PMS 2.0 1369 - NBA Draft First Round Recap, Utah Jazz/Mammoth Owner Ryan Smith, Shams Charania, Jay Bilas, Travis Pastrana, & AJ Hawk

Hello beautiful people and welcome to our humble abode, the Thunderdome.

On this sports Thursday, June 26, 2025, this program begins now.

Sports are awesome.

No matter what sport is happening, it is more awesome than anything else that is happening in the world.

For instance, last night there were some baseball games on.

That was fun, Agricult Baseball.

W stuff going on.

That's good.

And the NBA's first round of their draft.

And there was obviously some drama building.

Where's Ace Bailey going to go?

This guy's turned down workouts.

Says he always won't go.

He goes number five overall.

Utah, absolute dog.

On the basketball court.

Utah would also pick up Walter Clayton Jr.

at number 18 out of Florida.

He was a bucket getter for the entire of March Madness, obviously national champion.

We saw him watch him.

He's 22 years old, though, so he's a little bit older than all these other guys are getting drafted at 18, 19.

A lot of people saying the Utah Jazz had a massive night on the court.

Now, how everything else work out, we shall see.

We'll be joined by

Ryan Smith, owner of the Utah Jazz and owner of the Utah Mammoth, Tosa.

Tossaw.

Tossab.

Tossab.

Tossaw.

Tassa.

Tosco.

He was in the...

the draft war or the draft war room for the Utah Jazz while also having to handle business with the Mammoth.

The Mammoth make a massive trade of Buffalo Saber JJ

Peterka.

Peturka shit.

It's on me.

It's pretty cool probably where he comes from.

It's probably Peturka.

Yeah, I was trying to just be as cultured as I possibly could.

Sure.

He's from Germany.

Peturka.

So he would say nine to all of my negativity anyways.

All is good.

Sprecken-Z-Deutsch,

just a tiny bit.

But anyways, he's headed to Utah.

So a lot happening around.

Ryder Lions goes to BYU earlier in the week after his mission, obviously.

Then Utah Jazz have the draft that they have.

Then the Mammoth make a massive trade.

I mean, there's a lot going on in Utah.

Ryan Smith will join us.

We can't wait to catch up with him.

Sham Shirania will join us at about 12.40, 1245 Eastern.

Hey, what were some surprises last night, Shams?

What were some back conversations that were happening that maybe never came to light?

What were some opportunities?

What are some expectations for this evening?

And then what is everybody saying about how everybody else did in the draft?

Shams wasn't tipping picks last night.

No.

Well then he started to, because when a trade happens, he's going to, yeah,

they're trading blah, blah, blah, who's with blah, blah, blah.

A couple things ahead.

So we're learning who's getting picked.

And then we're also learning you're not going to be there.

You're going to be at a different place.

The NBA needs to figure that out.

Big time.

They need to figure the hats, first of all, I thought we were over this.

I thought we're done with the hats.

The hats never fit.

Nope.

The hats never fit and they never look good.

Let alone the fact when you got to put a hat on and then on the screen it's saying it's getting traded to a different team.

But in a draft, you're saying you do that.

Can we not just say, you know what?

It's real confusing.

Yeah.

Can we just put the team that traded just in there?

Exactly.

And just say, congratulations.

And instead of it being like traded to as the small one, shouldn't traded from be the small one?

Where they're at now should be the big one.

In my head, just as somebody that was trying to watch and learn the entirety of it last night, that was pretty confusing.

That was a pretty confusing situation.

Now, I understand this is probably how it's been for a long time.

I know the hats thing has always been a part of it.

Like, they don't fit in the NFL ever.

They really.

Sure, at least maybe options.

Sure.

You know, maybe scarf.

Yeah.

Maybe

it's like a pin to put on their blazer.

Boom, right on sick, a lot of sick fits.

Yeah.

A lot of sick.

See the guy with no shirt underneath.

Yeah.

That's a lot of moxie.

I like that type of confidence.

Would like that guy on my team.

I guess he.

Bob Swatz.

Yeah, I think he locks down on defensive side.

But the hat thing, obviously, they never fit.

It always looks, you make the person look immediately stupid.

And they're trying to get introduced to the league, you know, into their team, into their fan base.

I mean, all these guys.

How about the guy out of China?

He's sitting up in the auditorium, eating his knees.

Oh, yeah.

That's Yang Hansen.

Yeah, it is, isn't it?

He's the guy.

He is the guy.

He's going to be.

Rich Paul represents him.

We see Rich Paul at the end of this video here.

That guy's eating his knees up in the auditorium.

How you doing?

Thanks for coming to America from China.

He was supposed to be a second-round draft pick.

Holy shit, it's happening right now.

Here we go.

I'm off and running.

They start showing his highlights.

We're talking no-look passes.

Like,

got a lot of yoker chicken.

Got a lot of Joker in his game.

Wasn't supposed to be until the middle of the second round.

There's Rich Paul saying, hey, come on.

Good to see you.

That's good.

I love that.

Rich Paul is about to run tonight.

We'll talk to Sean's about 1240 to see what we should expect for this particular.

I'm excited to see what happens with Yang Hansen.

Me too.

Favorite player of the drafts.

Up in the auditorium because he's supposed to come tonight.

Tonight's supposed to be the night.

But he's coming from China, so we got to get there ahead.

We might as well go watch the show at least.

Right.

You're drafted, Bob.

Congratulations.

Welcome to Memphis via.

Yeah, you get it.

That's that whole.

Yeah, I'm not even sure what team he's on.

Portland.

Portland.

Yeah, there you go.

Yeah.

He's up trailing.

You'll say him and Jar.

But look, it says, like, just do the thing.

He's at Portland.

Yeah.

Why do they do it?

He is Portland.

I'm sure some basketball purist is going to tell us that we don't know what I'm talking about, which happens a lot.

Believe it or not, we are told we don't know what we're talking about a lot.

Now,

I will say if you were to revisit those conversations a little bit further down the road, might be a whole new conversation at the time.

But we are just your basic doofuses.

And whenever we're trying to learn about your shit, and that's a Look, we had some names.

Little Lee.

I thought I was going to say at least the broadcast was flawless.

I mean,

it was a lot of different options to watch.

Obviously, it was a ABC option.

There was an ESPN option.

There was an ESPN radio option.

I believe there was a digital option as well.

So they did the full takeover of the draft.

I think a lot of people didn't know that there was other options.

Saw a lot of that.

Saw a lot of that on the internet.

That's like whenever we do our draft spectacular and

people start tweeting, or whenever we do our simulcasts, when we do the alternate casts of games when we're on the sidelines, people will start tweeting about how terrible we are for the game and how is this what ESPN.

ESPN's ruining college football.

Like for us, they have no idea that Kirk and Fowler look

one down.

If you were to do that, simple.

So that happens with the draft.

I think there should be maybe a heads up that.

Yeah, you can find this in a couple different places.

And maybe they did.

Maybe we weren't paying attention.

But I was bouncing around.

I thought it was a good show.

I thought it was a good show.

Especially when there's no other sports to watch.

I'd rather have that than Love Island.

Ain't that right, Foxy?

Did you watch NBA last night?

Did you watch Love Island?

I watched NBA.

Actually, last night, Love Island was off.

See?

But he would have been...

Yeah, it's only off two days a week, and last night was one of them.

I think he would have been a little bit...

Oh, and when you guys get back after those two days, so much has happened.

Thursday episodes are crazy.

Sunday episodes are crazy.

Yeah, okay, oh, yeah.

See, that's where we're at now.

Yeah.

That's where we're at now.

So whenever we're talking about the second second round of the NBA draft tonight, deal with us.

Okay.

Yeah.

We're going to ask Johns a question about the second round of the NBA draft.

And just know in the moment, we do care.

Okay.

We do want to know the answer.

Because all these guys are going to go on to be super stars.

All-stars.

That's right.

Who was the number one pick last year?

Zachary Ricochet, I think.

Something like that, yeah.

I know it doesn't look like that's how it's pronounced, but I have heard people say it like that.

Okay, so he was first pick overall last year.

He went, obviously, to the Atlanta Hawks.

And he played outstanding at the end of the year.

Yeah, exactly.

I think he was kind of hammered dog shite the first half of the season, and then he kind of figured out

13 of the year.

Not bad.

Not bad.

Okay, so he bounced back.

Exactly.

And the number one overall pick before that was...

To Wemby.

And the number one overall pick before that was...

Oh, I couldn't tell you.

That's getting a little too far in the past.

Number one's normally hit, though, right?

Isn't that kind of the thing of the draft?

I mean, last year's draft, I remember there being a conversation about it being crap.

They said this is not a great draft, is what they said.

That was rude to those kids.

You guys make your own

decision on if you're a crap draft class or not.

Because any draft class in any sport could be the best of all time or could be the worst of all time.

Every draft pick could be the best player of all time or the worst player of all time, which is why it's such a fun, exciting time.

Feels like basketball hits at the top more often than not.

Everybody else, I think I'm kind of a little bit lost on.

Last night, knew a lot of names late.

Knew a lot of names late.

Connor, you had a theory on why that was the case, why we knew a lot more names.

And I think it was because there was a lot of college guys, right?

March of Madness.

Like Walter Clayton Jr.

being available at 18, I was so surprised.

I'm like, this guy's available for the NBA and he's fallen this far.

He was, he took over games.

I mean, he just absolutely took over games.

I guess there's a lot more projection on what you could be in the NBA.

And then the names being known, it's like a lot of college guys got drafted last night.

Yeah, and a lot of guys make their names in March.

Like I feel like even not just Walter Clayton Jr., but there's a few guys who transferred to bigger schools, and then they become names in March.

Our guy, Derrick Queen, gets drafted last night down in New Orleans.

They paid a hefty ransom to move up 10 spots to get him.

Yeah, people weren't happy about that.

People were calling that guy that's running into the Pelicans a big dumb dip shit.

That's what people were saying.

We do not say it.

No.

No.

We do not say that.

I cannot reiterate that enough because we like Derrick Queen.

So if Derrick Queen goes on to be a perennial all-star, which he could be, very tall,

very athletic, very smooth, and a dog.

Remember, in the game that they show the highlight where he wins it, in the huddle, the coach said, who wants the ball?

And he said, I want the ball.

And then he got, sorry, I want the motherfucking ball.

Then he gets the ball and does that.

It's like, okay, that is a guy I would like on my team.

Now, you trade up 10 spots and give up an unprotected first rounder, I guess, next year, especially with what the Pelicans could be potentially, or they could be very good nonetheless.

But if they end up being good and Derek Queen's good, none of this matters.

Bingo.

Just like the the NFL draft.

Like somebody makes a stupid move, you reach to get somebody.

If that guy's an all-star, none of it matters.

If that person's not,

fired.

Yeah.

Speaking of that move, Dallas Mavericks all of a sudden.

This Nico guy wants to bop wood.

He said, why'd you get rid of Luca?

This guy led your team to the finals last year.

This is it all.

We said it.

We're like, this guy thinks he's more important to the Dallas Mavericks than Luka Donczik.

What is this guy doing?

Is he trying to piss off the fans so bad that they have a right to move the team to another city?

That was the theories.

This guy is trying to tank his team to be bad is what they were saying about this Nico guy, GM.

Now there's stats coming out that are like everything that Nico has said he wants on his team, he is assembled.

He is Cooper Flag, also a shot blocker.

I mean, 50 blocks in 37 games.

Obviously, when you're that tall, that athletic, you're able to do it.

But now they just got size and they are going to play defense, which is exactly what he came out immediately after trading Nico, said, I feel there is a way to win games.

I think it is through a defensive style of basketball, and I think you have to be in tremendous shape.

And he like kind of just sat in the pocket on that, just very much sat in the pocket on that.

He got murdered.

We were a part of the problem.

Yeah.

Well, kind of rightfully so, though.

So he got very lucky after

the trade.

Getting the number one overall pick for a Cooper flag, I think, is obviously a massive ordeal.

But if you look at the vision that he once feels like he's setting it up, and now I guess Kyrie won't be back until January.

Yeah, midseason.

Is that what they're saying?

January or February.

So he's going to miss the first half of the season.

But whenever Kyrie comes back, and if they're already rolling, it's like his vision is perfect.

Can they stay healthy?

Is the big question.

And what will Cooper Flag be?

I think with what every human is saying about him, it's going to work.

Like he's going to transition well into the NBA.

Congrats to him on a coronation, basically, of being the next one.

Well, especially in the West, too.

Like, if you think about those three guys, Gafford, Lively, and Anthony Davis, and you can throw Cooper Flag in there.

But looking around, Chet Holmgren and O.K.C.

and Hartenstein, both those dudes are seven-foot, big bodies.

So, I mean, again, they match up well with them.

You look at the Nuggets, of course.

Jokic, big body, got to match up with them.

The Timberwolves, you know, of course, Rudy Gobert, not as good on offense, but

the main one, yeah, Victor Wembunyama.

Like, if you're looking just to win the state of Texas in general, first and foremost, of course, you have that kind of manpower now.

But the thing, the this league's getting big.

It's getting huge.

It's getting huge.

Now, granted, you've still got TJ McConnell doing his thing.

Jalen Brunson is still doing his thing.

You'll still see some of that.

But the size of these dudes is outrageous right now with what they're able to do.

So smooth.

Yeah.

So smooth, all of them.

All of them have a jumper.

You know, it's like, well, they don't work the paint.

It's like, I think they can.

I think they can make short shots too.

Oh, yeah.

Like, I think they could do that, but they just opt for three points instead of two because they're such prolific shooters.

It just, it's a wild spot at basketball as somebody that's just, you know, casual watcher.

It's like these seven foot four

humans yeah first of all

i didn't know we could do that not many of those and then when you see it running it's like that's unbelievable and then it's just shooting better than i could ever shoot in my life and it's like this is what this is this is what basketball it's an avatar is playing basketball yeah and we just watched i mean we literally chat holmgren is an avatar bingo we just watched okc with chet and hartenstein two huge guys playing defense and and having huge guys And then you talked about coaching.

Jacob Sawy gets into that thing.

He shuts that thing.

Go into his brain.

Yeah.

Soul, sucked out, dropped into an avatar.

He's 13 feet tall, runs, jumps, does the whole thing.

That's what the NBA is becoming.

Yeah.

They play hoops in that movie.

They do.

I'm sorry, I cut you off.

I was thinking to myself that that is what Chet.

I mean, Chet was like throwing the ball down

at the hoop backwards from like four feet away.

But that was so tall.

NBA's talking about about the blueprint now.

But you're talking about number one overall picks.

So from the 2020 on, it was Anthony Edwards.

He's pretty good.

Cade Cunningham.

That guy's pretty good.

Paolo Boncaro, pretty good.

The elite

Ricochet, obviously.

Wemby, and then Cooper Flag here.

So there's a pretty good chance that Cooper Flag is going to probably be the rookie of the year and be good in the NBA.

Ricochet, we think, with the S?

It's like Ricochet or something.

Yeah,

it is not pronounced how you think it would be pronounced.

R-I-S-A-C-H-E-R.

I know the E-R is an A sound.

Right.

Yeah.

The S is becoming a.

Zacchae.

Yeah, I mean, that's, you know, again.

Zac-Ali?

So I just looked it up.

It's ries-a-cheer.

See?

New.

New was in the ballpark.

New was the name of the.

Red car.

Yep.

I took like eight classes of French, and I'm like, I don't know if an S turns into a C in that language.

They seemingly are great at basketball, though.

Very good.

Yeah, French good basketball.

Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, is a man who,

you know, is in the middle of a lot of action right now.

Obviously, Qualtrics, when you're talking about surveying and accounting and everything like that, best in a bis.

Only one name comes to mind.

Qualtrics.

Boom.

Great business.

So good, it's been sold multiple times.

It's crazy.

For billions of dollars each time.

Yeah.

The person that did that said, well, I'm like 40 years old old now, love sports.

What should I do?

Oh, I'm going to buy my hometown NBA team, the Utah Jazz.

Becomes an owner of the Utah Jazz.

Obviously brings in Danny Ainge from the Boston Celtics.

Tries to build up a winner in his city.

Then also he says, you know, I love this state.

What would this state need?

What would be great for this state?

Oh, hockey team.

So then he starts petitioning the NHL.

Hey, whenever a team is either going up for expansion or for sale, we would like to be a part of it.

I think my state, the one that I'm from, would be a wonderful host city of an NHL team, and I think we would show up for you.

You got it?

Team goes up for sale in Phoenix, bang.

All of a sudden, now he owns an NHL team and an NBA team, and he's under the age of 50.

Ladies and gentlemen, a self-made billionaire with a great team around him, an owner of an NBA team and an NHL team, a guy who's living out a lot of old dudes' dreams in America, and has remained a human somehow.

I don't know how that works, ladies and gentlemen.

Ryan Smith.

Hey, Ryan.

What's up, guys?

That last question.

Shoe collection is so up.

Richache.

Richache.

Okay, we, we, Messi Boku,

Toue, Tre,

Extraordinaire, the feet covers.

I don't know how you say shoes.

I just want those.

Yeah, your shoe collection is outrageous.

You know that.

That is beautiful right there.

That is wonderful.

How often do we change those out?

Are they always the same spot?

No, it's great.

I always change it out.

Like, if I just show up and I'm like not filling what I'm rocking on the feet i just look around and there's something something there it's yeah but are they always all in the same spots or do some people get kicked off the team like hey i'll tell you what third row up on the left side 15th shoe in i haven't worn these in three years take them off the damned rack they don't deserve a spot anymore we need to put some new bad boys up here is there any we need some procedures actually

What's actually happening is I find that they're disappearing.

People will come in and then like walk out with a pair of kicks.

And I'm like, all right, we got to find something else there.

Zito said in the back, that is classic Big J.

There, he's going right to the top.

Big Jay's going right to the top, no doubt about it.

Okay, thank you for joining us.

Um, great night last night for the Utah Jazz.

I assume that's how the entire organization feels.

Danny Ainge, obviously, genius over there.

You bring in so many big brains into every business that you do.

It feels like you are okay delegating power to other people and trusting the ride.

How was the room last night whenever you end up with Ace Bailey at five, outrageously talented player who may have said that he didn't want to go to Utah?

I don't know if that was just on the internet, but that was kind of being speculated.

And then Walter Clayton Jr., the guy of March Madison, had to feel like a great night for the Utah Jazz, Ryan.

Is that accurate?

Yeah.

It truly was.

I mean,

I think we brought in Austin Ainge a couple weeks ago, and he came out for the press conference from Boston and didn't leave actually.

He has not left to go back home to back up or anything.

He has been heads down and I think a couple weeks ago he said if we can walk out of this draft with Ace Bailey and Walter Clayton, that's exactly what we want to do.

And the team executed on exactly what they wanted.

Okay, so whenever the chatter about Ace Bailey happens as the owner of the team, I assume that is something that you have to take into account, especially in the modern era of sports.

What is kind of your thoughts on that particular narrative about Ace

at five to Utah with everything that's been said leading up to the draft?

I mean, look, I think our philosophy in where we're at as a team is we want to take the best player on the board, and we love Ace.

I got a chance to talk to Ace and Walter last night.

And, you know, all I saw was a kid who was humble.

He was grateful.

He was excited

to be in the NBA.

And I think that's all you can ask for from our standpoint.

I mean, naturally, probably doesn't have a lot of experience out west here with Utah.

That's our job to go make him love it.

I just, I'm confident in our state.

I know that, you know, he'll feel love like he's never felt before.

People are fired up to have him.

And the reality is there's nothing that Ace and others can't accomplish here.

And so I think we've seen that with the NBA Finals this year.

You guys have felt that love.

You were long for a hell of a ride with Indy and OKC.

And

he's going to do great.

He's going to do great.

And he's got a young coach who's fired up about him.

You know, he's got a lot of really smart people around.

I mean, with DA, who's been in the league 46 years,

with a group of veterans on our team that are also incredibly unselfish.

And I think that's really important.

So he gets a chance to learn, but everyone wants this guy to succeed.

And so we couldn't be more excited.

Hell yeah.

And as I was watching and reading that narrative kind of take place on the internet, and I don't think it was just Utah, I didn't want to get, I think there was multiple.

You know, I think it was like uh considered uh a conversation about ace leading up i'm like there's no way he's ever been to utah ace i want to let you know i

you and i obviously not same people uh i had little to no expectation of utah just i'm just gonna uh let's keep it a buck uh how it looks going out to utah i was planning on uh doing show

hotel room show plane, get me the hell out of here.

Okay.

Get me the hell out of here.

You invited me to a a game, which is very kind.

Hey, the owner of the Utah Jazz would like you to come to a Utah Jazz game tonight.

I can't, can't do that.

I got a big schedule, big things planned.

And then I think Zito was like, hey, you should look up who the owner of the Utah Jazz is.

I looked it up.

I saw you.

And I was like, this is not what I expected out of the Utah Jazz owner at all.

I looked into your story.

I looked into how you treat people.

I looked into everything.

And I was like, oh, I'd love to go hang with this guy.

And what we got a chance to do is experience Utah.

Walked around downtown, got a chance to go out.

We saw the people.

We saw the building.

We experienced everything about it.

It's like, this place is amazing.

We thought about picking up and moving there.

It's like that was where we're at, let alone the views and everything else.

And I think obviously conservative is a word that is thought about Utah.

But I think people automatically assume that's boring.

It's like, I don't think your city was boring at all.

Like, I think we had a great

out there.

No, a lot of times in life, I think the picture in our head can

actually lead us into a really weird spot.

And it actually limits all the opportunities in front of us.

I mean, growing up as a kid, I never thought I would be in enterprise software.

Like that picture of the head just didn't seem what it is.

You know, I'll never forget D.

Wade's quote, right, when we, you know, obviously were hoping for, you know, the draft lottery and everything came out.

And, you know, his quote right away is like, hey, there's been a lot of killer players picked at number five.

you know, back at where he was.

And so I think, look, it's natural for people to be uncomfortable.

I think you went down the entire draft board and you're like, okay, where's everyone's preferred destination?

It's probably not the right move for them where they think it is in their head.

Because everything I've had in my life that's good, it has never been the picture I had in my head.

It's actually always kind of uncommon sense where it comes out and it's like, oh, that don't make sense.

And all you want is the ability to accomplish everything and not be held back.

And that's what all these guys are going to get in Utah

let's not talk about and by the way and by the way I mean like this this little he's gonna this little view

like if that's not good for your mental to get locked in to go to go reach up for something where the air is thin yeah I don't know what else like

like the word we're in the picture business here yeah your postcards postcards brother a lot of those

yeah you got the mountains in a mountain uh resort view on one side then you got 2,000 pairs of J's on the other side.

Utah, baby.

Lake over there.

We got a basketball operation.

It's a great lake.

Yeah, it is a great lake.

We do.

Oh, it's not a great lake.

Great lakes are on our side of the country.

Yeah, exactly.

Okay, let's go.

Yeah, please.

Homes, brother.

Homes.

Thank you.

No problem.

That's Michigan right there.

That's right.

I'll shout out to Erie to you.

One fishing up there in Lake Erie.

Superior is a big son.

Oh, yeah.

Big, that's a big, that's a great lake right there.

Ontario and Huron, though, they hold up their end of the bargain because you can't spell homes

right there.

That's right.

So that's why we got the Great Lakes on our side.

You understand it, Ryan.

You got good lakes over there.

You got good lakes.

You got good lakes.

All right, let's move on.

Let's move on.

I think Ace is going to love Utah, is all I'm saying.

And I think you're like,

if I was going to be a professional athlete, you would be the owner that I would, or style of owner that I would want to play.

You are fully invested on that note.

Ty has a question for you.

Yeah, Ryan, how difficult is it having to kind of split your time with, obviously, when you have the draft, you have all that prep, and then you're also looking at different acquisitions and different players to bring in.

And on the flip side of it, you also have to address everything going on with the mammoth.

Like, I know you've said to us, you're not really that the hands-on guy who's going to be involved in every decision and want your fingerprint all over it.

But how difficult is it really kind of properly dividing your time between both your teams when you're trying to make both teams better before next season?

Yeah, it's like a two-game parlay.

You're trying to hit it all every night.

Like, it's hard.

I think, just like your guys' world, you got to pick your spots and you got to try to figure out how it all works.

There's no real playbook.

I think people ask you, like, hey, how are you going to be?

So, you know, last night was an interesting one.

I'm in that draft room right there.

Right.

Like, what is my role there?

And my role,

in my mind, is very simple.

I'm there to support them.

Like, I've never seen a business that has so much revisionist history

because every organization last night with 30 picks, all were clapping for the guy that they got.

We got our guy.

And then five years from now, everyone's going to look back and be like, I can't believe we didn't get the guy one up or one below or we got luck.

We were lucky.

And my role here is to let Austin know and DA and coach.

We're riding and dying together.

I'm in it with you.

There's going to be no revisionist history.

We're making that decision.

We're going to be in it together.

I'm going to look back.

I was in the room and I'm here to support you.

We're going to win some.

We're going to lose some.

We're going to be aggressive.

I'd rather have you swinging.

You know, we've never had a championship in Utah.

We're not going to tiptoe into that.

We're going to miss some.

That's fine.

But I want you to know that I'm here in that hard moment to validate.

I'm not in there telling them how to do their job.

Although last night it was interesting because I'm sitting at that table.

We're in the middle of it.

My phone rings and everyone's phone's ringing on the clock and everything.

And they're like, why are you taking a call?

And it was, you know, it was, it was Terry Pagula from the Sabres going, hey, there's a hockey deal going on right now.

Are you involved in this?

Is this for real?

What's going on?

And,

and,

and, and I was like, yeah, I think this is going.

Everyone's kind of looking at me going, like, why are you on the call?

I was like, hey, like, don't worry about it.

But like, you just kind of blend it all together and then my family's sitting back there and our friends are there like

like there's no real separation it's just pulling it all into one organization I think that's one of the benefits we have in Utah where

we we do have the same ownership structure in both organizations it is the same arena and and it's easy to kind of put on one broader hat and hire really smart people that my jobs to support and get out of their way, but also

let them do the job, let them feel comfortable, let them take the risk and know that it's a safe place.

And, you know, we're not expecting perfection.

Knowing that your owner is invested financially and also wanting to win is a huge deal for the fan base.

I assume the jazz and the mammoth have fans have told you that.

But also hiring smart people and letting them do their job and execute their vision is also something all fans want their owners to do.

Now, let's talk about the people that you've hired.

Bill Armstrong over there for the Mammoth, right?

Isn't that accurate?

Yeah.

He's the GM that did the deal whenever Pagula called you and said, Hey, are you in on this?

I got Bill Armstrong.

What do you say?

You talked to Bill Armstrong there.

People around the hockey world say, Great trade year for the Utah Mammoth.

Now, granted, I think you signed him to a deal immediately, and some people were questioning the contract details, whatever that is.

But getting JJ to your team, I think everybody in the hockey world was like, good move.

How do you feel about the move?

And what should we view?

How should we view the mammoth over the next few years?

Yeah, so, I mean, first of of all this is bittersweet because kessel ring and doan are amazing humans and and you know they're both they're both young and you know it's obviously what what buffalo wanted um i think we we i mean i think to take a next step for us it you know we need a little bit more scoring on that front line we got a left-winger um and now we have four guys on our team under the age of 26 that are 60 point guys um

and and hopefully it gets better You know, three of them are under 23.

I think that's really encouraging if I look out for the mammoth.

But once again, you know,

Cass and Donor were huge in our first season.

They handled the transition, the move.

They rallied.

There's a lot of leaders on these teams.

And so it's a little bittersweet, but

it's a move we got to make.

And,

you know, when it was brought to me with the recommendation,

it was something that we were pretty excited about just because of the potential and the upside of feeling that.

That was one of our big off-season desires.

And to have it come, I don't think we saw it coming this way, but I think it's good news for Mammoth fans.

And, you know, I've looked into it a little bit.

There's some good years ahead.

I've looked into it a little bit.

They talked about the money that JJ is getting now.

And I thought about you as an owner, you know, and I don't remember if we've ever chatted about it, but the NBA money and the NHL money is crazy.

Sidney Crosby just signed for $8.7 million a year.

Hey, $8.7 million.

That's like three weeks' pay for some of the NBA guys, you know, and I'm not saying that it isn't warranted.

Like, you get whatever you need.

You get whatever money you can get.

But for you, has that been an interesting experience in the NHL?

Like, hey, I am used to spending money on the most valuable assets of the entire franchise, which is...

the players.

Has that been interesting for you with Bill Armstrong?

I mean, it's all within a cap system.

And I think, you know, we've got, you know, we brought Bill in.

We hired Chris Armstrong.

So we have two Armstrongs that are in there.

Two Anges.

Two Armstrongs.

Yep.

Two Armstrongs, two Anges.

They're not related, though.

But like Chris, Chris is someone that I've worked with for a long time.

And, you know, I would say his job is president.

One of his jobs is to get me really comfortable and then work with Bill together.

And to say, hey, you know, how's this going to play out?

I mean, we still don't even have a full arena yet from a seating standpoint.

And we're under massive renovation right there.

There's a video out there.

I mean, we're trying to do something that really hasn't been done from a basketball hockey arena to make it super intimate like we have in hoops, which you guys have seen, but also have it be able to almost expand like an accordion for hockey.

And most arenas.

When's that?

How's that?

That's going to take two years to build what you're doing.

It's going to be two years, but there's new technology with seating where it's almost like you can press a button and it's like, hey, go to two, come back to one, as opposed to most arenas start off wide and then they come in for kind of that moment.

We want to stay in the best, most intimate basketball arena in the NBA, but be able to press a button and kind of go out to maintain that same intimacy for hockey.

And so we've been working on this.

That'll be full.

But we're trying to be aggressive.

but also plan for the future.

We're very, very close.

We were close to getting to the playoffs this year.

And And honestly, it was pretty storybook to,

yeah, I mean, the second the season ends, we put a crane on that floor and it's not coming out till

the second we start.

I mean, it's pretty massive what we're doing here.

Yeah.

Yeah, it feels like it's a good thing.

It's a mammoth underday.

Yeah, it's first Tuscan.

Tuscan.

Did you walk in there with your hard hat on?

Did you do the whole hard hat photo shoot?

Oh,

you're not going in there without hard hat.

Yeah, but did you do the photo shoot shoot with the scissors on the thing to break ground or the shovel to break ground did you do that whole thing i'm gonna be honest by the time the season was over that thing was gated and and we just moved fast in utah no you got it

you gotta do the shovel thing you just

went

no we'll do a shovel when we kick it off and you guys are there hosting opening night when that thing's done but You know, look, I think

I had an interview, a reporter question from Canadian television asked me once how I thought about the cap going up in hockey.

Yes.

And like, oh, it was going up 10% or what was going to happen.

And I was like, as opposed to what?

I mean, we're kind of used to that in the NBA where it kind of increases at a level, which is a big jump.

But look, I mean, what the NHL is doing and where it's going,

you guys are seeing that.

You guys covered it.

You were early to the beat there.

It's on a heater.

It's absolutely on a heater.

And I don't see this thing slowing down because the world very, very easily relates to the teamwork and what they're seeing on the ice and the way they go.

And, you know, even the celebrations like we're watching.

And

it's a pretty cool thing to be a part of.

And to be able to bring that to Utah,

you know, it's probably one of the coolest things I've ever been a part of.

Yeah, I'm happy you're getting part of the hockey world, you know?

Like, I think you wanted to bring a hockey team to Utah because you knew Utah would love a hockey team.

Like, I think that's what you did.

Then I think as you started learning about hockey hockey more and more, you know, it started feeling like you started becoming like, oh, this is a sport that I'm very, very much

love and have a lot in common with because how about them just fighting?

How about it?

Like, it's so old school in there.

Like, hey, you want to disrespect my friend?

Sweet.

I will see you center ice in about two periods.

So we will handle this entire thing.

And then the speed and the talent, it's a fantastic sport.

And then they're taking one night off and playing again.

You're like, wait a minute.

Shouldn't they just play next Sunday?

No, no, no.

We got 84 games coming, allegedly.

Now, on that note, Color has a question for you.

Yeah, Ryan, new proposed CBA for the NHL.

Pat just mentioned it.

84-game season, the max six-year deals for free agents.

No dress codes.

No dress codes, which is ridiculous.

Let the boys put sandals on, Ryan.

Yeah, please.

The long-term IR, which has been a very

kind of priority for some of these teams to win is to use that long-term IR.

I know people in Florida were upset because Ekblad goes on the 20-game suspension.

They get new players.

It happened with the Golden Knights.

It's happened with Tampa Bay Lightning, with Kucherov.

It's happened forever.

That's another thing they're thinking about changing.

What is kind of the main things of this new proposed CBA?

Is it locked in for 84 games here?

And what do you think?

How's it going to change the game?

Yeah, like, I don't know how it's all going to

kind of shake out, but I, you know, right when I came in, I had like three or four different owners and managers of the NHL call and be like, dude,

we got to keep the suits.

The dress code's got to stay the way it is.

Really?

I know you're a big hoodie guy, but like, don't, don't, like, we got one thing.

And I've actually grown to love the suits.

Like, I love the look.

I love the culture.

You know, it's game time.

You know when it's coming.

There's something about it, right?

And

so we'll see how it all, i'm sure it's a lot of work for the guys but um we'll see how all this shakes out i mean 84 games um it's incredible it's incredible what they do how physical it is you know diving in front of pucks doing that i mean it's it's you know these are real athletes yeah and and and they they go hard and they go a lot and um i think you know we're we're gonna see um

you know I think they're in the middle of it where, you know, it's kind of a template and we'll we'll see where it all shakes out.

I mean, I can't comment too much on it.

Got it.

Okay, because whenever I read this on the thing on the bottom of the photo, it said major potential changes in next NHL, NHL, PACBA.

But then in the tweet, it says could be announced tomorrow per Frank Saravoli.

So then, so it's kind of conflicting.

Like, if this is potential, but then it could be announced tomorrow, that sounds like there's an agree to terms then.

So we haven't voted on anything yet.

Okay.

All right.

That's a good piece of information.

All right.

So we haven't voted on anything.

We're getting close.

We'll see how it all shakes out.

Whatever the case, hockey is going to remain awesome.

And we appreciate how great of an owner you have been for the Utah Jazz and a Mammoth thus far and how cool you've been to us.

We appreciate the hell out of you.

No, you guys are awesome.

Congrats on all the success fellas.

And congrats on the run in Indy, man.

It was fun watching.

It was.

How about Simon?

He was the man.

I wanted one for Herbie a little bit.

I'm not going to lie.

I ran into him backstage or back court, I guess you would call it, hmm,

in the bottom.

In the tunnel.

In the tunnel of the arena after we won the Eastern Conference Finals, I think.

And he was just walking, smiling.

They were on his way somewhere and just in a suit coat, you know, a sport coat, walking, happy.

He has like glasses.

They might be sunglass glasses.

They were tinted glasses a little bit.

He's walking through.

And I go, Mr.

Simon, my name's Pat McDaffee.

Congratulations or whatever.

He goes, Pat,

thank you.

And I said, congratulations, man.

I was like, can I get a selfie with you?

He goes, absolutely.

And then he turns, me and my wife take a selfie with him.

And he goes, all right, I'm going to go celebrate.

And then he turns around and walks away.

I'm like, this is,

he's awesome.

He's, he's older.

That's, that's my guy.

That's my guy.

Like every all-star, I, I just, like, I sit next to her, but I was like, you are a G.

You are like, he's 90 years old.

And like.

He just wants to hang.

And

I want as much time with that guy as I can get.

What an amazing human.

Super vibes out of that guy.

I mean like super vibes, not just like kind of, he's 90.

It was like, this guy is amazing.

All right.

We appreciate you, Ryan.

Good luck with everything.

Hey.

We'll see you.

Hey.

Toss up.

Keega over here.

Foxy, Keegan over here.

Toss up.

Let's go.

Toss up.

Ryan Smith.

Why won't he do it?

I don't know.

I think maybe he doesn't want to, because he's a big, let's see what people say again.

Remember, Qualtrics, certainly.

Some people have spoken.

Yeah, I think there has been a contingency of people that have spoken, but I think he doesn't want to force anything either.

He's very much like

we'll see how it all shakes up.

Sure.

You know, we'll see how it all.

I let the guys do their jobs too.

I like you said.

I'm in the room.

Certainly.

I am there.

Hey, listen, I'm here to support you.

And five years from now, I won't be judging your decision because I was there whenever we were all in there.

We actually just had one of these conversations in the think tank over there about a decision that was made by me like years ago that we look back on and go, so stupid.

That was a bad decision.

It was like, but in the moment, in the moment, it

felt like a good one.

And that's life.

You're going to keep going.

That's an American dream story, right?

Yeah.

I believe he dropped out of high school, something like that.

He's like an outlaw Mormon.

Because they started in his basement?

It was.

He was like an outlaw Mormon.

The outlaw Mormon.

He was.

And then he just surveys and then he started pounding pavement with these surveys.

And then he like showcased the companies that like you can do like the original surveys.

And I think it's hard in the digital age because we all hate surveys.

We all know of surveys.

But when surveys like first became like a thing, people would be walking off an airplane and they'd be like, Hey, would you take five minutes to do this?

And we'll give you a five-minute gift card or a five-dollar gift card or something like that for the future.

Sure, no problem.

And then you get like a thousand of those filled out.

And then I think you show the company, like, hey, this is what your customers are literally saying.

And they like changed businesses, like the Qualtrics people.

And then he sold that thing twice, billions, one time.

Yeah.

Still owner.

Get a little bit more back.

Sell it again.

Still own it.

Buy the Utah Jazz.

Still own it.

Buy the Utah Manners.

Utah Hockey Club.

It's like he's 48 or something.

Crazy.

Beast.

48 years old.

Was not born a billionaire.

Like this is not like family money.

This is he created the money alongside a lot of great people.

I'm not saying that he didn't have a great team, but it's like he's doing everything that like, you know, a lot of little boas dream of.

He grew up hooping in Utah, in Salt Lake City, loved the Utah Jazz.

owns Utah Jazz.

Yeah.

Like, I love the state of Utah Hockey Give it.

Got to get a hockey team here.

Like it is.

Hope they win.

That's a hell of a story over there.

What's that?

I said, I hope they win.

Yeah, me too.

Utah Jazz not good this year.

Nah, they haven't been good for a little while now.

Yeah.

I think the Mammoth, you know, I mean, what we've seen in the NHL, like with these newer TN Grant, they're not an expansion team, but like they're obviously, you know, they could be good next year.

He said it.

They almost made the playoffs this last year.

Expansion team,

better option in the NHL.

Nick, correct me if I'm wrong.

Expansion team, because you can get like vets from other teams.

Whenever you buy a team like the Phoenix Coyotes, who move up to utah to become the utah hockey club now the utah mammoth you pick up their entire building basically right isn't that kind of how it is so you already have the roster set as opposed to being able to build your own roster with a plethora of veterans that are on big contracts that you can potentially sign right nick certainly a lot more flexibility with the expansion options but uh ryan got a great opportunity here because of that tweet we just had up on the screen there where the youth uh a couple of those guys cooley was a draft pick uh gunter and keller were already on the team now they trade and add paterca Like, they've got a really good situation going in Utah.

Young, young team.

Gunter.

Yeah, Gunter's a dog.

Who's the Pittsburgh boy?

There's a Pittsburgh boy on this team?

Logan Cooley.

That about.

Edbay, Younger out there.

Logan work, Logan.

Go on, Cooley.

Go on, Cooley.

All right, let's turn our attention back to the NBA.

Obviously, the NBA draft was last night, and there was a little bit of a different experience during this NBA draft than there had been in the past.

My friend Shams wasn't tipping every single pick, was was he?

I was asking about, ladies and gentlemen, Shamshrawan.

Shams, how are you doing, buddy?

I'm doing great.

I'm doing great.

My head is kind of spinning.

We got the second round of the NBA draft tonight.

I'm actually even getting ready for free agency coming up in a few days.

So we have a few different things on the docket right now we're wrapping our minds around.

Are we about to do the whole Shams screen time post?

Is that coming soon?

Is the Shams screen time post coming?

That's likely.

I feel like that's likely.

I think the people want to see the June 30th and July 1 screen times.

But if they don't want to see it,

we usually give the people what they want to see.

All right.

All right.

Let's talk about what the people didn't see last night.

It was noticeable.

I live on X.

You were trending while not.

being active on X because you weren't tipping picks.

A lot of great tweets about Shams not tipping picks last night.

Just the way the internet has the ability, more specifically, NBA Twitter.

Okay, I guess that's

not the name.

And that is the best Twitter.

Let's not even get into it, but that's neither here nor there.

They had a field day with the Seams not tipping picks.

Then, all of a sudden, pick 11, we're getting tipped picks now with trades.

Now we're getting with trades.

What was your experience last night?

Because with all of us who are friends of yours and followers of yours, it was a little bit different and people noticed.

It was hard.

It was hard.

You know, knowing the picks five minutes in advance or

knowing what's happening in different places well before.

It was hard.

It was definitely unlike

past years for me.

There's no doubt about it.

There were times I was like, you know, I just, you know.

Let me fire one of these off.

Let me fire one of these.

But, you know, I think this year I took the approach of being a good teammate and being a good partner for the people that I'm around, the people that I work with on a daily basis,

you know,

by approaching it and not tipping the picks.

But,

you know, trades though are different, Pat.

You know, trades, they get processed.

It's just, it's a totally different,

you know, element of the draft.

And so to me, keeping our broadcast as up to date as possible on which pick is going where, you know, that, and if, and if a trade is processed, it is my job to report that.

So

to me, you know, I think I handled it, you know, the best I could.

I thought you did very well.

By the way, I thought you did very well.

And you talked about being a good partner and a good teammate and everything like that.

We run the draft spectacular.

And we, for a very long time, as soon as somebody on the internet reported what the pick was, we would just be like, yup, here's the pick.

Cause we're on the internet.

You know, like that is, this is how business is being done on the internet.

Then, you know, once we...

start our show being licensed through ESPN and then the NFL gives us a spot at the draft and it's like the ESPN production people are building the set.

The NFL gave us the fucking location.

It's like, and the NFL in the past has been like, hey, could you please, you know, we kind of want that to be a big deal, you know, whenever you, and all the other insiders that have probably been given the same speech are like, hey, don't, please don't tip the picks.

They all talk shit on everybody tipping picks.

So I can understand the pressure that you had on you yesterday and the decision making because I literally had to, we literally had to make that decision.

Like that is something we had to do.

Cause it's like.

We did NFL picks on the show dangers yeah years ago you were cracking yeah yeah 2020 i was uh i was getting in the mix there kobe yeah i remember that it's tough though because you do want to be a good teammate like you you do want to be for us like we would like to be a good teammate for the nfl like we respect the nfl so whenever the nfl was like hey is there any way you know because A, every other broadcast partner we have is getting pissed at us that, you know, that you're doing that.

Guys are eight picks ahead.

That you can't, that they can't.

We don't let them do it.

But also, like, don't you think that this is a bigger moment if it just happens?

And I'm like, yes.

Yeah, I do.

I do think that is the case.

So that was like an easy gift.

I think it did the right thing.

And then whenever you're reporting the trades,

we did get a little, we got some tips.

You know, we got some tipped picks.

So I think you did great last night, Shams.

Now, with that being said, what were some of the big storylines of last night?

Obviously, Ace Bailey goes five to Utah.

We just talked to Ryan Smith.

Is that the biggest takeaway from last night?

Or what is it in your eyes from what everybody is talking about?

There are a few.

For sure, we can start with Utah.

Ace Bailey going at five.

You know what's crazy?

A few days before the draft, I actually heard Ace Bailey that that was the spot he was destined to go.

And then, you know, but classic, like in the NFL, I'm sure it's the same way.

Smoke screens, you hear this.

It's like every single day, it's a new rumor.

You hear, oh, no, he's actually to Washington.

He's actually going to go to New Orleans.

Like I heard everything in the book, but I did trust the person I heard that from.

But, you know, I went into the draft, eyes wide open.

We'll see what happens.

I think at pick four and five, there were a lot of conversations about moving back, moving up, things of that sort.

None of that happened.

And once Ace Bailey got to five, I wasn't really that surprised.

Ace Bailey had a very, I think, an orthodox process, but it's not a totally different process.

It's not the first time a player and his representatives chose to handle it and really shield him and keep it private and kind of throw different

smoke screens in their own way out there to shield his process.

And whether he got to where he wanted to or not, what I was told going into draft night was that he was very comfortable with his process.

He was very comfortable with the fact that no matter what he does, whether he works out with teams or doesn't work out with teams, whether he's a good Samaritan or isn't a good Samaritan in the team pre-draft form,

he's going to go somewhere between three and eight.

And that's exactly what happened.

He ends up going five to the Utah Jazz.

They're thrilled.

And I think them getting Walter Clayton Jr., I'm sure Ryan Smith and that organization is through the roof because you get those two guys, competitors, shot makers, shot creators.

Those are two good gets.

Atlanta is another team, I think, a big winner, not only of the draft, but this week.

Getting Christophe Porzingis earlier in the week,

if he's healthy and he's good to go, that is a massive get.

He became really an indispensable part of the Celtics and their championship team in 2024.

And that's a big get for them if he's healthy.

And then, yeah, that's a great tweet by Bobby Marks.

Shout out Bobby Marks, my teammate.

And then last night, they moved back 10 draft slots and they end up with an unprotected first round pick of the best favorable out of Milwaukee or New Orleans.

Given the uncertainty around both of those teams, and I don't know where either team is going to finish, one of those picks might end up being a high pick.

And if it is, Atlanta essentially moved back 10 slots and then gets another lottery pick next year potentially.

So that was some shrewd movement by their new general manager, Ansi Sala.

But I think Atlanta overall has to be looking at themselves pretty good right now.

And they've got a $25.3 million trade player exception.

I do anticipate them using that.

Either they're going to take in contracts with draft picks and assets, or they could get a game-changing player at that salary slot.

Okay, so let's talk about Joe Dumars, who's the general manager of the Pelicans, doing that trade.

I believe Bill Simmons said it was the worst trade he's ever seen in professional sports, I think.

Something along that line.

Yeah, in the last decade I've been going that far.

Huh?

Last decade.

Last decade.

Okay, in the last decade is what Bill Simmons said.

He's followed basketball.

Obviously, he's a basketball guy.

I don't know the business of the NBA as well.

I know they don't care about picks, but they do care about picks.

So much so that they'll move up 10 spots to draft somebody.

Derek Queen, dog.

Football player.

Absolute dog, by the way.

Great player.

But how can you judge that?

What if he ends up being a Hall of Famer?

What if he ends up being a perennial all-star?

Then no one is going to be talking about this in three years.

So clearly, Joe Dumars, Troy Weaver, that organization, they felt very confident in the player that Derrick Queen is.

Only time will tell exactly how that is.

Now, but again, from the Atlanta perspective, they clearly were fine moving back 10 slots.

And then they get an extra asset.

So for them, that is looked at as a net positive.

For the Pelicans, it's all about how Derrick Queen ends up, how he develops, what is he like in his NBA career.

And to me, it's too early to judge whether they won or lost.

If next year's pick ends up being a lottery pick, but Derek Queen ends up being a perennial All-Star Caliber player, like, are we really having a conversation?

I don't know.

10 picks in the middle of the first round worthy of an unprotected first-round pick next year.

I don't know what the right play is and what history says in the NBA, but I do know they'll trade the 2041 number one overall

like that.

They'll do that for like the ninth man off the bench.

So the NBA is certainly an interesting place.

Go ahead, Tyler.

Well, I was just going to say, like, that would be the devil's advocate, right?

It's like, why would you trade this unprotected pick that could potentially be a lottery pick when you could just be like, hey, we'll give you 2035 and 2036 first-round picks and then a couple second-round picks.

Well, that's because new GM down there at the Hawks said, I don't play those games.

Okay, I need that thing right now.

Unleaded.

Yeah, sure.

Okay, I need...

Go ahead, Connor.

Yeah, Sean, you mentioned the next steps, the free agency starting pretty soon here after the draft.

And you mentioned Kaminga being a guy that the Miami Heat are looking at.

Are there any other big names nas reed i know is a guy that most teams want i'm pretty sure what is kind of the next thing after the draft or is it the giannis trade is that happening

well i think the giannis uh situation we'll see he a lot of us observing this week draft week free agency week what can the bucks do to get better so that's a little bit in the in the in the distance but as far as what we have in front of us there's only one team with significant cash waves that's the brooklyn nets and what they're looks like what that you know that organization led by sean Marks, the general manager, what they're doing is retooling younger.

They used five draft picks last night.

That gives you a window into what they're trying to accomplish.

They're continuing to build on a young timeline there.

So they have a ton of cap space.

They got Terrence Mann.

They got a first-round pick.

I think continuing to take on salaries, getting assets, that'll be a focal point of what they're working on there.

But the fact that they're the only team with cap space, that means there's a whole lot of free agents right now.

James Harden, Nas Reed, Julius.

LeBron James has a player option.

He has a deadline of that.

I believe on Sunday, there's a bunch of player option decisions on Sunday.

So

I think

what we're going to see is a lot of free agents are either going to re-sign with their teams, work on signing trades, because there's only one team with significant cap space.

So I definitely, you know, I'm tracking, you know, let's see what happens with LeBron James player option.

I said on our show in Indy, actually our first show we did

outside Game Bridge.

It's likely, still is likely, LeBron James opting into his player option just under $53 million.

But he has until Sunday to make that decision.

And then there'll be a host of other players making similar decisions on Sunday.

Well, good luck to LeBron deciding whether or not he wants $53 million.

You've already bought it.

Just kidding.

There's a lot of players that have that option this weekend.

I'll be excited to see who goes where.

Let's talk about the Phoenix Suns.

They acquire two centers in a matter of 10 minutes or something along those lines.

Yeah,

this might have been the other shock of the draft.

So, come on, Malowatch.

Come on, Malowatch.

I'm not going to lie.

I think I botched it a couple times.

Sorry, come on, Malowatch.

I get it.

Come on, come on, Johns.

It's come on, Malowatch.

Seems like a great, great kid.

All I hear around the league is he's got a high character.

So shout out, come on, Malowatch.

So when, when he, you know, a lot of people thought he was going to go between seven and nine, and once he fell to 10, I think the Suns were looking at it like we never expected this kid to fall to us at 10.

Uh, and at the same time, kind of working on this Mark Williams trade.

And so, both things kind of developed really quick within minutes of each other.

And you, you think about the Suns last year, they had massive front court issues.

The Yusuf Nurkic, Nick Richards at center.

Um, you know, he played a much bigger role.

He, he actually actually was their most,

you know, I think consistent presence at center, but they had Mason Plumley there.

So that was clearly a position of need.

So to be able to get two guys with high upside, I mean, who knows?

Maybe one of these guys develops a three-point shot or develops some kind of outside game that maybe allows you to play them both together, but they clearly address their need.

And Kamal Malawash, no one expected him to drop at 10.

There was actually conversations.

I thought the Suns were going to move the 10th overall pick and potentially move back.

They were in conversations with a couple teams to potentially move back but they end up drafting at 10 and now they go from like having massive issues at the center position to having two guys with really high upside okay we got about a minute before uh a hard out actual minute any expectations for tonight

So the first pick of the second round tonight, number 31, Minnesota Timberwolves.

I'm told that pick is actually currently in the process of being auctioned off to the highest bidder.

So there's multiple offers coming into the Timberwolves, multiple future assets potentially.

And so they're going to continue to have those conversations.

The draft is several hours away tonight.

So just leading off the draft tonight, that first pick tonight likely seems to be there's serious traction on potentially trade there.

Currently on the market, we can't wait to watch the second round.

You doing the coverage again?

I'll be on there.

I'll be on there.

So, yes,

ladies and gentlemen, senior NBA Insider in ESPN, senior Senior Shams Shirania.

Yay.

What an answer.

Yeah.

Pretty good.

I mean, the internet was hot last night.

Where's Shams?

We don't get his tweets.

We'll just take the night off this guy.

Yeah.

What are we doing?

This is his night.

How about him saying it was hard?

Yeah.

Oh, there he is.

Oh, and he's in the background.

See you, Shams.

Tonight will be his night.

Oh, yeah.

First picks up for grabs.

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Swords are happening, and obviously the NBA's second round of its annual draft will take place this evening.

Last night's first round of the NBA had storylines in abundance.

Jay Billis will be joining us, who was on the NBA draft coverage in about eight minutes or so to chit-chat about all things, NBA draft, and also three Duke dudes in the top 10 of the NBA draft.

Congratulations to Duke, who obviously celebrate that.

Cannot wait to chat about what we should be looking forward to this evening and how are his thoughts on everything.

I haven't talked to Jay Billis in a long time.

Yeah.

It's been a long time.

Probably about a year this time.

Yes.

Beautiful day here in Indianapolis until the show started.

Then thunderstorms, I guess, just dropped into our atmosphere out of nowhere.

Foxy's got a super cool Bronco.

Cool.

His Bronco's so cool.

It was one of the first Broncos.

Whenever they relisted Broncos for sale, Foxy bought one of the first ones.

We're talking the prototype of the new Bronco coming out.

And that thing obviously has the ability to take top off.

Sure.

It's a Bronco.

Get some sun.

Take the rag top down so your hair can blow.

Bronco.

You know, that's basically what Foxy does.

Bingo.

So anytime Foxy gets the opportunity to let that beard breathe, put some sunglasses on, let that hair in that Bronco, right hand on the steering wheel, left hand out the window.

Anytime he has a chance to do that, he's doing it.

It's summertime, baby.

Not in northern Michigan, but in Indiana.

Loves it.

Bingo.

So this morning he pulls in here, top back, feels so good about the day.

Talk of the walk.

Well, we're going to have a nice little Thursday here, aren't we?

Walks in, does his

Thursday, okay?

Thought it might have been Wednesday still.

Every day is basically the same.

Foxy walks in here, says we're going to have a nice Thursday.

We do the show.

All of a sudden, about halfway through that first hour, we hear

outside.

I didn't know there was thunderstorms.

I don't think anybody knew there was thunderstorms.

I know.

Especially the guy that drove in here with the open top on his Bronco.

So what did the boys do?

De-bone and talk,

one out there, D-bone laid on top of the Bronco.

Yep, yeah, he laid on top of the Bronco right across.

Kind of planked almost.

Right hand on the front, right where the passenger shotgun would be, corner of the windshield.

Left hand where the driver windshield is.

Right foot on passenger, back passenger corner.

Left foot on driver behind passenger.

You get it.

Back super.

Yep.

He held himself up like that planked.

Yes.

Like that.

Screaming.

Blocking the ring.

and then talk went in there

put the top on bang

they came back in here as we went to break there was two soaked dogs yeah that walked in soaked it's raining out there talk says as he's actually dripping and then bone comes in oh it's coming though three five four

yeah and then they explained to us they explained to us that foxy didn't put his top back up whenever he parked here and i asked foxy did you tell them to do that that?

Because you knew that?

Or did they notice it and go do it?

They noticed that one did that.

That's good team culture.

Unbelievable.

Thank you.

Good work, boys.

That's awesome.

They sacrificed themselves out there.

They did.

Bone hasn't done a plank like that ever.

No, ever.

And in crunch time, he had to do it.

We know him.

Left tackle guard, crunch time.

Exactly.

Euchre, what Trump, you know, the whole thing.

Yep.

He's in there.

Come on, Todd.

I can't do it much longer.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

Unbelievable.

Thank you, boys.

Hero moved by this.

It really was.

Yeah, and I checked the weather this morning.

It said perfectly sunny all day today, but you're going to get got sometimes, and that's going to happen.

That's Indiana, baby.

If you don't like the weather, just wait five minutes.

Toxic tables here at Boss Conner at Ty Schmidt.

I think it says a lot about our building.

Yeah, without a doubt.

Without a doubt.

You kidding me?

I mean,

Bone, too?

Yeah, he doesn't have to work out for another year now.

Well,

I guess, but I mean, we have never seen Bone sell out like that.

Would you guys have done it?

You two?

No, I would.

I wouldn't.

talk, Gurdy, hurry up.

Get out of there.

Where's Mitt?

Where's Mitt?

Yeah, I don't know.

One after

the Cowboys AP took.

Me and Ton would have went out there.

Sure.

Just would like to let everybody know.

Tonight would not have done it.

I would have won out there for you.

I would have gone out there and taken it out.

For that, Bronco, hold on, hold on.

For that Bronco, we're going to be talking about it.

Honestly, if 90% of the cars out there had their sunroof open, I would argue yes.

For the Bronco, what you could argue is damn near made to get wet.

Okay, maybe that's what Foxy's Bronco needed was a little water inside that roof.

I don't know if any of us are going out there.

Okay, we might not be the right, we not be might not be telling the right story.

Oh, no, come on.

I guess they just opened the door.

D-Bun was not planking on top of that Bronco.

And also, they didn't put the tops on right.

The tops aren't screwed in right now, so that thing's getting soaked.

I thought we had a nice hero story, and I just didn't want to reach out to you.

Get back out there.

Live shot.

We don't have a live shot.

This is a recording for what happened there.

Obviously.

Very awesome.

Where's the button?

They haven't even got close to putting a roof on that thing yet.

They're 35, 40 seconds out there.

Look at the laugh on it.

We're in the back, boys.

They're in the back.

Should we get towels?

Should we get towers?

Boys, great work.

Hey, good work, gentlemen.

Tom's looking for the button to close the subroof.

There we go.

Hey, good find, though.

They go straight to the back.

I appreciate that.

You got to put the other one on, Bruce.

Not that one.

Okay, it's like one of the door handle things where the hinge.

Okay.

Yeah.

No, they got it.

I think they matched it up there up top, didn't they?

Yeah, they did.

I think that one's flat with the other one.

Yeah, that was flush.

Airtight.

In the middle, I'm talking about, not at the corners.

Yeah.

It's good enough.

Yeah.

Oh, no, it was better.

They fucked it up like that.

And now they're going to shut the doors.

Probably going to hit the window.

Probably windows are broken right now.

Yeah.

They made it worse.

I'll still buy them lunch, though.

They deserve it.

I mean, shocking.

Good work, boys.

Thank you.

Good work, gentlemen.

It's weird.

That thing's going to be drenched.

Oh, God.

It's built for tough.

Don't worry about it.

All right.

Let's move along.

Coming to us live from an attic in Ohio is a man who's a college football national champion, a Super Bowl champion, a Ryder Cup winner, and a man who he would have planked.

Yeah, he would have.

No other option.

No, exactly.

If it was his truck.

Right.

Ladies and gentlemen, A.J.

Hawk.

Hawker, we thought that he was potentially planking that entire entire thing.

Turns out that was not the case.

Kind of bummed out about that.

Kind of bummed out.

Yeah, I mean, I do like to see the recorded video.

It is fun to watch them try to troubleshoot in real time.

But yeah, it made me think of TC from what, the first Mission Impossible when he drops down.

It made me like thinking of D-Bone do that plank on all four posts of that card.

That's what I was thinking of, like in my head, like a weird super advanced Pilates move that D-Bone has.

When Talk told us that that's what happened, I didn't really believe it.

Just to be clear, I did not think D-Bone had his right hand on the windshield corner and his left hand.

I didn't think in my mind, immediately upon being told that, I was like, that doesn't sound real.

Yeah.

Then I went to the bathroom and I came back and he was drenched.

His back was drenched.

It was.

So I was like, maybe he did become a pond up there.

Yeah.

And turns out, nah, they were just as confused as all of us.

That would have been insane.

Foxy, you're fucked there, bud.

It's okay.

The entire interior.

But if it's supposed to have its top back, everything should be good, right?

Because they prepare for that type of stuff.

Yeah.

I had a Jeep.

I had a Jeep that

we forgot to put the top on, you know, numerous times.

They're meant to get rained on, right?

They're meant like usually they're vinyl or whatever the seats are.

You can wipe everything.

It's good.

I had a couple boom booms in the back.

Sure.

A couple 12s.

Neither of them worked at the same time ever.

Okay.

Which was really cool.

But after the rain got on, neither of them worked.

They were actually just kind of taking up space in the back.

So there is some downfalls of just letting rain in your car.

But whenever a storm comes out of nowhere, what are you supposed to do?

AJ, did you watch the draft last night?

Big night Cooper flag officially a Dallas Maverick.

And now they're talking about the Big D down there in Dallas.

They got a lot of big dudes that played big defense for the Dallas Mavericks.

This is exactly what Nico had been talking about.

And we buried him.

We weren't the only ones, obviously.

A lot of people buried Nico.

I think people will still wait and see if Nico was right or if this was a decision that inevitably leads to the Mavericks never making it back to the finals like they did with Luca literally the year before he decided to trade him away.

I appreciate the fact that he's sticking to his guns and how he thinks he should build a team.

And obviously, if you get the number one overall pick, a generational talent like Cooper Flag, you should feel pretty good about yourself.

Yeah, I would say he feels pretty good about where he's at right now.

0.8%, AJ.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Like the fact that they got the pick alone is nuts to think about, but it seems like they're doing, he's following his plan.

Like when he kicks Luca, you know, out of the club and says, see you, we don't need you anymore.

And everyone gets all pissed off at him.

Like he has a plan.

I didn't know if he anticipated getting the number one overall pick, but it's pretty fortunate spot to be in it certainly is and uh yeah he stuck to his guns hopefully it works for him people thought it was such a bad move that he was trying to tank the team instead it's complete opposite and cooper flag is a dog that's the main event i saw marty out in the atlantic was he in the atlantic ocean marty i think so yeah i saw him on boat yeah i'm gonna tell you a story yeah and he did and he definitely did he was on land there for a little bit with the water as the backdrop i think that could have probably happened you know got to point across sure but i did like that he was out there yeah marty's gonna hunt in lobster.

Yeah, he probably was looking for some lobster.

Looking for some lobster

in the world.

Maine's the lobster, the lobster.

Oh, capital of the lobster.

Yeah, would be Maine for sure.

I've never been to Maine, I do not believe.

Oh, it's beautiful.

Me either.

Oh, that's way up there.

Way up there.

It's gorgeous.

Way up.

Way up.

Yeah,

you're touching Canada.

It's higher than where Sid was born.

Yeah, it's higher than Sioux Falls or whatever.

Or no, not Sioux Falls.

Salvatos, whatever the fuck.

I don't know what it's called.

It's right up there next.

All right, we got some breaking news in the NFL.

Our geography lessons are...

I don't know, Canada Subi.

I'm just as pissed as the kid that got drafted to Toronto about Canada.

No, I don't think.

I don't think that was.

That kid who called Coward was pissed that he was going up there.

That's not his name, okay?

There's so much to digest there.

I think that was like a...

So there's a Bob Knight video.

About why the word,

and there's going to be a lot of just no sound here on ESPN, but YouTube and everywhere else will get to hear this.

There's a Bob Knight video.

There's a lot of Bob Knight videos, but there is a Bob Knight video about him off the record doing like a mic check, explaining why fuck is his favorite word.

And he breaks it down.

You can say it whenever you're dismayed.

Oh, fuck.

Whenever you're mad, fuck you.

When you're happy, oh, fuck.

You can use it in so many different.

He literally goes on this full breakdown of the word and why it's his favorite word.

And then he like literally just stops and they go, okay, Mike's working or whatever.

And then they just move off and he has a golf lesson video that you need i mean there's bob

i love the golf video that's a that's a beautiful one yes but that that more the his favorite word one i think there's a chance that he was like fuck like uh like a good here we go yeah yeah here we go there we go yeah

and humans talk there's some humans i know not all cultures do this but there are some humans i happen to come from one of them where like that word in other words are just like much more and bob knight says like much more versatile than how some people kind of view them and it's already been proven that people that swear are considered more honest people and more intelligent people so i don't want to hear it from uh you people that are filtering yourself all the time if you filter one thing how much thing are you filtering dan or lovski you said mother fudging the other day we know what you wanted to say uh weirdo we that was we know in your head you said it and you made us say it so Thanks.

So God heard you say it in your head.

Bring it on you.

Something to think about with your mudguard.

Yeah.

Can't even get it out.

anyways i think it could have been a positive one but boy everybody's like this guy's thinking about canadian taxes already bingo i think it was a relief one like that's my favorite is a relief where it's like a sigh

like it's like i'm in the nba yeah you're right could have been it definitely could have been that one that tony just did sounded more like uh

oh fuck i guess we gotta do this

that's what i that's out of the eye of the beholder

yeah but he literally just said that what he was doing was relief yeah yeah but the sound of it This is like what Colin Morakawa said to that reporter.

Yeah.

Bingo.

Hey, the way you wrote that surely made it sound.

Well, I didn't know.

I even...

You were so focused on it.

On your tone.

On my tone.

We know what you were doing.

I'm a calling going weed.

Then he had to take the high road.

Then everybody was calling Morakawa out for that.

It was like, Morakawa is the guy we're going after in that situation?

Because he finally just said, hey, I don't like the way you painted me in that entire thing.

I had to do this.

This is a big part of the whole PGA.

These sponsors, two and a half hours, I went,

this is part of the business, brother.

You see his tables?

They paid for him.

I love that.

I love the Colin Morricow fighting back.

I love the breakdown of

one fuck while standing up after getting drafted into the NBA.

I love the thought of Ace Bailey doesn't want to go to Utah, doesn't want to go to Utah.

This is the last place he wanted to go was Utah.

That's a narrative out of it.

Is there any basketball narratives like, hey, these players fit in on these teams in a really good way.

Joining us now is a man that'll help us break that all down.

This man played center for Duke.

Okay.

Don't you worry about it.

You want the Duke, was a Dookie, is a Dookie.

There's three Dookies drafted in the first 10 picks last night.

Obviously a part of the college conversation in all sports, but more specifically basketball for ESPN.

We've grown up with him on television.

Ladies and gentlemen, Jay Billy.

How you doing, Jay?

Did you just call me old by saying you've grown up with me?

Yeah,

that's the way I slip it in.

That's how I slip it in there.

But with that being said, you're aging wonderfully.

Hey, you look young, Jay.

You look young.

Good moisturizer.

I don't know.

Good moisturizer.

Good teeth.

You look great.

Yeah, I guess.

If you call beer moisturizing.

What?

Let's talk about last night.

Three Duke guys go in the top 10.

Obviously, you have the Blue Devil's shirt on there.

We have a Duke fan who is a graphic designer who made this at 2 a.m.

last night as quick as he possibly could.

What are your thoughts on the current Duke guys getting this much of a nod?

And why do you think the style of play is relating so well from Duke into the NBA in your eyes?

Yeah, I mean, it's a good question.

I don't know that it's necessarily style of play as it is just the talent of these individual guys.

Like Cooper Flag.

He's the real deal.

Like people ask like, well, what's so special about him?

It's like, dude, just watch.

He does everything.

And he's got a level of competitiveness that is on the upper tier of players that I've watched over the last 30 years.

I'm not going to say he's the most competitive, but he's right up there with the most competitive that I've seen.

And with his size and athleticism and all the different things he can do on both ends of the floor,

as long as he stays healthy, he's going to be a

great, great NBA player.

And then Con Kniple can really shoot it.

Like he's got an elite NBA skill.

He can really shoot the ball.

And the shot, he's not

an elite NBA athlete, but because he's got that shot credibility, you got to get out to him.

And he'll give you a shot fake and just drive right by you and make a play off two feet.

And he's tough.

Like he's always around.

He gets so many loose balls.

You know, he wasn't like a top top 30 recruit.

He was probably ranked in the 40s, maybe.

But I know John Shire, when he was recruiting him, he said, I don't care.

Like, this guy is who I want.

And he proved it.

And then when Flag was out during the ACC tournament, if I remember right, he twisted his ankle like in game one of the tournament and early on.

You know, Knipple stepped forward.

He was the best player in the tournament after Flag was out.

He averaged 21 a game.

They won the tournament.

And then Malowach is,

you know, he's long.

He's got like a 7-6 wingspan.

He's like a Condor.

And he had like 90 dunks on the season.

40 of them were lob dunks off pick and roll or out of the dunker spot.

And he's a high-level offensive rebounder.

And I don't know how you guys felt about all the crying last night.

There was a ton of crying.

But

when some of these guys were crying when they got drafted, it was really moving, especially for him.

He's from South Sudan.

And, you know, I think some of our people that spent time interviewing, not just like a post-game or interview, but like bobby marks does these sit-down interviews with these guys uh at the combine and and preparing them for the draft and he said in the years he's been doing that uh that's the best interview he's ever had just a tremendous kid that's awesome i i cried on my draft day i was picked 222.

i'm cool with it i i it's a it's a whole life's work a dream coming true but also an understanding that you have an opportunity now to kind of be talked about amongst the greatest of all time if you go and do your shit it's a really emotional evening i like that a a lot more than though we're trying to judge whether or not a guy's happy that he's getting drafted to the place that he's getting drafted to.

You know what I mean?

Do you agree, Jay?

I do.

I mean, you know, look, it's kind of a balancing act for a guy like me.

So, you know, you don't want to sit up there and say every player's the greatest thing since sliced bread.

But at the same time, you don't want to dump on them

because it's a it's a really important night.

Like I look at draft night as kind of, okay, this for the players, this is celebration of reaching a dream.

Now, the day after the draft, they got to go out and deliver.

Yeah.

Like that, that's the way I look at it.

But I don't want to rein on anybody's parade.

But at the same time, like you got it, you got to be straightforward and say, okay, this is what this guy does really well.

This is what will make him a good NBA player.

But at the same time, these are some of the issues he's got to overcome.

Yeah.

Because not everybody's going to be an all-star.

Not everybody's going to go to the Hall of Fame.

And sometimes, you know, you get through the draft and some people say, oh, everybody's good.

You know, you have to, you have to kind of balance it out and you try to do the best you can.

Yeah, I understand.

You got to give realistic expectations too for the fan base as opposed to just expecting these.

That's why like player comps are so tough.

When we do the draft, I hate when people do player comps because it's like, well, he's very similar to Tom Brady.

It's like, where?

Skin's white.

He's tall.

How about in between the ears?

What about like, you can't, it's tough to do those types of comparisons because the difference is here, which we all kind of understand whenever it gets to professional sports or high-level sports to begin with.

And I don't think you can really tell that.

You know, like you said, Cooper Flag is competitive edge.

Like I love to hear that.

Like that is every great has had that.

Like it feels like that is something that every great has had.

And if you're wondering if somebody has it, maybe they find it, maybe they don't.

I think that's the biggest detail or determiner of bust or not.

That's in our sport at least, Jay.

Yeah, no, it's the same, but at least I think it's the same.

But, you know, Cooper Flag's the easy one.

You know, like my first draft for ESPN was 2003 when LeBron was coming out.

And like, you knew that that's different.

Like, you knew that that didn't take some

like basketball genius to figure that out.

But to your earlier point, like Vijay Edgecombe of Baylor, you know, he's 19 years old.

He's from the Bahamas.

And on the player comp side.

you know, you're saying, like, I'm saying, okay, he reminds me of Victor Oladipo when he was 19 and Dwayne Wade when he was 19.

And I try to be intentional about saying, look, I'm not saying he's the Miami Heat Dwayne Wade yet, but at 19, you couldn't tell these two guys apart.

You might even take Edgecombe because I think Edgecombe at 19 is probably better than Dwayne Wade was at 19.

Now, at 20, Dwayne Wade was the real deal.

And you were going, man, this guy's going to be really good.

But, you know, you do the best you can and most reasonable people will take it the right way.

And some people will run with it in the other direction.

What are you going to do?

You can't do anything.

You'll get quoted out of context too.

I mean, that's life these days.

Go ahead, AJ.

Yeah, Jay, in the second round, we hear people in the NFL draft, they talk about drafting like best available, the best available player on their board.

What are these, like especially day two now, are you trying to, are these teams trying to find like the guy, hey, this is the best talent?

Or are they trying to find someone that fits in with their team and their scheme and everything that they run?

Yeah, that's a great question, AJ.

Not that Pat's questions weren't equally great.

I set the table for the great question.

I think

if you've got a player you think is the best available and he's a great asset that

you can use not only with your team or maybe there's value out in the marketplace for him, of course you take him.

But I do think there's a component of fit in the second round.

So you're looking for guys that have an NBA skill.

So if it's like Chas Lanier from Tennessee, who didn't go in the first round and he's available in the second round, he can really shoot it and

he's got length and athleticism.

But that shooting piece

is really valuable.

You don't need him to come in and be everything.

You need him to come in there and make shots.

Or if you got a guy who's got size and is a big-time shot blocker, like I happen to think that the...

the best available player to start the second round is a guy named Rashir Fleming from St.

Joseph's.

And he's one of those 3 and D guys that's got these freakishly long arms

and he can guard multiple positions and he can knock down open shots.

You don't need him to come in and be Scotty Pippen.

You need him to come in like this is where you're finding guys that can play a role and help you win.

And

if somebody turns out to be Draymond Green or you find like I don't know that anybody thought that Nicola Jokic, when he was drafted in the 40s his draft year,

was going to be at some point the best player in the world.

He's referred to as the Taco Bell pick because we were in commercial and a Taco Bell commercial was playing when he was picked.

We missed.

And then we had to report the pick afterwards.

Yeah,

who knew?

Yeah.

But, you know,

maybe you'll hit a home run, but you're really trying to find a player that can help you not only now, but in the future and maybe can develop.

And then a lot of these guys are going to be two-way players.

There's going to be some guys signed to standard contracts.

There are going to be a number of guys in the strap.

Maybe half the guys in the second round round might be signed to two-way contracts where

it's a combination.

You can play like 45 days with the NBA team and the rest of your contracts G-League.

And

those contracts are obviously cost-effective, but then

it helps the teams with roster management.

Yeah, we saw Bronny do days in the G-League go up.

We've seen the two-way players.

Alex Caruso actually just talked about how coach.

Daggs treats everybody from Shay to the two-way players on the roster the exact same, which is why he he thinks they do such a good job.

I think that's a good way to describe, you know, alpha and omega of the entire team, I believe, from top to bottom, from beginning to end in it.

Whenever you think about those role players, we're talking like Shepard, Nee Smith, TJ McConnell.

These are the guys we're talking about, right?

They're more vital than anything, I think, especially if you watch these NBA playoffs.

How many of these guys...

I don't know if this is a good question.

It probably depends draft to draft.

Percentage of success of guys in these drafts?

Because I know like the top always does good.

And then there was a

in the second round, Pat, or just overall?

First and second round as a whole.

Like, because I know like the top good, but there for a while, everybody from Europe was getting drafted.

He'll be over here in like two, three years.

It's like, I don't even know what that means.

Like, what is the percentage of hit rate out of the draft?

Like, how should we view it?

Yeah, I think having a productive NBA career in the first round, you're probably looking at, I would venture to guess, 60, 70% that are going to play multiple years years and have solid careers at least.

In the second round,

it's probably flipped the other way, and maybe 30% of the guys do.

There aren't that many spots in the league.

You got 15 roster spots plus a couple at two ways.

So the average, I think the average length of a career is like three or four years.

And then you got some of these guys that have played.

LeBron's been in the league over 20 years and KD like 16 or 17 years, whatever it is.

It's crazy how long these guys play now when they're super talented and how they take care of their bodies.

But

I don't know, like the miss rate I think is high.

And not necessarily miss rate of a player who's going to make the NBA or not.

It's not a binary thing.

But, you know, sometimes like it's amazing how often you're going, I did not see Shea Gilgis Alexander.

He was taking number 11 when he came out in 18, I think it was.

And,

you know, hands up all all that were saying he's a future MVP.

Just didn't see that.

And other guys you think are going to be really good, and they turn out to be, they're good, but they don't scratch the, you know, the greatness level.

And, you know, we can sit and try to make ourselves feel better that, you know, your sport, you get four and five years to look at these guys, and there are still mistakes made.

Basketball, you got, they're 18 and 19.

But one thing, to your point about internationals and all that, one thing you're seeing with NIL now, players are not only going to college, they're staying in college longer.

So the second round is probably not, I haven't like, you know, done this with a microscope, but the second round this year is probably not as good as the second round like two or three years ago because a lot of second round picks are guys that would have come out two or three years ago are staying in school because they're going to make way more money to stay in school.

So if they're not going to be first round picks, they're staying in.

NIL for us is making the later rounds better because there's more players kind of coming out and staying longer.

For basketball, it's interesting because they got a lot of money.

Hey, just quick off-topic.

Connor was going to bring up NIO to you.

We had a conversation earlier in the think tank.

These big East teams that don't have a football team really, and with that revenue split, they're going to be, right?

Doesn't that feel like quite an advantage with the way this revenue split thing is going?

Yeah, I think it puts them in an advantageous position to be able to marshal more resources to acquire better talent.

Absolutely.

And that's kind of the thing now is

like people are going to have to make decisions.

Like this current system with the $20.5 million cap under the house settlement is only going to last for a certain amount of time.

Like there's no way this lasts for longer than four or five years at the most.

All this does is give the NCAA a chance to, it gives them some time to breathe without getting challenged in court so that they can come up with a long-term solution, whether that's collective bargaining.

I think that's one option.

Try to figure out a way to collectively bargain with the players where you can get to a number that everybody's satisfied with.

Or go to Congress and

basically say to Congress, look, you told us to get our act together.

We settled this case.

We paid past damages and we've got this framework.

Take this framework of the settlement and make it law so that you can help protect us.

But Pat, the one thing I think that

maybe people aren't thinking about is if Congress comes in and they're going to limit the players, they're not going to let the coaches make the kind of money they're making.

Like they're going to say, all right, you get a cap too now.

Like, so, you know, hit coach at Alabama.

You're not getting 12 million while the players are getting limited.

You're going to be limited too.

And we're going to limit things across the board and make this a little more sane.

I think that's a reasonable possibility that that could happen.

So many potential lawsuits all the time in that whole thing.

They're talking about a commission approving advertising deals.

It's like, okay, go ahead and say no to one of those.

That's a lawsuit immediately.

That's just one.

They said there was already 135 things being presented to a commission that I don't even know if they know what they're doing yet.

It's like you can't turn down any of those unless they are given the power of law, which how does that even work in America?

I don't, you know, I don't even know.

I don't even know how long that would take.

If you started that today, would that

is that 10 years?

Is that how long, you know, isn't that kind of the way the world works with making laws?

In the NCAA, they're not like, they're the Titanic as well.

They're not like the most nimble thing.

And then government, not the most nimble.

I don't know.

The college shit, every time we bring it up, I get worried about the future.

I don't know how you figure it out.

I don't know how you figure it out, Jay.

Yeah, I'm not worried about it because in my view, multi-billion dollar entertainment industries don't just fold up because they have to pay their revenue drivers.

That's not a problem.

I get it that the coaches don't like it and the administrators don't like it because they had it a certain way for a long time.

And now,

like the way I see it, everything's going to get a lot more efficient.

You're not going to have as many jobs in administration.

You're not going to see as many suits and team pictures because they're going to want to allocate that money to

getting the best talent on the floor or on the field.

So I think

that'll shake out a certain way, but I'm not particularly worried about it.

They'll figure it out because the amount of money that's being made, nobody wants that train to stop rolling.

And with all the complaining, and I get it, but not one game has been canceled and not one check has been late.

Everything's rolling along just fine.

It's just a little more difficult to keep your roster together.

But if you want to keep your players, like if you want to keep players and not have them transfer, then sign them to contracts, put a buyout in the contract.

Let's do this like the rest of normal American business.

It's really not that difficult.

Yeah, so allegedly that is a part of this ruling that just took place in California or whatever for the next four to five years.

Hopefully that's able to settle it.

And also a lot of these contracts that are given, who knows if they're ever going to be actually paid?

I mean, there's a lot of fraudulent contracts.

I mean, it's that's what I'm talking about: all the bullshit.

There's just so much bullshit kind of on the outside of it.

The product is so good, to your point.

All right, let's get back to the draft.

Uh, you talked about uh the taco bell pick, let's talk about another guy that we learned about last night.

Go ahead, Ty Schmidt.

Yeah, Jay, uh, when you look at some of the other leagues' drafts, I think you'll see teams reach every once in a while, but it's not crazy.

And then last night, we saw Yang Hansen out of nowhere get picked 16th.

He's sitting up in the cheap seats.

In your experience, how often does this happen in the NBA where like a guy who kind of everyone pegged as like a mid second rounder all of a sudden goes just outside the lottery?

Not very often.

Good question.

But I'll go back to the Nicole Jokic thing.

So Jokic was drafted in the 40s when he came out of Serbia.

And if it had been the same thing where Portland picks him number 16 and he walks out of the stands or he's not even there, we'd probably be left scratching our heads going, wait a minute, I ranked this guy in the 40s.

That's a reach.

And they probably would have taken some criticism.

But they got the guy they wanted and look who he turned out to be.

So my view is if you don't have to give anything up, if it's just this one pick, And you know you want this guy, what difference does it make?

Go ahead and get him.

Like, why wait?

And why take the chance that somebody else is going to get him in the meantime if you're targeting him maybe in the second round where you had him slotted or where most people had him slotted?

The one that is more of a head scratcher to me was New Orleans.

So New Orleans

made a trade to get up to 13.

They made a trade with Atlanta to go up and get Derek Queen from Maryland.

Big guy and good player.

But in order to do that, they had to give up a first-round draft pick next year that's unprotected, which means that pick could turn out to be a top five pick.

So that's the one you question was, how much did you have to give up in order to get it?

Like Portland got the guy they wanted, but they didn't have to trade anything to get it.

New Orleans had to trade something.

And who knows?

Like they believe in Derrick Queen.

They took Jeremiah Fear as number seven.

And then Queen.

So, you know, by itself, you're going, hey, man, that's a good draft.

But then you go, but look what they had to give up to get Derrick Queen.

Is that worth it?

And we're not going to know for a while.

But if that turns out next year to be like the number one pick, they're going to hear about it.

Yes, for sure.

And if Derrick Queen lives up to what we all, I think you watched him.

We got a chance to chat with him.

Love his mentality.

Love his answer he gave in the huddle, you know, before the game winner shot, what he said to his coach about giving me the ball.

Love his mentality.

Love his ability.

I think he had braces, like real young.

We're talking about like it being incredibly young.

You mentioned that about being 18, 19 years old.

So obviously we hope it works out.

And if he ends up being a perennial all-star, nothing will be said.

Just like Nico down there in Dallas, he got murdered loud.

It was loud about how dumb this guy was.

He's trying to tank the Mavericks.

This guy's the worst general manager in history.

He's got to deal with the league to make the Lakers better.

This guy, who's the general manager of the Mavericks, and then all of a sudden, we're looking at the team going to next year.

It's like, wait a minute, Nico had a vision here.

It seems like they might be able to have a team.

And they got a 1.8% chance of winning that lottery.

They win it.

Maybe Nico's being blessed by the basketball gods.

We never know until a few years down the road.

If Derrick Queen's a guy, they won't judge him.

If he's not, this Dumar's guy is going to be called killed.

They said the worst, Bill Simmons called it the worst trade in all sports in the last decade, I believe, was his quote.

It's like Bill was an NBA basketball guy.

He wasn't the only one saying that.

There's a lot.

Now, on a complete opposite end of the spectrum, AP Ton has a question for you, Jay.

Yeah, Jay, real simple.

Did you have a favorite pick from last night?

That's a good question.

I mean, I, I, well, my favorite pick was Cooper Flagg and Dylan Harper because they're the two best players.

I thought OKC,

you know, being defending champion got

a good pick.

I can't remember.

I think it was around 15.

They took Thomas Sorber of Georgetown, and he kind of fits their culture perfectly.

I don't know how you guys feel about it watching Oklahoma City, but

if they don't have the best front office in basketball,

there's not a long roll call in that.

Like Sam Presti is so smart and they draft talent, but man, they draft character.

And they got a guy in Sorber who's a shop locker kind of

interior

lane presence.

And I think he's got a chance to

be very good.

But

he's going to fit what they do.

And I just like, I got a chance to do a bunch of NBA games this year and I loved every second of it.

But I loved watching Oklahoma City more than anybody just because of how hard they play together and uh in the way they guard and to your point earlier when you're talking to caruso uh who's a great dude by the way um he like those guys they never get too high or too low and like mark dagnal if they win or lose his whole thing is let's win the off days like we're not going to beat ourselves up over losing and we're not going to crown ourselves king over winning you know what did we learn from the last game is going to make us better in the next one and uh i mean it's a it's a it's a really cool organization.

And Sorber, I think, fits their culture really well.

Yeah, yeah.

In fact, it looks like they're going to be good for a while, though.

That's what it looks like.

As somebody that lives in Indianapolis, Indiana, I think they'd say Presti and Pritchard and Bird over here in Indiana, pretty good at putting teams together.

First two teams to make the finals without hitting the luxury tax in the history of the luxury tax being implemented.

So you're talking about building a team the right way.

Now decisions are going to have to be made, though, because once you start winning, that's when, you know, the money goes.

So getting a young dog, pivotal to the entire process.

Go ahead, AJ.

Yeah, Jay, what are your expectations for Cooper Flag in his rookie season?

What do you think it looks like?

Is the team going to be successful?

Do they have to win for people to look like, I mean, it seems like a lot on this dude's shoulders.

Obviously, number one pick, there's high expectations, but people are expecting him to average a triple-double off the jump, I feel like.

Well, he'll have some triple-doubles.

He won't average it because he won't need to.

The key for Dallas is going to be, can they get Kyrie Irving back healthy kind of middle of the season?

Like he had an ACL, so he's going to be able to come back from that during the season if everything goes well.

And like Flagg's one of those guys, you know, talking about like, you know, sort of his competitiveness's mentality, like he's not one of those guys that's going to go into a game thinking, I'm going to get 25 in this one or I'm going to get a triple-double.

He really does think about, I'm going to make the

right play.

Oh, no.

And then he stacks the right play over and over again.

And at the end of the the game, he may have 25 and 12 rebounds and six assists and three steals and a couple of blocks.

That's kind of the way he's built.

He's got this

interesting combination of humility.

Like he doesn't think he knows it all.

And he's going to be a member of a team and ego because he knows he's the best player.

And like that's the, like, he's got a great ego.

Like Coach Kaye used to say all the time, not all the time, but he would like, he wasn't interested in this thing about check your ego at the door.

He's like, no, bring your ego with you.

Like your egos are great, but blend your ego in with the we part of the team.

Like make your ego part of the team.

All these egos blended together are really good.

And Flag kind of does that.

I don't want to say it's natural, but whether it's learned or natural, he does that.

And

he's a unique dude.

And

they don't make him that good very often, not only athletically, skill-wise, but his makeup as an athlete.

It's really impressive.

That ego quote from Coach K makes sense.

Why Coach K is Coach K, because that is such a better way to describe it than we don't need egos right here.

It's like every guy that's a professional athlete has an ego.

Every single one of them.

Let's try to get these egos to be rowing in the same direction as opposed to stealing moxie or confidence from somebody.

Cannot wait to watch Cooper.

Cannot wait to watch second round of the NBA drive.

Are you on it tonight?

Yeah, yeah, I'm on the, you you know, I was a fifth-round pick, so second round is still a dream for me.

Okay, well, we can't wait to watch you live a dream, brother.

Ladies and gentlemen, Jay Brox.

That's awesome.

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Great skid.

He said he drinks beers.

Teeth, too.

Oh, yeah.

I was around him, I think, two times.

Every time we've had

one.

I think I've had a jock and diet.

He's had a beer.

I believe every single time we've seen him.

Jay Football.

I think it is Jay Billis Football.

He does game day, obviously.

He did game day for a long time.

He does game day for a long time.

Big.

So a lot of the same people that do production stuff for Football Game Day also do basketball game game day.

They say he is a legendarily hilarious person.

They say like, yeah, dry.

It's all very, you know, but he's always, I guess, great teammate.

And then that Coach K quote, awesome, AJ.

That's so good.

So good.

Because that's such like an old cliche thing.

Oh, Chuck, you go out the door.

Like, especially basketball, you better have an ego because if you miss the first three threes you take, you better continue to put them up.

You heard what Q-Ridge saying, hey, I'm a shooter.

Like, if I miss the first seven, guess what?

I'm still shooting eight, nine, and 10 because something that's eventually going to go in.

Like you have to have delusional confidence and ego, I think, to play basketball.

It's kind of taught to you, I think, like, hey, this is how you're supposed to think because there's going to become bad days.

It's like whenever you're like a kicker, when I was doing my kicking stuff, they would tell stories of previous kickers, you know, after missing, asking to line up again and kick it again.

Like these are like mantras, like, hey, this is how you should be thinking as a kicker.

This is the mindset you're going to need to have.

If a member of your team bets you that you'll miss, you always double it and say you'll make it.

And then by the way, you you make it.

That is like kind of the basketball players, shooters more specific, it's like every shot's a best shot.

Next shot's best shot.

Does not matter.

Golfers, I think the same exact thing, especially you, AJ.

I mean, AJ has an unflappable positivity whenever it comes to golf.

I don't know if that's just your mindset, what you think other golfers should be, but you have it because if you get into a slump in anything, basketball, golf, kicking, pitching, batting, it's all in between here, you know, and normally it's you telling yourself that you're in the slump.

So if you have, you know, somebody that's like, hey, you should be a little bit of, yeah, we want you to walk in here with that.

It's like, you're going to need that probably at some point as well.

Well, and Cooper Flag, too, like he's going to Dallas and Anthony Davis and Cooper Flag, they were a part of the whole entire Olympics training this summer.

So if anybody knows like how good Cooper Flag is, not just from watching him or everyone talking about him, like Anthony Davis was in the gym with Cooper Flag as they're getting ready for the Olympics and Cooper Flag is, is, you know, making moves on Kevin Durant and, you know, following his own rebound in Duncan.

So it's almost like, hey, the proof is in the pudding, of course, with college and all that.

But Anthony Davis has been able to see Cooper Flag do this against legitimate NBA, some of the best players in the entire league.

So if there's any ego from Cooper Flag, I bet Anthony Davis also, who was the number one pick to New Orleans, New Orleans also, that was during the time when they tried to trade Chris Paul, the Lakers, conspiracy, of course.

But still, if there's a guy that knows like hey you don't need to check your ego because you are that good it'd probably be Anthony Davis and the guys in there I love that Nico might end up getting the last laugh yeah I don't I'll be honest why I hate it I'm pro player like I hope Luca has a lot of success in LA as well but just the way the entire world responded just Sean's tweet out

one response.

Anthony Davis wasn't even part of this thing.

Anthony Davis wasn't even part of it.

It was Luca's with LeBron, and then

this guy's a dip shit.

That was the two reasons.

And he got bailed out by Adam Silver and the commissioner.

And

whether you believe that or not, like, let's say you don't believe that, fine.

And I'm not saying I believe that per se.

Nico, to me, is still a dipshit.

He just got so lucky.

And whether you think it's luck or not, like if he didn't have Cooper flag and they, let's say they were the third overall pick, and then they draft Ace Bailey, and Ace Bailey doesn't want to go to Dallas or something.

Oh, you want to go to Big Day?

Yeah, of course.

But something along those lines, like he got so lucky that Cooper.

We don't know yet.

We don't know how it's worked out.

Nico said, fortune favors the bold, brother.

He did say that.

Not a bad quote.

He should be doing a lot of that, and then we'll see if they end up winning.

Speaking of winning, we're going to talk to a man who won everything that he's ever done.

Yeah.

When I say his name, you'll immediately think of like 45 different things that he's done.

All of them could die.

Yeah.

Every one of them.

And he's just smiling.

Jump out of a plane with no parachute.

This guy.

Jump a dirt over every the world if it was possible.

This guy.

Race NASCAR.

This guy.

You name it.

This guy.

Can he die?

Yes.

Who is it?

This guy.

Ladies and gentlemen, the 30th anniversary of the X-Games will take place on ABC on June 27th, representing the X-Games, a man who made us all fans because of his big old gut sack and talent.

Ladies and gentlemen, Travis Bestrana.

Thanks for the intro.

Much appreciated.

That's real.

I told you that.

I went to a Nitro Circus show here in Indianapolis that you guys had on the south side of Indy.

I watched your entire crew do the thing.

I grew up watching you be an absolute madman.

Now, I know that is not how you view it.

You're just, well, it's just kind of my talent back there and give you all that shit.

I appreciate your commitment and risk taking for our entertainment.

So first of all, Travis Bestrana, we appreciate you.

Thank you, Travis.

You know, you kidding me?

Thank you for having me on the show, man.

I really appreciate it.

It's been a lot of fun.

And yeah, going to live forever.

Hell, let's go.

Okay.

All right.

So I love that that still exists inside.

You're not competing at this year's X Games, but I do believe, obviously, we're celebrating the 30th anniversary.

What should people know about what's happening at the X Games?

And is it changed at all since the, you know, over the last 30 years of watching?

Man, X Games is awesome.

It's still, you know, ABC and ESPN.

I mean, you can now stream it on Roku.

You can watch it pretty much everywhere, YouTube.

But at the end of the day, what's really cool now is that X Games has evolved so much where it used to be, you know,

bungee jumping and downhill street luge.

And now it's your best PMXers and your best skateboarders and your best motocrossers.

You know, people are going to the Olympics from the X Games.

So it's no longer that sport, the hooligans in the corner.

It's people like since Tony Hawk and Tony Hawk's pro skater going out there and actually being able to make a living on kids' toys, making a living on their passion.

And it's pretty cool.

Yeah, and Salt Lake City is a beautiful place.

The backdrops are going to be outrageous.

I always enjoy the setup of everything that takes place.

Who are some of the big names that we should look forward to?

Who should we do some research on in this X Games?

Who's going to steal the headlines?

Oh, man.

You know, I'm a fan of the old school guys.

You got Ryan Sheckler coming back.

Sure.

Anyone that's been around.

He's

going to give the state guys a run for their money, which is going to be really cool.

Colby Raha, he's always just someone that's so exciting for me to watch in Freestyle Motocross.

And R.

Willie, dude, he started out as a scooter rider on Nitro Circus.

Everyone gave him a hard time because we're like, oh, scooter kid.

So he jumped on Andrew Ahimada's BMX bike in Final Trains, did a trick that no one in the world had ever done on a bicycle, not even his own bicycle.

Went on to become the winningest and the greatest big air action sports BMXer in the world.

If I was going to say watch one person, it'd be R.

Willie.

Oh, so R.

Willie starts at Nitro Circus on a scooter, goes over to a bike, becomes the greatest of all time?

Yeah, thank goodness he hadn't gone motorcycles yet i still got a job over here yeah amen amen sounds like r willie could probably do whatever the hell he was willing to do so on the scooter he did the backflip on the big uh the big thing on nitro circus the big uh ramp

so r willie has done i and i he so the aussie roll was the biggest trick that i ever did on a motorcycle two back flips and one 360.

so like basically a you know double cork 1080 for the snow uh snowboarders But uh, the coolest part, R.

Willie on his scooter, he did it first, and they did it on a BMX bike too.

Three backflips and a full spin.

He does two backflips, two full spins.

It's like full gymnastics, but they do it with style.

And it's just, it's really amazing to see.

So he's been trying basically a double backflip, but not a flare on a half pipe.

I want to see if he can get that done this year.

Yeah, me too, R.

Willie.

Let's go.

Let's see if we can get that done.

And then I remember Sheckler.

Is this him?

Is this R.

Willie?

This is actually R.

Willie right here.

That might be in Indianapolis, Indiana right there, that setup.

I might have seen that happen live.

You had a lot of talent.

I mean, there was, I believe there was a man in a wheelchair that did a backflip off the padded ramp at Nitro Circus Show.

He just learned, he landed a double backflip, full twist, Aaron Wheels, fathering him, spina bifida.

The world gave him a wheelchair, and he made it, he turned it into an absolute just icon.

He started his own support, Wheelchair Motocross, man.

He's a true inspiration.

This dude, outrageous.

I mean, he, top of the thing, obviously he zoomed in on the camera.

You see it on the thing.

Everybody's going crazy.

He rolls down this ramp that's like straight down, and then this ramp send.

It's a high school football.

It's a football field.

So they're going like 30 yards, 40.

I don't know what the exact boundaries.

You probably know that to a science or whatever.

He's flying through the air.

He lands, fireworks go off.

They start sending.

It was the fucking outrage.

It was the most outrageous thing.

I'm on, I don't know, at that time, probably 80 milligrams just sitting in the stands.

Like, what is going on here?

It was, uh, it was wonderful.

But nonetheless, I probably saw R.

Willie then.

Let R.

Willie know.

We can't wait for him to do his thing.

And Sheckler's reality show was fantastic.

So handsome.

So cool.

So cool.

Go ahead, AJ.

Go ahead, AJ.

Yeah, Travis, Pat mentioned you jumping out of the airplane.

Obviously, shirtless, no, no shoot, all that.

You linked up.

You figured out this was such a bizarre situation.

Like, out of everything you've done, I'm sure you've talked about it.

Like, what gave you the most anxiety, the most nerves going into a certain thing that you've done?

You've obviously ridden everything, jumped everything.

Like, was this the moment?

Was like right now when you have nothing and you're just free falling, like, what would it feel like right now?

He's doing flips he's like

i mean i i had i had great people around me there that's kind of a pass or fail test i always like those the most for sure um i think anything that you're not prepared for you know at the end of the day you know when you get to x games you have your stuff you should have it pretty well dialed and you know that's what for me nitro circus is what kind of we started and like you're talking about um that it's just it's we used as much safety as possible to make the biggest most outrageous stuff and the the best ways for people to learn and they're taking it now to the olympics they're taking it to snowboards they're taking it to every other thing and X Games is kind of that it's your Olympics of all of action sports so it's the biggest the best and it's really cool kind of you know if nitro circus went away to try to do the big air of action sports where you know we want to see how big the ramps can go x games went and said okay let's standardize it a little bit let's make it so everyone is on an equal playing ground and let's see who is truly the world's best so it's kind of like if you take uh nitro circus is what can be done and how can we make it as safe as possible and x games is like okay you figured out how to do it with your trick ramps and your your airbag landings let's take it to dirt and let's see who's got the guts to really land it and figure out who's the best overall i love that i love the evolution here of extreme sports and uh what was that uh you guys had that uh padded uh landing what was it you used to have to get a crane to get your bike out of it what was it Yeah, so we started with the foam pit.

We realized that foam as a petroleum product is actually flammable.

So we went to airbags after that, which doesn't catch on fire.

You just said the airbag pit there.

So what do you just have a a massive airbag like uh like the stunt people do that are jumping out of there and you just jump your bikes onto

so over the the past 20 years the evolution of airbags we use like this company called bag jump and we're like hey what if we put so when josh cheehan came out here to learn a triple backflip on a dirt bike he's going over 100 feet high right and you're like okay if you mess this up It is, it's not life or death metaphorically.

It is life or death.

And Josh was, you know, he was actually pissed in blood and broke a couple ribs and knocked himself out just going to the the flat bag.

He said, can we get a bag that's on the same incline as the down ramp?

So when we make this wood or metal or dirt or whatever we're going to do, he's like, I need to know that I'm spot on.

And we've just taken every step that we can.

And it's always going to be dangerous.

It's never going to have a reset button.

But at the same time, how can we keep everyone to be able to, especially during the shows, how can we get the guys to do the and girls to do the biggest stunts night after night?

And yeah, it still hurts.

It still sucks.

But to be able to get back up and try it again.

And I feel like that's the evolution since, you know, since our day riding you know bmx bikes and setting up wooden ramps in the in the backyard and they doing it to concrete we figured out a way to go way bigger uh way more uh spectacular but it's not the evil can evil you know yeah let's see that's uh we're good let's send it yeah more information feels like science has gotten involved i think there was pad on the ramp as well but it wasn't like enough pad that it slowed you down because like that's also a massive deceleration not great i don't think so either in all this shit i mean you got to measure it all out i love that we've gone full circle on like the crash pads.

Well, the one was flammable.

So turned out like, yeah, the crash landing, not good.

Fire, much worse.

We've had to move along.

I appreciate that you're a guinea pig for an entire thing of sports.

With that being said, we are a little bit older.

Ty has a question for you.

Yeah, Travis, you just talked about the inherent danger with like everything that you do.

But as you've gotten older, obviously you're married, you have kids now.

Are there certain things where you're just like, hey, guess what?

The juice just isn't worth the squeeze doing this type of stuff anymore because I am getting older?

Or are you going to basically continue to do this type of shit until you're physically not able to?

Risk versus reward, sir.

It always changes.

And there's a lot of stuff that I don't regret doing anything because it built the person that I am today, but there's a lot of stuff you look back when my dad, I'm like, man, hindsight's 2020.

He's like, I could have told you exactly what was going to happen before you hit that ramp, you idiot.

So

it's been a fun ride.

And now my goal is actually kind of safety for the next next generation.

It's just say, how can we get the most amount of people?

I mean, there was a girl.

So she went to a nitro circus show in England in the O2 arena.

And she reached out to my wife on social media, who is, you know, she's actually, my wife's skating right now in the she-shed.

It's got a half pipe in the background.

So it's an action sports family.

But this girl, Olivia, from England, saw a nitro circus show, reached out to my wife on social media and says, I want to be the first girl to ever do a backflip on a dirt bike.

Fast forward three years, she's kept in touch with my wife.

She comes out and at 11 years old, she lands here at my house, Bistronto Landa, whatever you call it.

She did a backflip on a dirt bike at 11 year old.

I mean, you can imagine Carrie Hart, he is now married to a rock star for trying, for crashing a backflip in the 2001 X Games.

And you have an 11-year-old girl that can reach out and figure out a way to safely make that progression now.

And that's been such an honor and a privilege to be in a position to kind of help.

And yes, it is dangerous.

Yes, there are many things that can go wrong.

But for people that have the passion that want to do this stuff, let's make it as safe as possible.

And let's help everyone kind of get to their goals, no matter where you are in life.

And I think now with all of the internet and the social media and everything, if you truly are working hard, if you are dedicated, if you are doing something that no one else is doing, you'll be found.

And it's pretty cool.

Hell yeah.

That's good.

That's good speech right there about life, not just extreme sports.

Pastranoland, you said whatever you call it.

Is that what you call it?

It sounds like that's what you call it.

It sounds like a great place.

No, that's what everyone else calls it.

I just call it home.

In my head,

in my head, I just see like perches for things that get jumped off.

I see right like the Pastrana Land.

There's a helicopter, I think, probably somewhere around there.

Maybe a shipping container that people blast their shoulders off of when you don't hit the foam pit.

I remember that.

Yeah, boom, yeah, yeah.

Airbound

everywhere.

Yeah, oh, we got an eyes on Pastrana Land here.

Actually, up guy just missed the entire pit.

Yep, there's a racetrack, obviously.

We got that.

That's the pit I'm talking about.

Oh, we're taking beers mid-air.

Oh, sounds like a good slide yeah yeah that's exactly what i thought pastron land would be yeah i do appreciate the channel now my wife just we just got the she shed put up because we're getting older so it's now has air condition heater uh we got the gym in there my office over top for like uh you know doing what whatever uh inter you know whatever i do and lindsey actually is skating right now there's like 20 people over there i was just actually upside down in a vehicle i don't crash very often but we got a lot of rain and someone's like oh hit the big jumps i was like yeah sure and literally that's why i'm here in this and not in my studio that's up there uh because i was just flipping back over a vehicle that was stuck under the mud literally like 30 seconds before i got on here so yeah life hasn't changed much uh thanks for having me on this is uh it's been a great great experience

Wow, that was a great fucking close to that.

We're still live.

Perfect.

We are no longer live on ESPN.

We are still live on YouTube, ESPN Plus, Disney Plus, and maybe TikTok Live.

They take us down every other day.

But like

you nailing the out there, because you saw the countdown on the screen, obviously.

You saw that?

Okay.

How many concussions do you think you have suffered, documented?

On film, like out cold for more than a few seconds.

I've had at least probably 30 on film.

Okay, so that's 30 concussions.

Hold on.

Broken bones now, broken bone.

Let alone all the other concussions.

I mean, I know there's probably others that you haven't just been on film, knocked out for numerous seconds.

How about the broken bones?

Is that a tough one?

It sounds like you said it's a tough one.

It's a tough one to answer because say you have 40 fractures over seven bones, but it's one injury.

It's like, do you count every fraction?

You know what I mean?

Like, so I had, I shattered my hip and pelvis.

I don't know what that means or how many broken bones.

Like I did tailbone, back, multiple, like the hip, the pelvis was shattered, ended up with a new hip.

My foot, for instance, I broke tib fib and then everything across the foot was just powder.

So like there's instances where, you know, humans aren't supposed to go 70 miles an hour and fall from 100 feet in the air with 220 pound motorcycles on top of them.

Yeah.

You know, nothing like football where you got huge people running the other direction, but you know.

I didn't do any of that.

AJ did a lot of that.

But with that being said, it wasn't from 70 feet in the air with gravitational pull working against you and weight.

And I think E equals MC squared has happened to your body numerous times.

You've had 30 documented knockout concussions.

You've broken a thousand bones, whatever it is.

You're the first one to see the countdown clock on the screen and hit it perfectly.

You need to know that.

You need to feel good about whatever the fuck you're doing with that brain.

You need to share that information with the NFL, maybe.

Like that is in mixed martial arts.

I think boxing.

You're on it.

Hey, you're on it.

Are you taking care of your body?

Do you do brain stuff?

Do you do body stuff?

Like, how do you manage all that?

So, uh, my dad was the Marine.

We have a lot of military in this area.

We've always kind of reached out.

We've been lucky to be friends with a lot of the Black Rifle coffee guys.

And what's really cool is Marcus Luttrell is the lone survivor, Wahlberg played in a movie.

His brother Morgan is a representative in Texas and everything.

He was a Navy SEAL as well that he got his helicopter got shot down.

And this guy, he was beat up more than anyone on the face of the earth.

And he actually went down to Texas and found like the best head doctors, the best everything.

And we went through the boot campaign.

We paid for ours to go down, but learning what all the military has learned and all the injuries that

they've suffered over the years and what the U.S.

government has put into it.

They took some NFL players and they took some Nitro Circus athletes.

We went down there and learned a lot about head injuries, learned learned a lot about what's really interesting is genetics.

Almost all the top freestyle motocrossers, our grandparents, were almost all boxers.

My granddad was Golden Glove boxer, he was in the Navy, Josh Sheehan.

You look down the line.

So I'm sure it's a lot of the same in football.

Like we come from maybe not the most intelligent family, but all of my uncles, all my cousins, they're all Division I.

You know, they didn't go for the education part, but they definitely went for the sports part.

They were, if they were military,

they were rugby, they were wrestling.

So I was the runt of the family and i was fortunate enough to to be surrounded by just a really good group of people that my uncle actually played quarterback for denver broncos uh 69 and 70.

uh he got knocked out by high tower from police academy um ended his career early um that sounds like that's a family combo that sounded pretty quick yeah yeah but so my uncle said uncle alan he goes the moment that you stop you're done.

And, you know, he had no ACL in either knee.

His back was all messed up, his shoulders, everything.

And he ended up teaching, well, he taught lacrosse and football at a local community college, but he also took senior citizen or taught senior citizen health class.

And he, so every morning he was up early with all the seniors doing aerobics.

And that kept him, he was as fit as can be.

He was broken as can be, but stayed fit.

And I think him, every time I got hurt, from the time I was, broke my first, I broke my first bone when I was eight years old.

And he took me from the time that cast came off, physical therapy.

And that was his biggest thing was figure out what what your body needs.

Keep moving and let's get healthy.

That's an awesome message, I think, for everybody trying to maintain lifestyle and life as a whole.

You got to stay active.

You got to get the blood pumping.

It's not just physical, too, it's mental as well as you move forward.

Last question about the X Games here, Travis Pastrana, and we can't thank you enough.

We got life lessons in here.

We've heard some absurd stories.

Yeah, health lessons?

Yeah.

Health lessons in this entire thing.

Pastrana land.

Yeah, Pastrana Land.

Where is it?

What state is that?

No, it's off the grid.

It doesn't exist.

It's in Maryland.

If you ever get bored, come on out.

We'll have some good times.

Okay, so Rough Riders Anthem music video made me want to ride a dirt bike.

And then Travis Pastrana made me want to backflip a dirt bike.

Now, I can do a backflip on a trampoline.

I can do a backflip.

Used to be able to do standing backflip.

Can do backflip off top rope and wrestling ring.

Is that all good news for me to be able to backflip a motorcycle?

Is that a part of it?

Or is that all bike?

Is that body control or bike control?

100% body control.

The best riders in the world have a really hard time doing a backflip.

They take off and you're programmed to always see where the landing is.

You take someone with no experience.

So my wife, three-time X-Games, gold medalist in skate, two-time world champion, great like trampoline, air awareness, can't ride a motorcycle, save her life.

Her second day ever on a motorcycle, barely made it to the takeoff ramp, got a backflip all the way around the wheels, just in the foam pit.

Because if she took it to dirt, she wouldn't know what to do after she landed.

But you, my friend, no problem.

Day one, attempt one, you're going to get it right around.

It's just commitment.

Boom.

There it is.

Pistranoland.

All right, last question about the shout out to your wife, by the way.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

A dog sounds like a skater, we're saying, is that what we said?

Skater.

Yeah, I got really lucky for sure.

She was actually in the last Tony Hawk pro skater.

And yeah,

she won her first X-Games gold medal when she was 14 years old.

So definitely luck to ass.

She's a badass and definitely an awesome mom as well.

Pistranoland.

Pastranoland.

That's what it sounds like.

Tone has a question for you.

Yeah, Travis, you, Sean White, Tony Hawk are all legends of the X Games, but I saw Sal Masicala's back hosting for 2025.

What does Sal mean for the entire X Games community and all those sports that he's hosting and has been there for so long?

Dude,

to have Salema back is absolutely amazing.

He's the voice of X Games.

And honestly, you got this guy, Jeremy Bloom, who took over because when COVID hit.

Football guy.

Football guy.

Football guy.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So

it's two-time Olympian for the U.S.

for skiing.

Comes back, NFL draft, plays for, I think, got drafted, I think, for the Jets, ended up with the Steelers.

We're not going to talk about the Steelers, but, you know, I'm a Baltimore guy.

But anyway.

Aaron Rodgers playing for the Steelers now.

Oh, mama.

I'm in this.

I'm not going to get into it.

You're right.

You're a Ravens.

Great team.

John Harbaugh just squad a 405.

I saw John Harbaugh squad 405 the other other day.

But go ahead, Jeremy Bloom.

Obviously, part of it.

But so, so Bloom, he comes back, and I mean, just a smart, smart human being, been successful at everything that he's done.

And he comes in with that athlete perspective.

He's like, look, when X Games was huge, we had larger-than-life personalities, guys like Dave Mira, Tony Hawk.

You know, you had even Ryan Sheckler a little bit later, Mike Metzker, Mad Mike Jones, like everybody was this character, Brian Deacon, Metal Militia.

And he's like, we're going to to come back and we're going to give these athletes a place to grow their brands.

He goes, let's, instead of thinking about how we can make the event better, how can we make the athletes bigger?

How can we find more talent?

How can we make it more accessible?

And I think this is going to be the start of a new generation of X games.

And, you know, I'm just so excited to see where it goes.

I mean, I'm Nitro Circus.

We're kind of like the big air,

not sideshow, but we try to do the newest stuff.

And Bloom's reaching out saying, okay, how can we get, how can we safely merge this to where you guys can be the crazy shenanigans over here that are pushing this culture and let's let's build these athletes together and let's see how we can make these men and women actually make them a good living by doing what they love and traveling the world with their friends.

Great brand.

X Games is a great brand.

Always has been for our generation.

Shout out to Bloom.

Understanding the opportunity, earning the opportunity.

And now, I can't wait to see what he does with it.

Football guy.

He was returner, right?

I think, if I recall.

He was a receiver a little bit, but yeah, pump returner.

I think he was returner.

That's how I think.

And I think I've been at

maybe a function or two with old Bloom.

I remember a great dude, great athlete, obviously, sound businessman.

And if he's bringing Sound Mask Caleb back, he knows what he's doing.

In my eyes, I think he knows what he's doing.

And also partnering with you.

We appreciate the hell out of you, Travis.

Stay safe, dude.

I'm out there.

Do my best.

Hey, you guys, too.

I want to see you out backflip and all you guys.

Come on out to the strategy land one day.

Okay, do you have good internet there?

Yeah.

We can get it.

Okay, that sounds like a no.

no.

All right, all right, sweet.

Do it, man.

Ladies and gentlemen, Travis Pestrana.

Yeah, Travis.

We can figure that out.

Okay, we got fucking 14 ramps around here.

We build things around here.

Yeah, we can get a Starlink plugged in here.

Yeah, we can certainly do it.

How about that aerial shot at Pestrano land?

Got a racetrack over here, got a fucking barn over here, got a skate ramp over here, you got a jumping pad over here.

I used to watch a lot.

of the Nitro Circus stuff in Travis Pestrana in the X games.

That was great times.

Summer, just hey, what are these fucking psychos going to do?

Yeah.

It's perfect.

Legit.

It was like, What are they?

He's always so juiced too.

Like, it is, it's unbelievable the amount of injuries that dude.

Is it a fake hip?

I don't know how many fake body parts he has, but like the fact that he can walk still and he's always

so juiced and so pumped about whatever he is doing.

That's why he's so fun.

I was trying to contemplate on whether or not we bring this up and ask him if this is actually his x-ray or if somebody just made this up.

But it would make sense, probably.

It makes sense.

They obviously got one thing wrong.

We know that there's a uh-huh.

Yeah, yeah, we know it's Travis Pastrami.

You got pastrado and

third leg.

Got a pastrami between his legs.

He is a beast.

Thank you to him for

him for committing so many dangerous acts for our entertainment.

And it was literally my generation.

That is what

it is.

I've seen this guy do everything.

How about him just jumping over to NASCAR too?

I think he just ran over there.

Yeah, you know, some kind of 10 years training, usually 15 years training.

Kids, they've been doing it since I was a kid.

I picked this up about a month ago.

Yeah, good to red line this thing, too.

Don't you worry about it.

Well, on the weekend, I'm going to go do a double backflip.

Look at those flashballs.

Those were the days all over the place.

And anytime Pastrana was on the top of a ramp, that was before social media, everybody somehow knew.

Like, hey, Pestrana's about to do some.

He's doing it again.

He's doing it again.

Come on.

Sean White was the same fucking shit.

Sean White, whenever he was at the top of the snowboard rate, was like, hey, Sean White's about to do some shit.

Tune in, tune in.

Yeah, Pastrana's about to do some shit.

And now he's got Pestrona land.

Now he's got Pestrona.

He's the GOAT.

Here.

tony hawk he's still just handing out skateboard do a kick flip yeah yep handing out skateboards his documentary is unbelievable yeah great story yeah about how much work he put in as a kid he was he was a little boy he was the guy yeah dog yeah they're talking about him being the like when he was six seven years old yeah and then like through the video game era and like how when he was i don't know 2022 skateboarding just fell off a cliff and so like him and a couple other guys were doing it and then the x-game started and they were like the bell of the ball and then tony hawk pro skater i don't know how much money he made off of that that

he goes into it about that about how like

they approached him to make a video game he said sure basically doesn't hear anything but the game starts blowing up blah blah blah couple years into the game he gets like called into the PlayStation's office or whoever you know created the video game and they just like slit him a check for ten million dollars and he was like thank you buddy yeah

what the fuck

yeah thank you yeah this is good

good for them that was a different era i think jeremy bloom though, has the right idea.

We need to make stars competing against each other, not just the competitions themselves.

Now, for the Olympics, I'll turn on the free skate, you know, to represent for America and all that shit, what they're doing in East.

Jagger.

Street skate or whatever, open.

Yeah.

Yeah, Jagger.

Jagger Jagger Eaton.

Dog.

Young Jagger eaten absolute dog.

Like, I'll watch that.

But I think for the X Games, it is the Meta Militia.

People.

Remember Meta Militia?

They were taking on, there was another group.

Yeah.

What was that other group?

The guys were, like, they were, they were,

you knew, I don't know, I couldn't, I could name 10, 20 different like athletes in the X Games back in the day when I was watching, like, in high school.

Yeah, he talked about Pink's husband, I think.

Yeah, that

Carrie Hart.

Yeah, I was almost going to start singing a pink song about her boyfriend being a rock star because I think that is a song.

But I think the next couple lyrics aren't the best.

Sure.

So

I stayed away from it.

Well, every pink song that I was thinking of, what she was saying was not like,

you know, she's a weapon.

Oh, yeah.

She's speaking of X Games.

She's fucking circus away.

Her whole circus away, yeah.

Her whole concerts are nuts.

Hey, where are you on swing at today?

I'm up from that fucking tip of the stadium to that one, and I'm gonna sing the entire time.

Yeah, I'm singing the whole time, too, upside down.

Yeah, and I'm not gonna miss it.

It's gonna be, and it's like, Jesus Christ, what a weapon.

And then she's got a, they got a daughter, I think, that's a little bit older, and then maybe a baby.

I watched her documentary, daughter climbing the fucking whatever these are for the staff.

Yeah, like just climb,

ready to go to the sky, just like zero fear out there.

It's unbelievable.

X Games.

I hope it gets back.

Yeah.

This will be sweet.

This weekend already?

Yeah, it's a great time for it.

That's tomorrow.

Okay, so everything's kind of blending together right now.

Everything's blending together.

We got America's birthday coming up.

One of the greatest cold shots in history.

Nobody talks about it.

True.

We said, uh-huh.

And then there was still a lot of

to figure out.

And then...

Like we said, you know, that's kind of how that whole thing works.

We'll be taking the second week of July off because of Wimbledon will be on all things, and also we're going to enjoy summer a little bit.

Maybe create some things.

Maybe.

Maybe meet some people.

Maybe do a little up to something.

Are things cooking right now?

I don't know.

Maybe.

Could say.

I know this sounds crazy, but it's been a lot of chatter, obviously.

Me being able to sleep in my house and not get three hours of sleep on Monday nights over the last couple of weeks has been a huge help.

No.

I will say.

No way.

I will say.

I will say yes.

I miss it a lot.

I do.

But on Tuesdays, when I have,

you know, like meetings in the morning, because I do business, like not only show, but I also try to do the business as well because I feel like I should learn and also potentially speak up.

And I enjoy it.

And it's all those things.

So I'm walking into meetings Tuesday morning, Zoom calls or whatever, calls in general, 9 a.m.

You got people that I'm talking to that are very

good at what they do.

And I'm rolling in there three hours of sleep, you know, and it's like, I'm the energy guy normally.

And it's like, at what point does this, do you look in the mirror and go like, yo,

you ain't gonna make it like this.

And shout to Nick Khan at the WWE being like, bro, you need to breathe.

You need to breathe.

Now, Nick Khan has also seen me in these meetings.

So I think he understands that I do.

I do perform.

I do well in these, you know, and it's nice.

It's good for everybody when it happens.

So I'm very thankful for the opportunity to be able to breathe for a little bit, but I do miss the shit out of it.

And Night of Champions this weekend, Saudi Arabia.

Yeah.

A lot.

Bill Goldberg, Gunther.

Oh, my God.

Saturday night main event in Atlanta.

Saturday night main in Atlanta.

King of the United States.

Night of Champions this weekend.

Yeah.

Saturday night main event in Goldberg and Gunther.

But I'm just saying there's been a lot that has happened since we have, you know, not been there.

So to everybody at WWE, I love you people.

I appreciate you people.

To the internet wrestling community, fuck yourselves.

All of you.

Go back to my NXT run.

Everything I said then still remains.

I'm talking to you.

These people are outrageous.

They're talented and mean.

Passionate.

And they're in abundance.

Yeah.

Golly.

I'm like, what the fuck, man?

Don't look at your comments.

Well, I have to.

Our show is like, I have to live on the internet.

Like, that is, how do I know about literally, I don't want to say everything, but

too much.

I'd say at this point, have to know with daily show, have to know everything.

Scrolling through.

Okay, there was a big trade.

Sweet.

Good show today, sweet.

Hope you kill yourself.

Okay.

What the fuck did I do?

All right.

Let's go to this.

Oh, shifter and rap.

Oh, one has the breaking news.

One has the information.

I like the way that's working.

Get the fuck out of the WWE.

You ruined my night.

Okay.

Let me go down here.

College game days one and Emmy.

That's pretty cool.

Congratulations.

That's pretty cool.

Okay, show's doing well.

Okay, you're the fucking worst thing to ever happen to the wrestling.

Okay, jeez, Louise.

Let's go back in there.

Bunker Buster.

What the fuck is that?

Are we okay?

Okay.

Pat McNafe should jump off a cliff.

Okay.

All these people are coming from the same department here.

And it's like, that does get a little bit old.

yeah something makes me laugh rather hard though sure i will say those people are mean yeah those people are mean yes they are it's been nice to not have that sure every single fucking weekend i would imagine those are multiple things and also corey great wade great booker t great you know so there's a lot of dudes over there and women in the commentary department that are amazing so it's like as i'm watching it i like read some of their stuff i'm like yeah corey is much different than me that is and i enjoy the shit out of corey i I can understand that.

Thank God this piece of shit isn't here.

All right.

So good.

Hey, just trying to watch the NBA Finals here.

It's a lot.

I'm lucky and thankful for all of it.

But it is a lot, you know?

And then, oh, yeah.

Mackenzie.

The greatest.

Yeah.

Oh.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, it just happened.

Yeah.

Got a tattoo for the daughter.

That's her birthday, May 4th, 2023.

Taurus, obviously.

I too, Taurus, you know.

Bull, birthday.

Taurus, birthday.

Mackenzie, you know, the little thing.

Did I get pressured into it?

Kind of.

Kind of.

Does that hurt right there?

That's like an upper ribs.

First tattoo feels like it's the right one for the daughter.

And

Sam, Samantha got matching tattoo as well, you know, on her.

So it was good.

It was really nice.

First tattoo.

obviously Samantha has a lot of tats.

You know, she's got a lot of tattoos.

So I am the soft one of the household because I've never,

I've signed up to get a tattoo before.

I've sat down and then I've been told how long it was going to be and I couldn't move and it was going to hurt.

And I said, all right, don't think I want that on my body anyways.

I've gone up and left three times.

That has happened.

Three times in my life, I've done that.

This one sat down for the daughter.

Yeah, this is what I want on my body.

Go ahead and make it happen.

It's a cool thing.

Yes, it did hurt, though.

There was moment.

No sold it.

Tattoo.

No sold it.

Yep.

For sure.

I was around a lot of

tattoo people were there.

And they are obviously very tough.

They're tougher than all of us that don't have tattoos because they have to deal with the pa-pa-pa-pa-pa, which certainly real thing.

But it hurt like hell.

Yeah, some of the parts hurt like hell.

Why made you choose that location?

Yeah, I don't know, to be honest.

Yeah.

It's a very painful spot.

You could definitely have chosen other spots that weren't as painful, I'm sure.

Yeah.

Yeah, I was told that,

yeah, and I thought about that as it was

on my ribbon.

There was like a 6-7.

Anita is the lady's name.

I believe Rose Ink Tattoo.

She was great.

She was incredible talent.

She was really good.

She also,

not a full shading, a little bit of color.

I don't know.

I don't know what she did.

But you could feel whenever she was really tightening in on something, you know, especially right there on the rib.

It sounded like a dentist hating her tooth.

Exactly.

That's what it felt like in your body, you know.

And And there was certainly some pain.

Wife sitting there looking at me, just seeing.

And you're like, this is nothing.

What do you mean?

Just do the whole rib cage while you're at it.

I did a couple

yawns, you know.

Those were.

Tired.

Are you going to have to get it retouched?

I know a lot of times they'll fade, and you got to go get it refilled in again.

Well, I think the fade would be a part of the art.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah, I think this one.

Like camo.

Okay.

I think this one's, I think this one's good.

Yeah.

I think this one's good.

Everybody says you're going to get the bug.

You guys come up with another McKenzie Mackenzie McAfee sweet tattoo.

I will certainly dive back in there.

And if I do, that lady who did it, shout out to Anita.

She was great.

But yeah, I mean, I had to lay there for 40 minutes, 45 minutes, AirPods in.

A lot of this.

You know, with a leg.

Like, I come out.

I stand for this show.

I mean, people that host talk shows do not stand.

They sit.

That is literally what they do.

I can't sit.

Like I am a, I'll either fall asleep.

Okay.

That is a real thing that could happen.

If I sit down too long here during the show, I'm sure people notice it at home, I start to get really bored and I, I really start to zone out.

So if you see me stand up, it's just like me trying to stay alive.

So when you're doing a tattoo and it's

on your ribs, and I can't move.

And if I move now, it's going to look

the absolute worst.

I don't know what, I do not know what I signed up for.

It went through my head a couple times.

Well, how much longer is this?

Don't want to ask, though.

Don't want to look soft.

And then you look over and it's like, well, I don't look like anything.

I can barely see it.

It was a whole thing.

But for my daughter, and I think it looks cool.

And Samantha's got the matching one.

For you, anything, you know?

Let's go ahead and do that.

All right, let's get the hell out of here.

What a day.

Yeah.

What a day.

Holy shit.

What a day.

Ryan Smith, owner of the Mammoth, then the jazz.

Legend.

Legend.

Big night last night.

Ace Bailey is going to love Utah.

Let's put that the rest.

Legit.

He's going to do, they are going to do everything.

That whole state will do everything to make sure Ace has a great time out there.

That is like how they feel, I think.

That's how they operated.

That's how they treated us.

I would assume they would do it with somebody that could actually help.

Yeah.

You know, in the entire thing.

Sean Shiraja, no tipping of picks.

Being a good teammate.

Good play.

What a guy.

You agree.

He'll be up there tonight, too.

He's going to be a big-time part of it tonight, too, right?

Was his mic off?

For, yeah, like the whole show, I think.

No, I heard him.

I missed it.

Yeah.

I muted it early, though.

That's probably why.

Because you're in here.

Jay Billis, good to have him on.

Yeah, he's great.

Great answers.

He's very knowledgeable.

He is.

It's not lotion, it's beer.

Do you think he pours the beer?

Yeah, and

leave it out of his face.

He dunks his face in.

I was like, he pours it into a ball.

Oh, like Ashton Hall.

Yeah, with the cube.

4.30 a.m.

Mm-hmm.

So he's been losing races, a lot of them, right?

Isn't that kind of been happening to him?

I saw one.

Speed's very fast.

His name is Speed.

I don't think people should be signing up to race speed.

Just

who do you want to get in a race with?

A guy named Anything or a guy named Speed when your entire thing is running, but your name isn't Speed.

I don't think we're doing that.

And you're going on his, it's his people.

Yeah.

And it's a lot of people, like the most amount of people.

Why are they always racing on uneven ground somewhere too?

Because you're just going outside.

Yeah.

Fucking walk outside.

Catch me outside.

How about that?

On site.

That's what they say.

He's so explosive.

His back flips out of nowhere.

You just watch the explosion.

Like,

holy fuck, what an athlete.

I wonder what sports he played before he just said, I'm going to make hundreds of millions of dollars being a streamer of my everyday life.

Legit.

And I'm going to become the mayor of a

or the president of a country.

I don't remember what it was when the entire country showed up for him.

I wonder what sports he did play.

Big soccer guy, right?

Oopie Ryan.

I've seen clips of him playing soccer.

I don't, I think he likes soccer.

I don't think it's necessarily like his main sport.

Track would make sense.

See America.

He's giving me a track guy.

See America?

Speed?

Yeah.

Yeah.

He got speared out of his family.

I don't know.

He loves soccer.

He's always in Europe, so I didn't know.

Well, he loves speed.

Yeah.

I don't know what.

Sure.

Have a little respect, please.

The only person who loves soccer in here is Canadian, so I didn't know.

We all love soccer in our own.

No, no, no, no.

I do not like soccer.

I like soccer.

I like the video game.

I like TST.

I like TST.

There we go.

Yeah.

I like TST.

Yeah, you do love soccer.

Hey, think

breaking news, by the way, look for it.

It just came up in discussion earlier today.

I'm going to say it publicly, so we have to do it.

Look for Thunderdome Soccer Super Duper Cup coming at some point.

Three on three.

We're going to build boards in here so there's a little bit of physicality.

Three on three with a goalie, two nets.

We'll commentate it.

We'll get some of the arena league boys in here.

We'll put up a $10,000 per winning player prize or something.

And we're going to have that happen out here.

We need to see the arena boys again.

I only saw them for two days because I got invited to go down to Paris Island, which

what an experience.

What an amazing experience.

That was really cool.

He said his dad was a Marine.

I just immediately, oh,

I don't know if you saw, I immediately broke chains.

Oh, yeah.

Right there.

Let's go ahead and do that.

Love everything about it.

Didn't even want to get into it.

We didn't go through Paris Island.

I had to have, right?

On the East Coast there?

That place was awesome.

That was a life changer.

But I only got to see the Arena Boys for two days.

Did you see Gordo Gordon threw out a first pitch for the Yankees?

In a conference.

I saw that.

It wasn't the Yankees.

No, it was.

He was the Mets.

Oh, in the same day?

Yeah, he was lefty and righty.

Me and your friend, tell a friend something nice.

It might change their life.

We're going to sing together.

Team on me.

Team on three.

One, two, three.

Team.

Goodbye.

You've seen the headlines.

Heard the debates.

The three-point ball has created a monotonous rhythm to the game and others.

Has the three-pointer ruined basketball?

And how did we get here?

The rise of the three-point shot can be partially traced to an eccentric Kansas genius named Martin Manley, whose story didn't turn out quite the way he imagined.

I decided I wanted to have one of the most organized goodbyes in history.

30 for 30 podcast presents Chasing Basketball Heaven.

Available now, wherever you get your podcasts.

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