Green Light with Chris Long - Ryen Russillo! NBA Playoffs, Anthony Edwards vs SGA & Brock Purdy's NBA Comp!

Episode Date: May 20, 2025

Chris Long and Ryen Russillo rip through the NBA Playoffs. With four teams remaining - the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Oklahoma City Thunder face off in the Western Conference Finals and the Indiana Pacers and the New York Knicks face off in the Eastern Conference Finals - the season is coming down to the wire. The fellas talk about the player depth throughout the league, Nikola Jokic vs Alex Caruso, the MVP race, Anthony Edwards vs Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and discuss why each team winning would be best for the NBA. Then we turn to the NFL, talk about Brock Purdy, and answer a mailbag that covers military leaders as NFL coaches, remaining NBA teams as musical acts, and the best song that features a state in the title. As per usual with this pair, it's a blast. (00:00) Intro (2:45) NBA Playoffs (14:35) NBA MVP (22:15) Why Each Team Winning Would Be Best For The NBA? (40:35) NFL (48:45) Mailbag: Best Song With State in Title, Brock Purdy, And Which Historical Military Figure Would Be The Best NFL Coach? Have some interesting takes, some codebreaks or just want to talk to the Green Light Crew? We want to hear from you. Call into the Green Light Hotline and give us your hottest takes, your biggest gripes and general thoughts. Day and night, this hotline is open. Green Light Hotline: ‪[phone]‬ In need of sweet threads to vibe like Chris and the fellas? Check out ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠the website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for everything merch wise and enjoy for 25% off your entire order in celebration of the 2025 NFL Draft! sitewide! Also, check out our paddling partners at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Appomattox River Company ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠to get your canoes, kayaks and paddleboards so you're set to hit the river this summer. Green Light's ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube Channel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, where you can catch all the latest GL action: 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Yeah, I think the league is deeper now than I can ever remember. I have an MVP vote. I voted for Yokic. Right. Despite SGA season, which was incredible, it was not hard for me. I don't know how you watch that series and think SGA's better than Yokic. If they go to the finals, he's one of the best three or four players in Nick's history. If it were to be the Pacers at the end of this thing, it'd be one of the most unlikely rosters

to win a championship since I started watching this sport. Hey, man, rigged. I'm sorry. You think it's rigged? Can we get Kevin Gates on the pod? you and I. Yeah. Can we do like a joint pod with Kevin Gates?

Brock Purdy. Ben Wallace. Undrafted Hall of Famer. Huge contract extension. Let's say you could give any historical figure the necessary football acumen. Who are you hiring to coach your football team? Well, I'm not picking Napoleon because I just don't know that he has the record for it. And the rush of loss is like, what happened there?

Welcome to the Greenlight podcast presented by BetMGM. If you haven't signed up for BetMGM yet, use bonus code Greenlight. and you will get up to a $1,500 first bet offer on your first wager with BetMGM. Here's how it works. Download the BetMGM app and sign up using bonus code Greenlight. Deposit at least $10 and place your first wager on any game. If that bet loses, you will receive up to $1,500 in bonus bets. Just make sure you use bonus code Greenlight when you sign up.

Welcome to the Greenlight podcast. It's NBA Day. today here at Green Light. We've got Ryan Rucilla to rip through all things NBA playoffs. We talk MVP race. We talk Yokic, Anthony Edwards, Ascension, and how soon will he take over the league? And then we finish with a little bit of football, Brock Purdy, and answer a great mailbag. Thank you for answering the call. Sending us a few topics to hit. And big news, we've got a great guest later this week. Make sure you come back and Chris will be hitting the AFC schedule. He will run through it, just like you did the NFC. So stay tuned for that later this week. And we'll see you.

I want to welcome a good friend of the show. Ryan Rosillo on this Monday morning. Ryan, how we doing? I'm great, man. Good to see you, Chris. That's good to see you as well. Shoot, we should start with basketball, shouldn't we? Because that's the biggest story right now, even though the NFL tries hard to occupy the entire sports calendar.

We'll talk about that in a second. But I think, objectively, the playoffs are going great for basketball. Would you agree? Yeah, it's the West when you looked at the seating of everything, even though Houston was a two-seed and then they're going up against this second-half version of Golden State. To me, that's not some huge upset, even though the seeding of it. And then when you think about Denver and OKC being a second round game, I think the West was absolutely stacked on the eastern side to have the calves out after this historic regular season.

They're going to be one of the only teams of that kind of win total and point differential to not even make it to the conference finals, never mind the NBA finals, because normally those teams are at least contending for a championship. Then you have Boston who, you know, even without the injury to Tatum, I think they go down 3-1 in that game. They were down, you know, nine points after the steel,

three minutes to go. So, you know, maybe you say, hey, with Tatum, they're able to come back. I don't know. I mean, something was wrong with that Celtics team offensively throughout all of these years, and yet they were still able to win a championship last year, despite the concerns you would have

if you watch them execute offensively. in some tight games the last couple of years. So I like that, you know, a sport that normally, and I think this is kind of at least the lesson for this year, depending on what happens. But again, I'm not, you know, I'm not sure. OKC is clearly the favorite with these four teams remaining. But, you know, a sport that doesn't feel like it has much parity,

if you don't have a top five player, if you don't have two of the top 15 players, you know, that's how the sport is usually dictated. You know, okay, cool, we have a nice team. We like what we've done. Good draft picks, good coaching. we run good stuff and it's like yeah but if you don't have one of those guys you don't really have a chance and so look okayc clearly has one in sGA who may end up being the MVP uh aunt is on that path

brunson is is clearly like you know look i think i voted him either fifth in MVP last year or all NBA first team i forget like one year i kind of put him on second team but voted him higher for MVP because I thought he was so important. But then you have a Pacers team where, you know, even the biggest Halliburton fan, like I voted them third team all NBA. Some people left him off and he's their best player. And that's not supposed to happen. And I think the Knicks and Pacers is a really even series.

So it may be a sampling of parity that is a year we'll go, remember that year in 2025? Or it could be with some of the new financial restrictions with the way that they've, you know, kind of hard-cap this sport, it could be the new norm. I'm not ready for that. But it's definitely something that I think probably gives other fan bases hope to look at what's happening in the East. Let's stay here for a second because I kind of wonder if there's a delta between the way the NBA thinks about what they would ideally have their final four look like for all

the reasons you just mentioned, like star players, like the superstars, that sort of thing. And maybe SGA is the next superstar. and aunt can be the next face of the NBA. But I feel like fans want this more than the NBA might. I feel like fans like, this is refreshing. For me, at least, looking from the outside end, you know, either it's going to be a first title for three of these franchises or one franchise, my Knicks, it's been 50 years.

So I think from a fan-based standpoint, and I'm a casual, but I like to see a little parody. Is it panic time in the NBA as? this last crop of stars kind of leaves the game over the next five years, can these guys carry the league going forward? Yeah, I think the league is deeper now than I can ever remember when I think of, you know, some of these players and how skilled they are, you know, the guys that aren't even starting for teams. There were some pretty lean years in the early 2000s where you're like, man, you know, how many stars do you have? And then speak into the cycling out of some of these players

because, you know, this LeBron thing, despite his production going beyond anything we could ever thought was imaginable, it's got to be over at some point. Steph, who I love and was terrific again this season, unfortunately hurt in the playoffs, but, you know, I don't know how many more playoff prime Steph Curry runs were going to get. You know, you can throw in Durant. You know, I don't know that AD would be at that level, but like I can give you a list of a bunch of players. it's like, okay, they're going to have to replace all these guys. And then you get real negative about it being like,

how are you going to replace LeBron? How are you going to, well, you're not going to replace those guys. You're not going to replace somebody like Curry, whose impact. And what he did to this game, you know, it was so crazy. I was thinking about it the other day with Curry. When he first started doing this and just kind of pulling up from anywhere, it was so incredible. Like I was worried it might be like fake for a little bit.

Is this just this weird stretch of a few months where he's going to make these shots? And it's like, no, he's actually going to do it his whole career, man. But I remember being just an NBA fan in the post-Jordan concern years where it just felt like the league was doomed. And they were forcing all these storylines. And then it was supposed to be Kobe. And then it kind of was Kobe for a little bit. I mean, nobody's MJ, but the league will find a way.

It'll find a way. But if there's a matchup, like, I don't think they want OKC and the Pacers in the NBA finals every single year based on market size. Right. So you just said it probably. Like my next question was going to be, what do you think the NBA wants? They probably want Ant Man in New York. Totally. Yeah.

I mean, market size alone, New York's the biggest market. Minnesota is, I think, 13th maybe. It's medium. Yeah. But that's better than the market that like the loves truck stop is the sponsor. That loves trucks. That sponsorship badge is huge. Oh, it's huge.

It's huge. Do you have a hat from there? No, but I. I would love to have a love truck stop hat. I'm sure that's coming in the mail soon. I see a light bulb going off in your head. You're going to get me one. And then on the other side of things like the Pacers, yeah, like coming out of that

Cavaliers series, I heard, I forget who said this, Channing Fry said this. And he was talking about the Cavs not being a playoff basketball team because they're not physical enough. Do you think that's what got exposed to this year in the construction of that team is there's a lack of physicality or do they just run into a buzzsaw in indie? Bill and I spend a lot of time after the teams are eliminated like, what do you do now? And I usually default to teams going, hey, we're pretty good.

We're going to run it back. I mean, they won 60 plus games. They have four really good players. And then they added Gianni Hunter in the trade, you know, that was, I think one of their problems was on the perimeter. Would they have enough defenders to match up against Boston? like everything felt about, you know, like how are they going to match up against Boston? But I'd say over the years, the bigger concern I had with them is can you play two centers,

even though Mowbly, like we can call them a power forward, but, you know, we've been really over the years conditioned to believe like you can really only play one of those guys. And in a playoff series, do you have two dudes that don't space the floor at all in Mowbly and Allen? But I think it was a real thing in some of their other playoff failures. This year, Atkinson clearly staggered those guys and wanted to break them up. It was clear, like, I'll keep Garland, I think, with Alan and then Mitchell with Mobley. And then when they had that big comeback against the Celtics in the regular season where they were down 25, like before even people took their seats, they closed with Mobley. And then Hunter came in and Allen was on the bench.

And that's how they closed like the last five minutes of a really close game. So when I'm watching this stuff in the regular season, I'm thinking, okay, well, maybe this is going to be their plan if they're stuck. But the reason I say they probably run it back, I don't know. I mean, Channing would know better than I did because he played, and I don't know that I looked at it being like a physical thing. You lose Mobley for a game. You blow the huge lead in two. Garland was clearly compromised with that toe, and then he misses time.

So I can completely see Kobe Altman, their GM and Atkinson saying, okay, the Pacers thing sucks, but let's not get weird, because there's some real excuses health-wise that we can point to. Now, maybe they are tremendously flawed, and they're going to be this great regular season team. I thought they took real steps of figuring out a way to be tougher to defend with the way mobily improved and the way they kind of staggered those guys.

And look, a lot of teams are playing traditional centers and power forwards now, so you actually would want this. Something that seemed a negative, seems like a positive to even have that kind of option on the floor. And look, the Pacers, sometimes I think it's overrated when it's like hey this team gets some playoff seasoning and it's like yeah they got killed and then we never even heard from them again right and if you look at the Pacers run through the playoffs last year it was littered with teams

that were hurt then they get to the eastern conference finals they're competitive with boston but they're also swept so they're competitive in the games when it came to closing time like you could see the real separation between those two teams but now that I've had a year to think about it And now that we've seen the result, and I'm playing the results here a little bit, that run must have meant a ton to that group, because it's the exact same group. Mathrin's healthy. And, you know, all you really need to do is believe in yourself in sports.

That's probably the most important thing. And they clearly have more belief because of that run last year. In the West, you're showing up to a game at the Oklahoma City Thunder Arena. You show up to a game. Ryan, are you a take this T-shirt and put it on type of fan? Which year are we talking? I'm not wearing it now, but I mean, you know, you're not doing the t-shirt thing. Like you show up to an arena.

They got the t-shirt laid out. Everybody's in a blue t-shirt. Are you a blue t-shirt guy? Are you like, I'm sorry, I'm not putting this on? Am I, like, from Oklahoma City and I'm not in the media? Yeah, let's say you're from Oklahoma City. Let's say you're going to a Lakers game. Yeah, I'm wearing this shirt.

I'm wearing it out. I just can't see you being the type of like, yeah, let me put on this blue t-shirt. shirt for you all um no it's a fair assessment but you know me like this version of me i mean i wouldn't do it now because i just go like look i don't even wear ls u gear when we go to the lsu games because that's true that's true i don't know no need no need you're part of the family you're part of the family when i went to ls u.s a couple years ago old miss was so incredible to me and then my guy that was kind of showing me around and then he's like we're going to have you kind of stand over here in this little area and then you're good to go

And then I think he had a bit of a panic like 30 minutes before kickoff. He's like, wait, you're an LSU fan? Yeah, man. Like I'm like, yeah, that's. You don't follow the show, huh? That's why I'm here. And he's like, do you have like gear on? Like, are you going to wear a shirt?

Like, you can't. It's all the athletic people like boosters from Ole Miss. And like, I was like, dude. And I like unzip what I had was a gray t-shirt. I said, don't worry. I was like, I'm not going to be like freaking out on third down. I kept it neutral. I kept it neutral.

Yeah, but I think if I'm just. regular guy, especially of living Oklahoma City, to me, the move to show that you're above the shirt, like that's a more hard-o move. Yeah, that's a hard-o move. I just wanted to make sure that you understood, like, if you lived in

OKC, you would put that shirt on. Hey, sometimes being a sheep, you're like, all right, where are we going? Where are we going? You know, you don't want to be the sheep. We're going to the Western Conference finals, man. Is SGA the MVP this year? I haven't been keeping up with your basketball talk. Is this a big bit right now?

What's the deal with you and your mentions in Yokic right now this morning? Well, I don't know how you watch that series and think Yokic is the problem. You know, I know people, and I'm convinced that these accounts, whether it's, I saw like an NFL rookie watch account the other day. And I think they're all run by teenagers. And I think whenever I see in your bio featured on ESPN TNT, I just go, no, you weren't. aren't like you've never been you're not featured on anything maybe somebody read a tweet but

it's like the ultimate giveaway that you're probably just taking videos from other people sniping them and the thing is is we're all dumb enough to keep retweeting your videos that's what we do yeah i'm like i'm like man fuck ml football's got a really good tweet right now i could find the the uh original author of the tweet but uh i think i'll just retweet this one yeah i mean i know look there's plenty of stuff with boomers that people can be upset about especially when you're trying to buy a house if younger right now and looking at the appreciation of homes of again people older than us sure and so you're like I understand some of this youthful uh angst but at the same time like how do I expect you to run a country in 20 years you're just stealing each other's fucking videos left

right I kind of wonder yeah if you take the the pool of young people we have how fucked we are can you imagine these people like being involved with an HOA you're like this is your property line and then the kid just goes to bed and moves the property line like well everybody's asleep and then just go whatever dude like it's just like a fucking meme it's the same thing it's not real it's something that you've accepted as a boundary it's uh what do they call money it's a human construct yeah yeah that way property lines are human constructs yeah you've decided to follow this yeah it's all philosophical uh yeah that line from ray and veep is is what are you talking about talking about the general like hey it's just paper it's it's something that we believe like we're talking sapiens right now you know i'm not up on veep didn't that what you and my dad watch late at night uh when you came to visit or was that uh what what what show was that i'm pretty sure we're watching west wing yeah yeah west wing we watched once and i think there was an episode of law and you packed a dip with him yeah i had to because by the way dude i am done was in nicotine i know

the installs bad deal all right you're on it then was it yeah back to the real thing no i was i was to our regularly scheduled programming a wet dip i was sitting there with with your dad and it was like three we just come back from our little dive bar you and i not not my dad no no no it was great because we were pretty tame actually and we came back and your parents were still awake because we didn't come back like that late and then we told them about the fight remember the fight between like the montana state guys or something oh yeah that that little dude kicks in my ass yeah yeah and and and the best thing that you noticed about fights and bar fights in montana is like when it finishes everybody just goes back to where they were drinking before i don't even know if anybody was

thrown out nobody gets thrown out of the bar people just go back to wherever they were drinking and uh and it's settled um all right back back to the thunder series carruise on Yokic, is that as big a deal as people are making it? Did he was, was that a wrinkle that, like how out of left field is that wrinkle? Put it in football terms. It felt like chipping a little bit with what Alex Caruso was doing to him where you're just trying to impede the progress. Right.

I actually, it's on my to do list. I want to go back and watch all of the clips because, you know, you, I took us on this tangent here. I have an MVP vote. I voted for Yokic, despite SGA season, which was incredible. It was not hard for me. I don't know how you watch that series. I don't know how you watch that series and think SGA is better than Yokic.

And considering how much comfort you have when you're playing Denver, and you start cheating more and more off of everybody else being like, I'm just going to have to. So to me, it was Caruso. And when you're the smaller player, like smalls versus bigs, that is a gap that will never be negotiated any kind of summit. Small guys get away with murder against big guys. That has always been the case. So if you look at the clips, like if you're anti-Yokic today, you're saying, oh, my God, Caruso shut him down.

You're like, well, that's not my guess is I'm going to go back and look at all this stuff. And again, in watching the game, it's like, yeah, Caruso is there to be into him and then front him. So he's making almost like the running back coming out on the wheel. route where you're like can I just get some hands on them and redirect me? Yeah, you want to redirect. Right. Mess up the timing. I'm not going to be able to run 20 yards down the field with this guy, but if I can just disrupt what their timing is, then I've done my job. And with Caruso, I think it's it's more about making Yokic have to fight. Caruso's going to get away with more shit. And then on the catch, you've taken more time off the shot clock. The help is coming. You've done like the first part of the

three jobs that you need to do between Yokic before the catch, on the catch, and then on his decision. So, you know, look, Yokic was not the issue here for Denver. No, that tracks. That tracked. I mean, what you're saying makes a lot of sense in a cross-sport standpoint. And then the frustration that mounts throughout the game. Yeah, look, Yokch could have been better in a couple spots in this series. The turnover stuff with him was some of it was on him. Some of it's this great Oklahoma City defense. It's been great all season long.

One of the things that always stood out to me against them is that if you waited, then you were going to be in trouble. Like when you have the ball, you have to be quick with your decision. And if you wait and you give them time. But there's a lot of the stuff that they were doing with Yokic, is they weren't just straight doubling him. They were doubling him once he had decided to move, usually, which is a recipe because he's such a great passer.

But the problem is when you look at what happened specifically in game seven, you look through the others, right? the other guys that are supposed to be making shots, and it's just brick city from everybody. So I know that this, the NBA player is the part that I hate. It turns into just whatever players we think are really special.

The chances are, all of them are going to be eliminated, except for like one or two. Right. And so you get to take, if you don't like that special player, especially somebody like Yokic that so many of us in the media just adore,

you're likely going to have your moment to be able to shit on him once he's eliminated because they're all going to get eliminated. Right. It's like quarterbacks in the NFL. Same thing. Arlowski. Okay, so anyways. What's the Orlovsky joke?

I'm not kidding. The joke is he had an MVP vote and he voted for Josh Allen, which I didn't think was indefensible, but a lot of people did. They thought that it was very clearly Lamar's year. Lamar had better numbers than in years past and still didn't win the MVP. I'm not going to,

to go back and analyze that race. Because I think it's just a, it's a, it's a beehive. And it's one that I don't want to turn over. Okay. But the one thing I wanted to talk about was, now that we've got the final four set, I think it'd be interesting for you to make a case for why each of the respective teams winning would be good for the NBA. OKC is the third smallest market, 26 out of 28.

and this is a master class in roster construction. And, you know, look, they completely lucked out with the SGA trade because they could just name their price. Like whatever you're allowed to give us is what we're going to ask for because the clippers, by getting Paul George guaranteed them Kauai. So however you want to revisit that trade and go, man, Oklahoma City got, you know, they absolutely. destroyed the clippers on that deal. Well, at that time, there's no front office that's sitting there with ownership being like, hey, if we do this deal, we get Paul George again. So it guarantees us Paul George and Kauai in an offseason during their primes.

And you just, you do that. You do it every single time you have a chance to do it. So none of this works without the SGA piece and him becoming this kind of player. But, you know, what was so frustrating when OKC was losing some of these games against Denver because, you know, Denver on paper was like not great defensively. You know, they fire their coach. Clearly they had issues. We knew they have depth issues and all of those things showed up again in game seven.

But, you know, I just think the world of Sam Presti, the guy that's doing this with Oklahoma City and stockpiling all these assets and drafting a team that he wanted to be really complimentary of each other, like very specific set of skills that you have to have. You have to make decisions with the ball on your hands. You can't be like completely one-dimensional offensively. you have to be able to switch and defend multiple positions and all this kind of stuff. So, I mean, it's easy to say, hey, this is the blueprint, right? Like, I've heard, like, the blueprint is, oh, you know, have a great shooting back court like Golden State.

It's like, okay, you have to find the greatest shooting back court of all time. Of all time. Yeah, go ahead. Good luck. Enjoy your summer. So it's easy to say that now other teams would emulate what OKC, what company plenty of teams would like to try it. But I've just thought Presti, he needs the ring. He needs the ring.

to then be allowed to be talked about as, as I think, the greatest roster builder that you have in the NBA right now. On the other side with Minnesota, this ant coronation would be unhinged in the best possible way. I mean, this guy's, he's doing stuff that you could really criticize in his personal life, which I don't necessarily love doing all that much. But, I mean, he was taking free throws and laughing while the crowd was chanting child support. He was laughing. then removing that part of the negativity and focusing on the positive part of it, he is the most fun thing to watch in the league.

Like when he had that third quarter against Golden State and it's just on, I mean, I don't, I mean, other than a curry game, it's my favorite thing to watch and to see him getting all of this attention. If he were to get to an NBA finals and then to win this whole thing and the whirlwind of like, what can this guy do? And like he's just going to be bumped up even if he's the exact same. same player. You obviously haven't watched Josh Hart a lot. I have watched a lot of Josh Hart. He's really fun, dude. Dix are fun. Yeah, but I agree. I mean, this guy's the guy they

wanted to be the face of the NBA. And, you know, last year was disappointing. Now, if he can pull this thing off, it'll be interesting to see how they juice this market. Well, I think the cool thing about the NBA is that this might be the most NFL part of what it is, is that you can be in a smaller market. And look, it's not like Minnesota's like OKC here, but market size, because it's such a national product, certainly more national than baseball is. Baseball feels like it's going more in the regional direction, the national direction. But you don't have to be in New York, LA, Chicago, Miami to be the face of this league. Can't be in Dallas, can you? you can be if you were dirt

hey man rigged I'm sorry you think it's rigged oh I listen so you're in on the Lakers part of it bump the Lakers but we'll do this and everybody's going to hate you

for the rest of your life yeah like like right you know the funniest thing about Nico Harrison and his outlook is even if this works out everybody's just going to be like well the NBA did it it wasn't even you well it would be more than it would have been Nico if people didn't believe in the conspiracy.

Here's what I would ask is that conspiracy theorists love the examples that could potentially prove the conspiracy while consistently ignoring all of the other data. No question. Like usually way more data that would tell you like why did Tim Duncan end up in San Antonio? Well, yeah, that's the whole problem. That was the year Stern was like, Stern was like, hey, let's give it a year. let's keep ursillo on our side i did this whole thing the other day on the pod about how the

NBA is rigged um and uh you were mentioned a uh and it started for me was that 2002 game six um it was uh it was kings kings lakers that's where the the the sea got planted in my little head and uh now over 20 years later i'm seeing the lottery balls bounce uh dallas's way and i'm like listen maybe the frozen letter thing was real. I don't know what to do with the frozen letter thing because I'm not, I'm not disputing that one. I don't know anything, obviously. I'm just like everybody else on this.

I watched it 20 times the other night on YouTube. It's really hard to tell how you would be able to tell which letter to even grab for. So it looks really hard to do. I guess clearly it would benefit the league to have Patrick Ewing in New York City. Clearly. And knowing Stern and how much he would, but I don't, I don't feel comfortable accusing it. I'm just saying like there's a certain timeline of like, maybe you have me then, but then it's like if they were able to do with them. But here's what I would ask on all of this conspiracy stuff.

Do you know how many people would have to be involved in the train of conversation to go, okay, Luca, we're sending him to L.A., and that's why you're only going to talk with them. And that's what we'll say after the fact that you didn't talk to any of the other teams. And that's why they're all going to be surprised and realize he wasn't on the market because this whole thing's fixed. All right, so let's just play it out. So that means the Lakers are involved. It's Lakers' ownership, Lakers decision makers, Palinka. Okay, fine.

Because I guess you don't even tell Luca. That means new ownership in Dallas. And Nico's sitting there being like, are you guys serious? You're going to make me do this, all right? But yep, don't worry, because then we're also going to figure out a way to rig this lottery, which, again, you know, I know Chris Mannix was on with me and he said it's impossible. Nothing is impossible, Adidas, right, if you really wanted to do it. Kevin Garnett, Jason Tatum.

So if this kind of stuff has been going on for decades, how come no one's ever cracked and done the 60 Minutes interview? Because it's too good. It's too good of a story to not be the guy that's like, hey, I'm going to tell you how it all went down. How come that's never happened? The burden of proof on conspiracy theorists is so it's such a low bar. All you have to do is have a hunch.

And then, you know, like anybody that's on the other side. And you have to be like not wrong once. I didn't say right, just not wrong once. And then everybody else is held to the standard of truth. So in general, I'm with you. I just, as a casual, when I saw the lottery ball, bounced their way, I was like, damn, dude, they even got him a new white guy.

I mean, it was just like, it was just scripted. And people were like, yeah, watch what happens. And I was like, I was like, no, that's not what's going to happen because of all the reasons you just mentioned. But it happened. It happened. Listen, again, another beehive. I don't want to kick over.

I think you're doing a great job on this road. Don't want to kick over? I don't want to kick it over. I'm not NBA media, so it's not a big deal if I do, but I'd just rather not kick it over. How about the Knicks winning? It's self-evident why the Knicks winning a title would be good for the league. But I think the blueprint with which Tibbs built this team is a lot of fun,

and it's differentiating. It really is. I mean, you talk about a blueprint, like, hey, good luck repeating the Golden State blueprint. You just laid that out. Like, go find the best shooting back court of all time. the Knicks thing feels like a blueprint that's a little bit more elective where you could be like, hey, listen, it's going to be tough to get guys to buy in like this, but I can get a bunch of guys who will play defense and fly around and hustle. I mean, like Jalen Brunson, I don't think anybody expected him to be like this in the second act of his career.

Certainly I didn't. And it's always, it's always confounding to me in a sport like the NBA. It makes more sense in the NFL why a guy might not shine in one spot, like a Trey Hendrickson. Like he's not a high draft pick in New Orleans. He ends up in Cincinnati and he goes bananas because he's the feature edge rusher and he develops. But in the NBA, I don't see it a lot where a guy's like a role player in Dallas and then all of a sudden becomes like one of the best players in Nick's history. If they go to the finals, he's one of the best three or four players in Nick's history. Yeah, I think he's knocking on the door of that.

We're more impactful for sure. I mean, I'm not saying best necessarily. But yeah, I mean, fuck it, I'll say it. Yeah, one of the loosely used adjective best nicks of all time. Yeah, I, you know, I don't need to sit here and be like, hey, no way you have him, you have, you have, you should need you have him eighth. Right. Right. I was like Spraywell.

Chris Childs. Yeah, he got him to the finals against the, against the fucking Spurs. Wasn't the lockout year? Yeah, it was. You want to talk about weird seating years. worst. And then the Knicks getting that far. And then, you know, there's their own health issues with that team anyway, but nobody really got. Oh, anyway, suck the Knicks off real quick is what I meant to say in that big long run on question. Here's what I think it is. The next time, and this is for the parents, the next time your kid's asking for something, right? And he's just dead set on it.

You're like, you know what? Sometimes when you don't get what you really think you want, it's the best thing for you. Yeah. Look at the Knicks with Durant and Kyrie. Yep. You know? Yep. So I think that's...

You mean that? I can tell you're going to be in funny, but like you kind of mean it, maybe? I just think there's tons of examples. I can even point to all the stuff in my life career-wise where I thought I wanted something so bad. And then when it didn't happen, I realized like two years later, thank God, that thing that I wanted so bad. It was so disappointed that it didn't break for me. That had that happened, then all of these days. different things you know anybody that's out there going through a tough breakup same thing you

know what i mean five years later you're looking at your kid in the backyard going that guy wouldn't even exist if i'd stayed with her and put up with her shit yeah and she was in a mind comp yeah i've read it twice no that's from succession okay when he sits down with raven head to bet him i've seen succession so i want to make sure no i know i know i know he's like if you read mind comedy he goes yeah i've read it twice He's like twice. I hope people get the Kyrie joke as well. Anyways, continue.

That wasn't even what I was going with. I'm just telling you that like you have, you have these plans as an organization. And if you're banking on Cap Space, you're likely going to be really disappointed. And for years and years, you know, I completely overrated Cap Space because you're just not in control.

You're not in control of anything. And you're better off making trades. and the Brunson thing hit. It hit at a level that's almost not repeatable because you're right. I mean, second round pick, nice little role player with Dallas. I thought even at the time, it's like they're going to drop a $100 million on this guy. And he's, you know, there's times where he looks like, I don't know if he's one of the five best players in the NBA, but he's had a season where it felt like he was the fifth best player in the league.

Right. And he looks incredibly comfortable in the biggest moments, which is worth more than any statistical, you know, height that you're going to reach. and he's kind of unguardable and some of the stuff. And I mean, it's just, look, teams for years ago, hey, I like this guy, like this guy, but small point guards in the playoffs, like you're going to run into some trouble. They're going to blitz the shit out of them.

They're going to wear them down. They're going to bring the ball up and check them full court. And like, it's just going to wear some of those guys down. He's going to be targeted on defense. All of these things that I thought would probably happen to him, especially in that Celtic series, it wasn't an issue. And here we are.

And so the Bridges trade, maybe it's an overpay, but I love him. They'll worry about it later. And I love what Bridges has done in this series too, Chris, because those moments in the fourth quarter where he's just cooking on his own, and you need that. Hey, we got to sit our top two scoring options down.

Do we have a third guy that we can trust with the ball in his hands? And he is answering that bell, and he's going to keep doing it, I think, against the Pacers, because I think it's easy to forget how skilled he is offensively because he gets stuck in the corner

when the five guys are all playing together. No question. makes all the hustle plays. I mean, he's there in the biggest moments of the game defensively. And I already mentioned Josh Hart, who I'm a huge fan of, just the pace. There plays a relationship there? Are you getting him on the pod? No, not at all.

I'm just a, I'm a Knicks fan who likes the role players. And even Mitchell Robinson, who I thought airballing that free throw was one of the most humanizing things I've ever seen in sports. It went under the net. I've never seen that angle of an air ball before. Like Reggie Miller goes, hey, it happens though? I was like, that doesn't happen. No, it was like a line drive.

It tickled the bottom of the net. And then, you know, you watch his open gym stuff on like Instagram. There was a page where he was just running an open gym with like regular people. And he looked like a seven foot guard. It's just amazing. It puts into perspective how great these guys are. I just wanted to say that. And then lastly, we've got the Pacers.

This shouldn't be a long answer. why is the Pacers winning the NBA finals good for basketball? Sorry, I know I'm long-winned. It's kind of a long answer. Because this is, if the Pacers were to win the whole thing, all right? This is, to the original point that we talked about with the parody, even though, look, SGA might be the MVP here, so it's not like, OK, C's running out there without a top five guy.

Halliburton, for this season, at best, a top 15 guy. he's not a top 10 guy I mean look if the Pacers win the whole thing that he gets bumped up top 10 same way Booker got bumped up and you know like all sorts of crazy shit starts being thrown out there but in my lifetime

I cannot think of a team that won a title without somebody that we considered you know at least top 10 okay at least top 10 like even the Celtics I remember I got a bunch of shit in Boston because I was like Pierce isn't a top

five player, right? And if people go back and think about it, they're like, what are you nuts? And like, at that time, I didn't think Pierce was a top five player in the NBA. He was third team, I think all NBA in 2008. Nobody was talking about him that way, despite how, you know, I think he's actually kind of underrated a little bit career-wise. Garnett was first team all-MBA in 2008, but I think some people still probably would prefer Duncan than Garnett. Garnett may have made first team because the record was better. So, you know, if you go through it like Dirk against that, Miami team, but it was still Dirk, right? All the Miami teams, all the Golden State teams, Kauai's incredible run.

You know, you still have LeBron in 20. You've got Janus in 21. 22, you still have Steph. Denver has Yokic, the best in the world. 24, Tatum's fifth and MVP voting, I think, or at least all NBA first team. Right. So, like, there are these neighborhoods, these players, and I can just keep going on. And maybe you would argue Detroit.

Maybe it's a little bit like Detroit in 2004, but I still felt like Billups, the way I looked at him. Maybe that is a good parallel with Halliburton, and I'm not being able to rattle. How are we talking about every one of the top players? But this is not supposed to happen in this sport. And so if it were to have, if it were to be the Pacers at the end of this thing, it'd be one of the most unlikely rosters to win a championship since I started watching the sport. enough said now who you think's going to win it it's okay c's but i do think the odds when they came out it was okay c minus 375 i didn't think it would be that uh Minnesota on the other side plus

300 that is really disrespectful of Minnesota i thought and maybe i should check it again today um not that i'm smarter than the people that do this for a living but sometimes that yeah it's still 375 so yeah i'm surprised by that You said who's 375? OKC's minus 375 in the series against Minnesota. I was surprised, because I do think they're going to match up better with OKC than that number would tell you. But OKC was just such a train all season long.

And it's why when you looked at the odds too, the math that goes into building out these numbers, they had a hard time quitting Boston. Right. You know, Boston was still favored by four and a half points. in game five and they were right about that one. Game six was pretty even and it was a humiliating ass kicking. Oh, I bet the Nick seven ways game six.

It was incredible. It was awesome. Was it one and a half? Can't fool me. I forget what it was. I just took them. I just took them. Well, I took them spread and I took them money line parlay with the under.

All right. So little transition into football here briefly. Right. the NFL schedule release has become and listen I did I did a whole pod last week on the NFC schedule release and I was supposed to do an AFC schedule release today I'm just going to tell you I'm not going to fucking do it I am so tired of talking about these schedule release because we have the games and the matchups well in advance and we're doing this thing collectively as the media where we got to turn this thing into a week of content. I can't do it anymore. It's been three, four days. I'm over

it. But the NFL sees a lot of value in teasing the schedule release and then releasing the schedule like this. We are trying to take over the calendar. We took over Christmas. That's not even trash talk. It's just reality. If you were the commissioner of the NBA and you were expansion-minded, how would you better utilize the calendar to be more competitive with the NFL? Or would you you just say uncle and let them have what they want i hate the schedule release content but i totally get it so thank you it's just pointless i mean at least with college you have some of the out of conference stuff you're trying to figure out like is this team going to escape through and be in the playoffs at 10 and 2 and not play anybody uh or not be anybody i went through every division and really

most of what i got was complaining about well you didn't spend enough time on my team i'm like well you could look at the the magnet on your refrigerator and uh and tell me who they play because we all have the same amount of information. I get why they do it. And then when you have your broadcast partners with platforms, like it just, it all makes sense. And there are times where you're kind of desperate for NFL content. I mean, Dunao in the radio show back in the day, I mean, the rule was like, do you

want a great basketball segment or a good NFL segment? And it was like a good NFL segment. Good, solid. Yeah. Man, look, I mean, the Christmas thing, it doesn't bum me out that the NFL went for Christmas, the messaging always bums me out. I just hate how insulting it is to all of us. And it's not even an NFL thing.

It's just kind of in general. We seem to be way better about being told something isn't what we know that it is if we just label it a little different. So it's like, hey, we're not impeding on the NBA on Christmas. We are offering families a chance to unwind. It doesn't even make sense. Yeah, it was like. hey, you know, football is family.

And you remember like the NFL was taking a ton of hits PR-wise years ago? And then it was like football as family. And then the whole ad was like, we bang during the NFC wild card. Look at this guy. Remember how weird that ad was? Yeah, it's super weird. Yeah. So it was like football is family.

And then it's like, no, we know what you're doing. It's like fuck Thursday night football for college. The old Aaron Brooks stuff, man. you know that was my guy Virginia lived on Thursday nights we lived on Thursday nights with Aaron Brooks maybe I just lost just the feeling you had

yeah I just whatever it was when I was in college I just felt like man Virginia's on again and you could go back and be like they played one time it's all good it's a feeling it felt it felt like it was I loved I used to love Thursday night for college football because it was always like a pretty good game and then it's like

not anymore right and you know everybody if you go back and look at like the law that was passed i think in the 60s to prevent the NFL from competing on friday night football for high school and then saturdays i don't they're going to figure out a way to just be like hey fuck everybody yeah we're doing this and i would have more respect if that was their message that yeah and that was the messaging out of this podcast the other day it was like hey we are eating all your food like we will have whatever food we want we want christmas we'll take Christmas. Yeah, you guys are super global game. We got it. But here in the United States, we'll have

Christmas. Oh, college football playoff. You get this big shiny new playoff. You want to put a couple games on Saturday. We'll take that too. Like, the NFL is just a, it's a big apex predator. And to your point, just come out and say it. Like, we're a monopoly. We run this shit. We run this shit. I mean, every other sport is talking about shortening their season. And they, they're like, how can we do? Yeah. You know, this is what if they took action? I think eventually they're going to take action and take that's going to be so fucking mad. I don't think this is crazy at all.

And it gets, I mean, this is, this is one of those like counting out your tips, stacking your singles, me 25 years ago, with Cors Light after a tough shift going, hey,

what do you think? And I was like, I think the NFL at some point will try to find a way to be on every night. Mm-hmm. Why wouldn't they? Because it works. I mean,

And they can have, was it the Colts in Denver a bunch of Thursdays ago? Oh, it was the worst game ever. It was one of the worst games I've ever seen. And I love those games. It was like nine to six. It's an unbelievable product because that was unfucking watchable. It was awful. Except that it was like you couldn't turn away.

You know what? I did. I was in a hotel room in Vermont. And I didn't have like any lounging area because, you know, when your boy, travels, it doesn't matter what kind of real estate I'm involved in. When your boy, I'm not staying at the St. Regis. I can't justify that $8,000 hotel

bill just kick it someplace for a weekend. Right. So I was staying at a decent hotel and there was no lounging area. So you know it's always going to be a problem when you're watching a game in bed. Right. So the laptop is out because I can't get it on the TV feed. And I was sitting there and I was so mad

and then I was even mad or because I was going on Twitter and people were talking about how great it was. It was like, this isn't great. Like this is the greatest commercial like marketing trick of all times that people can watch this crap for three and a half hours that game was so terrible and people were like man this is fascinating oh it no it isn't i'm so i love rock fights and i i do love everything you're saying is baked into the statement that i love it because it's like you're overcoming all this bad football the product is so bulletproof i mean it's terrible it's unbelievable right i turned it off after two hours of going through all this stuff i went you know what i can do

I can close my life. I choose to stop to stop watching this. And I put on like a movie. And I was like, this is living. I'm like, I just made a choice. That's what I did yesterday with OKC and fucking Denver in the second half. So here it is AI overview on Google. The Denver Broncos and Indianapolis Colts had a game on Thursday night football on October 6,

2022, resulting in a 129 Colts victory. The game was described as a snooze fest and was criticized for its lackluster performance. Yet I remember it. I remember it well. I'll never forget it because I'll never forget going, hey, you can stop being mad and just close your laptop. And then I think for whatever I had to do, I probably woke up the next day and just went through the plays and went, okay, now I have it in case. But I must not have been taping for me to even suggest. Because like if you're taping the next day, then you're like for us, but I don't think I was taping or I forget.

That's my, but that's like my Wizards Raptors, like where when I am like, I better not call Ryan right now, it's 11 o'clock, his Wizards Rappers is probably on, he's in his basement. Like, I'm doing that too. That's my fetish is like Thursday night football. And no matter how bad the game is, I'll find a way to gamble on it. That's another thing is the reason the NFL wants so many standalone games is I am convinced, I don't know if the metrics back this up, but people are terrible gamblers in single game spots. single game windows because they're like i got to like i got to get something on this game and then you start acting on hunches you don't have so i think it's a winning strategy by the nfl but to your point i wish they'd come out and say it because i am um all right let's get to the mailbag buddy what do you

say yeah let's do it okay best song with home state in lyrics that's from wayland t dog on Instagram now slim pickings for you buddy not many people talking about Massachusetts in songs hard to rhyme with that word it's not exactly a romantic concept take it away at og the bulldogs I'm from the berry but not the fruit y'all rocks berry that's not the state but okay I guess are you kidding like I had to actually research this and then I was like well I was trying to maybe mess with you a little bit um on it but i love ed o jia the bulldogs i even bought the cd back in the day uh is there anything better than sweet home alabama uh as a song yeah it's not even their best song yeah but with a state

uh sweet virginia by the rolling stones i feel like i'm stoned out just from movies i mean i feel like californ hotel california is i never like the eagles i don't love the eagles but i I like the Eagles. Never got into it. Okay. Give me a couple bands that you're not into that everybody loves. Um, Um,

Mumford and Sons. Stab me in the temple. That's a low rating. With a, with a very sharp splinter or steak of some sort. I would rather than listen to Mumford and Sons. Who else? Uh,

name some bands people like these days. You like the talking heads, right? I love the talking heads. All right. I love the talking heads. I just want to make sure. Because there's some people that don't like, and you just go, hey, you don't like them?

Okay, fine. That's cool. I'm not even going to ask you why. I know you want me to ask you why. I'm not going to, like, I really wanted you to ask me why I don't like Mumfordance. Sometimes I think about if I could just time travel anywhere. And again, I don't know if I shared this with you. And for aspiring time travels are out there.

I remember in a chemistry class, I think I was a junior in high school. And one of the guys was like to the professor. We call them teachers in high school. And he said, if time travel were possible, wouldn't we already know? Because somebody would have. Well, somebody would know. They might not say. David Stern.

Okay, I'll tell you another band I hate. Well, I don't hate. I don't, okay, let me, let me say it. And Cowboy Reid's about to get super mad behind here. He knows this. I'm not really into Jason Isbell. Everybody loves Jason Isbell. People are always like, oh, you like Sturgle?

Have you tried Jason Isbell? Oh, you love. like, you know, Chris Stapleton, have you tried a totally different kind of artist, Jason Isbell? That's like saying, do you like Tyler Childers? Check out Jelly Roll. Right, exactly. That's the type of shit people are on when they tell me, oh, have you tried at Isbell? I'm like, yeah, I respect Jason Isbell. I like drive-by truckers. I just, I cannot, it's a little bit, it's a little bit brooding. Is that the word? I don't know. I'm not, You're not an Isbell guy.

Well, I don't know it. I don't know it one way or the other. You know my country is pretty limited. And I think missing Sturgel when he came through L.A. and not see him do Alman Brothers covers is going to haunt me for a long time. I know. He's really doing the damn thing out on tour right now. Somebody sends me something every couple of days.

Hey, our guy, Brad Sands, in the biz. He's been to like two Sturgle shows recently because it's what he does and i mean he's he's a tough tough guy to impress because he's seen it all he's become a great friend and the access to stuff that i've been able to get through him and i've missed sturgle a few times because of my own stuff and when he sends me some of these sturgeon clips i'm just and he's like blown away going dude he just comes out there and kicks everyone's ass for like two to three hours he's amazing he's one of the most talented if he were an athlete he'd be one of the most talented players of all time.

Is he aunt? I don't know. I don't know who he is. I don't know who he is. Oh, that reminds me. I had a, this is a mailbag from Chris. Mailbag from Chris. If the remaining NBA teams were musical acts, who would they be?

All right. This is going to be tough. This is going to be tough. Are the Pacers the Pixies? Pixies, Pixies got some hits, man. Yeah. Like you never, hey. Hey.

Hey. No one would. Yeah. No, I don't. Surfer Rosa. bangers do little i like the one um uh oh man wave of mutilation yeah we need a few more deep cuts from you i think you'd have to pixies feel a bit like the talking heads although they're not as don't say that big as the talking head no i'm just talking about like the people that really

like them yeah yeah all right you get it and i think the people that really like the pacers although there's still some indiana football stuff that bothers me with the pacers so that's probably not entirely fair, but it's just, you know, some of the discourse out there. I hate that word discourse. Would this Knicks team be the Rolling Stones, but the HBO special Rolling Stones? Don't say that. Don't say that. Don't say that.

I don't know who the Knicks would be. I think the Knicks might be like, men at work? No, maybe like CCR. Yeah, but it just, see, you're right. It's CCR, but it's MSG, so it doesn't really, it's blue collar. Is it Alabama? Commercial success? But blue collar?

Yeah. It could be Alabama. That's good. You're going to play at MSG. You've got to have an undersized point guard on the team. Are the Timberwolves in Vogue? I don't know who the Timberwolves are. They're led by a really Uber.

talented musician let me think though I got I got it wrong what I just don't know if you're gonna be able to answer this question it might be too hard of a question I might have stump the Schwab no I'm just I saw it too and I didn't have any waves how many waves break over your right shoulder before you can think of an answer what was Beyonce's first group a destiny's child yeah destiny's child I confused it with end vote no so is are the Timberwolves destiny's child Kyle, Beyonce, aunt. Might be.

Might be, although I'm a huge Kelly Rowland fan. Let's not to forget about her. OKC? OKC. Yes, technical masters. Not familiar. Harmonizing? Ah, harmonizing.

Hmm. Who would they be? You know, earlier you said they were complimentary? I would agree. Take six, Acapella Group, pretty big in the early 90s. Oh, man. Hanson? No.

Did you ever see that comedian that was like, imagine trying out for that group knowing you never had a chance? Why do they have to be Acapella? Oh, yeah. Yeah, imagine trying out for hands. I hope everybody realizes whoever the comedian is. I forget who said it, but it was just such a clever, a nice little opener. Do you ever think about if you had to do stand-up, what your first line would be? Oh, I have a whole thing written out.

Wait, you have five. You got a type five? Is it 10? I got type 15. Should we do that? The next Montana challenge, we have to go to an open mic. I think I'm ready. I got a couple friends who are comedians and they have been.

I think it's the thing they like to do to gas people up to like do it. Right? Like just so my experience has been they despise anyone thinking they can do it. Oh, well, I've been talked to about a couple guys about maybe doing a little set. Big guys? Yeah, big enough. Gillis post the Alabama hang. No, man,

Gillis doesn't hit me up. I'm not in that realm of celebrity. You know? I don't think I'm in that. I don't think I'm in that echelon. But, yes, some pretty respectable comedians. They told me to be ready. I'm ready.

I got 15 minutes. I love this. Okay, back to OKC. So it would be a big group, but they'd all have to get together. Is it the traveling Wilburys? but they're too old. Although Roy Orbison was like 32, I think, when he was in. No, it's a band that everybody was in first.

Like, hmm. Blind faith? Maybe. But I think Steve Winwood was in traffic before Blind Faith. Or am I wrong? This is a tough one. We're going to have to fan source this one.

Who are the OKC Thunder? Blind Faith, 1969. So, yeah, I think traffic is before that. When's the last time you listened to John Barleycorn? I haven't, but I have listened to Blind Faith lately. I'm also listening to a guy named Loudoun Wainwright, the third. Have you ever heard him? Yeah.

There's a song called Home Team Crowd, which is fucking fantastic. It's about being a sports fan. It's awesome. This guy, it's also a song called Dead Skunk. How about Wu-Tang? Yeah, Wu-Tang. That could be it. They could be like, dude, they got another guy?

Yeah, and if they got to win the title, though, you know, to be Wu-Tang. You can't not win the title and be Wu-Tang. Is Isaiah Joe you got? I can't do. You know? Next question. I just hope. I'm going to say this right now.

I hope there's one listener is like, did he just go from fucking blind faith that you got? Yeah, no, that was pretty good. That was a hard right turn. That's what happens. You're working at a music store. No, no question. No question. I knew you were the right person to ask that question.

Is it the In a Silent Way sessions from Miles Davis, perhaps? I can't. All right. So, so, I think we actually did a good job on that. Yeah, we didn't do bad. Okay, okay. Ryan Estab has a group of kids age six to ten for the afternoon. He has to show them a historical movie.

What does he show them? Lawrence is for Arabia. Chris. Yeah. Why do you show him Lawrence of Arabia? Um, getting, getting people from different backgrounds to agree, or at least for a good chunk of the movie. I've never seen it. You should.

It's a classic. Some people think Peter O'Toole overacted a bit, but I think that's based more on his theatrical background. Oh, yeah. He came up, uh, he came up in theater, huh? He came up through theater. Yeah. Yeah. Boy, what a stunner.

A little Daniel Day Lewis type. Yeah. I mean, just this raging blonde hair and a couple big old blueberry eyes. All right. Let's say you could give any historical figure the necessary football acumen. Who are you hiring to coach your football team? This is from producer Nolan. Yeah, I kicked around a couple ideas with this one. I would say from an infrastructure standpoint, Napoleon is just overlooked.

I would say... I thought he had to play Napoleon. Well, I'm not picking Napoleon because I just don't know that he has the record for it. And the Russia loss is like, what happened there? I mean, it's still to this day. It's kind of like the Rams losing the Patriots. Like, how did that happen? You know, so maybe road games or maybe if they had to travel the London

for the London early one, that might not be where Napoleon would shine. So, yeah, there's a couple road. But I just love that, you know, he said, and I think he nailed it, and it's something that I try to aspire to follow. He said, love is the distraction of the warrior. Imagine telling that guy, like in the huddle. Hey, don't forget, love is a distraction of the war. the warrior so uh i think his mind is in the right place but the russian campaign tough to overlook

that one on the resume if you were introducing him at a press conference um how about gingus con does he got a little urban mire in him yeah i mean recruiting base he just has to go in his backyard right so that's all urban had to do at florida yeah you know where we'll grab a few guys from neighboring tribes but for the most part like uh and a pretty good single-mindedness. I'm not going to worry about the rest of this stuff. We're not going to have a PR staff. You know, maybe they'll do a documentary on me later. Then I thought about Patton. He's only got the one loss. But I think in today's game, there'd be some questions about his leadership style, you know, slapping dudes. Probably wouldn't go over really well, but that was 1943. And, you know, he also thought he was from a, like, he believed in reincarnation, essentially that he

Patented? Yeah, when he would show up to like battlefields, he would be like, I remember this, this battle because I was in it. I believe him. I believe in reincarnation. But you know what no one ever does? You never hear like, oh, I remember this road. I slept in the woods. They literally have, they have kids like born in Ireland who can recall entire lives that they lived in the past across the Atlantic Ocean.

with no knowledge of said deceased person. I think there's some anecdotal evidence here. That's all I'm saying. How about Benjamin Franklin? He kind of reminds me of a Mike Leach character. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. I think Benjamin Franklin might be a dark horse to be a football coach.

Sherman could run the ball. For sure. And then I would say, you know, Grant, a lot of people thought it was a bit like, you know, compiling and also, you know, kind of dream teamed it up a bit. Or it's like, well, you just had overwhelming numbers all the time. But he did understand because he had gone to school with so many of his opponents that I think there's a little bit of history that ignores how great he was in understanding the opponent's instincts and their tendencies. I'm going to go with Nate Green, though. Nate Green, Revolutionary War, great on the road, also was somebody that could, everybody has to kind of answer to somebody.

Right. And he could work with Washington while also executing much of his own plan in some of the more southern battles. So I went with, I went with John Brown. 70% of league is really going to love playing for him. I'm trying to remember from the Twain book, the anecdote about him meeting him, but I don't have it. He was a live wire. All right. Let's see.

Favorite Pearl Jam song? This is from Wes Ward on IG. Black. I think it might be right now indifference or... Better man. No, Ryan. Or release. or oceans i can't i can't i can't fucking figure it out i can't figure it out uh you like all those um

i don't know the names of songs okay that's big um and then last one here for you ryan go to summer jersey this is from tom pierce on instagram what is your summer jersey of choice well i only wear it probably once a year and that's during the six-man volleyball tournament out here where adults are just allowed to act like they're at spring break for about 24 hours yeah fun little weekend uh and i wear the barclay auburn jersey oh that's a good one do you remember what i rock down in a badn rouge that's my answer was it pistol it was pistol pete yeah pistol pete yeah i got a mullin st john's one and i have a chris mullin team usa one got as many Chris Mullen's as you humanly can.

I have more Chris Mullen jerseys than Dependence. Yeah, you do. That's right. God bless you. Last question for you, Ryan. This is a bit of a life advise on the way out the door as a segment we do called life advise. Hi, I'm four years. That's after the good to bad and the ugly thing went real sour.

You forgot about that thing. And we don't even do that anymore. I didn't even know. I mean, it was just Armageddon. the making hive was out to get me. Yeah, making hive's out to get me. They think I'm the reason he's not on here sometimes.

All right. He's busy. He texted me once. I'd done another real estate agent rant. He's like, take it easy on agents. It's not an easy job. He's doing a great job there.

He does a great job when he's here with us. All right. So 40-year-old male runs a media enterprise and has a foundation, three kids. and owns a river rafting company wondering if it's doable to ditch the phone, ditch the cell phone and go phoneless. Is that doable? I think about this a lot.

I was really tempted, dude. I was thinking about getting just a non-smartphone and then having that be my everyday carry. and then I would come home and then go to the smartphone and check it stuff. But it's just, I don't know if it's feasible when there's transactions and emails and docu signs and appointments. Like, it's not a direction thing. Like, we did pretty good for a while without maps. I'm pretty sure I could figure it out again. Right.

I used to have an Atlas, you know. I used to print out MapQuest directions. It's okay. I used to get to Baltimore that way. But do you own a business? I don't know how you could. be the business owner and have people that need answers from you without being able to be contacted. Which business though are you talking about? The guy that's in the email doesn't he say

owns a business? He owns a river rafting business like I imagine there's only like three or four employees like you could give them your number like how many times are people by the river needing to call your phone right but you know when when it's your business and if something's going wrong that's why you have a phone can you handle what so he's talking about no phone this guy's this guy's talking about getting rid of his phone as he knows it right getting some sort of a a bat phone that's got like 10 contacts and a sim card like let's just keep it let's keep it real lean and mean here and then having an email redirecting the people that would usually text him to an email check the email once a day.

Listen. He already wants to be, look, if he owns a river deal, then he's already kind of mentally up there. He's shut down. No, but I mean it in a good way. Like, he's decided I'm going to be my own boss. I want to be outside. I want to have people share an experience that clearly is a passion of his.

That he's so into it, right? You love a river. Well, yeah, I can imagine why this guy would do. I'm going to be on a river today in about two hours. Um, I think he could do it. I personally, if I did not have the job that I had, if I was just, I don't know, I'm trying to think, but maybe I run a charter business out of St. Barts. Yeah, how many people are you really depending on to do what you're doing?

I mean, like, you're a one-man band. You could do it. Yeah, but they need answers from me pretty consistently on guests. And look, on the writing stuff that I'm doing, too, there's usually pretty, like, a once a week. there's a rewrite request for something well let me ask you this what happens to your your your friends like not your true close friends because they probably i don't know we figure something out for that but but like the the acquaintance types the hey checking in hadn't talked to you in a while text love to catch up like those people have got to understand now that that the way to get a hold of you

is email you think they'll just say well fuck it i quit if i don't have access to the cell phone I'm not going to use the email. I actually did get a new number, too, and I'm trying to, I'm trying. And it went like a couple days where I told my staff, I'm like, hey, this is the number that I'm going to start using. I'm going to keep the other one active. And then I'll just shift through it. And then I can't. I tried.

Because, you know, the biggest thing was the gym. Like, I didn't put any apps on it. I just have Spotify. I've got my account linked to it. And then I'm at the gym and I have no choice. Like, no one can call me. No one can text me. There's nothing else to distract me if it's heavy day and it's two and a half minutes in between sets as opposed to my normal 60 to 90 seconds.

I think there's I think this thing's got legs. Whoever sent this question in, I think you should do it. I want him to do that motherfucker in the river. I don't I don't like the other day though. I was trying to get a reservation at a restaurant. If I didn't have my phone, how am I getting that reservation? A landline, bro. I have a landline.

I got a landline put in okay that person has a landline that person put in a landline so landline email trap phone you kind of you kind of manage it listen I this person told me they get 60 to 80 text message Kevin Gates I got two phones Kevin Gates is a fucking genius I love Kevin Gates I love can we get Kevin Gates on the pod you and I yeah can we do like a joint pod with Kevin Gates? Kevin Gates. Yeah, I'm telling you right now, I'm back on it again. Yeah. And I'm like, I didn't respect this song enough. I didn't respect this song enough. The messaging in this one is hitting me now in a way that I didn't understand. It's like watching sideways 20 years later.

Yeah. We should do a little series where you and I just, just, we interview guests that only we would care about. You know, we, we, we interview Kevin Gates and many more. One for the plug and one for the low. Yep, exactly, dude. You can't have one. Your phone can't, your phone can't, one phone is not going to be able to handle the plug in the load.

That's why he has two, dude. Anyways, Ryan Rosillo, everybody. Thank you so much for your time. Brock Purdy, Ben Wallace, undrafted Hall of Famer, huge contract extension. Is that your answer to that question? Yeah. Okay. But was Ben Wallace elite?

He was elite in what he did. It's not as cut and dry in the NFL. Well, it can't be Yokic. Yokic is the most improbable NBA, like where he was drafted. I mean, Connie Hawkins got hosed, so there's a technicality. Like Yolk is one of the best players of all time. Like, you know, Pertie's not that. You know, Jalen Brunson, but I don't even know that Pertie's Jalen Brunson.

And I'm saying that as big compliment to Jailen Brunson. I don't think Pertie's even Jalen Brunson. But if you were going to say, like, a seventh rounder is kind of like the second rounder in the NBA. Right. but he was one of the first picks in the second round. Second round NBA players. Hold on. They'll play us off here as we try to figure this out. Is he Chris Middleton?

No, I think he's better than Chris Middleton. Middleton had a really nice run and was pretty good, has the ring and everything, but it's hard to compare somebody who, well, I don't know. Chris Middleton, All-Star NBA champion, probably a benefactor of who he played with, right like most people that play with yonis and same thing for purdy i mean it's been a loaded roster jury's still out on whether he can carry a team i think the offense probably has to change a little bit

maybe not the centerpiece but definitely a guy who deserves the bag right um and that was brock purdy yeah we got it in there let me put that in the title breaking down brock purdy's new deal brock purdy is ben wallace or is he so it's like a tease Take care, Rai. Thanks, Chris.