Ryen Russillo, Week 18 Picks And Antonio Brown Drama

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On today's Pardon My Take, week 18 preview and picks. The drive to the 405 is coming down to it.
We'll break it all down. We'll give you our picks.
We'll talk a little bit about Antonio Brown Buck's saga. we have Ryan Rosillo on the show

our good friend Ryan Rosillo

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It's going to be awesome. Today is Friday, January 7th.
And it is week 18. The first ever week 18 And it's coming down to it, the drive to the 405 Which also might be the drive to Dallas-Fort Worth Is coming down to it And we're going to do our picks and preview How we doing boys? Are we feeling like it might be in Dallas now? Well, so here's the general vibe of the studio Big Cat's in in Chicago right now, but Billy has already taken Big Cat's seat on the other end of the table here, so he's breaking in the ass groove for himself later.
But Big Cat, there is a palpable bit of nervousness in the studio today. There are nerves because these picks mean something.
Hank said that he changed his picks like four times, and he's never done that before. So people here are deep inside their own heads.
So let's recap real quick because it's been a season-long competition, so if you miss it at any point, we'll recap it for everyone. The deal is this.
Every single week, all six of us have picked four games, a favorite, an underdog, an over, and an under. The rule was that the last place person and the second place person have to drive from New York City to L.A.
for the Super Bowl. We are now facing week 18, and everyone is still alive to potentially drive.
So the standings are as such. I'm going to do it by points because it's easier this way.
PFT and Hank are tied at first for 40 and a half points. Pushes a half point.
Jake is in second with 37 points. Myself and Liam, we are tied for third with 35 and a half points.
And Billy is in last with 33.5 points. So everyone, depending on week 18, could potentially,

like obviously PFT and Hank can't finish last,

but both of them can finish second.

I can't finish first, but I could finish last.

So everyone is, or I couldn't finish second, but I could finish last.

You got your Steelers.

You're half ahead of Liam.

You're Monday night Steelers.

Oh, okay.

So what am I now?

So you're four games behind PFT and Hank.

So technically you can still tie for second.

Okay.

So yeah, there it is.

I don't really want to travel all the way across country in a few days and maybe go to Dallas, too, which makes the drive significantly less fun. I mean, Dallas would be a lot of fun to make the road trip down there, hit up Nashville, maybe stop on Bourbon Street, hit New Orleans on the way.
That's pretty sick. Yeah's right it is sick also fair warning to you big cap billy said that he's going he's in danger of having all four of his picks be correct this week oh it feels like he just went four and oh also pft was trying to get me to spoil uh he came up to me at the office earlier when i came in and was like hey hank i submitted my picks already so you can tell me what yours are.
Yeah. Nice try.
And Hank was like, Hank correctly said, that's Cap. I was Cap.
Nice try. It will be, though.
It's going to be exciting. It's going to come down to it.
We've all submitted our picks. Before we do our picks, should we talk a little bit about AB and the recent news? So Antonio Brown obviously came out today or yesterday and said that uh he was injured no he was hurt not injured and Bruce Arians cut him on the sideline because he was hurt and refused to play no no no he was injured and then Bruce Arians told him that he was hurt hurt right not injured right and then Bruce Arians cut him and did the throat slash to him allegedly on the sidelines also I was I was reading some of the screenshots that AB put on Twitter or on his Instagram story this morning he said the the screenshot was a text from Bruce Arians and said hey Antonio Brown what's up this is BA here before he proceeded to say like how are we feeling Antonio Brown was like I hurt my ankle I think I'm going it a go, coach.
I just want to do whatever it takes to be ready for the team. And many people are saying that that wasn't a real screenshot from Antonio Brown and Bruce Arians that Antonio Brown doctored it.
I just want to say I stand with AB. I don't think that he's done anything in the past that would indicate to us that he would make up something like this.
So we freed AB. He released today the big question is like is anyone is anyone going to actually sign antonio brown is that a possibility the cowboys should sign him for my future what about the chiefs i i do have to give antonio brown credit i who knows where the truth is in this one um i i tweeted out earlier but i i think there's the truth is probably anton and Bruce Arians are both assholes like that might be the truth uh because it seems like a lot of people uh are taking the side of Antonio Brown because you have to take the side of player safety then you have people like Steven Che that are bootlickers and essentially saying the Bucks could never do any wrong uh and putting out facts that don't prove anything whatsoever I think the the truth is somewhere in the middle here.
Bruce Arians never wanted Antonio Brown on the Bucs. That was Tom Brady's idea.
So it's not totally unbelievable that Bruce Arians would be like, you're out of here because you won't go back in the game. And also Antonio Brown, let's just say he hasn't been like maybe the model citizen in terms of teammate and dependability on the football field.

That's the fake news media that told you that big cat.

But isn't it crazy like you have to pick a side here?

It's like, no, I think they probably are both just kind of jerks. I think there's a very high likelihood that Antonio Brown came back from his ankle injury, played a couple weeks ago against the Panthers, played really well, and over the course of an NFL game, maybe tweaked that ankle again.
And so at halftime at the Jets game, they were getting their ass kicked. He was probably pissed off.
He wasn't getting the ball much. And he probably said, like, feed me the fucking ball.
Right. And there might have been somebody in the locker room that was like, hey, shut up.
And then they get to the sideline, and he just quits. I think that might be – like, he's probably not 100% on that ankle.
That part, I don't think is – you can't say, like, you're not injured because he definitely had a significant ankle injury. Correct.
Probably tweaked it again. I thought the funniest screenshot that he posted, though, was in his text with Alex Guerrero, the TB12 guy.
So he put this online, too. He said, hey, Alex, if we're not going to work anymore, that's fine.
Let me know about the $100,000 I paid you. Only fair to get back half my money.
Let me know how to proceed. First of all, shout out to Alex Guerrero for getting cash from Antonio Brown and not just relying on him to pay the bill after the fact.
But then the reply from Alex Guerrero was very funny because he was like, Antonio Brown is a million percent going to put this reply on social media at some point. And here's his reply.
Good morning, AB. I appreciate you reaching out to me.
I completely understand that you want to go in a different direction. Thank you for the opportunity to work you are a wonderful person i hope for your continued success on and off the field please let me know where you want me to send the balance big hugs my friend there it is he's like that's going to be read aloud in court one day and it was yeah the public court of public opinion read it out loud and they're like hey this is actually the coolest thing a thing Alex Guerrero has ever done.
Yeah, seems like a good guy.

And then Antonio Brown also tweeted out a screenshot

of his routing information and account.

I saw that.

At Bank of America.

He quickly deleted that.

But yeah, shout out AB.

He's the most online wide receiver in the NFL these days, I think.

Don't you think if he was hurt, though,

he would have said something to Danny Boy Hustle Hard?

Oh, interesting.

Well, Danny Boy Hustle Hard told us that he's not going to share all the conversations that they had. That's true.
But the parts he shared are on the other side. Like, the parts that he did share help the Bucs case and not Antonio Brown's case.
So why would he do that? So you're saying that Tom Brady, your hero, made a mistake by bringing Antonioio brown in well no i mean listen that's you got he like he took a chance it didn't work out they want a ring they want a ring yeah it did work out yeah you could say that it absolutely worked out but i just i just find it so funny that there are actually people who are like ab made this entire thing up like no bruce arians he said he didn't want antonio brown on the team and then tom brady was like no i want him on the team and then he was on the team this is tom brady's signing this is also why tom brady was like he needs to get help and we're like we just care about the person because he knows it's his signing and ab also has not been completely dependable in terms of the the fake vax card and the fact that he just ran off who knows? I'm ruling it both might just be a little bit of assholes, and it was going to end poorly either way. What if he goes back to the Steelers for Big Ben's last game? That would be cool.
Get the band back together. That would be cool.
That would be awesome. Also, it just wouldn't be fair if he went to the Chiefs.
I hope he doesn't go to the Chiefs. I don't think he'll go to the Chiefs.
I mean, I really don't think he's going anywhere. Yeah, I don't think he's going anywhere.
The only reason I said the Cowboys is because Jerry Jones definitely has the stomach for – like Jerry Jones would see this and be like, I wish I was getting all these headlines, good or bad. People are talking about the Bucs today.
So I also appreciated Bruce Arians in his press conference because there was a claim that Bruce Arians did a throat slash to AB. And then he, he mimicked it in his press conference.
He's like, does this look like a throat slash? And he went across his neck and pointed out like, no, I was telling him to get out, get off the field as like, yeah, but that, that is across your neck. But yeah, I guess that's how, how we get a, he said, he said thing.
Maybe he was loosening up that chest device that he wears. If I was Bruce Arians, I would always be, like, around my neck trying to fiddle with the tightness of that weird strap that he has on his chest.
I don't know. I don't think Antonio Brown would be back on an NFL team.
I guess you could never say never. Actually, you know the most likely team he could be back on is probably the Bucs.
If Tom Brady just said it to Bruce Arians next year, like, hey, we need Antonio Brown. It's really changed this offseason.
Yeah, he runs that organization. I don't think that's unfair to say, and it's not unfair for the Bucs to let Tom Brady run that organization.
But this was Tom Brady's decision, and that's why it makes sense that Bruce Arians and Antonio Brown never really got along. I also respect Antonio Brown's commitment to playing his song on all of his Instagram stories to try to get as much exposure for the pit to the palace.
I'm starting to sing along to it. That song's been stuck in my head all day.
It's pretty heat. I worked out to it.
It is pretty good. It went for the pit to the palace.
He's to sing along to it like that song's been stuck in my head all day it's pretty i worked out to it it is pretty good he's hoping it becomes a new like everyone uses this for their instagram story when they're hiking in some mountains yeah kind of song the palace baby he's going he's going gremlin mode yeah um all right let's do some pics let's do some pics so are we ready does everyone feel good i feel great it will be very interesting if we share picks because it will change the the course of sunday uh hank or as always or saturday hank as always uh would you like to start with your favorite hank's eyeing me down right now i do well it's tough because you're wearing sunglasses so i can't really get a read on you i mean the die has been cast already hank you can't change anything i know i'm just like trying to get a read. I'm just trying to train me down right now.
I do. Well, it's tough because you're wearing sunglasses, so I can't really get a read on you.
I mean, the die has been cast already, Hank. You can't change anything.
I know. I'm just trying to get a read.
I'm just trying to get any edge I can get. All you need to know is I'm also going Gremlin mode, so fair warning.
My first game is Saturday night. Good.
And the Dallas Cowboys. The Dallas Cowboys minus five is my favorite.
Four and a half. Four and a half.
I don't hate it. It does feel like the Eagles are going to sit a bunch of guys, and it feels like the Cowboys want to win because they don't want to go in on a two-game losing streak in a bad note.
Mm-hmm. What are you thinking, Cowboys? Gardner Minshew, maybe? I mean, I'm not going to lie.
I'll be perfectly honest with you. I don't think I've really

shared a lot of what goes into my picks for

this. And to be honest with you, I didn't

this is where I've been

second-guessing myself. It's too late

and my picks are submitted. They've been changed.

I did what I usually do

is just go through the board once, write down my picks.

I did that last night because I was, you know,

I've been thinking about this.

Then today, before the show, I was like, fuck, let me double check these picks started second guessing everything went on a website that shows you where the public money is on and the most public money is on the eagles so i picked the dallas i would be worried if garter minchie is playing right garter minchie wins this game because he's playing for his. Yeah.
And also, he's awesome. But he might be a pick machine.
He might be a pick machine. He might be a pick machine.
Now, is this pick one of the – you're saying it wasn't your original favorite, right? What was your original favorite? Where did you switch from? I think the Cardinals. Because we should also track Hank's potential picks.
Yeah. His original picks.
All right. His original picks just to see what you could have done.
You have Cowboys. Yeah, this game, the Cowboys don't.
I mean, they obviously could potentially get as high as the second seed. It would take the Rams and the Bucs to lose.
I don't think that's going to happen. So they also are in a spot where they don't want to get guys injured.
I don't know. Weird.
It sucks that we have this Week 18, and there's only a few games that really matter. There's only one game that truly matters, and then the other games are kind of through seeding and stuff.
Yeah, and we did find out for the game that truly does matter, the Sunday night game between the Chargers and the Raiders, the teams are not going to do the kneel downs. They're not going to do that.
I didn't think that was going to happen, but it's not soccer. You can do that in soccer.
That's why they switched up the last round of games for the group stage of the World Cup, where teams have to play at the same time, because you can just pass the ball back and forth amongst your fullbacks and get away with it. In the NFL, there's always going to be a couple guys that really try.
Yeah, that work that touchdown.

Yeah.

My original favorite was the Patriots,

but I didn't want to do a double loser situation.

Ah, okay.

All right, so Liam, your favorite.

Mine is the Patriots.

Okay.

Minus six and a half, I believe.

Yes, minus six and a half.

Are you a little bit worried?

Versus the Dolphins.

Something funny always happens between the Patriots and the Dolphins. Yep.
Yeah, that's why I took it. Oh, cause I didn't like it.
Okay. Cause there always is.
Yeah. There always is something weird that happens at the end of the season with them.
So I don't know. Okay.
Um, PFT. I got the Rams minus four took the Rams minus four against the 49ers before and a half close to doing that.
Four and a half? Oh, my God. Why didn't you do it, Hank? Why don't you pull the trigger, coward? I wrote that down, and then I went to the website.
And I was like, if the Rams have a higher percentage, I'll do the Rams. But they didn't.
So you're under the idea that Trey Lance just is bad? I'm under the idea that the Rams have the 49ers number.

This seems like an easy pick to me.

No, isn't it the other way around?

The other way around.

Yeah, I'm aware.

Oh, you're trying to go.

You're trying to lose.

As I explained last week, yes.

Okay, that makes it fun.

Four and a half.

Yeah, Rams minus four and a half, I guess, is my pick.

So you're trying to lose all your picks today? This week last week As I explained on last week's show You're trying to lose so that you can drive I did pretty good last week I ended up going 1-3 We don't need to do the conversation again But it's not fun when the whole competition Comes down to people trying to Intentionally lose Next year we have to figure out something That has no upside whatsoever so we avoid this i don't know why you're upset that i want to go on a road trip i we've done this conversation a million times i'm not upset you want to go on a road trip i'm upset that we did a competition that was supposed to be punishment that the viewers wanted to listen to and then in the last two weeks you're like i want to lose there's so much chaos that that goes into these last two weeks even if you were trying to lose this competition you really couldn't do it right but you you did we're not good enough at gambling to be able to the Rams have the Niners number lose okay Billy or I'll go my favorite I'm taking the Bucks minus eight not only is there so much controversy going around Tom Brady writing the ship also Tom Brady can get the passing record with 488 yards, I want to say.

So he's definitely going to try to get that.

So Bucs minus eight.

It feels like he'll just keep trying to throw late,

even if it's a blowout, to try to get that record.

How many more records can Tom Brady possibly get?

He gets so many records.

He's collected all of them.

Yes, he has.

Billy.

Chargers by two and a half.

Is it still two and a half?

Three.

Three.

All right.

Wait.

No, it's locked in.

Try to buy that half point.

Try to buy that half point.

I don't know.

No, this one is just like this is the only real game on the schedule.

So I was like where it's not like these guys are competing to get into the playoffs.

It's really good. I don't know.
No, this one is just like, this is the only real game on the schedule. So I was like, where it's not like these guys are competing to get into the playoffs.
So you don't think it's going to come down to like a field goal, you know, one point win because they're so close? Yeah, well now it's three. I'm sort of like, because I get a push.
That's fucked. I don't know.
I'm still going with it. Chargers.
Yeah, you have to. This game's going to be awesome.
I am going with the Cardinals minus 6.5 at home against the Seattle Seahawks. For me, this just comes down to motivation versus no motivation.
Or more motivation, I should say. Because the Cardinals want some momentum heading into the playoffs.
The Chargers, ironically, would kind of rather play on the road for the first round of the playoffs. You the cardinals sorry sorry yeah the cardinals because they stink at home that's true but yeah a win streak yeah one last week yeah um okay uh who so now we're going with the underdogs so everyone's got their favorites no overlap which is which is kind of crazy.
Underdogs. Hank.

My underdog, I'm sure PMT Stats Info could pull up this stat.

I've ridden them all year.

They've been one of the best covering teams all year.

They don't care about their record.

They're going to be out there fighting and scrapping for every inch,

every claw, every nail.

Lions plus three and a half.

PFT's giving me a look like he also did that.

No, I did not do that.

Thank God.

I did not take the Lions.

It's a good pick, though.

Jordan Love versus TB12.

Is it going to be TB12 or is it going to be?

Goff, I don't know.

Goff, yeah.

Goff syrup.

Yeah, that game, a game that doesn't matter at all.

But you know it matters to the Lions and Dan Campbell.

And their draft, I looked it up briefly,

but I don't think their draft pick can be affected by a win or loss here.

Maybe a loss they can get one, but if they win,

they're not going to go from the two to the six,

so it doesn't matter if they win.

So they're going to want to win.

Now, do we know that it's going to be Jordan Love?

Because Aaron Rodgers, maybe if he plays well enough this week,

he might be motivated to go out there and try

to get that vote back from Hub.

Yeah, try to get that MVP.

I don't know why Hub Arkish

wrote a whole entire blog saying

sorry. Aaron Rodgers is a

bad guy. He should be in prison.

His voting sounded correct to me.

Sounds like Aaron Rodgers canceled him.

Aaron Rodgers is pro cancel

culture. He did, yeah.
He canceled Hub. Yeah.
That's a real shame. I love that whole story.
He's not very anti-cancel culture. It was such a great story.
Hub having to then apologize and be like, I embarrassed all the other voters. It's like, no, dude.
You should vote for whoever you want. Maybe you shouldn't.
No, you know what? Aaron Rodgers is a bad guy. He should be in prison.
you hub alright Liam your underdog I took the 49ers plus 4.5 or is it 4 or 4.5 yeah what did we get on that one 4.5 so your head to head with PFT yeah I don't know they just have their number yep alright PFT my underdog is the jets i got the jets plus 16 these guys get paid to play 16 and a half even better these guys get paid to play football too they're professionals the jets they might win the jets might win outright i'll be pulling for the this is this is also my underdog and it's going to be a statement game. I've rode the Jets.
I think now it's going to be 11 times that I'm on the underdog. Straight to the bottom every week.
And they've taken me to the bottom, so they're either going to get me out of this or send me off with another letdown. But 16.5 is a lot of points, and we saw how they played last week.
They're electric. They're gearing up for an awesome rebuilding offseason and coming out strong for week one against the bills where they're definitely going to like shellac them are you sure that they don't want to put too much tape out there for the bills to know how they're going to play them in week one of next year it's going to be a totally different team by then we're you know burning the burning the ships going after it i was so close to taking that just because i knew you were going to, but I didn't.
I knew Billy was going to take it too. Yeah.
It's like that's a lot of points. Yeah, Billy's mind says if the Jets are underdogs, I'm going to bet them.
Yes. This is like close to 20 points they're giving them.
Wow. Yeah, I mean, it's 16 and a half.
Still got to go over 17 to get to 20. Close to 20.
We'll get there. All right, my underdog, I'm going with the Raiders plus three, so I'm going up against Billy on that one.
I don't know why. I just think Derek Carr, I just had a vision that Derek Carr is going to have a big throw late against the Chargers on Sunday night and, like, that interview after where Derek Carr can basically say, you know, everyone, we had so much adversity, and everyone just starts fawning over Derek Carr, and what an incredible season, Rich Pasickia, that's in my vision board.
You're going to get make or break with a fourth down conversion, a few fourth down conversions by the Chargers, because if they convert them, they might go up 20, but if they don't, then they should be up 20 and they're down 10. Right.
And they're definitely going to try to go for it on fourth down because you can't beat the Raiders. These aren't the Broncos.
You need touchdowns to beat them. You remember last year's game? I think it was a Thursday night game.
The Chargers and the Raiders. This game kicked ass.
I'm hoping that this game is like 50% as cool as that game was. Yes, that was a cool game.
Okay, Jake, finish us off with your underdog. Yeah, I'm taking the Houston Texans plus 10 at home against the Tennessee Titans a couple of weeks ago.
They were big dogs at home to the Chargers, and they won outright, so maybe another win to close it out. They've beaten the Titans before.
Even though the Titans are playing for the one seed, they've beaten them before, so good pick. pick mills mafia there was an article that came out today about deshaun watson apparently his trade value has gone way up over the course of the season so at the trade deadline there was um it was rumored that the dolphins i think were trying to ship either two or three first round picks to houston but they wanted some guarantee about the legal matters that deshaun was going through, that they would be resolved or that wouldn't have an impact on those picks.
But apparently now there's multiple teams that are very, very interested in trading for Deshaun Watson this offseason. So that's going to be just looming out there for months at a time, I think, because I don't think we're any closer to resolution on the legal matters are we no i don't think so although we haven't heard so who knows who knows at this point last i heard from florio i think he was saying it's going to take two years to sort this whole thing out but a year of sucking at football for most nfl franchises is enough to overlook whatever fucked up thing you're accused of yes there's a lot of teams that could potentially want Deshaun Watson

this offseason.

Okay, you're over, Hank.

I will be betting the Jets plus 16.5.

I will be rooting for the Jets, and another way to root for that

is taking the over 41.5 in this game.

The Jets are going to win.

You assume that that over is going to hit, right?

That's just logic. Yeah.
Yeah, sure. Why not? Walk me through that.
Jets win. It's Zach Wilson off-platform bombs.
Got it. If the Jets can score like 14 points, then that's going to cover because the Bills will either blow them out.
This is a Jets bet. This is a pro Jets bet.
The Jets score one or two times, this can cover. Okay.
41 and a half is what you said? Yeah. Okay, Liam, you're over.
I have Eagles-Cowboys over 42 and a half. Saturday night.
I had that. That was my first over as well.
Keep that. Gardner Minshew.
Yeah, I don't know. I saw it Saturday night.
43. Just feels like points.
This does feel like the perfect game for Gardner Minshew to go off in. Yeah.
A statement game for him where he's like, yeah, I deserve to be paid a lot of money. But I also think the Cowboys, like, they want to not be losing going into the playoffs.
I mean, obviously, they don't want to be losing. That was dumb.
But, like, get a win before. You know what I'm saying? And the NFC beast.
Yeah, have some momentum going. All right, PFT, you're over.
I got Colts, Jags, 44, taking the over on that one. Trevor Lawrence.
Reasoning. Trevor Lawrence.
Because you want to lose? Well, I mean, I could explain why I took this when I'm trying to lose. But I've already said, like, I want to, just like last week, I want to miss all these picks.
So feel free to fade me. I'm taking the over, though.
Colts, Jags, 44 points. Okay, Billy, you're over.
The don't, please don't fire me game, Bears-Vikings, 44 and a half. The coaches are going to try to keep their jobs.
Both guys probably getting fired. Yeah.
But they're going to try to keep their jobs with the statement. I agree.
Put up points. I don't think Mike Zimmer wants to be coaching the Vikings next year.
I think I saw Justin Fields went into COVID protocol, but there was a moment there where Matt Nagy could have made a first where Justin Fields was named the starter, and if Matt Nagy had won that game this game Sunday, he would have been the first coach ever to win three straight games with three different starters. Wow.
Which would have been hilarious. Yeah.
Greatest coach ever. That's yeah that's amazing.
Like you don't see that in the NFL it's all about the quarterback position. Matt Nagy is a guy that can get it done with anyone.
Three different starters trying to prove it at the last second that he can do it with anyone. Yeah I don't think I don't think Mike Zimmer wants to be around next year.
So that's where my hesitation with that one would come in.

I think he wants to be fired.

He wants to be fired already.

Yeah, he's tired of it.

He's definitely tired of it. All right, my over, I'm doing Cardinal Seahawks over 48.

I don't know, just a fun game.

And I think Russell Wilson's definitely going to try to get stats.

48?

Is it not?

48.

What is it?

What did you think it was, Hank?

What did you think it was?

I thought I had 46 written down. Oh, shit.
Yeah, Russell Wilson's going to try to get stats. There's nothing else for the Seahawks to play for besides throwing it deep to DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett.
Okay, Jake. I am with Liam.
Dallas, Philadelphia, over 43. Oh, so it's 43.
Yes, not 42 and a half okay Saturday night we got some Saturday night action just to start figuring everything out all right we'll wrap up with our unders Hank uh this is card Seahawks my reasoning is that today I had a different under and then I was uh going through the Barstow sports advisors you guys talked about this game Stu gave a very passionate pitch on the under and I'm riding riding with him. This is my Stu Finer under of the year.
Under of the year? Yeah. And you liked it at 46.
You love it at 48. Yeah, that's when you said 48.
I was like, oh, even better. So what goes into – are you just like riding Stu on this, or are you actually thinking? No, that's what I said.
I'm all over the place. I've just been looking for signs in different places, and it was one of those things.
We go, we go through the show, he makes five picks, there's five different games and something stuck out with, you know, his passion, the way he talked about it. It just seemed like he knew something and I'm riding with him.
It's not like he always picks unders. So when he does, you got to take it.
There's certain games that stick in your head for a while. And the game that sticks in my head with this matchup is I think it was Monday night football.
It was night maybe Thursday night a couple years ago when it was like that overtime game that was I think 6-9 or something like that where every team kept missing field goals or was it a tie it might have been the tie game was that last year when Kyler got hurt no no this was several years ago where um you had you had kickers missing all the short field goals at the end of the game in overtime too i think it might have ended up in a tie so i even though these two teams can score points every time i see them matched up i always think under love that love that for me october 23rd 2016 66 tie there we go yeah uh, you're under Liam. I'm going Giants football team under 38.
That's also my under. Okay.
Smart pick. I think that's a smart pick.
Wait, what's the total? Is it 38? 38. Does that guarantee that Billy loses, basically? So, Billy was two behind Liam, so now Liam would have to lose out and Billy would have to win out.
But me and Big Cat are technically, if we go 0-4, we can still catch Billy if he goes 4-0. So that's big for Liam, bad for Billy.
So we both have Jets. Because if I went 1-3 and you went 3-1, you guys both have Jets too.
No, I don't have the Jets. No, Billy and PFT have the Jets.
No, I took the 49ers. So if we're doing win probability here for loss probability, Billy is at like 90% that he's going to go.
That just went from like, yeah, it probably made it closer, but it doesn't lock anything in. It doesn't lock in, but Billy is like your 90%.
I think if Big Cat goes 0-4 and I go 4-0. Yes.
Same with me. I'm screwed.
You need either me, Liam, or Big Cat to lose every pick except that one you guys have the same in. Could definitely happen.
Yeah, absolutely. All right, PFT, your last one under.
Bubba, I think that's a good pick, by the way. Football team Giants.
Thank you. This is the clown franchise bowl, which Joe Judge will not do any media calls to address the fact that he called the football team a clown show, which he's correct in, by the way, 100% correct, but also just kind of ignoring the fact that he called the football team a clown show which he's correct in by the way 100 correct but also just kind of ignoring the fact that he has led the giants to also become a clown franchise glennon is not starting jake from is i've been more confident if glennon was starting on the other but remember i'm just there jake from got benched for mike glennon i know so jakeomm is technically worse than Mike Glennon.
But how many passing yards did he have the other day? Negative 10. Yeah.
He did that cool ball spin. That's definitely why Billy likes him.
Yeah. I mean, he's also quite liable to get a fumble six against him.
True. Yeah.
It feels like there's going to be some turn. That's going to be an ugly game.
Congratulations to anyone that chooses to watch that i apologize to everybody in the new york metropolitan area that is forced to watch that game on sunday um i'm sorry about that my under is going to be chargers raiders 49 and a half is that it yeah 49 and a half under chargers raiders means it might all come down to sunday night is that why you don't come down down to Sunday night I actually know I wasn't thinking about that at all but that that is a fun little addition uh all right I'm taking the Packers uh Lions under 44 and a half TB12 versus Jordan Love just give me the under and Jake you're finishing us up yes the final pick of the year is going to be Browns, Bengals, under 37 and a half. I know Burrow's out.
I believe Baker's out too, right? Mixing too. Yeah.
So backups. Yeah.
There's some ugly games on Sunday. Some real ugly games.
Yeah. Good luck.
We're betting week 18. We think it's going to happen to Baker this offseason.
You think he's going to be traded? I think he'll bring him back because his fifth year. They might as well just roll the dice and see how he performs fifth year because you have him locked up if you want him to be.
Yeah. Right? Haven't they already offered him? Have they already offered him the fifth year? Didn't they already have to do that? I don't know if that's been offered or not yet.
I think they probably have until March. They exercise quarterback Baker Mayfield's fifth-year option, locking him up with the franchise through 2022.
Yeah, because they have to do that earlier. Right, right.
So they'll keep him because what are you going to do? I mean, you're not going to be able to trade him, and you might as well see if he can do better. I think some teams will make an offer for Baker Mayfield this offseason.
I think they'll at least take a couple phone calls. They might not do it because you're right.
Having a guy that has been proven that at least he can be good when he's locked in, to have him at that price tag is probably a net benefit for the Browns no matter what you think about him. Yeah, exactly.
Okay, anything else for Week 18? Good luck to everyone everyone this is a tough week to handicap to bet to do everything also a reminder if anyone ties the tiebreaker is those two or even three guys go into wild card weekend where they have to pick a spread or total on every single game so all six games you have to pick you have to make or total on every single game. So all six games, you have to make one pick on every single game.

That's the tiebreaker.

And then if that gets tied again, we go to the next.

Should we have it be seven total picks so there's no three and three ties situation?

Like one game, you have to pick a spread and over-under.

You can still tie if it's seven total picks, though.

You can both go four and three.

If I tie, can I still just go?

No.

Actually, that's what you guys should have done to fuck me over.

Be like, okay, PFT can't go.

Like, flip it back and forth.

I said that.

I said you'd have to take a flight and do a bunch of delays,

and you got upset. No, I'm saying have it be forced me to try to win to go.
I don't know. I'm lost at this point.
I thought we'd just do a competition that we had for 16 weeks. It was going well.
It was going well. I'm just being honest.
Road tripping sounds like a lot of it, especially if it's to Dallas, which I actually don't think that the game's going to be played in dallas i think it's going to probably stay in los angeles and unless it's a scenario where they like actually can't have the game can't have fans in the game yeah that's going to be what it takes to move it to dallas uh okay so should we get to our interview we got a great interview with ryan rusillo great interview uh and then we'll do a fire fest so we can send everyone on their way.

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Take. Okay, we now welcome on our very good friend.
It is Ryan Russillo. Been too long.
We want to have Ryan on. We're going to do some NBA preview.
We're going to talk a little football as well well go subscribe to the Ryan Russillo podcast right now um just so we can give some context uh we're going to be running this on Friday today is January 5th do you have any big plans for tomorrow Ryan well uh you know okay first real question

I'm going to look at boats um yeah you're gonna join a parade i was gonna single file all right so we do have you on to talk sports um oh okay nba let's start with uh is anyone beating the lakers this year? Look, I haven't watched any games yet because of football. But I'll tell you, just taking in the offseason, there's two things I feel strongly about.
And I'll have to go look this up later on. But I'm not as high on this Lakers team as everybody else is.
I'm just going to say that. Oh, okay.
Russell Westbrook, though. I mean, this guy is a generational mean he's he's a problem he's a problem he's a walking bucket we know that in all seriousness with the Lakers though because I so we're not doing this we won't do the whole time okay we won't yeah he's gonna see how long we could go and you know I sneaky like the Bulls yeah yeah I think I think DeMar DeRozan's going to be clutch for them.
All right, real talk. Yeah, real talk.
Lakers, real quick. Yeah.
There's two lines of thinking. One, this team is a mess and it never will fit.
Or two, Anthony Davis is hurt and LeBron's still LeBron, so never bet against them. Once the playoffs start, they'll figure it out.
Yeah, I think both can actually be right, by the way. They're one game over .500 now.
They actually have the same record as the fifth seed, so they're there with Denver and Dallas, just percentage points behind as the day of taping this. LeBron's been on absolute terror.
They, like a lot of teams, have had to deal with a bunch of different things. But Anthony Davis, when he played, was arguably the worst jump shooter in the league based on how many shots he was taking where he was taking from and the lack of converting them I mean they were horrible horrible stats like there was one stat was like out of so many guys have taken four attempts you know from this distance in the entire league out of 108 he ranks 108th or something I mean they were terrible and I don't know if he put on too much size something Simmons and I have talked about a little bit too where I feel like everybody called him a pussy last year and he gets you guys get sick of it you know I can't imagine how mad I would be if I were a pro athlete and I turn on TNT and it's like everybody thinks I'm a pussy the whole time yeah so I just feel like all right well now I'm definitely lifting more and I think he came back and I think the bulk has actually slowed him down and it just didn't work so I mean I'd ask you this if Anthony Davis were just you know moderate levels of Anthony Davis not a terrible version of him which is what he's been so far this year if he were healthy and a decent version of him isn't that good enough for at least five more wins and that would kind of put him in the four seed spot all right I don't think any of the teams outside of the top three in Utah Phoenix and Golden State I don't I don't think those three teams are going to get caught by any of the standings behind them.
But the Westbrook part of this is why I can sound so annoying and repetitive, but it still happened again today. I watched something from ESPN.
It was a former player. They were talking about all the great things Russ brings in, and I'm just like, how many fucking years do you have to watch this guy do the exact same thing that never leads to winning and think that it's just magically going to work out at some point? Like most of us don't change.
And a basketball player that's as stubborn as he is, isn't going to change. So I liked Westbrook in the off season to the Lakers for the regular season because LeBron, AD, Mello, the older guys, they were going to need to coast at times.
Russell Westbrook's a great energy guy. But then in the playoffs, I go, it doesn't make any sense.
He doesn't offer up any spacing for AD and LeBron. He's never set a screen in his fucking life.
And on top of it now, he's even a worse shooter and more turnover prone than before. So the Westbrook thing, the only way they solve it is by having AD and LeBron focus on what they do and hopefully them both being healthy at the end of the year because i still think there's a chance but westbrook i don't see basketball wise how he's involved in that success because he's just not a good fit so would it have been a better fit if they had gotten someone who's like won a ton in his career and a bunch of rings like chris paul you guys froze your son you love him like a son wait a minute you froze you froze no we didn't actually freeze yeah no you did you froze you froze i got the chris paul joke now though go ahead you want to just tee it up again no chris paul you love chris paul i say comments my question was would this lakers be in a better spot if they had a guy who has a bunch of rings and a bunch of winning pedigree like Chris Paul? Yeah, no, I get that the Westbrook people, because Westbrook can't get out of the first round, other than the time they beat the Thunder when it was Chris Paul on the other side of it.
But Chris Paul, his exits in the playoffs are because of injury, not stubbornness. Go through all the years where he and Blake lost.
One of those guys was always hurt so when I see a lot of these things about Paul like not being able to win like I actually think these things are malleable like you can go wait a minute is this guy not getting out of the first round because of him or is it because of other circumstances this is not uh being hypocritical it's these are just facts look them up I think that was who was available Westbrook just has a branding problem if he was in football they'd call him a gunslinger like you saw him after the game when he was he was saying I'm allowed to turn the ball over it's part of my game I'm allowed to miss shots it's part of my game I think that they're like that obviously got taken as a quote that was splashed everywhere but there is there's some element of truth to it but it's like how much how much can you limit Russell Westbrook being Russell Westbrook because if if you can even cut that down 20%, 30% in the playoffs, then he might be able to figure it out. Who knows? No, I already know.
The answer is no. Why is he just going to – like this is what's insane to me.
And again, PFT, you didn't play in the league, unfortunately. We know your story.
Yeah. Right.
But I'm talking about the people that played in the league that still will go on TV being like, oh, you know, a little trim here, a little shave here off of this corner. Be like, no, this is who he is.
And it's what got him to this point because he was a kid that didn't have a lot of offers out of high school. He was a guy at UCLA that were like, we don't really even know what to do with this guy.
And how when he got drafted, I remember talking to Carlissimo about it because he and Presti were arguing Carlissimo wanted them to take Brooke Lopez and Presti was like I think we got something like really special like another level I think Westbrook's the best athlete I've ever seen play basketball ever okay I think he's the best athlete I've ever seen play basketball but there is a there is a buy-in for the 38 minutes that you're out there or whatever that you have to pay attention and this is why I just laughed because because I'm like, I didn't play, I didn't coach, but I noticed his shit, and guys that did it for a living can't even see it. He, off the ball in huge spots defensively, almost always fucks up.
Almost always. I could pick the next game they're on.
I'll just wait until it's close at the end, and I'll see him miss somebody in a rotation just because he decides, like, nah, I'm just going to spaz out and do this. Those mistakes, to me, are worse than just an ill-advised three or a long two off the side of the backboard.
So I don't know why anybody thinks it's just going to change because I think, unfortunately, the curse of Russ is that his personality got him here, but his personality is what prevents him ever finding a way to adapt to the things that are around him. And, yeah, I'm like, I'm sorry, but when I talk to people about it

and they start telling me how it can all work and a little of this, a little of that,

or LeBron will get them to listen to all this stuff,

I don't really want to listen to that person talk about basketball anymore.

Okay, so this interview is over.

Well, it sounds like Ryan is really mad at somebody in particular.

Who?

You got real mad earlier.

Say the name.

Big mad.

Say the name.

Ryan big mad when you were like, he's just not going to fucking change, right? Say it. Who is it? Because it's everybody.
It's everybody that either coached in the league or played in the league, and they're afraid to say the truth. Because if I'm at home, again, who never played a game anyone cared about, they can figure out in the Patty Mills thing, be like, why did you just lose Patty Mills in a switch for no fucking reason? It's because you just couldn't help yourself.
You're like, I'm going to help. I'm going to break our assignments.
Patty Mills has only made like seven threes a night, and I'll just let him. That shit happens every night.
It happens multiple sessions. Sounds like he's got ADD.
Sounds like you're shaming him for a learning disability. Well, now I feel bad.
Yeah. Now you take it all back.

All right.

Biggest free agent acquisition, Clay Thompson or Kyrie Irving?

I love whatever we frame guy coming back from injury as,

you know who actually won free agency?

This is the old Kevin White.

Yeah, the Warriors.

Yeah, the Warriors did because they got Clay back.

I know.

I know.

I hate when guys used to do that.

You'd have a segment built out. They're like, well, the biggest acquisition of the trade deadline is Klay.
You're like, all right, cool. No one's ever thought of that tricky way to get into it.
Who wins more right now, Klay? Because Klay, Klay, it's not even close. Klay's a better player, and Klay's more dependable, and Klay's available for all games, and he's not banned for half of them.
It's such a funny situation. It's like, guess what, guys? We're back.
Kyrie's coming back to play with us on a limited basis until he feels like such a time where he can join the team on a full-time basis. Until Kyrie Irving is allowed to play in the state of New York, then I don't know if you can really say, like,

he's going to make that much of a difference.

I think the whole thing is, like, you know,

I mean, Kyrie barely plays full seasons anymore.

You know, he was one of the voices that was like,

we should just do our own thing, start our own league guy.

You know, he's your friend that hangs out at the beach

and looks at the horizon and goes,

can't believe people think this shit's round, you know?

And I'm not even talking about his flat earth joke

that he then later on, by the way, said was an experiment

to try to see how we would react to it,

which sounded very much like his vaccination status

in that it wasn't that he was anti-vax,

it's that he wanted to be a voice for the voiceless

because they were trying to figure out some sort of PR spin as everybody's like, fuck this guy for a couple weeks. They were like, no, no, actually, we're doing this for the waitresses out there.
It was like, oh, all right, word. Facts.
I feel bad for Nash in a way, even though he was kind of gifted a championship-caliber team here. So you can't feel bad for him there.
But this has to be getting old pretty quickly in only his second season

where they were like, look, I mean, this is even about the owner too.

The owner visited with Kyrie before the season started and said,

hey, when you have a championship caliber team,

there's some buy-in here that we have to have.

And so let's talk to you and educate you on everything you need to know

so that you're all comfortable.

But this needs buy-in from everyone around.

And he was like, nah, fuck that.

I'm just going to post weird shit on Instagram instead.

So when he was available for road games because of the city ordinance,

the team's like, no, no.

So the funny thing is he still is going to make half of his $33 million

because they have to pay him for the games that they've banned him from

on the road games, even though he's ineligible for home games.

All right?

So then we're at this point where he returns this week, you go oh all right wait a minute like Nash and the team are probably like look if we have guys that are like borderline g-league players and the whole thing's a mess now with Omicron anyway we might as well just bring them back and have them be a part of a mess and the thing is knowing Kyrie andrie and his skill set will probably come out and it won't matter. And then that team's scary again.
So I think basketball-wise, it makes sense. When you were just talking about this, a thought popped in my head.
What is the link between Kevin Durant and Kyrie? Because on the surface, they do seem like completely opposite people in the fact that I think you Kevin Durant is is the number one guy who's like loves basketball anything he ever says you know whenever he wants to play all the time he's truly in love with basketball even when he's he's like critiquing like 14 year old kids on Instagram calling their moves trash like that's coming from a place of like love you know what I mean? He actually loves the game to a level I think a lot of guys don't. Kyrie, maybe not.
Like, he doesn't – he's okay not playing. So, how do those two guys, like, just on a relationship level fit? It's such a good question, dude.
I'm serious. Like, I think about this.
Yeah. Don't you love when guys in interviews and it's like they don't really have an answer and they stall they're like great question they're not they're not stalling though they're always actually genuinely complimenting their questions yes it might not happen to you that much but for us experienced interviewers but it is it's fascinating i just i don't know why it took me this long to just think about it was you explaining kyrie like not playing a lot of full seasons because it doesn't make any sense that's why it's so interesting because you're right.
KD is all about hoops. Hoop all the time.
And by the way, we should do something. We should all send basketball clips.
DM Kevin Durant right now. Let's make this a thing from now on.
If you're just taking jumpers, you're trying to get wet out back, send that. DM that video to Kevin Durant and let him know that you love hoop too.
That's how I initially started talking to him was i i did an instagram video this guy no i did an instagram video of a pickup hoops game that i was playing in and he just he out of the clouds responded in dm saying get this trash off my court wow so yeah he loves hoops he loves hoops but i think the fact that he even has that in him like can you imagine other nba superstars like taking the time to do something like that and so the fact that he would be like no I'm hitching my wagon to Kyrie it never made any sense while it was happening guys that kind of knew the deal with Kyrie and look I'll tell you this about Kyrie the guys that really know what's up are actually more like they're less critical because they just want they hope they hope he kind of sifts his way through whatever it is that he's going through you know what I I mean? Like, hey, if you love hoop, and Kyrie's like, oh, man, I love hoop, I love hoop, how could you ever take this away from me? You know, Rod Strickland, who's his godfather, right? Rod Strickland, who was an absolute motherfucker of a guard, all right? He said, you know, Kyrie might be the most talented player ever, and people crushed him for it. When, in fact, when you really put all the talent parts of Kyrie together, his handle, his shot making, the difficult shot making that is an acceptable shot for Kyrie, all of the stuff that he can do, wrong foot, wrong hand, all that.
It's actually not crazy to talk about him being actually one of the most gifted basketball skill people that we've ever seen. Now, would I want him to be the face of my franchise? Of course not, because you just don't know what you're betting on.
And the fact that Durant would be like, okay, I'm down for this for like the next four years in my prime championship window or extending my prime championship window never made any sense. Now, for people that say, hey, he turned down the most stable thing ever and the most selfless teammate of all time of the superstars and maybe Steph Curry.
But KD couldn't fuck with it because it was like, this is all still Steph's. It happened before I got here.
They won the title before me. They played in the finals before I got here.
I got my titles. I had fun playing basketball.
But if I want my own thing, I got to get away from Steph. But the fact that he did it with Kyrie, I can't explain it.
But people seem to love him. Like, ask Blake next time you have him on.
Not Bortles. But when I ask somebody who's close with Blake Griffin, I go, why going to the Nets he's like dude he loves Kyrie yeah these guys love him I think I think if you're that talented at anything so with Kevin Durant he's he's better than everybody right he's he's probably the best player in the NBA right I agree with that player in the world right now but there are things that Kyrie Irving can do that Kevin Durant cannot do and if you're that good and you see somebody able to do things that even you can't do, even though you're the best, I think there's like an inherent level of respect where you want to be around that guy.
Yeah, that might be it. Because there was a clip that was out with the knuckleheads guys, Darius and Quentin, where they had Durant on and they were asking about like, just what's it like being around Kyrie? and Durant couldn't even get his thoughts out clearly.
Yeah. Like he's just shaking his head.
He's like, man, we'll be doing shit where it isn't like part of the practice where he just goes off and does something on his own. And you look at some of the stuff he does.
So that might be it. It might be just being in awe, but here's what I would say to Kevin Durant.
If I were really close to them, you know, prior to the decision, which already happened, but then also influencing whatever decision I make moving forward it's like is this the guy that you want as your number two or you know whatever his ranking would be with the Harden part of it there as well as Harden still can't get back into shape like you you're you're you only have so many years left so at what point will you look at your window saying I need some guys to ride with that I am like 100% sure of where their head is at when it comes to basketball? Because you're right, Big Cat. Durant, it's never a question about how much he cares about basketball and be part of a team.
And despite what on paper could be a champion, I still think if the Nets were healthy last year, they would have beat everybody. I don't really know how there's much debate to it.
So maybe it still works out despite how frustrating it's been the whole time. But I would have to think Durant in some private moments is going, if I have X number of years left in this whole deal, do I still want it to be with guys that don't seem to be as locked in as I am? Which I think is a completely fair question to ask and surprising if he never did.
What about the other big addition that they're going to make in free agency, which your other favorite player joe harris the best uh catch and shoot player in the nba playoffs for the first two rounds that's going to be a pretty big he's a friend right um look i like joe harris going back to college yeah no we do too yeah we've had him on the show we were you i i don't want to give you shit for the take that you had about him but i will say that you might you might have cursed him last year because ever since you said that he's like the best shooter in the nba then he just kind of took a nosedive you're sure that was me i wouldn't say anybody's better than steph we've had we're having you on just to roast your takes if you haven't figured that out oh all right i don't remember i remember we had kirk golds He's got COVID brains still. I do.
I got – I knew it wasn't me. I just wanted to see where this was going.
I got a long thought. Kirk Goldsberry came on the show, and we talked about how the Nets are, like, so insane offensively, and then Joe Harris never hit a three after that.
Kyrie point, though, I still remember. We went to – it was the game that PFT actually lost his wallet in the Cleveland Cavs arena.
We went to I think it was like Celtics Cavs game four or five ish in 2017 when he scored 42 and he scored like 18 in a row. And it was we were just sitting there with our with our jaws on the floor because every shot was insane every layup was insane and it was like this

guy can just do whatever he wants so it is he's he's an incredible incredible player he's the best small finisher I've ever seen at the room I've never seen anyone like him at his size consistently beat guys in the way you know again people would be like oh what about Iverson like look up. Look up.
Iverson had a two- or three-year stretch where it was crazy.

I mean, it's AI.

But Kyrie consistently, whether it's showing it and taking it away from you,

crazy angles of release, understanding all that.

People could be like, oh, you're from Boston.

You don't like Kyrie.

I didn't like watching it at the end because that team was so like full of themselves.

And they weren't that good.

And he's a tough guy to sign up for every night.

But if we're just talking pure basketball skill, it isn't crazy.

I don't think to put Kyrie up there with everybody else.

It's just a different conversation.

We're just talking about like, hey, well, does that make him top 10 of all time?

Well, no, no, that's not what we're doing.

We're just talking strictly about the skill stuff.

And you're right.

Yeah.

He has stretches where you're just like, you have to be fucking kidding.

And the spins that he puts on his shots too. He'll like switch hands at the last second in midair.
And then he'll put side spin on a shot as it goes up to the glass, you know, behind his neck and somehow be able to perfectly bank it off and end. It's crazy.
I actually do think that people would think he was a witch if it was the 1800s and they saw him playing basketball. They'd be like, this person's not, this is not human.
Basketball wasn't, dude, basketball wasn't invented. Yeah, that's why they think he was a witch.
Yeah, but what game are you playing right now? What do you think would be the weirdest time travel situation of like, I think boxing. We talked about this with Chris Long, but if you just went in a time machine and was like, all right, let's find a heavyweight who'd be like 185.

And he would just sit there with his fists upside down and just kind of doing that.

And then you just went in militant style against him.

They'd be like, who the fuck is this guy?

I still think he'd be like taking Reggie White to like 1925.

Could you imagine?

He'd just throw the entire offensive line. Yeah, that would be our Reggie White to like 1925.
Could you imagine? He'd just throw the entire offensive line. Yeah, that would be our Reggie White.
Yes. I was just talking like random guy.
Aaron Donald playing against like Yale in 1902. Mine is like if Eddie House played in the 1950s, we would have Eddie House documentaries and specials, and Eddie House would be – he'd be up there with Mikan.
What if you took like a Roldis Chapman back to 1881? Babe Ruth was trash. I don't like the Babe Ruth is trash stuff.
No, he took away his pinstripes. Did you see that swing and a miss that he had? He sucked.
Awful. It is that line of like you can understand, you're're absolutely right like basketball has come in such a way that you watch you watch highlights from 1950 or 1960 you're like these these guys aren't that good but do you think you could score when you watch those highlights oh yeah yeah sometimes the ones where they're just like dribbling the ball straight up and down and just they're kind kind of like pivoting around the ball.
They're not even moving the ball.

Yeah.

I think the other problem is if Eddie house went a time machine, they'd call him for a carry the first seven times he had the basketball.

So they'd be like, wait a minute.

That was always Jerry West big thing.

He's like, you can't even, you know,

because the way you don't call carrying, I mean,

I like Giannis and it's back to your earlier point, PFT.

Like I agree with you on Durant being better than Giannis. If we're going best player in the world, even though Giannis got him last year, sort of, because I just think it's still crazy how we would be talking about Giannis and the Bucs and whether or not Bud would even be there if Durant's foot is behind the line, because he was doing that with a couple guys down.
I think from a basketball standpoint, as much as we can all love Giannis, and I love Giannis. I love that Giannis has the personality, and this is one of the things when it comes up with Ben Simmons.
This is back to my Westbrook where you sort of expose yourself. When somebody's like, well, if you just took Ben Simmons and turned him into the Giannis thing, it'd be fine.
I'd be like, if you've been watching Ben Simmons and Giannis this much, and you can't tell the difference between their mentality when they walk onto a basketball court, then I can't fucking help you. So, I love that part of Giannis so much but then if you were to watch Giannis and Durant just play basketball and go wait I'm supposed to think this guy's better than the guy Durant who can dribble and is just like has the same height and can shoot like this off the dribble like I wouldn't do that would I and honestly this turns into the only people that would think we're crazy are the people that are from Milwaukee who are Bucks fans and they're emotionally attached to the whole fucking thing yeah so um what was the point again no you just agreed I agree as well I think Kevin Durant's the best in the world and I know LeBron this is just rat poison for LeBron can you oh it's a Giannis carries the basket oh yeah he does yeah so they should call that but everybody kind of does can you fix if we put you if we put Ben Simmons on a psychology couch in your bedroom there? Is that a bedroom? What is that, a futon? Yeah, this is a futon.
You can have friends over. You watch TV.
And then if things work out, you sleep over. Cool.
All right. So if Ben Simmons was on your futon hanging out, listening to Van Halen with you, how would you fix whatever's going on inside Ben Simmons head? I don't even know.
First of all we all know he wouldn't listen to me right? So let's start there. Well you've already given up so you have a Ben Simmons personality.
Maybe you gotta be who he is to fix him. You gotta mimic his personality so good job so far.
You gotta hug him right when he walks in the room. He needs somebody that'll fix him.
You've got to mimic his personality. So good job so far.
You've got to hug him right when he walks in the room. He needs somebody that will hug him, I think.
Just show him that he's supported and loved. Like, what's going to happen? It's crazy.
You've never seen someone demand a trade when they have been the problem. We're going to get right back to the show.
In the Champions League quarterfinals, every decisive moment gives you goosebumps i get those goosebumps every time arsenal have been ruthless the uefa champions league quarterfinals stream every match live exclusively on paramount plus all right back to part of my take yeah and he had four years left on the deal like This was why, from the beginning of the Ben Simmons stuff,

I'd go, you realize this is a little different.

Because people were starting to cover it like,

all right, well, I wonder where he's going to go.

And at first, he had some destinations

that he would have liked to have gone to,

particularly in California.

We could probably rule out Sacramento.

And I would talk to different people,

and I'd be like, wait, he thinks he's going to be able

to call his shots while having four years left on the deal, too.

And not taking a shot in the playoffs.

Sucking at basketball, I think, is probably another big factor that goes into that.

Yeah.

Right.

Just be like, imagine it's the fourth quarter.

He's like, I don't want to go outside.

Do you think that he's the best player in the world if there was no hoop in basketball? He'd be unbelievable. First team.
Yeah. He really would be.
Yeah, first team. Yeah, it's just I don't know what's going on in his head.
He's afraid of baskets. So you have to do some sort of immersion therapy where you just put baskets all around his apartment or his house.
And just every time he looks at one, you give him a treat. Yeah, his door is a basket, so he has to to walk in and out of it every day but it has to be the shot clocks have to be simultaneously linked to start at three seconds so every time he doesn't have time to think right i'll tell you there's there's one shot from ben simmons it's a couple years ago where i remember it specifically because of just how smooth it looked it was the end of the shot clock he had no choice he had to get the shot up and he did and he did like a turnaround baseline jumper, and it went in, and it was terrific.
And it was because he wasn't thinking about any of this stuff. And unfortunately, this is true for anybody.
I mean, this is why I don't like when people say, oh, well, you know, the studies say there's no such thing as clutch. I'm like, okay, but if there's no such thing as clutch, do we agree that some guys lining up a certain putt start to feel a little different or free throw starts to feel a little different or certain guys are comfortable in tight spots and other guys aren't? So if that exists, then I believe clutch exists.
And for Ben Simmons, it can be a really hard thing to dig yourself out of. And clearly it's going to start somewhere else.
I don't think he cares about where he goes now. It might be a bit like the Favre thing where Favre wanted to go to Minnesota so bad he went to the Jets first.
And Simmons may be like, look, I'll do anything. Just throw me anywhere, and then they'll figure it out on the next step.
Because he just needs to start feeling comfortable out on a basketball court again. So I am sympathetic to some of it because it was really weird to watch somebody completely fall apart mentally in the playoffs like that.

Like this guy won't go.

He will not go near the rim or even attempt at the rim because he's so

petrified of getting fouled and having to shoot free throws.

He just is over it.

He's not going to do any of this stuff anymore.

But then again,

it's like,

all right,

yeah,

but you had,

you know,

you signed a max deal for four years.

It's not all on Philadelphia that you never developed as part of your game.

And,

you know,

spare us the Instagram workout videos where it's like, oh, here you never developed as part of your game. And, you know, spare us the Instagram workout videos

where it's like,

oh, here you are again,

LA Fitness,

pulled up,

you hit a three at lunch.

Awesome.

What about,

do you know anything

about the metaverse?

What if you put them

in some of those Oculus glasses?

I don't know anything about it.

That ad,

is that supposed to get me pumped

with those kids at the museum?

I think so.

What's that supposed to do?

I think it's supposed

to change the world.

That's as much as I know about it. Billy talks about it all the time.
I don't understand it. That's a tall task.
You can put like Oculus glasses on them and then just run programs of him seeing all of his shots go in. If he had to do that for like 12 hours at a time for a week, I'm sure just seeing enough of your shots going in would give you a little bit of confidence.
This feels clockwork orange therapy that all pft is bringing up here that's true you want to just you want to haze him into becoming a shooter but all I want him to do yeah right all I want him to be is a is a five like a stretch five sort of point guard I want no big because that's the other thing that sucks about the whole matchup and why Sixers fans

are wrong about this forever.

And the reason they were wrong

is that they'd be rooting

against their current roster.

But even at the best version

of Philadelphia,

the ideal version

was to never have these two guys

playing with each other.

Like it's actually

the worst combination of,

hey, and anybody that disputes this,

I'm going to explain it

to you really quickly.

Joel's the best post-offensive player probably in the game today. Other than Singoon, maybe.
Frank Kaminsky. Another worthy adversary.
Like, hey, what pairs well with that? Oh, a huge point guard that can't shoot and will never shoot. Yeah, definitely that.
Definitely that. Like, okay, who's Ben Simmons? All right, what would be the best thing for him? Ball in hands all the time wide open floor surrounded by shooters nobody in the way all right well let's stick the best post like it just anybody that argued against it even even if the Toronto series and all the shit like hey could it have possibly worked out could they back their way into a fight or something like that yeah sure fine over time I just want to see Ben Simmons playing in a system now where he at least just feels comfortable.
Because however mad you may be at him, you know, I don't want his entire career derailed from this. And that's kind of where we're at right now.
Sorry, Big Tech. He needs like the Dwight Howard magic.
He needs to just be shooters everywhere and let him be in the post. Because he's not going to do it.
You're right. He's never going to shoot.
So he needs full space in the paint, no other big man, and shooters everywhere. And I actually think – He needs Draymond.
He needs a Draymond approach, but he doesn't have Draymond's personality, and that's always the mistake with him. Well, very few people do.
I mean, Draymond's like a one-of-one kind of guy. Tougher roommate, Kyrie or Draymond? Beach House.
Oh, Beach House, Draymond. Oh, I think Kyrierie I think Draymond Draymond seems like like you just he'd get the best out of everyone it would be tough for a little bit but then you just be like hit a spot where you're just having the best parties I would everyone's getting along I think Draymond would be an awesome Beach House roommate in your early 20s Kyrie great Beach House roommate in in your late twenties when you want to chill out a little bit.

He's always got the mushrooms.

I think Kyrie could throw a banger though at like four in the morning, right in your

face.

And he's like, what's going on?

Yeah.

He just doesn't live by the, by the normal time.

Right.

He's like constructs.

Yeah.

Hours are hours, man.

Also Draymond, you know who the alpha dog is.

Like it's good to have one guy kind of in charge at a beach house, right? He would be the guy. It's not an easy answer because with Draymond, if you were like, hey, I want pizza tonight, he'd be like, I told you we're getting fucking wings.
And he wouldn't think there'd be any more discussion. And you'd be like, come on, dude.
Can't we get pizza once? And I don't think Draymond's ever going to give in. Where Kyrie would be like, I want you to make a decision that makes you feel better about all of your decisions.
So you'd be like, hey, that's super easy. But then Kyrie, it might be nude week.
Right. Right.
Or vegan week. Yeah.
Right. Right.
And you're like, wait, that's my mom's couch. She let us have it for the summer.
Can you throw some drawers on? And Kyrie would be like, why would your mother want to constrict anything about my life? I could see Draymond also just wanting to set up fireworks every night. He does it for the first time on the 4th, and everybody's like, this is awesome.
That was legendary. Draymond went out and got $2,000 worth of fireworks.
Awesome. And then it's July 5th, and he's like, I got $5,000 tonight.
Because if it's in your 20s, you want Draymond, because people would be like, you can't mess with those guys in that house. Right.
That's also true. Draymond's a better roommate.
Little edge. All right.
We've gone this long. I do.
This is obviously biased, but I do think the Bulls 35 games in are the best story in the NBA, just because no one thought they were going to be the one seed right now and they're playing great basketball is there what's the ceiling maybe an Easter conference finals I love watching him play I love the story I was wrong about him and I think to this point clearly I've been wrong about the DeRozan contract we'll see you know when you're giving 85 million to a guy who's 32 where there are a lot of stats that told you like yeah he puts up some numbers but what is he really and now he's incredible um it's weird i looked at some 538 database they have they have this metric where basically they kept track of everything since the merger so we're looking at 3527 players that they've tracked with this metric there's only five players that hit their career peak at a later age in their career than what DeRozan just did. Ironically, Lowry's the other one this year, which speaks to kind of my frustration with Toronto and people revisiting what that team was that kept losing the playoffs all the time.
Cause DeRozan wasn't very good. He wasn't right.
And you know, they didn't trade him cause he wasn't good. They traded him cause they got a chance get Kawhi Leonard and it completely worked out and then Kawhi used to have these numbers that looked good he started getting more assist in the Spurs system and then there were some weird plus minus numbers guys where you would you would put it together collectively and be like wait so you're telling me in the aggregate they're better with this guy in the bench all the time so I remember I was going to vote for him for something and you know I was talking to some other people again some other people again, I don't have like a real vote that matters.
So it doesn't, doesn't matter. But I was like, God, that's such a weird thing.
Like, so just over the course of a couple of seasons, the team's better when you're not on the floor. Like that's fucking crazy.
Even though he's a really good score. We know that.
Um, but what he did is he started changing into kind of a, instead of the long twos, he did shorter long twos and I'd imagine with the

shot chart like he's never shot at this well he was at 15 26 and 26 from three the previous three years now he's like 37 or something with Chicago I think it may have been cutting down on certain things he's doing so the DeRozan story is incredible but it is still a little unlikely yeah no it is I go ahead well like the NBA is very hard to kind of wrap your head around sometimes because you you have to admit that the to win a title you need one of the top five guys right like you just do it you can't you can't win a title yeah it's kind of I mean it sucks it's like a it's like not having a quarterback week one you're like all right we're gonna tackle guys for the next 17 weeks but whatever. And so the Bulls don't have a top five guy in the league.
It's probably even worse to your point, by the way. Right, but what AK, the GM did is essentially say, listen, we're going to try to change what people perceive the Chicago Bulls as right now.
We're going to build around Zach Levine, which I think a lot of GMs would be like, that's crazy. He's clearly not like the best guy on a championship team, but every move he's made has helped Zach be better.
You know, getting Vooch, which people didn't like getting to Rosen, getting, getting Lonzo, like all these moves. I don't know if they're, they're probably not a championship team.
They probably won't ever be a championship team, but it's a lot of fun to watch them play. And people are now looking at the bullss differently and I think that's the only thing you can do instead of sitting around and waiting for the first pick in the draft and having that guy be the most incredible player in the league in five years and also want to stay so I I love what they've done I just think that it's it's a fun team to watch and I'm also realistic knowing that the chances are they probably won't win a title with this team it is a great point that is not given enough credit all the time there's this obsession and I remember when I was covering the Celtics and I would work on the Celtics TV station forever and when I was younger I was convinced you know the weird thing about being younger is you just haven't been around long enough to realize how wrong you're going to be so many times.
So when you're younger and you're in the business and I'm like, oh, that move's stupid. And this doesn't mean a championship and whatever.
And I remember Bob Ryan was like, who cares? He's like, how about just being better? How about instead of every deal being judged on, well, that's not going to win you a championship. how about just make the roster better? Be more competitive.
I don't know, win more games. And he just laid into me, and I love Bob Ryan, and it kind of changed the way I thought because I was like, you know what? He's right.
And sure, we had a third of the lead tanking before the season even started because it was stupid to even try and compete.

And I get too like, hey, you had a run.

Oklahoma City's in their tanking window.

They're trying to put it together.

Henke ended up losing his job because he was so unapologetic about it

and so vulgar in his process.

And he just wasn't good at playing the game.

But Chicago just looked at it and said, okay, who are we? We made some major investment into Vooch. We like who we could be when we're healthy.
But if we add Zoe, we add DeRozan, we keep him around Levine. So now Levine doesn't feel like he has to close out every game offensively, which forced him into some bad decisions.
They pick off Caruso because the Lakers brass. I think the story there was a Palenka.
He wasn't really a Palenka guy, so they were okay moving on from him, which is a huge mistake because we've seen now what Caruso brings to your team. So I give the Bulls a ton of credit for just going, hey, all we want to do is just be better.
Because this play-in game stuff, this is ridiculous. So going into it, I didn't know if we'd be better.
I'm still worried about how they match up with a Giannis or Durant in a playoff game because of the personnel not even having a Patrick Williams who knows maybe it'll be an option that's still asking a hell of a lot of guys played very little basketball I still worry about you know Vooch even though I love who he is this big who can shoot the numbers aren't the same as they were in Atlanta because he has less opportunity but you know will he be a big that can get a little exposed maybe at times and then what are your options so there are certain matchup option things with the playoffs but think about this if this is where we're at in December and January of this season based on where I was after they gave DeRozan $85 million and I'm like I don't know if they're going to be any good I like a couple of their guys they should probably be good enough to be in the play-in game to now they're sitting sitting there at the one seed, even if I like Brooklyn and I like Milwaukee better than them. Like, that's incredible.
That in itself is a big accomplishment, and those accomplishments, those steps in the NBA are almost never given credit. And so that's why I think everybody should feel great about this, and I don't want to come on being like, because there's another side of this too, where it's like, oh, you don't think they can win a title? I'm like, guys chill out yeah no the title part is just the realistic like i said you if you look at the history of the nba if you don't have a top five guy who is it the pistons like i was gonna say that's the last team and they just had some of the you know four of the best defenders right in the nba right like it's just it's just the reality of it and i understand the reality of it and when you play in a series usually the team with the best player in the series is going to win out so I know the Bulls are up against it I just think that it's it they they deserve a ton of credit for changing what was I mean you you know Ryan you have a ton of people that you talk to in in like the league Chicago was a place that everyone looked at was like that place is so dysfunctional why would I ever go there you have to change that somehow and this has started to change and it could happen you can change that perception pretty quickly with a couple seasons that have winning basketball yeah and when you looked at the Rosen deal by itself like it was a pick in the sign of trade to give him 85 million and then it kind of turns into like into like, hey, who are you actually competing against? But again, I don't know.
We can be unfair with that too. It's like, oh, so you know every single fucking transaction that didn't go down? That's not realistic.
I know I don't. I'm talking about maybe guys that have to be on the line with all these people.
I just think when you look at it and you start to watch him play, you go, you know what's cool about this is that Zoe trusts, you know, Lonzo's a deferential player. Right.
As talented as he is, he's, you know, I don't know if it's the younger brother or the dad, but they drained the alpha out of him. No, he's perfect for Zach Levine.
But it works, exactly. And so you've got Levine who's probably, you know, where his decision-making was to where it is now is a massive improvement.
There's still going to be, you know, a couple times here or there, but I don't care because it used to be so bad. I was like, I don't know how you close with him in your lineup.
And he's, you want to talk athleticism. I was talking about Westbrook.
Levine has movements where you go, wait, what did he just do? Like nine other guys are stopped and Levine's doing something where he's reacting in a way that the other nine guys haven't even processed. That's how special he is.
So when I see them, I'm like, you know what's cool is there's no pressure for the three. It's, hey, whoever we feel like we want to get going, we all trust each other enough.
In a very short amount of time, you could see these guys with this team. Just a couple weeks in, a couple weeks in like oh this is pretty cool like they're all cool deferring and you know even though Zach probably is a guy that doesn't want to defer a lot based on his style of play I got to imagine like he's looking at an LA guy and DeRozan and you know going all right you know this is somebody I used to watch and I know Zach's from a different part of the country but you could just see it you could see it play out that there's a there's a real buy-in for a group that's together for a very short amount of time that doesn't happen that often.
And I also think this has to happen, and it's why there's other younger teams that are struggling. But you need to get over yourself in the NBA at some point.
You do. And the best example I can ever give you is that 2007-08 Celtics team.
You already had Pierce getting his ass kicked. Garnett can't get out of the first round.
Ray Allen's coming off an ankle injury, and they can't win any playoff games. And so they'd been through it enough, almost 10 years, where individually it didn't happen for us.
So I now need to be kind of over it in a very unselfish way.

And there are teams you can see right now, it's like,

now these guys aren't, they're not over themselves yet.

And I think Chicago has a little of that, where DeRozan's like,

what do I have left to prove?

Like, of course I can score.

Let's start winning some games.

And I think Levine's like, you know, it's not fun,

is scoring 40 and never winning games. And Lonzo's now been on, what, three teams in a very short amount of time.
So I do think, and even Vooch too, you know, cool, I put up 20 and 12 and hit threes with Orlando and we're one of the worst teams in the East. I think you have a group of guys there personality-wise where I think it's playing out as if, hey, we already know what we're capable of, but we're kind of over it in a very good sense of the word, a team, which sounded like, you know, it sounded end.
I also think that the Bulls are well on their way to becoming the favorite team in the playoffs of all the dads out there. You know, these guys play the game the right way.
It's teamwork. It's not hero ball out there.
Or the guy who might not be the biggest NBA fan in the world, but just hates the fact that there are superstars. That superstars exist.
The Bulls are going to be a team that... Why do dads...
What do dads hate the most? Dads hate superstars, right? They hate traveling. Traveling carries, actually.
My dad was... My dad, it took him a long time to be able to admit that Allen Iverson was good at basketball.
They love post moves. They don't like...
You're a dad. Yeah, I know.
You're a dad of two. Yeah, I love post moves.
Bounce pass. Chest passes.
Chest passes. Chest bounce passes specifically.
But if a chest pass doesn't work, a bounce pass after is awesome. Layups off the right foot.
Good picks. You know, all that stuff.
They love kids staying in school. Yeah, kids staying in school.
Oh, you want to talk opt-outs real quick? The power dribble. They like the power dribble.
Two-handed layups where their hands hit the backboard. No, you know what they love with two hands? Catching flies.
Yeah, you trap it. Oh, following your shot is number one, actually.
And the funniest thing is, is following your shot in the NBA is like the dumbest thing you could do. Yeah, because you just get them to have transition on your face every single time.
But it is. Every time, like, I'll just be like, oh, shit, he followed his shot well there.
As they, like, run. The ball bounces over their head, and it's rebounded by the guy who's standing where you need to be.
Larry Bird. Larry Bird.
The book Drive. He was, like, I think it was one of his first practices with the Celtics.
So I might have the timeline wrong, but Bird takes a shot and follows it. Red Auerbach's like, you don't follow your shot in this league, man.
They don't. Warriors, are they going to win the title? Wait a minute.
Opt-outs? Oh, you want to do opt-outs? Nah, we all agree on opt-outs. Do we? I think we do.
We hate them. We think that kids that opt-out should be arrested.
They don't like their anti-football pussies is what I think we've said. Herb Street had to do like six appearances on our show.
He was here and he was like, I want, I thank you guys for the opportunity to let me say that I love players. To all the players out there, I love you.
I heard your take, and I actually – it's a good point. Like, eventually there will be someone who opts out of a playoff game, and that will be an interesting dilemma that we all face because that does feel like it means something, and people will be mad about that, and you'll just have to deal with it.
I appreciate you listening. It's kind of like the pregnancy thing, right? Where like when a guy leaves and misses a game to be with his wife, everybody in the media now will be like, oh, that guy gets it.
And I'm like, okay. I'm like, all right, hey, he's going to miss a playoff game.
Nothing's more important. I'm like, okay, okay.
If a guy opts out of the Super Bowl because his wife's pregnant, I want to know how that goes over. Probably not well.
Because I'll know what everybody would be forced to say. Like people will feel like the safe zone here is to applaud this.
And again, there are, of course, times where it's like, if something's complicated or something like that. Again, I get the whole point.
But I think there's a line on a lot of these conversations that we have where we think we're all on the same page, and then I present scenarios and be like, okay, what about this, though? Would you then be on a TV show going, yeah, starting quarterback, missed the Super Bowl, wife's on kid number three? That's the right call because family first. No, it's a good point.

It's going to be Greeny being like, you know what?

Fuck his wife.

Like, that's pussy shit.

You need to get out there and play.

It is, yeah.

That's pretty aggressive out of you.

No, Greeny's going to be like, I got two of those little shits running around.

Fuck them.

We're talking about a ring here.

I do think college football is just in a very severe, severe transition period where everyone's going to have to suck it up for a couple years until things normalize. No, seriously, because I have friends.
It's kind of funny. I have friends who hate the NIL and not hate it, but they're like, oh, man, now this school's going to pay for this player.
It's like, well, what do you think was happening before? You know what I mean? It was all happening. Now it's just we can actually see it, and kids can make money and not feel bad about themselves.
So it's all in flux right now, and college sports are the one thing where it's like the fans hate change because it's all tradition and it's all old school and all this stuff. You just have to suck it because it will all normalize and we'll look back in 10 years and be like remember when we thought nil was going to ruin college football no it didn't it's fine remember when opt-outs were going to ruin college football no it didn't it's fine it's just right now people think the sky is falling yeah we are really predictable on this like i remember when candlestick San Francisco Giants, was the first one to change its name and be 3Com.
And you thought, I don't know, do you guys have an IT guy to get on that? Because then they started having anchors on SportsCenter like freaking out about it. And they called it Commercial Stick Park.
And it was like how can you change the name to something that isn't a park like how can it not be named after something cool and it's just a commercial it's just a naming rights thing and people were fucking pissed about it and then guess what it was the norm people actually spend a lot of time arguing about patches on a major yeah you probably don't even notice them anymore all right think of the transfer rules and i made this point in my podcast where i remember remember being offended that Stephon Marbury was only going to be in school for a year. I'm like, who's this kid think he is? Right.
I was younger. I was like, I don't know, 14.
And I'm going, who's Stephon Marbury think he is? You know? Like, who gives a shit? And then it got to the point where I didn't even want these guys to even have to become one and done. So we, in the moment, will have things changing around us where we freak out about it.
Like, think about the transfer rule and the arguments about the transfer rule. Now, it feels like almost everybody's on the same page.
It's like, wait, if coaches' salaries are going to quadruple in a decade, guess what? You can deal with some transfers. Yeah.
You can deal with kids leaving and being eligible immediately. I love the transfer rule because it's just whatever coach compl complains they're essentially saying i have to work harder and it sucks yeah and and so even just a couple years removed from some of these things that we saw thought were such a big deal and i just feel like the nil is another one of those things the only one it's going to be normalized here in a very short amount of time the only one i remember that that got actual pushback and it didn't happen was when baseball tried to put Spider-Man on all the bases.
Do you remember that? I think it was when Spider-Man 2 was coming out. I'm actually working on a documentary.
On the Spider-Man. Let's shout out Bill Plaschke, by the way, because he's still mad about stadiums changing.
That was an all-time take. When Sta staples changed to crypto oh yeah and he was like

how could that he didn't like it was named after a fucking office supply company what are we talking

about and by the way office supply warehouses in general are are struggling right now good point

great point all right warriors warriors gonna win it all no no no we still had one more thing there

though i felt like pft i don't have anything else on opt-outs. I have a hypothetical, though, if you want to talk about it.
Oh. Yes.
Okay, the Curry brothers against the Jokic brothers. So they get three.
The Jokic's get three, but the Curry's get two. Who wins in a basketball game? Okay, so I told you I talked to one of the guys of the Nuggets staff that said the Jokic brothers got thrown out of the staff pickup game because it was so vicious.
All right? So I think I'd actually go with the Jokic's because there's three of them. And, you know, Jokic, the one we know about, the shit he does on a nightly basis to carry this team around him,

and there are some stats that tell you he's the runaway MVP.

I don't think it's fair to say runaway in comparison to some of the step stuff,

although Golden State's fallen off a little bit offensively the last few weeks.

What Jokic does to carry that team and the way he plays,

and it's just funny too because he gets taken in the second round

and they're like, well, what was your deal? He's like, man,

those first few practices I was so out of shape. He's like,

I used to drink three liters of soda every day.

So I don't know if GM should find like really skilled guys that have the

worst diet, right?

But can we find anybody with a horrible diet that's completely out of shape

that actually is just a really good passer though and good hands?

Like that's, that's what we should be focusing on.

So I'd love to pick the Currys because the shooting and stretch Thank you. out of shape that actually is just a really good passer though and good hands that's what we should be focusing on

so I'd love to pick the Currys because of the shooting and stretching the floor but defensively and the fact that one of the other Jokic brothers would probably kill someone to get to 11 from what I've heard from guys that played in pickup games with them again that they were banned from I'm going to go with the guys from the Eastern Block. The full court.
You go with the Currys? Do you know I went to go play the other day and two guys were playing full court one-on-one? I love it. That's so cool.
And I had to wait. That's awesome.
Good. You should wait.
Just trying to get some cardio in. Was one of them just like fast breaking? No.
They were in good shape, man. They went crazy.
Yeah, because they do that all day. That's such a funny thing to do at a local gym.
Just take up the entire. But waiting.
And then guys are waiting. You guys should do it and see how long you should run a video of it.
You guys play full court someplace in the city. And then when a couple guys show up, they'll be like, what's the plan? And then your video guy, and then maybe Hank goes, or maybe Billy, and says, yeah, they've got the court.
And then they'll be like, okay, well, this is ridiculous. And they'll be like, well, look, you know, game point.
And they'll be like, what are you playing to? And Billy says 101. You want next? Yeah.
And then you're going to lay up and be like, all right, 12-6.

All right, so wait.

Warriors, yeah. Are they going to win the title?

I mean, they're awesome.

They're awesome and they have clay.

I can't believe they're this good.

Yeah, it's crazy.

Yeah, to be this good without clay, and part of it is like five guys all of a sudden got way better.

This is the best Wiggins has ever played.

The depth around them,

the development from where a couple guys were last

year, although Poole was really good last year too, statistically.

This is scary.

I'd love to see something out of

Wiseman just to give him some kind of

size that can hang with Aiton

because if they don't have any size other than

Looney and then Draymond having to play a small

center, although, look, Aiton

can have his nights. He can

also have some nights where, and I like

Aiton a lot. I just think that you wish it were

just and then Draymond having to play a small center. Although, you know, look, Aiton can have his nights.
He can also have some nights where, and I like Aiton a lot. I just think that you wish it were just always like superstar level from him to take that next step.
I don't think that's ever going to happen. And even if Aiton has a physical advantage over somebody, it's just not the way the game is played anymore.
Even with Chris Paul getting him the ball, you know, it's not like Aiton's going to destroy you for 30 on the block the whole time. The game's just not played that way.
So sometimes when I look at size, advantage, disadvantages, I have to remind myself, okay, I can think this guy has a huge advantage because of their front line, but is that really how the game is going to be played? Probably not. So the Golden State part of this with Klay coming back, because there's just this absolute sellout now defense against Steph that we've always seen blitzing where two stay with the ball off of whatever.
They're coming all the way out now to do it to Steph, and sometimes it's throwing it to Draymond for a four-on-three, which is terrific. Iguodala is a valve as well, but now that Klay is going to be an option off of you selling out against Steph, good luck with that.
Yeah, it's a good point because I went to the game when they played the Knicks. He broke the record.
It was like the defense that were playing against him, it was crazy. It was like they had two guys out there.
You don't see that. They just never let him shoot, and he still had like 25.
No, there are certain nights and certain possessions where you're just kind of laughing, being like, hey, double team at half court. Yeah.
And there's some more of that. I even saw it with Ja Morant, who's been on an absolute tear now since he did back since the injury.
And that guy's awesome. I love watching Memphis.
A lot of fun. So check him out.
Shout out, Grizz. But, you know, all right, go ahead.
You want to sell out and stop Steph and get the ball out of his hands. They have this record with these defensive statistics,

with this improvement around them.

I thought, you know, they'd ride it and then kind of be in that five to six mix,

and then Klay would come back, and then we'd see what we have.

But this is scary.

This is scary.

Although, as good as they've been, I still don't think this is the kind of team

where Wiggins or Draymond are your second-best player that that would be the model of a team that wins an NBA title. I wouldn't think.
I think I've even talked myself into kind of liking Phoenix better than them. Liking Phoenix better than them without Klay, but they beat them again.
So, you know, with Klay back, it's hard for me to find Utah. it'd be hard for me to pick out of those teams against

golden state if everybody's healthy in the series all right so give us your finals all right uh i'll go golden state and i'm gonna say milwaukee again and it's kind of a bet against the newness of chicago not loving chicago's options defensively for the size of middleton and Giannis, and that the Brooklyn thing, I don't really like picking against them because they almost proved us all. They basically proved to us last year that if they've been healthy for the playoffs, the three guys could play for eight games in the regular season and then win a title.
That's not something that's supposed to happen, but they're better. And then you add the Joe Harris part of it.
Patty Mills has been huge for him. You know, if the Nets end up winning the East, I'm not going to sit here and tell him to be surprised, but I'll just pick Milwaukee again.
Cause you know, maybe I wonder if the Nets thing, I mean, if I also said, Hey, this thing could get really weird again with Kyrie and the fact that Harden still can't get in shape, you know, Harden was so bad the other night against Memphis. He's just not interested.
I don't know. I going on.
What about Ben Simmons maybe eating his way out of Philadelphia? Did James Harden give the blueprint? I wonder, would you trade those two for each other? Harden for Simmons? No. If I'm Philadelphia, yes.
If you're the Nets, no. All right.
Yeah, I think you're right. I think it's a no if you're the Nets.
It's a yes if you're the Nets. It's a huge yes.
It's a godsend. Yes.
Well, he thought he was getting them. I mean, that day was really weird when the trade went down because there were people that were like, no, it's done.
And Ben's kicking the tires on what it's going to be like for him in Houston. So I don't know if everybody's going to be totally truthful about that story.

Because, again, I'm not saying that I know the truth 100%,

but there were a lot of people that were in the league earlier that day

that were like, oh, yeah, Philly got him.

All right.

And then it switched.

So my last question, because we've taken a long time for you.

So we're going to see you in L.A.

We're going to do a podcast with Titus and you again.

So everyone check it out.

Nah, fuck that guy.

Fuck that guy. I agree.
I agree. My last question, because I know we've already taken an hour of your time.
Georgia, Alabama, Monday night. Who's your pick? And how much would a healthy LSU team beat both these teams? Because they got the recruiting, Ryan.
They got the dudes. were you trying to make fun of me last night about LSU you didn't and then did you think I took it way too seriously and it came back at your heart it was just communication error the LSU was playing against Kansas State in their bowl game they had all their quarterbacks have been either injured or transferred so they were starting a wide receiver and I was making fun of you know being like i thought lsu recruited well how like this guy sucks yeah but see i picked up on the joke but i was like i just want to make sure we're still joking yes we were joking um yeah man i mean lsu the amount of amount of talent they've had walk out the door in the last 12 months is uh is also a massive problem.
So, hey, where are you guys at now? Are you done with Baton Rouge? No, I mean, I love Brian Kelly. I think he's just as funny as Coach O.
No, the deal was you guys were off the LSU train when O left, and I could have my team back. Everybody thinks you guys are the LSU guys.
I've actually – Joey Molinaro. I've loved LSU.
Obviously, I didn't go to a big state school. I went to JMU, so we don't have like – Now we're going to the Sun Belt, which is nice, but – That's my deal.
That's my Vermont deal. I'm allowed to pick a different team.
So all my best friends went to LSU. I would go down there every spring break, and so I did – Wait a minute.
That's not – is that true? Yeah? For some reason, they just all decided to go to Baton Rouge. I don't know of all, but a few.
I know a few of them. Three of my best friends went there.
So I started to like LSU. Where are they in your best friend ranking? One came to us to the national championship.
So he's not lying. Yeah.
I'd say two of them are in my top five. But I'm not saying that.'m not a die-hard LSU fan, but I do like that school, and I always have.
I loved it when Coach O was there. There's a big part of me that's rooting for it to completely fall apart with Brian Kelly.
Yeah, I'm easy. I'm out now that O's out.
I love going to Baton Rouge. I'll go to a game.
But, yeah, it was a Coach O deal. I've loved Coach O before that with USC when he was winning interim games.
Ole Miss. No, but the whole thing was he's got the greatest record of all time as an interim head coach.
So, we would just win money when he would be an interim, when USC had him coaching. They went like 6-1 to finish that season.
So, yeah, I'm out. Brian Kelly's a different dude.
I still love the people of Louisiana, but Brian Kelly is hard to root. I want it to keep getting worse with Brian Kelly.
I want the introductory basketball game thing. I want that to just be the tip of the iceberg for Brian Kelly.
Hey, by the way, all the heat he took during that basketball game last night and the win against Kentucky, or excuse me, on Wednesday, or the game was Tuesday. Don't you think he was making fun of himself, though, by saying Boston people throw in his strong accent? Yeah, he was joking.
He was joking. Why does everybody think that he was serious with that? Cancel culture, Ryan.
The internet is just so quick. Yeah, it is.

Aaron Rodgers is right. I'll agree with him on one thing.
No, Brian Kelly is, yeah, he's not a likable guy. He wasn't a likable guy at Notre Dame.
Like, he's just, he's not one of those guys. Like, even Saban, you know, I do have a, like, Saban, it's crazy to me that he's just not even bored at this point because it's just so nuts.
I likened it to if you're playing it on Xbox, eventually you up the level because you're like, this isn't fun. I keep winning every year.
It's not even fun anymore. But Saban.
It'd be like Peter North going out on a Thursday. You want to go out and talk to the girls? Yeah, right.
It's like too easy. Right.
Saban still has like, I like Saban. He's not an unlikable guy.
Brian Kelly's just not likable. Saban's really like, by the way, unless you're his offensive coordinator, Saban is a really likable guy.
I don't know how much time you guys have spent with him. Every time I spend time with him.
Now, again, he wasn't going to be an asshole to me for 10 minutes. I'd be like, hey, this is a good idea.
Have this guy with a microphone in front of his face 15 hours a week. I think I'm a jerk.
But I don't know. I've always – the Saban thing, you know, it was one of the points that I was kind of talking about with the playoff in general because we have these blowout games, which the point differential, I think since the playoff was started, is 17 points on average, the point differential in these playoff games.
I mean, that's ridiculous. There's been three good games.
It's way beyond. There's been three good games in 10 years.
No, seriously. There's been three good games.
You know what we really need? We need an Alabama's quarterback to have his girlfriend in the hospital giving birth on the night of the national championship game, miss a game, and then see how Saban reacts to that. I would love to see that.
That would be good. That would be the ultimate.
You know what would be funny is if a guy says, I have a problem with him opting out because of a child's birth, but the NIL plays a part. Oh, yeah, who's your pick? I'm doing it.
I'm going to do it and make a huge mistake. I'm picking Georgia in the rematch the rematch I hate it same the only thing that keeps going into my head though I think George is better I just think that that Kirby smart like there will be a moment Stetson isn't better Stetson isn't better okay finish your Kirby thought because this is not even on the same pages yeah right like that's not obviously not quarterback but like defensively and just more consistently they have been better all year Alabama has had a great last few weeks if you watch every Alabama game they did not look great every week you know what I mean like they struggled against teams they struggle against LSU they struggle against Florida against uh Auburn like weird games I just think Kirby at some point like the thing that scares me about my pick and I've already bet it I'm taking Georgia but I I'm scared that Kirby's gonna be like uh-oh like what do I do here like it's happening again because it does feel like Alabama just has that mental edge over them you and I talked about this for what weeks leading up to the eventual Georgia game that we knew was gonna happen and you, it's a huge number.
Bama's getting six and a half, seven. And then when you're like, oh, so when Bama gets this many points under Saban, they've never lost.
Like, okay, that's scary. But I couldn't help myself with being like, man, Bama just can't really block this year.
I'm like, all right, so that front seven's all NFL guys. They're going to block them.
They got the ball out quick. I talked to Cloud on my podcast this week.
He made a great point. He said, you know, what's funny is that Bryce had more trouble against Cincinnati because there was things that were confusing where Georgia is so easy to him because Georgia is basically mimicking what they're doing at Bama.
Now, again, I'm sure somebody could get into the intricacies of it and saying, well, Georgia and Bama differentiate themselves this way. But, like, you know, personnel-wise're trying to take away and all this kind of different stuff.
But with no Mechie, we didn't see it against Cincinnati because physically it was just two different groups there. But no Mechie is a huge deal.
Because as great as Jameson Williams is, the depth for the receivers for Bama, unless we have one of these weird bowl things where all of a sudden some random guy shows up, like Ohio State. Like, wait, Marvin Harrison's kid out there and he's nasty? Which you didn't even see him because the other two first rounders didn't play.
I'm with you and I'm scared to death that I'm falling for it again. And I think you're right because I think every Georgia fan looks at Kirby and goes goes are we going to have that moment where you just can't hang with the guy

across the sideline from you

I have one last last thing

to ask you about your girl

Elizabeth Holmes unfortunately was

yesterday found guilty on several

accounts yes have you

have you inquired as to what the conjugal

visit laws are you going to be paying her

are you going to stop by and say hi to her

people don't know that you guys dated

I know I don't really

like talking about it

Thank you. visit laws are? Are you going to be paying her? Are you going to stop by and say hi to her? People don't know that you guys dated.
I know. I don't really like talking about it.
But I knew her way. I mean...
Yeah, before her voice changed. Right.
Yeah. Now, what are your thoughts on the Theranos stride? Look, I can separate the two.
If you guys have known me long enough, I've done this a long time and I think I look I'm I pride myself and like hey I can feel this way about somebody but this is who I think they are in their profession I think I'm the best at it maybe separate the art from the artist except I'm kind of the other way around I think she sucks but I think her inventions were good I think we just need we need to really dig into those black boxes i'm sure that there's some gold in there somewhere her invention is the same as me drawing a delorean yeah but you admit that if there was a machine that could take one drop of blood and then diagnose everything that's wrong with you that would be a good thing i'll put it this way i'm always gonna care about her she made a huge mistake. Anything for Billy real quick before we go? Billy's going to stay at your house in L.A.
for Super Bowl week. There's a lot of people chiming in about vacancy over here during that week.
I got to tell you, I don't know. We might be a soft opening.
But we do have a night. We have a night set up for the close friends and family, private event, away from all the glitz and glamour.
And we may even start it with a couple beach sunset raves. Oh.
And then have us walk up the path back to the, so we're going to have a little pre-thing and then the real thing. Beautiful.
Cool. We're in.
Unless the Hornets are on. Yeah, then we've got to watch them.
One of your favorite watches. You do watch the games.
Billy looks like he has something on his mind. Can we just park at your house, though? Because, no, we have to park somewhere.
I'm going on this trip. It's a rental car.
You're going to drive your actual car? No, no, no. It's not a rental.
Oh, yeah, that's right. So we're going to have to park somewhere i'm going on this trip it's a rental car you're going to drive your actual car no no it's not it's not oh yeah that's right so we're gonna have to park it somewhere but do you have spots you drive in cross country so we did a year-long competition of the six of us uh the loser so it's four picks a week nfl underdog favorite over under the The loser, and this is the diabolical part thanks to Henry Lockwood, the loser and the second place guy have to drive across the country to go to L.A.
So second place loses as well. So it's chaos.
Like we're coming down to it and everyone's still a lot. So third is in the clear.
First in the clear, fourth, clear fourth fifth it looks like it's gonna be billy in last place and then second place is most likely gonna be myself or hank or jake or me like it's it's chaos everyone's still alive in week 18 for everything so all right yeah i'm gonna just say yes perfect you can park on. Beautiful.
Yeah, that'd be good looking. We don't have many lawns over here.
What about basements? Do you have basements? I got like a half. A lot of basements.
It's hard to even get a basement out here either. Billy, we're going to stay at a totally different part of LA, and Billy's going to be like, well, we got free parking at Rosilla's in Manhattan Beach.
It's like, well, yeah, that's actually going to be a huge mistake to park here where are you guys staying it'll probably be like a hundred dollar uber to just get his car every day when you could have just valeted it for 20 bucks but he you've agreed we're parking at your house if he needs to park down parker just making plans way to go billy no we got a parking spot now i would do anything i'd do anything for bill for Billy. Thanks, bro.
Come on. I can't.
Well, yeah. How's everything

else going? How are the bench numbers?

Let's get out of the way. We're working on it.
We're, you know,

getting together in January.

Billy thinks the vaccine sucked all the strength

out of him.

Who knows? Years from now?

What are your thoughts on it?

I haven't noticed this. Post-vaccine, I haven't noticed a significant difference.
But we're all different. We all have different DNA.
We're about to actually work out right now. Billy hit me up yesterday and was like, hey, you want to work out after Rusillo? And I was like, yeah.
And he goes, bring juice. So I'm bringing my juice to this.
By the way, what are you guys eating online there?

I've noticed just a bunch of pills.

Yeah, Billy's got us on pills.

What are you guys doing?

We're on the sups.

And Hank's got problems now.

You're not feeling well, Hank?

No, I'm good.

I'm good.

Billy's just giving us a random cocktail of pills

that we're all taking that's probably going to end us all.

It's probiotics.

And other things.

It does take like 15 minutes to take them all. It's turmeric's turmeric in there turmeric it's three three sets of three that's what i do and they're big dude you guys don't need to be taking turmeric at this or at least billy doesn't like you're doing it for your joints and everything you're too you don't yeah oh so you're getting in front of the joint pain by taking turmeric and such an early age.
Every day I wonder, like, could Billy kill me with these pills? And I realize the answer is yes, but I still take them. Because maybe it'll work.
Yeah, maybe it'll work. I noticed the fish oil in there.
I don't think anybody's anti-fish oil. No, fish oil's good.
I mean, I used to give fish oil to my dog. Fish oil is, as long as, I've always frozen the pills.
so that way when you take it, you don't think anybody's anti-fish oil. No, fish oil is good.
I used to give fish oil to my dog.

I've always frozen the pills so that way when you take it,

you don't burp and you don't taste the fishiness.

Ah, the fish oil burp is terrible. These are burp.

I take...

Wait a minute, what are they?

Burp, anti-burp ones.

No, seriously, they sell those ones.

They're the omega-3 anti-burp.

See, I'm concerned.

I would rather have the ones that make me burp than the ones that they add stuff into to not make you burp. It's because they have thicker capsules, so they don't dissolve by the time you swallow them.
That sounds worse. I think it's just a thicker gelatin.
We're probably going to be dead by the time we get to Los Angeles, so you won't have to worry about it. Hey, you know what that means.
I'll move up in the rankings. Debt or jack.
Yes, debt or jack.

All right, Ryan, thank you.

Thank you for giving us an hour plus.

We'll see you soon.

All right, thanks a lot, guys.

Talk to you.

Okay, let's wrap up the show.

We got Fire Fest of the Week.

Send everyone on their way.

Week 18, next time we'll be talking,

we'll be talking about playoff setups, playoff match matchups which is going to be very exciting on Sunday night um firefest of the week Hank you start you say Hank said he had a huge one huge one it was a pretty pretty big firefest it derailed my entire week but it's also offered me some perspective a little bit of a some things moment if if you will. Material things don't matter that much.
But obviously, we were gone. Vacation.
I was on vacation. Got back to the office on Sunday and Monday, and there was a bunch of boxes.
There was a box from Roback. They sent me a bunch of new stuff.
Duvin, which is one of my favorite clothing companies, they sent me a box of goodies. There was a couple of jumpsuits that we had got sent that big hat.
You gave me one. And I think something else, like a nice hat.
And I took this big on Tuesday afternoon. I took this big tote bag.
I put everything in there, got on the train. And then on the train, I just zoned out.
Like I take two trains to get home. And I think on one of the transfers, I just left the tote bag with basically my entire wardrobe for the rest of the year on the train.
Oh, no. And I was watching TV seven hours later, and I just bolted up.
It was just like, oh, my God. Oh, no.
And then I looked around my house. I was like, yeah, now I fucking left that on the train.
Just a giant bag filled with clothes? Brand new clothes, all wrapped. Nice.
Oh, no. That's the worst.
And usually like the thing, and you know, and again, this is where it's like some things, it's like whatever, it's just material items. It doesn't matter.
I have clothes already. I'll be fine.
But usually we get stuff sent and usually just stays on the desk or in the pile. If there's something I actually like, taking the effort, as you know, Big Cat, PFT, you guys are pile guys as well.
If you take the effort to bring it home, that's something you want. Yeah.
It's also very funny to think that Hank just left a giant bag on the train and somebody probably called the cops later because they thought that there was a bomb on there. No, I mean, it was all like you opened the bag.
It was clearly like wrapped up stuff. You might see a homeless guy rocking some awesome swag.
I hope I do.

Getting his fits off.

Yeah.

On your subway route.

Dude, there was good stuff.

I mean, there was everything.

Sweatshirts, long sleeve, collared shirts.

I took the best of the best, put it in a bag, brought it home,

was like, good, don't have to shop for a year.

So Hank doesn't have any clothes.

If you own a clothing company out there, Hank is asking you humbly.

No, I'm saying I learned this was a learning experience, and it's like, whatever. I don't need clothes.
Just give me whatever. Big Cat, you're also missing out.
Hank is dressed really nicely today. Let me see.
Hank, show it off. He's looking adult as fuck.
He's very adult right now. This has got to be new clothes.
Look at this adult-ass fit. Look at this.
Is he wearing jeans? Shirt with the buttons? That's just so, for people who are listening right now, he's just wearing jeans and a shirt.

No, it's a nice shirt, though.

Yeah, it is.

It's a shirt.

It's a shirt.

If he was wearing a button-down.

It's a flannel.

He's wearing jeans and a flannel.

It's adulting.

Well, that's a little life hack for all the kiddies out there.

If you wear sweatpants 90% of the time, if you wear jeans and you come to work, people are like, oh, my God, you i don't wear a hat people like oh my god you got dressed up today yeah set that bar low that's yeah all right pft your fire fest uh my fire fest is i had um i had a glass of wine last night pussy and yeah i know man card joe, Joe Buck. It was a Pinot Grigio.

It was a white wine.

I poured it.

I took a sip, and it tasted awful.

I mean, it tasted like a rotten margarita,

like a margarita that's been left out for maybe three or four weeks.

And I was like, oh, this wine sucks.

It must have gone bad.

It must be corked. I poured myself a different glass of white wine.
That sucked too. COVID fucked up my taste buds.
I can still taste and smell, but all alcohol tastes awful to me. Like real bad.
Like there's a visceral reaction when I drink it, where tastes like it's rotten like i can't i can't drink beer i can't drink liquor i can't drink wine it's all fucked up i don't know how long this is going to last that does suck damn are you sure you didn't brush your teeth before a million i'd never brush my teeth billy you know that no i did I did not brush my teeth. But I don't drink that much.
I'll usually have like two beers on like Friday, maybe a couple beers on Saturday. But this, especially like this football season, I haven't been drinking much alcohol.
But it's just a weird sensation that I hope comes back because I do enjoy drinking the occasional beer, the occasional ice cold Coors Light. So I don't know how long my taste buds are going to be fucked up for, but that's really the only lingering effect besides the brain fog and also now I'm 5'8".
But besides that, I don't have anything else from COVID, but it's a bizarre thing to have sticking around with you. That's weird because when I had it in February, I lost all taste,

but it was consistently all taste for two weeks straight.

Not like a little bit of taste or something tastes bad.

I made that video where I was licking my deodorant bar, and it was just nothing.

So I don't, yeah, that's weird.

I can still taste everything else, tastes perfectly fine and normal, but some reason, the alcohol tastes. Maybe it's a blessing in disguise.
Maybe I'll do sober January. Maybe it came back and it's just super hardcore.
Maybe I can taste alcohol more. Maybe maybe I could be like a sommelier.
This wine snob now. Yeah, this wine also sucks.
All right. My fire is i got a new iphone and i got the new iphone pro max and it was too big and i guess i have small hands which i didn't realize which sucks haven't you've measured your hands though right they're like quarterback yeah they're normal they're normal size you wouldn't i wouldn't get a tweet from ian raport being like holy shit big cat's hands don't draft But I don't know.
I think it also is just an enormous, enormous phone. It's like, it's very heavy.
The Pro Max iPhone 13. Bubba has it, but Bubba has gigantic hands.
Freak hands. But really it was like, you know how most of your, when you're on your phone, the majority of it is like holding it and just using your thumb, being able to get to the top and the bottom with your thumb.
I couldn't do that, so it was bad. What kind of coverage do you have with a full swipe? Can you go like 70%? What do you mean? Like how far? I already returned it.
I already returned it. I already returned it.
I had to return the phone because it was too big. Oh, so that's a new phone that you have right now.
This is a new phone have to get to turn it because yeah for your tiny hands the regular size the pro max also when you take it out of your pocket as everyone knows i don't use a case i'll never use a case i almost dropped it like six times taking out of my pocket because it's just it's heavy and it's got a lot to it uh so yeah it's it was a it was a wake-up call wow i mean the internet is saying that you have tiny hands now yeah that's true i thought that your fire fest was going to be jokovic your your king is trapped in an airport in australia like the plot of the terminal too they'll be fine it's fucked up what they did to him i thought they invited him of course it is and then they told him that you're not allowed to leave the airport they't want him to win. They don't want to see him win.
It's probably Roger Federer trying to keep him down. Because they know that he's going to break the record.
His dad got involved. Did you see what his dad said? Yeah, he was pissed.
His dad will fight someone. All-time quote from Sir John Djokovic.
Shame on them. The entire freedom-loving world should rise together with Serbia.
They crucified Jesus, and now they're trying to crucify Novak the same way.

I mean, did Jesus ever win Wimbledon?

Did Jesus ever beat Roger Federer at Wimbledon?

He's a cross-court all-star.

No, he did not.

Yeah.

Yeah, so there you go.

Okay, Jake.

My Fire Fest.

Tap on the show.

It was well-documented. Why? What happened? happened Oh so If you didn't listen To Wednesday's episode Which you didn't You got me So You guys were talking About the low man trophy I was digging into Wisconsin football game notes Looking for the pronunciation Of John Chennault.
And I did not. Yes.
Of you guys talking about the Kellen Mond incident. And that was my hot seat.
Jake, I don't want to pile on, but it sounds like you just made an excuse. I mean, that's why.
It's not an excuse. That's just the reasoning.
It sounds like you included it because it was an excuse. Not an excuse.
I screwed up. You saw my apology on the Notes app.
It happens. Just move on.
But that's my Firefest of the week. What would you say? I feel strongly that you will bounce back, Jake.
Thank you. I do too.
But yeah. All right.
I'm just saying I'm not mad at you, Jake. I'm just disappointed.
Fair. Billy? So I woke up Wednesday morning.
I was feeling great. My body's operating on the highest level because I'm supped up.
Bounced out of bed. It was about like 730.
Got a couple rounds on the bag, boxing, about like 15 one-minute rounds. Ate breakfast.
Was feeling good. Got everything ready.
Was about to head out the door i hope billy just keeps narrating his entire day like this and whatever happened to him happened at the end of the day you know going got everything going took one step off into my staircase going down into the street totally wiped out went, went totally vertical, slipped. It was an icy staircase, went all the way down the stairs, hit my head, hit both funny bone, all the nerves in my elbows on the side of the same staircase, then slid all the way down the staircase to the sidewalk.
And I sat like was on my back staring at the sky just like both elbows buzzing and i had totally just slipped down wiped out it was terrible did anybody see you yes the what i tell you though i know after i have a long-standing theory that everyone gets one wipe out a year everyone wipes out once during the winter months and it's better to almost get it out of the way earlier because then you're a little bit more cautious because like when it gets cold and there's ice you you don't remember that like oh fuck i gotta start watching where i walk and all these like hazards and everything so you fall once hopefully it's not a bad fall and then the rest of the winter, you got your head on a swivel. Yeah, the one guy who saw me, Liam knows this guy.
He's this dude who runs around the neighborhood yelling all the time, asking people for cigarettes and money for coffee. And he goes, are you okay? And I'm just like, yeah, man.
I couldn't really talk to that point. Kind of winded.
Did you give him money? In that moment, I'm sorry, but like. Yeah, he elphed you.
That's what it sounds like. Yeah.
No, no, I didn't give him money because I was like, I had to like gather myself because I was. You have to next time.
I know. Next time.
He was looking out for you. Yeah.
He saved your life. He's the only one that checked on you.
I know, but then I had to just. I'm sorry.
It wasn't there. Yeah.
Next time. No, it's fine.
But I just really wish that there was some sort of surveillance footage that we could see a Billy falling down. There might be some videos.
Cartoonishly slipping and falling. Yeah.
Yeah, but it was... That was the first I'm fucking old moment.
You're not. Well, I woke up the next morning and I was sore.
And I was like, what? Because you fell on your ass down a whole flight of stairs.

Yeah.

But usually you bounce back from those.

Anyway, 2022 just reminded me body craves contact.

There we go.

Billy, I never want to hear you say I'm old again.

Getting old, bro.

No.

Oh, you ever feel like maybe you're just over the club scene and you just want to have an

IPA with your dog and just chill on the couch?

That's a little too old. I don't think i've ever drank an ipa in my life yeah because it gives you tits right exactly yeah stay away from that oh thought just occurred to me maybe maybe billy's supplements fucked up my taste buds oh also could be true could be that's a definite possible anything that goes wrong in my body i just need to myself, I'm ingesting like 40 different chemicals that a 19-year-old gave me.
I've been giving you antabuse. That's the drug that makes you puke whenever you touch alcohol.
Oh, okay. Thank you.
Yeah. Damn.
All right. Let's do numbers.
Send everyone on their way. Billy, hit it.
8. 22.
88. Six.
92, 12, 98, 86, 84, and 32 aren't in.

Six, nine.

44.

Uh-oh.

It's not plugged in.

Billy thought he was just going to sit in Big Cat's spot and take his job.

It's not that easy.

Eight.

Are you eating any meals

in my desk?

No, he's just sketching a woolly mammoth.

Oh, we got a...

Is that going to go up? I swear to God.

Oh my God. What was that?

That was 99.

Wow. That was not qualified.

Do it again. Gotta do it again.
99 did not make it all the way up the chute. Got to do it again.
Oh, Wisconsin football just posted official thank you for the low man trophy. Oh, nice.
The actual Twitter account. That's awesome.
What do we have 58 second time 58 58 all right all right we'll see everyone on uh sunday night monday morning also the uh barstool sports bar will be open in chicago on saturday so go check it out. Where? River North.
Hell yeah.

All right.

Is there like an intersection or just like go to River North?

Just River North.

Until you see White Sox.

I don't know the exact address.

I don't know the exact address.

You just Google it.

Love you guys.

Turkeys are only native to mainland United States.

Talking away.

I don't know what I'm to say I'm saved anyway Today's another day To find you Shine away I'll be coming For your love again Shine away I'll be coming For your love of King. Take on me.
Take me on. I'll be gone.
When I tell you. Take on me Take me on I'll be gone And after your dream Needless to say I'm on sentence But I need still a little way Slowly learning if life is okay Say after me It's no better to be safe than sorry Say after 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 I don't know. I'll be coming for you anyway Take on me Take me on

I'll be gone

In a day

I'll be gone

In a day

I'm not a man. I'll become inner deep Take on me Take me up I'll be your

inner team