The Bill Simmons Podcast - Part 2: Unlucky Embiid, Suns-Mavs, and a State of Sports Media Check-In With Ryen Russillo and Bryan Curtis

Episode Date: May 2, 2022

In Part 2 of a two-part podcast, The Ringer’s Bill Simmons talks with Ryen Russillo about the Heat-76ers Round 2 matchup (1:04), and the Suns-Mavericks series (18:28). Then, Bill and Ryen are joined by Bryan Curtis to discuss sports media aggregators, how media can better cover sports, voting for season awards, athlete-media relations, the best sports announcers, and more (24:20). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Ryen Russillo and Bryan Curtis Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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beginning of Miller time. Miller Lite is the light beer with all the great beer tastes we like. 90 calories per 355 mil can. So why not grab some Miller Lites today? Your game time tastes like Miller time. Must be legal drinking age. 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. I think the Chargers are going to be good. I think Seattle's going to be good. And then trying to back

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broke down Golden State Memphis. We broke down Celtics Bucks. That one hurt. Did a Minnesota post-mortem. This is part two. Brian Curtis is going to be joining us a little bit later. Ryan Russo here at the top with me. First, again, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, for part two, we're going to talk about the two playoff series that are coming on Monday, and then we're going to take a break and bring in Brian Curtis. Miami, Philly, Phoenix, Dallas. Looking at this Miami, Philly. First of all, we haven't talked about Embiid yet.

I really like Embiid. I think I get the saddest if you're breaking down like guys getting injured, you hate seeing anyone injured. But for Embiid, it feels like the guy just can't catch a break dating back to the 2014 draft when he gets hurt basically in the weeks before

the actual draft when it seemed like he was going to be the first pick. All of a sudden he gets hurt. Bad break after bad break. Drozd's a short straw with Ben Simmons. The Kawhi bounce. He had all these different injuries. Seems like he was coming out of them. Hurts his thumb in round one and then gets elbowed in the face

at the tail end of this game that was already a blowout. And, you know, I was starting to talk myself into them maybe being frisky in that Miami series, Rusillo. I heard Jeff Van Gundy on Zach Lowe's pod and he picked Philly.

He thought it was just a bad matchup for Miami. I was kind of mentally starting to go at least like, I'm not betting on Miami in this series. I don't know what's going to happen. So now it looks like Embiid's going to miss at least the first two games. He's going to have the mask on. You and I have both broken our orbital bones. This isn't like a pulled hamstring. This is not just like your face feels like it's broken, but it changes just how you feel about being aggressive, being around flying elbows, being around just basically anything.

It's just in the back of your head. He's already had this injury before. So I don't want to write them off, but I think this is a really bad one. And I think they have to steal either game one or game two because of Harden. I don't see them being able to beat Philly, Miami four out of five.

I was bummed. What was your reaction when you heard what's your reaction now? Really bummed. I mean, through all the bullshit of all the MVP stuff, I think what kind of lost in it is that, you know, yes,

there are certain guys that are like, eh, I don't really love that guy. I'm sure most of the audience could get 10 out of 10 if they tried to pick, like, do these guys like this guy? Do they not like this guy? I've always liked Embiid. I really have, even when I wasn't sure.

And when you think about the start of a career, missing the first two seasons of playing 31 games and the minutes restriction in your third year, that's usually not the start to some great story for an athlete. Although I think there were other circumstances with Henke just basically saying it's even better if we tank by not playing you guys right away. Right. Which I always thought was a really good point by you,

where is this the tone you want to set for your franchise? It wasn't an absolute. And with Embiid, it didn't mean anything. And in a weird way, I don't want to spend a ton of time on Simmons. It may have set the stage for a Simmons being like, Oh,

you know, you just kind of sort of hang out. So my free throws don't matter? Okay, cool. Nothing really matters. You know what's crazy? Go back and look at Simmons and some of the usage and shooting stuff from his first year. I think he was 70% free throws.

Like he actually has gotten so much worse in some things. Anyway, this isn't about Simmons. It's about Embiid. The point is that this isn't even like an Embiid injury. You know, this isn't one of those things like, oh, this guy can't stay healthy. The thumb thing, I think you could tell he was still going to be able to play through it. And whenever we see the title of the injury, we don't know because it's really about the person. And we don't know the magnitude.

The orbital bone thing, I'll never forget. Like those first few days, I couldn't do anything. Like I couldn't look left to right. It hurt so bad. It was like to right it hurt so bad it was like something was in my eye and it was like a pulled muscle every time did you have the surgery or no because i had to have the surgery because like the bottom part of my eyeball was a little bit trapped okay so he was like it's broken in three places and he goes if this were the south because medicine is a business no matter what it's like we put you under tonight and you'd be in surgery.

Yeah. He goes, it's going to heal. It's going to hurt like shit for about a week. He goes, but it is going to heal you young. He goes, the only thing is your eye may settle back into your eye socket more as you get older, and it's going to look a little different than the other eyeball. He's like, but it's not like you're going to be. And then he goes, it's not like you're going to be on TV or anything.

And I went, eh. I not like you're going to be. And then he goes, it's not like you're gonna be on TV or anything. And I went, I go, we don't know that. Don't put limits on me. Yeah, exactly. And by the way, there was no indication I was going to be in front of anything. So I'm like, yeah, we're both the rational confidence guys. Absolutely. I'm 23. I've got nothing. You're like, wait, don't you realize I'm hosting PTI in 10 years. That feels a little specific for a joke. It'll be like you said, it'll be kind of getting over worrying about it, which I think he

will because he's so much more massive than everybody else. Who'll have the mask on, right? They'll have some awesome mask that even if he gets hit in there, but still... It's not great. It's not great, Bob. Not ideal. And then we don't know about the eyesight and all that stuff and he's already banged up and

you're playing this team that's going to be super physical with them because they're going to know. They're smart. And it's a bummer. I pinpointed the time when I really fell in basketball love with Embiid Even though he's on Ostensibly a rival to the Celtics But his reaction when Kawhi's shot went in

When he just immediately Broke down and started crying on the court I absolutely loved that I loved how much he cared You see these guys Deep down you're like, do you care? And I don't know why I care as a

basketball fan. If these guys care, I shouldn't, especially I'm fucking old at this point. But like, I just love that to me, it's like the fact that he cared that much. I was like, all right, this guy's going to be all right if he could just stay healthy. And I think what's happened with him the last two years, I don't think it's surprising based on just how much he wanted to win that series. It's like, I weirdly think that stuff matters, you know? And in general, like I do feel like he checked all the boxes.

He even got an awesome shape this year. And you know, the way they played that second half till he got hurt, I didn't think Philly had that in them. They ran Toronto off the court in a game. That was a one point game at halftime. And you think like, were they building a foundation or something?

Harden was spring year. It felt like then he wasn't a while. And then they had that maxi wildcard piece. When he's going, they, they, they have the three guys going. It's kind of hard.

Um, I was getting ready to talk myself into them, but the moment's gone. Cause you know what else Embiid is? He's a guy, like, I'm with you. I really like him and him crying after the Toronto thing. And I just think it's just kind of the nastiness of social media. I'd imagine the majority of people, they like that, that he care,

instead of turning into like, hey, that guy cried because he's on the team. Right, loser. But I want him to have his playoff moment. You know, I want his stage to be on the second round here. Where with Simmons, I just felt like, okay, this is incredibly frustrating because you have this supposed, in theory, second star with you who's a little different and yet wants nothing to do with the moment. And then that leaves Embiid as a traditional big with your back to the basket,

even though he is so good at kind of facing and moving off of it. When you're that big and you've got these small guys flying around and double teaming you all the time it's it's hard for you i mean it's it's harder for that to to always be a successful move as six or chance will tell you like there's just a lot of possessions in there where it it feels like mb it's constantly balancing the i'm the guy force my will on somebody he's so good at reading the double and making the pass he's been great at it since college but it's like well i can't read it and and pass out of this every single time because then the guys on tnt are going to say that i'm not dominating enough i almost feel like i can see that with him in some of those moments so i want him personally at some point in his career to have that moment because i

think he's deserving of it and he is that dominant but um well it goes back to the windows thing you think like, oh, it'll happen if it's not this year, it'll happen next year. But we go through this all the time where it happens to a lot of guys. All of a sudden it's like, oh,

I guess that that was my window from 2018 and 2022 or 2019. That Toronto series to now, maybe that was the window. And then, you know, he's a bigger guy as a center. He's carrying a lot of weight and just how that ages over the years. So I hope I'm with you.

I hope he has a moment. Maybe it'll be this year. Maybe it's him throwing the mask on. If they can split one of these two series, which leads me to the second piece of this, which is the hardened piece. You know, you think like we've talked about hardens playoff history,

ad nauseum. It's actually, you have the sheet. I got my sheet. What's Harden's greatest playoff moment? I think we might have even done this on Book of Basketball and we might have decided it was, or maybe I did it with Zach, I can't remember,

but I feel like I answered this question in the past where it was the Spurs series in 2012 that got them into the finals when he just like demolished the Spurs for those two weeks. And we were like, oh, this guy's like Ginobili, but better. But other than that, like from a playoff standpoint, like they make the conference finals in 15, but he's on the bench as they're doing the big comeback. And then 2018, CP gets hurt in game five. Doesn't really happen then. He's had the ticket for the moment where they've given him the ticket

and they're like, here it is. Here's your ticket. There's your seat over there and he can't find his seat. 2019, another one, right? The rant gets hurt. They have a chance. They blow it at home.

But is there any chance, is there any chance that this could be his moment, finally? Well, if there's going to be somebody that's going to be used to in the beginning of the series, depending on what Embiid's status is, that's going to be okay and comfortable

and be like, hey, everything goes through you. I think he's done it enough. Right. Yeah, your usage rate is going to be 45 for these two games. It's all you, buddy. But I don't feel like the shooting is the same threat, and we know the rim stuff is not the same threat.

And the great thing, even though Houston just abandoned the center position entirely when they were trying to salvage the end of that Westbrook run in, what was it? It was the first COVID season. 20. 20. But what I always loved about him was when he and Capella had the lob thing and you were stuck in the middle and you just didn't know what to do,

you were helpless against him. And that, or he'd pitch it out to the corners. I mean, it worked. It was really good. It was really good offense over the course of a regular season. But I don't know, like, where's that option? What's that dive where's that option? What's that dive option that he has to go back to have you kind of guessing in the middle?

Because if there's one thing that Miami is going to figure out, even with their limitations with Lowry out of game one, wondering who Butler is after an injury, they might've just been super cautious because they were so just convinced that Atlanta, like, think about that. Like, yeah, we're not even worried about it in playoffs. They're going to, they're going to make it hard on him, man. This is a team they're not going to screw up. Like, Spolster's so good at coming up with a plan

and it'll change the plan. So this just isn't going to be easy for obvious reasons, personnel-wise. But then he's going up against arguably the best coach in the NBA. He's like, okay, well, if you want to go all hard and high usage thing,

we're going to come up with stuff like game-to-game that will be like, okay, we'll give you this. But then you have, you have bam on top of everything else. So it's not even some big that you want to switch into. And that's the biggest thing. Like when you'll see somebody playing Miami, sometimes you go, I know you want to do these one five switches, but you actually don't want to do it with them. I'm shocked by how little he shot the ball for them. He's really been more of a true passer than anything.

In that playoff series, six games, he took 12 shots, 11, 17, 13, 9, 17. And even if you go back to when Philly acquired him, did he have a 20-shot game on

Philly? No, he didn't. So he really kind of reinvented himself. Now, I don't know if he did it because he felt like he was physically slipping. I think the Maxie part of it is it's a good Harden sign that he goes, all right, I'm good.

Let's get you going. And the slashing kick stuff has been pretty good, especially when Green's making shots. But they were short anyway. I mean, they were basically playing a seven-and-a-half man rotation with Embiid. So now you're talking six-and-a-half. You said something, though, in the beginning.

I thought that third quarter in game six against Toronto was awesome. That started to actually give me a little hope. Like, oh, okay. Me too. You know, what do we have? And that was a Toronto team that was all of a sudden getting fits. We all knew the kind of like,

imagine a game seven back in Philadelphia with that team if they had gotten off to a bad start with Doc and Harden's history and the only team like to potentially

be the first team to ever blow a 3-0 lead in a series in the NBA. Yeah. And then the third quarter. Right. Third quarter, it's like,

nope, we're not doing that. The mystifying thing was how they rolled over in game five and just didn't really seem that interested to be there. And then game six, you know, for whatever reason, they rallied. Maxie's the key.

I think Harden, whatever, let's pencil in the best-case scenario Harden series, and it's like 25-10-10. It's still not going to be enough. So it'll be this Maxie piece where it's like, Maxie, one game, you look awesome. The next game, I don't even realize you're on the court. He's, he's really streaky in a way that, um, I guess it's just cause he's young. I don't think he'll be like that three years from now, but is there a, is there a heart in Maxie one, two, spread the floor, just try to hunt

different Miami guys version of them that you could see? I personally don't feel like they have enough guys. Okay, but this is where the conversation should shift into what do you think of Miami? And I think we have a lot of respect for them. Butler had some really good rim and free throw rate numbers against Atlanta. I don't take the Atlanta part of this all that seriously. It feels a little like Milwaukee, Chicago because you go, all right, you're supposed to beat them. They were dominant.

They had a great game plan. I absolutely love Bam. The Lowry piece is crazy that they can find a way to kind of get through it. But to be their best, they still need him because Lowry just makes the right play all the time and is very interchangeable. But this reminds me, the conversation about Miami reminds me a bit of my NFL conversation about the Titans, where I'm going, man, the Titans are a one seed. The Titans are the one seed. And the whole time I'm like, this is one of the worst one seeds we ever had, which feels entirely disrespectful.

If you're a Titans fan, you go, hey, guess what? Somebody has to be one of the weaker one seeds every now and then. And unfortunately, that's your case. And I look at Miami and I can say positive things. I can be impressed. But they're also not this historically dominant one seed that everybody should be afraid of. They're 53 and 29. They were, let me see here, sixth in point differential in the regular season at plus

4.4 points. And if you look at this historically, let's go back the last, I don't know, 15, 16 years. I've got it up here now. This might be a little outdated, but the numbers are still accurate. NBA champions by point differential, the only teams below that number at 4.4 are the Heat in 2006. That was a fluke because Wade turned into another guy near the end of that season. Right. And then the Mavericks in 2011 were a plus 4.2. Doesn't mean everything, but this isn't some 60-65 win team.

Heat may still win the East, all right? They still could do it. I don't think they're going to beat Giannis, but you can be accurate. What doesn't mean dismissive, but it's also really factoring in like, okay, who are the Sixers playing? Can they split those first two? Knowing this is not some all-time regular season team they're going up against, because despite being the one seed in Miami,

they're not, I don't, I mean, am I wrong here? They're not some team that's like, oh my, how the hell are we going to beat those guys? I don't like the unreliability of their best players. Now, Bam had a legit injury and he's back and he's Bam again. But the Butler, like, why didn't Butler play in game five? I still haven't heard, like, an awesome answer for that.

Lowry's been up and down all year, and he's old. Older. And that's the part that worries me, is am I sure that this team can last three more rounds from a health standpoint? I don't know. Also, it's one of those teams where I watch them and I can't figure out who their best five is, which always makes me nervous

when we start getting to round two range. Who's their best five? Well, he said it's his knee and it was just being nicked up. And I still think it has a lot to do with whatever was happening with their lack of respect against Miami. But the Oladipo part of it's weird too

because he actually only played in two of those games and then yeah and then they're running like the one four with him and he's all of a sudden he's starting to look like oladipo again it's it my point is it's a team that seems like it's in a little bit of flux even though they had this record and they have home court and all this stuff so you can get them but you know if i'm miami i'm just like, let's take care of these first two games. That's it. They're not going to beat us four or five, no matter what kind of health we're in. So it's not good enough. Philly's not consistent enough to beat anybody four or five. I don't think so. Game one will be hard and just going toe to toe

with them. Max, it'd be the wild card. Paul Reed. Do you have any Paul Reed stock? A little bit. Sprinkling. I think we all like them. Never seen him in a real spot. Yeah, we'll see. All right. We're going to take a break.

We'll come back and quickly do Phoenix Dallas. Then we'll bring in Brad Curtis. 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 mental health, suicide prevention, and prostate and testicular cancer research. And if you don't want to grow a mustache, you could still walk or run 60 kilometers, host an event, or set your own goal and mow your own way. Do great things this November. Sign up now. Just search Movember. All right, Phoenix, Dallas. I just don't

like this matchup for Dallas at all. And I've looked at it for three days. And I weirdly think Phoenix is still underrated. Because I think New Orleans threw some punches at them and looked pretty good and looked like a real competitor to them. And it's thrown people off the scent. You even look at the line. Phoenix is 3-1 in this series. I don't know. They win 80% of their games.

So I think if I'm Dallas, this is a terrible matchup from a Lucas standpoint because they have so many guys to throw at them. From Brunson's standpoint, the stats of Brunson against them during this year are not great. The Chris Paul, the execution piece of this from the execution we saw from Dallas, especially like in game four, game six in Utah, where they just get super stagnant and just seem like they've watched a whole bunch of Kobe highlights from the 2000s

of what to do. And, you know, you've tried to get like the game winning shot so that can be on a YouTube clip. I don't like the plays they run at all. I don't get it. I don't know why they put Luka in that position. And I just think Phoenix can out-execute them. I went from thinking Dallas had a real chance, especially if Booker wasn't healthy. I think Booker is going to be fine, and I don't think they have

a real chance. I think this is a Phoenix series. But I do think the Brunson part of it, what we saw in his best moments when Luka missed the first three, before it felt like Luka in the playoffs moments when Luca missed the first three, you know, it, before it felt like Luke in the playoffs and it's insane what he does statistically in these series. Like the fact that these Clippers series in the past,

like every time I kind of peek it back at those numbers, I go, I can't believe what this guy did. Um, maybe I should, I mean, because we all realize how special he is, but at least before it would be like Donchich is like trying and then it's

okay. I give up. You guys do something. They have a different attacker now with how much better Jalen has been. So I think that's real. I think. And a little Dinwiddie too. He can at least,

you know, you can run a couple of things with him to keep the offense going. I think the Finney Smith part of it, like he's, he's a real guy now. And what Kleber did shooting wise, I think will be the key of, are you going to be able to pull eight in a way? Cause you actually, I don't think you want to run switches or Donchich into eight.

I I'd argue like eight is better than go bear his mobility of showing on some of these perimeter guys and trying to stay in front of them. Um, more so than Rudy could. And the Kleber dynamic of his shooting being so great against Utah, like, how are they going to try to find a way to bring him out? Uh, because even if Bridges starts on Donchess, they're just going to screen it.

And then it's going to be who they're looking for. Are they going to prescreen stuff? Is it going to be looking to try to attack Chris Paul? I think Crowder at least can hold up physically. He's going to get a million fouls called on him. Probably. Um, you know,

I don't know what else they're going to try to throw at him, but I know that my hard and fast rule on this is I really don't like teams with the profile of the high usage one guy, and right now Donchus has the highest usage rate of any players through the first round of the playoffs, which is not surprising because he's kind of that guy. I just don't really like those teams, especially against a team this good in Phoenix. If it was a different team, maybe, because he feels like a superhero in some games. But that's a lot to ask,

even if they have more balance than they've had before. It's one of my favorite Rosillo-isms because you did all the work and the high usage guys, at some point it peters out and it could be round two, round three, whatever. But at some point, when you see it over and over again for two weeks,

we talked about this a lot a couple years ago. I did 20 seasons. Yeah, I did 20 seasons of the highest usage guys in modern times, and the playoff profile is abysmal. It's like one NBA Finals Iverson, one Western Conference Finals Harden at 18, and then it's all either early exits or not even making the playoffs. Right. And Iverson after 0-1,

which was a really strange season for the league in general. And Milwaukee was the best team in the East that year. The officiating in that series will go down in history. But in general, it's not a good recipe. And I just think Phoenix will be able to out-execute them. The problem with Dallas is when it gets the last three minutes, Luka's so freaking scary,

even when there's five seconds left of the shot clock and the play's falling apart, and now he's got the ball 32 feet from the basket. It still feels like he can get a good shot out of that. So he's certainly not fun to play against. Look, I think the Rudy thing is established. I mentioned on my podcast this week, this is six straight years

where the Jazz had the worst playoff defensive rating than regular season. Six straight years, the defense is just worse in the playoffs than the regular season. Although going back

to the elimination game where Dallas pulled it out, there's a few times where Rudy really held up. That's a lot to ask anybody that size, especially a guy like Donchich. So it's not like there's all these magical centers

that are great and switches against somebody like Donchich. Rudy held up on a lot of those possessions or these switches where they were hunting him. And Donchich is still

hitting the dumbest shots ever. So there's a couple of those games coming and it doesn't matter. Do you think that people are a little off of Phoenix, though, because it took them the six games

even with Booker being minimalized? Yeah. I think combo of Booker not 100%, and I just think New Orleans was, by the end of that series, a really good playoff team for what they were. When you think a lower seed that just shouldn't be able to throw haymakers like that, that team, they knew who they were. Phoenix figured it out.

They figured out how to hunt Jonas, all that stuff. But they just kept hanging around and they were really, really frisky. And in a weird way, it made Phoenix look less imposing than just having like, if you had Giannis on your team and Giannis would just like eviscerate them. Phoenix never really did that in that series. So, all right, we're going to bring in Brian Curtis. We're not going to take a break, but Kyle's going to do one of those cool swoosh noises. Star white. All right. Editor-at-large of The Ringer, Brian Curtis, is here. Brian, the mechanism of how stuff is getting disseminated now, people pulling excerpts from podcasts, people screenshotting things, or little short audio bites from a TV show without the whole context of the whole discussion. Where is this going and what is this going to mean

for the sports media game? It's gone somewhere when Draymond Green gets in on the act. Right. I came in today and I was like, now wait, did Draymond Green do a Google image shirts of Bill? And did he look up Bill's age? And then I realized, oh, wait a second. No, no, no. There was aggregation. And then Draymond Green aggregated that. And then I was looking at the third thing,

which was the aggregation of the so-called Simmons Draymond Green beef. Which isn't a beef. I actually really like Draymond Green. Listen, I think sometimes, especially when this stuff gets floored out, and the athletes, we've seen this over and over again, when the athletes wade into it, they don't have the time to actually research what happened, what were the nuance. They're just going to see. We saw this happen with LeBron. dad, he thought it was his dad was on the bullets, but he wasn't. And it became a thing for a couple hours where this guy got rigged through the coals because he didn't realize it wasn't Kevin Porter's son. And LeBron waited in and then realized he thought it was the guy who played on

the bullets and the pistons. And I think part of what happens, is it fair to say like people are just, they're scrolling through and they see stuff and it's framed a certain way. They just assume that was the factual thing that happened and then you react to it and then we're off. It's exactly what happens. And the rule I think should be for most of us that want to get it right is when you see a clip that says famous person said something to just take the five minutes and go back to the original clip. And I've been guilty of that too. And that's, I often feel the worst

when I jump on something and then I go back and say, wait a second, you know, maybe it was even something I didn't like, but it wasn't a nuclear level event. It was just like, you know, poor word choice, whatever, but you really should go back and just listen to the whole thing. Then if you're still mad, go for it. But I would say that heads off a whole bunch of them that are like that. Rocello, when did you become wary of this? Because you're doing live radio on ESPN for years and years. When did you start to become a little more wary of the tightrope element of it i did a segment about um i mean i did this happened to me so early in the process that it didn't mean i didn't avoid it in other times but

the first experience that i had with it was i was doing the old nba today podcast i was doing a segment on why you shouldn't really listen to any of us except for maybe me right and my point was that none of us watch your team as much as you watch your team. So when you see people that are on the air talking about how much they watch the games, like I work with these people and I don't think they watch as many games as they say they do.

Because I just can tell. I can tell immediately when somebody has or hasn't watched a game. And then I used a couple examples, including one with Skip Bayless. I was like, Skip Bayless once on first take said that he's watched every Chris Paul game going back to college.

And I was like, that's an insane thing to say to win an argument on a debate desk because there's no possible way that you would have been watching like Wake Chattanooga out of conference games. And then on top of that, catch everything that he had done to that point in his career. And it wasn't a slight at him. It was simply stating a fact that there was no way that that was true. But using the examples like we don't know your teams as well as you do. We have to know all the teams. We're supposed to know all the teams. A blogger took that and then used it as like the foundation of why Skip is terrible.

Now, I may think Skip's terrible for a million other reasons, but that wasn't really the move there. And so I remember I was doing a live radio show solo, which is hard enough as it was for me because I was doing it so infrequently. The patterns, I'd solo, not solo, not solo. And the reason I bring that up is that I was always kind of like, all right, am I doing this well today?

And then I get somebody running in during a commercial break being like, what did you just say about Skip Bayless? And I go, I have no idea what you're talking about. I just did a Miami Heat segment. And they're like, you just said something. PR's calling, they're freaking out. And I go, I seriously, and now you're running it back through your head as you're trying to mentally just said something PR is calling. They're freaking out. And I go, I seriously.

And now you're running it back to your head as you're trying to mentally prepare for your next solo segment, trying to revisit everything that you just said live on the radio. And I'm like, well, hey, and by the way, to anyone, don't ever do that to somebody who's on the air in a commercial break, because then it fucked me up for the rest hour and a half of the show. Now I'm going, did I slip up? Did I just criticize him? And it had nothing to do with it. It hadn't happened in the radio show. It was in the podcast. And the problem is by the game of telephone, by the time it had made it to me, there'd been so many mistakes made. And what ended up happening was this guy wrote this in the blog that wasn't even accurate about what I had said in the podcast. Skip got upset. He called PR and make sure that I got yelled at

by somebody. I did get yelled at for something that I actually never even really did. It was crazy. Brian, I go back to 2008. This is not a new thing of this, and I'm sure it even goes back before that, but I remember specifically, it was like the rise of the blogs, 2006, 2008. I did this, I think a local radio interview and they had asked me about Rick Riley. Remember, it was like right after he had signed with Sports Illustrated and people were all excited to whatever. And I had some, I had some comment in there, but I was really like trying to deflect it and I wasn't saying anything because there was some radio interview where they're trying to rope me into trouble. And I just, I think it was with Dennis and Callahan. And so some blogger. Yeah, it was awesome show.

It was great. I had a great time. But somebody took a piece of what I said and they pulled it, made a blog post out of it. And I was in, it was during the finals. I was in my hotel room in Boston and Skipper called me. And I was already, I had a couple of strikes already and somebody in

PR had just sent him the post of like, and it was like Simmons rips Riley, which isn't what happened at all. And he was just screaming. It was one of the only times he ever yelled at me. It's like, yeah, I told you blah, blah, blah, not to blow this. And I was like, I didn't do anything. So I went and I found the audio and actually mailed him the audio with the timestamp. I'm like, listen to this. This is what I said. And he was like, ah, that was fucked up. So I remember, so this is 15 years ago. And I remember thinking- Yeah, I mean, for me, go ahead. Sorry, Bill. No, I just, I remember thinking like, man, that was kind of fucked up. I almost like

really got in trouble because this guy pulled this one thing out of context because i on top of what happened to me i had one of the main producers of first take call me to motherfuck me and be like skips credibility is everything and without it he is not what he and i'm like what are you talking about and that by the way everybody that used to work on skip shows would just go out of the way and be like no no he absolutely believes all this stuff and be like just shut the fuck up shut the fuck up it's not true and he was screaming at me and i went okay all right fine whatever whatever and then he's like you're going to apologize to him and i was like i'm definitely not doing that and then that's it that's why we never you know we don't like each other well i think brian what's changed it seems like in the

2022 range is it's so much easier now to just either screenshot, cut a small piece of audio, whatever. And then what people do is they'll get the post up. They'll put the parties, anybody who might have an opinion or whatever, they'll put those person, they'll tag them in the tweet or the Instagram thing. And they're basically just hoping stuff happens. Yeah. And we're talking about like media feuds and media stuff here, feuds, quote unquote. But I'm looking yesterday at ESPN's main Twitter account, and they have Scotty Pippen shared his thoughts on why he never won defensive player of the year. And there's one quote that says, I think they were too busy watching Michael.

Yeah, I saw that. And there's nothing you can click on. There is, it does source it, but I'm like, did we learn something here about the obviously complicated Michael Scotty relationship? Or did we just get like a little beef mini pellet thrown out here? And, and again, this is the ESPN main account. Like what's the point of that? But the point is, you have to be a volume shooter in this business

and you're like, well, we can only show the Ja Morant dunk so many times, the Giannis dunk so many times. So here we go. Beef. Scotty Pippen and Michael Jordan, which we have revisited 9,000 times. Let's throw it up there.

You know, and look, this isn't like us complaining. This is just part of our job now. I'm not even complaining about it. I think we factored that in. It's why when we do podcasts and we've had TheRinger.com the last six years, stuff like that, you have to be careful

about what gets put out, which is why with the Jalen Green thing that I was involved with a couple weeks ago, I'm on a podcast with Waz and KFC. We're having a good time. So as I'm excitedly talking about Herb Jones, I'm like, yeah, fuck Jalen Green. And then it was pretty clear I was joking.

Like, Waz started laughing, and we were having a good time with it. And then I backtracked to say about how Jalen Green, like, he was really good. I really liked Jalen Green. I just valued the stuff Herb Jones did. I laid it out. You can hear it in the podcast. We didn't edit it out. But you know, when we finish these things, we always are like, could that have been a problem? Could that have been? That one, it was so clear what the tone was. We didn't think it was

a problem. And I honestly didn't even think about it again. And when somebody tried to make it a deal the next day, I immediately tweeted about it. I'm like, go listen to it again. And when somebody tried to make it a deal the next day, I immediately tweeted about it. I'm like, go listen to it. So I felt like the facts were on my side with it. And the Houston people tried to blow it up a little and get their traffic out of it, whatever. And then it kind of died down.

And then for some reason, it circled back last week. And then Draymond saw it. All he sees was media guy says, fuck Jalen Green. I don't blame him for reacting to that if he's not going to put in the time to actually listen to what I said, which I don't expect him to. He's in a playoff series. So anyway, I don't really know how stuff like this gets resolved other than, I guess, my hope would be for readers and listeners to at least put some thought into where this stuff comes from. You know, when they see it, just be like, is this the whole story?

Like, just keep your shit detector up, right? Isn't that like the only lesson we could have from this? Sure. I was going to ask you, does it give you sympathy for actual NBA players talking after games when the microscope is 9 billion times stronger? Yeah, I think that's why their interviews suck. What do you think, Priscilla? I think for the most part, everybody's so careful because they don't want to do bulletin board thing or have one sentence come out wrong that I think, I think in general, I think everybody's becoming more and more careful, like in ways that aren't necessarily good. Yeah, I know. Sometimes I'm like disarming my

own argument because I want to make sure somebody understands that I know the counter to it already, which I think can be good. But it also can be sort of like, hey, you could have done this in half the time. When I talk about, I'm not a huge politics guy, but when I think about politicians, because most of them, I'm just like, how can anybody be that excited about anybody that would talk to them? The industry demands that you talk the way they talk to us, right? But I think what we're talking about here is an example. It's the reason politicians talk to us the way that they talk to us, because we can't handle it any other way, right? dodging observations that are usually vague without much substance because they're trying to navigate all these different minefields, unless you just go so far one way or the other that you don't even care and everybody knows what they're signing up for.

So when I think of it that way, that I think the way we're spoken to is kind of our own fault. When I think of these breakouts, these clips, these work and are presented as such because it's what works. The way this stuff is fed to us is because it's the way we want to be fed. And it'd be great if everybody put the extra time in. I know as a talk show host, I would get it like the Pip and Jordan thing is a great example. Hey, show up to the radio show at ESPN, right? A couple hours before we go on the air. Hey, what do we got?

Producers throw out some ideas. You and your co-host are going over some things. You hear what Pippin said? And then I'm like, no, what did he say? He said that everybody would be like, this guy won't let it go. Fucking Pippin. All right, I'm going to bring up his stats. And then he's the one that wanted all this and whatever.

And boom, I got a seven, eight-minute segment. because i don't really want to know the rest of it because i already know what my segment's gonna be right the same way with draymond green with you gets to say hey i get to say fuck you to this old guy right well and then it ties into the players media stuff too which if a player goes after any media member, the people, you mentioned this on Jimmy Trainor's podcast, but so who are the, who are the fans rooting for players versus me? I wonder what side they're going to be on. So like Kyrie going,

all of these media members are puppets or the puppet masters, and they're doing this and they make money off the backs of athletes and on and on and on and on and on. Almost every fan is going to go, yeah, because you don't want to know what we do in the cycle of all of this is the least impressive of any of the things that are happening by far. Not even not even close, like a different conference. Yeah. Brian, I was subscribed to like when I think of like what our role is in this whole thing, it's like the old Max Mercy and the natural, right?

Like, yeah, I didn't play, but my job is to make it a little more fun to watch. What could, what could we do better? Like if I had to do the Jalen Green thing over again, I would just take it out. I would have, I would have been like, wait a second, that could be used the wrong way if people don't know the nuance of it. Cause I like Jalen Green, you know? And to me, it's like, I take my vote really seriously. The fact is I was vindicated by the Herb Jones thing in the playoffs the last two weeks. Like

he was fucking awesome, you know? And it's like, I think that was the right pick to have him in first team all rookie over Jalen Green. And all we had to do is pull out one sentence and then that does become a thing. But I also don't want this podcast or anybody else to just be so self-conscious the whole time that everything's just going to suck. So I don't really know what the line is. You would pull out the language,

F. Jalen Green, but not the take about Jalen Green on the All Rookie team. No, I would probably pull out, I don't know, because none of us flagged it in the moment because it was so clear that we were having fun with it. And it was clearly

like, I love Herb Jones so much. How dare anyone challenge him for that spot kind of thing, you know? I don't know that I would ever accuse you of not putting enough thought into postseason NBA awards. I'm like, Bill and Ryan are doing another segment on the NBA

third team. Can we get some NFL drafts in here? I know. It's my fault. It's one of my favorite things. What were you going to say, Ryan? But what you're talking about is, and look, you swore to Yai, who's really young, out of context. It sounds bad. It's not like Houston loves you before this.

Who does Houston love? Okay uh they don't like me um and it's very easy to go who's this who's this old guy you know saying this about a player it gets back to what we were just talking about stop calling me old i'm fucking young i've i've well i'm seeing it through the lens great shape i'm trying to see it through the lens of draymond did cryo today i know you're very excited about the cryo thing but great shape. I'm trying to see it through the lens of Draymond. I'm feeling fantastic. Did cryo today? I know. You're very excited about the cryo thing. But I'm looking, I'm trying to look at this through the lens of a Draymond and then especially a Jalen Green

who's like a couple years out of high school with this whole thing. So I I don't know. It's a really weird deal if you're asking like, hey, will we all try to speak in a way where we're avoiding these potential landmines because that seems impossible it also doesn't seem that fun well but the other thing is when we're doing this podcast

we're trying to make them sound conversational in the same way it would be if you were just hanging out on my couch and we're shooting the shit about the games like that that's also the goal every time that's backfired for me a couple of times. Yeah. But I don't, because then I think the other person would say, hey, just don't say shit like that about NBA players. Right. I don't. That's, I think, the right answer. But then I've seen Stephen A basically threaten guys on television. Like some of that stuff with durant got so weird remember that one when he like looked in the

camera for the iso was like you don't want to do this with me i mean maybe it's great theater but that's fucking weird like that was that was kind of weird so i don't know brian like i know people are entertained by it so it's not going to ever go away but curtis do you think do you think it's it plays off a little bit of of what Adam Silver had said recently going into this year where he was like, this is the most unhappy group of stars we've ever had. It's just the players are constantly unhappy. And so then when something happens where it's like, look how bad this is, then it becomes something else that maybe we just didn't have before we had social media. So I'll answer that with another story. I've been rereading Jack McCallum's book, seven seconds or less about the Suns from 05, 06.

And one of the funniest things about the book is that Charles Barkley is just trolling that Suns team on TNT. I mean, just trolling the shit out of them. You guys don't play defense. You'll never win in the playoffs. You know, pretty, pretty basic Barkley stuff. Did the same stuff to the Warriors too in the beginning, by the way. And they don't play defense. You'll never win in the playoffs. Pretty basic Barkley stuff. Did the same stuff to the Warriors too in the beginning, by the way, and they did defend. Same stuff. But in 2005, 2006, those guys can't do anything about it. They have no platform that

is remotely comparable to Charles Barkley's platform. Steve Nash is a two-time MVP in that book and he can't get online in the same way somebody can now and be like, dude, you're being a jerk and you're mad at the Suns because the Suns traded you to the Rockets. There's no way for that to go on without it being filtered through a newspaper, through SportsCenter, something like that. I just think, do we think Sean Marion or Steve Nash, probably not Nash, but Sean Marion, somebody on that team, Rajabell, wouldn't have gone on Twitter and be like, I have an opinion about this. You're wrong, just like Kevin Durant had last week. So are we sure it is this generation or does this generation just have the ability to do it?

No, it's the tools. It's the tools. We'll take a break. I want to continue on this. So when you talk about the tools, Brian, you were talking about before the break, that the tools everybody have to respond quickly and fast on stuff they don't like is probably the most efficient it's ever been. I remember one of the podcasts I did with KD, I think it was after the finals, the 17 or 18 finals.

And he was, we were talking about Kyrie, ironically, about what an amazing offensive player Kyrie was. And he said, I think Kyrie is the best little guy ever, the best little offensive scorer ever. I think he's better than Iverson.

The conversation was way more detailed and nuanced than that. But at some point he said he's better than Iverson. That the next day became this whole thing. KD says Kyrie is better than Iverson and it became this two day thing. And I was bummed out because we had a really good conversation about it. The real point of the conversation was Kyrie is this incredible offensive player who doesn't get enough respect for how talented he is and all the things he can do and just the attention that he pays to his game, which was what Durant was excitedly talking about. And then it got spun into this Iverson thing. So it happens to players all the time, and especially now that some of the players have podcasts, some of the players go on TV shows, things like that. And just in general, it's getting, we're heading toward a dangerous thing where I just want to make sure people consider the nuance of this stuff when they see things from people that they're used to either hearing from or they're used to watching or whatever. If something doesn't pass the smell test, at least like research it a tiny bit, right?

Is that too much to ask, Brian? I don't think it's too much to ask. No. I mean, is it going to happen? You know, not for everybody. It's not going to happen. Definitely not.

Look, there are things, Brian, I want you to take it from me, but just a quick example. Like radio teases constantly. And I used to joke that like, you guys are so obsessed with the teases,

you don't even give a shit about what we're saying for seven minutes. And I'm like, teases honestly are raising expectations followed by disappointment. That's what a good tease is. Hey, what about this could possibly be happening? But it's actually this when we come back. Okay.

That's like the links to the stuff that breaks out. You know, I see some of those NBA aggregator sites. I don't even know what the fuck they do. And they'll always say something like, featured on ESPN. Oh, yeah? How much did you get paid by ESPN to be featured? They just mistakenly read a tweet from it because you took something from somebody else. Guys aren't even retweeting story links anymore.

They're taking the story link, then putting it under their own feed in the umbrella, and then that gets thousands of retweets. And all it is is this community funnel of stuff. It doesn't even mean anything. So the point is, I'll see a headline where I'll go, oh my gosh. And if I click it, the headline is countered in the opening paragraph. So I don't know when this is ever going to go back to some version of this that maybe never existed. I don't think ever.

I mean, there's no, there's no way, right? It's not going to happen. And I think, again, I just think sports is probably in a weird way, the least of it, you know, every other part of society. This is, this is the way the world works. This is the way people communicate. This is the way people dunk on people on Twitter. Sometimes it's worthwhile, sometimes not. But no, obviously it's not going back. There's no chance. Well, until Elon Musk changes Twitter and then Elon's going to solve everything. But you know what else is always funny? And you guys know this because you read a lot of history. of history whenever i'd read about babe ruth the the latest lee montville one from a couple years ago

and you're realizing like what he was like in the city and how he was covered as a news topic and you're like that's the exact same way that happens with the biggest stars today same thing with ted williams i'm finishing hamilton it's the only turnout that i hadn't read yet so i was like i might as well since i've read the other ones There's a part in there where they're having an election in the state of New York, not New York City, New York State. And they're convinced that one of these generals from the state of New York was forcing his soldiers to vote for this other guy. And they wanted the whole thing to be, they were like, this election is fraudulent. And it's just like in this, and I'm dying laughing, reading the back and forth of people

going, and I'm thinking nothing actually really changes. It's just the vehicle by which it's the same. Brian, you think we're hitting a stage where, you know, I really noticed this the last couple of weeks where for some reason, the all NBA voting has turned into like this crazy topic and people weighing in and you guys are costing these guys money. And like, I don't even know. First of all,

we never asked for our votes to potentially decide money. I don't remember asking for that. Do you remember asking for that, Ryan? I'd be fine without it. And honestly, I think if it were close to a tie and it could cost somebody money, I'm more likely to make sure I vote for the guy that gets the money. Yeah. It certainly makes you really reconsider it.

It might help. I personally don't think those incentives should be tied in the contracts, but what do I know? But we see there's momentum for... Like Eddie Johnson, there was momentum for, like Eddie Johnson, who was on this podcast, who I really like, and he had a whole thing about, you should only be able to vote if you've been to 60 games a year and stuff like that.

I was like, all right. I'm pretty sure like, people like Russell and I, who aren't at 60 games, are qualified to be able to vote on stuff. Like I feel pretty good about the votes I put in every year. Do people seem to think this is a broken process

or do we just have too much time on our hands to talk about it? Specifically the NBA stuff or the media? Just in general, the media voting for stuff because there's some bad examples, right? The famous one was Rosillo's all-time favorite when the guy left Pedro off the MVP ballot, which I didn't want to make Russillo mad. Just bring up that one when the guy decided. Yeah, two voters. $35 million, whatever it is. And I agree. The weird part here is not the media

guys voting. That is tied to an NBA contract at all. Why should there have to... Do you have to check a box for a team to give somebody the Supermax? Why is that necessary? If I want to give Maxi Cleaver the Supermax, why can't I do that? Why does he have to make all NBA

third team? I would tell you that if you could just give it to everybody, then even more guys would just have the Supermax because caps and free agency in the NBA is so screwed up because you end up paying everybody because if you don't, then you lose the asset for nothing. So you couldn't have that. Look, if we had nothing to do with it, that's fine.

But if it were just stats, then Hassan Whiteside would have been a Supermax twice. And if it were the players, they would fuck it up worse than we do. The teams can't do it. So, what they try to do is create a vehicle in the CBA for the guy to get some extra money, and it's always presented this way. Again, if they took it away, I don't care. I'd never argue to keep it for this, but I'm just pointing out the entire

scope of this. It's always presented as if it costs somebody $35 million. Now, how come no one ever points out the times when it's going to make somebody $35 million? Because it's not always rookie extension versus the other guy, but that also makes the guys that do make this eligible for that supermax

if they're going to go ahead and get it. So it's always presented as, oh, you guys are just costing everybody money. Well, no. The guy that likely was voted off one of these all-NBA teams was replaced by somebody worthy of it. And then that person actually made the money. And I feel like that second part is

never part of the argument. Well, if you let the players vote, then you go back to the early 90s Pro Bowl in the NFL, where there was still plenty of mistakes. Guys would have their prime, and then they would make four more Pro Bowls after they started to decline. I did a whole thing about this in my book. The players used to have a way bigger part of the MVP vote and it led to some disasters. Disasters. Rick Barry one year, 1975, when he had like one of the better start to finish years of anyone. And he finished fourth in the MVP voting.

Even though he's like 30 a game, he's on a really good Warriors team. They ended up winning the title. And he finished fourth because the players didn. Even though he's like 30 a game, he was on a really good Warriors team, they ended up winning the title. And he finished fourth because the players didn't like Rick Barry at the time. I mean, they just basically were like, oh, let's screw this guy. You saw this happen with Russell and Wilt in the 60s. People would stick it to Wilt.

But in general, I don't even know how it worked. But could there be some world where the players, there's some player council that gets to vote and could we tweak it? Like maybe, I don't know, but let's, let's actually like figure out the player thing, whether it's the all-star voting,

which is a joke. Um, I remember there was a baseball poll and I don't even know if it meant anything. Maybe it was part of the all-star voting. I forget, Brian, maybe you'd remember this better than I would,

but it was like during A-Rod's prime and he came in third in the player vote. Like it was third in the player vote, which is one of the first seeds of like, oh, maybe nobody likes this guy. The NFL, what was it, five, six hundred players couldn't even bother to vote on their own CBA.

Think about that. And then when the results came out, there was a bunch of guys going, wait, what was this? I don't like this. I wouldn't have voted this if I knew what it was. It was like, well, so I'm fine with not having the vote for the media side, have this impact, but this is, this is trying to find perfect when perfect doesn't exist. I actually think this stuff's going, at least with the NBA, I think it's gone way better than it ever did. I think for the most, we haven't really had a disaster of like an MVP vote or an All-NBA,

anything like that in a while. Because I think there's so much accountability now. There's so much information. There's so much accountability. The information might skew a little bit too analytical sometimes. But for the most part, I think people have a pretty good sense. Like somebody like Jokic in 15, 20 years ago, he might have finished like fifth. And the way we were thinking about it in the old ways,

I don't know. It feels like everyone can see more of the games, more of the people. People know who someone like Herb Jones is in a way that you wouldn't have known that 25 years ago. You would have no idea the guy was good back then. What other trends do you see, Brian, just in general with this player-media relationship?

To your point, I mean, that's why i don't go too deep into media pessimism there's certainly plenty to criticize but the three of us are from the sports page era yeah of american life and there's more bad stuff out there but there's so so so much more good stuff out there now i mean you know give me some of the good stuff everything what are you talking about like every you read tons of you like you can watch any basketball game you want to now. You can watch clips of any basketball game you want to now. You can read Zach Lowe. You can read, you know, all kinds of stuff that, that was not around in 1992 when I was

reading the Dallas morning news like that. You know what? I missed two things from that era. There's some account that, that grabs some screenshots of basketball books and Zander Hollander's, his yearly little almanac that he had. I can't remember the name of it. It's like hoops analyst, something like that. But way back in the 70s, 80s, 90s, the quotes were great. People really didn't give a shit back then. The people, players talking about whatever their situation was, those old SI vault ones.

I really miss that era. Some of the stuff people said in books. Really all the way through. You think the Jordan rules, when you go back, you did that piece about it for the Ringer, Brian. The stuff that's in the Jordan rules is just amazing. And I don't know when that era started, but it was somewhere around probably mid 2000s.

Yeah. I'm not, and this doesn't apply to Sam Smith, but we could argue as you get far back enough, how real were those quotes and, you know, Oh yeah. You know,

how, how embroidered and rewritten were those after they were uttered. But yeah, there's some great premier magazine stuff from, cause I went and bought a whole bunch of premier magazines for the rewatchables from the late 80s, early 90s to see if I could get

some data. The stuff back then is amazing. Like, they were like, we're spending time on the set with Julie Roberts

and she's just like ripping, you know, the director of her movie. She's that, and stuff that would just never fly now. But people were

really candid back then. A reporter could spend time with somebody and they would be able to get real tidbits. I miss it, Ryan. I miss waiting all week for just any kind of baseball trade rumor from Peter Gammon's Diamond Notes.

Oh, yeah. Reading that stuff and then you'd have Peter May's basketball stuff. I'd read Kevin Paul DuPont's hockey thing. Was it Borges that had the NFL notes? Well, in version it was Will McDonough. Well, it was obviously Will before that. But that was to think of the idea that you would wait

around for a week to get more intel and then you'd have to wait another six days. I don't even care if Peter Gammon said that Derek Barton is a more patient Albert Pujols. I'd be like, oh my God, this guy must be fucking amazing. You'd even know how right any of this stuff was.

You thought it was all right because it was in the newspaper. That's what's kind of funny is the lack of information made us more impressionable. It made me think, okay, I'm on it. I know everything that's happening in the league. Clearly, I didn't. I was getting it from one writer and one paper. That's just kind of how it worked.

We were okay with it. We never thought of it any differently. Imagine if you had told somebody, you can read days of this stuff. You won't even get through it an entire day, and then tomorrow, it'll all be new again. The concept of that, I know we sound super old now, but just 20 years ago, that wouldn't even have made any sense. I can't tell you how I used to hang on every Gammons, whatever, when he would talk about some prospect

that was coming up. Brian Rose. And he'd be like, this guy's a special human being. I'd be like, Dad, is he Gammons? Our pitcher's a special human being. Sounds great. Is he going to heal cancer? He's a special human being. Sounds great. Is he going to heal cancer? What's he going to do?

But he would have these throwaway tidbits and you would just completely move on. They're saying he has the kind of power you haven't seen in Fenway since Jimmy Fox. Oh my God. And that would be it. And I'm sure there is a point where the scouts and the GMs

and whoever else are feeding him stuff because they know he'll write it, right? It's not like he has time to go on the internet. They had no internet. He used to take everybody for their word. Well, that was the part when you got a little older. You were like, what? And you'd be sitting there just going, Nick Osasky's uncle was a backup fiddle guy with Charlie Daniels. That's why he wants to go back to Atlanta so badly.

You should be like, what, what fuck? I guess we lost him as his uncle played the fiddle. You know what I was thinking, Brian? The like, so Tim McMahon wrote a,

I thought a good piece about Utah the day after they got bounced and China piece together. There was some reading the breadcrumbs in it, but also some quotes. And it was basically about how sustainable is this go bear Mitchell thing. What was interesting. There was some reading the breadcrumbs in it, but also some quotes. And it was basically about how sustainable is this Gobert Mitchell thing. What was interesting was they lost and that piece was ready to go 12 to 18 hours.

There's two versions of that piece. What's the one you call the Now They Tell Us? The Now They Tell Us. Yeah. There's the Now They Tell Us and then there's the kind of like a little more of a, hey, setting the stage for this might be a story, some breadcrumbs, but we'll see where this goes,

which is what that McMahon piece was. I was thinking like back in the day, so Utah would lose, you'd watch the highlights on SportsCenter. And I'm saying back in the day, I'm saying let's go the 80s, 90s. And then you basically just wait for the Sports Illustrated piece, right?

And it's like, is Sports Illustrated even going to write about this? It's like, oh, they wrote a Utah piece. Oh my God. And then there would be stuff. It was like, oh, wait, Gobert, Mitchell, they're not really getting along? Like, what is this quote about?

It's like, oh, it seems like that was a shot at Mitchell and he's praising Devin Booker. And you would just be, it would mean like everything. And now it's like just another piece that goes up 12 hours after a game. It's so different now. Yeah. I remember really scrutinizing SI to see like what post-season series they would pick or post-season game or who gets any sport. Yeah. That piece you're talking about though, the what happened piece generally, that's huge now. That's, that's, as far as I can tell, that's half of the athletic, you know, that's huge now. As far as I can tell, that's half of the athletic.

Sometimes they don't even really have a ton of meat on it, but they frame it like we're going to learn all this stuff. Yeah, we do the SEC championship, the combine, and Charlie Daniels, how Trayvon Walker became the number one pick in the NFL draft. That's your law of three, the three things in the headline. That's right. I love the law of three the three things in the headline that's right i love the law of three and some of you read and you're like this there's really nothing in here but it has to fill the need of how this just happened how this team just how deandre hunter became the the second banana trey young always needed i like he was healthy and made a couple shots when I when Curtis started

talking about the rule of three. I just kept like trying to fire off as many in my head like Lane Kiffin from the tarmac to the south and learning to love

again. OK, so wait, if we are all in agreement that it's it's not great. Do you know there are some I think there are some things that are great

because I think we have the ability when things happen now to pretty quickly, if you actually deep dive, you can get a general gist for like, all right, how bad was this? Or sometimes what people aren't saying. I think the way the Nets were covered

the last couple of weeks is a good example, right? They're claiming Ben Simmons is going to come back. And yet every day where Nash is doing those press conferences and he's clearly getting more annoyed by the day, clearly doesn't believe Ben Simmons is coming back. Then you just, we almost are becoming more detectives than anything. I'm, I'm trying to figure out, all right, why did Shams tweet this today? What's who, who's giving him that information? You're almost trying to figure out where are the guys getting the information

and how does it benefit the person who handed out the information? What's their agenda? What are they trying to accomplish? So in some ways, it's better, right, Ryan? Better how, though? What do you mean? Like better in the coverage?

I guess more more entertaining for us versus like not having enough information in the era we're talking about where you yeah fingers crossed that sports illustrated might write something as being able to like sift through everything i mean look back in 06 when i started it's been we still would grab the newspaper and go through it and look for stuff i mean granted we did have the internet um but there's newspapers in everybody's studio you know it was very it was um it was very normal but i think what i was asking about it like clearly the access to all this stuff is better it makes it easier for us to do some of these things but if the motivation behind it is so different brian like do we see a continued separation where we already know the fans are going to take the

athlete side against the media? I've said this. I've already known that. But I don't know if we've ever seen a time where so many, especially younger athletes, think the media is out to get them. But at the same time, we can point to whether it's them being aggregated or anybody being aggregated. And I don't really blame them. Because, I mean, we just spent 30 minutes on feeling like, hey, that was unfair. So I don't see how this ever gets better. I really don't.

Well, it's going to get worse if we don't let reporters back in the locker room in the NBA, which Adam Silver also said at the All-Star break, you know, calling that an anachronism and hinting that maybe there's something else to do. Let me tell you, the one way you have any trust or any, let's forget trust, any relationship between reporter and media, excuse me, reporter and NBA player is to let them talk to each other. So it's not like, hey, I'm looking into a Zoom or I'm looking at a postgame press conference at some person raising their hand and asking me a question. You are Brian Curtis. I know

you. I may be pissed off at what you wrote yesterday. You and I may have had nine fights, but at least I know who you are. And there's a chance you can come up to me and say, hey, I need to check this out. I heard something. I want to talk about it. Or you just said something at the press conference. Can we have a five-minute off-the-record chat about it so I actually understand what you're talking about? And when I go to write my article or do my podcast or whatever, I can be, you know, I can be better and be smarter when I'm talking about you. So to me, that that's the one thing. And that to me is hanging by a thread right now. You know, we've seen the other sports it's opened back up, but if, if we don't have that ability for writers to get in there and try to get to know these

guys, not a guarantee, doesn't mean anybody's going to like the media, doesn't mean they're not going to go on social media and bash the media, but just give them a chance to go talk to Kevin Durant in his locker, get to know these guys a little bit and at least try to understand them, then it is going to get much worse. I guarantee that. Well, and then you saw after the game today, Draymond got kicked out. And instead of being available for the postgame media stuff, he just went home and did a podcast and talked about how he got kicked out and put the podcast up.

I have felt like for a while that we were heading this way. And I think, Brian, I think we even did a podcast about this a couple years ago about athletes skipping the middleman, which really dates back to, I remember Gladwell and I talking about this in the 09-2010 range when we were doing our back and forth.

But do athletes even need the media anymore? If you're a famous athlete right now, what purpose does the media serve for you? Other than you're trying to correct some narrative about yourself. So you need some quotes. Like we, even like we've seen with documentaries, athletes are just making their own documentaries about themselves. They're not even using like impartial third parties. They're just making their own thing. I don't, if I was an athlete, I'm not sure I would ever do an interview or at least like a, like a long form one where I might say something that could be used against me or like, I just don't know if I would do it.

Especially if I had the ability to tweet out, to do Instagram videos, to do a podcast like Draymond, what would you do, Russillo? Would you keep a low profile? What would you do? No, I don't know. I'm torn on this one because I always think about after baseball teams are 60 games in and say the team's 20 and 40 and somebody's asking them,

is this weak? If I were an older player that were pretty good as a baseball player, I would fuck with the media so hard every time. I'd be like, we're going to start making some trades. Like half these guys. And then they'd be like, we're going to start making some trades. These guys, and then they'd be my buddies and I would do it. And then I would see everybody freak out. Of course,

the team probably wouldn't love it. But I think there's a really easy path to figuring out how non-essential we are. But it seems like people still do like to listen to a neutral, a supposedly neutral party, talk about the things that they care about. Because I've always said this, and I think it's true. Sometimes you're the great source on your story and sometimes you're the worst source on your own story. And with some of these player produced documentaries that are terrible, they're just these branding promotional tools where I don't know that anybody learns anything about them. When you're at the bookstore and you can read the autobiography of somebody or the unauthorized biography, which one are people picking up more often?

This is the winning time to me thing. For the real story of Magic and the Showtime Lakers, see Magic Johnson's Apple documentary. I'm like, I don't know. I don't know that I think that's real or the one the Lakers are producing. I love basketball. I didn't watch the Magic Apple thing. When I don't think it's real,

quote unquote, that's not the end of it to me. So yeah, I do want a neutral party or a writer. I don't want to be neutral. I just want not magic. If we're searching for real, I don't know if that winning time is the best comp in comparison to the magic

doc, but no, no, I'm, and I'm not saying it is, but I'm just, there is what to Bill's point, this whole thing of we're going to do,

you know, look, that was the Kyrie comments this week. You know, you essentially, I don't think reporters should report on me. I don't think that's what is what the whole, the whole puppets thing.

I was interested in your comments on that because do we think people are with Kyrie in big numbers? We've seen since he gave that press conference after Game 4 of the Celtics series. Do you feel like the public is like, yep, this is going great. This makes sense. Well, it's interesting.

The pro player thing has been tested to its limits this spring with Kyrie and with Harden and with Simmons, specifically, for different reasons. Kyrie, who put his team in a really bad situation by not getting vaccinated, which then taps into a whole other country discussion that isn't even about sports.

Harden, who quits on two teams in 13 months. And then Simmons, who wants to get paid and doesn't want to play. So those are things that, you know, for most of my life would have been three lightning rods for people to just not like an athlete. But now I think people are way more, is considerate the right word? About at least trying to look at it from their perspective. Kyrie has probably failed the most in this respect because Kyrie's perspective is so all over the map. It just seems like most people are like,

I would want to be teammates with this guy. Right? The ultimate takeaway is, I don't know if I could trust this guy if he was on my team to just show up for work every day. Kyrie's in his own category. So I would say off of Bill's point that if you're all the way on all the players,

like you had a tough year because we got three really good examples of guys that have whatever the line is, however wide you think it is of crossing the line and what you owe to a team and the outdated concepts of being there for your teammates. This was a tough season for a couple guys. Yeah.

What else do we have to add, Brian? Anything? We didn't talk about the winning time piece of taking facts and kind of dramatizing, fictionalizing things that we witnessed in real time and you can watch on YouTube. I'm sort of fascinated by it because it's really hard to defend historical fiction. Like if I say, okay, somebody wrote a great script,

it's completely imagined, sounds great, put it on HBO. If you make a documentary, easy to defend. Documentary, awesome, want to watch that. Ooh, something in the middle, which is based on the Showtime Lakers, but isn't exactly beat for beat, fact for fact, what happened with the Showtime Lakers, but isn't exactly beat for beat, fact for fact, what happened with the Showtime Lakers.

Yeah. I just find it funny because it's really hard to then stand up and say, I support this. But by the way, there's tons of this in life. I just finished watching the dropout, you know, the Elizabeth Holmes thing, which was pretty good. And I'm like, are people going, you know, Elizabeth Holmes, you didn't, you didn't, you, you, you imagined a lot of those conversations. This is, I don't know, you know, you, you, you invented some dialogue

in there. I mean, I don't think we're actually anti this genre at all. I think, you know, and look, but I also think if they made a doc or not, excuse me, a doc, they made a show about the ringer Grantland. And I was, you know was crying on the floor in my underwear because I couldn't finish my media column. I'd be pissed, too. I think what's what's confounding to me about winning time. Is they care so much about getting the little stuff right in a lot of different ways, right? Like how the actors look, situations they've been in, even when they're playing, I don't know, the Sixers in a game, making sure everybody's uniforms match the people who are in the game and things like that. And then they'll just twist the facts around with something else.

I'm like, so why did you care about this? But then you made up this when it just would have been so easy to just care about this. And their argument is like, well, we're dramatizing everything. It's very, it just felt like there were a lot of

unforced white lie errors that they easily could have just not had. That's the part I just can't, we talk about in the Prestige TV podcast. We've been breaking it down. Every week, we're just like, why'd they do that? Why'd they do that?

Seems like, but we might be the only ones that care because we actually remember what happened. Whereas like somebody like my wife really likes winning times. She doesn't care how factual it is. I don't know what the answer is, Ryan. Nobody cares. You're in the minority.

You are not the audience. The audience is broader. We're in the minority you are not the audience the audience is broader right major minority right so you know a tv show and that kind of stuff like it's it's it's the point you know what i mean like trying to go hey i want to make the most accurate factual tv show ever most people like cool good luck never making it. Well, it makes me think I really want to see somebody make a TV show about somebody more modern to see what that,

like just the KD Kyrie next season. Just like, hey, here's our, I guess we're having this with the Sterling, Doc Rivers, Clippers situation. Right? So that's relatively modern. That was 2013, 2014. Yeah.

They're making an FX series about it. Mm-hmm. Lawrence Fishburne's going to be Doc. Part of the weird thing, too, is just having your own nostalgia now fed back to you. I think I hit that line like five years ago where suddenly every TV show was about something I remembered. Like, oh, we're doing OJ. Okay. You know, we're doing this now. I was there for that. And it was almost like you cross into this uncanny valley where it's like, oh, I know what those people look like. You know, when we were doing, when we were watching Oliver Stone's Nixon, I didn't know what Bob Haldeman looked like.

I didn't come in with these preconceived ideas, but now I know what these people look like. I know what they talk. I know how they sound. And it's funny. Well, so when they do the Cowboys White House show, was that what it was called? I think I got a script in the drawer here.

Let me see. The funniest thing is that was my favorite Perlman book of all those books, the 90s Cowboys book. I enjoyed that one the most. Charles Haley just being super weird. That would be amazing for a TV show. After he did the most recent Lakers book just being super weird. That would be amazing for a TV show. I got to think after he did the most recent Lakers, but we had Perlman on, and

you and I did that one together. You've got this Lakers Showtime one. The USFL book by Perlman's incredible. I'd have to think his next book idea when he comes knocking on the door, people would be like, get the fuck out of here. Yeah, we're not doing that. Credit to him.

Did we hit everything? I think so. All right. Anything else you want to hit there, Priscilla? I don't. I always feel like with Curtis, I want to ask an awesome question, but I never quite got there. Ask him an awesome question. If you could have the first pick to build a network around.

Oh, yeah. Oh, let to build a network around. Oh, oh yeah. Oh, let's do this. Great, great zag. Cause I look Curtis for those listening, there's,

there's a level of respect for Curtis in the media that I didn't, I wasn't that aware of, you know, I didn't know you when I first DM you years and years ago, we didn't know each other at all. You'd written some piece. You had one line in there and I go, this is so freaking good. I got to tell this guy how great i thought this was and that's how

our relationship started i don't think i talked to you again for another couple years anyway the point is i don't know what this is because you got to go play you could go play by play for maybe your your crown jewel like espn has done with monday night football or you think no i need an everyday guy i need somebody that can drive somebody need innings yeah but it's it's a van pelt type where i know if i throw him on some other things he's going to be able to host or do i want an opinion guy like fox went in with cowherd like if you're starting whatever your network is i don't know what your lives right package is i don't know what your simulcast goals are if you're saying this is somebody oh and i shouldn't say guy i should say

person uh who your number one pick would be? 10 years ago, I think you could have talked me into studio guy. But I think the world's changed a lot. And I think we're probably in the live rights era of sports TV. And that if we're talking over the air network here, like I'm still in the cable bundle trying to squeeze the dollars out of it. Yeah. I think it's a, I think it's a play by play announcer.

I think it's an NFL play by play announcer. And I think it's probably, I probably get to get my best value out of a Joe Buck type, but I have to talk him back into doing baseball. So at least I get 12 months or, you know, eight months and maybe something else, I think. And that sounds

weird because he's not on television every day, but I think that's why people watch TV. And that's not what I think. That's why people watch television. He had the cable show, though. Maybe you ask him, hey, let's get you some better writers and we're going to mix it up. We're going to give it another shot. One more talk show? Sure. The Joe Buck show. We're going to mix it with Bill's

HBO show. You guys both, neither of them made it. We're going to put you guys together. It's going to become the Buck and Bill show. Brian, I think your instincts were correct. I think it has to be football. Football is more dominant than ever. It has to be somebody who can swim in that space. I would have said Romo until about six months ago.

I just didn't think he had a good playoff. So now I want to see from him, are you going to bounce back from that and actually start doing some real work? Or are you just, every year you're out of the game, you're going to feel it's another year removed of you being out of the game? Because when he's calling Bengals players by their numbers in an AFC title game and he's screwing up, asking if the Bengals should let the Chiefs score, I love Romo. But I thought that was a really bad game. I was alarmed by it.

I don't think he made the game more fun. I was just confused by him most of the time. Now this is going to get aggregated. Simmons slams Romo. Oh, here we go. He can be awesome. But when the offense is not great

and the passing game in particular is not great, he gets less interested. And he's less awesome. And I thought Aikman was more awesome. I actually have Aikman, I think, number one for me now. So I think the ESPN after years and years of not being able to figure it out, I think they ended up with the best team.

I don't understand why Aikman isn't more praised. Maybe he's just been around so long, Brian. This last year, he got better. Don't you think he got better in the last couple years? I think he's always been awesome. Because you know what I think the best guys do is they know when to not talk, which is ironic coming from me because I can never shut up but the best the best people on air for play by play and color commentary are the people that understand when not to talk and Joe and Troy have that down they have it down and so it's almost like well if you're not showing up more I think

Joe Buck is so good that there are times in baseball over the years where I thought he was bored because it was so easy to him. You're supposed to be a little tuned up. The nerves should be going a little bit. You're calling the World Series and it's so easy to him and he's so comfortable. You could almost argue if there was any part of Joe's game that you go, oh, it would just be

that he was almost so smooth that it wasn't even challenging anymore. But that's why I felt like the Troy stuff. I mean, Romo is new, so the new thing's always going to be more exciting than the older thing. But I feel like there was a really weird stretch there where I don't think people appreciated how good Troy was. Brian, who do you think

is the single best broadcast right now of a game? Any sport? Anybody? Ooh, that's a good one. I like Saturday Night Football on ESPN a lot. College football? The Fowler-Herbie game. That's exactly what I was thinking. I think Fowler-Herbstreet might be, because the relationship is so good between them two.

Herbstreet does a really good job of planting the seeds of what the story may be of the game because he's so plugged in with so many of the coaching staffs. So you can tell when Herbstreet's like, oh, you know, something here, something there, a little bit there, and he doesn't do it over the top to show off that he has the information. Because the other great thing about Herbstreet is he has all of this information and he knows when to kind of piece it in. But Fowler knows that he has the information as well, because Fowler's one of the most insane prep freaks I've ever seen. He is a mutant of an on-air personality,

and I mean that as an absolute compliment, that I think that broadcast has an advantage over everybody else because of the relationship of those two guys being on he goes to recruiting camps guys like he doesn't tell you about he'll go to like recruiting stuff and quarterback showcases and he's constantly like okay these are going to be the guys over the next couple years that's the kind of dedication that guy puts into college football i I thought Gus Johnson and Greg Anthony were really good. I actually thought that was the best basketball team I've heard this year.

Just enjoyed it. You can't... Your Gus thing is always strange to me. I know. I just enjoy Gus. Who's your favorite basketball? You still like Van Gundy and Breen the most. If you gave me Van Gundy and Breen,

just the two of them, yes. But I think when it's the three man I just don't like three man basketball boots no and I understand like the relationship there with him and Mark you know is special but Jeff runs circles around Mark and it's noticeably bad at times and it happened three times in game one Memphis Golden State Golden State. And there was one specific one where I just couldn't even, I couldn't believe it. So they're doing the small, small screen. So it's like small player and I'm going to bring another small wing over. So it's not me switching Steph Curry into a big, it's Steph Curry switching to a small. So Van Gundy points out, hey, on these small, small screens at Golden State's running against

Memphis, the person assigned to Draymond, you get to cheat off of Draymond. So as soon as the screener is cutting, because you don't want to switch it, you've got to have that other defender cheat off of Draymond to be ready for the role man that was originally the screener. Very simple concept. And Van Gundy points it all out. Mark Jackson says, well, you just got to switch that if it's small, small. And you're like, dude. And Mark actually said it. He goes, well,

you probably don't want to do that because you don't want John Morant on staff, which was the whole point of what Memphis was doing in the first place. And he's an NBA coach that in a broadcast, like I'd say I couldn't believe it,

but I'm not going to say I couldn't believe it. Well, the not going to say I couldn't believe it. Well, the other thing, I don't like coaches doing the games that also want to get back in. Pointless. I just think they're going to hold back. Which is all coaches, by the way.

John Madden. Do you think Van Gundy wants to get back in? Because I feel like that ship's sailed. I think he would again, but he's not desperate for it. But Mike Brown seems like a really nice guy. Clearly, a bunch of the top staffs have hired him. He's been the head coach of the Cavs, the Lakers. He's on this Warriors staff.

He might get the Kings job. When he came to ESPN, he had no interest in saying anything. Nothing. I had him in studio once, and I was like, you've coached LeBron, you've coached Kobe. What's Ty's like, man, absolute competitors. And you were like, come on, man. Like, we can't get one story out of this.

And to your point, Curtis, if you're really geared up to get back in the game, it's not going to be as good. I can't wait for the Sean Payton era. I don't know about you guys. He's going to be laying them out. My expectations are not high. I just go back to the... I don't really remember him being the most exciting press conference. I think people like him because he's such a great hang.

Yeah. I think that there's some expectation that if he brings Sean Payton the hang to the studio, it'll be terrific. Because Breeze still is a little too buttoned up for me. A little, yeah. Jesus. Cerruti's reminding me of Greg Sciano, maybe the all-time worst in-studio guy

that didn't want to be there and couldn't wait to start coaching again. We got him right before he got the Tampa gig. When he showed up, we were like, do you know you don't coach right now? He was just doing a lot of... That's what the per diem is for. Brian, do they still do... I don't listen to the local radio. Do they still do the thing where they bring in the local college football or college hockey or college basketball coach and do the 20-minute interviews where they start out with like, coach, you got to be proud of your guys. I'm pretty sure that

still exists. Oh yeah. In the South, I've been to those. I was supposed to host it with Saban once. Like they knew I was in town and I was so fired up. I was going to do Buffalo Wild Wings right off the campus. And I was going to host them. That's always where it is, by the way. It's got to be a mandatory, you know, place college kids eat kind of joint. It's so good. Because I remember I was there. Like, Bama loses one game a year, and they're in the midst of this run. And I think they were coming off a loss, perhaps, when we showed up to town to do it.

And then they take calls. And then they also, like, take them, put the mic out in there. And I was always told that live remotes, when you acknowledge the audience, it's like a puppy with food. Some guy gets up there. He's like, Coach Saban, I'm so upset about these people

and not backing these kids. He's going on and on and on about all the negativity around the program. Coach Saban's like, well, lost like three games two years so we'll uh try to get this thing righted you should do a tour where you interview college coaches and the show is called coach you've got to be proud of your guys and you just go to different different cities i've told i've talked to you guys about this before but when i

when i used to go on mcdonough's show and he would interview like the college hockey thing and I was just like, who is listening to this? On the other station, they're arguing about Brady versus Blitzo. McDonough and friends? The McDonough group? Yeah. The Brady-Bletso is just all anyone wanted to hear for a year.

And I don't know. It was a good education. Did he let you ask questions? Yeah. Then it would be like to you. Then I'd be like, Coach, you got to be proud of your guys. That would be my question. The change up there is Coach Tufflin last week.

How did he come back? Yeah, how did he bounce back? What do you see in so-and-so that makes you think he might be special? I did that i did that show with him and i didn't know i wasn't allowed to ask questions because i was filling in i was on the oh you weren't even he didn't even like give you like the third question no like i was on you were young you're a young pup i was young i'd showed up just after because i was they were like we might have you work with this guy then they're like oh he just signed with espn he might

not be available to be doing the zone afternoon show, the McDonough group. I was like, yeah, I don't know why he would do this now if he's just signed with ESPN. Then I started feeling a little bit and I remember, I didn't know any better because I'm sitting there and I'm going like, am I ready? Me? My turn?

Yeah. Like, hey, do you think Jeff Fry makes enough contact to move him up to number two? Okay, Curtis, who would be the last guy you would draft? No, no, no. Greg Sciano. There you go. Well done. I have a question for Curtis. Why is Mike Greenberg now on every show? What happened? He was hosting a radio show with Mike Golick for 20 years.

20 years. And now he is on every single Signature Is Pin event. What happened? Yeah, I put him on my PressBox rundown for tomorrow, the Greeny era. Is this officially a Greeny era? Well, did you watch the drafts? He has...

Countdown? He's on a two-hour get-up every day. He has his own radio show that starts immediately after get up ends. He hosts NBA countdown and he was the host of the draft for three days. That's basically every ESPN property. It really is. I have it. If you give me a second here, I wrote down some, some quotes from greening for the draft.

Oh yeah. Let's hear the way he led off the draft. Would you guys be interested in hearing any of these? Yeah. It is a privilege to be in this room where it happens. Uh, it has the feel tonight of the beginning of something kind of a generic draft open. Uh, good evening and welcome to the center of the football universe. And this one, this is a, this town, this town is always buzzing, but there's something special going on right now. You can feel the energy to something

special going on as we try to figure out how many quarterbacks are going to drop 50 picks. He's not wrong on any of those observations for the record. I don't know. There's not a genuine green situation there. He's not going to get aggregated. Definitely not getting aggregated.

I'm removing myself from this in a little bit. The guy who did the greeny tease all the time. He's going to take the segment off. Okay. He knows that I like to make fun of the Greeny teases, but I don't know. We just, Greeny and I, we still are together still. I'm not even against the Greeny thing.

I just think it's interesting that he's now the signature guy for all of these different things. Coming up next, more me. That's a good one to end it on. All right, Curtis, you can hear him on the Press Box podcast, which is an essential piece of listening. You can hear Rosillo on his own podcast. It's called the Ryan Rosillo Podcast.

Thanks to Kyle Creighton for producing. Thanks to Steve Cerutti. Thanks to Dylan Berkey. New Rewatchables coming tomorrow night. We're doing Austin Powers, 25th anniversary. And then I'll be back on this feed on Tuesday. Thanks for listening. On the way so I never said I don't have feelings within On the way so I never said

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