The Bill Simmons Podcast - Embiid vs. Simmons, Scorched Flat Earth, Magic's Tweets, and Throne Game With Ryen Russillo and Joe House | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Episode Date: May 8, 2019

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons sits down with Joe House and Ryen Russillo to talk 76ers-Raptors, Joel Embiid's inconsistency, Ben Simmons's struggles, and what the 76ers might look like next season. They also talk Warriors-Rockets—including Eric Gordon's impact and the Warriors' depleted bench—Celtics-Bucks, and more (2:45). Then they answer some mailbag questions and guess Magic Johnson tweets (1:08:00), before revisiting Throne Game with Ryen [SPOILERS] for 'Game of Thrones' Season 8, Episode 4 (1:30:35). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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as well as The Ringer Podcast Network, where we had even just today, so many fun podcasts up. Movies, basketball, Thrones, The Bachelor, golf, fairway rolling, all types of topics. We got something for everybody. Check it out, the Ringer Podcast Network.

And check out our show, Talk the Thrones, which is on after Game of Thrones on Twitter. Hashtag Talk the Thrones. Two more Sunday nights, Mallory and Jason. More importantly, two more Sunday nights for Throne Game, which we did Sunday night without Rosillo. Me and House did it.

But now Rosillo's here tonight. We're going to do Throne Game again at the end. We're going to get his take. Yeah, I'm ready to go. It's like the NFL draft when somebody just wasn't on ESPN for the draft, but comes in two days later with like some killer points. Yeah. It's like vacation radio.

Like I remember being in Boston and the guy would take a week off and then he'd be like, you know, Derek blue blue. I just, can we talk about when Derek low blew the save on Monday? We're like, it's Tuesday of next week. Right. Yeah. Uh, so that's going to happen. Uh, coming up houses for 50th birthday weekend continues.

Or week. I just had a milkshake. I'm a little groggy. Month and year. You've done three, four, five podcasts at this point? We're just doing podcasts. We're eating. We're playing golf.

And we're drinking. That's it until the end of 2019. There we go. We're going to talk about basketball and a whole bunch of other things. But first, our friends from Tic Tac and Melatonin. All right. We are taping this. It is 9.19 p.m. Pacific time. We are going to wait until after the Portland Denver game.

Right now, Denver is up by 25 points. Tonight was a bust. We could have taped this podcast four hours ago and probably would have been as successful. See, this is what I feared. You guys are both watching TV. I knew this was going to be a mistake. I'm ready to go.

Here's the hot take. Yeah. Home court matters. Yeah. Hot take. Why? Game five, usually I feel like are more competitive than two blowouts.

So the blowouts happen for different reasons. I think Denver just has too many answers. And as the series is going along, they really could have obviously won any of the overtimes in the quadruple overtime game. They blew like three of those. And then they've won two legitimately, and now they're going to be up 3-2.

The series could be over if one play goes differently in the quadruple overtime. True, but I feel like that's really that whole game. Why it was so good was if somebody got up four, then it was going to be a correction. Like, somebody was going to find a way to get it tied up again. Nobody was really going to get

to stretch it out that much. And I'm trying not to do that thing, though, where, you know, the game one reactions, how do you feel? Oh, my gosh. And the way we want to reclassify every star in this game, we're like, is Giannis really that good?

And you're like, oh, wait a minute. Yeah, I guess he is. Why can't Portland win game six at home? As bad as this looks tonight. They could. They could at 23s. I just think Denver's too big for them. Now, there's... The size thing is, as the series has gone on, the size thing has become a bigger and a bigger

and a bigger advantage for them. The best thing that's happened, though, for Denver is that Jamal Murray is somebody now it looks like you can count on, where in the beginning of that Spurs series, you go, okay, well, this is how Denver loses. Jamal Murray's a disaster, can't hit any shots. He had the last nine points in like three-plus minutes in the beginning of that Spurs series you go okay well this is how Denver loses Jamal Murray's a disaster can't hit any shots he had the last nine points in like three plus minutes in the first half he got cooking and then you know something we've all sat here and noticed

too like Gary Harris is a really important player for Denver defensively because of these two guards you're gonna have to chase around the whole time biggest winners of the playoffs he's on the list house for sure absolutely I mean the the switch that we talked about it sometime this week, we've done somebody NBA podcast, but the switch that Mike Malone made to put him on Derek white, change that Spurs series. And here we are now Denver's going to be one game away from playing in the Western conference finals. They did a couple of, they put Yoko John Aminu a little bit in this game so that he basically didn't have to play defense, which I enjoyed.

It feels like, I mean, Mike Malone has more answers because he has more, I think, players who could play in a playoff game. But at the same time, I think he's done a pretty good job in this series. I don't think he's the greatest coach, but he's solid. It's not like crazy to me that he's the coach of a conference

finalist. No, I don't. Yeah, I don't. I don't. We've had some conference finals coaches that were like, wow, that guy got in there. Hey, look, there's seven columnists out there that think Boogie would be all first team NBA if Mike Malone hadn't left. So, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of Malone fans out there. I think he's a good coach, but I think Stotts is a good coach too. Just because a team loses a series here doesn't mean the other guy sucks. Yeah. Although, wait a minute. Did I just go right at your MO?

Because you tend to think the coaches suck, right? No. It's like prove to me you're a good coach is my mentality with coaching. All right. Prove to me, make some moves. I always like what Stotts does during the regular season i like the stuff they run so that's that's why i've always liked well it's interesting right now brett brown let's go into philly first brett brown is gonna be a scapegoat and i think if philly loses this series in six or seven i think

that's probably it for brett brown and i think the crows have been circling for a few months the the consensus seems to be not a very good coach not a bad coach not a very good coach but i really honestly have no idea because i think that's a really weird sixers team i haven't been like blown away by his coaching but i also you know i i wonder like who could have coached the team that they have which is how quirky it is it's a hard one quirky Quirky feels so polite. This thing now, we just went one for the thumb with Embiid and excuses for things that he's, you know, the debilitating injuries and illnesses

that he's been suffering through, fighting through this entire series. And, you know, the challenge for that entire organization is if he shows up energized and locked in and focused, he looks like he's the second best player in the Eastern Conference and capable of taking the Sixers to the finals. And when he's not in that frame of mind and that physical state, they lose by 35 points to the Raptors. So you're saying he's inconsistent. That's my thesis.

That's my thesis. Look, I have nights where I think he's even better than what you said. I look at him going, this guy might be the best player in the league. And the whole point of this Sixers roster is that if he has the bad game, which all of these guys do, by the way,

except for Durant and Kawhi right now. But if you really think about how we talk about stars, it makes me appreciate LeBron even more looking what's happened to some of these stars during the playoffs. You're like, oh, look at this guy. This guy's off night. Off night for LeBron was 28-10-10 and just a bad shooting night. Yeah, LeBron would always get to his 27-8-8. Always, always. Especially in the playoffs. So when Embiid has something that's far below that, it's like, wait a minute, how good is this guy

and all these different things? I'm not really going to knock him a ton, even though, you know, it just makes me laugh. He and Jimmy Butler sitting up there a couple weeks ago making 3-1 jokes about the Warriors, and it's like, hey, are you guys not going to get out of the second round again? Because you guys have never sniffed the third round.

And look, that's more on Jimmy because he's been playing longer. But Jimmy's supposed to go off. And then you're watching this game going, oh, wait, is this going to be the game where Jimmy's like, all right, well, Simmons, you're going to take five fucking shots tonight. So you're out and Tobias can't hit anything. So now it's Jimmy ISO time. And that actually can be scary, but it was great in what game too. So I'm not going to sit here and tell you brett brown's this great coach that that that you know will unlock this at some point but i don't know what you you do with these guys collectively because there are certain nights

where it looks like it really works but if indeed isn't going to get going one of the other supposed stars of these four have to carry him and it it wasn't even close tonight. You said that one of the names, though, to me, it's Tobias. Oh, all right. Well, Simmons, I think, is just done. You've given up on him? Yeah. I mean, he had more turnovers than made shots tonight.

I don't want to keep... By now, it feels gratuitous to keep keeping on Simmons. Hold the Simmons point for a second, because there's an Embiid big picture point. These guys talk a lot of shit, Embiid. And it's a lot of chest pumping when things are going well. Kyrie is like that too. Just in general, it seems to be something that goes on in the league now

where when things are going well they're the first this is gonna screw up the dynamic because everybody's favorite part well maybe not everybody's but some enjoy when you're in a thought and i throw it you say you sneak and now house is gonna be like wait a minute what because it was funny. I'm going to give you credit for it. Sorry. No, I was saying that these guys, when things are going well, they're the first person to tell you how well things are going and how good they are. And it seems so much more dramatic to me than when the flip side happens. You have a game like tonight.

It's like, hey, Joel, where are all the barbs? And where's all the prancing around? And where's all the all the barbs? And where's all the prancing around? And where's all the nobody can stop me? And where's all the like bullying Andre Drummond? You know, I think part of being a really good basketball player or even a great basketball player is the consistency, like you were talking about before. And when you're as inconsistent as Simmons is and as Embiid is,

and FYI, as Kyrie, as the leader of a team, how inconsistent he's been this whole season. It's like you wanted to come to Boston, you wanted to be the guy, and then you just aren't able to be the guy consistently. Then I don't want to hear how great you are. Because to me, the consistency is the first thing with greatness.

Durant is great because he's always really good. Game after game, he gets good shots. He plays at a certain intensity, and that's what makes him special. And that's what he talked about. The first podcast I ever did with him, we asked him, how many points did you score in a game? And he was like, I don't know. I scored 66 in Rucker Park once.

But he's like, I don't care about points. I'd rather score like 30 plus for five straight weeks than go for 75 in a game. And that's just what he cares about, the day-to-day, week-to-week of it, which I think LeBron is wired like that too. My point is, I don't think Joel Embiid is thinking that way. I think he's thinking, I'm really good. Two weeks ago, I killed Hassan Whiteside. It's like, yeah, part of being really good is you had to show up tonight.

And maybe you don't feel that good, but sorry, man. It's the NBA. Chuck was mad tonight at halftime of the Sixers game. He was. And he went at Embiid. And I think what you're talking about, it's a maturity thing with Embiid. I mean, he has... That was the end of the game, wasn't it? After the game? It was both. He was really

mad about Embiid looking at the stat sheet. The stat sheet, I saw that part. Yeah, he was mad that Embiid was looking at the stat sheet while they were being benched. They're down 30 at that point of the game. Right. But there's a maturity thing that you're talking about. Did that bother you though, the stat sheet thing? Because I know it's going to be a big deal. I don't care about that.

That'll be a segment maker at some point. Yeah, it's coming up. I'll tell you why. It didn't bother me because he's probably looking at the stat sheet at everybody's stats. It's not like he's looking at his stats.

He's probably looking at, like, how many assists did we have? How many turnovers did we have? I don't think he's just like, how did I do? There's all sorts of stuff you can get to. I don't think he was like,, how did I do? There's, there's all sorts of stuff you can get to that. I don't think he was like, Oh sweet.

I still had double digit rebounds. Like I think they were looking at it going, we sucked. I don't, I don't know that I'm as day, like there's stuff that, but I'm just not as down on him is like, I just say his name in the same sentence as Simmons.

I think that's disrespectful to Embiid, but Brett Brown, if you ask, if you ask around the league, everybody had, I think that's disrespectful to Embiid. But Brett Brown, if you ask around the league, everybody had said this. Brett's a perfect developmental guy at the beginning. He went through all that crap. We're half the team. We're Hoyas that shouldn't be in the NBA. And I think in a world of sports and business where the right thing to do isn't as always the thing that's done, I felt like the right thing to do was to let them actually get to play with the toys that they had acquired but there are people around the league that go you know there's there's a little to be desired there especially with some of the offensive stuff late game but i i'd love to know if they

bring back all these pieces who could coach it who's supposed to figure that out and make it look awesome because the simmons thing i i would i would love for mike conley to be on the team and simmons can go develop into whatever he's supposed to be in memphis because i think it'd be i'm not saying it's but interesting wouldn't you say yes to that if you were memphis well yeah because mike conley makes like 32 million dollars a year yeah actually philly, what, 150 million and five guys. So maybe that won't work. But just something like that, though. Well, so House and I talked about Simmons on Sunday night,

and we gave our take. So what's your take? Because he's only 22 years old. I just don't think he improved by even 1% from a year ago, which I think is really kind of alarming. Because he's played in a bunch of playoff games now. And it actually seems like he's more of a liability after his 26th playoff game or 25th

or however many he's played than he was in that first series a year ago. I think I've been consistent on this in that, yeah, I know like in that first game against Brooklyn where you go, oh, what is this guy's problem? And then we start, you know, taking the knives out and then he has a big game and you're like yeah you're capable of having a game you're capable of going to end and to be aggressive he was terrible tonight and he wasn't aggressive on top of everything else so i i was talking to

somebody the other day and they go well you know if he develops a shot be like you know what if i started walking around la looking like thor my life would be fucking different too. There's no way Simmons all of a sudden is going to start having this amazing shot. I don't care how often he's taking a practice. It's clear he's afraid to even do it. He doesn't even want to do it. Nevermind. That's being an adult. That's being serious about your profession. You know, all of us chasing our careers early in our, in, in, in our early days, trying to figure out who, who we were going to be in our professions. The one thing that you know, you could do is work your ass off and he can't play in half court basketball and the playoffs are half court basketball.

He can't play in the fourth quarter when it's half court basketball. And there's a monster who's as good around the hoop as anybody that's in his way. And I constantly see those guys running their guys into each other. And it's, you know, I, if I wanted to be really nice about it, I'd say there's a ton of hope for Simmons. He'll develop the shot, you know, always so young, fine, go ahead. I wish I could bet on it. Okay. Cause I'd make money. But if you want to be super positive about it, I think that those two, as I've always said, I think they're actually a really bad roster fit for each other too.

Yeah, we've felt that way for a couple years and there's just been no evidence that they're not a bad roster. I mean, they only won 50 games this year. 51. 51 and 31, right? Embiid was a top 10 guy. I voted for him for,

I think I voted for him for first team on the, you were going back and forth with Yoko on that. I voted Yoko third MVP, but I put Embiid as I think, I can't remember, but I had him in the top 10 and Simmons was an all-star. Yeah. So,

but he's popular. Like Simmons is, is all-star vote popular. Yeah. But I mean, cause when it's awesome awesome it's really awesome and it's fun to watch they were in a week conference and it certainly is week now too it certainly isn't a combo i think the east is it certainly isn't a combo that uh inspires a lot of oh my god those guys are great together can't remember saying that really that often over the last few years.

They've kind of coexisted, right? No, one that was good was when, you know, Embiid would run and Simmons would run and, you know, the secondary runner, you know, they were staggered almost, right? Like one guy would be five to 10 feet ahead of the other guy and they're both really good passers. And then the other guy would make this cut because you know like say Simmons was backed

up on the baseline the defenders would go to him and Embiid would keep running all the way through and then Simmons would they could both do with that with each other and it was it's awesome but that's not you're not you can't run that play not in the playoffs and Embiid isn't in shape for it right now whatever's going on with him physically. Charks had a really good piece today about him. And a big part of the piece was about Embiid's conditioning. And he included this YouTube clip of Embiid in Kansas. It's a highlight clip.

And you can read the article that Charks wrote. It's on The Ringer. And it's this thing. And I was like shocked by Embiid because this isn't like 1998, this clip. No, it's five years ago, right? Five years ago. And he's built like Kevin Garnett. He's built like Kevin Garnett circa like 2003 in the Timberwolves, just tall, lean, athletic. And I'm going to be honest, I don't, I'm not positive. I would have known it was him if I didn't go to the clip and it didn't say Joel unbeaten the headline. Cause he's got a shaved head too. I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have necessarily known

it was him. That's how different he looks. So he's put on, I would say 60 to 65 pounds. And that you, I think you want to say more. You really do. I don't know. I never know with the 7'3 guys. I just don't. You lose 30 pounds and you don't even. Because somebody told me Yao Ming's like 450 pounds now

and I'm like, sure. That sounds okay. I just have no context. He's a good 450 though. It's a proportional 450. It'd be 7'6", 450. You want a great weight stat? I heard Vlad Guerrero Jr.'s 270.

Oh, yeah. That's been going around. Two. Yeah. He carries it pretty good. Oh, he looks great. Yeah. But the Embiid thing,

the dieting is obviously an issue. I thought he looked tired during the Celtics series last year. It seemed like the third, fourth quarters, he was really, really heaving. I can see it in person at the games. This year, it looks even worse. He's had all these weird ailments. I think the Sixers fans are, they're not mad at him, but it seems like from all the Sixers

fans I have in my life, they just seem, I guess, confused would be the word I would use. Maybe he has a really bad lingering knee injury and they've just mentioned these other things and maybe everything's okay. I think he's looked tired for two years. So I've just accepted it because I've seen him look exhausted, grabbing on the shorts, dripping sweat. They stagger his minutes kind of in a very odd way in the fourth quarter. And Brett was trying to constantly separate Tobias.

Well, I don't know why I pronounce it that way I like it Tobias Tobias and Butler and then Simmons and Embiid like he would try to figure out different ways to stack these guys but then I'd still see games where I'm like oh he's so tired and then he'd score like 11 straight points to close out a game and win it so I still want to sit here and say that I love him and then I don't necessarily still think he's the problem although here's the deal it's a very easy formula when you're gonna fuck with everybody else and call out everybody and make jokes and troll the shit out of people sometimes people that have done more than you've ever done it's gonna come back on you no one no one cares when you're winning he's the engine I

mean it is fair he's it yeah he's it that's right their fortune so you're more down on him than I am I think that's what I'm doing only in the sense Only in the sense that I think the tendonitis was an issue at the All-Star break. And that if he was serious and the franchise was serious, smart franchises do their best to recognize how important their most important players are. And they try and have a game plan coming up to the postseason. Because the postseason is all that matters. It's all that matters. And he suffered from the tendonitis. I don't think the All-Star break, him participating in all the All-Star stuff, was helpful to him.

They started resting him immediately over the last 20-some games. And it's been a lingering issue on into the playoffs now. And part of Barkley's point and the criticism that Chuck advanced tonight was that the body language of Embiid affects the rest of his team. If he's out there slumping around and it looks like he's half-stepping, I don't think it's a half-step effort. It's just he's physically lumbering up and down. It's a good point. The energy that he carries half-stepping. I don't think it's a half-step effort. It's just he's physically lumbering up and down. That's a good point. The energy that he carries, good or bad.

I think Kyrie is like that. I'm trying to think of the one time he's had good energy. Hold on. You guys, just do your Kyrie thing. Hold on, I need three more seconds. Oh, I got it. Uncle Drew from here? A month ago, there was a home game and his energy was pretty good.

So when that, you know, he lifts the whole team. I have a very important question for you. I have two questions in a row, both about Embiid. Not shooting 50% in the playoffs, shooting like 43% as a 25-year-old 7'3 center. When you go back and you look at the great centers of all time, you can look at Shaq, you look at Wilt, you look at Kareem, David Robinson. I don't care who it is.

They're all in like the 50% to 58% range, right? For field goal. Just they take 10 shots. They're probably going to make either five or five of every six none of them took threes no but i'm saying even if you remove the threes he's below 50 not a good side oh wow you just said that i'm sorry yeah no no i'm saying it right now oh okay well that's then i have no counter that i this to me is but should a 25 year old stud franchise center make half of his shots?

I would say yes. If you want to criticize Brett Brown, this would be the criticism, I think. Okay. Putting him in position, thinking, you know, and maybe it's the case that Brett Brown can't do it because of Embiid's lingering, persistent physical illnesses, ailments. He's impaired, and so they can't just run low post stuff through mb because he's not reliable well here's my second important question by the way i was still with i'm not going to give up on that counter yet that i thought about it

i bet you mb's taking more weird stupid long two fadeaways which you can still sort of hit more though more so than those other guys. Where did David Robinson shoot from? Well, David Robinson was a statistical god. Yeah, but he actually stretched his game out quite a bit. Yeah, he took good shots. And B takes the worst shots of any franchise center who has the chance to be an MVP. That lumbering one-foot sideways fadeaway you don't like from a seven-foot long guy.

It's funny because in game three, I thought he had the most important play of his career that that when everything was breaking down in that close game he had that butler dumped it to him and he just barreled through the lane did that spin move and made the key basket of the game um this is an important question i could give you any guy in the league for the next eight years, you can take anybody. How many guys would you take before you took Embiid knowing the following things, how much he makes, injury history, and you just have to hit a home run with this pick. This is, this is it. You, I'm giving you a list.

You just have to come through with the pick. How many guys would you take before Embiid? I'll give you some candidates. You would take Giannis. Yep. Steph Curry's 30. I don't know. That's dicey.

Harden's 30. Yeah, it's not even the Embiid money. It's just, you know, this is actually been- Will he be on the court? What am I getting? This is an incredibly healthy run by his standards. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I'm saying, like, what does that run look like four years from now?

How many games is he playing in the 2026-27 season? Like, I think it's a valid question to think about. Like, all right, here's an example. I think Jokic is a much safer bet for the next, like, eight years. I feel much better about the Jokic era versus the Embiid era. Do you guys agree or disagree? That's injury and aging because Jokic is already playing a game like he's 40.

Well, Jokic is 24 and Embiid's 25. But Jokic plays the game as if he's already lost all of his athleticism. On that note, his passing, his big man passing, that's not going to go anywhere.

He's going to have that vision for all of the next 10 years. So he'll be making contributions. If he can't score because he can't move, he'll still be able to pass and rebound. Would you have Anthony Davis or Embiid next eight years? Which team is Davis on? I'm just, there's no, that's it. That's the only question.

It's your team. Embiid or Davis? I would, you could build around either guy. Davis is exactly the picture of health and this past year

really hurts his stock, but I'm not going to, I'm not going to take Embiid ahead of the guy a year ago where it felt like the world collectively agreed that he was the best player in the NBA.

So, I mean, it's Davis to me. I mean, I love Davis, so I'm going Davis. How about Kawhi, age 27, only two years older than Abid? Will he guarantee he won't just sit out an entire year on purpose?

That's part of the equation. You have to decide. No, I'm going at House right now. You are. You know I'm a Kawhi truther. He says he's a Kawhi truther. I am. I think he was in the right in that thing with the Spurs.

House is always against the man if there's any chance. It's true. I am against the man. I am. I think he was in the right in that thing with the Spurs. House is always against the man if there's any chance. It's true. I am against the man. I grew up that way. Would you take Kawhi or Embiid? Kawhi. What kind of question is that? Alright, now we're going to another level here. Terry Rozier. Carl Anthony Towns, age 22. Would you rather have him

next eight years or Embiid? Embiid's so much better defensively, but Towns is healthy all the time. You're the GM. You're going to get fired if Embiid? Embiid's so much better defensively, but Towns is healthy all the time. You're the GM. You're going to get fired if Embiid is hurt. Yeah, look, you don't have to talk to me about the Embiid contract issues. And I'm the guy that was like,

I'm not even sure I would want to give him that contract. So Towns or Embiid? Yeah, Towns. Wow. I'm so strong Embiid on this. Really? Oh, interesting. When is Towns going to win?

Where is his instinct? At least I know he's going to be on the floor for the next eight years. Well, good. You're going to lose in the first round of the playoffs. Congratulations. Dame Lillard, age 28, turns 29 in July. Would you rather have him or Joel Embiid for the next eight years? I feel like this game

sucks, even though it's great. Why? No, it's a great game, but I just feel like everybody's too day to day with all these playoff things because if we were doing this after game three we're like Embiid Embiid

Embiid I think that's what ends up happening but I'm trying to do big picture with you here I'm going to stop there I'm going to I'm going to still take Embiid really?

so Dan Lewis is the cutoff for you? yeah okay it is a good game so don't take it personally. No, I just shat all over the game.

Porzingis or Embiid? Embiid. Who? Embiid. Yeah. Dinglingus. What is that? I mean,

the reason I did the game was actually a different reason than you'd think. There's not a lot of guys I would take over Embiid and I have no idea if he's going to be on the court the next eight years.

The list is less than 10. By the way, Kawhi, somebody's going to check his birth certificate. How dare you? Kawhi? Yeah. He's still always young. It is amazing that he's 27. He's always still so young.

That's because he was in the finals. He was like 21. And he got to take a year off. Right away. The Spurs put him right into service, and he was immediately great. He's like a running back who's like, I didn't have that many carries last year because I quit. So the Embiid game, the point is,

I still think he's a top 10 asset in the league, and I have no idea if he's going to play even 300 games over the next six years. The Simmons thing is a different story. I don't know what to do with the Simmons thing. I really don't. Like I said before, it's disrespectful to even compare our frustrations with Simmons with those of the Embiid. I don't even like to do with the Simmons thing. I really don't. Like I said before, it's disrespectful to even compare Simmons,

our frustrations with Simmons with those of Embiid. I don't even like this segment because I feel it could beat up on a guy that I still love watching play. Embiid or Simmons? Embiid. Simmons. I am so in agreement with RR on this one. We should never put Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid in the same sentence again.

It's disrespectful to Joel. Yeah, but you realize we spent the last two years putting be in the same sentence again. It's disrespectful to Joel. Yeah, but you realize we spent the last two years putting them in the same sentence. Not us, but just the entire basketball community. I started slowing down on that Simmons stuff this year. We didn't know. How would you know? It was exciting.

If that's what he was as a rookie, you're like, man, sky's the limit. Oh, you came back as the exact same guy with the biggest weakness, the worst weakness you can have in today's game i felt like the stretch he had last season the last like six weeks of the season then the first round of the playoffs it really did seem like he was going to be magic johnson and then you think about magic those first couple laker years like he couldn't shoot either and even when he learned to shoot

it was still a pretty ugly shot yeah The overall numbers for it, too, I would have gone back and looked at his three-point shooting. Magic? You would be mad at him taking threes today. He was especially bad. It was a keep it honest three every now and then for him, which I don't even know. He got by the late 80s, he was at least

competent, like how Jason Kidd kind of became competent. Was it even that good? was competent i'm sorry i'm gonna have to look it up because i want to correct myself because i quickly had forgotten david robinson expanding his his game out but that was i mean that was all the stat nerds just couldn't believe you forgot about no i corrected myself because then i started doing my visual thing i'm like wait a minute wait a minute a lot of yeah Magic in the 90 season, 38% from three. Not terrible.

That's very good. Yeah, he was 31, 30. That was a total fluke here, though. My point is he was over 30, which is like, that's better than some guys we have. He was atrocious up until his 29-year-old season.

Atrocious? He was, dude, he was 20. No, I'm with you. He was absolutely atrocious. And then he was 31%, and then he was 38, and then he went back to 32, and then he took off a few years, and then he came back and just started.

Well, his percentages are good, but he only took less than two a game. So, yeah, he had one really good year. Let's take a quick break. Hey, let's take a break to talk about State Farm. Life basketball is all about working together to succeed. You need a game plan and teammates you can trust. That's why having a State Farm agent can make all the difference. It's just like having someone on your team you can trust to come through in the clutch, to make some plays. Ursula and I did a video for this that you can find on the ringers Twitter

feed and on our YouTube channel, where we talked about some of the playmakers in the rockets warriors series, specifically PJ Tucker, who you don't think of as a playmaker, but has been making all the difference with his ability to basically be the small ball center center against one of the one of the best teams that we've had in the last 50 years in the league. So check that video out. And remember, having someone on your team that you can rely on lets you focus on what matters most. Talk to a local State Farm agent to get a trusted playmaker on your team. Maybe someone you can even trust as much as PJ Tucker.

Let's get your Rockets Warriors thoughts because you weren't here on the Sunday pod and then Monday house and I did a quick reaction pod through four games. Our basic take on the whole thing was just an appreciation of how much fun the series was, how hard both teams were playing and just just how rare it is to see a playoff series where it's the right matchup, the right matchup of styles, the right matchup of intensity, great players on both sides, and then the Rockets with the big counter, which was go small, junkyard dog style, P.J. Tucker, all that stuff. So what did you see?

Well, I did my big negative negative rockets rant last week after all the stuff was coming about the calls and the leaked report and um i'm going to be positive on this one because i don't want to do that whole rant all over again it's been well established how i feel about watching the rockets play at times but if you think about last year like when van gundy would be doing this stuff and i love jeff when he's like all right you know the war is gonna win the next seven eight ten titles you're like well that's just not the way it works like they're incredible but they're not that's not what's gonna happen and he was saying that kind of stuff just a year or two ago when they're in the beginning of this whole thing so if you think of the warriors

last year and the way we looked at them they still felt like this unbeatable force and remember how everybody reacted after the rockets in game one all the guys on tnt because it was all the same stuff and it was almost like guys hadn't watched him. It's like, yeah, they're going to spread you out and ISO the hell out of you. And then they're going to have you so spaced, they're going to just hope to out three to death. And they lose that game one and all the guys on TNT start shaking their head, laughing, being like, this ain't going to work. This ain't going to work. And it's still almost worked. You know, I don't know if it's Chris Paul hamstring, but all those things like I've left last year going, whatever you think in the the talent gap there because there is a talent gap when you have

those three guys versus the rockets top three guys golden state's better but there's such an amount of respect that i have for them to keep fighting and staying in this thing and you could argue game one could have gone either way um game two game two felt like golden state was more in control and i know we know what the final score says. Game three, they go into Houston. They have this massive rebounding edge. They go small when that was the formula for Golden State forever. And that Hamptons five thing just is not the same because no one's scared of it. And everybody else has been doing it now for years.

Or at least finding ways to compete against it. Like when that thing was rolling, when no one else was doing it, it was horrifying. It was this like awesome cheat code where it was just over and you were going to lose, and that's just not the case. So to see Houston be in this spot 2-2, I pick Golden State in 7 because I respect Houston, the team. I respect what they're – I may not like it all the time, but I respect what they're able to do and compete in this whole deal.

I just still feel like Golden State has this arrogance that is earned but is their poison where they'll get a little iso heavy with the rant now because he was bailing them out in games one and two and that screws them up some of that's Houston extending their defense out and getting in their cutting lanes but like when they ran that slip screen that was like a secondary thing on a cut it was out of a timeout and Golden State ran it you're like hey remember when you guys used to do shit like that and they don't they'll go long stretches they're like yeah somebody's gonna hit a shot somebody's gonna figure this thing out steph was abysmal in game three um i thought he was was pretty good especially attacking in game four clay's been really like clay was so bad in game four that none of the shots felt like they were within rhythm of

anything it was like hey i haven't shot in a while i'm clay so i'm gonna get a shot up so i still feel like golden state is gonna do this but my confidence is not through the roof with them like this is the least confident i think i've been with them in any series through this entire run because i just think houston's like look we know what we can do and if they're gonna out read about them like that and hit as many threes as they did in game four, Golden State's going to lose. Yeah. Even last year when there was a long breakdown, but no,

that we, you, you earned it. Even when Golden State was down three, two last year, I still felt like they were going to win the series. This time around, there was no way they were losing game six at home,

but you know, game seven down three, two is that's a spot. I wasn't worried. You were. So you're more worried now for them if they blow game five i would be really worried that they wouldn't be able to finish this series because there's a couple things going on we talked house and i talked about the minutes and just in general like this is a fight to the death. And even, I think both teams' attitude is, we're going to be better than the next round's team,

so let's shoot all our bullets here. I personally think Denver would at least be a little frisky against a really tired whoever in round three, if it gets there. But the Golden State bench, I was looking at the bench stats for them house. Because Livingston hasn't been good in this series. Iggy has been playing a lot of minutes and has been, you know, he's been typical Iggy.

Gets hurt at the end of game four. What was that, by the way? On what sure seemed to be a cheap shot. We never got the right angle of it from Chris Paul, but it seemed it didn't seem clean, the play. He kind of kicked his leg as he went for a rebound. Other than that, nobody. You know, I really thought I was saying on Twitter, I really want to

see Jurebko. They don't even have an eighth guy. They're playing McKinney. McKinney played like 11 minutes. They've kind of given up on Bogut. It seems like they've given up on Jerebko. Jordan Bell's not even, like the fact that they even announced his name

the other night, I was like, whoa. Wow, he sold the team. Basically, my point is they're down to six guys. And I think that's just, that's hard. That's, we've seen that. You're not counting Looney? Looney I count as the sixth guy. So then Livingston doesn't.

I just think Livingston's been bad in this series, you know, and I think they've had trouble playing him. And there's been times over the course of the Livingston era where he's like actually closed games for them and stuff. And I don't, I think in this series, that's not happening. Whereas I think the Rockets, like they have seven guys that I, you know, I think they kind of know what they have now. Capella has been weirdly not as productive as I would have thought he would have been,

but he's still like a better rotation guy than anyone. The Warriors have as a backup for that spot. Um, I don't know. It just feels like the balance is swinging toward the Rockets from a totality standpoint. Like they're seven versus Golden State's seven. It feels more even than it did last year to me. I'll go along with that, but I think Houston is going to ultimately pay a price for the personnel changes they went through at the beginning of the season

and the uphill road that they faced after starting off so sluggishly they put themselves in this position where they had to win games the very they had to rip off a whole bunch of string of wins to get themselves into the top four yeah to ensure home court and then they lost that oklahoma city game right at the end of the season that's the difference between being a 54 win team and a 53 win team. And now they have to play Golden State in this round as opposed to the next round. Yeah, but wouldn't you say that's a good thing for both teams? Well, I actually think it weirdly worked out really well for both teams. It's not going to work out well for Houston if they can't win on the road. And I haven't seen anything yet that convinces me that they're

capable of winning in Golden State. Both of the games. That's fair. Well, and the big thing with that is the flopping and the stuff that they do to get calls in Houston. They just can't do in Golden State because they'll show that on the video screen. The refs get mad that they got showed up,

that Chris Paul flopped on a call, and now they look like a dickhead, and now he's not getting calls anymore. I don't think the flopping was bad in game four though it wasn't it hasn't been bad really i mean now he had chris paul had a couple in game four yeah he's always gonna get a couple but like i don't think it was anything i mean houston wasn't missing shots i don't i never think aaron gordon's gonna miss a shot now it's it's unbelievable how good he is and the thing is is then when you start leaking out on him and you try to cheat a little bit,

he's still good enough to drive past you. It's slow. It's this slow motion version of when they used to call him Air Gordon when he was in high school and he was this sick athlete finisher and everything. But like, he's still in his head. He thinks that that's what he's doing. So it actually works.

He gets his ass into you. And he's been devastated. Like, if he were named something else, if he were a second year guy that hadn't been around for 10 years with all these injuries, imagine the way we'd talk about him. Yeah. He always had the talent. That sounded not enthusiastic.

No, no. I was just trying to come up with a name. He's one of those guys. I want to name him. Send Bimums. I want to call him something else. Yeah, but think about the career he had, though. He should change his name.

Ben Simmons? No, no. Eric Gordon. No, yeah. He should change his name. Ben Simmons? No, no. Eric Gordon. He should change his name to something else. Eric Branch? No, just anything. What's a great shooter name? I don't know. I think he's in a good spot. Hawkeye. Shooter McGavin.

He just needs a nickname. I agree with you guys on the big picture point. Houston and Golden State are as close as anybody's been to Golden State in this entire era, notwithstanding Cleveland coming back from

three games to one. It's funny though, I actually like the 2017 Cleveland team more. I just think Golden State played really well in that series. But I thought that 2017 Cleveland team was really good. Offensively, I thought was the biggest challenge Golden State's had.

But they were just running on all cylinders. The Eric Gordon thing, just quickly, think about the first seven years of his career. Just what a shit show that is. You're this lottery pick that comes in the league and you're just on the Sterling Clippers. You're with Baron Davis. He was showing glimpses, by the way. he was showing glimpses this guy might be really good i was going to a lot of games in 0809 and i was like completely all in on eric gordon and even when he got thrown in the chris paul trade and people were like they didn't get enough i was

like eric gordon's like that is a great blue chip. If he's your lead guy in a trade package, that's really good. And then he was terrible in New Orleans. But he was in two really weird ownership slash franchise slash medical staff slash situations. He also signed the restricted tender, wasn't it, with Phoenix? Yeah, and then they matched it. And he was openly bullshit about it. And it was like, it got a little weird. Yeah, it's just, I think some guys just,

you can end up in the wrong situation and it starts defining your career. And he goes to Houston and now, I mean, one of the crazy things in the playoffs is he's just outplayed Klay Thompson completely in this playoffs, in the round two, which I was not expecting. Yeah, from a totality standpoint,

I think Harden's better than he was last year. He certainly has, he's up a level with the kind of shots that he can create for himself at the end of games. And I just don't think the Warriors are as good as they were last year or the year before. This is definitely a team that's heading toward the finish line. And going back to the point about playing in round two versus round three, in a weird way, for either of these teams, if they lose this round, now you get to go home in mid-May. You can actually regroup for next year versus if this had happened in round three and you're at the 20 playoff game mark,

it could be just as debilitating as it was for Houston last year. Like Houston didn't really recover from that playoff run last year until like December. You think that was physical or mental though? Both. I don't, I would need somebody to show me a study that that would change losing second or third round.

And I still probably wouldn't believe their study. I don't. I think it's better for for i actually think it's better for the words if they're gonna lose round two or round three i'd rather lose sooner than later no because if you lose round two then you probably cost yourself a ring because they should be able to beat portland or denver and we still don't really know what to make of the teams to be so i i look at it like i would never be going well hey at least we'll get. I would say I have six bullets and I fired five and I just wasted one going out in the second round when you never know what's going to happen. Curry could turn his ankle at a point where you're a 45-win team

and you're like, I'm sorry. That's the rest stuff where with LeBron, I'll buy it. LeBron getting to take this year off in the playoffs, there has to be a benefit to that. For Golden State going out in the second round. But don't all three of us agree that this is the finals? I think the winner of this series wins the title unless somebody gets hurt. It feels that way unless...

So I'd rather know now than two weeks from now. Let's get it over with. Can I win the finals in round two? Great. I think it's a made up benefit. I'm not saying it's impossible that there's a benefit, but I don't know that there's any way to quantify it. It's like, Hey, you know, what made us really good is that we went out, you know, 11 days earlier than we would have if we lost in the Western conference finals. I don't know. And I also don't know, like it's two weeks

to hoops. How tired can you get playing in Houston's offense? Yeah. It's a great point. The interesting thing to me is how different is this conversation of boogies playing? Like, you know, you just went through how thin Golden State's roster is. Essentially, their offseason move. Definitely would have helped. Their all-in offseason move was boogie. That was their one big free agent signing.

It looked like it was poised to be the thing that was going to carry them right on through. How close is this if Boogie's playing? Well, and think about this. Brooke Lopez signed for what with Milwaukee? Like $3 million? Man, oh man. Think if Golden State had gotten Brooke Lopez instead of Boogie.

Imagine if the Lakers had gotten him. Oh my God. I think Boogie would have had maybe a couple really good Boogie games. And then I think there would have been other games a couple really good boogie games and then i think there would have been other games where chasing some of the stuff around and being in this high screen and getting isolated that far out where they would have wanted to get them off the floor so i think but it would have done one thing though would have made it impossible to play pj tucker at center i feel like i mean you could do it for short doses, but you can't put that kind of abuse on P.J. Tucker's body.

And by extension, the impact on the rebounding advantage that Houston had the last two games at home. Oof. I mean, I'm looking at the bench numbers for the Warriors that last game. Looney played 22. Livingston was 14. McKinney was 11. That was it.

That's the Warriors bench. It's pretty rough. Jordan Bell didn was 11. That was it. That's the Warriors bench. It's pretty rough. Jordan Bell didn't get credited for a minute. They brought him in with like six seconds to go at the end of the half. He came in up. Club trillion. And Dan Toney basically played seven. Like Shumpert

and Rivers off the bench. That's it. He's good to go. Which is the same thing he did. I don't know if you remember the Suns-Mavs 0-6 when Omari went down and he was just like, I'm just playing seven guys

this entire playoffs. Didn't work as well. By the way, speaking of that, I was trying to think about how rare it was to have like an iconic kind of round two matchup versus having a round three.

So I went back and I went through every playoffs. I was shocked by how few really good round two series there's been. So here's the list. 2017, Celts-Wiz. Oh, yeah. That was a really good series. It didn't really affect the title. It wasn't like either of those teams even made the finals.

Franchise defining for Washington. Wiz were the better team team though. They were. 2015, Rockets-Clips. Another famous one. 2014, OKC-Clips. Only went six games, but that was the famous Chris Paul meltdown.

2012, Pacers-Heat. Remember this one? Pacers go up 2-1. Yeah, they wanted everybody to trade Bosh. It was trade Bosh radio go up 2-1. Yeah, they won it. Everybody wanted to trade Bosh. It was trade Bosh radio for two days. The Heat, it's falling apart. This is the biggest disaster of all time. They didn't come back.

They won in six. But that was an exciting series. 2010, Celts Cavs. Cavs up 2-1. Rondo suddenly becomes the best guy in the series. LeBron's last Cleveland series before he came back. 2008, Celts Cavs. That was an awesome series. series. LeBron's last Cleveland series before he came back. 2008, Celts-Cavs. That was an awesome series.

Pierce versus LeBron. Seven games. Yeah. Great one. 2007, Spurs-Suns. So out of all these ones I just mentioned, and this is the seventh

of the bunch, Spurs-Suns was another one that felt like the title was at stake. And that was the one where Nashied the bloody nose. Yes, yes, yes. The guys came off the bench and I think game four. was another one that felt like the title was at stake. And that was the one where Nash, the bloody nose, the guys came off the bench.

That's the Bobby Ory game. I think game four. Yeah, Amari got suspended. At some point during that series, we all kind of looked at each other and we were like, whoever wins this is winning the title. That's just how this is playing out. That one I agree with

because that used to bother me when the Suns didn't win a title and people were like, well, you can't win that way. And you go, no, no. There's a difference between you can't win or you just didn't. And that was a Suns didn't win a title and people were like, well, you can't win that way. And you go, no, no. There's a difference between you can't win or you just didn't. And that was a Suns team.

And they were balanced enough defensively. If you look back at some of the defensive numbers, they're better than people remember it being. Oh, yeah. Where they were, I agree with you. The winner of that series, I thought, would win. And we felt that in the moment. It was a non-basketball thing that changed the series, too.

I mean, it wasn't like a basketball play. And I remember Stern went on Dan Patrick's show afterwards because everybody was just mad about it they were like hey you know what like this sucks like this stuff shouldn't happen like i get the intent of the rule yeah but this kind of sucks and you're hurting your own product and dan patrick was doing the afternoon show at espn and i was at work that day and stern called in so like i went into a studio and went to listen to the whole thing and stern was like the only reason i'm coming on because dan kept being like commissioner commissioner and dan patrick was like great with that stuff right like willing to challenge him but also you know he's smart but he's also thinking about like what the fan wants and

he was kind of going at him like this is just not what we should be doing dan and he was like the only reason i'm on is you're an opinion former you form opinions based on what and i'm telling you this is the rule you know what's funny is this shit happens all the time the guy's stepping on it and then we have this new out clause where it's like oh that was a stoppage of play or that was uh that was a time out within the game so there's all like the westbrook one like we've had some stuff chris paul should have been suspended a game for contact with the ref oh yeah earlier in this series and he didn't you Game one. You know what?

I'm not the guy that's mad at home going, he should have been suspended. That guy's foot was on the line. Silver, and however they're doing this, I think they learn from that where they go, let's not try to find ways to start suspending guys for standing up on the bench. With one exception, Draymond in 2016.

They could have rescinded that tech. There was more that you could point to. But that swung the series. It absolutely swung the series. But I'm just saying for Draymond, it was like, okay, this isn't this one isolated incident. It was one nasty incident with. That's right. So I don't know that that's ever been, because I just think it's funny.

You're like, oh, there's going to be no suspensions because the NBA ruled that that was during a timeout. Yeah, the timeout was just starting when that happened. In 06, we had two of these. This is the last one I want to mention. Suns Clippers was a really, really great series that I still feel like the Clippers had a chance to make the finals that year and they blew it.

Dunleavy blew a game. Is that when Sam Cassell had like a 10-second call against him? No, it was when... No, I think he did, though, in that series. They brought in somebody to guard Roger Bell, who hadn't played all year. It was like Daniel Ewing or somebody like that, and he forgot to get up on him.

Sons tied the game. But then the other one was Mav Spurs, which is one of the best series of that decade. That was seven games in San Antonio. Spurs up three, Dirk goes down the lane with like 15, 16 seconds left, fouled by Manu, gets the layup, tie game, they win an OT. That had the feeling as well of like, ah, now whoever wins this is going to probably win the title. And then that was being borne out until the refs stepped in in the finals. But I think that was...

Basically, based on my research, this has happened three times in the last 14 playoffs where we've had the finals at stake in round two, probably. I don't know. 20%. Yeah, you did the research.

I agree with you. We agree Yeah, you did the research. I was just... I agree with you. We agree with you. Yeah. Stop scolding us. You don't think there's any way Milwaukee beats either of these teams? I'm not going to say that.

No way. Toronto? It just... The Milwaukee thing seems limited in that can Giannis really do this against a good team? And I'm saying that as I'm knocking Boston a little bit. Oh, they deserved it. But is there enough scoring there

to keep up with whatever Houston's going to be doing? You know, I mean, that's all I do. But I still, look, I will still pick Toronto against Milwaukee in the Eastern Conference Finals

if that's what it is. Can we do three minutes on Boston? Just three. Just your three minutes. Well, this is what I was trying to tell everybody for about six months, okay? So when you give us 82 games of evidence that you're kind of never really going to figure it out and you're kind of weird and you're kind of disappointing, three minutes well this is what i was trying to tell everybody for about six months okay so when

you give us 82 games of evidence that you're kind of never really going to figure it out and you're kind of weird and you're kind of disappointing and your gm your coach your star says it three or four times and then every role player and every young guy's basically telling us all season long that something's fucked up you know what i do i believe it right i believe it because i still watch most of these games and I go yeah you know whatever so like look game one against them you and I did a good job of not freaking out about it maybe I did a better job than you but I'm no I'm actually serious you did I came in here thinking you were going to be freaking out and you were like nope nope nope let's see what happens Boston

did everything they thought they were going to do in that first game with the defensive approach Giannis that he apparently wasn't ready for or none of his other teammates yeah I was more surprised by Buddenholzer like that just the way he kind of coached game one that's why I was suspicious of the result right and that's why with Giannis I'm going like you just played him last year with the same coach and granted it's different pieces but you know like you're gonna have to get rid of it quicker you're gonna have to go quicker like that's it you're gonna have to be just more decisive of what you're doing and don't let them set up defensively Boston got all that offense that they thought they were gonna get and you're watching Kyrie in game one and you go you know

what for all the bullshit this is why you want this guy because there's not many dudes who can do this but for this team to like say hey once the playoffs get rolling we'll flip the switch it's like you know you guys have never done anything together right yeah like you don't get the benefit of the doubt. No, no, no. We're going to put out a promotional video. Like we still can't see a team in this league beating a seven games. Well, it might be five, dude. It might be five. And I just, I haven't enjoyed the team all year. There's players I do like there's other players I don't like. Um, and for Kyrie, he's doing, he's doing a LeBron here. This is what he learned from LeBron too. He's learning how to distance himself from a group that's been underachieving. He does it on the

court at the end of game four. I can sit here and talk about how bad the defense is and that's fine, but then I do agree with Marcus Morris that leads a bad offense. But Kyrie's thing is I can tell in the quotes where he says like, you know, what they're doing defensively, you have to have a read on it. You know what, man? This shit actually isn't that complicated. Like if they're dropping their bigs, then you just make that adjustment. Like if you're playing basketball and somebody plays a pick and roll a certain way, they don't play it differently 10 straight possessions. They're going to do one or two or maybe a third thing with a different guy.

They don't even do that third thing that much. So this stuff, he wants to make it sound so complicated because he's so profound. He's such an intellectual. He's a basketball genius. He's a basketball genius that couldn't be bothered to fight through screens and basically what felt like an elimination game.

He kept screwing up switches all the time. There was a couple of times where he kind of insisted on guarding Giannis. I don't know what he was doing with those. And I thought it was Stevens, but then somebody put some of the clips online

where he's telling other Celtics to get away because he's got Giannis. He pointed to a guy in the corner and told Morris, go get him. And then he stayed.

And Giannis is like drooling, going, are you kidding? And there was another time where he got switched underneath the hoop against him. My overall point of the Kyrie thing is that when he starts saying after the fact that like these guys or we don't understand, he's not talking about himself. He's constantly, he's now doing it.

He is distancing himself from what's this underachieving group when really, you know, Brad Stevens is a good coach. He's had a bad year. I don't know how you'd fix the team. The Ainge knock, Stephen A was knocking Ainge saying it was his fault for not fixing their roster. That's stupid. That's so stupid.

Nobody was mad about this roster when the season started. I thought it was a 67-win roster. People have told me that. I really did. You said it. But even if you didn't like what you had, you still have to figure out a way to keep yourself in the Anthony Davis sweepstakes.

There was no trade in February where you go, we're going to totally overhaul this and fix it. So stop being like simple and the way you just go, Oh, well the, the GM stinks and the coach stinks and all these different things. Ultimately, it's going to come down to the guy who has the ball in his hands more than anything else, more than any other coach, more than any other GM. And Kyrie sees a different person in the mirror than the rest of us see. And I, I'm, I'm actually looking forward to the run being over. I was shocked by how many people I heard from the last, I don't know, 30 hours from the Massachusetts area.

Maybe in the zip code of the arena. Agawam. People just genuinely dislike this team. It's like they just don't want to watch this team anymore. They don't want to watch Kyrie. They don't want to hear about another Marcus Morris post-game press conference. It's one of the losses. We're soft.

Right, but then Marcus Morris coming out and being like, well, we need to do all these things. I'd be like, dude. Yeah, you're like a seventh man. Settle down. But Tatum's been bad But Tatum's been bad. Tatum's been bad. Tatum.

What's your biggest fear of Tatum? You said it to me today and I almost punched you. Remember your comp for Tatum? Well, I just worry there's some Jeff Green, Andrew Wiggins potential. I just can't believe it. I hope he's as good as Wiggins. I want to get your trade value column from the first one that we published this year. Will he make the top 40?

Every once in a while, you're on the online. Here's the thing, though. If I'm another GM, I'm trying to trade for everyone on this team because this is such a fucked up team. That's exactly... You should be trying to trade for every guy on this team because there's no way to know... You know the answer.

Subtract by subtraction. Jalen, I'm actually proud of him. Jalen, Tatum, those guys might be really good, and we just have no idea. I'm proud of the game that Jalen ended up having because it was so bad in the beginning, and you knew he'd be sulking. Here's a mind-bender for you.

Rozier might actually be decent if it was any other team. He's looked like one of the worst players in basketball. Did the Eastern Conference Finals run fuck this team up? The floor is yours. No, of course not. Not in any way, shape, or form. The Celtics

made a very well adjudged gamble on Kyrie Irving. It was a great trade. It was a sensible gamble on him. It turned out that they were wrong about him. I agree.

That's right. You had a guy who's like... Isaiah Thomas in the eighth pick. Yeah, it's a great trade. Kyrie is going to make second team. Zidges may come back. Kyrie is going to be a second team all-NBA guy this year.

Now, unfortunately, I watched all the games. I voted for a third team. He's one of the most frustrating athletes I've ever watched in my life. But that guy's really talented. It was worth the gamble. It was worth the gamble.

They knew all the red flags. They heard all the bad stuff from everybody in Cleveland about how he wouldn't talk to anybody for three weeks. And he was in one mood one day and a different mood the next day. And he thought he was better than LeBron. And then he just wanted to be LeBron's sidekick. And the rap over and over again on him was,

this guy's all over the map. You don't know what you get week to week with him. You don't know which guy is going to show up. What kind of map? Topographical or climate? I love those climate mats. No, but it is. I bet she's good with a map. It is a concern when you have people in Cleveland just going, good luck.

So it's like, is this guy young? Is he immature? Yeah. So why do you want to resign that? Because you don't want to lose the asset. Well, I talked myself into the whole, well, he's playing with LeBron. LeBron is the hardest guy in the league to actually play with

because you basically can't win. If your team wins, it's LeBron. If you lose, it's everybody else's fault. It was probably driving him crazy. He wants to be the guy. He wants to be the alpha dog. But Barkley did a great job after game four. Like, dude, you asked for this.

You want to be the guy. Here's a chance for you to be the guy and you haven't been the guy this whole series. And there were multiple points in that Bucks game four where it's like, it's a home game. The crowd is dying to get involved. The Bucks don't really have anybody to guard him. You wouldn't think.

Like who, like anybody in that roster. I'm not, I feel like Kyrie could slice the dice, all of them up. And he just wouldn't think. Like who, like anybody in that roster, I feel like Kyrie could slice and dice all of them up. And he just wasn't good. And he was so lost defensively. The defense bothers me more. And just the leadership was out the window. If you watch some of those clips, like there's this thing where he'll get caught on a switch where it's at the top

and he would just run up the back of the guys and like kind of stick his arms out like, oh, you know. Like stick his arms out. Like, oh. Oh, I got caught. I'm stuck. This is game four. Now, I do think Milwaukee's done an incredible job of staying with him and contesting shit at the rim. Yeah, that's true. Kyrie's the best small finisher I've ever seen.

Ever. Ever. Better than Iverson. Yep. And against Milwaukee, Milwaukee has been locked in on this where it's like, if you think you're going to get those shots off that nobody ever,

we're just going to sell out on you. And you could say, I know everybody's freaking out about the refs after game three. Boston doesn't take free throws. You know, the Jalen fourth and fifth foul were jokes, but... They took like 30 free throws in game four

and still lost. For them, which is nuts. That's a big number. Giannis figured it out and there's nothing they can do with that guy. Nothing. And Kyrie, since game one, has been a disaster,

both on the court and my least favorite part of it is analyzing in the most complicated way, which isn't that hard to figure out sometimes. So, I don't know. Would you still want him in Boston House? No. Good God, no. What about Would you still want him in Boston House? No. Good God, no. What about you, Bill?

Kyrie Irving? I want it to end. He can't be the best player on a contender. He thinks he's the best player. Where do they come back? 3-1 lead? Win game seven? I want it to be over. I can't take it anymore. I really... It's everything I hate about basketball,

hero ball, 25 footers, shitty defense, finger pointing. It's like the perfect storm of things. I hate watching a basketball. Cryptic knocks on the rest of the, I would,

I would honestly next year rather have Brown Tatum smart through all the draft picks they take next year. Patrick Young, the Gordon Hayward one more year. Hopefully he can come back, bring James Young back. year. Patrick Young. The Gordon Hayward, one more year. Hopefully he can come back. Bring James Young back. I just want a team that's fun to watch and that plays hard and likes each other.

We all have enough dysfunction in our daily life. Sports is supposed to be an escape. I don't want to go into a world where my basketball team is like more fucked up than anyone in my real life. And that's what this last six months was. I spent more time thinking like, what's wrong with these guys? Why did Kyrie give that interview?

Why did Marcus Morris say that? Oh, no. What's going on with Jalen Brown? Oh, like, I don't want to have to worry about basketball players. It's ridiculous. They need to shake it up. It didn't work. They have a lot of talented guys.

The mix didn't work. You got to move on. Kyrie's going to go to Brooklyn. He'll go to the Knicks. He'll go to the Lakers, whatever he does. They'll use his cap space and they'll get somebody good. I'm not worried. Wait a minute.

The cap space? What are you thinking? Horford? I assume Horford's going to opt out. I think the Celtics team next year is going to be dramatically different. Because Horford could opt in for $30 million for one, or he could opt out and try to get like $100 for four or something like that. And at the age that he's at, I think he's opting out.

Ryan, 15 teams have space for two max guys. A hundred for him, especially if you've watched him this year, he's slowed down. Although, look, his best game, I think one of the best games I've ever seen from him is the Celtics game one. I think we're going to find out.

This is another thing going on with this team. I think we're going to find out after the season that he's had some injury that they haven't been upfront about. Yeah. Yeah, because when I was at one of the games, they were doing some heavy maintenance stuff with him on the ground. It's like the Paul George thing. We all knew Paul George had a fucked up

rotator cuff. We'd know what the exact injury was. Season ends, then it comes out today, it's surgery for a torn rotator cuff. It's like, oh yeah, we knew that for the last four months. What do you think Embiid's medical thing is going to be? Gas? Lyme disease.

If you don't have a good playoffs, it's worth being like, is there anything you can clean up in my wrist or something? I'm trying to think of something super exotic. That's why I came up with deer tick. I mean, it's the best I could do. Can they sign and trade Kyrie for Alonzo? You're asking me on the pod live, and I don't know's the best I could do. Can they sign and trade Kyrie for Alonzo? You're asking me on the pod live and I don't know all the sign. I don't know what the new sign and trade rules are, but if there was a way to stick Kyrie and the Lakers, I'd be all for it. That'd make me happy. LeBron and Kyrie reunited would be, would be great.

Sign up. That'd be like Billy Bob LeBron and Kyrie reunited would be great. Sign up. That'd be like Billy Bob and Angelina getting back together. If they have cap space, I think you're fine. Yeah. So I think we can do that. I think that's the biggest problem with the signing trade. Look, here's the thing. Unfortunately, he made this bed.

You do this whole thing. I want a team. It's my time. I'm going to be the leader. I've been in the finals. These guys haven't. Just show it. Do it.

If you're going to set the stage for us for all these months, do it. The stage was set for you. Play better than Giannis. Play as good as Giannis. Play almost as good as Giannis. Couldn't do it. He doesn't even have to. I mean, I think.

It's the longest three minutes ever. Were we talking about Boston? Yeah. Let's take a break. Hey, you already trust the Home Depot for studs, sheetrock, electrical, everything to build your house. Now you can make that house your home by shopping thousands

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again that code is BSHomedepot alright I have some mailbag questions for you guys. This is from Shy Lank in Connecticut. I hope I pronounced your name correctly. Sounds fake. He said, Daenerys' management of her talent

reminds me of OKC's Sam Presti. She lost two dragons, one to an already stacked team, the White Walkers or Golden State, and one because of a situation that should have never happened, the hardened trade and Regal getting hit by the arrows. Now she's stuck with one dragon, Westbrook, an extremely talented but very vulnerable dragon

when it comes to clutch situations. She is Sam Presti.ey strong email i liked it really good email i've been uh i've been bummed out about the dragon usage going back a couple seasons because you lose the first one and what has to be the dumbest fucking mission in the history of television save this for throne game press pause this we're giving you throne game at the end of this podcast. Okay, yeah, yeah. No problem.

I didn't know. I thought we were just answering. We're happy with that email. Great email. It was a great email. I just, I'm with, dude, you have no idea how much I agree with you. If you were Trader Danny, what would you do this off season to fix the Celtics? And are you still ready to drive Kyrie to the airport?

That's from Rob in North Carolina. I feel like that was already addressed. It did address. What would be your one move though? Do you have one move? Yeah, one move. I'd make sure Tatum and Kyrie were split up. Okay.

House, do you have a move? Rebuild so that Washington can come back. Trade for John Wall's contract. Trade for John Wall. That would be my one move. Matt Griffith wants to know, are we sure Joel Embiid isn't Dwight Howard 2.0? Dwight was dominant for a few years,

then had a debilitating injury history, and he was a lovable goofball until he was a super annoying goofball. I think that's just harsh and uncalled for. I like Joel Embiid way more than Dwight Howard. It's disrespectful to Dwight Howard. Oh my god. Dwight Howard is going to make the Hall of Fame as soon as he's eligible.

This is a tough corner for him. He's incredible. Okay, but here's what I like about Embiid versus Howard. Two minutes left, and I throw the ball to you. Do you have any moves? The answer to it, Howard, is no. He was on the floor for 80.

Advantage Embiid. He played the games, though. He did. He was available for the games. Oak from North Carolina wants to know, are we about to get an all-time bad body language game from Kyrie in Game 5? Well, if it goes bad, we could see a jersey removal. We'll

definitely do a no handshake deal. He is going to let you know that it wasn't his fault. I want some props on this. We need to get Cousin Sal to get us some exotics. The jersey removal is fantastic. We like to compare this stuff to

our pickup basketball game experiences from time to time, right? Kyrie's the guy on the pickup team who even though he's taken the most shots in every game and everybody else is just standing around watching him dribble, is still convinced it's everyone else's fault that he's about to get knocked off the court.

So how does that guy act once the game is over and you've lost 11-9? What does he do? Well, he usually says, yo, we got to box out next time. That is true. Or he just turns and walks away.

You see his back. And then we're behind him like, bye-bye. I actually think Kyrie's the guy in the pickup game that you're playing to 11 and it's like, bye-bye. I actually think Kyrie's the guy in the pickup game that you're playing 2-11 and it's like 9-5 and he's walking back and he looks over to the side to the guy so the next game is like, yo, you have five?

And he's already like planning how he can get back on the court. That's Kyrie Irving. That's really good. Thank you. I don't have to shoot to get on with you guys? Yo, you got five? You got five. You got five.

You got five. The Kyrie Irving story. That would almost be like a tear. I can't hide it anymore. I've tried to hide the Kyrie Irving thing for four months. I can't hide it anymore. The fucking guy drove me crazy all season. I can't hide it anymore.

I feel like you hit it poorly at times. I tried. I tried to be diplomatic. Are you actually trying to sell us on the idea that you hit it all year? No, a couple of times. It slipped out. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. Because it definitely slipped out. I was with you on one months ago. It didn't more than slip out. It popped out. I think you said you drive him to the airport on a pod months ago. I did.

Months ago. I did. I didn't feel good about it. Are you basically saying like Kyrie's like a Pierre Maguire pickup hoops? To understand that joke, go to read Pierre Maguire's Wikipedia page. Oh, Eddie's from St. John. Yeah, we still has an unbelievable Pierre Maguire accent. He's from New Jersey, right?

But he has a French Canadian accent. Yeah, there's some timeline stuff there in Montreal. Oh, Eddie. His dad was Canadian. He's a heck ofCanadian accent. Yeah, there's some timeline stuff there in Montreal. Oh, Eddie. His dad was Canadian. He's a heck of a second liner. He's even a better person. Had him in juniors. But if your dad talks with that accent,

you can catch the accent. I don't know if he can have a Canadian accent and go to Bergen Catholic. Seems sketchy. Well, what if his dad was talking Canadian to him? What's Canadian? That accent. Brad from New York wants to get...

Betty Belfour, the eagle. Brad from New York wants to know if it makes more sense for Durant to go to the Nets. Oh, well, I can't wait to see Durant with Moutier and Neil Aquino spreading the floor for him like Clay and Steph did. So I do look forward to that because the other awesome kairi prediction thing is that you know there's there's all people like all things are all over the league right now right and i feel like everybody's kind of repeating every like until i hear something new that sounds better i don't know that i really trust anybody but the one kairi durant thing that i am hearing is that Kyrie, even though he's unhappy now,

is that if he goes to New York, he doesn't want to be second fiddle to Durant. So that's the new one. No, that can't be true. Even though they're Instagram buddies. So part of me, and I want Durant to leave Golden State too. I want this whole thing shook up. I want this coming back like, you know,

when a sitcom's about to fail and they're just throwing bodies at the storylines. I want to see. You're a writer. I know you like when they do. You understand what they're doing there. Well, you know, there's some stuff you guys probably didn't pick up on.

It's like Kyrie's teammates with the way a team plays pick and roll. Right. It's like the writer's room. Do you, like, there's part of me that wants to see Durant out there with these guys going, why are three people paying attention to me?

Why am I being triple teamed? Why isn't anyone guarding Frank Nalika? I thought foreign guys could shoot. Tony from Brooklyn wants to know, do you think Houston would have been better off not trading for CP3 at all? So you keep Harrell, you keep Trez Williams. I'm sorry, Trez Harrell and Lou Williams. And then that was really it in that trade.

Oh, in Beverly. Beverly. Right. Man. Oh, I don't know, man. I don't know. I stand by the trade. They almost won the title last year

that goes to win the title it's yeah i don't think you can start doing this and looking at paul now and then doing the math and the years left and be like oh that contract sucks you're like you know daryl's smart enough to know there's a really good chance that contract isn't going to look great there at the end it is funny to think of it that way you're also trying to keep hard and happy you just spend a ton of money well that's the point to me to the point to me is the impact of cp3 on harden that those other guys were not going to deliver to harden and i don't even know i'm just talking about like the psychology of it and people you know uh cp3 doesn't have exactly you know an exemplary record as a winner in conference playoffs and so forth.

But I think he helped Harden mature into this perennial MVP candidate that he's at now. I think CP3 had an impact on Harden. How about Paul? Paul cost himself a lot of money and was okay with it. He was like, alright, I'm out. Once they redid the Blake deal.

He got paid anyway. It turned out fine for him. Whatever he makes in the first year of the next contract versus the last year, it's not going to be close. Alex said, I really enjoyed the Simmons draft diary, Dame Lillard re-readables edition with Rosillo.

It got me thinking about the diary from 2010 featuring Paul George. Can you read, Rosillo, your reaction to the Pacers selecting Paul George over Xavier Henry? Oh, wow. I think I probably killed the Paul. Paul George is one of my all-time misses. All right, so here's my draft diary moment when the Pacers took Paul George. I present two athletic perimeter guys for you, both freshmen.

Bullet point. Xavier Henry, born March 1991. Two guard. A top three college recruit in 2009. Started out in the number one college team regular season. 13.4 points a game. 27.5 minutes a game. 41.8% from three.

Didn't get a ton of touches on a veteran team. Did everything he could to fit in. So obviously I like Henry. I just want to, before this goes too far, I didn't like Henry either. Okay. Paul George, born May 90. Small forward, not a top 100 college recruit. Best player on a 15-18 team in the WAC.

16.8 points a game. Shot 42%, 35% on threes. Played inferior competition. Whom did the Pacers take? Naturally, Paul George. Did I mention their best player, Danny Granger, is a small forward? I love the NBA. I didn't like that pick.

How much did you watch Paul George, though? Seriously. Probably just some YouTube clips. Quickest scout in the business. What do you want to do? Simmons has reports on 70 guys already. And then when Memphis took Henry at 12, I said it was like last year's Hashim Thabit pick,

only the complete opposite. Wow. Not really. Didn't turn out that great uh but i i can't i i can't give you a hard time on the paul george one either because i just when i watched him i'm like i don't know he's so passive just sort of i know he's big but yeah on the demarcus cousins pick i wrote uh which i really liked i said wish the Stern cousin's handshake could have lasted for 25 minutes. Stern sized him up the way a lion looks at a potentially troublesome cub. That was great.

And that was a good call. That's a good one. I get credit for that one. Still true. All right. So Joe Ritchie says he's a lifelong LSU fan. And he said the hype around Ben Simmons was magnanimous. By the fourth game of the 2016 season versus Marquette,

it became apparent he wasn't a closer. When the game was on the line in the final minutes, he wanted nothing to do with the ball. Passing it off with no interest to close the game out, that became a trend throughout the entire season while at LSU. And he's keeping that trend alive and well in Philly. At least he has his one and done documentary, which defines his millennial entitlement attitude.

Joe Ritchie. Joe. Throwing bombs. Let me tell you this. Ryan's glowing right now. He loved that email. It was a good email. Got my LSU hat on.

But if I'm being fair to Ben Simmons, in the year he was at LSU that was a really screwed up it really offensive team one of the worst coaches a bad coach which is the only reason they had Ben Simmons there in the first place but then like when you watched him it was four other wing players that thought they were as good as ben simmons so they all wanted to shoot so i always thought a lot of the the real knocks on ben were unfair for a guy that was one year in and then people say he's lazy he's soft and be like he's getting like 11 and 12 rebounds a game like you're not lazy and soft when you do that uh and he was a good passer he's he's incredible end to end and all that stuff but it's just you that that just hasn't gotten better that's that's the problem he's the poster child for why one and done doesn't make sense.

He didn't have any business being in college. He did it so that he could be eligible for the NBA draft. Yeah, they could use that NBA year instead. Absolutely, positively. But whoever it was in his circle that got enriched by him going to LSU and treating it like the joke year that it was i don't think that that that that uh just because of of what he's become through his career so far that lsu year to me was just a complete waste it's not indicative of anything ben from

pittsburgh wants to know who says no if a simmons for westbrook trade is offered well apparently last time you and I did this, people reported, I said that the Thunder should trade Westbrook for Lonzo ball. You said that Kyle can dig that up. Dig it up, Kyle. All right. Don't. Cause I didn't.

That's not terrible by the way. So Philly would have the cap space to take Westbrook's contract on. I just think it would be hilarious for the process if it just landed them 31-year-old Russell Westbrook coming off three first-round exits. As frustrated as I am with Simmons, I think I'd actually say no to that if I were Philly. I would too.

We haven't even touched on the contract yet. But imagine if you were Embiid. You're like, are you guys fucking serious? I have a 6'10 guy who gets in my way who can't shoot, and now another guy won't pass it to me? And can't shoot. Or will only pass it to me when it's an aborted drive. I can't find this.

Because I know the assist numbers always come up. Like, oh, Westbrook can't pass. Look at his assist. He's a scorer. Westhill said Magic's not in the Lakers' front office, and now he's really picking up his Twitter game. I would love to hear you and Ryan read and react to Magic's in-depth NBA analysis.

I thought this gave me an idea. I thought it would me an idea. I thought it would be funny to play did Magic actually do this tweet or not? I'm going to read you tweets. I either made them up or they're an actual Magic Johnson tweet. And we can go back and forth and we'll go to seven.

House goes first. House, you have to decide is this an actual Magic Johnson tweet? I love what I saw from Gary Harris tonight. He reminds me of Jamal Wilkes! Exclamation point. It's so on brand. Yes, that's a Magic tweet.

No, it is not. Damn it. So close. All right, Rosillo, you have a chance to get the hammer. Bill just wrote that because you were talking up Gary Harris tonight. All right. It was in the moment. Nikoli Jokic has really caught my eye with his two triple doubles

in this series against Portland, exclamation point. True. That's true. Because it doesn't say anything. And there isn't a reference to an old... He really baited me with that Jamal Wilkes reference. Yeah, the Jamal Wilkes thing was dirty. That was really dirty.

I'm so excited for this LA Spark season. I can't wait for us to get started. Three exclamation points. That's got to be true. Not true. Oh, he's in your head right now. He really is. I own you, House.

You really do. How could that not be true? He loves the LA Sparks. Are you sure he hasn't said that? It feels... I'm going on his timeline. I can find that. Advanced search that.

I bet you'll find it. Yeah. All right. Rosillo, chance to go up 2-0 here. All young basketball players should watch the Felipe Lopez 30 for 30, the Dominican dream on ESPN, must see TV, one exclamation point. True. That is true.

God damn it. I'm so bad at this. I don't know. I would have said true to the second one, definitely. So is that it? No, you got to get to three. I got to get to three? Get to three.

You can come back for me. Look at the Rockets. You tie this up in a second. It's true. We went from best of seven to best of five quick. I'll be tuned in at 5 p.m. PST to watch the 2019 NFL draft. That's true. That one was true.

Whew. Hallelujah. It's basic. And you knew that would have been nasty if he messed with you on the start time and said four PST. Giannis reminds me of my old teammate, the captain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, with the way he can control the basketball with one hand. Two exclamation points. False.

Wow. Rosillo just owns this game. He's smoking it. I would have said true to that one, too. I've just read Bill for so long. Yeah, that's a great point well i mean i don't know i've only known him 30 years he just gets me with those old player references it just i can just hear magic saying it i wish you had done some like god anyone else see a younger dolph shays

when they watch let's give House one more. Kevin Durant versus James Harden reminds me of some legendary player matchups like Michael versus Isaiah, Michael versus Drexler, Michael versus Reggie Miller. No, just stop. Kobe versus Allen Iverson. No, no chance.

Shaq versus Tim Duncan. Dot, dot, dot. No, no, no. Dot, dot, dot though. I know. No, no. That was a magic dot. No exclamation point. Dot, dot, dot, though. I know. No. No. That was a magic tweet.

How could it be? That was a tweet. That means he had to do the research to get all this magic. That was him reading the tweet. It was one day ago. He put them all out. Well, he did play for a long time. And 4,850 retweets.

Jesus. How many? 4,850 retweets. All right. One more for Russell, and then we're done. Just to see if you can throw a perfect game for the, who is a four, one sweep over how or gentlemen sweep for house got one.

I got one. Oh, you did. Well, I didn't, I have one correct. You have, Oh,

that's right. Right. Right. And, and three incorrect. So I'm one in three, but we're going to see if you're going to go for now. A big caps.

Big congratulations to Tiger Woods for winning the Masters. Two exclamation points. The roar of the tiger is back! Exclamation point. False. He didn't even say roar. That one's true. No way!

Woo! Magic! Your house is still alive this would be a monumental collapse oh it's gonna be over right now i'm gonna i can't possibly get any more i feel like kevin brown i gotta sit up straighter i just don't think he would have said roar I got to sit up straighter. I just don't think he would have said roar.

The roar of the tiger? The roar. I was there, and then the roar of the tiger. Was there a tiger emoji in there, too? I'm trying to read. I'm not going to say what I'm doing here. I want to congratulate LA Sparks general manager Penny Toler for being the longest tenured 20 years and most successful general manager in WNBA

history! I think it's true! That was such a layup. I just wanted it to be closer. This is such a computer dicking right now on Madden. This is for the win, Russo. James Harden's

38 points tonight had the worst players on ice skates exclamation point he led his rockets to an even series comma two to two

no exclamation point no I'm saying no no that's an actual tweet he said ice skates yeah I'm starting to think this is rigged magic's rigged No, that's an actual tweet. He said ice skates? Yeah.

I'm starting to think this is rigged. Magic's rigged. Bill didn't like that I was dominating so much in the beginning. All right, that's it. All right, let's go. Let's keep going. This is just for the tie for house. Had some great quality time with my sister Jeannie at dinner tonight.

Hashtag family forever. I don't know if it's true or not, but it's absolutely hilarious. I'm going to say it's true. That was true. Three to three. Oh, so much pressure. So much.

We might have to go back into the 2015 range. We have to go way back. I want to congratulate Rutgers women's basketball coach Vivian Stringer for being the first division coach in NCAA history to win 3,500 games. Exclamation point. I'm going to say false.

He's right. I took a tweet and I twisted it and made it factually accurate. I knew there was no way you were going to read me another real one after you were scrolling through them all so no matter what you read I was going to say false well

Rosillo wins 4-3 Valiant comeback house absolutely it was really really impressive alright we're going to take one more break and then play Throne

why? hey it can be a little frustrating especially if you're in a hurry or running late to find yourself at a rail rail crossing, waiting for a train. And if the signals are going and the train's not even there yet, maybe even feel a bit

tempted to try and sneak across the tracks. Don't do that ever. Trains are often going a lot faster than you expect them to be. They can't stop. They won't stop. Even if the engineer hits the brakes right away, it can take a train over a mile to stop. By that time, what used to be your car is just a crushed hunk of metal. And what used to be you, better not to even think about that one. The point is you can't know how quickly the train

will arrive. The train can't stop, even if it sees you. Again, the train can't stop, even if it sees you. The result is disaster. If the signals are on, the train is on its even if it sees you the result is disaster if the signals are on the train is on its way and you need to remember one thing stop trains can't that is a message

from NHTSA it's time for Throne Game with Ryan Russillo yeah House and I played on Sunday night just because it was

right after the show can I get just sort of your vibe where you were at with it after the fourth episode because I didn't sort of your vibe where you were at with it after the fourth episode? Because I didn't get to listen to it. They feel like they're in a hurry. So, you know, there was a lot of questionable strategic moves out there.

We didn't understand how the dragon was killed. Why it was kind of a 40-minute mark blip in the episode where it's like, oh, she lost another one of the dragons. The dragons were kind of built up as a big deal. It's like if Brady goes down eight minutes into the 07 season, 08 season, I'm not just moving on to the next scene right away. Like the dragons were the great equalizer and we lost one. Also, we didn't know that the arrows the, the dragons were the great equalizer and we lost one. Also, we didn't know that the arrows could kill the dragons like that so easily. Um,

yeah. Why were dragons? So were they overhyped for years? Like, Oh, you could just, you could just mop them with a, a well constructed steel tip.

Well, and then we didn't understand why she didn't want to engage shooting fire and why she didn't bring the dragon behind the boats because all their arrows are faced one way just go behind them and just blast them with fire take them all out yeah so that was one strategic thing that we thought was all questionable and then the ending was the other strategy well no john snow telling his sisters about the family thing. Yeah. And then Sansa immediately telling it.

Yeah, I mean, come on. I need you to promise me that you won't tell. Snow's got that Tebow thing where he's always out of breath. No matter what. With Tebow, I'm like, Tim, just settle down. Take a breath, man. Get your breath. Like, just settle down. Take a breath, man. Take a breath. Get your breath. Like, recess is over.

We didn't like that he trusted his two sisters, neither of whom like his girlfriend. Yeah. With some dramatic information that could completely transform everybody's destiny. Not a great idea. And he made Bran tell, I have something to tell you. Yeah, the King of Comedy.

Bran, tell them. Bran. Bran. something to tell you yeah the king of comedy tell them friend i think he was worried the king of comedy was gonna uh was gonna spill the beans on him so he was like i'm just gonna get this out because that fucking guy he's just sadly staring into the distance waiting for his eyeballs to run back again i'm glad look i'm glad they had a party because you feel like if you take out the dead like you need to you need a little're going to blow off some steam. Absolutely.

So that made sense. I was kind of going, wait a minute, are they just going to walk around and go about their day? That doesn't make any sense. No. I was like, no, okay, so now they're going to have this party. But I got to tell you, I don't think Lannister was drunk enough for that one. Tyrion? Yeah.

No, no, no. Jamie. Oh, Jamie. You saw the movie made? Like, what kind of mead are you drinking? And I just felt like he's just been my favorite for such a long time

that I was a little taken back by the whole thing. And then they had this like weird complicated relationship. You don't think the V card? I'm sorry. Keep going. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. What? That's an attractive thing to some sick man.

The 1300s. That's a rarity. You know what? We're getting called out for calling it the 1300s because people want to point out this is an alternate world. Oh.

So it's not the 1300s. It's an alternate world. But that's all right. I've said 1300s too. It's whatever I want it to be and I've chosen to say that it's in the 1300s. But that's all right. I've said 1300s too. It's whatever I want it to be and I've chosen to say that it's in 1300s. You know what it doesn't seem like

is it's in the future. Okay, so I think you still might be safe there. I don't know. Like, Brianna Tarth, that's cool. I just felt like her and Tormund were a better fit.

So, like, that kind of threw me off. But it said you were saying that Jaime wasn't drunk enough to step to her. Is that I don't think the Jamie I know. That's that's all I'm saying. She looks good on the red carpet. I mean, yes, yes, I get it.

But I mean, you know, so there's that part of it. Here's the thought. You're on Greyjoy. Yeah. Hot. Yeah. Good looking. He is looking good looking man yeah yeah i feel like the ironborn get a real real bad rep because they probably don't bathe and a lot of your stuff when it's around the ocean water is going to stink anyway we all know that yeah and i i just all of a sudden i'm looking at him kind of running this Navy and he's

aligning himself with Cersei. And I go, is, is he underrated? Are his looks underrated? Discuss. Um, I think he could use some crest white strips.

He's got those nice blue eyes though. Nice, nice blue handsome guy. I, I, Cersei's made it seem like, uh, it was a step down for him,

for her. I'm not, I'm not as convinced the guy runs an army uh he took that we saw navy we we saw him take down a dragon he's got he's got he's the last lovejoy standing he's he's he's he's really got a great joy missile launchers and by the way played by pilu asbeck pilu asbeck yeah from? Pilou Asbeck? Yeah, from Copenhagen. I'm a huge fan of all the guys, the actors. That Mads Mikkelsen guy or Mikkelsen, whatever.

Which one is he? He was Lafiche, the Bond villain who had the blood dripping eye. He was terrific as Lafiche. He was in Arctic, which I recently watched. Big fan of those guys up there doing their thing. So shout out. But I feel like for years, Euron Greyjoy is this disgusting human being,

and then I watch him with his boats. I hid that vest. It's like a Varvatos one. It's usually better off waiting until those stuff goes on sale at Varvatos. But I just, I don't know. I thought it was worth bringing up. But the dragon thing is, here's the deal.

They knew that it was a better story if they didn't have three dragons mopping everybody you know what i mean like when you can't just write the show and be like hey we got three dragons and we're really smart about the way we use them and we're just gonna mop every single army so they had to keep taking the dragons away so i'm sure the guys are just like look to make this more realistic if the flying dragon love scenes aren't real enough we'll take a dragon away from them so now they only have one dragon but I don't think that Cersei when they beheaded Grey Worm's girl

not being disrespectful to her I just can't remember her name Maricela or whatever it is Maris what? Missandei? I like Grey Worm's girl Missandei Missandei yeah sometimes with headlines now you want to be respectful and inclusive but Sunday I like Greg Worms girl I knew oh yeah like Sunday Sunday yeah I just you know sometimes

with headlines now you want to be respectful and inclusive but I just I feel like there was no way they were just gonna let them parlay and talk it out and now it's on and I think man they've got two episodes to do this all over again I'm starting to wonder like what will be the ending because it has to be something it has to be something it can't just be daenerys sitting on the throne with john happily ever she's gonna die in a starbucks cup next to her did you get any starbucks did you guys do any starbucks content we didn't know about it we didn't have until monday yeah we we saw it the next day you feel or late something like that's happening on social media do you sit around and be like all right uh can i have a vente dragon blood no that's not funny uh this whole cup is a mood oh no that seems a little that seems a little overused like do you

feel like you're left out like i gotta dragon breath latte yeah damn it that's gonna work i gotta fuck i gotta come up with a starbucks game of thrones tweet before i leave it is funny how we've turned into a nation of stand-up comedians on Twitter. Yeah, everybody feels like, well, you know. Get your one-liner off about the Starbucks cup. Yeah. Who's next? Look, you.

Here we go. I like it. I'm just a dumb guy in Washington, D.C. I like, I appreciate the cleverness of the Twitterati. I'm not against it. I'm just pointing out everybody had to do their line. That's the thing. My point is you feel like you're like... So you have to contribute.

Yeah, like how, what? Like, okay, Venti, Venti, Grande, Grande, what's Grande? That's you boys. That's you ABC boys. Always be content. Some of us could just sit back and enjoy it. If you watch

Mad Men a second time, the continuity stuff there is all over the place because it's constant cigarettes and drinks. They had no chance. They just had to have been like, hey, there's going to be times where guys get a full, you know, J and B going, and there's going to be a time where it's empty

and the cigarettes are going to be all screwed up and stuff's going to be happening. Right. So when you watch it a second time, it's so I don't like for people to do the the people that are down on the show like i'm still enjoying the hell out of this show okay and i'm excited about what the end is i don't i know that they're going to have to do something that i think pays off in a less predictable way than some of the other stuff to this point uh but for people to go like oh this

show sucks and those guys don't care they They left a coffee cup on the set. That's just. Well, I know for, you know, you're a writer. I'm sure that's frustrating for you. People are actually starting to think this is serious. The writer thing? What people? Couple writers. They're like, wait, did you sell something?

Yeah, the writers are, you get it. I mean mean i want in on this somebody has that thing i know i'm a big guest but i do want to ask ryan a question as a writer okay this is gonna be so bad why didn't cersei kill danny she has her whole army with the with the superior with the advantage of everybody convened from, you know, on top. The arrows are cocked. Just take them all out. That's what I'm saying. I don't think that's what she would have done.

Who wouldn't have done that? No, I'm agreeing with you. I just said. Cersei, yeah, where's the honor? As a right-hander. She was done. Whatever guild of honor she belongs to, like she stopped paying dues a while ago. Word. But but again this is us doing the stupid shit at home we were like why don't you just

kill him okay okay is that what you want to have happen you just want that to happen at the end as a matter of fact yes that's what made this show so great over all these seasons the red wedding was like oh my god all these characters that i'm invested in, all of them, all at once, are dead. They're all dead in one fell swoop. Now what's going to happen? A Theon murder or Tyrion murder I would have been all in on. I'm surprised we didn't lose somebody big in the last two episodes that felt really big.

But then maybe that's, you know, maybe this is the kind of thing, as a writer, where they've already planned this out. And it's going to come together. But apparently these leaks going around right now and people are losing their minds. Just don't read the leaks. No, I'm not reading them. No, not you.

I'm saying people out there. You don't have to click on the leaks. Reaction to leaks. But I also remember one time it was leaked that Brad Pitt was going to play Bob Marley in a bio pic. And that went over really poorly on social media. People being like, I can't even. And for two days, people were convinced Brad Pitt was really going to play Bob Marley. And let's just say some people were really upset about that.

So Game of Thrones has been about swerves this entire time, right? And it seems like this is headed toward too easy of a conclusion. It makes me wonder what the swerve is going to be. Okay, what's a guess? Give me a swerve guess because you're right. I have one from my buddy J-Bug, which I'm going to get to of a conclusion. It makes me wonder what the swerve is going to be. Okay, what's a guess? Give me a swerve guess, because you're right. I have one from my buddy, J-Bug, which I'm going to get to in a second. As you know, a noted Game of Thrones scholar,

the J-Bug. As a writer? I'll give you this one right now. Has he ever written anything? He wrote this text. My buddy, J-Bug, says, everyone's been waiting for the climactic Arya kills Cersei scene, but it would be classic Thrones to have that occur off the chessboard.

Sansa and Arya are a nasty scheming duo. The leaking of Jon's true identity. After Dany tortures the place she'll be hated, Jon will be the natural replacement. With Sansa getting what she wants, a free north of control, they're creating calamity behind the scenes, kill the hot misandry, leak John's identity,

make Danny look unfit and irrational. And here's J-Bug's theory. It was Arya that ordered Grey Worm's girl to be beheaded because Cersei is dead and she has taken Cersei's face. Whoa. That'd be a swerve. This is making me feel like I'm at the Willie Nelson concert again. Doesn't Arya have one more I can exchange a face card left on her Starbucks card?

That's a Kyle question. Kyle? I didn't know we were counting. I thought she was just done with the rules. Yeah, she kind of betrayed them. Does that sound realistic at all to you or no? I can see it. I mean, she's done it like twice already.

So we're going Mission Impossible here. Just so you think it's like, oh, face mask again. Face mask. So the other thing I was thinking was, you know, Tyrion's been like the worst GM of all time. It's him or Billy King are the two worst GMs that have ever lived. Just over and over again. He's like, hey, we should do this.

And that ends badly. Hey, let's do this. No, no, we can trust her. And every piece of advice he's given to Daenerys for the last, basically, season and a half has been atrocious. So the thinking is, is he a double agent? Has he been working for Cersei all along? Another theory.

She hates his ass though. Doubt it. I'm rooting for it. Yeah, but if she's a double agent, why would she send Bronn up to potentially kill him with the crossbow? I don't know.

I'm just throwing that theory. Why did he trade Gerald Wallace for a top three protected pick? They only like three guys in the draft. It's bad jam. Tear in. What do you guys think

of the back to the future theory? What's that one? That the Daenerys parlay encounter with Cersei happened

10 years ago. Little inception. I can't follow the timeline. How would that happen? I'm calling bullshit on it. So that preceded the White Walker fight? Yes. Hold on. Let's read Magic Chance's tweet after the

Throne Show. So excited for two more episodes of Game of Thrones exclamation point only one exclamation point that's bull this shit is Liddy so do you think Jamie and Brienne and Tarth they'll never see each other again or does that circle back that just feels like one of

those weird nights that's it yeah so do we see her again uh i don't know the timeline got really stretched there and people had a hard time with that and it's like well okay boats take a long time i don't understand that part okay but you know how long it takes to or a boat like they're rowing that shit that's going to take a while Dave the last this season is oreboat even a phrase this season and last season

people seem to be able to get from point A to point B like really quickly because remember like it was second or third season Jon Snow's just traveling and he runs into the wild people and that's just episode after episode

they're just kind of hiking and it never ends yeah in this episode Daenerys is like hey we should go see Cersei and then they're just kind of hiking and it never ends yeah in this episode daenerys is like hey we should go see cersei and then they're there like a scene later i say hey hey we're here i actually i didn't have as much of an issue with that but i think the swerve thing is the thing that i keep what's the swerve out because like danny on the throne with with varus just being her aide is like,

okay, that's basic. It has to be something like Varys has already double-crossed her ass. He told Tyrion. I just don't trust bald eunuchs is one of my things. He's in Jon Snow's camp now. He'd be like a do not draft. Do not draft. I'm telling you, I said this on Sunday.

I think this is Sansa's world. We're all just living in it. I like this house theory. I think Jon and Dany are both all cooked up. They're going to be dead. Sansa's going to be sitting on there. Until Sansa gets, that would be a really, that would be a crowd favorite.

Because first of all, everybody loves her because of how cool she is on social media. But I'm not saying that's what the writers would be doing. But it'd be a crowd favorite in all the stuff. Like, was it Arya or somebody that was like trying to give her a hard time and it was and she's like are you serious yeah that was actually last season because i was re-watching some of the last season and aria is like you have no idea what i've gone through and sansa's like excuse me like ramsay bolton yeah ever look at his LinkedIn you know so

or a zip recruiter I meant um nice uh I don't I think that that would be something like she went through all of this stuff she always wanted to be a queen you know and she went about it in the way that

she was told to do it in the traditional way and then it's a real powerful moment. A female is winning this show. There's no way a man is winning this show. Do you think Cersei, when she took over the Brooklyn Nets, went to Kyrie and said, demand a trade,

work your way to the Celtics and destroy them from within. And then we'll sign you in the summer of 2019, take their dragons away. No, that would be Sean Marks. Sean Marks has Cersei. And then we'll sign you in the summer of 2019. Take their dragons away. No? That would be Sean Marks. Sean Marks as Cersei. He targets Kyrie two years earlier. Kyrie, here's what we want you to do.

We have a max contract waiting for you. Jon Snow, with his first three picks, would take Giants. And they'd be like, what are you, David Kahn? And he's like no i just you know like where i see value on the board like what's wrong with giants but you can't only have three giants you gotta house them there's feeding issues they're gonna eat they're fucking what are you gonna put them in a tent can't just put a fucking giant intent like you gotta think about canopies and like big take a 10 year old girl you need for every giant you

got you need 10 regular people and you have a team with just three giants people are just gonna run around them with sticks but one of those giants lives in in giant Spain

and it's gonna stay in giant Spain indefinitely right so snow could be like I didn't even know the third giant was moving down here can we do winners and losers from the second dragon day?

Winners. All the cows? Because those dragons go through like what? How many cows a day? 20, 30 cows a day. I'll tell you, there's some rejoicing in cow land. Sheep herders? Sheep herders.

That business just gets safer. What about the people that clean up dragon shit? Because dragons take big dumps. We don't see that. I don't think anybody cleans up that shit. How do you think the dragons shit? They shit take big dumps. We don't see that. I don't think anybody cleans up that shit. Oh, you don't think? How do you think the dragon shit? They shit and it stays there.

Big giant dragon shits. Imagine the dragon shits would kill people. Yeah. Like if they hit a little one. Hot dragon shits. I don't think they shit when they're flying. I think they shit when they're on the ground. Oh, that's true.

What if they shat when they were flying? That's my point. People like just, it's like raining dragon shit. Yeah. They should have thrown that in. They have the CGI to do that. They should have done that. Just one.

Just a reminder. One dragon shit, like Jon Snow's buddy, Sam, is killed by dragon shit. If Tarly dies, it's not soon enough. Which character are you most afraid is going to die that you're the most attached to i love the hound yeah but he'll be dead there's no there's no point in keeping him around surprised he made it i thought i mean he could have been a more established character that died in the battle and you've been able to move on i mean you know you can do whatever you want with the storyline

there but if we're not having the hound they'd be fine would you go different hairdo if you're the hound maybe go high flat top i think kind of own this burns face yeah versus trying to cover it up with like the comb over i've got a really good buddy named mark and he said something to me like 10 years ago when you know i don't know it's back to when we were all single and you know we were we're talking to girls and he was talking to some and i was like what are you what are you doing over there it's kind of early to set you know the tempo you're setting here it feels a little early yeah and he's like what am i supposed to do wait around till it's later when it's like more competition he's like if i if i if i you have a read i have a read here and take a shot yeah and he goes so if i so if I find somebody who's interested in me this early, I got to make sure I follow up on that.

And I was like, well, yeah, I know. But like all the guys are in town and that kind of stuff. And he goes, hey, Ryan, because I have never been a girl's number one choice in a bar in my entire life ever. He's like, I'm not a bad looking looking guy but i know i've never been the number one guy ever so that's the adjustment that you have to make in life so if you're the hound yeah he knows like if i'm going to some stew and port bender no one's ever gonna get who i like is the guy with half his face burn off so why not own it with the high flat top yeah because i think you kind of can comb it over a little bit and i think that was kind of the style then so i actually think credit for that no he's

he's trying to stay stylish and not letting the burn skull get in the way of it i or maybe maybe like just a really thick hat that maybe is pulled down. He's just a hat guy all the time? Yeah. Like one of those hats they wear in Russia when it's really cold out. So the ear flap would cover the face? The ear flap hat would be good

for the hat. Who are you most afraid is going to die? How come they can't find a seamstress to put that together? I mean, it's fucking cold all the time up there. By the way, he couldn't have asked Melisandre, the Lady of Light, to kind of throw him a bone? Yeah, before you walk into death again, could you just fix my face? Right, before you kill yourself and walk off.

Could you touch my face just for three seconds? Just a concealer or something? Concealer. Imagine if he had one of those hats though in like episode five and everybody like one of the scenes in game of thrones is like have you seen how good the hound looks it just doesn't even make any sense he's lost like 10 pounds has who what character do you not want to die i feel like this might test our friendship this might be yeah there's a line here um and i don't intend to challenge it i'm not trying to take

advantage of the fact that i have a birthday coming up or any of the rest of it happy birthday thank you um i don't care about any of them now they could all die the whole episode they could the a meteor could hit their fake world and they all be dead there hasn't been nudity any significant nudity on the show in several episodes. And so as far as I'm concerned, Game of Thrones can be over. It just put me out of my misery. No, that's not true. Bron had it going pretty good with a little party there

in the first episode. Again, many episodes have passed since then. I just haven't had my- We watched the episode on Sunday. You heard of Google? I like being this is I like being surprised I like the surprise

let me let me have my I'm at an advanced age give me give me my little pleasures is it too much to ask? he's 30 50 give me my little pleasures

it doesn't take much. We were watching the show Sunday, and they showed the card at the beginning with this episode contains adult language violence, and there was no N. And House goes, God damn, son of a bitch. Where's the N? No N?

Really? He's yelling at the TV. My mom's in the other room making meatballs for us. It was the best. Classic House. So House doesn't care about anybody. That's true. You know what I would like to say, though, big winner,

that we left out? The Dothraki. How are they the winner? They all got wiped out. The fact that there was a few of them hanging around at that party in episode four, I was like, wait a minute. You guys, come on. It's all good.

You're all good? Like the 20,000 people you lost? Come on, guys. Like, where were you guys? I mean, speaking of tactical miscalculations, she sent her whole crew in to get slaughtered with the holding back the dragons. What about laying a little cover fire?

We didn't like that. What are we talking about? Didn't like that at all. I'm a military, not historian. I have a controversial. Tactician. It's been covered. What are we talking about? Didn't like that at all. It's been covered. I'm a military, not historian, I have a controversial tactician. It's a hobby. My favorite character

is Arya and I don't want her to die. That would bum me out the most. But my number two favorite character just purely for comedy's sake is now Bran. I fucking love

every scene. Bran for life. I'm so excited. It turned. It turned. He's so bad. He's so depressing. I'm so excited it turned it turned he's so bad he's so depressing I'm hashtag

brand for life I agree with you Brandy Downer like just fucking kills me you should go as brand for Halloween next year it would be great well I'd probably

somebody would get mad right you can't do that you could get in a wheelchair no but you could dress up without the wheelchair just walk around

in the brain outfit like what nobody's going to wear white contact lenses so you just have white eyeballs and what and walk around yeah in a brain outfit yeah but you'd have to lurk just being super weird creepy judgment you would check in on kids that were trick shooting your neighborhood you just like creep up sidle behind them quietly like you guys getting candy that actually would be worse than you in a wheelchair. No, you'd walk around with a chair and then you would sit down in it. And then you would just judge people.

Yeah, you would just judge people and then say things like, you're thinking about your ex-girlfriend, aren't you? Like, what? Who are you? The things we do for love. I could solve all your problems, but instead I'm just going to sit here outside and freeze. My whole life's in the past.

Every time he's in a scene, I'm delighted. All right, we're wrapping up Throne Game. Before we go, House. Yes? You're rarely with Rosillo, especially the lab microphone. Do you have any questions for Rosillo? Oh, God. He's an open book.

He loves talking about ESPN, weird media stories. He's an open book. He loves talking about ESPN, media, weird media stories. Like he's an open book. He's ready. I have a million questions. I didn't know that this opportunity was going to be presented to me. And so I don't know where any of the lines are, but I want to live single life through Ryan Rosillo and I'm going to save that for the next time that we're together. Cause I really have a lot of questions. Any van Pelt questions. You guys go way back. I love Scott van Pelt. He's a DMV homie. I mean,

I've, I've, I've lived vicariously through his public DMV persona all these years. He loves golf. I love golf. He went to Maryland. I grew up two miles from Maryland. I rooted for all those land bias teams were pretty close in age.

He's a couple of years older than me. He's from Montgomery County, Maryland, as am I. I mean, he's a hero of mine. You may have just outed his age. That's not going to go over well. Oh. Isn't his age a public record or no? It's a secret.

It's a secret? It has been for years. You serious? I don't feel comfortable. How hard is it to find out when somebody graduated college? With him, it's actually a little dicey. Really? Mysterious.

Did he graduate college? Is that why it's dicey? He did. Hey, look, it is with me. What it says on the paper, what it is in the records are two different things, too. Do you think they should dress Stanford Steve

as Bran for the last two Sunday Night episodes? This is a great idea! He's just sitting there judging SVP. Talk about bad beats. Why did you bet the Hawks? Maybe that was your mistake. You had the under in the first half. Figures.

If you hadn't rushed to commercial, maybe that wouldn't have happened. Oh, John Butchergross again? Hmm. The phone's ringing. Maybe it's Norby on the phone. Maybe you should answer it. I like it.

Let's do it. See if you can pull that off for us. It's such a good idea, but it has to happen. A text will be sent. All right, right at the end of this podcast. Yep. I don't want to text during the show again. All right, so you're going to do that.

I'm going to drive Kyrie to the airport. House and I are going to play golf tomorrow. Yeah. More golf and steak. And we're going to eat steak tomorrow night and it's all going to be great. This was fun. Little Tuesday night. And then we're back Sunday night. Sunday night. Right. Going to New York City tomorrow. Going to be doing some ESPN stuff.

And yeah. Get up. Yeah. yeah you're gonna be on television jaylen jacoby get up and um we got another cool thing that we're doing so all right um do you know when when rossillo finishes his get up segments they're like and clear like for commercial and he just looks around he goes crushed, crushed it. Points to himself. That's what the get up people told me. I'd like to see a picture of that. Crush it again. I don't say anything. I don't look at anyone when I do it. I just walk out.

Are you going to see Will Kane when you're there? Yo, you all got five? I will see Will Kane when I'm there. I can get you Will Kane on this podcast. Can we have him call in? Yeah. Are you serious? I brought it up before. I thought you kind of laughed it off. I think it'd be funny. What do you mean laugh it off?

I love Will Kane. You're a fan on him quicker than you were me. That's not true. I'm telling you. Here's what I like about Will Kane. Commits to the take. That's the first take tree. He's like, I have a take.

I'm selling the shit out of this take. And I'm never relenting. Yeah. And by the way, I really genuinely believe this take. I'm now going to sell it to you. You don't think he always believes it. I think there are times when there's overwhelming evidence that goes counter to something he's been saying for a while where he knows it's probably really good information and he'll find a way to kind of how's that we're driving back yesterday we were listening to him and he was about to start he's a year in doing

this for i know he's been awesome for a guy a year in like i get that people don't like his politics and all that stuff but as far as the actual act of hosting a show. I just like the takes. So he's starting a segment. I'm like, watch this, Haps. He's going to fucking take coming. He's going to sell the shit. And then he's like, coming up.

And then it was like about the Cleveland Browns. And House was like disappointed. He was like really ready for the World. So now he's got to listen to the World Game Podcast. I'm fine with that. We were driving today. Who was talking about with that. I mean, we were driving today. Who was talking about

Dak Prescott? We're listening to speak for yourself today. Yes. We were driving to play golf. I enjoy speak for yourself. They're talking about

whether Dak Prescott's worth 30 million dollars a year. And we were just laughing. And one of the guys in the show is like, look. If you don't have Dak Prescott, you know, if he doesn't take that money,

who are you going to give it to? And there was just silence. And we were like, nobody? It's fine? It's okay? It's Dak Prescott? You'll be okay? I'm okay with paying Dak 30.

30 million a year? The way the new contracts are going to work out with the bump and everything that's going to be happening here. Yeah. With quarterbacks, it's like, what are you for a start? So you're going to argue. I'm not okay. Look, I'm not telling you you have to,

but he's going to get 25. I just think this is the exact. He's getting 25. But this is the exact same line of thinking that House said to me two years ago when they were about to pay John Wall 200 and how many million? I don't know, but I don't appreciate bringing John Wall into it.

Who else are we going to have? He's our guy. We're stuck with him. We got to pay him. When that's the mentality, it's never a good idea. You're right. And that's like with the Kemba thing

where I go, what are you going to do? Just be like, hey, this is our guy. And then I'm just going to go like, I wouldn't want to do that. But John Wall, when he did it, he actually was playing. But he'd only had one healthy year at that point.

Yeah. That's why that's the part that made me nervous. I just think it's funny. You think it's so ridiculous that Dak would get 30 when you basically, if you're a starter and you're signing a new contract now where you're projected to be the starter for the next four years, you're going to get 25. We're on the Kirk Cousins scale. That's, that's why he gets 30.

Kirk's a little different because he actually got to like full-blown free agency. So the guaranteed money was different. But I used to argue with guys all the time. Like, he's not worth 20. He's not worth 20. Like, dude, it's like vacation property. If you're buying in a certain neighborhood, it's just what it is. And quarterbacks, if you're the guy, even if you're not the guy, but the guy playing all 16.

I don't like it. What he just said, the Kirk Cousins scale. Exactly. That's my point. Exactly. Yeah. No, you're right. I just don't like it. What he just said, the Kirk Cousins scale? Exactly. That's my point. Exactly. Yeah, no, you're right. I just don't want to pay $30 million

for anybody that's not like one of the seven best guys in their position. You're paying 25 to 30 for the guy, not only for the guy, but to avoid the bullshit

of not having anyone at that position. Yeah, it's a tax of the fear of not finding a guy. Yeah, I mean, imagine being the Detroit Lions. Yeah, it's a tax of the fear of not finding a guy. I mean, imagine being the Detroit Lions.

Yeah. Imagine Flacco post-Super Bowl when they had to pay him. We all knew it was a bad idea. But they still were going to pay him. Even though he won the Super Bowl, people were like, he made himself a ton of money. He was probably going to make pretty close to what he signed for had he not won the Super Bowl. That's not

fair. He won the Super Bowl. He was the quarterback of a Super Bowl winning team. My favorite takes ever is guys coming back to SportsCenter, ranking him the number one quarterback in the NFL. It's hilarious. I love that. A couple guys. What? No names. I was a Monday.

It'd just be me walking through the hallway. Be like, are you guys fucking serious? We're doing this now? And then I'd go to my office. House for sale. A pleasure. Thank you. All right. Thanks to the zone.

Don't forget to go to DAZN.com for all the information you need to sign up for that. Thanks to the ringer podcast network and the ringer.com, the world's greatest website. Thanks to Joe house for playing golf again tomorrow. One more time. Thanks to home Depot. Where can you get the best in home decor? The Home Depot has thousands of on-trend pieces to fill your space. Plus in-store returns and free flexible delivery shop.

HomeDepot.com slash decor save up to 10% with code BS Home Depot. Valid on select items only. Free delivery on select items, $45 or more. Visit homedepot.com for more information. I feel it's working On the wayside I'm a person Never once said I don't have to be