York Times. About what? I think that you would enjoy it.

Speaker 4 It's about the Galapagos, which is one of my favorite places on Earth. You've been there? Yeah, I've been there.
I had just the best of the... Were the Engemeyers still alive when you were there?

Speaker 4 The Angemeiers.

Speaker 1 So the Angelmeiers are five brothers.

Speaker 1 I didn't meet. I didn't meet the British.
I'm not saying

Speaker 1 that. The Engemeyers are five brothers in the early 1930s in Germany.
And this was when Hitler was just coming up. And if you haven't read Eric Larson's In the Garden of Beasts, please make that.

Speaker 1 We've talked about a number of books here, but that book right now, today, is critical. But all the books I've mentioned today are critical.

Speaker 1 And anyway, their parents, the Engemeyer's parents, saw what was happening. They were Jewish.
And

Speaker 1 they saw, so they put their children on a boat

Speaker 1 knowing that they would never see their children again. And the boys, they ended up in the Galapagos

Speaker 1 in the 30s.

Speaker 4 What island were they on?

Speaker 1 I forget the name. It's the main island.
Puerta Iorta. Is that the name of the town?

Speaker 4 There's

Speaker 1 San Crystal Ball. What's the name of South? And the town is Porta Iorta, right?

Speaker 1 Where the harbor is and the town. Anyway,

Speaker 1 this was

Speaker 1 a phenomenal trip.

Speaker 1 Oh my gosh. It was one of the.

Speaker 1 I could easily make the argument that certain days on that trip were

Speaker 1 the greatest,

Speaker 1 was the greatest single day of my life. I could make the argument that that trip was the greatest single moment of my life.

Speaker 1 But then there's all these other things that have happened, too, and they just keep coming. And so, what I've learned over the course of these now 64 years, never rank, rate, or compare.

Speaker 7 That's what I tell my girlfriends about.

Speaker 1 Championships, concerts,

Speaker 1 children,

Speaker 1 coaches, or congratulations.

Speaker 1 Just enjoy them all. What about teams?

Speaker 4 Like, could

Speaker 4 UConn Women's Basketball beat the seventh sexual?

Speaker 1 No. No.

Speaker 1 But you're not supposed to compare.

Speaker 1 You've never answered what you're the best team you ever played on was.

Speaker 1 Any team that won the championship.

Speaker 1 That's what I played for.

Speaker 1 Bill Wesley was my hero. I played to win.
I didn't play for personal glory. I didn't play for

Speaker 1 the most fun team you ever played on.

Speaker 1 When you win the championship,

Speaker 1 that's fun.

Speaker 4 It's interesting because you.

Speaker 1 And when you lose, it's like, yeah, that's the worst.

Speaker 1 Well, you taught us a lesson today. That's because

Speaker 1 I told you what not to do. No, no, no, no.
This is an important lesson because the way we do this show, you know, we'll game plan our guests and we'll try to steer them different ways.

Speaker 1 And I think today's interview taught us that you got to let the guest

Speaker 1 talk about what they want to talk about because this was one of the most interesting interviews we've done. And we didn't steer.
Well, I didn't even look at my pad once. Coach Wooden,

Speaker 1 that's the antithesis of what Coach Wooden was like, because Coach Wooden, he never started practice with these words, never.

Speaker 1 What do you guys want to do today?

Speaker 5 Right, right, right.

Speaker 4 Well, in basketball, you need a coach, and the coach can't.

Speaker 1 Structure, organization, discipline, focus, you know, platform.

Speaker 1 And that's where the sacrifice comes in and the discipline, because to be a part of a group, you got to realize, okay, now, what's the goal here?

Speaker 1 Hopefully, we achieve something here today. Yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.

Speaker 4 I had a great time. Thank you for stopping by.

Speaker 1 DFT, Big Cat. There we go.
I'm Bill, two L's from San Diego.

Speaker 4 I'll have to tell you about

Speaker 4 the Galapagos story in the New York Times some other time. But I think you'll really enjoy it.
I saw you talking about the Banff, the Banff Buffaloes, right?

Speaker 1 The Bison? Oh, yeah, Buffaloes. I can't believe.
I'm reading this book right now, Peter Cosen's, The Earth is Weeping. Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 It's the story of the Indian Wars in the latter half of the 19th century. Oh, it is just the most tragic story.
We're right back there again, and they're still making these pipelines.

Speaker 1 Come on, solar energy, the biggest no-brainer in the history of the world. Do it.
Don't think about the past.

Speaker 1 Learn from the past. Learn from our mistakes in the past.
Quit burning coal. Let's move forward.
Solar energy, wind power,

Speaker 1 hydroelectricity. Let's go.
Geothermal.

Speaker 4 One last question. I did write this down earlier.
I just remembered it. Have you ever found Bobby Jackson?

Speaker 1 Bobby Jackson? I know a bunch of Bobby Jacksons.

Speaker 4 During that King series, you were like, where is Bobby Jackson?

Speaker 1 Where is Bobby Jackson? Oh, that disappeared. Bobby Pierce.
Yeah. Sixth Man of the Year.
I do love when you do that.

Speaker 1 When someone disappears on the court, and you just start saying, where is this person? When they stop playing well.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 you're familiar with the Pyramid of Success. Yes.
Yeah. Okay.
So there's 15 human rights.

Speaker 4 Do they store grain in that pyramid too?

Speaker 1 No, they store love. They store happiness.

Speaker 1 They store knowledge,

Speaker 1 which is

Speaker 1 power.

Speaker 1 An ephemeral

Speaker 1 being of stuff.

Speaker 1 Did you just call us chicks? No. Ephemeral? No.
I'm just kidding.

Speaker 5 Let's joke.

Speaker 1 I told you, I'm not good at thinking on my feet, Mary.

Speaker 1 You are, even. You guys are scrambling.
You don't give yourself enough credit. You guys are scrambling my feet.
You don't give yourself enough credit.

Speaker 1 You guys are trying to join in with those forces of evil

Speaker 1 so anyway the pyramid of success 15 words

Speaker 1 human values and personal attributes and characteristics of your soul of your being and they are

Speaker 1 industriousness, enthusiasm, friendship, loyalty, cooperation, intentness, initiative, alertness, self-control, physical fitness, skill development, commitment to the team, poise, confidence, and the very top block.

Speaker 1 Competitive greatness.

Speaker 1 Be at your best when your best is needed.

Speaker 1 Where is Bobby Jackson?

Speaker 1 There we go. That's the perfect ending.

Speaker 1 Today is a muddy to find

Speaker 1 shy away.

Speaker 1 I'm coming for your love of day, your love of day.

Speaker 1 So needless to say

Speaker 1 I've once said it's my peace don't will let them wait

Speaker 1 So the none of myself

Speaker 1 say after me

Speaker 1 It's the fair to say it's all you to say

Speaker 1 Drink on me.

Speaker 1 Drink on me.

Speaker 1 Drink on me.

Speaker 1 to

Speaker 1 set

Speaker 1 the cake.