The Kevin Sheehan Show - Take Two

Episode Date: June 9, 2026

Kevin and Thom today with their second of two shows on the day....the first one "lost to the heavens". Plenty on Game 3 of the NBA Finals. More on Brandon Aiyuk. Nats, World Cup, and the Brendan Sorsby college football problem all part of the show.   For all your football betting needs: DCRELOAD at MyBookie for a 50% Deposit Match   Get 20% off your first order at www.FastGrowingTrees.com with code [Sheehan].   Refresh your everyday with luxury you'll actually use. Head to www.quince.com/SHEEHAN for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too.   Chime is not just smarter banking, it is the most rewarding way to bank. Head to www.Chime.com/SHEEHAN. It only takes a few minutes to sign up. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You don't want it. You don't need it. But you're going to get it anyway. The Kevin Sheehan Show. He is Kevin. Tommy is here with me, and he's being a trooper. I am also here. This is our second show of the day.

We recorded a really good one. Yes, it was. It was maybe one of the best shows we've ever done. You really should have heard it. It was phenomenal. I don't think we've ever created a show quite like. Like that, that one would have been sent to the D.C. Podcast Association. No, no, no, no.

Oh. That one would have been sent to the Smithsonian. Smithsonian. Yes. God damn it. We lost the first show. I know. We did.

It's somewhere in the ether. Tommy's in studio today. I don't think that had anything to do with it, but it could have provided some negative karma. Yes, it could have. And the show we did was, you know, over an hour. It was really good. We talked about the NBA playoffs.

We talked about the Nats for a while. Oh, yes. We talked, we were getting ready to talk about your FIFA World Cup column, which I immediately retweeted when I read it this morning. Yes, you did. You're so diligent about that. Is it recording? It does appear to be recording. Yes.

But you know what? Wait a minute. It was recording before. What good does that do? I know. Well, part of me wants to stop right now. Save it and make sure that it's working. It's no one's going to care about the details of what just happened, but we recorded an excellent show.

It was saved throughout, which is what I do. After every segment, I save each segment. And I noticed when we started our final segment that it wasn't recording. And I stopped Tommy and I said, I don't know what's going on here. So I just saved it one more time. And then when I opened it to start recording again, it was. Gone. All but 30 seconds of it.

The very first 30 seconds of it. So hopefully that doesn't happen again. But I can't promise anything. We're going to try to recreate what we did. That's impossible. No, we can't do that. That's impossible. We can't do that.

That show is in the heavens. What did we even talk about? Well, we talked about for 20 minutes about your abuse of me, of your abuse by refusing to acknowledge my. existence. I did apologize, though. Right. Tommy sent me a bunch of text messages over the weekend, and I didn't respond to any of them. To any of them. Not one. And I went and checked, and yes, he had sent me these text messages, and I said, you are right. Now, you did exaggerate on how many times you sent me a certain column

about Jalen Brunson. No, I didn't. Okay, well, I thought you did. Of course you did. And you're always, you're always looking for the out, like a lawyer. I'm not looking for an You are. I apologize. It can't be a complete apology. It always has to be an asterisk. There's literally no other here. I apologize for not responding to your text messages.

No, none of this, I exaggerated. I nailed it. You said that you sent me four text messages. In four days. And that I didn't respond to any of them. Yes. There were really just three text messages. No.

No. I texted you about the Jalen Brunson column on Friday. day it ran. Are we really doing this again today? I texted you on Saturday again about the column. I have no, I have no excuses. All right.

None. All right. I apologize. Right. I do apologize profusely. And I don't. But I'm not the first person you have ever apologized to for something like this. Well, I do get accused occasionally with.

with, look, you know I'm not on social media a lot, so I don't respond to a lot of people. And I get people that say, why won't you respond to me? By the way, they email me and they say, I've tweeted you, you haven't responded. It's better to email me. It's a better, or to text me, but unless it's you.

Yeah, unless it's me. I mean, you tell me stories about you, you're on text with 20 guys talking about every other dribble in an NBA thing. Yeah, I am on some good group texts and group threads. And what do you think of your boy Legler? He's so good. He's so good. You know?

He's really good. Yeah. I mean, for the NBA finals. For how many years have I been saying, he needs to be the top crew. The top crew, he's the best analyst there is. And of course, Breen's great, too. Yes, Breen is great. Brin is Marf Albert's illegitimate son, basically.

Yeah. You know, I bet you that when Timmy texts you, you answer right back, don't you? Tim Legler? Yeah. I mean, I get, so. I think there's a status. I've told you this. No, there isn't. There's not a status. I'll bet there is. No, because now you're going to turn me into what Doc always tries to turn me into, some sort of an elitist, which I'm not at all. I've told you this before, and you get some of this, too, but.

I get every day on the radio show during the show. I just get a stream of text messages from people that I know that are listening to the show. And even some people I don't know who have, I guess, gotten a hold of my cell phone and they text. And at the end of the show is when sometimes you'll send me text messages. I know the weekend text messages were weekend text messages. I don't even know why I didn't respond. You probably heard your phone ping between the 10th and 11th hole and you said, screw that. I played golf on Saturday.

Of course you did. I did. And then we had plans. We went out to dinner with friends on Saturday night. But Sunday pretty much was in here for much of the day, kind of preparing for the upcoming week. I don't know why I didn't. But what I was going to say is, and at the end of like a radio show, three hours in radio, look at my phone and I'm like, ugh, I don't feel like going through all of them.

And by the way, during the show, when certain people text me because they are helpful, I'll look at them. Like, I'll, I'll open it up and I'll say, because they're like three or four guys, friends of mine that listen all the time or listeners who have my tech, have my cell phone. And it's really good stuff. I don't know. I'm not helpful. You're not helpful necessarily, but you're not listening.

You don't listen. much. That's true. So I'm not, it's, no excuses. That was rude of me not to get back to you. But I did eventually retweet your columns. Yes, you did. Yeah. Yes, you did. About an hour and a half ago. About an hour and a half ago before the first recording. Yes. By the way, everybody who's listening to this, you're getting pretty much a blow by blow version of what we did the first show. Well, in the opening segment. Tommy came in here very chesty today. He said, I want to come in and do the

show in studio, which, by the way, I didn't respond to. I didn't know I had to other than to just say thumbs up. Okay. No, it's acknowledgement that if I showed up at the door here, you would let me in. There are times you don't respond in a timely manner. Like last

week, you wrote the Ali column. I said, why didn't we talk about it? It took you five hours to respond. Because you were doing the show. Oh, so you didn't want to bother me in the show. How considerate you were. But you came in very chest. You're full of asterisks. You came in very chesty today. And I'm like, what's wrong with you? And I, and it's nothing, nothing. And I said, well, tell me about this recent column on FIFA. Should we talk about it today? And that's when you said,

yeah, we're going to talk about it today. Let's start recording now. Let's start now. And so he, he's Calm down from the first recording of the show. God, that was a good show. It was a really good show. It really was. But here we are. The spirits are laughing and listening to it. And this is going to be a shorter show than the first one

because we put great effort into the first one. And you've got places. You're a very busy guy and a very important guy. I'm going to a D.C. Grace game tonight at Catholic University. Right. That's where we're playing our home games this year. So now I'm remembering what we also did in the first segment, because we didn't talk about the NBA finals until the second segment of the show.

And we got this email from General G. General G wrote, Kevin, when Tom is on, please talk more about the local teams. The Nats are the biggest surprise of the season, and you ignore it. There's only so much to say about Brandon Ayuk at this point. the NBA is a national story. I'd rather hear about the emergence of Dalin Lyle and Nassim Nunez. And recently, Dylan Cruz.

Come on, boys. Your podcast is number one, according to that DC podcast group in Rockville. And the Nats for you guys are an afterthought. And what we said in the first show, we'll say it again. We have been talking about the Nats recently. Yes, we have been. Yeah. We've been talking about the Nats.

They are a pleasure. to watch. They've built something pretty special early on this season. And it will be interesting to watch because we're closer to the trade deadline than we are the start of the season now. Right. Okay. When is the trade deadline? And the end of July. August 2nd. I think it's August 2nd this year. And if by some chance this team is 500 like they have been hovering around for the past couple of weeks, at the trade deadline, that's within wild card striking distance. So if they are hovering around wild card, you know, contention, what do you do with the trade deadline? Well, I think you don't know if you're going to get another chance. You have to take

a swing if you're within striking distance, which means at the very least, not trading away any of your assets, let alone actually trading some assets for more assets, you know, in the trade deadline, becoming buyers instead of sellers. Will the learners do that at this point? I don't think so. What would they be buying, starting pitching, relief pitching? I think so at this point, since the offense seems to be, you know, cranking on all cylinders. We're talking about first not training C.J. Abrams at the training deadline.

They don't have to trade him. Then he's got a couple years left before he's a free agent. They could trade him in the offseason. They can trade him next year. You know, the learners won't be crazy about paying his, his basically arbitration salary next year, which will be significantly higher than what he's making now. But they don't have to trade him. and he's one of the hottest hitters in all baseball.

So I think they're playing better than what even Paul Tabani, the new team president thought they might be at this point. Has to. They've got to be. Offensively, they are still, I think, are they still the leading scoring team in the bigs? I think they are. I don't know.

Yeah, they are. They still have scored more runs than any team in baseball, either league. No one expected that. No, I don't think so. And they're fun to watch. You know, it's a long season. You usually are the team you're meant to be after 162 games. I think they got to go for it if they have a shot. But if they don't have a shot, they have a couple of trading commodities on their pitching staff that they could use. Some pitchers who have, who have performed very well who are on one-year deals that for a pennant contender would be an asset. Still doesn't mean you have to trade CJ Abrams. Right. Last night, by the way, Dailen Lyle, with the RBI game winner or go-ahead run, they were down 3-1.

They scored three in the top of the ninth. He's having an outstanding year, as General G said. Nunez is tied for the MLB lead and stolen bases. Dylan Cruz is, you know, he's up. He's got a ways to go. He's got two homers in the last eight games, but I think he's hitting 185. You know, before you start bringing up, guys, you got to make sure they're over to Mendoza lines.

Yeah. But we have talked about the Nats, and we just talked more about the Nats. The attendance is not very good, but it takes a while for people to catch up with it, you know, that if there is, in contention in August, it would be, that would certainly give us something to talk about.

Yeah. And now that's, they're a game out of the wild card right now. Attendance would certainly be up, but again, not what it should be. No. No, it hasn't been for many, many years. It's been in the bottom third. They've been, they're averaging about 22,000 fans per game. All right.

Our take two episode here is going to be a little bit. bit abbreviated. We'll get to the NBA playoffs game three next after these words from a few of our sponsors. I'll be honest. At first, I was skeptical about ordering plants online, like, is this thing actually going to show up alive? But that's what surprised me most about fast-growing trees. They don't just ship plants. They've built a whole system to protect them until they arrive at your door. Every plant is hand-picked and carefully inspected, and the packaging is designed specifically to keep it secure in transit so it doesn't get damaged. And when mine arrived, it honestly looked amazing.

The soil was still damp. The leaves looked healthy. It definitely didn't feel like it just came out of a box. Plus, every order is backed by their alive and thrive guarantee. So if anything does happen during delivery, they'll make it right. Fast-growing trees is America's largest online nursery, with thousands of trees and plants for every space and climate, and they make it easy to get plants that actually work for your yard, and they're delivered right to your door.

Right now, they've got great deals on spring planting essentials, and my listeners, get an additional 20% off your first order with code Sheehan at checkout. That's 20% off at fastgrowing trees.com with code Sheehan. Terms and conditions may apply. Hey, guys, it's great to have Quinceback as a sponsor of the podcast this week. I'm a big fan of Quince. You guys know that I just got back from Europe, took a vacation with the family to Italy. Quince's European linen pants and shirts are the perfect warm weather upgrade to add to your summer rotation. And they start at just $34, $34 for European linen pants and shirts from Quince. You know, summer change is the way we dress.

We want pieces that feel lighter and more breathable things that are easy, but still, put together. That's why I keep coming back to Quince. They focus on high quality essentials that feel and look amazing. Think breathable linen, soft organic cotton, well-made basics, but without the luxury markup, it's that rare balance where everything feels elevated, but still effortless. Everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. And Quince goes way beyond clothing, custom upholstered sofas, ceramic cookware, premium bedding. It's the kind of brand you end up recommending to everyone for everything. Elevate your summer wardrobe.

Go to quince.com slash Sheen for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash Sheen for free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash sheen. From of the ground now heading for the exits. Anirre corner three, fires away, shots no good, and the spurs win. What a response from San Antonio. They do it again.

An inspiring road win, and they are right back of the series. The Nicklead cut two games to one. Mike Breen last night on the call of San Antonio's 115 to 11 game three win at the Garden. night to make this series more of a series, the Knicks leading at two games to one. This segment of the show is brought to you by Window Nation. If you need new windows, I recommend Window Nation. Call them at 86690 Nation or head to WindowNation.com. They will hook you up with Buy 4, Get 4 free.

That means you're paying half price on the windows. And if you choose to finance the purchase, no money down, no payments, and no interest charged for two full years. It starts with an in-home estimate. Convenient for you whenever you want it done, they'll be there for an hour tops. You'll find out which windows actually need to be replaced. They'll leave you with a quote

and then they'll leave you alone for you to make the decision. 86690 Nation, windownation.com. So we did a lot in our take one version of the NBA game three. I don't know that we can top it, but we're going to try. We'll do it back. Because I was really into it last night. I'll tell you, the scene before the game and the A-listers that were there,

I don't know if I've ever seen anything like that. Even in L.A., you know, during the heyday of Lakers Showtime, there were a lot of stars, and it was a big part of the story when they played. But I don't think I've ever seen anything like last night. It was quite a star-studded affair. And I read a story, I think, in The Athletic. that if you're part of the star club, you know, the group of people who are acknowledged stars

who get special treatment, there are rules that you have to follow. And if you don't follow the rules, you get kicked out at a club. You know, so because... Did Jerry Seinfeld get kicked out? Because he did not get a floor seat, and it was written that he was willing to pay whatever it took.

I don't know. I don't know if he did. I think Woody Allen, who's been watching the Knicks for years, has basically been kicked out because he wouldn't do something for Dolan, James Dolan, the owner, to help promote the team or something like that. So there are certain perks that you get, but you have to be, you have to caltow to Dolan. You know, Dolan, to me, in terms of professional sports owners,

was the closest comp to Snyder for all of those years. Yes. But they didn't lose any of their families. base. It's basketball. It's New York. It's the Knicks. And they've had success here and there. Yes. You see, that's the thing. They've had success. Yeah. You know, they had success in the 80s. They had success in the 90s. When did Dolan buy the team? I forget. I don't know. He didn't know it in the 80s, I don't think. I don't think so. Yeah. See, that's a forgotten era for the Knicks. I always liked the U.B. Brown Knicks. I think with Bill Carter.

and Ray Williams. Bernard King. And Bernard King. Oh, yeah. I always like that team more than the Ewing Knicks. I always thought they were a better team. Well, they had some legendary playoff performances from Bernard King. Yes.

In some of those years. God, I remember some of those teams. Yeah, Ray Williams, those were really good teams, but obviously in the East, you had Philly and Boston. Yes. And they were just much better. Yeah. And Milwaukee was really good during those years, too.

Because the Knicks, I don't think, correct me if I'm wrong, but in the 80s with some of those good Nick teams, I don't think they made it to a conference final. No, they didn't. Yeah. Yeah, Boston was always in the way. It was Boston, Philly, and I think Milwaukee once or twice. And then Detroit obviously emerged.

Yeah. You know, before Chicago. So you like those teams more than the Ewing teams. Interesting. I always thought they were more pure basketball. Yeah, the, the, so, you know, a real pain in the, ass owner, considered to be one of the worst owners in professional sports, but it's New York. The Knicks haven't, didn't suck to the levels that the Redskins sucked at.

And look, in a city of what, 14, 15 million, you know, throughout the, you know, entire tri-state area, you can fill up an arena of 20,000, the most famous arena in the world. And I was thinking, even with bad teams. I was thinking about this. If this was Washington and the Wizards wouldn't be in the NBA finals, how would it be? And I think it'd be pretty similar. You wouldn't have the Star Power. No, you'd have Wolf Blitzer and a couple of events.

But I think the crowds, the intensity, I think would be pretty similar. I think for most teams, when they're in an NBA final, I think that that just automatically ignites people. So I had Scott on radio today, Van Pelt. He was there last night. He said it was an incredible scene. He did his Sports Center after the Ernie, Barkley, Kenny Smith, Shack Show,

which also had last night. Yeah. Anybody important? No. Dramon Green was on the show. show last night. Just if you need to take the call, go ahead. No, I don't. Okay. This is, this is the most important thing. Finishing this right now. Yes. Um, but I, you know, I, I texted him last night, uh, before the game started because I was watching the pregame and you could

just feel the electricity, you know, and, and with the president going to the game, which was idiotic, in my opinion, um, and just stupid for, you know, a fan base that's waited 27 hour, uh, years for this. You know, one of the things... To be disruptive like it was. One of the things I read about is the money

that bars around the garden lost. Yeah, because they couldn't get people to them. Yeah. And they had this watch party for every playoff game leading up to last night outside of the garden, road game or home game that had to get moved. Look, one of the things that was pretty clear,

you know, during the pregame show is everybody listened and got there early because that place was packed. But I asked Scott, because you know, and you've been there for some of these. You know, I kind of feel like I've been lucky as a sports fan that I got to go to games at RFK and I got to go to games at Cole Fieldhouse and even Xfinity Center. And, you know, I know that there are people out there that, oh, God, are we going to get a Maryland thing from Sheehan? Yeah, right now you are because Tommy's been there too.

He's been at Cole or Xfinity Center. when Duke was there or Carolina was there. And it'd be hard to match some of the electricity moments in those buildings from some of those games. And so I said to Scott, what was, you know, compare it to what we've seen at, in the best moments of, you know, of Xfinity Center or Cole Fieldhouse. He goes, look, decibel wise, it wasn't that much different. But there was just an electricity in a scene pregame that you would. never get at that level. And let's face it, arena events are different than stadium.

Of course. Yes, they are. I mean, arena events, because for one thing, you can only get 18,000 people in the arena. So the street scenes are going to be greater than they would be like if Nats Park when the Nats were in the world's series. You can get 44,000 people in the stands. You're going to have some people in the streets, but it's not going to be like when the caps were in the Stanley Cup.

You know? So an arena. its limited access creates, I think, a greater street seat. In our first take of this show today, I asked you about, you know, March of 1971, which is considered to be the greatest sporting event of the 20th century, Ali Fraser One, which, you know, if you've ever watched the documentaries on that, the scene, the A-Lister scene for that event and the dress and the, and the entire night was, I mean, Frank Sinatra was taking pictures to get into the arena for Life magazine for crying out loud.

James Taylor was there with his band because they were supposed to play at the garden that night. And the promoters made a deal with him. Jack Kent Cook, right? Yes, Jack Kent Cook, who put up the $5 million for the fighters to split, made a deal with them to use the arena that night. And James Taylor and his band wanted tickets to the fight. Yeah. So James Taylor gladly stepped aside and took the tickets. Yes.

For the fight that you've seen the movie American Gangster, right? I love that movie. Okay. Well, there's a scene. There's a scene of this fight. Yep. At the garden that night, the electricity. Such a great scene.

Yeah. Last night, I'm guessing for New Yorkers, was the closest to that night that they've, they've had. Because that was quite the scene. Yes. I mean, I would love to see the total list of the stars that were there and where they sat and who couldn't get a floor seat and who got stuck into, you know, I doubt somebody got stuck into the rafters. Because if you're an A-lister and they say, we don't have anything for you on the floor. Okay, what do you have? We got second level.

We got upstairs for you. You wouldn't go if you're an A-lister. You wouldn't be seen up there, would you? Well, if you're an A-lister, you're going to. going to buy some tickets, secondary market tickets. I know, but even those were at times hard to come by and they were outrageously expensive. Of course, an A-lister is going to pay it. You know that some of those seats were going for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I know. It was unbelievable. Unbelievable. Yeah. So the game itself. Go ahead. Well, I was very encouraged early on to see when Biana committed to playing in the paint, committed to playing down low

and it showed with his performance right away. He had a big impact on the game from the start and I think that changed the whole tone for the spurs offensive. They were much more in flow than they had been in the past, much smoother

and when beyond his presence I think you know what was the big difference for them. I mean look, Castle had a great game. Oh, he was great. I mean, you know. And Harper's a great player. But when Biama set the tone, what his play?

Yeah, he did. They, you know, finally in this series, he got closer to the rim, which is really where I think he can be most effective right now at this point in this career. And he had 32 points on 11 of 18 shooting and 8 of 9 from the free throw line and he only shot four threes. and made two of them, and he had eight rebounds and three block shots and two steals. He was outstanding in the game. You know, it's interesting is they got off to this really quick start, and they had a double-digit lead for the third straight game at the end of the first quarter. And they felt like it was crucial for them to get off to a good start with him.

Yes. And Castle was phenomenal throughout. I mean, he's been maybe one of the biggest reveals of this postseason for me, because Big Tony was telling me all year long, you got to watch Castle. You got to watch, you know, Harper. These guys are ridiculously good. And you don't know really until the playoffs

because it's such a different game. But Castle is a monster defensively. Love them. But when we got to halftime, Tommy, and the Knicks had run off 42 points in the second quarter and had a seven point halftime lead, I honestly felt like, you know what? San Antonio just gave them their best shot

with Wembe and Castle leading the way and they're down seven. The Knicks are going to win this game and it's going to be all she wrote, you know, and because no one's ever come back from 3-0. Didn't happen that way. This series is very hard to predict. I don't even know how you analyze, you know, what might happen in game four. These three games, they could have gone either way. I mean, San Antonio could be up 3-0, the Knicks could be up 3-0. It could be 2-1 either way. For me, there were two kind of big takeaways from the game. Number one is the Knicks reverted to something that I hate, and I talked about this last year with them in the postseason. They reverted to Isoball with

Jalen Brunson, and it hurt them badly. You cannot against a great defensive team like San Antonio. You're not going to win playing Isobal. Now, they didn't do it for the first two games, but they reverted to it last night. And they've been so much better in these plays. And that's why they've been on this incredible offensive run. The ball moves. Players are moving. They're looking for the open man all the time. Last night was 2025 or very early in these playoffs when they fell behind against the Hawks in the first round two games to one.

And it's painful to watch. I mean, it's painful to watch a great player like Jalen Brunson be double teamed in him trying to dribble out of a double team. after it's already taken seven or eight seconds just to get the ball across half court, you cannot play that style of basketball against San Antonio and hope that it works out for you. I don't think you can. And I don't know why they reverted to it last night. Carl Anthony Towns had 10 shot attempts in the game. That can't happen.

You know, they've got people have to touch the ball. There were eight possessions in the game. Start to finish. Brunson was the only person that touched. the basketball. That cannot happen in hope to win against a team, a defensive team like San Antonio. I don't know why they reverted to that, but they better shake themselves out of that old habit because that would be, if I see that again, San Antonio is winning the series and you can predict that. That was takeaway number one. Takeaway number two. Also with takeaway number one, I don't know

why they insist on having Jalen Brunson bring the ball up against Stefan Castle in particular. They gave him more help last night than they did in the first two games, but it's too much for him. It just completely wears him out. The second take, and I ended up taking a lot of calls on radio today for this, Wembenyama is a dirty player. He's great. He's skilled for somebody his size like we've never seen before. He is already maybe one of the great defensive presences we've ever seen. By the way, Scott said on the floor last night, he's not seven, four and a half, seven, five. He's at least seven six. And you can see that. Like he towers over Carl Anthony Towns who's seven feet. He's dirty. He got tossed from a game in the Minnesota series. He's got three flagrants

in these playoffs, and he should have had a flagrant last night for that totally unnecessary, you know, hit to the head of Brunson and forcing him to the ground. How they miss that, I have no idea. I'm not, you know, multiple things can be true simultaneously. He can be a great player. He can project to be one of the greatest that's ever lived. I still think he's unpolished right now offensively in some spots. But I've watched every single minute of every San Antonio game in these playoffs. And he could have been whistled for three or four other flagrants. He didn't connect on some. He gets very emotional and he's chippy and he's competitive and I love all that because they're going after him hard. They're physically trying to beat him up. And he does not back down.

I love that about him. But he's crossed the line a couple of times. Don't you think, I mean, look, we don't know. This is psychoanalysis here. But given his size throughout most of his life, even as a young boy, probably, he probably always had to fight physical beatdowns on the court. You know what's interesting about that. My observation of young people who are much taller than others, they tend to be the least confident players.

There's definitely a self-esteem issue of being really tall and everybody else isn't. And that's like when you see young people that way, just remember that. I'm telling you my observation, at least in sports, is that those tend to be the kids that really need the most confidence building. It's awkward, you know, when. And so, but to your point, the context of him, in that body, and by the way, it's not physically mature yet. You know, it's very skinny, skinny and thin and not strong enough yet.

I love the fact that he fights back. That is his MO. He is a really badass competitive dude, and he's tough and he's chippy, but I'm just telling you, he's dirty too. All of those things can be true at the same time. He is a cheap shot. He's looking for a cheap shot. And, you know, one of my callers today when we were talking about this said, imagine the Knicks with Charles Oakley on the team.

You know, and they need an enforcer. You know, and by the way, the Spurs need one, too, to protect one Binyama. Yeah. He's getting beaten on. How many enforcers are there in the league? I don't watch the league anymore since I'm watching as many as there used to be. You know, but because of the way this postseason has been called and these finals are being called, I've been talking about this. the last month and a half. This is the most physical postseason. Yes, it is. I can remember.

You know, there's typical playoff physicality, and it's different from the regular season. Friday night was over the line. I mean, Castle's defense is incredible, but he mauled Brunson, and nothing got called all night on Friday night, and we continued to see it. You see it more on the perimeter than you see it anywhere else, but you see it off ball too, and, you know, it's both sides. But I think Stefan Marbury said on social media, of course he's

a Nick and a New Yorker. He said that if it were him after watching the film of what Wemby did, he called him a dirty player, he said immediately in game four, you send out somebody that goes right

for his ribcage and you make sure he's doubled over for a while, even if it costs you a player, But he's got to know that you're not doing that to our best player again. The problem is the Knicks don't have one of those players. No, they don't. They don't have one of those players. But yeah, I mean, everything we've said about Wembe is true.

I think we've rushed a little bit on the offensive end. Let's put the brakes on him becoming wilt offensively, because we haven't seen any evidence of that yet. Defensively, he's all that. And he played great last night. Castle, if that was your first game watching and you didn't know anything about the teams, you may have come away saying that Castle was the best player on the floor. Harper's sensational.

I don't know what to think about this series now. I really don't. I mean, every game is its own thing. All of these games could have gone either way. Mike Brown complained about the officiating in the 24-8 free-throw attempt disparity in the second half. I blame that on Mike Brown's Knicks, who played ISO ball too much in the second half. I mean, Jalen Brunson had as many turnovers as he had assists in the game. And so, yeah, intense, though.

Man, these games, you've enjoyed them, right? Oh, I'm looking forward to game five. Game four. Four. Game five, too. There's going to be a game five back in San Antonio. All right. We'll talk some Brandon Ayuk next.

Hey guys, it's great to have Chime back on the show as an advertiser this week. They've been periodically advertising for a few years, giving me an opportunity to tell you that Chime is changing the way people bank. And my younger self would have definitely benefited from using Chime. Chime is changing the way people bank by offering the most rewarding fee-free banking. Why pay fees on withdrawing your own money from an ATM? Well, with CHIM, they have thousands of fee-free ATMs. This is built for you, not the 1%. Chime members can benefit from up to $1,150 in annual rewards, fee-free. Direct deposit unlocks the most rewarding way to bank at CHIME,

and you can get 5% cash back on a CHIM card in a category of choice. like gas or groceries. With the card, you get savings that grow faster with a 3.75% APY. That's nine times higher than the national average. Plus, you get premium travel perks like airport lounge access and 24-7 travel concierge included with your Chime card. Chime is not just smarter banking. It's the most rewarding way to bank. Join the millions who are already banking fee-free, today. Head to chime.com slash sheen. That is chime.com slash sheen. It only takes a few minutes to sign up. Chime is a fintech, not a bank. Bank. Banking services for MyPay and Chime card provided by Chim's bank partners. Optional products and services may have fees or charges. State of annual percentage

yield and cashback for Chime Prime only. No minimum balance required. Checking account ranking based on a JD Power survey published October 20, 2025. For more information on APY rates, my pay, spot me and travel perks. Go to chime.com slash disclosures. All right, Tommy, tell us about Shelley. Well, like I've said before during these NBA playoffs, particularly the final. Shelly's back room at 1331 F Street Northwest in the district is a great place to watch any sporting event, but particularly NBA. They've got eight high-definition TVs all around the facility with great couches, soft couches, soft leather chairs available for you to watch basketball while you're smoking one

of your favorite cigars, drinking one of your favorite drinks off their menu of excellence, their drink menu, one of the many menus of excellence they have there at Shelly's. You can find out more about their menus at shelley's backroom.com. Shelly's has been traditionally a stop for NBA players when they're coming through town. Yeah. Or sometimes Wizards themselves. I know Paul Pierce when he was in D.C. was a regular at Shelly's. And I think Jordan used to go there in the early days.

And I've got a bit of a Jordan story for you. Okay. This was not in our take one version. No, this wasn't. So I'm looking forward to it. No. Remember a guy named Fred Whitfield? He worked for Jordan.

Yeah. He was like a front office guy. He's been with Jordan. Maybe not. Forever. Okay. Okay. He was like his right hand man.

And when Michael was in the front office, I wrote here in Washington. I wrote a column in particular that was pretty difficult for him to have to deal with, I'm sure. It was very critical of his work in the front office. I'll have to send to you some time. What was the criticism? Well, basically, he was complaining about that, you know, he didn't have to be at the arena to do the job. He didn't have to be seen to be the GM.

He said, I'm nobody show pony, you know? And basically I said, that's part of the job. Part of the job is to sell the team. And I proceeded to make fun of his show pony comment by calling him the name of every famous horse I could find in the movies. Like Fury, Trigger, you know, Flicka. And it was pretty good column, if I say so myself. I'll send it to you.

But a few months later, I'm in Shelly's and one of my buddies is I'm hanging out with him and at the other end of the bar is Fred Whitfield and this guy knows Fred so he unsby knows to me he goes over to Fred he says Fred you know Tom Laverro in Washington Times

he's down there at the end of the war you want to meet him and basically Fred you know basically MFed me cursed me out right there well no not to me but to him basically say no he had no intention of meeting me

so that was my NBA experience at showy hopefully you can have a better one at shelley's backroom.com yeah you run into famous people at shelly's not like the garden last night no not quite like that so do you have some thoughts that maybe you can replicate from take one

the earlier show on brandon iukes social media barrage guy again he's so disgust it's such a disgusting topic. It's so despicable. I mean, and it seems so because there seems no end to it. There just seems it'll go on.

It'll go on the rest of June. Well, this is the first time we've heard from him, his voice. Yes. Yeah. If you could call it that, we have heard from him. Or maybe some possession inside of him. Oh, he's possessed.

Who knows? Yeah, there's not a lot of confidence right now. His overall mental state. No, I mean, I think I think based on the limited very limited information we have which includes feedback from people who know him

a couple of people. I don't think he's all there and I don't think he want to get to do business with this guy. So I think they need to move on. Now according to Ian Rappapur, you know, the commanders have a bit of an infatuation with him.

Yeah, Ian Rappaport yesterday in talking about Brandon Ayyuk did say what Washington would like to do is sign him without having to trade for him. Now, people took what Rappaport said as confirmation that Washington is interested in Brandon Ayyuk. And I don't know if it was that because it was sort of in the context of teams don't want to trade for him. They want him to get released. you don't want to trade for him because you don't want to give up compensation for a guy that right now is a major wild card. And, oh, by the way, acquire his contract. Something we didn't talk about during the first version iteration of today's show. Ben Standing made this point to me yesterday on radio.

He said, there's been hardly any reporting on this story, like literally no reporting, you know, other than the arrest warrant, you know, from last week for this misdemeanor. meantime, by the way, since that, we've had two more players in the league get arrested for domestic violence in the last several days. The linebacker from Denver, and then today we had another NFL arrest, Alarick Jackson from the Rams domestic violence. I said last week, I mean, come on, it's a misdemeanor traffic violation. It's bad judgment, but we've had a lot worse. But Ben said to me, there's been no reporting, literally. nobody knows anything about this, you know, back and forth. What we do know is that he had a lot of money voided from his contract,

and he, his representation, the union hasn't fought for it back, which is pretty telling at this point. But then he said, in addition to that, if Washington really wanted this story to go away, they would just leak to, you know, somebody, Rappaport or, you know, Schaefter, that they're not interested. and they're not going to sign Brandon Ayew. Yeah. And it would be over. Oh, I think they want him.

I, that to me tells me they want him. Now, they could also be in that mode of, look, we don't, we're, we don't have a decision made until we can actually sit down with him. Yeah. And our doctors can look at his knee and our psychologist can evaluate him. And then we'll make a decision. I've said this many times. If you get to the point where medically he's fine and,

mentally he's fine and you can go into this with no risk low base salary heavy on the incentives meaning you can dump them whenever you want and you think you're getting brandon iuk from twenty twenty three benefit of the doubt kev is going to trust adam peters on this okay well let me ask you if you think you're getting that guy and a sane version of that guy why wouldn't the 49ers keep him well clearly there's there's no returning from what's happened there for whatever reason. But again, there's been no reporting on what actually has happened. That's true. Other than he didn't show up for the knee checks on his rehab, and they, you know, basically considered him to be MIA and having gone AWOL. And he's on this, you know,

list, which is the reserved left squad list. I got to tell you what, I'm feeling MIA right now. I know you are. We're going to get through this. Uh, yeah, two shows in one day for Tommy is really a long day. And it's not the end of my day. I know it isn't. You're going to the Grays game. That's right. So, um, one thing.

And I pounded a couple of beers at lunch to boot. Did you? Yes, I did. The only guy. The only guy. The only guy. The only guy at the table who did, by the way. That's why you came in feisty today.

Um, so, uh, one thing that I didn't emphasize in talking about IUC on the show yesterday. is this. You know, this guy could have forced the 49ers hand already. I mentioned that by showing up at OTAs, but he didn't do that. Instead, he's got this video out saying, you know, allegedly, allegedly is if they're the problem. You said something last week. You said, man, it'd be nice to see that he's actually interested in football, maybe put out a workout video to show that he's in shape. Nothing that he's done social media-wise or otherwise, has put football first. And that would be the biggest concern that I have. Because if football and Washington was first on his mind, now I don't know what that mind's capable of at this point, so there is that. But he would have forced the

49ers hand by showing up at OTAs. He will show up at training camp and be in shape and ready to go. He should be talking about I'm in shape, I'm ready to play football. This is my only goal right now. And if that's the goal, then you've got to show up and you got to force them to take you off that list and then deal with all of the questions every day that'll come about you until they have to pay you and then hopefully they'll release you early. But he hasn't done anything to help his own cause out to get to where he wants to get to, which is clearly Washington.

We have a player that actually wants to be here, although that's been in the work of case. Yeah. If he's whacked out, was he whacked out before he lost the money or did losing the money whack him out? Oh, I think, I don't know. I don't know, but all reports about him,

and I've had multiple people from San Francisco on the show, radio show, and I think one on this show as well, they liked Brandon Ayyuk. You know, before the summer of that negotiation for a new contract, the players liked him. He was popular in the locker room. I think there was a moment early in his career. He was kind of in Kyle's doghouse.

Probably not a place you want to be with Kyle. Look, Kyle's pretty fond of his decisions and his positions. Yes. And, you know, he's pretty sure of himself. But anyway, yeah, I'm still in that position where we don't know enough, ultimately. It doesn't feel good right now about him because he appears to be a bit of a dope at the very least. Yes. So, all right.

Anything else on Ayuk? Oh, God, no. Okay. We'll finish up the show with Tommy's column, which we have not done yet. That's where this show got stuck and lost the first time. but he wrote about FIFA and the fact that the World Cup isn't in D.C.

We'll get to that to finish up the show after these words from a few of our sponsors. This segment of the show is brought you by MyBooky. The World Cup makes everybody pick a side. My Bookie is letting you back your side, your country, your pick, whichever match you want to play. And this year, My Booky's rewarding players

for backing select countries throughout the World Cup. So don't just talk about your team. Get on board with your team. New players can use my promo code, DC Reload, D-C-R-E-L-O-A-D, and get their first bet covered up to $500 with a bet-back bonus.

Make your first bet if it doesn't hit, you get it back when you opt in. Grab your bonus now and get your club on the board. Betters win together at MyBooky. That's MyBooky.ag or MyBooky.com. Again, promo code DC Reload. World Cup does get underway this week. We will have a game on June 11th.

Two matches, Tommy, Mexico, South Africa, South Korea, and Chechia. And then it's, is it Chechia? Isn't that the former Czechoslovakia? I don't know. I'll have to check with my World Cup staff. We need a World Cup staff on this. That's former checklist of Ovakia, right?

I don't know, Kevin. I'm looking it up right now. I think it is. All I know about Chechia is usually the rebels is the word that follows Chechia. Yeah. The Chech Republic, also known as Chechia, and historically known as Bohemia is a landlocked country in central Europe.

The country is bordered, okay, so it's not. Although Prague is the capital, so... Really? Yeah, so that's former Czechoslovakia. Yes. So I think I am right. Just go on. I think I'm right about that.

Have you been to Prague? Everybody loves Prague. I know. Everybody loves Prague. I've been to Prague. Never been to Prague. Okay. The World Cup's getting underway this week.

You wrote about it, would you write? Well, I wrote about how, you know, Dan Snyder may have been a weasel. He may have ruled over, like a slum lord, over maybe the worst stadium in North America, but he left behind a gift. And that was that because of that, Washington did not have to host a World Cup game. You know?

Right. Yes. You've never been in favor of cities' hostings. any of these big events. What about a Super Bowl? A Super Bowl is different. The NFL draft is different too. Yeah. Yeah. But look, the IOC and FIFA

are like the Johnny Sachs mob and the Sopranos. Yeah. Okay. They're gangsters, particularly FIFA. And I'm sure that the cities that are hosting these games are going to wind up holding the bag

with multi-million dollar losses, empty hotel rooms in anticipation of sellouts. And Washington, because FedEx was such a decrepit place that it wasn't even good enough to host the World Cup game, the FIFA said no, we'll pass on the nation's capital on the 250th anniversary. And a pretty big soccer market because it's very international. A soccer half-ed. And, you know, I remember I talked to a member of the task force for the World Cup in D.C. And basically, he told me that they knew even before they submitted their bid that they had no chance because of the condition of FedEx. They knew it was doomed.

But like his answer was, what were we going to do? Not bid? Right. They would have taken heat for that. Right. How would that have looked? Right. So they basically knew they had no shot. And I think Washington fans are going to much more enjoy all the watch parties going on.

There's a big soccer festival going down on the National Mall during the World Cup. They have watch parties on a national mall, sometimes until one in the morning scheduled. So I think that's going to be a much better experience than, A, getting frozen out of a high-price World Cup game. and then B, six months later, watching your municipalities get hit with a million-dollar-plus bill for cost overruns for hosting the games. Are the Seahawks going to be ready? How are they doing at soccer camp? You know, it's all I can do to not write that. Oh, come on.

Why didn't you write that? I haven't written it yet. I'm waiting for the United States to get eliminated, which shouldn't take long. One of my all-time favorite Tommy soccer conversations was when, I don't know, six, seven years ago, he said, oh, come on with soccer. The Super Bowl champions, the Chiefs could go to soccer camp for two weeks and win the World Cup. Soccer camp and win the cup. Now, I've amended that that it would take three weeks. And I didn't say, I'm not going to go as far as say win the World Cup.

But they would do better in the United States team. Yeah. Well, the United States team is not supposed, they're not much of a threat here. But you know, part, here's why it's not that far-fetched. Okay. Like when the United States plays Trinidad Tobago or Uruguay, they're playing the best athletes that Uruguay has. Of course. The best of their-

Our best athletes don't play soccer. Right. The world knows that. We're fifth. sixth maybe on the level in terms of getting your quality athletes in this country playing soccer. Right. So it's no surprise that these Lilliputin countries beat the United States all the time in these games

because you're getting their best. They're not getting our best. Our best is playing in the Super Bowl. Or playing in the NBA. Yes. Our best athletes are playing last night in Madison Square Garden. Oh, they're a little bit too big. A little bit too tall.

Fair enough. Do you know that the first game at SoFi between the U.S. and Paraguay is not sold out? Yeah. The prices for this thing are outrated. Well, we've talked about this. You know I'm going to the World Cup final. I know. Well, my brother and I have been working the whole thing out.

He did an Airbnb. There isn't a hotel room in New York basically during the entire World Cup. I mean, it's crazy what's going on. Not to mention next weekend you'll love the year. the World Cup at the Meadowlands. You'll have the U.S. open out, you know, in the Hamptons at Shinnock. And there's something else. There's another big event in New York that I'm forgetting.

Well, it could be the NBA finals, I guess. I guess so. Crazy. But, yeah, I, in being totally honest with you, I'm going to watch a lot of this. I enjoy this event. I think it's pretty cool to watch. Yeah, but what do you enjoy? The, not the game itself.

Okay. Yeah, not the game itself. Just more. The pageantry. The pageantry, the importance of the rest of the world puts on that. That's good if you're surrounded by other people who really enjoy that. Mm-hmm. Okay.

In other words, I mean, to be in, let's say, a German bar. Oh, it would be great. That would be so much fun. That is cool. To be, like, if, you know, Italy didn't qualify for the. Cup this year. They're not in the World Cup. I think it's the second straight World Cup. And but

imagine like I was on vacation last week the World Cup was going on and Italy was playing a game. I would have definitely gone to a place to watch with Italian fans. Now that's fun. And you can find there. Look, in every big city there's a bar for probably every

soccer team that's competing in the World Cup. That's fun. But that's fun. That doesn't mean the game is fun. I just, like I said, all along, soccer is a sport for people who don't like sports. It's always been your line. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think they could really... And they'll come out of woodwork. They'll all come out of the woodwork and then they'll disappear. I think there are two things they could do to make it more popular. Eliminate the off sides rule. Yeah. And let players use their

hands. Yes. I mean, it's the 21st century. Enough with the feet. We're the worst I am going to watch some of this though I am I've asked various people that I know in my life who are into soccer Like what would be the best final Matchup Everybody says right from the jump

You want Brazil in the final Yes Like in terms of hopefully getting a raucous environment But I'm thinking the World Cup final is going to be totally corporate Don't you think? Like the Super Bowl I would think that that's going to be it By the way Brazil

a country whose economy was crushed by a double-barrow hit from FIFA and the IOC. The IOC. I know. People have said getting England into the final would be phenomenal. Have you ever seen a soccer movie called Victory?

I don't think so. With Sylvester Stallone. I don't think so. It's pretty good. It's John Houston directed. John Houston, a great director. Yeah. It's about, and I don't know,

if it's based on a true story about these POWs in World War II that played a bunch of German soccer, the best German soccer players who were in the Army. Right. And I think it was in a stadium in France. And Pellé is in it. You know, there's some English soccer stars that are in it. And Sylvester Stallone is the goalie. Oh, he was the goalie?

Well, that would be the only position. Yeah, the only position he could play. Sure. But if you ever got a chance to watch Victory, Michael Kane is in it. Oh, okay. It's pretty good. That's the only soccer I've ever liked. Maybe this is enough soccer talk for the show today.

Speaking of not movies, but television shows, you have not watched friends and neighbors, right? Yeah, because it's on Apple TV. Right. I don't have Apple. I know there's lots of tons of good shows on Apple TV, but I'm not going to succumb and add another streaming there. work. Let me just mention one last story that I think, you know, we can just talk about for a very short period of time because you look like you wanted to be out the door. You're always a pushing on. This Brendan Sorsby story, though, in college football, is really an interesting one,

and I think a devastating one for college sports right now. Brendan Sorsby, for those of you who don't know, was a quarterback at Indiana a few years ago. Then at Cincinnati, the last couple of years and he was the number one quarterback in the portal this offseason. And he signed with Texas Tech, got paid an S load of money to go to Texas Tech. Texas Tech was a playoff team last year, actually had a first round by, won the Big 12. They're supposed to be good again. And Brendan Sorsby was found that he had wagered approximately $90,000 on pro and college sports over four years, including placing 40 bets involving Indiana football when he was a freshman

in Bloomington, Indiana with the Hoosiers in 2022. So immediately, he was suspended for the upcoming season to which they appealed. And yesterday, a judge in Texas by the name of Ken Curry ruled that, you know, He gave him a temporary injunction allowing him to play in 2026, saying that if he didn't play, it would cause him mental stress that would not be healthy for him. He's apparently had some depression associated with this, and I'm not minimizing that part of it at all, if it's true. but the temporary injunction allowing him to play.

Now, the attorney for Soresby had agreed to at least a two-game suspension with the Big 12. So he's going to miss the first two games against Abilene Christian in Oregon State. Oh, boy. Yeah. And then he's going to play. Well, earlier today, a Texas court basically ruled that the trial for him would begin. In February 8th, 2027, that's after the season. Yeah.

And as he'll be preparing for the NFL draft, more likely than not. The problem with this, of course, is that if you can bet on sports, that's the third rail here. You know, you cannot have these college athletes getting paid all this money and then wagering on sports. It's, this is a no-no for everybody, anybody that wants the intent. integrity of these games to be beyond reproach, you cannot just say, oh, it's okay,

everybody gambles. Uh-uh. You cannot have these players with all that information gambling. Because eventually it's going to be against their own team and they're going to fix games or they're going to get into trouble and start throwing games to get out of trouble.

But this basically was a devastating result for college football because they're saying, it basically gives every player the ability to go ahead and bet, don't worry about getting caught, because you can essentially claim, hey, man, I'm going to be depressed, I'm going to be mentally, you know, impacted if I can't play college sports, and then get a local judge to, you know, basically provide a temporary injunction. And then the appellate process or even the trial is going to be pushed back until the end of the following season.

They'll just keep appealing, appealing, and finding judges that will do this. I think it's a dangerous, dangerous precedent. And the only way to fix it is for the schools themselves to say, we don't care what you got from a local judge. You're ineligible. We're making you ineligible. It's the only way that they can make sure that this doesn't become a precedent-setting event. Kind of crazy, though, that they founded,

judge to say, no, you can play because it's going to cause you mental distress. I think I'm mentally impacted if this show doesn't end soon. We're done for the day. I'll be back tomorrow. See you, Tommy. See you, boss.