The Grizzlies’ Future, the Devers Trade, NBA Draft Takes, and a Kon Knueppel Interview | With Chris Vernon, Joe House, and Kevin Hench

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This is my third podcast of the week.

It's mid-June.

A lot of of stuff going on you know raphael devers got traded by the red sox uh i have con con knipple coming up later um who is gonna looks like going to be in the top five of the lottery so i wanted to talk to him uh there's reasons for that which we'll get into and then at the top chris verna and i were arguing about the desmond bain trade for uh two days and we finally decided to have it on the podcast.

We brought in Joe House, who has a pretty amazing golf story to start off.

And we talked about the Memphis trade, Orlando.

We talked about golf and a really weird U.S.

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We talked about the NBA drafts, some of the odds that are happening, and then some of the perceptions of the city of Memphis, which Vernon was very passionate about because that was in the news this week.

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All right, taping this close to dinner time.

Chris Vernon and his here at Joe House is here.

And this is the fourth pot of the week, or it's going to be because I had another one Thursday night.

But we were all arguing on tax.

We have other guys.

There's just too much sports going on.

It's like, fuck it, let's just keep doing podcasts.

Uh, Vernet was scolding me about my opinions on the Desmond Bain trade because he's in Memphis.

We're making front of house because he passed out on a golf course.

What happened to you last week, House?

Tell the audience what happened to you last week.

I didn't pass out on the golf course.

It was the hottest day of the year here in the DMV, Washington, D.C.

And you add in the humidity, and it was a long round.

It was a, you know, my little club here in the neck of the woods.

And we

were out there and I was, you know, enjoying a couple of gentlemen's beverages as one might with his with his buddies, with his pals, and came off the golf course.

Okay, I was tired.

And I just shower and everything, drove myself home, no problem.

I meet my family for dinner and I sit down and what do I do?

Order another cervas, of course.

Got it, I'm in a Mexican restaurant.

And I'm eating my, my, uh, my shrimp taco salad.

And the next thing you know, I'm like, oh, man, I feel a little lightheaded.

I'm not feeling great right now.

now you were gonna have like a stroke or a heart attack no no no no no it was just it was like a little fear like a fainting spell like a little spell i was having a spell and then i was like i should get up and try and get some fresh air let me get up out of this chair and i go like this i'm on the video the boys can see it and i go

like this and i'm back down and then i i look up and mama's like bruh we are calling an ambulance don't you move don't move because you you you close your eyes there for about 10 seconds and i was like like, I'm fine.

I'm fine.

Let me get up and walk home.

Just help me get to the car.

I'm fine.

Like, I didn't really lose

consciousness and I was lucid enough to have a conversation.

And then they brought all the responders.

They had to clear the poor people trying to have their burritos on the patio.

It was a nice evening when the sun set.

Golfer was dropping dead in the course.

It was fine.

It was fine.

They hooked me up, but all I needed was the IV.

They put me in the thing.

They gave me some IV.

I was like, oh, hey can i go home now please verno is this drunk house dehydrated house what version of house is this iv

i have i have so many questions so wait is this at the restaurant it's a restaurant this was like two hours after i was done playing golf is your kid with you yeah that was so he got upset that was

tormenting me child

this is this is this man

to have a great time on the golf course i will say this i do i did start taking a medicine that has the effect of um reducing either uh liquid you know whatever a diuretic uh and that the it is a natural dehydrate natural dehydration thing and i had worked out in the morning and i hadn't really uh hydrated from the workout and then i went to play golf and i didn't really i would say i did the opposite of hydrate while i was playing golf did you get admitted to the hospital like were you mean by admitted i mean i went to the er

you did you went to the how long did it take you to get that nurse i saw that nurse

How long?

No time.

I was on a thing.

You were in the,

they rolled me right in.

Yeah.

Because I was

so it sounds like

look, one IV here and one IV here.

Yeah, I had it, but I was like, oh, they gave me eight bags.

I was there for five hours.

Eight bags.

But you know, I saw the doc.

The doc's like, I was like, what are my restrictions?

What should I be worried about?

You can go live your life, son.

Go do your best thing.

How about this?

Don't drink a whole bunch of vodka seltzers out on the golf golf course without mixing it in the water here and there.

What did you shoot?

I actually played great.

I mean, it was such an advertisement.

My usual, severe dehydration.

My mid-80s kind of thing.

I was happy with my ball off the tea.

Great tea ball all day long.

It does get crazy hot in the DMV, not the defense.

It was the humidity, and I had not had anything to eat or drink over the course of the day.

I'm a big dummy.

What can I say?

It was really that medication that I didn't understand the impact of it.

Wow.

He's like,

it's a new situation.

This is a PSA.

Electrolytes.

I need electrolytes.

Oh, hey, hey, yeah, PSA, Bill.

Don't mix pills and alcohol.

Like, we all needed that PSA.

The pills are already part of the program.

I didn't mix it.

I just didn't understand the impact of it.

I've only been taking them for a couple months.

It sounds like I need to get rid of Parent Corner and just add old corner.

Old man corner.

They were not boner pills for the record.

Not that I'm against those.

I'm just telling you, that's not not the pill that caused the problem that was that in this instance

hey when when you come out here at the end of august let's just get colonoscopies together let's really let's let's go let's go full tout let's embrace our ones i'll get another all right i'm happy to get as many as you want if you haven't got yours yet we'll do it i'm happy well verno verno had his version of a colonoscopy in the form of they traded the third best player of the grizzlies for four picks at a swap, which he's now defending as like the greatest.

This is like the new new version of the Paul George Kawhi trade.

You're just on every ringer podcast.

No, I did not do that.

What I did do was defend that this is,

if any other team makes this trade, everybody loves this trade.

That's the way this goes, right?

If you get that kind of value for a non-all-star player, Everybody loves this trade, especially one, by the way, a non-all-star player that's on a full-on max $200 million contract who has four years left of that, right?

If that's not good enough for your team with what you have, then

if I would have told anybody

two weeks ago that

they are going to trade Desmond Bain and that that's the level of return that they will get from Desmond Bain, nobody would have believed it.

But then when it happens, it's like, wow, this is going to be great for Orlando, which I agree.

I think it's going to be great for Orlando, right?

But if you are getting

that Phoenix pick next year, you're getting the 16th pick in next Wednesday's draft, the 16th pick, which is not a bad pick.

Congratulations.

There's a lot of players.

Last year's 16th pick was Jared McCain.

Three years ago, it was Alper and Shengun.

So just don't tell me that you can't get a good player with 16.

You got to hit it.

You have to hit it.

But that's not a bad, that's that's a good range for the draft to be in.

Next year's Phoenix pick, who knows what that can be.

Well, isn't that, that's the, that's the worst one of a Phoenix Washington swap, right?

So it'll be the, whatever is a little worse, you get that one.

It'll be Phoenix's because Washington's is, I think, eight protected.

I think it's protected through eight.

But so eight will be, it will be Phoenix's pick.

Okay.

Um, and who knows where they're going.

And then I understand what you're saying about like, well, and they're going to be good.

So those picks won't be good.

But all I would tell you is, if there's anything we have learned in the NBA, it's that we never, ever know.

Two years ago, the Grizzlies won 56 games, then they won 51.

Then they had a lottery pick where they took Zach Eady D last year.

No one would have, we never thought we were going to be having a lottery party ever again, right?

And then it happens.

And to wit,

this year, this year,

the number one pick in the draft is a team we watched a year ago in the NBA Finals.

The number three pick in the draft is the Philadelphia 76ers

who got Paul George last offseason.

So all I would say is, and look, I expect Orlando has got a great young core.

I think they should be very good.

But all I would tell you is you never know.

And those assets are real.

And you use those assets.

If the Grizzlies don't take the assets that they just got from Desmond Bain and then their cap room and everything else they have and don't improve their roster greatly,

then it's a failure, right?

But this is, in my opinion, step one of what is going to be an offseason where they build out around John Morant and Jaron Jackson Jr.

Now, if you want to argue that that's a stupid thing to do, that's fine.

I disagree with that.

I think it's a smart thing to to do because you've put those guys with a myriad of different lineups in the past.

And every time they've won, every time, when they've been healthy, they have won.

And in fact, they were two games separated from being the three seed this year.

So what if Memphis would have been the three seed this year?

Then what?

Then would people be talking about possibly, oh, is this blowing it up?

Oh, they shouldn't build around these guys.

Oh, like two games?

And by the way, from February 15th on, the season went to absolute hell and they fired their coach.

Right?

True.

So, I mean, I would just say, and the other thing is, Desmond Bain has gotten more love in the last three days than Desmond Bain has gotten in five years.

Five years.

I've been watching him every night, rooting for him every night.

I love Desmond Bain.

But people have talked about Desmond Bain more in a loving and glowing way since he got traded from Memphis than they ever did when he was playing in Memphis.

And the reason I attacked you is because you and Ryan were having your little Memphis hatred party that you guys have.

And

he hates, he hates, he, he, you don't like Jaron.

He doesn't like Ja.

And Desmond Bain suddenly became a guy.

You said I was just at the NBA Finals and I watched Desmond, or I watched those games.

and Desmond Bain's the kind of guy that could play 35 minutes in that game.

I stand by it.

We played Oklahoma City.

We played him.

Like that happened.

We did play them.

And he was 20 for 72 and two and 7 for 32 from three and couldn't dribble against any of them.

So we played that team, the team that's like

the mountain.

like the one that you have to climb in as we think in the Western Conference.

Like we played them and he was,

I mean, he was pitiful.

He passed out in a Mexican restaurant, like House?

He passed out in a Mexican restaurant.

He made an IV.

Well, I would just remind you that Jaron Jackson was also horrendous in that series and shot 37% at 20 rebounds total in four games.

So, if we're going to, I think everybody looks bad against OKC.

That's not a judge.

My personnel moves.

House, what was your take when you heard about the trade?

I loved it for Orlando, obviously.

And I think that is the main reason for why the glow up of Bane is occurring.

It's like in this context where it's like, oh, wow, that's a perfect fit for Orlando.

This guy's going to fit in seamlessly.

And, you know, it's all the positive aspects of Bane.

And so I think, Berno, that's that's the love that you're seeing.

It's like, put him in that context.

Okay, we get it.

But

one of those dreadful

Fox shows in the morning, and they had a guy on there, and he's like, oh, Bane is a perfect 3 and D guy.

And now this gives Orlando one of the best defensive backcourts.

And I'm like, what?

It's like saying you added C.J.

McCollum and you, right?

Like, that was the Memphis problem, right?

Is that you had, you basically had the new age version of Lillard and McCollum, where you have two diminutive guards,

both outstanding players, right?

But it's really hard to build, like to, unless you are, and especially when they all start getting paid.

Like every team's going to go through this where it's like, where it's time to pay up for the guys.

And it's like, man, those three have to be good enough or else, because you're not going to have good enough players on the rest of the roster.

Like, you have to hit everything.

Without the rest of the roster.

That's why Rouse likes it.

But I like it for Memphis because, yes, it creates the flexibility to do Triple J in a long-term kind of deal.

Oh, and slack him down.

I'm a Triple J fan.

Well, you never

rebound when you played pickup.

Also, Bill,

he's been a defensive player of the year.

But also, thank you to you.

No, thank you to you and all of your voting brethren.

You just enabled Memphis to be able to really build out a roster.

It's $200 million

difference.

Literally $200 million.

That's amazing.

That's amazing.

But that's, he would have been eligible for a five-year, $345 million contract if he would have made third team all NBA.

I think he missed it by one vote.

So thank you to you.

Thank you to you.

Is that true?

See, this is like Windhorse looks at all this stuff.

I don't want to know any of this when I'm voting.

I don't want to know like what the ramifications are.

I don't want that power.

Now, like they can renegotiate this next year.

He's on the books for 23.

They can renegotiate that year, but now instead of his eligible extension now becomes four years, $147 million.

Instead of five years, $345 million.

That's pretty.

And so

obviously.

Obviously.

If I'm paying him four years, $147, I feel great about that.

If I'm paying him five years, $300, I don't feel great about that at all, House.

That's a good deal.

And here's the aspect of it that i like for for memphis jalen wells is a dude and what desmond bain moving on means is we're going to see a lot of jalen wells like i i think his come up is going to like the replacement level that he's going to be able to to to put on the table and they are guaranteed a lottery pick so it's a trade in my estimation where you're freeing up jalen wells to become the player that he can become and you have a guaranteed lottery pick all those other picks that's like currency for more deals that climb is going to be be wheeling the dealing as

he does.

But really, here's why the trade makes sense for Memphis.

Lottery pick next year, Jalen Wells,

you know, with a more prominent role.

That's why it makes sense to me.

They also are going to go get that wing.

You know that that has been their search, right?

They tried to get OG and Anobi.

They tried to get Mikkel Bridges.

They tried to get

last year.

They literally were at the finish line with Darian Finney Smith, who would have been amazing for their team.

And, of course, Brooklyn leaks the trade, which was Kennard and Conchar and a pick, and then gets a better deal from the Lakers, right?

So they leaked out the trade that was already set, that that was ready to go down, and then canvassed the area and got what they thought was a better deal from the Lakers, okay?

So if we're following this, right, whether it was Mikkel Bridges, whether it was OG and Adobi, they they obviously, you know, kicked the tires on Jimmy Butler.

And Jimmy Butler went to literally anybody that had an opportunity to say, I don't want to go to Memphis and said that on air, whether it was Mark Spears, whether it was On and On, right?

They kicked the tires on Durant,

right?

And that couldn't happen last year.

Like they made an offer for Durant.

So you know that they look at it and they go, we have John Morant.

We have Jarrett Jackson Jr.

We need a wing player to go along with the game.

Can they trade back for Desmond Bain?

Right.

Stop, stop.

They need a wing like Desmond Bain, it sounds like.

They get a 6'5 guy who's a 40% three-point shooter, 20% a game, and a 5-bits a game.

Okay, well, if we still had Desmond Bain, you'd have the under for the Grizzlies next year.

So you didn't think it was a good player.

You know what?

Because your best guy plays 40 to 50 games a year.

That's why I would have the under.

Your best guy doesn't play.

I mean, he played 50 this past year.

Do you want to go through his games?

I got a year.

I got four.

We know.

2022, 57.

2023, 61.

2024, 9.

2025, 50.

Hold on.

Your best guy doesn't play.

No, no, 61 would have been a lot more if he would have gotten suspended.

I was just saying.

I mean, that was.

He's never played 68 games in a season.

He's been in the league six fucking years.

Like, at some point, you are who you are.

But when he does, this is what I would argue.

When he does,

he is absolutely awesome and they win.

This is not Lamello.

This is not Zion.

This is not other guys that get thrown in that same mix.

When he plays, they win at an extremely high rate and he performs at an insanely high level.

All right.

Would you, House?

Are you worried about either of these numbers?

Three-point shooting the last three years for him: 30.7, 27.5, 30.9.

Free throw attempts by year, 8.1, 7.1, 6.4.

So I have somebody getting less to the line who still can't shoot threes, who any good defense knows that he's just going to go fly into the rim and do the thing where he jumps in the air and double clutches.

I just haven't seen him improve as an offensive player.

Now, I understand the success rate thing, but if you're telling me you're building around a star scorer who doesn't play all the time and a star big man who does a rebound.

I just don't know what your ceiling is.

How?

So you'd be the same.

Then how are they tiebreaker?

Then how are they good?

Just tell me.

How were they good?

How were they good?

You tell me.

You were there.

No, they were 42.

4 games 34 last year.

So how?

They don't have any good players.

They don't have anybody that anybody likes except Desmond Bayne, who just got traded.

Evidently, everybody loves Desmond Bayne now.

It is crazy, Bernard.

The reason that they were good is because they ran a great offense.

they are a a tremendous three-point shooting team with a bunch of guys that nobody's heard of good depth too

at every position they don't really have good depth but taken in scotty pippen and canard and

they started two

they started two rookies like last year

But last year they won 48 games, right?

They won 48 games.

John Morant played 50 games.

They got literally zero, zero, less than zero out of Marcus Smart.

negative return on the smart deal, right?

That was a bad deal that they paid for, okay?

And they started the 39th pick and the ninth pick in a,

by all accounts, horrendous draft and somehow won 48 games.

So somebody is good is what I'm saying.

Somebody's good.

You know who else is good?

Taylor Jenkins.

You want him to be the Knicks coach?

No, that was.

I don't.

That was another one.

Every time somebody leaves town, Verno is kicking them hard in the butt on their way out.

That's not true, John.

I love these guys.

I love Taylor Jenkins.

I love Desmond Bain.

So, why'd you fire him?

You just told me you overachieved.

Because here's the deal.

With Taylor Jenkins, once I don't understand what all took place, but like they brought in, they brought they brought in a bunch of, like, after

the last season, they brought in a bunch of assistant coaches.

They installed this new offense.

John Morant hated it.

Desmond Bain hated it.

Like, interestingly enough, like it did not accentuate the talents of these guys.

So, I mean, they could have won even more.

And then

the defense went to absolute hell, and you never beat anybody good.

All of those 48 wins were generally against bad teams, under 500 teams.

Or somebody

best guy was hurt that

way.

And then your second part of your schedule, right?

The second part of the schedule, it got hard, and they were losing all the time.

And they went from the two seed all the way down to the play in, right?

Where they're at the eight seed.

And you guys know as well as I do, right?

The players aren't going to get blamed, right?

And now, I mean, look, obviously there is, at least they're making a move and they're saying it's not good enough roster-wise, right?

But this is where I push back.

And we can let House be the tiebreaker.

I'm good with the Desmond Bain trade if you keep going now

and you just completely blow it up, which is what you said you don't want to do.

I would trade Jaron Jackson next.

I would.

For what?

What are you doing now?

Where are you going next?

No.

Where are you going?

What planet am I on where blowing it up is a smart way to build your basketball team right now?

We just got done talking about how the number one pick.

Cooper flag is going to play in Dallas.

And Dylan Harper is going to play in San Antonio.

And Ace Bailey or Concinipple or whoever is going to be playing in Philadelphia.

Okay.

Ask Utah how good it is to blow it up.

Ask New Orleans how good it is to blow it up.

Do you think Utah is in a good spot right now, Bill?

Do you think Memphis is in a good spot right now?

They were just two games away from the three seed.

All right.

They're not 20 games away.

They're two.

House, what do you think the finals odds are for Memphis on FanDuel for next year to win the title?

Too low.

To win the title?

Yes.

60 to 1.

65 to 1.

110 to 1 on Fandu.

Wow.

That's disrespectful.

It's like, we're two weeks away.

I hope we trade for Jalen Brown.

I really do.

That would just send you into an absolute tizzy.

What's the trade?

Make us an offer.

We will.

We might.

We might.

You never know.

Well, that's the thing.

If you're telling me you're going to take all these assets plus Gigi Jackson and some of these dudes you have that some stealth assets

and you go all in on somebody,

it might make more sense to me.

But House, you still haven't really weighed in on whether you would want to build around Ja Morant after what we've seen the last three, four years.

It's not just Ja, though.

It's Ja and Triple J.

It has to be a package deal because you're not going to get.

60 games out of Jaw.

You're just not.

And the thing, it better be a point of emphasis.

We better see him shoot the three with some improved efficiency this upcoming season.

Having said all of that, like if you sit down and look at the Grizzlies' offensive numbers from last year, it's incredible.

They had the second,

they were number two in scoring offense.

They were in the top three in offensive rebounds.

They were in the top 10 or 11 in three points.

Like they were, it was a badass offense.

And you look at that roster and say, well, where was that coming from?

Who was doing all of that scoring?

Ja only played 50 games.

Well, it's all these dudes that Verno can rattle off that are effective.

And they had that offense that maybe there was this tension in the coaching room between

the scheme and what the players wanted to play.

But the proof is in the pudding.

Their problem was exactly what Verno said.

They didn't play any defense from February until the end of the season.

No defense was there.

So you think Bain's defense overrated, properly rated, underrated?

Where is it?

It's not even rated.

He's not a defensive stalwart.

I mean, he's another guy.

He's much like,

like, if you're watching these finals, I mean, you see what Jalen Williams did to, is doing to Nie Smith right now, a guy that we liked, right?

Yeah.

A guy that looked good as a big-time athlete with size and length against like Jalen Brunson.

He's in a world of shit right now, right?

I mean, they are just finding him constantly.

And so he's not that level of defender.

And so, again, he's, that's not, he is,

he, I, Desmond Bain can be,

I don't want to go too far on this, right?

But there's going to be a world where Steph Curry is no longer in the league and Desmond Bain's right there at the very top of the best shooters in the league list.

Wow.

That's true.

He is a great,

like, not good, great shooter.

Great.

That's what Orlando needed.

Yes.

Just what Orlando needed.

Now, they do need something.

If they can generate the look for him,

I don't want him doing a ton of dribbling, right?

I want him to be able to play shooting guard.

And he ran a lot of Grizzlies' offense last year.

And, you know, it's kind of like when you guys would watch Jalen Brown, right?

The less dribbling, the better, right?

Like, I don't want,

and so I want him playing shooting guard, right?

And

I don't want him playing point guard.

I don't want him handling the ball

at a high level.

You guys talked about this on Ringer Gambling Show about the Orlando title odds for next year,

which probably are not the time to do it.

You want to wait for other people in the East to make moves and then do it.

And I don't think they're going to make the finals next year, but I also don't know what the F's going to happen in the East.

You know, like I had Doc Rivers on last night.

If I have Giannis on my team, I don't even care who else is on the team.

I'm like, I have a puncher's chance.

Who the fuck knows?

Do you think Orlando,

what's left for them to do?

How about win a playoff series once?

Well, that would help.

Okay.

Because

before we talk about finals, but I do think if they hadn't had all the injuries last year,

I do think there's a world where they won 50-plus games and would have been an absolute bitch in the playoffs.

I don't know if that, how many rounds they would have won, but they had the year from hell last year.

And Suggs was a huge part of what they did.

I agree.

You know,

and they had every oblique injury.

And their two best guys both had the same injuries.

Like, that was nuts how that played out.

So, you know, I think that a healthy version of that team, Indiana is like, Jesus, they're going to be walking dead by the end of this finals with the amount of playoff games they played, playing 100-plus games season at this pace.

So you know, they're barely going to make it.

The reason they were extremely good, right?

I heard Zach Lowe saying with Goldsbury that clip that

they haven't had a top 20 offense in 13 years.

I mean, that was the most shocking stat I think I've ever heard in my life.

Like, how?

Top 20?

There's only 30 teams in the league, right?

So they haven't had, so they did it by defense, right?

They were a great, like sensational defensive team.

And obviously a huge part of that is, and Suggs went out, was Katavius Caldwell Pope, who you've already put in the grave.

Because I heard you guys acted like that was a total non-asset.

No, listen, you have to face the facts of this.

You got four picks and a swap for Bain.

One of those picks was to take Caldwell Pope's contract away from Orlando because it was a sunk cost for them because that's how bad he was.

And you can ask any Orlando fan who had to watch them last year.

That was like the lightning rod for the whole season was how bad he was.

Now, I don't know if he's going to be bad again.

Can we agree it's a horrendous team to be a corner three specialist on?

Like, it's a world of difference.

This guy went from winning a title with LeBron and winning a title with Jokic to a team that does creates no open shots for anybody.

You could say he was playing with LeBron and Jokic, and that's why he looked as good as maybe he did as a role player.

And now you take him away from that.

And now he's playing with John Morant, who generates more corner threes than anybody.

And more DMPs.

No, no, no, no.

How dare you put him up against

Zion?

What's it like to go to work?

And is that like the first question you ask after you say to everybody hey how are you is job is job playing is that the second question it is annoying there's no way around

that oh good there's gonna come a day where it all comes together and he's healthy i know it i know it well when guys hit their late 20s sometimes that happens we gotta take one break and then we're gonna keep going this episode is brought to you by michelo boltra cracking open a cold one on a hot summer day is one of the best feelings but it's even better when it feels like you earned it like in a friendly little competition.

It's always better when there's something worth playing for.

And Michelobeltra, a superior light beer is a pretty great prize.

Hmm.

I would, I mean, I would be all tennis for Miklobaltros because that's what I do all summer because tennis is an actual sport, unlike pickleball.

So tennis, doubles, singles, whatever.

Let's play for an ultra.

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Enjoy responsibly copyright 2025, Anheuser-Busch, Michelob Utra Light Beer, St.

Louis, Missouri.

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Hey, both of you love golf.

We do.

This open Open just came and went.

And the most exciting part of it for casual fans like us was when they showed the 2008 U.S.

Open with Tiger Woods and Rocko Media 8.

I was fucking riveted.

Just, I mean, the perfect storm, literally, bad weather,

a really hard course house.

You talked about it on Fairway Roland, and we end up with just an absolute

bizarre

carnage.

Just the way it plays out.

This is the second most important golf tournament of the year, and nobody is, you know, there's just no conversation about it.

After, I don't know, is this just an aberration or house?

Is this a bad sign for golf?

What is this?

No, no, no, no, no.

This is, you know,

it is partly the effect of that golf course, that venue, where, you know, it's easy for the USGA, the governing body that's responsible for the U.S.

Open, to set a goal of par as being the outcome, right?

Kind of enjoy.

I don't mind that, like, minus three is going to be the best score in four days, basically.

The way the weather kind of interrupted things and the impact of the weather over the course of the four days, it did have, you know, they were playing out of the rough.

They turned out to be wet, rough.

There was water on the golf course for the last round.

It introduced some uncertainty where some guys were going to get lucky breaks and some guys were going to get unlucky breaks.

And so that's how you get a leaderboard where folks haven't heard of a lot of the players.

And then, you know,

the whole thing was saved by the last, you know, five holes because JJ Spawn went out and won the golf tournament.

He birdied the last two holes and he played the back nine and two under par.

He went out and shot.

No, he shot three under par on the back nine.

He went 40 on the front and 32 on the back to win the U.S.

Open.

That's pretty damn good.

And he's like your classic kind of grinder guy.

So very relatable.

All the stories that have come out afterwards.

Awesome dude.

He's doing a great job on the interview circuit now, but we were deprived of like the very best guys in the world coming down the stretch in the hunt.

And I think that's

the name when we had all those names.

And it was like, oh, here we go.

It's all a reflection.

It's such an exciting moment with his dad, though.

Yeah, well, first of all, it's all a reflection of who won it.

Right.

People just don't know JJ Spawn, right?

This happened a few years ago.

I worked that

the U.S.

Open

the year it was at LACC.

You remember that

Wyndham Clark won, and it was like, okay, like everybody was hoping Rory was gonna take it down at the end of that, right?

And it didn't happen.

And so, because Wyndham Clark's not exactly a household name or anything at that time, it was kind of the same kind of deal with this JJ Spawn thing.

It's like a cool story, but it appeals to the niche golf audience and not some huge audience.

That being said, my poor dad, my dad.

This is on Father's Day, no less.

My dad calls me on Sunday afternoon, and I answer the phone, and he rarely will call because he can't figure out how to use his cell phone.

And I have to go down, and usually it's like, can you come fix my mouse?

Can you plug in my HDMI?

I forgot my spectrum password.

I can't change the inputs.

What's going on with this thing?

Whatever.

And so, and my parents live very close to me.

And so

I said, hey, man, happy Father's Day.

And he was like,

oh, yeah,

happy Father's Day to you too.

I swear to God, I think he had no idea it was Father's Day.

None.

Okay.

And he's like, hey, I just

had a question.

He's like,

so I was watching the U.S.

Open and like Tiger was about to go to a playoff.

it looked like.

And then, like, now it's like this guy burned to whatever.

He's like, is it the same thing?

And I was like, Dad, no.

I was like, I was like, Dad, what you're watching right now.

He's like, This is like live right now.

And I was like, Yes.

And I was like, Dad, did it never dawn on you at all that you were watching a 30-year-old Tiger Woods?

Like, how could you have possibly thought you were watching something live?

He was so into Tiger Woods versus what, Rocco Media.

Yeah, it was an amazing tournament.

Number one, it was at Torrey Pines in San Diego.

Number two, Tiger's like 30 and wearing a sweater vest and Nike stuff and is clearly young Tiger Woods.

And no,

I think my dad was disappointed that he was watching Sam Burns.

at the end of the U.S.

Open.

I think he wishes.

You should have told him it was Tiger Woods and Tiger Woods won the U.S.

Open.

He probably told that five days later.

Dude, I told this story on my local show and people were sending me all this that i should have my dad go back and watch

he's gonna love it he's gonna wait till he sees the 86 world series like all this you know you should show dancer john morant plays 35 minutes oh

come on

we're supposed to enjoy this hawse

do you think they they intentionally don't like put a glaring 2008 u.s open Open when they show those because of people like this older audience that might actually think Tiger Woods is contending.

It's got to be intentional, right?

They definitely knew they had the forecast.

They knew there might be bad weather.

They teed up the 2008 U.S.

Open.

I mean, there was some criticism because

why would they show Oakmont, like an older version of Oakmont?

Why wouldn't they do that?

Why would they couldn't show 2016 because they fucked up the ruling with Dustin Johnson and penalized him a stroke?

And the broadcast, the guys on the broadcast were criticizing the USGA.

So they weren't going to put that one on, but they could have put 2007 on because that was Phil and Tiger both chasing after Angel Cabrera.

Now, Angel Cabrera, maybe not the most sympathetic character.

Maybe not,

but 2008 Tiger, I mean, that thing shows you what a U.S.

Open is supposed to look like and feel like.

I mean, the crowd is sitting on top of the green.

That's part of the problem with Oakmont.

The people were not like close enough.

It wasn't your giant roars.

That tiger thing, people were losing their fucking minds over the really wear thing.

But also, they did clear it out.

They cleared it out for the lightning and the rain and whatever.

So

over the four days, we didn't have any.

I mean, that makes me think, though, watching Tiger and just being so nostalgic for those 12 years when from 97 to 08, basically.

And, you know, like in basketball, where we have to have the stupid face of the the league conversation all the time now.

And it's just like

these people are comets that pass through, right?

In the last 30 years in the NBA, I thought Magic's point about if you could sell out the other team's stadium, that's usually a good sign of whether you're at the right level.

Tiger could sell out any golf course.

MJ could sell out any stadium.

Kobe and Shaq together could sell out any stadium.

Kobe by himself in the late 2000s.

LeBron on Miami and Cleveland the second time he was there.

And then Curry when he showed up at 14.

And guess what?

We haven't had anybody since, and it's okay.

I would tell you right now, and I'm actually a relatively good person to probably talk about this as somebody who goes to every single home game in a small market.

Yeah.

Curry and LeBron are the only two.

That's true.

If you go to those games, you will see thousands.

of Curry jerseys and thousands of LeBron jerseys in any city in the country.

It's not an argument.

The only way it changes

is somebody would have to win like three, four straight titles in a row.

And even then, I don't know if it's going to happen.

But Wen Benyama is the next guy who I think could potentially sell out stadiums if he just is like, you know, he's averaging 25, 15, eight blocks a game.

Like it's stuff we've never seen.

But when the Curry thing was such a phenomenon, like, I don't know, but the Tiger thing made me think of that because as much as the shambles been fun, right?

Scheffler is at the highest level of just being competitive in every tournament as anyone in a while.

Brooks Kepka was fun.

People love Rory.

But the Tiger thing was just different.

And it's just the reality of the situation.

I mean, House, we were there for the Masters.

People love Rory.

That Tiger, no, the Tiger thing went to a whole other level.

And you could feel it in the 08 Open.

It was just, I thought it was really interesting to rewatch.

That's every

individual sports have to have dominant characters that have unbelievable charisma, right?

Or else, because we get, because otherwise, like Scotty Scheffler, like we know,

you know, whether it was,

you know, even Joker now in tennis or it was Pete Sampras in tennis.

It was Tim Duncan in the 2000s.

Yeah, or it was Tim Duncan, right?

Like you, but the individual, or like in boxing, where it was Tyson, whatever,

same kind of thing as a comet, where it's like these individual sports are even more in need of that guy.

Not only do you have to be awesome, you also have to have like this charisma about you.

And that's what gets everybody like all involved.

Even

Usain Bolt, right?

If Usain Bolt wasn't doing the bye-bye and wave and everything, but all of a sudden people started caring about sprinting.

Like, well, that's the thing.

I was at the 2012 London Olympics.

Yeah.

And there was a lot of, I mean, Phelps was still there.

We had

the Olympic team had all those dudes on it.

And Usain Bolt was the ticket to get out of anything.

He was like, are you going to be there for the 100?

That was it.

Everybody wanted to be in there to watch that dude run.

House, I think it's, and you and I have known each other forever.

It's a, it's a know-it-when-you-see-it standpoint.

It's weird.

Like, there's, there's people like Aaron Judge that aren't quite there, but have a lot of.

He's getting closer.

He's getting, it feels like he's creeping closer to it.

But

I'll tell you this.

Two years ago.

Joe has it.

No question.

I'll say this.

Two years ago, I took my family.

My daughter was like studying the Statue of Liberty and stuff.

So she wanted to go up to New York.

We went to New York and then we went over to the Yankees game.

I swear to even then, and this is before that season, I'd say 75% of that crowd had 99 judge or 99 judge shirt jerseys on.

I've never seen a stadium where everybody, like you'd see a random like old school jeter, you'd see a random, but like the whole crowd everywhere you went.

And I got it.

It's a cool name and number.

Right.

And but that was that one really took me aback where I was like, because I went with Jacoby earlier this year to the Knicks games and they don't wear, they don't wear gear.

Nick, like, there's not gear in the crowd.

There's retro stuff.

It's it's all over the place.

But there's not like you, you, you would expect Brunson stuff to be everywhere, and it's just not.

And most of the time.

No, the saddest is the Wizards games.

What's a Jersey scene at the Wizards games?

Are you lying?

Are you on the other team?

It was packed for LeBron.

It was awesome when the Lakers came.

I mean, the game was over within the first half.

What number do you have in the draft next week?

House?

Six.

Oh, let's talk quick draft.

Devil's number.

House has six.

Give us your, because we have Con Knipo coming later in the podcast.

Give us your preference at six.

So because who you're praying drops to six.

Yeah.

You know, it's oh, no, no.

I'm sorry.

I didn't mean it.

What were you going to say?

I was just going to say, I didn't, I'm having to like crash course this draft because Memphis traded their pick.

Right.

You didn't think we had to wear it off.

Oh, yeah.

You weren't expecting that.

No, to get off of Marcus Smart.

So we didn't have a pick until two days ago.

I'm like, oh, shit.

I got to go.

I got to go watch everybody.

Go ahead, Alice.

Who are you open for?

I want the center from Duke.

Come on, Malawak, or Malawak.

I don't know how do you say it.

The big giant 7-2 guy who can be a rim protector.

He's 18 years old, which puts him exactly right on the same timeline.

I know that Russell don't like to hear about timelines, but he's in that same age range.

You put him with Sar, Kulabali,

you know, the two other guys, Bub Carrington, George,

this this young washington team um all these these young guys and right now the thing that that is missing more than anything else is a defensive stalwart and what we saw in terms of his uh ability to to um protect the rim and the the rebounding i think he would fit in with sar too right because sar's almost like like a

slash five yeah he prefers to be out at the perimeter and he can defend on the perimeter you guys are going to love this so i was going through all the names from the first round and I was like, all right, now I got a crash course on all of this.

And I got down to one of the names randomly.

And it like jogged my memory for some reason.

So about three weeks ago, I'm in Target and I'm by, I always go to Target when my kids go and I buy basketball cards, right?

I go and buy the box of basketball cards.

So this guy's standing there.

Guy comes up to me.

He's like, hey, and he recognizes me and he's like, starts talking about the Grizzlies.

And he's like, what cars are you buying?

And I said, well, I was just going to buy those or whatever.

And he's like, Get those Bowman chromes.

He's like, They've got the Cooper flag in it.

If you get the autograph, they're selling for like a thousand dollars.

I was like, Well, then I guess I'm buying those, right?

So I go to buy those.

I'm like, I'm gonna try to get the Cooper flag.

He's like,

and again, I don't know this person.

And the guy goes to me, he goes, Um,

yeah, he's like, you know, everybody's chasing the Cooper flag and it's trying to get the autographs and everything.

He's like, I'm gonna tell you something:

the best player out of this entire draft is gonna be Cedric Coward.

And I was like, what?

Okay.

I was like, what?

I don't even know who the hell he's talking about.

And he's like, I'm telling you, just remember that a guy in Target told you this.

And I was like, okay.

So now I was going through it the other night and I was like, holy shit, that's the guy that

they opened the 16.

Some random guy in Target told me that that's going to be the superstar.

That's the guy.

I mean, think about how many drafts where somebody in the 12 to 20 range suddenly became the best guy in the draft.

You know, I was looking at the

Fando odds for this because obviously Harper's going two, Flags going one.

And when I was in Indiana last week, Edgecombe, the Baylor, the Electric Bayer guard, he was minus 125.

And now he's minus 165 because of that ESPN story today about Ace Bailey not really working out with anybody.

What is the deal there?

What is going on?

Are we getting a Tari Eason thing all over again?

Are we getting the?

I feel like he's trying to maneuver his way to a team.

So I had this happen one time years and years ago.

Memphis had the,

I want to say it was the fourth pick in the draft.

I think it was the Conley drive.

I can't remember now.

Yeah.

But

oh, no, no, it was before that.

But, anyways, the top two pick or the top pick that year was Houston.

So it was the Yao Ming draft.

Okay.

Okay.

So that the top pick was Houston.

And there were guys that like Amari Sademeyer only worked out for Houston and Phoenix.

And so then when everybody was picked, I think that was the year Memphis took Drew Gooden fourth.

Okay.

So of course, this becomes a huge topic here.

What the F?

We're supposed to have the whatever, like the genius, Jerry West.

He's running the team.

How the hell?

And Jerry West came out and said, look, this guy worked out for Houston.

And this guy worked out.

He went to 50 different high schools.

We never even could find him.

You know what I mean?

And it was like he was excusing not taking Amari Stademeyer.

But it's funny, as you say,

there have been guys that have done that in the past.

I went to a...

The year they took Kashim the beat, I went to all of the workouts and I thought James Harden was awful.

And it turns out he was just dogging the workout.

He just dogged it.

That's back in those days, right?

This was very common.

Where you would say, he said about Lamello Ball during COVID,

dogging the Warriors interview because he wanted to go to Charlotte was always the story.

Well, and that's kind of been the thing with Shaddur, right?

Where people say

he was trying to direct himself somewhere, but it backed up.

That's why I wonder.

So Brooklyn has the eighth pick.

pick, and I wonder if Ace Bailey is dreaming about being on Brooklyn with the eighth pick because he's not working out for anybody.

Interesting.

But with the Fandal Odds, Knipple is the favorite to go fourth at plus 230.

Trey Johnson is the favorite to go fifth to Utah, plus 190.

And then

for House's Wizards with the sixth pick.

Ace Bailey, the favorite of plus 320.

Oh, wow.

And your Duke Center is plus 470.

I will just say this: as somebody somebody who's known House since 1988,

the Wizards drafting an unhappy Ace Bailey

would give me life.

It's a text all summer would be him sitting out summer league and not want, and House just getting madder and madder

as he gets dehydrated on another golf course.

Like, that's where I want my summer to go.

We cut Johnny Davis here.

I don't know why.

House has to go back to the hospital now.

God damn it.

Johnny Davis.

Sorry.

That was Tommy Shepard's parting fucking gift.

My issue with Ace Bailey is what if he is an 18-year-old Jordan Poole?

I mean, I just can't take it.

I can't.

You're going to have to get another eight Ivy Bailey.

I did some deep dive draft stuff.

Yeah.

There's some really interesting defensive stuff with him, like in a good way.

He's like a chase down block guy.

Tell me.

Okay.

Okay.

If you watch those deep dive YouTube clips where they break down all the parts they have a whole like chase down block section and in general like he's i was kind of shocked how uh what what kind of a rim protector he was and then

his offensive game is very i gotta say very similar to joe house oh joe house in his prime um a lot of like just catch and shoot dribble catch and shoot a lot of foul a lot of foul line 18 footer

nail spin get it yeah um he rebounds a little He doesn't pass.

He's a black hole.

I like the pass.

No, no, I'm saying for him.

That was the one difference because you were a good passer.

But yeah, I wonder if he's trying to get to Brooklyn.

Did you say you have Knipple on your podcast?

He's coming up later.

Yeah, he was great.

Hey, now.

Are you all in?

Are you all in?

I'm in.

I didn't expect it.

This reminded me of,

I liked him at Duke,

but there's been a couple of times where I've liked somebody and then it's like liking an indie band that then becomes famous.

Like, I thought he would be like in the 13 to 17 range because these guys always get discounted.

And then, as it gets closer to the draft, now he's like in the top five.

It's but I, it's very similar to Westbrook.

Remember, we loved Westbrook at UCLA that year?

It was like, whoa, what a glue guy this guy is.

He's fucking tries.

And then all of a sudden, he was the fourth pick.

So I think with Knipo, like, he just brings all the stuff to the table that every team wants.

Shooting, knows where to go, defense.

I had a GM tell me that the year that the Westbrook year, that they were at one of those, like, workout, maybe it was in Chicago or somewhere like that, but that Rose and Westbrook were like

one and two in the line, and that everything Rose was doing, Westbrook was doing.

And all the GMs were just like, oh, my God, like, this guy's as athletic.

He's as athletic as the other guy.

Like, what?

What is going on here?

And so it just, but it does like this one.

Like, this is a

heater this guy Kniple is on, where it's like, I looked at those.

Uh, what?

Uh, Sam Bissini, I looked at his, he's got like the magnum opus draft guy that he put out today.

It's like 60,000 words.

It really is.

And I think he's got Kniple like three or something.

Like, it's like at the very top.

Like, there's a bunch of these.

Rascilla loves them.

They're at the very top.

Rasilla is usually a tough grader.

Everybody likes him.

He does.

stuff.

You need certainty in those first five picks.

You can't have, you know, it can't be a gamble because if you gamble and lose, you're so fucked.

That's the problem with, you know,

the wild card is half.

Like, if you took this guy sixth,

I wouldn't, I don't know, but fears

the point guard who's reclassified.

So he's a year young.

And he's just like,

you know, you almost have to think you're getting, I don't know what you're getting, but the ceiling of it, I don't even know.

I feel like Utah is going to take him.

He feels that could be another Utah possibility.

But just like crazy, crazy point guard skills, but he's like a baby.

So you're buying in.

You're basically that you're on like a three-year plan with him.

It feels like he's a little lower in these recent mods.

He's in the six to nine range.

Yeah, I see him at seven.

He's leading the oddsboard at seven right now.

I bet he goes high as well.

And then that Derek Queen, who everybody has in the 12 to 14 range, somebody will take him sooner than that it's just like somebody won't be able to resist it's either good and and he's either going to be a guy that like

is like awesome like boogie cousins or he's going to be a joke or you're going to be like oh it's going to be a joke

yes i don't want to i'm he's from the dmv he's from university of maryland i grew up rooting he's from baltimore i grew up rooting from maryland um so this this the crab five the run that they just went on in the ncaoua tournament was awesome and the shot that he knocked down for them to get get to, you know, move along.

I'm worried about his defense.

I'm worried about his ability to play professional NBA-level defense.

But that's the thing.

Whatever team he goes to, he's like team-dependent for me.

If he goes to the wrong team, I would be really worried about him.

Yes, agree.

Do you have a lower guy?

Do you have a lower guy you've fallen in love with, Bill?

I have a late second-round guy that I like.

Oh,

late second?

I always look at the, it's funny.

I always look at the counting stats because sometimes I think we discount that somebody's just putting up stats, right?

So the guy who led the league in it, though, who led college and assists last year was Nemhard, his brother.

Oh, he's at Konzag is 5'11.

He's it's tough to make it at 5'11.

So he's 5'11.

had 10 assists a game.

And then if you deep, first of all, the YouTube stuff with him is really good.

But if you go and like talk about like the quotes from teammates and coaches, like Mark Fuse, like he's just like effusively praising him.

I just feel like he's one of those guys where like three years from now, he's going to be on somebody's team in like the Eastern Conference finals.

You'll be like, wow, that's the 57th pick.

So he's like my stealth sleeper.

I haven't done enough.

I'm set something to do all weekend, much to my wife's chagrin, is study the rest of these dudes.

And I'll tell you this.

Now you look at these guys that are like, even as we're watching the NBA Finals, and it's like,

I mean, this Oklahoma City team, who's now, you know, game away from being able to win the title, they're crazy.

Their fourth leading scorer, their fourth leading scorer on the whole team was the 55th pick in the draft

in Aaron Wiggins.

He was their fourth leading scorer this year.

And it's like, damn, man, like, you know, how many years ago could we have talked about this?

And, like, you didn't get any, like, you never got, like, there was like the random Manu that was the draft and stash.

And there was like, but like,

second round picks and undrafteds are like hitting and being awesome for teams that are winning like the conferences now.

Like, even the Nemhard Brother, right?

It's not a high pick.

TJ McConnell, like Aaron Wiggins, Alex Caruso, like, there's a bunch of second round and undrafted guys that are having like major rotation impact.

I would have bet, and this tells you how I've been doing gambling-wise, although I did finally hit a nice one with Oklahoma City last night.

I would have bet $500 that Bill Simmons said his deep, his second round guy, was Walter Clayton Jr., the Florida kid.

No, because he's going to be end of the first round.

Oh, he's pushed himself all the way up to the potential first round.

Listen, if the Celtics took him at 28, I'd be delighted.

I'd have to look down at that.

I understand.

No, I would have thought it would be like, uh, well, no, I can't even.

Well, you got, did you, who got the 23rd pick?

Who did Indiana trade that 23rd pick to?

Was that Memphis or New Orleans?

No, no, New Orleans.

Yeah, yeah.

It's all right, right around the range where he.

I can see him going a couple spots too high.

I like that dude, though.

You liked him too, right, House?

I loved him.

Are you kidding me?

The stones on that kid, his comfort.

This draft's good.

Like, all kidding aside.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Um, all kidding aside, like the 16th pick in this draft might actually be somebody good.

So, at least you'll be down the road to maybe replacing the best under 30 shooter in the league.

I'll tell you this: I'm looking down, like right where you were talking about, like that Nemhart or Ryan Nemhard.

He's like, I think on this ESPN mock, I just pulled up, he's like 58th.

But I mean, like, you're at the end of that draft, it's like senior, senior, senior, senior, senior, senior.

And I, yeah, you, you, super, senior, super, senior, senior, senior, super, senior, senior.

Like, because these guys all got to go to school extra and they got NIL and they stuck around.

I think this could be more like immediate impact from the second round than maybe you've ever seen before.

Like, I had somebody tell me last week that one of the reasons, because I'd never understand why everybody's trying to get all these second round picks and hoarding them.

And one of the reasons they said was because college is so fucked up now.

And these guys are never on the same team for more than one or two years, or they had extra eligibility.

And,

you know, they just, it's just easier to get lucky with somebody who is in the wrong situation or they transferred to a new school and it didn't work out and their stock dropped.

And well, and then you, it's held against you because these guys are actually 24

years old.

Like they're not what you're normal,

but it also makes them much more able to be able to contribute immediately in the end.

At least to a new chaotic situation because they've transferred three times.

Well, this happened twice with the Grizzlies.

Desmond Bain, as we wrap this back up, Desmond Bain, it was ageist.

Like people, that was held against him that he was older.

And Brandon Clark as well.

Another guy who was great at Gonzaga, but had gone to a small school prior to that.

And it's like, geez, like

the answer to a lot of this is many times the guy that you, they say they draft a 19-year-old and they say, yeah, but what is he going to look like when he's 23?

And then the answer is typically not as good as Desmond Bain ever.

Right.

Like, he's probably not going to be that good.

That was the Celtics logic with Shireman when they took a Baylor Shireman.

He's like, he's at 124.

He's been in a couple of colleges, bounced around.

House,

thanks for joining us on late notice.

And

try not to pass on a golf course.

Do you have any early NFL futures you want to throw at us before we go?

Anything you were excited about?

Don't even talk to me.

No, no.

Why?

I like the over for the Cowboys.

I don't like anything.

You bet this over for the Cowboys.

I like the Cowboys.

I like the Cowboys this year.

I think they're decent.

But my favorite.

We could act like me and you did not collectively lose a fortune together.

That was different.

We were not doing that last year.

We did a bunch of AFC South ends.

That might have been a mistake.

We've been Houston was good.

I like Houston.

Aaron Rodgers and the Jets.

That was a mistake.

That turned out to be a mistake.

Listen, I was there too.

That was my biggest regret from all the futures last year, believing in Rodgers and the Jets.

And guess what?

I'm not falling for it this year on the Steelers.

You're not rope me in.

You don't have to.

No, thank you.

Yeah, the Steelers, you can just stay away.

Houston to win the AFC South is my favorite, and I love the Rams this year.

I have all the Rams futures.

So I did that when I was in Indiana last week.

I did, I jumped on Houston and win the South was still, I think, plus 110.

It was near even money.

So anything plus or even money, I'm like, let me put it.

The Chiefs were still near even money.

It's like, that's just like, you know, buying,

just buying a money bond.

Am I crazy or what are the Chiefs not going to win the division?

Am I crazy?

Wasn't there some story about how CJ Stroud hasn't been able to throw a football in months or something?

It'll be fine.

He'll be fine.

They were showing those stories.

Soldier injuries are always fine.

No, it's fine.

I didn't see that story.

People are trying to get out of that bed.

Isn't that a thing?

Is it C.J.

Stroud's shoulder?

Isn't that a thing?

Well, the South, like the Hunter trade was,

seems like it might end up working out bizarre.

The Colts, Danny Dimes, is already the QB.

And then Tennessee, like, how is Houston?

If they don't win the division, that's embarrassing.

Anyway, all right, guys.

Good times.

Berno, thanks for popping on.

Say hi to everyone in Memphis.

Don't, I like Memphis.

Thank you.

As a city.

We needed that we needed some of the stuff that was out there this week.

That wasn't nice.

We needed it.

What do you mean?

What was the stuff about superstars don't feel safe in Memphis or whatever?

Steven A.

Yeah, what was that though?

Where did that come from?

It was, dude.

Many times, and I'm glad you guys don't feel this way, but many times

national media members, especially from big markets, feel like small markets are always in service of the big markets.

And so they're never delightful in their conversations about any of the small market teams.

That being said aside, what Stephen A.

Smith did was so

damaging and irresponsible.

Like we fight uphill in Memphis against the perception of, right?

And all I will say is, you guys know, I have been here for 25 years.

There has never been a player

that I know of

that has ever asked for a trade outside of Pal Gasol when the team was going to go into tank mode, right?

And they did right by him and they sent him to Los Angeles, right?

There has never been a player, as far as I know, that has not re-signed once they have played in Memphis.

If everything was even, there's nobody that's walked off.

and has gone somewhere else, right?

So when you have, it's not like it's been a franchise for five years.

When you've been a franchise franchise for 25 years and you have all kinds of players that still, Tony Allen lives here, Zach Randolph lives here, Mike Miller lives here, Taechon Prince lives here.

There's a lot of people that have still made Memphis their home.

There's been all manner of NBA players come through Memphis over the years.

Never once have I heard of them being the victim of some kind of violence.

And to me,

what made me so angry about that whole thing was, yes, Memphis has problems.

Okay.

And Memphis has

the crime statistics, are the crime statistics, right?

But these guys are not like

the idea that you are saying, oh, well, Memphis,

players don't want to go to Memphis because

it's dangerous, right?

That's what he said, right?

Have you ever heard that said

about any

other

city,

any other sports market, any other team, ever?

Has that ever been a thing?

Did anybody say, hey, you know what?

Caleb Williams might not want to go to the Bears.

You know, they got a lot of crime in Chicago or Cade Cunningham, I don't know if he wants to play in Detroit.

You know, they got a lot of crime.

Like

to bring that up,

nothing happened, right?

Nothing happened.

And so the conversation was about, should they just trade John Morant?

And then it turned into, look, Jimmy Butler didn't want to go to Memphis because Jimmy Butler and others have told me that Memphis is dangerous.

Well, like, there's 25 years of sample size of NBA players loving playing in Memphis, right?

They've never left.

And it's not just been hardened guys like the Tony Allens and the Zeebos.

Mike Conley was here for an awful long time and his name's in the rafters.

And Marcus all was raised in Spain

after he was went to high school in Memphis and then played his entire career until he went to Toronto and LA at the very end.

Right.

Like, so if it, if players don't want to be there, then why do they always re-sign?

Why do they never want to be traded?

Why do they end up loving it and swearing by it?

You know, any city is, and look, you guys know, and even when I first took the job with you, Bill, I mean, if I'd have said, hey, yeah, I'll move to California, right?

Like, I've always wanted to be here.

I was told years ago, in order to have anybody care about what you were doing, you got to go to a bigger market, right?

And I think there's a lot of people in the media that still feel that way, and they still feel that way about sports.

And so they will do anything to make sure, like, they just want Jaron Jackson somebody on a team that's on TV, John Morant somewhere else, whatever.

But to go out of your way to say players don't want to go there because it's dangerous, to me is so far over the line

because

unless you want to tell me, like, how has that never been said about anywhere?

Washington, D.C.'s got crime.

Chicago's got crime.

Detroit's got crime.

LA's got crime.

Like all these places have crime.

I hate to tell you this.

Not only are these players insulated from them.

If you talk to players, they are so much more beloved in small markets than than they are in big markets.

Because it matters more to us.

And they are a lot more involved in the community and they're reaching out and touching people.

And everybody, it's like all for one, one for all.

And people are out in the grocery store.

They treat these guys like kings.

They treat them like kings, not like targets.

What?

Yeah.

Berno, you know this.

I love Memphis.

I've been down to Memphis twice in five years.

I came to that house at Memphis.

Yeah.

2019 then again to come on the show with you guys that live show we did That's right.

And I mean, I got to spend

probably like five, six days there for the Eastern, the Western Finals that time.

Yep.

I loved it.

I power walked everywhere.

The food, I'm probably put on, I had to power walk because of the food.

But

it's super damaging for somebody to go on national TV and say players don't want to go there because.

All right.

You made it.

You know what I mean?

Great case.

Great case.

I appreciated hearing the case.

That was

heartfelt.

Yeah,

that was super annoying because, look, every city's got its problems.

We've got to deal with the problems, right?

But come on, dude.

Like, being a professional athlete at Memphis is a great kick.

That's a great kick.

And not to mention, you could, I mean, you could live in a Bill Simmons-size house for nothing.

I took a stray at the end there.

No, no, I'm just saying.

No, it's a huge house, right?

Like, I mean, we don't have oceans.

We don't have oceans.

We got a river.

Great food, though.

Great.

food.

Great to see you.

Yeah, take it easy this weekend, please.

Bernard, a pleasure as always.

Good to see you.

Sad, everyone in Memphis for us.

All right, fellas.

See you.

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All right, my friend Kevin Hatch is here.

We're taping this two days after the big Raphael Devers trade that the Boston Red Sox made, a trade that we had been talking a bunch about on our little Red Sox text thread that we're on.

Red Sox Nation

divided

because nobody trusts the owners or the franchise

or whatever they've been doing the last five, six years.

We don't trust any of it.

And yet, I think you and I both feel like the trade kind of made sense.

So they created all this money, but now I don't trust them to do the right things with it.

And I don't know how to feel.

I'm, you know, when Mike Scher sent text, did we just trade Devers?

I was instantly delighted and I knew nothing of the particulars.

I was so happy to have a fucking guy who refuses to do the easiest thing in baseball to help his team.

I mean, you know, there are so many examples.

Obviously, last year when it's like, hey, we're going to get Drew Holiday and Christophe Porzingis.

Now, you know, there aren't going to be as many shots to go around.

And everyone's like, that's fine.

That's no problem.

We want to win a chip.

And, you know, sports historically, like, you know, Joe Thooney going out to left tackle for the Chiefs.

He had to know he was going to get his ass handed to him.

He's a left guard, you know, but it's like, you just do whatever the team needs for the guys in the clubhouse.

So we had a player making 10, 20, 30 times as much as the other guys in the clubhouse who's like, I don't want to move a millimeter outside my comfort zone, which he, so he's taking it out on his teammates.

Like, obviously, we need you to play first base.

We have Noah Sogard playing first base.

You have to play first base.

And he was like, I hate this team so much.

I'm willing to punish my teammates, which, by the way, is why, if you've read the subtext of all of his teammates, fuck off.

Fuck off has been the subtext of everybody who's comments.

Not a lot of people coming out being like, you know, Rafi was a pro.

I'm going to really miss him.

Yeah, I mean, even, even Poppy, obviously, saying like, you, you, there's certain things you have to do for the team.

So I immediately was like, good riddance to that guy.

And then when I heard, I mean, we were over a barrel.

We're in fourth place.

We, we, we have too many players for not enough positions.

The fact that I was like, they took on the whole contract and Kyle Harrison might be a number three starter in the majors.

Like, I just couldn't believe the return we got given the bind we were in.

You know, now I know your feeling is it was a little self-inflicted, but

hold on, a little self-inflicted.

So go backwards.

This, so this goes to the big Red Sox and confidence, the franchise piece of this, where since they won the title in 2018, they've been all over the map, starting with the Mookie Bets thing, which was basically our version of the Luca Donchas trade in Dallas, where just

only it was a slow-motion car crash version of it, where we were watching it for 18 months, going, they're not really going to let him go, right?

And then all of a sudden they trade him for five cents on the dollar.

Devers

was the panic extension coming off them blowing the Xander Bogarts thing a year before, not extending him, and then let him go to San Diego for a ton of money, which actually turned out to be pretty good for them.

And the Red Sox fans are so mad, they said,

and they just gave Devers all this money to be their third baseman.

And then two years later,

they signed Alex Bregman

to play third base.

And Deborah's was like, I, you, I have a 10-year.

And so it starts there and it just gets worse and worse.

I blame everybody.

There are no good guys in this.

I definitely think one of the, one of the columnists hit on it, like communication was not strong, obviously.

I don't know if you watch the studio with Seth Rogan, right?

But it's like that episode where somebody has to give the bad note to the star.

Somebody has to tell the star or the director.

Is it Ron Howard?

Someone has to give Ron Howard the note that you're making a mistake.

And I feel like this was the baseball version of that, which is like, hey, somebody has to tell Raffi he's a terrible third baseman.

Has anybody had that conversation with Raffi yet?

Who's told Raffi that he sucks at third?

And so, I mean, obviously this crazy little Zoom insight that we've all gotten that nobody thinks Breslow could communicate.

So

the GM of the Red Sox, who people think is a non-communicator.

The guy, literally, an Ivy League molecular physicist, not a great communicator.

What a shocker.

He amazingly clicked with John Henry.

They just went to a restaurant and just stared at each other awkwardly for two hours.

This is the perfect storm, right?

You know, English is a second language, Dominican third baseman, molecular physicist.

Hey, you guys had a good talk about this, right?

Well, I don't know if he really knew what I was saying.

Like, it's so insane.

So, so Raffi

is told, like, yeah, we just got a goal glove third baseman, which is obviously going to help the team.

Um, I don't know why the first base conversation wasn't already happening.

I guess because they still believed Casas was the answer there.

Although, you know, prior to Casas, he was.

They wouldn't, they, we were talking about all winter, they wouldn't trade Casas for a pitcher because they love Casas.

But, but, gosh, watching the, you know, before he got hurt, he certainly certainly did not look like the answer at first base.

But, you know,

even if you're going to play Casas against righties,

Rafi should just have a first baseman's glove in spring training.

That just like, if once Bregman's there.

But I would say this, again, so much that's been written and a ton has been written, Buster only, Tyler Kepner in the New York Times, 10,000 texts in our text chain.

all

invoking Mookie Betts.

And, well, Tyler Kepner is the only one who invoked Babe Ruth.

So it's like, okay, Babe Ruth, Mookie Betts, Raphael Devers.

Which one doesn't fit in this picture?

Like,

he's not, Rafi Dever is not Mookie Betts for Babe Ruth.

He's a very good hitter.

He's fat and slow and not a good base runner.

And

he hits the Yankees well.

But even his slugging percentages are not that nuts.

Like, it's just, you and I both agree that that contract was going to get really bad, really fast the panic contract so now that's somebody else's problem

and i just you know i mean i i'm gonna love all the flyballs to left in san francisco that are caught on the track those are not doubles anymore raffi um and and of course the you're you're bitter this is i haven't seen such a bitter side from you in a while i'm such a teen guy that it's like i mean and and again Kyle Schwarber, the ultimate example, like I will embarrass myself at first base.

I don't know how to do it.

I don't know how to catch a chest high throw.

I don't know how to flip underhand to the pitcher.

And he's like, but if that's what you need, I will go humiliate myself in front of a sold-out stadium to help the team versus Raffi Devers is like, I'm butt hurt.

I'm not going to help the team at all.

Well, now then he does.

I mean, one of the reasons we're doing this now is he did the Giants press conference and he's like, I'll play wherever.

You made the key point.

He did.

There were all these red flags from the moment they started at Bregman.

They clearly didn't talk to Devers and be like, hey, we're thinking about doing this.

If we did this, you'd have to be the DH, but we think this is an amazing opportunity for us.

One of the reasons they were talking to Bregman was because they kind of were out of the loop on free agency for the whole winter, right?

And then belatedly, all of a sudden, Bregman became a possibility.

You go to Devers if you're thinking of doing this.

If he's your franchise guy, which is the amount of money they gave to him, you would think that's your guy.

You go to him and you say, hey, we're thinking about doing this.

You'd have to be the DH, but we really think the team would be awesome.

It would help you.

Your stats are going to be the best.

But they obviously didn't do any of it.

And then they just signed this guy and knocked Evers out of third.

And to be fair to him, I do think he felt like I am your franchise third baseman, even though I'm an awful defender.

And even though I'm by the time I'm 33, I will be just be like in wearing concrete cleats, basically.

I do think he felt like I'm the guy.

I'm the Brooks Robinson in Baltimore of this Red Sox team.

That is a great question.

You know, it's like, does Raffi know he's a terrible third baseman?

I doubt.

He knew because it was like two-thirds of your text, I think,

about what a butcher he is at third base.

Like, does Jalen Brunson think he's a good defender?

Does he not know,

why are they going at me on every possession?

Like,

because you're terrible.

Does Carl Anthony Towns know that he commits dumb fouls?

Like, Deborah might not know.

He might not have any idea.

I don't think Deborah spends a lot of time on baseball reference like we do going deep.

Well, the big thing with the Devers trade, because you and I saw it the same way.

And then some of our other friends were like,

you know, this guy's potentially one of the best 10 to 12 hitters in either league.

All the Yankee fans we know were rejoicing.

It's like, thank God you got rid of Devers.

He killed us, which is true.

You never want to make a trade where the Yankee fans are going nuts.

But I think both of us saw it the same way.

When you're giving those giant contracts to people in baseball and they're not positioned guys

and they get older and they start,

you start heading town Giancarlo, Stanton Mountain pretty fast.

Where you're like, wait, how many years are left?

And there's just no way to unload it.

It was kind of a miracle that San Francisco was like,

we'll take all of it.

And here's our best prospect from a year ago.

And here's our number one draft pick from last year.

And it's like,

the trade itself, I can't argue with.

Yeah, we beyond maxed out in terms of our return,

you know, especially again, given the bind that everybody knew we were in this bind.

We weren't negotiating from a position of strength.

And like, you talk about these huge contracts.

The Blue Jays are three months into this Guerrero contract, and it's a disaster.

He has eight home runs.

You know, so you know, there's going to be, it's going to get worse as it goes on.

The idea is that Vladimir Guerrero, who hit 48 home runs as a 22-year-old, is going to be better as a 26-year-old.

You know, so everyone is rushing to shit on the Red Sox and say this is the latest installment in this continuing trend.

And then they'll like invoke the Xander Bogarts thing.

And it's like, wait a minute, that was amazing.

That was incredible that the Padres are on the hook for another quarter of a billion dollars for a guy with a 640 OPS.

And I think this Raffi contract is going to be a lot more more like the Xander deal.

But here's the problem.

And this is, and we were chronicling all this in real time.

None of the decisions made sense when you matched them against all the other decisions, right?

The crime with Bogarts was they could have signed him to an extension a year earlier for way less money than they didn't.

They did the sale extension that you and I almost had a conniption about.

And I was mad at the Red Sox not even following them full-time, but it was like, really?

That's, we're going to give sale.

But then, and then the story contract, Trevor Story, for the, where it was nobody would sign him in for HC because they were worried about his elbow.

And then the Red Sox were going,

oh, man, we can get him for that price.

He was really good two years ago.

And then they sign him and he blows out his elbow.

But without bothering to check his home road splits in Colorado, just to know what you're actually getting.

That's a bad contract.

Yeah.

What you're actually getting.

Or like Giolito and

Bueller, where you're spending, you know, you're getting like two expensive quarters instead of just trying to sign a dollar.

I just think they're all over the map.

That's my bigger issue.

And I guess I, I, you know, and again, rarely the voice of optimism on the text thread.

I'm usually the other guy.

But I would say

with crochet at the top of the order, I mean, you could argue we have the most dominant starter and the most dominant closer in baseball.

Okay.

In between, some question marks, although it looks like Whitlock might be turning the corner.

Bayo had a great start purely as a byproduct of us benching him in in Roto.

And our keeper team.

We turned the season around.

So, I mean, you know, Giolito is going to make a run at Hirschiser's 59 consecutive scoreless innings, apparently.

So the team right now with these kids, I mean, you know, there are no guarantees as

we've learned a million times.

But, you know,

Anthony...

uh marcelo mayor and april christian campbell are exciting at least if we if kc can get back to what he was a mere six weeks ago.

Don't leave out Nervae as the rookie of the year.

And Nervaez is a revelation.

You know, as I said, so we have a young catcher.

You know, Jaron Duran had an 8.7 war last year.

That's a very exciting player.

And that war is way over anything Rafi Devers has ever posted.

Devers has averaged a 3.8 war for the last four full seasons.

Now, that shit, you get nerdy with me.

This is great.

It's just not impossible to find 3.8 wins in other places now watching the 2-0 victory over the mariners last night i did realize oh boy we're gonna have a lot of trouble scoring runs until bregman gets back um but hopefully once bregman and a breyu are both back you know the the lineup has a little more length and uh we can keep winning these these 3-1 games well I uh as you know, much to your chagrin, I really backed off with the Red Sox for a few years after the bet straight.

I really had an issue with it.

I didn't know if I was coming back.

And I got sucked in partly because we have Meyer on our Alekeeper team.

We spent $25 on Christian Campbell.

We have Narvaez.

And I really got sucked back into the team.

And it's been a weirdly fun season for a team that for two straight months lost every one-run game they played.

And if the game was in the 10th inning, it was just a guaranteed loss.

But yet it was fun.

It was something fun about them.

And I do like these teams that have the young kids.

Like when we were growing up, that that 74 red sox team when they brought up lyndon rice near the end and then all of a sudden in 75 it blossomed um we were we watched the pitchers in the 80s and all of a sudden they're on the 86 team like we've had experiences like this before and it it did suck me back in and then they do this debors trade which was defensible but at the same time like oh we've saved all this money Now we get to use this money elsewhere.

And it's like, I don't trust you to use this money or spend it.

Do you like, do you even think they're going to spend it?

I mean, what are they going to spend it on?

What do we need?

We need relievers.

Or for them to extend Bregman now, maybe while he's in the rehab pool.

Because leverage is the best it's ever going to be right now, right?

We do need another frontline starter behind crochet.

And, you know, is Rafi going to get trimmer as he gets older?

Is he going to, it just seems like this, it's funny because I've been feeling gaslit by baseball all spring.

in that I was like, the Red Sox are not this bad and the Yankees are not this good.

I just couldn't understand as we plummeted into a double-digit deficit in the standings.

I'm like, how is Paul Goldschmidt hitting 350?

This is not supposed to be happening.

Well, the regression to the mean has started.

Judge is not going to hit 400.

Gold Schmidt's not going to hit 350.

And the Red Sox are not going to lose every one run game.

And in the same way, I've been feeling gatslit by the Buster Olmys and Tyler Kepners of the world who are like, Well, you can invoke Mookie if you want, but the fact is this was an amazing escape act by the Boston Red Sox that to get out from under this onerous contract that's only going to get worse as baseball economics change.

You know, with people watching MMA and Formula One, is there going to be more money running around baseball?

Like a $313 million designated hitter is insane.

And in fact, going back to the MOOC deal, it's crazy,

given that we were giving the Dodgers a generational player for nothing in return, that they would only eat 48 of the 96 million on the david price contract it's like you should have eaten that whole contract you're getting bets so so again no one's defending that trade but the the the the particulars of that trade make this trade look better they got a a a slow dh and they're eating the whole contract.

He's going to hit for San Francisco.

I would bet anything he has a big last four months he'll be rejuvenated you know where it's gonna go we've seen i would also say this about san francisco which is

i

you know i didn't i didn't realize i texted you but like i didn't realize what robbie ray was doing out there because we're in an al league right our teams in the american league but i was like i thought this guy's career was over like he hasn't won three games in three years he's eight and one with super 105

And I'm sure he'll shut us out on Sunday in San Francisco.

But I was like, I don't think the Giants are comparable to the Dodgers.

Like, I think they're, they were close enough to believe that if they added a bat, they could compete with the Dodgers.

But

I don't, I don't, I don't think that's real.

And I actually think that by the all-star break, the Dodgers will be six games ahead of the Giants and pulling away.

Obviously,

Shohei hit 100.

Our friend Mike Shore didn't like the trade and made a point that I thought was really important

about,

and it ties back to the Bets trade, why I think the Bets trade is relevant to this, because I think it's something the owners in front office don't really fully understand with the Red Sox.

Like the Yankees would never let Judge go or trade Judge, right?

That's their guy.

They made that decision five, six years ago.

And the same way the Red Sox with Ortiz.

probably somewhere in the 2000s were like, this guy's going to retire with us.

And I think like, especially as I get older that's the kind of stuff i respond to with sports like the chance to root for somebody for 20 years and i think with bets

that's what hurt the most with all that was like that just he just should have always been a red sock then and you when you strike oil with a guy like that And then to hear the owner talking about some of the reasons they decided he wasn't going to be worth it, because we've studied the history of these deals.

And as these guys get older and the,

and it's like, this guy's the freak athlete of all freak athletes who plays every position you want him to.

Why didn't they have that same feelings for Devers?

Why didn't they worry about what is this Devers deal going to look like when he's 35?

Why was it with Mookie Betts that that was who they were worried about?

I will never understand that.

Well, I mean, I think as everybody has written, as you have said, is that you know, the Devers signing was not in a vacuum, it was in response to the reaction, pure panic.

Yeah, it was the thing.

The city has turned on us.

We have to do this.

We have to compound that mistake with another mistake.

The thing that's crazy about the Mookie thing, I mean, you know, you and I have been through this a million times, but

generational talent, five tools, like does, he's not just generational.

Nobody's ever done what Mookie bets.

You can't.

You can't be a gold glove right fielder and then go play shortstop and then turn the back end of a double play at second base and then hit for power, but also hit behind the runner on a hit and run.

You know, like

it's crazy how singular he is.

He's a lot like Shoe in that regard.

Like, he's one of one.

Then you go to the next thing, which is like the community.

Is he a good citizen?

Is he a good guy?

And you're like, yeah, obviously.

10 out of 10 on that.

He checks every box and he's feeding the homeless after playoff games.

And this is, you know, like Big Poppy.

has a lifetime ambassador contract with the Red Sox, and that should have been Mookie Betts, of course.

So I'm able to separate that mistake from this excellent trade.

I am delighted.

You're doing excellent.

I like it.

And I cannot believe how much they ate and how much we got back because I was looking at Kyle Harrison.

I don't, you know, he's 23.

Like that guy is, you know, is a big leaguer.

That guy's

a year ago, he was the number two pitching prospect that wasn't in the majors yet behind Paul Skeens.

Seems relevant.

It seems relevant and so and it's weird that jordan hicks was the lead name on the trade yeah when clearly he's kind of already pumpkined as a major leaguer and kyle harrison

or maybe he's a reliever and shouldn't have been a starter i don't know i'm not giving up on him either you know i actually looked up because i because devers did win a title for us right he was he was the last guy from the 2018 team of course he made it ironically he makes that diving play toward the bag it's an insane play when you think about what a shitty third baseman he would become.

He makes a completely clutch defensive play.

Also had a huge hit in that comeback.

Yeah.

So

technically he's not eligible because they did win a title when he was part of the team.

But it was, you know, he was young at that point.

And you wouldn't have said he was one of the four best guys on the team or anything.

So I don't know.

I have to look back at the rules and see if he's eligible.

But I do think when you see how the team didn't react to the trade, where you didn't have players going like, I can't believe we traded Rafi.

What are we doing here?

Like, none of that is right.

It's like, hey, and then you, you hear Breslow, who you know might be a maniac for all we know, but he's like, I think we're going to have a better record at the end of the year than we would have if we had him.

It makes me think this must have been pretty bad behind the scenes or pretty weird or pretty awkward or something.

So they feel like they're removing a literal, very similar to Nomar in 04 when that guy.

Very similar.

Really weird.

And, you know, like, if you look at the baseball card, Orlando Cabrera and Doug Mankiewicz is not a great return on paper.

But, you know, you and I talked about it.

It's going to make Derek Lowe better because as soon as we get better defensively, Derek Lowe will be a better pitcher.

We love the trade.

We were like, oh my God, we have a shortstop with range who's going to be able to make plays.

And we had seen Nomar killing us in the field.

But yeah, so I think it's going to be.

And I do think it's analogous, Nomar refusing to go into that game in New York while Jeter is planting his face on a metal chair

and Nomar's outing.

That is the analogy that feels right.

So you have a guy that the team needs to play first base.

He's saying, I would rather just work my 12 minutes a night.

I mean, what is a DH's job?

It's insane.

Give a 12-minute workday.

You work these four installments.

It's going to get psyched up for every bat.

I might be hitting again in 40 minutes.

You sit around and the team needs you.

So, you know, it's funny because you and I have talked a little bit about this.

We're old now.

We're in this older generation.

And it's like, you know, I think you and I have both seen some of the Gen Z attitude, the entitlement.

And of course, they're entitled.

We've done nothing but tell them how awesome they are their whole lives.

Oh my God, this awful finger painting is going right up on the fridge.

They're a genius.

Like, of course, they're fucked up.

But I really did feel like the I'm not going to play first base.

He's like, I've already learned

the quote where he said, I've already learned a new position.

I've learned how to sit on the bench.

Like, what is DH?

Tell us, walk us through learning how to DH.

Plus, like, if I was a professional baseball player, I'd want to play first base.

It would just be more interesting.

You get to be in the field.

You might be involved in the action.

I would just rather do that.

And a below-average third baseman can be a pretty good first baseman pretty quick.

Like, there's not, there's not that much to do.

Although I will say, Abraham Toro and the collection of guys try, you know, the Red Sox first baseman do this thing on every routine ground ball to second base.

They sprint and lay out.

So it's like, okay, if the pitcher's not over there, it's another infield hit.

Yeah.

All right.

We passed a lot of time for this.

Pats, I was in Indy and I did Pats over nine and a half wins plus 160 on FanDuel.

Couldn't have been more excited about it.

Also, Betsy, Brabo, plus 750 coach of the year.

I'm in.

I love it.

We are in the Roman Anthony Drake May era.

It's a new day.

Don't forget about our guy, Marcelo Meyer, who we have on our fantasy team as well.

This is a beautiful swing.

Yeah.

All right, Hanch.

Good to see you.

Thanks for venting to us.

All right.

Thanks, brother.

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All right, we're taping this midweek.

Con Canipo is here.

He went to Duke University.

Not for long.

He's going to be in the NBA draft.

He's going to be drafted somewhere, I would say, in the top eight, but it's starting to seem like it's climbing higher than that.

You've done a lot of interviews.

This is the best one.

I think this is the peak right here.

Absolutely.

A hundred percent.

Where are you right now?

Are you in Wisconsin?

Yeah, I'm back home.

I'm actually in my parents' bedroom, the most quiet place in the house.

Oh, nice.

That's your studio?

Yep, I guess so.

Oh, I see some I see some wedding pictures in the back.

Yeah, wedding pictures on the back.

Yeah.

How how long have your parents have been married?

It's actually their anniversary coming up this week.

So 2004.

2004.

Oh my God.

I'm so old.

Jesus.

Yeah, because one of the things, one of the reasons we want to have you on was

your family sent a picture of you reading my book when you were a little kid, which I thought was hilarious that my book is now old enough that people who read the book as little kids are now being drafted in the lottery.

But what, what kind of, so did you have like hands-on parents parents that were driving you everywhere, like basketball camps, uh, coaching your team?

Like, what was like your family situation?

How'd you end up being like Mr.

Basketball in Wisconsin?

How'd you end up being a top five lottery pick, potentially?

Yeah, so both, both my parents played, uh, played college basketball.

My mom played at uh UW Green Bay.

Um, and then my dad played at uh Wisconsin Lutheran College, um,

which is in a D3 in Milwaukee.

So they, I mean, obviously they, they loved loved hoops and they wanted me to play.

My dad wasn't like a crazy coach or anything, following me around.

So

I never played for him or anything.

But they definitely made sure I

worked on my game and got me in the gym as much as they could and really helped me out that way.

Wait, I want to hear about the games for the parents.

So what was your mom's game?

What was her position?

What was her skill set?

Yeah, so she's 6'1.

And so she was a post at Green Bay.

And she's actually the yeah, she's actually the all-time league scorer there.

So she's,

I mean, she loves to say Kevin McHale.

The footwork, nice.

Yeah, footwork up and under was the go-to move, but

she didn't have quite as deep of a bag as him, but that's what she likes to say.

And what's your word about your dad?

My dad,

he's like 6'4, and in D3, like he was like a three or a four,

but, but he could really shoot it.

Um, I'd say a three or four because he averaged like 10 rebounds a game is his sophomore year.

Um, but yeah, it's really just like a shooter, mid-range, three-point.

Um,

he's actually, I think he's, he's the all-time Steels leader there too.

So a little bit of anticipation from him.

But I don't, I, I don't know if I could put really a

player on him because his go-to move is a post-fadeaway at 6-4.

So

that's like TJ McConnell.

Yeah, right.

Yeah, getting into the lane, bouncing backwards.

Well, it's interesting.

So you got the shooting, probably from your dad's side, but some of the footwork, like one of the, one of the things, like watching all the tape with you,

you have this herky jerky around the rim up fake game when you get into the paint that like you're patient, you'll wait, you'll do, and then you'll, you'll, you know, it's a little like TJ McConnell has it, Pritchard, not to mention all white guys, but Pritchard has it.

People around the rim who don't necessarily go right to the basket, but kind of use defenders against themselves.

Which I noticed with you, the other thing, though, I mean, the catch and shoot stuff is unbelievable.

The footwork, but

what do you think is the best part of your offensive game that you're the most proud of?

Yeah, I think probably the shooting now.

I used to not, like growing up, I wasn't always a great shooter.

So I really had to work on that.

Just like in my mechanics and all that stuff.

I had always had good form, but I just, for whatever reason i wasn't always a great shooter so those so like in ninth grade you weren't like a dead eye like

like right when i got to high school is when i started to become a really good shooter so like in middle middle school i like couldn't couldn't shoot threes like that um but i knew were you taller

uh

kind of because i noticed like in your high school stats like you actually were rebounding and it seemed like you were almost yeah being played a forward

yeah no i was like a forward for my first three years before my senior year when I had to handle the ball.

But like, yeah,

I definitely got to, when I got to high school, I was like, all right, I got to be able to shoot threes.

And that's, that's kind of been the

thing that I can always rely on on the offensive end to create advantages for myself.

So I'd probably say that for sure.

Well, I mean, I'm sure I'm like slightly to blame for this, but when guys are in the draft, we love doing comps.

I remember doing the draft for ESPN in 13 and 14 and forcing them to do a player comp segment, which Jalen was terrible at.

I used to make fun of it.

He just could never get the hang of it.

Now he's better at it.

But you've had some fun ones.

Like the comps for Con Knipple are all over the map.

But one of the ones that I think is somewhat valid, there's some clay stuff with you that I think some people have mentioned.

I mean, that would be the ideal if that was a clay type of career, right?

Yeah, I mean, that would be the absolute,

that would be awesome.

You know, I've always tried tried to, you know, everybody wants to play like Clay if you're, if you're a shooter or, uh, and, and he's a, also was a great defensive player

back when he, before, before the injuries and before he's gotten older now.

But, um,

you know, that's someone you look up to when you're, when you're a player like me.

And, and, that would be, that would be absolutely awesome.

It's funny you mentioned the, the draft stuff.

Because me and my family were actually just watching in between one of the finals games.

I was like, we got to watch.

I don't know how it came up, but there was like your highlights from the 2013 draft

on YouTube.

Oh, the whoa.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That and, but like, you were just like spot on the whole draft.

It was really funny.

So I was, I was watching that with my, my dad and my, my family outside while we were at halftime of the finals.

Oh, that's funny.

Yeah, I was, I had a good draft that year.

I don't think the next year I did as well, but that was like one of the great drafts because it was David Stern's last draft.

Nobody knew who the first pick was going to be.

It ended up being Anthony Bennett.

Giannis was in the draft.

Nobody knew what to make of him.

And it just, uh, it was just all over.

There was a big Celtic trade that draft.

But right, you know, when I look at this stuff, and this is why it's so funny with, with your rise as a prospect, you're always going to be a first rounder.

But I remember when I started watching dude, because I love Cooper Flag.

I was like, I just, I just thought he had it.

He's, you know, especially somebody weaned on the 86 Celtics is my kind of guy.

Yeah.

But the fact that he reclassified, he's playing older kids.

And he just seemed, he reminded me so much of the stuff I loved about KG, even though they're not the same size, but just like the competitiveness, how he's good at everything, how he's an anchor.

He's a good passer.

So I started watching Duke and I was texting our college basketball guys.

I'm like,

what's up with this Knipple?

Where's he supposed to go in the draft?

Because he keeps jumping out to me.

And they're like, oh, no, he might be a lottery pick.

And I was like, this seems like the kind of guy they're going to screw up and end up going 19th.

And then he'll be really good.

And be like, how did he fall to 19?

But somewhere in the mix in the last two months, you jumped up and now you're in like, you're in the top five conversation.

When did, when did, when did that flip?

You know, I don't really know.

I think a lot of it helped with the ACC tournament when Cooper was out.

So being able to...

you know, see me in a scenario where I'm the guy for a couple of games.

And then just kind of carrying that over into the NCA tournament.

I think that helped.

But then, I mean, I don't really know.

I haven't played in front of anybody other than the team workouts I've been doing.

So I guess I made a decent impression in some of my interviews.

And

I don't know.

What do they ask you in these interviews?

Do you feel like they're trying to get under the hood with you and try to break you psychologically?

Or

what are they up to?

Yeah,

I don't think so.

You always hear the stories about like people getting like asked ridiculous questions right um i didn't really have many of those i think they're really just trying to get to know you what makes you tick um

how you think the game as a player um you know some teams they'll do they'll have you draw step up on a board they just want to hear how you talk about the game uh how you talk about uh

scenarios and

uh in in the in the course of the season, like what your defensive coverages are.

They want to get into all that stuff and then baseline stuff about like who you are as a person as well.

Yeah, that's see, I would do it completely differently if I ran a team.

I would be, I would be so interested in work ethic,

what your day-to-day routine was.

Do you feel like you're the player you can be five years from now?

I would be going into all the hardwire stuff because I honestly, at the point you're at now with a lot of these prospects, they're all pretty much around the same talent.

And then the work ethic and like having one elite skill.

And then that's when it starts to separate.

But like, I'm sure you saw that with Cooper.

Like, he's famous for that.

Like, he's just a maniac in every single drill, every day, every practice, everything.

And it really does feel like those are the guys that ascend.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

And I think they try to get a feel for that too.

So, some of those questions that you were saying, but yeah, like when you mentioned a guy like Cooper, like that stuff is kind of evident too, as in the way he plays.

Like, he doesn't take plays off in the game.

So you can, you could kind of see how that would correlate to a practice.

Like, he's not taking any drills off.

He wants to win every drill.

Um, that stuff carries over.

Does that carry over to the teammates?

It must, right?

A little bit.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

I mean,

I think for the most part, we had we had guys that are self-driven in that way anyway this past season.

Um,

but I mean, when the best guy's doing it, everybody's going to do it.

Or you look at, I mean, it's been two months now.

Do you look back at that Final Four just like,

is this going to haunt me the rest of my life?

Like,

what is your relationship to that game now that it's in the rear view mirror?

Yeah, I mean,

I told my assistant coach,

Coach Dilde, the night, the night of the game, like right after the, right after the game, we got to the hotel.

I was like,

we were going on the elevator and I was getting off.

And I was like, I'll never forget that for the rest of my life.

Like, that'll just, that'll just sit with you.

Just one of those games.

And it's,

you know, it's, it's tough.

Like, I, it took me about

like a month to watch your episode on it.

You and Russillo did an episode on it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It took me about a month to, to get around to that.

And, and, I thought you did a really good job.

I think you had a tweet about it, too, that, like, broke down all the things that went wrong down the stretch.

And, like, you just flip one of those things and you win the game.

So, um, it's one of those that just, that eats at you.

But, but now, you know, you know, I'm kind of.

kind of past it.

I don't think about it all the time.

Yeah.

And sort of that sense.

But when someone brings it up, yeah, it doesn't bring up good feelings.

Well, the good thing is when you're much older and you're like my age, you can barely remember anything.

So don't worry, it probably won't haunt you that much.

But it is, it is crazy that team you had, though.

When you like, I'm just looking at it in the context.

I'm a casual college basketball fan.

I'll float in.

I'll watch certain teams, but then I really get into the draft and I really enjoy that part and trying to come up with my weird takes on everybody.

But

your team is so fun from a 2025 draft standpoint, you know, like even

the center, like, like, could he, he might, could he go fifth?

Could he go sixth?

Could he go eighth?

And he makes sense with a bunch of different teams, too.

Um, and I do wonder if after the draft, people would be like, Wow, look at where all those guys went in the draft.

How did they not win?

But that's the thing about college basketball.

It's one game, it's not like you know, you're not playing a best of seven,

right?

The best team always wins at best of seven.

Yeah,

I feel that unless some injury happens or something.

But in college, it's just

it's always a toss-up, you know?

You never

KC Indiana.

I remember after game three,

Indiana goes up.

Now, I'm at the game.

I'm doing the pod with Zach.

And both of us were like,

man, this isn't usually how basketball goes.

Usually like the best team, if a four out of seven, the best team almost always wins unless something crazy happens.

Like Indiana had the reverse where now Halliburton's hurt.

But

for the most part, if you're going to play seven times, usually the right team wins.

Right.

But in a one-gamer, who the hell knows?

All right.

So some of it, it looks like you're in the three to seven range.

So do you work out with Philly?

I have a Zoom with them this week, but I did not work out with them.

Do you start?

Because you're like an actual basketball fan.

Do you look at all these teams and try to figure out like, hmm, what would I look like in this situation?

What would I like, is your brain even go that way?

Are you trying to think about it?

Yeah, I mean, you do a little bit.

But I think like something I learned big time here at Duke this year was my first time not being the best player on a team.

You know, I probably could have gone to another college and been the best player.

But just learning how to like affect the game

when the ball, when the ball is not in your hands or when you're not the number one guy

and learning about myself that I can still be an effective player doing that.

So I feel pretty confident in like any situation I'm going to go into that I'll be able to affect winning and be able to contribute.

Yeah, that's the thing.

And Rosello is a big fan of your prospects too for the next level because we tend to gravitate toward the guys that we just feel like could fit in in any type of situation, right?

Like you look at Philly.

Philly's got guards.

They have MB'd.

It's pretty easy to see where you would fit in there.

Like you would spread the floor for them.

You might be able to initiate some offense.

Then you go to a team like Utah,

where they have marketing and they have the guards, but then I could also see where you fit in with them.

Charlotte's like kind of perfect with Lamello and Bridges and Brandon Miller.

Like they clearly need somebody like you.

So you go on through and I don't know, it just feels like you could fit in any situation.

Push, you can play multiple positions, right?

Like potentially you could play a three in some position in some situations.

You could be a two.

You could initiate some some offense.

Like, I'm not worried about you.

Yeah, I definitely think, um,

you know, it

I tend to have a little bit like I have a versatile skill set beyond just the shooting.

Like, you can get on the court shooting, yeah, anywhere.

Um,

that you could play for any team if you could shoot the ball.

Um, but definitely some of those other skills that I can bring to the table.

Like you mentioned, initiating offense and stuff like that stuff is valuable to any team.

Rebounding

with the catch and shoot stuff, that's i mean that's hard work because that's a different kind of skill set so you must have spent like some serious time working on that right yeah i when i was yeah like when i got to like that high school like freshman sophomore like i would i was on a shooting machine which i stopped doing because you know you gotta like practice more off the move and and all that stuff but Like I really hammered down my mechanics.

Like I was a very,

like my brother's a really good shooter and he he can just fling it, you know, like it's, it's natural, it's natural.

Like, mine is very, um,

good word for it.

Uh,

just very fundamental.

Like, I have, it's got to be a strong shot.

Like, everything

has to, has to come together.

So I think, um,

I think definitely just the amount of time I put working on my form and my mechanics

really contributed to that.

Um,

but I, I think, I think going forward now, like, it's it's like riding a bike kind of right yeah you put all time into it i put so much time into that before and now i can just keep like adding different ways to shoot like right now i'm working a ton off the dribble because that's an area i need to grow um

it's and it's just it's just different you know like it's just a different feel is just a catch and shoot whereas or an off the dribble or an off the move shot um but that that that's like kind of the baseline it's like form shooting almost yeah and you have to and you're already pretty good at like coming off a screen at the top,

doing the one-handed across-the-core pass, which I don't know when that pass got started, but all of a sudden now it's like a must if you have the ball

and it's a high degree of difficulty on it.

Uh, what are the things you're most worried about the next level?

What's your whole,

yeah?

I mean, I think everybody's, you know, like

I guess playing into the stereotype a little bit of, you know, a white guy,

they're going to challenge you.

Defensively, they're going to go at at you, see what you're made of.

So just being ready, ready for that and being really focused on that.

And so every time you go out there,

just being really focused on that end is going to be really key.

Being hunted.

Yeah.

It's funny, though.

Sometimes that can work in your favor because like the funniest was that Celtics, Hauser, they would hunt Hauser and not realize that it was actually a bad idea a lot of the time.

But everyone would try to do it.

Be like, ooh, white guy, let's go get him.

And then

it wouldn't work out most of the time because he was actually a pretty good one-on-one.

Yeah, because he played for Tony Bennett at Virginia.

He's all right sliding his feet.

And Pritchard was another one that, you know, he was undersized, but he would fight, fight, fight

and do it.

So when you watch, I'm sure you've watched a ton of the finals, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

So

do you try to envision like,

could I play in this level?

Who would I be on this Indiana team?

Could I have been in the wiggin spot on this OKC team?

Are you thinking that or are you just watching the games?

Yeah, you think about it a little bit.

Like I went to both Bucs games when they played Indiana.

So just like kind of thinking about, man, like how could I,

you know, the first thing you see in the playoffs is the physicality.

Yeah.

Like, how are you going to, how are you going to adjust to that?

And then you think about how you can help teams.

And, you know, I really gravitated towards Nee Smith in that first round.

Yeah.

And like, I mean, he's been really, he's been awesome.

Like, I just love his shot.

Like, he always gives it a chance.

Like, every time he releases it, it feels like

it's either going long or it's going in.

Yeah.

It's not, it's, he's never missing it short.

So I gravitate towards him.

And, you know, he's got, he's got really long arms and stuff, but

just he's a great shooter and uses his body and his physicality well on defense.

Are you a Bucs fan?

Is that fair to say?

Was that your team?

Yeah, no.

Yeah, absolutely.

Oh, so when they won in 21, you're going nuts.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was, that was a special time.

We're a long ways from there, but.

I know.

You know, it's funny.

I had Doc on my podcast yesterday and we were talking about the East is so wide open.

They have the best guy in the conference.

Everybody thinks they're going to trade him and they're not.

And it's, if you have the best guy in the conference, you have to feel like you have a chance, even if the rest of the team is a little rocky.

But I think that's kind of where they've landed, at least for the next year.

The East is so wide open.

You're probably going to be in the East, right?

Unless it's Utah.

All the other teams from three to eight, I bet.

Oh, yeah, New Orleans would be the other one, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I've given up my Bucs fandom.

That's it.

Now, yeah.

So, I mean, I,

yeah, I guess, I guess that's.

That's fine.

Just Cooper can't give up the Celtics thing because we're counting on him in six years.

Yeah, he's come six years.

We'll find out if he's actually a Celtic fan six years from now because we're saving 2032 cap space for him.

We want to be the first one who plays out his rookie contract and then just jumps to his favorite team right after.

You can do the same thing.

Maybe it can start to trend.

Yeah.

Convince him to do that for you.

Give me a Cooper story about what an overcompetitive maniac he is.

Yeah, I like this one just because it's the...

the first time we played pickup.

So we went down there a week before

we actually had to go down there for the summer.

So there's this thing at Duke called K Academy.

A bunch of guys pay a whole bunch of money to get play in like a league

like a fantasy camp basically.

Right.

It's it's pretty cool, but we're the guys are we're we're helping run it.

We're helping coach.

And then and then after every day we play pickup.

So it's just like any other

any other pickup game.

Guys are going really hard.

It's kind of our first time going against each other.

The coaches aren't in there, but you know, they got the cameras or whatever, they can probably see uh, stia playing, so everybody's going at each other.

And me and Cooper are on the same team, and we were winning every game.

Um,

it was really fun, and then he switches teams,

and then that we played like three more games, and that team won all three games, right?

So, it's just like that's just like any other game, like it doesn't matter, middle school, high school,

college, the guy that does that that is is the best player right the guy the the guy that who wins all day switches teams and then wins wins three more games um so i remember telling my dad i'm like yeah he switched teams when we were playing pickup and it didn't matter

is it is it weird to just pass through a school for

10 11 months and then you're gone and then for the rest of your life people are like dukes concanipo and it's like you were there for two semesters plus some summer games, right?

It's, it's just kind of weird how that's played out in the 21st century.

Yeah, it sucks.

Um,

because you get, you get so close with all these teammates.

Yeah.

And, and you get close with the coaches.

You're with them all the time, every day.

And then it's like, especially now with like the transfer portal, like right after the season, like we came home and the coaches are meeting with the guys who have like a decision to make as far as like, are you staying or leaving?

yeah so like they're doing that right away when they get back there's like no time for reflection they're trying to get a roster together for next year you're not making s'mores by a campfire just talking about yeah

reflecting on the season you just move on and it it kind of stinks um and then like if you if you think like oh man i like i had so much fun this year you think about like

oh like what would you do coming back and then It's just a completely different team anyway.

So it's never going to, it's never going to be the same.

So

you don't really think about that for too long.

Yeah, you're coming back and basically joining a different AAU team that has Duke jerseys and the same coaches.

Yeah, I don't.

Like if they made me the Zara Sports and asked me to

fix college hoops, the natural fix would be if you go to any college you go to, you should have to stay for two years.

So there's at least a little more stability, right?

And that includes the coaches.

But

I don't think somebody like you or Cooper or whoever else should be forced to stay stay in college for two years if you guys can become, you know, lottery picks or whatever.

It's just, you just never know with how long an athletic career could be.

So to force somebody to stay isn't right either.

I don't, I don't know how you fix it.

It's one of those like unsolvable dilemmas, you know, and it feels like it's getting worse.

Yeah.

And like we see too with like all this stuff, the NCAA like can't.

can't fight anything.

So everything that goes through is getting passed.

The coaches talk about all the time is it really is the Wild West.

It really, and especially the NIL stuff.

You're like an 18-year-old kid navigating all these crazy offers.

What was the worst NLI NIL offer you got?

Sex toys?

Anything terrible?

Yes.

No.

I don't know if I had a

worst one.

How did people approach you?

Did you have like a handler?

Or was it like your parents?

Yeah.

So

you can have like an NIL agent.

Yeah.

So I had an agent.

But like I was born.

Like I didn't, I didn't really care.

Yeah.

I just stuck with the money you get from the collective at whatever school you go to.

And I did a couple of things, but it was like the bare bones.

You take an Instagram,

make an Instagram post, take one picture, and then it's like whatever money you get.

So I wasn't really too too focused or big on it.

So I don't know if I had a

worse one.

Did you have, who was like, did you, were you in a suite?

Who were your roommates?

Like, were you with the other basketball guys?

What was the deal?

Yeah, we were, we were in the dorm.

Um, we were, we were in dorms over on

East Campus at Duke, which is the freshman campus.

Yeah.

Um,

and

we

we got like a full room, so most people would share one room.

Yeah,

and so like, I remember somebody was like, how come they get a full room?

And like

the person we were moving in with was like, because Kaman is seven foot two.

He's not sleeping in like a twin bed or whatever.

Yeah.

So we, yeah, we shared.

It was like Jack and Jill.

So it was like two rooms that were connected, shared a bathroom.

Yeah, it was, it was pretty, pretty high level, but it was all in the freshman dorm.

It was, it was super nice around all the other regular day-to-day.

And then the season ends and you get exams and then that's it.

You never go back.

Some guys don't even do the exams.

The season ends and they're like i'll see everybody later yeah so i think i think duke does it well because like we have we all have all in-person classes yeah

so a lot of a lot of schools will just kids are just online and they're just clicking through

um

i don't know probably someone's probably doing it doing it for them too like yeah like and most of most schools i don't i don't i shouldn't say i know everything but like i know a lot of schools that do like they're done with school before the tournament right

So, like, you're done really going to school.

Yeah, they don't go with class, go to class anyway.

Um, so we're going to in-person class, so we kind of stay, we got to stay a little bit longer than probably some other kids that declared for the draft.

Where did your parents want you to go to college?

My mom wanted me to go to Duke.

Oh, really?

So, they weren't like putting Wisconsin pressure on you or any of that stuff?

My dad, I think, probably wanted Marquette.

Yeah, been cool, but my mom was all the way in on Duke.

Is there a reason?

Would she like the Christian Leitner documentary?

Like, what was the reason?

No, I think she just

she knew what how big like Duke is as a brand in college basketball.

And she was like, oh, you're going to play all the big games and all that.

And she was in for that.

Anybody knows my mom at all?

She's all she's all in for that stuff.

Did you pick before or after Cooper picked?

Before.

Oh, so that's what a bonus.

Yeah, no, it was great.

I was, I remember when it was coming down to it and it was hit them or us or UConn, and I was like,

come on.

Like, they just won twice.

Like, come on, let's

like, I wasn't, I wasn't talking to him or anything.

Like, I was, I'd only met him once, but I was like, oh, man, this would be really, really good if he came here, obviously.

And then I remember seeing it, the slam thing or whatever.

Yeah.

In class in the morning, I was like, let's go.

It's going to be awesome.

Well, you had a crazy class of, I guess it's 2024, but just like an unusually loaded class of dudes.

Like, even if you go back and you look at the ESPN top 100 and like some of the guys are like five guys with 96 ratings are above.

The two Rucker guys are, Rutgers guys are in there.

Edgecomb's in there.

And you probably have been playing against a bunch of these guys since what age?

Like 15, 16?

Yeah, once you get, yeah, like sophomore, freshman, sophomore year.

Yeah.

So what were your initial impressions of some of these dudes?

As you're like at these big tournaments and, you know, it's like, oh, there's Dylan Harper.

I've heard about him.

Yeah.

So I played, I think I played Dylan Harper once.

And

yeah, we played him once.

So we actually, we actually beat them.

And they ended up being really good and made the final four of like the Nike circuit.

But my team was the...

My team was a team that I think we were 500.

But my team was a team, like we'd beat like a really good team like them and then go and lose to the worst team.

Right.

My junior year, we weren't very good, but I remember playing him.

Was there anybody that blew you away?

I remember VJ.

Like I saw Vijay play at a camp and I'm like, this guy just can fly.

Like it was, I remember being really impressed with him.

Obviously, Cooper

played against him a couple of times because he just has such a unique game.

Yeah.

Where like in high school, like he wasn't a great,

I think he got to the point at Duke where he was like a very good three-point shooter.

Right.

Um, but like he wasn't like a good shooter in like earlier in high school, like at least from three.

It was like all mid-range.

It was just like interesting to watch him play.

I'm like, he's so effective.

He's can't even can't even shoot like that, but he just had a crate, obviously, the wingspan and all that.

It was just like a very interesting game, high motor.

Yeah.

I didn't.

What about Ace Bailey?

Did you ever go against him?

I never saw, I never saw Ace Bailey.

I never played against him.

Because he was, I think he was an Adidas.

He was on the Adidas circuit.

So, you know, you don't really cross paths with guys.

Yeah.

It's so funny.

You have these circuits with the different shoes where you don't even see the guys.

Yeah, it's weird.

It's definitely weird.

And it's all political too.

So, you know,

they get pissed off about it.

But I don't remember seeing him.

I remember Derek Queen.

Derek Queen was

at the camps, all the camps and stuff.

It's hard to have a big.

Some teams don't have a big at these camps.

And so, he, like, I remember we playing him, and he had almost had 30, just like nobody could stop him.

Um, he's really good, he's super skilled.

Yeah, it's funny at those camps, and those camps are like just basically giant pickup games.

So, the point guards always come out good because they have the ball all the time, the shooters, like you, come out great because you're going to just hit open shots.

And then, if there's a big guy who can wreak havoc, that's the other one who's going to jump out.

And then everybody else has to kind of figure out how to fit in

the circumstances.

Yeah,

they aren't the best circumstances

for everybody, but they're definitely, you know, it's a different type of environment.

So I think that's actually the NBA 100 camp.

That's when Duke first saw me.

Yeah.

And, you know, those things can actually

matter, which is weird because it's not always very good basketball.

So have you thought about like, well, what's the girlfriend situation?

Who's going to be at the draft with you?

What do you got going?

Who's the entourage?

Who do we have to look for?

Yeah.

So

I get six people at the table.

So that's my whole family.

I got four little brothers.

My little brothers?

Yeah.

Oh, my God.

Yep.

All right.

Yeah.

So plus the two parents.

There you go.

Plus the two parents.

So that's my table.

And then

my cousin is coming.

My girlfriend, one of my best buddies from the team at Duke.

And then my uncle, who actually gave me your book for Christmas.

So, oh, I like that guy.

Yep, yeah, he's great.

He actually played,

yeah, he played in the NBA for a little bit.

Did he really?

Yeah, he appeared in 13 games for the Bucs.

He's got a basketball reference page.

Yeah, Jeff Nordgaard.

Wow.

I vaguely remember that name.

Yeah.

Yeah, he was in the, he likes to claim he's in the 96 draft.

So he's like, I was part of the best draft class ever.

It's me,

Kobe.

Yeah.

What's the suit situation?

You thought about it?

Thought about colors like that?

You're not that far away now.

Yeah.

Navy blue suit, navy tie, white shirt.

I'm not, that's not my cup of tea, really.

So I got a lot of help from my mom and from the agent and all that, but I'm not.

It won't seem like Grady Dick or anything.

Yeah, he was trying to make a statement.

So it seems like that

looked good.

Maybe he still does.

It seems like you're a giant basketball fan, though, which it feels like with NBA players, they go one in two ways.

Either, you know, they're in the league because they're good at basketball, but they don't really know what's going on.

And then there's other people who are like, no, no, I'm actually a student.

It's a big deal for me to be playing against so-and-so.

I followed his whole career, but it seems like you're in that camp.

Yeah, absolutely.

Like this, this whole process here has been really awesome.

You know, like my uncle is kind of a big influence, and like he knows all these players.

And

we used to talk about basketball all the time.

But this process has been really cool because you're meeting all these former players.

Like when I was at the Combine, I was in the elevator with like Brian Cardinal.

And I'm like, oh, this is awesome, the janitor.

Like, this is...

stupid stuff like that or like I was in my interview with OKC and Nick Collison's in there.

So it would be random guys like that that I, that's really cool for me.

And then you obviously like the meeting, meeting the all-stars and like this, the guys I've crossed paths with at Duke is like Paulo and stuff like that is

really cool.

But yeah, I just love hoops, and um, it's been awesome to fall, and all that, all the NBA player stuff is something I've always gravitated towards.

Wait, so there was an interview with OKC?

That must have been before they didn't get the seventh pick.

Yeah, well,

at the combine, there's like you interview for like I don't know.

No, you're just talking to everybody.

Yeah.

Like 14 teams.

So they kind of request you and then it's both, they request you before, it's determined before the lottery.

Right.

All right.

I'm not going to ask you what team you're rooting to get picked because the correct answer is it's just going to be great to be drafted.

I've always wanted to be in the NBA.

Any team will be awesome.

I love every American city.

Every city sounds great.

I love Charlotte.

It would be great to be near Duke.

Washington, I've always wanted to go there.

Utah looks awesome.

I'll take up skiing.

Yeah, you just go through them.

Through them all.

Yeah, you definitely, definitely can't give any leeway there.

I personally,

I don't mean to make this awkward, but I personally think you make a ton of sense for Charlotte.

And I would be surprised if...

just for what they need, if they're going to keep their nucleus together, I could just see you on that team.

But it's going to be, you'll be somewhere in that three to seven.

I don't think it goes past seven, would be my guess.

But all of those teams, I feel like you'd play for New Orleans, might be the only weird one because they have a bunch of guards.

But,

you know, whatever.

Just

keep working.

Rebound.

Don't forget to grab those rebounds.

Get in there.

Pad the box score.

Yeah, absolutely.

Keep.

I was mad this year.

I mean, like, we got

because I was,

I was obviously a good rebounder in high school.

I mean, it's easier when you're the big, when you're a big guy, but like,

I was, I would always get pissed because we had Cion James out there, the 6'5.

He gets mad when everybody calls him a linebacker, but he's huge.

Yeah.

He rebounds.

And then you got Cooper and Kaman.

It's like, those guys steal everything.

Yeah, it's like, I get four or whatever.

And it's like, man, maybe

I'd have six if Caleb Foster's in there and Cion has a.

you know, Caleb Foster was an L.A.

kid who I thought was awesome in high school.

And I still feel like,

I don't know, I'm holding my stock for him.

I still feel like

there's something.

Yeah, there's something there with him.

He had some really, really good, because the L.A.

high school scene was crazy.

And, you know, that's where Jerry McCain came out of and a bunch of people.

But I thought, I just thought he was really good in high school.

Yeah, no, he's

a super, super hard worker.

So

I think you guys should expect big things from him this year.

He's a really, really good player, really good kid.

Um, and so it says something about him coming back, too.

You don't see that a lot, you don't see that a lot anymore in college.

So,

um, I think, uh, I think he'll have a big year this year.

What's the coach?

K?

How often does he kind of hang around the dude?

Like, that does he just show up randomly?

Like, how many times did you interact with him?

I interacted with him a little, uh, pretty decent amount, actually.

Um,

yeah, he's he's awesome but

he's not um

he tries to give like obviously the new staff his space their space and whatever but he's up still on the sixth floor so there's six floors all the coaches are on the fifth floor and then he's got his office on the sixth floor oh

over yeah it's it's it's pretty funny um but yeah he he came to practice probably a couple times he came he came and talked to us before the season um but you'll see him in there getting his workout in doing his doing his dips and his pull-ups

But he's great.

He's super funny.

He's got a really dry sense of humor.

He'll drop some F-bombs every once in a while.

Oh, yeah.

A little bit.

But he's great.

He was a good resource.

Obviously, he's one of the best resources to have for basketball stuff in the world.

So I've enjoyed all my conversations that I got to have with him.

All right.

So, big picture.

Keep a low profile as a rookie.

Right.

No, no, no con Knipple news, nothing.

You stay out of all the blogs, just

playing hard,

making shit happen, hitting some threes, no player podcasts for at least two years.

Yeah, I'm not doing that.

Yeah, push that on the side.

Don't worry about it.

I like listening.

Yeah, yeah.

You don't need to do it.

Maybe much later in your career.

I'm trying to think what else.

Well, plus, it's going to take everybody like half a year to realize how to pronounce your name because you have like a deceiving name because it looks like it should be Knupple, but it's Knipple.

So, you're going to have a lot of mispronunciations coming out of the gate, then people get used to that.

Um, but then I think the big moment will be when you go against Clay

and it, like, like how that interaction goes.

Does he be like, Hey, man, I've been following you.

Good luck, man.

You remind me a lot of me back in the day, like one of those to try to psych you out.

And then he'll put on like 20 on you in the first half.

In the first, yeah, in the first quarter, probably.

Yeah,

He'll try to rope a dope you with some sort of compliment.

And then, yeah.

Which, which guy are you the most excited to go against?

Just from like, I'd grown up as a basketball fan, just being on the same court with somebody.

No, it's probably Steph or LeBron.

Yeah, I would imagine.

Yeah.

Like, like, that's, I mean, for me, that's like

peak basketball.

I'm in like middle school for those four finals in a row.

Right.

And that's like, those are like when LeBron had the 20 whole 2018 run, even though they didn't have a chance, Like he was awesome.

And then obviously the 3-1 stuff.

But yeah, probably those guys.

And then Giannis in there.

And then I just want to see what it's like to play against Jokic, too, like how horrible that is.

Because he's.

I don't think it's fun.

Yeah.

I mean, he just seems like he's...

The fact that he took OKC to seven.

is incredible.

Like, I just, after watching OKC in the Western Conference finals and so far in the finals, it's like, man, that guy is so good.

Yeah.

Well, do you think Cooper on Dallas, do you think that team can be good right away?

Like him and Davis, Kyrie comes back.

Are you expecting them to be like immediately good?

Yeah, I think so.

Because it'll be weird.

I mean, I don't know who's going to guard.

Like, is Cooper getting the third best defender?

Right.

You know what I mean?

Like, that's a good, really good situation to come into as a rookie.

And I think it'll be able to let him have the ball in his

be able to play make and and you know kyrie's gonna have the ball in his hands davis gonna have his ball the ball in his hands but i really think you know cooper that'll be a really good spot for him right away at least to be able to come in uh contribute in a big way and then it'll be i i think it'll be on a good team like that's where it's not just like you know empty calories for for a team that is isn't really maybe not going anywhere but i think i think that'll that'll fuel his fire you know.

Well, what's interesting is it's a it's a weird team for him, but not really, because I feel like he actually could defend threes.

Like, if they played him in a center in Davis altogether, he could actually pull it off.

It doesn't seem like

that would be the best way to use him, but he could definitely do it.

And now you have like all this size in a league where everybody's trying to go smaller,

and that would be like a bitch to play against when you think about it.

Especially if it's like it's lively, right?

You know, like it's lively who can move.

AD can move.

Yeah.

And Cooper obviously is super fluid.

So like it could have some like dangerous like switching.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Like it'll be very interesting to see.

Well, and then the stuff he started to do at Duke, even as the season went along where they were initiating the offense through him and he was point forwarding, you know, some of these plays, which is.

basically what happened with Tatum with the Celtics over the course of he they weren't doing that with him at all in 2018.

And around, you know, early 2020s, it started happening more.

And then by 22, he was really comfortable with it.

And it seems like Cooper was comfortable with it right away.

It's something, you know, that's going to be a next step for you too, trying to figure out, can we run offense through him versus always having to run him off?

Right.

Yeah, definitely.

I mean, as a player, you want to be able to.

contribute in as many facets of the game as you can.

So I think definitely for me going forward, like I played a lot in ball screens this year, but that's something I want to get better at.

And for Cooper, for Cooper going forward, I think it's something that comes pretty naturally to him.

And we'll be like, if you watch the Pacers, they have so many guys that can initiate offense, and that's what makes them so dangerous and how they can play so fast.

So I think that's probably where the game is going to keep going.

Yeah, I do feel like it's some new version of basketball.

I was thinking that when I was,

nobody had the ball for too long.

Everybody was cutting and moving, and multiple guys on each team were trying to create plays, like as the initiator, versus like the basketball we've had forever, where it's one guy, everybody stands around, one guy one come one pickup, play

Jackson backing everybody down.

Yeah, three guys are just standing in their spots, and it feels like this is a more fun version.

I don't know how many teams are going to be able to play that style, but we'll see.

All right, well, I'm glad you have a good head on your shoulders.

I'm glad that we'll put that picture on social, you reading my book book when you were a kid, because that really cracked me up.

That book has some inappropriate words and jokes in there.

So I'm glad I was able to corrupt you.

It definitely does.

It's probably not for the 10-year-old years or whatever I was, but I'm glad, especially with all the pop culture references and that stuff.

That stuff, too.

Me and my dad's favorite is the rewatchables.

Oh, good.

What was your favorite episode?

Or did you have like a favorite movie we did?

I mean, I

really enjoy when Kyle Brant's on with you.

So I'd probably say like Rudy, the Rudy episode, because that's one of my favorites.

Um, oh, good.

Yeah.

But yeah, I mean, my dad, my dad's listening to it all the time.

Like he goes, whatever he's doing yard work, getting some shots up or something.

He's got the headphones in listening to the Real Watchables.

Oh, that's great to hear.

Tell him, thank you.

Good luck.

I hope you, I hope.

Wherever you land, I'm sure it's going to work out, but I hope it would be fun to see you on a team where you could contribute and play right away and, you know, keep working your ass off.

But

thanks for coming on, though.

I'm rooting for you.

Yeah, I really appreciate it.

Thank you.

All right.

All right.

That's it for the podcast.

Thanks to Eduardo and Gahal.

We're really putting it through the ringer this week.

No pun intended.

I'm going to be back on Thursday night after game six.

Me and Zach Lowe and Rob Mahoney.

It's probably going to be an Oklahoma City title because Tyrese Hall Burton is hurt, which we covered with Doc Rivers on Monday night.

But that will be live on YouTube as well in the Bill Simmons channel.

So I will see you on Thursday night.

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