Ryen Russillo, NBA Playoffs, Fyre Fest And Top 5 Coaches That Could Be Number 1

Hey, Pardon My Take listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music.
On today's Pardon My Take, we got our good friend Ryan Russillo. We're going to talk some NBA playoffs with him, go through all of it.
We also have a special draft that you'll want to hear at the end of it. We're going to talk play-in games.
We're going to preview the weekend. Awesome sports weekend coming up.
We got a little Kershaw. We got a little Firefest.
A great Good Friday. Like you said, it's literally a Good Friday show.
Shout out Christ. Yeah, shout out Jesus.
And we are brought to you by our friends at Game Time. NBA playoffs have arrived, and this playoff season is we're getting our tickets with the Game Time app.
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Today is Friday, April 15th, Tax Day, and Billy is back. Have you done your taxes, Billy? because we actually, we just said tax day and Billy just let out a very real, oh, fuck.
I thought it was due on Monday. Yeah, no, actually, Billy's right.
Yeah. Taxes are technically due on Monday.
So you have the whole weekend to do it. So are you, have you started your taxes? No, absolutely not.
Well, I've downloaded the documents. Okay.
You got them right there. So, yeah.
You've been talking about them for like two weeks. I know.
On Saturday, you said, I believe you said on Saturday, I'm doing my taxes today. I don't know if that's misquoted, but.
No, the process of doing your taxes is complaining for two months that you have to do these taxes, and then you get around to it. So, Billy's still got a couple days.
How do you think it's going to go, Mr. William Football versus the IRS.
Because you did have the fight. This is the fight here.
Yeah, that's really why my brain's in a pretzel. Yeah, so maybe that was that money already spent? No, that's money put in different Roth IRAs that I thought I didn't have to touch ever.
But now you've got to pay taxes. So now I'm kind of crazy how it works.
They don't get taxed when you take it out of a roth ira right so when you make it you still have to yeah yeah i did this thing where basically i got it and i just put it away so i could never touch it smart uh but not smart when the irs comes for it freezing your credit card you ever do that move back in the day you put put uh your credit card in a glass of water and just put it in your freezer just so that you just couldn't use your credit card for a weekend.

Like literally freezing.

Yeah, literally freezing.

I've heard of freezing.

I literally freeze my credit card.

You sanctioned yourself.

Yeah, when I was like, all right, I don't have money to go out this weekend.

Don't even try it.

Billy, if you take a flight to the Ukraine, then you could probably write that off on your taxes.

Well, the thing is what's really taking me a long time is that because we live in this new world where like we work from home a lot you can like write off anything what year is it what and what you we work here i know but like sometimes we zoom in i see what you're saying yeah you work from home a lot you can write in and part of your job i i don't know if people know this little peek behind the curtain part of billy's job p PFT and I have mandated it. It's actually legally binding.
He has to be able to squat 225 at all times. Exactly.
I have a lot of write-offs. Yeah, you can write off a certain percentage of your house.
What about Mincy's house? Can you write his off, too? He's a dependent. So that's the big one.
Yeah, and then like Wi-Fi and stuff. So I have a lot of expenses to write out.
That's where I kind of am trying to do my tax the best. Yeah.
Yeah, so I feel confident in William football versus the IRS this year. We're going to go get them.
We have a great sports weekend, though. Let's talk about that.
It's going to be – I love the first weekend of the NBA playoffs because you get eight games, back to back to start. It feels like a big event.
Starts early on Saturday. Starts early on Saturday.
Hank, our games are on Sunday. I think you're what? Three 30.
I'm six 30. Did you hear the news about Ben Simmons? Is he back? Looks like I was right.
I think I nailed this one because Ben Simmons is coming back. Wow.
This might be, they've just kept them on ice. They throw it.
They put him in a glass of water, put him in the freezer. Ben Simmons is ready to come back.
And, yeah, he doesn't really have to do anything. All he has to do is be out on the court on defense and then just pass the ball on offense.
That's it. This could be old takes exposed, but I think that's better for the Celtics.
It is going to be weird because there's part of Ben Simmons' skill set. He's never played with them.
Right, he's never played with them, but he doesn't play offense regardless. I do think they're a terrible defensive team.
It's a training camp. Yeah, no, it's going to be a great story.
If they're not on the same page in the third or fourth quarter, you can't reference or talk about practice. What if Ben Simmons comes back and is just wet from three? It would be amazing fun if he's bumping into that.
You can't reference or talk about practice. It's like, uh.
What if Ben Simmons comes back and is just wet from three? They will be. It would be amazing.
Think about it. Here's the best part about Ben Simmons coming back.
With Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, he will be open. They will leave him wide open.
So watching him, I don't even know if Ben Simmons has thought about this. That he's going to be standing wide open many times.
And everyone's going to be like, shoot, shoot, shoot, and he won't be able to shoot. I'm not making it series of the year because the juice is too big.
It's minus 152, which I don't feel comfortable making a game of the year on that type of price. I still think the Celtics are going to win.
PFT has declared a whomping, which has to be five games or less. Well, so you just declared five games or less.
We haven't even discussed it. Six is not a whomping.
You don't get to declare the intention of the whomp. I think it could be six games if— That's not a whomping.
Well, wait. Let's talk about it.
Six games, I think it could be a whomping if they blow them out in their four wins and then the two losses are close games. I'm talking four points or less.
So they have to win each game that they win by 15? By 10. I think that's a whopping.
If they win four games by 10 and then lose two by four or less. I think you just got to be confident in your prediction that a whoping is five.
It's a gentleman's whomp. I think a whoping has to what a – if you see a series that goes six, you're not like, oh, man, they killed them.
Okay, let's compromise. Four games, that's a whomp.
That's absolutely a whomp. Five games, that's a whomp.
Six games could be a whomp if one of the losses comes in overtime. I disagree.
How about that? One overtime loss, let's compromise. I think six is a competitive series.
Like you see a six-game series. I think if I got to put my nuts on the line for a whomp, you got to put your nuts on the line for a season of the year.
It's a series of the year. It's minus 152.
That's crazy. You can't have people paying juice like that on a series of the year bet.
So I just can't. Because then I because then I could just be doing game of the years minus 250.
Okay, six games if both losses go to overtime. If both losses go to overtime and it's a six-game series, I'll grant you whomp it.
Okay, there you go. Hank, are you okay with that? It's got to be 15, not 10.
Well, Hank's the boss, so okay. Okay.
Okay. So each win has to be over 15.
The point differential has to be 50-plus. 50-plus total.
Yeah. Okay.
Okay. Yeah.
There you go. That would be a whomping.
I'm very excited for these playoffs, though. And I'm also selling myself back in on the Warriors.
I don't know why, but I am. They got all the guys.
I just don't want it. I think it's going to be Suns-Bucks again.
I don't want it to be. I want it to be.
I want something new, something fresh. So I think that, and I do think the Bucks are going to make it to the finals.
So I'm actually, I'm looking forward to the Pelicans-Clippers. On Friday night.
Yes. I'm actually excited about that.

Our guy CJ went, blasted off in their face, stepped back to freedom.

He, what, 27 points in the first half?

That was an electric crowd in New Orleans.

Awesome, awesome scene.

I agree with you.

That's going to be a great game.

Jake pointed out earlier that the name, so the Smoothie King Arena,

obviously, is where the Pelicans play.

They call it the Blender.

That's great.

That is great. I liked the Magic when they played at Am Pelicans play.
They call it the Blender. That's great.

That is great.

I liked when the Magic, when they played at Amway,

and you could call it the Pyramid.

They didn't want us to say that one.

In Houston, the Juice Box?

Yep.

That was good.

Or no, was that Tampa?

Minute Maid.

Was it Tampa?

Yeah, it's Tropicana Field.

Tropicana was the Juice Box, yeah.

Minute Maid was the fraud zone. That's the Aspen.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Hank, are you feeling? Give us a thought on how you're feeling. I think, I mean, if six games is a whomping, I think the Celtics are going to whomp the Nets.
Oh, we get a whomp off. Nice.
Nice. You want to put some stakes on it, Hank? Sure.
All right, you have to get a cat. So do you.
A cat bet? If a whomping goes either way? I mean, you're not going to get a cat. I think if you're doing a cat whomping bet, it has to be.
This is why we always stop the cats because I was willing to take the risk. You guys were always scared.
That was the fatal flaw in the cat bet system. No.
Whatever you're going to say, no. No, no.
I have a good, the whompus cat. Whoever loses has to do a whompus Cat.
What's that? That's where you take a big Wampus Cat dip and put it in. What? You guys never heard of the Wampus Cat? No.
This is where TikTok meets reality. No, I'm pretty sure.
I'm pretty sure. So it's like a Coach Harborough.
No, that's a horseshoe. Upper Decker, you go all the way around.
The Wampus Cat's like a full. I'll find the video.
Yeah, I'm in. All right, so if either team whomps, then a whole tin of dip in their mouth? Mm-hmm.
All right, and you have to hold it for like 25 minutes. Or you puke.
Or you puke. I'll puke.
Okay. Fine.
Deal. Handshake.
Has to be a whomping, so it's got to be... You know what? I'll get it on a two because I do think the Celtics are a better team, so I'll be on your side all right two billy you want to be on the net or jake anyone liam no liam's a celtics fan jake you want in i want jake in jake you're on yeah you're on bft's side come on jake you love the nets done i don't tip either it's fine it's not no six game bullshit it's five games either way it's gotta be five games either way what about the margin of victory is 50 points? No, let's just go five.
A real whomp is five games or less. Agreed.
Agreed. Let's just make it straightforward.
Rooted for a split. Split in Boston.
Okay. No.
All right. So Jake's in on PFT's side.
I love it. Peer pressure.
I love it. Billy, you have to just do it with the loser regardless.
No, but actually it took me a really long time to quit dip. Good for you.
Is it cool if I not? Yeah. All right.
Good. You can do it with the loser regardless.
No, but I actually like it took me a really long time to quit dip.

Is it cool? Is it cool if I not?

Yeah.

All right.

Good.

You can do it with Zen.

Just an entire thing.

Black Buffalo.

All right.

Black Buffalo.

No tobacco.

I really don't want to do this.

All right.

Well, you're in.

Root for no whomps.

Yeah.

Root for at least six games.

Actually, this is perfect for Jake because you just get to root for a good series.

Yes. You're the true journalist.
Yeah. All right.
Other series? I don't know what other series everyone's like. That's by far the marquee series.
I have a substantial amount of money on the Pelicans tonight. To win, to get into the playoffs.
Now, what's up with Zion doing like 360 dunks in practice and just looking awesome on the sidelines. His chain was so big last night.
It looked so cool. He's only 21.
Yeah. You don't want to rush him back when you're a nine seed.
Yeah, but I mean, if you get to the playoffs, I guess they're going to lose to the Suns anyway. I think if they win tonight, which God willing they do, I think he might come back.
Okay. And the Cavs are going to maybe beat the Heat.
Cavs will beat the Heat. I love it.
That's my series of the year. It doesn't matter who they're playing.
I'm dreading the Bucs-Bulls. It's going to be painful to watch.
I was actually saying I can't remember who I said to you, but if you re-ranked all eight teams in the Eastern Conference playoffs, like current form, the Bulls might be the eighth. The re-seed of it? Yeah, in current form.
In current form, they're playing that bad. You could make a case for that.
Maybe. Maybe the Hawks.
And I say all this, I say all this, and I know that once the ball is tipped, I'll be all the way in and being like, hey, this series but i'm i'm down going it the vibes are low i'll be fully i'll admit it the vibes are low yeah i mean this this is not the year it was never going to be the year no the january i could have told myself it was you had like two months where you're like you know what this team this team could make some noise yeah i've got a series that will suck i'm ready to predict right now a series that i care about the least Jazz Mavericks That series is going to suck Yeah, Luka's not going to be 100% That's the only reason why you would watch that series With any sort of interest If you're outside of Utah or outside of Dallas It's going to be boring I have a series that I'm very interested in as well It's Toronto Philly Just because James Harden in the playoffs Is always a great story. Yep.
Like we could have James Harden falling on his face and Ben Simmons fucking up at the same time, which would just be beautiful. Because then both fan bases won't know what to root for.
And Twitter will be ablaze. Yep.
Yeah, it's going to be great to watch. And then the T-Wolves, I think I'm just going to be rooting for the T-Wolves from afar.
Not actually rooting, but like, hey, this is fun. I want to see Pat Beverly who got fined, which I think actually it makes him stronger.
He's like Hulk. He's going to have the over-under for Pat Bev technical fouls of the series.
I want to say is probably in my own mind, two and a half against him.

And then he's going to draw over under three and a half technical fouls.

He will be responsible for six technical fouls.

I'll put it this way.

If Pat Bev can draw more text than he himself receives, I think the Minnesota Timberwolves

win this series.

Watch out.

Yeah.

He got a $10,000 fine for, I think, inappropriate language after the game in the press conference.

But I really do think it's like the best thing that could happen to the timberwolves just keeps fueling him he's now mad at everyone still i went back i i looked up some of pat bev's history because i didn't know what his path to the nba was yeah he was like the best high school player in the country yeah he was playing he averaged i think 37 points a game in chicago when he was coming up, he was an All-American. Emasculated both the Jordan Suns.
Yes. Yeah, dude was like a legendary scorer, gets to college, plays at Arkansas, and then there was some sort of test cheating scandal, and he didn't get drafted, mostly because he got kicked out of school or he got kicked off the team for a little bit for that.
Then he went overseas and played in Eastern Europe for like four seasons. So he's got a big chip on his shoulder.
He's a dog. He's a dog now.
I love Pat Bev. I'm rooting for the Timberwolves.
I'm officially declaring my Timberwolves bandwagon fandom for the first round. Okay.
Yeah, like I said, I'm afar. I'm like, oh, I like that team.
You know how it's like you don't really have anything going in this series, but like, ah, even though John Moran is awesome. What else should we do? Oh, we have some other things we've got to talk about.
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What's better than football and trucks? Nothing. Chevy Silverado, 2022.
Chevy Silverado, it is the best. Kershaw, that sucked.
Should have kept him in. Baseball, just – and I know Kershaw did a good job afterwards of saying, oh, you know, I had a shortened spring training like everyone did, and I'm older.
What the fuck, dude? Perfect games. There's 23 perfect games.
Is it 80 pitches too? Yeah. 80 pitches.
And, I mean, I don't want to compare him to Matt Stafford because that's been done once or twice before. Or Scotty Scheffler.
But Matt Stafford pushed his trainers away so that he could stay in a game and win the game for the Detroit Lions. To beat the Browns.
To beat the Browns. That is maybe the least consequential thing that you could possibly do in an NFL career as a quarterback.
And Clayton Kershaw was like, you know what? Yeah, I'll come out of the game. This is where my inner meathead comes into play, where I'm like, I would fight every coach that tried to take me out of the game.
You'd have to cut my throat with a razor blade, and then you'd have to take a sledgehammer out and put a stake through my heart to get that ball out of my hands. Yeah.
Perfect games are probably the rarest thing in sports. It has to be statistically, right? Fan gluing themselves to the court.
Yeah. Although recently more.
The game's changed. Yeah, right.
There will be copycats. But I think we all agree.
No-hitters are nothing. I don't care about no-hitters anymore.
Right. They're cool.
You know what I like is the platoon no-hitter. I like that when teams use six different pitchers.
If your team has a no-hitter, it's cool. Any other no-hitter, don't even wake me up for.
If anyone else, it doesn't matter about your team, anyone else has a perfect game, I'm glued in. I want to be watching.
That's cool. 23 in the the history of baseball some guys make their whole career off it oh it's amazing shout out dallas yeah no friend but yeah that's like that's that's it like you could throw no perfect game that's it you're you're good for life you'd be like i did something only 22 other guys did it's the coolest part of when there's a hall of fame induction ceremony and they list a pitcher's stats and then they say perfect game april 13th 2022 one day i was perfect yep and so yeah that sucked we also had the philly guy uh who threw if you missed the clip the mets went to philly i think they won two out of three uh and a mets fan was videotaping the last out uh or whatever it was i think it was the last out.
Basically, like, flexed in front of all the Philly fans in the outfield. A Philly fan just didn't even flinch, grabbed the kid's phone, and threw it into the outfield.
And it was – I love it because I am longstanding. I love the city of Philadelphia, and I just want the city of Philadelphia to embrace who they are at all times.
And I watched that move, and I was like, that guy did nothing wrong for the city of Philadelphia. That, to me, tells me that that person has never spent any time in Philadelphia before.
In Philadelphia, if you put your phone in somebody's face, it's going to get thrown. Yes.
Or usually maybe slapped out of your hand. That's step one.
Level two of Philly fandom is you just take it, and you throw it onto the playing that's that that move plays i loved it i loved it like also there's nothing more annoying than a person walking up to you with a camera in your face that's recording right that's that move is like that's assault yes i i agree yeah if you if you we talked about it a couple days ago like the bubble that there is that you can't get into someone's face with a phone. I just love when Philly fans embrace it.
And I, I like, I know that in this day and age, there's been a pushback about fans being assholes that should not apply for the city of Philadelphia. Like Philadelphia gets a pass where if you go there and you're sitting in the bleachers, you know that you might get punched in the face.
You might get puked on. And if you complain about it, don't go to Philadelphia.
Yes. That's it.
Yeah, it's like the rules surrounding Harambe's cage. Yes.
Do not approach. Do not try to pet.
If you do, bad things will happen. Yeah.
You should know that the second you enter the Philadelphia city limits. I'd actually go as far to say that Philadelphia might be my number one sports town.

They, Hank, anything?

But Hank knows.

That's the thing.

You would never be in Philadelphia, even given your extensive background

and the love that you've shown for Philadelphia.

You would never take your phone out and then put it in somebody's face

without the expectation that it could be chucked.

Yeah, that's true.

That's fair.

You didn't like this move?

You thought it was scumbag?

No, I thought it was a funny move.

I respect the fuck out of it.

The Mets kid was annoying.

He probably got his phone back, and he probably got a great story.

If the video was still going, that's the greatest video of all time.

But best sports down is a stretch.

That's awesome. What would you say is number one? Sacramento.
City of Champions, Boston. Two.
I mean, New York hasn't won their terrible sports town. They haven't won shit.
Probably LA. Yeah, LA's pretty good.
There's a lot of sports fans in LA. LA is big time.
Big time. Boston, LA.
Big time. Jacksonville.
It's actually a great move to do that as a Celtics fan, to just say LA is a great sports town. The Lakers are the second best team in the history of the NBA because that makes all of your defeats against them look even better.
Yeah. True.
The other thing I had was, well, Aaron Rodgers should go to jail because he tried to kill a kid, but that's whatever. Did you guys see this league between Notre Dame and LSU that's kind of simmering right now? Brian Kelly's breaking out the big guns.
I did see that Coach O went up to Notre Dame. So it was a back and forth that was kind of subtle that you had to really be tuned in to pick up on it.
So Coach O went to Notre Dame. He was just was just visiting indiana with his sons of course who doesn't this time i would honestly believe that though yeah coach oh like coach oh he probably his vacations are just going to different college campuses that have good football yes and he he does have a history with marcus freeman he tried to hire him last year uh before he got fired um but he went he went there he gave a speech's like, you guys have the team.
You have everything. You have the coaching staff to win a national title.
And then, I don't know, maybe it was like a little bit after that, Brian Kelly basically had an interview where he was like, the resources weren't there to win the national title at Notre Dame. And then Notre Dame Twitter account posted a picture of the practice saying no excuses.
And then Brian Polian, who is part of Brian Kelly's staff, who went from Notre Dame to LSU, tweeted out something like LSU has the best nutritional facility in all of America, like blessed to have this, these type of resources. Then on top of all of that, there was a deleted Instagram story by Brian Kelly, where I'll read it to you.
It was a tweet. It was a screen grab of a tweet from a Pepe LaFrog, uh, was it Pepe the Frog? Pepe the Frog.
Pepe the Frog, who said, uh, everyone who's connected with sources inside the current program knows Notre Dame AD is retiring in two years along with President Jenkins. Jack wanted to please the people so he didn't search for a coach and hired Marcus.
Hope he made the right choice, but I doubt it. Brian Kelly...
So Brian Kelly's amplifying that. He shared this tweet on his Instagram story then quickly deleted it.
It's... We need to get them scheduled.
I don't know who can do that right away but get them scheduled right now yeah Catholics versus Cajuns yeah I mean sell the t-shirts right now done I just love this I it's it's it's like two football cultures that couldn't be more different well and then Brian Kelly he's he's going on like a full court press in terms of his public image right now. Right.
So there was an article that came out saying, actually, Brian Kelly's fit in really well in Louisiana. Sorry, haters.
Sure. Written by Brian Kelly.
It was like there's – I'm always going to remember this article. Back in like 2014 when Greg Sciano was out of football after being fired by the Bucs.
And he had, I think it was Andrew Brandt following him around. Or it might have been somebody else at Sports Illustrated, just being like, look what a great guy Greg Sciano is.
Look what a good family person. He makes breakfast.
These coaches, they have like a network of guys they can call up to write these glowing articles. So the article about Brian Kelly in Louisiana was, that's really actually how Brian Kelly usually pronounces the word family there's nothing different about it at all

this is like the Knicks

they had a disappointing season

and Leon Rose who's

running the whole operation didn't

talk to the media at all and then did an

interview with Mike Breen who's the voice of the

Knicks and was like yep talk to the media

that's it yep we need

this is like our hope for Jake

needs to become a true Big J so

whenever we fuck up and have a scandal

we can just be like sit down with Jake

Thank you. That's it.
Yep. This is like our hope for Jake needs to become a true Big J.
So whenever we fuck up and have a scandal, we can just be like, sit down with Jake Marsh. Yeah.
Or he just lobs softballs at us and we knock him out of the park. He's our fixer.
Yeah. I like that, Jake.
But yeah, Brian Kelly actually does have a Southern accent. He wanted to clear that up despite the fact he was raised in New England and then coached in the Midwest forever.
So clearing that up. Also, the food is not too spicy for him down there.
He wanted to say that. It's not spicy enough.
Well, so what I've learned recently, given what you just shared with me about the Instagram story, where he's taking a screenshot of a tweet. First of all, I'm shocked that Brian Kelly has Instagram.
I don't know. It was probably someone else who's running his account because it was deleted pretty quickly.
I would love to see what his explore page looks like. Yeah, it's...
There's no way. You know what would be funny if it was just a bunch of those 360 cam videos that he did, but just different people doing it.
He's just addicted to that style of video. So he talked about his dancing as well.
He was like, my dancing wasn't thank you brian he lost that recruit but he yeah he did he did but so he's um he's more online than i ever thought that brian kelly would be because not only is he doing this thing with his instagram stories but he's also directly addressing us the internet right with all the things that we've said about him over the last like three weeks or three months however long he's been down there i i still love lsu i will always love lsu i love the campus i love mike the tiger i love the people that go to school there um i cannot root for brian kelly though i feel the same way it's gonna be different this year lsu's the best like the people are incredible the people of louisiana are the best brian kelly's just not a likable guy to root for I'm still ansu guy oh there you go my team you're all the way in my college team yeah i mean i i still like lsu but it's not the same though it's not the same going from coach o to brian kelly they brian it's the definition of like you love your mom she leaves your new stepmom comes in yeah and witch from the West. You can't, yeah, you can't go out.
Your curfew used to be midnight. Now it's 10.
I obviously didn't go to college and LSU was my favorite school. Why is that obvious? Don't put yourself down.
So I was a West guy and then obviously when Coach O went. You're no different than Steve Jobs.
College dropout to the fucking C-suite. Sure.
Hank's the college version of the Trill Ballins avatar. I like Duke.
I like LSU football. And? Teams from Massachusetts.
UNC women's soccer. Minnesota Duluth hockey.
UConn basketball. Oh, Denver hockey, actually.
Yeah, they won the title. But yeah, this whole back and forth is the best.
Anything else? Anything else anyone wants to get off their chest before we get to Ryan? I agree with Gabe Kapler. What he's saying about the unwritten rules, you see what he was talking about? Oh, the bunt.
They're playing the Giants against the Padres, I believe, and the Giants were up 12-3, I think, in the eighth inning, and they buntedunted to get on base and the Padres flipped out about that because that's what you do in baseball if you're getting the shit kicked out of you then you cry about how the other team isn't winning with class. Gabe Kapler is saying we don't follow the unwritten rules here and his explanation actually makes a lot more sense like I'm always team.
I love the discussion about the unwritten rules.

Wait, he said that they don't follow it.

He got mad at his guy.

No, he's saying that we don't follow it because he says that if you're playing in a series against another team, you try to win the series.

Right.

So why not try to just get as many runners on base?

Why not put as much stress on the other team as you can? That's weird, though, because his instant reaction, I don't know if you saw, it looked like he went over and reprimanded the player. He might have done that in the moment, but then in the media.
I agree with you and Gabe Kapler. If you don't like guys bunting up 12-3, then make a slaughter rule.
Make a slaughter rule. I'm also just always glad to seeabe kapler in the news because if you haven't seen like his instagram pictures that he puts up this guy makes julian edelman's thirst traps look like they're like kids photo day at school yeah this guy had gabe kapler has like a nine pack he is he's great anytime you see a dude in their 40s with a nine pack that's a red flag yeah big red flag yeah i uh i hate those jerseys the giants wear by the way those like uh the the it's i think it's new i don't know but it's a weird tint of orange and there's no it's it's very bizarre they have great classic jerseys and they messed with it and it bothers me i think it's i think it's maybe just an alternate but whatever now I sound like an old man yelling at a cloud.
All right.

Anything else?

Anyone else?

Bill, you had a great trip to Dallas?

Indio, California.

Indio, California is what I was going to say.

It was? So, yeah.

I was going to talk about it in my Firefox a little bit.

Yeah.

Let's go to Ryan Russillo then.

Let's do it.

Yeah.

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Now, here's another great smelling man, Ryan Russillo.

All right, we now welcome on one of our favorite guests, one of our closest friends. It is Ryan Russillo, dual threat the podcast go download it right now uh Ryan good to see you we figured you're kind of like us you don't watch a lot of NBA regular season so so we'll we'll chop it up on some playoffs talk no seriously we we appreciate you joining us because you actually uh do keep up with the league where we do you not like the the guys who drop in for the playoffs like us like i watch the bulls but i don't i i'm not going to pretend that i like consume constant nba during the regular season other than the bulls no i look as i've gotten older i don't try to find ways to tell people to enjoy stuff less.

So, you know, what's the point?

Now I'm not going to argue with you about stuff. I'm not going to be like, hey, you know, like I don't tell people during college basketball season what's going on because I watch the tournament and then I prep for the draft later on.
So now I'm watching all this stuff going like, oh, wow, AJ Griffin is kind of nice. Anyway, so the point is, I think sometimes these last few regular seasons, there's a lot of nights where I wish I watched less.
Yeah. Because there are certain nights you get so fired up about the schedule, and then you go, wait, who's out tonight? So it's just been a weird stretch.
As we all know, this is kind of like part three, even though this is a full season. It was part three of an NBA season where sometimes a regular season can be very misleading.
And I've been kind of on this for the last couple of years where I feel like there's never been more of a separation between what playoff teams look like and regular season teams look like. So go ahead.
Well, I was going to say right off of that, I wanted to talk about the Bucs because I feel like that's the case for it, right? The Bucs, to me, and you can tell me if I'm way off, they've obviously had moments this year. Brooke Lopez missed some time, but they've had moments where they haven't looked like a championship team.
But I always defer to if they've done it once, teams kind of know, all right, this is what it takes. LeBron used to do it all the time where it's like, this is what it takes, and I'm not going to kill myself in the middle of February.
We're going to, for the big games, we'll get up, and then when it comes time for the spring, we're ready to go, and we're still the best team in the East. Yeah, I think Milwaukee deserves all the benefit of the doubt.
I think the thing that's a little bit different is that, you know, for me growing up, usually you saw a team after like four or five title runs, and I'm not saying five straight finals appearances, but at least in the conversation that towards the end is when you saw them kind of back off a little bit where now you not only have the bucks which is fine but i mean the hawks halfway through the season were like yeah we're sort of over this we're sort of bored you know regular season like you guys haven't done anything and you're actually a really good team and they ended up finishing strong enough to you know end up over 500 we'll see what happens for the real playoffs part of this. But you're just like, who do you guys think you are? It's like a guy who just gets hired.
He's like, I want to talk to you guys about my 401k and maybe changing the contribution rate on this. And you're like, dude, we haven't even made your name tag yet.
So I get concerned about it a little bit because it can throw off some numbers. It's never been easier to score.
Last season was the highest offensive efficiency season we've seen in NBA history, and this year was number two. And part of that is the threes.
But from March on, some of the offensive rate numbers were so absurd because I think guys are just over it. We have the most accomplished scores we've ever seen.
The talent dispersal. to see Anthony Edwards do some of the stuff that he does and no one would ever say he's a top 20 20 player he might end up being that but like it's absurd what some of these dudes can do some of the stuff Jordan Poole can do and you never talk about him as like an all-star or anything like that so the skill level is is off the charts but I don't know if it's just being tired because of a shortened, weird, disrupted bubble season into another shorter, condensed season into turning this all around.
Or it's the new normal, which I'm a little afraid that the new normal is that this generation of players cares less and less about the regular season, which can totally throw off your playoff stuff. Because Milwaukee, as you said, Big Cat, I mean, the last 15 games of the season, they were a negative net.
They were 21st in defense. You know, this is a team that you go, look at all these defensive options that they have, and you're like, where the hell is the defense? And maybe it's just because they know they're going to turn it on, but some teams can screw it up by thinking they're just going to turn it on.
The Celtics, a couple years ago, when they got smoked by the Bucs in five games, that team hadn't even done anything. And they're like, well, nobody will beat us in seven games.
You're like, who are you guys? Like you haven't – you've never – you don't have the right to carry yourself like that, but at least Milwaukee does. Yeah, the switch is always an interesting thing.
I just go back to – for Milwaukee, I know they're going to sweep the bowls. Maybe a five-game series if DeRozan like drops 50 in an efficient game.
But I'm realistic about that. But I just – I watched I think it was maybe two weeks ago, where they played the Nets and the Sixers both on the road, and Giannis just went supernova, and it's like, oh, yep, okay.
I'm not worried about the Bucs. They're a really fucking good team.
Exactly. It goes back to what you were talking about, really, was like you're saying some players don't care about the regular season.
I think a lot of players don't care about defense. It's a dad take.
I'm getting ahead of my dad years by squatting on that. But a lot of players don't really care about defense as much as they used to.
What team out there is the outlier, though? What team would you say punches above their weight class defensively? Oh, Boston. I mean, Boston was ridiculous once they figured it out.
And I still think this turnaround by this Boston team, for those of us that watched it all the time, because I still watch them every game, I used to, you know, do the broadcast for TV, studio stuff. And, you know, a bunch of my friends and family are still Celtics fans.
So I told my dad at one point, I'm like, hey, no more Celtics. It's banned from our phone conversations.
Like, it's just a banned segment. I can't do it anymore.
I'm so sick of watching this team. They felt like they were soft, disconnected.
They couldn't figure things out. And they made some defensive adjustments.
And I think a lot of the players made kind of personality adjustments as far as like the way they carry themselves. So when they were locked in with Rob Williams, which, you know, there's some speculation he could be back at some point, maybe not in the first round.
That team went from what is wrong with you guys to off the charts defensively. And they cared.
I think Marcus Smart cared even more so because he was having such a good season and wanted to make a push to show that he could be Defensive Player of the Year, which is hard for guards. So I would watch them certain nights going, look at their work.
I mean, defense actually isn't that hard, okay? I'm not saying it's easy to be all-world defensively, but if you just care enough about rotations and you give effort and you don't freelance and you close out on shooters and you recover, it's a pain in the ass. You know, nobody wants to do it 70 games a year.
I get it. But those that do and take pride in it, or at least smart enough, like Steph Curry always gets trashed defensively.
And I know like, as soon as you say that, I go, okay, then you don't really know what you're seeing because I'm not saying Steph is going to lock anybody down, but he always knows where he's supposed to be. Granted, he's played with a lot of his same teammates for a long time, but I'd rather have that than some super athlete that's just freelancing that has no idea what they're doing.
So generally, I think over the course of the season, PFT, there's just teams that kind of mail that part of it in, but there are teams that still take pride in it, or at least players for the accolades. What about out West? What would be the team that kind of punches above their weight out West? Well, I don't know.
I mean, when you say above their weight, do you mean I expect them to be bad defensively, but they're good? No, I guess the team that has shown the effort like during the regular season. That's kind of taking pride.
Memphis is incredible. You know, Phoenix has a lot of different things they can throw at you, and Bridges is kind of a defensive player of the year guy.
You know, the biggest thing you're looking for now is effort and then switchability and bridges i mean plays every single game this guy's incredible i mean he plays every game he's doing the exact opposite what everybody else wants to do and chris paul's a 37 playing at all nba level i voted him third team oh really that's a shock i know some people thought i'd have him first team don't think i could have pulled it off this year how did you get a vote what was that process like the nba called me and said I had a vote. Nice.
That's a shock. I know.
Some people thought I'd have him first team. Don't think I could have pulled it off this year.
How did you get a vote? What was that process like? The NBA called me and said I had a vote. Nice.
That's sick. Can we get one for Jake? Jake Paul? No, Jake Marsh.
Oh, UVM's Jake Marsh. Yes, UVM's own.
By the way, my perception of the defense and the NBA kind of changed a little bit after I listened to J.J. Redick talk about like everyone says that the defense sucks in the NBA that's just couldn't be like farther from the truth it's the shot making is so fucking good that it's just like you think it's bad defense it's just incredible offense a lot of the time yeah the the strategies on what teams are doing defensively now too like they change and I think you're seeing more and more teams adopt this idea of force it out of the best player's hands as much as possible.
But that's what happened with Brooklyn last night, is they would double Durant on the catch or any kind of movement where he was stopping to make a decision, and then he's like, all right, fine, we'll play four-on-three with Kyrie. The stuff Golden State used to do, they did it more before, but with Draymond, who would catch it at the free throw line, and then he's playing four on three with his passing and size to drive.
Like, that was ridiculous, and that's back when he used to shoot a little bit more there. So, yeah, I mean, look, I'm not going to disagree with J.J.
Redick. I agree.
The concepts, a lot of stuff that they do, but I think we're in this kind of, like I said, my headline would be we're in a three-season stretch of guys asked to do a lot. A lot of people had to do a lot all over the world because everything changed.
But there's also, as Adam Silver, the commissioner, points out, it's a concern. It's a concern that we keep having so many players miss games.
And I don't think it's a real reach to say, if you have this many guys being like, you know what would be awesome is to play 55, 60 games. And they're not going to be super locked in on defense all the time.
Even though I think that the concepts and what they do are far beyond. Because they have to defend so much space.
Like the whole 90s shit and comparing it now. Like it's just, I'm sorry man.
Like I know the paint was crowded. But think how much easier it is to defend when you're just defending less surface.
Yeah, there's less guys that can shoot. So on the defense thing, we have a disagreement on this podcast.
Hank is actually kind of in the middle. I think the Celtics are better than the Nets.
PFT thinks the Nets are going to whomp the Celtics, which has to be five games or less. I just don't think the Nets can – that game, that play-in game on Tuesday night was exactly what the Nets are, where KD and Kyrie have to play perfect, and even still they just let teams back in because they don't play defense.
I almost think last night's game in certain games are like microcosms of what we're talking about are the bigger part of this. I always have a joke with you about the Rockets and Lakers game one a couple years ago.
Yeah, you lost me a lot of money. I know, but I made you back.
By the way, my tips for you, I'm over 500 with you guys. A&M, Arkansas.
Yeah, that's true, but you lost a lot of money. It was a lot of money.
All right, well, I don't know what your unit play is, but I apologize. Apology not accepted.
That's fine. Listen to the Tom Segura podcast.
I should clear that up. I thought the Lakers lost that game because they were like, oh, these guys suck.
This is going to be easy. Right.
I think teams have moments in games where they'll go, oh, all right. So I think the Nets getting up 20 is more a reflection of who they are compared to Cleveland.

Because I think Cleveland, despite how great of a story it is, missing Jared Allen, they're different.

Laurie Markkinen's out there one week guarding Durant, Embiid, and DeRozan.

I mean, he's like, I didn't sign up for this.

I should have gone to San Antonio and just shot threes.

So I'm scared to death of Durant.

I am.

I'm scared to death.

There's always going to be a little lingering part of me Celtics-wise because I watched the same group not really get it for a really long time. But this is three months of them basically being the best team in the league.
The Rob Williams thing and then adding Ben Simmons depending on what he's going to look like. And the great thing for Simmons, too, is this is the reverse of what he had in Philly.
No one gives a shit in Brooklyn. You're not the number one pick.
You're not the guy we tanked for. You're not the guy that was supposed to be the co-pilot with this resurgence for Embiid.
You're not the guy when Embiid's struggling that has to go create his own offense. Now he doesn't have to do any of that stuff.
He just has to cut off the ball when the other guys are facing more defensive attention and make dunks and layups and switch on defense and bring the ball up every now and then. So his life will be totally different.
If he looks good, then, yeah, I think the Celtics has some real issues because I'm scared to death of Durant. But this Celtics team, just all the stuff combined, man, it's been off the charts what this team has done.
And I think it's going to be a competitive series. I don't think the Celtics are going to whomp the Nets.
I don't think it's the reverse. I just – KD and Kyrie have to play so many minutes.
And KD actually said it, I think it was like before this season, because everyone's like, you know, if your foot was behind the line, the Nets would win the title. He's like, dude, I was gassed.
Like, I had to play so many fucking minutes for this team. And you even see it now, in April, both of these guys had to play more than 40 minutes I looked it up

they besides uh uh Fred Van Vliet and Siakam and then OKC who was playing like six guys down the stretch Kyrie and KD have the most minutes of anyone in the I know Kyrie missed a bunch but like they are if this is a seven game series and they're playing 44 minutes a game and then the seventh game is in Boston. I don't know.

I just think that's...

Kyrie is... series and they're playing 44 minutes a game and then the seventh game is in in boston i don't know i just think that's i i just would take the team that can get a defensive stop kairi is fresh though he's like he's the freshest that he's been bad he's gonna go stop he's gonna go stomp on lucky's little face do you think he's gonna do that again you think he's gonna break out the uh the logo stop he'll do something i mean it sucks because somebody's probably gonna say something to him you know i mean somebody's and i don't think that's a reflection of the city even though that's what it'll get turned into.
I mean, it sucks because somebody is probably going to say something to him. You know, I mean, somebody and I don't think that's a reflection of the city, even though that's what it'll get turned into.
You know, like stuff happens in Boston where I'm like, OK, maybe I sound sensitive about it because I'm from there. I just think that, you know, certain certain things happen where you're like, oh, that's that's only that city.
And you're like, no, there's assholes everywhere. So I'm a little worried about that part of it because I also don't think Kyrie like Kyrie can say one thing but then he'll do the other so I'm not going to predict but I would imagine in a hotly contested series and the other thing too is Boston hates him more they don't care about the lucky part this isn't about history it's about a guy that sat there on the microphone before his last season started and said, I'll come back if you'll have me.

Right.

When he never was coming back.

Like, I have one guy that knew it the entire time.

But you never know.

And I'm not a reporter.

But he goes, do not believe anything.

He is fucking gone.

He's gone.

He's not coming back to Boston.

And I think even Boston thought he was coming back because he was telling everybody he was coming back.

So, you know, I know that people point to, like, the water bottle being thrown and him stomping on Lucky. Like, he's got some shit in there because he's sick of hearing about it.
But he's the one that fucking started the whole thing. It's not even debatable.
I completely understand why Celtics fans have had it up to here with Kyrie. I get that entirely.
I just think it's funny that like the whole story got reported as a controversy because he walked on the cartoon logo at half court, which obviously is ignoring like you said, like most of the situation that's around it. I just like reducing everything to their stupidest element and then making that mean something that it doesn't.
You know this game, Ryan. That's how it's done.
Do you think they'll cover up the logo? Yeah, they got to. They have to.
You know, all they have to do is just put cones around it. If you see cones, people respect cones.
They're like, oh, I better stay away from there. You know what you should do? You guys should launch a t-shirt where it's just the center of the court with no logo.
That would be good. Actually, Coley sent me something that he's thinking about putting up, which is it's the don't tread on me, the Gadsden flag thing, except the snake is colored green with shamrockscks on it.
And it's got the leprechaun hat and the pipe and it's spinning a basketball and it's rattle. It's actually a pretty fire shirt.
I would like to get that up on sale. Wow.
That does sound fire. Are you going to be tie dye? Let me ask you one last question about this series.
Is there, I know obviously, I get it. Kevin Durant's the best scorer in the NBA, but is there a chance, like, you watch it every night.
Could Jason Tatum go toe-to-toe with Kevin Durant? Because I think that's getting lost. Like, everyone's – it's KD and Kyrie.
And obviously, people are scared of the Nets because the Nets are not a typical seven seed. But Jason Tatum's pretty damn good, too.
Yeah, he's nuts. I mean, this is why – like, all right, I'm going to use a bigger thing here.
and we can relate it to your bulls even um and it's the Lamar Jackson thing like I've heard over and over again that like we're unfair to Lamar Jackson because we changed the way that we critique him and I'm like I don't think it's that I think you win an MVP and now guess what because you want an MVP now we're going to talk about you with the other guys like Mahomes like Allen like you know Herbert who hasn't doesn't have the accolades if you win an MVP, now you get thrown into this group of all the top quarterbacks and this is how we're going to, and I'm going to know I'm even leaving guys out, right? That's not moving the goalposts in Lamar Jackson. It's the same thing with the Chicago Bulls.
Chicago Bulls, it's just some ridiculous story. Like, wow, look how good they are.
Like all of us thought the DeRozan contract was too long and it still might be, who knows, but he was fantastic this season. They gave up a lot for Vooch.
That's debatable. But they just started spending money and bringing people in.
And instead of fighting for a 10 seed, the Bulls were like, hey, we're not title contenders, but let's go. But then they have this absurd record.
They're defending great. Everything's working out.
DeRozan's getting MVP buzz, which was stupid, but whatever. It was fun for a week.
And then it's like, okay, well, now I compare you to the best version of Milwaukee, a healthy Brooklyn, Miami, Philly, and it's like, I don't know that I like you in that matchup, and then Bulls, reputable, reputable Bulls bloggers, I'll tell you, Dan, were like, well, I can't believe you, and it's like, what do you mean? No, I'm judging you now based on the neighborhood that you're in, so bringing it back to Tatum, I love Tatum at Duke. All right.
I've got receipts on this.

I thought he should have been number one.

And when Ainge made the trade,

I was like,

oh my God,

this is crazy.

Like they're actually going to do it because I felt like everybody had just

written it off.

No,

it's Fultz,

it's Ball,

and then it's Tatum.

And I'm like,

God,

I think Tatum might have the highest ceiling of all of these guys.

But again,

Fultz dealt with the injuries.

So when Tatum's coming up and he's taking LeBron and the Cavs team,

that wasn't very good.

And it was a pretty bad East,

the seven games and they're at home.

And that's without Kyrie.

I'm like,

Thank you. Tatum's coming up and he's taking LeBron and the Cavs team that wasn't very good.
And it was a pretty bad East, the seven games. And they're at home.
And that's without Kyrie. I'm like, what can this guy be? Right? So I'm harder on Tatum than I am Jalen Brown because I didn't have the same expectations for Jalen Brown, even though his story is incredible.
So with Tatum, you're like, is he going to figure this out? And he hadn't for the longest time. Back to the defensive strategy.
Double him. Get the ball out of his hands and see what happens.
happens he didn't do a great job with it and they also didn't have very good personnel to give him a relief valve you know Dennis Schroeder isoing Josh Richardson you know inconsistent offensively and then Jalen sort of left to come up with his own thing or Marcus was going to chuck a three up and in this turnaround Tatum has figured out everything like there's certain plays that I see now I'm going oh he sees what's happening now because he's had it happen to him all season so now they're really nasty because Tatum like the best players can do all the best shit I get it but the best players are the ones that understand still the right basketball play which I still think is an audience we struggle with because we're all Kobe didn't MJ'd out that we're like no no you're a loser if you didn't take the shot right you're like no that's not really always the case and I think Tatum's added that part to his game and can still go off for 40 in a playoff game so you're right to expect that Tatum maybe hangs punch for punch with Durant I think he's still a sliver below Durant but that's not saying much to say you're just behind who I think is still the best offensive option in the NBA yeah what about the the Six Sixers Raptors series to me that's that's an interesting one because people are gonna be talking a lot about the coaches one guy that's been pretty good in the postseason one guy that has left a little bit to be desired shall we say recently yeah look I love Doc but he's got three of the all-timers on his resume and they're tough yeah no all, no, all-timers. He's like three of the five biggest collapses on his resume.

The Clippers-Houston one sucked for me for a long time as a Chris Paul guy.

He's got the other Clippers one to Denver not that long ago, and then I still can't believe they lost to Atlanta.

I mean, as bad as it was all going, go back and look at those games.

I think they blew three 19-point leads or something ridiculous like that. So, yeah, that's Nick Nurse's – if you ask people around the league, more people are going to tell you I'd rather have Nick Nurse as the coach than Doc.
But the Sixers are also 1-3 against Toronto. And Philly fans can point out that, hey, Joel played three of those games.
They only had Harden for two. Theibel's going to miss some more.
He only played two of them. But Fred VanVleet only played one.
OG missed three as well. I think Siakam missed a game as well.
And even Scottie Barnes missed one of those games. The last time we watched them play without Van Vliet and OG in a full Sixers squad, I think for the most part, it looked bad for Philly.
Now, maybe Embiid beats up on that front line and that carries him through it, but there's something numbers-wise that I brought up that's worth paying attention to, is Philly, since the Harden trade, is the worst defensive team transition-wise in the NBA. They're giving up 65% field goal percentage in transition.
And it's because Harden doesn't care. He just is like, you know, remember you get yelled at in, like, youth basketball, not getting back? No one ever yelled at Harden, apparently.
And more so on the defense, Tybel's their second-best defender, and he's not going to play in Toronto. Yeah, he's their best perimeter defender.
Some of the stuff he does as a perimeter defender I absolutely love, and it's funny that the Kyrie story shifted to Thibel really quick. It's like, yeah, we don't care about him as much because you're just not as good.
It's just the way it works. This one is really tough to figure because even though some of the offensive numbers with Harden and Bede, like that pairing is in Philadelphia, I think one of the five best offensive pairings and all this different kind of stuff.
I don't think Harden, a guy who I didn't like in his prime in playoff spots because he's got about a 10-game resume like, what the fuck was happening here with you? And now he's slower. He doesn't finish at the rim as well.
There'll be a playoff game where the crew just decides he's not going to get the free throws, even though his free throw averages per game in the playoffs and regular season are actually pretty close for his career. I thought there was a time where there'd be a certain game with Harden and be like, oh, tonight they're just not going to let it happen.
We're in the regular season. I don't think that happens as much.
So there's a lot of stuff here that favors Toronto, but it's also a huge problem because it's precious Achua and Kem Birch in the front line against Embiid. Right, and now eat him up.
Is there anything at all that points to James Harden being able to turn it on for the playoffs? Anything in his entire career, anything just in a microcosm this season about how he's been playing recently, is there any reason at all to believe that he's not going to go out there and do what James Harden does in the playoffs? Look, if you were... I mean, this hamstring injury has gone on like, what, a year and a half, so...
It's pretty bad. I'm picking up a vibe that you might not be a James Harden guy.
Hamstrings are tricky though, Ryan. They They really are.
You ask any professional sprinter or wide receiver. Deshaun Jackson's been dealing with a hamstring for like 11 years.
His whole career, yeah. Yeah.
No, I mean, hell, if you're not ready that first softball night, you see guys blow them out left and right. But it just seems almost too easy to be like this team, as much as I like Joel Embiid, this team is like prime for another big disappointment.

Yeah, I love Embiid. Love him.

And yet, you know, I was so happy that he had a shooting option

off of him in the two-man game that he didn't have with Simmons.

Like Simmons and the Embiid pairings,

that's just kind of like fundamentally flawed.

You know, I'm like, hey, I'm one of the last remaining post guys

that can destroy people on the block. All right, let's get the worst shooting threat ever to be passing it to you you know like so I felt good about this trade in the sense that it got both teams got rid of something that wasn't working Simmons not playing and then Harden quitting on a second team in 13 months so look sure there's part of me that knows Harden's gonna go off I mean he's just he's still got the ball enough he's still talented enough his passing is terrific you know that in-between lob and floater game is brutal it's really hard but he's the numbers are worse and yeah I have a I have a problem I have a problem with anyone who's a professional athlete who is okay deciding that they're just not going to be competitive twice in a year because they don't like their situation.
Like I think there's something wrong with you and I'm not even meaning just Harden here, but if you're okay sucking on purpose and having it happen that many times in a very short span, then why would I bet on your personality when everything's tense and it matters and it's the last minute? Why would I bet on your personality thriving in that situation when you've been totally okay quitting in other ones? And that's why I love Giannis so much. Yeah.
Because Giannis is like, fuck this, let's go. And he goes at everybody.
And even though it's not perfect offensively, even though it's hard to make that statement now after what he did in the finals. But I just know with him, he's never going to be afraid.
He may miss, but he's never going to be afraid. And there's some other stars in this league that I don't think are totally wired for that moment.
I would rather have a guy just be like almost honestly like I don't care. You know, like a guy that will just tell you, you know what? I'm collecting a paycheck.
They're paying me very well. I really don't care to push myself that hard.'s just not in my dna i'm doing okay i'd rather have that you'd want to max that guy out you'd rather max him out than what in a way i would rather max that guy out than have a guy that like comes in saying i'm gonna try i'm gonna give him my all and like the first thing that goes wrong for me he's like fuck this you know like because that that guy at least i know what i'm getting with the first guy i think i'm still confused do you have um do you have another sport analogy that you can give me i'm trying to think if i can do like a colin coward uh right okay so if if america's my first wife if you were to have if you were to have your first wife i'd rather have her making 75 grand a year than having up, and her dad is rich, but then she gets busted for tax evasion.
You want the first option. Consistency is key.
So you just want – here's a sidebar. If a woman did a Cam Newton interview and said, I don't want to marry anybody that can't provide for himself, how would that have gone over hi dude the cam newton interview was so funny because i saw it trending and i was like oh he stepped in this and then i was like oh fuck that's wallow and gilly shit we're in it again like we can't barstool can't stay away from it they were just oh that's yeah it was a barstool podcast i was like i i saw saw it and I was like, oh, this is going to be funny.

Everyone's going to roast Cam Newton.

I was like, oh, fuck.

They're just like staring at him like, I don't believe that he's actually saying all these things.

By the way, I'm not defending it or anything like that.

I'm pointing simply to like, all right, Cam Newton said some dumb shit and now everybody's going to lay into him.

But I don't think you'd be allowed to be like, I can't believe that woman said that she needs her man to provide right it'd be a different conversation yes absolutely uh have you very important question have you decided what your spin zone is going to be when chris paul gets injured somewhere in the middle of the second round this year yeah i'm ready for ready for it. I mean, he's hurt.
He was hurt in the finals last year.

Got surgery.

Kept it quiet.

Doesn't make excuses.

I make those for him.

Oh, nice.

So pre-hurt.

You're going pre-hurt.

Yeah, pre-hurt.

Which is kind of his whole career, but yeah.

No, it's not great.

It's not great.

I don't have a counter to any of that stuff.

I mean, I just always hate when it's like ESPN will put up the graphic

and they'll be like, look at all these Chris Paul exits

or what happened here or there.

I'm like, he wasn't playing in the game. Like, you guys are holding this against him and he's not in there.
That's part of being great. You got it, Ryan.
No, you got it. You got to pull a big cat and you got to print up a fact sheet and take it around with you.
But like, instead of anti coach K stuff, like reminders of, Hey, Chris Paul actually didn't play that series that you think that he choked away. Chris Chris Paul.
That would be a great podcast idea. Just call it fact sheet.
And it's 20 minutes long. And whoever's the most absurd supporter or I guess criticizer.
I don't even know if that'd be the right word. So whatever it is, is you just, you get your floor to lay it all out for your point.
And then, you know, maybe a of back and forth and and whatever i think that i have a question for you guys stephen a first take and skip bayless do it you just invented first take no but you just you have to be like all right what's i thought i was going crazy when he was like i think that's a great idea one guy so like there's the the white guy would say he hates lebron and calls him LeFran. And then...
LeGon. Yeah.
No, no, no, no. What I mean is, like, you find the guy...
Like, who's the guy that thinks this more so than anybody else? Yeah, you'd be the Chris Paul defender. You're right.
I'd be a Chris Paul guy. And we would shut you down easily because we'd just be like, he's injured and he has no rings.
That's right. He has no rings, so that means he no rings so that means he sucks there you go dude i want to support you in the chris paul thing but like you have to admit that if he doesn't win a title this year like the bust word has to come out i would say you could bust yeah yeah no you could even say i mean he came out of college he was supposed to be the savior you you could say his whole career was a waste.
He probably would have had a better career as a lawyer. Another sport? Or not even pro sports.
Insurance salesman. Yeah.
He should have done that. Yeah, wait.
No, you're his father, right? In your little weird hypothetical world. I think he would have been a great debt collector.
There you go. Yeah.
And probably wouldn't have been injured as much. It's a lot safer, maybe.
I don't know, though. Maybe he'd be looking for confrontation.
Imagine that guy harassing you for student loans. I mean, this is the final piece, though.
If he does get a title, it's like your entire career is vindicated. I'm not talking about Chris Paul.
I'm talking about your career. There's more at stake for me than it is chris paul oh absolutely absolutely understands that and uh just so you know if he does win one we're just gonna be like one yeah and you can play and booker will score the most so you can say like booker carried him even though booker was in zero playoff games before he showed up to the phoenix suns i think my biggest chris paul, oh, wait, was that an incredible fact that I just threw your way?

You do walk around with this fact sheet in your head.

You should print it up.

If Paul gets one, I think it puts him in the rarefied air of like,

he's like Chauncey Billups.

Yeah.

He's like a lesser version of, he's a lesser version of,

he's like a junkyard Dirk.

No, that's cool.

You get OKC to a seventh game in the first round,

which I think is better than a ring in a way.

Yeah, that is true. Many people say that.
Here's my victory lap on the Chris Paul thing that's already happened, is that there used to be a Westbrook-Chris Paul debate. There used to be a Darren Williams-Chris Paul debate, and that lasted a very short amount of time.
And then it was weird. Once he wasn't with Utah anymore, jazz fans were like, yeah, maybe Chris Paul's better now, which happens far too often.
And then there was a Westbrook one where I remember some Oklahoma City blog was trying to say that I was only saying Paul was better than Westbrook because I needed clicks and attention you're like hey man I'm fucking national all right national radio show so um I just never forget that and I feel like the greatest thing that ever happened to Thunder fans was that they lived with Westbrook thinking they knew what was going on and they thought they knew what was right and then they got Chris Paul for a year and they were like holy shit this is how you play the position yeah and I saw some of the top 75 stuff going around I forget who had a vote or who didn't but it was out there Jake did I think even Kent I think even Kendrick Perkins had Westbrook ranked ahead of Chris Paul like all time and you just go like we're still This is still a debate. And now Westbrook's about to be in his fifth team in five years for a Hall of Famer.
Well, hold on. So every, look, the no ring thing, I'll finish right here.
All of the individual battles that Chris Paul and all the arguments that used to happen, he's smoked everybody in all of those. He just has.
And it just, now he's not allowed to be, it'll be funny if he does win this year because then guys will be like, oh, I guess he's good now. Like, oh, 15 years later.
Yeah. No, I won't even concede.
Some people will be like, yes, he's done enough to please me. Yeah.
Thank you, Chris Paul, for making me like you. It's also just one of those fun ones where it's like, obviously, you know, maybe we'll cut this part.
Like Chris Paul's incredible top five point guard of guard of all time all these things but it's so much more fun to just be like no rings injured you guys pick those guys you hate them yeah well I don't hate them I don't even hate them I just think it's fun I like just be like to just diminish someone's entire career to rings it's you like to diminish things it's so stupid it makes no sense I know when we say it it's say it, it's the dumbest form of argument that you can make. And it's actually made sports less fun overall, but there are certain guys where it's just fun to do.
What? It's phrasing. No, it is.
My favorite is even, it's not in basketball. It's in baseball or football.
If you take an offensive line, Joe Thomas kind of sucked. He never made the playoffs.
Mike Trout never made the playoffs. He's a fucking bum.
You're laughing because it's fun. Who are your individual Chris Pauls? Oh, that we defend? Yeah.
Carson Wentz now. I was going to say Brian Butch.
Carson Wentz, he got two MVP votes in 2017. He's the best quarterback in the history of the NFL in 73-degree weather, and he's Mr.
October indoors. There you go.
Outdoors, outdoors, Mr. October.
Outdoors. I actually, well, I was on the take early that Matthew Stafford's going to be a Hall of Famer just because I remember like three or four years ago I looked at his numbers and his durability, and I was like, if this dude wins anything's going to be open shut because his numbers are going to be right up there so I feel a little vindicated by that mine and this is kind of an easy one for me is uh Scotty Reynolds would have been a game-changing NBA point guard and it's perfect because I never have to actually go through the scenario where he is because he's never going to play in the NBA just ahead of his time but he yeah he won he won everywhere in college.
And his freshman year, I went to high school with him. I was a senior when he was a freshman.
And I said, the first game I saw, I was like, this kid's going to be a superstar. Damn, I have a talent.
It's mostly about me making myself feel good about being right about something. I think Tyus Thomas still could be a Hall of Famer.
I have not given up on Tyus Thomas. He could jump out of the gym.
I would be genuinely excited if the Commanders signed Mike Williams, the receiver from the Lions back in 2005, the guy that went to USC. You remember him? Yeah.
Oh, my God. I love that guy.
Physical freak. He was filthy.
That catch at the back of the end zone for USC, I love him. But, I mean, that's the stuff that you don't really know.
I mean, this gets all back to the draft stuff. But, I mean, people get married.
You think you'd have your evaluations and check on that one and it doesn't work out half the time, right? So, fucking wide receivers? Yeah. Are you kidding me? So, you know, sometimes you get a guy in the building and you go, oh, this isn't going to work out.
Remember Charles Rogers, Michigan State? Yeah. I mean, he was even better than Mike Williams.
Yeah. I mean, you're like, how does that kind of work out? And then there's just other stuff.
And it's like Tyrus Thomas, it was like, would he have been better now? Did the Bulls sign him now in positionless basketball? Dude, he's got all the – he would be – if you put him in any draft, everyone would fall in love with him every time because he was that springy. He was just so different.
He was so good. Because I couldn't – I was total name drop here.
I was flying to Portsmouth, Virginia, which used to be one of the – well, it still goes on, the Portsmouth Invitational. You guys should do a remote from there sometime.
And I would go because you get to meet all the GMs and scouts because nobody went other than the locals. You were in a high school gym watching all of these picks that might not even go in the second round.
But the big thing was you would just sit there and gossip and talk about stuff. I remember being like, Tyrus Thomas is going to go that high? He was like, yes.
He goes, he can handle it. He's 6'10".
He's got the bounce. All he needs to do is figure out all the other stuff.
And it was like, yeah. So he has like seven things he has to get better at.
The other for tyrus thomas was a lot of stuff was everything it was all the things basketball you talked about a lot of stuff talked about a lot of cool stuff that you can do with your body um but then there's also a game called basketball yeah they have to be good no i i have kind of a tyrus thomas stromile swift two lsu guys yeah uh marquis chris rule who's actually you know he's in the league again. I have this rule now when I'm getting ready for the draft where I go, okay, there's a lot of stuff that's really fun.
Is he good at basketball? Yeah. It's a question I ask myself.
Can I ask a follow-up to PFT, though? Yeah. What was high school PFT like? High school PFT, I don't think you're ready to know.
That's a whole other podcast. That's a that's a whole thing that was my brother actually that's a whole other podcast we can get it yeah that was uh life advice three yeah well yeah we can go back to high school do a little flashback that way i don't know i don't have much in the tank after that last that last one went very very long like i always judge it by hank basically being like all right guys i gotta get i like you something.
When he does the fake, he does the wrap-up or he goes to the bathroom. It's like, okay, maybe we should.
By the way, the other one that I just popped in my head. It's a nice couch, so I can see why it went wrong.
And we finished strong, but I thought we had about a 25-minute lull in that one. Yeah, we did.
Where I was like, are we done? Because I can still get us a table in town. Next time, I need you to wear even smaller shorts than you did the last time.
Honestly, the video, I was grossed out by myself, so I apologize to you and your listeners. No, that's fine.
They loved it. They fantasized about you.
No, it was a lot because they started working up the last two hours and I was like this. Hiked up.
I still think. What are we trying to do? I still think Starlin Castro could hit 3,000 hits.
That one was a bad one for me. He had the numbers, man, and he also was very young.
Very toolsy. Yeah, but I don't think that's going to happen.
But all right, so let's go back to NBA. I just remembered one more.
It is an NBA thing. I think that the late – when was that? Like 2010, 2011, 2012? The Brandon Roy Blazers.
Oh, yeah. Remember that team? Oh, yeah.
That's the greatest dynasty that never was look Brandon Roy could go uh he was he was awesome it was a couple years before that um but when he when he was he was putting up some numbers like you know you go for like a month to two month stretch you go nobody can do anything with this guy right now but the reason why he went when he went is he was somebody like it's it's crazy and this is the part of the job I appreciate the most, the people that I've known a long time. But there will be medical stuff where teams will – I don't say it.
Like if I hear from a team, you're like, hey, this guy's Red Flag City. I don't say anything because it's not my job.
I'm not a reporter. We're just talking, and I'd never want to hurt a kid's stock, even though this stuff kind of gets out there anyway, right? But like the two biggest medical red flags that I got from a team once were Michael Porter Jr.
Yeah. All right.
I mean, his spine was dust. Right.
When Michael Porter Jr. is putting up the numbers, he is in these 6'10", hitting these jumpers that look like, are there five guys in the league that can do what he does at his size? You're like, I don't know.
And then he finds a way through it long enough to get maxed a year ahead of time, which then you,

you know,

you didn't have to do it that way.

But if you like the guy,

you kind of do it.

It's the opposite of what Robert Sarver does in Phoenix.

But then you're sitting there going,

Oh,

this is why he went when he went because of the flags.

And,

uh,

Malcolm Brogdon was another one.

Like,

how can this guy go in the second round?

It's like,

well,

you know,

we're just bloggers or,

you know,

I can talk show hosts.

I mean,

obviously I know you guys don't blog anymore. I have one, I have a pen name for a different one, but it's like well you know we're just bloggers or you know i can talk show hosts i mean obviously i know you guys don't blog anymore i have one i have a pen name for a different one but it's mostly political um conceptual ryan that's gonna start a firestorm trying to find that one this is this is all part of it they don't get and that's kind of back to your brandon roy point is that you know guys knew they were like i'm not i'm not quite sure how long his knees are going to last and they were right because when he was good he was terrific but i know that was a super long brandon roy answer so we'll keep it moving no it's sometimes fun just to remember guys that like that dude would have been awesome yeah yeah no he's definitely at the top of that list gonna get back to ryan in a second but before we do coors light is back it's springtime the mountains are blue when the mountains blue, you know it's time to crack open an ice cold Coors Light and then go to the Barstool Sports Store to get the latest merch from the official part of my take.
You know what? I'm going to put this ad read down. I'm just going to talk about these shirts that we have.
Billy kind of designed a shirt. Well, you designed the mountains are blue emoji line of, it's really a brand and it works and we've got these cool new shirts from Coors Light we've got a couple different styles one featuring Billy's Mountains or Blue proprietary logo and the other that features the part of my take logo with the mountains and me and Big Cat chugging Coors Light on it we love Coors Light it's our favorite beer here at part of my take it's the only beer that I drink.
If they have Coors Light, wherever I am, that's the beer that I'm choosing. There's no second place.
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to say. They're making it all happen over at Coors

Light. Now, back to Ryan

Russilla.

Is it the Suns though? I mean, it's going to be the

Suns. They are the best team by far and away.

The West, the East to me,

I wouldn't be shocked.

Here, let's do it this way.

Rank this statement.

The East, I wouldn't be shocked if

Thank you. the West, the East to me I wouldn't be shocked here let's do it this way rank this statement the East I wouldn't be shocked if three teams went to the finals no four teams, sorry the Heat, the Celtics the Bucks and the Nets I wouldn't be shocked, those four teams the West, I would kind of be shocked if it was anyone but the suns not saying maybe the warriors throw in there but it just feels like the west has a lot of really fun players and a really fun stories but it's the suns are are leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else i know that when i was younger i would talk sports i would say stuff like are you fucking kidding me brian rose is definitely a one at worst a two in the socks rotation that's That's before your time.
Maybe Hank won't even get that one. Hank's in a meeting.
He's a fucking suit now. Right.
So when I went and I first started working in Boston, because Bob Ryan's the best. Bob Ryan, you could just stop and be like, hey, ask him a basketball question.
And he would sincerely talk to you for as long as it took him to talk to you. It was incredible.
And I remember asking Bob Ryan. I was like, oh, this team sucks.
Whatever, whatever. He'd be like, I don't know.
I'm like, what do you mean you don't know? You've been doing this 30 years. That was the whole point is you get older and you do this long enough.
You have more of an open mind about all of it because when you're young, you don't know how wrong you are most of the time and you're convinced you're right. I have a harder time now narrowing the field because I've just seen so many times in sports something happen differently.
Having said all that, Phoenix's profile is insane. They're 32-9 in the clutch.
Their road record is better than anybody else's record. Their clutch efficiency is double that of Milwaukee's, which is just an absurd number.
They're better than they were last year. They didn't have any bigs, any other options besides Aiton.
And I would say, you know, whatever. They had Sharich, but that wasn't really a great option.
They added two. They have more shooting.
They have more ball handlers. Bridges is better.
Paul should be rested at this point. Maybe that's the best thing that he did get hurt and missed a bunch of time.
I were already planting the seed of why he might not get hurt with this. And, you know, Aiton gives you a viable big against the other big matchups that you may run into, even if he's not perfect.
And Booker's taking it up a notch too. So I don't see how anybody beats them.
I just don't. I mean, there's part of me that thought Golden State was starting to figure some things out.
They had a nice couple wins. They smashed Milwaukee at home.
Steph was getting going. Clay was coming back.
Draymond was coming back. But Draymond, Steph, and Clay played 11 minutes together this season.
But right before Curry gets rolled by Smart, that derailed everything. So there's always going to be a part of me that respects Golden State so much, but that's asking a lot for now of it all to come together.
And if they make it to the Western Conference Finals, come together against a team like Phoenix, who's even better than they were last year. And if Paul doesn't get hurt, I know, here we go again.
Maybe that series plays out a little bit differently, especially at the end of Game 4. And they're even more motivated you know the analogy i made this week on my podcast is remember how mad san antonio was all year long after they lost in the ray allen shot lost that game and then lose the series like that was a driving force single-mindedness let's get back there and kick their ass and that's exactly what they did their phoenix's lost in milwaukee wasn't as dramatic or you know you know haunting as I imagine.
But that part of it, the Memphis thing is great, but it'd be the youngest team to ever be in the NBA Finals. Dallas is one guy, and he might be hurt.
Denver's one guy, and they're even worse, and they don't defend. Nobody likes Utah anymore.
I love, by the way, the Utah – shout out Quinn Snyder when the story came out that Donovan Mitchell and Rudy Gobert didn't get along. And he was like, I see them eating lunch together sometimes.
And I was like, yeah. They're best friends.
That sounded good. Like I don't think – he might have been – maybe I'll give Quinn Snyder more credit where he did the thing where he's going to make a quote that becomes a story instead of the actual story.
But him saying that, I was like, they have lunch sometimes. That doesn't sound like they're that tight.
Ryan, you're plugged in. Was Quinn Snyder ever discussed to go back to Duke? No.
Quinn Snyder's been talked about potentially the Lakers or Spurs. Oh, that would – It's just gossipy stuff.
Yeah. I don't know if it'll happen or not.
But if Utah gets bounced early or it's a disappointing exit, I think they'd shake it up. But they better get in front of the Donovan Mitchell thing because I think everybody – And again, these are gossipy NBA circles, so I'm not saying it's going to happen.
But if you place money on who gets talked about as the next star, because that's what the league is. Every six months, one of these really great players gets pissed off and they get their way.
And now what they're doing is they're not going, hey, let me go shorter deals so I can press the issue with leverage and free agency. They're like, no, I'll just take the fucking max and then I'll ask for a trade.
I don't give a shit. Smart.
It's totally different. It's different in a very short amount of time.
So I think Utah could make some changes if they're disappointed again here because you know Ainge comes in I feel bad for Zanuck the general manager who I think is terrific but you know it hasn't always been easy and he was he was terrific in Milwaukee and then they replaced him and you know it was kind of weird and but it worked out for Milwaukee so whatever but I I've heard Quinn's stuff but I don't I don't know what's going on with the Lakers.

What I do love about the Lakers thing, though, if you allow me.

Yeah, before you do your Lakers rant,

I heard that LeBron actually didn't want Russ.

He wanted DeRozan the whole time.

That's what I heard.

Yeah, Magic.

And Caruso.

He wanted Caruso to say. Yeah, and Caruso.

And Steph.

I think we're so numb to the Magic Johnson appearances that we almost are desensitized to realizing how fucked up they are. Like, can you imagine another city, right? Another city where you have this legendary...
Like, imagine if Michael Jordan just said, I'm going to go... Like, wasn't involved with the Hornets or anything like that, but just was hanging out in Chicago all the time.
And then every six months, went on first take take was like, Billy Donovan fucking sucks. I would have done everything differently.
Yeah, just making up hypothetical. I would have signed this guy, this guy, this guy, knowing that no one's going to be like, hey, dude, that doesn't work for the cap.
Right. And I've had a host in that spot where you're kind of like, is this guy wrong? And it's Magic Johnson.
You kind of let him go. So I don't know if Greeny's going to go.
That doesn't work under the cap. And you actually couldn't have done that.
And then I remember I talked to somebody pretty quickly after because I was double checking. I go, hey, when Magic was talking about the DeRozan thing, I'm like, all the Lakers had, other than the other more creative stuff, was a 5.9 mid-level taxpayer exemption.
And the guy I talked to was like, DeRozan wasn't signing anywhere for less than 20 mil like he just wasn't right he just wasn't there are other options and magic is like again it's the equivalent of like we had yannis one on my board it's like it just goes on and on and you know magic also when they when they got rid of dan tony and they brought in byron scott who was like the first thing he's like i don't know i don't about these three pointers. Like that's fucking stupid.
We're going to be long twos and boxing out on the free throw line. And magic is like, happy days are here again.
And you go, what the fuck? And it's, I think that Jeannie bus is in a really tough spot because there's a lot of voices. There's a lot of history.
There's a lot of stuff. And she's the steward of this whole thing.
And you know, it's, it's, it's as passionate as a fan base for any sports franchise I've ever seen in this country. But the LeBron part of it is so weird because I think LeBron, when he says things, he's saying things for reasons.
And sometimes it's powerful stuff. And then sometimes I'm like, I don't know that this is as powerful as you want this to be.
Like, I think he was complimenting Oklahoma City and saying how amazing Presti was over All-Star weekend because they have a lot of draft picks, and he's thinking, well, if I'm really nice about Presti, maybe they'll use a pick on my kid in a couple years. I think that's how they operate.
And so when the Mark Jackson rumor started this weekend, I promise there's a point here, I'm like, there's nobody that knows what's going on in the league that would be like, hey, we've got to get Mark Jackson in here this. Because Mark Jackson brings more problems.
Right. He just does.
I don't give a fuck. I'll argue with anybody about it.
The history is long. And there's a reason why the guy hasn't had a coaching gig in a long time.
And you're like, why would he be adamant about Mark Jackson getting a job? But Mark is also a clutch client. So I went, I wonder if LeBron says this publicly so that another organization, specifically an owner who'd be impressionableable by LeBron would be like, well, fuck, if LeBron wants Mark Jackson, let's get this guy in there.
Because I do think there's this collective LeBron team thing where they plant seeds to try to get their way in a bunch of different areas, not just specific to how it works out for LeBron. So maybe they want Mark Jackson.
That would surprise me. But I think that could be part of it, too.
That's interesting. I like that.
That's a great theory. That's much smarter than our theory that LeBron was going to hire his son as head coach.
So that way his son could play himself and they would circumvent the draft that way. I think yours probably is more based in reality.
What about Westbrook as coach? So he can't put himself in. Well, Westbrook had a quote today that was so funny.
He's like, I don't know what Frank Vogel's problem was with me. It's like, well, maybe your play? I don't know.
He's like, we never really got along. It's like, yeah, I could guess why.
So, Ryan, put your MVP vote on the line. Oh.
Two finals. What teams are making it? You have to get one of the two.
If you miss on both of them, them you give your vote to jake yeah no problem phoenix milwaukee i think it's a rematch phoenix wins i agree i agree i think it's one of those years that um because you what you you're bob ryan stories like i i appreciate it and what you're saying because sports are that's why we watch sports are unpredictable but the nba playoffs are kind of predictable in a lot of ways. Like, there are teams...
Historically, totally predictable. Right.
The most predictable of any of the playoffs. Right.
There are teams that can win it all, and there are teams that just can't. And I think that there's, it feels like there's a few teams in the East, and there's one team in the West.
And maybe, you know, well, Chris Paul will get hurt, so we'll see how they deal with that. But I agree with you.
I think it's going to be we talk our way a million different ways about the Celtics, the Nets, the Heat, which has there ever been a more disrespected team, one seed, than the Heat? Like, no one talks about the Heat. No, it's hilarious.
I mean, I've made fun of myself going, they're going to be in the NBA Finals. I'm going to be going, yeah, I don't know if they score enough.
It's crazy. We did this whole podcast where we haven't even talked about the Heat.
They're the one seed. And Bam's one of my favorite players in the league, and he missed a huge chunk, and they still end up being the one seed.
I mean, all their three main guys. I mean, the development that they do, and I wouldn't even call it like on the edge of the roster, at the bottom of the roster.
You know, Struis and Vincent and Yurtsevin having to play big minutes.

Duncan's not on the bottom of the roster.

No, but when you think about the development of the pieces around it.

No, I know Duncan's not at the bottom.

Haslam.

You were going to say you don't ask Haslam.

Yeah, Haslam has been developed nicely over the last 45 years.

All right.

I want to throw something at you guys.

I don't know what your time frame here is.

No, we go whatever. Okay.
You guys were talking Timberwolves celebration. Yeah.
Yeah. Let's hash this out.
All right. Let's do it.
Do you have a problem with it? Because like, why are you telling people not to enjoy sports? That's my question. It's tough to argue with that, PFT.
So there's no line, though. What if they had a parade today? Okay.
Okay. Okay.
All right. Let's figure out the line.
No, I'd actually be fine with a parade. I'm fine with that.
You'd be okay with a parade. It doesn't hurt me at all.
Here's the other part of it. And someone said, like, oh, if the Nets had celebrated like that, if KD had celebrated like that, you wouldn't have a problem.
Yes, you're right. Different circumstances, certain guys who have won a title, you expect them to have a little bit of a different reaction.
Being a Minnesota sports fan, it doesn't get talked about. It literally, like everyone talks about Cleveland, everyone talks about Buffalo, everyone talks about Atlanta.
They have lost 18 straight playoff games as the Twins. The Twins have lost 18 straight playoff games.
That's an insane stat. That's ridiculousoff games that's an insane stat that's ridiculous they've not won a playoff they've been to the playoff seven times since 2004 and they've not won a playoff game that's crazy side topic for your baseball podcast should the al central be relegated is the al central even power if it's power six in baseball i think it's a power five and al central white socks i think this is the White Sox.
That's what all my friends who are White Sox fans are telling me. Move the SEC up to the MLB.
Yes. And then put the – And replace the AL Central.
Put the Central back in college, yeah. So you got the Twins.
The T-Wolves had one of the best players of all time. I don't know where you rank KG.
Top 30? I don't know. Whatever.
They went to a Western Conference final. That's it.
Never went past that. Seven first-round exits to start his playoff career.
The ultimate winner billed as the ultimate loser. Yes.
The Vikings have Kirk Cousins as their quarterback. They're 0-4 in Super Bowls all time.
They also I think you could easily make the claim they have the greatest team of all time to not make a Super Bowl with that Randy Moss rookie year team that lost to the Falcons. 15-1 that year.
Like such an insane team. That team was nuts.
Nuts, nuts. That was your buddy that made the kick, right, PFT? Yeah, it was Morton Anderson.
And he made it because Gary Anderson, no relation, missed his first field goal of the entire season. And then the the wild who they got sent to dallas the state of hockey lost their hockey team they come back and they lose every year in like the first or second round i think context matters where minnesota if you're a minnesota sports fan and patrick beverly obviously there's more history with the clippers and everything enjoy the fuck fuck out of it.
What's the point? You're not going to, like, I have changed my opinion as I've gotten a little older where it's like, dude, being a sports fan is miserable. It is.
You don't win. No one wins.
You know what I mean? So you have to enjoy it. Most of us lose.
Yeah, we lose all the time. Right, right.
And you invest time, money, everything, like emotions.

And it's stupid.

It's dumb how much we invest in our sports teams.

But you have to find joy in other things.

So I'm never going to hate on people for doing that now.

And the people that say act like you've been there before,

those are people that for the most part are so spoiled by winning that they don't even get joy out of success anymore. They just get their joy out of telling other people not to be happy about it.
Right. So like 2019, 2018, NHL playoffs, the Capitals won a Stanley Cup game.
I think they went up 1-0. I popped champagne and people were like, what are you doing? Act like you've been there.
I was like, I've literally never seen a cap Stanley Cup win in my entire life. Celebrate sports.
Sports are supposed to be fun for the fans. If you have not experienced any form of success, celebrate everything that you can get.
In 2015, Cubs, they went up 2-1 on the Cardinals. I think it was the game before Schwarber hit that fucking ball that hasn't landed.
I remember me and my buddy, we got so fucking drunk that the next game that we were at, which was the clinching game, we were drinking water and coffee in the bleachers because we were so hungover. Like, celebrate the moments.
Celebrate the moments. And I don't regret it.
It was fucking awesome. It was like a 3 o'clock first pitch.
We beat the Cardinals to go up 2-1. It was fucking awesome, and I don't regret it.
I regret it a little because I was very, very hungover. I, for the record, don't regret the champagne at all.
Yeah. Popping champagne is always fun to do.
I don't care what the excuse is. More people should pop champagne just for, small stuff that goes right in life.
Do you have the saber thing down? No, I'm more of an Andre guy or a J. Roget.
So you just kind of unscrew it. You pop it off.
It's usually best enjoyed with a couple drops of mimosas. So how are you going to counter what we just did? Because that was passionate sports fandom.
You're going to sound like a big grump. You're going to sound like a real fucking grumpy guy.
Go ahead. I don't even know if I have enough room on my task game after that, but I'm going to give you a little backstory myself.
I remember hard O Red Sox fan were still, oh, you know, mid to late nineties, you know, going back even further than that. I remember being like 10 and going to the bleachers and watching the college kids get shit-faced and beat each other up when i was like 10 or 11 and i was like i cannot wait i cannot wait to be 19 and get drunk in these bleachers and just see what happens and then i got to 19 2021 i hadn't really filled out yet and i was like you know what i don't want to do is get my ass kicked by three kids from Hyde Park.
So we'll just have beers because I don't want to get beat up here. Yeah.
So I remember, you know, later on bartending. Unfortunately, the bar was owned by like a super passionate Yankees fan.
So annoying. You know, he actually used to do like the 27 championships thing to me when we'd argue about non-baseball related subjects.
I love that. No, I actually.
That was tough. It almost got to a fight.
He owned the place, and then I was like, fuck this, I'm going to fight you or I quit. I love that, by the way.
Sidebar, I love Yankee fans that do the 27 rings. I think that's like the scummiest, greatest thing.
Like, why not? Right, right. Okay, so when the Sox got to the wild card, 98-99, and they celebrated it, I was like, oh.
And then the Yankee guy was like wild card cool you know and i was act like you've been there before guy because i'm like this sucks like it's the wild card you guys are acting like you just won the world series like this is stupid fast forward a couple years later i get my first job in in sports really i mean sort of second but really the first one where i was paid but not really when I think about it. Minor league baseball, I'm around it every single day.
I'm around the players every day and seeing what they go through every day and that their ups and downs were very muted compared to those of the fans. It's the greatest experience I still have ever gotten in my entire career because it kind of set, like, I started just understanding sports way better just being around a team every single day, the mentality of it.
But when things went well and those guys would tear it up randomly, like then I got it. And I'm like, you know what? This is what it should be about.
Celebrate those moments. And then you're so stupid when you don't know how a team works.
We're like, oh, those guys are getting drunk like over the weekend. And then they've got a playoff game coming up.
You're like, dude, half the team's drunk all the time anyway. So it doesn't, especially like back then.
I'm sure it's a little bit different now because like guys like posting deadlift videos on Instagram and shit. But I am with you.
I am with you. But however, I do think there are lines at times.
But the Beverly Clippers history, even though they got so sick of him, that was more on him than I think it was necessarily the Clippers being disrespectful as he likes to frame it. There are some Pat Bev things, even though I think every team should have one guy that pushes the edge.
If you're a good basketball team, you kind of need one guy that's not afraid of anybody. So respect that part of Beverly that he's made his way for this career.
But there's also moments where I get super annoyed with it. And on top of that, I did enjoy the TNT crew making fun of them.
Okay. That's fine.
I liked all of it. It's fine to be like watching Shaq, Kenny, and Charles Barkley make fun of these guys for celebrating.

That's fun to enjoy, too.

That's okay to enjoy.

I think if a fan base is of the mindset, like I'll give the example of the Dallas Cowboys.

For years and years, they had the dynasty in the 90s, and then they would publicly say,

with the Dallas Cowboys, we expect to win the Super Bowl every year.

You can't go back on that.

So people are allowed to enjoy your misery when you lose in the playoffs

if you make statements like that.

And if you win one playoff game, if you win two playoff games,

I still don't think you should be allowed to celebrate as hard

because you've publicly said things like, we just care about Super Bowls. It's Super Bowl or bust.
If you make that declaration, you can never move back in time and go back on that. Yeah, you're right.
Because the guys that win like telling everybody else how they should act all the time, which is part of it, which is part of the winning reward of the whole deal. Your Minnesota rant, though, I can't tell you you're wrong.
I can't. But I also think it's okay to make fun of losing your shit like that on a play-in game and dancing on the scorer's table.
But that had more to do with Pat Bev and the Clippers than maybe it was about a franchise getting too hyped about a game that doesn't even count as a playoff game. I'm cool with them making fun of Pat beverly i was defending more minnesota fans like i think minnesota fans have every right to to lose their shit and go crazy that crowd was electric and i'm yeah right like imagine being in the crowd going all right this is cool but let's temper it down two notch yeah you know like you know what it is that's not what people are there for they're there to get away from everything else and have a release and if that's if that happens for a few hours go ahead who's who's to say you shouldn't do it's also i i should say i i've also been changed a little by like if you have a college team that you root really hard for especially a team that's not going to contend for a title you have to have perspective of like beating your rival having a big win like that's when people are like oh why do you watch college football there can win it.
It's like, I don't know, dude. Because when my team wins 10 games and they go and like every 10 years can beat Ohio State, that's fun.
I don't know. I don't know what to say.
Like that's fun. I will celebrate that.
So I think that's more my perspective. Yeah, I think we got it.
Yeah. All right.
Last question. This has been awesome.
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All right, we're going to put you on the spot a little bit here. We're going to do a draft.
This is like, is it cake? Yeah, is it cake? That guy's a little too excited in the promo. I don't think it's that.
When they have those breakouts for TV shows are promoting and the guy's like this show is insane you're like it's just sort of a cake

or it isn't yeah i've seen you in those shorts ryan it's always cake it's cake it's cake all

the time um all right so we're a lot of hours into that cake yeah pft and i have have have

done some research for this so you're you're going to be a little bit behind the eight ball

we're going to do a draft okay we're going to draft coaches top five coaches that you could be you could consider the best coach in the NBA oh this is great okay so you got it you got the premise so I have the first pick top five guys that could be number one yes no I get the premise and I also realize what you're doing. Okay, all right.

So you go.

Which I seriously think Simmons and I

saying there's top 20, top five guys discussion.

I think that was the whole point.

People just love being like,

how can you make five out of 20?

I love that title so much.

It was unbelievable how can,

people were like,

they get so excited when they think you fucked up.

Right.

I just love that.

I love seeing that title.

Trust me, we fuck up. So there'll be another chance for you to go ahead all right uh i love this i love this so does this mean i get the first pick first pick we're gonna snake draft so you go first i'll go second big cat third then it's gonna wrap back around yes oh shit so i gotta value one here can you explain the premise again all right so it's the top five guys so of us are going to have five guys that could be the number one guy.
Okay, got it. Five rounds of number one guys? It's completely different than just picking what we think are the five best coaches.
No, it's if you could see in the future. The five guys that could be the one guy.
Yeah, it could be the guy that everyone's like, whoa, that's the guy. Totally different.
Got it. What about the past? No, it's got to be current coaches.
Yeah, but still. And Stan Van Gundy.
And Stan Van Gundy's eligible. Stan Van Gundy's eligible? Eligible.
All right. All right.
Okay, so I got the first pick. Are we ready? Put this on a graphic board.
This will be great. I'm also not afraid of projecting each of you guys, your minds.
All right. I'm going to take Spolstra.
He could be. I don't know.
Like at some point he is what he is, right? Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. He's the best coach in the NBA.
Okay. Okay.
Well, whatever. Well, no, you can't.
You can't. You can't.
The listeners are going to vote. So you just poison the water.
He's good. He's good.
He could be a top guy. All right, PFT? Okay.
Players don't seem to like him. Yeah.
Okay, for my first pick, this is tough. I'm going to go Buds.
I'm going to go Buds. All right.
All right. I'll go something old, something new.
I'll go with Pop, and then wrapping back around, I'll take, he's not really new anymore, but I'll take Kerr. I think it's interesting that you took Pop because that's specifically a guy that was the guy.
Well, he could be. I don't think he's going to be.
Don't poison the water. I don't think he's going to be the guy again.
Don't poison the water. No, we're just discussing your choice.
But he could be the guy again. You're afraid of a little intelligent conversation regarding your choice.
But don't poison the water.

Pop could definitely, if he wins another title, you don't think people would be like, oh, shit.

He's the guy again.

Yeah, if he does win another title.

Right.

So he could be, it's top five guys that could be the number one guy.

My next guy is Ime.

Okay.

First African-American head coach in the history of the Boston Celtics.

Also going to get whomped.

Which was about, hey, by the way, long overdue. Long overdue.
Long overdue. Who's going to get whomped in the first round.
He could get whomped in the first round. Some are predicting he's going to get whomped in the first round.
But I'll say this. If the Celtics don't get whomped in the first round, it's because they have the guy coaching them.
That's the difference. All right.
All right. I can't believe who's still on the board.
I'll go Ty Lue, and we'll snake it back around with Nick Nurse. Ooh, nice.
Okay, good picks. Nice, nice.
Good picks. Okay.
Can I take Bronny Jr.? They called Ty Lue the Belichick of the NBA last night. They did.
That was something. That was something.
Wow. What did you guys think of glue lady? I'd like to see her use a stronger adhesive next time.
Yeah. Maybe Ashley would glue.
What did you think they were going to do? She should have glued her face to the ground. What does gluing your hand to the ground do? Imagine how powerful that would have been if she had just dumped it all over her face and then just stuck that forehead right at the top of the key.
And by the way, did she want people to be eating poison chickens? Yeah. Or getting bird flu? That's a low approval rating.
Yeah. No, no one came to her defense.
I thought for sure somebody on Twitter would zag and be like, well, let's see exactly what her position is on something. And then people would be like, oh.
And then if it was something that was popular on Twitter, people would be like, oh, you know what? That was kind of lame that people made fun of her. Yeah.
And then none of that happened. She was like, there's this new Mel Gibson movie when I was scrolling through Apple TV.
It had a zero on Rotten Tomatoes. And I'm like, oh my God, a zero? I was like, that's like the lady's approval rating, the glue lady.
She was a zero on Rotten Tomatoes. I'm opposed to destroying chickens that are infected with bird flu.
That's a very specific, like, I don't think that's a glue worthy cause. That's like maybe a Facebook post.
Yeah, right. She started a Facebook group.
She's like, we haven't had a ton of bites yet. All right.

This one's easy for me, actually.

I've actually heard rumblings in league circles that this guy could be connected to be the next Lakers head coach,

in which case that could mean that he would be the guy as early as next year.

That's Quinn Snyder.

Ooh.

Okay.

I am shocked. Who told you that?

I am shocked that I got this pick because is he not the coach of the year

two years in a row now and he's about to win a title if Chris Paul doesn't get hurt?

Monty Williams.

I mean, he will be the guy if they win the title.

Yeah, I think he's going to win coach of the year this year.

He won it last year, right?

No, I don't think he did.

I don't think he did either.

Who won last year?

No, Debedo won.

Oh, yeah. Remember, first of all, as soon as you get it, you're going to get fired in less than 20 months.
True. It's a lock.
And Coach of the Year in basketball, more often than not, it's who did something that we didn't expect to have happen. But I think because Monty had the team even better this year, that's what's going to happen.
It was tough. It was a brutal vote this year for coach of the year let me um you know what this draft this is gonna bump some numbers huh fucking this podcast gonna kill it it's gonna start rivaling some of those political i'm gonna corner i'm gonna corner the market on the steves i actually think steve nash does a great job because holy fuck does he have to deal with a lot i think that's fair i mean it's i won't i won't hear it if, Steve Nash can't coach, I'd be like, okay, we could talk about rotations and we can talk about stuff like that and that's fine.
And you watch your guy long enough, I don't care who you are, you're going to find a problem with your coach. Good fucking luck having the disposition that this guy had the last two years dealing with all the bullshit that he dealt with.
I don't want to fucking hear it. It's actually incredible.
It's incredible when you stack up everything he's had to deal with. Steve Nash.
Okay, PFT, your fourth pick. Hmm.
Can I take whoever the next coach that Kings is going to be? Sure. Can I just pencil that one in? I think Kings are about to do big things.
They've really built something out there. No, I'm going to go with Nick Nurse.
Already taken. Oh, you did? Yeah.
Ryan took him in the third round. Good pick, Ryan.
Is there another Nick Nurse, though, maybe in college, that if you were talking about a guy who doesn't have the job yet? I'm going to go Nate McMillan. Did you just project Nick Nurse to the Sacramento Kings? I might have.
Yeah, if we're reading the tea leaves. I'm going McMillan.
All right, Nate McMillan. A little bit of an underachieving year, but still, they went to the Eastern Conference Final last year.
was something alright Ryan your last two I'll take Taylor Jenkins Memphis and I'm going to go James Borrego Charlotte that team has no front line there were versions of that team before when they had nobody or they had guys that were hurt and they were competitive they had numbers numbers a couple of years ago where like this team isn't any good.

I thought they had one of the worst rosters in the league.

And he's just, they compete.

He's not afraid to kind of sit guys at times.

They're totally overmatched frontline wise.

And, you know, I know that 43 and 39 doesn't blow everybody's mind,

but they lost Hayward twice, I think, two different times this season.

So I think Borrego is a terrific coach.

Comes from that pop tree as well. Okay, nice, nice.
Do you think Jim Boylan will get another job? I hope so because he's got – He's the best. Didn't they call a – they had what? Leadership council? And then he used to call timeouts late just to be like, okay, let's get a timeout.
Yeah. Did I tell you the Mike Singletary story? Did I ever tell you that? No, tell it to us quick.
There was a guy that I knew that was playing in a preseason game for Singletary when Singletary was the head coach of the Niners. And he's like, I've never ever seen it before at any level of football.
But something happened, and it was a big third down defensively, and Singletary called a timeout, and people were like, what? And he waved everybody over. And he was like, let's fucking go.
He called it the basketball. There's a pump up timeout.
Yes. Right.
He called a basketball timeout in an NFL. I think it was an exhibition game.
All right, let's lock in, boys. I love it.
Did it work? The story's way better if it doesn't work. That's a pretty big part of the story, Ryan, because maybe he's the genius.

Maybe that's how he needs to be working it.

Oh, man.

All right, last pick, PFT, and then my last pick, and then we'll let you go, Ryan.

There's a lot of real shitheads out there right now.

I'm going to go with.

No, there's tons of values.

Yeah, there's a lot of value.

I'm going to go Michael Malone, not Mike, Michael Malone.

Okay.

Did you guys have him on?

No.

No, we haven't. Should we? You don't have to sound so nasty about it.
Yeah. No, never.
All right. Band.
My last pick. I'll just ride the wave that we were just talking about.
I'll go with Chris Finch and the Timberwolves. That's a great pick.
I feel like I got some value. Their personality changed with him.
People got really mad because he was brought in

because it was a very odd thing that you bring somebody

from a different staff in midway through the season.

It's not usually what happened.

But what people left out of that conversation

was that he is really held in high regard

by a lot of smart basketball people.

So when everybody was losing their minds about it,

I did get some texts being like,

I know you probably don't, but this guy's awesome.

And think about where Minnesota is now. Yeah.
They're about to raise a banner. Strong pick.
Ryan, thank you. We're going to call on you one more time during the NBA playoffs, probably before the maybe conference finals.
Does that sound good, right? Actually, let's just base it off whenever Chris Paul gets hurt. Well, i know you're hurting my feelings so we can book this again or if he just has like a really underwhelming game yeah yeah and the immediate aftermath emergency emergency podcast if he doesn't score a lot of points it's usually because he doesn't want to right so you know right just telling you what about if he has turnovers no i looked at that oneC game, I still think one was really his fault.
But, you know, again, I'm biased if you haven't figured that out yet. What if it's Chris Paul against Blake Griffin in the finals? That would be quite a story there.
One guy will be playing. Yeah, Blake.
Blake, because Chris Paul will be hurt. Ryan.
I don't want to make – look, I don't want to sound anti-Blake because I like him. We all know how much we've got.
I've got a couple mutual friends. It doesn't mean I get to hang out with him, but there was that one time.
It was sort of fun. Yeah.
All right, Ryan. Thank you.
Everyone go check out the Ryan Russo podcast. It is the best.
We appreciate it, and we'll see you, yeah, like, I don't know, 10 days, 14 days, whenever the injury does happen.

Hammy? Maybe July after the –

I'll report live from Scottsdale for the parade.

Oh, we will not have you on if the Suns win.

No, I think you guys should expense it,

and I'll be a correspondent.

Okay, perfect.

You're going to go to a parade?

Like, Chris Paul's already had a great career.

You think that you really need to celebrate

just, like, one title that he wins?

One?

Maybe I just want to go to Scottsdale.

Yeah, good point.

Actually, in July.

Maybe not.

See, hide it, Cliff, for me.

All right, see ya.

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Let's do Fyre Fest of the Week. By the way, we have a great interview coming Monday

with Jake Arrieta.

Already taped it.

Very excited for that.

And also some different sports covered on Wednesday's interviews.

We've got two interviews coming.

A little soccer and tennis.

Never had a tennis guest before,

but we just wrapped that up and it was fucking awesome.

So, very excited.

Did you guys do talking tennis with the guests?

We did not.

Did not.

That would have been inappropriate.

Yes.

Yes.

I was thinking to myself,

I'm not sure. up and it was fucking awesome so you guys are talking tennis with the we did not did not would have been inappropriate yes yes i was thinking to myself i don't want to get written up by hank yeah so yeah well he wasn't here that's true because he was in the c-suite but he knows he's got people in every room true um hank your fire fest uh yeah we talked about it at length on Tuesday.
We talked about- Well, what happened for those of you out there that haven't listened to Wednesday's show yet? Hank, why don't you just run it back? I just sent a picture to my family and the internet roasted, you know, my entire being, my face. They memed it, put it all over the place.
Chelsea, chilling with Chels, made a nice painting. Yeah, it turned into memes, which turned into paintings, which turned into art, which is probably going to end up in the studio.
Maybe not. If it gets lost in the mail, who knows what's going to happen with that? I don't want that.
Oh, good. I don't feel safe with that around.
Yeah. I mean, she's selling on eBay.
It's crazy. Good.
But memes, our fucking guy and our Instagram. Hopefully the person burns it.
Obviously, in my new position, we're tracking data. We're looking at the numbers, always trying to get a leg up.
We look at our Instagram, and it's like a normal post, if it's a picture and not a video, it's like 8 to 25 is probably the low and high range of a post. And Memes posted a compilation of the memes of me roasting me, and it got like 45,000 likes.
Damn. It's just tough to see.
People love your face, Hank. Yeah.
A beautiful, beautiful face. It's hurt.
It's hurtful. Now, the woker amongst us would say that maybe this entire thing was planned to get this sort of social interaction.
But that would imply that I wanted this to happen to me. Yeah, maybe you're just putting on a big act.
Maybe you're super pumped that everybody out there knows that you work out really hard. I would say that if that were the case, I probably would have taken a more attractive picture.
Well, let me ask you a question, Hank. As your new job as vice president of Barstool Sports, there will be a time where I'm sure they'll look over the numbers being like pre-Hank, post-Hank.
Huh. Seems like.
Pre-Hank what? Pre-Hank becoming vice president numbers, post-Hank becoming vice president numbers. This was an easy win for you right all that.
Easy win, though. This was a pull out all the stops.
Hmm. Just something to think about.
This is what it's like to be Billy all the time.

Is he actually the VP now?

Yeah.

He's our boss. He was VP

and then I think he just named himself Chancellor.

It's a rich tradition of people doing that.

Yeah, P and Chancellor.

I actually got to figure out if this is real after this.

He's VP.

I stand with Hank. Workout pics.

Yes. Does that have anything to do with the fact that he's VP now? No, Billy actually did send me a selfie, and I was like, what the fuck is this? He's like, working out.
And it kind of made sense where I was like, this doesn't even look like you're working out. It's just a selfie.
And then it all clicked. I was like, fuck.
Yeah. Damn.
But I appreciated that, Billy. I don't think it was that bad.
It really wasn't. I think it was just bad that you sent it to the worst possible combination.
It's just one of those things where it's like, you don't think it's that bad, it's going to be an average performing post, and then it's like, no, this people laughing at you is actually what people want to see the most. That's really what it is.
It's like, I wouldn't have cared. 8 to 25, it's like a high range.
Pretty much everything we post is somewhere within that range, and it's like, oh, let's see how this did. But you knew that.
People love our misery. our misery people love us looking terrible like what are the pictures that pop me when i look at my fattest when i lose like that's just the good news is that people are perverts it goes it's a great it's a great meme and a great picture for those of us that know the backstory behind the entire thing but if you're on the outside looking in i don't think that meme trend it doesn't cross over it may it would make you want to delete instagram right all right how soon until we get the first screenshot of somebody using that as their tinder picture oh get on it good luck yeah i mean good luck with that what if there's one dynamite yeah uh all right pft your fire fest uh my fire fest of the week is um week is a little bit embarrassing for me.
I haven't really been sleeping that well for the last few nights. I slept really well last night, actually.
But nights before that, and then the night before that, and then the night before that, got really bad sleep. In fact, on, I think, Tuesday night, I didn't even sleep at all.
And I just got up in the morning. I was like, it's five o'clock.
I'm just awake now. I'm sick of pretending to go to sleep.
And the reason why I haven't been sleeping that well is I've somehow found myself addicted to playing a flight simulator on my computer. Yeah.
I've gotten like really into this one particular flight simulator, which is so realistic and detailed that I have to like go through the fucking step-by-step tutorial and checklist to figure out how to ignite my engines, wait till they're ready, put my flaps in takeoff position, close the canopy, idle for a second, go down the runway, taxi, take off once I reach 250 kilometers per hour, communicate with my wingman effectively. And it's, it's, it's a lot too.
And I don't, I don't particularly understand why I'm addicted to it. No, I used to play a couple of flight sim games back when I was, I don't know, like 10.
No, you're, you're, it's not a lot. It's, it's the right amount.
I bought a joystick. Yes.
I've got a joystick and I've got a throttle that I put on my desk. Everything you just said I have and I do it on my phone too.
I love flight simulators. It's awesome.
They're incredible. It's something about like and you don't even do cool things.
You just fucking take planes off and land them. Okay, so I am doing some cool stuff.
Oh, you are? I like to just fucking I like to just do like the shuttle from like New York to DC. Yeah, those are cool too.
I like those where it's like you can, essentially what the internet has become now with all the different simulator games that you can play is you just pretend to do somebody else's job for a couple hours. Yeah.
There's a tractor simulator. There's a train simulator, which that's actually awesome.
Our guy Zod does the actual full train simulator. That's like real time, like not sped up.
Yeah. Like he will actually do four hours New York to D.C.
Amtrak. Yeah.
He's doing somebody else's job for it. But I'm doing this flight sim right now.
I'm in the middle of a campaign in Ukraine where I'm flying Su-25s and I'm providing ground support to to my troops i'm taking out sam sites triple a sites the whole nine yards and it is like it's the weirdest thing that i've ever found myself addicted to but i've been up until like 3 30 in the morning i'm ignoring when you guys are texting me late at night after we got done recording part of my take i'm not responding to them not because i'm ignoring them but because my eyes are glued to my computer yes and i'm playing flight simulators for five hours at a time do not be ashamed whatsoever flight simulators are cool i need they just are cool i just need to dial it back a little bit so that i can sleep because then after i'm done you will after i'm done playing i try to fall asleep and all i'm thinking about is my heads up display and i'm like that that bandit really got my six when i entered into the vertical scissors fight with him to shouldn't have split s you i i if you're i think you're similar to me in that like you get into it and you'll be addicted for like two or three weeks then you'll probably find a way to wean yourself off that's how i've always done like i'm not in it right now i had one probably two months ago where i found the sickest game on my phone that was full flight simulator and i played it non-stop it's it's awesome and yeah it's got to the point i don't know if i'm even able to wean myself off it yet no you have to go hard you have to go harder yes yes so i got i got the joystick i got the throttle i don't like how the throttle feels. So I upgraded.
I just purchased a new throttle.

Yeah.

And then I spent about 500 bucks getting an F-22 in my arsenal that I can then mod with

all the different missiles and skins.

It's awesome.

It's, it's become an issue for me.

No, it's, no, lean into it because that's what I'm saying.

Like you, whenever I get addicted to one of these video games, I just have to go full

hard as it like as hard as I can go for two to three weeks. And then I'll be like, wake up one day and just be like, all right, I'm good.
I'm done with that. It's like that movie adaptation where he's like, I got so seriously in love with fish for a while.
Then one day I was just like, I'm never setting foot in the ocean ever again. Fuck fish.
I need to reach a point where I'm like, fuck planes. That's every video game I've ever had.
I just go so crazy about it. And then I just stop.
I threw my, I threw my joystick when I got shot down, I ejected like a little bitch instead of going down with a ship. I threw my joystick because this bogey got me.
Yeah. Billy.
So you're not doing a commercial flight simulator. You're doing a like combat combat combat flight.
Well, it's a mix of both because in order to learn how to actually get airborne and fly any of these airplanes that probably took a solid 12 hours of playing the game where i'm just learning startup procedures and navigation modes and figuring out how to hit my waypoints and activate my rwr and all this shit you understand as a person in the military you have to like you're not a jag you have to get, your baseline before you can actually go missiles hot. So you're like bombing Russian convoys.
Yeah. Oh, Billy's in rockets.
I've been using rockets, eight ends. Billy's wondering if he can be on the Russian side.
So wait, so you bought, so you bought a joystick that was for a commercial flight simulator, but somehow you can release bombs with it. No, I knew, I knew eventually I would want to fire weapons with my game.
Don't be ashamed. So did you flip open and have the red button? That's the next level.
I do have a red button on there, but it's a joystick with six buttons on it. It's pretty serious stuff.
In fact, I looked into getting a joystick, a complete rig, that also included a chair. You can buy a cockpit chair and sit in that in front of your computer.
I got addicted to race car F1, I don't know, maybe it was early in the summer, last summer, and I got a big rig, and I stopped at the chair. I was like, no, I can't do this.
I can't get a chair that makes it look like, I just can't do that. If you buy a pilot's chair, you need a you you need a room at that point yes because at that point you have an airplane chair right in your living room right you need an extra and then company comes over and you're you're just exposed yeah you realize what a weirdo you are but i just maybe i need to find better times to do it because it's impacted my sleeping schedule to the point where some nights i'm just not sleeping i think you just gotta go keep going into it i'm just flying over all the time black sea yeah as hard as you can um all right my fire fest pre-fire fest i would love awl's help uh who listen to show of kids uh potty training this weekend so i'm fucked yeah good luck yep thanks anyone who wants to help me out um i'm just not gonna leave my apartment all weekend so are you gonna teach your your son to pee in the sink uh eventually we'll get there for sure but yeah i've been reading about how to do it properly and it sounds like i'm in for a hell of a weekend so uh these are little things you kind of take for granted before you have kids you're like oh yeah what potty training that's like you just tell them pee in the toilet doesn't work like that no they don't get it i yeah i was

telling big cat about this the other day because he was starting to talk about potty training but

the one the one family that i've been around that has been in the course of potty training

chose to do it the most the weirdest fucking way possible which is you just take all your clothes

off your kids yeah there's and then they they just go around and they're free to piss and shit

anywhere they want yeah but they have to clean it up that to me that's the most effective that's the most effective form of birth control i've ever been around is seeing that it's like well that's uh i don't i don't want that in my house that's also a very effective way to get your kid to have like pretty big mental issues where it's like shaming them i think think the whole point, and I've read a book about it.

No big deal.

It wasn't a full book.

It was like 20 pages.

But I read about it, and it's like you got to be very nice about it,

treats all these things because you don't.

And it makes sense.

I think that's how serial killers get born.

It's like if you shame them about peeing their pants,

they then will just be like, all right, I'm going to go kill some people.

The only experience I have is with Leroy, and he was very easy.

Dogs are easy to probably train.

Yeah, I think that's a little different. Because you can shame a dog into pooping outside.
And also dogs, if you give them any type of meat or treat, it's good. I actually want to hear Billy's take.
I'm sure that you have ideas about how to potty train a child. Honestly, I feel like there's a huge parallel between raising kids and keeping upper primates as pets.
I feel like there's a lot of the same strategies for a while until the brain development kicks in. I don't know.
Just a thought. So how would you train an upper primate? I don't know.
They don't have to go in toilets. Right you thought about bananas using bananas as yeah i feel like children are very like analogous to monkeys yeah i mean i i guess but they again the monkeys don't have to go in toilets right but you could just sort of take care of them like you would a monkey yeah but the whole i think once you have to potty train them that's when they yeah like i can put a tree in my house and be like hey just climb up on this

tree and shit on everything yeah okay or you can yeah crap in your hand and then throw it at me

when you're mad okay yeah yeah that works i mean i'm actually i'm gonna be fine i just if people

have tips because i know there's a lot of people out there who do have kids so i'm sure someone's

like hey there's the tip i will it's very similar to gambling advice if you give me a tip i will

Thank you. If people have tips, because I know there's a lot of people out there who do have kids.
So I'm sure someone's like, hey, there's the tip. It's very similar to gambling advice.
If you give me a tip, I will most likely take it. Like you just say it to me and I'm like, all right, that's how I'm going to do it.
But yeah, this will be a fun weekend for your boy. Billy, I'm going to miss that party, by the way, on Saturday.
Unless you want my son coming and just shitting on everything. That's oh okay cool I'll be there yeah that's chill um so I was out in Indio California uh out at Dimitri Bivol's camp he is uh Canelo Alvarez's next opponent they're fighting on May 7th uh in Las Vegas you can watch it on DAZN uh it's going to be an amazing fight I was was really up close and personal with Dimitri Buval.
Basically, I did two days of his day-to-day routine and training. It was really awesome, a great experience.
there's going to be a video coming out soon check out some of the other videos some other Barstool personalities have been doing such as Large, Roan

and Nick they've been going

with other fighters as well

but I actually was in the ring with him doing drills working on what he was working on just uh honestly it was really awesome from that respect but now my body is in shambles because i am not a professional fighter you're not allowed to do this i told you you're bad banned. I know, but I literally...
You're 22. I know, but not only am I sore, but I got the shit beat out of me in a couple drills.
Good. And let me tell you, like, Baval's fighting at 175.
He's fighting Canelo. And when I was training, like, in my training camp, I was fighting guys who were like, sparring guys who were like 270 pounds.
And when they really connected on a big right, it hurt. But they were 100 pounds heavier than Baval.
And every single one of Baval's punches, 100 pounds less, was exactly like those guys' big rights. Yeah, he's a good boxer.
He's a professional, like a a world champion like it was just crazy to just experience the difference up close because it was insane so ask him for tax advice about how to handle your winning paychecks uh he we just started talking about work visas at one point but he i don't know where his taxes the videos would be great but again you're you're you're not allowed to talk about being sore. Can I talk about being sore for being punched? No, because I'm going to give him a pass on this one.
But that was your job, and you did a good job. It was insane.
But anyway, went through all that. I'm sore as hell right now.
I ate a burrito before one of the training sessions and got hit in the solar plexus, and it was almost... Oh, that's fucked.
That was almost burrito everywhere. You've never been hitting that everywhere that that's the worst did you do three f45 classes this week no no i did not question yeah get live bro but like doing the runs like honestly if it wasn't for like actually having to be good at boxing like a boxer's lifestyle is like awesome all you do is like grill and eat and just work out in the head fun if you enjoy it.
Being out in Indio, California, it's where Coachella is. It's a really awesome place in the world.
Do you think at the end of the training he respected you as a man? I think so. I hope.
I don't know what his opinions are on American in general, but I think – He thinks he's soft. Yeah.
No, it would have been an immediate yes. Yeah, I don't know.
It was a lot. I mean, look.
But anyway, then to make matters worse, so I went through all that. Then my flight got delayed last night.
And basically I ended up getting in at 7 a.m. and then getting out uh like didn't sleep all night because of the flight then finally got home and then i tried to fall asleep for a couple hours before i came in today i fell asleep but i immediately got uh freaking um sleep paralysis oh dude that was scary as fuck there was just like that.
It is so bad. Yeah, some weird dark figure.

I was trying to move and punch and stuff,

but this dark figure was just sitting on my chest.

Was it Whitey?

No, no.

Was it Miley Cyrus?

I wish.

No, but it just kept...

Also, it was punching me too,

but I was probably just sore.

But it was the worst thing ever. You have PTSD.
It was so scary. You really are a troop.
No, no. I think it had something to do with just like being extra, extra tired and being car sick.
Yeah, no. Sleep paralysis is very worse.
You might have sleep apnea, too. That's a common side effect of sleep apnea.
Really? Yeah, you're probably going to have to start wearing a mask. On Tuesday night, I didn't fall asleep until like 2 a.m.
And whenever I don't get like that amount of sleep apnea. Really? Yeah, you're probably going to have to start wearing a mask.
On Tuesday night, we went to like two, like I didn't fall asleep until like 2 a.m. And whenever I don't get like that amount of sleep, I sleepwalk like badly.
Oh, really? Yeah. So I was doing that on Tuesday.
Worse. Probably my deviated septum is giving me sleep apnea.
All right, Jake. I'm excited for those videos.
Everyone check it out. We'll remind everyone when they do come out.
Jake. Yeah yeah i am in a little bit of a pickle on how to feel about the john sterling situation oh so on one hand for those who didn't see yeah go ahead explain it it was hilarious hilarious uh stanton hit a bomb but not deep enough and he called it yeah stantonian blast home run but it was caught is what the call was.
As high as far as gone, but caught. On one end, hilarious.
Like, just a funny clip. Yeah.
On the other end, Yankee fan, not exactly, not that he needs a demo reel or a resume. Not exactly a clip you would put on a hypothetical resume.
Right. Some people saying he needs to hang him up.
I'd say that might be. So it's like, it's a tough spot to be in.
That's like one of those stadiums. Anytime there's a big pop fly and you say it's high, it's far, it's gone, you're probably going to be right.
Well, it was left, though. Yeah.
It was bad, Jake. And it wasn't the first time it's happened.
It happened in the playoffs. Yeah.
The playoffs, I think, with the Cameran goals. Yeah.
It was bad. What did you say? It was bad.
It was bad. It was bad.
There's no defending. That's why it's a tough spot.
That's why it's a fire fest. Hang him up.
His eyes are shot. Are you saying fire Sterling? Never.
Just saying. That's a mistake where if anyone else...
Take him out back. Shoot him in the head.
If anyone else made that mistake, they would probably actually get talked to about it. Yeah, but the fact the fact that you're bringing it up right it sounds like he embarrassed the entire profession and the organization no it's just it's a mistake the yankee way take his pinstripe take away one pinstripe yeah so i'm sorry jake that's terrible it's a tough spot he's a nice guy though i met him once no i No way that you think he's a nice guy.
I'm waiting for the day where you're like, that guy's a real piece of shit. Alright, numbers? Four.
Jake Harriot of Monday. Win all the NBA playoffs.
Obviously, never mind. I was going to ask something about who hit the shot.
It was Stan. It was Stan's number.
27. It would be great if it was a deep drive to left Yeah 27 My number of rings And Stanton Everyone got their numbers? 23 times 3 69 PFC, what's yours? 25 I was doing math 74 over.
74.

Three.

Babe Ruth.

The Bambino.

Yes.

He hit a few bombs.

He did.

None of them fucked up by John Sterling.

Love you guys.

You can train falcons to hunt down drones on your property.

It's pretty metal.

Guard Falcons.

Thank you. I don't know what I'm to say.
I'm to say anyway. Today's my day to find you shying away.
I'll be coming for your love. Okay, take on me.

Take me on.

I'll become an entry of change Needless to say I'm all to say it But I'm eased a little way It's better than life is okay

Say up to me

It's no better to be safe than sorry

Say up to me

It's no better to be safe than sorry

Take on me Take me on I'll be gone

In a day of time

All the things that you say Isn't a light bulb Just to play my worries away You're all the things I've got to remember You're shying away I'll be coming for you anyway Shying away I'll be coming for you anyway Take on me. Take me up.

I'll be gone.

In a deep. God in a day