The Bill Simmons Podcast - Beating the Lakers, Rondo’s Revival, Atlanta’s Sports Torture, and Trump’s Last Stand With Jackie MacMullan, Rembert Browne, and JackO

Episode Date: October 21, 2020

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Jackie MacMullan to discuss the looming start date of the 2020-21 NBA season, the value of lottery draft picks in this year's NBA draft, offseason player movement, how teams should look to combat the Lakers' size, and more. Then Bill talks with Rembert Browne about yet another Atlanta sports heartbreak after the Braves' loss to the Dodgers in the NLCS, and Rembert shares his theory on why Atlanta may have a sports curse. Finally Bill talks with his buddy JackO about another Yankees postseason failure, a Dodgers vs. Rays World Series, "old-man baseball gripes," the 2020 presidential election, the upcoming presidential debate, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I have basketball, baseball, Atlanta sports, and a little politics in the fall of the Yankees all coming up. I don't know what else I can do for you. It's the Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel. Football is in full action. FanDuel's highest rated sports book is the best place to bet it all. We've been doing pretty well on million dollar picks this year. I love the first month of the season because you have to go into the season thinking, I think Pittsburgh's going to be good. I think the

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some Miller Lites today your game time tastes like Miller time must be legal drinking age we're also brought to you by TheRinger.com and The Ringer Podcast Network. Put up a new Rewatchables on that feed. It is Spotlight, five-year anniversary

of a really, really, really awesome, influential movie. Did that one with Chris Ryan and Ryan Rosselli. You can hear that now. We have two iconic movies coming next week, Monday and Wednesday on The Rewatchables. When I say iconic, I mean two iconic movies coming next week, Monday and Wednesday on the rewatchables. When I say iconic, I mean two iconic movies. So be prepared for that. Coming up, Jackie McMullen,

Rembrandt Brown, Jacko. Three people that are just on podcasts together way too often. All right, this is the first time. It's all coming up. First Pearl Jam. All right. Taping this Tuesday afternoon. Jackie McMullen is here. The basketball offseason is upon us.

I've been talking about this. I talked about it on my pod on Sunday. Talked about it on Zach Lowe's podcast yesterday. It really seems like they're pushing up this season to basically, you know, they're acknowledging there's no way they're going to have fans anytime soon. Might as well keep the schedule relatively intact so they can keep the 2021-22 season, protect that 100%. So we might have a really fast run here where all of a sudden we have

draft mid-November, they'll push free agency up a tiny bit, and then potentially this season could start Christmas earliest, MLK weekend the latest. What have you been hearing about Topsy Turvy stuff? Because every year we've had at least one crazy thing has happened basically since 2014. What is your prediction for the crazy thing this year? The crazy thing this year? I think the pandemic's going to come back and bite the NBA if they start too soon. I do, because I just don't see an end to this. I'm not one of those people that believes it's going to disappear on November 3rd, for instance. And the other thing that I think the real reason they're pushing it, Bill, as hard as they are,

it's the fans in part, but it's also because the numbers were horrible. Oh, yeah. And I don't think you could stress that enough. They thought, or even in the summertime, they thought they would have a captive audience in the summer. And I have a lot of friends, as I know you do, who love basketball and they just couldn't, as much as they love basketball, they had a hard time pivoting to watching it regularly in the summer. So the numbers were not at all what the NBA had hoped.

That's what I've been hearing. Yeah, I think it was eye-opening for them where they thought maybe August and September could actually be a good thing for them because they had been talking for years about what if we started on Christmas Day, went all the way through. And the combination, not just football, but I think the election cycle too, having to deal with that

every four years where basically from June, from July on, every four years, people are just going to drift to the news channels, the debates, all that stuff,

the combo of that. And that's even before we get into the social justice stuff this year, which definitely hurt at least a tiny bit. Oh, I think it hurt more than a tiny bit. Yeah, I'm being,

I'm trying to be diplomatic. But the football thing, they don't, you know, they had it good the old way, where it was the finals on June, and then they own the offseason in July, and those were kind of the two dead months where they're only going against baseball that in. I think they want to protect that and get back to that.

And if they have to make it a 70-game season and a sprint this year and start early and have no fans, you're making the key point, though. How do you protect against the stuff that's plaguing the NFL right now, where every week there's two, three teams that have something going? I don't know how you fix that. I mean, they have less players. That would be one good thing.

Well, that's true. And I mean, the NFL, just the contact. I mean, the NBA is obviously a physical game, but the contact in the NFL, you just watch it from week to week and you say, how have they even managed as well as they have? And, you know,

Bill Belichick, I was so surprised, so surprised that he went to the practice thing, you know, the, the multiple mentions of practice a mere week after his protege, his reluctant protege in some ways, Mike Vrabel,

had dealt with COVID in ways that no one else has. Yeah. And just destroyed the Buffalo Bills. I just thought it was interesting. I was surprised Bill Belichick went that way. You know? I thought it was a solid excuse coming out of a game where the Broncos completely demolished

them. I mean, yeah, man, we needed more practice. Like, honestly, that was embarrassing. But you know what? Like if Drew Lockett stayed on the field 10 more minutes, he was going to give them another chance to win. I mean, that was just an embarrassing loss. So I was just surprised.

Bill's not an excuse maker. One of the things I like about him. That was surprising to me. All right. So we're getting off the rails a bit. Sorry. Well, if you're one of the NBA contenders right now, which the list is like eight to 10 teams.

Sure. And you're looking for a possibility of all of a sudden this could speed up and we are going to have the draft. I think it's November 15th, 16th, somewhere in there. And then free agency fast 18th. Free agency fast after. And the cap's going to be pretty hard. It's going to be like one Oh nine.

Right now it's a little lower, lower than I thought, right? Lower than you thought. I thought, cause I think they're trying to protect for the year after. Right. Would be my guess. The Giannis,

the Giannis year. Yes. You don't have marquee free agents like we've had in the past. It seems like they're more stacked at 21. You also have at least three teams that we know about. Toronto, Dallas, and Miami, I think, are safe bets to at least be looking ahead to Giannis

in 2021. Right. And then you have Golden State with this number two pick with a giant trade exception that expires pretty soon, but they would take a huge luxury tax if they put another hit, if they took another player in there. I, I can't, I can't do that. And they have a chance to be a contender right away if they can turn that number two pick into somebody who can play right away for them. So they're balancing what's that pick worth

on Zach's podcast this week. We were trying to figure out like, what is that pick worth? What do you think it's worth? I mean, it's not a great draft, right? It's just not, there isn't, there's not a great draft, right? It's just not. There's no Zion in this draft. And because everything's compressed, I've talked to so many scouts and coaches are like, we can't bring guys in, although guys have come in, but it's not the way we like to do it. You know, it's just very, it's always been an inexact science. And we have a million examples of that.

But I think even more so now because people just aren't sure because with all the analytics aside, almost every GM you've ever talked to tells you they just want to look at the kid in the eye and spend some time with him and talk with him. And that's been hard to do, especially if you have to have a mask on. So I think this is a really interesting year for, I think that pick has been incredibly devalued because of all of that, to be honest. Well, that's how you do stuff, too. You like being in the room with people. You like interacting with them, and that's how you get some of your best stuff. And I'm sure you've even suffered with reporting you've done, because basically now you're doing phone calls.

Yeah, it's been the worst. It's just so horrible. I was just talking to Nick Nurse about this the other day because Nick's doing his rounds a little bit with his book, which is so great. There's some great stuff in that book. And I'm happy for Nick Nurse because he's one of the guys people should be rooting for. And now his assistant, Nate, gets the pacer's job, which I just love that because one of my favorite stories from them winning and then Kawhi going was I did this whole story about offseason for coaches. And Steve Kerr was on the beach when he found out Kevin Durant was leaving. And he overheard it from some guys going, dude, KD's going to Brooklyn.

That's how he found out for real. And so I was kind of going to every coach. And I said to Nick, well, how did you find out Kawhi was gone? And, you know, we all kind of knew it probably was going to happen. But he said that he and Nate were at a Prince Impersonator contest in Vegas. So they're at this concert. They're champions, you know, they're celebrating. And the Prince Impersonator, who I guess was really, really good, was singing Purple Rain.

And they're like, Purple Rain. You know, they're doing all this. And then both of their phones ding at the same time and they look down and it's kawaii telling them yeah i'm going home and that's how that's how they found out they lost kawaii so but nate is nate is like nick's clone i mean they think the same way people i'm not 100 sure about this so i i don't want to i can't say this with certainty but i think n Nate might've been the first one that said boxing one, you know, with, I'm not sure, but you know, they think alike and, and obviously the Pacers, they're not a big market team and they don't spend like a big market team. They never have, and they never will. So they were, they were

looking for the next Nick nurse and I think they might've found him. Well, and that's a kind of a fun job too, because that team has talent and a couple of trades, you know, but I think they might have found him. Well, and that's kind of a fun job too because that team has talent and a couple trades. But I think with Sabonis and with Brogdon and some of their young guys. So would you keep Sabonis and Turner together? That's my question to you. No way, right? And you keep Sabonis, right?

Oh, yeah. I keep Sabonis, yeah. I love Sabonis. Oh, 100,000%. Because you can actually initiate offense through him which i think was the big revelation with him last year like he could you know off the dribble he could create further guys which is really unusual for a five yeah they're kind of an interesting team and like do you can you convince oladipo it's a great place

to be and can you be convinced that Oladipo's worth the max contract? Because I'm not sure we know how healthy he is yet. Too small a sample size for me anyway, to say that. Well, we were talking, Zach and I were trying to figure out if Indiana could get into, if there's a three-teamer or something with the second pick with Golden State and like Brooklyn as the third team, stuff like that. I have no idea what Oladipo's value is around the league because he's in the last year of his deal. He did not look the same as he did two years ago before he got hurt. Right.

And we have no idea if he's going to be the guy from two and a half years ago ever again. Right. And not to mention, you don't know if you can re-sign him. So I don't really know what you'd do with that. I think you have to play it out. And I think, you know, I'm not going to judge Oladipo and what we saw of him in the bubble because he was coming off a horrific injury, number one. Number two, that whole environment

is bizarre and strange. And number three, we know he didn't want to go. His intent was not to go. And the Pacers were like, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, you don't have to go. And I think the league is like, well, if you don't go, you're not getting paid. I think that's, yeah. Okay. Yeah. You don't have to go. And I think the league is like, well, if you don't go, you're not getting paid. I think that's what happened. I really do. So he goes and he's, you know, wary. I don't blame him. Wary for not just coming off that serious injury, but just wary of everything else that's gone on around you. I think you're pretty vulnerable after a major injury like that. So I'm, I'm, I'm not willing to say that he'll never be the same because he's a young guy who works hard. You've been around him. He's a great kid. I think there's a chance he could still be a

really great player. But, and it's a big but, if you're another team, not the Pacers, if you're another team, are you gambling on that? I'm not. Not now. Maybe by February. Well, I was going to say by February, but let's do the new math. I don't know. Whatever the trade deadline will be in this new world that we embark on for next season. But if you're the Pacers, don't you have to maybe pay him a max? Because you're not ever getting a marquee free agent to come here, right? I just don't think he's going to stay unless they pay him more than everybody else pays him. So that would be their trump card. Right. And if you look at it and you evaluate and you decide, well, he's not really the

same. If you're the Pacers and you've always been fiscally responsible because you have no choice, maybe in the end, you don't pay him either. I think he's the toughest kind of guy to handle because he's like a tweener superstar in the sense that he was a superstar for about four months. I was going to say like four weeks almost. Yeah, whatever it was. But he basically looked like what we

saw from Donovan Mitchell in the playoffs. Like, oh, Debo can do that. But he didn't do it for that long. But now he thinks he's a superstar. They all think they're superstars. He at least has the resume of like, hey, remember those four months when I was a superstar? That makes it tough because it's like he's coming off a major injury and we haven't seen it since, but you're paying him basically for past performance, which is how you get

in trouble in the NBA when you're paying somebody for what they did two years ago. I don't really know the answer. You wait. That's why you have to wait, I think. If you're the Pacers, if you're Oladipo, you bet on yourself and you wait too because you know your value isn't where it should be or where you think it can be.

So prove it. Would you trade Turner and Aaron Holiday and the 23rd pick, whatever pick they have, for Rudy Gobert? For Rudy Gobert. Say it again. Aaron Holiday. Miles Turner.

I like all the Holidays, but I really like Drew better than Aaron. No offense to Aaron. I may love Aaron more someday. So if you're ranking the Holidays, Drew is one. Yeah, Drew is one. I really like Drew. I really like Aaron. That's why I thought if you put him and Turner together,

that's the foundation of something. Yeah. In the then and now. In the here and now, I like Aaron. I just don't know what Aaron is yet. I like all the holidays. I'm all in on the holidays. I'll take all three of them. So Miles Turner, Rudy Gobert.

So can I just go on my little Rudy Gobert rant? Yeah, because I think he's available and I want to talk about him. So I like, obviously, Rudy Gobert. He's a great defensive presence. He's a star. But is he a superstar? I would say no. I would say no as well.

And I think this part of what happened to their season went way under the radar a little bit this year. You know, we had the little beef between Rudy and Donovan. And I do believe that that can be patched up we we've talked about this a thousand times yeah you don't have to love each other the most you don't even have to really like each other you just have to respect one another and and get Draymond and KD accepted I think that got too personal that probably anyway yeah yeah and you know McHale and Bird we thought it did but they're back around they're good I think yeah

although I haven't asked them about it but I I think so. Anyway, the undercurrent during that Utah season, when things weren't going that great, and Conley wasn't the fit they thought he was, although I think he could be, but they just ran out of time, and he missed that shot. People forget about that shot. Just think if he made that shot.

Yeah, that Denver went two extra rounds. Yeah, it's unbelievable, right? I remember talking. I'd be Mike Ballone. He knows better than anyway. It talk about make or mislead. It's so, so, so is. Ask Danny Green, who like won a championship and they're still not going to forgive him.

Snoop Dogg goes off on him. My man Snoop Dogg. What was he doing? I'm like so upset about that. Anyway, I'm getting way off topic. But when things were going well with them, even before the bubble, there was an undercurrent of him just like he wanted more touches. Yeah. Dwight Howard syndrome. go bear as other people. And I don't think he's a bad guy. I just think he's got a limited skill set for this world that we live in now, this NBA we live in now. And I wouldn't want to build my team around him. On the flip side, because I agree with you, on the flip side, the Lakers just won a

title by overpowering everybody. And they did. You were covering the league in the mid 80s when we had the Twin Towers in the finals against the big three. Right. And every did. You were covering the league in the mid eighties when we had the twin towers in the finals against the big three. Right. And every team in the league is like, holy shit, we got to get bigger. And people started drafting centers 10 spots earlier than they should have gone. People started giving crazy free edging contracts to center leading to John Con contract, John contract. So, you know, Shaq. John Contract. Shaq went to a game with his dad. He was playing, I guess, probably with Atlanta at the time.

I'd have to do the math. And, you know, they were living in San Antonio. And Shaq, he got home and they're walking to the house. His dad, like, whacks him on the back of the head. And Shaq turned to me and goes, what the hell is that for? He goes, if that kid, if that white stiff can make all that money, you better make ten times that. His father was so mad about that.

Shaq loves telling that story. McElvain, too. That was another one. We had this run in the 80s. We've seen this happen when there's an overcorrection to somebody that won the title. In this case, it's like if you're in the West, you have to go through LeBron and Davis and you also have to go through Jokic. So the weird way Gobert is a little more valuable than he maybe was a year ago,

but I'm with you. I don't feel like he's a franchise $28 million a year guy. He's valuable, but not in the way the two guys are that you just mentioned. I mean, the reason Jokic is so valuable is because he does everything really, but play center. I mean, he's a good rebounder and everything. But my God, he's an amazing passer. And Anthony Davis, I was wrong about him. Every time he took a three, I was like, if I'm guarding him, I'm like, amen, brother, keep shooting. I was a little bit wrong about that.

You know, you think that way about Giannis until he proves everybody wrong. And by the way, I think Giannis will get to the point where he'll shoot it well enough that he'll prove everybody wrong. And by the way, I think Giannis will get to the point where he'll shoot it well enough that'll prove everybody wrong. But a coach, one of the, a coach that I really respect said this to me about that. He's like, everybody is like, why isn't Ben Simmons shoot threes? You know, he should be shooting threes. And he's like, even if he could shoot them, you know, adequately, the same thing's going to happen at the end of the game that happens to Giannis at the end of the game, they're still going to give him the shot. So even thing's going to happen at the end of the game that happens to Giannis at the end of the game. They're still going to give him the shot. So even if he hits to a game, just like Giannis, in the end, you're still going to bet on that as being your best default when

you're guarding players like that. It does you no good to be a middling three-point shooter. You either have to be able to shoot it or not. Davis, you couldn't give him the shot anymore. No, that's my point. And that surprised me. Yeah, that really did. They were wet. I mean, they weren't just like, going through and like snapping the net and where it just seemed like every time

he shot one, it was going to go in. I gotta be honest. I didn't know he did it during the season, but it's a little different with those kind of stakes and somebody still making them. So yeah, if I'm, if I'm trying to win the title this year, like let's say, let's take the Celtics. You knew they'd come up at some point. I can't imagine why we would take them. I can't believe we talked about them. Um, you can't, you can't realistically win the title with the centers you had last year. You just can't.

I mean, you couldn't even get to the finals this year with those centers. So if there was ever a year for them to roll the dice, they have these three first round picks. They have the Rob Williams and Lankford kind of pseudo assets. Marcus, if they really wanted to get creative, Hayward is an expiring contract that they want to get creative.

I feel like they're coming out of this with somebody who can play the five. I would be shocked if they didn't. I'm interested to see if you're right because I don't think that's how Brad Stevens views basketball, even after what happened to his team. And I might be wrong,

but he's such a proponent of positionist, which is an impossible word to say. I'm going to try it again. Positionless. There, I did it. Basketball. It's such a terrible word. And so I think he still believes, maybe like Daryl Morey does, that it can happen because

those guys are so heavily involved in analytics. I think you need a serviceable big. I think Daniel Tice, I really thought Daniel Tice gave them just about everything he could at his size. It's funny to say that Daniel Tice is small, but when you start playing smash ball, bully ball,

he's small. I know that sounds crazy, but he kind of is. And he gets in foul trouble too easily is the other thing. Well, but that's, you know, I think a lot of that is just reputation.

Like, I bet that'll change a year from now because this is the first year that he played consistently and referees just immediately see big white guy from Germany or, you know, I really do. I think he, I think the refs just, he never got a break on any of it and I'm not complaining about it. I think there's a lot of people that fit into that category. We just happened to be talking about him. And I think next year he he gets a different look from the refs because I really do think that happens with young bigs. In the pantheon of Celtics who got treated with the most disrespect by referees, not since Ed Pinckney. Do I remember somebody just getting less calls? Ed Pinckney, just no calls. It almost ruined his career. They just would never give him anything Daniel Tice same thing but listen what you say about Stevens

is right he believes in positional in his basketball it's been very successful how come you can say that so easily that makes me jealous and angry

what positional list you said it so easily positionless I just I didn't do the pause between the position and the list

I just don't think you can win a title like that anymore and if the goal is to win the title they're not going to be able to do it with this kind of pseudo small ball lineup because it's not 2015 anymore.

There's too many teams that you have to go through who have size. And even Miami weirdly seemed kind of small in that Lakers series. And I know Bam was hurt. Bam wasn't Bam. I don't know if they should have played Leonard and Olenek more just to have bodies to bang.

That was my legacy from that finals. But wasn't Olenek just such... He had such a weird series because he was nailed to the bench, which you understood because we saw him in Boston all those years. And he just could never rebound. I never seen anybody who can't box out or doesn't know how or doesn't try. I don't know. He's got short arms.

Yeah, I know that short arm thing. But if you box out, it doesn't matter how long your arms are. If you have position, it does not matter. So that drove me crazy with him. And yet, when they played him, because they had to, because everybody was down, he kind of fit the style of that series a bit because he could he could shoot he could space the floor a little bit so i kind of thought he should have played a little more to be honest i can't believe i'm saying that but i am yeah i i agree with you

especially because it didn't seem like band totally had it and i didn't realize how much i didn't realize how much band needed drag it and I think we forget that sometimes and it made me think like looking at some of the available big men you take somebody like Drummond right how many times has Drummond ever played with a good point guard I'm not a huge Drummond fan no right

but he is a guy who can you know roll to the rim and be up around the rim and all that stuff and he's never played with anybody like Dragic and you saw Bam without Dragic and all of a sudden he looked pretty ordinary.

Right. Right. And I just wonder, like, does that make me want to take a roll of the dice on guys who have never been in the right situation? It's almost like a wide receiver who hasn't played with the right quarterback yet.

And I'm sure there's some dudes out there, but I think the Celtics need to get bigger. That's especially because now you have Brooklyn back, you're going to have Golden State back. Philly will be different. I don't know. You're going to have Golden State back. That is true. Philly will be different. I don't know if they're going to be better or worse, but they'll at least be different than they were last year.

And Denver will be a year older. We don't know with Porter. Maybe they can get Al Horford back. Is that what you want? Oh, man. For Hayward? No. God.

You can't do that. But Al Horford, isn't that just... What's happened to him is just, it's just unbelievable how quickly he was marginalized. Again, because 95%, there's 5% of the great players, you can put them on any team and it doesn't matter, Anthony Davis, LeBron, Giannis, Harden, all those guys. And then the other 95%, or maybe that's a little too high, let's say 90% of them. It's just so much about fit. And the fit for Al Horford, you took away what he wanted to do

more than anything. When you played the Sixers, you took away his spacing, the pick and roll capability, all of that. And it's funny, you mentioned Drogic and he's a free agent, as you know.

And all indications are that Miami will re-sign him. Yeah. They should. Just for a second, let's play the fun fantasy game. What if you put Drozhik on the Milwaukee Bucks? Think about what he does for Giannis.

I mean, my goodness. Now, obviously, I don't even think they have the space to even consider doing that. It would have to be a sign-in trade. It would have to be a sign-in trade. It would have to be a sign-in trade, which will never happen. But it's a fun fantasy game because we keep hearing about Chris Paul to the Bucs, and I get why we keep hearing that.

Because he would unlock the pick and roll for Giannis. He would do so many things for Giannis. And even more than Giannis, he'll help Chris Middleton so much. He'll take so much pressure off Chris Middleton, Chris Paul would, on the offensive end of the floor. And, of course, he's still very, very good defensively. And I know he's old, but I really think they should figure out a way to make that happen. I'm serious. I weirdly think there's more of a market for Chris Paul than people realize compared to what happened last year where you had to give away first-round picks to basically get rid of them.

And now it's like, I said on Zach's pod, there's a Ricky Rubio, Kelly Oubre trade, Chris Paul to Phoenix that just works under the cap, right? And if Vogue KC just wants to get rid of that contract, put Rubio in at half the price, they could spin Oubre to wherever and they're good to go. The Knicks, we know that the Knicks are being run by Liam Rose and World Wide West.

Those are Chris's, their guys. Those are Chris's guys, yeah. Yeah, and they're going to have the cap space. They're going to want them. Milwaukee's going to want them. So there's three teams right there, plus that fourth mystery team that we're probably not even thinking of.

Right. And I do think there's a market for them. And I don't think Milwaukee is going to have enough. If I'm OKC, it's like, oh, cool. I can have Eric Bledsoe, the guy who's falling apart in the last two post seasons. Yeah, who bombs in the playoffs. No, I know. You're right.

And they don't have a ton of picks. They do have, I think they have their own pick this year, right? I think they do. But no, yeah, you're right. That probably won't get it done. But I understand why everybody's so stuck on that and fascinated with that. Because if you look at Giannis,

they should be running pick and roll for him. And they don't. Not enough. Not enough for a player of his caliber and ability. This episode is brought to you by Prime Video. You know me. I can't go a day without sports. I really can't.

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The Clippers are in a weird situation too because they have this Montrose-Harrell extension. Everybody's just assuming they're going to do. And meanwhile, they couldn't play them against the Lakers or the Nuggets. The two teams they have to beat. Then you have Lou Williams, who's a disaster every postseason.

And you have Patrick Beverly, who, you know, it got leaked out this week. Kawhi was like, hey, can we get a point guard who can actually create shots for other guys? Right. So it feels like

something's going to happen. Yeah, it could be a Rondo thing. No, Rondo makes so much sense for them on so many levels, I think. You know, Lawrence Frank knows Rondo. Ty Lue knows Rondo.

Rondo loves those guys. And, you know, you muddle through with him during the regular season because for whatever reason, that's how it has to go, it appears. And then, you know, he can go up to AD and he can tell them you're not doing that right. Or why aren't you doing that? Or like he, I did a piece with him and he was saying to me, like, I had to tell LeBron, like, stop looking at Kyle Kuzma like that. Do you understand like you, how young Kyle Kuzma is and you are LeBron James and you look at him like that, he's devastated for the next three days. Right. That was a great quote. But it's true. Like you can't do that. And so Rondo's the guy that can bring some levity to that.

And then, you know, in talking with Alvin Gentry, while Rondo and Anthony Davis were together in New Orleans, it was Rondo that was saying to him like, hey man, like you keep saying you want to win, but you got to give us a lot more than what you're giving us because you're the only chance we have at winning. Like, so dude,

pick it up. Every team needs like that. And if there is a team that needed someone like that, I don't know. There was, there was a better example of that than the Clippers. Cause Kawhi Leonard is like, I don't know.

He's a ghost. Like, I don't know what kind of personality he, I mean, I keep wanting to hear the stories about, Oh, he's so different than what you know. Like he's so different in the locker room. I haven't heard that yet. It may be true, but I haven't heard that. And Paul George isn't that guy. So like

Rondo, Rondo, I would hope that they would have enough respect for Rondo to take whatever he has to dish out and say, all right, yeah, he's right. Let's do this. I think Rondo is such a great fit for the Clippers. It's a great idea. I wish I had thought of it. We had Dudley on the pod last week, me, Dudley, and Rosillo, and Dudley was talking about Rondo. And he said him and LeBron are at a whole other level IQ-wise. We have those guys together, and they're just solving stuff.

As a longtime Rondo guy, I was so happy, even though I hate the Lakers with every piece of my body, I was so happy that he kind of had this moment, right? If you're talking about winners from the bubble, once you go through Davis and Tyler Hero, you go through all that. But then Rondo is definitely one of the eight big winners because his career was basically done and this was a guy that 100 you know until he blew out his knee in boston right i would have said is rondo hall of famer i'd be like lock lock it down yeah his the body of his the fact that he came into the league when he was like 19 right all the reps that he got in 08 09 2010 right and it Right. And it was just, he was headed.

I thought Chris Paul was better than him, but if it was like Chris Paul, Darren Williams, Rondo, Rondo was clearly like a close third to Darren Williams. Yeah. And then it just fell apart. He was just so much more mentally tough than Darren Williams was. And his problem was he just never could shoot.

And he still really can't shoot unless the cape's on the line, which is just a whole other thing. But one of the things he told me in that story I did with him was when he tore his ACL, it's funny. They were playing The Heat. Was it The Heat? Yeah, it was The Heat. And someone had, you know, Rondo had left and come back,

and he was coming back to see the doctor. And one of the other reporters, not me, Mark Murphy, I think, from The Herald, tweeted out that Rondo had a torn ACL. And I was like, oh, my God. So I was like, all right, well, I'm going to go back and wait for him to come back because I knew he was coming back. So I'm waiting for him in the hallway. And I run into Dwayne Wade, who's running to the back to go to the bathroom. He goes, what are you doing out here? I said, Rondo tore his ACL. He's like, oh, man. He goes, oh, you know, I hate that guy, but that's the worst. Like it was such a visceral response because nobody ever can hate, be competitors all they want. But his face was

just like, ah, you know? So then Rondo comes walking in and I go, he's with, I forget who, someone from the Celtics. And I said, hey, God, I'm sorry. He goes, what do you mean? I said, you know, about your knee. He's looking at me and I go, you tore your ACL. And he's looking at me, he goes, nobody's told me that yet. I was like, ooh. But it wasn't me, man. Someone else had already tweeted it. But that's how, yeah, it was bad.

I felt terrible. And he went in there. Doris Burke was working and she was outside. You know, she got to go in. I wasn't doing the game for TV or anything. And then she came back out and said, yeah, he's tore it. But like someone, you know, it got leaked to us, to the media before he even knew, unless he was, you know, putting me on, which I guess is possible. I remember I was doing TV that day. Cause I was Countdown that year. Okay. It was a Sunday game.

Yeah, it was. And the weird thing about it, that was the weirdest ACL injury ever because I think he kept playing after. He did for a little bit. And then he walked off the court and it seemed, and I remember watching it like,

oh man, he probably sprained his MCL. Yeah. And that was the one time when the ACL thing came back. I was like, I couldn't believe it. Because it was like, oh, he didn't tear his ACL. And he told me just when I did this story in the finals, he told me, he said, that injury did me in.

And I said, well, what do you mean? He said, well, not only because it was a bad injury, but it was more than that. He said, because I hurt myself doing something I had done 8,000 times before. So when I started to rehab and started to play again, every time I went to do it, it was like kind of like, remember he was like off, but he was just throwing like that. It was just a weird. And he said, it just was in my head. It's like, oh my God, I'm going to do this again. He said, I really almost retired. Like I really had a very hard time getting over that ACL injury. It really, he said, I was a different player before that. I was never the same player.

And, and then, you know, then he goes, you know, it goes to Dallas and the whole thing with Rick Carter. All of us knew that wasn't going to be a good match. And, you know, Carly to his credit said, look, it was a bad match. It was a worse match for him with us than us with him, you know, because we just, we had no shooters. We had Dirk, but we had, you know because we just we had no shooters we had dirk but we had you know it just wasn't a good fit and then bill duffy told me his agent longtime agent said

that you know they're uh they're trying to find him a job after sacramento and they're calling around and they nobody will nobody will take him so he calls he calls John Paxson in, in Chicago and says, Hey man, like keep an open mind. What about Rondo? And Paxson's like, Oh man, I don't know. And he said, Oh, call up. I'm going to forget his name now. He's, he's a scout that discovered Tony Kukoc for the bills. He's a, he's from Serbia or wherever. And his son had played on Sacramento, didn't play much, but was on that team. And Bill Dock says, go talk to this, go talk to that scout of yours and go talk to his son. I'm telling you, Rondo's this incredible teammate because Rondo would go to the G League games of these kids that were rookies at

the end of the bench. And so that's how they convinced Chicago to give him another shot. Well, I mean, Rondo's been public about this. Doc really did him disservice when, you know, I think he kind of damaged him around the league a little bit by talking about how difficult he was. That was definitely a thing that happened. It definitely happened. But in fairness to Doc, I think Rondo deserves some of that. True.

You know, it's pretty hard when you think you're the smartest guy in the room. And even if you are, you just have to show a little respect to your coaching staff, for instance, you know. So, for instance. And Rondo and Doc are fine now. They're on that group text that they're all on with Big Baby. And they're fine. But they were both just really sick of each other, much like I would say Chris Paul and Doc by the time they were through. Another guy that's pretty smart and thinks he knows a lot. And Doc's a former point guard. And after a while, that stuff wears on you. But it always works out in the end. Like, I think Chris,

if Chris Paul and Doc Rivers were in a room, you know, sharing some little baby quiches or something, I think they'd probably have a pretty good conversation at this point.

It's funny. Dudley on the pod last week was talking about the Clippers. Uh-huh. That era. Because he was on one of those teams. And Doc played him when he was hurt,

which we didn't talk about on the pod, but it was a pretty famous NBA story. He really put him in a position of fail. But he was saying that 14 Clipper team, when they blew that OKC series, he said the ramifications were beyond that year, because once that happened, he was like, they're never going to win now with that group. And when he said when they fell apart

the next year against Houston, he wasn't surprised because he was like, that OKC thing was so traumatic. Wow. He just didn't feel like that nucleus was ever going to rebound from it.

I'd never heard that before, but I thought that was pretty interesting. Yeah, that is interesting. Those two Clipper years in retrospect are pretty amazing because they literally could have won the title either year and they didn't even get to the conference finals. Yeah, no, interesting. Those two Clipper years in retrospect are pretty amazing because they literally could have won the title either year

and they didn't even get to the conference finals. Yeah, no, all sorts of weird stuff happened all around that. I remember talking to Paul Pierce about his time with the Clippers and his relationship with Doc was very damaged during his time there too. And again, in fairness to Doc, Paul Pierce wasn't who he was. He wasn't the truth anymore. He was sort of like a half-truth, maybe, you know? And so he went there thinking something different than what happened.

And there wasn't communication. That was the part that surprised me, because that's what Doc's so good at, is communication. I think at one point, Paul told me Doc was going to trade him. And he came in and said, I think it might have even been to like the Knicks or something. I'm sorry, my memory's starting to go, but, and, and,

and, and Paul's like, you are not, I did not come all the way out here for you to do that to me. Like you're not doing it. And, and to his credit, Doc's like,

okay, I guess we will. Fair enough. Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of times. The last time you were on this podcast, we were talking about Doc's future and I was saying he's going to Philly.

Yeah. Yeah. And it ended up happening. What do you think he does there? If you were Doc's conciliary with that job. I told him to take the year off. He didn't listen to me. I'm already... Do TV. I told him to sit on your deck and drink Chardonnay. You didn't listen, man. Well, I think you got to develop a rapport with Embiid almost immediately

and then right after that a rapport with Ben Simmons because I really think it's possible so that would be the order you would go Embiid then Simmons only because

I think Ben Simmons is used to Embiid Embiid's like the face the centerpiece you know and we can argue all day which one we would take

I would go Simmons yeah I mean Simmons is so talented and I think he just, he doesn't, I don't think he needs the adulation. If anything, you know, I did a long piece with him this past calendar year too. And he said to me, you know, the one thing I don't like about myself is that I need someone to kick me in the rear end. I wish I could kick myself in the rear end. I said, you're young. That'll come. What he was saying, and I'm drawing

a blank right now, his high school coach at Mount Verde has done such an amazing job. It's a simple name. Oh, I'm blanking on it. But anyway, that guy would ride him like nobody's business. And he loved it. That's what he responded to. So I don't think he needs to be loved. I think Embiid needs to be loved. Does that make sense? So give Embiid a little love and then say to Simmons, you should be this, this, and this. I'm going to kick you in the rear end. And I still think that team can work. We know from past years, not last year, that those two can succeed on the floor together. We have the numbers that tell us that. We have the data if people are interested in that.

So, you know, Jimmy Butler, there's no use talking about whether Jimmy Butler was going to stay or go. They did want him to stay. His relationship with Brett Brown was untenable. It just was. They weren't going to stay. Well, but that's on them, though,

because we all kind of thought coming out of that Toronto series, that was going to be it for Brett Brown, and they decided not to bring him back. Right. That's right. Which I think that's one of the reasons that cost them Jimmy Butler. I don't think they were going to go to five years for Butler. Probably not.

Probably not. And they should have. They should have. Because he was like, you talk about closing out games. Think about that series with Kawhi. Again, let's talk about bounces. Bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce. Four bounces, I think, goes through.

If it doesn't, who knows? Who knows? And so Jimmy Butler was the closer in that series. It wasn't Embiid. It wasn't Simmons. It was Jimmy Butler for the Sixers. I don't have seven Philly fans in my life who didn't bring this up to me 100,000 times over the last four weeks. Sorry, man.

It is brutal because they love Jimmy Butler in those playoffs because he was such a badass. Oh, he was so great. He really was going toe-to-toe with Kawhi in a lot of ways. He was. But he's in the perfect place because he was like Pat Riley's long-lost second son. By the way, he thinks he's a maniac about conditioning, which is the way Pat Riley is.

They still have the body fat thing going on there. You get your body fat checked every few weeks, and there's penalties if you don't make it, and that goes across the board from 1 through 12, centers, forwards. There's different body percentage rates for each position and everything. But they believe in that. That is part of it. And Jimmy Butler lives for that.

He lives for it. Well, and the chance to be part of a real family. Because I think he had this in Marquette, too. Sure. Where the more you look back at his NBA career, it seems like it was more than just being on a good team. There were all these things that he expected would happen.

And he was always like bitterly disappointed at each stop. Like, well, this and this, and this guy doesn't try hard and this coach isn't good. And, and now he found this Nirvana that he was looking for. It was, I can't remember a player who wasn't like a great player flipping the script on how everybody felt on him going forward. Because now I think people would say he's a top eight guy, which seems inconceivable. It's also inconceivable in this day and age that you can be that dominant of a player unless you're seven feet tall or can shoot threes. And he's neither.

He is like all the mid-range people out there are saying, thank you, Jimmy. There is a place for the mid-range game. DeMar Rosen somewhere probably should have sent him flowers. Well, you could probably do a documentary on this conundrum he's in. Drakic is out. Bam's 50%. If that. He's guarding LeBron on one end.

And on the other end, the Lakers are like, we got to take out this guy. Let's put Anthony Davis on him. Davis on him, yeah. The number one nightmare other than Giannis. Right. We have. And he's just navigating this for multiple finals games. I'm going to guard the best player in the last 25 years.

Right. On one end. And on the other end, I had this octopus guarding me. And he had 35, 12, and 12 and was playing good defense. Unbelievable. And to think that that was sustainable. Like every time,

what do the Heat need to do to win? Everyone's like, Jimmy Butler's got to score 40. I'm like, that's not how the Heat are constituted. That's not how it's supposed to work. That's too much to ask. And, you know, he finally ran out of gas, obviously, at the end. But my not how it's supposed to work. That's too much to ask. And, and, you know,

he finally ran out of gas obviously at the end, but my God, he's, uh, like you said, he flipped the switch and remember, was it two years ago? Well, I mean, when he's blowing his way out of Minnesota and they have all the drama there. And I mean, he's just the biggest malcontent in the league. And why would anybody take a chance on him? That was pretty much the ongoing narrative with that kid. Incredible. I talked to Tibbs about this in the last, before he got hired, and he made the point of

like, hey, when we had all our dudes in Minnesota, we were really good. We were like the fifth best team in a really tough conference and then we had injuries. But he was kind of pro we've seen what Butler can do. Oh yeah, 100%. He really still believed in him. really tough conference. And then we had injuries, but he was kind of pro. We've seen what Butler can do. Oh yeah. A hundred percent.

Like around, like he really still believed in him. He didn't feel burned by him at all. No, he never felt that way, but it was the younger guys, you know, obviously Jimmy Butler and Carl Anthony towns have beef.

That's probably not going to go away. And my money is on Jimmy on that, on that beef. Oh yeah. Well, so John Calipari called him a bully. And I was thinking, I did this story on just the two of them. And John Calipari said, well, he just tried to bully Carl.

And I'm thinking, oh, man, the last thing you need is your coach calling someone else a bully for you. Yeah, that's not great. So you never told me what your big prediction was. I mean, what's your actual player movement, player movement prediction? bombshell prediction? Do you have one? Hmm. That won't get aggregated by 30 blogs.

Yeah, no, there's not such a... Not something you're reporting, just a gut feeling. Yeah, something that I would love. I wouldn't be shocked if this happened. I wouldn't be shocked if this happened.

Ah, man. See, I just don't think it's going to happen because there's not enough time for the blockbuster. I mean, I'm going to say Chris Paul. Chris Paul's going to, is that a blockbuster? He's on the move.

So what if he goes to Milwaukee? Then it's a blockbuster? You're putting them in the same position when Cleveland kept doing those big moves with guys who weren't as good as they used to be to try to keep LeBron there. And it just. Yeah, but I think this is different. I think this is different because I think Chris Paul is good enough. Good enough for what they need in Milwaukee.

And think about Milwaukee now. What did they do before the pandemic started? They kept all of their starters, including the MVP and defensive player in the year, at 30 minutes a game or less. And just think about how good Chris Paul would be if you kept him at 30 minutes a game or less. I think he'd be much better. He's going to be 36 next year, which scares the hell out of me.

No, I get it. He changed his diet. He did that whole plant-based diet thing, and it actually seemed like it had a real effect on him. What do you see the Lakers doing out of curiosity? Because I don't think they're going to have Rondo. And they may not have Caldwell Pope, which is so funny. Isn't that ironic?

I mean, he's a Rich Paul client. They brought him in. And he was the guy before they wanted to put Kyle Kuzma out into the middle of the field, put him up with the Scarecrows and everything. Now it's... First, it was Contavious Caldwell Pope. Everybody...

All these Lakers fans wanted him run out of town. He had a really good series for them. He had really good finals for them. He's going to opt out, I think. Does he re-sign with them? I'm not sure. He still needs to get the money back that his agents cost him a couple years ago

when he turned down that extension or whatever from Detroit and then all of a sudden it wasn't there anymore so let me ask you this so Dwight Howard oh god

okay but he proved to be very serviceable for them whether you like him or not oh god he had a value he did

he had a value for them yeah I guess he did no he did I don't like I don't like the way he plays I hate this I didn't like

I'm sorry I didn't like the whole Jokic thing, the goading with Jokic and all that, which didn't work because Jokic is too smart. But here's the thing. I think it's going to make him think I'm worth more than the Lakers are paying me

and someone will pay him. So maybe he moves on too. He was such a goon in the finals. It was like watching Ken Linsman try to just high stick people. Ken Linsman, the rat, the rat. High stick people in the head trying to get. It was like watching Ken Linsman try to just high-stick people. The rat. The rat. High-stick people in the head trying to get a two-minute slashing.

I think you're insulting Ken Linsman. I probably am. Yeah. He was coming out in that Miami series. It really seemed like he was just trying to, you know, borderline hurt.

Bam. Like he was just all elbows, shoulders, everything. It's too bad too because you do realize, I know you don't like him, but you do realize that dude is a first ballot Hall of Famer. Oh, I know.

I know. He was the best center in the league for seven years. Anyway. He really was. But you know what? As soon as Yao started to fade, he took over. He told me something once that I still cannot get over. We were sitting in a restaurant in Atlanta.

I think he has a house in Atlanta. I guess that's why we were in Atlanta. And he was telling me, I was talking about just centers and big men and how they, now everybody has to, you know, be able to stretch the floor. And he, you know, Dwight's shooting motion was always so nice. I'm like, can you stretch the floor? And he's like, oh man, I go into practice and I can hit 75, 15 to 16 footers in a row. I go, well, then what happens? He goes, well, then I get in a game and I'm like, what if I miss? Everyone's going to make fun of me.

And I'm just looking at him. I couldn't even believe it. And I was like, wow, that's something. I think he's worked with like a life coach or mental health counselor or whatever, whatever terminate, you know, sports psychologist or whatever since that conversation. But I just was sitting there looking, I'm going, you're, you're like one of the greatest big men of all time. And that's what you're telling. I couldn't believe it. It just proves how fragile all these athletes are that we think are just bulletproof. Well, especially somebody like him who comes in the league when he's 18. I remember I got a mailbag question, must've been like 10 years ago from somebody who had just watched the movie Big with Tom Hanks and was like, is it possible Dwight Howard is the

real life version of that guy? He's like a 13 year old trapped in a 30 year old body. I was like, yeah, it's not impossible. He's had such a wayward journey. Boy. Well, I'm sure you could vouch for this. I mean, the Celtics really did think about him last preseason.

But they were very split. There was a tire kick and then they talked themselves out of it. Well, they were very split. Yeah. That group was, there was a lot of yeas and a whole bunch of nays and nobody was in the middle. No one was vacillating. You know, he is such a

polarizing player. I think, I don't think he would have worked there, honestly. I don't think so either, but that's how far his career had sunk. I really think LeBron is maybe the only guy who would have salvaged him. Would it, just before we go, before we go, I know you like reading the tea leaves and reading between the lines on this stuff. LeBron, some of the stuff he said about, put some respect on my name, all that stuff. Just as somebody who's covered him his whole career, what did you take away from that? That's who he is. This passive aggressive. It makes me mad because I thought what he did was just incredible. Me too. Incredible start to finish. Just I mean, when people were arguing

earlier in the finals about who the MVP was, I'm like, are you out of your minds? I don't care how good Anthony Davis is. There's just no way they get here without LeBron. He was just he was spectacular in every way. He was a great leader. He played defense. He took games over, you know, he got everybody involved that needs to get him out, including Anthony Davis, by the way. And I'm not dissing Anthony Davis. It's just like, to me, it wasn't even close. So, and then he wins and you want to like, you know, you want to give him his due. We all gave him his due, but then he says that and you're like, I'm like, oh, come on now. What nonsense? Shenanigans is my famous expression for that.

Absolute shenanigans. Who is not respecting you? By the way, who are all these unnamed people that didn't respect you besides Skip Bayless? Who are they? Right. Well, I think, isn't that how you get to that point? You have to make up these imaginary sites. Michael, Michael did it.

I don't remember Larry ever doing that. Michael did it. I think doc, someone told me Dr. J did it, which surprised me. You know, what's funny. So I had Dr. J on my podcast eight years ago when I was back at Grantland. He had a lot of that in the interview and I, I, I love it, but a lot of like, I don't feel like it's bird magic. I never get mentioned. It bothers me because I saved the league kind of stuff where I can tell

it really bothered him. And he was right. He was the only marketable star they had for five years. Yeah. There's some real truth to that. And I think it's how Isaiah Thomas feels too. We skip right over the bad boy Pistons and what they did. I don't. Yeah, I don't. Never, never. I was there for all of it. I was there for all of it. And I was embedded in that locker room. I've told people this before, you know, when I was doing the league notes and covering all that stuff, which gosh, it's so hard. All the guys that do it, you know, Shams and Woj and all those guys, I, God bless them. I never want to do it again. I did it for a short amount of time. It damn near killed me. And people always are like, well, the Celtics always told you everything wrong, man. It was the

Pistons. I'd walk in there and Bill Amby would be like, there's a woman in here. What the hell are you doing? He'd be ragging all day. And I'd be like, and then everybody would leave and I'd sit down with him and go, okay guys, what's going on? You know? Right. So I had great respect for those teams. I had great respect for those guys. You know. Isaiah, he is a smiling assassin. He has a little bit of a... All of them do, right? He had a little bit of a veneer that probably wasn't 100%. He's just such a really tough... A little bit. It was a lot of bit. I think that's what got him in trouble. He was Jimmy Butler, really, in a lot of ways. But Jimmy Butler just never bothered with the veneer, if you will. So I think that's what did in Isaiah more than anything.

Isaiah should have owned a little more of that of himself, I think. He'd think he would have been better off, frankly. But when you do talk about these champions, we do always gloss over Isaiah. I'm not sure why. Think about what he accomplished at his size. At his size. Here's the thing. Because I remember a few months ago, I was talking about it. I still think he's the best period point guard ever.

But there's this incredible case for Chris Paul using stats. Stats only. And if you showed them to some 15-year-old who loves basketball and loves a future Daryl Morey, they would crunch the stats and be like, there's no way. Chris Paul is way better than Isaiah Thomas.

And they would point to like, oh, look at his three points. Not when it matters. First of all, I was there. So I feel like, and you were too, but I feel like that matters a little. He was the best player and leader and most important guy on this really weird Pistons team

that won two straight titles during this impossible era for talent. It was just so competitive. And I just don't think Chris Paul, if you switch them, I don't care how efficient he is, I don't think he would have been able

to drive that car. And honestly, nobody in the history league as Kuzi couldn't do it way back when. He didn't win a title until Russell showed up. But Isaiah is the only little guy

who is the best guy on a title team like that. And the only guy that just was, like like toughness is overused all the time. But he was so nasty. And I mean that in the most positive way. He tried to strangle his own trainer that time. Remember? Yeah.

Yeah. Abdenauer? I don't remember that. I do not know that. I don't remember that. He got elbowed in the eye and the guy came over and he got so mad. And he was like, there's a great video clip of it. Oh, I don't.

I don't remember that. He punched Bill Cartwright. Bill Cartwright was like a foot taller than him. Yeah. Yeah. That I remember. But Mike Abdenauer is the greatest. But anyway, Isaiah reminds me of Jimmy Butler in that way, that nastiness, like it, you can't manufacture that nastiness. And I do think it comes from people who had it really tough growing up as both of those guys did. I mean, I remember when we were doing basketball, a love story, one of the stories Isaiah told was, you know, he was so talented. He lived in a horrible part of Chicago. Half the time they didn't have heat running water, you know, the lights were always going out, all that stuff.

But he went to this, you know, really cushy private school because he could play basketball, but he had to take a bus from the city and then he had to take a subway and then he had to walk like a mile and a half in a cold Chicago winter. And he said, he'd be, he'd be walking to school and he'd see his teammates driving by in their, you know, Mercedes with their parents and he'd get to school and he'd be like, dude, what's the deal? And the kid would say, oh, I'm sorry, man. But you know, my parents, you know, they're, they don't really want a black kid in their car. I mean, can you imagine? Can you imagine? That's the environment that Isaiah Thomas grew up in. His childhood was so terrible. They made a TV movie out of his childhood. Remember? It was

like Cicely Tyson was his mom or one of those kind of actions. I don't remember this. But in the early mid-80s, yeah. I think it's on YouTube. Oh, I'll have to look that up. Bricks of the Game, there was that great story about Bob Knight going to recruit him. Yeah, so sad. And people asking what they're going to get

and then Bob Knight standing up and being like, you're going to end up a loser just like him and pointed to his older brother and stormed out. And then they were like, oh my God, what do we do? What do we do?

Yeah, I mean, he had a terrible childhood. He did. But I think it's one of those things that's what really worries me with stats. And I think Karl Malone's going to be another one that 100 years from now, hopefully the planet will still be here. But when they're looking at the basketball,

and they'll be like, oh, Karl Malone was the best forward of all time. Look at these stats. Oh, you're still going to blame him for this? Good God. I'm not blaming you. Oh, okay. Because usually you blame me for Karl Malone.

I'm saying the statistical resume of Carlin Malone. People will just look at that and they'll be like, oh, well, he did make two finals. I just remember the first time analytics really started to be in vogue. There was a list, and I don't remember who compiled it, but it was a list of the all-time greatest centers. And Bill Russell was sixth. And I was like, really?

Because I don't know. How about a little bit of an eye test here? 11 out of 13. And don't tell me. What they say was, well, the league was diluted. Well, you know, Will Chamberlain played back then. I mean, the dude, he was pretty good. Jerry West played then.

He was pretty good. I don't understand the league was diluted thing because they had less players anyway. They had no foreign players. There were a lot of really amazing Hall of Fame players playing during that time. I just named two of the greatest of all time. I'm leaning more and more toward a generational GOAT thing where there's these four eras of basketball that are just so distinct. And different. Yeah, I agree with that.

Even Isaiah Thomas, it's like, if you just put Isaiah in a time machine from 1981 and put him in the league now, he'd be like a 45% three-point shooter. He would be. He would be shooting 10,000 threes every day. And he'd be guarding you like the length of the court, which no one really does anymore.

But back when he played, you didn't shoot threes ever. And it was like a dumb shot, unless you were Larry Bird trying to clinch a game, basically. Who didn't want to shoot it either, by the way. You know? Hated it. Still hates it.

All right. Well, so next time you come on, we're bringing Bob Ryan on with us. Oh, that would be so fun. Of course, you and I won't get to say anything, but that's okay. I love Bob Ryan. No, we're just going to nod. It will be us on the Zoom nodding. We're just going to prop him up. He's my hero. You know that. No, man. Mine okay. I love Bob Ryan. No, we're just going to nod. It will be us on the Zoom nodding. We're just going to prop him up. He's my hero. You know that.

I owe so much to him in my career. God, so much. You know, in Boston, you just need three people to say you're okay if you're doing my job. Will McDonough, Bob Ryan, and Red Auerbach. Well, and Larry Bird, I guess there are four.

You get those four white dudes to back you up, you're in great shape in Boston. I mean, his nickname is literally the commissioner. Commissioner. Yeah. He's the best. I told you this story

when we were worried about the fours closing down, which, how are we looking on the fours? Not good, man. Not good? No, I don't think so. I think it's over.

I'm so sad about it. I can't even. I can't believe I even brought it up. I was telling you about going into the fours when I was a kid, and they had a framed piece Bob Ryan wrote about the game six of the 1981 finals, like his gamer, because he was like the greatest gamer ever. And I remember at Grantland, we had Brian Curtis did a feature about gamers.

Oh, really? Yeah, Bob kind of created the gamer. It was like a column crossed with a game thing. Unbelievable. It had that frame thing and every time I would go into the forest before I set up the game and I would go and look at that thing. Oh, that's funny. Someday I'll have a piece

in the forest. Did you ever see him at the forest? Because he was always there. Are you kidding? Of course. Many times. He didn't know this, but I knew that he used to go there for dinner before the game. I was in my twenties, you know? So I used to go there and pretend I just happened to be going there before the game. And he'd say, oh, sit with me. And I'd be like, oh, okay. Well, what a great idea. I totally did that. We definitely accosted him a few times in the late nineties. Yeah. He never cared.

Never, never, ever cared. He was available for any basketball convo. You just go right up to him and be like, hey. Never cared. Russell or Chamberlain. People don't understand. I don't think like about newspapers. And his off day notes, which was, so if the Celtics played like back-to-back games,

which they did all the time, once in a great while, not often, they wouldn't practice. Because now no one ever practices. But back then, you practiced every day. But once in a great while, maybe they'd be flying back from Sacramento, let's say, and they wouldn't practice the next day. But you had to have something. As a beat person, you had to have something in the paper every day. So Bob Ryan would have what we call the off-day notes, which would just be like a 60 line for people. That's like 600 words for most of us would be 600 words for him. It was always a thousand words, but his off day notes were the best thing in the paper that day. I mean,

he would have these incredible, he was doing analytics before analytics. I think I've told you before these notebooks full of all these statistics that he handed to me when I took over the beat and he said, you must fill these out every night. Don't fall behind. And he was so right about that. So he was just so far ahead of his time. Well, he also had, I remember I was writing a column after 2012, Derek Rose blew out his knee. Hey, I got my Derek Rose. Hold on. I got to show you this. I got my Derek Rose. Oh, look at that. Look at that. Yeah. it's funny you mentioned Derrick.

Yeah. Derrick Rose blew out his knee and I decided to write a column about asterisk titles, which I don't like the word asterisk. So it was about footnote titles. Okay. And I was trying to figure out, you know, all the footnote titles and rank them.

And I called Bob Ryan because I was like, hey, my dad is still complaining about Havlicek separating his shoulder in 73. Like how big of a footnote was this? And like, I literally had no prep at all. Yeah. And he's like, well, you know, if they got, they would have won the title that year because the next round they were four and O against the Lakers and Cowens used to kill Wilt. I think he was 28 and 14 against him. And I actually looked all of it up and it was like dead on. Spot on.

He tapped into this computer and it was literally 40 years ago. I can't remember the stats the day after a game. Right. The day after a game.

And I just sit there and listen to him. I've told this story before, but we're at the World Series, you know, when the Red Sox were about to win their first ever World Series.

Yeah. And it's like the fifth inning and they're winning, you know, I forget what the score was at that point, but it was just obvious they were going to win, you know? So he said to me, what are you going to write? I go, I don't know, like the game's not over. I'm going to wait till the game's over.

And he goes, oh, not me. Mine's done. Do you want to read it? So I read it and it was brilliant. It was historical context and I was like, oh God, why am I here? I might as well just go home now. And I was sitting there and I thought about it and I'm like, okay, I'm not Bob Ryan. So I just have to write about how I feel as a lifelong Bostonian whose husband had the champagne popped in 86, waiting for me, all that.

So that's when I ended up writing. But you can't even believe what he had conjured up in his mind. And I know he didn't have any, he wasn't looking any of it up. It was just unbelievable, Colin. People should go back and look at it. We used to sit behind the press table.

Oh, you did? We still do. But, you know, my dad had those tickets and I could always kind of watch the reporters sitting there. And so a lot of people would just have their heads down. They were typing as the game was going on. And I would always see him. He was always like looking around

and studying all these different things. And I would sometimes would just watch him watching and be like, oh, so that's what you do. I wonder what he's looking for. He was always trying to pick up little variables about the game, which is what, when I go to the games, I try not to look at my phone if I'm at a basketball

game. I really want to look at stuff because you can learn so much from the way the teammates are interacting. It's incredible. I remember the first time I walked in with him to a game. It was probably 19, I don't know, 83 or 84, something like that. I didn't do the 81 finals. I was in college still. I got there in 82.

And I walked in with him. And, I mean, it's not that he knew everyone because he did. Everyone just came right up to him. The ushers, the timekeepers, the fans, the players, the GMs, the referees. And I was like, how do you ever get to this point? How do you ever get to the point where when you walk in, everybody wants to tell you something? It was an amazing thing to watch. It really was. I mean, my favorite book ever, Breaks

of the Game. The thing Halberstam did, he was smart. He was like, I got to get Bob Ryan. And Bob Ryan became his conciliary for the book, basically, and pointed him in all the right directions. So I just felt like he was the pseudo-co-author of it. I have a framed photograph of

myself and David Halberstam at Fenway Park. It's one of my treasured possessions. Yeah. He was such a wonderful man. And I was at Fenway. I mean, you're probably talking the 80s here and maybe even like 86. I don't know. But he was there. He was talking with everyone. I just stood along the side. And then I finally introduced myself. And he said, oh, you know, you do, you do nice work. And I'm thinking, that's just what a nice, gracious man says. But then he actually, this is why I knew he was even nicer than I thought. Somehow in his brain, he conjured up something I had written to say, I liked what you did on so and so. Like he was just the nicest

man. And I, and I hear myself saying, can we get a photo? I was like a little kid. It was ridiculous. I cried the day he died, man. That was just a tragedy. Yeah, that was a tough one. It never should have happened. Oh, horrible. Such a beautiful writer.

Next time you're on here, we're going to be with the commish. I love it. The real commish by Brian. The one and only commish. The one and only. All right. Thanks, Jackie only commish. Alright, thanks Jackie. Alright, take care.

Alright, remember Brown is here. We used to work together at Grantland. We had a great working relationship and then it was over. It abruptly ended. And now he's at Twitter at The Ringer. But we saw each other last week. We power walked around LA for three hours.

Things were looking good for the Braves. We're on the walk. We don't know what's going on. And you're just like, I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. I don't know what's going to happen. We get back to my house, get a water, turn on the TV, and it's like 11-0 Dodgers in the first inning. That's probably a bad sign. The first inning, you know, I spent that morning being like,

which Braves thing should I wear on my walk to Bill? And I was like, you know what? That feels thirsty. I don't want to draw this attention to myself in Los Angeles that I'm a Braver. Let me just play it cool because my team, we're mixing it up where our energy is high. We're going to be fine. And then

when we turned on the TV in your house, that's when I was reminded that there was a curse and that it might be alive again. Well, we knew this was going to be a baggage series and it turned out to be a baggage series, and it turned out it was a baggage series, and it ends up Dodgers make this dramatic comeback.

We have this incredible game seven. The reason you're on, for the people who don't know, you grew up in Atlanta. You're a massive Atlanta sports fan, and Atlanta has quietly been getting worked like a speed bag here for a long, long time. And just when you think it can't get worse, something else happens. This actually, by Atlanta standards, was like a 6 out of 10.

It wasn't even. I mean, I don't know what to. I mean, 28 to 3 is such a thing. You don't even have to reference it. You don't even have to give context to what it is um and yeah i mean i think this one hurt in a very different way because i convinced myself that this team this team of young kids to be frank like had not like like they just like didn't get caught up in all of the Atlanta baggage. They just felt new. They felt like, you know,

this is the Braves team of a new stadium. They don't, they're not even in the city of Atlanta. Yeah, they're in a bubble. I was like, there's something about this team that feels like they might be the ones to break us out of like what has been a lifetime of hardship, but these past like five years, especially, you know, have been especially hard. You know,

maybe I can just say 10 and blame it all on like ever since I met you. I would say when Michael Vick got in the hot water, that's kind of what started it. Right. Yeah. I mean, because from that point on it just goes south yeah i mean when you when you when you're thinking about the actual like titles and stuff you know i always felt a little cheated because the 95 world series in itself already kind of had an asterisk because it was like a shortened series i like how you threw in kinda it is the biggest asterisk give me that history of the sport but this is how sick i am bill i was like wait the last time we won it was a weird shortened series oh this is we're gonna win the world series like literally

sunday morning i get uh a message from one of my colleagues and friends TJ at a show at Twitter and he was like hey great news we're doing this thing where we're like printing tweets on balls for the world series and I was like oh my god it's like for batting practice I was like oh my god this is like this is like my Jesus and Mero rainbow I'm'm going to like write the greatest. I was like, and I was like, I want to put like the curse is finally over. This is like literally hours before game seven. And I was like, I feel confident this is going to happen.

Like we're not going to lose three in a row. We're not going to lose three in a row. Every curse has to have a reason for the curse. There has to be a start oh there has to be an origin so what is the origin the origin is i don't know what we did to get the olympics that's i mean it's it's the obvious origin story like i love atlanta more than most people but i don't know what justified in like 1990 people being like you know what atlanta needs the olympics so i've always been like we did a deal with the devil to get it and there's a lot

of good and a lot of bad that comes from the olympics coming to your city um but i was just like you know i've told you this i was was like, how come Atlanta never got the real world? We're cursed. Not that fake one that happened on Facebook Watch. Like, how come we never got a proper real world? How come we never, like, how come we never got the athlete? And then when we got the athlete, it was Mike Vick, who then goes to jail.

I'm like, we're cursed. We're cursed. And then you could add Luka and that didn't happen. The Luka thing, I mean, the classic one is Marvin Williams, Chris Paul. That's another one.

So there's little curse nuggets for every team, but it had really been like, well, the Falcons are just absolute legendary curse. So there's that. And then thecons are just absolute, like, like legendary curse. Like, so there's that. And then the Hawks were kind of like, I mean, we haven't been good enough to be cursed yet. Well, when I met you, you had the Joe Johnson contract.

And I remember one night we were at dinner or something and you were just going into like, we're paying all this money for this guy who is the least fun player to root for in the league and i just never thought about it that way i was like yeah man that's and then and the contract can't end it just keeps going and going going and then do you remember who our next all-star was was like paul milsap who i was like another good player that like brings me zero joy to watch play sports and so i've always been on this thing of like atlanta needs like charismatic players so like that's why i love trey young yeah that was the case for the trey young trade yeah like trey young is like a dude that like a city can rally behind in a way that we hadn't seen since Vic. Like this is kind of the issue with like a Matt Ryan, like Matt Ryan's a hard one to get the city to rally behind.

And then when you have a moment like the Superbowl, like it's, he's never going to get, he's never going to have the city, you know? So when I looked at the Braves, I was like, Whoa, there's like six dudes that I can rally behind. Like Danza V. Swanson is like the perfect, cool, white guy for Atlanta. He's the white guy that like Migos, like Quavo's like, yo, man, Danza V's my boy. I'm like, that's the white boy I need.

Like that's the white boy I need in Atlanta. So I was like, this Braves team, we got a – like, we got all these people who I'm like, wait, this is young. Everyone's got their chains on. I was like, no, these are my people. Well, plus pandemic baseball with – as CeCe Sabathia said, it was like Dominican winter ball, the way they were celebrating every hit, every strikeout.

It was great. And the Braves were like the most into that piece oh like i mean it made for great television it made for i mean it gave like a lot of hope and a lot of like well if there's gonna be one team to get us through this is these Braves, but like, this dude, Mookie Betts, is not a friend of mine and is not a good dude.

Not a dude that I like. He's the most likable person that I've hated in a real long time. He was great. I want to be his best friend. It was a classic Mookie series because it's not like he hit unbelievably well, but every game he did at least one huge thing.

That's just who he is. But also I feel like he just seems like one of those guys that has a smile on his face throughout all of life. And I'm like, why can't someone I hate beat us? Well, then on top of that that you had every two innings Toyota's playing the outcast sellout commercial I knew you were gonna bring this up I knew you were gonna bring this up yeah like yeah there's there's a lot of things that just I felt like were like more salt and I was like like you know what I did need to hear once we went down in game seven hey uh and a Toyota Corolla I did need to hear once we went down in game seven?

Heya and a Toyota Corolla. I did need to hear it. I really- It was tough. I really feel like if they're going to- I'm all for musicians and bands using songs and ads. I think that's fine. But for that song, that needs to be a kick-ass car. I need a BMW orche minimum for hey yeah

it's just not like a cool the toyota camera is on sale or the toyota corolla whatever it was it's like this is not the right song for this hey i mean i mean it's ambitious for toyota toyota's like hey we yeah you know great look on toyota bad look for everyone else that really loved hey on 2003 but um yeah and that song's hit the nostalgia sweet spot too because 03 now we're you know almost two decades away where it's like now the the strokes and all the hip-hop from that era like it really feels like a nostalgia comeback kind of moment yeah so to see that attached to the toe to curl, I don't know. One thing that I did want to bring up is I, you know, the losing I can handle. I'm a, I'm a professional at it.

I was actually the spirits you had on Wednesday was exactly what I'm, what I'm used to at this point, like just beaten down, hopeful, but not hopeful. I had like, I, the, one of point. Like, just beaten down, hopeful, but not hopeful. I had, like, I... One of the... I mean, it's funny because it's sad. And this is why I love Atlanta sports fans. Like, who, you know, I think used to get a lot of flack

for not having, like, an identity. Yeah. Atlanta sports fans have an identity now. So that alone is a positive. I wish it didn't come from such hardship but from pain from pain but like i spent that morning i spent all of sunday just going through and like stress texting like my like the people like like had like a long conversation with lang whittaker where he's like yo it's gonna be fine to be fine. Like, don't stress out. And then I get a text from him seventh inning.

He's like, this is when you stress out. I was like, this is what it's like. Well, the pickle was when you knew, like, this is not going the right way. When you give up two outs on the same base running mistake. Yeah, so that, like, there are moments where, like, you look at it, you're like, okay, like, I don't really believe in curses, but how did that base running happen at this point? Like, in the earlier game where Ozuna had that, he didn't tag up on third, and we were supposed to go up three to zero but it ended up being two to zero

i think this is game this is game five and then they ended up you know it was like the classic we were gonna go up by a run and then it's yeah and they hit a two run swing yeah the two run swing and those are the moments where i was like oh like i'm to shut up now. Like, there are so many things that I want to say, I want to tweet, and I almost did, but those are the moments where I was like, this could definitely do the thing that we're all scared it's going to do. And I just wonder how much, like, this type of superstition makes its way into the minds of players.

I wonder if they even know. Well, but you made the case before, because this is how the 04 Red Sox turned it around. They literally called themselves the idiots. Yes. They were a bunch of dudes that none of them were from Massachusetts. Most of them weren't from America or they were from another planet like Manny. And that was kind of what you needed. They didn't care about the curse.

Yeah. Or you had Schilling who won of what you needed. They didn't care about the curse. Yeah. Or you had Schilling who won a World Series, so he didn't care. But we had the right kind of team for it. And it seemed like the Braves were just this young, brash kind of bubble baseball team that, you know, every every big play they're reacting like, you know, it was the game winning homer of the game. And it was just be like they'd go up by one run in the second i i was just that was my whole thing i was like maybe they just don't know

about all the shit that keeps me up at night like maybe this group of you know kind of you know this ragtag group of really good baseball players like Maybe they're just like, we want to win a World Series, not like we want to break the curse. I'm like, this is exactly the way we do it. You think like Ozuna in the fourth inning of Game 7, he turned to Swanson and he's like,

yo, man, somebody just told me we could add Luka Doncic. What's going on with the city? We had the Luka Doncic pick and we traded him for trey young and cam reddish we did that ron's like that's a real trade yeah i was like wait did you hear about what happened with the olympics everyone's like wait wait we did what i have one i have one argument for us losing as a good thing. Okay, this will be good.

A really unfortunate reality of 2020 and COVID has been people basically being like, COVID doesn't exist in Atlanta because people are just partying in Atlanta. Oh, like herd immunity in Atlanta. Oh, it's like a running joke, but it's not a joke because it's very serious. But like, like last week, TI had like an album release party, like at the club.

And like, there were like hundreds of people there, which has me wondering if Atlanta wins the world series, that could be a public health nightmare. Right. Bad example. I just, I don't know if we handle it well, you know? And then on top of that, I, as much as I want it to win the World Series, because I always want to win things,

I wouldn't be able to really party the way I want it to. Like I, the muted celebration, like the Lakers won and it was like a huge deal but like I kind of moved on like 48 hours later because that was a tough one they didn't even get the parade first of all I'd like to congratulate you because as somebody who was a tortured sports fan who was trapped in curse world I've never heard two better rationalizations for why it was okay to lose the world series then it could have started a national pandemic and I had no way to celebrate. So it's fine. That's a great job. Really well done. I give that like a nine out of 10. That was beautiful. The mental gymnastics that I'm doing right now, even to talk to you is I have to do it.

Well, here's the good thing, if there is a good thing. Talk to me. It's a new generation of tortured sports fans, right? Because as we were talking about in the Power Walk, all of these teams that were on that tortured list were knocking out titles. So basically all we have left are the Minnesota Vikings, the Buffalo Bills, the entire city of Atlanta.

Mets fans, I think now are like weirdly tortured because it's been 34 years, 35 years since the 86 team, 34 years. Um, the next account. Yeah. The Knicks, the Knicks are a great one. Classic, uh, the Cleveland Browns fans, but it, a lot of it is more tied to teams. I think what makes Atlanta really special is it's the whole city. You're basically where Cleveland was before LeBron won the title. Because it's 25 solid years, but the one title you did win, people dismiss it like it didn't matter.

Yeah. Depending on who you talk to in Atlanta, you know, you do have the contingent that's like, well, Atlanta United won an MLS Cup. So the curse is over. And then you have the other people, you know, who are like sub in. We lost our hockey team, sub in soccer team. Now this is our big four. It's an argument that I respect because I don't want to throw hierarchy on one sport over the other. With that said, I still feel like the curse is alive. Well, how many years have you had that soccer team? Less than 10, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Can't really count that one. In Atlanta, we're all doing our own version of rationalization and mental gymnastics to make ourselves feel okay.

Uh, the ones I do are mostly, uh, you know, like I just, I just immediately I'm like, okay, so now I start getting my hopes up about the Hawks. It's just like, it's like a, it's a dark cycle. I'm like, okay. So at least the Falcons relieved the pressure. There's no hope left. I mean, I guess there's the hope of like Dan Quinn's gone.

Raheem Morris, maybe lighten the spark and who knows seven playoff teams could nine and seven get there. Bill, my, the spin cycle I have right now of black coach, Atlanta, Raheem, this is all we needed. Like, come on.

Like, I'm good. This is my dream Falcon scenario. Dan Quinn literally loses all his games. We get a new coach. He's black and he wins. I'm like, I'm like Falcons. Let's make a run. This is how sick I am.

It's a shame that Jameis couldn't be involved because Jameis now is better than 15 guys starting in the league, including Andy Dalton, who is just horrific on Monday night. Jameis is like third string in New Orleans, but threw for 5,200 yards last year. I'm just waiting for somebody to get him. It seems like you're stuck with

Ryan, though, because of the cap stuff. I think Jameis would honestly make me wish we had just gone all the way four years ago and gotten cam like there's there is the like if you want to talk about someone who if he came to atlanta well he lives there he's oh yeah literally there no i mean he's got a he's got a street named after him yeah in atlanta like also by the way that might be where this goes i hope the pats didn't lock him down and it seems like you can get out of matt ryan after this year

cam dressing like he is every sunday with his little feather and his little fedora and all of his stuff him bringing that energy back to atlanta like i it would, it, people would be so excited. And I also think it would work. Like, I just, I like, I just feel bad for Julio. I know we're talking about football now,

but like, like what are the great receivers? I just, I just, you know, I, I, I feel bad,

you know, I, um, well, last week they look bad, you know, I, um, well last week they look pretty lively. So when they win like three in a row, come over, you'll have a devastating loss and you can limp out without saying much. Cause we do that once a year. Yeah.

You know how good of a high school basketball player I was once we were down by 30. Like I suddenly had like a left hand. I suddenly was like a left hand. I suddenly was like hitting pull up threes. Like I have very little space for the incredible win at 0 and 5, but Raheem Morris, black coach, let's turn it around. Just needed a chance. All right, Rem, you're in decent spirits. And that was the best rationalization for losing the World Series I've ever heard

we'll see you what do you have in store for at Twitter for the election I don't know if you know but the elections in a couple weeks Twitter may Twitter might be involved can I say one thing though that I did the game seven was the most tweeted about

baseball game of of the whole playoffs, which is just another stat that makes me feel like people care. It's a great stat, but also I'm like, oh, people got to see my little team. We lost, but at least people know who we are. Ram, good to see you. Good to see you, man. Before we get to Jacko, I mean, the timing of this is perfect.

Not that long ago, going out with friends could get a little too complicated. You used to worry about where you'd go, what you'd look like, who you'd invite. Now, getting together for a beer with your closest friends is not that complicated. These days, it actually feels more like it should. It's funny. We're about to have my buddy Jacko on. Man, did we drink Miller Light a lot over the years. I don't want to say how much, but it was one of our favorite beers.

Always went for it. And look, you could have Miller Light now by yourself. You can be with your friends. Maybe that's the way it should always be. It's the original light beer. Miller Light has always believed that Miller time is all about whether you're toasting in person or you're cheersing from afar or you're doing a Zoom on a podcast with a buddy you've had for 32 years. Miller Lite, always about bringing you and your friends together for Miller Time.

Jacko and I are about to have a little Miller Time in a second. Miller Lite, great taste, only 96 calories, 3.2 carbs. However you and your friends enjoy Miller Time, you can have the original Light Beer delivered by going to MillerLight.com forward slash BS. Find the delivery options near you. Celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 96 calories, 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces. All right, my buddy Jacko is here. This should have happened sooner. I always like to have him on right after the Yankees disgracefully get bounced from the playoffs.

But honestly, the podcast was just, there's so much going on. Jesus, basketball, football. I couldn't even squeeze you in, but I had to have you on and talk about that in the election. Did you quit baseball after the Yankees got knocked out? What happened? Well, you can only have your heart broken so many times. Now, of course, being a lifelong Yankees fan and a sucker, I'm sure once the spring rolls around and my heart will be ready to be broken again, and I'm sure I'll get back into it unless, unless they lowball DJ LeMayhew and don't sign DJ LeMayhew. That really is going

to be a deal breaker for me. I love DJ LeMayhew. He's the best player they've had in years. He's everything you want. A guy that gets clutch hits, that just gets on base. He doesn't swing for the fences. He doesn't strike out. He's phenomenal. So of course, the off-season chatter now is they're not going to have the money and they're going to let him walk. And if they bring back Brett Gardner and Tanaka one more for one more go around and let LeMay who walk, I literally am not going to be responsible for my actions. Like, I don't know what I'm capable of. I'm just, that may be the straw that breaks the camel's back for me. It's just, that will be a bridge too far. Any other metaphor you can think of that will be, that'll

be the one. What about losing to Tampa Bay? The team that the Yankees have been cleaning up like yesterday's riffraff, really for the last two plus decades. I know. And Tampa Bay, scrappy, scrappy young Tampa Bay, their $73 million payroll. I mean, they're, you know, in the words of Pedro Martinez, they're the Yankees daddies this year, certainly. And they talked all kinds of shit. You know, they had this thing when there was sort of a bean brawl war going on and they said, you know, Kevin Cash came out and said, well, I've got a stable of guys that throw 98. And the last game, last series, Yankee Stadium, they're wearing hats that say, you know, has a horse on it and says 98. Like they're stable.

And they had a lot of swagger and they backed it up. So you were like, you know, there was some bulletin board material when they played there. And Giancarlo Stanton was like, well, we're not going to talk about that. We're going to settle it on the field. And they did settle it on the field, and Tampa Bay won. It was settled. It was settled. So literally, they came in as the big boys on the block, the bullies,

and they bullied the Yankees, and the Yankees got bullied. That was all she wrote. I kept hoping a switch would get flipped, but they were just better in every facet of the game. When you win game one, apparently there's a stat I saw when you win game one in a five-game series in baseball, 72% of the time you win the series. But sadly, this is one of the 28% where that did not occur. CeCe Sabathia before the playoffs, Tampa was his team he was like watch out for that team they they fit the recipe but they had so many young dudes you just never know they've been really

impressive and we're taping this before game one of the world series they're basically two to one underdogs against the dodgers and after watching them i've watched a little more baseball than i want to admit um after watching them, I was just really impressed. It's like, oh, let's bring out another guy who throws 99. Oh, now this guy. It's just tough. Their bullpen is unbelievable. The other thing they do is they play fantastic defense.

Unlike the Yankees, who booted all over the earth, that was one of the big differences in the series was that Tampa just plays this lockdown defense and they don't give any extra outs. You know, their pitchers, their bullpen guys, they can just run out of a different bullpen guy. They don't get worn out.

Cause they're not pitching to extra outs. There's not a lot of guys on base. They got guys that throw gas. I mean, why, why would you count them out? I mean, I know the Dodgers have a better lineup.

They got Mookie. They got a Seager Turner. They have all those guys in a, in a, I know the Dodgers have a better lineup. They got Mookie. They got a Seager, Turner. They have all those guys and a better lineup. But two to one seems a little strong to me because Tampa Bay has shown it all year. They belong there. They're the best team in the American League. It's no question.

It pains me to say, but it's true. Well, I know how you operate after the Yankees get knocked out. You become incredibly spiteful. You spite root for different things. So you have the Astros there and you're spite rooting against them because they're cheaters and they're down three nothing. And then they almost pull off the 04 Red Sox scenario where for the rest of eternity, people would then say, only the 04 Red Sox and the 2020 Astros have ever pulled this off, which is weirdly a good

thing for you because then that big spotlight isn't just on the 04 Red Sox and yet you hate the Astros because they're cheaters. So who did you root for? Out of those two scenarios, what ended up winning? Well, I rooted for... To the extent I rooted, I rooted for the eight. I rooted for the Rays.

There's no way, there's no way on God's green earth I would root for the Astros. They could play a team from North Korea and I would root for North Korea. I'd probably buy a North Korea jersey. Like if that was the Olympics, like if it was the Astros representing America against North Korea, I would root for North Korea. But really like the, you know, I've, I've developed this sort of hate is strong, but dislike of the Rays because of the shit, their swagger against the Yankees.

So really, it was like the baseball gods were just like, we hate you. It's either going to be the Rays who you dislike, the Astros who you hate. And then there's going to be all these 2004 Red Sox-Yankee comparisons. So really, like the election election there was no good outcome for me so it's just like this year is just like this year i have a lot of poor choices and no good outcomes so well then you have you have this world series now where if the dodgers win it's painful

for red socks fans like myself because of the mookie thing because you know i some people are discovering that he's an unbelievable baseball player, but we knew the whole time. And every win that they come closer to winning the World Series is really bittersweet in like a really crazy, strange way. I know you enjoy that. But then the flip side would be the Rays winning the World Series, who is like our like ALE stepbrother that we just kind of kicked around or mean to for 30 years.

I mean, I guess I guess I would console my I'm rooting for the Dodgers because I have no dislike of the Dodgers and I dislike the Rays. So that's a layup for me. But I guess I would consult if the Rays were to win. I would console myself with the fact that while the Yankees lost once again to the eventual World Series champ, you know, they got eliminated in myself with the fact that, well, the Yankees lost once again to the eventual World Series champ. They got eliminated in 2017 by the cheating Astros who won the World Series.

They got eliminated in 2018 by the semi-cheating Red Sox who then won the World Series. Last year they lost to the Astros who at least went to the World Series. And this year, if they lose to the Rays, they will have lost to yet another World Series champion. So, hey, if you can't be be the bride you might as well be the bride's maid right

let's do uh old old guys complaining about uh what's happened to baseball just quickly and i've really enjoyed it i i actually watched a ton of baseball this weekend and really enjoyed the game sixes and the game sevens, all that stuff. The way they manage now makes me feel like my mom trying to figure out how to find the peacock on her Samsung apps and just like, so what do I do? Do I download it? How do I sign up? When Charlie Morton is dealing and the announcer's like, well, the first sign of trouble, they'll pull him out. And I'm thinking like, wow, in the old days, he just would have gone nine innings. They would have had to carry him out. Same thing

in the game seven Dodgers Astros. Any moment of whatever, they freak they freak out they take the guy there's eight pitchers play pitching in on each side and and like what is your brain process as you're watching this because i am just morbidly confused the entire time well you and i are 50 years old well i guess you're 51 i'm 50 or 51 so we're officially old guys but i have never felt that way more so than now like watching modern baseball where everything is a home run or a strikeout and there's like the yankees strike out 18 times in a game and they're like oh well like in the old days that they would have like the guy manager would have ripped his hair out of his head if you had a team strike out 18 times in a game but that's not a big deal now the the you know the using a bullpen guy times in a game, but that's not a big deal. Now the, the, you know, the using a bullpen guy to start a game and not trusting your starting pitcher, not letting your starting

pitcher work deep into the game. You know, the, the Yankees thing, which I still, I'm not sure I can rationally talk about in game two, where the computer spit out that the answer was to pitch Davey Garcia for one inning and then bring in Jay Happ and the Rays wouldn't know what to do. Oh my God, he's left-handed. What are we going to do? Like Kevin Cash was going to wet himself. The dumbest fucking thing I've ever seen in my life. Mercifully, I had a meeting that night. And so I was kind of like following it on my phone and I saw that Garcia started and then it said Happ was in and it was four to one. And I'm like, oh, the kid must have blown up. You know, he shit the bed. That happens.

When I learned after the fact what happened, I was almost like catatonic. I don't even know how to respond to that. If there's a computer program that says that's what you should do, you should smash the fucking computer with a fucking sledgehammer. That's the dumbest fucking thing I've ever seen. And this new baseball of these computer guys running the team and the yankees and you know steinbrenner and cashman come out with a straight face afterwards and say oh it was aaron boone's decision get the fuck out of here that was aaron boone's decision right that was totally from the

front office and the computers i'm not old and crazy enough to say we should throw analytics completely out but then but the over relianceance on that and whatever the computer prints out is what we're going to do with no feel for the game, no gut sense of what's going to happen. And I know all the nerds are going to be like, well, there's no such thing as all that. No bullshit there's not. Of course there is. When the Yankees were successful in the 90s, they had Joe Torre who had been in baseball for 50 years and Don Zimmer who had been in baseball for 100 years and had seen everything and had a feel for the game, you know, tobacco juice on Don Zimmer's gut or whatever.

And that's how he went for something or like, you know, the way the sunflower seeds landed on the floor. But you know what? It worked and they won four fucking World Series. And these computer guys have been running the team now for the better part of the last seven years and they haven't won a goddamn thing not even a

pennant i don't know it drives me obviously crazy as you can tell well the counter would be tampa is big on this stuff and it's worked for them it has but the difference is tampa has a payroll of like 14 so they have to be they have to use analytics they have to use computers because they have no other they have no other advantage. And you know what else helped Hibbebe? They got a stable full of guys that throw 98 that they could bring into the game. Now, if the computer got them, those guys, well, kudos to the computer. More power to you.

But I don't think it takes a genius to be like, let's bring in another guy with a fresh arm that throws 98 that's unhittable. Or go get Azarena who is hitting 850 in this series i mean you know if the computer did that then i bow down to the computer but i think like you know those guys were good players and any manager analytics or not would have figured that out and while the rays have to be relying on that if you're the new york yankees with a 200 plus million dollar budget and you have allegedly this dominant post you know this dominant lineup and you have this kid garcia who you're high on, let him pitch. Like, you know, let him pitch.

If the kid shits the bed, he shits the bed and you took a shot. But to try this, like to try to be too smart and way too clever, you know, somebody, some kid in, you know, 30 year old and a Princeton t-shirt back in the Yankees front office, like, you know, on a computer, like prints it out that this is what we should do. Bring in Jay Happ in the second inning and it's going to revolutionize know, on a computer, like prints it out that this is what we should do. Bring in Jay Hap in the second inning. And it's going to revolutionize things. Get the hell out of here. That's nonsense.

Well, we've seen it. We've seen in football where two point conversions, there's, there's all this data that you should go for at certain situations, things like that. And I got burned two Sundays ago. The Vikings had a chance to just go up eight,

kick the 27-year-old field goal, and then Russell Wilson has to come down and get touchdown two-point just to send it to OT. And I had the Vikings' money line out, and I'm watching, I'm going, boy, it would be cool to be up eight. You know, it'd be fun to be up eight points. That'd be great.

My goal is not to lose. And the Vikings are like we own it we can end it now and they just run it right in the line they get tackled then you know what happens next Russell Wilson goes down they win the game then this week Romeo Cornell in Houston which I did not have money on thanks God

thank God because I you know they go up seven extra point puts them up eight with like you you know, less than two minutes left. We're going to, we're going to end it now and goes for the two point. They just had this long drive where they'd had like two third and ones, two fourth and ones.

They'd kind of seen a lot of the short yardage offense. It was like, I don't really know how many tricks you have left here. So they didn't get it. Tennessee goes down. You saw the rest. They scored touchdown. They win the coin toss. They win. And it's just like, if the mass removing feel for the game, then that's not good either. That's not a good outcome. We're not playing this and some fucking simulation and an alternate play. This is right now, like watch the game, have a feel for it. And that's what bothers me about this stuff. I love it. I love. And I use a lot of them. They've really helped me understand basketball. But if you're not applying them to situational feel, if you're not combining that at all,

it doesn't make sense. And in baseball, it doesn't seem like they care about situational feel at all. None. None whatsoever. Now, the flip side would be situational feel led to Grady Little leaving Pedro in, you know, for three too many batters and some of the mistakes we've had over the course of our life. But I don't know, there's some balance. People screamed about that at the time, though, without having the benefit of a computer program telling them like, this is don't do this, Grady, for the love of God. Right now. So but and, you know, the Red Sox, with their success, they've used analytics, and the Yankees have been successful

in the sense of winning an AL East or getting to the playoffs, and they dipped their toe in analytics, and now they're knee-deep, they're neck-deep in it. It's got to be a balance, and there's way too much of an over-reliance, and that's the modern baseball thing,

and I can scream until I'm blue in the face about that. I know that's, that's the wave of the future. And especially if the Rays win the world series, you know, everybody's going to be even more into that. And I just think like, it's so much fun to argue about baseball when everything is just decided by a computer. Like, honestly, how many baseball arguments have you had in the last month? This is what's going to kill baseball. We don argue about it we don't have arguments with myself or the tv many but uh

with other with the voices in my head a lot like we text every day and we're on multiple text threads none of us were ever like who would you rather have joey wendell or kyle seger like because there's an answer. You just look it up. You're like, oh, he's a warfire, so Kyle Seeger's the answer. It's like, what's fun about that? No, nothing. Right.

It's not fun when it just becomes a math problem or whatever. It is. It's algebra. It's algebra and uniforms. Now, that said, I loved watching the playoff games, but I do think that's one of the reasons like playoff baseball feels so much fun because it's the one time you're just watching the games and enjoying the drama of it. But over the course of a season, I don't know. It just worries me.

I don't like that Roberts can't be like what Roberts did with Urias in the last three innings. I kind of like that because the math was probably like, get him out. Bring in your guy in the ninth. And he was like, you know what? That guy's dealing. I'm not taking him out. Exactly. That's the thing. You have some sense of like, if the guy's going along, I don't care if the book or the computer say, now is the time we go to a reliever. Whatever computer it was that said, Aroldis Chapman should pitch in the seventh inning and try to get the last nine outs of a game. He's never been good at that. Yeah, what computer was that? Break that computer. Sell that back to the back store. Like, shit, it doesn't make any sense. Like, you know,

I don't know. I forget. It's all a blur who was in there before him, but he was doing fine. Leave the guy in, Chad Green or whoever it was. And, you and I you know the Yankees not to make excuses but you know they they lost Conley that screwed up their bullpen early on when he had to have Tommy John you know if they had Severino they don't have to screw around with that thing in game two but even even with that like they had a good enough lineup and and you know Garrett Cole and and pieced together the rest of the pitching to make it work and it's just frustrating beyond all belief it's it's just you know I've seen I've heard this song too many times make it work. And it's just frustrating beyond all belief. It's, it's just, you know, I've seen, I've heard this song too many times. I've seen this show. It's

like 2016, you know, the Yankees, the Yankees did not make the playoffs. They traded Chapman for Gleyber Torres. They traded Andrew Miller for Clint Frazier and they had all these pieces. And it was going to be like, the Yankees are going to be the team for the next five years. You know, they're going to be the team on the next five years. They're going to be the team on the come. In 2017, Girardi took them a year early, everybody predicted, that they were a year early to the seventh game of the ALCS. Against the cheating Astros. Against the team that was fucking cheating.

And they were like, oh, here come the Yanks. 2018, they get bulldozed by a juggernaut Red Sox team. 2019, they lose to the Astros who probably were cheating again. This year is a screwy year with a crazy season and they lose again in the playoffs and still don't get a pennant. You know, this window that was opened in 2016

and now it's 2020. That window's closing, you know? So that's what's extra frustrating. And their answer seems to be like, well, we're going to bring the whole gang back except for LeMayhew because he's too expensive potentially.

And we're going to just try to do the same thing next year. Eh, see what the computer says. I'm really having a good time right now. I'm really enjoying this. And you got Aaron Boone. Aaron Boone, who I'm sure is a lovely guy, nice guy, but I mean, he's not a leader of men. He doesn't inspire any confidence in

that as a manager. And they all love him. He's like your big brother. And I don't think he does enough to light a fire under their ass. That's the old school me too. The old guy's screaming at a cloud me. But I just don't, he's not a guy that's going to take him to the next level, but he's, he's a puppet. And then Cashman has to come out and say, he's not a puppet. Well, of course he is. Everybody knows that. Oh God. Well, we're one fifth of the way through the 21st century the red sox have won four times as many world series and tampa's won twice as many pennants right as the as the new

york yankees it's true it's yeah your record is what it is you know that it's true that's the record there's no question it's not it's dispiriting plain old dispiriting not good i'm really this is great i'm really having a good time. Let's talk about the election. Let's cheer things up even more. Fantastic. Biden is like minus 175 as a favor right now. Yeah. Over Donald J. Trump. Yes, sir. We have a big debate coming. God only knows what they're going to do with the Mike stuff. My first question is, do you think Trump moves in for like some sort of handshake, some sort of inappropriate gets into Biden's personal space?

So there's like a COVID threat to kind of rattle him early. I didn't think of that. And if he gets there, would a Biden handler come in with like a taser and tase Trump to keep him away? Biden might be confused. I'm not sure. But, you know, with the mic thing, I'm not sure that muting the mic is really going to stop Trump. Like he may just knock the podium over and just start screaming and like flailing his arms around. I mean, it's not beyond the realm of possibility, right? So, you know, it's sort of he's, you know, conventional wisdom says he's got to sort of take a Hail Mary. You know, I'm not sure. Frankly, I don't think anybody's mind could be changed at this point.

Like, I'm not sure what anyone could do to, you know, Trump could do to change anybody's mind. But if in his if in his feeble mind, he thinks I've got to throw a Hail Mary here. God only knows what he could be capable of, you know. Well, he's hit a point where he's just throwing stuff out and people are pretty certain they're lies, but maybe not. And it'll at least get people to Google. And he could just kind of keep going with that, right? Like he, like as he's finishing his point, he's like, and that's why you killed that astronaut. And then people are like, what? And then they start Googling Biden killed an astronaut. And he could just do that like 10 times like it's

in a weird way it's like fake punting and running double reverses you're just taking misinformation he's like why did he say he killed an astronaut did he kill an astronaut he comes out pulls out a bag of cocaine out of his pocket and says throws it at Biden and says

give that to your son. Honestly, that wouldn't surprise me. Just to get a rise out of Biden and see if it like throws him off his game. Well, Biden had clear, I've never seen anybody work harder at what their reaction faces would be. Yeah. You know, like you could see he was in the bathroom doing that one face where it's like, this guy. Right, right. You know, like you kind of do that.

And then the other ones are you just kind of like, you roll your eyes and then just look at the camera and smile because what else are you going to do? But I don't know if he's going to have another face for Thursday. Maybe he'll have a third one. He should have done like the Martin Short from Saturday Night Live. Nathan Thurm, you know, the guy on 60 Minutes. Is it me?

Tim, right? It's not me. Tim, Tim, Tim, right? You know, all those are on Peacock now. You can go watch this. Watch the old SNLs. Yeah. So, yeah, I don't know.

The debate, you know, the debate is it'll be interesting, I guess. You know, I mean mean they've all said that they've all said everything that can be said trump's act really doesn't get any any newer you just watch it like a car crash to see like what could possibly happen but everybody's mind is made up and it's you know it's time to vote at this point i have an important question for you because i i think it's a fair time to ask it now that we're almost four years in. I think both of us were really appalled at the thought of a Trump presidency, removing all politics aside, that just like, wow, this could be a train wreck.

I got to say, it's really exceeded my expectations on that front. It's if it was between on a scale one to 10 on how bad I thought this was going to go, it's like a 17. Well, I mean, the thing is completely bonkers. I almost can't believe it. And I can't believe like, like this scenario now where if he loses the election, he just won't leave, you know, contest it. Like that's definitely going to happen. There's no way that's not going to happen. Well, I mean, I think that's a little overblown. I know he has never given really a straight answer on that. I mean, I don't think they're going to have to have tanks come in and remove him from the White House. Are you sure? Well, I think he'll leave. Would you bet your life on that,

that that's not going to happen? You would not. Well, no. Well, I think he wants to go back to Trump Tower, but he will bitch about it. He will never shut up and always claim that it's stolen regardless. I mean, he could lose by 15 points and he's going to claim it was stolen and it was rigged and it was this and it was that. I mean, he's never going to say he's never going to concede. He's never going to call and say congratulations. He's not going to have any kind of a normal transition. But I don't think that he physically is going to be like barricaded in the white house. Like, you know, that we have to get him out of there. Like, uh, you know, like, like, um, who was in the, Oh, uh, like, um, Noriega in Panama when he was like holed up in the Vatican embassy and we had to play music to,

you know, Blair heavy metal to get him out. I don't think that's going to be the case. Well, remember when they made like maybe six years ago, they made two white house movies. Yeah. The white house has fallen white house down and he goes fallen or whatever. And I said, why are there two of these? But one of them should have audible to like the president has been voted out of office, but he won't leave. And now he's barricaded himself in the white house with hostages. That actually would have been a good plot for a movie or a good 24 season. See, here's Jack Bauer. Here's the thing, though, like under the Constitution, the new president is inaugurated at noon on January the 20th, 2021.

And the military, you know, the Joint Chiefs of Staff obey the commands of the commander in chief. Now, if the military was to say, we don't recognize Joe Biden and we have sworn allegiance to Donald Trump, then we've got bigger problems and bigger issues. I don't think that's going to happen. Whatever Trump did, if he barricaded himself in the White House and declared himself the president, none of the levers of government, Congress by and large included, would not recognize him as the president. None of the levers of government, Congress by and large included, would not recognize him as the president. And he could sit there and be petulant in the White House until his food ran out, I guess.

Or unless his supporters threw Uber Eats into him or something. But it wouldn't matter. Biden would be the president and he would be treated as the president regardless of where he was physically located, I think. The other piece we have, which hasn't really come into play that often in the past, but you remember history better than me. The guy who only was the president for four years, but still has four years of eligibility left. Yeah, Grover Cleveland. Come back in four years, run it back. That's my greatest fear, actually, that Trump loses,

but he claims it was stolen, it was rigged. In four years, he does the replay. Absolutely. Only one person, Grover Cleveland, was president, and then he lost, and then he ran again and won. He's the only one to do two non-consecutive terms. So yeah, Trump could. And Trump, I think, is 74. Four years from now, he'd be 78. He's the same age as Biden is now. So unfortunately, it's not beyond the realm of possibility. I mean, that's going to be the interesting thing. If, as I suspect, he loses, what happens to the Republican Party? Do they pretend like it's like a Bobby Ewing thing from Dallas that that was all a dream? It never happened. Like it was just a nightmare. We just pretend that never happened. Or is it like Trump's party now? And it's a battle

between like Don Jr. and Ivanka for the nomination in 2024. I don't know. I don't know. Like, does it just rebuild around people like, you know, Tim Scott from South Carolina or Nikki Haley or, you know, Sass or some somebody who's not a total Trumpian, uh, and maybe presents a different face of the party or is it just Trump's party now? And you get, you know, Trump jr. I don't know. I don't know. Tubin, maybe he's in there. Trump, Trump, Tubin 28. I don't think Tubin is a big Trump guy. Yeah. He's, he's, he's got a lot to worry about elsewhere. He may turn into one now. He may be. He didn't talk about the dynamic Mike Pence.

That's true. I mean, that's the thing. Normally, the vice president, like with Bush and Reagan, Mondale and Carter, like the guy who was the vice president, he becomes the standard bearer the next time. But I'm not sure Mike Pence really lights anybody on fire. You know, I mean, he could he could present himself as the biggest Trump loyalist. And I was there by his side. But I'm not sure even like the deepest MAGA is like big on big on Pence, you know. So I'm not sure if he lights anybody's fire, really.

He would be a fun guy, including Mrs. Pence. He would be a fun guy to have on a podcast because you could be like so mike who do you think is going to win the world series and he'd be like here's what i say about covid like just right not even try and answer the questions just he's got 10 answers you could ask whatever 10 questions you want he's gonna give his 10 answers he's got a funny thing too because he he always he speaks like he's like a movie actor pretending to be the president where he speaks these things dramatically like yeah he's like george i want to thank you for having me tonight and i bring greetings from president donald trump everything's supposed to be he thinks everything's gonna be like an applause line and most of the time it's like crickets, but it doesn't stop. It was like that in the debate too.

He's like Michael Buffer. Yeah, exactly. He thinks he's getting the crowd right in this corner. Yeah. Without Mr. Excitement, without a lot of excitement. Yeah. So I don't know, you know, I want to, I read something on the internet, which is interesting. And, and, uh, there's one pollster who's an outlier and he claims that he

is convinced that Trump is going to win because pollsters are grossly underestimating the secret Trump vote that will not talk to pollsters that, you know, Trump's conspiracy, like the deepest Trumpians are very conspiracy minded. And obviously they hate the media. So if a pollster calls, they like hang up or they look on the caller ID, they won't pick up and they won't answer. So he claims that he has some algorithm using that word a lot in this podcast that has gleaned that these people are there's a massive hidden Trump vote. Now, he's the only guy saying that. So he's either going to be like the most famous, well-renowned pollster

if Trump somehow pulls this off, or people will just forget about it and be like, that guy was a clown. But that's a contrarian take on there. Just putting that out there. So he's going, he's trying to be the Nate Silver of 2020, basically. Listen, we talked about this on this podcast in 2016 about we felt like whatever the polls were, that there were some people who might not want to admit to somebody that they're voting for Trump. But then when you get in that little booth, you're like looking around and you just kind of do it. That's the thing. You know, I mean, you know, I kind of I have a strong tendency to doubt that because there's all these reports about early voting and how astronomically high it is. I presume those people are walking over like broken glass and coals if necessary to vote against Trump. Like you wouldn't normally be like, I'm so ginned up to vote early for Trump.

He's got to get my vote in there quick. You know, like based on just like the numbers you see, you figure that's sort of like usually people are outraged and they get out and vote more more early earlier. But just just putting that out there as a possibility, something I read. And it's just it's an interesting take. I don't know that I agree with it, but. Interesting. Plus, in 2016, we had Hillary Clinton. That's right.

And she was talking in public like this. That's Clinton. That's right. And she was talking in public like this. That's right. That's right. And Biden is more popular than her. You know, Trump was an unknown quantity to some degree in 2016. And there was probably some people that were like, well, let's take a flyer on a non-politician. And here we are. So people have sort of like learned their lesson from that.

So I have a tendency to doubt this guy's, uh, esoteric there, esoteric theory, but, um, stranger things have happened. He got elected. I thought he was going to lose 40 States in 2016. So stranger things have happened. I mean, that would really like if he won after everybody thinks like they're already like having, you know, Biden's basically measuring the curtains and everything. And they're already planning on what they're going to do. If Trump was somehow to pull it out, I mean, I don't know what would happen. Biden's measuring the curtains, but not for that reason. He just doesn't know what room is it right now.

What are these curtains? Did these open? I mean, one of the best things that happened to Biden was SNL completely botched the whole Biden thing with Jim Carrey, who's doing this impression of somebody that's not Joe Biden. I don't really know what's going on. It's like he's, I guess, doing Ace Ventura. That's what people say, I guess. Yeah. Or somebody said like the mask.

He's like the mask without the green mask or whatever. It's just bizarre. It's like, you're not Joe Biden. Why didn't they just bring Jason Sudeikis back? He was good before. How about just use somebody in the like, you're not Joe Biden. Why didn't they just bring Jason Sudeikis back? He was good before. How about just use somebody in the cast? You have 15 cast members. You can't find anybody to be Joe Biden.

Why do you have a 15 person cast? I know it's, it's, it's dumb. I don't know. It's stupid. All right. Well, Jacko, we'll talk to you after the election. Excellent. Excellent.

Assuming, assuming the world hasn't burned down. We'll have a podcast and in the corner, it's going to say Trump barricaded in the White House day 43, like the Iran hostage crisis. I'll be like, well, shit, I didn't know what I was talking about. Dead wrong. Sorry about that. He's in a panic room and they don't know the code. Oopsie. All right, Jacko. Talk to you soon.

I'll talk to you. Bye. All right. That's it for the pod. Thanks to Rembert and Jacko and Jackie McMullen. Another pod coming Thursday. I have at least one fun celebrity guest that I haven't had on this podcast before I'm excited about.

Don't forget about the rewatchables too. Did spotlight this week, two big rewatchables coming next week. And remember, if you want to hear the entire archive for the rewatchables, it's all on Spotify. The last 60 days or so will always be available on all platforms of new podcasts.

But if you want to hear the entire library dating back to 2017, it is all available on Spotify. See you wayside. On the Bruce and Leveron.