Green Light with Chris Long - JJ Redick! NBA Playoffs, Ben Simmons, Shooting Slumps, Duke Days, Best Pro Athletes To Drink With. Who Is Tom Brady Calling MF'er?

Episode Date: June 22, 2021

(01:21) - Welcome, Layup Line and SCOTUS NCAA Ruling. (29:44) - JJ Redick and Tommy Alter Talk NBA Playoffs, Philadelphia vs Atlanta, Ben Simmons and Shooting Slumps, Duke Basketball and Drinking with Professional Athletes. (1:15:00) - Which NFL Quarterback is Tom Brady Talking About? Green Light Spotify Music: https://open.spotify.com/user/951jyryv2nu6l4iqz9p81him9?si=17c560d10ff04a9b Spotify Layup Line: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1olmCMKGMEyWwOKaT1Aah3?si=675d445ddb824c42 Green Light with Chris Long: Subscribe and enjoy weekly content including podcasts, documentaries, live chats, celebrity interviews and more including hot news items, trending discussions from the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, NCAA are just a small part of what we will be sharing with you. http://bit.ly/chalknetwork Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

That'd be tight. We should all go to the Masters. I'll be it. JJ, could you set that up? I'll set that up. I'll set that up. You know what? It's funny because we're just kind of like getting into golf. It's kind of been like a bit around here because we just don't watch it. And I know that like if we're in the white guy 30-something year old podcast demo, guess what all those motherfuckers talk about golf?

So I figured it was time we started to learn. But it hasn't stuck with me. I watched the Masters and what I realized is I just like the grass at the Masters. Like it's not really the golf. It's the grass. It's the beautiful landscape. It's the Sunday, like, kind of that light in the evening down there in Augusta. We all know you like your grass.

Yeah, I know. I just kind of a lob to you. First time you've ever called a lob for a slam don't con. Oh, nice. Truth. Jaredi Reddick on the show today. Shoots a lot of threes. Sleeved tack guy.

Seems to be pushing away from that Duke stereotype late in life. And I like it. Also, guys spend some time in Philly. So we'll have a lot to, uh, to ask. J.J. played for the Mavs this year. Luca, a lot going on in the NBA. It's a fun time to be an NBA fan. Mike, how are we doing? Happy anniversary to you of your lovely wife. Eight years. Oh my God.

Of holy matrimony. For the record, you see happy anniversary right there right after hello? And right before, we were in pre. Was that what we were in? Yeah. And you said something about happy birthdays and I looked up and I was like, oh damn. I really, I didn't want say anything to you bro June 22 but that's in my head it's in my head so congrats to you and your wife that's great I appreciate that I also want to wish you and your lovely wife a happy anniversary I also want wish uh your lovely daughter a happy first birthday pre be the first to do that as well you are the first and I want to congratulate her on her on her wedding yeah as in all those things high school graduation just do it right here right now thanks stop shop appreciate that yep you want to say anything to your

wife or she already knows what i think about her because i vocalize it with regularity with that inauthentic love you at the end of every phone call oh well i love her she's the best uh and we'll get into why she's the best among many other reasons um in good bad and ugly obviously she's going to be in the good column good she ain't ugly council bluff's Iowa uh uh hello hello since you want to do anniversary I was going to fucking... I don't know anything about Council Bluffs, man. I know about Cedar Rapids.

Oh, well, hey, there's no map here. Take us wherever you like. Cedar Rapids, that was a movie. Did you see that movie? I didn't see that movie. But it was funny. I was looking for people from Council Bluffs. And I'm like, man, they got two jazz singers, an opera singer,

a silent movie star? What is this place? It's like so cold. They just stay inside and do terrific art. They're artistic in Council Bluff. Well, it turned out I was looking under the arts section of notable people. But then I scrolled down to athletes and my old teammate, Ben Lieber. Shout out to Ben Lieber of the Minnesota Vikings and the St. Louis Rams, as so many players at the ends of their careers did spend a year on the tour bus

that was the Earth City Express. Was that like the Washington football team of our childhood? Let's get the locker room guys at the end of their. careers. Maybe that will shit things up. Yeah, I don't know what it was. It was like, hey, if dudes wanted to make one more stop, cash, one more check,

I don't think they knew what they were getting in for. Not exactly Club Mad. You definitely earned your check there. Also, the Bluffs Butcher, the boxer that went toe to toe with Joe Frazier in 72. I don't know if he went toe to toe, but he fought him. Cool,

cool, cool nickname. Showing up is half the battle. Brian O'Connor's from there, just across a bridge from Omaha. Yep. Somewhere in the middle of America. Literally, it's somewhere in the middle of America. Getting right to the heart of matters. Yeah.

It's the heart that matters. Bromaha, Nebraska. Yep. Yeah. Better turn your ticket in. Yeah, that's right. You know, get your money back at the door. Wow.

You should write lyrics. Yeah, I should. Hey, happy anniversary to my lovely wife, Meg. Layup line. I broke the code today, bro. Hey, you got to, if you're motivated to get shots up, like, you got to be able to hit the curveball today. Because if you need young jock this morning, I can't help you. If you need young jock to get 40, I can't help you.

Sweet Virginia, Rolling Stones. Quite possibly at this point, I'm going to crown it. I'm Denny Green. Best Rolling Stone song. My favorite Rolling Stone song at this point. Yeah, dude, it's catapulted. It hovers in the top five. And also the Rolling Stones are probably the band.

I like the most that I know the least about relative to like the general population as far as like backstories to songs and all that stuff. You know, I haven't even Googled, but and that's rare for me. But like Sweet Virginia, exile on Main Street, many people would say that double albums, the best stones, you know, project there is. To me, it's the best song on take your pick, either album. Does it get bonus points because of your history with Virginia? I think there's a very strong. wrong homerism when it comes to like hearing that song but it's perfect it's perfect and yesterday enjoyed it uh watching some trees roll by on the uh on the james river there we'll talk about your

father's day of my father's day in a bit beast of burden you heard that one yeah you like that one wild horses that's a good wild horses is a couple bangers yeah yeah how about emotional rescue Not familiar. You would know it. We could do a whole stones pod, but it probably is not going to be just you and I. I got to read the books. People read the books. People know all about those guys.

People know all about the backstories. The only backstory I ever heard that was like really crazy. And I tell this with regularity because it's like my go-to stone story. People are sitting around talking about the stones. And I'm like, I know less. I didn't read Keith Richards' biography. I hear it's amazing. But give me shelter.

which is a very chalky one B for me maybe. The backstory on that song is incredible. They're fighting. They're only recording. They're leaving the studio. They're not talking. They're copulating with each other's girlfriends. I think they're really having a hard time.

And they're making music in the midst of it, right? Well, these guys were fighting and Keith was one of the, you know, coming down off a heroin binge looking out the window. it's raining outside. Like at this point I've committed this story to memory. So if I'm wrong, you just got to tell it like it's true. And the woman that they had singing gospel on the hook of Gimmy Shelter was pregnant. And she sang such a powerful little bit on that song. I mean, it really makes the song. And they were recording at odd times a night. And they would come in, not talk to each other. It was just like, fuck it, we got to do it now. And I'm sure that was the uppers.

But they were like, hey, we got to do it now. And they called this woman who was resting. and her husband, I think, talked her into going in because it was like, we got to record right now. And she sung so, like, powerfully. She had a miscarriage. Yeah, lost the baby. But give me shelter as ominous and darkest song as that is to know a backstory like that,

even if it's 50% true, makes the lore of the Rolling Stones incredible. And really, really, that song that's plenty deep, a little bit deeper. I thought you were going to say that you could hear Mick Jagger say woo when her voice cracks after one of the things. But that's a lot darker. And it makes the whole thing like when you hear that woo, you're like, oh, Jesus, dude. Yeah, they were a real life rock and roll band and like the backstories were just crazy and I only know a few of them. But hopefully you guys don't fact check me too hard on that.

I think you should probably just not even corroborate the story and just go with it. You got any Rolling Stone stories? I think you might have hit the saturation point on Stone Stories for the A block because that's a hell of a story. When you think about people that shouldn't be alive, and I mean this respectfully, they should not be alive. Like you could live your whole life trying to be perfectly healthy and you're going to be going up the escalator and look down at a bunch of people. smoking two packs a day, shooting needles in their arm, like living like rock stars. For some reason, those guys live the longest. Well, we know about them.

Well, yeah, we also know about the little old lady that's 109 in like Japan as well. But I'm hearing about more Keith Richards. I mean, Keith Richards turning like 80 years old is like the woman in Tokyo turning 120. Love the stones. Need to read some books about the stones. Hey, real quick, you wanted me to talk about something that's been on your mind. Something hanging over your head, hanging over my head, hanging over Studio J, an unpaid debt. The Waffle House.

So, Cowboy Reed, you want to give people an update before we move on to the rest of the pod? Yeah, Waffle House, it's going to happen. For those of you new to the show, we picked Thursday night football in the NFL. We picked the scores, the winners, the whole shebang. We picked it all. The whole shabangue. Golly, day was it entertaining. And I came out on top.

I was closer more often and therefore you have to do the Waffle House challenge. You went on an incredible run. I was picking games exactly right. It was just like. Almost. Checkpoint. Checkpoint. And so you have to spend 24 hours in a Waffle House.

You can deduct an hour for every Waffle eat. And this got a pub over the weekend when a cat did it. I asked him to come on the pod. He'll probably end up on like part of my take or something. He'll probably end up on like mad money with Jim. Kramer but he just ignored my DM. Really? Fucking guy, dude, hey listen, all due respect.

Just come on the pod, help us out here. I got to do this shit in a month or two. For the record, though, the holdup has not been me. Now, you know, Macon's going to sit over here and say it's me. No, I'm not. I think it would be a great kickoff to the NFL season. That's what we were thinking, kind of reset people's brains. Hey, just in case you haven't heard, there's this football season coming up.

And appreciate all the people on the internet giving us credit for the idea. Yeah, that's not true. We got it from somebody else, just like this guy did. And I don't think anybody's touting it as their own idea. No. But we're going to do it best. Yeah, we're going to do a best because I'm going to eat at least 12, 12 waffles, easy. I'm going to be out of there early.

Just working from the waffle house, that's all. Go 22, get a couple hours of working. Easy, easy. Also, little tease, I'm not going to be reviewing necessary roughness today. Me and Coach Wookie, he'll do that Thursday or Monday. I just didn't have time to do it. Sorry. This is me not turning in my home.

Good, bad, ugly. So much good. So a little ugly. Number one, you know, I told you my wife's awesome, just as all your wives are out there. Your wife's lovely. My wife went for 40 yesterday. I mean, she gave me a Father's Day. Like, you know how I tease that, hey, when your lovely wife asks you, what do you want

to do on Father's Day? You should try it. You should really answer that question honestly because the question was asked open-endedly. And if she didn't want an answer, then maybe you guys have a communication problem in your marriage. My lovely wife and I, when she asked me a question, I'm honest, and I said, well, I'd love to go tubing in the afternoon.

If we'd go for a little hike in the morning with the boys and you could let me hit the river, that would be grand. And she did. So thank you. I had a great day on the river. And sweet Virginia hit the spot on the James River. Did you bring some goldfish with you?

Yeah, I brought snacks in the whole nine yards. Yeah. Nice. I got to tell you, Chris. Yeah. Father's Day, I don't know that I did it right or did I. Maybe it's my good as well because I did a whole heck of a lot of parenting on my father's day. Tell you that much. And it might be different because I'm dealing with a couple things. Child one and five month old. So it's sort of an all hands on deck situation still. Yeah.

But I did not get the day off. So therefore more time with the kid, more time. Did she pose the question? Yep. I wasn't, I wasn't seasoned enough. That's on you, player. I mean, that's the thing about life. You have to, when people ask you questions, you have to be honest. You have to advocate for yourself. If you don't advocate for yourself, who's going to advocate for yourself? If you don't tell people what you want, then how are they going to know?

I think everyone will be in a better position for me to take a nap on a father's day when the kid is one year in five months as opposed to five months, you know? Yeah, sure. I just don't know why then you would ask the question. if there's an answer that's baked in there. I just feel like... Maybe we have a communication problem. Maybe next Father's Day. I'm not saying that player,

but maybe next Father's Day you want to... I don't want to jump on a river. I can tell you that much. I go wet. When I called the offer, it was such a formality. That's not what happens when you get on a river. You do get wet, but you don't necessarily catch cold. Father's Day Hall passes.

That's good for me. Father's Day Eve, we spent a little time together, friends, families, kids, whatnot. Power wheels were involved. Power wheels are awesome. I had some sort of vehicle as a child, and yet the story I tell, it was stolen off the street.

In retrospect, I don't think that can be true. Power wheels must have been taken away from me. I think you just got too tall. I think you got too tall pretty quickly, and you probably weren't ready to let it go, and they made some shit up. Your son was driving a power wheel,

unlike I've seen really anybody, drive anything else. He is unbelievable. He is unbelievable. In complete control. Reverse, three point turns, between trees, like turns, speed. Remarkable. Way more of a chance of being like a BMX rider or like a little stock car racer or something. Like he'll drive those little pickup trucks around a dirt track like then being a football player. In an epic scene, he kicked a dude buddy out the power wheels, got a girl buddy into the power wheels. talks about every day he talks about this girl every day she has a younger sister named redacted his line to her was are you uh younger sister game yeah and and obviously the girl's like no i'm redacted

and he's like oh cool get in he proceeds so that's game right there because you don't want to nag yeah is that what that is yeah he was nagging her yeah he nagged her and then she gets in the thing and he goes you want to go fast and of course at that point she's like yeah and uh to that he says fast as a horse. He pulls off, he rounds the corner, and as he's round to the corner, he looks back over his right shoulder,

subsequently over her shoulder, because she's mystified. He's got so much game, and stares at us and redacted's father. As if it's not enough, he's got the tongue in the cheek and shoots him a thumbs up and pulls around the house.

It was amazing. It was like legitimately incredible. If I wasn't more sensitive about posting pictures at this point of my kids, like, it's weird. You get to a certain point on Instagram. You're like, I don't really want to post about my kids anymore. I hear you.

Yeah. It's like. But the video does exist. By the way, yeah, the video does exist. And it's remarkable. I wish I could show you. But I'm afraid of strangers and creepy people. I was on the lookout for injuries, overturned vehicles, et cetera.

really because I wanted a shot at it and I never did. Actually, I tried to ride shotgun with Whalen there for a bit and he put up quite a fight and told me I was too big. We couldn't really get any momentum going. You probably weigh about the same. Well, two of us can't get that thing going. Hey, Virginia baseball. Virginia baseball 1 and 0 in Omaha so far beating number three national seed, Tennessee,

6. Incredible. I don't think we saw that coming. I didn't see it happen either I was on the river we tried to get it on the radio I couldn't that was a major fumble on my part The Hoos are a Cinderella of sorts being a three seed

in their regional losing the first game there losing the first game in Supers and now they're the little engine that maybe can in Omaha with all these big boys It's incredible it's incredible it's the year of this Cinderella I don't even know if that's true I just said it well the Hawks are still in the playoffs

figure it out we got these basic bitch in the teams running around in the final four. I have that in good. I have that under my good. I've got basic basketball teams is my good. I mean, it's been 50 years since we knew coming into the final four of the NBA, which is fun.

That's a fun time. Like conference finals is really fun. In the NFL, to me, that's when, like, Christmas is about to end. Like, you're like, damn, there's only two games, you know, and they're great games, but you know, as soon as they end, you've got this corporate event that, you know, 30 team fan bases are not into the same way. And so you feel that buzz kind of wear off, but because of the nature of series play

and seven game series and like the drama that builds and the interpersonal battles that you can kind of weave together with, hey, presser, I don't like this guy. We can dice it up for 48 hours. That's what makes like focusing it on two monster series really awesome when it comes to the NBA as a fan for me.

So I love this time and I love chaos. And I hate that it's happened because of injuries. We will ask our guest, JJ Reddick, about like the burnout factor and that sort of thing. But I think it's so cool to see these four teams that have all not won an NBA title before. It's been 50 years since you had that certainty that a new champion would be crowned in about a, I don't know, it feels like probably a month here as long as this thing drags out. But yeah, it's cool. Bucks, Hawks, Clippers, and the damn sons who are a lot of fun. And here's the thing.

Here's why the NBA can be okay here when we're talking about stars being out. There are so many stars in that game. If you think about, we talked about this with Ryan Rissilo, how hard is it to say who the top five players in the league are? When you've got the MVP who's arguably not a top five player in the league, like you've got a good problem. And so they've done a nice job in the era of super teams,

quote unquote, of dispersing their stars. And you've got a star in the making, if he's not already one, in Devin Booker, but if he played in New York, forget about it. and you've got Janus who if you know he is a star certainly but where his real value is is everybody's going to talk about him like you have people chanting you know counting to 15 as he's shooting free throws right now you've got he's like first take crack cocaine dude like you can't get enough of it uh over analyzing Janus and on the other side of you've got Trey who's

as electric a player to watch a creating kind of guard a little guy die. They just don't, I don't feel like they thrive as much in the game anymore. Strangely, because the game's not as big anymore, I could be wrong. But it's really cool. It's fun to watch these stars. Certainly you'd like to have LeBron and those guys in here. And ironically, the one team that was the closest to a super team when Kauai joined it with Paul George looks nothing like it. And the novelty there is that you might have a team that loses without Kauai, or wins without Kauai rather. And we don't know how long the timeline on that injury is.

Yeah, weirdly we don't know. Some say that he's toast. Some say that he could be back any day. But yeah, a couple interesting series. Clippers had to play right away. It felt like they earned the right for a little break after closing out the previous series. But you got a, Bill's got to be paid ABC Sunday afternoon game as you played on.

I was like, damn, that game was late last night. It was so late it was at 3.30 in the afternoon. I was like, I didn't even know the game happened. Well, here's the problem. I got on the river and the service didn't work as well as I thought I had this whole like, oh, I'm going to get on W-I-N-A here, listen to the baseball game. Certainly I didn't know about a basketball game, but I didn't know about much by the time I got off that river. I know I said earlier this week that like, hey, sometimes dudes want to fuck off and just go to the river.

That was not foreshadowing. Actually, to be fair, a friend brought up the tubing trip as an idea, and I just complied. And my wife, who is lovely, said, yeah, take the day off. Anyways, we don't have to talk about Father's Day. you can move on from Father's Day. Okay, I'll go to bad since we're circling the NBA. Can I do one good thing real quick? Can I try to fit it in two minutes here?

Okay. This NCAA victory. Hell yeah. Well, it's not an NCAA victory. It's a victory for NCAA. You know what I should start doing though is like when I say NCAA, we're really talking about the athletes. I don't want to slander them by slapping that acronym on them when it comes to

be. But like they are the NCAA. The suits, they're just trying to hang in there. And the lifting of the financial cap on educational type resources that they've had on these athletes, Supreme Court, just levy that decision, I guess, this morning. They said, hey, NCAA, man, like you saying to us that, hey, look, our reasoning for having this cap is that we don't want our fans to think that players are getting paid. That's really a bad, bad line to run with because, number one, we know it's not true.

We know it's all about money and the slippery slope, which I'll get to in a second. But also, if you're taking advice from your fans and they're upset, the players are getting compensated more so that they can secure supplies to meet the goal that you say is the most noble thing about amateurism, which is walking with a degree, like don't you think it's getting more expensive to get your textbooks and electronics and iPads and all that stuff?

Yeah, this isn't just about this. It's also about the thing down the road. This is the thunder in the distance before the big storm. And the Supreme Court's looking at the NCAA, I feel like they're looking at them like Denzel at the end of training day. Like we can't help you. They're in the cul-de-sac.

Like, sorry, dude. Your reasoning's not good enough and we're not standing in between, you know, the athletes and getting what they need in the classroom and probably a little ways down the line here when it comes to compensating these young working Americans. So I'm excited about it because like I said, the thunder in the distance.

It's not here yet. But my guys just alerted me and I forgot about this that July 1st in Alabama and Florida of all places We'll see how this goes Well, they're already getting paid there That players are gonna be able to benefit off their likeness another thing that if you're against you're just not an American And now these student athletes have mobility too with the transfer portal So unchartered territory for college sports, but but amateurism is going to gone. Yeah. Just like just you know and and that's that's perfectly okay with me. It's like yeah,

sure. Did I love the predictability of seeing players at one school and all that stuff? It's fun. It's fun as a fan. But like, you know, your inconvenience, uh, it can't be more important than people putting food on the table. No doubt. Hey, what do you think Bama and schools like that do at this point? Well now, but the likeness thing. I was thinking maybe they're like, oh, we got you this car. That's going to get you to class. We put that on. under the educational stipend that we just passed. Here's a subscription to Netflix. You just watch one of those war documentaries.

You watch all the Netflix you want on there. Driving Audi's 101. New class. Just a class. A Florida State. It's just loosely based on the occurrences of June 21st. So it'll be interesting to see how people stretch it. I don't know.

I'd love to get somebody on here to talk about like what this means in the meantime before the big decision comes down, how people are gonna do mental gymnastics to try to make this work or not work, but it's a big victory for student athletes. A little bit of bad. Hmm, can we spin it? Was that a great pass by Ben Simmons under the hoop

when he might have had a uncontested dunk to perhaps tie that ball game? Trey Young was running at him. Listen, I feel bad for Ben Simmons. There's something going on there where in his brain he's just not courageous enough to overcome whatever he's, he's dealing with technically or, you know,

when it comes to being productive on that team or like fixing his shot or his shot has kind of plateaued. That's why they paid him because they were like, oh, he's charting, he's trending upwards and it's just kind of grinded to a halt. And like the toughest city to kind of run into this wall in is where he is. And everybody knew when that play happened,

even basketball like casual fans were like, damn, that's not normal. But I will tell you this, If LeBron did that, and I'm just using him because he's had such spectacular games that he's allowed to play with house money, you would be like, ah, he's just getting a little too fancy. It's just the context of the game that Ben was playing, the series that Ben was playing, the heat, the noise, and the nature of that type ball game that made it just like inexplicable. It's not a play I've never seen before, a guy passing up an easy bucket to do something fancy. It's just a max guy who's a big piece of this process who's not shooting the basketball in fourth quarters.

No, he's not shooting the ball in two times in like games four through seven or something. Yeah, and he can't even be in the game in the last five minutes because of his free throws. And the way they were talking about them on TNT, they made a point. I think for us, like, without being a basketball, I know it all, I'm like, well,

there's always got to be a place for a guy that talented and who has so many skills, like on one side of the ball and he can, he can, you know, create for other people in some ways and that sort of thing. But the guys on the show were like, hey, if they don't fix that, how do you, you can't hide a guy that can't score anymore in the NBA. Distressed asset at the moment. It's incredibly distressed asset. It's so bizarre and it's so like unique that you have this asset that you paid and it's this bad and it's not having anything to do with injury.

You know, like in football, distressed assets happen all the time, as you put it, because there are injuries. Like, the only thing that keeps a guy from being better, the next contract is injury, age, well, in football, I say only, but ironically, there's five, seven things that could. In basketball, I just don't know what could keep a guy

from continuing to progress. And that's where they are, and it's like jarring to watch. I mean, I haven't watched somebody in a sporting event in a while that I was like, damn I feel bad for this guy and you know in society today oh he's rich he's on TV

all bets are off I can you know what the funny thing about the internet is the internet is the softest most aggressive place in the world can't take shit but wants to give and be so mean to everybody I'm just sitting here in my lane dude but golly you would have thought Ben Simmons beat your kids I think it's okay to say like

geez, the guy sucks at basketball right now and not making an incredibly personal thing. Yeah, you hope you can figure it out, not unlike a guy named Markle Fultz, who the Sixers also drafted and seems to be rebounding, but had to do it somewhere else. Yeah, I don't know.

I think his trade value was, well, it's never been lower. Put it to you that way. Right. Hey, do you like JJ Reddick? No, I do. We're all the same age, more or less. So when we were teenagers, I did not, I did not one bit. And like Carlos Boozer, remember that whole thing?

Stair me down. I do. I stared him down. He stared me back down. And then I sat down. In fact, I think, I was a teenager. I'm confident. I'm certain that I yelled awful things at JJ before in my life.

J.J. Reddick is going to join us with his sidekick, Tommy Alter, old man in the three. These guys have a great pod. These guys do lists and they do it well. You know, it's hard to do lists and do it well. well. These guys do it well. And they talk basketball. I can't wait to have these guys on. Oh, I don't have to wait very long. Let's get them on right now. Hello Fresh. With Hello Fresh, you get fresh pre-measured ingredients and mouth-watering seasonal recipes delivered right to your door. Skip trips to the grocery store and count on Hello Fresh to make home cooking easy, fun,

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plus free shipping. That's hellofresh.com slash greenlight 14 and use code greenlight 14 for up to 14 free meals plus free shipping. Hello fresh America's number one meal kit. What up, dogs? What's up, man? Tommy, JJ, this is Macon. making what's up man make him so j j Tommy hello how are you good to meet you likewise so

jay j's on Tommy's on big shout out to old man in the three legitimately a great listen like just a just it's just two guys you want to hang out with and me and Tommy by the way are trying to get a hang going this summer maybe we are rigly rigley jay jay will not be there well I just knew I understood bro when you're an NBA guy you can't just make trips like out in the open. It's hard, bro. Everybody knows this guy. JJ, what's up? Dude, you have so many books in your background and we don't have any books. You know what? I'm actually rearranging my books right now because so all these shelves, I have a lot of empty shelves. I don't have you can tell. Oh, you pose. Yeah. Look at it. He's off screen. Yeah. So I got to move, I got to move all the books from

the other side of the room over here. And I'm halfway through doing it. So we got a little empty space right here. But I like it. When is this, when is this Wrigley trip, by the way? This is the First, I'm hearing about this. Oh, that's awkward. Macon. Do you remember when I told you about it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's been on the books for a while now, huh? Here's the problem.

Here's the problem with this trip. Well, I don't think it's going to happen. Chris and I had this idea. Chris has never been to Wrigley Field. I'm like, that's insane. It is the place, the second you retired is the first place you should have gone during the summer. It, to me, is the best sports venue in America.

We were going to go. We were like, we should invite Big Cat. We should invite Rosillo. Who? We should invite. Who else we want to invite Titus? All these different things. Everyone is an excuse why Big Cat apparently had a kid or something,

like some bullshit. And he's like, I can't go to Chicago to go on this trip. He's got two kids and one of them was a four-week-old Tommy. Well, you know, it's small detail. Small detail. Tommy, have any kids? No, that's what I know.

So it's probably going to be me and Chris. but Chris is like going to Montana and he's being very dodgy about what he's doing there. I just don't commit to things like a month ahead. Yeah. I certainly don't commit to things like a week ahead. So a month is like way out of the realm. But Wrigleyville, it sounds so good that I'm thinking about committing. So how about you, JJ?

Is there like a bucketless stadium that you've not seen a game at in any sport that you would definitely want to go see one at? That's a good question. You know what? I've recently the last year got super. into golf and I'm I've got a golf trip planned it's Paso Tienpo Pebble Beach Cypress Point and Spyglass Hill and two of those are Alistair McKenzie designs who designed the Masters of course you know so from Augusta of course Gus National but for me it would be to go to the Masters and it's in April every year and that's in

the you know the end of the regular season essentially so I've never been able to go that's probably my bucket list is going to the masters that'd be tight we should all go to the masters i'll be j j j j could you set that up i'll set that up you know what it's funny because we we're just kind of like getting into golf it's kind of been like a bit around here because we just don't watch it and i know that like if we're in the white guy 30-something year old podcast demo guess what all those motherfuckers talk about golf so i figure it was time we started to learn but it hasn't stuck with me i watched the masters and what i realized is i just like the grass at the master like it's not really the golf it's the grass it's the beautiful landscape it's the sunday like

kind of that that light in the evening down there in augusta we all know you like your grass yeah i know i just kind of a lob to you first time you've ever caught a lob for a slam don't con yeah truth chris i have a question for you yeah you play uh any other sports when you're growing up uh yeah i played many i was a j j reddick type basketball player um a lot of corners Pure shooter. Just a pure shooter. No, we had this discussion last week. You're more of like a Josh McRoberts.

This was fucked up of you to say. I got nothing against Josh McRoberts at all. Sounds like an awesome dude. No, you were more of like a Matt Geiger. I was a poor man's Gerald Wallace. No, you were not.

You had no basketball skill. And Gerald Wallace is a basketball player. Yeah, yeah. We're just, we have different ideas of my game. Yes, I played lacrosse, basketball, baseball and obviously football. How about JJ?

I was a stud baseball player. Just an absolute monster on the mound. Absolute monster. Actually, Chris, I'm trying to get my, probably not this summer, next summer. I'm trying to get my youngest son into lacrosse. Because we live in Brooklyn. We come out to Long Island during the summers.

We're out here right now. And he's super aggressive and he's a very physical kid. Do you have any pointers for me? on how to get him into it. Yeah, definitely. Tell him that he can hit people with that stick. Yes. So I didn't know anything about the game,

but me and my baseball coach had like a difference of opinion. And I guess it was that I couldn't buy Swisher Suites with one of the older kids' IDs on the team. And so I ended up off the baseball team. And I spent two years playing lacrosse. It was odd. It was like sophomore and junior year. And I went back to baseball senior. But I never had more fun.

Like, honestly, I would have kept playing if it didn't share a season with baseball. And I even had a wooden stick because I knew it would hurt a little bit more. So, like, I requested this wooden stick. So if you want to go next level, you know, maybe it's a little early for the wooden stick with your little guy. But eventually in high school, that's a little insider tip. Yeah. Love that. Here's some advice, JJ.

Send them to the University of Virginia back-to-back national champions. Yep. That's all that UVA does now. They just win national championships. That's right. That's right. We were doing a revisionist history earlier with JJ because Duke came up naturally and our disdain for Duke. But it's so far in the past that I don't even hold it against you, JJ.

I actually think you're like one of the least Duke guys of all time. And I don't know if you take that as a compliment or this is a tricky one for you to answer. Is that a compliment or not? Least Duke guy of all time. It's fall somewhere in the gray area for sure. You know what it is? It's like the sleeve. It's the baldy fade.

It's just it doesn't fit the prototype of the typical white Duke player. But when I was at Duke and I had the Caesar cut, you know, and the and the shirtless sleeve underneath T-shirt, like I was definitely, I definitely fit the mold. I've definitely fit the mold. I feel like as I've gotten further and further away with most people, maybe not Duke fans, but with most people, I've like disassociated myself somehow with Duke,

not intentionally at all. and it's not my own doing like but people are like oh that's right that guy played at duke a long time ago i used to hate him but i like his podcast but i like his podcast now yeah you've overcome that like and i'm not even fucking around like people used to hate you you know what it is about you you've played so long and you're so visible and also now your vocal is that people like get to know you and i wonder how many duke guys we had this conversation a while ago with titus and tate and i was saying duke i feel like really takes it on the chin unnecessarily with some of the guys that played there. There's actually a lot of cool guys that played at Duke. It's just this.

This is me as a Virginia guy saying this. Well, it's the one and done has changed things too. It's now the semesterhood as opposed to the brotherhood. Semesterhood. It was easier to dislike the guys who were there for four years. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Who's the most Duke guy of all time in your eyes, JJ? you know like and who's the least Duke guy of all time not excluding yourself the most Duke guy of all time these have to be Duke guys

yeah they'd probably be Chris Collins or Steve Wojahowski those are the most Duke guys to me and I love those guys they're like brothers to me but literally like when I think of a Duke basketball player like I think of like a generic white guy yeah at least like my generation

and below you know and now like Like, we're like, you know, we recruit differently. You know, the one and done thing. Like, I don't even know who's on the team half the time. I, like, I used to watch every game until about like five years ago. And I'm just like, I can't keep up with the roster turnover. It's too much, man. And I love Duke.

I love Duke. And actually, I'm going to try to get it to as many games as possible this year, just with being K's last year. Like, I'm a Duke fan for life. I've been a fan since I was eight years old. So a lot of my like opinion of Duke is based on 90s Duke basketball. And when I think of a Duke basketball player, I think of those two generic white guys. Totally.

Totally. And you know, Cave Springs guy plucked him from Virginia. Easily could have been a Wahoo. We were guessing off camera here about where you would fit perfectly if you weren't a Duke guy. Now. Now. I'm just saying if I had to picture him and you know how they do those edits like after a guy maybe signs with a team like 55, 17 year olds are like cloud chasing on IG with a bad

edit. I want to put him in an NC state uniform. I was, but I was picturing with the fade and with the sleeve is how I saw it. Yeah, I could see him now like that. But I could also see him with puka shells. Did you ever have pucashells, JJ? I feel like you lived in a pukeshell era. We lived in that era.

Don't say you didn't ever wear I never had Pooka shells never owned them I swear to God I wasn't cool enough That's the thing I wasn't cool enough I missed the boat and I feel good about it dude I had other stupid things There's a picture of me that still lives somewhere on the internet I'm taking a picture with one of my friends at Duke

A co-ed and I'm wearing a purple button up With the collar open White shells And I I appeal honestly I appear to be hampered in the photo. I think the photo was taken like mid blink, I think. Allegedly. Because I was not, I know the night.

I was not drinking that night. I don't know if you remember in the dawn of the internet, Tommy, but they had drunkathletes.com. Of course. Like that was the thing were you really on there? No, mercifully maybe once. But I, uh, but for

me, I feel like it's the whole brand conversation. If you worry about your brand all the time, you have to keep this like, you know, but if you just look fucked up whenever you leave the house they're not going to put you on drunk athletes they'll be like this guy's not that famous and he always looks this drunk when did that stop

so I don't know I think it happened when the internet changed from like hey let me head over to drunkathletes.com and you had to type in www.w you know dot drunkathletes.com like now everybody's got social so like now you yeah you just go on Twitter and you just put in JJ Reddick drunk and something will

never be come up there'll be a whole roster of things you can put that in it in. You know who you know used to be a star on that site Steve Nash. Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzky. Absolutely. I wanted to get drunk with them so bad as a teenager.

Maybe I was in my early 20s too. I was just thinking to myself, these guys would be the perfect guys to party with. Also, Kyle Orton had a fucking good run on that site. Was Cutler? Was that pre-Cutler? Cutler's another guy. Cutler's only going to end up on drunkathletes.com if he has a death stick in his mouth, if he has a heater in his

mouth. Like, he's set the bar so low for, like, and here's the thing about Jay Cutler. Jake Cutler's got perfect hair. Jake Cutler dresses impeccably. And he still finds a way to look fucked up sometimes, which is incredible. When I look drunk, it's like, it's not really an incredible feat at all. He just always looks annoyed. That's the other thing. Because he is. No matter what, he's constantly annoyed. Because he is. I have a question for Tommy and Macon, actually. So you guys know a lot of people clearly. And I know Tommy. knows everybody but if you could pick one athlete to tie one on with who would that athlete living living yeah he has to actually get drunk and have fun and let loose yes yes both people are are drunk

this is a good question damn i feel like we need to do one of those drafts i think your a draft was born an old man in the three draft was born right here and i expect an invite because i got some answers for you actually this is a great draft topic maybe we should we should see we should save this for this. They came on the pod just to hype it. No, we're not saving this. Everybody needs to know where the idea came from. It came from you, but on the green light pod. Let me ask you, let me ask you a question for context. Is, are we doing anything? Are we at a bar? Is it part of, oh my gosh. Yes, you've got a whole night out. Yeah, this is so. Hey, you're going to a bar. You're going to a bar. You're going to a bar. You're going to a bar. You're going to a

dinner. You're going to an after party. And then you're going to end up at four. I don't even know what club is open in New York anymore. But when I used to go to clubs, you ended up 4 a.m.m.m. at one o'clock. Studio 54. Hey, listen, I would be in Studio 54 with John Riggins so fucking just, I would be living it up with John Riggins with Rigo, dude. And here's the thing, I've been in an event with Rigo. It just, we weren't in the right place for me to be like, hey, do you want to get

fucked up? NBA division, I'll take Nicola Yokic with my first pick. That's a good thing. Just some potato vodka. Yeah, I don't have to worry about anything. The brother's got to be there, though. Oh, yeah. Hey, those brothers, man.

Let me tell you something about those brothers. They could have been in any Vin Diesel movie. Just the guy that Vin Diesel is afraid of that he respects, that he doesn't want to tussle with, those were his brothers. Hey, what is it about the Eastern European thing in the NBA? Because I was going to ask you this. I feel like the hit rate is higher on Eastern European cats now. Is that because the game has changed to suit their games?

Or has something changed about the way we're looking at players, you know, the Balkan boys, all the guys at the table in the pandemic. This is actually, this is a terrific question, Chris. Thank you. This is a, but a constant theme on our podcast is when I ask Tommy a question, he never fucking answers. Right.

So I'm not going to let you got to give me. You didn't give me a chance to answer. Chris, he was going to answer. I was looking out. I guess the show and Chris just changes the topic. Well, I changed the topic here. He is with like hosting 101, motherfucker. The guy with the books is hosting.

No, no. Tommy. Tommy was relieved. Tommy was relieved. I have a answer. What's the answer? No, no, give me your answer because I just want to let my sidekick talk first. Sidekick. The fuck.

Yeah, dude. We're in a fucking pilot. We're co-pilot needs the pilot. Pilot needs the co-pilot, dude. Yeah, sidekick. The second number two in command. Here's my answer. But I feel like Chris will have first-hand experience in this.

And so he's going to tell me whether this is a bad pick. But my pick would be gronk. Because this is why. I'm going to tell you why. Because you have to make sure, A, the person, can have fun. There are a lot of stars that are not necessarily fun people to hang out with. They're good athletes. Gronk is definitely fun. Grunk will get us in anywhere. No questions asked. Two of us show up. It'll be like it'll be, it will be aggressive. You know, I'm not, I'm sure I'll be

feeling it for the next week. I don't want aggressive. I want aggressive in my own way and I want some stimulation. I'm not saying gronk and I can't talk about like geopolitics or like. I guess my point is like if we're getting, if we're getting drunk like I don't need to have a serious conversation with them. If you're like, who do you want to have dinner with? Granc wouldn't be my number one day. Honestly, getting fucked up is like we're going on a journey together, bro. And maybe like you guys are stopping it just the, but we're going to, I want to have a, I want to go on a like a.

Well, who's yours then? I told you John Riggins and part of hosting is listening here, Tommy, because I went on this whole tirade about John Riggins and nobody asks me. I'm guessing. I'm fucking with you. I do. Tommy was coming on here. I was going to give a bunch of shit.

Wait, where's JJ? What's JJ's answer? I actually, there's two scenarios that I've played. out in my head here. All right. So the first scenario, like, I've known LeBron since we were 15. Yeah. But that guy's, that guy's recently got, he's always been a wine guy, but he recently got into Burgundy's, which I'm a burgundy guy. Oh. So being at like, like a fancy restaurant and drinking just supreme red burgundy with him, I think is, is number one. The second one, this scenario to me would be just a ball of fun. New Orleans is the best place to have a good

time in America. That's my opinion. But to go out with Peyton and Eli, a full day, a of just debauchery in New Orleans. I'm in on that. They're great day drinkers. You can tell by the look on their faces. You can tell by the clothes they wear. Like they're one iota away from just being fucked up on Bourbon Street but can still do commercials.

They're amazing. I would love to get drunk with those guys. Yeah, I was asking you about, what was it? Eastern European players. Is the game changed to suit them or have they changed to suit the game? Because the hit rate seems higher. Here's the deal.

I think there's a couple things. Number one is just the globalization of basketball. And I guarantee you in 20 years, you're going to see an even larger influx of players from Africa with this new African basketball league. You know, obviously, I played with Joel. I play with Luke and Bob Mutte. So there's been a bunch. So I think it's just the globalization of the game. That's going to be a hotbed in the future. You think about early 90s, late 80s when these European guys first started coming over.

That's sort of the timeline. We're like 20, 30 years out now. And then secondly, I think it's just there's a cultural thing. Luca and I talked about this a bunch, actually. They just, there's no bullshit with them. They're just like about basketball. They don't get caught up in all the other bullshit that comes with being an NBA player. They're great teammates.

Everybody says Yokic is the best. Everybody says Giannis is the best teammate. I spent two months with Luca. He's a bro. He's a bro. He's playing cards with us. He doesn't isolate himself from the team. To me, that goes a long way.

in building camaraderie. And that shit matters on the court. It matters on the court. And I think to your point about the game evolving, we are a skill-based game now. It's skill-based game. And these guys are over there. They're playing professional at 14 years old.

They're in the gym every day, getting proper coaching, proper training, all that stuff. So it kind of makes sense that this is sort of the time period where, look, Luca's going to win an MVP someday. Yolk it's just won one. Janus won two in a row. Like this is, you know, these European guys is what they're doing now. Well, I was going to ask you from the experience standpoint.

Another example of this who's still playing is Bogdanovich in Atlanta, who I don't think the casual fans necessarily knew very much about before this year because he was in Sacramento. But like that dude has just been ready. You could see it in game one of that series before he got hurt. It's like that he's played in a ton of big games. So he's not scared of the moment at all. No, these guys are men. They come over.

They've played against men. They played in, you know, Real Madrid versus. versus Barcelona, they played in these huge games in front of big, you know, incredible fans. And it's like for them to play 82 NBA games where they don't have to practice every day, like they do in Europe. Like this is probably easier for them, to be honest with you. And you know, dudes are going to try you. I mean, like, you just know it.

Like, you know. And I just, I feel like Luca, when I watch him, it became readily apparent pretty quickly that he's like, nah, dude. Like, I'm not that guy. You're not that guy. You know, the guy on the internet right now. It's just, it's fun to watch and it feels like definitely the toughness that exists in that part of the world and the things that they've seen. Like, you know, you're hearing about the stories of some of these war-torn countries and all that type of thing.

It becomes cliche, but at the same time, I mean, they bring that kind of, you know, that gravitas with them. Have I been through some shit? And I'm not worried about a guy chirping me on the court. No, that's you're 100% correct. And we had, you know, we had Nick Busevich. she's another example of one of those Eastern European guys. Like they've, I've played with him his second year when I was in Orlando.

As a young player, you could already see right away the skill level, but the mental toughness was there. Yeah. You know, and Luca like, look, those guys for the last two years in the playoffs, LA had, the Clippers have some tough players.

They have some big, you know, strong, uh, tough wings like, like Marcus Morris and Kauai and PG. And like he's, There's no back down from him whatsoever.

Yeah, no. It's been fun to watch that Mavs Clippers series that you guys, you know, been in now the Mavs two years in a row. It feels like a little rivalry to me a little bit. No doubt. Is there any chance that American football ends up mattering anywhere else in the world the way it does here? I don't know. I don't know that it does.

It takes so much infrastructure. It takes so much like because it's the ultimate team sport. And, you know, ideally you want guys playing different sides of the ball. the numbers have to be high. We've struggled to get youth football at the numbers that we, you know, like my high school, eight man football at this point.

A number of states have had to deal with more of that number bottoming out that, that ends up really crippling the sport. I do think in America there will always be good players because the demand is so high and there is kind of a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. But if you're like a kid growing up in Italy,

like what's the, like how's football going to bring you out of poverty? How's it going to get your? a scholarship to play. Now Virginia, we have a couple, like we have a German kid. We have some international kids. So that's creeping into the game. But I think in our lifetimes it'd be hard to see something like that happening, which I think is so interesting because the African players as well, and that's another market too. That's kind of doesn't get talked about as much as the Eastern European market. I wonder who maybe played 20 years ago that you think of that comes to mind

that if they played now, they would have had more success coming from that part of the world. because of the changes in the game and the globalization of the game. You know, rest in peace. Jocen Pesrovich, like, he was a great player. I think he made third team all NBA when he was with New Jersey, I want to say. But like he would be a superstar. You know, like Tommy brought up Bogdanovich from the Hawks. Jocelyn was him on steroids.

You know, he was a supersized version of him. And to have, for him to play in today's NBA, where he could take 10 or 12 3s a game. Oh my God. Yeah. He would average 30, 35 points a game. There's no doubt. He was unbelievable.

And I only got to see him play for like, I mean, I was young. I only got to see him play for like a year of what I remember. So a lot of it's based off just old YouTube stuff. But he was, he was amazing. And if you ask anybody from that era, they'll probably say the same thing. Like he was a little bit ahead of his time. Yeah. It's kind of a shitty thing to be in a sense.

Trey Young, Luca, like now people are at, naturally making it this thing like well trey got his team to the eastern conference finals look at him like so therefore you know the mav should have picked tray and not made the trade break it down for me when somebody's making a decision at the top of the draft you're trying to nb a generational player the impetus to do that in the NBA draft is higher than in the NFL it feels like i mean because that's like what you expect tray luca can't they help their teams in different ways and if they swapped. I mean, bring me behind the curtain when it comes to, do we just pick best available player or does Trey fit better here and Luca, vice versa, that sort of thing?

You've heard the phrase comparison is the thief of joy. Yeah, it does take it out of it. You know, I think when we, in our own individual lives, like in a very micro way, like, when we start comparing ourselves to other people, we lose a sense of joy. And I think if we look in a macro way from like NBA fandom, why can't we just indefinitely? Why can't we just enjoy them both. Why is it one or the other? But you're, you, you nailed it. If you have a top three or four pick, you're not, you're not drafting based on need. You're like, I need to nail this pick and draft somebody who's going to be a multiple time all-star and all-NBA level player. And it's, look, Tommy and I talk about this all the time, but like, teams miss a lot.

Drafting is hard. If I, if, if I ever become, you know, a front office, executive, I think my whole emphasis will be on the player's mental makeup. Because to be a star, you obviously need talent, but to really be a star to last, to have a 13, 14, 15 year career and play at that level for so long, you have to be in love with the game. And I think some of the misses are that. It's not that they missed on saying, oh, this guy's got talent, he's got potential, and he can do all these things on a basketball court. It's like, does he really love the game? And I don't know how you figure that out for an 18 or 19 year old kid,

but give me an hour in a room with the kid. Let me talk to him. And I bet you I can break that down. I bet you I can break that down. Do you feel like now the way coaches are becoming, and it's important that we include, you know, as many ex-players, I'm sure, into the equation as possible? I mean, who knows the game better than those guys?

I mean, a lot of these coaches spend their entire lives, and you've had great coaches didn't play. I know it's not, I don't know, a mitigating factor, but do you think we're going to a place where just traditional basketball coaches who didn't play are going to have a hard time getting into the business? I don't. Okay. Coaching, coaching requires acumen. And I think more than that, it requires interpersonal skills. So if you have interpersonal skills and you did not play in the end. you're going to be just fine.

Right. You're going to be just fine. You can coach at this level. Tommy and I talk about the Grizzlies. We've become like a Grizzlies podcast, I feel like, over the last two months. And like Taylor Jenkins, the guy didn't play in the NBA, you know? Right. He's done an amazing job there.

And so, yes, you're going to have guys who didn't play in the NBA that get forced out of a job or get fired. And the star player is going to be, say, I want somebody, I want somebody who's played who's played the game, who's played at the NBA level. But ultimately what you're going to find is the coaches who have basketball document and interpersonal skills, those are the ones that are always going to get head coaching jobs, keep head coaching jobs, and then potentially get, you know, a second job, a third job if, you know, inevitably all coaches get fired except for guys like Pop.

Bose like that in Miami, too. Yeah. Yeah. I remember the game. Spoe like, Spoke, I mean, from my TV set, he carried the stigma of like, look at this guy. He's a video guy. Like, and I'm sure there was a process down there in Miami where Pat, if it weren't for Pat, like, probably being like, this is my guy. It would have been harder for him.

And Rick Carlisle was like that until JJ came along and forced him out. Oh, there you go. That's unbelievable. Where are you headed next, bro? You're going to break it right here? Where are you headed next, bro? We have a decision for some sort of social ready just in case. You have my edit ready?

My edit. Hey, have you had two good? it a career to become John Shire's Nate James when he makes that phone call? I would I would I would I would I would do

anything for Duke. I really would I would do anything like if coach called or you know you cut your hand off for Duke no I mean like if they needed something like I would I would probably still I would at least consider almost anything in a serious way stepping up I'm not in a position right

now where I can coach. I want to play a little bit more, but also, like my kids are young. I don't want to have that lifestyle right now of coaching. I want to raise my kids and be around. I've missed, I mean, Chris, I was away for, my boys are getting ready to turn seven and five. And I was away from them for six months from Thanksgiving until I got home 10 days ago. I wasn't, I wasn't around them, you know, and it's, it was so hard. It was so hard. It's terrible. And you want to play a couple more, huh? We'll see. Okay. We'll see. So you're going to be. So you're going to coming up on 40 soon which is like incredible uh i don't know when this pod is coming out i'm turning so they're recording this on tuesday we got three more years right yeah i i'm turning 37 on uh

thursday dude it's fucking soon you can try to like it's coming dude we'll be we'll be dead before you know it okay look at us we look at us we look old as shit we don't know it because we're old and we're used to it but look at this zoom a bunch of grown men here you're going to be 40 in the NBA at some point hopefully I get to watch you play in your 40s. Who's the guy that you played with at some point you're here that you were like, I respect the grind of this old man. Because I see him in the cold tub.

I see him struggling to get out there and get shots off night after night. Who's the guy that you remember? You're like, man, that guy was grinding. It's such a random player because I think he played for like 11 teams. But I was with Anthony Johnson at the end of his career in Orlando.

And you talk about a guy who just loved playing basketball. basketball. Like this guy, like he would practice every day. You get his work in. Then he'd play pickup with whoever wanted to play afterwards. He'd play ones. Like he's like 35, 36 at this point. Body's not working the same way. And he's going after it. And then right after him was white chocolate was Jason Williams. Oh yeah. And Jason, he had problems in both his feet. He couldn't run. He had no running motion anymore. He was just shuffling along. And I mean, Jason, Jason does two things. He golfs every day, and to this day, he still plays basketball every day.

Like, he just, it's infectious. His love of the game is infectious. And white chocolate respects the dress code at country clubs and all that shit. Bro, I was literally, I was, I just came from hitting in balls at my club. Yeah. And one of the pros there plays with him all the time. Yeah. And he's, I mean, look, he comes up.

He's got, you know, neck tattoos, hand tattoos, whatever. Yeah. Like, he gets in every club. He was just talking, Jason plays, uh, the grove. What is it, the Grove 23? what's Michael Jordan's course in Florida. Oh, I don't know. We just got into golf.

Yeah, this pro was playing with him down there just like two days ago. So Jason gets in where he wants. All right. So Philly, you've played there. I've played there. You play basketball there. I play basketball there for people that are listening. And maybe don't know.

But if you watch the basketball game Sunday night, it got tense at Wells Fargo. They basically blew the series. It's the way I looked at it. When you see an implosion like that, And maybe the Hawks are just better. Maybe we don't give the Hawks enough credit for how they built around Trey Young. I mean, I personally believe that. But the things that the Sixers did that they could control down the stretch in that series

is incredibly disheartening when this is supposed to be the end of the process. Like this is supposed to be... So you've been there for part of the process. You're seeing this exit. Is it salvageable? Actually, I'm going to kind of lead this into something Tommy and I were talking about. I'm going to let Tommy kind of take part of this. and because we were talking earlier like

this playoffs for whatever reason seems more like the war of attrition than any other year I can remember because of the injuries and Tommy can just talk about this but like it's hard to sort of judge whether it's Brooklyn or Philly yeah think about think about who's left standing and think about the quality of players that have gone down

even in the last three weeks even Philly even Philly with Joelle I mean, Joel's playing on one knee. Yeah, but the problem in Philly is that Joel's the one that's got to create everything, in my opinion, I mean, in my dumb basketball head, like I see Ben Simmons is the elephant in the room, right? Everybody's talking about Ben Simmons, but how many guys can create their own shot on that team? Well, I think the unfortunate, in defense of Philly, the unfortunate thing, Seth was

was great his entire series. Yes, he was. Seth, I mean, Seth was really great the entire player. Seth was great. Tobias had at a seven-game series, Tobias had, four or five really strong games. Like you just have to, like the Hawks played their ass off.

I mean, Kevin Herder came in his first game seven and Okay, but a big part of this thing is Ben Simmons. And a big part, I know like I'm not trying to put JJ in a position where like, listen, you're a great shooter.

You see his shot. The shot, like his offensive production because he's a great player in so many ways. If he wasn't, if you weren't seeing this positive trajectory, you wouldn't have broke him off. So like, it's the rare situation where you have,

what did you call it before, distressed that. asset and you've already paid him in basketball, which seems more predictable than football. Like, you know what I mean? In football, there's so many reasons that you can get hurt, decline in skill, like all that stuff. But you just rarely see a player hit a wall. And I wonder, is that mental? Is it fixable? Hey, JJ, if you're the shooting coach, maybe you don't want to say this, but how would you fix a shot like that? Right. Well, let's talk about Ben for a second. So first of all, to your comment about there's no one on Philly that can create.

create their own shot besides Joel. The numbers would say that Ben creates more three-point opportunities and more three-point makes than any other player in the NBA. And I don't remember the exact statistical breakdown. We don't do numbers. But it's by a lot. Yeah. It's by a lot.

So he is creating, but he's creating in his own way. Right. I think Doc kind of alluded to this earlier in the season. I always say this about Ben. It goes back to the comparison thing. Like we want, we all want Ben to be something he's not. Let's appreciate who he is. Right.

Okay. Specifically, let's talk about this series then. Like, I feel bad for Ben. I feel bad for him. I don't know, I don't know all the ins and outs of what that locker room was like or what that team was like or what he's going through personally. But I have to think back, like, beginning of the year, your name is dangled in trade rumors. You're offered up for James Harden. You just signed a max extension.

Right. Now all of a sudden you're offered up for James Harden. That's got to do something to you, right? You know, he went through some personal stuff this year. That's got to do something to you. The Philly fan base is relentless. You know this. It's relentless.

What kind of toll does that take on you? I don't know. If every guy's different, some guys can handle it, some guys can't. I don't know what that did to Ben. I don't. Look what happened to faults down in Orlando, right? He turned his shit around at a pretty good click relative to what was happening up there. But also, a lot of these series are matchup based, and it's always weird to me,

I mean, maybe like fans don't want to hear this or whatever, but it's always weird to me when like everyone's first reaction is to just like shit on somebody all the time rather than give credit to either the other winning team or the coach that, like, I mean, I'll give an example in the Dallas series, in the Dallas Clippers series, Chris Staps didn't have the greatest series. But that's because the way the, the way the Clippers set up that small lineup, it didn't give him an opportunity being the best position to succeed.

It doesn't mean he's not a good player. No, I mean, welcome to sports in 2021. Unfortunately, we signed up for this. Like, we always dissect the bad first. And that's, you know, I think, like, I'm the same way as you, JJ, I felt bad for, and Tommy, I bet you might feel the same way. I felt bad for Ben Simmons because we just have crossed

a threshold in sports where, because of access to athletes and people just being frustrated in that sort of thing, like we are legitimately not treating this cat like a real person. Totally. No. I want to say something to what Tommy just said about K.P. About Christops.

Yeah. I told Christops just the day after the series. And I didn't want to tell them this during the series because I don't like fucking with guys, you know, heads or whatever. But I had a series, my last series with L.A. It was the worst pride playoff series of my career. We played the Utah Jazz. And it didn't matter where I was on the court.

They were top locking me, essentially face guarding me. It didn't matter if I was on the other side of the court, just inside half court. Anywhere I was, they were just complete top lock, right? And after game one, Doc says to the team, he's like, JJ, this isn't your series. This isn't your series. Your role of this series is to stand in the corner and space the floor. That's it. We're playing four on four.

I had like, I had games that series where I took like, played 30 minutes and took four shots. And, you know, and I was the third option on that team. And at the time, I was so frustrated. And the same, the same fucking thing happened to KP. You know, game after game one or game two, I can't remember what it was. You know, Rick was just like, look, this isn't your series. Like, we just need you to space the floor. And so, you know, he's getting relentlessly ridiculed by fans, social media, the media itself.

You know, and it's like, well, we're not doing anything to help the guy. He doesn't, he's not bringing the ball up the court. Right. Right. And it brings me to a second point just about guard play in general in the playoffs. Like you need a guy that's going to set the table. You need a Luca. You need a Trey Young.

You need a guy. Your best player. You know, and this is where I think Philly at times, I think it's, you know, maybe a little behind the eight ball is Joel's their best player, but he's not the guard.

Yokic is kind of the exception because of the way he plays where I think he can be the best player. And Joel can be the best player in a championship. I have no doubt of that. But that's where I'm not. I think that there's some struggle. And if the other team plays it right, to Tommy's point, if the other team plays it right and the matchups right, they got a good chance to beat a team like that.

Philly's the worst place probably to lose a series like that, right? Okay. Like, it's the best place to win a series or a football game, but it's the worst place to lose or lose a series, especially like that. What's the best place to lose a series like that? Like a series, have you ever lost the series where guys were just staring at each other in a locker room? Like, you know, because I feel like that was that kind of series last night.

guys were just staring at each other like what the fuck just happened and probably it's less confusing if you really break it down the way you put it well i actually had the same thought last night you know they're getting booed at the end of the game they're getting booed and i thought back to my time in philly and i'm like thank god the two years i was there we lost we ended our season in boston and we ended our season in toronto because i don't i would i mean there was a moment there was a stretch my my second year there I hit this really weird three week stretch

like I couldn't make a shot and I'm like I'm not like a slump guy I'm like dude I shoot two for 10 like my thought is like the next game I'm shoot eight for 12 if I don't do it the next game I don't get caught up at it but for some reason I had this three week stretch and fans like started coming at me a little bit and like I couldn't

help I'd be like oh fuck yourself I would go back at these people yeah but you didn't feel slumps no I feel like it's such a baseball player thing. And we were talking about this. Our friend Joe Harris, who's in Brooklyn, and he's talking about being the third option. He became like one of the primary options for that team. And he's like, he's missing shots.

But at the same time, the frequency with which he's having to hit him and also in the situations, I feel like might be different because of all the injuries. So you've been through a Joe Harris situation. Oh, yeah. So what do you do to get out of him? I told Tim Hardaway this. He was going through a stretch. And he ended up finishing the season, unbelievable.

And it's not because of what? I told him it's because he literally works his ass off and has supreme confidence. But he asked me, he's like, when you have a slump, like, what do you tell yourself? Like, what do you, how do you get out of it? And I'm just like, this, my mantra is literally eight for 12. Like if you, if I take, if I, if I'm in a slump, if I go two for 10 in the next game, I go, you know, three for 13, I'm like, all right, I'm going to shoot 12 times. If I take 12 shots that I can make and I'm only taking, I only take shots I can make. So I take some ridiculous shots, but I know I can make them. If I take 12 shots,

I can make, I'm going to make eight of them. Like, it doesn't matter what the defense does. Like, I'm going to make eight of them. And so you just have to take that mindset into the next game. You can't get caught up in like what has happened. It's just got to be like, I'm going to make eight for 12 this next game. And dude, swear to God, I'll go back. I'll find some shit.

But I'll go back and look at game logs and I'll be like, yo, like I was three for 13 this game. The bounce back game, dude, I had so many eight for 12 games. It's fucking insane. It's insane. How do you get over a bad pod? and this is not one, but I'm saying like you two working together, I know there's days where you're like,

one of you hates the pod, the other doesn't hate the pod, or maybe you both hate the pod, we have them here. What's the, what happens an old man into three when y'all just drop a dump? I was going to say,

generally if one of us is in a bad mood, generally it's JJ, we just don't do the pod. There's no reason to record a bad pot. That's something to think about. We just push it. Why the fuck would we record this when like either something's going on or just like it's just not the right day?

We just push it like nothing is nothing is like. Man, that's cool. When we become heavy hitters like you two, we'll fucking just push pods. But we're a total subscription based like kind of. We're on. We're on. We're on a streak. How many episodes have we done?

62? Yeah. We recorded our 63rd this morning. 63 for 63. Yeah. We've been going since August. I mean, I feel like we're put like we. We generally have one in the in the can, so to speak.

We've Evergreen one almost every week. So we have the luxury sometimes of pushing the pod. You know, I think since we started OM3, like we started Old Man of the Three, we've had mostly makes. We haven't had many misses. I can probably name on one hand the misses, and I'm not going to throw the guest or myself under the bus. One of that was a former NFL player that came on and drafted. hated the topic. And it was baked on gummies.

What was the topic again? It was best movie deaths. Yeah, it was Carlino's way. You were so up in arms. No, we changed it to something else. Best movie endings. It was best movie. Best movie endings.

Well, we did ending. It was that scene on the train. How can you forget? But we were originally going to do deaths and you only wanted to do it because of your dad. Okay. Got kicked out of a train by Christmas later. We talked about it last week. That's his claim to fame in the acting world.

Guys, I want to come on your pod to finish that get drunk with an athlete thing. We do, honestly. I want to bring my friend here. We can do this. Yeah, okay. We're doing this. We're doing this. Hey, JJ, do you get pissed off when you see J period, J period?

Because they're not initials. Yeah, so two pet peeves with my name. Number one is when they put two Ds on it because it's never been spelled that way. It's only ever been spelled with one day. I used to write J. period, J. Like when I was in high school. And then at some point early in my professional career, I was like, dude, why do I put periods there? That's stupid.

So then I'm like, now I'm pretty fervent about correcting people. Like, no, there's no, there's no, there's only one day. I called, there's this place in Sag Harbor called Estia's Little Kitchen. It's like got the best breakfast and brunch food. So I called earlier this morning and made an order for my wife. She was coming to pick it up. And she said, what's the name of order? I said, JJ.

JJ, okay. She was Jason. Jason, great. And I'm like, I'm not going to explain this. Dude, yeah, it's just too much back and forth. And by the way, if you're going to dinner with JJ Redick, evidently, no periods. Be careful if he calls ahead because I heard on one of these big late night shows that like you don't, you, the reservation, your reservation game is kind of sketchy. What a debacle? That is not true.

That's for another pod. That's for another part. Chris. That is not true. Okay. All right. Good. It was show business.

JJ Redick, one of our favorites, man. Cool dude. Great player. and Tommy Alter, who is going to go to Wrigleyville with me, for sure. I just don't know which day yet. Sarah. Love it. All right.

We appreciate it, guys. Thanks, that's your next. Next one. Old Man in the Three, check them out. That was good. That was fun. We do more crossover stuff. You know, we did good and bad.

We left out ugly. Let's do ugly. I noticed JJ referenced Tommy a lot there. Yeah, yeah. And then you sort of just referred to me as your sidekick. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is stuck with me in the last several. Well, you know what's going to be good is when people listen to the podcast, they'll hear right off the bat, hey, this is Macon, JJ and Tommy. And then from there, a sidekick is a slang expression for a close companion. Thanks.

Yeah, no problem. Or a colleague who is or is generally regarded as subordinate to the one they accompany. If you want to pay me at any point, you can pay me. But yeah, it's true. It's funny. We got to redefine what a sidekick is because when I I think sidekick, I think, hey, equal. We're kicking, and you're kicking right on the side of me. We're kicking together. We're in a karate fight together. Content karate, sidekick.

We're basically in a fight, I'd turn my back and let you fight right behind me, back to back. And one of the reasons why you and I are able to do that is because we're honest with each other. Yeah, that's true. And when I sent you a picture of a blemish on my neck this weekend, I believe what you said was,

Jesus. I could see Jesus in the Zit. It was, it was, you know, a lot of people see Jesus in like clouds and spaghetti. I just saw it in that pimple on your neck. And my lovely wife, as I'm being forced to go out into public,

you know, do a couple laps around the farmer's market. It's a good thing you have to go to Ruthquist Park City. She says, uh, I can't see it. There's nothing there. I mean, this I'm going to stick with blemish. Yeah, dude.

you can feel it. It's the type of thing you go get one of those little circle band-aids for just so people... What's the worst place to have is it? Probably Rudolph, front of nose. Oh, front of nose isn't great. Forehead's not great. But it also sucks when it's on the corner of your mouth because people are like, what you got going on there?

I'm like, it's a zit, dude. Like, you know what I mean? Corner of the nose is terrible. But I haven't had zits in years. Yeah. Do your victory lap. Let's hear it. My victory lap is that I don't shave my face.

I never do. So if you're like a Norelco, come holler. Rarely do I take that thing down below like seven millimeters. There's like a little seven millimeter guard. And it protects my face from grease. I don't get zits, dude. Well, hey, clear sill. I'm your boy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, people aren't doing, uh, it's another thing now. Reed, what is the commercial that everybody's on now? Proactive? Proactive. You got it. It's the main zip medicine, which I don't know that I'll be able to say, uh,

after a certain point. I think there'll probably be a more proper term for zip medicine. But yeah, dude, proactive. Top of the game. Maybe we can get a proactive ad for you. But you don't get a lot of zits. I'm just telling you if you keep the beard,

you don't get zits. But I can't get the beard. Yes, I'm clean. I'm really clean. Well, and V hydrated. That doesn't hurt at all. Oh, yeah. If you don't,

if you're not hydrated, if you're eating at TGIF Fridays, which I can't get right. If you're eating at that fucking place, If you're eating the, when you think about foods that make you just pop a Zit, like right away, a Zit just pops out of your face. What's your Mount Rushmore of those foods? I'm going loaded potato skins, like the scoop, like the ones that they cut them out and then they put cheese and chives and all that in there. Yeah, something, yeah, just fried chicken.

Oh, something just, maybe a blooming onion. Blooming onion. Oh my God. And I would murder a blooming onion right now. I remember we talked about personal blooming onions? Yes. When is that coming? Because I think it's, you're missing out, guys.

A personal blooming onion, if I could have a personal blooming onion, I would order that motherfucker right here to this podcast right now. Outback steakhouse, not even on Grubhub. Not even, you don't even have a personal option. I don't want to share a blooming onion with other people. Think about greasy hands and shit. It's one of the biggest design flaws in the Australian culinary scene. It's like a beautiful mansion with a, I don't know, structural issues.

It's a, it got mold. Mold. Yeah, mold, that type of thing. Rade on. You say, I can't do your job. You could do mine. I could do both. I could do both.

Yeah. I could at the very least accentuate your home selling efforts. What were we talking about ugly? This Zit. Yeah, I'm 34. Yeah. I don't know if sometimes we lose track. You're quite a bit older than I am.

36. Yeah. I'm 34. I thought this would be a thing of the past. Actually, at 34, I thought it would be no hair on the top of the head. but no zits. Here, you want to know the old remedy? Yeah.

You got to act 18. Hmm. If you're 34 and you act 34, you get 18 year old zits. It's reverse psychology for your skin. You got to do things like tubing. You got to do things like drinking beer. You got to do things like going outside.

You got to do things like being autonomous and telling, you know, your family what you want in life. I, just to, if we could clean up the A block, I wanted to be around my family. So I've got that going. And I do go outside, you know? And actually I put down two modellos on a...

But I was honest with you. And that's another thing is like, if my lovely wife asked me how Zit looks, I'm going to tell her. You know? Yeah. I have a really bad problem. If you ask me a question,

I tell you, I'll tell you. Likewise. And thank you for your, no problem. For your honest response when... No problem. Don't downplay your friend Zitz.

Don't do it. Everybody else in their life is downplaying it. That's why they came to you. One time, I think I might have told that. one time I flew all the way to St. Louis, Missouri to watch your sorry ass play football and you opened the door,

you can't even come pick a guy up at the airport, you open the door to your home, there I am, and you just start laughing in my face because I got a big old zip. Honesty's the best policy. I wish Tom Brady would be honest about who he was talking about. I had this written down in the ugly because it is ugly for whoever is redacted in this situation.

Tom Brady went on the barbershop. I'm asking this earnestly. Yeah. Is that the LeBron show? That's the LeBron show. But I don't think LeBron's on it every time. Okay. I've only watched excerpts on the internet.

And so... Lebron Jeanne. Lebron jimes. So I think the barbershop's a really cool concept. And to be able to draw people like Tom Brady in, I mean, like five years ago, could you imagine something like this? And could you imagine a quote like, this is Sports Center?

Tom Brady didn't forget what? happened to him during free agency, eyeballs at ESPN NFL. You get great by doing the Michael Jordan thing. Okay, so nobody was sleeping on Tom, but a few of these teams evidently were. One of the teams, and this is a quote, they weren't interested at the very end. I was thinking, you're sticking with that motherfucker? He went MF on him. He said motherfucker. He called a quarterback a motherfucker. So the question is who was it?

Now you look back at the odds for who was going to land Brady and the teams mentioned bucks, that's where he went, it's not going to be them, Chargers, they had Herbert.

It's probably not M. Fing Justin Herbert. Colts were pretty much all in on Rivers. He's going to respect a guy like Rivers, I would think. And then you got Titans, Niners, Raiders.

I don't want to say, I don't think he would call Jimmy Garoppolo a motherfucker, although that porn star did look kind of old. He can do better. Handsome motherfucker. Yeah, handsome motherfucker. No slander here. Good for Jimmy G.

But like, well, that, not so much. But like, Philip Rivers, you're not calling him a motherfucker. You're not calling who else. Justin Herbert. Nobody's calling Justin Herbert a motherfucker. Because Justin Herbert is QB like two or three in the league at the end of next year, unless he does

a big sophomore slump thing. Herbert, Herbert's a motherfucker. No, he's a mother. The way you say that, like J.B. Smooth said to us. You can say, like, you can't believe something? Motherfucker. This motherfucker. Motherfucker, no!

There's a lot of ways you can say motherfucker. Now that Justin Herbert, he's a motherfucker. That Justin Herbert's a motherfucker. Yeah. That Jimmy Garoppolo's a, that's a mother. He's a motherfucker, dude. He's out there with porn stars at Italian restaurants, like, out in the open, like, alone in the... That guy's a motherfucker.

motherfucker, dude. Who's next? Derek Carr. Derek, well, let me get to Derek Carr in a second. Philip Rivers, that's a real respectful motherfucker. I don't even know if you can call Philip Rivers a motherfucker. He doesn't fit the bill because he doesn't cuss. Derek Carr.

It's down to Derek Carr or Ryan Tannahill. And I think probably, if I had to guess here, I think he's talking about Ryan Tannahill. And that's not to say Ryan Tannehill is in a really good quarterback. I can't talk for Tom, but since Tom, you know, left this hanging out there. Of course, people are going to talk about it. I wouldn't call Ryan Tannahill a motherfucker. I have before, but it was on the field.

And he wasn't Tennessee, Ryan Tannehill. I think he looked at that Tennessee situation if I had to think like Tom, which I can't, and probably thought that team's pretty damn good. Like they're going to run the football. You got A.J. Brown on the outside. Before last season, the defense wasn't as bad. You know, I think there was a sense at one point that Tennessee didn't like him so much, and he liked Tennessee.

And boy, are we glad it worked out if you're a Tom Brady fan? Because the best team he could have joined was the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And to be fair to, whatever motherfucker he's talking to, they weren't on the bucks either. And I think it was probably Tan Hill. I don't think he was calling Derek Carr a motherfucker. I think the emotion was elicited because it stung. Here we are just playing detective, but because it stung,

because Vrabs wasn't quite sold in Vrabs, although he's a New England guy and they're on the same page. He's an older New England guy. So part of Tom is always going to probably respect the hell out of Vrabs, and it might have stung that he couldn't go play with his buddy. Yes, or Vrabs was giving him complete transparency,

and he's like, hey, I want you, but my hands are tied. The guys upstairs want to stick with Ryan. With this motherfucker. And that's when he goes MF. And Tom's like, you're sticking with that motherfucker? You're sticking with this motherfucker? And then Vraves was like,

no we're sticking with this this motherfucker you know what I mean and so they had the whole conversation we just had and it ended with Tom winning a Super Bowl in Tampa Bay and some animosity from the pick six ending the career in New England so that could get you to an MF that gets you to MF levels I think I think I think we're I think we're on it here I think if we're we're being detectives of the pool of teams that we know of I think probably Ryan Tannehill is that motherfucker do you motherfuckers have a great week How many inches do you think this is? Oh, easy, easy.

Three foot three inches. Wow, three foot four. Wow, dude, I'm good at this distance thing. Now, it's true. But I have noticed, I usually do about the same distance, so I need to mix it up a little bit. Three, four is totally different. You've been doing two seven?

It is, it's fairly remarkable. You all take care.