The Bill Simmons Podcast - Part 1: USA’s World Cup Collapse, Basebrawls, Jets Optimism, Life in The G-League and ‘The OC’ 20 Years Later | with Gabe York and Zoe Simmons

Episode Date: August 7, 2023

In Part 1 of a two-part podcast, The Ringer’s Bill Simmons opens with a 6-pack of topics including the US women’s soccer team going out of the World Cup in the round of 16 and more (4:30). Next, he chats with Gabe York, one of the stars of the new documentary “Destination NBA: A G-League Odyssey” (45:15) before closing it out chatting with his daughter Zoe Simmons about the 20-year anniversary of “The OC” (1:04:07). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Gabe York and Zoe Simmons Producers: Isaiah Blakely and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, an unexpected two-part podcast cameo from me. What's next? It's the Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel. Football is in full action. FanDuel's highest rated sports book is the best place to bet it all. We've been doing pretty well on million-dollar picks this year. I love the first month of the season because you have to go into the season thinking, I think Pittsburgh's going to be good.

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Please visit rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available and listen to the end of the episode for additional details. You must be 21 plus and present in select states. Gambling problem called 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. This episode is brought to you by Prime Video. 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.

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Amanda Dobbins' big picture feed to Brian Raftery. It's a narrative podcast called Do We Get to Win This Time? How Hollywood Made the Vietnam War. You can find it on the big picture starting on Tuesday. And it is an idea I'm really excited about because it came from a class that I did as a senior in college in 1992. Me and my friend Horig talked a movies professor into doing a special Vietnam War movies class where we watched basically every Vietnam War movie that had been made up to 1992

and then tried to write a big picture turnpaper about it. And the thing that was really fascinating about that class and something that stuck with me was just that whole concept of Hollywood reinventing the entire Vietnam experience under the premise of did we get to win this time? So we got Brian involved and he turned the idea into an awesome, awesome podcast.

I even went and dug up the term paper that I wrote 31 years ago. I thought it was going to be horrendous. It wasn't bad. I was kind of proud of myself retroactively 31 years later. Anyway, do we get to win this time? How Hollywood Made the Vietnam War is going to be in the Big Picture Podcast starting on Tuesday. So that's one piece of business. Second, new rewatchables on Monday night. It is the 300th movie that we've done. It's a special one. We're doing National Lampoon's Vacation. It was time. Meet Chris Ryan, Van Lathan. Yeah. And Van was pushing for it because we wanted to do Christmas Vacation during the holidays and you can't do Christmas Vacation. Before we do National Lampoon's Vacation,

super fun. Can't wait for you to listen to it. And we'll be running the video at some point on the YouTube channel, youtube.com slash Bill Simmons, where we put up a whole bunch of rewatchables podcasts in case you missed it. Boogie Nights is up there now, Goodfellas, Independence Day, just a slew of them. So if you're bored and you wanna throw on some rewatchables and watch us make fun of each other, there you go.

Last but not least, I don't wanna say this is the most important, but it's certainly the thing I spent the most time on. Our documentary that we did about the G League with Religion of Sports and Ringer Films, we combined and it is premiering on Tuesday, August 8th. It is called Destination NBA, a G League Odyssey. It's really good. We immersed ourselves into the G League season. We followed Scoot Henderson, Gabe York, Ryan Terrell, Mason Jones, and Denzel Valentine.

And the big question was, what is this world like? What's it like to be in the G League? And I am really proud of where we landed with it. And we even have, much later in this podcast, Gabe York is going to come on. He's one of the five that we followed and he's going to tell us what it's like as you're holding on to your dream in your late twenties. We try not to spoil the doc too much with Gabe, but I really liked him. He's probably the guy that jumps out of the doc in the most sympathetic way. So look forward for you to watch

it. It is prime video, Tuesday, August 8th, Destination NBA, a G League Odyssey. You love basketball. Just watch it. It's good. So there you go. This is going to be part one of a two-part podcast. Gabe is coming up later. My daughter Zoe Simmons is coming up later because we did a whole bunch of OC stuff on the Prestige TV podcast. I was even on two of the episodes, but I ended up watching season one of the OC. And my daughter was watching with us and loved the show. And she was born a year and a half after it premiered. So me and her broke down season one from the perspective of what is it like when somebody 18 watches The O.C., a show that is now two decades old.

The anniversary was actually August 6th. And what she liked, what she didn't like, what people aren't doing anymore for, you know, her kind of audience. And we just dove into it. So that is much later first coming out, coming out of the gate. I'm going to open a six pack because we have a lot to discuss over the past three weeks, all the stuff I missed. So that's going to be part one. And then part two, which is going to go up later on Sunday night, me and Rosillo doing this evergreen idea that we've always wanted to do. And this seemed like the perfect time because nothing's happening in basketball. So that's going to be part two later tonight.

Part one coming up first, our friends from ProJab. All right, I'm taping this. It is Sunday afternoon Pacific time, and I'm going to open a six-pack. There's a bunch of stories in sports and culture that happened over the last three weeks. I was just writing stuff down, things that would have been fun for podcast segments. I was just like, man, I wish I could have given my thoughts on that. Just going to rip through them. So I have six and then maybe a couple of bonus ones at the end. The first one, the biggest one

was the U.S. women's soccer team, which lost today in penalty kicks to Sweden, scored zero goals in the last two games, scored one goals in the last two games, scored one goal in the last three games, and that was off a corner kick. You could feel from the beginning that something was off with this team. It was like all the ways. You knew in a checklist of like,

what are the red flags? There were just red flags galore. And the only person who was really calling it out in time over and over again was Carly Lloyd, who was doing the Fox studio show. And she was like the one person in the horror movie who knows the house is haunted. And everyone's like, shut up. You're not being patriotic. You just wish you were still on the team.

She was right. She was right from the get-go. This team, you could see it before the Vietnam game when it was like, look at the new Nike suits. Look at these new suits. And they're all like styling as they head into the locker room and they're running commercials. And every player has a commercial. There's players who have never done anything about commercials. And the vibe was just off. They only beat Vietnam three, nothing in a, in a bracket where gold differential was going to be super duper important. And that was a huge red flag. And we did the usual thing that we've been doing since 2019, 2015 of, oh, well, they almost scored

a bunch of times. Oh, well, if that had gone in or some bad luck, there was just an arrogance to this team. Like they were carrying themselves like the defending champs, the same way, like the Denver Nuggets would go into next NBA season. Like we're the champs. I was like, yeah, you are the champs because the season just happened. The World Cup happened four years ago. Everyone's four years older or wasn't on the team. And you could see they wanted to build the team instead of around the identity of,

here are these new up and coming awesome stars that are going to be in your life. They were really latching on to Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe. Alex Morgan's 34, Megan Rapinoe's 37. I think one of the differences between the discourse with women's sports and men's sports is that in men's sports, we grasp for angles. And if somebody is disappointing in some way, we really go nuts. Think of how James Harden's been treated over the last 12 years. He's one of the 35 best players ever and has taken just an incredible amount of shit.

Oh my God, the playoffs. Look at his game log. Oh, he choked again. Alex Morgan, who scored twice in her first two games in the World Cup in 2011. She scored once in 2015 in seven games. She scored six times in 2019, five against Thailand in a game that was 13 to nothing, one in the other six, and then scored nothing in the four games this time around. If you take away that Thailand game, she has scored two goals in the last 17 World Cup games.

This is the striker. This is the one who's supposed to be the most dangerous player in the field, who's supposed to produce goals. And she hasn't produced goals since the mid-2010s on the national level. And yet it's Alex Morgan. the mid-2010s on the national level. And yet it's Alex Morgan. She was supposed to be the next one. We got to keep propping her up and pretending she's a superstar. She's not a superstar. She's really honestly never been a superstar.

She certainly hasn't been as impactful as somebody like Abby Wambach was. So you have the team built around her. She's got to play. They play her the entire game, game two, the entire game, game three. She plays like 95 minutes in this game today and they don't score goals. And the announcers just won't talk about it. It's like being on an AYSO team that your kid's on and the coach is playing somebody at striker and everyone's like, why don't, why don't they play Sally at striker instead

of the coach's daughters? Oh, you know, the coach's daughter, she's got to, she don't they play Sally at Stryker instead of the coach's daughter? It's like, oh, you know, the coach's daughter. She's got to play there. So you have that. And then you have Rapinoe, who's 37 years old, who's just, you know, unfortunately, great career, legendary, true legend, huge big time player. And when you hit your late 30s in soccer, it's a wrap. She looked like Udonis Rapinoe, that big Rapinoe, and comes out for

the last 25 minutes of this game and can't do anything. And then misses the penalty kick. That's the thing. If you're beholden to past performance, you can't expect to succeed in the moment. And I did feel like, what were this team's strengths? Speed. They had Sophia Smith, who really was bad the last three games on the left wing. She couldn't even connect passes. Trinity Rodman, who's a beast. Lynn Williams, who's super fast and athletic and had some really nice moments the last two games. And then Alyssa Thompson, who's the prodigy, who's the potential tiger or LeBron of this

team. 18 years old, best high school player we've ever had. They won't even throw her out there, but this was not a team that could connect passes. They weren't like, especially creative. The coaching was just bizarre and we'll never see that guy again. But it was like the one thing they did have was speed, especially the forwards. And they just threw that away and Alex, you And Alex couldn't do anything. So now they're out. It's the most disappointing finish of the last 25 years for the women's team.

And it reminds me in a lot of ways of that 2004 Olympic basketball team that we had, the USA team. And I tweeted this, I think after the second game, because that was a team that was between eras like this one was where all the best players on that 2014, the ones in their primes weren't that good except for Duncan and Duncan was completely banged up. He'd played so many NBA games the last couple of years. I think his knee was hurt, but you know, it was Iverson and Marbury and it just, the talent, it just was a between eras. And you had guys on the bench like LeBron and Carmelo and Wade who were four years away. Kobe wasn't on the team. And it just felt generationally like we caught that team in the wrong time.

The style was wrong. And we learned all these lessons and we moved on. 2008, we win. There's a documentary about it. But this team felt like it was between eras. The Alex Morgan Rapinoe era, which was basically done. And then you have this era coming up with Rodman and Sophia Smith and Alyssa. It's just four years from now, we'll probably be fine, but they need to reimagine this. And I think if you're going to learn any lesson from this, it doesn't matter what happened four

years ago. It's the World Cup. It matters what's happening now. So that's one thing. Second thing. So Jalen Brown gets this huge contract, $304 million. Some people seem surprised that it was that much money. Chris Ryan even took a shot at it when we did our live rewatchables. Hurt my feelings a tiny bit, mainly because I didn't really have a comeback. Russella did something on his podcast about how this actually makes sense, this amount of money, when you think of how the salary cap has climbed just since 2015, and it's going to keep climbing. And there's this world you can go into where you think about just how much everything is going to cost in the NBA four or five years from now. That Jalen Brown at $ 70 million isn't actually going to be that intimidating. The same way we feel about Tobias Harris for 40 million now or Clay Thompson, 40 million now. Yeah, you don't really want to pay 40 million for Clay Thompson,

but you can survive it. And I think that's going to be where the Celtics land with Jalen. Here's why they had to do it. They're the favorites in FanDuel right now. They're plus 470. The thing that made them the most special and has made them the most special for the last five, six years is the Jalen Brown, Jason Tatum combo. They've been incredibly successful. The team itself has made five conference finals in the last seven years. They came super close to making the finals last year. And, you know, I have now gone into the what if zone with that Celtics team or what if Tatum doesn't hurt his ankle on the first play? Do we beat Miami?

They were close is the point. And when you're that close, you can't fuck around. This is not Bradley Beal resigning with Washington for 50 million a year when everybody knows you can't get past the eighth seed with Bradley Beal. This is different. You're trying to win a title. You're trying to keep all your optionality open. The thing that's a little scary about it,

nobody seems to totally know if he wants to be in Boston. This is something we've discussed on this pod. It's been floating out there. The fact that he wasn't happy about landing in the Kevin Durant trade rumors a couple of years ago. And just in general, where the league is now, as Woj called it, the transfer general, where the league is now, where as Woj called it, the transfer portal where people get their contract first,

and then they decide what they want to do. And I think for the Celtics, they know they bought themselves a year with Jalen and they are still one of the favorites to win the title. And a lot of it's going to depend on health and Porzingis. You could also, I don't want to make the case, but you might be able to make the case that Brown had a fucked up hand last year because he did, because he sliced his hand open. It was bleeding even during the Philly series. And maybe that was why his ball handling went sideways. Listen, you got to do the contract. It just breaks your brain. I remember a million years ago, Sports Illustrated and Inside Sports, every year they would have a salary issue and they would talk about, these guys are making $1 million a year. And it seemed like so much money.

And now where we're heading with the money, plus the NBA's, the media rights deal, the moment any of these guys becomes unhappy, what do you do? Because you're paying Jalen, let's say you're paying him $55 million a year. Plus he is a trade kicker, which the team has to pay. Right? So if he decides after a year, you know what? I'm tired of being the scapegoat. Everybody loves Jason. I'm like the middle brother of this team. I want my own team.

I want to go to Houston or Atlanta. You got to trade me. What are the Celtics going to do? On top of he would want out, you don't have a lot of options. And you turn into what the situation Portland's in with Dame. And then on top of it, it's so much money, it's impossible to get any sort of a fair trade for the guy. So they had to do it.

And the optionality that comes out of it is frightening. I remember in the early 2000s when the first time the contracts kind of went nuts and you would see that people get signing like six year, $100 million deals, seven year, $110 million deals. And the Celtics really, really stupidly traded for Vin Baker. One of the worst trades of the last 30 years for Boston sports. A trade so bad, you knew it instantaneously. And I wrote a piece that you can probably find somewhere in the ESPN archives about it, where I compared it to the end of Thelma Louise, when Harvey Keitel is running toward the cliff, trying to stop the car from going off the cliff. That's how I thought about the Vin Baker trade when it happened.

Then it happens and you just had this salary albatross, right? It's a salary cap league. And you're like, wow, we just threw away 20% of our salary cap on this trade. There's going to be a couple of those that are just franchise killers. And whether that leads to them bringing back the amnesty clause, who knows? I've had this idea before. I wish that they had a rule in there that if you drafted a guy every year that he stays in the team, you get rewarded in some way from a salary cap, luxury tax type thing. Right? So Jalen was 2016 draft. This would be his eighth year, maybe like after the seventh year. Cause that's usually like the third contract, the guy stays on the team. Maybe each year after that, he doesn't count for 2% of the luxury tax, up to 30%, something like

that. The point is the Warriors should be rewarded for keeping Draymond and Clay and Curry from a tax standpoint. That they were that smart to draft those guys, keep those guys together. They should be incentivized, the players, to want to stay with them because there's some luxury tax stuff that the team gets. And the team should want to be incentivized to take care of those guys because it's also beneficial to them. I just wish they figured out some version of that rule. Anyway, Jalen was always signing for $304 million. Talk to me in a year. I'll keep my fingers crossed. Next thing, I missed the running back pity party. This was crazy. The running backs all got together and they were really upset about how much money they made. And I don't know what to tell you. There's too many

running backs and not enough running back spots. And I don't know if you're trying to build a responsible salary cap team in a collectively bargained era, why would you spend $30 million over two years on a running back unless the running back was awesome? Nobody even wants to spend more than $11 million on running back. So I knew that this was crazy when Damien Harris, who was on the Patriots, who I thought

was really good, you know, he's maybe not an elite running back, but a good running back, right? He's somebody that he, if he had been on the Chiefs, he easily could have started for the Chiefs. And he signed with the Bills for like one year, 2 million. And when that happened, combined with Pacheco on the Chiefs, seventh round pick, they won the Superbowl with him. It's just, this seventh round pick. They win the Super Bowl with them. It's just this position is devalued.

I work on this player. I've been actually working on it the last couple of weeks where I try to rank the players for blue chippers, red chippers, pink chippers, honorable mention, and have this whole point system. And so quarterbacks, Mahomes, who's the alpha of that position, he's worth 10 points, right? And you can even see this like in the point spread. If Mahomes gets hurt, the Chiefs are 10 points, nine points, whatever, less than what they would be as a favorite. They'd switch to an underdog.

And you go on down the line, like, you know, Jalen Hurts is, I had him as an eight. I had Joe Burrow as a nine. And you go on, you keep going down. It's like Geno Smith's probably a two. But then you look at some of the other positions and you have to value them the same way the salary cap values them and teams value them. Guards, they aren't worth that much. Running backs, sorry, they're not worth that much. My top running back was three points because ultimately running backs don't really matter that much.

In the last like five, six years, I would say Derrick Henry was the only running back that you could definitively say, this guy almost won the Super Bowl. Like he was that good. Other than that, you know, it's plug and play, quarterbacks, it's receivers. It's much harder to find the number one receiver. Every team needs one. It's much more tangible if you don't have the number one receiver. And it's much easier to just kind of scrap together the running back position. And yet people went nuts about this. We ironically had this in the NBA with centers. You know, Vucevic, who's a really good offensive player, he signed for 60 million for three years, 20 million a year. And Jalen Brown's going to make $52 million a year. Is Jalen Brown two and a half times better than Vucevic? No. It's just, he plays a way more important position. You can only play one center at a time. You can patch together the center position. You could have like Isaiah Hartenstein for $8 million. you could get Robert Williams for 16. You don't need to spend what Phoenix did on Aiton, where they're paying Aiton $30 million

a year at center, and you don't really need to do that. You kind of feel obligated if you don't want to lose the asset. But I think the NBA is going to go this way eventually, where unless it is Jokic or Embiid, the center or Bam Adebayo, Sabonis, you could argue that was already an overpay. They gave him a huge extension. The Lakers just gave Anthony Davis $60 million a year as an extension.

I would argue that's a little frightening. I feel like you could patch together the center position. What really matters in basketball is having the creator. And this was the argument five years ago with Luka versus Aiton for the number one pick. And I made this argument. It was like, go look at who wins the NBA title every year. It's always the people who have the creator.

There's somebody who's on the perimeter with the ball in their hands. Even Jokic, who wins the title this year, he was a creator. He's not a typical center, right? He's basically their point guard on offense who could post up. So this happened in the nba

nobody went nuts and this is happening in football and this is where football is you know if you want to make the most amount of money playing in the nfl i don't know why you would be a running back i would i would be a cornerback i would be a wide know, I'd be, you know, an edge rusher. But if you're a running back, you know, your shelf life's probably like five, six years. You know, the money is not totally going to be there. Now they're in this, like you have people like J.K. Dobbins, like, I might hold out. It's like, really? You barely even play in the field.

Barkley said he was going to hold out. And then, you know, probably looked at it. And the money for Barkley is like 10, 11 million. That's unfortunately the market. So you can't fix this. They collectively bargained it. And until we get to the next CBA, I don't know how you fix it. I thought it was really weird. It felt like people had nothing to talk about. And it was like, ah, let's feel bad for running backs. All right, let's take a break. And then I'm going to finish the rest of the six pack. 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.

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Your game time tastes like Miller time. Must be legal drinking age. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win the Super Bowl, but your fundraising will support

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The Jets optimism, which has just been stunning to me over the course of July. I have Jets fans in my life. These are people that usually have no hope and are very reminiscent of the pre-2004 Red Sox fans, just assuming the worst at all times. Why does God hate us? All that stuff. And now they have this crazy optimism based on the fact that they brought in Aaron Rogers, who I did not think was very good last year, just throwing that out there.

I wouldn't say he was bad, but for Rogers, he was bad. I mean, we thought Rogers was, he was the reigning MVP and we thought he was still, you know, one of the five or six most impactful players in the league. And I don't want to read stats to you for the next six minutes but deep balls he was bad turnovers he was bad leadership he was bad and the case for rogers coming back would be well he's going to be rejuvenated the jets new york city this is his team he got away from green bay he's got to hack it back i get it but he's also at an age where we've really only seen Tom Brady succeed at a high, high level at the age that Rodgers is at. I was trying to figure out, I have my QB ratings and I had, you know, the top tier is Mahomes and Burrow and Allen and

Herbert and Hertz. Those have to be the top five. Then it drops off and it's Lamar Jackson and Lawrence. And then Rogers, probably a hair underneath him with a chance to play himself up with those guys. But from what we saw last year, I'm not ready to put him there. So he's the 10th best quarterback in the league, probably 10th or ninth best quarterback in the league, probably. Well, they have no offensive line. And I don't understand why people keep glossing over this, where it's like, yeah, Rodgers and Garrett Wilson, he's one of the best receivers in the league,

and Brees Hall is going to come back, and the defense is really good. And it's like, yeah, the offensive line is terrible. Back then in Dwayne Brown, sure tackles again. And then you have Robert Sala as the coach who I cannot say. I thought that jets were crisply coached last year. Whatever he was doing with Zach Wilson was insane. No idea if that guy's even a decent coach. So I'm already worried about your offensive line,

the age of your quarterback and the competency of your coach. And that's before we get into the hard knocks curse. Cause for some reason they're doing hard knocks, the incredible Superbowl hype already. And then we have the schedule, which is the AFC East is just got screwed by the schedules this year. The Jets just for quarterbacks in 17 games, they got to play Josh Allen twice. They got to play Mahomes, Herbert, Hurts, Dak Prescott and Deshaun Watson. And then they also have to play Miami twice. We got to play Mahomes, Herbert, Hurts, Dak Prescott, and Deshaun Watson. And then they also have to play Miami twice. We'll see what we get out of two of this year. And then a really good Pats defense. And then Denver, who knows, they might be rejuvenated. So Danny Dimes, they have to play him. It is a brutal schedule. So you have that.

And then on top of everything else, you're the Jets. I was there with the Red Sox before 2004. And this is probably just as bad where you just think the worst possible thing is going to happen is all the time. You're not allowed to have optimism when you're Jets fans. You can be cautiously optimistic. There was an entire Curb Your Enthusiasm episode once, season 10, episode 7, about being a Jets fan. And it was called, I the ugly section nick kroll was

the maitre d and part of the episode was about he would put these people in different sections of the restaurant depending on how attractive they were but there's this other plot larry's buddy who loved the jets kills himself and larry becomes convinced it was because of the jets that the jets killed his friend this was only a couple of years ago. So now they get Aaron Rodgers and everything's good and they're gonna win the Super Bowl. I don't see it guys. I don't wanna step on my football stuff too much,

but I'd be shocked. And Lombardi points out the defense that everybody's ready to compare to the 85 Bears. Lombardi said they had two turnovers over the last eight games last season. So that means something too. I am dubious to say the least. If you're gonna tell me a tortured franchise

actually turns it around this year, I want a tortured franchise that doesn't have expectations. Because the Lions are another one. Everybody's ready to put them in the Super Bowl or close. And you know, the only case for them is just pretty explosive offense. They couldn't stop anybody last year and the NFC is terrible, but that's another one where is that, is that a fan base that should be super excited and have a ton of hype. The one that's kind of lurking that fits in this group is the Browns because the Browns are actually super talented. They're in a winnable division. Burrows already hurt. And I think

they're four to one to win the AFC North on Fandle, something like that. Their over-under is, I think it climbed up, but, um, but basically that comes down to is Deshaun going to be good again? Yeah. They're over under nine and a half for the division. They're plus three 80. Pretty easy schedule. And that like for quarterbacks that play Lamar twice, they play Burrow twice and Rogers. And that's it.

They have talent all over the place. They can block. They have a pass rush. They have right now the best running back in the league. They made their receivers better. Their defense is actually pretty good. And the X factor is Deshaun, who a couple of years ago was considered one of the best five quarterbacks in the league. That's a much better X factor to me than is Robert Sala on my terrible offensive line going to come through. So if I was going to pick a tortured franchise, I would pick the Browns. Okay. Next thing on the six-pack docket.

You know, I don't care about college sports. And there's lots of reasons for that. I did not go to a school. I'd not go to like a Notre Dame or a Michigan or an Alabama where it was like my whole life revolved around the sports team when I was in college. We had a really good college football team in Holy Cross. And we do again, by the way. Good football team. I jumped back on the bandwagon a couple of years ago. But for the most part, the college sports thing, I enjoyed it from afar. I always thought it was corrupt as hell. I always

thought it was astonishing that they made so much money from these kids that just passed through and that they would just break all these different rules and coaches could just hop teams. But then if a player transferred, they had to wait a year. So some of the stuff that's happened, I've actually enjoyed, like the fact that you can just hop colleges now, if you're a player that you can get paid, things like that. But ultimately it's corrupt and college sports has no the fact that you can just hop colleges now if you're a player, that you can get paid, things like that. But ultimately, it's corrupt and college sports has no soul. And that's just the way it is. And the people that love college sports, they know this deep down, but they just enjoy the Saturdays. They enjoy the football. And I don't blame them. I'm not going to judge you. But when stuff like the Pac-12 things

happens and the Pac-12 falls apart, and now we have Stanford and Washington State and Cal and Oregon State that they don't have a conference. People are like, man, this is terrible. I can't believe this. It's like, you can't? This is college sports. Of course you can believe it. Are you going to believe in three years there's going to be some super conference that forms

and blows everybody else out of the water? The only school that's figured out really how to navigate this other than the top SEC schools, because those schools, that's basically like the NFL. Notre Dame has been able to levitate above this, where they're an independent football program. They get paid by NBC. They get to pick their opponents and, you know, they get to be in the mix and they have the prestige of it. And I wonder like Stanford could go one way or the other, where could they be a West coast Notre Dame? They don't have the same kind of pedigree, but could they be an independent? Could they try to build that up?

Could they try to become like, start some conference that's basically a division one Ivy league? I'll be interested what happens with them. The reason I bring this up, I've been joking about how we needed a sports czar for like 20 years, ever since I had my column in ESPN. A sports czar for things like boxing. Why do we have three boxing belts? And you know, like basketball. We got to step in.

We can't have 82 game seasons anymore. Let's go to 70. College sports is the number one reason to have a sports hour. There's so much money at stake. And it's as corrupt as just about anything else we have. And the people that are involved, they'll do anything if it's an extra million bucks. And if we had like a... Some people were saying we should have a college sports commissioner.

To me, it's like, this is the job of an actual sports czar that could report to the president and is in charge of something that makes billions and billions and billions and billions of dollars across the board. And it's just in charge of the integrity of stuff. All right, if we're going to have these giant mega conferences, can we lock those down and at least know we have these four mega conferences and that's the way it's going to go? Like right now, eventually it's going to be 16 SEC teams, 16 Big 10, 16 Big 12, and 15 SEC. And probably five years from now, that's going to shift into something else.

And you know it's heading toward this mega conference with like Apple or somebody just starting this new rival thing that launches. I just wish we had someone watching over this stuff because think about the individual sports, like just having a basketball commissioner and a football commissioner and a baseball commissioner and a hockey commissioner.

You can say, we can complain about those people a million times and I have. And I have to the point that it's probably even hurt me professionally a couple of times, but at least there was somebody who, whose job was to navigate all of the complications between big money, the owners, the players, the agents, the safety of the game. And you look at college sports and it's just a fucking quagmire. And I don't know what it, watching all this stuff from afar, it's just like, if there was ever a time for somebody to step in either as a commissioner or as an actual sports, or this would be the time it will never happen because it makes too much sense. All right. A couple other, oh, one last thing on

the six pack. And then I have a couple of quick ones for you. So the Dame Lower Trade stuff. I was out of the content game for the last three weeks, which means I was basically out of the, if I was doing pods, I'd be like, oh, Dame, could you go to the Knicks and try to come up with segments for different things? It was so nice to just be out of this for three weeks. Leaving the loop was exhilarating. I remember I turned on NBA Today just randomly. I wanted to see if there was any World Cup stuff on, but the TV was on ESPN and it was NBA Today and they were arguing. It was some topic about, it was was Dame and then they did like who could win defensive player of the year we know it's August 1st I'm like oh my god I'm so glad

I'm not doing a podcast right now but one of the things I loved the coverage of this whole saga was hilarious and it was clear from the beginning that Portland doesn't want Tyler here right they just don't they have scoring guards they don't want Tyler Harrow. And however Miami, whatever buttons they try to push, whatever stories got leaked, however angry their fan base and their media base became, the fundamental fact was that Portland didn't want Tyler Harrow. And then we would have these stories

that the GM Joe Cronin, he knows this is the deal of a lifetime. He's resolute. He's gonna get the best deal he possibly can then it's like well look what the nets did kd wanted to trade guess what he started the season with them and he did really well and then they got the trade they wanted so everybody's kind of moved into that but yet there was a lot of carnage along the way like we had um woj got attacked by a miami podcast host we had a 30-team letter team letter that got sent out by Dame and his agent,

which I still don't know why they sent the letter, but I guess it was basically to say, Hey, no, no, we're not just saying it's only one team. You know, Dame, Dame will show up for whoever gets traded for him. And it's all going to lead to some trade that happens out in it. We're going to have all this conjecture and then out of nowhere, one day he's going to get traded to like Toronto for Pascal Siakam and a number one pick and be like, Whoa, what happened to three months of Dame to Miami content? I'll just say this. I being off for the last three weeks made me really re-evaluate at least

some things, especially for things I want to do with this podcast. And I don't think I can do the content hamster wheel game anymore with some of these NBA stories. We'll do them when they hit. But when it's like week three of Dame wants to go to Miami, I'm out. I'm tapping out at that point, turn it over to the other basketball shows. Okay. Some quickies. I have not seen Oppenheimer or Barbie yet, but this whole era did make me nostalgic too. There were like two nights when I wanted to go and there were no seats and it was going on those grids where, you know, I want to go to Oppenheimer. I want to see an IMAX. And you just go and it's like, ah, only first row. It was honestly cool. Movies. It's fun. It's fun. It's fun to have a moment where you want to see a movie and you can't see it. Forgot what that experience my brain. I was on a text ride with my buddy,

Sal and Gus, trying to figure out how many baseball fights somebody actually got knocked down. And we couldn't really come up with anyone. There was like, I think Alan Mills nailed Daryl Strawberry once, Greg Nettles, body slam Bill Lee. There was Mark Witten, really peppered Jack McDowell, but I don't think he got knocked down. For the most part, pretty weird. The best punches I've seen land was Odor against Jose Batista, where he wobbled him. That was a really good one. But it did make me think with baseballs, and I wrote a piece about baseballs for his pan, I think in 2001. I love, these are my favorites. I love baseball fights. And one of the best things about baseball fights is nobody ever

gets hurt. Well, this time somebody did get wobbled and that, that was one of the things that was most surprising about it. But one thing with base brawls, the best ones are always when they're at a base. It's second base is the ideal one because they have enough time to actually square off and get into a third base is pretty good too. But like the Ray Knight, Eric Davis fight was really good, but then Ray Knight got jumped by the entire Cincinnati Reds dugout. I think, uh, Bud Harrelson, Pete Rose was really good. There's a good George Brett, Greg Nettles one from the 76 playoffs. That's amazing. Cause both guys got to stay in the game. Odor and Batista happened at second base. And then Ramirez anderson they have

enough time to actually square up morris lucas daryl dawkins style so i loved my favorite thing in that fight was the umpire who is basically you guys handle this i'm out of here and he just back pedals away from me he wants no part of trying to separate that thing and, who of course is on my AL Keeper fantasy team, and just symbolic, just gets knocked down. I love Bass Bros. Then Taylor Swift, I've not gone yet. We've had the Every Single Album podcast with Nathan Hubbard and Nora Princiati, breaking down all the Taylor Swift stuff. We've talked about a little on this podcast. I have never seen anything like the phenomenon around this concert tour.

And I've been alive for all the concert tours since the mid 70s. Even Michael Jackson, like the Victory Tour after Thriller came out, that was more notable because of what a mess it was. Bruce Springsteen had the Born in the USA tour and he was pretty big at that point, but I don't think it was anything close to this. From a cultural standpoint, from a multi-generation standpoint, fathers and daughters,

daughters and moms, multiple generations. You have people like my daughter who's 18, who grew up, has not even known life without a Taylor Swift song. And then you have people in their thirties who kind of grew up with her. And then you have the moms who are used to listening with the, with the daughters or whatever. And then the show itself, like I had friends that went to the first show and I think she played 45 songs. It was three plus hours. This is, this is like Michael Jordan shit, whatever is happening with her now and i you think like the life of a pop star it's usually the the cycle is usually six seven eight years you know and then either musically they get tired out or people move on to somebody else she was feeding

with kanye west um two different times and neither time was she the one doing the feuding, but 2009 when he interrupted her in the award show and then 2016, when she had all that stupid stuff happen with the famous song, which now, if you look back, not a great look for Kim Kardashian, but, but she's been around too long. I mean,

Kanye is like, it seems like a million years ago when anyone would have feuded with him in 2023. And she's still rolling along. She's sold out six straight shows here in Los Angeles. I've been here for 21 years. I can never remember anything as important as these Taylor Swift tickets, just being in the building for that.

People coming from all parts of California to go. And it's really something. This is the summer of Taylor. I'm glad we did a podcast about it. And then last but not least, the ESPN side, which definitely not the summer ESPN. But there was stuff about could they potentially sell? Could they sell pieces of it? Could they partner with the different leagues and give them pieces in ESPN?

Buried in some of the stories. When I was there at the height, ESPN had 100 million subs on cable, which subs means people, whether it's me or you or our mom, you're paying for ESPN if you're paying for cable, right? And that was the genius of the ESPN business. And then as the bundle starts moving to streaming, ESPN belatedly panics. And I was there for some of this when they were like, holy shit. I remember talking to a couple of the higher ups and they were like, we just got the subs, the subs are going backwards. Like, what does that mean? Well, the subs are going from 100 to 92,

like 92, like going down. And now they're at 76 and they're dropping. I think they lost like three, 4 million in the last round. Um, and the, the secret number that was in there and some of the coverage was ESPN plus, which they can say, oh, it's part of the Disney plus Hulu. Like you, you can kind of lie about whatever, whatever the numbers are, but the people just paying for ESPN plus is five and a half million people, which is way lower than I thought. And, you know, sports rights are going up. They have not figured out a way to, you know, turn their, all their other content into stuff that makes money for them in a real way. You know, I think like radio podcasts, this is small potatoes compared to some of the other money that's at stake for them,

but radio, podcasts, their TV shows, what are the hits that they've launched over the last few years? It just seems like they've missed a lot of different business opportunities and they spent a lot of time and a lot of money on the ESPN Plus product before eventually realizing people go there for games.

And that's about it. You go there for live events, you go to games. The best thing they did was a UFC deal, but you have, you know, ESPN Plus is a place to go get the UFC fight or Jake Paul or Princeton is playing Cornell in the, in the Ivy League lacrosse semifinals. Oh, ESPN Plus will have it. It's kind of the destiny of thatinals. Oh, ESPN Plus will have it. It's kind of the destiny of that app. It's not a destination app for content. And I think they've slowly realized that. So now it's, you know, you're doubling down on the sporting event stuff at the expense of basically everything else.

So even like you see what they did with the basketball recently, and they got rid of Van Gondy and then eventually Mark Jackson. And even something like that to me is money related, right? They're bringing in Doc Rivers and Doris Burke. And I just don't think they probably cost as much as Van Gundy and Mark Jackson in year 17 and year 11, where you're getting bumps every year. So a lot of the stuff they're doing is based on, can we cut a little money here? Can we cut a little money here? Can we cut a little money there?

And it's just crazy because I was thinking 10 years ago, I was there. It was basically like the peak of ESPN. And we had the 2013 ESPNs that year, I think Jon Hamm was hosting. And FS1 was kind of looming as this big threat. And just FS1's coming in and they're going to spend money and they're going to throw money around. And I remember at the time ESPN just like, you know what? Nobody's outbidding us on anything. We are ESPN. We are the Yankees. And anyone they wanted to keep, they kept. Any sport that they wanted, they got. Any sport that they wanted to retain, they kept.

And it was only 10 years ago. And that's the thing about this stuff. It fucking changes fast. You know, you think about like in the early 70s, Polaroid and Kodak. Those are the big camera companies, right? And you would thought, oh, those guys are going to be around forever. And then it flips. So I think ESPN's challenge is how do you keep all these sports rights? How do you stay relevant?

And how do you pay for everything? And how do you deal with this business model that you have where you built this whole kind of mini, this business city in Bristol and all these buildings and all this stuff for live programming. And Now you don't need nearly as much live programming as you did. You don't need as many people as you did. So how do you have a business at that point? And that's going to be the most fascinating thing about the next year or so is, are they going to decide that business needs to be offset? The risk of it needs to be offset by trying to sell to Apple, by trying to sell pieces

of it to different places? Or do they think this is something that is salvageable? Especially when you look at something like the college sports fiasco that's happening right now. Is there now a time for a competitor or a streamer to come in, especially with the basketball coming up and come over the top and really try to dent ESPN? So this will be over the next year. I think the biggest sports business story is what is ESPN's destiny?

What's going to happen if those subs keep going down and they keep losing the money stuff? Are they going to be out on certain things? Are they going to feel like they have to collaborate with another company? What do they do? Stay tuned for that. All right. We're going to take a break. I'm going to come back with Gabe York. All right. Gabe York is here. He is in our G League documentary that we did for Prime Video

that is premiering on Tuesday. It's funny. We're meeting now. I feel like I know you from all the different cuts we watched and you've become one of my favorite players. You jump out of the film and last year you're playing for Indiana and you had some, you had some, you were sick at the start of the season. And so you rallied back and you're doing really well. And I was watching the playoffs and I'm watching some of these teams. I'm like, man, Gabe could have played for that team. And I'm just, it was in my head. So now we're in the summer and you're trying to figure out what you're going to do, but I'm going backwards with the documentary. So they're filming you. What are

you expecting? You're kind of putting your life on display and you've also been on social media. You know, you were this high school guy, your mixtapes, all this stuff, and you've kind of been in the mix now for over a decade. So what are you expecting as you're part of a documentary? Yeah. You know, uh, I think, uh, Dave came out to me during the first game. I wasn't even supposed to be a part of it at all. Actually. Uh, I ran into him, um, and he asked me what my name was and what I brought to the team and what my what my story was. So I ended up talking to him for about 10 minutes before my warm up.

And he said he thinks I'd be a great I'd be a great look for the documentary. I really would do well on camera is what he said. So I said, sure, why not? Let me let me be a part of this. It was really supposed to be about traveling Queen the-way on the Fort Wayne Mad Ants. It really was about him and I just happened to be on the same team as him at that time. They gave me that opportunity and yeah, I just was candid and

was so truthful with my answers and everything I brought on camera. They ended up really liking me and brought my story out a little bit more. The crew fell for you. Your game, I was watching the Heat, and I was like, could he just be out there in the Gabe Vincent spot, hitting threes and just being feisty and doing stuff?

What is it? You turned 30 yesterday. What is it over the course of your career? Because you've talked. You've probably matured a little bit over the years and things like that. But what, when they look at you, like step outside of your body, what are they seeing that they're like, this guy's not this, is it the size? Are you like two inches too small? What is it? Yeah, I think that's definitely what it is. I'm a combo guard who you're not a one,

you're not a true one. You're not a true two. And that's six, two. I'm not really looking at you to play the two guard. Right. I had one of my assistant coaches, Gennaro Pargo, tell me he's like, there's maybe two or three six to two guards in the league. He's like, you have to really be a specialist or have an opportunity randomly and take advantage of that opportunity. He's like, other than that, you're going to be a backup two or three or a backup one, either the third string or four string guy. So for me, it's like,

wait a second. That's not, the league doesn't really work that way. Like I know, like what you said makes sense on paper, but there's so many guys. So there's always like Jimmy Butler, LeBron.

There are these guys who they have the ball all the time and they need like the Gabe Vincent type of guard playing off them who can guard the other team's point guard but can play off the ball, which you can do. So when I'm watching on the cuts, I'm like, what the fuck are these guys not seeing with him? Because, you know, you were one of the best offensive players in the G League last year.

So I just, I don't know. It feels like you got pigeonholed in some way. Yeah, most definitely. You know, I definitely feel that way. I feel like maybe I've just been a year off. Every time I maybe had a slight opportunity that I thought I could have turned into either a two-way or a training camp deal. The teams that I ended up going to summer league with or whatever needed a

four or five band. And so they ended up going with with different players and then the next year it'd be like all right now we need a one or two because they had just signed a you know event to a three or four year deal they trade that guy and so I feel like I've always just been a year out of my opportunity to really like get two feet in I feel like I've always had half a foot or maybe one foot in, but no one really giving me that opportunity of like come to training camp and then fight for a roster spot. So that's the toughest pill to swallow for sure right now. Turning 30 and looking back, you know, I'm going into my ninth year and I don't think I was a professional, like an NBA player

coming out of college, but I definitely think, you know, after my third year playing overseas, I definitely made that jump. So over the last five, six years, it's definitely been frustrating as to like why I couldn't get a real opportunity. Yeah. You know, one of the reasons I want to do this doc was I was so fascinated by the guys that got out of the G league and ended up having a real impact in the NBA. Right. And it's like, what are the reasons for that? Like Seth Curry, who was a really good shooter, but probably went up a level as a shooter but some sort of confidence set in and and he makes it gary payton makes it on defense um gabe vincent makes it on miami partly because he's on the perfect team for gabe vincent you know now he goes to the lakers pretty similar

situation he gets to play off the ball, do some point guard stuff, but not too much. And so you have all these guys that you're pointing to, and they're kind of the North Star. And yet you're in some hotel room in the middle of nowhere, and you're thinking like you're seeing Seth Curry on TV. You're like, all right, that guy made it. Can I make it?

Can I be the next one? And then it just seems like there's no rhyme or reason to who makes it. Yeah. I think you hit it right there on the head. I think that's probably the one thing that I've kind of had to deal with. And like you said, as, as you grow up and mature, you start to stop worrying about the why nots and the why me's. And sometimes it just creeps in your head. You know what I mean? Like even at this point it goes like, well, why couldn't and the why me's and sometimes it just creeps in your head you know what I mean like even at this point it goes like well why couldn't have that been me why why is he in that

position and it's not me sometimes I can that can just consume you so I feel like I've tried to get over that but it definitely creeps in your head as to like when you see guys playing I can definitely do that I could do that at the highest level. I just, you know, I never got that opportunity. So, uh, I'm hoping, you know, still hopeful and praying that opportunity comes this summer, but if not, you know, I'll have to figure, figure out what's next. I can't accept that you were too good last year. It's not like you're 35. I remember I, I hit this point in my life. I think I must've, I was 30 actually. And I was writing and I had this, I had this website and I was waiting to get kind of discovered into whatever. And it just wasn't happening. And I remember in like 2000 and I,

and I was wanting to get engaged. I didn't have enough money really to get, you know, get a nice apartment, any of that stuff. And I'm just like, should I give up? Like, what is this going to happen for me? Do, do I give it one more year? And I had some people in my life were like, you can't fucking give up yet. It's not happening. But I was like, should I like go into real estate? What do I do? But something just kept me driving toward it. And one of the things with the G league that I think is interesting is so many of these guys, especially when you're in that 25, 26, 27 range, you can just go overseas, right? You can make money, you can play in Greece, you can play wherever.

But you know if you're in the G League, it's a better chance to make the NBA. And that's what I think the fascinating dynamic is. It's like maybe it doesn't make total sense for me to be here, but I know this puts me closer to the NBA and I can see all these other guys that made it. So that's what, that's, what's probably keeping you lingering around, right? Yeah, most definitely. I think, uh, yes, it's the dream that that's still alive, uh, especially for those guys who are 25, 26, 27 years old, um, who, who really can be a, an effective NBA player, be a 7, 8, 9, 10 guy coming off the bench and making an impact. So for me, yeah, that's been the constant struggle of trying to

figure out, you know, where can I belong? And to go playing overseas is like, I've always felt like, yeah, I go over there because I've had to do it. I've had to make money. I've had to make situations where it was easier for my family and easier for my well-being to, you know, just go make a certain amount of money where it was more important at that time. But I didn't feel like I was myself playing the game of basketball where these last two seasons, you know, getting these last two, uh, two ways, even though it's only been eight games or seven games that I played basketball felt right again. You know what I mean? So the G the G league definitely gave me that opportunity over being overseas. I averaged 16, 17 points overseas, two, three years in a row,

never got a training camp or summer league invite. I go to the G league, you know, get to two ways, get a couple of summer league invites. So it definitely, you're more viewed by, by the NBA executives and GMs playing in the G league than, than overseas in most cases. I don't want to step too much on what you, what you and the doc and some of the stories you tell and stuff like that. But one of the things, it seems like everybody who's there is, is there for a reason, either just terrible luck,

um, late bloomer. Maybe they had to work some shit out. Maybe they had some injury. Maybe they're in the wrong situation in the NBA or wherever else. How did you end up there? What was, what would you say the reason was? Cause you certainly had as much talent as anybody else. So what, what, what stopped you in your early twenties from, from making it, do you think? Yeah. You know, I think coming out of college, um, my agent and I, uh, who I thought, you know, was a really, he was a family friend that I had known since I was 14 years old. Um, the work, I don't think was being put in on, on both ends. And I don't think, was being put in on both ends. And I don't you know, I'm not going to say from the first day I had him as a as my agent that he wasn't working for me. But over the course of the seven years that I had him, certain teams would come to me and be like, hey, he hasn't called me back.

And, you know, two, three months, I'm trying to see if you want to play summer league. And I would end up having to, you know, say, oh oh yeah, I'm trying to play summer league this and the other. He has a lot of big name clients and whatever. So it could have been lost in the shuffle just from that point of view. Maybe I didn't do enough in college as a senior. I did all four years. Sometimes that's frowned upon. Yeah, it's like a negative how dare how dare you stay in college exactly yeah yeah so i got my degree uh but yeah so i think that might also be one of the things and i think i shot 38 or 39 percent from three so i don't think that was something that prevented me from you know having an opportunity but i didn't even get

invited to the draft so uh that was probably the first step of like, damn, am I really not good enough? And so then I started fighting with that on a daily basis of like, this is what I've wanted to do my whole life. And now I'm at this point, and now I'm not getting this opportunity to even prove my case. So yeah, I feel like there's maybe a lot of components. Maybe I think most of it just comes down to being a 6-2 combo guard that no one really knows where they can put me at but i agree especially with how the game is now today i can i can be a huge help to a lot of teams playing off the ball i shot 40 from three last season on 11 attempts i can tell you i can shoot i can shoot the ball at 10 feet anywhere and shoot it at 40 i feel like. So, um, yeah. But that's the crazy thing to me because ultimately if you're a role player,

you have to have one elite skill, right? You have to be a rim runner. You have the amazing rebounder. You have to be an amazing shooter. You have to be just like a stick defender like Peyton was, but you have to have the one thing and you have it like you, you actually can shoot threes at a you have it. Like you, you actually can shoot threes at a level that I think if you're a guard and you're at 40% consistently with the volume that you had now, the competition, not as good as the NBA, but still, um, I can at least look at that. If I'm a GM, I'm like, wait a second, what's going on here. But then on top of

it, we just went through this with Miami, you know, who makes the finals and they have all these chip on the shoulder guys. And I was wondering, like if I was running a team, I would be looking for the chip on the shoulder guys who were like these guys that crawled through fucking anything to try to get an opportunity.

And once they get it, like they're not going to give it up. Like I never understand why those guys aren't valued more, which obviously you're one of those guys. I appreciate you saying that for real. That means a lot to hear. Uh, but yeah, I, I agree. I think, um, by the time I was present to the NBA level of NBA executives feeling I was good enough, I was already at 28, 29 years old. Um, being these last two seasons where they were like, Yeah, they're just crossing you off. They're like, is he 23?

No, he's 28. He's out. But who cares? Yeah, let me give this guy a two or three year, like let him be a product for two or three years. And then he might help me then when I can help a team right now, make a playoff run or something like that, like right now today. So I think a lot of guys or a lot of teams look for projects more than who that, like right now today. So I think a lot of guys or a lot of

teams look for projects more than who can help me right now today. Yeah. Because if you're a GM, you get more credit because you drafted this upside guy or you found this gem or, oh, nobody saw that. And then it's like, whoa, he found that dude. Whereas I think when people talk about heat culture, sometimes he culture is pretty simple, right? They just go and they find dudes who fell through the cracks, who really give a shit, who play hard and put the time in and put the work in my, I've been saying this behind the scenes to, uh, the people that everybody that we've been working on the documentary,

I was, I was like, people are going to see this and Gabe's going to get a chance. I feel like he's going to, Gabe's going to be the one that jumps out where they'd be like, yeah, we got to get. So I'm waiting to see when it premieres, is the right person just going to watch this? It's like, you know what? I want to bet on that dude.

Because especially once you get to the 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 spot on a team, I want somebody who gives a shit, who works hard, who's got a specific scale, who's a pro. So I don't know. I don't want you to, don't give up yet. If you were like 33, I would say, eh, maybe, but I don't know. You're like a young 30. Thank you. I still got a 40 inch vertical too. So I need to put that to the test. Yeah. So how high was the vertical at its peak? Peak was a 43 at Arizona, my, uh, end of my junior year. I think that was the last time. So I didn't get to do the NBA combine one, which the approach, I feel like I could have been up

there at the 43, 44 with a little bit of adrenaline knowing I was at NBA combine. I feel like I could have jumped 44 maybe, but recorded is 43. So you had, we talked about a tiny bit in the doc, so I don't mind stepping on it because we didn't really dive into it enough, but you had one of the famous mixtapes of all time, right? Yeah, so yeah, Slam actually named it top 10. I was the number 10 all time in high school mixtapes.

And where was that? I forget, where was the number 10 all time, uh, in, in, uh, high school mixtapes. And where was that? I forget where was the high school? Uh, I went to Orange Lutheran, uh, out there in Orange County, California. So some, are you making the mixtape as somebody else made like who made it? Yeah. So it's actually crazy. The, uh, the ball is life is, is the name of the, um, people in mixtape company. So, uh, they happen to be 10 minutes from my high school where their warehouse started out. So during my high school run, they would just come to games. I ended up having a lot of people come

knowing about some kid who's dunking on people, this and the other. So my freshman year, we maybe had like 40 to 50 fans. By my sophomore year, we had the whole gym pack. So by my sophomore year, they were coming to every game, just filming. And I was,

ended up dunking on people. And then my senior year is the one that really took off where I got the, I think I'm top three in high school dunks of all time as well. What was the dunk? It's an alley-oop. I catch an alley-oop from half court and I basically jump over a 6'10 guy. So back then you were more, it was almost like a little Baron Davis, like young Baron Davis, right?

You're there. You're like just dunking on people doing that kind of stuff. Yeah. No one really like sees it at, you know, at that time I think I was six feet, six one and I was about 150 pounds. So it was like a lot easier for me to get up to. I'm 190 now, but yeah, at that point I was just like a feather jumping. So you just lost in the tournament and now you're waiting to catch on with the team. Like,

what's the process? This is like the next few weeks, your agent's making calls, you're trying to see if you can get into a camp? Like what, what's the best case scenario here? Yeah, exactly. So best case scenario for me would be, you know, getting training camp with somebody. Um, even if it's, you know, just come in and try and get a roster spot. I'm not really even looking for give me money to come to camp. Uh, let me come in and prove myself, prove my worth and show I can be, like you said, maybe 11, 12, 13 guy,

and then play those eight to 12 minutes and maybe carve out a role from 12 to 16 and showcase, you know, I can really be a rotation guy. Um, that would be, you know, best case scenario, but that, that never really works out, uh, that way. So right now, all I can really focus on is my day to day. I don't have any offers. Uh, my agent said he'll call me in the next few days. He was going to give me a couple of days to chill after the tournament and follow back with a couple of teams that he's heard back from. But as of right now, yeah, still no offers. Don't give up. It's going to happen, especially when people see this. I will say this. If you sign with Miami, a team that I probably hate the second most behind the Lakers, especially after they beat us in game seven in Boston.

If you sign with Miami, it would be really hard for me not to root for you in Miami. And I probably would end up, I'd have to figure out how to sort it out in my head where it's like I'm rooting for Gabe, but I still can't stand Miami. But it would be one of those things. But wherever you go, I'm gonna be rooting for you because it was hard not to get attached to your story in the duck. I really appreciate that for real. It means a lot. And if I do get a chance with Miami,

I'm gonna get assigned Jersey for you. You're gonna have to rock that one time. I'll wear it. If that happens, I'll wear it on a podcast. Good luck. And thanks for being in the film you did you were great in it and uh we really appreciate all the time it's not that fun to get filmed by a crew all the time but i thought you did a great job no thank you so much i

appreciate you guys giving me that opportunity it's definitely been a blessing and it's been nice to meet you for sure all right good luck all. Thank you so much. All right. I'm here with Zoe Simmons, my daughter. She's going to college in a couple of weeks. I had to watch the first couple episodes of the OC because it's the 20th anniversary and we were doing some stuff on the Prestige TV podcast about it, which you can listen to. It's already up. And we started watching as a family and you hadn't really seen it. You watched a couple episodes when you were little, but it came out two years before you were born.

And much to my surprise and delight, you loved the show and kept watching it. So what did you like? Why did you like it? I don't understand why that's your surprise. Because you get weird about things that, anything previous to the last 10 years, you're like, that's too dated. That's totally untrue.

Every single one of my favorite rom-com movies and TV shows are from 10 years ago because TV was just better back then. This show is a huge example of that. I can think of 100 examples of me trying to get you to watch something from the 80s or 90s. This is too old. This is too dated. But this show, the reason I loved it so much is because it's just pure teenage chaos like there's no ulterior plot line that's going on it's literally just following teenagers by the way great actors and actresses i mean marissa is not the best and neither is um our main character ryan ryan they'rece and Ryan. They're pretty awful.

But other than them, like the acting is pure and it's actually accurate. Like it seems like this is the way that they would talk. Whereas TV shows nowadays, like it's just not like that. Everything is so thought over.

Yeah. One of the things is it's a super simple premise, right? Yeah. Outsider moves into, gets adopted by a family. The cute girl that he falls in love with immediately lives right next door. Yeah.

Whose dad was also involved once upon a times with his new stepmom. So you have all these interspersed things already. Yeah, exactly. But it's just the way that they interact is like fantastic. But we don't have stuff like, I don't know, Marissa has supernatural powers. Yeah, that's what we were saying. It's like shows nowadays,

they're doing too much where there has to be so many different elements because they think that that's how the audience is going to be interested in the show. Right. When in reality,

it's like people like me and my friends, we want to watch a show that's easy to watch, but that's going to keep us entertained, which is the OC. It's like the plot lines are pretty simple, realistic to real life, but they're also done super well, not overdone. And it's like just the perfect amount of realism. So who is your favorite character? Who is the one that resonated with you the most? I really disliked Summer at first. And by the end of season one, she's easily my favorite

character as well as Seth. But I, she's easily my favorite character as well as Seth. But I think Seth is everyone's favorite character. Yeah. It became a Seth and Summer show as the show went on. Summer wasn't even in the credits in the first couple episodes. Yeah. I mean, she wasn't, I hated her. I think she's one of the best actresses on the show because she really did a great job making herself a villain at the beginning and being a horrible friend to Marissa, not taking care of her, leaving her outside when she was super drunk. Just that typical teenage girl selfishness trope. And then she kind of figured it out.

Trope. That's just the way she acted, but she figured it out. And she had the best character building throughout season one. And Marissa was the one that drove you the craziest because she just makes poor choices. She's like so oblivious to I just don't understand how she's so dumb. But in the beginning she's like you really think that she has a shot.

Yeah. And then time progresses and her dad and her stepmom break up and everything goes to shit. Did you feel like stuff was moving too fast? Because Because we were talking on the Prestige Pod about everything that happens in the first

basically three episodes leading to Ryan staying in the house would have been a season one of an Amazon show, right? I think that's the beauty of the show. Another flaw that goes on in nowadays TV it's like everything is so stretched out.

Any minuscule plot is made into like a 10-episode series. Whereas like they had the craziest shit happen in the first two to three episodes. And that, like you said, could have been a whole season in itself. I think the quick moving pace is what keeps you entertained because it's such a simple plot line and such a simple TV show.

If they weren't piling in all of these different things that are happening, you would lose interest pretty quick. All right. So Summer I Turned Pretty, which is a show you really liked season one on Amazon. Yes. And then season two, you didn't like as much. No, that's not true. I liked it. It's just- Well, you like everything. I like everything. I'm not a good judge here. But what, so that's like the two,

the typical 2023 show, right? They have all kinds of different, they have same sex relationships. They have all types of characters, all types of backgrounds. Yep. And it's like,

it's this montage of all these different people that are thrown together. And that's the show. Yeah. I mean, the summer I turned pretty, I love it because I read the books. That's really why I like it so much. But when I watch a show like The O.C. and then I try and compare it to The

Summer I Turned Pretty, they're incomparable. The O.C. is just so much better for a million different reasons. The Summer I Turned Pretty almost is so sketched out. Everything that happens, the acting is so apparent. It's just you don't feel any chemistry between any of the characters and maybe the oc had leverage there because summer and seth were dating in real life at the time so their chemistry was definitely apparent yeah but shows nowadays it's like everything is so scripted and they're just trying to shove in all of these different things in each like all these different types of characters where it's like you're doing a little bit too much here yeah just well outer banks is another one right yeah same thing where it's like there's too many different plot lines happening they're trying to make it too intricate

it's like when you stick with a simple plot line and then you do it really well that's a lot more entertaining than trying to follow a show that's just going haywire. Yeah. I wonder, I don't know when this went sideways. Yeah. I don't either. Cause the OC was basically the, the son of, of 90210, which was like the dominant teen drama of the nineties.

Yeah. But then mixed in a bunch of other elements from like eighties rom-com movie, you know, the high school movies and stuff like that. They were the pioneers. Yeah. And then it was kind of a collage of all those things. Yeah.

But I think the reason it worked over everything else was and we talked about this on prestige, but it like brought you into this world. Right. I don't know what I didn't really know anything about the OC, and I don't know if the OC is even like the world that they did. But you felt like you were Ryan. You were like the proxy. You go in. I'm in Newport Beach now what's going on here they're

having these fancy parties they do a really good job of of making you feel like the character because when we were watching the show I almost felt like I was being belittled by Luke when Ryan entered that party it's like I kind of felt shameful watching it because you were like so in such an alliance with every character because they really show you every piece of them that's what tv doesn't do nowadays where it's like you you don't feel connected to any character in any show at all stranger things had that stranger things is one of the only shows as of late that makes you feel like you're entering a world and that you're really connected which is why i love it so much but i feel like we should be able to do simple TV right. Like simple TV is just not done correctly anymore. I don't know what happened, but movies like How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and 13 Going on 30. It's like they really do a great. I don't know if actors were just better back then, but they just really do a great job of making you feel like a part of it. Well, that's why you like the blended and just go with the movies. And Adam Sandler, because he's a personable guy,

but I don't know what's going on with all these TV shows. They can really do them right. Like they have the basis. It's just the execution's bad. So you want a premise and then like four characters that you like. Yeah. And you're in some sort of spot and you're good to go.

And Stranger Things can even be said to be a little extra with all the stuff that they try and throw in there, but they do it so well that it doesn't even matter because there's like the overlying plot line of some of the characters that are in love with each other, like, um, Ellen,

Mike, and they kind of override everything else. It's a plot line in itself as, as well as them trying to fight all the monsters from the, um, upside down. But shows just don't – they don't know how to balance anymore. To be fair, so people don't think you're a dumbass, you also love Euphoria, which is like an incredibly complicated show. Yeah.

And it's completely different than any of these shows. Yeah. I'm talking about like OC types of shows that just don't do it right. Because Euphoria is a whole different thing in itself but i wonder like oc i did feel the oc felt like in the early mid-2000s it was capturing some sort of rich california culture at least a little bit like the party culture yeah it does it does everything correctly that's why i like it so much because i'm like this is exactly how it is and nowadays it's it's different because everyone tries to commercialize everything that we do.

Like when you go to a party, you're paying at the front door. There's people taking pictures. Like it's not as wholesome. That's in LA. I don't know if that's everywhere. OC is pretty LA. Yeah. But it's just like it captures this wholesome moment right before everything changed and

technology took over of like people just interacting in teenagers dealing with teenager stuff and it feels like a cleanse like a wholesome experience to watch because i wish that my teenage years were were like that more you wish they were like that but i i like the vibe of it you you would have settled for more like the 90210 where there was like a peach pit to go to every day and people had mega burgers and yeah just like the simple the simple life that they live where it's like they're oblivious to every other bad thing going on in the world it's like life isn't simple anymore the technology is taking over everything and you guys your generation is so aware of every single thing now yeah probably for better or mostly worse yeah but oc is OC is just wholesome. I love it.

I really do. No phones? Like did that jump out at you? Well, they do use phones every now and then. Right. But not like now. Yeah. It's so apparent that it's just different.

It's like there's a whole different energy because you never know what your plans are going to be in the OC. It's like by word of mouth or you hear what's going on and then like you follow that. It's like not everything of mouth or you hear what's going on and then like you follow that it's like not everything is so planned out like life feels so planned out nowadays it's like you you know exactly what you're doing where you're going how it's going to go where everyone else is it's like there's no mystery anymore which is kind of what's so special about the oc so your favorite episodes tijuana want to talk about that one Yeah let's talk about Tijuana

Tijuana That was great Did you ever have friends That went to Mexico And didn't tell their parents No Absolutely not Especially like

My friends are pretty wary Like very cautious I'm not so cautious I'd probably be the friend That would go But like what Have you ever heard of anyone Doing that though

No never But that episode is fantastic From beginning to end where summer and seth are having their arguments whole way through crash the car i have to stay in some shitty motel in tijuana yeah and somehow summer and marissa didn't share a bed and decided to sleep with the boys like seth just paired off with summer and marissa paired off with Ryan. It's like you easily could have shared a bed, especially because Marissa's in a fake relationship, which she soon finds out she's getting cheated on.

But needless to say, they didn't have to do that. There's just so many funny things here that they just do and we just let it happen because it's the OC. Did you notice how the music, about halfway through the season, the music became super important? Not the theme song you notice how the music about halfway through the season the music became super important not the theme song but like just the music from that era because we did a

piece we did a piece on the ringer about they hired kind of the music coordinator after the first seven oh really and all these that it was actually getting real now and they're like this is successful well and they and all these bands from that era are all popping in there, leading to the Rooney episode, which was pretty famous. Oh, yeah, that was cool. Looks like Rooney! And then season two, like the Killers

and The Watchmen, all these. Rest in peace, Luke's character, by the way. I don't know why they had to ruin him, but that was probably the saddest part of this show for me. Well, that was one of the weird things about the OC. We talked about how slow everything goes now with the with your generation of tv shows they were racing through plots yeah and characters to the point that like they had nowhere to go with luke 19 episodes in luke was

a good actor and a good character totally could have kept that persona up and they just took away all of his guns and now he's like this just this guy that's like a part of their friend group. It's like, I felt like towards the end of season one, it was no longer a show where we were looking at the entire OC where it's like that hooker character that was trying to get with Luke when Marissa wasn't there, Holly,

all of Marissa and Summer's other friends, like all these other elements were a part of the show where they'd be going to these parties and then everything zeroed in on the center four characters towards the end of season one, which I kind of missed it being like the entire spectacle rather than just the four of them. I agree with you.

I think they probably didn't have enough money to have that many characters. Yeah. Because one of the big mistakes they made, they kind of botched the Anna character who you hated. Oh, I hated her. But was a good character. I actually liked her towards the end.

But they botched her and Luke, and then they replaced them at the start of the second season with the redhead who turns out to be Caleb's illegitimate daughter. Yeah, she was like, what's going on there? And then the comic book guy who becomes Seth's. Oh, yeah, Summer's new boyfriend. Yeah, who's kind of like handsomer Seth or just like I don't know yeah whatever it is and then the Olivia Wilde character who's actually great that was my favorite character

which character is that the one who worked at the bait shop the the one that got pregnant with Ryan's baby no no the one because she's my least favorite character we're hands and we don't even know she ruined that whole end of that season for me her and the oliver character that was yeah oh my god marissa i almost threw something at at the tv screen because i was watching that i've had a i had a boy i've been in relationships before i've still sort of been one but i know how it is having a boyfriend and like marissa is just crossing every single line and then not being apologetic whatsoever and i'm watching this like how is this possible how is she getting mad at ryan for this guy that she just met yeah that she's like trying

to take under her wing for some reason sleeping over at his house like she knows deep down that he has some malicious plan towards her and she's still like choosing him over Ryan. Like that whole plot just made me really angry. It was funny knowing that plot was coming, knowing you didn't know about it. Yeah. And that Oliver character

was one of the most polarizing characters of all time. Oh my God, he's so hateful. That guy's a great actor. Yeah. He was truly fantastic in that role. But it was just like another moment where it's like, how is Marissa so oblivious? But that's the thing with shows like that from that era. They had so many episodes.

I mean, they had 27 episodes first season. Yeah. And they're long episodes. They're like an hour at least. So they have to come up with like, all right, we need to do something for the next three. They did a great job at it. I mean, it made me super angry. Like they did that.

No, Oliver's bad. Don't defend the Oliver character. I hate Oliver, but he was a good actor. And then they threw that dumb pregnancy thing. Oh, that was the worst. Like, honestly, they did not have to. There were so many plot holes there. It's like she didn't get a paternity test.

God knows if this is Ryan's baby or her other abusive ex-boyfriend. But it's like then he drops everything. He drops this new amazing life that he has to go be with her and she's angry with him for not coming to one like doctor's appointment when he's been to every single other one he's busting his ass at the construction site it's like he had a great life and she kind of pulled him back out of it and then was angry at him for for not like being super stoked to be a father at 17 it was like like, what's going on here? Yeah, that was great. So respect to the team for making her tell him that the baby died.

When you're writing that many episodes, and then you're like, all right, let's go down this road. And then you kind of can't unwind it once you start. Yeah, because it added a whole dark element to the show where it's like this show is just an easy watch where it's dark elements, but they're not so dark. You know what I'm saying?

Well, I'll tell you this. It did lead to the great season finale of the Jeff Buckley song. Oh, that was fantastic. That's one of the best. Oh, so great. Best montage. Seth just sailing along the ocean in probably the smallest sailboat I've ever seen. I don't know how he didn't capsize.

Actually, he ended up capsizing. I think he did. He did before he got to Oregon. Yeah. But that was fantastic. Him standing up looking solemnly. It was great. Everything about that finale was fantastic.

I also liked the parent characters, which as I watched it this time around, I identified more with the parent side, obviously, than the kid side. I was kind of in between the first time around, but I thought they did a really good job with the parent side, obviously, than the kid side. I was kind of in between the first time around. But I thought they did a really good job with the Coens, which as you keep watching, you'll be mad about what happens with them. Oh, no.

They were a really good kind of 21st century married couple. I don't feel like they try to do stuff like that anymore. They showed that they loved each other too, which was nice. That it's like, they really had a family dynamic. It's like every time Marissa would sporadically show up to their house to see Ryan in the morning, and they'd be like crowded around the counter eating bagels. It's like a bunch of wholesome family moments where it's like,

they're probably didn't exist that much, but I would say we're a pretty wholesome, happy happy family but not a lot of families are like that so it's kind of nice to see that they put that on television i think my favorite episodes in the rewatch other than the first seven were the thanksgiving episode yep except seth i mean seth is just seth is so good in the thanksgiving episode he's so great his humor is just the best he's Seth is so good in the Thanksgiving episode. He's so great. His humor is just the best. He's so funny and dry. His dry humor is great. I really love that character.

We had Adam Sepinwall, who's a really respected TV writer, talking about, because he's writing a book. There's this book that's coming out about the OC. And the question was, why didn't Adam Brody, the guy who played Seth, become like a massive actor? Yeah. And one of the reasons was

they filmed so many episodes that first season, he didn't have time to go film a movie and like leverage his fame. He was just immediately doing season two. Yeah.

He kind of missed the window. That was like a mess up by his agent. Well, now in the 2020s... Nowadays, he would have been two episodes in and there would have been a movie already that he was starring in. Yeah, he would have been two episodes in and there would have been a movie already that he was starring in.

He would have been like Jacob Elordi. Yeah. He would have been doing whatever that thing was. He was great. He's a great actor. Yeah. But he's married to the lady that played, what's her name in Gossip Girl, right? Leighton Meester.

Yeah. Yeah. She's super cute. She kind of looks like Summer. Some drama there. So I thought that episode was great. Yeah. some drama there so i thought that episode was great and uh i love the episode where they go to the valley that show the valley oh yeah with paris hilton yeah when paris hilton was hitting on um

seth as if that could ever ever happen it's like he's the youngest looking guy in this club and she's going to walk up to him and then summer's gonna get mad and pull him away like there's no way that'd be happening. He'd be working on that relationship for the next however many hours they're there. And then Marissa sneaking back into the club after they're kicked out. Pretending like Ryan's a main character or whatever. I mean everything about that episode is perfect. It's very meta.

You know what meta means, right? No, I don't. Meta means when a show like that where they're making fun of themselves with the plot. Yeah. So they use that valley thing. That's respectable. Yeah, they use the valley thing and it's a lot of stuff like the actors talking about, oh, I heard he always improvises.

Because they're basically saying that because the guy who played Seth was famous for like he would go off the script and drive everyone crazy. That's what he would do? Do lines. So there was a lot of like would go off the script and drive everyone crazy. That's what he would do. Do lines. So there was a lot of like hidden stuff about the actual show in that show. It's just really smart. Yeah.

I like the Vegas episode too, because that was kind of that era when Vegas was becoming a thing. Right. And they captured it. When Cal and Julie are having their separate bachelor and bachelorette parties. Yeah, it was a good one.

So, all right, here's my final question. Why couldn't a show like this happen now? You think it's impossible? I think it's impossible. I think that if they tried to do it, I don't know if TV writers just aren't as good anymore. Yeah. But there's like no,

I'm trying to find the word and I can't find it. It's like TV back then, it was so organic. It's like everything was so true to life and it was easy and no one was trying too hard. It's like in all these shows, everyone's trying too hard. They're putting too many elements into the plot where it's like, this is not realistic. You feel disconnected. It's like you can't just make a show. And also the characters just aren't likable anymore in TV. Like they did a really good job of making you

super enthralled with every single character on the OC because they showed you every element of who that person was. And then you feel like you knew them. They don't do that on TV anymore. They don't put the effort in. I sat next to you for a Summer I Turned Pretty episode. And you were like, what is going on here? I hated literally everyone on the show. I know. There was a car ride and they were yelling at each other. And I'm like, what is this? It's bad acting. It's so scripted. It's not organic at all. It just it feels like you're watching like a TikTok series and not an actual TV show. And that's one of the biggest shows on Amazon right now. But it's like the euphoria, going back to that,

even though that show is so crazy, Sam Levinson does such a good job on actually connecting you to characters and making it a real serious deal. And by the way, rest in peace to Angus Cloud. That ruined my week. So all love to his family. I'm super sad about that.

So your favorite shows right now that are current shows? Euphoria, which is probably never happening again. I don't even think they're going to make it again. I don't know what's going on there. Stranger Things, for sure. Stranger Things, which is during the writer's strike. They can't even finish. So that's going to be a while.

Honestly, ruining my summer right now. And then what else? I mean, the OC has to be up there. So you have to finish the OC. I have to finish the OC. I have to finish the OC. It's a rollercoaster ride. Season three is not great. There's a few shows that I like,

but OC is definitely at the top of the list at the moment. So I can't get you to watch the first two seasons of Melrose Place. That's too far back. I don't know. What about the first season of Friends? I'm trying to figure out how far I can send you back. I don't know why I don't like Friends.

Every time I've tried to watch it, and I love Jennifer Aniston. She's probably my can send you back. I don't know why I don't like Friends. Every time I've tried to watch it, and I love Jennifer Aniston. She's probably my favorite actress. Yeah. I can't. I just don't like it. Seinfeld, I can watch Seinfeld, but only for a few episodes. Larry David should make a new TV show.

Well, Curb's coming out. Yeah, but like a new, new one. He just needs to start directing different shows again. I love him. You like the first season of Gossip Girl. Yeah. I'm trying to think of- You didn't like Dawson's Creek.

What else I've liked? I love the Carrie Diaries. That show's great. I'm going to probably rewatch that because I haven't watched it in a few years. But that's like a show that's actually good. We had to stop you from watching Grey's Anatomy. Yeah, but I got through 16 seasons, so you didn't do quite a good job. When you started moping around.

That was during COVID. It was a dark time. It really was. I was like, let's just watch people dying every single day. You're watching five episodes a day feeling bad for yourself. Yeah. I'm trying to think of what else there's been. It's rough. They just need to

start making new TV. Good TV. I been it's rough they just need to start making new tv good tv i know it's hard right now because of the writer's strike but hopefully the writer's strike will end soon maybe they can make some good let's get it back going any thoughts about going to college before we leave um definitely nervous about it but we'll see what happens i think it'll be a fun time once i'm there although a few of my friends who went to college last year who are returning sophomores have said that the first few months are really hard. But I think I'll be fine. Are you excited to have a new roommate? A new roommate called Popadoc Simmons?

That's going to be super awesome. So you're throwing yourself into a Celtics season? Oh, yeah. I'm excited about that. Jason Tatum, if you hear this, you know where I live. Hey, no, no, Jason. I'm 18 now. He's doing great.

I could be a really good stepmom for Deuce. Stay away. I love Deuce. Stay away, Jason Tatum. All right. Zoe Simmons, thanks for weighing in on your TV thoughts. All right. That's it for part one. Don't forget about the 300th Rewatchables film, National Lampoon's Vacation coming Monday night. Don't forget about Destination NBA,

a G League odyssey premiering on Prime Video Tuesday, August 8th. And don't forget about me and Rosillo doing part two with a gimmick that both of us were super excited about. So that's coming later on Sunday night. Thanks to Isaiah Blakely for producing. Thanks to Steve Cerruti as well. And I'll see you in a few hours on the part two. On the wayside, I'm a bruised soul, I never want to say I don't have feelings within. On the wayside, I'm a bruised soul, I never want to say I don't have feelings within. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit Fando.com slash RG in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, or Virginia 1-800-NEXT-STEP or

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