The Ryen Russillo Podcast - A Love Letter to Chris Paul, Plus Chad Ford on His Latest NBA Mock Draft

Episode Date: July 1, 2021

Russillo shares his thoughts on the Suns winning the West and Chris Paul reaching his first NBA Finals, including why CP3 is everything you’d want in a basketball player. Then, he chats with NBA draft expert Chad Ford about his latest mock draft, some questions he has about presumptive no. 1 pick Cade Cunningham, and why evaluators miss on prospects like Darko Milicic. Finally, he closes it out with some listener-submitted Life Advice questions, including a follow-up on the guy who’s constantly late.  Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Chad Ford Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

And I think the other thing is, whenever you get that presumptive number one, everybody wants to sell it on the strengths and doesn't want to talk about the weaknesses. And there are a few things that are troubling about Cade Cunningham. Now, troubling in that he'll bust out of the league, I think that's highly unlikely. I think this guy has got about the highest floor of anybody I've seen coming in the draft in a long time. It's almost unfathomable to me to say that he isn't a productive NBA player. That is Chad Ford talking about number one pick, Kate Cunningham, on the floor versus the ceiling. We're going to talk Chris Paul and the Western Conference Finals a lot on that and some life advice, including full 180s.

Yes, I'm in a good mood. Yes, I am happy for Chris Paul going to his first ever NBA Finals. A lot on that. And some life advice, including full 180s. Yes, I'm in a good mood. Yes, I'm happy for Chris Paul going to his first ever NBA Finals. We're going to give him some love here to start the podcast today. But today's open starts with the other side. And that's Paul George. Paul George and the Clippers. Because I want to spend a few minutes on them before I get to

Chris Paul. Now, long-time listeners of this podcast know how much I love Chris Paul, but also have known that I've pointed out Paul George coming up short in big spots because it's happened. It's happened probably more than it should for a guy that's nicknamed himself Playoff P, but what I'm not going to do is criticize him now because now's not the time.

Whatever you thought of Paul George, you should feel better about him now. If you had stake, or I would say hold stock in Paul George sucks takes, you didn't make any money. You lost money. Paul George last year in the playoffs averaged 26 and 4, 40% from the floor, 33% from three. Over 13 games, he had a PER that was actually below average of an average player. Average is about 15 for a wing. He was below that. In game seven against Denver, that flame out

series by the Clippers last year, he had 10 points, four boards, two assists, 4-16 from the floor in 38 minutes. And honestly, it probably looked worse because we can see it with Paul George. We can see the moment wearing on his face. But that changed during this postseason. Without Kawhi and without Ibaka, who we're going to get to in a second here, I mean, over the playoffs for 19 games, 27- 10, and 5.5, 44% from the floor. Didn't shoot it as great from three, 34%, but a 20 PER, and it was on him.

Once Kawhi, we knew he wasn't coming back, or it was certain that it was never going to be certain what the deal was. I think Paul George stepped up in a really big way, and I know I've called him 30-13 because I thought it was accurate that some games he's in the playoffs. When I said 30-13, I didn't say always 13, but he consistently, from some early questions in the Dallas series, there was a game there early in the Utah series. You're like, man, is this guy going to respond to

the moment? Well, I think he responded. What he did in game five and getting Phoenix and keeping the series alive and getting the series back to LA for game six, that was Paul George, who actually was kind of floating there a bit, didn't look super engaged. His intensity level did not match the rest of his teammates in the first half. He had one of those amazing second halves that none of us

are ever going to remember or really even care about, except for the strongest Paul George defenders, because a lot of this is like politics. If you get a bad headline about a candidate you don't like,

you love and believe in that bad headline. If you have a candidate that you really like and you see a good headline, you're going to believe in and promote that good headline. I mean, none of this is new. We've been doing it for centuries,

and we do it with basketball players, and we do it with quarterbacks. So with Paul George, if you're banging the table saying, ah, I knew he wasn't going to get it done, I think what Paul George did is improve whatever his status is in the league. I think he improved it big time because there was no Kawhi, and Paul George will never be Kawhi.

He's not at that level, and you're missing a top five player. There's no Ibaka, who arguably, when you look at the construct of this Clippers team, was going to be their third best player. No Zubats in the middle of the series. You could argue going small, going big, but here's what I would like to see instead of the Marcus Cousins last night was more Zubats, and we weren't going to see that. Marcus Morris, who in the past,

I haven't really loved. I think he's outwardly tough. He'll shove a guy, but then when you need him to be mentally tough to make a big play and hit a big shot, I didn't always like my chances. I think he improved in that regard. There's moments that he had huge shooting moments where I felt like, okay, there's more to this. Reggie Jackson, all the Oklahoma City stories, never quite understood it, gets to run his own team in Detroit. Huge contract. Don't worry about it, folks.

The cap went up that year. Running his own team didn't look very good. Buyout guy. Now what? Now teams are going to be tripping over themselves and paying millions of dollars because he's proven himself in this game that is more open than ever before as one of the premier isolation offensive players.

And the regular season numbers back it up too. So this Clippers team, and let's face it, you weren't very high on them. And I mean you as the general you because of the flame out of last year. And I kind of felt like over the summer, like, hey, let's not let that disappointment hangover carry over to the next season and have you think this team stinks. Honestly, if Phoenix hadn't beaten the Clippers, missing Kawhi, missing Ibaka and Zu going down in this collection of guys that were very, very tough and very intense, but weren't as talented as Phoenix,

if Phoenix didn't win this series, that would have been a horrible storyline. More of an indictment, I think, on Phoenix, even though I have so much praise and more appreciation for this group of Clippers who I think found a toughness about themselves that a lot of us never really thought that they had. Ty Lue is also part of this conversation

because let's face it, when they're down 0-2, what are you saying to yourself about Ty Lue? What are your Ty Lue text threads about? Probably most of you don't have a lot of those Ty Lue text threads, but you're wondering, wait, is this guy actually any good? Do we even know anything about the Clippers because they're two guys in and out all the time this season? And Ty Lue did things that we've seen other coaches resist so many coaches are stubborn Ty

Lue's proven that he's not stubborn and that if you're vibing with the players then you can be a coach in this league for a really long time and Ty Lue tried a million different things doesn't mean he was perfect I really struggle with the coaching stuff I think a lot of us say oh this coach sucked or we play the results all the time this adjustment this, this guy made. Well, it didn't work. They lost, so you shouldn't have made that adjustment. You lose the game. You don't make any adjustments. We're like, how come you didn't make any adjustments?

Ty Lue made adjustments all the time. And for the most part, it kept this team that felt like it was on life support because of the health situation. It kept them in the mix almost coming out of the West. So Lue deserves a ton of credit for that. And I think it also transitions perfectly into the Monte Williams part of this because Monte Williams in New Orleans, their five seasons only had winning seasons twice. New Orleans didn't love him down there. I don't know that Chris Paul loved

him all that much. So the thought, the prevailing thought on Monte Williams was that he was a guy that, you know, good X's and O's, but I don't know if guys really respond to him. Is it too much? And Chris Paul had to talk with Monte Williams about that when they got back together in Phoenix. And now it looks like everybody's figured it out. And now we all think Monte Williams is one of the best coaches. So it's always this delicate thing where you got to be a little careful when you start saying how great a coach is or how terrible one is, because they're probably a little closer to the middle than we realize, except for the real extremes where you'll see somebody at the far

extremes. You're like, okay, this guy doesn't know what he's doing or this guy always seems to make his team better. There's one final piece on the Kawhi part of this that I think is important because when they're down 0-2 to Dallas, we're like, what's Kawhi going to do as a free agent? Would he even come back to this? Does he even want to be locked into Paul George? He loved Paul George when he wasn't a teammate. He was pushing for Paul George to be there with the Clippers. That was the whole point. Kawhi's like, I want to play with this guy. Then he plays with him, and you're thinking,

is he still going to want to play with him? Is he going to want to be there with Tyloo and all this different stuff? I don't really know what the injury deal is. Same as you, I've heard everything from torn ACL to just he's not ready, and it's day-to-day. I don't really love that it's that much of a – it's not misinformation. It's just Kawhi like you can be wired a certain way but I still think as old school as it sounds there's a bit of a duty to

your teammates and the team of like and maybe I should let these guys know where I'm at but Kawhi doesn't operate that way and I don't know if it's because of his days with San Antonio feeling like the medical department there was not on the same page with him I don't know if the rumblings that it's the same thing with the Clippers again I don I don't know enough. Most of us don't know enough about the medical side of this stuff other than Kawhi's now been at three places where it wasn't cool for him in San Antonio. Toronto let him take as much time off as he possibly could. It worked. The Clippers have let him take off as much time as he possibly could. And this entire time playoffs, they were pretending the idea that the guy was just going to come through the tunnel

and be ready to suit him up when it didn't really seem like it was going to happen a side note about players and team doctors I went on NBA radio with Kamla and Antonio Daniels uh Daniels played a long time as part of the Pelicans broadcast I actually really liked him a lot as a player even though he's kind of a role tough guy but I just just always liked him. I said, you know, every former player I meet, this is me talking to Daniels on the radio show. I go, there's this very constant, like us versus them deal with team doctors that it feels like every player thinks every team doctor's the worst. And I don't know that that makes a ton of sense to me. And Daniels goes, I'll tell you a story. He goes, when I was at San Antonio dealing with an injury, loved the team doctor, got along,

but the team doctor basically said straight up, and Daniels shared this on the air, so I'm not sharing a secret. He goes, look, this is the team doctor talking to Daniels. The team pays me. My paycheck comes from the San Antonio Spurs. So if it's close, I'm siding with the team. So if that is the premise

that we're all operating with, then I can understand why so many players, current and former, would be like, I don't agree with the medical staff. But that's a TBD on that one with Kawhi because none of us know.

And there's the one rule with Kawhi. You can never be surprised by Kawhi. And I'm ready to be surprised, but I still don't have any intel with it because Kawhi, as I was told when he was going to be deciding where he wanted to go between Toronto, the Lakers and the Clippers, the one guy that told me the best information was like, when it comes to Kawhi, if somebody tells you they know what he's doing, never listen to them again about Kawhi because they just expose themselves. So let's get now to it. The headline, Monty Williams, Chris Paul,

they work it out. They get back together in Phoenix. When I think about Chris Paul, I think about whenever I watch a player for the first time. I am a... I guess my hobby would be the draft. The draft is my favorite part of the sports calendar, but I'm not

a prime draft analyst. I just really like it. All the combines that I hosted, PIT, going to all those prime draft analyst. I just really like it. All the combines that I hosted, PIT going to all those tournaments, Orlando. I just would do it because I was in it and I loved it. I loved learning about the evaluation process. And I write up my own scouting reports. I don't know any of the season.

They're just for me to try to do as good of a job as I can for every incoming class. And the first thing I'll notice with a player is I'll go, does this guy give a shit? And I know it sounds like a simple question, but sometimes it's a harder one to answer when you don't know the player and you're not around the team and you're simply watching them, whether it's a full game or just dialing up clips. Is this guy a fighter? Does he compete? Does he say all the right things, but isn't really wired that way? Or is he wired that way because it's the only way he knows?

And when I watch Chris Paul for a decade plus now, I don't think I've ever seen a player care about the outcome as much as Chris Paul. And that's why I love him so much. Everything I think is important about an athlete, Chris Paul exemplifies. Every team Chris Paul goes to

gets better. And I know this is a hard thing for all of us to understand because it's like, wait a minute, he doesn't have a ring. How can he be this guy, Ryan? Like I've said, I think sometimes it just works out for players and sometimes there are rare instances where it doesn't have a ring. How can he be this guy, Ryan? Like I've said, I think sometimes it just works out for players,

and sometimes there are rare instances where it doesn't work out, and it felt like Chris Paul was on that path. So let's stay on that, the winning part of it, before he's ever won. Some of you, I'm sure most of you have seen this stat, but I'm going to remind everybody of it. The record, the winning percentage of a team before Chris Paul gets there and then what happens after. This is five straight teams now.

As soon as Chris Paul gets there, the winning percentage goes up, and sometimes dramatically. The Hornets before Chris Paul, 220 winning percentage. After, 463. Clippers before Chris Paul, 390 winning percentage. After, 606. The Rockets, 671 winning percentage. Paul gets there, 793.

Thunder, 598 winning percentage. Paul gets there, 7-93. Thunder, 5-98 winning percentage. Remember, everything was moving around there. That team was supposedly going to be mailing it in. 6-11 winning percentage. Get to Game 7, the first round. Who cares, Ryan? Game 7, first round. That team just wasn't that good. And the best part of that story,

as I've been told, Chris Paul shows up, talks to Billy Donovan. Billy's like, we're going to make sure you're fine. We're going to take care of you. We're going to be doing this stuff. We're going to give you as much rest as you need. We know this isn't part of your plan and you're going to be somebody we're moving on. Everybody was on the same page there except Chris Paul said, nah, fuck that.

I'm playing. Let's go. Played 70 of 72 games and got that team to game seven in the first round. Again, that wasn't a great team. Then, of course, the Phoenix Suns, 466 winning percentage, and they finished up at just over, oh, at 708 is where they finished up. He's tough.

He fights. He's smart. He's efficient. He could score 30 every night if he wanted to, but he doesn't want to. He's not 30 points on 30 bad fucking shots. I trust him every possession. I'm not saying he's mistake-free.

No one is. Yes, the flops annoy me. It annoys me with everyone. But when I watch Chris Paul, the reason I love him this much is because I just know he cares more than you do. I do. I just know it.

He's everything I would want in a player. If I had a quarterback, if I had a defensive end, you know, baseball is a little different because you can't just exert your physical presence over somebody else. But anytime I watch another athlete,

I'll ask myself, and I don't say like, hey, is he the next Chris Paul? But I go, does he have these attributes? And Chris Paul checks every box. Again, he is everything I would want in a player and maybe even a son.

All right, maybe that seems a little awkward at the end, but leave it in there. This is going to be a lot of fun. Chad Ford is somebody who, look man, 18 years ago, I saw his stuff. I bugged him. I got his phone number. I used to bug him all the time. Backgrounds of working at Boston. Chad was always cool.

Chad Ford joins us now, part of nbabigboard.com. You can see all of his draft profiles, all the news, all the stuff. And of course, the same podcast coming out every two weeks. What's up, man? I miss those days. I know it seems funny because obviously you've gone on to have this incredible career and whatever. And I started at a website that I started myself with a friend at sportstalk.com that ESPN ended up buying and coming over. But I miss some of that simpleness of those days when you're just having fun and you're just building stuff. It's sort of interesting now when you get to the position that you're at and look for where I was for a while now where you're the guy and everybody's shooting at you and attacking you. I miss some of those days. In fact, one of the reasons I went back and decided to do my own independent newsletter

at Substack was I just wanted to recapture that freedom that I once had when I was just doing my own thing. And I didn't have to worry about anything else other than doing my own thing. I can write directly to my readers and things like that. When those folks at Substack pitched that to me, there was a certain nostalgic appeal to just sort of getting back to the simple, like, I'm just going to be communicating with my readers and that's what it is. And if you like it, great. And if you don't, that's cool too. But yeah, it's been, but I miss those days, I guess.

I miss all those times in Bristol, you know, huddling before the draft and trying to figure out like, you know, who said what and we're trying to put together mock drafts and stuff like that. Like, you know, I don't think it was very public knowledge a lot of times,

like how much time we spent talking to each other and like breaking stuff down. But it was always really helpful to me. So I hope we capture some of that dynamic today on our on our call because it was so awesome. Yeah. As much as I want to do all the draft stuff, there's I could do this later, but I almost feel like a follow up because for those that maybe are younger. younger and i know that sounds crazy but you know in 2003 if i wanted to learn about a foreign player you know there wasn't there wasn't really access to it the way there is i mean it's not even close there wasn't you kind of went word of mouth and chad was the guy that would be going to these gyms and i think uh pavel pukolzin was one of the first ones and then i know recently you did a

podcast where you basically were like, I'm eye to blame for Darko Milicic because Darko gets drafted around four Hall of Famers because Chad would have the info. By the way, there were so many teams that were like, if you ever saw Darko work out back then before the draft, you would have taken him that high too. But there also became a thing where then everybody got mad at you. People got really mad at you and

i'm not i don't even know if it's inside the nba but outside and maybe it was because you were like the number one draft guy for a long time so i don't know if i'm accurate or inaccurate i think i'm i'm somewhat accurate because we knew each other pretty well but it was an odd journey of like this guy doing this unique thing and teaching about these european players and talking them up and then everybody got pissed at you for doing it and then it was just kind of weird yeah it's always been it's you know i'll never sort of understand it like uh you know i do think i was one of the pioneers i'm not the only one but was one of you know one of them early on and you kind of reach this level and then it's like okay now i gotta tear it to tear it down. And, and, you know, look, some of that was because like on guys like Darko, I, I was wrong. I'll admit that, you know, I I'm actually,

maybe this will be my most read column ever. Uh, next week I'm going to do something on my biggest draft mistakes. And I think that's probably what people want to read more than anything else, uh, is, you know, how I got it wrong, but, you know, I I've been going back and looking at some stuff. And that Darko year, it wasn't just Darko. It was Pavel Podkolzin, Maciek Lampy.

I mean... Maciek Lampy went... He was supposed to go to what lottery? He went to the second round. He went to the third round and bust out the league. Nicolo Schittisvili,

who I'm in a gym in Italy with Mike D'Antoni, who's at that time the coach for Benetton in Treviso, Italy, and is using Skeeta in some ways to get back into the NBA. So he basically lured me and lots of NBA teams out there with, hey, I've got this lottery pick, Kiki Vandewey, like a rookie GM, sort of comes in and buys a little bit what Mike's selling, Vicky Vandeway, like a rookie GM sort of comes in and buys a little bit what Mike's selling,

you know, and Mike's little workout in the gym. And, you know, I was young and was doing work that I thought I would want to read. Like, you know, I used to just see these grainy photos of an international guy and like, you know, a brief description. I went and embedded myself with scouts. I was on the road with scouts, including some that have become executives in the league and general managers, but were young guys at the time, just all sort of figuring it out. And it was fun for me. But like a lot of things with the draft, I think the hard thing with the draft is I've been doing this a long time. I feel like I'm relatively intelligent. I feel like I come back and I look at my process and so much of my process is actually talking to the experts and talking to, you know, scouts and GMs and folks, whatever. And I want to

get to the point where I'm never wrong. And I want to get to the point where like, I'm right about every guy and every year I'm just wrong about guys. Like, you know, even after all these years, I'm just wrong. Like, you know, Trey Young like like, comes to mind. I'm going to talk about that. I wasn't even, like, covering the draft for ESPN, but I wasn't convinced Trey Young should have been the fifth pick in the draft, let alone what, like, what he's become. I still get it wrong. And I think for some fans, that's just really hard.

Like, they want their draft expert, if they're really going to be labeled as an expert or, you know, at ESPN or whatever, like, you should be right. Like, that's what we're paid to do. And so I'm going to be pissed at you when you're wrong. And, you know, at ESPN or whatever, like you should be right. Like that's, that's what we're paid to do. And so I'm going to be pissed at you when you're wrong. And, and I, you know, I'll be the first to admit, like I get it wrong, you know, on a regular basis. But it's not for lack of work.

And I don't think it's for a lack of like being smart about this. I, I think, I think people in the NBA and other people respect me for it. I just, I do get it wrong. Well, for those that don't know, Chad's got like three degrees from prestigious universities. So is it three or is it more now? I don't know. Three sounds good.

Three sounds good. He's dedicated a good chunk of his life to doing things that are more important than basketball too. And that's why, you know, look, I'm biased because I, you were so great to me when I was 26, 27

and just breaking in and bugging you about different guys because I love the draft and then all of a sudden Chad Ford's blowing up and he's a guy that will talk to me you know I'd like to always feel like my information was good but what I was always saying was like you know Chad it does not do a Mel Kiper Mel is evaluating the players and ranking them to Mel Chad is collecting the information and then doing it that way. But like, if you go back to the skittish really thing, do you feel used? Do you feel used by Darko? Like,

because I think it's kind of ridiculous for an NBA, especially on the team side. It'd be like, Hey, you're the ones who still had to evaluate it and draft them. So if you're basing it on Chad Ford's blog, like that's a much bigger problem. I should be getting,

I should be getting a check probably. But Skeeta. Yeah, I was used a little bit. I, you know, Mike, Mike and I had a conversation about it. Give me the full Mike thing. Cause I don't think people always know this story. So Mike D'Antoni had, you know, had a really successful career playing pro basketball in Italy, went back, was, was coaching one of the top teams in Italy, Benetton, who was a, a yearly Final Four contender

that year. And he had this guy, Skita, on his team who actually rarely played for them. He was young. I can't remember exactly where he was from, somewhere in Eastern Europe. And Mike was reaching out to people saying, hey, if you come over to the EuroLeague Final Four, which frankly, a lot of NBA teams didn't, or if the general managers were going to come back, then that's what they'd come to because it would be... I can't even remember where the EuroLeague Final... Oh, it was in Bologna. It was in Bologna, Italy. So it was close to Treviso that year. Come up, see this guy. I'm going to essentially do what scouts do now or agents do now called pro day, where I'm going to get on the court with this guy and work him out.

So everybody goes to the year league final four. We don't really get to see Skeeta play, but all of us take this, this, this you know, trip up to Treviso, which is by the way, is one of the most gorgeous places in Italy. It's sort of North of Venice. You know, Mike rolls out the carpet, you know, the Benetton family, you know, everything, you know, for, for me and for lots of people were eating pizza pasta you know, the Benetton family, you know, everything, you know, for, for me and for lots of people were eating pizza, pasta, um, you know, and watching Skeeta do Skeeta things. He was athletic.

He could shoot the basketball. Mike took him through those drills. And then, you know, Mike, you know, telling us, you know, this kid's going to be great, you know, whatever. And he's seven feet by the way, too. So it was all 6'11". Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. And, and I bought it. Absolutely. You know, hook, line, and sinker, I bought it. And, you know, I was young and I did. I bought it. I thought it would be really good.

I was wrong. Absolutely, I was wrong on it. I did not draft them for the Nuggets. Like I said, Kiki Vandeway was the new GM and had that sort of same thing. I had nothing to do with that. The Darko thing, I think, is more interesting because as a reporter with ESPN, I'd gone over and followed scouts. And that's where I first saw Darko over there. And I was with a contingent of NBA scouts at the time.

I was reporting not really my scouting report, but what they were saying and talking about it. And then two things happened that I think will forever tie me to Darko. One is that ESPN embedded me with Darko and his agent on lottery night. And they had somebody else embedded with LeBron James and somebody else, I think, was embedded with Chris Bosh. And so you could get a reaction at lottery night from each of these guys. I happen to be with Darko. The Pistons end up getting the number two pick in the draft. But what happened right before that was as the Pistons were preparing, I think they were in the Eastern Conference Finals against the Knicks. I think

that's where they were. They were over in John J. Gym in Manhattan and they were doing their walkthrough for the game. Darko lands in the US, wants to get in a workout, ends up going to John Jay gym. And I believe this is totally serendipitous. Ends up working in the gym right next to the Pistons and he's just shooting around. And so I walk over to the other gym and Joe Dumars and Rick Carlisle are there and others. And I'm like, hey, Darko's over in the other gym right now. And they're like, Oh really? And they start walking over there. And then before long, all the Pistons players are over there. And Tony Ronzoni, who's one of their coaches, who sort of knew that, or not one of their coaches, one of their scouts who sort of knew Darko

ends up putting Darko through a workout right there with everybody. And I'm sitting next to John Hammond on one side and Joe Dumars on the other side. And Darko goes and has the workout of the century. Like he's swishing threes. He's dunking the ball. He's grunting. It's like, if you've seen like Rocky three, it's like the montage of Mr. T in the gym, just grunting and sort of working out and just going crazy. Everybody's going crazy afterwards. And so then I'm in the hotel room with Darko. ESPN does its live shot, the phone calls. So many people are calling his agent, Mark Hornstein, that Mark hands me one of his phones and say, Hey, can you just tell this person to hold on? And it's John Hammond of the Pistons on the phone. And before I can get in a word to say,

this is not Mark Hornstein. This is Chad Ford. John Hammond's like, we're so excited. We're going to draft Darko. We think he's the, we were so excited. We got the number two pick in the draft. I mean, this was the craziest of circumstances. And so one of the things that I did is I went to that Pistons workout, the team workout where they actually had him with the team. And so many of the hyperbolic quotes that are attributed to me about Darko were actually Will Robinson, who was one of their longtime scouts who just fell in love with Darko and that worked out. So no, I didn't draft Darko for the Pistons. I was there to watch that process and I was very close to them. I reported extensively on it. They saw him, they made their own decisions. But with all that said, I want to put myself on the hook. I thought he personally thought he was worthy of the number two pick in the draft.

I personally, if I had been a general manager, would have taken him over Bosh or Dwayne Wade. And so I also, I'm not going to just put it on the pistons. I did get it wrong. And for those that, by the way, thank you. That story was amazing. Um, that's what we're always hoping to do here in the pocket. That was incredible. But I remember in the early Darko struggle years, other GMs that I would talk to at that point were like, I remember one GM being like,

Hey, you guys need to chill out. He doesn't even shave yet. And I was like, you know what? He's right. This guy's right. But then you started hearing more stuff about Darko where you're like,

he just drives around, never got a license. The team was like, wait, what are you doing? Like you bought an escalator and you're just bombing around where you're like, he just drives around, never got a license. The team was like, wait, what are you doing? Like you bought an Escalade and you're just bombing around. He's like, yeah. Did you get an American license? He was like, ah, whatever.

You know, like there was some disconnect stuff, not just culturally, but being younger, which I can kind of understand that I wonder if any of that wiring got in the way. Or if the fact that he's around this team that's contending for titles, where a weird way you're like hey he's gonna be held accountable he's gonna have great coaching all these different things it's like maybe he actually needed those two seasons to be in a bad team to get shots up to learn from the mistakes or maybe it just never was going to work out because what was going on upstairs i don't know yeah and look there's some ego involved too like he he read the hype and and darko was was a confident dude. Whatever you want to say about Darko, he would argue to your face, oh, I'm better than LeBron James. And so I remember I was with Darko at the start of the season, sort of doing a follow

up with him. And we're driving over to the Palace in Auburn Hills, and they're advertising for a preseason game. And it's the Cavs are coming. It's like LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavs are coming. And Darko looks at the billboard and said, why is my name not up there? Right. And, and, you know, I'm looking at him at that point. I'm like, well, you're not LeBron James. And, you know, I mean, you know, I don't think any international player is going to get that, that praise sort of all, but you know, that is his mentality. And then the reality of what he's actually getting as far as playing time, you know, I mean, you know, I don't think any international player is going to get that praise sort of all, but you know, that is his mentality.

And then the reality of what he's actually getting as far as playing time, you know, it's embarrassing to him. I think it's personally embarrassing. It's injuring his pride. And I will say that some of the Pistons players told me and the coaches told me it wasn't like Darko was a scrub in practices or whatever. He's going against Ben Wallace every day. He's playing his butt off.

He's playing hard. Like people generally liked him as a player in Detroit. It wasn't like, and this happens sometimes. And one of the really interesting ones that this happened with, which is so interesting to see that he's on his redemption tour right now, is I heard feedback when Cameron Payne was drafted

that they got him into the gym and into summer league and all the practices. And immediately said, we made a huge mistake. Like Cameron Payne can't play in the NBA. That was the feel. That sometimes happens with NBA teams. They'll draft them and then they get them into summer league and work out and they're done. They're already off them. They're like, this isn't going to work out. That was not the initial assessment from the Pistons. It wasn't at all. They really felt that they had something. They just didn't have a space to play in.

Larry Brown was now coaching that team. They were trying to become an NBA champion, which they achieved. And Darko, the joke became he was the human victory cigar, right? That became the joke. And I think people underestimate how much that hurt Darko, his feelings, his ego, his pride. He became very disillusioned. One time he told me like everybody in the NBA are liars because I think people were telling him one thing, but then the actual, what was sort of happening on the court and the other, like lots of factors that go into this. And like, that's

learning for me as well, right? That with the exception of the LeBron Jameses or the Anthony Davises or the Tim Duncans of the world, a lot of your NBA future is in part going to be controlled by who drafts you, what your coach thinks about you, how you fit in the system. Are you going to be given an opportunity to play? Is the coach going to adapt to you like Steve Kerr did with Draymond Green and really got the absolute most out of Draymond Green? Or in lots of these cases, Ryan, you and I know this, a lot of times front offices and coaches aren't on board. We just read this coming out of Utah right now with Dennis Lindsay and Quinn Snyder and the 2020 NBA draft and how there

was a fight in the draft room overnight. We just read this with the Dallas Mavericks, with Donnie Nelson leaving the Dallas Mavericks with Sadiq Bae and Josh Green and literally war in the war room on draft night over which guy you're going to take. And coaches often, if they lose that battle, um, being punitive on the backside by saying, I'm not going to, I'm not going to play this guy. Um, that's not who I wanted. And because now I control the team and I control who, uh, you know, who gets playing time and I'm going to happen. Like there's so many factors that go into this that I don't really think we always, we want to speak with confidence. And there are guys that I think no matter what system you put them in,

they're going to be great. But, you know, for many of them, it is going to depend on what team they land on. All right. So sounds good. Let's get some players wrong. Let's talk about this draft. Let's do it.

I love this draft. I really do. And it's not just because of, you know, the depth at the top. I'm just going to go in a couple directions. You take it wherever you want. I like Kate Cunningham a lot, but he's not the lock to be the number one pick here that I think maybe it's been sold to us all year long. I think the Jalen Green stuff is very real.

I don't know if it's still going to be the Pistons taking that pick. We'll touch on that. But what I really like is I keep going through it, whether it's through Kaminga, then Keon Johnson, physical gifts, even Wagner, who just understands the game. I'm going through several

Connors. Scotty Barnes immediately. The first time I watched him, I'm like, how come this guy isn't ranked higher? And I think he started to get some of that love. I have a tweet at least to back that up from, I think, six weeks ago. He's picking up point guards, full court, and then also switching onto centers and actually holding up, again, college centers. So defensively, what Barnes can do is impressive. So kind of go anywhere you want as your intro into how you've broken this class down. Yeah, I was a big believer

in there's five guys at the start of the year. I think it's six now, and I'm including Barnes. Barnes was the guy that I had just kind of a little bit below, but I don't believe he's below anymore. In fact, I think he's probably ahead of Suggs and Kaminga on most draft boards. I will say that I've also definitely heard from most NBA teams, it's Cade Cunningham. He's clearly the guy that's number one. I still think it's safe to say that he goes number one, likely to Detroit. I think that is the likely scenario, but if Detroit really wants Jalen Green, they probably can move down two spots. Cleveland moves up, but Cleveland would take Cade Cunningham one, I think in that scenario.

And so I think he's going to be the number one pick i think it's fair to say the gap isn't as big as people have made it out to be i think yeah that's i i think he goes one but you're right like i think there's just been a couple teams that i've felt but go ahead i interrupted yeah i think the gap isn't what what we've made it out to be and i think the other thing is whenever you get that presumptive number, everybody wants to sell it on the strengths and doesn't want to talk about the weaknesses. And there are a few things that are troubling about Cade Cunningham. draft in a long time, it's almost unfathomable to me to say that he isn't a productive NBA player. I can't imagine it, given the focus on NBA wings, who can handle the ball and shoot the basketball, be able to defend multiple positions, high basketball IQ, driven player, all those things.

It's really hard to imagine scenarios where Cade Cunningham doesn't do stuff in the league, but superstar, you know, maybe not, you know, maybe, maybe not because of that lack of elite athleticism. Maybe not because his turnover rate was higher than his assist rate. Maybe he's not the elite passer and, you know, primary ball handler that, that we've kind of been sold that he was out of high school. ball handler that, that we've kind of been sold that he was out of high school. In fact, if you just watch the passing component and reading the game as a point guard between him and Scotty Barnes, give me Scotty Barnes, um, actually, uh, you know, on, on that as far as the big wing and how they read the floor, or frankly, give me Josh Giddy out of Australia who probably, you know, sees it, you know, sees it even better. Um, But the lack of like, but you know, the difference, but why Kate Cunningham's number one and not Scotty Barnes in my, my hand is Scotty Barnes wore that. He's not a shooter right now that he's a non-shooter is a bigger concern to me than that stuff with Kate Cunningham. Like that could

definitely lower Scotty Barnes ceiling. If he doesn't even have, if he doesn't have a passable jump shot that, um, that makes teams guard him and doesn't allow them to just sort of sag off him, you know, offensively like that, that is a real concern, a legitimate concern about Scottie Barnes that I don't have with Kate Cunningham and why I think it's safer there. But, you know, also we're not talking about Evan Mobley. Like five years ago, even a seven footer that's a unicorn like Evan Mobley is, not only has a full array of offensive gifts,

but actually protects the rim as well. I mean, we're talking about Chris Bosh, but Chris Bosh was not a rim protector. Evan Mobley is a legitimate rim protector right now like that's why i love this draft i mean that's really good guys jaylen green who's going to be like in my opinion hands down a 25 point a night score um in the nba and then i don't know about jonathan cominga and like what he's going to be but he's got all the freakish tools like like kaw Kawhi-esque like tools, whether he plays like that or not, like that's crazy. And then Jalen Suggs, man, I mean, he's the baller of all the ballers

in this draft. Like, I mean, if you're just asking me, give me last shot of the game, which of these guys do I want the ball in his hands to go get me that last shot? I want Jalen Suggs to have that, have the ball in his hands at the end. So I'm super stoked at the top of this draft. And I don't think it's disrespectful to say there's some warts for Cade Cunningham or to have Jalen Suggs fifth in a draft that he could easily have gone one in 2020. Being a non-shooter in today's game is a major flag. And I don't, because there's so much of Scotty Barnes that I like, I don't want to make the mistake of being like, dude, what other player would you go? Yeah, it's cool he can't shoot,

but I still think he should go three or four because the mock drafts, when we keep going over and over again and you're asking guys going back to the beginning of the actual calendar year, hey, who's your top five or whatever? It's always been Cade, Mobley, Kaminga, Green, Suggs, not in that order.

Kaminga's almost always been the fifth guy. I think there's teams that like Suggs more than Green. I think there's obviously, you can flip it around. Mobley's kind of gone up and down within the top two, three, or four. Most people seem to have him two now because of the way the lottery played out. But Barnes, what always jumped out to me about him

is I couldn't believe he's a 19-year-old freshman directing traffic with all the responsibilities that he had. That's one of the things that I'll notice with players where I go, this guy actually not only understands every play that's being called, he's telling everybody what they're doing wrong and making sure guys are getting into the right position. And that's, look, I don't even think he, I don't think, I think he started like a handful of games for him this year too,

on top of everything else. So it was mostly coming off the bench on it, on the tallest team in the, in the country. So people knock his rebounding or whatever. And I'm like, you know, they,

the floor say didn't need him to do that. That's not what they were asking him to do. They were asking him to be a point guard on that team. And I think he did actually a great job, job of that. You I'll say about him is talking to folks that are close to that program. Everybody loves Scotty Barnes. Also talking to teams that did interviews. I'm in Chicago at the Combine. An absolute magnetic personality. Always happy. Always joyful. Teammates loved him. Coaches loved him. A natural leader that way. People say personality-wise, think Magic Johnson. That is the sort of personality that he brings to the table. And so that's a plus.

And you worry a little bit. A lot of times, you just want him to take over games. When I'm watching Florida State, I'm like, just take it over, dude. Like you're the most talented dude on the floor. Do you know that you're the most talented dude on the floor? Like Kate Cunningham knows that. Um, and, and Jalen Suggs will know that too. And they'll take over a game when they need to take over a game. Scotty Barnes didn't always know that, but what, but what I was told is he's capable of doing that. And they would go into practices where Scotty Barnes would get pissed and just blow up, just blow up on everybody. And, and it was just like, wow, like watch, watch out.

And so, you know, I, I worry, is he got that, that killer mindset that I actually do think that, you know, Kate brings to the table and, and, you know, other, you know, other people might as well, Jalen Suggs, Jalen Green, you know, bring to the table. Does he have that? But I think the playoffs are helping Scotty Barnes right now. I think that's just the other thing is as teams are watching and watching the playoffs right now, it's always a trendy league. You and I know this, you know, it's, it moves all over the place, depending on what the invo thing right now is.

A guy that can switch between five positions, which allows you infinite adjustments as a coach on how you're going to defensively guard players. And Scotty Barnes is one of the few guys that I've ever scouted that I think legitimately, I mean it seriously, can guard five positions in the NBA. I really believe he actually can do that. That is extremely valuable right now. And that's not something that you can say about Jalen Suggs, for example. And certainly you can't say that about Jalen Green.

Okay, let's get through some more players here before I have to say goodbye to you. Give me the arguments by teams or whatever your position is, the argument against if you had to sit in a room in the war room and Keon Johnson and Davion Mitchell are both sitting there, give me kind of the thoughts and concerns because we know Mitchell is older. I think he has that switch that we all love.

I think Keon may have that as well. He's more raw. He's younger. He can't shoot. But these are talking about two guys that are kind of in that same range there where I could see some team being like, look, give me the 19 year old who's bigger and has all these freakish athletic parts. And I could see other teams being like, I want to see the kid that carried his team through the tournament and seem to improve his shooting. Yeah. You know, it's it's funny. I have I love Davian Mitchell and I have to watch myself all the time because if I actually go back and look at what I don't love, he ticks a lot of boxes like he's older. That typically is a red flag in the lottery. He's small, six foot with only a six

foot four wingspan, which is okay, but it's not anything to write home about. Everybody that's comparing him to Donovan Mitchell. Donovan Mitchell had a 6'10 wingspan. It's a big, big difference and doesn't quite have that same athletic burst that Donovan Mitchell does. Drafting based off of, oh, he can come help you right away, as opposed to the Keon Johnson, he's going to be a major work in progress. I mean, my history of doing this in the draft says, Davian Mitchell, you shouldn't do that. Like, go Keon Johnson, go Franz Wagner, go Josh Giddey, you know, go, go that direction. Don't go this direction.

But having watched Baylor all season, man, there's a gear to this guy. There's a wiring to Davian Mitchell that there's just this nagging feeling like this guy's going to be really good. Like maybe like have a Kyle Lowry, like type career in the NBA. And, and, you know, and in that case, Keon Johnson, what is he going to be? I don't know what Keon Johnson's going to be. I know he has a 48 inch vertical, which is crazy. I know he's going to play defense because he was forced to do that at Tennessee. Whenever he had to create for himself offensively, it was, it was problematic. And, and I, and, you know, I don't know if he develops that or if he doesn't, uh, but man, I don't know what I do in those, those, I've gone

back and forth in that, right. And the folks I talked to in the league, same thing, like there's a huge tug and pull right now with Davian Mitchell. And like the eye test is like, oh my gosh, Davian Mitchell's a player. All the things that you look at that are typically important in the draft all argue against him. Anybody that couldn't figure out Texas this year, and we're looking at two first-rounders between Kai Jones and Greg Brown, every time I watch him,

because I'm watching them both a lot, I keep thinking Jericho Sims is the best bet to have the best NBA career out of all of them. And Sims isn't going to go in the first round. Kai's going to be biased. I don't know if that's physique bias. You know, this is a theme in the league, right? He looks like he's built like Dwight Howard, right? I'm not telling you Jericho Sims is going to solve all your problems. I'm just telling you that there's a reason why Texas was incredibly disappointing with two first-rounders because, I mean, Greg Brown's his own experiment.

He doesn't know how to play. He doesn't know what the hell he's doing at all. It's fascinating. It's actually kind of fun to break him down and do his scouting report. But after, like, so much work on him, I go, just stop writing. Like, you already knew who he was immediately. There wasn't a lot of work there. He's like a baby deer that, like, you know, is out and just like, you know, sort of like all

over the place, but he is a crazy, I thought, I thought he was going to measure as the best athlete in the draft. Like some of the. And Keon got it, right? Keon got it. But I will say this, you know, there's, there's combine athleticism and in-game athleticism and other than, you know, some posterizing ducks dunks that Keon Johnson did oftentimes, he actually didn't show off his athleticism the way that you would expect for somebody that elite athlete, you can't watch Greg Brown and not see him pop like multiple times a game athletically. Like it translates to his game. He just doesn't know how to feel or read the game yet, which led to, I think at one point he went like his first 10 or 15 games and didn't record an assist or like only had like one assist, you know, in a game it's shoot threes or dunk.

Like that was, that was his game. That's my fate. I was doing cameras, uh, Cameron Thomas's tape the other day and I counted 16 games with one or zero assists for the LSU guard. Yeah. Uh, he's not, he's not interested in passing but he's probably gonna go in the first round because i mean his shot making alone but i mean he's out there as maybe he's projecting as a third guard let's talk a little rumor stuff because post chicago is kind of the first wave of the rumor mill stuff going so i don't know if you

want to talk trades if you want to talk um about teams i just i think one of the things i always like talking to somebody about is i'll say like give me a name with a team that you're kind of hearing already. The all-time favorite for me was Austin Rivers to the New Orleans Pelicans because I think somebody told me two months before the draft, they're like, I don't know anything. I only know that Austin Rivers is going to the Pelicans. And I was like, really? That's pretty early. They're like, yeah, book it, done. I don't know if we have anything to that level because it still feels early, but take it anywhere you want to go. Well, I think Franz Wagner to the Kings seems like an inevitability, an analytics-driven front office with one of the top analytics guys and frankly, a player that probably fits

what they need, maybe one of the worst defensive teams of all time in Sacramento. And I think Franz Wagner is going to be a really good defender at the next level of the NBA. I mean, there's just so many things that all sort of get together. Everybody's sort of slotting him in there. You know, interestingly, everybody's slotting in Davian Mitchell to the Warriors based off of the James Wiseman experiment last year and, and how they learned bringing in a young raw guy and trying to integrate him

into a team. That's trying to be a playoff team, how frustrating that was for Wiseman, how frustrating it was for the coaching staff, for the players, everyone else, the Warriors, aren't going to do that again. I sort of think is the thinking on what's going to happen there. But I think most people believe that actually what's going to happen is that Wiseman and seven are going to go and they're going to add a big piece to the, to the mix. And, and, you know, John Hollinger wrote about this. So I want to give him credit, but this was the buzz. And I think he was picking up on it. He wasn't, he was in

Chicago picking up on it as a Pascal Siakam could be the guy that they're looking at with the Raptors deciding to go full and rebuild. And, you know, whether it's trying to package four and seven to move up or just taking four and seven, uh, and deciding, you know, we're going to sort of build an ad around this team. I think that that's, that's really interesting. Oklahoma city always, always in the promise game somewhere, whether it's true or not every year, it's rumored Sam Presti shut down someone he's promised somebody. I think everybody was pointing to Isaiah Jackson out of Kentucky who does not show up at the combine, doesn't do anything, doesn't do interviews, doesn't do anything for a guy like that, that, you know, Kate Cunningham, that makes sense for a guy like that. It probably means either he's hiding something, he's got an injury or something that he's trying to hide or, or he's got a promise.

And, you know, given, given where the thunder are developmentally and with picks 16 and 18, uh, kind of right there in the mid first round, I think, you know, slotting Isaiah Jackson, given where the Thunder are developmentally and with picks 16 and 18, kind of right there in the mid first round. I think, you know, slotting Isaiah Jackson, the same way we all slotted Poku to the Thunder last year, like it was the worst kept secret in the draft that Poku was going to be a member of the Thunder one way or the other on draft night. I think a lot of people are feeling that way for him. And I think the biggest mystery that I've had so many people call me about and try to

figure out is Alperen and Singun out of Turkey, this incredibly productive, like Luka Doncic-esque performance over in Europe. Won the MVP of the Turkish league at 18 years old, which is crazy because that's a real league. I mean, it's really great stuff. The analytics are off the charts in like, he's the best player in the draft analytics. That's what the analytics are saying. And the eye test is confusing because the way Turkey plays him on his team, it's kind of an old school game. He's a traditional center. He doesn't shoot threes. He's not handling the ball, questions about his athleticism. He's only 6' know, he's a, he's a traditional center. He doesn't shoot threes. He's not, you know, handling the ball, you know, questions about his athleticism.

He's only six 10 with maybe like a six 10 wingspan. He's, you know, he's not like got huge size. He looks a little bit heavy footed. He's not like, you know, he's not like Jokic, but like, he's, you know, he's not like the super mobile big. And, and so there's this interesting, crazy tension between numbers, production, like all of that actually says this guy's probably like a top, maybe after that six, like the seventh guy in this draft, like hands down.

But then when you think about the way the league's evolved and how big men play in the NBA, he's going to have to do a lot of things that he wasn't doing in Turkey to play on an NBA team. And can he do those? And it's a sort of a guess because he just hasn't been doing those things. He's the most fascinating guy for me. He's really, really skilled. And you're right. I mean, he is old school, traditional five, all that kind of stuff with the passing. And just you can tell how smart of a player he is and all that kind of stuff. But then I think of like, wait,

we have situations. We're amazing. Not, not average centers, really good centers in the league. Can't find minutes in a playoff game. So I know that you have bigger problems if you're picking in the top 10, but I look at when Colbert has a bad matchup against small teams i feel like if you're an nba

team even though all the stuff you just said is accurate i like i don't watch him go oh i hate this guy i watch him and i worry about him because i go well wait a minute what why would you set yourself up with a five that you know are you playing him in closing games in four or five years if you're a good team and at least rud Rudy, Rudy's an elite rim protector and a elite defender. I wouldn't say anything about that with Singoon, Mike, that, you know, I don't think you expect any of that from him. It's all offense. And, you know, that, that is what he's brilliant at. And I think he is, I actually think he's a brilliant basketball player offensively. Uh, you know, teams are going to go small on him. That's going to be a major, you know,

major issue for him that nobody's going to fear a shot blocking when he's on the, on the court. We don't know. People say in an empty gym, he can shoot threes just fine. But he's shooting like 14% from three in very limited attempts in Turkey. Like, yeah, that's a, that's a big, that's a big projection out there for him. Yeah. It troubles me, Ryan as well. Like I, if he goes like seven, like, you know, I'm, I'm not going to be told even if frankly, if Oklahoma city like broke up our top five or top six and took him there,

like that wouldn't like totally shock me. Cause I think Sam Presti's the dude in the league with the balls to do that. Like he's not going to care what the consensus is among NBA guys. Like if he likes a guy, he's going to like, kind of like him. I mean, I think he proved that with Poku.

So that wouldn't shock me if he went 18 or 20 in this draft. Like I'm not going to be shocked either. This is not going to be a Tyrese Halliburton situation where I'm going to be like, why is Simpkin falling in the draft? It's like spin the roulette wheel on where he's going to land on draft night. I want to end with Booknight.

James Booknight, UConn. I got a call the other day about another workout a friend in the league was at. It was like, this guy, man, you guys are sleeping. You're sleeping. Every time I expect this to come full circle about James Booknight, but he seems to be stuck on the mocks. But for about a month now, I've been told by a bunch of teams,

like, hey, somehow, and this I'm sure happened to you a lot, as if you're in charge of every mock draft out there. You know, I'll hear, I feel bad for Kevin O'Connor because I got so many calls about him having Killian Hayes won and the teams were like, what the hell are you doing over there?

I was like, look, I'm not the draft guy here. So back off. But James Booknight continues to get praise. I very rarely hear any criticism about him from teams and he seems to be stuck outside of the lottery. And I just heard again, this workout recently, he absolutely torched it. Well, first of all, shout out to Kevin O'Connor because the temptation is so big in this business

to just sort of conform to the consensus. I get it all the time. People pressure constantly. Why is this guy there? You know, I've been talking to Scotty Barnes now for the last few weeks and just pounded by people. No, it's five. Everybody says it's five. How can Scotty Barnes be four? That doesn't make any sense. And so I get it. Sometimes my life would just be easier. And for Kevin to have Killian Hayes one on his board when literally no one else was thinking or saying that, I actually deeply admire him for that because that's him staying true to what he believes and not being swayed by the consensus. And I think that actually shows a lot of strength and, and why I read Kevin and, and you know, respect what he does.

I don't always agree with him, but, but I'm going to read it because it's actually his take. I'm not just, you know, looking at all the mocks and saying like, what's safe to do with, you know, with book night, here's another thing like, okay, workouts. Like we know this Ryan, like workouts. Like if it's, I went to Damien Lillard workout one time that was the single greatest workout that I've ever seen in my life.

Another Mr. T type workout and Rocky three. And it, and it played out. He plays like that guy in that workout. in Rocky three and it, and it played out. He plays like that guy in that workout. And it was absolutely the thing for me that put it over the top for me of like, yes, this guy should be a top five pick in the draft. Like that, that did it for me. I talked about the Darko Milicic workout, which was also this incredible workout that was actually really misleading. I've seen a lot of these over the years. Everything that I heard out of that workout in Chicago was that he could not miss a shot. He was stroking it from everywhere on the years. Everything that I heard out of that workout in Chicago was that he could not miss a

shot. He was stroking it from everywhere on the floor. And I'm like, okay, cool. He did that in a workout, a scripted workout with an agent. He shot 29% from three at UConn. His assist to turnover ratio was dramatically underwater at UConn. He's no way going to be a lead guard. He's a little bit undersized for his position. And I don't know what he necessarily gives you defensively. And so you have this guy that I think could be an elite score in a league because he is wired that way. And he's a good athlete and he's wired to be a scorer. So I get the appeal, but the analytics are a little bit discouraging.

For teams that want multi-positional players, he's not that. That's not what he's going to be. And if he is a lights-out shooter, then he should be a top 10 pick in this draft, just by the sheer fact that he's going to be a great scorer and he's going to be a great scorer. He's going to be Ray Allen at that point or whatever. But Ray Allen didn't shoot 29% from when when he was playing at yukon and and so you know you got two two years of watching him in game and then watching him in a workout with teams you know i i think it's fair to have some skepticism you know i like it i like the

way you close that because the size part when you watch him, you go, oh, and he felt like he got clogged up a little bit. But I don't know, man. I just I don't hear anything negative on him. And he's never in the lottery. He's never in the lottery for all the reasons that you just mentioned. I just did it today and I feel guilty taking this long to do it. But I subscribe today. NBA big board dot com.

I did the yearly and I will. today, nbabigboard.com. I did the yearly. And I will, if you DM me on Instagram, I will cover one person's yearly subscription to join. Well, look, it's 50 bucks. I'm not saving lives over here. But I just want to support a guy who's always been supportive of me. It's Chad Ford. Again, nbabigboard.com. And the podcast comes out every two two weeks and this was a lot of fun man so let's do it again all right take care ryan you want details bye i drive a ferrari 355 cabriolet what's up i have a ridiculous house in the south fork i have every toy you can possibly imagine and best of all kids i am liquid am liquid. So, now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Lifeadvicerr

at gmail.com No Kyle as of right now. He's had some time off and then also kind of a busy taping schedule. So, I don't want anyone to think that Kyle's no longer part of Life Advice because I know how much i think people like that more than what i'm talking about which

look i'll agree with you so so rudy's here but don't you know i'm sorry don't get freaked out yeah and here's the best part about so rudy so rudy does not care because he knows that everybody wants to hear from kyle and there's a lot of guys that would have a microphone in front of him they'd be like you know hey can we have a can we have a meeting about like what my role is on life advice because i feel like you know my voice matters and uh all right i'm lost yeah yeah i just i feel like i i know what my value is and like this is my worth and i know my worth you're like okay you know what it's just a fucking stupid advice thing at the end. So let's not. That's never happened on this podcast.

Zero egos here on the Rosillo Show. Eh, zero is probably inaccurate. It's probably one. All right, fair enough. I'm talking about Kyle and I. Yep, I'll leave it at that. All right. Here we go.

all right uh here we go um this is uh this the theme of of today's might be the old 180 on us because they had a couple things so like the headline of this was psychologist response to woman with late boyfriend so we had a lot of people following up on the boyfriend who was late all the time and i have to admit when i when I got this one sent to me, I was like, I'm just going to be, you know, I'm certainly not licensed. I've been a human for a while, so I think I've understood human behavior. But I'm always like, all right, what's this guy going to say? So here we go. Psychologist, therapist, New York, New York City, New Jersey as well, New York City, New Jersey as well. 33-61-175. Oh, I know why I like this.

Okay, this is fun. I had a way in on the recent email from the woman with the constantly late boyfriend. I have some thoughts on lateness, which may help her out. Look, it's going to be tough to change this. His comfort in doing this

and his willingness to do it on other people's special occasions is an issue. It makes me wonder about his level of empathy generally or if there's something about big occasions, weddings, et cetera, that he wants to avoid. There you go. This is why this guy went to school. There's a lot of directions all these emails can go. I'm understanding of that. I don't expect that mine is the 100% complete, unless it's just a real cutthroat, like, oh, she hasn't texted you

back in a month. Guess what, dude? I don't think there's a lot of ways we can look at this, but that's a very good point brought up by a professional in this. Is there something in his past? Is there something about big events? But as he says, these are all things for her to consider. In any event, lateness is a power play. He keeps her and others guessing, wondering, and begging for him to be present. He likely gets an odd brand of attention and validation from this.

His lack of concern about it, however, is what has me siding with you, Ryan. This won't change anytime soon. He's presenting possible theories for the root cause here. Root cause? Soprano's reference. But yet, then he kind of comes around to the fact he just doesn't even give

a shit is why. It's like maybe this guy just sort of sucks. This is one attribute of him. We all have kind of like a couple things that probably people say like i wish he did this better or whatever uh we know what this guy's deal is all right so as the psychologist says this won't change anytime soon this type of thing can change but only if he wants it to until then enticing him to change might actually make the problem worse as he likely relishes the attention this garners people are masterful at finding ways for others to request their presence and validate them, however subtly.

The only way he'll come around is if she stops rewarding his lateness and nonchalance. However, I agree with Sir Rudy that it would be difficult for her to simply ignore him and essentially make her own plans, wondering when or if he'll show up. As far as him enjoying time with the groom

despite missing the guy's ceremony, this actually makes me more worried about his personality and potential lack of empathy. Again again it's a power play that he's likely unaware of if you have to wait for someone you can't be with them when they arrive um and then here's so i thought all that stuff was really good you know there's a couple things that i you know the the power play part of it i mean i'm a little little bit more of the common man approach to this stuff where I'm like, maybe he just sucks. Maybe this part just really sucks to just sit on a bed and be like, fire up a soccer game when the ceremony is about to start in 12 minutes already. I kind of always default to the simpler thing, but I like what our guy is offering up here as

further explanations for our female listeners. I think he's a professional, so I think he's onto something here and that there has to be a reason why he's doing this, right? Like just being a dick isn't a reason, right? The reason would be that he wants attention. And I think that actually probably does make sense. And that actually makes him, makes me like him even less like this. If you're doing this for attention. So people are like, oh, I pay attention to me, whatever room I walk in when I'm late. Like people say, oh, you know, here's so-and-so he's late again. And that gives you some sort of gratification. That's a huge bummer to me. But it actually probably makes sense, right? Because why else would you just be constantly

be a dick about it? Yeah, see, there's and I'm not I'm not disagreeing with a psychologist. I'm just a guy hosting the podcast here. But the times like we've had some people come on or reach out and say, hey, can I come on? And first of all, I'm not going to ever have anybody on as a life advice person in a special field, unless I already know that person kind of, you know, no offense to anybody, but like, I have to have some sort of relationship where I know like, Hey, I think this guy's going to be good on the pod or whatever. There was a bunch of financial guys hitting us up afterwards being like, Hey, let's, I need to come on whatever, whatever, whatever. And I could tell what they were doing, like they were hoping to like sell their own, you know, financial advisor position. And I'm not knocking the hustle here, but if I don't know you. So the thing with anybody

that works in therapy, I think sometimes when it's your profession, you can try to make it more complicated. So there or you look like your expertise is that much more valuable. And I'm not saying that's what's happening here at all so i don't want our psychologists here to feel like i'm being dismissive but it is something i've noticed because it happens in my thing all the time where i'll look at certain guys there'll be certain guys on twitter they'll be talking about like a football game or a basketball game and they want to make it so much more complicated they'd be like oh you know the db technique foot on the inside left set up this whole and

you're like yeah i just beat him like what are you talking about and it's just like no i wanna there was a football guy that i used to work with this is even before espn where all he would do was references to make it sound like he was like the biggest best football guy so actually he was making everything more complicated so it wasn't really for the viewer audience it was simply for him to show off and actually nobody could understand what the hell he's talking about and then there always be some other football guy that'd be like that guy doesn't know what he's talking about you're just like whatever this was a great email um and this is why it gets funny because at the end he says please use my name as i don't mind some pub so when i read that sentence

i go i'm definitely not reading this email right i go i I'm definitely not reading this email. Right. I go, I go, I'm not reading this fucking guy's email. Like what? But then he saved himself with this sentence. However, stop there. Wow. I figured you would just stop and be like, all right, we're good here. No, because everything before it was so good.

So then I, when I got to that line, I was like, oh, whatever, dude. And then he said, however, if that seems lame, which it kind of is, then skip the name. I'd just rather have the email read, love the show, love the two cents from Cerruti and Kyle. P.S., I am too wondering about Texas Jake. So you know what we're going to do here? This is going to be a first.

Our guy's name is Joel Coleman. And I guess he, I don't know if he wants me to give out the email here. I think he does. Um, Joel Coleman, New Jersey, New York city. I think he's got an email. He wanted the pub. I would almost never do this, but I thought it was so funny that he immediately called himself out that then I was like, all right, I'm back in. So there you go. Yeah, that's the ultimate kind of shoot your shot. And listen, it worked, right?

You just read his email on the pod. And that's that's a first in the I think the history of any Rosillo show. So good for him. I'm surprised you did that. Yeah, his life. Now his email is going to get spit in by like random dudes who aren't really looking for any sort of like, you know, therapy advice or just, you know, they want to say what's up.

random dudes who aren't really looking for any sort of like you know therapy advice or just you know they want to say what's up i thought it was really really good because my my fear of the experts at times is like okay you've studied this stuff you know older guy like 20 30 years and you're like you know the other thing too is that i think the profession prevents you from being very judgmental. So when you're like, okay, because here's what I've been blown away by with the emails and how popular this segment has turned the podcast into and not just, you know, like people, I know people now that'll just be like, hey, that's what I listened to. And I'll skip the guest is that any professional email that I've gotten from somebody in the field that's been sent has been overwhelmingly positive, which makes me feel better.

And I'm sure there's plenty of guys that are licensed. They're like, he has no idea what he's talking about, which I'll admit there's certain topics. I'm not going to be the go to guy, but it doesn't stop the segment. So I appreciated the email and I thought he had some really good things in there to say. And hopefully the late boyfriend girlfriend will hear this. I hope he's wrong. I hope he's wrong, because if that's the case, then that just bums me out even more, though.

If you're just doing this for attention, that sucks. Imagine subconsciously going, oh, I like being late because everyone has to pay attention to me. Because everyone is super mad at me. Yeah. What a psychopath. That's sad. I mean, it's kind of sad, to be honest with you.

I don't know. But the guy didn't seem like it. He seemed like he had a lot of friends. He mean, that's that's it's kind of sad to be honest with you. I don't know. But the guy didn't seem like he seemed like he had a lot of friends. He went on that golfing trip or no golfing trip. He just went golfing with some random friend because he was in town. It seems like he's not like a friend issue. He just I don't know. I'm confused, but I'm not a therapist. So here you go.

Yeah, but I have I have a large I mean, I joke about not having any friends. I actually have a ton of friends, but I just don't live near any of them. Yeah. about not having any friends i actually have a ton of friends but i just don't live near any of yeah and nobody bro my friend ranking high to quite high uh but i would say all of us have a thing that if you only knew about that side of him you'd go wait what i mean although i don't know the more i think about it you get a little bit older um in college you're when you're younger you're just like up. You're tuned up. Those years in your 20s,

more stuff probably pisses you off unless you're just a really, really easygoing guy. Then, luckily, if you're older enough, you're not living with dudes. I think people get married for the most part just to have somebody to hang out with, but that's another topic. I do always tell my wife that

it's probably better that she didn't meet me when I was in college or younger Suruti because she probably wouldn't have liked younger Suruti. Uh, I've definitely mellowed out with age, but I used to get, yeah, hyped up, worked up.

Like I wasn't like a fighter as we've discussed on previous podcasts. That was a little bit of a shit talker, but you just grow out of that shit. I don't know, but a lot of it is for attention. So, you know, maybe this guy,

I don't know what was he late twenties, right? So maybe he's kind of, he's still growing out of it. Late 20s? I think she said they've been together for four years. I mean, if you're going to take a dump in a hotel room on a wedding weekend, you know, it's not. Yeah, you guys are.

You guys have been together for a while, although, you know, I don't want to get into that topic. So let's let's just keep moving. Staying on the theme of 180 emails is another one that forwards to me where the title was too good for men's hoop league or too good for men's league hoops i was like wait what i'm not reading this one like what a what a dick this guy must be all right so let's, uh, let's take the journey together. Um, and he says, Oh, leave these things out. Don't worry guys. I screen on the fly here. Hey guys, love the show. A little background, two years out of college and home for the summer. Uh, my friends from high school that still live in the area are in a men's league this summer and asked me to play

with them. Problem. However, is that none of my friends are very good and these are the competition in this league. So I'm starting to think like this guy sucks. Then he says the kids who made the freshman team or did a year of JV as sophomores, but didn't even bother trying for varsity and then haven't touched the ball since. I was like, oh, wait. Okay. So maybe these kids aren't very good. And then he mentions that he played hoops in college. And by the way, he's clearly pretty good at basketball because this is a really good

program for him to be playing it. So then I'm like, oh, wait. So he's good. He's had a pretty solid career my dilemma is that i'm way too good to be in this league especially considering i'm 6'9 235 so now i'm totally on the emailer side if we started from a position where i was like i probably don't even want to read this to wait a minute let me check it out to now i like i don't i don't get where he's coming from because i'm not six nine and played in college but i get where you're coming from the sense that there's a major major gap between the dudes that you grew up with and the fact that you're this monster so um because my dilemma is i'm way too good to be in the league especially at six nine two thirty

five and do almost all of my scoring exclusively in the paint. It'd be one thing if I was a guard and could really shoot it, but I can't. All I do is score in the post or finish off at drop-offs. I've played in three games and scored 30 in all three, all with a handful of dunks and blocks. I know for a fact I look like an asshole being there. My friends don't feel that way at all because they think it's awesome that they get to throw me lobs and we're winning. But I know for a fact it's hard not to look like a massive asshole being out there doing my best in his canter impersonation against guys who are 6'1". The problem is that I'm rarely home. And I'm at the age where the friends groups are getting a little tighter. It's been an awesome time seeing everyone at games, going out for beers afterwards and being included for the following weekend's plans. At this point, I would classify

myself as a fringe guy because I was never home for the holidays or most of the summer during college, nor have I been around much since I graduated. I'm not in the group chat, and I'm not the type of person that wants to constantly nag others to see what they're doing, even though I know I'm always welcome to come hang.

Additionally, because of my job, this guy has a really cool job too, I have a weird work calendar that requires me to be away on a lot of the weekends and busier in the summer than most. So I can't really guarantee that I'll be around for as different good chunk of time in the near or distant future. So what do I do? I think it's a weird and tough look. He also mentions that clearly people know who he is than this league that he's playing in. It's a tough look that I'm playing in these summer league games, but they're the best

ways to see my friends from high school. I've thought about taking a little lighter or trying to facilitate, but I'm honestly not even trying that much to begin with. This league is really bad. And would it be even more of a loser move to show up and not try something like that? So I just keep wearing it and playing these games. Or is there another way I can stay involved? Great, great email because he shows us what he actually does have a ton of self-awareness. Um, and he doesn't want to go out there at six, nine, just start dunking all these

guys. All right. There's a bunch of things here. Your self-awareness is great, but don't be so self-aware that you're denying yourself some fun. All right. like my first thought was you should just start trying to play perimeter hoops for a while just work on other skills you've never developed you know i don't know if you're gonna be sitting pin down screens and guys at at six nine but you're probably not gonna be going between your legs and all that kind of stuff and bringing the ball up because then all the other guards are like hey this is annoying and then maybe you're making it more of a mockery the the entire thing. But here's what I would advise anyone in any of these kind of situations.

You're not doing anything bad. Yes, you're dominating guys that should never be playing against you, but you mentioned it yourself. You love this friendship bond that you're developing here. So why would you deny yourself all the benefits from this?

There are good things, healthy things. Coming out of a pandemic, seeing friends again, your job, which you explained to me here and I'll share with everyone, is one that is super demanding time-wise. And this may be a moment, and you're also, what,

you're just two years out of college? Don't overthink this. Like the fact that you even care is enough. All right? I mean, the fact that, like anybody that's looking at you going like, hey, you're an asshole, don't worry about the other people in this case. Even if they didn't know, it'd be a very common assumption or reaction to you out there just dunking all these guys. But if you like the camaraderie part of it and you're hanging out and you're connected with guys, you haven't connected it again, and you're going to become a core guy, even though if your limitations because the job

always make you a forever fringe guy don't deny yourself all of that stuff that is really good and healthy now and honestly most of us all need it because those post-college years are always kind of a little tough figuring out transition like where do i fit in where's my friend group going to be and all these different things don't deny yourself all that stuff because you don't want to look like an asshole because you're 6'9 and you're dunking on guys. Don't apologize for being 6'9. And by the way, there's another thing about being 6'9 and being this good at hoops. All the other guys, yeah, they like throwing you lobs and all that stuff. They also love having a 6'9 guy in the mix. All right. That is a fact. It is science. When you are with a

monstrous person, the rest of the people, there's just a little gleam, just a little weird twinkle in the eye of like, not because you're going to start getting into alley fights here, but it's a conversation starter for all the other people, especially if you start talking to girls. Now, granted, six, nine, that's a specific girl that's going to be super into a guy that's closer to seven feet. That's a different topic. I don't understand it that well at my height in comparison. But what I'm telling you is everybody's pumped that you're in the group. They love having you

on the basketball team. Yeah, it looks a little ridiculous. I love the fact you said I'm not even really trying that hard. Maybe work on the perimeter stuff, but do not. Do not deny yourself something healthy

and that is good as making you feel good about yourself in this very short amount of time and in a window you may not have again in a long time. I love this guy because self-awareness, I've always said, is the most underrated, if not most important personality trait. But you can go too far on that too. And then you get paranoid in your own head about whether or not you're stepping on other people.

So it's just kind of do you, man. And I thought the same thing. Stretch that jumper out to 12 feet. If you don't feel comfortable out there, start clanking you know make your game better it's a self-improvement exercise so i i i love this guy and uh i don't know what his gig is but it's i'm like super intrigued about what it is you have to tell me off the air but um i don't know make your friends do your thing but like don't get in your own head too much about like whether or not you're too good just just be you yeah you're not there could be one thing if you were dunking on guys and screaming at them and then waving. If you guys win the men's

league, you start running around with the banner over your head or hold a trophy up. You're like, we did it. We did it. It sounds like you're not going to do any of those things or you're not doing any of those things. You're right. Great point, Rudy. Self-awareness is great, but there's also a ceiling you need to put on self-awareness

where a lot of times when you're sitting there thinking about all these other things people are thinking of you, they're not even, like they got their own stuff. They're not even thinking about it. Yes, there's probably a few people

that walk by this game and go, look at that 6'9 asshole. Who does he think he is? Who cares? That person isn't even a part of your life. And if you know that what your motivations are are all pure and it's all because of the't even a part of your life. And if you know that what your motivations are are all pure and it's all because

of the camaraderie part of it, don't apologize for being dominant. There's a good chance a lot of those guys too will want to impress you as the 6'9 guy who's really good to be like, oh man, I got to bring my A game. So this guy thinks I'm not like a total noob. So I don't know.

Don't get in your own head too much and just do you. Yeah, but definitely tell the rest of the guys, maybe the five tenors that are on the basketball team, don't talk shit when you throw a lob to me either. Fair. We're changing the schedule. I don't know what it is because the Bill and I Sunday thing is going to move,

I think, to a Thursday. I'm not 100% sure. You're at least going to get two from me because I still have the third one, Bill. We're going to do all the draft stuff. So look, I'm not going anywhere the next month or whatever, but I just want to make sure you're at least going to get two from me. Um, because I still have the third one, Bill, we're going to do all the draft stuff. So look, I'm not going anywhere the next month or whatever, but I just want to make sure you're subscribed.

You tell everybody to subscribe, uh, rate and review the podcast. And we will talk to you next week. Just not sure which day I'll announce it on Twitter, which I'm very active on and enjoy all of it. Outro Music you