The Ringer NBA Show - The Only Playoff Race Left: The Eastern Conference | Heat Check

Episode Date: April 1, 2019

With the Western Conference playoff teams locked in, we shift our focus to the four teams competing for the last three spots in the Eastern Conference (5:39). Then, we examine how media coverage for NBA teams varies across the country (34:50). Host: John Gonzalez Guests: Haley O’Shaughnessy, Bryan Curtis Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Liz Kelly, and welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. Our very own Bill Simmons just released his 500th Bill Simmons podcast episode, featuring Bill Hader talking about HBO's new season of Barry, S&L stories, and favorite movies. And for the very first time, Bill is joined by a long-awaited special guest. He also just recorded a new rewatchables episode on Fast Five with Shay Serrano. And after you listen to The Rewatchables, head over to the Wingy Knit podcast, where Vince and Kent interview the Fast Five episode. star himself ludicrous, where they discuss his career, his new music, and Fast 9. You can find these episodes and much more ring your content on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Heat Check. I'm your host, John Gonzalez.

Join as I am every week by my producer, Isaac Lee. We were both watching the tournament this weekend. Isaac Lee, I sent you a text message. We took a time out, you and I from the NBA to watch some of the tournament. Very exciting stuff. Michigan State's going in the Final Four, baby. Are you a Michigan State fan? Did you not know this about me? No, I did not. Wait, did you actually not know this about me?

No, I'm not doing a bit right now. You went to NYU. No, no, my dad went to Michigan State to get his MBA, so a lot of my childhood was actually spent in East Lansing. Okay. So I'm a diehard Spartan fan. If you didn't know, if any listeners didn't know, that is the case. Congratulations.

We don't often have time or the opportunity to talk about our college allegiances because we're professional basketball podcast. So this doesn't often come up, But now it's good to know. I'll keep that in mind for future reference. But when I texted you this weekend, it wasn't about the actual game. I want you, and you have agreed, you have even agreed, I believe, to cut your hair like that goofy kid on Purdue Harms, I think is his name. Matt Harms, yeah.

He has the most aggressive of all, the aggressive, you know, like every dude now that's like a bro or a hipster has the shave sides and the long hair on top that's like neatly quaffed. But his is like the most aggressive version of it. Yeah. He looks like he should be on an interpol. watch list somewhere. But you have agreed to cut your hair like this. That is, that is incorrect. That is not the truth. I did not agree to cut my hair like Matt Harms. I will say, though, Matt Harms, let's give him a break. He's 21. He's a kid. I've made many, many questionable choices regarding fashion in my youth. I'm sure I'm making some right now as we speak, and I'm sure you have,

I'm sure everyone has. So let's cut the kid a break. At the same time, that haircut screams, I listen to the chain smokers, unironically. And it's so. good. It's the greatest hair cut ever. I told Isaac, and this is a standing offer, this is a true offer, I will give him money. I will start a go fund me for this. And I want you to cut your hair like that. And I want you to do the cutting because you cut Roger Sherman's hair previously. So we're going to have you cut your own hair just like Matt Harms. And for money, I'm going to give you real money for this. American, like actual US currency. Yeah, well, I mean, my haircut isn't super far from that haircut. That's what I'm saying. We wouldn't have to do that much. But I still refuse. I'm not going to do this.

It would have to be a lot of money. If you actually do make a GoFundMe, I'll set some kind of threshold where if you do actually accrue a lot of money. What would the threshold be? Because I'll go home and do this instead of writing. I'm on deadline.

I will go home and I will, Chris Ryan, if you're wondering where my story is, it's not coming because I have to set up a GoFundMe. What is the number for Isaac to cut his hair like that? Oh, man. Maybe $5,000. I was going to say like $1,000. $5,000.

Let's start. Let's see if we can get a thousand. I really don't want this to happen. So $5,000. All right, this is going to have to happen. I never set up a GoFundMe before, but apparently I have a chore for myself later on.

What is this doing? In the interim, everyone, I want to thank you for listening to Heat Check. Please rate and review us and all of our fantastic Ringer, NBA shows and pods. And don't forget about the Ringer.com. It's an excellent website. I highly recommend it.

We've got one shining podcast with Titus and Tatee can find that. You've got Charks on how Duke's greatest recruiting class. Oh, spicy. Is Coach K's greatest failure? I love when Coach K fails. I love when Duke fails. They went down. Rogers got his winners and losers of the Sweet 16 and the elite eight up there.

By the way, Roger Sherman got into it with Rich Eisen. Apparently, they're mortal enemies. Rich Eisen was sitting behind Roger Sherman at one of the games and was busting Roger Sherman's balls for having his ass crack out. He did a whole thing on his radio show. So I highly recommend you go find Rich Eisen's rant about Roger and read Roger's stuff. And Roger's going to be on the Rich Eisen show, I believe. It's today, I think. It's going to happen.

Make sure you check out those two. That's going to be excellent. We've got Palo on Tray Young and the ascendant Atlanta Hawks. Later on the program, we'll talk to Haley O'Shaughnessy about them. And on a much more serious note, Dan Devine has a piece on the ringer.com about the sexual assault allegations against Chris Stapp's Porzengas. So you want to check that out as well. Later in the show, Brian Curtis will be here to talk about what it's like to cover certain NBA teams, including the Milwaukee Bucks. They have a very interesting media dynamic for those of you who are interested in how.

how the sausage gets made, how we do our jobs, how we cover the NBA. Brian Curtis is excellent at that. He's written a bunch of pieces about it. His latest one on the Milwaukee Bucks will talk to him about that. But first, but first, it's been too long. It's been too long, He-Chek listeners. We've got to bring in one of our favorites. Let's do it.

Boone Shackalaka. He's heating up. All right, joining me in the studio. It's been too long, frankly. It's one of my favorites here at Heechek. Stafforda, Haley, O'Shaughnessy. Thank you very much. You're here.

It's a lovely introduction. It's been too long since I've seen you. It's been way too long. Your staff writer extraordinaire, you cover all things basketball. You are also, before you even get into basketball, I don't know how much people know this about you, but you've got money. You've got action in various basketball realms that are happening everywhere. I don't know what you're about to reveal. That's fine.

Talk about all my gambling problems. You and House are my resident gambling officiados. I forgot what you tweeted recently, but it made me reply on Twitter. I've like basically gotten out of the Twitter game. Yeah, yeah, because you tweeted something, this is not probably all that interesting for the listeners because I can't remember what it was. Was it Zion's line yesterday? Maybe, but I likened you to Minnesota Fats. You're a generation's Minnesota Fats.

You're an accomplished gambler. Thank you. Well, I mean, I'm down right now. Are you? Thank you. Was the tournament rough? The tournament was great yesterday, but overall recently. This is why I don't gamble anymore.

I spent a long time gambling in my youth. I'm well past. I'm post- Youth now. But in my youth, I gambled. And I realized as somebody who covered sports for a living, that I don't know anything about sports. And I should stop gambling on it. I only do it. It's a good way to do that. It's the only reason. It's a good way to do that. You're humble. I'm humble. You know who else has been humbled recently? This is a transition, professional transition. The Oklahoma City Thunder. That was masterful. Thank you so much. I do this for a living. I'm a professional. Haley O'Shaughnessy, to bring it full circle to things I don't know about sports. I would say within like the last two months, I had a conversation with my buddy, Paul Flannery,

he shouts to Flan over at SB Nation, where he and I were both convincing ourselves that the Oklahoma City Thunder could be a problem for other teams in the Western Conference playoffs because their defense had been so good. And then they immediately started sucking. Since the All-Star break, they've lost 14 of their last 21 games. They are 28th and offensive efficiency over that period. They have completely cratered, including an up to over the weekend, losing to the Luka-List Dallas Mavericks. Helio Shaughnessy, the Thunder are in freefall. You know, since the All-Star break,

the Thunder have the worst point differential in the NBA. This is good. This is good stat knowledge. Yeah, and before it, they had posted the eighth best. So it's worse. Oh, yeah, I would say that that's worse. I'd say that worse. Yeah. Here's the thing.

Exactly what you were talking about before, defense is also where they've fallen off. And you listed the offensive rating, but there's also a matter of intensity on defense that is no longer there. I don't know how much of this has to do with, I mean, conspiracy theory. I'm not convinced that Paul George is right. Yeah?

And I think that makes you think that. Well, because for the longest time, the shoulder issues. Yeah, it's lingering shoulder energy. It came out that people were really worried about it beforehand. And the other thing about it is that if he's not performing well, they have Russ, who will always be their go-to scorer. Sure. But he's even not reliable from the perimeter.

And he's cranky. Some would say historically not reliable. And they also do not have another go-to guy. Who are you going to go to third, Dennis Schroeder? Yeah, it's weird because there were times this season where I looked at their roster and I thought that they were deeper that they had a guy like Dennis Schroeder who you'd be like, okay, he could contribute a little bit here. Nerlin's had a role. Jeremy Grant has come along. They are sneaky deep.

Is this, did I? Wow. Wow. Is this two in a row? That actually is so in this. Two shows in a row. defense of myself here. I had my phone turned off this time, Isaac, but it went through my computer.

So I forgot to mute my computer. So I was felt by technology and by the synchronicity of these two things. My face time will pull up on my laptop and I'll like see my reflection. I'll be like, oh, I'll be like writing. We're like three hours into writing. I have a little piece of tape over my camera because I am paranoid. Because you've seen like two teenage movies where they got hacked? No, I watch.

60 minutes. One time again, I'm post- Youth. I'm well-washed, so I get all my news from like newspapers and legacy media sources. All right, so we've gone completely off the rest here, but the Oklahoma City Thunder, there were a point in time this season where I thought that they were deeper and that they had guys who knew their roles, and it wasn't just, you know, Paul George rescue us. And now I'm back to the beginning where I was at the end of last season, thinking, man, this team doesn't happen nearly enough. And to your point about who do they go to after the top two guys, I don't know the answer to that question. I think that they do have a deep roster in some aspects.

Dennis Schroeder being behind Russell Westbrook is something he hasn't had in a very long time. Yeah. That kind of backup. And it's not to say that he can't go off for a game and give them what they need. But the thing is, is like, you can't rely on that every single game. I think the reason why we don't think of them as deep anymore is because they're missing what every NBA team needs in 2019, which is like a flawless shooter. Yeah, they have some holes there for sure.

And I think, like, it's starting to aggravate Russ. After the game, after they lost to Dallas, one of the OKC media members asked Russ, hey, is there any lingering concerns about the way that this team has played? And he next questioned him, no comment, and tried to get out of it. Like, this is not atypical for Russ. He can be a little prickly with the media. My whole thing is, hey, guy, like, you can stick your head in the sand if you want to, but everybody knows what you're doing.

Like, we can see you doing it. So you might as well just address this and be professional about it. You can next question me all you want, but the next question is going to be about the concerns that you should have. And he rarely gets those questions anymore where it's pinpointing what I think he might be growing a little insecure about. Although I don't know that Russell Westbrook ever gets insecure about anything, but it's shooting in late games. And that also affected them yesterday. Yeah, he's had a really bad shooting season. And yet, and yet, despite the fact that I would be concerned were I part of the Oklahoma City Thunder or if I rooted for them, right now,

they'd be matched up with Warriors. That is obviously no Bueno for them. However, they are tied with the San Antonio Spurs for that last spot. At present, the Spurs would be in the seven seed. But if they could somehow finagle their way into that seven seed, they'd get a matchup with the Denver Nuggets, who, as listeners to the Heat Check program, know, I like, but I'm still concerned about in basically any 2-7 matchup

with the Spurs, Clippers, Thunder, Jazz, if somehow the jazz fell off. That, to me, feels like a toss-up, especially because you look at what just happened with the Nuggets. Nuggets lost at home to the friggin' wizards. It boils down to the fact that against the Warriors, the Thunder are going out in the first round. Against the Nuggets, we were not so sure. Nobody knows.

So if you are the Thunder, this is my expert sports commentary, Haley O'Shaughnessy, is that the Thunder should get out of that eight seat. Oh, that's a good idea. Yeah, they should move up out of there. They don't want to play the Warriors. They should probably start scoring more. They should score more than the other team. And then play defense.

I would guess allow less points than they put up. I've been thinking about this a lot, and I think that that's a good strategy. I don't know if you're like inside sources on the team, but you might want to read that. I'm pretty well sourced up, as people know. Rest team's open to suggestions. I'll go and talk to Russ about this. Why don't you just go to a game and just like scream it from the sidelines just in case you can't get to him otherwise? I can't imagine.

I mean, like, less thunder media tangent here, but I can't imagine having less pressure on you than being in Oklahoma City. No disrespect to Oklahoma City, but it's not a massive media market. And we're going to talk to Brian Curtis later on in the president. program about covering various NBA teams. But if you're Russ and you get your backup about being asked a very simple question, what kind of concerns do you have about your team at a time when they're not playing well? You get your backup about that. My God, man, you couldn't have it any easier than that.

What if you were in a, like, even a medium-sized media market? You'd be fucked. You'd be screwed. Yeah, it'd be a lot different if he was in L.A. Dealing with all the pressure they had this year. I mean, like, or just any... Not that the Thunder don't have pressure. I didn't mean that.

But dealing with the LeBron, you know, added pressure. Yeah, the crucible of like, oh, God, I got to like go and talk to this massive media contingent in the press scrum again today. And I know they're going to bust my balls because we haven't been any good. You can't just no comment your way out of that. Like, be a little bit more professional. That's all I'm saying. He's just here to get paid. Let's bring it back.

So a big day talking about the media here at He Check. We're going to do more of it later with Brian Curtis. All right. Let's go to the Eastern Conference because I wanted to talk to you about the back end, that eighth seed race is still up for grabs. You've got the pistons, the nets, the heat, the magic. The Hornets are pretty much out of it at this point. What do you make of this whole grouping? Is there anybody here that would scare you where you say the Bucks or the Raptors?

No. No, you're not scared by any of them. Just hope that the Nets don't fall. I was going to say the Nets are in that group. The Nets are just a half game ahead of the heat for that last spot and just one game ahead of the magic. Of the Nets Heat magic. Absolutely, Brooklyn. Yeah.

The heat are always a tough team. Last season we saw that in the first round. They're a little scrappy. Sixers, yeah, they're scrappy. They do have one player with a lot of experience being a former superstar who's still actively playing through his retirement. Yeah, he's still out there doing stuff. I see him more on commercials.

The magic just don't have enough. It's unfortunate because I love Vooch, but... I still don't understand. I mean, I do understand, but I don't truly understand why the magic made such a concerted push for the playoffs this season. know that it made, like you talk to people around the league and they're like, the magic really want to make the playoffs. And it means a lot to them and to their fan base.

And I'm like, it does. Why? Why is that? I think it's the same as the Kings who were better than the Magic this season. But it's like, it's been so long. You know, you just, you want to see that you're trending upward. And for the Magic who did the same type of thing as the Nets as the Kings, you see them getting all this positive attention.

Even to some degree, I guess the Clippers, although they've had much more success in the past couple years and the Nets and the Kings, you see them getting all this attention and optimism post-rebuild and the magic are like, wait, we were on the same trajectory and we're not getting any of that attention. We had our draft pick, you know, and they've had some of the struggles that the Kings and the Nets have not. And so I think that they're just like, we need to like stay on par with them. Well, if they don't make it now, then they really bone themselves.

Yeah, it's smarter for them not to make it. Although I will say, like with the new lottery odds, why not to try to go for it? That's how I feel about the entire thing. Like, I feel completely about it. I mean, like, even if they make it in, they're going to be a first round out, most likely, unless, like, some miracle happens. I would have, please don't have the magic in the second round. Right. I'm sorry, Kevin Clark, but Jesus, that'd be so bad.

I would rather have them, like, hard right into a concerted, serious tank than being in this, like, mediocre middle where, like, if they get in, like, hazza, like, that's just like a little tap on their head. I know, but I do think that. Congratulations, you made the playoffs, really? This has been a season where a lot of the teams who have been hardcore tanking are kind of bouncing back. We're almost seeing that, whereas before the league was extremely separated between teams who were obviously going for it and teams who knew they couldn't. So they were tanking. Some of those most serious tanking teams are starting to come a little bit more to the middle, even the Hawks, who now have the fourth worst record in the East. It's not like they're the worst team in the NBA anymore.

You see them on a trajectory now again. back toward the middle. Because eventually you have to go back toward the middle. You can't always be the sixers where it's like, oh, Ben Simmons, Jell and B. All of a sudden we're propelled back to the playoffs. It doesn't happen like that for every team, and maybe it will next year with the Hawks if they get Zion,

or with the Knicks, if they can get Kyrie and KD. But there is middle ground for many of these teams. That's how it's going to have to be for the Hawks, for the Bulls, for the Wizards, for the Magic, for the Hornets, if they keep Kemba, if they don't keep Kemba, they're going straight to the bottom. even for the wolves, for the pelicans, for the grizzlies, like they're going to all have to go halfway.

I didn't mean to get into bottom of the Eastern Conference conversation, but- Is that not your favorite thing to talk about? It's not what I wanted to discuss. I wanted to talk about the Eastern Conference playoff race. However, you bring up a point, and it's intriguing to me, and it's something that I wanted to ask you about because we have a very weird group of NBA fans here at the Ringer,

and there is an inordinate, to my mind, amount of Atlanta Hawks fandom. Like we have some hawk stands here? I will say today. Where are you on the hawks? Because like I don't understand. I understand that people look at their group and go, oh, they're doing it the right way. And they're coming up and Trey Young and Herder and the whole bit.

And I'm like, man. It is very early Warriors-esque. Oh, Jesus Christ. Did you just say Warriors-esque? They are trying to build the same way the Warriors built this team. It's true. I mean, they hired people away from the Warriors. They're like trying to build it literally from the ground up.

This is the hottest take in heat check history. This has been said before. They're Warriors East. No, no, no, no, no. You, and Trey Young is Steph Curry. I did not say Warriors East. I said their start is Warriors. I'm helping you along.

Oh, okay. Esk. So it's a couple of letter tweaks. Jesus, I'll put that on my back. So, as Haley O'Shaughnessy just said on heat check, next year's champion, Atlanta Hawks. Everybody's very excited about that. Put money on that.

All right. So of this group then, it's just the Nets that you would say, you're a little bit fearful of. Before we move on, I want to shout out, Paulo, he wrote a feature on Trey Young, who was super propelled the Hawks into this fun second half of the season. So definitely read that feature. Are you believer in him beyond good stats, bad team?

Like, are you a true believer in Trey Young? I'm starting to become, yeah. Me too. Before early in the season, like, no, I couldn't shit on him enough. But you're wrong. I'm wrong. It happens. I'm wrong all the time, as I told you. Other than the Nets, no, I don't.

I mean, now the Pacers are in the fifth seed, so I don't know if we're counting that as, like, bottom. I mean, the Pacers are a team unto themselves because I can never figure them out. I thought with Depot, they could make some noise. Without Depot, I thought they would fall off completely. They really haven't. They've only won three of their last 10 games, and yet they're still in that four or five mix. I mean, they have the toughest schedule or do they have the toughest schedule? Hold on.

They've been absolutely crushed the last two years by the schedule makers. Last year, they won on a really long road trip at the end of the season. same thing happened again this season where the schedule makers did them absolutely no favors whatsoever. So for them to even have this kind of year, I think is to their credit. I mean, to end up in that four or five seat, even if they don't have home court advantage and the home court advantage goes to the Celtics, still a win for them without Deepa. Okay, no, sorry, the nets have the toughest remaining schedule. And then where are the Pacers? The Pacers are all the way at 14, but they did earlier. I mean, they've bumped down significantly because of the last couple stretch of games that

they've had to play. But right now, they're in the fifth, Celtics are in the fourth. The Pacers are who the Celtics were last year. If that's a series, I'm totally betting on the Pacers. You've got the Pacers in the series. I like this. We'll talk more about, I'll bring you back with House and you guys could tell me what, where to wager my wife's money. Before we continue, before you go to write all kinds of different, she's got the money. I work at the ringer. We have a series going on that you've been heavily involved with called Podium Guys. and it's basically like which guys could end up in the playoffs talking to the media on the podium,

not like the superstar guys. These are guys who you'd look at and go, oh, they just had a really good game. The guys who get pulled. Get them to the podium. Right. So we've had three so far, and this will be continuing as the playoffs approach.

So let's just go through, because this dovetails nicely with the Eastern Conference playoff picture. One of the ones that we've had, Pascal Seaccom. Tell us why he could end up as a podium guy. You know, I pitched him for the series, and I almost was hesitant in doing

so because I think by the end of this playoffs he's going to be a star. He already kind of is. He already kind of is. He's had a killer season. I think because it's Toronto and they always are undercovered even this season, there's not part of like national, national NBA media. Like the Knicks probably have more coverage than them sometimes and like the Knicks are terrible. So I think that that's one reason, but the playoffs will fix that.

And also where he started compared to where he is now is so great and vast that like, I mean, he's my most improved player. It's such a big deal for them. Like, one, he's easily the third best player. You could maybe even make a case that he's their second best player. And that contract that he's... I'm not big on Kyle Lowry, so I think he is. He might be.

And then that contract that is on really helps the Raptors big time with team building. So you're right. It is kind of a great fuzzy area because the idea of podium players is that they're supposed to be like, they can be really good, but they probably can't be stars. Right. Because if they're stars, then like, they're going to be on the podium anyway. Right. I saw this was my last opportunity to pitch him as this kind of person. But if you're not familiar with him, I think that you will be impressed by his defense, especially in the playoffs, but really impressed by his energy.

This is the most fun thing about him. He's such a fun player to watch. He literally never stops moving. Yeah, I think that this is probably the last year where we could even consider him for this because he's, he, from the beginning of the year till now, he's taken such a massive step forward that we can't after this season probably rightly. be surprised by Pascal Seaccom. We shouldn't be, no. And I think, I'm hoping that's what we see in the playoffs because I'm, as always, wishing the best for the Raptors, especially since LeBron's not in the East anymore. But. This could be it.

This could be the year. He could be on the podium. He's flashy by nature. His game is flashy. His nickname is Spicy P. I love it. He's flashy by nature. I think this playoffs is really going to shot it.

Flashy by nature sounds like a naughty by, oh, well, naughty by nature. It's very close. All right. Another guy, we talked about the Pacers. It sounds like a crime. We talked about the Pacers and I don't know what to make of them post Depot. And we've discussed them on Heat Check previously where on any given night you could watch the Pacers and have no idea who their guy is going to be on that night. Right.

So that makes them perfect for podium players because they have a whole team of potential podium player candidates. One of whom, I guess if you were really going to try to pin down, like who their best player has been post Oladipo going down, it would probably be Bogdanovich. I think so, maybe more so than Miles Turner, because Miles Turner was always supposed to be good. And he's had a good year that shouldn't go accredited. But again, with Depot down, he's probably everyone would call them their best player, or at least their most identifiable player. He's definitely stepped up as a score in Olo Depot's absence. And the Pacers don't actually shoot that many three. So the threes that he shoots are crucial.

They need the offense. They need the offense. And he's been the one to step up. Yeah, his stats post Ola Depot injury have been really good. I won't run off the stats. Oh, I guess we should clarify. We're not still talking about Miles Turner. No, we're talking about Bogdanovich.

But as we said, they really need that offense. And they've been sort of hit or miss since the injury. I mean, yes, they have stayed in that four or five mix. But they're 13 and 17 since Ola Depot went down, which is the same record as our esteemed producer, Isaac Lee, noted in our show outline, the same record as the Atlanta Hawks. your ascendant, soon to be NBA champion, Golden State Warriors East Atlanta Hawks. Paul was going to be so mad. He didn't get to have this take first.

He loves the hawks. She came in here, Pal, because I know you listen to Hechecks. She came in and she's like, fuck that dude. I'm taking his take. And she did. She's just fucking throwing bombs. But I would love to see Bogdanovich on the podium. One, because I always was amused by Ernie Grunfeld trading a first round pick for him

and then letting him walk to the Pacers. Shouts to my guy, Ernie, our favorite GM here at Heech. But two, unless something really truly goes awry, they're going to be matched up with the Boston Celtics in the first round. And let's go Pacers. Right. I just think that the Pacers have figured out something. They figured out who to be together as a group in a way that the Celtics have not. And it's that simple for me.

I'm here for Team Unity. All right. Last podium player before I let you go. You guys had Eric Bledsoe on this list, which I think is very interesting. I don't want to be here. He didn't want to be here. He was at the hair salon, he said, which as everybody. knows when you're at the hair salon, you got a GTFO. But he got, he went to, you're not washed.

I'm super. I'm super washed. I wrote it down. I took a little note. Eric Bloodsoe, he's reemerged. I've always liked Eric Bloodsoe on paper. You know, like LeBron was always stumping for Eric Bledso as like a mini him. I always thought he could be a pretty good defensive player. He can shoot. He can handle. He's got a good size body. But he never really put it all together. And even last year when he first landed with the box, kind of disappointing, but under Bud, he's been good. Well, I think that it's reasonable that he was not who he is this year last year because of the coaching situation.

He was on a new team. This year, it's really highlighted what he can do best. Bud has all but eliminated Bloodsose mid-range game. He now takes less than one attempt a game. He's stretched out, but he really averages the same amount of threes he was taking before, but he drives so much more frequently, and that's good. because the way the bucks are set up, they're very spread out. I think he's the third best player on that team.

Chris Middleton is number two. Now, this is a very divisive topic on the heat check program because Isaac Lee, unbeknownst to me, I love Chris Middleton. I think he's hyper underrated. He's got a player option for $13 million on his contract this year, which he's definitely going to opt out of and become an unrestricted free agent. He's going to get paid because he's really good. Isaac Lee, however, does not think he's very good and tweeted this.

Chris Middleton is just a homeless man. fans, Kauai Leonard, feel like that's insulting, whose biggest skill is that he plays alongside Janice, and they really put him in the All-Star over Tobias Harris and Gallo. Isaac Lee, on the night that you tweeted this, he put 39 on the Clippers, defend yourself. I mean, those are not two separate instances. It was because he was playing so well

that I wanted to tweet this out just to, like, you know, poke fun. I obviously don't believe in this spice. Chris Milton's really good player. I guess, like, less homeless man's, Kauai Leonard, more like, Poor man's Kauai Leonard, right? Like, he does a lot of the things that Kauai does. He can drive, he can shoot. He plays really, really solid defense.

He has those long arms. But I will say, playing next to Yonis, it really helps your game. It does. As it turns out, when you have Yonis just, like, sucking the gravity of the court into his presence. I don't think that's a knock on Chris, though.

No, no, no, it's not a knock. I'm just saying, I'm just saying if there was any truth to this spice, it's that he does play next to Yonis, and that does help him. Chris Middleton is a very good player at both ends of the floor. I don't think he gets nearly enough credit. Certainly he's been disparaged by many people, not just Isaac Lee,

but where are you on the Chris or Eric, who's the second best player? It's Chris. There you go. That's the right take. He's too good to be a podium guy. I think he's expected to be up there a lot with Janus. With Bloodsoe, though, I think he has potential to be pulled a lot post-game because another instance where he's going to be useful in the playoffs

is when they need him in clutch moments. The thing about playing next to Janus, although it makes you much better, like Isaac Lee said, is that Janus does not have the skill set to finish a game in every situation. He's not going to be the one that you inbound after a timeout. He takes a three. Whereas Eric Bletso, they have used before in these types of situations and he's hit these shots. I'm excited for playoff, Yannis. I'm excited for playoff Chris Middleton and Eric Blitzow, potentially being a podium player.

Make sure to check out the podium player series. Haley will be writing a bunch of those. I learned a long time ago. Never asked Haley O'Shaun who see what she's working on. She's working on too many things. All top secret. It's all going to be on the ringer.com. Make sure to check her out on that and check her out as one third.

She's one third of the chatters on group chat on Thursdays with Justin Verrier and Palo O'Getti. Haley, thank you. Thank you. All right, thanks to Haley O'Shaughness. She is always excellent. Make sure to read all of her stuff before we go on to Brian Curtis. Let me tell you about the NBA watch of the night. people, we've got the heat at the Celtics on NBA TV,

playoff seating implications, heat trying to get into the playoffs. Boston is trying to hold onto some home court advantage and keep that foreseed over the Pacers. Miami, they've been kind of scuffling, you know, like they're always at this time of year, like a little bit of a problem. And if they get into the playoffs, who knows what would happen, but they've been without Josh Richardson for a little bit. So that's been kind of problematic.

Kyrie was resting and then not resting. I just want to say this, Isaac. I don't want to go too. far out on the limb here, but go heat. I actually will have to contradict you on that. Go Celtics because we discussed a little gambling with Haley. I have quite a few units

allocated to the Orlando Magic winning the division. In order for that to happen, the heat must lose. I have several questions about this. Okay. Are you often a unit wager? You know, at the beginning of the season,

I pulled together some money from my savings and allocations. And allocated it to certain wagers. So you bet money. Like at the beginning of the season, you took money out of your savings. And you decided the best way to allocate those funds was on the Orlando magic?

Well, I thought they'd be really, really good. And listen, I'm kind of proven right. They're fighting for the eight seed. I just didn't see Miami being good. I didn't see the wizards being good. Has ever said the sentence, I thought they'd be really good.

Even Kevin Clark would think that that's inadvisable for you to bet. money on the Orlando magic being really, really good. Well, no, no, let me amend that statement. It's not that I thought the Orlando Magic would be really good. I thought that the Heat and the Wizards and the rest of the division would be bad.

Okay. Which turned out to be true. This is incredible. I've learned so many things about you today. You're a degenerate gambler. You're bad at it. You're a Michigan State fan and you're going to cut your hair like Matt Harms. It's wonderful. Oh, God. No, please. Don't forget Heat at Celtics on NBA TV

followed by just a barn burner. You're going to want to stick around for the double header. It's calves at suns. That's going to be a good one on NBA TV. Remember, gang, if you want to watch every NBA game, subscribe to NBA League Pass on NBA.com or from your preferred video provider. And before we go to Brian Curtis, a word from our sponsors. Today's episode of He Check is brought to you by ZipRecruiter.

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He's a media writer extraordinaire. He's my favorite, Brian with a Y, just barely ahead of Brian Colangelo. It's Brian Curtis. Proud to be a repeat offender, God. How you doing? Excellent, my friend. You, I love every time you write.

I'm always excited when you write. But you recently have written about a topic that is near and dear to my heart, which is the semi-metta topic of covering the NBA. And you wrote about it in the context of the Milwaukee Bucks, who whenever I'm like around a small market team, like it always fascinates me how that team is covered by some of these guys. And the Bucks might have one of the most interesting situations in the NBA.

Yeah, they really do. As an NBA reporter extraordinaire, you know that the one-on-one with the NBA superstar is like the most precious commodity you could have, and often heavily, heavily negotiated. Right. Absolutely. You go to Milwaukee and those with Janus,

but it's a one-on-one by default because them, and one of them, Matt Velasquez, who writes to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, told me for this piece that, you know, a lot of the times he just doesn't even bother Janus. He's like, you know what? He's sitting there. It's just the two of us, but, you know,

just give him a day off and I'll go talk to somebody else. That's incredible. That's incredible. I mean, like, I, so to pull back the curtain a little bit for people who don't cover the MPA and just like listening to people talk about it or watching it, I can't stress heavily enough what Brian just said about how, how much you have to negotiate a one-on-one with somebody of Janus's caliber. Like, at that level, it's not generally like you're just going to go and grab him at practice. Because if you do, there'll be 47 other maniacs who want to jump in on your interview with him and talk to him too. So to get a one-on-one with somebody of, you know, an all-star level or better, it takes forever. So these guys to just have three guys on the beat and to be able to grab them at will is a luxury. But one of the guys on the beat is really incredible. This is my favorite part of the story. A guy named Kane Pitman is one of the three people on the Bucks beat.

And he's Australian and he quit his job and moved to America to try to become a sports writer, which I'm blown away by this. Like what an incredibly, I don't know if it's bossy or bad. in terms of like ideas go, but it's really amazing. Yeah, he lived in, he lived in Geelong, which is outside Melbourne. And he just moved to Milwaukee. So first of all, let's just marvel at that, you know, kind of trans, continental move. But the second thing is, is nobody is paying came to be a B-Wix Bewriter.

It's not like some website or newspaper in Australia said, yeah, let's go cover this and we'll send you a weekly check. He didn't pay for this. So he took his savings that he'd accumulated over a couple years working in a gas refinery in outside of Melbourne. And he moved to Milwaukee. He got an apartment. He has full media credentials. He goes every day.

He goes, he's in the scrums. He's asking questions. He's going to all the games. He is funding his own travel to road games, as many as he can afford. Amazing. And he's doing this on his own time. And it's sort of an audition. So hopefully someone in the media will hire him to cover.

the Bucks or some other team next year. I'm rooting for him. I know that he's getting some work from ESPN Australia and Melbourne and Harold's son that you said, but obviously that's not going to cover. It's expensive to cover the NBA. It's very expensive to go on the road and cover the NBA and that he's doing this as an attempt to make his dream a reality.

I'm rooting for him. But I wonder, like, what would you have advised him? Because I'm sure that you get this too, but frequently I'll have people reach out and say, hey, how do I do what you do? And I'm like, I don't know if you want to either. like the media business is kind of fickle. And like we have a job today, but who knows about tomorrow?

Like, what would you have advised him if he said to you before he did this? Brian, here's my plan. That's a great question. I mean, I think it's a little different because there's this whole, I spent some time in Australia last year and there's this whole dynamic there where the NBA is growing incredibly in popularity, especially with young people in Australia. So they want to cover the NBA. But you can't really do that from over there unless you're just sort of blogging and

and having fun. So it's sort of like you and I really wanting to cover Aussie rules football. And we look around and say, well, the ringer, the ringer's not going to pay us to do that. So I guess I got to go to Australia and figure it out and hope that I can convince people, even though I'm the ultimate fish out of water, that they should hire me. I mean, I just, to me, it's like one of those things, though, if he didn't do it, I'm guessing that guy would have wished, you know, spent years and years, maybe his whole life saying, man, I should just giving that a shot. You said in your piece that he like just picked up and moved here and decided to do this

and left his family behind. When you said family, does he have like a wife or a girlfriend back there? You just mean his like extended family? Yeah, somebody on Twitter asked me that he does not, he has not married, no kids. It's just his supportive family people he knows. I had this idea of him like telling his wife and kids, I'm going out for a pack of smokes and then now he's like in the cover in the NBA. But it's still a good story.

I'm rooting for Kane. But the idea about how they interact with superstars because there's so few of them and because they have such incredible access is really interesting to me. There was a point in the story where you said in addition to like kind of leaving Janus alone at times, they also are careful, I guess, in how they couch certain questions. There was a moment during the season where Janus and Ben Simmons, speaking of our Australian buddies, got into it. And Janus appeared to have said that Ben Simmons was a fucking baby. which immediately, if I'm at that game, that's the number one thing I'm asking Janus about. Like, first question.

They didn't ask him about it. They didn't ask him about it straight away anyway. And afterwards, Janus said to one of them, it might have been Kane. I forgot, he was like, yeah, I like the way that you asked it, basically saying, like, way to not ask it, which I thought was kind of curious.

Yeah, I mean, it's, I think, you know, Janus talks all the time about how the best thing to happen to him coming from the Greek Sea League is to have been in Milwaukee where there's not a lot of pressure. You don't have crazy Laker fans or Nick's fans or anything like that. And I think the media part of that is the second part of the question. And it's not to dog those guys at all, but it's just to say it's a totally different environment than if you were somewhere else. You know, that would have been the back page in the New York Post 1,000% if you were to the next day.

In Milwaukee, it's a note, it's a paragraph, it's, somewhere in somebody's story the next day, but it's not this crazy tabloid obsession. And I think Yonis has probably benefited from that more than anybody. Yeah, and I want to make clear here that I'm not knocking those guys. It's, I just find it interesting because I grew up in a decidedly different media environment in Philadelphia where exactly what you said. Not only would that have been my number one question, that would have been my cone. That would have been the thing that I asked other players about.

I would have gone immediately to Ben Simmons and asked Ben Simmons about it just because like, that's the way that I'm wired. and I couldn't imagine not doing it. And I think that there's like this in outposts like Milwaukee and Oklahoma City, which I want to get to in a second because you've also written about covering that team. There are smaller markets, medium markets, Memphis as well, where when you go, it's got a sort of throwback, old-timey, like feeling to it where like, I never experienced this, but I've talked to other writers who have where it was like,

oh, yeah, you could go grab a beer with a player afterwards and like you had a more intimate relationship with them. I've done a bunch of NBA ones now. It is a reminder, even as we sit at the epicenter of NBA excitement at the ringer, that the NBA, you know, a lot of markets is just not that big. In Milwaukee, it is way behind the Packers. The idea that there'd be one reporter at any Packers game or even any Packers practice is ridiculous. They would just, they would have a squad.

Everybody has a squad there. It just would never happen. And the NBA is growing crazily and growing crazily on the World stage. But it's just, again, I'm reminded of this every time I go back to Dallas, place where you spend a lot of time, too, is that it's just not. It is not that way everywhere. And it's possible to just have a very small little media contingent. That's it. I think it's fascinating. And it hits me all the time. And I don't know why I'm not used to it by now, but whenever I'm in a small market or small market team comes to L.A. or Philly or some

other city that I'm in. And I see the group that's with them. I'm like, oh, yeah, that's right. There's not, you know, 20 maniacs screaming at LeBron today because it's a smaller group. We mentioned OKC, you've done a piece on them. You did, I would argue, the definitive piece about covering that team. And it's interesting to me because there are some parallels with the Milwaukee Bucks and how they're covered as well. But the Oklahoma City Thunder have not played well post-All-Star break. They've lost 14 of their last 21 games. Russell Westbrook, not excited it after they lost to the Dallas Mavericks without Luca Donkatch over the weekend.

and so they were asked, rightly so, pretty professional and obvious and straightforward question, hey, Russ, are you concerned at all about the Thunder and how they've played recently? And he next questioned them and looked to the media, to the PR guy for the Thunder to kind of like shut things down. And as somebody who has written about that team and covering that team, I felt like there were some parallels to your piece where it was, oh yeah, they're sort of overprotective of Russ and he gets his backup about these things. Yeah, I think it turns out to be a combination of two things. One is just what kind of players do you have in the locker room? And Russ is just not a guy who I don't think if you were playing anywhere

would be particularly excited about answering questions and we'll probably have tense moments with the media no matter what, as he does on the court. You know, I mean, that's just Russ. That's him. That's what he does. But the second part of it is an organizational thing. And we hear lots of stuff in the NBA about culture, but I definitely think there's a culture at a lot of these franchises about how they deal with the media.

And the culture in Oklahoma City when I was there, and again, it was a couple years ago, so my anecdotes are all a little dated from Sam Presti on down was we regard the media with a certain amount of paranoia. You know, we keep them at a distance. We don't invite them in as opposed to a franchise like Golden State. And so what happens is I find that filters down to the players. I mean, I think one of the biggest examples is KD. When he was in Oklahoma City, there were so many bad moments with the press. Now, he had that one a couple of months ago, but really he's been a very different guy in Golden State.

And I think that's just because that franchise says, hey, come on in here. Talk to our guys. You want to, you know, five, ten minutes with Steph, we can probably make that happen. You want to walk up to Steph's locker, we can probably make that happen. And it's just an interesting difference. And semi-meta, word you used earlier is very good, I think. There is this kind of semi-meta zone where it's like the real. reason players are acting like this and the reason you're reading certain stories about players

has to do with the culture of the franchise. I'm fascinated by that dichotomy and that difference, like the juxtaposition of how it's handled in OKC versus how it's handled with the Warriors, because you would think if a team was going to get its backup and try to be protective, they have so many stars that maybe it would be a team like the Warriors. But I also think that there's sort of like an avalanche of media coverage when you get to it, when you're a part of a team that's that talented and that good and has so many interesting players that you can't hold it off. So maybe you just go with it to get along.

And maybe with OKC, it's, you know, they don't have to deal with the crush of media all the time. So when they do get certain questions, they're not as practiced. It's not as comfortable. They're not as used to it. Maybe part of it is cultural and organizational ethos. And maybe part of it is just like experiential. You don't have that much experience dealing with people like me asking questions about

why'd you call Ben Simmons a fucking baby? Oh, that totally right. I mean, you know, one is very trample. down there in Oklahoma, you know, being a guy who just doesn't care, is just going to go and ask questions that he's not worried about it. But also, yeah, and I think like in the Warriors example, right, like the Warriors is a classic what I'm just talking about with the bus. Here is a team that in the Bay Area was begging people to come cover the team

years and years and years. Please cover the Warriors because all anybody cares about is a Giants and 49ers. So, you know, they're probably still in some way in that mode, right, even though there's been so much attention and other franchises. And again, that's the only pro game and town in Oklahoma City, so maybe that plays in a different way. Yeah, and then you compare and contrast that to a team like the Lakers who, obviously, because we're in L.A., and because of the Lakers, they're always going to have a pretty big media

contingent. But when LeBron came this year, it was decidedly different, not only in terms of the number of people, but in the way that they were covered, because I found over the last couple of years that the Lakers was kind of a soft beat, there were a number of people who were covering the team, but they were bad and they were young. and like there's not a lot of time to get your knives out and sharpen them and like get after the team. And now with LeBron on the team, all that changes. Like you see a guy like Dave McMedman who does a great, great job with ESPN.

He leaves Cleveland. He moves to L.A. to follow LeBron to cover LeBron. And he just did a long piece about everything that went wrong with the Lakers. And it was a long list. And it was, I think, like, in sharp contrast to the way that the team has been covered over the last few seasons. Yeah, I'd add the one name I put in terms of, of people who've treated that beat like a place to sharpen your knives as Baxter Holmes when he was actually their beat writer at ESPN.

You know, and he published in the waning days of Kobe a bunch of really in the nice way pieces about the Lakers. But yeah, I agree. And I think, I mean, one is that LeBron just brought all this new talent to the beat. There's also this fascinating dynamic with the Lakers because LeBron has really cultivated the three or four beat writers he sees every day. He did that in Cleveland and he did that in L.A. And what he did was he was really nice to them.

He talked to them off the record a lot. He was a really accessible superstar, even though he never, of course, had the situation that Janus does was a one player standing around. He really reached out to those guys to make sure they felt like this dude wants to talk to us.

Doesn't mean we're going to write something nice about him every day. Doesn't mean we're going to pull a punch, but he is engaged in with us. But the other thing that's happened in LA is all of a sudden he has old media, right? Bill Plashky over at the LA Times. Bill Plashky is not a member of NBA Twitter. He didn't care. And if he wrote a really good,

I thought a really good column over the weekend, he's just like, this was terrible. This was terrible. He's kind of been writing that all the season. Like, this is awful. This is a joke. You know, I think when the whole LeBron media thing started, remember LeBron didn't give a press conference when he signed with the Lakers. Instead, they sent Polinka out there to read from a Paulo Coelhollow novel, which is the one of the most surreal media things I can ever remember my entire life. credible with the media. He's got these weird folksy stories that he tells and he goes off on tangents. He's amazing. Bible quotes? Yeah. It's like, you know, your English TA from college, you know, that's running a basketball team. But, you know, it's also a thing of just like this whole

LeBron thing where LeBron was at 100% approval rating with the media last summer. I think we can agree, right? Dragging that terrible Cleveland team, the finals, opening the school in Akron. And everything was going that dude's way. And now, less than a year later, we're at something way, way, way less than 100%. And I just think the funny thing about the media with him in L.A. is I've never heard him make the affirmative case of why he wants to be a Laker. I don't go in for that, you know, although he's distracted by his Hollywood projects, I think he totally has a right to do that. But to me, the only case he's ever made I've heard about why he wants to be in L.A. is the Hollywood. was I've never heard him explain why he wants to be a Los Angeles Lakers.

And I think, again, I think that strikes the local media, the print media, the Bill Plaskies of the world, really in the wrong way. Yeah, yeah, I think that that's right. I mean, he tried at Media Day to explain, you know, like the history of the Lakers and whatnot. And I'm with you that I don't believe that he's distracted by the Hollywood stuff, but I very much believe that that was his primary motivation for coming out here. And he's like, oh, screw it. You know, I'll go to Lakers.

Lakers are historic franchise. put on the purple and gold. And I can do space jam too and uninterrupted stuff and the shop and the new one that's on CBS where Tim Tebow is chasing guys for a mile. It's incredible. But I do.

I'm glad that he did it though because, one, we're in the content making business here at the ringer and there's plenty of content with the Lakers now because of LeBron. But also, and you wrote about this in your piece when you wrote about the media coverage of the Lakers, the LeBron media industrial complex. Like, he creates jobs in our industry.

industry. McManaman moved out here. We know that Windhorst has followed him all over the place. Ali Clifton, who used to be the Cavs sideline reporter, moved to L.A. to take a studio job with Spectrum to cover the Lakers. She was eating Calton on the pregame show the other day. Shouts to Allie. Like, there's all these people, the athletic hired a bunch of new people.

By virtue of LeBron, jobs in this industry are created. We should tell Kay and Pittman, he should cover the Lakers. Yeah, that's a good idea. And remember, this is all in, you know, facing. off with the fact that Jeannie Buss has denounced the fake news, quote-unquote, around the Lakers. That's great. So LeBron brings all this media coverage to this team that has just been awful over the last couple of years is way less interesting in L.A. than the Dodgers.

And then she is complaining that the coverage is too tough. And I just, again, of all the shots LeBron has taken in the last couple weeks, I wouldn't call the Lakers coverage too tough this year at all. No. And that was a very, very weird moment in terms of media coverage, too. again, and my worldview is admittedly warped by my upbringing and like coming up through the Philly media where there's never a time where you have to take your knives out because they're just always out. They're omnipresent. So like when I see things like that, I would think about that

too when I was in Dallas when Cuban would complain about the coverage. And I'm like, there's like three dudes here right now and I'm one of them. And if you were in New York or Boston or Philly or anywhere on the East Coast, you'd have 20 dudes and they'd all be angry. So like I think you've got it a lot easier than maybe you really. realize, and I think the Lakers definitely do. But that brings me the last team I wanted to talk about. The Knicks are sort of notorious for how they handle the media, and obviously there's a lot of things going on right now with what happened with Christaps Porzingis, and we encourage

you to read Dan Devines piece on The Ringer.com, but just from a very like pulled back 3,000 feet view of the Knicks, I think it's interesting that they could be in New York and have a guy like James Dolan as their owner and be so thin-skinned about the media when you're in New York. Yeah. really makes the Yankees look like the model of equanimity, even in the Steinbrenner years. Yeah. Because it's more Trumpian at the risk of using that word than anything.

And I think, you know, to me, KD is going to be the ultimate experiment. We've seen KD in Oklahoma City and what that turned up. We see KD of the Bay Area. And now we're going to see KD with two back pages that would like nothing more than to get a great headline out of him screwing up. and, you know, somebody the other day I saw arguing, well, I don't think the New York media is going to be that much tougher or worse for him than the Bay Area. This is a guy who got mad at a headline at the Oklahomaan. Now, there will be one of those, two of those headlines every day,

every day in New York. And I just, I just think, like, I mean, to me, that's going to be the ultimate. And I also just think how he's going to change. I mean, that, as you know, much better than I do, that shop has never been friendly to reporters. They've had incidents this year with the Daily News. Yeah. with Stefan Bonnie, if my memory is serving me.

And I just like, you're right, it just feels like if you're in New York, you should have the thickest tide of everybody. There's going to be, there'll be access issues because you just have so many people wanting to get in. And again, there's a franchise that just hasn't been good in forever. Yeah. So imagine being that bad and still that bad with the media. That's incredible to me.

So for people who missed it, Stefan Bondi's the next beat writer for the New York Daily News. And there have been multiple times this year where he's had problems with the Knicks like just not telling him about team related things like where all the other beat writers from the other media outlets were clued into it by the Knicks but they just purposefully left him off because they don't like him

and they don't like how critical he's been which is so Bush League. It's so small time and petty. And when you're any NBA franchise, there's only 30 of them, you're going to get a fair amount of coverage. But when you're the Knicks, you're going to get a ton.

And for you to be so small-minded about that and it rubs me the wrong way. It would make me absolutely fucking insane. But I'm with you. I want KD. to go to the Knicks for this express purpose. I want to see how they handle it. I want Kyrie and his flat earth truth or stuff to go to the Knicks for this express purpose.

Shy of that, I have been, like my conspiracy theory is that they'll strike out on those two and end up with like a consolation prize like Jimmy Butler. That would also be excellent. I want any of those guys to go there. Yeah. Jimmy Butler in New York, that's a different kind of experiment.

That's just, I mean, that's a different kind of a horridor. media experiment. But that would be excellent. Yeah, I'd love to see that too. I anticipate that you will, this has to happen, though, right? Like, this will be your next NBA media coverage piece.

If Katie and or Kyrie go there, we have to, you just have to move to New York, right? So you're thinking, yeah, you're thinking I should do that over the magic beat or the hornets beat at this point. It's close. It's close. They both sound really interesting. But maybe just think about the next one. Brian Curtis, you're excellent.

I love listening to you on the press box. Is there anything you want to plug, my friend? No, just press box. every Tuesday morning and, you know, more semi-meta, what did you call it, quasi-metta, media pieces coming down the line. I love it. I love when you do that. Read Brian Curtis all the time.

He is excellent. Shouts to you and Shoemaker on the press box, listen to them as well. Thanks for doing this, my friend. Thanks, God. Take care, man. All right, I want to thank Halee O'Shaughnessy. I want to thank Brian Curtis.

They were both excellent. I want to thank Isaac Lee, who is mere moments away from saying goodbye to most of his hair. Oh, God. Because we're going to get you that money, Isaac Lee. I'm going to make this my, We're going to start on a thousand. Oh, no.

Check the listeners are hardworking class human beings. And we're going to do this grassroots style, small donations to the pending GoFundMe that I will tweet out when I create that later on. Please, everyone do not donate to this. Isaac, your hair is handsome. It'll be less handsome when we're done with you. I want to thank you for producing the podcast per usual. I want to thank all of you for listening. Please rate and review us on iTunes if you would be so inclined.

It helps people find us, moves us up the rankings. We would like that. And we also want to encourage you to read all of our content at the ringer.com. The site has been killing it lately. We've got a ton of stuff up there. So check that out. And don't forget, the mismatch on Tuesdays, group chat on Thursdays, Corner 3 on Fridays. Isaac and I will be back on Monday with Keycheck.

Thanks for listening, everybody. Bye.