The Ryen Russillo Podcast - LeBron Passes Kareem, and the Future of Big Career Records. Plus, Kirk Goldsberry on Kyrie in Dallas, Memphis’s Slip, and More.

Episode Date: February 8, 2023

Russillo shares his thoughts on LeBron James becoming the NBA’s all-time leading scorer, why these moments seem fewer and more far between, and how difficult it will be for future generations to come close to LeBron’s final number (0:34). Then Ryen talks with ESPN’s Kirk Goldsberry about LeBron James the scorer, the wide gap between regular season and playoff basketball, Kyrie Irving joining Luka Doncic on the Dallas Mavericks, the Grizzlies’ recent slump, and more (11:38). Finally Ryen answers some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (50:05). Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Kirk Goldsberry Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

on today's podcast lebron james is your all-time leading scorer in nba history and it's not just what the number is today it's what that number will end up being that'll be the most important part of the discussion uh we'll talk a little lebron with kirk goldsberry but also get the landscape some of the stuff he sees also kairirie with Dallas and some of the heliocentric arguments that we've had in the past. And of course, life advice with some follow-ups. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. Winter is here, so be prepared and get almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. What do I mean by almost anything? Well, you can't get a ski slope, but dish soap, definitely doable. Sunshine, that's no.

A bottle of wine, yeah. And a snow day, again, no. But blueberry muffins with the delicious crumb topping, total yes. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol in select markets. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Last night mattered. It mattered to me. LeBron James passing Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the all-time leading scorer record. And it felt good to have something like this matter again because I just don't think this stuff matters all that much anymore.

It very well could be me. It's minor history lesson again. You know, growing up with numbers, understanding what 61 home runs in a season meant, getting to the all-star break and wondering if Eddie Murray or Dale Murphy could have enough. And then my dad's like, no, all these guys fade out.

It's not going to happen. Then going, well, wait, how did Hank Aaron, he hit 755. How many did he have to hit every single year? And understanding some of these numbers. I remember Clemens striking out 20 against the Mariners in 86 when I was starting to become super locked in as a kid, ordering sporting news, having it delivered to the house, memorizing batting averages, thinking that was really cool. But the reason I was able to memorize all that stuff is

I didn't have anything else to memorize. I didn't have a ton going on at nine or 10 years old that was super important. So that's what I would do with my time. But, you know, feeling like you were part of this moment because no one had ever struck out 20 guys in a game before. You know, it's not the same because I'm older. I have different things that I care about, but I think for younger Laker fans or just straight-up LeBron fans or whoever you are, there was a moment last night where I think these moments are becoming more and more rare,

and that itself might be an issue. Maybe it's better that we don't care as much now. I don't know. I'm not going to argue that it's better, but I'm not going to argue that as a kid, it was worse. Maybe we're all simpletons. We certainly had less distractions. I don't know if it's better or worse. It just is. And it was what was important to me back then. Baseball has ruined, I think, romanticizing these numbers because of everything that happened during the steroid era. Football's never really mattered as much

on the counting numbers for this stuff. If you ran through it and you sit off the top of your head, who's got the most passing touchdowns? Well, you'd probably think Brady, and you'd be right because he played longer than everybody else. Emmitt is at 164. I don't think anybody's walking around going, 164 rushing touchdowns.

Will that ever be taught? Who knows with the way running backs are used now. And then Jerry Rice. Maybe some of you remember that it's 197 receiving touchdowns because it's so absurd in comparison to Randy Moss, who's number two at 156. But even Brady, who passed Breeze for the all-time passing yards record, so you could say that's somewhat equivalent to scoring record for LeBron,

which it doesn't feel that way to me, but like we were trying to figure out what it was. Do you even remember when he broke it? I'd already forgotten. And what is even that long ago? 21, October up against the Pats. And the reason it was so stupid when it happened is that they spotted the ball a yard short and then even, and then commercial break, because everything's a commercial break now in football. You come back and be like, hey, Brady's got the record. Like most anticlimactic thing ever. But I also think we don't care as much about the historical stuff with football

as we did with baseball and probably not even with basketball. So the other thing that I think we've seen happen and it's happened in baseball and happened in basketball, I'll give you one example of it, is that when we are about to have some of these big moments, like a no-hitter, like are no-hitters just uncool now? You know, as if this manager's some fucking hero

every time he runs out there and takes a guy out, the no-hitter doesn't send him back out after seven innings. It's like he's gotten everybody out for two-plus hours, nobody can touch him. Yeah, that third time through the lineup, though. Like the score's 4-0. Like, let's see what happens. Now, I don't think more no-hitters would save baseball necessarily but there's been a shift at times to show kind of how much you don't care about these individual accomplishments that

we've gone too far with it where it's like you know what we want to do at home see if the guy gets a no-hitter or like Klay Thompson when he hit 60 points through three quarters for the Warriors at the end of 16. And it's like, nah, we couldn't send it back out there. I'm pretty sure they were killing who they were playing. I want to see him go back out there. It's not like he's going to get Wilt's 100, but maybe Kobe's 81.

Let's just see what could happen. So some of these dudes who, by the way, would love to stay on the mound, or Klay Thompson or deep down, it's like you know he would have have loved to gone back out there and thrown up six or seven more threes just to see what would happen. Like, I don't know. There's been a weird pivot away from some of this stuff as if you're somehow more gracious by deciding to not do some of these things. So here you have LeBron who, no matter what you think of him, and I don't think today's the day, right? who no matter what you think of him and i don't think today's the day right i don't think the days today's the day to get into some of this stuff we're like it's kind of like the day someone

dies and a guy's an hour in going yeah yeah i you know i know he just died but and you're like can we give it a fucking day man can we give it a day now nobody, nobody died here. Somebody set an all-time scoring record. But look, the Jordan crew out there is very protective. The LeBron crew also very protective. I've run into parties from both camps, and it's almost like they were trying to size me up to see where it was going. Here's what I would offer up. I doubt anybody changed their mind

from yesterday afternoon until this morning, right? I was on the fence about this LeBron guy, but boy, all-time scoring record. Yeah. You know what? Now with more data, I'm going to go ahead. I'm going to pencil him into number one. I'm going to move him ahead of Jordan. Right?

I've also heard, you know, maybe today's not the day to compare. That's just not going to happen. It's not what we do. You know what's... today's not the day to compare that's just not gonna happen it's not what we do you know what's the only thing worse than comparing Jordan and LeBron today acting as if any of this shit's gonna have a different result is the guy that says let's just celebrate greatness the don't compare guy I'd argue is way worse today than the compare guy like what do you think we do here all right now the lebron it isn't a lebron look i have jordan one lebron has himself one he's supposed to say he's supposed to have

himself number one over the time as this you know dwindles down this career which keeps going at a rate that i don't know that anybody could have ever predicted that's how special this is um he'll he'll push certain things and whatever and like again i don't even really want to do this thing because i could i could point to like boy that sit down with wilbon how about him saying like i would love some of these players that i'm currently teammates with who have been traded for this other guy i'm not teammates with but i'm not going to do that right now i'm going to stop myself mid-criticism because i think it'd be nice to give him a day because as far as the product on the court, he has delivered in a way few prodigies ever deliver. Most of these people

can't handle the stress of being in front of a camera from their mid-teen years to becoming a full-blown adult with his own family and all this stuff. A lot of people, when you wonder, what happened to that celebrity? It's like he cracked. He couldn't handle it anymore. lot of people, when you wonder like, oh, what happened to that celebrity? It's like you crack, you couldn't handle it anymore. That's what happens to a lot of these people. And he is a basketball player that's never, ever happened with him. He's the best bet in team sports, he or Brady for their entire generation. But what I think is important where I started about last night mattering, mattering to me, mattering to the people that care about records is that it might be one of the last career accounting numbers that we all ever get to share together because unfortunately in

basketball forget trying to have a big night or no hitter all that kind of stuff that's happening in baseball we are watching a generation of nba players who could give a fuck about playing in basketball games all right like i swear some of these dudes just be like do you want to take thursday off like who we got now the jazz all right cool yeah let's take thursday off you're gonna wear your off whites yeah i'm gonna wear them and we're gonna just get you know fire on any of the baddies court side all right yeah that's cool we'll play saturday we get another game saturday so lebron who played okay the guy wanted to play in all of these games hell he could have won a scoring title almost last year but had he pursued the scoring

title when the team wasn't that good, he would have caught shit for that too. So when everybody thought, oh, he's probably going to go for that, and people are getting ready to criticize him for caring more about that and pushing for it, it's like, man, sometimes the guy can't win. But when you achieve one of these all-time records, the counting record for the career, don't let that confuse you and call me out for being like, don't you always diss all the counting stats? I diss counting stats for players that I think stink

that get to take a lot of shots on shitty teams. Separate topic altogether. The counting stats like this that shouldn't even be tainted by me having to point that out, that player usually is limping to the finish line. Kareem, for example, 23 points a game, 17 points a game, 14 points per game, 10 points per game on the way out. Now, I know what

you're going to say. Wait, Kareem went to college. The bottom didn't have to do it. Yeah, I get it. Jordan fans also saying, well, Jordan retired. Then don't retire twice. Okay. There you go. We're only keeping track. This category is about one thing. Did you score more points than anyone in the history of this entire sport? And the answer is yes. That's a pretty big deal. But LeBron isn't, he's not limping. He's seventh in the league in scoring. So, whatever the number is today, this is really about what this

number's going to be when he's done. Right? Because I imagine he's going to keep playing and no younger guy's like, I can't wait to play when I'm older. I'm not as good as I used to be. And then you get older and you're not as good as you used to be. And guess what you like doing? You still like being on a team. You still like having all the attention. Who knows if he's going to play with his son. But this was kind of the preview to what this number could end up being in a sports world

where I think for the most part, we're desensitized. We don't care. We don't celebrate. And I get all the reasons why we don't but for a night it felt good to be reminded of why these accomplishments actually used to capture our attention in ways they don't today. Football fans, FanDuel has the perfect way for everyone to get in on the Super Bowl 57 action with a no sweat

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bonus $5 unless otherwise specified. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. We're excited to do this. We never had a chance to actually interview him on the show from ESPN. One of the really cool basketball guys out there. Author, contributor, visual, I don't know, graphic designer, Kirk

Goldsberry. What's up, man? What is going on, Brian? How are you? I'm good. I'm good. I'm excited to do this. So I talked about, we'll start with LeBron. There's a lot of other stuff that I want to get to here. When I talk about LeBron in the open, you know, I like this. I like that something happened.

I like something that happened that mattered, something that's historic. Well, you know, you'll always be able to say like, hey, who's the all-time leading scorer is LeBron. Maybe we'll have a vague idea what the number is. But maybe the most interesting or impressive part of this is that when it's one of these numbers, the all-time in something in one sport, that person's usually been toast for a couple of years and they hung around long enough to break it. And he's seventh in scoring. So I found that to be probably, I don't know if it's the most important, most interesting,

but as he accomplishes what he does last night and then where this number may end up going, what has jumped out to you that you think is the thing that you'll remember the most about this achievement for James? Yeah, he's a better scorer than I think a lot of people gave him credit for for 20 years. A couple stats that really stick out to me, and I really align with your point that this guy isn't at the end of the fuel

tank. He might be putting up one of his best scoring years we've ever seen. But he's now only one of seven guys that's even played 50,000 minutes in the NBA. So I think the durability is a huge part of that. But among the top 30 minutes guys in NBA history, Ryan. He's ranked second in points per 36. Only Michael Jordan in that group scores better. So he's a better scorer throughout the massive width of his career than people like Kobe or all these other great scorers. So I think we've underestimated him as a scorer, but it takes that scoring and that durability.

Obviously, I was looking at, I don't know, know this is on video i took this off my wall lebron james was the first player i ever interviewed which was terrifying um in 2013 for a grantland piece uh and at the time um they were in the middle of that really long win streak and i remember not thinking of him as a scorer. He was obviously the best player in the world at that time. I wouldn't have predicted that we'd be here 10 years later, Ryan. And I think that's a testament to his durability, not just the length of his career, but within a season playing 80, 82 games so many times.

But the dude can score, man. I mean, that shot he hit to break the record was beautiful, sort of an old man shot that we wouldn't have seen from him 15 years ago. It's a combination of things. I think you said something there that has been thrown around. For his career, he's averaged 27 a game. He hit 31, 2, 3,

4, now 5 seasons. Maybe even, I don't know if they're not. I think it's 5 seasons. The whole he's not a scorer and I know J.J. Redick had this big rant. I know that I can be accused of the straw man thing at times, which I would

argue, but if Chris Russo's the reason that you're going at an argument, then what does the argument really mean at this point? And if it's on first take, we know how this works. So I always felt like the LeBron's not a pure score was always a compliment to how well-rounded his game was, not an indictment on his inability to score. If he wanted to score 35 a night and take more bad shots, he could. As great as Luka

is, and I feel like Luka is the best bet in this league, if you needed a bucket, who would you pick ahead of everybody else? I'd pick Luka. If LeBron wanted to do what Luka did when he was younger, and granted, it's easier to score now, so that plays into the overall number, the rising tides thing here. But it gets treated as if it's this indictment, this harsh criticism that he's not – it's actually the biggest compliment ever because we're so appreciative of the rest of his game. So I don't understand that there needs to be some sort of counter to that.

No, beautiful. I couldn't agree more, and that be some sort of counter to that. No, beautiful. I couldn't agree more. And that's how I'm trying to communicate it. I think I've written in the last 10 years that this guy might be the best defender in the league, period. Not now, but earlier in his career. He leads the league in the history of three-point assists. The best play in his career is a blocked shot, arguably.

He is just a complete package. And again, an argument over Jordan, if people are going to go there, is that. This guy can rebound with anybody, defend anybody, and pass with anybody. And I do think that's why he's not T-Mac, who might be just sort of a straw man of a scorer. why he's not T-Mac, who might be just sort of a straw man of a scorer. He filled up the box score, the seven and the seven after the 27 in that row of numbers is a huge part of why he's one of the greatest players of all time. So I couldn't agree more. And I think when I think about this record, it's just almost more impressive because it's not how I will define him in 10 years. That's not how I'm going to think of this dude. I'm going to think about him as the ultimate Swiss army knife

in the modern NBA as the game turned its way inside out and he went along with it, facilitated some of it, and was the best player of his generation who happened to have broke this record. Yeah. And I think the other part of it too is for all the scoring and especially some of the stuff that we're seeing right now is cam thomas is getting ready to practice his induction speech uh and look cam is putting up some insane numbers for the nets and then you go like why wouldn't you ever play this guy it's like well because you're gonna watch everything else that he's doing and that's where i feel like we have some real extremes and I'm not like knocking Cam Thomas, but like it's, I'm making a greater point in that LeBron was capable of doing more,

could have scored more, could have done the things that there's certainly some players that are at that star level and that star neighborhood that were like, I just want buckets first. And I'll figure out the rest later while their teams are losing all of the time. And during everything up until this, know last couple years stretch whether it's zone decline defensively which is very obvious um the decline of the health around him not a great roster but from i don't know around 05 until a couple years ago his teams were always feared because of one guy and yeah like i think that speaks to the value of the record is that he's achieved this record while also making sure that when he was on your team, you had a legitimate chance.

And it's almost impossible to do it for as long as he did in this sport. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think one of the things I'll always remember when we're looking back at his career is that sort of internet maybe talk radio point that if you took lebron off the heat during those peak lebron seasons or the calves and put him on any other eastern conference team that team could get to the finals that's how good he was uh and it also sort of one other thing that i've been thinking about is just how i mean how wasteful these years in los angeles have been with the exception of the bubble year, because this dude is still top five player in the NBA and the supporting cast.

Look, one of the stats I love about LeBron is he's the all-time leader in three-point assists. Nobody has created more three-point shots for his teammates than him. And the roster construction here is three superstars that all need to get in the paint score and not a lot of shooting around him. When they won it all, that wasn't true, by the paint score and not a lot of shooting around him uh when they won it all that wasn't true by the way they had three and d wings uh but but recently so one of the things i'm sitting there as they lose to an oklahoma city thunder team who i love by the way but that's the kind of game we've gotten used to so i'd also have to say that one of the legacies of last night for me is that they're kind of wasting this dude's late 30s as good as he is

uh and i hate to say that but it feels like i want to see this guy in the playoffs still and this team and this this construction of this roster is not affording us uh the basketball community that that opportunity yeah that's a real question are we going to see him in the playoffs again it would? It would be just a disaster if we didn't. Whether that's in Los Angeles or somewhere else. I can't imagine if he ended up going somewhere else that it would be a team that wasn't a lock to be

in the playoffs. Despite some, I think there's some moments there on the decline and the rest of it. I've never been upset with him for having the easiest defensive assignment the last couple years. I know he's not going to help on certain things because I think he's all about pacing himself. If you

want to argue, well, he's prioritizing scoring or whatever. I don't know. There's other stuff that if I wanted to get upset, if I wanted to provide you the anti-LeBron argument, I'm not going to worry about his defensive rotations 20 years in. I'm just not. Now, if somebody tells me he's still one of the best defenders, I'd be like, okay, wait a minute. Now we need to back up a little bit there. All right. So that's a good pivot, good transition and what I want to ask

about because Bill and I have talked about this for a while. You grew up and it was always all the playoffs are a different breed, slower pace. They don't call all the fouls. And then you could dig into some of the numbers and go, that's not entirely true. I remember being younger and looking up some of that stuff. However, now I think there's a combination of some factors, but I'll kind of just leave it for you and then we'll go back and forth. I feel like we are seeing, at least in my basketball, my NBA watching years, the biggest gap between what playoff basketball is and what regular season basketball is. Some of it's the three-pointers, some of it's the heliocentric stuff.

I know you've looked at it. Is there separation now am i right with this theory are there numbers that back it up numbers that dispute it where are we with this position uh it is more true than ever i couldn't agree more the regular season is checkers the postseason is chess and fewer superstars than ever care about the checkers match um that's one thing. But the sort of data analytics era and the increasing size, Ryan, of basketball operations staffs around pro basketball have made the science of playoff basketball more and more complex. And one thing I learned on the team side, Ryan, is that coaches only kind of prepare for opponents during the regular season. When you're playing three different teams in five nights, there's only so much time to scheme. There's only so much time, mental energy for the players to

devote to like a Pelicans game on a Monday and a Mavericks game on a Wednesday when you're on the road. Generally speaking, only one or two coaches are involved in those kinds of scouting events and most of the coverages and rotations and matchups we see during the regular season have more to do with basic availability or sort of inertia than they do to tailor strategies to beat that night's opponent uh i have a great example of this when i was with the spurs and we were going up against one of your favorite all-time players, James Harden in 2017, he would kick our ass in the regular season, right? But by the time we got to the second round and they'd just beaten Oklahoma City in the first round, I remember I sent a memo around because at that time we have Pop for the first time emay becky hammond will hardy james

borrego just lasered in on james harden for a week right or longer depending on how long that's not happening the regular season and you have people like me trying to find every edge in the numbers and the thing i found that year which you'll remember is both james harden and lou williams that year broke the record for like three point shooting fouls by a large margin. The move that Bob Vulgaris famously has called the jabroni move back in the news that term recently. But those jabroni moves had given, I remember in that first round series that Houston won against OKC, had given them nine, ten points a night in that five or six game series, whatever it was. I wrote a memo to the coaches that I would not have written during the regular season. I said, guys, if we can stop this, we're in great shape.

Just don't do that. And next thing I know, they're devising a pick and roll coverage with hands up. Some of you might remember. We're going over screens. We're not putting a cookie jar. We're not putting our hands in the cookie jar. And they got one three point shooting foul

that whole series. And that was on a bogus call, by the way. We almost threw a no-hitter on that and we eliminated them. James famously had his rough game in six. But all that's to say, that was a scientific endeavor that involved a lot of us.

And that's not happening in the regular season. We're just trying to get whole and get through that Houston game in January. The ones in April and May, oh my God, you have all of us looking at that closely. So it is a very different thing. There's no bad defenses. Everybody wants to win.

Everybody's tinkering in ways that we just don't see in the regular season. Yeah, look, I remember both those series pretty well because, and I don't know, I can pull it up here now and look at it, but I think if you, I'll just do it while i'm on it okay because i think if you look at it and you were looking at some of the free throw numbers for harden especially in those major years were like 10 to almost 12 attempts per game um and then you're like okay well what's the drop off in the playoffs and the thing is the playoffs thing it always felt like it was a series to series deal depending on how he was going to be officiated because there were still free throw attempt averages so anybody that just said hey the free

throws go down in the playoffs so if you look at the totals and there wasn't that much variance between it what the variance was it was like series to series and that series in 17 after the oklahoma series like that's a perfect example what i was talking about he had he had um in that series against oklahoma city he shot 18, 7, and 17 free throws. Alright? And then you have a better plan. You are better coached. You understand what you can and can't get away with, with the

fraudulent way he's been officiated for most of his career. He had 5, 6, 11, 6, 8, and 6. That's still a lot of free throws. It's vastly different compared to what's happening against oklahoma city so this isn't even about horror i could go on and on and on about especially that series the way that one ended where everybody was like no no he has a concussion like all of a

sudden he had a concussion you're like oh okay that's what it is um well kawaii had a sprained ankle and he didn't play so that's our excuse too there you go there you go um i think what happened with with some of the Harden stuff, I think Westbrook was just Westbrook decided he was going to do it. I think Darrell in the front office decided to do that with Harden. I think we've seen a little bit more of it where, you know, it's pretty simple math. Hey, if points per possession is this with this guy having the basketball,

why are we letting other people with worse numbers have more basketball decisions, right? That's very simple. I can totally get with it. But I think it speaks, it's so anti what basketball is. Like if you're a guy running around for six months asking to then be doing something completely different

where more is on your plate because now the defenses have locked in on the guy that had the ball the whole time and now, hey, by the way, can you play something different with way higher stakes and more pressure and more decisions you haven't developed him for that you know it's kind of like the steven adams watching westbrook drive to the rim for six straight months and now all of a sudden it's like hey we'd like you to maybe post up you're like, in the second round? Excuse me, only the first round of the playoffs. This is what you want me to do? So the reliance on it, I understand, but why haven't more teams figured out you're doing your team probably a massive disservice? Not that there

aren't extremes, exceptions that you can argue, but the history of the heliocentric guy just doesn't play out. There isn't a lot of great playoff success stories in there. I've already done this rant before. Maybe, I don't know, is it that the regular season people don't care that efficiency is just about efficiency and you worry about it later? Because I think it's a massive disservice to a team when they do this stuff. Yeah, we feel the same way. I think when I think about it, you know, I don't know if you can go back to like historic seasons and look at usage rate, but this contemporary era of Harden, Hardenism or Donchichism versus sort of the motion offenses in San Antonio during their heyday of the 2010s or Golden State, or even LeBron stuff that we already alluded to, where he sharing the ball and getting getting his teammates looks in big moments it doesn't I hope it doesn't work because I don't like it as a fan I mean I'm biased but I love the 2014 Spurs because everybody's moving the ball is moving faster than anybody everybody's shooting getting clean looks uh it's it's a beautiful product as well and I think you

and I could vibe on the aesthetic of heliocentricism, let alone how effective it might be. But I think the regular season can be fool's gold. Like a Monday night game against New Orleans team without Zion and Brandon Ingram, or a game at Orlando where there's young defenders that you can trick and beat with a pretty simple approach, I don't think that prepares you to beat the Boston Celtics or beat the Milwaukee Bucks in the NBA Finals. I don't think that's going to work. In part because I saw it not work with James,

very close up in that series we just mentioned. And when you have all of the team laser focused on one guy running one sort of repetitive strategy action, it's easier to pick it apart. Not to mention now we're picking him apart on defense or making him work on defense. It goes from checkers to chess. It'll be interesting to see the arc of Donchich's career, not only because he has a new team teammate in Dallas,

but because he's so young and this is seems to be what his future is. Is it going to get him over the top? I don't know. Okay. What do you think about Kyrie Dallas? You know, like you, I think you and I have a lot in common.

I think this is a tremendous risk um i think they had to do something and one way i talked to people around dallas the other day about the trade and they sort of swung my opinion in a in a minor sense i don't think this is going to work i'll go on the record i could be wrong. But if it doesn't work, and he's a three-month career Maverick, there are sign and trade options available to the Dallas Mavericks that could help them recoup some of the stuff they just sent out

and could help them reset going forward. And that isn't something I fully considered. So I think that is interesting because as they were presently constructed, they weren't going anywhere. This year, their argument might be, even if this falls apart, Ryan, I can do a sign and trade with the Heat or the Lakers or the Clippers or whatever and get something back and start a rebuild there. it's going to be tough. I do respect Kyrie's ability to play off the basketball. He's a 40% catch-and-shoot guy,

but he's going to have to play off the basketball more than he's used to, in my opinion. And I'm not sure, obviously, if the personalities are going to mesh there, not just with Luka and Kyrie, but with Jason Kidd as well. And that's something I have my eye on these first few games.

But what do you think, Ryan? You know, one of the things I really liked about the Nets, if Durant had been back and been healthy, was when you looked at the two-point percentages between Kyrie and KD,

they were off the charts. I think they had two of the three best as far as like a certain number of volume, however you'd want to sort it. You'd have Kyrie and Kevin Durant, and I'm like, you know,

that's kind of that Phoenix Suns thing where I know you're not allowed to say anything nice about them, but, you play a certain way right you you try to clog the lane and then contest and run guys off the line right now with the way they're fouling at the three-point line i'd like maybe we should contest less but i think that was a real advantage of paul and booker like yeah you've designed everybody's designed their defense in very similar ways that it can be night-to-night variations, but, alright, run everybody

off, run everybody off. Well, if you're running Devin Booker off into a two, or you're running Chris Paul into a mid-range, then you're actually, like, there's certain guys that are hitting it at high enough efficiency where that shot's actually still okay. And that's what I really liked about the Durant-Kyrie part of it. You know, when the Nets offense looked like it got stagnant, it looked

like iso-turns, you know, the same stuff that happens with the Knicks at times. You're like, oh, you guys are just going to go Brunson Randall, Brunson Randall. That happens with two really good players, but it seemed to work enough with Kyrie. I mean, all the other stuff, the Kyrie stuff, like I just go on and on. I've already said it, so I'm not going to repeat myself again. I think there'll be moments where I thought Brunson was really, really good in playing of donchich and then also filling for donchich yeah when donchich was out like brunson probably did as good of a job knowing hey you're the number

two but be a one but then be a two again that's not always easy for guys to do and i thought brunson did a good job with it i think in the beginning kairi will probably do a good job we'll probably even see luke of like forced passes that he wouldn't normally give up on shots because he's trying to make kair feel involved. Everybody's going to say all the right fucking things. But it makes them a lot worse defensively because, you know, the thing I did admire about the way they built, because I've always felt like with Luka, I go, I'm really confused as to what I would do as a GM. Like none of us like bigs anymore. Okay.

You know, it'd be great to have this perfect rim runner, like the prime Tyson Chandler that we all loved. Like everybody was like, oh, I want that guy now after we didn't like him. Christian Wood's not that guy. He plays basketball by himself. And that's why contract extensions are never close to where Christian Wood wants to be and where the team that has them. And there's a reason why a guy's on like seven teams in seven years. So I don't mind like the basketball swing of,

Hey, let's have two incredible creators. And you always feel like you're worried about being attacked from a different side. Uh, but I kind of liked the switch ability they had with some of the guys coming back. I know Max is coming back from the hamstring injury.

So that's part of it. Uh, I don't know, man, I'm just sort of lukewarm to him. I'm lukewarm to him before, and I'm lukewarm with more interest now. Yeah, I feel the same way.

I have a lot of interest. I think Maxi coming back is going to be a big deal for that team. I think anybody who tries to double Luka Doncic now has a bigger fear on the other side of the court than they've had even in the Brunson era, obviously. But it's going to hurt the defense, which was their calling card last year. And to me,

at the deadline, when they really put it together last year, it was like, you'd look at their defensive efficiency numbers, and you'd be like, where'd this come from? And hand up, I was wrong about some of that personnel's ability to become a top 10 defense. They're a bottom 10 defense now. Snell's ability to become a top 10 defense. They're a bottom 10 defense now. Add Kyrie, you lose Vinnie Smith. And, you know, where are you? Well, the good news for Dallas is the Western Conference is,

I think, the weakest I've ever seen it. Is that an overstatement? Maybe. I have no idea who I trust in that conference to come out of that. We might talk about that later. But this is an opportunity. And it could work. Kyrie could be motivated to go out and prove everybody wrong and go out and score 30 a night and stagger with Luka and create an offense that is unstoppable in the playoffs. That could happen. I'll allow for it.

But ultimately, I don't trust this defense, even if all that offense stuff goes right, to be able to make stops against the better teams in the NBA and the postseason. Okay, you send out the tweet. I don't know if it's every week or 15. I forget how often you do it. So correct me when I'm done asking the question. But the efficiency landscape, you ask what jumps out.

It's really good. That's why I'm big on kind of like I'll look at the overall sorting of where a team is offensively and defensively, and then I'll do the last 15 to kind of see like, all right, you know, it speaks to the Dallas point that you just made. Cause if you looked at the overall ranking, you're going to the playoffs being like, no man, look at them the last 60 something days. Like they're a really good defense. Same thing with Denver right now. You sort of a certain way. You're like, they've been playing really good defense now for a long time. And it feels like they're, they're heading into

a stretch of being the healthiest they've been in a really long time do you care much about variance does does it matter yeah i mean the the trick i love the efficiency landscape we put that together at the spurs every week and so i started putting on social when i left um the the thing right there's a bunch of signals in there and there's a bunch of noise in there. I'll tell you an example of each. Last year, I think it was one of the earliest devices around to really point to the Celtics coming out of whatever malaise they were in, in November and December and emerging to become a behemoth they would be in the first part of 2023. and emerging to become a behemoth they would be in the first part of 2023.

And I was learning from it. I study it. I learned from it. I'm like, God, is the Celtics defense really that good? Did they figure out? Time Lord, like what's going on here? And then you dig deeper. So I love it. But there's some noise.

And one of my favorite noisy things that you're seeing on there right now is like, are the Bulls good at defense? Because right now that thing says the Chicago Bulls are one of the best defenses in recent history in the NBA. I mean, recent history, the last 15 games or so. I'm not buying that one. I think that's noise. I think there are natural ebbs and flows, particularly in this three-point shooting era, where, as you said, variance is a character in the play. where, as you said, variance is a character in the play.

Variance, you have to allow for it, whether it's for a single game or a homestand or a road trip or a 10-game stretch. You're going to see teams that rise and fall. And the trick is, after multiple weeks of the Celtics sort of emerging to the top right of that graphic, you're like, huh, gosh, this top five offense does look sustainable. And you start watching, you're like, oh my God, this top five offense does look sustainable. And you start

watching, you're like, oh my God, Time Lord has unlocked everything with this defense. And now you know that E-May and Will had figured out this defense there last year. The other one on there right now, I'm curious to get your take, is like Memphis is plummeting on that graphic right now as we speak. Memphis was pulling away with Denver in the West and now looks like one of the most struggling teams in the NBA. Is this just a bad stretch or is this a real downfall with the Memphis Grizzlies right now? with this much of a drop-off. I also think they need a bit of an adjustment. There's part of me that loves the we want all the smoke shit from them. And when it's rolling

and they're at home and they're letting everybody have it, it's kind of fun. But they talk too much shit for their lack of resume. And when Ja Morant's like we're the most hated, it's like, no, you find the stuff that is about you. I mean, that's basically what happens in life. It's like you think you're the one hated. It's like, no, you find the stuff that is about you. I mean, that's basically

what happens in life. It's like, you think you're the one that's only getting it. And it's like, actually a lot of people are, but you only care about the stuff about you. So your whole filter is like completely flawed to begin with. Um, and I don't know, I don't know if any of that really means anything or matters, uh, with those guys, but I still, I'm not giving up on Memphis at all. No, no. And as a triple J truther on social media, I'm a big fan. I know you're a big fan. The signal there has just been too strong for this whole season. And then yes, Steven Adams is out. There's some off the court stuff, which could prove to be a big issue. But right now it just seems like a small slump that a lot of contenders go through. But that's that thing in that graphic. It at least points to some people,

like, here's what's going on and here's who's struggling, but a little bit of why, too. Which end of the court are they struggling on? I, too, believe in Memphis. But Dylan Brooks, when you talk about the hated thing, it's like, I got two reasons in my head right now why people don't like you as a player one happened the other day with donovan mitchell and the other happened in last year's playoffs with gary payton um like there is a lot of that kind of stuff with them um ultimately i want this team to be good because they're fun they're fun yeah they're still it's still young and fun enough for me to want it to actually work out and see them in a Western Conference Finals and all this stuff.

I actually believe both things can be true. I can be annoyed with the way they carry themselves sometimes for not enough of a resume, but I can also find myself going like, yeah, I don't know. Of all the teams that I kind of deep down don't like or whatever, it's kind of funny. We were sitting here talking about Dallas and 538,

because I want to talk a little Philly here too. I feel like 538's had this hardcore gym for Pam thing for the Sixers that's gone on for years. Whatever the Sixers is, however the players individually add up, the models

have liked the Sixers a lot. I thought in years where I was like man they really like them but even Boston last year they were they were early on Boston but they were overwhelming on Boston that was always my pushback I think at one point they had Boston like 83% chance of winning the finals it's like man if you have that kind of model like you better be like winning the finals in five games and it felt like it was a little dismissive of Golden State they have the Celtics won on best chance of winning the finals, which makes sense.

The Bucs thing, I have a hard time. If the Bucs are healthy, I don't know if I'll pick anybody against them, but I can understand the model's not liking them as much. They have the Mavericks right now as number two in the NBA of chance of winning the NBA finals. Nate Silver has no idea what he's talking about there. No. It's got to be somebody in the West has to be in the top of that list,

but it's hard for me to believe that that's not Denver, Memphis, hey, Golden State, who else? Phoenix. It's close. It's close with Denver, but the Kyrie addition to jump everybody else in the West, man. No, and in terms of Philly, philly like again people don't like to hear me talk about vibes too much but there are three main vibes there that concern me that might

not be you know factors in nate's model at 538 one is like the doc rivers postseason model i'm not sure if that's factored in uh of all the priors of his performance. The James Harden playoff variable that we've all seen for years, and even Joel Embiid, to be fair, not necessarily with his clutch, but his availability in the ability to play, by the way, playoff basketball. Another thing that separates playoffs from regular season is you got to play a very good team every other day and stay upright in a very physical game. And, and Joel is one of my favorite players in the league. Uh, but it's totally fair to question whether he's going to be able to stand up to that back-to-back series against teams like Brooklyn, Cleveland, um, Milwaukee and Boston

out of that group. I'm a Milwaukee guy, and I'm not mad at anybody who's a Boston guy right now, but it takes a little leap of faith to say this Doc Rivers, James Harden, Joel Embiid core is going to be better than those proven commodities that have already come out of the East in the last few years, in my opinion. Yeah, that was kind of, you know, Philly's been on a nice run. I always like the roster. I think even before the year started again i'm like man look at this roster look within then it still doesn't

always seem to fit doc still likes these all bench lineups uh i think the mantres decision which some would argue factored into him no longer coaching the clippers and then it's like he still has the option to do the thing that people were so you know i think there were some people on the Clippers side of the numbers part of it that would say like everything told us to stop playing Montrez in some of this stuff. And then he just kind of kept doing it the whole time. So I think I had one other question for you that I wanted to make sure that I got to here. I think that I just want to add on to that. I just want to add on to that. I think it is fair that Doc's not going to... A guy who makes the Nick Nurse drastic adjustment mid-season,

or mid-series, I should say, and that Montrez example is only one. But yeah, I think that's fair to criticize against the best teams in the NBA. Is that one really going to win the chess match in May? I'm not sold. Okay. Do you have any numbers

with the amount of time that you spend on this where you go, this number's just lying to me. This is just lying to me. Because I know there's the one argument, the eyes are always lying to us. And I've heard that a lot. Henry Abbott used to be big on that where he basically

would kind of argue. I remember talking with him in the past um where you know it's like it's a great summary of like the things that we didn't see and then I think of like certain players like there's certain pitchers that I'd go if you look at that year and you would think he did like a great job and I watched all those starts he wasn't good like that was not somebody you felt good about when he was out on the mound and somehow the era like years removed it's like man you got a bunch of wins era was pretty good do you run across something where you feel like consistently there's a player there's a team where your research tells you something you don't see like And it's just in batting all the time.

Yeah, and I steal a lot of ideas from baseball. And I think we're both Red Sox fans, but the emergence of BABIP and some of the defensive factors or, oh, it turns out your catcher is Ivan Rodriguez. That's good for your ERA. Baseball was not looking at that when we were kids. Now it's pretty sort of baked into the, to the evaluations and basketball.

I think it's like shooting luck. You know, you can find teams that are on hot stretches and I know you follow the Celtics pretty closely, but earlier this season, it's like, are the Celtics the best shooting team in the NBA now? They lead the league in attempts and they're all shooting 40%.

Like Grant Williams looks like Klay Thompson and Al Horford looks like Duncan Robinson out there. And then sure enough, it regresses to the main. So I think- Regress is one way to put it. Like everybody became a much worse shooter at the same time. Like that's kind of one of those trend landscapes

with Boston where you'll still see an overall ranking for Boston. That offense has been what bottom third for two months. Yeah. It's creeping back up very recently, Ryan. You'll see that in the, in the efficiency landscape this week,

but you're right. And I think when you embrace the one big difference that the coaching staff this year has, has done is they're shooting four or five more threes per game. They're now shooting more threes than any team except the Warriors. And simply put, like one thing the analytics are taught is if you embrace that volume of threes, you invite variance into your life. Like I said earlier, at the game level, at the week level, at the month level. And November and December, they looked like one of the best shooting teams of all time. In fact, some of my favorite stats. Oh, this is the best offense of all time, guys.

This is the best offense that the NBA has ever seen. I can tear those down with you if you want. But no, it's the shooting luck. They were making shots that they weren't expected to make at an unpredictable or unsustainable rate um and then yeah the regression to the mean and if you really are a numbers guy you believe religiously in things like regression to the mean and we knew this was coming i didn't know it'd be so drastic in december and january in boston but it has been the truth is they're a top 10 offense but i think near the bottom of the top 10, I think they've regressed to the mean

in that shooting left category. Okay, last thing then. You just said something. Every year now, the best offense, that headline is out there. This is the best offense. The one that I used to really hate is like, hey, this group of five, when they play,

this is what their offensive rating is and that would be five points better than the best offense in the NBA. It's like, yeah, but you're comparing. You're only using the best guys on this team, then using all like 17 guys. So it's not. So why is it that

the Golden State Warriors are still the best offense ever despite the per 100s being so much higher year to year now? Yeah, there's a variety of factors. I think offenses are smarter in part because of the analytics there and part because we know how to find efficiency in every little margin. Guys aren't playing that used to play. Virtually everybody the ball finds behind the arc

can knock that shot down. And, you know, the take foul is a small change that adds a point or two to a game. But, you know, I think I'll come back to it, but I really am getting fed up with that. That whole genre of stats coming out of beat reporters. Like, the Kings are the best offense in history. I mean, technically, they're the most efficient offense in history.

But yeah, I'll take the 2016 or 2018 Warriors over that team if you give me these rules and some of these contextual things that are happening in today's game and pace is a factor and stuff like that. But I don't know. I mean, kudos to the NBA players. Everybody can shoot. Everybody can pass. Everybody can dribble in ways that it wasn't happening in the 90s or even 2000s.

I think, Ryan, that is the biggest factor. And then the analytics era coming and sort of harvesting efficiency everywhere and every way is another big reason we're starting to see that. Hey, man, I'm glad we finally got to do this. So yeah, let's not have it be never again the next time that we talk. All right. Anytime, man. Let me know when you come to Texas. You know, I don't go to Texas all that much.

Final four. Houston, Texas. That's right. It's Houston. I'm supposed to go see Scoot Henderson tonight, but I don't know if he's going to play. I got to look that up. I like that. All right.

Well, for those that want more, you can follow Kirk at Kirk Goldsberry, NBA analyst at ESPN, and of course, Sprawl Ball, New York Times bestseller. Thanks, man. Thank you, Ursula. Good to see you. You want details? Fine. I drive a Ferrari 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you can possibly imagine.

And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. All right, boys and girls, let's get to it. A little life advice here. We've got a couple of good follow-ups, I think, that are important. Guys are really on our case about not knowing

every part of the technical thing on Instagram. Especially, I guess you can send a DM and then you can unsend it if it's deleted before they read it. I don't know. I mean, again, I don't even care that I don't know some of this stuff. This is kind of like Kyle when I was like, aren't you supposed to be my boner guy? But you're married, you're engaged, so you're not in the DM game. By the way, the fact that you don't know this stuff, I think speaks well to what great partners you both are.

So maybe a victory lap for everybody. Sure. A couple good dudes chopping it up. Sorry about that. I'll file that one away. Yeah, a bunch of non-sketchy dudes just talking. But we did get this follow-up on some of the tech that we didn't understand that does seem alarming.

Not trying to blow up the Aussie dude's spot, but one part of his story really stood out to me not in a good way the part about the dude's instagram contact coming up next to his is an awful sign that feature popped up on some recent iphone updates and it's basically the equivalent of favorites for people you text message the most you know what i? I checked on this. He's right. Like a contact in your phone contacts? So like say you were going to forward an article, right? Right. King of forwards. You're going to forward an article on a Brazilian banking loan that didn't get repaid.

Okay. Okay. And so you like copy and then like whoever you text the most right buddy number one buddy number two right dad and then if there's somebody you do message with a lot it could then just go straight do you want to dm this to this person even so this is uh this is great that was recent that's interesting i thought i always thought that that was like whoever you've been texting with the most recently because i've seen that it'll pop up it'll be you know i've seen you

send a dm but if i like just texted you you'll be in there but you're not i mean i guess you might be in my top five most texted people but i don't know uh not the last few months dude dude uh i think it's a bad sign i think i think that the idea that it was just he said something about a puppy and that that was a message based on a comment of a picture and that it was this i don't know we're not trying to bum out guys but we're just trying to update the tape or excuse me, update the tech as slowly as you possibly can with a podcast. So, right. Yeah, right. Yeah. Not great signs.

We said that we did cover that. Not great signs, but not great signs. Add to the list of cons there. It's not great. Yeah, right. It's even worse, dude. Head on a show. Head on a show.

It was bad to begin with. Now it's worse. Okay. Hope you feel better. Speaking of helping people, this is an incredible, succinct, just thought,

experiment, same hinky, on helping people. Smoothie follow-up. I went to BYU and did my two-year tour to Jesus in South Africa. Is that what it's... Can I say that? helping people a smoothie follow-up i went to byu and did my two-year tour to jesus in south africa is that what it's can i say that i don't know i think so i don't know you're quoting him it's

fine yeah yeah it is well i'm pretty sure there's some stuff i still can't quote uh i think that was all right while there i was robbed three times at knife point and even watched front row while the guy I was living with got his face cut open by a dude robbing us. Now I'm married and I have three kids. There's a rule I follow that I think is important to share with others. That's why I'm sending this in. Here's this rule. Never help random people under any circumstances.

Never. They'll find help from the police or some other more capable group. I repeat, don't help anyone. No matter how innocent it seems. Don't feel bad. Too many people trying to help become victims. It's a shame, but it's 2023. I don't know bad too many people trying to help become victims it's a shame but it's 2023 level

i don't know that we can endorse a flat line don't help anyone policy yeah this guy sounds scarred so i think between between where that one guy felt bad and this guy uh doesn't believe in anything there's got to be somewhere in the middle i think yeah right just use context clues where are you what's the you know what's what's the situation like does this person look like they have their shit together there you can you can make a list of pros and cons okay this is probably like this guy's probably legit and then you could probably tell pretty easily if the guy isn't legit so i don't know it's a case-by-case basis i i'd like to think that the world should not move into the direction of never help anyone ever under any circumstances.

This guy, I think, has some... Vagid. Yeah. He had a rough go at it. Right. If he didn't want to help anyone moving forward, I kind of get where he's coming from. Yeah. Oddly enough, he came back from a mission trip where he was supposed to be helping people, wanting to help people less.

Not great. Yeah. Didn't work out. Or maybe that's just how he feels like i went on a mission i crammed a lifetime of helping into a three to six month deal oh i got his scars i love talking to trevor madditch about his mission because he's byu guy i was like what was the deal he goes i lost all of this weight because i wasn't like eating I normally would be and everything. He's like, but then I had to come back and get ready for the football season. He's like, so I just started tying stuff to ropes and lifting them. I was like, people, he's a big, big dude. And I'm like, what did the town think? He's like, I don't know. thought i was just like this absurd human being because i was trying to like get back in his shape um which is kind of crazy that he could just get big that way again the young body is a weird mechanism how how it responds and how great it can be um but actually working out even more after losing all the weight all right you know what this is getting boring we're gonna going to move on. Okay.

We've got a couple of naked gym follow-ups. I think we're good with that. I think we're good with the follow-ups today. 64210, focus on isometrics and high rep pump sessions. Going to be at your Salt Lake show in a couple of weeks. you at Caesars Palace with Daryl Morey and afterward locked eyes trying to get a photo with you as you headed to the casino floor. Still haven't lived down the look of you think

I'm going to take selfies with all of you. That was the look I gave. Good luck at Salt Lake. I think that was right before Daryl Morey was like, oh, you keep saying we're going to trade Chris Paul. I was like, yeah, you are going to trade Chris Paul. He's like, whatever. Then they traded Chris Paul.

You're not mad though. No, I just got really annoyed with him with the Embiid stuff. I've reached a boiling point. I've now mentioned it three times. So whatever. So clearly in your eyes, you won't make the same mistake again come all-star week uh okay yeah we'll take a picture dude i work in software sales and for the last five years i've worked with the same network of 15 to 20 guys one of us got a new gig and the and uh recruit

and the others so on which has led to a dozen companies a handful of us always working together my wife is familiar with all these guys by name I heard you tell the story of your group of friends sending sexual texts as a joke to each other and it getting old. Yeah, it was awful. At my previous job, in between calls, we would send flirty GIFs to each other, search innuendo in Apple Images, get an idea of not so aggressive text sent. of tech scent. Well, I'll admit it wasn't the funniest sending of a gif of, hey, babe, thinking about you to a colleague while he's on a call and seeing him hold back laughter to then receive a licking lips from the same person hours later. It was a way to pass the time at the very least. Yeah, I mean, I kind of get it. I mean, if your group, you guys are saying, yeah, I don't. Yeah, I don't know. I kind of think this is funny. I think I think your college

buddies, I can sort of see it where you're like, yeah, Rob in the office over there just joking around. I don't know. It doesn't sound the same. Yeah, it's going to be a core guy move here. Everybody's going to be accepting of wherever this is going because if you're the new guy to the group, a fringe guy coming in, who's like, hey, do you want to start sending flirty gifts to each other just

to pass the time? It's not going to go over the same way. There's a tolerance level that's built up with core guys and that's why they're core guys all right so uh one morning i was sipping some pre at 5 a.m wife asleep and looking through my phone when i noticed text sent to my wife at 2 a.m from my phone it's four pages of screenshots to and from one of the guys she's never met but heard about over the course of three years in two companies. I'm upset she was looking at my phone at 2 a.m., so I leave without saying goodbye.

Wait. I don't understand this. So she's saying that she looked through his phone and sent screenshots to herself? Is that what you're saying? I think he was saying he was having pre-workout at 5 a.m. His wife was asleep and he was looking

through his phone. When I noticed... Good call, Kyle. I noticed text sent to my wife at 2 a.m. from my phone. It's four pages of screenshots of all these... God, this is actually kind of going down a real weird road.

So he leaves, doesn't say goodbye. 2 p.m. rolls around. My wife calls hysterically saying she needs to talk. I left work early, very upset. She would pull me away from my job to discuss what I consider trivial. My tone was definitely that, it being trivial. She threatened to show her family, my family, as it's not the guy she thought she married

and that they would back her up on that. Not that it's normal as per her thought she married and that they would back her up on that. Not that it's normal, as per her words, I was giving off. It's been over a year since the incident. I no longer work with the same person at a job. My wife is threatened repeatedly during fights to show the text. Should I just ask her to? Will it create more conflict in our marriage,

continue to be shameless about it? Should I have someone else talk to my wife about how silly working with a bunch of guys can be? She seemingly wants me to be embarrassed by it. Knows I'm not. Yeah, so this is a weird one. I don't love that she's like, if we are to believe all the information that we've been given here,

is if someone didn't know that this was the joke that you guys did, then they would then ask questions um this is where it gets into the delicate of like ask questions about what you'd be like okay well uh you know because then it becomes you know i don't want to turn this into like oh this me now means it's a negative connotation all these different things like let's all be adults here and understand what's going on the fact that she's holding this over you is really fucked up okay so if it's a joke it's one

thing what if it were fucking true and she thinks that like you're somebody else and you guys are fighting about it that's between you two so if it is just a joke and she keeps i mean again i don't know what your family situation is like um i I don't want to make any assumptions here, but I would disarm her ability here by just saying, yeah, fucking show it to him. Because guess what's going to, every time we get into a fight about this whole thing, and clearly if she's threatening to do this,

there's some part of her where she still doesn't believe you, which is kind of bullshit. But if you're telling us the truth right and you're saying this is just this thing that we did it was a bunch of guys or whatever she found it she screenshotted it she sent it to herself so she feels like she needs to have this evidence like that's the unhealthiest part of this entire thing that she thinks she has a thing on you that isn't even a thing and that this is becoming like, and that's what people do when they want to win arguments, even if their points aren't great.

When they're being, when, when they're in an argument with somebody like something happened to me recently where it was like, somebody was calling me out for something. And I was like, yeah, but I could point to this,

this, and this, which I think are just as fucked up. But, you know, I just went, I don't even care. I'm like,

I'm not even going to fucking do this. I'm not even going to do it because I know what I'm doing. I'm simply trying to get games three, four, and five of a World Series I don't even give a shit about winning after I lost games one and two. See the point? So I don't know, Kyle. I'll kind of pivot to you with this one. I mean, this one just feels way more problematic because at the core,

this is either a wife that doesn't believe you or a wife that's continuing to blackmail you. To be a bad person. Yeah. There's some really shitty. I can't wait to meet her and get a picture with her at the show. But yeah, that's pretty alarming, man. Not a fan. Not good.

I mean, I guess the only thing I can say is if she doesn't believe you and you've made a good point, I don't know if this would help or make it worse if you just show all the other dudes that you do this with and be like, listen, it's not special. he doesn't work with anymore. Like there must've been like, you know, other stuff that he could prove. Be like, listen, it's everybody in the office.

You remember Mark? He said, she knows these dudes by name. So it's like, listen, it's not just Jerry, it's Mark and Todd and, and Ryan as well. Like if you could show,

I don't like, I oops, sorry. But like, if you could show that like, it's like a thing that's weird and everybody does, um, maybe that would help.

But if she doesn't believe you, then she's just going to think it's worse and that you're like this weirdo in the office who just is soliciting texts from everyone. But hopefully that would be enough to get her to see that this is not what she thinks it is. But yeah, she doesn't sound great at all. And the fact that even if it were true or if it was just something else

that really wasn't as strange, but still, what else would she do this for? So it's bad science. I think she's your wife already, so that's not good. I don't know, Cerruti. I was going to say, did you just kind of have to give her an ultimatum and be like, listen, this is the deal. If you want to release this stuff, I don't really care, but you're not

going to hold this over my head for the rest of our marriage because this is bullshit. As soon as you start doing that, that's the road to the end. I'm not advocating you to like look into divorce, but like at some point this has to stop. Like she can't keep this is one

because it's not that big of a deal. And two, like it's just not fair to anyone that you're holding over his head. And is it? She's going to show it to her family, his family. I was unclear.

Everybody's families are probably close ish, right? So it's like everyone's getting this. It's not that. not that i mean again maybe your dad might look at you kind of funny and be like really dude like that's kind of weird my dad probably do the same thing but like it's not like that's not going to be the end of our relationship it's going to be fine we'll forget about it like a week later so i would just be like okay like you need to figure this out on your own because i'm good if you want to share it with other people that's fine but like you're not hanging this over our heads for the rest of our marriage it's also not fine if you want to figure this out on your own because I'm good. If you want to share it with other people, that's fine. But like, you're not hanging this over our heads for the rest of our marriage.

It's also not fine. If you want to share this with other people that I got a problem with that too, but yeah, you're right. You gotta, you gotta just say like, this is,

I totally agree. It's way easier to not have to just explain this to anyone. So I can see why it's been remaining as blackmail. Cause it's way easier to just could see this argument and not have to talk to your mom about this or whatever. But she actually does share it. That's, you you have terrible we're done like we're terrible yeah good luck yeah that was that was a bummer um because it was very specific and and he's you know i don't i don't know that he's hiding it from us he just wouldn't email about it right

like if unless this is some elaborate ploy where she's going to be at the show she hears us say it's not a big deal and now i don't know uh i was just trying to think of like is there any scenario in which if my my wife wouldn't do this and she wouldn't care for the most part and i don't have anything to hide is there anything in my text with my buddies because like everyone you know any group chat you have with your friends if it got out out of context it's probably not going to be awesome for anyone. Right. I would say 100 percent of people in the world that is true about.

But I don't think there's anything that my wife would be like, that's weird. Like, I'm going to hold this over your head. This is grounds for like us being done. And this certainly isn't that case either. So I don't I don't really know how I would handle it. But all I would I would just be annoyed about about being blackmailed in my own marriage. That's the worst of it. Yeah, that doesn't seem like a great time.

All right. I think we figured it out. Let's get to some crime. Witness to crime. 6'3", 190. I work out but don't max out. Use a one rep max calculator online. Feels like cheating.

Yeah, are you fucking serious? Totally is cheating. The one rep max calculator? Like, that would be one of the worst things a guy could do. Like, oh, I can do 225 this many times. That means here's my max, but I've never done it. It's just not, I'll tell you right now, it's not even close to being true. Certain things that I can do when I've gone on the calculator, I'm like, I can't do that.

Like, that's not, that doesn't, or maybe it just means I haven't unleashed it yet. Who knows? Growing boy. All right. I'll set the scene. I work at a corporate job in a large city. Job, also another pronunciation for it. I work in a high-rise downtown. As I said it, I was like, what was that word? parking lot about a half mile from the office building and walk to and from my car every day. I park in this lot because it's the cheapest one around, but it's cheap for a reason. It's on a busy road in downtown, basically nestled between a rundown pool hall and a bar that might as well

be a strip club. Not always the most savory characters hanging around, especially at night. All that to say is that you get what you pay for. Now for the story. I arrived at the lot the other day and noticed a guy all black with a hoodie pulled down over most of his face cruising around the back of the parking lot on an electric scooter. He was spending a little too much time glancing at the cars and he went past the point where it was obvious that he was about to break into a car. I sat in my car for a minute and watched this unfold, not really sure what to do. I saw him either punch or throw something at the window of the car and could hear a bang as he did it. After a few unsuccessful attempts to get into the car, he ran off of his scooter.

At this point, I wasn't really sure what to do. It didn't know if I had an obligation to call the police. It didn't look like he got in the car. He was long gone by now, and I had a meeting to get to, so I decided to just let it slide. This story could easily have ended there, but unfortunately, there's a little more. Fast forward to that afternoon.

I'm talking to a buddy who sits by a window facing the aforementioned parking lot. The view reminds me of my encounter that morning. And I begin telling the guy the story. As I'm talking, we turn our attention out the window. And even though we're 40 floors up and a half mile away, we can see a dude in all black with a scooter scoping out cars in the exact same spot, the same fucking guy. Pretty quickly, there's a group of about 10 of us watching this guy in disbelief. No one knows what to do when we briefly discuss calling the cops, but no one wants to get tied up in giving a police report or having to walk out to the lot. Around this time, scooter guy starts

making his way a little closer to my car in the lot, and I realized that my number might be up. So I grab my shit and hustle out of the building to the parking lot. By the time I make it to the lot, the guy is long gone, and my car seems untouched.

I breathe a sigh of relief. I decide to go check out other cars to see if there was any damage, and a few of the cars were dented up around the windows where he was trying to get in, but no shattered windows. I get get my car and drive home should i have called the cops on the world's worst car thief should i have intervened when i saw this all going down initially love the pod let me know what you guys think um that was a little peter parker uncle ben

situation right there huh yeah grab my shit and hustle down there like oh boy with great power uh first of all i don't know that if you call the cops and somebody breaking into a parking lot from your office building that all of a sudden you're in a mortgage paperwork conundrum like i think yeah you don't i think you can just call the cops and say hey a guy's breaking into cars right in front of us at this address whatever whatever. Now, will the cops get there in time? Major city? Who knows? I think that part was you guys were rounding up a bit in the hassle department of what you would have

to deal with by just calling in on somebody. Now, you're not confronting him while you were in the car. I get it. And it didn't seem like he got in. It sounds like he sucks at this. Like, if he was going to start and say it's his first day on the job. What are we doing?

He doesn't know how to break a window twice. He left and came back and couldn't figure out how to break a window. Maybe there'll be some internship in Los Angeles that he can join. Like this is how you break into every window and you just do it in the middle of the day and nobody does anything to you.

Because help, no one. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I don't think there's anything wrong with calling down. So I'm not like, I don't read the email and go, you guys are horrible dudes for not calling the cops. I just think that 10 of you all collectively decided, yeah, he just threw another brick at that car. Should we call?

I don't know. I got expense reports. Like, there wasn't one person out of the 10 that was like guys we can just fucking call the cops and say dude on scooter black hoodie trying to break into multiple cars we saw him there all day you know and then the cop shows up does a lap and if scooter guys in the mix sees that then maybe he moves on and your car is a little bit safer and the surrounding car is a little bit safer for the day and i don't think you have to do much on that one so i don't i don't think you're bad people i just think you've got kind of i'm

just surprised that many people there wasn't one in the group to be like i think we can just still call a cop and not have to uh you know apply for a you, there's no, you can just call the cops and that's be, that's it. You know, like I think if you're calling the cops for somebody, you know, who you're involved with, then you kind of have to stick around. But, uh, this is, there's really isn't going to be much of an investigation at stuff like this. So you can just be like, Hey, you know, if somebody is around, you could just, you know, check this out or something.

Like I was always, I think I called the cops for the first time when i was like just driving by it actually the first thing that happened was there was a fire like next to me and i called it's like the same people that you call like when you call 9-1-1 the dispatcher so i got over my fear because like oh something's on fire i have to call 9-1-1 and that was like the first time i ever did it and then um and i was like wow that was easy and then nobody they just put the fire out and nobody like, they're like, yeah, thanks. We either, we already know about it or whatever. So like, it's not, it's not this huge deal to be calling 911 or whatever. So yeah, you definitely could have done that.

And I think you did the right thing by not confronting a dude in a parking garage. That's probably good. Mind your business if you can. Yeah. Like, I don't think him being in the car, watching this go down, you don't need to be Batman here. People have insurance. If there's something in your car, you're probably going to likely get paid out like get this figured out like if the second it happens near my car a second time like i'm i'm sorry i'm calling the cops and here's the thing is like yeah maybe you don't catch him in the act that day but do they set up like a sting operation like they're likely going to catch he doesn't seem like the brightest criminal in the first place because as we talked about he can't open a window uh but like there's

a good chance that like they're gonna stick you know stake out around there and see what's going on and probably catch this guy again. Cause it's a guy on a scooter. There aren't many two guys wearing all black on a scooter around there. So I think it's pretty simple. Just call the cops, tell them what's up. It's near your car.

Cause what happens? Like if you go back in a week or so, and then he breaks into your car and he actually figures out how to break a window, then you're going to be like, shit, I should have called the cops a week ago. So I think it's kind of a no brainer.

It's not like they're going to put you in witness protection. It's not that big of a deal. So call the cops, tell them what the deal is. They'll go. I'm sure they're going to take care of most of the problems. And then, you know,

if they end up scaring them off, then you'll have to deal with it ever again. I'm not sure about the sting operation, but I do agree with you. You know, it's not going to be multiple people,

but like a guy, you know, kind of patrols the area and like, I don't know, who knows, you know, maybe catch him. Yeah, spin the block one time, maybe. Yeah, I see.

Breaking into cars is the fucking worst. You know know it's like not even fair it's not a fair fight didn't kyle do that once for a cigarette what um no no i i broke into cars but i didn't steal anything that's what it was just cold outside it was uh it was the jeep yeah the jeep frankly yeah that's right. What happened again? I didn't take anything. Nothing. It was like negative two degrees,

and we had to smoke a blunt somewhere, and there's this one car that doesn't have locks on the door. So that's what we did. Freshman year. Come on. I got to tell you, I don't think that's wrong. But the Jeep owners out there listening to this right now will be like, oh, cool.

It's a Jeep. I'll go fuck with the Jeep. Poor guys have been buying Jeeps for years and they they decide one time to park they get to like take all the screws with them because there's something again it's kind of like the wall street general thing it's almost like this math in your head where you see a locked car you're like all right well i won't break into that it's like oh i see a jeep with no doors on the side they didn't put the top on. They're just leaving it overnight. Well, I'll steal from here because

there's just less obstruction. Somebody who's had his car broken into way too many times. You walk out and you go, fucking Christ. You see it. Sometimes the door is open. Sometimes you see glass all over the place.

I mean, I've had my car broken into. Did your stereo system get stolen? Oh yeah. Multiple times. I mean, I used to spend, I know this is shocking, way too much money on my car stereo. I loved it. I loved having that set up. And when you live in a place like Bostonoston and you're driving around then they see the car that's parked you know so there's some person listening to this right now blaming me for it um and then eventually the last time it got stolen i was so broke at that point i i didn't even i didn't even fix it i just there was a huge i'll never financially recover from this yeah were you were you a sub were you a sub guy in the back of your car did you have like oh yeah twins i had

amps underneath every passenger seat neons yeah it was it was sick wow uh was i was super proud of it yeah simpler times simpler times i mean i you know that was when I was bartending when I put it all in. I installed it. That's after break-ins before. So when I went from pickup truck to Dodge Ram to then I was like, I had a two-wheel Dodge Ram. I couldn't get out of anything. It sucked. So I went to the Durango. But that was right as the money, the cash flow was about to expire. money the cash flow is about to expire because i was like okay i'm leaving to go do this this minor league baseball thing i was like as long as my stereo is crisp like we're good to go and i'll worry about the rest of the stuff later so i mean you know again i was a very dumb person with money i would just be like well how much money do i have was how much i could put in the stereo and can i ask you did you have a gps the window too? Was that like luring people in or no? No, no, this was not, uh, this is pre GPS being anything anybody was doing. This is, this is late nineties, early two thousands.

Yeah. I figured like two by 2005 or six, right. The GPS was everywhere. And that's when I started seeing, yeah, I think that's think that's probably... I don't know if it was everybody, but yeah, I think that's kind of when it was happening. At that point, I couldn't afford a fucking Atlas. So I wasn't going to do the GPS, but yeah. Here's a MapQuest.

Trying to figure it out. Just printing out pages of MapQuest. I don't know. Trying to backtrack. You took a wrong turn. Stopping and asking for directions, which is, you you know what is crazy yeah so i know i still had the durango i still had the system and then when i moved to

boston and i was parking on like you know side streets or calm out or whatever the funny thing is when it the last time it got broken into where i was like, all right, I can't do this anymore. It had been like seven or eight times. And this time it's just wiped clean. And they like left certain basketball gear. Like there was always a couple of pairs of sneakers and a ball and some shorts in case I like saw a game and I could just change immediately. I'd be just driving around. Simpler times again, simpler times. Just like the beginning of the podcast where I would just drive around and be like, oh,

they're playing. And I would just, whatever I thought I was going to do yeah whatever i thought i was doing that day was not going to happen i'd be like i'll just the and one shorts come out and you're ready to go and the guys that stole all my stereo stuff didn't want my sneakers or basketball gear and i was almost like that's a weird combo like that's if you're willing to steal the subwoofer, the head, and then rifle through the seats, undo the seats. They must have lived near me to be able to run back and forth to undo the seats and grab the amps and all the shit that I had. And even the wiring was pretty expensive too. And I've told myself one day I was going to do it all over again.

But then when you buy a Land Rover, I brought it into a place. The guy's like, I'm not fucking with any of this stuff, by the way. It's like way too technical. There's part of me that wants to do it one more. It's one thing. Go ahead. It's one thing to put it in the back of a Nissan Altima. It's another thing to put it in the back

of a Range Rover. I'll be honest. I still want to do it. There's a certain age where if you're driving through a town with your windows down just cranking America's Most Wanted you're like you know what whatever that age is I am now north of it where this is this is more uncool

than it is cool but yeah that last time I just was that's it I was done and I put a little AM radio with an earpiece. And it was the one that had the headphones were the antenna for the AM FM radio. Oh, Jesus Christ. And I stuck the antenna on my driver's side window and then rolled the window up and then had another piece that went to my ear and I would listen to sports talk radio. And that's what I did. Jesus Christ, dude, that's sad. Oh, I couldn't afford, I couldn't afford anything at that point. I was like, all right, I'm done.

But it was weird. Like the one break-in that was probably the worst because it wasn't the total financial value of it was my senior year. i was flirting with disaster this one semester and uh a guy broke into my truck stole the the subs and then stole my book bag with all of my books all of my copious notes and so then i went to my professors and i was like look i don't have anything left over and i got to buy the books again and I'm going to have to borrow. And they were like, fuck off. That semester didn't sound great.

That's an episode. Well done. All right. Thanks, Kyle. Thanks, Steve. The Ryan Rosillo Podcast. Outro Music you