The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Chet’s Best Fit, Jabari’s Ceiling, and More NBA Draft Talk With Sam Vecenie. Plus, the Rise of International Talent With NBA Associate VP Chris Ebersole.

Episode Date: June 16, 2022

Ryen is joined by 'The Athletic'’s Sam Vecenie for an extensive breakdown of all the major prospects in next week’s NBA draft, including where Chet Holmgren should want to land, if we’re underrating Jabari Smith Jr.’s ceiling, and more (0:32)! Then, he’s joined by the NBA’s associate VP of international basketball operations, Chris Ebersole, to talk about the influx of international talent in the league, why it's only going to keep growing, and a look at some of the best international prospects in this draft (56:12). Finally, he closes it out with some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (1:16:09). Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Sam Vecenie and Chris Ebersole Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

today's podcast is a lot of drafts we're not going to have an open for it because we went way too long in life advice anyway we got sam pacini about an hour on the lottery a little sneaky second round late first round stuff and also chris ebersole, who works with the NBA's international program. Unbelievable stuff coming from overseas in all directions to the NBA. So let's do it. We are one week from the draft,

so we'll spend a lot of time, as you know, with today's lineup in San Vecini of the Athletic. Also, the Game Theory podcast with Matt Penny. I think you guys are doing that two days a week now?

I was looking through it. Two times a week? Yeah. All right. Well, let's do it. Let's dig in. You do a great job on all this stuff, so I love talking with guys like you who do it year-round. Let's start at the top then. Where are you at the top?

Well, it sounds like you have a top four, but of the options for Orlando, let's at least keep it where everybody else seems to be. With Chet, Paolo, and Jabari, where are you? Where are their talent, the conversation Paolo, and Jabari. Where are you? Where are their talent, the conversation around it, and then ultimately the Orlando part of it? Yeah, look, at the end of the day, I like all four of these guys.

I like them a lot. I think they're all legitimate potential all-stars. I don't have any of them as tier one talents, like on the Cade Cunningham, where we had Zion Williamson level. I don't have any of those guys there. But I like all of them, you know, at relatively similar levels to how I liked Evan Mobley, Jalen Green, Jalen Soggs last year, where I was really high on all those guys. So I am a big fan of these guys. I like Jabari

and Chet just a little bit of a level above the other two. And it's in large part because I trust Jabari and Chet a little bit more defensively. Chet's his own conversation defensively. I think he has some of the best defensive anticipation I've ever evaluated in a prospect. And I think it's really going to help him make up for the weight deficiency as he starts his career. Jabari, man, I see the conversations around Jabari and I understand the concern about his lack of playmaking and his lack of handle. I think that the margin for error for someone like Jabari is just different for other people because he's so big and can shoot over the top of anyone and already has dexterity as, you know, an 18 year old that played college basketball this season and getting to his step back. I really kind of wonder if we're kind of underrating his ability to potentially just get to his spot and shoot over the top of whoever the hell he wants to shoot over the top of. And he could be like a legitimate, like 24, 25 point

per game score at his peak. I think like it's, it's hard to find someone that's six foot 10 shoots 42% from three can shoot from the mid range and has like actual ability already at that size to get to his spots. So I like Jabari and chat just a little bit more than the other two. But, uh, you know, I think as long as Orlando picks one of those guys, it makes sense. Yeah. I like all of them. So, you know, when I want to talk up one, I mean, my statement or position here for a few weeks has been that I just think Powell is the best basketball player of the three of them right now. And I know that's not necessarily what the job is, but I also kind of think it's weird, especially when I'll talk to a team and be like, well, wait, if you're telling me that you agree with me that Paolo is the best player of all of them, why is his ceiling automatically lower than if he's just better than those guys now? But I also get that the Chet ceiling part of it, no one can match what the potential of Chet ceiling is. So I'm not arguing that Paolo could be this version of Chet that we're all sort of in love with. But I think your defensive instinct thing with Chet is really special because it's not just the rim. Like when I would watch him do stuff where he'd get almost caught in a bad position and he'd be backpedaling against a driver and he would line up left hand on right hand release. And then he would like magically switch his hands as he was off balance. So we're not just talking about somebody help defend on the guy to the rim and come off yours.

He does some stuff where you're right. Like you see his instincts where he's like, oh, wait, I got to change my hand now to contest the shot. And there's just not many people that do that kind of stuff. But unless you want to follow up to that, we can. But I do have another thought that I want to throw at you. Well, I'll just say like, you know, you see like the opposite free throw line, like rotations, right? From Chet Holmgren, where you can literally see him diagnose what's happening on the other side of the court. And you see him just fly down from the opposite elbow.

And it's just like, how the hell did he see that? It's just like special stuff like that. And, you know, I assume your next point is going to be about paulo right well i also when i see somebody who's not great defensively unless it's a disaster um if they're not great defensively as a guy who's been in school for one year i try not to put a ton into that like whatever my ratio of the things that i think are valuable or concerning i think most of these guys aren't very good at defense because they either haven't had to be or you're not defending the way you are. My default with NBA defense is if you care and you have some size, that should be good enough.

I'm serious. So yeah, I don't disagree with that on some level. I think that the conversation has probably gone a little bit too far in the like, oh, he's a flat out negative defensively with Paulo, right? I think he knows where he needs to be. I think he's an incredibly intelligent basketball player. And those guys, they tend to play up a little bit whenever they get to the NBA, those guys that have super high IQ, right? The thing with Paulo is I do worry about the foot speed a little bit as we continue to move further and further into this modern nba and you just kind of when you're trying to come up with lineup constructions that work for paulo in the playoffs in moments that matter do you see him as

a small ball center like what in the playoffs like do you see him like being able to slide up to the five because that that's where my worry is i don't't know that I see that, but I also don't know that I fully trust him like chasing fours off the ball, but like, you might be able to hide them on like a PJ Tucker or someone like that in the playoffs to where it can work, but then teams are just going to have PJ Tucker come up and set screens for ball handlers. So it's complicated, I think, trying to come up with what his exact role is defensively, even though I think he can make it work defensively. I guess I just keep factoring that he's going to run high screen and roll for you and drive with that size and pull up and then also make plays like he did against Tech.

Because when I saw the Tech game, I go, man, why are we knocking this guy? I'll share it with you. I don't want to repeat myself too much on the podcast, but when you watch the first half of the Gonzaga game, you go weak. I'm supposed to take somebody ahead of Fowler and Carroll. But that's not what the evaluation is.

That's not the entire game. So the other part of Jabari, I don't know that I've ever seen somebody as young as him, as patient as he is defensively, too. Like here he is, this physical presence, and yet he'll play you with his chest. You know, if you're deep and you think you're at the rim and you're trying to just give him one little fake and then get ready, like he stays down. He's patient. He's timing you.

It's really mature stuff. And if you go, all right, he shoots it and he has the size and I already know defensively like his baselines beyond the other guys then i kind of get it and that's what i think is so fun about it but you'd said something about how paulo or some of these other higher iq players high profile players kind of play up a little bit i think this is a good transition into ivy because i went back and watched the purdue wisconsin game where johnny davis had 37 uh ivy had foul trouble in the first half so So all 37 were not like Davis didn't give him straight up 37 points in that game at all. But I also noticed Ivy who can be a little flat footed,

maybe loaf a bit defensively. It felt like, oh, I'm actually seeing more competitiveness out of you despite Johnny getting the headlines in the wind that day. Because I think those Ivy knocks are, it's hard because you're like, they're there.

I should, I should I should be upset about him but I'm also thinking that maybe in the NBA this guy's a little more competitive and we're going to get better effort which isn't a great excuse but I do think is reasonable yeah like what when I've asked around about Jaden the consensus that I've gotten from people

Purdue is like no this dude is a crazy competitor like he wants to win really badly, and sometimes it would manifest itself in ways where you'd see him get super frustrated. He throws hands up and get annoyed a little bit. Sometimes at teammates, but

not in a deconstructive way. It's complicated to evaluate what his body language is. He got mad at himself, though, at least. He gets mad at himself, too. Yeah. it's complicated to kind of evaluate what his body language is. He gets mad at himself too. Yeah. Yeah.

Like he'll, he'll like see Trevion Williams and then he'll make a read late or Trevion Williams will make like the like wrong decision. And he'll just be like, God, like, and just like, fuck,

like I screwed this up and it's fine. Like, I think that he'll be better in that regard in the NBA. But the thing is that the defensive stuff is weird because I think he's actually better as an off-ball defender than he is on the ball. And he's going to be relied upon to play on the ball, I think, defensively, unless you play him next to like, you know, Pat Beverly or someone like that. And I don't know what to make of that yet.

Like, he did a better job on Max Christie, like chasing Max Christie off of screens and just like completely obliterating him in their game against Michigan state. Then he did against Johnny Davis, like where Johnny Davis is taking a million, you know, on balls and is trying to separate and get into the mid range and Jaden's getting clipped on every screen and getting frustrated and getting in foul trouble. So I think he's so athletic. He is such a joke athletically that he's going to be able to make it work, but it's not a certainty that he has the like awareness level defensively at this point to like be able to step in and be an effective defender.

I really like him. And I went back and watched the under 19 game against France where you just see certain things that he does. You're like, there's nobody else who can move around like this. And I mean, I did the full, I did way too much Purdue breakdown probably on Sunday night with Bill. So we don't need to do it all here again. I think he's a better passer than you realize. I think he's actually sees a few more things on the drives. I know they're not always pretty. I know it's turnovers. I know against St. Pete, it was really frustrating because I should probably just say St. Peter's, but you could tell there were some possessions where he's like, all right, I got to try

to find a way to take over and do this. And it's these drives, these dump downs, and I know they weren't always pretty, but I guess part of me felt like at least he's seeing it or he's forcing the issue.

He's trying to will his team into this win. And in a real big negative which was a terrible game for him and for purdue to lose it i still found some little positives because of that competitiveness that you talked about yeah i mean look i know you don't want to dive into purdue but it sounds like you did it on bill's podcast i haven't listened to that yet but like the zach edie trevion williams thing was so weird it was so so weird like there's no there's no other way around it like you have this idea where you have trevion Williams thing was so weird. It was so, so weird. Like there's no, there's no other way around it.

Like you have this idea where you have Trevion Williams, who's this incredible, unbelievable big man who can short roll and play make. Like I talked to big 10 coaches that were like, Trevion Williams is the best passer in our league. Like we don't really know what they're doing at Purdue, not playing this guy. So they understand that Zach Eadie is really good. But to have this guy, Jaden Ivey, who's an incredible downhill athlete, getting to the basket and playing him next to like this plotting 7'3 big when you have, you know, Trevion Williams, short roll guy. It's where you can't put two on the ball against Jaden Ivey in ball screen scenarios or Trevion is just going to obliterate you with kickouts look i i think that it was not a very like i like matt painter i think he's a great coach i don't think he did a great job with this roster this season and i think because of it

we didn't get to see everything that jade and ivy is capable of showing i mean ryan like there are moments where this dude just like runs around point of attack defenders. They'll be in good position. It'll be like an athletic point of attack defender. And he's just like, okay, I'm just going to get to the rim now. You can't do anything. You can't stop me. It's hilarious.

Him with space. He's the most hilarious tape. Right. Him with space. There's off ball cuts. He doesn't even get the ball. And I go, oh, my God. Look what he just did.

And then this gear that he gets to. He is an elite wing athlete. He will be in the NBA, and he will stand out athletically. And there's plenty of guys that are athletes. He's whatever he is. He's the level above that. And I know the Sacramento part of this, you go like Fox. I saw you want to jump in, so just take it there.

Well, yeah. So you just said wing. Do you think he's a leader? Do you think he's a leader? Do you think he's a wing? Oh, I don't think he's ready to be initiating stuff with you. Yeah. But you would. I mean, you would.

Say he develops and he's pretty good. I mean, you're running him. I mean, look, most of this league is all high ball screen anyway with the Paul Hamlin. Right. But I don't think you'd be handing the keys to him. And then that's the other Sacramento part of this. It feels like a bad fit with Fox. But the guys that figure it out, the most valuable guys are the ones that figure out how to play with the ball and then get somebody else involved and kind of take turns.

I think that's what was so engaging about Cade is that it was this bad Oklahoma State team and he still was like a really willing teammate to do some stuff off the ball, even though he should have never not had the basketball. And that was the stuff with Cade, all the stuff that I loved about Cade. And then on top of him, like, oh, he's totally okay with this part of it too. That's why like if there was some version that Jaden ended up in Detroit with Cade, I go, well, this is, this is perfect for him. But right now, if, you know,

if it's in Sacramento, somebody's in his way and everything, I, I guess if I were a GM, I just go, Hey, I need multiple shock creators. So what am I going to do?

Not take one now because, and by the way, it appears that I mean, the camp want nothing to do with Sacramento anyway, like they're not even going there. So I don't know if that'll factor into it or not, but I think we're kind of on the same page

of how special he can be, although frustrating at times. Yeah, I would just take him if I was the Kings. I'd take him and figure it out later. Like maybe it's you trade De'Aaron Fox. Maybe it's, you know, you just try and play

all three of these lead guards together or, you know, whatever you want to call J. I agree with you. He's never Davion's never going to be a lead guard in the NBA. He just is, right? Oh is right oh okay whoa look out his last 20 games were good man like it was is the

last 20 games on a shitty sacramento team i get it but like yeah there's like 16 points eight assists he's a killer point of attack defender like if you told me that he's like slightly better pat beverly where he can actually like run a bit of offense whereas pat is just purely off the we were saying lead guard right okay just yeah i don't think of pat beverly that way and i'm just gonna go with like a rule it's my it's my gerald green rule those last few weeks of the nba season sometimes it's hard man are not are not the things you want to start basing future decisions on and you know honestly we should mention sabonis because it's not like sabonis doesn't need the basketball to get to work either so i mean sabonis is a very ball dominant thing like a lot of things

i like about his well-rounded game that's why i think the pacers after a while we're like well shit like we we gotta let him kind of like turn face and work get work, like go back to the nineties, man. And I like this. Yeah. This is why the Kings moving Tyrese Halliburton made no sense to me because Tyrese is the exact guy we're talking about that makes everyone better. That fits with every player on the roster was bonus bonus fits with some players. He's a great player.

I don't mean to like shit talk them on a bonus, but like it's, it's harder to build a team with them. And you already have these constraints because you have these two smaller point guards in the aaron fox and davion mitchell and now you're at four you have like another situation you have to deal with i don't know it's hard like if i was the kings i'd be moving this pick i'd either be trying to move up to number two see what oklahoma city is willing to you know willing to do. Or I'd be trying to move back to like number six, where maybe the Pacers want to try and

jump the Pistons to try and get one of Keegan Murray or Jaden Ivey and then pick up, you know, my idea that I've floated on my podcast is like, would you move Chris Duarte and six for four? And then if you're the Kings, you pick up a really good player. You want to try and make the playoffs this year. You move back to six. You maybe get a guy that fits better that's probably in the same boat as Keegan Murray as it is yeah that's not that's not crazy I don't I mean I like Duarte but I'm not going to freak out if he's not part of my future you know and then four it means I'm

going to get one of the four guys there that drops unless the Ivy thing were to get really weird you know what we should have done though because Because I still want a bunch of names, so I'll go quicker here. I think we should at least talk about the Chet factor though with Oklahoma City. Everybody seems to think that Presti wants to take him. I don't know if that's because they think that Presti still doesn't want to be good so he can get the French kid next year, Victor, who is that special of a prospect if you had a chance to watch him play. I look at him and I feel like he's a 6'8 guy in a video game that a kid just stretched out to like 7'3 and he moves around

like he's still the 6'8 guy. He just happens to be that tall. It's insane. So I don't know if there's some gamesmanship going on here with Orlando where it seemed like they were cool on the Bancaro part of this, but I talked to somebody today that had said that there is a plan to actually get Paolo Orlando. So I don't know what the hell's going on there.

But would it be that Orlando was like, look, if we're close in Jabari and Chet, why don't we just convince everybody we're taking Chet one. So that way Sam Presti will at least give us one of his million picks to move up and we still get the guy we probably want. I don't know if you've heard anything about that. A lot of bullshit flying around this time of year, but I just thought it was kind of interesting that it feels like Orlando, the rumors are always about two guys and not the third guy and maybe

it's just their own board. So who knows? Yeah. You know, I think it's hard this time of year. There's always, you know, so much smoke flying around. I mean, with my impression is that this has never been a done deal with Jabari at number one. I think that anyone who thought it was done, I had been kind of told that the decision hadn't been made as of last weekend. And maybe it has by now. I don't know. I haven't reached back out or anything, but I think that they are going through their process and it's hard for me because personally,

I think Jabari and Cheddar just like a little bit of a level above Paulo. Yeah. Maybe that's just as simple as what it is. That just might be what it is. Right. Yeah. It might be that simple. And if you're Oklahoma city,

you're probably pretty happy with either Cheddar Jabari. Right. Like, I don't think you're upset with either. I saw yesterday Jabari was in Oklahoma City. There was additional assets unless you just adore the guy at number one? I will say that like the more I think about the Chet Holmgren thing with Oklahoma City, it makes perfect sense for them because the thing that they want more than anything is to have five guys that can grab and go on the break, right? They want to be able to just sprint, get down court, get to their offense, and then also have that like defensive versatility, right? This is why we've seen seen Isaiah Roby playing the five for them at times, where as fine as Isaiah Roby is as a player, how many organizations would play him at the five versus the four?

Very, very few. So I think that Chet's the perfect fit for them at the end of the day. He makes perfect sense. He actualizes their defense. He's the grab-and-go guy on offense. He can shoot. He can play outside.

He can play on the perimeter. It wouldn't surprise me if they've like kind of decided on that. Like this time of year, I always default to what is the most logical outcome. The most logical outcome based on how Oklahoma city is wanting to play under Mark Daniel is that they love Chet Holmgren, I think. Well, and there's also something that backs it up to his agents, Bill Duffy, very powerful agent and doing this a long time i've been told this is where duffy and chet want to go they want to go to oklahoma city because you just mentioned the players that they've been playing in the front court and you start thinking about that second contract and the opportunities and he has way more freedom because of the roster in front of him than maybe he would in orlando although i think orlando feels really good about you know one of their bigs and i don't know what's going to happen with Mo Bamba down there. But I think that's the

preference that I've heard and it makes a lot of sense from a basketball standpoint of being brought along, but also getting more opportunities to kind of show. Chet is a very impressive player. When you see how well he fits in with the pieces around him, he's adaptable, he can do a lot of different things. But it also is nice, too, when there's just roster freedom ahead of you at your position that you're going to play, whatever that is. All right, so let's get to five. I'll make sure we go quicker here.

Give me the number of names, Sam, that you think are like, okay, that's okay if he goes fifth. He's okay if he goes fifth. How many names do you have before you're like, okay, that's too high to take him ahead of the others? Yeah, my next tier is five through nine. So I would say that's five guys. I guess I have in that tier, Keegan Murray, Ben Matherin. Uh, I have Jeremy Sohan. I love Jeremy Sohan. So you're a Sohan later on. Yeah. Uh, I have who else I've Dyson Daniels and that's here. And I have one other player. Let me pull up my table as we're talking.

It is, uh, Shaden sharp. So like Shaden sharp, I think is just the total wild card. He fits well with Kate, I think, cause he's that like potential primary score. You just have to be all in on whatever is going to happen with Shaden. And I don't know that anyone has an answer on that have you heard about his workouts i have not heard that they've been stellar i would say that's what uh he i like for those that have not seen him you know this is the mystery man from canada for whatever reason kentucky pretended for a while that he was actually coming back uh i don't know i still don't know what the hell was going on with all these different storylines for what it's worth there i think that shaden

like pretended that he was coming back like i don't think that that was just the conducting side okay and then there was like the statement that was issued and we know he didn't write it and you know again i'm not knocking anybody in the process so we all know what this is about so you become desensitized to it. But the thing was like, wait, what? We haven't heard from this guy. And now he's issuing this statement. And I watched all the EYDL stuff.

And I don't know. He is as confusing as a player as I've seen in a long time. I had a team that had him fifth. I rarely say like, hey, this is the dumbest team I talked to, but it is a very smart team. Yeah. They won't be in the mix for it. And for the audience just listening to this, because you may not have access to the EYBL games, which are sort of the default here. He shoots every fucking time and it kind of goes in enough that he's allowed to.

And you're like, man, I'm with you. This is like, he's a real boomer bust guy, but with the size and the shooting ability, you understand why he's going to go where he's going to go. Five still feels high in front of some of the more polished guys, though. I personally agree with you that five feels a bit high. I mean, I think the the numbers in terms of his pull-ups are insane if you look at it in comparison per synergy uh hit 47.6 effective

field goal percentage on pull-ups uh doubled the output of pull-up jumpers created uh in comparison to the guy that took like the 15th most pull-ups in eybl so do they have the ey do they have his breakdown like i know it's i always put the possession breakdown of what percentage of plays he's primarily possession was like what do you have his number i'm putting you on the spot here do you have yeah what spot up was i can grab it i mean it's it's is it like 40 percent you think it is i mean look like it might be a little bit higher but like it's all isolation it's all high ball screens you know i mean some of the isolation would be the same as what he's doing from from spot up but for again on synergy it'll it'll break it down it'll be spot up post up pick and roll ball hand they're picking ball

uh pick and roll ball roll man uh and roll man, offensive rebounds, transition, isolation, all this different stuff. If you're above 30% on your number one, that's a pretty heavily weighted trend of what your primary offensive play is. But go ahead. So I've got it. It's 32% transition, 21% isolation, 10% spot up, 7% pick and roll ball handler. So they're calling every pull up off of isolation, isolation. Yeah, I would think so. And then there are probably some

moments. There are probably some spot ups in there too, where he's like catching the ball on a kick out, maybe taking a couple of dribbles and hit into a step back where those are probably getting counted as isolate or uh spot ups as well okay it's bizarre it's it's it's he's he is he is a legitimately high level shooter shot creator pull-up guy totally the thing is that i think people don't recognize how thin the line is between anthony edwards and like Terrence Ross. Uh, it's the ability to like really consistently put pressure on the rim all the time. Like that's what makes Anthony Edwards incredible. His intersection of power and strength. Shaden,

you know, Terrence Ross is an incredible athlete, right? Terrence Ross. Did he win a dunk contest? Like he might have won. Yeah. Um,

incredible athlete, but always is trying to get to his pullback or his pull up his step back. And, you know, he can do it to his right. He can do it to his left. He's incredible as a shot creator that way, but it's that ability to pressure the rim. It's that ability to actually get good shots as opposed to getting to your step back that separates these guys from being really good shot creators, guys who can run a second unit like Terrence Ross versus guys who are all-stars. And Terrence Ross shoots 40% from three.

He, you know, can run a second unit, create offense that way, but he's just not like a starting caliber player. You know what I mean? Like it's, it's the idea behind that is there, but it's, he's just not good enough to do it at the end of the day. So I think that with Anthony Edwards versus, you know, Terrence Ross versus Shaden Sharp, I think that Sharp's somewhere in the middle of those two. I think he's a little bit more powerful than Terrence Ross, but like I have him at nine

on my board. Like I'm, I'm not quite as high on his first step. I think he's more of a decelerator than an accelerator. I worry a little bit about his ability to consistently pressure the basket at the end of the day. I think if you just watch clips of him, you're like, oh, this guy's a sick athlete. I don't know that he plays like a sick athlete all the time. And I could be wrong on that. In the half court, he doesn't. Yeah. So yeah, you're right. The transition stuff, he gets out. It's really great. But there's a difference between being athletic and then i don't know how to phrase this but like

there's plenty of guys that look really athletic but do you play athletically do you are you always yeah and i think it's functional it's functional athleticism yeah yeah all right so where are you with keegan then because at his best you go, what's the problem here? He's big. He makes shots. He checks so many different boxes. But it does seem to be kind of a consensus thing of, I don't know if it's just the lower ceiling than the other guys, which is totally fair, which is what this job is all about. But just give me your Keegan breakdown. Yeah, I think he's going to be a great player.

The guy I keep bringing up with him is Tobias Harris, right? I think that we often underrate how valuable Tobias Harris, right? I think that we often underrate how valuable Tobias Harris has been over the course of his career. I think over the last five years, he's averaged like 18 points, six rebounds, three assists, shot like 48 and 40 from three and 85 from the line. I worry a little bit about what Keegan looks like in the playoffs. I don't love his defense. I think that he's a riverboat gambler to try and create possession possessions out in transition where he's one of the best downhill athletes that you will find in college basketball this past season. But, you know, I think he makes a lot of sense on offense at the end of the day. Like, I think

that he's going to be an absolutely terrific offensive player who fits right in as a third option. A lot of his stuff, though, is post, mid-post, taking advantage of mismatches on bigs or smaller players, and that's not going to fly at the next level. So he's going to have to adjust his game, but I think he can do it. I think he's a really high-level human

being that will adjust. Okay, Matherin, if he goes five, no problems with it, right? I have him five, actually. Well, I guess you don't have no problems with it, right? I have him five, actually. Yeah, I am a fan. Well, I guess you don't have a problem with it. Yeah, I am a fan. I get his conceptual fit in the NBA a little bit more than Keegan's

because of the shooting ability. I think he really improved as a passer. That's one thing that Keegan has never really done. He hasn't really made high-level passes for his teammates yet. Ben, I think, has really started to improve in that regard. Ben is also still 19. I think he gets treated as if he's this productive

multi-year college player. He's half of a year older than Dyson Daniels, who gets treated as if he's just all upside all the time. I'm a big fan of Ben Mathur, and he needs to improve his second and third effort defensively. He needs to willing to do you know all the little stuff but the ceiling is there like i really actually kind of buy ben mathurin yeah personality is wise too like i

don't think this i don't think he's ever going to be like this is too much for me you know there's a fine line too there of like never being afraid and like i'd like you to be a little more afraid you know can you just be a little bit more like just a dash of afraid every now and then instead of like you know fucking any house not afraid so uh anyway um is so hannah fit for everyone or is so hand only going to be what we want him to be because Because I'm a huge fan as well. He doesn't need to take a shot attempt and he could run around for 30 minutes and impact the game. That's what I've been. He has the size and the athleticism. There's some of these college guys around. Again, we're still talking about a one and done here with him, but there's some of these players that

I fall in love with that I know, hey, that's never going to, it's never going to work. It's not going to work. So don't, don't pretend that this guy's a prospect. But Sohan's athleticism, youth, and size, I'd like to think everyone could use a player like this, but I'm afraid that a team will do something stupid and say, okay, sit in the corner offensively, and then you don't provide any space and people play off you, and you're wasting his time out there. Yeah, I think that would make it interesting.

Think of Mark Jackson with him is my point. If Mark Jackson had Sohan. Yeah, I'dson yeah right yeah no i'd be absolutely terrified he needs to go to a team that has a creative head coach he needs to go to a team that is willing to be patient with him offensively uh he is a phenomenal defender he is like a legitimate one through five switch defender. And those guys exist in such small capacities in the NBA. Like Scotty Barnes struggled this year, like one through five. Like he struggled with smaller guys. Like I think Jeremy Sohan is a better switch defender

than what Scotty Barnes was last year, which was a huge pitch for Scotty. Now, Sohan, it all comes down to the shot, right? Like, do you believe that this guy that has shot 55 to 62% from the free throw line over the course of his career is ever going to shoot threes at a high level? He made 37 and a half percent of his catch and shoot threes this year. The shot doesn't look broken, but it's going to take time and he's going to have to develop it.

I'm a big believer because I think he's such a high level defender. Like he guarded Armando Baycott and like RJ Davis and Caleb Love in that game against Baylor. And the moment where like they put him in and allowed him to run free and put Kendall Brown on the bench is kind of when Baylor's run started happening where they had that crazy comeback. So I'm a big fan. I understand the hesitations. I think he's just, I think the upside's a little bit higher because he's so big and coming from a level where he is so tall and so versatile and is going to be able to guard big wings as well as he's able to guard point guards.

I would rather take a shot on that guy than take a shot on someone else, right? Like, I'd rather take a shot on him versus Dyson Daniels, who I even love. But I understand the hesitations. Like, I get it. Yeah, I mean, guys that can't shoot, that they're going to have the ball, you know,

you start thinking about some of that playoff fit stuff, which, you know, again, I think can be a little aggressive when you're talking about teams at this you know like all right can we just be better and then worry about our game seven matchup a little bit later on right right but you you you know you don't want to get stuck with somebody who's like completely you know hey just ignore them you know that's that's not always the great success and i know i think it's ball handling play playmaking though it was enough think about the way that like the knicks have used ob toppin right and if you're not going to use a guy properly when you take him don't take him right like those moments we saw late in the season where ob toppin they just gave him free reign right and just said okay we'll use you as

a rim runner we'll use you as a screener go i'll use you as a screener. Go. I mean, he averaged like 20 and 10. And look, this is where we get into end of season bullshit, right? But I think at least they let him like run around at a position that made more sense for him. Because even watching OB in college, you're like, it's dominating. It's awesome. It's a lower level.

He's a little bit older. He's physically so much more advanced than these other guys. You're not going to be running post plays for OB Toppin in the NBA. Yeah. And at the end of the day, what is Obi Toppin's value around the league now? Like if they traded him,

I don't know what they would get back for him. Certainly not a top 12 pick in this draft where they took him at eight, if I remember correctly. So if you're going to draft the guy, you need to use him properly. And with Jeremy Sohan, you need to use him as like occasional ball handler. Let him grab and go.

Have him be the screen setter. Short roll him because he can pass a little bit. Be creative with him. Don't stick him in the corner and just have him do nothing. Okay, let's get to your Aussies here. Which city are you in? I'm in Melbourne. Okay, all right.

I'm like an hour and a half away or two hours away from where Dyson Daniels grew up. So Dyson Daniels measures in at six, seven and a half, a wingspan of six, 10 and a half. He's worked out for all the teams from number four to 11 in the lottery. I think he's the best of the G League players. And I don't know that there's any debate about it. It felt like it was a debate a few months ago. i think everybody kind of seems to be on the same page here for dyson because of his defense because initiating the ball at that size yes the shot takes a week to get off of his shoulder uh that needs that needs some improvement there but what is it with this australian class like because i want to talk jang immediately after this and i'm not even afraid to say i like hugo a little bit as a second rounder which i know

leaves me on a very, I said, I liked him to somebody at the combine and they're like, wait, did you just, were you the guy that tweeted the Hugo picture? I was like, yeah,

you know, a little juice to them. They're like, what the fuck's wrong with you? Go ahead. Uh, yeah, I love Dyson.

I am an enormous fan because he's switchable. He's tough. Like, you know what he reminds me of? I've been saying this on a couple of podcasts. Like it reminds me almost of like a Villanova guard. Like he plays off at two feet. He's tough. Like, you know what he reminds me of? I've been saying this on a couple of podcasts. Like it reminds me almost of like a Villanova guard. Like he plays off of two feet. He's steady.

Like he makes the right decision every time. He's super switchable. These guys just work in the NBA. These guys that can diagnose the game. He's the best outlet passer in the class. He's so big that he's going to be an impact player on the glass. And then like he immediately looks up in the same way that like Lonzo ball looks up and it's just throwing like darts 50 feet in front of them and just hitting

a guy right in stride. He profiles to me is the exact kind of guy who impacts winning basketball at a really, really high level as long as the shot comes along. And I don't think the release is broken. I think it's more of like a shot prep issue where he struggles to get rhythm throughout his lower half. And then, you know, it ends up being super mechanical and stiff. But, you know, if you don't project the shot, you should have him at like 11. I think that he's going to get to like a 35% clip.

So I like him a little bit more. I like Josh a little bit more. I like Giddy a little bit more than Dyson. I will say that because I think he's just more, there's more juice to him off the bounce than what Dyson does. But I think Dyson's a special connector piece that's going to help you win games. The Giddy vision thing doesn't come around very often. So that would be the tiebreaker for me with him.

There's just some shit that kid sees that you just, you're like, I can't believe he saw it. But I don't know that he was driving past guys when I watch him in Australia and he didn't make any shots and we've had a weird stretch of some some ball dominant players come along you know lamello is a good example of this immediately became a better shooter in the nba and anthony edwards took like nine threes a game at georgia i don't even think he was north of 30 and a lot of it was shot selection too i mean there's certain guys that just straight up you look at the number and go wait that number is going to be better because

this guy's taking a ton of bad shots that he's never going to be allowed to take in the NBA and because he's going to have better teammates. All right. So Usman Jang, enormous late growth spurt, actually kind of really impressive at that size to get your pick and roll going. I also thought there was just a lot of stuff that he does that's really, really smart. And I know he had an injury in the middle of the season and i talked to somebody about it they said it was kind of like this thing that reset him and he was a completely different player and a lot better so when i talked to other teams about him they're like what the fuck is wrong with you and i'm like i don't know i guess something's wrong with me then because i seem to like him as he closed the

year out so so when you say you like him like would you take him like in the back half of the lottery kind of deal i would i would have no problem like i really like him and i i think he's kind of a back end of the 10 i think he's before 10 but i i've heard he has a promise uh but i don't think it's in the top 10 yeah i've heard similarly uh i where i've heard he's promised i don't know that he's going to be there is my point. Yeah. So I think that the thing that worries me with Usman Jang is he doesn't effectively use his size to put pressure on the rim. And a lot of it is him. He's not like a super athlete. Like he's very, I don't want to say slow twitch, but there isn't a lot of like juice like going forward.

But you know what he does do? He gets really compact for a guy that size when he's dribbling in traffic though like when he comes when he comes off of something he gets he gets a lot smaller which which i look at is like you know some of these guys are really big and they can handle but it's like okay but that's the amazing thing again not to compare anyone to get leverage on their guy right right right go ahead yeah like he can get leverage his thing is that I think that he often sits in that like mid-range area and tries to throw up

those like little weird floaters and then, you know, doesn't always try and get to the rim. And then when he tries to get to the rim, he fades away from contact, doesn't really like that part of it.

That's what worries me about him. I have a more like in the like 14 to 17 range just because a up until that back half of the season he's never really shot the ball at a high level in a way that kind of concerns me and b i don't think he's just like a crazy athlete that's going to be a great on the ball it's almost like nick batum over the last few years with the clippers to me like I got paid Nick Batum? No.

Not Charlotte? You're talking Clippers Batum. Where he's been pretty effective, though. Nick Batum's been super good. Way better than I thought he was going to be, but that's not exactly what you're taking. You're not hoping you're getting Clippers Nick Batum in the lottery if you're taking a kid this big from Australia. Right. He's probably a little bit more athletic than that

version of Nick Batum now. He's not nick batum when he was younger though like nick was a crazy athlete who like wasn't his nickname like air batum or something like that because he was like a crazy dunker coming out of france so i i look at it like a combo between early career nick batum and late career nick batum and that guy's a good role player to me like i would happily take him in the top 20 i'm just like a little bit hesitant to take him at eight, nine, 10. So do you think, Jake, that some of the shot making is fluky then? Because I would say some of the shots that he hit in that second half are like, are really impressive, but like it's just never happened consistently. Right. Like we have this great 12 game sample and it's possible that

he took a leap in that time. But we have also a lot of tape from him playing with like victor wimben yama in france and we have a lot of tape of him you know playing elsewhere and like the u19s and you know european competitions like he just hasn't ever consistently made that shot either like step backs from three and all that stuff no and smart to point out too, that he actually is from France. He just played, uh, for Australia this year. Okay.

So, but wait, he was New Zealand, right? Uh, he's with the breakers. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Who do we need to touch on here then? Um, that's kind of this back half of the lottery thing. Is it AJ? Uh, is it during, you know,

like, go ahead, take, take me and kind of, cause I think the AJ one is really frustrating because everybody's giving him the benefit of the doubt because he's made all these shots. He was in a really tough position as a ball-dominant player. If he were healthy, I would like him way more

if he'd had a better track record of health. I would have talked about him 20 minutes ago. So I like him, and I think he was in a really tough spot and did the best with it i think his in and out stuff with his handle like there's moments you're like man he is really good with the ball dude and he didn't get to do it a lot because of the other guys so uh i wouldn't blame a team for starting to take him around this time because if you hit it right you might make everybody in front of you regret it but i also understand why you'd be scared depending on what the medicals are that teams have now yeah like it's it's a philosophical thing to me like aj griffin if you just truly value shot making and the ability to potentially be like a number two

option on an nba team aj griffin probably has more upside to do that than anyone else if the athleticism comes back in any real way shape or form uh i i just don't know that i buy it like he's just so stiff and so like he he was so bad defensively this year i don't think people have like totally recognized that like he was one of the worst defenders i evaluated in the first like among guys that i have a first round grade on and if the athleticism doesn't come back like the name i've brought up is like is he just like better Aaron Naismith kind of? And well, Naismith was a landscape.

He was a landscaper growing up, which I think is kind of breaks the tie. I did not. I did not realize he was that bad defensively. He's really bad. He's really like gets lost. He plays so like square and stiff with his hips that he gets clipped on every screen and then when he gets clipped, it's just hard for him to turn and recover

kind of. And then off the ball, they started essentially using him just to face guard these off-ball guys who were running off screens and trying to move or spot up, like

Buddy Boeheimheim for instance right they were just like literally stay attached to this person do not do anything else and don't try to switch which is kind of crazy though because i would say that when he's driving when he has the ball it's amazing how much better guys move when they have the basketball but i know right there's there's stuff that you like about his movement when he actually has the ball. Like I, so that's, I don't know. Go to yoga. It's weird.

It's weird. I like, I like the idea of him as a shot maker. I'm more with you. I have them, you know, later lottery. I can't quite get there, but if you really like the shot making, I get it. You know, have them five or six on your board. I've talked to a couple of really smart evaluators that have them there. I just don't quite get that. like okay i i still kind of get it but it might just be a league wide part of this thing where uh there's some of these bigs that i'd like and then i go wait wait like this isn't really we

don't care about these guys anymore remember and it's unfair to them and you almost feel like if your team drafting somebody like this in the lottery so i i've come around on who he is he's got you know he's got some nastiness in him too, which is always something I enjoy with someone. But I feel like you already are drafting somebody you feel like is kind of limited. Yeah, I agree. I see him as like offensively

very similar to like DeAndre Jordan. Like he's an incredible lob catcher. Like he'll like be full speed downhill out of ball screens, full speed downhill in transition. And someone will throw a pass behind his head and he'll catch it one-handed and then all in one fell swoop, just throw it down.

And you're just like, oh, that will work at the next level. Once he has better point guard play, because Memphis, that's the other part of this, Memphis just had absolutely nobody to get him the ball. Their point guard situation was a total nightmare this year. I think he would have looked better if he would have played with a real point guard situation was a total nightmare this year. I think he would have looked better if he would have played with like a

real point guard that makes sense. A couple more things before we're done. I think this is a good one looking at the mocks, depending on which ones you've looked at. Obviously you look at your own here quite a bit, but I see Ty Ty Washington, Kentucky kind of in

well, I don't know. I don't know if I've looked at your most recent one. I've seen him in the mix of like the Kennedy-Chandler conversation out of Tennessee. I don't know how close you have those two, so I don't know. Not particularly, but yeah. Oh, okay. All right.

Well, look, I've seen Kennedy-Chandler first. I've seen him. I always see Ty-Ty Washington in the first round. I've seen Chandler somewhere, you know, second. With Ty-Ty, it's the injury it's also that wheeler you know your five nine point guard who transfers in from georgia who can't make any shots it was bad i mean we spent a lot of time talking about the auburn guards with with jabari uh well you have and i have in the past separately from this but the tie tie part of it like it was so

bad at the end but i don't know i don't know what i don so bad at the end, but I don't know. I don't know what I don't know if it's the injury. I don't know if it's Wheeler where when I look at Chandler, who, again, undersized seems to do everything right. And we're talking kind of different positions here, by the way, too. And there's another guy I want to throw in here, too. So kind of give me give me why you have the gap between the two and and what you do with tie tie because it's kind of all over the place yeah with tie tie i i don't want to throw away this season because it is an important part of the tape and it's an important part of the sample but that kentucky situation even beyond

severe wheeler where severe was just dribbling the air out of the ball. And Ty Ty had to play off the ball. Oscar Sheway is not a shooter. Like teams don't guard him outside of eight feet. Uh, Keon Brooks, Jacob Toppin, non shooters. So he's always playing three out of the four guys on the court,

purely non shooters. Kellen Grady is a great shooter. Davion Mintz is a great shooter. Like, okay, that's fine. That's one guy that's on the court with Ty Ty, maybe

two. I think he had zero room to operate this year, which is why he ended up having to pull up in the mid-range as often as he did. He made his floaters, I think, at a 57% clip, which is insane. He made his pull-up jumpers between 8 and 16 feet at a

59% clip, which is insane. I think he can shoot well from three. I think his processing speed and his passing ability. You watch those games where Sevier Wheeler was out. I mean, he really shined in those games as a distributor. The role for me that makes sense for Ty Ty is you put him next to like a Jimmy Butler. You put him next to like a big wing creator who can put pressure on the rim more consistently than he can, who can attack defenses, warp the defense, bend them, and then throw it out on the other side to Ty Ty, who's like playing a nominal point guard that might not be leading the offense. And you let him make decisions off that, shoot off of that, play off of that.

With Kennedy, I think he's an on-ball guy. And it's just, it's so fucking hard to be six foot tall in the NBA now. Like, it's almost impossible, it feels like, right? And I know the thing that's so, because I think he does everything right, you know? I know. With a college point guard, you go,

like, I was going to make an example of this. If you're a team and you go, we're taking Jaden Hardy, who was Dyson's teammate, and he was just a really bad decision maker, shot it every time he had the basketball, shot it early in the shot clock, awful looks. A kid that going back to the Vegas years in high school, put up a million points, was clearly just doing whatever he wanted, has almost no understanding of what you're supposed to be doing out there versus Kennedy, who has every piece of understanding you'd ever want. And the game is that you probably take Jaden. You just would. You go, I'll take him. And I know Kennedy was 60% from free throw this year. It was

a huge story, huge problem for him. High school stats are still not... It's 2022. We're still having a hard time with this stuff. Kennedy had said he was 90% from free throws, from the free throw line in high school. I tend to believe it had to be somewhat close if the kid was going to say he was 90% in high school, but he's just physically not. The tie-tie thing, his stock has taken a huge hit. He was preseason top 10.

He's got to be a top 10 pick with this. It's really bad to watch, but I don't think it's always fair to him, even though when I watch it, I'm like, man, I really don't like watching this right now. And I think it's completely unfair to the prospect. I feel horrible for Kennedy Chandler. I do because he is an all defense guy who we're all just assuming like isn't going to be able to defend. Like he does literally everything right.

There's nothing that that dude does wrong on the court. And I have him at like 35 because i just don't believe that he has a chance to defend at the nba level because he's so small and so skinny yeah and god i i fucking love him i do i feel like i do too i feel horrible about it yeah some people i mean again you know mock draft season we've got 20 of these to look at uh yeah there's there's a lot that still have Kennedy, but maybe that's a little left over. Some of the guys are still looking at the five-star

recruiting ranking and go, okay, well, hell, he's one and done. He was a five-star, so I have to put him in the top 30. Okay, last one. Give me the second rounder that you're in love with. Second rounder that I am in love with. That is a great call. are we gonna count christian brown

as a second rounder i think that's pushing it a little borderline yeah yeah no but you know what i don't i've seen him in the first round but he played in the combine so that should put him in as a second rounder i thought i love him though by the way watching him in person he's you know we knew he was an athletic player I mean his team it's not like people are watching Kansas but I like physically how he looked out there in the combine I don't know if you agree with me

yeah you see him at the final four I was at the final four right like you watch Christian Brown play Villanova and then you watch AJ Griffin play North Carolina and you're like, oh, Christian Brown is way more athletic than AJ Griffin. Like just the way that they functionally move on the court. And I feel like that is something that, you know, no, nobody really would think to believe or would believe unless you actually watch them for reasons that are skin tone related probably because Christian Brown doesn't get the

like, you know, credit for being as athletic as he is. Yeah, this is a little dangerous territory here, so we may not even keep it in. I'm kidding. I'm messing with you, Sam. No, I know. I like Christian Brown a lot. I like the fact that he is so, so good

as a shooter, as a transition player. He's an athlete. What he's great at, fact that he is so, so good as a shooter, as a transition player. He's an athlete. What he's great at, though, he is phenomenal as a closeout defender. He's always on balance. He's big enough to defend those guys. It's so important to be able to scramble in today's NBA, right? And he is weirdly very good at scrambling on defense. Like, I don't understand why, but he is.

Yeah. Again, it's kind of back to that theme of do you care but that's where the combine is valuable it's a very hard game it's weird it's tough on everybody you're trying to not be selfish while also being incredibly selfish to stand out and for some players for me it's just as simple as how does he look against these other guys that are also here and sometimes you're like oh my god like this guy's actually incredibly like i don't i don't know did you like timmy in the combine i thought timmy only confirmed why i went back to college because i went oh man like he would try to post against and granted he was working dudes and from pepperdine and loyal and miramount uh with these post moves i think he had that game against texas where he kept doing the too small thing and

finally they were like, stop doing this all the time. All right, I'll go with my guy. I actually did see this player. Yeah, I want to hear this. I did see this player. And I'm coming off a real high of him right now. I just binged him for about two straight days.

And I saw him. It isn't Hugo. It isn't Hugo. Although very similar, very similar sort of. It's Gabrielle Precida. Oh, I love it. Yes. Yes.

Lake Como. And then he was playing for a relegated Italian team. So they let him go to, was it Bologna? I forget. Yeah. Yeah. I'm telling you, dude dude he just turned 20 this month i i couldn't believe i saw him on a mock recently where he was in the first round like no no i think

i saw him 52nd um on espn's today i think giovanni had a 52nd and i look just i hope i hope one day he gets to play in the nba because there's a lot going on there and it's all kind of fun it's all fun that's the good word for it yeah right uh i have him at 32 yes i'm all in like he's six foot eight he's a real athlete again he's a sick athlete sick athlete and he's got like attitude to him. He already, and all this annoys the shit out of me. He's selling every three-point jumper. Like every one he's falling down.

So although Shingun was my, he was my all team, all first team complainer in last year's class. And I love Shingun's game. But he, he like, you think you have him figured out. And all of a sudden he just dunks on everybody and then he'll like crash he'll come from the corner baseline run behind the guy that's

not no one pays attention to anybody who's behind him in the corner away from the ball and he just yams on like three dudes then he tried to throw it around the back pass i tweeted out the video today he's got this guy who looks like he may have been a bank security guard number 99 playing center for him and he went over to him to get pissed at him for going around the back and the pass went out of bounds and then i noticed he does it to him all the time because he's thinking oh it's this 19 year old i'm gonna get his case it's like no he's better than all of you guys already i know and stop don't like he's an artist don't don't get in the way of his art oh my god i love him i absolutely love him for all the reasons you said he's also like

sneaky not terrible defensively like he really gives a damn no his anticipation like when he sees the ball being swung he gets in his deflections and then he's gone. I mean, he catches lobs where I was like, wait, am I watching Dern again? I'm like, Oh no, it's still Procida.

So I don't know. It's like, uh, it's like a Mario, his own, your starter kit kind of Mario took Mario at five or whatever. You know, if we're taking Procida,

you know, Procida 32 or 27, we're all good. Like, this is fine. All right. See, I knew it. We agreed a lot today, but I'm very happy we agreed.

That would have been weird for me if you were like, he's terrible. What are you talking about? No, I'm all in. I think Hugo Besson's not very good. Yeah, yeah. No, I'm aware.

I'm aware that everybody thinks he sucks. I'm going to actually stop saying I kind of sneaky like him. I don't even hate him. He's going to be really good in the EuroLeague, Hugo Besson. I'm all for it. Who says I'm not a huge EuroLeague fan?

That's what I meant. All right. Again, you can check out Sam with Matt Penny a couple days a week, and they'll be gearing up for the draft here. It's a really good game theory podcast from The Athletic. Thanks, as always, for your time.

Yeah, of course, Ryan. Want to do something a little different here a week away from the draft. His name is Chris Ebersole. He's the NBA Associate Vice President of International Basketball Operations, head of elite basketball. Also, if you've read anything about basketball

without borders and how that has grown, the international game, and the number of players that are on NBA rosters, your favorite players. And Chris joins us now. Morning, man. Thanks for doing this. Yeah. Morning, Ryan. Thanks for having me on and grateful for the opportunity. So let's talk about your background first. So you went to France in high school. Was it your parents trying to rediscover something here, or was it a program? I mean, you end up in France,

which kind of is a weird thing of planting the seed of the international basketball. You were good enough to walk on at Stanford when you went there, so obviously you have the good resume. But take us kind of through those early years of you not probably even realizing the foundation being laid for what would be your career later on. Yeah, absolutely. I was a huge fan of sport, all sports growing up and basketball

and played everything, you know, as an okay basketball player and played, you know, JV basketball as a freshman in high school. And then, um, that was when my, my parents decided to, to move us, uh, to France, um. Long story there, but we attended a bilingual school, my siblings and I. And my parents, especially my mom, she grew up overseas most of her childhood and just viewed that as a really important experience to have. And so we went to France, immersed ourselves there, went to French public school. we went to France, immersed ourselves there, went to French public school. Um, you know, our sort of community was our, we were in a small town and we had a local basketball club and that's where everyone sort of congregated from, you know, small children all the way up to adults and, um, and everyone played there. And so that was really my first international basketball

experience. And it was, um, you're right. It definitely helped plant a seed in my head, I think, with just how the game can bring, bring people together and different generations and people from different walks of life. Um, and so, so that was, you know, that, that was, at the time, you know, I wasn't thrilled about moving overseas in the middle of high school, as you can imagine, but, um, looking back on it, it was, it was really important experience in my life and probably has

a lot to do with why I'm here. And then fast forward, as you mentioned, I went to college at Stanford. I was able to walk on there, which was another just amazing experience. And then now I've been able to marry the basketball side with some of the international background I have. And so it's been pretty cool. And now I get a chance to do what I love in a really rewarding position and with an awesome team. So definitely blessed. So you went to finance though, right? After Stanford? That's right. Yeah. Were you miserable just thinking about basketball the whole time?

I wasn't miserable. I worked in investment consulting. I actually enjoyed it a fair amount and learned a ton. And I, at the time, was also a volunteer coaching high school girls basketball. And during those couple of years, I really realized that that's where my true passion lay and realized that while I was at work, I was thinking about practice that evening or what we're going to do the next morning for individual workouts or things like that. And so I sort of through that process just realized that I wanted to get back to sports, back to basketball in particular. And I was just really fortunate that I got connected with somebody at the NBA, you know, Stu Jackson, Kim Bahooney, Brooks Meek. These were people in the international

basketball operations world. And they took a chance on me, you know, almost 10 years ago now. And, you know, 10 years later, I'm here doing what I love. And, you know, it's really special. So the game has, like we knew the international part of it. I was looking at the numbers. You had over 100 international players on opening night rosters.

That's almost a quarter of the league. It was 45 players 20 years ago. Why is it going in this direction? Could we have half the NBA be international players in another 20 years? It's definitely possible. I mean, if you look at the growth, as you mentioned, 45 players 20 years ago, it's almost triple that now. We're around 120. And we've been over 100 for the last eight years.

And so that growth is ongoing. I don't think it's peaked. That growth is ongoing. I don't think it's peaked. You look at some of the 30s, which was a huge moment for the sport. But really, the tipping point was in the early 90s when you look back to the Dream Team and the Barcelona Olympics and introducing the game to so many new fans. And not just the game, but the stars around the game. And I think that was when the switch flipped. And a fun anecdote about that era was... I'm sure you and your listeners all know who Arturis Karnaschovas is, current president of Basketball Ops for the Bulls. At the time, he was a player for the Lithuanian national team. And there's a video clip out there of Lithuania playing against the US and Arturis taking photos. I believe it's on one of those disposable wind-up cameras, taking photos of the guys in the dream team. And funny enough, Arturis ended up actually working in the same department that I currently work at before he made the transition to the team side. So that was truly the tipping point moment,

I think, those Olympics. And then obviously obviously with David Stern's vision and the vision of folks like Kim Bahuni, who probably looked at now as the mother of international NBA basketball, spent over 30 years at the NBA and probably one of the most influential people in the sport that probably most fans haven't heard of. The vision of those people, they really invested in growing it from this first batch of stars in the 90s, you know, Hakeem and then later Dirk and Yao,

growing it from that era where it was around 40 NBA players to now being at 120 and just seeing the depth of talent internationally now with over 100 players and the high-end talent. All three MVP finalists this year were international players. The last four MVPs have been international. We had three first-team All-NBA guys international this year. So it's really not just the depth, but it's also the very high-end

seeing the impact that these international guys can have. I've talked to teams about Africa now for a while. I remember watching some of the earliest footage of things being launched in these villages without any resources whatsoever. And then to see how that's grown. It feels like everybody that's paying attention to this, and you know this as well as anyone, probably better than anybody other than your team, but Africa's the next thing. Is that, is that fair to say that this, we are, I don't know how many years give us an idea of the timeline, but the pipeline of talent that is going to come in is, is going to make a real impact in this league and it's, and it's coming. Absolutely. You're seeing it already and i think masai ujiri who is a great supporter of all of

our programs and um you know he always says africa is now that's his his sort of rallying cry and and and i think that's right you're already seeing um obviously the impact of players like joel embiid pascal siakam you know players even from sort of the African diaspora, right? Like Giannis, having as big of an impact as any player in the league. But that depth is happening. And the exciting part about it is I think it's still just scratching the surface.

And we launched Basketball Without Borders as a program in 2001. And I can speak a little bit about the beginning of it, but it expanded quickly. It started in Europe and expanded quickly to Africa in 2003. And just in the last fewer than 20 years to see the growth from when I joined in 2013 and where the game was, where the infrastructure was on the continent to now where we have a full-time NBA Academy in Africa with, you know, the top 24 players from all over the continent,

54 countries on the continent. And there's just so much potential there to see the number of players drafted out of basketball, that borders now players coming out of the NBA academies to the college ranks. And now finally, in recent years, a professional league, right? We have the Basketball Africa League as sort of the tip of that pyramid. So players growing up in Africa, the solution used to be if you were a great player in Africa, the solution used to be if you were a great player in Africa or had potential, you were 6'10 and had some potential, was to get off the continent as quickly as possible and get to the States or get to Europe. Now, there are resources on the continent and you can come up

through an academy to the BAL. You have these players to look up to in your home markets. And I think that's really critical, really important. And it's a sign that things are going to continue in the direction they're going. Do you have a story from when the first time you saw somebody that's a star now, and that maybe because of your international expertise that you and your guy you saw him before anybody else did and you were like who is this guy like uncharted territory for a player that now is somebody everybody knows for sure yeah and and i'll start first by just giving a little bit of context around where we usually see these players the basketball without borders camps are really our flagship basketball development camps. And those build on top of

our... We have an entire ecosystem of basketball that we get involved in from junior NBA, which is the base of our pyramid, which reaches... We're going to reach 60 million kids at that level, getting young kids bouncing a ball all the way up this pyramid. And at the top are Basketball Without Borders camps and our NBA academies. And as I mentioned, Basketball Without Borders, that started back in 2001. First, as just a way to bring different communities, different countries together.

And actually the first addition was Vladi Divac from Serbia, Tony Kukoc from Croatia, and a bunch of their former Yugoslavian national team teammates bringing together 50 high school age players from their countries shortly after those countries had all been at war and bringing them together. And that's really where the program started. Since then, it's really blossomed and grown into really an elite basketball event and really the premier international basketball camp in the world. And through those experiences, my first year was 2013. I've had a number of those stories that you mentioned where you see a player and your eyes

pop because you know, wow, if you get this player into the right environment, the sky's the limit. And the other part of it that's interesting is in 2015, we added the Basketball Without Borders Global Camp. So we do normally four regional camps every summer, Africa, Asia, Americas, and Europe. We added the Global Camp at All-Star Weekend to bring the best of the best together. And the first edition of that was in 2015 at All-Star Weekend to bring the best of the best together. And the first edition of that was in 2015 at All-Star Weekend in New York. And the last

two invites to that camp were Jamal Murray and Lowry Markkinen. Under the radar, guys that no one was really following at the time as potential draft picks or anything like that. Both of them had their coming out parties at that camp and played at the highest level and leapfrogged over a bunch of prospects who were ranked ahead of them. And then shortly thereafter, we're being recruited by the best college basketball programs in the country. And just a year after that, we're one and basketball programs in the country. And just a year after that, we're one and done players in the league. And there's countless examples of those types of stories. And I think what makes all of it especially rewarding is that those guys then come

back. So a couple years later, Jamal Murray was in the Rising Stars game. I think he had a million threes that game in New Orleans. And the next morning, he was coaching at a basketball without borders global camp. Lowry has come back to camps. All these guys come back and give back their time. And that's really what makes

those basketball without borders camps so rewarding. We spent a lot of time talking about Matherin as a lottery pick. He's likely going to go top 10. And I remember as I was talking with Bill

about it on Sunday, I go, the first time I watched him play, I just made, I was like, okay, he's this kid's from like to go top 10. And I remember as I was talking with Bill about it on Sunday, I go, the first time I watched him play, I just made, I was like, okay, he's this kid's from like a tough inner city. I didn't know enough about him. And then it was like, no, he's actually from Montreal. But if you know his full story, it's an incredible story. And he's, he's had a lot of challenges, but he plays like a guy who's been through a lot of challenges.

He's got an edge to him in these games. And I know that your program he's program, he's been involved in it. Can you give us a little bit more backstory on Matherin? Because it's obviously a different route than a lot of other players. Absolutely. Yeah. And Ben not only participated in our Basketball Without Borders camps, but he also participated in our NBA Academy program,

which is a newer program that started in 2016. So not as long of a track record as Basketball Without Borders, which has almost 100 alumni in the league now or have made it to the NBA. NBA Academies are newer. And when Ben joined, it was a brand new program. So he took a leap of faith. A kid from Montreal, another under the radar prospect.

He was around 15 years old at the time. Took a leap of faith with us and joined a startup program, essentially, in Mexico. So moved from Montreal to Mexico. Obviously, he didn't speak any Spanish, didn't know any of the teammates he was joining, didn't, you know, just had met our staff and the coaches down there and took this leap. And as you mentioned, his background, you know, Ben, you know, went through some adversity, you know, at a young age. He lost his older brother, who was his best friend, you know, died tragically in a bike accident. I

believe Ben was 12 years old when that happened. And the thing that makes Ben so impressive is how he came back from that and how he rebounded from that. And as a result of that, he definitely had a guard up and it took him a while, I think, to develop maybe a trust with our coaches and our teammates. But once he did that, there's nobody you'd rather have next to you in a foxhole than that guy. His mental toughness, his fearlessness, and his motivation to succeed are really unmatched among any of the players I've seen at basketball, not borders camps, NBA academies.

And so I think so highly of the, of the person, Ben Matherin. I know he's an amazing player. When he joined us, he was a, he was a power undersized power forward. Couldn't shoot.

You know, a few years later, he's one of the best three-point shooters in the country at Arizona. Just speaks to the work ethic he has as well and his willingness to put in the time. And just so proud of him and honestly grateful to him for what he's given to the program. He was the first Canadian to join the NBA Academy program. And now since there have been a number of them,

most of them from Montreal, actually, because they all look up to Ben, who have followed in his footsteps. Omax Prosper, who's at Marquette now, and Trey Minote, who's at South Carolina. All these guys look up to Ben and for good reason. He absolutely, as a player, as a person, he deserves all the credit that he's getting now. I remember, I don't know, almost 20 years ago, I used to go to

Portsmouth. I was, I was driving with the front office over to get lunch somewhere. And we, they were, I didn't have anything to offer conversationally. I just started. And I was just listening to these guys. I was fascinated about everything. And one guy who was an assistant GM was just like, I don't know what's going on with our diets we're not making big enough humans here in america we're just not making them big enough and it's funny because it's such a it's such a simple thing simple observation and before anybody says like hey there's a tall guy on this team i get it i didn't say there were zero tall people in america i'm just saying that there's a belief and this been going on for a long time like that the body types seem to be different

from different pockets, which I don't know if it puts the American player at a disadvantage. I also wonder, too, when I watch what Luka was doing as a teenager, I go, he is more primed for success because he's being asked to do so much more. We can talk about slowly developing people so you don't ruin their confidence, but at the same

time, I would rather just, hey, dive in head first and see if you have it. We're not there yet, but is it perhaps a little concerning thinking about what percentage of makeup of this league will be American? Is the United States doing a bad job with its development programs

in comparison to these other countries all over the world. I don't think it's necessarily a concern. I think for us, we actually joke sometimes whenever we have an opening night and we have a new record for share of the league that's international. We kind of joke. It's also a record low US players. But I think it's important to remember, it's still three quarters of the league is American. And we bring NBA Academy teams to the US constantly to have them compete. Because the US is still the best of the best. It's still where you're going to find the best competition.

And I think there's also a recognition that as the game globalizes, that really benefits everyone. The growth of the international share as far as players also means that our games are broadcast in 215 countries around the world. And for what that does for the business, the experiences of the players being able to play with teammates and coaches. I think one of the underrated storylines now is how many international coaches there are in the NBA and that NBA teams are seeing the value and bringing over expertise from overseas. I think those are all positives. I don't think we're there yet. Maybe in another 20 years we'll be at that point. But I think right now, the American game is still really strong.

You can see it with the success of national team from the senior team all the way down to the junior team. There's still quite a lot of talent in the U.S. and it's going to be that way for a long time. We're proactively seeking out international players to infuse the game with that global talent, but I don't think the U.S. is going away anytime soon. I really appreciate the time and enjoy the draft next week.

Thanks. Thanks. You too, Ryan. Appreciate it. I really appreciate the time and enjoy the draft next week. Thanks. Thanks. You too, Ryan. Appreciate it. 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 could possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required life advice uh the email life advice rrgmail.com quick check in a lot of draft talk here steve how we doing week out uh you know i think the initial high from the first pick

has now turned into i'm kind of nervous because it's just... How are you? There's just a lot of guys... I'm still team chat, but I like Jabari, and you love Paulo, and everyone's talking about Jaden Ivey now. I heard Chris Verne say he wouldn't be surprised if he was the best player in the draft. I'm just kind of nervous they're going to fuck it up, and that's where we're at. Good times.

Kyle, I know you don't care, right? Do you care about anything? I'm real happy when the draft's close because that means we're almost done with this we can start working out back east plans try to put together some parties get togethers gatherings all that stuff so yeah real really happy when this time of year comes around so i'm just as excited as you guys all right but kipsey about to take it on the chin hard multiple weeks in july early august come through i'm buying a one-way ticket i'll tell you you that. I'm obviously going to buy another one-way,

but I was like, should I do the round trip? I was like, I don't want to be tied down by that. One-way ticket for me. I'm a huge one-way ticket guy. We'll figure it out. We discussed that the other day on the pod. All right, so let's do something we've never done before. A guy wants to meet a girl.

Here we go. 29 years old. 5'8", 185. Reps 225, three to five times. I like how you did that. Some days you're just not feeling it. Some days you are. I have them all the time.

Weirdest day. 24. Oh, wait, wait, wait. His neighbor is 24 years old. We don't have her bench numbers. Not relevant. Don't worry about it. Military brat.

Great taste in film and music. Classic rock only. Very mindful. Makes incredible Italian food. Mates art. It rock only. Very mindful. Makes incredible Italian food. Mates art. It's sick. Sick art. Has a cool dog. Smokes weed. Kyle. Come on.

A bit of a flake. Hey, who isn't? Overall, I'd describe her as a kind of free spirit, clean cut, but edgy and total schmooch show. Also worth noting, she has a lot of friends that are dudes. One of them is her best friend. I sound jealous, but I'm not deleting it. I moved to my apartment a little less than a year ago and I share a yard with the neighbor that I mentioned above. I'm

falling for her hard, but I don't want to make a move and mess everything up. Things progress slowly at first, but over the last month and a half, it's really started to escalate. We hang out nearly every day in the yard after work and not keeping score or anything, but she's usually the one to initiate it. We usually just sit in the yard, have a beer or a joint and talk for a couple hours. You guys just burned down a

J out back? Hours? We've been talking for hours? Yeah. We've started making the yard nicer and it's been a pretty cool thing that we've done together. Cleaned the grill that had sat closed for a couple years. Dude, they're restoring stuff. Started a vegetable garden. Doomsday prep.

Exterminated a dozen wasp nests. Twelve wasp nests. That's bonding. That's real bonding right there. Bumble brag. Installed a mister for hot. What? Oh, a mister for hot what oh a mister for hot summer days maybe you guys just open a fucking

design business together and be forget having sex um uh all right so they're gonna mister going they're gonna throw a fourth party seems like she's giving me some subtle signs that she wants me to make a move a lot lot of background. We love this. We love this. We're full of details here. Big prep show. Always been about prep. One, she said she isn't sharing a, oh, she said isn't sharing a yard great practice for

living with someone. Wow. Interesting. Forward. Quote, if I'm really enjoying the neighbor ship we have going on. Three, the other night she came home after the bar and she could tell I was inside watching TV with a couple buddies. The finals were on and asked the following day, what are y'all doing

the other night? Did you see me in the yard? I was pretty drunk eating my Burger King, but I thought you would have come out, to which I replied, oh, I was watching the finals. Wait, did you say that you were drunk eating Burger King? Because that's heinous. Judgy. She's 24. She can't have a drunk Whopper, man.

Come on. Whopper's underrated. What happened to the landscape or burning down a J? Just being pretty chill about everything. She wants a couple of chicken fries in it. People who judge other people when they eat fast food actually suck, too. So don't be that guy. Like, if I want Taco Bell, don't judge me for that.

I like Taco Bell. I agree with you. I think we should all judge each other a lot less. But some people somehow think the path to success is judging everyone. Although it could be stretched out that, hey, Rosillo, are you aware of what you do for a living? Yep. So counterpoint. This bounces out a little bit.

After a solid hour of judging guys' basketball skills. Yeah. Hey, what do you do for a living? Well, I pretty much judge people that are way better at the thing that I judge them at than me. How's that feel? Okay. So, our guy said, I'm worried that i'm reading way too much in this situation she's actually not interested in me and i'd be risking an incredible friendship if i made a move

or broach the subject the closest i've come to testing the waters with this is the last two times we've hung out i touched her arm after she was complaining about war and said that sucks but it's gonna be okay arm touch last two times apparently to which she responded positively but didn't escalate or reciprocate what are you guys got a notebook yeah she didn't immediately touch your arm back and stare you down like an alien all right all documented sorry dude you sent the email all right it sounds like there's a lot of signs here it sounds like there's a lot of things going on but i gotta tell you you said one thing in the email that tells me to prepare yourself for this because i do think you should try like i mean what's the worst that's going to happen you ask her out she says no and now what you guys

can't work on the garden together the coolest thing to do is when the girl says no and now what you guys can't work on the garden together the coolest thing to do is when the girl says no and then you're like cool and then you're even more awesome after the fact because now the seed has been planted you never go down that road and i'm telling you again if you know if you fall into a certain category of desirability by the fair sex, uh, it can come back to really help man. You can be like, all right, I planted a little seed. You weren't interested. I don't even want to follow up again. I love our friendship. Let's plant some peppers. But when you said about, all right, dog smokes weed. Um, but she has a lot of friends that are dudes. Could you just be another friend zone of the dude harem?

Could that be a possibility? Could it be that she's just so cool because she just does want to be your friend and she's used to being friends with a million guys? That's a tad alarming. It doesn't mean anything, but if you're worried about like, you're probably not going to live here the rest of your life.

And it sounds like she might be late on rent every now and then herself. So this great little deal you got going on, what are you really, big term, what are you really disrupting here big term by asking her out once? So I'd say it seems like you've established some things. It sounds like you touched her arm twice.

She didn't reciprocate. Not the end of the world. I'd say throw it out there. Maybe throw it out there after she's destroying nuggets on your front lawn and see how she reacts. And if she goes, oh, that's so cool. Like if you ask out somebody and they laugh and never give you a definitive answer,

that's a no. That's a no. You kind of know where you stand. I don't think there's much more to this. I would say go for it. Maybe all these, there's a lot of signs in here that are positives too. And I don't think that the price

that you would pay by her being like, no, I'm not into you is actually the end of the world other than this backyard that sounds fucking awesome for the fourth. Yeah.

First of all, did you say dude harem? I don't think I listened to anything you said after you said dude harem. You said that yeah great great job by you um love that and um i think yeah he's definitely overthinking it i think there's a good point he also she also said something about neighborship that seemed oddly specific even though that's what it is but it seemed like oddly specific to call it out like that. Sort of like, I love this friendship. You can look at that one way, or you can

look at it as it just means nothing, and it's just a word somebody said. I'd say, what if you like, I mean, maybe Netflix and chill is too obvious, but what if you went out to a movie? The movie's a classic. Hulu and just touch arms? Or you could go out. I mean, Maverick's out.

Maybe she hasn't seen maverick but like you know it sounds like you're in like fold-out chairs uh you know in the shared yard or something you know they're not really a great great place to be able to like kind of scoot up next to each other i feel like you're probably sitting in your own singular um sitting objects so maybe you could get some place where you're on a couch um or something like that that'd be like a good way to figure out if that vibe could be uh could be a little bit better but yeah i think yeah probably don't overthink it if it does if it doesn't work out like definitely be very cool about it never bring it up again and um it probably will come back in a good way i've been in that

same situation i've been in the situation where we never address it and uh hopefully she never told any of my friends about it but um either way like the stakes are low um as long as you don't be weird if this is a rejection thing because it sounds like you have a pretty sick neighbor and you'd hate to lose that but it sounds like you haven't been in that situation where it's actually even been close to even being able to put your arm around her so maybe try to get in that situation see see how that goes but like all right you got a cool neighbor awesome like that do you want to what's cooler how that goes. But like, all right, you got a cool neighbor. Awesome. What's cooler than that? A cool

girlfriend, a cool wife. The neighbor thing to me means nothing at all. As Ryan said, you're going to move at some point. You're not going to live together forever. If it doesn't work out, who cares? This idea that you have a cool neighbor. Cerruti is hot right now. He had to sit there

through my whole monologue and then kai and he's like sorry go ahead go ahead no i just like i don't know like i don't i don't i have two neighbors one to my left hate the guy the other one to my right i've never even talked to them before uh so and and i got a couple across the street that are cool if i didn't talk to him tomorrow it's not that big of a deal you're you're not losing much here and as when you get a mister going maybe the three you guys pass but the people the thing is too like if she has a lot of dude friends i don't think she's looking for like you know just because you're the neighbor and you're the guy around like even being her friend might not be that cool of a thing so i think kyle kind of hit the nail on

the head here you got to take this relationship on the road like you got to just it's got to be out of the backyard it's got to be something that doesn't involve like you know home improvement it has to be like semi a date thing and if she is pushed you know she pushes back on that that i think you kind of know where you're at um but also you know what you said earlier ron is probably true too is like even if she rejects you right away it's kind of okay because you can still kind of be friends and maybe it's a little bit weird around them but like just just live your life. And she's still going to probably want to hang out with you because she's going to see you hanging out with your friends and you guys do in the finals. She seems like the kind of person that like knocks on your door because she's bored.

She's just interested. So I, even if she rejects you at first, she's probably going to come around and hang out with you anyway in the future. And then you never know, like just kind of be that guy that hangs around the hoop and maybe you'll end up scoring. So I just don't, I don't see. Whoa. hoop and maybe you'll end up scoring so i just don't i don't see no pun intended yeah um see if she wants to do it when it's it's outside of the comfort of her own home like see if she was is willing to take that next step to actually go somewhere with you or just like well he's here so let's see what he's doing she could also just be super high all the time and everybody's reading it wrong like being in vermont when i went to UVM, there was just so many people that were high all the time.

And you'd be like, Oh, here's a little, you know, there's, there's a gal from Greenwich County with a brand new North face on. That's super friendly. I'm like,

no, she it's two in the morning. She's high. And she wants to just, you know, rip bong hits while guys are trying to edit their Vancouver line. So, you know,

uh, I also think line so you know uh i also think that you know if as if this this is not breaking news here and for our female listeners that like this part of it talking to women is really hard okay and you could say oh it's actually easy just do no it's like facing a different offense every fucking day and it's like one's a spread one's running some old oklahoma shit another one's doing wishbone and then you're like wait it's two fucking quarterbacks on this high school team like what is this how do i prepare for this so you know sometimes it's nice to be sincere and you slow play it and then if you slow play it then you could be like whoa why'd you wait around

why weren't you interested and then if you immediately then it's like hey hold off it's very hard and you can have an approach you know that's why the guys that are the best at it they're like magicians um you also have to do some self-evaluation with all this stuff like what is your track record what does the back of your baseball card say you know does do you find yourself being in a position where people are but it sounds like there's at least enough here that it's worth attempting ruining the Mr. Plans and whatever garden action you guys have going on. It's just why Rudy was so upset. There's not a ton of risk for just, you know, and if you're shy about this, like I would say less, all right, I would say way less. You can even maybe make it a joke. You know, it could be after a hangout, you know, 9am is not exactly the best time, you know, don't stay up all night being like, all right,

I got this. And you see her in the parking lot, like, hello, I would like to ask you out at some point. She's probably still going to be high. And you're like, whoa, man, chill out. So, uh, I would, I would just kind of, you know, I would toss it around in a very, very soft approach. Maybe, you know, after a night, everybody hanging out, you two are still neighboring out in the yard. It sounds like you've had some one-on-one time and then you just kind of be like, hey, you know,

it was a crazy idea. Or maybe you could even do something stupid. It's like, I don't know. Just come up with some sort of conclusion where you're getting an idea of where she wants to go.

I can't help. I can't write all these down for you. I think you could say Top Gun Maverick. What are you thinking about? Go to Top Gun Maverick Thursday. What do you think? It's a must-see TV, apparently.

So that's like a great one. Everyone has to see that movie now, it seems like. So, I mean, you could probably rope her into that. What about, you guys talk a lot. Can you ask her about her dating history?

Or not history, per se, but just like, hey, what's going on in your life? I don't trust this guy with that. I don't trust this guy with that. You think he's going to that i think he's gonna stumble that yeah maybe i don't know it just seems like a natural thing that'll come up in conversation to be like yeah you know like what's going on like you know you date anybody i just isn't a weird conversation for people like you who seem to hang out all the time in your backyard so i don't it sounds like this guy's really good

at like a lot of the stuff that she seems to enjoy and i if you're emailing the show then i could see that like it is hard all right you know it's not not everybody's the coolest uh you never know how it's going to go and if you're worried about the rejection part of it just just use that to your advantage now she knows how you feel be cool the rest of the way you know something she's 24 some other guy's gonna fuck it up and then guess who's there guess who's there with a with a planner so ruthless over here is because he's not taking chances i just i it's just i'm not saying that i would be like mr casanova and i would just knock this out of the park but i think this guy needs that he needs this pep talk

he needs he needs some like some tough love here to be like just just take the chance you know um because i just don't see there's that much of a downside. She seemed pretty chill. I totally agree. She seemed like the kind of person who's going to get mad and never talk to you. I think we did 20 minutes on this. Yeah. I think we got it. That was a fun one.

Okay. We did have a couple, well, we had a lot of followers, so we appreciate everybody reaching out, commenting on Tuesday's Life Advice. But there was a couple people that kept getting to like, as I like to consider myself one of the great storytellers of our era, they were like, how do you leave out the comeback where you were a loser sitting by yourself having lunch for two years and all of a sudden you were cool? Great question. For whatever reason, I worked at the Black Dog that summer. And then the guys that were like, considered the coolest people of all time that were all seniors before I'd even shown up to

this high school at all graduated. We're still hanging out in the vineyard. They were traveling in the winter, they'd come back for the summers, they were doing that deal post high school. And it was three or four guys and they were all the legends. And they were already out of this high school. And then they met me at the restaurant and they loved me and they would have parties and they would jokingly have me work the door and collect money. And so there'd be these summer parties in the vineyard. And then everybody in high school would be like, wait, the coolest people ever think he's cool? It's fucking right they did.

And huge comeback. They don't even have an award for it. The comeback player of the year would be insulting. It's usually just a knee sprain. All right. So that's what happened. I'm glad we cleared that up. Yeah. Yeah, I know. People hanging by a thread. They're they're like shit i don't know if i'll get to the weekend

like how did he do it like well okay all right stealing from your own bar we'll do another one of these uh six feet out of shape asking for more of a ruling on this with the life advice we know how you feel uh on stealing condiments and other goods from restaurants to customer i.e stealing hot sauce from chipotle i think people are making changes i think that podcast really enacted some real change we're seeing these little uh souffle cups the plastic ones being provided for people with lids a little dangerous game totally get it but again like my rule is kind of this if everybody did the thing that you want to do how would it work out would it be bad probably be bad so let's not do those things um we all we can all be guilty of it

sometimes all right all right so i'm curious given your experience as a bartender what your thoughts are stealing from your own bar taking glasses mixing equipment or condiments home i imagine is a no-go for you but what about taking a shot or grabbing a beer uh what about not charging a customer for your own personal interest? Is there any distinction if it's a local business versus a corporation? Actually, very good question. In my opinion, this changes everything. I think it does as well. I would tell you for those, I never had to work for the big corporation. If you're firing some blue drinks with some blue curacao, some agave floaters at Chili's,

with some blue curacao, right? Some agave floaters at Chili's Fridays. It's all pretty corporate. I never had to deal with that stuff, the point of sale pads and swiping your card through and then run it up, have everything match up and all that kind of stuff. So I think that's probably pretty hard to get away with. And one of the last places I ever did bartend in Boston had a little bit more with that so actually i guess i did but i'd have to like swipe the card through and everything it also is the only bar i've ever worked at where they counted the tips without the other bartenders which means i was ripped off for years pretty pretty obvious what was going on there now um uh and then every time there's ever a problem with anything it was always my fault because i

wasn't a wicked hot chick working there so So I guess the problem, I would say. Just never let anything go. No, no, no. Never, never. I got the list right here. I think it's a dicey one, right? Because I had a very unique situation in that I was right out of college. I mean, I bartended at the end of college, and then guys that were two years older than me bought a bar.

So I'm 21 turning 22, and these guys are like 23 and 24 that bought a place. And then the other place that I worked at was owned by a guy that was south of 30 as well. And so they knew I was a good bartender. They knew I wasn't a fuck up as far as drinking on the job. I did it twice, I think ever. And, um, one time was because we'd been up the entire night before and we had to bartend at 6 AM for St. Patrick's day. I think I slept a couple hours and then rolled into bartend, started coming, cutting lines. And the guy was like, Whoa, dude. And I'm like, what? He's like, are you going to make it? I was like, ah, it's a 12. I'm like, we're going to just fire up the tunes. He goes,

have a couple of drinks, actually. He's like, you look terrible. I was like, all right, fine. No problem. Not super productive the rest of that day, but probably made it back out. But again, I think it was like 23 or 24, so not impossible. Other was a golf tournament didn't go great drunk buddy broke my driver still to this day denies it never let anything go sure you're right all right so i had a pretty standard thing like if i was going to work really hard for you i expected that i could then sort of do it the right way of of how i was going to discount people free tabs it was a lot harder then you run a tab for somebody, you go down, you write one Coors Light instead of two Coors Lights. Some people listening to this are like, hey, it's fundamentally wrong. It's not your booze to give away. Don't do that.

When I bartended on the Vineyard, that's kind of the way it was. It was like, I would ask other bartenders. I was really young there. I don't know why they let me bartend. I think I was 19. But I would go, what do we do about hooking up our friends like do you have any friends that are actually of age because there were some people that pissed that i had shifts and then there was a very split thing i was i was like well you know isn't that you know again i was young i was like i don't really know how this worked i thought you're supposed to like hook your friends up and this older woman was like absolutely not you don't it's not your booze to give away and then some other guy was like fuck that he's doing all the time yeah he's like if you want to take care. And then some other guy was like, fuck that. I do it all the time. Yeah, he's like, if you want

to take care of some people within reason, he's like, but be ready because at that place they used to hire spotters that would watch how you're ringing everything up. And then the owner at that place used to just stare at me like a hawk, but whatever, I wasn't doing anything. Back when I was in Vermont, it was very liberal, but they

also knew that I wasn't just going to start giving everything away the entire night. So it really depends on who you work for. Corporate stuff, not much of a chance. I don't have a fundamental problem with it if the owners understand that, hey, back then too, it was kind of like, this sounds stupid, but if some athletes bartended, they knew that people were going to come in and see them. So it'd be busier on a non-friday or saturday night and then again this is college age stuff where it was understood that you're going to be giving guys dollar drinks every now and then again they also used to do the pre-made shit was basically sour mix and fucking ice and they'd be like yeah give those away and

we're like okay because you're not even really giving anything away anything other than some zarkov light dripped in nuclear waste so uh it really depends about if you suck as a bartender, if you're stealing all the time, if you're drunk all the time, if you're just an idiot, then guess what? They're not going to be thrilled with you doing dollar drinks every now and then. If you have your buddy show up and it's five deep and every one of them is paying a dollar for a drink every single time, that's not going to work out all that well.

I used to have this weird kind of deal where if I'd hung out with somebody, I'd be like, all right, I'll just charge her a buck. And then the owner would be like, what's going on there? And I'd be like, eh. And he'd be like, are you into her? I'm like, no, it's almost I feel more guilty. So I charge a buck because she's probably going to be super disappointed rather soon. And that was a policy that the ownership had with me at the time. So I don't much have... That was way too long, too. Go ahead, Kyle. I think there's definitely a strong case to be made

that it can help have repeat customers, especially in like a... What's Frolic Room's policy with you? I don't know shit about shit when it comes to that, man. I don't know. I don't know nothing about nothing when it comes to Frolic Room's i don't know i don't know nothing about nothing when it comes to policy to me all right i know darkroom was hemorrhaging money and i thought that was awesome and like when you brought up like oh your five buddies comes and they get dollar drinks that was me at 22 23 24 like this place is fucking

awesome and it's like you know i've been here for four hours like 35 dollars it's like well i guess i owe you guys a big tip but you know again, again, the place closed down. So, I mean, you wonder how many times over that happened to the people that knew that they could, you know, get hooked up every time. But I do think that there's a way of, you know, you can definitely say, Hey, the reason that this guy comes back here twice a week, once a week, and doesn't go to the other bars that could be considered as divy as this is because he feels like he's got a rapport and he feels like, you know, every once in a while a beer is going to fall off the back of the truck. Like that's, I think that's fine. And then it's sort of like jaywalking at the same time. Like

it makes sense. It does make sense. But if you take the risk, it seems pretty low. But if you get caught, you could, you could end up, you know, fucking shit up for yourself. So it's much easier to do it this way. It makes a lot of sense to jaywalk on Hollywood Boulevard, um, rather than going like, you know, all around to do the thing. the thing. But if there was a cop who took the time out of his day to be like, hey, you're jaywalking, you're getting a ticket, you just kind of have to accept those consequences. So it's convenient. It's nice. It's fun. I get it. So I'd say run the risk, man. As long as you're not taking stuff home, that's fine. It's like bottles of Jameson aren't going missing. Okay. But think of it this way. If there's 100 people in the bar that I was working on on a busy night, 90 to 95% of those

people are paying full price the entire time. And so if I'm hooking up a handful of guys that are around, but it's not a dollar in, dollar out on every single thing. Or the other thing, especially in a town like Burlington where there's 10 bars with different bartenders and we would all go to everybody else's thing, which actually was more expensive because you tip more than you were charged. And so I was like, actually, can we just go back to full price? This would be way easier. That's when the owner knows like, okay, this guy is on it. And again, those guys used to bartend. They understood it. And hell, the guys that own the bars that I worked at used to be way worse with it. They were

bartending for somebody else. They used to take a hundred bucks out of the register and throw it in the tip jar before the night started and then make up the hundred later being like, all right, let's go boys. And that was, that was like their operating procedure. And then when I started, they were like, Hey, we're not doing that with you. I was like, I've never done that. So don't worry about it. Don't, it's not a big deal. I think there's a way you can take care of your friends within reason. But again, if you're working for a corporation none of this is gonna happen or new people that you know maybe want to be coming back to this bar and if you can make it feel like they got a friend in you and that maybe they're get a tiny bit of special treatment it's like you know one

out of five beers that's a draft that's you know not really going to be a draft one out of five i like that but sometimes it's like puppies with food too where if you do it too early and it's too consistently then the guy comes in and he thinks he's being taken care of. You don't say it out loud. You don't be like, hey, where's my free beer? Every once in a while, he'll be like, hey, took care of that one for you. You don't hear, where's my free beer a lot. Exactly.

Most people would be ashamed to say that, hopefully. This podcast is really long, so let's end it. Steve, Kyle, thank you. Ring or Spotify, subscribe to the Ryan Russillo podcast. We are a week away from the draft we'll have an nba champion uh next time we talk to you and bill and i'll be on sunday Thank you.