The Pat McAfee Show - PMS 2.0 1583 - Mike Tirico LIVE From The Open Championship, Kendrick Perkins, USMNT Captain Tim Ream, Shams Charania, & AJ Hawk

Episode Date: July 16, 2026

On today's show, Pat, AJ Hawk, and the boys are back in the ThunderDome after a few days on the road as they recap the ESPY's, their time in Philadelphia and New York, and check in on The Open Championship, where LeBron might be going, and much more. They are also joined by several great guests including Mike Tirico LIVE from Royal Birkdale as he will be on the call this weekend, Kendrick Perkins to give his thoughts on where LeBron James might wind up this season, USMNT Captain Tim Ream to give a post mortem on the World Cup and what comes next for the National Team, and lastly Shams Charania to give some updates on different moves that have been made so far this offseason in the NBA. Make sure to subscribe to youtube.com/thepatmcafeeshow or watch on ESPN (12-2 EDT), ESPN’s Youtube (12-3 EDT), or ESPN+. We appreciate the hell out of all of you, we'll see you tomorrow. Cheers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, beautiful people. And welcome to our humble abode, the Thunderdome. On this, it's not coming home. Thursday, July 16, 2026, this program begins now. Our happening in last night was a celebration of sport, and we were very lucky to be there in New York City, as wards were given out, and obviously an event that collected so many greats from so many different communities that we got a chance to experience,

and I'll tell you what, we enjoyed the hell out of that evening. Now, were there some parts of the show that made us cry? You bet. Yeah. Mr. Abbott? Hell yeah, dude. That was awesome. Hell yeah, dude.

I grew up in Pittsburgh, obviously, was not a massive baseball fan. And we have gotten into the baseball world. But watching a man tell his story about his little hand, basically, and becoming a baseball player who throws a no-hitter for the New York Yankees, and then reliving that entire story. And him just in the middle of his speech talking about, like, There was my third grade teacher taught me how to tie my shoes. Like, you don't even think about that.

Like, oh, I couldn't even figure out how to do that one hand. And his third grade teacher figuring out how to do it. He said, buttoned this shirt, do this entire thing. And then his kid asking him the question that he was probably conflicted about his whole life, about the little hand that actually drove him, but also changed him, but also made him probably get picked on a lot in a different way. While still inspiring so many others when Shaquine Griffin came on and then the U.S. The professional soccer player lady. Oh, I'm so sorry. I was never going to be able to remember that name.

I should not have even started that one there. That is 100% on me, but I want to let her know. Awesome to learn her story last night. And we will certainly remember your name the next time we chat about it. We just learned of it all last night and we were on a plane this morning. But when I talk about like moments that make you feel something, I think now that I have kids, it's obviously through a vastly different lens. But I was sobbing my eyes out to this.

Oh, yeah. I mean, I was absolutely crying out there. The Pat Tillman Award, which I got to be a part of, which I am so honored to be a part of. Anytime I get asked to do that, I would obviously say yes. Because Pat Tillman is, I mean, are football's best. I mean, that is the NFL represented in a way that I think everybody that's ever played in the NFL would want it to be represented. A man who was obviously a stud on the football field, but then 9-11 happens and he feels obligated. Well, I don't think he felt obligated.

I think he was just doing what he thought he was supposed to do. But looking back on it, just an absolutely relentless display of being a stud. And he passes away, obviously, friendly fire, I believe, and it's obviously a huge story. And every war is obviously very politically divisive. And I've always said as a person who's been very lucky to have very close family friends who have been in military, like my brother's best friend went into the Army and got to do it. And then whenever I get to the Colts, I start working with Wish for Our Heroes. And I meet a lot of military folks.

It's like, you don't have to be pro-war to be pro-warier. You know, like the people that sign up to do these things. Coast Guard, Scott Ruskin last night, like the people that sign up to be the ones who serve our community or serve for us, like you're allowed to be pro those folks, even though you're not pro, like, what's going on? Because there's a lot of them that are very confused

about why or what, but they are doing what they will do for our country. So that is awesome to be a part of. Eli Haydenreich, the Navy quarterback, running back everything, you name it. Now Pittsburgh Steeler. Him being there, second lieutenant Marine, love that, and it was just really cool.

I was crying during that. So it was, that's two times now in the last couple of days. I've been crying with a microphone about a minute away from my mouth. And that has never happened in my life. So it was a beautiful night, I think. We had a blast and it was great to see everybody. I thought Marcello crushed it. I really enjoyed Marcello.

I thought his young energy. I thought he was fantastic. There was some bits in there that I thought were great. He was so cool to me backstage. We tried to get him on show today. Tried. Very hard. I was asked to write a description of our show to potentially get into

his schedule in the future by his publicist. Yeah, I'm never going to do that. So we'll hopefully, you know, maybe get him on the show. And if you, I'm a big fan of his, especially after watching him operate and backstage, there was no nerves. I mean, he was very, he, host, obviously, I think you're,

I don't know if everybody does this, but as a host, it is like your shit. He was, everybody that was part of it, like walking up, dapping up, thanking, how you doing, how do you, like, he was, he was working back there as well. Jeffrey Ross is back there. team was back there. It was fantastic.

And we had a blast, and then the after party, hilarious. Absolutely hilarious. Great time. So much money is spending on all that. Oh, yeah. I mean, there is no expense. Fair. No, there is.

It is everywhere. We had the Cats deli, what was the Mishrammi. Shrami sandwich was in there. That was great. Yeah, the Maze was drinking out there. You know, he had a... He's the best. Brayor showed up, I heard, at the red carpet at 4.30.

Yep, that's he should. He loves the industry. He was working that entire thing. The Toxitables here at Boss of Connor at Ty Schmidt. Last night, the special night, because, you know, you get reminded not only of all the good that's happening through sport, but, like, all the good that's happening in the world. You know, like, last night was a big time celebration, but also you go from laughing to getting inspired to crying. I mean, we were crying in there, and I'll tell you, it felt good to kind of have those. feelings but I think us being parents now is why everything has changed

your ask is that what it is why that is a that's a massive part but I think the Jim Abbott thing for me though like I had his poster in my room growing up like above my bed so like and I you know I had no idea that now I think we found out maybe like the day before because you had to go over for rehearsals so like we knew he was going to get that but you you don't I ran into yeah exactly exactly so I I didn't automatically know there's a lot of people there like from yesteryear of sport that are certainly legends. And if you see the name, you'd be like, yes.

But then, like, you know, I don't want to say aging happens, but life does happen. So you, like, shake somebody's hand. Obviously, it's good interaction. And then as the interaction's, like, ending, you piece together. Oh, shit, I'm talking to, and then you tighten up real quick. And it's like, hey, how are you doing? That was with Mr. Abbott. He was at the hotel little lobby meeting area late night.

I think he had got in late. We were just going back in. And I, like, walked through. person he was with, and then go over and, hey, this is Jim Abbott or whatever. I'm like, oh, cool. And the name, I knew Abbott, I knew the name Abbott was a name. Like, I didn't immediately piece it to a picture there. And I did not see Little Hand.

Yeah. Like, I did not see where I was, so I was like talking to him. And as I'm chitch chatting with him, he's like, he's talking about his family, you know, and he obviously watches a show. And then, like, tomorrow he's got Jimmy V speech or whatever. And I'm like, oh, fuck, okay. Like, now I'm trying to piece it together. and then his one guy said something.

I forgot the line. I was like, oh shit, your pitcher. Glove, yeah, that's you? And he's like, yeah, I'm like, sorry, we've been having a five-minute conversation. I'm just now piecing that together. The way, I will say this, the way some of those stories are told, beautiful, man.

You know, like that is an incredible work of editing and like videography and everything like that. but boy they are guaranteeing that you're going to be bowling your own. Without a doubt. And thank you, Jim, for sharing your story, man, and obviously inspiring many others. Thank you to the SB folks for putting that on. Thank you for letting us invade your lounge. I don't know if they let us or kind of forced to do it, but either way.

Yeah, we did. We had a great time there. Thank you to everybody that stopped by. It was good to see everybody. Gaichi, I got him, right? Yeah, he's the man. You definitely could have. Right?

Yeah. You did. I mean, he certainly did not flinch and was not worried about it. At all. He then, you know, kind of gave you a few things, a few pointers after that. Yeah, I mean, then he did like this, hey, hey, boom, bang, pow to be like I was a kid. Throwing fake leg kicks at you. Yeah, it punched me in the face.

Yeah. It was that fun. Do you have fun right there with what you just did? It's like running into those folks everywhere. He's just. Shador. Before we even went in, you saw Shador for a little bit. Like, you know, just, you forget that that event is actually a big deal, and it is kind of like a who's who.

in the sports world and I mean like you sure but like for us you know like my brother sent me a picture last night like Fernando Mendoza was getting a lot of face time on camera and rightfully so and my dumb ass is sitting there. How'd you look? Yeah. Not great. We had a bit of a three day, you know, four day, four day run there. Yeah. Just looking so bloated and I'm just sitting right behind his parents and it's just it's wild. It's wild. But it is it's a cool event. That was really cool. The person that was our usher or whatever, whatever we got there. No, that would be Lauren.

Lauren, hey, you did a great job. Yeah, good work. We had a lady who was a Pilates instructor by day and night was our guide, I believe. Everybody gets assigned a group. This particular headset and polo was assigned to a person. Then that person can't make it day of. gives polo and headset to friend. Yeah, I'll do that, no problem.

I respect and appreciate how Lauren operated that entire thing. Absolutely. But we got dropped off at the wrong, we walked through the wrong, we were in a wrong building. Across the street. We missed the entire beginning of the show because we had to go through security

for another building. It was electric. For another show, though, they had a symphony going on. We walked through a symphony show happening across the street. We walked through the basement of that thing. And I'll tell you,

Lauren got to the bottom of it. And we did get into that show. But then once we get into the theater, you remember the usher that was showing us where we were sitting, it was like there was nine of us in total. There's eight here, and then there was like four seats, and then there was one seat. They were expecting me to go sit in the one seat.

You need Pat on the end here. Hurry up. Hey, you pointing at me, just pointing at me, you coming here. And I was like, I'm right here. We're all right here. And you, Pat McAfee, you're sitting in this seat. you're sitting in this seat.

And I was like, with who? Because there's like four of the seats there. He goes, you are here. And I'm like, no, I don't think so, but. And I just sit down or whatever. It was right behind Fernando. They obviously had a reason for me to sit there. They wanted me to probably give him a couple of ease.

For sure. Keep them loose. You know? Said we had Charlie Becker and Elijah Surrott in front of us. They got a lot of those. We had a great time. We had a great time with the IU football team. I would say that.

Cougat. That team was awesome. That team was really awesome. And they had incredible night as well. Everybody had a great night in Philadelphia. Yeah, yeah. Fat Joe was laughing more than anybody. Yes, he was. Joey cracked. Is that why he's called crack?

I don't know. It could be. Well, oh, no. Probably some other ones. He loved the translation bit with Will Ferrell. Yeah. You know, because Spanish speaking, a part of that. Ghostface Killer? Yeah. Great to see Ghostface. Yep. Honestly, I'll tell you what Ghostface.

It was an R&Bitchie, sir. And your crew. Great to see everybody. Put on a phenomenal performance. Who's the MC in there? every year same guy it is the same guy he does a great job what's that DJ something I forget that was that Taylor Travis as well

turns out that was DJEV there it's not EB honestly with the echo electric voltage I don't know how I was supposed to know but I know DJEV you need somebody just kind of carry you for I don't know three four hours he's got you with the voltage what we would say is we're doing a lot of really dumb things right now

okay we're at that wedding we do the home run derby that we're at this Espy's thing. It's great to be back in Indiana. I will say, we're way too old to be doing this. But on the horizon, we have an awesome football season. And we were at a point in time now

where another major is happening. We're at a point in time now where you were just a few days away from teams checking into training camps. We're just a few days away from finding out where the hell LeBron James is going to go. It's a magical time this summer.

Let's go to one half of the hammer. Cowboys AP tone. And it's not just American sports that are obviously taking over right now. The World Cup is happening live in real time in front of our eyes. And I'll tell you, we have some breaking news. What? It's not coming home. Oh, no. It is not. England loses again. Now, would England have beat Team USA by seven to eight? Maybe. Certainly. But they were supposed to do that potentially to Argentina. Because outside of that little wizard, there is not a lot of known names on Argentina. And this England team,

Remember, Arikine and Jude Bellingham, both of them were up for the super-duper golden ball. They're all scoring so many goals. Studs all around, and they're goalie, sick, white guy with a fade. Always has a good, Pickford always has a good fade. But also, this guy's a spider. This guy's all. And his scouting before games? Right.

Spot on. Top-tier. Has a water bottle, okay, that he writes down literally every player's move that he's going to do. If it gets the penalties, which there is. well could have. Oh yeah. It's soccer. It was 1-1 at one point. It was 1-0. Then it was 1-1. And then it was 2-1. Yeah. And those two goals came back to back from one team who had one man and that man being that guy right there, Lou Messy. They get his water bottle. And then you see him, they go, oh shit, he was right. If this gets the penalties, I think the Argentinian squad

potentially in trouble because I'll pick for ever seen it. But also, you see the way some of them react. There's one guy who sees it and he actually goes up to God. He goes, thank God. I didn't have to do that because you miss a penalty in a World Cup in semifinal. I mean, that's a huge, that goes to the penalties. You've got five guys that are going to have to step up. Now, if it goes extras, obviously, you miss that in your country forever. You're the guy that missed the penalty. That's a free throw.

That's how people view it. Percentages and odds are not like that. But that is literally how people view it. They're like, hey, this is a free throw, man. You just blast this thing in the net. What are we even talking about here? It's no problem. The percentages say, though, there's a lot of misses and there's a lot of saves happening.

But that's not how it's viewed by the country. Messi missed one for Argentina back in the day. He thought about retiring from international play because how loud it was getting in Argentina when he was considered the best player in the world. Since then, he's already won a World Cup with that team and now in the finals, yet again against Spain. Okay, so whenever we look at potentially gambling on this World Cup final, and we know that Messi was bathing? Is that what he was doing 19 years ago?

Ceremonial bath. For a UNICEF ad, Leo, that. That is him. That's the 19 year old that's playing for Spain named Lemin Yamal. Okay, that is actually him. This is not in a 2026. You see this. I see this. I think, I go, this is funny. They're saying like, message is daddy. Yeah. That's a cute thing that that's happening. Then you start seeing actual humans of actual importance with real credibility go, this photo from 19 years ago is crazy. And I'm like, yeah, okay, these nerds are. phone for AI. It wasn't until maybe the 30th post from somebody with legitimacy to them saying it was real that I finally bought in and thought that it was real. That is absurd. Because they're saying Jamal is the next one, right? He's the best player on the best team in the country, in the world, right? In Spain. And then Messi's the best player in the actual whole world. The fact that this

happened makes you wonder a lot of things about a lot of things. Let's not get into it too deep. But on that note, these two right here are doing battle on Sunday. Telling what are the number saying and then the other half of the hammer Dodd Cowboys Bubba Gumpino you follow the tone with what we should think about with the style of play that's coming on. Yeah I mean as far as the numbers you can see them right there Spain minus 160 but going into the

semi-finals Spain and Argentina were both dogs around the similar number that Argentina is right now I believe France was minus 150 against Spain and that semi-final and England was like minus 110 against Argentina so both dogs won in the semi-finals so don't think just

because Spain is the favorite here at minus 160. It's an automatic win for them. Obviously, Argentina has the momentum. Some say they have the stripes on their side as well, not just on their uniform, but I think it should be a good final. Yeah, it's going to be the dark arts here on Sunday in the World Cup final. You're going to see flop and you're going to see stepping on people. You know, VAR probably

won't look at some things. Maybe they would look at if it was going the other way. But it should be a good final. You got Laminia Mall, you got messy, two of the best players in the world. It should be a good game. Yeah, it's two best teams in the world. Yeah. That's why they're in a World Cup final. That's how they got there.

Right, Gump? Yeah, they're two of the top four teams. Yeah, certainly. I mean, there's teams playing for third place, too. That's happening on Saturday. People forget that. England, France, Airy, Jude, Mbop. Yeah.

These two are competing for third place in the world. Gumpy, your thoughts? That's good. What do USA make? We did not play that. We made 16. 25th. Yeah.

So, getting third would be good. Yeah. I tell you what, I love. I literally followed that England team around the country for the last two weeks. I fucking love this team. And you get this new gaffer, Thomas Tuchel, and you get rid of Southgate, and he's a foreign manager, and he's going to not sit in. You're not going to sit in. They go up a goal, and you try and sit in for 35 minutes against the best player in the world.

You got six playing at the back. You're going to get God, unfortunately. Yeah, a couple times, actually. And I'll tell you, we had that Trust the Stars boost to plus 500, which was a good bet. And it did look shaky for a long time of that game, and it was not funny. to be a part of. But then all of a sudden, who do you appreciate? Oh, the guy that Jude Bellingham went over

and said, what he said, pretty disrespect. I don't know what he said. I don't know what language it was in. Probably English, but Lou did not like it. I probably shouldn't have said it. Big Lou saying, Okay. Hmm. I think it was after Enzo Fernandez

punched Elliot Anderson. Oh, okay, that's biased reporting. Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen. I think that's what it was, actually. Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, is a man who has, um, has now entered into his second decade being the anchor of NBC sports.

A man who obviously has Monday night football in his past. Now he has Sunday night football. He's done the Olympics. He told me earlier in a conversation with us that his kids play soccer so he knows a soccer world inside and out. Oh yeah, and he's calling a major that's happening right now. I don't think there's a better guess that you could potentially have for this exact moment.

Ladies and gentlemen, the incomparable future Hall of Famer and everything, Mike Tariko. Yeah, Mike. Hello. Thank you, boys. How are we doing? Good. You heard our soccer conversation there at the end. Gumpy's a diehard English fan. Obviously, he's been paying taxes to the Queen, his whole life up there in Canada and his grandma, I believe, is English.

What are your thoughts on World Cup and where we're at right now? I think, obviously, USA got a good boost, bad ending, and Messi's in a final again, which I think would be good for ratings, obviously. Where do you kind of sit in the World Cup and how it's been? World Cup, a win for America. Disappointment for the men's team, right? You just think this would have been the perfect opportunity to really build on this deal. People were involved, engaged.

People who didn't watch soccer, didn't know the power of the World Cup got in and were all in. And people were watching at work. It was great. So disappointing missed opportunity. And MLS capitalized on that, get a little boost here as they get their season back going. think on Friday. That's part one. The stars were great. All these generational stars played and played really well. I know there were extra games with the Golden Boot Race had high numbers with all those guys scoring goals. That was great. You end up with two terrific teams in the final memorable moments.

Action was great. Top to bottom. All good, all positive. Messy showing everybody, even at his age, why he is the best of all time in the eyes of people who've seen the best for generations. So we're in England for the Open, and I've got to tell you guys' story. Oh, yes. Oh, my God. I didn't even think about you being there. Okay. So I was flying over last night, watched the end of the match on the plane.

The plane was disappointed. Get here this morning, wait for my room to be ready. I go to have breakfast. So there are three guys who sit down at the table, maybe two tables over for me. And I'm getting coffee, first sip of coffee, and I just hear these guys starting to trash Tuchel. And it was 25 minutes of the best entertainment of my year. It was like a call-in show is happening. These three guys who know each other, they play golf together, I would imagine.

They are sitting there and they just went through the whole match. they're how excited they were and how of course they knew that he went to five in the back too early and how could you do that and how could you not see what Messi was doing it was it was just like being home after a football game and listening to fans

just crushed their own team and they were just so disappointed it was I could have stayed the whole day and listened to these guys so that conversation times 500,000 have happened over here in England so I was hoping that we'd be here and on Sunday we'd say

the claret jug handed out, I'd interview that guy, and then go watch the final here and see England win for the first time in 60 years. But instead, I had the most entertaining breakfast I've had in five months. And I didn't say a word. I can imagine. How's your English accent? You probably have a pretty good one. Do you ever drop in there at all? No, it's below average.

Why bother if you're not good? Can I ask you a question? No, I like that you got out of there because we were going to probably try to people. Yeah, yeah. That was a good move. That was a good move. No, no, no, no, we were just having this debate. Okay.

So how long would it take messy to become a good field goal kicker? I think he'd get it pretty quick. I think messy. Like really, really quick, right? Yeah, he's an incredible ball striker. Okay, so I think if you're a good ball striker, you can figure out the stroke, the motion. Right. Because it's not a soccer kick, you know?

Like soccer kick, you're trying to let. There's a lot of bending and there's a lot of dipping and everything like that. kicking, you're trying to go, you're doing everything you don't want to do in soccer. In soccer, you want to stay over the ball, right? You know soccer. Soccer, you want to stay over the ball. You want to kind of get your thing to do that because if not, that thing's sailing, right? You want to kind of get in there? Football kicking, it's like we are backing out, leaning hard, trying to sail it basically every single time. So good ball strikers can figure the stroke out, I think. The mediocre or

like above average ball strikers could do it. Like they could come out to college game day, make the 33-yarder. But like to go 30-for-30 from whatever, every single day, like I think that's going to be difficult immediately. But he's like one of the best ball in history. He might be the best ball striker in history. So I think he would figure it out easily.

Well, that's where the conversation got started amongst a few of us who were just sitting in here in our green room because, like, for messy, like the service on that one ball is just extraordinary. Righty. Right. Exactly. Right?

So now you're talking talent, both feet. the service, the placement, making the ball move. And we're talking, is that the guy from a soccer who's grown up playing soccer who could make the adjustment like this? You have to hit the ball in this spot consistently. And really the ball is moving with you as you kick it. So we were wondering about that. And we're just kind of playing half ham expert on kicking a ball.

And I go, wait a minute. I'm going to be on with McAfee. He's kicked 5,000 balls in his life, maybe 25,000 balls. in his life. He can answer the question. So thank you. What do you think the number is? What's the number? I spent hours and hours and hours of my life just kicking a soccer ball off the side of my wall because I had too much ADHD. I couldn't watch them. I didn't watch movies. I sucked at video games. So I literally just kicked the ball. I wanted to have the strongest leg of all the time.

When I saw David Beckham hit a ball like 90-something miles an hour, I forget what it was. That's when I found out that was real. And there was a kid that lived up the street. It was Alex Trebendis. So Alex Trebendis was a year older than me. And whenever we were playing youth soccer, I would go watch his games. He would play out as like U-8, maybe he's U-10, and he would be blasting the ball through goalies. And I was like, that's so cool. Then I saw Beckham blast him.

I was like, I didn't know that was possible. So literally I would go outside and I would just try to put up a soccer ball through the brick wall that my house was made of. Like, I'm saying like thousands of times. Now, I think that's why my knees ended up not making it. You know, like I did blow the knees out, you know? But I think, and it's not me talking out of pocket.

I think I was a very good ball striker. I worked to become a good ball striker. One of the first times I kicked a football, I kicked like a 60-yard field goal. So if you want to say, is Messi, would Messi be able to pick it up? Yeah, I think Messi, one of the greatest ball striker of all the time,

but not every soccer player is a great ball striker. So like that is like the... There's like levels to this shit, you know? Like I think everybody, like you just play soccer. Definitely good with your feet, probably definitely have good touch, can pass it. But there's only certain people taking free kicks that are fucking, you know, moving the ball and doing that. Those are great ball strikers.

Well, that's what we saw on the free kicks, right? The U.S. goal on the free kick, right? The ball coming up and down. The great shots from behind the goal, when goals were scored of guys who put it up for 90 and watching the bend on the ball and the ability to place the ball. Those are the ones that you're like, wow, that's special. And you understand, and they did a great, have Stu Holden said a terrific job on Fox. I've enjoyed watching them, just talking about that ball has to be struck in the perfect spot, and that's how you make it move.

And so that's why I was thinking those are the guys who might be the ones who could say, all right, thumb kick 53 for me. Yeah, so the perfect spot. So sweet spot on soccer ball bigger than sweet spot on football. But sweet spot on soccer ball to make it bend around wall in a spot smaller than spot on football. So it's like all on control of foot, can you hit spot on ball, but also the motion, You know, it's all about the motion of the ocean tree. You know, you've got to be able to get that late.

You know, it's your golf club down here, which is a good transition. That is your golf club down there. So you're going inside out on that, outside in on that. For football, you're trying to go up on it. So it's like I think the great, Ronaldo already does like a football set. Yeah, it does. Now, granted, can you do it in three steps, people running at you? One point two five seconds from snap to hold.

You barely see the ball. The ball's down for like half a second. and then you're off and running. So it's like, do you... Yeah, because, I mean, you've got to hit that thing so many different. You know what I mean? And our guy, the guy.

Tillman, Malik. Tellman, he's hitting that thing. He's hitting that thing like this. Yeah. And instead of into the ground, he's getting that thing to go up. Like, that's insane. I would assume he could do it.

Yeah. I would assume he... Anyways, your leg is your golf club. Your leg is your golf club. So that's how you should view it. And let's get to golf. We got one going. Hey, we got one brewing.

over there, Mike. We got a smooth transition here because ball strikers, consistent solid ball strikers are the ones who win this tournament, this championship. Now, not as much, not as much, and just fractionally down

from a year when it's windy. Because when it's windy, Tom Watson won five opens. And Tom Watson was a great on-the-nose ball striker. Just penetrating ball flight. It didn't move in the wind. and Tom Watson had what it took to win open after open.

Ball striking is huge. You've got to be in the right places. If you miss by a yard or two to the right or the left, you could find yourself in bunkers where it's over. You're going to make a five or six guaranteed on a hole. So huge ball striking week. And I think that's why even in the first round, you look, a lot of the guys who hit it solid are the ones who are on the leaderboard.

Not many of the big names have blown themselves out of this so far. so day one has put a bunch of people in good places. Bryson's a story. Bryson's missed three cuts in majors this year, and Bryson played well today after not playing well in the first round last year of the opening gave himself no chance. Fascinating guy, maybe the most fascinating guy to watch

the rest of the week is Deschambo. He needs it, I think. I would assume for his golf legacy, obviously, but just for him personally. I think he needs something in a big tournament with people watching because he's been very open, about what he wants to do, how he's done it, and what has all happened. We know a lot about

Bryson. And him becoming, you know, an internet golfer is a real thing. I've watched a lot of his content. Sure. I am one of the greatest golfers on earth is giving me full transparency on golf. Oh yeah, and he's chipping it into a sports car. That's so cool. But if he doesn't continue to do well in these big tournaments, he does kind of lose the luster. Like it's like, okay, is Michael Block out here now? Who hits the ball further? I'm joking. That's rude to me to say, but because Michael He talks about to win the senior thing. Yeah, he's about to go on a run in the championship. We know that.

But it is real, though. Like, he has to maintain his legitimacy. And I think the way to maintaining legitimacy is he has to do well in one of these big tournaments. That's just how it is. Don't you think, Mike? I do. And I think there's something that's annoying, Bryson. I don't know what exactly it is.

But he didn't speak to the media again after this first round. And he played well. And it's five rounds in a row with the majors that he has not talked to the media after. I don't know if he wants to avoid the live conversation. He doesn't want to talk about what's going on with his game. He wants to control the message. He wants to use his direct pipeline to his fans, which is his prerogatives. I understand that.

But to your point, on a larger scale, if you want to be the best at this, then you've got to play by some of the rules that everybody else does. That includes talking about it, but it also includes winning these big events against the best. people. But you can be fun and lucrative and all that as an internet sensation. And he's much more, much, much more than that. He's one to U.S. opens. But in the primary career, you want to beat the best players in the game. And he's got every tool to do that. And days like today prove that. Now, he is a different approach guy to golf course. He likes to overpower and take the driver in here as far as I can. This is a golf

force where you can get away with that sometimes, but other times it's going to get you. So the key to a links course, do you stay short of the trouble, or do you have enough to hit it over all the trouble and be able to scramble out of there? Because the scrambling here is different than the scrambling at a Parkland

course or one with a lot of rough around the greens in the U.S. How's your golf game? Pretty good. Oh, my God. It's so bad right now. As a matter of fact, I had Brad Fax in our green room today. just rip my putting stroke apart. Really?

Because I'm in a bad place. And facts was good. He got my posture better. Got my eyes in a better place. So when I get back to the States next week, it better work. But I was a mess. It was a rough week. You got to have a head over the head, right?

Don't you have to head head over the potter? But let's not be slouchy now because if we're slouchy, then the muscles aren't activated. And then it's going to be inconsistent. I hope you do tell Buddy, though, that if ball goes in a hole, who cares? how we get there. You know what I mean? I hope you do say that. I hope you let him know that. Yeah, but it's not, it's not going in the hole. So you need posture, you need balance, you need your

eyes in the right place, you need a lot of things. Just pace on putting. I need to give putts a chance to go in and I haven't for five days. So that's where I am. Yep, there you go, nice putter. This is what you need? To pay for it? Yeah, 100 bucks. I did. I got this out of a rental set. It was awesome. I got this out of a rental set in Phoenix, Arizona. Yeah.

We went golfing with AQ. Shipley and Beanall, Brandon Bean of the Buffalo Bills, out there for, was that league meeting? Yeah, yeah. During league meetings, when golf, I got a rental set, and I made 10 puts, and I'd never done that in my life. So I took the rental set back,

told the front desk, hey, I'm, what do you, like? Figure it out. They could have charged you 10 grand, and you would have bought that part. Yes. So I put the butter on the desk. I go get changed, because obviously I bought all my clothes there as well

because I was not prepared. So rental clubs, let me buy your entire outfit. You guys got here, whatever your coolest shit is. Let's do that. So I go get changed. I come back and the guy goes, $100. I go, oh, great idea.

And then I walk out of there and I tell Foxy at that exact time, they could have. That was that terrible negotiation. They could have got whatever. But yeah, I haven't played golf since, but I think it's still hot. I think it's still hot. That's what I want to know.

Are you still making punts and you haven't? Well, right here. Yeah, I mean, I'm... Yeah, on the pride screen. All right, let's go. We are in the Thunderdome, McAfee now, setting up for a punt. You should see what we just got, like?

Once you can find a golf. What did you just get? It's it. There it is. One of those. Oh, boy. Listen, here's Pat. It reloads the ball.

That's a next level, next level simulator. Pat's looking at an eight-foot putt here to make the cut for the weekend. Sometimes, like Leet Trevino said, pressure is not a putt to win the championship. Pressure is putting for $10 when you got five in your pocket. Mack, if you're looking at this eight-and-a-half foot, it looks like it breaks from the right to live playing it. Probably. Yeah, keep in mind here. Yeah, we're on about a 72-hour bender here.

Yeah, it wasn't just the ESBs, Mike. We've been on the piss lot. The home run derby. Home run derby. It started Sunday night. Shotling says it's 10 feet, according to the golfer. But, you know, people on golf trips make these puts. And they go for 48 years.

You want a beer? You want me to go grab you a beer? All right. McAfee over the putt. I think it's still, let's go. Clean in caliber. This is probably a little far outside. It bends heavily right to left.

Putter back and through towards the hole. And he missed it on the log. Oh, he made it. Oh, he made it. Oh, he made the punt. Yeah. He made the pot. Yeah.

From 10 feet. Still bringing it. Bender and all. No sleep. Bender and all. What a call. What a call. Pat McAfee made the cut and he will be here for the weekend.

I'll tell you. I feel really good about what you did. I was looking over that thing. That ball did not look like it was going in that hole as I was there. I had Toriko and a call there. Hey, we're doing a lot of dumb shit right now. That was very close. Okay, let's get back to real golfing.

Can we please? Yeah, go ahead. Thank you for that. Big name. Man, has something happened last week that we haven't seen in seemingly forever? Go ahead, Connor. Yeah, Mike, you mentioned consistent ball strikers and Scotty Schuffler's basically been that up until last weekend.

I think it was the first start that he missed the cut in 78 starts. So it's been a long, long time. And now he had a great start today as well. I think he was three or four under at one point, but then he drops back down to one under to end the round. This was basically what Pat just did essentially the same putt that Scotty made on today. But what do you, two under, sorry. What are we expecting here from Scotty?

Is this one of those things like, hey, we should maybe get a run out. this thing. We haven't really seen him dominate or run away with a tournament yet. It feels like right now obviously two under, he's within striking distance, but what are you expecting now to Scotty? And has he figured it out? Because we got a guy, Mark Schlaublech

who comes on all the time. He's international Schlaublev right now. And he basically said, like, Scott, can't figure it out. This guy can't do it off the tee. Like, what is the going wrong with Sheffler right now? Oh, man. A thousand things there. First off, Scotty,

hit it really well early on and had to scratch a couple out and then you see the bogey that he made towards the end of the round. He made a six in there somewhere I think it was. Yeah, 17. Yeah, 17. He made a six. That was a drive that he didn't hit all that great and set him back a little bit.

This is a weird course, by the way, if you're watching for the weekend, compared to most golf courses, only two par fives and they're late in the round, 14 and 17. So you don't see a par five which the pros think scoring hole, I can get a leg up on guys, until you get to 14 and 17. There are only two of them.

So keep that in mind as you watch. A lot of threes and fours mixed in. Look, Scotty had missed a cut in four years, missed his last weekend, but comes out and plays here, and you know the game is there. Maybe it's off a little bit. Where is it off this year from last year? I think we talked about this last month at Chinnecock. Proximity to the hole is just not what it once was.

He hit the ball closer to the hole that, anybody the last three years. I don't mean three years cumulative. I mean each of the last three years. And this year, he's hitting the ball really well, but he's not hitting it. Great. So he's being measured against his great seasons and is having a really good season. So it feels like it's not a great season.

But if you win a major and you can win another one or two on the way home, maybe a playoff event, you're going to look back and say great season. So Scotty has himself in position this weekend to take the Clarit Jug back home. home because he had a good first round, which has been a problem for him this year. This is a golf course. You're not going to hit it super close, but you can make a ton of putts. Green speeds are like 10 and a half on the stint meter, not 11 and a half. So you can be aggressive with the putts. So if Scottney's feeling that, he's hitting it well, yeah, that was 10.2 that you had in front of the set. I can't believe you were able to eyeball that.

That's unbelievable. You're in Europe. 10.2. Yeah. Yeah. I know from from that far away. I think, I think Scottie's fine. I wouldn't panic at all. I think he's having a good year. Matt Fitzpatrick's having a terrific year. Chris Goddorup's having a terrific year. Other guys are in the mix. Rory's year is really good. So I wouldn't panic back Scotty. And I'd be surprised if he has one of those rounds where he backs up a lot.

I don't think we're going to get one of those weird weather deals here, which means the morning times have a bigger advantage over the late times. It's warm. It's going to be breezy, not windy. So it's not going to be this afternoon late draw got blown off the course because there's too much wind. I think given all that, I think Scotty will be around on Sunday. Okay, so with the way you're talking about the weather, maybe the Americans who live

down in Florida have a little bit of an advantage, because we've seen these Europeans come to America and handle a little heat. It's like, shut it down. Isn't it like they shut it, just shut it down? Now, I'm not saying the European golfers don't live in Florida, too, for most of the year. That's it, yeah. Most of them do.

But there's one guy. We're learning about this guy, and I love him. Go ahead, Ty. Yeah, Mike. I'm guessing, because none of us really knew anything about this guy, just heard of him today, really. Dan Brown, who I believe, I don't know if he's still the leader right now, but college dropout smokes a bunch of cigarettes. It's basically like a YouTube golfer. How much research will you have to do on this guy, because he's obviously going to be a massive talking point, assuming that he makes the cut. And also, go have a combo with this guy. We need to learn more about this guy, I think.

he is on my radar to watch tomorrow and if he finishes I don't have to be on the air tomorrow so if he finishes and is in the mix that's one of the things I've already made a note I want to be up by 18 when he gets done to go visit with him and get to learn more about not just that picture but

the number of cigarettes he smokes he's a multiple dart in round guy you know all that all that stuff the open gives us open gives us some ridiculous stories usually most majors do but especially this one

because it's probably 25% of the field that we don't see on a regular basis playing on PGA tour or in PGA tour events. So you get these stories. And we had a guy, God, must be 15, 17 years ago, who led after the first round missed the cut, shot 81 in the second round. So these stories pop up on the radar. We had guys who hung around for two, three days and became stories. Heck, here in 98, the second open I did, Justin Rose was the 70. year old kid who hung around all three days he finished in the top

five he hold a shot from the left of the 18th fairway and turned pro and then missed 27 consecutive cuts before he became Justin Rosen won major championships and a rider cup stalwart and still having a great career in his mid-40s although he didn't play well today so these guys

pop on the radar you never know but if it's a two-day story we'll be ready for him on the weekend and I'll get an update on what his average darts per round. That's good. In And ask him what it was, I guess in 2024, we are all learning this in real time. He also had a first day lead. He ended up 10th.

Okay, so I think Dan Brown, I think he likes being a legend around. You know, he's coming out there shirtless with the thing. There's big pops from the lads there. You know, I think he's lad of the lads. I think when he's in front of the lads, he's, hey, let's go, lad. Come on, let's ride. Let's do this thing. I like that.

When at home, you're more comfortable, right? And a lot of the guys who do pop up on leaderboards, have played more links golf so they get really comfortable. There you go, see? Seven or eight darts per round to help handle stress. But you've got to be careful because it's hot here. The grain is... Yeah, you can't be throwing butts on the ground.

It's too dry. Only you can prevent forest fires. I mean, that's real with Dan Browns here. He's putting out... Yeah, out of four. He's putting that out right. He's putting that out right. Forehead, forearms.

Because think about the lads, once again. Yeah. Yeah. Put him out on his tongue, maybe. What do you think he sounds like, Mike, if you had to get like a brown, like what do you think his voice is like if you had to guess? It's probably like the British accent you just highlighted for us, Pat. There you go.

I thought I was going to get you, you know, because earlier you did the hole. Let's put a pin in that. We'll circle back thing. And I'm going to actually ask the questions. Hey, what, would Leo Messi be able to be a kicker? You remember what question it was, too. It was like, oh, he has to give an answer to this. He is like the kicking guy.

Yeah, that was a good play by you, Tariko. That was a good play. But that was good in depth. Have you gone into that depth on hitting the ball and the guy when you were U-10? Have you given us that story before? I'm not a hundred percent short, man, because you got to remember, we've done 10,000 shows.

Yeah. It was like daily show stuff, just, you know, they all kind of blend in there. Then we go to an Espy's event, and it's like we run into somebody. Hey, how's it going? Good to see you, man. All right, yeah. A little cold there. What was that? Yeah, 22, you remember?

You guys said this guy ruined. I was like, oh, no, I don't remember that. It was like they do, though. It's like, hmm, hey, that's all me, by the way. 20, 26. I'm a new man. I got two kids. Yeah, exactly.

You know, we do the entire show of the dance, you know, one of those. But it's a lot of talking, Mike, too much talking, I would say. Let's go back to you talking, especially about what you talked about this past year, which was fun to watch you do. The NBA has a storyline that could be generational. Go ahead, tone. Yeah, Mike, obviously, Yonis went down to Miami. Jalen Brown goes to Philly, so there's kind of one.

big piece left and it's the biggest piece maybe of all time. Where do you think or where do you want LeBron James to play next season? Can I go want? Yeah. I want him to go to Golden State. Yeah, me too. Me too. I want to see Steph and the crew make

one last run. That's just personal what I would love to see. The Philadelphia thing is intriguing as heck. Cleveland feels right for the story to end where it started. Not saying that next year is definitely the end. It could be two years.

Who knows? He's a freak of nature. The Miami thing feels like it's happened before. So Cleveland, to me, just feels as a story better. I'm only with those top four. I'd be surprised if the Denver or the Minnesota stuff happened. But, I mean, who knows? I didn't see Minnesota's offseason going the way it's.

If you're LeBron, what are you looking at? You're looking at where can I be the best version of me right now? And he's terrific about understanding what a game needs, what he needs to be in a game. So we saw games where LeBron would open up as facilitator because he wanted to get other guys going. And then we saw games where LeBron had to take over from the start. I think he's got a great sense of self than anyone else. So I think he probably, as he takes a step back and doesn't rush into this, has a good feel for where he can fit. best, given the talent that's around that team.

So I don't know if I know what he's thinking, but I hope it ends up being Cleveland because I just want to see the story end where it started. I want to see him go back to the statue, go back to Akron, where he's done so many great things, community, school, the bike race, the charity, all that stuff. That would be a really cool chapter because those chapters never end, usually where they start. And I think it would be special for the league and special for all of us. Would be fun to cover. But the fan wants to see Golden State and Steph and LeBron.

Because they vibed during the Olympics. When they were on Team USA together, they were vibe together. I would just love to see those guys do whatever he need to do for the first 70 games. He is. He is. You can eat around out there. And Steph is like what the master of, I'm going to go get my shots up. and then I'm going to get my shots in. Like in that kind of his thing.

Teach him. So, Steph Curry teaches LeBron how to become, there's a lot of upside to Golden State, I think. You know. Did you see Steph in the American Century? Almost that. The celebrity tournament this weekend? Almost had it.

Fish, Marty Fish is stud. Pavs, unbelievable. They have traded wins, I think. And then Steph? Or Romo three years ago. Steph. Steph. And then Pave and then Marty and then Marty again.

They're really good. Look at you. Yeah, we pay attention, man. We like that tournament. I'm going to get better at golf to get back out there. I get better at golf to get back in. You do. You do.

The event. All right. Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, Hall of Famer and everything. On the call over at the Royal Berthale for the open this weekend on NBC. Hall of Famer, ladies of gentlemen, entering his second decade at NBC. You feel old?

Yeah. Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen. Yeah, do you? Very. Yeah, me too, bro. Me too. Yeah.

Get some rest. You're the best. Ladies and gentlemen, Mike Tariko. Yeah, Mike. Fresh off of Tariko to a 15-year NBA vet, a man who would be able to not only play off of what Toriko just said, but give us his personal thoughts.

A man who's obviously an incredible friend of the program, absolute stud. Ladies and gentlemen, Big Perk, Hedrick Perkins. Yeah, Perk. Sorry, we made you wait there a little bit towards the end, but we were talking about, obviously, the story that's going to carry the summer

or until LeBron decides it's not, well, no, because once he gets to wherever he gets to, that's going to be the story. I mean, this is going to be for the foreseeable future. He's talking to Halliburton today. leaving a podcast. Who knows if that's an answer or just more information. What are your thoughts, Perk? I don't know if I've heard exactly where and what you think is going to happen. Well, I mean, number one, good to see y'all.

You too. We miss you, Park. I'm ready to have somewhat of a vacation and go wiggle my toes in the sand. So I hope that he make a decision here pretty soon. So I could go on vacation just for a little bit. I ain't asking for a month off, but just for a week. You know, but right now I'm on standby because of James, who is still the most powerful man in basketball. But let me say this. When I listen, when he speaks today on his podcast with Halliburton, the one thing that I want to hear him talk about is if this is going to be his final year.

I think if he plans on playing at least two more years, then I believe that's going to affect his decision on where he's going to go. If it's one year, I believe it should be Cleveland. If it's two years, now all of a sudden it should have expand a little bit and more options. I actually love Minnesota for LeBron James, to be honest with you. When you look at what they already have and the peace, the void that they're trying to feel since trading Julius Randall, you put him alongside Anthony Edwards, McDaniels, and Lamello Ball along with Rudy, that puts them back into the conversation of being able to really compete with OKC

and the San Antonio Spurs, in my opinion. Yeah, I think OKC and San Antonio, obviously, we watched them at their absolute best at the end of the season, and it seems like they were just going to run the West forever. But that automatically discounts Ant, who we were thinking was going to be the face of the franchise, the face of the NBA, the face of basketball, which can still happen with how electrifying he is. You talk about Lamello going there. You talk about them making some plays, obviously, moving on. It's Minnesota, you think LeBron James is going to go to, no offense, Minnesota.

This is not an offensive statement to Minnesota. He's old. Yes. Okay, he is golfing. He's got a gray-ass beard. Are you heading a negative, like you wake up, it's negative 35. And I know everything's connected, but like a beautiful time, beautiful. It is cold, cold, cold in Minnesota.

Like cold, cold cold. I get that, Pat, but it gets cold, cold in Cleveland as well. Not as much as it does in Minnesota, but I will say this. Rich Paul on his podcast a few weeks ago, he did say LeBron James would love to go somewhere where it's an indoor or outdoor thing for him to golf. See, the indoor part is what got me, meaning that if he does pick somewhere where it's going, be cold. Oh, now, can I tell you what happened

with Rich? We love Rich. Can I tell you what happened with Rich? We love Rich. Rich was talking about golf mattering in this entire thing.

And him, I didn't hear the quote. I would have to go back and hear it, but just listening to you describe what he said. He said, now listen, it would be nice if there was a place to golf. And then he knew he was like, fuck, we just lost leverage

with every court. Or indoor golf. Like, as it came out of his mouth, I think Rich was like, whoa, whoa, there's also indoor golf now. We go put put putt too. You know, we can fucking do that. I think that's potentially what happened.

but maybe not. I mean, maybe the weather doesn't matter. And maybe golf is for the offseason, like it has been this year. And maybe, yes, he'll be able to work on a swing. It just, for me, it feels like warm. For me, it just feels like he's going to go warm. Unless you want to come to Indiana.

Sure. And what is, is Golden State? I don't think I know enough about San Francisco's weather. Or the Bay Area. And congrats to Steph, by the way. Over $100 million, right? That's a lot of money. We found that out last night.

Got a chance to meet Steph. and Steph's security guard who did not stick out at all at that golf tournament this past weekend. Did not stick out. Fucking flat bill, huge beard, car heart thing, four feet taller than every other human. I'm here to watch the golf, man. It's here to watch the golf. That guy was the best. But is that cold?

Do they get cold? No. What is the weather over? I mean, it certainly is not going to get anywhere near as cold as any place in the Midwest. you know, like, yeah. But are they counting that as a warm weather place? I would say yes, yeah. So that, and then Steph's there, you know.

Steve Kerr also, right? Steve Kerr is based, from my understanding of the way those Olympic practices go, LeBron's running that shit, right? Didn't he've, yeah. LeBron's stuff doing the entire thing. So I think him and Steve kind of have a good relationship. Great golf in the San Francisco Bay area, like elite golf too. Like, so if that really is like one of like the deciding factors,

you're going to be hard pressed to find any NBA city that has better golf than San Francisco. And then somebody caught. caught Steve Kersey in this in his car. And we need get LeBron, man. We need LeBron.

Okay, that's good. Okay, so obviously he's gassing up people in the car in the city. We can't take that as a thing. But it does feel like the growing sentiment is that Golden State does want him. What do we think about him up there? Because a lot of people saying,

that'd be cool in like 2016. This would be a really sweet team. Do you think those two together with what Steve's able to do with the rest of the cast in Golden State, do they immediately also become right back into title contending? And obviously, every arena they go to, the ticket prices are going to be outrageous good for business. You're damn right it does. And I know Steph wasn't available as much last year, but the times that he was on the floor, he still played at an all-NBA level.

He still was like he averaged 26 points. Like damn near 50 from the field, 40 from three. So he's still showing us that he's defeating further time alongside with LeBron James. And I get it. People will say, oh, well, they'll have the oldest roster in the league. Yeah, but to me, that don't even matter. Because Al Horford, when you look at him, they just resign him.

He's in phenomenal shape. He could still go at a high level. Christop Prozengis, obviously, we haven't seen him because of health issues. But when he's available, he could go. No one can sit up here and argue and say that Draymond Green, when he's on the floor, he's still not one of the best defensive players in the game. I think the biggest obstacle if LeBron James was to get to Golden State

would just be getting through the regular season. But postseason time, if you could get to postseason time, which they will find a ways to win games to get there, and all of those guys are healthy, it's going to be hell in hot water for everybody. That experience kicks in. I can only imagine what it would be like to have two basketball minds

like Draymond Green and LeBron James anchoring the defense, calling out plays, like doing that type of stuff. And then all of a sudden you go back to Steph and Braun in a two-man game, hell, pick your poison. The last time both of those guys were even happy, like happy outside of golf when it comes to basketball is when they played together in the Olympics. And they were great together.

Yeah. They look great. And where's Kevin Durant at? I mean, are they going to be able to get his ass back up there too? Because, I mean, if we're just going to watch the Olympics again, I'd love that because their big game, Kevin Durant would go for 45. Oh, Steph Curry is going to go for, I don't know, 70 tonight or whatever the case is. And then Bronzing, that's fun, guys.

We know the deal tonight. Let me drop another 55 on him. That would be, that would be a show. That would be awesome. I'm leaning that way. Steph Curry said this on Good Morning America yesterday as he was in town to receive an award for his foundation's work with what he has done in Oakland.

The Bay, we know how to win, beautiful weather, great golf, we just know how to play basketball. And I think that he would enjoy just the idea of what it means to finish your career the right way. I think what he's saying there is like, hey, Braun, come on. Good ball here, too. We play sophisticated hoops here now. So this is, you will be able to fit in.

You're not going to be mad with what's going on. We'll amplify everything. I love the idea of him with Steph Curry. Now, do I want it to be a gold state? No. So I would like them to trade them both to the pastures. That'd be cool. Perk, continue to work your ass off

because LeBron ain't making a decision for quite a time, I do believe. You're the absolute man. We appreciate you. Appreciate so. You're the best, ladies gentlemen. Kendrick Perk. All right, season's over.

Next one. I'll give you guys a weak wrap up on the other side. That's very nice of you, Perk. Thank you for doing that. No problem. Any other things happen good. draft happens we'll talk about. Free agency, I'm ready.

Okay. Who's free agent? LeBron James. Yeah, we're going to need you. For a long time. Every day. Stand by. You know, Messi?

You're ready to talk about him. What he said to us? He's not watching anything other than Hoops. That was about three months ago. Yeah. He still just walked in on everything. Wife just like, hey, are you able? No, I got sit in this room.

I got sit in this room. LeBron might, who knows. He might go to do. take a piss in San Francisco. All right, we're back on the other side. Goodbye. This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales,

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Sports! Are the absolute greatest. I have an announcement to make, And I do not we do not have a deal with anybody, but we do have deals with our friends. Okay. That they have to send us boxes and shit whenever they get stuff. Yep. Yeah.

Even if there's no chance of us wearing him. Like what we've been doing with Tyrese Halliburton with the original six pairs of his shoes that he released. Yeah. Not all of us. Connor put anything on his body. So Connor was wearing these shoes. They were certainly not meant for adults. Not anything.

Close. Close. Well, won't you put on? Yeah. Outside of I'm not talking about that. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I'm saying like Anything fancy. You won't put a

Buffalo Bills jersey on. I won't do that. By the way, those bison lit up at night on the glass. It looks real cool. Now, there was a little bit of an aerial thing that I didn't necessarily love there because I thought they looked small whenever they first laid it out. I agree. But on that note,

I think this is going to look incredible. They're proper. Yeah, I think it's a little bit of incredible. it's a proper bison. Saturday night football intro with those. Oh my God. Mike Tarrico. Yeah, Tarrico. With the buffaloes roaming outside and the buffalo

Californians filling the new hump. Yeah, they're hot in the streets. Yeah, I like what they're doing. I forget where I was going before we got a new pair of Oh yeah, I'm wearing knees. So Halliburton made shoes that we can wear as adults. Oh, neat. Yeah, they're the all whites. Nobody makes all whites anymore either. It seems like Air Force ones are really the only options that

you have. And I do appreciate all the different white Air Force One options that there are, although I have 700 pairs of the standard Air Force One all whites. Very rarely do shoe companies nowadays just give you shoes that just fresh whites. They don't really do that anymore. We got to always do the shit. We always got to be super goofy. I respect it. Yeah. People are buying them. I guess people are buying them. You're doing whatever it is. So boom. Halliburton's got the all white. Boom. They're nice. Haliburton's got the all whites. very comfortable and very white, which I appreciate. Because then there's that off white shit where everybody's like true.

And then there's their shoes that were beat up white. Do you remember that? Yeah. It was almost like an attack on fresh whites. Yeah. Like I did not like, as somebody, fresh white Air Force ones, I think you could ask people from four different areas in my life. If you were to see me what shoes probably have on.

Boom, he's probably to have those on. Then for some reason, every shoemaker just decided, we're done with this. We're not doing it. Were you a shocks guy in high school too? The back ones? Yeah. I blew them out one time.

Shocks those were everybody had them. Yeah, blew back right corner out. And I said, I'm not doing this guy. I can't be breaking my eye. I could kick down here. So I didn't do that. I was breaking some limbs yesterday, if you do recall. Oh, yeah.

I do. I do. I certainly do. We were a part of something. We've been apart of too many cool things. The Toxieb is here. We're at Boston and that Tysk-Colner. One-Han for the Hammer.

Cowboys AP-Tone. And the man that said, I don't want to do that super cool thing. And I don't want to go to the ESPs, ladies a gentleman, AJ Hawke. Hey, Hoggall. Hello, good to see you, buddy. I want to let you know the afternoon thing

that was 57 minute drive two and then 50 minute drive back in between show and award show. That, you know, on paper looked like the biggest nightmare that we had ever potentially signed up for in history. Turns out, get there, awesome. Yeah, very, very cool to be a point. part of and then we also watch gumpy go from coming home to oh man he was skipping around

his place holding his phone there's tv in one room there's tv in another room he just had his phone going through there they're up one nothing boys or whatever he did seem to be a bit worried about how much argentina was seemingly it loved the two cool tactics he was pretty uh he was pretty nervous he was pretty nervy over there i'm putting on i can't give way yeah don't give it away They'll give it away. But no. You're in hair and makeup. Let's just say that.

Yes, we were. Yeah. Yeah. And then you just hear taps, little tiny feet, it sounds like, tapping back and forth. And it was Gumpie's little feet on the other side of the curtain, just watching this game and just wondering if the English were going to be able to hang on. And then his favorite player on earth just broke his heart. Just absolutely broke his heart. And now we got messy in Spain taking place on Sunday.

And then last night, Tespi's incredible. So, AJ, you missed a lot yesterday. Okay, I want to let you know that. But it was great seeing you. And I would say the World Cup final is going to live up to the hype. The third place game. Oh, look you out. That's a good one.

It is. Third place game coming right up. Get on podium. Yeah. Huge rivals. There's always been a thing. They've always done this third place game. Yeah.

I'm just wondering because I don't know how the boys are going to play. Because, yeah, obviously you want to win, but it's like what a letdown from what just happened. So, yeah, you're going to go out there and play for, pride, but I didn't know this was a thing. The reason why I popped there, whenever you said that, is because I literally had to ask whenever somebody, because we were ranking teams over there. And I said, England's in third place. You can just say that, right?

Because you and France can both say that. And they're like actually playing it on Saturday. I'm like, you guys are playing for third place. I did not know that that was happening. That has to be a tough go. Yeah. Especially with all the terrible things that have been said about all these guys by their countries, right?

And then the coach, how about the gaffer for England? Yeah, they may be gafferless come Saturday. I mean, and they're playing in this game, it's like, I watched that video and said, Dear Harry, all of us. You remember. I forgot about that video. I watched the game.

I was in the airport with billion people surrounding all the TVs, everywhere in the airport going crazy. People were very, very excited for England early on, and then it was just heartbreak for everybody at the same time. And some people were very excited, obviously. Yeah, obviously, there were some Argentinian fans amongst us as well, even though Gumpy and other English people were seemingly louder, but this is like international heartbreak, you know,

and then the things that are said immediately upon losing, Messi was going to stop playing for Argentina, what, like 10 years ago? Yeah. Like 10 years ago, he was going to stop because he couldn't win, he missed the penalty of thinking his own country. He was like, get this guy the hell out of it. He's the best in the world in Spain. This guy, he's represented Argentina and Spain is the greatest in the world.

When he was 17 years old, Ronald Dino told Kobe that this guy, and Ronald Dino was considered like best best. and world at the time. Ronaldino tells Kobe Bryant, hey, this one right here is he's going to be, this is going to be the one. And then back in Argentina, because he couldn't win for Argentina in the World Cup, they're saying this guy sucks. You're not Maradano, Paul.

You need to get out of here. So much, though, he thinks about stopping playing for the, could you imagine his World Cup happening? Messy's doing what he's doing for in Miami. And he's not on Argentina. He's just kind of juggling with his big ass dog at his backyard throughout this entire thing. That's what the reaction is from these countries. whenever you lose and you don't perform well.

So to have to play on Saturday. So Gumpy, are they all going to play? Like, what happens here? Like, Ari Cain's going to be on the pitch on Saturday with Jude Bellingham and all, starting 11 is going, or is this going to be like Australia or what was the game where we played? Oh, Turkey. Turkey. Is this like back half of roster?

Like, let's get some international caps here for the boys. Like, how should we view this whenever we're thinking about it? Because obviously, we all knew. this game was happening. We are now just wondering what is going to happen in said game. I'm sure they're going to rotate guys a little bit, but like, Embapé and Harry Kane are still up for the golden boot. Like I imagine Mbapapes still wants to win the golden boot. So I think a lot of the players are going to play. I just think you're going to see some guys rotate in and out with some guys banged up and such. And AJ, you can, I mean, I guess in our world, college

world, like there was a time where my, our West Virginia team, saying my is crazy. I was way down to the bottom of the roster there. So the team that I was lucky to be on at West Virginia, obviously we lose the pit. Don't go to national championship. Devastate. Worst experience I've ever been part of because what happened in the first

quarter to be and everything and what happened to the boys and obviously the weight of it all and how terrible it was. But then we go to the festival and we win that game. There was a little bit more positive, you know, going into the offseason, you know? So I think you win this game. I assume there is at least like a... You're offseason six.

months long, not three years and you know, 11 months. It's good points. Yeah, but like, think about two years from now and they're bashing at the previous English team, which are definitely going to do. Oh, yeah. But then somebody was like, I lie, this is... The hell of a run, luck.

Yeah, you know. Heroes in two years. Well, we're going to win that. Wait, the golden boot. Messy's getting the golden boot, though, right? Not if he doesn't score the most goals. Is that the only way you win that? It's like a sack record? The golden ball is the MVP. The golden boot is for the highest.

Oh, and the ball. Ideally, you'd want ball and boot. Yeah, because a boot without a ball. It's really no boot at all. It was right there. It was right there. That's all me. Golly.

Joining us now is a man who'll be able to tell us a little bit more about all of this. Took a lot of heat. This guy's 100 soccer years old. In soccer years, this guy is 105 years old. he was our captain. We got a chance to meet him last night. His story in the soccer world, I think, is a perfect depiction of what a lot of people are saying is kind of wrong with the U.S. soccer system and how we need to fix it going

forth. He's not saying that. I'm just saying he grew up St. Louis. There's a national pipeline to get to the national team. Never made it. He's never in there. Goes to college plays, gets drafted to the MLS. When he's in the MLS, then he's noticed by the national, kind of forced to be noticed by national

team. Been on national team for 16 years. So long. Impressive. Yeah. Think about how much of this. Miles. Out there competing with like 20-year-olds.

19-year-olds. 17-year-olds. Ladies and gentlemen, joining us now. U.S. men's national team captain. It looks spectacular, last thing. Ladies and gentlemen, Tim Rang. Yeah, Riemer.

How you doing, Remo? I'm good, man. How are you? Good. Connor wanted to ask and I'm going to take it. You do have a very tight bun. Every time we've seen you, you are very, do you

hair spray that thing? Because hair in the eyes can't do it. Absolutely bad news. So growing hair out, dangerous game. How do we keep it out of eyes? You just, you think you're one of the best bunners on earth

or do we use product here to keep that thing out? No product. Never. Really. What do you do? Twisty Luke 3? Do you do a triple? What do you do? Yeah. You got it. Long enough, long enough from the front all the way back that I can, I can keep it all together. You ever think about going samurai right there on top? Right there on top. Yeah, right here. Like TC did. Yeah, I'm not sure I could pull that one off. I mean, you don't know though. Yeah. Maybe no, yeah, you're right. I don't know. I've not tried it,

but I'm probably stay away from that one. No, because think about what that would do for you. Because now all parts of your head, are available. You know, because you can even come, you could jump up there, turn that some bitch, bang, put Sal Masa Keel on the call,

180 McRiemsky, bang, if you have that up on there and it's up. And then if Jude Bellingham, Leonel Messi situation happens, you can even accidentally, you know,

now you got a little bit of a stabber as well. A downbring, too. All right, a little bullfighter? Exactly. Speaking of bullfighter, Pontchatea seems like a guy that would get in there. And I think he would dress in red as well as holding the red thing.

This guy brought a new energy and attitude to the men's national team. I think whenever we all saw it happen, you get named captain of this man's team. This man is very accomplished, obviously very respected everywhere. You get the sea on your arm. You're obviously 100 years old in the soccer world you play there. Going into the World Cup, your thoughts about the pressure of the position in which you were in, which was in the United States of America. And now with where we are now,

a couple weeks removed from exiting the tournament, how do you feel about it all? Like, how do you think this World Cup went versus what you maybe thought it was going to be like? Yeah, I mean, that's a tough one. Obviously, we're very disappointed with, you know, how we played that last game. I'm disappointed that we, you know,

ended the tournament earlier than we wanted to. But, you know, one of the, secondary kind of conversations that we were we were having as a as a as a as a team was how can we inspire and get more people to love this game how can we get them to fall in love with the game be passionate about the game get behind the team get behind the sport even more and and what is it going to take from from us as players to do that and that was right we need to we need to put on you know performances and win games um and and and we we felt that throughout the tournament. We felt it grow and grow and grow and grow and grow.

And from that same point, I think we're, you know, we're proud of the performances and of the games that we did win. Everybody's going to be disappointed other than one team at the end of this tournament, right? There's 47 teams that go home that don't get to win the tournament. So, you know, disappointed with that. But to be able to bring, you know, the fans and bring more fans on board and feel their excitement was something that was, you know, a secondary goal of ours. I love that growing the game is certainly on the mind of everybody. And I think Ponce even like it, your style in which you guys played, I think was even like, hey, let's not be a boring.

We got the guys, let's play. Let's do this thing. And I think it looked like that. I was there for that Paraguay game. That thing, I'd never seen U.S. men's soccer team look like that. You're on the men's national team for 16 years. you'd be able to tell me a little bit differently, but that felt like a completely different soccer, like actually.

And then let's go. I don't want to go to the last game because it's a bad feeling, but let's do that. You guys go to the locker room afterwards and just look around. And I mean, Polisic has his most unlucky evening. I think I've ever seen a star soccer player play, because even if you have a bad touch, maybe it'll bounce right and you'll be able to get the bounce.

Everything he did just went directly to the other two. I mean, he got zero favors from the ball or from the soccer gods in that night. I don't think anybody would say they had their best kid in that locker room. What is the reaction? Is it quiet? Is it somber? Because I think I saw Pontchitino circle you guys up on the field, but what was the locker room like immediately afterwards? And who kind of speaks in there? Is it you? Is it anybody else? Or do you guys just kind of go your different ways? I mean, it's quiet to begin with. I think there's, you know, you tend to have, you know, conversations throughout the night, you know, when you go back to the hotel. But I think it was more,

you know, surprised. I mean, you mentioned Christian there, but I don't, as you said, I don't think anybody had their, you know, had their, had their best game by any stretch. And it just, it just seemed like everything that could go wrong was was going to go wrong that night, which is a shame because we had put so much work into, to get to that point. But yeah, in the, in the changing him after is is quiet it's it's looking around it's disbelief it's um trying to trying to put together and understand what what had just you know gone on um because it was polar opposite of of the way we had played as you said up up to that point um and you mentioned the the paraguay game you know that was the energy the excitement the the pace that that we played with the aggression with and without

the ball um was just a polar opposite of of you know how how it all ended. And I think that was more the feeling in the room was shock and trying to, yeah, trying to understand where and why, you know, we had the game that we did. Last question for me, Reamer, and I appreciate all your answers here. The boys have a bunch of questions for you. I played soccer growing up. It was not as good, obviously, as you, but I think I was okay enough to kind of understand it. Can you tell me why a team can look like that at Paraguay and why team could look like that at Belgium? Is it an, a vibe thing? Is it an energy thing? Is it a matchup thing? Like for football, some days,

like I was a punner, I think AJ would probably say this too. You show up and for some reason it's just not working. And it's like, I don't know what the hell to do. We're talking to some baseball players at a home run derby and All-Star break and some batters are like some days, I just don't, I mean, I just can't. I'm striking out four times. Yeah, there's, and I almost know that that's happening. And nobody understands what it is or why it is. Is soccer the same there? And did you have a sense, a sense going in? Like, how we're like did you you know what I mean does that make sense yeah I hear what you're saying yeah no I totally totally get the question I think when you I don't know that there's a there's a

easy answer to that you know you can you can look at all the all the different external internal factors and you could never come up with with an exact answer and that's not me sitting on the fence I think as you know in in team sports there there are just moments where you're just like it is not going to be it's not going to be it's not going to be our our night right it's not going to go the way we we have have been going the way we wanted to go and sometimes it's it's because the other team is is is is better it's sometimes it's you know that just the things just aren't clicking they don't feel as connected as they you know they did previously but I

don't think anybody sensed that that was what was going to be the the outcome or the performance to be to be completely honest because we talked about in our sport performance right more times and not if you perform well you're gonna you're gonna get the result that that you want and and are you know striving for but yeah that was a that was a really really strange one because I don't think any of us expected or sensed that you know being the outcome we we have that in our sport too I think every sport has it in I think AJ's brought up more than anybody about like there's some days or you warm up your warm up is like the best and then

the game starts and like, okay. Terrible. Sports are such an interesting thing, especially with humans, you know, because they're not video game players. Like you're not in 88 every single day. Like some days you wait, you're 57. It's like, okay, hope we don't get fired today. That is, I hope we're still in the video game.

But it's interesting, and I think we're all kind of learning about soccer in real time. AJ was glued into it all. He became massive fan of not only the team, but I think of the sport. He was texting into the group before us for some of these games that, well, like, he's a big hollong guy, huh? Kappa, Verde. Yeah. Somebody, and AJ's in there.

So, AJ has a question for your dreams. Because you talk about, like, influencing and growing the game. This block-headed man right over here is like your exact person from Ohio, football, what, soccer, yeah, right. Then this World Cup, he got into it. AJ, is that inaccurate? It's very true. Yeah, I only played one year of soccer first grade.

I was on the Green Hornets. I think he went undefeated. My coach was very good. I give him the credit. But Tim, when you're preview in this final, Spain versus. Argentina, can you let us know what should casual fans like myself or people that don't know much about soccer? What should we be looking

for? I guess, how do you think this game kind of plays out? Wow. Making me put my analyst cap on here. Yes, yes. Well, who the fuck would know it better than you? Honestly, you know what? I think if you look at, and maybe most people haven't seen this, but like,

for whatever reason, Argentina has not started games, you know, well. They haven't been blowing teams away, right? But they have this innate ability to, when they go down a goal or even two goals, to just the grit, the determination, the fight they have to turn the score around. I think I saw something yesterday that from the time England scored, Argentina had the ball for 88% of the time. From that point forward, England's scoring to Argentina's game winning goal. Here's the stat right here, brother. 56 to 92nd minute, average possession length for Argentina,

62.4 seconds, 14 and a half passes. England, 8.7 seconds, 2.1 passes. This is the perfect depiction of the prevent defense. That is, in soccer, that is absurd. That is beyond anything that is normal. And so they're able to wear, you know, you down. If I'm if I'm a neutral, this game is incredible. It's it's two juggernauts in the in the sport. Now what does Spain need to do to win? Honestly, I think they need to be up three or four

goals before the 50th minute because if they're not, Argentina has has been able to like I said, been able to battle back every single game and turn scores around. How come you're not in any bathtubs with Ronald Dino or who, Pele, I guess here, 38, 37? How come you're not in any little bathtubs as a baby with Pele? Do you think that's why Team USA is never going to be good?

This is quite the interesting photo shoot, isn't it? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know that we do things this way. Well, I want to let you know, Ramer. Guess what you're doing next week. Baby Midas, my boy,

two months old, your ass going to be baptizing him in some soccer water. Now, listen, we should go. We should get Balagan out here with the, with a little, a little baby and, and give this. Yeah, my baby. We have the baby. A bunch of baby. Yeah, we have my baby. Actually, maybe we do have to do a bunch of babies. Yeah, bring them all in. This used to be a church. Balligan can certainly do the thing here. We could do the whole thing. Because it feels like everybody's like, why is he bathing a baby that isn't his? It's like, that's a really good question. And I don't know the answer to that. I will say baby has diaper on, though. There's

other shoots where baby is fully dressed this. naked you mean let me your mom okay he does have diaper yes there's other photos I did look into I was very freaked out when I found out that that photo was real for so many different reasons I was like I started thinking grander I'm like universe and the time and like what are we even doing and then you dig in you're like the fuck's messy doing with that baby what are the eye why why why is messy with a baby that isn't is in there and then it was a unicef thing I think it was like a, I think it was for like a, you know, a good thing, obviously. But it was just, there were so many questions.

Am I that? Why does he have to be bathing the baby? Couldn't he be like hanging out from a bottom? I don't think he came up with the creative for the ad. I don't know, though. But I don't know. Yeah. He might have.

That's part of his passion. I think it's crazy. I think it's crazy how the world works. Like he's, he's basically anointing this, this baby. And this baby is, you mean, Lamol. Yeah. So I don't know what age he was there, but, uh, Mr. you're going to have a, you're going to have a call from a few Americans with babies.

And we're going to have to go ahead and pass the torch of the bathing baby thing to America. We need to make sure we get ahead of this than all these other countries. We don't need, like in the NFL, when somebody really fast, really good of football comes available, and we all go, oh, the chiefs are going to get them. Somebody from another one of these power countries is going to be having a little more, your mall, bathing these babies, and they're going to get the next one. We need to be doing that. Agreed?

Yeah. Yep. Okay. Ream, tell him, we need him bathing babies in America. We don't need him going other places. Now, maybe we can still do the same baptizer because he is an American. And maybe next World Cup, his name's Lou. And so, oh, go ahead, Ty.

Yeah, Reamer, could you please put it in perspective? Because we've asked a bunch of people, but I feel like somewhat, like, you play against him in the MLS now. How is Messi able to still do all the stuff they does? it's still very evident he is the best player in the world. And it doesn't look like he's lost a step. He just continues to get older and it just, it's so easy out there for him. How difficult is it playing against him and also his impact in the MLS?

Do you think him being over here and then obviously having the type of World Cup that we all kind of expected? Like are more marquee players you think going to start coming to the MLS from overseas because they see what he's done in the league and kind of what's possible? Yeah, I think first and foremost, I don't know how much people are aware, but the calendar for MLS is changing, right? And so the big kind of thing now is that we're, the league is going to be on the FIFA calendar, the European calendar, and the transfers are going to be a little bit more, they're going to be more lined up and matched.

So I think it's going to give teams a lot better opportunities. to bring in, you know, players who are at the top of their game. And I think that's important for not only the growth of soccer, but the growth of the league and, you know, where it's heading to. In terms of messy, I, he's just, he's so good at understanding where to be, when to be, and his mastery of the ball, right? We call it, you know, his technical ability. But, you know, if you look at one of his goals in the World Cup

where he brings the ball down with his left foot and it was like, it was like he caught it, right? Like, just like, it was just like there. And it didn't move, like the ball didn't move. It didn't bounce anywhere. It was just like, yes, exactly that. Over this one. It was this one over the shoulder.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Outside of the left, it was like he, on the bounce and it didn't go anywhere. It just, it was like incredible. But then I look at, so that's, that's, that's, the skill aspect, but then I look at how he is able to shrug off other players. You look at yesterday. Again, underrated, again, not something many people would have seen. He put Harry Kane on his hip and rolled him and was on the ground, right?

And that was after he had already beaten the left back to the ball and I believe it was Anderson. and he touched the pasty. Gordon, then he megs Gordon, and then he goes to chip one up over the guy, and then he gets high load, by the way, which he could roll around and cry, doesn't, gets up, like he's kind of a dog, too. He's like, tiny, he's a dog, it's unbelievable.

And it's that kind of thing where you think, he's got three guys around him. He shouldn't be, you shouldn't be getting out of this. It doesn't, you know, even if he is, even if he is messy, and he does, he comes, he gets out of it. And so, you know, when you, when you, when you, when you, try to if you try to kick him it's not going to do you any good because he's he's like all right well yeah you try to follow him it ignites something more in him where he's like okay well now i

now i have somebody else that i'm going to try to make look um really really stupid um but it's just is i think his awareness like his understanding of what you know what areas to be in when to be in when the ball's on one side he's he's on your your back shoulder when you're looking this way he's looking and as soon as you look another way he's gone the opposite way so he's so good at reading body language and space and time and the ball position and he does this all

constantly through the 90 plus minutes and it makes it you know it's when you're not playing against him it's incredibly entertaining to watch because you don't know what he's going to do next but when you are playing against him it is I mean you come off the field

you're not physically tired you are mentally just absolutely wiped from having to, you know, look every different direction at every second of the game. Hey, that's literally you having to deal with that. You know, it's actually you having to deal with that in the back. I know. Yeah, that's. Hey, same age, you know, same age.

Yeah, same age. There's no reason you shouldn't be able to just do everything. He's doing it as well. But I watched Pep, I think, break him down a little bit in like a documentary they're doing. And he walks. So I think for all of us, AJ included, they're kind of new to soccer. Like, so the best guy on Earth just kind of walks around. Why is this guy just walking around?

Then he watched for like 20 minutes and it's like, oh, this guy's going to rate where he's supposed to be. And then as soon as he gets the ball, it's like, we're doing something here immediately. J.J. Watt, miced up. Trying to find fish on offensive line, miked up through it, through the first quarter. He is trying to fight.

Outside, goes inside, goes the next inside, then goes outside. It goes the sideline. and they say 57 is the fish. And JJ Watt now is on top of that guy for the next three quarters. Pep said that Messi's kind of doing the same thing. And I don't know if there was like a language barrier and I didn't understand it right,

but it kind of felt like Messi is walking around like checking people to see how they feel. And then, oh, this guy, oh, he looks a little lost in the eyes today. Oh, this could be a long night feet. Is that happening as well? And if you ever been on the receiving end of that, Darius Butler tells the story,

Peyton Manning looking over and seeing him, and just understanding that all of a sudden the red dot is on me right now. Is that happen? Is that real? And what does pet mean whenever he's walking around trying to find the right place to be? Is that just strictly soccer-wise or is that match-up-wise? I think it's a little bit of both. I think it's less match-up-wise and more soccer-wise.

I think, as I said, he understands he sees plays so far in advance that he knows, okay, if the ball's going to that side, everybody's going to be looking at that side. So where do I or where can I go to not be noticed? But he does, and we say like he, he smells, you know, he's, he smells blood in the water. When he thinks he's got the better of somebody, he's like, okay, this is where I need to be, this is where I'm going to be, this is where I'm going to hang out. Yep, exactly that.

And it's, it's incredible. But, and here's the thing, we all do this in games to a certain extent, to a certain level. we all find you know if i'm if i'm sitting in the back i'm i'm reading plays right i'm understanding time i'm understanding space um i'm understanding where the you know the attackers are are you know coming at me or if i have the ball where the defenders are and how i can get the better of them he just does it on a completely different otherworldly level that it makes the rest of the the players look bang average um but that's why he is who he is. That's why he's played where he's played. That's why he's won what he's won.

And it's why he's still able to do it at 39 years old. Older than you? Older than me. So that gives us a so. Reamer's back four years from now. Yeah, that's right. Now, last question from us, because it has to be asked. Four years from now, obviously next World Cup, a lot of question marks on what soccer is in America then, right? I think there was a lot of hype, a lot of momentum. I'm excited to see what these numbers are. Third place game is going to do good. Yeah.

Has that always happened? I didn't know that always happened. I did not know that always happened. And losing that game, I mean, you obviously just got your, you got punching a face on the field, and then your country also, not the entirety of it, but a lot of people saying, this group sucks. Oh, this group representing our country.

That happened. Blow it up. Bingo, that's what they're saying. And then they're like, also, by the way, go get on a podium over there. How should we, I guess this has always happened. And, you know, U.S. is going to be here in four years. Not this game.

We'll be on Sunday. But there's a chance we'll be in this particular sphere. How should we view this? Going out on top, these guys are going to, we assume everybody's going to play? Like this is, is there half-assing in games in soccer? Can there be? Can there not be? You tell me how you should be.

I mean, I guess there could be, but it's to, listen, these four teams that were in the semifinal, right? And the four teams that are still playing, I know this is the third and fourth place game. are the top four ranked teams in the world. They are going to want to stay in that conversation. So I think it would be surprising to me if there were a lot of changes being made.

I think guys will go out. Obviously, it's a gut punch. As you said, it's a punch to the face to lose in the semifinal and then have to go out four days later, three days later, whatever it is, and play a game that is actually meaningful. I mean, you're playing to,

to be the third best team in the World Cup or the fourth best team in the World Cup. Now, there's pride involved in that. And as you know, as athletes, there's a lot of pride involved in a lot of games in every game you play. So these guys are going to want to go out there and say, okay, we need to pick ourselves up. We need to not just be, you know, for the team and, you know, their country, but for themselves and say, right, we can deal with setback. can still go out, we can still perform, we can still play, and we can be the third best team in the world currently. Got it.

Yeah, and you can have a little better taste in your mouth coming out. Yeah. You have a little better taste of your mouth. I'm not talking about actual taste because it turns out our food's better than everywhere out of the country. That's what I love it. They love it over here, Raymer. They love it over here.

I love to hear that. Yeah, great. I do love to hear it. Because I feel like, you know, just being an internet human for a long time, all of us, they get real chirpy over there about us. about everything. Yeah, they read a lot of headlines from our country

and they're fucking chirping. It's like, I don't even know what you're talking about. Okay, I don't even know what you're talking about. So then all of a sudden, a couple of them come over here and start talking, hey,

country's not bad. All of a sudden, I'm screenshoting a shit out of that for the next time, you know. Hey, this guy lives right next door to you. What is you? Ours better, you know, how's the air conditioning? Air conditioning's crazy.

Yeah. Insane. That tiny detail. Yes. That's why he's staying in the MLS. Yeah, exactly. That's why he's staying in the MLS. Okay, but let's talk about four years from now, Ramer.

Please, because there's one big name that we need to know about, and you could tell us, obviously, better than literally anybody as Copton of his team. Go ahead. So on last question. Yeah, Tim, obviously, the Gaffa, Pachitino. He stole our hearts. It felt like the team loved him, America loved him. Like, how big, how huge would it be not only for the U.S. men's national team,

but the U.S. soccer as a whole, if he were to come back. back and return and coach the team in four years for the World Cup and obviously all the lead up and all of that and Kankhaifa. But also like, is there any way we personally can bribe him besides sweet blue fishing shirts that he wears every game? I don't know that there's anything you can bribe him. I think he's loved his time. I think he they love what they were able to build and change within our kind of ecosystem and culture in the very short 20 months that they had. I think he is fully aware and they're fully aware of the job that it would be to take on for another four years. And it's just a matter of everybody has to wait and see. Like I said,

his entire staff, they're all incredible people. They all are very good at their jobs. They, um, high level individuals. They, they, they care about not just the, the players who were, who were in the camp, but their families, but then they care about the, they care about the sport, not, not, you know, where they are. They care about the sport where, wherever they are, um, in that moment. And, and, him, him and I have had conversations about, you know, what could potentially happen, what needs to happen, where the, the sport can, can grow and be better.

And it starts with these younger players developing in MLS and continuing to improve. But it would be, you know, I think everybody has taken to him and his staff. He's embraced the American culture, I will tell you that. He is, as he said, 200% Argentine, but he loves, you know, he loves the U.S. He loves the players. He loves the mentality of the players. and if he was to come back for four years,

I think he would have a much bigger runway. Wait, wait, when did he say he was 200% Argentine? After we beat Bosnia, I believe. He did. That wasn't World Cup. Country Roads has not entered his life at this point? He didn't understand.

No, it has. Mid-tournament. No, he didn't understand American percentages at that time. I mean, he couldn't even give us a percentage after that thing. He had experienced the country roads. He gave 200% bad guys.

We should have been playing Toby. Listen, this is the passion that these South Americans have. I know, I know. You're not going to take that away. The fact that he was here and actually country roads made him tear up, I think tells you all you need to know. I would like to know the percentages now. Post-tournament, I would like a recount of the percentages. Does he think it's out of 1,000 maybe?

Oh, that could be. I didn't think about that. I don't know Argentinian math well enough. I know one player with the last name of Messi equals five. That's the only math I really understand there. And I know Maradona, these highlights that are happening coming out of his life and play on the field. I don't know if they're ever going to make another one like that. No change.

That feels like a one-on-one situation. They have two one-of-one. Just in, from my eyes, I don't even know fucking before the internet either. Yeah, who knows? Probably a couple. This country is pretty good. His country's pretty good. Yeah.

They got to figure out. Your mouth is a little off there. No. Two one of ones. All right, Ream. When's the MLS? When's the MLS? All right.

Wait, wait, the MLS, or what do we do with that? All right. All right. We're back at it. We're back at it. It starts tonight. Tonight? Games are going on.

Tonight, games are going on. Who's playing? Who's playing? Portland and Columbus, Pittsburgh Riverhounds versus Riverhounds. Yeah, they're moving up. You guys got the Riverhounds in the MLS now, Ream? Okay, what do we?

I mean, I'm not playing. I'm not playing. I'm on with you right now. I don't play. Charlotte doesn't play until next week, the 22nd. Okay, so we're back in action. Do we know who's playing tonight? There's four games. We're back. Chicago Fire, White Caps, probably the banger, Burrhalter and the boys. I don't know if Levin Doski's playing yet for Chicago,

but Mueller's on the white caps as well. German legend. Oh, so the MLS is coming out throwing a little bit of heat at us? Is that what you're saying, Gumpy? Absolutely. Sounders in Portland are playing. Oh, hell yeah. The Sounders are playing?

Ooh, good one, yeah. Hey, Reamer, how's the Charlotte team? First of all, your owner is awesome. The man. Tapper is the man from everything we've learned and watched him do with Carolina Panthers. At the beginning, we wouldn't have said that. I think everybody was saying this guy. Well, he had about 10 different gaffers in two seasons. I think it was six months, actually, from our understanding, both in all of the teams he owned.

He figured it out. He had four different coaches in each team that he owned in four different leagues in about a three-month period. And then we saw him, and then we saw him drive. in and go, what's the deal? And then we just said, we put together, this guy's got to be the worst of all time. And then we meet him and he's like, do you know what he was saying about my, these guy? It was funny, of course, I'm from Pittsburgh

the guy, hey, I almost fought that guy. They had to pull me back from funny guys. It's like, oh, I kind of respect that. Would you want to drive by a thing that says you're the biggest asshole of all time? No, I walked in and asked him to take that down. Can you please not? Say it about me, and now the Panthers good? Your team? We're good.

We're good. We're good. Yeah, we've, we've gotten better and better. That didn't sound like it. Oh, Reever. The season's got up in the river. What about the new Trads for Reaver? I've not been with the group in six, seven weeks, so I what do you want to do?

It's good. I like that. I like that. And also, soccer is seemingly a super duper unless you're like the top three goals score in the world. Super duper humbling sport. How many miles do you think you have run in your life? Someone asked me how many games I played the other

day and that was can't even I can't even count that how have your knees been able to do it do you wonder that actually uh I actually had them scan not long ago and I'm as as we know I'm 38 and I was told that I have the knees of a 27 to 28 year old wow they're still they're still they're still going strong that's unbelievable you should think about can you sell that type of bone ability I don't know that you can. Figure it out. Looks like you got about 200 Caps between international and MLS just

alone, so. Caps' career appearances, unbelievable. 200 games. I think, yeah, I think it's close to pushing 600, to be honest with you. Jesus Christ. Is that? What's that? So the internet's wrong?

Well, 200. No, no, no, no. Between national team and MLS, that's right. Oh, okay, Tony. 300-something 300-something with over in England, with Fulham, and then 120-something with Bolton.

Craven Codd is legendary stadium Yep To mention college Thanks for represent America dude I do my best All right And thanks for representing Don't always get it

I don't always get it right Like the rest of us But I try my best I like that Still my captain That's why you wear so yeah Needs of a 27 year old Fuck four years

World Cup Eight years Yeah Yeah Next tool Yeah especially if he's doing like the messy Maybe Three more World Cup

Ladies and gentlemen, captain, was that breaking? He said he's not going to play three more World Cups. Breaking. Yeah, breaking. Definitely not going to play three more World Cups. I'd be pretty bummed out if we don't have a couple studs in the pipeline. Just, you know. You're talking about babies that have been blessed by others?

Fair point. In 12 years, yeah. Get your ass into a baby factory. I guess they don't have baby factory. Get your ass into one of those churches where baptisms are happening and a guy let the next one happen. Please. Okay.

Thank you, Tim. I'll look into it. Every state you visit, go to one of them. Is it Catholic, does the baptism? Yep. Yeah. You go to the Catholic church and you say, listen up, Father, I got this one for the good of future U.S. soccer. Tell them to hold their nose because they're going back and you do the whammer to back.

No, that's not a Catholic baptism. That's kind of a showy BS, born-again Christian thing. Just so you know. That is coming from a Catholic school guy right there. Just so we know. And he says at the end in, but a Padre. Yeah, and a non-a-patre, Philly, Spirit, Santo. Of course.

But Tim, what I'm saying is, no matter who's doing what, where, and how, if bodies are going into water, we need you to be the one doing it. Okay, so we can get a good soccer team later. You're the man. Ladies and gentlemen. I'm good. Okay. Good.

Breaking. Boom. Reamer will be visiting Catholic churches throughout the season to find our next great men's national team player. You're the best, Tim. Raymer, baby. I think that's how it works. Yeah. That's what soccer's telling us, AJ, isn't it?

Yeah, I guess what's the age cutoff, though? Is he going to be blessing 13-year-olds? Sure. That's why I said. Catholic, you get baptized as a baby. You don't do, like, the 14-year-old go out into, like, some fucking dirty river. Why, I want down in the river to pray?

I ain't about that little old name. What's that song? I don't know. George Catoucci. George Clooney's on the run. Oh, uh, oh, brother, we're out thou. Yeah. Ha!

Hey, I'm a bear. Head of constant sorrow. Yeah, that's a heater. That whole sound, that whole. Yeah. Movie. Yeah, I've seen troubles in my days. Yeah, you certainly had.

Mm-hmm. Soggy bottle boys, I believe, is there. This. They were just trying to get to go on microphone. You go on them boxes and records those? Yeah, that's a great movie. It has never heard it. AJ, you ever seen that movie?

Yeah, it's been a while, but yeah, of course, I'm big George Clooney fan. Yeah. What other movies George Clooney's been in that you love? Oh, boy, so many. I mean, all the oceans, the oceans movies. There you go. Oceans, what, 11, 12, 13, 50, all of them. Right, right, right.

I think there's another one of those potentially coming in that particular franchise soon, right? That's correct. Can't wait for all of that. Ladies and gentlemen. Oh, no. Uh-oh. Someone died. Age Marcello killed it last night, I thought. He was good, honestly. I agree.

And I love the Jim Abbott. I love the whole Jim Abbott situation. I was, we talked about it in person back there, but I was a big fan of Jim Abbott, I think, because my dad was blown away by Jim Abbott and always tell me about it and watch him switch his glove and all that stuff. So it was cool to see him kind of get his flowers. We did not talk about it in person because you were not there. The day before, previous. Yes, we did. Oh, okay. You're talking about before he went. before he does his speech or we see the video and really know what's going to happen there. It was very well done, I think, as it is.

There was some things that were happening that, you know, classic people will attack, you know. But I think it's a few of them. There's a couple things. There's a couple things. We don't have to talk about it. But there are some things in every, I mean, our show every day, there's at least live things that people would say they're disgusted by, you know, or should be at least with the low quality of it. But there's a, I think it was a good show. Popping bit was great.

unbelievable. Great skit. I really enjoyed, and I know we said this a lot, does everybody know more solo with that? I'm in a boom. I'm in a boom and a bang of the pal. I just recently discovered him in the last couple of months. He was unbelievable.

The Sebastian thing put him on the map. Yes, that's how I get. His energy was just sweet. Like, he had sweet energy. Like, he was, a ray almost, like, follows him around. And in the back, like I was talking about, he was thanking everybody. Like, I don't know if that's normal.

I don't know if like going into the green room and like thanking people for coming and doing the show and going to the other side and going to the other side. Jeff Ross was in the back, obviously. I mean, it was a great group. Right above me there. Black guy, he went first. We had a good conversation about the sciences that we're on. Yep. Oh, nice.

Yeah, we had a good conversation about the different sciences that are available. And, you know, I think Ross is sitting in the corner, dressed like Mickey from Rocky. sitting in the corner like Mickey from Rocky and just like the greatest and I told him I hope that they're still able to get somebody that wants to be roasted forever so that he can showcase his one of one ability

do we don't think that there was a time where a lot of people thought Jeff Ross this guy's a one trick pony when Jeff Ross comes in there this guy just kind of what are we talking about he just makes fun of people that's all he could do and then now we're at the point

it's like that guy's the guy's the greatest make fun of people are of all time. Goes into jails. Does it. Goes on to military bases. Just starts with the admiral just starts going. He is a unique

talent that is certainly and I told him that. I watch all you. I love shit talking. So like what you do is the greatest. And I hope that we are able to continue to have those because the last couple have been very loud. And to get people to

sign up for it. I don't know. I don't know how many people are going to just be signed up because you're so good, sir. They were very bad. You were so good at what you do, sir. I don't know how many more there's going to be. Well, and that's what is crazy. Is if, like, you are around our ages and you go back and you watch some of the Comedy Central ones from like 2007, 2008, like, they were doing them all the time. You know, they were like two rows a year.

And the way they kill people and those, like, if those were to air right now, like, It just would net, like the blowback that you would get from that. I mean, it would end the world. So like, yeah, hopefully they do still have plans to do. Because, I mean, he hits a homer every single time he goes out there. And I would like to see Marcelo do more. Yeah. I would like to see his entire, him and Will Ferrell, I thought that was a great bit.

Yeah. Yeah. In theater, I don't know how it was at home. And I think people are judging Will Ferrell's series, potentially off of other series and whatever it is. And I got a chance to tell Will Ferrell the other day that was thankful for his contributions. that was outrageous that we got to do that. And that's real.

I mean, when you're in comedy, you're going to have some hits and you're going to have some misses. Will Ferrell's been doing a very long time. I thought last time was a hit with them. And there was no, the teleprompter back there, there was no. That was all happening. Kind of just riffing. That was happening in real time right there between the two.

So I respect that even more so to go up there and do that. Fat Joe loved it. You did. You did. Fat Joe also loved everything that was celebrating the New York Knicks. Last night was a big time New York Knicks celebration for good reason. It was fan voting, and New York happens to have the largest city in the United States of America, and everybody is a Knicks fan.

Team USA's hockey teams? Snubbed. Sweet run. Come on. No chance. Indiana, you guys won national championship, but won't undefeated when just five years ago you were considered the worst team in the history of college football? No chance is New York Knicks team. We finally got it done.

And you're going to see the people in this show that are like not the talent in suits. All of them, Nix fans. Yeah. Online poll voting? Yeah, it turns out all of them Nix fans. Yeah. For good reason, we got to celebrate it. Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, for a special, special,

quick hitter. It's time for a... It's a... Shams drive-by. Just need a high-five. What's going on in hoops? We don't need a deep dive. It's a shams drive-bye.

Just need a high-five. Five. What's going on in hoops? We don't need a deep dive. Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for a Sean's drive-by. Yay, Sean Bull. Shams, you look incredible. How are you doing, pal? LeBron James Free Agency is just your life now because Kendrick Perkins told us that Dave basically told him to sit in the room in which he has his camera set up because anything can happen at any time.

How should we be viewing this? And inevitably, when does this wrap up? do you think? Yeah, so first of all, I'll drive-by. We have so much that's happened in the NBA the last like three weeks. That's what we're saying. Better hurry up. You need a little bit of a break, so we have a lot to get to.

But as far as LeBron James, yeah, I don't know if I'm waiting on Bated Breath right now or this week potentially. You know, LeBron's got a string of events. He's got Fanatics Fest today. He's got some CNBC stuff. He's got Time 100. He's got multiple different podcasts tapings and all this stuff. I don't know if I'm holding my breath for an announcement.

this week. But I think as we get into next week, I do think this process is getting closer and closer to the end here. LeBron James has all the information that he needs to make a decision of all the GMs, the owners, the presidents, they've all made their pitch through Rich Paul's agent. They've even sent Pat, interestingly enough, LeBron has had multiple different owners and GMs, about three to five that have sent voice memos to him via Rich Paul. So they'll send it to Rich Paul, and then he'll send it to LeBron James. And so we're looking at a group of teams, the Cavs, the Heat, the Warriors, the Sixers, and the Timberwolves. But my feel, when I talk to teams around the league, when I really dig a little bit more on this situation,

the focus is really on the top contending teams for this being the Cavaliers, the Heat, and the 76ers. And so now it's just up to LeBron James to make a decision. and we're now July 16th, or 16 days into free agency, a little over 16 days after he let the Lakers know that he is bouncing, that he's going to leave the organization

after eight years, and we're all waiting for a decision for what would be a 24th historic campaign for LeBron James. Okay, you left out the Golden State Warriors there,

which he... I don't think I did. Did I? Yeah, you did. That's why we... Cavs, Heat, Warriors, Sixers. Okay, that is what you said just now, yes. But just a few seconds ago, if we were to put the drive-by in reverse.

Let's pop that thing over here. You didn't say, okay, so that was just an omission at the time. Because that feels fun. The Golden State Warriors one feels like a lot of fun. You know, Tyrese and LeBron are doing the Mind the Game podcast from Fanatics Fest. Everybody's there. Everybody. Time 100 thing.

happening tonight. Yeah, pretty sweet. Yeah, Shams will be in the... A lot happening in New York. Tyrese asked LeBron James if he had a decision for everyone and LeBron said, we just talked about this in the back which is probably like don't bring it up. And then Halliburton says, okay, okay, I'll leave it alone.

That's good, good. Shout to Tyrese, bringing it up. Shout to them, figuring out this is... We got to give him credit. You got to at least ask the question. Hey, good journalism, Tyrese. And baby Tyrese. And also, breaking news, Tyrese, how... Tyler Burton and Puma have released shoes for adults. Ladies and gentlemen, we got the all-white here.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Puma and Tyrese for doing this. They're incredibly comfortable, and they are bright white. They are bright white, which is abnormal. We're coming up on a hard out. Thanks so much, Shams. That was really, that was really all.

I'm joking, I'm joking. But we will continue digitally on YouTube. So, Pat, you asked me about the Warriors, right? Hold on, Sean. We'll have more information to give. We will get. We don't have it. We don't have.

We have 30 seconds right now. We will continue with Shams who has more. Has more. Has so much more information. A lot. With the Golden State Wars, we'll continue on YouTube, ESPN Plus, Disney Plus. I think we're even on X still.

That's probably going to get dropped potentially. Oh, really? I don't know if X is supposed to be up there. I don't think X is supposed to be up there. Live watching. Yeah, I think clips definitely. Anyways, we will continue. Anyways, we will continue.

That's breaking news. No, we're still doing it. That's not a real decision. Is there whatever? Okay, well, that was good. Someone slip it. Someone aggregated. Hold on, I'd say. That was, Shams, you don't even know what just happened in front of your face right there. Okay, so we're going to continue. We're now digitally. Okay, we are off ESPN, linear television. So now, digital exclusive.

Ain't that right, Foxy? I like that. You see that, Foxy? Digital exclusive. With Sharm Sharania. That's nice. Shams, you have more on Golden State Warriors. Riddle me this. Is that not the perfect setup for LeBron James at this age of his life

with his golf obsession and also off the field stuff? Is there any big money stuff up there in that area? Especially if you were to play for the Golden State Warriors. And does he ever do any? Trillions of dollars are up in that area. Is that not the Dun Deft feel? Now Cleveland going home? Definitely.

One million percent. Storybook. Would make sense for LeBron. I think Rich Paul even, and I think Rich is saying, hey, this is LeBron has all the information. This is up to him to make this decision, I think, but it is obviously my job to make sure he gets everything. Rich in their entire business that is kind of catapulted,

going back home, getting another parade for them, sailing off into Akron's sunset. I don't even know if that happens in Ohio or not, but you know what I'm saying. It's like, that is storybook, so I can definitely see that. But for me, it just like, LeBron loves the show. Okay, LeBron loves everything about it.

Him and Steph Curry on a team together is Showtime. LeBron loves Draymond Green, doesn't he? I mean, like, people get pissed how much Dremont Green and LeBron James are friends. Yeah. People are not happy about it. They see pictures of them having the time of their lives, it looks like. Drenched in sweat from dancing and laughing.

And people go, fucking Draymond, Troy, why is this guy hanging around with the brother? Doesn't that seem? Is this all just, for me, it feels like, this is sitting right in front of us here especially with all of the Gulf. Why would it not be Shams? And is everybody viewing the Golden State situation

as like, yeah, feels like a perfect situation? Going home also awesome. But certainly a perfect situation in Golden State. That would be a generational show. To see Stepan Curry and LeBron James play together for their last two, three, whatever years, how many ever years LeBron has left? And Steph Curry has five, four more years.

It would be amazing. It would be a generational show, but I think, and yeah, as far as the Silicon Valley and all the money that's in the bay, LeBron would have access to it. I don't know if he has to be there to have access to it. I think LeBron James has access to anything he wants in the world. But that's exactly why this has been so appealing for LeBron James. Being able to play with Steph, being able to play with Draymond, being able to finish your career at a place where you're playing with other legends, Hall of Famers, guys that know the game, guys that have the same understanding and culture environment that he wants to. to be a part of the issue, I think, when LeBron James, when you look at that team with the Warriors, is, is that team, if he's there, is that team good enough?

And I think that's the big question. Happiness is the word of the day in terms of LeBron James, but what encapsulates happiness? It's a bunch of things. It's being on a team that has a chance to compete. It's giving yourself an opportunity to win and win big. And that's why a lot of the focus has been around teams that are positioned right now. If you add a LeBron James to the Cavaliers, that's a whole at three position that they need, You add into the Sixers.

He slides right in the starting line of that's a contender. Caves, contender, a complete contender the moment he gets there. So, you know, the Warriors would need a little bit of work still. And the big thing with the Warriors was packaging LeBron James with another star player. And that's when you would get LeBron James' attention. That's the idea. And that's when the Warriors went into free agency. Can we start a big four?

Steph, Dremont, LeBron, and Anthony Davis. We know the relationship between A.D. and LeBron goes deep. And so are you able to get that done? And so far, we're 16 days into July, there's been no real traction in any trade conversations the Warriors have on AD or any other star, which then leads me to believe that they are behind, and they are, to my knowledge, behind other teams such as a Miami, a Cleveland, a Philadelphia. And the Sixers literally got on the map the moment they got Jalen Brown. They were not even in the picture. So that just goes to show, you make moves. You can get LeBron James's attention, especially.

in this free agency. Okay, so on that, oh, go ahead, Conman. Yeah, pretty wild, Sean. You just mentioned Jalen Brown to the Sixers. Now there's all this other fallout kind of conversation happened about the second apron and all that, especially after Wembe did his 25% rookie extension instead of the 30%.

Is that going to be some of this fallout with the Jalen Brown thing? What was the situation with, you know, Boston? Because I know you've come out and defended and hold of Jalen Brown's water, but on the other side, I believe, Joe Allen. Hold on, hold on, hold on. I believe Joe Ellen Bede hasn't really communicated with Jalen Brown. There's been nothing about that. How is that supposed to play out? That's a championship or bust, of course. Yeah, I mean, the Sixers are now definitely a championship, you know, type situation, but they had no idea of getting Jaylon Brown going into this off season. Like Paul George, his contract,

they would have to give up picks to get off of Paul George's contract this off season. and now you're in a position where you get off of Paul George's contract, you throw a couple first in there a couple seconds, and you end up with Jalen Brown. They had no idea they'd be able to get Jalen Brown in the prime of his career at the age of 29 going on 30 years old when next season starts. You know, this for sure came out of nowhere. I think there's a few layers to this.

I saw Brad Stevens said, you know, tying up 70% to two players, you know, with Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum, where that argument doesn't hold up, is that Paul George and Jalen Brown are basically making the same amount. So the next two years, Paul George is under contract on a max deal. I think around $55 million. Jalen Brown is around 57. So you're still tying up your salary cap with 70%.

So that leads teams around the league to ask the question. Like, why did you trade Jalen Brown now? Couldn't you have waited as the summer went on, as next season went on? Because he had three years left on his deal. Now the answer to that is very simple. The Celtics were not going to commit a extension to Jailen Brown. They clearly did not want him or felt strongly enough about him long term for whatever reason internally that when his extension was going to come around in late July, they knew they were not going to offer Jalen Brown the two-year $140 million plus. And that would have caused a reaction.

Both sides would have had to have even harder conversations. And this could have gone another way. This could have gotten ugly potentially because you've already shopped the player in Jalen Brown multiple times. in 2022 he was offered for Kevin Durant this summer he was offered for Janice he was made available in trades last summer so this is not the first time and the only way to show a guy like that respect

is by giving him the contract offer no money no respect and no Jalen Brown at the end of the day the Celtics preemptively got out in front of that but I think the question around the league is why this trade right like why Paul George

why the picks and clearly the Celtics like Paul George a lot yeah Paul George is dog I was lucky to watch him here in Indiana for the Pacers. He was great for our city. Oklahoma City, it didn't really work, right? Got hurt.

When did he get hurt? Is that before, that was in Oklahoma City? Good question. When he was Clippers? Yeah, when he blew. I think it was before the Clippers, I think. Wait, when he... He got hurt with the Pacers, I think.

At the Team USA. I don't think he was with the Pacers. It was with Team USA. I don't remember what NBA team he was playing for, though. I don't know. He was with Indy, and then he had, like, shoulder surgeries, I want to say, with the thunder and then he had some knee surgeries

when he was with the clippers. And then last season, you know, he dealt with the hyper-extended knee. And then he got suspended for 25 games for an anti-drug violation for, you know, a product

that he used. Yeah, this past year, he was suspended earlier in the year. Okay. So Paul George was incredible for the Pacers. I mean, he was, so good for us. He was mega star. Now, that team ends up having to get blown up, I guess, from the inside, because

who knows, and then he goes Oklahoma City and then never really, right? Then it never really gets going. Even at the Clippers never really gets going. Now he's at the Sixers. It never really got going. So it had to happen. And now he goes to the Celtics. It's like, maybe him and Tatum are a perfect one-two punch. Maybe

they end up playing great off each other. Got to meet Tatum last night. He's huge. Yeah. Giant. He is so tall. He's so cool and so kind and also like so like he's not, he's pretty quiet. I mean, he is obviously your guys' face up there. But him and Paul George team, yeah, I mean, he's awesome. Good angling by me so it didn't look like he was 10 inches tall. Just want to let you know that.

Hey, can I get a selfie with you? Yeah, absolutely. He stands there and then I just walk this way. Here we go. Thank you, sir. Let me go ahead and get out of here. But it's his team and him and Paul George supposed to be a one-two punch just like him and Jalen Brown.

Is that your guys' expectations with the Celtics? At least for the next two years. I mean, the last thing as a Celtics fan, if you remember the season, was Paul George cooking us in a 3-1 comeback and, you know, not leading them, but being a huge piece of that entire comeback. And now kind of that entire drama has blown up a little bit. Like Jalen Brown said, hey, I found out 45 minutes before the game

in game seven that Tatum couldn't play. And then that was disproven. Like, that's not true. Like, you knew way before that. I don't know if you want to weigh in on that at all shots. But there's been a lot of things of that nature where I think even South fans and people are just kind of like, you know what, that was a good run. We got some picks back that are great in, Paul George, two years, and then we don't have to pay him.

But you Patriot, sorry, you New England folks are like this now. Tom leaves goes to Tampa Bay. This is Bill Belichick's. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Yeah, I think. A little different than Jaylon Brown and Tom will, like, even when Tom won his seventh Super Bowl, it was like, this is sweet. Like, set.

No, but when he left, you guys had to do your best version of the breakup and, you know, nope. Yeah, we don't like that guy anyways and now we're hearing more stories, finding out more stories we're learning more things. Just like we thought, Tatum's team, let's continue to do that. Tom Brady allegedly helped the Seattle Seahawks won the Super Bowl in February. That's exactly.

I mean, that's a fact, though. Like these things, when it happened in the moment with Tom, it wasn't like he was streaming and doing all this stuff. It was like, yeah, that 20-year relationship ran his course. Jalen Brown, I mean, he does a lot. The point that you're making, BC, I think that's

I mean, the relationship had run. its course between. Yeah, but you all were trying to act like it wasn't. Remember, there's constant communication, these guys are being calm. This is what we were being told. It was like, we were looking from the outside and going, man, I don't know, dude, that just feels like that's going to be a tough one for that's continued to be

happy, especially because a lot of people are telling us, this is Yonis Ante Coupo. Okay, so for Jalen Brown, like, hey, this isn't anything. It's like, Jalen Brown, I don't want to fucking hear that. Jalen Brown's, I'm fucking Jalen Brown. What are we even Yeah. What are we even talking about? is how we, myself, AJ, I think,

no offense, Connor was believing that maybe that wasn't gonna be the case. For sure. But it is like, as a competitor, the thought or expectation that he was just gonna be okay at this stage of his career, just being tossed into the trade,

I mean just like loudly tossed in her, if I can get Jalen, a couple other things as well for this guy, and Jaila's like, what is this even? You know, so we thought that was dead, but they were certainly telling us that it wasn't at the time. We think this was dead,

immediately like before when he was up in yannis that he was going to get traded this offseason regardless is that what we were thinking i mean once once they started having conversations with the yonis front like a little after that when the deal didn't happen i i made it very clear when i was doing tv like they're either going to make a trade for a top flight player like they like they tried to do with yonis or they're going to go approach this trade with another path which is try to get as many graphics as you can possibly get. So you go out and you try to move with Jalen Brown, you want to go get Yannis. There's no other

better player than Jalen Brown on the market than a Yannis that was available. So then you try to get four or five first round picks. They were asking teams in late June going into July for like a handful of first round pick. There was, it was going to be a non-starter of a conversation if you didn't come with

that many picks. But you know, time went on and that price clearly went down and they felt a sense of urgency going into, you know, as you get into Summer League this month, now again, the question on league is why do it when they completed the trade? Like, why do it the second day of free agency? You could have waited a week, could have waited later on. I think the big thing was his contract extension coming up late July. And that could have allowed this situation to get way uglier. Yeah, contract essential coming. Also, we're streaming a lot, we're learning a lot, we're hearing a lot.

I assume Stevens had that decision made or whatever, and then he honestly got a good last thing. And then didn't they back out of the Yannis trade because Yannis won 35% of the cap on his next extension? That's not. That's, that's, yeah. Okay, that's just a false report. Okay. Yeah, and I assume there's a lot of those going around right now with anonymous. The breakdown with the Yannis Boston conversation was very simple.

The Celtics did not want to give up Hugo Gonzalez and or Baylor Shireman and another draft asset when the Bucks asked for that, from my reporting. That was the breakdown in that conversation. the Bucks didn't want to add any of the young players. Their final offer was Jalen Brown. Two first-round picks. Nothing. Like, that's what it was.

Okay, so let's move on from that. You said, completed the trade. You know, I always think when I read a tweet about a trade, it's been completed. Yeah. You know, if it's been tweeted, it's been completed. That's kind of how I view it. Allegedly, there's a suspension on the Kauai Lennar trade back to Toronto. There was a celebration in the city of, hey, he's coming back.

I think Drake announced, hey, it's great to have you. you back, we're all doing it. And then all of a sudden, it's like, well, pending actual, another one of them, that tree thing was interesting. We're going to have to take a little look-see of what's going on here. What is this? How long does this investigation take? And would the owner of the team that was potentially doing this be in a lot more trouble than the player that was potentially on a receiving end of what has allegedly happened here? They're opening a second investigation into this entirety. What should we expect out of this? And is this very abnormal because it does feel as such.

We're about to be on 11 months of this investigation into whether the Clippers committed salary caps or convention violations by giving a no-show basically, you know, no services rendered agreement on an endorsement deal with

Kawhi Leonard through this company aspiration, which has, you know, a ton of legal issues and someone just got a got sent charged with 14 years, I believe in prison. Joe Sandberg, I think, is his And so there's a lot there.

I think Steve Balmer has also sued. He said he's lost millions and millions of dollars. I think this company clearly frauded a bunch of people. But with this, was this a place where the Clippers, you know, were able to use this company as essentially funneling money to Kauai Leonard? That's at the crux of the investigation. And the NBA is that almost 11 months and counting no outcome, no result, no update. And, you know, there's been no restriction in some of the conversations that the Clippers

have had with other teams on trading kowai leon this started all the way back in february at the deadline there were multiple teams like the warriors and others that were discussing deals with the clippers no deal happens so then you fast forward into this off season the clippers and kawai leonard they've been talking about their future there was no contract extension that was going to be offered to kawai leonard going into this off season so both sides kind of looked at it like okay what do we do here you're not going to go into a year with a guy like kawai leon two-time champion two-time finals MVP last year of his deal and not have an extension. He's going to be looking on elsewhere. The Clippers are going to see what else is out there for them. So that's when these sides looked

at Toronto because Kauai Leonard made it clear that he would give a contract extension. He would commit long term to Toronto. So these two teams negotiated for a period of about two, two, and a half weeks in June on a deal. Both sides didn't really have any type of restriction. No team, neither the team was really reached out to by the NBA during that initial negotiation. period from my understanding. And now there was a deal that was completed on June 30th, they agreed to in principle. And the sides went to do a trade call on July 6th.

That's the first day after the NBA moratorium is lifted where you can discuss or have a trade call to complete a deal. Well, they go to do the trade call and the league says, hold on, hold on, can't go through with this until basically the investigation is complete because if you do, the Raptors would assume all the risk of any potential discipline that comes from this. That's not saying that Kauai Leonard will be disciplined, but that's basically a pre-warning that if you do go through with it and if in a month or two months from now, Kauai Leonard is given a 30-game suspension or is voided of his contract or anything, the Raptors are going to have to deal with

the consequence. Well, listen, the Raptors are obviously like, well, listen, if that's the case, we're not really comfortable moving forward with this. So the deal gets paused. And now Adam Silver made some comments that, you know, they're hoping to have some kind of resolution this summer. My understanding is we're still weeks out from an update on a resolution. Who's doing his downtown Los Angeles court system? Who's doing the investigation?

Law firm, the law firm, Wachtell Lipton. 11 month investing. Are they the feds? 11 month. investigation with no answer in sight. Them, though, we can assume calling Toronto and saying, hey, you might want to, yeah, let's see what happens. That is a little alarming.

You know, that sounds like something is, but this is me just hearing what you're saying and assuming, and we all know what happens with assumptions, but the league being like, well, let's, let's hold our horses real quick, because we might not be negotiating in good faith here. We might not be, this might not be. this might not be a thing that's taking place. Kind of like what we saw with Sorosby. Yeah. Who knew what, when?

You know, and like that entire thing. So that kind of alarms me a little bit about something maybe coming from this. Or maybe they are just like, we should at least all know what this is going to be before it happens. I appreciate all the information, all the detail. We had to catch up on a lot. That wasn't just a drive-by. You parked that bitch. I'll tell you what.

It was awesome. We appreciate you. Good luck at the time 100 thing this evening. I'm going to miss you, man. And congrats to you. You know, we're six, you know, we're on the digital airwaves right now. This is what we used to do back in the day. Like ESPN, you've been on ESPN, that's just a cherry on top.

This is what you would do anyway. So, you know, I appreciate you, bro. No problem. And I'm very thankful and pumped for you to be able to go to this time 100 thing because we know. I'm going with my mom. I'm going with my mom. Hell yeah. Mom Sharania.

Let's go. All that. I love mom Sharana. Yeah, moms and shams coming out. Mom's and shams. He was so excited to take a picture with you. So excited, but I told her we'll get Pat next time. Okay, I think Mom Sharania, if she has watched you on this particular show,

she knows that that's an event that I would rather, you know, not be at. But honored to be invited to said event. I just can't, I mean, after what we, very, a lot of suitori, a lot of super suitori for doing a lot of that, been doing too much of that. I actually, as you know, backed out of doing that what two days ago where I was like, I'm not, I can't do this shit. like this all week. I'm not doing this no way. Just because everybody's really nice, okay?

But there's also people that I think are very dumb. And it's very hard for me not to say it. I have this thing in my body that other people, I think, they're able to compress these things. Let's sleep on it. Okay? I've been with me 39 years. I don't have that, never had it. If it's in here, it's coming out of here.

And those events always have people that I have done that to in the past, the past and I always got to do the whole I hate that guy I fucking hate that guy I hate that guy yeah right and then I just got to sit there and they're like oh why don't you go be nice to him it's like I don't think that's ever going to happen but yeah I do appreciate it so on that note I'd like to say it is an honor to be a part of that that list was very cool to be a part of and for you to be on there I think it is so fantastic for you to maybe look in a mirror because there There's been people trying to, you know, attack it both from within and on the outside, whenever you get that senior role after just being a digital guy for so long,

especially filling into big Woj bombs shoes, especially with a team around you there whenever you get there that was hired by Woj. You know, so the Woj father is kind of a lot of these people's best. And you get dropped in there. So maybe not everybody's pulling for your success. And then you got Pat Riley coming out and saying, this fucking guy. And then you've got the Greek freak saying, don't we all miss Woge? And the people that are working with Shams are like, yeah, we do.

And what you do, you stay the course. Poor the news. You're right on everything. And now you're on the Time 100 list. And you used to just tweet about doing lunch. We're proud of you, Shams. We are very, very proud of you. We hope you and your mom have a great red carpet.

I hope you get all the photos, all the cool picks. I hope you get the shan shakes. and I hope LeBron doesn't decide to make the decision tonight because you're not going to be able to enjoy the event at all. You're just going to be there. He's going to be there. So if I see him, you know I'm going to have to pull up. He's tall.

You'll see. I have to ask. If he's there, I think you will see LeBron James. If you have a conversation with him, please let the world know what's happening. Because Tyrese Halliburton asked one question and he just left it. And that's why he's doing shoes now and not, you know, the news. Tyrese wasn't asking Dan Patrick questions.

No. Yeah, you've got to do that sometimes. Yeah. I'll tell you what, booking is no fun. No, that's not. For sure we had Marcello on today. Just crush the Espies. Just absolutely crush the Espies.

I got a chance to talk to him for probably 30, long time. Get out a bit. I was so impressed. I was so impressed with the way he operated, honestly, and the entire operation. Not for sure we'd have him on. Maybe some harder day. That's right. That's right.

Type up a description of the show, and we can potentially get you on the schedule in the future. It's like, okay, yeah. Come on. It's the PMS. All right, enough. Have fun. Let's have a Sean Shrine. Hey, Chambal. Think about that, AJ.

I would love to read that. You type of one sheet of description of what the show is. Yeah, and it's like, you're a publicist for this guy who just did the S-Pries. You should at least have a little bit of information. That's bizarre. Yeah. Some stuff, you know. Same network.

Type up a description of the show. Do people do that? We should do that, I guess. I bet. Hey, we should do that. You know? We will do that today. Sounds like Jeff, GPT, you can do that in two seconds.

Yep. Actually, let's see. We could have done this. I should have done. I should have just done this. Mr. GP.T. That is proper pronoun. You could have done it, but you're staying on business.

I sent a great email. Send a great email back to that one. To that particular request. Yeah, one of my best. Which, once again, these people would be at the things. And it's like, I'm going to hate you forever. So like that is how this is going to go.

Mr. GPT, can you type up a description of the Pat McAfee show to send to a Super Suit? All right, here we go. Let's see what it is. Have you used SuperSuit with Chap before that I know what you're talking about? Me and Mr. GPT know each other pretty good. I know that.

Yeah, Mr. GPT understands completely what I just, set there. The Pat Mac show is one of the most influential and... All right. I'm out of here. I'm not listening to that. We don't need to ever do that again. Be a friend, tell a friend something nice. If I change your life, we're back tomorrow. I'm going to tell you

we are so incredibly lucky that we get to do this for a living. And the fact that we now have a golf simulator in our office that pumps balls up from the bottom like a bowling alley, AJ. Like a bowling alley. It just kind of reloads. Oh, man. That's beautiful. Does the tilt?

Does the hitting surface tilt? I mean, there's going to be some wayward shots I think that could get outside of that box and get into the Thunderdoll. There's a chance. There's always a chance. So then it just pops back up after you hit it? Yep. Oh, that's awesome. Oh, yeah.

Not me. Yeah, can we turn on the handheld here? There is. Yeah, okay. So this thing just bowling alley pops up out of here. Can't use the iron on the T, they said, though. Can't use the iron on T here. because it was sliced her a T, you see.

So you got to use the irons back here. Only driver off the T, but this fucker right here is a little hole here. Watch this thing. It'll dump it up onto the T. It's a shot. Rolls. It's incredible. This is technology, AJ.

And this is going to get me in the senior tour. Do they do either drug or PED testing? I don't think so. Nope. Okay. Oh, that's sick. That's really good news. Too much Niagara.

It was screwed up the chair. It sounds, boom, boom, couples. They say that's really Hey, they say that's really good for thinning the blood for blood circulation. Yeah, exactly. You got people walking around hard, but boy, their feet aren't losing feeling. Exactly. You know what I mean?

It was originally a heart attack medicine. Bruce just said that they do drug test, I guess. Well, there goes everything. Who did he? Who did you look up from? Hey, Jay, this is this Royal Burkdale? Do we remember? Looks like it.

This is old course at St. Andrews. Yeah, so nice. All right, AJ. Head on the wall. Head on brick wall. That's right. Wait on this ass, gee here.

It's 3.37 to the flag. Unfortunately, it did not register. It did not register. That is the... Leaving it on the T-box for the whole show. I'm done. I'm done. Be a friend to have a friend something nice

if I change your life. Playing this thing together. Let me get AJ on the back wall, please. Thank you. Buddy as possible. try it again tomorrow fuck too much velocity

fucking piped that thing I would have to put and probably some you have to fold that thing up I guess I'm out on simulators I'm completely all of all good thing three days too late

yeah feels like ladies and gentlemen you could be the brand new owner of a side we appreciate all of

You. We will see you. Tomorrow, be a friend, tell if he'll change their life. We're listening together. Team on me, team on three. Huge day tomorrow.

Hey, we've got the number one wide receiver in the country coming in here. Huge. To make his commitment. Kid goes to high school right, like right down the road.

Yeah, literally right down the road. He's the number one wide receiver in the country. Mansions is a man. This guy, Munchin, sorry. Munchin sales. Absolute monster. Munchin's going to have all the mansions. after what I've seen him do from watching his film the last two weeks.

This guy right here around Indiana, and obviously Indiana Hoosiers are the current national champions of college football, which is such an abnormal thing to even think about or say. Around Indiana, this kid's got a lot of motion. We had people before I even knew or had a request for him to come on this particular show to do it. We had people saying, hey, I heard Monson's coming on your show to announce he's going to the Indiana. And I was like, that's sick. first of all, when?

When is that happening? And they're like, well, within the next couple weeks, I'm like, I did not know that. And then they reach out and they're like, hey, we were wondering if we could make the announcement. And then we watch his film. And it's like, yeah, if the whole state is talking about you where we live and then we watch your film

and you're outrageous and you're the number one wide receiver in the country from Indiana. Oh, yeah. Safety coming down in the box. Yeah, he's all over the place. And he also challenged Soss Gardner at Soss Gardner's camp here recently. Yes, he did. So, I mean, this guy is he, this guy's got,

This guy's got real motion. So he'll be in here to Munchin's got motion. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yes, he'd do. Yes, he do. And we'll see him the more. Yeah, because that kid, by the way, has been looking up to Munchin, too.

So, like, sauce new to town. Munchin has had this entire state looking up to him for the last three years as he's just been dominating football fields. When was the last time Indiana had the number one wide receiver in the country? They never have. When was the last time Indiana was the reigning, defending, undisputed college football national champions? I don't think they ever happen. Okay, huge news tomorrow coming.

Is he going to Indiana? Oh, that would be poetic. I hope. Wow. Could roll Todd. And let's not put it past Cristobo. This guy's a Cristobal guy. You just saw him.

Yeah, exactly. Not that he's not a Signetti guy, but he's a wide receiver who's coming down in the box. That far right one is the U for you as well. Oh, AJ. Yeah. I mean, that'd be nice. That'd be a great surprise if he came to the Buckeyes.

Be a friend to have friends. Something nice might change the life. We're in this thing together. We'll see you tomorrow. We can't wait, Munchin. Be a friend, tell a friend something meaningful. Be a friend, tell a friend that they're going to do just fine. Be a friend, tell a friend that they did a great job the last couple of days, just surviving.

Hell yeah. Tell some friends, too, that, boy, I tell you what about the gas tank ran out about an hour and a half ago. I cannot wait to tell a friend something nice right after this show. Team on me, team on three. One, two, three, team. Goodbye.