The Big Suey: The Worst Contract of All-Time

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Welcome to the Big Sue,

presented by DraftKings.

Why are you listening to this show?

It's a podcast that seems very similar to the other Dan Lebetard podcast.

I'm sorry, I'm not going to apologize for that.

In fact, the only difference seems to be this imaging.

I have been tempted in restaurants just walking past tables to grab somebody's fries that if they're just there.

That hasn't happened to you guys.

I've done it.

And now, here's the marching man to nowhere, fat face, and the habitual liar.

This episode of the Dan Lebattard show is presented by DraftKings.

DraftKings, the crown is yours.

Brian Stelter is going to join us in a little bit to talk about Kimmel last night.

He made his return, and while Kimmel does about a million a night on linear television, I don't know what he's done this morning as his monologue has made the rounds, but the last time I saw it was in the millions.

It was approaching 4 million, and I'm sure a lot of people wanted to hear from him.

And they did the unusual thing.

It's something I haven't seen him do, and he's done more than 4,000 shows.

He's been doing it for 23 years.

They did the monologue, and then they just stayed with him standing up doing more monologue after they went to commercial break.

Commercial break is such a quaint thing.

That's not really what people are doing anymore when they watch this stuff.

They're not...

pausing for a commercial anymore.

You usually get everything you want, but he went twice as long long as he would normally go.

And we'll talk with Brian Stelter about that.

He's written several books and he's been on top of this story since it started.

We'll do that in about an hour.

And I'm going to get to

Ben Simmons and Zion Williamson in a second.

NBA camps are opening up, Dan.

They are, and hockey is here as well.

And it is, again, too much.

There is too much sports going on.

Something happened after the pandemic where I don't think it's my age.

I think it's everything sped up and now there's just more everywhere.

The seasons are just as long.

I don't understand my confusion with it seems like there's more and I'm finding myself saying, no, there's too much that we have to pay attention to.

Yeah, you're married now.

Yeah, but I got, okay, I got married eight.

What is this?

Like, I don't know, is it five years ago?

It's a thing you need to remember.

Yeah, you got to remember that.

It feels like eight.

Let's work on that.

Years.

Well, I met, we started dating.

Is that five five years ago, 2020.

Yeah, starting to check out.

Yeah, we got married right before the pandemic.

But I

so I have it

that's what people say about wives.

That and something else.

What is it, says?

You weren't listening.

Cool.

Don't do it.

There's a trap.

What do they love?

Thai food.

Weird space out.

Ball and chain.

I didn't feel like.

I didn't feel like ball and chain was something we were still using.

I'm not gonna lie, I got scared when I said it.

I was like, is this something?

Yeah, he did look at you like...

I know.

I mean, damn, it is.

This is an insult.

Did I not?

Was like, that's what you say.

Just jogging.

Just a bunch of husbands, joshing each other, guy.

We can all relax.

I'm more objecting to the idea of when a punishment.

Let's think about this for a second, okay?

When a punishment was to put a chain around someone's ankle that was a weighted ball and to refer to the person you love that way yeah no i mean i guess it's a little mean i guess if you really get at the heart of it but it's just it's just jokes i do it was really cute that it just dawned on you that it feels like there's more sports you can't follow and it just it it ties directly to the time it was it was the pandemic i was blaming the pandemic it turns out it was the ball and chain

can you get me by the way, I'd like the origins of when it is we started using that as a as a punishment and why it is we started using it as a punishment.

And it is like beyond the, was it the put it on the poll at Lebato show?

Was the ball and chain the ankle monitor before we had the technology for the ankle monitor?

Something happened to me six, uh, six years ago where all of a sudden sports weren't on my main TV anymore, and instead there was bluey.

I'm gonna get to the bottom of it, though.

The ball and chain was a device used to prevent prevent escape.

So

I don't feel good about this.

How weighty was the ball in the ball and chain?

I remember here, as I see that the New York Giants, that Brian Dayball is in full job save mode.

He's going to Jackson Dart, and that's going to be rough for Jackson Dart because look at their schedule.

They got the Saints in two weeks, but it's two Eagles games, a Denver game, and a Chargers game.

Those are four of five defenses.

That's deep water right off the bat.

But I remember saying to you guys when Russell Wilson signed with the Giants that it made me sad.

And you guys, what's so sad about it?

What's sad?

He's getting a bunch of money and he's getting an opportunity to turn the Giants around.

And it's like, no,

I mean, I couldn't have guessed this for Daniel Jones, but Daniel Jones and Saquon Barkley were limited with the Giants because the Giants are so bad.

Russell Wilson's career ending that way makes me sad.

Ending, and he just came off a career high for passes, for

passing yardage

against Dallas, but he looked so bad in the last game.

And now they're like, okay, let's wrap this up.

You guys weren't made sad by that?

He's a little young to be, I mean, Aaron Rodgers is 41 years old.

Russell Wilson's not.

And that looks spent because it can't survive with the Giants.

Maybe if you put it in a good organization, you get something better than that.

He wasn't great last year, though.

That's a good organization.

Well, wait a minute.

What's a good?

Well, last year, yes, that was a good organization, but with the Giants, he's been, he's, he's.

It happened to him earlier, usually at 36, where the, and Russell Wilson's a Hall of Famer.

I was just going to ask, I think he's played himself out of the Hall of Fame.

That's a hell of a take.

In fact, I'm willing to listen to that.

I'll dig through the numbers.

It's Stugatz's take, though.

You're stealing Stugatz's take.

He already took him out of the Hall of Fame and said,

when he was with Denver, he was saying that.

Yeah, he's 36 years old now.

That's usually when it falls off.

But I think Russell, you could argue, fell off at 33.

That is young.

Now, he's not your prototypical

quarterback.

There is things that he do

that he does at his size that I guess it would wear and tear on the body.

I mean, Mike, he's been a bad quarterback for four or five years now.

Oh, that's tough.

I think that, and the only reason we'd be talking about him as a Hall of Famer is because he won the Super Bowl.

All right.

It's not like he was this monster every single day.

He made it to a second.

Right, right, right.

But

you're bad for five, your last five years as a starter.

I don't know if you're a Hall of Famer.

According to Pro Football Reference, average QBs in the Hall of Fame classes ends up being 103.58.

He's at 94.

So it's like right there.

If he has a couple more good games, obviously now that's over.

Maybe would have put him over the top.

Didn't make you guys sad, though, seeing him benched.

you're Dad, he had the worst red zone thing I've ever seen.

Four plays in the red zone to score a touchdown.

He threw one into the tunnel, threw the ball away on fourth down.

Threw the ball into the goal post on fourth down.

At that point, I was like, it's over.

There's no coming back from throwing the ball out of bounds on fourth down.

I think we all knew this day would be coming in relatively soon.

So I don't know how sad I think he's at a stage in his career where we knew that he had to play lights out to keep that job, to keep Jackson Dart out of that spot.

You guys have heard me say before, okay, that self-confidence is with athletes and how they don't know how to retire.

And you've heard the Van Gundies say that superstar athletes are the hardest to coach.

Aging superstar is the hardest to coach.

But as it relates to Russell Wilson, you've heard me say

self-confidence is the last thing to go and the mirror is the last thing to know.

If I were to sit down right now with Russell Wilson and say, can you still play?

Wouldn't he just say, hey, I threw for a career high in yardage on the road against Dallas?

It was two weeks ago.

Like, wouldn't he say, I don't deserve to be benched.

I deserve to have some benefit of the doubt here because I threw, I just said the death of the 400-yard game and I'm pointing to the one guy who had the 400-yard game and didn't actually have to do it because he was trailing the entire game, was slinging it the entire.

If I talked to Russell Wilson about it now, do you think he'd say, yeah, I'm done.

I'm spent?

No.

No, and I think he's good enough to be a backup in the league.

I think people kind of underrated the season that he had with Pittsburgh.

When he aired it out, when they trusted him to, it wasn't in line with their identity, but he could still throw the ball downfield.

I think he showed that against Dallas.

What's so weird is that the line of demarcation is when he decided to leave Seattle.

Like, that's when he stopped being good.

His final season in Seattle was good.

There were a lot of people in contention for his services.

And by the way, those last few years in Seattle, Pete Carroll seemed to not want to have anything to do with him anymore.

Well, that's not entirely true.

It seemed like Pete Carroll was the only one in that organization who did want to have anything to do with him because everyone else in the organization thought he was the teacher's pet who ended up getting all of the money and wrecking their defense because he got all of the money.

And we did that, you know, Mr.

Unlimited stuff where...

He did a lot to tarnish what was his public reputation over the course.

Or I shouldn't even say his public, that's too strong.

He became less and less likable after winning that Super Bowl, just the way that people people were absorbing him and the reports coming out about him, where it seemed like the defense that helped win him a championship didn't really appreciate him as a leader anymore.

I don't think it was unlikable.

I think it was more just like corny.

He's a bit of a try-hard.

Like, people made fun of him.

Okay, but that's all I meant.

Okay, forgive me.

Unlikable might also be too strong.

But yes,

he went from swaggering champion who was value at the position who we who should be rooted for because he's undersized who should be rooted for because his style of play was electric it was unusual who created a new model for winning in the sport make sure you get value at quarterback so you can pay everyone else in a salary cap sport to oh this is how it ends ooh

you lose your job to jackson dart on a failure of a season when the giants aren't going anywhere this season and i'm telling you those five games i'm going to say it again just so that whatever assessments are made about about Jackson Dart over the next five games, you ignore unless they're good assessments because he did it against good teams.

Philadelphia, twice.

Denver, the Chargers.

Like, if I don't throw the Browns in there, like, those are the defenses you do not want.

A quarterback who does not yet know how to play professional football to play against those defenses.

I also want to crunch the numbers a little bit more to see this is a newer era of mobile quarterback and guys that even though he was a better passer than runner, he he was a timely runner um and elusive when he did decide to run those guys careers they are getting a little cut short i know cam had off-the-field injuries that affected that too but i it makes me very curious to see how josh allen will age because he's so reliant on his physical gifts when he when he gets to a certain age like around 33 what is that going to look like i'm also curious to see how patrick mahomes' body ages he doesn't seem to really take care of himself he's leaning more now on his rushing ability which is interesting well one of the things that I really genuinely discovered with Russell Wilson, because I will remind everyone here, hugely undersized for the position.

Usually, that guy before Russell Wilson, not a success in the pros.

It isn't just that his playing style was electric, and by calling him a timely runner, you're being unfair to him.

He was wildly elusive, and this is the part that I hadn't seen before.

Didn't get hit hard.

Was not one of these guys who was, like, he'd get hit and he'd get tackled, but he had a way of knowing not to do what RG3 was doing, which is getting pulverized.

There are, hell, Michael Pennix is going to learn this very quickly.

Like, you cannot run through secondaries the way those quarterbacks, even with all the new rules protecting them, Russell Wilson never seemed to get hit hard.

Hard to put a clean hit on him.

Hard to put a clean hit on Lamar Jackson.

In fact, he's the one that's dishing out the punishment.

Hard to put a clean hit on big.

There are guys that are just smart about how they do it.

Honestly, the biggest thing that went sideways in RG3's career was his inability to not be able to get rocked every time he got hit.

I've never seen a quarterback fly

on contact the way that I saw RG3 do it.

You say that he's thin, but Lamar Jackson, I mean, we've seen him thicken up, but he's been thin and he runs so much and he's got the similar skill set where nobody seems to be able to square him up.

And it's an unusual thing to say.

I wanted to point something out from yesterday as I talked about the Ravens defense that I had left out because the Ravens have allowed as many points as the Dolphins have this year.

And the Dolphins, I believe, to be a historically bad defense.

Do you know how hard it is to allow as many points the Ravens have allowed in three games when one of your opponents was the Browns?

That's

really bad.

And they didn't score that much there.

I don't know.

They've given a lot of points up to Question.

I think the Browns scored more there.

I think they scored 17, which is more than they've scored in any other game.

It was so funny watching the Under the Tunnel, the head coach and the GM of the Browns celebrating.

And I just like looked back and laughed of like, like, they think they have a chance.

Like, watching them celebrate was like, they're like, this is it.

This is where we turn it.

It's just like.

It's a huge win.

You're the Browns, though.

It's just funny how excited they get.

It's a massive win.

They genuinely think that they have a chance this season.

That's cute.

I mean, what was the survivor pool count on that game?

Like, 75% of the people out of the?

The Packers in that one?

I mean, that is a huge win for their program.

I am super locked in on this Chiefs-Ravens game.

I thought you meant the Browns.

No, no, no, no, no.

They lost me.

Unless they draft a quarterback that goes to the U.

Then I'm back.

But I'm super into this Ravens-Chiefs game, and we'll get a little bit more into it in a second.

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Don Lebatard.

No one else here is willing to do a Trump or a Biden.

That's not true, Dan.

Okay, Tony, you can catch us.

That's not bad, man.

Finally.

That's terrible.

Pretty good.

Stugats.

Yours is terrible.

You just got to get a little redder.

A little pinker.

You're right there, man.

Yours is not.

You're Biden.

What do you mean?

Oh, his is good.

That's actually not bad.

That's not terrible.

That's not terrible.

We got to come together.

Little Southern George.

Little Bush.

Little George Bush in that one.

This is the Don Lebatar Show with the Stugats.

it may be, Chris Cody, that the Browns management is deluding themselves into some sort of confidence that their season will have success.

But I do believe that very often in that sport, because of how much it physically hurts,

when you avoid 0-3 as the start of a season, like it's just really hard to go into work after the first month of the season if you know right away that your season is over before it's gotten started.

I can sleep better now, is essentially what they're celebrating.

And they know their defense is great.

Like they feel like, okay, we just did this against a really good Packer team.

Maybe there'll be a bunch of other games where we're within a score late as well.

How is Miles Garrett having the best season of his career?

There was a clip of him beating a tackle and the tackle, we can't play it because it's like game footage where the tackle is as he gets by like, Jordan, run!

It's hilarious.

She's like, Jordan, run!

That has to happen sometimes, right?

We can't can't hear it because, you know, we're watching on television, but if the tackle gets beaten, you have to yell to your quarterback.

Like, come on!

Bunside!

The man's like, what the hell?

I screwed up!

He's so fast and big!

The funny thing about what you guys are saying is that yelling can't be heard by Jordan because Jordan hears the crowd telling him because it's a game on the road.

But you still got to try to hear the tackle.

You got to try to yell.

The crowd is watching.

The crowd is hoping that Miles Garrett is, they are giving you an alert on what Miles Garrett is doing.

Miles had a great quote.

He was asked about Micah Parsons.

Man, I thought, man, he did it.

Found a way to get away and get his money.

The telephone number, if you want to be part of the Boldest Take Shenanigans, sponsored by Boost Mobile, is 305-486-GOTS.

305-486-GATS.

4689 is how you spell GOTS.

And Roy, how are you feeling about this batch of boldest takes?

Because I've been

wanting the game elevated around here.

You guys are easier to please about this stuff than I am.

Somebody calls us Steve from Sex in the City, and you guys talk about it for two years.

Let's see what we have here.

The Boost Mobile Bouldess Take is presented by Boost Mobile, the newest 5G network in the country.

Just want to remind the show that the last time the University of Miami scored a touchdown in a conference championship game, I saw the movie Made in Manhattan at my local theater.

The ticket cost $7.50.

Somebody check out Mike Ryan.

The Browns won against the best team in the NFL and the way they usually lose those games.

Make sure he's okay.

I think that all kickers need to be drug tested.

Just last year, announcers would tell us the kicker was maxing out at 55 yards before the game, but now kickers are booming 65 yarders in their sleep.

Can Chris Cody please stop mouthing every word that's on the video screen when he's on there?

Thanks.

I'll still listen and watch.

So this might be reckless speculation, but for the past couple of weeks, I keep hearing Mina and Foxworth talk about the fact that the Chargers defense is playing so aware, almost running the route to the wide receivers.

And are we to believe that that is a coincidence given who their coach is and why he's no longer coaching Michigan?

Why are you giving me carrots and celery with my buffalo wings?

I just ordered deep-fried chicken smothered in sauce.

Don't patronize me with your rabbit food.

My boldest take is that Mike actually won the soup competition 5-0,

but because it was Greg's birthday, he got two sympathy votes.

A buddy of mine caught a football at an NFL game through a field goal.

And the NFL made him give it back.

So my hot take is, why are the two biggest leagues so stingy about their balls?

when the colts play the jaguars we have to call it indiana jones and the temple of dude

put it on the poll please at lebotard show why are you giving me carrots and celery with my chicken wings because it's a delightful cool relief you don't even eat it textural

you get the hot with the cold i don't eat carrots i eat all of it i give me extra of that stuff what about the ranch and the bushes

that's cool too right but that you i need it all give me a cold little like celery with the ranch You guys are nice.

This is coming from a guy who orders a drink and sometimes, let me see today.

Okay, today's drink sometimes doesn't get drank the entire day.

Wow.

So there's a lot of times where you'll probably order some wings and you'll eat like one bite of the celery.

What was that?

Coming from the guy who sometimes orders a drink and doesn't drink it.

Like, what did you just like?

What was that influence coming?

You talk about a guy.

Here's a guy.

You felt attacked?

He doesn't finish his drink, man.

Sometimes he orders it.

He only drinks three quarters of it, man.

He was doing Collins.

I was.

I was doing Collins.

Here's a guy.

Here's a guy who orders it, Mike.

Here's a guy.

Put it on the poll as well at Lebittard Show.

Should football, should the NFL allow you to keep the football if it goes into the stand?

Because

I am with that caller.

Let's go out to Jeremy, who is now, I saw him writing all over the board again.

He erased everything.

We have more?

Well, yes.

What more do we have on the Marlins?

Again, the Marlins are playing meaningful baseball the last week of the season.

It's a stunner.

It deserves to be appreciated.

They have, with discounts and efficiencies, they have built a team where, and with farm system issues that they've had under Jeter, they have fixed some things with cheap players and have exploited some market inefficiencies the way that the Rays have done that.

So let's, what are we going out to here?

Now you've got some small writing.

That's what we're going to do.

Four and five.

team permutations.

What do we have here, Jeremy?

That's exactly right, Dan.

So we talked about the three-team tiebreakers and the two-team tiebreakers, where head-to-head, the Marlins would not get to the postseason if they're going up against the Cardinals or up against Arizona, Solo, or, of course, both of those teams together.

But now things get interesting.

If the Marlins are at 82 and 80 and tied with the Mets, Diamondbacks, and Reds in a four-team tiebreaker by mere percentage points at a 579 win percentage ahead of the Marlins' 577 win percentage against all of those teams, the Reds would advance.

But if it's a four-team tiebreaker between the Marlins, Mets, Diamondbacks, and Cardinals, the Marlins, Mets, Reds, and Cardinals,

or the Marlins, Reds, Diamondbacks, and Cardinals, the Marlins would be the team to advance.

So in three of the four scenarios in which there's a four-team tiebreaker, they advance.

And say all five teams end up at 82 and 80 with an overall head-to-head record of 18 and 14, the Miami Marlins would be the team to advance.

So, what we've laid out here is amongst all the different scenarios, the four head-to-head scenarios, the six different three-team tiebreakers, the four four-team tiebreakers, and the one five-team tiebreaker, all those different scenarios, there are only four in which the Marlins would not advance as the wildcard selection in the National League.

I stopped listening.

I totally didn't listen.

Yeah, it was just

do want to make a correction on the Ed Orgeron front.

That stuff, the sexual assault stuff was there when Les Miles was there.

That's what it dates back to.

Ed Orgeron was not named in that stuff, so I was trying to be responsible.

I don't know what Jeremy was talking about.

It seems like we want the Cardinals involved, huh, Jeremy?

What you really want is the Mets involved.

You really want the Mets involved.

Every single scenario in which the Mets are involved in a three-team, a head-to-head, or four-team tiebreaker, there was only one in which the Marlins Marlins would not invest

the Diamondbacks and the Reds.

Yeah, that's right.

The Cardinals are not involved in that one, but I erased it here, but the head-to-head against the Cardinals, the Marlins would not advance, and the head-to-head in which it's the Diamondbacks and the Cardinals in the three-team tie, the Marlins would not advance either.

Now I get it.

Ultimately, you know, you're looking for the Mets to be involved as much as possible, which means really, in the next two nights, you're actually rooting for one Mets win.

You really want them to split with the Chicago Cubs over the next couple nights before the Marlins ultimately sweep them over the weekend.

I have a question for Jeremy.

He was doing a service, and I'm glad he was doing that stuff.

I lost me.

Who does Central have this week?

I've got a baseball question for you.

This is twice this week that I've wanted to talk baseball.

And I mean, it makes sense that it's both guys that played while I was watching baseball.

Is Mike Trout going to be remembered as the most talented loser ever?

I know historically we had that conversation about Ernie Banks because Ernie Banks famously never made the playoffs.

However, I ran the numbers and if Ernie Banks played with the same kind of playoff expansion rules that Mike Trout did, Ernie Banks would have made the playoffs three times at least, whereas Mike Trout only made the playoffs once and lost out in the ALDS.

Are you doing just baseball?

Because Miles Garrett's going to nominate.

Miles Garrett has been to the playoffs.

Miles Garrett beat a Pittsburgh Steeler team on the road that at one point was 11-0 that season.

I know that because I was going through NFL teams that fell on their face and collapsed.

Are you doing just baseball?

Miles Garrett also made it to the playoffs with Joe Flacco and lost to CJ Stroud, who was having probably his last hurrah in terms of being an exciting player.

It's really hard to be an all-time great player and just

never do anything in the playoffs.

But the question is for Jeremy, because I know he's dialed in on hardball.

This Mike Trout thing, like, it's going to become his legacy, whereas before his legacy was this guy is the most complete baseball player we've probably ever seen.

He has the perfect elements of new school and old school.

Well, part of it being his legacy is that he doesn't seem to care.

Now, he probably does, but he doesn't give off that it's like, man, I want to go somewhere and win.

I think that's part of it, right?

I think ultimately with Mike Trout, it'll be more of a Mickey Mantle scenario of the what if he was healthy for his entire career.

There's a little bit of that with Ken Griffey Jr., despite having all of the counting stats that he has.

The thing with Trout is really, it's tough for an individual position player to put that on them.

If he got to the postseason and he struggled, he could be an all-time loser.

If he was an individual pitcher who would not come up clutch in the final moments of a season, you could argue the same thing.

But when you have a team, I mean, they had a team that was built around him and Albert Pujos who didn't perform to what they wanted that contract to be.

Same deal with Anthony Rendon that really handicapped their ability to put a good team around him.

When you're one individual player, it's really difficult to overcome organizational shortcomings.

And so yes, you're right.

Ultimately, he's not going to have a postseason career that's worth anything or memorable, unless maybe at the end of his career, he ends up in the right place.

But it'll be more of a Mickey Mantle type of thing, in my view.

One time he did.

make it to the playoffs in the series he got eliminated and he went one for 12 and you're applying helpful context but it's context that is relatively absent from the Ernie Banks discussion maybe that's because of all the time that passed but I mean I laid it out for you Ernie Banks played in a time where it's just pennant winners that met up in the world in the World Series and got into the playoffs.

Like, this is really embarrassing.

And you laid out.

Played with poo-holes.

Played with Shohei Otani.

Maybe this is more of an organizational conversation that we need to have about the Angels because they're presently in last place in the ALS, and that is a hugely disappointing franchise when you especially consider the money and resources they provided that team.

But man, is it disappointing for one of the guys that was labeled as perhaps the greatest baseball player we've ever seen?

Don Lebatard.

Can I tell you something?

I don't know, it was maybe like a month ago, and I decided to watch Pitch Clock, and I told Jeremy, Stugats, this is a good show you're doing.

This is the Don Lebatar Show with the Stugats.

Give me some assistance here because Anthony Rendon is champion.

Anthony Rendon, when they won the World Series, was great for that baseball team.

Only thing I think about when I think of the name Anthony Rendon is bad money spent.

Give me the people in sports that do that for you, where you, I mean, obviously Deshaun Watson is going to be that, but a person you mean franchises?

I'm talking about somebody who was great, got the money, deserved to get the money, deserved to get it, because Rendon's contract, that was more than $200 million, right?

Giancarlo Stanton sort of shook the sport, and then everyone started getting that kind of money.

All of a sudden, Jason Wirth was getting that kind of money.

But Rendon is somebody I now just associate

with

bad money spent.

When you arrive at the position that Anthony Rendon is in, you're top 1% of the top 1% of people competing for money in sports.

You've arrived at the very top level, guaranteed...

hundreds of millions for how good you are at a sport.

But when I hear that name, the place I go immediately is bad money.

So top it for me.

When I say nominate some people that you just,

and they've got to be someone whose excellence was earned, not somebody who just got

a contract out of the draft or something.

Somebody who professionally, in pro sports, earned the money.

Made it to multiple contracts.

Ben Simmons.

That's the one I was going to say.

It's Ben Simmons.

Yeah, but Ben Simmons wasn't really successful in the pros, was he?

In fact, Ben Simmons.

Well, wait a minute.

Ben Simmons, I'm pretty sure Ben Simmons didn't even make the NIT as the number one pick in college basketball.

Or if he made the NIT,

they didn't.

No, I don't think he made the NIT when they were in NIT.

I think they opted out of postseason play, but Ben Simmons got a five-year $177 million.

He was a good player.

He found a way to get that contract without shooting the ball.

He's not even pretending anymore to give us these workouts on video that suggest that he is making a comeback and is working hard to come back.

We now have all of his social media activity.

Is he trolling when he's just gone fishing?

Like, is he trolling when he's just showing us these big fish that he is catching instead of giving us workout videos?

It's quite the direction, you know, this time of year, we used to get the workout videos where they would carefully edit him making jump shots, making three-pointers.

Oh, Ben Simmons, he's coming for your ass this year.

I mean, we made fun of those two.

Oh, yeah, for sure.

If I'm him, I'm like, all right, I'm just going to go.

See, I don't, when it comes to Ben Simmons, that's a different category for me, even though it is of course bad money spent for me he uh he occupies the space that i cannot assign to many athletes ever which is just short-circuited mentally like that's not that is not something sixer somehow had two of those guys and markel folts and him like where you're you're just you're dealing with a mental short-circuiting so i go somewhere else originally when i hear do word association with ben simmons i feel like three weeks ago we would have put daniel jones in this conversation on money i mean that was a bad contract he got with the Giants.

If you look at the bad contracts in the NBA,

like you have guys,

most of the bad contracts that get highlighted are guys that ended up having injuries, physical injuries.

Ben Simmons is the first person that had something go wrong with him that was intangible.

It was between the ears with him.

But it's not like even before he started citing those issues, he wasn't an extremely flawed player.

Can I get some video or photograph of how Zion Williamson looks now, speaking of basketball returning and the offseason, because I believe that at this point still, Zion Williamson, who represents, I'm going to say, let me see if I have this right, who am I missing when I say in terms of basketball physical freak, the biggest physical freak since Shaq, physical freak novelty since Shaq, coming out of college and just stronger than everyone else in the post in a way way that can't be stopped without a double team.

I was going to say Wenbunyama until you said strong.

Yeah, well, yes, right.

Wenbanyama is good and also a physical freak.

Giannis grew into his body a little bit, but he was thin when he got into the league.

Yeah, what makes Zion Williamson so interesting, because at his size,

he's only six foot six.

It's his weight and his explosiveness that didn't make any sense, but he's not this imposing.

He doesn't have this imposing stature.

Now he is filled out for his size and he has a really strange body type but it's not like you see this guy i think what the novelty about him was like how is this guy so powerful well he looks so explosive he looks fit here and i wonder if he loses any strength because those arms those arms used to be thighs and those arms are no longer thighs you're doing the thing i feel like the internet's gonna do too skinny well no no i'm doing too much weight loss no no i'm not i will not weight shame anyone except you there is no one else that i am weight shaming uh and myself that's correct But let's see some video here of Zion and you tell me what you guys' thoughts here because

he looks different, a good deal different.

And

he does look good, but he is undersized.

And so

I do wonder if he can be as strong, given that

in the history of that sport, the only person that I can actually think of like him is Charles Barkley, where led the league in rebounding, at least in part, because his ass is where normal shoulders are on someone.

When I stand next to Charles Barkley, he's not a lot taller than I am.

He isn't.

He's 6'4 Barkley, I think.

But his ass.

His ass is where my shoulders are.

It's a really unusual.

High ass.

He's got a high ass.

His ass is six feet off the ground.

He's got that high ass?

Do you have low shoulders?

No, I do not.

That is why he led the league in rebounding at six foot four and a half or six foot five.

But let me see some video on Zion here because they can do some optical illusions with AI.

I've seen Zion people do some photoshopping with Zion that fools me.

Let me see some video here and see what we've got.

We came up with a plan, and

from boxing to working out on the football field a lot

to just different random workouts.

And during that time frame last year, I really felt a shift in my body to where I would look at him and go,

dude, it feels good to to feel good.

I haven't dealt like this since college, high school, just where I can walk in the gym and I'm like, it just, I feel good.

It's great.

His seventh year in the league.

He's finally a professional.

Finally feels good.

What do we think about that goatee?

Yeah, that's

a question.

Where are we with it?

Like on the disgruntled superstar progression, like, how is he still a pelican?

Aren't we supposed to be moving along here like three years ago?

Oh, but I think his trade value is such that people people are a little bit scared of trading for him.

And when Zaz says seventh year in the league, I do believe that we've gotten a little too accustomed to guys coming out of high school and freshmen in college.

Where you say seven years in the league, but once upon a time, this player, if he were Tim Duncan, would have stayed three of those years in college and would now be in his third or fourth year in the league.

Because

you cannot give a 19-year-old NBA intoxicants and and expect all of the 19-year-olds not to succumb to whatever the NBA intoxicants are.

I do think, though, the general expectation is for them to

adhere to a certain level of professionalism.

And the injuries are one thing.

His approach to the game, I mean, obviously Stephen A.

Smith is very vocal about it, but

I mean, he's called him fat multiple occasions.

But also, let's not forget, there's off-court stuff with Zion Williamson that scares a lot of teams away.

This dude, just around league circles is not considered a pro.

It is very easy in our position to tell others how to be professional.

And yes, that is the standard.

If you are being paid millions and millions of dollars to play a game, you should aspire to professionalism.

But I do think that it should at least register with some people that not every person who's coming into those millions and millions of dollars is equipped to be an adult, never mind a professional.

I've talked to enough athletes who get to the pros and they're just stuffing their clothes, dirty clothes in the closet for months.

Or Ron Artest has dog shit all over his house because whenever he has to go on the road and stuff, he doesn't do the things that are necessary to just keep his home in order.

I understand everyone listening to this is going to say, be a pro, be an adult, but you're going to have some casualties there when you go from the transition of abject poverty and just trying to survive to try and get to a place where you're the professional that everyone else expects you to be.

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