The Bill Simmons Podcast - Jordan's Greatness and the Winter Olympics With House and JackO (Ep. 330)

Episode Date: February 23, 2018

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons calls up Joe House to discuss the need for the definitive Michael Jordan documentary (06:30), how every MJ game was "must-see TV" (19:00), the trouble with comparing him to LeBron (26:00), the Kawhi Leonard mystery (41:30), and tweaking the playoff format (45:00). Then JackO gets on the line to talk about Johnny Weir's style (54:15), Canada's performance in the Winter Olympics (56:00), Tonya Harding's undeserved redemption (01:04:30), and their favorite moments of the Olympics (01:05:00). Read Bill's article, "How LeBron Can Finish His Fairy Tale Better Than MJ," here: https://t.co/dze1usPJ0m Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the Bill Simmons podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network, brought to you by ZipRecruiter. What if a QB completed 80% of his passes? Well, that's conceivable. Tom Brady does that all the time. What if a point guard hit 80% behind the arc? Not really conceivable. Steph Curry once a month.

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And speaking of ringer plugs, it is Jordan LeBron week on the ringer. And we have posted a ton of excellent columns, features, posts, whatever about that battle. I still have Jordan as the GOAT. LeBron can get him with meth. I wrote about it today on TheRinger.com. I wrote about 1998 Michael Jordan versus 2018 LeBron James and the choices that they had heading into those seasons 20 years apart. I spent a lot of time on that one. It's a long piece, but I think it's worth it. And I really enjoyed writing it. Guess what? It's fun to write. Check that out on TheRinger.com. Check out all of our Jordan LeBron week stuff

on TheRinger.com. Coming up, we're going to talk about Jordan LeBron and we're going to talk about the Winter Olympics and some other stuff with our old friends, House and Jacko. Oh my God, it's an old school episode of Friday Rollin'. Here we go. All right. It's an old school episode of Friday Rowland. Joe House on the line, the host of Jack House, the host of House of Carbs. I did that wrong. House of Carbs.

House of Carbs. Jesus. You're the channel, you're Vince McMahon brother since the last time we've talked on this podcast David Chang opened a restaurant here and I've been to it five times it's called Major Domo

I keep taunting you with pictures of the food it's really one of the most fun things that's happened to me in a long long time I just love torturing you there's a great restaurant here you can't eat at it. You can go to hell. I think I've gained 10 pounds. I don't care. I'm going to keep eating major domo and you can go suck it. You know that this is setting itself up for, we're, we're, we're going down in a domo war. We're going to have a, I'm coming out to LA. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to have a domo war. I'm

going to come out. I'm not going to tell you. I'm going to, uh, you know, find somewhere on the way deep down low in Beverly Hills or wherever, wherever, get a nice hotel. And I'm going to have, I'm going to volunteer to work for a whole week at major Domo.

I'm going to be there morning, afternoon and night. I'm going to eat every meal there. I'm going to have 30 meals at major Domo in a week. That I, I can't wait to see that. That'll be exciting. Yeah, Chang's blowing up.

His Netflix show launches today. Tonight? On the Netflix, as you would call it. It's called Ugly Delicious. I have seen one episode, and it was about pizza and the concept that Americans have that Italians created pizza and mastered pizza when actually like a lot of different types of people make pizza. And he basically travels around the world and eats pizza and house. I have no idea why he didn't

invite you. Big mistake by Chang. Is that almost offensive? My feelings are not hurt in any way, shape or form. I just take, we get whatever little bit of David Chang we get is enough. We're very happy with whatever he's able to give us. Well, we used to feel that way about Michael Jordan once upon a time. And then he left us. I still feel that way. Yeah, he left us. And then he left us a second time. And it hurt both times. Both times he left as the best player in the league. I did a column today about this, and I wrote that he holds the record for most times the GOAT has left the NBA as the finals MVP and just retired.

It happened twice. Still amazing. The 98 one was interesting. I did a lot of research on it for the comp today. And what I found out and what I truly believe is that the biggest reason he left was he didn't have anywhere to go, which is impossible to believe, but it's actually true because they spent basically a two-year run there trying to push him out and trade Scottie Pippen and then let Scottie Pippen go, not extend him, not pay him, push Phil

Jackson out. They haggled over his salary for the last year to the point that he almost didn't come back. They tried to basically hire his successor as the season was going along and then did Tim Floyd. And 20 years later, reading the books again, I was just shocked that they didn't try to protect that dynasty and try to extend it as long as possible.

Did you even remember this stuff, House? Because I didn't until I reread the books. So I did not either. And I have to tell you, I had a couple reactions reading your story. First of all, we've been friends for a long time, coming up on 30 years now. I know that I appropriately am criticized for being overly solicitous with you, a little too deferential at times. But God damn it, that was a great story, my dude. Thank you.

Such an unbelievable tale. But the other thing is, it's a shame that you don't run your own multimedia, you know, digital and content company because this would be one hell of a goddamn, you know, program to watch. I could watch this for 90 minutes, two hours, two and a half hours. I mean, you know,

there are so many tentacles and tendrils to this story. I want to watch, you know, a 10-minute takedown of Krauss, at least 10 minutes. Well, I think you're going to get your wish because my friend Jason Hare, who directed the Andre the Giant documentary and who's very talented, and it's the third time I've worked with him, and the Andre thing is, in my opinion, the best thing he's done.

It's really good. His next project is to do the definitive 10-hour MJ, what we've been waiting for for 20 years. And they're doing it with ESPN. Well, it's time. It's officially time now. Yeah. And I got to say, I think if Jordan made a mistake these last 10 years,

and it's really not even a mistake, but just like from a protect the legacy, protect the goatness standpoint, it was not doing a documentary. Because I think, you know, I noticed it with the Ringer staff and we had all these people, we have a lot of young people and a lot of the people that were writing about Jordan and LeBron this week

didn't 100% remember watching Jordan? Because you really, unless you're like 28 or older, you probably have no recollection of it. And even if you're, let's say you're 28, I think Kevin O'Connor's 27. So he was seven during the 98 finals. So, you know, you kind of remember the tail end, but not really.

And I think the biggest mistake he's made in a really weird, it's narcissistic, but it's, you know, you got to protect the corner. I wish he had done this sooner. I wish he had just been like, here's how great I was. I'm going to do all the interviews. Here's the footage. Don't ever doubt me. I was the best.

And he didn't. I don't think that that criticism is fair for two reasons. In the first place, in the first place, there was no reason to protect the goatness. Who is he protecting the goatness from over the last 20 years? It's only been this this increment of LeBron with the sustained appearances in the finals. And he's only got, you know, he's three and five in these, or is he three and four? Whichever it is. Three and five. You know, he's not yet really anywhere near MJ in terms of the incandescent and incomparable, you know, taking over. We've only seen him take over a handful of times.

It was never that MJ dominance. Right. So he was. Go ahead. You know, we were obviously there. We were there. I'm a Celtic fan. You're a Wizards fan.

He kicked our team's asses a lot of times. There was zero doubt even after the 97 finals, which is what I thought made the 98 finals so special. it was Tiger, Ali, and Jordan. Those are the three guys that you kind of expected them to do something great. And everyone was rooting for them. And the 98 finals was that game six, when it was like, all right, MJ, pull another fucking great moment out of your ass. And then he trumped all the great moments he'd ever had. And we kind of were waiting for it to happen. And then it happened. As I wrote in the piece, that's the final level. That's it. When you're an athlete, when you're doing that, that's it.

You've unlocked all the levels. You're not going to like this, but this is what I expected out of Tom Brady five weeks ago. What else did he do? He threw 505 yards. What else do you want from him? He had the ball with two minutes left and the chance to take his team down. His left guard missed a block. He had two wide-open receivers.

Those are just, you know, facts on the ground. We're talking about goatness. We're talking about what we want out of our greatest. Anyway, the other observation in terms of why I think this documentary that you're describing is best left for now, and you made the point, is because you need this kind of juncture in time where there's been a full generation of human beings who never got to experience MJ, appreciate MJ, you need historical context. There's a whole... You don't want

to have the documentary come out five or six or seven years after you're done with your career because then it becomes a Kobe blowjob tour. We just went through that. It was terrible. I didn't enjoy it and we're going to keep getting these dribs and drabs of Kobe's greatness

and it's fine. I watched Kobe. Kobe was great. He'll go down as an all-time terrific scorer, not even in the top ten of all-time basketball performers to me. Not in my top ten, okay? But, MJ, I think this kind of moment that we're entering, this phase we're entering with LeBron, where LeBron, it seems, I'm knocking on wood, you can hear how loud I'm knocking on wood,

because of the health and the science and a lot of things that you observed in the column today, has what looks like to be another five or six years to kind of write his story, and that's when MJ should be entering in and like, hey, don't anybody forget about MJ. Old MJ is right here, y'all. Still at the top of every list. Yeah. You know, watching, so we're taping this Friday morning. Last night, the Cavs played your beloved Wizards.

And the Wizards were finishing them off. They're up 10 with like four minutes left. And then LeBron just decided to score every possession. He did. And was just destroying everybody and doing that bully ball drive to the basket, bounce off people. And,

you know, I look, those trades, everybody, they won two games. Everybody went crazy and thought they fixed the team. They did not. What they did fix was LeBron's trying again.

And those trades reignited kind of whatever. And now it's like, he's they're the favorite in the East just because of how good he still is. And it's year 15. And I don't think he's the same two way player anymore, but I still think he's the best offensive player in the league. And he has the highest ceiling of any offensive player in the league. I think Durant's a better two way player.

And I, I actually think Paul George is a better two way player at this point. I don't think that I won't, I can't stand for that slander. First of all, no, I'm just, my point is,

I just don't think LeBron on the defensive end was never a dominant defender. Like he was never a defensive player of the year or even, I don't even think he was as good as Kobe defensively. And he's slipped on that end now. And he's really more of an offensive player. His iconic play in his whole career is the block, but okay. Listen, that was awesome.

And that was the one thing he was really great at and still is great at is the chase down block. But I don't think he's a lockdown defender by any means. And this thing of, I reject this narrative of Durant of all of a sudden, oh, you know, if he wins defensive player of the year, He shouldn't.

Paul George. I'm going to claim another perversity. No, that's, Paul George shouldn't win defensive player of the year. He went up a level two months ago. And, you know, it's like,

remind me to talk about the All-Star game with you near the end of this. The Jordan thing, though. So when we started doing 30 for 30 which was 07 and connor and i spent two years doing that basically and then around 09 as we knew maybe the end of 09 close to 2010 we knew that the series was heading toward an end and it was clear they didn't want to bring back the second volume the people that were in charge of it um wanted to move on and get away from that brand.

Then they left and we brought the brand back. But we had this DVD. In 1998, the NBA followed around the Bulls for the entire year, NBA Entertainment. And they followed him behind, the Bulls behind the scenes and got a lot of behind the scenes stuff and they captured the real MJ. They captured the guy who yelled at people in practice, who berated people, who did all the stuff that we'd always heard about.

Where is it? I haven't seen this. So we had, I know. I think I'm one of like 12 people who have seen it. And they just had it. And they really wanted this to be like their biggest masterpiece that they've done. The problem is MJ controls the rights. And he came off as MJ in the piece. And I think at that point, he's Jordan Brand. He's this certain guy. And they didn't want him screaming. Him and his team didn't want him screaming at Scotty Burrell.

So we tried to make it anyway. And we talked to everyone on his team, including Este, who's basically his gatekeeper, who I really like. And they just weren't ready. And we even had a couple. I won't name the directors. But we had a couple of real directors that we sent the DVDs to. What do you think of this? It's amazing.

And what was really amazing from the footage they had was how lonely and isolated his life was those last two years. He was so famous. He was so staggeringly famous that he couldn't go anywhere it was like they basically just played and went back to his hotel suite and he was just there with like two bodyguards playing poker he couldn't he couldn't do anything so that that it's really cool and i know that they have access to that stuff for this documentary and i hope they get to use the footage. But I think the ceiling of an MJ documentary is about, OJ is the highest. That was always the best story. We always knew that was the best one. I think MJ is like a level below, but has the most ways to go. And I guess the question

will be how candid will he get with it? You know, remember that Wright Thompson piece where he was pretty, he's fairly candid with Wright Thompson. And it was, there was some revelations in there. If he does that with the documentary, I think it has a chance to be special because I know Jason's really good. It should work. I think this is another element as to why waiting makes sense, right? So that he, his, his own sort of, uh, um of self-possessedness and confidence and ability to be articulate about himself, you know, he's at a stage of life where maybe he can wax philosophical a little bit, right? He'll want to be candid because he understands now at his age and his position and his legacy how important it is to memorialize that and capture it in a way that's uniquely MJ,

but also has some rough edges to it. I hope he throws himself into it. The best parts of that doc, the parts that I would be the most excited about, the dream team, Parts that I would be the most excited about. The Dream Team. The 93 finals when he really started bristling about the media. And it really became a media versus MJ situation. And then he went out and... Remember that Knicks game?

When he had... He took all the shit because he played golf. And he was really pissed off. And he went out. It was really pissed off and he went out it was like on a sunday and he just dropped 55 on bradley's nicks in the playoff game with like all the hand check rules all the hand check rules there were no flagrant fouls back then and he just like eviscerated them it was mj was the best man i just love that guy i loved watching that guy we would you and i would call, I would just call you after some of those games.

We would just have like, you know, like Chris Farley show podcasts about, oh my God. But that's, you know, that's an important element of his legacy that needs to be preserved, which is that really for an entire nation of sports fans, it wasn't just basketball fans. Every single MJ game was must-see TV. It was appointment television. I was dating a girl whose parents, she was a swimmer, and they weren't necessarily deep traditional sports fans,

but I watched a lot of games at their house because we had to watch MJ. Yeah, that was TV. Definitely in a group setting, like a community sense mattered a little bit more back then. That was like from that stretch from 94 to 98 were like the NBC lineup on Thursday nights. I remember dating a girl where, you know, she was still living at home and we would go i'd go over and hang out with their parents and we would watch all the thursday night mbc shows you remember it was like yeah friends seinfeld er we just bang them all out and you're right you would the mj

like that era you would go over and watch a playoff game with whoever and uh we had less choices back then the internet wasn't really going yet. It was going, but it wasn't the content farm that it is now. And I think those MJ performances just mattered more. The ratings were huge. Now it's like, you know, the other thing, which I mentioned a little in my piece, but we didn't see a lot of MJ during that stretch. It was like they were on TNT sometimes. They were on NBC sometimes.

You saw them in the playoffs. But the regular seasons, we might have seen seven or eight MJ games a season. I remember I was dating a girl in Chicago, I think. Yeah, it was his last season. And I remember I was there for like four days and there was two MJ home games. And she was like, what do you want to do? I was like, I just want to stay home and watch these random regular season MJ home games. There's no better alternative than this.

I can't believe this is on regular television. But that's just the way it was. Now it's like every LeBron game we can watch. Yeah, that's right. It was just on the weekends with the NBC game of the week that you would get a little taste of MJ, or you had to wait for him to come to your hometown so you could watch him on your hometown regional cable network. I still have him. In my opinion, it's not close. And the younger generation is going to think it's an old guy on the couch saying I still think there's distance between him

and the ceiling of what he was able to do every game and everybody else it wasn't just the playoff games it was game after game after game he was at that level you captured it in the piece he wanted to win every single game that he stepped on the floor.

Like, the funny thing would be, trying to look through his career, after, say, like 1991, find a game that he took off. Like, try and find five games that MJ took off from 1991 until, you know, he joined my poor Wizards in 2000. I dare somebody to find five of them. That stat where the last, the second three-peat, he played 304 of the 304 games is ludicrous. And he played almost 12,000 minutes.

And, you know, they won 62 games that third year. The league was diluted at that point. The expansion had really hurt the league in 94 and 95. And it definitely, from a talent standpoint, was not the same. But he went 62 and 20 that year and didn't have Scotty for the first three months. Rodman was

unraveling. And then it was just like Kukoc and Steve Kerr and Luke Longley. It was not an all-star team. And he just wouldn't let them lose. And what's interesting was the highest point total he had that year was 49, but he still averaged like 30 a game. It was like just every game he would have 30, you know,

and he would just get whatever he's done. And it was like he didn't have the same athleticism anymore, but it was all like the footwork, that turnaround that he developed, that was unstoppable and just always knew when to get fouled in the right spots. I will say, I think LeBron in a lot of ways is at the peak of his powers offensively when he wants to be. Like he definitely has more – what does Lombardi say? The Fred Palermo menu?

His Fred Palermo menu of decisions offensively is the most extensive I think it's ever been. He really can post up now. His three-point range is good. He really doesn't have any holes offensively. Do you see any at this point? No, I agree with this. What I like and what I was reminded of last night is when he gets into the mode where he recognizes that the best opportunity for his team to win is for him

to take over for a stretch, is he starts playing with pace and he starts, you know, getting the ball at half court and going to the hole and daring people to, you know, either get in his way or try and try and stop him. He is literally unstoppable. He took Jan Mahinmy and tried to put him in a coffin last night on three consecutive possessions. C-Web was going nuts. Well, I mean, Mahinmi shouldn't have been in there. It's like, you know, hello, Coach Brooks.

He should have a phone on him with a buzzer where he gets electric shocks, you know, when Mahinmi's been in too long. Hello, Coach. Yeah. But in any event, that pick up ahead of steam and go to the hole, you know, that that sort of, you know, that mindset that that that's the only piece that that, you know, it's never been missing. But that's like, look, you know, him exerting his will is expressed in that dynamic, I say. I really respect how much he's worked on his game.

And if you remember, like the end of last decade, 2011 finals when Dallas was putting J.J. Baret on him because they knew he wouldn't post up, like he's clearly, which is crazy, but he's clearly gotten better. And this is a guy who was putting up 32, 8, and 8 or whatever he had that 2009 or 2010 season. His stats were crazy, and he's actually figured out how to get better.

The curious thing, and our boy Tom Haverstraw is on this, he's more comfortable at the free throw line. That's a humongous difference. That was hurting him last year. You know, all right, this is not a criticism of LeBron because this is not his fault. But I do think the way the league is now makes it easier for him than it would have been if he was playing in 1998. Because if you watch some of those MJ games from the mid-90s, first of all, the spacing is terrible.

The spacing is worse in the 80s, but it's still not great in the 90s, which is why I think the triangle was effective back then. But the paint is so clogged. You know? Like, you watch that Utah team. Sometimes they would have Antoine Carr, Coral Malone, and Greg Ostertag out there. Like, it was just like six guys in the paint at all times. I think it would have been just harder for LeBron to get to the rim

with all those big bodies. On the flip side, he would have just been 20 feet from the basket shooting open jumpers. Yeah, I don't think we can easily make that era comparison because I'm pretty sure he would have figured out a way to adapt. I mean, he's got the body of Carl Malone and the shooting touch of, you know, an all-time great shooter. Right. He's like a much, much better Carl Malone.

But yeah, just those games are so different. They're eye-opening to watch because the pace is so slow. And they're so physical. They're so-opening to watch because the pace is so slow. And they're so physical. They're so physical. There's no threes. It really looks like a different sport. And I think that was one of the reasons MJ was able to really survive and thrive that last season because the pace was so slow.

You really only needed to get to 90 points. And you could slow it down and really kind of pick your spots. And game six 98 he's he, he it's a masterclass on just how to control a game when you shouldn't win. Pippen's like his back's broken in that game. Rodman's out to lunch. Kukoc is really the only guy he had that, that who was above average they're in Utah and he just yanks it out anyway.

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For a limited time, listeners of my show can get their first three months of clear for free. Oh yeah. Go to clear me.com slash bill. That is clear me.com slash bill for your free three months of clear. I don't know why you wouldn't do this. I went to the all-star game on Sunday. Yes. And had a couple revelations.

What is that? LeBron James is still the best player in the league. That was a revelation? Or a reminder. I knew that, but it was nice to see him. First of all, I know we talked about this Monday on the pod, but I hadn't talked about it with you. It was really nice to see the guys first of all it was i know we talked about this monday on the pod but i hadn't talked about it with you it was really nice to see the guys give a shit and i still think i still think the all-star game matters and i really like how you know as a as a pipe dream as a basketball fan

it's a nice little slice of who matters for a season you you know? And you think how that game played out on Sunday, and it was like all the guys who kind of matter right now were involved in that game in a significant way, and that's why we need the All-Star game. And it was, I don't know, I enjoyed it. Basketball has this advantage over other sports. Like other sports can't really ever get a version of the All-Star game that captures the essence of that moment in time.

I mean, the 10 guys on the court in the last five minutes there, there were probably eight Hall of Famers, maybe nine. Yeah, the only guy who wasn't out there was Davis, which was more of like a roster thing and who definitely belonged out there and probably just should have been on the other team so they could even it out but yeah it was it was they basically picked paul george over davis for the defense but paul george belonged out there and you know i know i mentioned this on monday but and b belonged out there man and and. And he was a fucking handful. They didn't know what to do with him.

And he was like the biggest monkey wrench in the game. And LeBron was covering him at one point, Durant. They didn't know what to do. It was great. I don't know what to do either because we have a Philly bet that's out there. And if Bede keeps playing, we are cooked, Daddy. I know, but remember, I was telling you guys last night, we were betting and Bede couldn't play 55 games.

We thought it was inconceivable. He's at 45. It seems like it's going to happen. I would like for him to play. I would like for Philly to win. I want Philly to make the playoffs. I was on the record back in October or November saying there's no scenario under which Philly, notwithstanding,

their start was going to make the playoffs. I would be fine with being wrong because I want to see him and Ben Simmons in the playoffs. Yeah, Ben Simmons, he hit the rookie wall there for a little bit. And now when the All-Star snub happened, and he should have been there. Like, it's a trust in Dragoj. He's not really a snub, though. Yeah, but when somebody gets hurt and then you put Dragoj in over Ben Simmons, that becomes

offensive. Sorry, Heat fans. Okay, all right. I'll accept that. Guess what? The All-Star game's for the fans, too, and I just would have rather have seen Ben Simmons in the game. Sure.

Like if we can shoehorn him in, let's get him in there. But yeah, I think I think there's some really fun playoff possibilities, especially in the East. Like if the Sixers get in as like, let's say they're the seven seed

and Boston's the two seed. Yeah. I'm petrified. That's a terrible matchup. I don't like that matchup at all. It's a terrible matchup. You're absolutely right about that. If Embiid's going to play, who is that not a terrible matchup for?

And the way the playoff schedule sets up, remember all the rest. He doesn't have to worry about any back-to-backs. There are no back-to-backs in the playoffs. Yeah, that's going to be fun. Giannis always has the potential. It was interesting watching him at the All-Star game because he just didn't have the ball.

I don't know why they didn't make him the point forward. He had to play off the ball, and it was clear that the Greek pickup scene just wasn't really that good back when he was growing up. He had nowhere to go. He was proud to be my son in my fourth grade, in his fourth grade basketball game. He's been playing basketball for four years.

I know. He's like, where do I go? He's just like kind of running around with a chicken with his head cut off. But, you know, yeah, I think, yeah, the ceiling slash upside of Giannis is at least a little 2007 LeBron-ish, right? I'm not going to say 100%, but there's a whiff of it. And then, you know. It's not sacrilege to say that.

And then you're whiz. Yeah. If the doughy malcontent John Wall comes back, who knows? How dare you? That's an outrage. Did you call him the doughy malcontent? I did. I just called him a doughy malcontent.

I'm a doughy malcontent. Oh, I'm sorry. I meant you. You're a doughy malcontent. John Wall is a rehabilitating super-duper star. He's an all-star that tried to power his way through this season. He came back too early, didn't give himself enough rest, didn't give himself enough opportunity to get

himself in shape. The season started two weeks earlier. He didn't really recover properly physically or mentally from the end of last season, and he paid the price. He's getting that rest now, and the important thing to me is get that rest because the playoffs

are coming, and i want the full compliment i i'm gonna repeat this to you i said this uh sometime in the last month i feared no one in the east there's not a team in the east that my washington almost bullets cannot beat now they might lose in the first round but i'm just you, there isn't anybody in the East that they can't beat. I'm going to give you one more chance to walk that back. I'm not walking anything back. I was very quietly proud last night. Now, the challenge they have is, and Andrew Sharp touched on this in a recent column, there's a leadership vacuum that is tied to me to the fact that there aren't any winners on the basketball team. I went on the Heat Check. What's John Gonzalez's show? Heat Check, Mondays. Heat Check. I went on it. Yeah. And we were telling, it was before the trade deadline, and I was scouring the league for an available winner to come and help this young team. The very best time here in Washington that Wall and Beal had together was under the tutelage and supervision of none other than Paul Pierce.

And after Paul Pierce left, there has been, you know, both of those guys are alpha dog kind of guys, but neither one of them has really won shit. Like the problem with my poor Washington team, the most accomplished winner is, I don't know who, I don't know who on the team has won anything at any level of their basketball career. You don't just sort of learn winning. That led to John Wall jumping on the scorer's table with a game seven looming.

Correct. Yeah. Game six. Yeah. That's what I mean. Correct. You don't do that when you haven't won the series.

Here's our East Coast matchups right now. Toronto versus Miami. That's a fun series. I would watch Toronto-Miami. I really enjoy Miami. Is Miami the most fun random league pass team? I think they are. Boston-Philly.

It's a great one. Cleveland-Milwaukee. 3-6. Oh, my God. Pretty good. LeBron, Giannis, holy. I think Cleveland wins in five, but. I will say this.

Giannis gives two fucks about LeBron. Even in the All-Star game, there's a couple moments where they cross pass. And let me tell you something. Giannis wanted it. LeBron at one point gave him a nice little cheap shot, little sly elbow that the refs didn't catch. Like there is no love lost. I'm telling you right now. And then the four or five would be Washington, Indiana.

Great. That's the team I want. That's a sweep. Can I gamble on that right now? I want to bet that sweep right this second Hold on The executives from NBA TV are on the line They've locked up the whole series

That's where it's along 863 on Comcast That's NBA TV here in D.C. That is the 863 special The Western Conference right now Would be Houston, New Orleans They may not even televise that Golden State, Portland now would be Houston, New Orleans. They may not even televise that. Golden State, Portland, which would be...

Listen, Golden State can't defend point guards. It's gotten worse every year, and now it's to the point where there's more point guards than ever, and all of them love playing Golden State, whether it's Lou Williams, whether it's Damian Lillard, whether it's Kyrie Irving. Those guys are going off,

and they... You know, Whether it's Lou Williams, whether it's Damian Lillard, whether it's Kyrie Irving, those guys are going off. I'm not going to overreact to the Golden State thing, but I will say this. I think they made a major mistake this summer with the Iguodala-Livingston contracts. I don't think they should have done those. I didn't really feel good about them at the time. And now seeing where the salary cap's gone and seeing how flat they are and seeing kind of the holes that they have, I just think those contracts were a mistake. And I think the right point guard can really destroy them. Like, they really have matchup problems.

It's not going to matter because they can score 135 points, whatever they want, but it's not going to be the distance that it was last year. Now, now it's not the time to judge those contracts, I would say. And if they made an affirmative decision to, to sustain what they had for,

they, they, they bought continuity because come may when they're, you know, when it's time to turn it on and the title is within the sights again, that's the important thing. You need those guys with all of those playoff minutes, all that experience, all those winning minutes.

That's what's important. I think Iggy has too many miles on him. Could be. But you only need him in a couple games in the playoffs. He had some 40-minute-a-game seasons in Philly. I think he had like three in a row. Those things catch up. Remember Michael Finley was just done.

Remember that? Michael Finley was really good, and then all of a sudden he just fell off a cliff. San Antonio-Denver is a series right now. What's fascinating about that is San Antonio is 35-24, and the eighth seed is 35-24, and the eighth seed is 31-26. I don't think New Orleans is going to make the playoffs. I think the Clippers or Utah will.

But there are only four games. Utah's 30-28. They're in the 10th spot, and they're only four games behind San Antonio. And then Minnesota, OKC, is the 4-5, which would be outrageous. But I feel like we're not getting that. One of those teams will climb to three. This Kawhi thing is the second weirdest story of the NBA season, narrowly trailing the Markel Fultz, what the fuck is going on saga

that has kept going on and on and on for months and months on end. It looks like Kawhi's not coming back. Nobody seems to understand what's going on. He's practicing. He seems like he's fine but doesn't want to play. And as somebody who's read breaks of the game, I don't know, 500 times? Nah, maybe 40. There are starting to feel like there's some Bill Walton, Portland,

40 years later parallels here. What do you think? I have no idea what to think. At the beginning of the season, we got together. We did our annual over-under. And at that point in time, the leg injury still felt like an unknown. And it still feels like there's some unknowables about it you know and and that was the uh you know a significant enough red flag i think you and i for sure went

under i don't know if it was a unanimous under for san antonio but you just can't mess around with leg injuries that um you know don't have uh an easily understood, easily pinpointable, you know, genesis and an easy fix. And I think, you know, if you wanted to be generous, you would say this is the lesson learned from the Durant, you know, occurrence with OKC where he tried to come back and it wasn't quite ready. Then he had to have surgery and it kind of ended up extending the entire leg injury that KD had by six months. And again, if you want to be gracious about it, Janice, about it, you're saying that Kawhi is avoiding that. And, you know, Derrick Rose took some shit.

You know, now it turned out that his problem was chronic. Yeah, but it was, not chronic the smoke. No, but I'm glad you brought that up because there might be some parallels there. Sometimes a guy gets hurt and it gets in their head. I don't know what's happening. I don't fully understand it, but I think the best guess would be that it's a mental thing and that he doesn't trust his body. And the doctors are telling him, trust your body, and he just can't get there.

Well, if there's any organization that's best suited to be forward-thinking and to bring to bear unexpected resources to help him get over it, he's in the very best place for that, right? Well, when my buddy Jalen Rose was on last month, and I asked him if Kawhi was on the Spurs in two years, and he said no. Huh. So I think this goes deep. Why not? This is one of those things where Jalen knows stuff. They had the same college coach, and I don't know. where Jalen knows stuff. They, they had this, they had the same college coach and I don't know. He just, sometimes Jalen knows stuff. Something's not right with this

situation. It's too weird. And, uh, and I think if this was the Lakers or this was, um, the Knicks or the Celtics or any of the big market teams that were a little more accessible and had more media around them, I think it would be a bigger deal. It's San Antonio. They shut everyone out. It's not a big media market. And this story has just kind of been going and going. Meanwhile, the guy almost won the MVP last year. This is crazy. Yeah.

But I don't understand that story. Last thing I was going to throw at you, the play-in stuff, because we've been talking about this forever. I think I first wrote about it in 07. Ten years. Seven years. I've been tweaking it. We talked about the top of Monday's podcast,

and now my old Grantland teammate, Zach Lowe, wrote yesterday that the league, and I had heard stuff over the weekend too, that the rumor, the buzz was definitely building. And he had an interesting wrinkle that he said they were talking about, which was that it would be what, seven versus 10 and eight versus nine. And that's how they would decide the playing games. And basically the attitude was, if you're in the bottom five in each conference, you're out.

That shouldn't matter. But so basically it would be four playing games for those two spots. What'd you think of that? I kind of love it. I mean, the guys that are in the 10th spot right now in both conferences, they are still every bit incentivized of love it. I mean, the guys that are in the 10th spot right now in both conferences, if, you know,

they, they are still every bit incentivized to try and make the playoffs. Those are franchises where a playoff appearance, you know, is important, would, would matter to their, what they're trying to achieve. It matters to the, to the young guys on the teams. And that, that, that's your, that's a really crucial gray area. And having those franchises sort of built in by way of a playoff mechanism incentivized to play their ass off for the last 25 games of the season, I absolutely love everything about it. Portland 7 versus Utah 10. Pelicans 8 versus Clippers 9. Philly 7 versus Charlotte 10. That's really the only bad one. And then Miami 8 versus Detroit 9. But a team like... Like for every franchise that you just mentioned,

except for the Clippers, it really matters to get into the playoffs. Yeah. And you could also... could also rig it so that the lottery is 10 teams. And maybe the catch for that to prevent tanking is it's 10 teams and everybody gets the same chance for the first three picks. I couldn't agree with that more. I totally support that.

I'm done with waiting, increasing the odds for the teams with the worst records. I'm so over that in basketball. Well, here's the other thing. Unless you get one of the top, I don't know, the first pick seems to matter, although it didn't matter last year. Really, there's no rhyme or reason to who ends up being the best guys, right? Like, last year, Tatum, three. Donovan Mitchell, 13.

Who else did we like? Dennis Smith, pretty good. Izzy? Wow, I's pretty good. Is he? Wow, I think he is. Is he? He's on the right, you know. Is he? Is he?

I think you could get 20 on him right now. I don't think that. I can't get 20. All I can get is 20 bites. I have to go to, to, to Domo and get 20 bites. I could do that.

Yeah. Well, I think that I think the play, here's the thing. Make, make April a little more fun. Figure it out. April's not fun anymore.

That first round sucks. It's all best of sevens and you know, who's going to win and sweeps. And, and even the ones that end up going seven games aren't that fun. It sucks. It's not good. I still like the

versions where the one seeds get buys. I support a buy vibe. That's the way to make the regular season matter for the top team. How about this? What if it's best of five first round? I mentioned this on Monday, so sorry I'm double

dipping. Best of five first round, but the top two seeds in each conference, they have four games at home. Or the top seed in each conference or whatever. There's some sort of prize for getting the one seed. Yeah, there should be a prize for getting the one seed.

It's interesting in the East still. It would be really cool to see Cleveland and Boston and Toronto duke it out. And the Wizards! I'm trying to think of what scenario would cause me to miss any of the four playing games between 7-10 and

8-9 seeds. What do you mean miss? Like you wouldn't watch? No, I'm just like, I guess if I got kidnapped, I would miss it. If I was struck by a car, I would miss it. If I was in a medical coma,

I would miss it. Those are the only three scenarios. Otherwise, I'm watching all four of those games and enjoying the living fuck out of them and gambling on them and the whole thing.

Right. That'd be awesome. Not doing what we do with one versus eight now, which is check in. I want my watch, you know, six minutes of the third quarter. What's the score in the middle of the fourth quarter?

Okay. I, I'm not watching. Oh, great. Golden States beating new Orleans. One 20 to 80. Awesome.

Exactly. Exactly. Um, all right, before we go, give us a quick House of Carbs plug. We have coming up

on this week, Thug Kitchen, former husband and wife who serve up healthy food with a little bit of attitude. And don't forget about this week's

Sugar! Two guys that I gave out on Wednesday in first and second place right now. I'm sure I just queered their chances, but myself and Jeff Shackelford will try to give out one or two winners for next week's tournament in Mexico. And we're also going to hopefully be talking about, I'm knocking on wood, can you hear me knocking, another fantastic Tiger performance.

What if Tiger is rounding into form? He looked great yesterday. He tees off at 1230 today, so I don't have any information about his round today, but knocking on wood, hopefully we're talking a little Tigre. You and I and my dad are going to Augusta. I'm so excited.

I'm so excited. The roosters are so good. It's going to be phenomenal. I've never been. It's so good. It's my dad's last sports bucket list thing. Tell him to bring walking shoes. It's not an easy walk.

That's not good for him. We'll carry him. We'll carry him. The dock's light now. Yeah, should I bring him? I'm going to have to get him to get in shape, do more walking. Tell him to start now, walking up and down Beacon Hill. That's how you get prepared.

What's the number one food thing I should be excited about? All of it, all of it. The beauty, you won't believe it. It's an array of sandwiches, all of which are like five bucks, and the beers are five bucks or six bucks, so you have to order every sandwich so we can have bites of all of them. They each have their charm. A lot of people like the pimento cheese.

Don't ever sleep on egg salad. The barbecue is surprising. You don't expect a nice pulled pork, but it's there. It's lovely. There's a whole thing. We're going to have them all. Don't you worry. House and I will accept free food and free gifts from everyone there.

So feel free to bowl us over with kindness and bribery we're ready, whatever you need whatever you want to give us bribery first alright House, thanks, talk to you soon good time let's talk about Belvedere, produced in one of the world's longest running distilleries

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I want to talk about the revamped Ringer NBA show. I think I'm hosting it on Monday. Jason Concepcion's away. Kevin O'Connor's away. More importantly, the host of the show, John Gonzalez, is away. We need bodies. People need to step up. It's next man up. It's like Belichick style.

So we're either going to run the BS podcast today, that Monday as well, or I'm just going to do a ringer NBA show on Monday and we'll move Monday's BS pod to Tuesday. Stay tuned. Try to keep up. Back to the pod. All right. On the line right now, our Winter Olympics correspondent, Jacko, my buddy for 30 years. We just had another buddy from 30 years, Joe Hassan, to talk about MJ versus LeBron. And now- Excellent.

Now the Winter Olympics. First of all, is it true that you changed your hair and now you have Johnny Weir's hairstyle? Did that happen or did I get bad information? No, that's absolutely true. And I also coordinate my outfits with his every day. Oh, that's good. So I'm wearing something very similar to what he wore last night. I'm glad he's had such a dramatic effect on you. My highlight. My wife and I were actually talking about that last night.

What do you think he looks like when he wakes up in the morning? Because it must require hours and a team of people to make his hair look that way. There's no way he could just get up and comb his hair or blow dry his hair look that way. There's no way he could just get up and like, he could not just get up and like comb his hair or blow dry his hair like that. I mean, he's got like a team of professionals and he must get in there like, gotta be a good four or five hours before airtime, don't you think?

I would love to be in his bedroom closet the day before he's going to the Olympics as he tries to figure out which jackets he's bringing. Well, amazingly, I'm ashamed of myself for knowing this, but I have seen stories about he and his partner in crime, Tara Lipinski, and the amount of clothing that they brought with them. He has said basically he brings every single thing he owns. Yeah. And they have like dozens of trunks filled with clothing so they can be prepared to coordinate outfits and be prepared for any occurrence, I guess, in terms of what he wants to wear that day. So yeah, he's got everything he owns basically with him in Pyeongchang.

So my highlight of the Olympics was the women's hockey game two nights ago, USA versus Canada. They've had our number. We haven't won in 20 years. Right. They had a player that I've grown to dislike over the course of the decade. I know, you need that. Poulin, Poulin, however you pronounce her, her little French name. She's a little cheap shot artist.

And she decked one of our players in front of the net in the second period they didn't call it should have been a five minute major she's also scored in the game down to one had all the makings and the u.s just turned it on in the third period get the goal with six minutes left goes into ot completely the OT, but can't score. And then it goes to a shootout, which is such a terrible way to decide the gold medal. But then as it's actually happening, it's super exciting. And one of the twins pulled off one of the great goals I've ever seen in my life to basically win. Sure.

And it was awesome. The shoulder deke. All the Canadians were crying, including Poo-Anne. And it was the best. We were taunting her in our ringer slack. I've never felt more patriotic. It was awesome. How about the woman that they gave the silver medal to and she couldn't get it off of her neck quickly enough?

Yeah. And just absolute disgust and just sadness about the loss. It was fantastic. Yeah, I bathed in her tears. USA! I'm a little worried about our neighbor to the north, though, because not only did they lose in hockey, but then I think, I don't know, at the same time or several hours later,

the U.S. men's curling team beat Canada in curling. Yeah. So to lose hockey and curling in the same day. Yeah, have some of that. Canada, just talk about your rough days. My God, it's incredible. And their prime minister is off in India. He should have flown back home for emergency cabinet meetings or something.

It's outrageous. That should roll in Canada. It's so great when we beat them in hockey and they have to listen to our national anthem. It's their great when we beat them in hockey and they have to listen to our national anthem when it's their national sport. 99% of the athletes that Canada produces is hockey. It's like, hey, go look at our red, white, and blue flag. It's going up right now. Enjoy it.

And today their men lost. Their men lost today. So now it's really reached, I mean, I don't know what's beyond DEFCON 1. It's incredible up there for poor Canada. The last night was the figure skating, which came down to the two Russians. Right. And a rivalry that has been described as friendly.

I don't believe it. I think they hate each other's guts. No, absolutely. The aforementioned Tara Lipinski, actually, in the lead-in to the skating, they kind of did this, not kind of, they did a montage of basically skating rivalries going back to her and Michelle Kwan. The amount of side eye just in this 30-second montage

of women's figure skating competitors over the years is really pretty incredible. Aside, before you even get to the Tanya and Nancy thing, which was a whole different level of rivalry where goons were brought in, and everybody knows that story ad nauseum. Yeah, that's probably my number one most heated rivalry. One that made the other.

Yeah, that's going to be the top of the list, no question about it. But there's no way those two girls like each other. They had some fake press conference or press conference where they claimed, oh, we're wonderful friends, but there's no way they can possibly like each other. No way. I made a lot of inappropriate jokes with my wife as I watched last night about the loser being relegated to a taken scenario where they just get sent off

to some gulag and never to be seen again. But you do really feel that tension, like whoever loses might just disappear because it's Russia. Who the hell knows? Sure. She goes to work at Tractor Factory number 47 or something. Yeah, that's it.

Instead of going on to a glorious skating coaching career. You've disappointed our country. Now you have to leave. The 15-year-old, it was very polarizing. The Ringer's Olympic slack, very polarizing between the two camps and i was in the i i thought the 15 year old was better and uh and other people were adamant that it was the other one and it got very heated and none of us know anything about figure skating which really made it special but well figure skating to the casual fan is absolutely impossible

to watch like you can to understand i should say you can watch. Like you can, to understand, I should say, you can watch it and you say like, well, she fell down, like that's going to hurt her. That's going to be a red box up at the top left corner there. But it's blatantly obvious. But I wouldn't know like an axle from a toe loop from a triple jump. I can never tell if it's a triple or quadruple

or whatever it is. And then if you watch the pregame, now I have a six-year-old who's way into the figure skating. She loves it and has to like, she can't just watch it. She has to watch it while like jumping and doing spins off of the coffee table and demanding that I be her partner and like lift her up and do things. And we have to have scores from the judges. And so we, I sometimes get sucked into the pregame and they have, they have Scott Hamilton on, who is the number one spokesman for figure skating in the history of mankind.

I mean, he is to figure skating as Dick Vitale is to college basketball. Those are the two biggest proponents of their chosen sports of anyone that ever liked anything, maybe even outside of sports. No one has ever liked anything and been into it as much as Scott Hamilton is into figure skating. And when he and this other woman, Tanith White, do the pregame,

and they get in the weeds on this stuff, and they're like, well, that's a deduction because she came down on the outside edge instead of the inside edge. And I'm like, to the casual person who watches this once every four years, how could you possibly follow this along at home and know who's going to win this thing? You can't.

It's an impossibility. And then there's math, which makes it harder. It's like, ah, the Russian, she's got to get to 260, so that means she's got to be 76 points. I'm like, what's going on? And then last night he's talking about, he said, if you mess up on the ice, that you should never beat yourself up on the ice because that gives the judges permission to say, well, she didn't think it was good, so now I can knock off two points. Chapter 1 million, why you should never get involved in a sport that involves judging. Yeah.

Like, just get involved in a sport where you have to hit home runs or score runs or knock down baskets, and it's all based on points. Because if you leave it to judges, it's always a disaster, and it always ends up in controversy. So there's figure skating, well, she didn't smile, so that's a deduction. It's just ridiculous. What about the part where if you stack your jumps to the second half of the routine? Yeah, it's worth 10% more or something, right? It's better because it's harder.

Because you're more tired, and they're like, oh, boy, he's tired, and he landed that jump or something, right? It's better because it's harder. Because you're more tired and they're like, oh boy, he's tired and he landed that jump or whatever, right? They give you more credit for that. Meanwhile, it's a 15-year-old figure skater who weighs like 68 pounds. I'm pretty sure she's not getting tired during her nine-minute routine. Right. And all of it's, I mean, it's, everybody talks about like the pressure and everything. And some of these kids, I think they're too young to understand like the gravity of the Olympics or the pressure. But, and they do this, they've done this every day of their life, basically. They go out and do this routine.

It's completely second nature. And then they go out and it's, you know, they gag because the Americans were horrible. Couldn't stand up on skates. It was ridiculous. Yeah, I think if we didn't have- I mean, I guess there is inherent pressure in it. No, no.

Don't walk it back. Don't walk it back, Jacko. Don't walk it back. I'm going to stick with it. You do this every day of your life. You should be better at it. Stop falling. Not just that, but if we can't get in the top eight with anybody.

Yeah. And how valuable rink time is. And there's never rinks. And everybody's got to share these rinks. There should just be a rule. If we can't get in the top eight, that's it. The rinks go to hockey. We're just done with figure skating.

Unless you live on a lake that freezes, you don't get to figure skate. Sorry. And the one who was the national champion for America, Brady Tunnell, who they kept saying just burst on the world scene in the past three months, nobody had ever heard of her. They did a background story on her and she basically grew up at some ice rink outside of Chicago or in Chicago. I think it's outside of Chicago. And they had all these, you know, posters of her through the years. So the kid's been going to this rink forever. So like, just go out and do the same routine that you do in the rink in Chicago at five in the morning. Wow. That's easy to say for us. We're on the couch.

Although what's his name? Johnny Ware said that her, uh, her routine was a little, was a little provincial as he put it this year. I don't even know what that means. Elegant enough. No, I know. It was a little provincial, her routine. Did you see I, Tanya? I have not seen it yet. No, I would like to, but I have not seen it. Boy, does it take some liberties. So I'm told.

I've read a lot about it, and I read what the real story was, absolutely. I was kind of shocked that they brought her the Golden Globes, and I really hope they don't bring her to the Oscars, because here's a hot take. She's a bad person. She maimed Nancy Kerrigan. She pretends now that she didn't know about it, but by all accounts,

she definitely knew what was going on and she definitely got punished for it. And the movie, it's one of those classic, like taking facts with stuff and spinning things a certain way. And then people who see that movie are going to think that's what happened. And in this case, it's kind of egregious. She has a hard time explaining how it was that the FBI found a crumpled up note that had Nancy Kerrigan's practice schedule and location on her rink in Cape Cod.

And it was written in Tanya Harding's handwriting. Other than that. She's like, well, I'm not here. She does the Mark McGuire on that. I'm not here to talk about the past. But hey, what row of the Golden globes am I going to be in? I mean, are you kidding me?

I'd be so mad if I was Nancy Kerrigan. Seriously, I'd be like out of my mind. You're kidding me. You're making this movie and you're glorifying her. You're bringing her to the award shows. Fuck out of here. Right.

And you know, everybody, it's kind of comical because the cast of goons that Tanya Harding either hired or associated herself with were so inept that they did such a lousy job at it. I mean, they still did injure her, but they didn't injure her to the degree that they sought to. So we can all kind of laugh about it. But if they had done like a, you know, when Monica Sellis got stabbed by the lunatic in the tennis tournament, like we wouldn't be laughing and saying, oh, what a funny movie, if they broke her leg or

severely damaged her leg beyond what they did, or God forbid, injured her even worse. If not for the being so stupid, it wouldn't even be a funny thing. That's actually the next movie by the same directing writing team. They're making a movie about Gunther Parch, the person who stabbed Monica Seles. That's actually the next movie by the same directing writing team. They're making

a movie about Gunther Parch, the person who stabbed Monica Sellis. It's a hilarious comedy drama about a tennis stabbing. By what a victim he was. I'm out on I, Tiny. I enjoyed it when I watched it, but then I read the stuff after and now I'm out. I'm not a supporter. I wish it wasn't in the award show. There's been a backlash no doubt what uh what was your favorite random olympic sport this year that you didn't expect you'd like so much usually it's curling but now that's can't be the answer because you officially everybody's in on curling yeah everybody's especially you you love curling well you know what i you know what actually like touched me and i think it's because i'm always like a sucker if you have a sporting event and there's like, touched me? I think it's because I'm always, like, a sucker.

If you have a sporting event and there's, like, a great call that goes with it, like Russ Hodges, the Giants win the pennant, the Giants win the pennant. Like, cross-country skiing is a sport that you watch every four years in the Olympics. And you're like, my God, that just looks impossible. Like, there's, like, frozen snot coming down their face, and they get to the finish line and they just collapse. But i have i tried to cross-country ski about two years ago and it was not surprisingly an embarrassing failure yeah so i have more respect for them because of that but i can't say i'm a big follower of the cross-country skiing but when the u.s women finally broke through and this woman i think has been a multiple olympian and she did the anchor

leg i think it was a relay thing we won. And the guys call, like, down the – you know, because she came from back in the pack. You know, she was in third place or whatever and made a late breaking dash to the finish line and won the gold and the excitement. You know, so that kind of – I got wrapped up in that. I'll be honest.

I watched it a couple times, and I got a little misty. You got a little misty? Like, you know. From cross-country? What's happening to you? I don't know. I'm getting weak in my old age. But the guys call.

I mean, the guy was so fired up. Like, this guy's life. He's the Scott Hamilton of cross-country skiing. He's way into it, you know? And this woman is probably from, like, the wilds of Minnesota. Gets up every day at 5 a.m. Works out for eight hours a day cross-country skiing for like no money and no glory. And this is like her big moment. She gets a gold medal after years of trying, you know,

not to get all misty again, but that was a cool moment. Plus she was an American, so USA. I feel like I should be playing Shawshank music right now as you do your monologue about this whole thing. So I thought that was a cool, that was like a cool moment. Am I going to go out and cross-country ski tomorrow? No, I'm not. But it was a good moment and good job for her,

this cross-country skier. What was the dumbest and most ridiculous sport that was in the Winter Olympics that probably shouldn't have been? Well, you know, they have like, they have all these snowboarding things, right? So

they have like the snowboard, big slope and they have the snowboard half pipe. And then they have the same thing on skis. I think the skiing half pipe thing is probably the dumbest thing I've seen. I think the half pipe should be left to snowboarding. I don't think we should be doing like the half pipe, whatever that's called on, on skis. I think that's stupid. Well, how was the ski jump? I missed it this year. I don't know what day it was on, but it's usually one of my favorites. That was good. Ski jump was solid. That's always good. Nobody wipes out anymore. The equipment's too good.

No, nobody does wipe out like in the old days. I don't know if they have more practice time or there's more ski jumping slopes now than there used to be, but yeah, nobody horrifically crashes. They all land pretty easily. Do you think that's the one where there's judging? Do you think they should have one of the three runs? Somebody's firing a t-shirt cannon at them. So they have to deal with some adversity. That's a good one.

I'm always fascinated by the biathlon, which apparently arose. You've loved the biathlon for 30 years. Yeah. Because you know, that came out of the military, I guess, in Europe, where in case, you know, Russia invaded, you had to fight them on skis so you could ski to the battle and then have good marksmanship ability. So

that's kind of a fascinating sport when you think about it because, you know, your adrenaline's going a mile a minute and then you have to, like, stop and take five shots at five targets. Calm down. Calm down your heart rate and your breathing. And then they do it standing and then they do it laying down shooting so the big put the gun on and ski it's crazy the big tragedy is that curling isn't easier just to do with your buddies yeah i feel like we would have done that in college for maybe 10 hours a week there's no no question. If Worcester had like a curling shack or a curling bar,

like we could have gone and had curling and they, and they had drinks. We would have been there all the time. Curling looks awesome. I totally would have been into that. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's another one where a U S is going to be in that gold medal for the

first time. So even though U S has really sucked in the Olympics, very disappointing performance all around, but, uh, good for us to get a curling medal. USA. USA. Don't you think with my surreal ability to be great at stupid sports that curling really should have been my destiny? It was made for you. You were made to curl. You don't have to run. I'm telling you, 2022, you got four years to work on it. Is there a seniors curling thing, like an over 50? That could be my over 50 in four years. It's got to be.

I think you can still curl probably at age 50. I think you could be an inspiration. I could do it. And then I could write an editorial for The Spire at Holy Cross about how great it was. Your experience as a curler. It's my editorial for the Spire. They changed our newspaper to the Spire. What the hell is the Spire?

It's like the top of a tower? Yeah, the Spires of Fenwick, the administrative building on campus. Yes, the Spire. And then the Board of Trustees. Right for the Spire. The Spire. Whoa, all those great times on the Spire.

And then the board of trustees announced they're keeping the name and then people yeah did a whole protest letter about it because they want to get rid of their name even though they had like focus groups in a year of study and everybody was able to voice their opinion and you know put in their two cents and then the side that lost decides nope we didn't we didn't like that still going to fight it. It's a great way to use your time. Meanwhile, you watch the Florida kids and what they're doing this week. It's like, maybe that would be a better use of your time. There's some more important issues you could be into, right?

Yeah, there's some bigger fish out there that maybe you want to step into over the not really polarizing at all name of our college. All right, so what's your final grade of the Winter Olympics, Jacko? I'll give it a solid B. I thought South Korea did a good job. It's entertained me when there's not much else on TV in the middle of the winter for the past two weeks. I like it. It was good.

You know what my biggest takeaway is, is that obviously NBC, I made a joke on Twitter last week about Bodie Miller, the former skier and now skiing commentator. And I said, does he get paid? Is his salary based on how many times he says the word athlete? Yeah. But I've noticed that in every single sport that I've watched, and I've watched pretty much all of them, the word athlete is used by commentators to an amazing amount. Like you would never hear that in baseball. Like, oh, this is a big pitch by this athlete, you know? It would never be said. And I think that the edict came down from the production team at NBC that we have to use the word athlete. So they don't say like this skier or this loser,

this biathloner, this biathlete, everything is athlete. So they're like, this is a big run for this athlete. And these athletes, that's weird. So you think there's a staff memo? Had to be. Cause I've heard it more. I've heard the word athlete more in the past two weeks than I've heard it in my life. Very strange. Um, I guess the biggest surprise for me with the Olympics, other than the fact that we couldn't crack the top eight in women's figure skating, which I just can't get over, is Trump kind of laid off.

I know. Very surprising. I was expecting him to attack our athletes when they didn't win and be like, we didn't make the top eight in figure skating sad and like do these random these random uh trump tweet barrage on a saturday morning where he's just attacking scott hamilton and dick button and i'm actually very surprised by that too yeah i thought the same thing i thought he would take full credit like for the women's gold medal in hockey like we made america great again first time in 20 years look at what we've done now that i'm president, now that we've finally beat Canada. There's more where that's coming. Exactly.

Exactly. You suck, Canada. Watch your back, Trudeau. Right. Yeah, he didn't really seize the reins. I get the feeling he wasn't watching a lot of the Olympics. It wasn't on Fox News. It wasn't on Fox and Fred, so they probably didn't cover it as much,

so he didn't pay any attention. That's the thing that's funny about the Olympics and coverage is that, as I said before, I was watching the downhill skiing, and they were talking about some guy from Austria, and they said, oh, he's had a disappointing Olympics, and hopefully he can answer the Austrian press

with this one. They hound him all the time. It's brutal. Like in Austria, you don't have four major sports. They presumably like soccer. But skiing, these guys are humongous celebrities. So the guy gets hounded by the press about, why were you at that nightclub in Vienna?

Why weren't you training? It's like Jeter in the 90s with Steinbrenner, but he's some Austrian skier that wouldn't get recognized in any other country, but he's got five tabloids following him in Austria. It's the sports columnist for the Austrian newspaper is also like the food columnist and writes some politics too. There can't be more than six people who are in the media in Austria. But they're hounding like they're skiers, you know, followed by the paparazzi,

like Gunther Wiesenhall or whatever. Like, oh my God, how dare you come in fourth? I like the Gunther Wiesenhall podcast is really good. I've been listening to that a lot during the Olympics. I'm really hard on that guy. Oh, sure. Well, the same thing with like, they had that with lusures too. And they had this German female, I think she was a luge, yeah, a luge.

It was a luge or a skeleton. I think it was a luge. And they have all these fans are holding up these massive posters of her that like, like modeling shoots and like advertising that she does in Germany.

And it's like, you know, Greta whatever drinks this kind of milk. You should drink this milk too. So it's like, she's like the LeBron of Germany as a lugeur.

Luge is the most sexual sounding word that's just a random Olympic sport. And two-man or two-person luge continues to mystify me. Two-man luge, like the team luge. Two dudes laying on top of each other. I'm like, I don't know how

like luge is dangerous enough. I don't understand why somebody's like, you don't be good with this. Let's put another one on top. How about if I hop on top of you, Jim, and let's luge. Like,uge like who came up with that doesn't make any sense it's a one person sled let's both ride on it all right it's like drawn the short straw yeah the uh that's like one of those i'm not sure who has it worse frankly yeah i Yeah, I don't know. Maybe they switched. It's definitely, luge could definitely be a porn category search that people would click on and it'd just be guys

on luges. Be careful if you Google luge at work. The result might not be that great. Great luge last night. Such a weird one. Two-man luge. I think for the 2022 I'm going to propose I go Two-man luge. I think for the 2022, I'm going to propose I go three-man luge. Three-man luge would be great.

Hey, throw Sven on top. Let's really get this thing going. Did you miss Dick Button? A little bit, yes. I did. I wasn't sure if Dick Button was still with us. He's on Twitter. He's like 88-year-old guy on Twitter,

like admonishing people. Yeah. Because our great American hope, Nathan Chen, who also fell about 15 times before his long program, I read on Twitter, Scott Hamilton reported to me that Dick Button had sent him some encouraging words about, you know, picking himself up.

He took Dick Button's job. Right. Scott Hamilton, they just pushed Dick Button right off the stage, but he's been, but Scott Hamilton, they only let him do like the pregame now and the post game. And it's all Johnny Weir and Tara Lipinski now.

So that's what America wants we had a Dick Button story from college and I can't remember something that happened during a telecast we probably even can't tell it no we had a Scott Hamilton story because oh that's when we had they had the Olympics and after the Olympics were over they would have like an exhibition maybe they still do where all the skaters would go out and there was no pressure and they would all just do different routines or whatever. And I think it was a guy's name, Victor Plushenko or something. And he did some like quintuple jump or something. And it wasn't even for competition, just for show.

And Scott Hamilton was like, Victor, put that thing away. Put that jump away. Like, don't pull that out. We're like, whoa, put that thing away. Put that jump away. Don't pull that out. We're like, whoa, easy, Scott. That's right. Put that thing away became a joke for us. Victor, put that thing away. Victor, seriously, put that thing away. No, not here, Victor. Oh, man. So nice to have the Winter Olympics back. I wish it was every three years, though.

I know nobody wants to host it, but every three years would be great. Well, that's the other funny thing. They were talking about why are the next three Olympics in Asia? And they were like, well, in 2022 for the Winter Olympics, one of the countries that bid on the only two bidders, Kazakhstan and China. Is it Kazakhstan where Borat was? I think so. And they literally bid on the Olympics.

And they were like, Kazakhstan has an economy like the size of Trenton, New Jersey. They can't host the Olympics in Kazakhstan. So they were like, China, help us out here. And they were like, sure, why not? And then there's nobody apparently has bid on the 2026 Olympics. Just put it in Aspen. Well, I don't think you can have the Winter Olympics in Athens. Why not? You know? So, and then there's nobody apparently has been on the 2026 Olympics. Just put it in Aspen. Well,

I don't think you can have the winter Olympics in Athens. I don't think. No, Aspen. Oh, Aspen. Yeah. Or Salt Lake.

Like they have all the stuff from 2002. Yeah. Athens would be a problem. Yeah. I think they're going to have problems with the snow there. All right. Next time we talk, we'll be talking about spring training baseball. So until then, Jack out. This is fun. snow there. All right. Next time we talk, we'll be talking about spring training baseball. So until then, Jacko, this was fun.

Good times. All right. Talk to you soon. Talk to you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Thanks so much to ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. My listeners can try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com.

Thanks to TheRinger.com. Don't forget about Jordan LeBron Week, and don't forget about my column that I posted today, about 98 MJ Jordan, LeBron week. And don't forget about my column that I posted today about 98 MJ versus 2018 LeBron. Don't forget about the recapables, our newest podcast, especially if you love Atlanta, you gotta get, you gotta get this one. We are launching it today. Subscribe today, subscribe however you get your podcasts. And it starts on Thursday.

Enjoy the weekend. Next week, we have a lot of good stuff, including some great Ringer videos that we filmed for the Oscars. Our old friend Wesley Morris was in town. My old Grantland teammate. Cam Collins was here. Sean Fennessy, Chris Ryan, Amanda Dobbins. We filmed a slew of Ringer videos and very excited about those.

Also excited, Jason Concepcion and Jason Gallagher, our NBA desktop team, were in Boston for the Sloan Conference and are trying to get a special on-location NBA desktop from there. So check that out. Good times all around. Thanks for the support. Enjoy the weekend. It's freezing here in LA. People are panicking. It dropped to like 53 degrees today. I don't know. We might have rioting. People are wearing winter jackets that they haven't worn in 10 years. It's hilarious. And last but not least, National Cup starts this week in Southern California. Good luck to Tadella FC. I think we can do it.

I think we can get out of the first couple weekends. Don't bet against Tadella. Enjoy the weekend. I don't want to see them On the way so I can say I don't have A few years with them On the wayside I'm a person I never was

And I don't have to ever