The Bill Simmons Podcast - O.J.’s Dead, NBA Playoff Scenarios, Masters Predictions, and Ohtani’s Crisis With Joe House and Nathan Hubbard

Episode Date: April 12, 2024

Joe House to discuss NBA playoff scenarios (15:24). Bill, House, and Nathan Hubbard then discuss Round 1 of the Masters (33:55), and new developments in the Shohei Ohtani gambling investigation (1:01:45). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Joe House and Nathan Hubbard Producer: Kyle Crichton The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, OJ, the Masters, basketball, Otani. What a weird podcast. That's all next. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, Miller Lite. I've been a big fan of Miller Lite, man, since college days when I was allowed to have beer. I think nephew Kyle is a fan too. Miller Lite keeps it simple for us. Undebatable quality, great taste.

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You must be 21 plus and present in select states. Gambling problem called Win 100 Gambler or visit rg-help.com. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. Put up a new rewatchables on Monday. We did War of the Roses. Have another one coming on Monday next week. This is a pretty bizarre podcast. I had to talk about OJ at the top. OJ died today and we had to go through that a little bit. Also talked about the masters with Joe House and Nathan Hubbard from Fairway Rowan, who are here. And then we did a little role play with the Otani story, trying to figure out, okay, what are the two sides here?

Let's hit one side. Let's hit the other side. Let's figure out fact from fiction. And then last but not least, House and I talked a little basketball at the tail end, playing off Kings Pelicans tonight. So that's the podcast. First, our friends from Pro Gym. So it's April 11th, 2024, the day OJ Simpson died, nearly 30 years after the infamous summer when all hell broke loose, literally. So I'm a child of the 70s, as I've said many times.

When I was growing up, and I loved sports, and I used to read books, and OJ was this mythical figure, right? He was the most famous football player of the 70s. I knew he was at USC. I knew he won the Heisman Trophy, went to the Buffalo Bills. He was the juice. His highlights were cool. We couldn't really watch so many highlights back then. Ran for 2,003 yards in 1973, and it became this mythical number.

Did it in 14 games. It's what really propelled him to crossover fame. When you think back to the 70s, the famous football players, Bradshaw, Staubach, Walter Payton showed up in Chicago, but OJ was way more famous than all of them. I think he was... Ali was the most famous athlete of the 70s, and Nicholas was probably up there, but OJ was way more famous than all of them. I think he was, you know, Ali was the most famous athlete of the 70s and Nicholas was probably up there, but OJ was a top three just growing up.

Everyone knew who OJ was. People Magazine in 1975 wrote that he was the first black athlete to become a bonafide, lovable media superstar, which is true because Ali was pretty polarizing until the mid-70s. I mean, I loved Ali, but some people, it took a while and OJ became a crossover guy. And when you think of all the different ways he touched sports and culture and life,

it's really one of a kind for better and worse. And there was a lot of worse. But he's in movies. He's in Towering Inferno. I saw him in the theater in Capricorn One about these astronauts that basically faked going to the moon. And then they tried to kill them. And OJ's on the run. It was like, oh my God, OJ Simpson, he's an astronaut. He was in all those Hertz ads.

He single-handedly propelled Hertz to becoming the biggest rental car company. Got traded to San Francisco, which felt like one of the most shocking football trades we've had, at least in the moment. But he was washed up at that point. He was on Saturday Night Live in season three, which was the breakout season of the show.

That was when Belushi and Akra and those guys just went to a whole other level. He formed his own production company kind of ahead of his time, or Renthal Productions. Made some bad movies that I watched, like Goldie and the Boxer. There were two Goldie and the Boxers. He was on Monday Night Football. Wasn't very good. Wouldn't say he was a great announcer. Him and Gifford, pretty rough combo. He almost got the Terminator, and James Cameron decided, no, I'm actually going to go with that Arnold Schwarzenegger guy. He was the best man at the Ahmad Rashad, Felicia Rashad wedding, which was, as crazy as it sounds, one of the big pop culture events of the mid-'80s.

Bill Cosby walked her down the aisle, and O.J. was the best man. What a wedding photo that is. You can find it on the internets. He was on First and Ten, which was one of the first kind of signature when HBO was becoming HBO shows. They had First and Ten and The Hitchhiker and Dream On. It was a football show. It was about a female owner.

They would always work in nudity and weird stuff, but OJ was on that. And by mid-80s, honestly, he was like Barkley is now. He was just this beloved guy. Maybe he wasn't good at certain things. He was better at other things, but everybody liked him. Everybody knew who he was. He was an A-plus list superstar. And all we knew was that this was this football player that we loved. So when he showed up in The Naked gun in 1986, it's like, oh my God, OJ's doing comedy. He's at Norberg.

I mean, that's one of the funniest opening scenes of any comedy. He ends up doing three naked guns. And like what happens with most athletes, 15 years passes, moving to a different stage. He's still trying to be an actor, but not going as well. Maybe other people are getting the endorsements. Jordan shows up and he's moving into a slightly different phase of his life. He remarries, has a couple of kids. He's living in Brentwood.

He's playing golf every day. And then all of a sudden, this is the summer of 94. We have a double murder. It seems a little suspicious because OJ has to fly back. I remember reading it. We didn't have the internet back then, but you'd read these little news pieces and the Boston Globe, it'd be like, OJ Simpson flew back to LA today to talk to investigators. Like, yeah, that doesn't seem great. But then the car chase happens Friday

right against Nick's Rockets and becomes basically my generation's version of the JFK assassination. Everyone watched it. Everybody was home. And none of us could believe it because it seemed like OJ was going to either get shot by police

or kill himself. We just didn't know. And it just was the most stupefying thing I've ever... It was one of the most stupefying nights of my life. The White Bronco, Al Cowlings, Baba Booey somehow gets involved. And then it ends up in Brentwood. They finally get him.

And now we're having this trial. And, you know, celebrity culture has come in the last eight, nine years leading up to this, right? National Enquirer, Donna Rice, and Jim Baker, the Reverend. And, you know, it was becoming a little more unseemly. Jerry Springer's around at this point, but the trial just hit all these different pieces of it. All of a sudden, we had all these characters in our life. And again, we didn't have the internet that year.

Robert Kardashian's in our life, Robert Shapiro, the Goldmans, Kato Kaelin, Faye Resnick, Johnny Cochran, Chris Dart, and Marsha Clark, Robert Ito. And this is all we talked about. If you're at a bar and you're in your 20s, you talked about it. When you're at a dinner party, you talked about it. Eventually, when Dominic Dunn was writing for Vanity Fair and he was writing these incredible magazine features about the OJ trial and covering it. And a lot of it was anecdotal about just everywhere he went, what they talked about, what the rumors were. Hey, did you hear this? Did you hear this theory? And just kind of knowing

about the trial, knowing what was going on, knowing the mechanics of it, and then being able to have theories about it just became that summer and that winter for everybody. We all talked about it. On top of it, all this is happening in Los Angeles, which had had the Rodney King riots a couple of years earlier and just some documented horrible stuff with the police. So there's this tenor that gets attached to the trial pretty early, right? And Johnny Cochran smells it and seizes it. And now it's like, OJ didn't do this, OJ was framed. We don't know about DNA in the same way that we would know even five years later. So DNA becomes a big part of the prosecution and nobody really understands it.

It's like, hey, here are the percentages. It's inconceivable that OJ wasn't at the crime scene. We didn't understand it. It really took like CSI and things like that. And I remember there was an autopsy show on HBO, but it took all that stuff to make us understand really what was going on. But you think of all the things that trial touched,

the domestic violence, all the signs that people ignored with OJ and his wife that they ignored and kept ignoring all the way to the bitter end. The indelible and traumatic impact it had on race in America in the mid-90s cannot be overstated. I'm not going to spend 10 minutes on that here. You can just watch OJ Made in America, which is one of the best documentaries ever made, if not the best. But man, the verdict and how it spilled out, depending on where you lived and who you were, I think was eye-opening for just about everybody who lived in the country in some way. How we consider celebrities was a big piece of this, that it was kind of a wake-up moment

for everybody. Like, hey, maybe we don't know these people. I know that seems crazy to say now, but things were a lot more innocent in the 80s and 90s. And we just took celebrities at face value and we assumed if they seemed like a good guy, they probably were a good guy. And OJ proved us wrong.

We also had the verdict, which 150 million viewers watched that verdict at the same time. Think about that. That's like a triple Super Bowl. If the car chase was the first piece of this, the verdict was the second piece. Everyone remembers where they were when the verdict happened. I was in the Boston Herald office. I was working at the Herald that year and we all were crowded around the TV and we just couldn't believe it. OJ got away with it. So we learned about the legal system. Then this is something I wrote about for Page Two in 2004, just watching how different sectors of the country

reacted to the verdict was really enlightening. I'm in Boston and just about everybody in Boston was completely horrified by the verdict. And then you're watching videos of other places where they're not as horrified. And it just felt like, man, there's just nothing good coming out of this, not to mention two people killed and the Goldmans who became these incredibly sympathetic figures and us identifying with dad and the daughter. And it was just so awful,

but so fertile from a material standpoint that we just talked about it and talked about it and talked about it and dissected it and talked about it. It was basically the last major thing before the internet came to be. There were conspiracy theories. A bunch of people wrote books. I read most of them. And then OJ was free talking about catching the real killers and became the most reviled celebrity in America that we had. Norm Macdonald, who just started killing them every week on SNL, and then he ends up losing

his job. So OJ touches SNL again. We have the civil trial where that's where we actually get some real justice. And yet OJ doesn't have the $30 million to pay to anybody and ends up getting out of most of all of it. And then you think about all the other stuff he touches from that point on where the Kardashians, the only Kardashian we knew forever was Robert Kardashian. It's like, he has kids?

Wait, there's a sex tape? Wait, there's a reality show? And all of a sudden the Kardashians usher in this new era celebrity. OJ goes to jail for the robbery in Vegas, sports memorabilia, he touches that. OJ was in the first volume of 30 for 30 because we did a whole episode about June 17th, 1994. Eventually, American Crime Story in 2016.

OJ made America, which won an Oscar. It just keeps going and going and going. He touched all of these facets of life. And I don't say that as a compliment, but when you think of where the story starts with him at USC in 1967, all the way through to the way it ended today and the way it was dissected on the internet and on Twitter and on texts and on Snapchats and through GIFs. And he just takes you from point A to point B to point C to point D to point E to point F all the way through the best and worst that can happen to a celebrity all at once. And I think that's how ultimately I'd remember OJ Simpson.

He reached all the heights you'd want to reach if you want to become a famous athlete and try to cross over. And then he reached all the lows. And they were fucking low. But there's never been at least a career slash life slash impact like the one he had. And I don't mean that as a compliment.

It's an entirely unique journey that I don't even know how to compare it to anything else that I've seen. And now I am in my mid-50s and it's 2024 and somehow we're still talking about OJ Simpson and still wondering what the fuck happened. So had to mention that. I kind of still can't believe it.

I can't believe the last 30 years happened with him. I never in a million years would have guessed. And I think that was one of the things that drove the story. We haven't had a murder trial that reached even, I don't know, 20% of the impact that this one did. And I don't know 20% of the impact that this one did and I don't think I'll ever say anything like it again in my lifetime so those are my OJ thoughts I'm not going to tell them

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You know me, I can't go a day without sports. I really can't. And now Monday nights are all about hockey. That's right. There's a new exclusive home for streaming Monday night NHL hockey, and it's on prime all season long. Watch prime Monday night hockey, deliver unreal plays. The biggest goals can't miss moments. Matthews, McDavid, Crosby, the NHL's best. They're all on prime. Prime Monday Night Hockey. It's on Monday. It's on prime. All right, taping this part of the podcast. It is 9.27 p.m. on Thursday night. House and I just watched basketball because we want to see what happened

with New Orleans-Sacramento. New Orleans won. Unexpected Golden State-Portland gift that ended up being a close game. Golden State won. We now have a three-way tie in wins between Sacramento Lakers, Golden State for 8-9-10 in the West. There's so many different playoff machinations, especially after the Knicks beat the living crap out of the Celtics in Boston. We're just going to rip through these. Let's do the East first house. Right now, as it stands, I'm going to read you the playoff matchups. You tell me what excites you the most. Boston, number one.

The number eight seed right now is Miami. Very exciting. Oh. That is stimulating. That made your nipples? That got them a little tight? Well, I'm not ready to go into body parts, but certainly in view

of the way that the last year's playoffs went, that's a rich round one matchup. It's been a half-decade nemesis for the Boston Celtics. Now they have Porzingis, now they have Holiday, now they have one of the better regular seasons

in the history of the league. It seems like the Celtics should vanquish Miami. It seems like it. It should be lined up, but holy shit, if Miami goes up 1-0, our some sphincter is going to get tight. So Miami's 44 and 36. Philly is 45 and 35. They are the seventh seed right now. So that would be our seven, eight matchup Philly versus Miami. But yet Indiana has got 46 wins. Orlando has 46 wins and Philly's won six in a row. Philly scheduled the rest of the way. They're home Orlando home Brooklyn. So if they beat Orlando, they have a chance to move into that top six. You are not a Philly believer. Well, only in the sense that once we get to the playoffs, I do think Philly is going to make the playoffs now with Joel Embiid.

I still question the wisdom of bringing back Joel Embiid under these circumstances, but there's literally no evidence that any Philly team under any iteration, whatever the personnel is showing up at anything less than 100% health and 100% chemistry is built for a long run in the playoffs. So they're not arriving in 100% health and 100% chemistry. So I'm skeptical. Could be a round

one upset team and then they choke in round two. Nick Nurse, he's aboard. Buddy Heald's here. I'm just worried about Embiid. Joel Embiid, I'm with you. I just don't think it makes any sense. He's looked a little out of shape, but he's been okay. Plus, there's a lot

of rest between the playoff games. Anyway, right now, Philly's the seventh seed. They'd be playing Milwaukee, who just lost Giannis for an extended stretch. They've been coy about it, but Dame said that he had the same injury earlier in the year. And Dame, I think missed like 17 days with the same injury. Giannis is bigger, taller. There's, there's more stress on his lower legs. And I said

this on my podcast on Tuesday, but it reminded me a lot of the Duran injury, not the one in the finals, but the one in the second round against Houston game five, that same thing went down non-contact. It was weird. And he missed nine playoff games. So, you know, the Milwaukee odds, they went from plus 800 on FanDuel to win the title to plus 1700 plus 1800 range, because it seems unlikely that we see him before game four, game five range. And they're not deep to five range and they're not deep to begin with they're not deep to begin with so philly this is lining up for philly in an incredible way to the point that if you're philly would you rather play the knicks or milwaukee with yannis in question i'd rather play the i'd rather play the bucks well this is why this plan thing between miami

and philly is so curious because... You don't want to play Boston. Miami definitely does not want to play Boston. They would love to play Milwaukee again. Right. Get them a second time. Right. The Knicks are the three seed right now in 48 wins.

Milwaukee's got at OKC, at Orlando are Milwaukee's last two. So they're at 49 wins. They might be stuck there. And then the Knicks are home Brooklyn, home Chicago. So they're at 49 wins. They might be stuck there. And then the Knicks are home Brooklyn, home Chicago. They could get to 50 wins. So if the Knicks get the number two seed, that's ideal for them. That means they get game seven in two straight rounds.

They don't have to see the Celtics until the Eastern Finals. Finals, yeah. They would potentially get, if they're the two seed, either Philly or Miami, but that's fine. They got to play those teams anyway. And then Indiana's in there at 46 and Orlando's in there at 46. The weird series is the four or five with Cleveland, a team that just looks awful. Even last night, I bet on Memphis last night, Memphis was like plus 19 and a half. I put them in a crazy number. I was like, Hey, Cleveland can't beat anybody by 20 points. They ended up winning by 12. Their home games left our home Indy and then a Charlotte.

So if Indy beats Cleveland, they could potentially vault up a little bit, but Cleveland, Orlando, dare I say, is that going to be our NBA TV series? Regardless, that's the matchup.

That's a lock. Is there any East team you like beside the Celtics right now? The Knicks? You talked yourself into the Knicks at all? They're great tonight. I think they're fun to watch. I think a Knicks-Philly series would be incredible

if it worked out that way. The energy would be amazing. Yeah. Like, you know, the Knicks are not completely foreclosed at this point from the two-seed, are they? No.

They have, especially with the Milwaukee schedule left of the at-OKC at Orlando. I think the most fun scenario for this, and by the way, we'll know by Sunday when Russell and I are doing the podcast, but if Philly can vault Indiana, their game back, but it seems like home

Orlando, home Brooklyn, Philly's going to win their last two. Potentially. If Philly is going to win their last two. Potentially. If Philly can get to six, and we get Knicks, Philly, 3-6, but then we get Indiana, Milwaukee, 2-7. Oh, Indiana going up. Indiana, a team that loved playing Milwaukee this year, and gave them a lot of problems.

Maybe that would get Halliburton going. And then if Indiana lost the seven, eight to Miami and Miami ended up getting the seven, that's also incredible. Cause then we have Miami Milwaukee. So it's basically anyone Milwaukee plays in two, three, four,

like any of those situations, it's going to be a fun series. I think. And Miami looking like it's either going to be boston or milwaukee both of those are tremendous i just don't think it's the same miami team i know i'm falling into the trap of not believing in the team that has proven they don't care about the regular season has an on-off switch but i do not like the way that uh they're playing and i don't think they're closing games in the same way either. So anyway,

that is the, uh, that's the East except for the nine, 10 matchup of Chicago, Atlanta, which, uh, I,

I, that's not a, let's all go to the sports bar and watch bulls Hawks. I think you watch it, you watch it at home, but it's not a, let's get a gathering for this one. I mean,

we, Chicago will be favored by what? I mean, that's probably T gathering for this one. Yeah, I mean, Chicago will be favored by what? I mean, that's probably, Trey Young's back, that's probably like a 3-3.5. I was going to, if it's in that range, then I'm going to plow into the Bulls. I'm going to plow into the Bulls. Well, Chicago's one of those,

don't trust them if you're betting on them. Don't trust them if you're betting against them. Which sounds like don't bet on them. And then Atlanta's like, just don't ever bet on us. Atlanta's still like 15, 20 games under 500. So the East is going to be, we see this happen sometimes where injuries, weird stuff, where I would believe five different teams

make in the East finals. Somebody is going to make the East finals. Yeah, so it doesn't feel like it's going to be Boston, Milwaukee. Doesn't. So somebody's going to have a breakthrough. It could be Miami. I mean, it certainly...

Embiid gets hurt. Giannis gets hurt. Cleveland goes sideways for a variety of bizarre reasons. I don't know what to expect in these. In the West, right now, Denver has a one-game advantage over OKC and Minnesota for the one seed. And I assume they're going to take care of business and finish this.

It seems like it's important to them. They have been pushing down hard on the pedal. OKC at two. They have a home game against Milwaukee and then a home game against Dallas. That feels like a split. And then Minnesota in the three seed also at 55 wins their home Atlanta home Phoenix. That feels like Minnesota gets the two seed, right? Yeah. Cause I like them in both those games and there'll be

favored to both those games. Right. Denver has at the Spurs at the Grizzlies. That feels like two wins. So Denver gets the one seed and you have to go through them. Now, there's a chance Denver's San Antonio that Wemby has his, hey guys, here's one more incredible game just in case you were thinking about maybe vote me for third team all NBA

in case you're drunk on a Sunday night. Wanted to fill your ballot out. So it would be Denver versus LA right now if this season ended 1-8. Lakers are the 8th seed. Lakers will not be afraid of Denver. I don't think they have the talent to beat Denver, but you never know in a series. You never know with the refs. They've certainly gone toe-to-toe with Denver. I think Denver is going to execute better down the stretch.

We can't just appoint the Lakers. No, I'm just saying that's the matchup today. If it frees rain today, it could also be Sacramento, which I'm sure Denver would welcome and enjoy because Sacramento's looked like crap, honestly. Yes. And then the Warriors would be the other one that is kind of lurking around here. Right now, the Warriors

are in the 9th seed and the Lakers are in the 10th seed. So, when I said Denver versus LA in the 1-8, I actually probably should have said Denver-Sacramento. I just don't think Sacramento is going to do well these last two games. Home Phoenix, home Portland.

That feels like a split. Lakers at San Antonio. I'm sorry. Lakers at Memphis, at New Orleans. So it depends on what New Orleans position is.

Whether they put... Whether they actually care. Because they're going to want to avoid the play-in, right? Yes. So New Orleans is a six seed. They're at Golden State, home Lakers. That's brutal because the Golden State game, they rested Draymond tonight.

They rested Klay Thompson tonight. So they're going balls out for that New Orleans game. And then they would have home Lakers, New Orleans would, in game 82. And how many Laker fans are going to be at that game? Like 40%? That's right. That's almost like a borderline, not a home game.

With that said, I like the way New Orleans is playing. I thought Zion, Zion's kind of creeping into the third team NBA conversation for me. Well, the Brandon Ingram injury, you know, just knocked them off of the trend line because they had, yeah, now they're way more erratic now in March, a bunch of wins.

Yeah. And I was like, you know, I, I said in one of our text threads, uh, I don't understand why Willie green's not getting at least a little bit of a sniffle coach.

Right. Yeah. Not saying that he needs like, you know, great odds, but the Ingram injury, kind of 5-5 over their last 10 games, even though they won three straight now.

Yeah. 4-5 is definitely Clippers versus Dallas, and it looks like Clippers are going to have the home court. And Dallas, I said this, I don't remember if I said it on the pod on Tuesday, I only think three teams from the West can make the finals. And I think Denver is going to make the finals, but, um, Dallas and Minnesota would be the other two. I think I said this to you when we were talking on Tuesday. I think that's it. I think that's the list. And then in the East it's Boston and then random wildcard East, whoever makes the

conference finals, you got to give them a puncher's chance, but it's really four teams plus Betty's finalist. For me, it's Denver, Minnesota, Dallas. Is there anybody else you'd put in there? No. The Pelicans are deep enough, but they just don't have the chops. Oklahoma City is top

five offensive rating and defensive rating, but you have to go get playoff reps. They need playoff reps. I think they'll be easier to play if you're playing them seven times over the course of two weeks. To me, they remind me of Sacramento last year. Amazing regular season. Outkicked their coverage.

Couple really good players, but I just don't think they have the size. And we can't do anything with the Lakers, the Warriors. You can't seriously say anything about either one of those two teams, right? I don't think so. Okay. Dallas is up to 18-1 to win the finals now. Minnesota is also 18-1. They were 26-1.

Yeah. Well, they killed Miami on on wednesday night i think that was the official zani espn they'd been playing well for a while they were like six point underdogs in that game they were 23 to 1 after that game they were 26 to 1 wednesday afternoon yeah 23 to 1 after killing miami 18 to 1 now no I'm not saying that, uh, the ringer gambling network, the East coast bias ringer, uh, content on fan dual TV is moving markets,

but we were, we've been very bullish this week across the board. Yeah. The bill Simmons podcast, East coast bias. Dallas is playing great. Dallas is playing great. And the chemistry has been great.

And they have one of the three, four best players in the league. They check a lot of boxes for a possible upset team. We'll see. It could be any day where Kyrie is like, hey, I have some thoughts on stuff. Like, no, oh, God, we're doing so well. Well, the truth bummer is for Dallas, they're going to play Denver in the second round. Well, they're going to have to play them at some point, right?

Yep. So, you know, and the Clippers aren't going to be exactly an easy walkover either, especially with Game 7 being in LA. But I don't think Dallas is going to be afraid of that series at all. It's a tough one for the Clippers because I would rather play anyone else from 6 to 10

by 100 times margin over playing Dallas. Like that's just a brutal beat to draw Dallas with the, uh, with the four or five. So right now the, uh, the plans would be Phoenix versus Sacramento seven, eight, and then Lakers golden state nine, 10, which I wonder in some ways, is that the last chapter for somebody? It feels like it, doesn't it? Isn't that the moment? Golden State, I think, has a better chance to extend because they're a little younger.

I think the Lakers, too. The Lakers. Golden State's younger? Why? Because they have Kuminga? Golden State at least has, they have Brando Pods, they have Kuminga, they have Jackson Davis. Curry is still 35. You're, LeBron's going to be 40 next year.

Yes. Okay. I just think they're a little better positioned today. All right. But I think with the Lakers, you get a healthy LeBron season, you get a healthy AD season, and you lose the 9-10 matchup and your season's over. That's brutal. That's brutal.

So then you have to panic trade all your first round picks and other stuff. I don't know if they have to panic trade, but you have to figure out something to improve the team. If they're a 10 seed, do I have to have Davis and LeBron in all NBA? That's a hard one.

What Davis is on that you can't leave Anthony Davis off of an all-NBA team. I don't think you can. I don't think you can leave LeBron off either. But if those guys are two of the best 15 guys in the league, how are they a 10 seed? Doesn't make a lot of sense.

They've gotten erratic support this year. And if you're Phoenix, and you've been up and down like freaking maniacs all year and now you could potentially stumble into Phoenix, Sacramento, 7-8. Sacramento's the worst team in the West by far with the injuries to Monk and Herter.

So Phoenix could get the 7 and then all of a sudden play OKC potentially in the 2-7 in round one and just play this young team. That's, I don't want to say they're happy to be there, but I mean,

shit. Yeah. I, if I'm, if I'm picking between Denver, Minnesota and OKC to play in round one, I'm picking OKC. I'll do respect.

That's true. James and Chet, all those teams coming out. I say that telling you that I would be betting on OKC in that series. I just wanted to lay the groundwork that you're happy if you're Phoenix. So we're way more excited about the West playoffs and how crazy that's going to be. Because the permutations are significant and we're going to, you know, one of LeBron James or Steph Curry feels like they're going to be

out of the playoffs potentially very early on. Yeah. Unless one of them can get the eight seed. Well, you said one of the bets you liked on Tuesday was Tiger and Phil to both make the cut in the Lakers and Golden State both to make the playoffs. I did say that. That's true. That's not inconceivable, but Sacramento would have to drop to nine. And then, um, the eight seed would have to beat Phoenix. Phoenix would have to drop down, but that would have to drop to nine. And then, um, the eight seed would have to beat Phoenix. Phoenix would have to drop down, but that would mean Phoenix sort of make the play. Can you imagine if Phoenix didn't make the playoffs?

I can't imagine that you've seen how erratic they are. Yeah. I mean, but just like, can you be, they went all the way in and it's like, they didn't even make it out of the plan. It wasn't a miscalculation to go all in.

Um, well, it was, it would be a miscalculation if they didn't even make it to round one plan? It wasn't a miscalculation to go all in. Well, it would be a miscalculation if they didn't even make it to round one. That's a disaster. If you're trying to make a mark and say, you know, the previous regime... Oh, they made a mark. They'd be making a mark. Is it a skid mark?

It's a skid mark. They're boxer shirts. Alright, well, we'll be covering this on Sunday with Priscilla, and you'll be doing it on Monday with East Coast Bias. We're going to talk. We have a lot of master's thoughts, both about what we saw in round one, plus where we think the weekend is going.

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And that very same day, two steady hands. From innovation to action, Sunnybrook is special. Learn more at sunnybrook.ca slash special. All right, we're taping this segment right after round one of the Masters, which ended abruptly with a horn, Hunger Games style. People had to race off the course, decide whether they wanted to hit their last ball or not. We're going to spin this forward, so when people listen to this over the weekend, we're at least setting up the characters for the rest of the weekend. Nathan Hubbard here, Joe house here, the fairway rolling team, Nate, one of the good things about round one.

Now it doesn't, if you're doing great in round one, if you're winning, it doesn't necessarily mean you win the tournament, but at least we have a sense of who the characters are going to be. So we're going to do a little most intriguing. Do you feel like what we saw today is where we're heading or do you think there's a sleeping giant looming somewhere? Well, 26 of the last 30 winners have been within five shots of the lead and at the masters, 90% of men's major winners since 2000 have been within five of the lead. So that would say that if you believe in Bryson sitting at seven under, assuming he's going to be the leader at the end of this, that there's a cluster of guys down in the minus one, even plus one category, Zander, Thomas, Brooks, Rom, Wyndham, all those guys that aren't in it. So the key is if you're like Spieth and you're plus two after round one and you're nine back,

history says you're kind of effed. You're out. But do we trust Bryson House? Yeah. So House, we're going to do most intriguing people heading into the weekend. And Beefy Bryson was our number one, minus seven. But he started early in the day and he had the best weather because the weather turned pretty abruptly. But he looked pretty good, House.

So that's like storyline of the day if we're doing sort of big picture scene setting. First of all, welcome back, Masters. It was a great Masters day today. The two hours really, and I don't know if my own personal experience is reflective of the way that the sporting public was enjoying this, but the timelines were robust. I was getting texts from all quarters because, you know, the round starting a little bit later meant that the East Coast got the Masters in prime time. It was on from 5 o'clock to 8 o'clock, and it was all the best guys. We got Tiger for two hours dinner time tonight. But in terms of what we got out of Bryson, his very best performance in a single round

in any major that he's played, and the intriguing aspect of it in particular is Augusta National has confounded him. There has been this question, can he, the scientist, deal with the artistry that's required of Augusta? Because it's a field golf course. It's why players like Jordan Spieth. Tiger, you know, is in his own universe. But really, the story is, Scotty Scheffler is sitting right where you would expect him to be because he's the best player in the world. Also, big picture wise, four of the top 10 guys are live guys.

So this is good. You're jumping plots. You're already ruining the structure of the pod. What are you talking about? We're doing most intriguing. We got to go one at a time. You just listed seven things. It's the scene.

Jesus. It's the scene. I thought we to go one at a time. No, I'm just... You just listed seven things. It's the scene. Jesus. It's the scene. I thought we produced the pod ahead of time, Nate. I'm just talking about the scene. Can we stick with Bryson for one second? Go ahead. The beefy one? Yeah, I mean, look, the story on Bryson today is he gained over three and a half shots putting.

So he putted his face off. And we'll see if he can do that tomorrow. Well, also, we got Rob not seeing him in 30 mile an hour winds hitting one drive that would have carried like five holes. Yeah, he's going to have to do that again tomorrow because we're going to have 30 mile an hour winds again. So it's whether he can consistently keep this up. He was wonderfully doofus-y coming up 18,

taking his hat off and then tipping a second hat that he wasn't wearing to the crowd. Like he's just doing all the Bryson things. It's a reminder of why this is such a great event and how much we've missed having all these guys together. Yeah. So, minus seven, House. He won in 2020 when the U.S. opened.

It was a COVID championship. As the years pass, how do we feel about all the COVID championships? Do we feel good about any of them? This is always one of the favorite things from the Bill Simmons repertoire, which is to take a shit on the Lakers at any opportunity. Like the YMCA. I can't remember the bubble camp championship that the Lakers, you know,

there's like that trademark where it says the TM next to it. I feel like that should be all the COVID championships for that year. It's literally just Bill Simmons shitting on the Lakers. That's all this amounts to. What was that Dodgers World Series? What did they play?

Like 50 games a year? Players were choosing not to play the season? It was baseball camp. The Dodgers won baseball camp. There was no crowds? The Lakers won summer camp dj won the november masters he set the scoring record they were there was part it was funny part of the conversations uh earlier in the week when he's being interviewed and some of the vignettes about him talking to the the chairman uh fred

ridley he's like you know i think the scoring record's pretty safe and ridley's like yeah you did it in november i don't think we're going to be hosting this in November in the future. Yeah. Well, B.T. Bryson has never won one in a non-COVID year. No, he hasn't. And this is the course, the tournament, where, if

you remember, he was dizzy and feeling weird and where his sort of over-caloric intake and beefing up started to actually get to him physically. Took him at house or Bryson? Well, both house. This happens everywhere at house.

That happened at house at Berkman's last year. That's happening to me tomorrow. But it was just a couple of years ago where Bryson finally realized like the physical impact of what he was doing to bulk up. And so since then, he's slimmed down a bit and maybe we've got a reformed golfer. The key here is, can he keep this through the weekend? All right. Scottie Sheffer, minus six. He won the 2022 Masters. Not a COVID Masters. He was also second in the US Open in 2022. He was second in the PGA in 2022. He's been the

golfer of the year now for basically two plus years and just lays, just pulls it out and lays it down today, Nate. House and I argue about Scotty all the time about whether he is truly a historic golfer. His ball striking numbers right now are absolutely historic. And he was first tee to green today. The scary thing,

if you were the rest of the field about Scotty, is he gained, they have to finish the round, but he's going to gain about two thirds of a stroke putting. He has only done that seven times since the start of 2022. is he gained, they have to finish the round, but he's going to gain about two-thirds of a stroke putting. He has only done that seven times since the start of 2022. He has won five of those seven events.

So when Scottie putts well, he wins. That's it. It's over. That's how good his ball striking is. And Nate's observation there on that research, that two-thirds of a stroke, what that translates into is he's, he's in the top half of everybody else. Putting wise, it's not even that good. It's not like he's setting the world on fire putting.

It's just that he's so much better at all the other stuff that if he just puts adequately, he wins five out of seven. So we've had this discussion this week. We were trying to figure out what do you do with Scotty at plus 400? Do we compare him with Denver? Yeah. That was his doppel we compare him with, Denver? Yeah, that was his NBA doppelganger was Denver.

Right, exactly. But you said from the beginning, his odds, if he goes out and shoots a 68, you said on Thursday, his odds are going to go from plus 450 all the way down. He just shot a 66. Do you want to know what they are now? No, because we're not touching them. Well, what are they? I mean, the argument was that... He's plus 140.

Yeah. I mean, this is taping this late afternoon Pacific time, but Bryson's plus 550. I mean, the finishing position in me would be the move with him. Yeah. I mean, Max... Sheffler's minus 900 to be top 10. That's nuts after a round one.

That never happens. The bet that I like there's, there is a, uh, if you exclude Sheffler who will win that, that's an interesting proposition, uh, to me,

what are those odds right now? Uh, winner without Scotty Sheffler Bryson is plus three 60, the homie Homa plus 900. Am I looking at these odds? Right. Are they, are they up to the moment current?

I believe that they are. Go ahead. Let's talk about the homie homa. Yeah. Minus four. Hasn't really done well in majors. Kind of an understatement. Definitely an understatement.

Best ever, 10th in the British in 2023. Yeah. Can I still call it the British? Yes. I know the golf snobs, they will know it's too? Yeah. Can I still call it the British? Yes. I know the golf snobs, they will know it's too open now. I'm still calling it the British. No, unequivocally. He gained over three shots putting today.

And the thing Halas and I talked about this week, we were not on max at all. For the year, he coming into the Masters was almost a stroke and a half worse in total shots gained relative to where he was last year. So he's been playing not as well as he thought, but we heard him give a little, he jumped on the Masters Twitter feed on a space and did a 30 minute thing where he talked about everything that he's learned at the Masters. And he said on that, my swing feels as good as it has at any point over the last three years. I'm hitting the putts the way I want to, they're just not going in. He sounded unbelievably wise and unbelievably confident and talked about

the fact that it takes about three years to get the wisdom you need to play this course right. And he discounted, just as you did, the November 2020 Masters, which was his first, because he just said that course didn't play the same way that these do. So now this being his fifth one, he's got the wisdom of three real years and he's using it and coming out and getting a good start. His confidence has got to be as high as it's ever been. I think he is a real suddenly contender in this. Has. I agree with this. The revelation was the quiet conviction that he possessed. And to, to, to mimic, uh, you know, the observation of, of,

of Nate, there was a kind of wisdom, you know, there was that like, okay, this is serious. And then we watched him today. We got to see quite a bit of them because of the beautiful time slot that he played in,

uh, alongside tiger. The swing is on point. I think in that group, he was hitting the ball by far the purest. Now, Poopy Pants, Jason Day, didn't take too much to beat his parachute pants performance. We'll talk about Day's outfit in a second. But I think it is notable that Max played with Tiger.

Because the other thing that he spoke about was there are guys who show up on this course and they think, okay, if I just make this one shot, I'm playing the masters, let me go for it. And it sounded like Max had learned to be more conservative, which is exactly how his idol Tiger Woods, who he played in the group with today, plays. And so on the very last hole there, as it's getting dark, coming up 13, Max had made a bogey on 12. We saw him not go for it on his second shot. He laid up. And what did that translate into? He put the ball on the green, made a nice putt in the dark, and now he's back to four under.

So it feels like he's learned how to play this course with a little more conservatism. Minus four. He is minus 105 on FanDuel to finish in the top 10. That's pretty tasty. Considering I have a ticket with him to finish in the top 10 at plus 575 because the Nate dog... You feel good about those ads.

We try to give it out to all the fairway rolling listeners on Wednesday. It's why we do a final pod. Next intriguing person. Let's just do him now. Oh, Tigre. Minus one. He, uh, they had to stop.

There's six holes left for him. Um, but look pretty good. They showed him. I'm a little suspicious. They were cutting away a couple of times when he started to walk up hills. I, I, I'm not accusing the ESPN coverage of anything, but we just, we were, cause when we would go, when we went the last two years, we would watch in person. We were really studying how he was moving. His gait was weird. And

this year we didn't really get a look like he was looking straight ahead. He still has that grim look on his face, but we didn't get to see him go 45 degree angles up. Yeah. It makes me nervous that he's got to play 23 tomorrow, but he does look like he's managing it around. I mean, I'm just looking at his stats. He lost strokes off the tee, lost strokes on approach today. Well, he hit the greatest shot we've ever seen just randomly. House missed it. House was almost here. Yeah. He flipped around right next to a tree, turned his club around, hit it lefty, and the announcer's like, oh, I see

it. And Nate and I are like, what the fuck is going on? How is he going to do this? He did it, and that kind of saved his round, because he ended up parring that hole. Yeah, I mean, he's still got a par five in front of him. There's no doubt he could land this play in a two under tomorrow, playing sort of mediocre. So as long as the ankle holds up. Minus 126? Initially. Yeah, right, initially yeah right right yeah his make the cut you had to lay a little bit of

juice for him to make the cut and you know the parlay the og parlay i tried to talk everybody into was both phil and tiger to make the cut that was better than uh plus 250 odds uh phil's still on the correct side you know the projected cut line right now is plus two but there's a bunch of groups that have to finish. But in terms of Tiger, it's the thing that Nate said. The concern is what if, I mean, he, cause he, he was like. 23 holes is, is brutal. It's going to be a lot for him in that wind tomorrow.

They start at 7.50 AM. So he's got to get out there and, and the go after it holes, which are really 14, 15, 16, 17. He can't fly to Germany right now. That's too far. Yeah, there's no place. It's probably too late. Is Miami close?

He could fly in Germany. Hopefully he could get to Miami. Could he helicopter to Miami? I just hope that he talked to Jalen Rose about getting some imports. If you get some imports and then you're. It was fun to see him. I mean, the good news with tiger is at least, at least he's still passable as a golfer. Right.

And even anyone, it's better than that. Great. But I mean, there was a point a couple of years ago where we were like, we're never going to see this guy again in a golf course. We only have one goal. And that's for him to set the record of,

of consecutive cuts at this tournament. It's this tournament, these circumstances. Can he get through these two rounds and make the cut? That's it. But right now, he's going to finish that first round probably ahead of Matt Fitzpatrick, Rory McIlroy, Victor Hovland, Cam Smith. Like, there's a whole host of guys. Well, knock on wood.

Knock on wood. Good night's sleep. Good physio. The way that 18 was looking especially gnarly That drive If the wind stays up on the edges there It's not great But still, this is as good a performance

I think as we could have possibly hoped for Totally agree Good job ESPN, not showing them walking uphill The Z spot Willie Z Love to see it Welcome back Finished second in the three American Majors The Z spot. Willie Z. Love to see it. Welcome back.

Finished second in the three American majors. Back injury, surgery, slight swing change. Looked solid. What'd you see, Nate? Yeah, I mean, this guy, if you graph out performance in regular tournaments versus performance in the majors, Max falls way below the line historically. He's been one of the biggest underperformers. Willie Z has been one of the biggest overperformers. And this year has been up and down.

He showed flashes of having it, but he's also showed some struggles. He switched to that broomstick putter, and it seems to be working for him. I mean, I think this gives a guy, he just steps up. I did not expect to see with the swing change him back playing this way, but he gained strokes across every category today. The putter was just okay. And just, he's kind of a dog. I mean, he's, what is he? 140 pounds soaking wet and just look, but he's striping the ball. That kind of a big swing change in that short of a period of time post a big surgery. It's a really impressive comeback. Yeah.

And, you know, there was a special on the Golf Channel about exactly what he went through physically and how serious the surgery was and how, you know, he had a setback where there was leaking spinal fluid. He had to go back in for a second surgery and the doctor put on the table, the possibility that he, he might have to retire from professional golf. This thing that he's a printer natural. I can't even say it. I had too many high noons today. He's a talent. He's got a incandescent talent. Um, and I'm just like thrilled. It feels like, you know, every time we get to see him now in a major and in a top 10 on a first day. Yes, that's great. That's him.

The talent that he possesses showing out. I hope he does it for as long as possible and his body holds up. Patrick Reed. Minus two right now with some holes left in his round one. It's funny. We talk about Homo. Just like, Oh,

young guys. Can you put it together this year? Patrick reads only 33. He's I, for some reason in my head, I thought he was like 55. It feels like he's been around forever. I know he's young.

I'm kidding. But, uh, you know, one of the masters in 2018 tied for fourth last year, a fun villain to root against always seems really comfortable on the course. And I thought from what we saw in the TV coverage, I thought he looked pretty good today. Yeah. His 89 birdies are better, which is where he is at

the moment are better than, uh, anybody else, any other player since 2019. So this guy knows how to make his way around here. It's really always been the short game. And if you look at his stats today, again, he was a magician with the wedge and is doing just enough to hang in it. And at two under, you wish Scottie wasn't at six. If Scottie wasn't at six, you'd think a bunch of these guys have a chance. But you're going to need a Scottie downside putting performance over the next couple of days for them to come back in it. But Patrick Reed just knows how to play this course.

Well, he's still got some golf to play. Yeah, he hasn't. They stopped, I think, on 15th. He's got four holes left. Yeah. House, does it make me a bad person that I kind of enjoy Patrick Reed? No. Okay.

This is the whole reason why, you know, if we're going to be investing in professional golf as an entertainment product, it's fun to have good guys and villains. And it's fun to have guys that push the boundaries and all that kind of stuff. The WNBA has to figure this out. This is the last piece for them. No, seriously. You can't just like everybody. No, they're going to have to think about villains.

You need good guys and bad guys. That's what every sport has. It's what's made the tour a little too vanilla since a bunch of these guys left. We miss Patrick Reed. We miss Bryson. The best that we have to offer right now on the PGA Tour is this guy, Toasty, who's an Argentinian whack job.

He's a lunatic. He is not carrying the water in the way that these guys can. And Jason Day's wardrobe, which we got to mention. I guess he's now a villain because of the pants that he wore, not realizing, or maybe he did realize that there was going to be a brisk wind just blowing his pants around come on a brisk wind blowing his pants

around he had to stop several times because his fucking parachute pants were flapping like goddamn wind sails out on parasailing on the Pacific Ocean it's a goddamn travesty it's an affront if that if a dude shows up at any club that any of us might play at on the Pacific ocean. It's a goddamn travesty. It's an affront. If that, if,

if a dude shows up at any club that any of us might play at anywhere in the United States, you get a quiet arm around the shoulder from the assistant pro, sir, why don't you come with me into the pro shop and let's see if we can find something that's a little more comfortable for you. Jason, can you just step over here for one second?

Yeah. What are you doing? This is not a circus. Don't show up in the clown pants, bud. Well, you noticed the pants, so maybe that was the goal. Very hard to take them seriously, though. House, your guy Rory. That's my guy.

Why are you woofing him? I was going to wish you happy anniversary, by the way. I forgot when i saw you when when we greeted each other uh-oh happy 10-year anniversary to rory's last major i was gonna he's gonna create your favorite golfer no this isn't even an anniversary because he didn't win the masters well no it's just any major year okay yeah 2014 we're now 10-year anniversary range um his masters his best performances, two, four, five, and five.

House talks himself in them every year. Nate tries to throw water on it. It never works. I got excited this year because he had his best shots gained approach round in five years in San Antonio, or tournament in San Antonio last weekend. And it was windy.

So we knew coming in that there was going to be a bunch of wind. I got excited about him getting ready to play this tournament, having played in the wind last week. And in fairness, this was his best opening round since 2018. He did not birdie a par five, which was ridiculous. But what was also ridiculous was it felt like on 15 and 16, there were two putts that he ought to have made that could have put him into contention here that he just missed. And that was when House lost his roaner. I did not lose my roaner. You popped a roaner?

I didn't realize. Well, I walked in with the roaner. And on top of that, I will take one under. If you had told me Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, you get one under from Rory on Thursday, I would say, yes, great, I'll take it. I'm there, yes. Gaining shots in approach off the tee with a putter,

that's a great Rory start, and he has a lot more in him. So again, if you see Bryson start to falter, Rory's in that group of guys who could make this a very interesting weekend. All right, so Tiger would be the most emotional response if he won the Masters, which he's not going to win the Masters. But I'm just saying, we have to do our emotional response rankings for just who could suck the average golf fan in.

Tiger's one. Is Rory two? Spieth is two? Well, it's... Oh, you think Spieth is too? It's either Spieth or Rory. It's one or the other. Yeah.

Rory has the benefit of completing the career Grand Slam, which is a giant narrative in golf and does, I think, capture the... Like, people recognize, regular sports fans recognize. But there's the Buffalo Bills, Cleveland Browns piece to it too, right? In what respect? Just some heartache. Yes, especially on this course.

He had this tournament in his hand, standing on the 10th tee. Yeah. And on top of that, he carried the water for the effing tour. He was the de facto commissioner. He sacrificed a year and a half of his career, you know, keeping this thing together until the actual commissioner scuttled it with a deal behind the scenes that continues to confuse everybody. I'm not saying we talk about it. I'm just saying Rory carried that shit. Everything he has done in the last six to nine months has been in service

of this tournament. He let go of his leadership position. This week, he gave about a 30-second press conference. He did not play the par three. Everything was go of his leadership position. This week, he gave about a 30-second press conference. He did not play the par three. Everything was about focusing and changing up. He went and saw Butch Harmon to try to help him with his swing. He got focused on just, he's not thinking about much. He's just thinking about his takeaway. That's it.

If he does that well, the rest of it's going to take care of itself. So he's in a mentally better place. So Tiger 1, Spieth 2, Rory 3? Yes. Sure. I think Rory and Spieth are, Rory three? Yes. Sure. I think Rory and Spieth are like 2A and 2B. Yes.

Where's the Zempic Phil in the rankings? Well, I don't know that anybody... He's still pretty popular. I think people walking around, as he walks around, he gets... I think he might be four.

He's definitely four. Is he? I think if Phil got going again, the crowd would be behind him. I think people would be into that. For sure. I think I phil got going again the crowd i think people would be into that for sure i think i would be into that and augusta i would we have a test case he was doing it last year what was the report on the grounds when he shot 65 and finished second in this turn a lot of thumbs up but it's i think people are a little less thumb in the ass about

live this year than they were a year ago no i, I don't disagree. And we're that far. We're one more year removed from him. Is Bryson in the top five for this? Would people get into that if Bryson was lingering? He remains pretty polarizing. The sentiments that I get on my threads are not positive sentiments.

It's to be more womp womp. People would like to root against him. I think that's true. It's a reason for him to be more womp womp people would like to root against him i think that's true it's a reason for him to be back in our lives i'd love for him to be playing again happy to watch him but i think there'd be momentum behind phil i think there'd be momentum around that was just a repudiation of bryson's credentials says an emotional winner all right so we have our top four then there's's really nobody else. Is there? Oh, Kepka? Brooks and Rom hanging around are probably the only ones, but I'm not sure Brooks is going to drive the energy.

That just makes it good competition. It doesn't invoke. Phil was plus one. Your Swedish guy is kind of lingering. Oberg? Yeah. Yeah. He's lingering.

And the Dane, Hogard, right? Nikolai Hogard is at five under, although it feels like... The Euro Ryder Cup is showing out strong. Yeah, he's gained

four shots around the green by chipping in, so I'm not sure he's having as good a round as the number reflects. But Ludwig Oberg is a terminator. He's just dispassionately Swedish.

He's the second highest ranked debutant at the Masters ever. The highest is William Clark. When did this debutant thing start? He just like, look, this is first. I don't know. I feel like the phrase is really in this year. I don't remember hearing it in the same way.

The same way they say patrons instead of fans. It's being emphasized this year because you have two guys that are ranked the highest in the official World Golf rankings in the history way they say patrons instead of fans. It's being emphasized this year because you have two guys that rank the highest in the official World Golf rankings in the history of this tournament showing up and play it for the very first time. Wyndham Clark is fourth on the official World Golf rankings and he never competed

at Augusta. We had a fun rollercoaster ride with with with Wendy Wyndham. All right, give us we're going to we're're gonna take a break, but give me your pick now based on the odds for the best bet right now to win the masters. If you had to pick anybody,

would you take, I'll just give you all the way. Sheffler plus one 40 Bryson plus five 50 home a 16 to one. We're always 18 to one. The Swedes 22 to one. Then we get into like Koepka 28 to one. Tommy Fleetwood, my guy, still, I'm still holding out hope for him at 33 to one, a whole bunch. But Nate, who do you got? Anybody? Scheffler's going to win. I'd bet max.

So that's what a cop out. I'm going to do the exact same thing, but I'm going to say that Scheffler is going to be called off the golf course after nine holes because his bride. Meredith is the only one who can stop this. That's literally the case. The only person on earth, the two people on earth, his wife is pregnant. They're 38th or 39th week, somewhere in that zone. She's due within the next three weeks. He has said that if she calls, I'm going to leave.

It doesn't matter if I'm on the 17th hole and have a five-shot lead, I'm leaving because I want to go see the birth of my child. I only get to see the birth of my first child once. And that's what I'm going to go do. We've talked about this in past pods. It is pretty crucial to be there for the first one. Yeah. Yeah. It is just intense. It's also the masters. No, no, no, no. He's got one. If it was the third one, I'd be like, ah, first one, I think you got to be there. Yeah. So that's your hedge.

And I'm with Nate Dogg, the best odds. The guy that I like hitting the ball wise today on Thursday is Max Homa. So Scheffler at plus 140 to win. The homie Homa at what is he at? I'm going to float Tommy at 33 to one. You just can't quit him. You can't quit Tommy. I think the dude's talented, man. I'm not quitting him yet. Who do 1. You just can't quit him. You can't quit Tommy. I think the dude's talented, man.

I'm not quitting him yet. Who do you have, Nate? It's Max. He's got it. Yeah. All right. We're taking a break. As the world's population grows, so does the need for resources like Potash to support

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World School, UCC offers a supportive environment, cutting-edge facilities, and a best-in-Canada financial assistance program. UCC, a place where tradition, excellence, and innovation meet. Learn more at our open house events on October 15th and 16th. Register now at causeandeffect.ucc.on.ca. All right, we've been talking about Shohei Otani all day, and we had to do this on the pod. We're going to do a little role play because it seems like there is no chance Otani knew about this stuff.

The federal investigators were adamant like this was a crime. This was money that was stolen from him and gambled on him. It's a staggering amount of money, Nate. I mean, basically he lost $16 million, but really lost 40 is what they said that he was the, the interpreter was 40 million down in the hole, but Otani lost about 16 million. And to me, after hearing it, seeing it all laid out, seeing the text, the story makes total sense.

This guy is Otani's conduit to America. He gives him all kinds of whatever. Hey, man, I don't understand. You do this, and the guy just gradually takes control of all these things, including, hey, let me handle that bank thing for you. Oh yeah. Shohei says he wants this and he pulls like a talented Mr. Ripley on him. That's what I think happens. I agree. Q Ohtani house begs to differ. Well, what are you talking about? No house agrees, but we were talking about what's the case. Like if we were arguing about this on a,

on, I don't know, first take and the producer said to house, you have to take the other side. You're still not convinced Otani is innocent. So we're going to do a little role player house. If you're arguing the other side of this and you're like, wait a second, I'm still not satisfied. I want to know what happened here. I know the federal investigators. These are the best possible. It's not like the, you know, Roger Goodell or like the commissioner of a league being like nothing to see here. These are federal investigators. This is their job to crack down. What would be the case against this being over as a story? Yeah. So in the first place, all of this is brand new news. And so

we're working with fluid facts. Okay. I mean, it's not, let's not sit here in this moment right now and say, definitively, this is the way the prosecution has presented this. These are all facts and evidence. I'm not willing to accept that as the starting point. But there are two big things here that don't pass the smell test. The first thing is the sheer amount of money that went missing. This was in a period of time that while Shohei Ohtani is definitely a successful person, a person who has made tens of billions of dollars all the way up to this moment where he earned a $750 million contract from the Dodgers. The sheer amount of money that has gone missing is not believable. There's a smell test element that nobody in Shohei's entire network saw a big hole where $16 million should be.

That's the one aspect of it. That's a smell test problem for me. The other one is the sheer number of bets that this homeboy was allegedly placing on his own and amassing just the time it takes to fire off that number of plays to get down on that amount of action that was not his full-time job his full-time job was to be with with my man now there is evidence it seems that he was impersonating shohei and that uh to be able to move the money or whatever but at the at the number we are talking about the combination of the money and how many bets homeboy got down on it's just like that had to have been his full-time job and the interpreting well maybe the interpreting maybe it only took you know half hour a hour a day. I don't know. And all the rest of it, if you want me to believe. Yeah, what was he doing?

If Otani was playing baseball, there's like four hours where he doesn't have to interpret. So he's just looking at the lines. He's firing. He's like, oh my God, I didn't realize the Predators were laying a half goal. The thing we were talking about that does ring

true to me. Wait, you're supposed to argue the other side where you were, you were, we're doing role play. You already argued your side. Now we have to present the counter side. Okay,

fine. Go ahead. It's only 17 bets a day, 19,000 bets over three years. It's only 17 bets a day. First of all, second of all, that's like people do 17 tweets a day.

I mean, how many Masters bets have you got rolling today? A lot. A lot. It's a giant card. That's fair. His career earnings through 23 were something like $42 million. So cut that in half. This sort of works in your favor.

Yeah. Because you cut that in half after California Tech. Plus advertising. Yeah, endorsements. He's got to have at least 50 million net taxes in the bank. So we're talking about 30% of it that's maybe missing. Yeah. But the number for me that makes no sense, because what's your basic point is Otani was in on it and his buddy is going to take the fall for him, right? Yes. You guys wouldn't let me make the case yet, but I will get there.

Okay. If he's doing that, there is still a $24 million hole to a bookie, a number of bookies, who if you're going to take the fall and go to prison for whatever he's going to do, how many years do we think? I don't know. Two to 30, somewhere in between. Sounds about right to me. I think he's less concerned about being in prison than he is what happens if he comes out of prison,

still $24 million in debt to somebody. So in that there's like this whole giant document with all the facts and he lost almost $183 million in bets and he won $142 million in bets. Great job. $40.7 million in losses. I almost can't wrap my head around that's so much money. Was he doing the Ponzi scheme bet where it's like, oh, I've lost two in a row. I'm going to try to win all of it back. I lost 10, I lost 20. I'll bet 40 on this one. Oh, I'm down 70. Now I have to bet 100. Yes, that's exactly what he was doing.

So my guess is the bookmakers could never in a million years have thought that this was just Ipe, the translator. Oh, you don't think? No, I don't. They didn't extend $100 million worth of credit to Ipe? The questions I have are, what was he representing to the bookmakers? Was he saying, you know, was he telling them, yeah, was he using the word we or I? Was he making it seem to them that it was the two of them?

Because I really think Otani had no idea. I am in that camp. I don't think he had any idea. I believe in the stuff that was out today but i'm also like man the bookmakers at some point just had to have assumed this was otani and if they assumed it was otani then how did this not get out sooner come on when we're talking nine nine figures and bets it's ludicrous why why are you trying to bail out shohei i don't understand bail them out i it's so implausible the bookies don't assume no bookies assume we don't live in

this world but we touch on this world over our lives as adults the people that we've come into contact with that are serious people it serious money interests. They don't assume things. They don't take your word for things. They have assurances. And so it is my contention that Shohei Ohtani and this dude are boys. They're buddies. They have a great time together. One of the things that they like to do amongst all of the time that they spend because they're constantly in each other's company is gamble on sports because gambling on sports is fun you and i have been doing it for almost 40 years now shohei has a certain capacity a certain ability to get down in ways you, there's a bunch more zeros, certainly that I'm comfortable with.

And I'll leave it at that. But, you know, they also understood what's at stake, which is to protect Shohei at all costs. He's the show pony. And not only for the continued enjoyment of the lifestyle that they built together with this guy understanding his role in this,

which is i'm going to be the fall guy if this falls apart if this ever goes south i'm the dude and i'm willing to make that gamble this is your this is your prosecution argument if the prosecution's going after shohei and it's like we don't believe this we think he was involved this is yeah right i'm defending my client epay well so let, so let's... Go ahead, Nate. All that may be true, but Nate Silver tweeted out, if you just do the math on this, they had like negative 17% ROI on these

bets. And if you just randomly bet on point spreads at minus 110, you'll be at like minus 4%. So Ipe was shite at fucking betting. What else is new? It's amazing that neither one of them

if they were in it together was like hey bud maybe we change our strategy because this is not working well I don't understand how are you this bad at betting but you're also betting

those kind of numbers like it seems like maybe scale it back right that's I mean if he has 140 on one end

and 180 on the other end he's betting 320 million dollars of bets over the course of five years. That's a lot of money to be moving. That's a lot of zeros to be moving on wires and bank accounts and a lot of impersonations for the dude whose name is on the accounts to be completely unawares. Yeah, but here's what we know, though. We know Otani's not a big fan of speaking English. I mean, he's had this interpreted the entire time he's been here.

He's a fan of money. Maybe he's not a big fan of money. That's his contract. But that's like $37,000 a day they were losing. Somebody has to notice that. One of the things in the giant document was that he changed the alerts. So Otani had no idea the money was even moving in and out. Like when I read all the stuff that he did,

I was like, this is pretty, this is like Mr. Ripley shit. If, if you wanted to create a pretty impenetrable network, let's give Shohei credit, right?

Let's say the two of them together understood what was at stake, which is you can't have Shohei's career fall apart as a result of this. The translator is going to go to jail for like 30 years. I don't think that's true. I don't think he's going to jail for 30 years. He stole money. Like this is money. Now these are like real crimes. You get the feds involved. This is a whole other animal. Who else was in this? nfl rookies start they get a whole like training camp explanation of how to protect their money and handle it right nba too like this is almost on his agent if 30 of his net worth was out the door and unaccounted for somebody had to be minding the shop you say that except we we watch how i'm arguing for you. How many athletes here domestically are we familiar with that have lost between 80, north of $100 million?

I've never heard of this much money. We've never been in nine figures before with gambling debts. Yeah, this is gambling debts, but how much did Antoine Walker lose? Well, we don't know, but he probably... But that was lifestyle as much as gambling. Well, this is also a kind of lifestyle if your lifestyle is enjoying gambling,

which is something that I think Shohei did. I mean, it's an addiction. Phil was close to $100 million if you believe what you... Billy Walters. Phil at least had the benefit of time. We're not talking about this concentrated three-year period.

All right, you're still arguing the other side. We're still doing role play. What would have to happen for you to believe that this was a lone gunman? This is basically a Lee Harvey Oswald situation with the interpreter. And it may yet come out again. It's not like I studied the forensics of what went on here.

Yeah, but what would you need to know? Here's what I need to know. That this dude was conferred. He had like power of attorney to go create accounts. He's like a fiduciary for Shohei. And what he did was go create bank accounts all across the United States or, and in Asia that he had access to. And that, you know, had the imprimatur of Shohei, which is why he had to, uh, at times impersonate Shohei and cause it's alleged in this stuff that he was impersonating and falsifying and doing that. But I would have to see that this

dude was so entwined at, from the jump that he had access to the money could move the money. And that it was, um, in a manner that, that was not likely to be detected because they're alleging that that's what he did. So I, we need to see that there was a giant network of money moving machination that Homeboy created on his own. If there's evidence of that, then I'll say, okay. I want to know how close they were and how much time they spent together would be one of my questions. Were they together all the time? Were they just together for work functions? Was it a case of he didn't really want to mess with English at all and just trusted this guy completely to be his spokesman? Was it a case of he didn't really want to mess with English at all and just trusted this guy completely to be his spokesman? And it got to the point that if you wanted to deal with Otani,

you just went through this guy. So now he became the gatekeeper basically for Otani's life. So then it became realistic to everybody around them. It's like, oh, Shohei wants this. So here's the interpreter calling in, which now gives him the license to just be a crook. I mean, this does happen all the time where people steal money from. Yeah, business managers steal from their clients. To me, Nate, I think this is realistic that if Shohei isn't involved at all from an English-speaking standpoint with any of this stuff and this guy is his conduit for do this, do that, do this, If Shohei isn't involved at all from an English speaking standpoint with any of this stuff,

and this guy is his conduit for do this, do that, do this, I can see how he would have the liberties to just do crazy shit like change bank accounts, turn off alerts, take money left and right, and nobody would have any idea. Because, I mean, were the people in Shohei's inner circle like, man, Shohei's taking out a lot of money. What the fuck is he up to? But not suspecting the interpreter? to so that they can just do what they do well, which is create. Shohei's got to think every day about how to put the swing on planes. So I could certainly see him in a new country, finding somebody who he trusted and just outsourcing that. It's just crazy to me that 30% of your wealth could be missing and only one guy knows. So the construct that Bill just laid out, though, does create the room for what you just described, Nate, which is if he's the

broker if he's the gatekeeper right it might be 30 that shohei never knew existed that this dude is doing deals on shohei's behalf uh you know advertising deals in japan marketing campaigns and he tells them this is a five million dollar campaign that i got for you, Shohei, when really it's a $15 million campaign? And 10 of that goes, you know, it goes into the Shohei account, but he's- And then this guy's funneling it the other way. He's got his eyeballs on it, and it goes right to the bookie

to take care of that bad parlay on the NBA. I mean, let's say the interpreter story, and this is all true. My follow-up question's for him. Why are you betting this much money? Why not go lower and try to be undetected? Why are you big game hunting in the nine figures, right? That's one thing.

Second, if you want to make money from Shohei without him noticing, you probably could have just embezzled some of this money anyway. A skim. And he never would have known, right? He could have skimmed 10 million off the top. Nobody probably would have even known. The first question is like asking House why he doesn't only have one or two cocktails, right? This is not one or two right now. But you know what I mean. Clearly, the guy has an addiction.

eBay. A compulsion. Yes. It's not just an addiction. I've never seen a story like this in my life. This is the kind of story you see about whales that go to Las Vegas that are like billionaires and just lose crazy amounts of money. And then the casino flies them

on a private plane home because they're so happy the guy wasted that much money. This is just a random dude betting on all of these different sports, but betting $500,000 on like a basketball game. But because every single person that will take that action believes that it's Shohei. That's why. So, but we all think that part, I think we it's Shohei. That's why. But we all think that part, I think we all agree is true. Whoever's taking these bets is thinking it's the two of them together, not realizing that Shohei. So the feds were like, Shohei had no idea this was going on. So the guy must have been representing. You don't get 24 million in credit unless there's something behind it. I think this is one of the craziest sports stories I can ever remember.

Yeah. Like there are a lot more chapters to be written. I mean, that's just the way that these revelations have come to light. And that to the question that was posed earlier about the 24 million that seems still unresolved and unsatisfied. I think the guys on the other end who were extending that credit, um, we're not anticipating intervention by the, by the federal government in, in the business enterprise. I think that operation shut down.

So that 24 million, I think just evaporate. I believe you're right in. This was a mafia movie. Yeah. That guy is going to the shower and something bad is probably happening. But in real life, I don't know, the operation goes sideways and maybe that's it. We'll see if it affects Otani.

I can't imagine it wouldn't. I don't know how it wouldn't affect him playing baseball this year. Right. Oh, we forgot to mention, if you're making the argument that he had an idea of this stuff, some people have mentioned the deferred salary, that he deferred the entire Dodgers salary as a sign that maybe they didn't want him to spend the money right away. I don't know if I believe that. Well, it's interesting. It doesn't seem like, first of all, with the amount of money that's been gambling, with the way the whisper circles work. I just feel like people would have,

we would have heard about this sooner. Well, let's, let's put this though in business language, right, Nate? So if you're going to make an investment, that's a $700 million investment or 750, whatever Shohei's contract is, what's the diligence look like? What kind of diligence are they conducting about Shohei Otani, how he spends his time, who he spends his time with, right? Let's just do it in business. And what are Shohei's internal controls, right? If you're the Dodgers and you're going to give this money to this dude, you want to know what this dude has in place that's going to keep him making money for you for as long as possible, right? You would think, but just five years ago in the crazy tech bubble

where it was highly competitive, companies weren't doing that diligence. And this was a as competitive assigning process as there's ever been. So you wonder if when the Dodgers got a yes, they didn't uncover some of the diligence. A little shortcut on the diligence. I would suspect potentially. I mean, in the backdrop of Sam Beckman Freed and the fraud that he committed, I guess, you know, this is a pittance. If you want to talk about diligence that wasn't conducted and regulatory traps and internal controls

that weren't mapped out. See, to me, this is a movie. This is basically a real-life talented Mr. Ripley. This is a guy leading a fake life, pretending that he's doing all of this with somebody else and he's not constructing this elaborate web of fake accounts and just basically infiltrating Shohei's life in all these different ways.

And Shohei just has no idea because he completely trusts this guy, which he absolutely shouldn't have. There's a kind of brilliance to it. To be able to, on that scale. So it's a movie that I'd be interested in watching. If indeed this is what... He's like an evil mastermind. Maybe so. And then when he gets caught, and then he's

like, he changed his story quickly. And it was like he had never, it was almost like he had never conceived of him that he might get caught. And meanwhile, he's down $40 million with gambling. And then there was one thing in the indictment. He or he and his buddy, yes. There was one thing in the document about that the guy texted the translator and he's like, I'm watching your guy walk the dog right now, Mitty Matsui.

It's like, why was he walking the dog? Were they starting to like follow him around? Was Shohei's life like in danger? Yeah, he almost got kneecapped that day, I think. This is the craziest story in a long, long time. And I don't know how it's going to play out. House, thanks for arguing the other side. I'm glad we talked out all the themes from that end.

I do think this is going to be one of those stories that in the dark web of all these different places where people argue about this stuff and come up with theories, this is going to be fertile territory for a lot of people. I agree with that. I think we barely scratched the surface. I think it's going to be really fascinating. I still want to know how you lose $184 million in bets.

Like even if you bet a million dollars a game, that's still $184 million bets. Even if you bet a million dollars a game, that's still 184 million dollar bets. Well, no. Billy Walters alleges that Mickelson over time lost that much. Way more than that. Yikes. Alright, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to House and Hubbard. Thanks to Kyle Creighton and Steve Cerruti. As always,

I will see you on this feed with Rosillo on a Sunday that promises to be completely action-packed. I feel it's within On the wayside I'm a person never lost And I don't have to Must be 21 plus and present in select states.

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