Nico’s Gone, Iconic Bad Trades, Baseball’s Comeback, Lane Kiffin, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and the Power of Boredom With Chuck Klosterman

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Speaker 1 It's not a big announcement, but it's an announcement. It's not as big of an announcement as the Mavericks firing Nico Harrison less than 10 months after he made the Luca Donches trade.

Speaker 1 We're going to talk about that and a whole bunch of other things with BS Podcast Hall of Famer Chuck Colsterman, who hasn't been on in a while. We have a lot of topics.

Speaker 1 I have some sense of where this might go, but then as always with Chuck, you just never know. And it's next.
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Speaker 1 All right, the BS Pod Hall of Famer Chuck Klosterman is here. We are going to talk about a bunch of stuff.

Speaker 1 One thing we did not have on the docket was Dallas Mavericks GM, Nico Harrison, got fired about two hours before we started taping here at 10 o'clock Pacific time.

Speaker 1 And we never talked about this trade and all this stuff on the pod.

Speaker 1 So he's getting fired not even 10 months after he made this trade, which when the trade happened, everybody automatically was like, wow, this is one of the worst trades of all time.

Speaker 1 This is inexplicable. Why didn't he shop it? Why would he trade Luka? Why did he underestimate the fan base? And then somehow it worked out even worse than it seemed like in the moment.

Speaker 1 Davis has played nine games out of like a possible 44.

Speaker 1 And the Mavs are terrible. The fans are enraged.
And they finally had to dump this guy before we even got to Thanksgiving. Can you remember another sports situation like this since we've been alive?

Speaker 2 Well, I don't know. I'd have to think about that.
It's interesting that the GM is under so much.

Speaker 2 you know, the fire. Like his, the awareness of the GM of the Mavericks is higher than the vast majority of their roster, which is right.

Speaker 2 I mean, I'll tell you what, though. Okay, obviously, the trade didn't work.
I'm not going to sit here and be like, ah, well, I'm the opposite. Actually, it was,

Speaker 2 but I do think he was treated somewhat unfairly. And it was to some degree his fault for not explaining this better.

Speaker 2 Because there is a way to explain this trade that does not seem as insane as it does now.

Speaker 1 Yeah. All right.
What's that way then?

Speaker 2 Well, okay. So they go to the finals in 2024 and Luca plays great.
He's like, because like 28, 9-8, I think, during that playoff run.

Speaker 2 But they barely beat OKC, and then they kind of got run by the Celtics and clearly couldn't compete with him. So if you're him, and the idea is

Speaker 2 the real goal is to win a championship, not to be good, not to be competitive, not to be interesting, not to make money, to win a championship.

Speaker 2 I can understand the thinking being like, we need to go in a completely defensive direction.

Speaker 2 Which he said, and Anthony Davis is, you know, I mean, obviously, Luca on a scale of one to 10, he's a 10 on offense, and maybe a five or six on defense. When he's healthy, Anthony Davis is like

Speaker 2 seven, eight on offense and an eight, nine, ten on defense.

Speaker 2 So I think that he looked at this and like, we got to just completely reconstruct this team because it didn't, we, we did, we did the best that we could with what we had with our best player playing awesome, and we could not do it.

Speaker 2 So we've got to sort of recreate recreate this. They say, like, why didn't they throw Austin Reeves in there? I think at the time he was like, that's not,

Speaker 2 he's part of the system that's not going to work. It's like either all shooting or all defense.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 As it turned out, it was a mistake. This did not work.
And, you know, and everybody who said it was going to be terrible proved right.

Speaker 2 But,

Speaker 2 you know, okay, so no one talks about him letting Jalen Brunson leave that much because everyone seemed to think you're supposed to let Brunson leave at the time.

Speaker 2 Now, if they hadn't done that, the team is completely different.

Speaker 2 There's a lot lot of things I feel like that could have made this a completely different situation, but he kind of made that mistake that a lot of GMs do, which is when you make a trade, you're almost supposed to behave like, I'm not going to say anything.

Speaker 2 I'm just going to let everything play out and I'll be proven right. He should have been more on the offensive and said, this is doing this because we're not going to win a championship.

Speaker 2 the way we're with the trajectory we're on. We got to change things.
And I think that would have seemed more reasonable.

Speaker 2 it allowed people to kind of think all these crazy things that he was trying to actually just move the team to Vegas and all this stuff.

Speaker 2 I mean, yes, obviously, I'm not trying to say it was a good trade now. It didn't work, but it wasn't as insane as people responded at the time.

Speaker 1 Right. Well, he did leak out the defense stuff, and he was saying the defense was championing.
He probably didn't say, he probably didn't come hard enough on it.

Speaker 2 There's nothing else you could have said, right? There's like no, like, that had to be the reason, but he wasn't very

Speaker 2 definitive in his defense of this decision, you know?

Speaker 1 Yeah, because he's like too cool for school. I mean, there are so many things wrong with the trade, and we talked about all of them when it happened.
Basically, that they didn't shop it.

Speaker 1 This was the only suitor, that it was the only suitor because if word leaked out that they might trade Luca, the fan base would have revolted. So he's trying to sneak it by the fan base, basically.

Speaker 1 Can I get this deal done without this leaking?

Speaker 1 Because if it leaks out, I won't be able to do the deal because the fan base will revolt, which probably should have been a red flag for him in retrospect.

Speaker 1 Like, yeah, you're doing a trade that the fan base is going to revolt. That might not be a great idea.
But the bigger thing for me, he didn't get enough in the trade, which everybody said at the time.

Speaker 1 Whether you like Reeves or not, he has to be in it because at least he's an asset.

Speaker 1 But he was banking on Davis, who, as we've seen, and he's, you know, he's had some bad luck. Like he got poked in the eye, right? Now he has to wear goggles.

Speaker 1 He's had some wear and tear over the years, but he's banking on this guy who's a big guy, heading into like the, the, he's, he's already in his early 30s, heading toward his mid-30s.

Speaker 1 When we see the history of the league, these six foot 11 and up guys, as they hit 32, 33, 34, they can get really gamey in a whole bunch of different ways, right?

Speaker 1 Versus Luca was in his mid-20s with a whole bunch of scenarios where he could have actually gone up a level. And that was the part I didn't understand.

Speaker 1 You're buying almost past performance and giving up future performance with this age piece of it that was stupid, along with all the other stuff.

Speaker 2 Everybody who said the trade was idiotic was right. Okay, time has proven it was a bad move.

Speaker 2 But I just think this is tricky because the way trades are considered while they're happening is very different than the way they are considered retrospectively. And this is what I mean by that.
Okay.

Speaker 2 So when the Thunder traded James Harden, okay, who won that trade?

Speaker 1 The Rockets.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 2 But at the time the trade was made, the idea for both teams was we're doing this to win a title. That is our motive for making this move.
And it didn't happen.

Speaker 2 Now, ultimately, the Thunder down the road do win.

Speaker 2 So if we look at this of all being dominoes that line up and kind of moving in these kind of capricious, arbitrary ways, but kind of ending in the present, the Rockets didn't win that trade.

Speaker 2 The Rockets did not win a championship by,

Speaker 2 you know, by getting hard.

Speaker 1 So damn close.

Speaker 2 It seems like that they won the trade because obviously he had this amazing career and what was given in return did not really amount to much.

Speaker 2 But if the goal was to win a title, the goal failed. So if the initial idea about the trade is to win a championship, that needs to be the same criteria you use when considering it in retrospect.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's fair. Well, so Kyrie blew out his ACL right after the trade and AD got hurt.
yes so dear nico

Speaker 2 that was a good acquisition he made that everyone thought was crazy many people questioned the idea of him getting kyrie and that proved to be a smart move i really respect your nico harrison zag i didn't think it was possible and you're you're you're you're zagging in a way that i you're it's new territory it's like watching somebody climb some mountain that's never been climbed it's what i'm just saying is that it was that though the trade was a mistake and time has proven that it was i do think to some degree he was treated unfairly.

Speaker 2 And I think that the idea of the fan base turning on the guy being the motive for firing him, well, if for whatever reason they start the season six and two or whatever, everything is different.

Speaker 2 The fan base will then all of a sudden decide, oh, this was brilliant. He got us Cooper flag with this backdoor insane, Nostradamus thing.

Speaker 2 It is strange to take the side of someone who just got fired for obviously making a horrible decision, but that's what I'm doing.

Speaker 2 Like, i i sort of do see the reason behind it and i just think the pylon against this guy was kind of cheap well so anything about him as a person i don't like what what is he like as a guy i'm not that that should matter in terms of how we gauge this decision

Speaker 1 like very well respected in the nba community i mean i had a whole shoe background and when they hired him i think people thought he was like shoe background his big thing is that he blew it with steph curry that he yeah but i mean every everybody's got one of those, probably.

Speaker 1 I think he was respected as a relationships guy. Like, he had relationships with agents, players, people on other teams, and he was somebody that could rejuvenate them.
I think,

Speaker 1 like, when I look back, now that it's almost 10 months later, and you look back,

Speaker 1 this was really, we don't think Luca can be the face of our team trade. And what's the best we can do?

Speaker 1 And almost like we might be getting one over on the Lakers if we get this trade for him now, because they don't realize what they're buying but the part they missed which i said at the time was like you're lighting a fire under somebody who the one thing that you could kind of ding him on was well he's not in great shape yet he's a little bit of a diva like all things that by trading him you're just lighting this massive fire under him to be like oh i'm gonna show you so it was like the greatest thing that ever could have happened to him which people said including me at the time and that was the part he didn't factor into the trade like what is the potential of what i'm giving up?

Speaker 1 What happens if this guy goes up a level? Which is what's happening.

Speaker 2 I would say two things to that. One, here again, in retrospect, you are right.
So I can't say like that was, you know, a crazy thing to think. But I think it is difficult to

Speaker 2 make a move or not make a move based on the intangible abstraction of whether or not this guy will care more if this happens.

Speaker 2 If this guy will take this in some personal way and he'll lose a bunch of weight and care more.

Speaker 1 I mean, but that's part of sports, though. You have to

Speaker 1 factor in human nature and motivation.

Speaker 2 That's a good, that's a point in your favor. That, like, that's the kind of thing he's supposed to think about.

Speaker 2 The other thing is, I do think he probably became fixated on Anthony Davis, that he thought to himself, this is the only rim protector who can feasibly score 33 points as well.

Speaker 2 Like, I can get the most on both ends of the floor from this guy if he's healthy. And I'm going to gamble on that.
Because I think a lot of these guys, it's like, you know,

Speaker 2 and you, I'm sure, will agree with this.

Speaker 1 there are so many gms in all sports whose only goal is putting themselves in a position where they can't do anything that will get them immediately terminated that by that if they can always sort of create this by the way chuck that's that's life that's like the content industry right now that's like a bunch of media executives that name a company they just don't want to have they'd rather not have a win or a loss they would just rather kind of cruise along and not actually take a risk on anything and is that good or bad that's bad.

Speaker 2 That's bad. And I would say that the idea of a guy thinking maybe we can win the title in two years if all of these gambles come together,

Speaker 2 I mean, that makes, that gets a guy fired. And it did.
But it's like a.

Speaker 1 Well, but the real problem is he didn't make the best possible trade. So if he's going to shop Luca, you shop Luca.

Speaker 1 And maybe Utah comes out of nowhere and says, we'll give you Lori Marketing and 10 first round picks. Like you just don't know until

Speaker 2 it's like selling something to your neighbor over putting it in on ebay or something like you're just basically guessing that's what the price is you don't know like here here's a comparison to me in this situation yes they should like should have reeves in this deal or whatever they could have gotten marketed all these different guys you know teams uh this happens i guess more at the college level in football but they kind of run the shotgun all the time right and then they get down inside the tent and they're still in the shotgun and you're like what are you doing why are you doing this and it drives you crazy tech to tech used to do this all the time it would drive me insane well here's the deal though If you say our philosophy is this how is this, we play in this way.

Speaker 2 We go shotgun all the time. We go fast all the time.
We never eat clock. It's not what we do.
You can't say like, oh, but when we're inside the five, we flip this. You got to stay to the

Speaker 1 power running team.

Speaker 2 So if he looks at this and he's like, okay, we throw in Austin Reeves, maybe what Austin Reeves offers, which is, you know, he's averaging 30 points a game this year.

Speaker 2 He's a great offensive player, but maybe he was like, this is not the kind of guy that we want for what we're doing going forward.

Speaker 1 We need a different kind of he's still an asset.

Speaker 1 You could have moved him out.

Speaker 1 That's the issue with that.

Speaker 2 And that's, and so you could have flipped him for something else. You know, yes.
I here again,

Speaker 2 it's like,

Speaker 2 I'm like somebody here being like, oh, actually, it was a great idea to go into Vietnam. It made a lot of sense.
It was like, it didn't work out. Okay.
I'm fucking, it didn't happen. Right.

Speaker 2 So, so I'm not saying that like, actually, what you think you saw is an illusion.

Speaker 2 Made the trade.

Speaker 2 It was a bad trade it failed i'm just saying the reasoning behind it was not as insane as people behaved particularly in that first 48 to 72 hours after the trade happened whoa people just sort of lost their mind and i feel like that like this idea of winning trades like you don't know until these things play out you know i mean we got to talk about it because this is what the job is talking about this shit but it's not a good way to do it because the criteria changes from are we going to win the championship by making this move to in retrospect, who got more value out of this move that both want us nothing.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but there's another piece to this, which is the sports fandom connection. It's the same thing that the Red Sox had with Mookie Betts.
And this happens over the years.

Speaker 1 Like we even, I remember when I was a kid, the Mets traded Tom Siever to the Reds and I didn't care about the Mets. But as a little kid, I was like, holy shit, they traded Tom Siever.

Speaker 1 Like he is the Mets. How can you trade the face of your franchise for what you got back? Which was basically like Doug Flynn.
And

Speaker 1 I forget who else was in that trade.

Speaker 1 But I think that's the piece that I think people can over and over again underestimate how much fans give a shit, how much fans get attached to somebody.

Speaker 1 That's somebody who maybe doesn't make that much money. They bought their kid a Luca Donchich jersey for $200 and then the guy gets traded two months later.

Speaker 1 Like little things like that, they just missed. It's a lack of connectivity.

Speaker 1 It's a lot of lack of connectivity to the fan base and to what they actually care about which is like i think the fan base actually cared more about just having luca in their life for 15 years than actually winning the title i think if you gave everybody the choice and they're like all right five percent chance you win the title but you keep luca for 20 years or

Speaker 1 90% chance you win the title with Davis once. I think all the Mavs fans would be like, we'd rather have Luca and the Punchers chance.
And that's it.

Speaker 2 I think that probably is true.

Speaker 2 You know, one thing about the Portland Trailblazers is that for many, many years, they never really put themselves in a position where they could realistically win a title, but the fan base liked the team because they were always competitive, you know.

Speaker 2 And I do think that,

Speaker 2 I mean, that's, you know, when I was,

Speaker 2 okay, so

Speaker 2 I have a ton of friends who are huge, like Minnesota Viking fans, right? Because from, yeah. And we sometimes sort of had this discussion.

Speaker 2 Would they prefer what the

Speaker 2 Minnesota, what the Vikings have been over time, which is the most successful franchise not to win a Super Bowl, I would say.

Speaker 1 Would you say

Speaker 1 decade to decade? No question. They're always kind of relevant and in the mix and just can't actually get over the hub.

Speaker 2 And then it was like, would you rather have that or all these other possibilities of teams who

Speaker 2 won a championship, but for the most part have been down? And I think for the most part, that they prefer the way things have worked out. They prefer having a good team all the time, over time.

Speaker 2 It almost feels as though they've had championships in a weird way, which are talking about like consistent relevancy

Speaker 1 versus like that one, like the Florida Marlins 2001 title or whatever, or 2002, whatever year that was when they kind of bought the title and then gutted the team.

Speaker 2 I mean, the year they went 15-1 and got beat in the NFC championship by Atlanta, that was obviously a heartbreaking, you know. you would say like a gut punch loss or whatever.

Speaker 2 And yet there's a memory of that season that is positive in their minds. Like they remember how awesome that was or whatever.
So even though it didn't end with a championship,

Speaker 2 as though they feel the franchise has been good, and maybe it's the exact same thing here.

Speaker 2 Like maybe particularly in a place where basketball is, you know, by far a secondary concern, where it's, you know, we're, you know, the high school football matters more. in Dallas than the NBA.

Speaker 2 And it may be like, well, it's just nice to have a competitive franchise. It's nice to always have a good team or whatever.
It's nice to have something fun to look forward to.

Speaker 2 And that would be, that obviously is what they should have done. Like here again, looking back, that obviously would have been a better move.
I did not expect the response to be what it was.

Speaker 2 But it would be strange to hire a GM. And if he came in and he was like, well, my number one priority is sort of making sure the fan base is enthusiastic and happy.
Doesn't matter how we finish.

Speaker 2 I want the fans to feel good about this. Well, that's actually a very reasonable kind of stratagem.
I don't think you would hire a guy who says that, right?

Speaker 2 If his number one thing isn't we're going to win a title, that's what a GM is supposed to say. My job is singular.
I am here to put together a roster that wins us a championship.

Speaker 1 Well, do you think,

Speaker 1 you know, like if you were the Mavericks GM and you called me and I was like, your one phone call, yo, I got to throw this by you. Let me ask you about this.

Speaker 1 And beyond like how dumb the actual trade is,

Speaker 1 there had to be somebody in his life who would have been like,

Speaker 1 dude, they're going to hate you if you do this trade. Like you, you have to go to the games.
Everyone knows what you look like. You're going to have to sit in the arena

Speaker 1 and everybody's going to hate that you traded their favorite player.

Speaker 1 And if this doesn't work out and it's not quite as good as you think or Davis gets hurt or Luca goes to the Lakers and he's awesome, there's like seven different scenarios I can present to you.

Speaker 1 where you become the most hated person in Dallas since 1963, basically. That's how you would be perceived.
You won't be able to go anywhere. It won't be fun for you to go to dinner.

Speaker 1 It won't be fun for you to go to the games. It won't be fun for you to go into a convenience store and buy gum.
Name any scenario with you in Dallas and it's going to suck.

Speaker 1 So are you sure you want to do this?

Speaker 1 Like you have to be really convicted in the trade and be like, nope, you don't understand. If we get Davis, people don't understand how awesome he is.
And I'll take the heat if he's not.

Speaker 1 And I just don't think it was that it was even remotely a slam dunk

Speaker 1 to risk all that other shit.

Speaker 2 Did you happen to watch this Martin Scorsese documentary that was just on?

Speaker 1 I still haven't.

Speaker 1 I'm due. Well,

Speaker 2 the same situation could be said about him making the last temptation of Christ.

Speaker 2 He had this idea that this is what I want to do. And I think this is what I got to do.
I'm sure there were people in his life saying, like, don't do this.

Speaker 2 Like, it's going to change your perception among the people who currently like you the most. Like,

Speaker 2 like Christian, you know, it's like

Speaker 2 he's sort of tied into a world with sort of very traditional views.

Speaker 2 And his audience are people who have sort of, you know, artistic reactionaries or whatever the case, however you want to look at it, you know, but he was like, I got to do it.

Speaker 2 And if you want to be great, you got to do those things. You can be good by listening to advice.
But to be great, you have to ignore it and take the ambulance, you know?

Speaker 1 So except in this case when you're training this.

Speaker 1 come on here and support Nico Harrison today, but I guess you're supporting the concept of it. You're not supporting.

Speaker 2 Or at least like to me,

Speaker 2 uh, I can imagine a scenario where things work out differently, and this is remembered as a brilliant decision, but that's not going to be what it is, right? That's not how it's going to be.

Speaker 2 So, I'm not sure.

Speaker 1 Well, that's what he'll tell people 10 years from now: be like, Look, Davis got hurt, Kyrie got hurt. I don't think I was wrong.
He can move into that mode pretty fast. I don't think I was wrong.

Speaker 1 I think the team we put together actually would have been really good, and we never saw it. And we'll never know.
I had, um,

Speaker 1 I was thinking about like growing up

Speaker 1 and then through our childhoods when we cared about sports and we had no internet way more time to just think about dumb historical

Speaker 1 there were always these trades that kind of levitated above all the other trades or the babe root thing was more of a sale yes but um

Speaker 1 it's a short live i was trying to think of the worst trades of my lifetime and herschel walker always gets mentioned first right that minnesota gave all this stuff to dallas and it was really the the wrinkle of the trade where if they just waived all these players, they got all these extra picks.

Speaker 2 Yeah, well,

Speaker 2 it was really a trick in the

Speaker 1 yeah, it was like

Speaker 2 the Vikings did not believe that they would actually cut all those guys. Yeah, like he was like, They're not going to cut everybody, and it was like, Yeah, we're cutting them all, and we get the pick.

Speaker 2 And that was, I mean, that really was on him.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but fundamentally, when that trade happened,

Speaker 1 people were like, Holy shit, the Vikings got Herschel Walker. They gave up a lot, but Herschel Walker is is awesome like

Speaker 2 you know in the moment it was not crazy i i mean i might be wrong about this but i'm pretty sure i'm not in the first game he played or maybe it was the second game i think it was the first game they put him in to return the kickoff right and his shoe came off and he still had this huge return like it's i don't know i don't think he scored but it was a big return with one shoe on and i remember all the viking people being like this is it this is it we did it this is the this is it like this is the thing that we so it's a defensible bad trade and well, it's defensible.

Speaker 2 Not if you look back on it. If you look back on it, it would probably was certainly the most meaningful trade in modern NFL history.

Speaker 1 No question.

Speaker 2 Yes, there's no question about it. But when it happened, you can see it.

Speaker 1 When, I mean, the worst trade in the history of the NBA

Speaker 1 somehow isn't the Luca trade. I think that's the most indefensible trade.
The worst trade ever, it wasn't even the Nets' fault, but the ABA-NBA merger happens.

Speaker 1 They have to pay this big premium to join the NBA. And they basically don't have money.
So their choice is like, we can join the NBA, but we're going to have to sell Dr. J.

Speaker 1 And they sell him to the 76ers for $3 million to basically, because they had to, because that was the way to keep the franchise alive because NBA teams didn't make money back then.

Speaker 1 But fundamentally, just selling Dr. J as you're entering the NBA when he's in the prime of his career.
There's no worse trade than that.

Speaker 2 I guess trading Jabbar. Okay, so that was like for Brian Winter, I think Junior Bridgeman, Junior Bridgeman, Dade Myers.

Speaker 2 And also Kareem was kind of forcing it.

Speaker 1 But defensible because he was going to be a free agent in a year, and they knew they weren't going to get compensation for him. So they kind of had to do it.
So another one like this.

Speaker 1 So the Broncos trade for John Oway,

Speaker 1 who is like the best quarterback prospect of the 80s, doesn't want to play for Indianapolis, rightly so. Like it's pretty smart that he didn't want to go there.

Speaker 1 And he's like, basically puts his foot down. I don't want to go there.

Speaker 1 So they trade him for a quarterback named Mark Herman, Chris Hinton, who is one of the best left tackles in the league, and in 1984, first, and that's it.

Speaker 1 And they get John Elway for two decades, basically. And I think that's actually a worse trade than Herschel Walker.
But the catches, he didn't want to go there. And he wasn't going to go there.

Speaker 1 And he was going to go play baseball. And they were kind of hamstrung, right? So there's a reason for that.

Speaker 2 And not only did he not want to go there, but if that trade was discussed two years after it happens, everyone was like, Elway's not going to make it.

Speaker 1 Right. I mean,

Speaker 2 he seemed at the time like a super athletic guy. Remember, there's like footage of him.
He lined up behind the guard instead of the center one time.

Speaker 2 And it was like, there was all this, you know, he was kind of getting pushed into playing and it didn't seem like it was going to work. And then

Speaker 1 all of a sudden it took a terrible relationship.

Speaker 2 Now, obviously, as it turns out. You know,

Speaker 2 it would have been,

Speaker 2 he won two Super Bowls and he's a Hall of Famer and all.

Speaker 1 Yeah, all of a sudden he was in the AFC title game.

Speaker 1 Siever to the Reds, we mentioned, which had a lot of the same DNA, the Luca trade, where it's like you're just trading somebody that your entire fan base loved.

Speaker 1 And in Siever's case, won titles with, right? Won the 69 title with, made the 73 World Series with, most beloved met ever. They traded him.
The Deshaun Watson trade was really bad.

Speaker 1 And I think we knew it was bad when it happened. Then they guaranteed his contract.
They gave up all these picks. That really was the worst NFL trade of all time, not Herschel Walker.

Speaker 2 I would say for what you gave up if you put the, if you had the money into it.

Speaker 1 You had the money

Speaker 1 and the off-the-field stuff, which had already happened. Yes.
And a fan base going, wait a second, we don't even want to root for this guy. You traded all this stuff for him.

Speaker 1 So that's actually the worst NFL trade.

Speaker 1 Then the Pierce Garnett trade to the Nets, which I think was way more defensible when it seemed like Prokhoroff was just going to spend basically money like the Dodgers are spending now.

Speaker 1 And, you know, they gave up three firsts. They gave up a pick swap in 2017, but it just seemed like they're going to have the highest payroll in the league every year.
So who cares about the picks?

Speaker 1 They got rid of Gerald Wallace's. It was semi-defensible in the moment.
Then a year later, Prokhorov's like, I don't want to spend money anymore. Now you don't have those picks.

Speaker 1 And then the only other one is the most famous NBA one for years was that Parrish-Mikhael trade. It was Joe Barrett Carroll.
The number 13th pick was Ricky Brown for Parrish and Mikhail.

Speaker 1 Parrish was...

Speaker 1 You know, it wasn't really Robert Parrish at that point. He was the equivalent of, I don't know, like a better DeAndre Ayton right now.
Mikhail was the third pick. Carroll was the best college player.

Speaker 1 It was semi-defensible. This Luca one is the first one that, even as it happened, was hard to defend.

Speaker 2 Along in that same situation, I think getting Dennis Johnson for Rick Robey, probably.

Speaker 1 Oh, that was amazing. But there was like, there was some cocaine son stuff at the time, and DJ was one of the names.
So I think they got him on a discount.

Speaker 1 The point is, you go through all these trades in history.

Speaker 1 There's always one yeah, but.

Speaker 1 And this Luca trade didn't have a yeah, but coming out of the the gate. Everybody was like, why did they do this? You know, it was like the immediate mass reaction.
And then it just somehow got worse.

Speaker 1 So I really think it has a chance to be remembered. I don't know if it's the worst trade ever, but it'll be mentioned forever.

Speaker 1 This will be when 50 years from now, if we still have professional sports in a country and a society, and they're like, what were the worst trades ever? This would be mentioned.

Speaker 2 If it will, if the Lakers win a title, for sure. If they don't win a title, I don't know.
I don't know if that, I don't know what will happen.

Speaker 1 i don't i like your little i mean

Speaker 2 like you know say there was no

Speaker 2 when i say this was

Speaker 2 there was they were harrison was kind of treated unfairly

Speaker 2 i'm not saying that it was like was treated unfairly because people didn't realize it was actually a good deal i feel that people over

Speaker 2 amplified the degree to which it was imbalanced I mean, and here, again, it's a weird statement to make when all those people have been proven right. It is strange for me to make this argument now.

Speaker 2 I realize that.

Speaker 1 but i what i'm saying is at the time i feel like he or someone else in the media could have made a very justifiable case for why the chances of them winning a title increased with this move and here's the here's the problem with the increase thing because i went to all those finals games they lost the first two in boston Game three, it felt like they were probably going to win and Luca fouled out with five minutes left, which if you're going to hang Luca, don't get kicked, don't get, don't foul out of the fucking game.

Speaker 1 But then the offense went to Kyrie

Speaker 1 and I was in the stands going, oh my God, like this is, this is like a Shakespeare moment where Kyrie, this guy that all the Celtics fans hated because he kind of, you know, kind of didn't want to stay on the team, promised he was going to be there, didn't.

Speaker 1 Now this guy's going to cook us in a game three. We're going to lose game four.
We might blow the series. I never felt like that series was safe until.
the second half of game five.

Speaker 1 The point is, they were pretty close to winning the finals that year. So you can't can't really use the, oh, well, we can't win the

Speaker 2 play to wait. Wait a second.
Wait a second.

Speaker 1 They were in the vicinity.

Speaker 2 Luka played as well as he could. They got beat 4-1 in the finals and really should have lost to OKC in the semifinals of the West.

Speaker 1 Well, yeah, the OKC series was a 50. They really should have lost.
Well, we had the perfect team to play him, though, in the finals.

Speaker 2 When he followed out, wasn't that the one where he was sitting on the floor yelling at the bench and then like Winhurst talked about

Speaker 2 the game? Well, it matured. Winhurst knows what he's talking about.
He was in a position basically saying, like, this isn't going to work if this guy is is this way.

Speaker 2 And was there any indication that this guy was going to be different than that way unless he changed locations? You know, or I guess.

Speaker 1 This would be hilarious if, as we're talking about this, Nico came out of your back room and just patted you on the back. And said, Thank you.

Speaker 1 Thank you for being around.

Speaker 2 I know exactly what's going to happen because it always happens when I go.

Speaker 2 Like, it must be weird being you and having this audience of so many people that, of course, you encapsulate some of the stupidest people on earth.

Speaker 2 But the last, I mean, and you get real smart people too. Like, sometimes you don't be like, oh, this person listened to our podcast.
And I'm like, that person listens to the podcast.

Speaker 2 But there's a much larger chunk of just like,

Speaker 2 it would, you have a higher tolerance for that than I do. Like, or maybe you just got used to it.
I mean, here's actually, this is something I got to bring up to you.

Speaker 2 I promise no guys will bring this up to you. So I was at this humanities symposium in North Dakota a couple of of weeks ago.
And the theme was about the culture of the 1980s.

Speaker 2 And you know, I'm the speaker at this thing and I'm doing all my bullshit, you know, slow cancellation of the future. I'm talking about the past and all these things.

Speaker 2 Here's what people want to talk to me about. This is the main thing that they want to ask me about after this symposium.

Speaker 2 First of all, does Bill Simmons actually believe Rocky III is the best movie of the 80s?

Speaker 1 That was a question to you?

Speaker 2 Yes. Did you say that? Did you make that statement? I was like, that seems like something he might say, but I was.

Speaker 1 The best movie of the 80s or the best Rocky II movie?

Speaker 2 The movie of the 80s, they claim you insisted was Rocky 3.

Speaker 2 Now, you could have, I said, like, maybe he was being sardonic.

Speaker 1 No, I didn't say that. Okay.
I might have said most entertaining movie of the 80s.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I don't know if I would have made that case.

Speaker 2 Do you believe it's the best of the Rocky films?

Speaker 1 I did. Well, I think it's the most re-watchable.

Speaker 2 Okay. Okay.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I think Rocky 1's probably the

Speaker 2 quote-unquote best one, but I think rocky three is the most entertaining start to finish okay well so then the conversation morphed into this and it seemed like the kind of thing you might have real input on if rocky balboa was a real person and then he died in his obituary what part of his career or what part of his personality is the lead

Speaker 2 like what is considered the most important or memorable aspect of his career if he were a real person and then passed away

Speaker 1 that he ended apollo greed apollo creed's undefeated heavyweight championship streak came out of nowhere um improbable rags to riches story captured the heart of the nation more so than beating the russian in russia and and convincing the crowd in an exhibition to say usa usa in the soviet union that oh you think that would be the lead that he ended the cold war this is this was the crux of it that's the first thing people brought up and then they were like but it was an exhibition like and i can't remember would it have been televised in the united states is there footage in the movie yeah they show it they show his kids watching okay so how did that happen because he says what if my kid is staying up late so yeah he says the soviet union allowed like who who covered it you know listen there's a lot of holes in rocky four he didn't get paid for it um it's unclear who profited from the pay-per-view even though probably i would say tens of millions probably watched Where'd the money go?

Speaker 1 Did there split? There was no promoter.

Speaker 1 It was an exhibition.

Speaker 1 There's a lot of questions.

Speaker 1 They've never really been answered.

Speaker 2 What if we if we use just the scripts, the fights we see.

Speaker 1 So you're saying like we take this as Rocky, his whole career was a real career.

Speaker 1 You're saying him beating Drago in an exhibition, but maybe turning the Cold War is mentioned above him being a rags to Rich Astori who beat Apollo Creed, ended his streak.

Speaker 2 That was sort of the central aspect of the debate over this. Other people, I think, brought up the idea, would it be seen as a very sad story because of the end of his life?

Speaker 2 The way we look at Sonny Liston or something. That even though in the movies, it is portrayed as positive.

Speaker 1 No, because think of Mike Tyson. Like if Mike Tyson dies.
Okay.

Speaker 1 What's the first like sentence? What's the blink snapshot of his career?

Speaker 1 It would be like Mike Tyson, the most feared heavyweight of the 1980s, who won his first whatever and was the youngest champion, heavyweight champion of all time. And then his career

Speaker 1 ended in disgrace.

Speaker 2 And he was in prison.

Speaker 1 His career ended in disgrace after he went to prison and bid a Vander Holyfield and lost all his money and a whole bunch of other things.

Speaker 2 Although it sort of seems like now his story is kind of a redemptive story, right?

Speaker 1 The fact that he's still alive is, I think, redemptive.

Speaker 2 You know, or he's kind of become something very, very different.

Speaker 2 Because we were just talking, it's just interesting to me always to talk about fictional things as if they were real and how what the response would be. You know, it's like,

Speaker 2 you know, if they discussed, if Rocky died now as a person, would there be a discussion about the racial overtones of his rivalry with Creed Dow, which would not have been talked, you know, would that have, would that be brought up?

Speaker 2 Like, in the New York Times, like that, the guy who like who won a Nobel Prize for like, you know, discovering or being part of the discovery of like the DNA, And, like, in the headline, it kind of mentions that later in life, he said, like, some racist or sexist things or whatever.

Speaker 2 It was very, it's like, I'm sure he didn't expect that was going to be part of his obituary.

Speaker 2 And so, I wonder if that would happen now with if Rocky, the real person, die, if that somehow would be.

Speaker 1 I would say the Clubber Lang part would probably have like the stronger racial overtones than because Creed was like a beloved,

Speaker 1 you know, he kind of trained. He was like, Ali, he transcended all that stuff.

Speaker 1 I would say Creed was definitely more

Speaker 1 that Rocky III tapped into that a lot harder, I think, even though Creed was on Rocky's side.

Speaker 2 The strangest thing about Clubber Lang is I remember at one point he's giving me an interview in the movie. And his thing is, you know, I live alone.
I train alone.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 But he's a boxer. So he never spars.
How can a boxer train alone? Like a boxer more than anyone needs someone to train with him. Is he just hitting the heavy bag?

Speaker 1 I think he was probably being

Speaker 1 exaggerating a little bit. Let's take a break and then we got to talk about baseball.
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Every football season, the same thing happens.

Speaker 1 The game somehow makes everybody really hungry. Quarterback scrambles, clearly a sign for breakfast burritos.
Yeah. Turnover, suddenly dessert at 2 p.m.
Doesn't sound sound so crazy.

Speaker 1 Wing formations, well, those can only mean buffalo wings, as if they're ever not in play. Even the goalposts start looking suspiciously like French fries.

Speaker 1 It's almost like football is sending the message to eat more food.

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Can I say one more thing about Anthony Davis before we move on?

Speaker 1 Just because it's timely and I'd like to just get on the record on the pod. What's interesting is they trade Luca for him and he's the centerpiece of the trade and he's important for Nico.

Speaker 1 And he's clearly when he's helping one of the best 15 players in the league, but now has had even more wear and tear. He makes a ton of money.
They've changed a lot of the trading rules.

Speaker 1 So a lot of the teams you could think he could get traded to, they can't even do the trade because they can't take his giant salary back. I went through it today.

Speaker 1 I could only find a couple teams that would even make sense on top of the fact that, you know, he's not, they're not going to send him to a place where he's going to be unhappy because they don't do that in the NBA.

Speaker 1 If you have a disgruntled superstar, not worth it. So it's really like I was thinking, oh, you know, what would be really fun is

Speaker 1 Davis for Lamello.

Speaker 1 It's just like. The Mavs get this young point guard.
They play the flag. Charlotte gets a big man.
And then it's, then you, you, you start unpacking.

Speaker 1 It's like, well, that trade can't happen because they have to, they can only take one player back for Davis. Charlotte would have to send three to make the salaries work.
Davis would be unhappy.

Speaker 1 And Charlotte, they'd have to trade him. Charlotte's not going to do that.
They want to tank. So that blows up.
Really, the only teams are the Knicks and the Warriors.

Speaker 1 And then it comes down to desperation. The only team that would actually be desperate enough because they're near the end of the line is the Warriors.

Speaker 1 which leads me to Butler, who makes the exact same amount of money as Davis. So you could trade them straight up, I think, if I understand the rules.

Speaker 2 Is this going to happen or is just you're speculating?

Speaker 1 It's like

Speaker 2 Davis is getting traded.

Speaker 2 Are they planning?

Speaker 1 I was getting a bunch of texts today from different people going, well, now the Mavs are going to blow it up. They'll trade AD.

Speaker 1 And we do this with the NBA, but they've changed the rules so dramatically. And these guys make so much money.
It's like. Well, actually, cross off eight of the 10 teams you thought AD would go for.

Speaker 1 Here are the actual teams. And it's basically the Knicks and Golden State.
If you're the Knicks, I don't know if you trade Towns for him. Towns spreads the floor for you.

Speaker 1 Davis, all the wear and tear, who knows?

Speaker 1 But I think Golden State would be the one team near the end of the line that could talk themselves into it because they're kind of, they're not, they're not on the level of OKC in Denver.

Speaker 1 And,

Speaker 1 you know, they could give Butler in some first-round picks. Butler goes to the Mavs, playing with flag.
They save the centers. Like, it's just something in my head that I thought would make sense.

Speaker 2 I mean, if you have, if you have Curry Flag and Davis, don't you at least want to see what happens?

Speaker 1 I think that's how this plays out. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, I would want to see what happens first i mean that i'm just kidding i'm just telling people this is if the blow it up scenarios there's not a lot of blow it up options so

Speaker 1 all right let's talk baseball okay

Speaker 1 the pitch clock saved the sport true or false

Speaker 2 uh

Speaker 2 singularly or did they contribute to it i would say so you're saying it was the biggest factor or you would say singularly it's the biggest factor i think but i wouldn't say it's the only only factor.

Speaker 1 Agree.

Speaker 2 Okay. Also,

Speaker 2 the sport is saved now.

Speaker 2 We've made the decision, baseball is saved. We've had like seven podcast conversations where we talked about baseball being dead.
Are we now of the position that it's saved?

Speaker 1 The viewership of that World Series was bumped. It's crazy.

Speaker 2 But this is what I think.

Speaker 1 And anecdotally, September and October. There was more baseball talk going on than at any time in my life since the early 2000s.

Speaker 2 I'll tell you what. It's the most I enjoyed watching baseball since the 1991 series between the Twins and the Braves.

Speaker 1 That was think about that. Yeah, that's a lot.
Or like 03, 04 was the last time I felt like baseball kind of took over the country with the narrative.

Speaker 1 It's like 03, everybody, the Bartman game and the Yankees, Red Sox. Like, we just haven't had anything like this in 2014.

Speaker 2 What is likely going to happen is a lot of the people who watch this World Series and have suddenly changed their opinion about baseball, are they going to start watching it again next?

Speaker 2 April and they'll be like, this is not what I remember.

Speaker 2 Because playoff baseball now seems more different than the regular season now than any other sport it used to be that way in like the nba and in hockey now it's in baseball what i think could happen my kind of new theory on this is that baseball major league baseball is going to overtake the role the nca basketball tournament had about 15 years ago

Speaker 2 which is that people don't really follow the regular season, but then they become obsessed with the tournament.

Speaker 1 So they get their pools, they they watch, they do the weekends, they go to sports bars.

Speaker 2 And they convince themselves during the NCA tournaments that they actually still know about college basketball.

Speaker 2 Like there's enough ways that you can cheat with the internet to actually seem as though you know what's going on in college basketball without watching it.

Speaker 2 And then you get into the tournament and you're like, oh, this guy and that guy, and all the. And then you can also kind of fall back into all like the classic pageantry stuff.

Speaker 2 I think that's going to happen maybe with baseball, that people will not care that much during, you know, outside of regionally during the regular season, but they'll be like, okay, baseball playoffs, this is great.

Speaker 2 Because I mean, that was really,

Speaker 2 they got, you know, it's going to be spectacular for another World Series to match this, you know?

Speaker 1 Like, but the playoffs before, the rounds before were great too. Like, it really.

Speaker 1 So I think I've been thinking about it a lot because something clearly shifted. And I do think the pitch clock helped, but I, I also think, like,

Speaker 1 having the Dodgers, what they did, right? They spent all this money and they ended up, they make the bets trade. They finally get Otani into a playoff situation.
They get Yamamoto, who is incredible.

Speaker 1 They get Freddie Freeman from the Braves and they have Will Smith, homegrown catcher, right? They have that, that's their five.

Speaker 1 But they also have enough money to spend on these different expensive starters. Like they, they, they just have enough money to spend.

Speaker 1 They're basically making this giant blockbuster movie and they have enough money to spend on like, oh, this is a small part for the Attorney General. We'll get Laura Linney.

Speaker 1 Like, they just, it doesn't matter. Um,

Speaker 1 but they're, they're, they've won two in a row. They won in 2020, and they're like a legitimate dynasty now,

Speaker 1 which I think people like.

Speaker 1 I really do. And I'm not the first person to say this, and I've talked about this on pods before.

Speaker 1 I think I've talked about this with basketball forever with how desperate they are to have more parody and make it have teams not dominate. I personally like domination.

Speaker 1 I like having the bar for all the other teams to try to beat. This is what we grew up with.
This was Celtics, Lakers in the 80s. This was Cowboys, Steelers in the 70s.

Speaker 1 And this was the Bulls in the 90s. And I just personally like it more.
I like having like.

Speaker 1 the bar you have to climb to beat. This is what college basketball used to be like.
This is what we've had in college football the last 20 years.

Speaker 1 And I think baseball has figured out the best because nobody's going to beat the Dodgers because they've actually figured out how to spend, how to grab this Far East connection where they're always getting the best.

Speaker 1 Now who's the next guy from Japan? They're probably getting him.

Speaker 1 And now this is the team to beat on top of like you have Judge in the in New York. Sure.
You have Soto with the Mets. You have

Speaker 1 Bryce Harper and Schwarber with the Phillies. You have Roman Anthony now with the Red Sox.
All the big markets have a guy. And I'm all for it, man.
I really feel like we're headed to a good place.

Speaker 2 Okay. First of all, you said, so they're a dynasty now.
Now, weren't you kind of skeptical of people who called the Kansas City Chiefs a dynasty?

Speaker 1 Well, they've won

Speaker 1 three in six years or five?

Speaker 2 Well, if you said 2020, that would be three in.

Speaker 1 I guess the difference with them and the Chiefs is the Chiefs was always, you know, built like the Patriots where you have these little five-year windows in the NFL and then the cap gets you. Okay.

Speaker 1 With whatever the Dodgers have now. They're always going to be the favorites to win the World Series for the rest of the decade, no matter what happens with the team they have.

Speaker 2 I mean, I think what people love the most, and to some degree, the NFL is the only league that can really create this scenario, is parody with a dynasty.

Speaker 2 Where that there's a team knows a chance to cheaper league, and there is it one team that's sort of one level above. That's kind of, that's the ideal situation.
I mean, like, you know,

Speaker 2 say like, you know, when like the, so like we always talk about the Lakers and the Celtics in the 80s, there was, those were dynasties, but there wasn't a ton of parody.

Speaker 2 I mean, you went down to the Bucs and the, the, you know, there's, there was a level with like, you know, the Rockets.

Speaker 2 In the NFL right now, I mean, that is the Pete Roselle idea of creating parody has worked

Speaker 2 to such a full extent. I mean, they're the worst teams in the NFL are still.

Speaker 2 have some guys that are like, it's really rare to think of that this is this team can't compete. You know, it's like, um, so that's kind of maybe, you know, the idea of baseball having this situation.

Speaker 2 I, I, uh, it doesn't seem like they have created parody

Speaker 2 across the league.

Speaker 1 No, they had, you need the dregs, which is, I wrote a column about this once. To have great teams, you need bad teams.

Speaker 1 And this is why I hate the NBA lottery so much, because you're constantly rewarding the bad teams for being bad, but you're putting the most talented players in bad situations and then wondering why they've been disappointing.

Speaker 1 You know, you're putting guys who have a chance to be awesome, but they're playing on a 18-win team, and very rarely can you flip that around.

Speaker 1 Like even LeBron, when LeBron went to the Cavs, that team was awful for years, you know, and it was like, but that was why I was so interested in what would happen with Cooper Flag and the Mavs, because with Kyrie and AD, they actually had a chance to be good right away, which is basically what happened to Larry Bird and Magic.

Speaker 1 Those guys went to teams where they were good right away. Jordan had the opposite.
He went to like a mess of a team. It took five years to get there.

Speaker 1 But I think I still like it because I still like when you have football has it with the quarterbacks, right? It's Mahomes and Allen. Those teams are always going to be good.

Speaker 1 Hopefully Drake May now with the Patriots are always going to be good. The way the Eagles have built their team, they're going to be good for at least the rest of the decade.

Speaker 1 So maybe you have three or four kind of bars that the rest of the league has to get through. Baseball might have seven.

Speaker 2 Are you one of these people who would be like, let's abolish the draft and let just the guys come out of college sign where they want to sign and we enforce a hard gap and so if somebody like you know holmgram's coming out or whatever he can take x amount of dollars for teams that are in the cellar or he can take a little less money if he wants to sign with a more established team do you want the draft to exist do you want i want the draft to exist what i don't what i don't want is for teams to be able to be in the lottery for three, four, five straight years with top five picks.

Speaker 1 That's what the NBA has to change.

Speaker 1 how what do you mean the old way the worst i just think like if you win the lottery you shouldn't be able to get a top three pick the next year i would just put that rule in right now i would you don't shouldn't be rewarded for being bad over and over and over again

Speaker 1 yeah i know i i just kind of if you have a top three pick maybe you can't pick higher than four the next year you know like little little wrinkles so that teams get penalized at least a little bit for being awful.

Speaker 1 Like, I think what the Nets did,

Speaker 1 they're the most disgusting of all the teams, right? They had five first-round picks last year. They blew all of them and they don't care at all.

Speaker 1 They're not even the second most important team in New York. The Liberty, I think, are more important.
I think people who own the Liberty and the Nets probably care more about the Liberty.

Speaker 1 And they're just like a way station for incompetence at this point, kind of hoping that they'll stumble in this draft that's coming up. There's these three like legitimate franchise guys in it.

Speaker 1 And they're just kind of keeping their fingers crossed to get one of those three guys. And that's their entire strategy.
I think that sucks.

Speaker 2 I'm done with that.

Speaker 2 I mean, we talked about this years ago, the whole idea of like, you know, the process as it was used to be described.

Speaker 1 Which would turn out to be a disaster.

Speaker 2 Well, I'll except that it actually worked exactly as it was how it was supposed to work.

Speaker 1 It's just they never made it pass around, too. They won two playoff series.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but the players didn't pan out, but they did the thing that it was intended to do. They had Ben Simmons, they had MB.

Speaker 2 Both those guys guys were seen as you guys.

Speaker 1 They got the false pick. Yeah.

Speaker 2 It faulted. Here you go.
And like, it just, so, so the, it did actually do the thing it was supposed to do, which is

Speaker 2 negligibly increase

Speaker 2 your luck of getting into somebody great. Like it's like, it doesn't, it's not, it's a, it's a strange strategy.
It's just like it's, it's one, maybe not strange.

Speaker 2 It's just slightly increasing the possibility. that you will find the guy who changes everything.
And they did that. They actually got that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but here's, here's the thing with the Sixers, though. And this is what we learned retroactively and why I don't think teams will ever do that again.

Speaker 1 They build a losing culture, but they put these young stars in the losing culture and told them it didn't matter if they won or lost. And I think it had real ramifications for those guys.

Speaker 1 I think for Simmons and for Embiid,

Speaker 1 those guys have had really bizarre careers, you know, and I think even some of the stuff they value has been Simmons was like, thought he was a super duperstar. The team wasn't winning anything.

Speaker 1 And I still don't know what happened to him when he basically bailed on the team.

Speaker 1 And then Embiid, I just think has had a really strange career where it really seems like he values the individual stuff over the team stuff.

Speaker 1 And we've seen him like even little stuff like I'll play Jokic, but only if it's in Philly versus playing in Denver. Like you can't be like that and be the face of a team and the best guy in a team.

Speaker 1 And I think you just learn bad lessons when you're in a bad situation, you know?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I guess. That's true.
I mean, are you saying that if he he gets drafted somewhere else, you think maybe he's a different person? That's what I was saying.

Speaker 1 Well, think about like Tatum had one of the best, Tatum and Brown had two of the best situations you ever could have walked into, where they go into a team that's also had just signed out Horford, that had Isaiah Thomas lucked out with him.

Speaker 1 And the team was pretty good and was like in the Easter Conference finals. And those guys are rookies, getting a taste of it, going against guys.

Speaker 1 They're in winning situations with good crowds. And I would say that had a great effect on them, you know, a really positive effect.
It's also unusual. That's not usually how it goes.

Speaker 1 But if you're just saying, like, I'm going to put one guy in this Philly situation and one guy in this Boston situation, which guy will learn better habits and have a better career?

Speaker 1 You would bet on the Boston situation. Oh, totally.

Speaker 2 I mean, you know, you know, you,

Speaker 2 in the NFL, you see this with young quarterbacks all the time.

Speaker 1 I mean, Sam Darnold. That's the best example of all of them because he's actually talented.

Speaker 2 You know, what is, you know, it's, it's very often, as it turns out, it's like, you know, the cliche now is that nobody knows anything in the NFL about drafting quarterbacks.

Speaker 2 Everyone is, you know, which all guess work. We can't predict anything.
And it certainly seems that way. And yet,

Speaker 2 when a lot of these guys get into a good situation, they end up becoming pretty close to what the original description was. Right.

Speaker 2 You know, like whatever the original idea was, there's, it's kind of, I can't remember what year it was, but the year like he came out, Lamar Jackson came out, and Josh Allen came out, and Rosen was in that draft, and Baker Mayfield.

Speaker 2 Like, we did a podcast, and we talked about this. And it's very interesting how we were in some ways amazingly correct, and in some ways, amazingly idiotic.

Speaker 2 Most notably, me claiming Baker Mayfield should be moved to slot receiver. That was what I said in that podcast.

Speaker 1 You said that?

Speaker 2 Well, because it wasn't.

Speaker 1 That's incredible.

Speaker 2 Everybody was saying about

Speaker 1 receiver.

Speaker 2 They were talking about Lamar Jackson, and it was sort of like, he's such a great athlete, but he'll probably never be a quarterback. Maybe you move him to receiver or something.

Speaker 2 And I was like, I don't think that should be the case at all. He's the best of these guys in my view.

Speaker 2 It's like, maybe

Speaker 2 Baker Mayfield, maybe. Maybe like he could be like, you know, like an Engelman type figure, like coming out of Kenned State.
What we liked, you know, we liked Lamar Jackson. We liked Josh Allen.

Speaker 2 Like you had seen him like in a Target or something and talked to him and you were like, he's a good guy or whatever. And like you sort of had a good understanding of him and that worked out.

Speaker 1 but like rosen i remember the guy from ucla i think i was like that he actually might be the best you know how obviously that was wrong he's out of the league in two years what if he goes somewhere different who knows what if he goes to you know what if he didn't went to baltimore it'd be hard to imagine what happens but you know we've i feel like we've talked about this a bunch of times but it is hilarious that in 2025 we've come no closer to figuring out what's going to make a good quarterback we have to we have decades of data and tape and analysis.

Speaker 1 I think people are getting better at it. Like even somebody like Mick Shea, who, who is with us at the ringer, I think he's done a really good job the last few years.
He's been pretty on it.

Speaker 1 There's some stuff that I would look at that is almost like non-football stuff when I would look at these guys because I remember thinking a lot about this stuff with Drake May.

Speaker 1 And it's stupid stuff that's probably, you know, on-brand for me, but like the fact that he was a little brother, the fact that he stayed at North Carolina for an extra year when he just could have transferred when, you know, it seemed like the team was going to suck.

Speaker 1 There was like, there was like good guy, good teammate, leader kind of traits that were there. But it, it also helps that he's fucking really talented.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Right.

Speaker 1 And that's the thing. I think the thing you didn't really know until you saw him in the NFL.

Speaker 2 The thing you said before probably is the biggest factor, which is this, it's situational.

Speaker 2 It really is the situation you're in. When Jared Goff was coming out, do you remember what the criticism of him was?

Speaker 1 Small hands. Wasn't it? Yeah, small hands and kind of dumb, right?

Speaker 2 Well, he went to Cal.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's like, I guess I thought he made like dumb decisions, or there was some people weren't sure about his decision making.

Speaker 2 I just remember it was that he had small hands. And there were sort of like, you know, and there was like when it rains, history, you know, it's like, well, okay,

Speaker 2 sure, sure. You know, it's like, maybe.
But, you know, he was actually

Speaker 2 not terrible with the Rams, got him to a Super Bowl, and has had a very good career. um

Speaker 1 you know what's funny so i was watching randomly watching the nbc pregame show the other day which i don't usually watch but i i want to see the highlights because i was on a plane and i i didn't catch everything and they had jason garrett interviewed uh

Speaker 1 i think it was jason garrett interviewed sam darnold

Speaker 1 i think that's what it was was that what it was Maybe it was two weeks ago. I can't remember.
But it was Jason Garrett reading Sam Darnold, his scouting report of Sam Darnold

Speaker 1 and going through the stuff that he had and sam darnold was like yeah that's pretty good yeah you nailed me there and a lot of it was stuff like he's so competitive he can be his own worst enemy and things like that and they were just talking about it and of course they did it in that pregame style where the thing just they zoomed through it really fast with a bunch of edits and footage and i was like i could have watched this for 20 minutes of

Speaker 1 somebody going through their scouting report of somebody who's like clearly made it as a pro and been like all right so what did i get right I was like, this is like the best segment ever.

Speaker 1 And it was like a minute.

Speaker 2 It is interesting. Like there was one I remember it was kind of going around online.

Speaker 2 It was like the scouting report on Kobe Bryant coming out of high school. Right.
And it was like eerily accurate. Like it was amazing.

Speaker 2 Like the things they said about him that were good, of course, were plentiful, but even the negative things were all right. It was like,

Speaker 2 I mean, it didn't say this, but it was like close to being like, you know, could face legal issues in Colorado. Like it's like, it was so

Speaker 2 specific about what his life ended up being. So some are dead on, you know, some, yeah.
Um, but also one thing, a lot of

Speaker 2 scouting stuff, though, is like very aphoristic, though, thing, too.

Speaker 2 So like, if you're, if you, if it's, if you're saying like, oh, this guy, he's like, you know, so competitive, he might be his own worst enemy.

Speaker 2 Uh, well, that's, okay, so that's technically a criticism, right? So is the idea that he should become slightly less competitive or county?

Speaker 1 Slightly less of his own worst enemy.

Speaker 2 Yeah, well, I mean, it's not, it's a pretty, it's like like getting a job interview and saying, what's your weakness? It's like, oh, I care too much. It's like, well, thanks for nothing.

Speaker 2 You know what I'm saying?

Speaker 1 One thing I've learned, at least with the NBA, and I think this probably goes for football for a quarterback too, is

Speaker 1 like if I ran an NBA team, I would never take the guy like with a high pick that I'm really betting on, like potentially even betting my job where I didn't get the feedback that this guy was like an incredibly hard worker.

Speaker 1 I just think that to me, that would be a non-negotiable.

Speaker 1 Even like I've started to do some work on the 26 NBA draft because it's really like potentially a generational draft with these, with these guys. It's really nuts.

Speaker 1 And I'm fascinated by this Kansas kid who really might be the best Tugard prospect.

Speaker 2 They compared Madrid. That's the comparison I've seen.

Speaker 1 Yeah, like he's the first one we've had at Two Guard who

Speaker 1 can be credibly mentioned with like Vince,

Speaker 1 like what Vince was like coming out of high school and at North Carolina and

Speaker 1 Kobe, Kobe, what some of the stuff people were saying about him coming out of high school and then Jordan at UNC. Like there's some stuff with him.

Speaker 1 But one of the things that people have been saying is like, this kid really gives a shit. Like he really works.
This is the Cooper Flag thing. Cooper Flag is like, I'm going to, I have a weakness.

Speaker 1 I'm going to work on this until I fix the weakness. And I do think for the NBA, you need to be that way.
I don't think you can really succeed at the highest level unless you're wired that way.

Speaker 2 You could be right. I mean, for me, I feel saying someone

Speaker 2 is

Speaker 2 a really hard worker or a workaholic in a scouting report is less meaningful than the detriment of questionable work ethic.

Speaker 2 I feel like people will rarely say questionable work ethic unless they have a pretty clear reason for arguing that. But people will say great work ethic because it's just something you say.

Speaker 2 Like it's just talking about guys level of competition,

Speaker 2 you know, their need to win, all that stuff. That's true, certainly sometimes.
And sometimes it is just something people say.

Speaker 2 But when they say something on the negative side, that usually means, you know, something motivated them to do that.

Speaker 2 Like people are not really motivated to say positive things except to occasionally seem the most enthusiastic. That's another thing I've noticed about how like

Speaker 2 the ranking of prospects has changed, that there is now almost a competitive world within that sort of, you know, paradigm where like somebody's like, well, to be remembered about this, I have to be the most excited about Ace Bailey, or I have to be the most downloaded

Speaker 2 or whatever. You know, it's like, it's like, you got to have some like real strong, strong, strong, strong take.
And that does skew these things because that's how you get into this problem of like

Speaker 2 these guys seem like busts immediately, and they should have never been in the position to

Speaker 2 be viewed as potentially generational. I just, well, we we also, I,

Speaker 1 it, this sounds really basic and dumb, but I swear we don't think about it enough how much a kid can change from the age of like 18 to 23.

Speaker 1 Like I say with my own kids, like you just, you change, you get older, all of a sudden you have confidence. It's like, what, what happened there?

Speaker 1 Um, and to try to project when somebody's think about these basketball kids.

Speaker 2 These kids are 18 and 19 and try to project even just what they're going to be like as human beings at age 23 is kind of a crazy process but we do it anyway i mean okay the united states is dominated by people from about nine to 12 universities almost everybody in the elite world comes from about these nine or 12 places which is essentially saying things are dictated by people who were incredibly oppressive 16 year olds Like they were incredibly impressive when they were 16, and then they were able to get into Harvard and they were able to get into Yale and Princeton and these places.

Speaker 2 And then somehow that education is the validation for the position that they start their life and where they end up. But what we're really talking about is this, like they're not a formed person.

Speaker 2 Not only is there a huge difference between 18 and 23, think of the difference in you between 20 and 30.

Speaker 1 Oh my God.

Speaker 2 Like it's almost,

Speaker 2 the person I was at 30 had no relationship to the person I was at 20 and probably wouldn't have have even liked that person.

Speaker 2 Like, you know, it's like, so to view somehow the early part of my life as a way to understand the middle of my life.

Speaker 2 I mean, in sports, there's no other way, right? We got to get the kids coming out of college and guys peek early and all that stuff. But yes, totally true.

Speaker 2 That's exactly right.

Speaker 1 Do you think if baseball has another strike? I was thinking about, we always say in real life,

Speaker 1 history repeats itself,

Speaker 1 right? It's like, oh, here we go. We did this already.

Speaker 1 And baseball having a lockout or a strike or however this is probably going to play out, which I think is going to happen right as they've captured the zeitgeist for the first time in a real way in 20 years, just feels like the most baseball thing ever for that to happen.

Speaker 2 Yeah, a little bit.

Speaker 1 A little bit. This is what we've, this has been our entire life, right? Every time it felt like baseball was going great, there would be something stupid happening.

Speaker 2 Well, I mean, you know, they just, there's,

Speaker 2 it's,

Speaker 2 can you sustain a league in the United States without a salary cap? I don't know. I guess they're doing it.
And it's, it certainly seemed to work great in the playoffs, but I will, you know, here,

Speaker 2 it's, there's so much chance, Bill. I mean, it's like, okay, so if for whatever reason the World Series went five games this year.

Speaker 2 We're not talking about it. I don't care that much.
I don't know. And then I'm not every person, but it's like, you know,

Speaker 2 if that happens, and then you're like, ah, you know, the World Series ratings were kind of down again. And now there might be a strike, we'd be like, ah, it figures baseball's dead.

Speaker 1 Like we used to say.

Speaker 2 But now, because there was this transcendent seven-game series, you know, that game that went to like the 18th or whatever, you know,

Speaker 2 I'm watching this thing and I'm like, they're going to have to start having position players pitch. But like, Otani can just go in.
Like, you know, all these, all these things were so interesting.

Speaker 2 And plus, you know, it's like, i

Speaker 2 you know it's like a tani like he gets kind of shelled and like he thanks the umpire like tips his hat to the thumb umpire while he's leaving the the field and like you know and and like yamamoto is like i'll pitch four games in a row if i have to it's like there were some things in that i was like boy you just don't see this from american athletes anymore The Yamamoto thing was the most unbelievable thing.

Speaker 2 People were sort of like, you know, it was, I think the conventional wisdom is, you know, among the people I knew, it's like they were kind of rooting for Toronto or whatever, but like the Dodgers did to some degree.

Speaker 2 Those two guys, particularly, just kind of win me over. Like, you know, yeah, I agree.

Speaker 1 Um, one more break, and then we got to talk college football. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.
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Speaker 1 All right. I texted you for pot ideas.
You texted me back.

Speaker 1 One thing you were excited about were all the insanely great coaching job openings in college football and why those jobs actually aren't that great.

Speaker 2 Well, it's what did you mean? They're not. It's not that the jobs aren't that great.
They're just not as great as they used to be.

Speaker 2 Like, you know, you look at Florida and, you know, LSU and Penn State and, you know, Auburn and all these sort of these, these great jobs.

Speaker 2 But what is weird now is something has been completely removed from college football coaching, which is charismatic recruiting.

Speaker 2 Like, you know, that used to be the big thing that a guy could go into someone's kitchen, talk to the kid and his dad and his mom. And it's like he was different.

Speaker 2 Like, you know, in, I don't know if you've read, you read Barry Switzer's autobiography, Bootlegger Boy?

Speaker 1 Oh, from like the 90s?

Speaker 2 Yes. One of the things he talks about in that book, which I just will always remember, is that whenever he was recruiting a kid, he had this thing he did.

Speaker 2 He would first walk through the back alley behind their house to see what kind of beer was in the garbage. Like what kind of.

Speaker 2 like what bottles were in there or you know and that way when he went into the house if the dad said like you want a beer he'd He'd be like, only if you drink old Milwaukee.

Speaker 2 He'd always only want exactly what the guy drank. Now, that's in some ways manipulative, but that really is someone like, I understand how to relate to people like on their level.

Speaker 2 Now, that's not how it is. Now, in this same situation, he comes in, drinks old Milwaukee, convinces the dad he's a great guy.
gets the kid jacked about going to Oklahoma.

Speaker 2 And then the kid says, like, well, what's the offer though? Because Georgia Tech offered offered 340,000. Yeah.
And that's all it is now.

Speaker 2 So now it has completely switched away from being the kind of personality that can convince a kid to go to your program to talent evaluation.

Speaker 2 Like, can you see a guy who's a backup for old miss at tight end, who then you can grab in the portal by just writing a bigger check? Like, it really is a professional.

Speaker 1 Well, that was what North Carolina was when Lombardi was saying how they wanted wanted to be the 33rd NFL team. And it's like, they're basically, we're not a college program.

Speaker 1 We're like a professional portal program, which I think is what they've created just in general with the sport, right?

Speaker 2 I mean, to some extent, sure. I mean, it's definitely like it's, it is way different now.
I mean, the SEC is not as dominant as it used to be.

Speaker 2 And there's a lot of people being like, oh, see, now that everybody can play players, they don't have the advantage anymore. But I don't think that's what it is.

Speaker 2 It's just that the SEC used to have so much depth at every position. And now that's just impossible.

Speaker 2 Now to be like a great special teams player for Georgia means that like you can start maybe at outside linebacker for Indiana. And then there's, you know, it's like you can make these moves.

Speaker 2 And it has like, so to have like the Penn State job now or the Florida job, like these marquee jobs that is like, you get there, that's the whole deal. I don't know how much of an advantage you have.

Speaker 2 Like,

Speaker 2 I don't think that whoever takes the Penn State State job is going to have an advantage over Indiana. Like, I just, I don't think that will be the case unless that they can just, you know,

Speaker 2 do something very simple, which is raise more money. Like just have more money to give these guys.
And that really changed.

Speaker 2 Like, so that also means that while these jobs aren't as good as they used to be,

Speaker 2 a lot of random jobs could be great. Like if you get, if you get a job at like Liberty and Liberty says, like, we're going to do what it takes to, you know, to get these guys.

Speaker 2 You might as well be at Florida. You see this with BYU's basketball program.
BYU, like, took a kid from Duke. Just, they just said we gave him a bigger number.
So I am very interested.

Speaker 1 Well, they went further than that.

Speaker 1 They moved the kid from Brockton, our own AJ DeBansa from Massachusetts, and they moved him in there before he was even done with high school, moved him to a place in Utah.

Speaker 2 What is kind of interesting about these college jobs is obviously the guy everyone wants is Lane Kiffen.

Speaker 2 But.

Speaker 1 Which is hilarious.

Speaker 2 Well, why is it hilarious?

Speaker 1 Because it's just been a roller coaster ride for Lane over the years, right? At one point, it seemed like his career was over. Now he's the guy who's in the most demand.

Speaker 2 The last super likable coach that still exists, right? Yeah. And at the

Speaker 2 college football, at least. But like, I don't know if Florida and LSU will wait for him because they're going to go to the playoffs.
They're probably going to win a playoff game.

Speaker 2 Like, so I don't know if LSU and Florida or like Penn State, even if they would be in the running for that, are willing to wait that long.

Speaker 2 So I do think it's possible that he could end up at Auburn if he leaves.

Speaker 2 But also, I hope he doesn't leave because he has really rehabilitated his reputation as like a guy who now like loves living in Oxford, Mississippi.

Speaker 2 it would kind of change everything back if he leaves like if he especially if he left like in the middle of the year or the day after they lost it would be like it'll be like oh god damn it like again but you know do you think we're ever going to see like what we grew up with with Bear Bryan and Paterno and these coaches that are just at the same place forever, unless they break the rules and they have to get shoved out?

Speaker 1 That's gone.

Speaker 2 I mean, well, I mean, the sport's different now. I mean,

Speaker 2 they've made college football a professional sport. It's just not the same.
And those examples, particularly, like, it's going to be hard to see someone.

Speaker 2 in that position at an elite program that way because you can never be down.

Speaker 2 Like you can't have, you know,

Speaker 2 someone could coach that long at like, you know, like Missouri or Utah or some of these places, you know, that if you're just good every year, occasionally make the playoffs.

Speaker 2 But if the expectation, like at LSU, I mean, what was Kelly's record at LSU, 34 and 14 or something like that? It wasn't that he was terrible. He had a Heisman trophy winner.

Speaker 2 Every year they came in with the potential to possibly go to the national championship or at least make the playoffs. I mean, if that is the annual expectation, you can have one down year.

Speaker 2 Two down years means you're in trouble. Third year, you get fired.

Speaker 2 So the idea of their, their, like, even like a Sabin-like coach, that will never, I don't think that will happen again.

Speaker 2 Lane Kiffen, if he were to make a commitment to old miss, could have that kind of career. He could be there the rest of his life because the expectation is slightly lower than the other SEC schools.

Speaker 2 And he would have been, and he will have success both now and in the future. So, yeah.

Speaker 1 Do you care about buyout stuff and shit like that when they're like, Brian Kelly, they're negotiating

Speaker 1 buyout. He wants the full, like, it's funny that this is just like a category of sports reporting.

Speaker 2 Did you see what they're doing now on with the Brian Kelly situation? Now they're claiming

Speaker 2 LSU, at least that's what I saw yesterday. LSU is claiming we haven't officially fired him yet.
So therefore, we can now fire him now for cause.

Speaker 1 Oh.

Speaker 2 And which would case, I guess, changes the buyout situation. I mean, he's obviously hardly it.
He's like, it's like $54 million. And he's like, pay me.

Speaker 2 You know, like, I'll sit around and do nothing for two years, you know? And they don't want to do that.

Speaker 2 I think that they assumed that he would be the kind of guy who'd be like, I'm going to talk to Penn State right now, but he's not doing that. So, right.

Speaker 1 So, what's your give us your grade for the state of college football right now? Are you happy with it? On the field. This is your favorite sport.
Just every

Speaker 1 whole experience. Is it? Are you pro? Is this good? Is this what's happened this decade been a good thing?

Speaker 2 On the field, I would say it's still an A or A minus almost every week. I mean, in terms of the health of the system,

Speaker 2 C minus and getting worse. I mean, in the short term, it is fun that Van D is good.
Like, it's neat to see that. You know, it's like, like, in Indiana.
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 You know, like, like, these, these, the games are great. I mean, there was like a, this last Saturday, there was a whole bunch of like kind of surprisingly sort of through.

Speaker 2 It didn't look like the world's greatest slate when I looked at ESPN, but like, there were a ton of good games. Like, you know, I.

Speaker 1 The Indiana game was incredible. That was like one of the best sporting events of the year.

Speaker 2 It was, I mean, probably the catch of the year.

Speaker 2 And then the Iowa, Oregon game was real interesting because Iowa is like, was like just at their utmost Iowa, like this last drive, they got to go 93 yards and they can't throw the ball, but of course they completed deep one.

Speaker 2 All these things happened. They made it kind of a really fun day.
So I still.

Speaker 2 I mean, in terms of being a consumer, I would watch that over anything. But I know what's going to happen.

Speaker 2 Like, I mean, in the short term, professionalizing a college sport does kind of spike its popularity because it, you know, pro sports appeal to the casual fan more than college sports do. But

Speaker 2 that erodes over time, particularly if the kind of professionalized college version just becomes like kind of a less good version of the NFL.

Speaker 2 And that is what's going to, I mean, my fear of what's going to happen in five years is that all these teams are going to play the same.

Speaker 1 And like the idea of someone like, you know, shotgun, running the option, throw the ball that time.

Speaker 2 You know, an option team playing an air raid team or something is just going to be over. It's all going to kind of be like, you know, in the same way that for the most part, the NFL is.

Speaker 2 That, you know, that the teams are different, but they're much more similar than different by like, you know, by a factor of 10. And in college, there's still real diversity.

Speaker 2 And there's a regional quality to it. And the conferences play differently.
And I think that's all going to be gone. and of course that's going to be disappointing but i mean

Speaker 1 i i just i i i don't know maybe i'll i'm sure i'll still watch it i'm sure i'll never have you heard about have you heard about this five-year eligibility role that's getting batted around what is this that people think might happen

Speaker 1 um

Speaker 1 basically instead of a red shirt thing and whatever happens with that it's just like when you go to college you have five years to play sports who wants you could play all you could start off five years you you can play you go to duke and play basketball for five straight years is this because

Speaker 2 the extra people thought the extra year for the covet stuff was good for the kids or what would i yeah i think and especially like like in the d3 level you play four years you go to grad school you could just play for one more year after that i think people like that well i mean i i think i've said this before but i i very much believe this so i think that we are now less than five years from the SEC and the Big Ten, at least for football breaking off from the ncaa and they're going to start their own thing and when that happens i don't think the players will need to go to those schools i think the quarterback for alabama can represent alabama he can certainly go to school if he wants but not actually go to class if he does that

Speaker 2 yeah there will be no obligation that he be an enrolled student So I, I mean, I think that's almost certainly going to happen. And everybody will know.
Here's what's going to happen.

Speaker 2 Everybody, every for everyone like me is going to bemoan this, but there's also going to be a lot of people being like this is progress why should he have to pretend to go to school he deserves to make money because he's making the university so much money and it's going to be seen as kind of naive and reactionary to not support this that's going to happen and then a lot of people be like that's crazy how can it be that i'm watching the university of you know south carolina and

Speaker 2 only 40% of the roster is enrolled in school and people will be like you're you don't get it.

Speaker 1 You don't think it's a, that's kind of a quarterback works full-time as a bartender at the local sports bar.

Speaker 2 You can do that. You'll just live on campus.
You don't have a great life.

Speaker 1 Who's your team of the year so far in college football? Because you float around. You're like a nomad.
You'll just root for anybody. Who's been your team? Who captured your fancy?

Speaker 2 I don't root for anybody.

Speaker 1 I mean, what captured your fancy?

Speaker 2 Well, you know,

Speaker 2 I really like Notre Dame's team this year, but I kind of like them every year. I like their run game.

Speaker 2 I am very interested in old miss. Now with Save and Gone.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it feels like you're becoming a kiffen guy. That's the feeling I'm getting.

Speaker 2 Absolutely am.

Speaker 2 And especially now with Save and Gone. That's kind of who I'm rooting for.

Speaker 2 In the South.

Speaker 2 There's a

Speaker 2 in the Big Ten.

Speaker 2 I mean, the coach from Indiana is truly a jerk, but it makes for an interesting situation. And I'm not going to root for Ohio State.
So it's like, you know,

Speaker 1 I

Speaker 1 UNC. Any really interesting UNC? Absolutely.

Speaker 2 I really wanted that to work. Like, I was really in.

Speaker 2 I watched that first coming on.

Speaker 1 It's getting better.

Speaker 2 First drive of that game. I was like,

Speaker 2 but

Speaker 2 I mean,

Speaker 2 I just, I think that

Speaker 2 this is what I think has happened, you know, that.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 what is sort of like the one of the vortex central ideas of like the coaching personality? The coaching personality is that I love to coach and it doesn't matter who I'm coaching.

Speaker 2 I would coach a Pee Wee football team and I would care as much as I would coach in the high school team. And I'd care about a high school team as much as I would care about a college team.

Speaker 2 And I would care about that as much as the NFL. Coaching is teaching.
I'm an educator. That's what matters to me.
All I care about is like what I'm doing in the moment.

Speaker 2 And I think Billy got to North Carolina and he's like,

Speaker 2 I guess I used to be that way. This doesn't seem the way I remember it.
I can't tell these kids what to do and they don't seem to know anything. I got to teach them everything.

Speaker 1 Tell them I transfer if they're unhappy.

Speaker 2 Because when he took the job, say with the Browns, I think Bilichek was still the kind of person who would have been like,

Speaker 2 I like coaching the Browns. I would just assume, you know, coach Maslin high school.

Speaker 1 It's a Belichick impersonation.

Speaker 2 Well, I just, well, not.

Speaker 1 I didn't even realize I was on the back. I'm not Chris Ryan.

Speaker 2 I'm not Chris Chris Ryan. I can't do this shit.
Okay. So I'm just, I just kind of failed.

Speaker 2 But like, so I can't do him. I can't, like, my British accent is terrible.

Speaker 2 Um, but I think that when Bilichek was with the Browns, at that point in his life, whatever age he would have been, that would have been what, how many years ago now, 30 years ago.

Speaker 2 I think he still would have been the kind of person who, no matter where you would have put him, if you'd have put him in a powder puff football league, it would have been, I care about this more than anything else.

Speaker 2 But he's an older man now. He's went through a lot.
He's had the experience of being

Speaker 2 you know

Speaker 2 the most talked about person in all of sports for moments like him they what you know and now he's in the situation where it's like well

Speaker 2 can i win the acc or whatever it's like i i think that it's hard for him to get motivated to be himself And I don't think, I think he's, I think in a way, it's probably a bummer to realize that.

Speaker 2 It would be like if, you know, okay, so i start writing because i just love writing right i'm a writer before i ever get anything published i used to just sit in my bedroom and write stuff you know and then now it works out you know i'm a journalist write a bunch of books in my mind i'm still like the person in high school who just writes because he loves to write but now if all of a sudden i couldn't sell books my mentality would say go in your office and write you just love writing but maybe it wouldn't seem the same to me maybe the idea of writing for nothing except myself all of a sudden wouldn't seem the way it used to be

Speaker 2 when i actually became someone who could do it or whatever like you you have you have to just love it to be good at it but once you get rewarded for that

Speaker 2 maybe it changes i mean i worry about this like i i i worry if i actually have the same drive that i had

Speaker 2 30 years ago or 40 years ago. I don't know.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So you think Belichick, being on like a four and five UNC team

Speaker 1 just wakes up one morning and he's like, I don't know. Well,

Speaker 1 I don't know if I'm enjoying this anymore. And

Speaker 1 I've done everything I could do in coaching. And maybe this is it.

Speaker 2 Here's what I think is more like it. I think there was a time when he would have woke up in the morning and he'd have been, we're four and five.
What can I do to make this better?

Speaker 2 Now maybe he wakes up and he's like,

Speaker 2 I want some toast.

Speaker 2 You know, is the coffee ready? Like he's not, it's not that he, he doesn't, it's not not like he's consciously being like, I don't care. It's just that it's not consuming him.

Speaker 2 Like, you know, when you're consumed by something, whether it's a job or a person or whatever, you know, there, everybody's had this in their life where there's like, you know, maybe a time in your life when the first thing you thought of when you woke up was this person you were dating.

Speaker 2 And when you went to bed tonight, you were thinking about this person. And I was just like, it's like, it wasn't, it was just a, I'm like that with coffee.

Speaker 2 Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 1 When I fall asleep, I'm like, I can't wait to have coffee tomorrow morning. And then when I wake up, I'm like, oh, I'm going to get to make coffee.

Speaker 2 And that would be a total

Speaker 2 great mentality if you were trying to become a major coffee entrepreneur.

Speaker 1 Right. Like, you would be like, that's who I need to be.

Speaker 2 That's the person I need to be. I need to be the someone who thinks about coffee when I wake up.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 I mean, that's because, you know, if you want to be good at something, it can't be that you think about it a lot. You need to think about it all the time, even when you don't want to.

Speaker 2 And that is the key. And that's a hard thing to sustain when you're someone who's lived and had had that many experiences.
He said, he's had so many experiences in football.

Speaker 2 I'm sure sometimes this seems like this isn't the same. Like this is, well, you know, it's, it's just not fun to do this in the way it used to be fun.

Speaker 1 I cut out a piece. We did the rewatchables, me and Van and Sean last week.
We cut out a piece we ran last week on this podcast about filmmaking and creativity. And I was.

Speaker 1 We were arguing about it and we're obviously all good friends about,

Speaker 1 I was saying, like, I worry sometimes that there's too many distractions that it's going to ultimately hurt creativity because i think of the way i grew up where a lot of times i read a book or wrote something just because i didn't have anything else to do and i would be like

Speaker 1 i got two hours here maybe i'll try to write a column but now if you put

Speaker 1 I don't know, 18 year old, 19 year old me in this situation now, I'd be like, I'll go on Instagram and go check that out.

Speaker 1 Or I'll go on Twitter or I'll go on some message board or I'll go on the Celtics Reddit to see what they're saying.

Speaker 1 And now I've just killed two hours, but I didn't do anything that actually I have something to show for it. And I do worry about that with this, with the under 25 generation.

Speaker 1 I'd sound like the old guy, but I think sometimes the, the best ideas I ever had, the best things I ever wrote

Speaker 1 just in general were came out of like, my brain was just going because I was at a stoplight. I wasn't on my phone.

Speaker 1 I was just kind of staring at a tree and all of a sudden thinking about blank and got an idea. And I'm like, oh, that would actually be a good idea.

Speaker 1 And now I wonder if

Speaker 1 people have that in the same way because they're always moving on to something that keeps that captures their attention when they're bored. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2 I would say the greatest detriment to American culture right now. I mean, in terms of what we're talking about, arts, entertainment, and stuff like that,

Speaker 2 is

Speaker 2 the systematic elimination of daydreaming.

Speaker 2 The people used to daydream

Speaker 2 at the time.

Speaker 2 That used to be, you had to. Like it wasn't, it wasn't like, you know, if you were,

Speaker 2 you had to go to the bank and you had to wait in line and there was nothing to do while you were waiting. So you just had to think about things.

Speaker 2 And that, you know, I, this is going to make me sound weird or weirder than I am, but like, I force myself to do this. Like, I have chunks of the day where I just lay there and don't do anything.

Speaker 2 Just so I can't, just so I can just to use your brain. Well, to just let my brain just sort of

Speaker 2 go.

Speaker 2 Just like, let's just like let it think about anything without something providing stimulation back.

Speaker 2 I mean, that's, that's also like, you know, this thing you're talking about, people have talked about this since the big, you know, the beginning of the advent of the printing press.

Speaker 2 That basically it's like people will be less creative now because they can just read the Bible or whatever. And then it was like, oh, well, radio and then television, all these things.

Speaker 2 It was like, these things are going to stop us. But here is kind of what's different.

Speaker 2 Reading is like a, like a, a,

Speaker 2 like a troop, like a

Speaker 2 responsive thing. You read something and you got to kind of imagine it in your mind.
It's an active experience. Okay.
But then all these other things we move through are passive.

Speaker 2 And we have really accelerated that part of it. That like where people are like sort of looking on their phones or whatever the case.

Speaker 2 I mean, phones are always the easy thing to use, but that's what everyone uses. And there is a passivity to it because you don't have to imagine what you're consuming.

Speaker 2 It's a visual image, or you don't even have to read what you're reading about because they find ways to sort of repackage it and tell it to you faster in sort of a simpler format.

Speaker 1 So if

Speaker 1 or you listen to it over reading it, you listen to an audiobook, whatever.

Speaker 2 And I just, I think that the idea of sort of just sort of kind of spacing out and just kind of letting your mind go i think that's uh really but but just totally gone like my my kids can't handle it my kids cannot handle boredom you know i often think you know it's like like we've really become like a

Speaker 2 like a real secular society but i think one of the benefits to when it was a more sort of religious society was it forced people to be bored.

Speaker 2 Like, you know, would go to mass, I would sit there, and you would just have to sit there for an hour or whatever, you know. And

Speaker 2 I think that was really good. It's like really good to force people to be bored, you know, and we removed that from.

Speaker 1 You know where we have removed it?

Speaker 1 If you take a flight and the Wi-Fi is down, and you thought, like, I'm going to go on the Wi-Fi, I'll watch a show, or I'll do, I'll go, but now you're just stuck on this flight for four hours.

Speaker 1 Well, you didn't bring a book and you're like, oh shit. And guess what? Sometimes that can be okay, especially if you're a creative person.

Speaker 2 Well, I mean, this is kind of a thing, right? Raw dogging flights. Obviously, it's a weird, strange, they picked the term raw dogging for this.

Speaker 2 But so there's this idea that you go on a flight, you don't watch TV, you don't listen to anything, and you don't read. And

Speaker 2 why would this happen, right?

Speaker 2 Why would people do this by choice?

Speaker 1 And it's because they force themselves to do work. Yeah.

Speaker 2 No, I think that there's something in subconscious about us that craves this.

Speaker 2 Like that, that for some, you know, that people are confused. I flew four hours and I didn't read anything.
I didn't watch anything. I didn't listen to anything.
Why do I feel good?

Speaker 2 They don't even know why. It makes no sense.
They expect to come off the flight and say, like, that sucked. The TV didn't work and I didn't bring a book and I just had to sit there.

Speaker 2 And yet, that's not what's happening. They're proud that they did it and feel good about it.
So I,

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 2 it's an achievement to be so far in this podcast. I've supported Nico Harrison and Ellis was like, people should do nothing.
It's good for him. So I guess

Speaker 2 what's going to be third? Yeah.

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Speaker 1 Listen, if you're going to have friends over, you absolutely 100% have to have a lot of things for them to eat. Everyone gets hungry.
They can say they're not going to eat, but guess what?

Speaker 1 If you lay out the right kind of spread and you have some good, cheesy, creamy, melty dip with some good crackers, some chips, They're probably going to eat it.

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Do yourself a favor.

Speaker 1 Stock up on Velveeta before kickoff. I talked about this on Sunday on the pod.

Speaker 1 I took the train from Boston to Stanford with my daughter.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 And we both had an iPad on and we watched this peacock show at the same time. And that's all we did for the entire thing.
We watched the show and we talked about it.

Speaker 1 And I was thinking when I was a kid, going back and forth between Connecticut and Boston, because my parents were divorced, and I'd be on the Amtrak and I'd read like, I'd bring like a book and a notepad, right?

Speaker 1 And I read, read the book for some of the time, or I'd have a newspaper.

Speaker 1 And then I'd have this, and I'd write like parts of short stories or fake sports columns, like just whatever to kill the time for three hours. Those were kind of the only options.

Speaker 1 But it also like made my brain work in these ways. Like I remember in college, this is, I didn't have a computer till my senior year in college.

Speaker 1 When I had, I wrote a sports column every week and I would write it longhand.

Speaker 1 I would go to a dunk of donuts and I would get a giant iced coffee and I would write out ideas for the column and then I would start writing it in fucking cursive.

Speaker 1 I would write out the entire thing, go back into the newspaper office and then type in the column. And that seems like that happened in like the 1890s.

Speaker 1 It seems like I was like a cast member on

Speaker 1 what was the Yellowstone spin-off, 1893, whatever, 1888. Whatever I know, Legend.
Yeah. Like that, that seems like a million years ago, but that was how, whatever my weird process was.

Speaker 2 You know, you will often make jokes about like your fingers not working. Do you misread all? Like, I gotta say, I'm always surprised.
Like, okay, so you put that basketball book out.

Speaker 2 It's like an 800-page book about a sport.

Speaker 2 I don't know how many weeks it was on the top of the bestseller list. You were in a position where you could have written whatever you wanted for the rest of of your life.

Speaker 2 You could have said, I want to do a book of poetry. They would have given you $400,000 for that.
So, how did you not keep doing that?

Speaker 2 Like, you could have written a book about anything you wanted, and then you just stopped.

Speaker 2 Now, I understand some people are listening to this and they're like, Well, because he moved into podcasting, and that's actually much more relevant to what was happening in the world.

Speaker 2 And he'd rather dominate this space than that. But, but don't you, do you ever regret that you didn't continue writing?

Speaker 1 I don't regret it, but I

Speaker 1 really miss it.

Speaker 1 And I don't, I don't, the reason I haven't wanted to do it the last seven, eight years is because I just don't feel like I could do it at a level that I'd ever be happy doing it.

Speaker 1 I always say it's like golf. It's like these people that have to play golf a few times a week to be good at golf.

Speaker 1 And if they're just playing every once in a while, they're so unhappy because they know what they should be doing, but their body can't remember what to do.

Speaker 1 I feel like with the writing, you just have to do it every day. It's the only way I could be successful at it.

Speaker 1 It's the repetition of being in the habit of doing it day after day after day

Speaker 1 that I think for me, some people aren't like that. For me, that was what it was.
And

Speaker 1 all these different career choices you make, I don't have the ability to do that anymore. So I would have to give up something pretty major to be able to do it.

Speaker 1 With that said, I have been thinking about writing a book.

Speaker 2 Oh, really? Okay.

Speaker 2 Yeah. This is a difficult question.

Speaker 2 But like you said, I totally understand you saying I don't feel like I could do it at the level to which I would be comfortable with or which I would find acceptable.

Speaker 2 What specifically do you mean by that? Like, what do you think that you're writing now would lack that would stop you from being comfortable publishing it?

Speaker 2 Because it's, I mean, I'm always uncomfortable when I publish things.

Speaker 1 So it's like, you know, I think it's more the process. Cause I remember the happiest I was ever with with writing.

Speaker 1 was when I was doing my basketball book, which was like a suicide mission, basically, trying to do the book the way I did it with doing all the other stuff I was doing.

Speaker 1 But I was in the habit of really writing for three and a half, four hours a day, like every day. I didn't have another choice.

Speaker 1 And I remember like I got to the point where I felt like I could flick a switch and just write whatever I wanted for like three, four hours and be like, all right, I'm going to go to this place and I'm going to do it.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 I know it's going to be at the level I want it to be. And

Speaker 1 I never really got back to that spot. I had moments.
I remember like the first year at Grantland, I felt like I got back there for like a year with the process.

Speaker 1 I remember I came back from Boston after LeBron killed the Celtics in that game. And I wrote a column on the plane that I think it was probably one of the best things I've written.

Speaker 1 And I wrote it on the plane. I had like four hours to write it.

Speaker 1 I was, you know, frantically typing away. I had to send it when I landed.
And I just knew I could do it because I had had enough reps. That's the stuff I just, it would be so hard for me to do it now.

Speaker 1 I don't know how to do it.

Speaker 2 But look what you just said.

Speaker 2 That you hadn't done it in a while you did it one time in a four-hour window no no i i'm saying when i did that that was because i was writing all the time so so what would so i knew like

Speaker 1 what would happen if you tried that now do you think i'd probably i'd stare at an empty i've tried a couple times i'd stared at the empty document for two hours like kind of even remembering

Speaker 1 you know the the process of putting your brain into your fingers what book are you considering writing this is like i'm breaking news i feel like no you're not because i'll never do it no I had an idea.

Speaker 1 I had two different ideas for a book. I'm not going to mention them.

Speaker 2 Okay. Is it?

Speaker 1 I'll tell you offline.

Speaker 2 Oh, okay. Okay.

Speaker 2 I mean, I'm curious. I don't mind you not telling me here, but

Speaker 2 I'm a little surprised that you said that. I thought that was, you were like, I'm done with that world.

Speaker 1 No, I had a book after the basketball book that I really wanted to write, and I just got too busy and I didn't do it. But I had it all sketched out and I didn't do it.

Speaker 1 I'll tell you about it after.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 But I had it. I had literally, John Walsh still mentions it to me almost anytime I talk to him because he's the one, I think, the one person I told about the book.
So it's a sport.

Speaker 2 And he was excited.

Speaker 1 It wasn't really a sports book.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 1 Okay. Yeah.
I'll tell you after.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 I think the biggest issue, the mistake I made with the basketball book was it was just too long and too hard to do. It was like three years of my life.
And it should have been like two books.

Speaker 1 I should have spread it out. Why?

Speaker 2 I disagree entirely.

Speaker 1 So you're because I just couldn't.

Speaker 2 It actually became the book you imagined and it sold incredibly well.

Speaker 1 I know, but I wish I had done part one and part two of it and then spent more time on it versus like doing just trying to rush to meet a deadline.

Speaker 1 I still have so many things I would change about it at this point.

Speaker 2 Well, I mean, it's tough to do a book like that, particularly like when you were talking about some players who are still active because there's no way you can write about things in the present tense without the book.

Speaker 2 in all likelihood becoming dated, even if you're right. Even if everything you say about those guys is correct, things just change.
So that is hard.

Speaker 2 Like it would be hard for you to write a book like that and not say to yourself, well, I would change this or I would change that. I mean, it's really interesting.

Speaker 1 But there's a scary moment when you're doing a book like that.

Speaker 1 And I'm sure this has happened to you with at least one of the things you wrote, where at some point you're completely lost in whatever you had in your head the book should be.

Speaker 1 And you've done a lot of the work already, but you're now in an abyss. You can't get out of it.

Speaker 1 You can't see the finish line, but you've already done all this work and there's there's nobody who can help you. It's like you're the only person.

Speaker 1 In a weird way, that's probably what I miss the most about writing is like, when you're the only person who can solve the problem

Speaker 1 and it has to be you or else the thing's not going to get solved, right? But at the same time, it's so scared. It's all you think about.
It's like

Speaker 1 to do it correctly, it has to be like the only thing you're thinking about. You're thinking about it when you're in the shower, when you're in the car,

Speaker 1 when you're making a tuna fish sandwich, whatever it is, it's just like, fuck, I got to figure this out.

Speaker 2 That's what it is. I mean, like, when you do rewatchables now, it's almost like to use a musical analogy, it's almost like you guys are kind of like making rumors, right?

Speaker 2 Like you're people, you're kind of throwing ideas off each other. You're using your,

Speaker 1 it's really fun to do.

Speaker 2 You're using your relationships to kind of create stuff. There's a producer outside.
There are all these things. Writing is like being prince.

Speaker 2 You write the songs, you play the songs, you produce the songs. It's just you.

Speaker 1 Billy Corrigan making Siamese Dream. You're like, I'm just going to redo all the guitar and drum and bass and everything.

Speaker 2 If you were smashing pumpkins and rewatchables, that would be like you would go back and like, you would like, you would do voiceovers for like things.

Speaker 2 He says, like, I'd say, I need to do a different voice for Sean.

Speaker 1 I don't like how he said this.

Speaker 1 I'm going to get an actor. Yeah.
So there's, there's stuff I do miss about it. Now that my kids are older, there might be more time, but I'd have to give up something.

Speaker 1 I don't think I could do it at the level I'd want to do it. You know, like that, I admire the way that you've stuck with,

Speaker 1 you know, you, like, you have two books, two books that came out, and how many, what's the span of time between the two books?

Speaker 2 Well, next year, I have a book in January and a book in the fall, and then weirdly, they're re-releasing.

Speaker 2 This is talking about weirdness, they're re-releasing Frugger Rock City in the summer for the 25th anniversary.

Speaker 2 Wow, kind of strange because I haven't looked at that book since I wrote it, you know, and I'm kind of it's weird to think about it, but that's you know,

Speaker 1 Jesus. Yeah, but you'll and you probably you finished too.
Now you're thinking about what the next one is.

Speaker 2 Yes,

Speaker 1 I'm really interested. The book I'd want to read from you,

Speaker 1 or maybe it's just a piece, is

Speaker 1 what's

Speaker 1 are bands just dead? And why did bands have a shelf life in music and rock?

Speaker 1 What was,

Speaker 1 how did we have, like, when I was a kid and we had the

Speaker 1 that whole Beatles era of rock bands, but then we had all this other, like the bands that became classic rock,

Speaker 1 and then all these other bands like Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles. We just had bands and the unity of a band and people getting together, and it's just how you made music.

Speaker 1 And why is that seem like it's not gone? But

Speaker 1 how did that just era just end?

Speaker 2 Okay, it's like you know, like Tame and Paula right now, I could say, is like a band or like the War on Drugs or a lot of these bands, it's like they, they, they, they're still like, you know, they're coming up with new ideas and like people are really into geeks right now.

Speaker 2 Is an you know, is it so it's a big one. It's saying it still happens, but

Speaker 2 it's no longer the center of the culture. And that's mainly what we're talking about is that it's receded from that.
And part of it has to do with,

Speaker 2 you know, the formal limitations of rock music. I mean, rock music, for whatever reason, sort of made this decision that a band is going to be one or two guitars, a bass player, a drummer.

Speaker 2 possibly someone on keyboards, possibly someone doing another instrument that will sort of change the texture, and then vocals.

Speaker 2 And the songs are all going to be between three minutes to five minutes, unless you want to go further and you become prog rock, or you can become extra short and you kind of become like a novelty like Stormtroopers of Death or whatever.

Speaker 2 So there's all these sort of formal limitations to a high degree. I think we used them all up.

Speaker 2 I mean, I know that seems insane to say, but there have been, there were so many bands from 1964 to, you know, 2004, whatever it was was just used, that like the sheer number of music that was produced during that period

Speaker 2 sort of consumed a lot of the potential ideas you can create for a three or four minute song.

Speaker 2 And then there was the fact that this, all this music was also accessible initially physically, but then through the internet digitally. And therefore, everything has become to some degree retro.

Speaker 2 Like everything that comes out now, to some level is informed by music that existed in the past in a pretty direct way.

Speaker 2 You know, and not just, and not the music that had just come before it, and not just like the classic records that everybody sort of steals from.

Speaker 2 The idea that there is, it's almost impossible to imagine that the most interesting thing that happens in popular music would come from a band playing rock music at this point.

Speaker 2 It just doesn't, it just doesn't seem like that's still available. But, you know, and

Speaker 2 the culture changed too.

Speaker 2 The interest in rock culture changed and disappeared, you know, that was a big part of it. You know, going to, going to a rock show

Speaker 2 had a lot

Speaker 2 before and after the band played, that was a meaningful time. And that's kind of gone, you know.

Speaker 1 Nathan Hubbard has a theory that all of the chord combos and beat combos have basically been done in all of these different

Speaker 1 rock songs that everything becomes derivative of something that already exists, which is part of the issue now.

Speaker 1 Like, basically, what you said about all these different

Speaker 1 combos have already happened with the four people in a band that would be in a band.

Speaker 2 I think a lot of people said that happened in the 1980s.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 2 I mean, seriously, because it was like, you know,

Speaker 2 so much of what is considered rock music is still completely traceable back to 1955 to 1967. I mean, like, so

Speaker 2 there is so much of like what we view as like what is supposed to be in rock and what makes something heavy, you know, what makes something, you know, sort of, you know, psychedelic or whatever, like that's all been established.

Speaker 2 So I think it's like, it's not that this just happened now. It's just that these things occurred and they're lagging indicators.
Like

Speaker 2 really,

Speaker 2 like rock music achieved full self-awareness of itself in the early 90s. That was really the end of sort of the idea of formal invention in an ideological way for rock music.

Speaker 2 But nobody realized that for 15 more years. Like we went through a long iteration of like all the New York bands, like the strokes and stuff and the white stripes and all these things.

Speaker 2 Radiohead is in this, you know, that it did not in any way feel like it felt like it was a vibrant rock form. Like it felt like it was still something that was

Speaker 2 formally inventive and extremely interesting.

Speaker 2 And yet in a lot of ways, soon as the rock artists, particularly like the grunge era artists, became self-aware about what they were doing and what it meant to be a rock star and sort of what this sort of said about your fan base and all this stuff.

Speaker 2 I mean, all art ends when it reaches self-awareness. And that's what happened to that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think 02 to 06 or 07 was a really great time. And I felt that way as it was happening.
I think there were

Speaker 2 people there are there are many people who,

Speaker 2 I think, very justifiably argue that a lot of the music that's being produced in rock, you know, right now and in metal is like it's back. It's excellent.
It's just that it has,

Speaker 2 it's, it's sort of now like being like a connoisseur of these things. It's sort of like saying, it's like being like, I know the most about jazz in 1985 or whatever.

Speaker 2 And people are like, well, what do you mean? Like, you know, it's like, it's like, well, there's still jazz artists happening and these are still, they're doing it. It's it.

Speaker 2 So, you know, like, especially when you and I talk about these things, we always talk about them in a macro way. Like, everything we talk about is sort of in the widest possible lens.

Speaker 2 Like, what does it mean to the world in general?

Speaker 2 But of course, if we would really drill down to the specifics of this, in the same way that like you do with the NBA, like you and you and Lowe talk and stuff like that, the things you're talking about

Speaker 2 aren't really applicable to most people who follow basketball. Right.
I mean, even when you talk about like, like,

Speaker 2 you know, getting like a, you know, the league pass or whatever.

Speaker 2 I think for most people, the idea of getting league pass, even though it's not that expensive, it's kind of insane since 90% of the time when I want to watch an NBA game, the guys aren't playing anyways.

Speaker 2 Like the number of times that I watch a basketball game I want to see and both teams are operating in full strength happens so rarely.

Speaker 2 It's almost like I got to text eight people that's like, oh, I'm watching the Warriors and the Nuggets.

Speaker 1 And everyone's

Speaker 1 automatic text. Yeah.

Speaker 1 No, they need to tell you, like, hey, three days from now, the Nuggets will be playing all their guys. Get ready on Wednesday night.

Speaker 2 I'm in a fantasy league with, I got 15 guys on the roster. 10 of them are technically on the injured list.
Like, you know, to some degree. It's just,

Speaker 1 it's been, it's been ruined.

Speaker 1 i was talking to my son my son really likes the smash and pumpkins okay and my son is like really is

Speaker 1 on the cutting edge of all the modern music like he knows everybody has all the hip-hop all the

Speaker 1 basically all that world like that's his music but there are some older bands that he likes and he really likes smashing pumpkins mainly because i was probably playing them in the car but i was thinking like

Speaker 1 when so i'm in high school and there's a certain kind of music i like

Speaker 1 but there's only like between 10 to 15 years of it to go back and get. Like when we're buying like CDs and calling them compact disc, calling up CDs in 1985, be like, oh, got to get more music.

Speaker 1 I'll get

Speaker 1 the best of sticks. You know, and there just weren't a lot of,

Speaker 1 weren't a lot of albums, right? And there's only like maybe 12 years total of all the music I like or 13, whatever it is. And now I look at him in 2025

Speaker 1 and there's 60 years of music for him to go through, not to mention like he also likes jazz and different things. And

Speaker 1 I almost wonder if we even need new music the way we did. There's so much old music.
Like you could kind of live on that. It's almost like having leftovers in your fridge forever.

Speaker 1 You just go back in any decade and find awesome stuff, you know?

Speaker 2 I would guess, I mean, every person is different, but in general. The idea of the time something is released matters much less, I get the sense from younger consumers, to younger consumers.

Speaker 2 Like like something being released now something being released eight years ago something being really released 38 years ago they're all accessing it in the exact same way right there's no because there's no there's no physical music culture as much now it's not like it's not like you're you were say you would have been into like the cure or whatever it's like you would have hung out with like goth people and there would have been this whole kind of world that's not really i like the cure i did not hang out with goth well but i'm just using that as an example i mean you were into sticks i guess you you'd be hanging out with a lot of people like who loved aor music or whatever and you'd talk about Foreigner and you'd talk about Boston.

Speaker 2 You know, that's like, you'd have this kind of, like, kind of world. Now that's not really how it is.
It's like sort of all music is equally accessible. And,

Speaker 2 you know,

Speaker 2 what you were describing is kind of sort of like there wasn't that many albums. Like, I remember sort of the opposite experience where there was a limited amount of money.

Speaker 2 So it's like, you know, I, for, I've said this a million times, but it's true. Like for a very long time, I had four cassettes and then I got a fifth cassette.
This is like eighth, ninth grade.

Speaker 2 And it was absolutely impossible for me as a kid who was completely into metal to be like, I'm going to go back and buy the old Aerosmith records. Like I couldn't have done that.
There was no way.

Speaker 2 Or particularly, I'm going to buy some. unpopular Alice Cooper records just to understand that didn't happen, right?

Speaker 1 By the way, I was in the same boat. I probably only had like 30 CDs.

Speaker 1 But it was a question of like, that was a normal. There weren't that many choices.

Speaker 2 It wasn't strange to be somebody with 30 CDs, it was strange to be somebody with hundreds.

Speaker 1 Well, remember how important the Greatest Hits albums were, yes, because you'd be like, Oh, I get the most possible versions or most possible songs from this person I kind of like.

Speaker 1 Like, I remember the bad company greatest hits. Like, this is great.
Yeah, well, the people so glad they put all that. I never had a bad company album.

Speaker 2 I used to buy a lot of live albums because the live album was another one. Cops encapsulate the last three or four records.
Um, you just mentioned, you know, like bad company now.

Speaker 2 It's going so, like, you know, so bad company is going in the rock haul. Are you aware of this?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I saw that. I was surprised they weren't in there already.

Speaker 2 Okay. So, well, I guess I have another, this might be another strange take.
Okay. So, okay, so,

Speaker 2 so, I mean, I think I probably, I'm guessing, like bad company more than most people who are listening to this podcast. And I'll, I mean, I've owned some bad company records.
Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Um, you know, like uh um

Speaker 2 you know, Pat Benatar, I think is in the rock haul now.

Speaker 2 And And foreigner.

Speaker 1 Pretty good four-year run. Foreigner.
Pat Benatar.

Speaker 2 You know, like, and you know, and I definitely probably like Foreigner more than the average person in 2025. You know, Ozzie Osborne got in as a solo artist, and Stevie Nicks got in as a solo artist.

Speaker 2 You know,

Speaker 2 so all these are, so I'm not criticizing these bands, but I'll say this.

Speaker 2 So the rock haul

Speaker 2 never actually described like what bands are included, or like what's the reason a band gets in.

Speaker 2 But I did feel like there was an unspoken understanding of what bands are not going to get in. And to me, it seems like it's artists like that.
Like people who were commercially successful,

Speaker 2 relatively formalist,

Speaker 2 straightforward bands, bands that got a lot of attention in the world sense. People bought their records, people went to their shows, but it doesn't seem like that's like a Hall of Fame career to me.

Speaker 2 I mean, if you're going to have a Hall of Fame about rock music or pop music, however you want to see it, it seems like you should be able to say something about the artist more than it was like, oh, there were good records.

Speaker 2 A lot of people liked them. Like that doesn't seem like foreigner.
I just don't understand, like,

Speaker 2 what is the reason foreigner is in the rock and roll hall of fame? And here again, I say this as someone who likes foreigner. Like, I like, I like those.

Speaker 1 By the way, this, this happened in the Basketball hall of fame same thing

Speaker 1 the bar of who is a hall of famer because i think and i think it's the same reason for the rock and roll hall of fame they want to induct like six seven eight people a year right and at some point they don't have the six seven or eight anymore so all of a sudden and listen michael cooper killed the celtics in 1987 in game four he was the best defender at that position of the 80s I never thought he was a Hall of Famer, but now he's getting in.

Speaker 1 People like that are getting in versus like the concept of the Hall of fame is like tim duncan's a hall of famer you know the the

Speaker 2 alan iverson is a hall of famer like that like the best 50 60 70 people in a sport are hall of famers then we could argue about everybody else to me a hall of fame is more meaningful if there are years when no one gets in totally you know but like it's just it's very it's just odd to me and now with the rock hall anybody who gets in gets to vote, right?

Speaker 2 So like, you know, like, so like all the guys in Def Leppard are voting now and like all the guys and all these, and that, and that's definitely going to,

Speaker 2 you know, expand this to bands that would, in the past, we would not have perceived as being sort of like kind of, you know, canonical groups. I mean, that's, I guess that's what I like.

Speaker 2 I kind of feel like if you're in the rock hall, you should either be a canonical act or you should be an act who did something.

Speaker 2 that mainstreamed or invented an idea that kind of went everywhere, you know, or that

Speaker 2 during the time you existed, you were kind of the most important act that was happening.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 it doesn't seem like that's how it is now. Now, now the rock hall, kind of like the basketball hall of fame, has become a situation where not getting in is more meaningful than getting in.

Speaker 2 Like if you're, if you're a band who's not in the rock hall, like Motley Crew or whatever, is not in the rock hall, and they'd be like, why are we not in if Def Leppard is in?

Speaker 2 Or if, you know, if it's like, what, what, what, what separates us?

Speaker 1 It's a because or like why the replacement so basically if you've had success for seven eight years you're now in the rock and roll hall of fame well but

Speaker 2 yes and no i mean i boston's not in the hall of fame if you're gonna pick one of these faceless boston's not in the hall of fame i'm 99 certain they're not wow and to me like so bad company got in before boston what

Speaker 1 bad company got in before boston Yes. It's kind of shocking.

Speaker 2 Well, I mean, I think that there are some people who say Boston really has like one and a half records. but I mean, there's more hits

Speaker 2 that are great. I mean, plus the thing with Boston is that record was a bedroom album.
It was produced by one guy by himself in his house. He did it himself.

Speaker 2 It is the best sounding home recorded record in the history of music. That to me, put that in a Hall of Fame or a museum.

Speaker 2 You know, like the achievement of the creative process of making that first Boston record would justify its induction. I don't don't like, you know, it's like,

Speaker 2 obviously, like, I like Ozzie Osborne. I like Stevie Nicks.
I love Black Sabbath. I love Fleetwood Mac.
They get in

Speaker 2 Black Sabbath and Fleetwood Mac. I don't really understand why they're being or why they were inducted as soul artists.
Can you really look at their solo career and say, like, this is a, uh,

Speaker 2 this, like.

Speaker 2 it's important that these records happened, you know?

Speaker 1 Well, Stevie Nicks, I think, I mean, she did have a couple albums and a couple couple hits but she's the fleetwood mac piece of her career is

Speaker 2 i think she already got influence fleetwood mac had a good solo career ozzie had a great solo career crazy train flying high again there's a bunch of the songs that are great but it just it to put it in a hall of fame now seems like it's just uh

Speaker 1 well i have the answer for this one it's literally because they want to have the seven eight

Speaker 1 new members every year so they can have the ceremony and the telecast and they're never going to be like hey we've run out. Plus, hopefully we'll have some more down the road.

Speaker 1 Like they're just going to put in seven more.

Speaker 2 Ceremony like in the bar play center. So it's have to induct Rush and we have to induct Kiss or whatever because they'll fill the place.
But I mean, Rush definitely should be in the rock haul.

Speaker 2 But, you know, it's, I don't know. But that just bad, you mentioned bad company made me think of that.
Again, now, so now I've, so now I'm pro-Nico Harrison, pro-boredom, anti-bad company, I guess.

Speaker 2 This is the aggregate of this conversation.

Speaker 1 And pro

Speaker 1 you think Bonds and Clements should be in the baseball hall of fame? Yes. I've been on the record for 20 years saying I don't know what we're doing.

Speaker 1 But there's some veterans committee now where they might be able to get in. And I don't even think people care anymore because it's been so long.
And

Speaker 2 although in a sense, I mean, like over time,

Speaker 2 it helped Pete Rose not to get in the Hall of Fame.

Speaker 2 Like it helped because it's like every year the Hall of Fame. induction happened, people talked about Pete Rose every single year.

Speaker 2 If he would have just got in, people have been like, oh, questionable decision with this gambling situation.

Speaker 2 And then it would have been, he's just be a guy in there. So, like, sometimes not getting in is to your benefit.

Speaker 1 Well, we never got to talk about the chair company and Pluribus, two shows that you love. So, if you want to do, can I just say you want to do 60 seconds on that?

Speaker 2 I want to say a brief thing about the chair company and Pluribus, which I like, I felt television has been real down for the last six or so months. And these two shows are great.

Speaker 2 And the reason they are is because they're kind of doing something that kind of had been lost for a while.

Speaker 2 The chair company is the rare example of a show outside of like the Nathan Fielder stuff where I literally have no idea what's going to happen in these episodes.

Speaker 2 With even, you know, like it is really surprising to me when I watch a television show and I don't kind of see what, like where they're going or what's going to happen.

Speaker 2 Or even if I don't know the twist, I see a twist on the horizon. This show is not like that.
Like I, I, I, I do not know scene to scene what's going to happen.

Speaker 2 And the thing about Pluribus, and I've only seen two episodes of this, but they're great.

Speaker 2 What is interesting about this show is that

Speaker 2 it seems like it clearly must be about something.

Speaker 2 And yet that is a debatable concept. Like, it seems like it's about AI, but maybe not.

Speaker 2 I mean, there's some people, I think, who see it as like a statement against wokeism. I think there's some people who think actually it's like a pro-socialist message.

Speaker 2 Like, you know, like there's a whole, like

Speaker 2 you, this show,

Speaker 2 because

Speaker 2 Vince Gilligan does things in an apolitical way, people assume there must be a secret political meaning in there. And they can just kind of inject anything.

Speaker 2 And he's done a brilliant job of making that possible. Plus, he's one of the last guys who at least cares like what.
the TV show looks like on your screen.

Speaker 2 Like he's not just like, I'm going to show, like, what would be an interesting way to show a woman driving as opposed to, I'm just going to have a shot of a car for two seconds.

Speaker 2 So we know she got from point A to point B. It's like, he's trying.
Like, he is, you know, he is trying ideas, you know.

Speaker 1 Two good ones. Um, they're both on my list, as is the Scorsese doc.
You will like that. As is, you will really like that.

Speaker 1 So, this,

Speaker 1 and I haven't seen the Netflix, the Garfield assassination show yet, but I've heard they bet they kind of stealth released it. The Game of Throne guys are EPs on it.
And

Speaker 1 Tom from Succession is in it. There's some really good actors in it.
And supposedly it's great.

Speaker 2 It's about Prince

Speaker 2 Garfield?

Speaker 1 It's a four-episode drama slash, I think it's a little bit funny too, about the assassination of James Garfield.

Speaker 2 I didn't even know this was happening.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 they did the weirdest thing. They didn't publicize it at all.
And I think they want it to be word of mouth, but I already have a couple of people in my life who are like, this is fucking incredible.

Speaker 1 And I wonder, could this lead to like some sort of Ryan Murphy type situation, but like on a high-end caliber of like taking historical things and just like four episode, whatever? Because I'm all in.

Speaker 1 If that's how we can learn about American history, I would be excited.

Speaker 2 Like a real like tabloid version of squeaky from trying to kill Folk.

Speaker 1 Right. But

Speaker 1 this is like high-end well done. Yeah.

Speaker 2 That could be real quick, you know?

Speaker 1 Right. Yeah.
So we'll see if that goes. Chuck Klosterman,

Speaker 1 plug some pre-orders for your books. Oh, yeah.
Please plug one. My football book.

Speaker 2 My football book is coming out in January. It's very difficult to sell books now.
So I appreciate you having me on here and allowing me to say this.

Speaker 2 And I will. I'll come back.
I'll actually come to L.A. in January.
We can talk about that book more.

Speaker 1 You have the book?

Speaker 1 I have the book. Okay, good.

Speaker 2 Good. Okay.

Speaker 1 Good cover. Haven't read it.
It's on my holiday list. I will read it before we do the podcast.
Take your time.

Speaker 1 I just went through the freaking gauntlet of NFL and NBA starting at the same time. Well, yeah.
So I always try to just survive October.

Speaker 2 You know,

Speaker 2 it's hard to find the time to do. It's like what Jim Crochy says.
It's like you don't understand the things you want to do until there's no time to do them. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Jim Crochy. One of my first favorite musical artists.

Speaker 2 Oh, I mean, this Jim Crochy songs, I was walking in the rain, walking the dog the other day, listening to his music. It's like those songs at times are too emotional to be available to me in the day.

Speaker 2 Like, I don't want to think about some of these things that like, you know, and like they're real memorable and everything's a visual picture.

Speaker 2 And like some of them like, you know, Rapid Roy or whatever are just kind of fun. But there's a lot of songs that are like there.
This resonates deeply with,

Speaker 2 you know, too much, too much emotion.

Speaker 1 Chuck Closterman, a pleasure as always. I'll see you in January.

Speaker 2 You got it.

Speaker 1 Thank you.

Speaker 1 All right. That's it for the podcast.
Thanks to Chuck. Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo.
As always, I'm going to be back on this feed on Thursday. And don't forget about the new rewatchables that went up.

Speaker 1 Snake Eyes. Don't forget about the mailbag.
BSpodcast33 at gmail.com if you want to send

Speaker 1 a question for a future mailbag segment.

Speaker 1 I will see you on Thursday. Go, Patriots.

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