The Bill Simmons Podcast - Austin Rivers on NBA Vet Life, QB Arguments With Steven Ruiz, and Canceling 'Winning Time' With Chris Ryan

Episode Date: September 20, 2023

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by NBA veteran Austin Rivers to discuss hunting for a new contract, modern NBA player movement, whether AAU is the best developmental tool for young players, playing with Anthony Edwards, and more (2:11). Then, Bill talks with The Ringer's Steven Ruiz about his weekly NFL QB rankings (1:00:42), before he is joined by Chris Ryan to discuss HBO's 'Winning Time' being canceled after only two seasons, things they liked and didn't like about the show, what it means for modern sports TV shows, and more (1:30:43). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Austin Rivers, Steven Ruiz, and Chris Ryan Producer: Kyle Crichton The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming, please checkout theringer.com/RG to find out more or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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So there you go. We have an awesome podcast this week. Austin Rivers on for the first time ever. He has his own podcast here on the Ringer NBA show. But we talked what it's like to hunt for a contractor in the summer, what it's like to play with Yoke Edge and Anthony Edwards. I mean, there's a million things. It's really, really good. I could have just said, screw it. That's

it. This podcast is good enough. Nope. Brought in Steven Ruiz from the ringer. We did some QB rankings and some QB arguments. Then last but not least, my guy, Chris Ryan. We came on and talked about the end of winning time and what it means as yet another sports show has not made it. So why? What are we doing wrong? What could they have done differently? We broke all of it down. It is all next. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, Austin Rivers is here. You can hear him on the Ringer NBA show.

He has his own podcast that has been a really fun ad to the Ringer Podcast Network. You're a player podcaster. We have like, there's like 800 player podcasters now, but this is, I think, one of the good ones. Good to see you. Thank you.

Yeah, there's a lot. You got to weed through the, you got to weed through the bunch. When do we have player podcaster beefs? I feel like that's going to be the next iteration of this, right? People just lobbing

shots at each other. It will eventually happen just because guys are so opinionated by nature that those lines will be crossed. I would imagine probably this season you'll start to see that a little bit.

I can't wait. One of the things I liked, you've said some stuff on your pod that I just feel like I haven't heard from players. And one of the things was about this player movement era that we're in where it's just become such a huge part of the game i took five weeks off this summer and wasn't in the mix of just talking about it and kind of decompressed from

it and just started thinking like man i think this is my least favorite part of the job now because it's content i feel like i have to do it um people seem to care about it they care about the topics and it's like where's's Dame going? Now Giannis. But on the other hand, like football doesn't really have this. We all love football and we just get to watch football and people are on their teams and they go.

And in basketball, this has become the number one thing we talk about. We have, the media days are coming in like, what, two weeks, a week and a half? Yep. And this is going to be what comes out of the media days. It's going to be like, Janus, oh, what did Embiid say?

And it's all about whether a guy might leave or not. What's happened? How did we end up here? It's a reality TV show now. It's crazy because as a player, you want the power in the player's hands. You want as much as possible. But you also don't want it to get to a point where like it's being counterproductive to just like the simplicity of

the game we have so much going on now that has nothing to do with basketball and it's stuff that's just like counterproductive uh and i said that i took a lot of heat for that um good and bad a lot of people agreed with me a lot of of people didn't. When I alluded to guys just asking out of a contract and not wanting to play. And people were calling me like a company man, all type of different stuff. And all I was really trying to get to is in no other aspect of life and no other job, can you just change your contract and just say you want to move or go anywhere else? You have to do your duties. If you sign a four years, $200 million contract in year one, you can't be like, I'm not showing up to camp unless I go somewhere I want.

It just doesn't... I don't think it's... I personally don't think it's a good look for the game. I just don't. And all it does, I think a lot of times in the long run is hurt us in CBA deals with owners and stuff when you have certain guys acting like stuff. Again, in the long term, I don't know what that's going to end up being. We're headed towards... This is coming from a player. I want players to have as much power as possible, but I also

want us players to be responsible and be obligated to do what we're paying or getting paid an obscene amount of money to do. And I don't know. It is hard because everything you see in the media now is just drama. It's not basketball related. And you don't see that in a lot of sports. In fact, really none but ours. You're right. Well, you made the key point, the reality show aspect of it. I think this is what plays. It plays with the 24 seven cycle of

where we are with ESPN, the cycle of all the podcasts that people put out every day and it, for whatever reason. And by the way, I've, I feel somewhat complicit in it. I know I've led a bunch of podcasts like, Whoa, look at this. I wonder if he's going to leave. What's going to happen. I was talking about Giannis and the end of June, early July, because it's part of my job. It's like, I really don't think Giannis is going to be there in a year. And I think it's time to start talking about it. LeBron, his last year in Cleveland, same thing. He was buying houses in LA. It was pretty clear he was coming here. It was like, we got to talk about this. Um, I don't really know what the fix is, I think is the thing that scares me because I've grown up with this, you know, and you know,

your dad's older than I am, but I think I've, my arc with the NBA mirrors a little bit, your dad's playing career and how that kind of evolved and that some of the stuff he's seen. In the old days, it was like, this is a business. You never know, you get traded, it's cutthroat, whatever. right? And that wasn't awesome. And then we kind of moved to, well, you know what? The players have some power too. And now it's pretty equal.

And we would still have the situations like, oh, DeMar DeRozan loved being in Toronto and they just like gutted him and they traded him for Kawhi. It was like, thanks DeMar. Thanks for everything.

We'll see you later. And you're just out. And it's like, yeah, that's a business. So on the flip side, it's a business for the players too. They want to be in the situation that they can make the most money and be the happiest. So I get that. But I never thought it should be the dominant story. And I feel like that's where we're going. You played with Jokic, who's incredible and who won the title and he just disappeared. We never saw him again.

He's going to come back. Nobody's going to talk about them again. But it's almost like the guys getting the most attention now are the people who are unhappy. And that fundamentally is a bad place to be as a league, I think. Yeah. I mean, yeah, that's where we're at. It's whatever gets clicks, views, and attention. And a lot of times people don't want to see what's working and what's happy they want to see what's just by nature what's wrong drama what's going on um and i i would have to agree with you just from the standpoint of obviously when my father played during that time period the way players were treated and you know just dealt with on a business aspect obviously like you said it's not okay but if you fast forward to today's time, what we're getting paid, everything's guaranteed. I'm all for the power of the player.

I just have an issue with guys signing long-term deals and then in year one or two, or in the early part of their deal, just because they're unhappy saying they're not going to show up to work. And I just don't like that because no one else does that. No one else has the freedom to do that. It's only the superstars that do this, by the way, anyway. I mean, no mid-level player would ever not show up to work to get his check. No, we'd have one. We had Jay Crowder.

That was our only one. Remember? Yeah, that's the only one. That's the only one. And that may or may not have hurt him. He missed like two years or a year and a half of playing good basketball. And he could have been another mid-level. He could have signed another mid-level deal He could have signed another mid-level.

Who knows? That definitely hurt him because he signed for the minimum after that. It certainly didn't work. That's where it's just like when you see that across the board, it's one thing if we had an isolated incident. This is like every summer

now. We have two to three players who are doing this where they're just like, man, I want out. If I don't get out, I'm not showing up. That's just by law and by principle. It's just wrong. I just don't like it.

The only one that gets a pass for me is Damien just because he has been there for so fucking long. Excuse my language. He's been there for so long. We can swear on this podcast. Let him fly. Oh, shit. All right. He's been there for so long and done his duty there

that I'm okay with him asking to be out of there. Am I a fan of him only saying Miami? You know what I mean? I don't know, but I'll give him a pass for that just because he's done everything he could possibly do for one team. But then you see like other players doing it. You're just like, bro, come on, man. Like, where does this, where does this shit end? You know? So it's just like, it's tough, man. I'm in the middle. Cause I want all these players to have

like you said, the DeMar DeRozan thing, you can be traded on, you know, the drop of a dime. And trust me, I know I've been traded, cut, waived, everything in the book. And it's not a good feeling. You just feel like you're just being discarded. What was the one that hurt the most? The next one. That actually hurt your feelings? The next one messed with me for a little bit

because I was having some really good success there early on. And it just felt like the whole time I was there, they were kind of waiting for me to either not play well or something to happen so they could bring in Derek. That's just how I felt. You know what I mean? And I understand that was Tibbs' guy. Tibbs has always been a Derek Rose guy.

And I totally understand that. He won an MVP under him, etc. But I was brought there. And from my understanding, he wanted Derek from the beginning. And Leon Rose went my direction. And when I came there, it just didn't feel like I was ever really... I don't know. It just felt like the cards were stacked against me on that one. And as soon as an opportunity came where we lost a couple, or if I didn't play a couple of good games, or naturally so, it was just an immediate

conversation. Like, hey, we're bringing in Derek I was just like you know what I mean and then before you know it I'm in Denver which was great but still that that situation really bothered me um and I'm salty about not being able to play in front of the Knicks fans I never got to uh we played that year where the arenas were empty so it's, I got to play for the Knicks for like 20, 30 games and I never played in the MSG crowd. And that kind of bothers me a little bit.

Well, you got to play at the Oakage though. I did. That was incredible. I mean, everything happens for a reason, right? I always told people I went to DC and had like,

literally that might've been the worst. That time, it was so rough there in DC when I played there. And then out of that, I ended up playing for Houston for three years with Chris and James, which was insane. And then out of the Knicks situation, I played with Jokic. So that's just like, that is the NBA, man.

I can't even tell you where I'm going to be this year or how is it going to go down. As a journeyman, you just don't know. You just kind of have to roll with the punches. But the thing is, I feel like you're better than a journeyman. I'm not just saying this because you're here. You seem like you've had a disproportionate amount of bad luck with where you've landed. Last year, I was watching on Minnesota

because I was rooting for you because you were in a podcast with us. But you were super important for them for like six weeks and you were closing games for them. And you, you, you, I thought you seemed like you were important for them, even, even on the sidelines and stuff like that. You were like the, the Wiley veteran you were talking about on your podcast. Like I finally figured out how to be the Wiley veteran. Like it's all fallen into place for me. And then you get sick and you lose weight and the moment's gone and you never, you never kind of got back. But to me, that just seemed like bad luck.

It was so weird, man. I remember last year at multiple times, I'm calling my agent like, bro, actually, I found a really good spot here, man. I get along with all the guys. Anthony Edwards is literally my brother, man. I talk to him all the time. Whether I play there or not, I didn't care.

I really like that kid. He's a talented player. I got along with all the time. Whether I play there or not, I didn't care. I really like that kid. He's a talented player. I got along with all the young guys. I got along with Finchie. And then everybody knows me and Tim Conley are like, that's my guy. He's brought me to three different destinations, maybe even four.

So I just felt like that was a home. I was counting on going back there this summer, signing back there. I didn't think that was going to be even an issue or a thing to where where they looked in a different direction just because i outplayed what i even got paid anyways if we're going to talk i mean i got a non-guaranteed contract and i'm finishing games for them and i'm guarding the best players about every night and then when i'm not playing i'm vocal and loud on the bench the entire game like being positive influence whether i played zero they would come to me for a game like hey we're not gonna play i wouldn't say a word man i just be all right i got you i've talked it out i'll

be involved in every time out stand it up and then the next game he would come to me and be like hey you're gonna start you gotta go jaw that's a hell of a like yeah it's not normal for a lot of play you know i mean so i thought i handled that pretty well um and it just seems like yeah man i've had the weirdest fucking luck in the NBA. And the ironic thing about it is everybody always talks about me and my entitlement or like me and my privilege just because I played for my father for three years. But the reality is,

man, like I was an elite and I am still, but like, I'm an elite scorer that got drafted to a team where I wasn't supposed to, where I wasn't even put in a position to do that. You know, I was in new Orleans. And then from there, the second team I played for was my dad. And I could only play so well there because like, obviously with him coaching and that team that was set up with Blake and Chris and JJ, I was supposed to only going to be a role player in that team. But from then on out, now my niche is carved out. I'm a role player. So I go from there to Houston,

to DC, whatever. The cards are already dealt. So it was always been weird for me in the league. And I've always been this vet minimum guy that's gone places and ended up playing 25 minutes a game. And I'm always on vet minimum. And it's just like the craziest thing because everybody always talks about

these things that have been given to me. But I look at players all the time who are making so much money and don't do half of what I do. And I hate saying this stuff out loud, but it's the truth, bro. i don't know how else to really like put that i just i feel this way down to my core i just can't complain just because who am i to complain man we make millions playing basketball no one's gonna feel sorry for you no one cares i

grew up with a millionaire as my dad so yeah nobody nobody definitely wants to hear from me complaining so you know you know i mean I just shut up and just keep playing. And I am blessed to play basketball in the NBA. So like you said, I have had a little bad luck done this way in my NBA career, nonetheless. Well, even you end up on Denver and they're not 100% healthy when you're on that team. You didn't end up on the team, this last team that would have been the most fun Denver team to be on. Yes, exactly. I missed it by one year,

man. Like the, I get traded to that team. I start by the way on a 10 day. I end up, I end up starting. We beat Portland first round. I'm starting to guard where we,

we, that was the last year Portland was together with Damien and CJ and all them. Yeah. And the next year we, uh, we played there again. We lost to, uh to who we lose to.

We lost to Golden State. And then Jamal comes back. And I never got to play one game with Jamal, man. I talked to Michael Porter Jr. and Aaron Gordon. Those are the guys I pretty much mainly keep in touch with now about that all the time. They hit me the night they won. They're like, bro, you should be here, man.

This feels weird that you're not a part of this. I know Monte felt the same. Will Barton, kind of all three of us who left that, that year. It sucks, but I'm happy for them. I'm glad they won.

I'm jealous. The thing, the thing where the stage you're at now, you know, I always judge it by like winning players. I can see in a playoff series. Like if I was a GM, there's the only players I would even consider,

right? Could somebody, and I think that's been the secret, you know, in some ways to what's worked with Miami, but they just look at these guys like, when they talk about heat culture, it's really like, can you be in a playoff series? Do you, do you know where to be on the court? Do you know what to do? Do you know what your limitations are? Do you have like one really good skill, you know, that's above average that can help us? Can you switch on defense? All these things, can you switch on defense all these things

you can do all these things so I kept waiting I thought like Boston Denver Miami they lose Gabe Vinson

I'm thinking like Austin's gonna end up on one of these contenders and now this season's starting in a week and a half yeah it's crazy man I've had to like really

tap into just me being patient and understanding, even though like it's hard to understand why I'm even here. And it's also frustrating because all I do is talk to people and they're like, how are you? You know, how are you outside?

Or how are you? I'm like, bro, if I knew the answer, I'd tell you, I don't, I don't, I don't really know.

I saw you at summer league and said that to you. And that was two months ago. I was like, how are you not on a team yet? Exactly. And that was hard for me. I'm, I'm there working media stuff and people are like coming up to me like, where are you? You know, are you still playing? I'm like, am I still playing? I was like, bro, I'm 31, man. But it's just because they see me doing media and stuff now, I guess you. So we're going to take a break. I'm going to talk about it.

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Must be legal drinking age. All right. So I just watched a lot of Team USA and I like to make lists during the season. It just kind of helps me put players in place. And I made a list of kind of who I thought the six best players on the... For Team USA purposes, who the six best guys were. So I'm just thinking from Team USA, what do I want?

What type of players do I want? Who fit? It's just a little different than the NBA. Who makes sense for the Olympics next year if we're going to grab six guys? And the things you're looking at are like,

can you switch on defense? Do you know how to play without the ball? Can you play off other people? Like Halliburton and Reeves were perfect for them, right? Ant was a little better than I thought. He's such a good athlete. He just figures it out. I thought Paolo had some moments.

Bridges was like that. But I started to think about what makes somebody succeed in the NBA in this day and age. And then I'm thinking about the superstars we have. And I'm just wondering, I don't want to say it's AAU culture's fault, but like a lot of these guys that succeeded

in this Team USA who stood out in some way and who made sense in the infrastructure are people who had these atypical backgrounds, different than what you had grown up as a basketball player. Ant was a football player, right? Came in late. He just,

he, he wasn't in that playing for five years every weekend and six different tournaments and just jumping teams around. Halburn, you know, somebody that was a little bit under the radar ends up at, uh, in Iowa Reeves, you under the radar ends up in Iowa. Reeves, just a complete afterthought. Bridges was a guy that I think he grew in his junior in high school.

He grew like six inches and became one of those guys. And it was all these dudes that weren't in the AAU structure. And I talked to a lot of people about this and everybody's like, we're doing this wrong and we can't figure out how to change it. We're teaching people certain habits. We're teaching them just play six games in a weekend. We're putting unnecessary stress on their bodies. We're teaching them the wrong way to basically fit in with basketball teammates. And then we go abroad and we play these weird teams and they just play better with each other than we do. But I'm just wondering, because you've been through it and you were at one point, you

were the best high school player in America, but you were in that whole AU circuit jumping around. Was that the right way to do it? I think it all depends on how you're doing it. And I say that meaning I played for one AU program my entire career. That's atypical, though. That's my point. I played

from 9th grade to 12th grade, the important years of AU, and actually even before that. It was like 6th grade to 12th grade. I played for one program. I went to a public school, but we didn't recruit. We didn't do anything. It was me and kids that grew up down the street and we were competing against Oak Hill, St. Pat, all these teams that have all these kids moving around every semester.

It doesn't help when guys are trying to find just the perfect situation for them to get off and shoot shots. And that's what ends up happening. And a lot of it has to do with parenting. Parenting, everybody wants their kid to be a superstar. And a lot of it has to do with parenting. Everybody wants their kid to be a superstar. And I totally get it. I understand I have kids myself, but you know...

Bobby should be the one shooting at the end of the games. Why are they giving it to Billy? I'm moving my kid to a new team. That's what happens. I have an AU program right now. We have a kid that just left and he was a talented kid on our team, but his dad felt like he was being overshadowed by another kid on our team who played really well this year. If you can't play good players here, how the hell is he going to play good players in college or i've expressed that do i think it helps i don't know that it's too early to tell it's tough to tell kids what to do when they can

transfer and there's no fee i mean these guys are just transferring now in a drop of a dime you got kids in four different colleges in five years the transfer portal the kids are making more in college than they would make even overseas so So you can't get through to them. And if they're getting paid, they think just by law in their mind, whatever they're doing is right because they're making money for it. So they can't be doing anything wrong. So whatever I got going is working. So the learning curve there, it's a weird time. And I noticed this with the young players. Well, you didn't even mention the college piece of it now as college sports is basically

self-combusting and we're losing like these role model type of old school coaches where it's like, they'll teach you the fundamentals and you won't want to hear what they tell you, but later in life, you're going to realize they were right. And are we losing that too? So now what's happening? You can't even talk to a player. You can't even, bro, when I was at Duke, man, you used to get violated. That's just how it was. That's how it was everywhere, bro.

When you went to college, man, that college coach had your life by the balls because you could not go... Yeah, Coach K is recruiting you and then all of a sudden it's like, wait, I thought you liked me. Why are you screaming at me? Next thing you know, it's your practice and he's like, you fucking pussy. You need a...

You don't realize in the moment, but he was trying to build a man he knew i had one year there he knew i was leaving after a year and he's like you are not ready mentally to go and play against grown men because at the time when i came even in 2010 like guys are like 32 33 now the age these guys are like 22 for the nba so young now that it's like it's like a branch off of college basketball. It's insane. Every player is 23,

22. And I noticed this because like over the years, as I've gone into these locker rooms, the conversations that are being had, you're like, man, like these dudes are talking about this still like this. That's where they're at.

You know, at that point in their life, I'm just glad they're having conversations that they're not just all on their phone. It's usually based around a phone though. They're like huddled around a phone looking at this, this and that.'re not just all on their phone. Just dead silence. It's usually based around a phone though. They're like huddled around a phone looking at this, this and that. It's just like, it really is a different age. And now college coaches, I don't know what you could say.

If you go too hard, a player could just be like, yeah, fuck it. I'm leaving. I don't want to be here. All right. So let's say you have a 15 year old son right now who is as good as you were when you were 15. What would you want? What would you want his next five years to look like what is the best way to produce a really good basketball player who knows how to play with other people i would want him to go to a top tier college to where he's playing with other top tier talent for how many years if he's ready after one he could go i mean i'm not go. I mean, I'm not one of those guys that's like,

you need three years of college. I mean, if you're really good, coming back sometimes hurts you. They overanalyze you. They start... You're right. Yeah. Sometimes you have to go after one year. If you have a really good freshman year, you almost have to leave because then you either have to play much better your sophomore year, otherwise your stock drops. So's just like that's that's that's a shaky situation but i would want him to go to a major school and i'm not one of those guys that that uh think you have to go to a big time school but if he's a big time player i want him to play with other big time players if anything it just teaches you already right there how to

play with other players because then you get to the league and you're playing with not only players are just as good as you you're playing with some guys that are better than you it's the first time you go to a team you're like whoa i can't do what that guy does i remember even my first year playing with guys and i was like god damn that guy's really good man like i can't shoot that far like i i can't shoot like that off the dribble you know i mean like that's just and it just it pushes you to to to get better so that that'd probably be the way I'd go. I'm not with the OTE or the G League and all that stuff. I don't have a problem with it, but I'd rather have my kid go to college, man.

Go play, go have fun. Do you wish you had stayed a second year in college? No, no. It was crazy. I was more tailor-made for the NBA. I just ended up being an off guard player in the league. No pun intended. I ended up being like one of those guys that is, you know,

spot up or catch a move quickly, a defensive guy. And then in LA and Houston, I got to really kind of do a little bit more on the ball stuff. But well, the first team you went to was, that was a classic. Man, probably not the perfect first team for you. It was the worst situation I could have been in. Well, tell the listeners, for people who don't know.

So you get drafted. You end up in New Orleans. I got drafted number 10. And anytime you're a lottery pick, usually you're going somewhere. And I would say eight out of 10 times, usually the red carpets, I don't want to say the red carpets rolled out, but you already got a spot. They're going to put you in.

You get to go play. I got that. But I was also drafted with the number one pick in the draft, Anthony Davis. So the team was rightfully so based around him. And they brought in rebuilding their rock bottom. It's like we're revamping our team with AD. And here we go. Yep.

And we were really bad. And then they put me off the ball, which was fine, but he wanted me to be more of a defender. And like, I remember in a game I did like a step back three and I got like taken out. And they're like, that's not your game.

We don't want you to do that here. You're not, you know, I just remember my confidence, like little by little just got worse and worse and worse, man, to where like I'm in the game and I'm like thinking and hesitating. And at that point, you're fucked, man.

Like you're just not even playing good basketball. I'm reading everything people are saying about me. You know, all this stuff is starting to kind of like turn. And then the last like half of the season, I start to really finally get it together and like start putting some games together. It's 15, 16 at one game, 27, 22. Like I'm really starting to play well. I break my hand and I missed the last 28 games of the year. I go into that summer, and this is the most important part. I go into that summer and they're like, hey, we're going to bring you back for summer league. We know you were a lottery pick

last year, but we're going to bring you back for summer league to play just like three or four games. And if you dominate, you know, you're done. I worked so hard that summer, Bill. I mean, I lived in the gym and I came back and you could actually go look at it. I went and played the summer league with the Pelicans because we changed our team name and I dominated. I played really well and I'm pumped, man. I'm thinking like, you know, this is the future for me.

And mind you, I know also in the back of my head that it's not because a week or two prior, right before I'm coming back from my sophomore campaign to really prove myself, they bring in Drew Holiday and they bring in Tyreek Evans. I remember this. They spent a lot of money. And they paid both of them. So now they just quit on me.

I had one season there where I missed 30-something games due to injury and they quit. It was over. So now they just quit on me. I had one season there where I missed 30 something games due to injury and they quit. It was over. So now I'm not starting anymore. I'm barely playing anymore. And that was it, man. That's all I got. That's after everything I did in high school and Duke, I got a half a year in the NBA to really like play in a position where I wasn't allowed to do anything. And then before you know it, I got these big time veteran guards getting paid 40, 50, 60 million dollar contracts. Three of them. I got Eric Gordon, Tyreek Andrew, all in my position. And I'm not playing.

So it's just like, it was a huge, like, that was the first time. You talk about humble pie, Bill. I went from being like the man at high school and I was the man at Duke. And then I'm a lottery pick to like like I'm not even playing. So we had in Boston when I was living there in the late 90s, we had Celtics tickets, we still do but they get Chauncey number three and Ron Mercer number six

right? And Patino is the coach, it's his first year and he's running the team like he's a college coach and he's a maniac and they're pressing and they're doing all this stuff and Chauncey, who clearly was something right. Really?

He was, he had all the strength and athleticism already and he had definitely carried himself a certain way. It's like, this guy's something, but you could see his confidence start to go like this. Right. And game 50,

they trade him for Kenny Anderson. And he goes, I think he goes Toronto, then Denver, ends up in Minnesota, and he's just bouncing around. And my dad and I were always like, man, I don't know if he's a bust or if that was just bad luck. And then

all of a sudden he became Chauncey Billups in Detroit. But it took four stops for him to... You had to get in a good situation, man. And I do feel like people don't understand the situation part of basketball. They have no idea. They have no idea.

People have no idea that situation is 100%. It's everything in basketball. You have like the 0.1 percenters. I'll give you like the Kevin Durant, LeBron James. Right. Doesn't matter. Yeah, Giannis. Those guys are freaks, man.

Just by physical nature standpoint. No matter where they go, they're just going to dominate. Everyone else in the league, even the low-level all-star guys, you put some of those guys on a different team, you don't even know. I'm serious, man.

I've been on teams where I felt like I could average. If I was in that situation, I'd be crushing it. Then there's teams where I'm on now, and I'm just like, damn, this is hard, bro. This is really hard. If people don't understand, you try going to a game, you try missing five games not playing because you don't know if you're playing that night. And then on the sixth game, they put you in third quarter after sitting down for 40 minutes and you got to go hit that first shot you get in the corner. Otherwise, you're coming right the fuck out. People have no idea how hard it is to do this. And it's a really hard job. It's much harder to be a journeyman or a role player than it is being a starter. But being a starter,

you get to ease into the game. You got your seven, eight shots, 10 shots, you get a game. All you gotta do is make half. Right. Well, the Celtics had a guy, Peyton Pritchard, who I think is good. And I've been in Peyton Pritchard arguments.

Yeah. But he had the worst situation of just about any bench part last year because we were loaded with guards. Loaded. And he was just what you were talking about. He wouldn't play a couple games. Oh, this guy got in foul trouble or we need shooting. All of a sudden, he's getting thrown out there in the third quarter.

And it's like, I actually think this guy's good. I was waiting for one of the smart teams to trade for him. But by the time we needed him in the playoffs, his confidence had gotten to the point that he was not an asset. And he asked for a trade in the offseason, and people were like, oh, Peyton Pritchard

asked for a trade. And I'm thinking, he should have asked for a trade. He's actually pretty good. He probably looks at some of the backup guards around the league and thinks, yeah, could I beat TJ McConnell on the Pacers? I could. I don't know. That's the worst part.

People always try to give me advice on not looking at other players. Don't compare yourself to other players. How could you not? But it's like, how the hell am I not supposed to do this when I'm sitting on the bench? I understand maybe this situation isn't the best, but I'm looking at other guys and other opportunities. I'm just like, God, if I could just be there. Miami, like what you pointed out, Miami is a dream destination for every player

like me because Spoh doesn't coach based anybody off merit or contract. He plays who's going to play the hardest and who's going to help win the damn game. They're trying to win. They try to win games over there. That's just the bottom line. And if Mac, they started, who was it? Dave Vincent, who's making at the time 700K, 800K, whatever it was, they're playing him. He's starting in the playoffs. Kyle Lowry. Yeah. Struess. You got Kyle Lowry making 30 million. He's coming off the bench. And there's no ego about it. Not even a word from Kyle. That's just the culture of Miami. It's like, win.

And if you go there and play well and tap in and fit in, you're badged as a winner. And all those guys got paid this summer. You know what I mean? So it's just like... That's like... I would do anything to play for the Miami Heat. Seriously. That's the number one choice for me would be to play for Spoh and play with guys like Jimmy, like fucking dogs, man. Dogs, bro. Go out there, play through illness, play through injury, play through soreness,

defend, defend, defend. Listen, I don't like where this conversation went because I wanted the Celtics to get you. So I don't like that you're doing a Miami resume. I had a great talk with Brad actually like a week ago. Yeah. I know we need you because we traded Marcus Smart. We have the minutes. That's why I called him and I was like, man, I would love to be a part of the team. And he said a lot of positive things. We'll see if that's something that comes to fruition. But I've always loved Brad. I've always been a fan of him. Well, the other piece of Miami

is if they end up stumbling into this Dame trade, who the hell knows? I don't know what to believe anymore, but that's going to be multiple players. Multiple players. All packaged together for Dame, and then all of a sudden they're going to be needing two or three Austin Rivers. Exactly. So maybe they're just kind of waiting. That's what I'm hoping.

I'm hoping the deal gets done and they got to get off three three or four players and then like they have because they already have like multiple contracts still they haven't signed they still have three roster spots they haven't used because they're waiting for this damn thing so they got multiple spots and there's not i mean you talk about best player available i just don't see someone better than me that's just i mean that's and i'm not trying to be arrogant that's just when my experience and my playing i just don't see someone better than me. That's just, I mean, I'm not trying to be arrogant. That's just with my experience and my playing, I just don't see that. And obviously, I felt like I should have been signed

in the beginning of the summer. But, you know, everything happens for a reason, man. Like, I'm here. I'm right where I'm supposed to be. My job now is mentally staying engaged and staying in shape.

I have to stay in shape. I have to stay ready. That way, if I do get signed this week or six weeks from now, I'm ready to go. So, that's where I got to. Were you surprised at all by what happened with Jimmy in the playoffs this year? Like he basically, he basically took on Milwaukee.

I know Giannis got hurt for a part of it, but he pulled their hearts out by the end of that. I've never seen, I didn't know if somebody could do that to drew holiday. Either did I, you know, playing with drew and playing against drew, he's such a good and sound defender. And he's just physical and he's strong. I've never seen somebody go at him like that and talk to him like that.

And he wasn't talking to Drew like they're up three games to one and the game's about to run out. He's talking to Drew like second quarter, first quarter. And it's early in the series. Like you got to deal with this guy the rest of the series. And Jimmy's just at him. And he's at everyone. He was at the whole team and he just kept going. And then the next series, he kept going at some point. I was like, yo, this is one of the most impressive runs I've seen. It's like quite Toronto-esque just where

this guy's just dominating. But Jimmy was doing it in a more loud way because he was really bullying guys. You know what I mean? And what surprised me about Jimmy, the reason I was so surprised by it is because as great as a player Jimmy is, you don't think of him as a great scorer. I know he's Jimmy Buckets and all these things, but you compare him to a Paul George,

a polished, a very, very polished scorer. But Jimmy was just getting it done. I don't even know how to explain it. It sometimes wasn't the prettiest 30 or 40, but he just bullies guys. He just does. You know who was like that, who I didn't think gets enough credit for it? It was Pierce who was like that for a long time, where he could

not have a great game, but he could catch fire for a quarter or he could catch fire for eight minutes. And he would just get... He would hit all of a sudden the threes that weren't and he would just get big shots. He would hit all of a sudden the threes that weren't going in they started going in.

He could bully people like around 12, 10 feet away. And he was always, I always thought like with the Wade Pierce debate when people are like, Paul Pierce is crazy.

He's not anywhere near Dwayne Wade. It's like, Paul Pierce was awesome. I say this all the time because that thing has become like an actual meme now where people are disrespecting Paul

just because he thinks of himself in D-Wade's class when people don't realize he was right below that. Paul Pierce was a fucking stud. And people forget how good and good this guy's footwork was. And they don't have players

like Paul no more, man. There's the age of like 6'9", big, heavy, small forwards who have their back to the basket shooting fadeaway twos, you know, stared out. Who could play multiple positions. Multiple positions.

Guard bigger guys, smaller ones. They don't have that, bro. Like now we're all tiny, skinny, lanky, athletic. Like that's kind of more the speed that we're going. Like Paul would cut up in today's NBA, bro. You don't like prime Paul Pearson in today's league. My God, bro. Well, he would have shot way more threes, too, because

I think his third season, yeah, we were shooting a lot of threes on the Celts. Almost like eight, nine a game. Is that like the Antoine Walker? The Antoine, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They tried to gain the system because they didn't have a ton of talent. So we're going to shoot a lot of threes. People are like, whoa, this is crazy. And now that's kind of what the league

has become, but I think he would have fit in. he would have been fine he could shoot and paul they have this thing it's more like younger generation which dominates social media a lot they like don't they didn't see paul and paul's game also wasn't flashy and wasn't loud so like kids don't grow up youtubing paul pierce people youtube d-way people know about d-way and he's so like still on social media and involved and we're like, Paul Pierce is just having drinks on live streams and having a good time. It's like two different things. But people don't really understand how good Paul is.

Paul was so nasty. Yeah, he was really good, man. There's two issues. One is that this internet NBA culture we have now has problems celebrating guys like him or like Ben Wallace, people like that. The other side, which I've always joked about is the internet, because you can cut anyone into like a two minute clip. It all of a sudden it can be like, Eddie Curry was a problem.

And you just show two minutes, Eddie Curry highlights. And then that's on TikTok and it goes, you can basically do that with any NBA player, but there's certain guards that seem like they were more like Steve Francis, Stephon Marbury, those type of players that weren't necessarily winning players, but you could cut together

awesome highlight packages of them. And I just, I really worry about this whole generation of people that basically think the league started when Kobe won his first

two titles without Shaq or when LeBron went to the Heat. It's like, this is a long league that had a lot of great players and a lot of history to it. I mean, your dad was in a million awesome games and people don't even remember

Dominique at this point. I don't know. Sometimes I feel like the old guy trying to protect the flame. That's the problem is we start talking like this and people are like, man, look at these dated motherfuckers just talking about it. That's how I feel. But I go to the locker room and I talk to these young players

about players that they should know. We were talking last year in the locker room in Minnesota and we were talking about best scores from Minnesota Timberwolves. I was like, yo, Kevin Martin. Y'all sleep on Kevin Martin because he really scored. A lot of guys in the locker room were like, Kevin Martin? Who's Kevin Martin?

I was like, you don't know who fucking Kevin Martin is? You know what I mean? I was like, you play for the Timberwolves. You don't know who Kevin Martin is? I'm like, Tom Gugliotta. All these guys who could... Terrell Brandon. I'm thinking of all these good... That era of the NBA is like a lot of that's lost with this new generation.

They just don't tap into it. And I guess I did because of my dad. Maybe. I don't know. I just... Yeah, it's gone. Well, what you're laying out is the NBA's biggest fear because it's not just people you're playing with. It's the under 25 generation in general, whether they're actually watching games or whether they're just like my son

who loves sports and plays sports, but doesn't watch games and gets all of his NBA knowledge through like TikTok and YouTube videos and slices of things and highlights and 2K. And 2K ratings. 2K ratings are like incredibly important for my son. It's the worst thing ever, man.

Because they're made by a bunch of guys who were picked last in gym class. And they're out here making ratings based off of stats when stats only dictate someone's situation. So you giving someone a 69 rating when he's in a terrible situation and doesn't play, it's just the dumbest thing ever. You know what I mean?

That's why it's stupid to do that. But kids, yeah, they look at 2K. I get this all the time. I'll go to Chipotle and someone will be like, yo, man, they got to fix your rating. I'm like, brother, I don't give a fuck what Ronnie 2K has me rated. And shout out to Ronnie. I love Ronnie, but no, man. That stuff's ridiculous.

I just... They don't... Well, this speaks to the Duncan problem that we're now in where people are like I had Tim Duncan he's fine but that

seems to be a thing like Duncan I had Duncan over Kobe in my book I still have Duncan over Kobe now

I think both of them are in the top 10 and two of the greatest players I've ever had but Duncan was a guaranteed 50 wins the entire time he was healthy

and didn't give a shit about his stats. And it's like, all right, you're going to go through his stats. Oh, he only averaged 19 and 10 that year. It's like, guess who didn't care at all about what his stats were. And took pay cuts. Yeah. And guess who won every year partly because

of all the shit he did. Tim Duncan. I guarantee he didn't look at his box score at the end of the game or any of that stuff. I think Jokic is like that. That's what was so funny when Perk started the 1BP thing and they were like, oh, he's chasing stats. It's like, Jokic is chasing stats? Do you guys watch basketball? What's he chasing?

That was... Sometimes guys do stuff so easily that they make it look like they're really doing it. And there are guys who do chase stats. There's a plethora of guys I can name that I know and they go out there and play. It is based around the numbers they're putting up. And then there are guys who do chase stats. There's a plethora of guys I can name that I know. And they go out there and play like it is based around the numbers they're putting up.

And then there's guys like Yoko who just, he naturally has the ball in his hands all game. He just dominates the game, but he could give a fuck about whether he has a, when you like, after the game, guys would say something to him, like,

yo, you don't get 50 and 15. Like he'll cut you off. Like, brother, brother, I don't care. I don't want to know.

And he'll like, just go lift or something after the game or play video games. He's so tuned out of that stuff. He doesn't have Instagram. He doesn't have Twitter. He doesn't want to. He doesn't want to be famous. He literally goes over and goes to bars and races horses. He does not give a shit about nothing

but basketball and horses and his family. It is refreshing. I've never played with anybody like him. I loved when he beat the Lakers for the Western Finals. He just wanted to get off the court. Can we celebrate for a minute? What do you think? He's like, no,

can we just go? I just want to go to bed. The best thing about the Denver, which is why I've been telling people they're going to be good for a while as long as Jamal's healthy, is because Jamal is very similar. Jamal will talk his shit in the game a little bit more like he'll do some like you know he'll but off the court you won't see anything about jamal going out you'll never see anything about him smoking drinking in the club uh i remember i pulled up to practice and there was like this 2006 beat up black convertible Corvette.

Terrible. But it's like an old Corvette. And it wasn't like a nice like data. It was like a, it was crazy. I'm like, who's fucking driving this? And I go inside the locker room.

I go, who's driving that fucking Corvette? And Jamal's like, that's mine. He's like, and he literally looks at me dead serious. He goes, you don't like it?

It's not nice. He has no idea. Like it's like a 2009. It's got and he literally looks at me dead serious he goes you don't like it it's not nice he has no idea like it's like a 2009 it's got rips in the seats it's paints messed up he just like doesn't care he wears like sweatshirts

if you look at his gear before the game he wears like sweats and a tee and him and Jokic just have this it's just all basketball and winning thing and it's good

what they got going over there it's good and when you're building that team you just have to keep adding people who have that mindset And it's good what they got going over there. It's good. And when you're building that team, you just have to keep adding people who have that mindset. And it's easy for guys to fall in line because you can't act away or think you're bigger than yourself if the guy averaging 30, 10, and 9 doesn't.

How long do you see Jokic playing? Do you see him being one of those guys who's like 39? Nope. And just kind of holding on? Nope. No chance. No chance. No chance. Do you think he's like 39? Nope. And just kind of holding on? Nope. No chance. No chance. No chance. Do you think he's one of those

he's just like Barry Sanders? Like he's just out? Yes. I have him playing another five, six years. How old is he right now? I think he's like 28 or 29. He's not as 30 as that.

I have him playing until like 34. 34? 34, 35. And then we never see him again? He just goes back to as that. I have him playing until like 34. 34? 34, 35. And then we never see him again? He just goes back to Serbia and he's gone? Yeah. Yeah. I don't want

to say anything more than that because I don't want to put his... I don't see him playing in the NBA until he's 39 years old. No way. It doesn't seem like he loves playing in the NBA now. Or he turns 29 in February. He won and he left. He was like, we got to have a parade.

I want to go home. What the hell? The last time I was there, we lost to Golden State. I remember two days later, three days later, I was grabbing some stuff at the locker room. I was like, Yoke here? They're like, no, he left yesterday. This is like two days. He's like, uh, yoke here. They're like, no, he left yesterday. This is back to certain. This is like two days.

He's gone, bro. Like he's out. I, I, I, I don't think he really gives a shit about the American, like pop culture and trends and like fame and relevance.

Like those things just don't interest him like really deeply to a core. And the things that do interest him aren't those things. So it's just like, I don't see him hanging around. He's already a champion's an all-star he's an mvp he just signed his second now he just signed super max he'll probably sign one more super max and then i i think he's out man i think by like age let's see this one he'll get done at like probably 32 he'll sign one more i think think, by 35 years old. 35, maybe 36.

I think he's gone. I think he's... You'll just see him and he's going to be like, Duncan, what is Tim Duncan doing right now? Nobody knows. You know what I mean? I think Duncan wanted to be like that, but I think he had such a loyalty to Pop and those guys,

but I think those guys were always worried about how much longer can we get out of them. And I think he really liked playing with Parker and Ginobili and all this. Exactly. They had a whole different thing. They had a family over there that they were able to really establish. I don't see it.

I just don't see Yoke being here. I have one more topic for you and then we'll go because I want to save stuff because I'd love to have you back during the year and push you of your own podcast. I mean, we have... People say Callie's the best NBA podcaster in the Rivers family, including your dad. I don't know.

But that's what Callie's... Callie puts that out there. Callie's like trying to get her on to talk about stuff. She's like, I can't. I know too much. She's like the secret rouge. Yeah, Cali always monitoring everything I say. They cut like 50% of the stuff I say on my pods, by the way.

Here's my last topic for you, just because it's somewhat topical. You played with Anthony Edwards. And you've talked about him on your pod, so we'll probably have to retread a little of this. So he has this Team USA thing, he just, and you've talked about him on your pod. So we're probably have to retread a little of this, but so he has this team USA thing and he just, he passes all the checkpoints. Now they don't win, but for where he is in his career, he's 22.

The way the USA coaching staff, they just like, they were like, oh my God. Like they were just all in love with this guy. Yeah. He really felt Dwayne weighty to me in that, whatever the 2.0 version, but there was just the first time where I could pigeonhole him in my head. I was like, I see what this is now. This is

bigger, stronger Wade. But you spent time with him, played with him. First question, it seems like he has the uber competitive side, yes that's real he does yeah that's it he's a dog they get everything yes he wants to win he thinks he's he thinks he's delusional i think he thinks he can beat you and everything he thinks he can beat me and thinks he's never even done before like we'll talk about like golf or this this and that and he'll be i'll

play i'll beat you i'll be you ever play he goes no i'm no, that's not how golf works, bro. You got to really... He's like, man, I'll figure it out. He goes, I win everything I do. That's just like generally in his core, he thinks he can beat everybody and everything. That's just how he is, man. Yeah, it's like that MJ betting people that his luggage is going to come out first, all that stuff.

Yeah, it's always something. We used to play... We played cars on the plane. Ant doesn't play a lot. And then we started getting him to play. And next thing you know, he is like the bully of the table in terms of getting guys to play. We just had a back-to-back and it's like, I'm trying to get some sleep. He's like, come on, AR. And he calls

me Macaroni Tony. That's my nickname. I don't even like it, but that's just what it is. The whole team calls me. He'd tell me, come on, Mac. We got to play. We got to play cards, man. We got to play. That's just, he wants to compete all the time. And D-Wade is, by the way, a perfect, perfect comparison.

Perfect comparison. Did you ever see fear at any point with him on a basketball court? No, no. He's fearless. He's fearless. Even to the point where sometimes it's too much. Sometimes he is so competitive, he'll force something. That was early Kobe.

That was the early Kobe issue. He wanted it so badly. Exactly. And that's where he's at right now. That's why the USA was great for him to go play and compete with other players. His growth right now, where D. Wade really took that jump is when he started dominating on both ends of the floor

and learning how to channel his defense to where you pick up the best player at certain times, but still being a defensive problem throughout a game. And then the fourth quarter, you guard the best player, like learning how to channel your energy without taking away from your offense, competing on both ends.

D Wade did it. D Wade led this league in blocks. I don't even know how many years for guards. Like it has that ability to go do these things and play make. That is what's going to take him from being that second tier star. Right now, if I've got to be honest, if we're going off the

past years, you put Book, Tatum, that's top tier guard. He's right under that. I think Ant belongs in that conversation with those guys, but he has to do those other ones. Those two other points, if he cleans that do those other ones, those other, those, those two other points. If he cleans that up,

just like Tatum did, Tatum defended way better last year. You know what I mean? In the previous series, you know what I mean? So that's something that he has to do and he can do when Ant wants to, he's unbelievable in defense. He's insane.

That was a huge piece for Tatum when he was able to put the two way stuff as like, just really impactful. And the rebounding too. That was why even when I watched Team USA, I was like, all right, we can talk about 40 guys this team needs, but really you could just put Tatum on this team and he would have made a huge difference because he

would have had like 12 rebounds in every one of those games. The defense was my next question because that was something that jumped out in the Team USA stuff where I was like, is this guy like an amazing on-ball defender and we had no idea? No, he's incredible.

When he wants to, he'll just channel it. Sometimes he'll pick a guy and it's usually the best player in the team, like a star. If a star starts cooking, he'll come to the locker, to the huddle

and coach will be talking. He'll be like, no, no, no, no. I got him. That shit done. That shit. And he'll say it out loud. No one questions it because we've seen him tap into that. When he wants to cut somebody off, that water's off. That's what

I'm saying. Like, I know that ability is there. I'm not asking you to do it the whole game, pick and choose your points. And I don't need you to be the best, best defender all game, but at crucial moments of the game. Yeah. You got to be that. I think he can be both. I think you could average four or five assists. Just stop you being aggressive alone. You should be averaging five assists. And I think he needs to shoot more I think you could average four or five assists. Just stop you being aggressive alone. You should be averaging five assists. And I think he needs to shoot more free throws. I want him living at the line, bro. We live in an era where there are no shot blockers, man.

You are the most freakish athlete I've ever seen at the two guard spot. You need to live at the basket. And I know he could shoot. So there's a healthy diet of both. But like, bro, that motherfucker got to live in the paint and just be a dog. He can really bully that position, especially in today's NBA. Yeah. I'm with you because

you figure like the checkpoints of being a truly impactful mattering superstar. He's hit this first one. Right? 22. Yeah. Is he 22? I thought he was 22, right? Yeah. Maybe he's 23 now? He is.

He is. I think he's 22. So then the next jump will be mid-20s when it's like, oh, I didn't realize you were going to be the best guy on a finals team yet. But basically what happened with Tatum. And then that last step is that 27, 28 age range. That's usually like history of the NBA. That's the final level.

Yeah. That's where we're up for with Tatum. Yeah. That's when that physical and mental finally come together. Then they have four or five really good years after that. Those are the best years, in my opinion, if you're healthy and take care of your

body and good luck and all those other things. That's where he has to get to. He's been a hidden gem in Minnesota. Everyone's talked about Ant, but him doing this USA thing, you've got Kerr and Spoh and these other guys. I knew he was good, but him doing this USA thing, you got Kerr and Spoh and these other guys like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Yeah, they know now. I knew he was good, but holy shit, this guy is different than the other guys

we got here. You know what I mean? That's going to be interesting to see over the next years. Him in Minnesota, how long is... Well, that was my final question. Is the team around him the right people you'd want to put around a player like this, where you have two bigger guys? I'm not even sure if Gobert

and Towns can play together I know you were on the team last year I'm sure it was noticeably choppy from time to time but do you even want any big guy with Edwards do you want to keep the lane open for him so that he has as much space as possible to create or does he need a shot blocker behind him I don't know

the answer it was really tough for him last year with two bigs out there on the floor. It'll be interesting to see this year how they do that. I would imagine they're going to start the two bigs and then immediately one of them will come out so they can stagger them, put one of them in the second unit because the floor just has to be more clear for Ant.

He couldn't get to the basket. We talked about his free throw attempts or lack of. A lot of that has to do with just lack of spacing and lack of shooting. I mean, this guy was dribbling like double teams last year and shooting fadeaways because he had to. It just wasn't the most ideal situation. If you go back and watch our Denver playoffs, I mean, he was unbelievable. You know what I mean? He just needs a little bit more space. So I don't know how they do that with Carl and Rudy. Carl has to be better at playing the four.

He wanted to play the four last year. And then when he did, he'd like go call for the ball in the post. And that's not what the four does. So it's just like that adjustment. I think Carl will be a lot better this year. And then, yeah, Rudy. I mean, they have to figure that out with those two bigs. I mean, that's just the reality of the situation. They still have both of them.

You signed Nas Reid back, who's another big, but he's extremely skilled. I love Jaden McDaniels, by the way. He's another stud. Jaden's the real deal. So those four, and then Michael Conley's a good savvy guard, perfect for what they need. They don't need anything else.

They already got a lot with Carl and Ant and that whole dynamic there between who gets what shot and this, this, and that. So I don't... Yeah, Mike doesn't care at all. No, it's perfect.'s why this doesn't work does towns have a bad rap or the right rap

cat is the nicest kid and guy i don't like calling a kid young man that you could ever meet like he's a sweetheart people don't like carl because they feel like he tries very hard to be liked. And if that's the worst thing you can say about someone, then he's not a bad person. You know what I mean? The worst quality of a guy is that he's trying extra hard so you like him. That just means he wants people to like him. Do you know what I mean? And when you really get down to it, when you hang out with Carl, man, he's a big kid, bro.

He's got a big heart. He's been through a lot of shit. People forget over the past couple of years with this family um and he's had to you know find out who he is and like this identity that he's trying to find that's why people make fun of his voice and his interviews and his game style and the way he plays but like he's had a lot thrown at him i still think carl is trying to like find this niche of who he is as like a dominating basketball player. You can't deny he's good. He is really good. I do think him and Carl...

I told him this summer. Obviously, I'm not back there. I don't think him and Carl work out together enough. It's something that's a lost art now. You're talking about Ant and Towns? Yeah. People don't do it. You see film all the time of other players

working out with other players. Why don't, I don't ever see the two best players for a team is like locked in the gym. You'll see it here and there. Like, why aren't y'all working out all summer doing handoffs and picking roles and like fine tuning this like relationship to where like when November comes,

like it ain't even a question. I got you, bro. I know what you like. I know where you shoot well, I know what spots you like. Cause I've been doing it with you all summer. I've seen what you've made and missed. Like, that's just something that doesn't happen. Especially when it's like the two best players are guards. Like do you see what Jamal Murray and Jokic have going on? Like that shit is so fun to watch because they're so good together. And if Carl and Ant can like into that to where they start trusting and trying to help each other, they'll be both better. All right. You can hear Austin on the

Ringer MBA show. I think we're still doing once a week this year, right? Yep. All right. And we'll find out pretty soon if you're on a team. You're going to end up on a team. I hope it's the Celtics, But you're going to end up being on Miami and then it's, I'm going to be really conflicted. So I don't like those guys. There's teams worse, right? If I played for the Knicks,

you'd be really mad. No, Miami's the worst right now. Really? They won a game seven in our house. That's true. That's our big obstacle now. And I think they feel like they have the Celtics hard a little bit.

And we're, you know, we have Brogdon who's reportedly unhappy. We have Porzingis who didn't play in the world championships because of some foot issue. We don't have Marcus Smart. I always think it's funny when I hear guys are unhappy. When guys are making like 70, 80 million, they're unhappy.

Right. It's a comedy to me. Well, I think... I know he's in the trade rumors, but like, who the fuck, man? No, he got traded. It was a comedy to me. Well, I think... I know he's in the trade rumors, but like, he doesn't fuck, man. No, he got traded. It was a trade rumor. His ass got traded and then...

It didn't go through. Then it didn't go through and then it's like, no, no, we still really like you is one of those. So I think... Yeah, you're right.

He gets a pass. I forgot about that. You're right, you're right, you're right, you're right. Yeah, that's a tough one. That's different. That is different. That's different.

Yeah, and it's like, no, no, man, you're still our guy. I like Malcolm. Malcolm can play. He's a good player. He was hurt in the playoffs last year and it actually hurt the Celtics

because they really, really needed him in a couple of those games. But anyway. All right, Austin, good to see you. Always, man. Appreciate you. Say hi to your sister, the queen of the ringer for us.

Always. Got to. She's a boss. Thank you, man. This episode is brought to you by Movember. She's a boss. Thank you, man. in the Super Bowl, but your fundraising will support mental health, suicide prevention, and prostate and testicular cancer research. And if you don't want to grow a mustache, you could still walk or run 60 kilometers, host an event, or set your own goal and mow your own way. Do great things this November. Sign up now. Just search Movember. Y'all afraid of ghosts? How about ghost peppers? It's the moment you've been waiting for.

The ghost pepper sandwich is back at Popeye's. A buttermilk-battered chicken breast served on a brioche bun with barrel-cured pickles. And here's the best part. It's topped with a sauce made from ghost peppers and oncho chilies. If that doesn't send a chill of anticipation down your spine, nothing will. Get your ghost pepper sandwich today at Popeyes before it ghosts you for another year. All right, Stephen Ruiz is here from The Ringer. He is on our Ringer NFL show. He writes for TheRinger.com. He does a QB rankings every week that people lose their minds. I'm so glad anyone who says social media is dead.

Just look at the Twitter replies under any QB rankings piece. Is this the most, is there anything that makes people more angry than this? Unless you would like insulted Beyonce or Taylor Swift. Those are like the only two that would be worse, right? No. One time I said like Josh Allen was a little inaccurate and someone threatened to shoot me. He said like these bullets aren't inaccurate. Oh my God. Yeah. Well that, and the Tua thing, which Tua's looked, you know, I was there two years ago. I was like, I don't, I don't see it. I don't think he has it. I don't, but then McDaniel comes in, fixes it. But then Tua has, I think three concussions last year. It's like, oh,

this guy might not play football again. Then you watch him this year, and it's like, all right. They figured out how to use him in a way that I, as a Patriots fan, was scared of him for four quarters. So that's an asset. I'll admit defeat on that. I don't know if I want to plant my flag on Justin Herbert. Everyone needs to settle down island yet,

but there are these games where he has the ball in his hands to take it. And he doesn't, and they get a field goal and they should get a touchdown, which happened in the last minute of, uh, of this Tennessee game. They get the ball in OT. It doesn't do anything three and out game before unintentional grounding

takes a sack. Um, but then everybody's telling me how great he is. You are of the opinion, this guy's amazing. But don't you have to be amazing where it actually results in wins and losses? And if we don't blame him, who are we blaming? Yes, I do think you need that.

And I think the one argument you could have made even two years ago before the wins became a thing was that he wasn't creative enough or he didn't have that dog in him, so to speak. He didn't go outside of the offense to create. I do think that shows up late in games. I will give you that. But the other 59 minutes in most games, most weeks, he is just amazing. He barely messes up.

That's the point I want to get through to people. Every play, every incompletion, it's usually not his fault. I know it sounds like an exaggeration, but that's what I see on tape. And I think a lot of people that watch the tape, that's what they're seeing too. So you think about the Tennessee game, where they, I don't know what Tennessee was doing, they have a lead, Chargers get the ball, with a little know what Tennessee was doing. They have a lead. Chargers get the ball with a little more than two minutes left.

Within about a minute, they're on the Tennessee, I think they're on the 14 or 15, and there's under a minute left. The Chargers have all three timeouts left. I had Tennessee plus three, and I just thought I was done. I was like, wow,

with the three timeouts, they can spike. They can get a first down and not score. There's just no way the Chargers, they're moving down the field. There's no way they're not going to score. And it took them, I think, 30 seconds to run one play. They call timeout, 21 seconds left.

Somehow they botch it. He takes a sack. They end up settling for a field goal. And to me, that's the last piece for him because I've seen that from him. I know Solak was thrown come from behind comebacks to me, but there's some game management stuff, which by the way, Kellen Moore doesn't have either. We saw with him in Dallas. That was another one.

So they're 0-2, but they had both games in their hands and they blew it. And I don't know. People are going to keep getting blamed, right? Staley will be the next guy that gets blamed. Then maybe it'll be Kellen Moore. Nobody's going to blame Herbert because he's so talented. But at some point, we need to see it. I do think that's fair.

And I think that's the criticism you can make. He can't overcome the coaching necessarily. And I think that's something with how he's wired. He's wired to just listen to what the coaches tell him to do. And usually, that's a good thing thing in a Kyle Shane and offense, you're going to throw for 50 touchdowns if you do that. But sometimes you have to go outside of that box. And I think that's,

he hasn't done that. And I give you, I, I admit that. So you do the QB rankings. Sal and I were talking on Sunday night about Mac Jones. And I was saying how it's weird to call somebody a below average starting quarterback because that's the insinuation like you're not good at football. But when you do these

rankings and you look at the list, an average is like from number 15, number 16, number 17 is probably like the average. You could even extend it and make it 14 through 18 is average. And then 19 and below is below average. I made my list and I only had one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight guys worse than Mac, which, and that includes Zach Wilson, who's worse than everybody. So that means I had Zach, uh, Mac Jones at number 24. I had Watson after him because I don't know what Watson's doing this year. What happened to him? Pickett, who I was all in on, and I thought Pittsburgh could be the number one seed, but Pickett has just been awful in two straight games.

If you pull away that 71-yard Pickett's pass last night, they just couldn't do anything. He really looks disheveled. Wilson on Denver, who had a 21-3 lead, he just can't help himself. He's going to do eight terrible things in the game.

Bryce Young, who just doesn't seem ready to me. I'm not counting him out yet, but he seems terrifying. I'm counting him out. I think I'm counting him out. No, I'm obviously joking, but like Panthers fans are coping right now, but you watch these games and he's struggling because he's small. I understand all the other arguments, Bad offense line, bad receiver core. But he looks small at least 15 times a game so far. And that's not going away anytime soon. The thing that scared me yesterday with him, look, they have no skill position, guys. He's got Frank Reich as a coach, the quote-unquote QB whisperer

who just goes through a QB every year. I don't know who he's whispering or what he's whispering. But what I didn't like was they showed Bryce a few times. As you know, I'm the body language expert. And to me, he looked rattled and scared and overwhelmed. And your quarterback can't look like that. Say what you want about Mac, but Mac at least looks like, yeah, man, we're going to do this. And then he'll throw it right to the other team or he'll miss a wide open guy. But he carries himself like they can do it. I'm with you.

Bryce Young kind of had this look like, holy shit. In college, I used to do that twirl around move and I would just run away from somebody. But that was his thing in college was the poise. I haven't seen it. It doesn't work at this level so far. He got the Steph Curry comps.

I think Jimmer Fredette was the comp you guys were looking for. Like, I don't see the Steph Curry skill set here. What's his version of being the best three-point shooter ever off the dribble?

Right. So it would have to be the scrambling and the maneuverability, but we haven't seen that yet. It's working for C.J. Stroud who got question marks about that coming out of college,

but he's doing that in the same circumstance in Houston. So I have Bryce Young after Mack, and then my final four in descending order, Ritter, who other than that fourth quarter has just been abominable. Josh Dobbs, who's not a starting quarterback, it's not his fault. Fields, and then Zach Wilson last. But I think the Fields-Zach Wilson argument is a little closer than maybe people realize. Because fields, what was the stat? Like 60% of his passes have been basically uncatchable or completely uncatchable?

And the other 40% are probably screens. It's either screens, play action, or scrambles. Like that's it. That's all we're getting from him at this point through three years. So what's the field's excuse at this point? Because now we've given him

this is, oh, he's got a year to learn the offense. DJ Moore is there now. We've loaded up. And so now it's Chase Claypool's fault. Who do we blame?

I think he's just bad at football. And it was clear last year. I know we overlooked it because of the running, the scrambling, but he's been a bad quarterback for three years now. That's certainly what I've seen.

He's not as bad as Zach Wilson, though. But it's at least they're kind of in some sort of an argument. The people I have right ahead of Mac Jones, and tell me if you disagree, Carr, who was the guy he was last year, last night, against Carolina. If you pressure him, he just kind of loses it and just starts doing crazy stuff.

And the fact that they were able to bring Taysom Hill in and kind of settle things down a little bit, I thought really helped them. Tannehill was pretty good in that Chargers game. He was. Second half. I have Mayfield above Mac Jones just because he's played well on Tampa Bay. You have

him above or below Mac Jones? Below. Way below to me. I think if you put Mac Jones in similar circumstances, I think you're getting better production out of Mac Jones than you are from Baker Mayfield. You watch that week one game and Brian Flores had him. The Patriots before the 2018 Super Bowl

said they were going to have Jared Goff shitting his pants. They had Baker Mayfield shitting his pants in that first half. He rebounded, but the old Baker's still in there. Trust me. Okay. Good to know. Jimmy G, I would have above Mack, but I feel like he's like Mack's uncle.

They each make the same three terrible throws. The guy I did not expect to have ahead of him is CJ Stroud. And I did not. That was the game that I sacrificed on. I had the multi-view on YouTube. I had the two other sides, six games. I was like, you know, Indy Houston, especially Richardson got a concussion. I'm like, I'm out.

And then reading and catching up on all this stuff. And people were like, CJ Stroud, he's got it. So what'd you see? He's doing the stuff that we expected Bryce Young to do. Like he's doing the creativity stuff. He's making plays in the pocket under circumstances where other quarterbacks wouldn't. Like he was doing like no-look passes over the middle,

like 15 yards over the middle against pressure. You don't see that out of rookie quarterbacks. You don't see that out of most quarterbacks. So I think he's flashed enough for me to be, I'm buying it. I'm in. Well, and especially Tunsell didn't play their left tackle

in that game and in general it just seemed like they had a ton of injuries nobody can name a Texans receiver and the fact that

people are like raving about him I'm going to watch it because all 22s I think are up now I want to see it because it's so funny

when you have these drafts where everybody's got these wildly different opinions on the QBs. But then by the time we got close to the draft, everybody's like, you know what? Bryce is the safest pick. He's got the poise and athleticism. Now it turns out Stroud's the guy.

Where do you have Jordan Love just in this whole mix? I have him right outside of the top 20. I was really high on him, and I was not high on him coming out, but I watched him in the offseason, the cameo appearances, and I was like, holy shit, there's a lot to this guy. More than I expected, real quarterback stuff. In the pocket, he's also a guy that does no-look passes. He looks off safeties. He does all that.

He's really confident as a passer, which really surprised me. I thought there was a feistiness to him in that Atlanta game that I liked. They also, you know, his offensive line was decimated that from a receiver standpoint, it seemed like he liked, you know, he still hasn't had Watson who was supposed to be his main guy. Jones didn't play in the second game. I thought he fell apart a little down the stretch. It was one of the reasons they lost, but for the most part, I like him. You've always been a Geno guy and Geno had a huge week too. Is he, he's above average for you? Oh yeah. Okay. I'm almost willing to say that I take Geno Smith for one year over Jalen Hurts. See, so this is what people go to ask. So walk me through the case against Hurts.

Is it basically if you just put Lamar, Josh Allen in that Philly offense, it would be even crazier? Yeah, I think we need to give him credit for being the running back, or not the running back, the run game centerpiece. He does deserve credit for that. And I don't think people give him enough credit for that. But I think you can go overboard

and give him too much credit. We have seen, if you put any quarterback out there who can move, your running game is going to get better. Like, Daniel Jones isn't the best runner. He's a great straight line athlete, but you turn him into a read option quarterback and all of a sudden he's like ripping off runs like he's Lamar Jackson.

Like, I think we give too much credit to the numbers advantage that a mobile quarterback gives you. Like, yes, Jalen Hurts does provide that for the Eagles, but any running quarterback would provide something similar if you put them in there. Like Tyrod Taylor would provide that also. Or the great Josh Dobbs. The case, I'm higher on Hurts than most. But I think the case, if you were going to ding them is, you know, he's got this awesome offensive line.

He's got two blue chip receivers. He's got one of the best all around tight ends, if not the best one. And they always seem to have these running backs that at least fit a certain prototype where they have speed. Um, he always has some sort of good game plan. They're usually playing with the lead, especially because their defense is always pretty good. And you just can't come up with a better situation

than the situation's in. Here's my question. You give the ninth best quarterback in the NFL, the best offensive line, maybe the best receiving duo, a good tight end, a great running game, an offensive coordinator who got hired as a head coach,

what would you expect their numbers to look like? You'd expect them to look like the second best quarterback. And that's, I think, is what's playing out. So I had before this season, I had Mahomes, Burrow, Allen, Herbert, and Hertz as my top five. And Lamar to me was a guy who's been battling injuries the last two years, just got this huge contract, kind of want to see it. And then he was, other than Michael Parsons, probably the best

player in week two. Is he cracked the top five or do we extend it to, well, you don't have Hurts in your top five, but has he forged himself into that top group? Do you need to see a little more? Is this like we're going to look back three months around like, oh, man, remember Lamar we too before he got hurt again? What how does this play out? I mean, that's my concern is the injury thing. But I do think he's top five. And I think we saw him dominate the game on Sunday in a way we've never seen him dominate

an NFL game before. And I think this is the first time he's had the tools to do that. He's when you're giving him Patrick Ricard third down routes, he's not going to look like Peyton Manning. But when you give him a real receiving core and a real dropback passing game, he looked the part on Sunday. He wasn't running. He wasn't doing design quarterback runs. He scrambled when he had to, but he picked them apart with dink and dunk passes. I think they were either 9 for 14 or 10 for 14 on third down. The funny thing though

is because I've heard this oh now he finally has the right receiving core. He had Nelson Aguilar? Like I've rooted for Nelson Aguilar for two years? He's terrible? Like really terrible.

Like unplayable. We were like why do they keep playing this guy? And then he played one game with Lamar and all of a sudden looked like the guy

that everybody keeps giving chances to. Made a couple big plays. The guy that jumped off the TV, though, is Flowers. He hit Flowers on that half-field bomb right down the middle of the field. Flowers made a big play on it, but it seems like that guy might have it. Oh, he does. Yeah, I think I'm in on that one. As a Panthers fan, I hate Steve Smith comps because every short wide receiver gets them.

But I think he deserves it. He moves differently when you watch him. You just need to watch him once. One snap and you're like, okay, this guy's different. Because you figure they spent on Beckham. They took Flowers. Who's the other guy that they rolled the dice with? I mean, they drafted Bateman a couple years ago.

And Bateman, and it's like you figure, can they get one of these guys to become a guy? They just won. And if you get two, fantastic. But you got to get one. I think Zay's the guy. Zay, I think he might be the guy. The crazy thing about that game was

you just figured their offensive line's decimated. Cincy's defense in Cincy. This is a bad spot. And it was the opposite. And I don't know what's going on with Cincy either. All right. So where is Tua for you at this point? Tua is my biggest riser this week. He's still not going to be high enough for Dolphins fans, but he's jumped up three points. The grading scale that I use, he's jumped up three points. That's the biggest jump by far from week one to week three. He's gotten a lot of credit for pocket presence.

I think that's looked better. Creativity under pressure, I think that looks way better. So he's top 10 to me now. I don't know if he's jumped Matthew Stafford, who's had a great year, by the way, or Dak, but he's close. He's closing in on them.

I have Mahomes, Allen, Herbert, Lamar, Burrow, just because he's hurt, Hurts. And then I have two next. And I have two ahead of Lawrence because I'm sorry, Trevor Lawrence. I know you don't have your left tackle, but you were dog shit in that KC game. That was this game you guys

have been pointing to for nine months, and you didn't make a play. You weren't good. I think that's fair. I'm a Trevor guy, but I think that's fair. Yeah. I mean, he, he had the comeback last year against the LA Clippers of the NFL, the Chargers. And that was great. You know, there were some injuries and some of them stuff on that end. He had the Dallas game last year. So it's not like he hasn't done it. I'm with you on Stafford. And Stafford finally died in the fourth quarter of that second game. I think mainly because

he threw it like 60 times. It just felt like all of a sudden he started to look a little gamey near the end there. Him doing what he's doing with these dudes that nobody's ever heard of without Cup. It's not like the running game is awesome either. It's not like their offensive line is awesome. Nobody had any expectations

at all. That, to me, is the guy when people are talking with the Jets, like, oh, they should get cousins. Like, how do they get Stafford? Can they get Stafford for a year? The contract probably makes it impossible, but he's still slinging it. Where are you at on Stafford Hall of Fame talk? Because even after the Super Bowl, I was like, I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear it. But if he has a big year this year with his supporting cast, my ears are open. I'll just say that.

So what a, he's got the Super Bowl, right? So that helps. Because, like, with the, with the lack of a playoff history he had, how many, how many total yards? Oh, is that over 50,000 yards?

I don't even know how to translate that into modern NFL versus there before. 334 touchdowns. Not a lot of playoff games. I mean, he's played seven playoff games total. So that would be the... And four of them came in one year. His first playoff game was the Super Bowl year.

Right. So that would be where you ding him. It's a tough one. I like, can we figure out any of this Hall of Fame stuff anymore? Like there's guys that aren't in the Hall of Fame that, especially like the 70s and some of the receivers

where nobody threw the ball that much, but, you know, there are really good receivers and some of them aren't in, but then the guys from the last 25 years will get in just because of the numbers. But you can't tell me the guys from the 70s

wouldn't have put up those numbers. I could convince my dad, who's not like, I don't think he knows that you have to adjust for era, that Derek Carr was a better quarterback than Johnny Unitas with numbers. Right. Well, back then, first of all, everyone's hitting the shit out of you after you throw

and they're diving at your knees. You can't throw over the middle at all because all the receivers are just getting decapitated. And they just didn't play football the same way. It was way plotting and trying to move forward and grind it out. So you look at the interception stats and they're fucking nuts.

Guys will have like 25 interceptions in a season that are like Hall of Fame quarterbacks. The Stafford one, if he could get them to like 10- 7 this year, then I think that's an argument. So you have him top 10? Yeah. He's ninth for me right now. So Brock Purdy, where does he live? Is he above average, average, or below average?

He's below average for me still. I'm sorry. I know the numbers are there, but I've watched both games and he's had to make like two plays in both games. And I think we would be talking about him right now if they lose that game. If Stafford doesn't throw those two picks, the first one wasn't his fault. And I would argue the second one wasn't either. But if the Rams win that game, we're talking about the meat he left on the bone because he missed like five wide open deep balls in this game. But we're not going to talk about it because they scored 30 points and they have Christian McCaffrey and they have Debo Samuel.

So he just has to hand off the ball to them and they scored, they'll score 25 points. I haven't seen anything that makes me really change my opinion on him yet. Once I see him like do it in a way that I haven't seen yet, I will give him the credit for it. I will do that.

I've done it with Tua. There's a charisma to him that I think, I think helps. It seems like he's doing better than he is, but he could say last night. I mean, last night was up there with the worst quarterbacking. We had these two games going simultaneously and every quarterback was in his own head.

Just everywhere you looked, you didn't know what was going to happen. It seemed just as likely there was going to be an interception in the other team. And then, you know, like the Watson piece of it, I know there's been a lot of attempts to psychoanalyze what's going on with that dude. And, you know, it's pretty easy to figure out all the off-field stuff has affected him in some way.

But what is different about him than four years ago, just from a playing standpoint? I think it's decision making. It seems like he's trying to make up those two years he missed in one throw every time he's out there. Physically, he looks the same.

Maybe his arm is a little weaker, but it's all in the head. I don't know if there's an easy fix. I don't think it's a situation where one week he's going to be old Deshaun Watson again. These are mistakes he never used to make, but they're showing up repeatedly. Two face masks in the same game?

I've never seen that before. That's wild. I don't know what they do because the Chubb injury was just such a bummer on so many levels. Everybody loves Nick Chubb. I had three years in a row where my number one goal was just to get him on fantasy because he was just so much fun to have. Seems like a great guy by all accounts. Was the key to anything they want to

do this year was him in the defense, and Watson was a bonus. There was some stuff on Twitter last night about, well, they'll have to trade for a running back. Maybe they get Jonathan Taylor or somebody else. They're kind of all in, pot committed to what they built this season. I don't know if I agree.

I don't know where you're going with Watson with what he looks like these days. To me, I would look at this more like, what do we have with Stefanski and Watson? Stefanski will go first. Stefanski, once again, did five things in that game yesterday where you're just like,

you're just not a good head coach. But I would not put more capital into saving this season if I were them. No. I think you go the opposite way of what you were doing because I really don't think Watson is a good fit for that style of offense. I remember when he was on the Texans, I kind of used to make the argument that what he was doing statistically was more impressive because he wasn't doing play action,

wasn't doing screens, he wasn't doing the easy offense stuff. But I just don't think he's good at it. And now he's in one of those offenses and he's struggling. So I think you just go the other way and just do the Houston offense where you put everything on his plate

and see what happens. I mean, you're paying him that much money. You might as well. The one thing he does have is physically, he's still pretty dominant sometimes. He'll get out of sacks or he'll stiff arm somebody away or somebody will bounce on him and they'll think they had the sack and they just kind of bounce off him and he keeps going. So it's different than Russell Wilson, who just seems shot.

The Russell Wilson, and you can bend the stats, but you kind of had to watch that game. He's just shot. I don't see how many more weeks he can play as a starter. Sal and I talked on Sunday about what the deadline is, and it seems like after they get through, they get killed this week, it would be the perfect time to just kind of move on.

Russ is like old Elvis performing in Vegas, I feel like. He's still trying to play the hits, but it doesn't work as well. Deshaun is trying to be someone else entirely. It's not working. I think that's the difference. It's really deceiving because we had this with Bledsoe before Brady got the job.

But Bledsoe got this new contract. But in my circles, there was about a year and a half with all the past fans. We were like, is this guy good? Like, why? He can't move. He makes weird decisions. In our head, he was this awesome guy, but the evidence was telling us he actually wasn't as good as maybe we thought. And then Brady came in and the team flipped. And then everyone in New England argued about it for three months. What happens when Bledsoe's healthy? Should he get his job back? And it was like, Brady camp, Bledsoe camp. And I was in the Brady camp, but it was more because I just felt like whatever we think Bledsoe is, I'm not

sure he's that guy anymore. And that seems like the biggest mistake you can make with QB evaluations, especially with Russ. Russ is not the guy anymore. He has no speed anymore. I feel like there's a lag effect with that, with fans especially. Ben Roethlisberger was a perfect example two years ago. You could tell he was cooked in 2020, and Steelers fans were like, oh, it's the OC. Oh, it's the offensive personnel. No, he's throwing checkdowns in one second, and he can't move. It's him. You can't run an offense like that. I think that's what we're seeing with Russ. You can't put together an offense with this. This isn't run an offense like that. And I think that's what we're seeing with Russ is like, you can't put together an offense with this. Like this isn't a real offense with like go balls and scrambling around.

So who's the perfect QB argument right now? Who's the one that has on both sides, it's just perfectly distributed for these people are passionate this way and these people are passionate this way? Because I have an answer, but I'll be interested to see if you feel the same. You mean like polarizing? I mean, perfectly polarizing.

So it's like just these two sides and it seems like it's about 50-50 because I do think there's an answer to this. Want me to just give you the answer or my answer? I mean, Kirk Cousins is the obvious answer, but who are you thinking? But I feel like we've dragged over

the Kirk Cousins argument. And now it's... I think it's Jared Goff. To me, it's Jared Goff. Oh, Goff's a good one. I was thinking Dak. See, I like Dak more than you, though. Yeah, but I could argue

in that Jets game, there was 15 minutes there where it looked like Dak was dying to turn into a pumpkin. And then the Jets were just like, no, no, don't worry. We're going to make this easy for you. I still don't trust him. And it's funny because on any list, he has to be, he can't be lower. Like on my list, I have him 10th.

Right? So he's a top 10 quarterback that's fine what are we arguing about I just can't get there with him and I just wonder you know

if we're really going to have to count on that dude for four straight playoff games or three straight playoff games I don't know if I see it

what do you want to see that's my question what do you want to see I think he's from what I watch it always seems like What do you want to see? That's my question. What do you want to see? I think he's, from what I watch, it always seems like it's a little lucky on his side. This is, see, people are going to get mad at this, but it'll be like, oh, the time when he throws the pick,

Sauce Gardner drops it. And it's a pick six, right? And Sauce Gardner is the best cornerback in the league. And it's right there. And he's going down the sidelines. Now, all of a sudden, the Jets are winning, but he dropped it. And it's been a lot of those moments. The flip side would be, well, Dak broke his leg. That wasn't lucky at all. But sometimes there's some playing golf with dad luck with him. Like when you're playing golf with your dad and he hits one in the trees and it just bounces out right to the fairway. I do feel that way. And

I can't quantify it. I can't quantify it. I can't prove it. I'm just telling you how I feel watching football every week. No, I get that. I think quarterback evaluation has a lot to do with that. I think it influences how I rank quarterbacks. But here's my argument. Here's how I would push back against that.

If you clone Patrick Mahomes 32 times and you gave each NFL team Patrick Mahomes, one Patrick Mahomes team would probably go like 14-2, but one would go 2-14, and we'd be having this conversation about the 2-14 Patrick Mahomes, about how he's not a leader, about how he doesn't win football games, even though they're the same guy.

Like, only one person can win a Super Bowl every year. I think once we realize that, it makes the QB wins argument like something that's easier to overlook. What does Dak look like in a bad situation though? I guess would be my question. Because we've always seen him with an expensive and good offensive line

for the most part. We've always seen him with at least one or two pretty elite playmakers. This year he has Pollard and CeeDee Lamb who are both legitimately good guys. What does he look like if he's just Carolina's quarterback right now? Which maybe

speaks to your point. I think what you're saying is, or what you would be saying right now is, Carolina's supporting cast is way better than I thought, because I think quarterbacks like Dak Prescott make their supporting cast look better. Nobody realizes how bad the Chargers' offensive line is for the past three years because Justin Herbert never takes a sack.

No one realizes how bad Trevor Lawrence's line is because he never takes a sack. I think Dak Prescott makes that Cowboys offensive line look better than it is. He calls protection before the snap. He moves around the pocket well. He throws with anticipation. Like, it's good because of Dak. It hasn't been an elite offensive line since his rookie year. And I feel like we still kind of criticize him in the same ways.

Him versus Cousins, I think it's a wash. But that's my take. We'll see if I'm wrong as the year goes along. I'm more open to that argument now because I do think Kirk has kind of evolved. It's just at this point, who cares? He's like a 24-year-old who's doing well in high school right now. Like, yeah, your time was a decade ago. Come on. All right, we're wrapping up. So the QB rankings go up on TheRinger.com and you can hear Stephen Rees with Nora on The Ringer NFL show as well. Good to see

you. Don't read the replies. Just put the piece up, tweet the link, and just move on with your day. Good to see you. Thanks for having me. Whether in the game or in life, the right coverage can make all the difference. Securian Canada gives you that coverage. For more than 65 years, Securian Canada has been helping Canadians build secure tomorrows. Their insurance solutions are designed to help protect you and your loved ones financially, giving you the peace of mind to focus on what truly matters.

Find their products through banks, credit unions, and associations. Or visit SecurianCanada.ca. Securian Canada. Insurance designed for life. As the world's population grows, so does the need for resources like Potash to support sustainable food production. for life. committed to Canada. The future is clear. It's happening now at BHP, a future resources company. To discover how, visit bhp.com slash better future. Okay, Chris Ryan is here.

You've heard him with me on the rewatchables many times. You hear him on the watch with Andy Greenwald where they broke down the demise of Winning Time, a two-season show on HBO, a sports show,

so naturally we were rooting for it. I like season one more than season two. I thought the wheels kind of came off in a lot of ways. And it was interesting to see the reaction this week. People mad that it didn't get renewed. Most people didn't really care because there wasn't a huge audience for the show. But at the same time, you could feel it in the potty day with Andy, like a little bit of sadness

because this is a big swing and it just didn't work. So what does that mean, big picture? Well, I think that it means that this is a show that should have had a huge audience that could never quite find it. And you have to unpack why that is. Andy and I got to some kind of central argument

that it just never settled on who the protagonist was, like who the show was about. You don't have to unpack why that is. Andy and I got to some kind of central argument that it just never settled on who the protagonist was, like who the show is about. You don't have to. You can have your ensemble, you know, but you eventually have to settle on like a Jack. You have to settle on a Walter White. You have to settle on a, on, you know, the person who the story is being told through.

And I just don't know if Winning Time ever made that decision between Jerry Buss, Pat Riley, and Magic Johnson. It just seemed like it was spread too thin in that way. So one thing that I liked about the show, which was also why I couldn't continue, was it was so incredibly lavish and expensive, a little like the morning show, right? But if you're going to spend the amount of money

that it would take to do the recreation, you're basically recreating the 1984 finals game by game, which was insane. We'll talk about that in a second. What do you think cost more, the 84 finals or sending Reese Witherspoon to space? I don't know. It's probably a dead heat. But you have, not only do you have the John C. Reilly, Adrian Brody, Jason Segel, all of these actors, but even you have people like Jillian Jacobs in a barely anything role as Pat Reilly's wife. And the way the show looked was so decadent. And that was, I think, one of the coolest things about it, show got canceled, nobody seemed to mention that this was, I don't know the exact number, but probably like a really high level expensive show. And that was one of the reasons we liked it.

But it was also one of the reasons it couldn't go on for six seasons if it never built an audience. Yeah. I mean, what was this show supposed to be about? Right. Because like the same way that you have to figure out like who the show is about, like wise it's like is this a front office show is it an ownership show is it a strictly basketball show the basketball won't always be the hardest one to tell not only do i imagine it's probably pretty expensive to stage those scenes where you're like recreating the garden and stuff like that but also like certain kinds of actors you have to use all these different

techniques to show like what showtime basketball felt. So I almost wonder whether or not there was a solve here where it could have been about Jerry West, Pat Riley, Jerry Buss, and the making of the team. And it would have been more like Moneyball and exist on phones and in bars rather than on the floor. But I really admire the hell out of the fact that they were just like, we're just doing the 84 finals. It just never quite clicked for me once they did that stuff. I thought they leaned into the basketball way too much second season.

The show that was really interesting to me was the show that I wasn't even 100% sure I liked. But in the first season, they're leaning into just what the NBA was in 1979 and 1980 before anything, right? And I thought the premise was in 1979 and 1980 before anything. Right. And I thought the premise was going to be, here's this guy, Jerry Buss, who's unlike

any owner you've had. And here's Bird and Magic, these two stars that fall from the sky. And here's this league that is a complete mess that's being criticized in actual pieces about how it's too black. It can't sell to Madison Avenue. They're tape delaying games. It's just going this direction, whereas somebody that was a kid,

and I wrote about this when I did my book, like I really loved the league and I was like worried about it. And over the course of five years to the 84 finals, all of these things shift and some of it's luck and some of it's timing. But Stern was such a big piece of this.

And he's in the show a little bit in season one. A little bit, yeah. And then he's out. And to me, how the NBA perceived these two guys, how they were being pitted against each other as the white guy and the black guy. And then where I thought it really tailed off in the second season for me

was Magic gets the coach fired. And this was this seminal moment in his career where he's the villain. A lot like when LeBron became the villain when he went to the Heat that first year, where it's just this beloved guy all of a sudden has taken just a shitload of shit. And I remember when we saw, and I wrote about this for Grantland, but when we saw Bill Russell, when we spent the day with him and he told us this story about Magic Johnson, when he saw Magic right after that happened and Magic seemed so lost and beaten down that he actually called him over and told him, hey man, hang in there.

And then I went back and I was doing interview with Magic and I told Magic that story. And as I started to tell it to him, he's like, yeah, he called me over. And I was like, where was that? The show seemed way more preoccupied with, was he going to get back with Cookie or not? And I could just tell you, neither of us cared. I know he gets back with Cookie, which is something you and Andy talked about a lot. How do you build drama when I already know the results of the drama? Yeah. I mean, I think that the Cookie phone calls, we laughed a bunch about them, but I think that they were almost like this storytelling. You're my girl, Cook. It was just a hundred times. You're my girl. Come back. I know she's coming back. Are we doing Wayne Jenkins on

the phone with Cookie? Is that what we're doing? Goddamn, Cook. You're my girl. You're really steadfast. No, I mean, I think it was a storytelling device to kind of let magic say what was going on in his mind so he makes these repetitive kind of phone calls to Cookie but yeah I mean you think about what you're saying with Stern

that first season really worked for me as well I loved the Wood Harris Spencer Haywood plotline I thought that was really cool to show the sort of dark side

of the part partying and to some extent part of the issue that I had with the second season was that I felt like it started to pull its punches a little bit.

No, a lot a bit. It wasn't a little bit. It was a lot a bit. It felt like a different show. They were way more scared. And you wonder whether or not just after everybody got a chance to see it

and obviously it dealt with the backlash of like Jerry West and the depiction of Jerry West and be like, that's not him. He like that or what you know maybe even the bus family i have no idea being like well we would love jared dr bus to be depicted maybe not as a guy who loves an orgy here and there you know and it's like yeah okay so then you get to the you start to get a kinder gentler version of all these characters and it it probably is... Is it an easier show to make?

I don't know. But it's like a less compelling show to watch. Yeah, like even in the first season, the ones that made me the maddest were Jerry West, Larry Bird, who's in there for a split second and it looks like he's about to head to the Capitol

on January 6th. And I was like, really? Like, the guy's like the shyest guy ever. Some of the Riley stuff, I just don't think Riley was... So you're saying definitively Larry Bird was not at the Capitol on January 6th? I don't think he was.

I think he was probably in Indiana. Okay. The way Riley was depicted, I just don't feel like somebody who played professional basketball for seven, eight years and was this handsome and tall and had all shit together like he did

would just be this like complete down on his luck loser. There had to be some sort of charisma even back then. My favorite part of the show was Brody as Pat Riley. Because it actually had an arc to this is where this guy starts

to get to the iconic version of himself. Which was the best episode of the second season. Yeah. I think we all agree when he the switch goes off and he starts yelling at those guys. So let me ask you this. Is there a prestige TV drama that can be made

about the NBA that would satisfy you? Like, are we maybe the wrong people to be having this conversation? Because we're just like, you obviously know more about basketball than most people who have walked the earth. Is there an NBA show? Yeah.

You know, I like to, I know where my bread is buttered, but I would, I just wonder whether or not like we're, we're like, we can be satisfied when we're watching a show like this. It's not going to tell you anything.

The question of the audience is, so if, if we're not a hundred percent satisfied, but then they're not getting my wife either, who doesn't really know any of this stuff. And that, that little Venn diagram starts closing. But I still feel like there were moves that could have been made, especially in the second season. Like the part when Magic, when he impregnates some girl that wasn't even really his girlfriend.

And they're deciding during the course of that season how to handle it. And the way his dad talked to him about how he should handle it, I thought that was really good. I thought even the stuff about the seagull losing control of the steering wheel with the team, I thought some of that worked good. But I think my biggest issue of the show was, other than just like the Jerry West thing was just so over the top. I just don't understand how you could do that.

And then you say, no, no, it's fiction. It's fiction. Well, if somebody made a TV show about the Adam McKay-Will Ferrell relationship falling apart and they just made Adam McKay- Just to choose something at random. Well, just like, let's say that happened and they made Adam McKay just seem like a lunatic.

Like, would he think that was cool? I don't, I'd probably not. But I just felt like they would focus on certain things and it would just be like the beats and the minutia. And then they, they just skipped over the entire 1982, 83 season, or they skipped over the fact that once Riley actually took over the biggest thing that they did that year from a basketball standpoint was they brought McAdoo off the bench, which they barely mentioned, but then they would just went way more athletic. And they did, they had like a press. They were this crazy team that had Kareem running the floor. And for like about three months,

they were this unstoppable athletic machine and none of the playoff series they were in were even interesting because they beat the shit out of everybody. And that's like, they mentioned that for what, two seconds. So that might be the reason why like, it's not going to work for you is because like, obviously your interest in this is so granular that you're talking about McAdoo coming off the bench as like a plot line. I'm not saying it's great. I'm saying when you're, when you're into the minutiae, the way this show was, but you're also picking and choosing what the minutiae is. That's where I get confused where it's like, we're just diving into Westhead and this new offense he's installing and training camp and the nitty gritty of that.

And then we just skip over the last three months of the season. We skip over like Moses going to Philly and how important that was and how Kareem seems old for the first time that Kareem's in trade rumors. Where are these broken leg? Like these, if you're telling the story of the Lakers and you're doing the beat by beat basketball stuff, these are seminal basketball moments. They were certainly a big part of Perlman's book. Sure. I mean,

yeah. And I think that to your Jerry West point, I think that like the pilot of the, the C the series, like the first episode of the series that McKay directed, it was basically closer to natural born killers than it is a prestige TV show. Like it was direct to camera address. killers than it is a prestige tv show like it was direct to camera address there was all these different film stocks there was all this like sort of knowing

2022 commentary or 2023 commentary on the 1980s or late 70s and early 80s basketball and it was actually like i think it would have been very hard to sustain that like it would have been hard to ask me to watch every week like oh my, there's so much going on visually here that I can't zero in on a character. So then they turn it into something that's a little bit more of a sustainable model of storytelling. To your point, it's like, maybe they just should have told the very, very, very granular,

detailed basketball story of how this... I don't think they should have. My problem is sometimes they would and sometimes they wouldn't. But go backwards. Who were the most compelling characters on the show? Jerry Buss, Pat Riley,

I think Kareem, who was almost underutilized, but I was so fascinated by him because that was this guy who legendarily Jim Murray interviewed his back and just he hated the press, but maybe he was right about a lot of things he hated the press for.

He was considered a villain in the league. And Solomon Hughes like had like a certain like, he had a lot. Yeah. Right. Right. But then when you have his place burns down, which was this incredibly traumatic event for Kareem,

right? He loses, he's this amazing collector of all these different things and everything burns down. And they had the payoff, which Greenwald was making fun of with the eight year old boys. Like here's my Herbie Hancock album. And then Kareem's like, we got to play with pride. I don't know. It just didn't work for me. But when we get to the point where we're just recreating the 84 finals, I don't think that's what the show was. And I don't think that's what the show was and i don't think that the first season did not lay that out at all so my big wish for this show this is unfair because you know you can't just say like but this show should have just been this like there's obviously a ton of decisions

that go into it but i yeah it would have been cool to see it be basically the crown so what the crown does is it doesn't do day by day. It picks these random, not random, but these significant points in Queen Elizabeth's life and does episodes that kind of jump around, but ultimately illustrate something. So I think it would have been fine if they wanted to do

the history of the Showtime Lakers, but to try and make it like, well, we're going to go to training camp and then it's the first week of the season and then it's the second week of the season. And then it's the second week of the season. You can't then jump ahead a year. And that's Sixers. No!

It's Sixers erasure, and I won't stand for it. You know what I mean? Also, Jamal Wilkes and James Worthy are barely in the show. But here's the other thing, where they're being really hard on certain characters and really authentic to what happened with them. But then Norm Nixon, who's... I thought his son did a good job playing Norm Nixon.

Yeah, Devon Nixon was good. But there were a lot of drug rumors with him that led to one of the reasons they made the trade. And all the books about these teams really go into that and about how he was being followed by the FBI. And it's like, all right, so we're doing Spencer Haywood.

We're doing Magic versus Westhead. We're doing Magic having a child out of wedlock, all this stuff. We're just going to ignore that part. And we're going to ignore the role of cocaine in general, not just with the Lakers, but in the eighties and the NBA. And the Kareem magic stuff, I thought they hit pretty okay, but there was this point where it had become magic's team and Kareem, he's in trade rumors. He almost got traded to the Knicks at one point and there was always Clippers buzz with him

and I just thought Kareem was more interesting. But I think fundamentally you hit it on the head at the beginning. Who is the show about? Who are the protagonists and what are you trying to do? Where we ended up with Jerry Buss was basically, so I'm supposed to feel bad that he's married to two people? I think it's supposed to be.

He's a victim? Like his life's falling apart, but I know his life didn't fall apart because we know what happened. I wonder whether or not, you know, so the story that came out after the season aired and then there was an interview in Vulture with the producer and he's like, so we had the opportunity to add this last scene

on with Jerry and Jeannie to kind of be a little bit of a coda. It's a big mistake. Right? I do wonder whether or not some of the season was edited knowing it was going to be over. You know, like because of the time jump, because of the time jump, because of the way that Ari Grainer is introduced as Honey,

this kind of composite Jerry Buss paramour, she's in one or two episodes, and then all of a sudden they're breaking up, and it seems like she's mad that he just spends too much time on basketball. But it turns out he's got a wife, like, a legal relationship still with his wife. And she's furious about it. And she brings in Marvin Mitchelson to sue him. And there was a lawsuit against him about stuff. But it just started to get really confusing about how much time had passed, what relationships were... And when that kind of stuff starts

happening on TV shows, you feel like, oh, okay, the die is cast. I think the biggest mistake they made was after season one, assuming that this was going to be like a five or six season show. I think because the show definitely didn't hit. I don't think it had like a big audience, but I do think people liked it. And I think if they had made the decision from basically after season one, hey, let's go for three seasons total here and let's try to do everything we want to do

in the second and third season because in the pilot, we have the promise, not a fun promise, but it starts with Magic finding out that he has HIV. We kind of have to get to that moment. So how do we get to that moment

over the next 20 episodes? And you're not going to do it the way they did it where the series ends in 1984 and then I just don't think they would have been going to do it the way they did it, where the series ends in 1984. And then I just don't think they would have been able to pull it off. So I think, I bet if they had to do it differently from the moment that first season ends,

like let's sketch out 20 episodes. What are the 20 most important things that happened to this team over the course of five years or whatever? So does HBO pick this up if they know, hey, season three is it. We have it sketched out. It's eight episodes, whatever it is, and it's going to take us to 1991. No. I mean, the way it ended, I almost would have rather not had a serious finale. I would have just rather have it ended with the magic in the locker room and we just never know what happens. There's been other shows that have ended like that. You didn't want to see Boston win the title again? No, I like that part. That was an unexpected thing. But just like,

Jerry Buss went on to own the Lakers for a long time and whatever. Magic won three titles and then got HIV. It's like, this is not how we can end a series. Yeah, I mean, the other thing that they could have borrowed from the crown that I mentioned on the watch is just like they could have time jumped

and they could have been like, next season is Kobe and Shaq. Right. You know, and they could have just been like this series can cover 30, 40 years of Lakers history, but we could do two seasons on magic. We can do two seasons on Kobe and Shaq.

We can do LeBron coming to the team and the bubble. I don't know. I mean, that's not as compelling maybe as the other was seasons. The problem is that the Kobe and Shaq stuff would have had the same issues that the 80s stuff had, which is how dark do you want to get? How deep do you want to go?

And how provocative do you want to be? When Jeannie Buss started saying how she liked the show and then her husband was cast as one of the agents in the last episode, it was like, well, it's clear some of this stuff that happened. I thought you and Andy made a key point that this is a show in LA that was pretty polarizing about how they were treating some of the characters and some of the buzz that it was getting. And it just seemed like a softer show in season two. Regardless, I just don't understand the concept of

your season finale. They thought it was season finale, but just recreating the 1984 finals is such a weird choice to me. And to not have Stern there, you already laid the groundwork with Stern. And to not really lay out what was really happening with the league that year. They mentioned it a couple of times, but to me, I thought season one was a story

about how do owners become mega owners? How do stars become mega stars? How does a league that starts like basically scraping along become the league it became? And I care way more about that than is magic going to end up with cookie or not. Right. Is Pat, how does Pat Riley become the coach? Really interesting, but I'm not sure we needed two seasons to trace the arc, you know, I know he became the coach. And this is kind of speaks to where we are with TV a little bit in a grander way. I mean, Andy and I were talking about whether or not this show

actually would have made sense to have a longer form treatment of like 15, 20 episodes the way you would see on network television or maybe this kind of thing where it's like, then you can kind of just get lost in it every week and have it be, oh, this week it's going to be about this be oh this week it's going to be about this or this week it's going to be about that you could do that with Lost you could just be like oh it's a Jack

flashback episode this week cool like you didn't mind the long stretch out of that storytelling with this it felt way too compressed and then at times way too slow the amount of time we spent on Westhead and the system and McKinney and all this stuff and building it up,

you're like, wow, this is really interesting. They seem really interested in this, but they can't even, they have to keep cutting away from it to do all this other stuff. You mentioned the Stern stuff. When Gabby Hoffman comes up to Jerry Bussin and is like, we've made this TV deal

and it's going to be huge. I'm like, this is pretty much like one of the most significant things that ever happened to the league. I mean, this is pretty much like one of the most significant things that ever happened to the league. I would have loved to have seen how that happened or what Buss' role was in it. Right.

Well, and then Donald Sterling gets brought in for a split second where he's like, my friend, that was another one. Like little stuff where they said, I'm able to get Swinnator.

And also there's this guy I've been scouting, Byron Scott. Byron Scott, yeah. This guard. It's like, oh, you mean the best guard in the draft who's a top five pick? You've been scouting Byron Scott yeah this guard it's like oh you mean the best guard in the draft who's a top five pick

you've been Jerry that's your pet guy that you've been had in your hip pocket um there look I we're doing a lot of complaining

I really appreciated how ambitious this show was and I I I'm like pro I'm glad this show happened yeah

I feel like they could have gotten to a third season had they structured everything from the end of the first season on a little differently. And I just was like the Jeannie Buss character, I think was my favorite character. I was really into, all right, how does this person kind of blossom into this other person

that we know now from being like this lowly, you know, she's basically working for the team because her dad's a rich guy and she knows her dad's, you know, not just a playboy, but he's even worse. He's got this album with all his photos. And how does she kind of gather all this information, take all the hits and then try to figure out how to become a savvy businesswoman and the Gabby Hoffman character, the way they put off with each other, I thought that was some of the best stuff on the show.

So I think your Moneyball point is a good one. The reason we love Moneyball is they weren't recreating the 20-game winning streak or whatever. They just showed the last game. Moneyball is kind of bullshit. Oh yeah, they made up a whole bunch of shit. The pitching staff, they never mentioned Terrence Long and Jermaine Dye and Johnny Damon. It's like you would just think Scott Hatterberg walked his way to this incredible streak, but I don't care because it's really good because what Moneyball is about is these two guys in an office

putting Dave Dombrowski on hold to call Brian Sabian. You know what I mean? Yeah. That's the juice there. You have to pick out what the thing is that you're trying to do with your... Now, it's easier in movies because you're just like, okay, we have two hours. What is the story we want to tell? In a TV show, you can operate under the illusion

that you can do it all. But yeah, I do feel bad because this is a show that is literally made in a lab for me and it just didn't quite work. Moneyball created the Jonah Hill character. It wasn't even a real person. It's supposed to be.

Yeah. Yeah. We kind of need somebody like this. So they create that one. Yeah. It didn't work. And I do think. I wanted to ask you because me and Andy were talking about this a little bit about whether

or not sports stories or sports movies or whatever you want to say work better when they're about like the story you don't know. So either it's a behind-the-scenes tale about Lake Placid that you didn't really know how it all came together and you get to see Kurt Russell do it, or it's something like Rudy or Hoosiers or whatever where it feels very much like you're the first people to... Or remember the Titans.

Yeah. Versus doing something where it's like everybody has a kind of sense of personal equity with it because there's so many Lakers fans. They have their feelings about Magic. They have their feelings about Pat Riley. And they don't want that

challenge necessarily. Or if it is challenged, it's really easy to lose them as is the case with Jerry West. I have trouble when it's like, it's really easy to lose them as, as is the case with Jerry West. I have trouble when it's like, we're going to be really realistic and authentic to the story here, but then we're also going to take crazy liberties. Like even the people attacking the Laker bus after the first game, like stop, that just didn't happen. There is no way you would have assembled that many people outside the bus, just the way the whole street was,

you know, operating at the time. But, um, yeah, I don't, I don't know the answer, but it almost seems like I personally would rather watch like,

you know how they have those lifetime shows where it's like the real life story of the teacher who had an affair with their student and then he killed her. And it's like, Oh, it's like, Oh, this really happen? I don't know what happened and what didn't, but it's whatever, two hours. But for these sports stories, maybe the Kobe Shaq lifetime version of just their relationship would be more interesting than somebody painstakingly

trying to get every piece right and getting the Phil Jackson and, oh, we got now Ron Artest has to come in. We got to get him. It just seems impossible. It's an impossible task as we found out with this show. All right, CR. I'll see you. Big rewatchables.

We have my annual birthday rewatchables that we always do a big movie. So there's one that we're very excited about that we're doing together on Monday night with Fantasy. I will see you then. Take care, Bill. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Austin Rivers and Chris Ryan and Stephen Ruiz. Thanks to Kyle Creighton and Steve Cerruti for producing. Remember, you can get tickets to see them in Oxford, Mississippi with Rosillo and Van Lathan September 29th get your tickets at the lyric Oxford

dot-com show starts at 2 local time new rewatchables up if you want to just keep listening to me a Bronx tale it's up right now another

good one coming next week and we're gonna be back on Thursday doing million-dollar picks and all kinds of stuff it just feels like a lot's

happening right now can't wait thought about going every day for a podcast but you know what if it ain't broke don't million dollar picks and all kinds of stuff. It just feels like a lot's happening right now. Can't wait. Thought about going every day for a podcast, but you know what? If it ain't broke, don't fix it. I will see you on Thursday. I don't have a few years with him.

On the wayside, I'm a bruised-out liberal. I don't have a few years with him. Must be 21-plus in president-select states. FanDuel is offering online sports wagering in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino, LLC. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit fanduel.com slash RG. In Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, and Virginia. You can call 1-800-NEXTSTEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 in Arizona. Call 1-888-789-777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. 1-800-9-WITH-IT in Indiana.

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