The Bill Simmons Podcast - Brady’s Fun Golf Match, the NBA’s Big Return, Pierce vs. LeBron, and the Unforgivable Lance Armstrong With Ryen Russillo

Episode Date: May 25, 2020

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to discuss The Match 2; encouraging rumors about the return of the NBA and possible playoff scenarios; ex-athlete commentator bias; Horace Grant's comments following ‘The Last Dance’; the spectrum of “forgivable athletes”; one of Bill’s favorite sports documentaries, ‘When We Were Kings’; and more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the BS podcast on the ringer podcast network brought to you by our presenting sponsor zip recruiter. We don't know when sports are coming back. We have an idea. We're going to talk about that a little bit with Ryan Rosilla, but when we do come back, how are we getting in the stadiums? Are we going to give tickets to people? Are we going to be sitting next to people? We don't know. A lot of things may change as our world opens up again, but one thing won't change our presenting sponsor zip recruiters mission. They'll continue doing what they've always done, helping growing companies hire for their teams and helping people find jobs. If you're actively hiring ZipRecruiter,

we'll invite candidates to apply to your most urgent roles, make it faster and easier to reach people you need by bringing employers and job seekers together. ZipRecruiter, where it can help all of us. ZipRecruiter.com slash work together. ZipRecruiter. We're going to help all of us. ZipRecruiter.com slash work together. We're also brought to you by TheRinger.com and The Ringer Podcast Network, where we have a new podcast coming this week. I will have the name of this podcast and how to subscribe to it on Tuesday's pod. But Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay, their new podcast is launching on Thursday. We also have Flying Coach with Pete Carroll and Steve Kerr. They had Bill Murray on last week. Behind the Billions, that's a new one

for us. TV Concierge exclusive on Spotify. That's happening. Baseball Barbecue, another new one. And then if you like the rewatchables, I was really excited about this one. We did Boomerang, the Eddie Murphy classic. I repeat, classic. That happened. That's coming Monday night. So good. So long of a podcast.

I actually forgot to do half of Apex Mountain. That's how into it we got. That's never happened before. Anyway anyway, so we have that. Ryan Rosillo is coming up in a second. First, our friends15 Pacific time. Lucilla and I just watched the match two. It was Tiger Woods and Peyton Manning against Tom Brady and Phil Mickelson. This was an excuse to actually watch live sports, not knowing what might happen.

I gave it a chance just because I'm bored. I'm like a guy in the desert who just sees like a saltine cracker and is like, oh my God, that's a saltine cracker. Turned out to be a delicious saltine cracker. I really enjoyed it. I had a great time. Rosillo, did I enjoy it because I just missed sports

or because this was an actually exciting fun sporting event i actually thought it was fun um but why would you go saltine desert that'd be like the last thing i think i would i don't know what should i said wheat thin no i think you need something with a little bit more texture pizza why would pizza be in the desert yeah but why would saltine sand salt i don't know yeah sure i don't know hey do you want something to be even drier here's a saltine um i just duck cooked my first drive like tom brady no you sent me a text going like hey i don't know if you're watching this or we were trying to come up with a plan for tonight's pod and i was like why you almost were like skeptical of your own

enjoyment of it and then yeah texting you go, let's do this when it's over. This is actually fun. So I'm surprised that you seem to be surprised by it. Because I don't, like, I don't, I think we got what we wanted. We got some live sports and those guys are all kind of cool. That's what I was kind of hoping for. I knew we all kind of, you know, their personalities enough, the last 20 years, those four guys.

But I do think it'd be funny if there were some celebrity that were in one of those things. And after an hour, you're just like, oh my God, this guy sucks. He's like, he's the worst dude to have to play around with. And by hole nine or 10, the other guys are just rolling their eyes, but that didn't happen today. Well, it'd be funny if like when Brady starts out ice cold, the first seven holes, if he just, you know, like if that was me, I just would have gotten super moody and sulky and they would have been like, Hey Bill, a rough go in there early. But yeah, I know I'm aware, aware, you know, it's good. Can you turn my fucking earpiece off? So I'm going to go in order of the things I enjoyed. First of all,

I went into the match thinking I was going to root for, for woods and Peyton Manning because Tom Brady ditched my favorite team. I haven't liked some of the things that have been said and just the way it made me feel. Uh, within one minute, I was back. I'm Brady for life. I know I'm going to root for him on Tampa too. This, if I'm rooting for him in this stupid golf tournament, I'm following them all the way whenever the season starts.

So that, that was, I must've been lying to myself. I can't root against Tom Brady. I just can't. I can't believe you even thought you were going to try. Yeah. Yeah. It was like, uh, it was like that person you dated. You're like, I'm not talking to them if I run into them.

And then you run into them like, Hey, how's it going? Super nice. Look great. But yeah, it was hard. It was first of all, hard not to root for him. And also hard for me just to root for Peyton Manning. Just, you know, it was all the Pat's DNA coming up. So that was fun. Um, the, the Phil Mickelson basically caddying for Brady and telling him what to do on different putts and chips and stuff,

I thought was easily the best part of this whole thing. Like it was honestly like getting a golf lesson from this dude. See this, you got to make sure to just tap it. You don't want to push it. And everything he was doing, I just, I loved it. You did. Did you enjoy that? You notice it?

Yeah, it was great too. I mean, he'd just be sitting there. I mean, it's not being great at golf is most of us, but when you're with someone who's terrific to play with, can point out stuff and i always say this about van pelt like van pelt's not a great golfer um people always expect him to be amazing because he's at the golf channel and he's been on the golf beat for such a long time but when you golf with him uh like i was a completely different golfer on the back nine like just three little things he had said to me something off the tee tee, something on my chip, something

on putting, I think. And it was great. So that part of it was pretty cool. Mickelson was, I mean, he's a talker. He's going to let you know how he feels throughout the round. I felt like all the guys kind of got along. Not that I expected that

they weren't going to get along or something like that, but they actually really seemed to be having a really good time with the whole thing. And again, I don't know that it's surprising. It just seemed genuine. Well, I agree with that. And I also like that. It started to get serious with about six holes left. Like you could see the competitiveness started to kick in. I, it was probably even a little too loose for guys like Brady and Manning coming out of the gate. They got the cameras there. They have the earpiece in. It's raining. They're expected to have like a personality.

And you can kind of tell once it hit the point of the match where they could just go, all right, I want to win now. It's okay if I'm not like Mr. Perston with these last six holes. Like that part three when everybody had an awesome shot except Tiger Woods near the end. I think it was the 16th. That was incredible. Manning put a shot 18 inches away from the hole. They really, they really needed it too. Cause tiger hadn't even gone yet. Um, I, I don't know. It, it, it got me thinking like, you know, obviously woods and

Mickelson couldn't go on a football field. So there's no way to cross compare. But I think when you have great athletes like that, they're just good at shit. You know, like I feel like if Curry had been out there, I know Curry's a better golfer than Brady. Same thing. But there's something in their genetic makeup that it's not just the sport that they're the best at. There's more going on.

Like Brady hits that. The best moment of the match, he holds the shot on the eighth from like 150 or whatever it was. And he reacted like Bird in the last dance when Reggie Miller makes the three. Like he's just like, oh, cool. It went in. Like any of us are losing our minds and jumping around and doing a jig. Like he was just immediately goes to make fun of charles barkley there's just something different about those guys that was one of my

takeaways yeah whenever i've i've played golf with guys that you know you're like wait a minute you're a six handicap like i didn't even know you golfed like yeah you know all the hockey guys that would come back to vermont during the summer and you you'd just be playing with them and you'd go oh you guys are all awesome at this too like this is ridiculous you know and then you'd add up the cards at the end of the day you're like what you had an 81 today like what and it's just it's just a different level um i thought it makes sense though yeah it does i thought the brady thing was really funny in that you knew he probably wanted to be more pissed but he couldn't because you know they're trying not to swear yeah and it's everybody's

watching and it's this thing and he's shanking them all over the place and that you're right when he finally has a great approach and he's asked barkley how that medicine tastes and he was just waiting waiting the entire time although i thought barkley had one of the i mean you knew he was gonna have a couple good lines but i think he asked was it Immelman who he goes, Hey, that thing he said about your chest being through the whole way. Is that important? It was like, yes, actually it is very important to have your chest follow through the shot and have that back shoulder continue to push forward momentum. And Chuck's like, Oh, okay. Oh, like some light was going off in his head like this whole time. Yeah. And I also have embarked there and I thought Justin Thomas,

who got a lot of praise all over the place, but he was really good too. It's, it's crazy how if, you know, like 20 things have to go right for these guys for this to be entertaining. Like probably,

they probably hit 17 of the check marks that needed to hit. The announcers were really good. The, the fact that they had limited cameras there and they had to readjust after every hole because of COVID and everything, like didn't really feel like a stripped down production and the golf carts were cool. I want to talk about the golf carts later. Cause I have a lot of thoughts on those, but like the cameras of the golf carts, the way the guys were interacting,

thought it was really good. It's actually better than it should have been. And it does make me wonder whether they should do more of this with golf. Why does it just have to be these gimmick matches? I love hearing these dudes. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know why they couldn't just do another one of these next week. Like, why couldn't the Ryder Cup have this? Why couldn't we maybe hear the Ryder Cup guys just everything they're saying?

What would be the downside? Ultimately, who cares? I think it's the players themselves don't want to be mic'd up. Because that was going around. I think, was it O'Connor today was saying, I hope the NBA does this with NBA players. I just don't.

We covered this a week ago in this pod. Yeah, they're not going to sign off. I actually think the coaches are even less likely to sign off than the players. Definitely the coaches. But I also think it's kind of this fundamental thing where it's like, wait, you want more access? Well, now I don't. Like, I can already guess what Michelle Roberts' quote would be. Like, oh, you want to hear them?

That's IP. Like, what? how about seeing them change in the shower you want that too how far do we go settle down um here here's my big pet peeve and this goes in general this even goes when i play golf i hate this the the whole gimme thing, giving people the putts. So if you have a skins match. A real stickler. Yeah. I just feel like if it's more than, I don't know, two and a half feet, put it out. Put, you know, put your sack on the table and just make it.

The whole point of a skins match is it's nut crunch time and all these different moments. They gave a couple putts today that were like five feet. It's like, yeah, that's good. It's like, is it? We're sure that's good. It's that's like the size. It's longer putt than Peter Dinklage. It's like Peter.

If it's longer than Peter Dinklage putt it. That would be my advice. You're not with me. No, there are a couple. Somebody's going to gack one of those. And the way it started off, too, where Phil was, I forget what your announcer said on the first hole. I was like, I'm kind of surprised there isn't a good good here

where they're just giving it to each other. And they didn't. So they putted out that first hole. And then was it Phil? Actually, after they putted them out, it was like, I thought we were going to get a good good. And I could be forgetting whose order it was on that but that's what happened in the first hole

some people would say you just keep doing it and then when somebody actually then has to make a putt you know they haven't putted like the last four or five holes then you could screw them up but I don't know like the giving putts thing I don't know that it's that big of a deal

I just don't so you don't give anybody any putts when i don't know that it's it's that big of a deal i i just don't so you don't give anybody any putts when you play with them no i if if there's like a stake if and it's just not like oh that's a five footer it's good it's in the general vicinity of what you might usually make it's like well why are we out here if we're not going to put these i i've just never understood it that there's sportsmanship and then there's just if we're not going to put these, I've just never understood it. They, there's sportsmanship. And then there's just like, we're actually removing competition. If you know,

sometimes it's hard to make that four footer edgy bill. I'm into this. Um, we know what it comes down to is the one time I was playing golf with my dad and he wouldn't give me a three footer. I missed a long putt for a 35 on the Cape in the front nine oceans. And then he wouldn't give me the three footer and I missed it. And I got a 37. I went 37 53. I was so mad at him in the back nine. I couldn't believe he didn't give it to me,

but you know what? He shouldn't have given it to me. I'm glad. I'm glad he was a dick. He was like, I can't, he was like, I can't give that to you. That's for 36. And I'm like, you're right. And then I missed it. And it's like, guess what? I didn't deserve a 36, uh, more things. I liked tiger's beard really came in. Nice. It's like a little bit of a little Nighthawk sliced alone. Remember that slight member Nighthawks sliced alone, Stallone. Remember that? Remember Nighthawks, Sly Stallone, Billy Dee Williams? He's got the yellow glasses. I don't remember that. The beard.

Or little Sly Stallone and Rocky. Rocky IV. Cobra. Russia. No, Russia. Yeah, I remember Russia. Russia grows the beard, starts lifting Burt Young over his head. I don't know.

I don't know if Tiger had that kind of facial hair capability. When I, when I did an event with him in 2006 for, uh, whatever the Tiger Woods golf game was. And he said how his golfer, his golfer, he would give the guy facial hair.

And I was like, why does your guy have a goatee? And he's like, cause I can't grow one. And now 14 years later, Tiger's got sliced the loans beard from nighthawk so i don't know yeah the nighthawk thing you lost me on that one not to say i feel like i let you down but so i shouldn't say that you lost me on that i'm gonna show you a picture i'm gonna go

calf definition you know what i was i was worried you wouldn't know oh that's dope that's dope. That's almost like a porno serpico. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly what it is. Porno serpico. That was when Slice the Low Tone is hairdresser. I wish the listeners could see this one. But yeah, Tiger.

Tag it. Tag it. Tiger's whole vibe was great. He looked like he was in awesome shape. He's hitting the shit out of the ball. He got me fired up for golf. I got to tell you, though, I was a little surprised how much better Mickelson's calves were than Tiger's calves.

Did you notice that? Didn't notice. You've always been a calves guy. I always forget to look. I'm always looking like arms, waist up. That's what sets you apart. you're worried about the definition wait so what do you think he didn't have the right machines at his house just some guys i mean it's genetic i remember that mtv show where the kid got calf implants and like went out that night showing off his calves to everybody being like this summer's

gonna rule like look out and uh and tiger tiger i thought were big because tiger was the big weightlifting guy remembered some of those years where they're talking about how much yeah he was he was bench pressing big big numbers you know that's what they were sam is i'm imagining with a trainer and he's big enough of a frame that he was he was lifting but then brady with the knee sleeve and you're going oh my god like, like, what are you doing? Why would you give anybody this kind of like this Intel on you? Even though he was on the, he was on the injury report with his shoulder for a decade plus out of pettiness. And then as soon as it's like, somebody said something about it, then, then Belichick took

him off of it. I don't know if you remember that he had probable shoulder Brady for, I think over a decade. Right. It was like 11 years. I was thinking how Manning should have hired writers to, to write. Like if he was in a roast or writing for SNL, you'd have like eight comedy guys. He could, he could have had so many good Brady jokes, like avocado jokes and tea jokes. And well, I mean, you're the guy who's has more hair than he did eight years ago. And like, he really, you're the guy who's has more hair than he did eight years ago.

And like, he really could have, could have been firing them off. And I think Brady, I don't know what would have happened, but it, there was just, tonight was very gentle.

The whole thing today was very happy, but at least get one avocado milkshake joke out. He could have said something like, Hey, for a guy who's all about pliability, your swings a little tight there. Well, Brady had the, Eli would guy who's all about pliability, your swings a little tight there. Well, Brady had the Eli would have made that one joke that I thought was like, you know,

it counted. It counted as a Barb in these, uh, in these circumstances, Brady's, uh, birdie was awesome. And then,

uh, I gotta say, I absolutely love the golf carts. I spent an hour Googling golf carts online. I have no idea why I would even want one, what I would do do with it i don't think they're legal to drive in the street but i was really like jealous of their golf carts down here they have them manhattan beach you can drive them you can park them with like that with the fancy seats you can do whatever you want you make them as fancy as you want bill and i wanted one really bad the first two or three months i

lived here i was like I'm just gonna get a golf cart like I'm definitely gonna be a golf cart I think you should do this and then I even called and got a price on something and then that guy of course because I called him asking for a quote called me a hundred times and I don't know I it passed like I don't see them with envy anymore like it was understood when I moved out here I was like I'm getting a golf cart I'm gonna do that and now I'm like yeah I guess I just don't see them with envy anymore. Like it was understood when I moved out here, I was like, I'm getting a golf cart. I'm going to do that. And now I'm like, yeah, I guess I just, I don't know. It was a phase. It'd be a bad move for me. Cause my son would probably get the keys and God only knows what would happen. Tommy boy seen from Tommy boy, something like

that. I really enjoyed it. Uh, they raised a shitload of money for charity, which was great. And, uh, it was just a win all the way around. It made me want to have sports come back. Um, we're gonna take a quick break. Then when we come back, we're gonna talk about, uh, everything we know about the NBA. Hey, for our sakes, we need to avoid crowds anyway. We can right now, but what if you need to go to the post office? What if you need postage to send out letters and packages? Don't worry. Stamps.com here to help. With stamps.com, you can print postage on demand and skip those lines and crowds at the post office. Personally print U.S. postage,

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at the top of the homepage. Type in BS. Stamps.com, enter BS. Stay safe, my friends. All right. Optimistic bill is here. He's brimming with optimism. Back to back weeks for our guy.

Back to back. Super optimistic. Lots of good stuff happening. There's dates going around. So we're, so we're taping this Sunday night. I don't think anything will get decided until Tuesday. And if you talk to anybody, they'll say, no, no, it's not decided yet, but they, they've hit the point that makes me happy where they actually have a plan or a semblance of a plan with end dates for things, because everything has to tie into when next season would start to,

and then how far you go against football and things like that. So here, here's what I've heard and I'm confident in the information, but I think on Tuesday it could flip if something weird happens, but I think this is what they're looking at. I don't under, I don't know what's going to happen with training camps. The, if they're going to play more regular season games, if there's going to be a play in game, any of that stuff. I think that's been the hardest part for them to figure out. I think what they have figured out tentatively is that the playoffs would start July 25th,

Saturday. That's what they're aiming for. I'm not saying that's the date I'm saying. That's what they have. That's what they've told the GMs. This would be an awesome date. Let's, let's look at this July 25th.

Uh, they want the last finals day to be September 20th, which is a Sunday. So that would be your game seven drop dead last day of the finals date. So you remember like when they, when the finals, they have that normally it's usually like June 18th, June 19th, June 20th.

And then the final, then the draft will be five, six days after the drop dead finals date of the game seven, the latest it could possibly go. NBA draft would be 9-24, 9-25, somewhere in there, within four to five days of the finals. And then free agency October 1st. With everything ramping back up,

hopefully in time for that, for to open on Christmas day. That's the ideal, how this plays out scenario right now that they're working off of doesn't mean it will happen. What do you think is the thought on, because I know with not every facility being open here,

um, it feels like this date being pushed back a little bit, tries to level the playing field of the fact that some of these facilities still aren't going to be open. Um, and the rest thing I, I am, I think the players are getting more ramp up time than I thought maybe they,

they'd get. The part I can't figure out is what happens between mid June and that July 25th date, which is kind of like when they would hope the playoffs would start if everything works out perfectly. So do you have regular season yet? I've heard five different things over the last few days. One of the things was that the bottom three teams in each conference are just

out. They're not even involved. Then you hear everybody's involved. Then you hear, we'll only play a couple games, but it'll be normal playoffs. Then you hear, no, no, it's going to be a playing game. And I think the reason you're hearing all this stuff is they haven't decided yet. But I thought the bottom three teams in each conference not being involved was interesting. And this, again, I don't have information on this other than just hearing that. Um, but all right.

So you knock out those three. That means you have basically the top 12 seeds in each conference. So that allows you to do some sort of play in thing with seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12,

where you could have maybe a one game playoff, nine verse 12, 10 verse 11. Then the winner plays seven. The two winners play seven and eight. I don't know, but that, that was the only way that made sense for me with the last three teams.

But I do think they're there. They've been batting around a play-in possibility because I think they know those games would be watched. And then the other thing I heard was that the rosters might just be bigger. They might just have how they would have in a training camp roster and just kind of keep it at, you know, 15, 20 people.

Um, but just go in that whole way like that. So there's a lot of stuff out there right now. The seven through 12 thing though. Like, I don't know what the difference is. I mean, the calves 19 wins Atlanta and Detroit both have 20.

So that means the Knicks are in. Well, that was my favorite part of the bottom three are out but somehow the poor knicks have to let go and and try to try to get their shit together for the playoffs it would make more sense to knock out the bottom four but i haven't heard that yet yeah um and then you have phoenix gosh keep forgetting san antonio's record this year how bad they are. Is San Antonio fourth worst or third worst?

Fourth. They're a game ahead of, well, they're a win ahead, two games ahead of Phoenix because of the loss column. So let's play this out for a second. And again, I don't know if this is true, but let's say it's even more logical to knock out the bottom four in each conference. So that would be next Pistons, Hawks, calves, and Spurs sons, Timberwolves warriors.

I don't know what, what you do the regular season games and whether you'd have a couple, you know, get a couple, basically warmup games that would count as regular season games. But if you had 11 teams in each conference, that would allow you at least to, to do a little playing thing for the eight seed, you know, with eight, nine, 10, 11, basically one team's going to emerge from this. And that'll be the eight seed. The question is what's the prize. If you're the eight seed, you're the point of the Lakers or the bucks, like, great. Um, you're probably going to lose. That's, that's the part where it gets kind of dopey. I think if you put the last two seeds in each playoffs at stakes, that becomes more fun because you would have the Nets and the Magic or the 7-8 seeds in the East.

But then in the West, you have Dallas and right now Memphis. So now you have Luka would be involved in that whole thing with the 7th seed, which I think gives it

a different level of credibility. That's why I'm hoping the 7th seed might be available to be played for because then Luka becomes involved. What are you hearing on length of series? Did you hear anything on that? I Adams like pretty adamant about best of seven,

wanting this to seem authentic, not doing the speed rush. I think they've dug their heels in that a little bit because they're very wary of people feeling like this was a fake season or a pseudo season. They want it to seem legitimate and genuine. And you're also losing home court advantage because they're going to be in these bubble things. So it's like, you know, if you're the Lakers, normally they're 49 and 14. The Bucs are the only team that's better than them.

And having that hammer in a game seven in Staples is a huge fucking advantage. And that's been removed. So I think to get rid of home court advantage and the best of seven is a pretty big penalty for these teams like the Lakers and the Clippers and the Bucs who really spent some time trying to earn their spot. And then it's like best of five

neutral location like it's pretty tough that that could mean anybody could beat anybody yeah i really want it to be the 16 games or you know i could handle a best of five first round i don't think the first round should even be seven but uh you know people are already willing to kind of like pre-diminish whatever this is and the way i see it is if if you have to go through and play that many games win 14 maybe win 16 games to win an nba title like yes there were odd circumstances here but i don't know i i'm not in a rush i feel like so many people want to diminish things all the time but we also know too like if you if lebron were to win it and you don't like lebron then you're going to say well this one doesn't matter as much and then if you do love lebron you're going to say you know it's it's i

just i don't know i'm not i'm not ready to kind of do this thing where oh well that ring that ring doesn't mean as much it would definitely be the case if we were talking single elimination or something like that but i i would want nothing to do with single elimination i just wouldn't that would suck i mean i know it would seem interesting but i think we'd get results like i think the cool thing about the basketball result is that the basketball result is usually kind of um it rewards the better teams and i'd be scared to death to see what a single eliminate like if you want to talk about people diminishing something a single elimination champion would be like people wouldn't even want to make shirts see it's funny i think if they do it this way and it's best to seven but it's a neutral location

and the lakers clippers or bucks who are the three best teams if one of those three teams prevail i don't see how anyone could say that's been diminished. If anything, they had a bigger bullseye because they didn't have home court. The, the team where it would be diminished if it was like the rockets one is a six seed because it was a neutral location and any sort of playing on the road in a game seven,

having to come through, um, down three, one in a game five on the road in a game seven, having to come through, um, down three, one in a game five on the road, any of that stuff is removed. And it's, and it basically the regular season doesn't matter. You're just matching teams against each other. Um, and there's no fans, any of that stuff. So I would say for the Lakers bucks and Clippers to get through that and still win the title, I would take that seriously. But if Dallas won the title, we would be like, yeah, you won the title, but... Yeah, absolutely.

No home court thing is a perfect example. This is harder. It's going to be harder. All you work for, for 60-plus games, 70 games, it doesn't even matter. Because, yes, you have the seeding, but the home court numbers... Here's the other thing. it doesn't even matter because yes, you have the seating, but, um, well, but here's the other thing.

The, the, there's certain teams where our home court, I think really matters for them. You know, like I, I think for whatever reason, Miami is really good at home.

Um, Philly's unbelievable at home. Philly's unbelievable at home. The bucks were 28 and three at home. I think it matters for the Lakers. I think the altitude thing was an advantage for Denver. Um, and Utah as well. Oklahoma city is super loud.

If you're down three, two, and you're playing game six in Oklahoma city, like that's a really hard game. The crowd's crazy. But then you look at a team like the Clippers where any playoff series they were going to have, there's going to be 5,000 to 8,000 fans from the other team. And they almost kind of didn't have a home court advantage. This neutral setup is weirdly, I don't want to say an advantage, but I, it's not like they're losing much by not having home playoff games. I don't think like if they played the Lakers in the Western finals, there'd be half Laker fans at every game. You know, it wouldn't be the traditional

home court advantage. So it's going to be weird. Um, people were talking about pumped in crowd noise, all that stuff. Did I get your official take on that? Uh, I didn't think it was that bad on the soccer thing. People kind of liked it. If you're not really looking for it and you're hearing some chanting, I think you should go with both things. I don't love the laugh track. I actually proposed that we did a laugh track for the radio show.

Like the old Brady Bunch laugh track? Yeah, or if somebody had a zinger, then you'd be like, or a makeout scene or something. I wanted to have those drop inappropriately throughout the radio show just to try them all out. But I know that everybody is anti it. It may look worse because soccer stadium is so massive, and you're not really in the crowd.

The crowd isn't really the shot. The field is the shot. And for the NBA, the backdrops are going to be in the shot because it the crowd isn't really the shot the field is the shot and for the nba like the backdrops are going to be in the shot because it's so much smaller so i don't know if that'll just look weird because you know no one's there because with soccer it feels like oh you know what like i'm not constantly noticing that people aren't there one of my hotter takes is that I think, I think NBA noise is almost as annoying as it is fun to hear the music blaring in the background for these, you know, stupid songs when somebody's on defense. And I don't know, I, I would kind of like if it just sounded like a basketball game,

or would it be against that? I would rather have the sounds of a game than anything else. I don't know how realistic it is. It's so empty though it might sound weird you know like an empty gym i think that's the problem it's gonna sound the echoing and there's gonna be this dead these absolute long dead silences and that's probably what they're afraid of i think i would like it is that why we have announcers? Can't the announcers fill the dead silences? I don't want my announcers talking all the time, though. Some guys are going to talk all the time.

But, look, it's going to be weird. They talk all the time anyway. You seem really hostile about this. What? You seem... Is this. What? This, you seem, is this bothering you? No, I, I,

I'm kind of excited for the sounds. I hope we can all peer pressure the NBA into folding on this and just being like, screw all the gimmicks. Just let us hear the dudes. That's going to be the big win. Everybody's going to love hearing the guys. Just fucking do it. Even if you have to do a one minute time delay or whatever.

Like that's how we win with this. If it means we get audio of the guys, not directly mic'd up, but we're getting more of them out on the court, then I'm all for it. But I just, I'm telling you, it's just going to be,

it's going to be like going to a high school game that nobody's at like a bad high school game or some weird summer league game i enjoy those can i'm not saying it's a problem yeah go ahead how available are you to spend two months in orlando i've spent some time in orlando but uh if you get the call, the quarantine media list and they're like, and they, they ask us like, does Rosilla want to go and just do, do the show from Orlando and go to all the games, get tested, do the whole thing. I would assume you're in, right? Yeah. I would do that.

Yeah. I'm like 50% in. I, I, I know if I came back, my wife is, I'm probably getting served with divorce papers, but I'll be in the quarantine bubble. They won't be able to serve me. Cause nobody would be allowed in. Perfect.

So I won't even know. Um, kind of, I don't, I don't know if I would turn it down. Wait, I mean, when will this ever happen again?

This is one of the craziest. Well, hopefully never. Well, that's what I mean. This is like one of the craziest well hopefully never well that's what i mean this is like one of the craziest things in the history of sports they're going to play the nba playoffs in a neutral site in walt disney world in orlando this is like this will never happen again i don't know orlando this time of year to count me in yeah i know i know you love orlando in july celebration have you been down a celebration

no no i have not the uh the fear of going against football with especially the finals i think it's probably less of a fear because i don't know how realistic it is that the nfl season starts on time if you if you listen to listen to Pete and Steve on flying coach, they, uh, Pete was talking about the Bill Murray episode this week about how right now they're about dead, even with where they would normally be in the whole football season cycle,

you know, like late may, but this is, he said, starting this upcoming week, they're going to start falling behind. But up until now, it was kind of matched how it would go for the most part, other than that, that people can't be around each other. But starting this week is when

this is not now you're falling behind with just everything. Um, and I don't know, I don't know how realistic it is. It really, the college football stuff starting to sound not realistic. I know you've been following that stuff. Yeah, the college thing is a free-for-all. And that's what you're dealing with when you're dealing with all separate conferences, commissioners, athletic departments,

and not having one real voice. I mean, we've talked about this in the past, like should there be a commissioner for college football? But don't really know anybody would listen to them and you know you had with the big 12 saying no we're good and they're like texas tech was talking about enrollment going up because they said we're like no no we're ready to go and then you hear the california schools and they're like we're not ready to go al Alabama, I think weeks ago was like, we're playing. Alabama's practicing right now. I, you know, and I don't know.

It's always that dicey thing where, yes, you know, the kids aren't paid the way they should be compensated. That's not really what the debate is here. But to have the kids go back that aren't being paid. But then again, at the same time, like I bet you 95% of these kids, maybe higher want to go back. They want to go back and play sports because they like doing it. And if I were a college kid right now, I'd rather be quarantined with my football team on a campus than, than be at home. So college football, it's, it's hard to get a grasp on what, what it is. because some of these schools that are just saying, hey, we're just going to do what we want to do,

well, it depends on who you're going to have to, who's going to be there for you to play. How do you have college football when nobody is allowed on the campus other than the football players? That doesn't make sense to me. How do you have college football if none of the other sports are allowed to play?

What are the Title nine ramifications? There's, I mean, it's, we're confused trying to figure out the NBA. The college sports thing is like a hundred times more confusing because there is no Adam Silver. As you put it out, they have no commissioner. There's nobody who could be like, Hey man, let's do this. Let me get all together. I'll get all your agendas and I'll try to figure out some common ground. That didn't happen in a college football.

And then you have the NCAA come in. I don't see how it works. Yeah. I get, except that they need the money so bad to keep everything else afloat. Now I do think that the college football is going to have to look in the mirror here a little bit because of the way they've spent money now the money that comes in with these new tv deals is beyond i think what any of these schools thought

they would make and yet to kind of prevent some of that trickling down to the players in what would be a groundbreaking way and again i'm not getting into like all the different options i think you should have but they've spent a ton of money. Like whenever you study, um, college admissions or look at any of the tuition prices, you're like, well, how could tuition be this much more? Well, it's because the number of administrators. So it's like, Hey, we have more money coming in. Okay. Let's keep spending more money. And a lot of these college football programs have been spending like drunken sailors here. And now it's like, Oh, wait, we have all these bills due. So we have to play football.

Now, granted, look, they want to play football so they don't lose all the money. But when you have strength coaches making 500 grand a year, you have you have coordinators. Yeah, true. Oh, yeah. 500K a year. Yeah, not all of them, but look at the way college football has spent on salaries, on staffs, on upgrades,

on all of this stuff. Training facilities. Right. Just to make sure they can make it look like, you know, we're spending, cause that's the thing is like, Oh yeah,

we're actually, we're spending all of this money. So we're not flush with cash. Well, yeah, you, but you're, you're not flush with cash because you've,

you've been on this spending spree ever since his TV money went through the roof a few years ago, 10 years ago. So you think it's conceivable where just a couple of conferences come back and that's it. If the sec had a game tomorrow, there'd be a hundred thousand people in stadium. I'm shaking my head for the people who can't see me i'm sure sometimes i forget on the zoom that

the listeners can't see any of our facial reactions yeah i think i agree with you i think there'll be a hundred thousand people at auburn whoever yeah and so for everybody that goes i can't believe that look my town is packed right now like i came up here to tape and i was like whoa and you know whether you want to look on anything on social media, you can see these these videos of people Memorial Day weekend. Like I don't I know there's some people that have a hard time processing that in a way there wouldn't be packed stadiums. I'm saying if you could let that many people in and you were going to have some kind of

guidelines, you would pack a stadium. You just would. It's just it's just different down there, man. Hey, if you've been dealing with acne, redness, dark spots, or wrinkles, finding treatment that works can be complicated. You need skincare that actually performs, but getting started can be overwhelming. Thankfully, there is a solution. Roman makes it convenient to get customized prescriptions, skincare that really performs. Grab your phone or computer, complete a free online consultation. You'll hear back from a US licensed physician

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cancel anytime. Go to GetRoman.com slash bill for a free online visit and start your new skincare routine today. GetRoman.com slash bill. Eligibility requirements and additional terms do apply. You wanted to talk about Pierce leaving LeBron out of his top five and the biases of ex-players against other players. I think this is a fun topic. I think they're like us with media people, where when media people get, there's another media person who's successful. Like, oh yeah, that guy's terrible. And they're just going to have their biases. Like Pierce says this thing with LeBron that Perkins called him out on since the 2002 game,

which I think was at the Mohegan Sun preseason. And they almost got in a fight in the tunnel after the game. And it was just, they never liked each other ever since. Then KG showed up in the Celtics and it became like the Crips and the Bloods for five years where they were just as much animosity as you could possibly have with two sides culminating in the 2012 thing.

But then you even hear, when I had KG on my podcast with Sandler and he was like, even when we see these guys now, I still don't like them. It's still not that friendly. I don't fuck with those guys. Um, I, it's all of it. It's hilarious.

But, uh, Pierce leaving LeBron out on his top five when he's a media person that I don't care how much you hate LeBron or how many, how spiteful you want to get. There's no version of a top five that he's not on at this point. No. So part of me thought it was kind of funny that it's so clearly a vendetta. Yeah. You know, like that there's a part of me that allows me to like to respect it a little

where I go, you didn't care so much putting them fifth may have been funnier, but Pierce you're right. The LeBron thing has been real for a long time. And what I always think is kind of funny that happens especially when you get to work with so many of these guys like austin rivers goes crazy and says that duane wade not being top 15 is ridiculous he's like if you didn't coach you didn't play i don't want to hear your opinion you should be ranking anybody like well first of all like duane wade his peak is better than a lot

of guys peaks but you can't you can't put him in the top 15 like there's no there's no duane wade he's a top 15 player list i mean you agree there's no road map on earth that that exists right so that's a current player who's ripping everyone in the media and then i sit back and i just always think and i go these ex-athletes now are more biased than any dude with a podcast you know there's certain writers there's certain debate guys you know look we we know who they are who just decide hey my my shtick is going to be i'm just going to hate on this player the whole time and no matter what but for players that always do this thing like oh you never played you never played and be like you guys are out of control right now i mean perkins perkins is in a

weird spot because he is pierce's guy but he obviously loves lebron too yeah and so when this jordan stuff was coming out for these last six weeks or what five weeks there was this kind of like lebron protection society that was trying to like make some different arguments where like look you already admitted you think mj is the best of all time but now you're going to do all these other things and like perk and those guys they don't like steph you know whatever that is those guys don't like steph because maybe the thunder and the warriors and all that kind of stuff so like i always feel like perkins um is very anti-steph lebron doesn't like steph either but he also i think it's perk being with

the being with the thunder but you know he was doing this thing and i don't want to make it about trey young but it was i i went at perk which you know i've met him i think we're cool but i was like look how could you think that that tre Young, his first year is better than Steph's first year? I'm not talking about the raw stats, but they were completely different setups. The setups were totally different. Mark Jackson had him playing in the corner. And that's a real thing.

Don't look at just the raw numbers the first couple of years of Trey Young and Steph Curry. You've got to also look at the basketball situation, and you not doing that and then i was like why am i even doing this like he just doesn't like steph curry so why why would i waste my time and it's just always one of those things as guys like you and i that didn't play and just our whole business is having opinions and it's getting a little bit of an eye roll from certain segments and i'm like you guys are more out of control and biased than i think i can ever remember it. And maybe it's because this generation of players is so sick of seeing all the guys from the nineties say they suck every year on TV shows. Cause that's the

other part about this. Like that was a big thing with Durant Durant. When we did the pods with Durant, he would mention, he mentioned that at least half of them, how it actually hurt his feelings when Barkley and those guys would go at his generation he just didn't understand it because he was like our guys all of us like look up to those guys like why are they disparaging us hurts our feelings yeah I mean Barkley Barkley was anti the Warriors the whole run right I mean Barkley would like was anti Houston and Golden State and Oakland like he was almost anti all those guys and then if you go down the list of all those guys that played the 90s you're right like it just was, oh, hey, another 90s guy saying how much we suck. So maybe that's why some of these guys are a little bit more protective

of their generation. But it's different. It's not like that in any of the other sports. And I think it's just a basketball thing. I'm just not quite sure exactly what it is. It's funny. I really tried to avoid players until after I wrote my book. And then in the 2010s, I wanted to make an effort to talk to more people, listen to different perspectives, things like that. And ended up really being a smart move for me because it really kind of opened my mind to some stuff and showed how narrow minded I was on certain things or just, there's certain things that just athletes really care about that. I think you and I are just going to miss. And the thing over and over again, the last decade was how much respect the guys who

played. And even the experts had for Kobe. Cause I was, I went through the two thousands, like Kobe selfish. She's a bad teammate. He's a ball. And yeah, he wins titles, but he won the first three with Shaq. He wanted to wait. Like I had my whole case laid out, but then I remember like I interviewed bird in Indiana and it was like, what player would you want to play with? And he's like, if I wanted to have fun, I'd play with LeBron. And if I wanted to win, I'd play with Kobe. And he just had so much respect for Kobe. And he's like, Kobe's my favorite player in the league. And if I wanted to win, I'd play with Kobe. And he just had so much respect for Kobe is that Kobe is my favorite player in the league. And I'm like, fuck the legend loves Kobe. Like I need to reevaluate things, but I just went through it. I had, uh, the, all the smoke guys on

my pod on Thursday, captain Jack and Barnes. And we had a Kobe Duncan thing. And both of those guys were like, if I had to take one guy, I would take Kobe. And Captain Jack won a title with Duncan. He won the Oh three. He's got a ring. Cause Duncan during Duncan's apex season. And he was just like, I think Kobe's a better leader, but you know, you could pick some of their things apart. Cause he was like, Duncan never had to lead.

He always had Popovich. Um, I don't know if he could have done some of the stuff Kobe did challenging guys, making stuff better. And I'm thinking like, well, Kobe had Phil Jackson. He's pretty good. Like that probably helped. But they really felt strongly about it. And I do think I like when it gets like that, when people like us see it one way and the guys who are in there, they see some extra thing that neither of us could see.

Yeah, the Kobe thing is consistent. And I, God, i hate that i'm doing this now too though but what's kobe's what's his career if paul gasol isn't gift wrapped into them i they don't i don't think they went in 08 in 09 or 2010 without gasol He was a top 10 or 11 guy in the league and perfect for that team. And the perfect guy to play with Kobe. They also, you know, I think those Laker teams, you know, Bynum was a problem those first couple of years for in a good way for them. It was, it was a really big unconventional team during the last stretch

before the league started to change how they played. And you go back and watch those games, they were pretty weak on the wing other than they had Ariza in 09 and Artest in 2010. Really, Fisher was involved in crunch times way more than I think you would have expected or thought, and Sasha Vujicic, stuff like that. But I don't know, those teams were pretty good. But if you remove gasol and just substitute whoever i i think it's a problem but you know you could say the same thing with the celtics like do they win it away without kg no no they don't of course not do they win if if phoenix

pulls off amari and i think it was amari and boris diaw or no it was amari and was it amari and marion or amari and diaw for kg because that was on the table and heading into the 07 08 season too. Um, yeah, it happens. You need to get lucky. The problem with the Gasol trade was just the date of the trade and the fact that nobody else in the league knew he was available.

That was what people had an issue with. They trade him three weeks for the deadline and people didn't know he was available and people were pissed about it. Teams were about it like i talked i remember what guy was like um he's your boy and he met chris wallace and i was like what because he traded powell he none of us knew he was even available and i was like what now people can do the hindsight deal on marcus soul becoming the player that he he was there was there was no there was no thought there wasn't anybody in the moment with that trade going you know marcus soul is like a nice prospect it wasn't now it turned into that it turned into like a multiple time all-star it had a great career but uh you got to look at it at what was the asset in

2008 when they made the trade and it was not an asset yeah so the thing the reason i bring that up and yeah you're right like if garnett i mean forget it let's not even talk about it but no one here is saying pierce is an all-time top five player this is what the conversation is about kobe and you start going like well wait a minute do we do we not put kobe high enough or do we look at those series where he lost to Phoenix in game seven, first round? Did he get bounced back-to-back years by Phoenix in the first round? Yeah, I don't think it's close with Duncan and Kobe.

I just feel like when Duncan's on your team, you're guaranteed 55 wins as long as everybody else is a C-. He's just going to happen. You look at his track record and, um, just how good he was, how consistently good he was. And then the Oh three season is the cherry and the Sunday where it's, it's really early Parker. Like he's not even close to being Parker yet. It's fish out of water, Manu it's broken down. Robinson captain Jack is weirdly like the second most important person on that team. And he rolls through everybody and is, you know, I, I don't remember

Kobe having anything like that. It's a really good argument though. It's, it's funny. Cause we, we did a breakout for it on Friday and people were really passionate about it going one way or the other. Like people really feel it's one of those things. People really feel strongly one way or the other. I just feel like if you have Duncan on your team, I know I'm in the playoffs every year. And I know if I have a decent team, I I'm in the final four. I know if I have a good team, I have a chance to win the title. And that's just, just a fact.

I don't think you could necessarily say that with Kobe, with how his career kind of shifted gears a couple of times there. And like, And like he had some, even Oh three before the trial, he was very strange that year. Like he was playing great, but they had a lot of trouble reaching him. He was, you know, Phil Jackson's written about this in multiple books. Like it was a long evolution for him to get to where he got to in 08, 09 as a teammate. I think that stuff gets thrown out. I just wonder if it's the position it's his style and like the perimeter guys,

a guy like Kobe is just always going to be a cooler basketball player than Duncan. So is it as simple as that? Why other players would, would go for that? You know, when we thought about Kobe as a difficult teammate, well, Kobe was difficult when the team stunk, know when the team wasn't very good yeah but i'm

i'm not doing like whenever i say that about kobe though like whenever i bring up the gasol thing that's not diminishing all the other people that have added other great players nobody does this by themselves in this league you just don't you can't this is not a solo act you got to have other really good players and he had this you're as you're saying this pivot it looked as if like wait a minute is this guy going to end up being like a first round exit here and we're talking about him as the best player in the league you know if he is that is that is that truly what it is and um that phoenix series too in that game, where he just kind of was like, I'm over this. It was just such a weird game. It was weird.

It wasn't great. He he's got some tough ones. The Oh four finals is really bad. Um, he's just terrible in that series. And, and part of it is cause that Detroit team was, um, the best possible team to go against him. And they had a lot of chemistry stuff going on too, obviously. But, um, yeah um yeah you know it happens i i think that's what that's what makes you know the jordan thing that jordan run that he had

really the orlando was the only hiccup and you look at all these other great guys they all had hiccups like even my guy bird you know they got swept by the bucks in 83. they lost a game seven at home in 82 and 85 he hurt his hand in the bar fight and probably cost him the title and he's got hiccups like anybody else and you look at jordan it's just like it's kind of unassailable with except for the baseball part yeah that to me that doesn't even count like right he didn't play any pickup basketball and then comes back and plays in the NBA. It's pretty nuts. Um, quickly on LeBron, we, you and me at house had been joking for a while of what LeBron

was going to be capable of when the MJ doc ended and there was a blank landscape again. So he went on the uninterrupted podcast claim that during 2011 lockout, he thought about playing football and there was a Jerry Jones contract. There was a whole thing. I never remember the lockout in 2011 getting to the point where guys were making alternative career paths. And the other thing is we didn't know whether we're going to have a season or not until the end of December, which football was over by that point. So I guess it means he would have

been pushing for the year after, but it was such a weird story and people were running with it. Like, you know, LeBron almost played for the Cowboys. It's like, what's going on? Are we all losing our minds? LeBron wasn't playing football. That was never happening. What is everyone talking about? That's why this stuff is kind of funny right now. Not that this is new, but it's like, hey, Pierce left LeBron off his top five. Okay. Segment A.

All right. What do we got for the Bs? LeBron playing for the Cowboys? Coming out. Right. LeBron. A taller Ben Coates? All right. Those are the Bs.

Great. Could LeBon have been the best football player ever that's next so yeah he had that he had a workout video he had like four stories this week he had uh so i wrote all of them down for you oh you did you tracked him nice it was announced he's producing a new adam sandler movie called Hustle. That looks good. I'm excited about that. Yeah, that was exciting. The Greatness Code, new Apple series about, I guess, athletes talking about what makes them great.

Doesn't sound like an infomercial at all. And then a new Nike commercial, Never Too Far Down, had that one as well. That was actually a good commercial. But it was clear. Like he kind of laid low for five weeks. Yeah. Yeah.

As a very smart strategy. He's like, fuck. All right. This MJ thing. I'm just going to let this go. And then this week now it's like, I'm back. Um, never mentioned in the MJ doc for 10 parts. Not once.

Not mentioned. Not even shown. Nothing. Goose egg. Did he turn down an interview request? I don't think the request was made. I think a lot of scores were settled in doc and we, I'd been anxious to talk to you. I want to talk about the source grant thing, but let's take one more break.

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Okay. So Horace Grant, who I knew was going to snap. I was waiting for it. He was the most glossed over guy in this whole documentary is the third best guy in the first three teams. Rodman probably got, uh, 12 times as much shine in this doc as Horace did. Then was accused of being the snitch, which according to people I've talked to, I mean, that had always been the rumor that he was the Sam Smith snitch, but I think the prevailing feeling is that that's like really unfair to call Horace the quote unquote snitch. When it was the early nineties, Sam Smith could talk to anybody. He was getting, it was just so easy for reporters to get information back then. So Horace finally snapped, said a whole bunch of stuff about, I think he felt like his manhood was

challenged a little bit in the doc, the story. And there was a story about MJ wouldn't let him eat on the airplane and stuff like that. And he just kind of went off and I was here for it. I enjoyed it. I was waiting for him to do it. And I think he was criminally underrated because he, especially you look at that 91 series and the pit that 91 Pistons team was still a big physical team. And it's basically like Horace was the guy who really needed to come through in that series in a lot of different ways. And he did, and they won three straight titles. They won three in a row, which other than to that point, other than the, uh, Russell Celtics and Mike and Minnesota team, nobody had done. And I don't know. I, I, I felt bad for the way he was treated in the doc just because it was clear um jordan has disdain for him yeah there were it was like a 48

hour window where it felt like it started happening after the doc was over where people were kind of like all right you guys all ate up all this stuff and you go well wait a minute like if there's going to be anybody that has this 10-part deal about him where we're all kind of like man this guy was insane like it's going to be mj like is it okay to be fawning over michael jordan i think it is but yeah you knew like i didn't watch that whole thing going okay everything is true right every comment all 10 hours i'll check out 100 accurate like we get it and guess what like there's another version of this where people want it to be this unauthorized biography like oh where's his ex-wife well guess what his ex-wife's not going to be in it his ex-wife's not going to be in it because

he's going to sign off on all this stuff so you also also go research that relationship and you'll understand why she's not in it i mean it's it's not fucking chess here she's not right for a reason and so when you sit there and like go okay yeah like all right there's probably a couple guys lying about history i mean it happens in anything right but it it doesn't mean because we love the doc and it was a reinforcing of mj's greatness that i feel like I'm some Rube. Yeah. It seemed a little generational too. That people throw in the Hager,

Hagiography thing around. It's like, ah, it wasn't totally a Hager. There's been way worse. Yeah. That's my point. Infomercial.

This is pretty honest. Yeah. Right. Yeah. If there's one that should be allowed, it's this guy. So one thing I was thinking about that we didn't talk about during the five parts, when we talked about this doc, it's over and over again, he's so competitive. What a, nobody's more competitive. This guy, this guy needed to win in anything.

It's all he's about is winning. How did he end up being such a bad owner? Like if we, if we were doing the epilogue and it was like the two hour unauthorized doc that the last dance is over, we don't need your footage anymore. Now we're going to do the last 20 years. Like what the fuck happened? How does this guy become such a bad owner? Charlotte's a bottom five organization in the league and has been, I don't know when, when, what do we did? We did our team with like, when we did our rankings of teams, you wouldn't want to be the GM for, it was an automatic, Oh, there's one, there's the top five. So why hasn't that competitiveness

manifested itself at all in any sort of success owning a team. Even when he played baseball, they had that whole part, and they're talking about, you know, man, that guy who's in the cage in the morning, he didn't come before the game, he's in the cage again, then the game, then after the game, he's back in the cage. Hardest worker I've ever seen in my life. So not the case as an owner? I don't get it.

Okay, it could be as simple as luck really that's how you put these teams together um you get lucky but no one's ever going there that was one of my favorite ones like oh there's so many of these players worship jordan jordan sneakers like yeah they'll probably sign there for less as a free agent because they wore the sneakers that'll probably happen like people were worried about that that's like one of my favorite things like when jay-z was part of the nets be like lebron he's black black guys like rap jay-z he's a rapper they're all going there he's yeah he's probably gonna go to the nets because of rap music um i was like what um jay-z owned 0.003 percent of the nets they're like yeah he's gonna get everybody they're all going there yeah yeah right right so we'd heard the same thing with mga before too the roster i'd said i still can't believe how how good of a job orego's done in that group because

going into the year i'm like this is the least interesting roster of any team in the league but maybe it's competitive when it's him maybe it's it's some detached thing where since he doesn't he can't really change the outcome of anything you know like everybody still has to spend the same amount of money for the most part um i don't i don't know i mean is he just as bad as like he sees bradley beal and he sees kid gilchrist and he thinks one guy is better than the other which seems impossible that you could be maybe the greatest ever to do it and you can't see the difference in some of these like are you just that bad at it or is he so hands off that you know his front office lets him down so i don't know man i mean that one's that one's really hard to figure out the connection to it but i think it

would have to be the only thing i can think of is that it's a big part of, to be competitive doesn't mean like, let's just cut this up, Kyle. I'm fucking this up. Three, two, and one. My guess would be it's just the fact that he can't actually go and do anything to execute any kind of result

is why being an owner is different than being a player. Does that make any sense? Well, I'm looking at my list of the greatest players of all time. So Russell, who coached Seattle in the seventies, by all counts, bad coach, Lenny Wilkins came in within two years, Russell, Lenny Wilkins won a title with Russell's team. Then he famously went to Sacramento, I think in the 86, 87 range and was just a train wreck there. And then they finally bought him out. Um, Kareem never coached or did was a GM magic.

Um, terrible coach, terrible GM. Sorry, Larry bird. Good coach. Um, decent GM. Probably one of the only ones that, uh, that, that, uh, buck this one. Jerry West. Great GM. Did a great job.

Oscar Hakeem, Shaquille, Moses, have a check. Elgin Baylor in my top 20. One of the worst GMs ever. Julius Irving never did it. Shaquille, Moses, Havlicek, Elgin Baylor in my top 20. One of the worst GMs ever. Julius Irving never did it. Bob Pettit, Carl Malone, Kevin Garnett, Charles Barkley. Koozie, bad coach in Cincinnati. Rick Barry, nobody ever would have let him coach.

Willis Reed, bad coach. Dave Cowens, decent coach. Um, Kevin McHale, awful GM, great guy. Really, really an atrocious GM, really bad. Like one of the worst GMs of the two thousands. Great guy though. Uh, so there's, do you remember, I don't know if you're going to remember this bad GM. This was over 10 years ago, but I think Forbes Sports did an article where this writer,

he basically came up with this formula of trying to figure out who was the best GM. And the article, the conclusion was it was Kevin McHale. Oh, God. That guy get fired? No, I mean, I went, I absolutely ripped through the thing, and then I was like, let's just have him on.

So I was like, how did this happen? Like, is there any part of your study where you go, okay, and the answer is Kevin McHale. Okay, so maybe my formula sucks. And he goes, no, no. He goes, if you do this, if you look at how many wins before and how many wins after,

and he's run through his whole formula. I go, okay, so just so I have you clear here. If you had a team and you could hire, you own the team and you could hire any GM in the game, Mikhail would be your first call. And he was like, yes. I was like, all right. It's tough.

He was not anyone's first call after he left Minnesota. So then Wes Unseld was another one who was a bad GM. And Dave DeBuscher, who is now no longer with us. But so that I just listed how many guys, like 16, 17 of the top 55 guys ever. And only two of them were good. GMs maybe, maybe great players. Should it be good? GMs.

I remember, I can't remember who I talked to about this. It was a long time ago. Somebody gave me the theory about what, one of the reasons why they make for bad GMs, because they're so good. They were saying this about McHale. Cause remember McHale kept taking chances with like, you know, kind of shaky chemistry guys like Latrell and Troy Hudson and people like that. Uh, Mark Blunt, Michael Candy, like over and over again, we just get these guys.

I was like, why does he keep doing this? And somebody was like, because he was a really good player and really good players, their attitude is, well, if he's on my team, we'll make it work. But there, the problem is they're not playing anymore. They're not on the team. And that, and that's where, that's where the case falls apart. It's like, you can't put those guys, unless guys unless you have the player who's wired like you. Now, in Minnesota's case, they had KG,

but we're never able to figure it out. So anyway, great players do not equal. But think about this. Think about this, though. Why would Ainge being a role player make him be a better GM? I've heard the coaching part of it. If you're a great player

and you're surrounded by all these guys that aren't as talented as you were then it's like well how come you just don't go do this thing and you're like well i can't do that like only you could do that so i can't do it so the coach one makes way more sense but yes the ability to look at players and say this guy works this guy doesn't and to get it wrong that often that's that's pretty like i don't know i just don't know And to get it wrong that often, that's pretty crazy. I don't know. I just don't know. Is it just the result that we have

and there's no real correlation between it? Yeah, it's not a big enough sample size. Yeah. If Ainge scored more, he'd be worse at selecting players? That seems crazy. Steve Kerr said something interesting once. He was talking about one of the reasons

he thinks he was well equipped to be a coach. I think he talked about this recently on flying coach with Carol too, about you have a more innate sense of your, your bench and every guy in the team, because you've been in different positions on that team, right? Sometimes like Steve Kerr's career is really the perfect case study for this. He basically wills himself into the league. He bounces around, ends up in Cleveland. He's Mark Price's backup.

Finally kind of gets a footing and then ends up on the bulls. And he's there for eight years, goes to the Spurs, basically loses it. They gave him this big contract and he's just not playing. They do a trade with Portland. I think for Derek Anderson, just to dump his contract. Now he's on the jailblazers for a year, not playing ends up back on the Spurs, no three, not playing. And he was like that perspective of like being an essential guy for a couple of years, but then also being a non essential guy makes you think about the whole concept of the team differently and about staying

connected with each guy. And that's a big thing for him. And I think Popovich too. And Phil Jackson is another one having 15 guys in your roster, but having a relationship with each guy and making sure you're connected to all of them, whether they're playing or not. I'm not sure how Michael Jordan, if he coached would even know to do that.

You know, he would, he would even know to do that. He would approach it as, we need more dog in us. Or Kobe, if Kobe had been a coach. We need more dog in our team. You guys got to step up. We need to get tougher. He wouldn't be thinking about, how do I have a relationship with each guy?

Because they've never had to think that way. Yeah, you can't be the same guy with every guy. That's the other thing you learn about coaching and i don't know like you think mj would be you know really hard on this guy and then soft and cuddly with the euro that that just got here and is young and doesn't quite understand america and all that kind of stuff right like no he he wouldn't you know when you're great and the focus is on you your whole life, you probably don't do a great job being compassionate about other people's feelings.

When you're one of those absolute 1% of the elite of the elites, you're going to be narcissistic. You're going to be selfish. I'm not saying for everybody, but I don't know how you go from you're the focus of everyone else and you're kind of being observed. How do you transition later on a mindset where you can go, all right, I need to start thinking about all of these other people's feelings around me? I would think that'd be impossible. We're going to do the forgivables really quick Cause the Lance Armstrong thing premiered tonight on ESPN,

which I have not seen. So you haven't seen it. Have not seen it. Um, three categories for forgivables. These are athletes that betrayed us in some way or made us angry or got us into that mode where you're just like, fuck that guy.

I'm out. And then you can either, you're just like, fuck that guy. I'm out. And then you can either, you're just permanently out. You end up in a place where you're like sort of out, but not, not as out as you initially were. And then the last category would be I'm back in. I forgive them.

And I think that category specifically, you're looking at a rod, Ray, Ray Lewis, and Tiger Woods. And Tiger's the flimsiest of the three out of those, but all three of those guys, if you had said, there's going to be a scenario down the road, everybody's going to like these guys again, you'd be like, get the fuck out of here.

What? A-Rod? People are going to like him again? For whatever reason, he became a forgivable. Why are some people forgiven and others aren't? We are pretty forgiving, right? I think in general, people want to forgive. As much as the public can pile on and tear you down, they love then going, hey, pull up on the couch.

Let me give you a hug. Go on Oprah, whole deal. When you put together this list list a couple jumped out at me like a rod i may not love but i the ped stuff doesn't really ever bother me it doesn't it just it's not something that uh i would sit there and say okay i'm gonna dislike this person for the rest of their lives because they took steroids and played a sport it just isn't the ray lewis thing um i don't know that's a pretty remarkable turnaround probably going to leave that one alone a little bit good idea because

i just don't really know i mean i know what we all read and all that kind of stuff and you know all right pete rose is a great one because i'm always surprised how forgiving everyone is to pete rose and a lot of that has to do with him being the anti-Bud Seelig. But Pete, I don't believe anything he said. Never, never this whole time. And then when he wanted to sell a book, that's when he decided that,

Oh, okay. Hey everybody. I did gamble. Like, I feel like Pete thinks he's playing the public. And that to me is more offensive than somebody just taking steroids. You know,

Pete's problem. I think, I think it could have happened for him like you think about michael v oh i forgot to put michael vick on there he's he's the one who came back he's a he's a full forgivable well one of the reasons depends the full depends on yeah it depends on what your pet situation is though there's some animal people that are never going to forgive vick yeah that's true but i i think i feel like he's back for the most part. Like he's on TV again. He's hireable stuff like that. But, but he did an unbelievable apology tour and really put

time, effort and energy and, you know, months and months and months into atoning for lack of a better word. No doubt. Pete Rose has been the opposite. He's just like, he's honestly like out of like the tiger King doc or something. And I think he was always like that. Even in the seventies, he's like basically Joe exotic with 4,300 hits. And, uh,

and, and he's just so unlikable and so skeevy that there's no overcoming it. So I had the list of people who are just the unforgivables still OJ leading the way. Yeah. That's a tougher one. Um, I had Ray Carruth on here, but I mean, you know, it's not like he was a famous person. So, but I think it's a good example of like, that's, that's the line. Uh, Ray Rice a line. Uh,

Ray Rice. I don't, I don't know where things stand with him. I know he's tried to do some good stuff and, and try to be an example and done a lot of talking and different things, but I don't know, like if people have forgiven him or not, maybe I should have put him in the sort of bonds is somebody like in the Bay area. They've completely forgiven him. He's a hero again. They never were bad there and everybody's out. Yeah.

He's, he's never leaving the Bay area. Right? No, but I, I always thought that was so weird. No, no, no, no, no. I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say that, uh, you know, bonds bonds. This whole thing was, oh, you guys like McGuire? Like, you like what he's doing?

Well, wait until I get started. And it was fun. I got caught up in it. I loved watching that home run chase. I mean, the stuff he was doing was absurd. And then nobody liked him except for his home fan base. It was really weird. It was like, can you not?

Like, that's something, that's like a lesson I've taken with myself. The rest, like, whenever whenever we're talking about stuff just never forget an entire fan base didn't care because he was their guy and he was hitting home runs and that's never one like that would never be one where i was like oh this one really bothers me i think clemens probably bothered me a little bit more than bonds did but then clemens i'm like whatever that was Lance stuff. It wasn't that Lance used. Because if I'm Lance, I'm like, hey, you guys can fuck off. Every single guy in my sport uses. Okay. That's what the sport is.

Everybody has to use. The problem with Lance was that he went so on the offensive, calling the doctor who was the masseuse a drunken whore. And, you know, I mean mean he went scorched earth on people when he knew he was cheating when he knew he was cheating so it was like hey if you're gonna cheat and do the thing you know maybe you can do the mcguire where it's like i'm not here to talk about the past or something you do the thing where it's like look but his play was i'm gonna be so ruthless that i'm gonna try to convince you.

And then people were losing their minds. They're like, oh, you know, why would he ever take any steroids? He was sick. You know, like, well, that would be a reason you would take them. First of all, he was so nasty about it. He did sit down with Tariqa recently, and Tariqa did a really good job with him where I go. All right, I'm out.

God, I'm sorry. I interrupted. No, just out on lance but like when he posted his his tour de france jerseys in the basement like as a as a flex to everybody like i get it man you were you were awesome but you also treated people like shit like you were really like at least some of the baseball steroid guys it's just like all right you lied to reporters i I mean, who cares? Armstrong was like ruthless about it, man. I can't stand Armstrong.

I even turned down chances a couple years ago more than once to have him on this podcast. I was like, I don't want to fucking talk to that guy. I'm out. No kidding. He was so nasty to so many people yeah and then it's just like hey man my bad yeah i actually did it sorry about all that guys it's like fuck that guy i'm out uh so wait is that is that for you like is that the one the

guy of the modern era that you have the hardest time with? No. Is he your most unforgivable? Yeah, he might be. I really thought he was just such a liar and such a hypocrite. It's really like unbelievable and so nasty to so many people. I just couldn't get, couldn't get past it. Clemens is another one that has kind of just laid low for a while. And it's just hoping pressure over time. People forget. Cause there was some,

there was some buzz last year about should Clemens be in the red Sox hall of fame if he gets in the real hall of fame. And it's like, Oh really? We're doing that now. We're going to let him, we're going to have a Roger Clemens day in Boston. We've,

we've come full circle. We all is forgiven. Fuck that guy. I don't know. I like, I don't know. I like, by the way, I like having some fuck that guys because in 2020,

you're not allowed to feel it's like, oh man, it's just, it's so bad. It's so much hate out there and you can't hate players. And it's like, well, sometimes it's kind of fun to have somebody you don't like.

I don't know. It's like, it's like the whole point of sports is you sports hate certain people, right? I don't really hate Clemens. I don't hope that something bad happens to him. But I really loved rooting against him after he left the Red Sox. I don't think he understood a lot of the reasons why people in Boston felt betrayed by him, especially when he got in an awesome shape in Toronto the next year.

That was bullshit. And I don't know. I like having, I like having this stupid, absurd grudge against Clemens. I wouldn't, I don't know. It's fun to have absurd sports grudges. That's not real. This isn't real life. Yeah. I like that. I know. I like that you admit it. And I think, I think it's cool. I mean, I used to have a long, long list when I was younger, but yeah, I get older older you get older and you know you don't you don't look at things the same way but the clemens one yeah that sucked he shows his abs off in 97

check these out you're like oh wait what happened here and if you're duquette you're going i'm getting made fun of this whole time for letting him go and he ended up taking stuff and i mean some of those numbers he put up in Houston are so filthy. Just filthy. McGuire, I don't really have a hard time with. I don't care enough. You know, Rafael Palmeiro, I don't care. Bonds, maybe you were in the Hall of Fame tomorrow.

I wouldn't do a podcast saying it was the wrong thing. But yeah, Lance to me is in a different category than any of the baseball guys. Because the way it behaved. I think one of the things that's funny, and I think all the baseball steroids guys should be in the hall of fame. I've already on the record with that. Um, I think it's interesting that people think the steroid era started during a certain time

when really you have evidence that it might've been around in the late seventies, pretty significant evidence of the same kind of weird home run swings and stuff like that. Guys having career years hitting 15 to 20 more homers than they've ever hit. If you go back and read the stories from back then it's, there's a lot of like Nautilus stuff. It's like, ah, Andy worked on, worked out on Nautilus all winter. Now he's really got some pop in his bat, but then it's like, well, all right, well, steroids was everywhere else. It was in football. It was in the track and field, uh, the Russians and the Germans. Like we thought we didn't have steroids in the seventies. So for people seem to think it kind of showed up with McGuireguire and sosa and i

never understood that yeah by the way those guys are 80s anyway they're 80s and then um well some of the other teams i'm thinking of a little bit later on maybe it was just because all of a sudden you had second baseman weighing 220 pounds now hitting home runs you know i it was the brady anderson was when people were like, fuck this. Yeah. When he hit in 96, when he hit the 50 homers, that was when it started,

when we were like, wait a second, what's going on here? Come on. And, uh, but at the same time that baseball took off during that era too, you know,

and as, and I'll never forget sitting there at the home run derby at Fenway in 99. And it was like watching Superbowls go out of the park. And we all loved it. We knew it wasn't totally in the up and up. The other important thing is it wasn't necessarily cheating back then. It was kind of like a gentleman's code for a lot of this stuff. It wasn't like McGuire taking creatine and all the other stuff.

It wasn't necessarily against the rules, but by anything I ever read. Well, yeah, it was just illegal. It was illegal. Right. To buy them.

Yeah. You can't have illegal steroids. I don't know. I mean, I'm sure there's a version of it you can do it with a doctor or something but um legally prescribed whatever uh we're taking a break and then we're coming back talking about when we were kings hey no one is more reliable and committed than the men and women of the military that's why since since 1933, Navy Federal Credit Union has been committed to being there for our members through all of life's challenges.

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Show your appreciation with tweets, posts, captions, and letters using hashtag Mission Military Thanks. Navy Federal Credit Union, our members are the mission. All right, last segment. We wanted to end each podcast with something fun, something a little going backwards. We're still, and I had talked, uh, a lot about when we were Kings. I had done one of the pods before. I think it's, I still think it's the best sports documentary of all time. If the, if, if the category is just a start to finish one sitting sports documentary, I still think it's the best one. And it came out in 1996. It took Leon Gast over 20 years to make. It won the Academy Award, which I was surprised until I

did the research. I had forgotten that part of it. And it comes out in this really strange time for sports documentaries when sports documentaries weren't really that it wasn't even conceived as a notion yet. Cause he had hoop dreams in the 93, 94 range. You had a ESPN sports century series that comes out in 99 HBO really starts making sports documentaries, mid nineties range yet, but green spans Olympic, uh, documentary, but they're all kind of done the same way, a little slow methodical. Um, and then this came out and it's all the footage of Foreman and Ali in Zaire, which is a whole crazy story to begin with. Cause they're about to have the fight form Forma gets cut and everybody's just kind of stuck there for an extra month and a half. And this documentary is incredible.

I mean, honestly, they could release it now and I don't feel like it's dated at all. I mean, maybe have a couple more interviewers. It's a lot of Norman Mailer. It's a lot of George Plumpton. But other than that, it's just so good. It's it has so many great moments. And it's honestly like a sports movie. It doesn't even feel like nonfiction. I'm just blown away by it. So if you have a chance to see it, I would recommend it. What are your when we were King's thoughts?

The James Brown edit, the way they use music in this doc is unbelievable because it's not just the fight. It's this three-day music festival that they're going to have. And James Brown, soul brother number one, his look in this is out of control. Amazing. This is like peak, peak James. Right. It is like he's come out of the 60s thing and now he's just like 70s and when they do doing

it to death and they edit it with the training of ali i've said this before but it gets me so fired up every time i watch it my adrenaline is like through the roof it's like a shot of of testosterone or something for it's just it i get so pumped up it makes me want to do something because the way they edit it and it's just perfect it's the perfect use of this music this great song and ali and the whole thing and i'm glad you brought up form and getting cut because can you imagine having this fight set up and then okay we're just going to hang out here in zaire for another six weeks? Like everybody's schedules, like whatever you were doing,

the reporters that were there, I'm assuming, you know, the reporters didn't stay all day. Some did, I imagine. Norman Mailer, this is a real Dion Waiters award for him. Oh, yeah. Big time. That was one of the cool things about this fight is it's the height of this just great magazine feature writing era.

You know, this is the height of sports illustrated. This is the height of some magazine sending George Plimpton or whoever to Zaire and the fight getting postponed. And then like George, just stay, send us the expense report when you're done. Like this is what the seventies were. And this was writers actually get into hang out with athletes and be around them, the biggest athletes in the world.

All of these guys revered Ali and wrote about Ali and really contributed to, not a myth, it was the reality, but just the persona that we got to know in the 70s because they all fucking loved him because they got to know in the seventies. Cause they all fucking loved them. Cause they got to be around him. And so now you're in Africa and they're just, everyone's just around each other for, you know, months on end.

And then Ali's going through this whole spiritual thing, being in Africa, clicking with the people in this crazy way. And it's also, honestly, it's Ali still, still with about 99% of his marbles left. You know, like if you look at the interviews, he's, he's still really fluid.

He's really eloquent. It's, it's, it's this fight. And I think the Frazier fight and then the shavers fight. And he, he's just different by the time you get to the first, second Spinks fights in 78, his speech is slurred. He's just been hit too many times. But he's still throwing his fastball on this.

And that's, other than the music and the way it's edited and stuff like that, just to see Ali like this, there never needs to be another Ali documentary. This is it. If you want an Ali documentary, just watch this. Nobody's ever beating this it's hard obviously because it was a year before I was born but everybody thought he was going to get crushed everyone thought he was going to get crushed in this fight Howard Cosell basically does a eulogy in a eulogy for him in this at one point

and then that's also odd like cassell's role in this thing like he's this opinion guy but also was like he was one of the rare opinion people but he would just do it it was almost like it wasn't a story until he had given his two cents on the whole thing and the plimpton's trying to say that ali was scared of him and then ali the whole time is like i'm gonna you know he i'm telling you i'm telling you i'm telling you and you're like does he really believe this or is he trying to convince himself in the lead-up the whole time now like i'm gonna you know i'm telling you i'm telling you i'm telling you and you're like does he really believe this or is he trying to convince himself in the lead up the whole time now i'm sure ali wasn't afraid of anybody but i've always had a hard time going did he know did he know this like did he know okay this whole time and the way he let himself get beat to hell

by his sparring partners and they were like he wasn't very good in his sparring sessions, and he did it purposely. And in this fight, he wanted guys to hit him in the body, hit him in the body more and more, build up that tolerance to it, knowing that this was the only way he was going to be able to take out Foreman. And as Ali's going through it and hyping himself up, I'm always looking for, is there a part of this, though, where he actually doesn't think he's going to

win this fight is he is he concerned that you know foreman really is this guy because foreman beats frazier to a pulp i mean he's he he hits frazier so hard in one of those fights i think he knocks him down seven times like frazier's out on his feet and then falls down and like comes to because he fell down. And he also killed Ken Norton, who was the other guy who Ali had had some trouble with. They do a good job in the documentary after the first round, when they show Ali sitting on the stool. And one of the writers is saying how you could see real doubt in his eyes

for the first time. Like, holy shit, I wasn't ready for this. There's always been a great debate about how much of the whole rope-a-dope thing was audible after the first round, when he got to feel just how strong Foreman was and how much of it was playing ahead of time. But the corner didn't know because the corner was going nuts. Like, what are you doing? You're going to get he just saw he just saw something but it goes back to like what we talked about last week with

jordan like when you're talking about like the the true true true greats and the same thing with jordan where that the whole series he's just waiting for whatever moment it is to not go around under the basket in a double back and steal the ball from Malone. Like Ali just, he sensed something, you know, and I don't even know how you would explain it or pass it on to other people.

Like something about the punches he was taking from Foreman. And he realized at some point, I think I can weather this for a few rounds. I think he's going to get tired. And at some point I'm hitting him with a right. And that just becomes the dance for seven rounds. And he pulls it off and nobody should have beaten Foreman. Like Foreman goes into a deep depression for two years after this.

Cause he, he was like, this is Tyson Douglas multiplied by a million. You know, he was actually in shape. He had no excuses. He was there, and he's just able to hit the shit out of Ali, and Ali's not going down.

And he's like, what's going on? I can't figure this out. Who am I? This leads to the classic Foreman Lyle fight. You've watched that one, right? A couple years later. I don't think I have watched that one. That's the greatest fight on YouTube.

Well, Hagler-Hearns is. It's number two beyond Hagler-Hearns. Yeah, let's do Hagler-Hearns next week, but I'll watch Foreman tonight. But yeah, I mean, it's just inconceivable anybody beat Foreman. Did you read Hauser's book? Oh, yeah. I've read every Ali thing ever.

Right. Hauser's my favorite one. Do you have one that you like more than Hauser? I really thought Ghosts of Manila was good, even though that's a little anti-Ali. I was on a flight, first class, no big deal. And this guy stands up and I'm like, oh my God, it's Thomas Hauser.

And I go, hey, just want to let you know my name is Ryan so I work with ESPN I was like okay he doesn't know who I am no problem I was like I just of all the Ali books that yours is the best this is incredible I just want to you know I can't imagine the amount of work you put into that so you know thanks i'm not that guy it wasn't him no i mean i was i was like oh my god that's hilarious i go that's thomas hauser and this poor guy was looking at me like i was the craziest person in the world because i'm just going on and on and on and he can't get a word in because i was just like look i just i love that book and it is a great book um and you read what,

you read what Mailer wrote about this, right? He wrote a book about this. Yeah. Yeah. I'm on all that. The fight. Yeah. There's some good Ali stuff. It's interesting. No, nobody, who was the one I think Remnick wrote about, he wrote a book about Ali, but it was more, more geared toward the, the, the 60s and Ali and things like that. And then there's just been so much Ali content. I feel like there's nothing new at this point. This is still the best. This is Ali at his peak.

It's the best Ali story because it's his most improbable. And then the fact that all these musicians were there and the scenes with like foreman don king and james brown talking about being black in america in the mid 70s like even that alone would be the best piece of anybody else's doc and it's like a fucking afterthought in this thing yeah and then there's also that really weird bad interview where the guy mispronounces zaire he's got the really long mic and he's like, Oh, Muhammad thoughts on the fight. And you're like, who's this guy that had access to Ali? I guess everybody did, but it was just, it's, you could tell the guy's really nervous. So he sort of screws up the whole lead up and then it ends up not being a very good question on top of that.

Well, there's also there the other really really fantastically edited scene is the lady who when they're talking about did somebody put a spell on george and they show that lady's performance interspersed with foreman and she's doing like the crazy eyes when she's singing you know i'm talking about yeah yeah and then she takes her shirt off well the uh that's just really good filmmaking i there's some scenes in this that are like just so far beyond the normal sports doc um like all-time great stuff no there's like a christopher nolan thing where there's like the three things are happening at once as they're telling you the story and that's what they were doing in this uh did you did you ever read the don king book only only in america or is it made in america

i forget no i'm not a huge don king guy no i'm not i'm not yeah and you'll be even less of one after the fact um because all he did was steal from his fighters uh well i don't know if he did it to all of them but he would he would do this thing with ali where basically he would he would tell ali he was going to pay him and then he would go oh you know boxers bags of cash that's the way you handle boxers so he would owe like a million dollars and then he would hand muhammad ali like a bag of cash of like 50 grand in a duffel bag and he'd be like hey you know just take care of me here you take and all these people be like stop doing that stop doing that letting him take advantage of you that way and they were like muhammad was just such a pleaser and a people

person that he actually wasn't if you think of him he wasn't like confrontational as a person like one-on-one despite the fact he was a confrontational um guy on a much bigger scale but yeah every time anytime you start digging into any of the don king stuff you're like oh okay like this is it's rough it's it's it's it's pretty bad the other crazy thing about this fight it starts at four in the morning zaire time it ends 4, whenever five o'clock and it immediately starts pouring rain. Immediately. Yeah. Like almost like it's like biblical, all of this, there's just never been a fight like this. And, uh, you know, it's funny knowing what happened to Foreman over the next 25 years after this fight, where eventually he becomes this beloved guy who becomes this memorable personality in his own right, becomes an announcer. Then he

ends up in probably winning the heavyweight title. And it's almost like a second George Foreman. I, it's hard to reconcile that it was the same George Foreman. It seems like two different people. It was like when they were two ultimate warriors. There's two Mike Greenbergs. I don't know if you ever heard that one. That I hadn't, I hadn't heard. Uh,

yeah, that would make sense. That would make sense in some of those Mike and Mike years. You're like, he's this guy's on again. Right. It's how it played out. Um, what do you have coming up on the podcast right? It's how it played out.

What do you have coming up in the podcast this week? I don't know yet. Basketball might come back. If basketball comes back, we'll talk about it. We'll talk about that. Yeah, I don't I don't really I don't have a plan yet. I'm going to I'm going to put that plan together ASAP, though. First thing in the morning. I don't feel like you've fully gotten weird have a plan yet. I'm going to put that plan together ASAP, though, first thing in the morning. I don't feel like you've fully gotten weird on a pod yet.

When the quarantine started, it was like, oh, man, Rosillo's really going to have some left turns here. Oh, right. I'm not sure it's fully happened yet. It's like 80% happened. Oh, I have some good news for the audience before we go on Tuesday, the redraftables comes back on this podcast, 2004 house. And I, we already taped it. And then I thought next week, possibly we could do Oh five on this podcast.

Done. Remember Oh five little Chris Paul. Anybody? Yeah. I love it. Martel Webster. Oh yeah. Yeah. So let's, uh, let's get that going. Rosillo a pleasure as always. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks man. All right. Thanks to zip recruiter. Thanks to HBO max. Remember it's a new streaming platform. All of HBO meets the greatest collection of movies and shows. You get all the HBO series. You get timeless classics like Wizard of Oz, Casablanca, and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. You get new max originals for everyone like Love Life, Legendary, and Not Too Late with Elmo. You get South Park and Rick and Morty. All your favorites all in one place for just $14.99 per month. HBO Max starts streaming May 27th. Visit hbomax.com to learn more. And thanks to Navy Federal Credit Union. May is

Military Appreciation Month. Navy Federal Credit Union proud to serve active duty military veterans and their families. During Military Appreciation Month, Navy Federal Credit Union is celebrating with special offers on car loans, credit cards, certificates, and more. Join Navy Federal Credit Union in thanking service members during Military Appreciation Month by using the hashtag, hashtag MissionMilitaryThanks. Navy Federal Credit Union, our members are the mission. New rewatchables coming up Monday night, Boomerang. We'll be back here on Tuesday with the 2004 redraftables and more. See you then. I don't have