The Bill Simmons Podcast - NBA What-Ifs, Brady vs. Belichick, Vintage Barkley, and Sports Nostalgia by Necessity with Ryen Russillo | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Episode Date: March 23, 2020

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Ryen Russillo to ask a series of “what-if” questions given the uncertainty surrounding the 2019-20 season. They discuss old games being aired on TV, Tom Brady leaving the Patriots, book, TV, and movie recommendations, and Game 5 of the 1993 Western Conference finals between the SuperSonics and the Suns. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. The best teams start with great talent. We're going to be talking about one of my favorite teams that never won a title at the end of this. Charles Barkley's 93 Sons. It's going to be a we're bored rewatchable. It's coming up way later. No one knows ZipRecruiter's talent more than our presenting sponsor, ZipRecruiter. They deliver qualified candidates fast, powerful technology, scans thousands of

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You can get more done on the go. Visit surface.com slash laptop3 to learn more. That is surface.com slash laptop three. We're also brought to you by the ringer.com and the ringer podcast network where we are still cranking out all kinds of content. Larry Wilmore, David Chang, JJ Redick.

They all did podcasts last week. We put up two rewatchables, including cast away, which I did by myself. The first ever self rewatchable. We have two rewatchables coming up thisaway, which I did by myself. The first ever self-rewatchable. We have two rewatchables coming up this week as well. Edge of Tomorrow is coming Monday night.

I'm not on that one. And then Ryan Russell and I are doing Karate Kid later in the week on the rewatchables feed. And one of the reasons we're doing that is because I was trying to get people to donate to the Greater Boston Food Bank during the times we're in right now. The supplies are limited these days and potentially getting worse. So we raised between that and I told people I would match up to 50,000. We did over 100,000 that we raised for the Greater Boston Food Bank. One of the conditions was if we got to 100,000, that we would do a Karate Kid rewatchable. So you can still, if you want to donate, even belatedly, I'm sure they would be happy to have you. So go check that out.

Check out my Twitter feed. I did a bunch of posts about that as well. Coming up, Bracilla and I are going to do a whole bunch of fun things and try to take your mind off all the crappy stuff that's happening right now. I hope everyone's staying safe out there and I hope everybody is practicing the social distancing thing and listening to the experts. That is all you can do. And we're going to keep cranking out content here. I know everybody is bored as hell. I hope you're safe. I hope your family is safe. Hope you're making the right decisions. All right. Here's our friends from Pearl Jam. taping this Sunday afternoon.

We don't need to tape this on Sunday night anymore because there's no sports. It's all, it's all vintage sports. I've actually been preparing for this moment. My whole life, old games, Ryan Rosillo is here as he is every Sunday night. This was the part of the schedule when we would be talking about March Madness thoughts,

where the last couple of weeks of the NBA were going. We would be worried about MVP conversations and things like that. Now, now I want to talk about the Leitner shot because I watched that with my son yesterday. He had never seen it. He didn't know it was going to happen he was amazed i got to relive it through him yeah that was uh that was an all-time i mean that that's seriously in the moment you're like this is the kind of game that i'm going to think about the rest of my life i mean not every day um certainly but latener is just dominance as a college player and then seeing younger people watch that game now and not like Leitner's mom

and you go, you guys have no idea. You have, you have no, you think, you know, but you don't. You know what I, what struck me watching that game? I thought Leitner was going to be a really incredible pro because he was so good in college, but then you watch him and you think about like, you're translating him as like, oh, he's got slow feet. It was really hard for him to put the ball down. Every shot was almost like a miracle shot by him, like off-balance fling shots, these turnaround 15-footers. I think nowadays he would have been an awesome stretch five.

I think he just would have been shooting eight threes a game and everything he did would have been different. But I was mad at myself 28 years ago that I thought Leitner was going to be such a good pro. Now, who knows what else happened to him? He went to the wrong team. He had some personal issues, et cetera. You know what the great lesson about Leitner is, is that he was, you'll know better than I, and I don't want to like get anything where I get this kind of thing wrong, but was he one of the first guys that like tested positive for weed like in that era right

or was rumored or something there was always there was always rumors he talked about in the 30 for 30 we did that you know he definitely off the court might have had a couple issues but everything I love watching these old games

and just getting upset about some of the decisions they're making. Because like Grant Hill, first of all, he was a sophomore coming off the bench, which seemed inconceivable.

But it seemed like he could have gone by anybody he wanted to on that Kentucky team at all times. And yet they're like, all right, spread out for Hurley. This is a much better option.

Hurley's got this. It's like, maybe you should go to Grand Hill, the guy who's going to be a first team all NBA guy in five years. Yeah, Leitner was suspended some games there. I don't have the full history, but I just want to double check it because I remember later on,

and that was when I started talking to guys in front offices and I would be leading up to the draft and I was like, how can you figure some of this stuff out? Because what you learn is that no one really figures it out. But when you're outside of the world, you think everybody has this magic eye that none of us can understand. And it's really not that. And something that GM told me that was really, really smart. And again, it was the very beginning of me talking to these guys when we were talking about backgrounds and personalities and try to figure things out.

And he goes, look, he goes, there's plenty of guys that are from terrible areas, have a terrible family set up and have bad guys around them left and right. And they're the best teammates. They practice hard. They care. You know, they never get any trouble. And then you look at somebody like Leitner, who's like the poster boy. He's one of the best college basketball players in history, not just guys that we saw. He was that dominant. He was incredible. And it it's like here he is Duke looks like he's a gap model and the whole deal and it was like well yeah you know now no one cares about any of this stuff but I just always thought that was really really interesting and kind of talking about Lachner's transition of the pros because he was it's hard to imagine he wasn't better because

he still was a decent player like he still had a decent career but he was so incredibly dominating at Duke um you you thought's, there's no way this isn't going to be a special pro. Plus we had familiarity with him because we were able to, you know, watch him and watch that Duke team evolve. And even like they were shown Cherokee parks on the bench. And I was thinking like, Oh, I remember when they recruited him, he was like the number one guy in high school. He was going to be, it was going to go from Ferry to Laettner to Cherokee Parks. And, you know, you're watching him on the bench and guys like Thomas, Thomas Hill, who I hadn't thought of in forever.

And, you know, we just watched all those games back then. And I know something changed with college probably 15, 16 years ago when, you know, maybe there was less time. I know everybody's talked about all the possible reasons for it, but it just meant more back then. Like I remember where I watched that game and who I was with, you know, and I, and there's been great college basketball games, especially this year. Like they were showing today, they were showing Carolina Villanova, 2016. That was an awesome game. That was really fun. But it, there was a weightiness to,

especially that 92 season. Cause that was also the year you had the Fab Five. And I remember everything about that season. It was fun to relive it. I thought CBS did a good job. The way they showed it, it felt like a real game. They didn't try to cut ahead. They would go to commercial and they would only show one ad so they could go right back so it stayed in the flow but they didn't try to edit it they didn't cut free throws so it kind of felt like being a time machine right yeah that when i've gone back and watched some of the nba stuff um you sit there and like the thing that jumps out especially working on the side of it now like i would there are all these things that i would never think about it's just a kid at home watching these games and now that you work in it not that you and i have a extensive background in calling games but you just you look at it so differently um you know when you mention the college basketball thing though it is it's a simple answer you you can't have a brand where you're changing the brand every single time like imagine if you had this hit tv show with all these characters that people invested in and he said oh by the way we're never bringing any of these

characters back for season two we're just going to bring in all these characters that people invested in and he said, oh, by the way, we're never bringing any of these characters back for season two. We're just going to bring in all new characters. And it's hard. It's a really simple answer. But the turnover, we used to get weird when guys would leave after their sophomore years. We're like, what? What's that guy think he's doing? Now, granted, it's wrong. I think guys should be able to go straight out of high school. But's just you know we like things to be easy as fans and really as consumers in any kind of story like really it's how do you get people to jump into the next part of the story and with college hoops like how many people can name who's on Baylor you know before the season started like I stopped everything to watch Baylor Kansas and it was a

really fun game this year was like a 9 a.m out here, but I know that those kind of Duke games or that St. John's-Georgetown stuff or Syracuse or that big Monday, I would watch that instead of the NBA growing up, and now it's absurd to think I would ever do that. Also, I noticed watching that, thinking about that Duke team and even Kentucky, and they were talking about how they were on probation for two years and the guys stuck around. Patino was saying they didn't really have anywhere else to go. So they had all these, yeah, they had all these seniors that were there. But one of the things I loved about college back then was it mirrored high school in the sense like the new guy shows up and he's the freshman and he's got to prove himself.

But then you got the older kids that have been there for a while. And Duke was like the perfect example. They were really like a high school team. Cherokee Parks was the young freshman. Grant Hill was the sophomore who was going to take it over when Leitner leaves. And that dynamic that just eventually was gone. You watch that game and you're thinking Mashburn and Grant Hill are sophomores. And Mashburn just looks unbelievable in that.

He had a 28-10, just looks like a classic stretch four now. He would have been, I think, a multiple All-NBA guy. There's no reason he should have even stayed at Kentucky for two years. He should have gotten into the NBA as fast as he possibly could. We didn't realize that back then. Yeah, I got to know Mashburn when he was at ESPN. One of my favorite living in Bristol stories is he and I go into Walmart to buy an extra controller. And I didn't know who was going to pay for it because I didn't want to assume anything. And I was like, yeah, because I had the PlayStation hooked up in my hotel room and we were just bored

out of our minds. So it's me and Jamal Mashburn at Walmart. And I asked him about that team. And, you know, I always, when I'd ask about different coaches that these guys played for, I was always really interested in which coaches told you to stay or told you to go because there are guys that are really selfish about it. But then there's other ways, you know, now it's, it's out of control, like no one's staying. But back then I was like, well, what did, what did Rick say to you? And he goes, I'm not letting you come back. You're too good. Like you're too good. You have to get out of here. And I know, you know, Rick Pitino's rep is taking some pretty big hits over the last couple of years, but that was something that I was always really impressed with that. He just looked at, like, I was like, did you want to, he's like, I kind of wanted to stay. Cause mash this whole

thing was like, he's a New York city guy and his mother wouldn't let him go to a school in New York city. He was telling me about some of the recruiting stuff. St. John's back then still would have thought they were getting a Jamal Mashburn, and he's like, my mother was like, you're not playing ball in the city. And then he goes down to Kentucky after Kentucky went through that brutal stretch. And that's the game. If you're thinking of one loss that you've had in your fandom, Bill, I'm trying to think, maybe it's 2010, Celtics-Lakers, the one that stings the most. I don't know if it's game 686

in the Mets, but that doesn't feel as bad since they've won four titles. But if you're a Kentucky fan, that stuff comes up every day. It's like Bucky Dent in the 80s for Red Sox fans, just sitting at a bar, MFing Bucky Dent because of Leighton or Schott. Well, the Kentucky did end up winning. I think it's probably worse for Mashburn. If you're a Kentucky fan, you had two title teams later in the decade. Cause like Ben and I were watching, we went right from yesterday. We were watching that Kentucky game. And then the major league baseball network was showing the playoff game in 78 Yankees, Red Sox. And we watched the last, like probably two and a half innings. And I was explaining to him how the playoffs work back then. It was like, yeah, you played

the whole season. It was two division champs in each league. They tied. So we had to have a playoff game. And he was like, whoa, how'd they decide who had it? I was like, I don't remember. I just remember like everybody from Boston got to stay home that day. And we were watching, he had no idea it was going to happen. And living through like the, the Remy hits that shot to Piniella and Piniella can't see. And he just jabs his jabs, his mid out.

I'm getting mad at George Scott all over again. I think he was my first least favorite Red Sox player. Just swinging for the fences every time. Never, never touched a ball, but he was early on that. He was early. He was out of the years ahead of time. Never touched a ball. He was early on that. He was early. He was 40 years ahead of it.

Just launch angle. That was such an agonizing loss. And they've won four World Series since. And it still really hurts. I got to say it. I don't feel any better from it. Yeah, I grew up hearing about it. Because that's where our gap comes into play.

Where I was just still too young. But it was one of the first things. Like, 82 was my first Sox game against the brewers and i i just remember like the bucky dent thing like it was four years later and people still and i remember that we again like in seeing so like the way your brain stores stuff early when there's nothing else in there so that's why as kids we can always go back and remember so many things because there's no distractions of real life. But I remember being upset after the fact years later, just my father telling me that they blew the 14 game lead. And you just go, well, how is that possible? Like how, how could they have like, how you just go, no, they had the best team and all these different things. And again,

that stuff used to matter a lot more. Um, and then, you know, 86, it all comes up again, eight years later. So we've seen over the last few days and especially ES. And then, you know, 86, it all comes up again, eight years later. So we've seen over the last few days and especially ESPN and then NBA TV and MOB, all these channels, they're going all in on nostalgia programming. And even CBS, I was really surprised that they were just showing old games that you could see anytime on ESPN Classic and treating it like they were just these new games. It was cool. It makes me wonder, I would love to, I can't wait to find out what the ratings were for all this stuff. Like we're taping this on a Sunday afternoon Pacific time. ESPN is showing WrestleMania 30 tonight, Sunday night. They don't have anything else to show. What happens if the ratings are

really good for this stuff? Do you think this could lead to a remodeling a little bit of how they program stuff? Do you think we'll see more marathons? Do you think we'll see them gravitating toward old content over just generic new content that nobody gives a shit about? Something like the XFL, which I think was appealing to a couple of different networks because it's like, oh, fresh sports during a time when this is all kind of dead. Maybe you don't need as much fresh sports as we thought. Maybe the rehash stuff might work. I absolutely think they'll do it. No, you're right. I mean, it depends on what the numbers are. It depends on what the inventory is. But we both have seen, at least on the ESPN side, I think they're going away from a bunch of decisions that Skipper made at the end of his run.

And I think Skipper's decisions are like two-pronged. Live rights, he'd buy up whatever he possibly could. And the NBA deal, I think in the long run, is going to turn out to be a really big deal that he got ripped for a lot. And then I think the in-studio stuff that he was paying a lot of money for, I don't think leadership there wants to keep doing those things. So if they start like planning out, like what would our schedule lineup look like years from now? I always thought like, remember when Dan Patrick used to do those sit downs with like a Bill Walton and they'd go over like the 86 finals. Oh, I love those. Yeah. I love those. And I used to pitch this idea that, you know, let's, let's revamp that where I'd have a Trent Dilfer, you know, somebody, you know, I didn't always have to be friendly with the person, but it helps. But I wanted to do something where I would host a show with a Trent Dilfer and just called your greatest game. And Dilfer sits down with me and we just film he and I watching that Super Bowl win against the Giants. Not that he was amazing in the game, but the whole point is like, okay, here's the anthem,

you're bawling, like what's going through your head, and then just edit it into a 30-minute thing. I really think that this window here, and again, I don't know if anybody cares enough, the difference too is like, what are the numbers now when there are no options versus the numbers when there's actually live event options? But I do think there is some nostalgic thing there

because the other great part about this is guys that talk about this for a living. Like we can sit there for the amount of times that we debate arrows and who would do what I'll guarantee you. 90% of the people screaming about that stuff. Haven't gone back and watched a game in a really long time. Yeah. Like even watching the Barkley game that we're going to talk about later. I have four pages of stuff where it's just like, Oh, that's right. Or, Oh, that's what they did there. Or remember this or wow, that doesn't happen anymore. So not that this is about being educational, but it really helps. It helps you kind of put some things into perspective and remind you of like, wow, that guy was really special versus, oh, that's right. Like that was kind of easy and probably putting to bed the idea that so

many of today's stars couldn't get it done in the nineties, which is just laughable and will be even more laughable once we start talking about 93. Yeah. And we're going to do that much later in the pod. I mean, that was one of the reasons I wanted to the book of basketball pod, because I felt like the same thing I felt like when I did my book in the late two thousands, like people just forget shit, you know, and the years pass and things slip through the cracks. And, you know, like the years pass and things slip through the cracks. And, you know, like one of the games we did on the book of basketball pod was 2003 Lakers Spurs game five with the Lakers going for a four Pete Duncan's best year ever. And then Robert Horry, who everybody thinks made every big shot ever took, he actually

in and outs the game winning shot of that game. And the Spurs end up winning the title for whatever reason that game didn't have a shelf life. And there's been a lot of those like that. I think the NBA games are really rewatchable as we're going to talk about later with Barkley. But I was watching a lot of the Brady stuff today because ESPN was doing the Brady marathon. They were basically running all the Super Bowls, but they weren't running the games. They were running the really cool NFL films shows they do where they interview a lot of the people. And Ben and I watched the Rams game when they held on at the end. And Mike Bartz, I don't know when they did the interview, but he was pissed about nine different things. That was really fun. Then we watched the Baltimore game in 2015 and the Seattle Super Bowl. And, you know, it's fun to relive this stuff. Now, the question is, if we actually had stuff to gamble on and keep fantasy sports and all

that stuff, suddenly the old games don't matter. And I think that I think it's more of a void. There's just nothing. Ben and I went on my Instagram last night and we were playing Madden KO on Instagram live and people in the comments, like, this is great sports. You know, people are like thirsty right now for anything. It's sad. I mean, it's one of the many sad things about right now. No, that's definitely the point. Like whatever the numbers are, but I do think TV people will look at numbers and go, wait a minute, do we have something here? And then there's usually an overreaction where like, you're almost better off. It's almost like a draft pick that gets hurt halfway through his draft eligible year. And you go good. Like, why would I come back to school? Like if I'm supposed to be this, then like the small sample can be where the mistake is made. as a programmer if you see

anything that's positive from it my experience has been the decision makers will go all right well let's start doing this but yeah you're right if you're going up against nba games again it's like hey guess what i don't want to watch kenny anderson at georgia tech like even though you should want to watch kenny anderson at georgia tech um it's just it's it's this thing where it's so weird like the first couple days it didn't really bother me. I mean, I don't know how much you want to get into all this stuff. Probably a little update on our daily lives, but yeah, it is. I've had a few times where I'm like, okay, let me check the schedule.

And I'm like, well, I guess I don't have to check tonight's NBA schedule. Cause, cause there's nothing on. No, I do it reflexively. It's happened at least three or four times where it's like, I don't know, five 30 our time Pacific time. And I'll check seven 51, see what the game is. that's happened at least three or four times where it's like i don't know 5 30 our time pacific time and i'll check 751 see what the game is and then you're like oh there there is no game can't can't do that whoops yeah when you've been doing it this long i mean to start the amount of days i've started on 751 and scroll down going okay you know here we go and I'm a relatively optimistic person. And I have to admit, I definitely

was struggling to find any optimism. And I frankly, unsure how we're finding any optimism even today. For some reason, I'm in a better mood. Maybe we're just 10 days in, you just start to get used to how depressing all this is. But I was talking to my dad this morning. My dad is just crestfallen. He was really into the Celtics season. He's stuck in his house. He's 71 years old. My stepmother's still working, delivering babies at a hospital, and they're just scared every time she comes home. It just sucks. And they're going to have a huge snowstorm back east this week. But we were talking about, man, if we just can get through this and by like the end of June, it's all clear. Think about this six month run we're about to have with sports. If we can just get through this and everybody's safe and they figure all this out.

And like by July 1st, we're good. And, and life will start to hopefully get at least somewhat back to normal. And then we would have this condensed NBA playoffs thing. We would have this four-month baseball thing. We'd have football popping up right away. College football would be there. We'd have all four major tournaments crammed into a five-month stretch for golf. We'd have Wimbledon belatedly. It would just be an embarrassment of riches. And I was just

saying to my dad, we just got to get to July. We just got to get everybody, make sure this is all good. Everybody's safe with minimum damage from all the terrible things that could be about to happen here. And then we get to July and life gets back to normal. And then maybe this will be a fun time to be a sports fan, as weird as that sounds. It's a silver lining. I was really surprised how negative you were last week. Not that this isn't a bummer and everything that everybody's trying to get through here, but you were just definitive.

Like, I think the season's done. And I was thinking, like, I wonder if he's just, you know, I know we talk to different people. There's probably some overlap with the people that we talk to, but I just don't think anything's certain. That's why I always thought some of the NFL stuff was weird when they're like, well, why would they even start the league year? Who gives a shit? Friends.

Sign agents. Who do they rep? I mean, it was really funny when agents were like, there's no reason to push back the league year. We're like, well, no kidding. You don't want to push back potential contracts here because if this were to get really bad, if the economy were to take even more of a hit, then would owners, even though they have

a salary cap floor they have to spend to, would they look at this a little differently with guaranteed money and all these different things? So maybe, you know, I don't know what's going to happen as we've all said this entire time, but I didn't have a problem with the league year starting with the NFL. People complaining about the optics right now of contracts that would be given out. Like, I just wouldn't worry about that stuff. You just go ahead and do business. It's not like people stopped buying houses or, um, you know, other things. So I would, I don't, when I look at the NFL for people to go, well, what, what are they going to do with it? It's July training camp,

July. Like, let's see, let's see how April goes, you know? So that's, and that's what I would be doing if I worked in one of these leagues and had a, had a voice. And I think it's the right thing. That's why I looked at like last week's pod where I was like, man, Bill really thinks like the NBA season is just done done. I think this whole thing is terrible as it is for everybody is just kind of

waiting it out a little bit collectively, whether you're just a guy at home or a league trying to make a major decision. I thought the regular season was done. I still feel like, I still feel like the playoffs don't make that happen. I still feel like the regular season's done. I don't think... Yeah, I think they're going to have to play some games, Bill.

I don't think they can just say, hey, round one, let's go. I don't think they can. From what I've heard, Labor Day is kind of the secret looming deadline for all of this. To be done? They basically have to be done by Labor Day for a variety of reasons.

For arena reasons, for now you're going against football. You have the networks and the different places. They just have programming in September that they can't audible away from. And I think a lot of the contingency September that they can't audible away from. And I think a lot of the contingency plans that they're discussing right now, Labor Day is like that, like game seven of the finals would have to be like the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday around where Labor Day is. And then here's the thing. And we've, we were talking about this without ever knowing any of this stuff was even a possibility, but this might really lead to a resetting of how they do the schedule.

Because let's say, best case scenario, knock on wood, this can all go and maybe we play a little five-game regular season to end it, head into the playoffs, whatever, and it goes all the way July, August. Then they take two and a half months off. They come back mid-December and this becomes the new schedule. Maybe this will just be the new schedule. I don't know. I'm prepared for anything. I think it's a great idea. The arguments against it are how many people are home during the summer when you'd be having your most important, most valuable product. My argument would be, even if you had less people at home, the competition would be less. And then you wouldn't be competing with the NFL for two and a half, two and a half months. Can you see that, my glass?

I can. That's Andre the Giant. Is that the, is that JYD? So one of my eBay purchases that I love to do is they made these. These are real glasses that the WWE made in the mid-80s. And there's like a John Studd one. There's a Junkyard Dog one. There's one with all these guys. There's one with Hulk Hogan by himself. And we have like 10 of them in the house. I've cleaned up.

Anytime they're on eBay, I get one. This is what I do in my spare time, Ursula. You know what I did do? I did a deep dive on Randy Macho Man Savage. Oh, that's great. I did appreciate the Wikipedia. I think the first line is Bill Simmons says.

Oh, really? Yeah. I don't know. You got to go ahead and check that out. Which by the way, in our pre-show meetings with Van Pelt and I about 10 years ago, somebody who worked on the show,

almost every pre-show meeting at some point would say, well, Simmons says, and that used to really annoy us a lot. I apologize on behalf of that guy. He was one of your young warriors. And every time we would be kicking around a topic, he'd just go, well, Simmons says, and I would lose it. Me more than Van Pelt. Sorry. What has frightened you the most that you've read over the last five days or listened to or heard about our immediate future? I would say the footage from Italy that I saw today from the hospital, no beds, people lying in the hallway. And that was a little bit of a, I mean, I don't want to say a wake-up call. I'm doing what I can do, I mean, I don't want to say a wake up call.

Like I'm doing what I can do. You know, I mean, people joke that, you know, this is, this is just another Sunday for you. I mean, I'm by myself a lot. The no gym thing sucks. And, you know, I, the good thing about Manhattan beach is the beach is so massive that you can go there and you can pop down in a chair and you're not going to be near anywhere else. Like I know that one of the LA stations ran that footage of Manhattan, Venice, and I think Newport where Venice, they were just had full pickup games going.

Manhattan beach had like younger dudes are drinking games going on. But like, if you just want to show up to you, the beach, you know, you and your girl or your whatever, um, like you can do it, but I'm afraid they may shut it all down because the strand, at least in Manhattan beach is like packed with people running. And then these idiots, these two girls took down the police tape for one of the workout areas and started filming like Instagram videos for their workouts. Or like when somebody decides to do step-ups and it's just crowded, you go, you know, you probably have stairs to your house. So it's actually made me dislike some workout people, which I know would surprise

some people. So that's sort of a longer answer, but I don't know if this is passive stay-at-home thing where it's passively enforced because I'm really scared of what it could be like if they decide, okay, we're aggressively enforcing this because people still aren't taking it seriously. Or Bill, is it just human nature that if it feels like at least here, it's another version of the flu, which puts elderly at high risk. Will people be selfish enough to just say, Hey, after a month, screw this. Like, I don't want to stay inside anymore. And then you get a factor in like which companies are going to keep paying their people 30,

60 days out. Well, we're going to see, sorry, we're going to see a lot of selfish behavior. We've already seen it. Is it going to get worse? Well, we've seen in Florida, the spring breakers who were just completely oblivious to everything that was going on and are just giving the coronavirus to each other and they didn't really care. Would you have done it?

That's the thing. We talked last week. I was such a moron in my teens and early 20s. I don't know. I don't think there's a chance I would have been selfish about it, but like, oh man, come on, we'll just go. It'll be fine. Young people don't get it. And you say all this dumb stuff, but obviously, uh, you know, I, can I complain about the runners for a second? Yeah, please do. So there's been a lot of power walking, especially, um, I'm sure

in every city, but I, in LA, there's more people walking around in the actual city than I've ever seen before. It actually feels almost like New York. I mean, it's not that many people, but it's just a lot of people walking. You don't normally see this. And everybody is keeping a respectful six, eight foot difference. If you're coming around the corner and there's a sidewalk and people are coming there on the sidewalk, maybe you walk on the street, try to keep the four to six feet. Even if you run into somebody you know, you're talking to them, but you're not talking right next to them. You're giving a little space. I think most people understand the rules. Then you have the runners. and the runners are just like,

I'm sweaty. I'm in my own world. I'm going to literally run right by you and I'll come within six inches of you, or I'll be running toward you and you're, they're going to get out of my way. We're going to collide. I don't know what's going on with it. They have their headphones on and they're just like bulls and China shops, flying down running going near people not respecting the distance so uh my note to the runners fuck you go fuck yourselves obey the six feet just because you're running doesn't mean you get to you get to not obey the social distancing rules oh i'm jogging i everyone stay out of my way who the fuck are you fuck off that. That's my rant. Yeah. It's like Kevin Bacon and Quicksilver is what you're saying.

Yeah. Yeah. I thought you'd like that. Just because you're delivering stuff on a bike doesn't mean we have to get out of your way. We're all here together. I was excited to kind of get past some of these injuries, but I was on the Rogue website the other day just going, I'm going to order enough stuff for a gym in the garage, I'm just parked my car outside. Like I don't care. And then as I was contemplating it, like everything started selling out. So now I don't know what to do. Um, because they're gonna try to get back at it in some form or fashion in a week or so. But yeah, the runners,

like, like I said, I don't know if this will be a thing where we go, remember everybody really freaked out and everybody bought, you know, toilet paper and hand sanitizer and you can't get yourself, your hands on some disinfectant wipes. But I also think there's another version of this where, you know, people are going to be like,

I've saw some pictures in New York city and it was empty in stretches. And I know there's some climate factors here with the virus. So, you know, just hanging climate factors here with the virus. So, you know, just hanging back and trying to do enough. Um, but I know anytime, like I touch anything,

I had to drop my car off at something and I'm wiping the car down on the inside going like, all right, I guess this is the new normal, at least for right now. Uh, but I did hear somebody say like, oh,

this, you know, the world's never going to be the same after this and arenas and all that stuff. I don't, I don't believe that. I don't, I don't think people are going to stop high-fiving in two

years when their playoff team wins a game. Yeah. I feel like life will eventually come back, but I'm with you, the Italy stuff and the fact that Italy was always, yeah, it's, they were 14 to 17 days ahead of where we were basically. And that was the fear when like, when we shut down our office almost two weeks ago. And when people really started reacting to it, it was because of some of the stuff that was happening in Italy. And now you see them just running out of stuff

left and right. And what a horrible situation. Doctors choosing between patients and all these different things. I got to say, I didn't get a lot done last week. Normally when something like this happens or a lot of dead time, I'm able to compartmentalize and just throw myself into work and be like, all right, well, I'm going to do this. And I'm going to do this, this, this, and this.

I was pretty discombobulated last week. I'm starting to rally mentally now where I'm like, all right, I'm not letting this defeat all the stuff I want to do and all the plans we have for everything we want to do with our company and all this stuff. Fuck this. I'm going to try to at least come up with some stuff. But man, last week was really discouraging because it really felt like the lights were on and nobody was home from a government standpoint.

They were late to react on everything. And it started to feel like everything was just happening too late. And even if we got our shit together, it was still too late. And whether that's the case or not, I'm not sure. But I hope that's not the case. But whatever I read, I still have no idea what too late means. I know what the worst version of it is. And then it's like, well, does too late mean, mean oh wait you know maybe this thing is gonna taper out with

the weather i mean you know i don't i don't really know what to believe i'm sorry like i i can read stuff and then i would look i was looking at one guy's chart and then a day later like a real guy a doctor tweeted out this chart a million people retweeted it and then he was like hey ignore that chart like here's the one today and i well, you know what we were doing yesterday. I think the South Korea stuff makes you feel like, okay, you know, there's, this was, this was a pretty quick turnaround and I don't want to get into all the politics of the whole thing, but it's that part of it, you know, is, is the reverse feeling of Italy. Like when I look at some of that stuff, I go, oh, okay. Now I feel like we can come out

of this thing. I think of Too Late, I'm just talking to hospitals only. Just equipment and resources. You just hit a point where I want to commend the Washington Post and the New York Times and

some of the TV shows. I think the journalism has been really good. And if you're ever worried about the battle we've had over journalism and newspapers and resources and where's all this going? And now you see the last couple of weeks where the Wall Street Journal is another one, but places that have really done good work and broken stories, rebuffed public things that people were saying that turned out not to be true. And I really admire those people. We'll take a quick break and then we're going to come back. Hey, successful companies know that in order to grow faster, you must have the right tools. If you want to take your company from $2 million to $10 million or $10 million to hundreds

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here. All right, we're back. You had one follow-up on the last point I had at the end there. I'm good with your cousin who knows somebody who works in the Pentagon text threads though because that is out of control how many people are now connected to somebody inside the Pentagon who says... Martial law is coming? Yeah, like martial law around the corner. I thought it might have been true 10 days ago

but now I know longer. I need more confirmation on who this Pentagon guy is because he's got a lot of friends. Or my friend who has a friend who has a friend who works in an ER. That's another one. Hey, we're going to play a game called NBA What Ifs. This is your idea. If the regular season does get canceled and if everything gets canceled.

So we're going worst case scenario, this goes a few months and on top of all the other horrible outcomes of that and how terrible it would be for our economy and just people going crazy being at home and 90,000 other things, not to mention the deaths and illnesses and everything else. If this season just went away, what would be some of the what-ifs that came out of that? So do you want to go for... I thought you would do one, then I would do one. We'd go back and forth.

Perfect. Perfect. The biggest one is the most disappointing team of the season, and that's Philadelphia. And I don't know what you were supposed to expect from this team, not only with Embiid's up and down approach to the game, as much as I love when it's great. And then Simmons dealing with a significant back injury here. And we'd seen different versions of them, the argument of can they play together? Can they not? It really just depends. Are you a Sixers fan or super into analytics? Or do you think that there may be some long-term problems there? And then you add in the Brett Brown factor and just how much of this hasn't fit and Horford

having a bad season. If they had had an early exit as a 3-6 matchup, now I still think they may have got, if they were healthy, I would have picked them against the Celtics in the first round. But let's say it's a disappointing second round exit, which is totally possible, even though I know in a recent pod, I talked myself into another version, but that's just them. It's the total unknown. The point of this would be if the season is done and they start new next year, I think Philadelphia doesn't have to answer any of those really tough questions about their coach and roster fit. And they would just run it back looking at this year as an incomplete grade instead of a failure despite the fact

it is a massive disappointment 60 games in. Well, and then think about some of the people that Kenny Atkinson, John Beeline, like if all this had happened three weeks earlier,

those like John Beeline, like let's say this happened right at the All-Star break. He's not getting bought out. Kenny Atkinson, the Nets probably aren't doing anything yet. No way. You couldn't fire anybody.

No. You're going to fire somebody. I mean, beeline apparently gave up money. So that one's like, whoa, I don't know. I imagine Kenny's getting paid.

The Philly thing. Who knows? Like they might've had to do something about Brett Brown before they even got to the playoffs. I'm with you. I don't think anything gets solved. And if anything, this amount of time that's

passing here will, I think, force a lot of teams to talk themselves into the glass half full part of their situation. Right? And not the glass half empty part. Yeah, because neutral is a positive, right? And most teams end up having a negative result in

the playoffs. My biggest what if, and I actually think this is my number one out of all the ones on my list. So if they cancel this season and it's just gone, it's D-Day. It's the worst case scenario. Now you have the Clippers coming back next year. Paul George and Kawhi Leonard with opt-outs after that year, they've traded seven first rounders and, and, uh, shade, you'll just Alexander basically for this one year that those guys could opt out of potentially that trade becomes the all time sink or swim trade in the history of the league. They make that trade knowing, all right, we, we at least have two years where we're going for the title here and hopefully more.

And now one of those years is gone. I mean, that might be the biggest one. Seriously. Like if it's done and you go, okay, now this year's a tryout to see if these two guys want to stay. And then the auxiliary piece of that, you have this Clippers franchise that moves from Buffalo in 1978. They're in San Diego six years.

They come to LA in 1984. They have never made the finals. Ever. This was going to be like the year potentially. This was the year for the LA versus LA and all that stuff. And then potentially a Clippers in the finals situation. And out of

all years, this is the year that is in jeopardy. Talk about not being able to catch a break. If you're a Clipper fan, black sheep to the Lakers the entire time. You have the worst owner in the history of sports as your owner for three solid decades. And then when everything goes right the first time

with the Chris Paul and Blake thing, that never happens for a variety of reasons. Now you have this reboot here, and now just the season potentially getting canceled. Unbelievable. What is your next what if? Houston. I will never believe that Westbrook was a player that Daryl Morey was enamored with, but I understood the transaction, and it was a James Harden-Pertitta deal.

So you factor in that Daryl's always willing to make moves, but I don't even know. What if they got bounced in the first round? There's a chance Houston gets bounced in the first round. The small ball approach was terrific out of the gate for weeks. The Knicks lost whatever they were due for a bad one. The Clippers lost. You're like, okay, wait a minute. This makes more sense.

And then you start looking at their rebounding numbers and they're getting smashed on the boards. You're like, maybe this is actually tiring everybody out because they don't have a big rotation. Maybe this thing was really exciting and fun and successful, but it's not a long-term ploy. And Westbrook, even though he's putting up major numbers and he's playing better than Harden, he was taking a million shots a game because everything was wide open for him. So how sustainable was that?

Now, they probably just start next year with it unless there's some big trade waiting for them. And there's really no big trade unless it's one of those two guys. And I can't ever imagine they're trading Harden. And, you know, look, Westbrook has been so good up until this point. I don't even know, like, at least the market would be better for him. But whatever this version of Houston was, you could have seen a coach, a GM, a roster overhaul if they lost in the first round. And now with this, if there's no season,

it's likely, like most of these teams, we talk about all the changes they should make. Most of them all just run it back. And there won't be that end unless you think that Houston was going to go to the Western Conference Finals or beyond, which I didn't. Well, think about that.

So when did the season officially, when was the Go-Bear announcement? That was like March 10th? Something like that? March 11th? It's a Wednesday. So yeah. Yeah.

What is it? The 22nd now? Yeah. So March 11th. So they could have potentially lost in round one. That would have been five weeks later. And then everybody is getting canned. D'Antoni's gone.

Maury's gone. The whole thing. They're just cleaning house starting over. D'Antoni's gone. Maury's gone. The whole thing. They're just cleaning house starting over, and now I'm with you. I think not only did they bring it back, they probably would look at the offseason as a chance to say, hey, this style actually works.

Let's get better players for that Jeff Green spot. And who are some of the other guys they had? Like Gerald Green, Daniel House. Gordon was having a rough stretch, and then Macklemore, you know, whatever. They obviously just traded for Covington. So I don't really know what the pieces could be around it to add to Westbrook Harden if that's what you wanted to do. But I mean, there's like you would agree that this is an anti-Houston to say

there's a version of this where they lose in the first round here, right? Like that's not. Oh, yeah. There's not. I mean, what if they run into the Clippers? Forget it. Denver, who knows? But if it were bad, I think the whole thing would get overhauled, but I don't even know

that that would mean a Westbrook Harden breakup. But if it were no Dan Tony, if it were no Maury, then I don't think they'd be like, all right, cool. We're going to keep, like, I would imagine that there'd be a difference of approach here by, by the staff and our offensive philosophy a little bit. What's your next what if? This is a good one. If the season's canceled and they start it up,

say, at a later date, does this mean no one can write a rest piece about the NBA for three years? It certainly seems like a less pressing issue these days. Right. We'll rest. We'll load management, still be defended in some corners as staunchly as it's been defended in the

last few years. If there's no more season and it looks like they have like six months off. I'm going to say it's going to become less of a topic would be my guess. So double drafts coming in, uh, I think 2022. Yeah. So I don't know if they roll this,

if they rolled this draft over, I don't think they would. I think the teams, Golden State, the Knicks, all those things are like, Hey, let's do the draft.

We're ready for it. We had a shitty season. We were due. I have a tiny what if. This was really going to be a great summer for Milwaukee. And I'm aware of this because one of my college roommates, Chip Cain, is from Milwaukee, after college, went back, lives in Milwaukee, raised a family in Milwaukee.

And this was like the summer. It was like, Giannis is going to make the finals. It's going to be Giannis LeBron. And then the DNC is coming right after. Milwaukee, we're going to be the center of everything. Finals here, all the NBA people are coming. And then the next month, the whole political scene, that's going to be here. It's all coming at Milwaukee. And now both things are going to get canceled potentially. Yeah. Cause Milwaukee that's the 12th to the 16th, I think of July. And the only reason I know that is because when I was talking to some league guys, they were like, that's another issue. You know, if Milwaukee were in the, you know, we expect them to do well in the playoffs. You're going to worry about

even having a place to play this thing and what you're going to do, having the political convention in your city. is that a good thing? I get it. It's good for businesses and all that stuff. Did you ever hit up? And it came to Boston when we were younger, right? I think it's more of a, I think it's more of a, they're in the shadow of Chicago all the time.

And here's this one summer where everything's coming up. It's a big party though, right? Yeah. I just can't imagine going like hey i'm just gonna go get hammered all week with a bunch of people from dc but i heard it's like nuts but i just that's that's never been on the checklist i have another tiny what if so these count as one these because these are too many ones okay do you realize the so let's say this regular season's done let's just go with that

Curry Durant Klay and Kyrie combined for 25 games is there four of the 15 most famous guys in the league

yeah you could probably go to 11 if you got rid of Kyrie in that because I don't think Kyrie is a top 10 player. But yeah. I'm not even saying best player.

I'm saying like just most famous people in the league. Popular when Kyrie's higher. I don't think you even have to go all the way to 15. I mean, Kyrie's shoes do great. Kyrie's got a lot of fans, man. So that's... It's just a weird outcome of the season. Curry ended up playing five games this season.

I know, and it was so much fun to have him back, even loss. Yeah. And then it never even happened. Right. Like that was the game where I go, oh my gosh, that's right. Like, and he wasn't even great in it necessarily. He had a couple of moments, but I think that also speaks to the depth of the top of this league. Yeah. This league is so great right now that you can not have four of those guys playing. And yet we still have a bunch of guys that we're arguing about and the uncertainty, like that's the real disappointment is that with a post-Warriors NBA for the first time now here in half a decade, it was this, who's actually going to really step up? That's the thing that if it ends up being just done, that we're denied as much as anything.

Yeah, and you and I both love going to basketball reference and checking out the career stuff and things like that. And people just have these weird blip seasons, right? Like MJ had the season, the 85, 86 season. I think he played 17 games. Bird had the year, the 88, 89 years, six games. It's done. And you're like 82, 80, 79, 86. And somehow Curry ends up playing five games. So you have Curry, Clay, and Durant, the heart of this three-year finals run that the Warriors had, and they play five games combined. And that's another thing we should mention

for the what-if standpoint. If, God forbid, the whole thing gets canceled and we don't even have a playoffs, the Warriors' final streak would still be technically alive. I mean, it's kind of terrible, but 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, no finals in 20. And then it keeps, it keep weirdly would keep going. I don't know if we counted it out. We'd have to like have a whole discussion about whether this counts. Sometimes people say you're losing your fastball. And I'm like, I mean, you just proved that you did. haven't you just you're still painting the corners man i gotta say i did get a couple emails from people asking if the streak would count so i can't take credit for that okay but that's really

good i don't i don't think about that stuff that's funny like those kinds of things like hey what about this i'm like oh that's right i guess that would be it maybe van gundy be right because when van gundy who i love was you know doing the orally warriors games going they're going to win the next seven titles they're going to be in the finals the next 10 years. That whole thing. I'm like, dude, come on. You've been around sports your whole life. This stuff always ends sooner than everybody thinks it is.

Do you have any more what ifs? One more. Does this put Tatum's career MVPs at the under five now? Because he would have won this year. I'm kidding. I do think this was a bad break for the Celtics because I just think odds are Philly is going to be more imposing next year. And the whole Milwaukee with Giannis in a contract year, they scare me too. And I just thought they were in a really good position in the East.

If they just were able to get everybody together and healthy at the same time, I really think they could have done some damage. How about Gordon Hayward's run? Immediately hurt for the season. Come back this really odd year where it just isn't clicking, even though everybody's saying you're healthy and you just aren't the same. You come back, you look like an all-star. May have made the all-star team this year had he not been hurt again.

Comes back, is kind of up, kind of down. I know the numbers look a little better, but I think there's some really... Watching him in person in both those Utah games when he was at Salt Lake, it was like, what is going on here? And then if this were to happen, cancel season, he'd be going into the fourth year of this deal

with all Boston fans still going, what is he? Like, what is this guy? The only arc that would have been weirder was Chris Sale. Chris Sale comes in. Cy Young basically runs out of gas. Then the next year, they win the World Series. He runs out of gas, but then kind of comes up big in the Dodger Series.

Then the next year, hurt. Now Tommy John. Extension before, or like what, while he was hurt? Yeah, we'll never get the answer for that. By the way, I don't think he won a Cy Young. Yeah, maybe not. I think he came in second. It was Cy Young caliber season.

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I want to do this Sunsonics 1993 game five. We're going to do a game every week here on the pod. But before we do that, let's talk quickly about the Tom Brady Wickersham piece today that was on ESPN. But before we do that, let's talk quickly about the Tom Brady Wickersham piece today that was on ESPN.com. Wickersham has been dialed in this whole time. I didn't want to believe some of this stuff from him, but I think he's done a really good job. And it's one of those pieces that doesn't have a lot of quotes in it, but he's clearly talked to a lot of people in the Brady Circle and around the Brady Circle. And it echoed a lot of the stuff that I'd been

hearing. The most interesting thing in there that I really had forgotten about was the flake gate. And because I remember this at the time. I remember this from the Brady circle, them feeling like Brady got hung out to dry. That Belichick kind of ran from it because he didn't want any sort of, you know, he was already dealing with the Spygate

and the Rams Superbowl and everybody already thought he was a cheater anyway. And with the Flakegate, he made it pretty clear like, hey man, I'm out of this one. I don't know what the fuck happened. You'll have to ask Tom. And then Kraft rolled over and instead of fighting the whole thing, he basically took the penalty and gave up a first round pick and did the fine

and admit a guilt. And I really genuinely think Brady felt like he got hung out to dry. And it was interesting to see that resurface in the Wickersham piece. I do think that's when things started to turn with the three of them for whatever reason. I'm going to say some things about Wickersham here because I got to know him. And I think some of his football features over the last however many years, some of the best football pieces I've read written by anybody. And he's an incredibly likable guy when you're around him. And you could see how people, I don't know, he just has a personality way about him where I'm like, this guy gets good stuff from people because he's not out there trying to burn anybody either. I mean, some of the stuff that they've done in the ownership stuff, like it's clear a bunch of owners call him up and tell him

what's going on yeah there were times where he and i've talked about the pats and it was stuff that he didn't use and i would never use but it was clear like he was really really plugged in and even though you know being from the area every time wicker shame would write some piece it's like hey there's some problems with the pats here and he would get absolutely torched i did not just pats fans i'm looking at you, but no. No, I did. Like talk show hosts. I'm sitting there going like,

look, I know the lineup EEI. I know that most of you guys don't have any contacts. I mean, other than Fourier, I don't know that that many guys had contacts on the staff. And here's Wickersham with real contacts throughout a career of

working in the NFL. And he's telling you stuff that P's fans don't want to hear. And because he's the national ESPN guy, again, post spy gate with more and all that stuff. Like I get understand, like I know how I'm talking. Yeah, deflate gate. But that was right. The more thing was deflate gate. I'm sorry.

That was because there was a jet source in there that like gave more bad info and whatever. Like it turned into this whole thing where Boston fans just felt like, oh, ESPN hates us. Wickersham was telling you stuff that nobody else was telling you. And he was telling you the truth the whole time. And he got shit on by all of those guys for years. So I feel good for Seth in a way that it's like, oh yeah, maybe everything wasn't always working out.

And this has been pointed out by me all the time. There's teams that get along that suck and there's teams that have major problems that can still win and despite the fact that there was a disconnect between bill and brady like they still were winning games so honestly if i'm a fan i'm like i don't care like whatever national guy right away write all your stuff but you're absolutely right because here's belichick who can't be bothered to talk about aaron hernandez as a serial killer but then when it came to deflate gate, he's fucking, he's it's like, it's like a guy on ecstasy for the first time, just chatting away,

you know, like, Hey, all right, well, look, I got some charts. I talked to this physicist and I watched that Belichick thing.

I'm like, what is this? Like, what is this? And I, I thought going up to it, that Tom would go, look,

I like the footballs to be a certain way. You know, guys heat them. Guys have done different things. I didn't really think this was that big of a deal, but I think them going into a Super Bowl, there must have been a decision made by the organization. It was like, let's go win the Super Bowl first, and then we'll worry about this later. I always thought there was something to it, but the obsession seemed absurd. And I totally agree with you of the piece from Wickersham that

it's like, oh yeah, you know what? That probably would piss you off if you were Brady. That Bill who never talks decides to teach a science class that day with the sheer motivation being that he's trying to disconnect himself from the entire story. I think it was a series of tiny slates and you're going way back to Dion Branch when they let him go in the mid 2000s and Brady had to try to win the Super Bowl in 06 with, you know, Richie Caldwell, the famous Jabbar Gaffney, that whole crew. Tiny slates that were fine. But I think when you start with the flake eight, even like Ben and I watching the Seattle game and after the Butler interception, they cut to the sideline and Brady's jumping up and down, like just completely losing mind. He's so happy. Garoppolo like is also jumping up and

down, hops over to him and Brady just like, he disses him. He wants no part of celebrating with Garoppolo. He goes right to McDaniels. And Garoppolo kind of just shrinks away and goes to celebrate somewhere else. So that was clearly an issue. Even back then, he was like the new hot girl. And Brady, who was on Brady's corner, is like, who's this guy? And I think trying to trade Gronk to detroit i don't think that went well he really didn't i mean current current came on with me and said that was the one when gronk was headed to detroit that brady was like no like yeah yeah why are you doing this

right um it was also after because current came on it was like what gronk put a whole like motocross outfit on belichick was was like, all right, enough of this. And then apparently, according to Kern, what he told me on the pod a couple weeks ago was that he went to him and was like, no.

So go ahead, keep going. Well, the Antonio Brown thing seems like was a final straw thing for him, which is so weird because Antonio Brown is a lunatic. I mean,

for that to be the one that pushed Brady over the edge, I think was really strange. But he also had that thing in there about how they never punted in the Eagles Super Bowl. And Brady was, you know, he didn't have a quote for it. He was like, Brady did his job. They still didn't win. And then the Antonio Brown thing. He really wanted this guy. This was his guy. And it does seem like Antonio Brown's going to go to Tampa Bay. Look, I get it. I get how a long relationship, these little slights start adding up. I know it happened to me at ESPN, not to compare myself to the greatest quarterback of all time, but I look back at some of the stuff I was so upset about when I was at ESPN and a lot of it was fixable. But I think, and you, and you've, you've probably, you're a good person to talk to about this. Like it's not one thing. It's all the little

things that add up and they start snowballing and you start to be like, well, fuck, maybe somewhere else is better. Maybe I need to get away from this. And he clearly, for him to go to Tampa, a place that really has no history at all, that's probably the fourth best city in Florida. He's going to have a new coach. Rank your Florida cities real quick, by the way.

Miami won. What's two? Winter Haven? Winter Haven? Two? I don't know. Does Fort Lauderdale count as a separate thing?

Boca? Boca? Boca? Daytona? West Palm? Orlando? West Palm Beach? Jacksonville? Siesta Key?

Gainesville? Tallahassee? I don't know. Tampa one, it's such a weird place for him in his career. But anyway, I get it. I just think this whole thing is, it just feels like they all should have gotten in a room and talked. But that's the whole point. Like, look, I have a conspiracy thing for you too.

I'm ready to throw at you. Let's hear it. But on the ESPN thing, I could do that all day with you, but it's going to make it sound like I too am comparing myself. I'm Brady and ESPN is Belichick. But I understand. Like, there was like what I did with that rant with you when we talked about it before he had left.

I go, here are all the reasons why he's going to leave because he wants to feel the satisfaction of telling the people that he doesn't feel like they've respected him enough. He wants to be able to say, you know what? I don't care. This may not even be a great situation for me at Tampa, but I'm done with this. And if you can't actually come back and sit down and negotiate with me like somebody you actually want to keep around, then I'm out of here. And when I think about Belichick, as I've stated the entire time, you can't tell this guy he's wrong with the way he goes about business. You just can't. But we know that the Kraft part of this, who, side note Kraft, everybody is hooking Kraft up right now. Brady absolutely

hooked him up. with Kraft trying to get the media to believe that Tom woke up one day and decided you know what I think I'm just going to leave and and Bob Kraft's like no no we wanted to keep him it was Tom's choice and for Tom to not do what so many other athletes would do a tweet out on Instagram or whatever tweet out on Twitter post on Instagram about like that's not really what happened because that's not what happened it's all the slights adding up to this whole thing where it wasn't one day. Tom just, just stretched out of bed and said, Hey, I'm just going to go check out Tampa for no fucking reason. Okay. All of this was leading up to it. So that craft salesman job right now, as he tries to distance himself from

being the owner that let Brady move on. Um, that's very obvious that some people are falling for it. And by the way, you want to rip through all the Brady stats. Like maybe they're just like, we don't want to do this deal. We don't want to do a two-year deal for you and the whole thing. But Belichick is petty. Do you think there's any part of Belichick where when

they basically got rid of Garoppolo because Brady went to craft about it, that Belichick never forgot that? And that also factored in to how he was going to deal with Tom. Because he didn't get to keep the quarterback around that he wanted to be the successor.

Although the financial numbers would tell you to have both of them on the same team at the same time would be nearly impossible. It just seemed like Belichick is just always going to default to I don't pay for past performance, period. Sorry.

And that's it. And Brady's like, look, I'm worth this on the open market. And Belichick's, we're not giving you a two-year deal. You're going to be 45 at the end of the deal. We're not doing it. We don't do things that way here. And so it was a fundamental stalemate. And I feel like Belichek's probably good with this you know if you rip through all the

numbers of him last year like it's like okay he's bad against pressure all right whatever um his overthrows under throws he wasn't really on target well he's actually never really been a guy that's super on target because he throws so many balls away or he throws it purposely low for the incompletion that he wants um his red zone numbers were atrocious. Whatever they were, the QBR, I think, was at 40s for his second worst year ever. Last year, they were in the 20s. But then you go, okay, what about the weapons? But you can make a statistical argument that over two years, Belichick may just be going, hey, this guy who's in decline, and I'm not going to give you this. My argument will be, okay, well, who is playing quarterback?

Because now all the Pats media is falling in love with Jared Stidham based on nothing. And I'd honestly rather have Jameis. Um, I, there was one eye surgery or not. Eye surgery, post LASIK Jameis.

I'm, I'm in on, um, there was one interesting tidbit in one of the pieces I read and it definitely came from McDaniels or Belichick or somebody around those guys and it seemed too pointed to be made up

or turned around but it was basically like they're intrigued by Stidham because of his mobility and they feel like the league is moving in this specific direction where if your quarterback can't move around and create plays, save plays, et cetera, it's too hard to win with the way the league is constructed right now. The way it was phrased made me think that this actually came out of the Pats where they

are just looking at the league and they're looking at who the best quarterbacks are. And you're like, you know what? The days of Brady and Dan Marino and Peyton Manning and even you have to have a guy like that. So either it's Stidham or they go find somebody else. And they obviously didn't feel like Brady. Everything had to be so perfect for him to succeed unless he had these awesome receivers. But if you're paying him 30 million,

how do you get awesome receivers? You know what you can do though? You can do better than none. You can do better than a guy that can't pass a drug test. You can do better than, and you're right on the Antonio Brown thing. I can't believe Brady is that excited about him. I understand what he is as a player, but that guy is as unhinged as anyone right now in pro sports.

So why you'd be like, cool, we got him. And to be fair to Bill on this one, I don't think the Antonio Brown decision was Bill's call. I think that was a craft call. It was a craft thing. So, so if Brady should be upset about Brown not being around, honestly, he should just be upset at them not spending the money on somebody else. Who's good.

Hey, let's take Gordon's money and Brown's money. Instead of having to get everybody to reduce rate, instead of the dented can goods here where we look smarter than everybody else. How about we just go pay a freaking receiver, like a decent amount so that we have somebody for Brady? And I don't mean we, obviously.

I mean, let's say they had done the Stefan Diggs trade and given up all that the Bills gave up. Now, Diggs is unhappy. Diggs would be, his team would be celebrating. They'd have a parade in Minneapolis and he'd be bitching about not getting enough touches. Right. But that's what I'm, when people talk about they, they didn't get enough help.

Like I actually think they did try it. I don't think it worked out as well as it could have. Sonny Michelle is a first round pick. Muhammad Sanu is a second round pick. You can't go into the year saying, Hey, we, you know, whenever you're drafting on need and so many teams do do that, but when it's a specific need, because it's like Gordon's a massive question mark, Brown's a massive question mark.'s a massive question mark like look the only reason you get antonio brown is because he filmed a video post his raiders disaster we get to see it live as it

was happening all through hard knocks that's why you ended up with him there so i i just but as brady got older my point on the trade in the receivers thing it's like i don't know hopkins let's say say they got Hopkins a first-round pick. Hopkins is a guy who is a lot like Nikhil Harry, right? He's Nikhil Harry's best-case scenario

is he turns into a DeAndre Hopkins guy. He'll never be DeAndre Hopkins. No, no. I'm saying a guy who can make plays in traffic. He makes the over-the-shoulder catches and things like that.

He was never like a blow people away, go down the field, beat two D-backs. He was always like a catch balls in traffic. He made the over the shoulder catches and things like that. He was never like a blow people away, go down the field, beat two D backs. He was always like a catch balls and traffic guy. I just don't know who is out there that they're, if they had spent 120 million on Amari Cooper, would that have been better for Brady? Is that a good move? Like, no, I'm not saying you have to spend 120 million on a receiver. I'm just saying you don't have to constantly go. We're going to find a way to do this where we have no tight ends. Question marks on the outside. That's the end of that slot guy, a slot guy who played lacrosse.

And again, Hogan's not on the team anymore. I'm just sort of exaggerating for effect here. But unfortunately, you know what the patch should have done is sign girly when you get released for a ton of money, then traded him for Hopkins. I mean, they screwed up last year with the tight end thing, but anyway, it happened. He's leaving. But like,

if you told me you call me a week from now and you're like, Hey man, I don't think Chris long. I don't think we can get him for a season. I'm going to replace him with Antonio Brown. We've gotten really close. I FaceTime with him a lot. I think he's going to be reliable. I think we can get 22 Mondays out of him. Me and Antonio, let's make a real commitment. I would have been like, are you insane? I didn't want to have Antonio Brown on one podcast. What are you doing? You wouldn't let me

have him on one? I don't know. Maybe one, but Brady, Brady seems like it's like, Hey, all right. I get 25 million, four and a half million incentives and we've got to sign Antonio Brown. It was like his three conditions. I can't be wondering if he's lost his mind. I'm, I'm really surprised. I'm of, of Brady's run here. Not that like, I think Brady's the guy that can get along with everybody. So that's always really cool when you can do that as a quarterback, but it's almost like he doesn't have internet, but we've seen his posts,

Brady's posts. So we know he does have internet, but how, how you would want to sign off on Antonio Brown right now. That surprised me. I'm going to make a really important point right now. And you're going to be jealous of it. Okay.

I'm ready. Kyle, just get, get your finger on the button. Get. I'm ready to be jealous. Kyle, just get your finger on the button. Get ready to send this to the Smithsonian. I think sometimes you can be too great and too popular for too long and it starts to distort your sense of everything. And Brady's not the only person that we've seen this with. I think LeBron's another good example. Look at LeBron, how he's gone from, he goes to Miami.

The way he handled it was wrong. There was nobody in his life that stopped him from doing that, right? Then all of a sudden, four years later, ditches Miami, goes back to Cleveland, comes up with this whole, I'm going to finish my career in Cleveland here. Obviously, he didn't want to do that. He ends up in LA in four years. And he'll probably end up playing for the Knicks two years from now. I think when you become that successful and that famous and that wealthy,

and you have this small inner circle around you. For Brady, it's like Alex Guerrero and his wife. And it seems like those are the only two people in his life and maybe his agent. And that's it. And there's just adulation constantly. And you're the greatest, you're the best, you're awesome. Any Instagram post you do is immediately 500,000 likes. And at some point, I think it's really hard to be normal. I don't blame him for looking at this and going, you know what? I'm going to go to Tampa Bay and this is going to be awesome. And I'm going to stick it to everybody. And I'm going to play until I'm

47 because I'm Tom Brady and I could do it. And then he tells his wife and she's like, sounds great, Tom. I think you could too. Why not? Who is in his life that's going to be like, what are you doing? No one, no one. It's's on point it's perfectly stated i totally agree with you because i said it about college coaches you think coach k can be normal and i'm not saying there's anything wrong with him i'm just saying like he is a god in his community and i see it whenever i go to these college campuses where saban saban can't interact with like people outside of it in a way because it's like see I like saving a lot though so I don't want to come off the wrong way here but like Saban is more than human where he lives in his day-to-day it's like this unobtainable level for

the majority of us walking around so then when he runs into somebody outside of that bubble like he's probably thinking of like, okay, how is this interaction going to go? And then it's like, no, man, I just want to like say hi. And how's it going? It's like, oh, it's like a reset of that's right. Like I'm not, I'm not a God. Now when you're Brady and you're doing it at a national level, um, and you're doing it in the most popular sport, I see it all the time with these personalities where you'll post something like, look, a lot of Brady's posts are pretty cheesy because there's no guy that's going to go, hey, not. Who, Brady? No, Chris Berman. So Chris Berman is just living in middle Connecticut where you've spent a lot of time. He is the most famous person in that whole area for what, 25 years? He's the Rolling Stones of middle Connecticut. Any grocery store he goes

to, any gas station, any restaurant, any golf course, whatever, people are in complete disbelief that Chris Berman is there. Oh my God, it's Chris Berman. And after a while, you know, you, you start thinking I'm Chris Berman. I can do whatever the fuck I want. And they're like, Hey man, the Swami it's seven minutes. Like we were thinking of a couple of ways maybe to make this better. And how dare you bring that up to me? I'm not saying he did that, but at some point you hit this point where nobody can actually have a real conversation with you to try to help you in any way. And I wonder if that's happened to Brady where- Well, I don't think it was on the decision.

But who was the person in his life who was like, hey dude, here's a list of all the greats ever who, here's MJ and the Wizards. Here's Emmett Smith and the Cardinals. I'm just going to go through. Here's 27 examples of Jerry Rice and the Raiders that this is not the direction you want to go. You should either retire or stay with the Patriots at this point. What are you doing?

Yeah, see, I don't agree with that part, though. I agree with the buildup and the whole thing. And I imagine his father for a long time is somebody that's been able to have conversations with him just like you could have with your father or me. Those are conversations we can't have with anybody else. But I don't blame Brady at all for going. Even if this doesn't make the most football sense, you're not going to sit here and treat me like a special teamer. You're just not. I know the way you do business, but you're going to talk to me a little bit more. And if you're not going to talk to me,

then I'm going to bounce because of all the little slights that you talked about, stuff in the Wickersham piece, all the stuff we've been certain. It just all adds up. And like I said a week ago, I bet you there's a part of this where Brady's like, this feels good to call this on my terms for the first time in two decades. Is it going to feel good to play for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers? I think

they're going to be, you know, their defense is a lot better. I was going through it and their defense faced the most like however it's phrased like the most important possessions, like their defense faced the most like however it's phrased like the most important possessions like their defense faced the most they were 29th I think

in yardage but they were 5th in DVOA they had the worst starting field position of any team in the league because Jameis put them in impossible situations the entire time so I think defense is actually a little bit better you want yeah this is a great question. You want Jameis more than anybody

else is available right now. Here's the thing. I think there's going to be real value with one of these quarterbacks where you could get Jameis for like one year, four million, something like that. If they if they're.

No, it can't be that low. Four? Listen, at some point, we're out of jobs. And if you're Jameis and you look at it and you go, I could go to the Patriots. I can finally see.

I can tell who's on my team versus the other team. I get to be with Bill Belichick. I'm only two years older than Joe Burrow. And I'll do a one-year deal. I'll do what Tannehill did in Tennessee last year. I'll bet on myself. And if this works out, I could have a $100 million contract.

I actually, my player, I know I'm better than Jared Stidham. I threw for 5,100 yards last year. You think Jared Stidham could throw for 5,100 yards in a season like ever. I know he had Ed Evans and Godwin, but I just think he's become undervalued and people got too focused on the picks, but he had other seasons when his touchdown interception thing was, you know, yeah, I think one year he was like 19 TDs, 11 picks. I don't know, man. I think it's... You think he's done as a starter? No, I don't think he's done as a starter.

I think he's turnover prone for the rest of his life. I think the eyesight thing is hysterical. Peyton Manning threw a lot of turnovers. Peyton Manning had some really, really, really high turnover years early in his career. Well, I tell you what, when Jameis starts carrying teams into the playoffs, then we can start comparing him to the trajectory of Peyton Manning. Peyton Manning, the first year that everybody,

everybody does that. Everybody whose favorite quarterback has a ton of picks early on, they look at Peyton Manning's first year when he had a million, and then he kind of figured some things out. Eli had some picks,

some picks in some years. Yeah, but Eli wasn't, Eli's overrated anyway. Favre? Sorry. Favre decided he didn't care like later on in his career and then got mad about it

after he retired four times. And then he had that year in Minnesota, which I still think is like one of the most impressive seasons a guy's ever had because he went to the Jets just to get the Vikings

just so he could go back to Green Bay. After Green Bay, it was like he retired. You retired four times. Like we can't keep doing this every single year with you, Favre. But Jameis turned the ball over. There were questions about ball security when he was at Florida State. you retired four times like we can't keep doing this every single year with you farve but jamis

turned the ball over uh there were questions about ball security when he's at florida state i think it's one of those things like you can either shoot or you can't shoot and i'm not talking about like just a guy who becomes good at corner threes and or maybe better yet vision like guys have passing vision as basketball players or they don't even think of seeing the game the way the kids steve nash's uh magic johnson those kinds of guys i think if you are a guy that has a lot of turnovers you're generally a guy that's going to have a lot of turnovers and i think he didn't he fumbled 12 times too so i don't i don't know why you'd want to put yourself through that i'd rather i'm saying i'm saying one year four million i

would just want to bring him in a training camp and if it doesn't work fine right if it's four million fine but the guy that i want them to get is Brissette, but it seems like the Colts are actually going to keep him. I still don't understand what the Colts are doing. Let's take a break. We got to do recommendations. Then we got to do the basketball thing. Hey, cybercrime is on the rise. Complicated tech like the cloud and internet of things makes it hard for modern businesses to see and stop attacks. It's time to be the hunter, not the hunted. ExtraHop helps you detect threats in the cloud up to 95% faster and automate response

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customer success stories, and more at extrahop.com slash BS. That is extrahop.com slash BS. Okay, quickly. Every week we're doing recommendations. A TV show, a book, an older movie, and then a new movie. So let's go back and forth on this. Let's do the TV show first.

I have a feeling I know what you're going to pick for the TV show. Take a guess. That Netflix Zookeeper show. Yeah, Tiger King. Yeah. Joe Exotic. Joe Exotic. Are you done with it?

I'm done with three episodes. I'm already done with it. Finished it. Powered through last night. Amazing story. It is a great doc in the sense that just when you think

you kind of have it figured out, you're like, what? Like, what? Like the next level of this? And then you go through this rotation of trying to figure out who you hate the most

because you really don't end up liking anybody. And I know in some ways like stories are pitched. It's like, well, who am I actually rooting for? And this one, I think you're rooting

for the Tigers because everybody involved is brutal and just you know so one guy ends up having a harem and i you know it's just just i just think these animal people are fucking weird man there's no way around it like i could never date somebody that was like i'm dedicated the rest of my life to animals like it's great that you care about animals that much, but these people like take it to a whole nother level. And it's, uh, it's a really good piece of work, really good work by the guys that took years to put this thing together. Cause they had no idea that this was actually going to happen. Um, that was my recommendation as well, but since you just made the case, I'm not done with it yet,

but I watched three last night and was captivated. I just wanted to mention because I know ESPN is going to show O.J. Made in America, I think this week or next week, they're going to reshow the Ezra thing. I think it's either tomorrow night or whatever.

But on Netflix, American Crime Story, the one where Travolta was Robert Shapiro and Cuba Gooding was OJ. I rewatched that a couple of months ago and it's fantastic. It's really, really, really great. I think the combo of those, if you're going to do the OJ deep dive, I would fully recommend do the Ezra one first. Actually, do the Ezra one first. Actually do the Ezra one second. I would do the Cuba Gooding one first and then I would go to the Ezra one. But I think the combo of those is really great. Really

good deep dive. All right. For a book, this is another one that's tied to an ESPN thing. I'm going with Playing for Keeps by David Halberstam, which was his sequel to Breaks of the Game, which is an awesome basketball book, an essential top five, top six, top seven NBA book ever, and is relevant because it looks like ESPN is going to push up this Michael Jordan doc that my friend Jason Harris is doing. And he's probably listening to this locked into a bunker right now, but it looks like that's going to be mid April, third week in April, something like that.

I would read. They are going to push that up. They are going to, I think they're pushing it up. Yeah. That's, that's the feeling I'm getting. I don't know the exact date yet,

but, um, but I would read this book ahead of it. Cause it gets you in the mood for it. And, um, the documentary is about that last season, which is also what the book's about.

So if you want to be properly versed. Is that the best Jordan book? Yeah. I don't know how many you've read. I've read all of it. Jordan Rules is still a really good read. Bob Green, who I think eventually became a disgraced newspaper columnist, but he wrote a really good book. Bob Green, who I think eventually became a disgraced newspaper columnist,

but he wrote a really good book about his friendship with Jordan that had a lot of inside stuff that I thought was really good. Those are probably my three favorites. There was one that somebody wrote when he was on The Wizards that was a book that I didn't love. That was just the guy was kind of lingering on the locker room, couldn't get access and just seemed bitter about it the whole time. But anyway, that's my book recommendation.

What do you have? If you're not going to, if you had that project, that creative project that you've wanted to do your whole life, maybe writing a book, maybe you want to write a script,

maybe you want to do, and not a lot of guys telling people they're going to write a play. You don't hear that one a lot. If you can't get it done now, you're never going to do it. Okay. So if you've been a talker for a couple of years saying, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. And you never have, like most people don't. And if you don't do anything, then you need to just remove that from your head

of it ever being a possibility, because this would be the time where you're going to have more and i know everybody's situation is different people depending on you and all that kind of stuff um so story robert mckee which is the book that in the movie adaptation which i love that movie with nicholas cage where he plays twin brothers and um is that chris conley the actor who plays the orchid thief so basically yeah chris cooper chris conley different guy chris cooper is an awesome actor and meryl streep's in it she's amazing and basically good things about her yeah yeah no i just felt like meryl streep hit this stretch for the last couple years where it was like,

all you could only say was that Meryl Streep is amazing. But I just, the whole thing is, it's this movie that's about this book and this screenwriter that's trying to adapt The Orchid Thief. And he goes to these Robert McKee courses, which there's actually a book

that is considered one of the better screenwriting books that are out there. It's been out for a really, really long time. And I'll admit that I bought it thinking here we go. And I bought it Coolidge Corner down at that Barnes and Noble and Brookline. I don't think I opened it for a couple years. And then I would highlight a little bit. I finally did get

through it and it helped me unlock some of the things I was trying to do. Good. A little creative. Yeah, creative for the kids out there. All right. Older movie recommendation. Last week I recommended and the band played on, which was, is still on HBO on the HBO go. So I watched scent of a woman last week, a movie I hadn't seen in a long time and a movie that I think has

unfairly been painted a certain way in the years to follow because what happened is Pacino won the best actor. It was at the height of, oh, if you have to play somebody with a disability or somewhere, like that whole joke got going

right around there. Oh, you got to either pretend you're brain damaged or you have to pretend you're autistic or you have to pretend you're blind. That's how to win an Oscar between Rain Man, Dustin Hoffman, Pacino, a couple other ones. And more importantly, Denzel didn't win for Malcolm X. And as the years have passed, that made people really mad. Denzel ended up getting one finally for training day. If you're doing the five-year Oscars game that Fantasy and Chris Ryan and I love to do, even five years later, I think Denzel probably wins for Malcolm X. I think if you're redoing

that years later, most people would say Denzel should have won. And maybe if the Academy had been a little more diverse, maybe he should have won. It's a better performance. With all that said, Pacino is incredible instead of a woman. And it's, look, he's basically playing blind Vincent Hanna from Heat. Yeah, that's perfectly set. He's Vincent Hanna who can't see. He has some awesome scenes. He, look,

it's all the stuff that he would eventually start doing more of, the hoo-ah, and then just dialing it up, just for the sake of dialing it up, and doing his whole thing. But the movie just works. It's really good. I have no idea what happens in the last 20 minutes, which I won't spoil it for the people listening, but there's this kind of manufactured drama thing

that circles around. Philip Seymour Hoffman's involved. And it's like, how is this the ending of the movie? But Pacino makes all the works. Chris O'Donnell's really good in it too. And it's a role that I think everybody wanted. I think Matt Damon was going after it. Affleck, every young actor in that generation.

Chris O'Donnell got it. He kills in it. The movie's good. And the movie has a couple of really, really awesome scenes. And I don't want to fully defend the Oscar because I still think Denzel should have won. But I don't think it's a bad Oscar. I don't think it should be lumped into like

the Roberto Benigni type of Oscars. I'm like, how the fuck did Pacino win that year? He's awesome. And the movie's good. And it's a good rewatch. I watched it with my the fuck did Pacino win that year? He's awesome and the movie's good and it's a good rewatch. I watched it with my daughter and she loved it. So there you go.

Yeah, I saw it in the theater. That was one of those movies you had to go see. I really liked the way, if you think about like the scent of the woman and how he explains it and how it's this thing,

it's actually really cool. It's executed perfectly and O'Donnell is great in it. But that is one of my least favorite pacino characters in heat and i just think it's so over the top and it's kind of annoying that i had those moments where it was the same thing with him and that but it made more sense you know it made more sense because he was this guy with his background but you're right it if i saw it i haven't seen it in a long time, but I remember in the moment being like, how are they

going to end this? How are they going to end this? And they're like, oh, that's how they're going to end it. I've been watching a lot of great movies from the 70s, 80s and early 90s again. You know why? Because we're all under quarantine. It turns out a lot of these movies were really successful

and lauded for a reason. You watch Shampoo with Warren Beatty. It's like, that's a great fucking movie. It's really, it's really, really great. And nobody would think to watch it now.

But, um, my advice would be to, if you're really bored, instead of watching new, terrible movies to go backwards and watch some of the old classics. Anyway, what's your movie?

Zero effect. Hmm. With Ben Stiller and Bill Pullman. It's early Stiller. I don't know if that's Apex Mountain Pullman, not as far as successes go. Yeah, I've just always loved this movie. I love the tone of it. I love the music.

The soundtrack was incredible. The concept was really cool, where Stiller basically finds bill pullman who's considered like the greatest detective ever but he's really really strange and there are really great lines that it's not a comedy but it's funny as hell and yeah they kind of tie it all around and you know it has this thing at the ending where you're like oh okay that's that's how they're ending this but i've just always liked it it was always a little off the radar and And for whatever reason,

there's a lot of nostalgia for me because I remember the first time I saw it and how into the soundtrack I was. And it reminds me of like this one apartment that I had where this guy over here, two thumbs and not giving a damn. So it was a good time. 96, 97.

Let me double check that. And maybe 98. 98 is 98. I mean, 96 through 99, there were so many good movies that a lot of them just got, fell through the cracks. That was definitely one of them.

It did. Yeah, I mean, it's not even remotely like on the radar of successes of some of those other ones. But if you like Stiller, you'll like him in this.

And, you know, the whole thing, Pullman's character is a really cool character. It's actually unique and they did a really good job of it. For my new movie, I did pay 20 bucks

to watch The Hunt because of course I did. I really like Betty Gilpin. Can you explain what The Hunt really is? So, I don't want to give away too much, but it's,

it's basically a black horror comedy or a black thriller comedy, basically. And there's a couple twists and it's very clear what it's trying to do. Fantasy did a good job writing about it

with The Ringer. Fantasy didn't think it worked as well as... I just thought it's... My dad used to call these movies five o'clockers where it's like

he would be driving home from... My dad was a superintendent for years and years. And on his way home, sometimes he wouldn't want to deal with the traffic. So he would go see what the five o' his way home, sometimes he wouldn't want to deal with the traffic. So he would go see what the five o'clock movie was,

but he wouldn't want anything too intense. So like, or two, two where he'd have to use his brain too much. So it would be like Steven Seagal, Mark for death. Great. That's a five o'clocker. 21 Bridges, a classic five o'clocker, like almost a little overqualified. The Hunt is a five o'clocker. It's just like, turn your brain off for an hour 40. It's trying to do some stuff with like Trump

America. And, um, it's trying to be super clever in a way that's kind of unintentionally funny as well as intentionally funny. But I really liked Betty Gilpin and, and, um, I just, I think she's a star. That was why I liked it I didn't love it but I liked her I didn't love the movie but I really liked her all right so what's what's the rule on the new movie does have to be brand new because I don't know it could be like

or you or you could do something from the last two years first man then with Gosling it's on cable now the first scene is incredible when he's trying to break you know he's trying to shoot up into the atmosphere and then come back down the anxiety you will feel nothing is better than the anxiety that you feel in sicario's border crossing scene that's one of my favorite scenes in any movie ever but the opening of first man where it's just boom you're just right in it and gosling so good at everything he does and i would uh say that one is one that got lost in the cracks and some

people just don't like it because it slows down so much at the end i love the movie but i love the opening of that movie. Okay. There you go. All right. We're taking one more break and then we're going to do a quick rewatchables of 93 Sun Sonics and then we're done. Hey, I want to take a quick break to thank everybody who donated to the little campaign that I ran to feed people back in Boston with the Greater Boston Food Bank. We raised over $52,000 and counting. And if you want to check it out, you can find the link on my Twitter feed. We raised between me and the $52,000. We're over $100,000. But speaking of that, that is a part of the Feeding America site, which the Pod Save America guys and a bunch of other people have talked about.

But if you want to donate, they can help you find food banks in your area or any place close to where you live and you can get people some meals. A lot of people are struggling out there. The other thing I wanted to mention, restaurants have pretty much closed, but a lot of them are still doing takeout and delivery. Please eat, support your local restaurants. Don't be afraid. Everybody is taking precautions out there. We are in a situation now where everybody needs to chip in and that includes supporting the local businesses around you. If you're going to have to eat, if you're going to get a pizza, a sandwich, whatever you want to have for dinner, don't be afraid to support your local you're going to get a pizza, um, sandwich, whatever you want to have for dinner.

Um, don't be afraid to support your local restaurants. Listen to Dave Chang's podcast this week as well, because he's going to talk a lot about that and, uh, and some stuff you may be able to do stay safe out there as always. And, uh, thanks for listening. Let's go back to Rosilla. Okay. We're so we're going to end every podcast. We're going to do a basketball game. We'll try to keep this to like 20, 25 minutes max. Yeah, right. No, we really will. We're going to do it.

So we did Suns, Sonics, Game 5, 1993. To set the tone, Charles Barkley gets traded the summer before in one of the all- time 30 cents for a dollar trade Brutal trade they didn't even get a pick Yeah Philly gets Hornacek Andrew Lang Tim Perry that's it Temple

We had no internet back then it was just people in bars going Can you fucking believe what Phoenix gave up for Barkley Like And he goes to the dream team He's the breakout star of the dream team Everybody's like oh my god Charles Barkley didn't realize he was this good And he goes to the dream team. He's the breakout star of the dream team. Everybody's like, oh my God, Charles Barkley. Didn't realize he was this good.

And people were like, yeah, if you watch basketball, you knew the guy was fucking a top six guy for years. So anyway, he goes to the Suns. At the same time, Seattle has this Sean Kemp. They luck out with him, draft him in high school. It turns out to be a gem. Gary Payton, second pick in the draft. They have all these good veterans. Sam Perkins, Derek McKee, Ricky Pierce, who's awesome in that series. And the Suns have Thunder Dan Marley, really at his

apex. Kevin Johnson. And then this weird hodgepodge pseudo small ball team. Tom Chambers, advanced in age. Danny Ainge, advanced in age. They're in the Western Finals. the East finals is the famous Nick's Bulls bloodbath that leads to the Charles Smith game. The game before this game, game four, Nick's Bulls, MJ puts up the 55. He's not talking to the media. Then this game happens. The next game is Charles. I mean, this is an unbelievable stretch of basketball. Also my favorite, uh, I think the most entertaining basketball season of all time. If you go through all the factors, I think this brought the most to the table. The reason I want to do this, um, just a, it's a super entertaining game. You could find on YouTube B the Draymond

thing with Barkley really pissed me off because Barkley's just been on TV now for 20 plus years. And now there's this inference that he wasn't a great player because he didn't win a ring. Somehow the rings culture thing has taken his career hostage. And the reality is he was an incredible basketball player. He was top 20 all time in the 93 year. MJ should have won the MVP because I'm just should have won the MVP every year.

But, but Barkley was the most reasonable MVP pick of anybody who actually took a Jordan MVP. And he's awesome in this game. He puts up a 42, 15, and 10. He plays all 48 minutes. It's a must win. And I really enjoyed it. And I love Charles Barkley.

I just really loved him as a basketball player. So there you go. Yeah, Barkley, I know you know this. He's my favorite athlete of all time. I don't know why this happened to me at a young age, but it probably influenced by my father where I just loved people that I knew exactly who they were and how, like, okay, I've heard Barkley talk for a few minutes. I know exactly who this guy is. And it wasn't just his game that he was shorter than

everybody else and was dominating players bigger than him and had this explosiveness for a body type that didn't make any sense at all and the jokes like hey if i were six seven i'd be illegal because people think he was like closer to six four than he was actually six six yeah and i just loved him and i loved that that idea with him on the sixers with Moses forever, and it wasn't going to happen. So when he got traded, this year for me as my senior year in high school, I was like, this is it. And Jordan's just waiting for everybody. Everybody that was a fan of one of those other five or six great players in a league, there's this dude.

Jordan's just such a different – I was going through some of his stuff today, just laughing my head off looking at some of Jordan's numbers, but knowing that, okay, that guy's waiting for him. But the Suns go 62-20. Bark in the first round, here's this team that maybe has the best chance of the three, including LA and Portland that are going to face Michael in the finals. And they're down to, Oh, to the Lakers. And Kevin Johnson missed one of those games. And he had some real up and downs throughout this entire playoff run that I know you want to get to. They come back, they beat them.

Um, and they're back. And that was a running on fumes Lakers team that really, you know, it's worthy, it's A.C. Green, it's Byron Scott, it's the tail end, but they have so much championship D&A at that point. It was really honorable how they battled the

Suns. They almost beat the Suns. They really did. Yeah, they almost beat them. The Suns get through San Antonio, and then you have the Seattle series where Barkley's, you know, look at it. Kemp was different. Kemp was a rarity because he was this straight out of high school kid, but he was also at a community college there for a little bit. He was the 17th pick. And when you watch this game, are we ready to get to the game? Because I'm not going to go. I know you're kind of lead dog on this thing, so I don't want to interrupt anything that you're doing yeah the only thing I would say is

Barkley beats Robinson the previous round with that shot yeah and Robinson at that point people are wondering is he going to be the next great center is it going to be him or Shaq and Barkley takes him down and then in the other series the Rockets and Sonics have a bloodbath

and that's Hakeem 93-94-95 And then in the other series, the Rockets and Sonics have a bloodbath. And that's Hakeem, 93, 94, 95 is arguably the best player in the league for that three-year stretch. You know, people are like, wow, when MJ left, he left this crazy. It's like Hakeem was like way, way up there. I had him in the top. I think I had him like 12th or 13th in my pyramid. But Seattle takes down Hakeem in a game seven. I did a thing in my book about the MVP race that year because I thought it was really one of the best MVP races we've ever had. Barkley was second. He had 22 first place votes. Hakeem that year was 26, 13, and 4.

First team all D. The Rockets won 55 wins. He was the only all-star on the team. He had 150 steals and 342 blocks. So combined, he almost had 500 steal blocks, stocks I call them. And then Jordan, he just casually puts up a 33-7-6, 50% shooting. They win 57 games. He's first team all defense. So you have three guys at the pinnacle of their careers and Jordan ends up finishing third and now it seems dumb, but it wasn't as dumb at the time.

No, it wasn't because that's not, it's hard to retroactively live in the story. Or I would say not retroactively. It's hard to go 20, 30 years removed and remember what the feeling was at that time. And the feeling was that Barkley shows up to Phoenix and they have a real chance. And it was the best,

it was the best narrative too, where it's like Barkley, he was trapped on these bad Philly teams. He finally gets better teammates. He changes conferences. He's in the best shape of his career and was awesome. And people were like, this is great. This is somebody that

is friends with Jordan. He's not going to be afraid of him. He'll go toe-to-toe with him. And he did in the finals. The rest of his team didn't show up as well. So just quickly, so we had that Phoenix. I just want to hit a couple of things from this game. I think of Phoenix as like an early small ball team, but you watch this game and it was really like Mark West, Oliver Miller. They played a center most of the time. I think if you took the team that they had now, you took that team then and put it into now

basketball, they just would have gone completely small, right? They would have way more three-point shooting. Sabalos is still on the roster, and then Tom Chambers is still on, despite, you know, and he put up some massive numbers in some of the previous years but

he was on the decline a little bit i mean it was so weird that he subs in like halfway through the third quarter of this game and he hadn't played at all in this game even though he's getting some run in some of the other ones but you're right it was mark west as the starter and then oliver miller who's this rookie who you can see i don't know what people remember of oliver miller probably just being overweight but you could see he was this incredibly frustrating player because he was a great passer. He was great instincts, but then he'd also have these mental lapses where you'd be like,

what are you doing? And you can see rewatching this game. He's kind of like the son's Mario Chalmers where Barkley is killing everybody on the post, no matter who they throw at him. They're sending triple teams at Barkley. Sometimes they double them. Sometimes they don't always get there to the double and Miller would go to post up behind Barkley where Barkley's already on the

block and Miller's trying to post behind Barkley yeah towards the rim and Barkley's like what are you doing I mean that's like one-on-one get out of the way and Miller does it twice and then Miller has a bad defensive thing where he makes the wrong call and Ainge starts getting on him and you could then Miller would have this amazing pass that you wouldn't think any center could make so they West files out of this game they had to bring Miller back in but you could see Miller was somebody to like if this guy ever figures it out and unfortunately conditioning be a big part of that Miller never really did and I think if you take this team now Chambers is just shooting threes and they probably use him.

Yeah. Or you just go super small with Barkley and you just put another shooter out there. I think they would have tried to create way more space for Kevin Johnson. It was interesting. One of the things Seattle was doing in this game, they were basically double team trapping him at midcourt to try to get the ball out of his hands.

And the Suns didn't know how to handle it. Kevin Johnson is terrible in this series. And it carried over the next series because his first 10 playoff games this year is 20 and nine 53%. So Seattle starts fucking with them. And you look at this nine game stretch, the Seattle series goes seven. They ended up winning in seven,

the famous game where they shoot like 70 free throws. Seattle fans are still pissed about it. And the first two finals games, when he gets benched in game two for Frank Johnson, those nine games, he's 14 and six, 42% field goal, almost four turnovers. This is a guy who threw the playoffs. In 90, he was 21 or 11. 92 playoffs, 24 and 12. 93, he was down to 18 and 8 for the whole playoffs. 94, he was 27 and 10.

95, he was 25 and 9. He was kind of the... I would compare him to the... I think he was the Kyrie of that generation. This guy who was just... There was nobody like him. He was incredibly talented talented it was unclear how anybody could even guard him and yet was really frustrating for whatever reason and he hurt a lot

yeah he was hurt so i don't you know there's always i was going back and reading this morning because he missed the first game there against the lakers i'm going all right well was this this lingering thing but he was really good against San Antonio. Hell, he played in that triple overtime game in Chicago in the finals. He played 62 minutes, okay? But he had really bad games against the Bulls, 4-13, 2-8. And then in this game in particular, even though he ends up with 10 assists and 13 points, that's not the game he had because that trap, you were great to point that out.

Kind of like what some teams do, like when Miami got Trey Young in one of those games months ago now in the regular season where they sold out to be like, Hey, let's just screw this up at the top and then see what happens around it. Phoenix did a bad job. They just, they just weren't, they didn't ever really kind of adjust to it. And Kevin Johnson kept dribbling into it the whole time. Yeah. So, you know, when Curry, they ran a trap Curry's first ring against Cleveland, they ran this double at him. And then once Curry kind of figured out what to do, like, let me get the ball out of my hands quicker than they can defend me.

And then I'll just run through some stuff and get the ball back. And it sounds like, Hey, why can't you just double again? Well, that's just kind of the way it works. Like it's easier to double. We see you about to cross half court. We know exactly where to go at you as opposed to losing you and all the traffic of a half court set. And in this case, like Kevin would just kind of get bottled up and I'd always be looking

for like that third guy. And it also speaks to just how different this game is, is that now you'd be so afraid to trap like that all the time because there's more shooting everywhere. Yeah. You'd have guys in both corners just begging you to do that. You could have done that back then. Also, Seattle had a really long, athletic, frustrated team to play because McKee was one of the best defenders

at that position. Perkins, in 93 at least, still was pretty athletic. Peyton was a fantastic defender. Kemp was athletic. When they dialed it up in the second half of this game and turned it into a track meet, you would have thought that would have been great for the sons. And it was the opposite. It was actually like really bad for them. And, uh, and Kemp is

so electric. My favorite thing about this game, I don't need to be sold on Barkley. Like Barkley's done this dozens of times where you're just like, oh my God, this guy plays all 48 minutes. He does everything. In the first half, he had 24 points and like eight rebounds, six assists, something like that. But Kemp, he might have been... I still think Derek Coleman was probably the most talented power forward I ever saw just

for like who had the total array of gifts because he could shoot threes. He could post up. He was a great passer. He really had everything other than a total drive. I would say Rasheed Wallace. Yeah, he's another one.

These guys that are just tantalizing but had all the gifts. You watch Kemp, and it's kind of hard to believe Kemp didn't become an all-time guy. In this game, he gets two fouls in a minute to start the game. He doesn't score until the second quarter. He finishes with 33. He's unstoppable. He has a huge turnaround with two minutes left that is just an adult professional Hall of Fame kind of shot,

not to mention all the stuff around the rim. What a tragedy that that guy, I know he had a lot of personal problems and, uh, the money stuff was an issue for him and things like that. But what a tragedy that his career didn't turn out better. And it still turned out pretty good. Think about what camp was though. So you have this run, it's 93. They get to the finals in 96. Now they were down.

I forgot. Cause I was looking up MJ stuff. They're down three, nothing. They're down three, nothing. So, you know,

people kind of done this thing where it's like, Hey, that Seattle team was really good. You're like, yeah, they're really good, but they're also down three, nothing.

So like that series was over. He had one more year with Seattle. He was at Cleveland at 28. Like that's, that was like, Oh, that's right. Like I remember him being on Cleveland and he put up his second year.

He put up some really big numbers when he was in Cleveland, but he was a year after that team was in the NBA finals, losing to Jordan, like everybody else did. He had one more year in Seattle than he was out of there. His run was basically 92 to 97. And cause 92 was this coming out party. They made the playoffs.

They had some fun. 93 was when it was like, Oh, this guy is going to be a Malone Barkley type. This is, you will be able to build your franchise around him for the next 15 years. It peaks in the 96 finals when he was really a problem in that finals. Like he was probably the second best player in that series. And then they did the whole thing.

They paid Jim McIlvain. They gave Jim McIlvain, like, I forget the number, but it was absurd. It was like $30 million or something. And Kemp was underpaid. And it just sent Kemp into this spiral. And his career was never the same. And they were never, this Malone Stockton type partnership he was going to have with Gary Payton. It just kind of fell apart.

But he's awesome to watch. The other big winner of this game was Dan Marley. Do a minute on Dan Marley. Do a minute on Dan Marley. So Marley was somebody that played at a smaller school and would have fit in perfectly in today's game, but he is absolutely on fire in this game. Ends up with

eight threes, which is at that point the record for most threes in a playoff game. The record now is still only 11. So Marley's having like a 2018 kind of game when this stuff didn't happen so this this was like landing on the moon to see a guy shoot this many threes and he didn't miss i mean i think he only ended up missing one maybe there was a second missing there a little bit later on in the game dick enberg was on fire with the zingers on this one

he goes i don't know what they serve at marley's restaurant but i hope they come in threes and he just magic laughs so hard because enberg and magic are on the call. This one, we got to get to that at some point. And then Enberg was like, Hey, that, that three joke was kind of good. Let me use that one again. He goes, whatever they're serving over at Marley's. I hope they serve it on trays. So Marley, Marley saved them in this game because as much as it was, it was all Barkley.

Okay. And whether it's Barkley in transition, which is kind of funny that you bring up the Draymond thing because Barkley in transition was a lot like Draymond. Like the great part about Draymond is not only can he defend everybody, he's a better defender than Barkley is and how, uh, multiple he is, but Draymond getting the board and going and then finding you and setting you up. That's what Barkley did. If Barkley didn't want to score and then finding you and setting you up. That's what Barkley did.

If Barkley didn't want to score, like he would set everybody else up. And so he's left block. And whenever the double would come, like they were trying to run as much as they could through Barkley. And then there was a stretch in the third quarter where Barkley wasn't getting it. And then they were just bad at it. Like Kevin Johnson couldn't throw an entry pass to him.

They couldn't figure it out. They had a couple of turnovers that were forcing this. So then they'd go away from it. And Marley carried them there in that third quarter. And then he had a dagger one at the end of this thing. And Marley's this big, like well-conditioned can run all day kind of guy that's pulling up from three in a way that no one really did. I mean, there's only a few guys that would ever do that. And for him to do it in game five, uh, that was the kind of thing, like you'd be talking about the next day going, how many three-pointers did he make? And if you look at the most threes ever made in a playoff game, the record's 11, but his at eight, I think he's one of like two or three

guys that have done it before 2010. And that was in 93. Yeah, he led the league in threes that year and it wasn't a lot of threes. It was like 157. Yeah, right. I mean, he tied with Reggie Miller, but yeah, I was looking at his stats. He was probably taking close to five a game during his heyday in 93 and 94. And now that would be 12.

Yeah. It was the number one offense in the league, too. Offensive efficiency. Like the run and gun thing, you're right. But they would be way too big today. But Marley was part of that. Sorry to interrupt. Did you see how many threes they made in the entire series? Of that series?

36. So he made 25% of them in one game. Yeah. And what's weird is, in the moment, I felt like that was a three-point shooting team because of him and H. Oh, man, those guys, they're firing them up. They have two white guys. Yeah.

And Indiana was another one. Three. Indiana had Reggie Miller in person. It was like, man, these guys are bombers. And then you look at the stats and they were averaging like four threes a game. It's totally different. Marley was definitely ahead of his time, guy. Absolutely. game. It's totally different. Marley was definitely ahead of his time guy. I think if you just time-machined him and

put him into the league in 2013, he would be a $20 million a year guy. And he had a good run. He had a good 90s, and he rejuvenated himself a little on some of those Miami teams that never quite got over the hump. So that was cool. And then Ricky Pierce was another revelation.

I forgot how much I enjoyed his game. Just a classic old school. He's three for three on threes from this game, but is a guy now that would be taking eight or nine threes. But back then they're running plays for him to get him these 19 footers. Plays that don't exist anymore. It was like there was one play in crunch time where they're coming out of a timeout. They're like, we're going to run the Ricky Pierce play.

We're going to get him an open 18-footer. It would be great. We'll get two points out of it. And now nobody thinks that way, right? No, I mean, Marley. Here's Marley, who makes eight threes in this game, sets a record. He had a three. He up-faked, stepped in twice, and took a long two.

You're looking at it now now going what is he doing and that's what everybody did back then but there's still so much of this game that's played below the free throw line oh you may have one matchup that's extended beyond the perimeter but there's just a mass of bodies down there is everybody's figuring like how can we kind of like kept that's what made kemp really good is kemp could get it kind of like five feet out, like five feet up from the baseline, five feet from the center of the paint, and he would just cut so hard one, two power dribbles in and then get up over everybody and finish up at the rim.

And there wasn't like any play to it. It was just that I'm going to be more physical and I'm going to be able to finish some of these things off. But in this game, the transition stuff is where you thought Seattle was going to win it. They were so good in transition. They were beating them up on the glass. There was no offensive boards for Phoenix. It felt like for long stretches and whether the turnover problems,

because Kevin Johnson was turning over. They had that stretch. Like I said, they were trying to get to Barkley. It was a total mess. And so like Barkley had this lull after that big first half and then turn it on later. But that's where Seattle would just get out and go. And they made, they made Phoenix look bad. Like they were running them and Phoenix couldn't do anything with them in transition. They were bad in transition. and the Suns go on this really great run, and Barkley's just out of his mind, and then Kemp starts battling back, and you can skip the first, I would say, quarter and a half of this.

Barkley for the series was 26-14-4. For the season, 25-12-5, only Wilt, Kareem, and Giannis ever did that with 50% shooting. I mean, you're talking, this really was like a great, great, great season that unfortunately coincided with this unbelievable MJ season.

We got to talk about Dick Enberg and Magic Johnson. So there's two feeds. I mean, I'm sorry. There's two full versions of this game on YouTube. One of them ends abruptly with like five minutes left. The other one runs entirely. The one that ends abruptly has all of the pregame stuff

and the entire halftime show, which is Bob Costas, Peter Vesey, and Quinn Buckner. I have no idea how Quinn Buckner got on a national show. But Vesey, no hairpiece for Vesey, by the way. And he's dropping bombs about coaching searches and how Magic was in the running for the Clippers coaching search, but then it fell through. And then they just go right to Magic at halftime.

And Costas is like, Magic, what happened here? And Magic's like, you know, it wasn't something I would have done unless I had a piece of the team. I'm not interested I would have done unless I had a piece of the team. I'm not interested in coaching unless I can also get a piece of the team. And I'm watching this thinking like Magic went on to become a terrible coach. Like, can you imagine if somebody had given him a piece of the team to coach? He lasted like 16 games. Remember that?

It's an incredible time machine. Yeah. Just that part. I just wonder how much it would have altered the Lakers part of his timeline if all of a sudden this guy that's like Mr. Showtime, Mr. Laker owns a part of the Clippers.

I don't know. I think he's such a smart people guy. He probably spent an hour with Donald Sterling and was like, there's no way I'm hitching my boat to this guy. But Enberg and Magic are doing the game announcing. And it's rough. Enberg, I'm not sure how he ended up doing NBA games.

I think, was this when Marv got sent away? Or was that later? I don't remember Marv's timeline. Enberg is not. I'm trying to be nice here because I just know Enberg's so beloved. Oh, he's an icon. He's a football guy, though.

But it's just like, the guys that have fouls, I'm like, is that his fifth? Was that who the foul was on? Just basic stuff where you're like, who's the foul on and like what what is going on here um you know when i was growing up in the late 70s him and mcguire and packer were like the first iconic announcing team but that was in the late 70s and i think they were

like oh i remember i could still do this and it's like no not really well that happens it happens definitely happens with play-by-play guys forever like you'll just have a name and you sort of have this voice that you remember something and then you're doing it. So if he was thrown in and he hadn't really done basketball, that's fine. But it's really, really choppy. But here's what I'm going to bring up. You once wrote after Tom Cruise did the Oprah couch thing and it was like the first time where everybody just kind of looked at each other and was like, is Tom Cruise nuts?

Remember that? And you wrote, hey, you know what? time where everybody just kind of looked at each other and was like, is Tom Cruise nuts? Remember that? And you wrote, hey, you know what? Now that we've seen this, let's go back and examine what we've known about Tom. And what Tom has really told us is that he's been this guy the whole time. Like, it was really smart the way you did this thing about Tom Cruise, the way you wrote this. I don't even remember it, but thank you. This, watching this game and have magic do color, like there's one part where Westfall doesn't call a timeout.

It's 30 seconds left. They're up. And Magic says Westfall must really know his players to not call a timeout here. They've been his players the whole year. It's the end of the year. I'm not getting, I'm not making that point to be like, oh, he said something wrong

because that's not entirely fair. We're talking 20, 27 years ago here. But the Magic tweets, this was a live audio version of the Magic tweets. It's cliche karaoke. Right. Is that Magic has been this guy

the whole time. It's just that the tweets solidified it. It was in writing that he'd send on them and we're like, oh time it's just that the tweets solidified it it was in writing that he'd send on him and we're like oh he's just making some kind of generic points here and that's what it was going back listening to magic do this game where i was like oh this is the org like this is the guy that tweets that there's no difference and everybody loves him everybody that's ever met him and all that kind of stuff so like like, I don't want to make this like sound nasty, but it just was a magic probably hadn't done a ton of games.

I don't even know how many games he had done at that point. Cause he had, he had just left to really. They, they start the game and, and Dick Enberg asked him magic. What word would you say is the key to today's game? And magic goes aggressiveness.

Whatever team is going to be more aggressive is the team that's going to win today. I'm like, is that really how this is going to play out? Whatever team is the more aggressive. And it just goes from there. I got to say, I used to enjoy it at the time. And as somebody who wanted to be a columnist and make jokes about the announcers and stuff, Magic was a godsend back then. I would much rather hear Magic announce games than like Hubie Brown. Whoa, that's not going to be popular.

I don't care. But the stuff about, well, it's winning time and Charles is a winner. In winning time, winners win. I don't know. I got a kick out of it. Think about this. Did you ever spend any time back then In wintertime, winners win. And I don't know. I got a kick out of it. But here's, like, think about this.

Did you ever spend any time back then ever thinking, wow, Enberg and Magic aren't really that great right now? Never. It never even crossed my mind. I wouldn't even think about it. I got to say, I did used to think Magic was pretty bad. The other one was Dr. J was a studio analyst maybe two years earlier, and he was also legendarily bad. The bottom line is most of the legendary players are terrible as TV guys.

Okay, so here's my point, though. You think Monday Night Football gets ripped? Oh, yeah. Magic would have had trouble in this. This would have been, if this game happened tonight, people at home would have been losing their minds that this is what was happening. And maybe Enberg, you know, not being around basketball as much, and that makes it tough for Magic or whatever. But it was, I'm just sitting here, you know, watching the game again and going, whoa, these guys would be getting lit up if this is what was happening today.

I just never remember being younger and spending the whole night freaking out about who's doing the game the way we do now. It's far more obsessive. It's way nastier. And, you know, it's not always fair, but it would have been a rough night for those two

in today's world. I really enjoyed the game. I'm glad we watched it. And I think this was an effective segment and a good place to end. You're doing your podcast this week. Oh, let's hear it.

I have one more thing. Let's hear it. This game, almost no complaining the entire time of game five of Western Conference Finals game. And you know what? I know it's going to shock everybody.

It's awesome to not watch guys complain the entire game. And you know what? I know it's going to shock everybody. It's awesome to not watch guys complain the entire game. There was a couple of times with the coaches, Carl Westfall, getting into it a little bit. There was a moment late in the game where Chambers gets called for what I thought was kind of a bad foul by Joey Crawford. And it was hilarious because Crawford then stopped Chambers, like jumped and swung his arms. And then he walked away and it was over. And Crawford still is stalking him. And Barkley goes to like cut Joey Crawford off to be like hold on we've got it and they're telling Chambers to calm down because they even magic on the calls like you never know what Joey Crawford like he would tee somebody up right now yeah like if you were to call technical

after that in this massive moment like it would have been such an all-time Joey Crawford tech I think Javis on this game too, as well. There's no complaining from the players, except for a couple little things here or there. And it was great. And then one final thing, one charge was called. And I think there were only two times that anybody even tried to get a charge.

It was beautiful. Now the rest of the basketball, the defenses are, they're losing people all over the place. The myth about how the guys today couldn't play back then, the Warriors would beat teams by 50 fucking points if they played in this kind of game. I'm telling you right now, because defensive lapses happened way more back then than they do now. I'm serious.

So as much as we see these clips from these insecure Jordan Twitter feeds about how like every foul, somebody got decapitated. It's just not true. Hand-checking, people were not grabbed the entire 48 minutes. People weren't hard-fouling you the entire 48 minutes. The defenses had slower people, less athletic people. You had bigs that couldn't show on stuff. There's guys that get open looks all the time in this game

that I don't think you see that number of open looks just by guys forgetting about people. Hell Barkley got forgotten about just because everybody turned ball side and he ran behind people like that. That's ridiculous. So the myth of today's guys not being able to play back then watch more of these games in the nineties. And I'm telling you right now, you're going to rethink all that stuff. And the fact that nobody's complaining and there are no charges that That part of it I loved. And you left out they're losing people and meanwhile their spacing is terrible and everybody is five

feet away from everybody else and they're still losing people. You left out one thing with how much better it was to watch this game from a pacing standpoint. No fucking instant replay. Guess what? Didn't really miss it. They had a play where Kemp crashed into Barkley and Barkley might have gone

backcourt. And I was, I'm watching, I'm in the mindset of, Kemp fouls him, but they didn't want to call another foul on him. Right.

But they didn't want to call another foul on him. Barkley went in the backcourt so they just let it play out. And so now it would be challenged. The game would stop for five minutes. But this game has a real flow and it keeps going and going

and going and moving. And you're right. The players were afraid of the refs. This was the 70s, 80s, 90s. The refs were characters. They had huge egos. And you saw Joey Crawford. You're like, I'm not going to fucking yell at Joey. He's going to toss me. Or Javi. Or I won't get a call for the next two years of my career from him if I embarrass him right now. And the guys now are just these automated robots that the players feel like they can just run over and do the whole thing.

And I don't know. I kind of miss the old days. I have nothing else to add. Suns, Sonics, Game 5, 1993. Shout out to the Sonics fans, by the way. I still can't wrap my head Around the fact that the Seattle Supersonics Don't exist

Your podcast is One or two this week Are you going to do another festival draft? Festival draft Do another draft I don't know that we're going to do another festival draft Maybe we'll come up with something. My wife saw the finals or the final list of who picked what.

And she said, I'm with Priscilla. Yeah. Out of the three. So I thought that was good. You guys have always liked each other. So I thought that was a win. There was yet another cog in your relationship. I feel.

I knew that the Miles Davis pick would really rule me out with a lot of people. Um, but I'm telling you right now, you throw on in a silent way and tell me you're not having a good time. I'll refund your money. In 2008 and 2009, we used to do fantasy drafts about these stupid things. And I ended up putting a couple

of them in columns, including, I think in 2009, we did a draft of celebrity kids who in 2025 would be the most screwed up. So it was like Mike Tyson's kid, Britney Spears and Kevin Federline's kid. It's in a column. It's, I think it's in like a 2009. I have a whole thing. And then we did another, we did a media, a media, um, like a media police blotter draft. We did have a whole thing. And Jacoby picked me in like the eighth round.

He picked me for the draft. Like something bad had to happen. Oh, wait a minute. So a guy had to get arrested? Oh, geez. Yeah, some sort of whatever. Eighth round is too high for you now. Well, I was younger. I was in my late 30s. But the celebrity

fucked up celebrity draft kid, I kind of can't believe I ran that. I feel like cancel culture would get mad at me now. I'm surprised you reminded everybody that it exists because... Hey, look, man. It's a long time ago. People change. People grow. All right, Russillo, I'll see you

on Sunday. Oh, one more thing. We have our Karate Kid rewatchables coming on Wednesday night. That's right. And shout out to you for raising over $100,000 for the... It's Boston Food Bank? Greater Boston Food Bank, yeah. Gotta food bank. Greater Boston food bank. Yeah. Got to do more. It was, it was good. Uh, it was good use of my time. I plan on doing more of

that stuff. We're still up. Stay safe. Talk to you soon. All right. All right. Thanks to zip recruiter. Thanks to Rosillo. Thanks to everybody who donated, um, helping me with the greater Boston food bank. We raised over a100,000, including my contribution. If you want to donate to that, go find the link on my Twitter feed. Thanks to Mike Shore, who started the whole thing a little bit earlier than I did because I saw it on Twitter. I saw that he was raising money for the LA Regional Food Bank, and he did an incredible job.

He raised, I think, close to $200,000, maybe even more for them. So hopefully more people will follow suit with that. And please remember to stay safe out there, practice all the social distancing stuff and listen to the experts. We'll be back with two more podcasts this week and the rewatchables Karate Kid. Until then. On the wayside On the first sun Never lost it I don't have To ever forget