Adrian Wojnarowski, PGA Championship W/ Shane Bacon, Jokic Is The Best Player Alive + Guys On Chicks

Adrian Wojnarowski, PGA Championship W/ Shane Bacon, Jokic Is The Best Player Alive + Guys On Chicks

May 15, 2024 2h 43m Explicit

Nikola Jokic is the best player in the world as the Nuggets take a 3-2 lead in the series (00:00:00-00:09:58). Jalen Brunson does it again and the Knicks kill the Pacers (00:09:58-00:22:40). We talk Celtics/Cavs, the Thunder growing up and Hockey (00:22:40-00:34:30). Hot Seat/Cool Throne including our friend Jared Goff getting paid, the portal not working and the Jets having a week 1 MNF game (00:34:30-01:07:01). NBA Insider Adrian Wojnarowski joins the show to talk about his career, the upcoming draft, who will take the Lakers job and the famous Rico Bosco tweet (01:07:01-02:05:59). Shane Bacon joins the show to preview the PGA Championship from Kentucky and who he thinks will win the second major of the year (02:05:59-02:30:10). We finish the show with guys on Chicks (02:30:10-02:41:24).


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Full Transcript

Hey, Pardon My Take listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music.
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We have NBA insider Woj, Adrian Wojnarowski. He was in studio.
Awesome interview with him. We talk about his career.
We talk about the draft. We talk about who's going to take the Lakers job.
We talk about the famous Rico Bosco tweet. We also have our good friend Shane Bacon on to preview the PGA championship.
Who he thinks is going to win live from Valhalla. Oh, yeah, that's happening this week.
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The Nuggets, the Knicks dominate tonight. We have a great hot seat, cool throne that goes sideways a million different ways.
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And PFT, I am so happy that I'm alive, that I am blessed to be able to do a sports podcast while Nikola Jokic is playing basketball because holy shit, he is the best. Did he empty the bag tonight? It felt like the clip is gone.
He did everything in the paint. I don't know what he finished at, but through three quarters, he was seven for seven when he was matched up one-on-one with Rudy Gobert.
Yeah. And he was just dominating, but not just the crazy shot making and like all the pivots and the hook shots and the up and unders he was doing the passing out of the lane.
He made Rudy Gobert look foolish tonight. The Timberwolves actually, they look better at times defensively with Gobert on the bench.
And it might go back to what we were talking about before the series started. I think we, we talked about it with maybe with Kirk Goldsberry, but how sometimes since Rudy Gobert

is such a good defender,

defensive player of the year,

that when he's matched up

against a guy like Jokic,

they'll have him play one-on-one,

not give a lot of help.

And then Jokic feasts

because it's a one-on,

like it's almost better

to guard Jokic

with like one and a half

slash two average defenders

than it is to guard him

with one good defender. Yeah, and listen, Rudy Gobert, um, defensive player of the year.
Many time. I don't even know how many he's won, like five, um, really good in the regular season.
This happens to him pretty much every playoffs. I'm not even going to say that like, yeah, he got cooked tonight, but Jokic was so good.
Everyone on planet earth would have gotten cooked. But the thing I love about tonight, and obviously this series has been great to watch.

You had the Wolves come out 2-0, take the first two in Denver.

Then the Nuggets were like, hey, we're the champs for a reason.

And you felt that edge over the weekend.

And you felt that edge even tonight.

But tonight was an extra edge because Jok got his third mvp trophy before the game and he's going up against the defensive player of the year and he's probably the like outside of i think steve nash was very criticized as an mvp if you remember like people like how can you give him back-to-back mvps um but it's been a while since an mvp feels like they've been criticized and poked holes in as much as Jokic has, even last year, not winning it and Embiid winning it. And Jokic was like, I'm just going to, like, you don't think I care? I care a lot.
And I'm going to fucking demolish the defensive player of the year and score 40 points and do everything passing the ball and remind everyone that, yes, I am the best player in the world. And that's a fact.
I don't know how anyone – like, I understand that you get fatigued with MVPs and SGA had a great year, and we're going to talk about him in a minute. And other guys have been great.
I don't understand how anyone can watch the Denver Nuggets play basketball and Jokic play basketball and not be like, that guy is so much better than everyone else at this exact moment because everything he does is just so effortless and makes everyone better. And it's fucking awesome to watch.
Yeah. He's the best player in basketball for sure.
I think what's watered down the, the whole MVP discussion, which made some people come out of the woodworks with takes on other players that might be more deserving this year, which I disagree with. Jokic is the best.
And if you watch him play, you know, he's the best. It's it's the proliferation of MVP chance.
Yeah. So there's a bunch of probably four, four arenas out there have guys that when he's on the foul line, the entire crowd chance MVP.
And when you hear everybody chanting chanting MVP, to me, I'm like, you know, they make a good point because there's 40,000 or 30,000 people saying a guy's name at the same time. I'm like, yeah, yeah.
SGA. I agree with Oklahoma city on this one.
But if you actually sit down and watch them back to back to back, it's, it's pretty obvious who the best players. Yeah.
And it's, i mean it it's happened time and time again in the nba where it's like if you actually went you know the best player uh without any fatigue or anything else like lebron probably has a couple more you know jordan has a couple more like these things happen where where we just get tired of it and and and the voters get tired of it and they're he's so good. But he makes so easy.
Let's give the new guy an MVP. Jokic is the MVP.
He deserves the MVP. He is the best player in the world.
And he did it again tonight. And it's, it's honestly like, I feel the same way I felt when the warriors played basketball, like at their peak of their powers, it's so much fun to watch him play basketball

because it's just his two best passes tonight didn't even end up in baskets Aaron Gordon missed

one and got uh fouled on the other like he was he was doing tricks on it he was fucking he was

toying with them and even that last three that he hit was like the wettest sounding three of all

time and it's just I I don't know I'm like smiling because I just I love watching him play basketball

All right. That last three that he hit was like the wettest sounding three of all time.
And it's just, I don't know. I'm like smiling because I just, I love watching him play basketball.
The behind the back pass or behind the back of his neck pass that he had when he was driving through the lane to Aaron Gordon. That was awesome.
Also, I just love Aaron Gordon. I love Aaron Gordon.
I have no other notes on this game besides the fact Jokic dominant. Aaron Gordon, so fun to watch.
He works so hard. and it's funny watching because there were times when Rudy was matched up one-on-one against him and on the offensive end when he got into the paint he'd have to do like three different pivots in a row to get Gobert in a position like far enough away where he could even get a layup off against him he has to work so hard against Rudy Gobert to he hustles.
He hustles everywhere. And, yeah, the Nuggets, they're fully back.
I said I think maybe we need to have the conversation about the Timberwolves. They look like they're still exhausted from when Tibbs coached them back in 2018.
They hit the wall after game two. I feel like this is it.
Classic Tibbs just ran these guys too hard, and now they can't win another playoff game. Yeah, it's tough.
I mean, there's like the learning experience. I also just think that this is why I made the joke at the beginning of the series that when Cat was like the big three, and Cat played better tonight.
I still – I don't know why he still does like the three-point celebration after every shot like in the first quarter. Like we're in a March Madness tournament game and they're like a 15 seed.
But whatever. Cat's going to do Cat.
Anthony Edwards did not have his best night. I actually might do a game of the year Anthony Edwards over points on Thursday night.
Just because I don't. If the Wolves go out, he's going to go, like swinging.
You know what I mean? And it sucks because he had the game on Sunday night where he was so, so good, but no one else picked him up. And then tonight you had Carl Anthony towns actually hit some shots.
It's like, where was that Sunday night? And they're just, I don't know. It sucks.
It sucks to see. They didn't have Mike Conley.
They're, they're a fun young team, but this is the Jokic is the best and why the Nuggets are the champs and it could you know we still got two

games I'm not gonna write off the Wolves but it's just more tonight was more about Jokic and just

flexing on everyone and the Nuggets the scary part about the Nuggets is Michael Porter Jr. has

not been good and if he like finds his shot and gets a little more confidence back then you then

you're clicking on all cylinders and and because when he's going it's like they're just an absolute terror he's been dog shit for the last two games i was thinking he was gonna have a big night tonight and he just didn't uh yeah we can't revoke dog status by the way from anthony edwards i think no dog right no that's what i'm saying he's gonna go out yeah he's. He's a dog.
That's what he's going to do. Maybe 2-0 is the most dangerous lead in hockey and the NBA playoffs.
Yeah, yeah. All right, speaking of dogs, Jalen Brunson, another incredible performance.
He scored 28 points in the first half, basically ended the Pacers right there in the first half. It was funny because the first, I don't, I don't know, five minutes of the game Pacers got out to lead and you're like, Oh man, maybe the Knicks are cooked.
And then Jalen Brunson's like, what are you talking about? I'm, I'm, I'm a star here. I'm going to, I'm going to, you know, dominate everyone.
The big thing though, for this game, I have two big thoughts. One is Tyrese Halliburton when he looks bad

he looks like he just doesn't even want to be out there like he'll just kind of bounce around and just not be decisive and not attack and you're just like what is this guy doing and the other thing this was if we're talking about dogs this was the full New York Knicks Tom Thibodeau Nova dog display. Because the Knicks tonight started four guys out of their five guys were 6-4 or under because they changed up the lineup and Deuce McBride started.
And the New York Knicks out-rebounded on the offensive glass, a team that has, I think, three guys over their starting lineup 20 to five 20 to five Isaiah Hartenstein had 12 offensive rebounds that's fucking ridiculous they are just so much more physical and just take the fight to you and it was good to see the next like get off the the mat after Sunday where they got blown out like they're just when when when they're doing when they're playing that bully ball and Brunson's hitting everything, they're a weird team but they're fun and they're hard to beat. How many players were under 6'4"? 6'4 or under 4 out of 5 of their starters tonight, the Knicks.
Brunson, Deuce McBride, Josh Hart, and Dante DiVincenzo are all 6'4 or under.

Deuce McBride and Brunson are 6'1", 6'6".

So Bronny to the Knicks is what we're hearing.

Bronny to the Knicks.

But that's crazy.

Speaking of dogs, tonight was also the Westminster Kennel Club.

It was the dog show tonight.

There's no chance that that was at MSG in the side theater, right? i think it was at halftime that would be very funny that would be funny they brought him out on the court they just took a big shit i think the westminster dog show is the only thing in the world that got on covid schedule and never got off because why are they doing it right now i have no idea because it used to be right after the Super Bowl.

Right.

Weird.

But, yeah, it was a big night for dogs.

Yeah, big night for dogs.

It's at Billie Jean King Tennis Center.

What?

Billie Jean King Tennis Center.

Have you moved it to the tennis courts?

That's disrespectful to the dogs, but I get it.

During the playoffs, too?

It would have been very funny if they had it in the Hulu theater inside MSG while the Knicks were in a playoff game. Yeah.
Do you think they do get the tennis ball gun out for them? They should. Like American Gladiators have the dogs running obstacle course.
They're there. Why not? Yeah.
This game, though, like the Knicks are just –

I don't know where this is going to end for them.

I think they're going to win this series,

and I think they're very overmatched against Celtics.

But you can understand why they've captured the hearts of New York

and like just from like a fun watch.

Like I don't like the Knicks, but I'm watching them,

and I'm like these guys are – I don't know what's going on.

Alec Burks is just hitting all these shots, and Jalen Brunson can't miss,

and Dante DiVincenzo is doing putbacks and then yelling.

That was actually the moment where it was like the encapsulation

of the 20-5 offensive rebounding was Dante DiVincenzo.

I think he was to Miles Turner just being like, fuck you, you bitch.

That's their center, and he's saying that to them.

So the other thing about the first quarter of this game is there were like seven reviews, it felt like. Yeah, Scott Foster.
They just kept reviewing plays. Scott Foster got his screen time in.
That's the big market media bias. They're trying to get more eyeballs.
Scott Foster going over to the screen, getting another viewer like five times in a row. I was sure that the fix was in on something at that point.
That's just entirely too much Scott Foster for America. Yeah.
If he's on a game, the NBA should do a better job of not having him be the guy that, that stares directly into our souls after review and tells us what Scott Foster thinks. He, he did have after that fight have after that fight, what was the phrase he used? He did the review.
Double technical? No, it was, hold on, I'm going to play it. Yeah, he was like, there was a fight and it wasn't easily dissolved.
So we're going to review it. I like that.
So if they had easily dissolved it, it would have been no no problem we could have just not had to review but he's like listen that didn't dissolve quick enough what do you want me to do i gotta review this stop the game fun stat about jalen brunson he is the first player with five 40 point games in the playoffs since lebron did it in 2018 i saw i saw the stat it was basically jalen brunsonalen Bruns. There was a stat that was five 40-point games in an eight-game stretch, and it was like Jalen Bruns and Michael Jordan, Michael Jordan, Michael Jordan, like Jerry West.
It was basically like six guys had done it. Yeah, he's just been dominant, and it seems like he – I know there's a lot more to his game than this, but just watching him he it seems like he's dominant because he tries harder than everybody else on the court yeah yeah it's it's i mean it's a very fun watching i mean max are you back into like nova nicks because yeah i'm so close i'm so close well i just need to get i need i need to one.
I need them to win one more game and then I'm fully back. And then you're going to be showing.
Yeah. When it's, when it's Nova against Hank.
Yeah. What a joy that will be.
But speaking of Hank, huge win tonight for the Bruins. Take the series back to Boston.
What were your thoughts? Now I get you're being modest, but we want to give you the platform because we want to hear what you have to say. Let's give Boston Sports its credit.
Hank, go ahead. I think your mic's muted, Hank.
I think your mic's muted. This sucks for Hank.
I'm going to say it right now. I actually feel bad for Hank.
The sleeping allegations lasted. He beat him for what? Three weeks.
But Hank is not here. I put out a video earlier today of him of him snoring in the studio today before we did the show.
He's going to be so mad at himself tomorrow morning. He's like, God damn it.
His quote was right afterwards. He's like, all you need is a 15-minute nap.

That's all you need.

You don't need to sleep any longer than 15 minutes, and you wake up, and you're totally refreshed,

and you're good to go the rest of the day.

But you know what?

Hank might be speaking for America here.

This might be Hank's protest to the 10.30 p.m. Eastern start time

for the Wolves-Nuggets game because I feel bad for all the kids, all the youngsters out there

who aren't able to stay up and watch their favorite teams on TV.

That's too late.

It's so stupid.

You have the best player in the world playing,

and you play him at 1030 at night.

Our friend Andrew Perloff-McLovin had a great tweet.

He was like 8 p.m. Eastern and 1030 Eastern for two –

or three stars, Jalen Brunson, Anthony Edwards, and Jokic, everyone wants to watch. And the NBA wonders why everyone's obsessed about the leak of the Cleveland Browns week five opponent.
Like, what are we doing? Why is this? I mean, we're built different. We watch the games, but I don't like you can't stay up until 1 in the morning

if you're on the Eastern Standard Time. What are we doing? Can you think of the morning talk show guys out there? Let's take a moment and think about what they have to go through right now.
Greeny. Oh, my God, Greeny.
That game tipped off two hours after his bedtime tonight, and he's supposed to get up in the morning and educate us about the finer points of basketball i actually i like the 10 30 start time just because it makes me feel like a man like yeah i can do it it's my adversity and i i embrace that i get through it but then i also think about the less fortunate people out there who who aren't able to stay up that late to watch sports like our good friend hank and so on hank's behalf that's why i'm upset hank hank will be in the rest of the show we're going to talk about the celtics with him so this is a very brief opening on zoom but what do we predict hank's text tomorrow morning is going to be just my bad i did it again i think it's going to be just fuck i think we're going to get a fuck from hank i think it'll be at like 4 a.m he's going to like wake up on his couch and he's going to be uh there's so i wish there was a fly on the wall that could just see the look on his face. He's like, fuck, I did it again.
Because he just had this happen. And now he's going to get he's it's going to stick a little bit that he's the sleep guy.
Like a smart move from Hank would be to say, I'm going to go see a doctor. No, it's the documentary because he's getting up at six at like six.
Oh to work out to work out at eight that's what he told me today it's crazy that like him just getting in shape is now his job that golf listen he's putting in grind to create content for this company he's he's burning the candle at both ends right now so it's kind of unfair of us to expect him to stay up yeah he's gonna reverse this on us if we're if we're like if we give him too much shit he's gonna be like fine i won't i won't do the documentary i won't try to dunk fine you guys want me to you guys want me to blah blah blah blah i won't dunk so uh so later on the show we ask hank what he thinks happened already earlier tonight yeah and he I I'm not

going to give it away but but I think he's absolutely correct in his prediction yeah he nailed it um all right so so the Bruins did win I was actually surprised by that I thought the Bruins were dead now we go game six and then we might we alluded to it actually uh in a minute when we talk about we need a period of the week even though it's early in the week but that we might just have the last five minutes of the week

that Canucks Oilers game

that minute when we talk about we need a period of the week even though it's early in the week but that we might just have the last five minutes of the week uh that Canucks Oilers game that I'm gonna say uh the Canucks are no longer a team of destiny congratulations to the Canucks you're my team of destiny for one game actually won in like almost like 1.75 of a game because them scoring to even it up with three minutes left was the biggest team of destiny thing to do and then the oilers scoring with like a minute left it feels like the oilers can now relax and be like all right it's 2-2 we're better let's just fucking win this series because they were that was they were not not going to win in overtime if that went to overtime pivotal game five coming up i wonder if the stats are the same in hockey like they are in basketball because I think it's, what, 85% somewhere around there in basketball, the team that wins game five when it's tied 2-2. They're going to have to win the series.
As a sports podcast, we have to remind everybody that. I think it's legally required.
I don't know if that's the same case in hockey. Should we start the campaign that game fives are actually better than Game 7s? Game 5s rock.
I've always said, like, I don't remember the last time that a team won a Game 5 and then lost a series. It feels like it always happens.
Yeah. Game 5s rock.
All right. And a home team won finally in the Nuggets-Timberwolves series.
Huge. Would this be? They swung home court advantage back.
I know it's not a gentleman's sweep because a 4-1 is a gentleman's sweep, but it feels like if they win on Thursday night, this could qualify as a gentleman's sweep because it basically was two just completely separate series that happened. I think it's like a nice guy win.
Yeah. It gives the Wolves hope.
They gave the Wolves hope. They gave the Wolves more wolves more than hope yeah i think everybody was talking about the nuggets like they were dead and they looked at i i hope this goes seven i i do i would like to see a game seven in in this series and i do i i think i might do game of the year anthony embers because i just don't i don't see a world where he doesn't just go like he's going to take this personal he's going to go fucking nuclear he knows that he's the guy he knows that it doesn't matter if Carl Anthony Towns hits a three early on and does the finger guns it's got to be him I'm going to wait to say if I wanted to go seven I don't think that I do because that would probably mean maybe one more 1030 tip off time that would game seven would be a Sunday or Saturday so i think we can handle it i don't think they would do 10 30 on a sunday okay but the nba might be freaky like that um okay uh so back to ourselves in studio no ad between this in the studio and hank will be back okay we're back in studio we're going to talk about monday night's games hank do you want to do a quick Celtics recap? The Celtics won, and they should easily be in the next round, just end the series right now.
Yeah, that's good. That's good.
We can end it there. Yeah, they struggled a little.
No, that's good. We're good.
We're good. Max Struess went five for five.
Don Mitchell's a really good player, so it makes sense that you guys would struggle against him, right? Don Mitchell did not play. Oh, no.
But Jared Allen. But you said, we said the Celtics needed a test.
They got a test. They won a close, a first 10-point game of the playoffs.
And they came out on top, which I think is a good sign, good test for a playoff team. We're on to the next round, hopefully.
I have a trouble in paradise, Hank, for the Boston Celtics. Jason Tatum, Jalen Brown, you love them.
You think they play well together. When Jalen Brown hit that three, I think they went up 105 to 97.
About a minute left in the game. You remember that three? Of course.
Okay. After that three was hit, Tatum comes over, smacks Jalen Brown in the chest.
As if to say congratulations. Hits him so hard that Jalen Brown turns around, looks at him, starts yelling at him,

and then they had to hold Jalen Brown back

because he was mad that Tatum hit him too hard.

This sounds like your father.

This sounds like fiction.

By the way, Max Schreus finished 5-for-9,

but he was 5-for-5 for a while.

You want me to pull the video up, Hank?

Yeah.

Okay, let me find this video.

And you need to take a look at it because...

I'll find my own video.

Okay, find your own video then. Find the video, Hank.
Sounds like you weren't watching the game that closely because it's the first thing I noticed. Oh, so we have a quote after.
Jalen Brown said, yeah, I'm going to get Jason back for that. Yeah, and then Jason Taylor said...
He wasn't yelling at him. He was yelling at someone else on the court.
No, no. He did wince.
He wince. He wince, and then he tried to storm on the court.
But that was like a playful wince, like today when I touched your finger and you said I broke your thumb and you're never going to be able to play guitar again. Look at this.
Look at this blood. Let me see.
I'm bleeding. Oh, jeez.
You can see the tendon. Did we blur that? Yeah.
We got to blur that. Hey, Big Guy, how many beers? Zero.
Yeah, you could fuck my thumb right now. It's tight because it's so tiny.
Whoa, Hank. Are you talking about tight, tiny? You said tight and tiny? Don't talk about my gash that way.
We just did how many beers you said you like because it's tight and tiny. All right, no drink.
What the fuck? Write that from the record. Say no drink before you say it.
No drink. No drink.
Yeah, no, Jason Tatum. Oh, here's an interesting part of this.
So it looked like it was fun, all fun and games, but Jason Tatum did say, I didn't realize how hard I hit him. I've been lifting a lot lately.
That's good. He's getting stronger.
Kind of fucks up your shot, though. He's playing aggressive.
He's playing good aggressive basketball. He has been more aggressive.
This series just needs to end. I mean, the East, again, it's's like The East really is such It's crazy that we're going to get to a spot It reminds me of the Patriots Where it's like You're not going to get tested Until the championship Yeah You're going to find out You're going to find out buddy And we just need the fucking Hopefully the Timberwolves won tonight Hank is right now very clearly In the fucking around Part of the graph Yeah And the finding the finding out is going to come against the West.
Well, there's nothing. What are you supposed to do? No, there's nothing you can do.
Just fuck around. That's what we're doing.
Yeah. They play boring games against really inferior opponents.
And that's not saying the Celtics aren't really good because they are. It's just everyone else is just not even close to them.
Yeah. Just presenting us healthy.
Get some good reps in. I think we can still.
I feel good. I feel good.
You feel good. You should feel good.
Like we're poking holes in the Celtics left and right. No, they're going to be in the finals.
They're a very, very good team. We'll find out if they're great.
We just – we need the Timberwolves. Need the Timberwolves.
Well, we already talked about that game. And I don't – I feel like it was bad.
Oh. I don't feel good about it.
I don't feel good about what we talked about what happened earlier tonight nothing good nothing good nothing good damn uh the west though everyone is just beating up each other uh the thunder i want to say have officially earned their big boy playoff stripes because what they did on monday night uh when they could not shoot at all they were like i think like 25 from three uh played great defense and sga took over that game he's so fucking good he's just like so deliberate and is that back that over the backboard shot he hit was incredible took over the game the second half had 22 points and it was the that was like a win that the thunder needed to get where it's like we don't have our best stuff but we'll figure out a way to win this game that's a tough playoff win and uh the mavs defense was awesome and and the thunder win and i'm like they got their big boy stripes yeah it was like it was a nice comeback win they seemed to be down between seven and nine points for almost the entire game and then they turned it on at the end the mavericks couldn't hit a foul shot at all they went 12 for 23 from the free throw line the thunder went 23 for 24 yeah that's that's the game right there and then luca missed that big one some people are saying there's a ball don't lie situation i think he did get fouled i i did uh i saw this uh i think he's an nfl reporter greg rosenthal tweeted the officials should be allowed to talk shit back to Luka when he misses a big free throw. Agreed.
I agree. Agreed.
Any foul merchant should get, like, the officials should get a quick 10 seconds like, yeah, you fucking missed that. Yeah.
If you were Luka's teammate, would you get sick of him just screaming at the refs the entire time? I don't know about the refs. I think I would probably get, and I like Luka.
He's clearly injured. Let's just say that.
He's clearly injured. Everyone's dealing with something this time of year.
I would say the thing that would make me more mad as a teammate is when there's like a fast break and all of a sudden Luka has the most painful injury ever. Yeah.
Or he's just having a close conversation with the referee. Yeah, or things go poorly and it's like oh shit now he's really injured yeah he does look like he uh he's not pushing off his right leg as much yeah yeah no he's not you can tell yeah the lift is not there and his shot doesn't look as good and uh it looks like it's just everything's a little bit more difficult for him but this this game was sga sga took this game over and the Thunder won a game that they probably didn't have business winning with the way they were shooting three.
And, again, big boy stripes. And I like it.
I know people will say it was corny. I like that the Thunder do the post-game interview as a full team.
Yeah, it is good. I like it.
It is good. They're young.
They're fun. And Chet is tough.
Chet, what? No, Hank, you were trying to get me back when he said that he wanted a tight, tiny pussy. Yeah.
And that's not even close. Young and fun is not the same.
It's saying you wanted a tight, tiny pussy. Young and fun could still be loose.
Yeah. Nice try, Hank.
You put yourself in one. Chet is tough, though.
No, I didn't. Chet he's got swag did you see his post game well he's got like abraham lincoln swag yeah he looks a little bit like honest abe but he had the sunglasses on he had like a pink miami vice shirt yeah i don't know if he's i think he's kind of forcing it but i'm okay with him forcing it because he's just trying to find his way in the fashion game of NBA.
Also, when you're that big and tall, I feel like that limits your fashion choices. Yes.
You can't buy normal clothes. I'd agree.
Shout out my guy Lou Dort for hitting that big three. That was an SGA assist.
I mean, SGA, you can't say enough. That was a game where it's like, I'm the best player on the court.
Here's why. Yeah.
Lou Dort on defense is so fun to watch too. Even when he your shot it looks like he hurts you also we should probably say uh Kyrie Irving probably needs to score more yeah well he's been good in the second half this playoff series nine points that was not his game no he was way off and they need him to be that guy because their defense is real like the the the Mavs have been playing great defense and uh if Luca is hampered Kyrie you need to pick it up yeah I was thinking about the series do you think there are fans up in Oklahoma City that grew up Dallas Mavericks fans and they have to act now like that never happened to them in this series I think no I think they were just sooner fans or they were just uh they were like Seattle fans they just didn't know it yet yeah also it works because it is Sooner versus a little.
There's probably some crossover Sooner versus Texas. It's a Red River rivalry in basketball form.
Yeah. Right.
Yeah. No, I think Oklahoma fans before that were just Sooner fans and possibly Cowboys fans.
Yeah, Cowboys fans. They didn't dip into the other stuff.
Yeah. I do know that there are a lot of people from North Texas that are close to the Panhandle area that are big-time Sooner fans.
Yeah. It's not just right along state lines.
Yeah. Okay.
So hockey real quick. The Stars look like maybe the best team in the playoffs, especially because the Rangers lost.
Yeah. Memes? It was a clobbering.
Memes? Starting to feel good. Yeah.
3-2. 3-2.
It was going to be a sweep. And now.
Nah, the Rangers are still going to win. Are they? Yeah, they're the best team.
Oh, I see what he's doing. Yeah, the old reverse jinx.
They got the best goalie. They're going back to Carolina.
They play good at Carolina. Carolina goalie stinks.
I'm mad at myself about the Stars because Ryan Whitney did tell me they were the best team before the playoffs. Yeah, they were pretty adamant about that.
But they did say this is going to go seven. Could go seven.
Who? Dallas, Colorado. The Avalanche said that? No, the Chicklets boys.
Oh, I don't think so. You think it's over? There was a moment in that game in the second period where it was 18-3 in shots.
The Avalanists just weren't able to get pucks on net at all. Listen, if we know one thing about hockey, especially playoff hockey.
You've got to shoot the puck. It's pucks on net.
You've got to shoot the puck. Good things happen when you put the puck on net.
Pucks on net mean everything. I still think that maybe ahead of hitting a curveball, the hardest thing to do, at least to my untrained eye, is what hockey players seem to do all the time, which is just deflect a shot off the end of their stick, a shot that's coming in super fast, and they just casually redirect it into the court of the net.
It's the coolest thing. It's so cool.
Dirty goals. You need those dirty goals in the muck.
Screen out the goalie. Yep.
Put a puck on that. There was a knuckle puck shot the other day.
That was in the Bruins game, right? I feel like that's more the you just put your stick up, and then the shooter shoots it at your stick. You think that's more on the shooter? No, but there are.
I've seen sometimes where it's like they're directly shooting at, like there's nowhere the stick is going to be, and they're shooting for that. But the coolest ones.
Obviously, sometimes when they turn the head. Yeah, the coolest ones are when a guy will almost hit down on the puck as it's in the air and it will just change the complete trajectory.

Those might be the coolest goals.

Yeah, the goalie has no chance at it.

Yeah, we still need a period of the week this week.

Wasn't great two hockey games on Monday night.

Not a great couple nights for periods.

Yeah, all right, so we'll find a period of the week.

Should we do some hot seat cool throwing?

Then we've got two great interviews.

Sure.

Woj and Shane Bacon getting us ready for Valhalla the PGA Championship hot seat cool throne brought to you by our friends at Coors Light I could let bad sports news ruin my day or choose a chiller mindset and then reach for a Coors Light I choose chill when you embrace a chill mindset it's a good time to choose chill and crack open a Coors Light Coors Light is mountain mountain cold refreshment, crisp and refreshing as the Colorado Rockies. We love Coors Light.
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It is the most delicious beer out there. It's about to be summer.
It's about to be Coors Light season. It's always Coors Light season, but there's something about grabbing that Blue Mountain out of the cooler on a hot summer day.
Oh, my God. I'm picturing it right now, and I just want to be there.
You know what I absolutely love is just pictures of people's coolers. Yeah.
I can't get enough of them. Yeah.
I took, like, when we had people over for the derby party took a bunch of pictures just of my cooler not even to post anywhere just so i could look at them and see the blue mountains on top of an ice cold cooler so good yeah by the way speaking of hot seat cool throne um can we get the ac back on in here jake you did that what say said that you you turned it off i haven't been here in. What? They said that you turned it off.

I haven't been here in a week.

I know. I think you turned it off a week ago.

Has it been this hot all week? Yeah. It's been really hot.
I mean, it was

freezing and I definitely touched it. You see?

But it was either freezing

Wait, did you just admit to it?

No, he did. He 100% admitted

to it. When it was freezing, I pressed up.

Yeah. How many times? how many times press up on that

i don't remember would you rather be hot or cold i think too cold's better than too hot because too cold you can layer up i'd rather be hot all day yeah if you're too hot you're screwed yeah my hair was just crazy there jake you're not allowed to touch that okay i'm just saying Sorry.

Because, like, we can't do the guy who might have the most sensitivity towards temperature just doing that it was freezing in here last it was not it was pretty cold it was cold but it's way better than what it is now the same in there as it is in here is that even it's fucking hot as fuck in here but i don't even know that that's related no no he touched this know, that's what I'm saying, but he said it was because it was cold in there. Oh, good point.
No, we were watching something in here. Oh, it was when we were watching Netflix, I think.
Oh. And it was cold, and you were like...
Jake, you got to figure out how to turn that back cold. It might kill Mr.
Pear. We're getting...
Mr. Pear prefers it hot.
It's a hot box in here. Yeah.
It's a hot box. Does Mr.
Pear prefer it hot? Is that fact? Yes. Is it hot in the studio right now? Yeah, it's hot in here.
Why do you have your sweatshirt hood up? I don't know. I haven't thought about it.
Did we change the temperature in the studio to like 85 degrees for our turtle? no i think i think it was because we already

we already found the we found the culprit yeah he denied it and then admitted it so yeah yeah it's hot so fucking hot and i jake i need to be able to wear a sweatshirt i'm fat that's really what it comes down to yeah but you need i need to be able to layer up that's why i like i lie twice Jake you don lie twice hank's spicy i like it i like a spicy fresh off a nap looking for a tight tiny pussy um my hot seat is is brawny james yeah i never thought i'd say this because i i hate his dad so much but i i feel bad for him like i i he's in a terrible spot. He's in a terrible spot.
He is at the Combine this week. People are debating whether he should even be at the Combine.
You know, in every roster, media report or whatever, he said he's 6'4". He measured in at 6'1".
Does have a big wingspan. He has like a 6'8 person's wingspan and a 41-inch vertical, which is which is is high i'll be up there soon wait did he say he was 6'4 or was it his dad it was listed like he's like the media he was listed in all the media guides as 6'4 but that one's easy you just say they measure him in shoes yeah lebron is trying to fix it now memes is definitely not going to fix this lebron definitely told the media yeah he's 6'4 yeah right and then and and he played in a scrimmage he had four points four rebounds but the four points are getting blasted out like by every single media outlet being like brawny james at the combine and he just hit a floater in like a shot and then you look up the stats being like oh is he you know the floater was nice he had a nice floater but then if you look up his stats it's like the same as what was doing at USC.
And it's like he's going to get drafted. It's just a tough spot.
He's in a tough spot. I feel bad.
I agree with you. I never thought I'd get here, but I do agree with you because it's just a simple question.
Would Bronny James be at the combine and be drafted if his name wasn't Bronny James? The answer is no. No.
Probably not. Absolutely not.
Probably not, yeah. So it sucks, and he knows that deep down, and it's not his fault.
He wants to just play ball. I mean, there is a chance that team would draft him, though, just to be like, come on, LeBron.
They will. He's going to, I think.
We're going to talk about it with Woj. Yeah, I bet against it, and that's probably why I've been tracking it so closely because when I first saw it, I was like, I think it was over under 32 and a half, and I thought it was the lock of the year, and now I feel like he's going to get drafted.
Yeah. Possibly even high.
Wait. He could get drafted anywhere in the second round, and you'd lose that bet.
Okay. What numbers? You said 32 and a half? Yeah.
Did you know there's two rounds? Did you know there's 30 NBA teams, not 32? And there's two rounds? Right, but basically saying like... Oh, you think he's going to be a first rounder? No, I think he's going to be a...
That's what I thought. Second rounder worse.
Got it. Got it.
That's what I bet on. Yeah, yeah yeah i think that's still a safe bet i'm the

after i bet it obviously i've looked into it more and i the more the days go by the worse i feel that's what i also don't know what to believe i i think he's still gonna go in that 30s 40s range so i think that's still a good bet um and then my cool throne jared goff yeah congrats j, Jared. Way to go, buddy.
When do we- Oh. What? His fiance? His fiance.
When do we ask for our money? That's a good question. How much does he owe us? Something.
Probably like 10. I don't know what the agreement was, but if it was- Should I do it now? 10%, probably phrase this uh 10 or uh super bowl suite with a full bar you should just venmo request them for like two million dollars oh can you see what he does just see what happens yeah is that possible i don't know probably not no he got no apple cash apple cash he got a bunch of money guaranteed too yeah it contract for him.
Request. I feel like one of the best NFL contracts I've ever seen.
It's good. Yeah, you have to pay your quarterback.
And the Lions had a choice to make, probably a choice to make last year before last season. Do you want to draft somebody or do you want to try to just see what Jared's got? They rolled Jared and he made him very happy.
Shit,'t let you do they don't let you do more than 10 grand write in the comments like expect x x 100 100 more of these okay yeah just do do parentheses one slash 100 all right i'm doing all right apple very important thread requests all right so i sent him the requests if you send him one of those every day, like put a calendar reminder, he's probably going to accept one. I think he might accept this first one just for – Okay, there we go.
I did $10,000 request and then parentheses first payment. Yep.
Good for him, though. Good for him.
When the trade happened, everybody was saying, like, they going to use jared goff as a bridge quarterback yeah now he's he's not a bridge no it's awesome i'm so happy for him yeah it's it did it felt like there was yeah when he got traded for the rims like oh his career's over and now he's he's proven everyone wrong second career yeah love it love it what were you saying about his? Well, I was joking. I was saying my cool throne is Jared Goff because his fiance is a Sports Illustrated model again.
And then was going to mention the extension. Oh.
A little bait and switch. Gotcha.
You did it in a reverse way. Well, no.
You guys kind of. No, you said.
You guys cut me off. I wasn't able to.
No, you said Jared Goff first. I said Jared Goff.
Oh, okay. And then I was going to say because.
Got it got it my bad just got uh announced as a but i cut i cut you off because i want to know how much money

we should get right yeah it was it was there yeah but congrats x2 yeah what a guy yes uh my hot seat

is portals yeah yeah yeah portals on the hot seat so there's a portal that was opened up a week ago

and uh it's a portal that one end of it is in new york city i believe times square the other is in dublin ireland and uh they had to shut it down earlier today so they closed the portal down they're trying to fix it why was the portal closed down you might ask good question it's a giant screen where you could step in front of it and then you see a video of if you're in new y York, you see Dublin, Ireland. You get to wave to people, say whatever you want to them.
Well, some of the videos that have gone viral recently have visitors that are lining up pretending to snort cocaine. They're throwing up the birds, two middle fingers.
It says miming snorting cocaine. Okay.
So I don't know. Yeah, like you're in New York city or Dublin or Dublin and you're pretending to snort.

Got it. Some people have just flashed their boobs.
One visitor in Dublin pulled up an image of nine 11. Oh, that showed the twin towers burning and held it up to the portal camera.
And people from New York took offense to that. So they're switching it off temporarily until they figure out a technical solution to the inappropriate behavior.
they tried to re-upload the software to have blurring on it where if they saw boobs they could

blur it i don't know i don't know how that works now you have some guy that's like monitoring the

portal 24 7 yeah hitting the blur button but that wasn't satisfactory so they close it down

on tuesday and they're hoping to resume the live stream later on the week what they did was they

essentially created twitter in video format yeah just like absolutely no repercussions whatever

I don't know. tuesday and they're hoping to resume the live stream later on the week what they did was they essentially created twitter in video format yeah just like absolutely no repercussions whatever if you get two random people on earth and be like here hang out with this person on the other side of the world you're going to get people that are being dickheads about it i love this story so much because it was some tech nerds that spent years and years coming up with this technology, and they just forgot the simple fact that people suck.
People are assholes. Yeah, like they did everything right, and then they just didn't have one regular person sitting in the room being like, hey, is there any chance someone puts up like a picture of the Twin Towers? Yeah.
And like no one even said that. And like, hey, is there any chance someone like, you moons them, does something really crass? Nah, this is going to be, everyone's going to love this because you get to connect across the world.
It's cross-culture relationship building between countries. How great is that? Technology has reached such an outstanding place where now you can make friends with somebody halfway around the world.
And then you get in front of the camera and you just do a line of cocaine in front of it i'm so fucking lit this is dudes rock we dudes continue to rock yeah so that's another good point is what percentage of these activities do you think were done by dudes i would say about 100 of them i saw a girl flashing okay okay that's kind of a dude thing though yeah that's like a cool dude girl if it was a girl on the other end of the portal she wouldn't just like flash a chick probably yeah like you're dudes yeah i think it was like old woman oh it's an old woman oh really on the other side yeah okay open it back up yeah open up that portal did you guys see the guy uh jerking off with the gas in his ass yeah that's wild yeah oh pft i gotta shoot i, no, no, no, no. Really makes you think.
Yeah. See, the thing is, I'm going to watch this video and be like, I wonder what this video is of.
And it's going to be a guy jacking off with gas in his ass. No, you're just getting- Find it for us.
You never- By the way- Just giving yourself a little juice? Yeah. Speaking of the poor old Jake, do you mean- What do you mean? Yeah.
I don't even know how to describe it. He's getting himself going.
He's topping himself off. No, that's not him.
Jake, what did you think about Grant Hill's use of play where Derek Lively and Chet Holmgren both fell down at the same time? I didn't see it. This is the guy.
Hold on. Oh, yeah.
I mean, who out there hasn't done that? But the worst is he gets seen, and he's got a hog, too. Yeah, it's not bad.

That's soft.

I like to think.

So he's shooting.

He's injecting gasoline to do that and cranking the hog.

Yeah.

Okay, I need to know what college football team has for me that he's wearing. It looks like Tennessee.

It looks like Tennessee Orange to me.

Yeah.

I like to believe that the person behind the camera maybe yelled like,

hey, you got to pay inside first.

Oh, wait. Something like that.
What language? Is that Italian? Oh, yeah. Yeah, this guy's a pervert.
Yeah, big time pervert. Oh, I just saw what you were talking about.
Yeah, so Grant Hill, when Derek Lively and Chet Holmgren both fell down last night, he said the two towers falling down. I heard that, yeah.
I heard that. I chose that.
People were getting mad. He's like, who cares? I mean, yeah, it's like he used the words wrong, whatever.
Yeah. Is that how you pump gas in Italy? Yeah, I think that's actually exactly how you get it started.
Yeah. Yeah, you got to prime it in your asshole.
Cranking off. That's a good video, though.
You got to make sure. No, it's a great video.
That's one of those ones that, like, there's sometimes we share videos with each other where I'm like, I wish you hadn't shared that. Yeah, that's good.
That's one you needed to see. I'm glad that I saw that.
Yeah. Guy's got a fucking huge thing.
That's probably Max's relative from somewhere way down the line. Oh, yeah.
That's definitely a Delente. Yeah.
He's got Delente all over him. All right.
My hot seat is... Wait, fuck.
I had it, and then I lost it in my head. I'll go to my cool throne.
I'll come back to my hot seat because I had one in my head,

and I've lost it.

My cool throne is college basketball because Doug Gottlieb got a job.

Yeah, I saw that.

Good for him.

Yeah.

Very happy.

He's UW-Green Bay coach.

Is he going to be doing media while he does that?

Yeah, he's doing his radio show.

He's multitasking.

Really?

Yeah.

Oh, shit.

I didn't realize that.

Which is, like, unprecedented.

That is pretty crazy. Okay, good for Doug Gottlieb.
Oh oh i had a cool he goes got a new team yeah i had a cool throne too um cool throne you can use this for your hot seat in some way shape or form your hot seat should be aaron rogers oh yeah that was what my hot because my cool throne is the nfl schedule yes yeah that was what my hot seat was so today wednesday the schedule release is coming but right now we've got some what no good no you're about to say it we've got a couple games that have been announced already but the full schedule is being released on wednesday hank is spicy right spicy no that was spicy i was agreeing with you that was like i hate how they don't just like it's like agree you see stuff getting released today it's like oh the schedule's got released's got released? Agreed. No, that's tomorrow.
You just tickle us.

Yeah.

I was agreeing.

That was like echoing your sentiment.

Gotcha.

So they've dropped a couple nuggets on us already.

They've got Ravens Chiefs opening up the season.

I'm going to watch that game.

I like that.

That's a good matchup.

We've got Eagles, Packers, and Brazil, obviously.

We've got the Jets and the 49ers playing Monday Night Football in the Opener wait Monday night football in the Opener in the opener Did who played Monday football in the opener Last year that's the Jets and the Bills So and That didn't go well well they won No they won pregame went Well yeah the pregame went well yeah justants fans were very happy afterwards because they beat the Bills. Remember that? Yeah.

Memes, yeah.

Are they going to have Aaron Rodgers come back out with the American flag again?

Somebody at the NFL office is a sick fuck.

Yeah.

So not only is it Aaron Rodgers on Monday Night Football, but it's also Floyd, the guy

that was sacking Rodgers.

Leonard Floyd, yeah.

Leonard Floyd is now on the 49ers.

Bear for life.

So it's going to be a matchup of Floyd against Rodgers Achilles again. Memes, how are you feeling? Bad.
If Aaron Rodgers gets another season-ending injury, I'm going to strap a bomb to my chest and go to the end of the office and blow up. All right, so I'm not.
Just for the first game. Just for the first game.
Season-ending injury. Memes, you're making me root for an Aaron Rodgers injury so badly.
Well, I'm not rooting. I don't want to, but since you just said that, I'd be a hero in New York.
Memes, I'm not rooting for an Aaron Rodgers injury because I saw it this morning and I tweeted out Aaron Rodgers' other Achilles can do the funniest thing possible. Jets fans are being pussies about that I'm not hoping he gets hurt it would be it'd be funny like it wouldn't I don't want it to happen but it kind of sounds like you kind of know I if it happened that would be crazy that was the correct joke people are just taking their anger out from the NFL onto you got it which they they should be taking out on the nfl because i gotta remind jets fans like do you think like uh i i go online every day and just get abuse about the quarterbacks that i root for yeah every single day i'm like those the you remember the story about like the facebook uh quality control people who had legit ptsd from all the horrific things they saw's me in my mentions with Bears quarterbacks.
So I make one little joke. Don't be a baby about it.
I don't want him to get hurt. Yeah, I do.
I like Aaron Rodgers on the Jets. I do not want Aaron Rodgers to get hurt.
But if it did happen, then we'd have to just be like, what the fuck is going on? This is this is insane. I might have to.
I'd have to delete that tweet if he got hurt. No have to let it stand actually yeah because memes would memes yeah would definitely take take precedent yeah that'd be a big time they already knew yeah also uh second i mean i after that i don't know how you can't not root for it i think yeah i think memes put us in a spot memes is gonna get arrested if that's what's gonna happen there's gonna be dead no but right after.
That's what's going to happen. No, he's going to be dead.

No, but right after he hypothetically tears his other Achilles,

there's going to be the FBI at Memes' door taking him into custody.

They're going to kick his door down.

Yeah.

And then they're going to shoot Mr. Perr.

He's coming at us.

He's trying to attack us.

Memes, at least it's not happening. At least it's not meant life on that bad turf.

Yeah, that's true. That was easy.
I wish they would have made it Sunday Night Football. Yeah.
Why? Just gives a different night of the week? Yeah. Yeah.
Just change the vibe up a little bit. Memes is right.
Aaron Rodgers is one for one tearing his Achilles on Monday Night Football. Yep.
In his last one. Yeah, that's true.
In a Jets uniform. His only weakness.
Yeah. Just like the real Achilles.
I hope he doesn't get hurt. I want it on the record.
Stop being pussies Jets fans. So there's another matchup that another fan base is pissed off about.
The second Thursday night game is Dolphins-Bills, but it's in Miami, and Dolphins fans are pissed off because it's a night game, and the Dolphins are like, our 12th man is the sun. They're taking away our game against – we were going to have a home game against Josh Allen where it was going to be too hot for him.
And now they're not letting the sun come out. And so this is the NFL hating the Dolphins again.
Wow. That to me is loser talk.
That's the biggest reach of all time. Also, night games are the best.
Big time loser talk. Yeah.
You want night games. You want your crowd to be pumped up, a little bit drunk, a lot bit drunk, and to be the the big home field advantage they're counting on the sun to show up yeah even just as fans like if you're going to the game i would imagine if you live in miami are we gonna go to bears patriots yeah if the leaks are correct it's week four thursday night hell yeah yeah hell yeah i went through the schedule because i saw the after.
Yeah. I mean, it's- We could actually record for maybe I'll get Vanny Woodhead fixed back up.
That would be sick. Tattoo bet? Where is Vanny Woodhead? Who knows? Yeah.
Get it fixed up. That thing is never getting here.
I heard it might be getting here soon. Oh.
Really? I heard a rumor that somebody contacted someone in this office to ask for assistance getting vanny woodhead which is pretty much somebody in new york calling our office and be like can you do this for me i'm not going to name any names as to who that might that person sounds super reliable i'm not going to name any names i might be partially to blame because i do think i walked up to the somebody in this office and just walked by i was like hey uh we should get benny woodhead here yeah and then maybe she because she's very good at her job might have followed up okay and and offered assistance offered assistance okay all right so it might be but yeah well it'd be great if it just showed up it would be great uh the perfect tailgate yeah right that, right. That's what I'm saying.
Okay. So my cool throne was Doug Gottlieb.
My hot seat is Eric Adams, New York mayor, our former mayor. Did you guys see this clip? It's not going to be as funny as when he went through that room showing like, here's, look, it's an eight ball of cocaine.
Look behind this pillow. Oh, it's a gun.
It's not as funny. That was the funniest clip.

It's more like, what did he just say?

He was essentially saying that we have to find a way to have illegal immigrants get jobs in New York and in America.

And he said they're excellent swimmers.

And we have a lifeguard shortage.

Okay.

Did he really say that?

Eric Adams is a fucking maniac. Well, off the clipams he said that dude he's a fucking maniac well off the clip he said that he's fucking crazy the woman next to him was like kind of did like a wait wait what what did you just say um yeah they're excellent swimmers they're excellent swimmers and we have a lifeguard shortage let's see here's a clip jobs that we are in high demand we could expedite how do we have a large body of people that are in our city and country that are excellent swimmers and at the same time we need lifeguards that's like a wind horse.
It's crazy. I just figured out the whole illegal immigrants situation.
That is wild. Lifeguards.
Wild. Maniac.
How do you even know there's a lifeguard shortage? Of all the things that you're dealing with as the mayor of New York, I can't imagine lifeguard shortages is anywhere on any list. Yeah, what even? Like the East River? Yeah.
We're not talking about Long Island. He's the mayor of New York City.
Correct. There's one beach in Staten Island.
There was one- And there's probably nobody that wants to work there. Yeah, there was one little rocky beach where I used to live in Brooklyn on the East River.
Didn't need a lifeguard. No one went in the water.
There's Coney Island. Yep.
Okay, that's fair. Coney Island.
We got to hire people for Coney Island. We forgot about Coney Island.
You got to watch out for the Coney Island box jellyfish, which are just filled diapers that are floating out in the water. 50 lifeguards got to get you over the hump for the shortage.
Yeah. Like how many? Good start.
How many could you really need? There's that other island. Georgia's? Randall's Island? No.
Governor's Island? No. No, there's another.
No. It's not us.
Epstein. Okay, we're just naming islands, boys.
We got it. Hank's thinking about Epstein.
That's the first island that came to your mind, Hank? You're having a bad show with us. A lot of islands out there, buddy.
You're having a bad uh oh i guess i guess is block island part of new york city no that's like rhode island no what what's the one where fire fire i was gonna say where the gay people yeah yeah yeah yeah fire island fire island i think that's long island that's long yeah yeah it's looking like it might be it might be part of also there's pools in central park so they actually did build a pool in dumbo too in the east river which is real like kind of fucked up they built a pool inside the water yeah it's one of the ones that has the uh the divider in between so you're in the in the east river but not in east river water rockaway beach is what i was looking for okay yep there it is yep and queen's that little fucking thing that comes out. Yeah.
And they got Coney Island. Yeah, Manhattan Beach.
Okay. So there's a couple.
They're excellent swimmers. Excellent swimmers.
That was a little New York geography for everyone. Yeah.
All right, Jake. By the way, Jake, great job on the call.
Thank you, guys. You were fantastic.
Appreciate your support. It means the world.
It was awesome. Also, I likediktok when you showed us behind the scenes and like you're all your prep it's a fucking lot of work it is yeah jake i thought you did a great job this weekend um congratulations on the real two that you shot on 17th that was great as a great as a great real two jake yeah emphasizing emphasizing the real two because people threw allegations that the one was not real.
Ah, that's why. Yeah, that's why I said it.
But people are twisting and trying to stir the pot for me saying it to PFT when I would never do that. Well, PFT did hit it on the green and said that's a two.
Yeah. Because Berman said it.
So people are saying, well, it's kind of a fake two. Actually, nobody said it was a fake two at the time.
Now everyone's saying it's a fake two because Jake said his was a real two. A real.
If Berman tells me. The most hard emphasis on real I've ever heard.
It was a hard R. That's what it was.
I think you should go right at PFT. If you're like, PFT, you're a pussy.
I got a real two. Max, I think you should shut the fuck up.
Hey, is anybody out there shocked that Max has an opinion about the number two? Oh, yeah. Two, two, two sodas.
Well, no. I was going to suck in second.
Actually, now that you bring it up, yeah, two sodas and finishing in second. And clogging your toilet.
People forget you clogged your toilet. Never did that.
Chris Blundin was all I have done that. It's a two if you hit it on the green.
You did that, so that's a real rule. Yeah, hit it to 15 feet.
That's not a real rule. No, it's a boomer rule, and so I'm going to count it.
If boomer says it's a two, it's a two. So Jake's was a real two.
But Jake's was a real two. You got a boomer two.
He got a real two. No, he's being a real asshole right now.
Oh, man. Jake, how far away from the pen was your shot? It was about 27 feet.
Oh, that's cute 27 feet Jake the good news is You could win this argument if we just do Another two hours of this show because we'll die in here Yeah fair enough No it was a good shot Jake I was happy for you If I was responsible for your guys death I would just No if you were responsible I I'm the only one who's not killing myself in this booth today. I don't want that.
That's the easy way out. If you were responsible for our deaths, you'd have to strap a bomb and go to the NFL headquarters.
No, you'd have to do a show first. And then people would really lay down thick.
Do a live stream at the end of this podcast. I will detonate myself.
Oh, that would be electric. You get so many numbers.
Holy shit. That's too far.
That's only if you kill us. Should that be our NFL bet this year? Detonate bet? If you guys all died, Jake and I would put out a banger the next day.
No, you wouldn't. Oh, yeah.
Banger. What would you talk about? Your death? Okay, that's true.
Good point. You remember when they died? Yeah.
It would be like 10 minutes. It would be like, yeah, they died.
It would be a roast. Last show ever.
Yeah. But people would listen.
No, the bet should be somebody should get shot. Fletchy part of the thigh.
No. What? Sopranos did it.
Yeah. Someone should get Phil Leotardo'd.
Someone should have to do the gas the gas station oh i like that i like that if we blur it out i'm willing to do that to completion yeah no i don't if we blur that video out if that we put out i i'm willing to have that be the stakes we'll talk about it i mean that would be so funny if someone had to put a fucking gas up their ass while they tried to jerk off. You accidentally light yourself on fire? Somebody's like, he died protesting a noble cause.
No, he's jacking off at a gas station. No, no, no.
You don't understand. This is because we did four picks on Christmas Day.
I lost because of that. Okay.
Go ahead. We're all over the place.
My hot seat is Zach Campbell. Zach Campbell has some competition because something crazy had happened in Seattle last night.
And this guy wasn't planning on it. But he caught a foul ball on back-to-back pitches in the same exact spot.
What? That might be harder than the be harder than, like, the lottery. A hole in one.

Like, it's crazy.

That's crazy.

Crazy.

Is that more impressive than Fernando Tatis hitting two grand slams in the same inning?

I think so.

I don't know.

I think it is.

I think it might be.

Because how many people go to...

Because that's complete luck.

Yeah.

Tatis, you have to have some skill.

So that's just crazier.

Yeah, no, that's insane.

Did he actually catch both of them?

It may have balanced, but either way.

Okay, he caught the first one off his chest. Yeah, because I was going to say, that's skill too.
If he actually caught both of them, then that's who it's skill. I think the second one he had to bend down.
Yeah, second one looked like it bounced right in front of him. But that's insane.
It was nuts. When I saw it, I was like, Jesus Christ.
And you're right. Zach Hample is definitely like he's going to use that as motivation.
It's not him. Okay, so this guy's wearing a real low-fitting hat.
He's got big sunglasses on. Nobody else has sunglasses in the crowd.
There's a chance that this guy was like skipping out on work and trying to lay low at the ballpark. And then he caught two foul balls to find them and then no chance he gets away with it now yeah yeah so that was crazy uh my cool oh wait breaking moose breaking moose it's hotter in there it's hot as fucking breaking moose i have uh received a response to our payment request i'm not allowed to pay off gambling debts it's a good response oh that is a good you're in this situation you're yeah yeah that's a very good response by jared uh he'll pass some money that's that's that's that's smart it's that's a great response yeah yeah and then i want to respond being like, I swear it's not gambling.
That's but it is. Yeah.
Okay. You're cool.
Cool. We talk about it with Shane Bacon a little bit, but the AWL is because the PGA championship put Brooks Koepka Max Homa in the same group.
Yes. Love it.
Yeah. Our guys and Spieth is just an absolute wild card.
Yeah, but Spieth is definitely a name that you look at and you you're like, oh, what if? For sure. Seven years ago.
He'll either be crazy erratic or crazy hot, but he's a super entertaining golfer. He just better play fast.
They both play fast. I saw people saying Brooks is going to have to walk slow.
I don't know if this is true. I don't know if this is true.
I don't want to say this on the record, but I am. They were saying that Spieth and Max are both really fast.
So they were joking that Brooks is going to have to walk slow. He's going to have to try and slow himself down.
Oh, I see what you're saying. I think they're too fast for...
I think Brooks will go as fast as anyone will allow him to. Yeah, he just steps up and hits it sometimes.
Yeah. Alright, so the PGA account should take a picture of them and say, what do you think these guys are talking about? Yeah.
They're probably talking about us. Yeah.
Narcissists. Definitely talking about us.
That's all. If you've been on the show one time, that's all you ever think about.
They're probably like, can you believe that Max thought PFT was talking about two sodas when he was really talking about him finishing second and everything yeah he'll definitely say or maybe they're like can you believe that jake's trying to kill them via the thermostat yeah or maybe like to get a birdie on a par three that was a real two man uh okay all right let's get to our interviews we got great interviews woge and then i got that wrong that's okay we're not a fact check podcast we never have been yeah they're slow oh okay firm slow god damn it that's bad i didn't say it on the record so you got it totally wrong yeah that's why but no no he no he got it kind of half right by being wrong because brooks will He will have to walk slow so that he can not stand over his ball for a long time.

Yes. Apologies.
Do you wish that on golf courses, Hank, the holes were a little bit smaller? No. Teeny tiny? I wish they were bigger.
I wish it was like the soccer golf holes. Tiny hole? It's a big old hole.
All right, let's get to it. Hank hates it because there's 18 of them.
He wishes there was maybe one less, a couple less. Stop it.
All right, let's get to our interview. Woj and Shane Bacon.
Before we get to Woj, he's brought to you by Priceline. When it comes to travel, every family has family has a happy place five-star resort with a kids club or an all-inclusive by the beach i love a good all-inclusive resort so good little pro tip if you go to all-inclusive stick to the beer get the get the beer that's out of the bottles out of the cans they can't water that down my happy place you know my happy place is it's greece i'm gonna go to greece this summer i'm using priceline to get there.
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And now here's Woj. Okay, we now welcome on a very, very special guest.
He is the source of all sources. It is Adrian Wojnowski, Woj, Woj Bombs from ESPN, the ultimate NBA insider.
Woj, first of all, thank you for coming by to the office. We appreciate it.
Guys, this is an honor. Okay.
It's an honor to be in here. I love it.
Now. I don't take this couch lightly.
I was going to say, because I have to ask before we even get started, we've had Schefter on many times. He's a good friend of ours.
Will you be looking at your phone in case there's any breaking news while you're recording this? Because Schefter gets nervous when he has to do an hour long of not looking at his phone it'll probably be shefter chasing fantasy basketball injury information yeah that's what wakes me up at three in the morning is that maniac yeah do you have any beef with him because he's like i have a lot of beef with him about that he's starting to you know what he's a one man the nba But you know what? There'll be times I'm embarrassed that I'm like, I'm not on top of that injury.

But he is.

Yeah.

Like, hey, is so-and-so coming back?

And I'm like, shit, I didn't realize he was out for two games.

So he's.

He's on it.

There's no one like him.

What about when he dips his toes into NBA news?

Are you like, get off?

Or do you give that to him? Do you give him a little morsel just to keep him happy?

Because you should start doing it to him. I don't want him.
I'm sure you have NFL contacts. No, no.
None? He loves doing that every year. Yeah.
And he's wanted to trade off. I'm sorry, I do not want to break NFL news.
That's for you. But he's dipped his toe in, and there may or may not have been a negotiation on a couple veteran minimums in Toronto over time where Adam was ready to dip in.

Yeah, I mean, you should just do it one time in the NFL,

just to let people know that you can do it.

You could do it.

That's a possibility.

And then it would actually be good for Schefter because it would make him work harder.

He should work harder.

Yeah, he doesn't work hard enough.

That's the one thing they say about Adam Schefter, doesn't work hard enough. Do you guys ever compare on your phones i think he has you beat because he's got doesn't he have a couple he has two phones yeah you have two phones i have two phones i got a new one like two months ago and i haven't figured out how to turn it on yet okay because espn gives you a number you have your own phone which i just kept that number and there's an espn phone and i couldn't remember what the number was and so i brought it to our tech people i'm like can you get this thing turned on and then they couldn't the one day i took it back and it's been sitting in my bag not turned i've i should probably get that one turned on by free agency this is a very relatable story that like the most powerful phone in all of mba can't get his second one on yeah As as long as one's on very good can i say something about screen time yeah who gives a fuck i agree i don't look at it who gives a fuck i i agree how much screen time you have yeah they try to shame us that's all it is it's like they're yeah my screen time on a college football saturday is going to be insane i've never turned i know that's part of the app right yeah i've never turned that on smart it's like it's like nba teams bragging about cap space yeah and like how many draft picks we have we're going to hang banners yeah like yeah cares about your screen time i know i do think you probably have um across all of twitter x whatever they're calling it you are probably the guy that has the most people who have notifications turned on so like when you tweet anything, there's millions of phones across the country.
You're essentially texting all of America right now. And then if I tweet a sub-tweet about us getting a recruit at St.
Bonaventure, everybody's like, we don't care, man. We don't care.
Stick to the script here. I know.
We want the news. But I do.
And so, but I always, I know those are coming. I try to be kind of judicious with like, I know people have notifications, but you know, once in a while I stray from character.
You should do one that's just like eating a cheeseburger. Just like, or something, you know, like whatever you're doing at that moment, just be like watching, watching some TV.
We were in the office the other day and I asked we're in studio i asked perk and malika i said how much would you pay me to tweet this out and i texted both of them so i have it here i said how much would you i said i said it would be my last day at espn it was my last day i said let me find this hold on let me find these two guys i like to watch doesn't fully know how to work is there okay no no okay i texted perkin malik andrews i said i'm gonna tweet this out you ready said kendrick perkins is finalizing a four-year 26.8 million dollar deal to become the next coach of los angeles lake sources tell yes i said to them what would happen in the next five minutes oh man i mean people would have to run with have to run with it. Yeah.
It would be like CBS Breaking News. I had the number.
It seems 26.8. Yeah, that's about right.
It seems like he's got the details. Yeah.
So speaking of the Lakers, is J.J. Redick going to get that job? He's a real candidate.
Yeah. And this just kind of happened out of, I mean, we know J.J., and we've had him on a bunch.
I know that he's very successful in media, and now now it feels like all this momentum well going like oh he wants to go listen i can't speak for him about his level of interest i think all of these things have intrigued him because i mean he's so talented he could do whatever he wants but there's no question there's an interest on the lakers part they've been making calls about him trying to um i know I know there hasn't been anything with him they haven't really met with any candidates yet they're going to start this week calling for permission on guys I think they're going to take their time with this search there's no like obvious candidates right now for I think especially the teams who are trying to win right win now teams there just aren't like obvious candidates out there like you know especially Budenholzer being off the board championship coach where I think teams are having to be creative with how they look at this and so look at a lot of different guys but you know listen if he wanted to be a GM there'd be interest in him and talking to him head coach and you know my maybe my greatest claim the fame in this when it's over is I started JJ on the podcast.

Yeah. head coach and you know my maybe my greatest claim to fame in this when it's over is i started jj on the podcast when i was at yahoo the vertical i said to him you know we're starting this site alongside yahoo the vertical you want to write some stories during the season about like being a player trade deadline what that's like and he's like that'll feel like homework and i'd like be worried about i'm not doing that so i get it and i was like how about a podcast and he goes let me think about a couple days and he came back first podcast he did it with steve nash and i'm like and steve nash was up for i think his name was being talked about maybe to be the president in phoenix at that time and so i'm like should i just say to jj hey you might want to bring that up with him see how he reacts i'm like i'm not gonna tell him what to do do what you want so they send the audio of the pod hey welcome to jj reddick here with steve nash hey you can take that president's job in phoenix i was like oh this guy's gonna be yeah yeah all right so you should get some some residuals from jj's podcasting career i probably should check out he's out with lebron i think i think the lakers have had conversations with jj reddick there's a podcast out there where it's lebron yeah that's true they're talking on a weekly basis about basketball and what the lakers do sometimes yeah he might just play that as his interview yeah and like i get along with your star yeah dude for a guy like jj do you think that he he could make that transition to being a head coach he's not been a head coach before he's studied the game obviously he's been an analyst but there's a lot of stuff that goes into coaching a team i agree that is not anything that he has any background in a ton of stuff and i think i think he can do it it has been done but i think it's really i think it's harder than ever to be a head coach in the nba i think in a lot of cases you have less power and say over what's going on like in a lot of in a lot of places, you talk about like the pecking order of power.
It's like the owner, the owner's kid, who is inheriting the team, right? The owner, the owner's kid, they're ahead of you. The president GM of the team's ahead of you.
The star player's ahead of you. And the star player's agent is probably ahead of you.
Yeah. And say, and maybe even your second best player and his agent, you're like or eighth ninth that's correct and like not in every case we know the guys who have who've won big have big voice but i i think it's harder than ever to coach in the league it takes more but in terms of just the organization staff how to build out like your staff and practice plans and all the things it's's not just drawn up plays.
And then, you know, being able to get buy-in from an NBA locker room is hard. Yeah.
So when it comes to the Lakers and Suns jobs, and I know, look, if you get there's only 30 of these jobs. So if someone gets offered the job, they're going to take the job.
But is there any feel going forward that like a Lakers or Suns job, aging superstars, is there any feel like this might be just a death sentence? Because whenever, I mean, we've seen it with Frank Vogel and Darvin Hamm. Like, you're the one who gets blamed.
It's not the players. It's you.
So, like, if you walk into that job and you don't have success right away, it's going to be you, not anyone else. Yeah, and listen, if you're Frank Vogel and you signed a five-year deal in Phoenix last year and you get whacked after one year, you're walking away with four years of guaranteed money.
Darvin Ham had a four-year deal, makes it two years, goes to the Western Finals, wins, what, 47 games this year. And Mike Budenholzer, five-year deal, you know, about $10 you know 10 11 million dollars a year i think there's more of a runway with the lakers i think the suns is like more of a you know what happens in the nba if you if they have another season this year like next year like they did this season then it's like does everybody want to stay there do guys to start moving? Do you have to trade guys? So you know you have this very tiny window.
They don't have hardly any of their draft picks assets. They don't have young players that they have coming up.
The Lakers have, I think, a longer runway. They could make a big trade this summer and get a real real significant player.
AD still in his prime.

You know, Austin Reeves, there's more in place. And if you get in a position in three years where let's say LeBron retires in two, three years, you can, if you create a max salary spot with the Lakers, come on, you're getting somebody.
Right. Guys are always going to want to play them.
Yeah, that's true. That's right.
That's a good point. So with LeBron, going back going back to 2010 you and lebron your career is tied closely to lebron's in that respect talk talk about what happened in 2010 with him and what path that sent you on it changed my job it changed how you cover the nba like what an insider was i went to yahoo in 2007 i was a suburban newspaper columnist bergen record in new jersey home of diana russini good reporter she was the great reporter great reporter great reporter she used to date the um guy who used to cut my hair my my kids hair in town i remember him telling me like i'm dating this reporter from channel two or channel four new york city i'm like wow and it turned out to be russini yeah turned out to be she's a great diana reporter yeah she is yeah um but i was just a suburban newspaper columnist and i went to yahoo dan wetzel who you guys know one of the greats yeah dan was at yahoo and there was an nba job open and I take that in 07 or 07 but by 2010 Twitter's come along like we're now people are or maybe it was 10 or 11 but now there's like sort of this instant scorecard of breaking news but that free agency changed everything it changed how people covered the sport and the attention there was on like there had been team usa guys were talking about getting together and now like the off season it was almost like what college football college basketball is right you had the sport and then you had recruiting and they're like two separate things and the deals and like the team building became a huge part of it and lebron made it okay for guys to say i'm gonna go play wherever i want with who i want to play with and that he took a lot of shit from a lot of people about going to miami um winning with that group and building super teams and he made it like i don't know if kevin durant could have done what he did with golden state if lebron hadn't done it.
Right. Right.
And so, but it changed the job and it changed how you approached it. And like, there's lots of different ways to cover basketball.
Everybody has their strengths and come at it from a different point of view. That's why like you want to read it all.
You want to hear it all. Like everybody doesn't have to do it exactly the same.
Why would you want them to? And I think it created, but there was just like this unbelievable appetite for information. Yeah.
Unbelievable appetite. Because every trade now was, hey, that's clearing $12 million in cap space.
Now they've got a max slot and they're going to trade this guy and this guy and they're going to create two max slots. And now what two guys are they going to get? And then that became a frenzy every year.
Then the next year you had, you know, Chris Paul pushing his way out of New Orleans. You had Carmelo Anthony pushing his way out of Denver.
And the owners were all shitting. Like the small market owners were like, we can't, we can't control in these small markets, the ability to keep great players here.
They want to go to the major markets. And now the league's kind of taken out of way with this new salary cap.
They're going to force guys, unless they want to take way less money, they're going to force players to spread around the league. Yeah, which it does feel like the super team is kind of not dying, but it feels like this playoffs especially, you have a lot more homegrown teams that are going for them.
Yeah, a super team but you better have drafted them like phoenix were two of your three great players you've had to trade for when you do that you've gassed all your picks all your young guys and you had this top heavy roster that doesn't work where denver you know yokich uh michael porter um joan murray they drafted all three. They traded for Aaron Gordon.
They've never had to, like, do that four first-round pick deal that just takes all your young guys out. Minnesota, they traded for one of the three, right? Right.
And Boston drafted, right? They drafted Tatum Brown. And who's there now? Yeah, I mean, Derek White, they were able to trade for.
Like, even Porzingis was a traded for Marcus Smart. Yeah, yeah.
But you have two stars that you traded for. And, like, the third guy is not, like, a transcendent.
They have, like, all-star level guys. That's how you have to do it.
If you have to just gas all your picks to do it, you probably don't have a roster that's strong enough to do it strong enough yeah so with porzingis uh glad we brought him up oh yeah you said that he's going to miss a minimum of several games and we've been we've extended past that oh okay so what's the maximum maximum of several plus past the minimum right what is several games we brought this tweet up maybe every single episode since you tweeted it because what the hell does it mean several games is a vague cop-out yeah and it's a minimum because it's a vague it's a vague compound i'm happy you're a bit of this is several is several three is it seven right i'm not saying and that's just the minimum we don't know what the maximum is i think the hope is that he could be back potentially in a conference final that it was going to come that this series was unlikely and now they're three one yeah yeah three one so and then maybe it buys them some time but you know those those calf injuries are tricky like they just they're tricky yeah so for everybody the return isn't it's not. It's hard to say it's going to be 10 days.

It's going to be two weeks.

But the sense was it was going to be the series. But it looks like they – especially with Donovan Mitchell out last night,

that was a huge blow for them.

Yeah.

That Boston's got enough probably to get past them.

Have people been responding to your minimum of several games?

Because I know – I mean, it was a very funny way to phrase it.

I hope you use it again.

It's just a great way to put an injury timetable because there is no timetable. We just know that he won't play the next game.
That's really all it is. And it's not day-to-day.
It's a minimum of several games. Several's five.
Oh, several's five. Oh, five.
Okay. Several's four to seven.
Four to seven. Okay.
Okay. Five to eight.
Because, yeah, eight feels like it would be a minimum of a lot of games. That's more than several.
That's more than several. That's several plus.
Several plus. I like that.
Maybe next time if someone has – Complete cop-out. Yeah, if someone has like a month or two-month injury, just say a minimum of a lot of games.
That would be the way to phrase it. Can you say – Extended period is another one.
Yeah. Let's extend it.
Can you say week to week? Does that work? I hate week to week. But day to day, that's one thing.
Week to week. Week to week is several.
You to week here's you know here's the one where you know it's they're going to re-evaluate in two weeks three weeks yeah they re-evaluate that thing every single day what do you think like hey you know next thursday we're gonna bring them back into the doctor they're pouring over these guys every day but what the teams know is if we say re-evaluate it in three weeks or four weeks it buys them time they don't have to answer the question every day right hey how's porzingis doing we're going to re-evaluate him next friday yeah no they're going to re-evaluate him next hour and then yeah three hours then after lunch again but yeah we're not going to answer the question till next friday yeah that's right we're not going to answer the question till then so so the lebron uh 2010 year was huge for your career what was besides LeBron who's the one player that like if you didn't have them and the way they treated you you wouldn't be where you are today Kobe yeah he gave me credibility covering the NBA what just by answering your questions and talking to you just by talking to me wow yeah he would give me a lot of access he was so he understood however we hit it off but he also understood before a lot of people covering the nba that that when i was covering the nba how big of a reach yahoo sports had like back then and yahoo's still significant there's tremendous people there i had a great i love my time there people i worked with pass in there um obviously wetzel a lot of other guys but kobe understood the reach of it like back then it was, that was the homepage for like on the internet. You, you logged into the internet and it was like, you got your mail there.
You saw the, you know, what the weather was going to be. If somebody looked at their stocks, it was all there.
Like that was sort of the, like everybody's homepage. So if you got stories out on the front of that, it was like a fire hose.
And so he got that that he got the reach of it but him talking to me him giving me access him you know he would sometimes say when he wanted to get something off his chest it would always be like a cold midwestern city in the winter can you get to minneapolis can you meet me in indianapolis it was always like a place they might be in for a day plus it was never meet me in miami yeah sometimes it was la and then and so it gave me tremendous it just made it expedited

things for me i think people saw well if he's talking to him it it gave me credibility with

players with everybody yeah agents um and so that was um he was huge for my career was it anything besides yahoo like did you was it like he just kind of liked you because that it does feel like we always i think he understood the platform but we you know he liked someone who was competitive and and you know he liked that i was competitive in my job. He always wanted to talk about it.
He always wanted to talk about competing, how you do things. Um, and he loved that part of it.
He, he understood like so much about my job, his world. I remember this.
I remember talking. I would always try to talk him out of getting on twitter

and i said kobe twitter's for small talk you don't do small talk you do big proclamations because i knew the minute he got on twitter he doesn't need to talk to me all the time smart yeah yeah it's like what he did at the olympics he would go you know he'd spend when he was older like, he was on the team with Westbrook. Durant, I don't know if Durant was there.
Westbrook was there. I'm trying to remember if Durant was at the Olympics.
I don't know if he was. 2012, he would spend the entire time, like, telling Russ, guys would tell me, why are you letting KD win scoring titles? You titles you should be winning scoring and like if he could just send russ back to oklahoma city with that thought in his mind if it would just throw okc off just a little bit and but they were at the point where the lakers were now were they were passing them yeah but he everywhere he was he had a um you know he looked at how he could take a situation and yeah manipulate it to his and compete yeah yeah so get an edge so you mentioned it the i'd have to imagine like all the players having podcasts that kind of sucks for your job now because they're just reporting their own news i don't know if a lot of guys are report pat bev is yeah pat bev is you had to credit his pocket i know you subscribe i do subscribe okay i'm scared all right i was gonna we were gonna have to end this whole interview so i'll tell you i texted him so he were i because i was texting with him yesterday i just hit him on something and i saw the text sitting there and i was laughing so this was march 28th so let's see he got waved why was he was he was he oh no it was the injury yeah it was the injury yeah his wrist oh here it was yeah i said um it was good here you go hey pat how did it go yesterday any sense yet on next steps he goes i will break my own news Thanks, though.
I said, well, I'll be watching for it. I love him.

Yeah, though. I said, well, I'll be watching for it.
I love him. I love that.
I did one of my favorite podcasts ever in the city of Chicago. He's probably been on my pod maybe in the past, maybe three or four times, different place.
But we were in Chicago, and he said we were going to do it. It was one of the seasons and he got a deal on a boat it was over in the i don't know what the one of the harbors harbor yeah and so he was like if you just say the name he wanted me just when you introduced me you got to say what boat we are on what company because he was going to get i think it was something like he was getting like a free five hours to go around the harbor.
And so we're like, the sun's beating down. It's like the middle of the day was fine.
So we're out there, the audio, imagine the audio sitting out on the deck of a boat. It's not great.
And the sun's beating down on us and we're sitting on the deck of this. It's not a yacht.
It was just, it was a boat. And we do the podcast out there.
And it was like, all I could think of was that honorage where they were like Rufus from, remember Rufus from Home Solutions? Yeah. And Johnny Drama had the hat on sitting on the couch.
Yeah. I was like, whatever the name of the boat was, but I left town.
He went out and had like a whole day on the beat. I think he got it for free.
Yeah. I had to say the name of that.
He's like, I'm telling you, Woj is going to say your company. Yeah.
It's company yeah i'm going to go to millions of people yeah it wasn't going to millions of people but it went to somebody yeah so uh we got to talk about the uh the james harden situation where you broke the james harden news you were going to get on a plane and what time was your flight so i usually make my flights like i fly a lot new work to la um i try to do it um there's a 7 30 p.m there's an 8 30 i i i late i leave as late as i can so i'm in the air for the least amount of time that shit could happen news can happen and when i fly back i either fly back on a 9 p.m pacific flight so that's midnight eastern or the 11 o'clock so i know like in that range it's pretty rare middle of the's going to break, but I don't want to be on a plane in the middle of the day where like sometimes wireless works, sometimes it doesn't. But whatever the time was, I want to say maybe it was a 6.30.
It was a 6.30 or 7.30 flight. Because I remember I got to the airport around like just about an hour before my flight and I got a sense from the teams that like this trade could happen tonight and i said um to one of them i've got a flight leaves it i don't think it was 6 30 maybe it was 7 30 should i get on that flight they're like i wouldn't get on that flight like weekend like okay so i just go up to the you know you got that united lounge yeah set up in there and and i'm like i know i'm just not taking a flight and so i'm gonna sit here and wait until this thing goes down if it's gonna go down and then at like 10 30 like the united lounge is closed get out of here yeah right get out so then i go down into that i go down the escalator and then there's like just the open seating right so now it's like 11 12 1 so i texted my wife at some point i'm like hey i'm probably coming back home tonight like 6 a.m whatever we'll figure it out but i'll just like whatever like tom i probably like yeah so anyway so then it's but then i realized i got to a point where i saw like my flight landed in la and the trade salon happened i was like son of a bitch i could have been on it and then it's like now you get to i got to center like hey listen it's probably gonna be around they're waiting for somebody to get in i want it there's finally was like this is going to be like around 2 a.m you're gonna be able to put this out and so now like the zamboni machines like running through the airport right the big machine that cleaning the thing.
So it was just me and that guy going up and down. And then like some guys got off some late flights and, you know, they're sort of looking at me like, and he sort of recognized me and was like, what is this guy sitting in an empty? A couple of guys, like, what is he doing here? I'm just, I'm just here.
And so finally 2 a.m., right? That thing got done. And then by the time I got like, it was like 3.30 a.m., I packed up, took an Uber back home 30 minutes, and then came back and flew the next day.
You still got it. That must have been like a, I can still do this, you know, all hours of night.
And try to stay awake. Yeah.
If you ever see Woj just sitting by himself somewhere, you know that some shit's about to go down. Someone's about to get traded.
Yeah, something's happening. Yeah, that's 100% going to happen yeah the i mean that's that just shows i mean you guys how how many hours a night do you sleep you know like this idea that like listen during like free agency or trade deadline it's minimal yeah the rest of the year this idea that like you can't sleep as an inside it's like it's bullshit okay it's just it's like there's a lot of i think some people want to create a lot of mythology around this thing like there's a lot of demanding jobs like around that time right you know what they are free agency trade deadline draft draft the two nights thing is brutal now yeah because now you get up like usually you could the draft ends you know it's five six hours on that podium and if you have to go to the bathroom you can't leave that podium like during it and so it does cut down that yeah i get older because i gotta go at some point but the idea though as soon as that thing's over at pick 30 teams are going to start making trades for the next day like you're going to be up that like that's not one whining about it but like yeah but i get why we want to do the two days and listen if bronny is yeah like i wonder if the league will send a memo out and say hey like we need him for the second night yeah don't be taking him yeah 30 right but but who knows when he could get picked and so i do think having bronny this, probably if he makes it to the second night, I mean, that'll be the story, right? Yeah.
Do you think that there is going to be a team that takes a chance on Bronny just in the hopes that maybe LeBron will come play for this team later? I don't think it's going to be to get LeBron. I think it'll be because they see some value in him.
I don't think,

you know, Rich Paul has said this to me since March, maybe February, March, and he said on

the record, like, this isn't about pairing them up. They want to find the best place for Bronny,

place that's focused on development, that has a good track record, he's a young player.

The Lakers are not really a developmental, like, program. They're a win-now team, right now team right and so their thing was if it lines up it's organic and it happens great but the mission isn't to get them together and like you know if lebron goes to you know or bronny goes to i don't name the city toronto charlotte indiana philadelphia yeah like you know is it a team that like could even they'd force a trade, right? Because free agency is not going to work.
They're not going to have cap space. He's a $50, $60 million a year player.
I don't think it's about that. But I think, I saw Bronny play last year in person in Portland at that Nike Hoop Summit.
He looked, he was a real, he's a real prospect. He was.
Now, he's not a superstar. He's a role player.
But like, he does a lot of things really like smart. He really guards like great court sense.
How you would imagine LeBron's son to be just incredible basketball IQ, you know, athletic enough. You know, he really shot the ball well yesterday.
Like, it's not a stretch to imagine him in the NBA. Do I think he's an NBA star? No, but there are a lot of role players who look exactly the same as Bronny James at that age, but he has the heart issue.
He misses five months of playing, and so then he's limited in the production at USC, but if anybody took five months off, and I'm sure there's a mental hurdle in returning from that, but he looked great yesterday, you know like i don't think though selecting him or signing him is people think it's a ticket to lebron i don't feel that yeah um all right i got the hardest question for you in this entire interview oh geez do you know the name rico bosco i know the name rico bos. Okay.
I want to hear your perspective of this because Rico's crazy.

I love him, but he's crazy. For people who don't know, Rico had a 12-year grudge against Woj.
Felt like 112 years. Yeah, and you're like, wow, 12 years? Woj must have done something really bad.
Well, not really. Woj DMed Rico in 2011 uh when rico was saying that danny hurley was the next up coach and all these other schools should try to hire him woge sent him a dm saying i know him pretty well he isn't leaving the state of new jersey i promise you he stayed in high school for nine years turned down a lot of jobs i'm right obviously danny Hurley left the state of new jersey i'm right here's i care i thought it was leaving wagner to go to uri wasn't it no well here's what's interesting because he was he lived in new jersey when he coached at wagner yeah i did initially i didn't think he was going to take uri but then they offered but here's what's interesting about it we have the screenshot from woge we don't have the screenshot of what rico sent you i don't remember to elicit that response true so that's interesting did you were you aware that he was just tweeting about it because the other i don't remember i don't remember the circumstances around it you know i saw my screenshot for like i said 112 years being posted yeah worse and worse like yeah quality of the quality of Yeah, it was just so, you're right he was at Wagner he was living in New Jersey it was it was Wagner to URI because I remember at the time when I had conversations with Danny I'm like you can make I think you can jump to the Big East from Wagner with what he was doing there I didn't think he had to go to URI and then but I was wrong he took it we were talking about it I remember talking about it with it then I'm like I don't think you have to take an atlantic 10 job now also i want to keep him out of the fucking atlantic 10 yeah because you're so there was some agenda there yeah so so some agenda so this is also this was a private dm that rico has now made it he was like for the longest time he's like woge uh won't apologize to me i was like but it was a private message and i actually a few months ago we asked him if Woj did apologize privately would you have accepted it he said no because then he would still have to carry the embarrassment of having a private apology for something Rico made public at any point in the last 12 years were you like what's this what is this guy doing what is he talking about i knew what he was talking about but yeah i'll do it here i i apologize that danny hurley left wagner oh i like how you phrase that and he didn't stay in a northeast conference i like that he would have dominated yeah he might have won a national championship at wagner yeah he's very smart you're not apologizing to rico bosco you're apologizing the danny hurley lesson he got a lot of mileage out of that bit.
Oh, I mean. And it wasn't a bit.
By the way, it was not a bit. He's crazy like that.
He came up. He saw me at.
Yeah, we made him. I made him go.
So my wife is sitting next to me. So I've known Dusty May for when I did a book on the Hurleys.
I did this Miracle of St. Anthony 20 years ago, 20 years ago this year.
And Dusty was a young assistant in Indiana. And he came to recruit St.
Anthony's. And I got to know him and known him since.
So we were at the garden to go see them in the Tennessee game, Sweet 16. And so my wife and I were sitting, I don't know, just courtside.
And his family was there. And she doesn't know anything about this thing.
Like she's not. good healthy that's how yeah she doesn't she barely even knows what i do for a living just live it hang out at airports um and so he came up and i don't remember what he said like hey and she was i'm the guy yeah yeah and she was like half listening like because sometimes people come up and want to introduce themselves and he went away she was like what was that i go i don't know like you know like search my name in 11 seconds on twitter you'll probably see what it was yes it was uh i mean he rico is uh he's a special brain but that was one of those ones where it's Like, he made a grudge out of seemingly nothing but he was very mad at you for a long time is rico bosco is that a play on rico brogna no no i don't think so rico brogna was like when i worked in waterbury he was like a in a play for the mets he was a yeah no it was like one of the first guys i ever got him so i was wondering if he was like a.
I think he just tried to sound really Italian. Yeah.
He also Rico, just so you know, and I think you probably can maybe contend this, but he claims that he has the most powerful phone in the Northeast. Rico does.
I believe it. Oh, okay.
All right. So you're giving him that.
It's like a terrorist organization. Oh, it is.
No, it is. Don't say that.
Don't say that. They are.
I've seen the picture. Don't say that.
I've seen the pictures. Oh, yeah.
Well, there was a picture of him in the Middle East. Terror takes many forms.
Yeah. That's true.
It's not middle. I didn't suggest it was any part of the war.
Yeah. That's good that you apologized to Danny Hurley, though.
I feel like we're in a good spot in this whole saga. He's good.
Yeah. Good, good, good.
He makes a mountain out of a molehill. It's quite something.
I had a question for you about just the stress of traveling. And I know for our job, when we're traveling anywhere, if I'm going on vacation, but maybe we have to do a show or something, I'm always stressed out about if it's an Airbnb, is the Wi-Fi, it says it's got really fast Wi-Fi.
Is that always going to be the case when you're on a plane? Do you have to make yourself at those times of year where it's the trade deadline, draft, things like that? If it's a busy time of year where something might happen, do you have to plan in advance based on where you're going, how good that Wi-Fi is? I would say those times of the year, I'm almost always in studio. I'm almost always either in studio in bristol LA.
I'm not like in some remote location. You're going to be like those times.
But like, I mean, I can't tell you like how many times like I've made my family sit on the side, you know, pull over the car, sit up, especially when the kids were younger and you were driving everybody somewhere, pull over. I remember the worst one was Christmas Eve.
It was Christmas Eve. We were going into church.
our kids were younger and you were driving everybody somewhere pull over i remember the worst one was christmas eve it was christmas eve we were going into church our kids were really young and um i got a trade as we were walking in like we're walking up the steps and into and all of a sudden i'm at the bottom of the steps with i think my wife says i can still see her with the two kids holding their hands and just standing like going into the church just shaking her head like you asshole you asshole this is a life you married into and it was like it was like a king's grizzlies trade it might have been like i can't remember who it was it was like 2007 2008

was early and um i'm just one minute i'll get this you know it was just a look of just absolute

disdain yeah do you have any like is there is is there there a low? Is there a low in your world? The King's Grizzlies. There have to be some trades that you're like, I'm going into church.
It's the King's Grizzlies. That's not worth my time.
Yeah, you don't throw any back. You don't throw any back.
Especially then. Like then, it was like, that was very early.
It was still a big deal to, I mean, it's always a big deal to, you know, break a trade. I mean, there's only like, I'd say this.
I always think Adam's job is much more taxing. The NFL insider to me is a much more taxing job to me for no other reason than the quarterback position, right? People care about all 30 teams, all 30 quarterbacks.
Is he playing? Is that guy getting moved out? Who's the starter? Who's starting this week? Is he going to be ready Sunday? And for all 30 teams. And to me, that position and then free agency trades, like to me, just that position alone makes, or 32 teams, right? Makes it, makes the job way harder.
I went up to, I always love going to bristol when shefter's doing free agency or trade deadline and if i can go up there for the day i did it this year i guess it was free agency it was being a free agency and um i just sit there it's like watching like a lion in the wild right like just sit and watch and i go get him water i got him some i went to the cap got him some gum you know drove him back to the hotel later you know i like that watching adam shefter on it just you know and then it's like ptsd but you're just watching him go through it but he is he's the best yeah he's the best ever so i guess we could ask you this way um could an nba trans nba newsbreaker translate better to the nfl or an nfl newsbreaker translate better to the NFL or an NFL newsbreaker translate better to the NBA world? I think like a good reporter, you could parachute them in anywhere, like school board, covering city hall cops, NFL, NBA. If you can report, you can report.
If you give them time to build relationships figure it out I think you could put a somebody who's a pretty good reporter anywhere so yes now you're starting at zero and it takes I mean I've been doing this for you know you build these relationships over a very long time like when I started as an NBA insider like the guys who were low-level executives who were just barely in the front office or low-level agents or G League coaches. Like when I started, like Nick Nurse was a G League coach I knew, you know, becomes a championship coach and front office guy.
Sam Presti was the assistant GM with the Spurs. And then, and so you have the years of those relationships and then the people around them that you get to know and so but it takes a long time like you just couldn't do it overnight yeah so is it always going to be basketball for you or are there other interests that you'd like to get into further in your career further in my career well i mean like election night are you going to tweet who won the election because it's not going gonna be real until woge announces it i don't think so okay well no would would you have reported a guy getting waived on christmas eve i'm trying to find it i want to find this i'm if okay i would say now teams are much more reluctant to do that shit on christmas eve yeah because they know the response but before social media i bet it happened a lot more i remember Scott Skiles got fired on Christmas Eve didn't yeah the Bulls yeah so wait but I'm trying to find one did you find one well I found uh Hamed Haddaddy uh was signed from the Dakota Wizards on December 24th 2008 I hope it wasn't that one uh that you're talking that story about and then there was Marcoarrich got waived on December 24th, 2009 from the Grizzlies.
I looked through all Kings and Grizzlies transactions. I may be wrong about the team.
I apologize. I may be wrong about the teams.
I wish it was like a Marco Yarrich getting waived. It was Christmas Eve.
I don't like – all right, we've got to – I know the agent who at the time told me my guy just got traded and i just saw him and i'm gonna ask because i i'm not remembering who was in it but when we leave i'm gonna text yeah and we'll put it in who did you text me that day yeah i remember who told me it yeah and i just saw him so yeah um it was christmas eve i was walking i can still see my wife at the top of those stairs like death glare yeah uh all right so you're here for the draft uh this is a weird draft because it feels like everyone's like this draft stinks you hear people say it's like if a regular draft started at five or six the hawks win it with the three percent so hawks and like the city of atlanta's sports just what what whatever happens atlanta it's always kind of like oh man that was a bummer. But to win the number one pick here, does that give them any flexibility going forward? I know they want to probably maybe trade Trae Young, but is this something that teams are even interested in? Well, if you're the Hawks, especially because you've traded away the picks like in the DeJounte Murray deal where you don't have your pick next year.
So they're sitting there expecting to pick at 10. Right.
And now we're at one, and now we control the draft. So I think it's huge for them, but they've got to figure out who that guy is.
There's going to be a star in this draft. There might be multiple stars.
But the day of the draft, I said it reminds me which was anthony bennett went one and cleveland was on the clock until if the draft started at 7 30 um they hadn't decided until 720 they were still trying to trade the pick it was chaos and they missed the pick i mean bennett but yannis goes 15th rudy gobert goes 27th the there there'll probably be somebody in the teams ends up being an all-NBA player. It's your job to figure out who it is.
I have a hard time seeing people moving up to one in this draft. Because I think maybe if it's like a team at two or three that wants a guy and then they just trade down one spot, like Ainge did with Philly.
Yeah. Right? They didn't want Markel.
Like they knew Phillyultz and they said hey we want Jason Tatum at three so not only do they get move down and get Tatum they get another pick from them right you you said starting to think that trade is not going to work out for the six oh I don't think so you you said before we started that you had a good Danny Ainge uh trading story so they were getting ready to trade Rajon Rondo to Dallas. I don't remember the year.

And. so they were getting ready to trade Rajon Rondo uh to Dallas I don't remember the year and I texted Danny hey I'm hearing from people I'm getting the sense that you're you're really starting to look to move Rajon give me a call you know I want to catch up with you about it and no response 15 20 minutes half an hour i get a text and it says donnie and it is a text with the terms of a celtic dallas trade um possible names that it picks and i'm looking at this going holy shit like he sent me the wrong he sent a text for donnie nelson the dallas gym he sent it to me by accident whoa with like their back and forth on the trade and so and didn't realize and then like i'm sitting there kind of looking at it going i don't think this was meant for me so i just text him back you owe me one and then my phone rings and he is laughing hysterically oh that's and i said just don't let me get beat on this whenever it gets done yeah i didn't and you didn't i didn't give it to you all right i remember he gave it to i just remember i didn't get beat on it that's incredible but um but i realized it was meant for donnie nelson so that's not that all the terms in it.
Is there any trade that you look back on and maybe one that you didn't get where you're like, I should have had that one? Is there one that eats you up inside? I never feel like one. You think about ones.
Listen, you want to break everything. You can't break everything.
I do remember the costliest trade I ever broke, which was 2012 Olympics in England. Like back then when I was at Yahoo, the idea of being overseas for free, I don't remember.
Yeah, it was July. Free agency, I guess, was over.
But we're covering the Olympics. The Dwight Howard trade was happening.
It was a a four-team trade i remember being in the lobby of this english hotel in london like three i want to say like 3 15 3 30 in the morning when i felt like i got it and it was four teams and back then like i didn't really know how to handle a calling plan for overseas like like on your cell phone it wasn't unlimited and they were always pretty liberal with the budget at yahoo like you always felt like you could put in for stuff but i was going to test this thing so i get my phone bill at the end of the olympics it's twelve thousand dollars oh jesus twelve thousand dollar phone bill oh my god and i'm like all right you can get i'm like this is really going to test the limits of you know and um i put in for as i called my editor when i got back to him or hey dave this is uh felt really good about the olympics we got that trade we we got some really good stuff but the phone bill's 12 fucking thousand dollars yeah he's like oh man yeah but he got they paid it they paid it yeah that's incredible try that at espn now yeah it wasn't so easy where you just land somewhere and your phone tells you like welcome to canada welcome to england you have on here's how you and i knew you know what there was a point where i knew i was over like whatever was 100 minutes like i knew i had gone through it at first i was trying to be kind of careful with it and then i was just like screw it like i've just i'm i gotta get this stuff gotta do your job i gotta get this stuff uh it's fun to speculate and uh we saw lebron sitting courtside at the cav cell everything that he does seems to be very calculated he's been very good about that he's sending some kind of message i don't know what the message is but i think there's nobody better to ask than you about what that message could be yeah i asked about that this morning with somebody who was would know and was told to not read any message into it that it was legitimately I think they were in Cleveland for Mother's Day he and his wife uh knows a lot of the players in the game young guys who come through his camps obviously has the connection with Cleveland said Dan Gilbert was super gracious just with getting him, you know him to sit there I don't have to ask to allow him and so to not read anything into it I said it now you know he knows when he does that like yeah it's going to be a conversation I think he came in I'm not sure he was there for the tip I think he kind of came in and but it's's never, I think his intention is still to be in LA, to finish with the Lakers. But you guys know it isn't always a straight line to get there.
And I think what I was told still is it's just going to be, what does the contract look like? You can opt into your deal. You can opt out and do a two-year deal, three-year deal.
I think those are the questions, but they'll get to June or around that deadline. They'll be evaluating what it looks like, what else might be out there.
I'm not saying it can't change because you guys know it can. It changes on a dime in this league.
But as of now, I was told that was not meant to be a message. But if you're the the lakers like okay like you know yeah listen we went through it at the trade deadline we ramona shelburne and i had the story on the warriors and like the warriors called and they talked and and rich eventually shut it down said we're not doing this he's not interested in it but there were a couple days there where there was some back and forth where if lebron said hey i'd like to do this there was a world where it could have happened but he he ultimately shut it down yeah so i heard everything you said i respectfully disagree so ron's just going to go to cleveland he he's either trying to go to cleveland it was smart what you said he might be trying to go to boston yeah oh interesting we didn't or he's trying to get tatum to the lakers just recruiting in person oh there's a lot of things yeah yeah lebron and boston that would be does that frustrate you ever when you're like we we're fans we like to play fan fiction we like to just make stuff up are you ever like everyone's just making this up and it's not in facts listen well i don't have my job if people don't yeah love that yeah like that's part of why i've been able to do this so like you're allowed to like it doesn't bother me like you know if we're gonna do like a 15 minute segment on espn about something that maybe is not based in reality that's different than people doing it on social media talk like that's the fun of it it's like that's what people love about like the player movement and you've seen nothing is as crazy as some things can sound we've seen it in this league where yeah you go that doesn't seem I mean I remember when I reported in the year before you know you, maybe like six months ahead of where Durant went from Oklahoma City to Golden State.
When I said, hey, there's, these guys are batting eyelashes at each other, right? Like Golden State's at the cap space, you know, Warrior players were already starting to kind of recruit LeBron, or excuse me, LeBron, KD, and this is a possibility in free agency.

People were like, that's ridiculous.

They were, I remember the day I reported it,

I think the Warriors were 44-4.

Like, they're not bringing KD in,

but teams are always planning and, you know,

it wasn't done that day,

but the idea that it couldn't happen,

and it did seem preposterous.

Like, he's going to go to the Warriors.

But like we said, like, LeBron going to Miami

and then LeBron going back to Cleveland

and day but the idea that it couldn't happen and it did seem preposterous like he's gonna go the warriors but like we said like lebron going to miami and then lebron going back to cleveland it made it easier for guys like kd and other guys to say i'm gonna go play where i want when i want right like you're not seeing guys in free agency anymore you're like many fewer guys are like out in free agency it's like i'm gonna sign the super max where i am i'm gonna take my money now and i'm gonna fix the destination later i'm gonna go in the portal yeah right like this is gonna be a summer of like a bunch of guys in the nba portal yeah like i'm not taking less money to go somewhere as a free agent you'll just trade me yeah what about what about when a anonymous twitter account starts getting some things right do you have to like look at it and you're like oh shit they got this or like you know we had the material change kid uh i can't remember what free agency that was kawaii i think yeah it was kawaii where he just reported something and then was way wrong and there's like well it's a material change he was going to go to the lakers maybe yeah and he went to the clippers yeah according to this guy yeah but is there ever is there ever like uh someone who's reporting something it's like they're anonymous but they they just got two in a row that are right. And like, now I got to start looking into this.
I think like you can predict, like there's a difference between predicting and reporting. Right.
I've got to report, but you could sit around and like, you could make predictions that are going to come true. Now, no one's going to count all the, no one's going to pay attention to all the ones that didn't.
Right. But if you hit on three out of 10 or three out of 20 or three out of eight, if I do that in my job, I'm back working Parks and Rec in Bristol, Connecticut, down the street from ESPN where I started out.
What about the biggest trade that didn't happen? One that almost went down, but they backed out. Good question.
Thank you. I'd say Kobe Pistons.
That was closeons that was close kobe bowls too kobe bowls but like there was a deal with the pistons where um it was like rip hamilton i reported it you're like way after um i remember it was like tayshaun rip hamilton a bunch of picks and kobe they had agreed to it essentially the two teams but kobe had a want to do it and i think he went to um jerry buss's house and they just deciding jerry kobe was in that period where like i want out of here and i think he kind of pulled him back in that trade was agreed to like the two teams with the terms but it was contingent on lakers didn't want to do it for obvious reasons and then kobe just said i'm gonna i'm not i don't want to do this yeah but like it was i mean think of how different the world would have been if kobe lands of the pistons or the bulls yeah or dallas you know like that summer he they talked with a bunch of teams they were ready to do it yeah and looking back you know he um you know i know he was obviously glad he played his whole career in la yeah yeah um all right so woge has been awesome we want you back on your recurring guests now so you actually have to come back on whenever we ask um but i had one last question rowback question rhoback.com promo code take 20 off your first purchase q-zips polos hoodies joggers shorts roback.com promo code take um full disclosure i wanted this isn't even a question all right have you thought about changing the uh twitter uh avatar picture updating it possibly what is it now just picture of me it's just a picture of you is it a bad picture kind of sm possibly. What is it now? Just a picture of me? It's just a picture of you.
Is it a bad picture? Kind of smug. Really? I pulled up all the times we've talked about you.
I want to be full disclosure here. Some things we've maybe said.
Let me see this. Hold on.
You're smug. You look very professional.
Yeah, but you're smug. I don't think that's smug.
It's a little smug. There are many smug pictures of me.
I don't think that's one of them. Is that a picture day? Did you have picture day at each?'s an old one wait wait let me see two pairs of glasses let me see it oh no you updated it okay never mind the one i'm looking at is the it is the really smug one that's okay yeah that was my first headshot at espn okay all right they use that on tv yeah like when i'm not on air and i replaced that one i didn't love okay good all right so then we're good then i don't have to say all the things we said about that picture go ahead okay uh i think this was me i said woge's twitter picture pisses me off he's got that smug i want to punch this guy in the face look pft said it's the body language it looks like linkedin picture for some financial banker i said he thinks he's a big wig.P.
Morgan on Wall Street, but he's really just at Omaha Mutual.

PFT said he's a vice president,

but he works at a place where there's like 200

vice presidents, so they don't have to call them salespeople.

I said, you're a VP,

but you get no equity. He just looks like

he knows something I don't know, and I want to

punch him. PFT says he does.
He knows

every single pick in the NBA draft.

I'm glad I changed that pick. I wanted to just let know that we there was a moment in time where it wasn't like we want to punch him and also put him that none of that was on none of that was unfair by the way in the new one you look like a senior vice president yeah you look good you've got a promotion yeah congrats i like to we like to you know the beauty of this show is if you come on you end up looking good because we'll just say the dumb shit we said about you.
And if you can take it, it's great. So good that you updated it.
You're no longer, you know, VP. If I change it again, can I text you guys? Can I give you three or four choices? Yeah, give us our, yeah, we'll have final say.
Yes, please do. Maybe bring Rossini in.
Yeah, we'll just do like a ranking of which one we want to fight the most. It would be a quick fight if you haven't figured it out yet.
Well, Woj, you got one last question? Yeah, I just had a question about more of a big picture future of the NBA type of thing. If you're looking outside, we can generally agree there's like six teams that are kind of at the top, five or six teams.
Outside of those, maybe it's a team that didn didn't make the playoffs maybe it's a team that is kind of in the bottom tier of the playoffs uh next two three years what's a franchise that you think is motivated to make changes that will result in them kind of entering that discussion of the upper echelon the spurs are coming because of victor i had a gm slash president of one of the teams who's very much in the mix for a championship right now who said to me a couple weeks ago we better all get our winning out of the way fast we better get our winning done fast because once that kid has anybody around him he's gonna win everything all the time wow you think they make a change this offseason they they get aggressive or is that something that they're gonna wait on i think because they have so many picks they'll, they want to improve the point guard position. They could go out in the trade market and get like a solid veteran point guard who can kind of bridge them for a couple of years.
They have so many picks. Maybe they find a point guard in this draft, Dillingham from Kentucky or Reed Shepard, whoever it is.
But next year's draft is loaded. They could have as many as four lottery picks based on.
And so, like, I don't think they're going all in on some veteran who makes $40 or $50 million. They don't have to.
They just got to get something on Victor's timeline. They'll be way better next year because he's going to be so good.
And listen, they have to put pieces around him. He's going to dominate this league in ways, like I think on both ends of the floor, unlike we've seen.
Wow. Hey, good question.
Well, Woj, this has been awesome. Great, guys.
I appreciate it. Honored being here.
Yeah, a lot of fun. And yeah, when we call on you in the future, you're going to have to come on.
I will step two. We're Woj guys.
I appreciate that. Woj was brought to you by our great friends over at Facebook.
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And now here is Shane Bacon. And now for something completely different.
Okay, we now welcome on a recurring guest, friend of the program. It is Shane Bacon.
He is in Louisville, Kentucky at Valhalla for the PGA Championship, which starts on Thursday. And we wanted to get some insight into the tournament.
Talk to Shane. He also is bringing back the Get a Grip pod, so go subscribe now.
He also has a children's book out that I actually read to my kids. They love it.
Only problem is too long, a little too long. We skipped some pages, which is tough because the holes are numbered in the book.
But you've probably been there where you're like, all right, we've got to get through this book. We're going to skip.
Oh, we're at hole four. Now we're at hole 11.
Big Cat, I'll tell you this. I also skip holes with my daughter.
So if it makes me feel any better, you're not the only one. The guy that actually wrote the book also skips as well.
But good to see you, boys. I just talked to Mr.
homa who i know uh you'll be paying close attention to and his exact quote was hoping to be seabiscuit this week in kentucky so we'll see if uh if that actually happens um i like that i like that not secretariat wait biscuit seabiscuit is dead though right they're all dead well i mean legends die big you know yeah Seabiscuit died a long time ago. But wait, wasn't Seabiscuit small? Well, it was a horse.
Yeah, but it was like small for a horse and horse sense. I like that Max is getting into it because I feel like there's going to be a lot of that horse puns all weekend on the broadcast.
Horses and whiskey. Yeah.
Prepare yourselves for a lot of that this week. They're pushing that pretty heavy.

I think there's little things,

the big booths and

structures around the golf course

that are kind of promoting that as well. So that's going to be a big part

of the week, as to be expected.

It would rock if they put a wreath

of Black Eyed Susans or roses

on the winter right afterwards. Like they're a horse.

And then have a horse come up and interview them.

That's my favorite part of the derby. We were just talking about Max H homa so i want to make sure to talk about him right off the bat he is in my threesome of the week which is brooks max and spieth i believe okay so uh in a threesome somebody always gets their feelings hurt i feel like spieth is going to be on the outside looking i feel like max and brooks this tournament sets up pretty well for them.
Am I way off? No, no, no. Dialed.
I mean, this is, you know, it's wet here. It's been raining the last couple of days.
I think it's basically going to rain off and on until Sunday. So when you're looking at players to pick or favorites to kind of focus on, I'm looking at guys that hit it far and hit it high.
Guys like Rory McIlroy and Brooks. Max is kind of sneaky long as well.
That's a big golf term that we like to throw out there. So I like those two, but I think you're dialed on.
The person on the outside looking in, Jordan just hadn't really played great golf in the last few years. And Jordan's one of those players that's still looking for the career grand slam.
If he could win this week, I mean, he would join legitimately the most elite group in all of golf. I think there's been just five players ever that have won the career grand slam, but But I don't think this is a Jordan Spieth golf course.
So, yeah, when you're looking at that threesome, I think Brooks and Max are the likely candidates to come out of that. All right, so Valhalla, can you tell us just the history and what this course is going to give us, you know, the intricacies, what's the unique thing, what games match up well? I know you just mentioned a little bit of it, but give us the download of Valhalla because I still don't – the schedule still has snuck up on me every year.
Now they moved the PGA to second. It's going to take me a few more years to be able to, like, mentally get through that.
Yeah, and they'll probably move back to the end of the year once you kind of get comfortable with that. I probably am feeling the same thing as you uh first things first i looked up what valhalla means because i know you probably asked that it's the great hall described in norse mythology where the souls of vikings feasted and celebrated with the gods now that sounds relatively grandiose i've had pft like that um but uh it's a golf course that hasn't hosted a million major championships this is just just, it's fourth in terms of PGA championships.
Marks Brooks won the first. And then of course they get tiger winning and that deal with Bob may and then Rory won in 2014.
It's a golf course that has two completely different nine holes. I was talking to a couple of players today and they're talking about the front nine and the back nine almost look like different golf courses, but it is really, really long.
And I mentioned it's really soft. So I think it favors longer players.
Like I'm looking at Rory, kind of looking on like the sleeper sides of things. I like Minwoo Lee, who has had some success this year and has played well in majors as of late.
Sahit Tagala, also a guy that I'm kind of focused on this week, maybe outside of those top five players. But you've got to beat it forever, and you've got to hit it relatively straight because the rough is g gnarly and it's going to play like that.
And when you look historically outside of Mark Brooks, you know, Tiger in 2001, one of the longest guys in golf. And Rory, of course, in 2014, the longest guy at the time and still one of the longest players in golf.
So that's kind of what you're going to get here this week. Yeah, I think Valhalla, if I remember my Mad Max correctly, and I think I do, it's where the souls of warriors go there in the afterlife it's like witness me i'm about to die then i'm going to be in heaven it's like north heaven i guess um hank made a face when you said minwoo lee i just want to put that on the record hank thinks that's a disgusting pick on your part i'm going to go with you you pay more attention to golf than hank does um so i'm gonna i'm gonna tell you one.
Play less than Hank. Play less than Hank as well.

Yeah, yeah.

That's a definite.

But from the outside, he'd be one of the guys that's a long shot that you're looking at that could, his game translates well.

Yeah, I mean, he's one of the longest guys on tour.

He's eighth on the PGA Tour this season in driving distance.

He's got kind of more comfortable over the last couple of years in terms of

majors, top 22 and three of his last four major starts, including a tie for fifth last year at the u.s open i feel like min min willie is kind of waiting to break through in that regard so uh even though hate kind of hates the pick i feel like min willie's gonna have a good week if he hates it it's a good pick yeah so you said the front nine and the back nine are like two different courses in what ways are they different i mean just like undulation what the holes look like it almost looks like they took two different nines on two different golf courses and kind of married them together. Even kind of the way the holes move and meander feel very, very different.
There's a lot more water as you kind of creep over to the back nine. So it's very unique like that.
There's not a lot of golf courses that feel very much like you're playing two different courses, but the players that I've talked to said they love the back nine a lot more than the front nine which is obviously what we want as golf fans I mean you prefer the the better holes and the more fun holes to be as they're kind of closing things down on the weekend so I think this is the longest a uh PGA championship preview has ever gone without mentioning the name Scotty Scheffler uh Scotty Scheffler is the best golfer in the world uh it's not really close right now is is this just going to be another Scotty Scheffler tournament the best golfer in the world it's not really close right now is this just going to be another Scotty Scheffler tournament I mean it's crazy what he's doing and it's not just the Masters, it was before the Masters but is anyone even close to him, if Scotty plays his A-minus game, can someone beat him? No, not at all, if he's anywhere in the A's, even the B's I feel like Scotty's going to win, I mean four, four wins in his last five starts. The one when he didn't have was a T second where he missed a 10 footer and it would have been five straight.
What he's doing, I mean, I looked at his stats earlier and when you scroll through it, it's just a one next to everything. It's bananas to see somebody doing this.
And I mean, you're getting so many comps to what Tiger used to do. Right.
And what we're seeing with Scottie right now. And when you dive into the stats, I mean, that's when you really start to see kind of 2000, 2001, 2002 Tiger Woods.
This guy leads in par three scoring and par four scoring and Stroess gained off the tees and around the green and iron play. It's so complete, Big Cat, that it's incredibly impressive to watch.
And obviously, it took him a little bit of time to pick up that win. You know, you think earlier in the season, even the major championships last year, he was getting close, but he wasn't winning.
Picking up a couple of the wins once he switched putters has been huge for him. And then I always say winning the second major is the toughest major to win.
Anybody can kind of win one, right? I mean, you go through the history of golf. There's a lot of quote-unquote no-names that have won one major championship.
There's not a lot of no-names that have won two, and when you look at these young players, we've got a list of one-time major winners. So to pick up that second to win the Masters, now kind of gets it rolling and gets it flowing, I feel like it's going to be more comfortable for Scottie, and also something Scottie has that a lot of the players in the field don't, is he's had a couple of weeks off.
You know, this is a guy that didn't play last week. And I think that'll bode well for Scotty coming into this week.
And also, Scotty, a guy that bombs it. You know, this is a guy that we talk so much about the complete game and the distance is incredible.
And Colin Morikawa talked about it after he played with him at Augusta National. He said, you know, I'm hitting five irons in some of these par fours and Scotty's hitting eight iron.
I mean, I'm just not going to hit it as close as he is. So I think right now in pro golf, it is Scotty on the men's side and Nellie Korda on the women's side, and then everybody else, and the gap is growing right now.
It is fun for golf when we have – I know, you know, domination makes it maybe not as fun on Sunday, but like when Tiger was doing it, just going into a tournament being like, if this guy's playing his game, we're just going to get to watch a spectacle. And that's what it feels like right now with Scotty Scheffler.
Yeah. I mean, it's, you asked the A minus game.
What I look at is who has to play their A game to compete. I look at Rory.
I look at Brooks, even look at Max. I mean, those guys, if they play AA plus golf, they can compete and potentially beat Scotty Scheffler.
But most guys don't have their A games in major championships.

So if a guy shows up with a B-plus game, they're just not going to be able to hang with that guy.

He's so consistent.

He makes no mistakes.

He plays really smart.

I mean, Scotty's doing all the things that Tiger used to do.

You know, Tiger's the most conservative great player ever.

You know, that's something that we kind of, you know,

misconceptualized when we thought about the way Tiger went about his business.

He hit to the fat part of the greens.

You know, he wouldn't take a lot of chances unless he was super comfortable.

That's the thing I see the most similar to Tiger with Scottie,

is he knows exactly where to hit it, where maybe he makes birdie,

but he's absolutely not going to make bogey.

And that's tough when you're trying to chase that guy down.

Yeah, what about Tiger this week?

He said that he feels like he could win.

I would like for Tiger to be in contention. I think he that before every tournament though because he's obviously a competitor and he doesn't he doesn't go into a tournament think like oh i don't have a chance at winning uh but it's his new it's his first tournament with his new line of clothes right so maybe we're gonna get a boost from that played riviera i think he was sunday red he played masters sunday.
But I think this might be the first one where you can buy the clothes.

So, yeah, maybe he does get the boost from, you know, saying, hey,

this shirt looked great when I shot 67.

Go online and purchase it.

You know, maybe there's a discount code or something like that.

But, you know, I'm surprised he's playing, honestly.

I'm surprised he's playing this golf course, considering the length

and considering what these types of venues ask.

I look at Tiger right now, and I think the only major he can really contend in and potentially win is the British Open because firm, fast, warm, things like that play into his hands. It's just going to be tough for Tiger to play at a wet and soft golf course that plays this long when he's 40 and 50 yards behind a Scotty Scheffler or a Brooks or a Rory.
I mean, that's just kind of the window he's playing in right now. Yeah.
And what about Rory? I know there's a lot going on in his personal life right now. Probably not the best timing for that, for him mentally to be entering this weekend.
Kind of feel bad for him on that front, but he did win last weekend. And we were saying, I don't know if there's any actual like statistical evidence to back this up, but we feel like Rory is the king of winning a tournament close to a major, and then everybody thinking, Rory's back, he's going to win this one, and then nothing happens.
How does this course set up for Rory, and is he playing good enough where if he has an A, A- effort, that he could beat anybody not named Scotty Scheffler? Yeah, I would say, outside of the news today, he was going to be my pick, just considering's played coming in, you know, the last time Rory won a major championship, which was at Valhalla, was 2014. He won the two events headed in.
Well, he's won two events headed in here. So when you're kind of looking at reasons to pick Rory, the other thing I think about is like not to get too deep into the personal stuff.
I mean, that's Rory's deal and Rory's situation. But when Rory had the chip on his shoulder and kind of played golf like an asshole was when he played the best golf.
And so I look at Rory right now and maybe that plays into his hands because he's tried everything else. He's come in playing a whole bunch of events in a row and not played great in majors and he's taken weeks off and not played great in majors and not won.
So maybe there's some level of, you know, everybody's against me. The world's looking at me.
They're judging me. Let me go out here and just kind of step on some necks and play some great golf.
So if you're looking for any reason to pick Rory winning his first major since 2014, maybe you can lean into that. So he's like, how can I fix my game? Swing, whatever.
Let's try divorce. Yeah, well, he's back on the market.
That might be. He might be like, if I win.
Girls are looking at him. I'm going to be – I'm a champion, baby.

That's true.

Everyone knows that feeling of like, oh, are those hot girls looking at me?

I better fucking crush this drive.

Yeah.

He crushes most drives.

Let me just say that.

I mean, it was – the number – like, the stuff – I was talking to a player today.

I feel like Rory is one of the rare players that's gotten into his 30s

and has gotten longer.

And when you watch him, like, watch him at the Wells Fargo last week, I mean, he's able to take on holes and take on bunkers that almost nobody else in the field can do. And the way he drove the ball last week, he's going to have to do it this week to be competitive.
But I just feel like he was struggling so much with the driver earlier this year, which is something he never struggles with, right? I mean, that's like Steph Curry struggling from three. Like Steph's going to gonna make threes like maybe he gets bumped inside or maybe he's struggling on defense but you can rely on the three-point shot if you're Steph Curry Rory could always rely on the driver and it went away for about four months now that it's back I feel like he can go back out there and kind of smoke it over some of the lines on a golf course he knows well and he's one on that plays into his hands.
What about our guy, and I already made this bet, so it doesn't matter what you say to me after it, but I love Will Zalatorre. I was looking at it last night.
He's not playing well. What's up with him? I already bet him to win, so that's been decided.
But what's going on with his game, and does he have – because it always feels like when Will Zalatorre is playing well, he'll be in the mix. But does he have a playing well in his bag right now? I think he does.
And I think Will Zalatorre is one of those guys that the harder the golf course, the better it is for his game because he hits it so well. I mean, there are – Big Cat, there are probably 10 guys in pro golf that are just at another level in terms of ball striking.
And everybody on tour knows who those guys are, right? That's Rory, that's Max, that's Brooks Koepka, that's Scotty Scheffler. Zalatoris is in that group.
And so when you think about major championships, they're longer, the rough is higher, there's a premium on hitting fairways. All of those things play into this thing.
It's almost like guys that step up in the playoffs, right? Maybe they're not great during the regular season, but they find another gear or their game translates in the playoffs he's one of those playoff type of players so i like i like zal torres as well this week i don't really care what kind of form he's in coming into these type of events because he seems to step it up no matter if he's playing great or not because again these golf courses demand more from everybody and he's one of those players that that doesn't scare him yeah 75 to one yeah i like i like those odds you odds. You mentioned all the great ball strikers.
He left off Blocky. Oh, yeah, Blocky's going to probably win this thing.
Because it's a year to the point where he captured America's Hearts for about 93 hours, and then he talked about Rory McIlroy. If he had Rory McIlroy's tee shots on every hole, what would he shoot? Would he be top 10, top 20?

Career Grand Slam, probably.

I mean, he probably would have won the Masters.

He probably would have won Wells Fargo.

He would win this week for sure.

Thinking about Pinehurst, I think it plays at Pinehurst, so U.S. opens his.

And then Shroon is where the Open's at.

So, I mean, you're talking a Scottie-level run if Blocky could hit it like Rory.

I'm with you there.

Yeah, I mean, Blocky's not a bad guy, but I'll be honest.

I'm rooting for him to finish dead last.

It'd be fun.

Come on.

Dead last?

No, yeah, it'd be fun.

I want him on.

I want him to finish dead last, but I also want him to have a hole-in-one.

Yeah.

And still finish dead.

I want him to finish dead, dead last and just be like, oh, man, if he had Rory's distance.

Would you rather make a hole-in-one and shoot your best score ever

or make a hole-in-one and shoot like an obnoxiously high score obnoxious 125 yeah yeah yeah it just stands out yeah yeah oh yeah that would be way better if i shot like a 148 with a hole in one it's hard to do with you i mean i i think again you're gonna frame the scorecard right right why not make the hole in one the outlier right yeah yeah it'd be great um We have to ask you about the the live merger, because I feel at this point that when they made that announcement last year, they didn't have anything at all ready to go. They just got done with a meeting and he was like, OK, I think we're going to do a merger.
Let's do a press conference. They had no plans in place whatsoever.
Am I am I off on thinking that it was just like a spur of the moment? We're going to make this announcement. No idea how it's going to work because people are resigning.
It's not going anywhere. Nobody knows what the hell is going on.
They didn't have shit ready to go when they said this last summer, did they? It feels like it. It feels like it was just kind of one of those things you throw out there.
It's like the Hawks getting the number one pick and you're going, we're going to rebuild, man. Look what we can do now with our team.
Is there really a plan in the back room or is everybody just high fiving because they had the top pick? I don't really understand what's happening in the background. Everybody's leaving.
Guys are getting voted off the pack. Rory's not allowed back on now.
It seems as far as it's ever been in terms of a merger. The one thing I will say about live in the pga tour it feels like the parties are

more comfortable now like almost being apart if that makes sense i don't know if you guys feel

the same way in terms of observation but it feels like live players are really comfortable being live

players and pga tour players are really comfortable being pga tour players and they're just kind of

coexisting they show up at the majors they play practice rounds i loved what what brooks said a

couple of months ago when he was asked who if you had to play one round of golf the rest of your

life with one pro, who would you pick? And he said,

Thank you. of coexisting they show up at the majors they play practice rounds i loved what what brooks said a couple of months ago when he was asked who if you had to play one round of golf the rest of your life with one pro who'd you pick and he said rory like it seems like it's kind of simpatico between these two parties and they're just kind of existing but i don't know what happened last year i don't know what's happened in 12 months and it feels like every six weeks or so we get a press conference that something's going to happen and then nothing ever does i feel like what happened was the pga guys that stuck around they realized that the pga has been kind of full of shit on this so they don't have that same animosity towards the live they can't be like you're leaving this great institution we care so much about this institution and and the future of the game because they realize that oh yeah they don't have a plan in place nothing is happening so it's like they've kind of come over to the other side which is why we're seeing more and more players i think leave the pga tour i think the pga has a leaderboard problem where on sundays in every tournament it feels like you just look at the leaderboard and you're like what is this is this a major event is this an event that people usually play in are you guys skipping this week and then you look at the live leader board and the irony is nobody's really watching the live but the leaderboards look great hank is watching it but the leaderboards look so much better and that's what you know casual golf fans like us care about is just that one quick glance and be like i don't know any of these guys yeah hey what is hank like outside of the patriots that's a question.
The worst. Because I feel like I hear a lot of complaining, and I'm just wondering, like, Hank, can you

give me three things you love in life?

In life?

Yeah.

Golf?

Yeah, just in life.

I don't complain at all.

No, no, no.

Golf?

Give it to us.

Golf?

Family?

Podcasting?

Friends?

Vacation?

Vacation?

The ocean?

Hank is a big Live Golf fan. He is, like, like a huge live golf fan he turns it on all the time yeah do you set your alarm and wake up early or no uh no i mean i it's i think the ones big cats talking about was this last run when they were in hong kong and singapore and we were watching at night like we were watching sunday afternoon or sunday night and i was like let's put on live yeah i'm a big time if golf's on you know call me crazy if golf's on I'd rather watch live golf than anything else no but like if it's if it's on I'm gonna I'm gonna watch it yeah well like the live leaderboard thing has been so interesting because obviously they've got smaller fields but you know I mean the the recipe for success in terms of somebody looking online or even watching it on on leaderboard is you're inevitably going to get five of those guys in the top 10 because they're just so much better than the guys maybe at the bottom 20.
So Rom's going to be involved. Brooks is going to be involved.
Bryson's going to be involved. And so if you're a casual golf fan and you dive into the leaderboard, that makes a lot of sense.
I will give the PGA tour a little credit. It feels like the last couple of weeks we've had some better leaderboards, which has been nice because I'm with you PFT.
The first months were relatively brutal in terms of leaderboards yeah yeah so if you were to take like a big big outsider like a type of long shot that we saw win some tournaments this year who would be the biggest outsider that you would put money on i i think i think saw hit the gala kind of makes sense there i mean again you're talking about he's probably 150 to one ish i'd say big. Big Cat, you can check that and let me know.
I mean, he's probably floating around that number. He's ranked sixth in total strokes gain, 20th in driving distance, 12th in putting over the last three months.
He's a guy that has been finding his game and getting more comfortable in terms of tour setups. He's also a guy that misses fairways and kind of lives by missing fairways.
And when I say that, I mean, there are Wills Alatorre types that stripe it all the time. And then there are dudes that like Phil Mickelson did this throughout his career that hit it all over the place and could play from those spots.
And I feel like saw it this kind of modern bill in that regard. So I'd say he's probably in that hundred to one 25 to one range that I kind of liked this week.
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I know we talked about him at the top. Can Max win this tournament? Yep, absolutely.
I think Max is an athlete that when he gets a taste, he gets a taste. You think about Riviera in 2021, right? This is a guy that had longed to win that golf tournament.
He wins Riviera and then he wins four times in the next two years. He got a taste a little bit at the Open last year, finished in the top 10.
Then he didn't have to answer any of those questions about major championship golf anymore. Then he gets to the Masters and gets himself in contention.
I remember talking to Max after an event a few years ago, and he was close to winning. And I asked him kind of on Monday, how does it feel and where are you at? And he said, I just want to get back to that moment again.
Like, I want to be back in the arena. I want to feel those same sensations that I just felt.
And so I imagine that once he left Augusta National and a couple of days passed and he realized Scotty was just at a different level, I'm sure felt very similar to that i think max can absolutely win here i think it's a good golf course for him and i feel like he's been playing better and better golf than we saw early in the season so absolutely i think uh i think max not only can win but i think he's in probably my top three favorites right now okay i love that for max yes uh my last question is about the champion center because I didn't realize that the PGA Championship had a Champion's Dinner like the Masters does. So it was last year, and I think JT made a little off-color joke about Mito, right? And then people talked about that for a while.
When is the Champion's Dinner for the PGA? Is it Monday? Is it tonight? I believe it's tonight. If that tells you anything, I'm not even sure the night it's on.
I did just see Mark Brooks walking through the compound about 10 minutes ago, and he seemed to be leaving, so maybe he was going to get cleaned up and put the suit on. But I'm pretty sure this dinner, players have skipped in the past.
So it doesn't quite feel like the one we see, obviously, at Augusta National. But as we know anything in sports kind of a limbing so once somebody does it they're like we should do that as well and uh and the pga does it now but i believe it's tonight okay that's really the only reason i would want to win a tournament to come back for those dinners what would you go tux would you go suit what would you go i'd probably i don't know probably just t-shirt t-shirt sweatpants just keep it Just keep it comfortable.
Lay it out there. Maybe that should be their thing.
Like the Masters does you pick the menu. Maybe the winner of the PGA should pick the outfits everybody has to wear.
Pick a theme for the night. Like the Met Gala.
That's smart. Yeah, yeah.
Or, yeah, just thinking back through all the college parties I went to. Probably all of those are not acceptable for mixed company, but that's fine.
Yeah. All right.
Well, Shane, thank you as always. We appreciate it.
And have fun out there, and we'll be watching the whole thing. All right.
Thanks, boys. Appreciate it.
Shane Bacon is brought to you by Topgolf. It's golf.
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Big Ed, I loved it when we went to Topgolf. Yes.
We had all those competitions that we played and I felt like me or you finished in first place in all of them. It was so cool.
Yeah, no, we did. Yeah, we won all of them.
It was great. What a great night it was.
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Okay, let's finish up with guys on chicks.

Before that, quick question.

Should we be having Hank read these questions?

Yeah.

Guys on – Hank, can we do guys on women?

Is that okay this time?

Yep.

Before that, do you think – what is more significant?

Scotty Scheffler, baby bump?

Rory McIlroy, divorce bump? Right. So I think it might be Rory, divorce bump.
I agree. But we're a baby bump show.
We are, but I don't know. This might be too soon for the baby bump in golf.
Consider, is the U.S. Open on Father's Day? Yes.
No. Yes.
It is? Yes. So Father's Day is going to be Sunday of the U the u.s open the baby will probably be at the u.s open on sunday in attendance yes i don't know if the baby is going to be there this weekend on the course i would say no but that's not that's not the i think maybe the answer of the baby bump but no think about just hank close your eyes picture scotty scheffler u.s open father's day sunday he's going up 18 he holds out and his wife and baby are right there that feels like that's going to happen right that's that's fair hold on i'm going to try to find it because while you're looking for that it's worth mentioning that scotty's caddy will not be there on saturday because he's attending his son's high school graduation i'm going about...
His friend is caddying on Saturday at a major. Scotty Scheffler, too much perspective.
Way too much. Too much perspective.
Why? I mean, his caddy is missing a major for high school graduation. One day, just Saturday round.
It's a moving day. Yeah.
It's important. Yeah.
I think there's a bet you can do where it's like one-two, and maybe we just do that. One-two Scheffler.
Zach the Box. Yeah, one-two Scheffler.
Brooks, Max. But one-two Scheffler, McElroy, and then one-two McElroy.
This is also, I mean, Brooks did win his first event. I guess not.
He won his fourth event on the Live Tour. No, I know, but that wasn't the first event since he had the kid.

But he did get the baby bump.

He had the kid on him on the 18th and all the cute pictures and stuff.

Rory's last major, 2014, this course.

Yep.

It is also a possibility that Scheffler wins both.

Yeah, I would say so.

Oh, yeah, 25 to 1, Scotty Sheffler, Rory McIlroy. And then you could just do it reverse Rory, Scotty.
All right, that might be the move. Hey, boys.
Why is it that my boyfriend and his roommate have a 50 and 100-foot Ethernet cable legit running through their apartment? They say it's for better Internet connection for when they drop in with the boys. Yep.
Warzone. But it is more than just that.
But is it more than just that? Huge fan. Tell Jake the Bing Bong Maxi on last weekend's PGA Call.
Made my boyfriend's weekend. Thanks.
Love that. I think you're reading too much into Ethernet cable.
I think it's like the first thing I thought of, it's the meme of like the girl in bed. I bet he's using that Ethernet for weird porn.
And then he's just thinking about Call of Duty. Yeah, no, this is one of those situations where you got to just trust that guys are dumb, and this is like a dumb hobby is just what it is.
Mm-hmm. And if it weren't for women, I think most guys would just have cables running roughshod all over their apartment or houses.
Dude. Just functional.
Yeah, you've got an extension cord going across your basement. Yeah, that's because that's the good hole.
Yeah, right. Over on that side of the wall.
That's where I get all the power. Yeah.
Yeah. Sup, boys? My boyfriend and his roommate have a secret hand signals that they appear to do behind my back, but I've caught them a couple times.
They won't share with me what the hand signals mean, and it appears they keep coming up with more since I've started to notice them them does every guy have a secret way of communicating with their friends when they're with their girlfriends p.s bing bong maxi oh jake double um you might be in a gang might be just throwing out the pyru he could be in a gang i think uh no most guys don't have this but it rocks. Yeah.
I wish. You know what? You know what should be more popular?

And this is because they're in my house now. Walkie-talkies.
Yeah. We should just be bringing back walkie-talkies more.
Like, we should have walkie-talkies. I feel like we've done that.
We've tried this before. Have we? In New York.
Well, yeah, because me and Big Cat have it on our wrists. Yeah, it's true.
But we should have walkie but we should have walkie talkies like i would wear a walkie talkie on my belt if we all just had walkie talkies around the office it's the best when you hit it and you're just like over i also think that if you're wearing a walkie talkie and like a day glow high-vis vest you can get in any room in America. Nobody's going to stop a guy with walkie-talkies.

If I get us some high-tech walkie-talkies,

or if someone sends them to us,

would you not walk around with it and we can hit each other up?

Maybe for a day.

What was...

Oh, man, why can't I remember the commercials?

Nextel?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep.

I used to want one of those so bad.

Hello, PFT.

Fat cat. You wouldn't get that one, Hank.
Fat cat, honk, Jake, and maxi pad. I was dating this guy last year and bought tickets to PGA Championship for this weekend.
Sunday, to be exact. But since then, he's moved cities, and we basically mutually ghosted each other.
Oh. That's mutually? Mutually ghosting? Should I reach out to him and remind him of the tickets?

Sounds like you're thinking about not mutually ghosting. I think I like golf a little more than he does.

He grew up Amish.

Oh.

And now I'm in a pickle because I'd really like to go,

but I don't really have girlfriends that would enjoy watching golf for hours

in the heat, need some advice on what to do.

I think given the recent news that Jeff Nadeau does not have chlamydia you should definitely have him come mutual ghosting is a wild thing to say there's no way it was mutual that that was a you can't fire me i quit like she got she or she was waiting she got ghosted and like after like two texts was like you know what i might get ghosted let me pull out and ghost here too How many relationships that were off two texts, she was like, you know what? I might get ghosted.

Let me pull out and ghost here, too.

How many relationships that were off to a really good start

do you think have been ruined by both teams playing the,

I'm going to wait until they text me.

Yeah.

I'm not going to text them first.

And then nobody just ever texts each other out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, Hank, that hurt.

No.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you've missed her, Hank. That hurt.
No. Yeah.
Yeah. So you've mutually-

Text her, Hank.

Anyway.

Hank, no.

Big Cat brings up a good point.

Don't let this be the one-

There's been accidental ghosts.

I'm not going to get into it.

Accidental ghosts?

Accidental ghosts is definitely worse than a mutual ghost, right?

I'll be like, hey, I was waiting for you to text me first.

And I think we're doing the same. I really miss you got it hey boys big awl here i'm 34 year old bartender and i love my job but i've had a hard time finding a guy who wants to commit a relationship is my profession the problem do guys assume i'm wild because of what i do for a living what does she do bartender it might it might be the hours i don't know if it's about like being a bartender there's nothing wrong with being a bartender i think most guys are like i don't want to date this person because they work serving liquor i think it's like hours of bartender are crazy but i feel like the service industry yeah hookups happen yeah like that the i think you have.
I feel like a lot of bartenders who become professional bartenders, they have that moment where they're like, is this going to be my profession?

And then you just start making enough money that it is.

So if you work at a busy bar, the tips are crazy.

I never understood that.

Why?

You'd be like, oh, you're 40 in bartending?

What if they're making $100,000 a year in cash tips?

Yeah.

Why wouldn't you do that? Yeah. I think it would take a, uh,

not every,

but,

I think it would take a,

uh,

not every,

but,

I think it would take a,

not every,

not every,

not every,

not every,

not every,

not every,

not every,

not every,

not every,

not every,

not every,

not every,

not every,

not every,

not every,

not every,

not every,

not every,

not every,

not every,

not every,

not every,

not every,

not every,

not every,

not every,

not every,

not every,

not every,

not every,

not every,

not every,

not every,

not every,

not every,

not every,

not every,

not every, not every, not every, not everyending. What if they're making $100,000 a year in cash tips?

Yeah.

Why wouldn't you do that?

Yeah, I think it would take a...

Not every guy can date a bartender

because I think a lot of guys would take advantage of that

where they just bring all their buddies.

We can get free drinks all night.

And also knowing that you're going to get hit on

by every guy that you talk to every single night.

Not every dude is comfortable dealing with a situation like that.

You need a true alpha male, not someone who's going to be a beta.

Yeah, so... going to get hit on by like every guy that you talk to every single night not every dude is comfortable dealing with situational you need a you need a true alpha male not someone who's going to be a beta yeah so when the guy does come around he's gonna be confident yeah confident and cocky his name's gonna be hank that's it okay good show great show great show a very fun show hot studio helps yeah i just invited you to walkie talkie oh you've been invited yeah apple walk oh Oh, it's Maybe the hot studio helps.
Yeah. I just invited you to walkie-talkie.

Oh.

You've been invited.

Yeah, Apple Walkie.

Oh, it's on the... Okay.

Okay.

Numbers, 20.

56.

Oh, you had one in the barrel there, Max.

Three.

46.

What is that, Max?

That's what I won with in New York.

Oh.

All right.

Someone's got gonna start taking 56

99 pug

Jake what number are you taking?

Over

18

10-4

No 18

He said 10-4

No you said 10-4

Which one?

10 or 4?

18

You just said 10-4

I said 18 before

That means 14

Yeah

18

Okay

Do we have everyone's numbers? Shane? 21 What was was yours, Pietro? Eight. Eight.
What was yours, Hank? 46. I have 20.
60. 60.
Love you. 60

60

Love you guys

Talking away I don't know what

I have to say

I say it anyway

Today is another day

To find you

Shining away

I'll be coming for your lover

Coming for your lover

Okay

Take on me Take me young I'll be young Future of change Feel as to say I won't say it Spooky! Thank you. Take on me Take me on I'll be gone In a dark dream Things that we say They're easy to laugh Just to play my worries away You're all the things I've got to remember You shine away I'll be coming for you anyway Take on me Take on me Take on me Take on me Thank you.