The Bill Simmons Podcast - A Crazy NFL Season With Kevin Clark, Plus Jim Belushi on Cannabis, SNL, and His Legendary Brother, John

Episode Date: August 12, 2020

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Kevin Clark to discuss an unprecedented NFL season, the NFL draft, college coaches potentially signing on as consultants, the possibility of regular-season games during the week, a fundamental change to “home-field advantage,” and more (3:05). Then Bill is joined by actor and cannabis farmer Jim Belushi to discuss his new show on Discovery Channel, ‘Growing Belushi,’ as well as Last Prisoner Project, a nonprofit that works to secure the release of nonviolent offenders currently serving time for possession of cannabis. They also discuss tortured Chicago sports fandom in the 1970s; Jim’s career as an actor on projects like 'SNL,' ‘About Last Night,’ and ‘According to Jim’; Jim's brother, John Belushi; ‘The Blues Brothers'; and forming friendships with John Candy, Dan Aykroyd, Steve Martin, and more (38:40). Finally Bill talks with his dad about the state of Boston sports; the Patriots' new QB, Cam Newton; a subpar start to the Red Sox season; and a hopeful outlook for the Celtics as they head into the NBA playoffs (1:24:08). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Tonight's episode of the BS podcast on the ringer podcast network brought to you by Spotify, where you can change your speeds to whatever speed you want. I'm a 1.2 guy. You can go check out the best new podcast, trending podcast, biggest podcast, podcast, separated by genres, whatever you want. They have everything there with their wonderful charts. Listen to your podcast on Spotify. We're also brought to you by CBS all access. You have a champions league is back. It has a new home to you by CBS All Access. The UEFA Champions League is back. It has a new home. Guess where?

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and 10 Questions with Kyle Brandt, which caused a lot of budgets this week. He did an Aaron Rodgers interview and got picked up by a bunch of outlets. So all that's happening. I did two rewatchables this week. One, Last Mohicans on Monday with Chris Ryan. And then the other one, Bad Boys with Logan Murdoch and Van

Lathan. So you can check those out as well. Coming up, we have Rajah Bell, new addition to the Ringer. Couldn't wait to have him on. He was so good on Monday with Logan Murdoch on the Ringer NBA show that I just got jealous and I had to have him on my podcast. I can't let Logan have all the good things. And then, uh, my buddy Jacko, my old college roommate, he comes on from time to time to talk about, uh, sports and politics. So he is coming on as well. I have some bad news. Once again, I had a recording screw up. We're now in month six of, uh, of this, whatever the F is going on with our lives and our country. I have managed to screw up recording all kinds of ways. One time, I forgot to plug anything into my microphone,

so I was just doing a podcast. There was no cord attached to the microphone. Multiple times, I've screwed up the actual audio input on my Zoom. I've forgotten to press record. That happened. This time, I recorded everything with Raja and Jacko. And this is the first time I don't really know what happened. Maybe the plug wasn't plugged all the way into the Zoom. I'll tell you what I didn't do, though, was check to make sure when I was talking that the green light was going up and down. I'm losing my mind. I think this is like the seventh recording mishap.

I'm averaging one a month, basically. Not good. Not where I want to be. So anyway, we had to use my Zoom audio for this. So I'm not going to sound as fantastic as I normally do. I apologize. I'm sorry. I don't know what else to tell you.

All right. Let's bring in our friends from Pearl Jam. All right. Raja Bell is here. He's in a remote location in the United States. I pulled him away from a family vacation because we have so much stuff going on. New addition to The Ringer, you can hear him on Mondays with Logan Murdoch. The pod this week was excellent.

I want to start by stealing a point you talked about on your pod because I thought it was essential. I was super jealous of it. I wish I had thought of it myself. I didn't. You came up with it, but I want to dive into it. You were saying Dame reminded you of Kobe Bryant with everything that was happening here these last couple of weeks, but how he carried himself, how he rises to challenges, how he feeds off little rivalries with other players and stuff. And I really appreciated the analogy because normally you compare

point guards to point guards. You compare centers to centers. You compare white guys to white guys. We're always pigeonholing our comparisons. And when you said that, was like holy shit he's right dame is the modern kobe so go into that let's talk about it yeah he he just uh you know knowing kobe the way i did and you know having played against him as much as i did um you know i see this i see a lot of the same personality kind of traits in Dame when he's on the court.

Like he carries himself with an edge at all times. And even if Kobe was your friend, there was an edge. There was a, you know, don't get too close to me tonight. Like we can talk when this game is over type of attitude, right? And I see that oozing out of Dame's pores. I think it comes to Dame a little bit more organically though than it came to kobe um right because you know kobe was kobe from high school dame you know weaver state and you know missed a bunch of all-stars that he should have made and so he's

got it more organically but there are a lot of parallels in in terms of their mindset, the way they approach it, the way that they will create that perceived slight. Even if it's not there, there are times where it's there. And then there are plenty of times when it's not there that the really great ones, like MJ, you could see it in his documentary. He was good for that too. Those guys that have real true greatness coursing through their veins, they figure out how to stay razor sharp by either creating something or just never allowing themselves to really feel comfortable with what they've been given in terms of praise. And I see that in Dane. And I saw it in Kobe. Well, it goes without saying he's been the star of the bubble. And I think especially what he did after kind of blowing the Saturday game, which I think partly was the pressure of just elimination game after elimination game.

And they looked tired to me on Saturday. Sunday, he rallies back. He goes 50-plus every big shot. And then what he did in the 61-point game, when they really should have lost to Dallas, and McCollum looks like he's playing at 60%. They can't get a stop. The only thing keeping them in the game is that Dame is just torching Porzingis. He's hitting threes left and right.

And it really made me rethink, like, what is the ceiling of this? How great is this guy? And then to your point with Kobebe thinking about him with other little guys right because this is a little guy who's carrying himself like an alpha dog and how rare that is in the history of the league you played when you broke through in 01 you're with iverson at the height of his alpha dogness what compare and contrast those two the way they carry themselves um similar um in that either one of them um would have the ball anywhere on the floor it doesn't really matter where they are see when i guarded guys i would like to try to keep you off of a spot if i could right like you know i watch enough film try to figure out where you

like to get in and if i could deny you the ball maybe get you six feet off of that spot i feel like i've already you know got the advantage defensively you can't do that to either one of those guys and it's true for a lot of small guards because they just they'll pick it up you know crossing half court or they're bringing it across half court and so the fact that they have the ball in their hands already is it makes them really really difficult to guard and then you know their ability at that size to navigate in the paint like dame shoots with a lot more range than ai did um yeah but he still navigates that paint really really well and finishes you know at a super high level and i know it it kind of sounds like you would expect

every guard that's really really good to finish well in the paint but that's not always true like some guys are better like kairi's elite fin good to finish well in the paint but that's not always true like some guys are better like Kyrie's elite finisher for his size in the paint Dame is as well um Allen was you know able to finish amongst the trees I think if I was comparing and contrasting them like you know Dame more range AI more uh wild kind of abandon at the rim like he was I think Dame manages the hits that he takes a lot better than Chuck did. Chuck wound up with a lot of bumps and bruises as he got older. The mileage started to catch up. I think Dame's-

Not sleeping ever. That didn't help. Being a vampire. Yeah, none of that is conducive to playing and having a super long career and riding off into the sunset the right way. But, you know, a lot of the same mentality, though. You talked about the parallels between Kobe and Dame. Like, you know, you saw Allen up close, too.

Like, those guys never believed that they can't get a bucket. I was one of the all-time Iverson defenders. And when I wrote my book in 2009, I really went all out because I knew as the years passed, the stats would start to go against him. The advanced metrics, all this stuff. I just know what it was like to see him in person and to see the command of the room, not even the court, the room. Because you think like an NBA arena, it's 15,000 people, 18,000 people, 20,000 people. There's so few guys who have command of the room because you think like an nba arena it's 15 000 people 18 000 people 20 000 people there's so few guys who have command of the room and he was the smallest guy i'd ever seen who'd done that

because he was what was he 5 10 5 11 5 10 5 11 yeah 170 and he was controlling the other guys and the guys in the other team his own team the referees the referees were terrified of him and he played with like there was like a malice to him in a good way that everyone just kind of fed off it. Dame doesn't have to that degree, but he does carry himself with kind of an intensity and a passion. I do think it really helps his team. It's interesting that you kind of say the command of the room.

Like people don't know this about Allen Iverson or a lot of people, you know, that didn't get to play with him. But he was he was a showman like Dame is an entertainer. You know, he's a he's a rapper. He's an artist. You know, Allen Iverson was one of those guys that, you know, be messing around and he's singing Michael Jackson. And it sounds like really, really good. You know, like everything he did, he did really well. And you could tell there was an entertainment bone in his body as well he was creative like that um and i think that lends itself to to guys of that stature being able to carry the room like that and command the room and

and uh you know that's another parallel i hadn't even thought of and then one thing that's different about them i think by the time your final season, the league, like the guys that he was playing against really respected Iverson. And then as he got older, the guys that were coming into the league, he's a hero, right? He's in the mid to late 90s. What he was doing, how he was, the culture that he was bringing to the league that just hadn't really been there until he kind of cemented it. So he's going against guys who idolized him when they were in high school. Dame still seems like he hasn't totally won the respect of the other guys, which I think is really strange because I don't know what the top eight, you're going to have your top

eight in some order. He's on the top eight. I don't know what number he is, but there's eight guys that matter more than everybody else in the league. He's one of the eight guys. Why doesn't he have the respect yet? It's a good question. I really do believe Portland has something to do with it.

I love Portland as a town. I love to visit and be out there, but I think the market has something to do with it. Dame's teams, they've knocked off, you know, a team here and there, but they haven't really made the noise in the playoffs yet. And, you know, I was talking to Logan the other day on the pod,

and I really think, you know, I love C.J. McCollum. I like what the Blazers have. I don't think he's been paired with the right type of team. See, you know, Allen, they gave him a bunch of role guys that would go out, do the dirty work, and then you go to town. Just do what you do. Just be the offensive virtual so that you are. And, you know, everyone could see it and respect it. Dame is kind of in a weird spot because he shares it with CJ a little bit.

They're not really good enough to make any, like, real noise. He hasn't had the pieces around him. And so it's a good question because I sat on this couch the other night, like with with the family friend, his son who loves basketball. And we were watching and I said, you know, I think I take Dame right now over Steph or any other point guard in the league. And he looked at me kind of out of the corner of his eye and I said, I love Steph, but I'm probably taking Dame if you put my feet to the fire right now. Russell and I talked about that, I think, a week and a half ago. And it was the first time I had really considered it because I think Steph is weirdly underrated for all the stuff he brings to the table. But the stuff Dame was doing in the bubble, I'm not sure Steph at this point of his career

could carry a team in the same way. And then with the 50 points, 61 points stuff, that was at a level now where you start thinking like the Kobe, the Iverson, like those kinds of guys. Like I think Harden has been able to do it, maybe not deep in the playoffs, but certain guys where they're just like, I'm going to have to win this by myself, but I actually can do this.

I'm not even sure he could have done that last year. But I think going back to the Iverson thing, you know, I thought what made Iverson so amazing was how little he was and how he could still get to the rim against anybody. And Kyrie has it too, but Kyrie's 6'3". Iverson was 5'10". And the way he would go, he would kind of navigate these big guys and do, you know, use their body against them, do reverse things. Sometimes he would even be up by the rim. The stuff Lillard was doing to Porzingis the other night was so high level. I mean, he was almost making him unplayable. And Porzingis had like 38 points in that game or something, and they almost had to take him out because they couldn't unlock it.

Yeah. So I don't know if i've seen that before he's unguardable um when he gets cooking like there's there's really you know if you're going to insist in today's nba on switching pick and rolls like i would this is another topic of conversation like how would you approach that defense no i want to hear it i i would never let him have the ball in his hands if i could ever affect him getting off the ball i would do it i would i would especially if it were organic like if you were going to bring a secondary defender into the equation i'm trapping it every time you just i mean philosophically i'm not letting dame score 61 for like ison against like chris stapps for zPersingas. I can't allow that to happen. Like I'm not questioning the coaching. That's just what I would do.

He'd have to ISO for his buckets or they'd have to run offense to get him coming off something. But if he was ever in some sort of ball screen action, I have to give it up and then I'm just going to face guard him and try to take him out of the play. Did you ever think you'd see an NBA game? I mean, you played in the league till what, 2014? Do you ever see a game? Do you ever think you'd see a moment where teams would

be trapping a point guard 42 feet from the basket to try to get him to get rid of the ball so he couldn't start his offense? Like he was like the best guy in a ninth grade AAU game or something like that just doesn't happen. Yeah, it's pretty crazy where we are in terms of in terms of guys ability one on one and the space that they have now to be able to use that one on one ability. I mean, do you think if people knew in 2001 what they know now? Isn't that how teams would have probably done it? They probably would have done that to Iverson, right? They're just 40 feet from the basket just trying to make him give up the ball. I just don't think people were sophisticated enough back then. Well, both offensively and defensively, right?

I mean, the rules were a little different when I came into the league too because you had a true illegal D like you weren't, that zone came into effect as a little deeper into my career. So it gave you more opportunity to kind of soft trap and stuff like that. We didn't create a lot of space for AI. That was the other thing that was pretty remarkable about the way he scored. He did that when you were still running like floppy sets where you had the two bigs anchored around the blocks and you were bringing your guards off of those

and horns action. Those like sets always have two bigs around the rim and he was still able to like navigate in through there and create. Offense has become really, it's interesting. It's more sophisticated. I'd be interested to know what you think about it. Like, I think it's less sophisticated. I think they've kind of stripped it down to its bare bones and just said, look, we're going to create space and let some of these just unguardable guys go to work. But that could be sophisticated too.

Like, I don't know which it is. It's more efficient. It's, I hesitate to say it this way, but I'm going to, and it's more efficient. I hesitate to say it this way, but I'm going to. It's less interesting. And I really noticed that when I was watching the old games when we didn't have basketball for four and a half months. Guess what was really fun?

Post-up guys and guys taking terrible 17-footers. Thank you, sir. Thank you. It was just more interesting. There were more variables to a game. I think the mid-late 90s, early 2000s, I think the flaw was like, there was such an impetus to post up.

It was kind of like they couldn't really figure out what else to do. And it was like, well, let's post up. And I watched these games where, you know, Indiana, which I think it was the 99 team, they lost to the Knicks. And I watched a couple of those games. And Indiana was just like i think it was the 99 team they they lost to the next and i watched a couple of those games and indiana was just like slow it down slow it down post up bang it in and you look at their team you're like you guys should be like going you have shooters

you have space you got rick smith's like there's this whole other version of what you're doing that would work um but yeah i i think in a lot of ways, it's just more predictable now. I think Dallas suffers from that in the last four minutes, right? Because it's kind of like, you know what they're going to do? They're going to spread the four for Luca. Everybody else is going to stand there and watch him. Houston at least was able to bring in that Westbrook variable where he's crashing offensive boards or he's making weird cuts. And it's at least a little different, but I'm with you. I think it's boring sometimes. Yeah, that's interesting.

I've always felt like there was a middle ground. I was talking about Mike's team, Mike D'Antoni's Rockets team, just maybe two years ago when they were in the playoffs, and they were kind of the team that was ahead of the other teams in terms of, like, look, we got this offensive genius who we're just gonna let him cook um and i and i love mike and i i think mike is one of the most brilliant offensive minds in in the game um but i was like man you that's great through to your point like three and a half quarters right and then even if it's simple action so that everyone's not just locked in five sets of

eyes on James Harden like they've been for three and a half quarters run something and then run it quick get him the ball back and then we know what's coming but you know I felt like Golden State did it well like a lot of you know a lot of movement and then you know someone makes a mistake and then you get downhill and if not then we are good enough to beat you one-on-one. But there was just enough movement to keep people honest. Yeah, I think we've talked about it on this podcast before. Just that seems to be the fatal flaw of that Rockets team where you're playing them in a playoff series and you're getting that for two straight weeks.

You're just going to get used to it. And I think that gets really dangerous when you're playing somebody and they're used to what you're doing. I thought that, you know, those Suns teams that you're on the mid two thousands, which to me is like the best version of this offense. Cause they, they could, you could do the high screens with Amari. You could do this light, you could spread out for Nash and you could find shooters. There were all kinds of different variations to it but it was it just felt more unpredictable to me

than some of the stuff we're seeing now where it's just like well this makes the most sense statistically so we're just going to keep doing this yeah we had just enough and that's why you know i again my experience with mike like i know he's got some of this. I wasn't a guy who could create. I couldn't really have the ball in my hands in a situation, whether it be pick and roll or ISO, and get you a quality bucket. It wasn't my skill set. So Mike knew this, and he'd run six plays a game where he'd bring me off some type of screen in action. And I like to catch and shoot. And if I got that advantage i could create

a play so you know those are just little wrinkles that we had in our stuff now our bread and butter was getting up and down the court sean mary into the front of the rim dragging with steve or steven pick and roll and a bunch of shooters but when push came to shove if he had to call my number he knew what like package they were going to run for me and you know boris diao there was stuff in the playbook for bor and Leandro Barbosa. And so we could get into little wrinkles of things that would get us a bucket for someone other than Steve or Amari. And it just made us really dangerous because it was unpredictable. Who did the best job of kind of throttling what you guys were trying to do back then?

And what did they do specifically? It's a great question. It was the Spurs and the Mavericks um and what they did was they didn't allow any of us to get good looks collapsing on Steve and Steve was a reluctant shooter like a great shooter um and a great scorer but he was raised in a day and an age where point guards didn't dominate the scoring stat in the box score. So it was always a reluctant second option for Steve. And they put the onus squarely on him to score. And a lot of nights he did and scored and we won, but they stuck to their guns that over the course of six or seven games,

getting rid of like my 10 points and, you know, LB is 15 and Boris is 13 and Tim Thomas is 12. Like Steve and Amari wouldn't be enough. And they both of those teams did that really well. You know, I had him, I had this book of basketball podcasts I was doing last year and I had him come. First of all,

I forced him to watch the game where Robert Horry shoves him into the thing. Yeah. I mean, I forced him to watch the game where Robert Horry shoves him into the thing. Stevie? Yeah, I forced him to watch it. He watched the whole game. Did he admit what he did? That he flopped? Yeah.

Did he admit that to you? Yeah. He said he called it an embellishment. Okay. All right. All right. Well, it got me running over there and then everybody got suspended. I know.

But he was saying he hadn't watched any of those games you know he doesn't he's one of those guys he doesn't go backwards so he watched that game and and you know he's in it he's totally bummed out he texts me after like i need a drink but the big takeaway that he had from watching it was like i didn't shoot enough i had so i i was a 40 three-point shooter taking four threes a game, and I had wide-open threes all game. I was actually hurting my team by not shooting, and he just didn't realize it in the moment because, as you said, point guards were supposed to have 15 points, 12 assists, and help everybody else get off. It wasn't his job to shoot. It's crazy. He and I spoke about it a couple

weeks ago, and he basically said the same thing to me. It's crazy. He and I spoke about it a couple of weeks ago and, you know, he basically said this, this, the same thing to me. And I, it would have been really interesting. Cause I tell this story a lot. Like Mike, when I got there, I had never shot, you know, as many threes as they were going to expect me to shoot. And Mike told me straight up, like this is how many threes that we have vacated.

This is how many I expect you to shoot. That's your quota. You're going to shoot those. And the only reason I'm going to pull you out is if you're open and you don't shoot it. And that was his philosophy. So it's interesting that he just never got there with Steve. Let's take a break to talk about UFC 252.

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Be sure to use my promo code BS to claim your exclusive 25 to 1 odds on the Cormier fight. Remember, FanDuel Sportsbook promo code BS. Must be 21 plus and present in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Indiana, and Colorado. New Year's is only. Max bonus $125. Minimum $10. First deposit required. Restrictions apply. See full terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com.

Gambling problem? 1-800-GAMBLER. Call there or in Gambling problem, 1-800-GAMBLER. Call there or in West Virginia, visit 1-800-GAMBLER.net. Indiana, 1-800-9-WITH-IT. Colorado, 1-800-522-4700. Back to Rajabell. I always like when smart teams use the best players' Achilles heel against them. You know, like The Spurs,

they were basically like, hey Steve, keep scoring, man. If you end up with 48, that's great for us. Meanwhile, he's taking all good shots, but they know that's the best way. The Celtics in the 2010 Game 7, they were like, Kobe wants

to be the hero tonight. We're double teaming him. He's going to shoot anyway. He's not going to be able to resist. And they used it again. The Jedi mind tricked him for three quarters. He's taking the worst shots on the planet. And then finally the Lakers are like, you realize what they're doing, right?

And then he started spreading the bite. And then they come back and they win in the fourth quarter. But it is funny when that, what did teams do with Iverson to make him to fuck him up like that? Yeah, that's, that's a good one. I'm trying to think what they, I don't know. Get him super competitive, right? Like wouldn't like talking shit to him. Wouldn't that be the way to kind of get him out of his game almost?

Yeah. But he, I think with him, because he was small, if I had to say one thing that I think they really just tried to punish him. Like when I played on teams against him, like it was, hey, if you get a chance, you know, we're not trying to hurt anybody. But, you know, we're going to make him get up off the floor and make a free throw. You know, like not just foul him and make a free throw, like make him get off the floor and make a free throw. And I think that was probably because he was so slight the way teams kind of approached AI. Well, you know who's going to do that if we get Lakers Blazers. Oh, yeah.

Dame's hitting the deck. They have a lot of fouls to waste. They have 18 fouls just from the center position and then a whole bunch of other dudes, and they're just going to knock them around. And they already know McCollum's hurt. We don't know how bad that injury is, but that's the way they win it's just by being more physical I think if they had if CJ was healthy and I because I I don't think that without a healthy CJ Dane's going to be enough over like a series like that but if if they had CJ um I think the Lakers could be in trouble like I totally

agree I'm a Laker I like the Lakers. But without Avery Bradley and another, you know, without those type of bodies to throw at Damian Lillard and CJ, you'd be in a tough spot. You know, we were talking earlier about offenses being predictable. And to me, the Lakers have looked like that in the bubble. And I don't know if it's rust. You know, they're missing a couple guys. They're missing some guards that were essential guys for their team.

But it just looks like laborious for them to run an offense. And LeBron and Davis are going to get theirs. The 3-12 guys just aren't that good. And I think you're already seeing it. And I know we're going to see in the playoffs, teams are just going to be like, Hey, cool, man. If, if your seventh guy is going to take five threes, if Quinn cook, knock yourself out, buddy, go for it. Keep taking them.

Like that's what's going to happen. And I don't think they've really unlocked it. What do you, what have you seen from them that concerns you? Really stagnant offense, but that's not out of character for a LeBron team. I spent that year in the front office with Cleveland, LeBron's first year back, and David Blatt had all of these sets that he wanted to run, all of this motion that we wanted to create and stuff. And then eventually, you know, it was just like, look, give him the ball, you know, let it, let him create.

He's so good at it. Like he's, you know, he's the best in the league. He's leading the league in assists. He'll, he'll just make us work. Well, number one, LeBron doesn't really get downhill the same way. Like he doesn't get the shoulders by his primary defender all the time. Like he used to that first step and he's still amazing, but the first step doesn't collapse the time like he used to that first step and he's still amazing but the first step doesn't collapse the defenses like it used to so yeah when you don't collapse the defense

then you're throwing it out to me in the corner and my man's still on me that's a problem right like you have to draw my man so i can shoot it um and then you you know ad is another guy that likes to work in iso so then it's really stagnant and everyone's standing. And again, you're getting situations to your point where Quinn cook is now having to catch a ball. If LeBron on an AD don't like their situation in a one-on-one situation. And that's, that's not what typically like four through 12 do on NBA teams. Like those are complimentary pieces. They're,

they're not one-on-one bucket getters. Dion waiters is kind of inefficiently. He's a guy that'll go get his own buckets. Kyle Kuzma maybe develops into that, but he's not there yet. And so, you know, it's a really weird team to have so little offensive movement. And, you know, again, I'd really like to hear your take on this. I like AD. I don't think that AD – his talent is off the charts. Like he is a, you know, I mean, you could put him up there with all-time greats in terms

of like his length and skill set. But I don't know that he's got the mentality to carry when you have to carry, when it's really hard to carry, when the whole city is waiting for you to carry, and they're going to need him to do that because I don't think LeBron's at that point in his career anymore where he's got to do that night in, night out. Yeah, I've been thinking about this a lot because that team's at an interesting crossroads.

Davis is actually their best guy to get a basket in the fourth quarter. I think he's their most reliable. My life depended on it. I need two points. Davis is just the easiest for him to create a good shot. I don't think they're ever going to get to that point because LeBron is still great. And he's LeBron. He's one of the best three-pointers of all time.

And if they're in a situation where it's like they're down 3-2 in a series and there's a minute left, they're down three, LeBron's going to be shooting. LeBron's going to be taking, they're going to live and die with LeBron that last minute. And I guess my point is, if I'm the other team, I'm pretty good with that. Like even that first Clipper bubble game, LeBron was the guy who took the shots at the end. Davis felt like he could get any shot he wanted in that game and that little tug of war how that plays out I think is is the weirdest subplot with them does it make sense that's a really it's a really it's a really good point um I hadn't really

thought of it that way because I but you might be right like AD's hesitancy may be a product of him feeling like LeBron's not ready to maybe pass that I need to defer truly to AD and be the supporter instead of the one being supported? They've got to iron that out and quick. Well, it almost depends on the matchup. I think you saw in the 2006 finals, which you guys easily could have been in, Wade and Shaq. Shaq's still Shaq. He was three finals MVPs in a row. He was a little past his prime, but he was still in the tail end of his prime.

Sure. And then Wade's the young guy. It's like, well, I can't totally beat Dwayne Wade. Shaq's here. And then in that finals, he's like, I got this. And he just takes over the finals and they win the thing. I'm not saying Davis needs to do that. But, you know, like think about like if the 2007 Suns are playing the Lakers

and you're just matching up with them. You have a lot of guys to throw at LeBron. You can wear him out. You can put multiple people on him. It's actually better for you guys if LeBron is controlling the end of the game. Who you don't have the matchup for is Davis. Ultimately, you're going into those final two minutes like, fuck, I hope they don't realize they should just set up Davis. We can't defend him. We'd have to put Kurt Thomas in if they do that.

And I guess that's my point. I don't know if the Lakers are there mentally where they see that or maybe depending on the matchup, maybe you ride AD, even though you have LeBron on your team. Well, I, you know, you, you were right in that the mat, the matchup problem now LeBron's always a problem, but the matchup problem, the one that most people don't have something to counter is, is AD. And so LeBron, LeBron, I will say this for LeBron amongst a lot of other things that I say,

cause I'm a big fan. He's as smart as there is out there. He'll get in the middle of that and if there's anyone that's going to figure it out on the fly, if it's not figured out already, it will be LeBron. Yeah, I was thinking if you're going, who's the smartest player in the league? I think it's him. Best athlete, you would say Giannis.

Most kind of biggest badass, I might say it's dame if you're going like the alan iverson memorial who's just the toughest guy in the league right now i think you could make the dame case he i look see you say tough and i i naturally, like, it's just knee-jerk. I think of, like, a big – Who wins in a fight. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but you might be right. I mean, when you talk about – so let's use – I'd say assassin. Like, the biggest assassin in the league, for sure, Dane.

Like, that's not even a question. Well, and you would say Kawhi's the quiet assassin. He's the quiet assassin. But, like, when you talk about like, I just, I am obnoxious in a good way with this. Like my swag is 100% off the charts and I don't care what you say. I'm still going to drop 50 and then double down with 61. I wrote like way back.

I did like the scale of when you have game winning shots, what your reaction is and what that says about you as a player. Because you think about Jordan hits the shot against Cleveland. He's jumping up and down. He's fist-pumping. But then by the time he gets to the 97 finals, game one, just the quiet fist-pump. And Kobe, he's trying to harness his version of that.

And he has that steal against you guys. i went to that game in 06 when i mean he he commit it's almost a flagrant foul that he commits to get the ball i know still gets it and then he makes the game winner and and kind of does the jordan he was kind of trying to find the jordan but i don't really feel like he got there until probably 09, 2010. But what's always been interesting about Damon is the last couple of years, he reacts to these big moments. Like he's been doing it for 20 years. It's, it's a little, I don't really understand where it came from because he hasn't even played

enough finals. No, it's a heap. So it's just self-belief, right? It's, it's, it's what makes and well, it's what makes you who you are as a player, but it ultimately is what kind of separates greats from good. It's just almost an ignorance to any fault you may have on the court. I just am so self-confident, and I believe in what I do so much that it doesn't really matter what any of you tell me, whatever my resume says. It doesn't matter what you think. Like this is this is who I am.

And Ronnie Price, one of my favorite teammates, when I played in Utah with him, Dame was still at Weber State. And he told me, he said, there's a kid at Weber State that when the league sees him, it's going to be a problem. And I was like, Ronnie, at Weber State, man? And he said, listen, this kid is – he's different, and I'll be damned. Well, I have a draft diary from that year where I ripped them for taking him over Austin Rivers. It was one of my finest moments. I was like, he's 22.

Austin Rivers is only 19. What what are they thinking i have a whole paragraph what are my uh what are my worst ones the the oakland thing is pretty funny too do you do you believe that certain the personalities of certain players can be tied to where they're from like do you think there's like chicago type, Washington DC type guys, Oakland type guys? So you believe in that? Cause I've heard some people like are super duper believers in this. I believe in that. I definitely believe that.

I know a lot of people from, from, uh, Oakland and they have a, you know, they have a toughness and a grit. Um, I kind of like, like the East coast city for me, like Oakland is a Philly type of city where just really, really tough. And, and, you know, there's a hardness to you, like, but I'm a Miami guy. And so like, if you ask anybody about like Udonis, who, who's, you know, a heat lifer, they will tell you he's in the embodied, like he embodies what Miami is about, right? So I believe in that. Like you come up and you take your lumps where you're from and you go out and you try to rep that. Like in any walk of life, but certainly in an athletic walk of life, like you were repping for your town,

you know, and in his case, the town. So I believe it for sure. I had never really thought about it until the first year I was doing Countdown, me and Magic and Jalen and Wilbon, and they started arguing about chicago versus detroit and magic was talking about all these michigan guys he played with and will bond's going with the chicago guys and we were kind of talking about how different areas produce certain

types of guys right and michigan it was you know tough guys but they were just for whatever reason really gifted offensively and like and maybe part of it was that george gervin was the guy there that magic's generation when they're going to the gym they're watching and he's just two points two points two points doing everything and they're kind of in that mindset but um but then you get like new york city where it's like the point guard the dna the history the heritage of the point guard position is the most important thing about New York City. And everybody's trying to be the next so-and-so, stuff like that.

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Because I feel like he's the most Rajabell type guy in these playoffs. Like kind of the underdog, 37th in the draft, had to scrap and fight to get what, I mean, obviously he went to Duke, which was a little different than your college situation, but, but, you know, and constantly proven. And now he's this incredibly essential guy for them. And those are always the guys that end up winning playoff series. But do you identify with guys like that? I definitely do. Um, I, I, I think he's better

than I will. I've watched him. He's he's, I think he could be like, if you slotted, like where my career wound up being like, you know, one to 10, I think he's going to wind up being higher on the scale than me. I think he can do more things offensively. I think he's got more upside than I did, but I always pull for that. I don't know, maybe fourth or fifth guy. Like, you know, he's never going to be your number one or number two probably, but he can be your number three on a lot of nights, you know, and those guys are fun to watch. Like another guy to that, to that I liked watching. Cause I checked the box score from Memphis,

just to see like, you know, what was going on there cause it was so lopsided. And Dylan Brooks had 27. Yeah. I really is another one. Yeah. Just tough. Like, you know, you could tell whether the skill level is super pretty or not. Like his heart is in, like he's going to do whatever he can for that team to not let them lose. And I, I am always on, on for always on for cheering for a guy like that.

When I, in the Patino era in Boston, which was really dark, and my dad never won any of the games, so he always gave me the tickets. And we had Bruce Bowen one year. Wow. Couldn't shoot. So what years were those?

I was in school in Boston around that time, like 94, 96, 93, 98. Yeah, this is like 90 the 97 98 season okay just after i left yeah after you left so bowen's in there he can't shoot like he can't every shot it's like watching somebody throw a rock against a wall but he's trying harder than everybody else he's unbelievable defensively like he can move laterally in a way that it was like jesus this guy's a freak and the other players hated him and you like the guys in the other team you could just tell they're like fuck this guy and i was like this guy's something

if he ever can ever figure out how to even like shoot remotely decently. So now my guy like this now is Thibault on the Sixers. I love that guy. If he can ever just figure out how to make a wide open shot five times a game, that guy is going to be on like a final stand. See, that's interesting. He, uh, the one I was, it's a great point though. Like even in a pickup game, like if I'm watching the game and i've gotten next i am picking up whoever looks like they are are are hated by the other team more like it's totally

it's just the utmost compliment right like you are doing something right when everyone on the other team hates you um thought the great thing about that for bruce theibel like myself like i didn't shoot well when i first came into the league. That's something that like, if you're dedicated, you're going to get better at that. Like, and if you're already the guy you're describing that we're describing, you're going to be in the gym, like you've self-evaluated and you're going to say, Hey man, this is what I have to get better at to have that kind of career. And he'll like, provided there's no like mental hiccup or something like that. Like you'll be, be you'll be fine he'll wind up shooting at a you know 36 37 42 percent clip at some point that's i mean that's why i was devastated when the celtics traded that pick i really wanted them

because i just feel like certain guys if the knock on them is they can't shoot but you're watching the game and every single play they're trying harder than everybody else it's like well that guy's probably going to be in the gym on the summer trying to figure out how to shoot 39 from three i mean i you probably weren't a great shooter in the 90s right when did you when did your shot officially fall into place well um philly philly was hard because you didn't get a lot of them and then yeah in in dallas i just dallas is when i started you I was around great shooters, though. They had the first shooting coach I ever was exposed to, and then Nash and Nowitzki and Walt Williams and Michael Finley and Nick Van Exel. So I got the shooting bug, but I couldn't really make a lot of shots.

I didn't get a lot of shots. And then in Utah, I started really getting with the shooting coach in the off season. And a guy named Marvin Harvey was down in Tampa and I'd work with him every summer. I have to make shots. And, you know, it was selfish also because I realized that I was always going to play on a minimum deal as the guy that could start half of the games for you, score four points and just defend. So I was like, man, if I really want to solidify like a spot in or a career, I have to make some shots. So I started digging in. And by my second year in Utah, I was, I was proficient. And then in Phoenix, it was just a shooting culture. So it was like, it's what we do. It's so funny. Some guys it's,

I would say everybody should at least be able to become a decent shooter unless it's like a Michael Kidd Gilchrist thing where like, there's literally just something wrong with your form that doesn't seem like it could be fixed. Right. Otherwise it's just hard work in the gym. This is why I really liked RJ Barrett heading the draft. I know he didn't have the greatest first year for the Knicks, but I just think that guy's really competitive and it's like, well, he can't really totally shoot yet. It's like, all right, I'm betting that he'll figure it out three years into the week because he just seems to me like the kind of guy that's going to be in the gym day after day

trying to figure it out. I'm sure that was one of your lessons from how many years you played, like the guys on your team, the guys that put in the extra work were always the guys that made it. Why is it so hard for NBA teams to realize this when they're drafting? It's a good question. I mean, talent is tantalizing, you know, like, it's a great question. And I, you know, I always thought when I was in, like, when I played that the general managers were like the smartest people. Some of them are like David Griffin.

He's really smart. Some of them are not, you know? And so like you'd get tantalized, like the speed is in and, and length and, and, you know, adjectives that describe like, you know, athletes that are just not normal. All of those things are really tantalizing. And I'm with you. I look for determination and grit and perseverance and character. Those type of things mean something to me.

The problem with that is you can have all of that. And if you don't have the talent, it doesn't work. So, you know, you're going to err on the side of talent, hoping that you can teach him to shoot or teach him to. And I think that's why it happens more than like, OK. So when I was in Cleveland, I did a lot of scouting and I was I was going around to all these conference tournaments. And we had a late second round pick and we were were, it was the kid, JP Tokudo from, from North Carolina. And that's why I was there to watch. They played UVA and I sat in, you know,

I watched the game and I wrote in my report, like I said, you know, I know we're here to see Tokudo and the kid that he's playing against isn't coming out this year, but the way this kid kicked his ass, like you don't want Tokudo. And it was Malcolm Brogdon. And I was like, whenever he's ready to come out, that's the one that you want. But Tokido just, and it wasn't a skill thing. Like he could put his knees on the rim and all of that.

He just, when that kid like chested up, like Tokido didn't want any part of it. And so, you know, those were the things that I always looked for. Yeah, it's weird. I mean, even like in the, this isn't the greatest draft, the one we're about to for yeah it's weird i mean even like in this isn't the greatest draft the one we're about to have but there's a couple guys in this draft that are the classic really talented questionable motor and i'm just like i'm out your motor's

questionable i'm out good luck let the next team take you and this is the one thing i've learned in 50 years questionable motor i'm out I'm out. Yeah, whatever happened to I can't teach effort. I can't work with no effort. That's a minimum. You're supposed to have effort. We did the 2013 draft, me and Jalen, so I really got into it. I read everything. We

got to interview some of the guys. I just thought Oladipo was the safest pick. I was like, I don't know if he's a Hall of Famer. I know he's going to play hard. I know he's going to give a shit. I know he'll be a great teammate. Worst case scenario, he'll be a good three-point shooter

and a very good defender and kind of a hybrid guard, and that's kind of safer than anything else in this draft. Bennett went first to the Cavs, which was stunning when it happened because it seemed like he was going to fall to like eight or nine, but that was the classic what we're talking about, right? Oh, my God, the athleticism, whatever. Meanwhile, he was 6'6". You got to the Cavs like three years after that.

What did they say about that three years later? You know, I barely brought it up. It was just an understood miss. Um, you know, I think that they were really conflicted because I think he's a really good kid. Now I don't know. Right. But from everything they said, he's a really good kid. It just, it just didn't work. You know, he just wasn't what they thought he was. And then just snowballs against you. And that's that, I mean, that draft was so funny cj was in that draft and it was clear he was a scorer i don't nobody knew he was gonna do what he's doing like but it was clear

he'd be like oh he could be a third guard who could score off the bench worst case scenario and then yannis was the great x factor but he was you know yannis was like six eight and a half in that draft or six nine he grew three inches when he came to america and he's playing against eighth graders in these clips and you're like i don Like, like how, how are we supposed to evaluate this? Who knows? And you know, that's how guys get become legends or get fired within a year. And within a year. And it's like, you just hit the nail on the head, right? Like that, that, that, that's why I think a lot of guys don't pass on that size length kind of like freaky athleticism because if it is a hard worker and Robert Hackett um was the strength and

conditioning coach and with Milwaukee at the time like and it was two years into his kind of development but he still wasn't like like what what you what he is now but he was like he's gonna be he's gonna be it he was like the way was like, he's going to be, he's going to be it. He was like the way this kid works, he's going to be it. And that's, that's why it's hard to pass on that. Cause if you get the package of athleticism and upside with the it factor of like dedication and hard work, you've, you've got those types of players. He cares every game. And it's like, it doesn't matter what night it is. You flip on league pass and he's going at the same level.

And I think that's one of the reasons why people get so frustrated with Embiid. Depending on what night you're catching him, he's either going through the motions or he looks like the best center of the last 30 years. But he's playing in a league right now where a lot of the best guys, even LeBron at age 35, these guys, they don't take nights off. They don't take quarters off. Maybe they pick their spots a little sometimes, but Embiid's the one out of all the great players that you catch him on the run.

You're like, what are you doing, man? What's going on with you? I don't know him. I don't. He is uber frustrating to me for everything that you just explained. And I just get the sense, and again, I don't know him. It looks like he's really immature. It looks like even showing up to the bubble in the hazmat suit, I get it.

It's funny. You're a good follow. And I'm not mad at you for that. But you should be there for business. You're there to win a championship. Damian Lillard's not showing up in a hazmat suit right he's there to go to work and he never comes across like that to me like even like don't even get me started we had this conversation the other night about the rolling of an ankle and leaving a game i saw the rolled ankle you didn't there all your weight wasn't on that ankle like you it wasn't like you came down out of the air

and the ankle hit the floor. It was a mild sprain. No shit did it. The x-rays came back negative. And then, you know, it's just, I don't, man, he's so frustrating. I don't mean to get like, he's super talented.

He could be great. I just don't know if he's there up top. I don't know if he has that in him. Well, I was thinking like when Simmons went out, there was a version of this where it's like, and Bede's like, get on my back, everybody. Here we go. And that wasn't what we saw. But you know, the thing with him, and I remember like being there for some of the Celtics Sixers playoff games, when he puts it together for a quarter, it's fucking terrifying. He's completely unstoppable. And I think everybody else in the league kind of wants it to stay this way. It's like, yeah, I hope he doesn't, I hope he doesn't get into completely incredible shape and I hope he takes quarters off. Let's keep it this way.

Don't ever figure it out. Like if you're every other team in the NBA, don't, don't put two and two together. You know, I worked with a guy, really good basketball mind. And, and, and, you know, while most everyone's fascinated with his size skill combination and the fact that he can go out there and shoot threes, you know, he's been for years, like he doesn't shoot them well enough. So like with the absence of any real paint presence, just dominate in there, just go down there and absolutely dominate.

And when, when he's having the runs that you're describing, when he looks unstoppable, most of it is that. Like he still supplements with some threes and some really high skill stuff, but a lot of it is going at the rim. And then he'll just like tune out or it'll be like the next game. And he forgets that he scored 37, like almost all in the paint and he's shooting nine threes. And you're like, what, what, what's going on? that he scored 37, like almost all in the paint, and he's shooting nine threes.

And you're like, what's going on? The reality is I don't think it's very fun to be a center in basketball. And I think if you go through the history of the league, this is the same kind of thing over and over again, where these guys, they're expected to dominate because of their size. People, they get treated differently by the officials. People pound them. They pull their arms. They're pulling their things.

They're hitting them from behind. And when you succeed, you're supposed to succeed. Well, you're Joel Embiid. You're 7'2". You're supposed to have 40 points. And I think if you go through the last 60, 70 years, there's been a lot of Joel Embiid's that you're like, man, I wish that guy, I wish he brought it more often.

But maybe it's not fun. I know people felt this way about artist Gilmore. They felt this way about Walt Bellamy. They felt this way about Will Chamberlain from time to time. It's a really good point. Because I know a lot of bigs that are like, I just don't love it. I don't know. I'm just really big and really talented.

I don't know a lot of guards like that. Right. I don't. Like guards are usually like, you know, for whatever. Like maybe I'm biased in a guard position, but I know a lot of bigs that you just described. Like really big. Don't really love playing big. You question whether they love it at all. Um, and it just, you don't find a lot

of guards. Maybe it's too hard. You're not six 11. You don't just get the passes that you might get if you were, if you were, you know, you know, back when I played, I'm now retired. Um, one of my rules was if you have the big guy on your team in pickup, just make that guy's life really happy. Look for him. Just get him the ball. If he's running on a fast break, make an effort to get him the ball because then he'll be like, this is great. I'm going to run on the fast break. And then that's an advantage for us because he's the biggest guy in this game by five inches. But Dave Jacobi and I, when we used to play together at USC, I sound like I'm a pro.

But anytime we got a big guy, we were always like, take care of the big guy. Make the big guy happy. And sometimes I wonder with that Philly team whether they think that way. Everything they do should be like to coddle him, make him happy, get him shots, like get him in that mindset to just be like, I'm going to dominate. I'm going to go for 49. And I don't feel like they do that. Everything feels too competitive on that team.

Well, yeah, that's interesting. It's so simple though. Right? Like it's like we teach that with, with our, like our kids, like, look, man, if you have the big and we do, he's doing what we need him to do. Just absolutely give him touches, give, just absolutely give him touches. Give him touches. Give him touches, yeah. But Philly's Philly because Ben Simmons and Joel, they don't fit together.

They're just not a good combination. And I think that for the last couple years it's not been public, but I think there's really been a struggle there behind closed doors at the top and between the two of them for like whose show that's going to be. Like who who is going to be the best guy for the 76ers to kind of saddle up and ride into their promised land? And so I think that kind of is probably part of the reason why Philly may be missing, you know, the opportunity to really say, listen, Joel, here's what we're going to do, man. Like we're going to expect you to score X amount of points in the paint and we're going to make those like easy, good touches for you.

We'll run offense to create that. And then obviously you're skilled enough where you can be outside and do these things and we'll get you in pick and pops. You'll ISO, you'll have your opportunities. But, you know, because we need you to be the guy, then we're going to need you to give us these in the paint. And then we're going to, and we'll let you, you know, get the rest of yours. But I don't think it's been approached like that. I think it's been a power struggle. Which one would you keep?

You know, a year and a half ago, I said I would take Ben Simmons because I didn't trust Joel Embiid's mental. I just, I know everything is great. I know, you know, he's got this skill set and size that you rarely see, but I don't trust his mental. Lately, because of the inability to shoot the ball and not just the inability to shoot it, Bill, but like the unwillingness to shoot it, that's a real hurdle. We talked about shooters. You can become a good shooter if you're freed up mentally to shoot, if you're willing to shoot. If you're completely unwilling to shoot,

then I don't know that you ever become a good shooter. And so that concerns me. At this point, I'd probably say Embiid and just hope that, you know, we figure it out, but you know, I don't know. I'm conflicted because the game, the game's not played like that anymore. The game's played with, with, with more of your Ben Simmons type of players, right? Guys that can create six, nine, you'll get downhill, like great vision, but you gotta be able to shoot the ball.

There was a really fun Ben Simmons, Devin Booker, fake trade that I felt was realistic That now I don't feel like Phoenix would do that From what's going on With Booker lately Yeah, no Because now they've actually seen him With a decent supporting cast

And now, you know, it's like what you and Logan Talked about, like, if you're getting your points Your team's not winning, guess what Your team's not winning, and we don't care how many points You have, but if you're putting it together, your team's not winning. Guess what? Your team's not winning. We don't care how many points you have, but if you're putting it together. One last thing before we go. You'll be on plenty of times. We have lots of stuff to talk about. I'm not just letting Logan

have you. I'm going to bring you on this pod a lot of times. Fair enough. You realize your relationship with Clipper fans, right? No. There's a relationship with me and Clipper fans yeah everybody talks about we it's like raj is like oh yeah him and kobe and like there's like this whole liquor thing with you meanwhile until until the uh collapse against the houston rockets in 2015

which is the most devastating moment in clipper's history your shot when Dunleavy put in Daniel Ewing down three, up three to ice the game. I think it was game four. Clips would have gone up 3-1. Game five would have been, I've been a Clippers, I'm a Celtic fan, but I've had Clipper tickets since 04. Right. Down three and ice cold Daniel Ewing.

Ice cold. Hadn't played. They bring him in and he decides he's going to leave you three feet open instead of one and a half feet open, and you hit a game-tying three. You win in overtime, and you win the series. The Clipper fans are like, we could have won the title that year. And I'm not positive they're wrong. It was kind of a weird year, right?

It ended up being the Miami-Dallas year. They played Dallas really well that year. And then Miami, who knows? But that was a really good Clippers team. So you broke their hearts. Listen, like I said, you're doing something right if you're the guy that everybody on the other team hates. I take that as a compliment. I don't even think they hate you.

I think they hate Dunleavy and Daniel Ewing for not going one foot closer. There aren't a lot of most famous moments in Clippers history, but that's like a top five most famous Clipper moment. You didn't even know. That's how irrelevant Clippers are. I had no idea. Yeah, you had no idea. That's great. That's great. You know, the crazy thing is Daniel Ewing, like you could talk about like physically being cold and not being ready to like play because you haven't played. But typically like, and it's just human nature when you're not gonna play at all in a series like i've been there you're not even really paying attention to like scouting reports like you don't even know what's going on so he

probably like you know the one thing and i watched the game with my sons and some of their friends they over the over the covid break and the announcers kept saying like the clippers have to they make a concerted effort to run him off of his shot make him put it on the floor and they did a good job of it um and then here he comes in the game he probably never even heard the scouting report and i can't break in the cold it's unbelievable that clipper team was really good i i was going to those games that you're thinking like – because Elton was like 25 and 11 every game. Like he was one of like the seven best guys in the league that year. They had a really smart backcourt.

They had some weird stuff going with the bench. Like they would get weird bench guy stuff every once in a while in a good way. And they were just pretty good. But I guess when Dunleavy's your coach, you have a ceiling. They had – so Kamen played phenomenal. Yeah. Especially against us. He was having a great year.

Coutinho, Sam Cassell backcourt was tough. Maggette came in and would just – Maggette was foul shots. He's getting the line. He's getting eight, nine foul shots a game. That was what he did. They were tough. We were scared. We thought that some of us thought that they were

a bigger challenge than the Lakers that year. They were really tough. And young Sean Livingston before he got hurt. That's right. As a third guard, he was good that year too. All right. Listen, I'm really happy you're with the ringer. I'm excited to put you in a whole bunch of different situations with us, but I've been a longtime fan. So it's really nice to finally

be working with you. Oh man, I'm happy to be here. I'm now the Vibe Curator, if you haven't heard. Oh. Logan Dunn, the Vibe Curator. I like it. Yeah, I appreciate that. And anytime, because I'm super excited to be here, man. I'm a big fan. All right, cool. Thank you. All right, we're bringing in my buddy Jacko in one second, who sometimes I see when we do a little social distancing drinks with our friends from Holy Cross. You know what's a great idea for social distancing drinks? Miller Lite. It's always been there. They bring people together through Miller time. Maybe now it's a Zoom call, quick porch beer with your neighbors, masking up for a socially distant hangout outside, whatever it is.

You can still have Miller time. Great taste is always close by. This has been my beer since college. Joe House talked about last week, there's no better beer for the golf course. It's a great beer for the social distance saying right now, maybe enjoying Miller Light with friends. It looks a little different, but staying connected is just as important, whether you're in your house or apartment, stuck with roommates or partners, whether you're with your family, whether you're keeping your interactions digital, whatever you got. Make sure it's Miller time. Miller Light, great taste, really 96 calories and 3.2 carbs. Check out if you want to get it delivered. If you want to get the original light beer delivered,

go to millerlite.com forward slash BS and find the delivery options near you. Celebrate responsibly Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces. And while we're here, I mentioned CBS All Access. And I mentioned, I think, I think I mentioned this, that they have the UEFA Champions League, the world's best players for the world's most prestigious tournament. Yeah, I mentioned that.

I mentioned you could relive the action, the drama, and the glory of your favorite players and teams all from the comfort of your home. I mentioned that you could get in the action and stream every match live on CBS All Access. That you could learn more and start reading from the sidelines

by going to cbs.com slash UCL to sign up for your free trial right now. You know what I didn't mention before? They have 90210 and Melrose Place and about 22 seasons of MTV's The Challenge. So you don't want to miss any of that. Go to cbs.com slash UCL to sign up for your free trial right now. Don't miss it. All right, we're bringing in Jacko. Here he is. All right, we're bringing in my buddy Jacko. Last time he was here, we were wondering

if the baseball season was going to completely fall apart. It's still going. I remember making the joke, something like, I'll have you on right around the next time Stanton gets hurt. Stanton got hurt. So now it's time. Stanton lasted how many weeks? Two and a half? Yeah, roughly. Yeah, just about. That's pretty much part of the course. Yeah. What was his injury? Hamstring, hamstring, a grade three or grade four hamstring injury man those tendons those tendons and muscles are just tough for him you would think you'd stretch you know a guy making 350 million dollars or whatever his contract is you think maybe you'd have a stretching regimen at this point but not so much running the bases they'll get you every time you know leads you

leads you right to the dl in my al keeper league, there was like a bidding war for Stanton. I didn't know what was going on. It was like, did he, did he suddenly figure out how to stay healthy for the entire year? Uh, how much, how much, uh, pandemic baseball have you been watching? Oh, I've watched, except that I was away in Maine for the past couple of. When I've been home, I've watched pretty much all the games. So you like it. You're getting into it. Yeah, of course. I mean, I had no sports for four months,

and I love the Yankees, love, hate the Yankees. So, of course, when they came back, I mean, it is weird with no fans, you know, when there's like a late-inning rally or, you rally or the classic New York thing where they started with Ron Guidry when the batter has two strikes and the Yankees are pitching. It's weird not to hear the crowd into it and just rising and cheering. The crowd noise they pump in is ridiculous. But yeah, otherwise, other than the crowd thing, I've been into it. I can't tell if I dislike it or I just don't want to watch this Red Sox team.

And it's probably about 30, 70. But I mean, I don't know if you've seen our starting rotation this year, but they just decided to throw the year away. And then on top of it, Devers and JD have been in a coma. And I think Andrew Benintendi was replaced like a year and a half ago by somebody else. I think the real Andrew Benintendi is living in like Ohio in a basement

trying to get out. This imposter has taken him. Right, right. But yeah, when your team sucks, guess what's not fun? Baseball without fans. Yeah, absolutely. I totally understand that.

And you know, it would probably be more fun to get the old classic you know salty boston red sock fan pack who could be there lustily booing them and and just hating life and hating the team and the ownership and everything else and you know the pandemic you've missed out on that so you don't even get like the best part of a awful red socks team right i. There's no fans. Like when when Martin Perez looked pretty good in his last start

last week but I know his next start he's going to give up like 11 hits and three innings. Hopefully it's against the Yankees and get booed off the field.

Yeah. Oh and the Yankees are going to absolutely be great. How about bubble basketball. Have you enjoyed the bubble basketball.

Well now I'm not a big NBA guy to begin with, so I haven't really gotten into that. I mean, because I follow the ringer and numerous ringer personalities on Twitter, yourself included, I really can't avoid NBA basketball. And, you know, just scrolling through Twitter, I get a sense of what's going on.

I mean, the Celtics have been good, right? The Bucs are good. Giannis head-butted a on. I mean, the Celtics have been good, right? The Bucs are good. Giannis head-butted a guy. I know all the deal. I know all the deal. We should hire you for NBA reports. Giannis head-butted a guy. The Lakers have been a little disjointed, right?

Like, people are a little worried about the Lakers. The Suns came out of nowhere. There you go. My guy, John Morant, you know, I was early on the John Moran train, having seen him play at the NCAA tournament in Hartford. He just, he's led Memphis into the play in game now. Right. Is that what I've just learned? Yeah. Yeah. So my guy, John, there you go. That's my, that's my NBA report. We have Woj bombs. Now we have Jacko, Jacko. Hey, Giannis headbutted a guy. Yeah. How about bubble hockey?

Anything there? Well, you know, I grew up as a Hartford Whaler fan. And of course, the Whalers left me. So I'm sort of a half assed Ranger fan by default. That's really disgusting. Well, yeah. But what's heartbreaking is, of course, then they were swept out of it by the hurricanes that used to be the Hartford Whalers just to further break my heart. That was that was hurtful. But then they bounced swept out of it by the hurricanes that used to be the harford whalers just to further break my heart that was that was hurtful but then they bounced back and had the maybe the nhl draft lottery rigged for them to win the number one pick so now that that worked out well that was good for the for me in terms of hockey so you know i noticed that i didn't know if betman tried to just slide that by everybody because you know know, the world is so discombobulated. If you're ever going to just fix the lottery for somebody,

this is the year. Is that what happened? Well, I don't know. There's always whenever it's like when Ewing, you know, the Ewing thing, which really was rigged, you know, so that everybody thinks, well, he rigged it for the Rangers because they're a big market team. But I mean, you know, I think if they were going to rig it,

wouldn't they rather rig it for like the Maple Leafs or the Canadians? Were the Canadians in? I think they were maybe in it too. I don't even know. But they would rig it for Toronto, who's been perpetually awful. And Toronto is like the capital of hockey. So you would think they would rig it for them. But again, I was away, but I saw the thing afterwards.

And the commissioner, I don't even know if it was the commissioner, whoever it was that pulled out the ping pong balls. He gets to the number one and he drops it and they're like well that's because it was weighted you know so right put the old lead pellets in the ping pong ball so it didn't pop out until the end or whatever so but yeah so the rangers have the number one pick that's you think he would be more confident now that rob manfred has replaced him as the worst commissioner in sports you would have thought right betman would be surging with confidence these days. So you could just openly rig it.

Nobody's going to say anything. Just have all the balls say Rangers on them and, you know, the Cardinals they've missed like what? Two weeks. I was looking at that today. I was looking at the standings and like right now the Yankees are 12 and six. I looked at it and the Cardinals are two and three. They've played five games and the Yankees are 12 and six. I looked at it and the Cardinals are two and three.

They've played five games and the Yankees have played 18. Right. And, and the guy, apparently one of their, I don't know who was a coach or a, or a clubhouse guy, somebody tested positive again today. And you have to have two negative tests in a row, back-to-back days of negative tests to keep, to be able to be, to play. They're supposed to play the white socks this weekend i was listening to the radio on the way home and they said though the plan was that the um they could have rental cars and drive individually from st louis to chicago

is that like 10 hours no from st louis Louis to Chicago? No, it's not that far. Five hours? No, no. No, no. Three? It's like across Illinois. No, I'm going to say it's like an hour and a half, two hours. Okay.

We're going to have to have somebody Google that. But no, I, so yeah, but then they said this guy tested positive. So now they may be on hold. So they're like, apparently the goal was if they could play at least 49 games or something, it would be respectable. But that means they have to, you know, there's only so many days left until the end of the season and they'd have to play some ridiculous number of double amount of double headers and hope that there was no more like rain outs or any other cancellations for any reason.

So four hours and 30 minutes st louis to chicago four and a half really yeah wow so we're both we're both right we're right we're right in the middle of our argument wow i'm surprised i gotta get i was listening to a podcast today and they were talking about the cardinals and they were like well you know they'll just have to try to catch up with double headers and stuff i'm like what yeah what sure are they gonna play 15 games in a week like how do you catch up it's a six-week season they've just missed two weeks i know and then somebody else like the mad dog i was listening to mad dog chris mad dog russo and he's like well you know pretty soon they might just have to you

know cancel the cardinal season. It's like, okay. I mean, how do you, how is the World Series winner when there's like only like 29 of the 30 teams were able to be participating in the league? You know, like it's already screwy because it's 60 games and now we're going to cut that down and now we're just going to eliminate teams that have sickness. I don't know.

It's odd. Odd to me. I can't wait till you win the World Series trophy and you've completely talked yourself into this being a balance season. There's no question. I'll buy the hat. I'll buy the T-shirt. Absolutely.

There's no question. Absolutely. Hey, when it was winning time, only one team showed up. The New York Yankees. Fuck the Cardinals. That's what I'll say. Stanton limping toward the mound trying to celebrate tears in my eyes tears in his eyes

absolutely yeah it's Chad Finn wrote a good piece this week for the Boston Globe about it it's a really weird time for baseball where you start to wonder is this actually

going to come back in the same form when all the other sports like when things are normal again at some point is there's like irrevocable damage down with baseball in some ways because it was already heading that way with some there are already some danger signs and now it's like all right now what will this mean if they just have this fraud of a season especially if like hockey and basketball and football figure out some semblance of what seems to be a normal season? You know what it's going to come down to? If they have a good postseason, if there's compelling playoff series. I read the other day that now they may put together some half-assed plan to have like the playoff teams in a bubble. So they would go to some location

and that would make sure nobody got sick, presumably, hopefully, during the postseason. So if they have a competent postseason and people are into it, like there's some seven-game series or late-inning comebacks or drama, it's still baseball. I think that's going to win people back.

So I have hopes. Let's talk about our favorite 2020 baseball. So, but Jose Altuve battling the Mendoza line. Yes. There's been no more fun thing than this. I've enjoyed all of it. I've enjoyed all the excuses. I've enjoyed the venom on, on all the social media places. And it's just really great. i can't it's fantastic i can't say it's turned out any better i remember back during the home run race back in the late 90s and before the mcguire and sosa thing took off there was a you know the guy that was the

clubhouse leader for a long time was ken griffey jr and we used to joke about it because peter gammons wrote a column and he's like the first thing I do when I get up in the morning is I look at the box score and see if what Griffey did, you know, and you famously said the first thing I do when I get up in the morning is I take a piss. So that's always stuck with me because we joked about that. Yeah. But I think I do me too, especially as I get older, but, uh, but I excitedly will look at my phone and see what the Astros did and what Altuve did. And I'm so happy when I see the 0 for 5 or the 0 for 4, he's currently hitting 187. They had to sit him down because he's been so horrendous.

He got picked off first. Yeah. He made three, he made three errors in an inning. I mean, he got us just a complete basket case and it's so fantastic and that's without fans they're booing him he's a basket case yeah it's the all the astros osuna got hurt it just seems like the karma is going to be hitting them across the chops for a while so that'll be fun although i i hope they at least can be in a playoff series that we can root against them in well i don't know what i would rather have them losing the playoffs or

them not make the playoffs i just want them to be abject failures as they have been so far so i i'm loving their performance thus far it's fantastic where are they in the i'm looking up where they are in the standings i i think I read yesterday – they might have won last night, but I think I read that if the playoffs had started yesterday, they were on the outside looking in. Yeah, they're 8-10. Right, right. God, that Cardinals thing is so weird.

Chicago's winning their division 12-3, and then St. Louis is second place at 2-3. Right. And then Cincinnati's trailing them at eight and ten. I don't even know how they come up with the standings for that. All right. Big political news this week. I don't know if you saw it.

Yeah. Kamala Harris being named the VP by Joe Biden. So we have Biden and Kamala. I'm sure you were reading all this stuff and listening. What jumped out to you with the reactions? Well, what jumped out at me at the reactions and what I am amazed by is the juggernaut that is the Trump campaign's response to trying to run back basically birtherism that he did against Obama, alleging because, well, I don't even know what they're alleging. I mean, she was born in Oakland, California. I

guess the fact that her parents maybe were immigrants, but she was born in this country. And as far as I know, her parents were citizens. It's completely a non-issue. And that's what they've chosen to raise with her. Apparently, right before we did this podcast, he had some press conference or press availability and he's like, well, I understand she's not eligible, but I don't know about that. You know, classic, classic Trump. Some people are saying, or questions are being asked generically. So it's like, you know, you could, you know, she, I can understand why the democratic base is excited about her. She, she tickles all the right buttons for the Democratic base in terms of, you know, her just her like her policies, everything that she supports, everything she is like is the

modern Democratic Party base. But, you know, as a nominally effective campaign, the Trump campaign should challenge her on the issues or her experience or her, you know, previous things she said about Joe Biden during the course of the primary. And the fact that they come out on day one, basically, and have some bullshit thing about like her citizenship, like if I was a Trump supporter or, you know, a Trump donor, I'd be like, who the fuck are these idiots that are running things? Like, this is the worst possible fucking reaction you can have. And it plays into every fucking stereotype about racism with Trump.

And maybe it's a stereotype for a reason because he's a fucking lunatic conspiracy monger. And this is what he lives for. Right. I wouldn't even say it's a stereotype. Maybe it's just the type. It's just the type. Right.

So that like in terms of my, you know, the reaction to it. And of course, you know, the media is absolutely head over heels in love with her and gleeful because that's their natural inclination is to side with the Democrats and she's a perfect Democrat. Poor Joe Biden is going to be completely overshadowed by her because he's not just yesterday's news. He's last week's, last year's news because he's been around forever and she's a more new face uh on this national scene certainly and and his you know cogent like him so you know she she's gonna be like the super she's gonna be the superstar of the race really from him and poor joe is finally gonna you know likely to get in the finally get to get in the White House.

And, you know, they're going to he's just going to sit there while she's making policy and really the face of the administration. I think it almost feels like in football, like when the Chiefs had Alex Smith and they drafted Mahomes, the new Mahomes is going to be the guy. But they still had to pretend that year. Alex Smith was like their starting quarterback she it does have that feel to it where he's kind of holding the seat for how many years I don't know it could be nine months he might say in June 2021 like hey my health's not good I'm out take it over there was a Twitter there was a Twitter thing I saw a couple places. I think multiple people made the same joke, but it basically was like, you know, a fake news thing. And it said, uh, Kamala Harris already vetting vice presidential candidates. And it's funny because it's like most things that are funny. It has a ring of plausibility to it

because you know, it's, I mean, certainly if Biden wins, the likelihood of him running again in 2024, I would say, is slim to none, right? Yeah, but Carly thinks it's a one-term. Yeah, and I mean, you're never going to come out and say, look, I'm not running again. I mean, he's sort of, between the lines, sort of intimated that. But you would never want to come out and say that because you go in as a lame duck and you get totally rolled by Congress. So you have to at least have the plausibility of

running again. But the reality is, you know, he's 77 years old and he's not getting any younger. He's not going to run for reelection when he's 81. And he figures he's picking up demands all to take Trump out, you know, of office. And after that, once he gets in and Trump's gone, you know, he turns it over to Kamala and the next generation. So she will effectively run the show, I think. And you'd think there were some stories where he's wanted to be president since about 1972. And he didn't want a vice president that was going to overshadow him. So there was some talk about some of these Congress people that didn't have a national reputation and thought that he wouldn't outshine him.

And that's why he didn't want to go with Kamala. But you know wouldn't outshine him and that's why he didn't want to go with kamala but by going with her he was just like man whatever i guess or they told him that's who to pick that's what he did joe was like wait wasn't that the lady who kept insulting me during the debates and then said she believed my accusers yeah exactly exactly the same was that the same one? Yeah, I'm with you. I thought she was the right pick. Oh, yeah. But I thought for sure the first 48 hours after, the Trump side would just be bringing up those two things, right?

All the stuff she did at the debate and then the fact that she – the stuff she said about his accusers and how she believed them. And it would just seem like you would just grab onto that for a week. It was like, this is great. This landed on our laps. Let's try to create a divide and instead with the birtherism thing. Which is horseshit. I mean, it's a steaming pile of horseshit. And like, yeah, if you were a competent campaign, that's exactly what you would do is try to divide, put a divide between those two and make them answer some uncomfortable questions.

Like, why did you intimate that he was a racist and supported bus, you know, not the intimate, you said he outright voted for busing in the seventies and segregation. And he hung around with all these segregationists in the Senate and sung their praises. And now like, we're just going to forget about that. And as you're like, yeah, where do I join? You know, like those are fair questions to ask. Of course, the media is not going to ask him because they're talking about what a radiant smile she has. And that was on the front page of The New York Times. But, you know, somebody would ask those questions or the questions would be raised by a competent campaign to at least maybe put their feet to the fire. But, you know, you have the buffoon in chief and he loves conspiracy things and and horseshit and that's what he's gonna you know delve into it's it's ridiculous do you think trump is crazier now than he was three years ago or or do you think uh he was this crazy three years ago and we just hadn't fully grasped it yet well i mean you know he's been crazy for about well i think he's always been crazy but he's

certainly been pretty outright crazy for like the last 10 years when he started with the Obama birther stuff and really got into all the conspiracy things. And, and, you know, really, if you, if you look like he, there's no disputing that he's different now than if you watch old tapes of him being interviewed when he flirted with a presidential run in 2000 and the reform party, right. In the late, like late 1999, 1999 if you see interviews with him like on the today show he's at least comes across as semi-lucid then and now he's just completely unhinged and and you know i don't know if he's just become a caricature or he's gotten older or because of the attacks against him or whatever that he's really like just losing it

but i think he you know he comes across as crazier now and you would i mean the whole the goal was you know the mainstream of the republican party the establishment such as it is they were like well once he becomes president or once he gets the nomination he can sort of come into our clutches and we will mold him into like a presidential material and the weight of the office will come catch up to him and he will feel the majesty of it and act presidential and then he's like and then he's like joe scarborough murdered an intern and you're just like jesus christ you know so it's like i don't think he's become anywhere near presidential and now he's you know this morning he he had some

tweet about like you know joe scarborough's ratings and his ditzy wife. And it's like, what adult just says things like that publicly? People always talk shit, I'm sure, about couples they're friends with, their neighbors, or their caddy about things. But you're the fucking president of the United States. Don't call some woman a ditzy wife or whatever. I mean, it's just unbecoming at the end of the day. And it's embarrassing for the country it's just like you know it's just it's so childish

it's like a child is running the show it's frightening well it seems like we've hit this new stage of politics where whoever's supporting trump it's not even that they support trump they just hate the other side so much. That's all they care about. And then the side that's on the Democrat side, they don't even care who's running. They just they hate Trump so much they want him out. And, you know, I don't know what it was like in the 1850s and 1860s that made two halves of the country turn on each other to the point that they started fighting for five six years um but i can't imagine that there was like a lot more hate than there is right now between those two sides like there's real hatred now and it's really scary if i mean well you know like

like most things it can be like most things it can be blamed on the internet i think because before like you know if you were a kook or whatever or there was some kook you know like the job there was a thing in the 50s and the 60s the john birch society yeah they were a virulently anti-communist organization when people when there was a move to put fluoride into the water things like that they would claim it was a communist plot. And they started to sort of infiltrate the more mainstream conservative movement. And William F. Buckley Jr., who was sort of the head of that, he did a famous thing to get rid of like the kooks of the John Birch

Society and like denounce them and, you know, denounce various elements like that to sort of keep it above board. Now with the internet and like kookery, like this, you know, QAnon thing and everything which trump sort of dabbles with and puts his foot in it's much more prevalent on the internet and so you develop this hate and it's like every like miscue from one side is then amplified and you know it's like the very country is at stake the fate of the country depends on donald trump you know or or depends on joe biden like it used to be that elections. Yeah, you had your views and your principles.

You wanted your side to win, but it wasn't like life or death for the country if the other side gets in. You know, I've noticed from the Reddit conspiracy board, which is the only Reddit board I go to, although I do go to the MTV challenge board sometimes but uh the the epstein thing has sent that conspiracy board into like just a complete tizzy like maxwell and there's rumors that she might have been a moderator on one of the reddit boards because the this person who did a whole bunch of posts all of a sudden um stopped posting right when she. And, but there's this whole cabal of pedophiles and people who leave positions and they like really believe this.

I don't even know if it's, it's, I know, by the way, who knows? Like the fucking Epstein Island, like you could believe you can tell me anything at this point. I kind of believe it.

And then, and then you have Trump going like, but I would, what's her name? Maxwell. Yeah. I wish her well like, but I wish her well. Yeah, I wish her well. He wished her well like five times. Like, why are you wishing her well?

She was the madam for a serial pedophile. She's a pedophile. What's going on? I know. Why are you wishing her well? He is such an idiot. And it's just like, you know, she used to go to Mar-a-Lago or whatever. And so he was like, oh, that's my old friend from Mar-a-Lago. I wish her well. I really do. Like, she's in jail for being an alleged pedophile you moron you know

so she's worse she's like the heidi fleiss of pedophilia right she was like the arranger yeah allegedly allegedly yes we don't want to get sued by galane maxwell i know she might be listening right well i mean so she's gonna show i i have a feeling like she's gonna have an accident in her jail cell in the next six weeks well they just had a thing like oh she just took her life they announced uh this week actually that the jail just took her off of suicide watch i was like oh good there we go that's good that's good yeah that's good to announce that too so like when the royal family's assassins are like okay boys gas up the jet you know allegedly the royal family um the two the two the two guys who watch her cell they're

like tony jack uh yo you didn't hear we changed the schedule you guys are actually up there oh really i didn't nobody told us and then all of a sudden three hours later right i mean you know and even you don't have to be an insane person with to look at the epstein thing and say like you know this guy hung out with everybody who was anybody and and did all kinds of shady shit he gets gets arrested. He tries to commit suicide, allegedly. And then a couple of days later, they take him off suicide watch. And then he dies. And then mysteriously, the video for that night just happens to have been accidentally

erased. It's gone. No video. It's gone. There's no side of it. I mean, come on. I mean, come on. I'm not a big conspiracy believer, but you don't have to be a lunatic to say something tinky with that.

You know, I love the case that he did commit suicide. It's like, you don't understand. Jeffrey led a very lavish life. And, you know, he's in jail and the conditions, he just couldn't take it. It's like, OK, yeah, that sounds great. I am, as you know, I do love all the conspiracy stuff, but I don't actually believe in a lot of conspiracies. The Epstein one has never sat right with me. It's just, it was too predictable. And then when it happened, it was like, you know. The Epstein thing is conspiracies for people that don't believe in conspiracies.

Like, that's lock solid. Like, if you took a poll on that, I guarantee it's over 75% that don't believe he conspiracies like that's lock solid like if you took a poll on that i guarantee it's over 75 that don't believe he committed suicide i guarantee it well what do you think of the conspiracy that there's so much more bad stuff coming out that the government decided to start leaking ufo stuff to throw people to cover that off throw people up the sink get them talking about something else i mean they, they dropped all these UFO bombshells. They're basically like, yeah, UFOs exist. We've been tracking these for a while. Here are a couple of examples.

And it's been such a crazy year. People were like, all right, cool, UFOs. Like, imagine this in college in like 1991, if that report came out with you, that's all we would have talked about for like three weeks. If you like, the thing about the ufo thing like if that is true that there are machines spacecraft some devices which are not of earthly origin it changes the entire history of human civilization like that's how big it is yeah like it's not just like oh boy like that's a you know the astros were cheating at baseball like it changes human civilization the entire history of the planet

is different than we've been told well on top of that we might be in danger right that too we're worried about trump meanwhile the fucking aliens are coming they're in the 90 alien movies people have made maybe one of them is actually going to happen to us. Well, I mean, that's the theory of why the government covered it, allegedly. We're using a lot of allegedlys. Why the government allegedly covered this up for so many years is because all the governments of the world did not want to admit that there was something that they couldn't do anything about, right? So if they're like, there's these things that have a much higher advanced technology than us that are weapons of weapons of war machines are worthless against them and then they're like hey good luck everybody like there'd just be mass anarchy in the streets so yeah well maybe that's where we're

headed maybe i just want to get a basketball champion first and then that can maybe happen mid-november i don't want to be picky, but can we save that until we find out who wins the title? I mean, you know, we got baseball, potentially some form of football coming back. You got basketball and hockey championships. You got the Masters in November. Maybe the aliens can hold off until January, you know?

Yeah, that would be nice. Maybe after Christmas. Start the new year fresh. Get us to 21. This election will be happening for seven months because they're going to try to screw up all the mail-in votes. And that'll be a whole saga. This will be like 2,000 multiplied by a million. Right. I mean, you know, there is some theory where Trump does not really want to win, where he's like, this president thing is hard.

Like this pandemic was it's hard like he doesn't want the heat anymore you know he's stuck in washington he he's you know he can't be at mar-a-lago all the time he can't play golf every day and he's always under the shadow and he's always got to like answer questions and he hates it but what he really wants is to lose but then have like a stabbed in the back theory. So he can go start like his TV network, you know, to rival Fox News or OANN or whatever his thing is.

Start the Trump News Network and like just sit there and pontificate and say how it was stolen from him and it was illegal and slow Joe and sleepy Joe. They stole it. And, you know, Kamala is not a citizen and he can just have a TV channel dedicated to him and his thoughts such as they are. And that would be the perfect ending for him. It gets him out from under the wonder of being the president and it gives him something to bitch about for the rest of his life.

So you're saying bring our podcast for him? Should we call him? It could be. Give him a shout. He is a big sports guy. I mean, you know, he loves sports. It's always all sports all the time. Trump and Francesa.

There you go. Francesa doing his NFL picks. Trump just insults the different players in the teams. Exactly. Yeah. Buffalo Bills. Josh Allen. Good guy. Good American guy. doing is nfl picks as trump just insults the different players of the teams exactly yeah buffalo bills josh allen good guy good american guy right stands for the anthem loves this country absolutely that's good there you go that's a winner for you well right now it is basically mid-august yeah so we got september october i mean we're less than three months away now it just feels so off because we haven't had we haven't had like we're not having the campaign cycle we're not going to different places we haven't had debate yet nothing no trump can't have his

rallies and there's not really like traditional conventions because even even Trump, like, you know, passed on having an in-person Republican convention. So they're both both going to be like virtual. That's going to be a weird thing, because usually that's like a week long TV event leading up to the presidential and vice presidential nominees. And now it's going to be awkward, like Zoom things, you know, or. So you think that's really how they're going to do it? They're going to debate, but they're not going to be in the same room? No, no, no. I'm talking about the conventions. No, no, no. The debates, they'll be in the same room, I think. Okay, good.

They'll both get tested. They're both going to dotter out on some stage together or whatever. Yeah. Oh, my God. And Pence and Kamala will too. I think the vice presidential one is in Utah. And there's going to be, I guess, like two or three presidential debates. Yeah.

So, no, they're going to have those in person. So we'll have that spectacle. And spectacle it will be. Pence and Kamala. I have Kamala as like a minus 700 favorite in that one. Oh, there's no question. She's going to be working in like a speed. It might actually be like Holmes Ali.

It could be just 10 rounds of just just people wondering when it's going to get stopped. Throw the towel. Absolutely. Biden, Trump, I worry about Biden and the Biden, Trump. Well, that's the thing. All these Trump people keep saying like, well, Biden doesn't want to debate and Trump's going to eat him for breakfast. I mean, Trump is not a Mensa candidate here. We're not talking about one of the all- time great wits and thinkers of all time, you know? So like, yeah, okay. Trump's going to say something to like, you know, snotty to him and call him a name and

Joe's going to look confused. But, you know, I'm not sure that's going to be like this slam dunk. Like, you know, when Trump does this, like Joe should take the same test I took of, you know, woman, plant, animal, movie, camera, whatever. The dementia test. Trump is no great. He's not Einstein out there. He's going to run rings around Biden.

It's nuts. Oh, man. I just hope Joe just needs to summon three decent hours. Well, that's the thing. All Joe has to be summon three decent hours. Well, that's I mean, that's the thing. All Joe has to be really is not Trump, you know, and like the the problem that the Trump campaign has is is four years ago. Hillary Clinton was and is a very unpopular figure. Now, you could you could debate why that is. But she she's been in the landscape since 1991 ish.

And she's a very polarizing figure. Let's put it that way. So there was a certain number of people. Allegedly. No. Allegedly. That one's confirmed. There was a certain number of people that held their nose and voted for Trump because he wasn't her.

Yeah. Now, Biden might not know what day of the week it is. But people, even I think hardcore Republicans, don't think that Joe is the Antichrist. He's kind of an affable old... I was with him one time, not with him, but I was at this Irish festival in Connecticut with my wife, and Joe Lieberman was running for re-election, and he came to shake hands, and Joe Biden was there. And he was like a classic politician. He had the whitest teeth of anybody I've ever seen in my life.

I think he used about five crisp white strips that morning. And he's like a glad hander and like an old time Paul. And you're like, oh, it's Joe Biden. Like, you don't feel threatened by him in any way, shape or form. He's not as polarizing. So it was easy for Trump to be Trump. And then it was like, yeah, but it's either me or her. And people were like, well, I guess he's better and we'll give it a shot with a businessman. But with Joe, they can't really demonize him. Like, look at me, I'm calling him

Joe. He's my uncle or whatever. And I'm not going to vote for him or Trump either way, because I don't support Biden's policies. So their goal is to make the people around Biden scary, that Joe doesn't know where he is and they're going to really run things and they're like Antifa or whatever. So it just doesn't seem to be selling because Trump is so horrible to most people that they're just not, you know, they're going to go for seem like Joe Staff is like the staff in that movie, Dave, where he's just got like Abel Franklin, Jella and people, you know, people we don't know making all the agendas and stuff like that. All right. Like the ghost of Karl Marx is running the show or whatever. So but I don't know that it's going to work. And even if even if Joe comes out and falls down, you know, I don't know that it's really going to make a huge difference in the debates. I don't know that they're going to, because everybody's views, like you say, we're so polarized and everybody's so locked into their thing. I'm not sure what Joe could say really, that would like really make him blow up in a debate. I miss the simpler times in the nineties when we could argue about politics for 20 minutes and you would get mad. And then we would just have

a beer and move on to something else. Now people fight to the death. Right. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And, and I have like, you know, I have no fight in me because my team like, you know, went out completely off the rails and like, it's just, it's all. It's like the whalers all over again. They moved to Carolina, became the hurricanes. That's right. They did. They got became the Hurricanes. That's right.

They did. They got taken over. Yeah, that's right. It's a good analogy. They got blown over by a hurricane too. Yeah, exactly. Jacko, great to see you. I'm glad you have power back finally.

Yes, thank you. Me too. It was a rough couple of days there. We'll check in with you in a couple of weeks. All right. Thanks to Spotify. Thanks to Roger Bell. Thanks to Jacko. Thanks to SimpliSafe. Remember they have everything you need to protect your home

with none of the drawbacks of traditional home security. Set it up yourself in under an hour, no technician required, no contract, no push to sales guys, no hidden fees, no fine print. All of it starts at $15 a month. And if you head to simplisafe.com slash BS, get a free HD camera. Once again, that is SimpliSafe with two I's. SimpliSafe.com slash BS. If you miss me over the weekend, two new rewatchables we put up last weekend's Bad Boys. And I am back on Sunday night with Rosillo. Very excited to talk about this whole NBA playoff picture. Enjoy the weekend. See you then.