Pardon My Take - NBA Playoffs With Brian Windhorst, Actor Josh Duhamel, The Bulls Lost Twice In The Play In, Lee Corso Retires Plus Fyre Fest

Episode Date: April 18, 2025

The Bulls managed to lose twice Wednesday night in play in action and Big Cat is sick of the endless mediocrity and we sim the lottery (00:00:00-00:20:52). Lee Corso retires and Aaron Rodgers doesn’t really tell us much on his next destinatio (00:20:52-00:38:57). Brian Windhorst joins the show to talk LeBron calling him weird, NBA Playoffs, his advanced analytical system on final contenders, rules for eating out and more (00:38:57-01:25:16). Josh Duhamel joins the show to talk about his new show Ransom Canyon, Vikings, his doomsday prepping and more (01:25:16-01:57:14). We finish with Fyre fest and some softball tension on the show (01:57:14-02:20:59).You can find every episode of this show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime Members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. For more, visit barstool.link/pardon-my-take

Hey, pardon my take listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. On today's pardon my take, we have a two-fer for the people. We have Brian Windhorse getting ready for all the game ones this weekend in the NBA Playoffs. And then we have our good friend, Josh Dumel, the most attractive guest we have on. He joins us again. I think it's his third time on. Great chat with him.

We're gonna talk NBA playoffs. We're gonna talk the play-in games. We have Aaron Rodgers update that's not really in an update. Lee Corso is retiring. And we're gonna finish off with with fire fest of the week, sending you into the weekend and we are brought to you by our friends at draft Kings. The NBA 82 game grind is done and now the real fun begins.

The NBA playoffs are here in his time for all the high stakes, drama, clutch moments and jaw dropping plays. If you're looking to make the playoffs even more exciting draft King sports book has you covered as an official sports betting partner of the NBA from the playing games all the way through to the finals. Now's the time to back your favorite players and teams as they chase glory. All season long DraftKings has been the go-to spot for NBA player props,

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bets. When you bet just five bucks only on DraftKings, the crown is yours. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. In New York, call 877-8HOPENY or text HOPENY467369. In Connecticut, help is The Crown is yours. varies by jurisdiction. Voighton Ontario, new customers only. Bonus bets expire 168 hours after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources see dkng.co. slash audio. Okay, let's go. Welcome to Part of My Take presented by DraftKings. Making a playoff run to remember with DraftKings. Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app and use code TAKE. That's code TAKE for new customers to get $200 in bonus bets when you bet just five bucks only on DraftKings. The crown is yours. Today is Friday April 18th and both Bulls teams lost in the playing games on Wednesday night. The Bulls, the regular

Bulls and the West Coast Bulls. West Coast Bulls. Yes. To further cement how stupid the bulls are as an organization. Yeah. It was basically let's watch the real bulls play lose by a lot at home and then let's watch the core that was built around Zach Levine into Mar DeRose and play out West. Yeah. Lose by a shitload at home. Yeah. So now Dallas Dallas advances to play against Memphis. Yep. And I want Dallas in the playoffs. I really do. I think that'd be fun. Clay Thompson avenged last year's what he went over 10. Yeah, I believe last year. I remember I bet it. I was like, Clay Thompson is a big, big game player. He's not going to go out like this over 10. He went out like that. Yeah, he went

out like that. But he's back like that now. Also, uh, the Kings, they're kind of lost in space, no idea what's going to happen with them. I feel like a couple years ago we had to light the beam, everyone was pumped about the Kings. They did something on Wednesday night that you can't do if you're going to lose at home by, I think they ended up losing by like 16, but they were down by 23 and a half. Did you see the player introductions? They played the My Little Pony theme song for the Mavs, which is very funny, but you can't do it then lose. You can't. You can't. You cannot do that. You cannot. At least they brought back the

gun emoji. So if you do beat the Mavs, you can shoot the horse. That's true. So that's good. Yeah. Anthony Davis was awesome in the regular bowls game. Tyler Davis was awesome. Uh, in the, in the, in the regular bowls game, Tyler hero was awesome. Uh, can I see red for a minute? Yeah. I was going to say welcome to the lottery. Yeah. I'm, I'm excited to be in the lottery. Let's sim one. All right. Cause I, I, you guys like, this was a situation where you guys have been playing the lottery game. Now someone has jumped into the game. Welcome to the party with, with a 1.2 percent chance, which I think will go up if Dallas makes the playoffs or Miami makes the playoffs. So I'm rooting for that Might we might get all the way up to like 2%

That's huge and that would be quite something if I somehow pulled off the lottery win in your guys face Yeah, so Max has already disavowed and denied taking Cooper flag if they get the first overall pick big cat I don't think that you did not so you're still I said I wanted him. He's still in on Cooper flag Yeah, even though he is a choker. That's fine. By the way, did you guys see Texas Twitter has found our list of not win? The big one guys. Oh, I didn't see that. Yeah, are they happy about it? They were not happy about the arch manning They kept on saying he's only played two games. Yeah won both games I'm just saying I that was a future call and I also was like, so you're saying he's not good enough to start Sounds like how you gonna win? How you gonna win the big one from the bench? Let me ask you this big cat in the playoffs when when you had a must-score

Situation against the Ohio State University was he on the field? No. Hmm on the bench. All right, Sim it Okay, Washington, there you go. All right, Sim it Okay Washington there you go. All right, do one more We're gonna keep saying some Utah boo. Okay one more New Orleans boo, that's no next one wins Next one wins. Well, I already won

Okay, do it again. New Orleans again. Boo. Portland boo. San Antonio boo boo. Charlotte boo. Who cares? Utah boo. Stop. This sucks. Washington. Oh, there we go. You won. Double win. You won. Yeah, let me see red for a second though. Because I actually for the first time a second though, uh, because I actually, for the first time in a while, I did not fall for Jerry Reinsdorf and Michael Reinsdorf's tricks, uh, and AK the front office, uh, a bunch of fucking morons. Uh, I didn't fall for it this year and I'm happy I didn't fall for it because I didn't let myself fall for the tricks that they pull every single year. PFT,

I got, uh, some stats I went through. The Bulls winning percentage this year was 47%. They were a 47% winning percentage team. They finished 39 and 43. Not great. Below 500 at home. Below 500 at home. So that's not a good team. That's not a team that is building anything. But guess what the trick is? Like every year, from the last day in February to the end of the season, the Bulls went 16 and seven. Holy shit. It's a great mark. They're doing it. 70%

winning percentage. Um, those marching, if you take out the wins against all the teams that were actively tanking your Washington's, your Phillies, your Brooklyn's, and then you take out the two wins against teams where they were sitting their star, their star player, the Denver nuggets, the Yocach and the Pacers with Halberton, the bulls winning percentage from February 28th to the end of the year. What was it? 43%, 46%. Okay. They were the same team the whole time and to pretend that it's anything different is ridiculous. March and April NBA basketball does not matter. And the argument would be, well, they got some young guys and it's different than the

last couple of years, which I would agree. Uh, Boozaless looks awesome and I I'm excited about that draft pick. They also have a guy named Josh Giddy who they're going to probably pay $35 million to, which would be a very big mistake. What do you think about the trade? The trade? Like in retrospect, Colosso Giddy. They should have gotten picks. Yeah.

They should have gotten picks. I had Giddy over 17 and a half last night that cashed. Yeah, he was not the problem. Kobe White, I think was like five for 20. He should also be traded because you have one more year of him But what the Bulls are gonna do is they're gonna say well We went 70% down the stretch and we have Josh Giddy who's about to get paid. We have Boozalus We have Kobe White Let's build around this young nucleus nucleus and what they're gonna do is they're going to sign Josh Giddy to 30, $35 million a year.

And Josh Giddy is just good enough to get you in the playing game and not the playoffs and Josh Giddy. So I already pointed out that the last month and a half should not really be counted, but the bulls obviously count it and they look at it and like we're building something. Josh Giddy, the first four months of the year, average 12 and a half, six and a half and seven and a half. That's obviously points, rebounds in a sit

or sorry, points, assists, rebounds. I should have done the other way. Questions. He getting more minutes in Chicago? He's getting more minutes, lot more usage. Uh, turns out when you are on a good team and you don't play, that's probably because you're not as good as the good team players. He was also like a redundant player on that good team. Yeah. So again, first four months, 12 and a half, seven and a half, six and a half points, rebounds assists. The last two months, which I've already established

shouldn't count and is you're playing against teams that don't matter. He almost averaged a triple double, 20, 10 and nine and a half. And they're gonna fucking pay him for that. Would you rather he not have almost average triple double? I would have rather them take. I think about it.

I think I think Yokich Westbrook was it Moses Malone or Oscar Robertson? Yeah and they go it's they're doing the same thing yet again. Josh Giddy will be just a younger Zach Levine where you just pay a guy a ton of money because you're like, well, what are the other options? And Zach Levine, who is a good basketball player on paper, but a losing basketball paper or basketball player in reality is exactly what the Bulls love to have because it keeps you competitive enough to get into the playing game, not in the playoffs or compete for anything. This is the third year in a row they've been in the playing game. Uh,

they have not made it to the playoffs. They do not know how to tank. They do not know how to win. We are now a decade since the bulls last won a playoff series. We're 11 years since the bulls last won a home playoff game, which I was at, it was a Derrick Rose buzzer beater. This franchise is a joke and it should be called out as a joke and stop pretending that March and April basketball means something and actually pick a lane and go for it and be like, Hey, we're going to be bad for a little bit. Cause if they came in front of the fan base and said, we're going to suck for the next three or four years, but we're going to have a shot at a couple one or two or three picks.

People will be like, okay, let's do it. Yeah, it's way better to do that. Yeah. Like having a plan. Having a plan to do that is what every bad team should do. And they're not. You're not going to get good in the NBA unless one, you're a destination city where you feel confident that you can attract an already cemented superstar to want to go to your city or two, you're just really shitty and you get the first pick in the draft. Or I guess you could also hit on somebody in the draft later on, but that's so hard to do in the NBA. Or you just make trades and get picks that

eventually end up as lottery picks. They finally do own all their picks again, which they had to trade to get one of their picks back. But what you guys said is exactly correct. The opposite plan that you should do is paying guys that are decently average basketball players, 30 plus million dollars to win 39 games a year. Right. That's the worst. Which is what they've done, which I loved last night because it was like the front office it was an indictment on the front office in two separate play-in games it was the

Bulls and then it was oh yeah the the last iteration of the Bulls was Zach Levine and Demar DeRozan you fucked up twice. Let me just say this Big Cat if if I don't win the draft lottery and I very much hope that I do I hope you win it thank you I hope Chicago gets it if I don't win it I hope you win it thank you gets it. If I don't win it, I hope you win it. Thank you. I appreciate that. That'd be great. I'm probably not going to win it. That'd be great to have Cooper flag in Chicago. Yeah. If I can't have them in DC, it would be a lot of fun. Yeah. But yeah, I was frustrated. Again, I was happy that I didn't fall for it because usually like when a team finishes season 16 and 17, you're like, Oh my God. And they're younger than they had been in the past, but it's all the same. And Jerry Reinsdorf and Michael Reinsdorf are

scumbags and all they care about is selling out the United center, which sells out. It's lead the league in attendance every single year. Uh, and it's just, it's bullshit. They have no plan and they have no, no path forward. And they're just going to stay in this middle ground forever and try to sell everyone on a, a really good March and April where they finished strong and lost in the plane being in the plane game three years in a row and not making the playoffs that should like, there should be a punishment. I don't know what it should be, but there should be a punishment ban from future playing tournaments. I like the Hawks being in their fourth straight playing game. Like there should be some type of punishment for fucking up so bad that you just end up

in the same spot every year. But I think it's worse for the Hawks. And here's why. With the Hawks, you have a guy that you in theory could build around it and make a good team around. I think that Trey Young is good enough where you can get to that next level, which is maybe being like a four seed or a five seed.

If you put the right pieces around him, the Bulls, you don't have that. you got to go scorched earth at this point No, they're gonna pay Josh Giddy and I get it's not really like Josh Giddy's fine He could be your third or fourth best player, but they're gonna pay him way too much money and they're gonna be like well He's 22 years old. He's gonna get way better Okay, and you're gonna be in the same spot. Is it like the ceiling is going to be the AC play in game? Yeah. You get two home play in games. So yeah, that was my seat reg. Hank was, Hank was trying to say that we could beat the calves a week ago. What did

I say? Well, you got so hot. I was, you guys are trending. So yeah, you fell for it. You fell for it. Also the speaking to an end to exist We've done this before but uh the halftime lead for the heat was 71 47 and that is Pretty much the largest 24 point deficit you could have yeah, cuz you rarely see it with those numbers that high it feels like 30 Yeah, that's a big one. Yeah, and I people were asking me what the smallest was and I said in basketball I feel like it's like 59 35 because you can get on a little quick run and like if you go a 7-0 run 5942 that's you're in that game. Yeah, so it was a 24 point lead 24 point I feel like 36 12 to because it's so early. Yeah, 36 12 is a good one

I would even say 30 36 12 in the NBA means nothing. Yeah, nothing but 7147 is like what the hell's happening right now Yeah, you're gonna 50 and they're in the 70s if you can jump over multiple digits of 10 That's when it appears so much larger. Yeah. Yeah. So Yeah, and it was very funny because the Mavs were up 71 48. Yeah, which Just idiots. I hate the playing tournament. It's I hate it It's it's it's stupid because the very best thing you can hope for is that you get a great game And then the fans are like we wish that we had more of this match

Correct match up so well at worst is what we saw last night Which is just uninteresting boring depressing basketball and we nobody wants to watch no although the one good thing I'll say this watching the play- in tournament right after right after March Madness is kind of cool because for a while you forget what good basketball looks like. Yeah. And you just get amazed at the shots that are going. Shots go in. Yeah. No, the play in tournament, I can't, I hate it so much. And I hate it obviously personally just because it was made specifically for owners like Jerry Reinsdorf to be like, Hey, we made the play in tournament.

But I just, how could you, if you told someone someone there's a there's a league with 30 teams 15 in each conference and 10 out of 15 Make the the postseason. Yeah, it's so stupid you play 82 games Yeah, wasn't the playing tournament designed because they want to make sure that Zion Williamson could get in it Yeah for ratings. I think so. I think that's what that's when they did it Yeah And like I guess you could obviously the heat fucked it up for everyone. The heat going to the finals from a from a playing tournament fucked it up. But that was also, was that Mickey Mouse?

No, that was the, that was the year, what, two years ago? Were they playing team then? They must have been because they were the eight seed, right? Yeah. You guys were the one seed? Yeah. Was that first round? No, but I'm just saying a team that goes from the play into the finals. People are like, look, see that team could get hot. But yeah, no, you're right. That's not the argument. If a nine or a 10, right. Team that would be left out if they actually advance the seven and the eight are in the playoffs. They should be in the playoffs. So, so stupid. Um, okay. So speaking of that, we have two more playing games. Yeah. Can't wait. Awesome. I'm actually, I, I'm looking forward to the, the Grizzlies

Mavericks game a little bit. I am that's thing is the actual games I'm not going to argue can be fun. The Grizzlies Warriors game was fun. So it's like, once we get to, if they're going to force it, I'm going to watch it. I'm going to enjoy it. But if you asked me what I like it, I'd say no. Yeah. Miami, Atlanta. Um, I think this is where heat culture takes over. I feel like heat culture gets the nod. Kevin love one last rodeo. He's not playing. Damn it. Yeah. He's still on the team. Tyler hero. Yeah. Um, all right. Let's do it. Let's do a first back. What are we doing? Max first basket. We all got to pick a first basket. This is for Friday's games. These

are Friday's games and it's brought to you by DraftKings. The NBA playoffs are finally here. It's about to get wild, high stakes drama, insane buzzer beaters, jaw dropping dunks and the excitement you live for. And guess what? DraftKings sportsbook and official sports betting part of the NBA is giving you a chance to boost your winnings every single game during playoffs. That's right. Every game, all playoffs long DraftKings Sportswick, an official sports betting part of the NBA is giving you a chance to boost your winnings every single game during playoffs. That's right. Every game, all playoffs long, DraftKings is rolling out a special NBA profit boost. So what are you waiting for? Download the DraftKings Sportswick app. Now use code TAKE to claim your profit boost. That's right. Code TAKE gets you a boost every single NBA playoff game. Don't miss your shot

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See terms at sportsbook.draftgames.com slash promos. Okay, so we're doing a contest between all four of us. Max, are you in this? Yes. Okay. Every single week we're gonna do, everyone's gonna pick a first basket scorer and then the winner gets a bonus bet.

So we're gonna give them out. I'm gonna do Anthony Davis, first basket scorer. Plus 500. Okay, love it. I'm taking Desmond Bain plus 750. Okay. Juicy. I'm going John Moran plus 550 all eyes on this game, and I'm gonna go Zack Edie plus We're all doing that game. I got not okay somebody's got to win love it get nuts. I

Think the Mavs might win I agree with you PFT. I want the Mavs in the playoffs. Yeah, they just for the fans Yeah, yeah, did you guys see the story of the pastor in South Africa? Yeah So that's so good. He was kidnapped gunpoint and He was saved and they like talked to him on the phone and and I think they told him like hey Try to talk about light-hearted stuff. Yeah One of his friends brought up the Nico and I'll stuff and he was like bullshit about it. Yeah. After being kidnapped in South Africa, he was very upset about it. And then at the end of the interview, the pastor that was on the phone with him held up his copy

of the Bible that he keeps in his office. Yeah. And it's an orange Bible with the power T on it. Yeah. Yeah. He after being safely rescued, Sullivan was taken to see his family. He then began touching base with some back in East Tennessee. Pastor Tom Hatley said one of the first things he heard from those in South Africa was he was upset over Nico. Yeah, he's like, send me back. That's a football guy. Let those guys take me. I don't want to come back. Yeah. I'm Nico got I think 1.5 mil. Oh good deal to go to you Well, the nice thing is that the cost of living in California is much less than in Tennessee Yeah, so he actually ended up losing I'm gonna guess like 80% of his earning power We take into account the cost of living in LA and the state income tax in California as opposed to Tennessee

Which doesn't have any so the art of the deal. Yeah by Nico's dad I also heard that his dad was saying the Tennessee offense, like put handcuffs on him. And it's like, we're, it's the hot dog. We're all trying to find the guy who did it. Maybe it was the inaccurate quarterback. Yeah. That's the best place. Yeah. That's the best place he could possibly be. Yeah. But I'm saying like he, he, he had to have handcuffs because he couldn't throw. Yes. Like that's also true. Like it wasn't the offense. It was that they were like, Hey, this guy can't throw to open receivers.

We're going to have to change the offense. Yeah. So I know that Tennessee fans are pumped about it because they're like, ha, you got less money and you're going to a school. That's not going to be nearly as good for you as we were. Yeah. And they're going to get killed in the big 10. Probably.

Yeah. I keep forgetting that UCLA is in the big 10. are still makes no sense Lee Corso retiring mm-hmm so first week of game day legend of the game Sad he's all in for week one all in we've got a big summer to prep for Ohio State, Texas Yeah, so I guess we waterworks city on that that first week. Yeah, they wanted to do it where he did the first ever mascot that he put on was Brutus. And so they wanted to maybe bookend it. I still think they should have given him like a late October early November game. Ideally, that would be nice because like that August 1st or the first week in last week of August, but week one, it's football, but it's also like that weird, everyone's still on

summer vacation, like football's on I'm watching but like, it just doesn't feel like game day. It doesn't feel like course. You know what, it should have been week two. That's when usually some of the power schools schedule the cupcakes. Oh, yeah, we want is gonna be Yeah, week one, it's like a celebration that college football is back. Yeah, super pumped about that. Week two, we look at the slate and we're like, oh shit, this isn't nearly as good as week one. Week two could have just been a big celebration of Lee

Corso. Yeah. He probably maybe should have retired a couple of years ago, but it doesn't matter. I love whenever he wants yet. Like that's one of those guys that he's, he's in that Dickie V camp, the Fanta Dickie V Lee Corso, the guys that are basically holding up a sport with just genuine enthusiasm for that sport. That's what I think a lot of people got drawn to first and they then they get cynical as the years go on. And I always loved when when Kirk Herbstreet would would just like support him. Yeah, stage it actually made Kirk way more likable to the average viewer, too

Yeah, so yeah, it's gonna be different I don't know if they're gonna fill the chair with somebody else or just move on because they've got a pretty good team So I I don't know but you can't really fill Lee Corso shoes No, it's not gonna be the same if like Nick Saban is putting on mascot headgear. No, definitely not I don't think he would that's like it should do the the head gear on Kirk's dogs. That would be awesome. That would be sick. I would love to see that. Uh, but yeah, legend of the game and yeah, I mean, I don't think anyone's ever said anything bad about Lee Corso. No,

he's what is the, the only, the only criticism would be, maybe he should have retired a few years ago, but guess what? Everyone should be as lucky to be able to do it as long as he, he has done it. Yeah. And, and be able to just keep having fun. So I love Lee course. Yeah, he's the best the you can't say anything bad about him Memes, did you have something bad to say about him? No, I love Lee course. Okay. Hey good. It's not bad to say about him. No, okay Max I'm gonna say something bad about him. Now's the time Do you want me to say something bad about if you have something bad in your head?

What the internet needs is for somebody to get mad about and take out all of our because right now we feel sad Now's the time. Do you want me to say something bad about it? If you have something bad in your head, say it. What the internet needs is for somebody to get mad about and take out all of our... Because right now we feel sad. Right. And as men that makes us feel vulnerable. So we have anger that we would like to release. So if you say something bad, then we could just hate you. He called that little kid a midget.

Yeah, that was messed up. Play that clip. That was a great clip. That wasn't messed up. That was awesome. Was that when I was on College Game Day? That was, that was, that was Corso at his finest. Was that about me? I'm five eight Lee. I love it. I mean, if you really, if you're listening and not watching, it's a little kid. It's

like a five year old kid on the desk with him. Y'all bulldog. Wow. Not so fast midget. That's a five year old. Yeahold yeah, that's great. Thank you or something bad I don't I mean if you want a quote card to you know get to get the internet stirring. Hmm. Good riddance. Oh Good riddance you want to do that says meme says no meme says you don't want that smoke You don't want that smoke college college football fans would be Yeah, now we got to do it memes, but then it's gonna look like our entire show is saying this yeah

How about yes for us? Bigger than the quote how about you include this Hank that's messed up Yeah, ash PFT Hank and then include mine Hank. You're wrong. We all love Lee Corso Sounds good to me That's it that cool card is gonna bang Maybe also just put out another one saying Archman and can't win the big one Yeah, just lock it up. Just throw it out arch manning the world's biggest choke artist. Yeah, these are all good. Yeah, uh Okay, Aaron Rodgers

He showed up again. It was an illuminating interview. Yeah, watch it. He went on McAfee. I did not so can you give me the rundown? Yeah, I've never he was I thought his band from McAfee if he was still on the jet. Yeah, but he's not on the Jets anymore I thought it was still on the jet. Yeah, but he's not on the jets anymore. I thought it was illuminating. I thought that I've never heard one person say as many words without saying anything at all. As I heard Aaron Rogers say on Pat McAfee today, I think it was probably 20 minutes of Aaron just kind of saying, I'm up for anything down for whatever. So there's absolutely no news that came out of it. He does sound like he's dealing with a personal issue. They kept going back to that.

So if it is something serious that he's dealing with, like family or friends, then obviously he's, you know, doing the right thing by taking that time before moving on with his professional career. But it just sounded like he was, he's just waiting. He's just, he's waiting for the universe to speak to him. Okay. I think he's waiting for like a dog to walk down the street and talk to him and

Then that will be his sign that it's time to join the Steelers So it's he's waiting for the universe to talk to him is he also maybe waiting for the draft to happen I don't know Why would you wait for the draft to happen because if the Steelers maybe extend overextend themselves and get you do her Sanders He's like, why would I go to the Steelers? Yeah, But if they got Rogers before the draft, wouldn't they then not? Well, I think that's why I, yeah, I think that's why Rogers is waiting because he doesn't want to have a Kirk Cousins situation where he signed somewhere, they draft someone and then they're like, oh yeah, it's your job. Maybe is he going to also feel like that's something you can talk

about in negotiations. Is he fucking over Kirk over Kirk? Cousins specifically state that though I mean it's happened. I mean Mike Glennon He was promised a starting job Also, Aaron Rodgers is 41 right so even if he went to the Steelers it would be reasonable I think for them to draft a quarterback right but I Mean, I understand I just think he's probably waiting for the draft because he just doesn't want to be in a situation where. But do you actually think that the longer he waits out,

the worse the situation becomes for Kirk Cousins? Because obviously there are teams that would be interested in Aaron Rodgers that might also be interested in trading for Kirk. I think they're also waiting for the draft. Okay. Because Kirk Cousins doesn't want to have it happen again to him.

Because it'd be very funny. That's a good point. But it'd be very funny if Aaron Rodgers was doing this just to stick it to Kirk That would be funny But yeah like Kirk Cousins if he went to the Giants right now and then the Giants drafted Stewart Sanders He's just sideshow Bob stepping into a rake that would also be funny Yeah, so I feel like all this is gonna get settled right after the draft. Yeah, but he didn't say anything Oh, actually, I take that back. He did say something very interesting

He just spent like five minutes dumping on the Jets. Oh just like going scorched earth on the on the Jets He said that he flew out on his own dime to meet with the Jets new front office Okay And Aaron Glenn met with him for like 20 seconds ran out of the room Got the GM brought the GM back in there and told him we're moving in a different direction without you Well, that's what he says happens memes. Do you believe that I? Believe that it was over exaggerated. Okay, well part I believe that Aaron Rogers has no sense of time. You think Aaron

Glenn was only in there for 10 seconds? No, he was in there for probably an hour and the way Aaron Rogers talks, he just talked for like 30 minutes and Aaron Glenn was just like, I were firing you. So let's go get the GM. Let's get the the show on the road and then they had a means they said me off memes things that Aaron Rogers He perceives time at a different pace from everybody else Memes thinks that he when he's speaking then time moves very quickly got somebody else is speaking time moves moves very slowly Got it. So what was the source off? No, there was a you don't know me off between him and the GM.

Oh, OK. How did that go? So Darren Moogie said, do you like football? Do you still want to play football? Aaron Rodgers said, yes. And then there was just a back and forth of you don't know me. I know you don't know me. And that was it. Wow. Yeah, they just kept on saying that back and forth to each other. You don't know me That was it Wow Yeah, they just kept on saying that back and forth to each other. You don't know me and then Aaron Rogers like let's get let's get to know

Each other and they're like now we're just we're moving in a different direction So as you don't know me and you don't even want to know me Yeah, it was just you don't know me you don't know me So Aaron was pissed off that he had to fly across the country for a 22nd meeting that could have been an email got it But the jet also would have gotten dragged if they just called them. Yeah. It would have been like they didn't just didn't respect Aaron Rogers enough to do this face to face. Are you saying you don't owe me or you don't know me?

You don't know me. You don't owe me. You don't know me. I don't know what he's saying. You don't know me. You don't know me. Got it. Does anybody really know Aaron though?

No. Like how diverse? Yeah. how could one man really know another man? It's a really good question. It's a good point. It's really good question. Yeah, think about it. Um, I Want to see him play? Yeah, of course. I would love to see here I'd like to see him still play football He is not as long as not the NFC North the other thing I took away from this interview was he He loves Ashton Gentry if you if you find the clip of him talking about seeing Ashton Gentry in person He he really loves that guy like a lot loves his build Oh like is obsessed with looking at the guy. He does have a nice we find that clip

Can you see if that that exists out there because man? erin Really really likes actually got a nice build a lot. I mean he does have a nice pill. Yeah. Yeah, he is Apparently just really well put together. Yeah uh While you find that hank, did you see uh brown's gm Andrew berry I did.

Said that he compared Travis Hunter to Shohei Otani? Mm-hmm. So do you feel good being in the same conversation as the Browns' front office? Yeah, definitely. Oh, OK. I'm going to be vindicated. I welcomed the hate when it came.

But two years' time, I I'm gonna be sitting pretty you think Travis Hunter will be more impressive than Shohei Ohtani definitely Wow okay Shohei Ohtani is gonna pitch soon again how many touchdowns and picks would he have to have to have a Shohei type season? Ten receiving touchdowns five picks and maybe two touchdowns two pick sixes. Yeah, that's doable That doesn't even seem that crazy It is pretty crazy. In fact, right? Yeah, but it's doable. It's I don't think this clip exists. Okay. All right, uh By the way draft week next week

We're gonna have Daniel Jeremiah on Monday and then we'll have our good friend Todd McShay on Wednesday Do you have a big board? I have a big board. I have a big board. Yeah. Can you tell me who's number one on your big board? Well, it's Mason Graham, but he's not going to be there. Yep.

Guys who will be there? Probably Kelvin Banks. Okay. Even though we made fun of the name Kelvin. That's fine. Just two weeks ago. It might be a boy named Sue. Yeah.

Probably him. My number one, I think it's Malachi Starks. That's safety. Just two weeks. It might be a boy named Sue. Yeah Probably him my number one. I think it's Malachi Starks. Mm-hmm. That's safety Okay, I mean, you know it goes back from watching his very first game that he played in college I think that was against Oregon. Yep. We had just an incredible pick and I made a mental note I was like put a pin in this guy would love to see this guy play on my team in the NFL Then I've kind of like casually watched him over the last couple years, but I just go back to that one play. I like I want that guy. What? Yeah, what does it have right now is the we did Tyler Warren to the Bears. Okay, Hank, what are you looking at it for? I want the best athlete. Like I feel like, you know, obviously we have they're going to probably take a lineman or defensive lineman

but I would like obviously a dual card or Travis Hunter Mesa Graham's really good yeah I guess I want I need you to I want to do a Carter I work drivers on that dual Carter why you don't want the Giants yeah I don't like the all the Penn State guys just go to yeah they go to the Eagles. Yeah Probably end up an eagle Memes, what are you thinking about? Memba The right tackle from Mizzou, okay, he had numbers like trip Williams So that'd be cool to have a right tackle for the next 10 15 years. That would be cool

I just I know I have to take Malachi Starks because if I don't then Max is going to get him Yeah system guy. Yeah Okay, yes, we're gonna do draft stuff all next week You'll probably trade him to us. Shut the fuck up Max. Probably will Sun Villanova just took Jamie's best player. Oh, no Oh, no, you're a real piece of shit Max, you know that It was breaking news. It was boop-boop-boop-boop-boop-boop. Oh, that was a mean breaking news.

That's not even the right breaking news sound. You did like, lasers. Well, it wasn't like a full-on breaking news because it's pretty low news, so it was like lasers. Who'd they get? I mean, it's really high news for this show. You just got money. Yeah. So you got Maryland's coach. Why don't you grow your own program? We're also about to take one of Maryland's best players Why don't you grow your own program? You're a homie hopper. Yeah, you are big time. That's college sports. Personally, if he doesn't want to be a Duke, I don't want him. There you go

Hank, it's one of your favorite weekends coming up this one You always love to start an NBA and NHL playoffs. Yeah, still a little next once I think next weekend is the start of the best like three weeks stretch when you have like, you know, not game ones Yeah, I do love this weekend though where it's just oh We're portaling boys. He's he's writing a tweet right now. You're portaling boys You're we're portaling boys Boiling boy, that's insane. What you wrote were portaling boy. This sounds like an admission of sex trafficking wrong. We're portaling boys No, that's not what you wrote. This is like something that did he would say wrong. What we're portaling boys

I'm keeping it. I stand by it. Yeah, boys Okay so Max Epstein over here. Yeah, we're portaling memes. Can you do a quick Photoshop for me? I don't even know where that where were that is with every a comma in there somewhere. Yes. Yes Exactly. Yes, that's exactly who uses commas. I agree memes do it Yes, that's exactly who uses commas. I agree memes do it It means do a Photoshop real quick for me of Diddy and then the like speech bubble underneath

So then I can quote tweet max's tweet and it looks like it's did he saying that yeah one. Yeah Okay Let's talk some NBA with Brian Windhorse and then we have Josh Duhamel And then we'll do fire fest We also have a special guest for the end of the show, our boy Shane, who's going to be going to Italy. We're going to send him off. He's going to Italy by himself. So I told him he had to, he had to come on at the end of the show. What is this? What is this plan? Nothing. I just want to, we want to send him off. I mean, he's going to, he's going on a European vacation by himself. That's crazy. It's true.

I'm still shocked. I think it's that crazy. I'm still shocked. I think it's crazy. Does it all the time. No, no. When I say crazy, I'm not saying like you're crazy. I'm like crazy. I would never have the balls to do that. Like I'm impressed. I told him that it's very cool confidence to go on vacation by yourself. And yes, for solo does do it all the time. And he is actually the model of how everyone should operate. Yeah, confident move. Okay, let's talk some NBA playoffs with Brian Windhorse. Okay, before we get to Brian Windhorse, the future of dunking is here.

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Went great. I've been dunking in the Dunk It bucket for the last month. It's one of my favorite menu items ever created. It's revolutionized the game. It's the dunk it bucket from KFC KFC dunk it challenge may be over, but you can still dunk, dip and devour with the KFC dunk it bucket. Like I said, it's interactive crave worthy food experience designed for ultimate dipping, dunking, sharing and devouring KFC dunk It challenge is over but you can still do it you can still dunk dip and devour with the KFC Dunk It bucket go check it out now we're also brought to you by our friends at Game Time NBA playoffs are here in the only place to buy hard to get playoff tickets is Game Time the official ticketing partner of Barstool Sports with killer last-minute deals all in

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$134. So what are you waiting for? Hank's going to maybe go to that game one with the Game Time app. Take the guesswork out of buying NBA playoff tickets with Game Time. Download the Game Time app, create an account. Use code PMT for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, create an account and redeem code PMT for $20 off. Download the GameTime app today. What time is it? GameTime. Okay, here he is, Brian Windhorse. Okay, we now welcome on a very special guest, recurring guest, one of our favorite guys to talk NBA with. It is Brian Windhorse. You can hear him on the Hoop Collective, great podcast. You can see him on ESPN all throughout the playoffs. You can go buy his book. He's

got two of them, Return of the King and LeBron Inc. In which one of those books, Wendy, do you talk about your averages in high school when you're playing with LeBron? It's on a special edition where you have to crack open the back cover and there's like a little slip of paper back there. And if you're really lucky, you can find it. But it's rare. It's like a Pokemon.

Yeah. Putting it at the back of the book is a good way for LeBron to never have regret. Yeah. There you go. Yes. You a Pokemon. Yeah. Putting it at the back of the book is a good way for LeBron to never having read it. Yeah. There you go. Yes. Got it. Yes. Oh my God. Beautiful. Yeah. Wait, so we haven't talked to you since then. Was that just the weirdest, uh, experience for you to be called out using the word weird? Yeah. Big cat. Yeah. Uh, uh, did not see that one coming. Um, you know, like LeBron could probably be angry at me for like 15 or 20 things and like Literally like legitimately be like that take was wrong. What you did here was was BS I remember the first time he got really mad at me

Was when he was a rookie with the Cavs the the newspaper? that I that I was working for at the time the Akron Beacon Journal. He bought a house in Akron and we in the newspaper published his address and a little map of how to get to his house. And he was like, I remember he pulled me aside and he was like, this is some super fucking bullshit. And I had to agree with him. Yeah.

Even though I had nothing to do with it. Like sometimes I was the conduit for that. But listen, he could have been mad at me about a bunch of things. What he actually got mad at me about, I didn't think was right. But you know, he doesn't know me anything. If he wants to be mad at me, fine. Over the course of 25 years, he's going to get mad at me. I'm going to annoy him. Whatever. We'll get through it. It's fine. He also, I mean, we didn't throw this out there, but like, and I'm sure you've talked about it enough, but like there might be a chance that LeBron is just jealous of your hair because your hair is fantastic. I feel like it gets better. I've got nothing physically

on him except for that. He's got me on, he's got me on everything else. So I guess I'll take it. That's a big thing though. Like LeBron wakes up every day. He's, you know, one of the best players of all time. He's got all these accolades, but he doesn't have Wendy's hair. Do you, you guys probably don't remember this, but there was like a moment, I think it was in the off season. Maybe somebody can find it. I don't know. Maybe he deleted the tweet, but there was like this, there was like this moment, like one day where he just like announced, I'm giving up on the hair. Yeah, it stuck with me. We did great. Thank you very much to him. He had some sort of witty and I was kind of like a quasi announcement. And then we saw him next season. It was very clear. He had not given up. Yeah,

he had just begun to fight. So I don't know what that was all about. Maybe we'll wait for his book where he can explain that was about. Yeah, he probably had a couple of glasses of wine and decided to hop online. It happens to everybody. Yeah. So when you were at his house for Taco Tuesday this week, how did he tell you his feeling going to the playoffs? Don't be ridiculous. I'm going on Sunday for Easter. Okay. All right. So let's talk some playoffs. We're very excited. Let's start here. Tell us the series you're most excited for in the East and the West. Am I excited for any series in the East? Let me think about that. It's a little tougher in the East. I got assigned to, to go do the Cleveland series and boy, am I excited. Listen, the calves are good. I mean, that's fun. Yeah, I know. I typically try to stay home in the first round, stay home. It's not like, you know, come to LA or whatever. Because the first round, first off, I don't know if you guys heard the NFL drafts is next week. Like on Monday, ESPN will forget my name for like six days. And then they'll crawl out from the sixth or seventh round and,

uh, you know, Greenberg will hang them up and they'll be like, wait a minute, is there an NBA still playing? Yeah. Um, but you know, the first round, it's really spread out. There's like a lot of days off. I'm not really, it's, it's, it's not the most exciting, you know, everybody gets excited for the start of the playoffs and then the first round kind of drags. Yeah. But I am very excited about the West series, but specifically Clippers Nuggets.

Yeah. The Clippers finished the season 18 and three and I went to a couple of their games and Kawhi looks awesome. Yeah. I remember the 2019 finals when he was playing for the Raptors, that one year play for the Raptors. I watched Kawhi go through some pregame shooting routines where he was as impressive. The Steph routines are legendary because he does all these dribbling tricks and sometimes he hits like 27 threes in a row when he throws up half court shots and he throws up shots from the tunnel. And he throws up shots and he throws up shots from the tunnel. Well, as you can imagine, the Kawhi ones are boring, but all Kawhi does is look like a machine. And I remember watching him make like, I don't know, like 96 out of a hundred, like 17 footers.

Um, they was, he would, he would need two assistant coaches. This is pregame. This is not on a practice day. This is like two hours before the game starts. This is like, this is like, this is like, this is like, this is like, this is like, this is like, this is like Um, they was, he would, he would need two assistant coaches. This is pregame. This is not on a practice day. This is like two hours before game time where he would go through so many shots that the, the assistant coaches would, would have to tap out because like they were kind of guarding him or whatever. I'm like, he never missed. He never missed.

And like that's what Kawhi looks like right now. And so I'm excited about what he can do. And then obviously Jokic is like a incredible force. So that series to me is really interesting. And I'm going to try to see if I can watch all those games. Yeah. What do we make of, uh, of the two teams in the West that fired their coaches right before the playoffs started? So are they crazy? Did they do it for the same reasons? Like,

I think that the nuggets explanation was that they were planning on moving on from Michael Malone anyways. So they they wanted to fire him before he had a chance to save his job, which is exactly that's pretty much exactly the sentiment. It seems really strange to do that, especially if he if he can win two championships for the Denver Nuggets, you know, hypothetically, if they go in and run this postseason, they're going to be like, ah, damn, we really wanted to fire this guy, but now we can't because he won again.

So is that kind of the same thing that happened with Memphis or is that a different story? I don't think so. And I mean, to be honest with you, I don't have a hundred percent. There's like some stories out there about what happened with Memphis, but I don't feel comfortable enough to say them on a worldwide famous podcast. But I will say that part of the reason I think they did it was because the general manager, Zach Kleinman, like really, really likes this guy Tuomas Isalo, who's the Finnish guy who they hired as an assistant. It's kind of a crazy story. He

did in Europe kind of what's the football coach from Indiana. Cignetti? Yeah. Cignetti. Cignetti kind of stole it from him. He had his team in Germany, in Bon in bond Germany and they were like really good. I don't, don't ask what division they were in, but they won some championship. And then this team in Paris, Paris basket, who's kind of like a big team, but they're kind of like an underdog, even though they're in a big city, they don't have a ton of money and they've, they've just done. Okay.

So they hired him and he brought six players from that German team to his Paris team. Because in Europe, it's kind of like college right now. It's like most guys have one year contracts. Yeah, there's some players who get multi year deals, but most guys have one year contracts. He's like, I'm bringing my whole team with me. We're going into the transfer portal. And we're bringing this team to Paris. And like he brought in those six guys and they won a championship there. He got noticed by the Grizzlies. They were obsessed with hiring him. The Wizards wanted to hire him and there was like a bidding war.

Plus he was under contract for Paris Basket and they had to pay, buy out his contract. It is, the more I talk about, the more it feels like college basketball. And they get him to come over to be this lead assistant. And I think they just thought that they just think this guy's a genius and maybe he will be proven to that. Maybe he won't. But like I think part of what was going on there is they were like, look, I think it was kind of the same thing. I think they were worried that somebody else thought he was a genius too. And if they got to the end of the season, somebody else is going to hire him. Right. And so they were

like, let's hire him now. Um, even though the guy they had in there had had a pretty good record, Taylor Jenkins. So, but I got to agree with you. Um, I got to agree with you. I, I don't PFT, I don't, I I've never seen the two guys get fired that late, especially with teams that had winning records or going to the playoffs. Yeah. it's bizarre. Yeah, it is. It's very bizarre. All right. So I agree with you, the West playoffs, especially early on, look like the matchups are going to be a lot more fun because the East is a little top heavy. Let's do this exercise. How many teams would it not shock you for them

to win the title this year? Because I feel like it's two in the East and a lot in the West. So this is how I vote. This is how I vote with my mouse. I decide that a team has a chance to win the title when I book hotel reservations in that city. Because here's the thing. As you know, most hotel reservations you can cancel. So there's no penalty for making hotel reservation. And number one, I want to get into a certain hotel. And what happens in the playoffs is, you know, you never know, like when, you know, people all of a sudden, like 5000 people want to

come into town for a game, all of a sudden, the hotel, sometimes hotels get sold out. Sometimes they quadruple their prices, but they don't, they don't pay attention. They don't seem to know that their basketball teams are good and the finals and the finals, um, schedule is out like in the fall. So like I booked a certain hotel that I want in Boston. I booked it in October. Wow. I like this list. The wind Wendy's hotels, like where we can, this could be Bolton board for all the other teams. Wendy's. Yeah. And I booked the for the, for the Boston hotel for the whole finals. So whether they're the home or the, you know, wherever they're at,

cause I was like, they're gonna, they're gonna probably be there. I booked it out. Okay. Um, like probably January, February, December, January, Oklahoma city, booked, booked that out, booked that sucker. Did they call you where they were like, I think you made a mistake, sir. You booked a hotel in Oklahoma city, sir. You, you booked a hotel in Oklahoma city for two and a half weeks. Are you, are you sure you meant to do this? We think that you may have made an error. So I had,

I had Boston and I had Oklahoma city. Then the calves, you know, they started 15 and no, but okay, some teams start hot. The cows went on this winning streak in January and they went through this like stretch and every time they played a team, the other team would come into the post game and be like, Holy shit. Like they're like, Yannis did it. Michael Malone did it. Uh, JJ Reddick was like, do you, I'm going to go to the game and be like, holy shit. Like they're like, Janice did it. Michael Malone did it. Uh, JJ Reddick was like, do you know what you got to do to like beat these guys? Like, like there was like this stretch of like, they went on like this one of their winning streaks and like,

it was like uncanny every game, a team, a coach would come in or a player would come in and be like, this team is good. I was like, all right, Cleveland on the list booked, you know, but, but by then I could figure out like if the, if the, if the Cavs won the East, they were probably going to have a really good record. So I think I only booked home games, but you know what? No, I probably did book it all out. So I booked out Cleveland. So how many more have I booked? That's, that's now we're at the nitty gritty. How many more have I booked? That's now we're at the nitty gritty. How many more have I booked? All right. I have Los Angeles booked. But did I book for Inglewood?

Where the Clippers play? Or did I book for downtown? That's the question. That's a bit- Wouldn't you like to know? Fingers up. Where did Wendy book in LA? Did you book both? Did you book in the middle of both? I booked downtown because our studios here. I mean, I just wanted to mess around. So I booked LA because there's a, where there's a world where I could see the Clippers or the Lakers doing it. I would, I favor the Clippers to do it more than the Lakers, but the Lakers draw of all the draws you could have, the Lakers draw is probably kind of favorable because

not that I'm looking down on the wolves. In fact, the wolves are staying at the same hotel I'm at now. I just saw them all on my way over here. And so I'm not saying anything bad about them because if you know, I'm sure they're listeners and I'm going to see them, you know, at the Starbucks and there may be words, I'm not looking for that. I'm sure they're listeners and I'm gonna see them, you know, at the Starbucks and there may be words. I'm not looking for that I'm not looking for that heat. Yeah, so No, I booked in downtown LA and and I booked Denver Before Michael Malone got fired. I should have should have reevaluated that. Yeah, because I just have so much respect So much respect for for yokich, so that's my. Is it is it a is it an exhaustive list? I didn't I did not book out San Francisco. I'm not there yet because they're just so small the Warriors. Yeah. And you know, that's my list. It's probably actually bigger. Usually it's only about it's more than normal. Yeah, because I know that LA probably would book up like crazy. So LA is probably borderline. I probably really didn't need to do that. I don't feel that strongly about that, but yeah, that's my list.

So what happens in the finals, you've got the two cities ideally booked out well ahead of time. Do you cancel the days in between where you're not going to be there, or do you just have an empty hotel room? No, obviously I cancel. I cancel. But yeah, it's like, because you look at my account, and there's like 39 reservations. Yeah. And you're like, what the heck is going on here? And as we get closer and closer, I start canceling. It's like refreshing. And I'm getting, because you're also

getting towards the end of the season. You're finalizing it down. But yeah, that's like my, I couldn't give you a higher compliment than booking a hotel three months out in your city. I love this. I think we need like this. I would hope that you would be in for this, but like, I want to make this a recurring thing on PMT next year where you book a hotel, you let us know and we'll do a breaking news.

So I have all these rules about things that I want when I during the first off, I want to take flights that I don't think people are going to be on. OK, because I mean, look, if it's Oklahoma City and Boston, you're not going to have seventy five options. Right. So, yeah, maybe that. But I like to take a flight that I that I don't think other people are going to be on, because I don't want to sit there and talk about the series for three hours, you know, or in the gate area or whatever. I just,

I'd rather break from it when I'm not doing it. Right. And I try, you can't always do this because sometimes you're in a city, we don't have a choice. I try to stay in a hotel, but I don't think people are going to stay in. Yeah. Okay. I, I, I don't, when I'm not at the arena or whatever, I don't want. And I also have this rule during the finals. And I stole it from Greg Popovich rule of five. No dinners more than five people. Oh, I will maybe sometimes allow a sixth. If it's somebody's spouse, because the last thing because you know, sometimes the spouses come to the playoffs and I don't want like somebody to be like making a choice between like a work dinner and like going with their wife or husband or boyfriend or girlfriend. So I will sometimes bend, but generally it's five because this is what happens because you know, there's a whole bunch of people traveling. There's all these different groups of people, a lot of people who don't travel during the year and they'll be like, oh, we're going so and so, Hey, can we bring along so and so we bring along so and so the next thing you got 12 people, you can't get in the tables are all messed up. You know, the bill comes and somebody's had six bottles of wine and now I'm paying, you know, $745. I can't talk to those seven people down there. I want everybody at the table to hear the other people rule of five. And if I am go if if I go to a dinner and there's like five and I say, how many people are there? And they go, Oh, there's four of us. You'd be the fifth. I go, okay. And then if they call

back later and they go, Hey, we're adding so and so and so and so I don't care who it is. I'm like, okay, you guys have fun. I'll go someplace else. I love it. Good. What if you show up and the party has expanded when you were invited? Yeah, it's happened and you go on my list. There's't want to be on that list. You're a big list guy. These two individuals don't know, but these two individuals invited me to a dinner at the last finals. It was in Cleveland in 2018.

I got there. There were people on the roster that I hadn't known about. The table was bigger. Done. We haven't gone since. Maybe they know. Maybe they figured it out. Maybe they haven't.

Done. Don't do that. I have limited time. I can't gone since maybe they know. Maybe they figured it out. Maybe they haven't done. Don't do that. I have limited time. I can't be bothered with this. And here's the other thing. I am if it's a big party. I am not afraid to do the Irish goodbye. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Not afraid like I will specifically not orders like I have done this where I've sat down and all of a sudden it's 12 people. You know, water we have to drink water. All right, I'm gonna go to the bathroom. Goodbye. I didn't sign up for 12 people. I you know, I didn't order like an appetizer. I

didn't pay. Yeah. These are my rules. Yeah. These are my rules. I look at guys. I've been I've been covering like for 23 years. Yeah. Do you have any road trips I've gone on? Do you know how many? Do you know how many dinners I've gone on the road? I don't need it in my life. Thank you. Yeah. Man's gotta have a code. You're smart. Uh, all right. One team you didn't put on there, the Houston Rockets. What's the, is it too young? Because I do think the NBA is the one league where you can confidently be like, this team's very talented, incredible season from the Rockets. They have some really,

really awesome young players, but they're just too young because that's how the NBA works. You get battle tested. You got to climb the mountain. The thunder were that team last year and now this year they could be in the finals. So is that it? Is it, they're just too young? Typically? Yeah. You know, they're there. I don't want to disrespect them. Like they could like, look, man man if they like beat the They beat the Warriors like 4-1 or something. I might sign on and see what See what reservations are available in June in Houston I have I reserve the right to to add to that list or delete from that list

but Yeah, but I will say this, they are built for the playoffs. Like if you look at the guys that they've drafted, like, like you guys are actually a good you guys are actually a good people to, to ask about this, because you guys follow the NBA, but you don't like get into the NBA super, super like, well, you guys, you guys bet so you guys know. All right, what do you guys know about Ahmed Thompson? He's a freak. Okay. So you guys, as a bad example, you guys, that's

a bag and I'm excited to watch them guard. Steph Curry, cause that's going to be awesome. So I feel like the world, I mean, obviously if you're a rocket fan, you love him. If you're an NBA fan, you may be a little bit aware of him, but I feel like the basketball public is going to figure out who Ahmed and Thompson is over the next two, three weeks. This guy is an absolute freak amongst freaks. Like all the great athletes that you see in the NBA, he's like the great athletes, great athlete, and he is going to be attacking Steph. Steph has seen every defender in the world. I think KD had that great line in that documentary about the Olympics where he was sort of mocking

the other teams, having camaraderie and growing up playing together. He's like, how's that going to help you when you go at Steph? I agree like you can be the most physically imposing defender in the history of the sport. If you lose Steph Curry, he gets the corner turned on you you're giving up a three. I don't care what you say, but they are built with defensive minded players, which you need in the postseason. The other thing is like the Warriors real weapon is Jimmy Butler and the one thing that you can do on Jimmy Butler that can Maybe kind of bother him a little bit is put like really big size on him. This happened in the finals two years ago

You know Jimmy had that great run Or he led the heat all the way the finals and look Yoko, which was untouchable But they had Aaron Gordon who just has enormous size Like I think he's like 610 They put him on Butler and like Butler is it he does very very rarely can you find a guy who can physically impose Jimmy Butler and Gordon could kind of do that and so like they have players like that. They have you know, Dylan Brooks they have Amen Thompson, you know, they have Jabari Smith. They have, you know, these guys who got good size.

So while they don't have star power and they don't have like experience, although Fred Van Vliet is their, like their leader and he's got a ring, they do have some things going for them. So I wouldn't count them out. I actually think that other than whoever Oklahoma City plays in the 1-8, I think you can take the little numbers next to the teams, the seeds, and you can throw them out because I don't think there's a discernible difference between the two, the three, the four, the five, the six. Obviously you get home court if you're the higher seed, but

Golden State is favored in this series, I think in the sports books. On one hand, I respect it because I don't think there's that much of a difference between the teams. On the other hand, that is not acknowledging what Houston's got going for him. Yeah. Also, my favorite thing about the Rockets is Jeff Green's still playing basketball and he's on the Rockets. It's crazy. He's had, I don't even know how long, what, it's like 20 years now? I think he's played with double-digit teams. If it's not double-digit teams, it's got to be like nine. Yeah. I want to know the percentage of players all time that have ever played in the NBA that have played on a team with Jeff Green.

It's a lot. It's got to be like, yeah, like the Kevin Bacon. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's two Seattle supersonics left in the league. Guys who play with the Sonics. Yeah. I think it's KD and Jeff Green because because Westbrook's first year was with the he was in Oklahoma City. I'm pretty sure. Yeah. So I think Jeff, Uncle Jeff and KD are the last two Sonics who had Sonics jersey. I'm looking forward to seeing Dylan Brooks and Draymond Green on the court at the same time in this series. Like somebody's getting thrown out, right? Here's something else. Houston plays like super physical, like that's how their coach Eme Udoka like teaches them to play.

He wants them to play physical. And so you know officiating is going to be a deal in this series. You know that how Houston gets officiated is going to be something. So you know that from the opening tip off, Draymond Green is going to be working it. And like, obviously sometimes Draymond goes over the edge, but if you look on balance, the Warriors might tell you that on balance, he's way ahead because he does sometimes intimidate officials. Now, the officials that you see in the postseason

are more veteran. It's maybe not going to happen. But Draymond, I could see Draymond going to work here because he knows from the beginning of the series that the way games are officiated are going to matter. And he has a, he has a whole game within the game, what he's doing with the referees. I, I got a question for you, Wendy. Uh, maybe we do East West. So we'll start with the East, uh, kind of a broader question and I have an answer in mind, but I'm curious yours. What team or player has the most pressure on them, uh, in the East? You sound like you're a first take producer.

Yeah. That is exactly. It popped in my head. Exactly. You want me to go with mine first and then you can answer it. Tell me if it's stupid. I think there's a lot of pressure on the current iteration of the Bucks because it does feel like they're at the end of something. And if they don't maybe win a couple series here, it's like, where are we as a franchise? Good. Very good. Agree. Okay. What is yours? So I think there's, I'm at, let me just say who I don't think there's pressure on that you may be, maybe not you, but the fans, I don't think there's a lot of pressure on the Lakers. Okay. That's not what people are going to think. They're going to think, oh my God,

like the lake, you know, if LeBron doesn't win, like, you know, there goes the Jordan comparison. I think the Lakers are better are going to be better next year. And I think this year is all about them getting the reps in together and learning to play with each other under pressure and figuring out how LeBron and Luca and Austin Reeves are going to share the load. They're not equipped really to handle it. I say handle it. That's the wrong word. They're not equipped. They're not built. The roster isn't built out to win 12 playoff games to win the West. In my opinion. They could prove me wrong and then laugh at me. I could get called weird again. But I don't think there's a lot of pressure on them. I don't think there's a lot of pressure really on the Warriors because I think they're kind of in a free roll. Jimmy has his contract. The Warriors have their titles. Like if they could make a run, they did it, man.

You know, Seth has four rings. What was it? If he gets a fifth, like that's supposed to like take him up for echelon. They want to win. They did great. You know, Jimmy doesn't have a ring, but no one's going to say that Jimmy Butler isn't a, isn't a great pressure player like his, he obviously would want to win, but his, his reputation is, he's kind of secure. I think there could be a little bit of pressure on Donovan Mitchell because Donovan Mitchell, when he was in Utah several times, I'm not sure he had two 61 teams. He definitely had one 61 team in Utah and they've never, he never made it to the conference finals. And it wasn't always his fault, but he is not always

delivered at the highest. He's sort of been up and down. He's had some playoff games where he's been amazing, but his team has never like over even achieved much as overachieved. And he is, by the way, he has spent this whole year as the Cavs racked up 64 or 65 wins, whatever they had By the way, he has spent this whole year as the Cavs racked up 64 or 65 wins whatever they had saying None of this matters this 15 game winning streak to start the season doesn't matter this 16 game win streak they had um in the uh in the After the all-star break doesn't matter the three all-stars doesn't matter him making all nba doesn't matter He's like because i've been on great teams before And it doesn't matter if you don't win and I I think that's true. And look, I don't

favor them to win the East, but if they stub their toe and like don't get to the conference finals, or if they get to the conference finals and they've built out this team, this team is like set up, they, you know, they went and made a mid season trade for Deandre Hunter, which, you know, is costing, it'll cost them a lot of money in the future. And they like get blasted by Boston 4-1, like they got beat 4-1 by Boston a year ago. Then I think people are gonna look at him and go, well, are you really a difference making player? Like, are you really a type of guy who can carry a team?

So while I don't look at them as favorites in the East, I think there's pressure on Donovan to have a great playoff run and to carry the Cavs with them. I don't think there's pressure on the, uh, the, uh, the Celtics per se. However, if they get to the finals, there'll be pressure on Jason Tatum to have a great finals because, because he wasn't great in the 2022 finals. And then last year he was good.

He was, he led the Celtics in points, rebounds and assists in the finals. He did not play poorly. He just didn't shoot the ball well. and he wasn't amazing. Like this is the one thing people always make the mistake. They they're like, Oh, Jalen Brown won the MVP. Jason Tatum must have sucked. No, there was 11 votes for finals MVP. There's 11 voters. It was seven to four. You know, there were people who thought Jason Tatum was the finals MVP. He just didn't play amazing and awesome, but he has played in two finals. He hasn't been amazing and awesome

in those two finals, even though he's got a ring. So I do think if he gets there, especially if the Celtics crushed the East, like last year, I think they went through the East 12 and two, if they do something like that again, this year, it's gonna be like, okay, Jason, now you gotta show up in the finals to, to, to solidify where you need to be as a player. Yeah. You haven't mentioned the Knicks on your pressure teams. No pressure on New York. What do you think?

I mean, there's pressure if they're in trouble in the first round. Yeah. I feel like, yeah, the expectation, given what they've done against the good teams in the East, I think most Knicks fans are not, they're not going into this playoffs being like, yeah, this is our year. We can do it. We can. Right. You know, we're gritty, scrappy underdogs.

We can do it. I think they're kind of guarded going into it, but I do think that they need to at least win a series and they better win that series. Detroit won 13 games last year or something, 14 games. You know, they've got no, they've got a couple of guys on their team who have playoff experience like Tobias Harris, you know, um, Tim Hardaway jr. But like they, you know, the guys that they're relying on, you know, Kate Cunningham, um, you know, Jalen Durin, um, the guys that they're relying on have never done this before.

So if the, if the, if the, if the Nick screw around in that first series, that would potentially create some pressure. I'll give you that. Yeah. Their pressure to not flame out. Yeah. Because there's, they're playing, there's certain teams, the magic, the pistons, uh, the T-walls a little different because obviously they went deep last year, but like, or the rockets where it's, if they lose the future is bright and they're building something and they're getting to somewhere free roll, free roll, right? The Knicks are in that weird spot where it's like they made the moves to try to get better and they aren't, they aren't really seriously contending in the East. So it's kind of a weird spot. Oklahoma city is kind of going that route.

Cause like Oklahoma city is this youngest team in the league. How often do you ever see the youngest team in the league be the best team in the league? We almost never see it's actually the reason why homeless lead, not maybe the reason, but it's a reason why, like the thing I've noticed about Oklahoma city is that the players don't respect them. Um, like they're not afraid of them. Um, even though they won 57 games last year and they won 68 games this year, like nobody who wins those that that many games over two years is not a championship team. Um, but they're the youngest team.

So you just don't respect young guys who haven't done it before, no matter how many regular season wins they get. So they're going in, they are actually favored. I, the reason I think that they're favorite, you guys know the gambling way better than I do. I can't honestly say that they should be favored to beat Boston four out of seven, but I must, they, the sports books must be getting so much money on the Celtics that they're trying to get money on the Thunder. Is that maybe what's happening? I don't understand it, but I would say that the Thunder being favorite, I don't think that's the way the players in the league based on my conversations. If the Thunder don't win it this year, specifically if they don't get to the finals, you will see it flip on them. You will not you will then see people like me saying the Thunder better get this done to the Thunder need to make a trade or whatever. Right now they kind of live in a zone where they're not like having expectations like well, you better back this 68 win season up by getting to the finals and almost winning it. Otherwise, it doesn't matter. They don't really live in that world right now. They live in a bit of a not that stressful of a world, but that will change if they if they stub their toe and go out early like they did last year. Yeah, that is kind of weird that they're the favorites to win at all because usually you would see that you would expect that team to be coming out of the East where it might be a little bit easier to get to the finals. It could be also

Jalen Brown's knee, which I mean, he think he's, he's going to be fine, but that always, you know, any injury news could always change it a little too. Yeah. He did have a treatment, but like they were playing him. It's not like they shut him down. So he definitely has been talking about it. And when the player talks about it, like that's a sign. Like it's one thing if the team says, Oh yeah, he's dealing with something. And the player doesn't say anything when the player says something about it. Like I'm dealing with something I pay more attention, but they were playing him. Yeah, like up until their seed, you know, he played straight through until they're until they knew they had the second seed. So I know it's not my knee. I don't know how it feels. You know, he had like an injection in it. But, um, you know, in all honesty, Boston might not need him for a month anyway. Yeah. What are we hearing? On the health front from Dame. So there, he apparently responded to the treatments for the blood clots a lot faster than anybody thought that he would. Is there a chance that he plays in the first series? Yeah, I think so. I think he's I mean, you know, you never want to assume anything, but I think the intent is for him to play sometime next week.

He's not going to play in the first game. So look, I had a blood clot 15 years ago. I am not an athlete quite clearly. When I had the blood clot, like they wanted you to be on the medication for at least three months. The medication sucks. Has a bunch of side effects, like drags you down. Nobody likes it. But you got to be careful. But it's life-saving. You know, the thing about a blood clot, I know from just having one, is that the big thing is to diagnose it. That's because the problem is people die when blood clots, when they don't know they're feeling sick. They don't know why people die when blood clots are not diagnosed. So the big challenge is diagnose a blood clot, then you deal with it. So they so what Shams, Trania said like, is that Dame started blood thinning medication two weeks before they actually found the blood clot.

Oh wow. Now this obviously creates some follow-up questions that we would all like to have. And Dane hasn't done an interview yet. And by the way, like aspirin, I think can theoretically be called blood-thinning medication. So I don't want to sound like, but something that he did when he started

feeling this issue helped mitigate this. And even that, like, I mean, he was, he was going to the Mayo Clinic, like they know what they're doing. So it is kind of amazing. Like when I heard he had a blood clot and like the bucks were saying like, no, we think he can come back. I thought they were just like trying to put up a front, like trying to keep, you know, trying not to let anybody have information because you don't do that in the playoffs. But sure enough, he's been cleared by by the Mayo Clinic. So that the Bucs have had nothing but bad news on the injury front for the last three years.

Two, three years ago, when they were the defending champs, Middleton got hurt in the first round. He went down like the first game and put his hand on the ground and sprained his wrist or something like that. And then they had blues in six games or seven games to the Celtics. The year they went to the finals next year, Yannis gets hurt in the first round. They go out to Miami. Miami ends up going to the finals. Yannis doesn't get hurt. Maybe the Bs are back in the finals. I don't know. You know, I don't know. Then last year, you remember Giannis, like it's like the 10 days before the end of the season, he takes it inbound, turns to run up the court and falls down, hurts his calf. Giannis has played in

two playoff games the last two years. So we've had nothing but rotten injury luck for three straight years. It's really short-circuited this team's opportunity to win another title. Yeah. Yeah. And so for them to get unexpectedly positive injury news, I would say karma was on their side for that to happen. Yeah. I hope he's fine, and I'm glad to hear it.

All right. I got a couple last questions. We talked about Ammon Thompson. Give me another name that you think the national world is going to be like, oh man, because this is why we love the playoffs, guys. Everyone knew Anthony Edwards was, but last year was, holy shit, this guy is unreal. Jalen Brunson a couple of years ago. This is the stage that names start to become bigger and guys get talked about in a different light. So do you have one or two guys where you're like, Hey, this,

this could be a big, big moment for them. So if it's a Zubats from the Clippers, I don't know, is he a big enough? Is he, is he a big name? I mean, like he played, so this guy is having an absolutely incredible season and he's just big, strong, brute player who, I mean, he's just big, strong, brute player who, I mean, he's been in the league like seven, eight years. It's not like he's unheard of, but he took a leap forward this year. And I think part of it is because like James Harden does a great job,

like bringing a lot out of centers. Like he did this with Clint Capella years ago in Houston. Part of it, I think is that Harden was like the full-time point guard for the full season. But Zubac is just a beast and I wouldn't say he's had success against Jokic, but out of all the guys who have played Jokic a bunch of times, like Zubac has actually been able to check the box and say, I did a good job in this game the most. So he is going to be front and center in that series. He is been one of the best defensive players in the league.

He's a beast on the interior. He doesn't mess around. You know, like we're in this era where everybody and their brother shoots threes. Zoo doesn't do that. Zoo's like, forget about that. I am playing that game. I will come in and I will shoot my 65% on the interior. So it's a great opportunity for the the world to kind of be introduced to zoo And I don't know like again. I don't Kate Cunningham has been an all-star. Yeah, but he hasn't been on the Sort of the front page

Okay, Cunningham was like a borderline MVP candidate this year He was so good for the Pistons and the Pistons haven't made the playoffs in like seven years. So like, and they weren't on national TV a lot. So like it was a chance again, if you're a casual NBA fan, you haven't really seen Cade Cunningham. So I hate to give this to a guy, who was an all star and is going to be on the all NBA team, but I feel like Cade Cunningham, especially playing in New York, playing at the garden NBA team, but I feel like Cade Cunningham, especially playing in New York, playing at the Garden, I think he has a chance to sort of have his, his profile really elevated.

Yeah, no, that's a good answer. Because if they beat, if the Pistons win a series, Cade Cunningham will be talked about in a different light going forward. I agree. You remember that happened with, with Trey Young. Yeah. I mean, Trey Young was a major college star. I mean, I guess Cade was too, his number one overall pick, but Trey Young. Trey Young was a major college star. I mean, I guess Cade was too. He's the number one overall pick, but Trey Young went into another level because of that playoff series with the Knicks a few years ago. Yeah. If you had a gun to your head right now, or I guess if your credit card company called you up and they said, you have to cancel, you can't have all these hotel rooms. There's a housing crisis in America. We need some of these hotel rooms back. And they only

gave you two options. You can only pick one from the West city in Boston. That's where you're keeping it. Okay. Yeah. That's your final spec. And I say that as someone who's from Cleveland, who spends a lot of time in Cleveland and you know, makes a lot of appearances in Cleveland. They're not going to be happy that I say that, but like you got to knock the champ out. Um, and they did, they went two and two against him this year. And Donovan Mitchell averaged like 32 points against the Celtics this year. Like there's a world where this happens for Donovan, but he's got to prove to do it. And so those were the two that I made the first two that I made. But you also have a lot of friends in Cleveland. You could just say that, like you'll crash

at their place so you can cancel the hotel. I am staying with my mother in Akron on Saturday night and will not ESPN will not have to pay for my hotel rooms in Cleveland this upcoming week. I love it. I love it. All right, Wendy, this has been so much fun. We love having you on. I got one last question. It's a row back question. R-H-O-B-A-C-K dot com promo code take love row back. Yes, the best 20% off your first purchase use promo code take q-zips polos hoodies joggers shorts the best row back dot com promo code take. I know this isn't playoffs, but I just want to be I want to feel seen for a minute because we we've already taped the rest of the show and I did a rant to the beginning

of the show about the bulls. Rightfully so. It's just ridiculous that people actually look at March and April NBA basketball and say, Oh, that team's building something. Does that, is that fair? Cause that was my whole thing. Like they were a 47% win percentage team for the season. They won 70% of their games down the stretch. And if you take out all the teams that were tanking or were sitting loaded management guys, they won 46% of those games. They never changed as a team. They just started playing teams that were actively trying to lose. Cat, what would you say is the most important thing that the Bulls need? A guy!

Absolutely. How do you get them? Yes, the lottery! Ah, yes. Thank you to check mark, check mark. I'm ready to hire you as GM. Oh, what did the bulls absolutely not do this year? They didn't get their lottery odds up. Um, what I, the way I said it, I declared this like 18 months ago. The bulls are in a rebuild and they don't know they're in a rebuild. Yep. And that's almost the worst position to be in. I will say this, you could be the Sacramento Kings who have a bunch of Bulls players making tons of money that didn't work with Chicago and are now

convinced they're going to work in Sacramento, so convinced that they're firing coaches and GMs saying, why isn't this working? Why are we not in the, and by the way, like I'm not nothing against Zach Levine and Demarco Rosa. I know them a little bit. I think they're good guys. They just didn't work together in Chicago. Why would they anyway? That's another story. I said that I said it was the bulls front office lost two playing games on Wednesday night. They did. I know. Like here's the thing. Like the bulls got boot off the floor and so did Sacramento. They got the bulls, ex Bulls players got bulled off.

And AK is sitting there like, oh, this is crazy. I can't believe this happened. I can't explain. One of my podcast partners, Tim McMahon, he says, boy, he has a line. He goes, boy, you came in third like the Bulls in a three team trade. I love saying that. And I didn't see our tourist Kanisha Vista's press conference today. trade. Love to say that. Yeah. Um, and I didn't see, uh, our tourist condition. This is, um, press conference today. I'm going to follow it up. I was,

I was working. Somebody told me he said something to the effect of this may not be an exact quote. Uh, Hey, just give us some time. We're building timeline. Yeah. Yeah. Tough. It's okay. All right. I feel seen. Thank you. Because I, I, you know, you fight against it and I know like people inherently don't want to see their team tank, but the NBA, if you are three, I was saying actually started the show. If you get in the, if you're in the plan three or four years in a row, like the Bulls and Hawks, there should be like

a punishment on your team because that's, you're basically admitting to everyone that you don't know what you're doing and you're doing this all wrong. So a couple of like, I don't know, maybe a month ago we ranked like at ESPN, we use like these seven different ways to rank the rebuilding teams. Like there was like, I don't know, we called them 10 rebuilding teams. Like we all rolled up our sleeves and we did all this analysis, looked at all these stats and everything like that. And we ranked them. And really the only difference between the teams who were

doing successful rebuilds, like the spurs and teams that are doing unsuccessful rebuilds while the bulls technically aren't rebuilding, but whatever are the fact that they got lucky in the lottery. Like if you, if you looked at this, you could be like, the only way to do this is to get lucky in the lottery. So maybe they will get lucky in the lottery and Cooper flag will be showing up in the summer. And if that happens, it would be amazing because Kobe white is good.

Josh Giddy does have promise. Uh, Bezalas their rookie like would potentially be like a pretty good fourth guy. But if you don't have the dude, you're not going anywhere. So you got to, you got to kill yourself to get the dude. And the bulls aren't doing things to get the dude. That's what would drive me crazy if I was a bulls fan. So who do you have winning the lottery? You know, what's the, what would be the best option? I mean, if she, if the bulls won the

lottery and I mean, now they're like, what are they? They'd have like the 12th best odds. I think they're 1% right now. Could jump up to 2%. Yeah. It would be amazing if Cooper flag won to Chicago. Yeah. Like for the league. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. It'll probably. Why'd you say that? For the league. For the league, because I don't know if you heard, it would be better if the Bulls are good for the league. You know, it would be better for the league because I don't know if you heard it would be better if the Bulls are good for the league you know um it would be better for the league but they've done their best not to get it what I kind of don't want is the 76ers to win it yeah yeah agree because they were what the way that the way

they got to that seat they finished the season five and 31. Is there any chance that Silver steps in and he's like, hey, we told you not to do this. You kept doing it. I'm taking away a couple of your percentage points, giving it to the Bulls. You know, like one of the most amazing parts of the NFL season for me, I don't follow it that closely, was that one game where who were the Eagles playing,

where they kept doing the tush push, and like there was kept being penalties. And the referee was like, look, As a commander's if you jump, okay, I'm sorry. Pft. I didn't mean to, I seriously didn't want to inflict damage on you. That's like when that referee said, look, if you do it again, we're giving them, just give them the touchdown. Yeah. Like what you're saying is Adam silver should have that. Yes, you know, like they're all celebrating. He just steps in. I'm sorry. I'm just going to use my, my powers here. Yeah, we're taking away. You're going down to like 5% in the lottery. The Bulls jump up to like 6% and maybe the Wizards get the rest. I don't know. Yeah, that seems fair. It wouldn't be the worst idea in the world for the Wizards to get Cooper flag. That would kind of be cool. The nation's capital hasn't had a good team in like decades. Yeah, it's been a long time. So, but it'll probably be Charlotte. Yeah, okay. We will. Um, all right. Well, Wendy, you're the best. We love having you guys. We'll do it again later on in the playoffs. And I love the idea of the

windy hotels. So we'll make a graphic for you. Uh, and we'll start five, five people at dinner. Five people. I love that rule. Like, like if there's four of us at the table and you two show up and you're offering to pay, I say, thank you. Keep on walking. I love it. I can tell you're very passionate about this, but it comes from a place of experience where you've had some bad situations. I can tell that there's trauma in your past. And you're so right about like the conversation. If you're at a dinner with 10 people, you don't talk to half of the table. It just doesn't happen. Right. And like, look, that's fine for other people. For me, five, five, six, if it's somebody's boyfriend or girlfriend, I don't want to leave them out. That's the only time I'll go there. All right. Thanks so much, Wendy. We'll talk

soon. Take care, guys. Wendy was brought to you by our great friends over at Truly Hard Seltzer and their new Truly Take care guys. great for a pregame, but guess what? It tastes great too. It's got four supercharged lemonade flavors bump and blue ras. That's my favorite. OG that's the original lemonade punched up pineapple and wild pink. It's the official hard seltzer of part of my take. Find truly unruly lemonade at a store near you or visit www.trulyhardseltzer.com. Wendy was also brought to you by our good friends over at the 47 brand. One thing I love about 47 brand, the fit, the quality, you know, 47 brand hat from across the room. It's an across the room hat. You see it,

you can spot it. It looks great. Super comfortable. All I wear is 47 brand. That's it. Love my 47 brand hats and all the part of my take merch. Guess what? That's 47 brand too. We love them. We wear them. They're known for their headwear, but also check out the apparel. Nice vintage looks. Also modern flare to them. Great quality. 47 has new, new drops launching constantly for your favorite leagues, your favorite teams, licensed headwear and apparel more than just game day headwear shop, 47 brand.com now. And you can use promo code PMT,

get 20% off your purchase with promo code PMT at 47 brand.com save 20% off 47 brand.com and promo code PMT. And now here's recurring guest and handsome man, Josh Duhamel. Okay. We now welcome on a very special guests, recurring guests, the most attractive guest that we have in Pardon My Take history. Skip Bayless.

Skip Bayless or Josh Duhamel. Josh, always great to see you, always great to have you on. You have a new show out April 17th, Ransom Canyon on Netflix. It looks like you're ready to do just like a full day of press junkets. How many interviews do you have today? Oh gosh, I don't know. I'm here till one. They got me. They got me fully loaded. I know that much. Okay. So we're number one. By the way, we're at this new, this new Netflix building that they built just for junkets like this. Okay. We used to be at a hotel and now they

have like, they built actual hotel rooms with room service and a room like this. Okay. You used to be at a hotel and now they have like, they built actual hotel rooms with room service and a room like this. And they just, they just run us through like a car wash. Can you get a room in the Netflix hotel junket? Yeah. It's a beautiful room. It's like, it's like, you know, five star. Yeah.

All right. So bad because you can't sleep. Yeah. So we're interview one. You're going to do a bunch of interviews today. I would hope that we ask the dumbest questions that you get today. And I'll start with a really dumb one. So ransom Canyon. I watched the trailer looks awesome. Texas romance, Western got everything. How many horses did you ride? And did you have like a specific horse you loved?

I did, I rode a horse called JC. We all had our own horse. Actually went to a cowboy camp for a couple of weeks before we started shooting. I hadn't been, you know, I'm from North Dakota. We talked about this last time. So I was around farms and ranches pretty much my whole life. But I hadn't been on a horse for 20 years probably.

So yeah, I was a little rusty, but it was, you know, it was, and I'm not gonna lie, I wasn't a huge horse guy, but for whatever reason, I don't know if it was Clay and the guys over there that sort of run this cowboy camp, I really started to love it again for the first time and maybe forever. I like it. So JC was your horse. So that was your horse every single time. Yep. Okay. Now this is a dumb question, but do horses have to

act? Do they have like a coach? Well, they're really well trained. I can tell you that much. Some more than others. JC was a really, uh, he was an older veteran horse, so he was very well behaved, which I liked. I didn't feel like I was going to get bucked off at any minute. Yeah, that's good. I feel like Kevin Costner, his roles recently have just been like, get me to a place where I can ride horses around while I'm on the set, because that's what I want to be doing anyways. It's actually a really cool strategy, if that's what you love. Yeah, right. It is fun, you know, and this whole, you know, there's something about the vibe of this show that I just loved because I was actually at my place,

at my cabin when April Blair, the show runner, called. So I was kind of in this mode anyway. I was, I think I was on my tractor, my side-by-side or something. And we just started talking about this character. And you know know this guy is you know he's been through it the last couple of years lost his wife a couple years ago and then lost his son about a year to the day we start the show so he's been through it and

and I think that you know that's really what I love is this guy was not just, he doesn't have it all together. He's pretty broken. He's pretty surly and, um, you know, that, that fits my character. I fit right into that. Yeah. Um, the other thing I noticed, another dumb question from the trailer, which it looks awesome. I'm definitely going to watch this show.

Uh, the, there was a line in it and you've been in a lot of movies, a lot of shows, where I think a police officer said to a woman, you stay away from that boy. Has that ever worked? Has anyone ever stayed away from the boy? That's a pretty good indicator that she's not going to stay away from him. I feel like I picked up, I'm not the smartest guy, but I feel like I picked up there might be something going on with the boy. You're like, you're like, you're like the pink panther. Yeah, I'm like, I'm like those, uh, yeah, the Reddit threads for like white Lotus or severance where everyone's piecing, you know, every single thing in the background. I'm

like, I should just start a thread being like I think there's something gonna happen with this boy in this girl Speaking of your your place that you have up in, Minnesota I watched the tour that you gave of your your your cab and your property that you have up there that looks awesome Yeah, I'm actually envious of what you did to that place because maybe you can tell the story But you bought a spot for what, like 75 grand? And then you spent the last couple of years fixing it up. It looks incredible. By the way, you guys are always welcome.

It is a lot of fun. I don't want to like overplay the relationship, but my follow-up question was going to be, if there is an apocalypse, I'm going to go to your cabin. Is that ready? Okay. I'm ready. It truly is my happy place. We bought that place.

I bought the place like 15, 16 years ago with nothing on it. It was, it literally hadn't, the first thing I bought was a floating dock. And then the property next to that went up for sale and had a little hunting shack with no electricity or water. And then a couple of years after that, another one went up for sale right next door

with a little cabin right on the water. So then I suddenly had two little cabins, no water, no wells, but one of them had electricity. So for the first 10 years, we would be, you know, it was outhouses and it was washing dishes in the lake. Yeah. And finally, we built something that's actually, you know, a little bit more suited for modern times. And we have we built something that's actually, you know, a little bit more suited for modern times. And we have running water now and we have wells and we have showers and we even have a dishwasher. So, you know, we're living a really posh life out there. Yeah, it looks amazing. Were people calling you insane when you said, hey, I'm going to buy this place, fix it up and spend a lot of time out there because it's so far away

from everything. I get it. But I imagine that a lot of people that you work around that might not have been like their ideal situation to live. Yeah. Have we lost Josh? Is he gone? At times, yeah, I think people do wonder that it is, you know, it was just something that I felt like I wanted to do. I'd never, you know, I didn't grow up with a lake cabin. I didn't have anything like that, but I had friends who did and I always loved it. I'd never, you know, I didn't grow up with a lake cabin. I didn't have anything like that. But I had friends who did and I always loved that I love that lake life. So it just became the play and especially during COVID. We

spent a lot of time just because nothing was going on. We just lived out there. And we're we're building and you know, cutting trails and, and just sort of shaping it. And then over the last few years, especially, it's really come along. So yeah, it's a lot of fun. Is it fully doomsday prepped? Are you ready to go if there's an apocalypse? Well, I'm getting there. You know, the whole thing runs on propane if I need it to, the generator, and I got solar, I got wells. So I have enough water. I'm working. I'm not,

I'm not much of a hunter yet. I'm working on that, but there's plenty that you could, you know, hunt and eat and fish. You know, if you had to, I could probably survive two weeks. Okay. We're getting there. Two weeks is pretty good. Yeah. Cause I know that there's an apocalypse. I would just, I just walk outside and be like, just take me now. I don't, I'm not, I'm not down for the fight. Like I'd give up very quickly. It's always been a fear of mine. Like the, the idea that, you know, something happens and everything goes sideways. The problem is how do you, how would I get there? You know, because you know, the, the, the freeways in LA can lock up pretty quickly. So I've gone through all these scenarios where

do I get a dirt bike and take the canyons over to a boat that I have rented and a slip over in the marina? And do I drive the boat up the coast where I have a car parked that I can drive from there? You know, it's a whole, I've thought this thought this thing through I haven't done any of that yet But it is it is part of the plan. I've been watching The Last of Us you could just walk That's kind of what they do. They just walked across the entire country doesn't walk from LA to Fargo

Yeah, or get get a pilot's license just fly there. Oh, yeah, not a bad idea Do you think people look at you little sideways when you say that you're prep like this? Like they're like, all right, dude, because there is a little bit that comes with being a doomsday prepper where people are like, okay, man, sounds good. Crazy. Yeah. Like all the people who bought stuff, like in 1999, they've been like this 2000 thing is going to fuck everything up. And then they, yeah. And they woke up and they're like, whoops, I probably shouldn't be living in the woods. Well, yeah, I'm guessing they do probably look at me a little sideways because, but it's not like I'm out there, you know, I don't, I don't have like an underground bunker and things like that. It's just mostly honestly what it is, is a place that my kids love to go.

Right. My sister's kids, both my sister's kids, and hopefully their kids someday will all find it a place that they can all go to. So I built it not only for me and a place to get away to, but also something I can pass on to them. Yeah, and it's nice, it's a short commute from your real house in North Dakota

so you can just drive over there every day and come right back on over. Yeah. Yeah Wait, so uh last time we had you on you told us about your guys trip every year Are you still doing it where you guys go and basically play a bunch of sports and and hopefully don't get injured Are you still keeping the tradition? Oh Yeah, we do it every, every third weekend of August. I love it. Buddy games. Uh, this year, I think we're doing it in Montana. Okay. Get out of my cabin last year, the Bob,

the Bob father likes to make sure that we take a year off from my place. I don't know if it's because he wants to make sure that he still runs it. And I don't, but he's very possessive about his buddy games. So, uh, so last year we did it at my cabin this year. I think we went to Montana, but you know, every year is like Christmas. The guys put it on the calendar and they all show up. Yeah. So, so any injuries last year? Cause like you guys, when you described it to us, it was every sport you could think of. And you know, we're all getting up in age. Was there, were there any, any issues with someone like, has there been a retirement? That would be sad. So when I do like a real retirement, like, you know, raise their banner to the rafters. No, we did. We did. We did introduce the hall of

fame last year. Uh, Chad Hornbarker got the mar maroon jacket. Uh as far as injuries, Chris Watson woke up to go take a piss in the middle of the morning, in the middle of the night, stood up, passed out, and like literally broke the left side of his face. Oh my god. Like oh my god, what is, you know, so I don't know if that's an indicator that we're, we are getting older or what, but he was, uh, but he, he still competed. Oh, I love that. That's how dedicated he was. That's hockey tough. Yeah. I love that. That's amazing. What events did we do last year? We did, uh, we did the, the usual is golf, wiffle ball. We built the wiffle ball field down on the sort of half in the lake, half in the half and land.

We had a chipping contest where we chip from this upper ridge down onto the beach and you had to, you had to lay there, spread Eagle, and you, and you got to wear a motorcycle helmet, but that was it. That and your underwear. Oh, did we get a nut shot? That see, this is like, there was a shin shot. We didn't, we, did we get a nut shot? That see, this is like, there was a shin shot. We didn't, we didn't quite get the nut shot, but yeah, you know, you, you send one up about 80 yards and it comes down on that balls moving by the time it hits. So yeah, it was, it wasn't our most, it wasn't our most ridiculous event, but, but, oh, we also did, we also did like this,

this amazing croquet where I mowed fairways all through the yard and all the undulations. We let him at a golf course in, in, did it like a croquet field. And that surprisingly was the favorite event last year. Well, yeah, that's another indicator that we would be getting old. Yeah. That's the old like being like, yeah, that's another indicator that we're going to be getting old. Yeah, that's the old like being like, yeah, the event where we stand around and have to like lightly swing something. I would say that's that's maybe getting old. That's actually a genius idea, though, doing croquet golf,

just a giant size croquet field. I'm surprised. I don't know if anyone's done that before, if you invented it. But that sounds like the best time ever. We mode fairways, the whole thing. So if you got it, but that sounds like the best time ever. We mowed fairways, the whole thing. So if you got off track, you're in the rough. It was actually really fun. Yeah.

I know it doesn't sound like it, but it was one of the best events. How did you do? And if you have a lackluster buddy games, do you find yourself beating yourself up for the next year? Like, God, I really, really left a lot of opportunities out there. We did win last year. It's still under protest I imagine that most most wins are under protest right for the buddy games

Me and my team did win it last year, but of course, you know These guys, you know, it's just they're just a bunch of babies Well, it sounds we do something similar here bars. It like we just completed We did a 18 hole mini golf tournament in our office. We built 18 mini golf holes. And it was 12 on 12, like Ryder Cup style. And the way I describe it is you could create a mini golf rule book that is 1,000 page long.

Once you get all of us in the same setting, it will take maybe 30 minutes before we find a loophole and start arguing nonstop with each other. And that's what I imagine the Bunny Games is. Yeah. It really is. And Chad Kelly, yeah, I'm calling you out. Chad Kelly was the biggest culprit last year, man. He was tripping the whole time. Yeah, they seem to find loopholes. Everybody desperately wants to win this thing. It's hilarious. That's the fun though. When you take it so seriously, like we were, we did this mini

golf competition. I found myself, our team lost and I was actually kind of depressed. Like I was, I woke up in a bad mood. I was like, you gotta be kidding me, man. Like what, you got three kids, you got a great life and you're getting upset about mini golf. But that's how I felt. Like I can't, I can't deny how I felt. Your competitor. Yeah. Yeah. It's just how, how you're wired. We got to talk about some, uh, some NFL stuff here because your Vikings, let me just ask you this. Would you want Aaron Rodgers on your Vikings?

Yes and no. I mean, I've I've I've run into Aaron a bunch of years and he's he's actually a really fun dude. He loves to give me he loves to give it to me about the Vikings, especially when he was with the Packers. So.

It just it's kind of you kind of feel like it did when Farve came. Yeah, Farve maybe had his best year of all his whole career, but it didn't feel like he was fully one of the Vikings, you know, so I don't think I could, I don't think, you know, even if we did win, it feels like it would almost need a Asterix next to it or

something. Yeah, yeah. I don't know what JJ is going to do. Look, I saw him on the sidelines when I was at the, well, I went to the, what I do, I went to the Lions game last game of the season, and then I went to the, well, I went to the, what I do, I went to the lions game last game of the season. And then I went to the, no, I went to the Packers, then the lions and JJ is a hell of a quarterback, but man, he doesn't look very big down there. He looks like he's about 16 years old. Yeah. He does look young. Yeah. Did you, he's a hell of

a quarterback. We'll see. Did you find yourself falling for the Sam Darnold situation? But did you, did you fully buy in that that was like, Hey, this is who he is now. He's just the best. I was really impressed. I did not see that. I don't think any Vikings fans saw last year coming. We thought it was going to be a 500 year and it turned out to be one of the most exciting years we've had. And Sam Darnal was a big reason for that. Now, you know, I don't want to blame him entirely for that those last couple of games. He did not play well, but you know, he was also, he also got pressured like crazy. Yeah. I think that, I think that, you know, the

pressure of the game, the situation, and then, you know, the amount of pressure he was getting from the, from the defense, I think was, was a little bit too much, but I, apparently we did reload on the offensive line, which is good. Did you guys see that? Yes. Yeah. Big time. Yeah. You guys definitely added a lot of pieces on the offensive line. Looks good. And I think that, um, you know, we definitely have the other weapons on offense with JJ and Addison and, uh, who else we got? Yeah. It's, it's, it's a really high powered offense. Defense is going to be good. But then again, you've got Caleb coming up with the bears. You've got, you've got, uh, uh, um, what's his name? Jordan love with the Packers, you know, and the, and the, and the lions are going to be good. They're

going to be really good. So I don't know. We could be first or we could be last. Yeah. Iron sharpens iron. Yeah. It must be nice though. Having a head coach where you can convince yourself no matter who plays quarterback, you're gonna be like, yeah, that guy's gonna be a pro ball just because the coach is that good. Yeah. I think that's the perfect tire for the bears too. Yeah. But Johnson, yeah. He's done that many years. Emily. Yeah. A lot of times, but this time's different. This time is totally different. You'll see what he does. Think of Caleb. I love him. Uh, tough, tough first year. Very, very tough. Did not have the, the setup that I thought he was going to have going into it. Uh, the coach, everything just basically was a disaster. So I'm hoping fresh start. Ben Johnson, smart

guy, fresh start. He feels good. Um, is that your team? Yeah, that's my team. And I, I, I, yeah. And it's, uh, listen, last year was, uh, I said a lot of things in the summer that I regret deeply about how they were set up to win right now. And then they, uh, basically fell off a cliff halfway through the season. So, but the new year I, and I'm staying cautiously optimistic now. I'm not, I'm not going to start writing checks that I can't cash later on in the year. Yeah. But Caleb looked good at times too. He did, but he also looked bad to that dude is yeah, he's, he's got the talents. We need the coaching and some of the other things to finally go in the right direction. They're

dysfunctional organization through and through. So just trying to get out of our own way for once. What are they? What are they having as receivers? Uh, DJ Moore, Roma Dunze, probably maybe draft someone. So we'll see. It will be good. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe get a running back. I don't know. Who would you want in the draft? You know, I haven't been, I've been, I was in London for the last several months. I'm normally followed the draft like months in advance, but I don't know much about it this year. It stinks. So you're not, you're not, you're not off like what I'm thinking. Well, I mean, what are the bikes need? I think it's maybe a safety after Harrison leaves. Yeah. Yeah.

Malachi Starks, Malachi Starks, Georgia would be good. Yeah. Uh, I don't know. What were you doing in London? I was directing a movie called preschool. Oh, okay. That's cool. About these two dads who are fighting to get their kid into this last spot in this preschool. Do you like directing? Is that a nice change of pace? I do. It is all encompassing. It is, uh. It is very time consuming and it's a lot of work, but it is a lot of fun because you get to kind of tell the story the way you see it. Yeah. I think that that is something I've always wanted to do. I couldn't just do that because I really like spending time with my family too. And when you're doing that, you know, I couldn't just do that because I really like spending time with my family

too. And when you're doing that, you pretty much, you know, belong to the whatever production is. But it is, it is a lot of fun. The movies turn out great. It's funny. I love that premise for a movie because I don't, you know, I, we are back in Chicago now, but when we were living in New York and my youngest was two in

Brooklyn we we like went to a He had to do like an actual interview for a preschool. Oh, yeah, and they and they denied him and I was like What did he do wrong? Like did he he's too? How is this possible? But that's how it is Rejected. Yeah, he got rejected it too. Did you bring a copy of his resume? So he did when we went to the interview. It was kind of right around, like right after COVID. So we did it outside and he did trip when we were like walking up. And I actually think that might've been what did it. You can't have a clumsy kid.

Cause I don't know what else you judge a two year old on. Yeah. The principal is like, that smells like a lawsuit. It's like, this is crazy. How did he didn't he bit somebody? He was never a biter but I was just like I was I Didn't ultimately care because it was like this is a preposterous thing to have to do an interview for a two-year-old But there was a part of me walking away being like What the fuck? How do you deny a two- two year old? I was like a little pissed off,

but that's how competitive those schools are. That's my boy. It's your boy, right? Yeah, it's my boy. Bullshit. Yeah, it's, you know, when I had, when I had kids, I never thought that I'd get caught up in all of it, but you can't help but to, you know, because, you know, where I grew up, there was no private school. We just, everybody went to public school. And when I had my first son, getting into, I figured he's gonna be fine.

He'll go to the public school down the street. And sure enough, when it came time where we were getting caught up in the whole thing of, will he get into this school? Will he get into that school? And sure enough, there we are. So I think that it's a premise that a lot of people who have kids or know people who have kids will find funny and relate to in some

way. Yeah. Is it tough to not micromanage the actors while you're directing? As an actor, I feel like I would always want to give advice or here's how I would do that scene. It is a tricky situation, right? Because on the one hand, you're an actor with them, you're working together. This is one of your mates. And then you have to turn around and say, like, hey, could you do that a little bit differently? You would never do that if you're just acting.

Right. And then you have to turn around and say, like, hey, could you do that a little bit differently? You would never do that if you're just acting. Right. And I would give him a note if it's just he and I in the scene together. But I so the key is just to find really, really good actors. And I got great ones. I mean, when you shoot in London. It's just full of them, like everybody's West End trained and Shakespearean, and they just have all this education. And so I was blessed with really, really good actors. And so I didn't necessarily have to give many notes other than just like sort of general stuff. Yeah, I was the one

who needed the notes to be honest. Yeah. A, a dumb question about acting. How, how much of your, like how many, how many lines do you memorize at once? I'm always impressed by that because like we'll do stupid, like social commercials or something. And I can't keep more than like two lines in my head at once, like at max. So what do you do? Do you read, do you have like pages and pages memorized? You know, well, I couldn't do what you do. I couldn't read off a paper. I have to, I have to memorize them. Yeah. I can't, you know, I'm not a, I can never be a news anchor. But it's just a muscle that you get. You just start to learn how to do it. And it's just, it's about, honestly, it's about remembering the verbs and the adverbs.

And that connects the thoughts. Right. That's how I do it. Right. And then if it's a big speech, I will learn that thing well in advance. So when the time comes to shoot it, it's second nature. Some people can just look at it and know it and just go, but I've never been able to do that. So are you like when you go shoot on ransom Canyon for like a day, do you have multiple pages already memorized in your head and you're just running around with those? Cause I, yeah, like I, I don't think I could walk with that in my head. Well, it's not really the words as much as it is knowing, because we literally shot 10 episodes all out of order

because we had ridiculous weather for the first four months we were shooting this thing. We were supposed to, you know, the scene called for a sunny meadow with wildflowers, and we had two feet of snow. Right. So we had to wait and push all that stuff to the end of the year. So we ended up shooting all these different episodes simultaneously. You know, we're shooting it, we're shooting, you know, episode 10 today. And we're shooting episode three because we got to pick up a scene from three

and we got to start whatever in the same location. So, so it's more about figuring out when, you know, where you are in the progression of the characters arc, you know? Like what happened before this? What happened in episode four that made me say this in episode 10? Right.

And so that's really the hard part. It's not really memorizing the lines. It's just keeping everything straight and making sure that everything is going to track because you're shooting things four episodes ahead and you have to imagine what happened three episodes before that when you haven't even shot them yet. Right. That becomes the most difficult part is to kind of track how you're going to perform things well in advance or something that happened three months ago.

Another dumb question I guarantee you won't get today. What's the catering situation like on set? Do they vary it a lot so that you don't get bored with it? It's usually a fish and a chicken and a steak. Okay. But they're not like one day, are they one day like, hey, Chinese? Actually on Ransom Canada, we had an amazing chef. Okay. Wish I could remember his name now, but it was one of the best, uh, it was one

of the best catering companies I've ever had. They were just unbelievable. Um, so yeah, I mean every day is different. It's like a whole spread. I love it. It's no wonder you put on 10 pounds every time you go shoot, you know. Any ice cream? Yeah, there's all kinds of, there's like several dessert options. Love that. Love that. Yeah. I should be an actor.

How do you say no to it? These fresh cookies they make every day. Yeah. If I was shooting a Western though, I feel like I would only eat the steak. Yeah. It feels like, yeah. Cause you're a method actor. Exactly. I go full eat the steak. Yeah. It feels like, yeah. Because you're a method actor. Exactly.

I go full method. I like that, the idea of being like a Daniel Day Lewis, but only for food. Yeah. You eat the steak that you grew out on the range. Yeah, I'm going to eat my steak, and then to drink, I'll just have whiskey. Yeah.

Just neat. I'll just sip some whiskey. He drunk the whole time. The nice thing about doing a Western, too, is you get to wear the hat, the cowboy hat. I feel like that helps a lot with acting. You can be very emotional, like, you know, taking the hat off, tugging on the bill of the hat.

It does. It is a valuable crutch. Yeah. Did they, were there like notes in the script? Like at this point, you're going to like adjust your hat or was that all feel? No, that's all, that's all me, man. Yeah. Oh, hell yes.

That's where you're the best. Hell yes. Best hat actor in the world. Hell yes. Yeah. Oh, hell yeah. That's where you're the best. Hell yeah. The show does really look amazing. I mean, they did a beautiful job. The show is, it's beautifully shot, you know, Minka and the cast are fantastic in it. I think that people are really going to dig it. I really do. I'm excited. So I have one last question for you. It's always fun to have you on Josh. Row back question. R H O B A C K.com promo code take 20% off your first purchase. Q zips, polos, hoodies, joggers, shorts, row back.com promo code take go see ransom Canyon, a Netflix, not go see just turn it on at home. Netflix, April 17th. Tell us one to 10 how hot you looked in the show. Pretty hot.

Okay. All right. I mean, I saw the trailer. You look pretty hot. You put a tight pair of like Wranglers on this ass. Yeah. And it's pretty hot. You had like the there was one look that you had maybe the jacket like the jean jacket with like the like the fur the fake fur underneath and I was like damn Josh is putting please put some looks out there for this show. Some looks out there. Yeah you are you were serving some you knew that you were yeah you knew you were on one you're to get on this horse. Yeah. It's taking my time. I'm going to rock. Howdy ma'am. Yeah. Um, all right. Well, Josh, anytime you want

to come back on, man, we'd love having you on and uh, we're, we're going to, we're going to watch this and anytime you're in Chicago, stop by, we'll, uh, we'll come up with some random game we can compete against you with. All right, boys, go check out, go get, go check out gatlin.com. Okay. Okay. What's that? What's that? Like the gun? It's a little thing that I got going. Oh, okay. I love it. You got a little homework. Hottest teacher I ever had. But if the apocalypse happens, like I'm going to your cabin, just just know that. All right. You're welcome you got to be able to contribute though I almost feel like you're initiative or medical or building or farming the world will need takes yeah

we're a podcast economy here so we'll bring the podcast and then you'll have that come I feel like Josh is inviting out there so he can eat us he just said like he doesn't know how to hunt he He's like, yeah, you guys can come out. We'll just show up and he's like, who are you guys? Yeah. We'll have, we'll show up to your front door with a microphone being like, see, remember us podcast. Living off the fat of the land. That's right. All right. Thanks so much, Josh. Appreciate it, man. See you later boys. Josh Duhamel is brought to you by our special friends over at Chevy.

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Okay, FireFest of the Week. Henry, you're up. Yeah. Let's do it. FireFest of the Week. I mean, it's not really a FireFest because I survived, but we did the KFC Dunk It Challenge Dunk Contest here on Wednesday. And one of the contestants asked, he's like, hey, can I jump over you for one of the dunks?

He was a big AWL and I felt bad saying no and I you know, he was jumping pretty high so I trusted him and So I had to you know stand with I didn't see him coming up. My back was Like he was running towards my back. So I couldn't see anything. I just had to hold the ball above my head First time he tried it. He like landed on my neck and I was like, all right, did he dunk it did not dunk it. So then he asked me to move back. I had to do it again. Second time was even worse. Uh, I felt like I basically was holding on my shoulder for a second missed again. And then I, he was like, Oh, we gotta do it a third time. And he missed again.

Uh, I survived, but it was, it was not great. It wasn't Yeah, it wasn't. Could have gone a lot worse. Did it give you any respect for dunkers? So much respect for dunkers. These guys could were jumping out of the gym. Very inspirational. I got a lot of work to do to get on their level. But yeah, it was it was it was cool to see some real athletes in this office. What does that mean? It was cool to see some real athletes like able to do some cool athletic feats in this office. The **** Yeah. We're not real athletes.

No. God no. Uh I I thought you did a terrible job judging. Yeah. You were chirping me from the cheap seats. Uh man in the arena as a wise man once said. Well, you were judging men in the arena and you were doing a bad job judging the men in the arena right but man in the arena you weren't in the arena judging you were chirping the man in the arena who's judging the men in the arena and I was in the arena because I was I was judging you know it's chirping the man who was actually in the arena who was judging the men in the arena I thought you did poor job on awarding scores.

I thought that your scoring system was way off. Next time you're a dunk contest judge for, I don't know. I mean, well for Hank. Pool dunking. For you, you should be amazed that anybody's able to dunk given your performance last year. Everything should be a 10. Yeah, it was impressive.

Yeah. I wanted to give my guys room to grow. That's huge of you. Yeah. Yeah. All right, PFT. My FireFest, well, number one, FireFest 2.0 has been postponed.

So that's kind of a FireFest. My FireFest is your tweet about the FireFest 2.0. Yeah, so I offer- Also Mr. Beast, by the way, is like doing his own FireFest right now. I saw that. There's a BeastCon out in Las Vegas that Mr. Beast didn't show up to.

So now everybody's in the lobby of the hotel being like, yo, where's Mr. Beast? Waiting line? He's gone. Yeah, which I don't know what you say or, or do. If you go to BeastCon in general, do you just like meet people in the lobby? And you're like, so do you do you like Mr. Beast too? Yeah, I don't I don't get beast gun. Anyways, you remember that? Yeah. How long could you have stayed in the supermarket? Yeah, probably a little bit longer. Yeah. Do you

think you could have been locked underground for 30 days for a million dollars? If I was locked in that room, I would have found ways to make the the canned chicken taste different. So yeah, what Hank's alluding to is I offered up the Barstool Chicago office for FireFest if they need a new location, because it sounds like the government of Mexico wasn't playing ball. Oh, we're getting double booked right now. Okay. So why? We on the yak, we're getting double booked right now. Okay.

So why we on the act we offered up the Chicago office for John Arbuckle con Arbuckle fest. Oh, from Garfield. Yeah. Okay. Because Garfield gets all the shine. Yeah. But Arbuckle. Nothing.

Why not have a festival for him? He was a great dude. Yeah. But yeah, Firefest if if we could do it together. Listen, Billy McFarland, I consider him to be an acquaintance. We're friendly with each other. I've offered it to him, if you would like to accept. I think we could do a good job hosting FireFest 2.0 here.

OK. What do you think, Hank? I hate it. I hate that idea. Why? Are you in for ArbuckleFest? I guess. If you had to pick one of the two.

Not really. If you had to pick one of the two. If we're being honest, if I had to pick one of the two our buckle fest Why are you so out on one of the premier concert destinations in the history of the world? Have you not seen the Phoenix package is it 1.5 million for a ticket for it one ticket for a ticket? Yeah, it's a great ticket. All right, maybe once Billy, you know, it gives us the rev share, we can look into it. But yeah, let's talk Billy. My other five is an office space for people to work our our buckle fuss is gonna be like four dudes. That's kind of

yeah, like, yeah. Yeah. My other fire off my other fire fest of the week is that apparently, all the boys are on a softball team. All the boys are on a softball team. We have boys are on a softball team. We have that. Yeah. I found out today, Max came into the studio and he was like, we won our softball game last night. I was like sick. And then he started to give me the box score and he's like, yeah, big cat did this.

Hank did this. Memes did this. Pug was a manager. Shane's on the team. So everyone, part of my take is on the softball team and I didn't even know about it It's not it's not my softball team. By the way, I don't mind it. I forced myself on it. We talked with this When you say we didn't know about it. We talked about it a lot last year We did talk a lot. I knew that they played on the softball the reason big cat

Oh, you're just mad that big cats on the softball Yes before big cows. Yeah, you didn't care. I just got how did I even get at it? Oh, we had a, we had a game that we didn't want to go to. That's right. And you were like, put me in the group chat. I'll say you can't go. Right. And then you stayed in the group chat. And then when we started to talk about it for next year, you're like, I'm in, I'm in if we play 16 inch. So I forced my way in. So 16 and softballs awesome. but it was I'm sure it is for the record. It was they were all on the team last year. Yeah, we talked about it on this show Oh, yeah. Yeah, I knew that you guys had a team. I knew that for sure

No, I don't want you off the team. Okay, I think I have no choice But to just put together my own team and beat the fuck out of you guys should join KDICs Yeah, it is just ringers Kers hey this kind just dominate may 7th but what a big hat both won't be attacked by the way I was upset the real reason I was upset is I'm definitely so much better than Hank that's softball I don't think so I'm definitely so much better than Hank at 16 inch softball I don't think so I guarantee you this sounds like we're gonna have to this sounds like we're gonna have to film something I know you both I know you. This sounds like we're going to have to film something. I know you both very well. Hank's better than you at softball.

I can hit a golf ball like 50 yards further than him. That's a fair point. That's true. But Hank's better at softball. I can slap singles. Hank's faster than Hank. Good at softball. How good are you? He's pretty good. I mean, he played in waiting for space last night. What order did you hit? That's pug pugs. That's the order. I hit seventh. I did hit a dinger two singles. Yeah, I mean I had a bomb Yeah, and he he locked down first base. He did really good. Yes, sir. Yeah, I Mean we played softball in New York. Yeah, we did and I was better than you there, too. That's true. Yeah, I was also

Broken foot. That's true. Yeah, I was also, I was hurt. I had a broken foot. That's true. Pretty much. What did he say about what I did on the mound? He said, well, that's, he came in, Max gave me, Max gave me like a full post game report. Yeah, about everyone. Vibes were high. And I was like listening to it at first.

I was like, okay, big guy was a good pitcher. Hank did good. I was like, cool. And then he proceeded to name everybody on part of my team. You should just be on the team. Why not? I'll put you on the text.

No, well then Max was like, do you want to play in a game? I was like, no. That's what I said. Not anymore. But I just forced myself of my team. Why not? I'll put you on the text. No. Well then max was like, do you want to play in a game? I was like, no, that's what I said. Not anymore. But I just forced myself on the team. So you should just force yourself on the, no, I'm out for blood now. I want you on the team. I'm taking this personal week is going to be the biggest mistake. I'll tell you what, you're, you're definitely better than some people on the team. That's fat. All right. I want names. Who am I better than? He's going to be so mad. I only played one game with Tom Lee at three errors in the first inning. I only gave up. I gave up one earn run to

unearned the two unearned was because he dropped three consecutive balls for a force out at second base. Okay. But I, I love Tom, but he made your stat line. He made your stat line look worse. Well, no, I only give one earned run. OK, I gave up one earned run. We won 17 to six. And you'd be like, how the hell do we give up six with only one earned run? Hank did pitch the last inning. He gave up three runs.

OK, so Hank made your stat line. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Camp Barstool last summer was sucking up fly balls in the outfield, like a vacuum. So you should just awkward. I'll say it. Just go for this is awkward. Why I don't feel I don't know I was awkward go for other guy. I'll give you a list of the guys you're better than why is it? Why does Hank feel awkward? I don't know. I want to see your game No, I'll mash some taters Also, I only saw Tom play one game. He could be way worse than that

Also, I only saw Tom play one game. He could be way worse than that. He hit well. He did hit well. He hit well. But it's also 16 inch. We can have, we need more guys. Yeah, there's going to be lots of games that people can't play. I'm out on this team. I did feel young, playing softball. It took me back to my 20s. I'm pumped. I got the green light to play in more games, because I was going to initially not play in any games that

were 6.30 or 7.30. I now get 7.30. There's only one 6.30 game. Love it. I'll be out. Not going to play in that game. The whole team was stoolies yesterday. Oh, yeah.

They're going to be so fired up to listening to this right now. Yeah, they sucked. They sucked. You who are this right now. Yeah, they saw they sucked if you think You who are listening right now? Yeah, you guys thank you for giving us our confidence because you guys were really bad Yeah, how many games did you guys win last year in the summer? We won zero summer Yeah, summer was tough cuz summer was a summer was a joke. I will say for the I thought honestly thought that I was never playing with This team again 16 ish 12 inch I almost died in the last game. I picked yeah

So this is how it really how I really got on the team PFT was doing they were like we're playing again and I was still on this group chat which is kind of awkward that I'm on this group chat because they'll be like Anyone want to meet up at a bar on a Saturday night and I'll just be sitting there being with my kids been like Yeah, I do but no but anyway, they, they started the group chat and they're like, we're going to sign up to play softball again. And I just like basically heavy handed. I was like, if you play 16 inch, I'm in. And then I started paying off people on the team to say they'd play 16 inch. And so then that's how I got

it. Cause I would not have played for 12 inch. I would have absolutely not played. So you should just, I'll add to the group chat and you, I'm like I'm it again. I don't I don't want a pity spot on this roster I'm doing my own pity spot. I'm doing my own team and we're gonna beat the fuck out of you guys It's not a pity spot Texan KDish right now Well, that wouldn't be your engine. That would be KDish's team. I don't care We also me and big cat both won't be at that game. Yeah, but hey Ducking me Hank will be pitching. Yeah, okay, so Hank will be pitching Hank will be pitching in that you get shelled Hank Bring it. Yeah, let's go. It's gonna be what's really gonna be awkward is a day after that after I take you deep three times

I'm looking forward to the the stoolie that was pitching against us. I did talk to him after I gave him some tips I think he's gonna be I think he has the the makings of a good pitcher he just needs to I was doing the hop step and they were getting so they're like why does he keep doing the backspin fucks you up and I was standing like behind the left-handed hitters but uh yeah I feel young again I feel like I missed playing softball especially 60 60 inches the best game created it was a lot of fun it's so much fun It was 40 degrees so much fun the stories that we played very bad So that's why we're working they were worse than Tom

How mad is Tom gonna be I leave the group. Yeah, Should we bleep his name out? No. You can't. Oh he's gonna be like, I know it's me. I know they're talking about me. Yeah. Yeah, cause it really couldn't be...

No. Maybe TJ, but no, he's fine. He was, he played well. He was the catcher. I want you on the team, PFT. I'll leave this team and go on your team. This is not my, I, I, it my, it's good to have a quest. It is true though that they did have a full team

that we talked about a lot last summer. Like they talked about it nonstop. Well, yeah, but that was like you guys, all the producers. It still is. Yeah, it still is just, it was just the addition of me by forcing my way in, because I was like, I wanna play 16 inch again.

Yeah, this is going well. This team hasn't changed at changed. I asked you to play last last summer too. Oh no. We needed guys. Oh no. We had to settle for Jacob. Oh no. Now it is awkward Hank. I don't remember that. Wow. We had to get Jacob and he was just smoking cigarettes in the office. Oh no. PFT. I don't remember. I must have had something going on because you know me. I love 16 softball. Oh, no. No, it was 12 inch last Yeah, yeah, you probably would have come to post post game beers Yeah, I definitely yeah post game beers. I mean the group chat sounds like a lot of fun to Yeah, it's not it's your chats so fun. They just do like birthday parties male birthday parties weird There's at least two birthday party male birthday parties in that group chat and I every time I was like what

Like I'm having a birthday party. It was quakes and uh and Pug they both had birthday parties. I did not have a birthday times I was like this is fucking weird. He's had a birthday party, but he was turning 30. Yeah 37 birthday parties a year. Yeah, you get a birthday party. Okay All right, my fire fest was gonna be that I'm sore from softball. So that's awkward That sucks. Yeah, but I don't play my real fire fest as well. It's a it's a good thing, but then a part of the internet didn't really know existed so I Got into card collecting for two days this week and I pulled a 86 rookie not as rookie season

but the rookie card Michael Jordan which is like an elusive card that's worth could be worth like 20 grand and then I had the entire card community come after me and they do not like me and they are fucking losers that's not a good part of the internet no card collecting is something that I respect if guys you have to have hobbies if you really love it. That's cool I hope you enjoy it. It's something that has has never appealed to me. It's it's every it's every niche hobby It's not like the majority of people who are card collecting for the fun and love of it It's the gatekeepers. Yeah, the guys who are like actually this I mean you can guess who chimed in

Our eSports correspondent Darren, Darren Ravelle. Darrell. In his Clit network. He, but they were all coming after me, upset, angry, mad, saying it was an ad deal that I planted, I don't know. Yeah. I'm gonna, I'll tell you what,

the card community has kind of forced my hand. I'm like 75% chance I'm just gonna end up eating this card and I when I say eating literally eating this card you should also you guys can all have a bite you should do like very very obviously planted great cards that you pull out and keep trying to say that they're real yeah and just to troll them just to be like fuck you they already think that so it's like they already think that I planted this card. I did pull a sick gremlin card the other day though. Oh hell yes. George the mogwai. Yeah. Pretty good from the gremlins 2 movie. I think it's worth like three bucks.

Hell yes. The best part about old packs of cards is the 30 year old chewing gum that comes with it. Yeah. Yeah I guess there's like a very elusive Michael Jordan rookie card that has the chewing gum attached that's like rated a zero but it Jordan rookie card that has the chewing gum attached That's like rated as zero, but it sold for a lot because what does that mean rating because I keep hearing people say you can Rate anything it's PSA rating. I don't know what they do how they do it. I just know that if it comes back an Eight it's probably worth ten grand if it comes back at nine or ten which it won't it could be worth like Probably worth 10 grand if it comes back at nine or 10, which it won't it's could be worth like 40 50 grand It's like the guys in pawn stars. It's it's they just take it like yeah. It's like the corners We're in it's the cut which I didn't realize because back in 1986. It was literally a guy at Fleer Smoking a cigarette just cutting the cards love that so like the the I think my card is a little off-center people were saying

I don't know, but I thought Eric cards are worth more like the I think my card is a little off-center people were saying I don't know but I thought error cards are worth more like the Billy Ripken fuckface card yeah but this is like it's it's the correct card it's just like a little bit not perfect okay so I don't know I'm I'm I was in the card collecting game for two days and I pulled that I guess I pulled the Charles Barkley rookie card too which decent and a Keem rookie. It's pretty good. Yeah, sounds fake It does sound rigged. Yeah, sounds very rigged. Ah Okay, Shane Our boy Shane

He's got a piss Hanks got a piss. You've been peeing a lot recently Hank. Yeah, what's up? I've just been hydrated. But yeah, I I Shouldn't have to pee this often. Do you have a kidney stone? Maybe you are next. Shane, can PFT play in your spot next week when you're in Italy? Of course. Mm. Love that. Don't want

it. I refuse. Uh, Shane, you're going to Italy by yourself. Yes, sir. For how many days? Uh, nine, but that counts tonight, which my flight's a red eye and you like and Shane for everyone who doesn't know Shane He's one of our very talented

graphics guys he created the famous a Two years ago. Yeah, Shane. You've never been on an airplane and you're going to Italy Yeah, have you ever eaten Alfredo sauce? I have out. Yeah. Oh, I heard that you hadn't so what's the plan solo traveling? I'm I'm I'm very Intrigued and impressed there isn't much of a plan I like booked the flight like two months ago, and I just got my Airbnb like two days ago Oh, you're doing an Airbnb solo. Yeah, not doing the hostile. Do you speak Italian? Uh I did do a lingo for a little bit, but like talk to me. I can order like a coffee. All right, try it Vore a cafe cone zuccaro perfa vore. Oh, yes, sir. Here's your cup of cum

Dude don't make that mistake because they will give you come there island full or not island up Are you going to Sicily? Peninsula full of perverts. Yeah. You got to talk with your hands more, too. They like to do constant sign language. Are you worried about the mob? I'm getting more worried about it, yeah.

I feel like there's some mob at AWLs. So maybe we could just be like, hey, he's our friend. Are you going to come back with like really stylish clothes? Do I have to check in with somebody? I don't know. I mean, we'll, we'll find out, but if you're a mob, if you're a mafia, AWL specifically in Northern Italy, let us know. So our boy can tap in. We'll give you some cash that you can give us like a little, yeah, you know, safe travels. Yeah. Who's the guy in Italy right now?

Who's the Max Homa? Do you have to tap in with Max Homa I don't know okay Latin maybe so what what's the plan you're going you're gonna go to a few different cities yeah I'm gonna check out some different cities I'm gonna go to an AC Milan game oh yes actually I just booked a tour for the Coliseum but I based I booked it based off weather. And after I booked it, I looked at the weather I was looking at and it was Rome, Georgia.

So. Oh no. I thought it was gonna be 80 degrees in Italy and it's gonna be like thundering 55 degrees. Oh no. All right, well, be safe. Don't get kidnapped. Don't get kidnapped.

We've already talked about that. If you do, it'll be good for numbers though. It would be it would be good for can You before you go can you make a graphic of your face like behind bars that just is kidnapped? Just in case yeah, just in case okay. It will load it up as a draft just in case And also maybe make one being like Shane fucked just in case mm-hmm And then a third said Shane accidentally ordered come Also, maybe make one being like Shane fucked just in case. And then a third said Shane accidentally ordered come. Don't get into a man to knock situation though.

We're very serious about that. God, that would be so good for downloads. It would be. We do true crime. Yeah. You become the new Brittany Griner. Yeah. Pug. Pug. Why didn't you invite PFT on your softball team? I am NOT the the owner what I am the What's the team name the owner the owner puts together the owner?

Jurnager puts together. What's the team name the pugs? Oh, who's the owner? See Jost hmm He sends invites puts the roster together. I'm just the act hug will not look at will not look in the direction of PFT right now It's blocked off by that. That's exactly what my dog does That boy yeah Complete opposite direction we said whose job is it everybody stared at the dog that did do it the dog That did do it looks away Hmm, it's not my fault. Okay. That's okay. It's all right. I'll see you in the playoffs

Yeah, we'll see you Good show boys. Let's do numbers Shane get this right 77 17 three 65 1 99 put 15 21 jack's not on the team Nope PFT Jack's not no all right and neither is pug

This is manager manager. Yeah, it's called the power was there last night I'll be 86 80s Oh Jordan MJ. I'm gonna eat that love you guys So So So So So So Music