The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Murray to the Hawks, Is Ayton Worth It, and an NBA Free Agency Primer With Bobby Marks

Episode Date: June 30, 2022

Russillo shares his thoughts on the trade that sent Dejounte Murray to the Hawks, speculation on Karl-Anthony Towns’s next contract, and how the Pistons exited the Deandre Ayton sweepstakes (0:33). Then Ryen talks with ESPN’s Bobby Marks about the beginning of NBA free agency, how Dejounte Murray’s contract led to him being traded, James Harden declining his player option to help the 76ers bolster their roster, what the Pistons are planning to do with their cap space, the Knicks looking to give Jalen Brunson a huge contract, the future for the Nets, why the Suns should have re-signed Deandre Ayton, and more (11:09). Finally Ryen answers some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (44:10). Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Bobby Marks Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

kind of the first day of nba free agency we'll go over what the jante murray trade to atlanta means and all the different angles on that little deandre ayton as well but also bobby marks is going to talk about the deals the hardened rumors that are going on uh what's actually going on with the nets just how this whole first few days of free agency works, and a really good couple of life advices. Really had fun with this one today, so please enjoy. We start with the news from yesterday, DeJounte Murray going to the Atlanta Hawks. San Antonio, let's take a look at this deal.

So Atlanta gets DeJounte Murray. He's on a really nice team contract, $16.5 million this year, $17.7 million next year. He's still a really young player coming off an all-star appearance. We'll get to what those numbers mean here very shortly. First for Atlanta, adding somebody like this that isn't a $30 million player who normally this kind of player would be in that kind of a trade is a huge win, not only on his talent and the age and kind of how he would complement Trey in an ideal world, but it's also much better for an Atlanta team that I think projects now at 10 million over the tax. Who knows what the final roster is going to look

like instead of a player who normally would be getting paid so much more. Now you're starting to get into those $20 million range for a tax for a team, which is always actually really important, even if we don't care about it as media and fans. Atlanta needed to be better and they needed to be different. And they said this is what was going to happen. And it's exactly what happened. Atlanta had been linked, I think, to every single possible trade rumor I've heard since before the draft. So it didn't sound like there was any way they were coming back as the exact same roster. On the San Antonio side, Danilo Gallinari comes over. He's at $21.5 million, but it was partially guaranteed originally at $5 million.

Then it was bumped up to $11 million to make the trade work. We're going to have Bobby Marks on to explain how the guaranteed and the contract was kind of changed to allow this to happen, but it sounds like he's just going to be a free agent at some point, but the waiving deadline for the guarantee has been moved. The real important part for San Antonio was just three first round draft picks and a pick swap. The first pick was Charlotte's lottery-protected 23 pick, and then two unprotected picks from Atlanta in 25 and 27, and a pick swap that's also unprotected in 26. So you're looking at this saying, okay, three unprotecteds

that start three through five years from now. What's Atlanta going to look like? I have no idea. Do they win, keep the core together, and those picks are in the 20s. This will look like a steal. Would Trey ever be somebody after a couple frustrating years saying, hey, I want out of here? I don't want to say that Trey would be the kind of, but most of the top players

at some point in this league go, hey, you know what? This isn't working out. I'm going to move. And if that were to happen, who knows? Who knows what these picks are going to be? But it's not a guaranteed win. It's getting in. It's paying for admission, getting in. And now San Antonio has, I believe, nine picks in the first round over the next five years. We'll get to that. Contract number has as much to do with it as is who he is as a player. The final year at 17.7 million, that's the number you're working off to do the extension.

We'll get to more with Bobby Marks. But Windhorse had also reported after this trade went down is that Murray and Clutch's reps were like, he's not doing an extension right now, which makes all the sense in the world because the extension is a raise off of what you're currently making. So because Murray was actually making less than what a player of his caliber would be making elsewhere, it was a team-friendly extension off the rookie deal, that it actually made it harder for San Antonio to try to get a deal done. So would San Antonio go, all right, let's wait two years? So they get ahead of this and they grab some assets. So I actually think it does make a lot of sense for them, even if you look at it, just what the actual transaction is. It's kind of the old rule that a GM told me years ago. He goes, when you trade for the best player, you usually always win the trade.

And if you go back and look at it, it's actually pretty true. If you look at all the different moving pieces and what this could be and what that could be. And we got this little piece back and all this different stuff. And you're like, yeah, but we got the best player out of it. And by the way, this guy isn't 30. He's in his mid-20s. So it makes a lot of sense for both teams. From a basketball standpoint, I think Atlanta is a team that needs to figure out what Trey Young wants to be ultimately.

And usually you get your numbers, you get your money, and then you start looking around going, I want to win a little bit more. money and then you start looking around going i want to win a little bit more and for atlanta to win despite what two years ago was and what i thought was kind of a fluky easter conference finals appearance just that okay are they going back into next year thinking that this team's going to be really good and competing for the east i actually thought at the very beginning when i first first watched atlanta in that first week or two and i go look at all this depth look at all the options they have and then they were just flat the entire season they admitted that they were flat murray gives you a different attacker. If the shooting is truly who he is now because of the improvement we saw last year from three for DeJounte, if that's really who he is, it's two on-ball attackers that should

be able to play off of each other. You just have to hope that both of them want to play off of each other and that Trey doesn't default to trying to do it all on his own, which is what makes him great, but also gets them into a lot of trouble against much better teams. Like we saw once Miami was like, you seriously think you're just going to do this the entire series? Like, that's not happening. And Miami wasn't even healthy in that series, and it wasn't close. So Trey has to sacrifice a little for the betterment of the team

to make the DeJounte thing work. We'll see, but on paper, it makes a lot of sense. And now you've added in a guard who defensively is a massive upgrade defensively against all the other guards that were kind of in this rotation of Hawks players. So I like it for Atlanta. I understand it for San Antonio. Now, San Antonio starts the process this week of something they probably should have started years ago. But Pop just didn't have it in him.

He just didn't. And even though I can say it's probably stupid that they didn't try to blow the whole thing up and move on once Kawhi wanted out. Kawhi was kind of the last star that was traded that wasn't involving a million first-round picks down the road. The weird thing on the Toronto side of the Kawhi deal, if you think back on it, is that it actually worked to Toronto's benefit that they probably knew, or at least they could say to San Antonio, he's not going to resign here. As weird as that Kawhi pursuit thing got at the very end where he has his kid rolling in some new school in Toronto. No way. I just saw him at the mall. He's staying. So Toronto could probably argue, we don't have to pay as high of a price because this is a true rental, one of the greatest rentals in the history of sports. And maybe we don't have to give, but also the trade market

then hadn't evolved into what it is now. We're talking about non-top 20 players in the league demanding three, sometimes four, first-round picks in any kind of trade. So should San Antonio have tanked earlier? Yes, but I can never get mad at Popovich for saying it just speaks, it's against everything I've ever believed in.

And I, once Pop says it, I agree. So there's this respect for something that I think was probably the wrong decision to not do it sooner. I've ever believed in. And I, once Pop says it, I agree. So there's this respect for something that I think was probably the wrong decision to not do it sooner. The other part of the first round picks that we mentioned, we get caught up a bit with the NFL mentality of what the NBA picks are valued at.

And it just doesn't work that way. There's not a history of, hey, here's eight and six and we're going to trade up and get number one. Doesn't work that way. You want to trade 22 and 29 for 19? We've got a deal for you, as we just saw with Memphis and Minnesota on that deal. Roddy was the other deal with Memphis. Now, could Murray perhaps not be that great? Could he be a little overrated? All right. Yeah, fine. I'll allow it. I'll hear it. But at this number, if you're trying to be better and

different, which is what Atlanta was trying to do. I'm not going to start picking this game apart. Does it concern me a little bit that San Antonio couldn't find a way of just going, no, no, no, you are our guy and we think we can be great with you, which I don't think anybody's made that argument. If DeJounte Murray is your best player, who are you really? Even if he continues to improve. But sometimes when the team is like, yeah, we don't know if we're going to pay him. But I still think the wind horse thing might be the most important piece of all of this. That if San Antonio is told,

hey, I'm going to market and I might not even want to stay in San Antonio. And they go, well, let's do this now instead of doing it later when we're getting much less in return and it hurts a lot more to pull this off. Now, pivoting to kind of the overall free agency stuff, I do struggle when I see number projections

for what a guy's going to sign when I'll see kind of the back end of stuff, right? I'll go, oh, man. Because you could look at this Jante thing and say, oh, well, Atlanta in a couple years, look what they're going to have to do. They've inherited this problem. They're not even worried about that right now.

When I saw the Carl Anthony Towns projections, four years, $211 million, I go, man, is he that kind of guy? If you ask me straight up, hey, if Carl Anthony Towns is your best player, who are you as a team? I go, I don't know, maybe in the playoffs. Up to this point, not really. You add Anthony Edwards into it, maybe a chance for a really nice duo. Is there something about Towns maybe I have some hesitation with every now and then? Yes, I'll admit it. But if you look at the profile of the stats, that he's third team All-NBA,

which is probably more positionally than saying Towns is undoubtedly a top 15 player in the NBA, those are kind of two different things. But that's one time where you go, all right, 211, I don't really love this. But then it turns into the fascination with never wanting to pay anybody, right? You can relate back to Murray.

Like, oh, he's really good. He's an all-star. I really like the player. He's the best guy on the team. He's really improved. What a development story. This is great. Do you really want to pay him

what it's really going to take to fight with other teams with him in free agency? Is he really that kind of guy? And so you can start to talk yourself into not wanting to pay anybody. But that's not what happens here. You have to pay somebody.

All right. Minnesota has to pay towns. Most people would have paid eight. And if you want to now pivot that part of it into the Aiton conversation, what I think is another lesson in how this all works, Detroit, go back and read all the stories. Detroit was always kind of pointed as the number one landing spot for DeAndre Ayton getting an offer and we'd have to be left with

what would Phoenix do? Would they actually just let this guy walk for nothing? And Detroit, since all of these stories, has what? Drafted a center in Durham, who they love, traded back in to go get,

using this cap space to take on contracts from the Knicks that also includes another center in New Orleans who might be there. They also have Stewart. And you could also make the argument, it's like, yeah, we have cap space, but you know what we don't want to spend it on? Centers, because we can find centers for a lot lower price. Detroit may be saying, well, we don't want to use our cap space now because we're not ready. Okay, but we're still talking about Aiton, who's in his mid-20s, and even with his deficiencies, is probably no worse than a top-30 player who was flirting with top-20 neighborhood last year, just a year ago in the finals. You're like, yeah, this guy's probably top-20. That's how we can make some mistakes, but it's not a massive mistake. So what I'd say, not even specific to Detroit, is, okay, maybe you don't want to pay him or you don't want to pay the position and you've already done some other things, so

it doesn't even make any roster sense. But if you're a bad team that's not always traditionally a destination of free agency, I'd go, wait, were you wanting to hold onto your cap space to sign the next potential top 30 guy that wants to come there? Because that's probably not going to happen. And it wouldn't even happen with Aiton if it were a normal situation, which it is not in Phoenix. to happen and it wouldn't even happen with Aiton if it were a normal situation which it is not in Phoenix busy days we try to sift through all of this and Bobby Marks ESPN front office insider

joins us so an awesome day to have him on what's a pack day so let's just get to it so the Spurs make a move here mid-20s all-star for DeJounte Murray as I say in the open I really like him this is usually not the type of player that gets traded, but as we learned from Windhorst and his reps from Clutch, we're like, look, the way this extension would work on what he's currently making, it's so low,

an extension doesn't make sense. We're going to free agency. We're not extending right away. Can you take us through more detail on how complicated this was because he's actually a very manageable number? Yeah, I mean, that's what happens

when you sign a player on a team-friendly kind of rookie extension that right now it's at 16 and a half and then the following year, it's 17 and change. You can only go off 120% off that number, right? So when we get to the salary cap in 2024,

when he's a free agent, like you see now, like the cap is going to go up 12 million from last year. This thing is going to keep on increasing. So 120% off 17 million is well below the maximum salary that probably Clutch and Murray think they're going to be worth. And any agency, by the way. I mean, you're going to see it in Boston probably with Jalen Brown. So Jalen's extension eligible this offseason. He had a non-max extension.

He's looking at his rookie extension. His max would be below on an extension. It would be below the max. So you're going to see that play out also. So Murray, we'll see him play out the two years and then get into free agency

in 2024. Just as time as those picks will start to come to fruition a little bit here. But certainly, I guess you could call it a gamble. He's a good player. I think it's just a matter of how the fit will be with him and Trey Young. I think it's interesting. I always say, and you know this too, when you have draft picks, you only have a couple swings at it, right?

If you're going to trade out, like Milwaukee with Drew Holiday, right? That's who they wanted to trade three first and pick swaps for. Brooklyn for Harden didn't work out. So now it's hard to, once you trade it out, like Atlanta did, and then go and do another deal, unless everyone loves John Collins or Capella and it's just player only, you know, there's a, there's a, you know, certainly a risk reward to it all. about paying somebody. Like if Murray were, well, if you were more established, you would have had a rookie max and then a new extension

wouldn't have been that big of a deal. So when you're already tied from this team-friendly contract, but I guess there's always a part of me where, you know, it's kind of like the winner's curse thing, which is a little different. But, you know, I remember a team

very, very long ago when I first got started on all this thing. Like, you know, sometimes when you're paying the guy, the other team doesn't want to pay. Like that's all you need to know. Again, this is a little bit more complicated. It's not as straightforward.

But, you know, I'll even look at a number like Carl Anthony Townsend I brought up in the open. I get it. You're just maxing them out. But I wouldn't admit that if I were in the room having a conversation being like, is he really this kind of guy? There's a lot of things to tell you from stats and his profile. But, you know, how tough is that when the default always seems to be protect the asset, pay the player, but that's where you end up. A lot of teams going, we really shouldn't have done that, even though we had no choice. You're going to see it probably with Zach Levine, right? I mean,

he's probably going to get five for 215 from Chicago here. And it's like, years four and five probably will not look great. Bradley Beal, five for 251 with the Wizards here. The back end is not going to be like, what's your alternative? It's like, we'll deal with it later. That's your thinking. Hey, we got it. Great. Darren Williams in Brooklyn, when we signed him in 2012, it was like, fireworks went off. Oh my God, we got this guy. And then you get to years four and five and you're talking about a buyout, right? Like, so I think it's, you know, I think there's always that concern there, but as a front office, you're thinking like, you know, what is the, what is our alternative solution? We're at the salary cap. We lose Levine. We can't go out and get, and we've already traded multiple first round picks, um, for DeRozan, um, and certainly Nick.

first round picks for DeRozan and certainly Nick. So it's tough. I mean, that's why you'd love to see guys on a year-to-year max, right? I mean, everyone like Kyrie, the year-to-year max would be perfect. That doesn't happen, right? I mean, that doesn't really happen in this world. So it is tough because you do have to look at it in like a three-year window, but you're really kind of just focusing on this upcoming season. Small other tidbit on the Danilo piece of this. It was a partially guaranteed deal,

but he had to be waived by yesterday. I know they changed kind of the language on the partial guarantee of the 21 million due this next year from 5 million to 11 to make it work. But what's happening with him in San Antonio? Yeah. So originally, so he had a $5 million guaranteed that the guarantee date was June 29th, which was Wednesday. If the deal was going to be done either on Wednesday or Thursday, they would have had to increase the protection amount, right? Because although he's technically on a $21 million contract, the league looks at what's guaranteed in the contract. Okay. So when you're looking forward, 5 million certainly doesn't match up with the $16 million of Murray coming back. So the thought originally was that the amount was going to be increased to like 10 million. You get the deal done. Gallinari eventually gets waves what happened is that they basically just amended the contract

to move the guarantee date to july 8th okay so what's going to happen now is that you'll see um you'll see uh san antonio who's going to be sitting on all this cap space right they're going to basically absorb the salaries don't have to match. Gallinari will come into cap space. He will likely get waived. He'll be a free agent probably by July 10th, I would say, around there. The big thing will be probably, you'll see every contract has a set off, right? You can't double dip. You'll probably see that removed from Gallinari, where he can get the $5 million from San Antonio, and then he can go get the tax mid-level at 6.5 or the full mid-level for another team and almost come whole to that $21 million that he could have earned. Just so we clear this up, if he's in demand and you have all this cap space and you have to get

to the floor, would there be any part of this where San Antonio would say, actually, we're not in a hurry to waive this? Has this just worked out between the agents we saw it with thaddeus young right we saw then he did the al farouk amino trade last year for derosen the thaddeus and they were able to flip him to toronto um they got a number one out of it here so i think there's probably an agreement you know already in place that by pushing that amendment back by that date back, which he didn't have to do, that he'll probably be a free agent and they'll be on the hook for $5 million. Yeah. And you could also say, well, Gallinari pockets the extra five, but if he's going to get waived and bought out, it's like, it's all going to end up being the same number. Whereas

it would still be the same number if he were waived for 5 million by Atlanta yesterday, if there were no trade and then he gets the taxpayer mid-level anyway. So yeah, I mean, it all kind of seems to land back on the same number, which is kind of crazy how this works. Let's talk about Harden. Yeah. When you've been up on the video board, and as we know, projecting out what Harden would be in 2027 is a horrifying number. It looks like Philadelphia is not going to have to do that. Woj, youj, having the story and there have been people on it where it's coming in at maybe the projections around three years,

opt out, a new three-year deal around 100 million. This is a pretty incredible win for Philadelphia if this is what ends up happening. It's huge. I mean, I did a segment this morning and basically I kind of did reverse math. So we took Harden out and what's going to happen in Philadelphia is now by him opting out and then signing for a less number, you plug in the full mid-level exception at 10.5. So who does that go to? Maybe PJ Tucker, let's say, for example. You plug in the 4.1 biannual exception. Maybe Victor Oladipo, for example, goes there. And then you look at the hard caps at 157. All right.

How much room do we have left on a new Harden contract? Is it 34 million? Is it 35 million? Is it going to be a three-year deal, four-year deal where maybe you make up that money he gave back here? But I mean, it's a huge win because as you know, if just opts in like you're basically sitting out you're like with all these other teams like brooklyn and lakers and golden state you're just sitting on that six and a half million dollar um you know tax mid-level exception here it's a huge win i mean he i mean

hey the guy's made 300 million dollars we're not going to say like you know you know give him give him an award for this but he sacrificed money money because, you know, to get better players around. And I give Daryl certainly credit. You know, I think the relationship and, you know, like this, the business is all relationship and his relationship with James came back to Houston when he traded for him from OKC. Like this had a lot to do with it. Right. As far as I will sacrifice, I'll get rewarded kind of on the back end, as long as you go

out and get two good players. It's incredible. Because, I mean, what was it? Over $60 million in 2027 for what? A 37-year-old James Harden? It was a monster. I mean, five for $270. That was the number.

So he does this. You wonder, and I always wonder, does that mean you're going to tack on a weird year at the end where everybody goes, all right, what's going on? Does it end up coming in at four, but it's pretty much sure that it's going to get guaranteed? I mean, Harden deserves a lot of credit for this. Yeah.

And you're right. We can look at the career earnings, but that's not really the way it works. So maybe it's the relationship, but I also wonder how often you go, okay, look, we know who James is now, but we also would think, like, does he want to take cap space somewhere else? Does he, does he want the four years of the new team for more to prove some kind of point to play for a team that has no chance? Like, is he over all of that? I don't know if you can talk to the player about that or if that's something the front office is. We know the guy and we know

he's not going to do this. So I don't know if it's leverage. It feels more like it's a relationship than it would be leverage. But I'd have to think that that would come into the conversation at some point, maybe not with the player, but just the front office. You know, it's interesting, right? You go back to his comments back in Brooklyn that last, I think it was in training camp when he was extension eligible for four for 180. Let's say four for 180. And he said, it's not about the money. It's not going to be about the money for him. We all like, yeah, whatever. I want to win. I want to go somewhere here. And he actually proved by doing this that it wasn't about a max extension or a max number.

I mean, he's still going to get probably $35, $36 million, maybe a little bit less. But he, as we said, he sacrificed for them to go out and use these two exceptions. Yeah. No, I mean, when they picked him up picked them up you're like okay but now you have this bill you're right 270 over 270 on the old deal versus a new deal for three over a hundred i bet it comes in i bet i bet you there is that fourth year in there and it's like 10 million guaranteed for what he just gave back or whatever there's 12 million guaranteed as far as what the haircut he took for this uh for this upcoming year let's stay on the

cap space part of it um detroit as of right now like if you go i was going back and reading the articles about deandre ayton in his search and detroit always seemed to be the favorite and maybe it was just a simple act of like kade looks like he's going to be a real guy um detroit is not always a destination especially if you think about ayton's background of like being in Arizona in high school, playing there in college, playing for Phoenix. But that relationship seemed so damaged, which I could totally understand from Aiton and Duffy standpoint, uh, that it's like, no, actually I'm, I'm fine. I'm fine going somewhere else. And then Detroit trades for Duren or excuse me, well, trades back in to get Duren in the lottery. The New Orleans piece of this, the cap space starts disappearing. Did this mean Detroit knew, or do you think Detroit said, actually, and this is something about centers, maybe it's about eight in the player. I have a different opinion of it being like if you're Detroit

and you have a chance of this guy who was top 30 and talked about maybe as a top 20 guy, you just go ahead and spend your money on this. But does this mean they knew maybe ahead of time or they just didn't like the player as much as everybody was projecting them locking them up? I think they had a realization of where they were as a roster, that they're not quite there yet to go out and spend $31 million on a center. And they've certainly shifted to that kind of taking back contracts and build up your assets. Like, you know, I think Alec Burks and New Orleans Noel are going to be there. You know, I think, you know, Kemba certainly will get bought out, but they're going to be there because you

have all these younger players here. I think, I think what you're going to see now is probably with, I think they're going to go sign Marvin Bagley to a contract, maybe in that 10 to $12 million range. Right. And then And then use that other remaining cap space on maybe going out and get a shooter here. But yeah, I think they took themselves out of the eight and sweepstakes probably the night of the draft because there was a lot of talk. Before the draft started, before they got a center, a lot of us had penciled him there.

That's the spot to go there because they had the cap space, they needed a center, but now I think they're out of it here. I got to tell you, the Bagley stuff really surprised me. I know what everyone would say, like, hey, look what he did the last month. I get so tired of reading about how great some players were on bad teams the last 14 or 15 games. That one, I don't know. I don't know your competition. Maybe there is competition on on bad teams the last 14 or 15 games. That one, I don't know. I don't know your competition.

Maybe there is competition on that one. The Bagley numbers that I'm seeing are very surprising based on the player that I've watched. Yeah, I mean, I agree when you're on a team and you're just playing out the string for the last 14, 15 games and you basically got a three-year body of work in Sacramento, right?

I mean, just go back and watch him. the inability to kind of stay on the court um you know it's it's it's one of those like when you go through the draft and you're like watching like Peyton Watson 130 like what happened and it's like I feel like with Marvin we're still in that upside right oh it's an upside signing right like the guy's been in the league though four years here yeah i know he just turned 23 i mean in march and the overall numbers in the 18 games are a huge improvement but i don't know i don't know if i'd be in a hurry to pay that guy 10 million dollars but i might end up being wrong on that one okay westbrook uh we know that it it felt like a fantasy there for a while on some of this kairi stuff uh you can't trade trade Kyrie for Westbrook if you wanted to

and tell that to Durant as mad as he probably already is about everything. So that was kind of a non-starter. You can't trade at least right now. Yeah, at least now. Maybe we'll talk in February about it. So if you look at the Westbrook part of this, you're looking at teams like Detroit we just went over. Hoarding cap space, not necessarily for the player,

but to pick up assets. It's kind of the Presti model. Look, other teams have done this. You go into the season with space. If you're the Lakers, I don't know that you want to start mortgaging even more picks down the road, especially when you're in a relationship with LeBron because LeBron just doesn't care about any of that stuff,

and who knows what happens. Does it make more sense now, even though Westbrook is a bad basketball fit to go, none of these deals are impossible. It's still a huge number to get another piece to come back from. But, I mean, is that the right play here for the Lakers to go?

We just got to go into it and hope that there's something that, at least instead of doing some of the other mechanisms, knowing we can't bring any players because we're so close to being hard-capped here, and correct any of this if I'm wrong on any of it. But I

guess that the feeling would be at least still having him on the books gives us a shot at maybe changing who we are in season instead of some of these other things just remove him from the roster yeah i mean the thought of him waving and then stretching and doing all that i mean or just waving and having that dead cap hit i mean they're in this market here i mean you're gonna see i mean this free agent market is not good like it's not i mean if you want a center you can find one in this free agent market. If you want a point guard, good luck. Right. I mean, basically it's Jalen Brunson and Tyus Jones as kind of, as your marquee guys,

especially with John Wall, likely off the board and the big guys are all probably going back home. And then, you know, certainly the Bridges situation in Charlotte. I mean, now who knows? I mean, that's another story there as far as one of the top, you know top free agents with what's going on. And I think with the Lakers here is that, you know what, we'll just bite the bullet. Let's see if Darvin can make it work, make it fit. If it can't, he's only on the last year of his contract. I think, Ryan, with the Lakers, and I think the Nets are going to go through this too, it's not a good free agent class. They have so many openings on their roster, like seven or eight, right? They're going to be in the back of the line of some of these other

teams. There's 10 teams, I'm looking at it, that are tax level, right? They just had the six, five. Teams like Golden State and Milwaukee, Atlanta, we can put in there. There's the Clippers, of course. They're behind these teams here. Like if you're a free agent on a vet minimum, or maybe you can go earn somewhere else. If you're like Otto Porter a year ago, the Otto Porter this year, are you going to go to the Lakers?

Are you going to go to Brooklyn? Wouldn't you just go to Milwaukee? Wouldn't you just go to Golden State? Some of these other teams, I think they're going to be, they're going to have a hard time filling out their bench with quality, like quality players here,

unless they just go young, right? Unless they just sprinkle maybe two vets and then they just go undrafted guys, guys who are these younger players. Yeah, I actually, when they were making their decisions like the stanley johnson when i saw that number i was like that's an absolute no-brainer yeah i mean it's it's a

complete no at that number like you have to keep that kind of guy around uh if you're the next do you give jalen brunson four years 110 million oh man that's a big number but you know if you have it um and you feel like he's your guy i mean it's like 26 like 26, $27 million. It's a monster number for, that's elite level point guard money. I mean, it really is. But me and Windhorse had this debate and we said, well, what's the difference between 24 and 27, right? 23, 25. So then if you're Dallas, right? So you're thinking, all right, there's 27 on a table. What's the difference between 27 and 31? You lose him. You can't replace him. You're over the tax. It's a huge tax hit, of course, here. So is he a $27 million guy or 20? No, but you know, the market dictatesates right like all you just need is one of these teams to come in with these like you know these super offers here and um kind of that's

what's going to happen probably with uh with new york i i kind of you know because i've been doing this just a long time and talk about it non-stop like year round i always like kind of caution like are we, are all of us on the outside getting this stuff wrong? Cause like, if you look at the, the chain of events that have happened that include kind of a Jalen Brunson decision here for Dallas,

right? So you've got Przingis when he's traded, you're like, wait, that's the best they could do. And you could play the game. You could play the results after the fact and say, well,

it didn't even work out for Dallas. So, you know, the Knicks should be happy. They got what they got. And you're like, all right, that's kind of playing the results a little bit. But then you have a Dinwiddie situation where it's like, where's he going to get paid? And then that one felt like, why did Washington do that? And then it's like, was that an agent front office thing? Or it's like, Hey, take care of our guy. And then we'll figure like, we'll get them on the books for something. We'll figure out the rest of the pieces later? So then you have these two deals that it would look like nobody would want and then they get traded for each other.

Porzingis, I guess there's still hope because I still don't look at him as like this talentless player. He's just a guy that's kind of a hard fit now and he just hasn't been healthy enough. Dinwiddie is terrific with Dallas. enough. Dinwiddie is terrific with Dallas. So that probably at that number plays into Dallas going, well, wait, do we need Brunson back at this number? We could probably just do the same thing with Dinwiddie where if you go back through all of it, maybe Przingis is still on Dallas and they're dying to keep Brunson. I think it's great that front offices can have a relationship with an agent, but that Dinwiddie deal felt like, hey, let's just get our guy to a number and then we'll worry about the rest of it later, like you said. There's just all these things that happen where I always feel like don't rule stuff out because the front offices always seem to find a way if they need, if they desperately need to get something done, there always feels like there's a relationship to figure something out.

Well, that's why we always say like, you know, like, oh my God, there's not a lot of teams that have money. And like, you know, like if you want to create cap space in this league,

you can create it. It might cost you a little bit, but you'll find a way to do it. And it's your point where you're just saying it's like almost like the Aiton situation in Phoenix. It's like, oh, wait a minute.

Can I get the same production from JaVale McGee and Bismarck Biambo and maybe go use my mid-level exception on a wing? Do I need to spend $31 million on a center? He's great for us here, but can I do something else? Or can I put him in a sign-in trade for Miles Turner and get a wing back? Or for example, can I get him to Toronto for OG? All these different mechanisms here where you're thinking like, you know, it's like a third, like, you know, you love the NFL and stuff.

And I look at when teams go through the NFL draft, like when you're drafting running backs, right? Like, do I draft a running back with my third pick or can I find good value in the late twenties or early thirties? And that's kind of how I looked at centers a little bit. And certainly with Jich and mb those guys are different but i think everyone else here where it's a it's a wing you saw the draft it's a wing league right it's a it's a it's a league of wings and in quality guards and i think

that's what phoenix is looking at it here with with you know am i going to pay him five for 180 should i just do it and then figure out how to trade them in February? We just play out the year. I mean, they're not going to lose him for nothing, right? They're not losing him for nothing. It's just a matter of like, do they want to commit $31 million to center position? That's kind of what I've always admired about Daryl Morey's approach though, where all these deals where you'd be like, what is he doing? And then he's like, whatever, I'm just going to trade him later. You know, it's crazy. I was getting calls from all these agents where you're like, what is he doing? And he's like, whatever, I'm just going to trade him later. You know, it's crazy.

I was getting calls from all these agents and stuff like that. And I'm like, yeah, Philly's going to have the biannual and the mid-level. And you look at it then, right? This was before the whole Harden thing. And you're like, no, they're not. But you figure it out, right? You figure it out as far as maybe a guy takes a discount. Maybe you make a trade here.

Like you, you just, if you want to use the mid-level exception, you will figure, you know, maybe not golden state, but you will figure it out how to do it. No,

it's a great reminder every time with this, because I remember the first time I'd heard the PJ Tucker to Philly thing. And I'm like, yeah, but what number, if there's a market for him, if all these guys want him I'm like wait so PJ's gonna do six five when there's a market and people feel like you know Miami apparently as of today his teammates were

like we can't lose this guy and then you're like okay wait you flipped Danny Green for this and then you traded the pick and like you actually got a nice wing and melton who i think can fill a lot of holes for you in a in a in a supportive role right like you're not gonna be running plays with the guy but um never i'm just gonna say one more time you can never underestimate the flexibility that we don't see on the outside miami is a great example you're gonna get jimmy butler in a signing trade how's that gonna work yeah they're meeting with with with Jalen Brunson in a meeting. How's that going to work? Right? One of the three teams. And yeah, I mean, I get it.

It's strongly likely he's going to the Knicks, but never discount what they can do down there. Right? As far as how they would... If Jalen Brunson said after he leaves the meeting, you know what? No state taxes, nice 80 degree weather, get Bam and Jimmy. I want to go to Miami.

They'll figure it out, right? Pat Riley will figure out how to make it work. I don't know if that Duncan Robinson contract would have won that. I don't know. Take it on. Because I see that get thrown out there and I go, well, you might be... But again, Miami doesn't love draft picks. There's no Goran Dragic expiring $19 million deal down there. No. Okay, a couple more things before we finish.

If you were not the final decision maker in the Phoenix front office, but you're in the front office, you're a respected guy, great resume. What is your argument in the room about the DeAndre 8 decision? That if we lose him and he split up into two players that our window will close.

The Western Conference has gotten extremely better, improved. Certainly the Clippers here, our chance of winning a championship, they probably asked me to leave after I say it. But that's my concern is how the Western Conference has been so good. And as I said, if there's a concern about the contract that he can always be moved down the road, I think it's just a matter of what the return value will be. If you said to me, you can get a starter, starting center, and a really good bench player, a wing off your bench, then I might say, all right, but where is it? Is starter on an expiring contract? And we got to go through this whole

thing again. Like it's a matter of kind of where the length is. But for me, I would, I would give the recommendation to pay him. I get it. I understand everything that comes with it and then kind of worry about it as far as, you know, as the season goes. Okay. Last thing here, I imagine, you know, the Nets are still a team that you're pretty plugged in with. I can't say none of the Kyrie stuff is surprising, but Windhorse was adamant about, okay, just because he opted back in,

which it felt like some of that was a created leverage thing that the Nets were just not that afraid of. The Kyrie for $6 million, although I said earlier this week on my podcast, if there was one player that would decline a 36 million dollar player option and play for the taxpayer mid-level which i guess is just the tax mid-level they've rephrased it uh it would be him but it still would seem really surprising uh but when or is saying this isn't

done i'm curious like based on your conversations how would you describe the current net situation with the roster and still uncertainty? You know, it's funny, you know, when I go on TV and do the touchscreen, I put that starting five up there with Kyrie and Katie and Joe Harris and Simmons and Seth Curry. I'm like, man, it's a good team. Right. Like, and then you think like, well, there's so much else that comes with it. Right. There's like the, the, like, I always say we're in this honeymoon period, the offseason, because games are not being played. And maybe we can attribute that to him opting in

and the drama maybe goes away. I think there's a cloud over this organization right now based on, as we talked about earlier, do guys want to go play there with the Kyrie situation? Am I going to be attached to him in a trade down the road here? You've seen the last three years, it's been drama every year, right? Even the year that KD didn't play,

there was drama with Kyrie here. I just look at it like, I mean, if it was me, I would have been more content just blowing the whole thing up. I would have been, and I know that's hard to say when, you know,

you just trade a boatload of picks to Houston and the hardened, um, in the hardened deal. I would have been content with him walking to the Lakers for $6 million and Kevin Durant coming into my office asking to be traded. I would have been. Because I think it would remove that we're a 4-10, there's some adversity here. Kyrie, are you going to come to practice today?

Is he going to ask to be traded? Maybe he pulls a Ben Simmons and doesn't report to training camp. Like there's so much there that it's not going to be like training camp. Everyone's going to be all happy and everything. Where, you know what? Maybe we just trade.

We trade Kevin Durant. We just build through the draft or we just get a young player, a couple of young players and we go there and we take our licks for a couple of years. But everyone will be happy, right? Everybody will be working towards the same thing here.

And I just, I just, I have just have concerns about Brooklyn moving forward, although he opted in and, you know, he, he'll be, he's under contract here, but what's the end game here? Like what eventually is the end game, whether it be a trade deadline, whether it be next off season, when we're talking about Kyrie. He's a free agent. Are we dealing with the

Durant situation again now? Kyrie's going to go sign with another team and now we've got to worry about trading KD on a three-year contract. That's my concern as far as from the Nets' perspective. Yeah, they're starting five. It's great. Are we ever going to see it, though?

What's the bench going to look like? So, um, I, you know, I still have, as I said, like, you know, there's certainly a lot of concerns, um, for me from that perspective. Bobby Marks, uh, and by the way, congratulations on the new deal with ESPN. Thank you. I know that, was funny because I congratulated you. Your work is awesome, and I always appreciate you answering my late night, like, hey, wait, how the hell would this work thing? Just I want to double check because I don't want to get this wrong. And then it's always met with, oh, the guy that traded all the picks. And I go, you know, when you work for a Russian billionaire that does jet skiing videos.

Oh, my God. I heard it all during during the um celtic series and when they got to the fine i said i did a little video on on the on the um when they got like people still bust it's like i feel like saying like it was fucking but sorry i'm swearing nine years ago right like like goodness like i always say like god damn it jason tatum was a sophomore in high school right like i didn't i wasnilly. Oh no, look, it's still a bad trade, but I think I want to tell you. No, no, it is. Hey, trust me.

Like I'm not washing my, the worst part of it is the pick swap, right? Like, and that's where we go back to the Atlanta. I mean, I know we're going to end here soon. Like the Atlanta, like why'd you add the pick swap there? Like the pick swap is the worst thing as far as leaving unprotected and giving an unprotected, like the pick swap, the worst thing as, as far as leaving unprotected, um, in, in a, you

know, giving an unprotected, like the pick swap, which I think turned into jail and Brown or me, I guess it was Jim Brown. Like, that's like, that was my big thing. Like, why did we have to add the pick swap to the Celtic deal? Hey, it was a bad deal. It was one of those deals where like you get, you, uh, we've talked about it before. Like, you know, at the end of the day, it's day it's like your parents went away for the weekend they came back and the house burnt down right like what just happened right it was so beautiful and stuff but you know during the celtic series and the finals like people like bust me hey you're the guy that traded the three first round for whatever and i still i still i'll probably hear until i'm 80 years old in this business here but everyone makes bad deals,

right? Like everybody makes that of course got magnified. And it's funny, like there was a part of me at one time, cause I'm a human being like, man, I don't want these Celtics to go to the finals. Like maybe like 2017, do that. Oh my God. I hope they lose in the second round here. But now like, I've just gotten over it and I'm like, God damn, Jason Tatum is a good player. Jalen Brown's a good player. They got a heck heck of a coach they've done a nice job with their front office building their roster you know like they deserve to be there like they've earned it and stuff like that and if they want a championship who cares you know i'm not going to take it to my to my grave and everything that newest new extension must have been nice then to be at peace with it uh no but the thing that I always want to point out to anybody,

it's like, in what world do you think Bobby Marks rolled into Prokhorov's office and was like, look, this is what we got to do. And Prokhorov was like, I'm against it, but whatever you say. With also another piece insulating you from all of that. I still remember when I have a calculator here and I was doing the math. This is what the luxury tax is going to be, right? $70 million. Okay.

We're good. Okay. Let's go. Well, that's a nice note to end on. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was the wrong note. Bobby Marks is going to be all over ESPN's free agency coverage around the clock, being on TV, doing podcasts with all those guys. So thanks so much for finding some time for us today.

Talk to you soon. I appreciate it. Thanks. You want details? Bye. I drive a Ferrari 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you can possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you can possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Life advice is lifeadvicerr at gmail.com.

We had a bunch of emails on the guy looking for a swole mate. I thought this one was terrific. It was quick and it was smart. And I didn't think about it because I don't do this. So we're just going to share. I'm always, hey, iron sharpens iron. Sometimes I need help too. All right.

Never thought I'd email the gang, but I have a solid idea for fit guy looking for a fit gal. I know he said he belongs to a gym. For the sounds of it, it's your typical clang and bang gym. and for the sounds of it, it's your typical clang and bang gym. I'm thinking he should branch out to a CrossFit thing or a group class gym, you know, where they're pushing this stuff around outside in the AstroTurf. Somebody's yelling at you, maybe a little hot mic going. It's a completely organic way to meet women without just approaching them while they work out.

Most of them have a warm-up stretch session before the class starts. So perfect time to talk, whether you read this or burn it, you still have a fan. Uh, well, thanks man. We have,

you have, well, one fan, at least in me, I'm not going to speak for Kyle or Steve on this one. It's a really simple idea. I should have said it. Didn't think of it.

Never done anything like that. Like we will never do that, but, uh, great idea. You know, you get in there and start stretching it out and be like, man, my hammies are tight. Jesus Christ. Maybe don't like that. Likely we'll never do that, but a great idea. You know, you get in there and start stretching it out and be like, man, my hammies are tight. Maybe don't do that,

but you get the point. I mean, say what you want about CrossFit, but yeah, those, that, that, that crew they're tight knit. Like they have each other's back. They would take bullets for each other. So honestly, this is a great call and I'm pissed off. We didn't think about it. It's the greatest call. And that's why I read it. Cause it's actually, he's not even giving himself enough credit for how good the email is. Cause that crew is not, it's like, I think you get jumped in to join up. And then that's why that there's such a passionate connection after the fact.

And they always drink like micro brews together. There's fucking, some of them have jackets and stuff. And I, I don't want to call like, cause cults usually are about real estate too and i don't know if that's what so uh i think the crossfit idea is terrific just start trying to figure out some different classes you know you get to cheat on your pull-ups if i can be like

yeah i did 48 the other day we're back let's go uh the only thing i would say i think this guy tweeted at me that was a great idea unless there's another guy who tweeted at me it's like if your gym has a class just take a class maybe um i don't know what class you would take at your gym but i would argue there's some like you've got to look a certain way if you're going to be a guy thinking that you're going to work your way into the all-female class at the traditional gym just just say like i've noticed that guy a few times we're talking spin or yeah you're gonna be a good looking guy but like if you're a guy that's not maybe like every every one of us should know whether or not we're attractive to other people at this stage in

our lives like and trust me nobody appreciates a delusional guy maybe more than i do i mean i'm motherfucking him under my breath just like the rest of everybody else listening, but there's part of super delusional guy. We have a current super delusional guy at the gym who's sort of new on the scene. I don't want to fully describe him because this podcast is kind of big and I don't want to deal with it, but the tank situation, he's rocking right now

and he just will straight up fire on trainers now. And I haven't really seen him in the rotation up until recently and i'm looking at him going what what are you doing but then at the same time you know he's doing he's doing what no one else is doing he's doing the thing a bunch of other guys want to do but just don't want to do and this guy's like i don't care i'm sweaty as hell but i'm throwing massive dumbbells around i've got i want to say what the tank said but i'm just afraid it's gonna like there's gonna be some eye rolling next time well not i don't know it'll come back to him but there's

plenty of guys at the gym who do listen and then there's gonna be like i can't believe you brought up the new guy and i'm like yeah so we're just gonna we're just gonna leave it at that but uh he's hot like he's a good looking no no no oh okay i'm saying he's delusional chances hot guys aren't delusional they're just hot and they get away with everything that's what i was going to say if you if you're the kind of guy that's like comfortable and you're like the only guy in like a yoga class of two dozen women there's a good chance that you're not struggling in that department to begin with so it's usually like the average joe who's like hey i'm kind of out of place here so if this guy's delusional and he's still doing this, good for him. Yeah, I'm not. I guess

I am criticizing every single thing about him, but I also respect the approach. But I'm just suggesting if you've never been like every one of us should kind of know how desirable we are or are not. And you should know how desirable you are or are not in different social circles.

Right? Like there's times where i'll just be straight up like oh i'm so fucking old these people right now like you know just so you just so you check yourself again here you're a hundred and uh if you're going to go into an all-female like you know regular class i'm just saying like has anybody liked you in the last two years do you have a tanning bed at home you know there's just a few things that i'm just thinking about maybe the tanning bed doesn't doesn't matter i don't want to get in a war with tanning bed people i'm just there's there was a tanning bed guy back when i lived in burlington who like also sort of managed

strippers on the side nobody quite knew what his deal was he was actually super friendly in person but like the second you would turn around, he would ask your girlfriend to strip for him. And you were like, all right, this guy needs to be banned. So there's a tanning bed thing there. That's my own garbage that I need to work through. Some trauma there. Okay. I noticed Kyle and

Steve just stopped talking because they're like, are you going to get to another one? No, no. All right, here we go. Dad's a realtor. 5'8", 180. Thinking about rattling off impressive lifting stats to fit in with the other emails, but frankly, haven't been to the gym since the Bush administration. That's 43. All right. Anyway, huge fan. My dad was just starting up in the real estate business viewers back when my wife, let's call her Karen, super popular name right now. And I were looking for our first home. I know people say don't mix family and business,

but I felt pressured to use my dad as a realtor. All right. Makes sense. Throughout the process, my dad did a decent job. Decent is not the adjective we were looking for there. And he had mentioned he would give us some of his real estate commission as a quote gift since we were first time home buyers and just starting a family upon the purchase of the home my dad never mentioned it again and we didn't see any part of

the commission my wife has pressured me for years didn't we have something like this it was fairly similar we had the dad that wanted to help with all the the stuff around the house all right and we suggested you just hire somebody who comes by i was like who's doing your trim work this guy's a hack that was one of our better advices yeah yeah yeah like yeah actually yeah that was probably me at my peak okay all right so um my wife's pressured me for years about my dad not following through with it but i never had the balls to say anything for the background i like to avoid controversy like the plague especially with my family uh by the way man that's not i like controversy or i i shouldn't say controversy conflict i think is the better word here sometimes i like conflict but in the family

part of it sometimes you're like i just don't want to strain things beyond what it is now so i i don't think you need to to feel too bad about that but he does continue here he says i'm the guy that won't send food back at a restaurant, even if it's wrong, just for the sake of avoiding controversy. Again, it's not really controversy here. You just somebody gave you the wrong food. I ordered a Caesar salad once and the waiter brought a bowl of chili and hot wings. I didn't say a thing and proceeded to uncomfortably sweat bullets for 20 minutes.

All right, that's... That's excessive. That's a bit much. Now I'm starting to think this isn't even real. Like if it's a house salad versus a Caesar, you just let it slide.

If it's buffalo wings, I don't know. I ordered scrambled eggs. They brought out mozzarella sticks. It was 6 a.m. I'm sorry. I hate controversy. I get some more marinara.

All right. So fast forward today, three kids later, we've outkicked our coverage and looking to upgrade to a larger home. Hey, maybe you just worked hard. It could also be that too. Maybe you didn't. All right. Given my stubbornness and just the awkwardness of not using my dad as a realtor, we decided to use him again on the sale of my home. The process has been a nightmare from the start. My wife keeps asking me to bring up the commission thing again. I keep deflecting. My dad provided very little guidance in the early stages of the process. We have never sold a home before and has frankly lacked attention to detail. Given our purchase price and where homes are still currently trading in my area, this should be a significant wealth creation event for us, but feel like my dad is flubbing the entire process. I'm not touching the commission thing

with a 10-foot pole, so my dilemma is this. Is it too far along in the process to fire my dad for the sale of our home, but how do I approach the purchase of our next home? To close here, I have a decent relationship with my dad, but saying I want to use another realtor on our next home would be a family crisis that I'd rather not create as we spend a lot of time together with my kids, etc. However, I am concerned we are not getting the best quality of service along with the stress and work that already goes into buying and selling a home. Okay. A lot of people are going to listen to this and be like, hey, fuck the dad. Yeah, way easier when

it isn't your dad and you're listening to a podcast on an email, all right? That's not how we operate here. But it's kind of leaning there, man. So the commission thing, is it because your dad lies to you or is it because your dad's older heads dads tend to be

once their grandparents and they just forgot you know did they forget about this now the commission and what the gift back was probably i don't know i don't want to guess here but you know it wasn't going to change your life on that money but it's still a shitty feeling when you feel like somebody again it's your dad it's kind of gone back on what he said he was going to do. But that is an entirely different category, a screw up of him not getting you the best possible price for an asset that you have. That's usually for most everybody, the biggest asset you're ever going to have in your life. It's nice to do well on those things. It sucks when you don't and it sucks when you look at zillow after the fact even though zillow's the realtor's enemy and it's also you know it's a lot of fun you

type in zillow i mean zillow's popular because you're like maybe my life will be different if i live in in whitefish like that's why zillow's so popular you just start like hey oh my god it's 0.8 miles to the library i'm gonna fucking do that all the time uh anyway that's there's a zillow rant in there that i have that's somewhere else but i'll pitch it to uh bargazzi so what i'm looking at here is you're starting to see where he's not putting in the and you're looking at comps for your house like what does he say when you go okay what do you want to list this at? What do you think the comps are? See, this is where you have to be proactive, which is sort of conflict, but not really

straight up conflict where you're not saying, hey, I'm going to fire you. You have to be on him. He's your realtor. And you go, where do you want to list this? Why do you want to list it there? Show me the other comps. Why do you think our house is higher or lower than this one? All the same stuff you'd have to ask the other person that you need to replace him with.

house is higher or lower than this one. All the same stuff you'd have to ask the other person that you need to replace him with. Now, there's also another version where you could go, hey, my wife's best friend's a realtor. No, she isn't. And we're using her. It's my wife and dad. We never got any of the money back that you said you were going to give us in the commission. And he can't really argue against that, but it's way easier or maybe down the road. Like you're trying to think down the road, what's the thing I can avoid the most? If you just straight up fire him without any excuse, like a white lie here, I don't think it's the end of the world because you're actually still doing him the favor. It's actually coming from a good place. You don't want to damage the relationship by just

straight up firing him. I don't know the relationship with the mom is does your mom have your back or will you tell your mom and your mom will be like oh fuck him um which is how some moms can be about the dads and then your mom's going to use it against your dad later on when they have an argument about takeout uh so you know you don't know i don't i don't know what the trust level is here, but you can't let your dad do the sale. You can't. And what you have to work on is minimizing his feelings because you're still his son and you can't treat this as just a cold business transaction, but ultimately that's what you need to do. So I would go to the wife and say, hey, here's what we're going to do. I'm going to tell my dad that your friend, whoever we pick as a new realtor is your best friend and you're pushing and pushing, pushing. I'm going to tell my dad that he's going to get upset. And I'm going to

say, hey, you put me in a terrible spot because you told us you were going to give us some money back on the commission. You didn't do it. And now I'm arguing my wife about my dad the whole time. And I just need to remove myself from the entire fucking process. And if it's so important to you, I will give you a cut of, I'll give you a couple grand, even though I don't feel like I should have to. And again, I know some people are going to listen to me say this or hear this or say this and go, why would you be giving money back to your dad when he fucked you on the first part of the deal? But if you could just start to plant these seeds, he's probably going to say, no, I don't want the new money. He might even say yes on the old money. Like deep down, if he's remotely honest with himself, they'll have to be, whether it's with

you publicly or privately, where he has to admit to himself, you know what? I didn't do what I said I was going to do. This isn't about a gender thing because you don't want to be a man about it, but that's kind of what I'm saying. Sometimes you have to have a moment where you're like, I let my son down here. I don't know if he's going to do that. Maybe he's delusional. Maybe he's going to remember it completely differently than you. But just straight up firing him for no reason, that's going to be a longer term damage you're

going to have to deal with instead of moving on to a new realtor, fibbing a bit about the relationship with the wife. And then if push comes to shove, you kind of have an out for why you're doing this because you've had your wife nagging you about this commission thing that didn't happen. Now, granted, yes, there's another level to this where now does this mean there's more tension between your wife and your dad and this whole thing? I'm telling you right now, there's going to be way more tension with you and your wife five years from now when she's looking at Zillow and the house that you sold is 20% fucking beyond what your dad got you for the house.

That's going to be a worse long-term relationship than it is your dad being upset at a cookout three years from now because he got cut out of a deal he should have been cut out of before. Yeah, this is like a classic. I mean, you're not going to know what I'm talking about here, Ryan. This is like a classic. Everybody loves Raymond scenario. The parents are very involved. You know, Frank, Frank, life loves to help. Ray Mons. Yeah. Raymond Barone, Frank, Frank, life loves to help. Ray Munns.

Yeah. Raymond Barone, comedian, great actor. Turns out Frank loves to help. You know, he's always he's always taking apart the washer. He's like, everything's great, except I couldn't figure out how this thing went back in. And they just needed him to stop helping with one thing. They went with an outside guy. He was hurt.

But so my point is, it is a real conundrum. They write whole episodes about this shit. This isn't one of those life advices where it's like, you know, man, it's fine. Just talk to her. Just relax. Don't, don't be, it's not like you really should be, um, thinking about this, but I think, I think, yeah, that's, that's correct. This is, this is, this is huge money we're talking about. Like you said, it's probably the biggest asset you'll ever own. And also, you know, it could really drive a wedge into your relationship. It sounds like your wife felt steamrolled the last time and she's like, wait, we're doing this again?

So yeah, I mean, you have to, wherever you find the guts to do this, you look around and you'd be like, you're going to be upset about the money if it's different. Even if it works out well, you'd be wondering what could have happened if you didn't do the same thing again. She might end up resenting you. You guys might be fighting about this. It's her life too. If she's like, well, we have to do it this way because your dad decided he's a real estate agent or something. So yeah, you got to find out a way to get out of this one. But you're absolutely right to be... You're not overthinking it because you won't send back chili when you ordered salad. This is like a real thing and it's family. So're right to be concerned but yeah you got to get this done pal um my wife's a

realtor and she has to be pretty good at her job so we don't really run into this issue a ton but there have been some things where like you know if a family member we know that they're going to sell their property like it's it is there's like a little bit of an awkward stage where you're like is she going to give us a call are they not going to give us property. Like it is, there's like a little bit of an awkward stage where you're like, is she going to give us a call? Are they not going to give us a call? Like, should we be offended by this? Should we not be offended by this? I'm typically never offended by any of it. And I know it's different

if it's like straight up your dad. So I understand that. So I totally understand where you're coming from, but I'm going to talk this through. Okay, Ryan, correct me if I'm wrong, but the seller pays the commission, right? On these, on any transaction, you can buy a house, seller pays the commission, right? On any transaction. You can buy a house, seller pays the commission, right?

Yeah. I mean, every now and then there can be like a weird, if you're looking at something. But yes, the simple answer is yes. I just don't want to say absolutely in every single real estate transaction ever. Right. The seller pays out the commission. So what I'm thinking is you can say, hey, we're going to go with a different person to sell the house because we don't want you,

like you play on them, be like, hey, we're looking out for you. We don't want to ask you to take a cut on like a commission here. So we're going to use a different real estate agent and then kind of play it like you're doing him a favor. And, you know, because that's still like probably a couple grand that he could make,

maybe more than that, that you're asking him to not do what you didn't do in the first place, which would have come from the original seller of the house that you bought. So I think you can kind of play it that way and just say, hey, we're going with a different person. It's one of my wife's friends. You know, she's trying to maybe just play it off. She's trying to get started in the business, and she's willing to take the cut on the commission to, you know, start her career, upstart her career. We don't want to ask you to do that. You can kind of play the good guy

in this scenario. And that might be able to help you avoid any sort of conflict in this situation. Yeah. I mean, there's also like, how well does the parent, how well does the dad know every relationship in the wife's life? It's true. They have three kids together.

So this is like this, you know, this is not an eloping situation here. So he could be like, well, I don't know. You know, and then if he feels like, oh, I've been lied to, it could have put, look, your dad, this is not just a, hey, my dad's a part-time realtor. He's listing our house. We're going to end up not doing nearly as well.

We see all the signs. We see it coming. I need to move on. That is still a decision you would have to make. Like, why would anyone ever say, nah, man, it's your dad. He's the best. Just let him fuck you over on the deal like you know like i think there's some people

that maybe allow that to happen but you're never going to feel good about it you're just not you know like i've had a couple things not go great and i've never forgotten it never like you know on real estate things i've been like that's not what should have happened but there's also just real estate it's rudy getting it in uh i would i'd said you know maybe there's a small segment of should we do the realtor perspective slice of all of this who might be listening um many realtors listen where they're going hey all of you guys are idiots and every one of you thinks that your house is worth more. And every one of you wants to list it for way more than it is. And you think like the uniqueness, it's like, it's like when NBA

teams draft a player. And then two years later, they're asking more for the player than the market thinks. They're like, hey, what are they asking for, for that guy? Like, oh, they're insane. They want way more for that guy. Guy's not even nearly as we're like oh wait the team that drafted him in the lottery likes him like of course they do it's the guy they picked two years ago they evaluated all of these players and they're like that's the guy we want when the pick came up so they have a different uh you don't even say valuation valuation of the actual asset and in this case like you at one point picked the house you live in now granted some of us have lived in houses that we hated. I have a few apartments that I wasn't super emotionally attached to just because I picked it at one point. But you get the point is that the homeowner can be

insane in the process. But I don't think that's really what we're getting here with the email. So as I said, to finish this all off, your dad planted a seed that you now need to use against him. And it isn't just a straight, I want to fire my dad. You can say, hey, look, my wife has been on me about this commission thing. And it's just, I don't know who your dad is. Is he somebody that forgets? Is he somebody that's actually like, money really screws with people, man. And it's like, sometimes people just like being like, oh man, I made out on that. And you're like, what on your son? Like you promised this thing and then you didn't do it.

And like there's some fucked up part of you that's like, yeah, but I, you know, don't ever rule that part of it out. But I think you now need to, as evil as it sounds, use it against him. Because the last, the most important part, if you screw up selling your house, if it's actually worth way more than you can tell your dad's going to mess it up, your wife is going to be way worse about this. Even if she's the greatest ever. The same way if I were married and my wife was like, I have to use my mom realtor. And then I'd be like, Hey, that was, remember that time your mom sold her house for fucking 50 grand below what we should have gotten for it because you didn't want to have an uncomfortable conversation? I don't know. I mean, people can get along, but that's not really something that people forget.

All right. Female checking in here real quick. Is OnlyFans cheating is the question. A friend of mine, let's call her Sarah, recently got engaged to a guy named Mark. Oh, so we protect her name. I'm just kidding. They have discussed finances in the past, but have never done a deep dive until now.

My friend had the idea to start with basic budgeting. They agreed on printing out their credit card statements to get a general idea of spending habits. As they were reviewing Mark's statements, he casually acknowledged a monthly subscription to an OnlyFans account. Sarah was shocked by the nonchalance with which Mark revealed this.

On one hand, she appreciated his transparency, but Mark's level of comfort in telling her suggested he found no wrongdoing in this dude he printed out the statements it was like oh that's my only fans 19 well how would i don't if i say it out loud it's like oh is it like 20 bucks is it 1999 what is it i think you get you set your price the market dictates i think is it yeah okay all right yeah depends on how good yeah sarah's limited knowledge of only fans led to her belief uh to believe that this was more a more personalized porn site so is that the deal it's a little i don't know i think no one knows i mean it's patreon for porn right isn't that what it is it's like some guys like uh some guys have a patreon

for five dollars who are like comedians and you you get to podcast ad-free a day early for $5 a month. And then some guys are like, there's a tier for $20, and you get an extra episode that nobody saw. I imagine that Patreon is the same way as OnlyFans. Yeah, and I'm not trying to come off like I'm some prude about all this. I just don't know. I don't have an OnlyFans account. All right. It looks like it's between $5 and $50.

All right. So it seems a little bit more personalized. some prude about all this. I just don't know. I don't have an OnlyFans account. Alright. It looks like it's between $5 and $50. Alright. So it seems a little bit more personalized. So the question she's asking us is, is there a difference between OnlyFans and porn? It sure sounds like it. It sure sounds like it. Although somebody recently told me they thought they could make money selling pictures of their feet. And they're like, how do you feel about

that? And I was like, well, Dave, they're going to pay you to see your feet buddy nice uh number two is having an only fans account constitute as cheating thanks for the help i don't know it sounds like mark doesn't think it's cheating yeah i think there's i think there's a i don't know if it's a full-blown red flag, but maybe a sun-bleached deal here. It's like a pink flag. It's been hanging out on the beach, on the porch for a generation. I don't think it's cheating.

I think Mark is a little bit too naive in this. I think clearly he's doing something wrong. I don naive in this clearly he's doing something wrong I don't think he thinks he's doing anything wrong I know he doesn't but I would say it's porn only fans and then you get into physical contact

that's the next one is physical contact where would you put a strip club in that that's like in person only fans almost well i would go i would go in porn strip club only fans wow then and then texting all night with your medical device sales assistant hookers yeah that's fair that's fair okay i've told you guys a story about like the the there was this i don't i think i dabbled in this story but didn't do the full-blown which i'm not going to do now but it was like oh what's going on with them she's like i found out

husband's just addicted to prostitutes i was like how was how did the conversations around the house work post that like how was your weekend oh just can't get out of my system all right well we're gonna pack lunches for the kids uh figure it out yeah maybe mark also printed out forgetting that he used that card for only fans the whole thing and then he did the nonchalant like i'm so busted but like is is like what's the big deal right right knowing inside he's like sweating mental bullets but on the outside he's like what are you talking about instead of being like oh my god i got busted and making it worse he went the other way like what's your problem yeah i wouldn't i don't think that's ground like i think it's grounds to be pissed off about but it's it's

still pretty far from cheating you know what you could do you'd be like all right let's log on i want to see what you signed up for and what's going on here. And if he's getting personalized stuff back to him through it, yeah, I think that would be, hey, just flip it back on me. If I found out my wife had an OnlyFans account and Rick is just fucking dancing for her, I'd be like, what's this all about? What are we doing?

I guess, what's the number on the statement? Is it $5? Is it $10 a month? If there's like, you know what I mean? yeah i guess thing what is the what's the number on the on the statement is it five dollars is it ten dollars a month if there's like you know what i mean is is it like yeah is it the monthly point is it the monthly bill and then there's like 699 899 four days later ten dollars 25 dollars like is it is it that sort of deal or is it just it's the is it the monthly subscription to a different kind of porn your standard your standard basic are or is it just it's the is it the monthly subscription to a different kind of porn your standard your standard basic are you is it just the same as like a pornhub gold thing like is you know what i mean is that is that is it like xbox live or something you know is it just

pay to play like i guess that's what i'd want to know is if it's just a standard once a month bill just don't give him a hard time i mean it'd be like hey i think we could maybe stop paying for that together that'd be nice but she's gonna give him a hard time. I mean, it'd be like, hey, I think we could maybe stop paying for that together. That'd be nice. But she's going to give him a hard time. Either way, he's going to get a hard time. It's whether or not. Yeah, it's whether or not like she's like, like, do we do I have to think about the future?

I don't think you were betrayed. Yeah. I wouldn't call off the wedding. But. You know. Does anyone know Mark? Does anyone else in the friend group know Mark? Does anyone have any background on him? You know, does anyone know Mark? Does anyone else in the friend group? No. Mark,

does anyone have any background on, you know, does anyone know anything about him? Um, yeah, yeah, I could, I could see not loving it. I can also see it not being the end of the world either.

Okay. There you go, Mark. That's a good one. Yeah. Life advices are gmail.com. Thanks. Kyle and Steve,

uh, NBA free agency get ramped up. Hopefully this is still relevant by the time it posts. And also, granted, there's going to be something that'll happen

before this comes out. But Bill and I are going to do a big deal on Sunday wrapping up what had been the first few days of free agency. So get geared up for that.

Never rest over here. Ringer, Spotify, The Rhyme of Soul Podcast. Thanks. you