The Bill Simmons Podcast - The KD Trade Revisited, Plus Scenes From the Masters With Joe House, Dave Chang, and Nathan Hubbard

Episode Date: April 7, 2023

The Ringer's Bill Simmons and Joe House discuss whether there's more pressure on the Suns after the KD trade with Mikal Bridges thriving. Plus, is the load management era devaluing the MVP award? Should the West actually be afraid of the Lakers? How did two of the league’s biggest assets turn into two of the season’s biggest disappointments? And more (2:57)! Then, Bill and House are joined by Dave Chang and Nathan Hubbard to recap their time at Augusta National for Day 1 of the Masters Tournament. They also discuss Tiger Woods's visible pain, Brooks Koepka's hot start, players with a realistic shot at winning the Masters, updated odds, and more (41:02). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Joe House, Dave Chang, and Nathan Hubbard Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

coming up, I got some NBA and I got some masters because I'm at the masters. That's next. It's the Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel. Football is in full action. FanDuel's highest rated sports book is the best place to bet it all. We've been doing pretty well on million dollar picks this year. I love the first month of the season because you have to go into the season thinking, I think Pittsburgh's going to be good. I think the Chargers are going to be good. I think Seattle's going to be good. And then trying to back what you think in those first few weeks and then zag the other way. If you were wrong, you could bet on new and fun markets on FanDuel, like to catch a pass, same game parlays, highest scoring game across the Sunday slate, offensive TDs in the next drive.

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we're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. On Sunday on the Prestige TV podcast, me and Sean Fennessey and Joanna Robinson are going to be reacting right after episode three of Succession. We do not have screeners for this one, so we're going to have to tape right after the show ends on Sunday night and put it up as soon as we can.

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It's a video podcast. It looks great. Super excited about it. He had Kevin O'Connor, Big Waz, and Norm Princiati on today's episode of Through the Ringer. Coming on HBO Friday night, 8 p.m., the latest installment of Music Box, the documentary we did about Jason Isbell. It's called Running With Our Eyes Closed. It's fantastic. Couldn't be more proud of it. If you missed the 8 p.m. screening on HBO,

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to the Denver Phoenix game and some last-minute NBA award stuff late Thursday night here in Augusta. And then we talked about round one of the Masters, a lot of golf and food stuff, and some possible bets for the weekend with me and Dave Chang and House and Nathan Hubbard. We are all here in Augusta, the greatest place on earth. Second year in a row, third in the last six years. It's just one of those weeks you just feel lucky that we get to do this for a living.

Great stuff. Can't wait to talk about basketball and golf it's all next first our friends from Pearl Jam All right, we're taping this. It's 11 o'clock East Coast time. Joe House and I are going to wait until after the Phoenix-Denver game. And Denver decided not to play any of their best players. Charles Barkley said it's the Nugget against the Suns tonight. This was a great snapshot of what the playoffs might look like a potential Western finals preview.

No, this just goes, this is par for the course with this weird season we're having. I was thinking about Phoenix though. I think you and I both think they're probably the gun to the head pick in the West, right? Even though they're the four seed,

would you have somebody else? I have an update. What do you have? I have the warriors, right? Even though they're the four seed, would you have somebody else? I have an update. What do you have? I have the Warriors. What? Wiggins. That's it? Wiggins just being back for the playoffs?

You flipped? Well, it's not just that. Gary Payton is playing. So just in the last five days, my sentiments about the West have really changed. That's your gun to the head pick? Yeah. The defending champions. I don't think you're wrong, but I just need to digest it for a second.

I have no idea what version of Andrew Wiggins we're getting. I don't know what kind of shape Gary Payton's in. He had a beautiful follow-up dunk I saw, so the athleticism looks like it's there. But man, every other team I have much bigger problems with than the Warriors. The Warriors' single biggest problem is Draymond punching Jordan Poole in the face. Yeah, and that was like a lifetime ago.

Exactly. So you're betting on the experience in the playoff reps over, I mean, we've talked about the Phoenix thing before. Phoenix is the favorite on Fando. They're two to one in the West. Just not going to go against a healthy Steph Curry. Nobody has ever traded for their best player during the season and then made the finals. I looked this up. It has not happened. There's no precedent for it in the history of the NBA. Now, this season has had a lot of things that have never happened before in the history of the NBA. So it's not like it can't happen. I was thinking about that Durant trade though. This Mikael Bridges just becoming a 27 to 28 point a game scorer for the Nets. Really big sample size now,

basically since he joined the team in mid-February. So I think it's like 22, 23 games at this point. And he is able to initiate half-court offense, get his own shot, come through in crunch time situations in ways that he was mostly a stand in the corner guy unless Booker or Paul was hurt for Phoenix. And then you would see this side of him when one of the guys was missing. I'm like, oh, there's seems like there's something more here. But I never in a million

years thought that he was going to turn into this. And you think of all the other stuff that they gave up in that trade. I do feel like there's more pressure on that trade now. I think it was defensible. I understand why they did it. I certainly didn't kill it. You got to go get Durant. He's top 16. You got to do what it takes. But man, the fact that he's this good on top of all the picks, what if they get bounced in round two against Denver? It can totally happen, but it's worth the gamble. It's they get bounced in round two against Denver? It can totally happen. But it's worth the gamble. It's worth the big gamble for the new owner.

He immediately shows his fan base that he's different. Because the single most compelling aspect of that trade in terms of the lore that surrounds it is that the Phoenix was balking at the asking price of Brooklyn. And then he arrived on the scene. the asking price was throw bridges in there. And it's like, no, we're not doing that.

Nope. New owner comes in. Now we're going to throw them in. Yeah. Are you out of your fucking mind? We're going to go get, we're going to go get Kevin Durant. Okay.

They want bridges. Good. They can have them. And you watch like, even again, we're taping go get Kevin Durant, okay? They want Bridges? Good. They can have him. And you watch, like, even, again, we're taping this at halftime, but a couple of the plays in the first half where he's just so good. I sound like Collinsworth.

Kevin Durant, he's so good. KD. He's such a good fellow. Oh, my God. With the way he initiates. Oh, my God, Al. But he is, like, amazing. But here's the trade. It was Bridges, Cam Johnson, Crowder, who they flipped.

First-round picks, 23, 25, 27, 29. And a first-round pick swap in 28. So they gutted their team. Well... They gutted all team. Well, they, they gutted all the assets they have, except for commitment.

They kept eight and they kept Booker. They're going to be in the free agency market as well. Yeah. But then you see the new CBA where the, the high, high spending teams, there's some real bells and whistles against that. Now the cap caps going up. A new owner has got big,

big, uh, checkbook. They're going to be in the free agency market. We both agree. I understand the trade. It would have made me blank because especially like the market for like a Bridges, Ananobi, guys like that seem to be between two and three first rounders.

So on top of the other ones, it's just a lot for a guy who had two injuries just this year, who has had major surgery surgery who's been in the league since 2007 um the precedent i was interested and you led with with a precedent like no team in the history of the league has acquired its best player post all-star break and going into playoffs right that's the well no team has acquired a guy like durant who's the most unique superstar we've ever had with his ability the ultimate just if if you're in college and he's playing pickup he just fits in with whatever style whatever the other four players it just doesn't matter he's he's always him no matter what the situation is so maybe you answered my question because what i

wanted to ask in terms of the precedent thing is can we think of anybody that uh had this short of a runway to get with a team and immediately transform that team from probably second round maybe conference final fodder it so like a mid-season trade there's two examples that i could think of. One was the Havlicek stole the ball year going way back into the sixties. I think it was 64. Uh, when Wilk got traded back to Philly 65 and it was basically those two were the best two teams, Boston, they take Philly takes the seven and they acquired Wilk mid season that year. And it was the Havlicek steals ball game. So that's one. The other one, he's not a superstar, but it did win the title.

It was the Rasheed Wallace trade. Okay. Was he the best Detroit Piston in 2004? Probably not. Ben Wallace probably was. Maybe Billups. Maybe he was the third best, but for what he did for that team,

and I feel like that team, it was the four guys together. You needed all of them. So that one, they integrated him pretty seamlessly and Rashid you know at least at that point of his career was the kind of guy who could fit in almost any situation if his head was on straight that time he was remember yeah I and that was the only one that I could really think of but it's different because Rashid doesn't need didn't need to touch the ball on a certain number of... And I'm not suggesting that KD needs it,

but that's what makes sense. That's how he's going to be most effective. There's one other one. There's a usage component to putting KD into the mix. True, you're right. Because he is the best player. He's in crunch time last five minutes. You're going to run stuff through him.

There's one other one that I hesitate to mention because you're going to go to F-bomb frenzy. Pau Gasol 2008. Oh, yeah. That got them to the finals. He became their second best player immediately. He wasn't their best player. So the example was like best player.

He wasn't their best player. Kobe was. But that was another example of just being able to slide somebody in who becomes crucially important. This is pretty unique, though, but it's been a unique situation or in a unique season where they're the four seed,

but I think people feel like they're the favorite. Fandle certainly does. You could make a case he's the guy you would want out of anyone in the West in a game seven or a down three-two situation, something like that, even though Jokic is in the West.

So you're inclined. So I, after the sweep last year, which will forever live on his resume, he was swept out of the first round of the playoffs with his chosen partner in crime in the form of Kyrie Irving. It's really bad. And he got his ass outplayed by Jason Tatum. And at the end of games, because of the confusion of that team,

their confused approach to offense, he looked a little bit, you know, it wasn't the crunch time lockdown, just let KD have the ball and let him cook. It's hard to say how much the dysfunction played into that but okay okay i would say a high amount because we've seen him come through in other situations but yeah he looked like a lifetime of coming he looked like he was on the other side of the hill but then you watch him this year before you know when that when he was humming with kairi before he got hurt he looked like KD from three, four years ago. Okay.

And then this Phoenix version, we'll see. I mean, that team's such a smart. Foundationally, with Paul and Booker and with Aiton, just controlling everything near the rim, and then if they can play wing roulette with that fifth spot, they're going to be there. But man, I think just in recent history, the most teams have given up for a trade for a star.

It was that Davis trade, which we've talked about in the past, which was Ingram and Ball and Josh Hart and Mo Wagner and the fourth pick in 2019 and a 22 first and a first swap in 23 and a choice of 24 or 25 first that was a lot especially because when you see how well brandon ingram's playing like that he's looked like a top 25 guy so it's that trade and then there was that paul george trade which was just an absolute That was SGA. Yikes. 21, 22, 24, 26 firsts. 23, 25 swaps. And a top 14 protected pick at 23.

They've already gotten SGA, the fucking awesome Jalen Williams, not the other Jalen Williams, the rookie of the year kid at Jalen Williams, and Trey Maynard out of that trade, not to mention all the other picks. But they got Paul George and Kawhi, the Clippers in that trade.

So there's the two thing. This Durant thing, if Bridges, do you believe this Bridges thing? Is this just a small sample size? They need a score. He's on a little hot streak, or is this who he is? Oh, I think it's a lot closer to who he is.

I don't know how I feel too. I think that's why Phoenix pre, what's the new owner's name? Pre-Matt Ishbia? Ishbia. Pre-Ishbia. Matt with one T. One T, Matt? He's like Ray Pruitt.

Ray Pruitt with one T. All my mama could afford. He's not low T, Matt. Don't get mad at us, Matt. Just one T, Matt. Yeah, one T, Matt. One T, Matt came in. He's like, no, no, we're going to put Mikael Bridges in the trade.

But holy shit, they gave up a lot. So this goes to why this regular season has been so disappointing and such a letdown over and over again. Just kicks in the balls. Last night, kudos to LeBron and Davis for playing in the back-to-back. Should we have to congratulate two guys who are making $80 million a year combined who have already won a title for playing back-to-back games?

I feel like we do. In the context of the season. I was psyched that they did that. It also was a very important game to them and the seeding and the position. They could have ducked it. I mean, it wouldn't have been a duck. It would have been some kind of preservation.

They're paying a price now for the disorganization, the dysfunction of Russell Westbrook. Oh, yeah. And not getting rid of him sooner. But when you think of all the different matchups and how fun all this stuff is,

it does feel like it will make up for the regular season. Right now, we're looking at Suns Clippers and we're looking at Kings Warriors as the 4-5 and the 3-6. And the Lakers right now are in the 7th seed going against a Memphis team that's been pretty good now for,

I don't know, three weeks, four weeks. They've looked very Memphis-y again. And yet that Lakers with the experience of Steven Adams isn't back in time. No Brandon Clark. That's just a bad beat for them. It's a bad beat. I'm bummed out because I like that Memphis team.

Man, I hate to say this, but we both like this Lakers. Whatever this might be, because it's not just the Brown being able to come back from plantar fasciitis, which is usually a four-month injury unless it's him, and then Davis. But then Austin Reeves has turned into a real guy. I think the last 25 games, last 23 games, he's like 18 a game, 50-40-80 splits. You didn't like my tweet last night, though. I didn't like it. I loved it. I loved your tweet last night. Well, so they're handicapped

because he's a restricted free agent. They can only offer him four for 50.8. And somebody else is going to go over the top and offer him like four for 70 because all these teams have cap space. And then they're going to have to match it, which is really going to handicap with, I think they have to match it.

It can't be like a Caruso situation because it feels a little similar, not just because they're white dudes. What's the fair price for Austin? To me, it's like Kevin Herter money. And he makes like $16 million a year. I think that's the range. It's like Norm Powell makes $16.

I think he's a $16 million a year guy. We both like Reeves. He's not what you think he is if you don't watch basketball. He's crafty. He gets to the line. That's the point. The getting to the free throw line thing. He gets rebounds in traffic is if you don't watch basketball. He's crafty. He gets to the line. That's the point. The getting to the free throw line thing.

He gets rebounds in traffic. He knows how to play basketball. I like that guy. So that's the thing to me that's the single biggest change for the Lakers. By way of trading away Westbrook and the guys that they acquired. Right, addition by subtraction plus the dudes. But the collective impact on the team's

basketball IQ, it seems like they're like 50 points smarter. The ball moves. It's just insane the way the ball moves. The way that they, you know. And Davis playing at Davis level kind of helps for sure. And they tried to turn Westbrook into something.

I don't think that was totally his fault. On the other hand, he does like Westbrook shit all the time. Like we were watching last night, that Clippers Lakers game and you know, his team misses, he's standing at mid court. He's the guy that's supposed to get anybody who might cut back for a back

for fast break layup. And somebody runs right by him and he realizes that two seconds late and he takes a bad angle. Like he's just, you know, he's frustrating. And I think he was immensely frustrating for LeBron. But yeah, the team they have now is a team that makes sense with LeBron and Davis.

But I just continue to think it's unrealistic that those guys stay healthy. It's why when you asked me at gunpoint at the beginning of the pod, who am I taking? I think it's the warriors now. So the, if Wiggins is back, well,

the other thing that happened today, so Miami beat Philly by a lot. It was a blowout. Philly played their dudes for some reason. Their heart wasn't in it. They don't really need it. It makes way more sense for them to want Miami to get, uh,

the seven seed. But the thing is, they get to play Brooklyn the last day of the season, Philly. Brooklyn has a tiebreaker with Miami. They're one up on Miami right now. This is a wrap because Philly is going to tank the living shit out of that Brooklyn game because they want to play Brooklyn. They don't want to play Miami. This is a wrap. So they let Miami have their little thing today. Embiidenched the mvp with that huge boston game he had the other night and this is it so now they're gonna play brooklyn and miami's gonna play the celtics and i get to sweat that one out for two weeks wasn't expecting that one figure the two sevens gonna be wait wait am i overreacting to this miami team what do you think i think this miami team stinks okay i really do i i was prepared down the stretch i was giving them the benefit of

the doubt they owned they they they did everything they needed to do there's they had a saturday night game against brooklyn uh a week and a half ago yeah they were they scored 69 points in the first half. They were in perfect position at home. Jimmy Butler was playing. It was a Jimmy Butler game. And then they had the worst defensive performance in 30 years in the second half and went on a three-game losing streak.

Miami can go F itself. I'm done with them. That's not a serious team. The problem with them is they made a gamble on Kyle Lowry and they lost that gamble. They can't score and they can't play defense consistently. They're

an every other night team. Yes, it's annoying that they're going to be somewhat formidable. There'll be a different kind of challenge for the Celtics in the first round, but it's like a 4-2. You would prefer not to have to play six games in the first round.

That's probably what it's going to take. Two things worry me. One, I sent this to you, Miami's record against the spread this year, which Miami's five games over 500, and I think their record against the spread is like 29, 47, and 5. They're 18 games under 500 against the spread. Worse than the NBA. Worse by far.

Worse by like six, seven games. They're this team that over, and you can see it from the clutch stats and their weird record in the one point games. They're this team that they underperform and yet somehow pull these games out. Like they were doing it tonight against Philly with the zone defense

and they have all these little gimmicks. They have a great coach against Philly with the zone defense. They have all these little gimmicks. They have a great coach. The thing with them, to win a series, they can suck twice in the series, which they did last year. You suck in two of them. You play hard in four, and then you get lucky because weird shit happened in the other one. They could easily just win four out of seven of any series. I continue to be afraid of them. People think I'm crazy. My team, if Robert Williams is back with all the other, pretty healthy at this point, it seems like it's set. And then they have this Philly situation

and beat out a huge game against them Tuesday night. No Rob Williams, no Jalen Brown. Conspiracy Bill feels like they let him pour it on a little bit in that game for the false sense of security. Wait, wait, wait, wait. So you think they're playing mental rope-a-dope? I think the way they defended him, I thought, was a wee bit suspicious. It was like a preseason football game where you don't want to show any of your defenses. So you're saying the Celtics let Embiid have his way?

I don't think they let him do anything. I think they just played it very straight. And I think when it gets to a round two playoff series, they will not play the same way. They'll have different defensive looks. There will be a lot of different things happening, which seems to be. But it seems like that quenched MVP for Embiid. I'm still deciding what to do. I was going to throw this at you, actually.

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They're all on Prime. Prime Monday Night Hockey. It's on Monday. It's on Prime. So I was trying to figure out why I was struggling so much with this MVP situation. We've already talked way too much about it, just in life. All the podcasts, all the shows, it's just too much rhetoric. It feels like with this load management era and it being a regular season award, that the fact that none of these guys are even going to play 70 games really makes this all of it hard to figure out. Their records, the team's records when they play

are all pretty much the same. Statistically, you could make cases for all three of them or big picture. And Bede's probably had the most forceful season. He's probably the best that gets clutch. Jokic is the best offensive player. Giannis is on the best team and we all think he's the best player. So whatever way you want to go. But you mentioned this to me when we were talking about it earlier like Jokic won the post bubble season really because of durability

he played 72 of 72 games and that was like one of the calling cards for why we picked him and then he took it up a level last year I'd defend both of those votes I would do them again I'm also not crazy about voting for him three straight times

and I know we're only supposed to vote for this year, but narratives are a piece of this. And if Giannis ends up with two and Jokic ends up with two and Ibita ends up with one in the last five years, that feels right to me. They're the three best players over this, this half decade. And having the,

the award sort of self-selected its way into that. It feels okay. Allocation makes sense. It feels okay, which is why I'm probably landing on Embiid, but I can't shake the Giannis piece of this. I think Giannis is the best player in the league. I think that's the best team in the league. Statistically, he's there except for he's missed 17 games.

And I don't want to feel stupid if Philly, like if somehow Miami got the sixth seed and Miami beat Philly in round one or something and we're in a 0-7 Dirk situation. Well, will you feel stupid if Philly loses in the second round? What happens if Boston beats them in five? This is the thing. You're not supposed to think about playoffs

with this award. It's a regular season award. But on the other hand... Well, I mean, you know, everybody punished James Harden for a number of years. I was looking up, just in general, fewest games ever played by somebody that won the MVP. How many guys do you think, in a

normal season, missed more than 10 games and won the mvp in a normal season so no lockout bubble strike any of that stuff i would say not very many least amount of games ever carl malone in the strike season 49 out of 50 throw him out bill walton i wrote about this extensively in my book. He won the MVP in 78, 58 games at 82. He hurt his foot, missed the last like 22 games. But when he played, they were like 50 and seven or 51 and seven, something like that. And I actually went through it and it actually was the right choice because there were no other good choices. Anyway, LeBron 62 in the strike season in 2012, Giannis 63 in the COVID season, Bob Cousy 64, 1957, Russell 69, 1958, and Allen Iverson 71 in 2001. So since the 60s on,

the only time in a normal season we've ever had somebody play under 70 games and win the MVP was Bill Walton in 1978 and Allen Iverson in 2001 and only missed 11. All three of our choices to share are not going to get to 70 games. It's a different league. It's a different league. It's a different league.

So if it's a different league house, does the MVP mean as much as it used to? Well, that's a whole different... Sure it does. Because we're gearing more toward being all that matters is the playoffs league. So what do we do with the regular season in terms of... It's the same concept that informs your approach to the all-NBA team, which I think is absolutely

the right approach. Who won the season? And I think it's fine to recognize Joel Embiid for carrying the 76ers to slightly exceed their expectations for the season coming in. They were supposed to be where they are. And he did it. He's their most important player. They had good performance from James Harden. And if you throw away the first two weeks of the season, they're one of the two best teams in the league

for November, December, January, February, March, April. They've been one of the top two or three, no question. That's it. The narrative thing, I think, is why I'm probably going to end up getting there. He also was second. He will be the first person you think about this season. Yeah.

Right? And he was second in each of the two previous seasons. Right. So I feel like it's right. It's time. And he's had a couple moments, which you hate to distill the season down to two, three games. But him kicking Denver's ass on Saturday in the end of January was a moment. That's right.

Him putting up 52, even the Celtics were missing a couple guys. That was a moment. I think it's going to end up I think Embiid's going to win I think I'm going to end up voting for him but it's just different when with everybody missing so many games it just feels

it just feels a little different well hopefully this in game I mean in season tournament 65 talk about that do you like the in season a little different well hopefully this in-game i mean in-season tournament oh god 65 we're still and i didn't talk about that do you like the in-season tournament i don't understand it yet i don't understand it either like no it's part of the schedule but it means more and basically it seems to come down to the players will get 500 000 extra per per player why do i care since when did I care

if guys made more money? Who cares? You don't care about guys making more money. You care about guys playing basketball games. And if this is a sufficient incentive for the guys to play, then we support that. Go to a 72-game season and increase the incentive for everybody to play because it might screw up with their

playoff seating. Make the playoffs work more. You just need to submit your resume and application for assistant commissioner. I give up. I've tried to help this league for too long. Nobody listens to me. I've had it. I've had it with this league.

In-season tournament. Freaking positionless all-NBA. I know you hated that. I just don't understand why you can have a big, a small, and three open slots. You have to have somebody in the front court, somebody in the back court. You have to. It has to look like a fucking basketball team.

I thought of something since Sunday that I thought they should do. If it's this important for salary and for bonuses, stuff like that. Why not just have a list of the best 12 players for the season? I know we have the MVP ballot,

but the concept of an MVP is a little different. Like I'm leaning toward having De'Aaron Fox or Sabonis in my fifth spot. Wow. I don't even, that makes sense. I wouldn't say they were one of the five best players in the league, but for most valuable for what they mean to their team. But maybe it's a list of just the 12 best players in the league, and it's like a basketball team.

You only need 12 anyway. And you just rank it 1 through 12, and that's how we decide this. And then all NBA can be all NBA. Why 12 instead of 15? I don't know. I'm trying to come up with. I like 15. All right, 15, whatever. 15 at least mirrors the construct. And then it could be nine guards. I don't know I'm just I'm trying to come up with I like 15 alright 15 whatever

15 at least mirrors the construct and then it could be 9 guards we could just say these were the best 15 players this season oh 9 of them were guards but I still feel like the all NBA team should look like a team gotta have one big and one small have to

as we head toward the stretch here a couple things i just wanted to give you the floor on a couple of these arguments okay it drives you crazy that i want to put jimmy butler's second team on bay because i think that he bears some responsibility for how mediocre miami you're much more passionate about this this morning, but I think it was just because you just had coffee. I had coffee. You had iced coffee. You were like,

if you're a motherfucking second team All-NBA, your team can't be 41 and 37. They're 43 and 37 now. My issue is the lack of consistency night to night. At some point, your best player has to bear some responsibility for that that's all i don't have an issue with him as third team all nba and and honestly this time three weeks ago i had markin in uh in i think now he's out of the nba and he has to serve in the

army and then it's a rough week for laurie he won uh i mean he made the all-star game and he'll be in the top three for most improved, so that's probably the right recognition for Markkinen since Utah fell off a cliff. I've been telling my grandkids about the 2023 most improved. See who won that one. I have Mitchell. Right now, I have Mitchell and SGA as my two first-team guards.

Great. You okay with that? Great. Would you put Luke a second team or third team if they don't make the play-in? Third. No play-in. He's third guards. Great. Would you put Luka second team or third team if they don't make the play-in? Third. No play-in, he's third team. Third.

I would put him in third either way. The 10th seed in the play-in. He's on third team and third 16-ounce glass is sweet tea for Luka. Third donut. I don't want to even make the jokes that I really, I mean, we heard some stuff. Stop.

If LeBron James plays 55 games, can I put him third team all NBA? Because I'm going to. You were trying to make the case for Davis to squeeze him in at forward. Well, because I thought I would have Davis in as a

center. I would have Sabonis as a forward. Well, because I thought, no, I would have Davis in as a center. I would have Sabonis as a forward. See, I think that... Sabonis doesn't play forward. I think Davis is more important to the Lakers this year than LeBron. Yeah, I like that take. I think the two stretches that he's been on... I think I'm going to end up

putting LeBron and Curry on there because they're going to hit my 55-game mark. I don't have any problem whatsoever with Curry. And I'm going to bump Mark. I'm bumping Ja. Ja's at 60 games right now. He was a huge distraction for three weeks. I don't have any issue with that. Brunson is the toughest, single

toughest cut for me. One of, Nick has to make it. So I have Randall. You do have Randall. Because of the forward spot. He's one of the six best forwards. The only other one that I think It's disrespectful to leave Brunson off. Brunson is the catalyst.

He's the reason. There's too many guards. Knicks fans don't look at that situation and say, oh, thank God Julius Randle turned it around and made us this team. What they say is, thank God we got Brunson. He changed our team. And Mark Cuban, who is just full of shit.

Did you read that piece? No. He's like, oh, in January, February, and the family didn't want. He conveniently leaves out the part that they could have signed him in the whole offseason. 11 months previous. Leading up to the start of the season.

That's right, of course. For what was it? Four years, $55 million? He would have taken it. And they didn't offer him the money? 11 months leading up to the start of the season of course for what was it four years 55 million he would have taken it and they didn't offer him the money every report says he would have taken and brunson i know shit about this brunson thing brunson was like he wanted to stay they didn't they made it seem like they didn't care if he stayed so at some point it's like well fuck this yep um i might my godfather runs the kn I'm going to go play there for way more money. Fuck these guys.

Kind of worked out. Cuban was on one in that press conference. That was crazy. Somebody has to challenge that. He's got to do something. He's got to come out and do some kind of performance because he's got a generational talent that's going to miss the playoffs potentially this year.

We were with somebody the other night who I won't name, but might be the guy from Dude Perfect who's from Dallas. We love this guy. We talked to this guy at a party. He's a huge Hoops fan. And he was asking us,

should we trade Luka? And it was the first time I'd heard anyone ask that. And it made me think where it's that rare basketball situation where it's like, of course you shouldn't trade him. He's one of the top three trade assets in the league. But it's like, if this is all heading toward him leaving,

maybe you have to think about it and just try to see how much you can get for him. I think it was Garrett. I think that's his name. Yeah. We liked him. He's cool. I'm going to have him on the podcast.

And by the way, he said, I would trade him. He said, what's your opinion? Well, and I would trade him. A Dallas guy saying, I would trade him. Well, he was like, I would take a Godfather offer for him if somebody wanted to make it. That's what's out there right now. Only Godfather offers. I hope we didn't portray Garrett, but I'm sure he loves it. He was a real hoop fan. I know. We had a great conversation. Well, it's funny that him and Zion, who were two of the top trade assets we had

over the course of the last 18 months at various points, and the Zion thing, they released this statement today about his health that I didn't even understand it, because they kept talking about how he's ramping up. There's a lot of ramping up with Zion. He's ramping up. He's ramping it up. Now there's two

games left in the season, and they basically said, he's continuing his up. He's ramping it up. Now there's two games left in the season and they basically said he's continuing his rehab. We'll have further updates as they come. I hate it. It's like the playoffs are starting. I'm so upset.

Next week? First of all, I lost so much money on the New Orleans over. I know. And Toronto. New Orleans and Toronto. Well, Toronto,

I can live with. New Orleans was right. They were the second team in January. 23-16, 23-12. Some incredible record. Zion gets hurt, and that's it. Season's over.

Zion should refund you. It's okay. I'll figure out a way to hedge. You, me, and Rosillo, we did our over-unders. We did our locks before the season. I went 6-1. You went 4-2. Rosillo we did our over-unders we did our locks before the season I went six and one you went four and two Rosillo went three and two combined we're 13 and five it's pretty good we gave out Nuggets first seed we gave out our lock of the year on FanDuel where it was Nuggets

Bucks and Kings all to have their overs combined it was like five to one I was really proud of our performance thank you I thought we did a good job. We took it seriously. We put the time in. Yeah. Unlike some of the guys in the league, we put the time in. We showed up. There was no load management. We didn't load manage the podcast.

We did not. We did the whole podcast with only a couple of breaks. It was long. I mean, my butt fell asleep. Yeah, but I think Zion, it's either Zion or Lucas slash Dallas as the two single biggest disappointments this season for me. Wow. Like the fact that we went backwards in a worse way with Zion,

where it's not even like a real, that's I'm not, I'm not, I'm, I'm more heartbroken than disappointed about the Zion. All right. I'm both. Can I be both?

Yeah. Disappointing to me is a different thing. Toronto disappoints me. Miami disappoints me. Toronto just seems like a messed up situation the coach is going to leave. Well, those are two teams that came in that didn't make big dramatic changes in the offseason.

They were like, we like our teams. Miami was in the Eastern Conference Finals two of the last three years. Toronto won 46 games. We like them. They came in. And then they just, you know. The single most disappointing team

in the whole NBA to me, though, is the Clippers. That situation. Well, because they... Just that they never have the guys. They low-managed their way to a 500 record. Congratulations. Well done.

I still kind of like them. No, Dallas is wasting a prime Lucas season where he's 33 a game. Come on. All right, we're going to go. We're going to take a break. We're going to come back and we're going to talk about our day at the Masters

with Nathan Hubbard and the chef himself, David Chang. This episode is brought to you by Movember. David Chang. 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. Y'all afraid of ghosts? How about ghost peppers? It's the moment you've been waiting for. November. and send a chill of anticipation down your spine, nothing will. Get your ghost pepper sandwich today at Popeyes before it ghosts you for another year. I got a ticket from Popeyes. All right, we're taping this part of the podcast. It is 8.15 Eastern time. Went to the Masters today.

Round one. We have a lot of topics to discuss here with Joe House, Nathan Hubbard, David Chang. The big question every time we go to the Masters, the question you get from people like my dad, people in our life, first one they ask is, how did Tiger look? That makes me think as long as he's still a relevant in the mixed golfer, that's always going to be the first question with the Masters, right, House? He's going to be 50 in a couple of years. He still had the biggest galleries by far.

The crowd was still the most excited by far. If anything good happened with him. And this is just the way it's going to be. We're going to talk about what he looked like physically in a second, but he still kind of owns the masters. That's crazy. I wouldn't say it's crazy. I mean, it kind of makes sense.

It's, it's really, you know, now coming up on 25 years, right? 26 years is his debut victory. 1997 is 2023 now. And all of the twists and turns in his own life and the dramatic win in 2019. Everybody is invested in his success at that place. It's a mutual admiration society. There is that also the thing where sometimes people are parked at a hole, so you get the one shot at him. You really want him to do something good when he's on your hole, when he's passing by. Nathan, you were concerned about how he was walking, which has been a recurring theme with him as well. It looked terrible. really want him to do something good when he's on your hole when he's passing by um nathan you

were concerned about how he was walking which has been a recurring theme with him as well it looked terrible he's grimacing every single step is a limp and i'm actually stunned that he shot two over today given the stats that said he was at best middle of the pack on every category i want him to do well i mean you looked at us as he walked up 10 and said, when do we start the applause? It is a little bit like Jesus is coming through. Yeah. And he glows. He looks different. His back is still, his upper body is so strong. It's like he's countered the weakness below his waist with unbelievable strength. We saw almost every golfer

out there today. None of them have a back like Tiger Woods. Very good posture. It's incredible. There was one moment when he kind of had to walk backwards when he was marking his thing and he was putting the weight backwards on the bad leg, taking two steps back. It just looks rough. It just looks like he's in pain. Yeah. We have to start listening. The same thing we noticed last year. He looked like he was in pain last year. You feel like, oh, a year later it'll be better. And it just doesn't seem better. We have to start listening to him when he tells us he does not know how many more of these he's got in him. He's telling us the truth at this point. He does not want to be freaking Larry Mize or Sandy Lyle flapping his way around the course like those

guys did today. His pride is too much to let him do that. He would rather not be out there than do this. And I think the frustration is really starting to grow because he's clearly doing everything with his body that he possibly can to be ready for a day like this. He just doesn't have it in him right now. Chang, you hadn't seen him in person post-car accident. What did it look like for you? I felt a little bit better today because i'm walking better than him number one number two because you too herniated this you still walk better i have to say the saddest moment this week was him missing that putt on 10 for birdie

right every time he didn't do something great i feel like the audience the crowd was just super bummed yeah that's how much he holds over people and i don't know who replaces that probably will never happen yeah i was i had a bunch of stuff written down including who's the next guy because we saw we parked at 10 for a while we walked around we saw just about everybody we had one moment we were going back to walk up to the front nine and didn't realize that Rory was passing through on the fifth hole. And Rory's a guy who, you know, he hasn't won a major since 2014. He's always mentioned as one of golf's biggest stars.

He just doesn't have the same captivating in-person kind of vibe with the gallery. Like, people like him. He's great. But it's not the same. And to me like i just don't know who the next guy is who's the next gallery captivator who is it house um at the masters probably jordan speed if he you know he showed us he kind of struggled around a little bit for a little bit look like he was getting hot because of the baggage from falling apart? Because he won and has that baggage.

Yeah. And he's still super young and charismatic. That would be my nominee. I wouldn't call him charismatic. He's pretty charismatic. Yeah, I would. Jordan Spieth? Yes.

No fucking way. What are you talking about? Charismatic by what definition? He owned the golf world as a 20-year-old, a 21-year-old, a 22-year-old, 23-year-old. By far, he was the most interesting star. He wasn't cool. It was because he was young.

Nobody's cool. But he owned it because he was young. It wasn't because he was cool. But now it's because he's... Kepco is cool. Now it's because he's fragile. Kepco's a dick. But he was cool.

He was interesting in person. You wanted to watch him. He was? Yeah, I thought he was. Now for Jordan, it's because he's fragile. It's because he's talking to himself like a raving lunatic on every shot. It's because at any moment in time, he can wow you or make you cringe, which is exactly what his round looked like today as he went back and forth and back and forth to finish three under. He is still the golden child in many people's minds, but I don't think he's the most interesting hang off the course that we've ever seen.

And that is probably at the core why there isn't the guy. For a while, we thought it might be Bryson DeChambeau only because he was just so interesting to watch. He was the story 18 months ago in golf. And today he was nothing. He petered his way around there. I forgot he was just so interesting to watch. He was the story 18 months ago in golf. And today, he was nothing. He petered his way around there, finished two over. I forgot he was there. We didn't even go out of our way to look for him. It's nothing. So it doesn't exist.

And before that, it was Phil Mickelson who showed up this week looking like Skeletor. And still, he declined a bunch of interviews this week. He's intentionally kept a low profile. I'm stunned he shot one under today. We talked on Tuesday about how it's kind of a big three. One of you pointed out, can Rory be in the big three if he hasn't won a major in nine years?

Should it just be Rahm and Sheffler? Rahm felt like he had the most juice of all the in their prime guys with the gallery, but just because he's good. But I wouldn't call him like necessarily captivating either, but it did, you know,

he double bogeyed the first hole today. Never how you want to start. And then shot nine under. Put a massive score up and you could feel the momentum shifting when we were parked on 10 and he passed through. That was fun. But I don't know.

Does golf even need a star? Like I look at like where basketball is now. LeBron is at the tail end of his career. Curry's 35. And when you talk about like who the next guys are, I don't, I don't feel like Giannis and bead Yoko, all these guys as great as they are. I don't feel like Giannis, Embiid, Jokic, all these guys,

as great as they are, I don't feel like they've kept, they're almost like basketball's version of Rahm and Scheffler. You know, these really best at what they do,

but nobody, you know, they're not, not going to transcend anything from, from an audience standpoint. So maybe, I don't know,

maybe golf just isn't going to have it. What were you going to say, Jay? I think about the conversation you and Wesley Morris had about Tom Cruise two, three months ago in Hollywood. Maybe it's the same thing, right?

You can't replace that because there's just too many options. There's too many good young players. You were talking about that, Nathan, right? About the next generation, they're just better than ever, but maybe there's just more of it than ever before. It's kind of what basketball is like. Well, this is the moment that golf is really thrilled with in the sense that they created these elevated events.

They created it really out of whole cloth in response to the live threat. The ratings have been terrific and the competition has been terrific. And the reason that we were talking about a big three for right now is because Rory played really, really good at the end of last season and then arrived this season playing pretty well. Also, Rahm has won a couple times on tour in the calendar year. Scheffler's won a couple times so far. And the moment, to your point, Bill, that we're in right now is those three guys sort of taking turns. And then what other kind of up-anders can, can kind of crack that.

But what we, the real thing that golf is after is having all the best guys play at the same time. That's why this masters was so goddamn anticipated coming into it. We finally have all the best guys playing at the same time for the first time since the open championship last year. And Brooks effing Koepka is tied for the lead. That is some shit right there.

That is exciting. Yeah, that's a good one. The most interesting guy who passed through our vortex today is Patrick Reed. Yes. The crowd did not like him. Well, it was just quiet. It was respectful.

For golf, that was like, we don't like you. He made a birdie, and it was like tepid applause we were screaming because i have patrick reed 72 to 1 well we're all sitting here with four aces hats on yeah we were four aces um nobody was cheering for him we were the only people cheering for him today the only ones yeah i just he made he made the only what 20 footer that we saw in two hours it was a great putt and i think i think one of the things that got debunked today was this myth that the live guys have not been playing and aren't going to be able to come out and play golf nine of them are even par or better they all sort of

held their own i think what we know now is that there's some good guys playing live and so when patrick reed finishes third in a tournament and Brooks Koepka wins, it might not mean they're the best golfers in the world right now, but it does mean they're playing decent golf. So it's not a surprise when they come over and play well against the PGA Tour guys.

Well, they put us on notice, at least on a Thursday, right? This tournament is set up. I mean, we still, all of the chaos of the tournament is in front of us. Yes. The four rounds, four rounds of competition. Now, these are young guys and they're used to playing on big stages.

But, you know, the thing that's been missing from the live events is anything that feels like competitive tension. So let's have some competitive tension and let's see as the chaos unfolds this weekend. Where were the other three aces when Patrick Reed was... Is it like wrestling where... Four aces. It's like when Shane McMahon had the Mean Street Posse. Does he have the other three aces?

DJ is an ace. Isn't DJ one of the aces? Is he one of the four aces? DJ's an ace. Yeah, DJ's an ace. DJ finished one under. He birdied 18 to finish one under. So that was the...

Do you guys want to be the four aces of podcasting? That would be... Yes. Let's get had. Four aces of podcasting? That would be, yes. Let's get hot like those guys. We watched a practice round. We watched a hole with Patrick Reed, the DJ, yesterday that you guys talked about on Fairway Rolling. And Patrick Reed was just like fucking icing these short game,

these chips. And it was like, oh, man, Patrick Reed. So that led to the 72 to 1. He looks really comfortable on the course. What's funny about him is I think he's accepted that he's just never going to be liked. And was it Chang identified with the Patrick Reed mentality of I feed off your hatred?

I'm a big fan of Patrick Reed. I may be the only real fan of Patrick Reed in America now because I love that. He's just like, fuck it, I'm a dick and let's just roll with it and never hate me. I think if he's just like fuck it I'm a dick and let's just let's just roll with it and everyone hate me I think if he'd accepted it he wouldn't be suing journalists for hundreds of millions I want to sue journalists too

like I sort of envy everything he's done one other thing we noticed today the the pins were in nice spots and it was a good weather day and the weather's gonna turn and we were wondering if they're trying to goose the scoring a little bit today because we have john rom shooting basically minus nine in the last 17 holes that's not a typical master's event yeah

they served up a golf course that it was was going to let guys get off on a good foot because of all the variables that are going to come into play starting kind of mid afternoon yeah tomorrow the the air could not have been more still it was like it was hot and it was humid and that i mean that's part of what why tiger didn't look he looked i mean he wiped his face 15 times on the 10 hole yeah uh he was having a hard time um he's also old now he's older than jack nicholson jack nicholas was in the 86 Masters. Yeah, you're right. The course played a full stroke harder in the afternoon, which I don't totally understand. Or easier in the afternoon. Easier in the afternoon.

Harder in the morning. And so it may have just been as that fog came off that the guys were having trouble. We sat on 10 and watched a bunch of guys come up way short in the morning on the approach. In the afternoon, it looked like they did better. The most interesting course stat for me was that 13 played pretty easy and even that's even with jordan shooting a seven coming down it doesn't seem like it eliminated the birdies there we didn't see a lot of eagles but we didn't we saw one eagle though and i was i was wondering all week long like if if the total number of eagles we would see there would even get to five. Yeah.

Let's see what happens if it's really, really wet, which we're going to get over the next couple of days for sure. Chang, what was your favorite thing about being back in Augusta? Besides all the calories consumed? Yeah. Besides that. I have to say my favorite thing, and I was talking to House about this all day were the portly golfers because everyone's super in shape and i always ask how it's like this guy work out that guy work out and then you knew the people that weren't working out and i i'm a big fan of john rom even like

shane lowry you got genuinely excited look i mean you just look like a lush that happened to be really great at golf i'm a big fan of that yeah the big boys that don't work out i i'm a i'm behind 1000 the funniest moment of the day was when chan got upset about uh what was the guy's name which one the guy oh he got yeah yeah do you want to talk about this asian tour golfer, let's not talk about it. He's amazing. I mean, he's top 100 ranked in the OWGR. Qualified by way of success on the Asian tour.

I can't. I can't. Yeah. Okay. He had a nice one into 10. He had a nice birdie effort on 10. We'll move on um can we talk about the sandwiches and the food items you know what did you notice with the food shang i

noticed that you said the most obscene thing today let's go get a pb and j today i i i almost had to like leave the charter but i was so upset. I said I wanted to get a... I asked if they had PB&J and you acted like... I'm not the only person in the house who has a lot of shit in his pants. Are you a 12-year-old child? It's just the kind of bread they have and the $1 sandwiches.

Then he started coming at me for egg salad. But egg salad is a grown man sandwich. PB&J. Not everybody loves egg salad. Georgia, peanuts, jelly. No. There's no kids menu here. You said that you saw chicken sandwiches the most.

I was walking around and I want to see what people are eating. I think a lot of beers are being consumed for sure. But I feel like chicken sandwich when it's all said and done will be like by far and away the clear-cut most consumed food in the four days here and i don't know how many people were doing your hack i didn't see anybody other people tried to claim um the biggest problem with this is that nobody can take a photo and put it on social media. True. Yeah.

There are a lot of people saving cups. We haven't really had a first master's cup snake yet. Yeah, there did seem to be a cup saving kind of frenzy this year. Yeah, we need a cup snake. A lot of, not just kids, adults, grown ass men and women saving cups left and right. Let's take a break. We're going to do more food stuff and then, uh,

we're going to have a dopey draft. When you ride transit, please be safe. Yeah. Be safe. Because what you do, others will do too. Others will do it too.

So don't take shortcuts across tracks. Don't do that. In fact, just don't walk on tracks at all. Not at all. Trains move quietly. So you won't hear them coming. You won't hear them coming. See, safe riding sets an example. Yeah, an example for me. Because safety is learned. It's learned. Okay, give it up. Give what up? Really? Really, really. This message is brought to you by Metrolinks.

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So Chang, what sandwich would you add to all the options? Which right now, famously, pimento sandwich, chicken sandwich, gross egg salad. Come on, chicken salad chicken salad bbq brioche there's a bbq like what is that like bbq pork yes pulled pork pulled pork and they smoked that here i've seen it i've seen the process any are you good with that or would you add something not the only problem i had with the barbecue is nathan insisting that you make a combination of the barbecue sandwich to the egg salad. I'm over-rotating on the egg salad.

I understand. Wait a second. You would put barbecue pork with the egg salad? I'm going to tomorrow. That's disgusting. I agree. Yeah. We all agree.

In what world do those two things go together? Chang's going to put caviar on fried chicken skin. I have, and it's awesome. I'm sure it's totally awesome. My point is keep an open mind to what a great creator. Keep an open rectum. Oh no. That sounds like a diarrhea special. Oh no. Well, that's been part of this week. I don't think you can add any sandwiches

to what is being served in Augusta. It's just like it's a perfect selection. Everybody wins except for roast beef and cheese. It's just like it's a perfect selection. Everybody wins except for you and his PB&J. That's not a southern thing. No. I still

don't understand the PB&J thing. What's better than a really nice homemade PB&J? I thought you had kids. I do. One of them is allergic to peanuts. Just putting your own politics into this. You just made your point.

The two aspects are you have that at home and you have it with kids. That's all. The one thing we have not consumed is the peach cookie ice cream sandwich. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. We're going to do that in the morning. Here we are. It's going to be my breakfast.

Here's my next Chang question. Which player do you wish was Korean? If you could take any player who played today and turn them into a Korean, who would you pick? I'm going to just say this, right? There are a lot of Korean golfers that were playing today. And again, I actually covered some of the Olympics in NBC when they were in Korea, in Pyeongchang. And I noticed that Koreans happen to be the best short track speed skaters in the world. And I've asked other sort of sports scientists and they say like, we're just for a lot of reasons. One of which is the thighs that Koreans have.

I think a lot of the Korean golfers today, I said like they would have been a world record short track speed skater. The person that I think could also be a short track speed skater the person that i think could also be a short track speed skater is john ron huge thighs huge korean like thighs big trunk big trunks yeah can't fit in his pants big fan of his pants so you would take him would you take korean korean patrick reed ah shit he's got nobody channels the korean han. Just stop what you're doing right now, Google Korean Han, and then imagine Patrick Reed. He is the definition of Korean Han that happens to not be a Korean person. You got to explain what it is, because we have people driving right now. Youathing and hatred that, uh, that, that, that is like, uh, you can never sort of fill this hole of rage and revenge. It is just never going to be quenched. And that is Patrick Reed. read is it cultural or is it in the dna it is the dna very similar to how if i throw a bone at a

labrador it's going to have to bring it back it's just genetically programmed i feel that it's genetically programmed what is the source of that uh two thousand years of uh being enslaved basically yeah that'll do it my uh my mom who as you know is all Italian, and can get a little... The Italian version of what Chang just laid out. We always call it... We have a name for it in my family. But it's similar. I almost wonder like the Italians and the Koreans.

I think that's why we get along. I do. And also, if you want to have a better idea, our good friend Steve Young and David Cho have an episode of Beef. You can actually watch Korean Han. And then you can imagine Patrick Reed sort of playing one of these characters as well. I'm a big fan of Patrick. You should just hyphen his name and add him in the show.

Patrick, this has been a great podcast for Patrick Reed. We believe in you, Patrick. He's really winning. 72 to 1, Patrick. We believe in you, Patrick. 72 to 1, Patrick. All right, we're going to do a draft of people who could realistically win the Masters, who

none of us think will ever win the Masters again. Either again or going forward, no way. But people that are always mentioned, who are always kind of in the mix or anticipated as a possible whoever. And we're just like, we're out. And we're going to go in a circle.

And they have never won it or they've won it. Just never winning it ever. Going forward, writing them off, who do you have, House? You start. Bryson DeChambeau. I don't have to hesitate. It's very easy. There has been long this skepticism about the the suitability of

his game um to to what augustin national requires he is uh you know by reputation and the and the persona he's created this analytic thinker this strategist and he showed up a handful of years ago and said for him this this golf course is par 68. He thinks of it as a par because he knows he's going to birdie all four of the par fives. And so the real par at Augusta National, he's missed out on the entirety of what the golf course truly requires, which is a creative mind and artistry. It's why people say Jordan Spieth, it suits him so well because of his imagination around the greens his ability to save par from any anywhere so bryson dechambeau is my number one i don't think he will ever he's going to miss the cut this week and he's also not going to

win the masters ever we bet on him to miss the cut we did yes we did who do you have nathan rory mcelroy i know you looked right at me when he said it. Why'd you have to look at me? This is the best that Rory McIlroy has ever played coming into the Masters. His Achilles heel has always been that he starts so damn slow. And coming into this tournament, he has had a lot of weight on his shoulders because he's basically the de facto PGA Tour Commissioner. I get it. I get it. I get it. I get it. But if you're part of the big three, you cannot come into the Masters

on the day that they have set up the course for scoring because the next three days are going to be shit hay on the weather side of things and be 62nd out of 87 guys on approach if you are one of the best players in the world. Start slow and just dig out of a hole and finish the day seven shots behind Jon Rahm, who is supposedly your rival. I think it's too much. I think it's this wonderful weakness and Achilles heel and one of the best players to play the game. And Rory McIlroy is never going to win the Masters. Chang? I don't follow modern day golf like you guys. So I'm just sort of going to pick a name that we saw. I saw this week and I just my vibe to me was like, he's not going to win. And I think some of you guys might know him personally. So no offense, Max Holman. I don't think he's going to

win. Wow. Yeah. Interesting. I mean, Max, Max did his best today. He walked the entire 14th hole with an air pod in his ear and gave an interview. And he's doing his best to be that guy who's forward-facing. But you saw some things behind the scenes watching the practice rounds that you didn't love. Body language. You know, Bill's a big body language person. I didn't like the body language either. The only thing that I would say with Homa is the one omission from his resume thus far.

The one big hole in his resume is a very successful major performance. And his ascension to where he's like in the conversation as one of the top five golfers in the world has occurred in the last like eight months or so, I guess we would say. Yes. Like where he really has put himself up there. So I think it's reasonable to say he's put so much pressure on himself to come perform. This is the first opportunity for him to show out at a major. I'm a, this is the new homie homer. Here I am world. Come check it out.

And maybe he's put too much pressure on himself. Well, he talked a lot about distance control today. He managed to squeal on that 14th hole. He said, if I can just get into red numbers, I'm going to sleep well tonight. And it's probably the only way I will. He got himself to one under. So he's still hanging around this tournament. I'm taking Jordan Spieth. What? Wow. Too much baggage. Saw it today. Walked right by us after he hit a shot and he was walking ahead of everybody else.

And he just looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. And it was one of those, like the camera's not following him. He's not on TV moments. He looks sad. That's also how you walk around. There was like a sadness to him. No, I noticed it last year too. I think he flew very close to the sun here in Augusta, right? And all the stuff that happened to him and the company that he was keeping historically, the way he was being talked about, and then to blow that Masters the way he did. And I just don't know if he's been the same since.

I know he's had success in the non-Masters stuff. He's also had success in the masters. I mean, he's still collecting top fives. I get it. But winning. I get it. He's 27 now? He's 29. He turns 30 in July. Okay. I just feel a weight with him that if it

gets really close where he's in it, I don't know. It's just a body language doctor thing. I got one more controversial one that's going to get me in a lot of trouble. You're jumping the draft? Oh, I thought that was one. We've kept more than one round. Nobody took Tiger yet.

Tiger's the easiest one. I mean, Tiger is the easiest one, but I'm not going to take Tiger. Well, you could. I'll just take Phil. Fine, take Phil. I'll do a nice cop-out. He looks great. That's a pretty easy one there's a cop out yeah i was expecting you to do that i thought you hosted a golf podcast we'd be able to ad lib with topics why don't you make i'll draft him you

make the case patrick can't like oh well i mean that's another guy who's got the the glaring omission in terms of success in the majors. Well, he's on the best guy to never win a major list. That's right. We were having that conversation as well. A.K.A. the Colin Montgomery, Lee Westwood list. Now, these guys are still young enough. The three that have really achieved stuff on tour

that hasn't yet translated into an actual major win is Tony Finau, Xander Schauffele, and Patrick Cantlay. I think we have to put Max up there with six wins now. But he just got those wins. He's not been sitting... I'm not

ready to put Max into that category. Finau certainly had more top tens in majors, top fives in majors. Yeah, he was stringing together terrific performances in majors for a long time. We don't have terrific performances in majors from Patrick Cantlay. No. The closest he's come was standing on the 17th tee in 2019, the year that Tiger won. I think that's right, right?

Wasn't it 2019 or was it a couple years before that? When he was either tied for the lead or within a struggle to lead. And he blasted one into the trees on the right and finished ninth, I think. So Cantlay, that's the case for Cantlay. And he came out again today and was meh. It's never one part of his game.

It's just always one part of his game. Chan, go ahead. Now you can draft. I want this to not be true and this is also an example of sort of korean hunt oh and i'm going to take the field here and i don't want this to i want to be wrong here why are you doing this i have to because i take the field of all korean players i just don't believe that we as a group will ever win a major. We'll win a lot of tournaments.

We'll come in third, second place. We're just never going to win a major. It's very different than LPGA. We fucking win majors all the fucking time. Korean PGA players or Asian tour players that play in major tournaments, we're never going to pull it off. And I just believe that to be true. You sound like Red Sox fans.

This was a draft about the Masters not even all majors all majors all majors never had a korean player win the mate win a major never no why why yang is korean yeah and he beat tiger in the pga championship oh so there's one oh you want but did he he won oh we're saying moving forward now yeah that's what you're I'm not saying it. I love Koreans. I gambled on Sung Jae Im for Christ's sake to win this golf tournament this week. That was a bad bet. I want to be wrong.

I'm an optimist. I want to be wrong. What a hero that makes Y.E. Yang going forward. We love Tom Kim. I want to kiss that kid on the forehead. What happened to him? Who? Tom Kim? No. Why Yang? Where is he now? Where's Tiger Woods? Where is he now?

He's got the trophy forever. A real Korean parent would say you got to do better, buddy. Right. Where's your second? You've only won one Masters. Only one PGA? Where's the third? Where's the fourth? So I can't take Tiger Woods? You can. Of course you can. This is enough

for this, by the way. For this draft? Two rounds is enough. Eight guys. I just took all Koreans moving forward. He took all Koreans out. He took unborn children. Can Tony Finau be the last pick? We love Tony.

Do we think he can actually win the Masters? I definitely do. I personally do. Or is he like an always the bridesmaid, never the bride kind of guy? He has been that way, but I still think he could win. Yeah, I do too. I also think Xander could win. Me too. I was thinking about drafting Xander, but I actually think he could.

All right, I'll take Tiger Woods. Speaking of a guy who was standing on a tee, his 16th tee, two years ago when Hideki Matsuyama, and he could have caught, he was tracking, he had Hideki right in his sights and hit a ball in the water on the 16th hole. Yeah, Xander looked terrific today. The only thing that we noticed from Xander is he is taking some oomph off of his drives

in service of hitting it straight. It's been the problem, and no doubt, he was third on approach, only to Rahm and Scheffler today, but he was 63rd off the tee. And that's the only thing that's going to keep him from winning. Let's do some FanDuel bets. Stuff that we like.

It is now 8.45 Eastern time, so there's plenty of time to look at some of the ads. Tournament winning score, minus 15 or better is the favorite, minus 14 or worse would be the other side of it um so basically they're saying 15 and up would be the score i think we know we have some bad weather coming in we know we saw what they did with the pins today which i don't think they'll continue to do i would go under with that i'm a i'm a lock for under i couldn't agree more

the single biggest thing in addition to the rain is the dramatic change in temperature. It was hot as balls out there today, and it is going to be a high of, is it even going to get to? No, 52 degrees high on Saturday with 100% chance of rain, low of 47. Like a nearly 40 degree change in temperature

between Thursday and Saturday. That is not conducive to low scoring on a golf course. What do you think, Nathan? I think definitely the under. Yeah. We have guys at seven right now, multiple. Yeah. And the only thing that I'm looking at at seven,

again, we picked Jon Rahm, so we're a little biased on this. He's down to plus 350. Jon Rahm was second off the tee. He was fifth on approach. He was first around the green, first tee to green. He was 56th in putting. Scheffler, second on approach, 12th off the tee,

sixth around the green, 85th out of 87 guys, and he was tied for 85th, so second to last in putting. He's plus 490, second favorites. Two players in the world. I think if those guys can figure out the 87 guys, and he was tied for 85th. So second to last in putting. He's plus 490 second favorites. Those are the two best players in the world. I think if those guys can figure out the flat stick, they're going to pull themselves away this week. It's going to come down to a battle between those two. That's the only way it could get up above 15.

So Victor Hovland, who was awesome today, is 11-01. Well, behind those guys. Chang, is it because he was wearing a Dave Cho brand shirt? It was the best description of his clothing I could ever think of a Dave Cho like shirt it was Dave Cho designers it was hideous Dave Cho design golf shirts would that would be what it looked like it was so bad would Dave Cho like that you would you would take just look at a shirt and say it was hideous and that's why I associate it with Dave Cho yes Yes. Oh, he would. Okay, good. He would probably love the Hobbit shirt.

Yeah, I had a look at the odds for anyone 20 to 1 and under. Spieth is 20 to 1, by the way. Hovland, 11 to 1, seems high. Koepka is plus 750. I just thought, did you see anything today that makes you think Brooks Koepka can win his? Yes. Yes. Yes. I mean,

we talked about it last night. That's why you got to come and go walk the practice rounds and watch the golfers. You learn things that you can't coming in. Brooks Koepka looked strong yesterday. So he's recovered from episode two of the Netflix show? His body was moving great.

It wasn't, yes, no, clearly not by his post-run interview. Did you slide into his dms like his wife did is this thing on that's how they i mean they're their husband and wife now it worked good for her she did it you know what we know about brooks kepka and we keep talking about it and why we think there could be some fire where the smoke is with this idea that he could have an interest in returning to tour.

He likes being on television. And if you're tied for the lead at the Masters, you get to be on television. You get to give big interviews to ESPN, right, Nate Dogg? Chang had a very interesting theory about what happens if Brooks Koepka wins. I think it breaks the live tour. Wow. Breaks it. What happens to the four aces?

They'll never die. Do the four aces have a poster? Oh, that's a great idea. Does anybody have posters anymore? They should have a commercial. Like, the four aces, they should have an animated series. Like a Bash Brothers 80s poster.

It should be like an old school Costico's Brother poster, the four aces i'm sure they could you don't do that for you how did they come up with the name four aces how did they come up with the name range goats it's inconceivable high flyers with wise torquay torque pronounced torquay by the way this is the most media exposure that those team names have ever had can you name all the four aces, Chang? No, I don't even know.

Other than Patrick, my man. Our guy DJ is on the four aces. I'm not a fan of him. Taylor Gooch and Pat Perez. Yeah, it's Pat Perez. A.K.A. the four aces. It's really like wrestling where you have the two famous people and then the two jobbers. Yeah.

I think they traded Taylor Gooch. Didn't they trade him? I think they did. You can trade? Oh, yeah. There's a whole thing. There think they did. You can trade? Oh, yeah. There's a whole thing. There's a whole... You can trade in Livetour?

They trade... These names have to be better. Anyway. It's basically DJ, Patrick Reed, and the Bushwhackers. Yeah. The Livetour sounds amazing.

I didn't realize they had trades and weird groups that are like the Four Horsemen of the late 80s. Maybe I should give it another look. It's going to fall. The Four Aces. Well, these are the names.

Yeah, read us the names, John. See, I didn't know any of this before today because I've just ignored the LipTor for obvious reasons. The Stinger? The Stingers? The Stingers. Smash? Torkay? Torkay.

Punch? Wait, go back to Torque. So it's spelled like Torque, but they pronounce it Torque? Because it's the Spanish players. Yeah. Okay. The Niblicks. That's lame.

Didn't they change their name? I don't know. Let's just say that in the business model, the Excel spreadsheet of this league, each of these teams was supposed to be worth billions of dollars, and it's stunning that the Niblicks hasn't delivered. Iron Heads, Fireballs, Crushers. This is lame. It all sounds like...

You didn't do Majestics GC or Range Goats? Range Goats. We mentioned Range Goats. Ripper? I want names like Cougars, just like high school football names. That's what they should go with. Like the Lions? The Lions, the Commanders.

I would love to know how they market tested the names. Are there hats for some of the stuff? I'm not sure. They have uniforms this year. They're wearing them on the court. They shipped all of the uniforms, showed up in giant boxes in Mexico. They hadn't arrived in time for the teams.

The premier event of the season was in Mexico. They shipped all the uniforms. They all put them on. I'm going to ask Bill if I can start a live tour podcast. Could you do this with chefs? Could it be you and Bianco and then two jobber chefs? We're not going to watch a single match. We're just going to talk shit.

I hope that the live tour is going to be a documentary someday. Well, it's captured by the Netflix documentary, not in its own sense. No, but I want the behind the scenes of those guys trying to figure out a team name and somebody coming up with four aces and them all agreeing on it. What's going to last longer?

That's amazing. The XFL or the Live Tour? The new XFL or the old one? The new. I think the new one's going to stick around because of gambling. I think people just want stuff to gamble on. So how much longer do you think the Live Tour's got? As much patience as the Saudis have for losing money.

Yeah, as long as NBS wants it to stick around. And again, we've heard this week, we've heard legit rumors that Greg Norman is in peril and going to be fired and that there's a push to try to bring some harmony between these two tours. We'll see how the next couple of days go. Well, we talked to some high-ranking executives at a gambling company who told us

that nobody bets on the lift tour well you can't because it is it's very bizarre all the places that they make because they have individual stuff but there's team stuff and there's well if they were genuinely interested in in grabbing some of the golf gambling community they would have figured out a way to replicate the stroke there's some metrics a way of of actually analyzing how guys are playing because that's what we want if we're gonna you know actually invest money into the thing we have to have some indication of of how guys are playing at various they don't we can't you get no information at all no i'm sitting here looking at the shots gained metrics across a bunch

of different categories of all the guys who played today and it is screaming that Rahm and Scheffler are gonna jump up to the top of the leaderboard with a few things coming along but if you don't have any of that you just can't bet in the same way why don't why don't the team names have names like money grabbers like no integrity bankruptcy. Wait, I have another live question. If you had to root for one of the live teams, I just mailed you all the teams. Look at your phone. I just texted you all the...

Which team would you pick? Because the Smash team has two Kepkas. Our guy Patrick reads on four aces, as we mentioned. I mean, even the team captains are kind of depressing. Kevin Na is a team captain. Imagine having Kevin Na as your captain. I got an inspiring speech today from Kevin Na. He shot 40.

Bryson DeChambeau's a captain. He WD'd. Question. How come Sergio Garcia is not on the Spanish team? What happened? He's on fireball. They wouldn't let him on Torque? There are two teams.

It's not a debate. It's Ripper because it's all the Australians and they'll be the drunkest. Are you upset there's not an Asian team? No, not yet. They did try. Danny Lee. What's that team? Kevin Na is there too.

Is Kevin Na the leader of the team that Kevin Na is there too is Kevin Na the leader of the team that Danny Lee is on? yes he is if Kevin Na is Korean we're trading him he is Korean it appears they feel the same he's out he's lost his Korean card it's really depressing to look at the teams

that's awful 4 aces is the most fun run with DJ and Patrick Reed I think I got a root for the fireballs because Jose Andresen, Sergio Garcia are boys. So you got to root for that. Actually, my favorite is they're paying us in cash. That's a team name.

Any more bets house that you're looking at? Any top five, top 20? We have a whole bunch of finishing position bets hovland's plus 145 to be top five i i don't i want to wait till tomorrow i don't want to jump into any of these markets right now i'm confident with what we put out there the specials that we put out jason day played great today yes that was one of our one of our guys john rama obviously we were all over him all week long i ended yesterday's podcast saying that i was betting on brooks kepka i did bet on brooks

kepka i'm happy i bet on brooks kepka i'm just gonna let it ride into the weekend let's let this cut occur whenever it's going to happen hopefully they get the round in and completed tomorrow but they haven't completed a second round on a friday in uh four months but you know after the cut then i'll reassess and see what kind of uh situation looks like yeah the most surprising thing about this leaderboard is the lack of surprises the biggest surprise today was sam bennett the amateur shooting the first bogey free round in over 30 years by an amateur. Everything else is just about as we expected, save for Rory being super fucking mad. Yeah.

Total random thing. Who's the greatest Spanish golfer of all time? Is it Seve? Is it Olathable? It's Seve. I think it's Seve. Garcia's up there.

He only has one major. I think it's Olathable. Olathable has two masters. British Open. He's got a British Open too, right? I think he has more stuff going on. But is Rom like a Spanish

person? Yes. It should be Rom. He could be Rom. Yeah. Long shots in the 20s basically. Schaafle is 24 to 1. Finau 24 to 1. Shafi is 24-1. Finau, 24-1. Morikawa is 29-1.

Portly Shane Lowry is 46-1. Cam Smith, 50-1. It does feel like somebody from that group. Your guy Rory is 21-1. This does feel like the Hideki masters, which is that we're going to have, somebody's going to be a beneficiary of timing and a break in the rain, aren't they?

I think that's the case. And out of the names that you just read off, the one that really jumps at me is Cam Smith. Yes. Because he's a demonstrated, excellent performer at this venue. And he's also a guy that we've seen have success just a year ago in a marathon golf tournament that was interrupted by rain several times.

He won the Players' Championship in March of 2022. I think they finished the second round on Sunday in that tournament. I mean, so at 50-1, the of all the variants that's about to be injected into this thing i like a guy with with his uh stature at this venue you know what else he's a hell of a captain for ripper gc here we go i know mark leshman mark leshman matt jones and jet jet morgan all the respective skills. I don't know. What would our live team name be? Old and Cranky?

I think Four Aces. Old and Creaky? Four Aces is such a good name. No, Four Aces is taken. Oh, it's taken. Is it Four Deuces? The Overeaters? Yeah, yeah, Four Deuces. Four Deuces for Nathan.

Public Deuces? I call that Thursday. All right. Chang, anything else before we go i have no idea i had so much to eat so much drink here's one thing for certain so much to spend you spent so much money in the pro shop so much why did you buy so many hats great job well i bought you guys hats thank you it was so thoughtful that was i'm so appreciative it was very nice i bought a lot of presents, but I'm never going to drink three Bloody Marys ever again in the

morning. It's never going to happen. Nathan, any last thoughts? No. I mean, listen, can we come back? I want to come back. To the Masters? Oh, you want to come back to the Masters? I want to come back. Do you like coming to the Masters? Yes. It's turning into a little bit like Vegas, which is that after 48 hours,

you've started to marinate a little bit more than you need to. A little bit like dinner tonight. But I think from here, I'm ready to go home, sit on the couch and watch this thing go. All right. When are you guys doing your next pod? Sunday night recap. It might be Monday, though, is the problem. Well, yeah, we'll see.

And it could be on FanDuel TV. I believe the recap. Oh, yeah. That's his recap on FanDuel TV, I believe, the recap. Oh, yeah. That's his recap on FanDuel TV. That's right. Excellent. All right, so I'm coming back with Rosillo on Sunday. We're going to tape right after the Masters.

The final NBA game ends at 3 o'clock, so we're going to do Masters, Player Awards, all that stuff on Sunday, unless we get a Masters delayed to Monday, which when was the last time that happened? 1983. Who won that year? No idea.

Hale Irwin. Was it any of the Rippers or the Four Aces? It was definitely not. It wasn't a Stinger. It wasn't the Nutsacks. The Nutsacks. Could that be our team name? Yes, it definitely could.

These Nuts could become a presidential candidate. That could be our name. It was Seve. Seve won his second Masters. Seve. How disrespectful we are. It's a little bit of an asterisk, the Monday Masters win. I don't know.

It's like one and a half Masters. It's like the bubble championship. How dare you? It's harder to win on a Monday. No, it is. All right, guys. Good to see you. This was produced by Kyle Creighton.

Thank you, fellas. Good to see you. This was produced by Kyle Creighton. Thank you, fellas. Great to see you. Thank you. On the wayside I'm a person never lost And I don't have to ever forget