Verne Lundquist, Kirk Goldsberry In Studio, Nuggets In Trouble And A Good Old Fashioned NBA/NFL Hypothetical

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Speaker 1 On today's part of my take, we have a twofer for the people. We have the legend, Vern Lundquist, great interview with Vern, talking about his entire career.

Speaker 1 And then we have Kirk Goldsbury in studio, breaking down the NBA playoffs. We're going to talk about the NBA playoffs.
The Nuggets are in deep shit.

Speaker 1 Knicks, Pacers, game one. The Thunder have finally played a basketball game again.
and Hank, cocky Hank, is on his way.

Speaker 1 We're going to do some hot seat cool thrown. We're going to do pardon your take.

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Speaker 1 Okay,

Speaker 1 let's go.

Speaker 1 then a lot of souls work to be done.

Speaker 1 No place to hang out or washing.

Speaker 1 And then I can't play all on the sun. Oh, no, we're gonna rock it down to Elite Trick Avenue.

Speaker 1 And then we'll take it higher.

Speaker 1 Oh, we're gonna rock it down to Elite Track Avenue. It's part of my take.

Speaker 4 There's another part to sports.

Speaker 1 Welcome to part of my take.

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Speaker 1 Today is Wednesday, May 8th, and the Denver Nuggets are in some deep, deep shit, PFT.

Speaker 6 Yeah, they look really bad.

Speaker 4 They look terrible offensively. They look bad defensively.
The Minnesota Timber Wolves looked awesome defensively, which had a lot to do with it.

Speaker 4 It's not all in the Nuggets, but they looked out of sorts.

Speaker 4 I had a thought, and I'm not exactly like a film breakdown guy when it comes to basketball.

Speaker 4 I don't know if you know that about me or not, but it seems like every time teams play the Nuggets, they play the Nuggets game and they try to match up against Jokic in a way that the Timberwolves didn't even attempt to do last night because they had their hand forced with Rudy Gobert being out for having sex nine months ago.

Speaker 4 So by stretching him out and by Jokic didn't, I don't know what he was doing.

Speaker 4 He looked like he was just in no man's land defensively for most of the game, like caught halfway between where he's used to being and where he should be. and they just ate his lunch.

Speaker 1 Yeah, no, I mean,

Speaker 1 the Nuggets are in trouble. I mean, you're right.
Jokic, like, he gets stuck in these pick and rolls. He's been swiping at stuff.

Speaker 1 He's looked for all the things that people criticize Jokic for before his championship run. It feels like they're coming back right now.

Speaker 1 I still think he's an incredible player, one of the best players in the NBA.

Speaker 1 I'm not ready to bury him right now, but the Wolves feel like they have the Nuggets number, and it's intensity defensive intensity and Anthony Edwards just being a superstar in the making and like you said no Rudy Gobert and their defensive like they just have the the Wolves just have so many dudes that are so big and they're just so they're their their arms are everywhere they're they're defending the entire court they're picking up Jokic

Speaker 1 like it's Jokic you know brings the ball up a bunch. They're picking him up at half court, bothering him there.

Speaker 1 And it does, it's an interesting subplot because the guy who helped build the Nuggets, Tim Connolly, is the GM for the Wolves.

Speaker 1 And it feels like the Wolves are created to beat the Nuggets, and that's what they're doing.

Speaker 1 And then you also have the factor of Jamal Murray just having an absolute meltdown, throwing a heat pack on the floor. People were very upset.

Speaker 1 I personally can't get that upset about it because I, and this is a flaw of mine, and it's probably a flaw of how I parent as well. If no one gets hurt, I don't really do any punishments.

Speaker 1 Like, if there's not a, if there's not an injury, I'm like, all right, keep playing. It's fine.
I get it. It was probably, he shouldn't have done that.
It's a crazy move. But some people being like,

Speaker 1 someone could have died out there from that heat pack. It felt like a lot.

Speaker 4 The heat culture gone wrong. And when he threw it out there, it looked like he was throwing it at the ref.
I saw, did you see the zoomed in camera angle?

Speaker 4 They have like a Zapruder style film of it that zooms in on him. He's like behind the basket.
He looks like he's trying to hit the ref. I'm willing to give this a pass because that's hilarious.

Speaker 4 If it had hit the ref, that would have been very funny. He probably would have been suspended for maybe two games if that had happened.

Speaker 4 Instead, they give him a $100,000 fine, same that Rudy Goberry got for doing the money sign to the refs. But it looked like, I don't think he was trying to throw it on the court.

Speaker 4 He was trying to hit the ref because he was pissed at the ref and it just slid out onto the court. And then everyone was like, oh, weird, there's a heat pack on the court.

Speaker 4 And then you had a subset of people being like, this is is the most dangerous thing that I've ever seen a player do in my entire life.

Speaker 1 Exactly. It felt a little aggressive.
Jamal Murray did the money sign as well.

Speaker 1 Oh, he did.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he did the money sign about the refs as well. So he was having an all-time meltdown performance where it's like, this is the interesting part because it is all credit to the Wolves.

Speaker 1 Like the way they're putting, they're 6-0 in the playoffs. They are playing like incredible team basketball.

Speaker 1 As Kat told us, they're a big 15, and and it feels that way when they're playing.

Speaker 1 But the interesting

Speaker 1 subplot of all this is, I think I use subplot twice. Sorry, I apologize.
It's late.

Speaker 1 The interesting moment I'm waiting for for Friday night is this is the first time the Nuggets feel like they're really, really tested. Because if you remember, last year, they beat the Wolves in five.

Speaker 1 They beat the Suns in six. They swept the Lakers.
They beat the Heat in five. They have controlled the playoffs for the last year and a half, you know, obviously beating the Lakers in five.
Now,

Speaker 1 like, what do you got? What do you, are you guys, do you have the championship medal? Because now the pressure is on. You just lost two games at home.
You had a total meltdown.

Speaker 1 Jokic does not look good. And

Speaker 1 the Wolves are just better right now. Like, that's just what it is.
They are the better team.

Speaker 1 All around, yes. Oh, it's not, it's not really close.

Speaker 4 They've got two coaches, too. Their coaches is sitting down with his torn knee, and they have another coach managing the in-game shit going on for him.

Speaker 4 They're getting outdone in every facet of basketball right now. The games aren't close.
I disagree that they haven't been tested, though. They were tested in this playoffs.

Speaker 4 They were just tested in the first half of every game.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and also the Lakers almost beat them.

Speaker 4 Well, no, this is now a great change to the narrative. Like, how shitty are the Los Angeles Lakers?

Speaker 1 So shitty.

Speaker 4 If they were getting beat by these nuggets,

Speaker 4 they shouldn't have even been in the playoffs.

Speaker 1 So, so shitty. And it was, I'm happy we did that entire week of being like, well, the Lakers just had a really bad matchup with Nuggets.
No, the West, and we can go, we can stay in the West.

Speaker 1 The West is just young and deep because the Thunder, who hadn't played a game in forever, came out.

Speaker 4 It's like Giddy likes it.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 they came out.

Speaker 1 I always feel so bad for Jackson.

Speaker 4 Jake didn't like that one. No, he didn't like that one.

Speaker 1 I always feel so bad for guys when they just sag off them so much that they're just like, go ahead, shoot. No problem.
Yeah. We'll let you shoot.
Like, that's such an embarrassing thing.

Speaker 1 Like, if I were Josh Giddy, I would just, I would try to just never be at the three-point line because you know they're just going to let you shoot and you're going to miss and it's going to suck.

Speaker 1 But the Thunder.

Speaker 1 I mean, I want to see Wolves Thunder at this point. Like, it's two young teams that are so exciting.
Hank's shaking his head because he thinks the Celtics can beat both those teams very easily.

Speaker 1 Hank, you should listen to the Kirk Goldsbury interview because I might have said something that you'd be interested in.

Speaker 1 Also, Hank,

Speaker 4 Hanks should actually start rooting for the Nuggets.

Speaker 1 At least what I would do if he doesn't think the Wolves are a tough matchup for the Celtics.

Speaker 5 They're a tough matchup, but I'd rather face the Wolves or the Thunder or the Mavericks than the Nuggets still.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 4 Max disagrees.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 But anyway, the Thunder.

Speaker 1 Max doesn't know what it is.

Speaker 1 No, I'm just talking about the Kirk Goldsbury interview. Yeah, yeah.
Wait till you get to it,

Speaker 1 Hank.

Speaker 1 The Thunder are so young and so much fun, and it feels like SGA was incredible in the first half, and then you get to the fourth quarter.

Speaker 1 It's like, oh, we got another really young dude in Jalen Williams who's just going to torture you, and Lou Dort's everywhere.

Speaker 1 And it's just like, we said this a couple weeks ago, but if you're a Thunder fan,

Speaker 1 Thunder or Wolves fan, it has to be the coolest, funnest experience right now to watch your organic, homegrown team be super young and and just dominating everyone what yeah and why are you shaking your head don't shake your head because he's shaking your head

Speaker 4 we're talking about the west your team's not that young hank you're kind of young but this is like a new age of jason simps 19 years new age of thunder and he's been in the eastern conversation every single year hank this is this is you you had your moment like four years ago with the celtics team where you're

Speaker 4 doing that and they're fun yeah so let them have let other people have fun it's not always about you it's it's I didn't say anything for the rest of you.

Speaker 1 You shook your head. You knew what you did.
You shook your head. I know, we'll get to Cocky Hank.
We'll get to Cocky Hank. You had a great game one.

Speaker 1 But listen, we invited Cocky Hank back, so we have to embrace the fact that we're just complimenting the Thunder and he's shaking his head like, yeah. That's Cocky Hank.
Take him.

Speaker 1 Listen, if you can't handle him at subdued, like game by game, Hank, then you don't deserve him at Cocky Hank. I wanted Cocky Hank.
We got Cocky Hank.

Speaker 4 I fucking love how much I fucking hate Hank right now. It's awesome.

Speaker 4 This is what we wanted. It really is.

Speaker 1 So I'm glad that you're back, you piece of shit. Yeah, I'm not mad.
But yeah, the Thunder,

Speaker 1 the Mavs will, this will be a series, but the fact that the Thunder came out on, you know, all this, off all this rest and played that well, I mean, they're just, they're fun.

Speaker 1 Chet Holmgren's fun to watch. They got just guys that are fun to watch, and they're all young.

Speaker 4 They scream after every play, too. A lot of emotion.

Speaker 4 and the t-shirts, my god, the t-shirts tonight in Oklahoma City. It looked like a college stadium.
It looked like when

Speaker 4 like Tennessee does the checkerboard in the stands, some people wear one color. Like there were, it was a perfect row of blue t-shirts, and then a perfect row.
Was it

Speaker 4 orange or was it white tonight? I forget, but it was perfectly done. I didn't see a single t-shirt out of place.

Speaker 1 They're the best at it.

Speaker 1 Okay, Hank. Cocky Hank time.

Speaker 1 He was correct in, or he's on pace for his triple digits

Speaker 1 prediction

Speaker 1 for point differential in this series. The Celtics won by 25.
You probably kind of wish they had maybe gone by like 35 so you get a little ahead of the pace.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I mean, they got up by so much. They took out the starters, you know, with a lot of time left.

Speaker 5 What he thought is good. We're on pace.
We're on pace.

Speaker 1 This is a joke for you.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I mean, I, you know, said going in, they might drop one game. You know, Cavs will have a historic historic shooting night, beat him at home or something, but this should be a 4-1, if not 4-0.

Speaker 4 When did you know this one was over?

Speaker 5 They came out slow, honestly. They didn't shoot great in the first quarter.
I was a little bit worried. I told you guys I love the Celtic spread.
I love the Celtics first half.

Speaker 5 And the first quarter, I think, was tied late in the first quarter. But, you know, they turned it on second half, second quarter.
Derrick White couldn't miss. Jalen Brown couldn't miss.

Speaker 5 Probably like halfway through the second quarter.

Speaker 1 That's the scary part. like Jalen Brown and Derrick White were incredible.
Jason Tatum was not that great tonight, at least shooting. And they still.

Speaker 1 Yeah, right. I know, but

Speaker 1 I don't think he hit a three, and he wasn't like being super aggressive.

Speaker 1 But like, I'm not saying he played bad. I'm saying that they 25-pieced him when Jason Tatum wasn't like on his A game.

Speaker 1 Is that a fair assessment?

Speaker 5 Yeah, no, that's fair. I mean, he was facilitating.

Speaker 1 This is also part of Cocky. Yeah.
Yeah. This is part of Cocky Hank.

Speaker 5 A great superstar player does what it takes to win. He sees that his other guys are having a good night, and he just helps facilitate.

Speaker 4 It did feel like the most casual bloodbath of all time.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And PFT, this is the part I forgot about Cocky Hank.

Speaker 1 If you say that Jason Tatum, he didn't hit a three. He was 0 for 5 from 3.
If you just state that, Hank will be like, well, you

Speaker 1 yeah yeah he'll be like what are you trying to say

Speaker 4 and and we're saying what big cat said was jason tatum didn't have his best night i think we can all agree that's a fact right no not like derrick but derrick white was really good and derrick winning a plus 18 point differential like yeah that's a great night for jason tatum

Speaker 4 think about it this way hank like a couple years ago derrick white i he's improved so much in the last like two years three years of his game right and he's very good it's undeniable that that derrick white is a good player right now sorry he's a he's a great player he's a

Speaker 4 he's is he a great player or is he a very good player finals mvp plus 4 000 if you want to get a long shot in early that's kind of disrespectful to jason tatum bet you're not betting on jason oh he was over five for three pft that's a good point big cat yeah but i guess hank's not a real fan but uh the thing is like they like value they're they're all playing well so i with al horford in for for christophs prisingis didn't seem like it mattered that much Plus, you got an extra dub that we'll get to in a little bit, where you not only defeated the Heat, you may have just exploded Heat culture because of J-Butt and Pat Riley going back and forth.

Speaker 4 So you're just, you're vanquishing all your foes right now. You must be feeling really good.
You're like Thanos. And I think that that movie ends really well for Thanos.

Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

Speaker 5 I think the first one.

Speaker 5 It was like part two. It was two parts, right? The first one,

Speaker 1 he, yeah. Hank does a lot because he did.
Hank and I were driving up to Wrigley last night, and I was like,

Speaker 1 who's going to play with Christops out? And he's like, Horford, but it's going to really, Luke Cornett's going to be an X Factor. Hank knows ball.

Speaker 1 Luke Cornett.

Speaker 5 He was a beast on the boards.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 he was the X Factor.

Speaker 4 It was very, very easy for you. And I look forward to many more easy games like this.

Speaker 1 Last NBA game we've got to talk about. The Knicks Pacers game one.
I feel bad for Pacers fans. Now,

Speaker 1 the Knicks are, I mean, Josh Josh Hart had a billion rebounds. Dante DiVincenzo hit all the big shots.
Jalen Brunson still is just playing out of his mind, so it's not taking away from the Knicks.

Speaker 1 The last two minutes did suck, though, because it was just too much refs. And

Speaker 1 even if you're like, hey, I'm not saying the Knicks shouldn't have won. I'm just saying there was too much refs.

Speaker 1 The screen call that they called the legal screen, which I guess technically was wrong, but it happens every game.

Speaker 1 Like that, if you take that screen out of the NBA, Bam has to retire tomorrow because that's literally all he does is do that screen.

Speaker 4 He's got very long legs and they get in your way. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And so it sucked at the end and it sucked that the Pacers, like they were, I think it was, what, they had a chance. They were down, what, one?

Speaker 1 And then next thing you know, without even a possession happening, they were, because it was like Jalen Brunson fouled before the inbound free throw, then another Jalen Brunson.

Speaker 1 So like like it was game over. It sucked.

Speaker 1 And my biggest problem with this game is if you're going to have reviews that take these games so long and we review everything and it's like mind-numbing, how the fuck can't you review a kickball?

Speaker 1 Because that was actually the thing the Pacers should be most upset about was that wasn't a kickball on Neesmith. He hit it with his hand and you just can't review it.

Speaker 1 And that was, that led to Dante DiVincenzo's three. That was the moment that like I can, I can live with the screen because technically it was an illegal screen.

Speaker 1 The fucking kickball that wasn't a kickball, you should be able to review it.

Speaker 4 Well, it wasn't just that they can't review the kickball. It was that the kickball call took away a fast break, probably would have been two points.
At that point, it was a tie game.

Speaker 4 So, not only was it the three that resulted right afterwards, but it denied the paces the opportunity to take what seemed like it probably would have been a pretty easy lead for them to take at the time.

Speaker 4 So, the fact that it was called in the first place and then not being able to review, I don't know how they come up with these rules.

Speaker 4 I'm sure that's probably one that they'll look at in the offseason and be like, Yeah, you should be able to review if it hit off its foot or not.

Speaker 1 I don't know, but that it did stink.

Speaker 4 The moving screen call gave us all PTSD flashbacks of the

Speaker 4 Yukon and Iowa semifinal game in women's college basketball. Although that was a more egregious screen than the one in the game last night, the Knicks Bacers one.

Speaker 4 And I think that there should be a rule in basketball:

Speaker 4 if there's an illegal screen and you flop while you're going into the illegal screen, you should be able to get away with the illegal screen.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I agree. You shouldn't flop.

Speaker 4 Take it like a man and deal with your inconvenience and then they'll call it. But if you flop and you act like a fish out there, then they're like, you know what? You cheated too.

Speaker 1 Yeah. It's all I fight through it.
Fight through all screens.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I just. When it comes to like instant replay,

Speaker 1 I'm an all or nothing guy. I'm cool.

Speaker 1 If If they said tomorrow there's no instant replay and we're just going to go with whatever the refs say and the games will move faster and it will be smoother, I'm all for that.

Speaker 1 The minute that you start reviewing it, you got to review everything and get it right. Like you just do, because that was such a stupid thing that they couldn't review.
Oh, I'm not.

Speaker 4 I'm not in favor of reviewing everything.

Speaker 4 Because

Speaker 4 I think that...

Speaker 4 It's a slippery slope to like getting refs out of the game entirely. And I like having refs.
Can you imagine if there was one night where they just said absolutely no instant replay,

Speaker 4 how mad people would get at refs? It would be like these refs stink.

Speaker 1 I'm just,

Speaker 1 I like, don't do reviews for the majority of the game. Do reviews for the last three minutes.
I don't care. Do every review for the last three minutes.
Get it right.

Speaker 1 If you're going to have reviews, just get it right. And then just have a play that you can't review that was clearly wrong.
It makes no sense to me. So, I don't know.
And then

Speaker 1 the Knicks lost Mitchell Robinson for, I think, the rest of the playoffs. They have no one.
Like, they don't play a bench. And they're just, it's all Tibbs.

Speaker 1 Like, just, we're going to fucking grind this. And you guys are get ready to learn 48, buddy, because that's every guy now.

Speaker 4 So they said eight weeks?

Speaker 1 Six to eight weeks.

Speaker 4 They said they're going to re-evaluate in six to eight weeks. I looked at a calendar.

Speaker 4 That appears to be the entire NBA playoffs.

Speaker 1 It's also really mean to do that because then everyone gets just reply they're not going to, there isn't going to be eight weeks from now.

Speaker 1 Like, he doesn't deserve deserve that mitchell robinson's fun to watch but yeah i mean they're they don't they don't play that mitchell robinson played 12 minutes last night off the bench deuce mcbride played 11

Speaker 1 that's kind of it

Speaker 4 and now you lose one of them so i don't know what the fuck they're gonna do yeah i mean that that could be a knock against tibbs that like he doesn't play a lot of guys even during the regular season so he doesn't have anybody that's ready to step up in case somebody gets hurt these guys are ready to go though and the fact that the fact that they're like, I think that Tibbs is the one coach.

Speaker 1 He just walks in and he's like, you guys are all playing 48 tonight. They're like, yeah, we've been waiting for this.

Speaker 4 Max, are there any Villanova players that do not currently play in the NBA that could be picked up by the Knicks?

Speaker 1 Where's Chris Jenkins?

Speaker 8 Chris Jenkins is on the Villanova staff. Love Chris Jenkins.
Probably not in NBA game shape right now.

Speaker 1 Scotty Reynolds.

Speaker 8 Scotty Reynolds could easily lace him up and put him out there.

Speaker 5 Easily.

Speaker 8 Haven't seen him in in years, but

Speaker 8 there's always something about that guy. He's a gamer.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 8 Ryan Archie Accono was on the team earlier.

Speaker 1 I like that you're taking this experiment very seriously.

Speaker 5 Connor Gillespie, him and T.J.

Speaker 1 McCarthy. Con Gillespie's on the nuggets.

Speaker 8 Con Gillespie's on the nuggets. He's going to be a good player in the NBA.
That's a promise.

Speaker 8 That's an absolute promise. Okay.

Speaker 8 I'm done with this experiment. I'm done with this experiment.

Speaker 1 It's a promise.

Speaker 1 Hockey, real quick. 54 saves is a fucking shitload of saves.
Shasturkin on the Rangers tonight. Double overtime.
54 saves.

Speaker 4 We have our standing on our head guy. It's Shasturkin.
He's a beast.

Speaker 4 Shut the fuck up, Hank. You stop it.

Speaker 4 Yeah, you stop it, Hank.

Speaker 1 Listen.

Speaker 4 All right. Congratulations.
I tweeted this out. I saw Hank liked it.
It was not meant to be liked by you.

Speaker 4 Congratulations to both your Boston Celtics and your Boston Bruins on winning championships this year. What a magical spring this is for you.
I'm very happy.

Speaker 5 I would just like to say, PFT, that I did place a pretty big future on the Bruins and the Celtics to win both Eastern Conferences parlayed.

Speaker 5 And when that hits, I will buy you a pair of headphones that you can lean back in your chair

Speaker 1 while you take the podcast.

Speaker 1 That's my promise to you.

Speaker 4 Yeah, the story behind these headphones is I went through a real hot streak of buying headphones in airports before flights that didn't fit my phone.

Speaker 4 And so I've got these, and I'm like, fuck it, I'm going to use them somewhere. So now I just have them dangling off the side.
I appreciate that, Hank. You're such a generous guy.

Speaker 1 That's huge, Hank. That's huge of you.
But yeah, are we allowed to say Shasturkin played well?

Speaker 5 Yeah, I mean, he's also got, I think that's like maybe the best hockey name going. Like, I do that, the fans chanting Igor, Igor.
It's just a, it's just a great, Igor is just a great hockey name.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And we had, and Hank, your, your Bruins did win game one convincingly.

Speaker 5 Yeah, against Smash.

Speaker 4 Yeah, Smash. And there's a game going on right now.
Oh, here's a fun game that we can do.

Speaker 5 Memes didn't show up to this, but he mushed Mr. Pear so hard.

Speaker 1 Oh, so hard.

Speaker 4 Can I tell you guys something that I'm currently worried about? And it's kind of a personal thing, but it's hockey-related.

Speaker 4 I've gotten two random DMs from people in the last 24 hours that have told me that today, Wednesday, a veteran's going to retire.

Speaker 1 Oh, man.

Speaker 4 And I'm worried about that. And I'm sad.

Speaker 1 Okay, can I make you feel better?

Speaker 4 Well, also, I got a DM from somebody that's saying that he always dreams of the future and that two nights ago, he dreamed I was going to die.

Speaker 4 So I'm just, I'm on a real, I'm on a cold streak with the predictions right now. Okay.
If I die, I hope I die before a vetchkin retires. How about that?

Speaker 1 All right, I got you.

Speaker 1 I'm going to try to make you feel better. The Blackhawks got the number two pick tonight in the lottery.
The Sharks got number number one, so they're going to get Celebrini.

Speaker 1 I'm pretty sure, and this is all based off of our colleague Chief's tweets, who is a Blackhawks expert.

Speaker 1 I'm pretty sure that there's a Russian guy they're going to draft with the second pick. Maybe he's just the next Ovechkin.
Did that make you feel better?

Speaker 4 That you would get.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 How does he feel about Putin?

Speaker 1 I don't know. Is he a big Putin guy? Did that not help?

Speaker 4 NHL needs a big Putin guy.

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 4 That's going to be a big time

Speaker 4 end of an era because I think unquestionably he's the best athlete in the history of DC sports. It's like him, Daryl Green,

Speaker 1 probably, that's probably Gilbert Arenas.

Speaker 4 Gilbert Arenas, legend. But anyways, that's just a personal thing I'm dealing with.
We can talk about teams that are actually good now and still in the playoffs. But

Speaker 4 yeah, Hank's Bruins are awesome. Congratulations, Hank, on making the Easter Conference finals and winning the Easter Conference finals in both sports.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 He's muted. Good.
I like this.

Speaker 1 Great point, Hank. Great point, Hank.

Speaker 1 Money and buy a microphone that works.

Speaker 5 It's fun, you know, when you have these sessions when it's every night playoffs, it's fun to kind of switch from underdog to favorite.

Speaker 5 Hockey is going to be tough. Hockey, hockey.

Speaker 5 It's tough to get an inch in the playoffs.

Speaker 1 As annoying as you are, I so much, so much love this more than what you were last week. This is great.
This is podcasting, boys. This feels like old school PMT.

Speaker 5 Just keep wondering.

Speaker 4 I just imagine Hank like waking up on every alternate day. It's like, it's us against the world.
And then the next day he wakes up, he's like, fuck all these little pip squeaks. We're dominant.

Speaker 4 Blood bath.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Bloodbath.

Speaker 1 Last two things I had. One,

Speaker 1 football is back because we had the official first sign of football being back when Schefter tweeted out the announcement of when the schedules are being announced. Best feeling ever.
That's the sign.

Speaker 1 That's like the first leaf turning in the fall. Schefter has told us that there will be an announcement coming up.

Speaker 4 Yeah, but

Speaker 4 they haven't even said when it's going to be, right?

Speaker 1 No, they said next Wednesday.

Speaker 4 It's next Wednesday? No, we haven't. We haven't exactly...
Because

Speaker 4 usually there's like a pre-announcement where they say the NFL is getting ready to announce when the schedule will be released. So it's like an announcement for the announcement, for the announcement.

Speaker 4 But yeah, yeah, I'm very, very excited because then you get to print it out. You get to look at it and you get to count.
Every team is going to win 11 games next year.

Speaker 1 It's the best day. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And then the last thing, should we do real quick? We probably have to.

Speaker 1 Austin Rivers went on McAfee's show

Speaker 1 and started the debate that I think we have probably every like two years.

Speaker 1 He said there's 30 guys in the NBA right now that could play on an NFL roster and none that could play from the NFL on an NBA roster.

Speaker 1 I love these debates. They're my favorite.

Speaker 1 I think we can all agree before we even dive into this that really we should be focusing on the fact that everyone on an NBA roster, NFL roster, could play for the U.S.

Speaker 1 men's national team and win us a World Cup. But these debates rock because

Speaker 1 we can't really ever figure it out, but everyone's going to spend an entire afternoon debating it.

Speaker 1 I'm very clear on my take, but I want to hear your guys' take first and where it goes.

Speaker 4 All right. So my big problem with this debate is that he didn't bring this up in July.
Yeah. This is the exact content that we need in July.
You're way too early.

Speaker 4 The NBA playoffs are going on right now.

Speaker 4 But my take is, well, of course, Austin Rivers would think that guys in the NFL can't play in the NBA because Austin Rivers can't even play in the NBA.

Speaker 1 Correct.

Speaker 4 And that's his sport. So I understand where he's coming from on that.
I think that NFL players, there's probably no NFL players that could play in the NBA.

Speaker 4 There's been one guy, was it Charlie Ward, won the Heisman Trophy, and then he went on to have a very long career playing in the NBA.

Speaker 4 That was the one guy that's ever done it, and he was like a very unique case.

Speaker 4 Do I need to remind people that people forget that Antonio Gates played college basketball, that Jimmy Graham played college basketball, these guys played college basketball?

Speaker 4 There's a skill set that translates to the NFL from football. Most of them probably wouldn't want to get hit.
Anthony Davis would probably break his neck putting on a helmet.

Speaker 4 But for the most part, you could find some of the bigger guys, more athletic guys, and they could play at least receiver or tight end. I don't, I don't know if there's 30 of them.
Actually,

Speaker 4 I shouldn't be saying my opinion. I want to hear what Jim Harbaugh has to say about this.
Yeah, I'm sure he's got an awesome answer ready to go.

Speaker 1 Yeah, what were you going to say, Hank?

Speaker 5 There would be way more NFL players that could play NBA than reverse.

Speaker 1 You're insane.

Speaker 4 If we do this,

Speaker 1 so if we did this, so the parameters, because the argument changes and people.

Speaker 1 Hold on, shift it around. But

Speaker 1 if the argument is simply you have to play in, you have to make a roster tomorrow. So not like, oh, I get a year to get prepped.

Speaker 1 There's no way 30 guys from the NBA could make a roster in the NFL tomorrow. I think maybe one or two.
could make a roster. And I'm talking like special teams, whatever.

Speaker 1 I'm not saying they're like a super impactful guy.

Speaker 1 There's zero guys on the NFL roster right now who could play on an NBA roster.

Speaker 5 That's that's a semantical argument because it's way easier to get a short-term contract for an NFL team when NBA, like, there's only 12 spots.

Speaker 4 That's the whole premise of the conversation.

Speaker 1 Big 15. Big 15.

Speaker 1 Big 15.

Speaker 4 No, but Hank, when we're talking about, by the way, if we're going to include special teams, I mean,

Speaker 4 Wimby blocking kicks, just lining up the Wimby and chat right down the middle.

Speaker 1 Hank, you think that. All right, so what do you want to do? What do you want to do to the time frame? You want to do three months?

Speaker 1 Max.

Speaker 8 Jordan Milata got drafted without ever playing a down of football. Thank you.

Speaker 1 Antonio Gates played college basketball, not college football. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Raymond Green played college football.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 What's that supposed to prove?

Speaker 8 But have you ever heard of someone in the NBA getting drafted without ever playing, like picking up a basketball before? It happens in football like every other year you hear about someone dropping.

Speaker 1 Okay, Ben Simmons is a great point, Hank. Ben Simmons can't shoot.

Speaker 1 Ray John Rondo can't shoot. Ben Simmons can't shoot in an NBA game.
We've watched Ben Simmons every single summer in an empty gym not miss. That's how good NBA players are.

Speaker 1 They're on a different level in terms of like,

Speaker 1 you could get every guy on an NBA roster, put them in an open gym.

Speaker 1 They will not not miss they go to a game they're shooting 40 30 ben simmons whatever worse you put an nfl guy in an open gym you think he's missing he's missing he doesn't have the same skill there's skills athleticism is a like a wash nfl guys are getting upset because they're like well you don't think nfl guys are some of the best athletes in the world i think nfl guys could probably play more sports than nba guys in terms of just like i've seen nba guys try to throw a baseball nfl guys it feels like a lot of nfl guys have played a lot of different sports.

Speaker 1 NBA, the height,

Speaker 1 the skill level with dribbling and shooting is on a completely different level that you can't just be like, oh, yeah, this guy's tall. Oh, Devontae Adams is really awesome.
He could play.

Speaker 1 I feel like it's not even close.

Speaker 4 Let's think about the difference, though, between NFL and NBA players, right?

Speaker 4 Maybe the best NFL basketball player that I know of right now, big dude, Miles Garrett. You know how tall he is? He's 6'4.

Speaker 1 Correct. Okay, he's 6'4.

Speaker 4 He would be like a smaller guard in the NBA.

Speaker 1 Steph Curry's 6'4. Miles Garrett would also foul out in five minutes if he played in an NBA game.
And that's not because Miles Garrett isn't an insane freak of an athlete. He is.

Speaker 1 It's because these guys, like their movement, their steps, the way they,

Speaker 1 the pump fakes, like all those things that come into an NBA game, Miles Garrett would just, like, someone's like, oh, he would, he'd be able to lock down Chet Holmgren.

Speaker 1 Chet Holmgren would put 30 on him and he would be fouled out in a second.

Speaker 4 Now, a better question is: are there any NBA players that you think could play defense in the NFL, like be able to tackle and do all that shit? Marcus Smart, maybe.

Speaker 4 I could see, I could sweet Westbrook. I could see Westbrook as like cornerback.

Speaker 4 Maybe as a safety, and he's like the water boy where he just imagines the quarterback saying Westbrook to him before every play, and then he goes fucking nuts.

Speaker 1 I mean, Tyrese Maxie has NFL speed.

Speaker 1 He does. Like I

Speaker 1 think that the argument gets lost because people think that it's like a knock on NFL players. It's not.
NFL players are insane.

Speaker 1 And I, again, I think the Austin Rivers comment makes no sense because I do not think 30 guys could go and want to take those hits and like have to deal with the toughness that takes to be in the NFL.

Speaker 1 It's just the NBA.

Speaker 1 I feel like

Speaker 1 I don't know if you guys like watching an NBA player just play basketball with no one around, you just see, you're like, this is just so different than everything else.

Speaker 1 It's just so, we got a guy in our, in our office, Mark Titus, who is like, he doesn't miss shooting. And he's, you know what I mean? Like, and he didn't play at Ohio State.

Speaker 1 He played, I shouldn't say that, but he, he, there's so many levels to this. Hank, I can't believe you, you think that, that the NBA players.

Speaker 1 Like,

Speaker 1 I'm actually shocked by your take.

Speaker 5 I mean, I was trying to do some

Speaker 5 statistical analysis with mine based off of the numbers game.

Speaker 1 But the numbers game aren't even in your favor. It's harder to make the NBA than it is the NFL.

Speaker 5 But there's way more.

Speaker 1 It's what?

Speaker 5 Again, I want to get roster shamed here. 52 on the active roster.

Speaker 1 But that's the reverse. Your arguments reversed that you could make an NBA player.

Speaker 1 There's more chances to make a roster.

Speaker 5 Make a couple spots. Yeah, I guess I didn't really think about the reversal.

Speaker 1 I think you were just trying to argue. I like that.
That's what I think. Yeah.

Speaker 5 I'm going to have to think about it a little more, but I just also feel like there's so many guys in the NBA are like, you point out the size thing.

Speaker 5 There's too many tall people in the NBA that agree to not be able to play NFL.

Speaker 4 Yeah, there's a ton of people in the NBA that would be able to play.

Speaker 1 That's what we're saying.

Speaker 1 What are you going to do?

Speaker 4 We're saying it's very hard to do either one, but if you had to say which one could have a better chance, it's definitely the NBA translating to the NFL, without a doubt.

Speaker 4 Name one player in the NFL that you think could play in the NBA.

Speaker 5 I saw some Drake May high school highlights.

Speaker 1 Oh, Cooper Dean. Cooper De Gene could do it.
Everyone says the high school highlights. Do you know how far being a really good high school basketball player? Someone who,

Speaker 1 like, DeAndre Hopkins played basketball at Clemson.

Speaker 1 There was someone else who...

Speaker 8 Keon Coleman, you retweeted.

Speaker 1 Keon Coleman was like,

Speaker 1 he was not, he couldn't, I don't know if he wanted to like pursue basketball at Michigan State, but like being a good basketball player at Michigan State doesn't mean you're an NBA roster guy.

Speaker 1 There's still like a level to that.

Speaker 1 Hank?

Speaker 4 That's the face Hank makes when he knows that he's wrong, but he won't say I'm wrong.

Speaker 5 No, I mean, you made some good arguments.

Speaker 5 I'm not going to admit defeat, but I'm going to do some more research and come back to you on Thursday.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 I appreciate more research. I just want one player.

Speaker 4 I want to know one player that you think could do it.

Speaker 1 It's also,

Speaker 1 yeah, like Stephen Shea tweeted

Speaker 1 Mike Evans dunking.

Speaker 5 I would have to see Lamar Jackson's jumper, but like.

Speaker 4 He's like 6'2 ⁇ .

Speaker 1 He's athletic as fuck. He's fast.
Mike Evans dunking. On handles and a shot.

Speaker 1 I'll say this, Hank. Mike Evans said that he loved basketball and was considering, and he says that he thought he could play in the NBA.
Mike Evans wasn't a top 100 recruit in high school.

Speaker 1 The odds are completely stacked against him.

Speaker 4 I think Jameis could do it. He can do anything.

Speaker 1 And again, I want it very clear. Austin Rivers is an idiot.
I do not think there's 30 guys in the NBA who could play in the NFL tomorrow. I think there's like one or two.

Speaker 1 There's zero in the NFL who could play in the NBA tomorrow. That's the whole point.
Also,

Speaker 1 you

Speaker 1 the do you know who you know who I thought of right away? Because remember

Speaker 1 the Avalanche just won. Congrats to the Avs kid in game one.

Speaker 1 Remember Joseph Fourier, the Lions tight end, who was 6'7, 250, and he played like two years for the Lions.

Speaker 1 And all he did was go-line package, and he would just stand there and he would catch a touchdown. Like,

Speaker 1 I think his rookie year, he had 18 catches, and seven of them were touchdowns.

Speaker 1 Like, if Giannis was in goal line package and you just split him out wide and you just threw him a jump ball, how does he not, how is that not a touchdown every time?

Speaker 4 Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Speaker 4 Like, like Wimby, just in terms of putting him on an island and being like, here, I'm going to throw the ball as high as I can and no one's going to just put Wimby back there on Hail Marys. Right.

Speaker 4 You would never get scored on a long pass like that.

Speaker 4 The size is a real issue because you have to be insanely skilled to play in the NBA if you're undersized.

Speaker 4 If you're like less than 6'4, I would say you have to have just out of this world next level skills compared to even the greatest basketball players that are currently in the NBA to make it happen with a career.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 I don't think it's even like a remotely close conversation. There's probably, I would say there's maybe 10.

Speaker 4 I could see there being 10 guys in the NBA that if you gave them a year to train and if they loved it, the other question is like, would they like playing football? No.

Speaker 4 Like they might just, it might just be suck.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Speaker 5 Joe Burrow won a high school championship as a freshman, uh, Division II, Southeast District player of the year, senior year, four-year varsity letterman. Great court vision.
He would definitely have.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 4 When was the last time he played ball?

Speaker 5 Well, I mean, he focused on football, but it's like if he focused all that energy on basketball, I'm sure he's broke NBA players.

Speaker 4 If they focused on football, there's probably like a handful of them that just by their size and athleticism could find a spot.

Speaker 1 All you have to do is run. Okay, here, here, here's here's Hank.
Here's here's part of the argument: if you took the measurables of

Speaker 1 like NBA players and you had them like do all of the combine drills, NFL, there would be a lot of NFL scouts who'd be like, kind of like what Max was saying, like, oh, that guy's got the raw athleticism, he's a project, we'd take him.

Speaker 1 If you take all the NFL players and put them in the NBA combine, you'd have to eliminate almost 70% of them just based on height immediately.

Speaker 1 Probably more than that.

Speaker 4 Probably more than 70%. And then you'd watch them shoot, and you'd probably get rid of another like 95% of them.

Speaker 1 And then you have Joe Burrow. And then Joe Burrow.
I'll give you Joe Burrow just because we love Joe Burrow. But Hank, I would like you to do some more research and maybe look it up.

Speaker 1 I did like everyone just falling for the trap where they were like Antonio Gates. It's like, yeah, he played basketball at Kent State.

Speaker 1 He was so far away from the NBA, and he's a Hall of Fame tight end.

Speaker 4 That's the exact opposite argument that you should be making.

Speaker 1 Right, right.

Speaker 4 Wait, they were doing the Antonio Gates as an example that proves the point of why

Speaker 4 the NFL player could. Yes.
Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 4 That's really bad logic, even for the internet.

Speaker 1 I'm impressed. It was really bad logic.
They were like, oh, Antonio Gates could hoop. It's like, no, dude,

Speaker 1 he played basketball to his maximum ability and then was like, oh, shit, I'll be a tight end and be a Hall of Famer. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's the best ever. I do.
You're right. We needed this to happen.

Speaker 4 Probably not the best ever. One of the best ever for that era.

Speaker 1 We needed this in July.

Speaker 9 This would be the perfect

Speaker 4 MLB All-Star Game Week conversation to have.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So we'll do it again.
But yeah, sound off in the comments. Tell us why we're wrong.
These are my favorite hypotheticals because we would never find it out. And also.

Speaker 4 Now a hockey player, a hockey player could play in the NBA. Dude,

Speaker 1 I loved hockey players, hockey guys chiming in. It was like one out of every 20 tweets being like, try to put any of these guys on skates, wouldn't be able to do it.
No shit.

Speaker 1 Yeah. No shit.

Speaker 1 Also, you just, everyone should know that Will Compton is the one who's pushing this hard, and his brain doesn't really work.

Speaker 4 Wait, Will Compton's saying that NFL players could play?

Speaker 1 Yeah, he was saying they could dominate. Well, Will Compton did a very smart thing.
He changed the argument. He changed the debate completely to

Speaker 1 who would do better, an entire NBA team of NFL players or an entire NFL team of NBA players. So basically saying,

Speaker 1 imagine if we had all the NBA players try to block TJ Watt, and then it's just obviously like, okay, that makes no sense. I think both teams would get smoked.

Speaker 1 If you had all the NFL players play against the best NBA team, they would get fucking 50-pieced.

Speaker 4 I want Will to dive deeper into this wormhole and to do an NBA team of all the best white NFL players against an NBA team of all the best black NFL players and which one would win?

Speaker 4 Roster breakdown time.

Speaker 1 He'll get there. He'll get there.
All right, we're going to kick it to ourselves. We've got two interviews.

Speaker 1 Kirk Goldsbury, Vern Lundquist. We also have Hot Seat Cool Throne and pardon your take on

Speaker 1 back in studio. Before we kick it to ourselves, though,

Speaker 1 quick word, everyone probably, when we're PLL guys uh the tragedy in Mexico Callum Robinson his brother and his friend uh really really really sad story there is a goFund me uh for the families and can we I think we can probably pin it to the videos um so if you you know if you're a lacrosse guy really really sad

Speaker 1 and you know we we love the PLL and so anything that you want to give we appreciate it and uh hank you had anything with that

Speaker 5 yeah we'll we'll share all the links absolutely heartbreaking stuff there just on a surf trip.

Speaker 5 Carter, the other guy, the friend of the Robinsons, who's about to get married.

Speaker 5 So there's some

Speaker 5 GoFundMe for the brother, one for Carter. We'll share all the links.

Speaker 4 And I'm sure everything is appreciated.

Speaker 5 Just a very, very sad story.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 Donate if you can. If you feel like it,

Speaker 4 it's terrible. They were just trying to have fun.

Speaker 4 And I don't, I think they're still investigating what happened, but it sounds like they caught the people that did it, which is, I guess, that's good news because because they're off the streets there.

Speaker 4 But yeah, it's heartbreaking. Their family's over in Australia right now, obviously, just in a can't be in a good place right now.
So if you can help them out, that'd be appreciated.

Speaker 1 Yeah. We'll donate too.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay, let's kick it back to ourselves in studio.

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Speaker 1 Henry, hot seat cool thrown.

Speaker 5 My hot seat is Jimmy Butler.

Speaker 1 Oh, we should talk about Jimmy. J-Butt.
Old Jay Butt. Old Jay Butt.

Speaker 5 Heat culture, absolute shambles.

Speaker 5 Pat Riley did a press conference at the end of the season, asked about Jimmy Butler trolling when he wasn't playing, and he said, if you're not in the court playing, you should keep your mouth shut.

Speaker 4 Kind of agree with that. I don't disagree with Pat Riley saying that because you're going up against the Celtics.

Speaker 4 And for a guy that's not playing to be like, yeah, you know, we expect to beat him every time. And to be like talking that shit and then not having to be the one that backs it up,

Speaker 4 I think Pat Riley is probably correct about this. I don't know.
I mean, Jay Butt is pretty hard-headed himself, but he might just be like, yeah, you know what? Pat's right.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I don't know.

Speaker 4 Maybe I'm way off on that.

Speaker 1 I'm going to disagree. I think Jay Butt will probably because there's also the contract thing going on right now where I think Jay Butt has got two years left,

Speaker 1 extension time, is he bigger than heat culture.

Speaker 5 I also'm one of those like NBA Central, like not 100% legitimate.

Speaker 1 Make sure it's not NBA Central.

Speaker 5 No, it's but it's called Remember when I thought Draymond was

Speaker 1 a ball sack jewelry man.

Speaker 5 The Dunk Central is the at. So

Speaker 1 that's it.

Speaker 5 It said that the 76ers are the favorites to land Jimmy Butler in a potential trade.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's interesting.

Speaker 4 So can you imagine how good the Sixers would be if they had Jimmy Butler on them?

Speaker 1 And Embiid?

Speaker 4 Man, that would be a great team.

Speaker 1 Actually,

Speaker 4 that's the one sliding towards moment.

Speaker 1 Tyris Maxi wasn't on that team. Yeah, it would be a different team.

Speaker 4 Yeah, if Jay Butt had been on the Sixers. Jay Butt, if he was on the Sixers the last, what, four years, I think they get a title.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 Jay Butt has two years. The second year is a player option with the Heat.
So he's definitely in that zone of I'm ready for an extension.

Speaker 1 I'm about to be 35. I would like to get paid a lot more money.

Speaker 1 He gets paid a lot of money, but that's how it works in the NBA. And then Pat Rowley has to decide whether he is too big for heat culture.

Speaker 1 It has to suck. I feel like Jimmy Butler is such a shit talker, which motivates him and makes him be a great player.

Speaker 1 But there has to be a small part of you that's like, when I shit talk and I'm not playing and then I watch my boys get their asses kicked. That's got to suck.

Speaker 1 But it might, Jimmy Butler might be the one guy who's like, nah, I'll still shit talk.

Speaker 4 He'll shit talk his team for not having the balls to go out there and back up his words. Yeah.

Speaker 4 I also love Pat Riley just anytime he gets behind a microphone to roast people. Pat Riley is a cool guy.
Yeah. He's probably the coolest old guy in America right now.

Speaker 1 Well, he also.

Speaker 1 He's like a mob boss. Yeah.
He's a mob boss. And whatever they decide to do with Jimmy Butler, like the Heat somehow have just,

Speaker 1 other than a couple years since they drafted D. Wade, have never really been bad, which is pretty remarkable.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 They always find a way to get new guys that are really good and fit heat culture. So maybe it's just the time has passed.
Heat culture with Jimmy Butler no longer a good merit.

Speaker 5 I saw a clip from Shaq's podcast

Speaker 5 where he said when he was on the heat, I think Jason Williams was late for a practice. Pat Riley told him to get the fuck out.
And then Shaq spoke up for him. He was like, no, no, it's cool.

Speaker 5 He's just a minute late. He told Shaq to get the fuck out.
And then one of the guys in the locker room that's close with Pat Riley was like, Yeah, you know, here's the U-Haul address.

Speaker 5 You're going to be getting boxes soon enough. And then he did.
They got a call later in the afternoon, like, we're getting ready, releasing you, trading you, whatever.

Speaker 5 And he was so mad, he tried to show back up to the facility. And Pat Riley had 35 cops there.
And they're like, yeah, we told you can't come in.

Speaker 1 That's what I'm saying. Like, Pat Riley,

Speaker 1 he knows heat culture, and he knows when it's expired.

Speaker 4 I think the, yeah, for the heat in the last, it feels like 20 years, their floor has been better than you expect them to be. Correct.
That's as bad as it gets in Miami.

Speaker 1 In three titles,

Speaker 1 what, five, or how many? No,

Speaker 1 they choked. Four, five.

Speaker 1 Seven trips.

Speaker 13 They had to beat the Celtics every year.

Speaker 1 Seven trips to the NBA title. Yeah, they did choke.

Speaker 4 They did choke. Well, they turned off their air conditioning in San Antonio.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 But, I mean,

Speaker 1 they've been a very well-run organization under Pat Riley, I would say.

Speaker 1 So I will side with, if the divorce happens, I'll probably side with Pat Riley just based on the fact that he's proven time and time again he can make the heat good.

Speaker 4 The worst decision they've made, the only bad decision that I can think of, is that they retired Jordan Zumber.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Total cuck move. Total cuck move.
Big time cuck move. Total cuck move.
All right, your cool throne?

Speaker 5 Cool throne is the Met Gala.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Met Gala.

Speaker 4 Do we know what goes on at the Met Gala? We've been trying to figure out

Speaker 4 for seven years, I think. Yeah.

Speaker 4 No. They just talk about what happened outside the Met Gala.

Speaker 1 There's just rich people show up in

Speaker 1 there's some theme. What was the theme this year? Sleeping Beauty.
Sleeping Beauty.

Speaker 5 Oh,

Speaker 5 Garden of Time.

Speaker 1 Garden of Time.

Speaker 4 Oh, that explains Ben Simmons' briefcase that had the giant clock on it.

Speaker 4 I thought he was carrying a bomb in there. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Cool clock.

Speaker 1 You want to bring it to school, Ahmed?

Speaker 1 Yeah, the Met Gal is weird. I don't.

Speaker 5 Who are your guys' favorite looks?

Speaker 4 I like Dad Sheeran. He looked like he was in Dumb and Dumber a little bit.

Speaker 1 I like the guy who was wearing just an umbrella. That's something I would like to wear.

Speaker 1 You couldn't even see the person underneath it. That's kind of a fat.

Speaker 5 The woman that wore sand?

Speaker 1 No, I did not see the woman that wore sand.

Speaker 4 How do you wear sand?

Speaker 1 I don't know, but she did.

Speaker 5 She'd get carried up the stairs because she couldn't.

Speaker 1 By the way,

Speaker 1 loved Lizzo.

Speaker 4 Lizzo was serving looks last night. Did you see her? She looked like a paper bag.

Speaker 1 She did.

Speaker 6 She was in Star Wars.

Speaker 1 Like, I wanted to tip her out. I wanted to tip her out.

Speaker 5 And she looked like a Star Wars girl.

Speaker 4 If you tipped her out and poured her over, I would think that there would be some sort of cheap gas station liquor that would come out of her.

Speaker 1 Can I say an idea that people cannot steal because it's a great idea that someone tweeted at me that we're going to do? Yes.

Speaker 1 So legally, no one's allowed to steal this. Who's listening right now? This is from Millie Goats.
He tweeted me last night. I think, and I talked to Dave about it.

Speaker 1 I think we're going to do a bet gala at some point this year where we invite some famous people and we just bet every single game on the board and we dress up. That'd be pretty good, right?

Speaker 1 That's a good idea. We should come up with a theme.

Speaker 5 Yeah, you need a theme.

Speaker 4 I think just betting, gambling on sports. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Let's see. The fried food.

Speaker 4 That'd be good. Yeah, it's a good one.
It's a good theme.

Speaker 1 Everyone dresses up blue. French fry.
Blue. Blue's a blue.

Speaker 1 You'd be good at this. Yeah.

Speaker 4 I'll be a chair. I need to see the.
Is this the lady that dressed up as sand? That doesn't look like sand. That's not sand.
That's the hottest sand I've ever seen.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I would, yeah.

Speaker 4 If that's sand, then all the skin on my dick is gone.

Speaker 4 That's some good sand. Great sand.
Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 1 Good to hot seat cool throne, Hank. Thanks.
Yeah. PFT.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Hank's really good at taking your hot seat cool throne for you.

Speaker 1 I did have the Met Gal as well.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I think Hank just sits down. He thinks.
I don't think he thinks about what he should say for Hot Seat Cool Throne. I think he sits down and ponders, what do you think Big Cat and PFT will say?

Speaker 4 Correct. And then that's what he comes up with.
Correct. So my hot seat is going to be Giselle.
Giselle was not happy with the roast. Yeah.
Nor was Aaron Hernandez's wife.

Speaker 1 That was a wild quote by Aaron Hernandez's wife.

Speaker 1 I feel bad for her in the fact that her life, you know,

Speaker 1 the father of her children and her fiancé turned out to be a serial killer and then killed himself in prison. Probably not the easiest last few years for her.
But her reasoning of

Speaker 1 my daughter someday has to watch these jokes and the hero that she thought her dad was is going to be like pierced.

Speaker 1 I feel like the murder part would would probably be the part where like that he wasn't a good guy. Yeah, just a quick Google search.

Speaker 1 They'll take care of it. The jokes really weren't the problem.
I think it's the murder that probably like one day she's going to be like, oh, he wasn't a great guy.

Speaker 4 Yeah, she said, it's sad I'm trying to raise my children in such a cruel world.

Speaker 1 He murdered

Speaker 1 probably four people. Yeah.

Speaker 4 That's pretty cruel. That is cruel.
And also, she's kind of making the implication that she's really the only one that's harmed by these jokes. Correct.
Like in the entire world. Correct.

Speaker 4 It's just her. And she's like, that sucks for me.
I'm sure it it does suck for her to have to hear people. But also, if you're her, why would you tune into the Tom Brady?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 That feels like you're opting into specifically hearing jokes about your dead husband.

Speaker 1 And the people I feel bad about

Speaker 1 the most would be the loved ones of the people who are murdered who have to hear the jokes. Yeah.
That would probably be the front of the line of like, oh, that's got to suck.

Speaker 4 Yeah. You know what sucked for O.J.
Simpson's children was Norm McDonald.

Speaker 1 That was probably when they figured it out.

Speaker 4 That was the worst time. That was the worst time.
But yeah, Giselle's not, she's not happy either. Also,

Speaker 4 she should have been the last person to have been there.

Speaker 1 She should have roasted him. It would have been great.
Who? Giselle. If Giselle had roasted Tom Brady, it would have been great.

Speaker 1 Obviously, it would have been awkward, but would it have not been great?

Speaker 1 No. Yes, it would have.

Speaker 4 I don't think she would have gone because she just would have just told the truth to him.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Tell the truth. And that would have been great.

Speaker 4 But she avoided a major shot when Burt and Tom did the whole breakdown of what a bad guy tom brady is and they said they started talking about her they didn't address the fact that she's like a six foot two

Speaker 4 stunning german model whose family immigrated to south america in the middle of the century they really she does she avoided a major shot with that one imagine if she had just come just walked out and been like tommy never made me came or come no that would have been better

Speaker 1 if she said it that way yeah came tommy never made me came you never made me came boom roasted See ya. That would have been great.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 I can't make you come and myself come.

Speaker 1 By the way, from the fallout of the Tom Brady roasted, I like that hat.

Speaker 1 It does feel like Tom Brady was being serious when he said no more craft jokes. Yes.
Yeah. People thought that was maybe fake, but the fact that there was never another craft joke made it seem real.

Speaker 5 Which, even more respect to Tom, because he just let all the other jokes fly.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
I think Nikki Glazer went on, Howard Cerner and said the only things that were off limits were craft and Tom's kids, which I'm fine with that.

Speaker 1 Like, that's, well, maybe not the Kraft part, but the kids, totally fine with that. The Kraft part, I feel like he should have.
You can make fun of Robert Kraft. Yeah, you can make fun.

Speaker 4 That's punching up. You can make fun of the hand job.
She even said in her reason why that she didn't make fun of him because he is so old and powerful.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 It's like those are really

Speaker 1 exactly who you got to make fun of that you should be making fun of.

Speaker 4 Correct.

Speaker 5 Correct. I like the people that are saying Tom Brady saved comedy.

Speaker 1 Will Compton?

Speaker 5 By letting people, by letting people do that. I saw some other people.

Speaker 1 Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Oh, Taylor. Yeah, Taylor Luan.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 And Will Compton both agreed

Speaker 4 to save comedy.

Speaker 1 We can say the word gay again. It's okay.
It's comedy. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 That was a great roast.

Speaker 4 It was a great roast. It was very funny.

Speaker 1 And I'm happy that Belichick never shook Robert Kraft's hand.

Speaker 3 Yeah. Same.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 My cool throne is Boeing. Boeing's on the cool throne because another whistleblower died.
So this makes two. This makes two in the last six months.

Speaker 4 This guy, he got some sort of a bacterial infection that it progressed within like two weeks and he died.

Speaker 4 And so it's like two out of the 60 or two out of the 50 that have come forward against Boeing are now dead.

Speaker 4 So one by one. Did he testify or get not to testify? I don't know what the schedule was like for his testifying, but he was in the process of being a whistleblower.

Speaker 4 I think we just need to rebrand whistleblowing. Yeah.
Because right now you hear whistleblow and you're like, refined.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it feels like Boeing. There's definitely something going on.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 I would say so. For the last like five years.

Speaker 1 I'm not suicidal.

Speaker 4 Neither am I. The planes have been crashing.

Speaker 1 I did see one guy say he just tweeted. He's like, hey, Boeing.
He added Boeing.

Speaker 4 He's like, my bookie's been talking a lot of shit about you guys.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Like that tweet.
Yeah,

Speaker 4 Boeing is the new Hillary.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So this is just a heads up.
All right.

Speaker 1 My hot seat is Scotty Scheffler because the PGA championship is next week. And he still doesn't have a baby.

Speaker 4 Interesting.

Speaker 1 We've discussed this many. The baby thing, that was not Sky Shefford's fault.

Speaker 1 It was the media's fault for basically forcing him to say he would leave, even though his wife was not even close to being due. But

Speaker 1 doesn't it apply for PGA Championship now?

Speaker 13 He's not playing in this week's Wells Fargo. Right.

Speaker 1 I'll be calling on the Minator Live. Okay, but

Speaker 1 right. So, but isn't that, aren't we getting close? We're a week and a half away, and there's no baby.

Speaker 4 It'd be funny if you said, yeah, you know what? The Masters is one thing, thing, but if she goes into labor during the PJ Championship, I can't leave. That tournament's too important.

Speaker 1 It's way too important, especially after winning the Masters. He's got to, yeah, now

Speaker 1 he has to show up to that. Yeah.

Speaker 5 Some eggplant parm. I heard Whitney say that.

Speaker 4 Some Thai food. That's what does it? Eggplant Parm.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Step off a curb.

Speaker 4 That could do it. Yeah, Max said uneven surfaces.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 What if you just have sex again?

Speaker 1 Could just do that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Then you might have twins. Yeah, that's how twins are.

Speaker 4 That's how it

Speaker 1 all right in my cool throne a story that i i don't know why it's not talked about more uh

Speaker 1 josh hart and injuries because this is a tweet from april 7th

Speaker 1 uh from the reporter fred katz from uh new york he does athletic he said josh hart said when he took a half court heave to end the second quarter this is early april He felt his wrist click and it almost clicked back into place.

Speaker 1 Said he went to Brunson at the half and told him, I can shoot threes now.

Speaker 1 This is basically the plot from rookie of the year this year. Rookie of the year, exactly.
And Josh Hart has been shooting a lot better from three,

Speaker 1 and he's been scoring a lot more.

Speaker 1 Is Josh Hart just like, did one injury to his wrist make him a superstar?

Speaker 4 I think it's funny that Josh Hart was so bad at shooting threes that he got injured and it improved his shot, actually. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Maybe, maybe Caitlin Clark could learn a lot from Josh Hart, maybe fall off her bike at one point and fix her mechanics.

Speaker 1 So Josh Hart is a career 31%

Speaker 1 or 34%

Speaker 1 three-point shooter.

Speaker 1 Or, no, sorry, I'm reading that's his field goal percentage. Either way, in these playoffs, he's a career, he's like in the 30s.

Speaker 1 In these playoffs, he's shooting 43% from three.

Speaker 1 That's crazy. Yeah, it's nuts.
His wrist clicked, and he now can score.

Speaker 4 Maybe it's also Tibbs just playing him every single minute of every single game, which I love. He's finally gotten good enough at basketball basketball where he can shoot a three.

Speaker 1 But it, like, why isn't this being talked about more? Josh Hart is now just a lethal three-point shooter because his wrist clicked. He's got to make sure his wrist doesn't re-click.

Speaker 4 Yeah, that would be bad, but it's also making me just think about injuring myself until I get good at things. Right.

Speaker 1 You never know.

Speaker 4 Every injury you have might be a blessing in disguise. We should just start breaking our wrists.
Hank, maybe if you slit your Achilles tendon, you'll be able to dunk.

Speaker 1 You might as well try. If you get desperate, we'll do it for you.

Speaker 5 Yeah, we'll wait till like November, and then I'll start doing the crack sign shit.

Speaker 4 crack signs i like that signs you start injuring yourself uh with a scotty shuffler thing that reminded me of charlotte the pregnant stingray yep allegedly i just looked her up bitch still ain't giving birth she was never pregnant and now people are catching on now the youths are on finally now tick tock is all over this shit finally you got all the kids out there questioning this bitch remember we were questioning a long time ago yeah so Credit to us.

Speaker 1 Jake, your hot seat cool thrown.

Speaker 13 My hot seat's myself. I'm going to take accountability here.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. And

Speaker 13 big time. We talked about it earlier in the show.
We talked about the game, but there was a baby bump that I did not alert you guys on. Yep.

Speaker 13 Brandon Carlo of the Boston Bruins had a baby, flew down to South Florida, and scored a goal.

Speaker 5 Yeah, against your hometown team.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Jake disappointed in myself.
Listen, Jake, don't beat yourself up. It's not like he had crazy odds to score a goal, 13 to 1.

Speaker 4 Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1 And it's not like everyone then tweeted us after being like, did you guys bet it? Did you guys bet it? Did you guys bet it? So at least that didn't happen.

Speaker 4 It felt personal, Jake.

Speaker 13 Well, now's a good time to get redemption and tell you that Rudy Gobert just had a baby.

Speaker 1 Okay, so should we score? Should we score a goal?

Speaker 1 Score a goal.

Speaker 1 Yeah, no, that was a huge, huge miss. Could have really used that winner.

Speaker 13 So I'll pay you guys back.

Speaker 1 Thank you. Yeah.
How? I don't know.

Speaker 1 I don't know. Yeah, no, you can't.

Speaker 4 I need $13,000. You can't.

Speaker 1 You're never going to be able to pay me back for that one. Yeah.
That one was a butterfly effect.

Speaker 1 All losses for the next month are kind of on you.

Speaker 1 Great. Yeah.
My cool throne is

Speaker 13 moms. This is a PSA.
Get your moms Mother's Day this Sunday. Yes.
So just a reminder for literally all the AWLs. We have some stuff in the Barcelona store.

Speaker 13 Just make sure you don't show up empty-handed Sunday.

Speaker 1 It kind of sucks that Mother's Day is the same weekend that we changed the clocks. That's the only thing that sucks for them.
Yeah, because they get one less hour of Mother's Day.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it's too bad. Sorry, moms.
One less hour of sleep. Yep.

Speaker 4 Really, it should be the opposite.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it should.

Speaker 1 We should move the clocks back for Mother's Day instead. We're moving them forward.

Speaker 4 And Father's Day. Yeah.

Speaker 1 What do you think, Hank? This sucks. Right.
Yeah.

Speaker 5 I genuinely. Yep.

Speaker 4 That's why they did the Met Gallo with the whole time thing.

Speaker 1 That was actually, he was paid by big clocks. Yeah.
How did he get the invite?

Speaker 4 That's a good question. I don't know.

Speaker 3 Is he the A-list of A-listers?

Speaker 4 I think if he just. He had a lot of time.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 A lot of time. He's not like he's playing basketball.
That's what I'm just saying. He's got a lot of time.

Speaker 1 And he probably - that's probably something you have to agree to months ago, and he's like, oh, mid, you know, May, no problem. Yeah.
Got no problem being there. Yeah.

Speaker 4 No prior commitments that I can foresee.

Speaker 1 Okay, so Mother's Day, make sure you get your mother something.

Speaker 1 Get him a free subscription, to pardon my take.

Speaker 1 We'll make a

Speaker 1 graphic.

Speaker 1 We'll put out a graphic maybe on Friday's show. One free subscription to all mothers.

Speaker 4 Because we love moms so much on this show.

Speaker 1 I love moms.

Speaker 5 I love moms.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Good job. Hot seat, cool throwing, everyone.

Speaker 1 Let's get to some interviews. We have Vern Lundquist and Kirk Goldsbury.
PFT, before we do go to Vern Lundquist.

Speaker 14 Hey, this is Rhea from Chicks in the Office, and this season, we're heading home for the holidays with Abercrombie and Fitch. We all know our calendars are about to get chaotic.

Speaker 14 For non-stop plans, Abercrombie has the pieces to curate your perfect seasonal wardrobe, sweaters and denim for casual plans, party dresses for nights out, and comfy matching sets for everything in between.

Speaker 14 Keep the chaos cute this season in Abercrombie. Shop their new holiday outfits in the app online or in stores.

Speaker 1 Okay, we now welcome on a very, very, very special guest, an absolute legend

Speaker 1 of the game. It is Vern Lundquist.
He is the voice of many of our favorite memories in sports.

Speaker 1 Vern, first of all, thank you so much for joining us. And the first question I had, maybe the toughest question, you just retired.
Can we get you out of retirement?

Speaker 1 Because we don't want to lose Vern Lundquist and you calling some of the greatest moments of our lives.

Speaker 7 I think it's a little late to call King's X,

Speaker 7 especially because CBS was so kind and all of my colleagues were at Augusta two weeks ago.

Speaker 7 It was a lavish goodbye, which was deeply appreciated by me. But

Speaker 7 I've told a couple of other folks. I'm 83 years old.

Speaker 7 I have a mild case of COPD.

Speaker 7 I have a mild case of type 2 diabetes. I have sleep apnea.
and I cannot remember what I had for breakfast. So other than that, I have no issues whatsoever.

Speaker 1 We can get over those. Listen, if they just do, if they just have a Vern Lundquist opt-in broadcast, I would opt in every single time.
It's like, hey,

Speaker 1 he might not call it perfectly, but it doesn't matter. We just want to hear your voice.

Speaker 7 Well, I appreciate that, guys.

Speaker 7 I'm going to

Speaker 7 sidle off into retirement.

Speaker 7 My wife and I have been married 42 years. We celebrated our first anniversary in Augusta in 1983, and we celebrated our 42nd there two weeks ago.
So

Speaker 7 not only for me, but also for my wife, Nancy, it's a very, very, very special place.

Speaker 4 Yeah. Yeah.
And I think you made it more special for everybody else that's been watching it. I don't know if the chicken or the egg situation, but maybe

Speaker 4 all those great moments happened on 16 because Vern was there in his little tree stand looking down. And

Speaker 4 you made all that happen. But did you ever think that

Speaker 4 the very last thing that we would see at Augusta is a picture of Tiger Woods shaking hand with a tree and people saying,

Speaker 4 Tiger bidding farewell to the goat, Vern Lundquist, and it's just a tree with a hand sticking out of it.

Speaker 7 Well, there's another view of that meeting.

Speaker 7 And I understand that

Speaker 7 Tiger was on Jimmy Fallon's show.

Speaker 7 last week. I'm not sure when it was, but I've seen video of it.

Speaker 7 And there was great sport made of the fact that he seemed to be, I was behind a tree. And there is another, there is another shot of Tiger and me.

Speaker 7 Guys, I had three goals going into what I knew was going to be my last one.

Speaker 7 I wanted to meet Scotty Scheffler. I'd never met him.
I did that. I wanted to to say goodbye to Tiger.
I was able to do that.

Speaker 7 And I also wanted to say, and then to thank Tiger and to say goodbye to Jack. And I was able to do all three.
So

Speaker 7 mission accomplished as the old television show used to say.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, so it's talking about the Masters specifically.

Speaker 1 Obviously, the golfers hit the shots, but do you, I know you're a humble guy, but have you had a moment where you could step back and be like,

Speaker 1 my call of some of these iconic moments, specifically the Tiger chip-in, like, that's what elevates a sports moment to something that your voice is just like bouncing in my brain when I think about that shot.

Speaker 1 And have you had a moment where you're like, that's pretty cool that I am so intertwined with some iconic, iconic sports moments?

Speaker 7 Yes,

Speaker 7 believe me.

Speaker 7 And I think as a broadcaster, first of all, I get it if you're a sports commentator or broadcaster or announcer or whatever term you want to use.

Speaker 7 Yes, down distance, fact, who has the ball, what's the pitch count,

Speaker 7 that's all important. But essentially, we make our living as storytellers.

Speaker 7 And I think

Speaker 7 your purpose in doing this is to give the viewer or the listener a reason to care about the outcome.

Speaker 7 And you do that by narratives, and you do that by telling stories, anecdotal information, both good and bad.

Speaker 7 positive and negative about the people involved, the teams involved, or the management involved. And

Speaker 7 that's what draws people into the broadcast. And I think if you can humanize the people who are appearing in front, then you've accomplished your job.

Speaker 7 And more often than not,

Speaker 7 I've been blessed.

Speaker 7 First of all,

Speaker 7 you go to a sporting event, and I've done it now for 61 years. I started here in Austin, which is my hometown.
And

Speaker 7 but

Speaker 7 you hope that something memorable breaks out. And then you pray to the heavens that you're capable of adding

Speaker 7 commentary that is purposeful and suitable for the topic.

Speaker 7 And I've been blessed in that sense because I've been lucky enough to have those moments break out and then to find the adequate words more often than not.

Speaker 4 Yeah, you've done a great job of that.

Speaker 4 I've also been impressed over the years when you know when to let a moment breathe, when to not talk over something important that's happening, if you want to give the people a sense of the atmosphere in the stadium, on the courts,

Speaker 4 wherever you happen to be calling it,

Speaker 4 is that something that you made a conscious effort to do where you could just understand and feel when, hey, maybe it's time for me to take a step back and let the moment speak for itself?

Speaker 7 I had three mentors,

Speaker 7 the oldest of whom I doubt you guys have

Speaker 7 been made aware of.

Speaker 7 He was the voice of the Green Bay Packers. His name was Ray Scott, and he passed away 25 years ago, I guess.
I was lucky enough to get to know Ray.

Speaker 7 He was, he called,

Speaker 7 he was one of the announcers on the first one or two Super Bowls. But here, when Bart Starr and

Speaker 7 Boyd Dowler were the stars of the Packers back in the 60s, and

Speaker 7 here was the typical Ray Scott call.

Speaker 7 Star

Speaker 7 Dowler

Speaker 7 touched him.

Speaker 7 Well, hell, they can see what's going on. You don't need a whole lot more than that for that moment.

Speaker 7 The other was the late Frank Gleber,

Speaker 7 who's long forgotten, and that is a

Speaker 7 pitiable shame. Frank was a friend and a mentor of mine.
We lost him at the age of 51.

Speaker 7 He died of a heart attack while jogging, ironically. But he was a master of all trades.

Speaker 7 And he said to me once, Bern, if they ever ask you to do anything, they being network sports, and I've worked for ABC, CBS, and TNT for a short time, if they ever ask you to do anything, say yes.

Speaker 7 And then watch videotape of other guys who've done it, whom you think do it well, and

Speaker 7 borrow liberally.

Speaker 7 And so I've done that. And then the third was Pat Someral.

Speaker 7 Pat was, I was lucky enough to work with Pat for 25 years.

Speaker 7 He was the best I've ever seen at counterpunching. He, you know, he made magic with John Madden for so many years.
And Pat's assurance in his own craft allowed John to wander all over the place.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 7 And the guy in the truck, Bob Stenner, producer, Sandy,

Speaker 7 having a senior moment here, Sandy Grossman, his director, they would, John was the great, greatest one I've ever seen that mastering minutiae. And he could make something out of nothing.

Speaker 7 But Pat always had the perfect counterpunch to bring, you know, it's third and eight.

Speaker 7 John, get back to the business here. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 Pat was a minimalist, too. So those three guys, I tried to emulate over the course of my career.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 All right. I got a dumb question for you.

Speaker 1 You have an all-time great big game voice, and it might be a chicken and egg thing, but I do think your voice is phenomenal. And when you listen to a Vern Lundquist game, it feels like a big game.

Speaker 1 When did you know in your life that you had that voice? Was there a moment where you're like, oh, I got something special here?

Speaker 7 Yeah,

Speaker 7 I'm a genetic product.

Speaker 7 My dad is a Lutheran minister, and

Speaker 7 he died 25 years ago, but

Speaker 7 my dad had a great voice. And fortunately, I was born in the Midwest.

Speaker 7 In Duluth, Minnesota. We lived there for two years.

Speaker 7 Then we moved while he was a senior. I was born when he was a student pastor.
And then he enrolled in the Lutheran School of Theology in Rock Island, Illinois. And my first memories were there.

Speaker 7 I'm the oldest of five.

Speaker 7 His first church was in Everett, Washington. We then moved to Austin, Texas when I was 12, and then my dad and mom moved to Omaha, Nebraska, where they both passed away.

Speaker 7 But I'm the oldest of five and I'm the only one of the five who didn't get that young Texas accent. I mean, my brother, it takes him two minutes to say, yes, sir.
I mean,

Speaker 7 God, can we draw it out?

Speaker 7 And fortunately, I've got a Midwest accent, which I think is desirable as sports commentary. You don't want to offend

Speaker 7 the middle of the country and you don't want to draw the attention, you know, you don't want to sound like you came from Boston or Brooklyn either,

Speaker 7 or be super cool and pretend like you came from LA.

Speaker 7 So, but I'm the genetic beneficiary of my dad, and the laugh is the same thing. He had this huge laugh, and I inherited that.
Sometimes

Speaker 7 I laugh at inappropriate moments, but that's okay. It's who I am.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Is there any moment? Because we broadcast for a living. We do this show.
And sometimes five minutes after we're done, we're done, I might be getting in my car. I'm like, oh, I should have said this.

Speaker 1 And I remember it.

Speaker 4 Is there any call that you've had where you're leaving the stadium and you think to yourself, I wish I had changed that just a little bit and said this instead of that?

Speaker 7 Well, I've made mistakes, and those are the ones you regret. I mean, I'll never forget.
I was doing

Speaker 7 a Buffalo Bills broadcast, and they had a number 86 and a number 89.

Speaker 7 And when they were going from the television commentary booth, they were going right to left, so I could see the eight, but I couldn't see the six or the nine. And

Speaker 7 I had the wrong number.

Speaker 7 And it was like an 80-yard touchdown pass. And I felt like an absolute fool when they took a close-up of the guy.
And I had the wrong call. Jake Reed was one of them who was involved.
But when you and

Speaker 7 when I was doing the SEC for all those years, so help me, God, I'd make mistakes of identification. And that's when you feel dreadful.

Speaker 7 And you're not doing the job for which you were hired. And

Speaker 7 we all make them.

Speaker 7 It's a live telecast.

Speaker 7 You want to be prepared. And God, you feel awful when that happens.
Just awful. Well, it stays with you for a couple of days.

Speaker 1 Well, I would say that you've had a lot more iconic moments, and one of them being in the SEC, the Kick Six.

Speaker 1 So after that happens, how long were you like buzzing off of that? Because it was such an incredible moment, and your call was so perfect for it.

Speaker 1 I mean, you must have been on Cloud Nine having a moment like that happen in front of you.

Speaker 7 Yeah, I was.

Speaker 7 I was. Two weeks before that, we had done Auburn in Georgia.
And

Speaker 7 Auburn and my partner was Gary Danielson and

Speaker 7 Auburn had the lead and no Georgia had the lead and Auburn had a fourth down and 18

Speaker 7 at their own 25 yard line and the quarterback guy named Nick Marshall

Speaker 7 through the ultimate Hail Mary and the two

Speaker 7 Georgia guys went up and instead of going it was fourth and 18 for crying out loud knocked the ball down but they both tried to intercept it they tipped they bumped into each other, tipped it.

Speaker 7 It went forward. A wide receiver named Ricardo Lewis reached behind him, grabbed it, in for the touchdown.

Speaker 7 So we get on camera at the end of the game, and Gary says

Speaker 7 it's the greatest finishing college football you've ever seen. You will never, ever, ever see anything like that.

Speaker 7 Two weeks,

Speaker 1 two weeks.

Speaker 7 Yeah, two weeks. We had Chris Davis with the missed kick.
and and gary

Speaker 7 we we you know they

Speaker 7 the auburn guys made a substitution during a long time now

Speaker 7 and and uh

Speaker 7 and we all thought it was first of all matt austin was the referee he's a good friend we've we bonded over over that game as a matter of fact and and uh matt is the guy who they they took him seven minutes to determine if you remember this in 2013 so 11 years ago

Speaker 7 if TJ Yeldin's foot had come down with time out or time remaining, and it took him seven minutes. And they were asking the truck to synchronize this main game coverage with the end zone and get them.

Speaker 7 And it took seven minutes. And then Matt Austin came on, please put one second back on the clock.

Speaker 7 And they did. Well, we all thought

Speaker 7 that

Speaker 7 Nick was irritated, to put it mildly, with the senior place kicker.

Speaker 7 So they put this redshirt freshman kid on the field for a 57-yard field goal.

Speaker 7 And he hit a pretty good kick. He really did.

Speaker 7 But Chris Davis grabbed it and

Speaker 7 got a block, got another block, and all of a sudden, about the 50-yard line, I thought, holy cow.

Speaker 7 There's nobody in front of him.

Speaker 7 And then

Speaker 7 when he got to the end zone, I looked back and I said, there are no flags.

Speaker 7 And then that moment comes through your body and you think, dear God, don't let there be any flags.

Speaker 1 Right, right. Right.

Speaker 1 Because, yeah, there were. Yeah.
Because we're watching it at home and we're thinking, you always think on a big play like that, you're like, all right, give it a beat. Because you never know.

Speaker 1 You're looking for that. Alabama fans are probably like, there has to be a flag here.

Speaker 4 You're just staring at the bottom line of their TV for 30 seconds after that play is over, hoping that yellow icon.

Speaker 1 But you added that line adds to the moment so much.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 7 Well, and Gary,

Speaker 7 we only showed three replays. I was stunned.

Speaker 7 Our director was Steve Milton, who still does college football and he does all of our golf.

Speaker 7 And Steve's one of the most brilliant directors ever

Speaker 7 ever. And then Gary and I lay down during the replay for a minute and 21 seconds, which is an eternity if you're a talking dog.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 7 the late Don Drysdale gave me that nickname 50 years ago.

Speaker 7 One quick, at the end of the day, just face the fact, you and me ain't nothing but talking dogs.

Speaker 1 That's great. I love that.

Speaker 1 So after it happened, did you tell Gary Danielson, you're like, hey, remember two weeks ago when you said you'll never see anything like this?

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 7 But he had a great line.

Speaker 7 He had the great line because in the analysis of the replay he said well no wonder they couldn't tackle him they had their field goal protection team on the field those are nothing but fat guys yeah

Speaker 1 it's a fat graphic summation yeah it really was yeah uh what's the most fun name to say in sports oh

Speaker 7 i've got one

Speaker 7 And I don't mean to make fun of the guy, but inevitably I mention it. He played for for lsu and i collect names i mean i i'm i'm a big aficionado of why people are named what they are

Speaker 7 bartevius mingo yeah it's a that's a fun one to say that's a great one

Speaker 7 isn't it it's it's it just rolls off the bartevius mingo and i he was a i think he was a linebacker 20 years ago at lsu but

Speaker 1 that was one of my favorites it really was what so so speaking of names when did you so your your first name is Merton. When did you decide to make the switch? Thank you.

Speaker 7 Thank you for bringing that up.

Speaker 1 Well, Vern is so proud.

Speaker 1 Again, it might just be because we've known you for so long watching, but when was that switch made? It was a great switch by you. I want to say that right now.

Speaker 1 Fantastic.

Speaker 7 My full name is Merton LaVerne Lundquist Jr.

Speaker 7 The Junior is important. Yep.

Speaker 7 My siblings,

Speaker 4 David, Dan, Tom, Sharon.

Speaker 1 What the hell? So

Speaker 1 your parents just took a shot. They're like, hey, there's our first kid.
Let's just take a shot here.

Speaker 7 My dad went by Merton. They tagged me with Laverne.
So I went through high school, college, and

Speaker 7 as a man of unclear purpose, I had no idea what I got a degree in sociology and a minor in history from Texas Lutheran University. Graduated in 62.
I had no idea what I wanted to do.

Speaker 7 But I thought, well, I grew up in a minister's home and with a sociology degree, a liberal arts background, I think I'll try this.

Speaker 7 So I decided to enroll for one year at the Lutheran School of Theology in Rock Island. And six weeks in, I knew it was not for me.

Speaker 1 And I, you know, but I

Speaker 7 swore to myself, you're going to make it through one year.

Speaker 7 So I do have 18 hours of credit at the lutheran school of theology in rock island including six hours of greek which has not been particularly beneficial in this career

Speaker 7 but along the way i got a radio job as a nighttime disc jockey across the mississippi river in davenport iowa at woc radio which stands, by the way, for World of Chiropractic.

Speaker 7 And the guy who hired me was the program director, was a guy named Bob Gifford. And we did the interview and he said, I like your work.

Speaker 7 I want to put you on from nine to midnight, but there's no way in God's green earth you're going on my radio station as Laverne.

Speaker 7 So the compromise was to drop the L-M-E-A off.

Speaker 7 And I've been Verne since I was 23 years old. So 60 years now.

Speaker 7 But

Speaker 7 to this day,

Speaker 7 Nancy and I are blessed. We have a home, a condo here in Austin, but we our full-time home is in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.
And if

Speaker 7 someone calls and they ask for Laverte, Nance will pick up the phone. She said, honey, it's someone from either from Austin High or Texas Luther.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Because

Speaker 7 that's how they knew me. Yeah.

Speaker 1 That's funny. You brought up your wife.

Speaker 4 We have to ask you to tell the story of how you two met.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Mr.
Steel, your girl.

Speaker 4 So

Speaker 4 we've heard about it, but we'd like like you to tell the story you want to hear it from vert

Speaker 7 well okay

Speaker 7 uh

Speaker 7 uh

Speaker 7 we met in 1980 in in uh

Speaker 7 in in dallas uh i was recently divorced nancy had been divorced about seven eight years i think at that point

Speaker 7 and uh

Speaker 7 i'll give you the full story because we got a little bit of time yeah uh

Speaker 7 so as a recently divorced and i i lived in what is called the mid-cities I was working at the ABC affiliate in Dallas and

Speaker 7 doing the six and 10, and I also had the cowboy job at the time. And

Speaker 7 I lived 23 miles from downtown Dallas, and I didn't want to go home. I was lonely.
So I went to this upscale discotech. That dates it.
This would have been a week before Nancy and I met.

Speaker 7 So early March of 1980. And a young man, I walked in, I had a scotch scotch and water sitting at the bar, and a young kid came over and said, Mr.

Speaker 7 Lundquist, I don't mean to be presumptuous, but what are you doing in here?

Speaker 7 And I said, What are you talking about? He said, Look out there on the dance floor. Do you see anybody your age?

Speaker 7 And I said, Good point by you.

Speaker 7 Where would you suggest I go? He said, about a mile and a half down Greenville Avenue. There's an upscale bar called Arthur's.
It's attached to a steakhouse. I I think you might find people your age.

Speaker 7 I was 40 at the time. And you might find people more of your generation.
So the next week, I got off the 10 o'clock news and I thought, well, I'll take that kid's advice.

Speaker 7 So I walked into this upscale, it was an upscale bar. And

Speaker 7 I was

Speaker 7 coat and tie because I'd just come from work. And Nancy, who became my wife, was sitting at the bar with her date, a blind date.

Speaker 7 I didn't know that at the time, who was the Coors beer distributor in Dallas and Fort Worth. All this I found out later.
So he recognized me from local television. It's a phenomenon.

Speaker 7 And he said, well, there's Vern. Let's invite him over for a drink.
So he did, and I joined him. And I looked down at Nancy, and she had the prettiest smile of anybody I've ever seen in my life.

Speaker 7 She still does.

Speaker 7 So

Speaker 7 this Raymond, he said, I know you're recently divorced. I don't want to take proprietorship over your life, but I don't want you hanging around singles boys.
He said, I got a school teacher.

Speaker 7 This is a Tuesday night.

Speaker 7 Can you make time between the 6 and 10? And yeah, because all I had to do is update scores and rewrite some copy.

Speaker 7 Let's go to dinner. And I've got a date, but the school teacher lined up.

Speaker 7 He looked down at Nancy and he said, what are you doing Thursday night? She said, nothing. He said, okay, we're going to double date, four of us.
And he picked picked out a restaurant.

Speaker 7 And so in the meantime, I kept looking at her thinking, gosh, she's beautiful. And he finally had to take care of business.
So he went to the men's room and I asked her to dance.

Speaker 7 And I had five minutes at most, I knew. So

Speaker 7 we're out on the dance floor. And I said, how involved are you with Raymond? She said, first date, it's a blind date.
And I said, well, good. Then forget what he's talking about for Thursday night.

Speaker 7 What are you doing Saturday night?

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 7 that she is, she said,

Speaker 7 I think I'm doing whatever you're doing.

Speaker 1 So good. Incredible.

Speaker 1 Mr. Steve.
So

Speaker 7 we had our first date in March 22nd,

Speaker 7 1980. And because we had been both married before, we took our time.
We did.

Speaker 7 We waited a couple of years and got married in 82.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 7 she's charming.

Speaker 4 Yeah, she was was

Speaker 4 impressed with your dancing.

Speaker 1 Yeah, wait. So did you go on the double date or no? Did you cancel the double date?

Speaker 7 No, I know. I called and canceled.

Speaker 7 I said,

Speaker 7 I'm really, we got late-breaking scores here, right?

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 that's, I mean, listen,

Speaker 1 if you're the course distributor and you lose out on your date to Vern Lundquist, there's worse fates out there.

Speaker 7 There's another part to that, honest to God.

Speaker 7 So, and there was a third guy there who was Raymond Willey stockbroker, a fellow named Paul Bass.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 so Nancy had given me her telephone number. And I, you know, I had nothing to write it down with.
So I still remember it. She said, just imagine a dial tone, 361-9189.

Speaker 7 And so I'm thinking, 361,

Speaker 7 so now I'm driving a company-issued

Speaker 7 Red Chevrolet.

Speaker 7 And I was a heavy smoker back in those days. And there were cigarette burns all over the

Speaker 7 no God.

Speaker 7 And Raymond pulls up in a silver Rolls Royce.

Speaker 7 And I thought, the competition has suddenly gotten stiffer than I thought it was going to be.

Speaker 7 But

Speaker 7 that was a Thursday night.

Speaker 7 And on Friday, I kept calling.

Speaker 7 She did radio television commercials in Dallas. She was quite successful for a number of years.

Speaker 7 But she had a sideline job

Speaker 7 as a receptionist in between auditions at a place called The Company. And I kept calling, I called her, and Nancy's had an audition.
I called at noon, I called at two, I called at four.

Speaker 7 And I said, at five o'clock, I know she's there. So they said, okay, she just walked in.
They put me through. Nancy got on the phone and said,

Speaker 7 I said, well, why have you not taken my phone call? She said, listen, I don't want to come between you and your friend. I said, who is my friend? She said, Raymond.
I said, I just met him.

Speaker 7 I don't know Raymond Willie.

Speaker 7 Oh, okay. Well, in that case, we'll go out for a date.

Speaker 4 Oh, I love that. We have a friend, Paul Bissinette, that could, he could take some tips for me about how to handle a situation like this.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's such a great story. Yeah, that's such a great story.

Speaker 1 In terms of, so we talked about the kick-six, obviously Tigers chip.

Speaker 1 Did you, in your life, was that something that you would say like generally and you had that? Or was it a spur of the moment for that chip?

Speaker 7 It was absolutely spur of the moment.

Speaker 1 You've got to be reacting that way.

Speaker 7 You've got to be reacting. You've got to,

Speaker 7 two rules.

Speaker 7 You cannot predetermine what you're going to say. And there are guys who have done that.
No names, but there are guys, and you can tell they force it in. Oh my God.

Speaker 7 But you've just got to react to the moment. So I said what I did because

Speaker 7 in my life, I'd never seen anything like that. And I assume people at home hadn't seen anything like that.
And that's what I said, why I said what I did.

Speaker 7 There's a little bit of background about the way. That shot would cover.
And I'd love to share it with you because I want this fella

Speaker 7 to get full credit.

Speaker 7 The front of a a production truck has the producer to the far left. There are three seats.
Producer, far left, he's editorial comment. He's the guy with whom we communicate.

Speaker 7 Director in the middle, in this case, it was Steve Milton. And Steve, and then to his right is the technical director.
So, and Steve's looking at a monitor.

Speaker 7 Back then, there were 54 monitors in front of him. And he's the guy who says, and this is not hypothetical, this is actual.

Speaker 7 The guy next to me the camera guy was a guy named bob wishney from philadelphia he's retired now and he was camera 10.

Speaker 7 so when tiger lined up for the chip shot uh first of all lanny watkins was in the tower and tiger's fellow competitor at the time playing partner now was chris demarco

Speaker 7 and chris was 20 feet below the hole and so i asked lanny what he thought and lanny said he's going to be lucky if he can keep this inside DeMarco's ball. It was that severe, sloped down.

Speaker 7 And so that was the background. Now,

Speaker 7 Steve Milton says, camera 10, ready 10, take 10. And Norm Patterson, the technical director, then pushes the button.
That's camera 10. That's what you see in your living room.
So ready 10, take 10.

Speaker 7 He takes 10. That's Wishney.
And Tiger hits the chip, and Bob zooms in and has a

Speaker 7 perfect shot of the wall and stays in focus the whole way. Now it starts down.
And when it gets near the lip of the cup,

Speaker 7 Steve said, ready six, take six. Well, six is over here.

Speaker 7 He's got a flanker shot. He's got a shot of tiger for reaction here to here.
Well, Norm Patterson followed his instincts. And he

Speaker 7 intuitively did not take six. He stayed with 10.

Speaker 7 And because he made that decision, we all saw the wall drop.

Speaker 7 Had he followed the director's

Speaker 7 command, really,

Speaker 7 not advice, had he followed it, you would have seen the reaction shot tiger.

Speaker 7 We'd have played it back. But if you think about it, it changes everything.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Everything about it.

Speaker 7 I re-remember that shot.

Speaker 7 And then, now here's the sad part of it.

Speaker 7 Norm,

Speaker 7 that was in April, of course, in 05. The following January,

Speaker 7 they were, our first event of the year was San Diego in San La Jolla in San Diego. And Norm was out jogging and dropped dead of a heart attack at 41 years of age.

Speaker 1 And he was in Cincinnati.

Speaker 7 Steve Milton went back to Cincinnati to eulogize Norm, and he told that story so that Norm's family and friends would know that it was his, Norm's decision that created what we all remember about Tiger Ship Shot.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 7 You know,

Speaker 7 that was what,

Speaker 7 oh, five, 19 years ago.

Speaker 1 Holy cow.

Speaker 1 But I mean, it's a great story because it shows just how much goes into having these moments that for us as the viewers, they just go across seamlessly and they happen and you're like, oh my God, this just happened.

Speaker 1 It's incredible. And every decision that comes in it, all the pieces that go together for a puzzle to make a perfect moment.

Speaker 7 I mean, first of all,

Speaker 7 no one would manufacture something they're going to say at a

Speaker 7 curse line. But you just got to react

Speaker 1 to what's going on.

Speaker 7 You really, it's a reactionary business, so to speak.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 And you've seen so much sports. Like you said, I think I saw a clip of you covering the Texas Rangers in their first season back in spring training.

Speaker 1 You had some bell bottoms on.

Speaker 4 You had a nice flow going, looking good like a disco disco shirt.

Speaker 1 It really wasn't there.

Speaker 7 There's no shame in the internet.

Speaker 1 No, no, it's forever.

Speaker 7 So you've seen it. I've seen that clip.
Holy cow.

Speaker 4 And you've seen so much sports throughout the years.

Speaker 4 I'd like to hear from your perspective,

Speaker 4 what's changed so much? What are the most important changes, either for the better or for the worse, in terms of college professional sports that you've seen since the 1970s to this day where they're

Speaker 4 multi-billion dollar industries. What's changed over the years?

Speaker 7 Well, the two biggest changes, both of which help drive Nick Saban into retirement, are transferred to Portal and NIL.

Speaker 7 You know,

Speaker 7 I mean, these kids now, how much are you going to pay me?

Speaker 7 Or if you don't pay me, if you don't guarantee I'm starting and pay me, I'm transferring, I'm going to central Michigan.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 Nick, I don't know that I think Nick has now said, oh, yeah, that drove me nuts.

Speaker 7 I'm pretty good friends with him.

Speaker 7 You know, you do that many Alabama games over the years.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 we became, I would say we're friends.

Speaker 7 I know we are. And

Speaker 7 then

Speaker 7 having said that, then you worry about, does that impede on

Speaker 7 any prejudicial comments you might make? I hope not. I think I'm a better broadcaster than that.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 7 But I used to worry about that.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 7 Because I admire him. And I know

Speaker 7 Nick is one of my favorites. And

Speaker 7 I used to jump up and down. He'd get on the local reporters at those press conferences and just belittle him.
And I thought, Nick, you're better than that.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 unfortunately, in many cases, he wasn't back.

Speaker 7 He had a handler, assistant SAD, who's now at Arkansas State, athletic director. But I asked the SID, I said, oh, to Nick, I said,

Speaker 7 Nick, you know, they're just trying to do a job. Yes, sometimes they ask stupid questions, but they're young.
And

Speaker 7 the SID said,

Speaker 7 well, he belittles them because they deserve it.

Speaker 1 And I thought, oh,

Speaker 7 nah.

Speaker 7 you know uh

Speaker 7 i haven't talked to nicks since he retired uh

Speaker 1 by the way i thought he was a superstar during the draft yeah he was he was fantastic he was naturally on tv

Speaker 1 um all right so vern i got a couple last questions uh one is the so you had these iconic calls uh so many i mean Christian Leightner's shot, like, doesn't he, you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 Like, that's, that's one of, that's probably a top three

Speaker 1 March Madness moment. But what is the call that you maybe isn't the most memorable in terms of the significance in the sports, but you're like, that was the call I absolutely nailed?

Speaker 7 I would say two of them. Oh,

Speaker 7 I did a talk show after the Leitner shop once with a guy named Stake Shapiro in Atlanta.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 7 he said, are you really proud of that Leitner call? And I said, no, I'm not. I just channeled my inner wire of Albert, you know?

Speaker 7 And when I went in, I went, yes.

Speaker 7 Not exactly evocative and brilliant commentary,

Speaker 7 but again, it was a reaction.

Speaker 7 I get asked a lot about that because I've been so lucky over the years.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 I mean, how do you separate Jack in 86

Speaker 7 and Tiger in 05?

Speaker 7 And how lucky am I to have those two guys

Speaker 7 associated associated with my resume?

Speaker 7 You just, I mean, that's rarefied air. And I know that.
And

Speaker 7 as I said at Augusta two weeks ago, I got to say goodbye to Jack and Tiger and meet Scotty. So mission accomplished on all three counts.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 7 Jack is six months older than I am. a fact of which I never let him forget.

Speaker 7 Whenever I can bring it up.

Speaker 7 But

Speaker 7 we did have a moment, Jack and Barbara, Nancy and me, on Tuesday at the week at Augusta, we bumped into the two of them on the sidewalk outside the trophy room at the clubhouse.

Speaker 7 And Jack said, let's have a little fun.

Speaker 7 It was his idea.

Speaker 7 And so someone had a cell phone camera. And Jack said, on the count of three, three, two, one.

Speaker 7 And then we simultaneously punched the air air and yelled yes sir

Speaker 7 that was going to the grave with me i mean that was

Speaker 7 so you know tiger shaking hands with the tree

Speaker 7 and jack yelling yes sir uh simultaneously with me uh

Speaker 7 that all of that made that that week oh the the and the other part of it is i've had two really serious back surgeries uh

Speaker 7 one in 17 and one in 19. I have degenerated scoliosis.
So for the last three or four years, I had done the 16th and the 6th from the content center.

Speaker 7 We would call it a compound, but they want to call it the content center. So that's what it is.
But I was in a room and calling it off the monitor. But I swore

Speaker 7 to my boss, Sean McManus.

Speaker 7 and to our producer, in this case, Seller Shai,

Speaker 7 I want to be on the course for the last Saturday and Sunday. So

Speaker 7 they accommodated that. The main tower was 20 steps behind the green, too much with a guy with a bad back.

Speaker 7 But there was a flanker tower, and that's where I was. It was only six steps up.
And it was crowded up there.

Speaker 7 It was myself and Tracy Levine, a wonderful lady who is my statistician/slash spotter and the camera guy. But I got up there, and

Speaker 7 it was just like

Speaker 7 such a relief emotional relief for me to to finish out 40 years in a tower at at the 16th hole yeah

Speaker 7 yeah

Speaker 7 and then jim was more than gracious you know in his

Speaker 4 saying goodbye so we talked about uh those two iconic calls i'll give you another one Who the hell is Happy Gilmore?

Speaker 1 Love that one.

Speaker 7 The gift that keeps keeps on giving.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yes.

Speaker 7 Okay, so there's a background story there.

Speaker 7 That movie is now released in 1996.

Speaker 7 I shot all the scenes in which I was involved in one day

Speaker 7 in Vancouver, British Columbia. They had shot all the outdoor scenes, all the golf scenes.
um with

Speaker 7 at Whistler north of Vancouver. But for the scenes where I was involved, they had rented a vacant hospital building and Adam Sandler was there.

Speaker 7 And so the morning of the shoot, we're gathered at 7 a.m. and

Speaker 7 there's this good-looking guy in the periphery of the circle. The director of the movie is the guy, Dennis Dugan, who played the PGA Commission.
So he was an actor and a director.

Speaker 7 And he said, I got an idea.

Speaker 7 Let's have an inside joke. And he looked at this tall, good-looking guy whose name was Jack Jaraputo.
He said, Jack, go over to the hair and makeup.

Speaker 7 Get a blue blazer and a red tie or whatever it was. And I want you to sit next to Vern for every scene.
And it's just a sight gag.

Speaker 7 You're not allowed to say a word because you do not belong to the Screen Actors Guild.

Speaker 7 So that's Jack. sitting next to me, just nodding.
And it's to him I say, who the hell is Happy Gilmore?

Speaker 7 And he was Adam Sandler's roommate at New York University's Film School. And he's now, if you watch these Sandler movies,

Speaker 7 he's the executive producer of Same.

Speaker 7 And I've got a picture back in Colorado of that whole group, Sandler and Jack and Den Stugan and the shaggy-haired caddy.

Speaker 7 I don't think Shooter McGavin is in the, I don't remember, but it's the earliest damn movie ever ever made, but wildly popular.

Speaker 1 Yeah, wildly.

Speaker 1 A great, a great, great movie. All right, so I have one last question.
This has been so much fun.

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Speaker 1 Uh, not to be fanboys for a second, but is there any way, my last question, is there any way you can say, Uh, welcome to Pardon My Take? Yes, sir. Uh, that would be great for us.

Speaker 1 We just, I just will play it for our personal files, or maybe welcome to part of my take. This is Vern Lundquist, yes, sir.

Speaker 7 Welcome to Pardon My Take. I'm Vern Lundquist,

Speaker 7 yes, sir.

Speaker 1 That's good, that's it, that's perfect.

Speaker 4 Can we get you to say, who the hell is Henry Lockwood?

Speaker 1 That's our producer, he's he's a golfer, he's terrible.

Speaker 7 I could get in the golf cart with him, then I was not any good either.

Speaker 7 I could talk about it, but I couldn't do it.

Speaker 7 Who the hell is Henry Lawfer?

Speaker 1 I even bet.

Speaker 1 I like it.

Speaker 1 Vern, thank you so much. This has been so much, so great for us.
We really are so appreciative of your time. And best of luck in retirement, but also maybe come out of retirement.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And you never know. Yeah.

Speaker 7 You never know, do you? Yeah.

Speaker 1 Let's leave it open.

Speaker 7 Okay, guys. All right.

Speaker 1 Thanks so much, Vern. All right.
See ya.

Speaker 7 Bye-bye.

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Find it in Kroger Isles this October.

Speaker 1 The road trip might be over, but dinner's just getting good.

Speaker 2 And now for something completely different.

Speaker 1 Okay, we now welcome on our very good friend. It is Kirk Goldsbury in studio, and it is also the day that his new book is out, Hoop Atlas, mapping the remarkable transformation of the modern NBA.

Speaker 1 You can buy it on Amazon today.

Speaker 1 You can buy it on Amazon tomorrow.

Speaker 1 Buy it on Amazon for the rest of time.

Speaker 1 Probably. Probably.

Speaker 3 It's 23% off today in honor of Michael Jordan. Okay.
So if you like Michael Jordan or books.

Speaker 1 We're ready to go. So it's also perfect that you're here in this specific moment in the NBA playoffs because

Speaker 1 it feels like the

Speaker 1 pendulum has swung all the way back around and Jokic sucks again.

Speaker 3 I thought you were going to say defense matters ago.

Speaker 1 Well, no, it's combination.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he's

Speaker 4 got your take on Jokic from a couple years ago saying that he lacks some traits defensively that you'd like to have.

Speaker 1 I don't actually think he sucks. No, everyone knows that's true.
But you did have that piece that got Michael Malone very upset, and now we're watching the Nuggets struggle mightily

Speaker 1 both offensively but defensively as well, where Jokic is just flailing around. They're putting him and Jamal Murray in pick and roll.

Speaker 1 And just, I think I saw they had a pick and roll in game one where they were averaging two points per every pick and roll against those two, which is that's insane.

Speaker 3 Yeah, they're shredding them. And I think the Lakers scored 57 points per game in the paint alone in that series.
That was a little bit of a red flag.

Speaker 3 And I went on with our friend Ryan Rossillo and was like, yeah, the reason Minnesota might do this is they're young and athletic and aggressive and ferocious.

Speaker 3 And, you know, Nicole Jokic is the best offensive center in the world, and it's not close.

Speaker 3 But compared to some of the other elite big men, he is not a great rim protector and not as athletic as some of those other guys. And, you know, we've seen that exposed.

Speaker 3 Last year, they pieced it together well enough to win and hand up, as you guys like to say. I was wrong.

Speaker 3 But if there's a weakness in this dude's bag, it's on that. end of the floor and Minnesota has exposed it.
But the biggest point of this game from game one is Denver scored 80 points.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, Minnesota's defense has been out of this world good, and they just have, it's a credit to their roster building, it feels like every single guy, maybe outside of Mike Conley, is just bigger than everyone else.

Speaker 3 It reminds me, and you guys like when I put things in NFL terms, but this is the 2000 Ravens through these first six. Oh, I like that.

Speaker 1 Nice murder. I like that.
Huh?

Speaker 4 Who's killed a guy?

Speaker 1 Stay tuned, dude. Stay tuned.

Speaker 3 But, you know, they scored 80 points last night.

Speaker 3 And if you would have told me three weeks ago that the Denver Nuggets were going to score 80 points in a playoff game, I would have have said, oh, did Jokic and Murray both get hurt?

Speaker 3 Because that number is just something from the 1980s or 90s in the NBA. And, you know, the other crazy thing about that 80-point night, big cat, is Rudy Gobert didn't play.

Speaker 1 Right, yeah, right. And so

Speaker 3 they're not just a one-man defensive juggernaut. The whole team is absolutely loving playing defense, and they're shutting down this team that won it all last year.

Speaker 1 It's crazy. Yeah, it is.

Speaker 4 The first half was especially atrocious last night, watching the Nuggets just struggle. It seems like how many steals did they have?

Speaker 1 Doubled them up.

Speaker 3 They had 11 steals in the game. Yeah,

Speaker 3 and they doubled them up, I think, in steals and blocks. And they're just like, they're maniacal.
They're like grinning ear to ear as they're playing defense.

Speaker 3 And it's, especially in the context of this season, PFT, where offense, offense, offense, offense.

Speaker 3 What's happening right now is Minnesota is emerging as the favorite to win this tournament by being the best defense we've seen in years.

Speaker 1 And awesome.

Speaker 3 If you like hoops, it's awesome to watch these guys just lock up some of the best players in the world.

Speaker 4 So how much of that is coaching and how much is the individual defensive efforts? Both.

Speaker 3 And one of the stats I got last night sort of reveals that is, you know, I think the average separation for Denver's three-pointers last night was five feet. And that sounds like a lot, but

Speaker 3 that's the smallest margin they've had all year in that metric.

Speaker 3 In other words, Minnesota's defenders were in the right places and contesting shots at a level that the Denver Nuggets shooters haven't sort of experienced all year.

Speaker 3 They're in the right place, so credit to Chris Finch for schemes. And then the roster is just full of those dudes that are dogs.
They got the dog in them.

Speaker 3 They're in the right place, but then they also want to fight and close out on those shots, and they're just athletic and long. So it's a perfect storm.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and Anthony Edwards has been the story of these playoffs, his

Speaker 1 leap, because he was good before, but the leap he's taking right now.

Speaker 3 I mean, you statistically are looking at it, like, it's clear that he has made that leap, and he's playing differently differently and better more efficiently than he was the last couple years he also just i just love watching him play because he just you can tell he just wants to beat the fuck out of everyone he plays against and that you know that's not a stats thing but his his leadership i think is his signature skill because he's like everybody loves him on the team you can tell the the team has adopted his persona more than Carl Anthony Towns or Rudy Gobert, who, let's face it, don't have that reputation and that sort of infectious

Speaker 3 kick-ass mentality and then smiling when he's doing that's jade mcdaniels now it's alexander walker it's kyle anderson like the whole team has followed in his lead and what the most impressive about that is and here's a dumb stat the dude's 22 years old i know this is like people compare him to michael or kobe or whatever 22 years old i know you had the stat where it was a list of four guys who scored over 35 points at 22 or younger yeah so that was lou alcinder who that was his name back then before he became kareem it was a guy named kobe Bryant, and then it was a guy named LeBron James.

Speaker 3 We're the only other three guys that have scored 35 plus.

Speaker 3 And then the other thing, I think it was three times in a row, but the other thing, Big Cat, is his field goal percentage, his shooting efficiency numbers are incredible too. He's 60%, 50% every year.

Speaker 3 Right.

Speaker 1 That's the difference. Like last year, he would, if you look at the stats or the year before, like he had the stats, but the efficiency is what has gone.
And he even said it.

Speaker 1 He did a great interview where he was like, the hardest thing I had to do was just work on my shot. And I would take 3,000 shots a day in the summer.

Speaker 1 And like, now you're seeing what has happened to my game.

Speaker 3 And you go back to his draft year, right? And

Speaker 3 the intel was, does this guy like basketball? Is he competitive? It's crazy to think.

Speaker 1 It's like the exact opposite.

Speaker 3 It goes to show you what a pseudoscience some of this NBA draft stuff is. But a lot of the intel around this guy was completely wrong.
It couldn't have been more incorrect.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 That one shot, the fadeaway he had where he was double-teamed on Monday night, that was where I was like, okay, these MJ comparisons, like, they're starting to, like, I see what people are saying.

Speaker 4 He hit the shrug right after that.

Speaker 1 Well, yeah, and he also said he didn't want to be compared to him, and then he hit the shrug. He hit the shrug.
Yeah. Yeah.
It was interesting. It's so much fun to watch.
It was a good shrug, though.

Speaker 1 He, like, nailed it. I get bummed out when it's a non-Anthony Edwards night.
Oh, I'm like, where's Anthony Edwards? I want to watch Anthony Edwards.

Speaker 3 American basketball. He's the hero that American basketball needs.
I know you like this thing I had earlier in the season season about like, are these foreign guys stealing our jobs?

Speaker 3 Because the all-NBA team is all foreign players.

Speaker 1 We haven't won an MVP in what, like seven years?

Speaker 3 Yeah, and I was saying that. Like, you can really chart out with Jokic, Doncic, SGA, who's Canadian, now Wembinyama, and Giannis, a path to 2030 where we go a full decade without an MVP.

Speaker 3 Now, Anthony Edwards, this last two weeks, has said something to say to that.

Speaker 1 I like to build the wall, Anthony. Yeah, let's make this a USA argument.
Yeah,

Speaker 3 the Canadian pay for that. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 He's also, I can't wait for the Olympics because, like,

Speaker 1 it's always fun.

Speaker 1 We're going to, we should win the gold.

Speaker 1 But one of the things about watching the Olympics is watching all these guys interact and having a moment where it's like, it's Anthony Edwards kind of league now.

Speaker 1 Like, LeBron's older, Kevin Durant's older. Like, will that show up? Where it's like, no, he's the dude now.

Speaker 3 Yeah, Team USA Basketball, which I got to work for in 2016, was one of my favorite experiences.

Speaker 3 But the 2012 team had sort of this vibe too, Big Cat, Cat, where Kevin Durant was a baby coming out of the University of Texas, no big deal. But on a team, he won a lot of championships.

Speaker 3 Kobe and LeBron and Chris Paul,

Speaker 3 I forget everybody was on, but it was incredible. And he was the 22-year-old, 21-year-old.
You can look it up, but he was the leading scorer in that tournament. Right.

Speaker 3 And it was like, oh, my God, like Kevin Durant. And I think that's like what it's setting up for for Anthony this summer is like, oh my God, this is the best player in American people.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, it's the dream team in 92. I know MJ had already won titles, but like the

Speaker 1 passing of like, oh, it's Magic and Birds on this team. They're older.
They're about to retire. It's like these young guys are here.

Speaker 3 And he already just destroyed Kevin and,

Speaker 3 you know,

Speaker 3 Devin Booker, who is competing for the starting spot on that team in the backcourt. That's obviously going to Ant-Man now.

Speaker 3 It's just one of the things that makes the NBA playoffs so good is this kind of thing.

Speaker 3 And to be honest, this is the best sort of emergence of a superstar in this postseason tournament we've seen in a very long time.

Speaker 1 Him and Jalen Brunson, because we had the argument before the playoffs. Like, I'm very particular with the phrase superstar.
I think it's a list of like five to seven guys.

Speaker 1 And Anthony Edwards and Jalen Brunson weren't on that list yet because they hadn't done it for enough years. But these playoffs are exactly where a superstar starts.

Speaker 1 Like, they are now on the path to superstardom in the league. Yeah.

Speaker 3 I didn't know you were such a

Speaker 1 gay. He's really a jay key.
Well, I just think it's, you know, we had a good, Stephen Shea here.

Speaker 1 He listed his superstars. It was literally just every all-star.

Speaker 3 So Jalen Brunson's not a superstar.

Speaker 1 He's on his way.

Speaker 1 I think you have to do it for multiple years, and you have to be like, this is one of the five to seven best basketball players in the world.

Speaker 3 Okay, those are fair criteria. I think Jalen Brunson is, dude, talk about a hand-up moment for a lot of us.
It's like, oh, the Knicks signed Jalen Brunson. They overpaid him.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they got laughed at. Yeah, I laughed at them.

Speaker 3 It's just like the Anthony Edwards draft intel.

Speaker 3 if you go back to that transaction people are like oh whatever and who who would have thought the mavs now think about it from the mavs perspective like oh my god what did you just give up you weren't willing to pay this guy and now he's like running madison square garden in the spring and

Speaker 1 Yeah, he's on the way to superstardom now. Like, I fully, that's how quickly it can change.

Speaker 3 It's easier to get there when you're in New York City, too, right? Right. And you're helping the Knicks to the conference finals potentially.

Speaker 1 But it's also the way that Jalen and Anthony Edwards are doing it, where it's like 35, 40 points a game, carrying their teams. That's super stardom.

Speaker 3 Yeah, and the shots that he made in game one against Indiana down the stretch were definitely big boy shots.

Speaker 3 I love the way he plays. I mean, undersized guys.

Speaker 3 We just love it. The two feet and the paint.
It almost looks like a college basketball player. And Jay Wright deserves a lot of credit, I joke, for making the Knicks so good with Dante DiVincenzo.

Speaker 3 And Josh Hart, who's also just this phenomenal sort of emergent players associated.

Speaker 1 We were going to ask you this. We talked about it on our Hot Seat Cool Throne, but do you know the story about Josh Hart

Speaker 1 hurting his wrist in early April? And his wrist clicked, and he told Jalen Brunson he can shoot threes now, and he actually can shoot threes now. I don't know what your stats are.

Speaker 1 You got to find some stats on that. Maybe go back.
Yeah, find me. He's April 7th, and he said that he could shoot threes now.
He is shooting threes at a way better clip than he ever has in his career.

Speaker 3 Sounds like potential nerd nugget material, J. Yeah.
I don't know where he is.

Speaker 1 It's crazy, though. Yeah, I know.
It's April 7th.

Speaker 3 Because, yeah, you need to grab Nick Nurse. And and when I was on the show a couple weeks ago, we were talking about how Nick Nurse was leaving this dude open on purpose.

Speaker 3 I was talking to one of the Bulls assistants last night, and they're like, yeah, we just used to leave Josh Hart open.

Speaker 1 Anymore, his wrist clicks.

Speaker 4 Wrist clicks. So it's like that's the new money ball.
Yeah. Just damaging your player's wrists, and then they're able to shoot the ball well.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Man, you got to find, we need a stack.

Speaker 1 Somebody Valmer needs a mallet. I'll send

Speaker 1 back Russell Westbrook's past. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Speaker 4 He needs to put Russell Westbrook's hand in a guillotine and then shut it and then sew it back on. Then he'll be good again.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I'm going to to send you it right now, and we'll get a new graphic that you can put together his shooting percentage since that happened.

Speaker 1 We'll do it.

Speaker 3 We'll do it

Speaker 3 for the social. But I think you're right.
You know, they're saying like this Tommy John surgery in baseball, these guys come back with their UCL, and I know Blake has got a UCL injury going on.

Speaker 3 Two of them.

Speaker 3 Is he doing like the V-load? Is he throwing weighted baseballs?

Speaker 1 Yeah, we had him throwing a curveball way too early.

Speaker 4 I called him Blake Op deGrom. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So an 85. Yeah.
Bark Pryor.

Speaker 4 There's all sorts of nicknames being thrown around about him. But so I want to get back to the nuggets real quick.
Jamal Murray, he has had kind of an up-and-down playoff so far.

Speaker 4 We've been talking about him a lot because he's made some huge shots, especially in that series against the Lakers, that kind of glossed over some of the other stuff that he's been doing.

Speaker 4 I think he's injured. He seems to be not himself.
Can we look at what he did last year compared directly to how he's played this year and see like a marked drop-off in his production?

Speaker 3 Yeah, in order jump shots. I mean, he was an absolute killer last year on the perimeter and making his jump shots.

Speaker 3 And he is now one of the coldest jump shooters in these playoffs and with a few big exceptions in the Lakers series. But yeah, like

Speaker 3 he has been just not himself. He was just making all of those big shots

Speaker 3 last year, like you said. And I think he's obviously frustrated.

Speaker 3 And one of the things we don't do well enough in basketball, and I think football discourse as well well, is like, you know, what makes scoring hard is really good defense.

Speaker 3 And we already talked about Minnesota's defense.

Speaker 3 And when you have Jaden McDaniels and Alexander Walker in your face, just it's harder to, you know, when Ed Reed is back there playing defense, suddenly your passing game isn't as good as it is normally.

Speaker 3 And I think Minnesota is the exact wrong team to try to sort of get warm up against right now. And so Jamal Murray is definitely hurt.
He's not himself. He's cold.

Speaker 3 And the Lakers are pretty good defense, too. So it's just a perfect storm, in my opinion.
PST.

Speaker 4 Yeah, and also out in the West, and we can just talk about this quickly. The Suns, we watched the Suns, and we said, the Suns, they really suck.
The Suns are shitty.

Speaker 4 Can you tell us why they suck and why they're shitty? Like, get nerdy with it because it's the eyeball test for us. We're like, oh, this team just sucks.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I'll give you two big indicators that I like to look at.

Speaker 3 One, they have the worst defense in the playoffs against a team that is really good, but you can't be the worst defense in the playoffs in advance.

Speaker 3 And I think specifically they don't protect the rim and rebound very well, which are not very glamorous, but really important jobs on defense. And then they don't threaten the paint on offense.

Speaker 3 They love to settle for two-point jump shots and even three-point jump shots, but they're with Booker, Beal, and KD, obviously great jump shooters, but they don't space the court in part because they don't threaten the rim.

Speaker 3 And a lot of the best teams, even with like Rudy Gobert, Anthony Edwards, these guys can get dunks and layups.

Speaker 3 And when you don't do that, it's a lot easier to play defense against a team that you don't really have to worry about attacking the paint. Jack shooting.
All right,

Speaker 1 in the West,

Speaker 1 it feels like we haven't seen the Thunder in forever. Is that what you said?

Speaker 4 You said pussies? He's pussies. They're pussies.
What's that? They're pussies.

Speaker 3 The sound went out on my

Speaker 1 thunder, we haven't seen them play in forever. Thunder fans are mad that we haven't talked about them.

Speaker 1 They made quick work of the Pelicans, and it was also weird scheduling because it was off nights for us.

Speaker 1 I love watching the Thunder play because they have another young nucleus that is so much fun. So we're taping this right before the Mavs Thunder.

Speaker 1 Tell us what you think is going to happen in this series and why the Thunder could potentially win it all. Like, I mean, we just have, we haven't seen them play in forever.
It's crazy.

Speaker 3 They're so young. The craziest stat from the first round might be this one.
They had one person over 25 years old score in their first round series, and it was Ken Richard Williams.

Speaker 3 He scored two points.

Speaker 1 Wow.

Speaker 3 So what I'm saying is beat them now because they might even go to the finals this year, but this team is built for the rest of this decade and beyond.

Speaker 3 They are young, and I think they are deep, and they are built for long-term success.

Speaker 3 But speaking of this year's opponent with the Dallas Mavericks, I think this series is pretty close to a coin flip for me.

Speaker 3 I'll give the edge to the Thunder just because they have home court and that's a really tough place to play.

Speaker 3 Somebody, when I was at the Spurs, we went up there and we'd get our butts kicked a lot and that crowd is nuts.

Speaker 1 Lead the league in putting on the shirts.

Speaker 3 They have a huge t-shirt

Speaker 3 t-shirt culture there. It's huge.
But it feels like a college basketball gym. In all seriousness, it's like, wow, this is a really loud.
environment. And so that's a hard place to win.

Speaker 3 Obviously, Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving can both win a playoff game on the road if they need to.

Speaker 3 But the Thunder, great defense, great depth, and it all starts with SGA, who is the most active rim attacking.

Speaker 3 He can score in all three levels, but he's a playmaking guard who's just perfect to start an offensive possession with. And he's, you know, the most drive-happy guard in the NBA.
And

Speaker 3 the Mavericks are really interesting because they were one of the worst defenses in the first half of the NBA. They made some major transactions.

Speaker 3 at the deadline and then became one of the statistically best defenses. So it's sort of this Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Speaker 3 At the end of the season, they look like they could win it all too, but I'm still not sold that their defense is as legit as it looked like.

Speaker 4 And we've talked a lot about the West.

Speaker 4 There's an imbalance still in basketball. When we talked to you a couple weeks ago, I asked you to look into why the West has just been dominant over the East for, it feels like 30 years.

Speaker 3 Is there a reason?

Speaker 3 Anytime a league divides itself in half, it is setting itself up for imbalance.

Speaker 3 Like this arbitrary division, whether it's the american league and the national league the afc and the nfc and you separate your teams and you say our playoffs are going to be divided in half based on this arbitrary division um but the small market teams i did look into this pft have just been the best they they to compete with the lakers they had to get smart in the money ball era right so moneyball comes out in 2003 the spurs are winning with smarts the nuggets the thunder uh the jazz the timberwolves now if we're going to beat the lakers and the Warriors, we have to be the smartest teams, almost like the Rays in baseball.

Speaker 3 But they're smarter with international players. They're smarter with analytics.
They're smarter with sports science.

Speaker 3 There's just a disproportionate amount of those genius teams in the small markets in the Western Conference.

Speaker 1 Interesting.

Speaker 4 Genius teams.

Speaker 1 Genius teams in the West.

Speaker 3 That's my new book, Genius.

Speaker 4 And so the Lakers are not, they're not a genius team. They're just the Lakers.

Speaker 3 The Lakers can make a phone call to anybody in free agency any year they want. And just, there's three ways to build a basketball team traditionally, trade, draft, and free agency.

Speaker 3 And the Lakers have sort of disproportionate access to that free agency lever.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 You know, and you talk about San Antonio or Oklahoma City.

Speaker 4 But you guys just cheating the draft.

Speaker 3 We cheat in the draft, which is sure, but we're not getting LeBron James to take his talents to San Antonio in free agency. We're not getting Kawhi Leonard to come to us in free agency.

Speaker 3 He might depart as he did. But so a lot of these small market teams have had to build from the ground up in a more sustainable way.

Speaker 3 And it turns out that might be a better way to build a basketball team.

Speaker 1 We've talked about a theme of these playoffs, it feels like maybe the super team era is kind of fading away, where it's like you see these teams, the Thunder, the Wolves, these homegrown teams.

Speaker 1 Now, they've made trades, but those were trades with assets they already had or they were able to get. Even the Celtics, I know people were like, What are you talking about?

Speaker 1 Chris Thops and Derek White's like, Well, they were smart with who they traded for and how they maneuvered everything.

Speaker 1 It does feel like we're getting back to this like more organic team building, and I love it. I think it's better for the NBA.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I think the super team era sort of starts with maybe you cover the Celtics with KG and that, but I think it really starts with the decision, right, 2010, where these guys, mostly American players, team up in big American cities like Los Angeles or Miami or whatever.

Speaker 3 But yeah, those teams are out, and the old guys are kind of out. Stephan is out.
Kevin Durant is out. LeBron James is out.
And who's left?

Speaker 3 It's Anthony Edwards and this Minnesota team that is very deep. It's the Thunder that are very deep.
Luka Donchich and the Mavs. So I think that is a fair take, and I hope it's better basketball.

Speaker 3 Yeah, it is.

Speaker 1 It's cooler.

Speaker 3 And if the small markets are able to compete, it's better for the league, too.

Speaker 1 Do you have advanced analytics on Lou Dort and his defense?

Speaker 3 Yeah, of course. I mean, he's an absolute maniac.

Speaker 1 He's a pest.

Speaker 3 He's a pest. He's built like a brick house and he is long.
And

Speaker 4 the biggest thing is, does he have that dog in him and he's got that french canadian dog yeah i like that do you have do you have any metrics that say whether or not a player has a dog in him you didn't prepare me for that yeah you should that's the formula you should come up with maybe for next year okay is like where you reach dog stats we can help you yeah yeah but it's not just it's not just like scoring or technical fouls stats that's one of them there's a lot of there's luck goes into dog

Speaker 3 Throw the ball into the stands.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. That's good.
That's a lot of dogs.

Speaker 4 Run to the locker room and tweet about your podcast right after the game.

Speaker 1 That's dog.

Speaker 3 Yeah, but I think like steals and blocks are like the traditional wands. But yeah, do you show up on defense?

Speaker 3 And going back to these Timberwolves who are taking the NBA by storm, they all got that dog in them. So we'll start there and we'll do a deep dive.
But let's introduce that dog in them stat. Okay.

Speaker 1 I think clapping in another player's face after a turnover, that's a big-time dog move. That's a dog move.

Speaker 4 I would also add clapping another player's face when they miss a foul shot. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Dog.

Speaker 3 What about like Filipowski tripping or kicking?

Speaker 1 He was here today.

Speaker 1 I talked to him briefly.

Speaker 3 Is that dog stuff or no?

Speaker 3 He's got a bit

Speaker 1 of bottle. Duke guys don't have dog in them.
They got to earn it. They usually do a weird haircut or some type of tattoo in the NBA and then they get it.

Speaker 4 Yeah, we don't speak ill of Filipowski because he was so close to death and it's a miracle that he came back. So I don't want to.
It's like talking shit about DeMar Hamlin. We don't want to do that.

Speaker 3 I think about those guys all the time together.

Speaker 1 Yeah, prayers for Kyle. The league could have changed forever.
We could have probably ended basketball.

Speaker 3 It was scary.

Speaker 1 It was a frightening moment. It was really scary.

Speaker 1 Okay, so the one team we didn't mention or the series we didn't mention is Celtics and Cavs. Cocky Hank is all the way back.

Speaker 1 We've coaxed it back out of him. He was scared of the heat.
The Celtics are far and away better than everyone in the East. Is that a fair statement?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I call it, you know, there's the G League. I call the Eastern Conference the E League.

Speaker 3 So Cocky Hank should be cocky in part because the draw, as we would say in March Madness, they have the easy bracket. Yeah.
And no disrespect to the Pacers or the Knicks or certainly the Cavaliers.

Speaker 3 But you look at the four remaining teams in the West, big cat. Come on.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 They could all win the championship. And I just don't say, I don't think that about the Indianapolis Pacers, Indiana Pacers, or the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Speaker 3 So the Celtics have been the best team all year. They deserve it.
Part of that might be because they've had an easier schedule.

Speaker 3 But part of that is because they're a great freaking basketball team, and they are as deep as it gets. And yeah, they're going to get to the finals, in my opinion.

Speaker 3 I think the Cavs could steal one or two games as we saw. Even the Miami Heat could steal one with that three-point shooting.

Speaker 1 But what about specifically Chris-Taps? Because he's out several,

Speaker 1 no, minimum of several games.

Speaker 1 What does that change, though, for their team? You'd imagine Al Horford's going to play more. You might see some Luke Cornette.
But

Speaker 1 does that affect their ceiling drastically when Chris Stopps is not playing? Yeah, 100%.

Speaker 3 It's one piece. They'd have to take off the chessboard out of the rotations.
And what he's really good at is spacing the floor on offense.

Speaker 3 He can stand 28 feet out and shoot threes, bring that opposing big out. You know, if Jared Allen's able to play or Evan Mobley, essentially taking them out.

Speaker 3 Now, Al Horford can do that a little bit too, but they don't know if Al Horford can play 40 minutes. So really losing that depth in the front court is a meaningful thing.

Speaker 3 And if they were playing a Western Conference opponent, it might be a fatal flaw. So I think their easier draw plays in here, and I expect them to win even without Christophs.

Speaker 1 But I laugh because the minimum of several games as an analytical thinker is like, what does that even mean no idea more than one should they actually should they lose some games on purpose oh give him more time to get back i like how you're thinking yeah well they do have the set they the nba does have a set start date for the nba finals so they could just like there's there's only if there's all sweeps from now on they're still we're gonna have to take a break yes we have to pause but they have the nba finals dates set in stone i don't like that yeah usually starts on a thursday in early june and then game two is on a sunday well they've been doing this thing where they're trying out every day of the week now oh really Yeah, we have, remember last year, there was like a Friday game, a Wednesday game.

Speaker 1 They're doing that again.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I guess that never occurred to me. Yeah, they're trying.

Speaker 1 I hope they find luck.

Speaker 4 I stand by my take. I still think they should intentionally lose some games to the Cavs.

Speaker 1 Really? I think so. How many are you thinking?

Speaker 4 I think two.

Speaker 1 That would just hurt their rest.

Speaker 4 No, they should lose two games.

Speaker 3 In all seriousness, Donovan Mitchell is one of those dudes who could just go out and win a game.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he'll steal a game.

Speaker 3 He could definitely steal a game. And, you know, Boston, if it's tight, like one of their weaknesses is this late-game execution.
And if Cleveland can get healthy, I think they can make this a series.

Speaker 3 But ultimately, I think the Celtics are just too much, too deep, even without Chris Dopps.

Speaker 1 What about the analytics on Cleveland? Like, I don't love when they play both their centers. It feels weird and awkward.

Speaker 1 And it feels like they're a better team when Jared Allen or Evan Mobley is out by themselves.

Speaker 3 I don't know if you did the research, but I've seen that exact thing.

Speaker 3 When one of them is out, they seem to have a better net rating, better defensive efficiency.

Speaker 3 You know, last year when both of them were playing at a very high level, they had one of the best defenses in the league. But this year, you saw that actually, and the numbers backed it up.

Speaker 3 Is this Jared Allen and Evan Mobley thing really good? Because it's two non-shooters.

Speaker 3 And one of the things that my first book, Sprawl Ball, was really about was like, can you even have two non-shooters on the court at any given time anymore?

Speaker 3 And Cleveland was trying to do that with both Jared Allen from Austin, Texas, no big deal, but also Evan Mobley just doesn't stretch the floor very well at this point. Yeah.

Speaker 4 So if we fast forward to the finals, Cavs versus, or excuse me, Celtics versus doesn't matter out of the West.

Speaker 4 How do the Celtics match up against the Timberwolves, Oklahoma City, maybe the Nuggets if they can come back?

Speaker 1 Or, you know, maybe we'll throw the Mavs in there too.

Speaker 4 Like, is it,

Speaker 4 should they be the favorites to win?

Speaker 1 Yeah, and who should Hank be rooting for? Because he's rooting hard for one.

Speaker 1 Like, he was nervous about the Nuggets. Now

Speaker 4 he should be rooting for the Nuggets now.

Speaker 1 But he's not nervous about the Wolves. He's like, I think we match up better.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I would be terrified of the Wolves based on what I've seen.

Speaker 3 See 6-0, and they just dispatched Kevin Durant and Devin Booker like it was nothing, and now have made Nicole Jokic, who many were saying is the best player in the world three weeks ago and two weeks ago, and I was one of them.

Speaker 3 They've made him look very mortal.

Speaker 3 As cocky as Hank is, that's the team that should make him the least cocky, in my opinion.

Speaker 3 I think they would do better against Dallas, which is a little uneven in some parts. And Boston deserves credit because their roster is so deep.

Speaker 3 I mean, Derek White is having a great playoffs, Drew Holiday, and obviously Jalen and Jason, Al Horford. They're just so deep.
They have shooting. Sam Hauser.

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 3 Statistically speaking, on the betting market right now, they have the easiest path to the final, so they have the best odds to win the championship.

Speaker 3 But once we're there, whoever comes out of the West, assuming they're healthy, is going to be battle-tested in a way that the Celtics simply won't be.

Speaker 3 And I will be very tempted to take them, particularly if it's Minnesota, the way they're playing.

Speaker 4 Yeah, I mean,

Speaker 4 knowing how the coach of the Celtics operates, they should lose some games. He should intentionally go to a game seven, feel like he's getting choked out, see if they can respond to adversity.

Speaker 4 That way, when they get to the finals, they're like, yeah,

Speaker 4 we've had our battles.

Speaker 3 Yeah, Minnesota's 6-0. They've played Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, Nicole Jokic, and Jamal Murray.
And Boston is, what, 4-1? Yeah.

Speaker 3 And they played a heat team that was, you know, without Jimmy Butler and also banged up in other ways. So Cocky Hank deserves to be back.

Speaker 3 And I think you guys have done a good job prefacing this until the finals, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah. Cocky Hank is not going to like to, I haven't told him this.
I haven't said it out loud.

Speaker 1 Wolves fans are probably going to be upset at me, but I did take the Wolves 9-1 before the Nuggets series because I was like, I feel like this is going to be a tough matchup for the Nuggets.

Speaker 1 And now Hank's going to, I haven't told him that. He's not going to listen to this part.
So we'll just save it and

Speaker 1 I won't even tell him until we get there. But yeah, 9-1.
They're already down to like 3-1.

Speaker 3 Dude, they show up dude, whatever it is, that Thursday, and they're 12-0, and they've just swept the Western Conference playoffs.

Speaker 3 Cocky Hank is going to be...

Speaker 4 He's going to be sweating.

Speaker 1 He's going to be shitting his sweaty Hank.

Speaker 1 I think he won't. Yeah, he won't even know.
I'll wait.

Speaker 4 I think he's going to start really,

Speaker 1 say, 9-1. Yeah,

Speaker 1 I texted him last night. Are you worried about the Wolves? He's like, no, I think we match up better.

Speaker 3 Do you think the legals should suspend Jamal Murray for throwing a challenge flag or a heat pack or whatever?

Speaker 4 Who is he throwing it at?

Speaker 1 Ref, maybe.

Speaker 3 His throws haven't been very accurate this postseason. Yeah, we don't know.

Speaker 4 He might have been trying to throw it to the trainer.

Speaker 1 I was saying that like college football, he should have, like the targeting rule, he should have just started his suspension in the second half.

Speaker 1 He should have just sat out the second half and been like, see, time served. I'd like that.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 It's always interesting when a guy gets the targeting call right at the beginning of the second half. Right.
That's the best time to get it, right? I mean, right at the end of the first half.

Speaker 4 I would think at the end of the first half, if you're winning. Yeah.
Yeah. And that's fine.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 But he should have just started serving it. So, all right, let's talk about your book real quick.
It's Hoop Atlas, Mapping the Remarkable Transformation in the Modern NBA.

Speaker 1 Everyone buy it. It is a great book.
He gets you smarter about basketball. A lot of pictures.
Great Father's Day book. Yeah.
Great Mother's Day. Mother's Day.
Father's Day.

Speaker 1 Will it ship in time for Mother's Day? Yes, it will.

Speaker 3 I promise you. You have my guarantee.

Speaker 1 Love that. So what is in this book?

Speaker 3 This book, so it's about the evolution of the NBA since Jordan.

Speaker 3 So the first chapter is about how Michael really made jump shooting cool and made perimeter play cool, and that set up the revolution that has sort of taken place in the NBA since the 1990s and really opened up the sport for players like Kobe and Stefan to take jump shooting even higher levels.

Speaker 3 But long story short, Big Cat, it's about the evolution of the modern NBA and the superstars that changed something or invented something that really you can see when we're watching these games today that you wouldn't have seen when we were watching Michael in the early 90s.

Speaker 4 I like these books.

Speaker 4 I like the maps that you put out. I like these books.
They've got a lot of pictures, a lot of maps inside the books.

Speaker 4 Are you concerned that you're going to have to rewrite the entire book in two years when Wimby just destroys everything?

Speaker 4 You've studied basketball and math your entire life, and then Wimby's now in the NBA, and you have to throw all of it in the trash.

Speaker 3 Well, you guys will appreciate that. One of the hard things about writing a sports book in the 2020s is the discourse moves so fast.

Speaker 3 And in the summer of 2023, when I'm really writing a lot of this book, the Wemby hype is out of control. And, you know, the last chapter is about the evolution of the big man.

Speaker 3 And Jokic, Jokic is the centerpiece of that chapter. But I did get a little bit of Wemby in there, and I hedged a little bit.

Speaker 3 And if I have one regret, I was like, no, this guy's the future of the big man. If I had been able to write this last week,

Speaker 3 he is the perfect extension of that last chapter because one of the big things, PFD, is he represents the return of the big man, but they're bigger and badder than ever in terms of their skill set.

Speaker 3 And I do think that's the next big thing in the NBA is seven-foot dudes that can dribble past and shoot just like six-foot dudes.

Speaker 4 Yeah, volume 2.0. You'll have to release like a collector's edition.

Speaker 3 Paperback will have an essay just on Wemby. I'm guessing he'll probably win an NBA.
A love letter.

Speaker 1 A love letter. A love letter to Wemby.

Speaker 4 Can you tell us just how good is Wemby in terms of like breaking everything that you've ever studied?

Speaker 3 Defensively, it's like having, you know, Will Chamberlain in the gym. Like he is so much bigger and longer than all these other guys.

Speaker 3 And some of the plays he's made this year, I always start the Wemby conversation with defense. Like if you have, there were some crazy stats.

Speaker 3 The Spurs, and I love them, have been one of the worst defenses in the NBA over the last five years

Speaker 3 since they really sort of started tanking, let's say.

Speaker 3 And when Wemby was on the court in the second half of the year, they were a top-five defense, and it was just insane because they had no business being there. He comes off the court.

Speaker 3 They're essentially the worst defense in the league. He is defensive efficiency in a can, and he will be for the rest of his career.

Speaker 3 If you have this guy on defense, you're going to have a top-five defense in the league.

Speaker 3 If you surround him with people like Minnesota has surrounded Gobert with, you're going to have the best defense in the league.

Speaker 3 So, and then offensively, he can obviously do things that nobody his size has ever been able to do.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's crazy. He's so much fun to watch.
All right, I have one last question. Rowback question, R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com.

Speaker 1 Promo code take 20% off your first purchase, Q-zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts. So in your book, do you have one guy that changed the NBA that we wouldn't assume did?

Speaker 3 Bruce Bowen. Oh.
You know, the rise of the corner three, chapter three, is, I think, one of my favorite chapters. And like it or not, the corner three is now one in ten shots in the NBA.

Speaker 3 The term corner three, big cat, you know, when you're at Wisconsin, we weren't even using that term. No.
And now we say it like 30 times a night in NBA broadcast.

Speaker 3 And Bruce Bowen in the 2003 Spurs really represents...

Speaker 3 the birth of that movement. When they beat the three Pete Lakers in the finals, Bruce Bowen's corner threes were a huge reason why.

Speaker 3 And so I think Popovich, Tim Duncan, that whole team deserves credit, but Bowen is the focal point and really inventing that 3 and D archetype that Jaden McDaniels represents right now or Alexander Walker in Minnesota.

Speaker 1 What about Bruce Bowen kicking someone in the face?

Speaker 1 Put that in there?

Speaker 1 That's an all time dog. He's got that dog in him, I think.
Yeah, he kicked Wally Zerbiak in the face. If you remember,

Speaker 1 it kind of looked like Antonio Brown returning the kick. He just was like, I can't get to the closeout.
Let me just try kicking him in the face.

Speaker 3 Well, a lot of people don't know this.

Speaker 3 Tyrese Halliburton actually put Bruce Bowen in a time machine to go back and do that after Wally Zerbiak had the worst Tyrese Halliburton take of all time earlier calling a fake all-star. Yeah.

Speaker 3 But, you know, I think, yeah, Bruce Bowen was a pretty aggressive defender and pretty handsy, and some people might even say dirty. Tripping a little bit.

Speaker 4 Steve Nash would probably agree with that.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I think that's fair. I think that's fair.
But ultimately, Bruce Bowen is one of the people. And then his teammate, Mono Ginobi with the Eurostep, is another one.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 And being able to catch bats. That's right.
Which you should never do. Yeah.

Speaker 3 No, he had to get raby shots. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 Don't touch a grounded bat. Yeah.

Speaker 3 He had to get raby shots in, I think, the stomach. Isn't that what happens?

Speaker 4 Yeah, you have to get the whole panel of them. Fauci's just creaming his jeans.
He's like, Yeah, give him another shot. Oh, really?

Speaker 1 Doing my own research on that.

Speaker 4 Yeah, it was a bat detect. Give him another one.
All right.

Speaker 1 Well, everyone should go buy the book. Thank you.
Kirk, you're the best. We love having you on.

Speaker 1 Good luck at the sphere as well. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Good luck. I'll stay on the lower level just to be safe.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you got to let me know. You got to give me the scouting report because I'm going out like a month after you.

Speaker 3 You know, I will be texting you. Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 1 But yeah, you're the best. We love having you on.

Speaker 3 Thank you, guys. Enjoy the rest of the playoffs.

Speaker 4 Thanks, Kirk.

Speaker 12 The Pro Football Football Show is presented by the Chevy Silverado. Built for the hustle, ready for the game, Chevy Silverado is America's most dependable full-size truck.

Speaker 12 Whether you're grinding through the week or gearing up for kickoff, the Silverado is one ride that's always game ready. Just like football, it's about grit, grind, and getting it done.

Speaker 12 Head to Chevy.com to learn more and build your own Chevy Silverado.

Speaker 1 Okay, let's wrap up the show. We got pardon your take.

Speaker 1 Hank? Yeah. You got some for us? Sure.

Speaker 1 Also, follow Mr. Pear.
He's hot in hockey.

Speaker 4 Mr. Pear's great.

Speaker 1 He is a hockey turtle through and through.

Speaker 5 Gotta get some ice for him. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Also, Mr. Pear has memes stressed constantly.
Memes just what he's very funny watching memes interact with Mr. Pear because it's like having a new child.

Speaker 1 He'll just walk over and just be like, oh, yep, he's sleeping.

Speaker 1 Oh, he's still sleeping.

Speaker 4 He's constantly worried that he's being fed too much or too little. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And needs his exercise. And he's pooping in his own water.

Speaker 4 Is that good?

Speaker 1 I guess turtles do it. Memes is a turtle expert now.
Memes?

Speaker 4 Yeah, apparently they do it all the time. Okay.

Speaker 1 That's cool. I found a thread on it.
They're like, my little idiot does it too.

Speaker 1 Little idiot.

Speaker 4 Is that on tortoise forum?

Speaker 1 That one was on Reddit. Good, okay.
Memes, we got to get you like a little

Speaker 1 backpack or something that you can take Mr. Pear to like the bar.

Speaker 5 Like a see-through one, like the cats have.

Speaker 1 Yeah, like a front, like almost like a lanyard that has Mr. Pear just hanging out.
Or just like a chain.

Speaker 4 We should get him a leash.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Or like a baby, like the thing you put the baby in.

Speaker 4 Bjorn really does think it's his baby.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
I'll just put it on my chest. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 5 Hey, PMT. Hey, hey.

Speaker 4 This is a take I've been sitting on for a couple years.

Speaker 5 I'm convinced if James Bradbury was wearing white gloves in the Eagles' last Super Bowl, that call is never made and the Eagles are Super Bowl champs.

Speaker 1 Appreciate you guys. I mean, Jules has told us this many times

Speaker 1 that he would get yelled at for wearing gloves that were, you know, you could see someone holding.

Speaker 1 And when he would wear the red gloves and Bill Belichick would get mad at him, or was it the white gloves?

Speaker 4 I think it was, it depended on what the opponent was wearing.

Speaker 1 Yeah, like

Speaker 4 if your opponent's wearing a white uniform, white gloves, I think, are okay. If they're wearing a dark uniform, white gloves, no.
You want to match it as closely as possible to get away with cheating.

Speaker 1 It does feel like a big advantage if you are a defensive back, if you're an offensive lineman, why wouldn't you just wear the glove color of the other team's uniform?

Speaker 4 It's like Mark Slaith used to love wearing the burgundy or the gold pants in D.C. because he could piss himself and nobody would ever see.

Speaker 4 When he got to Denver, the white pants, the yellow shows up.

Speaker 1 So you think that basically everything could be different if James Bratbury had just picked different gloves that day?

Speaker 5 What a night that would have been.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 1 That's brutal. But guess what? The Eagles are lifting weights.
So they're reloaded.

Speaker 4 Strong. Jalen.
So strong.

Speaker 1 So strong. So strong.
Eagles are good.

Speaker 1 Are they? Is he the guy? Yeah. Jalen? I saw an interesting.

Speaker 4 That's a good question. I think we should talk about it at some point.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Well, he was injured last year. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Our friend Nick Wright had a pretty good rant about Howie Roseman, which

Speaker 1 made me be like, oh, interesting.

Speaker 8 That's all Nick Wright does is just try and do

Speaker 8 the opposite of what everyone else is thinking so everyone can have that reaction.

Speaker 1 What did he say? So he basically was like, Howie Roseman does a really good job of drafting off of the experts' mock drafts.

Speaker 1 So every time the Eagles have a draft, everyone's like, holy shit, A-plus, they got a guy that we mocked for the first round and the second round.

Speaker 6 He was also doing it for like the last three years, which

Speaker 8 how are you supposed to know if those, if those are good or bad picks yet?

Speaker 4 Honestly, if I was a GM, that's probably what I was doing. Yeah, it's definitely what I was doing.

Speaker 4 I would just fire my scouting department and say, I'm going to make a compilation of let everybody else do the work for me.

Speaker 8 It all started when he drafted Rager over Justin Jefferson,

Speaker 6 and then he never didn't take the consensus guy again.

Speaker 1 I'm not saying it's right or wrong. I'm saying it's interesting.

Speaker 1 You know what you're doing. I'm saying it's interesting.
Can I not say something's interesting?

Speaker 8 Caleb Williams was the consensus pick from Mox. That's interesting.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Big cat.
The Bears is just interesting.

Speaker 4 Caleb Williams, because Stephen Shea said that they should?

Speaker 1 Maybe. Albert Breer just put out an entire piece about Caleb Williams and the Bears wooing him, and it was just porn.
Just like checked all the boxes. Checked all the boxes.
Great teammate.

Speaker 1 Great dude. Just call him

Speaker 1 a Steph Curry-like experience, watching him throw the football.

Speaker 1 What? Yeah.

Speaker 4 I don't know what that means.

Speaker 1 It means Steph Curry's awesome to watch basketball, play basketball. So it's like fat and fat.
It's awesome to watch play football. Got it.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 Trick shots.

Speaker 4 We're doing trick shots this year.

Speaker 8 Ben Simmons used to do some pretty cool stuff, too.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 Not really, though. Because he couldn't shoot.
He had some very cool passes. Yeah, but he couldn't really shoot.
He was really important. And that's a really important part of it.

Speaker 1 That's a really important part.

Speaker 5 It is impressive how good he was without being able to shoot.

Speaker 1 Shoot. Shooting was.

Speaker 4 He is. We've said this on the show before, but he's the best basketball player of all time if there was no such thing as a rim.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 It'd be like if I was really, really excited about a quarterback who could only run. I would never do that.
Or could pass, which Ben Simmons. No, no, no.
You're missing the... No, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 Shooting is the most important part of basketball.

Speaker 1 Without a doubt, shooting, putting the ball in the basket is the most important part of basketball.

Speaker 4 I think it's the dribbling.

Speaker 1 If you can't put the ball in the basket,

Speaker 1 you won't win games.

Speaker 5 Rebounding, too, Sixers.

Speaker 4 Yeah, no, but if you make every shot, then there's no such thing as a rebound. True.

Speaker 1 Shooting, I would say, is number one, putting the ball inside the basket.

Speaker 5 Tip-offs.

Speaker 5 All right, part of my take, but if James Dolan wasn't the owner of the Knicks, we would have been five times or more NBA champions by now. Do you agree? And if so,

Speaker 5 what owner/slash individual would be best to run a mega franchise like the New York Knicks?

Speaker 1 Oh, my God. This is so Knicks fans win one series and they're already ready to give themselves five titles?

Speaker 4 Do you mean like historically they would be five-time champions? How many titles do the Knicks have?

Speaker 5 I think he's saying if they were actually had a good owner, like a Mark Cuban, that was actually able to get players and cared about the team enough to

Speaker 1 get the best players. But Mark Cuban is 1-1.

Speaker 4 Yeah, he's not like a dynasty guy. Yeah, but imagine if he wasn't playing.

Speaker 1 He won New York.

Speaker 1 The best owners.

Speaker 1 Think about all the

Speaker 5 free agents that the Knicks just haven't got.

Speaker 4 I honestly think that if Donald Trump owned a sports team, it would rock.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 4 I think it would be the best.

Speaker 1 I mean, there's definitely better owners than

Speaker 1 James. There's a lot of better owners than James Owen, but I don't know if you put in the best owner.

Speaker 1 The Knicks automatically have five titles.

Speaker 4 Who is the best owner in sports?

Speaker 1 Stan Cronky.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 13 Isn't Mark Cuban a free agent owner?

Speaker 1 Yeah, he is.

Speaker 4 He's probably some sort of non-compete. Oh, no, no, we got rid of non-competes.
He could probably own them.

Speaker 1 Best owner.

Speaker 1 I don't know. Who's the best owner? Robert Kraft.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Who's the best owner?

Speaker 1 I mean, the Steelers, I guess.

Speaker 4 Their owners. The Rooney family.

Speaker 1 Been doing it for so long.

Speaker 5 Tony Khan.

Speaker 1 Tony Khan, yeah. Definitely up there.
Steve Ballmer's electric. Best.

Speaker 4 Steve Ballmer's good owner. Best owner.
Josh Harris.

Speaker 1 I mean, the Warriors owners, like, I feel like the best owners are the owners that just buy the team. They're like, money's not a problem, and we're just going to hire the smartest people we can find.

Speaker 4 And then not touch it.

Speaker 1 And then not touch it.

Speaker 4 Green Bay Packers. Best owners.
Hands off.

Speaker 1 Hands-off owners. Yep.
Okay. Five titles.
I feel like that's a lot.

Speaker 4 If the entire city of New York had a collective ownership of the New York Knicks, that would be awesome. Yeah.
That would be great. They'd actually be, I think they'd be worse than James Dolan.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God. What? This is crazy.

Speaker 1 It's crazier than the Knicks having five titles. Yeah.
I mean, it's, yeah.

Speaker 5 Florida would have won the Football National Championship in 2001 had 9-11 not happened and the Tennessee game got rescheduled.

Speaker 1 Interesting. Oh, let's

Speaker 1 take that to take.

Speaker 4 I mean, let's think about it. Let's look up the Florida schedule in 2001.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 5 Wasn't that the Miami team that was like the greatest football team of all time?

Speaker 4 Yeah, but is that the year they lost to Ohio State?

Speaker 1 No, the year after is when they lost to Ohio State. That was the Miami team that was one of the best teams of all time.

Speaker 1 So, yeah, I feel like maybe not, but I like this take just because it's good to just sit there and just tell people that and just be like, hey,

Speaker 1 you would have won it all.

Speaker 4 I'm looking at 2001 football schedule right now for Miami.

Speaker 4 The game that was delayed September 22nd at Kentucky, they won 44-10. Florida.
Yeah, Florida beat Kentucky 44-10.

Speaker 5 When did they play Tennessee?

Speaker 13 December 1st. Much later in the season.
September 15th.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 4 Oh, so that's the one that got moved.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 1 And let's

Speaker 1 they defeated him in week 13, 34-32.

Speaker 1 Again, Miami did not lose a game that year. So that feels pretty impressive.

Speaker 5 Was that the only loss Florida had?

Speaker 13 No, they lost that Auburn.

Speaker 1 Ah, that's tough.

Speaker 13 But they finished number three, so maybe the way that season broke, they could have snuck in at number two with one loss.

Speaker 4 Okay, I'm looking at Tennessee's early season schedule that year. See how they were at the start of the year.

Speaker 4 They beat Arkansas 13-3

Speaker 4 September 8th.

Speaker 4 Not great. Not that impressive of a win.
It feels like Tennessee wasn't playing their best ball.

Speaker 4 And then after 9-11, Tennessee beat LSU number 14, 26-18. So the argument

Speaker 1 they would have gotten in over Nebraska, who had one loss in the BCS national title, I still think Miami would have won that game.

Speaker 4 They might have, yeah, but they, I mean, can you imagine a Miami against Florida? It would have been great. It would have been awesome.

Speaker 1 Either way, I like this take because it just, it's something you can just sit down and just be like, yeah, we could have won it all.

Speaker 4 If it wasn't for Osama bin Laden.

Speaker 1 And Miami did, did kind of paste Nebraska.

Speaker 5 I hope this guy is old enough that he was mad about that in real time because that means he's like 50.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 5 Which is just very funny.

Speaker 5 Like, it's better than if he was like, you know, just a Florida fan that's like looking up the stats and, you know, if he actually remembers 2001 season, then he was mad in real time.

Speaker 5 I respect that take.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I respect that take as well. Oregon also was very good that year, only had one loss.
Do you think there's Colorado in their bowl game, which Colorado was also good?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I'm going to say

Speaker 1 they could have been to the national title, they would have lost to Miami.

Speaker 4 Do you think that there's any Tennessee fans out there or just fans of college football that during the moment in 2001, when they announced that they were delaying all the games, they're like, this is bullshit.

Speaker 4 Clay Travis. Yeah.
College football. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. We need college football.

Speaker 4 We need college football to help us heal.

Speaker 8 I feel like every fan has like one moment, though, that they go way back in time and be like, we would have won it all if this wasn't

Speaker 1 happening.

Speaker 8 Villanova would have won the national championship in 2005 if there wasn't the biggest phantom travel call of all time on Alexander.

Speaker 1 Justice Winslow touched it in the national title game against Wisconsin. That's a fact.
Fact.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I like this take.

Speaker 5 I think Ninja wrote this one.

Speaker 4 Punters should be better.

Speaker 5 You're one of 32 people in the world that do this for a job. I don't understand how they don't drop it within five-yard line every single time.
Yeah, it's Ninja.

Speaker 5 One shanked punch should lead to an immediate termination. Also, more fat punters objectively better for the game.

Speaker 1 Agreed. I agree with that.

Speaker 1 I kind of agree with this take. Like, kickers in general should just be better because that's their only job.

Speaker 4 Well, they are the best that they've ever been.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but they should even be better than that.

Speaker 4 They will be better at some point.

Speaker 4 I agree with this take for punters, especially what always weirds me out is when there's a good punter in college, and then he goes to the NFL and he sucks. Yeah.
It's literally the same job. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Different ball. Yeah, slightly, but still.
Like, I feel like if you're a great college punter, there's no excuse to not be a great NFL punter. Punters should be better.

Speaker 1 I also think that golfers should be better at putting.

Speaker 4 Yeah, just put it in the hole.

Speaker 1 That's something, like, if you're a professional golfer, you should just never miss a putt.

Speaker 1 Anything 10 feet and in should never be missed. Ever.

Speaker 1 But that's just me. I wouldn't miss it if I were a professional golfer.

Speaker 4 You know, the best punter of all time is low-key, Big Ben.

Speaker 4 He's a pretty good punter, yeah. The pooch punts were a lecker.

Speaker 1 He did have good pooch punts. What other sports should players be better?

Speaker 4 Foul shots.

Speaker 1 Foul shots, definitely. Open threes.
Yeah. Every open three should be made all the time.
You got to make those. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I feel like

Speaker 13 penalty kicks. Tennis players should never double fault.

Speaker 1 I agree. Tennis players should never throw tennis players.

Speaker 1 Outfielders should never miss a ball. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Hockey players just shoot more. You'll score more goals.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's a fact.

Speaker 4 Also, don't let any soft ones.

Speaker 4 Can't let a soft one in.

Speaker 1 Never let a soft one in.

Speaker 1 What do you think, Hank?

Speaker 5 I mean, baseball and hockey are tough. Free throws is definitely everyone should, every NBA player should be 80% better than free throws.

Speaker 1 Soccer players should also.

Speaker 5 I also never understand why tall people are bad at free throws. That's never made sense to me.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you're shooting like down. Soccer players should also be better at scoring goals.
Yeah. Just in general, like I always, when I'm watching a game, like kick it from 30 feet out.

Speaker 1 That should go in every time.

Speaker 4 A football player should never miss a tackle. In fact, they should take pride in their tackling.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Agreed.
Wrap up. Agreed.

Speaker 1 Okay, is that it? That's it. Good part in your takes.
I like that.

Speaker 1 All right. Let's do numbers.
Max, have you ever gotten this?

Speaker 1 Nope. 8.

Speaker 8 20. PFT, have you ever gotten this?

Speaker 5 46. Not yet.

Speaker 1 3.72.

Speaker 13 18. Please tune in to the Wells Fargo Championship on PJ Tour Live this week.
Max Homa will be playing.

Speaker 13 Fuck yeah.

Speaker 8 99 put.

Speaker 1 21.

Speaker 1 Max, would you say you never gotten this?

Speaker 8 Yeah, PFT also said that he's never gotten this.

Speaker 4 No, I said I haven't gotten it yet. Yep.
Tell the whole story, Max.

Speaker 1 Oh. 26.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 No, you weren't that close.

Speaker 6 From my angle, I'm far away.

Speaker 1 I thought I hit it. Nah.
You didn't, though. You weren't that close.
So did Hank.

Speaker 8 Hank thought he hit it.

Speaker 6 I hit it too. No, he.

Speaker 1 He thought I hit it with 46.

Speaker 1 No one thought you hit it. No one thought you were 40.
Well, no one thought Hank hit it either. Fuckface.

Speaker 5 26 is way closer to 46 than 20.

Speaker 6 How?

Speaker 6 Explain. Because it's got the 20.

Speaker 5 Because it's got the 6 and a 2. If you look, you know, from the blocked angle, it kind of looks like a 4.

Speaker 1 Yeah, well, there's a zero

Speaker 1 inside of a 6.

Speaker 4 That's a good point. Yeah, though.

Speaker 1 There's nothing. Yes, there there is.
A small little zero. Who was closer?

Speaker 1 Hank. Hank.
Hank was way closer. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Hank price slaves you can't go over. Yeah, then I won.
It's pretty simple. And I won again.
All you got to do is pick the right number, Max. It's not that hard.

Speaker 6 Yeah, PFT. It's not that hard.

Speaker 4 PFT is going to.

Speaker 1 He's just going to be.

Speaker 6 Yeah, PFT. It's not that hard.

Speaker 1 Why are you talking to me?

Speaker 4 I didn't think I won this one.

Speaker 4 All right. I'm not so pressed about this.

Speaker 1 Let's do another one.

Speaker 4 That I'm imagining numbers coming up.

Speaker 13 Our first double in a while.

Speaker 4 Max is so mad. He's not going to count.
This counts.

Speaker 1 This counts. We'll do another one.

Speaker 4 Numbers. I'm going to stick with eight.

Speaker 5 46.

Speaker 1 Three.

Speaker 1 18. 72.

Speaker 8 99, Pug.

Speaker 13 21.

Speaker 13 Big cat's boxing out the machine. No one can see the number.

Speaker 1 Oh.

Speaker 1 79.

Speaker 2 Oh, I thought that was 72.

Speaker 4 I thought it was 99.

Speaker 1 I was so close. Hug is a dynasty.
Oh, no.

Speaker 1 79. So close.

Speaker 4 Love you guys.

Speaker 4 Talking away.

Speaker 4 I don't know what I'm going to say. I'm saved anyway.

Speaker 4 Today's another day to finally shy it away.

Speaker 4 Oh, I've been coming for your lover kid.

Speaker 4 Oh, I've been coming for your lover

Speaker 4 Take

Speaker 4 on

Speaker 4 me,

Speaker 4 take

Speaker 4 me

Speaker 4 on.

Speaker 4 I'll be

Speaker 4 gone

Speaker 4 too.

Speaker 4 Needless to say,

Speaker 4 I'm on the same head.

Speaker 4 But I'll be stone away.

Speaker 4 Tell the land that life is okay.

Speaker 4 Say after me.

Speaker 4 It's the better to be safe and suffering.

Speaker 4 It's the better to be safe and suffer.

Speaker 4 Take on me.

Speaker 4 Take

Speaker 4 me on.

Speaker 4 I'll be

Speaker 4 gone.