The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Early NBA Tales From the Couch With Tim Legler, Going Abroad With Kevin Clark, Plus Some 'Succession' Talk

Episode Date: October 27, 2021

Russillo shares his thoughts on the Lakers' overtime win vs. the Spurs, the Knicks' win over the 76ers, and Rockets-Mavericks (0:25), before talking with ESPN's Tim Legler about some early NBA observations, including the Lakers' struggle to find their best rotation, the 4-0 Bulls, the Heat as a contender in the Eastern Conference, the fun Hawks, the puzzling Celtics, and more (19:10). Then Ryen is joined by The Ringer's Kevin Clark for Going Abroad, in which they discuss the United States Grand Prix in Austin, a HEATED race for the Formula 1 world championship, and more (50:49). Finally, Ryen, Ceruti, and Kyle briefly discuss HBO's 'Succession' before answering some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (1:09:10). Host: Ryen Russillo Guests: Tim Legler and Kevin Clark Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

mega mega show as the paddock says tails from the couch nba tim legler for 30 minutes going abroad with kevin clark little succession talk and life advice, including some advice you all gave us. Before we get to the scheduled guests for today, a little tales from the couch a week in to the NBA season. And we can always check in with Sir Rudy for his magic minute. But I want to start with the Lakers overtime win at San Antonio. Spurs closed the third quarter in an 18-3 run. You're like, okay, here we go. Young, energetic Spurs team. I asked social media last night a very

pressing question. Did Toronto lose the Yaka Pirtle trade? If you remember DeRozan and Yaka Pirtle to San Antonio for Kawhi Leonard. Kawhi was kind of the last superstar that was traded before it was understood that you were supposed to get like seven picks

and then a bunch of swaps. I do think there'll be some correction on that at some point. I'm just not quite sure when. Because if I were trading a really good player, I'd be like, you know, I'd still like a good player back instead of three swaps that are probably never going to happen. And then, I don't know. Because there was a couple

trades we were talking about the other day with friends. I was like, well, if this team, team A traded this player to team B and team B is always going to be better than them for the next four years. Yes, unforeseen things could happen, but it's most likely that the team that's getting the player

is going to be better. So all the pick swaps don't matter. And that's why I still love Houston asking for a pick swap last year with Brooklyn. It's one of my favorite all-time notes on a transaction. So DeJounte Murray was awesome

last night. He gets lost in a sea of point guard depth. Yaka Pearl's been really good so far this season. He's somebody I've always liked. Kelvin Johnson. Then there's other guys running around. Lonnie Walker. Diop Bates. Just, you know, shout out if you forget about him.

But he's still out there as well. And so, you know, you're looking at the Lakers going, no LeBron tonight. What's going to happen? And the Lakers come storming back in the fourth quarter. And really what I was looking at here, and they wanted an overtime. And the result itself doesn't mean a ton to me, at least not right now, but it's about what I said during the lead up to the season and figuring out where the rotations are at. You look at somebody like Melo. Melo had 28 points on Sunday. He made his first shot with a minute left in

regulation last night. He made one shot in 30 minutes. That's what's going to happen with Melo. I like that Melo's capable of getting you buckets. I like that he's still playing. I like Carmelo Anthony, but that's going to happen sometimes. So to mark him down as a certainty, I don't know if that makes a ton of sense. Westbrook absolutely filled up the stat sheet. I also think watching him without LeBron, you could just see, hey, now I don't have to defer to anybody. And that's another thing I started thinking about Russ, and maybe I'll spend a little more time on this at the end. But even I, you know, I've long documented problems with some of the ways that Russell Westbrook approaches the game.

Him being deferential is probably way worse than him being bad decision Russ. So he was terrific because he didn't really have to think about anything last night. But, you know, this rotation is not settled. I didn't think it would be settled for a long time. Uh, there's still three guys that could be in the rotation that are out injuries. So if you look at it, the Lakers have played 11 guys,

real rotation minutes so far in four games, that's without Talon Horton Tucker. That's without Kendrick Nunn. And that's without a reason. So to this point, that's 11 guys playing real rotation minutes. DeAndre Jordan's playing a decent amount of time. Dwight is at least over double-digit minutes. Again, they're kind of shuffling things around. Rondo's gone 20, 14, and 20 minutes in three games. But something I thought was interesting last night was that

Russell Westbrook came out of the game at 4.50 of the fourth quarter. Rondo was in. Rondo was also in with Austin Reeves. Shout out to Austin Reeves' efficiency numbers right now because he's just knocking down every shot, 23-year-old rookie that you may not have heard about. Him or Josh Giddey at this point probably are the most, wait, that guy's in the NBA? Reaction from the casual.

And look, sometimes we can all be casuals. And so it was apparently going to be a minute rest for Westbrook. And then Vogel sent Bazemore and Westbrook back to the scores table at just over 3.30 left to go in the game. But it was one of those weird stretches. Remember when Van Gundy wanted to put Zion Williamson back in an overtime and he just let him just rot at the scorer's table for like four minutes of game time. And you're like, maybe you figure out a way to get Zion Williamson into the game. This was not the same level of importance.

This wasn't the same situation because the Lakers were kind of battling the whole time as they've come back in this fourth quarter, but both Westbrook and Baysmore didn't get back in until 43 seconds left on a free throw check-in. And that's why Austin Reeves and Rondo who's, you know, been okay, not great so far this season.

And I was thinking like, I wonder what Westbrook's thinking going, all right, I'm out in the fourth quarter and Austin Reeves and Rondo are running around out there. What the hell is this? Then again, the game, the way it played out, he wasn't going to sit there and rot for the next three minutes, but he did. down with a knee injury where it looked like he was going to be out for the season again. And when he goes down, I'm like, oh man, is he hurt again? And there's not as much of a thing where when LeBron goes down, I'm like, he's just going to get right back up. AD, I never know. I seriously never know. He spent so much time on the floor, but he's just so good. He's great in the matchup where he's playing center again. And he can just shoot for a guy that's that big. We

already know about Anthony Davis, but it was just kind of one of those deals. There's no LeBron. Monk hit a huge three for him, but Westbrook not having to worry about how he fits in is why you could see him just not care, like getting to his single-mindedness, which I think can be both great

and really frustrating at the same time. But none of this is going to be solved anytime soon. And anyone that's ever worked with a team, whenever like when things aren't going right, the coach immediately gets the blame for not locking up the rotation. And as I've said the entire time, this is a very hard rotation to say, okay, here are eight or nine guys. I think there's going to be some guys with some resumes here or guys that had an expectation. It was like, cool, we're all Lakers. Yeah, well, you four don't get to play.

So I am not doomsday. Oh, the Lakers can't play with any young teams. They can't do any of this stuff. LeBron and AD, when they're healthy, is enough to still be a contender in the West. It just is because there's no other Warriors, right? This isn't peak nets that we've probably overvalued, even though I still think it's going to be incredible

if those guys ever do play together. Because it was incredible last year for stretches when they weren't all together. But we were so conditioned to the super teams of the last 10 years, the Miami Heat. How are you going to get past them? How are you going to get past this Warriors team? That Cleveland team that was losing in the finals and certainly the 16 team that came back, those are incredible. The best thing if you're a fan of any of those five or

six teams at the top of the West or the East, because the top of the East feels deeper than it has been in a long time, There's no one that scares you. There really was no one that scared you unless it was the version of the Nets that still had never done it before. There's nobody, at least right now, that scares the hell out of you. Even if the Lakers are going to get off to a slow start, and I thought it was going to take a long time for Vogel to figure out

exactly who's going to be what. The Westbrook thing was great for a night, but again with LeBron, you know he's not going to play that way. I wouldn't think, but I still think he can carry you through regular season games. All right. Philadelphia looked terrible last night, whatever. And B got doubled. I don't know what the second spectrum stuff would be on this,

but I would argue that was one of the most double teamed nights that we've seen since Don Draper went out to LA. Philly, I'm not going to make a ton out of this. I think anytime they're going to look bad, though, the media is going to play the results. They're going to be very predictable in that if the Sixers go through a bad stretch, they're going to blame the Ben Simmons distraction on it. And if they go through a good stretch,

people will say they rallied around the Ben Simmons distraction. And I don't know if either one are accurate. I just know how we work and how we do things. And that's what's going to end up happening. And I also need to do this. I need to give the Knicks more love. Now, I'm not talking about first tier of the East love,

but I've been... I think I've been pretty fair about it, that their top talent doesn't have the depth of the other great teams or potentially great teams in the East. But their depth is just better than it's been. If their starting group was Randall, RJ, Evan Fournier, whatever you think of Fournier. Here's an example.

Embiid's floor to ceiling is... Embiid's ceiling is, is anybody better than this guy in the entire league? That's how good it can be. His floor is, he's falling down a ton tonight. He's forcing it because that's what he'll do with double teams. And you can almost see Embiid going through it. And the Knicks example was one of the best that we've seen of this is that he knows what to do. Embiid's a terrific passer. He was a terrific passer in college, anticipating and playing against the double team

and setting up the rotation and all these different... He had a great setup where he got the ball out, it spun around, and it was to Danny Green in the far right corner, and he airballed it. And Embiid had done exactly everything he was supposed to do. But then you can see Embiid through his head, working through it, going, all right, well, if I keep passing out of the double teams,

then I'm a jerk because I'm not imposing my will, and now Shaq's going to make fun of me on TNT. And then Embiid can get to the what's the floor version of him where you're like, now you're just ramming into guys and you're falling down and you're turning the basketball over. You're not reading the double quick enough. You don't see it coming. Like, what are you doing? Which I think is I think Embiid knows when he's doing it. I just think that he tries to force the issue

to be a guy that is considered in that first tier of players. But on the other side, if you look through the depth for the Knicks, again, Randall, RJ, Fournier, Kemba, which is still a 50-50 proposition on his extended health and how much he got ate up defensively when he wasn't healthy with Boston, and then obviously Mitchell Robinson. And then you have five real players to back that up with Rose, Taj,

quickly, certainly, Alec Burks and the Obi Toppin minutes at the five where he's playing this small ball center just looks good. It looks good. So Knicks depth, nice win, more love for the Knicks. Not enough to push them all the way up to the top of the East. All right.

A couple quick hitters before I bounce on this. Josh Giddey has surpassed Poku on the depth chart. Josh Giddey, the Australian teenager, is in the closing group with the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Thunder, again, are not good. And we'll leave it at that. They have a lot of guys that you're wondering about. Remember, the Thunder

stayed through 40-plus games around 500 until they went full on tank mode. Shea Gilchrist was terrific last night. Jalen Green, the number two overall pick for the Houston Rockets. He has zero free throws this season. That makes

zero sense if you watch his game. I have not watched closely enough to see if it's the way he's being officiated. I saw a couple of people floating with that. His game, although drive heavy, he's not initiating the contact. That very well could be the case because there's a difference between driving to stay clear of contact and driving to contact. And as much as you can all drive as crazy, driving to contact is a much more efficient way to play basketball. And especially if you're big enough to absorb the contact and still finish. But if you're constantly trying to avoid it all the time, and he certainly fits the profile of somebody whose build is going to be big enough to carry that size and strength and eventually initiate contact and still finish against guys. I'm not going to make a huge deal out of this,

but that's just weird. He has zero free throws. And speaking of the Rockets in their loss last night to Dallas, where it was actually close at the half, the Mavs played 15 players. They played everybody because apparently a three-man leadership council, the Dallas Mavericks, who we're not allowed to know who's on the council,

said, hey, can everybody play tonight? And they did it. They played everybody. The other Jay Green, Josh Green, the Arizona draft pick, he got four minutes. This is when it gets a little tough. You're like, all right, how many Mavs do you have to look up to just double check?

Moses Brown, we know about him. Chin up, never head down when you're playing for UCLA. Frank Nielakina, an efficient three minutes. Hit all one of his shots from the floor. Trey Burke, you knew he was on the team. Yeah, this is an extension. SMU Sterling Brown, nine minutes. People had a field day with this one.

People loved it, but really they hated it because I think everybody went in. There is a, you know, we talk about pre-existing conditions. There are pre-existing conditions for certain head coaches, and Jason Kidd has those. So anytime Dallas does anything that's weird, although I still think with the most heart, Dallas looks completely the same, you know, as far as the guys out there, not necessarily the same exact things that you're doing before with Carlisle.

But yeah, people were just like, hey, this sounds stupid. I remember our team did it in junior high one year and it was really dumb because I think we had like 20 guys. We had a guidance counselor who filled in for a year as a head coach and he just wanted to make everybody feel good. And then it was just it was so stupid. Like you just couldn't contain what was going on practices were a mess nothing was efficient and it was like so we're doing we're doing youth soccer we're keeping score of these games folks so uh there you go first first week tails on the couch okay so rudy uh here you go we got one minute on your one and three magic yeah don't need a ton of time um although only team to beat the knicks what's up uh and i know a ton about fournier by the way i

like fournier and i like him on the knicks but he's just an incredibly frustrating part to watch so enjoy that um this is a bad basketball team in orlando i think um i thought they would be more competitive but you know that without faults without isaac um missing gary harris they're missing chuma who actually i love chuma okay. He got not a good basketball team right now. That's fine. But the haters are pissed. Ryan, the haters are mad because Franz Wagner, that dude is for real. I don't know how much you've seen of him, but he can absolutely play.

And Magic Twitter was completely split because they all wanted Boke night because they were afraid they were missing on the next Devin Booker, which I'm sorry. I just I wasn't. I mean, I think Devin Booker, you know, that late in the draft doesn't happen all the time. I'm not sure James Bokeneit is the next Devin Booker. We will hasn't played yet. We'll remain to see. It remains to be seen. But Franz Wagner can absolutely play.

Duke can score. He can switch on defense. He's just a smart player. His brother's on the team. So there's some camaraderie there. So I'm all about the Wagner guys, especially Franz. Cole Anthony, incredible rebounder out of nowhere. He had 16 rebounds against the Knicks that night in Madison Square Garden no idea what that was

about Jalen slug slow start but I'm not worried just yet because he can't play the point like I'm sorry they they miss they miss fault so bad and they're asking sucks to do way too much right now and honestly I kind of like the Mo Bamba Wendell Carter Jr. like Twin Towers lineup it works there's some chemistry

there I know you and I were kind of not big Bamba guys but so far it's looked pretty good for those two. Yeah, I'm not a big Mo guy. I would say this, my intel on him so far has been to the letter. What, playing for the second contract? Right. And so it was like, yep, nope, nope, nope nope and then and then it was hey don't sleep on bomba being smart enough to know how to work the system to get a second contract and i was like come on i was like now he's going to be good for a year and that's i was going back and forth with san vassini who we had on the pod who's great um and i just i told him i was like i cannot get the tape

of Mo Bamba's first couple years in the league out of my head. It's going to take more than a couple games for me to be like, oh, this guy, he could play in the league. He looked flashy, he could shoot. Defensively, it's still kind of eh, but it's going to take more than four games for me to be like, yeah, Bamba could play. Yeah, his workouts were insane. I mean, we're talking about a really skilled guy.

I think the Suggs stuff is kind of interesting, though, because the knocks on him going at Gonzaga were like, we know how tough he is and he's going to defend and he's got that football mentality and all this stuff. We love it, but he's still a little limited offensively. Then you go to the Baylor game and there's stretches

here where his draft stock's going up to me because he's the only guy that gets out there still fighting. I think you're seeing at the NBA level that, and you were seeing at the NBA level that, and you were seeing this in preseason a little bit, that there is some limitations there offensively on what's translating here. And a lot of that's just guys figuring it out. Like, okay, you know, there's nothing funnier than watching

some of the young perimeter players come in and realize, like, oh, I guess I'm never going to finish at the rim in this league. Like, holy shit. Like, this is a problem. Yeah, Suggs is struggling. I mean, he went four of eight the other night from three'm never going to finish at the rim in this league. Like, holy shit. This is a problem. Yeah, Suggs is struggling. Suggs is – I mean, he went four of eight the other night from three, but he's struggling at the rim. Yeah, and again, none of it means anything.

It's four games of a kid that's two years out of high school. I'm not doing that, but I will at least share that if I'm going, hey, you're talking to teams and going, where is Suggs? Where is he? And he was – I love that he fell to Orlando. I'm not retracting any – you know what I mean? It's just that there were some that were more bearish on his offensive stuff translating and that apparently even against Zagat, they're like,

we weren't really quite sure what he was going to be offensively, and then it totally worked out, and he shot it a little bit better than we thought he would. But we're not 100% sure on it. So there you go. And then Scottie Barnes went off for like 30 that night against, what was it, Celtics? And Magic Twitter got a little nervous on that one,

but it's early. Everybody settle down. Dude, the Scottie Barnes stuff, I just love Nick Nurse. I mean, I'm not telling you Toronto's all that good. I watched the whole Bulls game. Shout out to the Bulls, by the way, at 4-0. But they played the Pistons twice, the Pelicans, and the Raptors. So, you know, you got to play it.

You got to win the ones you play. And I do kind of like that it's like, hey, here are their five guys plus six. Like, that's pretty good. All right, here are your five guys. These guys are all that can play, and we'll see how it works out um but Toronto was hilarious against them in a game they came they came back in that one Fred van Vliet was playing like one on five at times like he was just trying to dribble through everybody and like sometimes it even worked all right we're almost 20 minutes into this which is longer than I wanted to do. Let's talk to Legs. We'll go abroad and life advice.

Tim Legler, ESPN lead analyst on the NBA. Always a joy to catch up with my guy, Legs. Okay, let's start with where I kind of started the show today, and that's the Lakers. I'm not going to freak out about anything a week in here. I'm not going to, out about anything a week in here. I'm not going to. But this cannot be expressed enough. And I've spent some time on this. But when you have this many rotation guys or this many guys who think they're going to be in the rotation,

I don't know when Vogel's ever going to figure this out. I'm not going to worry about who they are right now because I imagine he's putting all these different things together. But that's always kind of a weird deal on a bench legs, isn't it? Or in a locker room where it's like a lot of these guys think they're supposed to be playing this season. No question. And it's as they were adding guys in the offseason, Ryan, that's what I kept saying. At what

point is it too much, too many guys? Because even for a coaching staff, it's like an uncomfortable feeling on a daily basis. Being around these guys at the practice facility, you know, on the bus, on the charter. It's just weird because you know that these guys had expectations to play. They want to play.

They still think they can play. In most cases, they're right. And yet you've got so many guys, it's impossible to get to them all. Now, they're probably just figuring it's going to sort itself out. And some guys will go by the wayside. This will be their final roster probably going forward. And we'll see what changes they might make. And some guys might not want to be a part of this. So it's going to work itself out. I think right now, though, his biggest focus clearly is going to be how do we figure out a way for Russell Westbrook to be as true to himself as a player and what

he's been throughout his career on a nightly basis when we have two other places that the ball primarily is going to go first? That's the biggest question. And last night, you know, he got to be himself because LeBron wasn't there. And that's why you get a guy like this, because LeBron can sit and you can still win games. You know, you won't end up a seven seed if LeBron misses 15 games because you've got this other energizer type guy that can put up monster stat lines, and that's what he did last night. It's almost putting a Band-Aid on it for a night.

It's going to benefit them greatly in the regular season, having the depth and the extra guy to do this so AD or LeBron can get nights off. But they have to, at some point, they've got to figure out a way to finesse how do we play LeBron and Westbrook together for a chunk of minutes in a game, and particularly the last five minutes of the game,

and Westbrook still be in rhythm and feel effective offensively. I don't know how it happens with somebody like Westbrook or even Harden, but how do you become that good at the game in some respects and that horrible off the ball for your entire career? Absolutely 0% comprehension of, hey, you're still allowed to do shit when you don't have this round thing. You know that, right? There's other stuff you can do. And Harden and Westbrook will be this generation's poster boys

for never caring enough about off the ball. And I just can't imagine how when anybody watches Golden State and sees what they do and then go, nah, I don't want to do any of that stuff ever for my entire career. How the hell does that happen when you're as talented as those guys? Yeah, I mean, it's a totally fair point. And I mean, at least with Harden, I almost would laugh at it because at least he wasn't hiding it.

When he was in Houston and it was Chris Paul's turn or Westbrook's turn, he would just go stand out by the logo with his hands on his hips. Like, hey, listen, I'm just going to completely disengage here for a little bit. This is your turn. Go ahead. I'm not going to fake. I'm not going to run through the lane to occupy a guy to make it easier for you.

I saw a statistic the other day, I believe, where Russell Westbrook last season in Washington set 19 screens for the season. Steph Curry will set 12 in his next game. That shows you the difference in just approach.

And there are certain guys, man, it's just not fun for them. It's not interesting to them unless they're the guy that can be the initiator, the driver. And it's not even necessarily the way they play. Some people might see it selfish. I don't. They think I am unstoppable. This is what I do. And I just want the ball because I want it to be my decision every trip. I want to be They think I am unstoppable. This is what I do. And I just want the ball

because I want it to be my decision every trip. I want to be the guy to do it. And if it's not in my hand, it's just the game's not fun to them. So they just go and they disengage. They don't understand or fully buy into the impact they can have by doing the things we're talking about, cutting, screening, moving the ball, sprinting the floor, knowing you're not getting it. Like that's beautiful basketball when you get guys to buy in or run the lane as fast as you can. And probably seven out of 10, eight out of 10 times,

it's not coming your way. But what you create and the vacuum you create and what that'll lead to for guys running down the floor behind you is what beautiful transition basketball looks like it's just some guys you just can't get them to buy into it they're not willing to do those things i think it's a very fair point do you like anyone in the west a lot uh not yet not yet i'm still sorting it. I'm trying to like going into this. I've said to myself, all right,

looking at who's going to be the closest to, you know, basically being a complete version of what we expect them to be. I figured Phoenix would be, but then they just ate and stuff came up. And I think that is a little bit of a distraction and lingering a little bit. They haven't been great to start the year Milwaukee. And they have been, I think they're as close to, you know, running on all cylinders at the start of the year as any team would be based on very little turnover on the roster. And for the most part, healthy, except for a couple of role guys. And then the confidence of being champions, I just knew they were going to like,

look really good at the start of the year. And then I thought maybe like Utah, I think they're pretty impressive. Denver has a champ once Jamal Murray comes back but I just don't know what speeds he's going to be playing out how long is it going to take him but I think if he were to come back he'd tell me in a perfect world he comes back in March but that maybe that's too soon I don't know I don't know what the time frame is and I don't hear much about it. And he looks really good by the time the playoffs start. I'm going, man, that team, they check a lot of boxes. Is that a team that says you get to the finals?

Based on just the quality of basketball, Ryan, there's no question Golden State's been the cleanest sheet. That's the cleanest version of basketball I've seen in the West. Yeah, and they're figuring out the rotation and this is one of those arguments you can make with the injury to other guys. It's helped kind of bring up that middle

part of the rotation, maybe even the bottom of the rotation. Damian Lee's got off to a good start. I still can't wait to see what Wiseman looks like when he comes back. It seems like everybody is so down on him collectively throughout the league. I'd always argue I don't think the team is nearly as down on him as everybody else. This is about

him in a very weird kind of short season and how little basketball he's played the last few years, which may be the biggest problem of all of it. The Denver thing, though, is worth bringing because I felt like, hey, they're still going to have a really good record. When I talked to some teams,

they were kind of horrified by what Jokic couldn't do defensively. And you can make it, hey, Chris Paul is smart. He's going to know how to attack it and dice them up. But that Denver to actually be a team that could contend for a title, because I still think they're going to win a bunch of games even without Murray, but did they get him back? Because there's no team that I think any of us are scared of. You're saying, is that an actual real flaw for them defensively, despite how much we all love Joker, that he's somebody that can be abused defensively? Yeah, he can be, but I also

think that you're talking about a guy that's a master to Chris Paul and the way he could expose a guy like that. And it is an issue. I don't think it's a fatal flaw because I think there are other teams they're going to have to beat or go up against to contend with. You're not dealing with that level of point guard play off the ball screen. It's other guys. It's other guys. It's bigger guys. You're not worried about ball screen basketball if you play the Lakers. You're not worried about that.

If that was a team you had to get by, that's not the issue. So the other components of the game defensively, for him to go down and be physical and be in the paint, be in the way and do things down there, yeah, they think more than enough. His offense makes up for those things and it's an offense driven league you know i know it's that that cliche to say defense is ultimately where you're going to hang your hat i don't know man in this league i think that there are teams are putting things together to say we're going to be so good on the other end it doesn't really matter as much what we talk about defensively all year and what we're bad at.

Because at the end of the day, you're going to be taking the ball to the net a lot. And that's going to help us be a better defensive team, and you're not going to be able to get to the number we're going to get to. And so I think for Denver, I kind of view them more that way than Michael Porter and Jokic and their inability to defend ball screen, how clueless they can look sometimes and unathletic they can look sometimes as being a fatal flaw.

Because I don't, I don't think there's, there's like the guards they're going to have to defend when you get deeper into the West second and third round, potentially trying to get to the final. I don't think you're as worried about that stuff. I think there are other components of teams games, the way attack you offensively,

that actually will allow them to guard a little bit better. Okay, let's go Bulls. 4-0, not the toughest schedule. Thoughts, long-term? Yeah, I mean, look, people want to always say, hey, you know, I heard Barkley say this last night. Hey, man, I don't want to hear that because you

play who's on your schedule. Yeah, well, for me, it is a little bit about the schedule. It's like they're 2-12, the combined record of the teams they've beaten. Now, having said that, Chicago Bulls over the last decade aren't going 4-0 against teams that are 2-12. They're probably 2-2. And so that's a good sign. Let's start there.

You're beating teams you're supposed to beat based on the roster additions that you made. As far as what I see when I look at them, I like it a lot. I do. I think, man, look, you got a guy like Zach Levine, who's athletic. He can shoot it from deep. He's pretty good off the bounce. So he gives you that multi-dimensional offensive, big time talent. Then you bring in another guy that can go do that in the mid-range area to floor and control games with a ton of playoff experience in DeRozan. You get a guy like Ball who comes in and all he cares about is making you look good. And he's going to get it hopping and move it and make you want to run harder and cut harder. You get a guy like Vucevic last year who, man, I mean, there's very few bigs in the league that are more talented offensively than him.

So he basically can score any way you want him to. If you want to play him on a perimeter for five minutes in a row, he can knock down threes. If you want to throw it into him in the post, he knows how to get a quality shot for himself. And then even a guy like Caruso, I just really like his grit and his toughness. Pat Williams is there. So overall, Ryan, I'm impressed, but I also, I'm not going to just sit there and dismiss the fact that they just played four bottom feeding teams. Let's see when

they play the big boys on the block, the box, or even an improved Knicks team. Let's see them play the Knicks and how they do and teams like that, Philly, Brooklyn. Let's see what it really looks like when you play some of those teams, not the Detroit's and the Toronto's and the New Orleans of the world. I think the Bucs, with everybody rolling with that team, with the shooting and the size that they've added. Again, it's not an entirely different team, but maybe I'm going back to that N've added. Again, it's not an entirely different team, but maybe I'm going back to that Nets game.

And the Heat game was kind of funny because it was one of the worst first quarters you're going to see from any team that's supposed to be good. But whether it's Connaughton, Grayson Allen, I've liked Noira. DiVincenzo hasn't played yet to this, but there's just a little bit extra

as far as outside options for their shooting that I think makes them actually, in their best version of themselves, even scarier. They got better on the wing because Grayson Allen is a more consistent offensive player even than DiVincenzo is. Grayson Allen's going to have a really good year for them. Nuwara, you're 100% right. Now, ultimately, when DiVincenzo comes back, Portis, you start to go, is there even going to be minutes there for him? I don't know, but it's what I've seen of him so far. I'm like, well, there's going to be injuries.

Guys are going to go down. You don't lose anything now with a guy like this. He can flat out score. And then just the way that their top guys carry themselves, it's just different. You watch it, and it's just a different feel. There's no more dark cloud off in the horizon of that's the postseason, representing the postseason.

Like, all year long, we're going to go, man, great. Look at the record. Everything's great. Look represented the postseason like all year long we're going to go banner great look at the record everything's great look at these numbers yannis puts up but we're not doing that anymore they carried this thing across the finish line and he played the greatest game of his life on the most important night of his life and did it in a way that was his number one bugaboo free throws andesse, the finesse part of the game. Can you slow down when you need to with touch and finesse and get us these points and not make these empty trips? And the confidence that that team has now at the top of the roster, in addition to,

I think, having more firepower, no doubt in my mind, they might actually not even be trying to be the number one seed in the East, and they might be easily. Yeah, no, that's a good point because Philly does not appear to be in the mix for it. I still think they're going to win a decent amount of games even without the Ben Simmons addition. Miami was somebody that I thought would be under

for their win projection for the year just because I thought they would pace those guys but then i was like wait lowry and jimmy butler like those guys aren't about pacing themselves they're just not they don't approach the game that way so do you put miami in a group do you do you project them and go you know what like let's not be surprised if they're playing for the eastern conference finals looking to get out no i won't be shocked by it. I think they're a top four seed when it's all said and done. I just think they added toughness to a group that had some tough guys,

but I think they had some other guys that was questionable with their mental toughness, their approach, their focus. You bring in two guys like this in Lowry and Tucker, and it's just going to change. It's going to change every night. It's going to feel like we have to win this game. That's their approach every night they play, and it just permeates the entire locker room.

There'll be no more casualness with some of those guys. It just won't be there. So I think that's kind of like my dark horse team to be in a conference final. That's who I would pick. Yeah. You know, they're going to defend. There's no way hero was going to be as bad as that.

You know, I thought maybe some of our Tyler hero love was, was too much, but he just looked really good as a rookie. And you're like, this guy can handle, he's got a little bit more size, a little more athletic, you know, and now he's pulling up and hitting these kinds of shots. He's got good as a rookie. You're like, this guy can handle it. He's got a little bit more size, a little more athletic, and now he's pulling

up and hitting these kind of shots. He's got swagger to him. He's one of the least afraid guys out there, and then he has a setback season. It still felt like, hey, we saw something that at least can't just all be because of the bubble and the conditions. He's been better. I don't expect them to be better. They're deeper.

There may be matchups where you don't love them and you'd have to worry about the health of Butler and Lowry, probably in there a little bit. But even with Butler not being 100% healthy last year, he actually put up crazy numbers for them last season. Do you have anything left

on Brooklyn that do you have anything where you go, this is actually something that's left about this team that's still interesting to say? Or have we covered it all probably too much? I think we hit on all except for one thing, and it's early, so he'll make the adjustment, I guess.

But I genuinely believe the way that the games are being officiated now, what they've done to take away some of these opportunities that these guys were creating for themselves at the three-point line with these up fakes, taking that away from Harden, I do think it's messing with his head right now. And it's going to be interesting to see how he makes that adjustment because at some point, I believe James Harden throughout his career, he wasn't even expecting to make shots necessarily he was expecting to get calls so now he's got to change his entire approach and focus like when i go to this step back three i've got to go ahead and i've got to be decisive about getting off the

floor shooting the basketball at the intention of making it and i don't know that he was always there because he just it was given he was going to get fouled on those three times a night. He was getting nine freebies like every night. And not only the point production was there for him, the fact that he was making guys so leery to be up on him to contest and, and, and just that doubt in your mind, like, cause you're, you know, I don't want to be that guy that just fouls a three point shooter needlessly when he's going to throw up garbage. And so the defensive defensively guys were reluctant to close that space right now. I think it's messing with his head a little bit. So let's see how that plays out. But in terms of, you know, look, the bottom line is this, We've got to wait and see what happens with Kyrie Irving. And will they ever at any point get a sustained run? 15, 20 games with the three of those guys together

so we can make a definitive conclusion of whether this team can win a championship. And until that happens, it's like almost boring to talk about it now. Yeah, you're right. It is. I also think Harden looks out of shape again, but I think he always does. I think, you know,

he's going to be one of those players that always looks a little out of shape. We know how bad it looked at the beginning of Houston, but when I watch some of this stuff, I go, this reminds me of early Houston first nine games, James Harden, where...

Hey, well, listen, at least he's not, at least he's not, you know, looking like Zion right now and doing Mountain Dew commercials, which I don't think is a great look. I mean, why don't they get him a couple Doritos commercials and Twinkies too while they're at it? I mean, it's not a great look because he looks like he's added some.

And I hear you about Harden because he's got one of those body types that when he's not in peak condition, mid-season condition, with a high usage rate and all that, it's just because he's so thick. His shoulders, they start to get rounder. And you look at him and you just go, man, he's not there yet.

And you're probably right. He isn't. I don't know that any of these guys anymore take it as seriously. I shouldn't say any of them because some guys do. Giannis Antetokounmpo clearly does and there are some star players that do but I think in general training camp is just a way to phase out of the summer for these guys and then you know by 15 games in I'll start to I'll start to be able to push myself a little bit it seems to be the

mentality a lot and it's not just the players. It's the team approach. I've been at training camps the last five years, and it's shocking to try to compare it to what I remember training camp being. It's just a different feel. So I think guys in general aren't in nearly as good a shape at the start of the year as they used to be.

Yeah, that's kind of weird because I think people would always thought, hey, back in the day, you showed up out of shape, and that's what what you used camp to be yourself. But now we've de-emphasized whether it's football, the preseason, nobody's supposed to play, which I think leads to a lot of mistakes the first couple of weeks of the NFL season. I think you see it with certain players where it's like, I don't even want to play all 82. I'm not going to. want to play all 82. I'm not going to. Yeah. I mean, Ryan,

it's basically the entire, the entire philosophy to sum up the approach to the league is preservation of the athlete at all costs. Like that's, that's the number one thing. And, you know, look, I said earlier,

like, like LeBron, even the way he was talking on Monday, he's good to get, could have played last night. But this is the luxury of having Russell Westbrook. You know what? Last year, I might have thought about playing,

or certainly coming off of last year because he ended up in the seventh spot, thinking like, okay, this is the game we're supposed to win. The Spurs aren't very good. I don't want to lose to this team. I'm going to play tonight at 90% or whatever he is. But now you have Westbrook. You can go, you know what? I'm not even going to, why, why bother? Let, let Russ have it tonight. So the, the, the entire concept of playing at 70%, if that can still help in some way, I'm cool getting 70% of my production tonight. That, that, that part of the player's

mentality is gone. They don't want to play to their a hundred percent and could be exactly what they are at their best. Um, and then I just think the overall mentality of the modern athlete, it's all about preserving legs, you know, rest, making sure that, you know, that they are treated on that level to try to preserve them as long as they can throughout the season. And so, you know, I don't think anybody is really where they would have been 20 years ago coming out of camp when camp was, you know, I had some camps, which we went three times a day from the training camps I was in. It's certainly two days all the way through the first 10 days. And the animal go two days ever now.

It's just right off the bat. It's one practice. It's a lot of light stuff, very little contact. So you can see why it takes longer for guys to ramp up. I think I love the Hawks. Yeah. I don't know if I would say I love the Hawks. I mean, they're legit.

They're legit. They're going to be there. They're somewhere in that mix. The East is very interesting. I actually think there are more interesting teams right now in the East than the West right now for me. Oh, you mean overall? Totally.

Yeah. Right? I mean, it just seems like there's better storylines, man. I just think there's so much to flush out after Milwaukee. There are so many things to flush out with these teams. And Atlanta, you know, they pretty much stood pat, and they actually got some guys back that

weren't there at the end of the year. I was really curious to see can they now, as a team that went to a conference final, in a weird, fluky kind of way, the way that they did it against Philly, who had a meltdown and blew big leads and everything else in that series.

But they got there. Can they be a team now that just picks up from there? And is there another gear for this group? Or do they need to add some big-time talent? And we're going to find out, man. I'm curious to see where they're at after 30 games. I just like their depth. I liked how crisp they looked against Dallas. I know they lost

to Cleveland and you're like, okay whatever. But I feel like with Atlanta, I already have a really good idea of who they are. Where when I look at Boston, Boston was a soft basketball team last year. They needed to make a change. I think Brad felt like no one wanted to listen to him anymore

and he transitions up to the front office and to make a change. I think Brad felt like no one wanted to listen to him anymore. He transitions up to the front office and E-May comes in and they want to change a bunch of different things about it. I think there are moments when I go, hey man, having Robert Williams and Al Horford and Smart and Brown and Williams with Schroeder as an option there, that's a pretty good six. But if everybody's still the same and they were kind of soft, I hope I don't see that again. And despite how talented Tatum and Jalen are, I'll have moments where I go, I know what the assist rate numbers are. Tatum's over 20%.

Brown's up higher than he normally is at 15%. We can look at raw assists. I don't love going, hey, those two guys can't play together because these are exactly what you would want. Two long switchable wings. Everybody, those two guys can't play together because these are exactly what you would want, two long switchable wings. Everybody would want two guys like this. Do you ever have moments where you go, do they play together or are they just on the same team? Because sometimes I feel that way.

When I looked at the roster, I went, hey, they did a really good job on the edges, I think. They didn't do impatient things. They did really patient things, but they're still probably no better than a six seed, maybe some injuries and it cracks that they're the four or five seed. I still don't know that they'd be higher than that. And I haven't loved everything I've seen from them, even though everybody's still trying to figure them out. So, I mean, Boston for me is if it's exactly like it is last year, then that's going to be a problem

because last year just wasn't good enough. Completely agree. It got very stale. I mean, Brad Stevens, he looked like he was disinterested a little bit last year on the sidelines. And it happens, man. You have a shelf life with certain groups. And he'd been coaching those forwards for a while, and they needed a new voice. And I'm watching him this year, and I'm saying, okay, I see glimpses like you're talking about

where it happens a little bit more through the air and ends up in the hands of a guy with a good look. That's what you want to see. But then I'll see them play an entire eight minute stretch where it's exactly what it was last year. And for me in in looking at that, 50 points a night on 40 shots, that's what those two guys are. And what that means is they don't get to the line a ton. They're not super high-binding three-point shooters. There's a ton of stuff between 22 feet and basically at the rim without getting fouled. So that's a tough way, man, to run your offense every night. Two talented forwards with a lot of two-point shots and not getting a lot of free throws. That's a very difficult proposition to try to figure

how you're going to stay in rhythm and stay efficient most nights. So I think it's early here better than it was in, in spurts last year, for sure, because they were, they became very boring to me to watch last year, despite the individual greatness of Tatum. They were boring.

And I see now that we'll fall back into that at times, but in other times I see, okay, maybe this is ema udoka and it's going to take time he's trying to you know he's trying to push the right buttons on this group to make them understand what it's really going to take you know to to get there where you're actually looked at as legitimate contender and i and i don't think they're there yet it's early um but let's see you know if you look up 15 20 games in ryan and you go well look at this they're

averaging 46 points on 41 shots between their two best players it's just not good enough it's just not fluid enough nothing comes easy enough and the volume of threes isn't enough or free throws so i'm kind of like you i'm waiting to see sometimes a new coach, you're not going to have it right off the bat coming out of one training camp was exactly what he wants it to be. And maybe it's, you know, his vision and the reason he got the job over time, man, you tweak it each week. You're tweaking things. You're adding things.

You're trying to, you know, improve them. And I'm going to give them right now, just put them kind of off to the side and reserve judgment. Yeah, right. I mean, they still have had some pieces that they haven't figured out yet, whether it's the two younger guys and Langford and Neesmith isn't playing at all, and Cantor's like a complete non-factor.

He's only been in one game. But when I look at the three-point, it's 20 attempts combined for Brown and Tatum from three, and Brown's been on fire from outside, but they combined for just over nine free throws. And so I've seen it. I've seen it all. I would agree. I think we're on the same page.

The glimpses that you would hope to see and then stuff that goes, I don't know. I don't know. Like I saw play the Knicks overtime game, which was a lot of fun. Tatum brought the ball up. Brown had Fournier on him, which is a better defensive matchup than one i forget who tatum had i don't know if it was rj um and tatum didn't even look at brown brown looked back at him kind of going hey you know what like this dude was on our team last year and i'm on fire tonight like why don't you send it over my way and it was a little bit of that it's my team

so even if you have a better matchup i can't pass you the basketball because that's not cool. I would have loved to have seen Tatum give it to Brown there and work on Fournier because it was a better matchup and it led to a bad shot by Tatum, if I remember that correctly on that play. All right, a couple more things and I'll let you go here. Would you rather be Austin Reeves right now and the Lakers are the number one option for the Pistons?

Oh, man, that's a good question. Number one option for the Pistons, I guess. That always sounds good. Yeah, because you're still the number one. But, man, Austin Reeves. I'm saying, you're still the number one option. It's like, all right, that's fun, too. Right, right.

I get a lot of shots, although killian hayes may start yelling at you a little bit if uh if you didn't look his way which i don't know if he has the clout to pull that off um we have we've done this with some other guys can you remember the toughest guy you ever went against in your career and it may not even be just how tough he was on you defensively but a dude that you actually didn't want to mess with, didn't want to say anything back to him. Is there someone, Legs, that you remember as the

toughest guy you played against when you were in the league? Oh my goodness. Man, yeah, there's a number of guys. Do you remember Reuben Patterson? Yeah, the Kobe star? Reuben Patterson, he was playing in Seattle, and it was like if you played against him, you were just like, oh, my God.

You check into the game and like, this dude is going to the glass as hard as he can. That's the two-guard position on every shot. And this is back in an era when they weren't calling to the glass as hard as he can. That's the two guard position on every shot. And, and this is back in an era when they weren't calling any of the contact and stuff on the glass. And you were just like, my God, you'd have to face guard both arms into his chest,

wrestling him to try to keep him from getting in and getting a tip. And what that was doing was it was like driving you back into the lane and wearing your arms out, by the way. So you were exhausted. It was like you just literally were max bench pressing, boxing this guy out. And now the ball comes off. Now you're 90 feet from the other end of the court. Your arms are gassed.

And now you've got to run the floor. You don't even feel like playing offense. And then he had kind of a weird look in his eye, like a little bit crazy. And so I wanted to come up with a name that wasn't mainstream, like everybody knows was a tough guy. That's a guy who's like a role player that you would play against and be like, oh, my God, this is the last guy I feel like playing against tonight because he's got a little bit of crazy in him

and he's going to play a game very similar to a power forward at the two guard position. And it's just physically was so different than other guys you had to play against. That was a good one. I like that one. Deep cut. Reuben Patterson. Hey Legs, thanks.

Anytime, man. Enjoyed it. Let's go abroad. I hope to be happy, but more healthy. Golazo, Golazo, Golazo! Continued economic responsibility demands restraint in government expenditure. And last year we achieved the largest ever recorded reduction in the budget deficit, 1.5 million. Kevin Clark joins us. We passed on the Turkish Grand Prix. Great win by Valerie

Botas, by the way. Huge win. Huge, huge win. Getting the Alpha fans excited for next year. But this season of Formula 1 is starting to feel a little bit like the NBA 80s, where you can talk about what you want to talk about, but it's going to likely end up bird against magic again.

And there we go. Hamilton versus Verstappen. Verstappen with the win in Texas. He now leads Hamilton by 12 points in the driver's standings. And the constructors right now, Mercedes still ahead. But Red Bull does have nine wins. So if you look at the podiums here uh pretty pretty impressive stuff here all right this race was awesome this race was awesome because it came down to the two headline guys again um shout out mclaren a little bit there for being in the mix with in the mix that was fun seeing

them battle it out but this came down to to the undercutting strategy of Red Bull. And then as you watch the race live, this thought that Mercedes planned it out perfectly and that with Hamilton with fresher tires by only a few laps would be able to pass Verstappen. But as the announcer said, it's one thing to catch. It's another thing to pass. And you're talking about Verstappen. You're talking about somebody who's not going to give in easily. And honestly, the strategy for Mercedes didn't work out.

It worked out for Red Bull. So there you go. Thoughts. This is a big, big deal for Red Bull because a lot of people coming into this race thought Mercedes had all the title race momentum. And I think that this was a statement win. This is a statement win in Austin. I think that there are a couple of things. I was reading some of the coverage this morning and they

said that Mercedes is really worried about Mexico. There's something with the altitude. They race next to Mexico. There's something with the altitude where essentially the power units favor Red Bull. I'm not really sure all the particulars of it but Mercedes officially worried

about the next race. This was a win that Red Bull really needed. I mean, this is what you want. You're talking about burn magic. Whoever won this race, if it was 1-2, was going to be leading in the points championship. And I think that there's... What's interesting about this season to me

is there are kind of ways you can look at it and you can see Verstappen dominance. I was looking at laps led the other day. Verstappen has led 504 laps this year. Hamilton's led 154. Okay. Verstappen has led all half of all F1 laps this year. Um,

yet he's right here. Hamilton is right here on his heels. Um, and so that's, what's really interesting to me. Um, I, the undercutting strategy for

Verstappen was absolutely perfect. They played exactly right. And we're kind of seeing, we talked about what first year fans get to see this year. And we get to see every single facet of the sport almost every week. And now you're seeing how important when there's two evenly matched cars,

how important strategy can be. I think that there's so much, you know, I think that a lot of times I was just listening to the missed apex pod yesterday. I think they were talking about, and I think that because their cars, Red Bull and Mercedes are so similar.

A lot of the old arguments are being thrown out. And one of the good points I heard was people keep saying, oh, this is a Lewis Hamilton track. Oh, this is a Lewis Hamilton track. They have to win this weekend or else they're not going to hold serve. Well, they were all Lewis Hamilton tracks.

They were all Lewis Hamilton. I mean, obviously, there were tracks that favored Red Bull. But Lewis won so much and he had such a better car that there were people who were saying, oh, this is a Lewis track, but maybe it wasn't necessarily always Lewis track. He was just dominant and in the best car. Obviously, again, there are more aerodynamic oriented tracks that would favor the Red Bull, but Lewis made them his track. He was just dominant in the best car. Obviously, again, there are more aerodynamic oriented tracks that would favor the Red Bull, but Lewis made them his track. And so I think a lot of times now we're looking right now at a dogfight between two amazing cars and two amazing drivers,

and we almost don't know what we're seeing, Ryan. A lot of people are learning about this for the first time. You're like, okay, well, why don't you just undercut all the time doesn't that seem like you know what i mean like that's you're sitting home going we'll just undercut why don't you undercut him before he undercuts you and you're like well okay it's not that simple um because then as the undercut let's say it's playing out for red bull then they start doing the projections on lap gains by hamilton with the fresher hard tires uh on a very hot track that runs hot they were like like, look, even Toto before the race was like, it's hot here always, but it's even hotter today than we even thought it would be.

So we're really going to pay attention to these tires. Then you start looking at it and being like, oh, Hamilton's going to pass him. He's going to pass him and he's gaining and he's gaining. I mean, he wiped out like six seconds worth of time, but he never got DRS except for like one fleeting moment. And that's what I thought was so much fun about it because it was basically set up as hamilton's going to catch him and then it's going to be a matter of when he

can catch him and pass him and then verstappen just has another like not to sound like an idiot but another gear like he was like there was a sector he controls races right where it's just like okay no no i'm fine and then him losing it on the back markers was hilarious. He's like, tell him to get out of the way. He's just a psychopath about certain things. And with the fact that the cars are even, or Red Bull might even be a little bit better for the first time in forever, or a long time, it's like this great combination.

I mean, it is. It's this great combination in that, in a weird way, look, Max has been the better driver. He's been the better driver. They've had incredibly bad luck. And so the fact that it's even close is still a credit to who Lewis is, really, is how it feels, again, for a new person. And also, I think that there was so much talk about Red Bull going all in on this season

because, obviously, there's a developmental cycle. So if you don't know, they changed the formula for next year. So most teams are already working pretty much on their 2022 car. And so you can kind of, there's a push and pull between how much you're upgrading this car. So that was all the talk that Red Bull was going to go all in on 2021 and that Mercedes was focused a little more on 2022. It was almost like an NHL team or a baseball team trading away a ton of prospects to get this trade deadline guy they think can put him over the top. That was the thought about Red Bull. Having said that, there was a package that debuted apparently at Silverstone that basically changed the game for Mercedes.

So maybe that narrative was a little bit overblown, even though I do think Red Bull has gone all in on the season and Mercedes hasn't. But Mercedes still has made those upgrades. So I think it's I mean, it's certainly I started watching this five, six years ago, and it's certainly the only legitimate title race I've ever seen. I'm like Vettel gave Hamilton a run for the first eight races or whatever in the past, but everybody knew it wasn't real. This is real. Verstappen looks like the best driver on the grid right now. I want to ask you, you talked about the personality part of it.

So Verstappen comes out, says he does not like the Netflix show this week, says that he thinks that it manufactures drama. But on the other hand, he called Lewis Hamilton a stupid idiot and flipped him off. So who's manufacturing the drama here? Like, I just, I just kind of feel like if you're going to be like Kawhi Leonard and be like, all right, I just want to, I just want to focus on ball here. That's one thing. But it seems to me like Verstappen is, is, is going to turn himself into a one man Netflix show with, with, with his drama. That was really lame out of him, but not surprising. I think he's socially awkward in the best way if you're a driver.

I think he is that guy. I think he's just wired so differently that nothing else is going on. Nothing else is going on except for him going ahead and winning a race. And this is just an impression from somebody who I don't know that once all of this became more popular and the sport is so popular now in the States because of the Netflix show, that that's what happens, is that you inevitably like, hey, I'll be happy to grow the sport and grow the sport.

Oh, now that it's growing and I'm getting some attention that I don't want, well, now I don't want to do this, which is stupid. I mean, it's why any of us are even talking about this right now is getting to learn about all these guys. And when you start figuring out some of the stuff and you're watching guys fight for 10th and 11th and you're actually into it, by the way, shout out to Sonota, just tough, just tough to pass. He's not going to give in. I don't know if he'll ever sign with a better team, but that guy's tough. Every week i always feel like

guys like great sonota's in front of me now this is a pain in the ass um but i think the max stuff was very who's the nba comp who's the nba comp like tony alice sonota uh tony allen's tony allen might be a good one um but i'd like to go older maybe alvinvin Robertson. Okay. I'm not sure. I'm not sure I follow particular Alvin Robertson comparisons. But yeah, no, I completely agree with you. And also, by the way, we already had this where Merc and Ferrari decided not to be in the first season of Drive to Survive. And then Daniel Ricciardo became a worldwide sensation by being Mr. Netflix. And then Merc was like, oh, no, no, no, no.

We're in this now. We're in this now. We're in this now. And so if Verstappen wants to become an international superstar, you got to play the game, man. You got to play the media game. You got to play the Netflix game. Tens of millions of people watch this. I just think that there's just not... I just think it's very short-sighted of him if he wants to be...

This isn't... I got to be honest with you. This is a Netflix-driven thing. And so many... We are 400,000 people in honest with you. This is a Netflix driven thing. Um, and like so many, we are 400,000 people in Austin this week. Uh, Shaq Shaq was there. Shaq was one of them. Ben Stiller was there.

Shout out Shaq. Shaq has apparently been to some of the European races as well. He's no Netflix bandwagon guy. He's no net Ben. Ben Stiller might be some of those other folks. Um, but I, I,

there was 400,000 people. I think there were less than 300,000, um, two years ago, the last time they there were less than 300,000 um two years ago the last time they had this race uh with full capacity that's a netflix thing and if you want to be a part of the narrative of f1 i kind of think you have to be in the show bro yeah i i think max is totally wrong about this um but he would be if i were to vote or give you odds for like who would be the guy that says i don't want to this. It would be him. Who are you rooting for between Max and Hamilton in the last few turns, last few laps? Hamilton. I'm rooting for Hamilton. I like Hamilton better as a personality, which is,

you know, when I'm not, I don't cover this as a journalist. I'm just covering as a fan and a part-time F1 podcaster. And so I'm rooting for a team that I like in Mercedes I'm rooting for a driver who I think is a more engaging personality I think it's more interesting like Lewis talking about winning is more interesting than Max talking about winning or not talking about winning whatever he wants to do I was fascinated I

didn't know I George Russell on Tuesday last week Austin is like cherished among F1 drivers like they I think Lewis said it last week. It's the only city where he goes out to dinner every single night. Um, George says that it, you know,

the track is actually amazing. It was built. He said it was built on a swamp. So it's very hilly and also not smooth. Um, it's just kind of a rough ride for a lot of people. Um, and so it's a very interesting track

and so all of that came together but i i think that just to answer your question um i thought it was an amazing race but i actually the whole time i was just thinking about how lewis has endeared himself to america he lives here part-time um i just felt like it was a it was a better story if lewis won and by the way you, take the lead in the championship race and all that stuff when we got the aerodynamic problems of Mexico looming. Yes. Yes. Well said. Great track.

Great track. And then there's a couple of tracks later on. There's five races left. There are a couple of debutantes. They've never raced there before. And they said there's a bunch of straights there. So that might favor Mercedes, as we know. But what I would also say about that is

that if Max wins in Mexico and Brazil, we're starting to maybe not see a close race anymore. Yeah, I don't know. Lewis is... If I've learned anything this year, there's so many times where it's like, oh, well, look who is behind and you're like wait how is he passing all these guys again like what happens like guys will be racing all day there'll be a dude stuck at 14 and you're

like so you're never gonna like move up today it's just it's just what's gonna happen i mean the the number of bettel races where it's like this guy's losing his shit over 13th place every week. It's just kind of what I've come to accept. Like if I'm locked in on Vettel, I know what range that I'm going to be in. But all right. Look, we can't end going abroad without calling out Meg the Stallion or at least her security team a little bit. So if you didn't watch this, they did kind of a red carpety thing that wasn't really a red carpety thing.

It was like through the paddock and through the cars kind of coming out and certainly not lining up or anything like that, where that's where a bunch of people were walking around. There's a, I believe, British guy from Sky Sports who's just kind of out there, almost as if you were at a premiere at a red carpet. And as everybody walks up, you know the it's part of the deal and he grabbed ben stiller for a little bit there was a couple other people so meg the stallion comes

through and she comes walking through this whole area where all it is is to get attention and then guys go out of their way to be like you can't do that you. You can't interview her. And he shot back a little bit. Well, I just did. Martin Brundle, by the way, just so we can shout him out. The legendary Martin Brundle. It's like the person that goes to Super Bowl Radio Row and then is annoyed when they're asked to come on shows. All right? Nobody's asking for a 10-minute sit-down with Meg Thee Stallion.

But don't go. And again, it wasn't even on her as much as it was on the security people. Be like, if you want to walk through here and prance around, understand that you came here for the attention. We are going to give you some, but now we're not allowed to. I think her security, her team, her handlers,

I will blame more than her. I agree. I would say Super Bowl media row, radio row is a similar analogy. You, by the way, said probably the most profound thing I've ever heard about radio row, which is it's really annoying

and tough to get asked to do all those interviews, but it's even tougher to not get asked to do interviews. That's how I think Meg should look at it as well. Like if she just walked through the grid, it would have been, that would have been an indictment of her, her level of fame.

Brundle was showing her the ultimate respect, I would say. Yeah. He did ask her to freestyle an F1 rap on the spot, which was, you know, but then, then you should have been like this guy.

I like it. He went for it. It's an absurd request. And she seemed to be much cooler with it. And then the first huge guy was like, no. And then there was like a serious white guy that came over and was like, you can't do that. It's like, all right, well, go to your seat then. Find a way that's not where everybody – you went there for the attention and we were offered it up.

Thank you for reminding me about that Super Bowl radio row deal, because it's true. If you go as a guy that's doing anything, it's like actually nobody wants you to come on. Des Moines is out. Albuquerque? Albuquerque is a maybe. Plattsburgh said that maybe they could tape something

and run it next week. Brian Curtis wrote an amazing piece about this a couple years ago, Plattsburgh said that maybe they could tape something and run it next week. That's really tough. Brian Curtis wrote an amazing piece about this a couple years ago, and I implore you all to look at it. It is a tough scene down there. It can be really... I mean, it's great when Joe Montana's there, and he's just getting booked by everybody, and we're trying to get him for Slow News Day and stuff,

and he's wearing a Guinness quarter zip. But it can be... Sometimes you're just like, why is this guy here on a Thursday, man? I don't have 10 minutes for this. You know? And it would suck too because it's like,

why is Mark Sanchez here for Fix-A-Dent? He's way too young to have dentures. And he's just like, they gave me 25 grand. And you'd be like, yeah, but you're still Mark Sanchez. $25,000? He's like, it's two hours. I'm wearing my quarter zip

and it says fix a dent. By the way, I just came from the NFL owners meetings. I was just there the last two days. That seemed to go well. Those guys have the approval rating of like I mean

there's people that have run FIFA that are more popular than those guys collectively. Go ahead. A lot of sneakers with full suits. A lot. That's the billionaire's outfit now. Yeah, but all those guys i mean all they do is they just fly around and hope young people that are famous will talk to them so that's what you do is you put the sneakers on with the suit i mean that was that was crafts like go

to move sideline yeah he'd have his own air force ones that nike made for him and he was just like see i'm fucking cool who doesn't want to talk to me now? All right. Yeah. It's like kind of down market from that now. They're just wearing kind of regular Nikes. They're not even wearing Air Force Ones. It's an interesting look.

All right. We cover it all? I think we did. I think for the first time, remember, early on, we were talking about maybe this wouldn't be a title fight. Max would run away with it. But for the first time, I feel like realistically this is Max's title to lose. I agree.

He's been the better driver throughout. And he's had some bad luck. But Lewis is really tough to count out. And like we said, I mean, down force, straightaways, you do the math. Thank you, Kevin. Thanks, buddy. like we said i mean downforce straightaways you do the math thank you kevin thanks buddy you want details bye i drive a ferrari 355 cabriolet what's up i have a ridiculous house in the south fork i have every toy you can possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So, now you know what's possible.

Let me tell you what's required. Before we get to life advice, let's do a little succession recap here. Two episodes in, they are building. I think that was very clear. If you were to look at this show as a template for the Murdoch family, which is what it is,

and you said, hey, if one son went against the boss and then tried to get everybody to, you know, mutiny against the father, that would be a really, really big deal. There would have to be some major moments in there. And that's what they're doing. And it's basically been, these hours have been built out over two shows,

which you could say is a little slow um and i love the show no matter what uh i think there'd be others that were like you know a little bit more dessert maybe in this in one of the first two episodes here but it's it's been a i would imagine this is a slow build for for some major payoffs later on. Like they're just setting everything up. Yeah. I was just going to watch a little bit. Shout out to Chris and Andy. And they were kind of talking about,

this was the third straight episode where they were basically putting the size together to see who would be on what side. And I was, I mean, I don't know about you guys and this is a spoiler, obviously for anyone who hasn't watched yet, but I thought, I thought Shiv was going to join Kendall. I did.

And there was an interesting point that andy made that because connor went first and said no it basically made the other two rethink their positions and say well if connor's not in then how could we be and connor's an idiot um so i was kind of surprised i thought she was going to join i thought that's where it was turning out i thought that's kind of where everything was leading towards because she didn't get the ceo job um so i don't know if you guys were surprised by that too, but I was kind of hoping one of them would join. And we had a whole season to see if it will happen, but I kind of want Shiv to jump ship.

Kyle? You know, so many people talk about it that I feel like anything that I would say, I'm basically like agreeing with somebody. So I guess it's great. Who do you think you would want to have on this show from succession why is it roman i can't tell if kyle absolutely brought it or absolutely didn't bring it with his with his first succession actually but there's just a lot of

chatter out there like it's hard to have an original idea and that's why i shouted like my my initial thoughts yeah you did that my initial thoughts was like god it's just the best when the kids are in the room together and like who hasn't said that before and then also the reason it's the best is because i think roman like ad libs i don't know how many of his lines but i think that's why you need to have mine to just ask me like what what the hell is going on with you on screen and are you doing that or is somebody doing that for you uh there are moments in the show like the dinner scene that they had when they were trying to do the merger in season two i was i like asked somebody i was like can i actually see that script is there is there a script that exists because i would be shocked i just would love to

know how they even wrote that dialogue and by the way you know the mom who's like the patriarch of the media family that they go out and visit and then car mom who's like the patriarch of the media family that they go out and visit and then does a ton of blow yeah the pierce family it is blow on a helicopter yeah yeah nan she's the she's the wife of the portsmouth schooner in the perfect storm oh yeah she's barely aged i threw on Perfect Storm the other day, which has some moments, but it doesn't, you know, Cerruti knows it doesn't.

Nothing holds up. No, I actually like that movie. I mean, what, Clooney? Yeah, absolutely. You got some old salt in you. That's not that old. I mean, that came out when I was a kid, so to me, that's not that old.

It's 20 years old, man. Yeah, I mean, I'm in my 30s, so I don't know what you want me to do. I saw it at the theater with my girlfriend's relatives. It was a date night. It was pretty weird. That's a good callback.

Her sister and her husband. But I have a question for you guys. Have you seen Roman in anything else? I knew Macaulay Culkin had a brother, but what else is he famous for? Kia commercials. That's it? No, it's a great call. Because he's amazing. He's an amazing actor. And I'm like, why is he not for? Kia commercials. That's it? No, it's a great call.

Because he's amazing. He's an amazing actor. And I'm like, why is he not in more awesome shit? It's like another classic HBO casting win, which I think, I don't know, if a group of people or a conglomerate of businesses have ever done better at yanking people that you've never seen before,

and then being like, well, I really hope that there's at least three movies for this guy in the next couple years so I just think it's chalking up to that. I agree. Hey by the way your original point that you got from the watch I disagree with that I think Connor's so disrespected

that no one gave a shit about his answer and I think you had to really to do the story right you had to have the moment which was cool and kind of clever how they pulled it off. It's like, hey, let's have all the kids meet up and talk this out and do it the way that they would have done it over the last couple seasons. Let's have that moment here because that's a big moment.

It's a big moment. It's all the children talking this out and figure out. Connor is just absolutely dump-t trucked almost in every possible storyline that him having any sway or influence over any other siblings i thought was irrelevant and that's why kendall's line was so perfect that as soon as he was like you're out and he's like okay you're irrelevant no one cares anyway because he hasn't been relevant for two seasons on anything and so i think that just reinforced it so i I, I honestly think Shiv is, is not influenced by him.

Kendall certainly wouldn't be. And, and, um, the same thing for, for Roe. So I don't, I,

I, I think they all look at Kendall as the dipshit. I think they know deep down and the way Kendall's first episode was where he's totally scatterbrained. He's, he, it looks like Adderall Central. He's not listening to anybody he's meeting with.

He's using all this terminology that's bullshit. He sounds like a guy at some tech conference for a startup that's never going to make any money. And that he pulls this move to save himself because he was emotionally pissed off at the father, basically saying you're not a killer and he was going to expose him. That none of these are good reasons for anyone to actually join him. So I think deep down, it was a vote of no confidence for somebody they've never had any confidence in at any other point of the story. Yeah, that's actually a great point, because I was thinking and I was talking to my wife about this. Like, if you were in this position, who would you pick?

And as bad of a dude as Logan is, although he seems like he'd be a great guy to be aligned with, obviously, I just don't know how you pick Kendall. I don't know how you have any trust in Kendall in this situation. The guy is a disaster. That scene where he's in the tub for 20 minutes

and they're knocking on the door, and then he flips the switch, and all of a sudden, you're right, he becomes this guy who all of a sudden has all these answers and wants to be the new Amazon of the future and take over tech and news and business around the world. Like that sounds like it's a really like it's a really cool speech and elevator kind of pitch thing. But it's not actually like,

what does that even mean? You know, I feel like that's this terribly empty pitch. And I'm sure Shiv and Roman were Roman, I don't think was ever going anywhere because he's going to do whatever Jerry wants to do. Although Jerry sneaky, interesting. I'm very interested to see what happens with Jerry because I don't know if she was lying to Roman about them not being able to take over if they did join him, but I think she has some stuff up her sleeve for this season. So I'm really interested in Jerry, but I don't know.

I was just kind of hoping one of them joined Kendall because I just think, and then again, that still could happen, but I think that would make the season a little more interesting. Yeah. I mean, it very well may happen, but I don't think it was going to happen in the second episode.

And at this point, I feel like cousin Greg is is stolen all the scenes. I love how he's like, remember the lawyer comes to the door. He's like, did I pick you or did you pick me? He's just the best. And he also has like a first year law student that he's asking like these massive questions to. He's just he's just phenomenal. When he goes to hug his grandfather.

That's fine. that's fine that's fine kyle anything on cousin greg because i know that's you have a poster of him right i do not but uh i think i think it's been great i think it's great that he thinks like he knows that nobody's actually is caring about him like kendall even took him to the side and was like hey dude like i'm gonna take care of you like i got you And then so then a lawyer from, what is it? Waystar shows up and he's like, well, this guy can't be on my team. I'm pretty sure he's just mining for facts or mining for stuff, information out of me. And then he talks to his grandfather who really only cares about changing the establishment. So his lawyer is like lawyer is like, he's like, first

things first is your wellbeing. Second thing we're taking down capitalism. And he's like, wait, this is, this is a pillar in my defense is we're going to, he's like, yeah, we're going to get under the hood. And, and like, so it seems like even his grandfather was like, yeah, I'll represent you is like trying to, uh, change. He's got like this weird agenda that has nothing to do with Greg. So I think Greg's just learning that everywhere he goes is a car crash. So I just I can't wait to see what he does. I think he's going to go rogue in the courtroom and say something that's weirded in a word in a very strange manner. But I think he's going to fucking blow something up by accident trying to save himself.

Alright, we ready for life advice? Yeah. Okay, because we need to clean up here. We've had a lot of follow-up to the why you can't wear a Ted Lasso outfit to Harry Styles. I mean, it's perhaps been the most feedback we've gotten on anything we've ever done.

I did not know that Harry Styles now has Jason Sdeikis's girlfriend um olivia olivia wild right yep yep i confuse the olivias all the time and i'll tell you this as you get older you just have less space in your dome for celebrity relationships people that you're never going to meet although i might meet them sometime who knows um relationships people that you're never going to meet although i might meet them sometime who knows um and this is kind of where i lean on saruti like you're this huge harry styles guy and and you don't know who he's dating so you know i mean not i've i've had some moments you know you have some moments as an older guy you know usually average like one a year where i'm

like wow i totally whiffed on that one i whiffed on this one i just didn't know and there's been a lot of really cool feedback and then there's a few people that i just don't know where how you're wired where you get off on it somehow or it's like hey this show that you know these guys are all kind of like opinion-based guys and well, they got this wrong and I actually knew why. So I'm going to, I'm going to share with you like, Hey, you guys, you know, you need to do a better job. And I'll tell you right now, I promise to never do a better job on keeping track of celebrity relationships. If I, if I happen to stumble across that info at a checkout counter, then it'll stay in

the old noggin. I'll retain it a little bit. This one, now it makes sense. There was something I remember hearing, but I didn't know enough. So leaders try not to blame others, but I don't know. I mean, Saruti, the sword's yours. I'll fall on the sword here. That's totally fine. As a huge Harry Styles guy, as I mentioned. I mean, listen mentioned i mean listen i like you did like five minutes on harry styles i did like a minute on harry styles and the only thing that i talked about was how much i liked his last album and how much i liked him in dunkirk and i think he's in a i haven't seen it yet but i think he's in one of the marvel movies too so he's now a budding actor i don't care about his dating life he'd be great in dune of course he would i mean by the way dune sequel is uh officially greenlit so you never know it could happen i don't know what character he life. He'd be great in Dune. Of course he would. I mean, by the way, Dune sequel is officially greenlit.

So you never know. It could happen. I don't know what character he'd play. I hope he does. Doing things. But I don't care about his dating life. We were talking about John Mayer last episode, too. I don't know.

I don't care. I know some of the people John Mayer's dated, but I don't follow their dating life. The amount of people that were in our mentions being like, oh, dude, Olivia Wilde, come on. Like, you would have thought that I forgot what year the Magic made the finals. If I had forgotten that in the podcast, people would rightfully be mad at me. But if I did not know that Olivia Wilde was dating Harry Styles,

I feel like I'm going to sleep at night knowing I did not know that. It's fine. Kyle? I don't even know where you go to get that information. Outside of Google, unless you're like,

who is XYZ dating, which I just Googled Chalamet to see if he was dating zendaya yet hoping for that one because he was great and i watched him no no no we're team chalamet i don't know if that'll ever work but i guess what i'm saying is big chalamet guy i am now like in the last two weeks i loved him in dune and then i do maybe i have a man crush on him i don't know because then i watched him in the king and i was like fuck this guy's good love the king love that movie that was great and then so there's a couple other things that looks like that wouldn't really be up my alley,

but maybe I'll have to watch it. But I guess what I'm saying is I don't ever even know where you go for this stuff unless the people that you follow on Twitter talk about it, right? And that's not the people I follow on Twitter. So I don't know where you would go to find this stuff. Yeah, but sometimes you just come across information that you're not expecting to know or it's not important to you, but you still come across it. But I've just always felt this way. When you're younger, you know all this shit

because you have less real stuff to care about. You know what I mean? You're not looking at your 401k all the time. You're not thinking about if you should refinance. You're just sitting there going, who's Aniston hanging out with? Because you're in your late teens, early 20s. It's why you remember lyrics better. When's the last time you were able to figure out a song end to end lyrics i mean that's to me that's going to be well over a decade for me like there's no way i would know that and at one point to know what the last song was for you yeah the last song that you remember the last song that I could go beginning to end? Was it Players Anthem, UGK? I don't know.

I used to be able to recite, I think, damn near an hour into Caddyshack. Like I could just start and I would know every line up until, you know, a certain point, depending on whether or not we're watching tv at it so um look if if this is where you want to go for celeb relationships we're going to have to add another staff member here because apparently the two younger bucks just are getting to this point and they're live we have other things going on kyle you got to worry about your own self at this point right sure i think that i mean i'm just trying to think about the the last thing that i mean the only thing i've ever even seen recently that I can remember is just Big Cat won't let the A-Rod's honor because I hear

Aniston and Affleck but that's literally the only thing that I've ever I remember seeing like Big Cat just won't You mean J-Lo? Yeah. Did I say Aniston? Oh my god. Yeah. What's wrong with me? Let's just pull out of this You're over gossip. Oh, my God.

One of the Jennifer. Jennifer Anson. Ben Affleck. How mad is A-Rod? Coming up next. I hate all this stuff. And you convinced us. You were very convincing.

So anyway, thank you to everyone for helping out. We're going to make mistakes every now and then. We are. My bad. My bad. We try not to, but every now and then when you talk for a living, you're going to say something that's inaccurate. We try not to do it, but it happens.

All right. Let's get to a couple here. Trip to Japan. So let me start like everyone else. I don't have any lifting stats. I'm a trail runner. So I'm lean. Six feet, else, I don't have any lifting stats. I'm a trail runner, so I'm lean. Six feet, 160.

You didn't have any stats. You shared. I'll put it this way. You and Kyle would make easy work of me. Saruti and I would be a 12-round no decision with a few punches thrown, but lots of talk. All right, on to it. I live in Tokyo. I've been in Japan since 2001, except for two and a half years in Chicago about a decade ago. Here's some brief backstory. He put footnotes in here. Jesus, Philbrick. In my mid-20s, like lots of people, I realized I hated my job. I had no idea what I want to do with my life. I quit my job, debated

doing the entire 98 summer fish tour. Eventually decided to go backpacking around Europe. Unlike many people that do the same and swear it changed their life. It actually changed mine. I realized then and there I needed to live and work overseas and travel to be central to my existence. After doing some research along the way, while recovering from a broken back, I eventually ended up in Japan three years later. Why am I writing this email?

As you can imagine, I went down to a footnote here. He broke his back snowboarding and then whatever, didn't have health insurance, but it's not super relevant to the email here. Why am I writing? Many people have come to visit me here. Japan is pretty trendy recently and has a near unanimous approval rating. I've always heard amazing things about Japan.

When I see the traffic in the city and in no room, I go, wait, would I be down with that? But I think that's making a mistake about Japan. You know what I mean? That's what people in Russia do. They assume what they know about every other country without going anywhere else. So don't do that. And it's even better when you know someone living there when you visit. And I really enjoy taking people around Tokyo and my favorite places,

but there is one person I can't get to visit me, my brother. We were close and get along well. When I first came here, everyone, including me, thought it would be just for a year or two, so I didn't expect to visit, especially since he just had a child. 20 years later, and I'm married with three kids of my own. He still hasn't made the trip, either solo or with his family. I understand it's a big time and financial commitment, especially for someone not really interested in Japan or international travel. But this is my home for life.

I make an effort to visit home every couple of years and non-plague years anyway. It costs lots and basically uses up all my wife's vacation time when they want to go back home. So we stay at my brother's house. So it's not like this is ruining our relationship. We're still quite close. But just because I'm the one that lives away from home, does that mean I'm the one that always has to travel to see family? I've made a life here, bought a home in Tokyo last year. I would like to share that life with my family and friends.

My question is, how do i get him to visit since i'm the one that moved across the country or across the world uh it is always my responsibility to visit home is it fair to me to give an ultimatum that i'm not coming back until he makes the visit here at least once we do enjoy our visits back i have lots of friends and family uh in in midwest or midwest america i don't know i guess i'm trying to be a little vague here just in case we have any other guys in Tokyo that you hang out with. And several good friends from out of state that try their time to visit me back home.

All right, on and on and on. My brother does know I really want him to visit. Money isn't really a problem because they still take family trips. All right, here's the deal. Clearly your brother doesn't want to go to Japan. All right? There are people that have kind in their head about how much travel they're going to want to do. So whenever I've mentioned, hey, I want to go to New Zealand,

I want to do an Australian thing. And I think I'm going to do it at some point where I'm just going to work and I'll just try to map it out where I can go for a couple of weeks and see basketball. So I've been planning this out a little bit, but a lot of it depends on kind of where we're at still in the world with certain things. But when I've mentioned that to other people, they've gone, oh, that flight to New Zealand, you know, fuck, no way. And you just go, okay, what is it, 17 hours? For some people, that is like impossible. They're not going to do it. They they're not going to do it they're just not going to do

that kind of flight let me check it out right now I think it's 14 hours from LA you said Midwest right yeah so I did Chicago to Tokyo is two flights 13 hours 13 plus 13 oh all right so non-stop la to tokyo's 12 hours

my guess would be he doesn't want to do that he doesn't want to do it with his family he doesn't want to spend the money again like you didn't say he was loaded. I read more of the email. But when you say, well, he takes other trips, well, he probably just sees those other trips with his kids and family as way more convenient. It also could be that his wife doesn't want to go to Japan. There are people that don't want to visit certain countries. I have a few where I go, of all the places I could go, that's so far down the list, I'm probably never going to go there. Why would I go there? I think that's actually a very simple reason. And maybe he just doesn't want to tell you, hey, that's never happening. But if he hasn't done it in 20 years, figure it out. You already have your answer. And when you do a reverse, well, I'm not going to go visit home anymore. Well, now you're preventing yourself

from taking a trip with your family that apparently you really like doing. You like going home and seeing family. You like staying with your brother. You like having friends that you grew up with come visit you, even though you haven't lived there in two decades. So to get back at him because he won't visit you in Japan by then not coming back to the States and denying yourself something that you enjoy, that's fucking stupid too, man. So I would imagine it comes down to like when you say, oh, he still has the money and he still takes trips. I think that's kind of a bullshit way to process it. he may think of a 15-hour plane deal from the Midwest to Tokyo, five tickets, I think three kids, I don't know, four or five tickets. Even if he's staying with you, he may just think, I don't want to spend that money on that. I just don't want to. When people talk about some of the

South Asian places that they want to visit and And they're like paradise on earth. All right. Some of these places you're like, I can't believe this exists. And there's just others that go, yeah, that's cool. I'll go to Hawaii. It's a third of the trip. I don't want to deal with that amount of flight time. So I'd imagine that's what it is. And perhaps Japan's just something that has never interested him or never interested in his wife.

something that has never interested him or never interested in his wife. And he's just done the math in his head, commitment, time, travel, kids, all of it. Maybe he doesn't want to do any of that stuff because he's basically proven to you.

He doesn't. So I would stop worrying about it. I really would. I, you know, other times like, Hey, really sit him down and be serious with this.

He's already given you his answer. So I'd stop asking the question, Kyle. I agree. Once you move somewhere. So I'd stop asking the question. Kyle? I agree. Once you move somewhere, it's like you kind of lose all rights to the you never see me conversation. And the other side of it is like my dad and myself, I come from a generation of one trip a year, guys. My dad takes one trip a year. If something crazy happens, he'll take two trips a year. But, but, and, but I, I also, I pretty much take one trip a year. So, uh, and that's usually for some sort of, you know, family obligation, not obligation, but like summer we'll try it or winter we'll try it. I pretty much do one a year. I can't, when, when I think about like, you know, uh, getting off work and then, and just,

just all the stuff that comes with traveling. And I'm basically just picking up myself and going, um, and booking a flight. But for people that have got all this other stuff, your brother might just be like a one or two trip a year guy. And the, uh, trip to Tokyo to make my brother happy is never going to make it onto that one, two trip a year thing. My mom's a zero trip a year person. I moved to California. She's never came and seen me. She's didn't go to my graduation to college. Cause it was a five hour car ride. Some people aren't, you know, that, that like somebody would have to die or get married for her to go anywhere. So, um, it's just, it's maybe that your brother's a low on the amount of trips per year and Tokyo to just see you cause you're sad is never going to make it on that list. And you moved. So it's

not like, you know, it was, it's like a three, three hour car ride. It's a, you know, 13 hour plane ride with, you know, his spawns. He's got to bring kids and his wife and stuff. So just, it's just probably not going to happen. And just stop worrying about it. Worry about when you could see him. I think too, when you're the guy that moves, especially so far away like that, it's on you to come back.

It's, it's less on other people to go see you. I just, I just think that's kind of like the unwritten rule. It might not seem fair, but that's true that's just true yeah yeah and i know it sucks but like you did choose to live he didn't tell you to live in tokyo you chose to live in tokyo so and like i'm yeah i'm sure he likes his life he lives there it's great um i mean maybe you can convince your brother like to just come out there solo one time but with a family i mean that sounds like a disaster that's not a vacation that's gonna be like that's probably harder than work for him so it's like a bucket list trip,

you know? Yeah. It's on you to come back once a year. If you want to come back to the Midwest, it's, it's, you know, as much as you may hate it, it's, it's kind of not his fault. Yeah. I look at, I, you want to share Japan with other people. Totally get it. That's awesome. I invite people from West Hollywood and Manhattan beach and they say no. How many times have people lived in certain parts of new England where they're three hours away and they never visit anybody?

Growing up on Martha's Vineyard and then hoping all sorts of family members would come and visit, zero. It didn't happen. People are like, oh, whatever. This is Tokyo. So I would be adventurous enough. If I were your brother or buddy, I would come and visit you. I would think that's sick. I'd love to have you show me around, but we're not brothers, so that's not going to happen.

Anyway, all right, let's get to another one here. This one's pretty fascinating and maybe not for the reasons you'd expect. Who would you rather have manage your 401k, Gino Smith or Joe Flacco? And why you might not be able to retire when you want. It's coming up next. Six feet, 170, 32 years old. Not much for pull-ups. I am, however, a bit of a casual runner.

Nothing crazy, but I meet up with a group about 10 to 20 people once a week. Run a quick five. I bet you that's five miles and not even a 5K. Who knows? I share a couple of brews at a local watering hole afterwards. Myself and a few fellow vegetarians. So vegetarian running group.

Nice. You guys love IPAs. Let me guess. All right. I thought it'd be a fun idea to form a monthly veggie pizza party rotating between everyone's house. So we did. The first couple of months went off without a hitch.

We're mostly all arm's length friends. So it was a fun excuse to have one too many and deepen some relationships. Then month three all arm's length friends, so it was a fun excuse to have one too many and deepen some relationships. Then month three happened. Dun, dun, dun. A seemingly lovely husband and wife from the group invited us over to their house for a backyard bonfire, some drinks and of course a few pies. The get-together

had ten people in attendance. So ten people total. Make note of that. There were exactly seven pizzas to go around. It's good order. Seven pies, ten people. The entire shindig was BYOB. All right. On my way out, I casually asked how much the pizzas were.

It was told $250. And my wife and I, who each had three to four squares of fairly underwhelming local chain pizza, owed $25 each. For reference, the first two months were about $10 each. All right. So that's $36 a pizza here. $35.70. Seven pies

averaging $36. That seems high. The following day, a few of us began texting on the side and questioning the glaring shenanigans of this math. The $2.50, seven pies comes out to $36 a pop. That's obviously absurd on its face, but it's not even the worst part. One of my Boulder buddies called the

pizza joint, read back the unmistakable order vegan cheese, no olives, etc. and was told the order was actually $148. Okay. $148. One of us gently confronted the hostess in our Facebook group. Okay.

What? So one person from the group, the runner's group slash vegan pizza group, went to a Facebook group and confronted the wife of the party. She immediately doubled down, offered to show the receipt, started Venmoing everyone $5 refunds and defensively said that the $5 wasn't enough. She and her husband would offer full refunds and eat the cost. Calling her bluff, I jovially requested the receipt more than once. How do you jovially request a receipt more than once in this?

And deflected the blame by saying things like, print it out so I can staple it to somebody's forehead at the pizza place. And I just want to know who I can staple it to somebody's forehead at the pizza place. And I just want to know who I need to suplex through a table at the pizzeria. So you were making fun of them as if they were overcharging everyone and asking for the receipt so that she didn't feel like she was being attacked. We never saw the receipt. She never provided it. Unfortunately, that's largely the end of the drama.

That's unfortunate that this is over. The couple has quietly bowed out of all future pizza events while the rest of us are left feeling swindled and befuddled. Most bizarrely, the husband and wife in question could not be cooler people. They are tremendously hospitable, very gracious, and even routinely bring cupcakes to the running club to celebrate people's birthdays.

My question is, what do you think happened here? What, if anything, can be done to rectify the awkwardness? Rectify it? You went to Facebook and accused her of stealing money from you publicly in a group. Yeah, that'll be easy to fix. Unless they tip the driver $100, they took some off the top. I'll own this up and down if I'm the asshole. I want to be wrong, but it doesn't add up.

You're right. It doesn't really add up, but you didn't include any tipping. So what you did is you've already called this $100 difference when there's no way it was $100 difference. So if they're really awesome people, maybe they rounded up to $200, but then they're still missing $50 and you're going, all right, did they buy any booze? Did they buy any drinks? Was there any kind of appetizer here? Because it doesn't seem like it makes any sense. But I'll tell you what I first started thinking about when I was reading this. I don't know what happened to me. I become more of a recluse.

And then I think like, maybe I join a group. And then I read emails like this and go, fuck that. Runner's group where you're arguing over maybe 10 bucks a person on a pizza charge and you take it to fucking Facebook to call people out on it so that everyone can see it. That's what blows my mind. I'll just hang at home and watch League Pass. I don't really know who to side with here because I think I can get it. It's not the money. It's the principle of the entire thing. Did she upcharge you? But you even said this couple was awesome and that they've generally done really unselfish stuff in the past. So you've never gotten to the tip. She didn't provide the receipt, but I just think there was a better way to do this where you guys are all kind of talking shit about her, which again,

is what happens. But then you take it to a Facebook group, which I imagine can be private perhaps as well. But I don't know. I guess I don't feel good about anybody in this. And maybe she did upcharge you, but maybe... I know this is the other part of it. Whenever you have enough of a group of people, there's going to be somebody that's fucking weird about the money part of it. And I don't know who's weird here. I don't know if it's others for going, hey, we get charged maybe 10 bucks more, or if it's them for actually doing it. Some people are listening to this right now being like, this is total bullshit. The runner is right. The emailer is right. You can't do this. And I would understand. I think there's other people listening to it going, you really like this couple,

and now they're out of the group over what could potentially be a one-off mistake and you didn't want to give anybody the benefit of the doubt. We have always had friends in the group that, I mean, there's one guy in particular. Every time it was a group of the college guys and we got together with a dinner where you know you were just whacking up the bill separate, or excuse me, know 10 guys at the dinner um one bill 10 ways right pretty simple pretty common but there's always like a couple guys are trying to figure out how to how to get the system in their favor there's always going to be if you if the group is 10 people there'll be one guy that's going to order double jack and cokes and his second jack and coke is going to be ordered before the first one

even had a sip out of it because he's thinking if I can get six of these in at dinner, then I don't have to pay for drinks the rest of the night. And then there's the other guy who's watching everybody and seeing how much they drink. And then, you know, even though he's taken an even hit on the tab, he's thinking, actually, this is bullshit because I actually only had two Coors lights and that dickhead had six Jack and Cokes. So there's always going to be somebody that's different. I guess I'm just thrown off by the whole thing here where you would take it to Facebook and now they're ostracized. What may have been just a mistake and there was no previous track record of this at all.

Kyle? We're running long, so in the interest of saving time, I'll just say this is why I love Curb Your Enthusiasm. This is also why Larry's always the asshole in Curb Your Enthusiasm. But the reason that this is different than Curb Your Enthusiasm is because Larry would have looked the guy in the eye and asked him a question, and the guy would have said the thing that, you know, no, of course not. And then, uh, Larry would have just kind of given the stink eye and that weird music would play as he's looking, but he wouldn't have done it on a Facebook group is what I'm saying. So like, if this was, uh, what should have been happened is if, if this really bothered anybody, they should have just asked them, uh, rather than do the, you know,

the 21st century, uh, Facebook cyber, cyber bullying, um, ratio thing. That's the difference between what Larry David would do and what this vegan runner did. So I would just say, in the future, if you want to be confrontational, just do it face-to-face instead of this weird public square internet thing. That's the reason that this sucks. If you just said something, it wouldn't have sucked as bad.

Yeah, I would do the opposite of what Larry David would do. I would just eat like the 20 bucks a person, 25 bucks that I spent extra on pizza. Because in that situation, I feel like I always know that I'm getting screwed over if we're sharing a bill with people. Like that's just how it works. Like I don't, you know, that's how life is. So is it worth like the awkwardness of the Facebook exchange? Absolutely not.

So I just think you're like, yeah, it sucks for you, but it's really not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. I imagine you can make the group private. If it isn't private, I don't know. I haven't had Facebook in over 10 years. And, you know, whatever. You can't.

I'm pretty sure you can. You're right on that. But still, like you're outing people in front of the rest of the group too, though. And then now it's never going to be the same. No, I mean, him saying, how do we repair the awkwardness? Do you know how much the husband hates you guys right now? Unless he knows deep down he's a thief or he knows that his wife has some sketchy upcharging tendency that would be a really weird one.

So I would say good luck with it, but it's never being fixed. And now your vegan running group is down to eight. But you'll be all right. At least you guys are in good health. Yeah. Thank you for checking out the podcast. Please subscribe. Thanks to Kyle and Steve, as always.

We'll be back on Friday. Thank you. you