The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Mavs’ False Hope and Doc’s Stubbornness, Hall of Famer Gary Payton, Plus Inside the Biggest NFL Draft Moves With Dianna Russini

Episode Date: May 3, 2022

Ryen opens with his thoughts on Mavs-Suns and why Dallas just looks outmatched in this series before getting into why Doc Rivers is being so stubborn with DeAndre Jordan (0:34). Next, he chats with basketball Hall of Famer Gary Payton about his son’s emergence with the Warriors, his best trash talk stories, and the story of when young Ryen first met Gary (20:22). Then, ESPN NFL insider Dianna Russini stops by for a behind-the-scenes look at how the A.J. Brown trade happened, Baker Mayfield’s future, and which teams nailed and bombed the draft (53:34). Finally, Ryen closes it out with some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (1:19:40). Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Gary Payton and Dianna Russini Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

today's podcast an open on two playoff games from last night we have gary payton the hall of famer on his son playing for the warriors and getting through that some sonic stories some jordan stories and we're gonna have fun with a time he and I almost crashed in a plane. Diana Rossini recaps the entire draft and the QB market as we still have some landing spots for some names and life advice. I'm going to start today with recapping the two games that we had last night, and Bill and I did a bunch on game one, but as we kind of keep going with the importance and the level of these games, I'm not going to get staggered out where it's like I'm only breaking down the two series, depending on the release of the podcast. So don't worry about that. We have you covered.

Let's start with Phoenix and Dallas the last game, because I made a joke after the game was over going, there's going to be people waking up today that go, oh, that's pretty close. Dallas is competitive in this series. I have a rule about series. I think sweeps are hard. I think betting on a sweep is stupid because I think human nature, and even more so now with today's NBA over the last couple of years, is that guys can kind of shut it down with their motivation emotionally. I believe in these things where when you know you're superior, you don't try as hard. And I think that's happening more in today's NBA than ever before.

So it's always funny to me how like if a series is five games, you're like, oh, they smoked them. And then it's six. It's like, great series, really competitive. It's like, well, the it's like well the game's gonna be closed and because it's six instead of five it was a great series but you get the point like i just don't even when a team i think is overwhelmingly better than the opponent i have the other team's probably gonna get one they'll come home because when you're up to oh and you guys these guys have no chance you just don't really try as hard and on top of that when you think you have a chance uh you can never match

the desperation of the team that is truly desperate. So these are all kind of like principles that I have on playoff series. Having said that, I think Dallas is close to this series. I just don't. Does it mean it's going to be a sweep? No, because of everything I just said before. This is high usage versus team. Doncic was the second highest usage player in the NBA this season,

and when the playoffs crank, it's another level. He's at like 38 usage when you start getting to 40 that's like westbrook and kobe in their single years which are the all-timers in nba history and is as impressive uh as luca is and it is that impressive that he can handle the ball um everybody knows what's happening he's looking for chris paul when he's in there trying to get switches there sometimes they don't even need the switch but i'm telling you pay attention to the difference how ayton can hold up against a perimeter player against some of the other bigs uh and this is one of the great things about ayton because like he gives you a chance

and uh that's why i i really think this is an unpopular thing but the more i look at like a versus uh an ayton and i'm not even talking about the offensive part of it. I actually think Aiton maybe holds up better in some of these perimeter matchups than Rudy does. All right, we can move on from criticizing Rudy Gobert. Although I did see a report the other day on Twitter. I think it was from a media member. I'm not trying to dump on it, but it was like there's going to be a demand, him or me, that Gobert needs to be traded a couple of days. Usually that trade doesn't happen at this part of the NBA season.

I'm just going to share that with some people out there. All right, so back to this series. So Luka finishes 45-12-8. He's 15-30 from the floor, but they were actually containing him relatively well despite the fact that he had shot it. By the end of the game, you're like, that high usage, 15- 30, that's really good. He was 12 to 27. He got three buckets late towards the end of the game, which we are going to get to. But at that point, he had 38 points. So Luka's hunting for Chris Paul. On the other end, it looked like Phoenix was hunting for Luka.

But the difference in all of this was, as I'm watching the game, I'm going, Phoenix is so much better than them tonight. But this was the argument for for maybe actually an argument against three pointers and the value, the absurd value they have in relationship to the rest of the ways you can score. The three pointer is worth way too much. It just is because Dallas stayed in the game.

Kleber, who was 50% from the floor, spacing out Utah, making Rudy chase them out there. I mentioned it again, uh, 50%, I think any years going, all right, is that going to hold up?

And at one point, it's like it might be even better. He was 5-6 to start the game. Every time it felt like Dallas was about to get blown out, they found a way to survive with three-pointers enough. I thought it was a very good argument for is the three-pointer actually stupid because I felt like the separation between the two teams was so obvious and watching it but hey we have this we have this other thing that we can do we're just going to keep shooting threes the entire time and again this is not breaking news

this is what the game is but I couldn't help but have those moments and watching that game going this is where the three-pointer argument like I almost don't like it because there's this is not a true definition of which team is better than the other one because they're surviving. And then they stopped hitting them for a long stretch and they got down 106 to 85. The biggest problem for Dallas in this is that Luka is going to have to do it all. And I know Brunson didn't shoot it well. I know Dinwiddie was bad again. And there's going to be a night where there's more balance and Dallas could get one of these games.

But Phoenix on their side offensively, it felt like they always had a good look. It's like, okay, we gave up another three here. It's an eight. It's a 10 point game. We should be up more, but I guess we'll just do this with Booker. And then we're going to do this with Aiton. And then Bridges can do this. And then Cam Johnson is going to hit threes. Campaign hit a couple. He had a nice runner in the beginning of the game jay crowder's somebody you still have to be honest with and close out on there's just so many options in a team concept versus this this absurdity of luca's dominance where he's dominating a game and it feels helpless at times but at the same end dallas defensively just wasn't even close.

I'm going to end it with this. I am consistently frustrated with ex-players on broadcasts, and I don't mean to be harsh about it because if I were talking for two and a half hours, hell, there's times where I'll do something on a podcast and I'll think back to what I said and be like, I didn't do the greatest job making that point. Now I could poke 10 holes in the point that I was trying to make. But I don't understand why the guys that played the game, and in this case, Reggie Miller, a Hall of Famer, starts talking about the late Dallas run as if that was real because it wasn't. Phoenix is up 20 and they're like, all right, this game's over. There was an absolute dead period in this game

of about six or seven minutes where the building was lifeless. Phoenix was lifeless. It's actually a positive for Phoenix because they played so poorly towards the end that they let Dallas kind of flirt with. Again, it wasn't really going to happen. I think they got it to seven

under a minute to go or whatever. I mean, they outscored Phoenix 29-15 to close this game. But that to me was all fake. Yes, you can be harsh and say, well, this is what the score was, this is what the spread was, and this is real.

It isn't. And Miller was talking about, like, hey, here's a positive. And I get that he's also trying to tell the story. The game has been. But I don't understand how you watch that game and not realize, like, Phoenix doesn't care anymore.

They don't care anymore. And it's actually a good way for Monte Williams to go see what you guys did at the end of the game and motivate them. It's a better place to be in for Phoenix than just running them out of the building up 25 and turning into a 30-point win or something like that. That's how I feel about this series. I don't think Dallas is any match for them. It doesn't mean they're going to get swept.

The more interesting one, at least how it played out with the criticism after, is Miami beating the Sixers. Let's talk Miami. Lowry's out. He apparently wanted to play in last night's game. He didn't. We'll see how that goes. Butler came off the game five, missed against Atlanta. I think that's just Miami going, we don't even need you against Atlanta. And if we go to game six, it doesn't matter. We're not losing this series. Okay, fine. We know Miami is a lot of things. They are great defensively. They are... I think their best player is Bam, and Bam

is going to go off in this series because of the center matchups that we're going to spend some time on here. Miami has this development track record where they find ways to plug guys into their system, and for a couple nights... I'm not saying you want Gabe Vincent as your starting two-guard a couple nights, I'm not saying you want Gabe Vincent

as your starting two-guard all season long. I'm not saying you'd want Max Struess major, major minutes all the time. You know the point. But they find ways when you are called upon in the Miami Heat system, it seems like so many of these role players respond. The track record is incredible, and this year was a great example of that. But the biggest part of this is with Embiid being out for how long we don't know

the DeAndre Jordan minutes. Jordan in 16 games with the Sixers has been a massive negative on the box score. They're getting outscored by about 14 points per 100 possessions. The defense at the rim going into the postseason, I think at some point was like

he was allowing over 70% field goal percentage or about 70% plus at the rim going into the postseason, I think at some point was like he was allowing over 70% field goal. Yeah, like field goal percentage of about 70% plus at the rim. Gianni Jordan has not been great at this for a long time. And Doc has a track record of being stubborn with playing as vets going back to Boston. And, you know, I've had a harder time defending Doc in some of this stuff. I don't think the Boston years were fake. I don't think he deserves zero credit for that. I always thought that there was a Doc Rivers element

where he was better than other coaches in dealing with stars. Not that he was an all-time superstar when he played, but he played in a big city in New York after a great run at Atlanta. I think he understood the relationship part of working with stars better than a lot of coaches. And I thought that Celtics run was a product of that. However, the blown leads on the resumes, I can't argue against him anymore. And I'm wondering if we're looking at stubbornness that relates to him being out with the Clippers just a couple of years ago in 2020. So he starts DeAndre Jordan. It's a mess immediately.

Like I said, BAM's going to feast on this thing. They bring in Paul Reed, who everybody loves. I believe we're incredibly visual as people. We're really visual as sports fans. I think if certain wing players were better looking, we would think they were superstars as opposed to doubting them because they're not attractive. I think body type plays into this. And I don't even know if this is like some deep, mean bias, but I think sometimes you could look at a guy like Alex Caruso and it takes you forever to go, wait, he's actually really good at basketball because we are so visual. So when Paul Reed is out there just

wreaking havoc everywhere, you think, well, wait, you've got to play Paul Reed more. And maybe the Sixers do, but Paul Reed also had five fouls in 13 minutes so it's chaos that you can see it you're like look how active that guy is and look how active DeAndre Jordan isn't like this is this is a no-brainer and they have other options I don't think Doc loves young players I think there's a strong track record for that and that's why some of the other young you know unproven guys on the Sixers team they're just not going to get a shot in the why some of the other young, you know, unproven guys on the Sixers team, they're just not going to get a shot in the second round of the playoffs. So DeAndre Jordan comes back

after being a net negative in the first half. He starts the second half and everybody's losing their mind, which I understand, but you had to know that this was coming. They also went non-center at some point and there were some defensive possessions where, again, the Sixers got back into this game.

It was close at the half. I think they were up a point at the half. But there was a couple times where Harden was left as the rim protector on some rotations. There was a drive against Bam. You're like, that's not going to work out. Okay, so what does this tell us? Because after the game, Doc was like, I know you don't like it. It was almost like he was kind of getting pre-defiant for all the DeAndre Jordan second-guessing here.

I don't know that he has a ton of options. And when you take a guy like Embiid away, who I mentioned Donchich as the highest usage player in the playoffs, second in the NBA regular season, number one was Embiid. Now that was going to change a little bit. He had hardened for a full season, but remember when Doc blew, and again, the team did as well, the Clippers blew the 3-1 lead in 2020 to the Denver Nuggets. A bunch of different reasons, but one of the ones that I knew drove the front office crazy was the Montrezl-Harrell-Zubach minutes. With Jokic on the floor

and Harrell on the floor, the Clippers were minus 27. With Jokic on the floor and Zubach on the floor, they were plus nine. That's a 36-point swing, and Doc kept going back to Montrezl. It's not like Zubach was some rookie either,

but that's Doc, that's what some coaches just hey, I'm going to die with my vets. I can trust them. Trust is nice in theory, but it's when the reality is it's not working out. So I don't know where Philadelphia is going to magically find

some five pre-MBs return that's going to solve these problems. But don't be surprised if Doc, as he just told us, hey, I'm going to keep doing this because that's what he did. And it's probably part of the reason, I think it's a good chunk of the reason, why he ended up not coaching the Clippers after 2020. So, Rudy, I know you had a question there. No, you said it right.

He's going to die with his vets, right? But the reality is he's going to die either way. They're not going to survive without Embiid, so why not take some chances? I'm just trying to understand why he's so stubborn and why he would make this decision. Because DeAndre Jordan hasn't worked out in years for any team.

If the answer to the question is DeAndre Jordan, then you're probably fucked either way. But he sees the stats. He sees the minutes. in years for any team. If the answer, if you know, the answer to the question is DeAndre Jordan, then you're probably fucked either way. But why is like, he sees them, he sees the stats, he sees the minutes, he sees that he's minus 25 or what I think, or minus 22,

I think in, in 18 or so minutes last night. And he sees that Paul Reed's playing kind of well, although I think you're right. Like Twitter falls in love with Paul Reed after one good game. It's probably a reason he didn't play a ton of minutes over the season, but I don't understand. Like,

like, is it because they're so married and he's so married to playing a traditional big like MB that he's like, I don't want to change up the system? I mean, they're screwed either way because I don't think

they have a matchup for Bam no matter what. I mean, I don't think many teams have a matchup for Bam. But I'm just trying to understand why he would be so stubborn in this situation because like your Spolstra's,

your Nick Nurse's, you would believe that they would completely revamp and change their lineup, change their entire system. Where I'm wondering if Doc is just like, we play with the center and that's how we're playing. So I think it's easy to pile on Doc. I'm just trying to understand why he would be

so stubborn in this situation when it's kind of a win-win because you're not expected to win the series anyway without him being. It is a great question observation by you. Because I don't love when a team is helpless. You're like, well, you should have done this. Whenever I hear somebody say like,

oh, that coach sucks. He didn't make any adjustments. I've heard about Steve Nash a ton. Like, oh, he sucks. He didn't make any adjustments. You can say Steve Nash sucks. Okay. If you say he doesn't make any adjustments, then you're being completely intellectually dishonest

because he tried a bunch of different things and none of them worked because Boston was just better than them. And we have a really hard time at times just admitting, Hey, that team's just way better than them. And it's, it's not always on the coach here.

And that's the case now with Adam B. The reason I think your point is worth like exploring further is two things. Doc said after the game that he asked the guys at halftime about Deandre Jordan coming out, starting the second half. And he said specifically, like, we wanted a role guy. You know, Harden wanted the role guy. I don't know if Harden just wants DeAndre Jordan out there the way Kevin Durant, like, wanted DeAndre Jordan there as a teammate. So then Doc's thinking, if I just bench DeAndre Jordan, do the guys like him enough that then they're going to be pissed?

But I don't love stubbornness. I don't love stubbornness with coaches. And that's why even Steve Kerr, Steve Kerr changed up what he did two or three times in game one against Memphis. And that's the Golden State Warriors still trying to figure out who they are on the fly. So maybe they're a little bit more malleable because it was an odd season again going, all right, now start it up in the playoffs, even though you had 11 minutes with Clay, Steph and Draymond.

But he tried different things. But when a team is losing, we keep thinking that there's this endless list of options to go to, and Philadelphia doesn't have those. And like you said, Bam. It doesn't matter. Without Embiid, Bam's just going to beat up any of your options. So even though the non-center read stuff,

the plus minus for a game played out in favor of some of those maneuvers that Doc went with. But what really ends up happening here, but it didn't happen with the Clippers in the Nuggets series, and that's why that front office, I think, got so frustrated with him towards the end,

is I like when a, well, I'm not saying I like it, but I find it funny when a coach is stubborn about something and then it's a close game with four minutes to go and the thing everybody was mad about him doing, he doesn't do. And then you're like,

oh, so now when it really matters, you're actually taking out the guy that everybody wanted you to take out. Well, I think it's funny too. You say you don't like guys that are stubborn. I'm with you on that, but I do think it would be funny. Imagine if he starts DJ in game two and pulls him after, like, two minutes and

doesn't see another minute the rest of the game. And Paul replays, like, 20 minutes and is awesome. Like, that's kind of what I want to see because I do respect stubbornness in that way. But it's just kind of just like it kind of feels like it's just a dead man walking thing. And I don't know if we want to get into Daryl Mori factor of this at all. Do you think Daryl's in his ear being like, Doc, what the hell are you doing? Like, this doesn't make any sense. Or do you think he's just completely hands

off saying, we're going to have to just come back and do this thing again next year, probably without you, Doc? I don't know the Philly part of it. I know the Clippers part of it is the information was presented to him and they would watch what would happen and they were not happy about it.

So there you go. Let's talk to Gary Payton. The playoffs are heating up and you can make every game feel like Game 7 on FanDuel Sportsbook, an official partner of the NBA. Throughout the playoffs, all customers can place a no-sweat,

same-game parlay each week, and you're going to get up to $20 in free bets if you don't win. FanDuel has so many ways to play, and best of all, when you do win, you'll get paid faster than a fast break. Okay, let's dig in here. The last one we gave you, I think every element of that one hit on the Brandon Clark double-double,

the unders that we kept doing in Minnesota and Memphis. Every time we picked an under, it did go under. The highest number here is Memphis again, Golden State. Golden State's favorite in that one again on the road. It's 227. It's a huge number. I would just say,

you know, second game, grind it in a little bit. Although that game might go really small. They just might go super small with the whole thing and everybody run around all over the place. But you do want to slow Memphis down. So that might be some kind of priority.

Draymond will be back in. That'll probably slow it down a little bit. So if you want to total there, maybe the under there to 27 and a half. All right. If we look at the same game parlays, the Philly stuff is interesting because there's one where it's to score 20 points or more for Harden is minus 265, There's one where it's to score 20 points or more for Harden is minus 265,

where you feel like without Embiid and the free throw part of this, I mean, that seems a shock. Butler's only minus 220, where there's other stuff that shows on some of the scoring things, like it's way worse odds, but in the same game parlay, it's not as bad. So that's something to look at. And I think there's some BAM stuff here. If you go play a rebounds, it's worth taking a look at. BAM's 10 and a half on the total there.

And Philadelphia shot the ball horribly in game one, but Miami is still plus 10. So if they go small and Embiid's not around and they abandon even the DeAndre Jordan part of this, then there's some rebound totals in there that are probably decent chances to hit the over on the Miami side. So there you go. New to FanDuel, just download the FanDuel Sportsbook app and sign up with the promo code Ryan, R-Y-E-N. Once again, that's promo code Ryan, R-Y-E-N. If you already have an account, you're all set to bet. No sweat. Either way, you'll get up to $20 in free bets if your same game parlay during the playoffs doesn't win.

FanDuel Sportsbook, an official partner of the NBA, must be 21 and older. In select states, refund issued is not withdrawable. Free bets that expire seven days after receipt. Max free bet, $20 per week. Restrictions apply. See full terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 in Arizona. Restrictions apply. See full terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Illinois, New Jersey, PA, Virginia, or 1-877-770-STOP in Louisiana, 1-800-270-7117 for confidential help.

Michigan, 1-877-8-HOPE-NEW-YORK or text HOPE-NEW-YORK, 467-369-NEW-YORK. Tennessee Red Line, 1-800-889-9789, Tennessee, or visit 1-800-GAMBLER.net, West Virginia. Gary Payton, legendary Sonic, all-time 90s player, all-time trash talker, Hall of Famer. He's going to join us now. Gary, I want to start with your son, who we've really all enjoyed watching him. This is six-plus years after going undrafted,

four NBA teams, there's like eight G League stints in there. I know you were there for Game 1 in Memphis. What's this been like for you to watch his journey? Well, you know what? It's really not that hard for me because during the six years, the disappointment for my son was when he didn't get drafted. We knew he was a good basketball player. He just had to find a knit and a net for a team that wanted to let him play

the style of basketball that he wanted to play. I think Golden State was a team. Kurt, he's letting him be him. You know what I'm saying? Once you have value for a player, it's just like the Tuckers from Miami, the type of guys, man, who they're really not the superstars, but they're the glue. And my son is the glue to Golden State as on the defensive end and everything else

because he does so much. And if you get a plus from him when he scores, that's a big plus for you. And I just think that I've been expecting this and he finally got the opportunity. And I think he's taking advantage of this now and he's playing well right now because I think he's taking advantage of this now. And he's playing well right now because I think he's got that confidence.

And I always tell people, basketball is about confidence. When you get a confidence level where you're going to be to that point where when you take a shot, you think it's going to go in all the time. You know you're going to make a great play. You're going to know you're going to do good things. You do that. But when you are on the basketball floor and every minute you're thinking, well, is he going to sub me if I make a mistake? I'm only going to be on the floor two or three

minutes. That's not a good system to have. And I think my son had that for the first six years with a lot of teams that didn't really give him an opportunity. And now he's got that opportunity and that confidence is there. And they never found a good basketball player. I've watched the interviews. I've read about your upbringing. And I know your dad's nickname was Mr. Mean. And I wonder how much of his tough love, his tough parenting, how that influenced you as a father. Very much. When I grew up, it wasn't like me raising my son. My son had a silver spoon in his mouth because he had big houses. He had cars. He was going to private school at first.

And then at the end of his schooling, he decided he wanted to go to public, which was great for me. I wanted him to learn how to become that type of guy and go to a school that they don't cater to you. I never got out of cater school. I never went to private school. I never went to none of that. So it was one of these things where my father always put me down. And I liked that. I liked when he always tell me if I had 35, my father should always tell me I should have 50 on the team. And that's what I liked. and that's where my toughness became. When I started doing it with my son, my son was, you know, he was the ball boy for us.

He used to be around basketball all the time with Seattle and things like that. And he's got the knack for basketball, and that was good. And now that he's understanding, everybody says he's quiet. But, you know, that's just him. But he's got that killer in him that when he's quiet, that means you should be worried about him

and that's what he's doing right now. That's one of the things I always loved about you, the toughness. I knew exactly what I was getting, but I got to wonder what that's like as a rookie. You come in, what, 90, 91. The team went through three coaches. We know you're a top pick.

We'd all seen you play in the Pac-10 at that time. So we kind of knew, what's that like for a group? And it wasn't like this team had won a bunch of games. Kemp had been there a couple years. What was it like you trying to figure out? I'm sure you didn't give a shit about trying to fit in or not but i i'm imagining as a young player somebody like wait i know this guy's tough but what what the hell is this all about you know when i came in in 90 and sean was in his second year and we were we was under casey jones and it was just a difference you know it's

a difference i i went through the same thing that my son went through for six years. You having coaches that don't believe in you. You think that they want you to do certain things. They're used to certain other stuff. Casey Jones was used to Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parrish. He was Danny Ains and stuff like that and Dennis Johnson. He was used to that. And me as a youngster coming in at 20 years old, you know, I got to learn the game.

I had all the confidence and ability to do it, but I didn't learn the game. I was going against the Larry Birds at that time that were older, the Isaiahs, you know, the John Stocktons and the Jordans. And they were killing me. And they didn't learn how to teach me the game or give me a confidence in that game. And when that happened, you know, I started feeling, you know, and I looked like trash for the last first two years. Everybody was like, oh, this is a bust.

They picked him at number two, thought he was going to be this and that. But he's not that. But it wasn't about my talent. It was about my confidence of what I needed to have. And I didn't have confidence. And then when George Carl came in and he gave me that confidence, me and Sean and Kim took off. We took off to another level.

And it was just a great eight years that we had a run. And we had a great eight years of run. And then next thing you know, we became the glove and the ring, man. What's that relationship like at Kemp at the top of your powers? What was that like? Well, it's still real great. As a matter of fact, I had a conversation with him yesterday about some stuff, man.

And he's coming to see me this weekend. And we're going to hang out at some of the games. So, you know, our relationship is really great. He's like a little brother to me. You know, and, you know, for him to be there before me, and I'm older than him, it's crazy. But anytime he needs help with anything, like yesterday, he needed help with some stuff, and he called me. He texted me, emergency, and we got it solved.

It's just like, when you have a relationship with a person like that, and become really close like that, that's what you want. You want that from a basketball player that you play with and do a lot of things. And then as you get older after basketball, you guys can still be that family type, close type of situation. And that's what me and Sean is. me and Sean is. You found yourself in those first couple years trying to figure out how does the light switch go off? What were the things that you were saying to Kemp? I still think Kemp, I mean, it's arguable. He's in the conversation of best in-game dunker I've ever seen. Vince, MJ certainly, but some of the Kemp,

Dominique, Kemp was so powerful. It was also humiliating too when he would do it to you at times. That's the kind of stuff we all grew up watching, man. I'd love to know more about how you guys as young players though we're talking to each other as you know six years later you're playing in the nba finals how you built to that point how you built to that point is when you you you you get with a player and a person and you get off the court and you hang out with each other a lot when we hung out with each other a lot then

we get on the floor at practice and we start talking to each other and we get a relationship and we get respect for each other. When you have respect for the two, for each other, then you're going to gain a relationship like that. And with us, it doesn't matter. We could have said whatever we wanted to say to each other, but just don't take it personal. You're not supposed to take things personal. If Sean told me something, I can't get mad at him, but if I did get mad at him, we would have to let

that go. You know what I'm saying? And then after the game, we're still hanging, being friends. You cannot not be friends after something because we're trying to help it. People are in a heated moment of games and get mad. So what?

Me and him had a relationship where we never got mad at each other. We might have thought we got mad at each other because we yelled at each other, but we didn't. We let each other, we didn't say anything to each other. Anything.

I don't care what it was. And we didn't take it personal. And that's how you get a relationship with a basketball player or another person if you want to be that good. And that's what we did. And we got better and better. You know, the only thing I ever tell Sean is that I regret that he didn't work out the contract and he left.

You know what I'm saying? He got traded. You know, we should have worked that out. Because right now, I think if me and Sean would stay together until I left Seattle, he'll be a Hall of Famer right now. You know what I'm saying? With me. But, you know, that's another case. But I always say that's the only thing Sean really didn't listen to me with is about the contract stuff. And I understand it. It's light. But I think we should have worked that out a little bit more and we should

have stayed together for a good time like John Stockton and Carl Malone. The 96 finals, you've talked about it a million times. I'm sure you've been asked every single question about it the entire time. And then the defensive assignments and you taking Jordan later on and the frustration with that. And then it was all kind of came back

around during the pandemic as people watched the last dance and Jordan was fairly dismissive of the idea that you would shut him down. What did that make you feel again, watching it all, you know, something you probably hadn't thought about, or at least talked about it hadn't become that public in almost a decade and a half. That didn't bother me because I would have been, I would have been, I wouldn't have expected Mike no more. If he would have said something else that would have been different because we were competitors.

That was his documentary. He did what he needed to do. You know what I'm saying? He's the one that laughed and giggled and stuff like that. That doesn't bother me because if people watch that series, people know what happened and know what went down. You know what I'm saying? I know what went down. I don't have no – I don't regret nothing.

I ain't got no animosity. That was in 1986. I know how I play. He know how he play. They won the championship. That is what it is. You know, but as, you know, before the series started, I was hurt. People didn't really know that.

And George Carl made a decision on not putting me on him because he wanted my offense. So that was fine. And then all of a sudden, game four, I decided to start guarding, you know, and it switched up for us. You know, we won two games by almost 20 points or more. And that's just what happens. But Mike wouldn't have got my respect if

he would have said anything else. That I got him or whatever, whatever. But that's not Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan is Michael Jordan. He's going to be competitive. He's going to be who he is. You know, we always say, you know, you could argue if he was one of the best. I don't category

people as being the best at nothing. All of us was good. You know what you could argue if he was one of the best. I don't categorize people as being the best at nothing. All of us was good. You know what I'm saying? So it doesn't bother me about that documentary. I really don't care because it doesn't make nothing. It doesn't change anything in our lives. You know what I'm saying? He's a Hall of Famer.

I'm a Hall of Famer. He's on the top 75. I'm on the top 75. Who cares? You know what I'm saying? He won it. They's on the top 75. I'm on the top 75. Who cares? You know what I'm saying? He won it. They're well-deserved. The trash-talking part of this, like, you would...

I don't even know if you'd make it to the second half in today's game. No, I wouldn't. They think Draymond is a big... is a villain. Boy, they would have hated me in this era. But, was it... I want some stories here,

but I'm trying to figure out how often was it playful and how often was it just vicious for you going at other players and what you would say to them? Like, hey, I'm going to be in your head, and then probably some moments where you probably crossed the line, but you also did that to get in their head too. Like what that ratio was. Well, I was always playful when I come out because I wanted to start up something. I wanted to start up me getting the advantage of the person

because I'll take his game away from him by him always concentrating on me. That was my whole intent every time I came into a basketball game. But as it getting personal, a lot of the guys didn't really get personal with me. You know what I'm saying? Some of them would, and then, you know, they were tried and then people were like, yo, don't, that ain't the one to get personal with.

What's the worst somebody tried something you on? Well, nobody really tried nothing on me. You know what I'm saying? I'm just going to be honest with you, you know, because they knew I wasn't, I was a no-nonsense guy. And, you know, it was about fun. If you couldn't deal with it, don't work with it. You know what I'm saying?

I think Tim Hardaway was probably the only one that really, really tested me before. You know, he's from Chicago. He's a guy where he doesn't back down. I'm from Oakland. I don't back down. And we got into it, and we didn't like each other for a good period of time. Whereas now, you know, as we get older, it doesn't matter.

He's a great friend of mine now. You know, I'll be at his Hall of Fame induction this September because, you know, that's just what it is. I've been fighting for him to get on the Hall of Fame for years now, and we've finally done it. So, you know, it happens. You know what I'm saying? That happens.

It was basketball at that time. That's when I thought basketball was great because we could talk, we could chatter, we could do a lot of things to each other. We didn't have to go to video films and see if it was flagons and all that old stuff. You know what I'm saying? We could just play, you know what I'm saying?

And talk whatever we got to talk. But I think Tim Hardaway was the only one that really, really challenged me. I never had no challenges from nobody else. I think people were always told, the coaches and everything always said, just leave him in his shell. If he doesn't look like he's there today, just leave him alone. Don't start talking to him. And they would leave me alone.

Okay, how about this? Was there a moment where somebody got so mad at you, Just leave him alone. Don't start talking to him. And they would leave me alone. Okay. How about this? Was there a moment where somebody got so mad at you? Like they were like, okay, now it's something you said and they couldn't handle it. Like what do you think the maddest? Is there a story there? The more I'm older, the more I'm older was probably the worst. And I felt really bad about that.

And I still feel bad about that to this day. You know, I was talking about his mom, and I was talking about her bad, and I didn't know that she passed the day before. And he was so mad at me that he didn't finish the game, and he went in the back, and I heard he was very upset. And, you know going through some emotional stuff and uh next thing you know when we the game ended you know

his uh his peoples came over and told my my peoples that you know you know he was very upset and you know his mom had passed and Gary went over the line. And me being who I am, you know, I'm not a guy who's going to say, forget it, so what? You know what I'm saying? Because if that was my mom, I would have been upset too. But, you know, I went over there and apologized to him. And, you know, it was one of the things where, you know, me and him didn't talk for a long period of time.

You never had a losing record in Seattle. Did you know that? I did. I knew that. I knew that. The only thing I came close to was when we had the lockout, and it was 25-25. But it was a losing record.

So, yeah, no, I never, my 13 years, yes, I never had a losing record in Seattle. How bad was the end when you got traded for Ray Allen? Because, look, I've read about it. I remember when it happened, and we were trying to figure it out. But it felt like you felt personally betrayed by ownership at that point. Like you could have stuck it out, but then it had crossed the line. What happened with that?

What led to the trade? Well, you know, the ownership during that time was really bad. You know, a lot of things were said. A lot of lies were going on. It wasn't really, you know, I tried to stick it out. I tried to do it. Nate McMillan was the coach at the time. He was trying to talk to me.

And it just got to a point where the lies got to a point where I couldn't deal with it. I just couldn't handle it. My agent went in there and told him we had to do what we had to do. At the time, George Carl was with Milwaukee. And I was still, you know, I was still an all-star. I was still hot. I was in my prime still in 2013. I mean, 2003, I'm sorry.

And it was just a point where, listen, I was just like, we just had to be, listen, I was just like, there's got to be something done. And at the time, like I said, Georgia was at Milwaukee. Milwaukee wanted to part ways. So me and my guy from Oklahoma State. You're talking about the trade? Yeah, the trade. It was us two and five other players.

Yeah, Desmond Mason. Yeah, me and Desmond. And I just talked to Desmond. And me and Desmond gets traded for Ray and four other guys. So it is what it is. The management in Seattle was so bad and the ownership was so bad that these guys, and you see what happened,

how that happened. The team gets sold. And now you don't hear from that management. So that was just bad management and just bad people around Seattle. When you ended up with the Lakers, does it start with Magic recruiting you and Carl Malone and putting it all together? How did that come about?

Because I've heard it was Magic. Magic just says, hey, let's get this done. Come to L.A. Well, Magic was a big part about it, but I didn't come to L.A. because of Magic. I came to L.A. because of Shaquille O'Neal. Shaq was another like little brother to me, and he was like,

yo, come on, let's do it. We need to do it. You're a free agent. Come on here. Keep on. And then all of a sudden, Carl started talking about it. He was leaving Utah. And me and Carl had already talked about it for a long period of time that he wanted to play with me.

And we got on the phone and we decided, we flipped the coin really to see who would take the exception and who would take less. And I won. So he took the less and I took the exception. Wait, so that was double. That was like way, right? You made 5 million probably on the exception.

And then if he's in the second exception, that's, I think it might've been under 2 million. Yeah. He made 1.9. Yes. We made it because we had decided that we were going to, we were going to go anywhere and we didn't really need the money really at

the time. You know, it is. And we were saying we were trying to win a championship and we wanted to do it. And we were only going to sign a year or two anyway so we we flipped the coin and you know he lost and and i won and he took to he took the uh i got the exception and he's got he got the memo and we went you know and then magic started calling us and we were already we told him that we're going

to come and we're going to try to make this special. Is that loss actually more frustrating in the finals to Detroit than losing to Jordan with Seattle in 96? No, I think it's more frustrating with Mike now. I think the Laker one, we had a lot of things going on. What was going on there? Why was it so bad towards the end? Because you still made it to the finals. Yeah, we made it to the finals.

That's because of great coaching with Phil and our great cast, our second cast. Because I was the only one of the superstars that played all 82 games, which everybody don't understand. You know, you forgot Kobe was going through the situation he was going through at Denver, which was what caused a lot of havoc because he had to go back and forth from Denver all the time, so he wasn't really with the basketball team at the time.

Then we had Carl, who got hurt in 20 games in the season and missed the next 60. You know, he missed the next 62 games. He missed 62 games. And he was a big part of our triangle because he kept everything going. And then we had Shaq going through with him and Dr. Buss. So that was a lot of things going on. And we never really played with each other on a full tilt.

Us four should have played with each other on a full tilt. We, us four should have played with each other on a full tilt. It'd have been a whole different story. We started off 18 and two, you know what I'm saying? So that was a situation where I just thought that we didn't be together. We wasn't together. And by the time that we really got it going in the playoffs,

Carl got re-hurt in the playoffs. And then at this time, Shaq and Kobe, everybody in mind was just tore up. And we just couldn't fight a good team who had got to rolling in the Detroit Pistons. They was just rolling. They had everything going. All their players was getting there, you know, Rasheed, Prince, Chauncey, you know, Big Ben.

They were rolling, you know what I'm saying? And we, you know, they beat us in the first game, and then Kobe hit a big shot, and we tied it up, and then all of a sudden we went to Detroit, and they beat us three games out of the three. So that wasn't even it. I don't even look at that championship and say I'm disappointed because we didn't have our full tilt during the time.

There's been a thing going on now for years as we've seen this game evolve in a very short amount of time, right? Tons of threes, small guys, nobody runs it through the post hell you would have been like one of the top post possession players in the nba today yeah if you think about the way that you would kind of hybrid perimeter and post play there's so many players from your era that just kind of dump on this hey why don't they do this i i don't know i i'm i've never talked to you about it so i don't know if you look at steph flying around and say well why don't don't they do this? I just want to know when you sit there and watch that game, one of the playoffs, you see Ja doing what he's doing, seeing a Jordan Poole come off the bench, what Steph has

done. How different does it look? How do you talk about this game with your era when you sit there and watch what some of these guys are capable of today? Well, I don't say what they're capable of. I just say that it's just changed because of the athleticism that they have. They have a lot of more athletic people in the NBA than when we were. I don't say they are more athletic than us. I just say it's common now. So we take an example. Their weapon now is a three-point shot.

Our weapon was the big man. Nobody in this era would be able to guard Shaq. Shaq would score 50 every night. They would have to foul him all the time. He'd be at the free throw line all the time. It's no way possible. But what the problem would be is that he couldn't guard anybody neither because he couldn't get out there and defend the three.

You know what I'm saying? So it would be different. But as I see the younger guys in this era, they're going and dunk on people. They're doing this stuff and all this scratching. My son scratches his head. I would hurt

one of them. You know what I'm saying? So when he dunked on Bane and he was scratching his head to kind of show him up a little bit, but he got away with it. Yeah, I would hurt my son for that. The next play he would come down, I would try to break his back. You know what I'm saying?

See, in our era, that's disrespectful. You know what I'm saying? You made a good play, gone on about your business. You know, you did it. You know what I'm saying? You made a good play, gone on about your business. You know, you did it. You know what I'm saying? But that is what their era is about. When you on a fast break and it's three on one

and you can go get a layup after you've made a great stop and you stop and shoot a three and you don't make that shot and another team gets a rebound and come back and score. That momentum swing change could have been from you being 5-0 to now you're going to be either 3-3 or 2-3

when they come back down on the end. And that's not good shots for me. That's just not good possessions. And that's what they do. But this is their era, and we can't talk anything about it. All I can do is sit on the sideline and just shake my head and say, that's not basketball that I'm used to. But that's not my era.

This is their era. Do you like Chris Paul? Love him. Love him to death. He's the one that I always say,'s only to me in this game right now. It's only two true point guards. That's Chris Paul and Rondo. That's it.

I don't think it's any other true point guards. We got point guards that was twos in college and everything converted into ones. And they put them in there and they shoot the basketball. But Chris Paul is a guy who gets you involved with the game, who can get you a good bucket. He gets in mid-range, he shoots three, and he gets everybody involved. And then Rondo

does the same thing with the defense and the things he does. All other point guards to me now are scoring point guards. You get assists, yeah, now because of the simple fact is you can dribble the ball two or three times. And with my era, if you put the ball on the floor one time

and make another bounce, that's not an assist. But nowadays, they're getting assists like that, and that's why it's triple-doubles here and there. Triple-doubles was unheard of when we were playing basketball. It was just too hard to get because we didn't do all of that. But now it's common. You're absolutely right about the assists.

The scores and the way they give them out now. And I've looked back at it too. There's certain players, players I like, players I don't like, where the home assist handouts are just absurd. Unnecessary. And then all of a sudden, you know, you throw a ball to a player

and he dribbles three times and dunk it. You get the assist. It's not an assist. Assist is when you get to a boy and you commit, people commit to you, you give it to them and they lay it up and dunk the thing. That's an assist to me. You know what I'm saying? But that's just, like I said, that's just the way it goes nowadays.

And that's why you see Oscar Robinson held the triple-double thing for so long. And now we come along, and then we get the Hardens. We get the Westbrooks. They start breaking stuff because that's just the way the air goes. Last thing. I don't know if you're going to remember this. I traveled with the Celtics one time. I lived in Boston. I covered the team. I was

in the studio. I was there your year. Then randomly, one game they asked me to travel and do play-by-play because I had to fill in. Do you remember when our plane almost went down from the Air Force Base on the way to that Nets game? Yeah.

I was scared as I don't know what. I was on the plane with you. You was. Hey, we all whispered. I was like, this is our last time. I don't know what's going to happen, but there's going to be news if the Boston Celtics players all be gone. You know what I'm saying? And that was a scary thing.

I was like, man, I don't know why we fly in this type of weather in the first place. You know what I'm saying? But, yes, I was. I was scared. I was the most scared I ever been in my life. So that was, for me, I i'm only 29 and it was like okay i'm gonna stay i'm gonna fly with the team on the charter we're gonna stay at the ritz in

central park because doc even if you played in new jersey he had it in the deal that the players get to stay in manhattan because he didn't want to stay in new jersey so the players love the trip and so i'm like losing it's the nicest hotel i've ever stayed in. I've never been in that part of town. I got no money. And then we almost died in the plane. And then the guy, the member of the pilot came down and started high-fiving us when we landed because he was that freaked out about the whole thing. So then I was in my room studying because it was one of those weird Saturday day games. It was the strangest thing. So it was an early tip. And then I was like, room studying because it was one of those weird Saturday day games. It was the strangest thing. So it was an early tip.

And then I was like, I got to go down to the hotel lobby and just have a couple beers. Like, I have to, like, see what this is like. So GP is down there holding court. There's all sorts of guys down there. And I'm this one white guy standing off to the side who nobody's talking to because I don't know anybody. Anyway, you and I don't know each other. You wouldn't have, you shouldn't have known who I was. I was filling in on the radio broadcast and you were telling this story and everybody was like, that's right, GP. That's I tell my boys the story all the time.

And everybody's like, you're the King. You're running it. You're asking like how many, how many all-star games is Alan Houston made? And they're're like not as many as you man and it was it was hilarious and so that i jumped in and i made this stupid line about i was like you know who isn't in the all-star i was like that plane that that pilot it was like record scratch and then you turned to me and you were like that's right motherfuck like gave me a big hug and then then everybody was like, all right, he's cool. So you probably don't know that story from my perspective, obviously. But I always meant to share that with you because it was pretty funny. And we probably was drunk, too, by that time anyway. I got to tell you.

You were, it was so, because you were like, all right, we got a day game. I can't be going out. You went upstairs. and that was it. You ordered breakfast. I remember you telling me my move is I order breakfast for myself before I go to bed. And I was like, all right. That's all I like about my breakfast guy. You remember that.

That's all I eat for breakfast. I can eat it all through the day. That's what I eat. Yeah, that was it. Yeah, because it was funny because then I stayed and then once you were gone, it was like, no, now your cool factor is gone. You need to get out of here too. Before I let you go, Gary, I know you're working with Hennessy. I've seen the ad campaign. It's terrific. It's unfinished business, long-term initiative from

Hennessy. They've already distributed more than $5 million in funding, small businesses, and making sure after COVID, to businesses that are an emphasis on diversity and making sure you get more funds out there. So tell us what you're doing with Hennessy. Well, this is a big thing. Unfinished business is a big thing. I've been working with Hennessy now for a couple of months. We're just trying to get the Black, Latino, Asian,

we're trying to get them back on their feet. You know, as COVID went through, we went through COVID, a lot of businesses was lost. I hate to see small businesses and they spend all their money. And next thing you know, it's two years down the line and they still, they done lost all their hard-earned work, everything. And we're trying to do something with Hennessy, and I think it's 17 or 15 other NBA teams that are doing it. We're going to put $2.5 million into it this year. They've already put $5 million into it. Now they're putting $2.5 and making $7.5 million, And we give out, we give out help to get these people businesses back. Because I can know if you're going,

you're still hometown right now. You still, you still see a lot of businesses boarded up a lot of things that they, and they can't get the boards off and get their businesses back up. This is what we're trying to do to help it. We come that way. And I teamed up with them too, with my,

my foundation and stuff like that, because we want to help. I want teamed up with them too with my my foundation stuff like that because we want to help I want to help these people get their get their feet back under them and get their businesses back because right now you know a lot of people are behind on mortgages they behind on a lot of things and they're losing this stuff and it's not their fault because of pandemic so we need to get this help with them. And I want everybody to understand that, that we can get more people to sponsor this stuff and get it more. Hennessy started it off. Great company.

I'm glad to be a part of them and being a partner with them. Now we got to get other people to do it so that we can get these people back on their feet. He's a hall of famer. He's one of the top 75 players in the history of the game he's gary payton thanks a lot really appreciate it thank you guys i appreciate it anytime let me know joining us she's a tough one she's a tough one to get in demand diana rossini of espn terrific on all nfl coverage thanks for joining us today what What's up? Hi, in demand. Who wrote that?

It says here on the notes. It says on the notes, introduce in demand. We know how popular you are this time. The draft is behind us. I want to dig into a bunch of different things here. Look, the quarterback headline, and I ended up being kind of wrong about this one. I always feel like everybody dumps on the quarterback class, and as

you get closer to the draft, teams get a little desperate and they start taking somebody. It was the opposite. It went even worse than any of the projections. What was the sense that you got of how it ended up being one guy in the first round and a long wait for the rest of this class? You know, as one of those drafts where it actually played out with scouts and GMs were sharing with me before. And I don't want to say I was ignoring them, but I wasn't completely buying in because we see every year there's such a pattern. Teams get antsy. They start moving up. And even when we head into drafts where the quarterbacks aren't even rating that

high, quarterbacks are still going in the second round. And then it played out exactly how I think a lot of teams knew it would, which I think we can say the quarterbacks went where they should have based on, on, on the type of talent that's out there. It kind of all leveled out and they fell where the, where they should, there was no one that, that reached for one. There's no one that I thought fell too far. Once the dust settled and I just took a look back and even just having conversations around the league, there's still a little bit of, it's not even shock, but it's like, man, this is kind of wild just to think a class that just didn't have

a lot of good quarterbacks. That's just the reality. In fact, it was almost historically the worst draft in terms of quarterbacks and where they fell. I think it came close to 2015 that year. So, yeah, I think it's one of those. We're going to look back on this draft and say that was just the year

the quarterback didn't really matter as much. Yeah, looking at just it overall i mean it's one thing for malik willis to end up going on the third round which like felt like forever because ridder was mentioned you know it was like hey they'll probably end up being three of these guys go in the first round and then you have sam howell at one point was projected to be a top 10 pick go in the fifth round um i don't know like this ended up being it doesn't normally happen this way and i you know we can go back to the ej manual draft and go all right well you know that was that I don't know. This ended up being – it doesn't normally happen this way. We can go back to the E.J. Manuel draft and go, all right,

well, that was kind of like this. It's like, yeah, but still, think of the projections. Even if you didn't like this class, this ended up being something that was a disaster for this group. Malik Willis, who shows up to the event, he goes in the third round of Tennessee out of liberty. I know you have more of the A.J. Brown trade and all that kind of stuff. But what do you think led to the decision of Willis landing there once the team probably felt like,

hey, we have this guy rated higher than this. We have to make a move. Or what it means maybe for the future position for the franchise. Yeah. I think what made that move really interesting to me and the fact that Tennessee went after him was, I, I did not know Tennessee was in the market for a quarterback headed into

this draft. That wasn't the chatter I was hearing. We know that, you know, Ryan Tannehill, he wasn't at voluntary workouts and, you know, there was a lot of talk down in Nashville about whether or not he should have been there on phase one of the offseason program.

And purely, purely on the fact that it ended the way it did. Three interceptions against the Bengals. Eli Apple picks you off. You throw an interception in the first play of the game. I mean, right. I cover a lot of football. You know that I've been to tons of games live in person and I haven't been to a game in a long time where I could feel the air leave Nissan stadium. It was devastating to those fans. It was devastating.

I, this is going to be one of those losses that Tennessee's going to look back on, I still believe, four or five years. It'd be like, what happened? How did that happen? So you take that and you apply it to where they're at now. And you see them go after Malik Willis, who, by the way, I had a team who has a starting quarterback, a good one. I wouldn't say a very good one, a good one who texted me. If we didn't have this guy, we would have went after Malik in the first round, which that shocked me. Like, Oh, really? You know? And I also think it's, it's very easy to say that when you have your guy, right. It's like, and I think by the way, that's another reason why we, we saw all these quarterbacks fall, The jobs are taken. No one's desperate, which is why I think these teams were able to show so much patience. So look, I don't know this from talking to Tennessee's side. I didn't get Tennessee's reasoning on it,

but just from being around that team and knowing how they operate, I think this was a, hey, Ryan Tannehill, you better get ready to show up and you better come back to Nashville with that chip that you had when Marcus Mariota was the starter and you were looking to show the world that you were the starter after the way it ended in Miami. Yeah, and they have what?

Like one year left on the Tannehill deal. So I don't, I don't know if that plays into it too, because there's, is there more in the Tannehill financial part of this? Yeah, there's definitely looking back on it. It's like,

oh, it actually makes sense that they took a quarterback just based on the contract. You know, Ryan is, Ryan has the biggest cap hit of any other NFL player in the league. Let's just start there. Right. So they're paying him a lot of money. biggest cap hit of any other NFL player in the league. Let's just start there, right?

So they're paying him a lot of money. And eventually they're going to have to figure out what they want to do if they want to move on from him. And that would probably be most likely in the fall next season, not this season coming up. So to me, I think they draft a player like Malik Willis to light a fire under Ryan Tannehill's butt. Do I think he's going, do I think Malik Willis is going to actually truly compete in camp and win the job? No, no, no, no. I don't think he's ready. In fact, I've talked to enough people

around the league about where he's at in his game. He's not ready. He's going to need to learn and be around and perhaps even learn from Ryan Tannehill. But he does have characteristics and parts of his game and part of him as a person that I heard is just electric. And I think this could be a really good fit for him, knowing the way that team is, how they're built, their identity, and going all the way up to their leadership, that this could be the best thing they did to get the most out of Ryan Tannehill again.

They trade A.J. Brown, who we know the impact on off the field for them. This team, to be the one seed with all the injuries, and we can talk about the receivers running back as well, but A.J. really started to solidify himself as a real game changer at that position. And they ended up moving on from him. So I imagine it was they didn't want to pay him. They didn't have the flexibility to go ahead and pay him. But you were on that story. You broke it. What else can you tell us about that trade? I very rarely share my opinion on it because I have to give the facts. But that was bonkers to me. Only because following the story, talking to both sides as much as I was leading up into the

draft, leading to the draft, or at least the week of the draft, everyone kept telling me, we're going to get it done. We're going to get it done. When I was taking a look at all those receivers in that 2019 class that want to get paid, you know, or those receivers, obviously DK Metcalf, Debo, and AJ. And if you had asked me my opinion of, okay, who's getting paid? Who's moving on? AJ was like my, AJ's going back to Tennessee. He's going to get his money.

End of story, no drama here. Just because they were so aggressive publicly. John Robinson stood up in front of the media and owners and was told us, we're going to get a deal done. We're not trading him. Mike Vrabel went up there and was like, I love the guy. As long as I'm the head coach, I'm not trading him away. I've never heard that man talk like that in my life about anybody that I remember hearing and going, man, he really loves this guy. It feels personal, right? It wasn't just a player they liked because he scores touchdowns and gives

their offense an option outside the run game. It was like, they really believe this kid is a leader. He's only 24 years old. He hasn't hit his prime years. It made all the sense in the world for them to homegrown. It made all sense in the world for them to make this deal work. And then it fell apart. And I started to get a couple, I guess, messages because it was overtaxed. That's how it started. That things weren't going well. And it, oh, you know where it started. I'll let you, the Jets tell me about it. They go, tell me about AJ Brown. And I said, he's not on the trade block. Oh yeah. And I was like, wait. So then I start scrambling and I'm like, this, this was Monday. So drafts Thursday. So I'm like, oh boy, this isn't good. good meaning something's gonna go down because that's weird

they went from not picking up phone calls and now they're talking to New York who remember New York was in on Tyreek Hill they were willing to give up a lot so I was like wow maybe the Jets are good again so and then that faded then like I was checking in with New York on Tuesday, Wednesday, dies. I get a message on Thursday going down and I knew it from the source. I knew who they were associated with. So I was like, oh, here we go. And I figured it all out

and just making calls, working all morning on it. And it turned out that it was essentially during the week, the Titans had made an offer. The offer was not good enough. They sent back a number that they wanted. They said, no way. They said, okay, well then trade us. And then that's when Howie swooped in.

And Howie Roseman from the Eagles, obviously in the receiver market for a while here, trying to look for a stud. And it was just perfect timing. And he obviously was able to get the deal and get the contract. And Ryan, I was waiting all night at the draft. The trade was agreed upon. It was agreed upon in the afternoon. So we knew the trade was happening, but it wasn't going to get the green light until AJ got his contract.

And so I was told if the contract didn't get done, the deal was over. And that the Tennessee Titans weren't going to trade AJ. They were going to can it. And then they were able to get that. I think it was two. They were two picks out. I got the message that said, deal's done.

So this is how fast this went and how close it was to the 18th pick where they traded out. Yeah, so you're saying basically if they hadn't gotten to the contract by then, they don't want to move the pick, obviously because they're not going to let somebody else, right.

Or have them pick for them and then the contract not go through. All right. So let's, let's pick up a couple other off season things here. Baker and Cleveland. You're going to think I'm a lunatic and I live in a very weird world, but look where we're at right now. Okay. Baker Mayfield is on a, is on the Cleveland Brown roster. The Cleveland Browns do not want to take

on that contract. They don't want to pay for that. They don't want, they don't want, I don't know the number they're willing to go to, but the last I checked, which was about a week and a half ago, ish. I mean, they want nothing to do with that deal. If you want Baker Mayfield, you're going to pay that money. Cleveland's not going to try to split it up with you. Okay, so the Panthers were flirting with it a little bit. They kept telling me before the draft, it's not going to happen. It's not going to happen.

I don't know where this report's coming from. I think a little something happened. But in the end, it didn't happen, right? Because they went quarterback in the draft. So we know they're out of it. The Seahawks have been telling me from day one, they have no interest in Baker Mayfield. They're riding Drew Locke, which we can talk about that another time.

That's their choice. So here we are. Baker Mayfield has no hope. Zero. No team wants him. Is there a world where Deshaun Watson gets suspended and Baker Mayfield gets an opportunity to play again for the Cleveland Browns? I saw Tannenbaum's quote.

He said that Baker had a better chance of playing for the Cavs than the Browns. But what you just laid out there, part of it, we clearly realized Deshaun facing a suspension. Okay, you're going to prorate a $1 million salary as opposed to a max quarterback contract, which is what it ended up doing. And the fact that he got every concession didn't make many people happy. But I don't know. I don't know what's Cleveland going to do with the other studs on this roster.

But I also know Baker's personality. I think well enough that him being around is kind of a backup waiting to hand the baton to somebody else. I don't think any team would want to sign up for that arrangement. Maybe it's just all my personal life stuff. That's I'm applying to the situation because I've got back together with so many exes, you know,

like I'm, I'm the sucker for that. Like I break up and I'm like, I'll send a text and then I get back together. Cause I'm the sucker for that like i break up then i'm like i'll send a text then i get back together because i'm an idiot just don't break up anyways or you broke up for a reason that that that was always the lesson right you broke up for a reason and you usually forget uh and that's where you're like why like i'm so stupid why did i change my mind on that there was a i did that or maybe it's a pandemic yeah that sometimes that you don't have to worry about that you were off the market by the time we had a world pandemic.

Yeah. We got engaged and married during it. That's also another factor of COVID. You make bad decisions. Should have waited a little longer. Just kidding. He listens, big fan of the show.

Yeah, I know. I, he actually listens to this podcast. So I, I don't know that we'll keep it in there just for the, the honest, you know, world that we live in on this podcast. But just take it easy on Kevin.

I have a wonderful husband who sent me off this morning to start my day at five this morning with a cup of coffee. And he said, big day for you. And I said, why? I'm just on get up at the sports center. He's like, you're going on the number one sports podcast in the world. And that's your show, buddy. Okay. in the world. And that's your show, buddy. Okay, so the thing with Baker is,

alright, we both know, like, that's an ugly situation if Baker refields still in Cleveland in the fall, right? Like, that's just, we know it's ugly and it doesn't work. Personality, I think, is a great answer. So then what? How does he find a team? Is this a

quarterback gets injured? Are they going to cut him? This is the number one overall pick. And I just think it's, I have a difficult time comprehending this because I don't believe he's a bust. I've spoken to enough defensive coordinators over the years when they face the Browns that they share, they would share things about him where he was a threat. So I just, I wish I could give him a little bit of a social media makeover, you know, less emotions, less posts about how he feels.

Because I think that's what got him in trouble. I think that's where people turn on him. I think the victim card, I guess you could call it, or the way he can do that at times, I think it rubs a lot of people the wrong way because we see so many other quarterbacks that are put in really bad positions as well because he hasn't been put in a place to succeed, really.

He's had a lot of challenges. But you don't hear about it. And the problem is nobody wants to hear about it. Daniel Jones, they didn't pick up that fifth year. What does that tell us? Other than the obvious. New regime. Not their guy.

One year, prove it. What do you got for us? I do think Brian Dable, the head coach of the the new york giants will be able to get something out of daniel jones i think we're going to see the best version of daniel jones but look at it from the giants perspective it's the smartest thing that they can do because look he goes out there and and they're fantastic they win the division all right you franchise tag them or you give them an extension what's the big deal so it's a one one year risk they're taking here. They have nothing to lose. He goes out there,

trips on himself again, throws another 49 interceptions. He stinks it up. They cut him and they move on from him. Yeah, that's it. And I don't think he's that guy. I just don't.

I'm sorry. And if look, if somebody can figure out a version of him, that's playable, it's probably Dable. I mean, I've seen him have to work with so many different quarterbacks and, and what he's accomplished over the years. And look, if somebody can figure out a version of him that's playable, it's probably Dable. I mean, I've seen him have to work with so many different quarterbacks and what he's accomplished over the years. They're giving Jones a chance, but this is as old as it gets.

I mean, if he's not your pick, then you're not. Whenever you pick somebody, it's kind of like our industry. When somebody gets paid a ton of money in our industry, they get every chance to be like, oh, here's another landing spot. Because the person that made the decision has to figure out a way to prove that they are right to invest in that person. And it's the exact same way with quarterbacks. So I always take that low salary, right? I always ask for as low as they go. So the expectations are just right to the ground.

No one has any hope in me. But yeah, no, that's exactly what it is. And, you know, I cover the bills a lot. And it's quite, it's a pleasure to cover that team, by the way, for a lot of reasons. But they just, they know what they are. They have this innocence to them too. Josh Allen does. When you're around Josh Allen,

just from, let's just talk physicality. He is so intimidating looking. Just, if you don't look at his face, because he's always smiling, he's always freaking happy. He is the biggest dude. Like,

every time I'm next to him, I think the same thing. I'm like, he's, and I've obviously covered the, you know, every sport, covered the NBA.

Like, I know what a big man is. I sit, I stood next to Derek Henry, AJ Brown. I stood next to guys that are, that are large. He is so big. That being said,

that his relationship with Brian Dable, to me, what Josh used to share with me about what Brian was able to do, a little sidebar. Brian's a big FaceTime guy. He doesn't call people. Big FaceTimer. Chris Long, big FaceTime guy. He doesn't call people. Big FaceTimer. Chris Long,

big FaceTime guy. Can't stand those types. No, Chris is an audio message guy. I hate that crap. Stop audio messaging me. Call me. Because then I got to like

audio message back and it's creepy. I'm like, Chris, like... Do I keep it? And then he sees that I kept it. Yeah.

But if I don't keep it... But I need to hear it again because sometimes like the phone rings or my baby's crying or something. And I'm like, what did he say? And sometimes he does it in a way where he's whispering. So then it's kind of creepy. He's like,

yeah, so this is how I look. The Eagles, they've got... It's on Jalen now. It's on Jalen. Eat the moose. And it's like, sounds like a sex hotline. But either way, I wish you would stop audio messaging me and just pick up the phone and call. But Dayball

doesn't call, doesn't text. Big FaceTimer. That's what the players tell me. So Josh Allen's like, you better be ready to FaceTime if you want to be successful with Dayball. So I think I'm going to pass that along to Daniel Jones if he doesn't know already. Okay. What else? Let's finish here.

This is my favorite part of the draft is when you talk to the other teams about other drafts because you made a great point too. On the team that said, hey, we would have taken Malik Willis in the first round, I always love when I'll talk to a team about, hey, we would have done this at pick one or two and you go, yeah, but you didn't actually have to deal with it.

You didn't have to deal with the decision, so you didn't apply the stress of getting that right or wrong to you. So I do like when somebody like you, an insider, can kind of help us or share with us which teams liked other teams draft didn't like. So what do you have? A couple little nuggets. One, I had one GM tell me today, how funny was it that teams kept trying to move in front of ravens to take alabama players uh so that was like a joke in the league everyone's talking about that like they were doing it on purpose just like piss off uh you know da costa and harbaugh which i thought was just fun

by the way it didn't whatever it was they i think they had one of the best drafts of anybody in the league believable like yeah oh and you know robert mays was talking about this recently and i could of anybody in the league. Unbelievable. Like, how? You know, Robert Mays was talking about this recently, and I could not have agreed with him more. Just the Ravens are always relevant because they've just had an incredible ability to adapt to whatever it is that is on their roster, right? Whatever type of coordinators they have. They've changed everything for Lamar Jackson.

Think about how different that is on the contrast to what they were doing with Joe Flacco. And you got to give them so much credit because they adjust and they do maneuver that very well. So yeah, I agree. The Ravens, look, the Giants, the Jets, God bless them. When you have that many picks, you better get it right.

I don't mean to be so hard on them because we've seen enough teams mess up. I think they've had, I think they had strong drafts. I just hope they did. They had a lot of picks. So they're like my obvious choices. I think the Chiefs had a sneaky good draft as well. You know, finding that, you know, finding a receiver and, all right, he's not Tyreek Hill, but they were able to fill that void. And the Green Bay Packers, you know, finding receiver and, and all right, he's not Tyreek Hill, but they were able to fill that void.

And the Green Bay Packers, you know, all right. I feel like I could talk about this forever with you. Did the debate, does Aaron Rodgers have enough weapons? Their run game and their, it's their defense that is going to make them so good this year. They have the, they have to have one of the best secondaries in football right now. So I don't really want to hear about the weapons thing with Aaron Rodgers and

Martin because it is going to be the run game and their defense is going to carry them in the weekend of sick. So I think the Packers did good. Chiefs, Ravens, Jets, Giants. I think the Cardinals bombed. I don't really know what they're doing. I was very confused by it. And the Patriots, I would put them in there.

I'm a little... What do people around the league say about what the Pats did? Bill does what Bill wants to do. They do things just what they think works for them. And it seems to never really go hand in hand or agree with what the rest of the league is doing.

And I can't figure out, well, who's right? Because the Patriots have proved in the past, maybe not all the time through Bill's drafting, but most of the time they've had success.

So who's right here? The rest of the league who's going, huh, not really sure I would have done that. Or do the Patriots see something, know something that we don't? Yeah, it was a confusing one and the age part of it all. But there was a report today, Mike Giardi, NFL Network was saying there was a team that wanted to take Cole Strange in the 40s. Yeah. I know that's what Bill said.

It's not like Bill was going to say, yeah, actually, we probably could get him in the third. Yes. But Bill's draft record is not good. It's not good. Nope. It's not really debatable at this point. And I thought it was very interesting when he was actually questioned about poor drafting. He was very defensive for Bill where he was like, oh, we've had some good ones too.

And you were like, okay, yeah. We didn't say he'd gone over 20 years here. But it felt like it turned a bit recently because there was talk about how he had shifted some of the scouting and some of the responsibilities

because he had had such a bad, there was about a seven or eight year stretch where it was really bad. So we don't know. We don't know at this point, but it definitely, I don't think you should just blindly be, I'm not saying you are,

I don't think we should blindly be like, hey, it's Belichick and he never can do anything wrong because he actually has in the draft. No, no. I'd say the other team, by the way, that I walked away from the draft going, am I missing something? Meaning they're all in for this year. The Saints. I'm like...

All in. All in. They think they're going to the Super Bowl this year and I love it. God bless you, Dennis Allen, because you have, you know, a future Hall of Fame head coach, I think, and Sean Payton, you know, who's no longer there. And there's a lot of transition.

That man ran the show in New Orleans, and there's been a lot of transition. And look, it may be one of those things, just like we've seen in life, the change could be good for them. But what they're doing and how they attack this draft, I give them so much credit.

They are trying to win. And I think... They must be looking at the Tampa Bay Bucks roster going, we can do it. We can keep up. Which, maybe they can. What do you got today? You're done with get up?

Yeah, I got get up. I just just did get up i'll just sports center and then this just did oh geez i thought you had breaking news for us but that's right it's kellerman show uh you can follow yes i know i for a second i was off um i was just gonna say another i do tv and I've also been writing more this year. I have a blog that's called The Diary. You can find it if you just Google The Diary. Diana Rossini will pop right up for you. But I basically just have been keeping a log of all the stories I'm working on.

And some stuff is personal, not that much. But it's mostly if you like football and you want to know how this is all going and hear other stories of other trades and things going on i've been i've been trying to get into it so give me a follow there you go all right at diana espn thank you so much thanks for having me guys you want details bye i drive a ferrari 355 cabriolet You want details? Bye. I drive a Ferrari 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you could possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. We have a sponsor, folks. Today's Life Advice is presented by Modelo. It could be about love,

money, or in-laws. Life is always going to throw some serious challenges your way and that's why modelo celebrates people who show resilience and courage in the face of adversity modelo brute for those with a fighting spirit drink responsibly beer imported by crown import chicago illinois life advice rr at gmail.com is the email. Man, we had a ton of feedback on the last couple. Basketball hoop guy has not responded since we read his email. I don't believe. I don't know.

It could have got lost in the mix. There's a very good chance of that as well. There were an overwhelming number of people saying buy a hoop for them. I think there's too many times in this podcast where I'll default to money solving the problem. Because it does solve the problem a lot of times. I don't want to make that assumption for our guy here. So I don't know that he has the means to say, hey, I'm going to buy you guys a basketball hoop.

Also, if he's saying it's a bunch of kids from an apartment building, then you're dealing with HOAs, which is not the same, but it's apartment managers. They all fall under the same evil cartel where they're putting a hoop up and just saying, hey, apartment building, here's this hoop I'm going to buy. Then they're going to say it's an insurance liability or all these. I'm just suggesting it's a little bit more challenging than just this benevolent act of a guy going, here's a basketball to this community and everybody. So I don't know that it's that simple.

We had a lot of people chime in on that one. Okay. This other one, I think transitions well into something else I said last week. The Chipotle hot sauce thief thing. The only people that have defended it also steal the bottle of hot sauce. Think about that for a second. Right? Is that surprising? The only people

that tried to tell us why it was okay said yes, because I also do it. And I would just counter with this. What if everyone thought they were entitled

to stealing a bottle of hot sauce? Every single person that went in and bought a burrito. All right? I'm not going to add anything else to it because I think it played in well to my completely incomplete debt forgiveness rant, which was completely flawed in my point, but it wasn't really about that because I didn't want to talk about taxes after, you know, again, my history with publicly speaking about taxes

hasn't gone well. There's a lot of stuff there that I didn't get to. And I, I, the reason I was so pissed about it last week is because it was one person deciding that this was inconvenient for her. And there's so many other parts of that, that I, if I was going to dip my toe into that world of debt forgiveness and taxes and taking on loans and tuition and all of the stuff that I am, um, I don't know if passion is the right word, but I'm interested in it enough that we had a guy on who wrote a book about it, because I think it's a completely fucked up system. But I know that I did a bad job with not doing the full... If I'm going to do that rant, do the full scope.

I didn't want to do the full scope because that was clearly targeted at the one person that was making it about her. And I felt like she's the kind of person that steals bottles of hot sauce at Chipotle also and then thinks like, well, it's okay if I take a bottle of hot sauce at Chipotle also. And then thinks like, well, I it's okay if I take a bottle of hot sauce, but if everybody did, yeah,

I could see the problem with that, but that's not what happens. So it's okay if I do it, which I think too many people do with a lot of stuff that we talk about. What about peeing outside? Sometimes you have to, if everybody did, it'd be a mess.

But what if you have to, is it the same? Wow. That's where it is. Yeah. Not near a school or a park i get it but like you know i did my first i was on the golf course yesterday for the first time ever and you know there's only like a bathroom every like five holes or something so being outside of the golf course

is pretty much understood that it's accepted yeah i mean i you know i mean i think you got to pick your spots nice but uh i i remember once during a hurricane, I think it was Hurricane Bob out in the vineyard. Rough. Went to go check on something down by the docks. And I don't know. I was like 15. I had a piss. And I like went and found an area.

And I was like, all right, I'm good. I'm kind of hiding out here. And cop came right up on me screaming while the hurricane is like going on really it's all getting washed away what's going on it was an aggressive move by the cop but i don't think he saw that i was a kid at that point and then my father saw it all go down and he wasn't thrilled um but you were the cop he was upset with the cop yeah i was gonna say because it was honestly the cop once it kind of processed everything's like hey we're in the middle

of a hurricane we were checking on something that was being destroyed i've got a teenage son that had to take a piss by bush like there's no electricity on things are flooding the roads are closed you know there's other shit going on here so but to also if we were going to do this on the cop side of thing like the cop is the guy walking the beat in the middle of a hurricane checking on everything he's fucking miserable because he's got like what an 8 or 12 hour shift

I don't know what hurricane duty is and then he thinks he's busting somebody peeing in a public area basically it all got worked out off season vineyard stuff, super, super dramatic. I'm not going to worry about it. An update. The Frolic

Fraudster. There was a sighting. I know. Wait, I might have a different one than you. What do you have? A place called The Woods. He's known to be there. This is unbelievable it's like it's like bigfoot people are just taking pictures of him some guy

tweeted me he was like hey was this guy's name blank and you know you want to go find it by this point you could pretty much find it but i'm just still not going to say his name because that's the way we've been doing this he was like i thought we said his name already i don't think i did i don't know we'll pretend i didn't is this guy's name blank and've been doing this. He was like, is this guy... I thought we said his name already. I don't think I did. I don't know. We'll pretend I didn't. Is this guy's name blank? And it was his name. And he was like, because I'm at this conference or something,

and I'm hearing a story about this guy who was bragging about selling Olympic tickets and defrauding people for $3 million. I mean, I don't know if it's the same thing, but it was this guy's name. And I don't know. I guess the same thing, but it was this guy's name. And they and I don't know, I guess I guess the description match. So he's been all around. The Woods is a strip mall off of La Brea, but it's a strip mall bar. Yeah, I never wanted to go in there because it was a bar and a strip mall.

But I've heard good things. Oh, my gosh. The pictures of this place. Yeah, I want to go here now, too. This looks amazing. It's a quick one too. It's like a five minute drive from the other one. From the Frawley.

I think we got to put together some sort of van rental. You keep saying that. I hope you mean it. Oh, once the playoffs are over. Okay. Let's get to the life advice part of this. Hey, do you guys do life advice anymore or you just recap shit? No, we do it.

All right. Moving in with a girlfriend. Six foot, 150. I say wiry strong. They say string bean or Gumby. People say I play like KD during pickup hoops, though, so now I can lie to myself and say that's why I don't need to bulk up.

Didn't we have a guy compare himself to Yoki Six foot playing like KD. Oh, my God. hoops though so now I can lie to myself and say that's why I don't need to bulk up you're six one five six one playing like KD oh my god we had a guy compare himself to Jokic like last week and a guy compare himself to KD this week this is like lower your lower your comparisons guys I mean guys won't even say Bobby Portis yeah I love

Bobby Portis that'd be a great comp yeah but it's that I'm the Bobby Portis of the Y the number of guys that think they play like Jokic is unbelievable. It's like why? Because you don't run super fast.

You can't jump. Yeah, you're a little overweight. You don't have our way. You do or you don't have arguably the best vision we've ever seen.

It's the best for a big man. What would be the most ridiculous one? Like I'm the honest of my why. That's pretty ridiculous. i used to tell people i played like kg they were like what are you talking about you don't even dunk and i was like no it's just that i can whatever like if i have to play center or

point card i got it high release point you know yeah no it wasn't even about that it was more about like just the tools out of the toolbox like which ones do you need today like oh you need me to power forward no problem you need me to set screens and pop no problem although i wouldn't after a while if i didn't get any shots up and i was setting screens for younger guys i would scream like hey i'm not here to fucking screen all day guys who is your compy currently ryan rossillo pick up basketball at Manhattan Beach. I don't know. Paul Reed. I wish. I wish I had that much energy. I'm trying to think.

Maybe Sam Gash. Fullback. Okay, back to our guy here. I'm 27. Back to our 6'1 KD. I'm 27 and been dating my girlfriend who's 25 for about a year and a half she does well at work makes more money than I do she just bought a fairly nice house in I guess we'll say the city

we'll just say the city I'm not going to get to the specific neighborhood but it's a good part in Chicago that I will be moving into in July he says parentheses after July my queen what does that mean like just his queen bed his queen mattress? Maybe he's saying it because she's like their breadwinner and is taking him in.

So he's calling her my queen. I don't know. That's what I thought the first time I looked at this. I'm not sure. It's irrelevant. Should just keep moving on. Maybe he's a funny guy. Maybe he's hilarious.

He says KD and my queen and he's funny. He's the funniest KD at 261 we've ever met. All right. I do just fine on my own. Could easily continue renting or possibly buying a smaller place with myself. We're at the stage in our relationship. We want to live together. Her house has plenty of room for the both of us.

So the time seems right to move in. My lease is up. I will be paying her monthly with half going to things like taxes, HOA, and the other half towards her mortgage so I can build equity in the home with her. She says, ideally, we don't break up and then it doesn't really matter what's hers is mine and vice versa. Let's read that sentence again. The other half towards her mortgage so I can build equity in the home with her. She says, ideally, we don't break up and that it really doesn't matter because what's hers is mine and vice versa. However, we do break up. And she says she would pay me back for the amount that I've invested towards the actual home during the time I've lived with her.

This sounds like a pretty sweet setup to me. Almost too good to be true. Is there any chance this blows up in my face? Yes, there definitely is. And he says, if so, how? All right. He also said, I'm trying to make myself more useful around the place than the average tent by helping fix things and buying her some furniture. Not sure if that makes much of a difference though. Okay.

Look, this is not new. It happens all the time. Here's what I would say. It sounds like a pretty sweet deal, right? You guys are in love with each other though when you're negotiating, all right? When you fucking hate each other, the negotiations don't go as smooth, all right? And so there's a lot of times when people are breaking up. It's like, well, you said this. Yeah, I did. I said that when I liked you.

And now I don't. And now I don't want to say those things anymore. And I feel differently. So I wouldn't buy your own house because of the concern because people do break up. Happens all the time. It's going to happen again.

You just have to prepare yourself for what that could be and maybe it is a clean break we don't need emails from people sending in being like i actually broke up and i got all my mortgage back ryan you guys are no we don't need that we don't need that i'm aware that that option has happened good for you guy yeah uh you know actually okay everybody just move in together and start just having verbal agreements on how the Yeah. Uh, you know, actually, okay. Everybody just move in together and start just having verbal agreements on how the mortgage payback is going to work. Once you're found out that you're, you've been making out with a cocktail waitress,

the lodge for entire summer. All right. The woods. Let me know how your mortgage reimbursement plan goes then. Because when people break up, they do really petty shit, especially when we're talking about possessions all right i know somebody that asked for a dog back after two years because they got mad that the other person that had dumped them have upgraded and then the guy realized i'm still so pissed about this i want want my dog back. And the person I knew was like, all right, fine.

So you could put stuff in writing. You could do some of that stuff. You could even do something weird, I guess, where you could have it be sort of a neutral account where you pay into that. But then it's like, okay, so what, what'd be really weird too because if that account grew as it should, you'd be like, I'm not really that into her. And if I cash out right now, I get like six grand. Like anybody with this, go for it. But just be prepared. Right now, it sounds like a great idea because you like each other so much.

And when you're arguing over throw pillows and there's resentment because there will be resentment from one side and a breakup almost all the time. That's where a lot of these transactions or these financial planning deals, that's where they go south. Yeah. I was going to say the smoothest thing for you, the way that like, you'll be happiest with the way you're treated, I think, and in your relationship, like now is the smoother you roll into this. If you're like, yeah, sounds good. That's great. Love you. We're not going to break up. Let's do this. It's fine. And I think, but then you, you know, you do leave yourself open to, you know, whatever,

if you really think you're going to get any sort of mortgage stuff back. So I think that the way that you be happiest in your relationship is probably by just going with the flow. And I think the more you ramp up trying to make some guarantees about, you know, some paperwork or whatever, maybe the more strange the feeling it'll be between the two of you, at least when you're first putting it on the table. And not to bring it back to Judge Judy, but when you got nothing in writing, she's like, goodbye, sir. Goodbye. So just, I mean, I know, I know you probably won't be going on judge Judy if you're trying to recoup this thing, but I think most judges can be like, well, what do you have to show me? I'm like, well, she said, and he's like, okay, goodbye. So, I mean, it seems like you're not going to get any guarantees unless you,

unless you maybe write something down, but if you do write something down, it might be a little weird for your relationship. So I don't know. I think maybe just deal with the thing and how you maybe write something down. But if you do write something down, it might be a little weird for your relationship. So I don't know. I think maybe just deal with the thing. And how are all these 20-somethings buying houses? What the hell is that? He said he's 27 and she's 25. She just bought a house. Give me a break. In Chicago? He said she does pretty well, but you're right. The part of town, like she had to be doing, it was debt forgiveness who knows just kidding god um do you guys have anything you've ever argued over possession like possessional breakup no up until this point i've only lost clothes i lost some cds back in the day i was really bummed about um never got them back i asked a couple times but nothing like super major

yeah i loaned money for to get an iPhone fixed and we broke up like a month later she was like what are you talking about it's like alright well this hurts this hurts real bad because I need to get my iPhone fixed but I would really like to so whatever tough days same one who stole

my jackets you should lose clothes you're going to lose clothes if you break up in any relationship that's just that's a given i don't even think guys are gonna lose clothes not many guys are like all right snag the sweet love this yeah it's fucking sickest scarf ever she's never gonna she's gonna be so pissed um i've not yeah i've never met any any guys that were like man when we broke up it sucked but unless you're dating harry styles you know yeah i mean it's fair game what's going on with harry i think he's got a new album coming

out soon yeah pretty excited about is that what he was talking about i don't know all right moving on All right. Moving on. Moving on. We had a good one here. I think it was good. Maybe a C plus B. Oh, yeah. Here it is. Okay. Controversial Major League Baseball pitcher.

We would have figured that one out. I said pro baseball player, but I didn't read it that way. All right. 5'10", 195. Can bench maybe 100 pounds. I'm not the athletic 195, more of a loser 195. Wow. But super self-confident. No, I'm just kidding.

I'm an operation manager of a well-known hotel brand. We have an independent league baseball team in town. One of the players is the son of a well-known pitcher. Let me just say he's a controversial pitcher around the steroid era. So the player called and is coming to stay with us. So once hearing it and knowing who he is, I scheduled myself to work that day, all day. I did my due diligence and asked the son if his dad would be cool

if he could sign a ball for me. He said, of course. I was a huge fan of his growing up. He pitched for my favorite team. I remember one performance when I was young that I watched with my dad. It was absolutely insane. Remembering memories like that with my dad,

who's now not with us, got me even more excited at the chance to meet him. The question is, how do I go upon asking him for a signed ball? I know he gets asked all the time, probably. Knowing he's coming in, do I ask when he checks in, or do I wait until he's eating breakfast or just walking by? He will be with us the whole week. I think the fan in me will go batshit crazy.

I know it can be a very unprofessional thing to do when I'm checking him into the hotel. But growing up knowing this guy is one of the greats. But I know I'd shit my pants when he comes in because he is a part of my early childhood baseball memories. I will remember forever until my kids one day. Follow-ups will happen after this. After this encounter happens, you can say my name. I don't forever until my kids one day follow-ups will happen after this. Um, after this encounter happens, you can say my name. I don't give a shit about that. Uh, but I'll keep the player's name undisclosed. All right. Uh, I can figure out exactly this players. So I've met this player. It's not that hard to figure this one out um and i would tell you he's actually very

very nice in these settings so you have that working for you okay i was with this player at an event and people were heckling the shit out of him and he was one of the best i've ever seen at dealing with people heckling him he's like yeah man what's up so again if you've ever heard me tell that story where i'm leaving out the name this time because the email. But again, this isn't super hard to figure out. I would not ask on check-in. All right. And you're admitting to like the hotel would hate this.

Okay. I think I have one friend who had a buddy. No, no. This is how it works. I have a friend. He's still a friend. A younger brother who was working for a major hotel chain and a huge man, I think Pink Floyd checked into the hotel and he immediately went to Facebook,

was like, holy shit, Pink Floyd just checked into dot, dot, dot. This is amazing. Smooth. And the work was like, hey dude, in the future future can you not broadcast over facebook when we have these kinds of people checking in to the hotel like part of it is that you know just give it away right so i would not ask on check-in because then other co-workers are going to see you and then they're going to be one that doesn't there's always one person that doesn't like you and maybe it's more and they're probably going to sell you out. So don't do that. If the person is going to be there the entire week and you've already gone detective mode on this, there's a way for you to

have some casual interaction with him. I would have the interaction at the check-in be great. I'd have one more follow-up interaction. Hey, if you need anything, whatever. And then from that point on, I would not have the baseball in my hand. I wouldn't be walking around work with the baseball the whole time, but I would say to him, even my hand. I wouldn't be walking around working with the baseball the whole time. But I would say to him, even if you mention that you talk to the son, he's already heard your spiel a million times. He's numb to it.

He's going to sign the baseball for you. But just be a little cool on it from the work standpoint. And the cooler you are with him, the better he'll feel about the transaction. He's not going to want to sign a baseball when he checks in. Okay? Don't walk him up to his room unless you are with him, the better he'll feel about the transaction. He's not going to want to sign a baseball when he checks in. Don't walk him up to his room unless you actually do that, which he's going to probably figure that out.

I'd say on the second interaction, be like, hey, look, I know this happens to you all the time. My father and I watched you, whatever game, I probably can guess what the game is. It would mean everything to me, even if you want to go heartstrings there and be like, you know, my father's not with us anymore. And I did actually talk to your son about this. it would mean everything to me. Even if you want to go heartstrings there and be like, you know, my father's not with us anymore. And I did actually talk to your son about this. So I hope I'm not, you know, I know it sucks,

but it would mean everything for me. And he's remember to like guys that have been really successful. No one. I mean, granted there's people that are just complete assholes their entire lives, but when you are very accomplished and somebody comes up to tell you how great you are, they and somebody comes up to tell you how great you are, they usually don't hate that. Most people don't have a hard time with being told how awesome they are all the time. It can be repetitive and it can be annoying if done at the wrong time.

But I haven't met too many people that are like, you know what I hate is when someone tells me how awesome I am. All right. So no check-in. Don't follow him around. Maybe a more, you know, cool interaction there. If he's there, you're going to have multiple opportunities to pull this off. So just play it cool in the beginning

and then come right with it where you disarm it being like, I know it sucks. Mean everything. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Sign it. Maybe, I don't know if you say that, hey, I talked to your son

and he said it would be cool. That might actually be a mistake. I don't know. It depends on how well you know the son. So, not much left on that. I was going to add, can you, you know, obviously this guy's like a manager. Can you give him a basket of some sort? Can you hook him up with something? Like, just

kind of smooth him a little bit. That'll probably go a long way too. But you're right. If this guy's nice, like you're saying, right, it's probably not that big of a deal. A couple of monster energies and some Nabisco peanut butter crackers hey they go a long way yeah i just wouldn't linger i'd get it out and be nice and and that's that's it that's just it right i mean he's he's in his he's in his home base for the week is the only thing i would say like right your hotel is like your home base for a week i would i would want him to feel like you know i wouldn't want them to feel stared at the

whole time. So yeah, I just wouldn't linger and just, you know, just put the effort into making it as, as cool and laid back as you could be while still asking this man to sign something for you out of left field, no pun intended. So perfect. Today's life advice was presented by Modelo. Modelo knows it doesn't matter where you come from. It matters what you're made of. And when you need a little advice, it never hurts to have someone in your corner cheering you on. Modelo came from small beginnings and never gave up. That's what makes a lion.

Modelo, brewed for those with a fighting spirit. Drink responsibly. Beer imported by Crown Imports, Chicago, Illinois. Thanks to Kyle. Thanks to Steve. As always, thanks for listening to the podcast. We'll be back on Thursday with just more stuff I think we got Van

Lathan again he's always great when he joins us the Best Buy stories alone were Hall of Fame episode stuff and he's got a new book out so that's what we'll do on Thursday so enjoy the hoops talk to you then Outro Music you