Carmelo Anthony, Wild MNF & Who Wants To Coach USC?

Hey, Pardon My Take listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music.
On today's Pardon My Take, we have Carmelo Anthony, Hall of Famer, future Hall of Famer, American hero, in studio for an hour. Awesome, awesome interview.
We all walked away from it being like, fuck, that was awesome. That was very cool.
Carmelo was very cool to talk to. And yeah, we got into everything.
So we have Carmelo Anthony. We have some Monday night football cleanup, a great Monday night football game, some college football talk that we missed on Monday, hot seat, cool throne, and guys on chicks.
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Okay, let's go. And a lot of stuff work to be done.
No place to hang out or wash in. And then I can't blame all on the sun.
Oh, no. We're gonna rock down to Electric Avenue.
And then we'll take it higher. Oh, we're gonna rock down to Electric Avenue.
It's part of my take, presented by Marshall Sports. Welcome to part of my take presented by Marshall Sports.
Welcome to part of my take presented by Dave and Buster's. Go check out D&B's The Best Place to Watch Football this season.
Today is Wednesday, September 15th and the Baltimore Ravens are anyone? Injured. Okay, we'll go with injured.
They're injured. Fumble-itis.
They're a wait and see. Now, Lamar Jackson, there is something about Lamar Jackson because he reminds me a lot of Daniel Jones, the way that he runs with the football sometimes.
Not in terms of speed because obviously Daniel Jones is the fastest player in the NFL as we saw last year. But no, when Lamar is running, yes, he will make you look like a fool and he will run around you.
But when he's getting hit, he's not the most secure guy with the ball. Yeah, it was a great game, though.
Awesome Monday night game. Overtime, lots of twists and turns.
The Vegas crowd was sick. Steve Aoki on the ones and twos.
Mark Davis looking like a virgin. He doesn't really know how to high five.

So he just kind of fist pumps in his all whites and just looking awesome.

Looking just sweet.

He looked great.

It was great to see the fans there.

It was the first time, obviously, in that stadium that there have been fans.

And it was very cool to see.

So the Ravens, that was a game they should have won.

They should have won in a million different ways.

They let the Raiders hang around.

And credit to the Raiders, by the way. Because watching that first quarter, you're like, ooh, the Raiders could be bad.
Very bad. Because it was essentially their defense didn't look much better, which ended up looking better at the end of the game.
And the offense was essentially Derek Carr trying to throw it into Waller no matter what the situation a hundred times a game and just be like, all right, well, let's run this play. If anyone else is open, it doesn't matter.
I'm going to Waller. The play was pretty much force feed Darren Waller.
If he's not open, hit Alec Ingold in the flat for three yards. Yes, or maybe Hunter.
Hunter Renfro's a good fucking player. He is, but when he gets tackled, he really gets tackled.
Do you know what he... It's him.
You remember how when RG3 used to get hit, people would be be like, oh my God, his body just exploded. Yeah.
That's what people do to Hunter Renfro. Do you know what Hunter Renfro has? He has wiggle.
Wiggle is actually a very important thing for wide receivers. He's got some scoot.
Yeah, you need a little wiggle though. You need that little like where you can kind of fit into small places and then make moves that aren't exactly like, they're not the fastest moves.
You're not going to burn anyone. But you can, I don't know, it's something that a lot of great wide receivers have, that little bit of wiggle to them where they're not stiff and they're able to get into different spots, find the soft spots of a zone.
But, yeah, the Ravens blew that game. And the ending was insane.
The fact that that play, the touchdown play that ended the game, obviously Lamar Jackson's fumble kind of ended the game, but the touchdown play, that looked like it was, I thought there was going to be a flag or it was, you know, like a false start or something got whistled dead because the Ravens just gave up halfway through the play. It was that easy for a touchdown.
The guys stopped because they were running cover zero. It was the old Greg williams jets defense against the raiders that we saw last year that's what they ran he got burned on the back end and he was just like fuck it game over you know what it looked like it looked like when at the end of a game a baseball game when they bring the infield in and they bring the outfield in because they're like all right if it's a there's guys guy on third if it's a long fly ball we're fucked the ball doesn't even land, and the guy's just already walking back to the dugout in left field.
It looked like if I was playing a game of pickup basketball, and I've been out there for longer than maybe 10 minutes, and then my guy hustles down the court one time, and they throw an outlet pass. I'm like, well, I'm not running for that.
Yeah, no chance. Fuck that shit.
All right, so let's talk about the other big thing from this game. The Manning Cam.
Yes. Was electric.
So I started with it. I went off of it because they actually, the first quarter, I thought it was a mess because Peyton was a little too, I don't know, he was just very high energy.
The Peyton was turned up to 11. And they did the thing where it was like Peyton and Eli, 75% of the screen, the game, 25% of the screen that it was only a couple times when peyton stood up and like went to the board right and started diagramming shit i think the problem was mostly in the first quarter yeah they sat down and they were like we've got all this stuff prepared that we want to talk about look i'm going to put on this helmet and then i'm going to pretend or i'm going to put on the john gruden visor right pretend that i'm sending in calls and explain to eli Eli what they mean.
But we don't need that. And so after the first quarter, when they got through all their prepped material, and they just started talking, it was awesome.
It was great. And when they brought Russell Wilson, they made Russell Wilson seem human at the end of the game.
Credit to them. Russell Wilson brought the big Seahawks energy vibes to the end of that game, which was a Seahawks game.
The ending of that game went full Seahawks at the end. It was.
By the second half, they had kind of found their rhythm, and they had the game. The majority of the screen was the game, which was all I really wanted, because the beginning, it was a mess.
It felt like you couldn't really watch the game, but at the end, it was just Peyton and Eli just talking ball, giving great insight. I do think Peyton Manning would be fantastic if he ever decided to actually commit to this and go into the booth.
But I enjoyed it. I thought it was the rare double cast that actually kind of pulled it off.
Yeah, sometimes I like watching the coaches cast when they do that for some of the national championship games in football when you get to see like, who's the guys being dudes guy from Colorado State? Adazio. Adazio, when you see him in a room like trying to act like a human around other football coaches.
The fundamental problem with that versus what we watched last night is when you have like the coaches or any kind of analyst who hasn't fully committed to being like all right i'm part of media they never will actually tell you everything because they're the coaches are psychos and they're thinking the entire time well someday i'm going to be a head coach again yeah and someone will watch this film and pick something up yeah and i'm fucked whereas peyton eli i would assume that like maybe they could be office guys at some point. But they have a lot of money.
Their legacies are completely secure. So they can kind of talk like the thing when halftime, when they're like, halftime is bullshit.
Everyone thinks halftime adjustments are this crazy thing. The players, we go in.
And by the time we get a drink of water, we're already going back out. I think obviously the coaches maybe can do a little,

but he's like, yeah, the players,

the idea that there's this big revelation

and we change everything at halftime

is just completely media fabricated.

I don't know why Peyton isn't in the booth right now

because they definitely offered a bag to him

when they saw what Romo was,

when they lost out of the bidding war for Tony Romo.

And well, I guess they got RG3 in that bidding war, but they were probably thinking, all right, Peyton Manning, what is he worth right now? What do you think he'd be worth to get him in the booth? They'd probably pay him $20 million. Probably.
To get him and Steve Levy, put them in the booth together, boom. Then you're set for the next 15 years.
But I think, does he just not want to travel? I think it's probably travel. It's weird.
Yeah, it is weird. I think a lot of production meetings and and shit.
Yeah, it's not just like you can't just like he can just show up for the live stream on Monday, probably, and do some prep for a couple hours and then do it versus Monday Night Football. It's a good point.
A full week of prep and shit. And you have to be very in tune with how the whole league is going and how everything is going on.
It's true. And they basically were able to sit there and shoot the shit.

I do love, I noted last night, Peyton Manning, the way he talks with his fists makes it seem

like he's like punching the knowledge into our brains.

He gets excited.

Yeah.

He wants to just grab you and tell you exactly what's going on.

And I get excited watching him want to punch me in the face with knowledge.

He grabbed us by the face mask last night.

He was like, listen, here's how it is.

Here's how it's going to be.

Thank you. what's going on, and I get excited watching him want to punch me in the face with knowledge.
He grabbed us by the face mask last night. He was like, listen, here's how it is.
Here's how it's going to be. I did think it was very funny when he put that Ravens helmet on.
That could not have been an adult-sized helmet, right? That was a youth size. Well, he's got a big forehead.
It has to be a youth-sized helmet. Yeah.
Were you offended? That I'm living rent-free in his head? Yeah. So PFT tweeted.
What was the exact tweet? I think I tweeted, like, look at this helmet. Can we get Peyton a prescription helmet for this giant dome? And then they brought it up on the broadcast.
It was good to be back on ESPN2. Yes.
That's definitely a goal of mine. A little earlier, too.
Peyton started roasting me for my spelling. And it's like, hey, Peyton, listen, I know in your family, your wife probably spells out the word prescription more than you do.
I can spell HGH. How about that one? All right, so Peyton's not coming back on.
It was funny that people were like, I can't believe this guy. Yeah, they're like, how does Peyton not know PFT? They had him on.
It's like, well, listen, sometimes when we have guests on, it's their 20 minutes, and they never think about us ever again, which is totally fine. Peyton Manning has no he doesn't owe us anything.

I think if obviously

if we had interviewed him in person

maybe he would have been able to like, oh I know

that guy. But it was also my avatar

that was brought up so it wasn't like a picture of

me. I would actually be upset

if Peyton Manning knew who I was.

Eli might. Eli probably, yeah.

Maybe. You know he's got the Barstool app on his phone remember? Yeah, right next to the fart app.
Yeah. Right? He's a big fart guy.
But yeah, it was great. Credit.
I think sometimes people think that we just shit on things for fun. Jake, you do.
You think we give our... The Buddy Boeheim thing.
We'll get to that a little later in the show. We give our real opinions and my real opinion was the first quarter was a mess and then once they all settled down i really really enjoyed it i thought it was great i hope that they don't resort to gimmicks in future broadcasts i hope they just like put them in a room get them in the room together put them on the same couch and and then have like olivia come in with rice krispie treats every now and again be like what can i get you Anything? And they didn't like the guests were good.
They don't really need

the guests. No, honestly, they don't need the guests.

Like I thought Ray Lewis was okay,

fine, but it's just weird because it kind

of screws up the flow. I also

really enjoyed the fact they call each other

E and P. Yeah, that was cute.

If you're going to bring in a guest, I almost think

you should bring in a guest for the entire

game, not just like bring him in, bring him

out because they had Barkley. Barkley's fine.
I love Charles Barkley. No one hates Charles Barkley.
He had 500,000 on the Raiders. Yep.
And then Charles Barkley looks thin, by the way. Black jersey.
He also bought a large jersey. Yeah, it was a black jersey.
I think it was a couple of sizes too big. And then Ray Lewis was who Ray Lewis is.
He makes sense half the time. But even when he's not making sense, he inspires you.
Yes. And then Travis Kelsey dropped the shit bomb.
And then Russell Wilson I thought was really good at the end of the show. Yeah.
Although it was very funny when they threw that interception from, like, the four-yard line at the end of the game. And then they just kind of.
Well, there's two moments. They were on the goal line.
And it was like, uh-oh, are they going to bring it up? Are they going to bring it up? And then also Russell Wilson accidentally brought up the Super Bowl against the Broncos, and Peyton just had to sit there and just eat it. Yep.
Yeah. That's what we need is we need guys who beat them or they had some kind of great moment against them and just see if it can get awkward.
Yeah. I also thought that, well, just strictly on the field stuff at the end of the game, Derek Carr's interview after the game.
That was great. Derek Carr has a personality.
I got to experience Russell Wilson and Derek Carr in their most likable forms last night. Did not see that coming at all.
I didn't see the interview. Do you know what it also is about Derek Carr? He's got hair now.
Yeah, he's got hair now. He dyed his hair.
He's got more hair. And I also think it's his tattoo.
His tattoo is like the most basic. He's got some kind of symbol on his wrist.
Pie? I don't know what it is. No, it looks like Fight Sad Boy season kind of.
And maybe Prince's logo. Yeah.
Something there. I think it's just a cross.
Is it? No, there's something else to it. It's like a cool a cool cross It's like whatever The J-Man's on it Yeah, it's like If Zac Brown Band Came up with a symbol Like Prince for themselves And they put it on And they put it on jeans Yes That's exactly what he has On his wrist I don't like his helmet Did you notice his helmet? What about it? It's got like 20 holes in the side Oh, those are the new helmets It's crazy Yeah, yeah, yeah No, those are the new helmets I've seen a bunch of players Have those It's like What is that for? To breathe more? I think so Is it like Cam Newton cuts holes in the side.
Oh, those are the new helmets. It's crazy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, those are the new helmets.
I've seen a bunch of players have those. What is that for? To breathe more? I think so.
Is it like Cam Newton cuts holes in the tops of his hats now? Yes. Derek Carr is trying to braid his hair into tiny little pieces and put it through? I've seen a bunch of guys have that, so I think that is the new helmet technology.
It's a religious marking. What is it? On his right wrist, he has a depiction of Cairo, which is one of the earliest symbols used by Christians.
Okay. Because I, listen, get a tattoo.
I mean, I hope someday I have a tattoo, so I'm not going to hate on it. But I also saw it.
It was like, maybe that's part of why I don't trust Derek Carr. Yeah, the forearm tattoo thing is a real thing for quarterbacks.
Yeah. No, it's not forearm.
It's wrist. It's wrist slash forearm.

Yeah, right.

If you're going to choose an ancient religious symbol to get tattooed on your arm,

I would go with Christian over Hindu.

Yeah.

Cairo?

Kygo?

He should make a Kygo tattoo on the other one and just have him DJ every Vegas game.

Is Kygo still alive?

He is, right?

Yeah.

All right.

Cool.

Who's Kygo? He's a good DJ. Really good DJ.
Bro, you're so old. Shout out Max Crosby.
Yeah. Max Crosby is a fucking monster.
And Carl Nassib for getting the... That was the...
He had the fumble, right? He forced the fumble at the end of the game. Yeah, the Raiders defense played well.
They played really well, but Max Crosby is a fucking monster. His arms...
I don't know if his arms grew in the offseason or if they've always been that long, but that dude is terrifying. How quickly he gets from 0 to 60 is insane on defense.
Yeah, Maction, baby. All right, let's talk some college football, then we're going to do hot seat, cool throne.
USC has fired Clay Helton. I kind of like that the guy they should have fired two years ago, they finally were like, you know what? Enough is enough.
We can't let you try to find a way to win your way out of this. Or at least fire him this offseason, and now you just – you could have picked your coach.
You could have gotten on the phone with Urban Meyer if you fired him. No, COVID.
It's actually – Clay Helton is not a good coach, but a great lesson in being able to keep your job for way past when you should have had it. Like he had the ADs switch, Lin Swann left or maybe got fired, whatever.
And so he got like – the new AD came in right when it was a weird time to fire him. Then he won.
He beat like Notre Dame that one year. Then COVID.
He basically had just a string of great luck where they just forgot that they probably should have fired him. And now they finally fired him.
USC is definitely one of those jobs that I think me and you could look at whoever they're thinking about hiring, not really know anything about their background and just look at the the person and be able to say, this person will succeed at USC. James Franklin.
You have to be hot. That's what it really comes down to.
You have to be relatively hot for a football coach. I actually think you can think you're hot.
Sure, yeah. You don't even have to be hot.
You have to think. Like, James Franklin thinks he is hot.
But that's fine. You can even be so ugly that you're hot like Adam Driver.
You just have to have that hotness about you. Yes.
And we were joking about it. We did today a commercial shoot that's going to come out.
I don't know when, but it'll be awesome when it does. But there is kind of a little chance that Urban Meyer could pull Bobby Petrino.
Oh, for sure. And if shit gets bad, halfway through the season, be like, all right, I'm out.
USC, you want to drop the bag? Let's go back to coaching college. I kind of hope that he does.
It would be so funny if he didn't. It would be awesome.
Because if the Jaguars start, I'll even say if they start 2-7, there's like a 50% chance that Urban Meyer leaves for USC. If it's like 0-6, yeah, I think it's pretty likely.
It's funny, too, because USC loses their head coach in the same weekend of basically the Pac-12 having their biggest win in forever with Oregon beating Ohio State. Ryan Day punting from the 33 is something that will never get out of my head.
But huge, huge win for Oregon. That was like colossal.
And they actually have a path now to the college football playoff, which the Pac-12 has been left out of for many years. And it's all that we want.
We talk about it. I think you were the first person I heard bring it up last year.
Maybe it was two years ago. It's just good to get different colors in the college football playoff.
And now we're going to have green, yellow, white, maybe. It's early.
It's very early. It's very early.
But the path is there. Yes.
And you know what else is there? The path for Ohio State to get back in the playoff over an undefeated Cincinnati, we get that steak dinner to Kirk. Yes.
And what also is there is it to just be the usual colors and actually make it even more boring of Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State if they get back in and Oklahoma. Oh, God.
That's just different reds. Fuck that.
Doesn't this make the Big Ten the new Pac-12, though? Like, they just have no... No.
The Alliance. They're all the Alliance.
No. I mean, it was a big win for Oregon, but Ohio State is not going to, like...
Ohio State has problems right now, but they're not... Their defense couldn't stop anything.
Yeah, but they're not problems that are going to take Ohio State down for the next five years. But what about this season? I wouldn't be surprised if they lose four games.
Four games. Well, that's because you haven't looked at their schedule.
They actually won't. I mean, they play Penn State.
They don't play Iowa or Wisconsin from the west. They probably will run the table, and then we'll be back in this conversation in December being like, how can you leave a one-loss Ohio State team out because the Oregon loss happened so far in the background? Because remember, when they won the national title, I want to say they lost to Virginia Tech in that week two game, I want to say.
So there's precedent there. If Ohio State loses four games, I won't watch football next year.
They will not. They will not.
You want to bet it? Okay. Yeah, PFT.
What are you going to give up? Yeah, if Ohio State... I don't know.
I mean, it's pretty crazy odds for me, but I am the plus sign king. Virginia Tech? Yeah, so there it is.
By the time we get to the end of the season... I won't watch one quarter of football next year.
Get a cat. No.
PFT can't watch for the whole year. I'll do the first quarter of next year.
No, how about this? You have to watch football with sunglasses on all year next year. I like it.
For one day. No, for the year.
No. He doesn't get to watch football at all.
It's four games. Literally, the podcast is over.
It's four games. I can still listen to it.
Yeah, that's true. The podcast is done.
Get in the radio, yeah. If Ohio State loses four games.
I mean, that's an insane bet. Not counting bowl and here's ten championship, right? Regular season.
Four games total. Four games total.
Four games total. That could happen.
I'll give you four games total. Okay.
If they lose four games, I will not watch football for the first month of the next NFL season. If they don't lose four games, you have to wear sunglasses for the playoffs.
I like it. And Super Bowl.
I like it. And Pro Bowl.
I like it. And Pro Bowl.
No, the odds, that's insane odds. All right, fine.
Here's what it is. That's also a month.
That's worse than the first month. You said you wouldn't be surprised.
You're right. Okay, so here's what we'll do.
I think this is fair. If Ohio State loses four games, PFT will not watch a single second of NFL football in the month of September next year.
If Ohio State loses less than four games, you can't watch week one. All right.
You can't watch any game in week one. Bet.
Okay. College football.
Does that include the bowl? No, we're talking NFL. It does include the bowl.
All right, Jake. Mark it down.
Does it? It does include the bowl? It does include the bowl. No, I would say for this one, since your stakes are so low, yeah.
Big Ten Championship. It's four

losses for Ohio State. When was the last time they lost four

games in a season? True. Bowl game does not count.

What are we talking about? Bowl game counts.

No, Big Ten counts. Bowl game doesn't.
Bowl game counts.

When was the last time Ohio State? No, absolutely

not. Alright, Mr.
Little Facetious.

You're already backing out.

Bowl game does

count. Yes.
Okay.

Also, PFT, don't worry. I think it's only three weeks because they've changed September.
They went 6-7 in 2011. That was Luke Fickle, right? Yeah.
Lots of the Gators and the Gator Bowl. Luke Fickle, he seems to be the guy that everybody's talking about for USC.
Yeah, because the AD for USC was the AD at Cincinnati. And every time a job like this comes open, we have to have the debate.
We're contractually obligated to discuss what is the best job in college football. Correct.
Is USC a top job in college football? Yes. I think USC might be a coach killer.
The university itself might be a coach killer. I think USC is a top job, top three job.
Maybe, yeah, top three job. What would you put above it? That's tough.
Alabama just right now because of everything that they've done. Don't say Texas.
No, I'm not. I would probably say Florida maybe just because of the – it's in-state recruiting.
Can you just basically roll out of bed and get five-star guys?

And yes, that's true for USC

and that's true for Florida.

I think that Texas is the best job

to be wanted for,

but not to have.

Yeah.

But USC's absolutely a top job

because the talent is crazy there

and they are the big dog

in their conference.

Obviously, Oregon has maybe changed that.

Are you going to say it

or am I going to say it?

What?

Jeff Fisher? Yeah. He did play

there. He did play there.
He did.

He's got ties. Other news

in Iowa looks awesome

and my other note was Arkansas.

That crowd was amazing.

I want to get Sam Pittman on the podcast.

I think we will get Sam Pittman on the podcast.

He is a very

great college football character. Yes, sir! A&M, is that the worst win of Week 2? Well, they did lose their quarterback.
Yeah, but still. That had a lot to do with it.
They looked weird. They looked like a team that should not be as highly ranked as they are.
I'm going to put that up to the quarterback, because when you lose your quarterback in the first quarter, it kind of changes everything, especially in college, if you have no competent backup. But yeah, college football, I don't know.
We'll see. I do think Wisconsin, after watching Notre Dame play Toledo, I think Wisconsin might be back.
All right. Yeah.
So my heart will be ripped out again. Love it.
I'm ready to fly back in. Well, it's not going to be suicidal, Big Cat, until you need to string together a few wins, at least.
It would be so incredible if it was Ohio State versus Wisconsin in the Big Ten Championship game and Ohio State had three losses going in. Oh, my God.
Fuck that. I don't know how they...
I don't think it mathematically could work unless they lose to, like, one of these terrible teams. It's definitely possible.
But holy shit, would that be incredible. Even if they had two wins and Wisconsin beat them.
I honestly don't know why I opened my big mouth. Yeah, that was a lot.
I heard four wins come from Hank, and I was just like... Four losses, yeah.
Four losses, and I was like, that's Fugazi. Yeah.
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Hank, hot seat, cool throne. Hot seat, for the second week in a row, is myself.
This might just be a new weekly segment. Just me fucking up F1 news.
I said it was a big week for Aston Martin because Daniel Ric ricardo won mclaren he's not on aston martin he's a driver for mclaren so once again that's okay i'm sorry what percentage of our audience do you think really picked up on that a lot that's not true for the second week in a row i woke up on monday to people being like you fucking idiot f1 fans are uh they're very passionate any passionate fan base that you can piss off in any way. Manipulate.
Yeah. Yeah.
My bad.

Congrats to Ask Martin. But Hank, that's how we improve, by making mistakes and learning from them.
I always screw up the name of the billionaire's son. The M.
I knew it was an M. The shithead that shouldn't be driving.
It's either Stroll or it's the other guy. And then my cool throne is Oh.
The Met Gala was Monday night. Oh, that's my hot seat.
I had that too. And then...
Let's talk about it then. And then the Emmys are coming up this weekend, so it's that time of year.
Although, usually this is not the time of year for Met Gala. Emmys, don't care.
Yeah, VMAs was last weekend too. VMAs, hot.
Oscars, I'm in for. What else? What's the other one? Oh, the Grammys.
Grammys are a good one. Anything with live music.
But I, so my hot seat was going to be the Met Gala because I just, for the 10 millionth year in a row, I still don't understand what happens at the Met Gala. I know they take a bunch of pictures outside.
AOC, Your Queen, Hank, Taxa Rich the rich uh it's like the richest group of people ever uh but what do they do inside i don't think there is an inside i think it's just they walk into the building and then they just like have a drink and they're like i can't believe that these people think they all just go inside and like check the the pictures yeah their car swoops around and picks them up on the back from the back end's it. Yeah, either that or it's like Bohemian Grove where it's just rich people getting together in a room just to get drunk away from cameras.
Yes. Because you have to take those chances any way that you can get them when you're at that level of fame.
Is there music? Is there art? I know there's bathrooms. There's bathrooms.
They always take bathrooms. Thank you.
It's just a giant line for the bathroom. That's all the Met Gala is.
That's is. The Met Gala might also...
It's one of those things that just exists for people to get mad at. The usefulness of the Met Gala is for us to look at people who are at the Met Gala and for us to be like, oh my god, the Met Gala looks so lame.
I would never go. Who's your favorite look? Kim Kardashian because I aspire to just wear that much black and look that skinny.

She did it on her face, too.

Jason Derulo.

Jason Derulo falling down the stairs.

I thought Jaflack looked pretty good.

Nope.

They were kissing with masks on.

Lib.

Safety.

Yeah.

Machine Gun Kelly.

Yeah.

Machine Gun Kelly.

Travis Barker.

Megan Fox.

All of them.

The whole squad looked good.

Conor McGregor. Kardashian.
Throwing drinks at people. That was VMAs.
Yeah, I know. We're just combining them now.
Okay. Same event.
kelly travis barker megan fox all of them the whole squad looked good conor mcgregor kardashian

throwing drinks at people that was vma yeah i know we're just combining them okay same event

uh we're gonna say billy i like how billy we're building like a house we got the bathrooms done

what else is there i think they're just doing drugs in the bathroom oh okay yeah it's just a

bunch of stalls how'd you know that drugs get done in the bathroom wasn't there like some selfie and

there's like drugs everywhere interesting probably okay i did Okay. I did see Tyler, our old colleague Tyler I am, Troll Withers ask what happens at the Met and then most of the replies were just like very good cocaine.
Yeah. I think that's, you can probably get those celebrities in town if you're just like, hey this shit's 90.
Designer drugs. 99% pure Columbia.
Yeah. Alright, hot seat, cool throw, and PFT.
All right, well, I was going to do Met Gala too, but instead I'll call an audible. My hot seat is just my brain, just my brain in general, because obviously I have to deal with Taylor Heineke on Thursday night, and I have to get mentally prepared, talk myself into why I want to watch that game.
But then I had a thought last night,

and I'm almost ashamed to have thought it,

but I'm even more ashamed to now kind of be agreeing

with that take that I had, which is,

I wouldn't hate Mitch Trubisky on the football team.

No, he's good.

At this point.

That's not a bad take.

That's not even a crazy take.

I don't think it is anymore.

I thought I was nuts when I thought it last night,

but I slept on it. He's better than Taylor Heineken.
And he might be better than Taylor Heineken. He absolutely is.
What about Cam? Well, I trust in analytical Ron because he did not invite Cam Newton to come try out for the team when he was a free agent last year, and Ron would know as much as anybody about whether or not Cam Newton would be a good fit on that team. Listen, Mitch obviously had his problems.
He did go to the playoffs twice, and I know that the defense was the main driver of that, but he can do things that don't fuck you up. I like how we're rehabilitating Mitch Trubisky.
No, I'm... Like George W.
Bush. No, someone said that to me last night.
They're like, the Giants fans are going through what you went through with Mitch, and I'm like, I feel like it's a lot easier to walk away from Daniel Jones than a guy who, even though for all the problems you had, you still went to the playoffs twice. So it makes it a little bit more difficult in your brain.
But yeah, no, Mitch, Mitch, absolutely. He looked good in that game against the Bears.
He looked like a starting quarterback. So I've thought about that.
I also heard that Fitzpatrick's out for six to eight weeks now. There's maybe the most local sports radio talk show news of all time.
My friend J.P. Finley in D.C.
had a caller call in who was like a lifeguard at a local water park that said that Ryan Fitzpatrick actually hurt his hip earlier in the week at the water park going down the slide. Oh, wow.
Probably maybe 1% chance of it being true.

But yeah, I'm in a bad place right now.

I'm trying to recover from last weekend because, as I've said, the season's over.

But with Mitch, maybe not.

I forgot to tell you, he texted me and said that he wanted to tell you that he's okay.

Oh, really?

Yes.

He said he's SOF, sore as fuck.

Did he give a thumbs up?

I said, so I said, how are you doing? And I i said if you thumbs down my question i will call an ambulance okay and then he said i'm sore as fuck sore as fuck yeah but that would have been funny if i asked him how he's doing he just thumbs down the message but he did say he's okay yes he said he's okay yeah thank god all right um also i crapped my pants last week anyways uh cool throne it happens my cool throne it's not. It's not even a thing anymore.
Yeah, it just happens. It was.
Where? In his pants. In my underwear.
Yeah. Where were you? It was localized around my butthole.
Where were you geographically? On my couch. Yeah, I was on my couch.
That's not even an issue. That's like, all right, well, let's go change this.
Any skitties on the couch? It's like changing your diaper. No skitties.
I wasn't raw-dogging the couch on my butt, Hank. Well do you think I am? It seems through sometimes.
No. Leakage.
I was wearing a full kit, underwear, pants the whole nine yards, farted, felt weird, went to the bathroom, checked, bad news bears. Totally normal activity.
Totally normal. I've been normalizing it for years.
It's one a year, no problem. We reset the counter on that one.
I've taken enough space on this hot seat, Cool Throne, I think, with my problems. Okay.
My hot seat... Sorry, I already did the hot seat with the Met Gala.
My Cool Throne is Matt Nagy because he is doing McDonald's ads now. So good for him.
All right. I love it.
Good for him. And also he has the entire national media somehow.
I don't know what he fucking has on everyone. But Schefter.
I like Schefter. Nice guy.
Let's leave it at that. Nice guy.
Let's leave it at that before I say something that will be mean and mean-spirited. I don't want to discount your anger.
What did he do that's pro Matt Nagy? I don't want to discount what you're feeling right now because feelings are never wrong. But I haven't been getting the same vibe from you from the national media.
Did you see the Schefter thing? Is it possible that you're seeking out this stuff to get mad at? I mean, it was watching Monday Night Football countdown. Schefter said they have a plan.
They don't want to ruin him before he's ready. Look through the list of guys that have sat behind someone.
Tom Brady. Don't say he said Aaron Rodgers.
He said Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Patrick Mahomes. Those were his three guys.
And Aaron Rodgers fucking hates the Packers now because they sat around. And he was behind Brett Favre.
Right. So, yes, you might think I'm seeking out, but I'm not.
It's all been Collinsworth, because I was watching the Bears, and Schefter, because I was watching Monday Night Countdown. I do think that Matt Nagy and Ryan Pace somehow have something on certain members of the national media where they're going out and just basically giving their speech for— they have mouthpieces.
Because most people that I've seen in the national media have— It's those two guys. You have to acknowledge the fact that Justin Fields is a better quarterback.
Correct. The players know.
Nice guy, right? Dude, David Montgomery said Justin Fields has aura. There you go.
That right there tells me that everyone in that locker room wants him playing. Well, I do think that we're getting close to the point where Matt Nagy is going to lose credibility with his team if he doesn't play Justin Fields.
He's already lost it. He's a moron.
I'm not going to say anything else because I don't want to be mean.

I don't want to have another Jake be like,

Shefty's a nice guy.

Oh, Big Cat, I've also seen that you and I have been fighting a war

on two fronts on Twitter for the last couple days

against Kirk Cousins fans.

Yeah.

It is something.

You guys, I'm just telling you, I've been there.

I'm not saying anything about Kirk Cousins to be mean. He was a very nice guest when he came on part of my take.
Very nice guy. We really liked having him on the show.
But I'm trying to help you out if you're a diehard Kirk Cousins fan and you're looking at the box score after a game and be like, look, he threw for 300 yards. He's good.
Oh, the offensive line is bad, even though he has maybe some of the best weapons in all of the NFL. I've said all these things before about Kirk Cousins.
I actually think there's a lot of people that agree with us. It's just, I love arguing online about football because it's just fun.
You can argue for an entire morning and nothing gets decided one way or the other. But there was a moment where I was like three or four arguments deep, and then I looked at the guy and he had zero followers and didn't follow me.
And I was like, what am I doing? Yeah. So that was a, all right, let's walk away from this.
But I do have fun. I like it.
I honestly, I enjoy mixing it up on Twitter. I do think that there are certain people in the media who don't mix it up on Twitter, and you can tell that they don't want to get in the mud sometimes and talk to people.
Chop it up. Talking about Kirk Cousins though, it's a really interesting subject for me because he's definitely one of those ink tests that you can look at and you can convince yourself that what you saw was good.
Yeah, it's the dress. But for me, and I think for a lot of people, it gets tiring doing that after every single game.
And eventually you have to be like, maybe it is Kirk after all. And he's had some moments.
Yeah, sure. Yeah.
All right, Jake, go. Hot seat to the SEC.
So the conference find Arkansas. You were talking about the game earlier.
$100,000 for storming the field. I don't get that.
You should be celebrating. Yeah, they just don't want to get anyone safety-wise.
Yeah, but if you pull off an upset win at home, you have to be willing to vote. I think they will happily pay for that fine anytime they do something like that on Saturday.
Maybe it's not for storming. Maybe the fans, somebody in the crowd did horns down.
Not for storming. That would be a crazy fine for horns down.
And then cool throne, Paul Rabel calls it a career, retires. The GOAT.
And there's a lot of MJ versus LeBron, Brady and Peyton. It's Paul Rabel and Paul Rabel.
Session Tandekar. So is he going to keep the league that he created just so he can keep playing alive? I believe the PLL will move on to your...
Championship on Sunday. Yeah, let's go.
Whips versus K. Paul Rabel, the GOAT., the goat in my mind.
End of the discussion. Billy.
Hot seat, all of us. Did anyone pay attention to Marcus Mariota at the beginning of the game? I think he broke his shoulder, actually.
Yeah. He did? Yeah.
When he got up, he looked woozy. I didn't know if it was a shoulder.
It looked like a shoulder. He might have had a concussion, too.
Maybe a rib. We all watched an amazing game, and none of us paid attention to what happened in the very beginning.
All right, bro football doc. What's your diagnosis? Check it out.
Banged up. Okay.
Upper body. Upper body injury.
My cool throne is mammoths. They're back.
They bring them back. This has been said a couple times, but there's a new startup that's actually gotten funding, $1.5 million, and apparently...
I think it's $15 million. Yeah.
No, it's $1.5 million. That's a steal for a mammoth.
Yeah. I don't know why it seems...
That's not a lot of funding. I didn't know it was that cheap.
It's going to be a fucked up mammoth that's going to need braces. $15 million? That's decent.
Apparently, it's supposed to solve global warming somehow. What's a mammoth going to do? I like this.
Eat carbon? This is good. Reanimating extinct creatures is going to save us? It is bullshit that we're going through all this trouble for a mammoth and we still haven't had a billionaire that's put his nuts on the table and made Jurassic Park yet.
I mean, honestly, Jeff Bezos, can you just make a fucking mammoth? Do it. Dinosaurs? Do it.
He has dinosaur bones. Doesn't he have that dinosaur bone in his house? Like a huge...
That's Nick Cage. No, Nick Cage has skulls.
He has a T-Rex. He has a skull.
Yeah, he has skulls everywhere. He drinks out of skulls.
All right. Thanks, Billy.
Let's do Carmelo. Carmelo Anthony.
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That's MeUndies.com slash take. Now here is Carmelo Anthony.
Okay, we now welcome on a very, very, very special guest. Future Hall of Famer.
10-time All-Star. Three-time Gold Medalist.
Carmelo Anthony. American Hero.
American Hero. I like that.
I like the American Hero. Yeah, I mean, it is a very a very very special guest there's very few guests that get the three varies when I introduce them and you definitely deserve it so Melo's got a new book out it is called Where Tomorrows Aren't Promised, A Memoir of Survival and Hope go buy it it is about his childhood up until going to Syracuse that decision process um so let's start with that let's start with the book yep going through it like reliving everything was there a moment that you went back and like looked at and you're like okay this is where everything could have changed this is the fork in the road moment that my life could have taken a totally different path than it did to everything we just said three-time gold medalist american hero it was a it was first of all peace to everybody out there uh it was a moment when i was writing the book and i'm just like damn like i really survived this right right and it's a lot it's a lot of things that I couldn't make the book.

It might be

some behind the scenes or

an offshoot

of the actual book

that I'll do.

It was just that moment. I was like 13, 14.

I was losing

everybody, his friends and family.

It was just

I was asking my question, why me? Why are these things happening to me at the end of the day and I just knew I just knew I was going left I just I felt it I was on my way going left I started doing things that I wasn't supposed to be doing um and I just had a it was I wasn't rebellious it was just like a 13 14 year old you got-year-old, you got to figure it out. And I had to make a hard decision.
So when you were in Baltimore and you're trying to figure out what you're going to do for your next step, I know a lot of people probably wanted you to go to College Park, stay local. I'm sure that was a conversation that a few people had with you.
Facts. You know, the ACC at the time, like there was probably some strong pull from North Carolina, Duke, you name it, all those schools.
You decided to go to Syracuse. What went into the thought process for why you felt that Syracuse was the best place for you to go at that time? Well, I was always a Big East fan.
Growing up, I was always a Big East fan. And my family, living in New York in Red Hook, my family was St.
John's diehards. Like, you walk in my uncle's house, God bless his soul, you walk in his house, it's all St.
John's. So that's all I knew was St.
John's, St. John's.
And you watch Knicks games and you watch St. John's games and Giants games.
That was it. And I used to always say, man, I want to, I got to play in the Big East.
I have to play in the Big East. And as I got older, the Big East was the best conference in the country at that point in time.
And Syracuse came. And I was like, you know, it was something about that carrier dome, 30,000.
No AC. No AC.
Never lost at the Carrier Dome. I never lost at the Carrier Dome.
That's something that people don't talk about a lot. Yeah, I just, I mean, I know that you're proud of that.
And we actually had Jim Calhoun on the show about a month ago, and we talked about how awesome the Big East used to be. Never losing at the Carrier Dome is a big time accomplishment.
The Big East was special. Those tournaments that they'd have sometimes, like at the height of the Big East, when it was just physical basketball, you had all the best teams in the Big East, like all at the peak of their powers at the same time.
To me, sometimes I liked watching that tournament more than I liked watching the NCAA tournament because it felt like there was actual bad blood between those teams. Well, in the Big East, I would say, when you compare conferences, and I'm talking about back then, the ACC had rivals.
We all know Duke, Carolina. We know those rivals.
In the Big East, you know the rivals, and you feel that every single time you go out there and play. Syracuse, Georgetown.
You said Calhoun, Syracuse, UConn. Syracuse, St.
John's. Syracuse, Seton Hall.
Boston College. Providence.
Like, these games was ruckus. You know, Syracuse-Ruckers games.
Georgetown. Georgetown.
Like I said, Georgetown. when you really get a sense of what a rivalry is the biggies had it yeah and you had basically the perfect college career in that you went for one year you won the the uh first national title for syracuse jim boeheim everything that's perfect best player in the country um did you i i remember reading at the time and i've seen stories about it that you you actually wanted to stay and jim bayheim was like no you're not staying was that real was that real that you actually wanted to stay that's a fact you just loved it that much they don't told me get my ass out off the campus he don't want to see me no more i better not be back on campus but it was know, I was explaining this to somebody on the way here.

I wanted to go back because at the time when we started to win, like that March, April, you know,

we won the championship to go back on campus.

I was just starting to, like, get my feet wet on campus.

Right.

You know, the weather was changing.

First of all, it's 20 inches of snow every day in Syracuse.

So the weather started to change. That's when the school started to blossom.
So you're seeing people. The bars is open.
The quad is popping. The student center is popping.
So you just, I started to be a student again. Big man on campus.
Big man on campus. A student, not a basketball player.
So I started to experience it from the regular student's perspective. So I started going to frat parties and shit.
I started hanging with, like, regular students. I was just enjoying myself.
Yeah. I mean, I could see why you would want to go back, especially after a run like that.
And you're right, like, upstate New York in the spring, in the summer, it's nice. And it makes you forget about what it's going to be like.
For sure. Because you would have gone back.
you would have gone back and out of regret out of the sick you would have been so pissed off and you would have seen all you would see where you would have gone in the draft and you would just be like looking at your bank account like yeah I'd have been sick what am I what am I doing I should have listened to coach so when you when you're at Syracuse I'm a big fan of the zone defense at Syracuse just how uh how it will suck the life out of how it just confuses people that prepared all week for it sometimes. When you're playing in that zone defense at Syracuse, just how it will suck the life out of it, how it just confuses people that are prepared all week for it sometimes.
When you're playing in that zone defense, can you tell, like, in a moment, if, like, the zone is too big for your opponent, if they're feeling like they're overmatched and just, like, almost super confused and it's not going to work for them? Yeah, because, I mean, Bayhom been running the zone for 82 years, so it's like, everybody, if you haven't figured the zone out by now, you're not going to figure it out. But as much as I say that, a lot of people haven't figured it out.
And when I was there, it's funny because we never practiced the zone. In practice, we was man-to-man until like a day or two before the game or something like that.
And then we would just – we would practice. We never practiced the zone.
We would practice our region on the court. Okay.
So you just had to know your region on the court and protect your region. And you know when you're outside of your region because something happens.
Right. You know, something going to happen on your side or whatever.
But we never – the zone was just – people just talk about the zone. All syracuse do is play the zone zone zone but it was effective why would you change it yeah of course i mean he came work in the block like that if we wasn't if we wasn't in the zone we already got that block that to me is like the perfect zone like you got a bunch of guys who are super tall long yeah and they just disrupt every shot yeah and i think what made us what made us special that year was we were long on the wings.
You know, Hakeem was on one side. I was on one side.
We had Kwefterwaini up top who was 6'5", 6'6". We had Jerry McNamara up there.
We had a 7-footer in the paint. So we were, you know, we was getting to our region.
We was closing out. You know, if you could shoot, we was taking that away from you you so to answer your question yes it was it was times where we would play teams and we'd be like okay they're not gonna they're not gonna figure it out they don't want to fuck yeah yeah they're not tonight yeah the zone came to play yeah and then it's something nice to be like fuck this well if you shoot yeah right right if you're shooting well it was it was a couple it It was only like one team who figured the zone out.

Yeah, it's crazy.

It was Calhoun.

Yeah, it's crazy that when you can figure out the zone,

the zone looks like the worst defense ever.

For sure.

Because it seems so easy.

Like, get a guy on the baseline.

Get a guy in the middle.

Get a guy in the middle.

Shoot some threes.

And you're like, wait, this is easy.

But it's obviously a lot harder said than done.

I like the way you described it.

It's a man-to-man defense, but inside of regions.

That's like a really granular way to describe it.

Thank you. is easy, but it's obviously a lot harder said than done.
I like the way you described it. It's a man-to-man defense, but inside of regions.
That's like a really granular way to reach the zone. Yeah, it's a man-to-man zone, but you just play in your region.
And you just know not to let somebody get behind you on the baseline. We know what's going to happen.
If the guy in the middle gets it, we collapse. Everybody stay home.
Shooters. So we had it.

We had it figured out. And then we used to throw our own

little tricks into the

zone. We used to cheat it a little bit.

We used to test you out. But that was like amongst

the players that we

talked about. So you go from Syracuse,

you go to the draft. Legendary draft.

LeBron, Melo,

D-Wade, Bosh.

I mean, when Darko got picked, were you like, what the fuck? You know what? I was actually looking to go train against and work out against and with Darko prior to the draft, especially when I knew Detroit had the number two pick, and I couldn't ever find him. Like, they used to hide him in the gym.
They used to, like, just keep him in the gym. Like, nobody could see his workouts.
Nobody knew where he was at. And I was just like, man, wherever he's at, I want to go work out with him and against him for that team.
Right. You know? And that Detroit was just like – I actually thought I was going to Detroit, man.
Yeah, and that was a loaded team. I just knew I was going to Detroit.
And that's got to hurt Pistons fans because you added to that team, that's the team that won a title a year later or something. That year.
That year, right. They were a great team.
Right. And you would have complimented them perfectly because they were winning a title scoring 80 points.
Could have used a guy like Carmel or Anthony.

And then they got Rasheed Wallace that year.

They got traded.

And that's what kind of put them over the top.

They was already good.

Rasheed really gave them another personality on that team and a different personality on that team.

That team was so good that they had, I think they had four out of five All-Stars. And the one that was an all-star is Rip Hamilton, who's an excellent player, like an awesome player.
Speaking of that draft night, we got something that I think we want to pull up real quick over here. It's a picture of that draft night.
You probably know where I'm going to go with the picture. I don't.
That I'm referring to. You know.
So there it is. It's draft night.
You and I share a similar taste and styles because we both like JNCO pants.

I can tell you we evolved.

I can tell you that.

Yeah, I would say actually.

Kirk Heinrich does you a favor.

Kirk Heinrich is the one that always sticks out to me.

Although LeBron, I don't know what.

LeBron looks like he's going to a prom.

Oh, what?

Yeah, I don't know.

That's a hell of a draft night.

At the time, everybody on that stage thought, like,

we look real good, right?

Oh, yeah.

You rolled up there.

We're going to go that was the style then. What size T-shirt were you wearing when you were, like, wearing a T-shirt back then? I was 4X, 5X.
You know was it was 4x 5x tees they'd give you a double x you'd be like no you know you had a size 56 58 throwback jersey on uh-huh you know 42 44 jeans i mean that picture it does look like the error was crazy a blimp landed on kirk Heinrich's pants. The era, that era, that era was crazy.
I love the idea of just, yeah, like you definitely are what, like an XL normally now? What do you wear a t-shirt? I'm a large now. Large, and you're wearing a 4 or 5X.
It was 4 or 5X. Unbelievable.
I look back at pictures, I'm like, yo, what the hell are we doing? I also love of this era when, like pictures, I'm sure you had the same guys carrying Playstations around

on the road. I just

love that. Something about that.

I was a DVD guy.

I used to carry the DVD player.

I used to carry the Walkman.

I had my Walkman

and the iPod.

I'm talking about the

wheel iPod.

The original one.

That's what I was traveling with. Yeah, I think we're all the same age.
How old are you now? I don't know. You don't want to say that.
Yeah. You're 33.
I'm 37. Okay, yeah, we're all the same age.
Yeah, so did you ever carry around the camcorder? Oh, for sure. There's pictures out there of me carrying the camcorder.

I recorded the Olympics all on a Sony.

Like the shoulder one?

The shoulder one.

I remember going to – we went to China, and I went to China,

and then I bought the camera.

And, I mean, there's pictures of me, like, at the opening ceremony,

walking around with the Sony camera. But it it was I went to school for photography oh really yeah that was like my minor got it that's they didn't want to give me a major because I guess they said they was they was sending me on my way after that yeah right Bayheim was kicking you literally out of school but you're getting shots that nobody else from that program got.
Oh, I was getting a lot of shots. Yeah.
So when you're in the Nuggets, at the Nuggets, and you guys go to the Western Conference Final, I always thought you don't get enough credit for that series because you played great defense in that series. You guys lost 4-2 to the Lakers.
When you were in that moment, it felt like like the Nuggets were really building something did it like in your mind how did it kind of all fall apart where you end up getting traded you ask for a trade go to the Knicks like what what was the demise of what it felt like was going to build something long there what what I can say about that is and anybody who plays team sports and you you you you catch this rhythm you catch a flow you know you you catch a vibe and you feel it like this is it okay we we established something here and that was the prior the year prior to that we had ai and i just felt like we were starting to like okay ai you know we'll start adding a couple pieces here like we really gonna put they really they really doing what they got to do to build put a team together in denver and they trade ai so it was like bittersweet for me i'm like fuck you got rid of my brother like you know we were just getting it started but they bring in chauncey and i'm like that was you know bittersweet i'm like all we get rid of ai i'm mad but bring chauncey cool like i bet so then we just started building like and you just felt the culture shift like we we started winning games we started feeling good about winning games like we was going into games like if we we do this tonight, we'll beat them by 20, right? And so that was, like, our mentality. Like, we was just going into games and, like, with one goal and one focus and we, you know, with a whole list of things that we had to do in between.
But if we took care of that, you wasn't going to beat us tonight. And that was something Chauncey brought to our team.
He brought that cerebral kind of energy to our team to make us thank the game as opposed to playing it physically. Like, we had to really thank the game with Chauncey.
And I just knew after we went to the Western Conference Finals, I actually thought we were supposed to beat the Lakers. Yeah, that was a competitive series.
I always say we was two inbound passes away from going to the finals. And that feeling was like, we got to get back here again.
So all we need to do is maybe plug and play two guys here and there. I think we was looking for another shooter.
Along with JR, we was looking for another one. And I think we was looking for maybe another big or something.
We was looking for something. And they get rid of Dante Jones, who was a very pivotal part.
He was like a connecting tissue. My former teammate.
To our team. You a Dookie? No, I played on the basketball tournament first year.
He was on my team. Oh, he was there? Okay, okay.
Yeah, no big deal. I was kind of his enforcer.
I have a clip I can show you where I had his back. Yeah, yeah.
No, but he's a glue guy. We both can speak on it.

He was a glue guy.

Yeah, we can both speak on this.

He was a glue guy.

So when they get rid of him, when they got rid of him, I'm like, no.

Right.

You don't get rid of it.

Like, sign the guy.

I mean, he asked for a million, one more million.

He's a pro's pro.

He's a pro's pro.

He asked for another million.

If you give him another million, he'll take it.

I know he got other money somewhere else, but if you give him this million, he's going to take it. And we talked about that.
And they didn't. And we lose him.
And then that was the effect. That was a domino effect.
They wasn't going to re-sign Chauncey. They was thinking about trading JR and trading Kenya Martin.
And so it was just, at that point, I didn't want to rebuild after going to the Western Conference Finals. That's also an interesting point because one thing I love about basketball, I don't think it's the same – it's definitely not the same in baseball, probably not the same in football too, where chemistry, team chemistry matters so much in basketball.
It's underrated. Yeah, like I think that we forget that sometimes Do you find that with the way that it has evolved where it's sabermetrics and everything is on a spreadsheet that sometimes people in the media are just forgetting, like, it matters if, like, the shooting guard and the point guard like each other? Oh, for sure.
I mean, you know, if – I think Jay-Z said it best. If the team got – if the point got beefed with the big, that with the big, that put the ring in jeopardy.
And that's a true statement. Like if you don't have chemistry with your teammates on the team, I don't care how good you are, you're not going to win.
Right. Because you're always second-guessing something or you always might see it your way and you might see it your way and we might not see eye to eye.
if we sit down and we build that chemistry then the way you're thinking the way I think we can come to a common ground and make something work so I just always think that chemistry and bonding and in basketball I know with us it's a must you have to so the people who's watching and just you know the media and people who announcing the game with just spectators i think they they know that but i don't think they understand how how you know how important that is for us we have to have a chemistry right that's why it's training camps that's why it's team bonding events you go here with teams you work out you train because a lot of that stuff happens off the court i feel like you have to care enough about your teammate to understand why they're doing certain things. That's off the court.
And that's also. But that translates 100%.
But that's special though. That takes a special individual to go about it that way.
Yeah. To kind of learn everybody in their surroundings.
What you like to do. What you don't like to do.
when you like to go to sleep, what you like to drink, what you don't,

what you eat for breakfast, how do you work out, how long you in the gym.

All of that stuff comes into play.

And that's why I truly love basketball because when a team does hit that point

where everyone –

You see it.

It's incredible.

It's incredible to watch.

It's free-flowing.

Yeah, right.

It's like poetry in motion.

Absolutely.

It's just everything works perfectly,

and you can see that they know where they're going to be before they're there.

Yeah, it's like when you're watching a game,

you just be like somebody can make a crazy pass, a no-look pass.

They just knew that guy was going to be there.

That's chemistry.

That's stuff that's been – that wasn't luck.

Right.

That's stuff that happened way before I knew my guy was going to be there.

Yes.

So you get to New York, and I always – I felt like you got a bum rap with the New York media. I never thought that you got a bum rap with the fans.
I feel like the fans of New York loved you because you wanted to come to New York, right? You were the one that stood up and you said, hey, I want to be on the Knicks, probably going back to when you were watching them as a kid playing. Do you have any animosity towards the New York media that, like, they're not easy to deal with? They try to stir up animosity sometimes.
Yeah. The way I look at it is, like, that's their job.
You know, and coming into New York, I knew what was at stake. Like, forget on court.
Like, I just knew what I was about to face. And I was ready for that.
You know, I sat back as a fan of New York sports. You know, I've watched how they handled Marbury.
You know, I've watched how they handled A-Rod and Manning and Jeter. Like, you know, just everybody who came through New York, I've watched them how they did it.
And I studied it. You know, like I studied Jeter, right? I studied A-Rod.
I studied Marbury and how they was handling different situations. Isaiah Thomas in the front office and as a coach.
Just New York sports as a whole, I studied that. So I knew, okay, I ain't going to play that game.
I'm not going on that path. I'm going to just be here.
I'm going to be honest with them. I'm not going to lie to them.
Be straightforward. I'm going to speak to you, win, lose, or draw.
Regardless of what you ask me, I'm going to answer your question. At first, I thought that they maybe thought that I was full of shit, but as we went along, it was like some of the media started to flip on my side because they realized, okay, this is very organic and authentic.
Right. Coming from him.
So I just, I never played in media games because I know you can never win with that. Yeah.
So I knew that. I knew that coming into New York.
How many times did you watch the I'm Coming Home video? I still watch it to this day. I love that answer.
I still. You were the original.
You were the original. Yeah, I can't it.
I still watch it. It was the most incredible video.
Like, I don't care about the Knicks whatsoever. And I was pumped that you were on the Knicks.
It was awesome. You know, it was it was a moment in time and in history.
And as sports fans, and me being a sports fan of other sports, Like we don't get those moments. We don't get those moments we don't allow ourselves to cherish those moments it's like on to the next oh this one okay cool but when we did that video it was like I had to make a lasting impact on New York not just the Knicks but New York the whole state of York.
And even if you wasn't from here, you felt like, damn, I should have been at that moment. Yes.
And that was the feeling that we was going for, and we accomplished that. I'm so happy that you answered it that way.
Because if I were you, I'd do the same thing, just on a random Tuesday night, just be like, yeah, I'm just going to pull this up and watch this real quick. Get some goosebumps.
No, come on, man. I watch it all the time, man, because, again, I don't watch it for the actual game.
I watch it just that moment because I also know what I had to go through to get to that moment. Right.
It made me, like, envious of New Yorkers. Yeah.
And that would never be a thought that would occur to me like that and that's i mean honestly that's why like i always would feel like not indebted to new york but like this is mine because i've never seen anybody receive or get received like that and i don't care if people came through like michael jordan came to new york he but he played Chicago. Right.
But I've never seen like somebody from New York sports franchise come into a city and be received that way. Yeah.
The doors are open. Open arms.
Embrace. Hug.
You're ours now. Yeah.
And there's something like romantic about Madison Square Garden and the Knicks. They haven't been great.

There's an energy that I think is an elusive energy that people are trying to recapture that is just something special.

Listen, moments in the garden are moments in the garden.

You can't recreate that.

You got to let the moments happen.

What's your favorite moment ever in the garden?

I think that one.

And not even playing, just walking out that tunnel and waving. It's your favorite moment ever in the Garden? I think that one.
Like, that, and not even playing, just like

walking out that tunnel and waving, it's just

like seeing the video.

And they wouldn't show me the video prior

to that. They were just like, man, we're just gonna give you a nice

introduction. You know, you'll come

out, and I'm like, come on, you can't do this

shit before the game.

I got goosebumps. I'm, yeah.

I might shoot the ball over the basket. Right.

I'm so hyped, but it was a great moment, man. And that was one.
I think we played Chicago. I think that was St.
Patrick's Day or something like that. I tied the game up and won the game with the two game winners.
So that was a moment. The 62-point game was probably the top.
So I told you before we started that I still – I'm a Bulls fan. I still contend that if you had joined the Bulls in 2014, that team would have competed for a title.
So walk me through that. I have a question first, and it's going to be creepy.
And I know the answer to it, but I've got to ask it anyway. Do you know the answer? Yeah, you probably have no idea who I am.
You're probably never on your radar. But I did go on a hot dog strike for you to sign with the Bulls that summer.
I only ate hot dogs for dinner for like two weeks straight. I tweeted at you every day being like, please come.
It probably was the hot dogs.

I wasn't going to reply to that.

You're not a hot dog guy?

I just wasn't going to reply to myself.

It was never going to work.

It was just every treat.

The hot dogs.

The hot dogs, it got me.

I put a pack on the grill and be like, Mello, three of those are for you.

Three of them are for me.

Come to Chicago.

He actually answered the question.

It would not have been good.

It wouldn't have been a good fit for you to be in Chicago if if you don't like hot dogs yeah well oh no you like talk hot i just when he messaged me i just saw the hot dog i was like i backed off of that never offer another man your hot dog i got it i got it it might have been tampering too now that i'm thinking about it but let's let's talk about that because i do think you were the perfect fit for that team. Was it the fact that the front office and the coach – well, the coach thought the front office was spying on him, which actually I think was true.
Did you catch wind of all that? Oh, see, so you're getting it from the other side. No, I just know how dysfunctional it was.
Because you're a Bulls fan. Yeah, right.
So that's what I'm saying. So that's helpful to know when I'm about to say my answer.

Okay, all right.

Because you're giving it to me from a different perspective.

Tom Thibodeau thought that Gar and Pax were spying on him,

which I think was actually true.

I don't know.

I don't know what was going on.

Okay.

I just know I'm a very – I go for energy.

I go for vibes.

And when I get to Chicago, like the vibe was there. You know.
Joe Kim was there. Dee Rose was there.
We're talking about it. And I'm sitting there just like, I want to make this happen.
I feel like if there's going to be a time for me to make a move, this is the right move for me to make. And then I leave and I go to a couple other cities.
It wasn't the same reaction and vibe and energy, but I started getting these texts and calls like, man, this shit is crazy over here. You know, we don't know who want to be here.
And I'm like, all right, listen, I'm not about to leave one of them type of situations and go to another type, the same situation. Right.
I'd rather just come back home. I'd rather just stay where I'm at.
So it is kind of true that the front office, and I've always thought that they're, at least in that regime, they've changed now, but that regime had trouble landing big free agents because that type of word gets out there around the league where it's like, hey, it's a little dysfunctional here. Yeah, I think it was.
I don't know about it. I've never heard of Chicago was dysfunctional, being an outsider.
Oh, it was. John Paxson choked Vinny Del Negro when he was a coach.
I've never heard of it. But you would see things.
You would read things. You know, you see reports on different players.
And, well, what, like, what is going on over there? Would it have been a good fit, though? I think you would have. Because it was the, you were the offensive piece that needed to be added.
They was a great, gritty team. Right.
They needed a scorer. And they needed somebody else to score the basketball.
I thought it was too much on D. Rose as a point guard to try to score, get everybody involved, lead the team.
He was MVP, but that's still a lot when you don't have that Robin with you, Batman or whatever. You don't have your other superhero with you.
You just have a great team, a well-put-together team, a great coach.

But when you got to do it yourself, even though you can,

when you got to do it yourself, it's tough.

Yeah.

I'm glad you brought up the Batman and Robin because I'm about to ask a question

that I'm going to hate saying, but I have to ask it.

So Batman, Robin, AD, LeBron, which is which who's batman and who's robin yeah i'm i'm a justice league guy too okay so i know the original robin and i know the new robin right i watch team titans and all that so i think they both batman oh come on but i But I'm going to say this. I think they're both Batman.
I think at times I think AD can be Robin. LeBron can try to be Robin but that ain't who he is.
He is Batman. You know, he Bruce Wayne.
AD can be Robin.

He can switch it up.

And that's how I like to say that.

Now, they both Batman, but AD can be Robin a little bit more

than LeBron can be a Robin.

Yeah.

How frustrating was it when you were out of the league

knowing that you were still better than a lot of guys in the league?

Because, you know, I'd see the videos.

I am convinced that what's the gym called that you guys all work out at here? Sky. Yeah.
I'm convinced the rims are slightly bigger because no one ever misses in that gym. It's a shooter's gym.
Yeah, right. Exactly.
It's not bigger, but it's a shooter's – It's a perfect gym for the Instagram. Yes.
But how frustrating was that? Because you're sitting there like, I'm still better than a lot of guys here. Why am I not playing?

Yeah, and it was my runs, too.

Like, I was, you know, I put the games on.

So it's like I don't even want to go to my own runs because it's like I was embarrassed.

You know, I felt uncomfortable being around like other, you know, my colleagues, other players.

And just at that time away from the game, I was like at first. And again, it took me back to why me? Like, why is this happening to me? Like, out of all people, why me? Right.
Is this karma? Is this, what did I do wrong? I started reflecting back on just things that I've done in life. Like, damn, does this have anything to do with it? And then I just had to get away from it.
And I had to just say, you know, basically just fuck it. Like, I don't care about the game no more.
Yeah. You know, the game didn't love me the way that I loved the game at that moment.
So when that happens, you got to walk away from it. Yeah.
When did you know that the game started loving you back? When did you start feeling that? Going into the runs, playing, you know, playing pickup. I mean, the game, that never went nowhere.
That would never go nowhere. And then I started traveling with my son and his basketball team and just being around family and kids and, you know, having conversations with them and them still looking at me and thinking like, man, you should be in the league or you should be what's going on and where we going at.
We can't wait till you get back on the team. And, you know, who's that player? Why is that player? Like, it was, you know, a lot of that stuff.
So they, you know, the kids really gave me that energy back. Yeah, I feel like that happens with artists, with athletes, with musicians, where, you know, it becomes, no matter how fun your job is, no matter how perfect people think that your life is doing the same thing over and over it'll have a grind on you it has an effect on you after years and years and when you see it from a different light from like a kid's mind it kind of reminds you of where you used to be when you were thinking about whether it's your art your music or your sport and it kind of rekindles that a little bit in you.
Well, it rekindled a fire. I can tell you that because you start.
It took me to say, okay, I'm done with it. Like, you know, I had to put it in perspective.
I was 15, 16 years in NBA. Not many people could say that they accomplished that.
I really stood on that, though. 16 years, I did what I had to do.
I wanted to win the championship. I couldn't.
I didn't do it. Fuck it.
I'm cool. I'm going to get away from the game of basketball.
But I had to really come to a hard stop. I don't want to talk about the game no more.
I don't want to watch the game no more.

I don't want anything to do with basketball because I'm completely done with it. I'm on to something else.
And the more time that I was off, the further and further away that I was detaching myself from the game of basketball. And I started to see it differently.
I had a different perspective on the game of basketball, the business of basketball, and just how to maneuver it because I never got a chance to step out of it and look at it from a different perspective. I always had to go off of somebody else's perspective on what they think and what I should do and what they think I should do and so on.
So when I got away from the game of basketball was really when my whole perspective on life changed. And I started really believing like basketball is not who you are.
It's what you do, but it's not who you are. So don't allow yourself to be sulking on the couch.
And you had two, three months to do that. Like now it's time to put your big boy pants on, man up, stand get the walking and that was that was my mentality yeah so you just mentioned something about how you kind of came to peace with the fact that you didn't win a title now you're on the lakers i can't come to peace with this one yeah like like odds on i mean i think it's either you or the next odds on favor to win the title right do you feel that pressure going in like this is the best chance i have yeah I mean, I don it's either you or the Nets odds on favor to win the title.
Right. Do you feel that pressure going in? Like, this is the best chance I have.
Yeah, I mean, I don't feel the pressure. I embrace whatever is happening.
I know what's at stake. But I know, like I said, I know what's at stake.
Right. Like, I'm not naive to that, you know.
But I don't feel the pressure pressure right now. I don't feel pressure.
I get anxious. I lose sleep.
I think you're describing pressure. Wait, but so.
No, that's when you're thinking, you're up thinking. You're just up and you're just trying to figure it out.
There's no pressure. You just want to make sure everything goes goes smooth everything go right i would imagine i want to make sure i do what i got to do right to be you know a integral part in in whatever team success we have and maybe this is wrong but a lot of athletes we talk to they have that feeling of like all right i don't feel pressure i have anxiety before a game or something but once i'm playing the game this is what i've been doing my whole life yeah but it's different because i don't i even though i'm setting anxiety i do a really good job at compartmentalizing right and this if if this is what i got to deal with i'm going to deal with this i'll deal with everything else as i move along but i know the situation that we're in.
I know what's at stake. I know we all know what's at stake.
And I know the mindset that we have right now. And we haven't even started doing anything together yet.
Right. I know where we're at.
I know based off of reactions. I know based off of conversations.
I know tone of voice. I know tone of conversation.
And I know how locked in guys are. And if we do what we have to do, we'll give ourselves a good chance to get there.
And once you get there, anything can happen once you get there. We just want to get there and give ourselves a chance to win a championship.
How concerned are you with the new ball that's coming out this year? Have you shot with the new ball? The Wilson? Yeah. Yeah, I shot with Wilson.
I had to get used to it. Is it different? So it's a little bit different.
It's a little bit different. It's a little bit different.
Would you say that it's like, you remember a few years ago when the NBA switched up the ball? It wasn't that. No, no, no.
It's not that. The reason I'm asking is I'm trying to figure out what to bet on.
If I should just bet all the unders. The sticky ball.
Oh? Yeah. Yeah.
That ball was bad. I can't tell you what to bet on.
Yeah. All right.
I got two steps. All right.
Let me ask you this. Are you a better shooter with a new ball or a worse shooter with a new ball? I adapt.
Okay. Good answer.
I mean, I assume. Me too.
I would imagine it's just, is there ever a time where you're just like, this is so fucking sweet that I'm this good at shooting? Is that a dumb question? No, it's not a dumb question. People ask me that.
Yeah, because I would think that. People would say, how do you get your shot that way? And I'd be like, man, I've been playing basketball for 30 years.
I've been practicing this for 30 years, and I'm still practicing it. So just the way somebody can tell you you need 10,000 hours and anything you do to be successful, I have maybe double or triple that.
Right. Quadruple that, those hours that I've put into my craft, which is I'm reaping what I sow right now.
Yeah. That's the benefits of the work that I put in.
All right, so I have two stats for you. I hate stats, but go ahead.
Okay, these are a little bit different. Don't worry.
These are a little different stats. Don't worry about it.
The first one is the I got it, fuck out of here stat. I don't know if you know this, but TNT Audio dropped 16 times per 48 minutes when Carmelo Anthony was on the court because you were swearing so much.

Did you know that?

I did.

I've heard.

I've heard tone. I've heard tone it down.

I've heard it.

I've heard it.

I love.

I mean, you should just keep playing the way you're playing.

Don't worry about that.

You can't change a player's game in a knife. Yeah.
The other stat, so 2015 All-Star game. Okay.
At the time, it was the most points ever scored in an All-Star game. I think it was like 168 to 157.
I was here in New York. Yeah.
Okay. You played 30 minutes.
Yep. You had zero assists.
Yep. How? How? Yeah, how? Nobody was making shots.
There's 167 points scored. Or 300, yeah, 300 plus.
See, that's knowing your personnel. Yeah.
You got to know your place. When you're on a team like that, you do what you do best.
And everybody would tell you, do what you do best. Because if you don't, you got all stars on your team.
So why would I try to come in and be a passer when I have a passer on the team? It's true. Why would I come and try to block shots when I have a guy who can block shots? That's true.
I'm not – I'm here to score. Yeah.
I like it. And you did.
That's what I'm going to do. Yeah.
It's a really good point. Yeah.
Was there ever any moment this summer when the U.S. national – when the Olympic team got off to like a slow start in some of their

qualifying games, were you like, or not qualifying,

but the practice games that they had leading up to it in Vegas,

were you thinking like, hey, maybe I should just give Pop a call?

Nah, because, again, we talked about chemistry earlier.

And you need chemistry.

Like you're talking about guys who just,

even though we compete against each other every day and we play some guys play with each other on each other's team, it's still you can't put that together in a week and expect that you're going to be successful. So I've been part of USA basketball since I was in the 11th grade.
I played in four Olympics in four Olympics. I know what it is to put these teams together quick.
I know in 2004 we put that team together in two weeks, and we went over there and got our ass whipped. But I also know what happens when you take your time and put the right pieces together and build that culture and look at us.
Now we gold medals and after that world championship three gold medals so to answer your question no i knew we was going to win we're the best in the world i don't care what nobody say i don't care how much the rest of the world is catching up you know they're learning from us they're only catching up to us because they're learning from us and And I embrace that. I embrace the international play.
I embrace the new guys that's coming in. But we're still the best in the world.
And we had, regardless, we didn't have the top, top of the top, the cream of the crop. But we still, those guys are top of the top.
Yeah. And what they do, so I knew they would get it.
I knew they would get it together. I never had no doubt.
What is it about the international game specifically that makes you such an awesome player? You are Captain America for the United States team. Is it just like you've had the experience? You just said yourself, like, you've been a part of USA basketball for so long.
Or is there something specific about the game? I can adapt. Like, what I can do, my skill set, I can adapt anywhere in any type of game you know so the usa game that was an easy game for me you know international game is an easy game again i'm playing with the best players in the world not in the country in the world so when you're on a court with four to four other best players in the world you just do what you do yeah right and and and it complicated.
You catch your shoot if you open. You swing it and pass it if you're not.
And just be ready for whatever we need. And that was the mentality.
And I found myself having success in the international game because this is just my take.

I just think that my game flourishes when I'm on the court with other great players like that, you know, because they respect me.

I respect them.

We know how to make it work.

I don't need, I don't need, I can go get my own if I really wanted to.

So I don't need somebody to spoon feed me.

I just know my place in the game. And when you're playing with the best of the best, you just got to find your place in the game.
And that's what I did. I found my place on the USA team, and I've had success with it.
It's kind of like when Kevin Durant talks about playing with the Warriors, and obviously from a fan's perspective, people were mad when he made that move. But when you hear him talk about it, he's like like this is the most fun i've ever had playing yeah like how could you how could you not how can you not enjoy that right like if you have the opportunity to do it i mean now before it was different like early early when we first came in nba it was no way i was going to somebody else's team right you know it was no way i was going to play with kobe it was no way i was going to play with T-Mac.
Like, there was just no way. You know what I'm saying? Because the mentality was different.
The game was different. The situation was different.
Everybody had their own situation. And may the best man win at that point in time.
Now it's like, you try to do that now, your ass will be out the league. Yeah.
Because it's impossible for anybody to do that. Yeah.
I don't want to say it's sad, but it is sad. It's a little bit sad.
Because it's impossible. It's impossible for you to try to go do it by yourself.
And I know guys who still have that mentality, who want to do it by themselves. It's just impossible.
The problem with that is it wears you down over the years if that's your mentality that you stick with for forever. Because unless you're the top of the top, unless you're the one that's winning multiple rings, you're going to have that chip on your shoulder and pretty soon that chip's going to be a boulder and it's going to just kind of like drag you down mentally.
That's when the pressure comes on. When it's just you feel weighed down, you feel bogged down, you feel like no matter what you do you do it's just not going to be enough and you're not speaking about anyone specifically who still acts like that like someone maybe you were a teammate with last year or anything no no no no okay all right got it who you referred to cj mccullum dame is everyone's like hey dame go somewhere else and it's like see the thing is people don't know dame right and dame doname don't speak.
Dame, you know, Dame quiet. Dame is in Portland.
Dame doing his own thing. Dame chilling.
And the minute that he says something, it's like, oh, he want out. Oh, he want to leave.
Oh, he want to do this. But there's nobody speaking to him.
Yeah. So I know him.
So I understand what's going on with him and how he's thinking. Now, we all have these man-to-man conversations, and I tell them, look, you got to take care of yourself at the end of the day.
I've been in your situation. I'm not telling you to leave.
I'm just telling you to whatever you need, whatever you want, whatever you feel like will get you to that, to a ring, then you have to make that happen. Yeah.
And it's not about being disrespectful. It's not about going in there, kicking out the door, saying it.
No, you go in there, you handle your business the way that you handle your business, and you go from there. And if it don't work, it don't work.
It's life. People move on in life.
Yeah. So we have a couple minutes left.
I have a last question that I'm going to ask you about your memoir, Where Tomorrow's Aren't Promised, a memoir of survival and hope. But before I do my last question about the book, I have the toughest question you're going to ever get in your press tour.
And I'm sorry that I have to ask this. The banana boat.
What about it? Not getting invited on it. Was that the worst moment of your career? No.
It actually was a great moment of my career. You dodged a bullet? I dodged a bullet.
You got left out. You got left out.
You know what? I didn't get left out, though. I didn't get left out.
I didn't get left out. They was already down there, and I was meeting them.
Oh, this sounds like someone was getting left out, but keep going. No, I was, I had, I had just flew in.
Right. And we were going, we were like taxi into the, to the boat.
Right. And they were already in the water doing water sports.
Right. So as I get to, I see them as I'm going to the boat on the banana boat.
Uh huh. And I'm just like, what, like, what is this? And they're like, come on.
I'm like, no, I'm not getting on that shit. So you were invited.
You turned it down. You were invited on the banana boat.
Informally. It was like, it was the hand wave.
Like, come on, come on. It was that.
I want to know what a formal invitation to the banana boat looks like now. A formal invitation, yo, this is the plan.
We get on the banana boat. Yeah, we'll wait for you to land.
Right. And then we'll get you on the banana boat.
We send you a calendar invite. Yeah.
Right. That's a formal invite.
If you had been on the boat. I wouldn't have been on it.
I wouldn't have been on it. You wouldn't? No.
But I wouldn't have been on it. I wouldn't have got on it.
But, and I don't like using but. With that being said, I am an extension.
I am a banana boat family. Yes.
We are, you know what I'm saying? Yes. And they got on me one time.
Uh-huh. Why do you keep saying you ain't a banana boat? Like, all right, man, fuck it.
I'm on a banana boat. I'm part of the banana boat, man.
Fuck it. I wasn't on it.
You keep arguing. You keep fighting it.
I'm part of the banana boat. You give off banana boat vibes.
Yeah. Which is the honorary banana boat member.
I give bananaat vibes? That's a compliment. We recreated the picture.
Yeah. With you guys? Yeah, and Ryan Russo.
Okay. He's a bodybuilder.
Yeah. Okay.
So, you know, I just wish you had been on the Banana Boat. That's all.
I felt bad. I was like, where's Melo? You know what? I know everybody wish I was on that Banana Boat.
Yeah. Because that's the picture everybody wants.
Yes. The other picture is cool.
It's so funny. They want to see Melo on that banana boat.
Yes. Listen.
I wouldn't give you all the time. Actually, I think it's perfect the way it is.
Let's do this, though. If you win a title this year, I think you got to get on the banana boat.
Hell no. I think you got to recreate the banana.
No, if you win a title, you get on the banana boat. No, hell no.
Why? Then what does it matter? You've done everything. Your entire career, you've done literally everything.
Yeah. Except the banana boat no hell why then what does it matter you've done everything your entire career you've done literally everything yeah except the banana boat right so i'm good you win the title get on the banana i ain't gonna be thinking about a banana boat if i win a title it's the last mountain to climb that's all you got left now i won't be thinking about that if i win all right no what's gonna happen is you're gonna win a ring you're gonna go on vacation with the fellas and vacation with the fellas, and you're going to be drunk.
That's the worst time to get a banana boat with you. It's just going to happen to be next to a banana boat, and you guys are all going to look at each other and be like, are we doing this again? We're getting the band back together? Hell no.
I'm going to take that right now. Hell no.
Oh, man. Go ahead.
I have one more visual aid I'd like to show you real quick. I just want to get your take on this picture.
It went viral a couple months ago. It's you and Buddy Boeheim.
Is that wild or what? That's wild. Is that wild? Yeah, that's wild.
Because then he was in the NCAA tournament. Yeah.
Right. That was wild.
It was wild. I agree.
It's wild that he took them. How deep did they go? They went to, no.
Where'd they go? Sweet 16? Sweet 16. Sweet 8? Yeah.
Wild. Wild.
And now, the other Boeheim's on the team, too. Yeah.
Jimmy. Jimmy came back.
Yeah. Yep.
Yep. So, wild.
Just wild stuff. Just wanted to point that out.
That picture was, I mean, that's actually a moment, though. Right.
You know, like, we talked about moments earlier. like that's actually a moment to point that out.
No, that picture was, I mean, that's actually a moment, though. Right.
You know, like we talked about moments earlier. Like that's actually a moment to see that picture and to see where he's at right now.
Like that, to me, that's a special picture for me. Yeah.
Because, you know, that was him when I was in the locker room every day. You know, he'd come sitting next to me in the locker.
He'd come and pull me. I'd play with him, run and chase him around the locker room, chase him in the arena.
Like, it was, that was our relationship. Yeah.
And to see where he's at now is a special feeling. It's awesome.
And that looks like maybe a 4X, 4XL shirt? Yeah, that was from the flea market, too. Okay.
After we won, I went down to the projects in Syracuse, and it was like a flea market and they spray painted it.

Love it.

I think it was 5X.

5X, okay, yeah.

It was 5X.

My fault.

My apologies.

All right, so we're going to wrap up.

This is the last question,

the Roback question.

Go to Roback.com.

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We actually have a performance zip for you,

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You get 20% off. All right.
So the book, everyone should go buy it. Where Tomorrows Aren't Promised, a memoir of survival and hope.
People read this book. What's the one thing that you hope they take away with them from the book? You know, honestly, like I want, this is more for the younger generation because i still feel like i'm i'm the connective tissue to a couple generations and why i'm still able to speak and

and that younger generation still listens to me uh i want it i want them to feel like they have

a voice i want them to see my story and hear my story and feel like, damn, if he really did it. You know, not just somebody putting together, you know, some pictures or a story.
No, this is me writing my own story from my perspective. And that's what I want everybody to just know that, you know, it's cool to be vulnerable.
It's cool to talk about things that's uncomfortable and be comfortable being uncomfortable. And I don't regret anything of how I grew up, what I've been through.
I don't regret none of that because that's my foundation of who I am today. So what I'm saying is, what I want to say is, it's a universal message also.
It's not just for boys. It's not just for young girls.
It's for any and everybody around the world who are going through some type of struggle and looking for some type of light at the end of the tunnel. So that's what I hope everybody get out of it.
And on top of all of that, stay mellow. When in doubt.
Stay mellow. We could do a whole other hour about stay mellow and everything.
But this has been awesome. Carmelo Anthony, we really appreciate you coming by.
We've been looking forward to this interview for a long time. Indeed.
I appreciate you guys, man. And I would say good luck, but I don't like LeBron.
You know what? You, good luck. I'm rooting for you.
And I'm rooting for AD. I like AD.
I think you're Batman. Yeah.
I'm Batman by nature, though. Just, you know, I'm rooting I'm rooting for you yes and I'm rooting for AD you know what I think you're I think you're Batman yeah yeah I'm Batman by nature though just you know I'm that's so fucking cool to just say that I'm Batman by nature you know I'm I'm I am who I am yeah yeah well thank you Captain America yes appreciate it they're gonna be Batman and Robin yeah you'd be Captain.
Thank you, my brother. Always.
Thank you. That very, very, very, very, very special guest, Carmelo Anthony, was brought to you by Cross Country Mortgage.
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We got Guys on Chicks. Henry, we're back.
I want to say real quick before we get to Guys on Chicks, terrible news today. RIP Norm MacDonald, maybe the greatest, one of my favorite comedians of all time.
It was kind of crazy. After the news came out on Twitter, you could just hear people in the office pulling up various routines of his and listening to them on their phones or their computers.
And it made me happy to hear that stuff because Norm's jokes. I mean, there's something about Norm that makes him just a uniquely talented voice in a very crowded field.
He's one of those guys that it's very rare to see, but he made other comedians laugh so, so hard. And when you see that, you're like, oh, okay, so this guy.
That's funny, funny to a different level. Because not just making regular Joes and audience members laugh.
It's making some of the funniest people. He's the funniest guy in a room full of comedians.
So, yeah. R.I.P.
for sure. All right, guys on chicks.
Is using the fan app or real fan for white noise beta? It sounds like you're trying to drown out your thoughts so that you can go to sleep. Big Cat recently said overthinking is beta.
What? Addison Rae recently said overthinking is hot. What? So the question is are you guys settled are you guys using the fan app because you're trying to drown out your brain yes absolutely i use it just because it's like i don't know it's there's we live in new york city like a fucking trash truck can come by at four in the morning and just start throwing shit into the back like i, I don't want to be woken up by that shit.
They start construction. There is no rules with construction.
No, no. The fan app is still confusing to me because I've tried listening to it.
I just... Well, it's just a fan.
I don't... The fan app.
Yeah, I know. It's just a fan.
Like on your commute? I don't find anything... What's confusing about it? I don't find anything soothing about it.
It's just white noise. It misses that part of my brain.
White noise is not soothing to me for whatever reason. It's really just because I live in New York City and I don't want to deal with anything that could wake me up in the middle of the night.
Guys, please help a sister out. What is the deal with a chick seeing you pee? My husband and I are very comfortable with each other.
I mean, he's been on the business end end of two births helped me pull stitches out of my hey nanny nanny after our daughter was born okay and yet if i come too close while he's peeing he literally freaks i think he's worried i won't want to give him head if i see pee physically exit the same hole ha ha ha ha i don't know is this weird is this all guys just speaking for me but like i don't care i don't i. I don't care.
Yeah, I don't know what's weird about it. Why would you ever be afraid to pee in front of a girl? I think the only thing I can think of is he probably pees all over the seat.
He doesn't want to be... That probably is something he's hiding.
He might have bad aim. Yeah, but I don't...
This is not a thing. Your husband is weird.
Are he... Are you married to Ed Sheeran? He's jerking off.
And peeing at the same time. Hey, PMT gang.
We recently moved into a house that has a microwave in our kitchen island that my husband refuses to stop calling a dick microwave. Yes.
Well, he's correct. Whatever someone new comes over, he insists on showing them our dick microwave.
I've asked him to stop calling it a dick microwave, but he insists. He says it is a we've made it it's actually it's a convection oven how can i get my husband to stop telling all our friends and family that we have a dick microwave you can't you have made it that is we were so stupid to not realize that that is truly the sign of like being financially secure is having a dick microwave yeah As many things as you can have in your house at penis level.

Yeah.

There's something subliminal about that.

The only way that you can get him to stop calling it a dick microwave,

if you call it a dick microwave before he has a chance to.

So when you're giving the tour, you jump in.

You're like, that's the dick microwave.

And if he hears you say that enough, he'll just stop doing it.

Or you could-

I don't think that's true.

You could store your dildos in the dick microwave. He would probably stop talking about it then.
You're like, what? I got confused. He said the dick microwave.
And then he'd be like, wait, you have this many dildos and they're that big? Damn. Football is back, boys.
I need some advice. When my boyfriend pees, he sometimes drips a couple drops of pee on the bathroom mat in front of the toilet.
Normal. When I go to use the toilet after him, I sometimes step in his drips of pee when I'm going to sit down on the toilet.
Is this a normal thing guys do or should I make him clean it up each time? It sounds, I mean, not to judge because listen, we, it takes all body types, but he just might have a short dick. Sounds like he needs to, you might need to hover.
Yes. Agreed.
Get over the target. Just squat.
Yeah. One thing that always, you know, I've never really been a huge fan of the fly system because I feel like whenever I do that, I end up getting some of my leg.
Like it's hard. Dribble? Yeah.
Yeah. It's hard to get it all out unless you really, you know, go over the pain.
It's like childish. I feel like this is something children do, but I've had bad experiences.
I've been having some issues because my son likes to walk in while I'm peeing, and he likes to close the toilet. He doesn't know when I'm about to be done.
He doesn't know there's something that comes after. You know how you pee, and then there's that last, right it's it's actually a lot of pee he gold tends he fucking just shuts it right on me and then i just pee all over the place hello this is a chick i would like to know what your impression of girls who went to beauty school instead of college are honestly not sure if there's a topic for these or if they're just random anyways don't talk shit because i'm in beauty school okay why would we talk shit about beauty school i have no problem with beauty school although it there is a very specific type of girl i think about when i think about beauty school it might be localized to my hometown but everybody that i know that went to beauty school ended up having the worst hair and makeup of all time oh i don't know i don't know why they do great job on other people but they always have like giant highlighted stripe through their hair.
I got no problem with beauty school. Come on.
That keeps the world going round. Honest living.
What do you learn in beauty school? Just makeup and hair? Is that it? Yeah. Waxing? I think a lot of...
Yeah. Hair.
Nails. Nails.
I mean, if you're ever trying to give yourself a haircut, it's not like super easy. So I respect all barbers, beauty school, all that stuff.
All right. So I don't even remember this, but this is someone responded with an update about my boyfriend was small junk.
I took your advice and just pulled out the toy. It did not go over well.
Oh, no. We gave that advice.
He immediately got mad and was asking why I needed it. No.
Didn't have the heart to tell him the truth, so he stormed out.

Oh, no.

At least one of us ended up having a good time.

Okay.

Well, here's the thing.

I don't remember giving that advice.

I don't regret giving that advice at all.

And you know what?

It worked for you because if he got that pissed off and that insecure that he left,

that's not a guy that you want to be with for the long term.

That's not a guy that cares about you.

Yeah.

And he's a small dick. Yeah.
Self-fulfilling prophecy, small dick energy to get that upset. I say the more toys, the better.
Bring them out. Keep that motherfucking thing on me.
Billy, Big Cat, PFT, Jake, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, Hank, ranked in order of best podcast voice.. Wow.
What was it? I had a terrible podcast voice. Billy? Billy, Big Cat, PFT, Jake, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, Hank.
Okay, no Bubba was listed on that list, and then, I mean, that's got to sting for Jake. Jake's really the big loser in that for not being number one.
And also, Billy's definitely going to use this in the end-of-the-year review when he's like, reasons why I should take over part of my take. This one chick said that I have the best podcast voice.
Studies have shown that I got a pretty sweet voice. Yeah.
Simple size voice. I've listened to PMT a little over a year now, and I love the podcast, even though I know absolutely nothing about sports.
Love it. Neither do we.
I think your guy's banter is hilarious. Thank you.
Problem is, my ex-boyfriend, that's even worse, because it's just like, she's just being brutally honest, and there's so many dots before my name. Yeah, because that actually is true.
Not that it's in my head about it. That is true, because she's not really even listening for the sports talk.
She's just listening for the voices. Right.
She is the best person to judge that. The pro, I mean, I know I have a bad voice, too, but.
I don't think you have a bad voice. No, Hank, you get a beautiful voice.
No, I do. I think we all have below average voices in general.
I think I've got a terrible voice. We just have voices.
Jake has. No one has remarkable.
Jake went to school for this voice shit. Yeah, that's true.
Sorry, Jake. Get a refund, Jake.
The problem is my ex-boyfriend is the one who introduced me to PMT. It also came to light that he is a cheater and a scumbag.
Fuck him. I'm now finding it difficult to listen to the podcast without wanting to text him funny shit that was said on the podcast.
Advice? Thanks. He'll know who he is.
Oh. All right, so text him this.
Fuck you, buddy. Should have cheated on this fine piece of ass.
Me.

Big cat.

Just making sure she knew I said that.

I don't like the fact that we have people that cheat that listen to our podcast.

Yeah.

So that guy's disavowed.

Yeah.

He's not allowed to tell him he's banned for the rest of this episode.

Probably because he likes my voice.

He likes your voice.

That was probably a big disagreeing point that they had in the relationship. Definitely.
All right, Billy, any recaps? This is now our number one voice. So the hardest part about...
She just likes bros. Yeah, your voice sucks.
I know it does suck. It really does.
I know. Your boyfriend cheated on you and is a scumbag, and you also are attracted to Billy.
Huh? I can kind of figure this one out. Okay.
Harsh. But McGregor and MGK both caused a scene on Sunday night at the VMAs, and that made everyone realize that they weren't at – they weren't invited to the Met Gala.
So kind of – Wait. MGK was definitely – MGK was at the Met Gala.
He made out with Megan Fox while Kardashian was making out with Travis. No, that was yesterday.
Actually, you're right. No, he's right.
He's right. Because all the pictures...
They're wearing different outfits. Yes, Billy's right.
But MGK was at the Met Gala. Yes, but he is right because they presented...
Kardashian and Megan Fox presented together at the VMAs. Yeah.
Yeah. So we're all right.
I have no idea. Billy deserves credit here.
Billy's extra right. Good job, Billy.
I think, yeah, because the whole thing was about McGregor wanting a picture with her in that see-through outfit. Yeah.
Anyway, Gronk is also the biggest stolen valor guy. Why? He's been stealing valor.
Why? He wants military insurance. USAA? Yeah.
He ruined the joke because he's actually trying to get insurance. Is he on USAA? He's been trying.
I actually think if you win a Super Bowl, you should be allowed to get into USAA. What is he doing? Have you been seeing the commercials? He's the spokesperson for USAA.
He keeps trying to get military insurance. I think he's crossed the line.
Is that the point of the commercial where he's trying to get USAA, but he can't because he's Gronk? Right. Whenever Gronk's on my screen, my brain just shuts off, and I'm just like, okay, there's Gronk.
He's trying to claim military benefits. I assume this is for LMFAO's greatest hits.
Improper benefits. Okay.
I mean, you and Gronk are the same guy. No, but he's the more military stealer.
If you could be one football player in the world, who would it be? He's the more military stealer. Billy's career aspirations are to marry into the Gronkowski family.
Someday I want to be a Gronk. Yeah.
Okay, nice. All right, numbers.
Give me mean 8, 9, 7

I don't think 97 exists in here

It's never been pulled

41 is out and 13 is out

Male giraffes headbutt

Female giraffes till they piss

Then they drink the piss to taste

If they're pregnant

Bonk

It's a big time bonk.

Love you guys. Thank you.
Take on me Thank you. Take me up Take me up Take me up

Take me up

It's Pardon My Take, presented by Marshall Sports.