The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Kawhi Over Giannis, Fantasy Football Sleepers, and Rockets-Thunder With Royce Young and Danny Kelly

Episode Date: September 1, 2020

Russillo shares his thoughts on Rockets-Thunder Game 6, as well as Kawhi vs. Giannis in the debate for best player in the league (1:26), before talking with ESPN’s Royce Young about the Rockets-Thunder Round 1 series that has now come down to Game 7 (17:44). Then Ryen is joined by The Ringer’s Danny Kelly to discuss fantasy football draft strategies for the first round as well as his top 10 sleepers (37:38). Finally, Russillo answers some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (1:03:58). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, what's up? It's Ryan Rosillo for the Ryan Rosillo podcast. Here's the plan today. We're going to do NFL sleepers with Danny Kelly from the Ringer fantasy show. And we're also going to talk with Royce Young about the Thunder in their game six win. So we'll do a little life advice at the end. We're also going to drop mysteriously in one Madden code for EA's Madden. I have no idea how that's going to work out. I'm just going to put the code in there

and you're going to find it. And one of you is going to get a free download and we'll see how that goes. You want to check in with Kyle real quick. What's up, Kyle? What's up, dude? I wish I knew that before I bought Madden, but that's great. I'm happy for whoever gets the code.

Why are you assuming I'd give you a code? Well, I guess now I know it's not safe to assume. Anyway, good morning. I was afraid. Yeah, good morning. I was afraid if I did the code that you were just going to use it and that I would never know. Yeah, you would just give the code to one of your buddies back home or something. And then every show, if I drop a code in there,

the only people getting them are going to be associated with Kyle. So there is a fear there. But, you know, we're just going to have to trust each other. We're just going to have to trust each other here a little bit. Okay, let's talk some hoops first, though, before we do the rest of the show. It's not even like an official open-to know some of you probably thinking i might be doing some kind of victory

lap here after the thunder beat the rockets in game six everybody's well aware of my position on chris paul and the rockets um but i'm not because the way that these things work historically this is the way history works instead of houston who is fully capable of of running okc out of the building in game seven. If that happens in game six, doesn't count. It does, but it doesn't,

it doesn't get to count in arguments. It doesn't matter. Even though we saw some real stuff, we saw stuff that I've been yelling about for years about who Chris Paul is and who some other guys may not be, but none of it matters. And that's the thing about these sports arguments that go on forever and people can make careers out of them.

And why I just sometimes will shrug and go yeah you know whatever um because if you especially if you want to be a hater on a tv show or radio show or whatever more often than not most of these guys are going to lose games and then you can just point to the loss and even a person played great perfect basketball and uh makes the right play on the last second shot and that team loses, then you get to just say that that guy sucks and he's a bum and he can't get out of the playoffs. Now, Chris Paul's resume in the playoffs, I cannot, you know, I can't defend it. It's not what I wish it were.

There are certainly excuses in there with the injuries, whether it was his injuries or a teammate's injuries. But you know what? It's not good, so I'm not going to sit here and defend it the whole time. But I'm just always going to defend Chris Paul. And I'll admit, okay, so you go halftime. Rockets up 51-48.

Rockets were abysmal from three. They had taken at least six free throws, although Thunder hadn't taken a ton. Although it was a very physical, chippy game very early on. Dort had three fouls, so he wasn't around early, so he thought he was hard and going to go off. But the big number there, the Rockets, bad bad shooting and minus seven of the rebounds are up three and I'm kind of wondering where Chris Paul was I had a moment where and I'm not big this guy isn't right although we know the rule now in today's NBA is that anybody that doesn't look right means

he's hurt and they'll let us know or their personal beat reporter will tell us how hurt they are after they are eliminated or they put ice or bandages or cast all over themselves you're like what the hell's going on here anyway uh i would say that um with with paul i thought there was a slight chance and again i don't do this very often but i was i text a couple people i go hey something wrong with chris paul because i remember the way he left game five he walked off kind of weird right as he got subbed out around the 10 minute mark when it was about to be garbage time and he got bumped into i don't know if it was Westbrook, but he got bumped into and he kind of walked back a little bit weird. And I thought he was floating way too much. And you could say, oh, no, he was letting the game kind of come to him.

No, he was like a non-participant at some point. And I just remember writing down going, I'm surprised to see Chris Paul, like, why is he letting this happen? Why would Chris Paul let this happen to his team and he had two drives in the second quarter when I went okay well at least physically I know he looks like he's good so let's see what happens now I want to go all the way to the 450 mark of this game it was 94 92 Harden's in the corner. He hits an impossible Harden three. And it's 97-92. And this is kind of where all hell breaks loose in this game. There's

a Schroeder charge on Tucker where Tucker already was getting ready to flop before he even got hit. He was projectiling himself backwards and Schroeder hadn't even bumped into him yet. But that play is so fast. And considering his feet look good. I'm not surprised that he,

he got the charge there on Schroeder. And then right after that, Chris Paul got a tech and Harden hits the tech. So it's 98, 92. Then Harden misses a three. I'm going to pay attention to that. That's a hardened position where he actually had the ball.

Chris Paul starts to light it up here. He gets Covington. He was hunting out Covington in the switch. He hits a three in Covington's grill. It's a 14-1 run by Houston. That one ends, so it's now 98-95. Remember, I think OKC was up 88-80, and then Houston went on this tear. Westbrook misses a layup that was pretty forced, but it wasn't a terrible, terrible look. And now I'm starting to think, okay, here we go. The Westbrook chop down a tree with your hands move. You know, like I'm just going to, hey, is there a better tool to use?

Don't care. Brute force with everything. It just had to be bizarre for thunder fans by the way i didn't see a lot of thunder fans going you know i like westbrook though because i just love how passionate he is i didn't i didn't see that a ton from thunder fans that have done that for years when westbrook would have a bad close to a playoff game okay um gallinari got blocked he thought he was getting a foul he should have gone in for the contact he didn't he got blocked then ch Then Chris Paul gets the ball.

He gets Covington in a switch. This shot at 254 that ties it at 98-98 is just filthy. And Covington's got all the size of the world on him. And Covington's afraid to go out too far, though, because a smaller guard like Paul and that handle, the closer you get out of them, it's easier actually to go around you because you can't cut off the angle as much. But Coton still get his hand up and Paul is just getting these shots off those two threes where Paul's like okay everybody Chris Paul time it was just that's the stuff I love about this guy all right Harden throws a pass this this possession is totally

forgotten he drives they build a bit of a wall against him and he throws an absolute garbage pass to the corner which Paul read the entire time and then he steals it that led to a missed layup Eric Gordon missed transition three uh Shea Gildress Alexander who I'm starting to think may not be able to pass the basketball at all I thought he could at least in these higher pressure moments it it's not happening. He throws it out of bounds, but it was off Houston. It actually deflected and hit Eric Gordon's face, and I thought Gordon was going to ask for a foul call on the ball, but he didn't get it. Danilo misses a three, and now here we go. Westbrook turnover where he just got stripped.

It's out of his hands. That led to that weird break where Adams missed the layup. It was unbelievable defense by P.J. Tucker to get back and contest that. It was a poorly executed transition. You could just see

everything's so tight now. You're about to be eliminated if you can't get this done. And the Thunder screwed up a couple different possessions there in transition. It was like two. Westbrook makes a layup to make it 198.

Dennis comes back the other way, ties it up 100 apiece. Now Westbrook is running the point again after he just turned the ball over. Harden is getting fronted by Shea, and he just doesn't get clear. Now, some argue that this was the play. It was for a screen for Westbrook who then took the ball and airballed it.

Straight up airballed it. But Harden didn't do anything. Like Harden got fronted and was like, you know what? I'm good. I guess I'm not in this play. Westbrook pulls up airballs

and the funny thing is that Harden actually, because everybody's arguing about how exhausted he is, made an incredible play to save the ball because Shea Gill just stopped playing basketball and lost Harden. So he just let him go right through. Harden goes through four guys and throws it off at Danilo and they keep the possession. So that leads to Harden who travels all over the place on this missed shot clock three. So that's the second shot that Harden's taken since 450 during this entire run of possessions that I've talked about. And then the one that everybody's pointing to, Westbrook brings it up and just straight up throws it out of bounds. And then Chris Paul's fouled, hits the free throws.

And then there's a heave there. Harden took two shots in the last 450 when you take out the last second heave when it had nothing to do with the game. Westbrook was bringing the ball up. Harden looked a little heavier when he came back to the bubble, but we don't really worry about him as much because that offense you don't have to move uh harden off the ball is i know people have argued

well look only rockets people have argued it that it's actually this thing because he wants to keep everybody stretched the whole thing um it's not it wasn't great and maybe it was just because he was tired but you know what? You can't, you can't choose to be tired in that moment. But again, I'm not going to do this big Harden's bad. And some of these games that I've already done, uh, Westbrook, like that was the least surprising Westbrook stuff. You always rusty. He was coming back physically. It looks fine. He's throwing the ball to everybody. I mean, not everybody was throwing it all over the place. Yeah. It was a little bit rusty, but there there's no, I told you so until the Thunder win game seven.

And I don't even know if that's going to happen. So last little thing, just on Kawhi Leonard, whatever we say about Kawhi as a player, his status and my obsession, because we all do it. And it's, it's a fun thing to be obsessed about it but like who's the best who's the best and i'm not doing this just because milwaukee lost to miami in game one and jimmy butler my god some of these performances were seen from some of these players but we really even though simmons and i were doing that whole thing where it was we don't really do this enough or this doesn't get mentioned enough. We were just basically pointing out that everyone's agreed on all of this stuff. But whatever we say about Kawhi isn't enough.

These are his numbers right now. 33, 10, and 5. His actually three-point shooting is the only time in the playoffs so far that it hasn't been amazing. I mean, look what he shot from three the only time in the playoffs so far that it hasn't been amazing. I mean, look what he shot from three for his career in the playoffs. 45%, 39%. These are for like full playoff years.

42%, 42%, 44%, 46%. The last year he was at San Antonio, he was only 12 games. But, and then with Toronto, higher volume going over 24 games, 38%. That's the only bad number is that one right now. His free throw percentage is at 85%, whereas Giannis is missing everything in that game against Miami, where the Miami-Milwaukee thing,

I could do a little bit of a tangent, say, Milwaukee, that offense, and I'm going to do some more work on this for Thursday's pod, but it looks like it's a little bit more of a grind for these guys. If they were even with free throws, Milwaukee probably wins that game, but they missed a bunch of free throws. So I'm trying not to freak out too much about adjustments and all this different stuff.

But you can freak out about Giannis because you can see, especially when he had a late miss on the front end of one, he was really short. You're like, oh, it's in his head now. He's thinking about this. And trust me, that is the worst. It is the worst place to be as somebody shooting free throws in a game so uh kawaii doesn't miss his free throws i mean the numbers are nuts so again his average is 33

10 and 5 this year last year 31 9 and 4 year before that with the spurs 28 8 and 5 year before that 23 6 and 3 the crazy thing is the year they won the title, I mean, the first year he was with San Antonio, he was only averaging like 13 but nine boards. The next year it was 14 and seven boards, no real assist. He was only taking about 10 shots per game. So that's when they were in the back-to-back finals against the Heat. So I think we all understand how special Kawhi is. But when you see how automatic he is in the playoffs,

how unstoppable he is, and the fact see how automatic he is in the playoffs, how unstoppable he is, and the fact that we're putting up four years of, if we go advanced numbers, PER 32, 28, 31.5, 29, arguably like some of the best numbers you could see from a player for an entire season, and that's four straight from Kawhi. And I guess, you know, look, PR, take whatever number you want to put out there. This guy's automatic all of the time, and the teams always win. And it makes me think of every time I say out loud, like, yeah, Giannis is the best player. I go, why do I keep saying that? So I'm not going to say it anymore.

I'm just not. And I'm not doing it just because of game one, because that would be stupid. I think you guys know me well enough that that's not the reason. But you just sit there and watch Kawhi close out a basketball game and you go, wait, this is way more automatic

and trustworthy, and I know exactly what it is compared to the spectacular thing that Giannis is when it's great. It's unbelievable. But I'm still not 100% sure of what the hell it is at the end of a big-time playoff game. And with Kawhi, it's like,'s unbelievable but I'm still not 100 sure of what the hell it is at the end of a big time playoff game and with Kawhi it's like oh you mean the guy with two rings and those four years of numbers so I'm just a daily reminder to myself I'm going to stop saying Giannis is better than Kawhi because I just don't think I think he's more he's more

physically impressive I think it's like I said it's more physically impressive. I think, like I said, it's more spectacular. We're such visual people. Like Kawhi, if he were just... I mean, he threw down his sick dunk against the Mavs, and it's like, oh, wow, look at that. It's like, no, no, he can do all of those things too, but he just doesn't need to because that beat-the-hell-out-of-you pull-up game, double me, I'll read it, throw a pass,

it's nuts, and he's a 10 times better shooter. So I don't know. I just feel like I had this revelation now where none of us should say Giannis is better than he is. So there you go. Table it that way. Before we get to Royce Young and talk a little Rockets Thunder, as the original Light Beer, oh yes, Miller Lite,

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I feel like I always see a boat. I'd love to get into the boat scene, but you know what they say about boats, Kyle? I got a couple good things about boats. Which one are you referring to? Well, go ahead. I'd love to hear yours now. I didn't know you had one for me. Now I'm excited.

The best boat is a friend's boat, right? Yep. I've heard that one. And then what's the other one? The two best days when you get a boat is the day you buy it and the day you sell it. Is there another one I don't know about? Because I just keep recycling those two. I think there's one that's like a boat is just a hole that you throw money into.

I'm like, that doesn't seem very nice to boats. No. You know? Seems a little gross, actually. I got to tell you, everybody i see with the boat seems to be having a pretty good time i can understand the mooring and the slips and then you know certain places where you gotta take it out of the water depending on your climate but i see a lot of people smiling yeah i was talking with titus and he was just saying if you have to ask about the

price of stuff involved with the boat, maybe it's not for you. If you're wondering what the actual price is, maybe it's not for you. Yeah, I think the problem is, based on research, is if you just end up with the wrong boat, then it's a nightmare. And you're, you know, you're redoing your tranny. You're boring out the valves. You know, that's not my expertise if you come in barnacle you know barnacles barnacles are a huge problem barnacles i would think are a little bit easier to deal with than uh your fuel line right you know there you go middle light great taste

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carbs per 12 ounces. Okay, I'm looking forward to this because this has to be a little surreal for him. For ESPN.com, NBA writer, been there a long time, has covered the Thunder primarily over the years, and it is Royce Young. You can follow him at Royce Young.

How surreal was the end of that to see it from the vantage point of a team that you'd covered, a player you'd covered so long in Westbrook and to have the thunder win with Westbrook. Look, I, you and I've talked about it off the air a ton and I know he's coming back from stuff, but like, that's the part of him that scares me. It's always scared me. It's led to all these thunder arguments I've had over the years, but

that had to be really weird for you. Yeah. It's like, um, it's this weird thing thing ryan where you couldn't help but feel a little sorry for him you know like because you know i'm sure for westbrook with him missing the first four games of the series that you know he just wanted to kind of have that moment and it would have you know he there's no like animosity between him and the thunder necessarily but like he's you know as competitive as anybody that we know and for him to put the thunder out and send them home from the bubble i think russell would have enjoyed that and uh you know i i couldn't help but kind of feel bad for him because it it wasn't just like the fact that he turned it over i mean to me ryan those weren't like your standard

crunch time bad decisions from westbrook those were just like awful passes like just didn't what he was throwing the ball just straight out of bounds. You know, it wasn't like, oh, that was a bad shot selection or he was a little out of control. Man, he was just out of sorts. And, you know, from covering him for as long as I have, I've seen him, Ryan, when he misses time, he loses his rhythm and he has a hard time getting it back.

And I've seen him in warm-ups. I remember a game in Oakland. He had missed some time. he'd uh was coming back from one of his knee scopes and he missed most of training camp and i watched him in a warm-up ryan and he he probably airballed 10 shots because he is somebody that really just has to finally tune himself and to me that's what i was watching in in game six is a guy that's just completely out of rhythm. And while it was, you know, it was kind of surreal to see like the contrast of Chris Paul, who engineers nothing but winning possessions in clutch time versus Russell Westbrook, who embraces the moment desperately wants to win,

is not afraid of anything, but makes bad decisions in crunch time. That, that contrast was pretty striking. Hey, when Paul did his post game he was he was feeling it and he should have been after hitting those two threes against covington but he basically said like some people are built for this some people aren't a lot of people took that as okay wait a minute is he who's he's taking a shot at somebody is he taking a shot at harden or is he taking a shot at westbrook how did you you see that? I saw more as a Harden comment, personally. Chris and Russ are friends. There's no real beef there between those two guys, no history.

And look, Russell's built for that moment. He just fails, and he's willing to fail. He is a guy that absolutely embraces the high-pressure, high-anxiety know, you've seen it, Ryan. Some of the possessions with Harden, he essentially kind of ran from the basketball. And he didn't, you know, the Thunder were clearly trying to deny the ball from him. That was something that was pretty striking, Ryan, is that the Thunder clearly wanted the ball in Westbrook's hands during the final minutes of that game. But I saw it as Chris Paul was making a not-so-subtle comment

about James Harden and that he's somebody that makes great decisions, is an excellent crunch-time player when he's aggressive and has the ball. But whether it was him getting gas down the stretch with his conditioning or so much load that he's had on him throughout the game, or it's just that he looked at Westbrook and said, that guy ain't afraid to do it. I'll let him do it. That's how I personally interpreted what Chris said.

Yeah, there was the possession. Was it game three where they, Harden, was it half court? Was it the midcourt and they double teamed him almost like they were blocking him with a tight end and a tackle and then Harden's like, all right, whatever'm I'm not going to do anything and it's going to be up to you guys to to work the mismatch and it was look there wasn't very much time left

but then there was the play on the Westbrook um airball where Shea fronted Harden and you could just see like it it's it's very. I'm wondering if you've heard anything from the Thunder that if you can do something to mess with Harden off the ball, you know he's going to bail on the possession. That's what I see. Have you heard anything that kind of confirms that? Yeah, I mean, I don't know that that's necessarily, like, game plan strategy or it's just kind of the book on Harden, right?

Like, he's not somebody that like fights for the ball when it's denied from him a lot of times and you see a guy like Steph Curry and I know that's not a fair comparison but like you deny Steph Curry the ball he's going to run through three more screens to go get it and that's look that's not Houston's offense necessarily that's asking Harden I think to do things that are outside of his comfort zone but like you know I know Ryan with everybody all of us media people fans we all get caught up in like these narratives about stars and like you gotta want the ball in those moments but like there is something to be said for the fact that like you know I'm sure Harden wanted the ball but he

wasn't willing to fight to get it you know and and you know look I I think the Thunder know James Harden pretty well from either having him on the team or they just played against him a ton. And when Harden has it, you know, he's a monster with it. But he can't score if he doesn't have it. And so, you know, I think the Thunder were completely comfortable with A, putting the ball in Westbrook's hands because his decision-making and crunch time is questionable at best, or B, just like letting the

ball go to daniel house and letting him play you know four on three and that's that's no big deal for them either yeah yeah no uh hey paul he had i almost sent you a note because i'd send it to a couple other people i'm not a big is this guy hurt guy or is this guy right because we do it way too much now um but i thought paul kind of walked off a little weird at the end of game five when it was garbage time i went over in the beginning of the podcast and then to see him in the first half where you could see door didn't want to shoot as much but then he actually started shooting he actually hit a couple so it wasn't as disastrous at game five i still you know you could talk about running your offense and taking the

shots there but lou door taking nine shots in the first quarter of a playoff game to me is, is, is just, you can't then do something different. Okay. Like, don't tell me that that's the offense. And Ferguson had a couple that were just bad looks. I think there's even times with Shay, who's having some problems passing. And then even Schroeder, who I know Paul loves, I don't trust him. I don't trust anyone the way I trust Chris Paul of the 10 players that are out there. I was kind of surprised to see him be apprehensive and let some of the possessions happen around him, and then he turned back into

the guy that I've always been arguing about the whole time. What can you make? Maybe you see it differently, so I don't know, but what do you make of kind of his his approach to two hours yeah you know he obviously ryan he takes such a he puts such a priority on making sure that it's not his show and you know even billy donovan said it after game six that there's a lot of times that he wishes he would shoot more and there's there's players on every chris paul team not just the thunder, but the Rockets, the Clippers. Doc Rivers used to say it all the time. I wish he would shoot more.

I wish he would be more aggressive. But that's sort of like the genius of Chris Paul to a lot of people is that he's very willing to maybe be a little bit passive in appearance to favor what he views as like more efficient possession and there are times look where he he does i think kind of push the button to want to take it over a little bit i've got a huge moment in the series was game four when the rocket started out eight of eight from three um start the third quarter and chris paul was just kind of quietly chipping away hitting mid-range shots he kind of sensed that moment and was like i need to i need to sort of put my stamp back on this game and not let this thing get out of hand. But, like, look, I think some credit needs to go to the Rockets, too.

Their switch-everything defense has really kind of thrown a wrench in the way I think Chris Paul— Their defense in Game 5 was unbelievable. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sorry. Like, it needs to be brought up because it's a team that we were like, hey, defense— like, defense is never really the issue with these guys. It may be in a bad matchup against the Lakers if they get through game seven,

but for what they've done to Oklahoma City, you can see that these driving lanes that these guards have been living on all year long, like I'm just glad you brought it up because I feel like we can't be doing the pot as if Houston was just eliminated. It's very realistic based on the way they've defended that they could clog Oklahoma City up again and win game seven. so i don't think that's the reason well for sure no i

mean but no it's it's a it's a completely fair point because you know that the thunder just haven't been able to play the way that they have all year which you know they're not like a team that like it just whips the ball around all over the place like their passes per game or whatever metric you want to use doesn't necessarily jump off the page but they definitely share it more than they used to in their westbrook driven team what they really have ryan is they have balance they have a lot of guys that score in double figures they don't have like that one guy that rises to the top and so you know with chris paul's nature he doesn't want to just hammer the ball you know for 18 seconds and just take over games but that's sort of what houston's defense has forced the thunder to do and they've been uncomfortable with that and like you said

i mean driving lanes are completely clogged and while they don't have a rim protector and sometimes when the thunder are beating them off the dribble and houston's not controlling the ball you see something what you saw on game four where dennis schroeder gets to the rim and scores 30 points in a playoff game um that's where they're like man man, Clint Capella would have been pretty nice back there. But in the games that Houston's played well, they've controlled the ball and that hasn't been an issue. And the Thunder have struggled with that. So look, I think with Chris Paul,

it's like, you know, you're asking him to step outside of his comfort zone sometimes. Look, he's maybe the most intelligent player in the game. It's not like he doesn't know what he's doing. But I do think he kind of fights that battle of like, I don't want to just be out here, you know, pulling it 26 times. I got to make sure I keep Schroeder involved. I got to keep SGA involved, Steven Adams involved. And then Chris Paul sort of tries to, you know, that's why he led the league in clutch time scoring. He picks that spot to say, all right, this is the time where I'm going to kind of take this thing

over. Let's go back to the Paul Harden thing. Do you have any insight, any good stories for us? Cause I have, I have something that I'll, I'll share with you on the breakup. I think we all know that the breakup was because Harden wanted Russ. So then ownership wanted Russ. I don't believe management wanted Russ. And then that led to Paul bouncing. Um, from what I had heard is that, you know, Paul was like people that think I'm toast. Like, it's just not true. And I know that like Paul, I think one of Paul's biggest frustrations with Harden was how can you be off the ball and then be completely disengaged every possession

when it's not you, there's no action, there's no threat. And Harden's argument is, well, I keep the defense stretched because of my range. And it's just two different philosophies it's just not the way Paul plays it and I think that's what was really frustrating for Paul on the way out and the fact that basically Harden kind of like chose Westbrook over him oh yeah for sure I mean it was that that you know I I think that it is complete truth Daryl Morey was not like, he did not do a 180 necessarily. He believed that he was going to keep pushing. I would bet any amount of money in my life that one day when Daryl Morey writes the book,

he'll say that Westbrook was not his kind of guy. Right. People can do whatever they want. Right. Go ahead. Yeah. I mean, you've heard the same things I think I've heard, Brian, that that was an ownership driven decision because it was a James Harden-driven decision.

And so, you know, Darryl Morey's got to do what he's got to do there. And look, I think to their credit, they made it work for the most part. They did. It's unbelievable. Like, when you think of the beginning of the year, Westbrook looked like, oh my God, this is never going to work. To what they did to fix him, it was unbelievable. So they deserve credit for it. Yeah, and it took drastic measures, right?

I mean, you had to trade one of your best players to unlock the potential of russell westbrook and i think that kind of demonstrates the challenge of building a team around a player like westbrook a ball dominant player that can't shoot um but you know within the context of like houston's season whatever happens in a game seven like it can't be lost on people that before the shutdown like westbrook was playing maybe the best like at least in terms of efficiency, basketball career, like he was on another level in terms of like his discipline.

I've never seen the guy resist three pointers the way that he did basically from Christmas day on when the warriors were like, please shoot as many threes as you would like. And Westbrook then adjusted himself. The Rockets made the trade and he, he essentially just abandoned the three and became the player that everybody's been like, yes, that guy that is disciplined, efficient. And he's a monster at the rim. He might have been the MVP if he had had a full season of Post Capella.

I mean, I'm glad you brought it up because I can sound very anti-Russ. But what he was doing in those two months, I mean, he was carrying. Because Harden like a weird dip for one of those months too and i don't i might pull it up was westbrook at almost 30 shots a game i mean it was it was it's out go ahead you keep talking you can just say that and i don't think anybody's going to necessarily fact check you i mean here's one for somebody to fact check me on i believe westbrook it was either january or february this was so long ago he had a 50 field goal percentage month and i think that was the first time in his career he'd gone a whole month hitting 50 of his shots which

is you know not a not an incredible achievement for most players but for westbrook it kind of was it was kind of like a big deal that he was able to go through a whole month and stay that discipline and that efficient and you know i mean look it had it had houston looking like the kind of team that everybody thought that they might be when they made that pairing yeah he was at 20 just under 26 shots a game um but he also got to the free throw line and that's the other thing too is his free throw shooting dipped oddly and then he straightened that out i mean those two those two months, 33-8-8 on 52% shooting from the floor, 77% from the free throw line, seven attempts a game. And then in February, actually, I mean, it was happening kind of post.

His Capella was still around a little bit for there. And then for February, yeah, it was 33. February 4th, was it so he didn't play i don't think he played in the pelicans game which is the beginning and the only reason i know this is because i i have gone back and looked at the capella basically the equator of the season for the team of like when they when they traded him but he actually hadn't played in some of those other games because I would always check the rebounding rate. I checked the defensive efficiency. I've been incredibly impressed with their defense.

I've been, you know, the whole, the bigs are going to beat him up. I actually do want to do this because we all like Steven Adams. I kind of went off on Sunday's pod with Bill because I found him playing surprisingly small in game five. Yeah. Where I don't know.

This is a whole nother theory, too. Did Westbrook get him to the point where every time he had the ball, he thought he had to immediately kick it out to somebody else? Because I... Stockholm Syndrome. He sees Russ on the floor and he's like... Right, right. Am I supposed to rebound?

And PJ... Is it cool if I grab this? PJ absolutely battles. So I'm not acting like it's easy, but I thought Adam's aggressiveness in game six was almost him realizing game five is not who he's supposed to be. Yeah. Well, I, you know, that's something that,

that coming into this series, Ryan, that like everybody looked at Steven Adams. He's maybe the strongest guy in the entire league. He's an absolute brute. And people kind of saw that as with his offensive rebounding ability. Look, they're not just going to hammer him in the post like, you know, 15 times. That's not what they do. It's not Steven Adams' string. They thought that he could be kind of a physically dominant player in a lot of different ways. And I mean, other than like you mentioned, Ryan,yan game six i don't know that we've really felt steven adams like dominance like his physical dominance in a lot of ways in this look there's some unseen things like where he's kind of a deterrent for james harden going to the rim you know 40 times a game but like he's adams is not a shot blocker

that's not his game he's a position uh oriented big man he just tries to make sure that he makes right decisions on defense um but he's not he just he really wasn't like making his presence felt in a lot of different ways and look that was a huge frustration i think for a lot of thunder fans that were watching it wondering like what is going on why is stephen adams not imposing his will in this game um but you saw some more of that in game six i don't know if it was that little issue he had with dennis schroeder there i don't know if it was that little issue we had with Dennis Schroeder there. I don't know if it was James Harden, uh,

elbowing him in the tummy, which seemed to hurt pretty bad, but, uh, whatever it was seemed to kind of get Steven Adams going. And he was certainly more impactful in game six. Okay. Your thoughts for game seven.

Man, I don't know. It's, it's such a, it's such a bizarre series where like, you know, obviously the formula has been the Rockets win by double figures and just keep the Thunder arms length away.

And then the games that are close, Oklahoma City clearly is kind of showing their prowess and execution down the stretch and winning. Well, isn't that just like such a flip-flop to be like, Oklahoma City is like this well-organized crunch time execution team, but that's what Chris Paul has turned them into. I mean, common sense says that game seven is going to be close, right, Ryan? I mean, that's what it's typically you don't blow people out in a game seven. It's tight, it's close, it's tense.

So I think that that favors Oklahoma City. I picked the Thunder in seven before the playoff started. And I just, I think if this game is close and it's tight, unless Harden kind of snaps out of it, really tries to take over down the stretch, I think that there's enough history there to say that you've got to think that Chris Paul is going to figure out a way to win a close game seven. All right, good stuff, man.

Enjoy game seven and the rest of the playoffs. We'll talk to you again. All right, you bet, man. We're going to talk fantasy here shortly. Again, thanks to Royce Young. Whoop is a fitness wearable that I've been using for the last few months to track my training, sleep, and recovery, and it's been awesome. The key to Whoop is that you wear it all day long and never miss a beat.

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Okay, we said at the top we're going to do fantasy sleepers. We have 10 fantasy sleepers with Danny Kelly. You can follow him at Danny B. Kelly. sleepers we have 10 fantasy sleepers with danny kelly you can follow him at danny b kelly and he's also the host of the ringer fantasy football show with danny heifetz and craig horlbeck i was checking out what they were doing um earlier this week so let's start with i know i want to do sleepers that's that was the homework assignment because everybody texts me all the time to be like hey do you have any sleepers do you have any sleepers and then it's kind of funny too because i'll be like you know who i loved in college is clyde edwards allaire

and then you're like oh wait he might go number one overall which seems insane so he's it's kind of funny how fantasy will turn me from somebody like i really like this guy i'll tell my buddies to be like wait a minute how do you take this guy and again he's not going number one i think what is that is his draft average is between like six or seven. But I know Schrager had said he thought he should take him number one. I know Peter King said that he's going to touch the ball. Basically, we have reporters now claiming that the team is telling NFL guys that Clyde Edwards-Alaire is going to be the greatest thing ever this season.

So where are you with a dude who I like a lot but think this is sort of insane? I'm actually coming around on the idea. I actually got him listed as my wide or my running back five right now. Um, I'm not quite willing to take him over a Camara, Elliot Barkley McCaffrey, but right now with Dalvin cook potentially holding out, you know, Derek Henry, not necessarily a big part of the passing game. I just think, you know, in that offense, you're going to be in the most explosive, best offense in the NFL with the best quarterback. He's been a huge, huge part of the passing game.

He was at LSU. Just a really good player. I just think there's a lot to like. Andy Reid has always been a guy who's really featured a top running back in his running game, and it's always paid off in fantasy so um you know there's just there's just nothing to really not like about he's a first round pick

offense is awesome he's a good player uh that's kind of what you're looking for yep not arguing against him i guess i just when i've seen somebody like christian mccaffrey do what he's done already in the nfl that's that's and again I I think I'm I'm doing a bit of an argument here that doesn't exist too much in that you know I don't I don't think there's a ton of people actually saying he should go number one overall okay uh another one that I had for you that I thought was kind of interesting do you have at this point with the depth of receiver versus running back I know that things have fluctuated a bit where running backs used to be when I grew up you had to have one of those guys and then the position changed and then you started drafting

guys that weren't getting a ton of touches. And then it felt like everybody started drafting wide receivers earlier. And now with the depth that wide receiver, because everyone is passing, are we back to basically the entire first round is running backs again, because it's so hard to find a guy, especially now that gets at least 20 carries a game yeah i that's where i am really honestly it's you know there's just so few guys that get three down workloads in terms of running backs that you have to get those guys early and it's very very difficult honestly to win a league without one of those guys like chris mccaffrey carried fantasy teams last year um i think saquon Barkley could be that guy again this year.

And it's just, again, it's just really difficult to find those guys outside of the first round. That's where they come from typically. And so, you know, like you, like you alluded to with so many teams running three receiver sets,

passing the ball more, there's just more guys, more receivers that you can get a little bit later on in the draft. And there's honestly like, just, it feels like there's more really good receivers in the nfl right now than there have been in years past it's just a the position is in a really good place right now a lot of talented guys and so yeah i'm i'm of the mind that i take a running back early um sometimes even go running back running back to start my draft because then you're just set at that position you don't have

to worry about you know finding a guy later in the draft that you know most likely isn't really going to pan out for you so um yeah i go with receivers in the in the you know third fourth fifth round but early on i'm definitely targeting running backs so what's your top 10 then right now and this is subject to change a little bit based on holdouts and stuff, but I got McCaffrey one, Barkley two, Elliott three, Alvin Kamara four, and then I got Michael Thomas, Devontae Adams, because those guys are just rock solid receivers. Clyde Edwards-Alaire at seven, Dalvin Cook eight, Derek Henry nine, Julio Jones at 10, Tyree Kill at 11, and Austin Eckler at 12, actually.

Okay, Mahomes, you don't have any quarterbacks you just listed there yeah I see some places it depends on the draft ring like I've seen Mahomes ahead of Lamar but then I've also seen other analysts say now you got to go with Lamar because the rushing attack but yet we already have a team saying that we don't really want to run him as much as we do how much is that factored into if you're sitting there all the running backs backs are gone, Thomas, Devontae are gone, and you're thinking, all right, let me just go grab the best quarterback early here. What do you think about Lamar versus Mahomes? I've got Lamar slightly ahead of Mahomes. And like you mentioned, it's the rushing upside that he brings. It's just like a cheat code in fantasy football. You got rushing touchdowns are worth, in standard leagues are worth two more points

than a passing touchdown. So that's a little bit of a cheat code. Rushing yards are worth more than passing yards. So Jackson's just a special case. He might not have to run as much as he did last year, and he could still lead quarterbacks in rushing by a country mile. So to me, he's really, really valuable as a quarterback.

I'm not really in on taking, in one quarterback leagues, valuable as a quarterback. I'm though I'm not really in on taking in one quarterback leagues. I wait on quarterback. I get quarterbacks late. I let other guys in the league, um, choose a quarterback that early. Cause I think the opportunity cost is just too much to grab those guys that early on. I just, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a big believer in late round quarterback. So I wait on quarterbacks, generally speaking. Okay.

We'll get to some of those sleepers. Like we said a little bit earlier. I've seen, this one is confusing to me, and this is more on, I understand the upside part of it, but whenever I would draft, I would kind of sit with my friends and it's kind of like the Edwards-Alaire thing where I'd be like, the new guys smell,

you guys can't help yourselves. So I've seen a lot of people have Kyler Murray ranked ahead of Deshaun, even though overall deshaun even though overall deshaun is generally drafted about a round before kyler i went through the numbers again i mean deshaun steady uh and he has about the same amount of rushing not i mean look the rushing numbers are about the same except for the fact that Deshaun had seven touchdowns to Kyler's four. But maybe it's just building on Kyler.

Kyler, Deshaun, go. I like Deshaun slightly more. I've actually got Deshaun QB four, Kyler Murray QB five. And I agree with you. I think, you know, Deshaun, he's done it longer in the league. I think a lot of people are scared off by kind of the wheeling and dealing that Bill O'Brien has done over the offseason. Getting rid of DeAndre Hopkins is a big one, but he's just such a baller. I think he's going to be okay. And in fact, they might ask him to do a little bit more, which might be good for fantasy

purposes for him. So Kyler Murray definitely does have that upside, but I think he's still finding his way in the NFL. He's certainly not as established as a passer as Deshaun is. So, yeah, I'm definitely I would have Watson above Murray. But I think Murray is definitely an exciting one. And if he does end up rushing more this year, that could definitely put him over the top. But for now, I feel safer picking Deshaun Watson. The top two tight ends are Kelsey averaging just about the back end of the second round, some third round, and then Kittle a little bit behind that. But boy, this really feels like it falls off.

Mark Andrews had nice numbers last year, but they're not off the charts. I think people are understandably scared off a Gronk a little bit. But the depth from whatever the first tier is to the second tier, there's some, the second tier, I'm talking the tight ends that would go kind of like three to seven or eight. It still feels like there's massive risk there. So how have you handled that position? Yeah. My philosophy with the tight end position is either go big or go like go big in terms of like Kelsey and Kittle early on, or I tend to like to take shots on a few

guys late in the draft. I really like... I'm actually kind of in on Gronk this year. I don't know if that's just... I don't blame you. I'm not sure if that's naive necessarily, but man, the dude is just... He's absolutely ridiculous in the red

zone. He could like have 10 touchdowns and I wouldn't blink so taking a shot on a guy like Gronk later on in a draft TJ Hawkinson has just been blowing up Lions camp like the beat reporters can't stop talking about how good Hawkinson has been in Lions camp so I think he's really interesting

Noah Fant kind of he was really exciting as a rookie like he was one of a few guys to put up you know i think 500 plus yards as a rookie it's just like a rare thing to do so i think he's got a really interesting trajectory so there's just a lot of really um intriguing later round tight ends that i'd rather take a couple of those light later in my draft and again you're not having the opportunity cost of getting one of these really interesting mid-round receivers

versus one of those mid-round tight ends. I agree with you. I think there's just a lot of question marks around guys like Darren Waller, who might have a much smaller role in the Raiders' offense.

Evan Ingram, who has struggled with injuries his whole career. Yeah, we're like waiting on Ingram. I mean, I loved Ingram in college. And Fant's another guy that I really him in college um and fans another guy that i really liked in college too but that doesn't mean uh anything for your fantasy draft all right so let's get a little bit more helpful here um like i said this is going to be about sleepers here so why don't you run us through i'll just kind of go we'll go one at a time and

we'll kick it back and forth on your 10 favorite sleepers for people still doing their draft sure i'm gonna kick it off with Marvin Jones of the Lions. Through 14 weeks last year, Jones was the wide receiver 16. So like a mid-range wide receiver two. And that included five games with David Blau and Jeff Driscoll at quarterback. I mean, the guy is...

David Blau, yeah. Yeah, he's super underrated. Right now, he's going as the wide receiver at 36 for some reason. So I think that's a really good value. I'm actually a believer in the in the matt stafford daryl bevel offense with the lions i think they do a good job of attacking downfield so um marvin jones you can get in like the seventh eighth round um feels like a

really great value all right next jameson crowder of the jets and i'm not a big believer in the jets offense necessarily but i just think crowder is going to get so much volume. Right now he's going as the wide receiver 39. Last year, if you remember, so in week one, he had 17 targets, which was most in the NFL, 14 catches for 99 yards, and that's probably going to be like a typical stat line for him. Not a lot of like, you know, 190 yard games or anything like that, but he's getting so many catches in PPR

that I think he's worthwhile. He's a wide receiver 12, week one, and then Darnold missed weeks two through five with Mono, and he kind of fell off the map. But week six on, he was the wide receiver 15 in PPR. So right now he's going as a wide receiver 39. The Jets don't have anyone else in that passing game right now. Rashad Perriman's dealing with a knee injury.

Denzel Mims, their rookie, has been out. And now we even heard that Chris Herndon, tight end, who's gotten a lot of hype during the preseason, got hurt today in practice. So, yeah, I think he's going to have that connection with Darnold, and he just has a chance to really go off this year in terms of catches. Do you think Robbie Anderson moving on, too, opens that up for him? Yeah, absolutely.

There's a lot of available targets in that offense. And they just really, again, they don't have anyone else right now. It's going to be Crowder and then a bunch of other no-name guys. Yeah, I'm looking at this right now. I average around 14. All right, that's two.

I'm interested in Sterling Shepard of the Giants right now. So he's another guy that I think is kind of been forgotten about a little bit because he missed some time last year missed week six through 11 but the dude got 83 targets in 10 games so he's getting eight plus targets a game Daniel Jones has a chance to take another jump in year two Golden Tate just got hurt this week in practice, so that kind of opens up Sterling Shepard as the clear number one in this offense.

I think Darius Slayton's a guy who's been interesting, but he's not quite here yet. So Sterling Shepard feels that. He's right now his ADP is 101. He's the wide receiver at 42. That just, again, really good value. I don't want to try to destroy your entire credibility 15 minutes in here, but you're not a Giants fan, are you?

I am not. Okay. All right. I'm just sensing a little Giants. What is your allegiance? I'm a Seahawks fan. Oh, okay. All right.

We're good. Yeah, so you're good at trying to find receivers out of nowhere then. You've lived with it. Absolutely. Now I trust you more. All right, keep going. All right, sticking with receivers, Preston Williams of the Dolphins,

I think is going to have a really good year. So that's an offense that there's a lot of question marks, obviously, but Williams is a guy who, he was like a first round talent that fell in the draft because of kind of off-field stuff. But through nine weeks last year before he tore his ACL, he was basically going like head-to-head with Devontae Parker in terms of his production. Allen Hearns, Albert Wilson both opted out this year.

So there's just a lot of targets to go around in this Dolphins offense. You know, Ryan Fitzpatrick, his style of play has always been really good for fantasy so i don't think the dolphins are going to be a good defense so they're probably going to have to be passing the ball a bunch i just think preston williams is he's a good player um and he has a chance to have a lot of volume too right now he's the wide receiver 51 so um you have a chance to get a guy who i think could really challenge to be like a wide receiver two this year in terms of fantasy. All right, that's a good one.

I didn't even think of that. I'm going to go to a couple quarterbacks here. I really think Jared Goff is going to have a bounce back. I don't know what you think about the Rams, but I feel like they're a prime bounce back team with Sean McVay kind of figuring things out. He has, to me, the easiest path back to being a top 10 quarterback this year. He was the QB 13 last year. He was the QB 13 last year.

He was the QB 7 in 2018. So he's done it. Last year, this is kind of getting stat heavy, but last year he threw the ball more than any other quarterback in the NFL, but his touchdown percentage ranked 28th. It was just 3.5%. So typically with quarterbacks, those numbers tend to hover around his career

average last two seasons before that it was 5.7, 5.9. So long story short, I'm expecting Goff to throw more touchdowns this year, be a little bit more efficient. I think the Rams offense is going to be better. And right now you can get him as the QB 16 in the middle rounds or in the late rounds really. Um, and I think he has a chance to be a top 10 quarterback okay that surprised me a little bit you know because I felt like in a way you're right like that number's a bit like the turnover number where you go you'd expect this to even out or come back to the norm if there's a there's a weird spike I mean it's not exactly as unpredictable as the turnover number um that we see with teams every year but i'm i'm more in the

camp of like i feel like golf got figured out a little bit and so are you telling me if nine quarterbacks were gone you would take him 10th or there's still guys that you would take ahead of him no there's there's still guys i would take ahead of him but with my strategy which i which I mentioned earlier, I like to take a quarterback late. I think he could easily outplay his draft spot, in other words. There's definitely quarterbacks I like a little bit more than him, but to me, he just looks like one of the best values.

Right now, you can get him in the 11th, 12th round. Having a chance to fill out your roster with a bunch of really high upside guys earlier than that, and then also having a chance to get a QB1 in Goff, who I think will be a QB1, I think that's a really good strategy in your draft. Okay, would you take him or Carson? I got Carson ahead of him,

but I think I would wait and take off. I'd rather wait and take off. What about Cam? So I think Cam's actually kind of in the same area. He might be going a little bit later. I don't have his ADP right in front of me, but Newton has that rushing upside that you really look for.

So I'm going to say Goff, but I'm also a Cam fan this year. I think I like Cam. I think he's going to have a chance to get like five or six rushing touchdowns and really help his value in fantasy. Yeah, based on the average draft position that I have in front of me, and I'll just go over it real quick for those that may not have looked it up. Mahomes, Lamar, Russell Wilson. I think the Lamar-Mahomes thing has been flipped, though. over it real quick for those that may not have looked it up um my homes lamar russell wilson i think the lamar my home's thing has been flipped though um recent more recently i don't know if

people are getting scared off and just news reports there all right so let's do that again homes lamar wilson deshaun dac kyler wentz um tom brady drew breeze aaron rogers matt ryan josh allen because of the rushing part of it and then that's pretty much whatever tiers you want to do in there the draft position is a there's a massive gap right now what's going on between Josh Allen and then the next guy whether that's Stafford or Cam Newton we're talking maybe four rounds of players going based on just the national drafting average here I'm sure you can find something that's a little bit different, but that's pretty significant to see a position

basically stop for about four rounds and then pick it back up again. Yeah. And that's, that's exactly what I'm doing. I'd rather get, I'd rather fill out positions and this is specific to one quarterback league. So if you're starting one quarterback I'd rather fill out positions like running back and receiver where you need to start two or three guys at that spot. So that's where I'm attacking tight end. I'm attacking receiver. I'm attacking running back and then waiting on quarterback. Maybe I'll grab two quarterbacks in the late rounds. Maybe I'll grab Goff and camp or, you know, I like Stafford too. I think Stafford has a chance to really, you know, outplay what his ADP is right now. So that's definitely the way I go about it.

All right, who else? Another quarterback that I'd like really late is Joe Burrow, rookie with the Bengals. He put up probably the best quarterback season in college football history last year. The guy just ice in his veins. He's got like the Brady affect to him. He just doesn't get,

he doesn't get phased ever. So I really like that. I think he's got some talent around him. You know, like you got AJ green coming back, by the way, it looks like I was looking at the draft position for green. It looks like people are just off him.

Yeah. I mean, I look, I understand the injury and everything, but it, it still felt low for him. Or maybe that's just because I've always loved him so much. I don't look, I understand the injury and everything, but it still felt low for him. Or maybe that's just because I've always loved him so much. I don't know.

I'm with you. I like Green. He's actually a guy I'm targeting. People are definitely scared of the injury history. He hasn't played a full season in a few years. I think he's already got something going on, a hamstring or something, in camp. So people are definitely scared off by that.

But, man, I'm kind of excited about it because you get Joe Burrow in there who just has no fear. Last year, Kyler Murray finished as the QB seven. And I kind of see that as a good spot that I could realistically visualize Joe Burrow finishing as a top seven, top six quarterback. I think he's going to be a more efficient and aggressive thrower as a rookie than Kyler was.

And honestly, he might run nearly as much as Kyler did as a rookie. So I'm going to throw some stats at you. Kyler averaged 34 rushing yards a game last year. His actual yards, he has a lot of rushes. The yardage wasn't that great. Yeah. Yeah. He was scrambling a little bit you

know it wasn't like they used him heavily as a runner so 34 rushing yards a game compare that to joe burrow as a junior averaged 30.6 rushing yards a game as a senior he averaged 25 rushing yards a game so he's he's quietly a really good runner he's more highly very quietly he's he's quietly a really good runner. He's more of a... Very quietly. He's got sneaky running skills. He does. There's something about him we just can't figure out. Why is it that he appears to be more athletic? Look, he's a baller.

He's all of those things. We all know what the Burrow deal is, and he still went one with the fact that there's basically every guy he threw to is a high-end NFL prospect. But look, the offensive line for LSU wasn't rock solid all year long. They grew. They became a group that was better. But early on, I thought that might be an issue with them. And he can run all over the place.

And he's not afraid of anybody. So he's got all that stuff going for him. Absolutely. Okay, Danny, give me your rapid-fire last few here. Yeah. So these are late-round guys. Don't yell at me if they don't pan out, but I really like them as sleepers. You know, potentially guys that can really outplay where they're getting drafted.

So I'm going to start with Raheem. Sorry, running back Naheem Hines from Indianapolis. Pair him. He's got 4.38 speed. You pair him with Phillip Rivers, who has been a dump-off king in the NFL. I think there's a chance that he could be sort of the Echler light

for the Colts offense this year. In PPR leagues especially, I think he's really interesting. James Washington of the Steelers, who quietly had a really good second half of the season last year. He's been getting some good buzz in Steelers camp right now. Deontay Johnson's been hurt. So I think he could emerge as the number two option in that offense. Stephen Simms for Washington, who emerged late last season as a really dynamic slot receiver for Washington. I

think he's got some good chemistry with Haskins. I think he has potential to way outplay his ADP. Right now, he's the wide receiver 81, which makes no sense. He was the wide receiver nine in PPR in the last month of the season. And then one more guy, Scotty Miller for the Buccaneers. Been getting a lot of love from Tom Brady. He's the fastest guy on the team, according to Chris Godwin. He ran a 4.36 at his pro day. So he's kind of an inside-outside, Chris Godwin, he ran a 4.36 at his pro day. So he's kind of an inside-outside, really speedy guy. People kind of envision him as the John Brown in this Bruce Arians offense. So he's really interesting really, really late too.

Scotty Miller, 5'11", 174, at a Bowling Green. Bowling Green, baby. He put up good numbers. He got 71 catches and nine touchdowns over 1,000 yards his senior year at Bowling Green. Bowling Green, baby. He put up good numbers. He got 71 catches and nine touchdowns over 1,000 yards his senior year at Bowling Green. So he's a baller. Are you sure Brady just doesn't think it's Welker or something?

I mean, that's the obvious joke. He's like exactly that. He fits that mold. But the cool thing about him is he actually plays on the outside, too, which is important because they're probably going to be playing a lot of two tight end sets so he can get downfield as a deep threat in that offense okay but defense that's and we'll leave with this and i'm sorry that interrupted but no when i was looking at some of the stuff like i still think brady made all his money on those those like pivot routes inside so if his miller has the speed he could go

down the field like you're still gonna want somebody like once the pats figured out the rules and you couldn't just tackle the guy off these short little routes like that's just what they did so i don't i i know how everybody's excited about all these outside and deep ball threats and arian's thing i don't know that that's what brady wants to do so we'll see i mean obviously he's got godwin and godwin's awesome from the slot but miller's actually been getting an incredible amount of buzz i'm probably over playing it a little bit but um like people are really excited about buck's camp about this guy because he's separating over the middle. He can get deep, all that stuff. He's an intriguing late-round guy.

Good stuff. That is Danny Kelly at Danny B. Kelly. Again, staff writer here in the Ringer Fantasy Football Show, which is really good. You should check it out and subscribe. Thanks, man. Appreciate it. Before we get to life advice, the NBA playoffs are here and FanDuel Sportsbook has a slam-dunk offer

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I drive a Ferrari 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork I have every toy you can possibly imagine and best of all kids I am liquid so now you know what's possible let me tell you what's required before we do life advice I just wanted to share something with you that is a madden code for ps4 fq9j-4ank-75b4 see how that goes over all right we're gonna be doing madden codes uh for the next few shows okay first one here on life advice um i don't think I'm going to use names. I guess I used a name and one of the other ones, and Kyle sent me a follow-up email from the guy, and I appreciate you doing that, Kyle. He was like, yeah, you shouldn't have done the last name. I'm like, well, I edit out some of the stuff you guys say just to edit okay this is um i don't know let's let's call him i don't know steve used to always be my go-to name steve uh from flight of the concords okay here's a dude hey ryan 21 year old college student from oklahoma here's my situation

by the way this may come off as a little douchey. All right. Okay, a buddy of mine, let's call him Matt, had a high school girlfriend that he dated through the first two years of college. He's a really cool guy, but he can be on the sensitive side of things and always seemed more into the relationship than she was. They ended up breaking up.

Kyle, are you already chuckling over there? Or was that just a sound effect? All right. I feel like I got a... All right. We got a fake Kyle soundtrack here, laugh track. All right. So feel like I got to. All right. You got a fake Kyle soundtrack here. Laugh track. All right.

So they ended up breaking up. He started dating a new girl that he met at a party one month later. Sick party, dude. Basically, another one of my college buddies, girlfriends. Okay, hold on. Whenever I feel like I got to write this whole out. Basically, another one of my college buddies, girlfriends. All right.

So his boy's girl, his best friends with the ex. And she decides to tell me that Matt's ex has been into me for a while and wants me to make a go of it. I've heard the bros before. Dude. Language. Saying, and under normal circumstances, the answer would be obvious to stay away. The problem is that Matt's ex is a smoke show. All right.

So we already know what our boy is going to do on this one. Okay. So Matt is a year older. He's been nothing but good to me and has a lot of connections. He's a prototypical guy. You want to know, especially with having his step foot in the real world in two years, he and his ex broke up over a year ago. I feel like he's moved on, but I'm not sure about going after her based primarily off my future career. All right. You're overthinking this. My other friends think i'm crazy for not going for it but i typically err on the side of caution unfortunately the girl is sort of my dream girl all right we already know what he's doing this email is already too late

uh i don't i do not know how to execute the situation properly advice be greatly appreciated okay let's start first with like mystery matt here running your career chances are matt's gonna actually with all of his connections to being a year older i would bet that your life is not going to be determined by matt unless you're the right unless you're the two only like neurophysicists at oklahoma and he already like he has a startup and he's offered you a salary so yes he's older and yes he has connections now at least you think he does um you know salary. So yes, he's older and yes, he has connections now. At least you think he does. Maybe he comes from this great family or whatever, but more often than not,

whenever you think you have some connect and it's going to lead to things in your life later on, and that's just part of life. The number of times you think something is going to happen that doesn't happen, it's a very, very big number. And that's why whenever you say to your parents, like, Hey, you know, Dave's got this awesome opportunity. Uh, you know, and like, I did it with my dad. I'd call him and be like, Hey, I think we're going to buy this thing.

And be like, ah, cool. Cool. Let me know. Yep. Were you guys drinking when you guys planned this out? And like, um, yeah, a little bit, you know, so I'm just telling you, don't start worrying about Matt's influence on your career. All right? But you left out that part of the information. Okay, so let's get back to the... I think it's cool that you care this much. I think it's cool. But most guys wouldn't even care.

I think it's the fact that you have a conscience about this is something that's really good. What you'd like to do is continue to have that attribute and not decide, you know what, I'm just going to become a mercenary and I don't want to have feelings anymore because that can happen to people too. I would ask him if you're that worried about it, because you don't know. He may, because guys are different,

he may be one of those guys that's like, yeah, dude, I moved on. Fair game. Doesn't matter. Or he could be like one of those guys it's like yeah dude i moved on like fair game doesn't matter or he could be like one of those guys that goes you know any girl that i've ever dated i still kind of consider mine and i don't want any of my friends ever dating any of them okay because let's say let's let's be honest there's a lot of those guys too um what what you don't want to do and we we had we had a guy in our group of friends who basically went after everybody's girlfriend. And years later, it still kind of sucks for that guy because those of us that were burned by him are always like, you know, they can be 90% cool.

But I think there's like a 10% part of where a lot of us are like, yeah, you know, whatever. That guy doesn't make it. No one cares. Or, hey, who's out tonight? Or who's in town? Who's around? Oh, he is? Whatever.

Like, I guess I meet up, but I don't like never going to check in with you anymore. And that means that you probably weren't super close in the first place. But what I'm saying is, is you don't want to be the guy among your group of friends that just starts going after everybody's girls, ex, or in that gray area because it can really burn you later on. That thing I think is absolutely true. If you're that worried about it, I would just go ahead and ask him and be like, look, I like her. She's kind of my dream girl. I don't know where you're at with it. I don't know if it's going to bother you, whatever. But if you're not doing it because you have a conscience that's great if you're not doing

it because you think this guy's actually going to have some massive impact on the rest of your career then you know come on and look man you're 21 so uh i don't i don't think this is going to be you know it's it's not going to be the end of the world okay we got a long one here though but I thought this one was was kind of important because it's something we haven't really touched on and this one's a little heavier all right so let's uh let's go for it okay we'll call this guy the the c-man because I don't I don't really want to use the name here either. Okay. He asked a few different things here,

but let's run through this. Okay. He graduated from UCSC, bachelor's in philosophy in 18. So we're talking 23, 24 here. Went to law school for a year, flunked out at the end of the first year. Essentially, I smoked weed all day,

every day during that year. When I wasn't smoking, I was hooping. Oh, all right. Nice. Great use of time. I was in a bad place emotionally. The summer before I started law school, my mother went to jail for an erroneous charge of domestic violence against my dad. Okay. This is, this might be a bit heavier for me, but I'm going to try. Uh, at the time I was also living with a girlfriend who I now realize

I let bulldoze me after I got dropped from law school, that girlfriend said she didn't want to live together anymore. We broke up a few months later and she turned into a total, well, I was doing the best that I could at the time. I hate when people say that to you. I'm like, why did you do all of these horrible things? Well, that was the best I could do at the time. I was trying my best. I'm like, that's your best? So I'm with you there, buddy. about two weeks into quarantine she got back in touch with me don't they all um i will bore you the few of the details here and tell you she's actually got in touch to brag about how she'd gotten with a bunch of other dudes after we broke up and how those dudes were all one better at sex than me two uh i'm gonna

leave two out you can fill in the blanks there that's a comp that's a comp that uh some guys are bummed out about jesus this girl sucks after i confront her about the fact uh that that was kind of messed up especially given the fact that we dated for three years lived together for like two and a half years we were friends for eight years before dating she said she just wanted to make me feel bad for me to realize what i had lost the notion didn't make sense to me at the time still doesn't make sense to me that the time. It still doesn't make sense to me today. You want to know why? Because it's fucking psycho. All right?

So don't. I mean, you're going to be mummed out. You cared about this person. But the fact that somebody is doing this to you and wants to make you feel bad is only telling you. She's confirming to you that you dodged a massive, massive bullet.

So you should feel good about that even if it's really hard to feel good about it right now. As if I don't already sound whacked enough, I'm now living with my mother's. While I'm grateful to have a place to live, I get bad vibes about my mom and my sister. My mom often dumps her negative emotions onto me, be it about her divorce, my father, who's a jerk, or the stress my mom has in dealing with my sister, regrets she has about the past. I realize that a large part of the reason as to why this dynamic exists between my mom and i when i was in high school and community college i took my mom to her appointments

and often spent several hours each day talking about her problems i'm trying to change that dynamic and build a healthy relationship but it's not fully working this time my mom and sister still hold a grudge against me for not letting them live with me um when he lived with the ex-girlfriend because she wouldn't let him god after my mom was released from jail she and my sister officially would no longer go back to our family home because my father was living there immediately got a restraining order against my mom i'm sorry man i that just sucks to even read okay uh at this stage i also ought to discuss some five seven somebody fuck it with me give this guy give this guy a madden code right now do you send him a madden code right now um and i'm almost skinny fat i feel like somebody's just

all right okay all right let's let's let's let's this is bad man all right um he's skinny fat because the gyms are closed. He did want to tell us that he repped 225 for three in the flat bench and 495 on the hex bar. Nobody cares about your hex bar numbers. I don't even know what this is. What the hell is minoxidil? Can you look that up? Okay.

All right. As you're looking that up, I'll keep reading. It's like Rogan. Oh, all right. you're looking that up i'll keep reading i'm not oh all right yeah okay all right all right i'm nice at basketball i still find tremendous enjoyment and honoring that skill and playing pickup whenever possible i can hit jumpers 40 feet out i also have a deceptively adroit mid-range floater okay playing basketball is really one of the few activities i legitimately enjoy however barring some open gym d league tryout or miraculous mid-range floater. Okay. Playing basketball is really one of the few activities I legitimately enjoy. However,

barring some open Jim D League, tryout, or miraculous mid-league 20s growth spurt, I need to work towards finding a career that will last a lifetime. So not pro-hooper.

Got it. As it stands right now, okay, wait a minute. So he's a little bit older because he graduated later. All right, he's 27

and planning to take a gap year. Just the thought of being in life and taking a gap year is awesome. So I kind of like your confidence that you're just like, look, I'm going to... How do you take a gap year and save a bit of money? All right, unless he's not paying for school. Okay, so at the start of the 21, 22 academic year,

I'll either attend law school, business school, or a doctorate program in cognitive science. All of this is a roundabout way of asking how do you deal with adversity or rather how do you use negative life experiences as fuel for personal success also in terms of picking career what is the right combo between doing what you want to do and what you need to do all right okay the c-man a lot going on there a lot going on but it's his email starts essentially with kind of where he ends it and that is how do you uh use adversity for fuel i know that i have um used resentment and i still

have a few people on my to-do list where it drives me all the time and that can be psychotic it can be whatever i don't know it's me and it's it's the way i uh i don't know no It's me and it's the way I don't know. It's kind of hard to explain. When I think I've been fucked over, the first thing I want to do is succeed and prove everybody wrong because I've definitely had people doubt me, I feel like, most of my career. So that's like a surface level thing. That's like a quick answer. But I think there's just some other stuff going on here. And I can't imagine how hard it would be to go through all the stuff that you mentioned. But look, everybody deals with their adversity differently. So my adversity was more of like, hey, you can't do this in my profession.

This adversity is at home. It's staring you in my profession. This adversity is, uh, you know, it's at home, it's staring you in the face. So the girl thing is out. She sounds like one of the worst people I've ever heard described. So, you know, onto the next one, I know you're probably still going to have lingering thoughts about her. You will, you obviously cared about her a lot. You lived with her for a long time. Um, so that part, you're going to have to just keep it moving like you can't let her mess with your head at all she's probably when she realizes that you're going to be moving on mentally from her she's probably going to try to mess with you because she obviously likes to mess with you so you have to you have to stop that like a bad habit okay like that's that's my first piece

of advice on this one the family, it's clear that you feel responsible for the other family members because of the way you talked about taking care of your mother and everything that she had to go through. But there is a line where you can be so helpful that it's messing you up with your own goals over the time. And it doesn't mean you're a bad person. Okay. But it sounds like there's going to be coming a time where you can love your mom. You can love your sister. You can be supportive, but you can't be so supportive to the point where it sounds like you're pretty bummed out right now. All right. And the fear of, of long-term being bummed out. And I know with mental health and the awareness, which I think is great. Cause now people are like, hey, look, I'm not alone. Other people feel this way. That part of

it, I think, is a really good development of the last few years. But there's something about it, at least for me personally, where I don't really want to hear about how bummed out everybody else is all the time. I actually don't. I think it's everybody, everybody has to probably like, it's not a criticism. It's just me particularly. Now, I don't know that that means that everybody has to give out their resume of, of their ups and downs throughout their entire life. I don't feel like doing that, but I've had my moments, you know, from, from right into college to beyond where, you know, whether usually for me it was something that was going on at home because that wasn't always ideal and I would take it really hard. But the thing that I started noticing that was happening to me as I was younger is I would kind of like to be bummed out because then I felt like it gave me an excuse. It gave me an excuse to kind of be a one-way

person emotionally. And that sucks. Like you don't want to be the person that's always upset all the time and that you're waiting to talk to a friend so you can tell them all of your problems. Other people have shit going on. Like an example would be me calling Van Pelt to complain about a work thing again and venting to him. And he's like, yeah, you know what? I just like we got another baby here right now. It's on my lap. Like, I'm sorry you're not loving the weekend schedule, but why don't we check in in a couple weeks? And you have to have some kind of self-awareness to realize even though you may justifiably be upset about things, people don't always want to hear it all the time.

And you can actually get to the point where you're almost happier when you're depressed because it's comforting, it's easier, it feels safe, but it also kind of gives you an excuse for your own limitations. So if things aren't working out for you in whatever aspect of life, career, personal relationships, all these things, you can go, well, you know, whatever. I'm just, I'm bummed out. So, you know, everybody just give me my space and leave me alone because I'm really upset about a bunch of things. Like I know I did it when I was in college. I did it. My parents got separated again.

I had a stretch where I just wasn't handling it very well. But I thought, well, everybody has to defer to me or everybody has to be on eggshells around me because I'm the one that's upset because I'm dealing with this very significant thing. When it's entirely selfish and you're not taking into account anybody else's feelings about any of these other things that they're doing. So I think, I don't look, it's just an email. But don't let people, I don't know how this is going to be processed, but I think it's important to say. The final part of this is you can't let other people bring you so down because they're down or they want you to be where they're at. You can't derail your life trying to fix everyone around you. And one of the things that I do have a problem with, and I'm saying that as somebody who,

you know, I think most of us, you have a awareness of things around you. Hey, I wish this were better. But when I would go through stuff, I would have this really fucked up view of things being, well, if I'm the one that's upset, then I'm right. And that's actually not true. And what's happened is we talk about people's feelings so much now that sometimes, not always, but sometimes I think the person makes the mistake of thinking like, well, just because you're upset doesn't mean you're always right about everything. And that's really important. So if somebody around you is bringing you down, and then their fault is, well, things have been rough, and you think, okay, yes, things have been rough. Things are not great.

I know you're hurting. I know you don't feel great right now, but it doesn't mean that you're always right about everything, and it also doesn't mean that I need to sacrifice some of my goals to make sure that you're happier all the time. There you go. I don't know if any of that helped but uh that's it all right let's uh let's check back in i think it could be chris long on thursday not sure scheduled guests colin cowherd woge chris long and others coming up the next few weeks and madden codes as as well. So please subscribe, rate, and review

the Ryan Russell Podcast on the Ring of Network. Thanks. Thank you.