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

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

May 08, 2024 2h 42m Explicit

The Nuggets are in deep deep waters with an awesome Wolves team (00:00:00-00:08:27). The Thunder are back to playing basketball and look awesome (00:08:27-00:12:12). Cocky Hank is in rare form and we talk Celtics bloodbath and the Knicks/Pacers end of game debacle (00:12:12-00:22:19). Igor Shesterkin saves 54 shots and we dive into our favorite dumb Hypothetical how many guys in the NFL could play in the NBA and vica versa (00:22:19-00:44:15). Hot Seat/Cool Throne including Josh Hart's injury potentially making him incredible at threes and Scottie Scheffler's still pregnant wife (00:44:15-01:04:37). Verne Lundquist joins the show to talk about his Hall of Fame career, his favorite calls, the Kick 6, and being Mr Steal Your Girl (01:04:37-01:48:21). Kirk Goldsberry joins the show on the day his new book launches (go buy it on amazon) to talk NBA playoffs, Wolves Defense, the super young Thunder and how the Celtics should cake walk to the Finals (01:48:21-02:24:05). We finish the show with listener submitted Pardon Your Takes (02:24:05-02:39:58).


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Full Transcript

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

And then we have Kirk Goldsberry in studio, breaking down the NBA playoffs.

We're going to talk about the NBA playoffs.

The Nuggets are in deep shit.

Knicks, Pacers, game one. the Thunder have finally played a basketball game again and Hank cocky Hank is on his way we're going to do some hot seat cool throne we're going to do pardon your take great show and it's all brought to you by our friends at DraftKings did you ever play the the over-under game with your friends? You know, think I can eat that slice of pizza in under 30 seconds, or I know I'll take you over a minute to down that two liter max.
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Okay, let's go. Boy!

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The crown is yours. Today is Wednesday, May 8th, and the Denver Nuggets are in some deep, deep shit, PFT.
Yeah, they look really bad. They look terrible offensively.
They look bad defensively. The Minnesota Timberwolves looked awesome defensively, which had a lot to do with it.
It's not all the Nuggets, but they looked out of sorts. I had a thought, and I'm not exactly like a film breakdown guy when it comes to basketball.
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 so by stretching him out and by Jokic didn't I don't know what he was doing 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.
Yeah, no, I mean, 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.
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.
I still think he's an incredible player, one of the best players in the NBA. 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 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 their their arms are everywhere they're they're defending the entire court they're picking up yokich uh like it's you know brings the ball up a bunch they're picking him up at half court bothering him there and it does it's

an interesting subplot because the guy who helped build the nuggets tim connelly is the gm for the wolves and it feels like the wolves are created to beat the nuggets and that's what they're doing 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.
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.
Like if there's not an injury, I'm like, all right, keep playing. It's fine.
I get it. He should have done that.
It's a crazy move. But some people being like someone could have died out there from that heat pack.
It felt like a lot. The heat culture gone wrong.
And when he threw it out there, it looked like he was throwing it at the ref. Did you see the zoomed-in camera angle? They have like a Zapruder-style film of it that zooms in on him.
He's'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 if it had hit the ref that would have been very funny he probably he probably would have been suspended for maybe two games if that had happened instead they give him a hundred thousand dollar fine same that rudy goberri got for doing the money sign to the refs uh but it looked like i don't think he was trying to throw it on the court. He was trying to hit the ref because he's pissed at the ref.
And he just slid out onto the court. And then everyone was like, oh, weird.
There's a heat pack on the court. And then you had a subset of people being like, this is the most dangerous thing that I've ever seen a player do.
Right. My entire life.
Exactly. It's a little aggressive.
Jamal Murray did the money sign as well. Oh, he did? 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. Like, the way they're playing, they're 6-0 in the playoffs.
They are playing, like, incredible team basketball. As Cat told us, they're a big 15, and it feels that way when they're playing uh but the interesting like subplot of all this is i think i used subplot twice sorry i apologize it's late uh the interesting moment i'm waiting for for friday night is this is the first time the nuggets feel like they're tested.
Because if you remember last year, they beat the Wolves in five. 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, obviously beating the Lakers in five. Now, what, what do you got? What 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.

Jokic does not look good.

And the Wolves are just better right now.

Like, that's just what it is.

They are the better team.

All around.

Yes.

And it's not really close.

They've got two coaches, too.

Their coach is sitting down with his torn knee, and they have another coach managing the in-game shit going on for them. 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. They were just tested in the first half of every game.
Yeah, and also the Lakers almost beat them. Well, no, this is now a great change to the narrative like how shitty are the los angeles lakers so shitty if they were getting beat by these nuggets they shouldn't have even been in the playoffs so so shitty and it was uh i'm happy we did that entire week of being like well the lakers just had a really bad matchup with nuggets no the.
No, the West, and we can go, we can stay in the West. The West is just young and deep because the Thunder, who hadn't played a game in forever, came out.
It's like Giddy likes it. Yeah, they came out.
Giddy, I always feel so bad for guys. Jake didn't like that one.
No, he didn't like that one. I always feel so bad for guys when they just, like, sag off them so much that're just like go ahead and shoot no problem yeah we'll let you shoot like that's such an embarrassing thing like if I were Josh Giddey I would just I would try to just never be at the three-point line because you know they're just gonna let you shoot and you're gonna miss and it's gonna suck uh but the thunder there 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. Hank, you should listen to the Kirk Goldsberry interview because I might have said something that you'd be interested in.
Also, Hank, Hank should actually start rooting for the Nuggets. That's what I would do if I were you.
He doesn't think the Wolves are a tough matchup for the Celtics. They're a tough matchup, but I'd rather face the Wolves or the Thunder or the Mavericks than the Nuggets still.
Okay. Max disagrees.
Yeah. But anyway, the Thunder.
Max doesn't know it. I'm just talking about the Kirk Oldsbury interview.
Yeah. Yeah.
Wait till you get to it, Hank. uh the thunder are so young and so much fun and it

feels like like sga was incredible in the first half and then you get to the fourth quarter it's like oh we got another really young dude uh in jalen williams who's just gonna torch you and lou darts everywhere it's just like we said this a couple weeks ago but if you're a thunder fan i it's it's thunder or wolves fan it has to be the like coolest funnest experience right now to watch your organic homegrown team be super young and just dominating everyone what yeah and why are you shaking your head don't shake your head because he's why are you shaking yourself because we're talking about the west hank we're talking about the west your team's not that Hank. You're kind of young, but this is like a new age.
Jason Timbs, 19 years old. New age of Thunder.
He's been to the Eastern Conference Finals every single year. Hank, this is you.
You had your moment like four years ago with the Celtics team. Yeah, you had fun with that.
And they're fun. So let other people have fun.
It's not always about you. I didn't say anything for the record.
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. 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, that's cocky Hank.
Take him. Listen, if you can't handle him at subdued game by game Hank,

then you don't deserve him at cocky Hank.

I wanted cocky Hank.

We got cocky Hank.

I fucking love how much I fucking hate Hank right now.

It's awesome.

This is what we wanted.

It really is.

So I'm glad that you're back, you piece of shit. Yeah, I'm not mad.
But yeah, the Thunder, the Mavs, this will be a series. But the fact that the Thunder came out off all this rest and played that well.
I mean, they're just fun. Chet Holmgren's fun to watch.
They got just guys that are fun to watch. And they're all young.
They scream after every play, too. A lot of emotion.
and the the t-shirts my god the t-shirts tonight in oklahoma city it looked like a college stadium it looked like when uh when 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 was it uh orange or was it white tonight? I forget, but it was perfectly done.

I didn't see a single T-shirt out of place.

They're the best at it.

Okay, Hank.

Cocky Hank time.

He was correct in – or he's on pace for his triple digits prediction.

Bloodbath.

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. Yeah, I mean, they got up by so much, they took out the starters, you know, with a lot of time left, but...
25 is good. We're on pace.
We're on pace. This is a joke for you.
Yeah, I mean, I said going in, they might drop one game. You know, Cavs will have a historic shooting night, beat them at home or something.
But there should be a 4-1, if not 4-0. When did you know this one was over? 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 loved the Celtics' spread. I loved the Celtics' first half.
And the first quarter, I think, was tied late in the first quarter. But, you know, they turned it on second half, second quarter.
Derek White couldn't miss. Jalen Brown couldn't miss.
Probably like halfway through the second quarter. That's the scary part is like Jalen Brown and Derek White were incredible.
Jason Tatum was not that great tonight, at least shooting. And they still – Plus 18.
Yeah, right. I know.
But, I mean, I don't think he hit a three and he wasn't like being super aggressive. But 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, which is that a fair assessment? Luke, yeah, no, that's fair. I mean, he was facilitating.
this is also part of cocky. Yeah.
Yeah. This is part of cocky.
A great, a great superstar player, you know, does what it takes to win. He sees that his other guys are having a good night and he just helps facilitate.
It did feel like it did feel like the most casual bloodbath of all time. Yeah.
And PFT, this is, this is the part I forgot about cocky Hank. If you if you say that like jason tatum he he didn't hit a three he was over five from three if you just state that hank will be like well fuck you yeah yeah he'll be like what are you trying to say 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 but 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 think about it this way hank like a couple years ago derrick white 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 Derek White is a good player right now sorry he's a he's a great player he's a he's is he a great player 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 that you're not betting on Jason it was over five from three PFT that's a good point big cat yeah but I guess Hank's not a real fan.
But the thing is, like – I like value. They're all playing well.
So with Al Horford in for Kristaps Przingis, it didn't seem like it mattered that much. Plus, you've 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.
you're just you're 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 i think the first one there's like part two was two parts right the first one he he yeah hank does he he did. Hank and I were driving up to Wrigley last night,

and I was like, who's going to play with Kristaps out?

And he's like, Horford, but it's going to really,

Luke Cornett's going to be an X-Factor.

Hank knows ball.

He was.

He was a beast on the boards.

Yeah, he was the X-Factor.

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

Last NBA game we got to talk about, the Knicks-Pacers game one. I feel bad for Pacers fans.
Now, the Knicks are, I mean, 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.
The last two minutes did suck though, because it was just too much refs.

And not 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.

The,

the screen call that they,

they called the legal screen,

which I guess technically was wrong,

but it happens every game 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. He's got very long legs, and they get in your way, yeah.
Yeah, 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, what one and then next thing you know without even a possession happening they were because it was like Jalen Brunson foul before the inbound free throw then another Jalen Brunson so like it was game over it sucked and my biggest problem with this game is if you're gonna 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 because that was actually the thing the Pacers should be most upset about was that wasn't a kickball on eSmith he hit it with his hand and you just can't review it and that was that led to Dante DiVincenzo's three that was the moment that like I can live with the screen because technically it was an illegal screen.
The fucking kickball that wasn't a kickball, you should be able to review it. 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. So not only was it the three that resulted right afterwards, but it denied the Pacers the opportunity to take what seemed like it probably would have been two points at that point it was a tie game 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 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 i'm sure that's probably one that they'll look at in the offseason be like yeah you should be able to review if it hit off its foot or not i don't know but that it stink.
The moving screen call gave us all PTSD flashbacks of the UConn 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 Pacers one. I think that there should be a rule in basketball.
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. Yeah, I agree with that.
You shouldn't flop. 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. Yeah of the watch fight through all screens um yeah i i just when it comes to like instant replay i i'm an all or nothing guy i'm cool if they said tomorrow there's no instant replay and we're just gonna go with whatever the refs say and the games will move faster and it will be smoother i'm all for that the minute that 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.
I'm not in favor of reviewing everything. Because I think that it's a slippery slope to 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 how how mad people would get at refs it would be like these refs stink i'm just i 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 if you're gonna 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 care.
Do every review for the last three minutes. Get it right.
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 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.
Like, just, we're going to fucking grind this. And you guys are, get learn 48 buddy because that's every guy now so they said eight weeks eight weeks they said they're going to reevaluate in six to eight weeks I looked at a calendar um that appears to be the entire NBA playoffs it's also really mean to do that because then everyone gets his reply they're not there isn't going to be eight weeks from now like he doesn't deserve that.
Mitchell Robinson's fun to watch. They don't play.
Mitchell Robinson played 12 minutes last night off the bench. Deuce McBride played 11.
That's kind of it. And now you lose one of them.
So I don't know what the fuck they're going to 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.

In fact, the fact that they're like,

I think that Tibbs is the one coach.

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.

Max, are there any Villanova players that,

that do not currently

play in the NBA that could be picked

up by the Knicks?

Where's Chris Jenkins?

Chris Jenkins is on the

Villanova staff. Love Chris

Jenkins. Probably not in NBA

game shape right now. Scotty Reynolds.

Scotty Reynolds could

easily lace him up and put him out there.

Easily. Haven't seen him in years, but there's always something about that guy.
He's a gamer. Yeah.
Ryan Archidiakono was on the team earlier this year. I like that you're taking this experiment very seriously.
I appreciate that. Connor Gillespie, him and TJ McConnell.
Connor Gillespie's on the Nuggets. Connor Gillespie's on the Nuggets.

He's going to be a good player in the NBA.

That's a promise.

That's an absolute promise.

Okay.

I'm done with this experiment.

I'm done with this experiment.

It's a promise.

Hockey, real quick.

54 saves is a fucking shitload of saves.

Shesterkin on the Rangers tonight.

Double overtime.

54 saves.

We have our standing on our head guy. It's Shesterkin on the rangers tonight double overtime 54 saves we have our our standing on our head guy it's shesterkin he's a he's a beast and don't shut the fuck up hank you stop it yeah you stop it hank listen all right congratulations i tweeted this out i saw hank liked it it was not meant to be liked by you 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 i would just like to say pft that i did i did place a pretty big future um on the bruins and the celtics to win both eastern conferences parlayed and when that hits i will buy you a pair of headphones that you can lean back in your chair.

That's so nice of you.

That's my promise to you.

Yeah. The story behind these headphones is I went to a real hot streak of buying headphones in airports before flights that didn't fit my phone.
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. That's huge, Hank.
That's huge of you. But, yeah, are we allowed to say Shysh Turkin played well? Yeah.
I mean, he's also got – I think that's, like, maybe the best hockey name going. Like, I do – the fans chanting Igor, Igor.
It's just a great – Igor is just a great hockey name. Yeah.
And we had – and, Hank, your Bruins did win game one convincingly.

Yeah, against all odds. Smash, and there's a game going on right now.
Oh, here's a fun game that we can do. Memes didn't show up to this, but he mushed Mr.
Pear so hard. Oh, so hard.
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. I've gotten two random dms from people in the last 24 hours that have told me that today wednesday a vet she's gonna retire oh man and i'm worried about that and i'm sad okay can i make you feel better 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.
So I'm on a cold streak with the predictions right now. If I die, I hope I die before Ovechkin retires.
How about that? All right, I got you. 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 one, so they're going to get Celebrini.
I'm pretty sure, and this is all based off of our colleague Chief's tweets, who is a Blackhawks expert. 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. Does that make you feel better? That you would get.
Yeah. How does he feel about Putin? I don't know.
putin guy that not help nhl needs a big putin yeah i i don't know it's gonna be that's gonna be a big time like uh 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 probably that's probably the two. Gilbert Arenas.
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 yeah, Hank's Bruins are awesome.

Congratulations, Hank, on making the Eastern Conference Finals

and winning the Eastern Conference Finals in both sports.

Yeah.

He's muted.

Good.

I like this.

That was a great point, Hank. Great point, Hank.
Take some money and buy a microphone that Good. I like this.
That was a great point. Great point.
Money and buy a microphone. It's fun.
You know, when you're, when you have these, these sessions, when it's every night playoffs, it's fun to kind of switch from underdog to favorite. Like hockey, hockey, hockey is going to be tough.
Hockey, it's tough to get an inch in the playoffs as annoying as you are i so much so much love this more than than what you were last week this is great this is podcasting boys this feels like old school pmt just keep winning 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 blood bath yeah blood bath um right last two things i had one uh football is back because we had the official first first sign of football being back when shefter tweeted out the announcement of when the schedules are being announced.

Best feeling ever. That's the sign.
That's like the first leaf turning in the fall. Schefter has told us that there will be an announcement coming up.
Yeah, but they haven't even said when it's going to be, right? No, they said next Wednesday. It's next Wednesday? Next Wednesday.
We have an exact... Because usually there's like a pre-announcement where they say the NFL is getting ready to announce when the schedule will be released.
It's like an announcement for the announcement for the announcement. I'm 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.
It's the best day. The last thing should we do real quick.
We probably have to Austin rivers went on a Mac fee show and started the debate that I think we have probably every like two years. 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.
I love these debates. They're my favorite.
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 men's national team and win us a world cup. But these debates rock because we can't really ever figure it out, but everyone's going to spend an entire afternoon debating it.
I'm very clear on my take, but I want to hear your guys' take first and where it goes. All right, so my big problem with this debate is that he didn't bring this up in July.
This is the exact content that we need in July. You're way too early.
The NBA playoffs are going on right now. 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.
Correct. 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.
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. That was the one guy that's ever done it, and he was like a very unique case.
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. 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.
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 know if there's 30 of them.
Actually, I shouldn't be saying my – I want to hear what Jim Harbaugh has to say about this. I'm sure he's got an awesome answer ready to go.
Yeah. What were you going to say, Hank? There would be way more NFL players that could play NBA than reverse.
You're insane. You're absolutely crazy.
So if we did this, so the parameters, because the argument changes and people are in the NFL. Hold on, shift it around.
But if you do, 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.
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. I'm not saying they're like a super impactful guy.
There's zero guys on the NFL roster right now who could play on an NBA roster. 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.
That's the whole premise of the conversation. A big 15.
Big 15. No, but, Hank, when we're talking about, by the way, if we're going to include special teams, I mean, Wimby blocking kicks, just line up Wimby and Chet right down the middle.
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? Max.
Jordan Mailata got drafted without ever playing a down of football. Thank you.
Antonio Gates played college basketball, not college football. Yeah.
Green played college football. Okay.
What what's that supposed to prove 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 like every other year you hear about someone from okay ben simmons is a great point hank ben simmons can't shoot when he got a league. Rajon 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. They're on a different level in terms of like you could get every guy on an NBA roster, put them in an open gym.
miss they go to a game they're shooting 40 percent 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 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 NBA, the height, the, 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, Devante Adams is really awesome.
He could play. I feel like it's not even close.
Let's think about the difference though, between the NFL and NBA players, right? Maybe the best NFL basketball player that I know of right now, big dude, Miles Garrett, you know how tall he is. He's six, four okay he's 6'4 he would be he would be like a smaller guard right nba steph curry 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 it's because these guys like the their movement their steps the way they the the pump fakes like all those things that come into an nba game miles garrett would just like chet someone's like oh he would be able to lock down chet holmgren chet holmgren would put 30 on him and he would be fouled out in a second now the 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? Marcus Smart, maybe.
I could see Westbrook as a safety, 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 i the i mean tyrese max he has nfl

speed he does like i i 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 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 have to deal with the toughness that takes to be in the NFL.

It's just the NBA. I feel like, 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. 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. He played, I shouldn't say that.
But there's so many levels to this. Hank, I can't believe you think that the NBA players...
Like, I'm actually shocked by your take. I mean, I was trying to do some just statistical analysis with with mine based off of the numbers game but the numbers game aren't even in your favor it's harder to make the nba than it is the nfl but there's way more it's what again i want to get i don't get roster shamed here 52 on the active roster but that's the reverse your argument's reversed that you could make an nba player there's more chances to make a roster.
Make a couple spots. Yeah, I guess I didn't really think about the reversal.
I think you were just trying to argue. I like that.
That's what I think. Yeah.
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 who are like, you point out the size thing. There's too many tall people in the NBA that would not be able to play NFL.
Yeah, there's a ton of people in the NBA that wouldn't be able to play. That's what we're saying.
What are you going to do? We're saying it's very hard to do either one, but if you had to say which one would have a better chance, it's definitely the NBA translating to the nfl without a doubt like hey name one player in the nfl that you think could play in the nba i saw some drake may uh high school highlights oh cooper dejean could do it says the high school highlights you know how far being a really good high school basketball player, someone who like DeAndre Hopkins played basketball at Clemson.

There was someone else who some Keon Coleman, you retweeted.

Keon Coleman was like, yeah, he was not.

He couldn't.

I don't know if he wanted to like pursue basketball at Mission State,

but like being a good basketball player at Michigan State doesn't mean

you're an NBA roster guy.

There's still like a level to that.

Thank you. but being a good basketball player at Michigan State doesn't mean you're an NBA roster guy.
There's still a level to that.

Hank?

That's the face Hank makes when he knows that he's wrong,

but he won't say I'm wrong.

No, I mean, you made some good arguments.

I'm not going to admit defeat, but I'm going to do some more research

and then come back to you on Thursday.

Okay.

Okay.

I would appreciate more research. I just want one player.
I want to know one player that you think could do it. It's also, it's like, it's one of those.
Yeah. Like, like Steven Shea tweeted Mike Evans dunking.
I would have to see Lamar Jackson's jumper, but like. He's six.'2".
Yeah, but he's athletic as fuck.

He's fast.

Mike Evans dunking.

On handles and a shot.

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.

He's already, the odds are completely stacked against him. I think James could do it.
He can do anything. And again, I want it very clear.
Austin Rivers is an idiot. I do not think there's 30 guys in the NBA who can play in the NFL tomorrow.
I think there's like one or two. There's zero in the NFL who can play in the NBA tomorrow.
That's the whole point. Also, do you know who I thought of right away? Because remember the Avalanche just won.
Congrats to the Avs getting game one. Remember Joseph Fourier, the Lions tight end, who was 6'7", 250, and he played like two years for the Lions, and all he did was goal line package, and he would just stand there, and he would catch a touchdown.
Like I think his rookie year he had 18 catches and seven of them were touchdowns. Like if Giannis was in goal line package and you just split him out wide and you just threw him a jump ball, how is that not a touchdown every time? Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
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.
You would never get scored on a long pass like that. The size is a real issue because you have to be insanely skilled to play in the NBA if you're undersized.
If you're're like less than six, four, 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, to make it happen with a career. So I, I, I don't think it's even like a remotely close conversation.
There's probably, I would say there's maybe, maybe 10. I could see there being 10 guys in the NBA that if, if you gave them a year to train and if they loved it, that other question is like, would they like playing football? No, they might just, they might just be like, it sucks.
Yeah. Yeah, definitely.
Joe Burrow won a high school championship as a freshman division two Southeast district player of the year, senior year, four year varsity Varsity Letterman. Great court vision he would definitely have.
Okay. When was the last time he played ball? Well, I mean, he focused on football, but it's like if he focused all that energy on basketball, I'm sure he would have gone pro.
But that's what we're saying. NBA players, if they focused on football, there's probably like a handful of them that just by their size and athleticism could find a spot 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 uh like nba players and you had them like do all of the combine drills nfl there would be a lot of nfl scouts would 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 if you take all the NFL players and put them in the NBA combine you'd have to eliminate almost 70 percent of them just based on height immediately probably more than that probably more than 70 percent and then you'd watch them shoot and you'd probably get rid of another, like 95% of them.
And then you have Joe Burrow. And then Joe, I'll give you Joe Burrow just because we love Joe Burrow.
But Hank, I would like to you to do some more research and maybe look it up. 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. He was so away from the nba and he's a hall of fame tight end that's that's the exact opposite argument that you should be making right wait they were doing the antonio gates as an example that proves the point of why an nfl player could yes yeah okay that's that's that's really bad logic even for the internet i'm impressed it really bad logic.
They're like, Oh, Antonio Gates could hoop. It's like, no dude, he was, 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.
Yeah. It's the best ever.
I do. I, you're right.
Do we need this to happen? Probably not the best ever. One of the best ever for that era.
We needed this in July, but this, this would be the perfect, like all star MLB all-star game week conversation to have. Yeah.
So we'll do it again, but yeah, sound off in the comments. Tell us why we're wrong.
This is, these are my favorite hypotheticals because we would never find it out. And also a hockey player, a hockey player could play in the NBA.
I loved, 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.

Yeah.

Also, you just, everyone should know that Will Compton is the one who's

pushing this hard and his brain doesn't really work.. Will Compton's saying that NFL players could play? 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 who would do better, an entire NBA team of NFL players or an entire NFL team of NBA players. So basically saying, imagine if we had all the NBA players try to block TJ Watt, and then it's just obvious.
You're like, okay, that makes no sense. I think both teams would get smoked players play against the best NBA team.
They would get fucking 50 piece. 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? Roster breakdown time.
He'll get there. He'll get there.
All right, we're going to kick it to ourselves. We've got two interviews.
Kirk Goldsberry, Vern Lundquist. We also have Hot Seat Cool Throne and Pardon Your Take back in studio.
Before we kick it to ourselves, though, quick word. Everyone probably, when we're PLL guys, the tragedy in Mexico, Callum Robinson, his brother, and his friend.
Really, really, really sad story. There is a GoFundMe for the families.
I think we can probably pin it to the videos. So if you're a lacrosse guy, really, really sad.
And we love the PLL. And so anything that you want to give, we appreciate it.
And Hank, you had anything with that? Yeah, we'll share all the links. Absolutely heartbreaking stuff.
They were just on a surf trip um carter the other guy the friend of the robinsons who's about to get married so there's some go funds go fund these for the brother one for carter we'll share all the links uh and i'm sure everything everything is appreciated just a very very sad story yeah yeah donate if you can feel like it um it's it's terrible they were just they're trying to have fun and uh 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 um because they're off the streets there but yeah it's it's heartbreaking families 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 yeah we'll donate too yeah uh okay let's kick it back to ourselves in studio okay hot seat cool throne is brought to you by our friends at coors light hot seat cool throne is presented by coors light there are plenty of chances in life to make things better by choosing chill grab every opportunity to choose chilled and reach for a refreshing coors light when mountains turn blue It's as cold as the Rockies. Coors Light is cold lager, cold filtered, cold packaged for a smoother finish.
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Henry, hot seat, cool throne. My hot seat is Jimmy Butler.
Oh, we should talk about Jimmy. Jay Butt.
Old Jay Butt. Old Jay Butt.
Heat culture. Absolute shambles.
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 on the court playing, you should keep your mouth shut. Kind of agree with that.
I don't disagree with Pat Riley saying that because you're going up against the Celtics. 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 i 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 yeah i don't know maybe i'm way off 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, extension time.

Is he bigger than heat culture?

I also-

I saw a tweet from, it's from one of those NBA Central, not 100% legitimate source.

Make sure it's not NBA Central.

No, but it's called- Remember when I thought Draymond Green had a ball sack jewelry made? The Dunk Central is the at. Okay.
That sounds legit. It said that the 76ers are the favorites to land Jimmy Butler in a potential trade.
Oh, that's interesting. So can you imagine how good the Sixers would be if they had Jimmy Butler on them? And Embiid.
Man, that would be a great team. Actually, that's the one sliding doors moment.
Tyrese actually wasn't on that team. Yeah.
It would be a different team. If Jay Butt had been on the Sixers.
Jay Butt, if he was on the Sixers the last, what, four years, I think they'd get a title. Yeah.
Yeah, probably. Probably two.
So 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. I'm about to be 35.
I would like to get paid a lot more money. He gets paid a lot of money, but that's how it works, the NBA.
And then Pat Riley has to decide whether he is too big for Heat culture. I just – it has to suck.
I feel like Jimmyimmy butler is uh such a shit talker which motivates him and makes him be a great player 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 gotta suck yeah but it might jimmy butler might be the one guy who's like now still shit talk he'll He'll shit talk his team for not having the balls to go out there and back up his words.

Yeah.

I also love Pat Riley just any time he gets behind a microphone and roasts people.

Pat Riley is a cool guy.

Yeah.

He's probably the coolest old guy in America right now.

Well, he also...

He's like a mob boss.

Yeah.

He's a mob boss, and whatever they decide to do with Jimmy Butler,

the Heat somehow have just, other than a couple years since they drafted D. Wade, have never really been bad, which is pretty remarkable.
Yeah. They just 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 marriage.
I saw a clip from Shaq's podcast uh where so when he was on the heat i think like jason williams was late for a practice pat riley told him to get the fuck out and then shaq like spoke up for him was like no no like it's cool like you know 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 to pat riley was like yeah you know here's the u-haul address you're gonna be getting boxes soon enough and then he did they got a call later the afternoon like you were getting ready releasing you trading you whatever and he was so mad he tried to show back up to the facility and pat riley had 35 cops there like and they're like yeah we're told you can't come in that's what i'm saying like he pat riley just he knows he culture and he knows when it's expired i think the uh 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. And three titles, what, five or how many? No.
They choked. Four, five, seven trips.
They beat the Celtics every year. Seven trips to the NBA title.
Yeah. They did choke.
They did choke. Well well they turned off the air conditioning in San Antonio yeah but I mean they've they've been very they've been a very well-run organization under Pat Riley I would say so 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 the worst decision decision they've made, the only bad decision that I can think of, is that they retired Jordan's number.
Yeah. Total cuck move.
Total cuck move. Big time cuck move.
Total cuck move. All right, your Cool Throne? Cool Throne's the Met Gala.
Yeah. Yeah, Met Gala.
Do we know what goes on at the Met Gala? We've been trying to figure this out for seven years, I think. Yeah.
No. They just talk about what happened outside the Met Gala.
there's just rich people show up in uh there's some theme what was the theme this year sleeping beauty sleeping beauty oh no garden of time garden of time oh that explains ben simmons briefcase that had the giant clock on it that i thought he was carrying a bomb in there yeah cool clock you want to bring it to school i'm ed uh yeah the mech gal is weird i don't who your guys favorite looks uh i like dead sheeran he looked like he was in dumb and dumber a little bit uh i like the guy who was wearing just an umbrella that's something i would like to wear i like you just you couldn't even see the person underneath it that's kind of a fat woman that wore sand no i did not see No, I did not see the woman that wore sand. How do you wear sand? I don't know, but she did.
She'd get carried up the stairs because she couldn't wear sand. By the way, I loved Lizzo.
Lizzo was serving looks last night. Yeah.
She looked like a paper bag. She did.
She was in Star Wars. I wanted to tip her out.
I wanted to tip her out. She looked like a Star Wars guy.
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. 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.
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 to dave about it i think we're gonna 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 good idea we just come up with a theme uh i think just betting gambling on sports yeah uh let's see the fried food that'd be good yeah it's a good one good theme everyone dresses up like french fry blue blue yeah blue good you you'd be good at this yeah i'll be a chair i need to see that is this the lady that dressed up as sand that doesn't look like that's not sand that's the hottest sand i've ever seen yeah i would yeah if that's sand then uh all the skin on my dick is gone that's some good sand great sand yeah okay good hot seat cool throne hank thanks yeah pft uh yeah hank's really good at taking her hot seat cool thrones i did have the mechal as well 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 think he sits down and ponders, what do you think Big Cat and PFT will say?

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.
That was a wild quote by Aaron Hernandez's wife. I feel bad for her in the fact that her life, you know, the father of her children and her fiance 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 my daughter someday has to watch these jokes and the hero that she thought her dad was is going to be like pierced.
I feel like the murder part would probably be the part where like that. He wasn't a good.
Just a quick Google search. I'll take care of it.
Jokes really weren't the problem. I think it's the murder that probably like one day she's gonna be like, oh, he wasn't a great guy.
She said it's sad. I'm trying to raise my children in such a cruel world uh he murdered murder probably four people yeah that's 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 it's just her and she's like that sucks for me i'm sure it does suck for her to have to hear people but also if you're her why would you tune into the tom brady yeah also that feels like you're opting into specifically hearing jokes about your dead husband and the people i feel bad about uh 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 gotta suck yeah you know what sucked for oj simpson's children was norm mcdonald that was probably when they figured it out that was the worst time yeah but yeah giselle's not she's not happy either also she should been she should have been the last person should have been there yeah she should have roasted him also great who giselle if giselle had roasted tom brady it would have been great obviously would have, but would it have not been great? No.
Yes, it would have. I don't think she would have gone because she just would have just told the truth to him.
Yeah, tell the truth. And that would have been great.
But she avoided a major shot when Bert and Tom did the whole breakdown of what a bad guy Tom Brady is. And they said they started talking about about her they didn't address the fact that she's like a six foot two 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 boom roasted 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 i can't make you come and myself come uh by the way from the fallout of the tom brady roast i like that the uh it does feel like tom brady was being serious when he said no more craft jokes yes yeah people thought that was fake, but the fact that there was never another craft joke made it seem real.
Which even more respect to Tom because he just let all the other jokes fly. Yeah.
Yeah. I think, I think Nikki Glaser went on Howard Stern and said the only things that were off limits were craft and, and Tom's kids, which I I'm fine with that.
Like that's well, maybe not the craft part, but the kids totally fine with that. The craft part.
I feel like he should have, You can make fun of Robert Kraft. That's punching up.
You can make fun of the handjob. She even said in her reason why that she didn't make fun of him because he is so old and powerful.
Yeah. That's exactly who you got to make fun of.
That you should be making fun of. Correct.
Correct. I like the people that are saying Tom Brady saved comedy will compton by letting people by letting people do that i saw some other people okay yeah oh taylor yeah taylor luon yeah and will compton both agreed we can save comedy we'd say the word gay again it's okay comedy yeah uh yeah i uh that was a great roast it was a great road it was very funny and i'm happy that Belichick never shook Robert Kraft's hand.
Yeah. Same.
Yeah. 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 like six months. This guy, he got some sort of a bacterial infection that it progressed within like two weeks and he died.
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.

So one by one.

Did he testify or was he about to testify?

I don't know what the schedule was like for his testifying,

but he was in the process of being a whistleblower.

I think we just need to rebrand whistleblowing.

Yeah.

Because right now you hear whistleblowing and you're like,

ref, fuck him. Yeah, it feels like Boeing.
There's definitely something going on. Yeah.
I would say so. For the last five years.
I'm not suicidal. Neither am I.
The planes have been crashing. Mm-hmm.
I did see one guy say, he just tweeted, he's like, hey, Boeing, he added Boeing. He's like, my bookie's been talking a lot of shit about you guys.
Yeah. I like that tweet.
Yeah, Boeing is the new Hillary. Yeah.
So it's just a heads up. All right.
My hot seat is Scotty Scheffler because the PGA Championship is next week, and he still doesn't have a baby. Interesting.
We've discussed this. The baby thing, that was not Scotty Scheffler's fault.
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 doesn't it apply for PGA Championship now? He's not playing in this week's Wells Fargo, which I'll be calling on the PGA Tour Live.
Okay. That's the signature event.
Right. But isn't that – aren't we getting close? We're a week and a half and there's no baby it'd be funny if you said yeah you know what the masters is one thing but if she goes into labor during the pga championship i can't leave that tournament's too important it's way too important especially after winning the masters he's got a yeah now he has to he has to show up to that yeah some some eggplant parm i heard whitney say that some thai food that's what does it eggplant parm yeah step off a curb that could do it yeah max said uneven surfaces yeah what if i just have sex again could just do that yeah um then you might have twins yeah that's how it works uh all right in my cool throne a story that i i don't know why it's not talked about more, Josh Hart and injuries, because this is a tweet from April 7th from the reporter Fred Katz from New York.
He does athletic. He said, Josh Hart said when he took a half-court heave to end the second quarter, this early April, he felt his wrist click, and it almost clicked back into place.
Said he went to Brunson at the half and told him, I can shoot threes now. This is basically the plot from Rookie of the Year.
This is Rookie of the Year, exactly. And Josh Hart has been shooting a lot better from three, and he's been scoring a lot more.
Is Josh Hart just like, did one injury to his wrist make him a superstar? 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.
Maybe Caitlin Clark could learn a lot from Josh Hart, maybe fall off her bike at one point and fix her mechanics. So Josh Hart is a career 31% or 34% three-point shooter.
Or no, sorry, I'm reading that's his field goal percentage. Either way, in these playoffs, he's like in the 30s.
In these playoffs, he's shooting 43% from three. That's crazy.
Yeah, it's nuts. His wrist clicked and he now can score.
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 where he can shoot a three. But 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. Yeah, that would be bad.
But it's also making me just think about injuring myself until I get good at things. Right.
know 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 you might as well try if you get desperate we'll do it for you yeah we'll be like november and then i'll start doing the crack science shit crack science i like that just start injuring yourself with a scotty sh 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 time.
Finally. Now TikTok 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. Jake, your hot seat, Cool Throne hot seats myself i'm gonna take accountability here oh yeah and uh 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 brandon carlo of the boston bruins had a baby flew down to south florida and scored a goal.
Yeah. Against your hometown team.
Yeah.

Just disappointed in myself.

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

Jesus Christ.

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.

It felt personal, Jake.

Well, now's a good time to get redemption and tell you that Rudy Gobert

just had a baby.

Okay, so should we score should we goal score a goal score a goal yeah no that was a huge huge miss could have really used that winner so i'll pay you guys back thank you yeah how i don't know i don't know yeah no you can't i need thirteen thousand dollars you can you're never going to be able to pay you back for that one yeah that one was a butterfly effect all losses for the next month are kind of on you great yeah uh my cool throne is uh moms this is a psa get your mom's mother's day this sunday yes so just a reminder for literally all the awls we have some stuff in the Barstool store. Just make sure you don't show up empty-handed Sunday.
It kind of sucks that Mother's Day is the same weekend that we changed the clocks. That's the only thing that sucks.
Yeah, because they get one less hour of Mother's Day. Yeah, it's too bad.
Sorry, moms. One less hour of sleep.
Yep. Really, it should be the opposite.
Yeah, it should. We should move the clocks back for Mother's Day instead we're moving them forward.
And Father's Day. Yeah.
What do you think, Hank? This sucks. Right.
Yeah. I genuinely, yep.
That's why they did the Met Gala with the whole time thing. To remind everyone.
That was actually, he was paid by big clocks. Yeah.
How did he get the invite? That's a good question. I don't know.
Isn't it the A-list of A-listers? I think if he just. He had a lot of time.
Yeah. A lot of time.
He's not like he's playing basketball. Interesting.
He's got a lot of time. And he probably, that's probably something you have to agree to months ago.
And he was like, oh, mid, you know, May, no problem. Yeah.
Got no problem being there.

Yeah.

No prior commitments that I can foresee.

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

Get him a free subscription to Pardon My Take.

We'll make a graphic.

We'll put out a graphic maybe on Friday's show,

one free subscription to all mothers.

Because we love moms so much on this show. I love mom.
I love moms. Yeah.
Uh, okay. Good job.
Hot seat. Cool.
Throwing everyone. Uh, let's get to some interviews.
The Vern Lundquist and Kirk Goldsberry PFT before we do to go to Vern Lundquist. Let's go.
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Order yours now at pardonmycheesesteak.com. It's pardonmycheesesteak.com, and you can use promo code pmc20 pmc20 for 20 off your order at participating locations and now here's verne lundquist okay we now welcome on a very very very special guest an absolute legend of the game it is verne lundquist he is the voice of many of our favorite memories in sports.
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? Because we don't want to lose Vern Lundquist and you calling some of the greatest moments of our lives? I think it's a little late to call King's X, especially because CBS was so kind and all of my colleagues were at Augusta two weeks ago. It was a lavish goodbye, which was deeply appreciated by me.
But I've told a couple of other folks. I'm 83 years old.
I have a mild case of COPD. 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.
We could get over those. Listen, if they just have a Vern Lundquist opt-in broadcast, I would opt in every single time.
It's like, hey, he might not call it perfectly, but it doesn't matter. We just want to hear your voice.
Well, I appreciate that, guys. But I'm going to sidle off into retirement uh my wife and i have been married 42 years we celebrated our first anniversary at augusta in 1983 and uh we celebrated our 42nd there uh two weeks ago so not only for me but also for my wife n Nancy, it's a very, very, very special place.

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 all those great moments happened

on 16 because Vern was there in his little tree stand looking down and you made all that

happen.

But did you ever think that the very last thing that we would see at augusta is uh a picture of tiger woods shaking hand with a tree and people saying tiger bidding farewell to the goat verne lundquist and it's just a tree with a hand sticking out of it well there's another view of that maybe and and i understand that uh that uh tiger was on jimmy fallon's show last week. I'm not sure when it was, but I've seen video of it, and there was a great sport made of the fact that he seemed to be.
I was behind a tree, and there is another shot of Tiger in me. Guys, I had three goals going into what I knew was going to be my last one.
I wanted to meet Scotty Sheffer. I'd never met him.
I did that. I wanted to say goodbye to Tiger.
I was able to do that. 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 mission accomplished, as the old television show used to say.
Yeah. I mean, so it's talking about the Masters specifically.
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 my call of some of these iconic moments specifically the tiger chip in like that's what elevates a sports moment to something that i your your voice is just like bouncing in my brain when i think about that shot and and have you had a moment where you're like that's pretty cool that i am i am so intertwined with some iconic iconic sports moments yes it Yes, believe me.
And I think as a broadcaster, first of all, I get it. There's a sports commentator or broadcaster or announcer, whatever term you want to use.
Yes, down distance, fact, who has the ball, what's the pitch count. That's all important.
But essentially, we make our living as storytellers. And I think your purpose in doing this is to give the viewer or the listener a reason to care about the outcome.
And you do that by narratives. And you do that by telling stories, anecdotal information, both good and bad, positive and negative, about the people involved, the teams involved, or the management involved.
And 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.

And more often than not, I've been blessed. First of all, 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 but you hope that something memorable breaks out, and then you pray to the heavens that you're capable of adding commentary that is purposeful and suitable for the topic.
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 topic. 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.
Yeah, you've done a great job of that. 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 and the stadium on the course wherever you happen to be calling it.
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? I had three mentors the oldest of whom I doubt you

guys have been made aware of. 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 uh he was he called he was one of the announcers on the first one or two super Bowls but here when Bart Starr and and Boyd Dowler were the stars of the Packers back in the 60s, and here was a typical Ray Scott call. Starr, Dowler, touch it.
Well, hell, they can see what's going on. You don't need a whole lot more than that for that moment.
The other was the late Frank Gleiber, who's long forgotten, and that is a pitiable shame. Frank was a friend and a mentor of mine.
We lost him at the age of 51. He died of a heart attack while jogging, ironically.
But he was a master of all trades. And he said to me once, Vern, 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. And then watch videotape of other guys who have done it, whom you think do it well, and borrow liberally.
And so I've done that. And then the third was Pat Summerall.
Pat was lucky enough to work with Pat for 25 years. He was the best I've ever seen at counterpunching.
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.

Right.

And the guy from the truck, Bob Stenner, producer, Sandy, having a senior moment here, Sandy Grossman, his director.

They would, John was the great, greatest one I've ever seen mastering minutiae. And he could make something out of nothing.
But Pat always had the perfect counter punch to bring, you know, it's third and eight. Something, John, get back to the business.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Pat was a minimalist too.
So those three guys I tried to emulate over the course of my career. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
And Pat was a minimalist too. So those three guys, I tried to emulate over the course of my career.
Yeah. All right.
I got a dumb question for you. Uh, 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. 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? Yeah, I'm a genetic product.
My dad was a Lutheran minister, and he died 25 years ago, but my dad had a great voice. And fortunately, I was born in the Midwest, in Duluth, Minnesota.
We lived there for two years. 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. But I'm the oldest of five.
And 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. 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, God can be drawing it out. And fortunately, I've got a Midwest accent, which I think is desirable as sports commentary.
You don't want to offend the middle of a country, and you don't want to draw your attention. You don't want to sound like you came from Boston or Brooklyn either, or be super cool and pretend like you came from LA.
Yeah. So but I'm the genetic beneficiary.
And the laugh is the same thing. He had this huge laugh and I inherited that.
Sometimes I laugh at inappropriate moments, but that's okay. It's who I am.
Yeah. Yeah.
Is there any moment, because we broadcast for a living, we do this show, and sometimes five minutes after we're done, I might be getting in my car, I'm like, Oh, I should have said this. I remember it.
Is there, 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. Well, I've made mistakes and those are the ones you regret.
I mean, I'll never forget. I was doing a Buffalo Bills broadcast, and they had a number 86 and a number 89.
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 I had the wrong number. 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 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. And you're not doing the job for which you were hired.
And we all make them. It's a live telecast.
But you want to be prepared. God, you feel awful when that happens.
Just awful. And it saves women for a couple of days.
Well, I would say that you've had a lot more iconic moments, and one of them being in the SEC, the kick six. 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.
I mean, you must have been on cloud nine having a moment like that happen in front of you. Yeah, I was.
I was. Two weeks before that, we had done Auburn and Georgia.
And Auburn, and my partner was Gary Danielson. And Auburn had the lead.
And no, Georgia had the lead. And Auburn had a fourth down and 18 at their own 25-yard line.
And the quarterback, a guy named Nick Marshall, threw the ultimate Hail Mary. And the two 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 bumped into each other, tipped it.
It went forward. A wide receiver named Ricardo Lewis reached behind him, grabbed it, in for the touchdown.
So we get on camera at the end of the game, and Gary says, it's the greatest finish in college football you have ever seen. You will never, ever, ever see anything like that.
Two weeks. Two weeks? Yeah, two weeks.
We had Chris Davis with the missed kick. And Gary, you know, the Auburn guys made a substitution during a long time now.
And we all thought it was, first of all, Matt Austin was the referee. He's a good friend.
We bonded over that game, as a matter of fact. And Matt is the guy who they took him seven minutes to determine, if you remember this, in 2013, so 11 years ago, if TJ yeldon's foot had come down with time out or time

remaining and it took them seven minutes and they were asking the truck to synchronize this main

game coverage with the end zone and get them and it took seven minutes and then matt austin came on

please put one second back on the clock. And they did.
Well, we all thought that Nick was irritated, to put it mildly, with his senior place kicker. So they put this redshirt freshman kid on the field for a 57-yard field goal.
And he hit a pretty good kick. He really did.
But Chris Davis grabbed it and got a block, got another block, and all of a sudden about the 50-yard line, I thought, holy cow. There's nobody in front of him.
Yeah. And then when he got to the end zone, I looked and i said there are no flags and then that moment comes through your body and you think dear god don't let there be any flags right right right because yeah there were yeah because we're watching at home and we're thinking you always think of a big play like that you're like all right give it, give it a beat because you never know.
You're looking for that.

Alabama fans are probably like, there has to be a flag here. You're just staring at the bottom line of their TV for 30 seconds after that play's over, hoping that yellow icon closes up.
But you added that line adds to the moment so much. Yeah.
Well, and Gary, we only showed three replays. I was stunned.
But our director was Steve Milton, who still does college football, and he does all of our golf. And Steve's one of the most brilliant directors ever.
And then Gary and I laid out during the replay for a minute and 21 seconds, which is an attorney if you're a talking dog and uh the late don drysdale gave me that nickname one quick at the end of the day just face the fact you and me ain't nothing but talking dogs that's great i love that so wait 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? Oh, yeah. But he had the great line.
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.
It's a fact. Perfect summation.
Yeah. It really was.
Yeah. What's the most fun name to say in sports? Oh, I've got one.
And I don't mean to make fun of a guy, but inevitably I'd mention him. He played for LSU.
And I collect names. I mean, I'm a big aficionado of why people are named what they are.
Barkevious Mingo. Yeah, that's a fun one to say.
That's a great one. It just rolls off to the Barkevious Mingo.
And I think he was a linebacker 20 years ago at LSU. But that was one of my favorites.
It really was. So speaking of names, when did you – so your first name is Merton.
When did you decide to make the switch? Thank you. Thank you for bringing that up.
Well, Vern is so – again, it might just be because we've known you for so long watching but when when

was that switch made it was a great switch by you i want to say that right now fantastic my full name is merton laverne lundquist jr the junior is important yep my siblings David, Dan, Tom, Sharon.

What the hell?

So you're barely. important yep my siblings david dan tom sharon what the hell so your parents your parents just took a shot they're like hey there's our first kid let's just take a shot here my dad went by merton they tagged me with laverne so i went through high school college and and i as a man of unclear purpose.
I have no idea what, I got a degree in sociology and a minor in history from Texas to Lutheran University, graduated in 62. I had no idea what I wanted to do, 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.
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.
And I, you know, but I swore to myself, you're going to make it through one year. 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.

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. 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. I want to put you on from 9 to midnight, but there's no way in God's green earth you're going on my radio station as Laverne.
So the compromise was to drop the LMEA off. And I've been burned since I was 23 years old.
So 60 years now. But to this day, Nancy and I are blessed.
We have a home, a condo here in Austin, but our full-time home is in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. And if someone calls and they ask for Laverne, Nancy will pick up the phone and she said, Honey, it's someone either from Austin High or Texas Wizard.
Yeah. Because that's how they knew me.
Yeah. That's funny.
You brought up your wife. We have to ask you to tell the story of how you met yeah mr steal your girl so we've heard about it but we'd like you to tell the story we want to hear it from verne well okay uh uh we met in 1980 in in uh in in dallas I was recently divorced.
Nancy had been divorced about seven, eight years, I think, at that point. And I'll give you the full story because we've got a little bit of time.
So as a recently divorced, and I lived in what is called the mid-cities. I was working at the ABC affiliate in Dallas and doing the 6 and 10, and I also had the cowboy job at the time.
And I lived 23 miles from downtown Dallas, and I didn't want to go home. I was lonely.
So I went to this upscale discotheque. That dates it.
This would have been a week before Nancy and I met.

So early March of 1980.

And a young man, I walked in and had a scotch and water sitting at the bar.

And a young kid came over and said, Mr. Lundquist, I don't mean to be presumptuous,

but what are you doing in here?

And I said, what are you talking about?

He said, look out there on the dance floor. Do you see anybody your age? And I said, good point by you.

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 think you might find people your age. 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.
So I walked into this upscale. It was an upscale bar.
And I was just coat and tie because I had just come from work. Nancy who became my wife was sitting at the bar with her date, a blind date 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 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. She still does.
And so this Raymond, he said, I know you recently divorced. I don't want to take proprietorship over your life, but I don't want you hanging around single sports.
He said, I got a schoolteacher. This is a Tuesday night.
Can you make time between the 6 and 10? And yeah, because all I do is update scores and rewrite some copy. Let's go to dinner.
And I've got a date. The schoolteacher lined up.
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 out a restaurant. 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.
I asked her to dance. And I had five minutes at most, I knew.
So we're out in 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. What are you doing Saturday night? And she told me that she is she said i think i'm doing whatever you're doing so good incredible mr still we had our first day in march 22nd uh 1980 and because we had been both married before we took our time we we We did.
We waited a couple years and got married in 82. And she's charming.
Yeah. She was impressed with her dancing.
Yeah. Wait.
So did you go on the double date or no? Did you cancel the double date? No, I know. I called and canceled.
You know, I said, I'm really, we got late, late breaking scores here, right?

Oh, that's, I mean, listen, if you're, if you're the, the course distributor and you

lose out on your date to Vern Lundquist, there's worse, there's worse fates out there.

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

So, and, and there was a third guy there who was Raymond Willie's stockbroker, a fellow named Paul Bass. And so Nancy had given me her telephone number, and I had nothing to write it down with, so I still remember it.
She said, just imagine a dial tone, 361-9189. And so I'm thinking 361.
So now I'm driving a company-issued red Chevrolet. And I was a heavy smoker back in those days.
And there were cigarette burns all over the den. No God.
And Raymond pulls up in a silver Rolls Royce. and I thought the competition has suddenly gotten stiffer than i thought it was gonna be but uh that was a thursday night and and on friday i kept calling she was she did radio television commercials in dallas she was quite successful for a number of years.
But she had a sideline job as a receptionist in between auditions at a place called The Company. And I kept calling.
I called her. Nancy's at an audition.
I called at noon. I called at 2.
I called at 4. And I said, at 5 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, 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.
I don't know Raymond, will he know raymond willie oh okay well in that case we'll go out for a date oh i love that we have a friend paul bissonet that could he could take some tips from you about how to handle a situation like that oh that's such a great story yeah that's such a great story uh in terms of so we talked about the kick six obviously Tigers chip 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 it was absolutely spur of the moment

you've got to be reacting you've got to be react you've got to

you two rules you cannot

predetermine what you're going to say and there are guys who have done that

Thank you. You've got to be reacting.
Two rules. 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.

But you've just got to react to the moment. So I said what I did because 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 uh 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 fellow yeah to get full credit uh the front of 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.

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.

Back then, there were 54 monitors in front of him.

And he's the guy who says,

Thank you. is the technical director so and Steve's looking at a monitor 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 the guy next to me the camera guy was a guy named Bob wish me from Philadelphia he's retired now and he was camera 10 so when Tiger lined up for the chip shot first first of all, Lanny Watkins was in the tower, and Tiger's fellow competitor at the time, playing partner now, was Chris DeMarco.
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 that it slowed down.

And so that was the background.

Now, Steve Milton says, camera 10, ready 10, take 10.

And Norm Patterson, the technical director, then pushes a button.

That's camera 10.

That's what you see in your living room.

So ready 10, take 10.

He takes 10.

That's Wishley. And Tiger hits hits the chip and bob zooms in and and has a perfect perfect shot of the ball and stays in focus the whole way now it starts down and when it gets near the lip of the cup steve said ready six take six well six is over here uh 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 intuitively did not take six.
He stayed with 10. And because he made that decision, we all saw the wall drop had he followed the director's command really not that not advice had he followed it you would have seen the reaction shot tiger you would have we'd have played it back but if you think about it it everything.
Everything about it. I'll remember that shot.

Now here's the sad part of it. Norm,

that was in April, of course, in 2005. The following

January, our first event of the year

was La Jolla in San Diego.

Norm was out jogging and dropped dead of a heart attack at 41 years of age. And he was from Cincinnati.
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 yeah you know that was what oh five 19 years ago holy cow but i mean it's it's a great story because it shows just how much goes into having these moments that for us as as as viewers, they just go across seamlessly and they happen.

And you're like, oh my God, this just happened.

It's incredible.

And every decision that comes in,

all the pieces that go together for a puzzle

to make a perfect moment.

I mean, first of all, no one would manufacture

something they're going to say at a first time.

But you just got to react to what's going on. You you really it's a reactionary business so so to speak yeah yeah and you've seen so much sports like you said i i think i saw a clip of you covering the the texas rangers in their first season back in spring training you had some bell bottoms on you had a nice flow going looking good like a disco shirt it was uh wasn't there.
There's no shame in the internet. No, no, it's forever.
I've seen that clip. Holy cow.
And you've seen so much sports throughout the years. I'd like to hear from your perspective, 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, you know, multi-billion dollar industries? What's changed over the years? Well, the two biggest changes, both of which help drive Nick Saban into retirement, are Trent, Portland You know, I mean, these kids now, how much are you going to pay me? Or if you don't pay me, if you don't guarantee I'm starting and paying me, I'm transferring.
I'm going to Central Michigan. And Nick, I don't know that.
I think Nick has now said, oh yeah, that drove me nuts.

I'm pretty good friends with him. You know, you do that many Alabama games over the years, and we became, I would say we're friends.
I know we are. And then having said that, then you worry about does that impede on any prejudicial comments you might make? I hope not.
I think I'm a better broadcaster than that. Yeah.
But I need to worry about that. Yeah.
Because I admire him. And I know Nick is one of my favorites.
And 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.
And unfortunately, in many cases, he wasn't. Yeah, he had, a system SID, who's now at Arkansas State, athletic director.
But I asked the SID, I said, oh, to Nick. I said, Nick, you know, they're just trying to do a job.
Yes, sometimes they ask stupid questions. But they're young.
And the SID said, well, he belittles them because they deserve it. And I thought, oh, nah.
You know, I haven't talked to Nick since he retired. By the way, I thought he was a superstar during the draft.
Yeah, he was. He was fantastic.
He was. Natural on TV.
He was fantastic. All right, so Vern, I got a couple last questions.
One is the – so you had these iconic calls. So many – I mean, Christian Leitner's shot, like, doesn't he – you know what I mean? Like, that's one of – that's probably a top three 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? I would say two of them. I did a talk show after the Leitner shot once with a guy named Stake Shapiro in Atlanta.
And he said, are you really proud of that Leitner call? And said no I'm not I just channeled my inner noir of Albert you know and when I went in I went yes not exactly evocative and brilliant commentary but again it was a reaction I get asked a lot about that because I've been so lucky over the years. And, I mean, how do you separate Jack in 86 and Tiger in 05? Yeah.
And how lucky am I to have those two guys associated with my resume? You just, I mean, that's rarefied air, and I know that. And 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. But Jack is six months older than I am, a fact of which I never let him forget.
Whenever I can bring it up. But 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. And Jack said, let's have a little fun.
It was his idea. And so someone had a cell phone camera.
And Jack said, on the count of three, three, two, one. And then we simultaneously punched the air and yelled, yes, sir.
That was going to the grave with me. I mean, that was so, you know, tiger shaking hands with the tree.
And Jack yelling, yes, sir, simultaneously with me. That all of that made that that week.
Oh, and the other part of it is I've had two really serious back surgeries, one in 17 and one in 19. I have degenerative scoliosis.
So for the last three or four years, I had done the 16th and the 6th from the content center. 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 the room and calling it off the monitor, but I swore to my boss,

Sean McManus and to our producer,

in this case,

seller shy.

I want,

I want to be on the course for the last Saturday and Sunday. So they accommodated that.
The main tower was 20 steps behind the green. Too much.
It got me the bad back. But there was a flanker tower, and that's where I was.
It was only six steps up. And it was crowded up there.
It was myself and Tracy Levine, a wonderful lady who is my statistician slash spotter and a camera guy. But I got up there, and it was just like such a relief, emotional relief for me to finish out 40 years in a tower at the 16th hole.
Yeah. It's phenomenal.
Yeah. And then Jim was more than gracious, you know, in his saying goodbye.
We talked about those two iconic calls. I'll give you another one.
Who the hell is Happy Gilmore? Love that one. The gift that keeps on giving.
Yeah. Yes.

Okay. So there's a background story there.
That movie is now released in 1996. I shot all the scenes in which I was involved in one day in Vancouver, British Columbia.
They had shot all the outdoor scenes all the golf scenes um with at whistler north of vancouver but for for the scenes where i was involved they had rented a vacant hospital building and adam sandler was there and so the morning of the shoot uh we're gathered at 7 a.m and and 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.

And he said, I got an idea.

Let's have an inside joke.

And he looked at this tall, good-looking guy.

His name was Jack Jorapudo. He said, he said Jack over to the hair and makeup get a blue

blazer and a red tie or whatever it was and I want you to sit next to burn for every scene and it's just a psychic you're not allowed to say a word because you do not belong to the Screen Actors guilt. So that's Jack sitting next to me, just nodding.
And it's to him, I say, who the hell is Happy Gilmore? And he was Adam Sandler's roommate at New York University's film school. And he's now, if you watch these Sandler movies, he's the executive producer of Same.
Yeah. And I've got a picture back in Colorado of that whole group, Sandler and Jack and Den Stugan and the shaggy-haired caddy.
I don't think Shooter McGavin is in it. I don't remember.
But it's the coolest damn movie ever ever made but wildly popular yeah wildly a great a great great movie all right so i have one last question this has been so much fun last question rowback question rhoback.com promo code take 20 off your first purchase q-zips polos hoodies joggers shorts uh not to beboys for a second, but is there any way, my last question, is there any way you can say, welcome to part of my take, yes sir. That would be great for us.
We'll play it for our personal files. Or maybe welcome to part of my take, this is Vern Lundquist, yes sir.
Welcome to part of my take. I'm Vern Lundquist.
Yes sir's good that's it that's perfect can we get you to say who the hell is henry lockwood that's our producer he's he's a golfer he's terrible i could get him a golf cart with him then i was nothing good either i could talk about it but i couldn't do it yeah uh who the hell is henry lawler yeah that's good i like it burn thank you so much this has been so much so great for us we really are uh so appreciative of your time and uh best of luck in retirement but also maybe come out of retirement. Yeah.
Yeah.

You never know.

Yeah.

You never know, do you?

Yeah.

Let's leave it open.

Okay, guys.

All right.

Thanks so much, Vern.

All right.

See you.

Bye-bye.

Vern Lundquist was brought to you by our great friends over at Visible.

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Switch now at visible.com. And now, here's Kirk Goldsberry.
And now for something completely different. Okay, we now welcome on our very good friend.
It is Kirk Goldsberry in studio. And it is also the day that his new book is out.
Hoop Atlas, Mapping the Remarkable Transformation of the Modern NBA. You can buy it on Amazon today.
You can buy it on Amazon tomorrow yeah buy it on Amazon for the rest of time probably probably so it's 23% off today in honor of Michael Jordan okay so if you like Michael Jordan or books there we're ready to go so it's also perfect that you're here uh in this specific moment in the NBA playoffs because uh it feels like the pendulum has swung all the way back around and Jokic sucks again. I thought you were going to say defense matters.
No, Jokic is getting harmed. Your take on Jokic from a couple years ago saying that he lacks some traits defensively that you'd like to have.
I don't actually think he sucks. 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, both offensively but defensively as well, where Jokic is just flailing around. They're putting him and Jamal Murray in pick-and-roll.
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 insane. 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.
And I went on with our friend Ryan Russillo and was like, yeah, the reason Minnesota might do this is they're young and athletic and aggressive and ferocious and you know Nikoli Okic is the best offensive center in the world and it's not close 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 last year they pieced it together well enough to win hand as you guys like to say. I was wrong.
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, game one, is Denver scored 80 points.
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 it reminds me and you guys like when i put things in nfl terms but this is the 2000 ravens through these first six i like that i like that i like that huh who's killed a guy stay tuned but you know they scored 80 points last night 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 said oh did yokich and murray both get hurt 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 rud didn't play. Right, yeah.
Right. And so 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. It's crazy.
Yeah, it is. The first half was especially atrocious last night, watching the Nuggets just struggle.
It seems like, how many steals did they have? I think they had 11 steals in the game. Yeah, 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 ears.
They're playing defense. And it's especially in the context of this season, PFT, where offense, offense, offense, offense.
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. And it's awesome.
If you like hoops, it's awesome to watch these guys just lock up some of the best players in the world. So how much of that is coaching and how much is the individual defensive efforts? Both.
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 that's the smallest margin they've had all year in that metric.
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. They're in the right place.
So Chris Finch for schemes and then the roster is just full of those dudes that are dogs they got the dog in them they 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 um so it's a perfect storm yeah and Anthony Edwards has been the story of these playoffs his uh leap because he was before, but the leap he's taking right now, I mean, you statistically are looking at it like it's clear that he has made that leap and he's playing 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 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 kick-ass mentality and then smiling when he's doing that's jade m 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, and here's a dumb stat, the dude's 22 years old. I know.
This is like people compared 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 Lew Alcindor, 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 were the only other three guys that had scored 35 plus.
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 time.
Right. That's the difference.
Like last year, if you look at the stats or the year before, he had the stats, but the efficiency is what has gone. And he even said it.
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.
And now you're seeing what has happened to my game. And you go back to his draft year, right? And the intel was, does this guy like basketball? Is he competitive? He's crazy to think.
It's like the exact opposite. I know.
It goes to show you what a pseudoscience some of this NBA draft stuff is is but a lot of the intel around this guy was completely wrong it couldn't have been more incorrect yeah that one shot to the fadeaway he had where he was double teamed uh on on monday night that was where i was like okay these mj comparisons like they're starting to to like i see what people are saying well he hit the shrug right after that well yeah and he also said he didn't want to be compared to and to him and then he hit the shrug. He hit the shrug.
Yeah, it was interesting. It's so much fun to watch.
It was a good shrug though. He like nailed it.
I get bummed out when it's a non-Anthony Edwards night. I'm like, where's Anthony Edwards? I want to watch Anthony Edwards.
American basketball. He's the hero that American basketball needs.
I know you like this thing I had earlier in the season about like are these foreign guys stealing our jobs because the all-nba team is all foreign players and we haven't won an mvp in what like seven years yeah and i was saying that like you can really chart out with yokich donchich sga who's canadian now when benyama and yannis a path to 2030 where we go a full decade without an mvp now anthony edwards two weeks has said something to say to that. I like to build the wall, Anthony.
Yeah, let's make this a USA argument. Make the Slovenians pay for that.
He's also – I can't wait for the Olympics because it's always fun. We should win the gold.
But one of the things about watching the Olympics is watching all these guys interact and having a moment where it's like, Anthony Edwards is kind of league now. Like LeBron's older, Kevin Durant's older.
Like, will that show up? Or it's like, no, he's the dude now. Yeah, Team USA Basketball, which I got to work for in 2016, was one of my favorite experiences.
But the 2012 team had sort of this vibe too, Big Cat, where Kevin Durant was a baby coming out of the university of texas no big deal but on a team won a lot of championship kobe and lebron and chris paul uh i forget everybody was on but it's incredible and he was he was the 22 year old 21 year old you can look it up but he was the leading scorer in that tournament right and it was like oh my god like kevin durant and um 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 I mean it's like it's the dream team in 92 I know MJ had already won titles but like the the the 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 and he already just destroyed Kevin and uh you know uh Devin Booker who is competing for the starting spot on that team in the backcourt. That's obviously going to Ant-Man now.
It's just one of the things that makes the NBA playoffs so good is this kind of thing. 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.
Him and Jalen Brunson, because we had the argument before the playoffs. I'm very particular with the phrase superstar.
I think it's a list of five to seven guys, 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. They are now on the path to superstardom in the league.
Yeah, I didn't were such a he's a he's a gatekeeper well i just think it's you know but we had a good steven che here i he was like i he listed his superstars it was literally just every all-star so jalen brunson's not a superstar he's on his way i think you have to do it 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. 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. Yeah, they got laughed at.
Yeah, I laughed at them. It's just like the Anthony Edwards draft intel.
If you go back to that transaction, people are like, oh, whatever. And who would have thought the Mavs? Now think about it from the Mavs perspective.
I know. 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. Yeah, he's on the way to superstardom now.
Like, that's how quickly it can change. 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. 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 superstardom. Yeah, and the shots that he made in game one against Indiana down the stretch were definitely big boy shots.
Yeah. Like, I love the way he plays.
I mean, undersized guys, we just guys we just love it the two feet in the paint it almost looks like a college basketball player and jay wright deserves a lot of credit i joke for for making the knicks so good with dante divincenzo and josh hart who's also just this phenomenal sort of emergent player do you we were going to ask you this we talked about it uh on our hot seat cool throne but do you know the story about josh hart uh like hurting his wrist in early april and he 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 you got to find some stats on that maybe go back yeah find me april 7th and he said that he could shoot threes now he is shooting threes and a way better clip than he ever has in his career. Sounds like potential nerd nugget material, Jim.
Yeah. I don't know where he is.
It's crazy, though. Yeah, I'm April 7th.
Because, yeah. You need a graphic.
Nick Nurse, 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. I was talking to one of the Bulls assistants last night, and they're like, yeah, we just used to leave Josh Hart open.
I need more. His wrist clicks.
His 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.

Oh, man.

You got to fight.

We need a stack.

Steve Ballmer needs a mallet.

I'll send you it right now.

Somebody attack Russell Westbrook's wrist.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

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.

Yeah.

I'm going to send you it right now, and we'll get a new graphic that you can put together,

his shooting percentage since that happened.

Yeah.

We'll do it.

It was... and then sew it back on, then he'll be good again.
Yeah. I'm going to send you it right now, and we'll get a new graphic that you can put together, his shooting percentage since that happened.
We'll do it. We'll do it for the social.
But I think you're right. They're saying this Tommy John surgery in baseball.
These guys come back with their UCL, and I know Blake has got a UCL injury going on. Two of them.
Is he doing the V-load? Is he throwing way to baseballs? Yeah, we had him throwing a curveball way too early yeah i called him blake up to grom yeah yeah 85 yeah uh bark prior there's all sorts of nicknames being thrown around about him but so i want to get back to the nuggets real quick uh jamal murray he has had uh kind of an up and down playoff so far 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. 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? Yeah, and or jump shots.
I mean, he was an absolute killer last year on the perimeter making his jump shots. 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, he has been just not himself. He was just making all of those big shots last last year like you said and and i think he's obviously frustrated and and one of the things we don't do well enough in basketball and i think football discourse as well is like you know what makes scoring hard is really good defense and we already talked about minnesota's defense 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. And I think Minnesota is the exact wrong team to try to sort of get warm

up against right now. And so Jamal Murray, he's definitely hurt.
He's not himself. He's cold.

And the Lakers are pretty good defense too. So it's just a perfect storm in my opinion yeah yeah and also out in the west and we can just talk about this quickly um the suns we watched the suns and we said the suns they really suck the suns are shitty can you tell us why they suck and why they're shitty like get get nerdy with it because it's the eyeball test for us we're like oh this team just sucks yeah I'll give you two big indicators that I like to look at.
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. 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 offense 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 and a lot of the best teams with even with like Rudy Gobert Anthony Edwards these guys can get dunksks and layups. 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.
Got shooting. All right, so in the West, it feels like we haven't seen the Thunder in forever.
Is that what you said? You said pussies? Yeah, he's pussies. They're pussies.
What's that now? The sound went out on my head. The Thunder, we haven't seen them play in forever.
Thunder fans are mad that we haven't talked about them. They made quick work of the Pelicans and it was also weird scheduling because it was off nights for us.
I love watching the Thunder play because they have another young nucleus that is so much fun. We're taping this right before the Mavs Thunder.
Tell us what you think is going to happen in this series and why the Thunder could potentially win it all. We haven't seen them play in forever.
It's crazy. 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 Rich Williams.
He scored two points. Wow.
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. They are young, and I think they are deep, and they are built for long-term success.
But speaking of this year's opponent with the Dallas Mavericks,

I think this series is pretty close to a coin flip for me.

I'll give the edge to the Thunder just because they have home court

and that's a really tough place to play.

When I was at the Spurs, we went up there and we'd get our butts kicked a lot

and that crowd is nuts.

Lead the league in putting on the shirts.

They have a huge 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. Obviously, Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving can both win a playoff game on the road if they need to.
But the Thunder, great defense, and it all starts with sga who is the most active rim attacking he can score on all three levels but he's a playmaking guard who's just perfect to to start an offensive possession with and he's you know the most drive happy guard in the nba and uh 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 at the deadline and then became one of the statistically best defenses.
So it's sort of this Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde. 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. And we've talked a lot about the West.
There's an imbalance still in 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 is there a reason anytime a league divides itself in half it is setting itself up for imbalance like this arbitrary division whether it's the american league and 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. But the small market teams, I did look into this PFT, have just been the best.
To compete with the Lakers, they had to get smart in the Moneyball era, right? So Moneyball comes out in 2003. The Spurs are winning with smarts.

The Nuggets, the Thunder, 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.

But they're smarter with international players.

They're smarter with analytics.

They're smarter with sports science.

There's just a disproportionate amount of those genius teams in the small markets in the western conference interesting genius teams genius teams in the west that's my new book and so the uh the lakers are not they're not a genius team they're just the lakers 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 and the lakers have uh sort of disproportionate access to that free agency level yeah yeah you know and you talk about san antonio or oklahoma city but you guys just cheat in the draft 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 kawaii leonard to come to us in free agency he might depart uh 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 and it turns out that might be a better way to build a basketball team it's it's we we've talked about a theme of these playoffs is it feels like maybe the super team era is kind of fading away where it's like you see these teams but the the thunder the Wolves, these homegrown teams. 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? Chris Thompson, Derek White's like, well, they were smart with who they traded for and how they maneuvered everything. It does feel like we're getting back to this more organic team building, and I love it.
I think it's better for the NBA. Yeah, I think the super team era sort of starts.
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. 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? It's Anthony Edwards and this Minnesota team that is very deep.
It's the Thunder that are very deep, Luka Doncic and the Mavs. So I think that is a fair take, and I hope it's better basketball.
Yeah, it is. It it is cooler and if the small markets are able to compete it's better for the league too do you have advanced analytics on lou dort and his defense yeah of course i mean he's an absolute maniac he's just a pest he's a pest he's built like a brick house and he is long and he the biggest thing is does he have that dog in him and he's got in him.
Yeah. I like that.
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.
That's a formula you should come up with maybe for next year. Okay.
It's like where you reach dog stats. We can help you.
Yeah. Yeah, let's do that.
It's not just like scoring or – Technical fouls. Stats.
That's one of them. There's a lot that goes into dog.
Throw the ball into the stands. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
That's good. That's a lot of dog.
Run to the locker room and tweet about your podcast right after the game. That's dog.
Yeah, but I think steals and blocks are like the traditional wands. But yeah, do you show up on defense? 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 i think clapping in another player's face after a turnover that's a big time dog move that's a dog move i would also add clapping another player's face when they miss a foul shot yeah dog what about like filipowski like tripping or kicking he was was here today.
We talked. I talked to him briefly.
Is that dog stuff or no? He's got a 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. 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 DeMarlin we don't want to do that i think about those guys all the time together yeah prayers for kyle the league could have changed forever we could have probably ended basketball it was scary yeah frightening moment really scary yeah okay so the one team we didn't mention or the series we didn't mention is celtics and calves cocky hank is all the way back we've 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 yeah i call it you know there's the g league i call the eastern conference the e league uh so cocky hank should be cocky in part because the the draw as we would say in march madness they have the easy bracket yeah and uh no disrespect to the pacers or or the knicks or certainly the cavaliers but you look at the four remaining teams in the West, Big Cat, come on. Yeah.
They could all win the championship. And I just don't think that about the Indianapolis Pacers, Indiana Pacers, or the Cleveland Cavaliers.
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. But part of that is because they're a great freaking basketball team and they are as deep as it it gets.
And yeah, they're going to get to the finals, in my opinion. 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.
But what about specifically Chris Stapps? Because he's out several, no, minimum of several games. What does that change, though, for their team? You'd imagine al horford's going to play more yeah i'd see some luke cornett but what like does that affect their ceiling drastically when christoph's not playing yeah 100 it's one piece they have to take off the chessboard out of the rotations and what he's really good at is spacing the floor on offense he can stand 28 feet out and shoot threes bring that opposing that opposing big out.
If Jared Allen's able to play or Evan Mobley, essentially taking them out. 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 frontcourt is a meaningful thing. 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 Kristaps. 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 lose some games on purpose? Oh.
Give him more time to get back? I like how you're thinking. Well, they do have the set.
The NBA does have a set start date for the the nba finals so they could just like there's there's only if there's all sweeps from yeah on there's still we're gonna have to take a break yes we hit the pause button 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 they're

doing that again yeah i guess that never occurred to me yeah they're trying i hope i hope they find

luck i stand by my take i still think they should intentionally lose some games to the calves

really i think how many are you thinking i think two but that would just hurt their rest no they

should lose two games in all seriousness donovan mitchell is a one of those dudes who could just

go out and win a game yeah he'll steal a game he could definitely steal a game and and you know

Boston, if you Mitchell is one of those dudes who could just go out and win a game. Yeah, he'll steal a game.
He could definitely steal a game. And, you know, Boston, if it's tight, one of their weaknesses is this late game execution.
If Cleveland can get healthy, I think they can make this a series. But ultimately I think the Celtics are just too much, too deep, even without Kristaps.
What about the analytics on Cleveland? I don't love when they play both their centers. It feels weird and awkward, and it feels like they're a better team when Jared Allen or Evan Mobley is out by themselves.
I don't know if you did the research, but I've seen that exact thing. When one of them is out, they seem to have a better net rating, better defensive efficiency.
Last year when both of them were playing at a very high level, they had one of the best defenses in league but this year you saw that actually and the numbers backed it up is is this Jared Allen Evan Mobley thing really good because it's two non-shooters 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 and Cleveland was trying to do that with both Jared Allen from Austin Texas no big deal but also uh Evan Mobley just doesn't stretch the floor very well at this point yeah so if we fast forward to the finals calves verse or excuse excuse me celtics verse doesn't matter out of the west um how do the celtics match up against the timberwolves oklahoma city maybe the nuggets if they can come back uh or you know maybe we'll throw the the mavs in there too. Should they be the favorites to win? Yeah, and who should Hank be rooting for? Because he's rooting hard for one.
He was nervous about the Nuggets. He should be rooting for the Nuggets now.
But he's not nervous about the Wolves. He's like, I think we match up better.
Yeah, I would be terrified of the Wolves based on what I've seen. Yeah.
6-0 and they've just dispatched Kevin Durant and Devin Booker like it was nothing and now have made Nikola 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. They've made him look very mortal.
As cocky as Hank is, that's the team that should make him the least cocky, in my opinion. I think they would do better against Dallas, which is a little uneven in some parts.
Boston deserves credit because their roster is so deep. 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.
I don't know. Statistically speaking, on the betting market right now, they have the easiest path to the finals, so they have the best odds to win the championship 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 uh and i will be very tempted to take them particularly if it's it's minnesota the way they're playing yeah i mean knowing knowing how the coach of the celtics operates they should lose some games that he should intentionally go to a game seven feel like he he's getting choked out, see if they can respond to adversity.
That way when they get to the finals, they're like, yeah, we've had our battles. Yeah, Minnesota's 6-0.
They've played Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, Nicole Lyokic, and Jamal Murray. And Boston is, what, 4-1? Yeah.
And they played a Heat team that was, you know, without Jimmy Butler and also banged up in other ways. So, cocky Hank Hank deserves to be back and I think you guys have done a good job prefacing this until the finals yeah cocky Hank is not gonna like to I haven't told him this I haven't said it out loud Wolves fans are probably gonna be upset at me but I did take the Wolves 9-1 before the Nuggets series because I was like I I feel like this is gonna be a tough matchup for the Nuggets and now Hank's – I haven't told him that.
He's not going to listen to this part. So we'll just save it and we won't even – I won't even tell him until we get there.
But, yeah, 9-1. They're already down to like 3-1.
Dude, they show up, Jude, whatever it is, that Thursday, and they're 12-0. They've just swept the Western Conference playoffs.
Cocky Hank is going to be – He's going to be sweating. He's going to be shitting himself.
Sweaty Hank. I think he won't – Yeah, he won't even know.
I'll wait. I think he's going to start rooting.
I'll wait and I'll say nine to one. Yeah.
I texted him last night. Are you worried about the Wolves? He's like, no, I think we match up better.
Do you think the legal should suspend Jamal Murray for throwing a challenge flag or a heat pack or whatever? The heat pack. Yeah.
The heat pack. Who is he throwing it at? Raph, maybe.
That's right. You know, his throws haven't been very accurate this postseason.
Yeah, we don't know. He might have been trying to throw it to the trainer.
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. He should have just sat out the second half and been like, see, time served.
I like that. Yeah.
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 at the end of the first half i would think at the at the end of the first half if you're winning yeah yeah and that's fine yeah but he yeah he should have just started serving it so um all right let's talk about your book real quick it's hoop atlas mapping the remarkable transformation the modern nba uh everyone buy. It is a great book.
He gets you smarter about basketball. A lot of pictures.
Great Father's Day book. Yeah, a lot of pictures.
Great Mother's Day. Mother's Day, Father's Day.
Will it ship in time for Mother's Day? Yes, it will. I promise you, you have my guarantee.
Love that. So what is in this book? This book, so it's about the evolution of the NBA since Jordan.
So the 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 uh the 1990s and really opened up the sport for players like kobe and stefan to take jump shooting even higher levels uh but long story short big cat it's about'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. I like these books.
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. Are you concerned that you're going to have to rewrite the entire book in two years when wimby just destroys everything point 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 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 and in summer 2023 when i'm really writing a lot of this book the wemby hype is is out of control and you know the last chapter is about the evolution of the big man and joe jokic is the is the centerpiece of that chapter but i did get a little bit of wemby in there and i hedged a little bit 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 yeah 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 uh but they're bigger and badder than ever in terms of their skill set and i do think that's the next big thing in the mba is seven foot dudes that can dribble pass and shoot just like six foot dudes yeah volume 2.0 you'll have to release like a collector's edition paperback will have an essay just on wimby i'm guessing he'll probably win a love letter a love letter can you tell us just uh how good is wimby in terms of like breaking everything that you've ever studied defensively it's like having you know will chamberlain in the in the gym like he is so much bigger and longer than all these other guys and some of the plays he's made uh this year i always start the wimby conversation with defense like if you have there were some crazy stats the spurs and i love them have been one of the worst defenses in the nba over the last five years since since they really sort of started tanking let's say uh and when wemby was on the court in the second half of the year,

they were top five defense, and it was just insane because they had no business being there.

He comes off the court, 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.

If you have this guy on defense, you're going to have a top five defense

in the league.

If you surround him with people like Minnesota has surrounded Gobert with,

you're going to have the best defense in the league.

And then offensively, he can obviously do things that nobody his size has ever been able to do. It's crazy.
He's so much fun to watch. All right, I have one last question, rowback question.
RHOBACK.com. 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 theba that we wouldn't assume did uh bruce bowen you know 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 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 an nba broadcast uh and bruce bowen in the 2003 spurs really represents uh the 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 uh and so i think popovich tim dunk and that whole team 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. What about Bruce Bowen kicking someone in the face? Put that in there? He's got that dog in him, I think.
Yeah, he kicked Wally Zerbiak in the face. If you remember, 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.
A lot of people don't know this. 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.
That's true. Call him a fake all-star.
Yeah. But, you you know i think yeah bruce bowen was was a pretty aggressive defender and pretty handsy and some people might even say dirty tripping a little bit steve nash would probably agree with that yeah i think that's fair i think that's fair but ultimately bruce bowen is one of the people and then his teammate mano ginobili with the euro step is another one oh yeah and being able to catch bats that's right which you should never do no he had to get rabies shots don't touch a grounded bat he had to get rabies shots in I think the stomach isn't that what happens? yeah you have to get the whole panel of them Fauci's just creaming his jeans he's like yeah give him another shot doing my own research on that yeah it was a bat that did it give him him another one.
All right, well, everyone should go buy the book. Thank you.
Kirk, you're the best. We love having you on.
Good luck at the sphere as well. Yeah, yeah.
Good luck. I'll stay on the lower level just to be safe.
Yeah, you got to let me know. You got to give me the scouting report because I'm going like a month after you.
You know I will be texting you. Yes, absolutely.
But yeah, you're the best. We love having you on.
Thank you, guys. Enjoy the rest of the playoffs.
Thanks, Kirk. Okay, let's wrap up the show.
We got Pardon Your Take. Hank? Yeah? You got some for us? Sure.
Also, follow Mr. Perry's hot in hockey.
Mr. Perry's great.
He is a hockey turtle through and through. Got to get some ice for him.

Yeah.

Okay.

Also, Mr. Pear has memes stressed constantly.

It's very funny watching memes interact with Mr. Pear because it's like having a new child.

He'll just walk over and just be like, oh, yep, he's sleeping.

Oh, he's still sleeping.

He's constantly worried that he's being fed too much or too little. Yeah needs his exercise and he's pooping in his own water is that good i i guess turtles do it memes is a turtle expert now memes yeah apparently they do it all the time okay that's cool i found a thread on it they're like my little idiot does it too is that on tortoise forum uh on Reddit.
Good, okay. Memes, we gotta get you like a little backpack or something that you can take Mr.
Pear to like the bar. Like a see-through one like the cats have? Yeah, like a front, like almost like a lanyard that has Mr.
Pear just hanging out on it. Or just like a chain.
We should get him a leash. Yeah.
Or like a baby, like the thing you put the baby in. Bjorn? He really it's his baby yeah yeah i just put it on my chest yeah okay hey pmt hey hey this is a take i've been sitting on for a couple years 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 Appreciate you guys.
I mean, Jules has told us this many times.

Mm-hmm.

That he. last Super Bowl that call is never made and the Eagles are Super Bowl champs appreciate you guys I mean Jules has told us this many times that he would get yelled at for wearing gloves that were you know you could see someone holding and when he would wear the red gloves and and Bill Belichick would get mad at him or was it the white gloves I think it was it depending on what the opponent was wearing yeah that's right if they were if your opponent's wearing a white uniform white gloves i think are okay if they're wearing a dark uniform white gloves no yeah you want to match it as closely as possible to get away with cheating it does 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 it's like mark slareth used used to love wearing the burgundy or the gold pants in D.C.

because he could piss himself and nobody would ever see.

Yeah.

When he got to Denver, the white pants, the yellow shows up.

So you think that basically everything could be different if James Ratberry had just picked different gloves that day?

What a night that would have been.

Damn.

That's brutal.

But guess what?

The Eagles are lifting weights, so they're reloaded. Strong.
Jalen. So strong.
So strong. So what The Eagles are lifting weights So they're reloaded Strong Jalen So strong So strong Eagles are good Are they? Is he the guy? Yeah Jalen? I saw an interesting That's a good question I think we should talk about it at some point Yeah Well he was injured last year Yeah Our friend Nick Wright had a pretty good rant about howie roseman which made me be like oh interesting uh basically that's all nick right does is just try and do create like the opposite of what everyone else is thinking so everyone can have that reaction but what did he say so he basically was like howie roseman uh does a really good job of drafting off of the experts mock drafts.
So every time the Eagles have a draft, everyone's like, holy shit, A+. They got a guy that we mocked for the first round and the second round.
He was also doing it for the last three years, which how are you supposed to know if those are good or bad picks yet? Honestly, if I was a GM, that's probably what I'd do. it's definitely what I would do.
I would, 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.

It all started when he,

when he drafted Rager over Justin Jefferson,

and then he never,

and then he never didn't take the consensus guy again.

I'm not saying it's right or wrong.

I'm saying it's interesting.

You know what you're doing.

I'm saying it's interesting.

Can I not say something's interesting?

Caleb Williams was the consensus pick from Mox. That's interesting.
Yeah. Did the Bears just kill Caleb Williams because Stephen Shea said that they should? 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.
Great dude.

Let's call him Steph Curry

like experience watching him throw the football.

What? Yeah.

I don't know what that means. It means Steph Curry

is awesome to watch basketball, play basketball.

So it's like fat and football. Awesome to watch

play football. Got it.
Yeah.

Trick shots.

We're doing trick shots this year. Ben Simmons used to do some pretty cool stuff too okay not really though because he like couldn't shoot very cool passes yeah but he couldn't really he was really good and that's a really important part of it that's a really important part it is impressive how good he was without being able to shoot.
Shoot. Shooting was.
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.
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. No, no, no, no.
Shooting is the most important part of basketball. Without a doubt, shooting, putting the ball in the basket is the most important part of basketball.
I think it's the dribbling. If you can't put the ball in the basket, you won't win games.
Rebounding, too. Sixers.
Yeah. No, but if you make every shot, then there's no such thing as a rebound.
True. Shooting, I would say, is number one.
Putting the ball inside the basket. Tip-offs.
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, what owner slash individual would be best to run a mega franchise like the New York Kn knicks oh my god this is uh so knicks fans

win one series and they're already ready to give themselves five titles they mean like historically they would be five-time champions how many titles do the knicks i think he's saying if they were actually had a good owner like a like a mark cuban that was actually able to get players and cared about the team enough to like you know get the best but mark cuban is one one yeah he doesn't He's not like a dynasty guy.

Yeah, but imagine if he was in New York.

The best owners. Think about all the free agents that the Knicks just haven't got.
I honestly think that if Donald Trump owned a sports team, it would rock. I think it would be the best.
There's definitely better owners than James. There's a lot of better owners than James Olin, but I don't know if you put in the best owner.
The Knicks automatically have five titles. Who is the best owner in sports? Stan Kroenke.
Yeah. Isn't Mark Cuban a free agent owner? Yeah, he is.
He's probably some sort of non-compete. Oh, no, we got rid of non-competes.
You could probably own them. Best owner.
I don't know. Who's the best owner? Robert Kraft.
Yeah. Who's the best owner? I mean, the Steelers, I guess.
Their owners. The Rooney family.
He's been doing it for so long. Tony Khan.
Tony Khan, yeah. Definitely up there.
Steve Ballmer's electric. Best owners.
Steve Ballmer, good owner. Best owners.
Josh Harris. 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. And then not touch it.
And then not touch it. Green Bay Packers.
Best owners. Hands off.
Hands off owners. Yep.
Okay. Five titles.
I feel like that's a lot 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 oh my god what it's crazier than the knicks having five titles yeah i mean it's yeah florida would have won the football national championship in 2001 had 9-11 not happened and the tennessee game got rescheduled interesting oh let's let's that's a take i mean let's think about let's look up the florida schedule in 2001 um okay wasn't that the miami scene that was like the greatest football team of all time uh yeah but is that the year they lost to Ohio State? 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.
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.
Just be like, hey, we would have won it all. I'm looking at football schedule right now for miami uh the game that was delayed september 22nd at kentucky they won 44 to 10 florida yeah florida beat kentucky 44 to 10 when did they play tennessee december 1st much later in the season september 15th right oh so that's the one that got moved Yeah.
Okay. And let's.
Okay. They defeated him in week 13, 34, 32.

All right.

Now. September 15th.
Right. Oh, so that's the one that got moved.
Yeah. Okay.
And let's.

Okay.

They defeated them in week 13, 34, 32.

All right.

Now, again, Miami did not lose a game that year.

So that feels pretty important.

Is that the only loss Florida had?

No, they lost at Auburn.

Ah, that's tough.

But they finished number three.

So maybe the way that season broke, they could have snuck in at number two with one loss. Okay.
looking at at tennessee's early season schedule that year see how they were at the start of the year they uh they beat arkansas 13 to 3 september 8th not not great not that impressive of a win it feels like tennessee wasn't playing their best ball and then after 9-11 Tennessee beat LSU number 14 26-18

they bounce back they would have gotten in over Nebraska who had one loss in the BCS national title still think Miami would have won that game they might have yeah but they I mean can you imagine a Miami against Florida would have been great it would have been awesome would have either way I like this take because it's just it's something you can just sit down and just be like yeah we could have won it all um if it wasn't for osama bin laden and miami did did kind of paste nebraska i hope this guy is old enough that he was mad about that in real time because that means he's like 50 yeah which is just very funny like it's better than if he was like you know just a florida up the stats. If he actually remembers 2001 season and he was mad in real time, I respect that take.
Yeah, I respect that take as well. Oregon also was very good that year, only had one loss.
They beat Colorado in their bowl game, which Colorado was also good. Yeah, I'm going to say they could have been to the national title, title they would have lost to Miami 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 college football we need college football to help us heal 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.
Oh, for sure. If that didn't happen.
Villanova would have won the national championship in 2005 if there wasn't the biggest phantom travel call of all time on Allen Ray. Justice Winslow touched it in the national title game against Wisconsin.
That's a fact. Fact.

Yeah, I like this take.

I think Ninja wrote this one.

Punters should be better.

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.

One shank punch should lead to an immediate termination.

Also, more fat punters is objectively better for the game.

Agreed.

I agree with that.

I kind of agree with this take.

Like, kickers in general should just be better.

Thank you. Immediate termination.
Also, more fat punters is objectively better for the game. Agreed.
I agree with that. I kind of agree with this take.
Kickers in general should just be better because that's their only job. Well, they are the best that they've ever been.
Yeah, but they should even be better than that. They will be better at some point.
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. 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.
I also think that like golfers should be better at putting. Yeah, just put it in the hole.
Just that that's something like if you're a professional golfer, you should just never miss a putt. Anything 10, 10 10 feet and in should never be missed ever but that's just me i wouldn't miss it if i were a professional golfer you know the best punter of all time is low-key big ben he's a pretty good punter yeah the pooch punts were yeah a lecker did have good pooch punts what other sports should players be better uh foul shots foul shots definitely open th Yeah.
Every open three should be made all the time. You got to make those.
Yeah. I feel like...
Penalty kicks. Penalty kicks.
Tennis players should never double fault. I agree.
Tennis players should never... Pro tennis players.
Outfielders should never miss a ball. Yeah.
Hockey players, just shoot more. You'll score more goals.
Yeah, that's a fact. Also, don't let any soft ones you can't let a soft one in never let a soft one in what do you think hank yeah i mean baseball and hockey are tough free throws is definitely everyone should every nba player should be 80 better than free throws soccer players should also never understand why tall people are bad at free throws that's never made sense to me yeah you're shooting like down.
Soccer players should also be better at free throws. Soccer players should also never understand why tall people are bad at free throws.
That's never made sense to me.

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.

That should go in every time.

Football players should never miss a tackle.

In fact, they should take pride in their tackling.

Yeah.

Agreed.

Wrap up.

Agreed. Okay, is that it? That's it.
take pride in their tackling. Yeah.
Agreed. Wrap up.
Agreed.

Okay, is that it? That's it. Good part in your takes.
I like that.

Alright, let's do numbers.

Max, have you ever gotten this?

Nope. 8.
20.

PFT, have you ever gotten this? 46.

Not yet.

3. 72.
18.

Please tune in to the Wells Fargo Championship

on PGA Tour Live this week.

Max Homo will be playing.

Fuck yeah.

99 put.

21.

Max, what did you say?

You've never gotten this?

Yeah, PFT also said that he's never gotten this.

No, I said I haven't gotten it yet.

Yep.

Tell the whole story, Max.

26.

Oh, my God.

No, you weren't that close.

From my angle, I'm far away.

I thought I hit it.

Nah, you didn't, though.

You weren't that close.

So did Hank.

Hank thought I hit it, too.

No, I thought I hit it with 46.

No one thought you hit it.

No one thought you were close. Well, no one thought Hank hit it either, fuckface.
26 is way closer to 46 than 20. How? Explain.
Because it's got the number. Because it's got the six and a two.
If you look from the blocked angle, it kind of looks like a four. Yeah, well, there's a zero inside of a six.
That's a good point. Yeah.
No, there's nothing. Yes, there is.
A small little zero. Who was closer? Hank.
Hank. Hank was way closer.
Yeah. Hank used to be the loser of this fucking game.
You can't go over. Yeah, then I won.
It's pretty simple. Yeah.
Then I won again. All you got to do is pick the right number, Max.
It's not that hard. Yeah, PFT.
It's not that hard. PFT's going to.
He's just waiting. Yeah, PFT.
PFT, it's not that hard. Why are you talking to me? I didn't think I won this one.

All right.

I'm not so pressed about this. Let's do another one.

That I'm imagining numbers coming up.

Our first double in a while.

Max is so mad he's hallucinating.

This counts.

We'll do another one.

Numbers.

I'm going to stick with eight.

46.

Three.

18.

72.

99, Pug.

21. 72 99 Pug 21 The cat's boxing out the machine No one can see the number 79 I thought it was 72 I thought it was 99 I was so close Pug is a dynasty

Oh no

79

So close

Love you guys

Talking away

I wonder what

I'm to say I'm saved anyway

Today is another day

To fight you

Shine away

I'm coming for your lover, kid. I'll be coming for your lover, kid.
Take on me. Take me on.
I'll be gone. your dream Needless to say I'm all to say yes But I'll be stolen away Telling them life is okay Say after me It's no better to be safe than sorry It's no better to be safe than sorry Take on me Take me on I'll be young

In a day Thank you.