The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Failure to Flowers: The Paul George Timeline, Plus Amar’e Stoudemire and “Going Abroad” With Kevin Clark

Episode Date: June 29, 2021

Russillo breaks down the Clippers' Game 5 win in Phoenix and why you can’t fake desperation in the NBA playoffs before getting into the roller coaster of opinions on who Paul George is (0:42). Then, Ryen is joined by Amar’e Stoudemire to discuss his first season transitioning from player to coach with the Nets, how Steve Nash changed his career, and stories from the 2007 Suns (12:28). Next, The Ringer’s Kevin Clark stops by to talk F1 and a little Euros with Ceruti in another edition of “Going Abroad.” (26:11) And finally, Ryen closes it out with some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (53:49). Host: Ryen Russillo Guests: Amar’e Stoudemire and Kevin Clark  Producers: Craig Horlbeck and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We flew to Dallas, and once everything happened and we brought in Nash, I mean, the first time we played five-on-five pickup runs, the chemistry was there. At the first, very, very first time we ever stepped on the court together, it was like a no-look pass, and the next thing you know, the rim is almost coming down. It's like the combination was unbelievable from the first day we linked up. That is the one and only Amari Stoudemire, now with the Nets, talking about Steve Nash, joining him with the Phoenix Suns.

We'll get to that and a bunch of other Amari stories. We have going abroad, a little NBA open on desperation in the playoffs, a lesson I always try to teach, and life advice a little bit later on. Today's NBA open, I want to talk about Game 5 in Phoenix. Clippers win. That was a huge win for them and kind of try to figure out where we're at now.

And then a couple things at the end, a couple lessons about everything we're doing. And also, as we mentioned, Amari Stoudemire and then going abroad and then Life Advice at the end of the podcast as we said at the top.

All right. So the biggest thing about this game, and I'm going to kind of break it down in a... I'm not going to go possession by possession stuff. And if I do that in the future for about this game, and I'm going to kind of break it down in a, in a, I'm not going to go possession by possession stuff. And if I do that in the future for 10 straight minutes, maybe I'll put that a little bit later in the podcast. But it comes out where we know zoo bots is going to be out.

So then you're thinking, all right, they have nobody for eight. And even though eight and rebounding wise, like went crazy, I think 22 boards in game, game four is the Clippers, you know,

down three, one going out to Phoenix. So everything prior to the game starting is you're feeling like it's Phoenix, right? You're feeling like, okay, Phoenix is going to close this thing out. They have no zoo. They're going to have to go small the entire time. And guess what? They come out zone, they go small, and it's all working. Now, 15-4, I think that's what it was. I mean, it was 18-5. It was 20-5. Those kinds of scores are like, man, this is how the team's killing the other team. But it's just kind of the visual part of it where you see a team down that much. And the whole time, you're like, are they going to make

a run? But I think the startling part of it was, hey, zone should throw you off for a couple possessions. But it doesn't mean it should throw you off for like six minutes to start the game. And that's what it felt like. And it was 36-26 after the first quarter. But something that happens with zones, you'll see teams kind of stop screening. It'll just happen. It shouldn't happen in the pros.

It certainly shouldn't happen with Chris Paul. But there's an intensity level from the Clippers. They're secondary guys, because we're going to get to the Paul George story here shortly, but Beverly's going to get after you. Morris Sr.,

who I haven't always loved because I think he'll shove guys throughout games and then disappear a little bit late. He didn't miss a shot. I mean, he was carrying them offensively in the first half.

He missed some shots in the second half, but that was kind of just balancing things out. Reggie Jackson's three-point shooting. Reggie Jackson turned it into one of the best ISO scores that we've seen. Do you realize that he had seven 20-point games in the regular season? He's had now, I think, nine or 10 in this playoffs

alone where he scored 20 or more. Batum played 30 minutes and he doesn't take any shots, which actually is a good thing. Cousins comes in against the small lineup, so Cousins is able to score. which actually is a good thing. Cousins comes in against the small lineup. So Cousins is able to score. He went seven and 12 and 11 minutes because Phoenix, I think one of the biggest problems of the only thing you could really be critical of is how could you have not found another big to kind of back up eight and in all these spots. So there's an intensity part of this that I thought was very clear that even when Phoenix finally took a lead in the second half, and I'll admit like all of you probably watching at home, you're like, all right, Phoenix is going to run away with this thing. That the Clippers responded because the Clippers were tougher last night.

And I think they've been the tougher team this season. And that's a huge problem for the Suns. Like looking at some of the numbers here for Phoenix. I mean, Jay Crowder, I can't even believe he made two shots in that game. He will have games in the playoffs if you've watched him throughout his career, where it's just not going to happen for him. And other games where you like his size defensively and he's going to hit you a couple shots. Bridges only five points last night. Booker actually was nine of 22 and 31

points and shot it well from three and made his free throws other than those two that he missed. But that actually surprised, I think that would surprise most people if you're sitting there being like, wait a minute, Booker had 31. I thought Chris Paul wasn't selfish enough, even though he couldn't hit a shot from three. When they finally figured out what they wanted to do against the Clippers being small, there were moments where Paul could just get to that free throw line jumper whenever he wanted. But if Paul were to split him, hit the first, miss the second, miss the first, you could see that he was a little reluctant to go ahead and take that shot. And if that's the best shot in that moment, then go ahead and do it. I don't know what he'd like to run in a post place for anybody anymore, but DeAndre

against a small lineup, only getting nine shots isn't enough because he's not Gobert. He felt like Gobert last night in game five, but he's not Gobert. He's not somebody who you can't, like, he can actually do a couple things with the basketball. I'm not saying you're going to run him off the block 20 straight possessions and post him up like Al Jefferson days here and going even further back. That's just not what the game is anymore. But to ignore it, to never make the Clippers pay for it, felt like a miss. But the toughness thing is something that kept coming back because the Clippers, let's face it, last year after blowing the 3-1 lead to Denver or watching those guys, even Kawhi,

who, look, got a pass, I think deservedly so, compared to Paul George in Game 7, and all these guys come up so short. You're like, how many foxhole guys do they have? Well, it feels like they have a lot, or it feels like they had a lot more than Phoenix did last night. But here's something I will always remind you. This is Russillo Show NBA Playoffs 101.

You can never fake desperation. You're either desperate or you're not. And you can never be as desperate up 3-1, down 3-1, right? And if the teams are even, and I think we've learned, even though the Phoenix part of it, they've had their challenges. I mean, granted, they got the first two, but Chris Paul has not been the same coming back with the COVID break. I don't know if it's because he's tired. I don't know if he's older.

You know, the same thing with the Clippers. They were tired, and then I guess they weren't tired in game five, which is why I think the tired stuff, when we look at the results and whoever loses, we're just like, oh, well, look at their schedule. Look how tired they are. So doesn't that mean if the Clippers have played that many games in a row and they were tired in game four, they should look tired again? Because they looked awesome in game five. They did.

They looked awesome offensively. And then Paul George, who in the first half, Jeff Van Gundy's kind of getting on, which I think he was doing accurately, 10 points in the first half, just sort of in a funk, lackadaisical with the basketball, waiting around, not matching the intensity of the other players around him. Then he goes for 20 points in the third quarter and basically carries the Clippers offensively because everybody else finally started missing shots. I mean, Paul George ended up with an unbelievable game here. This is one of the all-time playoff games in Paul George's career, and it was a huge one. But what I don't like is when people will look at playoff games in Paul George's career. And it was a huge one. But what I don't like is when people

will look at playoff series and I'm repeating myself because I feel like it's one of those things that I say that I'm like, how come more people don't understand this? Because I know that it's right. If you win game one and then blow game two, and then you win game three and you're up 2-1. I'm just talking about any series in general. And you're sitting there, you're like, yeah, we're up 2-0, but we should have been up 3-0 because, or we're up 2-1, we should have been up 3-0 because of what happened in game two. You're like, you can't assume that game three plays out the same one as 1-1 as it would have if the other team was down 2-0.

You can't. You can't. You can't do that. So if you're the Clippers saying, you know, this series actually should be 3-2 us because of Paul George's missed free throws, maybe. You know, I still think like there are examples where it could be true, where you could try to give the other side a game because of something how that played out. But all playoff games are connected. played out, but all playoff games are connected.

The results of the previous game impact the intensity and effort and either somebody stepping up to face the pressure because they're pissed off and they know they have no other choice or like other times with some of the Clippers that we even saw last year, you see a team that folds because of that pressure. Well, whatever the Clippers went through mentally, emotionally with that loss, because it's still pretty much the same group. This is a team that has responded in a big way. But as much as it scares me if I'm on the sunset, because again, I just don't think Chris Paul was that good.

I don't think he was consistent enough. We could talk minutes. We can talk being tired. I don't know, man. I mean, you're out there, right? You're out there. I just don't really get their offense sometimes. And that's the thing that I always't know, man. I mean, you're out there, right? You're out there. I just don't really get their offense sometimes. And that's the thing that I always thought like, hey, Chris Paul,

big spot. When you know you need a good possession, he's going to figure it out for you. I still believe that. I just don't think that that really happened last night. I just don't. I think they go in the game four, two, which was just abysmal offensively for both sides. There's just too many stretches where I'm like, do you guys know kind of what the plan is right now? Or is there enough trust right now? Does this group have enough trust? The thing is, is 48 hours, it can change dramatically because now that the Clippers get one and look, they're still going to have to be desperate because they're facing elimination here. Ty Lue has this insane record now, the best record ever facing elimination for 10 games or more. He's got the best record in NBA history. And again, a few weeks ago,

people were wondering if he just was as bad as everybody else and they're down at Dallas 2-0. But if you're on the Sun side of this thing, you have to remind yourself of, okay, well, look, as bad as it looked, Clippers looked tougher.

There's no way the Suns went into that game feeling as desperate as the Clippers did. So now maybe the Clippers are awake. Maybe the Clippers even game six, but it's just a different level when you're actually facing elimination as opposed to being up 3-1. And that's why the Suns are really good, but still a work in progress here. The final part of this that I want to get to is the Paul George deal, the flowers. I'm out on this flowers terminology thing altogether. You probably could guess that

I wasn't super into it anyway. I don't really get it. I think once SportsCenter tweets out something like, hey, give, you know, make sure you give Madison Bumgarner all the flowers. Like, that's when I'm like, okay, maybe we should stop saying it now. Here's an exercise. All right, because Boogie Cousins went off. Rachel Nichols went off last night on Twitter about it, where it was kind of like, how come all of everybody's, you know, all this hate,

like Paul George just wasn't that good in the first half, and then he was awesome. So why does this happen? Is it because a bunch of people just decided to be like, hey, I'm for no reason going to just start picking on Paul George all of a sudden.

Like, of course, nobody would ever do that. But that's the way we act about it. So here's the exercise. Think about Ben Simmons right now. All right? What if in a year, Ben Simmons, either with Philadelphia or with a new team,

we don't know, has a really great playoff game, 35-10-10, makes enough free throws, maybe has a big transition dunk, team wins by like four or six points, because I still can't picture Ben Simmons taking a step-back jumper to win a playoff game.

All right, so you're with me? It's 2022. We're in the first or second round of the playoffs. And whatever happens, Ben Simmons has a huge game. And then Ben Simmons' teammate takes the podium. He's like, man, I can't understand all this hate for Ben Simmons. And then somebody in the media is like, hey, got real quiet about the Ben

Simmons hate out there. Give Ben Simmons his flowers. That would seem kind of weird right now, wouldn't it? Not that it happened. Not that the good game happened. Because whenever we're critical of the top players, that's the deal that they signed up for. If you're going to be considered a superstar

when you don't bring it superstar levels for multiple playoff games, then you're going to get criticized. I think the most inaccurate thing now that happens with superstars is the, why were people criticizing this star as if there was no evidence

to ever criticize that guy? And that's why I bring up the Ben Simmons example as a reason here. Because imagine a year from now, somebody being like, you know, people are just, I don't understand

where all this Ben Simmons hate comes from, which is exactly what DeMarcus cousins was doing. And you know what? Who cares? It's cousins. It's his teammate. That's fine. But there's this very cyclical pattern of star is deemed star star has

disappointing playoff series games. People question star level of deemed star. Star then later on has great games, reminds us why he was deemed star in first place, yet some others wonder why anyone ever questioned star status in the first place. And it just goes in one big fucking circle and we all act like it's interesting. big fucking circle, and we all act like it's interesting. Amari Stoudemire joins us, six-time All-Star, Rookie of the Year,

and part of the Nets player development staff. Do you still not like being called coach, Amari? It's just one of those things, man. I went from playing last year to winning a championship, winning MVP, and then going to the coaches' side. I felt like I was somewhat disconnected from being a player, so I was free with the title coach.

Your last year in the NBA was, I mean, it feels like it was yesterday, it was five years ago. I'm sure it's the same deal for you, but you go over to Israel, you play with Maccabi, and they offered you another year. You're incredibly successful. So how tough was that decision to come back? How much did Nash just keep harassing the hell out of you to come work for you in

Brooklyn? Yeah, it wasn't a hard decision for me because I was basically overseas for four years and that was quite a long time being away from like family and friends. I wanted to come back stateside. I wasn't sure what I was going to do from there. But when the job opportunity came along, I took advantage. So what's that been like for you, being on the Nets staff? For me, so far, it's been a learning curve.

I mean, I've just been sitting back learning from all these great coaches, front office guys, and really trying to figure out how everything works, how to properly get the organized structure, way of teaching basketball and running an organization. Okay, so I was reading, do they still use you in the drills then? structured way of teaching basketball and running an organization. Okay. So I was reading, do they still use you in the drills then? I mean, you're just playing last year. So when you're out there, are you still a body that they'll use to try to get some stuff in?

Yeah, I was in a few of the runs. One of the favorite group guys and the guys we bring in and some guys that want to keep themselves in shape. We have some open runs. And I was for sure involved in those. And everyone can tell that I wasn't too far moved from playing. Did you think about it? Did you want to come back this year? I did think about it. I thought about it a lot. Actually, I kept myself in shape most of the season. I'm still very well in shape now, but I for sure thought about it and I still think about it. All right. So is this even a possibility that you'd be playing for the Nets? No, no, no. I mean, as far as overseas, you know, opportunities for me for sure.

OK. You know, NBA, I think is too far removed, but maybe I'm not sure. I mean, I'm sure not even pondering those thoughts at the moment. But, you know, I did think about playing back overseas and seeing how that would feel. But again, that's that's in a low scale of like the totem pole, my thoughts. I'm just wondering maybe if you'd watch the Blake Griffin Detroit stuff and you were like, hmm, maybe. But Blake took too much heat for all that because he came out and he was unbelievable for you guys. So what was the experience of being with this team

and knowing that you're Kevin Durant's foot being from behind still playing in the Eastern Conference Finals? Yeah, you know, it was a very impactful year for me because, first of all, we got involved in the season with COVID, which was already some of the issues, so we didn't have a lot of fans to start the year out. Then we acquired James within the year, which is a major move for organizations. So for me to see that and see how that works was amazing.

Watching Steve and his staff, what he made now the Boston Celtics head coach, and then you have Jack Vaughn and Mike D'Antoni on the staff. Me learning with them was great for me. And then everything, you know, manifests from there. You know, the COVID restrictions got lifted. Fans are now, you know, at the arenas, you know, and playoffs starts, and then we have a heck of a run. But we did deal with some injuries in and out.

We had a few, somewhat of a rollercoaster ride for a stretch, but it was a fun year for me. How different are the three stars between Kyrie, Kevin, and Harden? I mean, from a basketball standpoint, they're all the same. These guys want to be the best at their craft. They are reaching for higher goals as a player. They want to achieve expectations. They're focused on the game of basketball.

These guys are high-level players. As far as the personalities, though, because I think, look, whenever you're that special at your skill, I think a lot of the things are the same. But personality-wise, it does seem like look we know that the KD Kyrie connection was there which kind of started all of this but from a personality standpoint like how do you interact with them kind of in your development role knowing you're not exactly the head coach and having to deal with as much as maybe the top guys do yeah I mean I mean

interacting with players is easy for me because I am a player basically, right? So I played against a lot of these guys. I played against Kev, Kai, and James. And all players have character, you know? And I think that is what makes a beautiful team and a fun team to be around when everyone has their own personal character. Your connection to Nash, do you guys ever sit around and let yourselves kind of talk about

those old Suns days? Like, how do you reminisce about those teams that all of us enjoyed so much? Yeah, there's been times in the locker room with Nash and I and also Coach D'Antoni, we sit down and just talk about, like, what was I like as a player during these playoffs? You know, from a coaching standpoint, you sit back and look at it from a different lens. That's what I was doing this year. I was thinking, I wonder what type of guy was when the coaching staff was looking at me on the basketball court. I would ask those questions to Coach D'Antoni.

It would be fun to get a lot of clarity on certain activities that took place in the playoffs and how I was playing and so forth. What was his answer? What did he say about you now that you have this perspective? He was saying how he said I was a heck of a player. Like, he was watching a playoff series, I think, against Dallas maybe. It was like, man, you were, you know, he was saying how good of a player I was. And that was good to hear from, like, you know, my coach who coached me throughout those years. And so I put a lot into the game of basketball.

I put a lot into persevering through injury. I put a lot into getting better as a player and improvement on each aspect of my game. It led to a solid career. Is the 07, does it ever come up? Does it ever come up, the series against San Antonio where you guys are giving your perspective when it's just you,

D'Antoni, and Nash? We didn't talk about game seven. I'm sorry. Game six. Game six. Right. And then, well,

I say everything that five, maybe you some of the one when Nash got hit with the elbow. Yeah. Course board. Yeah.

I think that was game five. I think of that series. And yeah, we haven't talked about that. But I'm sure we all talked about it so much then to where we got it all out. Like when it happened and then when the suspensions came out, we talked about that so much for how we felt like it was so unfair to to where we got all all our concerns and thoughts out there then is there a version of that story that we've never heard publicly that

you guys have talked about like when you found out about the suspensions after what happened with nash and you know that was kind of the first time and i remember stern coming on espn radio back when i was working there and stern went on with dan patrick was like the reason i'm coming on to talk about this is because you're an opinion shaper and you're wrong and you're wrong. Like, was there anything that you guys have talked about since then or happened in the moment that you've never talked about?

No. I mean, the only thing that I haven't talked about much is that I actually, cause I found out I was home when I got the call. Cause after the game, we flew back to Phoenix and we were speaking were speaking about well we're going to find out what the nb is going to do whatever and we're all thinking that's going to be a warning because no one knew about this rule coach was staff either no one knew um and so we were just getting a

warning issued so we're home like normal the next morning we got a call saying uh we were suspended myself boris and i think someone else suspended suspended. And we were like, what? How is that even possible? So we was very upset with that. And then once we, the day of the game, I actually took the family over to my restaurant. I had a restaurant downtown, Stoudemire's downtown, which was directly across the street from the arena.

And so I took the family there and we watched the game and ate some dinner there. We almost put that game out, game six. After, you know, running with a guy like Steve Nash, does it take, you could say it's easy, right? Hey, it's Steve Nash. He's going to take care. He's going to set you up. You know, I think you were kind of one of the original perimeter big original perimeter big men. You really were somebody, if you were playing today in your

20s, you'd be the perfect center for today's game. I don't know. Some guys still have a hard time being like, look, I don't really want to be a center. I'm a forward. But what was that first light bulb above your head moment of having somebody like Nash with you, where you're like, light bulb above your head moment of having somebody like Nash with you, you realize, okay, now I completely understand what I'm supposed to be doing and how much better a fit this is, having a guy like Nash, who's a very selfless point guard. Yeah. You know what?

To be honest with you, I was ready to dominate the NBA my rookie year. I was just so focused on being the best that I could be and really making a name for myself and really trying to dominate the NBA. And so the front office felt as if they needed any changes. So I went into it, well, you know, I didn't really know at the time what was going on. I was only 18, 19 years old.

But when the trades were made with, you know 19 years old. When the trades were made, the following year, the trades were made. We traded Penny, Stephon, maybe six or seven guys. We played my second year with maybe eight guys. Sean Marion,

Leandro Barbosa, Joe Johnson. We had aboutosa, Joe Johnson. We had about eight, nine guys who played, you know, the second half of that year with, and we went into the Austin and thinking like, we got to bring in,

you know, someone that can help us as a team. And when they mentioned Steve Nash, Kobe Bryant, and with someone else, I think out there, maybe Jason Kidd out there, I'm not sure. That is when we started to think about what player would fit our team and what would be the best fit for us.

And once we brought in Nash, we flew to Dallas. And once everything happened and we brought in Nash, I mean, the first time we played five-on-five pickup runs, the chemistry was there. That's the first, very, very first time we played five-on-five pickup runs, the chemistry was there. At the first, very, very first time we ever stepped on the court together, there's like a no-look pass, and the next thing you know, the rim is almost coming

down. It's like, the combination was unbelievable from the first day we linked up. What's the best part of it? What's the best part of, like, when you were describing Nash and you first got him to other players in the league, you go, okay, this is the deal with him. The best, the best part of it was Nash was a,

a true point guard. You know, you look at it now with Chris Paul and Aiden, DeAndre Aiden, you know, you see how much, you see how better the team is playing when you have a true point guard. And bigs obviously are, are the guys who receive the ball from the guards. So obviously they benefit as well. But you see how how much a team improves when you have a true point guard.

And I think that was somewhat underappreciated back then because you had a lot of scoring point guards that was an NBA at that time. And so when Nash stepped foot on the court with us as a true point guard with all this talent, we just took it from there. Okay. Before we let you go, I know this experience with the Nets, I think the entire part of it has been about giving you access to everything, right? To making sure. So what do you like the most?

Do you like the development part of it? I know Danny Avia was a guy that was your teammate overseas. Now as a rookie was saying, look, players just love Amari. They seem to just, they gravitate towards you. But then there's also the front office part of it. And I know you have other things going on because I do want to mention the wine here at the end as we close. But like, what do you think you want to do if you've even made that decision? Because we've still even touched on the playing part of it as well.

Yeah, you know what? I mean, being that i'm very fresh out of playing and it's my first year of not playing like professional basketball uh it's still decision making time for me right still for me to learn exactly what's happening and this year was so much of a learning curve to where um you know i think i think if if everything pans out well uh with the nets and then next season I'm able to somewhat, you know, take on more of a development side. I really want to get my hands on the players and really get that game to the next level. So we'll see what happens next season.

What's going on with the wine portion of the Amari Stoudemire empire? Well, you know, Stoudemire Wines is doing amazing, bro. Once we open up in California and start, you know, Stoudemire Wines is doing amazing, bro. Once we opened up in California and started harvesting wine in California, the last bottle, Origin, of the Stoudemire Wine brand was sold out in a major back order. The Rosé sold out in a major back order. And then we have a white wine coming out as well. But everything is doing amazing. Everyone's excited about it, and we're definitely doing numbers. Well, congrats on that, man. And I always wanted to thank you for the standing tall and talented Nikes that you guys sent us up a long time ago. You sent a pair to Van Pelt and I after we interviewed you.

I think it was like back in the Knicks days, so it was a while ago. But those were tight, so we appreciated those. Thanks, man. No, you know, back in the Knicks days. So it was a while ago, but those, those were tight. So we appreciated those. Thanks. No problem. Anytime. Thanks Amari. Later guys.

Peace. I hope to be happy, but more healthy. Collasso! Collasso! Collasso! 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. Still looking for an international sponsor for this, but very excited to bring it back. The home of F1's fastest growing podcast, which is my favorite trick that ESPN shows just do all the time. There's one producer in particular.

Every show he ever worked on was the fastest growing digital freelance or whatever. It's this little trick they play in programming but we have kevin clark again with this so rudy maybe a little france swiss action on the end who knows what's gonna happen now but another win for max for stopping uh stirria this this was a an intense race it was a lot of fun, except it just looks like it's Max's year right now, Kevin. That's how it feels at this early stage. Totally agree. And there's a lot going on here. But the first thing I want to say in the big picture standpoint is that if you're just getting into F1 now, every week you're seeing why this sport is so cool.

So last week we had the strategy stuff. And now we're seeing so Max wins this week and now we're getting into the rules of the sport and regulations and kind of how that affects things. So Max wins on the weekend. And then afterwards, Toto Wolf, the Mercedes team principal says, well, we're really kind of, we're stopping development on this car. Maybe we're looking towards 2022. And that shines a light on another huge part of the story, which is the rule changes are the narrative. They are a huge part of the narrative. Every five or six years, the rules of how to build a car basically change. And 2022 is one of those years. I mean, imagine in the NBA, if they change the hand-checking rules every few years, or if next year the NBA was just like,

we're just not going to do charging next year. Like front offices would have to scramble and figure out what the sport looks like. And so 2022, there's going to be huge regulation changes. So a lot of cars are looking towards next year already. And Mercedes seems to be one of those teams. So they're not waving the white flag, but they are not going to upgrade their car as they normally would. Red Bull is going to go all in on fixing their car this year. And I just think we're going to see a lot of the way that the rules work their way into the

narrative. One of the things, Adrian Newey wrote this book a couple of years ago, he's Red Bull's car designer. And he said, when you get the new rules, you look at what they say, but more importantly, you look at what they don't say. And you just figure out what's not, what's banned and what's not. And then you bend the rules, you interpret the rules to your will.

Figuring out what the rules are and adapting to it is the biggest thing in the sport. And every team is doing that right now. And that's why I think this title challenge and the switch over from 2021 to 2022

is so important. Here's what I think is interesting about all the Mercedes stuff. And you might've been the first in the world to even mention this, but like Mercedes may, the silver arrow run may be over. And then coming off of this race, then it's like, I look, here we go. Nobody's, nobody's going to absolutely like max is unbelievable. Like even in the race, which the radio part is the best. Cause Lewis Hamilton's asking total wolf, like,

what do I do? What do I do? And they're like, just keep pushing. It's like, well, how many seconds, like,

where am I at? And they're just kind of like, dude, it's over. Like, you're not going to catch him. And then there's a battle between Valerie Botas, who's just mad at the world more mad than he's ever been.

And Sergio Perez, which is actually a really interesting battle between Mercedes and Red Bull. So there's all of this momentum to the Mercedes run being over. We're talking about this after a weekend where they got second and third place in two podiums. I understand Mercedes and who they have been, but it feels a little, I don't know. I'm not going to dip my toe into a world that I don't quite understand yet, but is it really that dire for Mercedes or is it just the Mercedes standard to be sitting there asking if they're done when they play second and third? I'll go back to what I said last week. It's the Alabama analogy. When Alabama goes to the sugar bowl, none of their fans want to go and they're disappointed and they lost two games and, and the sky is falling.

That's just the standard there. I mean, Ferrari is a Texas or USC type where they're just happy to win 10 games now, even though they used to be the most dominant force in the world. I think part of this is shaded by total Wolf. Who's again, the team principal at Mercedes, he came out after the race and said for the first time in eight years, we're just lacking the pace. Um, and, and kind of, he's taking on an in, and listen he plays a ton of head games this could be just to throw red bull off the scent but he is taking on more of a defeated tone than than you would think after a second and third place finish and i think just you know from a a big picture standpoint it's a role reversal um lew Lewis is talking how Max used to talk in the

last two years where he say, yep, well, we just got beat by the better car. They were quicker, quicker in the straights, quicker on the slow corners, all that stuff. And you're really, I mean, you could switch the quotes from this year to last year or two years ago. And Mercedes is playing the Red Bull role now and vice versa. Actually a great weekend for Ferrari when it looked like it was going to be a disaster there earlier on so fifth and sixth obviously in the points um for uh carlos signs and leclerc so i don't you know i don't know ferrari is there a course like i know it sounds ridiculous but it's kind of like golf where you could see a certain guy and be like you know what he's not the, but this course sets up really well for him.

This is his kind of swing. Does the same thing happen with courses here? Really? I mean, if you're talking about trying to catch Red Bull, I can't imagine it's like, no, Ferrari's chassis setup is awesome for Japan.

So that means, that means Ferrari's it's like, that's, it's not that ridiculous, right? No. So there are courses that favor certain cars, but that really is only with regards to winning

the race. That's really only with the top two right now, because historically, straight line speed has always been Mercedes and fast corners has always been Mercedes. And then the more sort of slow corner aerodynamic driven tracks are Red Bull because the chassis is so good. Ferrari, they have to put all of their eggs in the basket of 2022 when these rule changes take over. And there are so many things to go into that. You can't be wrong when you're figuring out your car when there's regulation changes,

because otherwise you're screwed for seven, six years. I mean, you are totally screwed. You will miss out on an entire development. And so there's some buzz that Ferrari's got some things up their sleeve for next year. And so I don't think there's, they are working on that kind of fourth, fifth, sixth best car on the grid this year. I don't see a path forward for them. They're building for the future as our, as our most teams, I think most teams at this point, except Red Bull are, are going all in on 2022 helmet Marco, who was actually above Christian Horner on the Red Bull are going all in on 2022. Helmut Marko, who was actually above Christian Horner on the Red Bull staff, said that in 2008, BMW actually had the same exact thing where they had the chance to go all in on a season. And instead, they built for the future. They lost the title because of it.

They're not going to do that. Red Bull might be the only team still upgrading their car later in the season. They're going all in for this year. They might be sacrificing a little bit of the future. But teams like Ferrari, Mercedes, Alpine, stuff like that, McLaren, they're looking at 2022 right now. Okay, real quick. You are not prepared for this, but we're doing it. It's called Summer House.

Summer House Draft. We're each going to draft three Summer House roommates that are F1 drivers. You have the first pick. Put together the best Summer house with f1 guys uh daniel rick number one a number one i mean that's just it's like when that the the remember you ever heard the stories about how fantasy hockey drafts used to have to divvy up wayne gretzky's goals and assists he couldn't be one person because i remember those days no daniel ricardo is is number one on this list and i don't know if there's a number two yeah it feels that way i mean that's why i

gave you the number one pick because i was wondering if i could get him back because i know you're a stickler for performance because at this point ricardo's been disappointing really bad really bad and the excuses have run out the whole thing was that oh he'd never he'd never run this power unit before he's doing it mclaren he had a renault power unit for the entire time everybody else on the grid who's on a new team has settled in he hasn't it's not panic time but we're we're worried right now especially when you consider lando norris his teammate is saying it's been the better driver relatively yes lando's been the better driver i mean that's that was not even debatable so we're not going to sound like a bunch of noobs on this F1 portion of the show.

We already know that part. Okay. By the way, shout out to Pierre Gasly, who I'm not going to pick, I don't think, who's just been competing out there a little bit. I feel like there's more guys

I don't want to take. I think I might take Verstappen just because I'd want to see if he was a robot. I know, like, here's the deal. If Max lives with you, whatever he wants to do is what he's going to do. He's going to get takeout food for himself, but he's not going to do it maliciously. It's just that he's single-minded.

He's got the blinders on. He's looking straight ahead. Um, so I think Rastappan, we're just going to, I want to live with a world champ and I want to be in the house this summer when he wins it. Cause I think that's going to be good. Cause by the time he wins his fourth or fifth one, he's going to be, so that's not usually my speed. Cause I think he may be detached from reality because he's so good and so like stern about everything, but I'm going to give it a shot. I don't love my first pick, but I also don't like a lot of my other options. Okay. So I actually have some Intel on this. Uh, my wife's friend is in the fashion world, uh, sitting at a dinner a couple of years

ago next to this guy. She doesn't know who he is. They have an hour long dinner. It's a group dinner. A guy just super nice. Ask the woman about herself. Doesn't really, you know, a little bit of travel talk, whatever. At the very end, uh, the guy leaves and somebody comes up and says, uh, how do you know what, what, why next to lewis hamilton the whole time yeah and when you are that guy when you're one of the most famous people in the world this woman did not know who lewis hamilton was um she she got his name first name and all that stuff but it wasn't you know when you're that guy that seems like you're pretty chill i mean i i don't know if you or i were as accomplished as Lewis Hamilton, would we not drop it in in minute 35 of that conversation? Well, you know, I travel to Monaco for work a lot, that kind of stuff.

Yeah, I would definitely get to the fact that I was a multi-world champion F1 before the dinner was over. It would be mentioned at some point. Lewis is my number two. He seems like an incredibly nice person he also probably you play that game who can you get on the phone speed dial stuff uh lewis a number one on the grid in that regard okay um fair i've heard the same exact thing about hamilton i'm friends with someone that works on the pr staff and uh this person was like you have no idea he's the best he's so nice he's so unassuming it's not an act she's worked

with other people where it's a total act okay I'm gonna mix it up here I'm gonna go Mick Schumacher just because I think the guys from Haas would be like whatever we're not we're not getting points this weekend what are you guys like go out on Thursday?

Yeah. By the way, good weekend for Haas? 16th and 18th? On the Haas curve, sure. On the Haas curve, yeah. Yep, yep. I actually don't like making fun of Haas because I feel bad. I feel bad for the entire operation after three seasons of just watching it never work out.

The third pick is, for me, there's a couple of options here. George Russell seems like a good guy. Kimi Raikkonen. I think George Russell's a big-time complainer. He was off my board. Dude, working the refs is one of the top things you need in this sport. It's so political. He complains the entire all george

russell radio clips go google him i did it he's just as mad and then he's what he's british too right so then it becomes like the british complaining i don't want to live with a guy like that uh kimmy is is is the right kind of asshole. Um, he'd be good for, you don't want Fernando Alonso in the house at all. Look into it. Um, I like Vettel. You like that?

See Vettel. He's a dork. Yeah. Okay. But Vettel's got like a funny dork angle there too, where he's been around forever. He's a world champ to watch him be annoyed. And the exit of Ferrari,

I liked some things. I picked up some things from him, from his annoyance that I thought he'd be kind of funny because he's older and he's over it. Sometimes you need that guy who you're fired up. That's in the mix, but also a little over it to keep you in check. Also Leclerc is from Monaco. So you can give me some tips. Yeah. We're still, I feel like that was a big deal, but I'm going just from what I've seen of his leisure time. Cause a lot of these guys during lockdown were like huge gamers. They were doing like the iRacing stuff.

That's not really my scene. Carlos signs junior. However, he's sitting around playing some sort of, I, it was not racquetball. It looked like racquetball. And then Juliette Lippman and I talked about it and they were like, no, dude, it's not, it's this European game. It's not racquetball. How could you be so stupid?

Um, and golf, lots of golf. So Carlos signs juniors living his best life. He's this European game. It's not racquetball. How could you be so stupid? Um, and golf, lots of golf. So Carlos signs, Jr. Is living his best life. He's my number three. Great, great leisure, leisure, dude. Carlos signs, man. You're just better at this than I am because you're right. Looking back to the F1 Netflix show, what they did, there was always shrimp and lobster

from like seafood towers at some outdoor landscape over, over looking the ocean. And then it was just all recreational activities the family seems really tight they all have fancy watches on um signs should have been a second rounder he should not have dropped to the third um all right i'm gonna pick valerie botas third because if there's ever a fight at the house, I want him there. Just keep him off social media. Right. Because he's so fucking mad.

And he's been so mad for so many years. If we have a late night and somebody does something and falls and tears the staircase railing out, and then he thinks he's in the right, like one of those moves, or it's like, whatever, why are you guys mad? I ripped out your staircase. Valerie Botas will take care of all of it i fear for the next person if there's ever an altercation with valerie botas because i just think he's going to go bananas so i'm not even saying i want to hang out with him all that much the steaming naked thing look it's finish i've got a finnish friend so i understand the culture perhaps more than some of our listeners do but i there's a lot that I wouldn't want to live with,

but I know if it goes down, I want him on my side. Not because I think he cares about me, but because he's so mad. And there's just some stuff built up in there. I would say with Botas, I've been thinking about this lately because he is one of these guys who's become so underrated. There's actually a case to be made for Botas to be an okay driver the problem is there's no seats available so he's gonna lose his mercedes seat next year almost certainly and then he's

gonna have to go to williams where he's gonna be terrible and so it's gonna become a self-fulfilling prophecy that he's gonna be bad like he's probably better than williams but because he'll go to williams people are gonna be like oh he always bad, even though he was already there previously and was fine. F1's a tough game, man. Who's Mercedes going to go after, by the way? So everybody, so like six months ago, the convention, so everybody thought it was going to be George Russell.

What are the bloggers saying? Then there was a zag, there was a zag, and it was, oh, they actually like Ocon more than Russell. And now Esteban Ocon is not particularly good in the Alpine. And people think it's Russell again. I don't know. I had heard at some point on one of the reports that basically like Hamilton, he negotiates year to year now.

And he's not going to retire next year. Hamilton is going to have a say in who his partner is. And so I don't know how that goes. Remember, Russell was really good. He's really quick. He's one of these guys. Russell's one of these guys.

And he was PA at one point before we had a hydraulic failure on Sunday. But I'm not smart enough to watch these guys like some of the other racing experts. And they're like, oh, this guy's really quick. And it's like, really? Because he's running in 19th place. He's running in 19th. I don't really get it. But the guys who know racing understand how good George Russell is. And so I don't know if he comes in alongside Hamilton or they wait until Hamilton's gone. He really wants that Mercedes seat. It's a little bit of

desperation there on his part, but it might end up working just because I think Esteban Ocon is not fulfilling his duties to where it would be a rational choice for him to get that second seat. Let's bring in Cerruti for the final portion of our Going Abroad here on the Rosillo podcast. Incredible Euro Cup stuff yesterday, whether it was Croatia making a run at Spain. I mean, look, of all these matches, we're 5-3. But here's the thing.

It is awesome. It's a spectacle. The broadcast, every part of it. I made fun of soccer, too, for years. I have not. I don't think now for a while because I just appreciate it, even if it's not going to take up most of my day. But then you have

French. They're up 3-1. Late. Swiss get it even. Then the save of saves against the best player on the French side Mbappe so um where are we with everything we saw yesterday yeah I mean it was probably the most wild day of soccer I've ever watched in my entire life soccer football whatever you want to call it but yeah excuse me I know we have this is international so I guess I can't call it soccer here even though I hate the people that are like snobby about that like excuse me it's

football it's like i don't know we're in america it's not the big it's not that big of a deal uh i would say that's it's just a massive choke job by france and like kevin you can weigh on this too but there's absolutely zero chance or zero like reason they should lose that game switzerland's not that good they're okay france is like the golden state warriors of the world they're unbelievable they're so much more talented than everybody else and i understand it's a one game scenario but i i like to use this analogy a lot ryan you'll appreciate this remember like oh seven it was the oh seven playoffs the mavs lost the warriors in the first round eight one seed and the mavs were just a better team and but they just tinkered with things like they tried to do stuff that they weren't used

to doing um they changed their lineups. They went smaller. That's what France did yesterday. France is a 4-2-3-1 team. And they ended up playing three at the back. They played with wingbacks. They totally played a system that they don't play before because they're trying to match up with Switzerland's 3-4-3 as well.

And it totally bit them in the ass. And I'm not saying it's the reason that they lost, but I think it played a factor in it. And the idea that France isn't even going to be in the quarterfinals, let alone the semifinals or the final, is absolutely insane. I would say, Steve, it's a great point, and I completely subscribe to it.

I would say, you know, there was a study done, I think, like 15 years ago, about how certain teams can be literally too talented to win. Like, you actually have too many talented guys. There are not enough role players. There's not enough identity. You don't know your best 11.

And this can happen in all sports. And I think when you're a team like France, you have to have your identity and stick with it and know your best 11 and not tinker. And I think that there's an impulse, obviously, um, when you have, I mean, there's probably, what would you say, Steve, 25 guys who could realistically be top level players for France. And that's just, and that's true of most countries. Germany is like that. England is like that. Portugal is like that.

France has the top, top-end talent. But it's really hard to get all of those guys firing on all cylinders and know your best 11 in a national tournament like this. So I agree, Steve. It's a total choke job. They just got away from what made them great, not good. I would add this about soccer uh football people can want coaches fired in college football pro football nobody wants coaches fired quicker than soccer fans it's it's ridiculous the dutch coach is already out

okay it's a joke trash though i mean the french side it's like as the guys are walking out like he's done you know i don't pay a ton of attention to all of it, but I swear anytime it's ever brought up, every time the United States falls short of something, you're like, yeah, wrong guy put in the wrong system. And then you're just like,

wait a minute. What? Like all these guys suck that bad. Lester city's coach, Claudia Ranieri. He wins the premier league and literally the most ridiculous and probable win maybe in the history of sports, and he got fired halfway through the next year.

It's ridiculous. You know, Jose Mourinho won the Premier League with Chelsea halfway through the next year, he gets fired. I mean, it's wild. So that guy's like the Gus Malzahn of the Premier League? Yeah, that's actually a pretty good analogy.

Although Ranieri, I like Ranieri got to give renegade more credit than that come on yeah that was more absurd what they did than what auburn did um okay you know what i think do we cover it all i think we did i'm interested though really quickly really quickly no i just want to ask because now you know i asked kev last week if the italians were back i actually am going to have them probably losing to belgium but that France is out, Kev, like, is it, are we looking at, what, a Belgium-Germany final? I mean, we're taping this

right before England-Germany play. I assume Germany wins. Yeah. What do you think? I'm going to stay away from England and Germany because you never know. I'm seeing a lot of,

England looks kind of back. Like, the country is kind of back. Everybody's in the streets. They're partying. So I don't know what that is. I think Belgium's the most talented team left in the tournament. I think they're going to win the tournament. Brazil what what that is i think belgium is the most talented uh team left in the tournament i think they're going to win win the tournament this is a big lukaku guy

now so well i just remember complaining about him a lot i did oh i'm also an everton fan and he left everton but he there lukaku came up short a ton uh for years whether it was at everton whether it was with united and he's had an unbelievable, basically, year. Last year, he won the Serie A title with Inter. Probably going to be the favorite to win this tournament. Probably going to be the favorite to win the Golden Boot. So I can't listen. If we're doing the take stock game here, I lost on that one, Ryan.

So I'm sorry. Okay, but what do we know about... I can never pronounce his name, and he's my favorite player to watch. It's Kevin De Bruyne. Kevin De Bruyne. Kevin De Bruyne. Yeah. He's out. Yeah, he's out.

He broke his face before the tournament in the Champions League final. And so he'd always been kind of banged up this entire time. And now he's out for the next game. So that makes it harder. Yeah, I love watching him play. I don't even know what the hell I'm watching. And when he was right, I'd be like, wait a minute. That guy seems to be like way better at stuff that other people aren't

as good at i mean you guys can have your strikers i get it but uh you know big bill yeah the brine is just at a different level but he's hurt and he's always hurt all the time apparently because i started doing a little research on it for today's pod and then i forgot how to pronounce his name again so you know what we're gonna grow. We're growing this space and it is the fastest growing international podcast. My favorite thing, Ryan, is that last week, so I have a ton of notes on F1 and then soccer as well. And I didn't know how much to prepare for soccer because last week I'd prepared a ton for the Euros

because you'd asked me about that beforehand. And then the only question you asked me was, what's the deal with the country of Wales? Yeah, I'll tell you. i was so thrown off by that too because wales was i mean they're out like i love gareth bale but it was just such a random question because there were so many other things to talk about and ryan just starts with yo what's up with wales i will tell you right now do not prep a lot for this segment in the future all right so just just so everybody's on the same page here this is not going to be a big you're not going to have to worry about stats for this one we we all are prep guys in our own way i'm a big prep guy but good other stuff uh that i'm going to work on but this is not going

this is not going to take up more of my week this this segment but i like what we've done so far two weeks in who knows because we didn't even plan on doing this one and i was like hey do you want to just jump on for 10 minutes to do some more f1 because then somebody called to pitch me on an f1 specific podcast i was like yeah i don't know like i don't i don't know that i have that kind of time because i still don't really know what i'm doing but i would admit to you that the tv show made it funny to kind of pretend I was a fan. And then there was a few races where I was like, am I having fun? This past race was fun. This past race was a lot of fun for just anybody, even if you didn't understand it.

And obviously, at a more advanced stage like us, there's more stuff that we're going to pick up on. You also got into the video game as well. I did. I did. I took a 50 grid penalty the other day for ordering extra parts 50 grid 50 i want to tell a quick story i would take a quick story so you're and i's friendship is something i cherish and and and my wife uh really enjoys our collaborations two months ago you call me and i'm in the car and i put you

on speakerphone because i'm driving and you just explode into the conversation you're just like i was just p5 in monaco in the rain and we just get so granular about the f1 video game and never put any context in it and i hang up and i'm totally i'm like this was a great conversation and my wife was just like what explain anything that just happened on the phone there. And I was like, I'm sorry. It would take me an hour to explain the context of us talking about driving in Monaco in the rain on a video game. So I gave all my video games away.

I gave away the system years ago because I was going to be a writer. And I just was like, if I have the temptation of, hey, should I bang out a scene here? I got a couple of nice lines of dialogue I'd like to fit. There's a little rewrite there. And I didn't realize how much better I was getting until I would say the last year when I, every time I was done, I was like, you're not done. You know, where in the beginning, when I was done, I was like, Holy shit, I'm done. I did it. Well, how many of these, let me Google this again. 60 pages for pilot our drama done. Here are my, you know, so I didn't want video games around but what i realized i missed is

i missed the only real escape other than working out where i could say for like 40 minutes i'm just going to go ahead and do this and so i grabbed the f1 game because of the show yeah and i had a race in monaco where i had um a grid penalty again. And it was full-blown rain. So we're on the wets to begin with. It's tough to pass in the best conditions. And the video game wanted me to pay some sort of price for rain. So I couldn't see anything. I even filmed some of it and sent it to Kevin.

And it was the most stressful race. And I don't even think I picked up that many spots. And the entire thing was about not damaging the car. And I was actually happy at like P5 because I couldn't see. It was the dumbest video game I've ever played because the rain was so intense on the screen. All I could hope for was to see like a little bit of a red light to not ram into the back of the, of the car in front of me.

So, okay, this went in an awesome direction. So watch the, the watch companies are just flying in right now. Yeah. All over Switzerland, just shuffling papers.

You can check out Kevin Clark's work. Where Kevin ring around a fell show do an afc win total over unders we'll do nfc next week and then we'll we'll probably do ranking the coaches and gms in the ensuing weeks yeah i like that so rudy you're gonna be around with me so we don't have to worry look out for the danes by the way sneaky final pick, alright. I will look out for the Danes. You want details? Fine. I drive a Ferrari, 355 cabriolet. What's up?

I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you could possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So, now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. Okay, we got two. They're a little longer, but I like them. So we're going to go ahead and do with it. All right, six foot, 170. Recent college grad, live outside of DC with one one roommate my roommate and i met two girls

at the pool in our complex a few uh weeks ago they are phd students we had a great time and asked them to go to a local bar later that night for simplicity i was talking to girl a and roommate was talking to girl b so our emailer girl a got it at the bar we played pool and ping pong with him girl a was on my team side note i set the high score on papa shop as well thank you for the side note uh i like a good side note it felt like girl a and i were hitting it off and she might be interested in me touching me following me around laughing at everything i said etc when i offered to buy her a drink later in the night she weirdly hesitated but accepted. They also came to hang in our apartment for a while after the bar.

Roommate agreed at the time that girl A was probably into me. I didn't follow up with girl A immediately so I could play it cool since she's basically a neighbor and I recently got out of a long-term relationship. I ran into them once and had a brief conversation and they asked if I wanted to go to the pool, which didn't work out. I liked the playing it cool part. Two weeks went by. So two weeks had gone by since the initial hangout. He did text her apparently, then saw them at the pool, asked them if they wanted to go out, didn't work out. Two weeks go by, I text girl A for the first time asking if she has plans after work on Friday. She answered with a nice to hear from you. And there was an exclamation point in there, guys. I'm pointing this out to all of us. nice to hear from you and there was an exclamation point in there guys i'm pointing

this out to all of us nice to hear from you exclamation point it's a great feeling it's a great feeling when you get the exclamation point because it feels more sincere right guys uh then she said she was down to hang for a little a little our schedules didn't match that didn't happen okay following thursday i text her again in hopes of opening a dialogue and she responds by asking if i want to meet her and girl B at the pool, which roommate and I did. She and I had steady conversation about an hour. I started feeling great about the potential. So she invites you guys. Now you hang out at the pool again. I like it. People are busy. You're young professionals. You're in the DC area. They're working on their PhD. You're just kicking

it, whatever you're doing. I like this. You know, You're not overbearing. You're not too anxious. You're probably a little dinged up right now from the long-term relationship. Got it? So the next day, we meet them at a different bar, and I'll honestly say I was pretty excited. Roommate got there before me. Uh-oh. I was hanging out with him while I was walking over. It was then that I received an awful text. Girl A has a boyfriend. For reference, Girl A is from the West Coast. And the boyfriend, we're going to keep this. Let's not go specific cities.

You never know what this podcast. But the boyfriend was visiting for the weekend, I guess. I still went to the bar to meet up with them on the dance floor. I felt awkward. Why? Because you were on the dance floor with her and a boyfriend. He leaves that part out. So I don't know. I don't know what's going on there. I still went to the bar and met up with him. I felt awkward. Didn't say hi to her, but she, oh, okay. All right. All right. He didn't say hi to her, but she approached me, gave me a hug when the boyfriend wasn't

around. Girl B also said that girl A was supposed to tell me that she has a boyfriend, but obviously that didn't happen. I'm not in the greatest headspace of women at the moment as I've been going through a complicated breakup. How should I feel about the situation? Did I play myself? Is this her fault? Do I have the right to be mad at her? How should I handle this going forward since we had a growing friendship with these girls? Don't want to be placed in the friend zone. Thanks. Love the show. Tony Allen, best interview. Okay. All right.

All right. All right. We'll let Tony Allen know. Okay. Here's the first thing we need to do. Nobody's going to be mad at anybody about anything. All right. So let's just, but she doesn't owe you anything.

It would have been nice, but it's also weird if somebody's like, hey, I have a boyfriend immediately. The same way as if a girl was talking to you and you were like, hey, just before you fall in love with me, I have a girlfriend because then you sound like a psycho. It's a bit uncomfortable for everyone, especially in a new relationship. Part of this, you're in the same building and you're like, hey, and they probably were interested in you a little bit. And she liked the flirty part because the long distance part is not filling the emotional

void of wanting that around all the time. So selfishly, she did a little of that with you and that's not exactly the best, but at the same time, it's not like she's flat out lied. She can't just come out and say, hey, I have a boyfriend. I have a boyfriend. I know some people are going to disagree with me about this. I just think that everybody needs to relax a little bit more in life and just understand not everything is really easy to put together. So don't be mad at her, but you didn't play yourself. So don't be mad at yourself. So nobody should be mad at anybody. Now, some people will listen to this and say, well, it's the same building. That's stupid. You know what? Most of you guys are all

hypocrites anyway, because if the girl were hot enough and she lived in your building, you would go ahead and try to date her. So let's not kid ourselves. All right. So that's the first part. So I don't know where you're at with that. I don't know if it's because you really, really hit it off with her and you truly like her. And that meant that you wanted to date her or if the building thing was, I don't know the answers to all those things. Here's what we need to remember, right? The three B's of getting it done. of getting it done. Bartender,

boats, best friends. You could just go best friend mode here. Maybe not best friend. All right, best friend's a little hard. And there used to be a fourth was don't move to Boston, but I walked around Boston the other day in a layover really quickly.

And Boston's so much better now than when I lived there. And by the way, a little side note here. I was by the equinox, by the water. I was grabbing a big salad. I was just sitting there by myself. Beautiful Boston day. Again, I wasn't even in town for like 20 hours. A dude walked by.

You know who you are. Brown hair, backpack, little disheveled. I think the wind was blowing. You saw me from a distance. You had your earbuds in, you held up your phone, huge smile under your face, pointed at your phone and went like, yeah, basically saying like, hey, I'm listening to you right now. I want to let that guy know he absolutely made my day. I don't let myself enjoy those little moments of success enough. Sometimes I forget what I'm even doing here for a career, but it made my day because the guy just looked at me, was like, awesome. I'm listening to you right now.

And there you are sitting. And then he kept walking. I get to keep eating. And whoever that guy was, I want to let you know, you put a huge, huge smile on my face, which does not happen enough. So back to our email here, the three Bs. You don't, you're probably not bartending you don't have a boat so like you always got to think about what you can offer here when you have the best friend

it opens up everything else and you're you're probably confused right now like what the hell are you talking about what you need to do is you just need to there's no approach the only approach is now you have no stress you're not trying to impress her with every conversation you're not trying to impress her in every single interaction You're not trying to impress her in every single interaction. You're not thinking about her as a potential girlfriend. Forget that's even an option. I don't know if that's what you're trying to pursue because I'm also not saying just because it's a long distance thing, you have the right to go ahead and back door this other guy who you don't even know. Look, guys do it. Guys don't care. Guys are evil with this stuff, especially if it's a guy that they don't know. And sometimes it's a guy they do know.

So I'm not telling you to go ahead and do that because you wouldn't want someone doing that to your girlfriend if she lived out West and then you were going back and forth all the time. What I'm saying is this new information should relax you. This new information is perfect because now you have no stress because just be your best friend. And again, best friend is an exaggeration here, but just be her friend. Be her friend. Don't worry about it. And if you continue to have feelings for her, that stuff's going to work its way out. Maybe you get hosed, but just remove all the other bullshit from it. Don't be mad at her. Don't ask if you got played. She has a boyfriend. She didn't want to tell you right away. That's not that big of a deal. Maybe

it could have been handled a little bit better. But now every time you see her, think of her as your friend. And you know what? If you really, really like her down the road, it really matters. This is the Trojan horse of all moves because you're not even putting any pressure on where you're at standing wise. And you're all this young anyway, you're all going to break up with each other anyway. So don't even worry about it. This is all great news for you right now. You've eliminated the pressure of the situation. So now you're going to be even smoother throughout the entire process, unless you're a disaster, which you would have left out in the email. I don't know if it's great news. I mean, it sounds like he was pretty into this

girl, but I would say each other two weeks, they hung out three times. Yeah. And at first I'm like, yeah, maybe did she owe him, you know, did she at least should she have told him that she had a boyfriend, but there's nothing worse than the girl who like the first thing she says to you is like i have a boyfriend i'm like chill out like i'm i'm just picking up your coat that fell on the floor like i'm not trying to hit on you uh that is the worst so i there's like a fine line there and i guess she didn't really cross it because you waited two weeks to really talk again so you're right i wouldn't be you know it wouldn't be i wouldn't be upset with her but i also wouldn't be if i'm him like if you don't if you're not looking for a friend or something like that you also don't have any obligation to continue to text her or talk to

her. So it's kind of whatever you feel and whatever you want to do. But I want to circle back to something you said, is there some rule against not dating people in your own building? That seems like it would be extremely convenient. What am I missing here? Some people think it's because when you break up, I mean, I've done it where then when you're not together, you're like, oh, sweet. I mean, I just didn't, I just was like, Hey, how are you?

Yeah. I don't know. That's a, that seems like a future you problem that, you know, you shouldn't worry about until the breakup. What do you think? Yeah. My whole thing about getting pre bummed out before you actually bummed out.

Like just let that, let the, let the breakup actually happen for you to worry about that. Don't worry about that. What's worse being broken up at work or in the same building? Uh, probably at work. Cause I'd imagine like all the other dudes around know and then i'm sure there are dudes that are like firing on your ex and that'd be a bummer whereas at least if you're in the same building you can kind of avoid them at work it's probably not super easy to do that yeah but then you start having other people over and then it's the building like you don't have to

deal with that at work i actually think it's worse in the building i would say it's worse at espn than a building but i would say more often than not the building is worse than normal workplace settings yeah all right that's fair that's fair but no i i don't think he owes or anything i get why he's bummed out he has no obligation to really hang out with her be friends with her if he wants to that's great but i don't know i think just kind of move on okay i got one other here from a female listener it's not happened very often our female listeners are more they don't need any help they're like we got it so this one's a little long so buckle up everyone relatively new fan of the pod um one of your female listeners boyfriend long-time listener so they like the life advice thing and now she says she's listening to

the sports part of it too uh both in our late 20s living in a big city on the west coast putting uh been together four years he's 5'10 185 back squat decent number she says she's 510 does not want to include her weight that's so our listeners fair okay all right here's here's the issue i'm hoping you give me some guidance on whether or not i'm overreacting to how to handle a major character flaw with my boyfriend so apparently this guy's gonna be listening to this who listens to the pod regularly. His punctuality, or rather his lack thereof. My boyfriend, let's call him Derek, is chronically late to everything. Dinner reservations, meeting up with friends,

it's hard to be going to the airport security 20 minutes before a flight is supposed to take off, etc. You name it, he's late. It's important to note that I'm an extremely punctual person, so this has become the main source of conflict in our relationship. The catalyst for my email today is an event that occurred this weekend where he missed his close friend's wedding ceremony. But it's not just the fact that he missed the ceremony. It's a series of decisions he made that caused him to miss the

ceremony and his lack of remorse after the fact. We traveled to a wedding on the opposite coast for the weekend and overall had a great time. It was a reunion for a bunch of his grad school friends, but I knew them well, so it was good vibes all around the whole weekend. On Saturday, the day of the wedding, my boyfriend decided at the last minute to go golfing with a friend of his who happened to be in the same city as us this weekend, but was not part of the wedding festivities. Side note, Derek isn't really a golf guy. He mainly just likes to mess around and drink beers with his friends on the course. He was definitely not working on his handicap, and he didn't even keep score. So this is a day of move. Tank beers, golf, not even that into

golf, but I get to see another friend. Okay. I didn't think that much of a, excuse me. I didn't think much of it when he left in the morning. And I frankly was hung over and just wanted to hang at the hotel alone all day. Anyway, I figured he'd have plenty of time to get back in time for the wedding, which was at the hotel we were staying at the wedding at a start time of five 30 at three 39. I get a text from Derek saying he just finished up the round and would be back around 4.30. Well, I was a little worried this would be cutting it close. I figured he'd be fine since we only had to go downstairs for the wedding.

That's an important part of this. At 5.08, he strolls into the hotel room. So he said he'd be back in 50 minutes. He showed up an hour and 40 minutes after he texted. So he walks in at 5.08, cool as a cucumber, no sense of urgency. He didn't even seem to be aware of the extreme time crunch he was under. And I remind him yet again, the wedding began at 5.30. So that's in 22 minutes.

Instead of immediately jumping in the shower, he took a very long dump. Okay. At 5.18, he still insisted he'd be ready by 5.30, even though he hadn't showered. I can get ready in 12 minutes, but I know my pace.

He kept insisting he'd be ready at 5.30. I left the room to meet up with his friends downstairs because then I knew the chances were slim to none he would make it on time and I didn't want the stress of watching the clock as he slowly got ready. At 5.30, I proceeded to the ballroom with his friends,

didn't bother saving a seat since I'd been burned by his tardiness many times before. By 5.39, the doors of the ballroom were closed, the lights dimmed, indicating the ceremony was about to begin. Giving them that I wanted to avoid a scene of him barging through the doors as the bride is walking down the aisle,

I texted him that he shouldn't try to come in at this point since the ceremony was starting. He simply responds, okay, oops, text me when I should come down. After the ceremony, he arrived during cocktail hour, showed zero mores from missing the ceremony, and acted like it was no big deal. His friends gave him a lot of shit. I was pretty clearly pissed,

but his response was that he only owed the bride and groom an apology and only if they ever found out. To be fair, bride and groom were likely none the wiser. It was a decent-sized wedding. However, this is a demonstrated pattern of behavior. Two weeks ago at his other friend's wedding, the ceremony started at 4, and he didn't get in the shower until 3.43, and only did so after I yelled at him. He wasn't even going to do anything either, just hang out watching a soccer game in the shower until 3.43 and only did so after I yelled at him. He wasn't even going to do anything

either. Just hang out, watch a soccer game in the room. We didn't arrive after four, but managed to get our seats. Oh, wait, excuse me. We did arrive after four, but managed to get to our seats before the ceremony actually started. So in his eyes, this proved to him it's fine to arrive late, even though he knows it causes me great stress. The only other wedding he's been to in the past couple of years, which I was not at, he missed the ceremony as well and walked in as the bride and groom were exiting. So back to this wedding, Derek's defense remains the bride and groom don't know he missed the ceremony. So it's really a harmless act. One of his friends were particularly upset with him and

berated him, which only made him more defensive. He was actually annoyed that I was pissing him about it and insisted that it wasn't a big deal. I eventually let it go because I wanted to enjoy the celebration, which we all did. But I think that's what bothers me the most. It's not that he missed the ceremony, that he basically didn't care at all. I know this sort of thing will just keep happening. Again, I'm a very punctual person, so him showing up late to everything is very stressful for me. So in conclusion, am I overreacting or is this not a big deal since he did make it to cocktail hour and spent a lot of time at the groom prior to nights? What can I do to change his behavior?

I'm going to go ahead and tell you nothing. So I'll just answer that. All right. So here, here we go. I get this. Cause I've, I've had,

I'm punctual. I, but that was always because of a work thing more than anything else. When you work in radio time, you know, I think Saruti would back me up here. Like if the meeting were at 11 i'm in the door at 11 i'm not tom coughlin where it's hey meeting starts at 10 55 and if i show up

at like 1101 i'm pissed at myself and people that are late randomly like i don't like when people lose their minds when somebody's late randomly but your boyfriend in this case sucks like this sucks and i remember there was one girl that i did date that she was like this. She just didn't care. She didn't give a shit. And her excuse was always, I'm trying to look nice for you. Don't you want me to look nice for you? And it's like, you know what? I don't want to miss the first half of the fucking Knicks game though either.

Like one time I had Knicks tickets and we didn't get to the game until halftime. And she was totally fine with the fact how much time we were missing. If there was a lunch, it was like, hey, let's go grab a lunch. Knowing there was going to be a big dress-up dinner later that night. The lunch, one time we went to lunch at four o'clock. And so by the time we actually ate lunch, I didn't even feel like doing dinner again. And she just didn't care. She did not care.

And that's what you have to understand is the person that is late all the time doesn't care. That stress, that anxiety that you feel when you look at the clock and you see it doesn't exist to them. In a small, weird way, because I think your boyfriend sucks for doing this to you all the time. I just think it's a really selfish thing to do. Like it's an incredibly like, Hey, if I like, it's a, let me say this because I don't want to sound too positive about it, but I actually do kind of envy that aloofness where you can be like, I just don't care. Like you look at the clock and

feel something. I look at the clock and feel nothing. There's something that I actually do admire in that a little bit, but the problem is, is if everybody acted the way you did, then we never get anything fucking done. It's kind of like the person that drives like an asshole on the highway. And it's like, well, whatever, I'm a better driver than everybody else. And you're passing everybody on the right. You're firing in and out of exit lanes. You're just weaving through all people. And you think you're an awesome driver, Danny Cannell, but it actually sucks because if everybody drove that way, we'd all be in a fiery mess on the highway. So if everybody was just, Hey man, whatever, like I'll get there when I get there, then nobody would ever get anything done. So it's incredibly selfish. It's a really, really shitty. I can't express this enough.

It's such a selfish thing to do to be somebody who is habitually late. Like there's somebody we used to work with who just was late to every show meeting, just every time, just always going to be late. And you just be like, dude, you can't be on time. And then there was always a different excuse. There was always a different reason. It's like, no, you know when you're late, you know when you're not,

and you know when you don't care about other people around you enough to want to get there on time. And so I don't know that it ever really changes. It sounds like she shares with us that all these other things, she's in love with the guy. Everything's awesome. I mean, if the worst thing ever about your significant other is that they're late all

the time, you could do a lot worse. Heroin is an example. So I do think I'm totally on your side. I would just start leaving them in rooms, just leaving them in rooms, like remove the stress from your, the part of your life because you yelling at him, because he doesn't get it.

You yelling at him, like having him think you're in, you're being a nag. I would just eliminate the stress from your life by being like, fine, fuck it. Separate cars. I'll go downstairs.

If you're going to be late to everything all of the time, then I'm never going to wait for you anymore. If you actually think it's cool to sit upstairs and miss your best friend's wedding ceremony, watching a soccer game that you don't even care about just because it's on, then go ahead. But I'm not going to do this with you anymore. And maybe that gets through them, but I doubt it. I don't know that this is ever really going to turn around. But late people that are late all the time are selfish, selfish people. Yeah, I've had a friend growing up who was just like we had a break into his house when we were kids because he was late to a field trip, just like didn't didn't really care about anything.

And he just grew. You just have to grow out of that. And I don't know how old this guy is. 20s, late 20s, I think they said. No amount of you shaming him. I mean, if being late to two weddings, you yelling at him, and then his friend berating him at the wedding as well, wasn't some sort of like red flag or sign to him to like, you know, figure it out,

then there's really nothing that's going to happen. He's just going to have to grow out of it or he's not. And if it's something that you can deal with, then that's great. And I kind of disagree with you a little bit though, Ryan, because I don't think there's any way for her to put that stress aside because she's always going to be wondering, is he going to barge in at the wrong time, right? She's always going to be thinking about him because she's almost having to babysit him by getting him out of the room and getting him to this place on time.

If he's on his own, I don't know if she could be comfortable either way. So I just kind of think it's one of those things you got to live with and it's something he's got to figure out and if that's a deal breaker it's a deal breaker and if it's not it's not but i unfortunately i don't think there's really any easy solution here just that's the way it is yeah my deal with the late person because we you know we go on some trips or whatever and i would just be like okay look i get that you take forever and i appreciate that you want to look nice for me, but you have to, like, if you're going to take that long, then just start earlier. Yeah. Yeah. Start earlier. And then it's like, no, no. Cause I want to see what you're doing.

I'm like, yeah, but, but you not starting, if you want to take forever, take forever to get ready. I don't care. I'm not, I'm not judging you, but let's not be late for like cool shit. All right. If you want to be late to a dinner, you want to be late to something that you guys are doing together going over a friend's house all that stuff like late there's different versions of late but the fact that he could walk into a hotel and just plop down and miss a wedding ceremony because there's a soccer game on then i'm actually surprised you guys get along with everything else that there aren't any other red flags because that part of it is like wait like you're successful at your job. Like you're, you're good at other stuff. And if you're telling me the email is telling us like the rest of that's all fine, then great. But that part actually

surprises me because that makeup would usually mean that you're kind of a clown in a bunch of different areas. And the fact that he got defensive about it, it's probably because he's so sick of hearing it all the time, but I don't, I don't really know what to do. I can't remember ever somebody who was always late. My mother was always late. My parents were late. Whenever we got picked up, we were always, all of the kids, all the siblings, we were always the last fucking person standing outside of the gym, outside of the track, baseball field, whatever. We were always the last kids to be picked up all the time, and we hated it. Martha were always the last kids to be picked up all the time and we hated it. Martha's Vineyard, always having to catch boats, always having to make sure. We

were always in a rush to get there because we were just late. We were late all the time. So because my family was always late, once I got to a point of being more of an adult, and the radio part is a big part of the emphasis of my timeliness. Because if I have four producers waiting around and we're taping an interview and there's all these things that we're coordinating, you've got to figure out how to be on time all the time in my business or you're just going to, you're actually not going to do that well.

If you're going to be late all the time and doing what I do, I don't even know how that works out. But I don't know that a lot of people grow out of it, man. I just don't. I'd have to say though, I think he is somewhat right about me i've always thought about missing the wedding ceremony because you really never oh here we go i well okay i i'm not advocating that you should do that but you could always just be like yeah i was in the back it was

great it was lovely i mean adnan missed our wedding set up morning and i wouldn't have never known unless he told me so it is what it is i wasn't like offended by it just is what it is so i kind of think you can get away with it you don't you don't want to be the guy who's like always missing it but i've always thought like yeah you know if i'm if i could just say i was in the back and no one's really actually going to notice it sounds like this guy is always missing it is is the point and and though he was night like she said he was chatty with the bride and groom they really liked him they would have probably never known and he was super nice to them and almost made up for it in that way.

But I don't know. I'm just saying, don't be like a perpetual, I'm late and I skipped the ceremony guy, but you know, once or twice, it's not the other world. I think this guy's a habitual line stepper.

And that's why the girlfriend reached out to us, but I don't even know. Maybe this email will help. I doubt it. All right. Thanks to Craig filling for Kyle today. And also, uh,

so Rudy on this podcast, and we'll doubt it. All right. Thanks to Craig. Billing for Kyle today and also Sir Rudy on this podcast. And we'll be back again on Thursday. So please subscribe. Great review. And spread the word on F1 Corner, fastest growing segment in sports entertainment. Outro Music