The Ringer NBA Show - ‘Sources Say’ — The New NBA: Exciting for Basketball, Not As Exciting for Gossip (Ep. 167)

Episode Date: November 22, 2017

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan and Juliet Litman discuss Klay Thompson’s comments on scaffolding (0:33), react to C.J. McCollum’s subpar trash-talking (5:25), condemn Danny Ainge’s questionable tweet regarding Kyrie Irving (7:50), speculate on the turmoil within the Oklahoma City Thunder (11:34), recount Ray Allen’s catfishing saga (17:28), and ruminate on Ben Simmons’s guarded personal life (20:13). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We won. Yeah. They suck. Yeah. We hear. What's that sound? Hey, I'm Juliet Littman. I'm Chris Ryan.

Hi, Chris. Hi, Juliet. We're doing this cross country. Yes, we are. I'm in New York. I'm in Los Angeles. We got a lot to talk about. It's a big day for Claytheists.

Let's just start there. So, Claytheism, the religion of the ringer, and my personal lifestyle, took a big W last night because Clay Thompson, the one and only appeared on the Fox 5 local news. Isaac, roll the clip. I usually observe if the piping and stuff is new. Sometimes, you know, something looks like it's been there a while, I kind of try to avoid that. Julia, there's a thing, you know, it's like a common part of our lexicon now to be like, I have some questions. Yes. That's overused.

Okay. But not in this case. So what happened was Clay Thompson was walking down the street, I guess. so I don't know. Clay Thompson appeared in a segment about scaffolding. Scaffolding is as Quotidian and Bonal as like, I don't know, brushing your teeth to New Yorkers. There's so much scaffolding everywhere. But for some reason, there was a segment on it. And Clay weighed in about like looking at scaffolding. And he had like a very thorough answer. Yes. So my first question is, does Clay Thompson work in construction and we didn't know about it?

Well, he doesn't come from a construction family as far as we know since his dad. dad was an NBA player and now as an MBA analyst. He also grew up on the West Coast, correct? Yes, California and Oregon. So most of his life would have been spent in the car, not necessarily looking at construction. Also, I think he grew up in Southern California, correct? Yeah, Southern California and then also a little Portland. Okay, so Southern California and Clay Thompson's youth was not going under the building boom that it's going through now. It was not the destination that it was. And now you've got a guy who is 6-6, wandering around New York City

and rather than sort of keeping his head down with his earbuds in and just kind of, you know, vibing out to whatever Peter Tosh that he listens to, he's looking up all the time at scaffolding. He's like, what is this glorious, you know, monument to man's ingenuity that we build and we build? But he's also sort of like a scaffolding yelper

where he's like, I have thoughts about whether this is well constructed. I don't even know. Do you think Clay just watches Ken Burns' Brooklyn Bridge? She's like, what do you think is going on here? I don't, I really don't know. I guess there's like a random thing he thought about. I wonder if like one time he had to get like a summer job and his parents were like,

learn about construction or something. But I don't know. Come on. Just seems like Michael Thompson be like, get in the gym and don't stop shooting. Yes. So I don't know. I don't get it. Also, of all the NBA players, like Clay Thompson is in the bottom 10% of those who I think

should live in New York. Like, I just don't think this is like a city for him and for his vibes. But yet he had such thorough opinions on scaffolding. I don't know. Are you starting the Clay to the Knicks train? Clay to the Knicks. I have another thing I want to say, just to pull the curtain back a little bit. It's not super easy to get NBA players on the phone or on camera or to do things for you.

And just the idea that Clay just like randomly pops up, like they probably were like, hey, Clay Thompson, do you want to talk about scaffolding? We're doing a bit on scaffolding. He was like, yes. And not only yes, but I have a bit on this is remarkable. It makes you wonder what other completely normal everyday. occurrences, Clay Thompson should be commenting on. A couple things about that. So you think someone from Fox 5 News reached out to the Warriors.

No, I think they spotted him walking from his hotel to somewhere else. And that somebody was like, wouldn't it be a gas if Clay Thompson would do this? You wouldn't be a good news producer if you allowed that to happen and you didn't do your best. And the thing about local news producers is it's not like, they're not like, I want to make sure my relationship with Clay or Clay's agents are still good. They're like, I'll ask Clay Thompson to be on my scaffolding bit. And if he says, no, so what? Right. No reason not to do it. Another thing I really brought into focus is that there's a trend this season of asking players about basically any topic, particularly LeBron.

I'd be like, LeBron. What do you think about? Levard and Trump. What do you think about cronuts? Yeah. Yeah, like that. Everything. And so I like that. It couldn't get LeBron. So they're like, okay, well, just ask Clay Thompson when he thinks about scaffolding. What do you think LeBron thinks about scaffolding? I don't know. We got to ask him. But it's just sort of like getting an NBA player to weigh in on any topic is better than not having an NBA. gay player way in. And it's hilarious. I don't know. I just love it. This is probably going to replace the toaster as the most clay moment of all time. It's wild. It's also just like China clay is like it's made for its virality. This is like for true clayheads. This is like you have to really be connected to the clay hive to understand what's going on here. Yeah. It's not just like a

funny dance in a club. Like it's so like I said, it's just so banal. It's incredible. It's just so incredible. Also, a lot of people pointed this out on Twitter, but while Clay was talking to the Fox 5 local news about scaffolding, his teammate in Splashbro was on Jimmy Fallon. Like, that's the difference between Steph and Clay. Yeah, it's just incredible. Another thing aside from Clay that we like to track on sources say is obviously beef. I would necessarily call this beef as much as a sweet confection that you have to bake. Because C.J. McCollum got into a beef with Evan Fornier on the court on November 15th. It was just like, a little bit of normal shoving, but later on, CJ told the flagrant two pod that what he said to

Evan Fornier is, you are sweet and soft like those crepes you eat. Quote, I just felt like he disrespected me by putting his hands on me. Obviously, I'm not trying to get in any fines or anything of that nature, and I told him he was sweet. He's French, and I said that you are sweet and soft like those crepes you eat. Is this the most try-hard trash talk ever? Is this such a dad joke? It's too try-hard for me. I can't deal. it. I already didn't like the Blazers, as often discussed on the Heatchuk podcast, but this one I'm just like, come on, CJ. Also, a true trash talker doesn't reference his previous trash talk. Yes, I agree with you. I think that it seems like something that CJ had unemployed comedy

writers work on for him. He threw some money to some joke writers and was like, come up with like just a rolodex of trash talk for me and then made sure that it got out public. Yeah, absolutely. Like, just make sure you're using our lines, basically. We had a lot of good additional lines for him in the Ringer NBA Slack, though. Should we share a couple? That's a good idea. Yeah, sure. Ryan O'Hanlin was just, like, outraged because of his, like, already he hates on people from Lehigh, I guess. Sure.

Classic Lehi bullshit, he said. He's always Team Lafayette. Isaac Lee, our producer with a classic Isaac Reed on the situation was, Calling Someone Sweet is a compliment, no? Jason Concepcion said, you're twisted like croissons. Sean, you said you're dry and flaky. like the scones you eat. I said you're rarely good,

like a banana nut muffin. Lots of pushback on that one. Shoemaker said, you're stale and full of empty calories like Starbucks pound cake. Paulo said, you're like a cinnamon roll, only relevant when you get hot.

These are all better lines for CJ McCollum. Yeah, it's just, it's good stuff, but I love where the NBA is at right now, but I think these guys are a little too aware of the thirst for their content. Yeah. And it's getting a little problematic.

And that actually is a pretty good segue to our next topic. We have to go to Boston. I feel like we're becoming parodies of ourselves because we work for Bill. We talk with the Celtics so much. But they got the best record in the league. And Kyrie Irving is really fucking good. So last night, Tuesday night, the Celtics, their streak was almost busted in Dallas. And Kyrie Irving put them on his back.

And they won an overtime. And after a 47 point outing on 22 shots for Kyrie. Kyrie Irving, Danny Ainsh, his GM, and the scourge of many basketball fans and other GMs, tweeted, maybe the world is flat. And then with the flex emoji of like making a muscle at Kyrie Irving, hashtag Celtic world. Not fam. No. The world is not flat.

And it's not helpful for someone like Danny Aange to be pretending it is. Or like even if this is what they're trying to do, the reappropriation of this bit as some sort of Celtic strong. language, like you're going to sort of detach it from what it actually means in the world and be like, oh no, it's just like if you believe that the earth is flat, it's like you believe in your team over everything.

That's bullshit. Don't... So if that's what we're trying to trot out, either way, it's bad. If you're trying to say it has nothing to do with the earth being flat, it's just like an inside joke for the team about how we can only count on each other, find another fucking phrase. If it's actually, I think maybe like Kyrie is so

good that I'm just going to take all says it face value, that's also bullshit. It's not the time in world history to be questioning empirical facts. And it's, I just, I'm not into this. I know that I'm sort of a spoil sport about this, but I just, I'm not feeling this. Chris, you're the anti-for-the-culture guy. Like, you don't, don't do it for the culture. Yeah, I get, I get that it's not a literal affirmation of what Kyrie said. Yeah, but I'm still not into it. You're all about the round earth. You're all about science. I'm all about the round earth. You are, man. I'm into there not being an alternative to the round earth.

Right. You live in one reality and that's ours that Kyrie is not in. Have you been keeping track of Kyrie's fashion at all? Not really. What's the latest? He's got two looks going for him in Boston. And I will say, I didn't pay that much attention to his fashion in Cleveland.

I was distracted by the son, aka LeBron. But there's two looks. So he either wears like his Kyrie Irving Nike stuff and then tops it off with like a beanie and some wool gloves that are missing the fingers. Okay. And that's like his sort of what I call Kevin Smith 1990. movie character outfits.

Like he looks like he could like be in mall rats or something like that. Just like hanging out in the mall. Okay. Or he dresses like he watched an entire season of Welcome Back Cotter and was like, damn, that Gabe Kaplan loves his look. What can I get?

What can I get that's similar? And where's these like weirdly like muted tone over shirts that look like they're made of like suede or like some kind of heavy twill? And it's like, Not a button down and not quite like an overcoat. It's kind of like one of like the jackets that Gabe Kaplan you would wear. I'm welcome back Connor.

Well, in between outerwear is pretty big these days as someone who wore a coat like that to his own birthday party. So it's like... You're just more for a blazer. Come on, man. Don't sell it short. No, but it's like a blazer that could double as a coat. It was like a little, it was cut a little bit bigger. Okay.

But I'm just saying... You live in L.A. Kairri Irving lives in Boston, where I'm just like... But it's still probably autumn in Boston. You know? Autumn and Boston. Let's see what the Boston weather. How lovely.

It's 56. He's killing it. He's like he's got everything at his hip fingertips right now. The leaves are turning in the commons and he's got this like very durable, very flexible outerwear on. Why am I defending Kyrie Irving's fashion? I don't know. It's actually a shocking turn of events. But, you know, I support it, I guess. Kyrie is that's exciting. I do love watching him play basketball, though. That's the main thing. I don't love watching the Oklahoma City Thunder play basketball. No, it's a real heartbreak. And this has been a little tough for me because I have a lot of,

a lot of Oklahoma City stock. I even bought some mellow stock quietly through a burner account on the Cayman Islands exchange. But they have been in a little bit of trouble recently. And it all comes down to them not being able to close games. They've just been really streaky. So they'll lose four in a row,

win three in a row. Now they've lost two in a row. The problem is, is the end of games offense. They'll jump out on a lead on anybody and then they'll make anyone they're playing look like the Warriors. Whereas like, you know, when you're watching the Warriors on Saturday and the Sixers were up 25, you were just Like, yeah, but eventually they're going to just slingshot back into this.

This is not real. So that's like basically every Thunder game, except the Thunder are the Sixers, and they let people back in the game. It seems like they haven't quite figured out what their offense is, and their bench is really bad for as much as I was sort of like, hey, Ray Fulton's useful. They have like Pat Pat, Ray Felton, and, oh, Dakari Johnson from the Ghost of Kentucky past showing up there. So it was just really bad. And our big three are starting to make.

make some of their grapes public. Westbrook yesterday, after losing to the Pelican, said, you got to go out and play. You can talk as much as you want to, but guys have to take personal pride and understand how important it is to go out and compete and not take it for granted. I think as players, you go out on the floor,

and sometimes you take it for granted and don't realize how important it is and embrace it, yada, yada. I mean, he's just like, we need to be better. Here's the thing. There are no more real bums on this team to look at. Russ is talking about Mello, probably here, I think. Is he? I don't know. Well, I'm not trying to start anything, but it's like when you have a super team and you have these vague, like, we have to take things seriously statements, the we is about guys who probably think of themselves as taking things pretty seriously.

So maybe he's talking about Pat or Raymond Felton or Alex Abrinas or something like that. But more likely that he's talking about somebody like Mello or PG. I mean, he's not talking about Adams or Roberson, right? Carmelho a couple of days ago had talked a little bit about the dynamic between the. three big stars saying, we're too timid. We're thinking too much. Russ, PG, myself, we have to do a better job of being selfish in a way of playing our game and being aggressive on the basketball court, not thinking about it.

I don't know if selfish is the right word. We play off instincts. We're very instinctive players and now we're not playing like that. There's probably is too much instincts going on. They probably aren't like have one person deciding. But the best one of all of these was a Instagram that Paul George put up last week of a quote and it says, if you are caught unprepared by a sudden rainstorm,

you should not run foolishly down the road or hide under the eaves of houses. You are going to get soaked either way. Accept that from the beginning and go on your way. This way you will not be distressed by a little rain. Apply this lesson to everything. This is taken from the book of the samurai. What does that say to you?

The Book of the Samurai. Do you think that Paul George read the book of the samurai or has a collection of quotes from the book of the samurai? You know, like he likes fishing. Like, maybe he's out of there on a boat reading the book of the samurai. I think that, like, guys like this get quotes, like, supplied to them.

I think there's sort of, like, someone, like, passed it along. Oh. I think he has, like, a guy in his entourage or his agent or friend of an agent or, like, a runner who's, like, sends him like a motivational quote to, like, make him feel better. He's like, yeah, I'm going to post that on Instagram. Good one. Man, I would love to be the quote doctor in an NBA player's social media entourage. That's like a black market that we can exploit of like, oh, you need a quote for fighting their teammate,

for blowing a lead, for getting caught cheating on your wife. Okay, we got a quote for you. What can we do here? But it would be dope if, you know, we worked for Zach Randall, for Vince Carter, and we were giving them quotes from Lady Bird about Sacramento. And then we're like, California hedonism. Just listen to him, Dave Matthews. Everything will be okay.

Yeah. So, question. Who lasts longer? Billy Donovan with the Thunder, Doc Rivers are the Clippers? I think Billy. Do you think he's out first or he's fired first? No, I think Billy lasts longer. I think Doc's in a lot of trouble because I think the team quit on him.

Yeah. That seems to be the read. And once that read happens, I'd like to go back through the internet if I could build a bot to do this. Or if anybody can remember this happening, I'd love to hear it. How often does it get public that a team is quitting on a coach and that coach recovers? Because it's not very often. Well, like that happened in Denver a couple years ago.

Uh-huh. On George Carl. Yeah. It happened with Earl Watson this year in Phoenix. Yep. I mean, Hoyberg somehow survived. but even with the Bulls, they kind of like weirdly played mediocre basketball down the stretch. You remember that?

Yeah. They wouldn't just go away and that's why they wound up with a sort of bad pick. It's not very often that a guy can survive that. So the fact that Billy Donovan so far has avoided any of these sub-tweets from his big three. And even if he was under that kind of scrutiny, I don't think Sam Presti would get rid of him. Whereas they already took away Doc's personnel influence. so I wonder whether the coaching is next. Certainly seems like it.

But I just don't have any evidence that Billy Donovan's a good NBA coach. No, I know. Like literally none. Like there's no, and I don't want to just blame it on Russ. But there's no system. And like I know Russ haters are like, yeah, you can't play with Russ. But I don't believe that. Like, I don't know.

There has to be a way to make these three players together a good team. Like that's basketball. Figure it out. Yeah. And I think that guys like Pop and Stevens sort of throw us off. Because all you hear is like Kyrie just being like Brad Stevens is a genius. I'm just riding shotgun in the car with him and learning from him. And people aren't really saying that about Billy Donovan.

Also, Billy Donovan has an interestingly large amount of stuff on his, like wrist ornaments. Oh. Considering how clean cut and straight-laced he seems. Do you think he's a candidate for like tons of secret tattoos? Yeah, I was going to say, like weird Bonnaroo forearm tat. Oh, cool. Like he's like a real burning man kind of guy. Yeah, like maybe he's super into my morning jacket or something.

Oh, interesting. Maybe. Next story. This one's a little bit less lighthearted, certainly more litigious. Ray Allen, who you may remember from Game 6 of the 2013 NBA finals. Or just being one of the great shooting guards of the last 30 years. Yeah, I remember him. Or being one of the great shooting guards the last 30 years. And the film, he got game, which I saw with my father when I was 13, very traumatizing. He got catfished. And the story came out today in both TMZ and ESPN because he is suing the guy who cats. fished him. So the guy who allegedly catfished him, who is named Bryant Coleman, and he first got a restraining order against Ray Allen, and he's like, no, I'm getting one against you because this is what happened. And these are all quotes from ESPN. Coleman pretended to be a number of attractive

women interested in Ray Allen. Read the motion filed on Allen's behalf. Ray believed he was speaking with these women and communicated with them. In the filing, Alan said Coleman threatened to reveal details of their conversations and the sides eventually struck a deal to keep everything private. Allen said the deal has been violated and that Coleman has continued to harass him and his family through several social media accounts. He posted about Ray's wife, raised children, raised dog, Ray's homes, Ray's wife restaurant, and numerous other personal items. Coleman not only posted about these things, he would actually post while physically located inside Ray's wife's restaurant in Orlando, and he would make sure they knew it tagging Ray and his wife on those posts. This is bonkers and scary.

I think if I was famous, I would be off the grid. Yeah. I mean, like, what are you supposed to do? This is just my read of it. Obviously, like, I don't know the ins and outs in the details of this case. But the way this is described is a pretty classic case of stalking. And just that one little element of the catfishing and the blackmail or whatever, not even blackmail, but the implication that he was going to reveal that Ray Allen was doing whatever he was doing in these messages with who he thought were women.

It kind of like doesn't make up for the fact that this guy was essentially digitally stalking these people. Yeah, totally. I just think that more and more of what. when I see stuff like this, I'm like, if I was a celebrity, I just would not have a phone. Yeah. I would not be on social media. I would not be on Instagram. I would not be like letting people know where I was or I would just be very, very elusive.

Yeah, like as private as possible. Yeah. Absolutely. Or if I wasn't elusive, everything that I had on social media would basically be empty bullshit. It would just be like a picture of me with the sun coming up and being like great day. Think about like what the tipping point has to be for Ray Allen to be like, okay, I'm going to go public with this. like I'm going to like it must be like scary and also reaching some some level where like other people are going to find out like because it's like not only it's scary it's also like quite

embarrassing which Ray Allen mentions and the whole thing is just like just very bleak I don't know being being famous seems hard yeah you look at some of like the young people in the NBA and you're like wow you're handling this shockingly well it's like very surprising which leads it into our final topic of the day the bell of the ball the rookie of the year Ben Simmons of your Philadelphia 76ers. This is a topic that came about because I said to you, I want to know what's up with Ben Simmons's interior life. Yes.

I did tell you one thing that I did a few years ago, and I think I still have saved my personal drafts. I, before Ben Simmons was at LSU, or like right before, or maybe, I don't know, sometime I'm in 2015. I did like a very deep dive on all of members of the Simmons families and, like, all of their social media. And I, like, have a list of, like, all the accounts

because it's a little hard to untangle. But there's like a lot of Simmons's out there And all of their social Media's are pretty vanilla and like just not that great So I just want you to know that That I've this is a world I'm very familiar with This is what I'm trying to say The Ben Simmons world

The Ben Simmons social media world, yeah Okay Yeah Anything that you've divined from it His social media It's not only that he's just so ready Obviously for NBA basketball And he's already

According to Bill in House A top 20 NBA player It's that He seems so composed There was a point in the Lakers game that I went to where I think someone was embalding the ball to him and he wasn't looking and it kind of bounced off his hip and went out of bounds and the Lakers got the ball back

and it was not at a great time for that to happen in the game I think it was pretty tight and he just turned to the guy who did it and it was the guy's fault because he'd thrown it when Simmons wasn't looking and he just like pat a no on the butt and then he brought the team together and like calm them down and the Sixers went on to win

and I don't know necessarily what he said there but it was a not rookie move and I felt like when last night when Molly Sullivan was talking to him after the jazz game Molly was like you know I think she was asking him like do you think you're in the conversation for rookie the year something about an individual athlete

and he like interrupted and it was just like I only care about rings I want many several rings and I was like this guy is like a robot like he has a Terminator he has really really really got it together because a lot of the rookies come in and they're just like Dragon Ball Z

I'm so like meet myself and Ben is just like no man he seems like a five year veteran Yeah, he's really focused and he just got his eye on the prize. Also, I don't know, he's just so good. Like, it must be easier to be focused when you're like, yeah, I'm succeeding already, you know? Yeah. And also, it's interesting, like him and Embed being both so good and being like so famous. And different. Yeah. And different. Yeah. You know, I don't think that Ben does the trash talk that Embed does. I would like him to. That'd be more fun. My main conclusion about Ben Simmons is he definitely has a burner account because all of his Instagrams and like all of his tweets are just so.

so like just team focus. Like about like being on the 76ers and like playing basketball. And like, come on. He's like a 19-20-year-old kid. He's got to have a burner. Even we learned Kevin Durant has a burner Instagram. I believe Ben Simmons does too.

How else are you going to slide into those DMs? I don't know. Maybe he's old school. Epistolary romance sending letters. Dear Philomena. Dear Theodosia. Maybe. He also loves the musical Hamilton for sure.

Yeah, for sure. Though most dramatic Simmons is his sister who like would take to Twitter last year and complained about being famous or like her brother not caring about her. Do you remember that? Yeah. I thought that was going to be like a bad sign for Ben Simmons, but now I'm all in on the Simmons train. It was love

at first basketball site for me. Just love watching that guy play. Is it your favorite sixer? Ben? Yeah. It's Ben or Roco. Yeah. I like Roco too. I'm happy for him. I have a soft spot for T.J. No. No. And I was thinking about being, take artist and saying Markella's my favorite sixer. But now that Markella

is back on, is still on the bench for another at least three weeks while they balance his shoulder muscles. How would you feel about sending Markell to the G League? I would not be into it. Why would they need to send him to the G League? I don't know. I'd get him some reps.

He can get some reps in the NBA. There's some bad NBA players out there. Okay, fine. Whatever. I think he's not. He's the number one pick. He doesn't have to go to the G League. Lori Marketing didn't go to the G League.

Well, he's better than Markle Fultz right now. Who's the second best rookie of the year after Ben Simmons? probably either Dennis or Oh, it's Tatum. It's Tatum. It's Tatum. It's Tatum. The problem with this rookie class is that they all seem, they're all quite good. Not all of them, but they're, you know, not Lanzo, but they're currently playing at a very high level, many of them. But there's just so few good personalities. Like Dennis Smith is great because he also just seemed like a little bit of a jerk. And Deeran Fox has a lot of quirks to him. But I just, I need Ben Simmons and Jason Tatum to be a little bit more fun. Like just get in trouble. Have one too much. many drinks or something like that. Yeah, I feel like Malik Monk coming out and being like the NBA is boring was a real tough break because it just, it really put a spotlight on the fact that he needed to be a Nick.

And now that ship is sailed because Frankie Smokes is there. Sure. But Frankie Smokes is not the most dynamic personality. No, but maybe he could be once he gets more comfortable in New York. He'll get that Batum, that few years out of France vibe after a while. We are really encountering this generation of NBA players and like Porzangas has kind of been it too, minus his Instagram thing from over the summer. We're like, they're just really focused on playing basketball.

They have all the talking points. I'm like, yeah, we're here to play. Like, let's get to it. No, they really are ready to go. Yeah. It's really exciting for the sport and a little unexciting for this podcast. So I'm going to keep hoping for scandal. Nothing too wild, obviously, which is some fun stuff.

I think that we'll have some of these super teams will have issues. I mean, the Cavs kind of like stabilized. I think the Thunder thing is going to get bad. What do the Thunder do, though? Like, the fire Billy Donovan, do they make another trade? I've started to see the like, who could you get? what could you get for Paul George and January thing? But I just feel like it's impossible for me to imagine

that the Thunder are going to be a 500 team. So it would have to be pretty awful there for this. Wouldn't that be crazy? Yeah, that would be impossible. I mean, they're going to play against Golden State without Kevin tomorrow. Then they have Detroit at home. They go to Dallas. They go to Orlando.

And then they have Minnesota, San Antonio, Utah. They have a lot of, like, oh, we could win a couple here. We could lose a couple here. It's not an easy schedule for them. That's for sure. I know. I'm bummed out that I'm not going to be in Philly for the December 15th game. Thunder Sixers. Oh, damn.

I know. Hmm. Can we Skype you in? Yeah, maybe. Put me on the Jumbotron. Be like, play Markell. Get Markell in there, bitch. Okay.

This has been sources today, the Thanksgiving edition. I'm thankful for the NBA and all of the wonderful storylines. I'm thankful for Juliette Lippman and her great podcasting partnership. Thanks, Chris. That's so nice. I'm thankful for you too. Thanks for listening. Check out more of the.

Ringer MBA show. You can find me on Mondays and Wednesdays. You can find Chris on Wednesdays and Thursdays. And our colleagues, many other days of the week. And don't forget to check out theringer.com. Thanks for listening. And happy holidays. Bye, guys.