The Bill Simmons Podcast - Chuck Klosterman on the NBA Finals, Stern vs. Silver, 'Fleabag,' Matthew Boling, and Obsessed 'Game of Thrones' Fans | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Episode Date: June 4, 2019

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by author Chuck Klosterman to revel in NBA Finals story lines and subplots, compare commissioners David Stern and Adam Silver, and more (2:25). Then, they discuss high school track star Matthew Boling (1:03:50), 'Fleabag' Season 2, and outraged 'Game of Thrones' fans (1:20:08). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hall of Famer, Chuck Klosterman. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, on the line right now. We've been doing this, I think, for 12 years. I think the 12th anniversary of the first podcast I ever did was like last week or two weeks ago or something. Chuck's been here the whole time. Chuck Klosterman, how are you? Perfect.

You stunned me today. You said you weren't watching Chernobyl, but you've been saving it. But I, I, I'm hard pressed to think of any piece of, uh, of media.

That's more in your wheelhouse than the five episode Chernobyl miniseries. Yeah. I, I'm going to watch it. I have a, I have a medical procedure coming up and I've got recovery period afterwards. So I'm going to watch it all that day, along with this

new Bob Dylan documentary coming out on Netflix. I'm going to watch that. I'm going to read David Halversham to the 50s. That's what I'm going to do for two days. Wow. I like that you have it all planned out. Yep. Your two days after medical procedure. Great.

Let's start with NBA and then we'll circle back to TV because I want to talk about Fleabag. We have a whole agenda. We haven't talked in a while. I texted you asking you what you thought the world would be like right now in 2019 if we took like 1994 era David Stern and just put him in charge of the NBA right now, would the league be better or worse? Would it be more interesting? How does it play out? Well, you know, it's kind of a,

it's a intriguing question bill because I think for the most part isn't okay. We all kind of concede that silver is a great commissioner. I think everyone, I just think he seems great to me, okay? And yet, I never kind of considered this before. One thing that I think would be different is I feel like Stern would have shut down a lot of the controversies over all

this officiating. I don't think he would have put up with that. Because Silver actually seems to be moving into it. Yeah. He's sober is all about transparency. He's, he's almost like a peacetime president and Stern was a wartime president at all times. So the officiating thing, if it became a controversy,

he would have just put his foot into the, into the ground and really dug in and battled everybody on it and not been transparent about it, I feel like. Well, I mean, what's so interesting to me about sort of the Silver administration is he seems to be doing something that I would have thought would have been a bad idea, but I think is the right idea, which he's allowing the league to move in this direction where the games are the second most important part of it. Right.

Like, I think the natural inclination of the commissioner would be to fight against that. But he seems to have realized that the way people consume sports now is closer to the way they used to consume like celebrity gossip or, or kind of, you know, news in a way. And, and I don't think he really minds the idea of people debating the problems with officiating. Or the idea that we're talking constantly about where Kawhi Leonard is going to play next year, even though he's in the finals right now. Or the amount of time that we discuss what's going on with the Lakers I just think that it's it is now as if like these are pretty kind of meaningful finals I would say it's like if

Golden State wins this that probably makes them the second best basketball dynasty ever yeah at the pro level yes and it's obviously the biggest period in history for canadian basketball there's you know the the storylines with the warriors is real interesting because they're just devastated by injuries and still feel like they're in command and yet there is more conversation about ancillary aspects of the league than there is about these games. And you would think that would be bad. Like if somebody had told me that, you know, this is sort of the game plan, that we're going to shift the emphasis off the games onto all the storylines around it.

But it seems to be making basketball more popular because I think, especially among a lot of young people, it's like, they don't want to sit through the games. They just want to follow it. Or they second screen the games. It would be the equivalent of if you and I didn't actually ever do a podcast, but we just talked all the time about how we might do another podcast. Except that wouldn't work at all.

What would be there? No one would know but us. It would be more like if I was on the podcast if our podcast was just a discussion about podcasting no if I just kept coming on the podcast and talking to Kyle about how you might come on the podcast

but I didn't know that was the podcast yeah I heard Coward make this point and I don't know if I 100% agree with it, but I liked where he was... The point I just made? No, no, no. This is a different point.

He was saying how he embraces this whole world where the games have become secondary because he says this is what's happened in politics. He's like, the actual art of doing politics, that's on C-SPAN. C-SPAN gets low ratings. The art of talking about what happened on C-SPAN is what really is the business with MSNBC and all these different Fox News, all these different channels. The talking about the culture of the lawmaking is what people care about. What's weird to me is the game should still be the number one priority. And the ratings would suggest that they are.

But it's also crazy to me that, as you pointed out, I actually think this is a really good finals. I think the storylines are about as good as we're going to get when you factor everything in. And yet the Lakers can blow it off the page whenever they want. All the Lakers have to do an hour from now, just do one weird thing. Just leak something, some other story, or they've offered the whole team for Anthony Davis.

And that would blow game three out of the water. And the crazy thing is game three is one of the most fascinating finals games we've had in recent memory that's not a game seven, where you have this Warriors team that is now teetering to the finish line of this half-decade run. We don't know if Klay Thompson is playing. They don't even have a backup for Klay Thompson. They just have to play weird guards and swing men in that position. We don't know if Durant's coming back. Looney seems like he broke his collarbone.

I don't know how you play with whatever he has. He's not coming back. That's what I just read now. He's out. He's become a real good player. Yeah, I would assume he was out. He fractured his collarbone. People are like, it's going to be game to game.

It's like, what? You can't play with a fractured collarbone. Anyway, I think all that stuff is really fascinating. One thing I want to say about this, about this coward thing you mentioned, but here's what's the most, I don't know, perplexing thing about it. Okay. Yes, that happens in politics. And a big reason that happens in politics is because people aren't really engaged with the minutiae of how things work. So it's like, you know,

you see this with people who really love Elizabeth Warren now. They're like, she lists all these policies, right? But a lot of people's like, you know, you see this with people who really love Elizabeth Warren now. They're like, she lists all these policies, right? But a lot of people are like, I'm not really interested in reading about policies. I want to just sort of hear these big picture ideas, what are these personalities like? The conversation outside of that in politics is because it's easier and simpler and sort of easier to digest. In basketball, it's the opposite. Like all this salary cap stuff, it's more complicated. It's much easier for me now to understand the game that's on the floor

than all these like the cap exceptions and all this stuff. It's odd to me or all this stuff that's going on with the Lakers. I mean, that was like Baxter Holmes wrote a long story. Okay. That's not like, oh, you can look at that in five seconds and kind of deduce what is going on there, you know, but that's what people are drawn to. It's like they want politics to be simplified, but they want sports to be more complicated. Yeah.

Well, that's why I like the coward point, but I didn't totally agree with it because fundamentally it's just boring to watch people in front of a microphone talk about policy on C-SPAN. Basketball should be the most fun thing to do. The drama and soap opera of it have, even like game two, right? Game two is awesome. One of the most fascinating things that came out of game two is right? Game two is awesome. One of the most fascinating things that came out of game two

is that two minute video of Klay Thompson greeting the Warriors players after the game. You must've seen that. And he's got a huge ice pack on his hammy. And I loved it because like, we tried to do this show courtside last year for HBO and we just weren't allowed to use a lot of the behind the scenes stuff like that. And that was like a real moment where you

have Clay greeting each person differently. You have Durant kind of looming around seeming super happy. And then all of a sudden Drake shows up and Clay gets mad that Drake's there. He's like, get your bum ass out of here. And Durant's kind of trash talking him, but good naturedly. And the whole thing was as fascinating as anything that happened in the game. And that was a really interesting game. And so I don't know, I feel like the games have become this one piece of this giant content jigsaw puzzle that the NBA has figured out how to navigate really well. And the other thing that happens that we see over and over again, just saw it today when he came on, all due respect to Shams, but Shams, Sharani wrote this, he posted this

thing today about the Pelicans are now listening to offers for Anthony Davis. They're not, they're basically, they're engaging calls now. And it's like, so what were they doing before when somebody called about Anthony Davis. They're not, they're basically, they're engaging calls now. And it's like, so what were they doing before when somebody called about Anthony Davis? Were they putting their fingers in their ears and going, no, no, no, no,

I'm not listening, no, no, no, no, no, no. They were just going to go to voicemail and their voicemail was just filling up with like various GMs calling there. Yeah. No, Chuck, I told you, I'm not talking about this.

Hang up right now. Like, this is just ludicrous that this is a story No, Chuck, I told you I'm not talking about this. Hang up right now. This is just ludicrous that this is a story, that they're having conversations with people who call them. So this is just, I guess we're basketballers, but steering it back to the Stern Silver thing, I do feel like a lot of this stuff would have made Stern mad.

I don't think he would have liked, I think the Lakers thing, he would have absolutely been out of his mind that this was one of the league's signature franchises and this complete shit show. The story comes out that had been rumored for two months and then it finally comes out. And that same day, Magic Johnson's on ESPN and they're just debunking the story

with Stephen A. Smith and all the guys that he's buddies with. I think Stern would have lost his mind. I really do. I don't know what he would have done, but it would have been an overreaction. But what's he supposed to do? I mean, what I, I would like, that was part of the story that like, you know, somebody comes up to silver at dinner and it's sort of like, you know, I think Tyronn Lue should be coaching the Lakers or whatever, you know. Rich Paul. What's his reaction supposed to be to that?

I'm not sure what a commissioner is supposed to do if there is internal problems with the franchise, regardless of whether it's the Lakers or, you know, if it's the Hawks. What's he supposed to do there? Or what even could he do? It's interesting because he's he's somebody that for years it was a good cop, bad cop thing with Stern.

And Stern was the bad cop and Silver was the good cop. And as he worked his way up and gained more and more influence he was always the guy that the owners went to. A lot of cases the players went to. He built the relationships.

And Stern was over there. Like the old guard. Oh, I'll talk to David and like all that stuff. He, he was the conduit, but then he became the commissioner. And I think he still has a lot of, you know, those built-in relationships that he's had with owners that he helped bring into the league and players that he's known their whole careers, that he's really made a concerted effort to get to know. And I was like, when I did that thing at the Sloan conference with him, it was, it was, people were stunned to hear him talk about how worried he was about the

mental health of some of his players and just how he was shocked by how unhappy they were. It was more interesting to me that he even had an opinion on that, that he had tried to get to know so many of the players, you know, cause that was the opposite of how Stern rolled. Stern wouldn't have cared. Oh, it is. It's well, I don't know if I would say Stern wouldn't have cared, but it's, it's, there's definitely two different sort of styles. I mean, okay. Talk about differences. Okay. I'll see if I can remember this.

Remember the series where it was the Suns and the Spurs, and Amari Stoudemire came off the bench after Nash got kind of knocked into the scoring table, and they couldn't play? Okay, when that happened, it seemed like just an obvious example of the misappropriation of the rule. Okay. Like there's, there's you're, you're hurting the series and you're hurt.

You'll probably cost the sons of title possibly by making that decision. I can recall Stern going on like PTI or whatever, and he's doing the five minute segment and Kornheiser is asking him like, why don't you just wave it this time and let Stoudemire play? Like, why don't, if you agree that this is sort of a, like a misuse of the rule, you know, you can step in. And like, Stern's like, I can't do that. And Kornheiser's like, yes, you can.

You're the commissioner. Stern's like, no, I can't. Because his policy was, I basically, you know, execute the rules as they exist. And the rules are the most important thing. I don't think Silver would do that in that situation. I think Silver would actually be like, you know what? The idea of the NBA playoffs is to have high quality, entertaining basketball. And I'm not going to stop that from happening in order to enforce a rule that's imperfect.

Now, I guess you could argue that, well, you know, that's like a cop who makes up laws on the go, but these aren't crimes. I mean, it's like there's, there really, it's hard to justify not having someone play in a game for an infraction that no one seems to think is a problem. Yeah, and with Silver, you're right. He's willing to consider nuance, which is something Stern just never did. Stern was always black and white with everything. It was like Stoudemire, he looked at that Spurs Sun series and just executed his decision based on what the rule was and considered no nuance whatsoever. He looked at the Seattle

Supersonics OKC thing and basically just helped the Sonics go to OKC and was really, really responsible in a lot of ways for how it played out and just didn't care because he was trying to prove a point that if you didn't build a new arena in your own city, you might be in trouble. Then six years later, just did a 180 with the Kings and fought to keep the Kings in Sacramento. This is the exact same situation. And all of a sudden, he cared again.

He was all over the map. Oh, he was. Or like stopping the Chris Paul trade from happening to the Lakers, but then allowing the Gasol trade happening, which seemed just, at the time, just as unbalanced. Although, in retrospect, not really. I mean, I was just having

this conversation this week. Who's the best Gasol brother? All time. Powell. Well, he was second team on NBA twice. Marc Gasol was first team once and defensive player of the year. I thought Pau was the best guy in the 2010 finals

and should have won the finals MVP. I really thought he was the best player in that series. Marc Gasol has never done anything to that level. I guess the better question would be, if you were just building a team from scratch, which guy would you rather have for the course of their career? Because you might say

Marc Gasol because it's just harder to find a center for 10 years who could do the stuff that he did. Back to the Stern thing for one second. Look at the Sterling thing. How that was another black and white thing with Stern, right? Where he was just like, I can't make an owner sell a team. I just can't, sorry. You get to act like how you, however you act is the way you get to act. And he put up with the Sterling thing forever. And then when Silver took over

and the Sterling thing kind of imploded with the tapes and stuff, Silver's just like, I don't know what the rules are, but we're getting rid of this guy. And that was it. And he made it happen. I don't want this to sound like an Adam Kool-Aid session because I think there's some stuff that he's really screwed up the last couple of years, specifically the LeBron and the tampering and all that stuff.

I just think he's been asleep at the wheel on it. And I actually do think it's bad for the league. And I think even reading that Baxter Holmes story, one of the hidden kind of nuggets in that thing that I thought was crazy, and I actually thought was going to be a bigger deal and nobody picked it up, was that there's been three people closely associated with LeBron that have followed him to the franchises, to Miami, to Cleveland, and then to the Lakers that just go on the payroll of the teams. And it's not a salary cap violation. Like his guy, Randy has some job with the Lakers.

That's somebody he grew up with. It would be like if I got signed by the Lakers and Joe house became, you know, the director of community development, it's kind of crazy that that, that wasn't a bigger deal. I've never understood how that is enforced. So, I mean, I've always wondered this, like, okay, could, could Mark Cuban say sign a free agent, but also say, and you know what, when you retire,

you're going to be CEO of three of my companies. I mean, now he can't put that into a contract, but can he say that? How do you stop someone from saying that? Like, I don't, I've never, because the money now is so big that, you know, there was that long period where anytime a guy, this is actually, I guess, just before LeBron went to the heat because the team who had a player could always pay more. The argument was always, well, no one's going to take less money. These teams are going to be able to retain their superstars because they can pay slightly more and no one's going to say no to money. But the numbers are so huge now that if you're,

if the difference is 168 million to 149 million, you know, that's not that, that difference is so negligible in your mind. You almost need something beyond money to convince someone to make a decision, right. Uh, to go somewhere, you know, and I don't know how that's enforced or how you can enforce it. Well, that was my running joke with Dirk in Dallas when he was taking less money every year when he sold his documentary and Cuban's company bought it.

And it was like, well, what if Cuban bought that documentary for like $38 million? What would the league be able to even do anything? I don't think they could. So with this Lakers thing,

it said in the Baxter home story, three people close to James are listed in the Lakers staff directory as employees. Robert Brown, whose title is personal security officer, Randy Mims, whose title is executive administrator, player program

and logistics, and Mike Mancius, whose title is athletic trainer and athletic performance liaison. All three were also on the team payroll with James and Cleveland. So you take that, you take the fact that he clearly was communicating with them well before he signed. And there's really nothing the league could do about that. They did some tampering stuff. I just feel like Stern would have handled that whole thing differently.

Because I think Stern was a little more wired like Goodell. Where Goodell is like, this is now a mano a mano. This is now about ego and testosterone. I'll show you how he did with Brady and the Flakegate. And I could have seen Stern kind of pitting himself against LeBron in a way. Almost like kind of how he handled Jordan in the 90s. We still never know if he suspended Jordan or not. It's conceivable. I

think the longer we get away from that, the less likely it seems. But I will say this to your large point. I mean, you say like Stern is more like Goodell. Well, he's in between Silver and Goodell, but he does share one thing, which is that he ultimately was

fighting the idea of player power. And Silver is going with it. Because I think Silver is just like, it's going to happen. Like, if I can either actually do it or create the illusion of it or however you look at it, if I can put myself in a position where the players believe that I support their sort of increased market share of the league or whatever, it's going to be better in the long term. And I think that's probably true.

Right. Because it's just, although it's definitely happening faster than I thought it would. But, you know, the other thing he does that Stern never did, Stern was always one of those old school, everything's fine. That was always his attitude with everything. It's fine. We're not changing anything. Stop it.

And when he did change something, he made a big deal about, we've decided to do this. Silver is one of those, ever since he took over, And I really like this about him Is always talking publicly About maybe we should do this This isn't working as well

I wonder if this would be A better idea Maybe we do play Too many games He kind of plays into the whole internet culture Of how we follow basketball I think he's very concerned of the schedule. He was,

he was like talking about relegation and stuff, which can't happen. Like, it's not like the fact that he's, there's no chance that that could, there's no way it can be like, Oh, the Knicks are the worst team in the league.

They're in the G league now. Like that will, that will never happen. But the fact that he'll just talk about it is really odd because we're so used to not just Stern or Goodell. Anybody who's a commissioner of anything, unless it's wrestling or boxing or something, tends to always err on, I'm not commenting, I'm taking the conservative stance on it. It's just the normal way to do it. I'm not going to talk about something, don't give me hypotheticals or whatever. Silver never

says that. Silver's never like, I don't engage with hypotheticals. If you came to him and said, what if the aliens did come down and we got to play them? He'd be like, well, you have to first have a go to USA Basketball and talk about it, you know?

Well, I have formed an alien committee just in case this ever happens. It's being run by Jerry Colangelo. Yeah. Like Goodell, Goodell's attitude is always, you know, it's this air of like, fuck off. Don't bring this to me. I'm not, I'm not discussing this. Stop it. And then when they finally announced that something's changed, they do it in this big self-serving kind of, we've decided to do this. I've thought this. Silver always seems like he's soliciting opinions

from everybody around him, which I think is ultimately a good quality. Obama was a little bit like that, actually, where Obama always seemed just kind of curious what everybody else thought about what he should do versus just being like, we're fucking doing this. Like, just follow me now. But I do think as we're heading into this era of just every year, you know, dudes leaving, the biggest ticket dudes leaving teams. And you look at the free agency this year, there's like 20 teams that are up in the air. Part of me thinks this is bad and he hates it.

And the other part of me thinks he must absolutely love this because it's just constant turnover. Because if you compare it to baseball, one of the many reasons that I think baseball is just dying as a regular season sport from kind of people just talking about it, like us is these long ass contracts. You know, I, we're never going to have the, where do you think Mike Trout's going to play conversation? Cause he signed for like 130 years with the Angels. Everybody signs these eight to 10 to 11 year deals and you just know they're not going anywhere.

And I wonder like if baseball had kind of adopted the NBA's shorter contract strategy, whether that would have been a better thing for baseball. Whether it's like four years, five years, that's it. Then you don't get stuck with Albert Pujols for 10 years. Then Bryce Harper three years into his Phillies contract, isn't looking for a way out and all that stuff. There's more movement. Would that even be better? I don't know.

We're heading toward a major league baseball strike. So that we'll, we're going to find out in a year, but do you think baseball could learn from the NBA? I mean, it'll learn and try to replicate what they do. I don't know if that would work. I mean, I just, you know, because basketball is a personality-driven sport. Football is a game-oriented sport.

Baseball is a team-driven sport. Football is a game-oriented sport. Baseball is a team-oriented sport. People care about baseball if they care about a specific team. The reason football is most popular is because it's actually the most popular game and sport to watch. Basketball is growing in popularity, particularly with young people, because it's about the people who play it um and uh that's a that's just a very a very different thing i don't think you can make that happen i mean this is a question people are always asking is like can you make culture can you decide we want a culture to be like this and just make it happen this is not just in sports this is in everything like is that can that only happen organically or can you just decide this is how it's going to be now?

And so I don't know what baseball would do to sort of change. I mean, it's like people still go to baseball games. It's a lot of games to go to, but you've got 81 games, you know, that's a, that's a lot of money over the course of the summer.

That's a lot of time. That's like five, six hours a night. Wait, I have one more thought on this, but let's take a quick break. Let's take a break to talk about State Farm. Players and fans prepare all year for the finals. They need to be ready for anything. With a State Farm agent on your team, you can be ready for anything too. They can help you prepare for whatever life

throws your way. Like the Warriors right now, a lot of injuries. Clay Thompson, who knows if he's playing? Kevin Durant, who knows when he's coming back? Kevon Looney, who knows what's going up with his collarbone? Andre Godala, he's always got like three injuries going on at the same time. You never know. Here's the thing. Prepare for what life throws your way. Just give the ball to Steph Curry more. Get Boogie Cousins more involved. Be ready. That's what State Farm does. Talk to a State Farm agent today about combining your home and auto insurance. Get a teammate who can help you prepare for the unexpected State Farm here to help life go right. All right, back to Chuck.

So you're talking about the culture stuff. And it's no secret that basketball is probably a better fit for culture and where we are right now. But it did strike me like this whole Drake thing that's been happening during the finals and what a massive subplot it is, which has lineage going way back to Jack in the 84 and 85 finals and Spike Lee,

obviously. And you know, this, this isn't our first rodeo with a celebrity being a subplot in the finals. I think what's, what's really stood out with this one is it kind of feels like he's an NBA player, even though he's not. It feels like the circles that he swims in are the exact same circles professionally, wealth-wise, and culturally as some of these guys. So when you have Durant trash-talking Drake back and forth after a game, it feels completely natural. Can you imagine after a World Series game, if they had some video backstage and

or so, you know, some Instagram video and it's like Mike Trout is talking shit to Adam Levine. I don't even know what the equivalent would be. It would be ludicrous. We'd be like, or Tom Brady is talking shit to Kenny Chesney. Like it'd be insane. But with Drake and KD, it totally made sense that they're going back and forth because it feels like all part of the same. And I think that's been the NBA's biggest advantage is just culturally it ties into all these aspects of pop culture. And you have Kendall Jenner dating

Ben Simmons, and it just seems like aligned. And I don't know how baseball even has a chance of breaking into that. Well, I mean, they, they probably don't. And I guessing that there are many baseball fans listening to that podcast, this podcast right now going like, I hope it doesn't fucking happen. Like some people hate that, you know, a lot of people hate that. A lot of people particularly drawn to A lot of people, particularly drawn to baseball, hate that. You know?

Yeah, but think though. Back in the 50s... Would you argue that Drake's involvement with these finals that adds something that you like?

My answer would probably be no. I mean, it would be a pro-cons list. I'd probably have four pros and seven cons on it. I guess I was making the larger point of, in the 50s, Joe DiMaggio dated Marilyn Monroe. And it made total sense for that era. It was baseball and, and celebrity culture just crossing over and becoming one in the same, which it should have been because baseball players and boxers were the biggest athletes

we had back then. And now basketball has moved into that world. I don't even feel like, you know, in, I don't know how many football players would even be on the level of like seven guys in this finals. I feel like even Kawhi is like a massive star now. And he doesn't, barely speaks. But I feel like everybody has an opinion on him.

No, yeah, it is. I was having this conversation recently. Who is more famous? Kyrie Irving or Cam Newton? Kyrie Irving. You definitely say he's more famous.

Yeah, I think he is. I think the helmets thing is a huge detriment for the football players. Oh, sure. I mean, that's the kind of thing. I mean, it just, it seems to me as though this conversation that we had began talking about Draymond Green. Yeah. Um, you know, Draymond Green's the fourth best player on his team and how many NFL players are more famous than Draymond Green? It doesn't seem like a lot. Um, one thing that has been kind of fun about these playoffs is I had forgotten that Draymond Green was good I know I think he's forgotten too like I just I you know he's kind of a guy who does a

little bit of everything so when he's out of shape it just kind of translates into a bunch of small little numbers across the board and it's been real fun to watch him just sort of he really will throw the pace of the game off when he feels the other team is gaining momentum because they just hit a three. And he'll just take the ball and drive it all by himself to the basket. Even if he doesn't score, it kind of shakes the whole thing up. And it's like, because no one does that, right? That's the kind of thing like if you're in seventh grade, your coach takes you out for. But when he does it, the whole, it really kind of just, it's just like kind of the whole thing kind of wobbles

for a second. And he also has a lot of no, no, yes plays, but then a lot of no, no, no plays like those, uh, those two long outlets he threw in game two where he's always teetering on when you're watching him thinking that he just shouldn't be doing whatever he's trying to do. And then most of the time it works out for him. I think, you know, going back to what you said earlier about how, how really great this finals matchup is. I think there's so many good things about it. Like, I'm mad that we just talked about Drake for two minutes, but, um, we have, you have the, the dueling subplots of Kawhi and KD maybe not being on their teams next year. And just like,

could this be the end of something for both sides? Like Toronto might be in a full rebuild next year for all we know. This could be this magical one-year run, like a sports movie. And then next year they go 35 and 47. And then with KD, this half decade run that they've had and this journey he had this year where everybody had him sign up with the Knicks and then we get to the playoffs and he kind of had become underappreciated. And then by midway through round two,

all of us are like, this guy's the best guy in the league. And then it became, wow, the Warriors don't need him to win the title. And now it's become, the Warriors really need him if they have any chance of winning the title. And he might be leaving in three weeks.

But these reactions are just, they happen so fast now. Now I see, I think you were on this, but I see a bunch of people, it's like, Edward Dahl is going to make the Hall of Fame. That seems to be the thing people, now, so I have a variety of questions about that. You were talking with House about like, who is sort of the comparison. I mean, okay, isn't Ron Harper sort of the obvious comparison with him?

Somebody who had two careers and ended up the second part of his career kind of being like a clue, a kind of a key kind of blue guy for a championship team. I don't think Ron Harper is going to make the NBA hall of fame. Yeah. But the thing, I mean, he's better than Ron Harper though. I think that's the second version of Ron Harper.

When Ron Harper was at his peak early in his career, I don't know if it would always be. I'm saying the second act, his second act, he's just a better and more impactful basketball player. I think than Ron Harper was. I think cause Ron Harper hurt his knee and was really never the same athletically after that Iggy has just kind of became a great defender.

He did. He did. He became a role guy. Couldn't really shoot. Um, but was just kind of a good athlete who knew where to go and what to do. Is Michael Cooper in the hall of fame? I don't think he's in the hall of fame.

He's not, he never had that run of at least being the best guy on a team for a while. But he wasn't as critical to the Lakers' overall dynasty, I would say more so than Iguodala has been. I mean, I'm not trying to attack the guy. He's a good player and all that. You know, very good player. But I just wonder if anyone will be saying he's going to make the hall of fame.

If he has three bad games in the remainder, remainder of this finals, I feel like that will just be taken off the board. Cause it just keeps happening that we just say these things. And then two days later, no one ever says it again. I actually think he will make the hall of fame. And it,

it says more about the hall of fame than it says about him. It's the, the, they're just, if you're putting six, seven people in every year, regardless of whether you have six or seven candidates, then... Well, so then all the Warriors are going to make it then. Because obviously Curry and Durant obviously are. Clay would have to then. Is Green going to make it?

Because there's going to be five guys from this team in the Hall of Fame. There's not five Celtics in the Hall of Fame from those eight teams. No, there's a lot of Celtics. Ain't shouldn't make the Hall of Fame. There's not five Celtics on the Hall of Fame from those eight teams. No, there's a lot of Celtics. Ainge didn't make the Hall of Fame. Ainge shouldn't make it. I think that would be the cutoff. Ainge was never even a top three guy on his own team.

When was Iguodala a top three guy on his own team? Outside of the Sixers, but I'm saying if that had just been his career, we wouldn't even be talking about it. Antoine Jamison's going to make the Hall of Fame. That's going to happen. Sixers, but I'm saying if that had just been his career, we wouldn't even be talking about it. Well, but I mean, Antoine Jameson's going to make the Hall of Fame. That's going to happen. It's crazy.

I know. It's nuts. I don't know if that will happen. He's scoring 20,000 points. He's going to make it. Mitch Richmond made it. What did Mitch Richmond do? But here's the deal with Mitch Richmond. Before he made the Hall of Fame, people talked for a long time about how he's one of the best guys who didn't make the Hall of Fame. And as soon as he did, everyone's like, he's terrible. made the Hall of Fame, people talked for a long time about how he's one of the best guys to make the Hall of Fame, and as soon as he did, everyone's like,

he's terrible. Making the Hall of Fame was the worst thing that happened to Mitch Richman. He's probably happy with it. Prior to that, well, he probably, I'm sure he's pleased with it, but I'm saying from a dude's talking about basketball perspective, it really hurt him.

There's no great way you and Joe House are attacking Mitch Richmond in 2019 if he doesn't make the Hall of Fame. He would remember him positively, I would say. He was a good player. House is a bad example for that question because they traded Chris Webber for him and then Chris Webber went on

to be awesome with the Kings. House actually probably has some animosity against it. It is interesting though with the, just like in general, like you mentioned Draymond Green. I actually do think he'll end up, assuming his career doesn't just completely tail off,

like he will end up making it someday because he's been kind of the epicenter of this Warriors half decade run that you just said, if they win the title this year, this is probably the second best team of all time. And he's been the engine that has always been there, the defensive force, and really a special all-around guy who doesn't really have any offensive above average skills other than he can go to the basket. Um, doesn't have a post-up move. Isn't somebody you ever would have thought would be like a top three guy

and a team that would win four titles in five years. But, uh, you know, I think, yeah, these, these are all reasons to be like,

remember Iggy, he was pretty good. You know, that's like, I, I reasons to be like, remember Iggy? He was pretty good. You know, that's like, I can't, I don't buy this argument that if you had swapped him out for 25 other guys. Yeah. Of a similar. Nah, nah, now you're going nuts. No, no, that the Warriors would. So you're saying without Iguodala, the Warriors would not be in a position to win four out of five titles.

Oh, no. If you change him, somebody, they win two out of five. I don't buy that. If you just put some typical decent swing man in that spot, I do not think they win four out of five. I think he does a lot of stuff for them. Which year do they lose? Probably 15.

Maybe this year, unless the guy who they replaced him with is a healthier version of him. I can't think of any. 15, definitely. Maybe not one of the 17, 18s. Because remember, he guarded LeBron for four straight years in the finals. And I also think he's an overqualified talent for the role that he's in right now, is the other thing.

I think to win year after year after year like this, you have to have at least one guy who's sacrificing something pretty substantial. And usually you have two. And I think the two guys that have really sacrificed who could have been in better situations and gotten better stats other places were him and Clay.

And we saw once the rant went out, everyone's like, oh yeah, Clay's good. Like Clay's been good this whole time. He's just the fourth option on one of the best teams ever. And I think with Iggy, he could have stayed in Denver and probably scored 17 to 18 a game for the next couple of years and been a borderline all-star.

He is, which is an argument against him making the Hall of Fame. Well, do you think Robert Horace should be in? He would be, he, if, if Iguodala would get in, absolutely. But I wouldn't put either of them in the Hall of Fame. They're like sort of classic guys who remember about the NBA playoff, which is different than the NBA season. But the Hall of Fame should be kind of a separate thing. I mean, you know?

See, I would have Horry in there. Also, tell me this. Tell me this. If Iguodala misses that three he takes, and the Raptors get a rebound, call timeout, move it to half court, and Kawhi gets a good shot off, does anybody who has said he's going to make the Hall of Fame say that this week? No one does. It's because of one shot in one game, which reminds people that he's like, oh, he's a good guy who was a key member of this. There's a huge shot or whatever. I feel like I'm attacking this person who I generally like and think he's a good player, but he's not a

Hall of Fame player. That seems real weird to me. Weren't you just saying that he hasn't averaged 10 points a game for the last five years? I said a couple weeks ago on the pod that I thought he was going to make the Hall of Fame before he made the shot. Here's the thing. When he was taking the pod that I thought he was going to make the Hall of Fame before he made the shot. Here's the thing. When he, when he was taking that shot, I thought it was going in. And I think that says something because there,

you know, there's always this debate about clutch. How do you measure clutch? We don't have stats for it. It's made up. The math says clutch is overrated, all that stuff. But all I know is in the last five minutes of a game like that, when they're down one,

nothing, they have to win. Clay goes out. There's no way Steve Kerr wasn't like delighted to have a good dollar out there. Like if anything, you would say like, there's just not a long list of dudes.

I would have wanted out there. And you can also argue like, if he was on the Rockets the last two series, if you just flipped him with whoever on the Rockets, it could have swung the series. So, I don't know. I just I like guys like that. I think Horry should be

in the Hall of Fame. I did it. I put, when I did my basketball book, I had the Hall of Fame pyramid. And I had Horry like I don't know, 84 or something like that because I think the ability to kind of fade in the background, but then rise to the occasion and big moments on big stages is a talent. And it's not a talent we can measure with stats. And there's been, well, it's very few guys like that.

You have to, you have to have the opportunity to be on stage. And a lot of guys will never know, like for all we know, Reggie Theus would have been great in the clutch. I don't think he would have ever heard the situation where that ever happened. But here's the thing, though.

Yeah, I love it. But you look at, all right, take a look at my beloved Boston Celtics. The main reason the team struggled this year is we had Horford, who's an Iguodala-type guy,

but the team actually needed an Iguodala-type guy who was like, dude, I don't care about my stats. Just tell me who to guard. When we have a big game who was like, dude, I don't care about my stats. Just tell me who to guard. When we have a big game, I'll step up. I don't care how many minutes I play.

I'm going to be there till the bitter end for you guys. And instead, it was everybody like jockeying. I thought that quote he had about Curry. Did you see that quote he said? I couldn't believe it. That quote about Steph's legacy mattered to him, basically. He was like look we're all in pain right now

but I really want this for Steph I really want him to have this I think it's important like I don't know I don't know if you can put a price on having somebody

who's really good who's sacrificed something who's also an incredible teammate I think you if you're going to win multiple titles you have to have people like that so that would be my case.

It seems like to me that's the award you get the NBA Man of the Year for. That's a different thing. If you talk about awards, there should be an award for somebody like him. Because it's the type of guy who always ends up...

I think Derrick Fisher was like this. Derrick Fisher is not going to make the Hall of Fame, but was weirdly valuable over and over again during that Kobe and then Kobe Shaq and then the Kobe run. In the 09 finals, he made the biggest shot of that entire finals. And at a moment when it seemed like the series

was going to flip. Well, he made that shot against the, he made that shot against the Spurs too. That I think this is that the Spurs probably beat the Lakers in that series. So, but I don't know why, I don't know why you wouldn't argue he should make the Hall of Fame.

I mean, it would be, I feel like the criteria would be almost identical. Well, I think the thing with Iggy is that he's had a two act career and the first act was, was good. I mean,

he was like the best guy on playoff teams, but then has had the second act as just somebody that has been integral to the success of a really great team. So I, you know, you look at the Russell Celtics, there's guys from those teams in the hall of fame that you like Casey Jones is in the hall of fame.

It's absurd, but that was a different situation because there was like 14 or 12 or 16 teams in the league. Less. There was like 10. And because of the regional draft and stuff, it's like the Celtics had at times seemingly a fourth of the good players in the league on the same team. I will say I do love this about basketball. And I think as the numbers have kind of taken over this decade a little bit and, you know, the math and the advanced metrics, and I like a lot of it, but

I do think it's awesome that it's impossible to evaluate guys like Iguodala correctly. And that's the difference in baseball and basketball, like in a nutshell. In baseball, we would be able to come up with whatever numbers we need to exactly explain the impact of somebody. And in basketball, it's a lot of nuance and it's a lot of the eye test and just memories and watching how somebody responds in big moments like that. You think about game two, those last five minutes when Klay goes out and that crowd is crazy

and Kawhi is a beast and Toronto's really good, you know? And I think we're going to see in game three, if whether Clay plays or not, I, you know, even if he plays, he's going to be a little compromised. No Durant probably. We're going to find out a lot about Curry as can, does he have that side of him? Can he carry a team at this level on this stage in a series like this

when he doesn't have the kind of help that he's had in the past? He's always had at least one other guy. You think about what LeBron did in 2015 or last year, where it was basically just him, and it was still enough to almost win the title. That's the last question I have about Steph. If the Raptors are throwing everything at him, trying to take him out of the game,

can he still be the best guy in the game? The Raptors will throw the kitchen sink at stopping him tomorrow. So how is he going to respond to that? I don't know. As a basketball historian, when was the last time a boxing one was used in the NBA?

How delightful was that? It was amazing. It's like, I was like, maybe they should start running like the flex offense or something. Like it was like a high school game kind of, but it was, I don't remember ever seeing that at the NBA game because there was the period where of course you couldn't play zone at all. So that eliminated a big stretch of time.

But I was trying to remember if I set up, you couldn't play zone at all. So that eliminated a big stretch of time. But I was trying to remember if I've seen that. Do you remember seeing that? I have not. I have not seen that. Or if somebody did it, I didn't notice it. I haven't seen somebody so blatantly do a box in one in a big game in a long time. I actually don't understand why more teams don't do it. I think it's smart, you know, or at least to mix it up.

At the pro level, it should never work because there should be too many guys who can make shots. But the Warriors were in this weird shorthanded situation where it was like, ah, what do you do here, you know? But of course, they have another Hall of Famer on the floor, so they should have scored at will, right? Yeah, the thing is, I like it as like to mix it up for a play or a couple minutes. I don't think you could do it as a 48-minute strategy.

You said you had a question for me about Brook Lopez's career. What is the question? Oh, yeah, okay. So I was just, you know, Brook Lopez is kind of a fascinating guy to hear, and his whole game is different. He shoots all these threes. And, you know, I was thinking about this. For a long time, big guys in the NBA could play super late in their career.

I mean, Robert Parrish being the clearest example, but tons of guys like Olden Paul and East or whatever, these guys could, because there was just these, you know, if you were, you know, 6'11 or above, they just needed those bodies and stuff. These guys could play late. So now he now plays on the perimeter exclusively. Does that mean he's going to have a shorter career?

Because now he's totally skill-based. If he starts missing shots, he's done. Or will it even extend it further because he'll still be a big guy defensively but he won't get beat down by playing in the block like well well the fact that brooke lopez and such a good three-point shooter and guys like him are going to sort of become common like is that going to extend the time these big guys play or will it shorten it because they can't just rely on being big they have to have skills too you would think like the sam perkins analogy would go here right where sam perkins had that extra stretch of his career where he just basically

became you know a stretch five and i would think that's how it plays out. I think what's fascinating to me about Lopez is he still has the low post game. It's not like he traded it for, you know, it's not like he was, he just added it. Yeah. He added it, but they, the bucks, I thought this is one of the many mistakes they made in that playoff series was they treated it. Like he gave up the post game to become a three-point shooter. And I still think he has a lot of those skills. Like if anything, I feel like he's a

little bit untapped now because now that he has the three-point shooting, but he also has the other stuff, you could argue the guy should be awesome next year. You know, if it was on a team that actually went out of their way to try to use them. I don't know if the Bucs are that team, but if I was a team that had free agent money, I would be thinking about them. Just on the subject of big guys, have you watched any footage of the kid going to Memphis, James Wiseman? No, that was Penny's big recruit, right?

Did you like him? Well, Penny's just like a recruiting machine, I guess, because of his AAU connection. It's totally bizarre. But this guy, you're going to like this guy. This guy is, I think, the beginning of something that a few years ago we would have said impossible. This guy now is showing that the way Durant is, is going to become a type of player. Oh, wow.

This guy, he's seven feet tall at the high school level. It looks like mostly dunks and threes is what he does. He's left-handed. He's seven foot and two 10, same body. Um, but if you watch the footage of this kid, it's like, this is who he's modeling his game after. And I wonder if like, it's this thing where it's like in the future, watching the NBA is going to be like watching 10 grants on the floor. Yeah. I mean, you, you watch this guy. That's the first thing you'll think when you speak.

Yeah. I've thought about that a lot about where this goes, you know, because the shooting is just getting better and better. And I think the biggest reason is just because everybody has better form from the moment they become good at basketball. You know, like when we were growing up, almost everybody had a different kind of shot, right? Like Jamal Wilkes' shot was different than Larry Bird's shot, which was different than Dennis Johnson's shot. Like everybody had a quirk to whatever their emotion was. And now it's just these people coming off an assembly line, you know, that are just going to get better and better at this, it feels like. And it's a little like what's happening in baseball where the pitchers,

whatever the mechanics are in that, and now everybody can throw in like the mid to high nineties and, you know, and that's just kind of there, you know, maybe that's just where pitching is going with the shooting. I don't know where this ends because I don't, I never thought we would just see people casually making 29-footers like this.

Did you? It's inconceivable 20 years ago. You know, and the thing that I'll always wonder about is did things change or was it just never done? You know, like, what is the difference in shooting, you know, percentage-wise from shooting from 20 feet, 23 feet, 27 feet? Obviously, as you go back, the percentage is going to go down. But maybe it goes down negligibly.

And if you're from 27 feet away, you're going to get an open shot. I don't know. think to myself, like, it really would have been interesting to watch some of the players from the past if they had come up through AAU and high school and all that and all the conditioning that they do now and the way that they, you know, and let them play the way the game is now, I would just be fascinated because I can't I don't believe that suddenly people got more dedicated about working on their shot. Well, I think what's happened now is if you're good,

you're going to be targeted pretty quickly. You're going to be playing AAU. You're going to have people that know what they're doing teaching you how to shoot. So you look at somebody like Scotty Pippen, right? Grows up in a really poor part of Arkansas. Starts playing basketball a little bit late because he grew, just had a weird shot and nobody ever fixed it. And I guess my question for where things are going is, will we still have Scottie Pippens?

I assume that we would. We're going to have like the late bloomer guys. But what we're not going to have is you know like the Larry Bird types where whatever motion he had would just be different he would have been good like age age 7 age 8 whatever some coach would have been like hey instead

of shooting instead of releasing the ball on the side of your head what if you released it on from your forehead and just worked with him over and over again well I mean of course but, but like, you know, he shifted that after a softball injury, he shot more off his nose before he broke his fingers playing softball. That's why he shot off the side of his head.

Oh, that's a good point. He claims he was a better shooter before. I know. They always say that, but he, he still, he didn't have like the traditional, you know, you think, you think about like the ray allen mike miller type of jump shot and i always thought like i remember when mike miller came in the league and i even would joke about this in my column like oh my god like that jump shot

i i would give like five years of my life to have that jump shot now it feels like 20 guys have that jump shot and guys are just coming in now with perfect form you know jason tatum has a weird shot and that's one of the things i like about him like he almost releases it off the back of his head and it has more of a bloop to it but for the most part i don't know i just i just think everybody the shots almost enough to have a job now i mean think of throughout the 70s and 80s and 90s, how often there would be some guy in college who was a great shooter, and then people were like, he'll never play in the NBA. All he can do is shoot.

That's all he gives. They'll kill him on defense. He can't handle. All he can do is shoot. Now that would be enough. I mean, that's like it has become. Somebody was asking me about Zion. You know, they were like, you know, is he going to be, is he going to be as good as LeBron?

It's like a casual basketball fan. Yeah. You know, absolutely. And I was like, well, you know, he's certainly the best college player I've seen in a very long time. He might be the best prospect from LeBron. But the weird kind of X factor now is if he's only a good shooter, he can't be elite. Yeah. It's like where, like if he's, yeah, he's only like a good shooter, you know, in the

past it would be like a, you know, uh, he could have Blake Griffin's career or whatever, you know, but that, that wouldn't be enough now. Like for him to be an elite player, he has to be a very good shooter because it is the emphasis on that has completely outpaced every other skill you can have. Yeah, and the question is, for me, it comes down to the work ethic, right? Like Kawhi made himself into a good shooter.

He worked at it, he worked at it, he worked at it. He had a great shooting coach with the, with the Spurs and eventually just by sheer force of reps and athletic ability became a good shooter. I personally think Zion's wired like that. And I don't think his shots that bad to begin with, but no, it's pretty good. It's pretty, I mean, I would be surprised if he's not great. But I'm just like, the thing is, he can't be a lock now. If somebody goes like, this guy is a lock, he has to be an elite shooter first. So there's this guy. It's funny.

You're talking about everybody playing the same. There's this guy in the NBA draft this year he's a guard from Washington Matisse I don't know how to say his last name Theibel? How do you say it Kyle? Don't do that. One Shining Podcast producer Kyle. I think that sounds right though Matisse Theibel something like that

and he's this guy who is an incredible defensive player, incredible, and doesn't seem to offer any offense whatsoever. And nobody kind of knows what to do with it because, so in our, in our ringer mock draft, he was 21. The, uh, the, they, they call him a disruptive defender who posted all-time great block and steal numbers as the pillars of Washington's zone.

He averaged three and a half steals and 2.2 blocks a game. 40-minute games. And it's just like, this guy's going to be an amazing defender. He's no offense whatsoever right now. All he is is a lockdown defender. So they compared him to,

hey, there might be some Danny Green, some Tony Allen, things like that. I watched some YouTube clips of this guy. I love this guy. I can't believe he's not in the top 20. Like, I know what this guy is. If he learns how to shoot, it's a bonus. But this guy is like exactly the type of guy

you would unleash on somebody in a playoff series. I'm glad, my point is, I'm glad there's still guys like that. We're never just going to be these three point shooting robots. There's always going to be weirdos who are outside the norm, I think. Who knows? Let's take a quick break and then we got to talk about Fleabag. Let's take a break to talk about ZipRecruiter. Finding a new job. It's a lot of work. I remember in 2015 when I left ESPN, I had to find a new job. It was a lot of work. I talked to a lot of people. I eventually got hired by HBO. I started The Ringer. It was a lot of work. Well, what if you had your own personal recruiter to help you find a better job?

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Back to Chuck. All right, next thing you want to talk about was, you didn't bite on my whole thing. I wanted to talk about the media basketball game that is somehow sponsored by T-Mobile. I thought that was like the weirdest story of the year. Who's playing it? So Chris Haynes, who works for Yahoo,

he organized this media basketball game during the finals for Tuesday and sent this whole thing out, W Transportation, but didn't say right away it was sponsored. But now he's admitting that it's sponsored. It's by a T-Mobile's court. There's a live stream at Metro by T-Mobile.

And he did a hashtag sponsored. And I was like, where are we going? We're now having sponsored live stream media basketball games? And here's the thing I hate the most. I'm probably going to watch like 10 minutes of it. I might even be for 20 if somebody's like...

Like if Brian Winhurst is getting a double-double, hang in there. I want to see what his back bumper does. Yeah. All right. So you want to talk about Matthew Bolling, this sprinter who's breaking records left and right, and there's a wrinkle.

And what's the wrinkle check? Yeah, well, okay. So this kid is like, he's a high school kid in texas and i i don't i don't know any other way to sort of describe this like he appears to be the fastest white american ever uh it just it doesn't seem to be any question about that and i'm really nervous about what's going to happen as his star ascends like i can see so many terrible things happening as he continues to succeed like i can see him going to the olympic trials next year and like taking fifth and trump thanks him on twitter or something. I can just, I mean, I totally can see that. Or the fact that he was already on like a, after he kind of dominated the Texas State

meet, like he was on like high noon or something. And it's just this undercurrent of every discussion about him. Also, like, he's very young. I don't know that much about him. But he doesn't seem lacking of confidence. He seems very aware that he is a fast fucking guy. Guys cannot run with him, you know? So it's not like some people or something where every time he succeeds, he's like, Oh,

praise God or whatever. It doesn't seem like that's how it's going to be. And it seems as though this could be a real powder keg of division in sports. kid is white, even though I'm kind of doing it now and probably fueling the fire that I worry about. But it seems as though, like, if he becomes the fastest man in the world, which I think is, while not likely, completely plausible, he is going to be very famous when the Olympics happen. Maybe not the next Olympics, but the ones four years down the line. He's really probably going to be close to his peak at that point, really will be peaking.

Do you see what I'm saying? Do you see how this could be dangerous to me? I mean, I know it seems like I'm overreacting, but this kind of worries me. I feel like this could be bad. And I feel like it could become this thing where liking him or disliking him has this secondary political meaning that is not what we want. I did obviously have been following it and watching the clips

and even watching like the Today Show went down. He is like a twin brother, which I didn't know. I've seen all of it. It has been the elephant in the room. People are dancing around it. Some of the blogs, I think, have been more overt about writing about it. But it is kind of, nobody's really gone all in on it yet. And I haven't even seen-

Pablo Torre kind of had a funny thing. He was like, can you believe that this guy is winning races solely on grit? It's funny. It was like a funny thing. But it was like, the beginning part is funny. The end part of this might be less funny. Well, the other thing that's crazy is the highlights. Just watching him run, there's something about the way he runs that it almost looks like a sports

movie where they're speeding up the video or something, or like how the footage of him in the four by 400 running the anchor leg of that. And I know before I watched the clip, they win. You're watching the clip and I'm like, they can't win. There's no,

you know, it's just, it's just, it's, I mean, both is the same way where you watch a clip and I'm like, they can't win. There's no, you know, it's just, it's just, it's, I mean, both is the same way where you watch a guy and it's like, how can someone doing what everyone else is doing seem that different? You know, you just, um, it's, uh, I mean, as somebody who likes track, it's like, it's, it's just, always exciting when there was like this great new talent. But I, I, I, you know, I, I wonder if we would even know who this kid was,

if he was white. Um, so that's, that's where I disagree with you because I do feel like it's so much fun to watch him run. I'm not sure. I'm not sure it'd be less fun. If like,

no matter what he looked like, because to me, maybe the fastest, maybe the fastest high school sprinter because to me, he made me the fastest, made me the fastest high school sprinter of any of the last 10 years. Oh, I can't. I, the only reason I first saw the clip was because it was one of those where he came from way behind. And I thought that's why the clip was on YouTube. Cause it was like,

look at this guy, this guy came all the way from behind. And then I had the same reaction. Everybody else said, I was like, wait, does that guy wait? And then, you know, you end up Googling it and you're like, oh, oh, he's from Texas. Oh, wow. Oh, this is interesting. But I think, I think what stood out for me is just like, there's two kinds of running forms basically for, for speed, right? You have like that Carl Lewis, Usain Bolt, long stride, kind of what we're used to. But this reminded me more of like the Ben Johnson style. You remember it? Remember like watching Ben Johnson? Yeah. Just like, it almost didn't seem real. It's like, how is this dude,

how is this dude ripping through the track like this? And he just doesn't run like the other dudes. And how is it? are they doctoring the uh the clip is this real that's how i felt with the ben johnson stuff in the mid-80s when he really started going head to head with carl lewis turned out he was on probably yeah and actually some drugs that style is more common i mean like the thing about bold and carl lewis same thing is they had these sort of they were unusually long from their knee to their foot yeah you know like bolt's a tall guy like bolt takes 32 or 33 strides i think or 31 strides or something in the hundred dash and almost every other runner is taking 35 or 34

i can't remember the exact numbers i did the story for grantland or whatever but regardless the fact of the matter is that if like a bolt runs against someone who is his exact speed, he will still beat them every time. And that's kind of what makes him this sort of transcendent thing. This kid, yes, is more like more of just kind of the, it's like power speed. Yeah, it's power speed. And he looks like an actor in a movie playing himself. You know, like when we were growing up, the $6 million man,

when they would show Steve Austin running, Lee Majors as Steve Austin, and they would always have to show him in slow motion so it could seem like he was going fast, which I found out they used the same trick for Wesley Snipes in Major League, by the way, that slow motion for some reason makes somebody look fast. But if you actually had somebody just running full speed, it wouldn't be believable in a movie, right? Because nobody, you couldn't replicate what these real guys are doing. In this case, his style, it honestly looked doctored.

I didn't know what I was watching the first time I saw it. I was like, how is that guy going so fast? Didn't seem, it was like watching Forrest Gump. Remember Forrest Gump when he's running from, running from his bullies? And it was like,

oh my God, he's flying. So anyway. It might just be, it's like how quick the feet are going down. You know, Johnny Manziel was like that

in college. Yeah. It seemed like break out of the pocket. It would seem like, why is he faster than, you know,

the free safety from LSU? That doesn't make any sense or whatever, but it just looked that way. This is different because it's not an illusion. He's obviously faster. We're timing these people. We've had a couple of running backs like this, but the one that stands out for me is Herschel Walker. Where Herschel Walker, if he actually got going, it, it, it almost seemed like a,

like sci-fi or something, which is a little what this kid's like where there was some clips I've followed this, uh, this Twitter feed called bike fans, where it's like all old Minnesota Vikings clips. You would like this feed by the way. And they had this Herschel Walker clip and, uh, and he's just, he was just like kind of unlike anybody where if he was going straight, he just seemed, I believe. Yeah, he was, he had, he had to go straight.

He was like, you know, it's what the bobsled was good for him or whatever. Uh, yeah, I, I think he won the a hundred meters in the sec, uh, conference track meet. He did. I mean, I know he won the 100 meters in the SEC conference track meet. He did. I mean, I know he ran in that. He did some track. I think one year he won. So you're worried about two things.

You're worried, one, about the whole Trump side of this whole thing and where that might go. Well, I mean, I'm just saying that that would be a real plausible way to sort of... To go for this badly. Something like that would happen. Yeah. Where it would immediately be like,

well, then there would be, you know, 45 million people in this country who are like, well, I hate this kid now. Yeah. I mean,

it'd be like, you know, it'd be like, it would be all, it would be like if, if, if, if Trump came out and just said like,

he loved some author or whatever, that would kill that guy's career in some way. You know, it's like, cause there would be all these people who, it would just, that even if the guy had no idea that happened um it's just that like it seems as though um that just it's going to be a if he becomes dominant it's going to be uh this huge story and it and it's going to the fact that

we're talking about this right now there's somebody right now sitting at their computer typing in on Twitter right now it's like the only time Simmons and Klosterman talk about track is if it's a white kid. That just happens right now. It happens 40 times

probably. That's not true by the way. We've talked about track. I know. It doesn't matter what the reality is. None of this has anything to do with reality ever. But the second part of this, which we haven't mentioned this, is the part that, the Trump part is obviously sitting there. But the other part is this whole cycle we're in now with media where people trying to guess what the narrative would be and jumping a little bit ahead of it to kind of talk about it before it becomes an angle,

which is what we're doing right now. But then this seven-step cycle of the backlash to that, then the backlash to the backlash, and then the backlash to the backlash to the backlash. And it just kind of goes for three days with people in media bubbles talking to each other about, uh, about what this means and all this stuff.

It's like, I don't know that, that, that would, that would be a turnoff pretty quick with this story. Cause I'd like watching the guy run. I think it's fun. Yeah.

This kid comes up on my Facebook feed in an ordinate amount. Like it, you know, it's, I, I, I, it, it, and I, it, and for a while, like it didn't just start happening now. Um, I, there is sort of a, just a natural attraction to the fastest man in the world or the, you know, I just, I think in a way that, that, that even though track is not a popular sport in the United States, like people aren't interested in that. People are interested in the heavyweight champion of the world and the fastest man alive. Well, look at, look at that. Look at our heavyweight champ now. We now have Andrews Jr. It's like, you know, cause it's like this fight or flight reflex. It's like the fastest guy in the world can run away from people and the heavyweight champion can beat anybody up, you know.

And so they'll be interested in these figures, even if the person doesn't care about kind of the accompanying sport. So if anybody becomes the fastest guy in the world, they're going to be relatively famous in a way most track athletes are not. It just seems like if it's a white kid from Texas who's confident about his ability to succeed, that that would have an effect on people. Well, I wonder if there's any way he could make the 2020 team. I have no idea what his times are compared to everybody else. He'll definitely qualify for the Olympic trials. There's no, I mean, he ran, I think what he ran a nine, what's in a nine, nine, two or nine, nine, eight or something. It was like a one was wind aided, but like he'll,

he will certainly, you know, it's like, okay, this fall where he'll, I think he's a senior, right? So he'll go to college wherever he goes to. When he runs track this spring, he's not going to get slower. You know, next, you know, when he, you know, it's like when he runs track next year, wherever, whatever college he's at, he's not suddenly going to suddenly run like sub 10.

So he'll get to the trials and then it's just the fastest guy wins. I mean, that's what they always say. The problem with track is the fastest guy out. Kyle, does this sound like the, a Lonely Island sports movie starring Andy Samberg? The fastest guy in the world is a white guy from Texas out of Andy Samberg wearing a blonde wig and just dusting dudes? He's all cocky. They're making

so he is being super cocky. He's got a twin. Are we sure this story's real? I got to do more investigation. This might be an elaborate prank on us. Let's take a quick break to talk about the Ringer Podcast Network, where we have a couple of things going on that I wanted to mention. First of all, Ringer Dish, our new celebrity culture feed, that's launched today officially with Amanda Dobbins and Juliette Lipman doing a celebrity relationship deep dive on the rise and fall of Bennifer. We have jam session going Wednesday. We have four realsies with my daughter on Thursday. And then we have tea time on Friday. This podcast is going to be humming all summer. And if you care about celebrity culture, if you care about, I don't know, Meghan Markle, post Post Baby, who's dating

who, is Elizabeth Moss really dating Tom Cruise, all that stuff, I would go to ring or dish. That's one thing. The other one is the Press Box, which finally has its own feed. It's the old Channel 33 feed, and now it belongs to Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker twice a week, Tuesday, Friday, breaking down all of the media-related super smart subjects. The pod makes me smarter. Kyle told me he's gained like six IQ points. I'm listening to old episodes. I used to get shit for not listening,

and now I can't get enough. There you go. Listen to Nephew Kyle. Since we're here, a couple ones. The Bachelor Party podcast is humming full speed. We put them up right after The Bachelor ends. This week we had Mallory and Juliet just raving about Tyler C,

who is their strong-chinned god. So you got that. And then Fairway Wrong, get ready for that with the US Open. And then last but not least, Big Little Live, our Big Little Live's after show. That's coming.

We are two Sundays away from that. We have a preview show next week, which I will be promoting on this podcast. Amanda Dobbins and ESPN's Mina Kimes breaking down an awesome show that I saw the first three episodes of. Guess what? Meryl Streep's a good actress.

That's one of the revelations I had from this season. She might know what she's doing. Check all that out. Alright, back to Chuck. Fleabag. Yes. I finished season two over the weekend. You have watched both seasons. I think

both of us have been equally blown away by this show. What stands out to you the most about this show? Well, I mean, it was the second season was better than the first season, which doesn't often happen. But like, here's the thing. And for people who haven't watched it yet, I suppose you don't want to listen to this. Or maybe this will make you want to watch it more.

Okay, so the main character talks to the camera, which I do not like. Okay, I don't like people talking to the camera. I don't like voiceover and anything, but good fellas. I think that's a, I don't like that technique. Right. So I'm watching the beginning of this season and I was like, oh yeah, she keeps turning and talking to the camera. Like, it's like, this is kind of a problem.

She's doing it too much. Like, why are they having to do it so much? But then she becomes involved with the priest, and the entire thing just completely changes when we realize the priest can tell when she's talking to the camera. Because when you think about it, when you're watching television, you know, you are essentially in the position of God. You're watching people operate in front of you, and you're seeing what's happening in their world, and you are God. So when she's talking to us, what she really is doing is talking to God. And as a priest, you can sense that spiritual connection. I've never seen that before in a TV show or a film, where someone breaks the fourth wall, and another person is like,

what are you doing? What's, what's happening? Like, you know, and it makes so much sense that the person who would recognize that as a priest, I just thought that was a brilliant thing. And the third rail of just having the priest as a romantic figure in season two was the degree of difficulty on that off the charts. I couldn't, I, as I was watching it, I couldn't even believe they were trying it. And they pulled it off and it was really great.

I thought, I also thought season two was better than season one. I thought season one was probably, you know, a little bit, maybe a little funnier. It was just a little more out there. Season two was just kind of knew what it was doing the whole time and was exceptionally well executed. I thought the, um, the Kristen Scott Thomas episode was one of the best episodes I've ever seen of,

of a half hour show. And the speech that she gave at the bar, um, about menopause and female empowerment, all that stuff. It was just, it was so well written and so well acted. I was like, I couldn't believe it as I was watching. I was like, this is honestly one of the best things

I've ever seen. And it was the best version of Kristen Scott Thomas, who's a really good actress, but if she doesn't win an Emmy for that, I don't know. I didn't, I don't know anything. I just, it's so rare to watch a TV show that's, you know, really consistently very good to great, depending on the episode. But then that they'll have an episode like that, that just goes to a whole other level. And, uh, I thought that was great. I think, I think, uh, I think Phoebe's it's, it's hard. Do you think it would have been better or worse if she was in killing Eve? It's bizarre that she wasn't in it at the same time.

I'm glad she's not in it. Right. Well, I, you know, I didn't, I didn't get through that show because when I, I started watching it,

um, it, I thought it was, I thought it was going to be, I mean, this is not, this is just a taste thing. I thought it was going to be a more realistic depiction of things.

Like it was sort of, there was no, it was, it was not. I, I, so I, I didn't finish it. I know some people love it. I'm not saying it's not a good show just because I didn't watch it, but I didn't watch it. I only watched the beginning of it. I did the same. I watched like two episodes and it was, you know,

it goes into the DVR graveyard where you're like, oh yeah, I'll catch up. And then four episodes are on the DVR and you just kind of stare at it and you don't want to keep going. I, I, it's funny, like the fleabag model where you just think about like how weird it is to have a six episode, 30 minute, 30 minute per episode season. And that's a season now with TV. Like it's completely different than what we grew up with. Kind of inconceivable. It becomes basically a three hour movie that they're just separating with these little breaks. And yet people are watching them all. And when I like, I had multiple ringer staffers. They watched season two of Fleabag within three hours after it was out.

It's this new model of how we're doing stuff. And I really like it. Same thing with Big Little Lies. I watched the first three episodes of season two last weekend. And you're just plowing through them. And I'm kind of glad it's not 22 episodes. I like that it's seven or whatever it ends up being.

Same thing for Chernobyl, which I thought was fantastic. I know you haven't watched it yet, but same thing. Five episodes, probably six hours total. I'm in and I'm out. It just seems like that's where things are going now. And I'm going to be interested to see what the ramifications are going forward. I mean, you say it's like a three-hourhour movie and it is, except because it's broken up by the creator,

it's really good because you know I can stop here and watch it tomorrow. Whereas if you're watching a three-hour movie, you're always like, well, I don't know what,

you know, I don't have time to watch three hours of it. So I got to somehow deduce a point in the story that seems like a natural chapter break. But it works better this way when they're,

when they're organized that way. I, um, I think most people prefer it actually. I mean, you can make lots of arguments for like, Oh, but TV was less,

you know, lower stakes in the past and all that stuff. If you like a TV show, it's nice when you can just kind of see them all. Like when the new start, uh, the Like when the new Twilight Zone came out, you could initially see two episodes. The first two episodes, there were issues with them or whatever, but

I was like, oh, maybe it'll get better or something, or it'll change. But then I was like, I gotta wait. And that seems weird. Now it seems weird to wait for anything. Yeah, and we're... I mean, Thrones, we talked about it on this pod, but like Thrones

is the last watch it at the same time everybody else is watching it show. Stranger Things, I think that's dropping the Friday

after July 4th or maybe even the night of July 4th. And I can't believe, I know Netflix is binge model and I agree with it for the most part.

And Fleabag's a good example of it really working well. None of us here at The Ringer where we thrive on this stuff and we love having content that we can really dive into for six, seven, eight, nine weeks. Stranger Things, it's so hard to be on the same page as everybody else when it comes out. Then it has a five, six, seven-day shelf life. Everybody watches it. You talk about it, and then you move on. It feels like they could have owned the summer, even if they had done three episodes per week or something for three weeks, something like that, where people could have caught up, read all the stories. The way this internet machine works now with how we consume culture is actually really favorable to a show like Stranger Things. And they should audible

from that from time to time, that model, I think. What do you think? I don't know. I mean, there was too much Game of Thrones coverage on your site and everywhere and it was like it actually detracted from the thing it ended up being at one point I

watched the last episode of Game of Thrones almost with the sense of like I just want to get this out of the way and get done with this now because I'm sick of hearing people talk about it i'm sick of like this is great with warren or whatever like you know write a review of it or whatever like it's like it became too much of a thing like i uh i it was it took away i would say and also it was it it ended up amplifying kind of the worst things about consumer culture now, which is this idea that they own these characters. I didn't like that.

They own Daenerys and therefore they can decide whether or not her character can change or if that change is reasonable. I mean, first episode of the of the series jamie lannister pushes the key out of a window okay he completely becomes a different person nobody gives a shit about that because there's no political underpinnings of his evolution you can't look at jamie lannister and say that he means something else or whatever but with daenerys they did they thought well this is this represents something that I feel is important, and I want this popular TV show to reflect it.

And this idea that there was a petition of people, people signing a petition to have the entire, like, I know they weren't really serious about that. I think they were. How fucking stupid do you, how dumb do you have to be to think that that is not only reasonable, but like something that you can do, that you can just sort of say, like you can make a TV show again for me.

I didn't like the way it ended. Like that's so crazy. I think people feeling ownership over art to the point that they feel that they should have some say in what the art is, is the craziest thing that's happened this decade with culture, period. And it started really last, when did those new Star Wars movies come out? So that was like 1999 range? Yeah, that's when the first one came.

Well, no, I know exactly when it started. When? It started with Lost. No, it started with the Star Wars movies. The Star Wars movies was the first time people were like, fuck you. Oh, sure. But people have always said, fuck you, the things they didn't like. But Lost was a new thing because the creators were actually like, we're interested in what people feel about us. Yeah, that's bad.

So the audience is wondering why, how come we're not showing the other 36 people from the plane or whatever? I'm going to introduce like, it was like Pablo and some woman or whatever, some character, which was a straightforward fan service. And then they killed him off and they buried him. But once they had done that, once they basically admitted that what you think of our show impacts the way we think about our show, the whole thing changed. And now people were like, I kind of own Lost. I'm actually part of Lost. I'm going to watch it even if I don't like it. And people began watching the show that they actively did not like. And that ended up changing

everything about the memory of that program. And since then, it has never gone back. I actually think it started with Seinfeld, the season finale, and how mad people got about that because it wasn't Wire season about the journalist subplot. If you go back and watch the final episode of The Wire, it's a really good episode. I think it's one of the five or six best episodes they did during the entire run, but nobody would ever say that because people were already so mad about the journalist framing his story or whatever the hell he was doing. I think we've seen that version more often. The only one that's really been immune to it is Breaking Bad. But that's because, in my opinion,

everybody knew how Breaking Bad was going to end from when they saw the first episode. There was no surprise. You knew it was ending how it had to end and they did a really good job with it. And then people were like, great job. There could have been a surprise, but they chose not to. And I guess that's sort of what people ultimately want.

They actually want the most predictable conclusion to these things. Because somehow, if the conclusion is predictable, or if it's kind of what we expect, that doesn't alter anything that had been built up to that point. Like, it doesn't alter the past at all. Like, the thing with Daenerys now, that alters the past. Now, people knowing if this, if we're talking about her like a real person,

she's fucking Bride's Dragon, which is, anyway, anyways. Okay, so this person does this thing at the end of the show, and then it's like, well, what about all these feelings i had about her two years ago what about the fact that i named my kid denaris or whatever like yeah who asked you to do that you know it but whereas if it ends predictably if she would have ended up like sort of i don't know freeing the people and And then her and Jon Snow would run the kingdom together and she would be the leader and he

would be the person behind it and sort of understand. Then they would have been like, great, great, great. I'm so happy. I'm so happy because this dream I have about this imaginary thing can match up with my worldview, which I only apply to TV. Well, here's the other thing that was well said. Um, people seem to think that everybody's going to throw a perfect game with a

TV show and they forget. These are just normal human beings that are writing them. They're not gods. This isn't like my son is on a travel baseball team with one of the creator sons. He's a normal guy. He shows up, he's wearing a hat, nothing. He's not Socrates, you know? And I think people go into this thing and they think it would almost be the equivalent of when we're watching the NBA finals, everybody

assuming Steph Curry should have, should make 15 threes a game. You're going to make mistakes. I'm sure those guys would probably look at the last two seasons and be like, yeah, fuck, we probably should have done more episodes. But so be it. They're out of the next thing. Your life is so weird now. Your kids on a baseball team with the people who make Game of Thrones? Well, one of them.

Does he talk to you about it ever? Because obviously- I knew I should have told him this now we have to cut this out he's a normal guy, he has a job his job is he's a creator I'm not saying he's abnormal every time you talk about your life now

it's just so interesting to me the person I met and the person you are now your whole life is so different I live in Los Angeles this is where they make TV and movies it's this random team I met and the person you are now, your whole life is so different. I live in Los Angeles. This is where they make TV and movies. I know.

It's this random team. Mike Schur is on the team too. Oh, really? Mike O'Malley is the commissioner of the league, or he was. This is LA. It's fucking weird. This is why you're in Portland. You went Thanksgiving with the Free Darko guy

I did that's true Free Darko did come to my Thanksgiving that is true that's my equipment yeah I think the ownership that fans feel now of these shows is actually hilarious and

the fact that they think that art is something that should be litigated and controlled and all of it is just nuts. You could see it happening a couple of years ago when there was that whole groundswell on the internet about how female characters are being treated on Game of Thrones, a show that started with an incest sex scene and a little boy getting pushed off a tower. At that point, all bets are off with the TV show you're watching. It's just, I don't know. It seems like people just like getting upset.

That's my takeaway of Game of Thrones. People just like getting out of shape about stuff. It's just culture is everything to people now. There's no separation between a person's actual life, the world of politics, the world of television or whatever, you know, but now it's all the same, kind of. It's just like, you know, all these, anything that you can discuss is a way for you to sort of discuss your personal political platform. Like any opinion you express about anything is just a way to like understand me and what my values are because i love this movie or whatever you know well that's wouldn't you say that's like a narcissism for younger generations it's like the instagram culture here i am here's a selfie of me now i'm here

look at this and it's like very it's very the culture is staring is it narcissism if it's the normative way to be i think it is like if ever if that it's if you know it like is okay so like every the complaint every generation has with the prior generation is that it's twofold always so they don't work hard enough and they're not tough enough okay and that's how this is how you know gx people feel about millennials and how boomers felt about gx people and the greatest generation felt about you know they were like oh we fought world war ii and now you're going to protest and talk about jane fonda and then it was like oh we care we stopped the vietnam war all you're going to protest and talk about Jane Fonda? And then it was like, oh, we care. We stopped the Vietnam War. All you guys want to do is listen to Pavement and wear hats backwards. And then we're like, oh, now it's like kids come to me and want to take naps at work.

What the fuck does that mean? It happens all the time. But here's the thing. If the complaint is people don't work hard enough and they don't have enough toughness, well, that does illustrate improvements in society. We do want to work less hard. We should want to have a better life. And of course, you're going to be less tough if things get better. Obviously, someone who has air conditioning is tougher than me when it comes to sitting in a hot room. They did it all the time. You know, it's like that's kind of the way, that's the trajectory of change. Basically, every generation has to work less and is therefore less tough. The previous generation hates that.

What do you think, Kyle? I think yes. That was a good way to end the podcast. You're fired up today. I got to do one thing. My publisher really wants me to mention my book on this podcast. It's coming out next month. I know, I know, but maybe I won't do a podcast.

Oh, well, we should have done that at the top. Well, let's do it now. Tell us about your book. Well, the book is called Raised in Captivity, and it's a collection of short stories. And it's coming out next month and boy, it would be great if it isn't terrible, I guess.

I'm doing the audio book this week. The audio book's kind of interesting. I got some interesting people reading on the audio book. Kurt Loder, Brent Musburger. There's interesting people on this. Brent Musburger? Now I'm offended I wasn't asked.

That's fucking bullshit. If you wanted to do it, you probably could. You probably could do it. No, fuck off. No, why don't you do it with Kurt Loder? Mike Birbiglia is doing one. What? Nice.

Still kind of adding people. Yeah, it's like, because some of the stories are third person and some of the stories are first person. So I am reading the third person story and I'm having different people read the first person stories. Do you think your audience will feel an ownership over the stories and get mad if the stories didn't go the way they wanted them to go or will they just read the stories? I don't know. It's possible. I suppose. I mean, it's

he can't please everyone or anyone, I guess. The thing is that these are fictional stories, but I don't know how to put this, but I generally don't like the way fiction is written. Yeah. I mean, I just, you know, I don't know how to just, it's not that I think that the way fiction is written is bad. It's just, I don't tend to like it. So these are fictional stories written as not fiction. Now, so some people who are like,

Oh, you know, I love Laurie Moore or whatever. Like I love, you know, George Saunders. My stories aren't like that. They're not like my stories. The idea is the story and the characters and the action are just there

basically to, uh, sort of embody the bigger idea. Um, and as a consequence, I'm sure it probably will maybe not appeal to the person who normally reads short fiction, but that's what this is the way I do it kind of,

you know, and it was really fun to write. I really did enjoy writing it. Yeah. I was going to say, it sounded like you had a good time as you were doing it, which, as we both know, writing's not very fun. So, that you had fun doing it is fun. It was. It was really, it was just, what I'd been doing basically is for like five years, anytime I had weird ideas, I would just put them into the notes of my phone.

So then I had like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of these ideas. And then I just use that to kind of come up with these stories. Oh, I look forward to reading it. Good luck to Kurt Loder and all the other people you asked to read on it. Well, you know, and I'm doing an event in LA and Sean Fennessey is going on stage. When is that? What day is that? And I'm doing one in San Antonio And Shea Serrano's Oh my god

Look at you Yeah Always smart getting Shea involved with anything Exactly It's like he's like But you know I never actually This will be the first time I've ever

Met Shea in person I've never actually met him in person So I'm really looking forward to this He's six foot nine Not a lot of people realize he's very tall. He's tall? He's 6'9". Yeah, he's 6'9".

What? He's gigantic. Yeah, ask Kyle. He's huge. He's 6'9". Yeah, we've been trying to get him to be on the ringer basketball team forever, but he doesn't live here. He's huge.

Now, that is a shock. Yeah. I mean, I guess if you would have said he was 6'4", I'd have been like, oh, wow, but he's 6'9". He's 6'9". Only played through high school. That was it. How is he as a player?

Have you ever watched him play? I'm kidding. He's not 6'9". You would have looked at this, though. Kyle was dying. Well, I mean, I've only seen him sitting down. I mean, I don't even think I've seen him standing up. You know, I guess it would be, I mean, he could be.

He could be 6'9". I mean, like Rob Sheffield, 6'6". Writers are tall sometimes. Rob Sheffield, 6'6"? Yeah. Wow. Look at that. All right, Chuck, good luck with the book.

Thanks to DAZN. Don't forget to go to DAZN.com, and I'll see you when you're in L.A. You got it, man. All right. Thanks. I'm on the wayside. I'm a person I never was.