The Bill Simmons Podcast - Chuck Klosterman on the Tiger Woods Book, NFL Draft QBs, and Rondo's Renaissance | The Bill Simmons Podcast (Ep. 355)

Episode Date: April 20, 2018

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons connects with Chuck Klosterman to discuss Tiger Woods and his legacy through the lens of Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian's recent book 'Tiger Woods' (3:05); the NBA playoffs, including Anthony Davis and all five of Rajon Rondo's levels (42:20); and a quarterback-rich NFL draft (1:08:40). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Good TV. Decent TV. We have it all. Coming up, Chuck Klosterman BS Report Hall of Famer it's almost like a Kobe thing he needs two

two numbers BS Report and then the the Bill Simmons podcast he needs two different jerseys for his two Hall of Fame campaigns coming up I finally read the Tiger Woods book

and we're going to talk about that and basketball and a whole bunch of other things but first my old friends, Pearl Jam. On the line right now, the unofficial ombudsman of my life, Chuck Klosterman. How are you? I'm perfect. How are you doing? I'm great. You encouraged me to read the Tiger Woods book. I was in Boston this week visiting

my dad and had the book. It was just as you predicted. I started reading it. I thought I would read 50 pages the first night. I read 120. I was done in two days. They did a great job. Yeah, I think it was big print. Maybe it's good for an older person like myself. Big print. It was just nice and easy to read.

It was just a nice big hardcover. It moved nice. I got to relive some stuff. I had my iPad out a couple of times during the golf parts. I was going on YouTube and rewatching some of the moments I mentioned, but you know, I feel like I knew most of this stuff, but seeing it put together really made me reevaluate my relationship with Tiger Woods. What did it make you do? Well, in a way, that's true. I mean, there isn't like any revelation in the book

that I guess you couldn't have maybe found elsewhere or heard about elsewhere. It's really well-paced. And the thing that was written by Armin Katan, who's kind of now more known as like a TV guy, and I think Jeff Benedict is the other guy, who's a Times investigative reporter. And they've done, they did a really good book about college football a few years back, but it's real well-paced. And they really understand what are the interesting details about these, about like every event? Like it,

in some ways it's just like a straight biography, like overview of his life, but it really focuses on the most intriguing aspects. I guess like without giving this away, like one thing. No, we're giving everything away. Okay.

Well, I mean, I guess it's, yeah, it's a fact, so I can't really give it away um like were you aware of what the thing about like when he met bill clinton in 2007 no i wasn't there's this passage in the book where where bill clinton who basically tiger woods has sort of blown off at multiple times in the past, agrees to help him out for some charity.

And the level of rudeness Tiger Woods displays for him is just shocking to me. I can't believe it. And yet it does fit in to sort of the trajectory of his life. I mean, a lot of times in biographies, I'm not so interested in what the kid was like when he was eight. But in this book, it's good. Yeah, I agree with you. I never liked that with biographies and documentaries

when they spent a lot of time in the childhood because most of the time, it just seems like they're forcing it and there's not that much to gleam. But in this case, everything about his childhood set up everything that happens to him from that point on. And I knew, I knew Earl Woods wasn't a good guy. I think that was, that was kind of, I don't want to say it was covered up back then,

but it was definitely kind of shoved to the side that this was a guy who had a lot of demons and was just not a, not a good husband, was not a good dad, was just not a good anything. Well, okay, that's true. But I'll say this. I did not until reading this book that he was a sex addict as well. I did not know that.

I knew he had some issues. I didn't know it was as bad as they had in the book that he was really, really like a nine out of 10, probably with how he handled his ladies. But Tiger saw that. My take, the more, I never had really thought about this side of Tiger until everything blew up in 09 and 2010. I wrote about him a couple of times. You wrote about him, I remember. It really did seem like there was a cause and effect with the dad, that bad behavior led to bad behavior. And then you look at the other people in his life

and the people he was trying to run with. And he seemed like a guy who was trying to compensate for however he felt in his childhood, that he felt like he didn't fit in with people and he was just golf, golf, golf, golf and then all of a sudden he became this rich famous guy and it was like the stereotype of the guy who couldn't handle it

the book did a good job of elaborating on that I thought I mean it is particularly complicated in the sense that you know, okay his father is a sex addict, too. It almost seems like a little too on the nose or whatever. But it wasn't just that this was his father. Because they had siloed him off from the rest of the world, his father was seemingly his best friend.

I don't think that's in any way inaccurate. Yeah. So it does, I guess, explain sort of his behavior. Here was the thing I wanted to ask you, okay? So which of these three factors would you say played the largest role in sort of the collapse of his career? Now, the real answer is, all three, but of these three factors, which one would you think is most relevant? A, his sex addiction. B, the discovery of the sex addiction and the scandal that came with it. Or C, injuries and the physical toll that was taken on his body. Which of those three things played the biggest role in him going from,

at one point, clearly the best golfer in the world and the best golfer ever to, at this point now, I would say, at best, an average professional golfer. I would put the injuries as a clear number one first. And I've always felt that way, But then when I read the book, I didn't know that by 2002, he had like 20% of his ACL left. And I didn't understand how much pain he was just in day to day. And the book does a nice job of elaborating kind of how tough he is and all the little games that his dad did with him to make him tougher, which we must

have read at some point, but I just kind of forgot that, you know, when he was growing up, when he was a teenager and he'd be hitting golf balls and his dad would be trying to distract him to make him tougher and yell at him. And, um, it was really like a great Santini thing.

His dad would swing a golf club in front of him based on the premise that people can learn certain skills from repetitively viewing the action when they're like, they can't even walk yet. I gave you those three options. Wait, wait, hold on. Wait, can you, can you pause that for a second? Cause I don't want to let that one go. I thought that was the single craziest thing in the book. If like, if I went over to your, if I went over to visit you and you just had a baby and I'm like, what are you doing? And you're just typing in front of the baby. You're like, I want my baby to be a good writer. I want to see what it's like. I want her to just see how easy it

is to be in front of a keyboard. I would think you were a lunatic. And not that a golf swing is an easier thing to memorize, but it's hard for me to fathom that somebody could even think to themselves, I'm just going to swing a golf club in front of my baby and they're going to absorb this and become the best golfer of all time. That's literally insane. But that's what he did. And it worked. It worked. I don't think it's insane because just look at the way a small two-year-old is, like my two-year-old daughter is, with my phone. She understands how a phone is supposed to work, even though she can't even really have a conversation.

But she's seen me use my phone. She's seen my wife use my phone. think it's so insane to think that particularly at that developmental state at that age that their entire reality is just mirroring of other action and if you do one action over and over again you know but but you would but you would need like you would need incredible hand-eye coordination like the kid still has to be coordinated he has no idea if the kid's gonna be coordinated you know like it's just it's crazy that this kid who he was doing this with also had this incredible hand-eye coordination. Cause they talk about later in the book, like he's playing that, you know, Navy SEALs and he's doing like deep, deep sea diving and stuff like that. And he can do anything. The guy wants to teach him

how to spearfish. And he's like, I can do this. Immediately becomes a spearfisher. Yeah. All right. Anyway, back to the thing. The thing I was thinking with those three options, though, this is the thing I want to, because I brought this up to my brother-in-law, big golfer. He agreed with you. He said injuries. I've talked to a few other people. They say injuries.

But, you know, the more I think about this, I mean, despite the fact that even the book basically suggests that injuries are really the thing that brought him down. I do wonder, though, if the scandal itself took away his biggest edge, which was mental. And the fact that he seemed to feel as though he was unbeatable and that translated and was palpable to all the other players. Because the fact of the matter is there are guys now, many young players who can hit it farther than he could and straighter. You had Mike Frances on, he was saying this, you know, it's like there's a whole handful of those guys. And yet part of me believes if this scandal had never happened, the injuries have occurred, but you know,

so he's physically still depleted. But if he had the same sort of mind he had, I still think he would win majors. Not with the dominance he once did, but I think that because there was this idea that, like, especially in these big tournaments where if it was going into Sunday and he was within striking distance, it was just over. And that wasn't just for him that was for everyone around him so I do wonder if like you know like there's a lot of people talk about could he win another major and in my mind it's like well possibly the British Open because the weather's so crazy there it could be a situation where it's just everyone's sort of under the same level of pressure yeah but now the pressure for him is situation where it's just everyone's sort of under the same level of pressure.

But now the pressure for him is so different. It's just, it's a strange deal. You know, did you feel sympathy for Tiger as you read this book? No, I actually didn't because I felt like he was so rude to so many people over the course of his life that it just feels like he was able to get away with anything, treat people however he wanted. Didn't really seem to have any remorse at all. And after you read 200 plus pages of that, it's hard to feel sorry for somebody. But going back to what you said about the mental edge, I remember I wrote a column, I think in 2010, about how hard I thought his comeback was going to be. And I compared it to Ali in the same, you know, how when Ali had that sabbatical of four plus years and he had to come back from that. And we were always amazed that Ali was able to come back from that.

And the question was whether this was actually going to be harder. And I remember a lot of people got mad about that column. The whole reasoning behind the column was that he had been so... What were they mad about? What was the central thing they had with the problem? What problem? It was basically, don't bring Ali into this. And how dare you bring in Ali? Ali's the greatest athlete we've ever had. This is a guy who had a sex addiction, and of course he's going to be able to come back. Were basically the main themes. My, my thing was, I thought it was basically what you just said,

the way he carried himself and the arrogance and the confidence. And just, that was such part of the tiger mystique. Like he, and the book goes into that. It was very Jordan-esque. He always wanted to be people he would play. He'd be paired up with somebody in the final 18 and wouldn't talk to the person, wouldn't say good shot. Like he just wanted to kill everybody. He wanted to destroy everybody. And then in his personal life, kind of the same thing. He just wanted to conquer.

He just wanted to have sex with whoever he wanted to have sex with. And there's a couple kind of semi-disturbing details of him meeting cocktail waitresses and pulling them into closets. And it was just kind of his attitude. And once everything flipped for him in his life, it seemed like he never was able to kind of get that back. And it was all part of the same package, you know? well, I thought, is this book does a pretty good job of illustrating sort of sex addiction in a way I guess I've never really read before. I mean, I guess I'm not surprised that sex addiction is not related so much to sex and

all these other things, but the way they describe it, I think it's pretty lucid. Like they did a good job on that aspect as well, because it could have been sort of, you know, it could have been just kind of described as like some kind of compulsion. But it really was integrated to his whole personality. Yes. His relationship to his father, his relationship to success and winning, the value of things, the value of people. And kind of conquering, being like, oh, there's that girl over there. I'd like to invite her over to my table. I'm going to have my way with her later.

And then I'm going to go out and I'm going to shoot a 67. And that was his mentality. And then we didn't even talk about the Navy SEALs part, which not a lot of us even really knew how extensive it was until Ray Thompson's piece a couple of years ago. all the time to deciding that he was fascinated by the Navy SEALs to actually training with the Navy SEALs and doing hypothetical missions and going all in and doing, and, and at one point wondering whether he should become a Navy SEAL and the cutoff was 28 and he was older than 28. But I was reading this. I was like, wow, this was actually kind of crazy. It's pretty weird. It's a pretty weird thing to think that... I don't know. It's like...

Because the book suggests that this idea of him becoming a Navy SEAL was something that he was relatively serious about. Like he maybe hadn't thought it all the way through, but it wasn't something he was saying like, Oh, I should, you know, like he was as serious as that as Jordan was about playing baseball.

Yeah. That if, that it seems if the Navy SEALs have said like, Hey, you know what? For two years, you can be a Navy SEAL and then go back to your life. I think he might've done it.

Yeah. It seemed like he felt at one point he was at this fork in the road with it. It was like, well, I could keep being the greatest golfer of all time, or I could really pursue this Navy SEAL thing. It's like, what are you talking about? You're making a hundred million dollars a year. It was very strange. And then on top of it, and I knew this part, but it really banged it home was all that training and he's just banging up his body and he's putting on a ton of muscle. There was a point in 05, 06 when he just started getting really buff in like a late 90s baseball kind of way. And, you know, I think the Navy SEALs played part of it, but the book does a good job of detailing how this probably messed up his swing long-term. It put too much pressure

on his tendons and on his knees and all these other things. And, you know, I would argue if we were saying, what are the reasons this didn't work out for him and that he couldn't carry it in this decade? It seems like all the weight he put on his body has to be a bigger factor than the injuries, right? Because he seemed like he should have been the skinny guy. He shouldn't have been this big, buff, huge guy with all these muscles. It wasn't what he was meant to be. It's an interesting thing. Really, up until probably 1985 or 1990, there was that belief about lifting weights and playing basketball.

You didn't want to lift weights too much, or you only wanted to do lower body weights because it would impact your shot. Now, nobody believed that at all. That seems to be totally untrue. But maybe in golf, because it's more nuanced and the room for error is less, maybe there is a real danger in getting too big. I don't know. I don't know enough about golf or weight training to say that,

but it's an interesting idea. I was shocked when I went to the Masters how kind of secretly huge these guys are. They're not like linebacker huge. They're not weightlifter huge or professional wrestler huge, but they're all like these, these dudes that are definitely like they fit in the golf shirt and they're, and they are tight. You know, they, there's a couple of guys that weren't in shape, but for the most part, these dudes are,

Rory McIlroy is like a big guy. I was surprised. And I think Tiger in 2005, 2006, that was probably part of the intimidation for him. It's like, you're playing Tiger last round. This is like, this dude could also kick my ass, which I think he, which he probably thrived on. Hold on. We got to do, we got to take a quick break to talk about Google Assistant. With Google Assistant, you can complete over a million actions on your phone, in your car, around the house. It's perfect for movie night. It's perfect for whatever you want to do.

It's perfect probably for Portland, Oregon, Chuck. You could just be in that little guest house in the back of your house, and you could just be like, Google Assistant, should I shower today? Google Assistant will help you when you're in the bunker. You're in the bunker a lot, right? Yeah, I spend about half the day in the bunker. I got to do other things. I got to mow the lawn, stuff like that.

You know, get out there. It can't help you mow the lawn. It can tell you what the weather is. It can tell you when the biggest movie coming out. It can tell you if the Blazers fired their coach. Are people going nuts about the Blazers right now? They must be losing their minds. Well, you know, I'm glad you brought that up.

It doesn't seem like it just because, well, A, I don't interact with that many people on a day-to-day basis, but B, people aren't crazy about sports here the way they are in other places. Right. But I'm glad you brought this up because I was – I got to finish saying goodbye to Google. All you have to do is, like, say you want to go to a movie, you can get movie info and show times directly from your assistant.

All you have to do is say, hey, Google, what movies are playing? And that's it. So download the Google Assistant today. Do you want to put a bow on the Tiger Woods thing or do you want to move on to Portland? I had a couple more Tiger Woods thoughts. Okay, well, let's have the thoughts and then I'll go to the thing I want to move on to Portland? I had a couple more Tiger Woods thoughts. Okay, well, let's have the thoughts, and then I'll go to the thing I want to talk about.

Do you think Tiger Woods read this book? Yes. I think he did, too. What do you think his reaction was after he finished it? Because if I read this book and it was about myself and the first 350 pages were about what an asshole I was, I would be like, wow. I knew it was bad, but I didn't realize like,

man, this book made some great points about the 27 different times that I just completely cut somebody out of my life without warning. Because that's a recurring theme of the book. And I think he learned it from his dad of just like when he was done with somebody, they were out just like,

Oh, you're my lawyer. You did something like, I'm never talking to you again. You're done. And he just did that over and over again. I really wonder if he read that and went, wow,

I need, need to work on some shit. I mean, what I assume is it's just a macro version of the way. I think most people react to being written about, myself included. Yeah. You go through the whole thing and you say, that's not how it was. That's not exactly what it was like.

Oh, you justify it. That's not what I meant. You just go through the whole thing and everything seems slightly off every time. Like, I mean, you've had many features written about you. Have you ever had a feature written about you where at some point in the story, you didn't feel like that is an inaccurate description of what I was saying?

It happens every... It always happens. And I've seen it with a book like this. Yeah, the Grantland coverage for me was the most amazing. That was one where I was like, am I in an alternate universe? Because I actually knew what had happened and what all the facts were. And then you read some of the stuff that people are like, wow, that's not even close to what happened.

That's amazing. So I'm guessing he feels the same way. I'm guessing that, that, you know, he'll go through these things and they'll say like, you know, there's that whole section where he starts hooking up with that waitress at the, uh, like at the diner near his house or whatever. He probably reads that. I mean, I have no idea. The one thing that's amazing about this, having read this huge book about him, I still don't know what he's really like.

I think it's impossible to know what he's really like. So I'm just kind of imagining this fictional idea in my mind of what I think Tiger Woods has, you know, what his personality is. But he's probably like, that's not really true. She kind of came on to me. It wasn't, you know, I did like her a little bit. I didn't do that. You know, it's like all these things

that, I bet just the way this is reported and you read the appendix and all that shit, it's like it would be pretty hard for him to go like, they just made this up. I'm sure everything in there is some version of reality or the Bill Clinton thing, okay? Like the Bill Clinton

thing I mentioned earlier. He would probably be like, I was joking when I said that. And you know, I checked my phone once during the conversation. That happened one time and it was like, you know, and when he kind of you know, and uh when when he kind of you know at one point clinton is kind of monologuing as clinton did about certain certain things and

like tiger says how do you remember all that shit you know it makes it kind of seem like a real petulant person but maybe he's like that was a compliment yeah you know it's like uh that's what my assumption is and another part of him you I mean, here's a great part. There's one part late in the book. I think it's Mark O'Meara is asked about Tiger Woods. And O'Meara knows him well, and he's a very, very diplomatic answer. Like, well, you know, he has good days and he has bad days. It doesn't really say anything that Tiger Woods told him.

And then six hours later, Tiger like text him saying, I love you, but don't talk about me like that. And he's like, well, he went out of his way to say nothing. What's he supposed to do? Hit the reporter when he asked him the question? Yeah, you're right. There is probably like a little line in between like, oh, that cocktail waitress, it wasn't in the electrical closet when we did it,

it was by the dumpster. But I'm sure like, I'm sure there were pieces of truth in everything. And some of the stuff like, there's no, some of the stuff is black or white. Like Marco Mira has a dinner and Tiger didn't show up. Or this guy had a, Denzel had a dinner and Tiger didn't show up and didn't have an excuse and didn't show up. Or this guy had a, Denzel had a dinner and Tiger didn't

show up and didn't have an excuse and didn't really care. Like he, he was probably the most narcissistic dude. And I think he was built that way. And there is some only child stuff. And I always worry about that with myself as an only child, you know, you're taught that the world revolves around you from an early age. He went a whole other level with how his parents did it. His dad's taking him on talk shows when he's two and three years old and saying he's going to change golf and he's a golf prodigy. Yeah. Well,

I'm almost, almost literally saying the world does revolve around. Yeah. Yeah. Change the, you know, like, so it's not a projection on his part.

It's like, you know, here was one thing that I was kind of interested in. Okay. So Tiger wins that first masters and this is the beginning of the Clinton stuff. Clinton invites him to go to this, like, celebration of Jackie Robinson with Jackie Robinson's widow. Yeah. And Tiger, like, blows him off, doesn't go.

And he's like, he should have asked me before I won. And he goes he wanted to go to Mexico with his friend, so he went. Now, here's an interesting detail. The authors seem to talk to every person who had any interaction with Tiger throughout their life. Yeah. But they don't talk to these guys he went to Mexico with. I'm guessing they decline the opportunity because if I'm writing this book, I would be very curious as to what he was doing in Mexico as a 19-year-old. So there's this kind of belief or a sense around Wood that he has no friends, really. But yet, these guys are his friends, and close enough friends that they didn we see from the outside.

Because if you're part of his world, you can't interface with anybody else, you know, like, like maybe he, and I mean, it's like, well,

like he's friends with Glenn Fry or rugged Glenn Fry. Yeah. That was weird. Like, like that is odd. I don't, I wonder what their relationship was just, it was just a, like, was it almost like a like a business relationship where they just sort of talk about how do you deal with success?

Like, what else do they have in common? Maybe they were going out chasing women. Tiger Woods listened to the Eagles. It doesn't seem like he'd listen to the Eagles. I don't even know what music he would listen to. He probably listens to, like, Navy SEAL video game music. That was the next thing I was going to bring you up about his friends. So he had this network, you know, where if he met, he's out at a club with his friends

in like Vegas and meet some girl. And then she joins the spider, Tiger Spiderweb and becomes like in his rotating cast of ladies. But then his friends are setting up some of the stuff and things are going through them and they're paying for the plane tickets through like one of his buddies is paying for it. So there's no strings attached to tiger. And I'm thinking like, man, I don't, I, I have some good friends. I don't know any friend I have who this would be part of their day. Like it'd be like, Hey, Joe house,

that cocktail waitress we met at the Crab House, can you arrange for her to fly her to Memphis for me? And Joe House is just going to do it and pay for it? Like, that's crazy. Who does that? That's true. But tell me this. Tell me this.

Okay. Think about your life in 2006 or 2007, the level of success you had at that point. Okay. What if you had had that success at 20? Oh, I think that was the thing that some of the friends that you use on podcasts who are sort of adult friends of yours now and are reasonable people who would have also been 19 or 20.

Yeah. They have played a role in your life that these guys played for tiger. Oh, a hundred percent,000 million percent. I was just more amazed that he kind of had this little team, almost like you would have a group of agents that represent you in business or you would have a coaching staff. He kind of had a team to help him get laid.

This is part of these guys. These guys all had good... These guys went to... One of them went to Stanford. These guys had real jobs. How in their spare time did they be like, hold on, I got to cancel that 11 o'clock meeting. I've got to arrange for this cocktail waitress to fly from Memphis to Canada. It's ludicrous.

These guys were in their 30s. But yeah, that was the third thing I was going to bring up was all this stuff happened to him when he was so young. And we just see this over and over and over again and over and over and over again with celebrities where if they hit a certain level of fame and success too early, it's almost hopeless. And that's why the last time we talked, we talked about how NBA players, how kind of sophisticated they are now and how for some reason it's not happening with NBA players. But then you read this Tiger book and you're like, man, somebody just has almost no chance when all this is going on before a certain age, which goes back to the whole thing of LeBron, who has been picked apart really this whole century for very minor stuff, but for the most part has handled his business as well as we ever could have imagined in a million years, right?

Yeah, there was something. It was something about, I guess, the culture of the 90s, because I remember this being a problem of Allen Iverson, that he supposedly had all his friends living with him. I think that there was this period during the 90s when the belief was a young professional athlete deserves to have agency over his life. So that, you know, it was the progressive thinking at the time was you got to let these people be who they are. You know, they're adults, they're making this money. And, it's sort of swung back a little bit. It's like, well, we give them agency.

They can say whatever they want, but we want to control this experience. And as a consequence, they seem much more mature. Here's something else. We're just talking about the NBA that I really wanted to ask you about. I'm curious. Are we done with Tiger? That's it?

I had like one more thing. Okay, let's go. Go back. Let's finish the Tiger. IMG's relationship with him and the way they governed his life and almost acted like the mafia for him in a lot of ways. I was shocked by that.

By specifically a story I knew, but just reading in the context of how they treated everybody and bullied people for 10 solid years. But then in 2007, when the national choir finally gets this cocktail waitress, that's going to rat on tiger and they follow her and the pictures and all this stuff. And then IMG swings a deal with Golf Digest, which was like a sister company. I know. And gets the story killed in return for this 12-page Roy Johnson feature about Tiger for Golf Digest. I'm like, oh my God, you always hear that this stuff happens, but this actually happened. This stuff confirmed a lot of, you know, I love to be a conspiracy bill,

but reading this book confirmed a lot of conspiracies know, I love to be a conspiracy bill, but reading this book confirmed a lot of like conspiracies. I'm like, oh, this doesn't add up. I bet this happened. And then you read something like that and you're like, oh, this stuff does happen. I'm not crazy. That's it. That was my last thing on tiger. Well, no, it is.

And you, I've known people who've worked for like kind of tabloid celebrity publications yeah and they would often describe not i mean that this situation was real blatant it's like we're going to ruin your life or you're going to give us this puff piece yeah then you do the puff piece and it's like things like that did happen i mean it's trying to think if i was like when i was at ben if there was ever a situation like that i i don't, I mean, we didn't have as much leverage. We didn't have leverage over anybody, I guess. So it never really happened.

But yeah, I mean, there's this whole newspapers that would never happen. Like in newspapers, you consciously do the opposite. There's this whole, this whole celebrity world of where agents of favor trading for stories and people pretending to date for a couple months to promote a movie and people who are secretly gay agreeing to have a beard girlfriend for a year. And you hear all this stuff and it's definitely a big part of the internet and gossip culture and all that stuff. But it does seem like it's true and it happens. And there's a reason. It is one of those where there's smoke, there's fire.

And this just confirmed to me, like, the ease that they did this favor trade for this Golf Digest thing. I was, like, blown away by that just reading how it was laid out. I was like, wow. This is incredible. Your superficial reaction always is like,

well, boy, it's like some, you know, cover story for a golf magazine that's, like, worth a's like some, you know, cover story for a Gulf magazine that's like worth a fraction of this, you know, this rumor. But it's sort of the idea of getting involved with a con artist. They always have that. Like, we didn't use it this time, but it's not like it disappeared. We can always go back to it.

So you're making a deal. He thinks he's killing the story, and he is in the short term. But the next time it happens, it comes up again. So you really have the leverage when you're the publication because you can't erase the event. You can only stop it from being in the news right now. My last Tiger question, then we'll move on, is do you think I mean, I was at the Masters,

and people loved Tiger way more than any other golfer that was there. It wasn't even close. It was like, it felt like half the people at the tournament were just following him from hole to hole. And it was just an incredible, incredible amount of affection and love and respect for this guy. And yet, you read this book, and he's not a good guy. And maybe he's a better guy now.

Maybe he's fought through some demons, but the way he behaved for a prolonged period of time makes you think like, why did he resonate with people like this? And why does he still resonate with people like this? I have my own answer, but I wanted to see what you thought on that. It's a tough one because it doesn't make sense.

It seems as though he should be a despised figure and for lots of different reasons, but he isn't, he's still clearly the most popular golfer. I guess my assumption, and this is no brilliant thing, but was that the gap between him and every other golfer when he was at his apex was so profound, more than Jordan. I mean, more than, you know, it's like there was just, you know, that it almost seemed as though the sport and him were interchangeable. Like, I've made this example in other things, like the way like John Philip Sousa is with marching, like it's the same thing.

And Tiger's position that he occupies in the world of golf is almost like, well, if you care about golf, you have to care about him. And his success is so important to the sport itself. I mean, I don't know. I mean, I'm like, this is, I would, I'm basically just saying is his greatness was so great that it seems to transcend.

Any behavior. Yeah. I think that's fair. I, it's funny that they have such a connection with them. Cause like when we were at the par three, Nicholas was there and Nicholas is my favorite golfer ever. But also seemed like a great guy

from really you never hear bad Jack Nicholas stories. Seems like a huge family guy and his grandson had a hole in one that day and Nicholas's reaction that he was so overjoyed and thrilled by it even in the moment. You just tell he's just this

old guy now who's his great-grandfather. The sports century about him. Remember when ESPN was doing all those sports centuries? The stuff about Nicholas in that is so... It's impossible not to like him. He just... He does seem like a real good person.

Arnold Palmer, he... If I recall... good person. All right. Like Arnold Palmer. Uh, he, yeah, he, if I recall, mixed, mixed, mixed reports on Arnold.

Yeah. But I, I want to do a 30 for 30 back in the day on the 86 masters. And it just, we could never get it together. Um, but one of the things I loved about it was that his son was the caddy, you know,

and it was just like, that was who Jack Nicholas was. But,. But I do think people miss having something that's truly great in their lives, which is why with Tiger, even though there's no chance he ever hits those heights again, it's still even like the 0.01% potential of it is what's driving people, the 86 masters potential of what he's doing. It was the same thing when Jordan came back for the Wizards, when he was just a totally different player, and his body was really broken down at that point. And people wanted it to happen so bad.

And it'll be interesting. The only thing I was going to say, it was going to be interesting. I don't know when LeBron's going to hit this point in his career because he's still so powerful and invincible and always seems like the most imposing guy in any game that he's in. But at some point, there's going to be an older LeBron. There's going to be an era

that he hits when everybody's going to be rooting for him. And I don't know when that's going to be. It even happened to Kobe. I never thought in a million years it would happen to him and it did. Another thing about Tiger, I think that made it, you know, it made it different. This is kind of, it might seem condescending.

I'm not trying to be condescending when I say this, but like, I think for a lot of casual fans, they like to be able to have the exact same knowledge as an expert and it's really possible you know it was very you know the kind of person who doesn't follow golf at all i mean i really don't follow golf at all but when tiger woods was apex it was very easy to say well i know who the best golfer is in the same way that someone on television or someone in the newspaper or somebody, there is almost like a, it's reassuring when somebody is clearly the best, because it makes everyone a kind of expert.

They all know when they're watching this thing who the best individual is. Jordan was like that too. Yeah, there's a natural hierarchy that goes into place. All right, we're done with Tiger. Taking a quick break. Come back in a second. Amazon Music is the simplest way to listen to the music you love. Discover tens of millions of songs, including the hottest new releases.

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over the course of two weeks every episode of the first season. So if you want to catch up with that and then dive up into the recapitals, go ahead. Knock yourself out. All right. Back to Chuck. All right. We're back. All right. NBA, what do you want to talk about? Okay. Well, I want to know something.

I'm curious if now you are willing to retract or rescind the many dismissive negative things you've said about Rondo over the last five years. Wait a second, when did I become anti-Rondo? What's happening right now? Many times. One of the little guys listening to this podcast is going to go through a super cut of all the podcasts where Rondo's name has come up. And you have...

One time I brought him up, you openly scoffed. Well, here's what happened. I loved Rondo. Rondo, his last year or so at the Celtics, started chasing assists and playing differently. And a little bit of the same problem I have with Westbrook the last couple of years, where the numbers were kind of driving how he played.

And then he started bouncing around. He wasn't a great teammate. He didn't play defense for a couple of years. It wasn't until last year in the Bulls and the playoffs and down the stretch last year that he started to look like the old Rondo again. I forgot to mention Dallas too. I always felt

like there was a version of whatever he's doing now that was in there. I think that was the most frustrating thing about Rondo. He said it. He had some crazy quote he was talking about. He has five levels. Did you hear this? I didn't. He said,

he said right now he's at his fourth level and he insinuated that there's one more level, but he, and then he said he saves it for the finals. And it's like, what are you talking about? What? There's five levels of Rondo,

but he basically admitted like, yeah, I, I, I, I, apparently there's a world-class connect four player. Yes.

In the finals, he plays Connect 5. There's like one more piece he drops in and there's five diagonals in a row. I'm just saying, it became very common from you, from other people, to sort of almost, when Rondo would come up in the conversation,

you'd almost laugh. Like, oh, you're still talking about this guy or whatever. It seemed like he was washed up. I think it was fair. Well, but clearly he wasn't. So you need to retract that claim. I'm not retracting anything. I can't make me do anything. Cause you, you say it seemed like he was washed up. I bet there is a point in the past where you said he's washed up.

The team was removed. There was two that there might be, I don he's washed up. The team was removed. There was two. There might be. I don't know. But there was two things going on. One was he didn't play defense anymore. And two, the league was changing.

And I think people got caught up in the whole thing where your point guard has to shoot. The spacing and all that stuff. I think the thing that I underestimated with him is he's one of those people who needs to be around other great players. I think Davis, he kind of found a soulmate. And if you read the stuff and listen to this stuff and like him and Davis are really close now and that, and the Pelicans have kind of become Rondo's team.

I think. Well, although I think he's closer actually with cousin. Cause he, he's close to love him saying that him. Yeah. Yeah. He loves all of them. But I think, I think he's closer actually with Cousins. He's close to a lot of them. Yeah, he loves all of them. But I think Davis is the best player he's ever played with, which is saying something because he played with Garnett and Pierce and Allen.

And those guys really brought something great out of him. And as soon as that team kind of petered out and he was just around a bunch of average guys, his game changed and he wasn't as interested. And if you're talking about the five levels of Rondo, he's probably a level one or level two. I think playing with Davis and seeing how great that guy is day to day, and Davis is the best player in the league right now. I mean, that's like the one thing that's happened around one is Davis is the best player in the league. You can throw LeBron, you can throw

Durant, whatever. What he's doing on both ends is at the highest level anybody's doing right now. I think Rondo really looks at this guy like, wow, I have a second chance. The alley-oops and the little way they look at each other for a split second and then something happens,

he's just found somebody that's on his level. I think it's really invigorating. Rondo just runs the whole game in a way. I just don't see that. Like he runs the game and he doesn't have the ball. It's amazing to me. I just, I think he's now extended to maybe my fourth favorite player all time.

Yeah. It's like watching the quarterback. I just love watching him play. Well, you know, he's the crazy thing about Rondo is how young he is. I think he's like 31. He's 31 or 32. He's definitely-

Yeah, he only went to Kentucky one year. And I think he may have graduated high school early because he was a grade A student in high school. So, I mean, there was always, I know the Celtics felt like he had like genius things about him, like with basketball. Like he was almost like, almost one of those people who's so smart for their own good. And maybe as he's getting older, maybe he's learned how to kind of harness that stuff. But the reason why the Pelicans, I don't think this Portland series is a fluke. And I think they can go toe-to-toe with Golden State next time. I don't know if they're going to win. But their best four guys are all playing great, and they play really well together.

And that counts. Okay, so here's the thing I kind of want to lead into. So, okay, I'm watching the Pelicans, and it just... So, Cousins is probably, I would say, the second best center in the league and the best true center. Like, back to the basket, he's the best option. But it's just clear. They're better without him.

You know, the game has changed in a way where having two big guys on the floor like that is not as good as having a smaller lineup. It's real intriguing that this has changed so much. Well, wait. There's a second piece to that, though. Part of the reason this is happening is because Davis is finally playing center and embracing it. This is something he wouldn't do.

He just never really bought into the first few years because the way the game has changed, he's literally the most perfect person you could ever put at the five position with how basketball is played now. You can't ask for a better... You'd go into a

laboratory and come out with this person. Better than Embiid, you think? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Because you can go fast, you can go slow. He can play any style. And defensively, he's the best player in the league right now.

I wanted to vote for him for Defensive Player of the Year, but it really was only the last three months that he did this. But the way he's blowing up screens with, and just has completely destroyed their guards. It's just not common. But I think like the cousins injury kind of forced him to play there. And now everybody realizes like, Oh, of course you should have been playing there.

And I don't know what they do with cousins because they were playing well before he got hurt. That team was, I, we did a podcast, I think with the week before, not you and me, but I think, I think it was being house. because they were playing well before he got hurt. That team was, we did a podcast, I think, the week before, not you and me,

but I think it was being asked. And I was saying like, I think the Pelicans are kind of like dangerous. They have two of the best 12 players in the league. They're a problem. But when Cousins got hurt, it just seemed like it was over.

And obviously, now I don't know. Well, if you take Cousins out and there's those shots left and they go to Holiday. Yeah, they go to Holiday and they go, and they go to, he's take Cousins out and there's those shots left and they go to Holiday. Yeah, they go to Holiday and they go, and they go to,

he's a good two-way player and it's, yeah. And Meritage, you know, is kind of, Cousins had become a little more of a stretch guy

as a center and was taking more threes and stuff, but Meritage is the, you know, the ultimate version of that, especially when he's playing hard. I'm with you on,

though, giving more shots to Holiday. And I think the other thing is, you know, Cousins of that, especially when he's playing hard. I'm with you on the, give him more shots to holiday. And I think the other thing is, you know, cousins is a handful. He's a really up and down guy. You got to manage him during a game and he gets mad at refs. And he, some of that stuff I do think rubs off on teammates. And now it seems like just a happier, more competitive team, which isn't totally fair to say that about cousins,

but it's just the reality. He's, he's a handful game to game, and they don't have to deal with that anymore. I would say right now, maybe you might disagree with this, I have a feeling you'll agree. Discounting the players, just the game itself, the way pro basketball is now, I would say this is the best it's ever been from an entertainment standpoint. The way the basketball is now, I would say this is the best it's ever been from an entertainment standpoint.

The way the game is played is the most entertaining way it's ever been. Do you agree or disagree? I think this comes in waves. I think that 92, 93 was really good and holds up to what we're watching now. It's really about the talent more than anything. There's just a lot of talent right now.

But this is the thing that transcends it. Okay. So in 92 or 93, wouldn't it have been awesome to watch those teams play the way teams play now? Wouldn't it have been awesome in the eighties to watch those teams play this way now? If bird was taking 14 threes a game and the Lakers, wouldn't that, wouldn't that have been better? I mean, I think the way the game is played now has never been better.

I think that it has sort of amplified the importance of skill over physicality in a way that I wouldn't have anticipated. So then here's kind of the thing, the next question. So should the league basically say, okay, let's try to keep this static. Let's keep this the way it is. Or should they even go further? Should the game be moved in a direction where the current trajectory keeps going and that skills are even a bigger deal?

Because it feels like to me that in a few years, it's going to be very difficult for a traditional or one of these guys where they can do all these things. And now the question becomes, is it like, should that be promoted or should we kind of just like hit the brakes? So a couple of things that are good that are going on. One is everybody is in shape and their heads are on straight. And there's just no drama anymore with any of these guys. You know, you mentioned the 90s earlier. The 90s was just filled with drama and people not reaching their potential and people having issues and all that stuff.

And they've settled that part. And they also just are in a talent boom right now. They just had four, they had like I think four drafts in a row at some point where they just a bunch of great guys came into the league and they're riding that too. And then the style now that people have been playing this way for a few years, they're kind of used to how to play it. Remember the watershed moment for me was 04. Because I really do think like, if you go back and watch 92, 93, those games are super entertaining.

And there were three pointpoint shooting and there was like a nice mix. And the biggest thing was the pace and the pace of the way they were playing those couple of years. It's a faster pace now, but it's in the ballpark. But if you remember 04 in the Olympics, when we got our asses kicked and everybody looked at the team we sent out and how they played. And it was kind of this come to Jesus moment. Like, wow, Argentina, they had one third of the talent we have, but they just played better. How do we do that?

How do we get there? And every move they made over the next five, six, seven years was to try to move the league toward that. And it worked. And now we're here. And I think that's what really helped. I think there's more non-American players in the league that kind of helps.

And it just seems like every team has the Bellinelli or the Dragic and those guys have a certain style. But yeah, I think it's going to get better and better. And to answer your question, I still think there's a place for post-play. If you watch game two of the Buckss Celtics last night or two nights ago, that's the reason the Celtics won is because they took Greg Monroe and they took Al Horford and the Bucs had a pretty small lineup where they just

didn't have a lot of size and they bully balled them. They pounded them and they basically flipped basketball back to what it was when we were growing up, and it worked. And I still think that works if you have a smart coach and players who have the ability to do that. I think that's always going to work. Well, that did happen also in that series. I don't know if it was last year or two years ago

when it was the Thunder and the Warriors, and the Warriors ended up winning. But the Thunder almost won kind of because of Adam. So maybe it's possible. I was in the bar last night. I had to go out and do something, so I was watching the end of the Sixers and the Heat game, and it

was just like a... It's the third quarter from the fourth quarter. It just... It's really dynamic to watch, but it does not seem to involve playing with your back to the basket at all. Like it just not part of it. It's like, there's more,

you know, and it seems like this is, this is sort of in a way I like the fact that it's rewarding. The, you know, the more skilled guys, but then part of me is also like, well,

you know, what about some kid who's like in sixth grade and he's a foot and a half taller than all his you know his classmates and he's real uncoordinated at least that kid could think maybe i'll make the nba what does that kid dream about now i mean you know like a guy like john conkack you know he he'll never, he'll never make, you know, those guys won't exist, you know, like, or, you know, like could Sean Bradley even play for BYU now? I'm not sure he could. I went to, I went super early to the Celtic game on, cause I was there on Tuesday and I like watching the guys warm up and we went

and Tatum was shooting and we were just watching Tatum shoot threes effortlessly around the arc and just making most of them. And you just realize like, this is a guy who's been shooting threes since he was eight, who's now six foot nine and is meant to do this. But the other guy that was shooting with him was Aaron Baines. And Aaron Baines was practicing like corner threes. He wasn't practicing any post up moves at all. He wasn't practicing footwork on the low post, jump hooks, any of that stuff. He was shooting corner threes. And he was making a lot of them.

And the friend that I was with, we were just looking at it going, wow, this is 2018. You've got Aaron Baines 25 feet from the basket. That's where he's practicing. And that's kind of where we are. I do think it would be smart to widen the court by 18 inches or two feet on each side. But I remember Silver, I asked him about that when I interviewed him, and he basically said, like, that's a problem for arenas. Like, that's not going to happen. Right, but you just said how much you love basketball right now.

Why would you want to change the court? Well, because I wonder if the things that I'm loving about it now should be sort of promoted. And my thing is like, okay, so now big guys have to be able to shoot the three. That's just part of the game for them. What if big guys also had to really handle the ball what if what if we made the game in a way that that now it wasn't enough to just be you know like someone like porzingis has to put it on the floor i guess you kind of can but you know uh well the most interesting idea i've heard with this is if you cap three-pointers during a game like you do in softball with the home runs, where it's like you can only shoot like 28. You shoot seven a quarter.

That's it. Everything else has to be. Well, I'm just saying if you wanted to make it so it wasn't a three-point contest, you get 28 threes and that's it. The thing is, it would be one thing if they were shooting trees and making 28% of them. They're making 40% of them. So it's like it's not – I don't feel as though it is, you know, making it hard to watch. I mean, if you watch a high school game and everyone's shooting trees and no one's making them, it's very kind of embarrassing and you feel weird for the kids or whatever.

But that doesn't happen at the pros. I guess in game two of the Pacers-Cavs series, the Cavs could not hit any shots. They just could not make any threes. Maybe it was game one. I'm not sure. Game one. Part of me was like, they got to switch things up. But another part of me is like, well, logically, if these guys are 35% three-point shooters and they've missed eight in a row, doesn't math suggest they should keep shooting? They're not going to miss forever. You know what I'm shocked by with, with,

with how, like when we were growing up, everybody, you had these guys who had weird shots, right? Like Jamal Wilkes, remember? And,

and Vinnie Johnson. And they were even somebody like McHale. They, they, Bird had a weird shot. All of these guys had. Like Bernard King shot on the way up. He didn't shoot the top jump.

It was kind of an odd thing. So you see somebody like Lou Williams now, who I think is one of the most unique guys we have. And one of the reasons he's so effective is when he drives to the basket, he does those floaters. He shoots it before the people realize he's going to shoot. It's almost like pre-floater.

He's shooting it from his groin area and it's going up. But I was thinking with the way everybody shoots now, it's almost like pre floater. He's shooting it from like his groin area and it's going up. But, but I was thinking like with the way everybody shoots now, everybody's got such perfect form and they, whether they learned it at AAU or wherever from like age eight, nine, 10, there's no like homemade jump shots anymore.

It would seem to make sense that the shooting would just continue to get better. Right. I mean, there's no, there's no uncoached players anymore. No. I mean, you'll feel like Luke Walton will say this, that he thinks that AAU has hurt basketball, and his argument is not because of the style of play of that.

He's like, well, if you play on the playground, you have to win in order to stay on the court, so that makes that the most important thing where an AAU, it's not like that. Their mentality is not really associated with winning. I think another factor though, is that it, you look, somebody who plays outside,

you know, in these games all the time, you're going to kind of build your game on its own. Like somebody like Walter Berry, for example, it's impossible to imagine a player like that emerging. Now a left-handed player who only goes left and his main move is to grab the ball and immediately spin around twice and then

out-jump the guy. Nobody would do that. Somebody would stop that when he's not. By the way, you just described Michael Beasley. No, Michael Beasley. He's more accomplished than Walter Berry. You're right. Like guys who, they were like one of a kind guys when we were growing up that it was like, wow, I'll never see a jump shot like that again. Or I'll never see somebody who does that again. And now the one of a kind people are more because of their bodies than anything, right? It's like we saw Giannis on, you know, this is the third time I've seen him,

but he's just ludicrous. And it's funny, I was talking to somebody who works for the Celtics about how they could have taken him and they passed on him. One of the reasons they passed on him was because if you watch the videos from back then, he's like out of YMCA. But one of the crucial points with Giannis,

which I feel like doesn't get brought up enough, is he grew three and a half inches after the Bucks drafted him. He went from like six, eight and a half to seven feet after they drafted him. It was like, I have no idea why. And it's not really a common thing for that to happen, but that's why the draft

is so stupid. How the fuck do you know? How could we ever criticize anyone with a draft when somebody drafts somebody 15 and they grow three and a half inches? Well, the other thing was he played against no one though. He was playing against middle

aged dudes. We're entering this Google Assistant coin flip thing we're going to do. What I thought was we'd each pick a subject we'd want to talk about. And we'll have Google Assistant do a coin flip. Because it would be too arduous for one of us to actually flip a quarter. I'd rather just have Google Assistant do it for us. Okay.

So what's yours going to be? I always love talking about the NFL draft with you, and the NFL draft is next week, so that would be my topic. What is your topic? Well, you know, I kind of want to talk about this Wild Wild Country documentary I watch, but you haven't seen it yet, and I feel like that would kind of throw us off balance.

Well, maybe we can rig this Google Assistant. By the way, with Google Assistant, you can put over a million actions on your phone or your car around the house. It's perfect for things like, what should we talk about next on a podcast? Let's flip a coin. Google, flip a coin for us, please. All right. You got tails. Oh, it's going to be heads.

Oh, it looks like we're talking about the NFL draft. You can do your wild, wild country at the end. Well, that's just my recommendation for all your loyal listeners. If you want to watch something great, watch this documentary, Wild, Wild Country, on Netflix. It's about a cult in Oregon from the early, like, late 70s, early 80s, it's probably the best, the clearest illustration of the inner workings of an institution that's consciously trying to separate itself from the rest of society. And I remember learning about it when I, you know, I was in, like, a religion class in

college, but I did not realize that they were also poisoning people. So it's a really great thing, and the music in this is great. It's an incredibly successful documentary series. I would recommend Killing Eve. That's one of my favorite shows in a while. Yeah, I like the Hitman slash serial killer. I think she's really good.

Do you still watch The Challenger now? You know, I dropped out. Oh, man. I know. I know. What am I going to drop out? I kind of thought I got to a point in my life where I was like, you know, I've followed this for so long.

I'm just going to keep doing it. And that has happened with the TV show Survivor. I still do watch that. Yeah, I love Survivor. But at some point, the real world disappeared from my life. And then the challenges. And because I wrote about that 15 years ago, people will still ask me questions about it. Oh, gosh.

But I just, I'm out. I'm out of that. Survivor, what would be your move? If you showed up on Survivor, what would be your move? Do you tell people you're a writer? You just say, I'm a writer? What do you say? What's your job?

Well, you know, guys who are like lawyers and cops, they always try, they always think it's going to somehow skew the perception. I think that what I, you know, if I was on the show, I mean, I'm just, I mean, I can't live outside, but like, so I would just be awful. I would want them to get rid of me um i i i think that i mean i the game had kind of moved in this direction where instead of alliances it was sort of like every tribal council is a completely new thing like they're like there are no relationships that extend and I think that is a smarter way to play. Yeah. I don't know. I, I, I, my theory has always been, you got to lie to everybody except one person. You have to have one person you're truthful with.

I like everyone else you lie to. That's just how it works. I think you have to lie. You have to lie the whole time. I, here's what I wouldn't do. First of all, I'd be in trouble because I have contact lenses. I don't know how lie the whole time. Here's what I wouldn't do. First of all, I'd be in trouble because I have contact lenses. I don't know how that works in Survivor.

They've never really expanded on that. I hate being outside for that. I would hate living outside. I don't like being cold. I just wouldn't have a good time. I'm like you, I'd want to get voted out. But the person I don't get is the person who wanders around all day looking for an immunity idol i i would go crazy that's the to me that's like the seventh circle

of hell you're just you're in this giant forest giant island whatever the hell and you're just kind of trying to find a needle in a haystack. And I'm convinced that they push the people toward it. I know the producers must help them with this. They must. But it's not a needle in a haystack, though. When Russell, that little stocky weirdo Russell played, he was the first person who came to what I always thought. I never voiced it, but I always thought to myself,

if there's immunity idols hidden, the place that is hidden needs to be able to be explained in a clue. In other words, there's got to be something in the clue that makes it clear where this would be. So you would basically go around looking at the forest the way the producers would. That's interesting. If I was going to hide something and then describe where it is what would i do and you know and now there's so many idols in the game that it's almost it's it's you know the it had got you know there was the initial survivor that everyone watched and then almost everybody quit watching and only a few people kept on like me and you i guess and during that

interim the game dramatically improved because it went from being this show about oh this person's a trucker this person is you know it's like this person is a lesbian this person is we have all these little characteristics that disappeared and it was pure strategy yeah well now there's so much strategy that like i don't even remember who the people are right like They've gone too far. I feel like I did that podcast with Jeff Crose. I feel like I should do one again just to tell him what things went wrong with the show. Settle down.

Let's go to the NFL draft, though. Yeah, let's end on this. Let's talk about that. Yeah, this will be our last big topic. I've been following the draft for a long time. I feel like I have some opinions on the NFL draft, even though I don't really watch college football that intently. And I'm almost like absorbing all the information that people are giving me and then making my own determinations from it. This one is particularly great because there's a lot of quarterbacks. I think there's five that could end up being, you know, a top five quarterback, but we know that all five aren't going to make it.

We know we might go two for five or three for five. We know the jets are involved. So whatever they end up with, it's going to end up badly for them. I would, I would guess. We'll kill it. And we know the Browns are involved in the they end up with it's going to end up badly for them I would guess and we know the Browns are involved and the Browns it always ends up badly

and then there's the Giants who have probably more fans than any other fan base and I know like somehow this is going to work out for them and I'm just looking at it I'm trying to figure out who would I like who would I take and I need your opinion give me your rank, first

of all. First, the one you would actually, the order in which you would draft, and then maybe a list of how much you like them, personal preference. Okay. So almost like devoid from how well you actually think they're going to do.

Who do you have won among the quarterbacks? First of all, thank you for asking. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I like Josh Allen the most. I like him the most too, but I feel like that's almost a recipe for a huge blunder. I know. That's why it's fun to go. Yeah.

I mean, how, how can you like, and I know that the Browns are leaning in that direction. And you know, I, sometimes, you know,

especially when he was a junior, he played a game against Boise state. And, uh, I was, we, I was texting with people and like, we were like,

he looks like Brett Favre or John Elway or something. This is amazing. And then as a senior, he didn't play that much. I think he only threw for like 1,700 yards, and his completion percentage was not that great. Granted, he's playing with guys from Wyoming. The thing is, even though I like him the best in many ways, it just seems like an insane thing to take a guy who has worse stats against weaker competition

than the other players. Yeah. I met him at this party at the Masters and talked to him for a while. And I was really kind of impressed by him from a personality standpoint, because as we discussed 100,000 times, I do think personality and charisma and just the ability to connect with other people is the biggest part of that job. It really is. And just watching him interact with people that day, I was like, wow, this guy's got something. It's the same thing like you meet Aaron Rodgers or Brady or Breeze. These guys have a certain something that's hard to...

I don't know how that comes in. I'd say the second biggest thing because Russell or whatever doesn't look like that charismatic guy who teammates are still, but he seems... He was that first year though. That was one of the reasons I picked him

to go to the Super Bowl was all the stories from training camp was like what a charismatic guy he was. I think he's gotten a little weird. He has seemed to get a little weird. I think you reach a point when we're talking about first-round QBs, I think they're all around the same with talent. You're not going to find somebody that's just like, wow, that guy is 100 times more talented than anybody else.

This is a no brainer that happens once a decade. Especially when you're picking first overall and you have these guys who are kind of close. If I was the Brown, I would take Barkley and then with the five pick or the four pick, whatever quarterbacks left, someone's going to be left and someone will have made the decision for you. But okay. So you have Alan one.

Who do you have to? Yeah. I like Alan because like, so I'm picking for the Browns, right? I want somebody who I know isn't going to melt down. Somebody who can handle people. And I'm making the bet on the person as much as the QB.

And I'm putting that person in a situation where he's in Cleveland and they got their team back in 19. Yeah. They got their team back in 1999. And it's been a shit show. The last four years in Wyoming. So going to Cleveland is not going to seem like some kind of penalty. I mean, it's like, you know, if you're in a kind of a very rural area, I say this from experience, it's like the rest of the country, you don't go like, oh, I could never live in Sacramento or whatever. They all like good places to live, you know?

It'll be like, I love the challenge. So I have him one. Everyone's going to make fun of me for this, but I have Jackson too. I know he won't go in the top five, but I think he's going to be really good. I'm still, this feels to me exactly like Deshaun Watson last year, all over again. The reasons that he's dropping and people are picking him apart don't seem to be good reasons to me. Like his mom says agent,

they can't schedule meetings with him. Like I, Okay. Like on my personal preference scale, I have him one. He is my favorite of these five guys. Um, it does a little bit make me nervous that you won't even run the 40 at his press day because the thing is everyone knows he's the fastest quarterback, but you want to see that and you want to see that, and

you want to see that he appreciates that fact, that he realizes this thing is not a detriment. Also, now, was this a ringer story, or was this somewhere else, where somebody was sort of making this kind of counterintuitive argument? It's like, people are outraged that they're trying to move Lamar Jackson to a different position, but maybe we should do this more often with lots of guys. Because it does seem

as though he could play multiple positions. I understand why he wants to be a quarterback and is offended by accusations that he couldn't be, particularly since he's a very good passer with a very strong arm. It's ridiculous. We need quarterbacks. We're going to move him away from quarterbacks?

We have eight quarterbacks in the whole league. It's ludicrous. The other thing is, he produced, he's really good. What if he just doesn't like this process or respect it? What if he's just like, I'm good. Fuck you guys. I'm not running the 40.

I'm fast. I'm going to have my mom as my agent. I don't feel like talking to you. And this, of course, completely contradicts what I said about Josh Allen, about how I liked how he handled his business. But I think Jackson might be special. And it seems like people are looking for reasons to say he's not going to be special. And I don't understand it.

Yeah. I mean, it was, you know, the year he won the Heisman, he was just, it was amazing. Okay. And he comes back the next year and he's no less amazing. But because it's just so weird because Deshaun Watson played so well in the national championship game against Alabama, there was a belief that he was clearly the best player in college football that year. Therefore, Lamar Jackson got worse in people's eyes. It doesn't say it's idiotic. I listen. It's crazy. It was like the thing we were talking about Westbrook and Harden last time.

It makes no sense. It's like they're not the same person. They're not connected in any way. So I would, yeah, I, and you know, he is 6'3", so he's like this idea that he was too short. I think maybe one guy built pull-ins of that or something. Well, they said he's too skinny, right? They're worried about him taking a pounding because he's

just not big enough. I think that's a concern which I get because these guys land on your shoulder, separate your shoulder, all that stuff. I still like... I'll say this. He's a pretty hard guy to hit. If you watch him play, he does not get

rocked very often, man. He is real, but okay. So you have him too. Who do you have three? I mean, kind of have a wild card kind of one too. I bet now we'll three be, be the kid from Oklahoma because this is kind of fit in line with your thinking. I feel like.

I just want, I want you to know that the Simmons family is extremely focused on the Patriots getting Jackson, the entire family, dad, me, son, everyone. We're all ready. We're ready for the Brady succession plan.

My number three would be Josh Rosen. Okay. I think he's another guy who's dropped for reasons I don't really understand. It's like, yeah, he cares about more than football. Wow.

We don't know how, we don't know if he's football, football, football. It's like, what are you guys talking about? So he's going to do charity work in the off season? These are reasons? All right, just keep going. Darn old, I thought, in college, too many turnovers. That just makes me nervous. The things I don't like about quarterbacks are accuracy, turnovers.

Are you going to completely melt down Johnny Manziel style? Or are you like a weirdo? Or are you going to be able to connect with your teammates? Those are like the red flag things. And the last one, and why Baker Mayfield, fifth, is not only is he small, but he's got small hands. I just read this article today about comparing him and his size to Breeze and Wilson.

Breeze and Wilson were shorter, but Wilson's an incredible athlete and had huge hands. Who was the last guy that they talked about his hand being too small? I don't know who. That was the knock on Goff. But Goff's 6'3", or 6'4". This is the combination of... Height doesn't make your hands bigger.

I don't know if the small hands is that big of a deal. I don't see the Baker Mayfield thing. This feels Tebow-ish to me a little bit. Where the guy was great in college and everybody wants it to happen but I just remember I bet on Oklahoma in the championship game or the

semifinals they lost on semis right and he had the ball with two minutes left and it really did it only seemed like he could throw a couple types of passes he didn't seem like he had the full arsenal of I can do all of these different things on this last drive he really couldn't he didn't seem like he had the full arsenal of,

I can do all of these different things on this last drive. He really couldn't. That was my takeaway. Yeah. That's, I mean, the game, the pro game and the college game are pretty different now.

And so sometimes I feel like it's hard to look at a guy in college and say, he can do this or he can't do that. It's, I'm not always sure that translates the thing about mayfield is i don't really i have a lot of kind of he was probably my least favorite college football player in a long time i really did not like him as a i just had for stupid reasons but i wasn't a fan of his um but he's a great runner it almost seems like he should be the guy they're talking about moving position right like it seems like he should be the guy they're talking about moving position. Right.

It seems like he could be a player who you could use, because a lot of teams only carry two quarterbacks. So you have him on, he's a tailback, who can be an emergency quarterback, who can be a slot receiver, and who just seems like he'd cover kickoff. Like he'd be the perfect Patriot. Yeah, he'd be an awesome patriot. Belichick would use him five ways.

That he wants to, you know, that he would be kind of open to that, maybe in a way that Jackson would not, because I think that, and it's not totally justified, I think Lamar Jackson is like, if I had these exact same skills as a white guy, they would say he's Steve Young. And like you know he might be first he might be picked first overall you know and and i'm not

sure that's true but it might be true and i'm certain he feels that way so the idea of moving him positions almost like goes back to the you know oh this is you know there's there's always been college quarterbacks who got moved to different positions. I mean, there's like a long tradition of that, like Nolan Cromwell for the Rams. Yeah. He was the option quarterback for Nebraska

and became one of the best strong safeties or free safeties ever. I like that our, two things I like here. One is I like that our lists are relatively similar, even though you watch way more college football than I do. I also like the fact that, is I like that our lists are relatively similar, even though you watch way more college football than I do. I also like the fact that,

and this is why I think the NFL draft is so much fun. Quarterbacks, it's 50-50, might even be 40-60 for whether people are right or not. It's never changed. There's never been any way to figure it out. We have no idea if we're right with this. I do actually feel like, I think Jackson's gonna be, I think Allen's a safer bet,

but I think Jackson's going to be really good. And I think people are making a mistake with this. He's kind of like, both those guys, they kind of do feel like an all or nothing pick. And the question is when you're drafting at this card in the draft, do you want that?

If you're drafting late, an all-or-nothing guy is great. And the other thing we should mention, though. If I was actually... Two things we should mention. We might not necessarily be right or wrong because so much of this depends on where these guys go and what that situation is. And then also, somebody going much later than they thought and doing the chip on their shoulder.

Nobody believes in this thing. But like, I look at Baker Mayfield. I'm like, if he goes to the Jets, I almost feel like he has no chance. You know, but if he like fell to the 17th pick and went to the right situation, I would be more excited to him. But man, you go to the Jets. All of these guys, I feel like if they go to the Jets, they're kind of screwed. Josh Rosen might be the only one where he might. He's such a strange guy.

He might be able to handle it. My personal preference list with the guys I like the most is Jackson 1 and Allen 2. And then Rosen and Darnold, I don't know, they're almost the same to me. And Mayfield's fifth. If I was actually drafting them, if I was in one of these

war rooms, and they were saying, who should we take? I would take Rosen. I think that he has, I think that in many ways, well, I mean, for the Browns, to be honest. You'd take Rosen one? Well, I mean, for the Browns.

You'd take Rose in one? Well, I think if you're going to take... I told you what I'd do is I would take Barkley if I was the Browns. And then I would take whatever quarterback that I like the most is left at four. But if, say, the Browns only had one pick, and it was the first overall pick yeah and somebody said of these guys who do you think uh is uh you know in some ways the safest bet to be a very good starting quarterback i think because of his intelligence and his sort of the combination of his intelligence and his body that rosen is probably the best of those prospects. Um,

if, if, if the thing is we can't fuck up, well, you know, it's like, right. So Rosen has the most, we got to have a guy.

Yeah. Yeah. He's, I think that that's gotta be, I mean, I'm sure I don't read a ton of draft coverage, but I've got to believe that that is the comparison people keep making. Cause there's something,

even the way that even just the way they talk in public, that reminds me of Rodgers. They did a video where Rodgers was teaching him stuff. It's a really good video, actually. It's like seven minutes. And it almost seems like they're related. The demeanor they have and the way they talk, it's like Rodgers is staring

into a mirror at his younger self, how he handles himself. Alright, so let's say I think the Browns are going to take Allen, number one. I think the Giants take Darnold at two, which makes sense because they've already had an incredible amount of success with

a turnover-prone QB who has a dumb look on his face. I think that's the perfect pick for them. Number three, Jets. They should take Josh Rosen. They won't. They're going to take Baker Mayfield and it's going to be hilarious. No, I think they'll take Rosen.

You think they'll take Rosen? I think they're going to take Mayfield. I think it's going to be hilarious. I think Mayfield's going to drop. I think Mayfield's going to drop down a ways. I think it's very possible that Jackson goes before Mayfield. Well, if Rosen goes to the jets, that's great. I want Rosen in New York. I have a lot of Jewish

sports fans in my life. They're all fired up for him. I have a lot of New Yorkers in my life. I have Jewish New York sports fans in my life. They'd be so in. They'd be all in. He can do no wrong. That would be great. And then Barkley to the Browns at four. If they end up with a quarterback and Barkley, but some people are saying they should take Chubb, that he'd be number one in any other year. Well, there are some people who say the difference

between Barkley and Chubb is not that great, that they're real close. I think what is going to happen is if the Browns will take Allen one, and I think the Giants will then take Barkley. And I know that Frances is like, oh, they love Darnold, and he's a can't miss and all this. But I think that you look at a guy, Barkley seems to be, even though he plays a position that's not really a priority anymore,

he is probably the most talented player for his position in the draft. There's a guard for Notre Dame, too, but I can't gauge. I'm not Robert Mays. I can't gauge if these guys, how dominant they are. When I watch football, I watch the ball, basically. I don't really spend a lot of time seeing what guys are cut blocking or I don't know

so I have no insight on that outside of what other people say you know with Barkley though I do wonder as football becomes less and less violent as the years go on that it's almost like an NBA thing where the NBA, the sport changed and certain guys became more valuable.

Maybe somebody like Barkley becomes even more valuable as the league starts to shift to this kind of touch football pro bowl model that we're clearly headed for. Maybe Barkley's like unstoppable in that scenario. You know, well, you know, that's an interesting thought to anticipate. If they manage to change the game rule-wise enough that you're almost forced to run the ball. Because, I mean, here's one rule change that I can totally see happening, the NFL adopting.

I can see them saying saying no more three-point stances you cannot put your hand on the ground pre-snap yeah so everyone you know now if they do that um uh in for a lot of teams i mean a lot of tackles don't seem to get down in a three-point stance anymore anyways but like but the defense would be up that way too and if they did that there would be uh you know a sudden emphasis again on the running game because they would just be able to find these holes and do all this stuff. The thing is, if you're drafting Barkley with this kind of vision in mind, you've got to hope this rule changes in four years because running backs don't last very long.

That to me is the other thing. Running backs seem interchangeable, but they also have just no lifespan in a way. I can't, what's it comparable to? I mean, like, there's that, in what other sport is there a position that the lifespan seems to be half of every other player on the court or field?

Baseball closer. Gymnastics, maybe. Baseball closer. Gymnastics maybe? Baseball closer. The baseball closer is it's like four to seven years and you're just out. See, I think what's going to happen... I think what's going to happen is I think Denver and the Giants are going to switch spots. And I think

the Giants will be totally happy with Chubb and Barkley and they're going to ride Eli into his mid-40s. And that's how it's going to play out. That would be my prediction. Where do you think Brian's going to end up? Does it matter? He felt like a raven to me because he's kind of

he's not washed up yet, but he kind of seems raven-y, this physical receiver who can't really get open anymore. And then they sign them and they realize five games in that he's a terrible fit for Joe Flacco. Cause he, cause Joe Flacco can only throw deep.

But I feel like you're right about his inability to get open the way he used to. But what if he goes to green Bay or new Orleans with a quarterback and put the ball in with such high accuracy that his physicality kind of comes back into play. I think he could still really contribute to a team like that. Yeah, I actually

think Philly would be a good team for him too. My guess is he seems like he's being spiteful about the whole thing so he's going to stay in the NFC and try to come back and haunt Dallas but I didn't think he did a great job last year. Hey, we have to go. It's 11 o'clock Pacific time.

Chuck Klosterman, plug something. I got nothing to plug. That's it. Nothing to plug. Wow. What a sad day. That's it. Nothing.

Nothing to plug. No. Twitter. Want to plug your Twitter account? Why? At C Klosterman. I don't know. What? Want to plug your Twitter account? Why? At C. Klosterman? I don't know. What the fuck would I do that for?

Plug the Rayjean Rondo fan club? Well, yeah. I mean, plug Rondo. Yeah. Sort of like it. You know what? Here's what I'm promoting. The Pelicans orange uniform.

They look great. Love that. I didn't know I was going to enjoy this Pelicans renaissance as much as I did. I've been watching them for the last couple months. They were one of my league pass go-to teams because Davis was just so

flat out amazing. I've become attached to Drew Holiday now. I was going into the playoffs ready to be like, I'm part of the Blazers system now I live out here but then every time I watch them against the Pelicans and I'm like

I like the Pelicans enjoy the draft enjoy the playoffs thanks as always for coming on talk to you soon thanks to ZipRecruiter the smartest way to hire my listeners can try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com smartest way to hire. My listeners can try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash BS.

Don't forget about the recapables. Our Westworld feed is out. Subscribe now. Don't forget about the Ringer NBA show. Sunday nights where we're taping these and putting them up, and they're up in your mailbox on Monday morning. A lot of people listen on Monday. It was great.

Don't forget about theRinger.com all weekend if anything crazy happens with basketball. Don't forget to root for the Celtics. I'd really like to see them sweep. I can't believe what's going on. We don't have our two best players. And that's it. A lot of good stuff coming next week, including

our old friends, Desus and Mero. That's coming for you early next week. Be ready for that. Don't think I'm not going to bring up how well the Red Sox are doing tonight. Until then,

enjoy the weekend. I don't have feelings within On the wayside I'm a person never lost I don't have feelings within