Michael Jordan's Trainer Tim Grover, Stories About MJ, Last Dance 7 & 8 Review, Mt Flushmore Of Teammates

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I mean, where else can you pair wall-to-wall hoops with hard-to-find whiskey? Only at Twin Peaks, the number one sports bar. On today's part in my take, we have Michael Jordan's longtime trainer, Tim Grover.
Great conversation with him about MJ's training, his competitive drive, what actually happened at the flu game, the food poisoning game, as he explains. Great interview.
We also have Last Dance episodes seven and eight recap. We have Who's Back of the Week, the Mount Flushmore of teammates, and Billy Football with his deep dive because it is Monday.
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Today is Monday, May 11th. And PFT, I think those were the two best episodes of The Last Dance.
I'm going to start with a quote, actually. The last montage in episode seven, when MJ was talking about his competitive drive, and he said, people will see this and say he wasn't a nice guy and he may have been a tyrant.
Well, that's you because you never won anything. That had me ready to run through a brick wall.
Those were two awesome episodes. The is he was right like he mj sees the world on a different level from everybody else and yes that probably makes him an asshole to the rest of us but on the other hand it also is exactly what made him great and he was crying because i think he was crying because he was so pissed off that people didn't as expect as much from themselves as he did from everybody else or maybe he was just crying because he was thinking oh shit mj you're about to cry that sucks you better oh man i'm gonna cry because i'm thinking about myself crying i think he might have been crying because he he probably at times has felt misunderstood you know you talk about the the first they had that whole segment in episode seven i seven i thought episode seven was the strongest episode of the entire documentary it was so so well done but him retiring the media narrative that started that was like oh well it must have something to do with his dad getting shot must have something to do with his gambling which that is one of those times where i'm i'm happy this didn in 2020 because the like the conspiracy theorists would be out of control it'd be so it'd be so much worse than it was yeah already with the media running with it on the other hand I agree with you I think that there would be so much stuff out there about his dad getting shot and how it was MJ's fault but it would come from people who weren't established in the media it's wild to think that in the mid 90s media all these people who were given columns were no better than just like some twitter egg that wanted to like put this shit out there and they got away with it and they still have jobs to this day it's crazy like i know when when sean taylor was shot there was some stuff that came out too like with coward and michael wilbon it's wild at the end of the day we're all twitter eggs just some of us have a much bigger platform and the fact that they went like straight up with this narrative is just insane to me yeah it was insane and it's um but that episode and how much it affected him and coming back and the i'm back press conference it was all so good and i think this also the reason why these two episodes were so great was it really was MJ to his core with the shit talking, calling Scott Burrell a hoe, which is very, very funny.
I wonder, though, when they did that, do you think they sat down? Do you think ESPN sat down and was like, should it be HOE or or ho like like actually have a discussion over it whoever was doing the subtitles that was jordan that was jordan getting final cut like that was really the only reason that he wanted to make sure that he had the last view on this was so that he could make sure that his subtitles of talking shit to scotty burrell were 100 accurate i actually think that the the meanest thing that he said to Scottie was, go home and feed your cat. Go home and feed your cat is, like, get your fucking shine box.
That's, like, you can't come back and go home and feed your cat. Well, the meanest thing he said was that he's a nice guy.
Yeah. Yeah, well, that was the best.
He was so mad about it because he was like, yeah, I basically tried to get Scott Burrell to fight me forever, and he just wouldn't do it. He's too nice of a guy.
Scott Burrell also weirdly in the like we'll get to the Steve Kerr and how uh MJ respects Steve Kerr because he went at him but Scott Burrell was the was the only guy who in MJ's career could have been like dude I was a better baseball player than you he was drafted in the first round in Major League Baseball well he probably didn't want to say that because Jordan would have murdered him if he had said that to him. That would have been a bridge too far for him.

And kind of the whole narrative in this whole thing is, you know, MJ was an asshole, but he was competitive.

It was part of his personality.

And being an asshole, it can make you exceptional.

Actually, I want to rephrase that.

If you are exceptionally talented at what you do and you're an asshole, then people view through a different prism of oh yeah okay you're you're bringing out the best in everybody and if but if you're an asshole and you're anything less than great then you're just lance stevenson you know you're just like a guy that nobody really will ever truly care about that much but uh with mj like the combination of his talent and his personality like you don't say that him being a jerk made him great but you're saying that his greatness like yeah he probably would not have uh been looked at in the way that we look at him right now if he didn't have that personality well and there yeah it's chicken and the egg because it's you can't have that personality if you're not that much better than everyone else. You know what I mean? You can't push.
I thought that the part where he said, I never asked anyone to do something I didn't do myself. That is what a true leader is.
You know what I mean? Whether you agree with his tactics, whether you agree with the bullying and pushing people to the limit, that's a different discussion. I happen to agree with it because it's professional sports.
It's not like America there's a lot different you know when you're pushing yourselves as hard as you can to be the greatest team ever you're gonna have to make sacrifices and people they're like BJ Armstrong said it perfectly he can't be nice you cannot be nice and be what he is he is an insanely competitive guy who's better at basketball than everyone he plays with. So just that existence, it's impossible to be nice when you have to, like he said to Bill Wennington, jump on the cape and don't let go.
And the whole thing was great. And my favorite part of the two episodes is the three different stories we have of mj seeking vengeance and it all comes it was perfectly done by the director because he basically like showed that no matter what you do you're fucked so he had started with bj armstrong going off against the bulls in the playoffs and then mj being like fuck that and shutting him down the next game just shitting on him then you had LeBradford Smith the famous LeBradford Smith story the nice game Mike which MJ admittedly just made up and on top of that the I don't even know if they mentioned it but the Bulls won both those games so MJ was just mad that a guy named LeBradford Smith scored 37 points like they still won the game and then you have George Carl not saying hello at dinner.
So it's either you celebrated too much, you didn't say hello, or you literally did absolutely nothing but your own job in LeBradford Smith. No matter what, you're fucked.
Yeah, I was thinking about that. MJ is very good at making up reasons to be mad about people.
And in this case, his reason to be mad about George Carl was the fact that he didn't have anything to get mad at George Carl about because he didn't say hi to him. It's like maybe George Carl was told at one point in his life, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.
So Michael Jordan was like, he wants to say all the worst things to me, but he's being too polite. So therefore, he thinks very bad things about me.
i'm keeping a running track of the names that mj has ended he's literally taken names people are not smith yeah never scored 20 points again in his career i think he was out of the league a year later not not only that le bradford smith is out of the league but nobody's named le bradford anymore nobody is named clive anymore he no one was named le brad i'm keeping track i'm keeping track. No one's named Clyde anymore.
He ended Clyde after Clyde Drexler. He ended LeBradford.
He ended Craig. I actually looked this up.
Babies named Craig since the Craig Elo shot have shot down 97%. 97% in that time.
No one's named Craig anymore. And I think Reggie.
I think you can add Reggie to that list. There aren any babies named reg anymore that was a great start to the whole thing the way to go craig after he asked jerry kraus like straight up like hey how about this backstabbing and then he ended the yeah big j on j crime way to go craig you ruined it for everyone it was um the whole thing was great i know, the emotional end to episode seven was awesome.

I also, the Father's Day win, which Randy Brown grabbing the ball was so cringy at the moment.

And it still holds up as, like, one of the worst, like, read the room moments after the Bulls beat the Sonics.

And he just jumps in, like, trying to get a loose ball out of MJ's hands. it's like clearly he's so emotional Father's Day all these things um what else did what else did we have there was uh I mean there there was a lot about the minor league baseball career that I thought it was interesting like I never knew I think I'd heard it before but I'd forgotten that when he went to double a the only reason he went there was because the facilities had enough space to accommodate the media that were going to be following MJ around and his time spent in the minor leagues like Terry Francona saying that if he got more at bats he could have been a major leaguer he was that determined baseball is one of those sports though where he was talking about how many how much batting practice he was taking and at the end of the day his hands would just be raw with blisters.
You reach a limit to how many times you can swing a bat in a day. So it's just one of those things that's going to take longer in terms of the amount of days that you spend practicing that, not necessarily just practicing balls to the wall every single day.
It doesn't always work like that. But he hit 268, I think, believe in the fall league so he was clearly making like pretty big you know signs of progression and this is a guy who had not played baseball in whatever 12 years 15 years and like it's pretty insane for him to go there and not just strike out every single day and then go back where he clearly wasn't 100 percent um you know we have Tim Grover coming up he actually put a percentage to it coming out of baseball but you know dropping a double nickel against the Knicks and and you know being like Nick Anderson pushing him to change his number which I love that moment because it's another like Mike Michael Jordan cannot handle anyone trying to test him because the whole thing was he's wearing 45 because he wanted to have 23 be the last time his dad saw him play was when he wore 23.
And then Nick Anderson says one thing about him. He's like, fuck this, I'm wearing 23 again.
Yeah, exactly. It's like, you know what? Sentimentality that only takes you so far in life, I'm immediately going back.
Yeah. There's no way to win.
You cannot win by talking shit to Michael Jordan. It's just impossible.
And the smart people don't talk shit to him. I thought, so I was looking back at his minor league career a little bit and thinking not only it's impressive that he was able to do what he did in that short time period, but but he was also six foot six so his strike zone was fucking massive so it made it that much more difficult on him and if i was a pitcher i definitely would have given up i would have tried to serve him up a meatball because there's no easier way to get on a sports center than just grooving one to michael jordan and have him take you 450 feet yep yep true facts what, Hank? I was just going to say, not about the baseball, but the fact that the Space Jam dome was on a movie set, it means that there should be more footage from that.
You always talk about the new sports games, like putting up old footage. There should be full games from those scrimmages.
Unless MJ was betting so much on those games, he was like, don't put the cameras in here, which he was probably betting so much on those games. And that was such an awesome, like, to see all those guys out there, like Ewing, Reggie Miller, Jawan Howard, like everyone just showing up to play basketball in the middle of the summer.
And what they don't realize is they're just giving Michael Jordan scouting reports so that he can kick their ass the the following year yeah the other thing I was thinking during that is that like when LeBron tries to do that no one that's why that's like no one's gonna come he's just gonna be like oh like come out I got this whole basketball court like come play with me and everyone's just like yeah no like I'm good I like I like how he picked so many good players to go out there and then he just picked Sean Bradley to come out so that everybody would be able to dunk on him that was like the little icing on the cake it's like hey I know I'm paying you for this movie and I know it's going to be a long summer but on the bright side you're going to be able to teabag Sean Bradley three times a day yes yes yes Sean Bradley looking so fucking skinny dribbling down the court oh man the Steve Kerr practice that was a wild ride that we went on it's like the only way that you can get jordan to actually respect you as a teammate is if you let him punch you in the face and you come back the next day and let it be water under the bridge under the bridge and be like you know what you were right to hit me i was i was doing too much i put i pushed you in the chest yeah it's um it also was notable that ste Kerr said, I think he chose his words specifically for that one when he said the 96 team was the best team he's ever been a part of. Did you catch that? Mm-hmm.
He did say that. A part, yeah.
And I don't know when they filmed that. I would assume it was after the 73-win Warriors.
But, yeah, I meanve kerr getting punched by mj is like a moment that everyone talks about i wish we had it on camera yeah i don't know i i feel like that it's obviously never good but it also happens like guys get testy and guys you know they're emotional if scott was not such a nice yeah double double or triple digit times in his career right if scott burrell wasn't such a nice guy he would have fought mj like 16 times right i think it probably happens a lot more than we know about it just doesn't get talked about because teams have a tendency to keep things in house it happens all the time in football i'm sure it happens all the time basketball if there was footage of that practice we would probably not to like say that there are elements of provocation on steve kerr's part but that haircut that he had was asking to get hit in the face that was like that that's karen walking into mother's day brunch with her yelp app opened ready to leave the server bad review like steve kerr was kind of asking to get hit when you're walking in wearing that mop the um other thing i wrote

on a couple other notes about the uh so the retirement obviously there's the conspiracy theories that he was suspended i think those are are way overblown but it's fun just to talk about them but they're not true but it is funny there's a lot of play i think mj was he was already talking about how he might retire in books before his dad died and before the gambling stuff. But it is funny, the idea that if you push a man who loves to gamble too far, he'll just quit everything.
Don't tell a man he can't gamble. He'll just pack up and be like, nope, I'm out.
He's probably stoked to get to minor league baseball and have way more teammates that he can win money off of in cards. Yes, yes.
The iPad thing that the director does is fucking incredible. The Gary Payton scene was so good.
It's great seeing these guys react, mostly MJ, react in real time to an interview they've never seen before it's so so good i hope every every documentary does that from here on out it's really good and especially with mj just because he anytime mj looks at something on an ipad it's an instant meme people were saying that the coach doug's mj laughing meme was one of the top five like a mount rushmore meme of you know the entire existence of the internet i didn't say that but um it's a sad state of affairs that you have to you have to go back to you know trolling in the comments it's trying to give you clout that's all yeah that's the best that you saying i'm i'm i'm alley-ooping you yep it does help with promotion it does it really does oh big time big time helps with promotion everyone's gonna go see that and be like, I got to go watch tomorrow night. It becomes more of a conversation around you losing to Baylor after you said that you were not even going to play Baylor because they were too bad.
They are too bad. I shouldn't have lost that game.
I ate four donuts. I've already had the press conference.
We don't need to go back through this. One other thing about the Steve Kerr practice.
I don't know if you noticed this, but the reason that Jordan actually felt bad and reached out to Steve Kerr is because Steve Kerr was the littlest guy on the court, and he hit that guy. That's why he reached out to apologize.
Absolutely. So the only other thing I wrote down, which is crazy in retrospect, MJ coming back, his first game back against the Pacers was on a Sunday and it was actually the sweet 16 round or no it might have been the first round of the NCAA tournament he MJ did three times the NCAA tournament think about that the NBA game in the middle of March did three times NCAA tournament, so much so CBS had to do a make good for advertisers because they got so fucking roasted in viewership because MJ came back during March Madness.
That is crazy. I did not know that.
So crazy. What kind kind of good did they do? They had to give him more.

They had to be like, we'll throw in more ads later on.

They trounced him so bad.

I think it was.

They had to tell the refs, give MJ all the calls so it's a sweep

so that the NCAA tournament gets more ratings next weekend.

Yes.

Well, this was the regular season.

This is MJ coming back in the regular season.

It coincides with the Sunday of March Madness. And that event was so much bigger than March Madness, which is crazy just to think about like anyone watching NBA in the middle of March over the tournament.
And the I'm back facts that he sent to come back is it's an all-timer. There's only one person that could do that.
I mean, you saw the headlines when he retired the first place and they they were just calling him Air. Like, that was his name.
It was just like Air walks away from the game, and he comes back just by saying, I'm back. I think there's only one person in the history of sports that could pull that off, and that would probably be MJ.
Like, Andrew Luck would write a 500-page book on, like, architecture and bury it in the footnotes if he was coming back. Like, that's putting your nuts on the table and saying i'm i'm so big that everyone knows what i mean how many retreats would that get if that was how he came back uh the architecture book the andrew luck uh hungarian architecture no you know what i'm asking the if mj tweeted i'm back instead of a press release if it was, and it was given all the circumstances and everything was the same, everything was equal, and he had the same cultural relevancy, and everything was equal, we just had Twitter.
What's crazy is it would probably get 5 million retweets, but it would also probably get 6 million replies. It would be the all-time biggest number of replies, so it would technically be a ratio norman chat oh let's talk about that okay so um yeah i think that's everything we had for this uh episode seven eight but we have a shitload more coming with tim grover in a minute so we had a great interview with tim grover mj's trainer we talk about him baseball.
We talk about him coming back, his competitive desire, great stories, and also the flu game. So that's all coming up.
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Let's do it. Who's back of the week? Hank, why don't you start? I have a bunch of who's back of the weeks.
My first one is Barstool and the Roger Goodell relationship. Our boss, Dave Portnoy, who was the leader, the person who led us to get arrested at NFL headquarters for Tom Brady has had many outspoken words about Roger Goodell.
He won the auction to watch a Monday night football game with Roger Goodell in his living room. I don't, I cannot understand how the NFL like let it get to this point, but they did.
And I am very curious to see how it's going to play out from here. So, this goes back to me saying that Goodell doesn't have any friends because he doesn't.
I think that it would be hilarious. If Roger Goodell wanted to look like a normal person, he should wear a clown shirt with Dave's face on it because Dave is going to wear the clown shirt with Goodell's face on it, and they sit down and it'd be fucking wild if they became great friends.
I just can't see it getting to that point. I can't.
Okay, so yeah. Do you think this is actually going to happen? No.
I can't. I think they're going to figure out a technicality, right? But what is that? How? That's where it's like the NFL, if they had gotten out of it before the bidding ended, then it kind of probably would have washed over.
But the fact that he won, the contest is over. It was open for two weeks.
It's not like he snuck in at the last minute. He was outwardly bidding on it two weeks ago.
The contest ended and he won. He paid the money.
That's like a shitload of money. Yeah.
Because if Goodell tries to get out of it at all, what it becomes is he's taking money away from charity if he gives right second highest bidder he's taking money out i don't even know what charity it's going to probably like the roger goodell kids club for kids that will promote roger goodell but whatever it is it's take it's actually hurting someone that needs help so i don't know what he's going to do like does he technically have a restraining order against dave i don't think so but yeah he's kind of stuck although here is what he could do is he could just be like all right i'm gonna do it but the but the uh terms of service show that you cannot bring any cameras you can't document it like we'll take a picture but you can't record me and that would be the ultimate if dave just had to sit with cadel with no content being made that's actually the ultimate own back on dave being like you just have to sit with this miserable person for an entire night and listen to him talk and sit in his weird sweaters and comfy chair and you can't make content out of it that would kill dave that would amazing. I don't think Adele has the balls to do that, though.
Oh, I think his goons do. Roger Adele's goons will absolutely play that card on him, and they'll check him and stuff for cameras.
But, I mean, Dave will never agree to that. If anything, Dave will say that he agrees to it and then wear some sort of hidden camera or some secret way of documenting it.
There's no chance that Dave just signs up to go have bro time in the man cave with our dog. So I think that there's going to be...
It's going to be a real meeting of the minds here to see who can outsmart who going into this. I mean, it's worth it from Dave's perspective.
The amount of content he's going to wring out of this, it's a huge win. I don't care how much money he paid for it.
He's going to get massive returns on it. Yes, big time.
Hank, you got another one i got a couple other ones i'll give you do you want both of them or do you want just one do whatever you want um i love king one of my other who's back six nine he got out of jail tekashi six nine you guys remember him he was in jail for snitching he got out of jail the previous record all time for instagram live viewers was like drake and tory lanes had like 300 000 69 got out of jail went on instagram live and had 2 million people watching him like immediately so he smashed the record put out a new song and he's just like out living life uh as a snitch yeah takashi snicks nine he's out he's he's back in the limelight i I listened to a podcast about him that documented his whole life, starting when he was just getting into the rap game and then ending when he went to prison. And this dude is so good at self-promotion.
He's so good at it. But the only downside to it is he's addicted to going live.
He goes live when he's about to commit crimes. And as somebody who's on the run from people that are looking for him, I think that's going to be his downfall.
It's going to be like an Earl Thomas and his wife situation. If you want to get 6ix9ine, all you have to do is just go on Snapchat and his little avatar is going to be popped up wherever he is.
300,000 versus 2 million is insane, though. It's actually crazy.
Yeah, that is crazy. He's just a great troll, right? like that's that's as far as i understand is he's one of the greatest trolls we've ever had basically he's just trolling people right yeah i mean more or less like sometimes like yeah he's he's trolling him to kill him right like you won't kill me he's like you mad he gets shot the guy comes up to him and like takes his wallet off him he's like you mad yeah you won't kill me prove it i'm actually laughing right now my third who's back of the week is jamie fox so there's been like a few viral videos that came out this weekend that i watch and like kind of refresh people's memory on how funny jamie fox was i guess there's a mike tyson biopic which is coming out with starring him and he was on I forget what ESPN show but he was on ESPN show like and he described the first scene in detail and it was the best like trailer that you could ever have ever like it was the most descriptive eloquently spoken like way to talk about the movie that you could ever have I mean I'm in for some of Jamie Foxx's best roles have been when he's way, way, way deep in character as somebody like Ray Charles or the boxing promoter, the trainer for, was it Ali? Yes.
Yes. He did the Ali movie, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. He's, yeah, and he had that clip go viral where it's like, oh yeah, he's awesome at all these impressions.
Yeah, he went and he met with Muhammad Ali and did the impression of his old manager or trainer, whoever the character was. And Ali was like, holy shit, this is him.
So yeah, I'm in for that, big time. All right, PFT, what do you got? My Who's Back of the Week is tuning into weird Periscope feeds during pay-per-view events because I was too lazy to actually purchase the event.
And to my credit, ESPN Plus made it very difficult to buy UFC this weekend. So sports is back.
That's actually number one. Live sports is back.
Dana White put on the event. It was a pretty good card, some good fights on there.
But i was trying to buy the buy the fight on the

app and it just wouldn't let me so i was like fuck it i'm gonna go periscope slumming again

and i i joined all these different feeds and they were filled with people that were like taking the

feeds hostage turning the camera back on themselves and saying i'm not going to show the fight again

until i get like a thousand subscribers to my tiktok and then once he did he would put the

camera back on the fight those are so pure i love those so much that's i mean that's a smart smart.

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Smart. subscribers to my tiktok and then once he did he would put the camera back on the fight those are so pure i love those so much that's i mean that's a smart yeah this is smart way to promote i mean that's he probably gained a lot of tiktok followers that he's now going to make magic with yep um they were good fights they were good fights it was good to have that back although it's so it is very weird just watching like the and the entrances in an empty arena and hearing the you know every single word that's said because it's so quiet it's it's a bizarre bizarre feeling i didn't think that the uh the strikes weren't as loud as i was anticipating like i was thinking that they were going to be your right maybe maybe it's because i was watching on a periscope through like some guy's Motorola Razr of his TV across the room, but it didn't seem like they were as loud as I was expecting.
Normally in an MMA fight, I guess it's because they have the mics right there in the octagon. You can already hear them pretty loudly.
Yes. All right, my who's back.
I have two. The first is Norman Chad because he wrote...
Actually, it's the ratio. I'm not going to give him fucking – I'm not going to tip my cap to him.
The ratio because he had – Norman Chad did have an article that he wrote that said, the pandemic has reminded us we don't need more sports in our lives. We need less.
This guy sucks, huh? Norm Chad. Yep.
He sucks. I don't even know what's his – I didn't read read it i just got mad at the headline and moved on i think that that's a lot more of a mature thing to do than to actually read what his point is and try to understand what he's trying to say oh anyone read it oh he did what was he trying to say somehow the article was worse than the headline if you can believe that like norm chad if you don't know anything about him he's a guy that announces poker sometimes like the world series of poker on espn he is he's somebody that rick riley would ratio that's how bad of a writer he is he writes nothing but like ex-wife jokes his article had like six different asides to it where he went off on these weird tangents the thesis of it if you can call it, was sometimes you have dinner with your family members when there isn't as much sports on TV.
Okay. That's it.
That's it. Cool, dude.
Fuck him, man. Fuck that.
And then my other who's back is Duke. Duke basketball's back.
Zion Williamson's former marketing agent has served requests for admission in their lawsuit asking him to admit that he received money benefits favors of other things of value to attend Duke University.

Cloud chaser.

Oh, really?

Yeah, I don't get why Adidas was mentioned.

It's not even an Adidas school.

Well, they're saying the money was contingent on him going to either a Nike or Adidas school.

So I guess leaving out all those.

So she basically just made up the most general accusation you could have and is going.

Oh, see, are you denying it? Are you putting your life on it? Yeah. Ever heard the term innocent until proven guilty? Duke's never cheated.
She's cloud chasing. Yeah.
Hmm. Interesting.
Interesting. I happen to believe all women, Hank.
It has nothing to do with, you know, nothing to do with You know nothing to do with that It sounds like it might Sounds like you got yourself a little bit of a pickle here Were you I mean It's funny because the first time Hank recorded this before he Demand we go back and redo it he was like I just don't Trust females What the fuck By the way a quick aside, is tell me what happened in your house when Stu Feiner decided to send a naked picture to all of us as a joke text message on, I think, Saturday morning or Friday morning.

It was crazy because I think I asked, like, my phone was charging.

I was like, Ria, can you grab my phone and, like, bring it over here? And she did. And I was, like, going through.
And then the first message I opened up asked, like my phone was charging. I was like, Ria, can you grab my phone and like bring it over here? And she did.
And I was like going through. And then the first message I opened up was like a naked picture.
So she was standing right there and she was like, what is that? And I was just like, oh, it's Stu Finer. She was just like, what? What the fuck? Like, what does he text you? And then she just scrolled up.
It was just like, I was like, I don't know. It's Stu Finer.
Like, what do you want me to say? It's just so funny that Stu Finder is like going to get everyone in trouble because he sends he basically sends he does the forward all email, but on text message at 830 in the morning. Yeah.
830 in the morning. You get a text message.
Like, OK. Yeah.
I mean, yeah, it was like it was like a naked picture that you had to zoom in on a certain part to like read the message one of those like classic gags uh classic stew stew stew is a great excuse if you ever need a reason why you're looking at a naked picture on your phone just label every single contact in your phone is stew finer so if you ever get an accidental nude it's like oh it's from stew yeah um okay before we get to mj's trainer tim, great interview coming up. All protein bars generally taste the same, but not one bars.
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Find all one bars at a retailer near you or on amazon.com okay here he is mj's trainer tim grover okay we now welcome on a very special guest it is tim grover ceo of attack athletics he is uh The trainer for Michael, was a trainer for Michael Jordan, trained a ton of really, really great NBA players. Obviously, we've been talking about the last dance.
It's been taking over the country. So we thought it'd be great to have you on, talk about MJ, talk about what your approach is, and let's start right there.
Let's start with your introduction to michael jordan i've obviously read a bunch about him but you first see him by giving him a he gives you a 30-day trial says you get 30 days to prove your worth at what point in those 30 days do you think he bought into what you were doing? Oh, the first week. And the reason it was is I was telling him how his body was going to feel physically and mentally after each workout, after each day.
I said, hey, this is what's going to feel sore. This is what's going to be tight.
Pay a little attention to that. When you go to practice, notice these different things.
So I was kind of already telling him how he was going to feel before he actually felt it. And the more I was able to do that, the more he had trust in me and knowing what I was doing.
But obviously, as you start to see the results and the results, you guys know from working out, unfortunately, the results don't come from the outside in. They go from the inside out.
So they take a little while to actually physically show, but you can actually start feeling yourself getting in better condition. You can feel yourself getting stronger.
And the one thing we put a lot of emphasis on, listen, I don't care how explosive an athlete is, you know, how well they can do what they do, he or she, if you're constantly getting injured, you're not doing yourself any good and you're not doing anybody else any good. So the first thing we always address with any of the clients we deal with is to make sure that their body is in balance to play whatever particular sport you're playing at injury-free.
Now, before you were introduced to MJ, was he training at all besides playing basketball? You know what? Obviously the Bulls have somebody. They had a full-time strength and conditioning coach.
And for whatever reason, I don't know if Michael didn't buy into the program or he just didn't feel it was for him. But I know what he...
So when I got to him, obviously his athletic ability was off the charts. His strength level wasn't as good as where I'd like it to be.
So you could tell that there wasn't really a consistent workout program behind it. And it was maybe because I know what he wanted.
He wanted somebody that was dedicated to him and his body, not somebody that was putting a program for a whole team. He wanted to have the flexibility of being able to work out on his schedule and a program designed for his abilities, the way he played, the way he flew, the way he did everything.
I've always wondered when it comes to something that requires a lot of fine motor coordination, like shooting a basketball, it's all about the rhythm. It's all about getting a routine that you're comfortable with doing the same thing every single time.
When you add in weight training to that, when you're making, you know, somebody's triceps or shoulder or forearm a lot stronger, how do you make sure that the shot doesn't get affected along the way? Well, that's a great point. Well, the shot is going to get affected.
So that's the one thing. And I've always told him that that That was probably one of his hesitations of not starting, you know, a conditioning weight training program because like, man, I'm sure how, what is this going to do to my, what is this going to do to my touch because shooting the basketball is a fine motor movement.
And I told him this was going to happen. So what we did was after he would work out, there were certain drills that I would have if we were, out and we had access to a basketball court, there were certain things that he would do afterwards.
If we didn't, there were certain things I would have him do in the house with the basketball, just so he could kind of still get those fine motor movements into place. And I told him, I just said, listen, you have to stay with this because what's going to happen is your body's going to adjust.

Now, if you don't give it enough time for your body to adjust, your strength level is going to get up to a certain point. All right.
And then it's going to drop again. Then you have to make a readjustment in your shot.
So let's consistently do this. And yes, your shot is going to be off, but it's only going to be off for a short period of time.

It'll be off for less than a week.

So I think I know the answer to the next question I'm going to ask,

but I'm going to ask it anyway.

You had a part in the documentary where you say, you know,

when I would tell Michael to do eight reps, he would do 12.

Was there ever a time ever a day where MJ didn't give a hundred percent in a

workout where he was like, I'm not feeling it today.

Yeah. I mean, well, you know, listen,

Thank you. ever a day where MJ didn't give 100% in a workout, where he was like, I'm not feeling it today? Yeah, I mean, well, you know, listen, you have your best workouts when you're not feeling it.
You know, it's just like what the so-called flu game, you know, when an athlete is sick, they always end up performing at a higher level because, you know, mentally they're more focused. You know, he's a – people might not believe this, but he's actually, he is a human being, even though he might not play.
So, you know, we all have those days, but they were far and few in between, far and few in between. I mean, he'd come up, you know, our workouts were anywhere from five, anytime to 5am, 6am or 7am.
Majority of the time, by the time I got to the house, he was already ready. He was already to go.
But there were a few times when I walked in the house and, you know, rang the bell, sit down for him in the weight room. He'd look at me.
He says, not this MF again. Yeah, well, we got to do it.
You know? Yeah. But it was not like, it was never like he was just like, I don't feel like, I don't feel like doing this today.
Right. You know, there were days that I didn't need to push him a little bit more, but those were far and few in between.
How do you manage somebody like Michael who is ultra competitive, probably has a big ego for a well-justified big ego because he is such a great player? How do you go in and say this is what you need to correct without pushing him away because he's like, fuck this guy coming in and telling me what to do. Well, you know what? That's the one thing I've always learned.
It's funny. And look at, look at any business, look how successful you guys are.
The more successful an individual is that actually the more they're open to feedback, criticism, coaching, and so forth, because they want to get better. They want to get better, but they can decipher between somebody that's bullshitting them and somebody that's actually telling them the truth.
So, you know, with him, it was like gaining his trust, but also understanding, giving him what he wanted. So the plan was designed around him.
I didn't come in and say, hey, this is what I need you to do. This is how it's going to be done.
Michael, what are your weak areas? What do you want to improve? What do you want to get stronger in? Do you want to jump higher? Do you want to move laterally quicker? Where are the areas on your body that constantly get injured? And let me develop the program around that. So feedback is always important.
You can't come in with these guys and, you know, pretend like you are the show.

I'm not the show.

I'm a person that is to help him and let him excel at a higher level.

The better he plays, the better I look. The worse he performs, the worse I look.

And I always knew that who the star was

and my job was to make that star shine longer and brighter.

So you have, you know, you've got a lot of money. the worst I look.
And I always knew that who the star was. And my job was to make that star shine longer and brighter.

So you have, you know, you've written books,

you have a theory about the different types of athletes and their mentality. You call it closers, coolers, and the last cleaners.

Can you explain to people what the difference is between those three groups? And also, can you go from one group to another? No question. You know what? It's funny.
I always like to use, if appropriate, I always like to use examples of the people I'm doing the show with. All right.
When you guys first started this show, it was like, what are these two guys doing? What is this going to happen? All right. So a cooler is an individual that does the average.
So you give them a job to do, they're going to deliver the minimum result. If you tell them to make 10 phone calls in an hour, and they make 10 phone calls in 40 minutes, they're not going to make phone call 11, 12, 13, 14.
You told them to make 10. They're going to make 10.
They're going to make 10 phone calls. All right.
A closer is an individual that gets you that end result over and over again, as long as too many variables aren't thrown at them. Cleaners get that end result over and over again.
So they figure stuff out no matter what's thrown at them, and they get that end result numerous times over and over and over again. A part of a cleaner's mentality is to constantly never be satisfied.
When something is done, they move on to what's next. I love it.
So who are the cleaners you've worked with? Cause I'd imagine it's not that big of a group. No, it's not.
You know, I, I've been fortunate enough to work with, you know, hundreds and hundreds of professional athletes. Obviously the two biggest ones that I've had are Michael and Kobe.
I would put Dwayne Dwayne Wade in that category too, but I've also had other cleaners in different – in those same sports that excelled at one thing. You know, Tony Allen was a professional basketball player.
He had won championships with the Celtics. This guy was a defensive specialist.
I mean, Kobe said this was – he was the hardest guy to score on. So his mentality, even though he didn't have it on the offensive side, he had it on the defensive side.
He was a cleaner from a defensive, from a defensive standpoint. You know, there's different coaches.
So there are positions that are even practice players that they know they're never going to play, but their job is to make everybody else in practice the best that they can be. So it's finding your niche and doing it better than anybody else.
Were there ever any times when you're working with a player individually and you can sense that there's some friction between the coach of that team, maybe not being super happy that one of their star players is working with their own person on the side, kind of like you see, you know, it was reported up in New England with Tom Brady with his TB12 method, that there was maybe some butting of heads going on inside Patriot Place. Yeah.
Oh, listen, anytime, anytime an outside individual comes in, there's always going to be some friction. There's always going to be some tension.
You know, I was able to alleviate some of that, not a whole lot with the Chicago Bulls, but with the other teams, because I would always get the coaching staff involved. I would always get their athletic trainers.
I would always get their strength and conditioning people involved. I was like, listen, you tell me what you're looking for, the end result you want to get out of this athlete, and let me be an extension of you.

So that way we all... what you're looking for, the end result you want to get out of this athlete,

then let me be an extension of you.

So that way we all win in this together.

I'm not the person that's out there trying to be the star.

I want to just get the job done because if the athlete is performing

at the highest level, we all win.

But, yeah, is there going to be some friction?

Is there going to be some jealousy?

There always is. But I try to alleviate that as much as possible by keeping the team notified about what I'm doing and always allowing them to say, hey, listen, I don't have any secrets.
You want to come in and see what I'm doing? Come in and see what I'm doing. You want me to add an exercise here? You want me to change an exercise here? I'll be more than happy to incorporate it in there as long as it's beneficial to who we're working with.
So you were obviously around MJ for 15 years plus years. I'm sure you have.
Yeah, I mean, you're a famous trainer. There's not many famous trainers out there.
And you're a Chicago Bulls guy. I know it.
Yeah. I mean, it's been bad since Michael, but yeah.
It's been very bad. Yes, yes.
So you were around him for so long. I'm sure you have a million stories of this whole entire documentary showing his insane competitive drive.
What are a couple of the little things that he might've done,

whether it be to someone else or with himself,

that that was like, that's the killer in MJ?

Well, you know what?

It was funny that everybody talked, you know,

obviously he's legendary for about his trash talking,

but it was so many times he did his trash talking to motivate himself.

It was like, it wasn't to get into the other player's head. It was to get into his head.
But, I mean, there's so many stories. I remember when we were in – when they had a franchise in Vancouver, you know, Vancouver Grizzlies.
They were going – I think it was a game and it was a back-to-back. And they were – and we were – the Bulls were down like maybe 12, 14 points with like three minutes to go in the game.
And Derek Martin, who was a bench player for Vancouver, said something to Michael off the bench. And then Michael just looked at him and literally scored like the next 17 straight points and went over and went over to Derek and went over to Derek says, you're barely in the league.
Shut the fuck up. And the next day was it.
Well, funny about that story is the Grizzlies actually wave and cut Derek the next day because they were like,

why did you wake the sleeping dog up?

Just let him sleep.

Then there was another game against, I think it was Minnesota,

and Sam Mitchell was the coach.

And they had never beaten the Bulls,

and they were up by like seven or nine points with like maybe a minute to go. And Sam said something to Michael.
He said, you know, we finally got you. And Michael looked at Sam and said, I haven't even started to play yet.
You know how competitive he was at practice. I mean, it was just, it was crazy.
I mean, I mentioned this in the book Relentlessless, where he had just played a game and he had played like some crazy amount of minutes, 44 minutes or something. And they had practice the next day and he's looking around and he's looking for one of the players on the team, Scott Burrell.
He's like, where's Scott? And Scott, one of the trainers said, you know, Scott's in a training room. And he goes, he tells Phil, hold on.
So he goes into the training room and Scott's laying down on the table. He literally takes the training table and flips it over.
Scott goes onto the ground and he's literally in Scott's face and saying, you know, UMF, I just played 44 minutes. You didn't even play yesterday.
If I can get my ass out there to practice, you need to to come out there right now and Lily carried Scott out onto the practice for it and this was not to get you know he wasn't pissed off at Scott for being lazy it was more like listen I'm going to need you at some point I'm going to need you at least one game to win this championship down the line right so if you're taking shortcuts now, you're going to end up taking shortcuts later. So the way he held everyone accountable, those stories are legendary.
So that type of mentality, I can see how that would produce results and how you're elevating the play of people around you to a certain extent. But also I noticed during this Scottie Pippen migraine game, Michael Jordan has such a tough mentality that I don't know if a guy like him has empathy in his head and can understand like, hey, maybe this guy is actually really hurt.
Maybe he's dealing with something that you just can't will yourself through. Did you ever have to soften Michael up and be like, hey, Michael, maybe take it easy here, no one to push.
Know when to pull on certain guys. That I let him do.
You know what he did notice is if players weren't physically performing at the highest level, he would kind of have me talk to them and say, hey, listen, you know, like Ron Harper. Ron Harper, when he played with the Cleveland Cavaliers, was an exceptional player.
And then he had ACL surgery and he didn't quite recover. They didn't do his rehab correctly.
So when he got to the Bulls, Ron wasn't moving the way he should have been moving. So he asked me to kind of work with Ron and get him going back.
But yeah, you know what? It's funny when you have that mentality, you're able to push yourself through so many things. You just expect others to do that.
So you're like, if I'm going to be the hardest working player in practice, all right, if I'm going to be the hardest working player in the game, I'm not expecting you to perform at the same level I'm performing at, but I need you to perform at the highest level possible. So he had this mentality, like, if I put on my jersey, if I put on my practice jersey, or I put on my game jersey, don't ask me about my health.
I'm 100%. You know, like when you guys show up at the studio and you do what you're supposed to do, all right, everybody, they're expecting 100%.
They're expecting the show that everybody listens to, you know, all the millions of subscribers you have on there. They don't give a shit how you're feeling.
They don't care how much you drank last night, what you did, all that other stuff. They're like, listen, you took our time.
We need you to perform. We need you to perform at the highest level.
And I can guarantee it.

There's not, you can't tell me every single day you come into the studio, you're like, you're on your, you're on your A game. A lot of times you just bring a game, but you have to change that A game into your A game.
Right. Big Cat got bit by a dog one time and he came in and we're like, you know what? We got to step this up.
We got to, sometimes you got to lift your teammates up. Yeah.
You can't tell me that you're not as competitive in what you do as Michael is. You guys just don't want to win the ratings.
You want to beat whoever the hell is number two, number three, number four, number 50. There's a big difference between just winning and beating somebody.
You guys want to beat the competition. But but in order to do that your mentality has to be different than everybody else i love this part of the podcast where you're complimenting us it feels very nice well you guys are you guys earned it i appreciate that i'm not here to stroke you guy you if you didn't i wouldn't be saying this shit i'd be like man who are these fucking problems i'm listening to what you guys are you guys earned what you what you went through and it wasn't easy i appreciate

that i appreciate that knowing that um mj would react to people uh doubting him or saying trash

talking to him would you ever make stuff up and tell him like hey like i heard through the grapevine

that this guy thinks he's as good as you. Never needed, never needed because you know what, back then all the media and everything was focused on, focused on him.
So he would never, he would never listen to those things, but he knew what people were saying, you know, obviously in the last episode that they just, that they just did, you know, people were, you know, comparing him to Clyde Drexler and he just came out and he said, you know, I took offense to that. He's not, he's not in the same league.
And he just went out, he went out and showed it. He will never show it in his, he would never show it in his face, but he knew who was, he knew what his competition was, you know, he knew that, that other players like Patrick Ewing, Carl Malone, Charles Charles Barkley, Reggie, Reggie Miller, you know John Starks all these individuals that were out there that were that were going after that were going after his after his crown yeah and he was like they can you can speak all you want listen the one thing we all know the one thing that's never gone up in price and is never going to go up in price is talk.
Talk is always cheap. It's going to be cheap.
All right. You don't pay for talk.
You pay for the end result. The information is fine.
You guys give individuals information. I gave Michael information.
I give my clients information. What you do with that information is what is the price that you have to pay.
So when I didn't have to give Michael the information of trash talking and so forth, he held himself accountable to himself more than anybody else ever would. And that's also a big distinction between a closer and a cleaner.
All right. A cleaner holds himself more accountable than anybody else will ever hold him or her accountable.
A closer will be like, eh, somebody else needs to hold me a little bit accountable. All accountable.
He held himself more accountable to his training, the end result that he was giving, everything. Can you look at somebody, an athlete in particular, and say, this guy is not a winner? Bad body language.
Oh, yeah. It was funny.
I've actually turned away more business than I actually take in. You know, everybody tells you the right thing.
It's just like in basketball, in football, in baseball, whatever sport, in basketball, everybody wants to sit in that first seat. Everybody wants to take that last shot.
Everybody wants to be that closing pitcher. Everybody wants to be that quarterback or receiver or that running back, you know, that gets the ball at the end until you actually get the ball.
Right. Yeah.
Everybody wants to sit in those two seats until they have to sit in those two seats. Pressure is a privilege, but most people run from that privilege.
I like that. I like that a lot.
So we're going to run run this on Monday, and we haven't seen – we're not big enough J journalists to get the pre-taped. But we're assuming seven and eight are going to be a lot about Michael's transition to baseball, coming back from baseball.
At what point when he makes that decision – because it was pretty much right before the season – what point did you know that he was like he's gonna walk away like he doesn't have the same feeling right now about this upcoming season that he's had in the past you know what it was funny at right after they won that they won that championship they won that third championship you could he never said anything but you could just feel that the joy wasn't there. Like, you know, you, you went through so much to win that chant to win that championship.
It was more of a relief than it was a joy, joyous occasion. You know, and the one thing I've always said about these great athletes is they celebrate hard, but they don't celebrate long.
It was more of a relief that they wanted, and I knew something wasn't right. And he would usually tell me, hey, this is a time we're going to start working out again.
And there was no communication there. So I did not know what he was going to do or when he was going to do it.
But obviously, he did what he what he did and I am privileged to see what the what the next uh I got a little preview of what seven's going to be about unfortunately I can't share it with you guys but um it's going to take a lot about a lot about the baseball stuff it's just like you know you got everyone gets to a certain point that you don't love a hundred percent of your job listen I guarantee there's not a single a single individual I love when everybody says you gotta love everything you gotta love everything about what you do there's not a single person in this world that loves 100 percent of everything they do all right there's some things that just fucking suck all right it just it just sounds good to be to be. Now, when you have those sucking things more than the enjoyment things, then it's time to start looking somewhere else.
You see most successful individuals in a place that just say, I'm not going to do this anymore. And you're like, why are they not doing this? They got all these fans.
They got all this money. They got all this stuff.
It's just, you know what? A cleaner knows when it's time to walk away. I love that thought too because we have a dream job and I love my job.
But of course there's things that suck. And it's weird because people don't understand.
Of course there's things that suck. The love far outweighs the suck.
But it's crazy to be like, oh, yeah, I love working all the time no matter what. Yeah.
And you know what? That just sounds good. I love these people that come out and say, oh, I only sleep three hours a day.
That's it. That's bullshit.
Your body cannot function at optimum level on three hours of sleep a day. You may sleep one or two days out of a week where you only sleep three hours, but you know those stories sound like, oh man, every single day I work 18 hours.
You got to continue to grind and all this other stuff. I'm tired of all that cliche bullshit because it's just a way to sell stuff.
That's all it is. So when Jordan goes out and he starts playing baseball, he struggles a little bit.
Did you hit him up where you're like, hey, I think I can help you with your swing? I don't do anything with the mechanics part, but I was the individual that did continue to do the training part with him in the baseball. And there's a lot of that.
There's a whole big segue that's going to go in there. The big thing I had told him was, listen, the muscles used in basketball are the complete opposite that are used in baseball.
All right. So I'll give you an example.
Michael played. You know, Michael played.
He was a right fielder, if I remember correctly. So when you shoot a basketball, OK, the idea is to put a certain amount of arc on the

ball so you can use the whole circumference of the rib. All right.
So you have to train your back muscles, your shoulder muscles, your arm muscles, and your wrist muscles in a different way. When you play, when you throw a baseball from right field, center field, left field in, you have to have as little arc on it as possible because it has to get from point A to point B.
So the training to throw a baseball is completely different than the training to shoot a basketball. Interesting.
So one thing that we talk about on the show a lot is the clutch gene. We're obsessed with synthesizing and

discovering the clutch gene. Some athletes are very, very good under pressure.
Others are notoriously very bad under pressure. To you, is there a way that you can build the clutch gene in somebody that might not have it? Yes.
I'm a firm believer the clutch gene is something that's in all of us, but majority of the individuals are afraid to wake it up.

They're afraid to use it, you know, because the pressure and the work ethic and the dedication that you have to do to wake that clutch gene up and have it perform at the highest level over and over and over again. Most people don't have the mental discipline to do that over and over again.
And to be in the zone and be able to have that clutch gene thinking is actually a distraction. but here's a caveat to that it takes years and years and years of thinking not to be able to think so it sounds like it's a lot of hard work that goes into like it's actually not just having a clutch gene right the clutch gene is really just being supremely confident in all the work that you've put in ahead of time.
Exactly. You don't make that game-winning shot.
You don't make that game-winning shot in the game. You've made it 100 times in practice.
You've made it other times before. You know, you guys don't have this show of yours and the success that it happened.
All right, it's happened through all the times and effort and stuff you put in before to get to this point. Now to show that 1% gain is the difference between being great and being unstoppable.
And that's where you guys need to go next. You guys are great.
Now you need to get to unstoppable. Isn't there a shortcut though? Like can't you put on a copper fit bracelet or wear one of those fighting necklaces.
And then all of a sudden you're,

you can't be knocked off balance. You've seen the infomercials.
Oh my goodness. It's unbelievable.
You know what? A couple of times when I've seen, you know, you see those things in the mall and because of my exercise physiology background, you know, every now and then I'll say, I'll say, Hey, watch this. And the guy will come up to me or the girl will come up to me and the out there, they'll start explaining and they start doing the thing.
And I'll just totally blow them out of the water. And they'll be like, Oh, Oh shit.
This guy actually knows what he's wrong guy. Yeah.
Yeah. The wrong guy, you know, it's like people that come up to you.
The few people that don't know you when you guys, when you guys at a restaurant or a bar, they start trying to talk to you about something. And you'd be like, and you just let them talk because eventually at some point you just want to call them out on their bullshit.
Yeah. What about a brain massager? Big cat bought a brain massager.
Yeah. Have you ever heard of that working? Is that that little thing that goes? Yeah.
Just massage your whole scope and activate your brain. Okay.
Yeah. That's good.
Well,, listen, every time you guys step on this, hey, this is what I always say about those things, all right? If you believe they work, use them. You see a bunch of baseball players.
You see tons of baseball players. They wear the necklaces.
They wear the things around their wrists and so forth. So what's my explanation to them? If you believe it works, it works.
So I had another question about the baseball because I think it is going to be obviously a big part of Sunday Night's documentary. We're going to run this Monday, like I said.
When Michael decides to come back, what was he – because he only comes back for 17 games in the games the regular season he clearly wasn't the same guy wearing 45 until he famously switches to 23 which is all-time moment but what percentage of like peak Michael Jordan do you think he was when he's back after that year and a half layoff oh when he came back for that shortened season 70 75 best yeah and it was a crazy thing you know even at 70 75 he's probably better than 90 of the players but he wasn't he wasn't Michael he wasn't Michael Jordan right and it would you say that's because of the muscle memory I mean obviously we all know that like basketball is one of those things where the shot and the touch around the rim matters so much in timing. But in terms of the muscle mass, his body composition, was that a big hindrance when he came back for that shortened season? It definitely was a hindrance.
No question about it. No question about it.
And I've told him that. I've told that story before before too, there just wasn't enough time to make that transition, you know, not only from the body type, but also the skillset.
It's not like, it's not like going to play in a pickup game. You're literally coming back to play with the best players and against the best players in the world.
so I don't care how good you are, when you take a year and a half off, there is going to be a little slide, a little rust that needs to be worked off. The interesting part about that story is when they lost to Orlando, everybody I was sitting – it was three of us sitting in the arena.

It was myself, MJ, and one of his security guys.

And we just – he just sat there.

He just didn't want to leave.

And we were getting ready to leave, and I said, MJ, I just said, you know, I'll see you. He goes, no, I'll see you tomorrow.
So we literally started that next day. Yeah.
And then one of the biggest blessings was that he had to shoot that movie Space Jam. Right, in the dome.
Yes. You know, so he was actually in one place for a very, very long time, and we were able to build a dome for him and get all the players to come compete against him at the highest level.
So it's funny how those things all fell into place and he came back, you know, just as good, if not better, than the previous years. Did playing 36 or 54 holes of golf before a game conflict with any of your trading methods? Yeah.
You know what? That's a great question. All right? So very rarely did he do 36.
There were times that, quite a few times, that he did 18. And that was actually a part of his allowing his mind to relax.
It was his reset, but he never took it to the point where it would be a hindrance to his performance. It actually enhanced his performance.
And I have charts of all this, you know, before we had, before we had all this stuff, you know, these analytics and so forth, I would actually chart how he played the days he got the days he golfed before a game, the days he golfed after a game practices and so forth and see how he was before and how he would perform at the game and if there was an adverse effect I'd be the first one to I would be the first one to point out you you you I'm gonna I'm gonna uh prop you up for a second for people who don't know Tim Grover was MJ's Fitbit he would literally watch how many steps he took in a basketball game and chart that so when he he says he chart, he would watch and rewind and count the actual steps, which is mind blowing given today's technology that that was what you had to do. Yeah.
Well, back then, you know what, you know, most of your viewers are going to be too young to remember what a Betamax or VHS tape is, but that's what we had to do. You know, you'd get the tape.
And since I was at the games, you'd have to set the tape at the slowest speed. So you can make sure you get all six hours of it.
And then after I'd come after the game, I would literally come home and I'd have to sit and I would literally watch the game because that's how I determined what the workout was going to be the next day over the next week or what was going on.

Because I needed to know how much activity he had going in one direction, how many activity he had explosive wise, how much activity he had stopping, jumping, landing, doing all that, doing all that stuff. And, you know, and one of the things that you guys had mentioned earlier is, you know, there's this big thing about, you know, in order to, in order to be successful, you have to create balance.
You have to find somebody who's the opposite of you, you know, just the opposite of you, you know, that yin and the yang. I don't believe in that.
All right. In order to be successful, the person that should be involved in your success has to be just as fucked up as you are.
Okay. I like that.
Yeah. Yeah.
You were talking about, you know, charting his days that he would spend golfing and then, you know, correlating that to whether or not he had a better game or a worse game. Did you notice any pattern if he shot really well on the golf course that he would end up playing well that night or maybe the opposite? It was funny.
The worst golf he played, the better basketball he played. I was going to say, I wouldn't be surprised about that because it gave him more motivation.
He's out to prove himself wrong. Usually when he was out there, he wasn't playing golf by himself.
He was probably competing against somebody, and he was pissed off that he lost to him. So whoever beat him, he had to take it out on somebody else.
And whoever that was on the opposite team that they got the grunt of it yeah that um all right i have a couple last questions uh one is the famous jared jeffrey maybe not famous but jared jeffrey's story about the time that uh mj flexed on antoine walker at your gym with the ferraris and lambos. Is that true? Can you tell us what exactly happened? Yeah, so Antoine was a big car collector.
He had a bunch of cars, and he'd like to come in and show them off all the time. So what happened was, you know, Michael obviously, he would get cars that weren't even up for sale yet.
All right, So he just basically, one day he had a gentleman that took care of all his cars and everything. So he just had that guy and a bunch of people.
He said, hey, I want you to just drive this, this, and this car down. And all of a sudden they were just, it was funny.
They just surrounded Antoine's car and just to say, yeah, Antoine, that's nice. But this is what I got.
And then they would look at it and it was like, that's not even coming out for another year. Yeah, exactly.
So by the time the cars that they were getting, the cars that all the other players were showing off, those were like used cars for Michael because he had already gotten those those vehicles because you know, the companies wanted to see, you know, they wanted to have Michael as an, as a non-paid endorser in their vehicles. Right.
And all because Antoine Walker showed up with a nice car to your gym and he was like, there was a lot of, there was also a lot of shit talking going on in the gym too about it. And just, there was just, just, just his way of saying, Hey, listen, this is my world.
I'm letting you guys live in it and enjoy it for a little while. Yeah.
I've always wondered about, you know, you always hear the stories going into the World Cup usually is when it pops up.

But you hear about maybe a Brazilian soccer coach that takes his players away from their wives and girlfriends for a month leading up to the tournament. Because if you have sex, you're a worse player.
It takes like that edge off or whatever. In your experience, is there any correlation with that? Well, you know what? I've charted a lot of things.
That was one one thing I wasn't able to chart. All right.
But I've known no correlation between it one way or the other. I have not seen it, but I have no – you know, that's a question.
I know it's still prevalent in MMA and boxing and so forth, but there's no way for me, just from a scientific standpoint and from my research, I'm like, not everybody performs at the highest level when they're wound up. Sometimes other people perform better when they're unwound.
And if that's your release, then so be it. You have to figure out what works for you.
If not having, if you perform at a higher level, when you don't have sex, then don't have sex before. If you perform at a higher level, when you do, then do it.
Those are things that me as a trainer cannot determine for you. And I cannot count those reps for those individuals.
How many strokes do you take the night before, Mike? Yeah, exactly. All right, my last question.
You were there, and I'm sure this will come up in the documentary because it's probably one of the most famous MJ moments, the flu game. You are convinced it was food poisoning.
Can you tell us what you saw? 100% it was food poisoning, 100%. saying you know but obviously it just sounds better to be the flu game than the food poisoning game that just doesn't even that doesn't even you know it doesn't even roll off your tongue correctly so we were we were in you we were in utah and back then uh the team decided to stay in park city park city was not what park city is now all right so literally everything closed down at like 830.
There was no room service in the hotel. And Michael said, hey, he's hungry.
And I'm like, all right, listen, everything is closed. And then I was finally able to find, hey, Michael, I found a pizza joint that's open.
So I said, order me, order the pizza. So I ordered a pizza, the door rang.
And by then everybody knew what room Michael's was in because we had already been there for, we had already been there for a while. And I opened up the door and there's literally five guys standing out there to deliver a pizza.
All right. So I take the pizza, obviously they wanted to get a glimpse of Michael.
And you know, I handed the pizza, I paid the guys and I closed the door and I just said, man, I got a bad feeling about this. And I got a bad feeling about this.
So I, he goes, Hey, is this a pizza? I said, yeah, here's a pizza. I told Michael, I said, I got a bad feeling about this.
He was like, oh man, fuck you. I was like, okay.
So nobody, there was, there was about four of us in the room. Nobody ate the pizza, but him, Nobody.
And there was no signs of flu, anything being sick before that. And then about three o'clock in the morning, I get a call to my room and just say, hey, man, come to MJ's room.
And he's literally curled up in a fetal position. Just like, I'm like, oh, man, what happened? So we went and got the team physician at that time.
and just nobody could figure out what was going on.

And he had only eaten like a couple of slices. So you don't go from being, I've not known any flu that can hit you that fast, but I know how quickly food poisoning can hit you.
Yeah, yeah, he should have had a taster. Again, you know, his mental toughness and his mindset was just like, hey, just get me well enough so I can get I can get to the floor.
And he goes, once I get on to the court and he had told Phil, once I'm in the game and I had I had mentioned to him, too, I said, Michael, once the worst thing you can do is go in and out. once you're in the game, you got to stay.
You got to play as long as you freaking can because once you sit down, that's it. Yeah.
That's it. Yeah.
Did you guys adapt from that point moving forward? Was there always somebody that would taste Michael's food before he tasted it, like a king? Only in Utah. Only in Utah.
But you know, listen, that's, that's my story. That's what I observed.
You know, I was in the room and all this, that when this was going on. So if anybody has, if anybody had a better look than I did, I'd like to, I'd like to see who that person was because they, they definitely weren't there.
Yeah. Well, Tim, this has been awesome.
We really, really appreciate it. I'm jacked up.
I might even do some bench press after this, just pumped up from talking to you. That's awesome.
Hey, listen, with your guy's permission, I would love to offer something free to all your listeners. No charge, no anything like that.
I'm not trying to sell anything. But you guys talked about the book Relentless.
In the book, we talk about the coolers, closers, and cleaners. And we have the traits of the most competitive individuals, the Relentless 13, which you guys should read because when you see those, you'll be like, yeah, that's me, that's me, that's me.
If you go to timgrover.com slash free you you'll get the trace

of the cleaners and you'll get a you'll get a like a test to find out if you're a cooler closer or

cleaner i love it i like it i love it timgrover.com slash free i love it tim timgrover.com slash free

you guys were so gracious to me i want to do something for your audience i never go anywhere

and not be thankful for the opportunity.

I truly appreciate it.

I'm truly grateful for it.

Absolutely.

I'm ready to run through a brick wall right now.

I'm amped up.

Thanks so much, Tim.

Thank you, gentlemen.

Continued success to you.

Hockey is on.

And no matter the city, no matter the team, no matter the game, whether it's face-off or penalty shots, regular season or playoffs, win or lose, no matter what happens, no matter where it happens, amsterdam vodka is there okay uh let's do our mount flushmore and then we have our deep dive with billy football so our mount flushmore we thought uh given the recent news with the washington capitals we do the mount flushmore of bad teammates after that one capital. After that one capital.
After the former capital.

You meant former capital.

The player said was making fun of his teammate's wife um and also maybe the mj uh bullying scotty burrell and punching steve kerr but he was first of all because you get first of all shout out to the capitals for cutting the guy he was he's really an edmonton Eer. When people say the name, or whatever his name is, they think Edmonton.
They don't think Washington, D.C. So classy organization through and through, got rid of the guy that was saying that his teammate's wife was fat.
So let's do worst teammates for our—or sorry, the Mount Flushmore of teammates. Let's who starts on mondays hank hank no pft no hank hank goes on mondays hank goes on mondays goes by age henry uh my number one worst teammate i will go with tanya harding good okay good choice good choice hank i had her on my short list, too.
Do you remember? What did you say? Were you alive for Tanya? I think I might have been alive, but I recently watched the I, Tanya movie with Margot Robbie, and that really cemented her in my mind as the worst teammate of all time. What's crazy is they let her compete in those Olympics, too.
Yeah, it's insane. Yeah.
Well, I mean, at that point, it wasn't proven guilty, so it's hard to believe that she was the person that would have done such a thing. And then she got into porn.
She was like Honey Boo Boo without the skeddy. She got into fighting.
Remember she did celebrity boxing? She had a rough upbringing. Yeah.
Weird shit like that. Yeah, she was the person that they'd get on the the phone with and be like oh shit danny bonaduce has swine flu and we need a last minute replacement for iheart the 90s let's talk to tanya harding she's got nothing else going on yes uh but that's a good first choice hank i like thank you first choice hank uh my first choice i'm going to go with delante west pretty easy oh wow so mental health is not a

issue to you for reasons that we know oh i had him on my short list too i'll put it this way happy mother's day i had him on my i had my on my short list but seeing that he has like serious mental issues i'm not going to make light of it like pft just did so i actually respect mental health issues.

That's a good

story.

I think it's a

great choice.

Okay.

All right. just did so i actually respect mental health issues that's why i think i think it's a great choice um okay uh all right then i will go my first pick i will go with jeff kent jeff kent jeff kent is such a dickhead that milton bradley had to be like he's a dickhead and barry bonds had to be like he's a dickhead dickhead.
So Milton Bradley and Barry Bonds, both in Jeff Kent's career, Barry with the Giants, Milton Bradley with the Dodgers, had to be like, yeah, this guy's an asshole, even though I am the biggest asshole in the world. And just his name, like Jeff Kent, that's such an asshole name.
So Jeff Kent, number one. And Barry Bonds had four lockers, by the way.
Remember that story? He had four lockers to separate himself from his teammates. Four lockers.
Also because he had like a widescreen TV that covered up two of them or something. Huge TV and a leather chair.
That thing sounds awesome. And he was like, yeah, Jeff Kent's a bad teammate.
That guy said Jeff Kent's a bad teammate. All right.
My number two two i'll go with um i'll stay in baseball i'll go with uh john rocker says some racist stuff to his teammates a lot of uh a lot of explosive headlines not really a nice guy i'm pretty sure he called um randall simon a uh a racial slur like to his face so uh terry pendleton no i'm pretty sure Here's Randall Simon a racial slur to his face.

Terry Pendleton.

No, I'm pretty sure it was Randall Simon.

But he might have also said it to Terry Pendleton.

Let's just assume that was probably both of them.

He might have said it to both.

But yeah, really bad guy and really bad teammate.

I think that's probably pretty accurate.

You could ask anyone that played with him.

John Rocker, the crazy thing was when you see John Rocker sprint out of the bullpen, you're like, oh, fuck, this guy's coming in to close out the game. You can usually find a spot like that no matter how big an asshole you are on any team if you're that good at your job.
But he was so racist that even his best stuff was not worth it. I think he might not have had a following out with Terry Pendleton

because I just Googled Terry Pendleton and John Rocker,

and the first result was December 2, 2014.

Terry Pendleton, John Rocker, Otis Nixon, Marquise Grissom

will all be at Dave & Buster's at Marietta for an autograph signing

Friday from 6 to 8 p.m.

That is lit.

There you go.

Dave & Buster's brings everyone together. It's the great unifier.
That's unbelievable. Okay, go ahead.
All right, so my next one, I'm going to go with, I think Brett Favre was a shitty teammate because every offseason there would be like, will he come back? Won't he come back? It took like all the spotlight, put it right on him, and then he would go ahead and lose a shitload of games for your team. He would throw so many terrible, terrible interceptions.
But then if he threw one great touchdown pass at the end of any one of these games, everyone would be like, Brett Favre won us this game after putting us behind by 21 points by closing his eyes and throwing two pick sixes. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, the only counter I'd say to Brett Favre is he probably would be a fun he seems like the type of quarterback that would drink with everyone like there's quarterbacks who who won't hang out with the rest of the team Brett Favre would definitely be like where are we going to play pool tonight after a game oh he definitely be you know what the more I think about what a fun guy he probably was to hang out with this was strictly on the field so i feel like this is a bad i'd like to preemptively roast myself for this take because as i was explaining i was finding myself that was great growth you know what he'd be a fun person to go to david busters with right great growth by you there yeah i think he definitely damn it bad pick yeah and he would probably dude, just shoot your shot. Send that sext.
Like, he is the confident friend that can boost you up. Be like, dude, you got this.
Yep. And like he's not a threat in the locker room.
Like, you walk by him in the locker room, you're not intimidated in any way. You always need a guy with a smaller dick from you standing next to you in the locker room to make you look good.
Yep. Okay.
Hank, you're next too uh i will go with d'angelo russell i feel like the number one uh rule being a teammate bros before hoes you can't go outing your teammate uh like cheating on his girlfriend while you're still on the team like one of the all-time like awkward must have been the most awkward locker room situations of all time uh and then i'll go with recurring guest of the show friend of the program, butie incognito richie's had some run-ins with some teammates i'd say yeah i mean just a prank you could say it's just a prank just just hazing that happened to get out there but uh i would say if you were on that team you're probably in agreement that he was a bad teammate yeah richie's one of those guys where it's like you know the old saying saying, you want a guy like that on your team? He's like the opposite. You want him to practice on another team and then just join your team on game day.
Yes. Yes.
Yeah, exactly. When he's on your side, it's on game day.
You're probably happy, but yeah. Okay.
Good picks, Hank. Okay.
So is this my last one? No PFT recover? No, you have one, and then I have two, then you have another one. Can he recover? I'm in my own head from that last pick because it was so bad.
All right, I'm going to go with Gilbert Arenas. Carson Wentz is still on the board.
Gilbert Arenas. Okay.
Anytime you get into a situation where you pull a gun on your teammate, I feel like that's frowned upon. That was just a prank, though.
Yeah. no, I like that pick, PFT.
That's a good pick. And he was probably fun to gamble with.
Ruger can't fire if the magazine's out, so he was never in danger. Okay, good pick.
So I got my last two. I'll go...
This one's one that I don't think people fully remember, but Tony Parker fucked Brent Berry's wife when they were teammates. I don't remember that.
Yeah. Yeah.
So I think he gets bad teammate or one of the worst teammates ever because that's like you're it's pretty much confirmed that that happened. So you can't everything else.
You hear rumors when when these things happen. Pretty sure this is as close to fact as possible um so that would be my third pick and then my fourth pick i will go with bill romanowski roid rage ending his teammates career by punching him in the face uh spitting on people probably doesn't have the most uh progressive politics let's say bill romanowskipoint, he was awesome in The Longest Yard.
Yes, he was. As a prison guard, he's a great teammate to have.
Yes, he was. On the football field, maybe not.
Yes. Okay, your last pick.
My last one, this is an easy one for me. I'm going to go with Judas.
I consider Judas to be a teammate. Sold out Jesus.
All about the contract situation really really fucked things up for the rest of the world because he was so selfish wanted a couple pieces of silver to jingle around in his pocket next thing you know we're all going to hell thanks a lot yeah but let's in in counterpoint pft if judas wasn't judas like would the bible really matter like okay just kind of made it all happen right what are. Are you saying, like, they don't boo nobodies?

Is that what you're saying?

He's the straw that serves the drink.

He was the catalyst.

Like, he was the match that ignits, you know, the flame that is Christianity.

So, like, Jesus essentially joined Club 27, except he was 33.

So, like, are you saying if Jesus had lived out his career to be, like, 60, 70, 80, maybe he gets canceled later on in life? No one cares about Jesus if he doesn't die and come back, let's be honest. Right.
People start doing the, like, do we really care about David Blaine anymore? Like, dude, we've seen you make water into wine a million times. It's not that impressive.
You die a martyr or you live long enough to become a grifter. Yes.
Got it.

Hank, your last pick.

My last one, I'm surprised this one's still on the board,

but LeBron James.

Can't be fun to be his teammate. You're always in fear that if you do well, he's going to take all the credit.

If you do bad, he's probably going to trade you off the team.

I just can't imagine that it's fun to be LeBron James' teammate.

We left that one for you on purpose.

We felt that it would be best served to be on the Lockwood team.

Thank you. I just can't imagine that it's fun to be LeBron James' teammate.
We left that one for you on purpose. We felt that it would be best served to be on the Lockwood team.
I actually don't totally agree. Like Kyle Kuzma? Like Kyle Kuzma is probably miserable.
You think it's fun that he came to his team, but he's probably miserable. Just knowing that he's on the trading block always.
If we're doing counterpoints, though. And you know LeBron is the most passive-aggressive.
Like, yeah, bro, I love you, bro. And then, like, he trades your ass.
Yes, but he also got Tristan Thompson, like, $100 million, which that's pretty impressive. Yeah.
If you can become LeBron's side guy that doesn't outshine him. Yeah.
If you can become, like, LeBron's personal guy, then you're set. He has, like, one or two friends that he has to bring with him everywhere he goes so that not everyone in the locker room hates him.
If you can get into that role, then you're set for life. So who do we miss? I had Barry Bonds and Milton Bradley, but Jeff Kent, the fact that those two guys disagree with Jeff Kent kind of trumped it.
I had Carl Everett, but I wasn't sure if there was like instances of him being a bad teammate or just him being like a psycho so i didn't know the dinosaur thing yeah that's that's uh and like kicking like yeah kicking the kicking the other player and stuff but i don't know maybe he's like a good teammate that just fights you know fights for his team yeah uh i had joey slogano i don't know if he's a bad teammate or not to the people that he's on the team i just know he's a dickhead yep fact um steve smith probably deserves to be on there i feel like steve smith like kicking the shit out of a rookie was a rite of uh passage for every single training camp um michael westbrook michael westbrook latrell spreewell choking your coach never really a move that that has like camaraderie in the locker room i feel like locker room He also said that $21 million contract isn't enough to feed his family Yes, yes T.O. And he got into a fist fight with one of his teammates Yeah, T.O.
should be on there Saying Jeff Garcia is gay Saying Donna McNabb is lazy and fat Fighting with everyone um oh uh tiki barber underrated one remember how much how mean he was to to eli and then he also commented on michael strahan saying he was overpaid like he was not a good teammate yeah tk tk was just not a great not a great dude yeah leave it at that and then and then i did joke cars Wentz, but it is funny because it will trigger people because there seems to be always stories about Carson Wentz, even though I feel like he hasn't done anything wrong. One of my favorite things, there are like five people I keep seeing in replies to major Twitter accounts.
Yeah, I blocked that guy. He was so annoying.
He just kept on replying. At first it was funny.
Yeah. And then it kept going.
He has a copy-pasted Carson Wentz. Is it pro or anti? Anti-Wentz.
It's anti-Wentz being like, Carson Wentz has never won a playoff game, and he would just reply to every single sports media account and paste it. Like, if you tweet three times in five minutes, he will reply three times in five minutes i finally blocked him because i was like i can't i would just randomly have carson wentz debates going off in my mentions like i can't have this yeah it was funny the first few times i saw it because it's a long paragraph about his stats in playoff games and like certain like touchdown interception rates that he has in the fourth quarters of games.
But you're right. Like it ignited a full long Carson.

It didn't matter if you were tweeting, like if big cat,

you tweet out a picture of donuts in the morning.

If I,

if I tweeted out a video of me puking after Peloton,

it didn't matter what the context was.

There would be like a six hour long Carson wins debate that was going on.

My mentions,

which don't get me wrong.

I love just random sports debates that continue on. Like the Joe Flacco elite debate is still going on inside my own brain, but a man's got to have a line.
Yes, you have to you have to know at some point we just don't care and we reached that point a long time ago. But yeah, there's the Carson Wentz thing.
I feel like he always gets accused of the locker room not loving him. I think that really is not even that Carson Wentz is a bad guy.
I think Nick Foles just that kind kind of a cool of a guy that's what it seems like uh can i can i make a last minute petition to replace my brett farve pick because i'm so ashamed of it absolutely not absolutely not yes but it has to be kobe totally against the rules yeah good calling yeah put kobe on there no no i'm not i'm not gonna agree with that what if i do the shame walk i feel ashamed of that that is putting kobe on there is the, no. I'm not going to agree with that.
What if I do the shame walk?

I feel ashamed of that. That is putting Kobe on there is the shame walk.
I won't. I won't do that.
The block is too hot. It's true, though.
He's in the conversation. It sounds like you're picking Kobe now, Hank.
No, I mean, I'm not going to lie. The thought crossed my mind, but I was like, I'm not going to say it out loud.
Yeah. but there's an element of

I mean it's the thing we watched

with The Last Dance The thought crossed my mind, but I was like, I'm not going to say it out loud. Yeah.
But there's an element of – I mean, it's the thing we watched with the last dance. There's an element of if you win, can you be a bad teammate? I don't know if you can.
At some point, it's like the juice is worth the squeeze, right? If you get results, it goes back to the old Lane Johnson, how he was like, I'd rather play for theagles and win one than then not have fun with the patriots at some point if you get results you get results yeah i would put the lane johnson comparison doesn't makes no sense there no it does make sense because people i'm saying in defense of the patriots being like a miserable place to to play but you can't really call it a miserable place if you win a championship.

Like you can't call someone a bad teammate if they win championships overall.

Saying like if New England was, you know, the way that it is right now

and just like very tough to play for and they only won one Super Bowl,

would that be worth it?

Probably not a lot of veterans would go there trying to win a Super Bowl

because it's such a miserable place.

But if you can repeat it, repeat it, then it's worth it. Right.
And if you have a guy like Michael Jordan who probably belittles you and makes fun of you, it's worth it if you win championships every year. I also had Jeff Kent on here.
I had Jared Leto would be one in terms of the film industry. He seems like a real dickhead to make a film with where when he was getting into character for the joker he was sending people like all sorts of fucked up dead animals and stuff and just like trying to get real artistic with a cartoon character um get out of here dude yeah that one's good um i'm trying to think who in the film in hollywood i bet you christian bale doesn't seem like an easy guy to get along with.
No, he's not. And he's Welsh.
No, but that's a results thing. That's a results.
He gets results. His movies are fire.
True. Good point.
That's a good counterpoint. True.
If you're part of it, you're going to get yelled at. But, okay.
All right. It's kind of like Daniel Day-Lewis would probably be weird as shit to hang out with during a movie, but you know that you're getting that Oscar nod later.
Right, right. Okay, let's do our Billy Deep Dive.
Hey, what's going on there, pal? We saw you at the hockey game on. Do I know you guys? I'm Ryan Whitney.
I got a drink named after me. Not a big deal.
Pink Whitney? That's what I thought. See you, fellas.
I invented the thing, you pigeon. Pink Whitney for legendary moments.
Okay, we finish up Monday's show. We got deep dive with our intern slash son, Billy Football.
He has a very special topic today, something that's been in the news, something that I'm ready to challenge one-on-one to a fight. It's murder hornets.
Billy, before we do murder hornets, though, how is, like, what's going on in the the berserker bunker give us a status update on the kittens the raccoons you're trying to catch the muscle you're trying to put on squat rack the squat rack the berserker blood cult just give us a quick rundown of the last like week okay so the kittens just got their shots on saturday they do not have feline aids or um leukemia which is good they've tripled i mean they've doubled in size since the last time i took them to the vet they came in underfed barn kittens whose mother had abandoned them i mean had died and now they are fat fat cats that that was like how did they double in size you need to make sure they don't double in size again or they will be overweight and i was like no they're accumulating mass yeah gains they're getting gains and he was like no these cats are fat and you know i love the idea of billy arguing with a vet yeah they're just getting more lean protein than you're used to like Clearly, your vet doesn't go to the bodybuilding.com forums.

Yeah, bodybuilding.com is where I learn how to take care of kittens.

But then I was sitting at my dinner table eating dinner with my mom one night,

and out of the corner of my eye, I just see this giant, look like a baby bear,

straight up probably like as big as a cooler or bigger than a cooler big thing of fur and I'm like, holy shit, what is that? I look, it's a freaking giant trash panda, freaking raccoon, giant walk across my porch. I'm like, holy shit.
Like, if it was a, like, I've seen raccoons before, and if it was a small raccoon, whatever. But this thing was the biggest raccoon I've ever seen in my life.
It looked like a small black bear. I've seen the trap.
The trap would not fit the size of raccoon that you saw. The trap is about...
I would say... The rac would get in there and it would get trapped but i couldn't that was the biggest trap they had at this point right at this point i'd have to big like dig a giant pit we put spikes at the bottom and make like a tiger trap but don't do that i'm not i'm gonna kill the raccoons by the way i just wait at them out of the porch so so billy um raccoons to me always strike me as like a very cute pest to have though i'd rather have an infestation of raccoons than an infestation of like spiders or opossums you know i'm saying so like what what inconvenience is this raccoon putting on you that you have to get rid of it well one of my um responsibilities is I don't have to do dishes.
I, you know, I cook occasionally. My responsibility is trash.
My big job is trash. I take out the trash.
I deal with the trash Sunday night, uh, Tuesday night and Thursday night trash. So I'm in charge of the trash.
I am in charge of the trash bags. So when I come down like on a, you know, a Friday morning, a Monday morning in a row and just see my trash cans, absolutely trash everywhere.
And I have to clean up trash off on that. That's, that's your fault.
You got to secure your trash better. Here, I got two bungee cords.
This is a jacked up raccoon. Damn.

Wait. But that's your fault.
You got to secure your trash better. I got two bungee cords.
This is a jacked up raccoon. Damn.
Wait, Billy, Billy, I feel like there's a great solution here. Why don't you capture the raccoon, bring it in and have it lead workouts for your cats? If you really want to get your cat swollen, what better workout instructor than just modeling their life after a jack jacked up raccoon this raccoon has definitely been eating like my leftover supplements because it is i'm telling you this thing is a monster like i i couldn't find a pellet gun that could take down this record i'm not gonna kill the raccoon it's no you're just gonna re-home it i'm gonna re i'm gonna relocate it somewhere that's not right under my porch but this thing would kill kill, like, kill a kitten, a cat.
This thing is giant. I can't believe how big this thing is.
When I catch it, so I put marshmallow fluff. Turns out they love marshmallows and, like, sweet candy because I tried with fish.
It didn't really work out, but it was a big storm that night. So I think they didn't come out.
But, yeah, when I catch this raccoon, it's getting shipped out of here. It's getting deported.
Hmm. Okay.
So I did see you try to wash the marshmallow fluff off your hands. That seems like it was a situation you didn't really think through before you got into it.
Well, I was trying to – dude, fluff, it just didn't really work. It was a mess.
But we're going to catch the raccoon it'll all be worth it I also I just got a squat rack I'm setting up right now that's why I was late to the call I had to go get certain you know wedge tools that's interesting now Billy we were streaming Call of Duty the other day and you said it would be guaranteed done in the next 24 hours this is on friday well i also started i just started today wait also very interesting because you just came 10 minutes late to the call and you said sorry i was running an errand for my mom well i went to walmart where i could the quickest you've been ever caught in a lie. I went to Walmart.
I did a couple of things. I got stuff for my mom and I got some tools I needed.
Okay. It's a one-stop shop.
Okay. So when, when does the 24 hours start Billy? Cause I've had my own personal hell experience with a squat rack and I knew, I knew how overconfident you sounded.
I'm just curious. When does that 24 hours start? I'm going to do.30.
I'm going to finish it right after I hopped off. I'll go finish it right now.
No, no, no. Okay, we believe you.
All right, so let's do Murder Hornets. I don't.
Let's do Murder Hornets. Billy, I want to learn about Murder Hornets because I think they're frauds and we could fuck them up if we had to.
Absolutely. Okay, good.
Murder Hornets have been on my radar since 2006, since they in the guinness world of records in 2006

i was re i would get guinness world of records every year on my birthday it was one of my yearly gifts um it was like a consistent one um i loved reading them and murder hornets was on there so i was like okay let's see they're japanese giant hornets two inches long they frequent the mountains of Japan and there's some in China

and they're widespread.

So I read about them.

So I'm like okay now back when i was that age you know it was before sports were really part of my world because it's just too young i mean i like sports but like i animals were more tangible to me as a young child than sports because there weren't that many leagues and i'd play but it'll just be with my my friends. We get it, Billy.
Yeah, we were into animals before we started playing sports. We're not going to take your man card.
You know what? Take my man card. I put it off on the man.
Take your boy card. You were six at the time? Yeah.
Billy's apologizing for not playing tackle football as a three-year-old. As a seven-year-old.
Okay. so I did some research on it

and I was like, I knew about invasive species back then. I was a little more, I was a little smarter than your average seven year old when it came to biology and whatnot.
So I was like, could this become an invasive species? And they're like, the reproduction rates of the murder hornets are not that high compared to other hornets because they're so large. So, you know, one of the reasons why, you know, woolly mammoths went extinct was because their reproduction rates and with elephants is so much slower than other animals.
So they couldn't keep up with the deaths. So I was like, okay, this, and then there's Japanese bees, honeybees and how they, this is how they deal with the murder hornets.
Now the murder hornets pose a bigger risk to our honeybee populations than they do humans so what the bees do is they all crowd they all land on one hornet the first horn to get their hive they all land on it you know form a mosh pit on top of it and get so hot that they cook the murder hornet till it dies and the murder hornet can't fly back to its nest and tell the other murder hordes, yo, let's go run a fade on some honeybees. So they catch the first one, kill it.
And I'm like, okay, if a bunch of bees can do this, the Japanese bees, then worse comes to worse, you know, we get some Japanese honeybees and start working them into our American honeybee populations. And one of the reasons why the American honeybees have so much issue, you know, it's not that issue, but why they need so much help to produce honeys because they're also a non-native species.
So American honeybees, there's no such thing as an American honeybee. They're all just European honeybees that were brought over in 1622, right after the Mayflower.
Wow. Kind of like us.
Yeah. Like us.
So, you know, all honeybees are immigrants. There's, you know, the best thing about American honeybees is well now the, actually the real bee we need to be scared of is the Africanized honeybee, which is super aggressive.
And it was actually, it was basically what happened was in Brazil, the European honeybee was having a hard time producing honey because it couldn't handle the various ecosystem and the types of other insects in the Amazon, which is in Brazil. So they brought over African honeybees and they were crossbreeding them with European honeybees in the lab to make a more hardy tropical bee that could also produce honey to the same standard.
You still with me? Yep. Yeah.
We're talking about killer bees here, right? So the Africanized honeybees are actually killing people because they swarm way more aggressively. So think about animals that live in Africa that like honey, right? Honey badger.
The honey badger. Exactly.
So honey badger don't give a shit. Honey badger takes what it wants.
He don't give a shit Honey Badger takes what it wants He doesn't give a fuck So these bees evolved to fight the Honey Badger Like Tyron Matthew Doesn't give a fuck, takes the ball You know what I'm saying So because of that, they're a much more aggressive bee So the Brazilians brought it over to the lab It's like the sec they play against superior opponents and so therefore

their level of competition goes up got it of course so you know the brazilians brought them over um crossbred them with european honeybees anyway they got out of the lab and they've been a huge invasive species because they're so much more aggressive they basically were looking for a little more aggression but got way too much anyway now they're in the uh the the southern u.s so texas florida um arizona new mexico and you know they're coming up through the southern border and they are like actually causing a ruckus you know they're actually like people there's people getting stung so wait what does this have to do with the murder hornet well these are the bees you should actually be worried about oh okay so you just did a little okey-doke on us you're like hey you guys murder hornets are the hotness but really what we should be worried about is something way worse yeah yeah no the murder hornets aren't gonna do shit i mean like you know american honey producers have been have known about the murder hornets for like at least 2006 and they definitely are making you know preparation like basically the american honeybee being in trouble is basically like a farmer saying, oh, a wolf is attacking my sheep. They're basically a livestock animal.
They're not like a wild animal. Got it.
Is there anything us normal people should keep in mind if we ever encounter one of these murderous bees? We should sit on them until they overcook and then they die. Just start vibrating.
Just vibe with it. Everyone just carry around a Hitachi magic wand.
Sibian all around your necklace. And then if they get to you.
I actually saw that special Billy's talking about where the honeybees vibrate so quickly like little pocket rockets that they heat this bee up. They'll horn it up to like 120 degrees and it just melts from the inside.
It's pretty badass. But Billy, I want to throw a flag on your fear porn too because as someone that's been around for a little bit longer than you, I remember growing up, everyone told us to be afraid of killer bees.
Like, oh, they've reached the American Southwest. They're finally here.
Killer bees are going to murder everyone. And so we've been told that that's going to happen for like 30 years and never did.
I'm beginning to suspect that the media likes to write stories and put things on the news that make people a little bit upset. Well, in my defense, you should look at the statistics.
Ever since then, the bee attack death rates in the US have gone up. But talking about the murder hornet death rates in China, only 50 people in 2018 or 2017 died in China of murder bee stings.
Now, that's a lot of people, 50. But more people in China die trying to take selfies than the murder hornets.
Good. I like that.
That's a good stat. I don't know what the exact stat on the selfies is, but it more than 100 i remember reading it um so you know selfies are more dangerous than the murder hornets to the chinese and think about how many people are in china so 50 out of like a billion like that's not that bad no that's that's very small the murder hornets aren't a problem but the africanized bees on the other hand have been killing more people per capita in the u.s already billy i do I do like that, though.
Like, clout is more deadly overall than honeybees are. Billy, back to Hank's question.
If we did see a murder hornet, what should we do? Should we just, like, keep our microwave open at all times to try to catch them and zap them? Like, what's the protocol? Dude, I... Just care.
Just fuck them up? Just fuck them up, dude. Just take your bug zapper.
That's what I'm saying so you're saying attack when in doubt attack don't run away you curb stomp it with a tim you're gonna kill it it's not like but should we you know how you're not supposed to if you piss off a bee they'll come and try to attack you a bumblebee won't do shit but a regular bee will do you leave it alone or do you go at it just leave it alone i mean these hornets are not actually you know they're not as aggressive as other bees they're more aggressive towards honeybees if you were walking around and you weren't they wouldn't do anything to you so So if any of our listeners right now are honeybees, be worried. Otherwise, you're good.
Yes, exactly. Okay.
Can you do a little disambiguation for us? Because I've seen conflicting reports saying watch out for the murder hornet sting or watch out for the murder hornets bite. Do they bite or do they sting as hornets they don't lose their stingers when they sting unlike bees so every time they sting you they're not you know committing suicide so the sting does have venom it's the sting is bad i'm not gonna lie the sting is bad if from what i've read it feels like a hot nail being driven into your skin i mean look bad but you know they're that's their atomic you know that's their atomic option they're not going to use it like a honeybee a honeybee is sees itself as a part of a hive whereas the hornet has more individuality and isn't as threatened their hives are smaller than a honeybee so they're not recklessly stinging everybody but they're not going to die so they will use it they're just they're a large animal like you know how they say um uh they say like you know daddy long legs have the most poisonous venom but they never bite anybody same type of thing they're just not going to bite you okay all right so so yeah so we're we're set but the Africanized bees are bad.
Okay. Yeah.
Okay. I got it.
So you just replaced one fear with another. Well, World War B, we have Japanese bees.
We crossbreed the Japanese bees with the American bees, and we just become a melting pot of bee populations. And then the Japanese bees' idea of, like, the vibrating will kill the murder hornets.
And then the Africanized bees will mix into the population, the population too and then our bees will be just as aggressive as the africanized bees and push them back south so it's a sided war there was a politician back in the 90s named bulwark who said that like our solution is just everyone needs to keep fucking each other until we're all the same color and then there's no more racism. That's the American bees.
Okay. All right.

Well, Billy, thank you as always.

Good luck with the squat rack.

I know Hank will be watching.

And everyone follow his trash panda capture that's going on.

Really quickly, Big Cat, you need to learn how to read a damn defense.

Yeah, no, it's bad, dude.

No, he already texted me.

He already texted me. It's bad.
I just run my offense. Keep that in-house, dude.
I run the same plays over and over. Yeah, well, just look at the way they're in offense.
Run that play. Just open your eyes, dude.
Nah, just open your eyes, man. I won't immediately get on the phone with you and be like, that's a cover three.
Attack the scene. Nah, I don't know how to call more than three plays.
Hot corner stuff, dude. Do you think that maybe Coach Doug has a problem like he can't delegate? He needs to hire an offensive coordinator underneath him.
My problem is I have three plays. I like to run them over and over and over and eventually they don't work.
You can run them over and over, but you just got to figure out why the play's working. Oh, this play works because they're running a cover too.

And then you can choose.

I made a mistake.

I could have won the game.

I made a mistake, dude.

You don't tell – you don't text me after I beat Florida State, did you?

You throw into a –

You didn't text me after I beat Florida State.

He was wide open.

Sounds like you're a Fairweather Duggs fan.

I'm not a Fairweather Duggs fan.

I just feel like bothering you because, you know, you're a busy man and you need help. You need help.
Yeah, I mean, I suck. I don't know what you want to say.
I suck. It's not that you suck, but you're not figuring out the reason why the plays are working.
Oh, I like to run this play because they keep running. Like, if they keep lining up in a cover two when you're in a hurry-up offense and you're running the same play over and again,'s why if you if you run a hurry up offense you don't get to use your whole playbook yeah but you like using the same play every time so right so why to set your audible is to be one of those i just like running the same place yeah so if it's billy how do you diagnose a cover two from the line of scrimmage you just see two safeties drop look at their body language and you it's like it's very easy yeah i'm just gonna keep playing and losing and throwing interceptions a lot more fun that way it's just so infuriating people yeah people get like you who get mad at me and i don't really care i'm sorry but it's just like it's legit like it's like watching someone like headbutt a wall yeah i would watch that yeah it's like gus ferr, exactly.
Like, that puts asses in seats, Billy. That's part of the charm.
Yeah, if I win, everyone's like, boo, this sucks. You won by a million.
Then turn the difficulty up. It's all the way up, you idiot.
Well, then read the goddamn defenses. What? I just told you.
Look, all you got to do is like, oh. Billy, now you're headbutting a wall.
Yeah. There's two guys up, and there's three guys up.
It's like, anyway, I'm ranting. I might start breaking down.
Steven Shea's already done that. Yeah, but I...
Oh. Did he play football? What? Oh, good question, Billy.
What did you ask? Did he play college football? No. Oh.
So – He said put a jersey on. Does he have the same brain damage I do? No.
Talk about that stuff. Interesting.
Interesting. Yeah.
You want to see my accreditation?

I don't need it. It's right here.

Alright, Billy.

Thank you. We will see you

next week or maybe see you for some

Dungeons and Dragons that we've got coming up.

Oh, yeah. Can I bring a sledgehammer?

Yes.

Yeah, sure. Absolutely.

I won't bring the axes, but I'll bring the sledgehammer.

I love it. That's a tool, not a weapon.
So, yes, you can carry that. All right.
Love you guys. Yo, this game comes to rock.
Talking away. I don't know what I'm to say.

I'm saved anyway.

Today's a night.

Day to find me.

Shining away.

I'm coming for your lover.

Take on me.