The Bill Simmons Podcast - Bad Boy Pistons, NFL Draft Lessons, NBA Summer News, and Suns-Bulls 1993 With Ryen Russillo | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Episode Date: April 27, 2020

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss Episodes 3 and 4 of ESPN’s documentary series ‘The Last Dance’ (2:53) before talking about the NFL draft (32:00), the logistics behind bringing back the NBA (1:03:25), and Game 4 of the 1993 NBA Finals between the Chicago Bulls and the Phoenix Suns (1:29:30). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the BS podcast on the ringer podcast network brought to you by state farm, Scotty and Mike, Kobe and Shaq, LeBron and Wade. Just a few NBA duos that are undeniably the real deal. We'll see if KD and Kyrie can get there. They'll be teaming up next year. If we have basketball again, which I hope we do, could they rank among the all-time great partnerships? Well, draft a state farm agent to your team, get help combining the ultimate duo home and auto insurance. When you want the real deal, home and auto insurance when you want the real deal. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Meanwhile, World Central Kitchen is launching initiatives across America to deliver fresh, hot meals to hospitals and clinics fighting on the

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It's up to you. That is our new TV Concierge podcast from The Ringer podcast network available only on Spotify. Coming up, Priscilla and I are going to talk about some momentum building for the NBA coming back. We're going to talk about the MJ doc. We're going to talk about the NFL draft and what a success it was in so many different ways. And we're going to do volume three of MJ's rewatch of Bulls. We'll be doing game four, the 1993 NBA finals, Suns-Bulls. That's all coming up first. Our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, Sunday night, Priscilla and I just watched part three and four of the MJ Doc, The Last Dance.

We have a lot to cover on this podcast. We're going to talk about the NFL draft. We're going to talk about stuff we heard about the nba season coming back we're gonna do volume three of mj's rewatch of bulls rossillo your reaction to the last dance tonight dennis rodman is incredibly boring and most people are not going to agree with me and i understand that and i respect everything he did uh as as a rebounder and a defensive player and how he could adjust to everybody. But everybody does this thing with Rodman where it's like, whoa, Rodman, I can't wait for the Rodman episode. It's the same stuff for decades. And a lot of it,

I think, is a study on us, Bill, and how boring we are, where it's like, this guy dyed his hair and he has tattoos. That's insane. Let's get him on Barbara Walters. And we ask him questions. And Rodman does the same thing every interview. Oh, people don't understand me. Okay, go. People just, you know, they want to talk all this shit about Dennis Rodman. Okay, go.

Like, feel free to explain something. So I thought with this one, we might get more insight on it. That episode, although I love this doc, the Rodman part is consistently he's been like an underwhelming topic for such a long time and i'm sure as people are listening to this you're like no that's crazy but it it is i it there was nothing new about it episode three was my least favorite of uh of the series. But I love the series. I know all the Rodman stuff.

I'm like you. And I don't think there's a lot there. If anything, he talks about, ask my teammates. I'm a great teammate, blah, blah, blah, every teammate. He was a terrible teammate in San Antonio. I thought he really undermined those Robinson teams. And that's why they gave him away. They traded him for Will Purdue.

The only team that would have even traded for him at that point was the Bulls, but he did some damaging shit. He took his shoes off during a playoff game, you know, and right. And Robinson was the opposite of Michael Jordan. He was not the alpha dog. I'm going to, I'm going to bring the best out of you guy. He was just this nice, you know, he was David Robinson. He didn't know how to deal with them.

Nobody on that Spurs team did. I, uh, I'm, I'm bored by the Rodman stuff as well. I felt the same way about the documentary about him. That was the same length as the bad boy Pistons documentary that we made for 30 for 30. It's like really Rodman story is as long as the entire bad boy Pistons arc. And you know what? Like I am sympathetic to Rodman story. It's a tough, tough set of circumstances, the way he grew up with the number of siblings and all that stuff and some of the stuff that he was battling. So I'm not insensitive to all of that, but I just, it was so calculated.

Like, I'm glad at least they had mentioned that with the Madonna thing where Madonna starts hanging out with him and he's like, all right, yeah, I'm going to start doing this. I'm going to be this individual. And he's dyeing his hair and he's piercing him. Like, it's blowing our minds in the 90s but i don't like players that can turn it on and off like rashid wallace when he was with portland he was mad at the end he was pissed off he got a technical like every other game for two years and then he goes

to detroit and guess what and now everybody loves rashid as a teammate but rashid was very quick in being able to just buy in because he's liked the situation better. And when Rodman was in San Antonio, it became a very like a me act where because he won in Chicago. Rodman is remembered in a way that at times is accurate because of how special of a basketball player he was with a really, really intense level of, um, not just rebounding, but like his intensity when he wanted to be intense, it's amazing. But to say, Hey, I'm a great teammate, but I disappeared to Vegas for a couple of days and went on a bender. And then it's like, well, cool. You know, and kamikazes are lame by the way, anyway, but, uh, I, I guess I just, I always feel like I'm in the minority on this one. So I'm surprised

you're even agreeing with me, but it's just, everything is the same. It's always, oh, people always talk. People always say, okay, feel free to tell us something interesting about those times that we don't know other than you really were about yourself and you could control how you were acting all the time. And there's just too many moments where you just decided, all right, I want the attention right now. And I think that's what motivated him more than anything else. Well, and he had this whole carnival aspect to him. Remember he,

him and Carl Malone, they were in the WCW pay-per-view. I don't remember that. Yeah. Oh yeah. It was a thing too. It really was. It was a big moment,

but, uh, look, look, I thought some of that stuff obscured what a unique and awesome basketball player he was. And actually I, the Detroit version of that stuff obscured what a unique and awesome basketball player he was. And actually, the Detroit version of him. It's horrifying.

In my mind. It's so good, man. That version of him, in my mind, is just better than the Bulls version. The Bulls version, by that point, he had really honed down on, I only care about rebounding and playing defense, but I'm always going to pick the rebounding. I'll always jump off my guy, try to grab a rebound over, you know, playing good help defense and somebody else gets the rebound. The Detroit version was completely, completely about, can we win? How do we win? What can I do?

I thought to that point of the NBA before Pippen really blossomed, he was the best defensive player I've ever seen. He was the first guy that actually defended bird bird torched every forward in the eighties. And then Rodman showed up and it was like, what's going on here. This is, he's making it really hard. Even the steel, the famous game where they beat the Pistons. Rodman has him one-on-one on the left side and shuts them down, you know? And, and he was, he would really make bird work for his points. Nobody made bird work for his points at that point. I just thought he was incredible. That whole team takes off the moment they trade Adrian Dantley. Yeah, that was a big, that was the big

Dantley Aguirre thing, which was really interesting because it was like Aguirre was on a team where he put up numbers and then Dantley had put up numbers for years. And you just felt like, you know, that beginning of that Detroit team, even though offensively you didn't feel like the number two guy was, well, that's not fair because Dumars was sick, but when that Pistis team was right, you're like, man, is this team just deep with all these different versions of it,

and that Rodman version was the one who was like, well, wait a minute, I get guys mature, or maybe mature is the wrong word, but people evolve, but it just felt very calculated. I mean, even in the moment when i was 20 years old i was like this all seems like a big big act and i don't know i've never i've never been down with that stuff and when he was with chicago you're right the prior and rebound he's like he'd get offensive rebounds and have a layup at the rim and he would throw it back

out because it was like i'm going to prove how many rebounds i'm going to get because they won because of scotty and michael and look i'm not taking things away from rodman there but he he is remembered as this like surefire hall of famer and all these different things where it's like yeah i don't know like some of the stuff i i just i don't know like it does it is it fun because he won and there's a documentary about it the whole time like how many how many talk show people on a monday if a guy was like yeah i'm gonna go to vegas and like just party like it's a funny chapter in a book after you retire, but in the moment, people would be losing their minds. Who would be on the set? Somebody would zag, but it'd be so forced to go, you know what?

I just think for mental health awareness and just kind of clearing your mind, everybody should just be able to go on vacation in the middle of a pro sports season. It just doesn't, I don't know, man. I mean, I'm not trying to sound like old here, but I, I imagine more people probably think it's cool. And I don't know. Well, he, you know, it's debatable whether he meant more to those three bulls teams than a horse grant meant to the three, the first three bulls titles and Horace. I, I personally don't, I feel like he got glossed over a little in the doc because, you know, maybe his rebounding numbers weren't the same.

I thought he was a consistently more reliable guy than Rodman was. Even if you look at Rodman's playoff numbers, he was awesome in 96. I mean, that whole season, he was incredible in 97. He's he drops down to 28 minutes a game, four points, eight rebounds a game. If you remember, they were, they were, they actually look better with Bison Dele. Yeah, that was a weird Bison Dele thing where he was getting more and more runs.

It was like, are we sure they're not, that's not their best lineup when he's out there and Rodman isn't. And then in the 98 playoffs, he's five a game, 12 rebounds a game, 34 minutes a game. But, you know, he was pretty two-dimensional at that point. He's out of the league a year later. And you know, and you see why, because he's going to Vegas during the season with Carmen Electra. I always thought it was fascinating.

Carmen Electra, by the way, sneaky MVP. She looked amazing. Still looks good. I always thought it was cool how Phil approached the dentist thing. It was kind of like, look, this is the best we're going to be able to do with this three spot. He's a weird dude. He would go into all that native American stuff. This guy's off the reservation. I forget. They don't say it in the doc, but in his book, he talked about, there's a term for the guy

who wanders off the reservation, but you like having them there and he'll come back and that's not the thing that Phil was talking about. Other guy walks backwards. Did he say the name of that thing? I can't remember. There's a term for a guy who walks around backwards. Yeah. Yeah.

So I, the way he thought about Rodman, where he just saw him instinctively as like, oh, he reminds me of the native American, blah, blah, blah. Like, what other coach would even think that way? You know, the other thing they glossed over in the stock. Scotty Brooks? No, the Phil Jackson. Oh, was it a question? No, the Phil Jackson.

The Phil Jackson taking Doug Collins' job. And that was a bigger deal than, you know, he was an assistant. There's always that, you know, it's always weird with NBA coaches where a lot of times you get replaced by the guy who's supposed to be looking out for you. And in that case, Doug basically says it was on my radar halfway through the season that Phil could be the coach. I think it was way weirder behind the scenes. Some of the books even captured a little bit that Doug made. Is there any more that you can share? I mean, I know you're just referencing the book,

but what else do you know? You know, I spent a year with Doug. That's what I was trying to do there. Yeah, I mean, look. Phil sidled up to Tex Winter. They go into that in the doc. Jerry Krause, Tex Winter was his hero It's like, who's your ultimate hero?

If like, Nephew Kyle Sided up, who's your Tex Winter? Do you have one? My Tex Winter? Robin Givens? Alright, so Nephew Kyle Siddles up to Robin Givens And I feel like You're trying to take over the BS podcast.

And then I'm like, what's going on here? I do think, you know, it was a little shady and Phil definitely was a little bit of a mover and shaker with that thing. At the same time, you can't argue with the results and the migraine game, which is definitely the weirdest game of that decade. Totally justifiable. I, You know, people get migraines. It happens. It happened to Kareem a bunch of times. It's happened to various NBA players. The timing of it was brutal.

His dad had just died a couple of days earlier. And, and it's just bad luck. Cause I think they could have beaten the Pistons that year. They, at that point, Jordan had really started to figure out at least like, I'm not afraid of these guys I'm as good as these guys he ended up putting on the extra weight and that pushed her over the top I remember that game because it was always you know I wasn't all the way in on Scotty all those times and I just think it's kind of funny how we've done these rewatchables and we need a big

Pippen game here because so far they've not been early returns for Pippen and you know when you go back to the first couple episodes of the Pippen stuff where I just felt like, wait a minute, why are guys saying he was the second best player in the world? Or why are people saying, like, once MJ left, Pippen was the best player? Because we weren't having any of those conversations in the moment.

Nobody was ever doing that, really. And so I was like, wait a minute, are we doing this thing where I feel like sometimes Pippen's overrated and sometimes I think he's underrated. And so far between our pod, well, your pod, but the ones we're doing here, haven't been good to him. But that game seven was some of the early, like me being impressionable,

evidence at 14 years old going, what's up with this guy? I remember, as you do, watching every one of these single games. It was an upstairs bedroom, and it was a small little 13-inch TV. And I grew up on sports in this room, watching all these things, like whether it be my dad or sometimes I'd sneak away and just watch it on my own. I remember the Elo game and just sitting there jumping around like crazy. And I didn't really even care. It wasn't like I was rooting for Chicago, but that Pippen game, that game seven migraine game. And he's so bad in it. And whatever I read, I read, read but you just it stays locked in your head he was just useless in

it and after watching this doc you go just think like if he had had seven because they probably would have beaten portland yeah he i mean that's that's like i don't like always doing that should bama have more should they have less now they probably have the right amount same thing with brady and the pats should they have more you can argue for you could also argue less they probably have the right amount this is one of the few times I've had that realization. You go, you know, MJ kind of, if Scottie's right, has seven.

It was very possible. The Pistons ended up, they won two titles, and I think that was the right number for them because they absolutely should have won in 88. So it all evened out. They went into the walk-off in 91, which I hated as much as anything that decade when they did that.

It, I hated that team anyway. I mean, that, that was the team that finished off the South. So I thought they were unnecessarily dirty as like a tactic. And they took advantage of some rows. It was a very easy team not to like,

Isaiah did the whole thing with bird after game seven and 87, when he agreed with Rodman and if he was black, he Bird after game seven in 87, when he agreed with Rodman and Bird, if he was black, he'd be just another good player, whatever he said. And he had had some stuff with MJ too. And then, uh, you know, it was, he was an easy guy to root against, but when they did the walk off, he's wrong. Like the reason the 88 Celtics walked off was because that was when fans would still come on the court when their team quenched a series. It was still kind of in that era.

And sometimes the road team would take off with like a minute left because, you know, you never knew it was going to happen. The difference with what they did in 91, uh, the Pistons, they were home. There was no reason for them to leave early other than just to be dicks. But I thought Michael made a good point in a way that was better than the wind. Yeah, I know. They didn't just sweep them. These guys like disgrace themselves, you know, and I'm a big believer of part of being the champ is how you defend it the following year, how hard you fight to keep it. That's why I love the 87 Celtics so much. Um, that, that, that walking off the court and just how Dickie they were about it. It's tough, man. That's why I love the 87 Celtics so much. Um, that, that, that walking off the court

and just how Dickie they were about it. It's tough, man. It's, it was, we covered in the bad boy Pistons doc too. It's tough. Even Isaiah, he's walking by the Pistons bench and he kind of ducks a little bit as he walks by them. And he was such a tough guy like that, that it just was beneath him. I wish he hadn't done done it so i've thought about this a lot i would love in comparison to the 88 celtics series i'd love to see more footage of that because i'd love to know exactly like where's bird going when did he leave and how calculated was it because of it road team and all that kind of stuff like i don't know like i'm not letting bird or those guys off the hook but then mikhail is definitely there like talking up isaiah going like go get him and then

they high five after it so i remember being furious when you did that i was like why the fuck are you high-fiving him right do that but knowing that some other guys left like it's still not as as orchestrated as yours the whole pistons thing and we touched on this before they have this persecution complex that is almost beyond any other team of our era and how they feel like they're wrong and yeah Jordan was better for the brand um but it it doesn't mean like I even kind of like some of the bad boys stuff like as a kid it was like wrestling yeah you know it was it was oh my god these guys are amazing like i loved rick mahorn for some reason i just did and that was a really impressive team because it touched on it before like the adaptability they had with different ways they could go big or they go the three guards and then all the stuff that rodman was doing and sally was like a really good player

and even james edwards was um you know still an operational center at that point and then you're right aguirre comes in, who's like a tougher version of this other scorer that they have because Dantley wasn't necessarily that guy. They couldn't get rid of the hump with him. So I respected the hell out of those teams. But every time those guys do interviews,

and yeah, maybe it's off the 30 for 30 that you guys did in watching that one, where they seem to think that their place in history is inaccurate. And it's like, no, you weren't the Lakers, you weren't the Celtics, and you weren't the 90s Bulls, and you're're in fourth and that's right where you belong and there's no there's no mass conspiracy against you it's just that fans of those other teams when you used to

punch the players in the fucking head they don't like you and it's very normal that's very normal like fans of other cities don't like you guys because of the way you played but i think everybody respects it nobody wanted to play those guys. But they have this heightened level of, like, we were so disrespected. I remember Isaiah one time talking about, like, oh, well, we're the guys that knocked off birds. They're mad because of that. We knocked off magic.

Well, look, you got the Celtics after a seven- or eight-year run. You got magic after a 10-year run. And you got Jordan in year, like, five and six, and then not in seven, like all of this stuff is related to all the timeline of everybody else. So it wasn't like you necessarily ended runs. Like it was now your time. And Isaiah was like,

you know, I get criticized as the next GM because of what I did to Jordan. All these people are like, dude, you get criticized because you're the, you're bad GM. Well, it has nothing to do with the nineties,

man. And I think when he got left off the dream team, that was the cherry on the sundae of that persecution complex. It reminded me... I must have written this at some point because I feel like I made this analogy.

They reminded me a lot of Larry Holmes. Larry Holmes followed Ali and just won for seven straight years, six straight years. I forget how many. And people just didn't care. They just didn't like him that much. And it really bothered him that people didn't love him like they loved Ali. It's like, look, you're not Ali. Sorry. And the Pistons thing was the same way. They followed Bird and Magic, who were the two guys that saved the league. And they were the guys right before Michael Jordan, the greatest basketball player of all

time. It's just like, that's your lot in life. I'm sorry. I had them in my basketball book. I thought the 89 Pistons, I had them as the fourth best team of all time. The stats are incredible for them. I think they were like 63 and 19. The Bulls were the only team they lost to in the playoffs they beat them in six they they beat the hell out everybody else and uh they were just they were just great they could do anything they could go big they go small they play fast they play small they can do three guard the guard stuff like to have dumars who's like steady defensively and then he could have a zero because Vinnie Johnson comes in microwave

style. And then a choir can get you buckets. At times when I'll look at that Pistons group, I go, you know, Isaiah really carried him. And Isaiah is, if we really want to do the,

who's the most underrated of this 30 years of us paying attention to this stuff. Yeah. Isaiah's in that first group, like Isaiah, because it ended quickly because of the injury, but the stuff he did as a as a guard in a huge league back then um he's he's unfortunately historically underrated but

they do have this added layer of i don't know if it's you know sometimes you can be the worst source of your own story i always have believed that like oh let's go to the source well the source may actually be the worst source and I think there's some very sensible easy conclusions about the way we look at Detroit and what they mean during that era and I don't think anybody is like not giving him credit it's just you came along as you, the Larry Holmes analogy. Well, the only thing that sucks for Isaiah is he really did sacrifice probably four to five to six points a game in his prime. Like he's a guy that I think could have scored 27, 28 a year for 10, 11 years easily. And he left it on the table. And I wrote a lot about it in the secret chapter that I did for, for my book. And then for the book of basketball podcasts as well, which, which I read the chapter,

he was cool with it. He knew what it was going to mean for him. Historically, it was the best way for that team to win for him to, to basically give up a little bit of his stuff, give it to everybody else, sprinkle it around. That's how he knew they were going to win titles. And unfortunately now we're in an era where, especially we're seeing it with this MJ doc is a lot of people are surprised by, Oh, I didn't know this. I didn't know that. And they'll just look at the stats. I'll be like, Oh, Isaiah versus Chris Paul. Chris Paul statistically so much better. It's like, dude, I was there.

Isaiah was better than Chris Paul. Like he just was, he, he is to me, like the all time ultimate traditional point guard. I still, first team, first team, all NBA underrated. I mean, seriously,

if you were going to do this. Oh yeah. I had him in my book. I had him like 20, 21 or 22. I had him probably 10 spots higher than people would have thought. He was the best player on a back-to-back title team when nobody had gone back-to-back since Russell Celtics. Right. It could have been three. And Magic's Lakers. Yeah. Yeah. I love Jordan though. When

he saw the video, it was like, here's what Isaiah's explanation was of them walking off. And they were like, look, you know, Isaiah did make a good point. He's like, shit, if I had known we're going to spend 30 years on this crap like we would have just shook hands and said here you go and I could even see in the moment with Lambert and those guys being like hey let's just fuck with them and let's just run off the court a little bit not thinking it's going to be something talked

about still 30 years later but I could also see why MJ's like nah what after the fact you tell us it wasn't what you meant to do like you know both sides I kind of got their point. And I absolutely love that Jordan's like, you can run me any video you want. It's not what he means.

Well, good trick by Jason, Jason Hare, the director too. I haven't seen that trick before in a documentary because he does it a few times during the series of, hey, what do you think of this? Jordan's reactions. I can say Jordan's interviews are a home run because a lot of these times with documentaries, you can have the best footage possible. You could have the best topic possible, but if the interviews suck, the documentary is going to have a ceiling. If Jordan, considering how much they rely on his

interviews, um, I actually thought he brought something to the table. Don't you? I felt like he was actually better than I expected him to be because we've seen Hall of Fame speech, Jordan. We saw Kobe speech, Jordan, which was more close to what we're seeing in this. But I wasn't sure he was going to let go like this,

but I feel like he is. He's been incredible. And whatever level of admiration and you know i'm not some mj fanatic you know i'm not and as we'll get to that that rewatch of bulls i was a barkley guy i still am a barkley guy but i like mj more now than i ever have because i love that it's a hundred percent real and it on. And I know there's going to be some stuff coming up. It's always a jerk. He's mean and teammate, whatever. I don't care. I like him more now than I've ever liked him because there's no bullshit with this guy.

Yeah. Authentic. Good stuff. The Phil Jackson stuff, I felt like I would have spent a little less time on Rodman, a little more time on Phil Jackson would have been my note. I'm just more interested in Phil Jackson. The Rodman thing, I feel like he's been a cartoon character since the early 90s when things started to get weird.

I can't believe you. I think you're the only person that ever has agreed with me because whenever I do my Rodman thing, people look at me like, what? So I was like, all right, here we go. Let's see what the Rodman was. And so far of the four episodes, it's easily the worst one.

The thing that I appreciated they dove into a little bit, which I always thought was my favorite thing about Rodman, was how he turned rebounding into a science in a way that he explained a little bit how he would study people where the most likely ricochets for their jump shots were depending where they're on the court. But I got to tell you, like, you know, I actually saw Rodman play a bunch of times in person. You could see him doing it in person and it was amazing. He's, he's still the only guy I've ever seen who as a jump shot was going in the air, he's still the only guy I've ever seen who as a jump shot was going in the air, he would be on like the right side of the paint. And you could see him

just moving to this other spot, a spot of the court as the ball is like being released. And you're like, what's he doing? And then he would just be where the rebound was. I always thought he was like a genius. I swear. I've never seen anybody else do that in I'm 50. I've been going to NBA games since I was four. He's the only guy I've ever seen do that. I don't even know how I'd start to watch for it though. You know, I'm convinced that there were, as he went through that, he's the only one that's ever explained it that way, but I'm sure that some of the best rebounders knew their teammates well enough. I don't know that they studied the opposition spin, lack of spin or whatever. Like it great because larry bird would be spin magic well maybe see i didn't know about that stuff i i was thinking more like he was positioning ahead of time yeah he was just moving to spots when

nobody was even thinking that the ball was even heading in a certain i've never looked for it was weird i i don't know that i'd ever go hey let me see if some of these guys do any of this stuff the other part with rodman too i mean I mean, as much as the Vegas thing is just, it's just absurd that you'd be in an NBA season going, I'm just going to disappear for a little while. Pre-internet. The fact that early, early internet. Yeah, yeah, right. Early when we were just swapping bootlegs.

But I. When he comes back and they're trying to run him, and MJ's like, oh, great, because Rodman went on a bender. Now the rest of us have to run this whole time. But because Rodman was Rodman, a skill to be able to keep... Like Kenneth Farid, Pete Kenneth Farid is a skill that he could play that hard for that many minutes

when he was in a game. There's just not many guys that people can talk about wanting to do that, but there's not many guys that kind of get to their empty tank and still play as if they're fully rested. And Rodman had that. And you could tell MJ is basically alluding to when, hey, he came back and now Phil's going to run him. We knew, like, damn it.

And Rodman just busts everybody for four laps because you could just do it that way and it's actually not surprising that he could do to vegas and then show up and be ready to go you know when michael jordan in the 90s is judging your lifestyle that you've made some bad choices how when is when's the bad jordan stuff coming that's so five six seven eight is i i like five six seven eight it's good so i could tell they were doing that they were alluding to a little bit with the buckland mall legend scotty burrell when he starts calling out scotty for burrell he's like you're out all the time you're an alcoholic and he's messing with him and he's like you never just settle with

a woman i felt like they were teasing mj the the bad side of mj. I like that he called him M. I've heard people call him MJ. Not MJ, MJ. Where they accentuate the J. And then I've never heard the M before, but apparently that was that. I'd always heard that Burrell was like his boy, though. Oh, he is. Burrell's a big winner in the doc.

You know his deal, right? Pitcher and baseball. He's a Connecticut guy. Oh, Yeah. You know his deal, right? Like pitcher and baseball. He's a Connecticut guy. Oh yeah. You knew the deal, right? Okay. Yeah. All right.

We're going to take a break. We have a lot more stuff to hit. Stay tuned. Let's take a break to talk about Miller Lite. You know, there haven't been a lot of uplifting things about what's happened the past seven weeks. But one of the cool things has been reconnecting with your friends. And I know a lot of people that are doing this, including myself, FaceTime,

Zoom, Google Hangouts, people even having a cocktail or two. And for some people, including myself, it's been Miller time. It's a moment for people to come together in real life, to connect over a few beers. I know it's tough when you can't be with your people, but it can still be enjoyed with your people. I found over the past seven, eight weeks, I'm in more touch with my friends that I've been in recent years. We just all have more time. And it's been really fun to have a little cocktail hour. I know my wife has had multiple cocktail hours over the last few weeks, connecting with all different friend groups from various stages in her life. Miller Lite is the beer that makes Miller time possible.

It's the original light beer. It tastes great. It's less filling. Won't get in the way. I'm enjoying time with your people. As I've said a million times, it's been my beer since, I don't know, since I was in college.

Let's put it that way. Miller Lite, the original light beer. While you're home, enjoy a classic. Goes down smooth. You're already reaching for the next one as you're having the first one available for delivery today. Celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces. It feels a little bit like the old times, Rosillo. We had sports this weekend. Coming off a sports weekend with people had opinions,

things happened, there were trades, people were getting mad at stuff on social media. It felt like the old days. It was a little throwback. How do you feel about the Pat's Draft? A 30-year-old guy from a school that I thought was like an online university and then a kicker who already

is making his way through social media, uh, then no quarterback. So, you know, a lot to digest there. It, uh, they trade back. They take a 24 year old guy from a div two school. I was blindsided. I was upset. And within an hour, I talked myself into it. Once I saw the six punt returns, we didn't, we've had like one good kick returner all decade. It was Cordero Patterson. Uh, I, so I, I taught that the whole point of the draft is you react, you get upset and then you talk yourself into whatever happened, right? Yeah.

Like people that get mad about the draft grade thing. I get it. Okay. But if that's how we did everything, then none of us would have jobs. Okay. You can't sit there and go, well, you know, let me, let's see how many guys make it to their second contract. Okay, cool. So we'll have you guys recap your first reactions to the 2020 draft in 2025. Like, it doesn't make any sense. Like, do you not understand what we're doing here?

The same thing with college football, where we're doing a daily radio show four weeks in the seven teams that are undefeated, what's going to happen then if somebody comes by like a lot of football left yeah that's not what we're doing we have to speculate about all those different things so look i was happy about the draft i did love belichick by the way for anyone doing the belichick versus kingsbury meme of the different setups that's a nantucket pad for belichick i'm guessing and i'm imagining the the value square footage would smash anything in scott's deal and that just needs to be noted how tough the square footage prices are out on nantucket or martha's vineyard and just bill trading back like every pats fan staying up you know maybe

there's going to do something something's exciting there in the first round and then mid quarantine trading out of the first round i bet even jokes, like there's somebody that Bill's very close with that. He's like, uh, they all said I was going to take a pick because they were bored. Right. He was, but they're minus one 37 to trade their first round pick, which in retrospect, it should have been like minus 500. It was interesting reading some of the stories about the people who are in the draft. And we were taping this before Peter King's Monday morning quarterback column comes out. And I'm sure there's going to be anecdotes about this too.

People talking about, you know, the coaches, GM scouts, all the people that were in this talking about what a pleasant experience it was this time around. They weren't, you know, slaving away at the office for 18 hours a day for a month and a half, you know, like, uh, taking, taking dumps at six in the morning after they just had a bad cup of coffee and some little tiny toilet and just being around the same dudes all day, every day and, and never seeing anybody. And then this time around their kids are around

there. It's a lot less hectic. And it seemed like everybody kind of realized, oh yeah, we were probably do, we were probably a little overboard with how we did this whole draft thing. Maybe we didn't need to do it this way. Didn't you get that feeling? Yeah. But I, I don't know that even these guys want to now adapt or pivot the way they do this. Cause I'd imagine under normal circumstances, if you were at home trying to work trying to evaluate tape and as much as you can love your kids you're gonna be like look man i i don't want to watch paw patrol right now like i'm we're doing third we're doing third round receivers so in the face of adversity i think it is kind of cool how everybody came together seeing everybody's families and all that stuff i think

those are like those are the good things that people like they things. This is different, but there's just so many things that are happening right now where I keep hearing like, you know, it'll never be the same after this. No, I think the next time that it's a normal draft, these guys are going to grind like they always grind because that's what they do. And this was a little bit of a break, but I don't think it changes the way that any of this stuff is done. I think it will change a little bit in this respect. They probably realized collectively that they didn't need as many people in the war room as a lot of these teams probably had because ultimately, and I'm fascinated to re once we get a couple of days away, we'll read

a lot more about what the process was. And I really wonder how many people were ultimately involved in the process, like the ultimate decision-making process, how they did it. I bet they had to pare it down. And I'm sure it was actually probably a good thing for these guys that they didn't have 12 people in a table that they weren't worried about leaks half the time from, you know, the third assistant GM who's angling for another job. Who's going to try to set up Schefter hoping to get his name floated nine months later, like all that shit. It just seemed like more simple. There were less trades. Um, but from the standpoint of just, was there like a disastrous pick? Was there a tech glitch? None of that stuff happened. Um, I really enjoyed it. And now granted, as we said, the top,

we're so thirsty for actual live real sports that, um, that, you know, it just felt so much more significant and needed, but I've never watched more of the draft of my life. And, and I'm actually kicking myself because it's always against the NBA playoffs and I'm always sidetracked by the playoffs. And I'm kind of, I, at that, once we get into the third round, I don't care about the draft anymore. I actually really enjoyed the third, fourth, fifth. I I'd never watched it that extensively in a long time. When you really dig in the little coded stuff, why a guy dropped. And it's always like either he had short arms, um, something happened and it was a mistake and he's learned from it, but something happened. Um, or he transferred or he's too old. There's

always some sort of thing. It's almost like they should just put, they should have a wheel on the bottom that they just spin. And it's like, this is the reason this guy went two rounds later, but I really love the later rounds. Now you, you love the draft every year. So this wasn't anything new to you. Well, I just like college ball so much that it is kind of fun to go, Oh wait, like, I really liked that guy.

He went lower and, or wow. I can't believe that guy went that high. I think I've watched him a lot. I mean, it happens every year, and it doesn't mean I'm right. What I always love is if somebody was productive at a good school, they won some games, and then he goes to the third or fourth round, and then that guy ends up being a dude that makes two or three Pro Bowls. Say some linebacker, okay? And then he'll be good, and then what guy ends up being a dude that makes two or three Pro Bowls, like say some linebacker. And then he'll be good, and then what we always do is we play the results,

and it'll be like, it's not a huge surprise you saw that coming. One every year is a Texas, led the Big 12 in tackles. Okay, all right, so what are you saying? From now on, only take productive guys that are winning programs because if we did that with quarterbacks like kellen moore would be a stud colt mccoy who i'm still holding out hope for you know yeah don't give up amazing yeah i mean tebow was was arguably in position to maybe win three titles um because the first ones with chris leake like tebow's had it could have potentially had like one of the greatest college resumes of all time. And even when they were winning, he wasn't that good.

And so none of these things are certain. Because if there was that one thing that always worked, then people would always do that one thing. But what happens instead is there's a guy that will go in the third round. We know how good he was supposed to be. He could have gone first or second, but he had a bad combine. Well, there's a million guys that never do anything that fit that profile, but we don't apply the same principles to, to his failure.

We'll only use it like for the success. What about when they do the captain thing? That's always a big thing in the draft is a captain. You know, he's, he's just a mature guy. He's a leader. Uh,

the, the, the captain thing, they get thrown. It gets thrown around as this huge huge decision making thing and and ultimately it's like i'm not really sure what that means it basically just means you weren't a dick right yeah it means you're a quarterback and we have to give it to you so right so you know that also happened in the nfl too like the guys at the end of the year maybe

his rookie year but definitely his second year if he's the starter too. The guy's at the end of the year, maybe his rookie year, but definitely his second year if he's the starter. It's like he's already the captain. It's like, no, do you realize you can't have a starting quarterback in his second year in the league not be the captain? Yeah, that looks fishy. It looks terrible. That's kind of like my Hall of Fame thing with basketball where the sooner you have to say gold medal winner,

the weaker your argument is as a player. It's something I've had for years. I've trademarked that. The quicker you're a quarterback and we start talking about your personality and command of the room, the weaker you are as a prospect. I mean, Jalen Hurts is that for me. He's like, Jalen Hurts is the example of,

did you watch him or did you fall in love with him? Because when I watched him, I saw somebody who is incredibly mature, very strong, a play away from winning a title as a freshman, but was very limited and not an arm strength, but limited in his reads. And then he goes to Oklahoma, puts up massive numbers like everybody puts up massive numbers now in a lot of these offenses. And people would say Lincoln Riley's offense at Oklahoma is more translatable to the NFL. So I think that helped Jalen a little bit, but Jalen became somebody and then the Eagles take them on top of it,

everything else. And then in the second round where I go, this was, this was more of a creation because he's so impressive the way he handled the problems at Bama, him getting benched, you know, this thing where he goes to Oklahoma,

they're in the playoff, but the quicker people got to, he's so mature handled adversity really really well and you go how come none of you guys are like talking about the football part of this stuff because whenever you avoid that like that's what i care about yeah i was thinking that i would be a real asset in the nfl draft coverage because i don't watch i don't watch college football at all i maybe watch nine hours a year so i thought what are the nine hours, by the way? It's usually.

Title game is three. It's usually the Alabama Auburn game. Maybe one more SEC game. Half of one of the semis. And then some of the college finals. So that gets me to nine. But I think I should be next to the table for a segment called in or out. Where they do the pick.

Everybody does their thing. And then it just goes to me like, Bill, in or out where they do, they do the pick. Everybody does their thing. And then it just goes to me like, Bill in or out. I'm like, eh, out. Like just from, just from what I've heard from the past 12 minutes. Cause like Indianapolis took that, uh, that running back from, I think Wisconsin. Yeah. Taylor. And they were like, this guy, what a beast, you know, uh, fastest, fastest combine time of any running back, 50 touchdowns. And then buried near the end was, God, he fumbled a lot. He fumbled 15 times. He's got a fumbling problem.

They're going to have to fix that. But if he can fix his fumbling problem, this guy's going to be a worrier. And I'm thinking like, well, fumbling problems don't get fixed. It's very rare to be like, man, remember when that guy used to put the ball on the ground constantly and then all of a sudden he didn't? It's usually a terrible sign. So once they did that, I was like, great, the Colts picked the stiff. I was just completely out of the fumbling thing. So I want to start a new segment in or out.

Just every guy. Short arms, I'm out. His arms seem too short. I do wish, though, whenever you watch, you know, a few hundred of those highlight clips of the draft pick, I wish all of us could only be remembered in our draft highlight tape. Oh, yeah.

Just whatever you've done, the best things in your life for 60 seconds ripped up into, like, four or five edits, and it'd be amazing how all of us would look. All of us would be like, this guy's incredible. This sounds like a challenge for Jason Gallagher of The Ringer to just do combine highlight tapes of all The Ringer personnel. I don't know.

Probably like one really good rewatchables line. Maybe one time I cracked you up throwing it to a read when we did the Mike Greenberg. I don't even know how we'd get to it. Selling your company. Yes,elling my company. Just a flash. Uh, I liked when they would, instead of starting out with college football highlights, would try to do the curve ball. And I'd be like, his sister played college basketball. It's like, why do I care? What does this have to do with the NFL draft? A lot of athletes in this family.

I would hope so. The guy just got picked in the first round of the NFL draft. I would hope he has an athletic family. What do you think? He's the one outlier. Everybody else is five, eight to 80. Just,

just completely unathletic. Yeah. Cause if we're doing that, if we're doing that, should we do like brother cut from varsity junior year in hoops? Right. Computer nerd. Yeah.

It'd be great if Mel was up there. He's like, well, you know, you got a guy like this, you know, he falls, falls third,

fourth round, you know, it could have been a second round prospect started to hear about, you know, got a brother, had a brother there, you know, playing D two high school ball,

not even a double L, you know, he gets cut junior year. So you got to worry about that a little bit. Senior year, get mad, blamed it on the coach, play pickup games,

just to call a lot about fouls. You know, he goes a lot, a lot of flags, smoked a lot of weed behind the gym. Senior year, got mad, blamed it on the coach, played pickup games just to call a lot of fouls. You know, he goes a lot, a lot of flags. Smoked a lot of weed behind the gym. Yeah. I would be, I think it's more relevant if the guy came from a family where he was the only good athlete. It's like, yeah, really, it's really unusual. This guy's just a hard worker. He really didn't even have a big brother. Yeah. He didn't have a big brother beating up on him. He had to go find his own fights. Like this guy's a real self-starter. The other thing I was bummed out about not nearly enough tragedy during the NFL draft. I just, I wanted to know more about, Oh no, wait a second.

There was a ton of strategy date. Now you're more attuned to this than I was there more tragedy, this draft and other drafts. Did they dial it up? Yeah. Yeah. So what's the reasoning of this? Think, think how touchy this is. Like We're about to talk about how quickly every single draft prospect, it was like, hey, who died? Okay, thank you. Let's get that into the bump. And then in the first round, some of those stories are horrible. Okuda's story at Ohio State, you're like, this is awful.

It's relevant. You're losing a parent. But then it felt like, and it's the kind of thing, like even in social media, as ruthless as that can be, everybody's like, wait a minute, do I send the tweet now about how it seems like death is the common theme in every single one of these draft picks? And I have a theory on it. I think it's a good theory on game day. I don't know the exact time it happened, but as somebody who's watched Game Day for years and traveled, and my big thing is I used to travel with TV because I did the radio version of it. TV would go off.

No one cared about the radio show as much as the TV show. So I would go and watch a lot, and I'd get kind of pumped up for my seven-hour deal. And Rinaldi would do this amazing feature because Rinaldi's one of the best. He would do, okay, we've got two of, and the show was three hours at times. Let's do that one emotional, you know, seven to eight minute piece. And Rinaldi is going to ask the right questions. He's got the perfect voice and we're going to get the music and the edit and this adversity that this player overcomes. And it's a nice feature inside game day.

My guess is the research shows the producers, the people on the TV side, that the audience stays longer. Like think how many times you've seen something on TV where it's like, wait a minute, what happened here? Oh my God, there was this death. It was a mother that was sick. She recovered. Like what's going on. It kind of stops you in your tracks a little bit more than just, Hey, check out these linebackers versus these running backs. And then the stuff that you're used to in these pregame shows. And because those did well and again i think this is an educated example of it that you would retain an audience longer with one of those segments then like everything everybody just started to overdo it so there was five of those features on game day and then that was happening in sports

center all the time and i think there's's kind of this production wave of we need these heart-wrenching stories as much as possible because the numbers show us that people don't change a channel as much during those. And honestly, whatever the too much line was, it's been smashed through. It's not taking away anything. I'm trying to be sensitive about the whole thing, but just as a viewer, after hours and hours of it,

and you're like, are you guys trying to find any tragedy with every single pick because you're like, are you guys trying to find any tragedy with every single pick? Because you're doing an amazing job. It makes me wonder if they should have ESPN classic, just be just audible that into a tragedy channel. And it's just tragedies 20. It's just all of those Rinaldi pieces and all the other ones, the ones from the SBs.

And it's because obviously the ratings must spike every time they do. And I feel bad for the people whose tragedy wasn't quite enough to make the cut. Like my parents had a bad divorce, not me, but it's just, if somebody, and that was all they could come up with. They're like,

eh, let's, let's go with, uh, your sister played college basketball. We got any dogs. You guys got any dogs on the way out? Did your dog have a tragic death?

Is there a tragedy researcher today? Is there a tragedy Q and a with the product? I don't know how it works. It was really over the top. And I didn't realize I mentioned this on Twitter, but I didn't mention this. Cause I didn't know Sal and I did a pod on Thursday and I had no idea. I was watching ABC,

the human interest draft versus ESPN was the more hardcore football draft. And I was like, what's going on? Like, there's no NFL people on this podcast. It's all human interest. Like what's happening? Not realizing that ESPN had, you know, Michael Irvin and Booger was on there and they're doing more of the hardcore NFL stuff. But, um, it's, so I did some, some recon on it and it's just like, yeah, it plays better for the ABC audience, for the casual fan. I don't get it. I don't understand it, but obviously they, uh, they know what they're doing on it, but it's, it's really, really bizarre to me. Yeah. But I would, I would challenge you, not you, but when you say they know what they're doing on it. Yes. I know that it has to be a programming decision based on research.

That's what I mean by know what they're doing. Right, right. And I agree with you because I think we both probably know more than we're leading on here. But what I'm saying is that just like you, you weren't doing everything every day like I was, but Tebow is the best example of it. Tebow moved the needle for a long time. And then guess what it started doing? It started getting people to want to turn everything off because they didn't want to hear about Tebow anymore. So what you can do is you can think

you're doing the right thing and then you overdo it because you're like, well, hey, this plays, let's do way more of this stuff. And then you smash through the saturation line. And then you probably kind of go, hey, maybe we need to correct this here a little bit and not. Look, if you're sitting around watching the draft for four hours and every every 10 minutes, you know, I'm not trying to sound insensitive about it, but I would imagine a lot of consumers agree with us here that. I want more. I just want a more football talk. And.

You know, I need more negativity. Well, well, that's I think they're very careful of that because the families are watching. And you're watching it, you just got picked, and then somebody's just ripping you to shreds. But I think like... I just want somebody going, hey, I don't see it. Which they basically do.

They dance around it. I think they... I wish they left, and I felt this way when I did the draft the two years. I wish they built in more time felt this way when I did the draft the two years, I wish they built in more time to audible when weird shit happens, because it's a formula, how they do it. They know as soon as somebody gets picked,

they basically know what the next five to six minutes are going to look like with the analysis. Like with the NBA draft, they would make the pick Reese would say, blah, blah, blah. He went to UNLV and then it would go right to Billis for like

the 52nd, his, the, the strengths and weaknesses video clip with Billis narrating over it. Then it would go right to the person getting interviewed. And there were moments where it was just like, yo, Anthony Bennett just got taken by the caps. We got to throw away your package. Like we can talk about this. This is the most insane thing that's happened in the draft. And we'd have like 30 seconds to talk about it. I felt that way on Thursday when, when, uh, when Green Bay took Jordan love, it was like, throw away, throw away whatever your plans were this. We have to go 20 minutes on this. This is the biggest story of the draft. And they, they had to kind of just touch it and then quickly move on. I wish they, I wish they didn't do it that way. What did you think of Love going there?

Shocking. But immediately hilarious. Like the most fun person to have that happen to for so many different reasons. Rodgers, a diva anyway, was in the exact same situation with Favre. So it comes around full circle. And then on top of it,

they came really close to making this, you know, they were one game away from making the Superbowl last year. And you would have thought they would have been approaching this as like, let's we're close. What do we need? We can get there this year. San Francisco might take a step backward, like whatever they were thinking. And instead they moved, moved to the succession plan. But you know, the more I read and listened to stuff about it, it kind of confirmed how I felt last year. I didn't love the way Rodgers played last year. And I'm sure they're seeing signs at the beginning of the end for him.

And that's why you would do that. With the quarterbacks, especially with a front office that I trust, you know, I trust that their evaluation is the point where it's like, they were this aggressive about it. I mean, obviously they'd like him. They went ahead and took the guy. So I'm stating the obvious there. But there becomes these arguments after the fact.

Because in the moment, I'm like, I can't believe they did this. The parallels. With that many wide receivers, the most loaded wide receiver draft ever. And he could have used one. And they gave him a backup qb that was weird right and um you know i knew what would happen the next day it's like okay well let's see what happens and they go hey there's a ton of receivers in this draft they have you know

six more rounds to go here like yeah but they're not taking any of them so that ended up working out it wasn't like hey we'll take love in the first round then we'll get you some receivers rogers they did it to the guy that's already mad at the world all the time anyway. So that part, he's the number one grudge holder in the NFL. Anybody that knows him will tell you that. So it was like,

oh, that's even more ridiculous that they would do this to mess with him. And people would say, well, the quarterback position is really, really important. So you always want to make sure you have depth there. I don't know. I don't know that that argument works out. I mean, Belichick, who again is an overrated drafter, took quarterbacks. He took Kevin O'Connell in the third round during Brady's prime.

Is that a good pick? No, it isn't. It isn't a good pick. He took Garoppolo in the second round. He took Brissette in the third round. He took Mallett in the fourth round. And we're talking about maybe the greatest to ever play the position still. And I can imagine a Garoppolo, like maybe even Bill didn't think Brady was going to be playing that well at 40, 41, and 42, even though Brady had declined a little bit. But no one can argue with me and say that those were all really good picks at the time.

As far as I'm concerned, they're wasted depth. They're wasted weapons because you're not actually using... Those guys aren't playing in any of the games other than when Brady was suspended for a dumb reason for those four games. To say now, like Love, we think he's terrific. He's a great prospect.

We can't believe he fell there. Even a diminished Rodgers, which is a fair argument because there are numbers for two years here that'll tell you that he has diminished. Okay. But even a diminished Rogers, which is a fair argument because there are numbers for two years here that'll tell you that he has diminished. It doesn't, it still doesn't work. It still doesn't work for me because if he's out there and he's playing even through injuries, that's just another body that you could hit at another position that would help. So all of those Pat's picks, I mean, did you think any of those quarterback picks actually make any sense for when New England did it?

Because I think it's the same as Rodgers here, even though he's 36. I think it makes sense when you get fifth, sixth, seventh round. But I use the same for the NFL as I do with fantasy football. If you're all in on one of the superstar QBs, it doesn't really make sense to spend an asset on a backup, in my opinion, because if the guy goes down,'re fucked anyway you know what is roger's salary cap it it's not i mean it's like it's it's yeah right there's five six guys in the league that if you if you lose that guy you're done anyway what i think indianapolis was the first team that really fully embraced this during the peyton manning era remember that for years they would just have

whoever as the backup. They were like, well, fuck it. We're screwed. Yeah. Whoever they just didn't care because it would, he was the whole team. So with green Bay, with the fact that they were that close, you know, there's mock outrage about it. People couldn't believe it. I find it hard to believe that, that, that green Bay team would make back-to-back conference title games or whatever. I think that the league just changes so fast, but, uh, I thought it was weird. I, to me, that was like, this is your last year year here. And we're getting rid of you after, uh, the other, only other thing I want to mention about the draft was I, I always appreciate the Ravens and the chiefs during these drafts because they have like a specific team DNA that they just kind of stick to. And it's gotten to the point, people are so familiar with it. Like Patrick Queen,

Mallory was rooting for them to get him. Um, just cause he felt like a Raven type of guy. It was like a classic Raven pick the, the chiefs take a, the running back from LSU. The same thing. I was like, Oh man, look at that fucking guy. Oh, classic chiefs pick. I think it's pretty cool if you're a football organization and you've succeeded for long enough and you've, you've developed a certain type of DNA with your players that people just watching at home, it would make sense if you took that player.

I feel like the Patriots had that and they kind of lost that the last few years. And it seemed like they were trying to get it back this year with the guys they were picking. They were picking like these versatile guys, good athletes who, you know, were malleable, could do a whole bunch of things, made the special teams better. I think he fell in the rut the last couple of years of taking these successful big program guys, you know, and, and now it seems like they're back to that Pat's roots of like gamer, um, fucking hard worker. He can play multiple positions.

That's kind of, kind of every time Belichick's had success, those are the guys he's had. I feel like he trusts too few. There's like a, there's guys that he trusts at the college level and they tell him what's up and then you know that's that's who he goes with and it's like alabama michigan well it was urban for a while it was shiano for a while i mean shiano was going to be on the staff and you know some of the rutgers stuff worked out some of it didn't the yukon pick that he had there

for the corner he took in the second round the guy was off the team like immediately um and then urban back at Florida I mean it was definitely urban with the Florida stuff and then Pat Hill Fresno State it felt like uh that was the that was the Logan Mankins pick right yeah it worked out Logan was was an awesome pick I mean he's had look you do it 20 years you're gonna have misses I just sometimes with Bill you go well I don't care that he didn't take a quarterback. Honestly, I think it's actually I think it'd be more alarming if he's going, all right, I got Jake from because then it turns. Everybody's like, all right, cool. Jake from fourth round.

That's good. Little QB, you know, competition here. I mean, everybody's already kind of building Stidham up. I think prematurely. I'm not saying he's going to be bad. I just think it's it's a lot to to assume in the way he's talked about. I don't know if they're just waiting around for Dalton, Jameis now going to the Saints.

I don't know if Cam is still in play. But I like the Patriots going, hey, just because we need a third quarterback right now, it doesn't mean that we're going to go ahead and just draft a guy. I hate when teams are doing it too much on need. And then everybody in New England, if they had taken love in the first round, can you imagine how that'd be processed right now?

It'd be like, oh, wow, okay, cool, big arm. Really, look how good he was two years ago. Smaller school, but Bill knows what he's doing here. And it's like, does he or is he kind of just taking it? I feel like they took Nikhil Harry last year out of desperation because they needed a wide receiver so bad right and probably brady was putting pressure on them or whatever see i looked at the pats not taking a qb the other way it made me wonder if the cam stuff was possibly true i'm not dismissing that i just i just like that they didn't go hey we know what

everybody thinks we're supposed to do here a quarterback but we're just not doing it because we don't really like these guys and some of the guys that were being even rumored to be in play in the middle rounds ended up dropping more anyway so well jake from who if we did a mock draft in mid-august i think would have been the second pick right that's a little high um he would have been He probably would have been a first rounder. Top five? No, I don't think he was going to be that. No? It just seemed like a precipitous fall for him. It reminded me of when, I mean, a different example,

but Avery Bradley, who was like the best high school player in the country or one of the second best or whatever he was, played at college one year and then was like no longer a lottery pick, had this one weird year at Texas. But but uh you know i don't know never know what this stuff they were they were out of receivers at georgia at the end of the year okay like they didn't have anybody and the only good one they even had was like missed the first half i think against the lsu uh title game so they were they were hurting go ahead did you like the washington state guy anthony gordon i did like um i actually thought he was like more physically impressive than title game. So they were hurting. Go ahead. Did you like the Washington State guy? Anthony Gordon,

I did like. I actually thought he was more physically impressive than Gardner Minshew was. See, that's what, by the time we get to sixth, seventh round, I think you have to take guys like that. You have to take the flyer because it seems like over and over again, those Minshew guys,

they actually might, you never know. The guys who put up big stats in college what the fuck like what are you getting what seventh rounder are you getting that's really gonna make an impact unless it's some weirdo like that you know yeah but it's still it's like a long snapper who am i getting in the seventh round special teamer getting a kicker if if you found out there was no Wi-Fi on Nantucket and that's how he did this draft, would you be 10% surprised?

I was bummed that they didn't research the kicker a little bit more. It's not that hard to research somebody's social media. I mean, you figure you go into a draft, you have like 100 guys you're thinking about. It can take like the 10 minutes to just kind of do the sweep throughout everybody's thing. Like if, if we're hiring somebody at the ringer, I promise you we're checking out their social media and making sure that, uh, there's not some weird shit on there. I thought that was

weird. It's such an avoidable mistake. And then it becomes a whole story. And then it's like, everybody gets to line up to shit on the Patriots again. It's just so avoidable. I don't care about everybody lining up to dump on him, but yeah, it's like, you know, there's a guy on your staff that's been able to look at 12 different makeup girls on Instagram, but you can't figure out what's going on with the kicker. Right. You can't, can't, can't just study his tattoos for one second. Uh, all right. Coming up, we're going to talk about the possible return of the NBA. Hey, as the novel coronavirus pandemic escalates in the U.S., public health officials

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If you're worried that you may be experiencing symptoms, go to ro.co slash coronavirus to start your free assessment today. ro.co slash coronavirus. All right. So more momentum. I feel like every Sunday we're talking about momentum for the basketball season coming back, but there's been some breakthrough stuff

and you could feel it a week ago because I thought Adam Silver was playing it coy after he had talked with Trump and everybody because I think he was being very careful with his players, making it seem like the president wasn't telling him to come back, all that stuff. We, there's just too many people talking now about, uh, can the season come back? When will it come back? Where will it be? And will there be a regular season, which has been the new wrinkle the last few days that I, I had thought the ship had sailed on that. I was pretty convinced that they were going to do

a 12 or a 16 team playoffs and that's it. Nobody else makes it. But the intel over and over again has been that they want to get to 70 games. They all have these RSN contracts that once you get to 70, you're paid in full by the RSNs.

That's huge, by the way. That's worth repeating that the reason why there is this push for this regular season finish that they can't just throw those games away is that the owners would have to cut checks to the 30 home networks that they have deals with. There's two things. One is that, and then two is the feedback they're getting from the players is that they would want some warmup games to get their legs to run. Like just, I think they're talking to a lot of probably the stars.

Cause that's how you should do it. And it's like, Hey, what's the best way for us to do this? I think they're being pretty inclusive with their best players. Could we just start the playoffs? How many games would you need? So if you look at the standings,

if they get to 70, some of the teams are pretty close. Like Dallas has played 67 games. So they'd only need three games to get to, uh, 70. The Lakers have only played 63. Everyone's between 63 and 67. Uh, so that's one thing. And then the other thing that I've heard from a couple of people is that there really was pushback from like, hey, man, if we're going to have a playoffs, we want to have a fair chance to make it from the teams that were either potentially cut off if they went to a 12-team system or if they're going to do a full playoffs. The teams that are in that 17 to 20 range who still have a puncher's chance possibly

of making it, they wanted a chance to try to make it. So I'm not sure how they pull it off and whether it's like a tournament, whether you split it. I also can't figure out what they do with the 10 teams that don't have a chance to make it where you're like, you're on, I don't know, the Knicks. It's like, oh, well, our season's over. Really? I got to come back and play five games. Like we're, our team's headed nowhere. So whether they, and I have not heard this, I'm not reporting it. Whether they do a tournament for like the 12 teams that can't make the playoffs or probably shouldn't make the playoffs or the 10 teams, or I'm sure they're thinking about all this stuff. I think everything's on the table. I still think we're a while away, but I think basketball coming back late June is realistic.

And you're hearing the same stuff, right? Yeah. This late May thing, I thought picked up a little momentum this week, but I've been told it's totally, it's 0%. Like just shoot it down. The idea that games are going to be starting here in a month.

Impossible. You said a lot there that i i want to be able to touch on but well let's do so we got so we got the rsn's we have the playoffs how we would do that and then uh the well the playoff what do you do with the teams the playoff team like let's face it it's hard to get these 30 owners to see the problems the same way and the guys that are on the cusp of making this don't want to lose out like they don't want to concede for the greater good in the easing of the schedule and crunching up the timeline the guys that want those games played are the guys that have a chance to lose money here by not having a fair shot of making the playoffs and

i can kind of understand them but i think even that is outweighed by the fact that you said is that it feels like three to four weeks to get these guys ready in some version of a few weeks to get your body up to speed because the longer this is gone, the longer the kind of recovery is to get you back to any kind of game shape. And even when they start, it's not going to be game shape. And I'm not going to be making fun of guys for being out of shape or looking clumsy around the rim or some of the stuff being disjointed because you just stopped playing professional basketball for a couple of months. And now you're supposed to pick it back up at full speed. It's just not going to happen,

but I don't mind. Like, let's see what the product is. But as far as the late May thing, that was more about practice facilities being opened up and that's on a voluntary basis. And the other problem with that, like the owners, uh, the same thing is say Georgia, I'm just using an example. I wasn't told this part, but say Georgia is going full speed ahead here and opening things up before other States. It's not so much that now the Atlanta Hawks get a jump on everybody else, which isn't fair to say other franchises. And again, it doesn't really matter because not like Atlanta is making some massive playoff push, but that the NBA wanted to try to have this be a little bit more of a controlled atmosphere and not have Trey young and a bunch of dudes go run

pickup at Equinox. And I'm just using them as an example here. Whereas if they open up facilities in some of the more aggressive states and reopening, they can then go, look, you'll come to the team facility, three players, maybe at a time, one on zero work, not even one on one. It's more isolated. It's controlled. And now it's not a free for all where you're doing stuff on your own to try to get in front of some of the states that are opening up more so than just, hey, your state is opening up. We're allowing this team to get a jump on some of the other franchise. And again, the way it was reported at first, I think it snowballed into this. Well,

maybe that means late May, these guys are going to get going. No, I think right now, the best case scenario is probably early July. Early July with the regular season games, like you said, to get to those 70 games, to give everybody a fair chance of making some sort of playoff push here. But the playoffs themselves, I've seen a million proposals. I know everybody's kind of having fun with this, right? We like fixing stuff. But can you imagine, like, put the single elimination thing away.

Yes, it would be fun for us, but there'd be two major problems. One is you would never do that and cut your own um product that way you would you would just never ever say yeah you know let's just shorten the whole thing up for the fans convenience and screw ourselves on having more available product to sell which would be games on tv the other part is can you imagine which teams could win and i'll just say it imagine if the rockets won an nba title in a single elimination tournament, how much everybody would be like, oh, really? It's not happening. It's not happening, so we can put it to bed.

But it's just a lot. People are even writing about it. And then I think that early July being the best case scenario today is today. And that's what's happened here is that the most consistent thing is that nothing is decided. That's the most consistent thing I've heard going all the way back to March is that it's like, yeah, we have these plans. We have different things. But I could tell you four plans that the league is thinking about, and two of them are already off the table. And it means we'll probably have two new plans next week because it's about making sure the testing thing

is executed the right way. And I think the NBA is very sensitive to, we don't want to just say, hey, we're NBA stars and we get all the tests. The numbers have to be going in the right direction. And then whatever version of basketball gets started back up again, there's still location issues, arena availability,

the quarantine ideas of different locations, whether it's Orlando or Vegas or some more absurd scenarios that are thrown out there, and then getting all the TV equipment to even broadcast these guys the right way, none of this stuff has been decided. So the only positive thing I would take from you and I going back and forth on this is that, yeah, there's a bunch of different plans. And the further out you're thinking the start date, the more realistic as opposed to early June, mid June. Well, I know Bob Iger talked to the owners and has a lot of experience because they're trying to figure out how to open, uh, you know, different Disney parks again. So they've done it just an

incredible amount of research on it and the whole bubble system, which we talked about in a previous podcast. And I think, I think he talked to them for a long time. And I think after that conversation, the owners were a little more bullish on it, but I don't, it's not going to be different arenas. It's either going to be one or two locations. And the reason they got to decide relative relatively soon is like, if it's in Vegas, for example, they're going to have to build a bunch of courts. And it's something that you can do pretty easily. I mentioned a couple of podcasts ago about in space jam, which you'll see in, in the Michael Jordan documentary, uh, when he comes back, when he comes back, uh, and he's filming space jam and they built him this little bubble court that looked, Oh yeah. I wouldn't know where you were going there.

Yeah. No, I wasn't actually doing spaceship. But they're going to have to build all these courts and it's going to take a few weeks. And I don't know whether they would do half Orlando, half Vegas or everything in Vegas or whatever, but there's ways to do this and there's ways to cut everything off. Let's say they did Vegas. The most logical location would be Mandalay Bay

because it's on the far end of the strip. It's a little off. You can basically close everything down. You have the Mandalay Bay Casino and you have a Four Seasons in there. So you could put all the teams in the Four Seasons on different fours. And then you could have, it's closer to the airport. So you could close all the roads. It could be direct in and out, airport, one road, everything locked down and just a bunch of courts there. And I, and I think it would work, but if they decided they were going to do this, they would need five, six weeks to build the courts, you know, and, and then, uh,

ESPN and TNT, they would need a few weeks to figure out, all right, are these our four main awesome courts that we're going to have the TV in? Let's figure out a camera situation. Where are the cameras going to go? Can we take, can we have some advancements with that, et cetera, et cetera. Um, I think it's all going to start going down over the next week. We're going to start hearing a lot more about, Oh, shit's happening. They're talking to the players. Once they start talking to the players, the players will tell the agency agents will tell the writers and that's how this works. And I'm sure Woj is going to be busy the next couple of weeks would be my last point on that. I haven't been to Orlando in a while, but when they had the pre-draft camp there, they brought it there from Chicago. And then the NBA

guys were like, Hey, can we not have this at Disney world? Like, can we have it back in a normal city? But if it's still the milk center set up that they had when I was going and doing the draft stuff, which I think it still is, there's a million courts already there right now. It's owned by Disney, ABC, ESPN, I'm sure would work with TNT on this and, Hey, let's just figure this whole thing out and how we're going to put it all together. I would actually think that'd be a little bit easier. And imagine if Disney world is closed. Uh, it's pretty, it's pretty weird place to drive around even when the park is open. Right.

It feels pretty isolated. And now if the park is closed and all of the places that you could have people stay, I would think that'd actually be easier than some of the logistics of Vegas where you wouldn't just build courts and have it be Mandalay. That'd be one option.

But I think you could also use the two summer courts that are right next to each other. I mean, summer league, you just walk across the hallway and then you go into the smaller gym and then there's the obvious harder, harder to contain though. And I don't think they want to have big arenas. I don't think they want any part of like big backgrounds that would like bang home. The fact that they're, you know, not that there's no fans. I think they're very conscious. That would be so low on my priority list, though. And the other part, though, that I still think I know I'm dismissive of, because I would look at it as how much money am I going to lose

if we don't come back and play versus, okay, yes, some challenging logistical stuff here of actually being quarantined here if you're a deep playoff team for three months and you're going to play games, you're going to go back, and you're going to be quarantined here if you're a deep playoff team for three months and you're going to play games, you're going to go back, and you're going to be quarantined. The day-to-day real-life application of that is probably a lot harder than I'm admitting to.

But I still think the majority of your players, the NBA players, if we're just keeping it to that, but it would be the same thing for baseball. It would be the same way I would feel if I were playing football. It would be, yeah, okay, all right, this isn't ideal, and there's a lot of parts about this that suck,

but how can we protect our revenue coming in? And that's why we care about the most. So I'm looking at the standings. In the East, the eight playoff teams are pretty set. Everybody is, you have seven teams in the East that are basically out of the playoffs if it was a 70-game season. You don't feel like the magic?

We're starting to put something together here? No. Well, they're an eight seed. Oh, wait, wait. God, I haven't looked at the standings in so long. Yeah. Who's behind them? So they have,

Orlando has 30 wins. Washington is ninth with 24 wins. That's right. The Wizards were sneaky closer to the A AC than you think. So is that fair to do that? So you got Washington, Charlotte, Chicago, New York, Detroit, Atlanta, Cleveland. They're all out.

And then in the West, the cutoff line right now is 32 wins. Memphis is 32 and 33. So they would have five games left if we got to 70. So basically, you could cut out Sacramento 28 wins, San Antonio, 27 Phoenix, 26 Minnesota, 19 Golden state 15.

That's 12 teams. And you could basically do a 12 team tournament with those 12 teams in a different location, maybe have some prize or whatever, or you just have them play or whatever. 18 teams have a chance to either make the playoffs or locked into the playoffs already. And they'll probably care.

Oh, actually Sacramento and new Orleans have the same record. 28 36. Yeah. So at least 10 teams have no chance. Um, I would, I would just do this. If I were silver, I go, Hey, sorry, everybody. Everybody wants to design on the playoffs. So the Pelicans are in.

Right. Well, they could do the, uh, that, sorry, everybody. Everybody wants to design on the playoffs. So the Pelicans are in. Right. Well, they could do that whole thing, the one-game playoff thing. They could do it for 7 versus 10, 8 versus 9 and just make it the one-game playoff. They've been talking about that idea anyway, and that could give them a chance to sneak the Pelicans in, which I'm sure they would care about.

So anyway, all of this stuff is being talked about. I am starting to get more and more confident that we will see the NBA this summer and it's going to be awesome. But we'll see. Who knows? I mean, there's so many ways this could go wrong over the next week. I wouldn't even let my daughter have a date

with her boyfriend, much less imagining how we would do. He's kind of a wild card though right it has nothing to do with it is he i it's definitely a loose cannon uh no he's a nice kid i'm sure he's uh i'm sure his behavior so but what 10 weeks for regular season playoffs this will take and they can't go into football yeah the labor day the labor day thing is uh we've heard that the whole time. Can I give you the best case scenario before we go to the break?

Yeah, but I do want to ask you a quarantine question. So don't cut me off. 10 weeks starts third to last week in June. We go all the way through. We actually figure this playoff thing out. It happens. It wraps up right before Memorial Day weekend. Or I'm sorry, Labor Day weekend this playoff thing out. It happens. It wraps up right before Memorial day weekend, or I'm sorry, Labor Day, Labor Day, right? Season starts December, which

we've been talking about in this pod for two years, what a December, August schedule would look like. And that just becomes the schedule and we're off and you know, you launch in mid December, but then Christmas is your big, we're here. And you just kind of do it. And then the finals just ends August 24th every year. And now you're not messing with football at all. And it would just have a dramatic effect on what the sports calendar is in our head, which has been obliterated, but still. Yeah, because it's no coincidence that in the last few years,

we've seen all of these different things pop up to try to capitalize on that stretch. And I think, I don't know, I think maybe sometimes it's a little outdated. I don't know if families travel the same way that they used to travel. Does everybody load up the station wagon at the end of July or July 1st or August. I mean, I understand people travel

more. I mean, that's when I travel, but I only travel that time because the NBA isn't on and football hasn't started yet. That's pretty much the only time I really get to do anything is over those six weeks once free agency's over. But I would almost be willing to go, hey, because of this situation and because of us landing on the beginning of September for the NBA title, let's just got it. Let's do it. Let's just do it for a year and see how it looks. And then maybe you'd get those numbers that prove that.

I still think like people go on vacation. They still watch TV. I think they would be worried about the season ticket holders because like, let's say like, I don't know my dad and the Celtics are going to make the playoffs and be in possibly three rounds, but they have their annual trip to Nantucket, but it would be, you know, potentially during the last week of round two. And Oh my God, should we go? But that to me, those are like very basic, dumb things. Somebody else would buy the

ticket, right? Yeah. I mean, watch it watch it on tv who cares what was your quarantine question you had for me where are you at right now because you've been on this you're not gonna be down at huntington beach although i don't know if i believe all the footage that i've seen because the beaches in la county are still closed ours no one walks around here manhattan beach they walk around the street i could sense some people getting a little bit more restless but nobody goes to the beach but then we saw the oc is just i don't know if i believe all that stuff um if the footage is real because one of those things looked like freak nick you know i saw a picture of newport beach where i i almost thought it was photoshopped or it was a fake or like you know when when there's that's my point is that

one real yeah it seemed like that might have been real. And it does seem like everybody's just kind of raring to get back. And I don't know. I got it not to beat Debbie Downer, but I'm really concerned that people are too confident about like, oh man, yeah, yeah, it's time to get it back. And I think we could have a second wave of this virus that would be so much worse than the first wave

if people turned into the irrational overconfidence, we're good, we've made it, we leveled off, president says it's fine, and everybody just starts giving it to each other again. Then we would have just lost the seven weeks we just spent trying to level this thing off. So you're a second wave guy. We're going to put you like you're a second wave guy. I'm a second wave guy. I am. I, I, I'm going to like that about you. Yeah. You've been serious about this. I'm going to choose to believe the experts who are like, this is terrible. And also

like you read, there's a part of Japan where they open things up too soon. And the second wave was worse than the first wave. And I'm not disputing disputing you i'm not you've just been very very consistent about this i i think i was too freaked out initially and now i feel like i i'm more balanced now because remember we did that one podcast i was like sports is over we'll never see anybody for three years and i was like losing my mind i was reading every bad piece you can read now i feel like uh you were done that day you even told me like i think we got off the off the pod and you called me you're like if you don't want to do you know that many pods i was like well i can't really go anywhere so i'll just i'll crank

out a little q a on thursdays now now i'm just in rewatchables redrafted nbas. Just got to make do. We got a, oh, can I tell you about TV concierge? Please do. It's a new ringer podcast exclusive on Spotify where we either break down new TV shows that are about to come out. We review new TV shows that are about to come out or seasons of shows that were just binge watchable. But here's, here's the flip Priscilla 12 to 15 minute episodes. And we're going to do like eight a week. So there'll be there, there could be days

where there's two in the same feed. And like this, the one on Monday, I did little fires everywhere. The man to Dobbins, Shay and Jason did extraction, the new Helmsworth movie, which is solid, the action movie. And then Juliet Mallory did Too Hot to Handle, the Netflix show. And it's either quickie review. So if you've seen it, you dive in, listen to it, or this show's about to happen. Here's what we've heard. Should you watch it? No drafts? There's no drafts in it? No, no drafts. We're not drafting anything this time around. But it's the kind of thing where there's so much TV popping up every week and it's become more important

than ever. We felt like we wanted to have a podcast that represented us. So exclusive on Spotify. Don't think we're not hitting you up to, to be on one of the mini pods. What are you watching? You know, I never watched better call Saul the first time through. So I've been watching it and it is, I like that.

It's slow. I mean, I could see how somebody would go, that was a little too slow, but they kind of sell the vibe in these scenes that are, you know, as a writer, I understand it better now than most,

but I don't know if, if a new writer would get away with how long some of the scenes are, but some of the times i love how that they are they do spend more time in whatever that scene is to build like the next thing that's the mike character the prequel stuff to when he's in breaking bad um you know saul's right hand man there it's really good it's awesome so i finished ozark season three if you want to do 12 minutes on ozark with me on tv concierge done done because i think that ozark is a perfect example of i don't think writing again not to belabor the credits here but writing for television

hasn't adapted to binging you know we're like again my pam from the office hatred is based on binging you know really watching shows once a week in the more traditional format that's like a long distance relationship visit those three days are incredible like they're unbelievable where when you binge you know she lives with you and you're like oh i'm starting to pick up on some of these habits that i'm not as into it was way more fun when i saw you once every three or four weeks right so right so that's true when when you binge the office with pam you're like wait a minute some of these things are popping up where she was just the fun little humble gal from scranton every week so o Ozark is a really good example of like the

storylines make all the sense in the world, but when you binge it, you almost ruin it because you're like, wait a minute, 20 minutes ago, Wendy was at the farmer's market and now she's calling the drug cartel guy on his cell phone and hammering stuff out. And you go good in the traditional sense, there would have been six or seven days in between, obviously six in between yeah and the storyline would build a little bit more now i'm not saying everybody should start writing tv shows and story arcs for binging because people are going to sit watch five straight episodes that's great that people watch it's been it there's many episodes but i wonder how much that changes the way people are consuming storylines that normally you know they i don't know that you should be writing stuff for binging. That makes more sense, but there's no one that, yeah, right. But I think

would you agree there's times where binging, you can feel like something's rushed and you go, no, I'm rushing it because I'm sitting here watching this many episodes in a row. I think the binging says more about the viewer than how they constructed the show. I, they put, they throw these Ozark seasons up. I don't think they want you to watch all 10 at once. It's a, you know, fairly heavy show. Uh, we'll save it for TV concierge. So we'll do that this week, but I will say just cut that. That's our episode. Uh, I will say I love the brother. I don't know what kind of, uh, feedback he got in the Ozark world. Cause I'm new to Ozark. So I don't know, like, feedback he got in the Ozark world, because I'm new to

Ozark, so I don't know this show came out four or five weeks ago everybody's already talked about the brother I thought he was incredible I thought that actor who I'd never seen before, I think his name's Tom Pelfrey and he played Laura Linney's brother in this show, and I thought it was

a virtuoso performance a part that kind of could have gone bad in the wrong hands And I thought it was a virtuoso performance. See, and a part that kind of could have gone bad in the wrong hands. I thought he was excellent. Yeah. So he's bipolar. He's bipolar. And that's in the JC one. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. In the show. So we'll talk about it when we do TV concierge. Okay. Yeah. Perfect. I thought,

uh, I thought he was great. I also want to mention before we get to, um, talking about the MJ doc, I watched three episodes on Apple TV. Our boy, Chris Evans. I like Chris Evans.

Defending Jacob set in Newton, Massachusetts. Newton South or Newton North. They didn't. I don't think they said which high school. I think neither one wanted accountability for the show. I don't remember seeing which one that was, but it's a, it's a high school kid who's suspected of killing a classmate. And, uh, it's, it's got some of the worst written scenes I think I've seen on TV in a long time, but I also, I also enjoyed the show and my wife and my daughter and I, we watch all

three episodes Friday night and you can only binge the first three. And by the third one, we were kind of in, it was, it was like an excellent lifetime movie. That's how we talk about how are the accents. So Chris Evans dialed it up a little bit, but I, but I thought authentically because you know, he's, he's from new England, so it's fine. There's a couple that I thought were a little shaky and then some just missing some Some it's like, are we filming this in California or Massachusetts? I'm not sure. They didn't go overboard with it though. Yeah, because I got to get a story here

on Chris Evans. What are we talking? Which town is he born in? I thought he was Massachusetts. No, no, he is, but I just want to Yeah, that's right. Lincoln Sudbury. He's as real as it gets. He's a good high school football team shout out to ken becampus lincoln sudbury great high school if you're uh a reporter for a

local newspaper to just go and cover a game i used to like lincoln sudbury lexton high was good conquered carlisle was fun conquered carlisle just nice facilities yeah yeah the wellesley west always a win act Acton Boxboro. I just want parking, and I want food maybe within five minutes. I'm going, all right, last but not least, volume three, MJ's rewatch a Bulls. We've been doing this through the course of the MJ doc with the revived interest in our guy MJ. And we're trying to pick six games. This was a controversial pick.

We fought. We had like a real legitimate argument about which one to go because Barkley, you're so sensitive and you love Barkley so much. You wanted a Suns win. You want to do game three, triple OT. Ironically, that's not a great game.

It's a dramatic game, but it's not very well played. It's kind of ugly and it turns into a slop fest as we get into the OTs and there's just a lot of mistakes. This is a really weird series and it doesn't feel like

a finals between two really good teams that don't like each other until game four. So the background of this series, the Bulls get through the Knicks. We talked about it last week. The Suns have through to through the Knicks. We talked about it last, uh, last week, the sons have a knockdown drag out fight with the Sonics. They make it in game seven. They shoot a hundred free throws. George Carl still pissed about it. It's it is definitely, if you're going

to say which 10 games of the course NBA history did Stern call in with the refs, it's definitely a, a high draft pick gets to the finals. MJ versus Barkley. Everybody's fired up. Uh, Jordan's still not talking really to the press that much. He's worn down. The whole team's worn down and you have this son's team that's ready to take it. And they just shit the bed in the first two games. KJ is terrible. We've talked about him before. Uh, just the, the, the stage was kind of too big for him in a lot of ways, which is weird because this was a guy who had been in a lot, you know, I think six all NBA teams,

second or third team over the course of eight years. And just, he just sucked in the first two. Barkley goes toe to toe with MJ in game two. They bring out the best in each other. Bulls win, goes back to Chicago. We're thinking sweep. The triple OT happens. And now we're thinking sweep the triple ot happens and now we're headed to game four the bulls have a lot taken out of them and they have that game six

game seven in phoenix looming and this is a great game why did this game fall through the cracks in nba history rossillo because you know chicago got this first two in phoenix it is a triple overtime and then paxton shot in game six. I mean, I still feel like one of the great lessons of going back and watching all these Jordan games is there are so many more clutch shots than have been part of the Jordan propaganda. Like if you're a Jordan propagandist, again, you're arguing an argument for the guy that's generally considered the best by almost everybody other than a pocket of LeBron people, maybe the size of Rhode Island.

But he has all of these other shots watching these games. You're like, well, that's a massive shot. That's that, that was the game ender. And I haven't seen it in a commercial. Like,

why don't you add that one to all the other ones? Like I have to watch a Craig Elo shot again. And as you brought up the 91 game where he has that full court runner to get into overtime to win that game, that maybe changes the start of the MJ, like MJ was going to get his rings, but who knows how that game goes differently. If the Lakers pull that one out in LA with, with a beat up squad, um, maybe, maybe something happens there, you know, maybe, maybe Jordan, it's hard to ever think the guy was ever going to doubt himself. But I mean, there's a huge shot against the Knicks and the Knicks games that we watch that never get brought up.

And he has kind of the finisher in this one, too, that I feel like... Which is ridiculous. Yeah, it's one of his best shots. And you're right. Lost in the cracks. The Elo shot, it won game five of a round one series. And they lost in the next round.

I'm not saying it wasn't great. It was a series ender. There hasn't been a lot of those round one series. And they lost in the next round. I'm not saying it wasn't great. It was a series ender. There hasn't been a lot of those over the years. But I think it's strange that some parts of his career have lived on in these really vivid ways. Like the 63-point game. You had thought on Twitter last week that they beat the Celtics.

The Celtics beat them all six times, 86 to 87. I look at this game. They're up two. Phoenix has the ball with 40 seconds left. And at that point, it really looks like Chicago's tired. I don't know what happens to Pippen in the second half of this game, but if Phoenix scores and they blow this game and it's two, two and Phoenix has the last two at home, I don't know what happens, but the real reason I wanted to do this one that, you know, people keep talking about what would these guys be like now? You know, if you put Jordan here, it'd be, you know,

Duran and these guys are just as good as he was. I watched this game thinking like, all right, here's Phoenix, a small ball team for the most part. They played Mark West at center. Some they played Miller some, but for the most part, not a lot of rim protection, not a lot of perimeter defense, a team that resembles most of the teams that we have now. And you watch MJ just carve them up. He's not even, he didn't really have his jumper in this game. I, he probably made less than six jumpers and he's just over and

over and slicing through four or five people getting to the rim and either making the shot or getting fouled. If you think he wouldn't have been better in the small ball era, watch this game because this is what it would have been like. That's definitely one way to look at it. I'm not one of those guys that ever goes like, look, if Jordan played today that he would figure out how to shoot threes and he would be really good at it. Because no question, Michael Jordan. All right. So I don't want to hear I don't want to hear about his three-point numbers we do that too many times the older players we look at their three-point percentages to go oh you know Bird actually didn't shoot as well from out there look how bad

magic's numbers are I'm like well whatever man like we're talking about some of the best players to ever play like none of the guys who were listing or even outside of the top 10 they would figure out a way like Bird would take seven threes a game and he would be filthy and he just would jordan would take they would have practiced it right exactly exactly it would have been accepted it was it still wasn't accepted like they would have been like where are you taking all these threes for yeah why why are you working on your low post game i did a thing with mikhail on nba tv last week we watch a game we did commentary for it and we were just talking about bird and original. Well, three point line,

stuff like that. And, and about how, uh, he was just like bird, never practiced threes ever. And he was still making them. And he was like,

if he played now, he would have practiced this three. That's the part that every, that's why you can't go backwards and be like, ah, look at the three point stats. MJ wasn't a three point shirt. It's like,

no, of course he wasn't. They didn't fucking take them back then. You look at the three-point stats. MJ wasn't a three-point shooter. It's like, no, of course he wasn't. They didn't fucking take him back then. You look at Phoenix, Ainge and Marley were the three-point shooters. Ainge didn't make a three in this game. They made three total. Nobody took him back then.

They didn't make one, I think in the second half of the entire game for game four that we're going over right now. And forget like, oh, here comes Ainge. I don't even know if he took one. Marley took like a terrible one late. He took a couple threes in that second quarter that kind of kept them in it

when it felt like they were losing the game the whole time because honestly they were. But yeah, the three-point thing, I'll listen to certain things about, you know, the time machine game, and I can argue both sides of it, but any of the people that are anti that era's players by saying, look at their three-point numbers, you're making a huge mistake

that Michael Jordan would figure out how to make a three-pointer and practice it, and it would be a lethal part of it. But I don't know that this is anti-small ball as much as this is a Phoenix team that still won 62 games, had the best record in the NBA, and at their pace, and it's not opponent's points because they got out and ran, they were top seven in, or I think they were seventh, definitely top 10 in defensive efficiency as a team, and Jordan abuses them. So if this is an argument against small ball,

it is not an argument for physical, dominant, 90s playoff defense that everybody sells you on all the time because Jordan dribbled past everyone the entire game. And it's actually like embarrassing the little amount of resistance there is because once he got past Dumas, they took Dumas and put Marley on him. I think it ends up being Marley on him more of the rest of the way KJ gets stuck with them. But then if it's Mark West or Tom Chambers or Oliver Miller in a few minutes, it doesn't even matter. Like he's just going, it's a layup line in that second quarter. He can do whatever he wants in this game. And I don't know that it's anything other than Phoenix just

can't, can't do anything with the guy. They try to send these doubles at him. How about this? They would hard double him with almost no rules other than double him and ange would come over to double and help whoever it was and they would leave pippen wide open wide open on key possessions late now i'm not talking like leave them open after the pass they wouldn't even go back and recover and they didn't even care like this is a bad pippen game which seems to be a theme too you've picked a lot of bad pippen games for these i didn't mean to there's some some great one, I, they had the triple OT game and it was a couple of days before. And I do think it had a dramatic effect on this game. You know, I, I even like KJ in game three, the big Phoenix move in game three was they put KJ and Jordan

cause they didn't have anybody else to guard them. They were like, well, at least he's got strong legs. He's low to the ground. Jordan will try to post him up and try to shoot over him. Jordan ends up taking, I think, 43 shots in that game. It's not great. And guys aren't as involved. So they know it's like, it's the old Jedi mind trick move. When you're like, look, we're guarding with a point guard, shoot, keep shooting. Because they know the other guys aren't going to be as involved. This game, he doesn't totally have his jump shot. But what he has is over and over again. And what I mean by the small ball thing is just like, it's just different than that Knicks series we watched.

The Knicks series, there's just bodies in the paint. Every time he's going to paint, there's three guys there, and they're all hitting him. In this game, Phoenix just can't stop him from going to paint. There's three guys there and they're all hitting them in this game. Phoenix just can't stop him from going to the rim. So what they end up doing, it's this weird combination of there on every Chicago miss, they're doing baseball passes to try to, they must've saw something in the scouting thing where they're just like, we can get fast break layups every time they miss. But if the bulls make the Suns would slow it down. So the pace of this game, even though it feels small volley from the Suns, it's, it's, it's kind of, it's a little more like what the mid nineties were like with the pace, right? Where they're just trying

to slow it down, slow it down, post up Barkley, uh, get KJ on an ISO. And it was working. And if you look at these, if you look at the series, they almost win game two and then game three, they win game four. They almost win this one game five. They're they're close, but, uh, and then they ended up winning it by 10, I think the sons and then game six came down to that last second shot. So the last five games of this series, the sons could have won. And I remember in game one was even close to. This game, as far as Barkley is concerned, because I'll get to my Barkley part of this. A hard double on him every post.

Right. He's got the elbow thing, but he's out there and he still put up numbers. He only had eight at the half, but they were doubling them on every catch. And as you said, once it was a Phoenix possession after a make and Chicago, they didn't, they didn't trap them as much. Cause I feel like they probably felt like there was always three ball handlers out there as opposed to the Knicks only had two ball handlers at a time out there with Starks and Doc or Starks and Anthony and the way they play that big lineup that maybe they thought they could trap them more. This is just me, you know, watching it now,

kind of guessing a little bit because they had a couple moments where they were able to trap phoenix but it wasn't as consistent and that also could have been game four coming off a triple overtime where phil's probably thinking you know the rest of the series as well but barkley would get a hard double on the catch if he got single nobody could handle him like he beat up horace grant pippen has a post possession against it defensively where they keep it one-on-one. They don't send a double. And Barkley like brings it back left side of the rim, left hand and finishes.

And like Barkley's just going, what are we even doing here? But then every time Barkley got the double, he made a great pass. He did. And he has this game where anytime Phoenix looks like they're doing something right, other than that Marley stretch of threes

in the second quarter, it's usually Barkley-based. And Kevin Johnson doesn't get his fourth point until deep into the third quarter. His P.E.R. isn't everything, but Barkley's at 25 for the playoffs. The next regular is Oliver Miller at 17. Dumas is at 16.

Kevin Johnson's just bad. I mean, I know he had the injury and missed some time against the Lakers in that first round. And as I'm watching this whole game play out, I look at it differently than I did back then because I wanted Barkley to win so bad. And I think I had talked myself into thinking

that they should have won the series. But the more I'm going back and watching it, and I know I've said that before, I'm wrong. I can't believe Phoenix is even in this thing. And they go to five games in the first round of the Lakers, which part of it's the injury stuff. They go six games with a whatever Spurs team. They go seven

with the Sonics. And they had the best record in the NBA. And other than Barkley and Kevin Johnson, you mentioned that resume. That's really impressive. But he was bad in these playoffs. He was terrible on a bunch of possessions. And then late, they ignore Barkley for like a three or four minute stretch and nothing's happening. And then they go to Barkley and Barkley gets it in the post scores on Horace Grant. Barkley misses a shot, gets his offensive

rebound, puts it back up, has another play where he passes out of the double and it's a perfect read and Barkley just starts going nuts. But at that point it was kind of too late because it looked like they just ignored him for a really long stretch and i can't believe that they did it because the only other thing was kevin johnson trying to be small going against jordan or pippen and these big guards and then another guy coming over because phoenix didn't have anyone to score i mean mark west is their center and he was like 23rd and per of 26 qualifying centers well what about Matt magic's doing the announced in the game? And he's saying, they've got to go to Tom chambers here. I would be running plays for Tom chambers, Tom chambers. This is like the tail end of Tom chambers. A great player. He missed two dunks.

There was a huge dunk late where he got it wide open and he missed the dunk. So I mean, Barkley's trying to carry this team and watching it now I go it was something I was talking to you about but the drop off from who the second or third player was on these finals teams back then and I'm not even just talking Bulls sons here versus who the third player is in like the last 10 years of final teams that we've had like go to your Celtics all right it's it's Ray Allen is the third best player who's the third best player for the Phoenix Suns Dan Marley so what happens they expedite four teams heading into the 90s they had the two Florida teams Charlotte and Minnesota and it dilutes the league and the the stretch from the 91, 92, 93 playoffs are great.

But part of the reason they're great is they just lucked out. They had eight to 10 teams that had at least two really good guys in them. And I think you feel it in this finals. Cause the bulls best third, best guys, Horace Grant, who was an excellent defensive player,

but somebody that, you know, just came and went offensively after that, you're looking at the BJ Armstrong types. And BJ is a nice player, like really defensive player, but somebody that, you know, just came and went offensively. After that, you're looking at the B.J. Armstrong types. And B.J. is a nice player. Nice player. But they're all role players. Right.

Played his butt off on defense. I think the great thing about watching some of these B.J. Armstrong games is just that he never really killed you in the bad play. But Kevin Johnson being a completely watered-down version of himself, I mean, he had some awful turnovers late, too, and, And like big, big spots. Let's talk about him though. Cause bring up that stat that

you texted me. Do you want it? Cause I have it in front of me right now. Cause I read all of his all MBAs. Cause I had something else after that, but go. So we were talking about KJ and this is an anti KJ. Like he was doing well when he and chambers had this thing rolling, they were winning games that weren't winning playoff games, but you needed him to be that second guy to barkley and he just disappears and then you sent me this and from 88 89 to 93 94 he made a second all nba a second all nba a second all nba a third all nba and then he didn't make it in 92 93 because his numbers went down because barkley showed up and then was second all nba in 93 94. That's an insane run over six years. I don't think I knew that.

And then in 95, he scores 46 in game seven against Houston in the Ely Kiss game. But you watch that game on Hardwood Classics. He's completely unstoppable. Here's the other thing with Kevin Johnson. And this is why we were belaboring the point of that. The fact that if he was better in this series, they would have won the series.

I think so in 89, they, uh, they, they win two playoff series. They make the Western finals in 89 and he's barely there. It's like him, Tom Chambers and Hornacek,

Eddie Johnson's still there. They get swept him, Tom chambers and Hornacek, Eddie Johnson's still there. They get swept by the Lakers in 90. They go back. They beat Utah. They beat the Lakers. They beat the Lakers with it, with magic. And,

uh, where are they? Scott? There were five seed, right? Yeah. And then they lose to Portland in the Western finals in six. And then in 91.

That's Riley's last year, by the way. Riley's last year. 91, they lose in round one. And then in 92, they beat the Spurs in round one when they had Robinson. And that was a team that people thought was a contender and then lost to Portland in that series. So they, he kept them relevant. It wasn't like when Barkley got traded to them, he got

traded to the schmuck team. Like that was a pretty relevant Phoenix team. And KJ was the best guy in the team. So for him to just kind of no show this finals, he was good in game 3.62 minutes and he got better as it went along, but they really never recovered from it. They did not have a third score that could supplant him. There was this stretch, too, where there's this whole thing. You just see everything's falling apart around all of them. I mentioned Kevin Johnson gets his 14th point on a layup where it's a really nice play, and I don't know if that was

one of those Walter McCarty threes in the corner where it's like, all right, I just made one. I'm going to take six more of these. And you're like, I don't know if that was kind of one of those walter mccarty threes in the corner where it's like all right i just made one i'm gonna take six more of these and you're like i don't know if that's a great idea and then johnson has this like really bad stretch where i don't know what the hell he's doing out there there's there's a point where um dumas has i think bj armstrong in him in some sort of switch and then barkley's going over to the left block and so this would be right to left phoenix ball if you're watching it and he waves barkley out of the post so johnson's just dribbling against jordan dribbling dribbling dribbling and he's like now get out of here because we want to go to dumas in the post and then dumas gets doubled has no plan throws the ball up in the air and it's's a disaster. And then they call the timeout because right after that,

there was a pip and dunk. And I think a lot of it was West Falls like, hey, Charles Barkley is on our team. Let's not forget because even though Barkley had struggled from outside, he'd made everything at the rim. When he was single cover, it was over. And when he got doubled, he's just this great passer, and he figured things out.

But there are just moments, long stretches, where they couldn't get it to him, and then 36 seconds left, they go to inbound it to Kevin Johnson. He just loses the ball. He just loses the ball. It's terrible. It's one of those moments that gets lost because it's game four, but if that were a game six moment, it'd be right up there with Carl Malone getting the ball stripped from behind in the Utah series.

And it was early sports radio. It's pre-internet. Me and all my friends who love the NBA were like, what the fuck is wrong with Kevin Johnson? The series? Like if you go from 89 to 95, 83 playoff games, and that includes this 93 where in 93, he was 18 a game, eight assists, his free, his field goes down, all that stuff. But you go 89 to 95, he's 22 and 10 for 83 playoff games. This was a guy who statistically was as good as Chris Paul offensively, if you're just comparing like stats. So for him to no show in the finals, like he gets bent for Frankie Johnson and what, in one of the games I've taken out, um, that was tough. The Dumas thing I

want to talk about quick. There's really never been anything like this in the history of the league. You have this guy who gets drafted, who's had a ton of issues. He's a second round pick immediately, uh, fails a drug thing, goes to rehab for his entire rookie year. Doesn't play a game comes in, in this second season, take Cedric Sabayas his job. Sabayas does, doesn't even play in the finals. Uh, Dumas takes all his minutes, 48 games during the regular season, 16 points a game, 27 half minutes per game. Then in the playoffs, he's 11 a game, uh, and has some big moments in game four, game five. He's kind of unstoppable in little

stretches, only plays 42 more games and three more playoff games in his career. He next year, drug, drug rehab is out year after that comes back a little bit. He's out. He was one of the most troubled guys we had. Like if you were making a troubled all-star team, I don't know if he's a starter. Like you're looking at Roy Tarpley and Michael Ray Richardson, guys like that, but he's definitely in the nine-man rotation because he was really good. It's too bad. Sabalis had played 16 playoff games.

He's on this team, and he's nowhere near any of this stuff. And I know Magic had talked about Westfall not trusting him. Right. Defensively. Yeahly yeah I mean the defensive stuff is so bad they go hey look you know put Dan Marley on him and then there's the Ainge moments that we have to get to because

I know you want to stay on Dumas here but you're right I just wanted to mention like that just a really strange career had this really it four good months and crested with him on the final stage scoring buckets he's the biggest reason they win game five on the road in chicago everyone thinks chicago's going another title and then it's basically done it's i don't think he's a 30 for 30

but he's like a 30 for 30 short like a like a what the hell happened to this guy um yeah he went from uh by the way he like 30 games his first year at oklahoma state 18 16 well yeah 17 and 6 a game and his field goal percentage numbers were always pretty good and then it's like oh wait you know this guy's going in the wrong direction here scoring and games played yeah he had a lot of issues i mean he was out of the league his entire second year and as you mentioned i mean doesn't even gets to like 50 games another theme from this series magic who was better i thought as a he's the third man in the booth with marvin the czar um and was really banging home the whole team theme about how he thought these teams were too friendly and he didn't like that barkley and mj were hanging. He tells this whole story. And as this game is getting chippier and more physical and Ainge,

Jordan almost kicks Ainge's ass like twice. BJ Armstrong and KJ get into it. Pippen and Barkley have a whole bunch of things. That's why I want to do this game because it feels like a real finals game. And Magic's just getting more and more excited the more chippy it gets. And then finally he starts talking about how between one of these games in Chicago, I guess it was between game three and game four, Michael Jordan had just opened his steakhouse and both teams went to have dinner there. And he's like, I can't believe that

when I was in the finals, I never wanted to see anybody like you're trying to beat these guys. These guys are in your way. You got to hate these guys. You can't be friends with them. I think it's a huge mistake and was really, and the chipper you it got, he was like, finally, this feels like the finals. I felt watching it like it was maybe the moment when things started to change in the league, the buddy-buddy thing, where Magic, who had just retired, is just viscerally responding to these guys hanging out and having dinner together. Um, I don't know. I think that leads to where we are now where everybody's, you know, hugs and tweeting at each other and being on each other's podcasts and stuff. Uh, I don't know if, I don't know if it started in 93, but it's a good test case.

So this is a really, uh, interesting thing. because we had a few things going on here where some people get really mad at Van Gundy and Mark Jackson. They'll make jokes about like, hey, the broadcast turns into a podcast. And I would rather have the moments where I don't always love the discussion, but like that they're talking about sort of newsy items in the course of a broadcast like what what bad color commentators don't realize is that i don't need your breakdown of every single possession you know first you can let it breathe and i like when it's a three-man guy and the other two analysts are kind of having a bigger picture discussion about something that's going on and honestly nobody's better than when van gundy's doing it i know there can be times

it's like hey there's a game going on here guys but i'd rather have them take those chances and maybe miss some stuff instead of just going straight the whole time this was like an early version of it because magic kept having like his own little podcast about all of these dynamics and the line that's so great about the not that it matters because he's not playing but he goes you know these guys are all out to dinner at mj steakhouse. MJ Steakhouse must have been mentioned a thousand times during the playoffs in 93, by the way. Yeah. And he goes, and me and Quinn Buckner, we couldn't believe it when we were there. Like he was there with Quinn Buckner.

All the guys were there. Not that it matters because, again, he's not playing. But it wasn't like, I was like, how, like, why does Magic know, like, everything's going on? It's like, because clearly he was hanging out with MJ and Charles the whole fucking time. Oh, yeah. They were all playing cards. Yeah. Yeah.

So the second part of this, and I can speak to this because of my football partner, Chris Long, as a newer athlete, right? A guy who just retired. How frustrated he gets when he hears that all it is is like all these guys are boys all the time and they work out together and nobody's mad about anything and then when he saw in the first part of the jordan doc that ange played golf with mj in 86 it was like oh hey so we you know the millennial athlete gets dumped on all the time but yet here we go in the rough and tumble 80s and then again in the 90s with charles and mj um i think age probably played golf with jordan because they were a 30 and 52

team and he didn't give a shit uh so maybe that's overstated i also think the barkley jordan stuff barkley shot down that one story where they played a million holes and mj bought him earrings and it ended up on the news and barkley was watching the news broadcast of it and he's like like, I didn't even golf with him. Like, I don't even know what's going on. So I don't know who to believe in all of this stuff. I think you can still be menacing and take out your opponent and be friendly, but there are times where I think it's too much. And the example I always think of, do you remember the Yankee socks playoff game where Ortiz was looking at a rod in the game and was like telling him to take a deep breath and relax. That was one for me

where I was like, actually, no, I'd rather have him be full of anxiety right now. Yeah, I'd rather have him be hyperventilating. Right, right. Like Ortiz, are you kidding? Like you're that friendly with everybody that in the game, you're actually telling A-Rod to relax and loosen up? Like, no. Like, you don't need that. It's 80 years of torture

by this franchise. Did I ever tell you the 93 finals golf story about MJ? that I think Ahmad Rashad told me somebody told it to me who was, who was there, who pointed it out. I think it was. So Jordan in the first two games or maybe between the games or before game one or something, he was playing like 36 holes a day in Phoenix. And apparently he got sunburned. And if you look at him, I think it's game two, but it might be game six, but I think it's game two. It's either game one or game two. If you look at him, he's actually darker because

he had played so much golf. He got like sunburned. And I think it was Ahmad telling me this. It was like, that dude was playing so much golf, he got sunburned. But it was just how he was treating the whole finals. He was so good that he's, every night he's gambling. He's playing 36 holes of golf. He scores

55 points in this game. 55! I talked to somebody who played against him in one of these, I'm not going to say the year, but he goes, you drank all night with him the night before, like all night, like the places stayed open for us. And you know, when you're younger, you can recover. And when you're six, a million and you're these, these guys, like these guys recover better than the average guy, but that was kind of their thing, I guess.

And I think this version of the story has been told before, but like they stayed out all night and then they pull in a facility. And I think Scotty and Michael were outside smoking cigars being like, welcome to your beating. Cause like we stayed out, we stayed out with you all night and we know you feel like shit. We don't cause we're mutants and we're going to have a stogie before we even play this playoff game.

And then when the game tips, we're going to kick your ass too. So I don't even know, like MJ may have been doing this stuff where he's like, what do I care if I go golf with these guys? I'm better than all of you. And I'm going to beat you all. I mean, and that's kind of the stuff where I think that's what it was. I think, I think he wanted to get the point across. Like I'm going to play 36 holes and then I'm going to score 50. I drink all night too.

Apparently. And, and I'd go, why would you like, I just, I remember the night I saw Gary Payton drink when I traveled with the cell. It was the only time I'd ever, ever been on the road with the team.

Cause I was filling in for play by play radio. It's the, it's the only time I filled in for a road game. Um, and I didn't get paid and that's probably why I filled it in for play-by-play radio. It's the only time I filled in for a road game. And I didn't get paid, and that's probably why I filled it in. And Peyton, it was a day. It was a weird Saturday day game. It's that weird Nets-Celtics game that I did.

And Peyton was fine, but he was throwing them back. And I just kept thinking to myself, the minute if I were ever hung over and got smoked in a game, I'd never, ever want to do that again. I just wouldn't. Hangovers suck. I wouldn't want to be hung over and then smoked in a game, I'd never, ever want to do that again. Like I just wouldn't, you know, hangover suck. I wouldn't want to be like hungover and then go out there. But I, part of it is the life and guys just adapt. But the thing that you can't ever, like these guys are just different than the rest of us. And some of them can stay out all night long and it doesn't matter. Can you imagine having a championship on the line and staying out till five or six in the

morning, then playing golf and then going out there and dropping like 40 on somebody and apparently like i'm not saying it happened every night but uh these guys are just built different man it's it's incredibly impressive i think i think mj specifically there was that story about um wait that william knack wrote that awesome Sports Illustrated piece after Secretariat died. When they had the autopsy after Secretariat died and his heart was twice the size of a normal horse heart. And they were like, oh, that explains a lot. I wonder like somebody like Jordan, like when he dies someday and they study his body, I wonder like if it's different than other bodies. The fact that you can just play and

score 55 and not sleep. That's not normal. I don't, I don't think there are other people who could do that. I think he's a rarefied athlete. I think there's gotta be something special physically about him. It can't just be a mental thing. Yeah. If MJ had a whoop, it would be like, Hey dude, relax.

Like we need your recovery numbers are all over the place. Well, Iverson was like that too, right? Remember, they said Iverson was a fucking vampire. Like he just didn't sleep ever. Yeah. But then people would tell you that we're close. Like towards the end, it was catching up to him. Oh, yeah.

That's the thing. Like apparently with Gary Payton, it just never caught up. Like it just, he was just that dude. It was going to be wired. And, you know, he's out of the league because he was older, not for any other reason. Um, but,

and when I say it that way, I mean like, look, guys decline, they have their sort of decline, but normally, you know, start turning like 27,

28, that hangover lasts a little bit longer. And you're going, ah, you know, this is some of these guys. It didn't really happen to it. But the other thing that can't be,

and I don't care if like, if at any point it's like, man, you guys really love Jordan. Yeah. That's the point. You know, that's kind of the point. It's almost like he is so cool every second he is on the court. There is not a second where anything is uncool. I know that sounds stupid, but it's true. Every time somebody tries to go at him too, like, look, he elbows Ainge, Ainge gets pissed,

rips the ball out of his hands. Respect to Ainge for kind of going like, look, I know you're MJ, I'm not going to back down to you. But even when MJ was in the middle of one of those things he'd point his finger at you and his eyes and his face and he never looked he never got so heated that he looked uncool and not in control of his emotions it's fucking freaky man it's freaky because every single time it's like the celebration's perfect the drive is perfect the finishing at the rim he changes it on you and i'm not just talking that one play where he changes hands to a less hand like every moment that dude is on the court he is in complete control and he's cooler and more dominant and even to talk shit to him you have to be like i know i gotta stick up for myself and not look like a

pushover but i'm talking shit to michael jordan now, and I'm just going to lose. It's weird. Well, he gets into it with Ainge twice. The first time, and it starts a little earlier, and the announcers missed it when they showed the replay. Ainge comes behind, sets a really hard back screen on him, and then kind of follows through on it. And the play's going, and MJ, he's so mad at Ainge. He like swings an elbow and he's like, but he has to go chase his guy. So it's, you can see him followed away. Like I'm going to get him later. And Ainge ends up with the ball, like eight seconds later, MJ like basically makes him throw it out of bounds. And then, then just gets right in his face. And Ainge who just over and over again was always on the defense. He was the Daniel LaRusso of the NBA for a long time.

It was like everybody just wanted to beat the shit out of him. It was just something about him. People hated Ainge, man. I don't know if it was his eyes or what it is because like, you know, it's Danny Ainge. Danny Ainge is a really good player. And, you know, it's towards the end here. Well, remember Sadal 3 cold cocked him.

And you can find it. He opened, they get into it. He open hand slaps him and you can find it they get into it he open hand slaps him and Ainge like staggers like he's Trevor Burbeck against Tyson but he got punched a few times Sadal 3 I used to have from the newspaper

that punch where it's in Ainge's like mouth it's a slap though it's like an open hand old school slap and Ainge does like. It's a slap, though. It's like an open-hand, old-school slap. And Ainge does a Tommy the Hitman Hearns just cracked by Hagler-like stutter step on the court. I cut that out and put it in my trapper keeper when I was in grade school.

Wow. So you don't have to remind me of the Sedell Threat Punch because I had it for a year in my trapper keeper. So he had that. He had the famous Tree Rollins fight where he's running by Rollins. Rollins throws an elbow at him and age who's a foot smaller than him. He turns around, he charges him and tackles him, which was good. Uh, he had a couple with Detroit, a couple of the Lakers and then over and over again in these Portland Phoenix third man playoff runs that he had third guard off the bench. It was always somebody getting mad at him.

He really was David LaRusso. But I think it's because he wouldn't just back down though. I think people would size him up and then you go, you know, like Ainge is this amazingly accomplished athlete. And whatever you're going to say to him, I'm sure Bird gave him way more. Like Bird and McHale always kind of joked about like Danny being being the younger guy that he gave a hard time the younger brother yeah yeah i i think it's i don't look at any of these encounters and go like oh age was this dirty guy that was doing all this shit the guys i just think he was like look i'm not gonna back down to you even if i'm at this further like my my peak career tier wasn't at yours but i'm not just gonna submit which i actually respect as i go

back and watch some of this age stuff but i I also understand why people hated him. You know, I mean, you know, he was the other guy, you know, um, at the end of the heat, one of the Houston Phoenix series that I think in 94, he didn't like how Mary Ellie was celebrating. And it's, you've seen that clip, right? Where angels throwing the ball in bounds at the tail end, but just whips it against his head as hard as he can. It's, it's fucking crazy. I actually think if he did that now, he'd get suspended for like 10 games, but they cut and Houston gets mad at him and he's doing the, what, what did I, I, I didn't, I didn't realize I did that. It was like one of those, but he clearly did it intentionally. We should talk quickly about a. 55 points in this game.

He's 21 for 37. He misses five free throws. First quarter, 11 points, five for nine. Second quarter, 22 points, nine for 11. So he's got 33 at halftime. Cools down a little as 10. And we're like four minutes into the fourth quarter. He scores to get 47.

He's got four in the fourth quarter. Marv goes, Michael Jordan, 47 points. Only four in the fourth quarter, he scores to get 47. He's got four in the fourth quarter. Marv goes, Michael Jordan, 47 points, only four in the fourth quarter. You and I have noticed this over and over again. You got it now. No lesser fan of Michael Jordan than Marv Albert. Just unimpressed constantly. The guy can do no right. It's, you know, he's sitting there.

He'd be like, oh, MJ, 100 points, but field goal percentage, not what you'd want. He's always throughout. What have we watched? Five or six of these now. We've done three for it. So I've cheated and gone and watched some other ones too because it's just so much fun. But there always seems to be this lingering thing with Marv

where even if Jordan's lighting it up in response to a bad game to Jordan feeling it. And you're like, wait a minute. Jordan has, he's got like at least 40 points and he misses a jumper. And Marv's like Michael searching for the jump shot today or something like that. It's like,

he's about half of the points on his team. He's about to break the finals record for points in a half. Yeah. I mean, it's 33 because it's so bad. It's so easy how easy that 33 is in the first half because of him just going through everyone. It actually, didn't you feel like he could add 70 in this game? Yeah.

If the pace was a little faster, he misses. I honestly enjoyed every shot he took except for two. I thought he took 37 shots. I thought 35 were great shots. Um, he made all the right passes too. Once I started double teaming him, it is a flow in the game 55. I never felt like he was ball hogging it. Same thing for Barkley. Barkley was just doing whatever the defense took. It was never at any point like, Oh my God, I have a chance to get 60. Meanwhile, as they point out near the end of the telecast,

like only one guy had ever had 60 plus in the finals was LG Bill. And I think that was an overtime game. Uh, so the stuff he was doing was not, and it's just bouncing off Marv. He's just, MJ would have had to score 70 to really get a rise out of

Marv. I think. Yeah. Barkley has 32, 12 and10, and he's 10-19, and it's almost this perfect game. Yeah. And if you go back and watch this after you listen to us do the pod, you're going to have moments of feeling like it's underwhelming.

And you're going to go, no, it's like this incredibly efficient 32. He only has one turnover. He could have had a second one where he got kind of caught bringing the ball up the court. But you can just see there's these moments where Barkley's like this incredibly efficient 32. He only has one turnover. He could have had a second one where he got kind of caught bringing the ball to court. But you could just see there's these moments where Barkley's like, is anybody else going to do anything here? And Marley's got 14. Kevin Johnson ends up with 19.

But it was really kind of empty most of the game. Dumas has a good early start of it. Can we talk about Marley quick? Yes. Because this guy was considered to be one of the best three and D guys early, early version of it. And, you know, made an all-star team, had a good career, uh, had a nice little comeback run with the Miami teams, Jordan destroys him and they go into it a little, you know, and playing for keeps by Halberstam where it's all because Jerry Krause love Marley in the draft

and Jordan and Pippen found out for some reason. Jordan's a lunatic. He took it personally. And just every time I play Dan Marley, I'm going to destroy him. He kills him in this game to the point that it's honestly like if I was guarding Michael Jordan, it's like the way he's just going by Marley. And they even say that, I think Fratello talks about,

well, Marley told us they even say that, I think Fratello talks about, well, Marley told us he can't stop that crossover and he's just going to try to stay in front of him. But if he's going to do the crossover, he can't stay in front of him. And it's like, this guy was a borderline all defense guard.

He literally couldn't guard Michael Jordan at all in any way. Screaming for help. It's actually yeah I mean the thing about Marley that you liked as a 3 and D is that he had this kind of size but they were better off with KJ but then KJ you know if we're telling the full story of this whole thing I don't love doing the oh this guy was hurt this guy was hurt all this stuff constantly the whole time because a lot of the guys are hurt but he had missed some time in the playoffs they're working

on his hamstring at one point Hannah Storm has that that cut and they even say that barkley if it were regular season game he wouldn't have played because the elbow but look if you can get 32 12 and 10 you're good enough to go ahead and play uh and and kj actually starts being really aggressive they're late and when marley said that and fratello points it out i'm going like well that's that's the most common thing ever like you know how when the draft will happen and then somebody will talk about a guard defensively and he comes in and be like well he's gonna have to figure out a way to stay in front of Russell Westbrook you're like actually he's not going to have to because no one can stay in front of Russell Westbrook so I used to make that mistake when I would do my own little scattering reports

like oh he's gonna have a tough time you know no one can stay in front of Chris Paul prime Chris Paul one-on-one okay like that's you have better, more advanced defensive team concepts now than you do back then. And so when Marley gets caught on that switch going right to left and MJ's free at the free throw line, everybody would have gotten caught on that because there's not even a help. The doubles were telegraphed doubles. They try to do a double late where MJ gets that and one

that basically seals the game where Kevin Johnson runs like full speed at MJ on the catch on the inbound at half court. And MJ is already behind me because Kevin Johnson isn't paying any attention. And then he gets past the second guy because Kevin Johnson didn't really have a plan at the point of attack. And then Barkley comes over and fouls him and makes the bucket. And that's, again, one of those lost, like, okay, nail in the coffin bucket there because Phoenix was making this late charge as I'm constantly going, how is it six points? How is it five points? It got to eight. It got to nine. It didn't feel like anyone was playing well. You want to know why?

Because at one point, Chicago was 14-27 from the free throw line. That's the only reason this game was close. They kept missing all their free throws and had they made their free throws, this could have been a 20 point game and then the effort is down at the end and that's why the game is like oddly close when it shouldn't be.

Can I tell you something? Yeah. Dan Marley that year made the all-star team second team all defense and had made it second team all defense, and had made it second team all defense in 91 too. Jordan is destroying him.

But not as bad as Dumas. Honestly, he was better. Well, but I mean, Dumas was a guy who was in and out of the league in a year. This was a guy like, we didn't really have a lot of better options to guard Michael Jordan. We had like Dumars. You're talking about,

I'm talking to early 90s guys. It had like Dumars. You're talking about, I'm talking to early nineties guys. It's like Dumars. Ironically, the best guy was the guy on his team, Pippen. That was, that would have probably, if you're just doing a draft of like who could guard Michael Jordan,

the early nineties, you probably would have picked Pippen. We saw in the Lakers series too. He's, he's just destroying Byron Scott going by him whenever we want. Byron Scott was a good defensive player. It didn't matter. Yeah. That's the moral of the story though, is that it's not Dan Marley. I mean, He's just destroying Byron Scott, going by him whenever we want. Byron Scott was a good defensive player. It didn't matter.

Yeah, that's the moral of the story, though, is that it's not Dan Marley. I mean, the Dumas attention to detail. I mean, Dumas is flat-footed. There's no effort. I mean, he's just lost. And then even when he gets caught in a switch, he doesn't even know what the hell he's doing. You know what else was crazy, too, is like four minutes left in the game,

Kevin Johnson's trying to run a high screen against Cartwright to get caught in a high switch you know like a one five switch and they don't even do it right and then cartwright ends up getting called for foul and i remember being like oh that's right you were allowed to do screens with centers to try to get a small against their big and they never do it like it jumps out at you go oh wait yeah that's right that was allowed in the 90s and you would think at some point somebody go hey could we try to get kevin johnson into a switch against bill cartwright because let's just do that instead of him trying to finish against pippen and jordan the whole time and the one time they do do it they get a foul but i'm like oh that's right why wouldn't there's a lot of stuff that you can't help but watch like with today's idea of

what basketball looks like going. Well, that's kind of dumb. There's just a lot of Phoenix offensive stuff in here where you go. I was shocked by how much I didn't like Phoenix's offense considering how fun I thought they were in the moment in the 90s watching them, but I was like, it's

27 years old. I was getting frustrated. I was like, why don't they just run pick and rolls with KJ and Barkley? What are they doing? A pick and roll with KJ and Barkley is unstoppable. Well, how are you, how are you stopping it? Barkley can roll to the basket. And do they run to get to the basket? It's not like not enough.

I would run. It's like zero. They didn't run one in the whole game. When they do that one with chambers at the end, because it was going to be chambers like onto a switch or whoever. I think it might've been BJ had Johnson on that one. I'm not sure, but it,

you, you see it and you go, Whoa, wouldn't you have just put, all right, you put Marley age and Frank Johnson out there, just spread the floor with them. And he was like,

we're just running Barkley KJ high screen every single time. And we're going to, we're going to score. We're going to average 1.5 points of possession. We don't care if we get killed on defense. You're killing us anyway. That's what I would have done. A couple more quick things about this game.

I just wanted to say I loved, we mentioned it last week, I loved doing the Bulls trapped. And I found this quote from Jackson that there's a little oral history about this finals that Jack McCallum did. Randy Jackson? Phil Jackson. Oh. And I found this quote from Jackson that there's a little oral history about this finals that Jack McCallum did. Randy Jackson, uh, Phil Jackson.

Oh, he said the first unit pressed with BJ and the ball and cart, right. As a defensive anchor, the second unit used a full court trap defense with a mobile center and Stacy King or Scott Williams. They're so much more active with that full court stuff than I expected. It was really effective. And I don't,

I, I gotta say, I don't understand why a modern NBA team wouldn't look at this and just be like, let's do that full court trap thing that the early nineties bulls team did. I think it would really cause problems. I wish somebody would try it. If the only reason is, Oh, players don't want to do that today. That's a horrible, horrible reason because the players today, the five-man units you have out there are much more, far more designed to handle it and, you know, trap and recover

with today's guys than they were back then. And you're right. Well, teams are deep too, like a 10-man team. Like you look at the Celtics. They're pretty deep right there. That's the thing with Phil.

Couldn't they bring in a bench and just have a full-court trap with the bench? all brown is the anchor the anti you know we could do all this stuff with anybody hey what's your anti phil jackson argument okay well the only way these guys play their asses off for him and i know we said before yeah they play so hard it's but maybe that's just mj and pippen maybe it's those two guys. It's like, look, this is how serious we're taking it, and everybody has to get in line. I mean, Horace Grant's all over. He has a 10-10 in the first half, too.

Phil deserves... It's something that's just nice to bring up and remember. Like, hey, Phil got the best players in the world to play like they were walk-ons at a D1 school. Right. Two other quick things. KJ said in that oral history, the 93 final still keeps him up at night.

The history of the NBA has these teams that come up short, learn their lessons to win it. That was supposed to be us. We didn't. Being one of the best teams never to win a championship, that's the stariest state to be in. It's funny because in 94, Dumas gets suspended.

Barkley's knees are pretty banged up and then they end up losing the Houston 95. They had Danny Manning that year and that team, the 95 titles wide open Houston ends up kind of stealing it. They were a six seed. They just kind of caught fire at the right time. Orlando wasn't really ready yet to actually win the title. That Phoenix team of Danny Manning doesn't get hurt. I think that, that ironically could have been Barkley's best chance other than, uh, this year. And then the other thing I noticed,

you know, magic's doing the announcing in 92 and 93 for these finals. And in a weird way, that was the more, most fortuitous thing that happened for MJ with these first three titles was just magic having to retire because that Lakers team, um, they would have been able to add to that nucleus ad. They still had worthy. They had Scott, they Perkins, they debauch, you know, they would assign somebody else. I actually think that would have been a harder team to get past than, uh, this 93 sons team. Cause as you pointed out, it was really two scores and that's it. And they were not, they did not have a rim protection team. Uh, it was a super

fun team to watch. I loved watching them. I thought Barkley was extraordinary this season, but, uh, when Jordan wanted to score anytime he could, and that was the legacy of the series. He could get any basket he wanted whenever he wanted that 85 or assuming 95, uh, second round seven game series to Houston is, is one of my worst basketball memories. Cause I wanted Barkley to get it so bad. I thought, okay, you're right. Like,

here we go. It's wide open. Houston isn't as good. The six seed thing. Oh, they're still high off of last year, but they had added Clyde. Um,

and Phoenix wins one 30, one away game one, one 1894 in game two, they get blasted going to Houston. And then they, they win game four. They're up three, one in this series. They lose a six going to Houston and then they, they win game four. They're up three, one in this series. They lose a six point game, game seven stats, Akeem 29 and 11. Clyde, uh,

shoots the hell out of the ball himself. He has 29 and seven. And then just cause KJ deserves this. Cause it's very, the KJ is just bad in this game. There's nothing really to say. It's a tough playoffs for him entirely in 1993 and not what you'd expect. He had 46 points in a one-point Game 7 game. Barkley had 18, 23 boards. And this is one of my least favorite. I remember exactly where I was. I was still sticking around college.

I didn't want to go home yet. And classes were out. And I was just I was still sticking around college. I didn't want to go home yet. And classes were out and I was just out with a couple of buddies and watching this. We were, uh, we were so, we were so bummed out because, you know, guys at that point, like, I think people were sort of rooting for Barkley, especially with Jordan, not being around. And it felt like Houston was, they'd had a spirited title defense, but people weren't talking about them as a title team.

And the end, the last minute of this game is just brutal. It's coming out of a timeout. They trap because they assume... I think they were assuming it was going to go to Hakeem, so they trap, try to force the issue. They leave Ellie wide open in the corner, and that's he does the famous kiss. But KJ, I would urge people to go watch this game.

If you're super bored, because KJ is just on skates in this game. He looks like Wayne Gretzky. I can't lay up, lay up, lay up, lay up. He's going by everybody. People are backing five feet off him. He's still getting to the rim. So anyway. Uh, all right. So rewatch a bowls volume three. We love this game because, uh, love this son's team. It's a tragic team. Ironically next decade, they would have another tragic team with the, with the Nash's sons. Sons have had a couple critically acclaimed almost champs, and this is definitely one. And then the MJ, uh, you know, the average 41 in the finals, I'm reasonably sure we won't see that again. Who knows? Maybe there'll be some three point shooter that just makes 53s in the finals. I'm reasonably sure we won't see that again.

Who knows? Maybe there'll be some three-point shooter that just makes 53s in the seven-game series or something. Single elimination, Rockets. That's the entire finals, just one game. What if the Rockets won a single elimination championship? How would you process that?

Probably wouldn't acknowledge it. I barely acknowledged the 99 Spurs. That one still bothers me. And that was like 50 game season, but we had a full. Why does that one bother you? That was a stupid season. Said the Knicks get in as an eight seed. What are you?

Shack finals. Shack Simmons season. Everyone's out of shape. Rosillo, you have two podcasts coming this week. One. What are you doing? I think two. And we're starting part one of the recruiting stories where i interview a bunch of dudes and get their best single recruiting story uh going to college all pro athletes except for one yeah and you and i will go do uh tv concierge

we'll do ozark season three this week belatedly we'll just throw that one up there uh check out tv concierge on spotify it launches on Monday. It's exclusive. Check out Rosillo's podcast, the Ryan Rosillo podcast, which you can find wherever you get your podcast. Thanks to State Farm. Thanks to World Central Kitchen. Thanks to Rosillo. Thanks to nephew Kyle. Nephew Kyle, I missed you during the draft. It was sad. It was emotional. It was the first draft we haven't watched in a while. Stay safe out there. We'll see you later in the week. We'll see you later. On the wayside On the first sun Never lost it I don't have