The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Major League Cheating, Plus NBA Check-in With Kevin O'Connor | The Ryen Russillo Podcast

Episode Date: January 17, 2020

Russillo tries to make sense of the MLB cheating scandal (3:25) before talking with The Ringer's Kevin O'Connor about the Bucks' improvement, the Celtics' schedule, the Lakers, Clippers, and Rockets, Brandon Ingram's leap, Chris Paul and the Thunder, trade deadline rumors, and more (19:20). Finally, Ryen shares some thoughts about the new Netflix documentary, 'Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez' (57:45). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

today's episode of the ryan rossillo show on the ringer podcast network is brought to you by state farm just like basketball the game of life is unpredictable talk to a state farm agent and get a teammate who can help you navigate the unexpected. Maybe the unexpected is Golden State being up huge on Denver. Yes, I know no one has ever won the second game of a back-to-back in NBA history. Except, I think Denver was the first team to ever do it in NBA history

when they came back and won in overtime against Golden State. They didn't have Jamal Murray, but at one point, I think we can all sit there and say, hey, this is a little unexpected or unpredictable. So get a teammate who can help you navigate the unexpected. Talk to a State Farm agent today. I did give a little bit of a shout out to Draymond Green, and man, do people hate Draymond Green. I think a guy who would have had the team success, and I always thought whenever people would say, well, Jerry Mon's a top 10 player.

I always thought that was crazy. Um, but I like him and you know, he's unique to them. But if you paid him max money and said, we're going to run our offense or J Mon green, you would probably be a disappointed fan base, but he's a really special, unique player that does a lot of things that other people don't do. And when I was watching them and I've been watching them a little bit more just because Golden State's kind of on in some of these windows. And, you know, I'm not sitting there super locked into it because I try to use my time the best I can when it comes to watching games. But I said, you know, what I like about

Draymond is he's out there, he's competing, he's yelling, he's fighting, he's trying to, you know, he's still very engaged emotionally. And I don't know that that many players with his kind of resume and meaning team resume, the kind of success that they've had going into this kind of lost year where you'd expect Golden State to be less emotionally into this. And you'd almost understand it human nature wise where you go, yeah, you know, look, we're just not really locked in. I would expect that more out of a player with, with a lot of accomplishments, but what you can't ever deny is that when a guy's a competitor and he's a competitor and it doesn't matter, he's going to be out there fighting. So I gave that compliment to Draymond and it was like, no, we're not. No. People were like, nah, no, thank you. Do not want to compliment him whatsoever. I'm not finished it. I have wide ranging thoughts on what I've seen so far and in today's world. And I've brought this up before. I did it with the

Miles Garrett, Mason Rudolph altercation, helmet altercation, where it was like, we just, the person that's to be, to be blamed is staring right at us going, no, you're the one that did the wrong thing. And for whatever reason, now we were in a rush to try to figure out all these different reasons why we can blame somebody else in there or something else, right? Not just another person, but circumstances. And sometimes it is accurate and other times it isn't. And I think that's part of the storyline in the Hernandez doc, but not the only one, but I do want to get to that a little bit later. And that has something to do with what happened recently in the news.

But the biggest headline so far, remember when we used to talk baseball all the time? Well, this week's Open is about baseball again. But it's about baseball in the way that it reminds us of our youth, depending on how old you are. Now, I'm a little older to say my youth, but the very beginning of my ESPN career in 2006, it was, hey, we're talking baseball. Cool. What do we got? Barry Bonds, steroids. Awesome. Can't wait. Yeah, we're going to lead all three hours. No, we're going to lead all six hours on this stuff. And that was always one of these

weird things where once the steroid thing just beat everybody over the head forever, it's like, this is the only national topic we're doing anymore other than A-Rod opting out. You know, there was some A-Rod stuff that was still nationally, and then he was falling apart. So that became kind of a national baseball topic that you could still sell. But it wasn't just results. It always had to be kind of chaos. And that's why the NFL, I think, became a little bit unlikable as a topic because everything

was a negative, whether it was Goodell's handling of disciplinary things or Kaepernick or now this guiltiness, I guess you could just say a guilty conscience would be a better way of putting it, about the long-term health damages and knowing that even if you're not the most CTE woke consumer of the NFL, that we could all come to agreement going, the NFL did a bad job with this. And then there were lawsuits. It was like, wait a minute, every national NFL topic is kind of a bummer. At least we can just talk about narcissistic NBA players that are really selfish. So let's just do that instead because it's more fun.

And that's kind of what talk became. And it was right out of the birth of just nonstop steroid, PED, baseball stuff, going from the late 90s, early 2000s, and really peaking with the whole Bonds thing and his pursuit. And now it feels like that again. So it was really nostalgic for me to go through like, hey, everyone's just bitching and complaining about cheating in baseball. So I'll give you my own personal timeline on this.

And I'll set this up by saying when this first came out to this level, not the first rumblings of cheating in baseball with the Houston Astros or the Boston Red Sox, but the first time it was official, it was November and it was Houston and everybody that lost to Houston in a playoff series is going, well, what about us? Living in LA right now, every other tweet from LA people is somehow the Dodgers got screwed. And maybe the Dodgers got absolutely screwed. But the point I made in November, and I tweeted this out, was I would not get very indignant right now if I were another baseball team fan base, because you're just not quite sure. And I never thought it was quite, I never thought it was just the Astros. I had heard that Boston, to some level, I'd heard some other teams. I'm not going to share those other teams. This is just casual conversation with guys that I've worked with. It is not – this isn't a report. I'm not a reporter, but I'm just somebody that at times feels comfortable sharing because I know what people are talking about.

And this has been going on for a couple years where people like the Astros are the biggest cheaters going. It's really funny about the Astros, and maybe it isn't funny if you've lost to them, but I just thought that this was funny going back and researching all this stuff is that Houston was talking about, this is Reed Ryan, a video on MLB.com, who's the president of baseball, excuse me, the president of business operations. And they were bragging about the new angle for the Root Sports TV broadcast on how the change of the camera in center field would give Astros fans a better angle to watch the game.

It also would give the team a much better angle of deciphering signs and then leading to all the stuff that we're seeing out there where it's okay if it's an off-speed pitch, you're going to hear this bang or you're going to hear this whistle in the Yankees playoff series and these things where it's like, okay, what is cheating, right? Is it all black and white? You're either cheating or you aren't, or are there gray areas? And in baseball, it's been accepted for decades that there are gray area levels of cheating, which are okay. And I think the outside world, no matter what the industry is, whether it's baseball or whether it's a football locker room that handles itself a certain way, whether it's banking fees,

whether it's real estate, um, agent fees with guys with whether it's professional athletes or whenever I explain the agent process to somebody who doesn't know my business, I'm like, yeah, this is kind of how it works with an agent. This is what you'd expect them to take. This is kind of how you can work around some of this stuff. And everybody from the outside will say, well, I can't believe, why do you do it that way? You go, well, that's the way it's always been done. And that's always been a default thing for anyone inside the room justifying their actions. But I believe this. And if you don't, then I just think you're wrong. But if you don't believe that every baseball person, whether it's a player, manager, front office person,

they've understood, accepted levels of the gray area of cheating in baseball. Sign stealing has been okay. Moving a camera around, having it relayed back to a room near the dugout where guys are on massage tables going, all right, by the third or fourth inning, we have their signs. And now we're going to bang a trash can every time in the hallway when it's an off-speed pitch. And you have that Farquaad guy there from the White Sox going, what the hell is going on? These guys are teeing off on these off-speed pitches, and it doesn't make any sense. So when you had that, it felt like the Astros were at an extreme level. I don't know what all the Red Sox stuff is. I know that the Apple Watch got banned after a 2017 series where the Yankees accused the Red Sox of stealing signs and

using an Apple Watch. The Red Sox said that, well, we didn't really do it that way, our bad. You knew what you were doing. And then the Yankees, were fined i believe from the same series by using the dugout phone the wrong way and that's also this amazing unintended consequence that we have now with replay where we have more replay in football than ever before so pi has been included because of the saints rams play and now it's not being overturned because of spite we still don't know what the fuck a catch is. And honestly, they still screw up the fumble thing every other game. We have replay in the NBA.

We're now a block shot, which we always realize, like when somebody swipes at you and the ball goes out, it's always off that person, except now it isn't because of science. And we have challenges for coaches where none of the coaches think it's cool. But if you took it away from them, they'd all complain. And superstars being mad that plays aren't being challenged in the first minute of a game. In college football, we have targeting that still everybody gets mad about, yet at the same time, it's like, look, they just want you to not hit with the lead part of your helmet, the crown of your helmet. They don't want you to do it. Just get over it. It's not going to go your way all the time. And then in baseball, we have advanced technology leading to more and more cheating.

So I don't know what the level of the Red Sox thing is. I'd also heard that most teams, not all teams, that most teams, it's not just advanced scouting, but paying people to go ahead and decipher signs and relay that somehow. And I don't know how all of that stuff works, but this appears to have crossed beyond the gray area. And then when you factor in everything we've seen now, where it was, is baseball really exposed all of this? How deep did this go? We have the Altuve buzzer conspiracy. Now it looks bad for Altuve, really bad. And if you don't know what I'm talking about right now, there's a theory that's been out there. And tracing all of this stuff on social media can be really dangerous.

One of the biggest mistakes you can make is see one thing and then go, yep, it's settled. Case is closed. Just because I saw a video or I saw somebody do a split graphic thing. And sometimes I'll be like, well, let me go ahead and check those stats. I'm like, oh, all this stuff is wrong. And it's already been retweeted 10,000 times. Great.

But going through the Altuve stuff here and seeing other players, specifically pitchers, retweet this stuff, guys that played, either play now or used to play, there's this video of Altuve where he's coming around third, he's hit a home run, and everybody's going to just maul him at home plate. And there looks like there's this slight bulge at his right shoulder, which would be a buzzer that would buzz him. He would feel it if they knew an off-speed pitcher was coming.

So some remote device that would alert him and just, you know, buzz. I'm not going to say it's like one of those ab machine things where you just put it on your abs and you sit around and watch TV. And then all of a sudden you have abs because your muscles are being tensed in and out. Really, that stuff is used to try to loosen muscles up before they work on it. But a bunch of idiots, I'm raising my hand too, thought, oh, I'm just going to throw this stuff on and have abs in a couple months by playing Madden. This is sick. So whatever relay that was, like it looks bad for Altuve

because he's like, don't, I have a piece on, I have a piece on. There's another one with Josh Reddick where they're like, look at that thing. It looks like confetti on Reddick's shoulder. I don't know. I don't know what the wire in that confetti thing is. I don't know if he'd be dumb enough to leave a buzzing device on his shoulders when he's exposed partying in a tank top and then go out and do a postgame interview.

I don't know. But the Altuve stuff looks really bad. And let's face it, people want to believe this stuff. It is a lot like politics. You go on Facebook. If you're aligned a certain way and you read something negative about the opposition, you believe it because you want to believe it. You do. And it's not particular to one side or the other.

There have been all sorts of studies. I've read all this stuff. I've been guilty of it, too, with different stuff. Whereas if I want something to be true, I'm more likely to be tricked. So I think most people, whether you're Dodgers fans, Yankees fans, I mean, Red Sox fans, you just got to, you just got to lay out on this one for a while here until, you know, the extent of where you're at. Okay. But I wouldn't again, get really excited. Like Yankees fans and some people be like, well, we weren't involved. We're good. I don't know. I don't know that. I don't think you know that, but I don't know if it's ever going to keep going or

if baseball has a thing where it's self-preservation and they go, you know, there's only so far that we want to go on this entire thing. Maybe we don't want to expose Altuve for having an actual buzzing device on his shoulder during games because that's now beyond the gray area. And I think everybody in baseball would say that's beyond the gray area, that if you steal a sign at second base because you've seen three or four pitches and you put your hand on your outer thigh, which is giving the location to a left-handed hitter by saying, Hey, it's going to be outside or your hand on your inside thigh towards second base, trying to give him location, that stuff that's been accepted. Although there's part of me that wants to think Brian McCann may have been the biggest cheater ever because that fucking guy, okay. He, despite being one of the best offensive catchers in baseball for about 12 years, I mean, his numbers are incredible. He's a really good player, but he was the parent that would slap a kid for spilling milk while also

totaling his car into an Oak tree at his neighbor's house, leaving a country club where he cheated on his wife. Okay. Like that's the level that he would go to if he thought you were stealing signs. So there's a part of me that's rooting for him to be the ultimate cheater in all of this. I don't know if it's true or not, but it's like when you're that outraged all the time because you're catch a red ass guy, you know what? No one's really rooting for you. But I do think it's okay to go, Hey, some of the cheating's okay, but this isn't because we've not done this before. And I don't think that's a contradiction. If the guys that have been doing this forever are saying, yeah, you know, stealing a sign at second or, you know, a little something on your arm, as long as it's not too obvious. I remember the first time I heard Buster Olney say, you know, some guys, some hitters would actually want you to have something on your hand on a cold day.

So you have better control of the baseball as opposed to the baseball going all over the place. I had a hard time with that one at first, but I don't think it's as crazy as it sounds when I first heard it. And that's Buster has been covering this game every day for a really long time, and I haven't. So if you're of the mindset that cheating is cheating is cheating and all of this stuff is the same, I don't think it's because baseball people are disagreeing with you. I just, I just think that you're wrong. And I think you can find ways to rationalize everything. I remember the first time I was traveling for ESPN and you know, the expense report thing's always one of the biggest nightmares anywhere you ever work. Cause you're like, all right, you know, who's doing my expense report? How's, how much of a stiff is this guy going to be? What if I'm missing a receipt on any of this

stuff? And I remember a TV exec while we were on the road, went up to Stanford, Steve and I, and he was like, Hey, are you expensing this? And we're like, yeah, we, we are, we're expensing this part of it. And he's like, yeah. And what else? And we're like, what? Like, is this guy trying to be funny right now? And he goes, I know how you guys are. You pad extra actually before Uber and Lyft, it was like, you guys do those extra $20 cab rides. And I'm like, no, I go, first of all, I'm making decent money, so I don't need to jeopardize my job for 20 bucks, dude. But then I started thinking about it because then you hear different stories. Like there was a guy I'd heard about how he lost his job because he kept padding out his expense reports all the time.

And I'm telling you, no matter where you've ever been for work that has expense accounts, there's guys doing it because there's a guy who's sitting there who's justifying it in his head. He goes, you know what? I didn't get that promotion or they've been short and changing me for years or so-and-so has a better deal on this or this guy gets better hotel rooms because there's that stuff at ESPN, especially like certain people are in certain hotels and then other people are in different ones. And if it happens to you long enough and you're on the losing side, then you start building up this resentment and you can start figuring out ways to justify things. Like I always think that people can do this, but what is different from saying, Hey, you know what? That hotel Caesar salad that I had that I'm just going

to throw on the expense account because it was 26 bucks and I just feel like doing it. There's a little difference between that and going lane price and writing yourself a check for like 10 grand out of a company account and keeping it. And that's what I think we have here. We have the accepted thing. Hey, it's not great. It's doing business the way business has been done. And then there is the, is Jose Altuve actually connected to some kind of device that leads to home and road splits in the playoffs that are absolutely absurd. And this is what you have in 2017. Altuve home, 472 away, 143. Carlos Correa home, 371 batting average away, 211. McCann, the sheriff, 300 batting average at home in the 2017 playoffs. He hit 0-3-7 on the road. And I immediately went and looked it up and said,

how many times did McKinnon get at-bats on the road? He actually had a lot. Some of the other Altuve splits, the OPS is like 1,000 off. Maybe it's just the pitching matchup. Maybe it's just seeing the ball a certain way. Maybe it's good days and bad days. But between the video, the stats, the brazenness, the taking it to a new level that the Astros clearly took this to,

I'm willing to believe anything, even as a baseball fan and having no rooting interest for the Astros whatsoever. I don't want to believe that anybody went this far. Conference Championship Week is here. Four teams, two games, so little time left in the season. Don't miss out getting on all the action with DraftKings Sportsbook, America's top-rated sportsbook app. With so much going on this week, DraftKings has great promotions running every day from odds boosts to free bets. They have it all. This week only, bet on any star player's score the first TD of the game with 10-1 odds. It doesn't get better than that. Plus,

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There's a lot I want to do here. So we'll, we'll see how much of it we get to, but I watched Milwaukee last night. I mean, they didn't miss a shot. It felt like forever. And then don't you think it's kind of funny? And this is already me getting off track, but when a team's up 20 and then the other team gets it close that people act like this is new or something. This league, that's what it is every night with every game. Rarely, rarely. And there'd be a great number on this. How often does a team get up 20 and then maintain that lead?

I'd say it's less than 5% of the time. And Boston fans are tricking themselves, thinking like, hey, maybe it feels like you're getting back into this. But, I mean, Milwaukee was just so impressive last night. I don't know. There's just something I'm starting here with. I think in the past you would say, Oh, a team led up, but it's not like Milwaukee led up. It's just,

that's what this game has become with three point shots and their regression to the mean that happens. And to what you originally said, though, Milwaukee just shooting the hell out of it. Middleton this season, I think the last two years against Boston shooting nearly 50% from three. It's amazing how Milwaukee seems to just play at their best against Boston. But in many ways, though, it's reflective of what they've been so far this season as a team on pace for over 70 wins.

It feels like what they have now around Giannis just fits perfectly with the amount of shooters that they have on this roster and for Boston as good as they are this season as good as they were last season at certain points despite the Kyrie stuff it feels like they just don't have that top end guy that can do it as consistently as they need to they got it from Kemba last night with the 40 point game but sometimes i i don't think they can lean on him on every night like you can with some other guys like with yannis like with a kawaii letter and that's what took down milwaukee last year was going against the guy of that truly elite level and there's really not that guy this year that i think it can get in

the way of milwaukee okay mil Milwaukee right now, 37-6. So I was going back and looking at it. I mean, that's three losses since November 8th. And the Sixers win against them, you know, going back almost a month now because it was actually like alarmingly dominant and Embiid owned Giannis in that game. And it gave Sixers fans this hope that, hey, everything's going to work out and that's going to be fine.

And that hasn't really been the case for the Sixers. Maybe whatever matchup-wise, we'll figure that out. Last year at this time, 43 games in, Milwaukee was 31-12. I looked at the offensive and defensive numbers. Last year, they were number two in offense. They're about the same. This year, they're number two, but it's about the same number as last year when they were number four. though this year they're number two,

but it's about the same number as last year when they're number four. They're number one in defense both years, but it's a staggering gap where they're at right now compared to the rest of the league. Like they're two and a half points better per a hundred possessions than the second place defensive team. And maybe it's just another year in the system. Maybe it's just Giannis taking it to another level. The shooting is,

as we've talked about kind of at the end of the last year, you noticed this is going to be a little bit more of a thing for Giannis but he's still at like 32 percent so it's not like he's lighting it up but is there something else glaring to you that shows you they're a much better team than last year because the record would say they were but I don't know I don't know if that's necessarily the case even though Giannis clearly looks like a better guy I mean it's interesting because entering the season my concern was the loss of somebody like Brogdon having that secondary ball handling presence and what he brought to the floor as a defensive player, a guy who didn't need the ball in his hands, but he could do it for you.

He's an important part of that rotation last year in the playoffs for Milwaukee. And I felt going into the year, Bledsoe would have a much more important role, but where he has been replaced has been somebody like Wesley Matthews, who has been so good on the defensive end of the floor for him. For someone like Dante DiVincenzo, who last night shooting the heck out of the ball, scoring 19 points. He's had some impressive games too. But even to an extent of somebody like Robin Lopez being a nice rotation piece for them over coming off the bench, having to rely on less than some of the younger guys. So even though my concern entering the season was

Brogdon being lost and losing that ball handling presence, it has been overcome in many respects from the rest of the roster. Nevermind the fact that Giannis is just straight up better. It's not just the shot too. I think he has gotten better in subtle ways of passing out of pressure. Last year, sometimes he would rumble into defenders when they would pack the paint against him. I think he has been better at kicking the ball out and finding open shooters, or rather, sometimes forcing a rotation against opponents, too,

getting a secondary assist sometimes. So Giannis being better, some of the defensive players that they have or the spark plugs and DiVincenzo. Overall it just seems like things are fitting better overall for this roster around Giannis. Real quick follow up on it because

there's more teams that I want to do here, but is there any part of you, and I said this about a month ago where I'm worried it's a little denverish where i don't know what denver would have to do like they might have to win 70 games in the regular season for me to go okay maybe it'll come out of the west like that's just how i feel about denver i'm not going to keep apologizing for it because i you know it ends up kind of being true all the time is there any part of that where you look at milwaukee in a much deeper east at the top

and that despite the record you feel like there's somebody that's a real threat to them. I picked Philly before the season to come out of the East and I'm still intrigued by, by them. If they're able to click on all cylinders on the defensive end of the floor in the post season, I thought Josh Richardson would take a bit more of a leap that hasn't happened.

So I'm a little bit cooler on them than I was before the year. I think Miami would need to make a move. I mentioned what I said about Boston earlier. Kemba is really, really good last night. He was great. I just don't think he's that guy that took down Milwaukee last year. Kawhi Leonard was just unbelievable and taking the down. He's somebody who can carry a team regardless of the defense he faces. I'm not quite sure Boston can do that yet. And I don't think that guy, that individual elite player is going to get in their way this postseason, unless rosters change, unless injuries happen. Um, but right now, no, I don't think so. Ryan, why you seem to still have some hesitations about them like you do with Denverver in the west um this isn't denver's more about personnel and you know who is you know is jamal murray really a steady enough two and then who the hell's their three is it really supposed to

be milsap you know it's porter jr going to be playing more like i still don't understand this argument that well you know we haven't been always able to find minutes for porter jr and you're like oh you know and i know will barton went off last night. Will Barton's probably one of the more overlooked offensive, you know, guy that can really get it going. You know, I don't know if he's in the flip Murray category, but you know what I mean? Like guys that you're like, what did he get last night? Like that guy got 35 again. Like what the hell? But he's one of those spark plugs. I can swing a game for you i'd also like to nominate will barton for first team all nba talks a lot that you wouldn't expect

you know like throughout the game you're like man will barton is talking to the refs the entire game anyway i don't want to get distracted on that uh yeah maybe just the defending Giannis, understanding transition, understanding some of your closeout rules on him. But right now, Giannis going downhill with that inside out dribble is the most horror. It has to be the most horrifying thing in the NBA to face as a defense. When you're, when you're backpedaling a little bit, he's coming downhill at you. I don't think there's anything scarier in the league right now than that. But I wonder if it's,

you know, playing them say six or seven games in a row. If there's, I just think the league is got to a point where the playoffs are so much more different now than what we see in the regular season. I think there's a bigger gap between the two styles of basketball than I can ever remember as somebody who watched these games. Do you buy the improvement from Giannis as a shooter?

His free throw shooting has fallen off recently. Three point shooting has slipped a little bit from what it was in December I just think it looks I think it's a comfort thing where it just looks better um the free throw thing I have no explanation for uh but we've seen some guys recover the free throw thing. Maybe not big guys, but it sounds like you're very skeptical. I guess it just, when we started seeing glimpses of him kind of dribbling into his shot and going, wow, he's really going for this. Like this is, this is a comfort thing now. So just the fact that it looked more comfortable, even though you're right. Like I was looking at the numbers this morning going, all right, am I supposed to be that excited at 32%? But he looked like a guy who might be 25% and it wasn't even an option. So I think the fact that it's even an option, but sometimes you're at 32, that's the worst you can be at because now you start taking it more thinking you're good at it.

Now you're just missing them. Sure. And with Giannis, one of the things I looked at a couple of weeks back on with an article I wrote on The Ringer was his numbers mostly really only improved off of one dribble from three-point range. He likes getting in that one dribble off the left hand into his three-point shot. But other than that, his numbers were still quite low in every other type of way he was shooting threes,

whether it was catch and shoot, whether it was off the right hand. It was the one dribble left-hand pull pull up that he was becoming quite good at. And I do wonder if moving forward as teams continue to scout him, if that's something that they're more aware of. But ultimately, though, just the the threat of that opens up more driving lanes for him. So I am a buyer that he's gotten better. I have been for a while since I wrote that. But I do wonder what happens when defense are scouting him

and how they do maybe just bait him into taking that or maybe that's one shot that they're willing to try to take away. And going through all of this, I don't think it's an anti-Bucks thing. It's just when you're 37-6, there will probably be no hesitation about another team that's already done it. Those are just the rules. That's not specific to Bucs fans that are going to be annoyed, as they always are.

That's, if you had won already, then everybody would be like, who's going to beat these guys? And that's just what happens. I mean, it's in every single sport. Nobody really believes in you until you've already done it. I mean, even Golden State down 2-1 to Memphis, and it's like, ah, these soft outside shooters, ignoring the fact they're one of the best defensive teams in the NBA, but they hadn't done it yet.

So it's not, this isn't new. And as I always point out, these are the rules. So I'd have to pick somebody else. The Miami home road splits are getting weirder and weirder. Philly's your sixth seed right now. I don't know that I would feel like doing the same Philadelphia segment that we've all probably been doing now for a while. I would like to go further on Boston in that, you know, this has been a nice run, but it's the second easiest schedule based on the stuff I was looking at to this point of the season. Yeah, they lost to Philly and Milwaukee last night, but they had a weird loss to a Washington team that seems to be more competitive despite no one knowing who's on it. The San Antonio loss

where they're down 22 to three, I think, at the start of the game. A Detroit loss in there. But it's not just Kemba and a handful of games missed for him. And then Jalen was out last night. Marcus Smart has missed 25% of the season. Hayward's played 24 or 40 games. And he hasn't been the same guy since he's been back. The shooting's got a little bit better.

I, like you probably, because we both love the draft, a lot of how I talk or feel about a player is just based purely on what I thought he could be and then maybe even changing my mind again. And I like Tatum so much. That rookie year was incredible. And then last year we could blame Kyrie. I feel like I've had to, and I've been saying this now for about a month or so, I've had to kind of reset what I think Tatum's ceiling is going to be because there are some awful, awful nights, and it's still happening. I know he had the 40 against New Orleans, but there's too many like 5 for 18 nights in there for somebody that's supposed to be

at least was flirting with the idea of maybe being a top 10 player in his league. I don't think that's ever happening now. Interesting. He's still 21, though, And he has gotten better as a shooter every year since he was in high school, extending his range every single season. I, I know there's a lot of dud nights for him. To me, I'm mostly concerned about the at-room finishing aspect. And that's something that hasn't gotten significantly better at all. And that's, that's the hallmark trait of great scorers who do it

consistently and don't have those five for 18 nights that you mentioned their ability to get to the basket. If their shots aren't falling and either finish there or draw fouls. And, and that's an area Tatum is lacking most, but I still look at him in his third season, despite some changes every single year, first year, of course, making the run that they did with Kyrie out last year, the Kyrie debacle. And then this year, a brand new, largely a brand new system, a new roster to built, built around him. It's hard for a young guy to develop in that. And yet he has become a very, very good defensive player after he was a average or negative defender at Duke. And that's a plus for him. He has gotten better as a shooter from distance. And I think for him overall,

if you're looking at what he can be at 25, 26 years old, I haven't wavered from my pre-draft belief when I had him rank second behind Markel Fultz. There are some concerns with the at-room finishing, but I still think the skills are there for him to be a real dynamic scorer in this league. With the shooting, you really feel like it's, it's gotten better because are you going location based here as opposed to just, you know, whether it's true shooting percentage or the fact

that, you know, he's at 43% down from 47 to 45 three point shooting his first year, 43%, 37. Now it's 36. Um, you know what I used to love about him as a rookie is drive and still aware to give you that killer assist. Like cutoff, help defender comes over, he's not going to finish against two, and then he would just drop a little handoff or a kick out to somebody. And last year, you know, it was like, okay, you're supposed to just stand and watch. And I didn't really hold that against him. And sometimes I wonder, is Kemba kind of doing this thing where at the end of games, it's kind of like the Kyrie thing where he's like, all right, I got to try to get these guys out of this

because Kemba's been so good for him. But I don't know, there's just little things with Tatum where I go, wow, he sucked again tonight. Like, what's going on here? And I know that he's young, but. In regards to the shooting, Ryan, for me, I look at the shooting off the dribble because one of the concerns with him pre-draft

and in high school was he was a guy who lived in the mid-range. And to be fair, he still does take quite a lot of mid-range jumpers, but he has successfully extended his range off the dribble to three. As a rookie in the league, he attempted only one three off the dribble per game last year it was one and a half this year it's nearly four

and he's shooting well at 36 percent on threes off the dribble so with him it's the type of thing where that was one of the greatest areas of development that he needed to make and he has gotten better in that category the spot ups-point shooting numbers are down compared to before, but over the full course of his career, he's still a good overall shooter on spot-ups. For him, the next thing is going to be improving finishing around the rim. He can get to the rim. He bobbles the ball too much, fumbles the ball, but will that happen over time? I don't know. I don't know, but I do look at some past guys. You look at him. He could go the Rudy Gay path where that does not get better. And he sort of is what he just is today. And that's a good player, but not a great player. But then you could also look at somebody like Paul George, who early in his career was not somebody who drew a lot of fouls around the rim.

Will Tatum go down that path? Who knows? But the fact is that I'm optimistic about the subtle ways he has improved in the past three seasons and what that could bode for him moving forward. Yeah, maybe my ceiling was just too high for him because I liked him better than everybody out of that draft. I liked him better than Fultz. And I felt like because he was hurt. And sometimes, you know, you get lost at Duke a little bit. You know, I thought Duke did an awful job with all their players last year

other than Zion. And, you know, there are certain things with Tatum where I was like, wait a minute, if this guy's foot wasn't messed up and didn't miss some time, like I really do think that he'd be in the conversation for one. But then other people, I don't know if you went to some of the American game stuff with Fultz, and they're like, if you saw Fultz in those games, you'd be like, there's no way I'm taking anybody else besides him at one. And I didn't go to those. Let's not spend too much more time on this. L.A., both L.A. teams. Clippers looked incredible last night. They're kind of maybe a more exaggerated version of Boston not always having their guys in different times. And yet the Clippers, you know, record wise, you're like, OK, you know, that Lakers record is incredible. At this point, would you be shocked if it's anything other than one of the two L.A. teams coming out of the West?

Not shocked. I wouldn't go that far, but I'd be a little bit surprised. Is that fair to say? Not shocked, though, because I do really like Denver. I think Utah, if Conley is able to be himself when he gets back, and of course, that's a big if. I think those two teams still stand out. I'm still intrigued by Houston if they can catch fire in a seven game series, but LA both LA teams should be the favorite shore, but not, not quite shocked.

I'm, I'm at the point where I'd be shocked. Uh, I've already said what I've said about Denver. Um, I picked Utah because I didn't want to be just somebody else picking either the Clippers or Lakers against the Sixers. So I went Utah Sixers. And so I'm in this weird position where now, where I say, you know, halfway through the season, the Clippers are probably even better with the record is this Lakers things. Incredible. I do worry a little bit about who they'll be with LeBron towards the end of the year, but I think he's done a really good job in watching these games and kind of managing himself. The defensive stuff with LeBron is kind of funny because I think he has these burst moments, but he's not exerting himself for the full 30 plus minutes and he shouldn't be. I think he's really smart about

how he's gone about it. And Davis, this is kind of a fluky injury not necessarily like a longer term thing but utah and who cares about last night's game against new orleans but this this streak is against bad teams other than i think the clippers win in there and i can't imagine that i'm going to be all the way back in on utah challenging one of those la teams until i actually see conley resemble something like we saw the Conley that was in Memphis because he's been bad and yet they're winning all these games without him and I'm I'm like open mind so I'm in this weird thing of like wait a minute do you hate Utah or do you love Utah because you picked him to come out of the west and now you're not all the way back in with this win streak because I'm just not I know how well they shoot. I know the defense has improved after a sluggish start.

I know they're figuring out their closing group a lot better here because they, you know, that's just hard when you add a guy like Bogdanovich and a couple other ball handling pieces, you know, you're not quite sure how you want to close the games. I think they figured that whole part out. And, you know, if I allowed myself to have kind of what's the floor and ceiling for Donovan Mitchell, and it always happens with young players. we're like, oh my God, what is this guy going to be next, Dwayne Wade? And then you're like, wait a minute, is he sort of like a more likable Westbrook? No, but you know what I mean?

There are moments where Mitchell would be forcing stuff and you go, okay, so we're not going to criticize him because he's new, but we're all going to crush Westbrook? What's really different here? It's like, well, because one guy's been doing it a lot longer and he's meaner to people. But Mitchell is just another reminder in that New Orleans game. The back

and forth that he and Brandon Ingram had, I'm not going to say it was Dominique Bird, but it was as great as a two-man kind of duel that we've seen in the league in a regular season game in a long time. That's me staying. I still don't know about Utah, but I believe in the full version of Utah if we ever get to see it. Well, isn't that exactly what they got Conley for though? Because you do have a guy in Mitchell who

can go back and forth, but he can't always do that. And Conley, you got him because with Memphis for the past six, seven years, he's been one of the league's best pick and roll players, whether it's as a scorer pulling up the shoot from three, he can get into his floater for mid range, good at getting to the rim, or he's a very good playmaker too, who could make life easier on Mitchell and get him easier shots. And so I'm right there with you. Even during this win streak, I've been talking with Verno every week. This is encouraging. This is good to see the team getting on track.

But what they got Conley for, they still need in a playoff series, especially against a team like the Lakers or the Clippers. These teams that have top-end go-to scoring talent that they can rely on. They need another guy who can handle the ball for them in those fourth quarters when defenses are locked in. So I'm not all the way there yet on Utahah until we see mike conley looking like the mike conley we saw for years in memphis but there's no guarantee though we even get that though considering the nature of his injuries the past couple years and his age if i were going to do this segment because i almost feel like i want

to start doing it every week a bad team that you want to talk about you know a bad team where you go hey i don't talk about them that much and it's because they're bad and we're halfway through the season they're going to still be bad but you just you keep watching because i know your brandon ingram thing um you compared him to durant was that you that compared him to rant no no no not not me i did not compare him to that's right it was mike schmitz but you weren't you're you know your brandon ingram thing is he's better than ben simmons right yeah i i had brandon ingram ranked number one in the 2016 draft and obviously first couple seasons of their career simmons was better but

ingram surpassed simmons this year because of his scoring ability that is not crazy to say out loud now i think the best version of what ben simmons it was two months ago when i first said it though now it's not ingram was not like i've i've argued with lakers fans about this but i don't i don't understand why they think this is just the same guy with more touches like his his freedom just the way he conducts himself out there and then you know he got angles going the wrong way. He's driving. He looked like he could finish, and he still found, I forget who.

Oh, it was Favors on a dunk on the baseline. And I'm like, that's play. His passing to Favors last night was so good. It was unbelievable. So, you know, Ingram was one of those who I did like. I liked, despite his frame, that he was willing to take on all sorts of contact, and then he just sort of floats and floats. So maybe I'm contradicting my Tatum thoughts here a little bit. But how, I mean, do you think it's just more opportunities? Do you think it's not

in the shadow of LeBron, or do you think he's actually just improved? Because there's a lot of technical stuff there to tell you he's changed his shot, his shot prep before the catch. I mean, to me, he looks like a different guy, and it's not just the numbers. I think with Ingram, he's the same but brand new in the sense that he has always been this guy who's lanky, who takes long strides to the rim, can get to the basket. And that's what he improved over his first three years with the Lakers was getting to the basket, finishing at the rim, drawing fouls, finishing through contact. He got better there, but the shot did not get better

until he went to New Orleans. And I talked to him last Saturday when he was in Boston for the article I wrote this week on The Ringer, and he just gave so much credit to Pelicans assistant coach Fred Vinson. They spent a month this past summer working together after Ingram was traded to New Orleans, and they worked on raising his release, getting him into his shot quicker.

And Ingram said to me, he's always felt that he's a shooter, but he knew for a long time that his form needed to get better. And if you look at his shot at Duke compared to where it is now, it's drastically different. Never mind what it was from last year to this year. And a lot of that comes to the work he put in with Fred Vincent starting during the summer.

And to me, like, we talk so much about with the draft and everything about guys who need to change their mechanics. Lamello Ball, that's going to be the conversation this year with him. Can he change his form to become a better shooter guys? Sometimes they just need the right coach, the right guidance in order to make things click. Ingram always had touch, always had confidence.

It's just now he found somebody who has helped tweak his form in a way that's helped to really make things click for him. And it's nice to see it actually working for him, shooting the way he has 40% from three, 86% from the line, still doing all the other things that he did well with LA. He was this guy in some ways. It's just the shot has unleashed him in ways that it couldn't have before. So everything's clicked for him in a way that may not have,

had he not been connected with a shooting coach like Vincentcent do you have anything on houston that's worth saying that's not this because you know we asked this question two weeks ago maybe we're going hey they're figuring some things out and then with the loss against the pelicans it turned into hey we need to stay in the locker room and have another team meeting about this i don't know that i have anything new to say about houston so i'm giving you the floor here i just look look at that game versus Memphis earlier in the week, and granted Westbrook was out in that, but the lack of depth Houston has compared to Harden's durability is later in the postseason, how his energy is. And I wish for Houston that they did have more support for those guys. So in a January game against Memphis, you don't have to play Harden for 39 minutes and have him have to take on so much of the load that he has to do. I, I can't, I have a hard time looking at a team with a depth and thinking things could be different in the postseason. And I should have said the Portland

game is when they stayed in the locker room after because that was the mellow revenge game. And that's right. Your 19 and 22 Memphis Grizzlies are one game ahead of the Spurs in that eighth spot. And God, all these teams are like four games apart. I mean, Sacramento's four out of the playoffs right now at 15 and 26. Okay. Last thing here, trade deadline stuff. I don't know that Jeff Teague was what Trey Young was asking for. Although I think Trey Young asking for help, maybe a record for the shortest amount of time a player has been like, I can't do this by myself here um what else uh

covington has turned into like one of the most overrated players maybe ever it just you know there's always surprises there's always plenty of stuff that we don't know but if i hear another malik beasley update uh i'm gonna hurt somebody because it just, there's, there's not enough names here. Come on, come on, Rusillo. I love Beasley. Oh, I know he had a nice, no, he had a nice game the other night. Uh, I think he's, and the thing is when you look at Beasley's like raw shooting numbers, you're like, wait a minute, why, why couldn't this guy help somebody? He's at 40% from three and all the, all of his analytic numbers suck unless there's other ones that I haven't found yet. And you know, when Denver's like, you know, between the Harris and Murray stuff, maybe they're just go, we can't, we can't do

this for Beasley here too. Uh, I'm, I'm not as sold on Beasley. I just think the names right now have been the same names for months and it's not all that exciting. Well, that's, that's where I feel with Andre Drummond. It's like, well, I don't understand why so many teams supposedly want him making $28 million. Yes. He's an elite rebounder, but you can get a quality center for five mil. You can get zoo bots. You can get Daniel Tice. You can get Brooke Lopez, Robin Lopez, all these teams that have quality centers, JaVale McGee, Dwight Howard, for that matter, Dwight Howard, you can get quality centers for cheap, man. Like I don't understand all the hoopla around Drummond. And like you mentioned, you're tired of Beasley. I'm tired of hearing about what teams would want

to trade for Drummond. I don't see the appeal there. I'd rather have the conversation be about like the Beasleys of the world. These guys who be on the seventh eighth ninth you know man on your roster and can help make a little bit of an impact to me Drummond for the dollar value I don't see why anybody would want him at all yeah he's 28.7 next year um which is a player option and unless you know something with the agent ahead of time but as the smart people pointed out there's only a few teams with cap space and they're not really that attractive unless all of a sudden people love the Knicks again. And nobody has seemed to do that here for a while. So I don't disagree with you on the Drummond thing. I think it's just kind of that common thing that happens in the NBA with contracts. And I've always kind of said how when you're trading for somebody who's going to

be a free agent, the argument's, well, you got to pay him. And then if you're trading with somebody who has three years left on their contract and it's probably a decent enough number if the player's any good and it's like, oh, nobody wants that contract. It's like nobody wants anybody else's contract, but then nobody wants anybody in a short-term deal.

And Drummond at 28.7 next year is way too much. But if it's for one year, then people can talk themselves into it. It's the same thing as the Chris Paul thing. Like that last number at 44 million scares everybody. But if it's a one-in-one, you know, say next summer

or this upcoming summer, then it's going to be like, ah, you know, it's only two years left on the deal. We're like, this was the scariest contract in the league for six months and now everybody's cool with it. And the same thing will happen with Westbrook at some point.

Because I believe that too even though he has the extra year versus Chris so go ahead I was going to say I think with Chris Paul though yes the contract is a lot and that's scary on the back end of that especially considering his durability

he's 34 but what what he has shown this year with OKC, though, it has to be encouraging, though, that he can at least age well through this deal. Yeah, and he doesn't want to, you know, I'd heard some stuff recently about Paul and how they wanted to manage him in his minutes, Kevin. And he was like, look, that's just not what I'm going to do.

Like, I'm not going to do that. Like, I don't want to play that way. That's just not what I'm going to do. I'm not going to do that. I don't want to play that way. That's just not what I do, and I know the injury stuff and all the little nicks and all these things. But, I mean, he's out there. And I don't want to say, because I've been such a big Chris Paul fan, but if you look at their four and the four being healthy with the development of Shea, this is not crazy that they're competitive.

I think some of their fourth quarter numbers and how good they are compared to the best teams in the league, that's like, oh my God, they're up there with the Lakers and the Bucs and some of these stuff. Boston was up there a lot. I haven't checked it in the fourth quarter numbers recently. But Paul originally wasn't going to go there. It wasn't like he could force himself from not going there, but there were other places he'd want to go, but it is working out.

It's working out for everybody right now, and I think it's kind of nice for all the crap that Thunder fans dealt with, and I'm certainly guilty of it because I'd just be like, how could you continue to like this Westbrook thing? I think it's kind of funny to see Thunder fans go, you know what, this isn't so bad. This isn't so bad, This isn't so bad. And, you know, to have Paul George and hear about how much he loves fishing and he's going

to stay there and he really connected with the down home lifestyle. And that's like, nah, fuck this. I want to go to LA a year after he does an extension, which I don't know. I mean, did he, did he just go, you know what? This place is a little too slow for me. There's a part of that where I feel like, man, Thunder fans, I understand how mad they can get at everybody because they've had

a really bad run of luck with some of the defections. But to have Paul in there at stable, which looked like something, when people were saying, hey, he's never going to put on that Thunder uniform,

I'm like, that's not true. Like, what's, what's, what are they, how are they going to flip him this quickly to somewhere else? And so I'm a bit, I'm rambling a bit

on the Chris Paul thing. So I don't even know if I'm addressing your back and forth with me at this point, Kevin. I'm sorry, I'm solo too often.'m a bit, I'm rambling a bit on the Chris Paul thing. So I don't even know if I'm addressing your back and forth with me at this point, Kevin. I'm sorry. I'm solo too often. No, I'm glad.

I'm glad you're bringing that up though, because it's nice to see Billy Donovan be able to install his system there too for years, for years now when I've been wanting

to see Westbrook sacrifice and play more off ball, especially when they got Schroeder. I was thinking, oh, great. You know, maybe Donovan's going to have Schroeder and Westbrook backcourt sharing the ball. Well, no, it didn't happen. And now, though, you're seeing Chris Paul, a guy who historically is somebody who has dominated the ball, had a lot of touches.

He's commanded and orchestrated offenses. He's playing unselfish basketball with a young player in Gildas Alexander and Schroeder coming off the bench. It's cool to see this team playing with so much ball movement now and body movement off the ball compared to the way they did in the years past. And like you and I for years now have, have been on like sort of the anti Westbrook as a winning player side of things. And that's not necessarily a knock on him. It's just more compliment to Donovan here that it's, it's cool to see him actually have the ability to install his system and actually,

actually see it work at the level that it has with these new pieces put together. I mean, I've had a lot of fun watching OKC this year, a lot more fun than I've had in recent years. And I'm happy for that team to have a guy like Gildas Alexander and happy for Chris Paul too to actually be performing the unselfish way that he has when so many didn't expect this from him.

You can follow him at Kevin O'Connor NBA. What day do you have the NBA pod coming out? we do tuesdays and fridays me and chris verno on the ringer nba show all right and looking back on tuesdays look at that shay gildress alexander as the headline there i assume you talk a lot of john morant on there with verno so oh yeah they deserve lots of john morant they deserve it on that one lots of brandon clark lots of jaron jackson a lot of memphis rightfully so this year hey don't you love when you talk to front offices and like they give you

the best quote and they're front office guys right they've done this their whole lives and it's not even a quote you really need to use but but it's just such a vicious observation. Like I remember one guy that was in a front office I'd known for a while, and I didn't have a ton of Clint Capella stuff. And I go, hey, what do you got on Clint Capella? He goes, you can't play. Sucks. He's like, don't even bother.

And I was like, wow. And it was so incredibly wrong. And one of the reasons, and I don't know if you're the same way when i finally just got sick of reading everybody else's stuff like i'm sick of reading other people's stuff and reciting it and then being wrong when it's like all i did was memorize chad ford's thing and not that chad was wrong all the time i'm just you know look we all grew up with with the chad ford stuff because there wasn't that much stuff out there and you know draft express same deal and finally i'm just gonna do this on my own because if i'm going to be wrong at least it'll be me watching it and clint was one

i was like oh yeah i guess you know because i like the guy that gave me the quote and there's two right now there's a reason i'm doing this but rui has been all right for the wizards um and there was another team that was like wait a minute where are you hearing he could he could go? And I was like, oh, he might end up going here. It wasn't even Washington at the time. It might have been in front of them. And they were like, oh, they'll probably take him because that team's fucking stupid. And I was like, wow. And I had another team that I like, a guy who's good.

And he was like, yeah, Brandon Clark's like, that's pointless. Like, you know, nice little college run, totally pointless. And you're like, yeah, Brandon Clark's like, that's pointless. Like, you know, nice little college run, totally pointless. And you're like, okay. You know, and it just, it proves once again, that, that I don't care who's cutting your check. Everybody is wrong about players because it's hard to do this. It's hard to figure out. So that's my brand.

Absolutely. And sometimes some of those hot takes from front office guys could be accurate too. I've heard a lot of, uh, takes takes about Porzingis with his injury proneness. And right now, not to wrap it up, but with Porzingis being out right now, his list of leg injuries since before the draft is alarming. And I feel like that's one of the more under-the-radar stories this year in the NBA is Porzingis' durability, even in a secondary role next to Luka, still getting banged up. That's concerning moving forward to me.

I have one front office that updates me every time because they know I'm a Porzingis guy, and they like going, oh, hey, your boy's hurt again. Drafting off of the attention for Doncic has been one of the best things for Porzingis because you're right. I don't think there's as much national awareness of how disappointing Porzingis has been and that was just a formality that he's going to get paid right it's like ah it's whatever you know they did the deal they're

going to pay him it's fine they've got their one-two punch and Przingis really wasn't doing much and then he had a little stretch there where I was like oh okay you know it's coming around it's coming around but he's going to just have a different role because he's never going to be the one there and Luke is so smart with the ball and ball dominant um but yeah there are there are teams and that's when it starts to feel petty though we're a team's like oh okay cool you sent me a text because perzingis leg is hurt again i got it dude i got it you know but then i also want to be like you thought he was going to be an absolute bust before the draft and you were way like that's more wrong you got the player wrong i'm now i got

the player right now he's hurt all the time so those are those are two different things hey kev thanks a lot again check out the nba ringer show uh that is tuesdays and fridays thank you rachel i appreciate it man i want to give you a little bit of a recap so it could be a little spoiler alert on the aaron hernandez doc but uh most of you kind of know how that story goes. Before we do that, though, Bank United wants you to go for more. Enter for a chance to win $54,000 if a team goes for two and completes the two-point conversion during the big game on February 2nd.

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That's GoForMore, the number 54.com, Bank United, NA member, FDIC, neither Twitter nor the NFL entities have offered, administered, endorsed, or sponsored the sweepstakes in any way. I want to talk a little bit about this Aaron Hernandez doc because the way we assign blame now in society, I find fascinating. I have touched on this before where the person who is to be blamed is staring right at us, and yet we have so many voices trying to figure out a way to blame someone else. And what Tiger Woods did is very common. He cheated on his wife a lot. He was a man in power, a position of power, fame, epic tier one worldwide

fame. And that is attractive. And the things that we were attracted to are different based on gender, but that is an incredibly attractive thing. Um, or it's, it's, it's a powerful thing. If you're a man, it just is. I don't know how,

how accurate it just feels like this is accurate, but you know, what's, what's worse being a woman liking unattractive man, who's in a position of power or a man like an attractive woman, who's only attractive, right? I don't know. I'm not, I'm not here to decide what's, what's better or what's worse. But what we do is we, with Tiger, we, we tore him down. Okay. And I had heard that he was like, Hey, look, I screwed up. I cheated on my wife. Okay. That's it. Cheated on my wife. And if you thought that he was somebody

else and whatever marketing is selling us or whatever perception is selling us about anybody that's in the public eye, like, I don't believe really anything. I would never go like, Hey, that doesn't sound like him. He was in an orange juice ad. Like, hmm, that guy? No way. Guy's pretty buttoned up. Do you see him pound that glass of OJ? I don't ever believe any of that stuff. I think people have different things that they're deviant about. Some people are great, and I'm not saying everybody's terrible, but what I don't ever do is assume when I don't know the person. If I know the person, then I'll vouch for him, but if I don't know the person, I don't just vouch because of some fake relationship that I have with the person, right? So Tiger did something that's in the grand scheme of things, not that rare. And you could get

into some of the other stuff with him, but you know, look, he comes back, he wins the masters. And then it's, then it's us selfishly doing this thing where it's not so much that Tiger changed. It's just that we decided that we liked him again because he won. And that's it. I mean, it's as simple as, hey, man, look at that win at Augusta. Good for him. You know what? Good for him.

It's almost some weird way where you're rationalizing with yourself or you're critical of him that now you can accept him, you can applaud him, you can cheer for him only because you probably went too far the other way. Okay. So that's a little bit different than some of the stuff that we have when we talked about Miles Garrett and Mason Rudolph. And it's like, okay, Garrett hit Rudolph in the head. Okay. But how can we find different ways to blame him? What about the offensive lineman? What did Mason Rudolph say or not say, Hey, by the way, that story disappeared pretty quick. So what does that mean? You know, it was just, no, no, no, no, no. I want to blame the guy that swung a helmet at the other guy's head. That's it. It's right in front of us. You know, we had this situation with Odell Beckham Jr. in the LSU locker room where he smacked a security guard on the ass. And, you know,

it's not the end of the world. It is kind of stupid. If you're a security guard, you're like, hey man, you don't get it. But then there's also, you know, the end of the world it is kind of stupid if you're a security guard you're like hey man you don't get it but then there's also you know the version of the security guard who goes in and just starts saying like i'm running this and everybody's like wait a minute what the hell's going on i mean if it really were the players are simply smoking cigars in there and a security guard saying after the fact and by the way where's that guy from that somebody working in louisiana in new orleans would give lsu's team a hard time for smoking cigars after winning a national championship. Like, that seems, of all the scenarios, that one seems

freaking impossible. Was it Cannell? Was Danny Cannell in there? Was he working part-time as a security guard? Because that's the only way I could come up with any version of that, where a guy was actually getting mad at LSU, and then Odell Beckham Jr. smacks him on the ass, and then a warrant is issued for his arrest. That seems aggressive, and I'm actually shocked that somebody at LSU, or theell Beckham Jr. smacks him on the ass and then a warrant is issued for his arrest.

That seems aggressive and I'm actually shocked that somebody at LSU or the whole thing collectively wouldn't be like, hey, look, he's an LSU player. He did something stupid. We shouldn't do it. But yet I heard a reporter the other day going, well, wait a minute, why is a security guard in there? So that's where it starts. It's not that Odell did something he probably shouldn't do, whether it's a cop security guard or whatever. It was kind of disrespectful. And then it turns into, why is the security guard in the room? Like, that's what you're doing?

And in a much more extreme example for something far greater, so in no way am I comparing the three incidents, but watching part of the Aaron Hernandez doc, it is happening again. Now the doc is, is interesting and I can see that they are doing something where it's, we're going to throw all this stuff at you and I haven't finished it. So I'm trying to be fair here and spoiler alert, I'll tell you a few things, but one of the most glaring things about is the connection to CTE. Aaron Hernandez was bigger than everybody he played against in high school. He got to Florida.

He was outstanding. Last of the fourth round, he played 30 plus games of the Patriots. He was out of the NFL at 23 years old, but there is a run, I believe in the second episode where they show him getting hit over and over and over again. And there's a loose connection to, could he possibly have CTE here? There's also a moment, and what is, which is great about the doc is that it has all the audio from his phone calls inside of a jail cell to his mother, to his wife, to his cousin, to his friends, pounces in one of them. He's got this handler. There's even a marketing guy saying, Hey, there's not that many deals out there for

you. I can't put a swoosh on a jumpsuit. And then he's like, how about a deal with Smith and Wesson? And then the guy's like, Jesus Christ, Aaron. But there's one guy who's like his handler that's talking with him. And understand, okay, if you are in a jail cell and it looks like you might not ever be coming out, although Hernandez is pretty convincing to himself, at least. And maybe that's just what you do where he says he's going to get out and that this is all a big misunderstanding that he wasn't shooting all these people, that he didn't kill Odin Lloyd. Although the tons of evidence that he did that he's sitting there, he's talking about getting out and he's talking about all these different things. But his his guy is right hand guy sitting there talking to him.

but his, his guys, right-hand guy sitting there talking to him and he's saying, you know, Hey man, you know, and I can understand like, even if your friend did something terrible that you may even call your friend in jail. I, you know, I don't know what the rules are for that one. Okay. But I'm just, I'm just saying like, I can understand how the guy gets on the phone. Like, Hey, just checking in on you. Um, and Hernandez is saying, Hey, I try to live my dream life and look where it got me. And you're like, wait, you could have stopped fucking killing people, right? Like that would have been maybe a good first step to avoid being in the situation that you're in right now. But he just, he wasn't doing that. He wasn't doing it that way. And maybe that's the whole part of it.

Because when you listen to him, he sounds like a kid who had a tough childhood that isn't that bright. Who clearly enjoyed some of the stuff that went along with feeling like a badass a guy that would be you know tough on the streets posing with guns and as immature as all of that stuff sounds i can see why guys would think that was cool i mean hell i went to school in vermont and we would watch gang movies and think it would be funny to like yell out gang sets to each other at parties i I mean, that's stupid. That's dumb. It's immature. But I also can be like, Hey, that's really cool. Cause it was in the movies. And now we memorize a bunch of different lines from it. And I actually

don't think that's all that rare, you know, go to prep school and they're throwing on Tupac and everybody's reciting every single line thinking it's cool. Cause you feel a little bit like a badass. Cause you know, you're just reciting this world that you don't even have any connection to. And you'll likely never visit in your life ornandez you know the backstory of him growing up in bristol it's literally five minutes down the street i'm not telling you bristol is the greatest town but five minutes down the street from espn it wasn't like i was afraid to go to work pulling in and out of town it's not it didn't even come up but the way i've heard, well, his childhood, yes, challenging. Looks like it sucked a lot at certain points. Yes, CTE can lead to some things.

But whenever you're looking at some of these stories, you go, why is it wrong to go, maybe this guy was just an awful dude who didn't care if he killed people or not. Why is it so hard for people to do? Maybe most people are doing it, but yet the story that is told and revisited, that it somehow, does it make you more intelligent? Is it more of a critical thinking thing where it's like, well, let's not be too quick to judge. Let's make sure we examine all the different angles. And again, that's a five-part documentary. They're going to do that kind of thing, but it's just, it continues to amaze me how often the person that does the bad thing does the bad thing. And you're like, okay, but who else can we blame here? Like, well, let's

start with the guy that shot people and then we'll figure out the rest later. Have a great weekend, everybody. Thank you.