The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Chris Ryan on Team USA, ‘Presumed Innocent,’ ‘The Bear,’ Philly, and Mail-It-in Summer Questions

Episode Date: July 11, 2024

Russillo starts the show with his thoughts on Team USA’s exhibition win over Canada (0:40). Then, Chris Ryan comes on to share what he’s watching now, explain why Joel Embiid has a lot to prove, and discuss which NBA player is under the most pressure next season (13:37). Finally, Life Advice with Kyle and Ceruti (70:39)! How long is too long to hold a grudge against a family member? Check us out on YouTube for exclusive clips, live streams, and more at https://www.youtube.com/@RyenRussilloPodcast The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please check out rg-help.com to find out more, or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Chris Ryan Producers: Steve Ceruti, Kyle Crichton, and Mike Wargon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's episode, we're going to take a look at USA's win over Team Canada and hoops, the good and the bad. We've also got Chris Ryan on that and B, what's going on in TV and then mailing in summer topics with Saruti. Which player would everyone be the happiest about if he retired and who's got the toughest job in the NBA player wise and Kyle is back a little life advice with our guy back in the crown jewel of the Americas.

Make your nights unforgettable with American Express unmissable show coming up? Good news. We've got access to pre-sale tickets so you don't miss it. Meeting with friends before the show? We can book your reservation. And when you get to the main event, skip to the good bit using the card member entrance.

Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash ymx. Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash ymx. Benefits vary by card, other conditions apply. It's good to watch some hoops last night and I almost missed it a little bit. USB team came in the last night, E672.

It was a bad start. I mean, really bad. So I don't know how know if you watched the game. It's not a shock as they try to sort things out, but always try to remind ourselves like, it's not like team Canada has been together for years and years and years working on their three man weave, Leo DiCaprio style.

So it's 11-1 to start the game. Canada's up. You've got just bad turnovers. I don't know if it's the ball or what it was or how hard it was for a lot of the American players hanging onto the basketball. LeBron had a great cut and then I don't know if he bobbled it or if somebody got a hand in there. He threw it out of bounds on a plate of Steph that he even mentioned after the game. Booker had a turnover. Ant comes in and I'm like, okay, I wonder if Ant is going to change the momentum of this game.

He ended up having a good overall game, but first possession, he gets it. It gets into his feet, loses the basketball. I'm like, this is a mess. And it really dawned on me, like how many times have you ever seen this many talented players play this poorly collectively for 10 straight minutes?

And it just felt like everybody was playing poorly to start this game. Um, and look, guys ended up playing a little bit better later on. Tatum was aggressive. There's some good stuff there and ended up playing well. Drew had some awesome defensive moments as well. I really liked the Anthony Davis and bam pairing, which brings us to another question because Embiid had a really rough night, fouled out in 12 minutes. He was playing practice speed defense and he got a nice elbow in a Dwight Powell

to kind of round things out, which is the Olympic or I'd say international version of a hostile act because then Powell had some free throws. Powell even went up to him and was like, what was that? And I, and when big guys have guys cutting towards the basket, especially if they're littler guys, like the old school thing is always, if you're a big guy, just make them feel you. Don't let them just run around in that area of the court.

So a lot of that stuff can happen and it can look really bad. So I don't know if it was intentional by Embiid or if he just got up high and missed him, but it ended up kind of looking a little nasty there, which is a little bit of a carry over from what we saw during that next series where it's like, is Embiid just really dirty now all of a sudden? So I think the issue after the awful start, oh, a six from the floor,

eight turnovers in the first quarter. I'm telling you like the turnovers weren't just, oh, hey, you lost the ball or whatever, it's just, it looked like a very disjointed group for such a long time, but they get it at 70 54. They ended up winning the game as we know. Uh, and I went through some of the positives there a little bit earlier. I do wonder about the defense because I think the best overall thing that I saw and trying to project what they're going to look like moving forward was Davis

and bam playing together. And I've always thought this about Bam. I just wondered, it's a bit like Al Horford, who Horford, he would tell you, um, cause I've asked him about this and as the game evolved, it made more sense for him to be a center. But all those years in Atlanta, I think the best version of Horford would have been as a power forward. I think he came would have been as a power forward. I think he came into the league as a power forward, well he did.

And I know Philly toyed with the plan, but the spacing with him B like it just wasn't a really good fit. It didn't work out for Horford there. And then Horford said this, um, this resurgence as, as an impactful player who I'm still amazed at how well he's played the last couple of years going deep into the year with these Celtics runs. But Bam is so good and I wonder, and it doesn't matter because the roster is not designed this way unless you want to include the draft pick who's a big, but would Bam be better,

even better playing alongside like a more traditional center? I mean, because Davis was a power forward coming in, but the best version of the Lakers going back to when they won the title was that, okay, Davis, you may want to play a power forward. I think the Lakers even tried to massage a little bit being like, oh, yeah, we're gonna have Dwight Howard. We're gonna have these other centers. Like, don't worry about it. You're gonna be the power forward. Then you start watching the closing groups and the bigger possessions. It's like, it just doesn't make any sense to have you not play center in today's game, especially at a time, even though Davis, like the best version of him was

somebody who could really stretch the floor. And we know that we've looked at some of the shooting stuff with him and going, like, is that part of his game gone? But he just had an incredible year. And I love that pairing. It made me think about Bam in theory with a bigger guy, cause Bam can initiate a lot of your offense, but he's not really somebody who stretches the floor.

So I don't know if you could ever play in today's game, even though I was loving what I saw last night. Could you play Bam with a traditional center? Is there enough spacing from Bam? Probably not the way you would need it to be, even though he's I think really good in the face-up. He's good at passing. Again, he initiates a lot of that offense from the elbow and all that kind of stuff, but you probably

need some kind of center for somebody else if you want to play a bigger player with him to have some other element of spacing, because then it starts to pivot back to this Cleveland thing we've been talking about forever, as much as we all like Jared Allen. I think that we saw a more unlocked version of Evan Mobley in that series against the Celtics because Allen wasn't available to play with a rib injury. So just kind of one of those little things I'm thinking about, but at least for this part of it and it's one game. I'm not getting too carried away with it.

I did think the first quarter was so bad. It was worth commenting on because I didn't think like, oh, the, Hey, now they're just going to be terrible. It was just a very terrible disjointed first quarter. And I think there will be a defensive question there for Kerr where it's like, is AD and this BAM combo actually give him a better closing group, which then leads to like who actually is going to be the power for. So that's really all I was able to take out of that kind of looking forward to the whole thing. Um, the concerns about the team as it doesn't really mean anything, right?

Just the commentary around the beginning and the bad start, uh, it leads to two very predictable things that they don't have a point guard if they have Steph. And they have drew holiday and they have Halliburton and they have Booker who's played a ton of point in his career and they have LeBron, they should be good. If they were to not win the goal, I don't want to hear about it not being a point guard. Like, oh they don't have a point guard. They have plenty of guys that actually are the primary ball handler and initiate all the offense for their teams in the NBA and these are some of the best players in the world, I think they'll figure it out.

Or if it doesn't work, that won't be the thing that I would blame. And then on the other side too, whenever it's international play, much like soccer, the coach gets the blame. So there was a little Steve Kerr stuff going on with that last night too. He's not the one throwing the ball out of bounds. He's not the one dribbling it off his feet. He's not the guy that can't catch. He's not the guy out there missing open shots. But ultimately they turn things around and the rebounding edge, although

the numbers wouldn't tell you that it was that significant, it felt like a real challenge for this frontline for Canada. Where if you look at it this way, as you start thinking about the Olympics and the title chances here for team USA, uh, Canada is playing Dwight Powell and Kelly Olynyk at center. Powell's not even the rotation for his NBA team and he's the starting center for team Canada. So this push of talent from Canada is a real thing. There's some great players coming out of there, but when you look at the talent gap, how many players from team Canada

would even make the team USA roster? Clearly SGA would. It's one of the best players in the league. He could potentially start, depending on kind of how you wanted to do things. The next player is Jamal Murray. Is Jamal Murray better than say, Derek White, who's now replacing Kawhi Leonard? I think he's a better player, but then you can get into fit and how comfortable Derek White is playing off of the ball. And if you needed him play on the ball, he could do that. And his defensive versatility is an advantage for him. So he's probably a better role fit, even if you just redrafted the entire league,

Jamal Murray goes higher than Derek White does. All right? That's the right way to look at it. So if you wanted to say that Murray's better than Derek White and that he would make Team USA, but that's what I'm talking about here when we look at the talent gap the second best player for Team Canada It's not a lock that he's on Team USA So we all know the talent disparity throughout the world and what this still be and despite the international guys winning MVPs and all this stuff and I think think the longer term concern of how the European game

raises their basketball children in comparison to how we do it here in the States. I'm not plugged into the high school thing. I'm not the AU thing. I hear everybody bitch about it all the time. I certainly see these physically gifted players that are incredible, that can score at will at the high school level and the showcase stuff. And then you can see them get to college and go, hey, how come all this stuff isn't working? And they haven't really ever developed a counter. But in the talent world, right? In the world of finding these special human beings

walking around, it's like, okay, well, if he's 6'8", has that kind of body control and doesn't have the counter yet, that's okay. I'll work with that. And that's why we have the draft and recruiting. And that's why we prioritize some of these guys that we look at. And then there's Perry Jones. You're just like, what happened? So when I think about the concern when they have this bad start, again, it was bad. The talent part of like the momentum of where American basketball is in comparison to depth,

it's still just not even close. Like look at the rest of the rosters. And the funny thing is, is if you look at Team USA, they're minus 390 to win the gold, right now on FanDuel, I believe. The number two team, like with the next best odds, is Team Canada plus 900. That's by the betting world.

That team you saw last night has the second best odds to win the gold. And if you run through the roster, like I said, you go through their entire roster, you're like, wait, that team has the second best chance. I mean, I was looking up South Sudan stuff, apparently the newest country. I don't know.

I've gotten into a deep dive on that. Started looking up age of countries. A lot of debate there, a lot of timelines. I don't feel comfortable sharing that information with you because I'd have to do more research on the whole thing. When I saw Lual Deng connected to it to, I was like, he's playing? No, he is not playing. His cousin is playing.

And Wendion Gabriel's on the team. But Llewellyn Dane was put in charge of putting this team together, putting the roster together, and they're in the group with Team USA. Canada didn't shoot the ball well. It was a mess for him the entire time. And I think it's worth remembering also when we see Team USA struggle. It was, they've only had two practices. Steve Kerr said it, LeBron had said it, kind of throwing this group together. You can see them trying to

figure out the hierarchy of how this is all going to work. Last night was clearly just an exhibition, but it was just an exhibition, but it was also an exhibition for Team Canada too. So on the broadcast, when Gus Johnson said, hey, Team Canada really thought they had a chance to win this game tonight. Okay, but the talent gap is massive and you're in the same boat as everybody else.

So we can from a very, like, it's not even an American Pride type of thing. It's just what you're concerned about. Like, Oh, Team USA hasn't really had that many practices. They just kind of threw this team together. There are concerns that I have a bit of, you have this older guard of these incredible players with these massive resumes, whether it's Curry, LeBron, Durant. And then you have some of these younger guys that are like, we're going to have this next wave feel like they're going to of these younger guys that are like, we're going to have this next wave feel like they're going to replace these older guys really quickly. Like this transition,

I don't know if it's just the bias of what's happening right now. Have we had it like this before, but it seems significant in this passing of the torch type of roster at both extremes. All these guys that are younger, they're going to be on this team moving forward and then what they're going to do in the NBA and how we're going to talk about the face of the league. Well, I guess from an American standpoint, we're not sure if we're even going to get there yet with the absolute domination for the MVP or from the international guys. But it's not like team Canada is out there running a ton of practices. It's not like some of these other guys have been playing together for years and years

and years. I think we've run into that in the past. And maybe you understand Serbia's international history better than I do. You probably do. But when you go through all the rosters, this would be a massive disappointment. And it should always be a massive disappointment because basketball depth in the States, there is no comparison. Chris Ryan, elder stadium, the first ever. depth in the States, there is no comparison. Chris Ryan, elder statesman at the Ringer, joins us.

How's it going? What's up with you, man? It's great to see you. I was going to ask you to be on the watch soon to see what Ryan's watching. So thank you so much for having me. I'd love to come on. OK, it's a date. It's a date. Have you been watching stuff or is it just been too much sports? Too much, too much NBA? It's been too much travel.

Too many hotel rooms. And so now that I've been back in LA for a few days, I jumped deep dive because I do appreciate like this this time, although I've dipped my toes in some of the WNBA world. I love the international soccer. although I've dipped my toes in some of the WNBA world. I love the international soccer.

I don't plan my day around it, but when it's on, I can't stop watching it. And then I was excited for Team USA last night. I was kind of like, all right, I gotta make sure I'm ready to go. Like it was weird to have a game, you know, cause it's usually such a part of the routine for so much of the year for me to go, okay,

you gotta make sure you're back, be back by seven o'clock. Then that first quarter happened, which I touched on here in the open. But TV-wise, like we can get into it now if you want. Presumed innocent. All in. All in. It is, I don't know if it was Saruti that said this to me

or if somebody else said it to me. Apple puts out some incredible stuff and yet it doesn't seem to like live in the daily consciousness the way say the Bear does or some of the FX Hulu stuff Yeah, I think it's partially the kinds of shows that they make so they they aren't making With the exception of something like presumed innocent Hey, did you see that last night like you have to watch it the night it drops and even for a lot of people I think it's kind of like unclear what time the shows are available.

Like maybe you'll get a push notification. But it's like, oh, wow, they got another two of these are up there now. But I think that this is one of the first ones where I feel like you see people being like, yeah, I'm not going out tonight because I want to see what happens to Rusty. I'm in. I think it's terrific. And. I remember the movie, the movie was like a really big deal.

I don't know, was the research on this right that Harrison Ford was told not to do it because it was gonna make him unlikable? That sounds right. I mean, like I think that those guys were very conscientious about like, hey, you're here now, If you mess with this too much, I mean, people think of you as Han Solo,

but he was always really good at doing edgier roles. Like he worked, he did frantic, he did witness, he did presumed innocent. I think he liked to screw around with his image a little bit in a way that I wish more big actors today did. Yeah, he was, I think for him, you'd have to really like, OK, Han Solo, Star Wars, you know, Indiana Jones, I've got it.

But I think anybody that gets in acting at some point, especially if you're his status and his level when he was just dominating that that time and depends on how old you are to really like understand that he's the biggest star in Hollywood. Yeah, that.

I imagine those guys do want to get back to kind of some of that stuff like witness was was a different kind of movie, but there's just so many people that are told like don't bother like don't screw up the formula and I don't know if that happens more now or maybe you know a lot of times I don't think the audience is blamed enough for some of the stuff that we have available to us but it's it's a dark role. And then Jake Gyllenhaal seems like the perfect modern day version of this. Cause Gyllenhaal is not someone that's played it safe. Nightcrawler.

He's an absolute lunatic. And maybe we are more accepting of people showing more range now, but back then if you were this huge, huge movie star and there was a formula and it worked and your approval rating was through the roof, I can imagine people being afraid of giving the audience a version of them that they're not going to like

and derailing wherever their career is. Yeah, but I think they were more gutsy than the guys are now. I mean, Gyllenhaal's a good example of somebody who's probably leaned so far into his actorly predilections, his tastes, that he's, you know, with the exception of Roadhouse, doesn't make a ton of like Hollywood blockbuster fare. But this would be to imagine like, what it would be like for Harrison Ford to be doing

Presumed Innocent and Frantic and Witness. Like, this would be like if The Rock or Ryan Reynolds or somebody like Chris Pratt was like, hey, I'm gonna do a movie where I'm accused of killing my mistress. These guys all kind of treat acting as a plank in their celebrity now, but we kind of came up more at a time when Tom Cruise was like, I'm gonna do Eyes Wide Shut.

That sounds like a good idea. And it's like, you're really gambling with a lot there. I wonder if Cruz would do those anymore. He says he's going to because he, you know, he's been making Mission Impossible movies and blockbusters for so long on this run. And he seems to be suggesting that he wants to get back into working with big time directors. You haven't been like, he Like when? I don't know. I don't know if he lives through the next Mission Impossible, maybe we'll see him do a really like

considered character piece. My favorite character in Presumed Innocent is Peter Sarsgaard. Yeah, Tommy. Who would be my number one draft pick for an actor if the category was okay, you have to draft the character who says he's fine when he's absolutely not fine, who does it better than anybody? And it's like, yeah, every the entire room would just be like, who are we taking number

two after Starsguard? Yeah, right. Right. He is, it seems like a role he was born to play as this stepped on and stepped over prosecutor. I needed to ask you because like him and Bill Camp and and all the sort of character actors that are in it definitely see seem a part of the world that they're in. And then Gyllenhaal is clearly it's his Roadhouse body. Like they must have been shooting these things back to back in some way where either he was coming off of Roadhouse or going into Roadhouse.

Do you understand Rust being this jacked from swimming and running on a treadmill? Like what's going on? No, but when he takes his shirt off, when he's swimming, I imagine somebody's like, maybe Jill and Hall said it, which I respect the hell out of. Like, let's not let this six-pack go to waste. Like, can we get a couple shots? Can I take my shirt off sooner? Maybe we do an underwater thing? Because he is so ripped. And you're right, it has to be because it was also happening. Or

maybe he just decided, like Tom Hardy, post-warrior, where he was like, I am going to become a badass. I am going to learn how to fight. Like I'm, I'm super into this, which has happened to actors before, but I just imagine whether it was Gyllen Hall or the producers are like, if we've got a six pack to work with, let's get it in a shot. Yeah. I, but with all we see of his workouts are these sort of like cardio like exercises and it's like are you pulling a boat when you're doing laps like what's going on what's going on with this um bill camps role as the defense attorney for jillin hall's character here i don't know what they did with his makeup um i think i think these guys are incredible because, let's face it, they're not the hottest actors in Hollywood, but I love guys like this that are just like,

I can't imagine when they told their friends, like, I actually wanna be an actor. Yeah. They're like, seriously? But he is so good. He is exhausted. He's emotionally worn out. I mean, everything that you would think,

he, it feels like like this is the highest compliment you can pay anybody, but it feels like a lawyer who's great at acting. Yeah. Yeah. He I feel like the first time I really was like, who the hell is this guy is? Did you watch the night of when it was years ago? So he was he was a cop in that. He's just so great. He feels like he's like an old piece of furniture in one of these like offices. Like you're just like, oh my God, like this guy seems to have emerged fully formed from this world.

And like, did they have to give this guy a single note, you know, when he was acting? No, I mean, I think I'd be embarrassed. I think he would just look at you and be like, you don't think I have this figured out by now? Like the expression that he wears on his face throughout this, because I started watching Mara Kingstown finally and our Booker Allison is like, thank you. She'd be on me for years. And with the Taylor shared a thing, it's an auto, like I'll give it a chance.

But Renner, and I've only watched the first season, but Renner is so important to that because there's some other Yellowstone guys that just kind of popping up all over the place. And you're thinking, okay, fish and wildlife to now lead detective. And it, it should be an easy transition, but I think you notice the gaps at times with just how amazing Renner is at this stressed out, almost like everyday version of The Punisher, where he doesn't have the van and he hasn't like gone full arsenal and you know, the absurd storyline that that takes for anybody that read the comic books or watched the series

on Netflix, which I thought was really well done with your guy, Berntal. Yeah, do you want to give us a little? Let's warm up to it. Let's warm up to it. Yeah, do you want to give us a little? Let's warm up to it. Let's warm up to it. Yeah, we'll get there. We'll get there when we talk Embiid. Yeah, maybe Embiid and Team USA stuff,

but there's just not a lot of gaps in this show right now, I presume it isn't. And if you're younger and you don't know the movie, it works. If you're older and watch the movie, you probably forgot everything that happened, but they're doing a great job with this and it stayed consistently.

And it's kind of that old design of cliffhanger too. They are ending with cliffhangers, like just huge cliffhangers every time, which maybe makes people more frustrated because we're so catered to now, where you can just watch the next episode and Apple doesn't wanna do it that way, which I kind of respect a little bit.

Because I do think binging, like binging is, um, I'm, I'm, I'm stopping you here just to make the point, binging a show. Gives you a different relationship with the characters than getting to take a week off from them. It's the whole discovery of Pam actually being terrible on the office week to week over the years, you never picked up on it. It's like you were hooking up with her and then you married her when you binged

and you went, whoa, this is a tough hang. And I like that Apple does kind of push back on that by design because there's an anticipation but I imagine most people are just annoyed that they can't watch everything they want to watch exactly when they want to because that's usually what happens now. Yeah, so the guy who's sort of in charge of this show,

David Kelly, who has roots, he goes back to L.A. law. Like he's one of the five or six most successful television producers of all time. And it's interesting to see his kind of sense of structure and his old TV bones in the new house that is streaming and prestige kind of like expensive movie stars in your show. When you have like those kinds of movie stars and when you have like the pressures of streaming, there are definitely going to be different things that you have to do versus say, hey, like we're just we're just making a 22 or 12 episode show and it's hopefully going to get renewed, renewed, renewed. He actually like I think is really good at building out these B and C plots to keep the show kind of like a float

so that you're so that you're basically like being satisfied on an episode to episode basis. And then still in the last 10 minutes, something crazy happens. You're like, I can't wait for the next thing to start. I found the most the easiest way to watch Presumed Innocent is basically to watch like two at a time where it's basically you get the satisfaction of seeing what happens after one cliffhanger, but you're not like burning through the entire thing. I mean, I think that the bear is something that people were probably like, I'm just going to watch this over the course of a weekend, if not like two nights in the middle of the week. And this is a little bit more of a fun like you you'll remember like, Oh, yeah, summer, summer 24. That was like

presumed innocent. Like that lasted for two months. That was great. Like, I think we need more of those shows. The bear can be binge wise. Like it's that feeling when you're watching uncut champs. Yeah, go okay. Like the anxiety level like the goal is to have the audience have this anxiety level throughout. And I'm not into season three, yet of the bear. I still have a few episodes to go with season two. But when you watch a bunch of those in a row, it's shot so well, it has this tone to it

that is I think what everybody would hope to have because it just feels a little different. But the hectic nature, the chaotic nature of a kitchen, which is well done for anybody that's worked in a kitchen, it really is crazy. Like the people turn into lunatics. Like some of the craziest people I've ever known, I spent a couple of years working at the Black Dog in the kitchen, started washing dishes

when I was in high school, and then prep cook. And I never even made it to the line, because I wasn't gonna be a lifelong cook. But when you're younger and you're impressionable and these guys were like, I couldn't tell. I was like, did these guys have it figured out? And then when I got older, I was like, Nope. Like they don't have it figured out.

Yeah. Like I remember with the holiday parties, especially it'd be a little different to be on Martha's Vineyard in the winter. And it would be a holiday party with the people that were still there. And guys were just out of their fucking minds. And then I remember this one chef just started throwing plates. He started throwing plates up in the air and they were smashing them. And it was like towards the end of the party, but it wasn't like it was three in the morning. It was still like the party. And he just started taking all of these plates going,

oh, what's going on? And he started smashing them. And then the head chef, who just was really good at having like the line ready at all times, and I'm not talking about the line in terms of the kitchen, he just always, your nicknames, he just destroyed you immediately. He was like, he was made to give everybody

derogatory nicknames. Like that was if there was a way to make millions on it. That used to be a real talent in this country. You know, I've never come across anyone in my life that's better at giving derogatory nicknames than this guy. He just would nail it immediately. And. That guy that was throwing the plates was called Norman Bates for the next two years that he worked there.

I forget his real name. I was like, this guy's really smart. He hung on for two years that he worked there. I forget his real name. I was like, this guy's really smart. But he hung on for two years, that's great. Yeah, he hung on for two more years, but that's probably because he would be willing to live on Martha's Vineyard year round as an adult. Right. So there's a bit of like, what is that line?

I don't know. I don't know if it's about Vegas or whatever, but like, I think there's probably a bunch of places in the States that would say this, but like if you moved here, something went wrong. If you were living on Martha's Vineyard year round 30 years ago on purpose and you weren't from there and you weren't independently wealthy and you just like the quiet, you actually were just a part of the working force and trying to survive. And he was really smart. He was a friend. And then he had this disastrous holiday party where

he started just smashing shit and giving some sort of speech like he thought he was doing some sort of improv theater thing except for destroying the restaurant's property. He was Norman Bates. And he's a psycho from that on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think that the restaurant business now has like a much different kind of like reputation where the Bears done a lot towards this. I think Bourdain charted the arc of this when he wrote Kitchen Confidential. It was about the guys you're talking about. This is where people work when they really can't work anywhere else. They're not fit for wearing a button-up shirt and sitting down at a cubicle every day. You can get a job in a restaurant if

you have charges against you. You can get a job at a restaurant if you've got a drug problem. You can get a job at the restaurant if you're living out of your car or whatever. And it's like an underground economy where a lot of this stuff is through cash. And then over the years now, it's become like Renee Rizzeffi looking at a radish and being like, yes, I can make this so many different ways. And it's much more, I think, touchy-feely and for better, for better and for worse. But yeah, the bad, the bad old days of guys like Norman Bates throwing plates around because he's just willing to live in the vineyard

in December is pretty funny. I remember too, the chefs would all make fun of the owners. They'd make fun of the owner's son. So I came up through their side of it and I thought, yeah, these guys are right. Like the owner's terrible and the sons are idiots and these guys are dicks. And then years are moved from that. I ended up becoming friends with the sons and they were all like the greatest guys. The owner was a terrific human being.

Yeah. Like they were all really good people despite having this wealth that they were really grounded and were kind of a rep about the right things. And it was funny cause I remember being like, and it's funny when I worked there, everybody hated you because they were jealous and that's just what they did. And they were going to talk down the people that owned it. And yet all the hours they put in and he was like, yeah, he's like, they're actually, it was really,

it's his own story, so I'm not gonna go too into it, the whole thing. All right, speaking of preparation in the kitchen, the Sixers have been cooking this off season. Hey! You made a great point. Did I? Yeah, you made a great point.

We'll get to that later. No, it was about the construction where you get everything you want. I mean, for free agency to go this well for an NBA franchise, planning out cap space is actually really rare. So I think more deserves all the credit in the world for actually pulling this off because there is a long list of teams and fan bases that go into a summer like this with all this wishlist dream scenario and it doesn't happen and it's mission accomplished.

But then once the roster gets put together, you start to see like, wait, who's the power forward going to be? Can this team pass, which you brought up? Are you now post the mini elation of a plan executed to now nitpicking what the roster actually is? Yeah, definitely. That was fun then.

Yeah, it's mostly like a depth concerns. You know, it's just like, I think that they've got five certified players and then a bunch of guys who are it's like, maybe that maybe maybe the Jared's going to be good and maybe the UCLA kids are going to be good and we'll have enough like firepower off the bench to like field an NBA team. But I think that it's a it's a complicated thing with the Sixers because of the ceiling that they've imposed on themselves in the second round of the playoffs. So that you're basically

like the entire question facing this team is like, can you get out of the second round? And almost anything that happens over the course of the season is irrelevant. It doesn't matter. Like Embiid's won the MVP. This team has been up at the top of the Eastern Conference and in the middle of the Eastern Conference and still going to the playoffs. And every playoffs is exactly the same. So it's really like, is this Paul George thing, the twist of the combination lock that unlocks it? I'm just so happy that this worked out. There was definitely a time with Darrell Morey where it was like, hey, man, so is the hardened thing, that's your party trick? Like, that's it? Is there another idea somewhere in the clouds?

And the Paul George master plan, I was very skeptical that this was going to get pulled off. I definitely just was like, it seems like he's just going to go to the warriors if they can get this trade together. So for him to just nail it and for it to just, just be like, no, it was always Philly, it's pretty amazing. Yeah, it is. I mean, it's two reasons, right? It's the Golden State one that you brought up

and then Bill and I talked to this at length is that we just always assume Paul George gets the fourth year, even if you have a bunch of arguments of why you don't want to do it. And if you wanted to get critical of Philly, which would be unfair, and I think just wrong of like, well, if the Clippers didn't want to be in the fourth year, why did you get, well, it doesn't matter.

Not really in that position. Yeah, it's, can we get the Paul George first year and then figure out the rest of it? Yeah. Do you think they're, I know your answer, so I'm not gonna ask it that way, not equal to Boston, but like, what do you think it is? How do you see the hierarchy in the East?

I think that they're on their night is if everything is going their way in terms of health, I think they're just as good as the Knicks. I think the Knicks thing is like a great story, but I don't know if they have like an interior answer for Imbiñanes and maybe even Porzingis. So I think that they're the second best team in the conference. But it's not like super clear and maybe at this point actually like, do you feel like Milwaukee's almost being like underrated at this point because of their, they didn't do anything? I do, but I understand it.

They're older, Dame has heard a lot. I still just have some love for Yannis. He didn't do it last summer. Yeah. I said it to Bill after I heard that conversation with Doc where Dame was like, Hey, I knew I was going to get traded. So I didn't really work out. Like, so you did nothing. If I were a heat fan, I would have gone, maybe, maybe this wasn't that big of a deal. But I think the heat would still, if you could just go back in time and say, okay, would you still say yes to this? But again, it wasn't a yes or no think the heat would still if you could just go back in time and say, okay Would you still say yes to this? But again, it wasn't a yes or no on the heat side of it despite the way that it was covered for such a long time

What's the approval rating right now of maybe I don't even know if we do Philly athletes Where is him be right now his approval rating in comparison to other athletes in the city? So as far as Sixers goes as far as far I can tell, and certainly in my personal power rankings, Maxi has left the Earth's atmosphere. Like Maxi is just like the, he's just everybody's favorite party guest. Like the video of him signing his contract has been like the, it's probably the most watched thing in my house this week is just like every one of my Philly friends is like, Oh my God, did you see this with with Dr. J giving him the black Jersey and then beads there and Darrell's getting choked

up and Calipari is calling in. It's like, this is, this one feels very homegrown and natural. I think it beats got a lot to prove. I think there's there's a lot of tone there. Well, no, I mean, it's also like, you know, we're coming up on Red October. People are freaking out about the Phillies like, you know, and Eagles are the Eagles are emerging. So it's just like I think that you're asking me at a weird time because of last night with Embiid. OK, give me your last night takes that.

God damn it. Couldn't he got on Kauai's flight? Just be like me too, man. Can I get on that one? So it's not what you saw last night. It's the fact that he's out there last night. Well, first of all, it's like the idea of him aggravating a knee in Team USA basketball is just like my greatest nightmare.

The second thing is just. Bill always talks about how like guys who go into team USA are part of like this brotherhood that changes them and like revolutionizes like their competitive spirit and everything. And I'm like, does that, that doesn't say that wouldn't happen yet though, right? Like that, that still might happen. Cause last night it just looked like a guy who'd never watched international basketball before. Yeah, it was ugly and I'm touching on it, but not like, okay, now I look at him beat entirely different, but I, it's been a growing thing.

And I think I was on pardon my take when it came up cause they were making fun of Tatum, like trying to see if they could get to 10 players before they could rank Tatum. And obviously they were just messing with me, knowing that that makes me really upset, because I get so emotionally worked up about Tatum's ranking.

Yeah. But it was something that Zach Lowe had said, where he was like, here are the four players that are unimpeachable, and he put Embiid in the group. And I was like, you know, I think I've been almost, like I think I've been really nice about Embiid for a long time. And it feels like we're finally at that point of, if they don't get out of this,

but it's a little like the Chris Paul thing where I get defensive about Chris Paul. It's like, we've got all these playoff losses. It's like, well, cause look how many times he wasn't, like they blew that series, he wasn't even playing. It's like, okay, but that's part of it. All right, fine. You got me. And when I look at some of the Embiid stuff about how patient he's been, like

everybody generally in Philly is in a great mood because this was such an awesome off season, but that's been then turned into Embiid stayed the course. She did it the right, you know, it's like now you're just making up shit to feel even better about the entire off season because he has been the primary reason other than look, I'll give you Ben Simmons just emotionally, mentally falling apart in that Atlanta series. It still makes no sense whatsoever that they lost that Hawks team at all. But Embiid has been the constant, which is also another reason why approval ratings for Max here through the roof because Maxie can draft off the attention that Embiid gets

As the real face of the franchise, so it's not because he elbowed Dwight Powell It's not because he was up and down in the Knicks series I think there were closing moments against the Knicks series where I went I know who he is I know how talented he is. I even like his personality But I'm starting to have closer questions with him and don't throw me fourth quarter stats because because that's just not, I'm looking at those moments. I'm looking at those moments. And I do think, unfortunately for him, because he's this old school player with these futuristic abilities for somebody his size and the mobility and everything, he still needs a bit of assistance getting into what he needs as opposed to the wings that are already going to have the basketball.

So some of that's just the design of the way the game is played and how his game fits in and all that. But I think it's gonna get ugly for him if it's another second round exit. I think that ugly year that I've wondered about is if it's finally gonna get to like hardened Westbrook levels for him. I wonder if that would happen. Yeah, and I think it'll probably, I think the MVP works against him in that way. I think it's specifically that MVP race and I think for a certain sector of basketball fandom, the perception that he was gunning for the MVP award and maybe trying to inflate stats at certain points. I mean, he certainly like, I know Bill never will

forget the NBA playing against Wemby and scoring 70 against the Spurs and then taking the night off against Jokic. He doesn't do himself any favors when it comes to regular season stuff like that. I do think that for as much as he suffered for his health issues over the course of the years and conditioning issues as well, it shouldn't be underrated how he has had to get used to eight new guys every year. And I've been thinking about this a lot because listening to you and Bill talk about it on Sunday, and Bill was obviously like, you know, the Celtics like aren't going to be able to keep this team together. And like this is this is bad for the league if we can't do dynasties. And I think that it's been weird as a Sixers fan over these years, because just as soon as you're like, you know,

and I kind of like these guys, you know, and you start to get into the, the seventh guy off the bench or whatever, it just feels like the season ends and like they've completely turned over because Darrell and even GMs before him were very savvy about keeping guys on these sort of one two year team friendly deals that they could package to try and go for a star or clear cap space. But that kind of, there's an attrition in terms of your connection with the team when that happens. And I think for Embiid, he's often been very candid about like, yeah, I really liked playing with JJ because after a few years, JJ and I figured out exactly how like, he's going to go here and I'm going to go here and then I'm going to look him off but dribble handoff and all

that stuff. That's kind of boring. It's like, he has to get used to new guys every season. He's already talked about Maxie is his favorite teammate ever. He's played with Maxie for like three seasons. It's like, so he hasn't, he doesn't have like this sort of institutional, Hey, it's you and me and these three other guys, we're going to do it together. Because he's always got, the entire deck is getting shuffled every 18 months or so.

It's a really good point because if you go through all the title winners, the Celtics, this group has been together with adjustments. So are we giving them too much credit because Tatum and Brown have both been there without realizing that Przingus was new, that Drew was new and that White is not exactly home grown. Orford's had two different runs with them. So how consistent is that really? without realizing that Prezengis was new, that Drew was new, and that White is not exactly homegrown. Horford's had two different runs with him. So how consistent is that really? Or is it just so important that the two guys,

the top two guys are consistently together? Denver, probably together. I mean, we could get into every single transaction here, which is just gonna be a waste of time. You're like, well, they added this guy, and he was kind of new. But Jamal Jokic and MPJ has been like the trio and Gordon. Yeah. Yeah. Golden State. Don't have to get into that.

Milwaukee. It felt like the one and two pretty consistently together there. The Lakers thing was relatively new. If you think about it, it was just the second year with Anthony Davis. I think it's a good point. And I think you would want to, you know, what's great is we've grown into this together and now we're kind of ready, but that's just not what the standard is going to be from Philadelphia. Uh, and I'm not going to say like they have the most pressure on them to win a title when they haven't gotten out of the second round. I don't think that that's fair.

I thought it was very clear Boston had the most pressure on them to win a title. Considering again, we're here, we've got one. Oklahoma city is going to be young. Minnesota is probably going to be a little bit better. It may not play out that way in the regular season. I'd imagine the scars from the playoffs are going to make all those guys better. I think there's another level for Ant. Dallas has a chance to maybe be better, but I worry about the perimeter defense

with those three different guys. So it sounds tough to go, oh, Philly has to win. But if you're not picking them as the best team in the East, you can't then say they have to win or it's a massive disappointment. They could lose to Boston in an awesome series in the second round and you'll feel better about the team, but it's technically not going to be any different. If they make it to the Eastern Conference finals and lose in six or seven, and it's really good, and Embiid has maybe some better moments than these closing moments where,

like some people must think I'm insane with this and I know that I'm not. Do you agree with me on some of those passive moments from Embiid, late? I think it's almost, it's almost more descriptive. I would be like, my description of it is that the things that worked for him earlier in the game, like that feeling like he's this enormous guy who can play like a pinball in a pinball machine where he's like bouncing off of guys who are getting into him and kind of drawing contact and then on one leg finishing or kind of going up and under and finishing and all this stuff that's like, it's very loose-limbed. Somehow at the end of games, that feels like a liability. And it feels like the ball protection, the ball security is not there. The decision making is slower. And it's like a heavyweight fighter who's taken too many shots

over the course of the game. And then in the last round, it's like, I would love to find the like guy who's just like, the fourth quarter is where I come alive. And that is, regardless of the statistics is not what Embiid is. You're never like, here comes Embiid in the fourth quarter, are you? Well, he's still very capable of getting all the numbers that you need because he's just so good at drawing fouls. You know he's taken four to six free throws in that closing stretch. He's just going to, but I know some people who would... Usually it just comes down to six or

stands being upset about the national guys saying something about their favorite dude, but I just see hesitation in a way with certain players that I always kind of look for. I'll look for it and like, okay, who's really comfortable out there right now and who is it? And at the furthest end of the spectrum, you have Ben Simmons against Atlanta. Like he is not comfortable. Yeah. the spectrum, you have Ben Simmons against Atlanta. Like he is not comfortable. He's not comfortable right now in this spot to the great players. Sometimes you'd probably give a little too much credit for looking comfortable because they take awful shots and they don't go in, we're like, well, at

least he was comfortable though. Yeah, right. So it's, it's not something I can usually, I would have to just go through and like point out clips and go, okay, this is a possession where I don't think he was really excited to have the ball here. And when you're an MVP, you can't have those. You just can't. Uh, which leads me to this. So we're going to bring Saruti in here because we now are going to title this

part of it, the mail it in topic segment of the summer. Does Embiid have the toughest job in the NBA? And somebody on Twitter started this. So it's not me. I thought it was an awesome question. Which individual right now, going into this year, currently has the toughest job in the NBA? I wish I could remember who did it. I forgot the credit to you, whoever it is. Embiid's a good show. I mean, Steph Curry's job is difficult because his team's not very good. But I don't know that the expectation is there.

No, he already has all the built-in whatever and it doesn't really matter. But I don't know. He's never in the finals again. Nobody's going to get mad about it. They might miss the playoffs though. That'd be serious. Asking him to drag that team to the playoffs is actually a pretty big accomplishment. So if you're just saying the expectations aside,

like his, I just think his team's not very good. I think it beats job is hard because it doesn't the evaluation for it isn't going to start for such a long time until the until we get to the postseason. Like it really doesn't matter if he plays 55 games or 60 games this next season, and he's just because he's managing his workload and he's trying to be in like the best possible shape for the playoffs. No one's really going to care about that. He's not going to get the same kind of heat that I think like say Kawhi and Paul George get on the Clippers. Everybody's going to be like that. Whatever it takes, man, don't go out there and play on a sprained knee. That's my opinion. But when it gets to the

playoffs, it's just going to be like, if those guys even go out in a seven game series against the Celtics, I think people are going to be slamming their head against the wall. So that is a tough job because in some ways it's like the entire season leads up to a moment that you might not even be physically available for. I'm trying to think it's not going to matter, right? It's not going to matter nationally. I mean, the start that it be got off to last year was off the charts. OK. The start that MB got off to last year was off the charts. Okay. And then you're thinking as an MVP voter, at least for me, like, okay, after he

won it and what you think is a clear separation between who the better player is between Jokic and MB, I'm surprised to anybody would even debate that anymore. But there's still some people hanging on like the war's over. No, it isn't. I thought that was going to be a really tough vote vote because the statistical profile and the Sixers with a healthy and beat or winning 50 plus. So they're going to be a good basketball team. It was going to be tough.

It was going to be a really tough vote because I felt like after the finals, when you could want it and all the stuff that went into that, that year, I was like, just remember kind of like my basic thing, unless somebody so it's off the charts statistically, which again, and B was kind of like, yeah, he kind of came swing shotting out. It was unbelievable. Yeah, go back and look at the start and you go, how are you voting against this guy, even though you just don't think he's as good as I would still say, you know, a few guys. Yeah. And also like the way that that team was constructed in the beginning of last season with like... Especially with Batum and a couple

of guys who they had some decent passers on the team. So I think he was getting servers in a way that he hadn't been necessarily. Maxey got off to this rip-off start and it just felt very balanced. Whereas Embiid and Maxey are the clear one and two here. And everybody else is on any given night can get 15 or 16. Ubre had a really great start to the season until that weird like traffic thing. But like, it was like it was like that was like a very well balanced team. And he was really thriving because of it. So like I heard. I feel like the thing about MB as a non Philly guy and who's not invested in it is I like

I want to like MB. Like I think he gives a shit shit and I like that. I like that. You know, I think there are a lot of players that are above a lot of things in the NBA. They're just like too cool for school. And I kind of don't think that's the case, but like, what was the, what was the, um, was it the, the Oklahoma when the guy wrote the piece about Kevin Durant being Mr. unreliable? Yeah. Like I feel like that's them beat like, and I don't like it because I like I want to I want to like him. Like I think I like that he cares. But it's strange to be saying that statistically he's like unimpeachable. Like it's not like you go, Mr.

Unreliable, you didn't show up tonight. It's like it's not it's not in the numbers. It's something about like it's in specific spots. Yeah. Typically the playoffs there where it's like, oh, he doesn't just he just doesn't feel like he's the galvanizing force for victory. It's it feels like more like he's like, man, you got your numbers. You got you did it. You got 24 and 12.

Well, I know that's why people lose their mind against me because you just can hit me over the head with so many different stats. And I I just always wonder, like, do you do people want to be this simple? Like, hey, is this guy better than that guy? Well, he has two rings. He has one. Yes. So all right, we can all pack it up and go home rings. He has one. Yes. So, all right. We can all pack it up and go home then. Like we don't have to do any of this stuff then.

We're just going to count stuff and it doesn't matter what you watch or what you see. And, uh, all right. So, and beat, I think is at least in the conversation for it. And this is specifically for players. This isn't for like the Hornets parking attendant or something like that. Right. This isn't for like the Hornets parking attendant or something like that, right? That was good. I did wonder if the mellow ball was in this conversation, but then I was thinking about like the coaching staff. So yeah, let's keep it to players. Okay.

Because you're right. You're right. It could get a little dicey. Is Cade Cunningham on the list? Is he a first team? All most difficult jobs in the NBA. So I was curious, you mentioned this and I was wondering like why, why Cade? Is it just because like he's gotten out like an extremely well paid like pain cave where he's just like on coach, whatever it is, for of like his third of his third season. And now is like, I'm just stuck here.

This is where I'm gonna be. Like why him more than Scotty Barnes or something like that, I guess. Okay. That's a good question. I feel like to answer that question though. I feel like, I feel like, because I think Kate is his, I just think his ceiling is higher than Scotty Barnes.

Like I think I expect more from Kate. Like I think Kate could be a legitimate, uh, maybe it was because he went one and maybe I just have, there's too much bias in that. I personally, if you were telling me like I could have one guy, I would take Kate. Um, and I know that there's a lot of evidence that suggests that's not the right case, uh, but I, I'm like a Kate believer and I think Monty Williams, like I just think not being around Monty Williams is like, was that five wins? I don't know, maybe more.

Who knows? His roster is a disaster. They have no direction. So I'm just making excuses after excuses for Cade. But I also kind of think like he's got lost in the like former number one. I feel like people don't talk about him anymore. People don't talk about Cade.

So I almost don't even think he's on the radar of this list. Yeah, he's on the rate. Well, I get your, what you're saying, but it shouldn't be about radar, not on the radar, it should be going into the year, the responsibilities you have and being a number one pick means responsibilities. The contract means responsibilities. I like Surroudi love his talent. I love like whatever the best version of his game is. Maybe he's a second team, all NBA

toughest job because Monty isn't there because Monty made it a lot tougher. Last year he would have won this award. If they added this to it, hey, toughest job in the NBA this year, which actually I'd find more interesting to vote on than clutch performer. This got demonstrably better because money isn't there. So maybe maybe that's how we should look at it. What about. I don't want to change this because any of these things can turn into just listing guys. What about Sengoon? Yeah, that's a really good one, because it's like.

The sort of cult fascination with the rocketets started with his majesty, like with him being like Jokic Jr. but then they got real good when he went out. Yeah. And Jaylen Green became the Jaylen Green you hope to see. Jabari at the five? Jabari at the five. Speaking of guys who stock up, I'm still holding on. Yeah.

They got too many guys. Too many guys. Houston from team stinks to too many guys. That was like me on the magic last year. Like we got too many guys. Too many good players. So you know what? The other hard part is that with

Sengun is and I'm sure if I like thought about it, thought about it, I'd be able to fix this. But like it's kind of hard to see where to send him, Right? Like, because if the deal is like you buy the system, not just the player, how many teams are like, yeah, sure. Like we're, we're, we're a blank canvas, man. Come in, we'll run everything through you. It'll just be guys cutting off of you. Don't worry about it. Hold the ball

at the high posts. Like I don't, mean like, yeah, he could do like the basement and he could go play for the Hornets or whatever. But like how many other teams like competitively would be like, sure, let's like we want to sign up for the whole program. You'd have to be like a Chicago where they just have nothing else going for. Yeah, yeah, we'll give you we'll give you this many touches. You know, sure. You know, so talented, though, like I don't think he's this mirage of a guy.

Me neither. We need to, to be fair to him. I think we would need to kind of see how it all plays out, but this is the part of the roster construction of, Hey, we've got this big guy that can do all these things. It's like, that's awesome. Like he's also in the way and And it minimizes, especially that team with all this athleticism on the perimeter.

Not so much with Brooks and Van Vlieb, and then Reed Shepard, although Reed Shepard is fill in the blank. Too many guys. Too many guys. You think too many guys. Too many guys team is awesome. That'd be a good tier.

Just too many guys. Don't know if they're good, don't know if they're bad. They went 41 and 41 last year, but I think that stretch is gonna make it weird for Shingoon. Anyone else here? Not Bradley Beal. Think he's got a good gig.

I think he does, but he's gonna get hammered. Whatever happens, it's like, cause he has the no trade clause, right? Yeah. So he can kind of hold them hostage over this. I mean, look, he could still come to you and say, all right, but that, that's going to be weird to salvage. I mean, Durant has to be Durant again.

Yeah. And he was good enough to be all NBA. So that part of it is fine. But I mean, they got stomped by Minnesota and that was just a, it's not so much the talent gap, but God, I mean, that was, that was horrifying to watch. I think Chet would be on this list if Hartenstein hadn't been signed just because of asking him to survive a full NBA regular season. And then the specific big matchups where I think all of us really liked Chet.

And when, especially when you were watching this year's draft and prepping those guys in the bigs, you're like, Oh my God, like this is why Chet was so enticing because he can still potentially do all these great things at his size with his handle and his pullupup and getting into his shot. Like none of these guys are even close to this. This is like the gap between him and Rizashe based on how they impacted games. Because Chet, when he was at Gonzaga,

he wasn't asked to do everything because it was a really good basketball team on everything else, but you just saw these moments of what he was capable of doing. And that's probably still where he's floating, uh, just a year into his career playing in the league. But it was so hard for, well, I think they were asking him the entire time by not having another guy other than the backup, Jalen Williams, who really played more like a stretch big. What about some of the coaches?

Cause I was going to say maybe bud has one of the toughest jobs. Definitely. Uh, low key. I was going to say maybe Bud has one of the toughest jobs. Definitely. Low key, I was thinking about Kenny Atkinson. Because it's an interesting match between his sort of skill set of at least what his reputation is, which is this developer of young talent and a roster that's like pretty good. Largely unchanged and has like ceilinged out where they've ceilinged out. So it's like, if they wind up, for instance, just going out in the

second round again, it's like it was a bickerstaffer is it is it the players or whatever. But like Atkinson, it's like the gains Atkinson can make on that roster are like kind of invisible. I don't really know what they could, he could do with that. I think there's some, there's some probably tactical stuff that I don't know that he can mess around with and he can try to get mobile. It is sort of another level, but that's such like a strange situation to be going into as Kenny Atkinson plus added to which just I can't believe that team still together after the here's what really happened notebook dump pieces that came out after the season. So it's like Garland and Mitchell the first day like hey man how's it going? Yeah I haven't seen

you in a minute and and like where does that work like where does that land on Kenny? I think Garland was going to be somebody that was even going to bring up when we were doing the player part of it. But I can't help but there's like two things from two years ago with Cleveland. The defense was off the charts. It's the same team. It was exposed in that next series because of the lack of offensive players you had to worry about, which I brought up already too many times. But bringing them all back, I still don't give up hope on that team having a decent record and a decent seed, and if they're healthier than the other ones. And when you think about some of the runs that they went on,

they have their own kind of shingoon deal where they went what, 17 and one over a stretch, and Mitchell's just unstoppable, but then you start asking the Garland questions and all this stuff, and I still like all four of those players a lot. Mitchell is a perfect example of, okay, you want perfect, fine, you can wait around

for perfect forever, but what he is capable of doing from a scoring standpoint in playoff games that we've seen multiple times, and as much as I hated that Knicks series for them two years ago, the stuff he did against Orlando, the stuff that he had going on against Phoenix years ago. All right, I get it. He can be a little hyper.

He's not a great defensive player, but get us a bucket. He's on a very short list. Get me a playoff bucket. He's not lower than 10 in the league. I don't even think it's, I'm not going to say it's not even close because there's other players that are certainly better than Mitchell, but there's a ton of value, especially at his age with all of that. So I mean, if you're Cleveland, I mean, who knows, maybe we just kicked the can on all the rumors for him another year with the construction of this contract

and the way it's really set up for him to sign in 2027 and the Bouges projection. I think it was like a $380 million deal based on what the cap is going to be. At that point. $180 million deal based on what the cap is going to be at that point. But I still stubbornly like this team, even if I've probably convinced myself that I don't know Mobley and Allen as much as I like. It's going to work together. Defensive numbers tell me, yeah, I just, I don't know if in today's game, but that's really what you want to do.

Unless Mobley all of a sudden became the stretch guy and don't hit me with three point percentage increases because it's the volume with that percentage, not hey, he makes one a game and now the numbers look really good that he's improved his outside shooting because it's still pretty rare that he's even going into that. Yeah, they just feel like a trade away to me. Garland is the guy I've had in the trade machine to Orlando for the last like two years and I'm just waiting for, but if you're Cleveland, you're like, I can't, I can't trade that guy. If I know that the other guy might leave in one, you know, ask out in a year or two. So like, you're kind of, I don't know,

I just feel like this team is in like a three year holding pattern where it's like, we, we kind of know what we have to do, but we don't know if we could do it. Um, you know, I notoriously was not as high on mobile as some others were, but I think the playoffs up that's good without that's presented as if, uh, there's a little feeling of like, I was not as high as if you were right. I am right. I think I, well, I mean, I mean, listen, we all, I think when he's being compared to Kevin Garnett, I think I,

I feel like I'm right, you know, Tim Duncan, the office is not there. But I, but to your point earlier, like he was, he was good in the Celtic series when Alan didn't play. And you're like, is that kind of the future of your franchise? But that's the most exciting thing about Atkinson is like everything he said is like, I'm there's just like a whole other chapter for Mobley. Like we're like, what was he going to say, though? Yeah, I know. It's going to be disappointing.

This is kind of the finished product. We heard of Kenny Atkinson. It was like I was famously not as high. No, no, you have to say the way product. Great defense though. We heard of Dave Kenney-Ackins, it was like, I was famously not as high. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, you have to say it the way Saruti said it. I was not as famously high on Mobley. Okay, last one here.

If this player retired, it would make the most people happy. I love this question so much, and it can be anything from sports, right? Yeah, I mean, if you hit me with tennis, push back a little bit. But I'll throw Christiano Ronaldo out there after that Euro performance. Tough scene overall. Good.

Brian used to hang out. Steve just got his killer's mustache today. Ready to go. Chris is on today. I know you like that. Did you see Steve breaking news? Klopp rejected the USMNT. Yes, I did.

I did. Which, you know, it's the bar solo that I'm just happy we got the ask out there, I guess. Sure. He took the call. Maybe he didn't. He just texted him back. Actually not past. I was going to say it for for sports wide, if this had been like maybe a year and a half, two years ago, Bryson DeChambeau would have been up there, but I feel like he's really kind of done some,

some important work behind the scenes, you know, on YouTube to like reconstruct his image and rebuild his fan base. I find him entertaining. There was a minute there where I was like, I need this guy to get ejected off of the face of the earth. I think right when Liv started that was happening, but, um, what Ryan, what's yours, Patrick Mahomes, I wasn't going to say it, but I did think it, I'm saying

go the other way, not the person that has the lowest approval rating, but if we look at the inherent nature of sports fans and the selfishness that everybody actually has. And there's probably a conversation they wouldn't share publicly that privately, like you know who you are, but when the other team has a guy in an NBA Playoffs series and he gets hurt, you're not like, oh, I wish they had everybody,

just to see what would happen. You don't actually believe that. I mean, podcasters have to say it, like, I just wish everybody were kind of just healthy. And- Yeah, it's just not as fun. Yeah, just give us your best and we'll give you our best. You're like, fuck, and he's hurt. Yes. Yes. That looks like it's a knee.

That's it. That's a bad band. It's not supposed to go that way. I don't mean to sound sociopathic, but I have considered like the extent like what time of the season I would want the Mahomes injury to take place. Let's not say injury though, cause he's still active. Right. Let's let's try to, let's try to avoid this getting picked up by like chiefs daggers.net.

What I'm talking about is not being hurt. Just retired. Retire. Yeah. Okay. Cause back to that point, you know, he maybe wants to play, follow his son's dad's footsteps. Mahomes retiring changes the conversation for the entire,

like guys are texting each other on their text threads that are Bill's fans, that are Raven's fans. Maybe some Chargers guys out there being like, dude, you see Mahomes is out for the year? All right, but in this case, if it's like he retires, so now the Mahomes blockade is removed from all of your hopes and dreams as an NFL fan, that might be the right answer. Yes, that's actually the perfect answer. It's pandemonium if that happens.

Some season tickets go through the roof league wide. It's like, this is it. It's on. The Raiders are like, we're killing renewals. Yeah. Oh my God. So there's nobody else in the NFL. Is there anyone in the NBA? Is LeBron in the conversation?

Is he at Mahomes level? Where people that just be like, they're just glad it's over. I think of that as a sports media thing, but I don't even think we'll be that lucky. You know, like I think of it as like, if he's just like, that's it, that's a wrap. You know, there's still going to be another 12 months of LeBron stuff on

ESPN. But I do, I think during the Lakers coaching thing becoming a bigger story than the NBA finals run, I was like, this is really starting to get to me in a weird way. And if he retired, I do think at least it would remove that focal point for a lot of sports media. I wonder how the split would go if you would ask non-Lakers fans and Lakers fans who would be happier if LeBron retired. Because you think some Lakers fans would be like,

I'm ready for this to be over? Some is accurate. I just wonder. How many? What that number really is. How many of those guys go to sleep in Kobe jerseys? I was gonna say, they're worth a number. Eight 24s.

Yeah. I'm so glad that I moved to LA only for that reason. I would have never understood it unless I had lived here. And I don't even live in LA, but I'm around it enough to understand something I would not have understood. If you explained it to me, I'd be like, they don't like LeBron because they still like Kobe. Like he just showed up, he won a title there. Like he's the reason they got Anthony Davis.

This is a team that was irrelevant for a really long time. Not irrelevant, but if you want to look at how bad the records were combined during all those lean years, like it's atrocious, like the standard that that franchise has, so I mean, he did a lot and it worked and you got them at the end and he's extended the end in a way that nobody's ever even thought was possible He looked awesome last night. I Don't know who else is in this. I don't think there's a baseball wonder. They're like off that guy. Oh, how about um, Yeah, I was gonna say go bear

Maybe American podcasters former players. Yeah It doesn't feel like he's got like a ton of is there are there any Rudy fans? Maybe American podcasters, former players. They'd be. Yeah. It doesn't feel like he's got like a ton of is there, are there any Rudy fans? The jazz fans were very passionate about him. Yeah, but they've moved on. Well, the analytics people, of course they did. Like all the numbers people. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, they're, they're, they're still, they're still comfortable in their position. Heated debates, screen assess rates off the charts. Okay, I think we did it. Okay. Thank you, Chris. What do you have to promote? Uh nothing much. The watch still cranking it out. Uh I'm on um talk the thrones where we talk about House of the Dragon. You up on House of the Dragon at all, Ryan? No, I'm behind but I did jump in based on Suti's recommendation and it is really good. Yeah. So House of the Dragon, we go on YouTube and Spotify every Sunday right after the episode.

So it's on the Ringerverse YouTube channel and the House of R. How are the dragon numbers compared to the throne numbers? One problem we're running into right now is we're down a couple of Dragon Riders. You know, we're starting to it's starting to become kind of kind of a cold labor market there. So we like post up players. Yeah, exactly. We just don't they just don't make them like that anymore. So we'll see. We got Jefferson's out there. He's turning on top of those guys.

Yeah, Greg Monroe is like, I can still give you 10 minutes. But yeah, House of the Dragon, a couple more episodes of that. And Andy and I are really excited about industry coming back. So now that's right. Industry is coming back. I am. I, too, am excited. Yeah. So we're going to be talking to him. Can I just peel the curtain a little bit? So this was what last night or two nights ago was like, alright

Hey, we're having Chris on like I was like, you know, the house house of the dragons been good It's been better than I expected like episode 4 was electric It was like the closest thing I felt to like Prime game of Thrones since it happened I was like and Ryan's like alright, like I could probably get four episodes in you know And then he text me and goes wait, this is season 2 Show yet. So I was like, alright, I'm gonna be dumped back in you know, two days or whatever. And then he texts me and goes, wait, this is season two? He hasn't even started the show yet. So I was like, all right, probably gonna be tough to pack in, you know, 12, 15 episodes or whatever.

Yeah. So Rudy was kinda on me a little bit. I was like, I have 36 hours to watch four hours of TV that I didn't have planned in my normal routine. Cause it's worth it. Cause I'm trying to get to that. If you only had the four, then it was worth it, yeah. Yeah, but then I actually did go back

and watch a couple of the episodes cause I just can't do it. I can't do it. It's too complicated. Like I'm blown away, I'm almost offended. Does the approval rating of the person in the room next to me go down when there'll be a show on and I'll be like, I'm just going to jump into this. But if you haven't watched any of it, we don't have to watch or I'd watch the pilot over again. And the person's like, nah, it's cool. Just throw it on. Like, what's wrong with you? Yeah, that's not- Do you not respect story arc? There really isn't that many shows anymore that people can do that with.

That used to be like, it was like, you could skip a whole season of 24 and just be like, I got it. Power hour. Turns out those Serbian guys, they were bad news. We had people in college who, when we got to college, didn't watch Lost and they like started like season four. I'm like, what are you doing?

Like, how are you doing this? And they just jumped right in. They didn't know what the black smoke was. They didn't know anything. Yeah. Still not sure if I know what the black smoke is. Anybody does. Yeah.

Yeah. Like there's a couple loose ends that were not tied up. Couple. Yeah. Yeah. One or two. All right. Thanks, man.

Thanks for having me. or two. All right. Thanks, man. Thanks for having me. You want details? Fine. I drive a Ferrari. 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you can possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Kyle's back. He's back in a big way. I don't know if he's better than ever. I guess we'll figure that out. We have a little red little sun kissed dude. I'm sunburned. I bloated. I got I got an ear infection and swimmers area. It's a true white boy summer here in the crowd jewel. Wow.

Yeah, but you got, you got a little product in the hair. Like you got it. No, this is straight water, dude. You look good. Are you serious? Wow. You're like boy band hot right now though. You've got some in sync vibes to you

in the best possible way. Yeah, you just need the frosted tips and be good to go. Did you frost the tips? I feel like good to go did you probably like Kyle crazy yeah oh yeah you had to frosted right well I had a flip like sort of not unlike this and just the flip so it wasn't like all it wasn't a spy I wasn't a spiky hair guy but I did do the flip and the flip was was definitely like peroxide bleached yeah Yeah. A bouffant? I remember I wanted to do it in middle school

and my mom was like, no. She just straight up told me no. And honestly, I thanked her for that. 10, 15 years later. You would have looked terrible. You're dark features, olive skin. Not sure you were there. The email address is lifeadvicerr at gmail.com.

Okay, let's get to it. We have a couple of family dynamic ones here. Hey guys, first coming in and comment on the guy ranking his buddies in a bachelor party. I'm only sharing this because I think it might help strengthen all the groups out there, completely tear them apart, but either way, it's worthwhile.

Our core group of guys, about 15, been doing this since 18. We have an annual golfing trip over a long weekend and a member is drawn at random to do a pre-workout, pre-weekend, I was thinking pre-workout, pre-weekend outlook for another member in three categories, skills, drinking, games, sports, ladies, et cetera. Drinking, good hang or not basically, intangibles,

nobody knows, but you know when you see it. Yeah, I can see that. I have an attached example of one I wrote for this past one. All rankings are between one and five, with five being the best. This is predictably shared with the group beforehand in the weeks leading up to the weekend. So it's almost like a preview of the upcoming season.

I like that. On the Sunday before everyone leaves, we all meet at the local dive bar with an easel and a power rank. Everyone based on how they performed that weekend, these state discussions are very spirited. Spirited and ultimately we crown one gentleman as the champion of the weekend with our annual trophy.

Would love to see this incorporated throughout the country or maybe everybody's already doing this willy-nilly party. Everybody else is not doing this. No. I like it. You lost me at the trophy. Yeah. Once you cross over into like, we're doing too much. It's like, actually this was cool. And now it seems like the geekiest shit ever. Once you cross that line, and like you said, it's intangible. You don't exactly know where it is, but once the dudes around you figure it out, they're like, I'm out on actually all of it now, because this seems like for losers. Not out on all of it.

I like that part of it, maybe I'm wrong. I know, I agree, but I think when you cross the line. Yeah, okay, oh wait, that's not even the email. So six, one, two, 10, with no significant gym stats. In the pickup game of Glenn Davis' book with significantly worse footwork, I'm looking for some of your surprisingly helpful and on point advice. Thanks. Wife 34 and I 38 been married for almost three years and

everything is wonderful. We met several years ago while I was dating another girl and unfortunately for all involved except for perhaps me at the time, I started dating both. Whoa. I ended the relationship with the other girl in 18 and began dating my wife exclusively in 19. Some serious overlap in there. After we were engaged in 21, my younger sister, 29, who I was very close with, reached out to the ex-girlfriend and had her text me with the intention of breaking up my wife and I. I won't go into any specifics, but it involved fake phone numbers and

screenshots of scandalous fake text messages. It took some doing, but I was finally able to convince my wife and I, I won't go into any specifics, but involve fake phone numbers and screenshots of scandalous fake text messages. It took some doing, but I was finally able to convince my wife that none of the messages were real. And then I'd been faithful ever since we dated exclusively the betrayal was shocking to me is I thought my sister, like my fiance wife, and we all hung out regularly. I couldn't believe what she tried to do and immediately blocked her and everything and cut off all communication.

This was in May of 21. So we're talking three years now. My sister's tried to reach out several times via new cell numbers and multiple email addresses in the years since, but I haven't responded and frankly haven't really wanted to. She's never apologized and only offered excuses as to why she did what she did.

Perhaps I would consider opening the door to mending the relationship if there were apologies or remorse, but so far none of that has transpired. My question to you and the dream team is this, how long is too long to hold a grudge against a family member? Should I be more open to mending this relationship? Am I obnoxiously stubborn for wanting her to show more remorse? How would you handle a similar situation? My wife and I have agreed to follow the sage advice that is offered."

Wow, that sucks, man. That's like a massive betrayal. I don't blame you at all for going. Think about that. Your sister is involved with your ex trying to frame you for cheating on your current wife to then break you guys up. Okay, nasty work by the sister here.

I do not blame you for being really upset. And I usually default to like its family and we'll get to that a little bit later. But just to recap here, you get together with what yours, your now wife and the ex with your sister coordinates something that's so fucked. Like be mad, be mad about the overlap,

be mad you picked her, be mad about all those things. But when you're lying, okay, it'd be one thing if they were true, but if you're actually making these things up and your sister's helping this person, that is a, that's a tough betrayal to get over. I don't think it should be forever, but it sounds like you're even- It's like bad people stuff.

Like you're a bad person if you do that. It would suck. Did you find out just one of your siblings? You go, and it happens. I mean, dad, people have to have brothers and sisters, but Kyle, let's go with you. Any betrayals? You almost wish that it was like, I'm not a betrayer.

Family's been pretty good to me. No betrayals. But you almost wish there was some sort of drug problem or something you could point to, all right, that's why you weren't yourself. Undiagnosed, whatever. But it sounds like it's none of that. One of my best friends had this

where his sister just sided with the ex-girlfriend of many years and there's kids involved It was like he's like I can't believe this I really can't believe this and it was like four four years and I think he was eventually just like All right, you're my sister and it's it is what it is And you know, I think you forgive you don't forget sort of deal But it's it's I I felt sick to my stomach for him Like he was just he really couldn't believe like you switch sides and like,

you're like testifying in court for like, it wasn't like a bad thing, just like, you know, whatever it is when they're trying to figure out. They were in court? Well, it's like family court, custody stuff. And she was like on the mom's behalf. And he was like, wait a second, what the fuck? So I felt he was like sick to his stomach.

I was sick to my stomach for him. But eventually, my whole thing was eventually he just was like, how long can I really keep this up? I think you keep it up as long as you feel like you wanna keep it up. I think you're entitled to that. As long as you know, it's probably not forever. Yeah, I come from a big Italian family on both sides.

My dad's one of seven, my mom's one of five. You know, there's a lot of hotheaded stuff that happens, but you just kinda like family parties sometimes are interesting. Depends on the moods of everybody. And, you know, I went out calls involved. It's always kind of complicated too. But anybody ever shot anyone? Nobody's ever been shot.

No, never has not been shot, which is good. But you know, it's those things were like, hey, you know, somebody does so and so does this and it kind of pisses everybody else off. And then, you know, then you give it a couple of months and and it just kind of goes now. Nothing has really been done to this extent I mean, this is like straight-up betrayal like this is Again, I don't blame you for being this mad The thing that bothers me is like I would get over it but I need an apology like I need you to acknowledge that you are at fault and you screwed up and I

Still love you and like I just it was a moment of I don't know. I just it was a moment of I don't know I just had a lapse in judgment and then here we are but if she's unwilling to even admit that to you I kind of think you stand your ground I mean I I'm not advocating like don't talk to your sister forever but this is that just sucks like she clearly hasn't learned from the mistake she really screwed you over I mean it could have been actually ended your relationship with somebody that you really like just screwed your life over so I don't I don't

think you're overreacting I just I think you just have to have a talk to her and be like, I still love you, like I still want to be in your life, but if you're not going to apologize and take responsibility for what you did, then I don't know how we can see eye to eye on stuff. Yeah, I think you wait until you're like one day, just like, this is silly. And you clearly don't feel that yet. So just, you know, keep on going. But one day I think you'll look, I'd be like, this is a little silly, right? The six Thanksgiving or whatever it is. Like you might just be like, I'm not gonna let this have power over me anymore. And you'll just be changed for it.

You know, but until then, I think you're fine to just keep on doing what you're doing because you won't feel good about it. Otherwise you can already tell she's not looking to like double back and say, like, you know what, I know I said all this shit, I was wrong, blah, blah, blah. It's not gonna happen. It's like the excuse maker, and it's gonna make you mad again,

and you'll just get fired up. So I would just wait until you feel like this is silly, and you can just move on without really having her apologize, because it sounds like she's not gonna. The thing that I think is most alarming is that your sister doesn't seem like she wants to apologize at all.

Now, of course, with apologies, when you're wrong, it's not a blast, but you're better off for it. And at least you can have that as the foundation. That's usually where all of these disputes continue to go because someone will say, and you never apologize the entire time. Well, just get the fuck out of the way, right? Your apology won't mean as much in the beginning

because you're just more upset that you did something wrong and you're being called out for it. But whenever you hear about any disagreements, like think about the ones you've had in your life, replay them back in your head. And if you have that card of, and you've never apologized to someone. So if you're the accused in this case,

and you are the one who screwed up because clearly your sister screwed up pretty bad here, just do it. What I can't believe, and what I would ask my sister in this case is like, so did you think at some point, if my wife believed that these texts were coming from somebody else that I was involved with and my marriage was destroyed, that's a win? That's what you were rooting for?

That's what you wanted to have happen to your brother? Because clearly your sister has sided with the ex, more so than you. Your ex has talked to your sister about the overlap thing, which yeah, makes you look shady. And for whatever reason, your sister became like closer thing, which makes you look shady. And for whatever reason, your sister became closer and felt sympathy for your ex-girlfriend more so about how damaging it would be. Because it sounds like if you're willing to share

all of this, you shared it with your current wife. And sometimes the beginning of these relationships can be really complicated. They're not ideal, but it's fucking life. Like if you were dating two people at the same time and then you married one of them, yeah, all right. Yeah. Okay. Like what's, what's the perfect blueprint? Okay. I waited three months before I kissed another person before I married my, you

know what I mean? So like, there's, there's plenty of relationships and marriages that I know about that actually have these kinds of weird starting points or a couple of my buddies that were just kind of seeing the person they ended up marrying. And that person was like, if you think that this is just going to be me in some sort of bullpen rotation, or it's like, Hey, let's get a couple of innings here and get him in there in the sixth.

Like that's just not going to work for me. And it was the wake of call that some of my friends needed and they ended up marrying this person. So how it relates to you, I can understand you never wanted to get over this until she actually addresses what it is that she did. And it drives me crazy whenever I had disputes with somebody and I'll go like, yeah, okay, but think about the thing that you did and how that was trying to impact what was going on with me. And then there's the default of times of like, oh, well, let me now rationalize why I did all these shitty things to you.

And you're like, well, this isn't getting us anywhere, but you're right to Kyle's point that it's kind of your sister. Well, it's not kind of, it is in fact, your sister and that's not going anywhere anytime soon. And it sounds like you're more bothered by the discomfort of it because she hasn't owned up to everything that she was scheming to do. And again, based on the email, she would just to step up at some point and apologize, it sounds like you would be willing to repair it now long-term. And this happens when you get older and I'm experiencing it now and your parents

get older and you have these things you're hanging on to depending on what you went through when you grew up and you're, you're not thrilled about some of the stuff I know that I'm personally kind of leaning towards, everybody's getting older and I want my relationship to be cool with everybody. And I'm getting, I'm just gonna, I can still be upset about some things, but like what's the fucking point?

Like what's the point? Now if you really wanna extrapolate it out even further, this is not what our emailer's dealing with, but certainly some of the audience will be dealing with, is you have that grudge, you have that thing, you know you're fucking right. And it's like, okay, so if this is the standard that you're holding this relationship to

that's a family member, like how are you gonna feel years from now if you get that call and you never fixed any of it and that person is no longer around. And I know at least for me, that's going to be something where it's not going to feel great. This is not the same thing. It sounds like the timeline isn't closed. I mean, your sister, it's her younger sister, the guy's emailing us, he's 38 years old. You don't have to worry about any of these things. But I do think there should be some kind of,

like there's a different grading scale on grudges with family members that it sounds like the emailer actually wishes he could work this thing out with the sister. If he had said, I wanna never talk to her again, I go, okay, fine. Like that's a massive, nasty, just shitty betrayal. Like let me mess up the rest of your life now

because I became friends with your ex. Like that's crazy. But you should just go to her. You should just go to her and be like, yeah, like look, do you ever want this to be cool again? Because it may not ever be the same, which is fine. But do you want it to be cool? Do you want it to be cordial?

Like who do you think needs to step up first? Okay, now she's reaching out to you with new email addresses and new cell phone. Like doesn't that tell you that she wishes she could fix it? Do you wanna tell her how she could fix it or do you want her to figure that out on her own? Like there's a lot of different steps with all this stuff but I do think the standard should be like easily corrected

as opposed to just a guy from college. You're like, fuck this guy, I didn't even see him anymore. You know? Oh, I used to work with this person, fuck him. Whatever, you know? This is, I think with- Are there any family members? Yeah, I think with see him anymore. You know, oh, I used to work with this person. Fuck them. Whatever. You know, are there any family members? Yeah, I think with go ahead. My thing would be like, are there any other family members that have weighed in on this? Mom, dad,

you have any other siblings that like, what are, I don't know. She, she, it feels like the solution is so easy yet. She doesn't know how to fix it. Or she maybe she just doesn't want to fix it in the way that that is the way to do it the correct way to do it. But I don't know, man, if she's actually trying to reconnect with you and just doesn't want to do the one thing that can do it, I don't know. I feel like that's kind of the bare minimum. You have to apologize or we're going to get, or just not going to be the same again.

But I'd want to know, have your mom, dad waited and told her what she used to do and she still refuses to do it? Because then I'd hold your ground even more. Like if other people are like, hey, this is what you gotta do. And she just still refuses. If she's just totally clueless and just once is sad and doesn't really get it, then all right, yeah,

maybe help her out a little bit and just, you know, kind of bring her back into the fold. But I can't imagine that's the case. My guess would be mom, dad, grandma, uncle Johnny, they all want it to go away rather than like get into the minutiae. That's what I would think. So they probably, everyone wants it to be gone.

So I think you just get to the point where you're like, you gotta lower your expectations for some people. And maybe you just have to treat her like an alcoholic uncle. You're like, you know what? I'm gonna move past this and we'll hope none of this shit happens again. Get prepared for $25 Barnes and Noble gift cards

for Christmas while everybody gets shit I actually thought about and just small little how you doings whatever and you'll move on from there and maybe you can maybe you can grow that relationship but until then you know I think just keep your distance man forgive don't forget. Yeah here you go. Okay another family dynamic do I have to go to my brother's bachelor party? Gents, 5'10", 215 pounds, former high school long snapper. I need an unbiased opinion to the following situation. Kyle just jumps right in with a yes. Kyle, was I invited to your bachelor party?

I didn't want you to say no, so. Nobody, I had a 100% hit rate on my ask, so I was like, why do this to myself? you to say no. So nobody I had a 100% hit rate on my ass. So I was like, why do this to myself? Did you ask Bill? No, fuck no. I mean, I gotta like, I think you could you could deal with what you would have seen and maybe move past it. I'm not sure if Bill could have.

I don't think Bill could have. I mean, look, based on what we were allowed to hear about it, I'm not sure I would have loved it. But I'm also- I could have seen him making content like, it's 9 a.m., day one, one guy just got slapped. I don't know, nephew Kyle's on his third cigarette. I didn't need that type of shit. So I was-

Are you doing a Bill right now or are you doing a Ryan a riot I don't know I'm doing like Tate doing Sal doing bill and it's just it's glossing the sauce like over under 20 and a half Stella's today what do we think cigarettes all the stuff I mean it's making lines yep he probably would have like to be honest you that was a good bill that was a really good bill. Cause it sounded, I just thought it sounded like him. I didn't know you had that in you. I was not familiar with your game. Okay, so let's get back to the bachelor party.

Kyle jumping with an immediate yes. I'm leaning hard yes. If you, if you just asking me to respond to the, where you imagine Saruti three yeses. Yep. Okay. Well, let's explore. My brother's having a bachelor party in California Yep. Okay. Well, let's explore.

My brother's having a bachelor party in California to go on a quote psychedelic backpacking trip. Still three yeses? Yes, but. All right. Yeah. Still yes. Saruti's on the fence, I'm still yes. All right, let's keep digging into the plan.

The plan is to hike up Friday camp and hike back Sunday. The hike is 14 miles each way. Still three yeses? God damn it. You might wanna just injure yourself, dude. Just take one for the team. Is there a base camp you could just hang out in? Pay for some dude's x-rays

and be like, I broke my fucking leg, man. Can I take the cart back to the clubhouse to see you guys at the turn? The hike is 14 miles. Requires hiking and camping supplies that I do not have nor ever want to have. On top of that, I do not guys at the turn. The hike is 14 miles, requires hiking and camping supplies that I do not have nor ever want to have. On top of that, I do not want to trip on shrooms in the mountains in a tent.

It should be noted I hate hiking. My idea of hiking is staying at the Holiday Inn because there are no Marriott's around. Good joke. And we aren't even talking, there's always a Lakita around. We aren't even talking about a campground. This is the middle of nowhere ship.

No running water, no toilets, no showers. The most recent entry from an online trail guide says, a challenging last 1.5 miles to the lake. I love that that's after 12, yeah, 12 and a half miles. There's sleep, there are steep terrain, disappearing trail with mosquitoes present and caution is advised when crossing the river. Apparently I also have to forge a river

like the friggin' Oregon Trail. And to top it off, because of the remote location of the trip, the logistics require me to catch a red-eye home Sunday night where I have to go to work Monday morning. Being the brother, or am I required to go, or can I graciously bow out because I will be clearly holding back the group's vibe

who for the most part all wanna do this trip. A few important pieces of information that need to be considered. My brother's a few years younger than me, is my only sibling. He recently potentially set the Guinness World Record for most burpees in three minutes. Well, we'll leave out maybe a little late on the,

we'll just, uh, the entire group is doing an ultra marathon for fun this summer, avid rock climbers. I'm talking about mission impossible style, scaling a cliff during the day, pitch a tent on the side of the mountain to sleep and then climb up the summit the following day type of climbers. I got to be honest with you, the sleeping on the side of the mountain, a lot of you guys are just doing it to do it, right?

Or is the mountain scaling so long? Yeah. Really the best place. I guess there has to be like some places where you go, I'm not gonna be able to scale this thing an entire day. I'm sure those things exist. And then you think, okay, I'm going to sleep here, but, uh, I'm sure you're harnessed into it somewhat, so it's not like, Hey, what if I roll over to the

side to check my phone? Dude, am I waking up or is that a dream? All the credit to you guys sleeping in a canopy on the side of a fucking rock face because you're a bad ass. I, I like to do some stuff. I don't think I'll ever do that. I'm a 39 year old father of three from the Midwest whose physical activity for the week

consists of downing a six pack or a few bourbons if I'm feeling frisky and playing in my golf league. The closest hospital to the trail is two hours away and looks to be about the size of my house. It's mappin' out hospitals. Yeah, you're out. This is such a no. This is such a no.

You're out and lie, soften it. I would lie. I'd say I really just hurt myself or whatever. I tell the truth. No, you don't lie. You don't lie. I would lie. They don't want you to go, by the way.

They don't want you to go. These guys, if this is what they're all about, they actually don't want you to go, okay? This is a win-win. This is a crazy ask. So, at the beginning, when it's three yeses, do I go to my brother's bachelor party? Yes, you do.

Is it all these things I don't wanna do with extreme physical tests that I'm not ready for and I'm not into psychedelics and all these guys are super into all of this stuff? You know, don't invite the guy to the orgy that doesn't wanna be at the orgy. Like that guy doesn't find a way to also like go, hey, you know, feeling I'm gonna hang over here

for a little bit. Like those guys walk into an orgy like ready. They know what's on the table. Well, this doesn't make any sense. Did they ask you though, clearly they... You're not the best man, right? Cause you didn't plan the bachelor party. So they've already kind of got it covered.

Probably. Maybe the groom did, maybe he planned it and he wouldn't have to do it all his buddies do this. But did they know that you can't do this? Like, or do they think you're capable of doing this? If they think you're capable of doing this and they are actual like like not experts, but they know the field, then I don't know. I'm still kind of like not a hard no. What about that red eye though?

Dude, well the red eyes at least I mean, it's not a one day hike. They were coming back to the hotel. That's one thing or the cabin or the lodge or whatever. Whatever is up there near those rock faces. If they were like, we'll do, we've got one hike, we're going to do this trail this day, we're going to do trail three the other day and whatever. And you're like, yeah, I'll hang back or whatever. Uh, because this is like a continuous journey. Uh, I think you could, you can be out and if you think your brother knows you're not the guy, tell him, but, uh, I would, I could, maybe I could maybe just be like, dude, you won't believe what I just did to my ankle.

You won't believe it. Be like, Hey dude, I'm maybe just be like, dude, you won't believe what I just did to my ankle. You won't believe it. I'm so mad. Be like, hey dude, I'm like really nervous about this. I don't think I'm physically capable of doing this. Like I love you, but this clearly is your thing, not my thing. I don't want to hold you. I would just have that, tell them everything you said

in the email. I think that's totally fair. You might not physically be, I don't know if I would be able to physically do any of this stuff. I certainly wouldn't want to. And then you had the drug stuff in there and I'm definitely out. But I think you got to just talk to him. Like, and just say, hey, I'm not, you know, I mean, to make this like a dare situation,

but I think you just got to talk to him. You can't lie to him. Don't lie to him. Don't cop out. Be a man. Say, hey, man, I don't think you want me to be there. I love you. We'll do something on our own.

Maybe we'll just do like a bro strip to Jamaica. Just the two of us drink for a weekend and come back if you wanna do that. But I don't think I could physically do this. I feel out of place and I don't wanna hold you guys back. So that's what I would do. Not a drug guy, yep. So it's three nos.

Three nos. Yeah, that was a hard turn. It's good to be able to change your mind. It really is. I don't think they want you there. It's just that he can't not ask you, right? It would be a, he has to ask you. So yeah, maybe this is just a win-win and everyone can

exhale like, whew, I'm not going. He's like, whew, you're not going. So that's what it, that's what it's stacking up to be. I think. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I think you're a little dismissive of that return flight. Cause I think at 39 and three kids, maybe you're just not there yet.

So Rudy, but that red eye would be hanging over him mentally. He's like three hung over. Yeah. But if I'm hiking mountain climbing and doing drugs for a weekend, and then I have to take a red eye, the red eyes, the least of my concerns, but that red eyes is going to suck so bad. It's going to say, I think, I don't think there's something that is more flawed. Then the human pattern of predicting

how they'll feel on return flights that are booked. And people can't handle it. They're like, oh, that might be a little inconvenient or that might not be great. When I left Italy once, I was like, okay, so I have to go back through Dublin. I'm like, you know what I'll do? Let's look at what the options are. I go 23 hours in Dublin, a layover. That's perfect. I think it ended in Dublin a layover. That's perfect

I think it was ended up being on my birthday. Like this is gonna be awesome when I landed in Dublin I was so fucking pissed at myself I was like, when do you think this was gonna be a good idea? like you left Italy you were there like get out of town and What are you doing? Like this is the worst. This is absolutely the worst idea ever. Why did you do this? And then they wouldn't let me get my bag because it was technically a 23-hour layover and it wasn't like a stop. So I had to go buy like toiletries. I just stayed in the same clothes. Now I walked around and checked out the University of Dublin. That's not what it's called, but it was gorgeous. Is it Trinity? I think it's Trinity.

So I made the most of it, it was fine. And I had a good time in checking out the music and all that kind of thing. So I made the most of it, but when you're actually kind of going home but then you're not going home, I have something coming up where I just look the return and I go, okay, five hour layover in Amsterdam?

I know what dudes are saying, but five hours. Plenty of time, yeah. Like who do you think you are all right okay that'll do it for the pod thanks to Kyle thanks to Steve thanks to work on check out our YouTube page as well Ryan Russell podcast in the must be twenty one older eighteen plus indian present select. Fandual is offering online sports wagering in Kansas under agreement with Kansas Star Casino LLC. Gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER

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