The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Jeff Van Gundy on CP3’s Injury, Favorite Teams to Watch, and Coaching in Today’s NBA, Plus LeBron’s Problems With the Lakers

Episode Date: February 21, 2022

Russillo begins by discussing the Celtics' strong close to the first half of the season and what to expect from LeBron and the Lakers moving forward (0:30). Then Ryen talks with former coach and ESPN analyst Jeff Van Gundy about how the Suns can weather Chris Paul’s injury, player empowerment in today’s league, and the way officiating has changed over the years (16:00). Finally Ryen answers some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (51:00). Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Jeff Van Gundy Producers: Steve Ceruti and Mike Wargon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jeff Van Gundy fired up to talk with him about everything. Player empowerment, Ewing stories, the charge, Chris Paul injury. I just love talking to that guy. I'm going to do an open that goes forever on NBA stuff that I think is important for the final stretch and life advice with a couple follow-up stories. We are now officially post-All-Star break. So I wanted to run through a couple different storylines, some numbers, some stuff that's jumping out here. We got Van Gunn, as you mentioned, a little bit later. I know it's probably going to shock everybody.

I'm not going to do a Steph open today because this guy didn't watch any of the All-Star stuff this weekend, which is kind of crazy because my guy goes off last night. So maybe we'll go ahead and watch that one back. I'm just not a big fan of this stuff, but I don't like complaining about it either because if you enjoyed it, you enjoyed it. Good for you. If your kids enjoyed it, good for you. I think I say the same thing every year.

A lot of this stuff isn't for us. And if you didn't like it, don't get mad at the people that did. I just, I don't know. It's's not my deal so let's get to it hey rosillo you're not going to talk about the boston celtics um you know i actually get accused of talking about them way more than i actually do and then i also get accused of liking them way more than i actually do which is just kind of goes to territory so i've looked at this group in this winning streak and when i went back at the beginning of the winning streak like almost every team was missing one of its best players. So I was like, all right, what does that mean?

But this, some of these numbers here are nuts and they're worth paying attention to. I'm going to get into some other numbers here as well. The Boston D party, by the way, originally the Boston Tea Party, not everybody from Boston was into that. A lot of people are like, what are you guys doing? This is fucking stupid.

You're just dumping tea because of the fucking stamp act. This seems stupid. And then they were like, hey, we want you to pay for that tea. And they're like, we're not paying for the fucking tea. So there you go, a little history on top of your basketball to start the day. So Boston right now has, and I sorted this stuff since January 1st, right? So we're not going to the full season here. Boston has the number one defense in the NBA since January 1st. And it is, here's a case where it is applicable, it is not even close. This is crazy.

They're at 100.9 points per 100 possessions. Dallas, a lot of you did not have Dallas as the number two defense in the NBA since January 1st, although they've been much better overall throughout the season defensively. They're at 105. So the gap of four points-ish, the gap of four points is the difference between number three Phoenix since January 1st to number 13 Orlando. How about your magic? Just jumping into the conversation there a little bit. A little positive for a team that just can't seem to win any games. They have the number one net rating the Celtics

do since January 1st. That's 12.6 point differential. Phoenix is actually number one this season at 8.1. 12.6 for a season is like world champion stuff. Now, why have I not talked more about them? Well, because I've watched this team

for two plus years, kind of not really. I mean, other than that Easter Conference Finals run, where they still almost lost to Toronto, which didn't make any sense whatsoever. I have not been overly impressed with this group, even though I like some of the individual players and it took me forever to even open up to the idea of like, I don't know, maybe Jalen and Tatum can't play together, but it doesn't mean you just have to trade one of the guys for lesser pieces to solve some problem. That seems to be that this team just can't really vibe together. Here's what we know. Defensively, it's off the charts. They are better, but I still don't look at this despite some of these numbers and go, all right, I'm going to put them ahead of Milwaukee. I'm going to put

them ahead of Miami. I'm going to put them ahead of probably Durant. Just Durant being healthy with Brooklyn is enough for me to probably put them ahead of them. So the numbers are great, but you want to talk crazy numbers? The 538 projections. Every year, I probably find myself looking at a few of these being like, what is going on? All right. Now, to understand this, they go through and have projections for every team and their chance of making the finals, chance of making the playoffs, and then chance of winning the finals. And they also do kind of a full strength rating compared to their current rating, depending on who's in or out, because a lot of teams are dealing with these challenges. Here's where I would say your projections are probably wrong. They have the Celtics with the best overall chance of winning an NBA championship, 21%. And their full-strength rating is still pretty in line with where their current rating is.

But their full-strength rating, based on having all of their guys, it's number one in the NBA? No way. It just isn't. I'm sorry. It isn't. They have the Warriors with, it is five, six, seven, eight, ninth best chance of winning a championship. Now, granted, that might be because they have Phoenix in front of them. I think Phoenix has a lot to do with that with their overwhelming record, but the Warriors are a 3% chance of winning an NBA championship, and they have the Celtics at 21. They just don't. I mean, look, like I've said in the past,

there are times where I've looked at 538. They were in love with the Sixers at times, where it just absolutely didn't make any sense. They would love Houston because of prime Harden numbers, where you're like, well, that's ridiculous. You have them ahead of too many different teams. Honestly, if this were a hot take show or some take by a football guy on Twitter, the analytics people would roll their eyes and be like, look at this idiot. And these are the people that call the rest of his idiots all the time. And this is like, if your, if your formula comes back saying the Celtics have the best chance of winning NBA championship, there's something wrong with

your formula. There just is. And sometimes projections and the math and all this stuff, and you end up with a result, you're like, ah, that's, this is what happened. So again, not dumping on it. I just, well, I guess I kind of am a little bit here. That it just doesn't make any sense. And the full strength rating for Golden State is barely ahead of the current one, which is still behind Boston, where if you look at Clay's numbers,

they're down a little. The good side is that he was 33% from three in January. He's 44% from three in February. Draymond is supposed to get back to some five-on-five stuff very soon, but it's a back problem. The guy's missed 25 games, but we're talking about not the full version of Klay that even though some of the numbers are good, he's like 17 a game. We know the rest of his number portfolio isn't always the fullest, but I've watched enough to go, all right, there's moments, and then there's other times where it looks like a guy that hasn't played basketball in a couple of years. So we're still not seeing

the full blown clay and the clay that everybody's freaked out about when he's at his peak. And we don't have Draymond out there and we don't have Wiseman out there to even factor into all this stuff. So, you know, Golden State could theoretically catch Phoenix here as the one seed with Chris Paul being out. So, all right, there you go. Staying on the Phoenix thing, no Chris Paul now six to eight weeks because he broke his thumb. And if you watch that game against Houston, I was like, well, how did he get ejected? And by the way, the play where he thought he got fouled,

he clearly got fouled because he broke his thumb. But it was a weird play in the moment to have given him a foul because it was weird. It was like on this follow through. So it wasn't as clear as, oh, he just got hacked. There was no call. And that's why he was pissed. So I actually think he was more pissed and he got ejected because he knew he broke his

thumb and was just mad about the whole thing, even though it wasn't some clean foul that was just entirely missed. So if you put him out six to eight weeks, that's exactly kind of where we're at because the regular season ends seven weeks from Sunday. Like I said, there's six and a half up on Golden State. Booker is so good that he could probably initiate their offense, which probably limits some of the stuff with him because now he becomes more of a focal point because you have to worry about the pick and roll stuff with Chris Paul. And then Bridges or Cam Johnson off the bench is certainly Booker kind of flying around off some of those actions. And then Bridges or Cam Johnson off the bench is certainly Booker kind of flying around off some of those actions.

But Booker, because there have been times with Phoenix when they were terrible, would have to use him at point guard and have him initiate everything offensively. Like that's still a possibility. And we even saw a glimpse of that even in the playoffs last year when they try to change some things up. They have Cameron Payne who hasn't played in like a month, but he's supposed to be back. I don't know when. They do have Alfred Payton. Aaron Holliday's played for him like three games. So there's a couple options there. None of them are necessarily great.

Some math will tell you that golden state catching them with six and a half back is impossible. I think we do that every year. We do it baseball all the time. We're like, Oh, the chances of this team catching that team with, you know,

a week or a month and a half to go is, is, you know, 4%. And then the next thing you know, it's like three weeks later and they're right there with them. I do think that happens a lot because if you do go ahead and look at the standings part of this, if you're Phoenix, it's not so much what the 1-8 matchup is because in the West, that's,

I don't know what's going to happen here with the playing game. You could probably bounce Portland out of there. The Lakers are a nine seed. The Clippers, I mean, I guess you could say, hey, I'd rather play the Clippers or Lakers in Minnesota. Or would you rather actually play Minnesota than the Clippers or Lakers? I mean, it sounds stupid as I say that out loud because if the Lakers are in the playoffs and they're healthy, then that actually becomes a shitty 1-8 matchup. But we still don't know because from, I don't know if I'd include Utah all the way 4 through 9 here, it might be better to say the Lakers up until, I don't know, maybe 7, 8, 9 are still interchangeable. We don't know if I'd include Utah all the way four through nine here. It might be better to say the Lakers up until, I don't know, maybe seven, eight, nine are still interchangeable.

We don't know. But even if you go, oh, wait, what if the Lakers land eight and it's the 1-8 matchup and Golden State catches you, then you've avoided LeBron and Anthony Davis. That could definitely be the case, but it also could come back to bite you in a 2-3 matchup because then you'd be likely facing Memphis because I don't think Phoenix would drop all the way down there.

And I actually think I'd rather avoid Memphis in the second round than whatever version of the Lakers we have in the first round, which sounds crazy, and I could completely change my mind here. We're only in February. The Anthony Davis news is apparently as good as it's going to be with that injury, but who knows. So let's finish on that. Boy, can your guy call it sometimes or what?

This entire weekend was a LeBron celebration of LeBron and also a warning because no one pivots into an answer about something else that then transitions into a compliment about himself. He complimented the Cavs, but then somehow he was in it. He complimented Luka

and then said basically he's amazing, amazing. And he's like, reminds me of me. That's fine. Cool. Like I said before, if you've been the spotlight of basketball for,

I don't know, since you were in your mid-teens, it'd be hard to not be a little narcissistic. But as Windhorse writes on ESPN.com, a couple of different things happening here.

This is a warning. This is the part of the LeBron game where he puts everybody on notice. He did this back in Miami. I remember one time he complained about them not having a full roster. I asked somebody that would know. I was like, why does LeBron care if they're not at the minimum? Or why does he care that they're one below the maximum on what they can carry for a roster? And it was like, look, LeBron wants to make sure that ownership is never, they're never satisfied. They're never complacent. He always wants to put the pressure on them. I was like, yeah, but don't you think this is a time where it doesn't make any fucking sense? Who cares? Who cares who the 15th guy is? And it was like, never want them to settle. And that's why LeBron

always liked doing the shorter deals where he'd have a player option, which he actually doesn't have this time around because of the way the rules work on his most recent extension, which he's going to be looking for another extension when it comes to August. So that's another part of this. We talked about his son in the least surprising news in basketball in the last five years.

By the way, I don't know that much about his son. I don't. I went and looked it up this morning. It's actually crazy because you can't find any of the stats. You can't find his son's stats online because I guess the coach at Sierra Canyon doesn't want that to happen. So LeBron, by the way, if we're trying to figure out the future of him as a player and playing with his son, his son wouldn't be eligible until the 2024 draft. He's a 17-year-old junior. He's 6'3". I think he's 180, 190. He was a five-star. Now he's a four-star. I have no idea how to

project a high school kid at this point, but this isn't some certainty. It gets talked about as if it's a certainty, but it isn't. Then again, it could be a certainty if some team was like, all right, LeBron, we'll give you the full max, which doesn't make any sense whatsoever because we're just a boring franchise and we want to end with you in this run and all this stuff, and we'll go ahead and we'll sign you up with your son. I mean, if we had seven Antetokounmpo's in the league, then I think Bronny Jr. would probably maybe find a way in if it's even remotely passable.

But right now, for anyone talking about it, as if it's some certainty that he's just a lottery pick or first-round pick in 2024, I still think there's some work to do. And the stats, trying to find high school stats, like I said, it was hilarious how bad of a time I had trying to find some of those stats. So this all leads to kind of the Windhorse thing where Windhorse has known LeBron as well as anybody that's covered this sport for the last two decades. In the Miami example, the Miami Heat example I used before, apparently LeBron was upset that they didn't use a pick and Westbrook to bring in John Wall, which I think the understanding would be

that at least with Wall, we can control the mistakes a little bit more, even though Westbrook is on the Lakers because of one reason only, and that's LeBron who will divorce himself from this stuff. As I said last week, I am willing to prepare myself for how weird all of this could actually get and how mercenary level it could go with other pieces on the roster because LeBron doesn't want any picks. He used to get mad when they wouldn't move a lottery pick, what, for DeAndre Jordan back when he was with the Cavs?

None of that makes any sense. And if you're the Lakers, you're going to be faced with, you know, the real reason we couldn't do anything before the deadline is because you wanted Westbrook on this team.

And we went all in with it instead of Buddy Heald and some of the other things that we could have done on the periphery because we added this supposed third star. So I kind of can't wait.

Get your popcorn ready. And I'll leave you with this. For those that maybe are like, yeah, I don't know. This isn't even really, this is just telling the truth. This is just talking about what happens here. Because if you go back to Cleveland

and Windhorse has this in his story, and I had a little intel on this as well, as far as like how bad the Isaiah Thomas LeBron thing was. Like that was just a bad trade, you know, for Cleveland. Can't check Kyrie Irving for Jay Crowder Isaiah Thomas and uh

there was that other foreign guy who I was like oh yeah you know he might be all right and then it was the pick for Sexton right is it zizich I don't know who cares so there was all sorts of weird things that happened there and actually this is the part of Kyrie's argument that I actually stood up for him because he was in this trade Cerruti for Paul George and then Kyrie's like wait this guy wants me out of here, so screw this. I'm not doing this anymore. And I actually would agree with Kyrie once we had more of that information.

But basically, Windhorst writes that LeBron, once they didn't – he felt like Cleveland wasn't doing enough, and they basically felt like he was floating, right? He was just floating for a while. So LeBron wanted to make all these moves. And the irony of this move with Isaiah Thomas and all the stuff where they moved all these pieces around is they actually hooked the Lakers up to get cap space

to do what they ended up doing by grabbing LeBron later on. But as the quoted piece here, it says, Gilbert Altman realized they didn't have a choice. James was an irreplaceable resource. Once he was gone, there'd never be another. So the day before the trade deadline, they got several trades in place. That night, Altman met with James for the game and told him the following day they were trading four new players and decided to use their first round pick that year to do so. It was the seventh first rounder they were trading in the four seasons.

James had been back in Cleveland. So that night, LeBron goes out for 37-10 and 15 assists. Buzzer beater beats the Timberwolves. He topped it off with a move for his personal passive-aggressive Hall of Fame, turning his back on Isaiah Thomas when he charged the court to celebrate. James never wanted the Cavs to trade for Thomas, and he already knew that he was being shipped out the next day. So he hits a game winner he was mad isaiah thomas was on the team in the first place turns his back on him according to this story and it's like because you because man you're fucking traded anyway so so like i said i can't wait to see what happens uh he's one of my favorite guys on any NBA broadcast and it's Jeff Van Gundy.

I want to start with this. How did you score the dunk contest? Were you surprised by the results? You'd be crazy to think I'm watching that stuff. That like, it has no appeal to me. Zero. I didn't watch one dunk. I didn't watch any of the ones on the highlights. It's interesting to me that who they get to participate in that and what teams they come from. I'm fascinated with that. I'm not fascinated by the dunk contest. Yeah, I try to explain it because people be like,

oh, we need to fix it. And it's like, look, as soon as it became uncool, was doomed as soon as the best players like that's beneath me I mean we had a g-league or one at one year Jeff so I don't know how that happened how it transitioned to maybe it's just more fun to sit and watch the whole thing but nobody who's any good other than a rookie wants to be in this thing yeah and and and the format too's like, I remember we were talking about it once, Nate Robinson, I think missed like 50 dunks or whatever. It was a lot. And he still won. And my thought was, that'd be like the three point shooting contest. You miss every shot and you say, I'm the winner. I mean, it doesn't make any sense to me. The format doesn't make sense. And like you said,

mean it doesn't make any sense to me the format doesn't make sense and like you said if the best players or you know i don't know did they have starters in it i'm not even sure who was in it but it's like if they don't want to do it then you know it's like just move on from it yeah i know i'm with you i don't want to spend too much time on this. I knew there was pretty much no chance you watched it. We were 20-something games to go here. The Chris Paul injury is significant, but timing it out, maybe he comes back to the playoffs, maybe they don't lose the one seed,

still some possibilities here. Where does Chris Paul rank on your favorite players to watch when you're doing a game? You know what? I don't know if I would put him on my favorite players to watch when you're doing a game? You know what? I don't know if I would put him on my favorite players to watch, but I think if you wanted to win a game, he's going to be your point guard. He's that good.

And he has a nasty competitive streak that I think not a lot of guys have that ruthlessness that Chris Paul has. And sometimes it takes him over the edge and you know those incidents always get noticed and talked about but what i think people fail to understand is that you will cross the line sometimes um but the thing I love about him is he brings it right to the line every game. Like there's no games that I look at and watch Chris Paul and say, that guy, he didn't bring it tonight. He brings his energy, his physicality, his intelligence, and, you know, his skill is, you know, off the chart so um if you like to watch

winning basketball no matter where he goes they win and they win big and it's impressive maybe i should back it up then so who are your favorite players like if there's a couple guys that pop up you see your schedule for the next week and you go, okay, who would be at the top of the list? I think I don't really have players that I circle. I'm going to watch him play. I do love watching Phoenix play. I think Phoenix has such a great combination of skill, talent, and they're willing to play it differently. You know, they'll take two point shots and two point mid range shots and be fine with it. You know, I think they have the third ranked offense right now. And I think they take as many two point

mid Rangers as anybody. I mean, they're just looking for a good shot. I love watching teams that play different Toronto. I like watching play because they play hard and what they do different, uh, Ryan is they play their guys huge minutes. Like if you look, I, at one point this year, they had three guys in the top five and minutes played. Right. And I like when teams do it, you know, just a little bit differently. I love styles. I love different styles versus, you know, it's why golden state is fascinating to me. They play on offense different because Steph Curry is willing to move without the ball. And so, um, and then I'm, you know, I watch every Nick game. That's my team. I watch them play all the time. You know, so those are my, those are the things I look for.

Yeah. Cause I guess when I was asking the Chris Paul thing, I would have thought just at least, you know, listening to it for years, probably knowing where your, your preferences are that Chris Paul would be somebody you would like, because you'd like this way it takes over a game. But then when you compare that to like watching Anthony Edwards on the right night, it's not the same. It's not the same thing, you know, because it's not going to be as dynamic. It's not going to be as exciting.

Yeah, I don't. That's not why I like watching basketball. I mean, it's what like a guy like Anthony Edwards can do is like literally spectacular. I mean, it's I, you know, it's just ridiculous, but I like watching teams, you know, and I, and frankly, I'm, I have a bent towards coaches. So I, I had coached Monty Williams briefly. So I love watching him throughout his career and what a great job he does. I, I, I love watching Chicago, you know, because I coached Billy Donovan back in college and I've always loved to follow his, you know, career in basketball. So yeah, I'm more of

a coach guy, but I love teams that play and play together and play a little differently. You know, I, the game has become a little too, to me, uh, homogenized where so many people do it exactly the same way, you know, a lot of threes and the game sometimes just comes down to who shoots a little bit better on that given night. And, um, you know, I don't, I don't know about about you i just don't find the three three point shooting i don't find it exciting i i find plays at the basket exciting i find differences in styles exciting i don't find you know shooting half your shots as threes it may be a good basketball it may be winning basketball but it's not something that drives me to want to watch no i would agree there's certain nights where i'll just go okay we got two younger teams

and this isn't really about development right now they're just gonna you know and i think so many young players just come up going like all right whatever i'm just gonna take a three like i always joke that i think it's illegal if you're down two and you have the ball with the shot clock off because you're under the shot clock, that it's illegal for you to take a two. Like you have to take a three. I think I can remember one game where a team was down two this year. I know it's happened more than once, but one game that I watched where I went, oh my God, they took a two down two. Like I can't believe it. Yeah.

The one that is fascinating to me is the dribble up three on the fast break. I think every analytics person and every person with two eyes who watches basketball knows that the layup is the best shot. The free throw is second best. And the three is, you know, analytically or statistically, whatever you want to say, is the third best. And yet on three-on-ones, people would say, like, oh, that's a great shot. We took a three. No, like the dunk and the layup is the best shot. And we don't explore enough chances to get a layup, to get fouled.

chances to get a layup to get fouled and i think in transition in particular the the game is not being managed right from a point guard perspective because they're they end up taking threes all the time now if they're same numbers back and it's three on three, you know, that's, that's logical. But like three on ones, I saw a guy on the Knicks this year in a two on one dribble, like down and then dribble out to take a three on a two on one. I literally, you know, people say you see something you've never seen every game you watch. I don't know if that's true, but in that game, I have never seen a guy handle the ball in a two on one break.

The three point line should have been a layup for him or the guy he's running with. And instead he dribbled back out to the three point line and shot a three. I mean, that sort of stuff. And, you know, it's become like oh yeah okay took a three I'm like that's a bad shot and I think bad shots are tolerated now more than they should be yeah Luca who I love I think we all love Luca but he'll have yeah yeah he'll have moments where he'll drive and it's like you're bigger than the center usually physically maybe not height wise but you're so big and at the rim you're either fouling or finished and he'll kick and it's like, you're bigger than the center, usually physically, maybe not height wise, but you're so big. And at the rim, you're either fouling or finished and he'll kick out to a corner three. And I'm just thinking, and he's not the only one that does it, but with Luca

with a size advantage, I'm always like, why wouldn't you just, but I think everybody's so conditioned to no way I have a chance at a short corner three, I'll kick it out there. So I agree with you on some of that stuff. The coaching thing though,, I wanted to stay on because one of the things I always like about you on the broadcast is there'll be a moment, there'll be something, and then you'll just jump in and it kind of reminds us all of your life in basketball. Well, you say like, no, no, wait, why are they doing this? There should be something over there. And it's not like really negative or accusatory.

It's just you pointing out, hey, this is something you need to be thinking about, a substitution at the free throw line, that kind of stuff. So I think there's some obvious stuff at times. People call timeouts, and then we all kind of get mad or we think it's a good timeout because a lot of us probably don't really know. What do you think now makes a great coach in today's game? Well, I think what we focus on sometimes too much as fans is the stuff that may make a little bit of a difference, but not that big. But we can, like, for instance, you know, should I review a play or not review a play, right? Right. In the moment, it seems big, but bigger picture, I think successful coaches, you first have to define what you believe a successful coach is.

So to me, it's not who wins the most. That's why I think these lists of the top coaches, it's really not right because a lot of coaches, like everybody, if you're going to win championships, has their name attached to Hall of Fame players, right? And not every coach has had the good fortune to have a Hall of Fame player in their prime. And so I think how we should all judge coaches is, do they get the most out of the talent at hand? Because that's the essence of coaching. The other essence of coaching is getting players, and this is Bill Walsh, the great football coach, said, getting players to do what they don't want to do in order to achieve what they want to achieve. That's the essence of coaching, right? So no one grows up saying,'t want to do in order to achieve what they want to achieve.

That's the essence of coaching, right? So no one grows up saying, I want to get in defensive stance and keep my man in front of me, right? But if you want to win and you want to have success as a team and individually, you're going to do the hard things. And so I think maxing out the talent at hand, getting players to do what they don't want to do, and then doing it within structured freedom, the freedom to reach for the stars individually, but within the structure of a team-oriented game. I think that's what a coach is.

And I think what you'd want your players to say after you're done coaching them is that he wanted me to achieve and, you know, he cared about me and he gave me every possible, he put me in the best possible position to succeed. And if you do that, whether you have the best players or you have a middle of the road team, or you have a great team, ultimately Ryan, to me, that's, um, how we should judge coaching. But I think today with all the, um, I don't know what you'd call them, but like your talk shows and all that, all they do is say, you know, the team that wins, that coach did the best job in any sport.

And, you know, I just don't believe it. All right. Who does a great job that maybe people don't realize because of a bad record? Let me see. Doesn't have to be a disastrous record, obviously, but, you know. Well, I know I'm trying to think this year because I think all these guys, I think coaching in the NBA has never been better. I think the Clippers this year, when you look at their team and all that they have withstood injury wise, they have a very mediocre record.

They have a very mediocre team. And I think Tyler does a job uh getting the most out of their the talent at hand um you know the guy I've always been impressed with was Eric Spolstra you know he's coached championship level teams he's coached you know 500 teams um and now you know they have a they have a chance to be a really good team again this year but the thing I've always come back to is when I've watched his teams play I'm like he gets the most out of his teams like like and they don't do it every season the same exact way so I think he does a wonderful job you, but I think there's a ton of really good coaches. I do. I think the NBA, they have really a ton of good coaches. I think the guy

that doesn't get the credit that he should have is Mike Budenholzer. Like Mike Budenholzer, like what he accomplished in Atlanta is now being overlooked. It's like that guy took a more abound program. And I mean, he he they had the number one. He was number one seed in the East with just a pretty good team, like talent wise. And I've always thought that got overlooked. I know now Milwaukee's won the championship, so he gets a lot of praise now.

But I just thought when he was at Atlanta, I just didn't think people really understood what an elite coach he was. You were doing a game. I think you were doing what, Brooklyn, New York? Yeah. That was the last game before the break? Yeah. And what I really like about your broadcast too with you and mark and mike is that you know you weave in some of the topical stuff too which i think is important you know

we don't need we're watching a game we don't need it to be hey miss miss make the whole time but the ben simmons topic comes up and i thought like there are certain things that i've learned is doing this a long time like i want to be open-minded about the Ben Simmons situation, but I also want to ask specific questions. Some people look at that as like, Hey, there's a no win in that. But I thought in the moment in the game that you were asking something very specific.

You were like, okay, I understand he's going through a lot, but now like, how does Tim being on the net solve all of this? What, what were you, you weren't dancing around it, but you were asking a question

maybe some other people wouldn't even bother asking on a broadcast. Well, again, sometimes, and this is just the society we live in, you're better off and better served as a broadcaster avoiding topics. Because I think we all know this, you know you're one step away from being fired if you bring up the wrong thing or you have the wrong statement and um so i i've never been um careful but i i watch carefully now and you know know, you can't be, no one wants you, you know, like Barkley has certain earned privileges where he can, he can say what he would like. Um, and it can be irreverent. It could be like not politically correct. I think

could be like not politically correct. I think someone like myself, you just have to be very careful. And, and, and yet you have an absolute responsibility in your job to say what you think. And so what I was trying to get at with Simmons is like, how does going from Philadelphia to Brooklyn help solve whatever mental health issues he's experiencing? That's what I was trying to add. I don't think it's necessarily like something that's corrected just by a change of scenery. I can imagine on Philadelphia's side and having a little insight into it, that it's not even specific to Simmons. It's something that kind of came up after this trade where, again, it feels like a case of Harden was mad another year later after he was mad about the previous stop.

This isn't new with players forcing their way. It just became more of a headline leading up to the deadline and then having a bit of a break. Did you ever have somebody when you were coaching that was was telling you i want out like i'm i'm done i'm over this uh no but we got a player uh in tracy mcgrady who wanted out of orlando and um you know whenever this is the first time I can remember where I thought the team who traded the star player got an equal or better return. You know, so when we traded for McGrady, you know, we gave up good players and Steve Francis,

Coutinho, Mobley, Kelvin Cato, but we got back, you know, and how McGrady wasn't in the top 75 players. It boggles my mind but i mean he was a great great player so you're right it hasn't this isn't new i think how public it is used, like, you know, like to drop information to, and then you don't, you take care of me, I'll take care of you. And so I'll no longer evaluate you through an unbiased lens. You know, I just find all of the, the sort of media inner workings sometimes to like it turns me off um but that's the business i guess and uh players listen the one thing i like i worked for daryl and i thought daryl like everybody was telling me you have to trade ben Simmons. And he, and he said, no, I don't have

to. I, I loved how he stood his ground. Uh, I admire him for not just caving in when people were on him. And ultimately he said he wanted a star. He got a star and he got a star that he had dealt with previously. So, um, I did remarkably well for what their circumstances were. So there was never a Ewing moment with you? Oh, you know what? That's a good question. I had forgotten about that. So you know how I just said Philadelphia and Brooklyn was a win-win? When we traded Patrick, it was a lose-lose. Everybody lost. Patrick, the Knicks, like literally everything.

And I remember, you know, he didn't come to me and say he wanted out. That was through management. But I remember going down to Maryland and trying to convince him that, you know, he shouldn't want out. And he was going through, you know, he had been with the Knicks, I'm going to say 15 years at that point. And the hard part as you're getting older is like to understand that, you know, things are going to change and the ball's going to go different spots and your minutes are going to come down. He was convinced that his time was up there.

I wasn't convinced. That's why I went down there and tried to talk him out of it. You have a smile on your face right now, Jeff, that is alluding to me that when you went down to recruit him to stay, that it was just something else to the story that I want to hear about. No, no. It's just that I have so many fond memories of him. You know, I've got like, when you bring up his name, um, you know, because he's one of the, you know,

like he is because then we coached together in Houston and they worked for my brother in Orlando. And, and, um, then with, uh, Clifford, uh, in, in Charlotte, like that's one of my like guys, like my, you know, closest friends. And so when you bring him up, like, it's not like there's more to the story, but there is like, you know, so many good memories that flood through your mind as you're talking. And all he did for me, like we in our family referred him as the mortgage because the dude paid the mortgage for me and many others for many, many years. I always love about Pat is just, you know, like his loyalty, which you don't find, uh, between player, a player giving to a coach, you know, like this goes back to his, how he was raised by a great set, a great family, uh, how he was taught by Mike Jarvis and John Thompson, uh Thompson as his coaches. I mean, this guy had incredible respect for the position of a coach. And because of that, it allowed people like me to coach him

and not when we ran into some failure to bail on you. So that's what the smile was about. Just, man, the guy, he's just one a very, very few that you could ever hope. I was fortunate. You know, that was my, that was my guy from when I was an assistant, uh, through my 13 years with the Kn cool. So look, I think I can ask you this. I don't, because I know you're going to know more than you can tell us because Stan coached Zion last year, but because it's the Pelicans and because there's a physical injury with Zion, like I made a joke last week that I go, I just was reading the latest on him where it was ready to go after the all-star break. after the all-star break in the same day the other story was may need a second surgery um i've shared on this because i have some insight into it that you know he's he's not happy there the mom kind of runs the show a little bit what can you tell us without without making it sound like it's coming directly because you know it looks dan hasn't been there this year so we don't know the latest on it but it just feels like it's kind of an under-the-radar situation that is boiling towards something that we may see with some of these other players. Yeah. Well, I don't know anything about that, and I'm not just blowing smoke. Stan absolutely loved coaching him. He thought he was an exceptionally hard worker. Obviously, his physical talents are off the charts.

And then the ability to handle point guard-type responsibilities and create plays. So he thought he was team-oriented, really good competitor. Yeah, so he really liked him now from my vantage point um what i saw when i because i watched every one of their games during stans here um you know he he does need like i i'm concerned about his injuries and his injuries are exacerbated by like carrying excess weight and and then the other thing that i think people never want to talk about uh where he's good if he wants to win and win big which i think he does he is going to have to guard better. Like, you know, his pick and roll coverage wasn't, from my vantage point, wasn't good enough.

His individual defense wasn't good enough. He doesn't have the same natural physical talents defensively that he has offensively. And so those, if you're going to, like, win win at a high level that's going to have to be corrected but the guy is an incredible like offensive machine and the one thing i would i would say that is going to be hard is like how does he when he gets back like and there's more contact now allowed at the at the basket how does he incorporate you know a jump shot occasionally so that he doesn't have to be attacking attacking attacking you know every game every year i want to finish with this.

I want to offer up a rule change. I want to see what you think about it because I know how much you love change. I'd like to eliminate the help charge. All right. So what I'm saying here is if you're square up with your defender and somebody comes over

in front of the restricted area to get the help charge, I don't think – I think what I want to do is figure out – the charges have actually gotten better, which I can't believe happened because there was a peak awfulness there for a while where all you had to do was kind of stop in front of somebody and then it was just a charge. and then it was just a charge. But there are a bunch of things that I know you've proposed to change, but I think a way to get away from some of the offensive foul as the default defense is you can't get a charge if you're not the primary defender. Well, I disagree with you on this. I don't think it's gotten better. I think it's awful.

I think officials at every level love to call the charge. College is so bad, Jeff. College is a joke. It's a joke. They're not even looking at when the ball is picked up or when they're jumping. You can come in late. It's a joke, but they love it. They love coming out of there with the charge call.

joke, but they love it. They love coming out of there with the charge call. I mean, I've never seen a group of individuals love a call more than officials loving the charge call. I think the NBA has started to trend more towards college. They talk about they don't want train wrecks. You see now charges where guys have passed the ball in the NBA, then there's contact, and they call the college-type charge. And it's like, when I came into the NBA, first of all, they always told you to stand up. They would wave their hands up like this, stand up, like, stand up, play basketball. Now, eliminating help charges, I don't know then what you would tell the help defenders to do. Stop doing it. No, but what do you want them to do?

Get out of the way? Or are you saying you can do it, but it won't be a foul call. It'll be a no call. Or I could make the case that any place in the lane is truly the restricted area where you have to be jumping up instead of planting your feet. But I just think, I'm not sure a rule change needs to be made, but the way that it's officiated needs to change. I'm tired of watching. needs to change. I'm tired of watching. And I think, you know,

the Donchage play that you're talking about earlier where they get deep and then they spray it out because everybody's like worried about people coming under them and they don't want to attack the basket as much. I mean, it's truly,

it's harming the game. It's harming the game. It's, it's harming the game. And there's other things that I think, you know, need to be changed to like rule wise, you know, but that one right there and, and the take fouls in transition, those two, to me, are hurting the action at the basket. Because it just becomes almost this virus in a way. And it's been going on for a while. I just think there were some times, I remember a few years ago,

I was in my basement in West Hartford, and the guys were even on a breakaway. The guys got the ball, and the guy just stopped in front of him like he didn't get in a position he just got even with him enough just put his body in front of him and just got run over and they were like charge and i i seriously i think i turned it off i go i can't do this again tonight because i was just so frustrated i was so mad about it and sometimes i'll see like the take foul and i'm like does he realize that he's he's taking a foul here when

they shouldn't like i've seen i think i've seen take fouls where guys in the bonus. No, they do. Yeah. And you go like what, you didn't even know what the fuck you're doing. Sorry to swear about it, but it drives me crazy though. And so I don't like things that are incongruent. Okay. So we have a clear path foul because we want to encourage

fast break basketball okay right but we don't have a take foul so now so we have incongruent rules like so why do we have a clear path foul if we're not going to have a take foul and it's you know mike green and i disagree all the time he always says how hard things are. And I don't think this one's hard at all. Oh, you don't know if he's taking it. Yes, you use your eyes. You use your eyes. If in your mind it's intentional and they're not making a basketball play,

it's two in the ball. Like, I want to see action at the rim. I want to see guys go up and try to dunk it over the top of somebody and somebody challenge him at the rim and try to block it. I don't want to see guys go up and try to dunk it over the top of somebody and somebody challenge him at the rim and try to block it. I don't want to see like ball out on the side. I don't want to see free throws. I hate timeouts.

I hate halftime. I want it all to be lessened, right? Like, why do we have to have a halftime? Can't we play four straight quarters? What's so important about halftime? Like, it's just tradition. Why do we have to have a halftime. Can't we play four straight quarters? What's so important about halftime? It's just tradition. Why do we have to have timeouts? And if we're going to have the, if we want action, when the ball hits the rim, it's live. It's live. Go up and dunk it back in or knock it off. Whatever you want to do. I just think we got to incentivize with our rules action and lessen the dead time.

I'm with the take foul thing is so frustrating because it's like, no, no, we want breakaways. We want dunks. Like just being a kid and going to games. I go, oh, wow. Like I got two breakaway dunks and it made your night. You know, that's that's what we want. And now we sit and review everything. But the charge thing, I don't know how it became this because I just know that

when I was younger, you had to be in position and it was almost like a beat. You had to have established position and you had to have gotten run over. And nobody was trying to find a way to undercut everybody. And that's exactly why we don't have action at the rim because everybody's freaked out the whole time, just as you pointed out. It's bad. It makes the product worse. It's not safe.

Huge bodies colliding into each other and piling up under the rim just to go ahead and get some kind of charge. I just wish they went into a season where they'd say, hey, we need to really revamp this because it's evolved into a younger generation they'd say, hey, we need to really revamp this because it's evolved into a younger generation thinking this is how the charge acts. It used to be hard to even get an offensive foul in a basketball game. When I came into the NBA, I came from college. I

was 27 years old. Literally, it was impossible to get an offensive foul you say a beat i i would say the only way you got a charge is if there was no other call that could have possibly been made it had to be that absurd with that amount of contact now listen i'm a coach we stepped in like like we did what i'm advocating that we should be trying to eliminate so people say well i'm hypocritical no you as a coach you're coaching to the rules of the game but if the rule said like we're going back to the uh late 80s and literally you're gonna have to like you know what they called back then a lot with the wipe away or the clear out, you know, with your off arm, that was your offensive foul of back then. It was never,

ever, or very rarely the help side slide under late. You didn't get that call. And, and I think, you know, our NBA officiating group is now so young they've lost such uh depth right and they're trying to incorporate um so that everybody sees every play the same and i understand that but i just i just think we're we got to go back to where it's like brutally hard to get a charge. I don't think necessarily to eliminate it. Um, but man, you got to be there and there really has to be no other recourse other than

that should be play on, you know? So it's two minds aligned on this one. So I don't, I don't have to follow up at all on that hey jeff thanks a lot man i appreciate it yeah anytime 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. LifeAdvice, lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. All right, we're actually going to do this here. We're going to do a couple follow-ups. I do appreciate all the celebrity stories that Kyle has forwarded me. By the way, Kyle is off. He's not been kidnapped.

That would be amazing. Like the Frolic Room con man heard the podcast. Wouldn't be surprised. And then Kyle's missing. Yeah, Kyle's missing. Said he's at the Super Bowl somewhere else this week. There's another one apparently. He's at a funeral.

No, hanging out. I think he's in Poughkeepsie. I think he's back home. So enjoying his week off. Yeah, Kyle vacations in Poughkeepsie. That's how salty the earth he is. So here's an update on the guy that wanted to take the LeBrons from the lost and found. He said, fired up. You guys read the original email. People do really want to know what happened here. Thank you for the advice. I want to firstly clear my name. At the time of writing, I had not all caps, not taken the shoes. By the way, we knew that. I'm pretty sure we... Well, no. You had said, I think we pretty much came to the consensus that by the time we read the email, there's a good chance that he had taken the shoes already. All right. Well, he says at the time of the writing, I had not taken the shoes. I believe the way we told that story is that we were under the understanding of the time of writing that he

had not taken them. Why would he take them and then write the email unless he just had a guilty conscience there was a strong lean there though we thought yeah well because i think most guys were taking the shoes in that moment i think most people unfortunately kind of lean that way where they're going out whatever lost and found somebody else is going to take him all right so he says uh i had not taken the shoes i was generally facing the moral quandary of robbing another man the opportunity to find his sneakers and sought counsel from people whom i figured would lead me down the right path that being us i guess after your advice on the monday pod i plan to wait two more weeks but after hearing the overwhelming support of the life advice community on wednesday's pod who said to just

take them i am now the proud owner of a new to me pair of pair of LeBrons. He goes, also over the weekend with Ryan's comments in the back of my mind, I slapped 175 on the bench and got two reps. What a week for your boy. So he said he's going to send in personal record accomplishments on the bench. You do not need to do that, but we appreciate the follow-up. We knew he was taking them, but yeah, I guess his point was he needed to hear from us on that and you know not like he he hit a body in the woods and he has to he you know go to bed with that guilt every night the raven um i think it'll be fine and i think most people

probably agree with him even if i'm probably a little bit later in a stage of my life where i i just wouldn't take somebody else's used shoes but But I know right now I'm not the person to ask. So I. Yeah, your average dude, I think, is making the same decision that our emailer did. And I think it's totally fine. And I think now certainly enough time has passed where like I think it's fair game. So he has them. He owns them. That's fine. I'll go back. My only concern at the time was that like the guy who was the original owner of the shoes would see you wearing them at a pickup game. At the end of the day, like it's been a month or so. So if he does confront you, say, yeah, man, I took him.

Like, what do you want me to do? Like you left the shoes in there for a month and you could just give them back if he wants. So I think everybody wins in this scenario. And I'm happy that the life advice community was also weighing in and gave him confidence too. Cause you know, like you and I and Kyle weren't always 100% right on everything.

We just gave our take, but I'm glad that they sort of forced him forward to make his dream come true of finding a new pair of used lebron yeah right exactly we we do not bat a thousand we do not claim to bat a thousand on this all right this though is about as much of a home run of a follow-up story with a celebrity encounter it's the best email we've gotten in weeks and i'm fucking reading it and i know it's i know it's delaying the other stuff but it's too good it has to be shit although you know what i didn't put it in the the truth generator app that we have let me oh no yeah let me just do that

google machine let me put let me do that real quick it's like is there an app for this be like yeah copy and paste and put it into google all right let's make sure it passes the old sniff test here this is live podcasting in the moment pretty exciting isn't it kids i have uh i have a story too as well actually from a dm about a celebrity encounter oh yeah if you want me to share yeah um is it that good no it's short actually all right if you're doing that i'll go ahead so this is actually the guy and i'm sure he won't mind because he's a big fan of the show it's actually the rossilla memes account he dm'd me on instagram and he said uh quote i was in the lifetime fitness locker room and nene nene hilario former rocket former nugget love that guy used to

draft him in 2k all the time um he opened the locker next to mine caught me totally off guard and just said damn uh like i know who you are he laughed at my reaction we chatted for a bit this was back when he was on the rockets and after that we would see each other at the gym he occasionally would ask me to spot him on the db bench good dude so worked out for our guy that's a great that's a great story nene he became nene spotter nene hilario became just nene then after a little while yeah sometimes i wish i were from brazil i was gonna say brazilian it's him and anderson bearish out right the two brazilian dudes yeah uh leon barbosa oh that's right yep there you go yeah shout out to the sons um but you got to trust somebody a ton to ask them to spot you on a bench though right so that's that means like that was

like a real bond from our guy. I got to tell you, dumbbell spotting is even more intimate. I wouldn't even know how to do that. So good for him. Yeah, just get below the elbows. And then when you're done, you'll be like, dude, I barely helped you on that last one. Great job. You have to say that.

The Nays personal hype guy, yeah. No, you have to say that in any spotting of any guy ever. You have to be like, oh, dude, that guy ever you have to be like oh dude that was pretty much all you like 95 okay um all right i ran it through the if this is fake i'm gonna i'm gonna search because i the last fake one we had i found the guy's real stuff on linkedin fucking idiot emailed us from his account with a thing and i almost wanted to call and go hey i just want to talk to a supervisor there and let you know that chris in data entry sends sends fake emails to people but i didn't want to do that no we don't we don't do i wouldn't want to ruin his life no because clearly the bosses

would have been like all right you've been warned we've got to meet this guy all right here we go this is unbelievable this is so good and i've taken too long to get there so let's do it 58 175 um back in 2005 my brother's eye went out to orange county california to visit a couple buddies of mine on our second night there we headed out to a club there were five of us total no girls shockingly we waited in line for over an hour to get in once inside we found out a round of beers or 75 bucks god in 2005 that was where were you is this live yeah i mean look live new york city or something like that but um whatever i mean some places are expensive but yeah that's that's not great um for beers that seems high 15 bucks for beer seems kind of high but all right none of the girls seem to have any interest in talking to us probably because

you're complaining about the 15 beers fast forward an hour and my brother alex and i are walking to the bathroom when nick carter of the backstreet boys walks out this is back in 05 and the backstreet boys were still semi-relevant the night was going nowhere and upon leaving the bathroom alex pulled a move out of nowhere he walks right up to nick and says hey nick great to see you it's craig from o-townTown, for those that don't know, another boy band of that era, but much well less known, an important point of pulling this off.

He said, man, I haven't seen you since the Grammys two years ago, and then sticks his hand out for a handshake. Nick looks at him for about 10 seconds, and then as if he's known him his whole life, throws his arms around Alex and says how great it is to see him again, meaning Craig, I assume.

Alex introduces me as his manager. And then Nick says, if I remember the Grammys, Craig loves Jager bombs. Proceeds to order them for me, Alex, and the whole crew. When the bill comes, Nick turns to Alex and says, Craig, your manager has this right. All right. So just understand, Alex craig are the same person nick carter thinks that alex is craig from otown and that the guy emailing this is the manager of otown so he says oh your manager she goes now i'm in my mid-20s but not wanting to ruin the thing

we have going i throw up a credit card and pay the 210 dollar dab then nick asks if you want to come party with him in their vip area which of course we do because our night is awful the vip area was awesome and we didn't pay for a drink the rest of the night all the girls who wouldn't give us the time of day earlier are now trying to get us to bring them back to the vip area at one point later in the night the manager of the club came in and asked to speak with craig's manager meaning me he proceeds to ask how many more days are going to be in town if we want to come back again they'll set us up for vip area for us uh the next time in not having any idea what a manager should or sound should do or sound like, I decided to just act like E from Entourage

to the point where the club manager asked me if we liked the club and the VIP setup. And I said, quote, I was working in a pizza place in New York a year ago. I'm living the dream. He obviously did not get the reference as he thought this was hilarious. And he gave me his card,

made me promise we'd come back before he left town there's so many other little stories to the night but to keep it brief as the night went on and more drinks were had alex and i got cockier and cockier we were making more mistakes and keeping up with the lie like introducing ourselves to girls with our real names at one point uh finally as the night was ending mick's manager walks in to pick them up and drive them home nick brings him over to alex and i to say hi we jump up to shake his hand but could see right away he knew the he knew we were full of shit the jig was up he turns to nick and says bitch there ain't no craig in o-town he was correct there wasn't alex

just randomly made up the name needless to say we were immediately removed from the vip area vip area and escorted out of the club but no matter we had obviously a ridiculously fun night drinking the vip area for over three hours had a great story that we'll laugh about to this day um i i think you're supposed to lie to nick carter if you meet him out so i don't i don't have any problem with this whatsoever i think it's terrific and it's a story now it's what 17 years old and these guys probably tell it all the time so that's why i think it was just important to share it to the rest of the community here yeah honestly you have a better chance of probably lying to a celebrity and tricking them into a story like that than you do telling the truth so

i this is this honestly we probably solve the problem that's your way in as long as you play it cool now not everyone's going to be able to play it as cool as these guys seem to do and like making up the lie on the way there but because i just looked up i remember like i remember otown obviously i'm 32 33 years old. I remember. I was like, I don't remember a Craig. I just Googled him. We got Ashley Parker Angel. We got a couple other dudes and no Craig. There's a 0% chance

that a guy of Nick Carter's stature knows who's in a lesser... That'd be like asking... I'm trying to think. Do you think a guy... Yeah, but you never know, though. Do you think LeBron, if you're like never know, though. No, I'm sorry. Do you think LeBron, if you're like,

hey, yeah, I'm so-and-so on the Hawks, like some random guy, and now LeBron's going to invite you to his VIP area, but you'd be like, oh, yeah, I remember you. Good game, dude. There's no way he would actually

even remember or care. The best thing to do in that situation is probably lie about who you are. So you just don't think you could say, hey, I'm Kiefer Sykes. I play for the Pacers. It's a LeBronbron unless i'd be like sure he'd probably he'd probably tell you how awesome how much he loves your game and you know

i'm he's like there's no way that lebron's inviting you back to a vip room but i guarantee you he would just at least show you some love i mean you have to look the part too i don't know what these guys look like but if this is true if nick carter said to fake craig from o-town if i remember the grammys cra Craig loves Jager bombs and then buys Jager bombs. That's one of the best things. Your life, it's kind of downhill. I imagine nothing as great as, I'm sure there's plenty of good stuff has happened, but has

anything that great happened? All right, let's get to a couple actual life advices here. Took too long with that, but that's fine. 6'4", 215. All right. Girlfriends have described me as... This guy sent in his... This guy went above and beyond.

He sent in the application, picture of the driver's license. I don't know. He said, include it all. I'm not going to include it all. Okay. For a very specific reason. Okay, here we go. During the pandemic, I joined a country club.

Due to COVID, the initiation fee and dues were significantly reduced to a point where I was a worker in the gig economy. As a worker in the gig economy, I could afford it. So, all right, here we go. He'll explain what some more of this means, so I'm not going to derail it here. I'm 25. I live in San Francisco, so I make enough money, but I didn't think my application would be accepted if I said that I drove for Uber and delivered groceries for

Instacart. So that's what he means by gig economy, even though it is enough money to pay my dues. So I lied. I fabricated a story about how I run an incredibly niche video game company, something that the majority of the membership would have absolutely zero knowledge of. I was accepted into the full-fledged membership in July of last year, I become what I would describe as a core member of the club. My father, who lives in a city three hours south of me, came in to visit the club, play the course. Unfortunately, two other members joined our tea time last minute. My father's aware of my current career choice, but comments of my career between my father and the two members who joined our round came up and even continued into the lunch afterwards. I've now heard

rumblings that word is circling through the club that I've lied about my career. I know that word travels quickly around our club. For example, when a member recently picked up taxidermy as a hobby, word spread like wildfire. Hey, if a guy close to you becomes a taxidermist, people are going to talk about it. Everybody knows that. That's something that just

slides by. Yeah, I feel that many of the members have such a theatrical facade to their personalities even though i lied about where my money comes from out of fear of rejection i feel that i'm more normal than a lot of the other membership okay that one who knows can't can't i can't choose yeah i can't choose a side on that one i don't want to give up unlimited access to a premier golf course. I'm really freaking worried that every round I play will be corrupted by an interrogation of my fake career. Should I A, let it blow over and deny, deny, deny?

B, come clean to around 75 of the 350 members that are aware of my career? Alright, before I dive into B, we'll get through the rest of these. C, quit the club, knowing that other clubs in the area have initiation fees that are more than I make in a year, and I'll likely never

have the same privilege again. Or should I let this blow over as I likely won't be able to afford to join another club in the area as their initiations are more than what I make in a year? I fucking love golf, he ends it with. And then he gave us all of his name and his contact stuff. All right.

The fact that you came up with a lie that was this impressive that you knew if I just said, Hey, I'm working on this video game company. I run it. No one would ever know what it was. The fact that you knew that your instincts led you to that path, that solution here.

Cause I don't know if they were going to not let you in or not. I don't know. I asked around some of my friends that live in the area i said how nice is this club i mentioned the club they're like look it's all right but it's this isn't this isn't like you got into it dude you know what i mean like some of these clubs showing up with a suit and tie and interviewing and have to have all these members sign off on it ahead of time then the initiation fees are ridiculous and all that kind of stuff. So I'd probably like you, you're probably doing better than I was at 25, but I like you like, okay, this to me, this is what nice is until I get to experience like what really nice is. And I think

that's where this club lies. So you were smart enough to figure out that I, even if they turn me down, I don't know if they're going to turn you down to the other stuff. I'm not a member at any golf courses. I can't believe that you'd be smart enough to come up with that on the application and then be dumb enough to think that B is an actual option here. Come clean to 75 of the 350 members. You might as well just tell all fucking 350. Can you imagine? Think about what you just said.

I'm going to cap the truth at 75, guys, because then nobody else is going to say anything. If there's anything we know about all of this, it's everybody likes to talk. Everybody likes talking about people, man. That's what we do. Beginning of Sapiens, very early on. Why did we evolve in a different way? Because we were able to gossip. That's kind of one of the core tenets of Sapiens, where it's like we were able to believe in

things. That's why we have so many people that believe in conspiracy theories. Or sometimes people are in a hurry to believe conspiracy theories more so than just kind of like the truth. It's why we can look at the same fucking picture. I didn't want to do it on the podcast today.

It's why you can have a thousand people look at the Juwan Howard guard confrontation and come up with a million different scenarios of what actually happened when it's pretty clear that one guy escalated over the other, even though the initial guy shouldn't put his hands on Juwan Howard. All right. I don't think Juwan Howard should be fired, by the way. That's my statement. So you telling 75 and thinking that's going to kind of just like, yeah, these guys will be my

core 75. That's not going to happen. And you're right. It's if you're hearing rumblings, if you're hearing rumblings that people think you lied in the application because your father was talking about you driving for Uber and Instacart while you're playing around with two other members, then that's definitely what has happened. So there's another thing about human nature. People are rarely as confrontational as they say that they are. So my guess would be if you love golf and you can't join another course, and what you did isn't terrible because it's not like you're the frolic room con man here although there's probably other people that are lifelong members of places that are listening to me being like you can't do that you absolutely can't lie on your application whatever these are your friends these are your

you know because some golf clubs take the it's almost this brotherhood thing that's a whole nother level um one of my friends belongs to a course where you can't if there's you can't sit at a table by yourself like if there's three people at a table and there's a fourth chair you have to sit at the fourth chair so if you were like yeah so i would they would kick they would kick me out in an afternoon yeah they'd be like up who said yes to rassilo he's fucking sitting by himself i need five minutes to myself let me just eat this meal no what do we do no like if you don't know who the other people are you have to sit with them like you have to sit with those guys like an adult frat situation this is what it sounds like like an older frat guy basically you say if you just golf instead of you know pound beers yeah but you know what

i i don't want to criticize it because i think in a weird way, sometimes we don't hear about some golf course membership tradition kind of stuff. Like, I don't know. Sometimes that stuff can be kind of cool. Like, no, no, this is how we want to do this stuff.

Like, we don't have to just say all of it's stupid and all this stuff. So I don't think that's necessarily what this course is. But I'm leaning towards, for you, denying it, playing some golf. You're probably not going to be

a lifelong member there. And I don't know. I mean, some people that are younger are probably saying, hey, fake it till you some golf. You're probably not going to be a lifelong member there. And I don't know. I mean, some people that are younger are probably saying, Hey, fake it till you make it. But I don't look, I'm not in the golf course world. I'm not a member. So I don't know how, like I could imagine some people think that this is like the worst thing you could ever do. I don't think that's necessarily true, but you, you thinking you're going to be able to just tell the close people that this isn't going to spread. Everybody's going to know this about you. And it's up to your own level of comfort being in an uncomfortable situation. Like if you can say, screw it, I'm here.

I love this course. This is the best I can do. Normally, I couldn't have afforded if it wasn't what had happened before. There's plenty of golf courses that are struggling for younger people anyway across the board. Because the younger generations, and I would say to their credit, are probably like, wait, I got to cut you a check for how much just to say I belong here. But other people would look at it as, yeah, that's the whole point, is then you get in, you network, you meet people, and your life changes because you have access to opportunities you would have never had. So it depends on what's important to you. I'm not saying either one is the right one or wrong one, but in this case, if you want to keep playing golf, which you just said at the end of the email, I fucking love

playing golf. I, I would just roll with it. And I wouldn't tell anybody. I wouldn't tell anybody at this point because golf is probably more important to the relationships for you based on what I'm reading here. I know this may be a surprise to some people because I grew up in Connecticut. Um, but I, I know literal literally nothing about country club culture or life or anything about that. So can they kick him out on the grounds of lying? They can kick him out. All right. Yeah.

I would say if you really want to stay, you can kind of tweak the lie a little bit and say, listen, I knew I probably wasn't going to get in, but I do have this company that I'm trying to start. It hasn't gotten as far as I want to. And it just kind of played the idea that way that like you have this like video game company that you're trying, but you're driving an Uber, you're doing all this other stuff on the side to raise money in the meantime and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And that'll probably get people off your scent. Be like, all right. All right. So he, you know, he's, he has ambition. He's interesting. You know, you have to be a likable guy. I'm sure if these guys like you, they're going to be more likely to, you know, I want you to stick around.

So can he just do that and say yeah i'm still trying to get this thing off the ground the company's not as big as i said it was yes i did lie but then kind of make up the fact that you like where you are in starting this company and then that'll probably get people off your scent i would not initiate that i would you would have to come to me before i would play that card i wouldn't go to them and be like hey i want to meet with you and tell you about this so you would just not say anything you would just you would just be the shadowy guy you would just not say anything i don't think it's shadowy you know there's also based on the research i did on this course i don't think they should be turning away somebody who makes money driving for uber

you know this isn't fucking pebble beach here man so um you know the guy said he could pay the dues whatever so maybe that was a mistake he's not just putting that down maybe he would have been fine otherwise but why didn't he tell his dad why didn't he give his dad a heads up about the situation too you know i mean maybe well because he probably didn't want to say to his dad hey i got in here because i lied about something so he probably didn't want to do that maybe i don't know i just okay dad don't blow up my spot don't talk about my career like what i don't know i just feel like that would be you're right the guy is clearly smart you know and getting into the place in the first place. There's a couple of critical errors

that he's made along the way that make me think like, you know, what's this guy doing? Here's what I know. Of all the options telling 75 guys, hey, keep it low. Here's the real deal is the worst solution. It's a bad idea.

It's not a good idea. Yeah. All right. I hope you enjoyed Life Advice. Lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. We got Saruti. Thank you to him. Thanks to Mike Woragon. Shout out you enjoyed Life Advice. LifeAdviceRR at gmail.com. We got Saruti. Thank you to him. Thanks to Mike Wargon.

Shout out back in New York City. And Kyle and Poughkeepsie, just thinking of you, man. Talk to you Wednesday. Outro Music