The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Nash Out, Udoka in? Nets Headlines With Frank Isola. Plus Tales From the Couch, CFB Top 12, and Life Advice.

Episode Date: November 2, 2022

Russillo shares his thoughts on the Nets parting ways with head coach Steve Nash, Nash's tenure as Nets HC, and reports that suspended Celtics coach Ime Udoka is the front-runner to fill Brooklyn's head-coaching position (0:33). Then Ryen recaps some NBA games in another edition of Tales From the Couch, including: Suns-Timberwolves, Nets-Bulls, and Warriors-Heat (13:00). Then Ryen is joined by Frank Isola of ESPN, YES Network, and SiriusXM to discuss Steve Nash's two and a half years as coach of the Nets, the seemingly endless number of Nets headlines over the past few years, the uncertainty around Ben Simmons, what Udoka could do for this Nets team, and more (24:23). Then Ryen gives out his rankings for the top 12 teams in college football (58:01), before answering some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (1:04:01). Host: Ryen Russilo Guest: Frank Isola Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Okay, a lot of net stuff today. We're going to have it covered for you. Nash out, Imei Yudoka possibly in. What that story means. We're going to check in with Frank Isola. Before we do that, though, a little Tales from the Couch on three games from last night. We have my college football top 12 now that I'm back in the States and a life advice that goes. I want to start with the Nets news, and there's a lot of it here.

Steve Nash is out as head coach. I don't know that any of us are surprised. If you've watched the Nets, they've been a mess this year. They lost to the Bulls last night. We'll cover that game in Tales from the Couch a little bit later on. So Nash is out after seven games, and the word is Emei Adoka is going to take over as head coach. So there's a lot to get to. So we look back to the summer, full of bullshit. Durant wants to trade with four years left on his contract. He wants Nash and Marks out if he's coming back. Joe Sy, who's a terrific owner of the Nets, I would stand by that. He decides that, you know what, I'm actually not going to give in to the star, and we're not going to trade you, and we're not going to give Kyrie.

And it felt like, is this something new? I don't know. I don't know about that. I feel like more often than not, a lot of these examples are just kind of one-offs. And in this situation with Durant having this much money left on the deal and them not liking the returns and then deciding, you know, we're not giving Kyrie away here either, but we're not giving you a new contract and we'll call your bluff remember the reports that kairi was going to opt out and play for the mid level for like six million dollars uh and they they really pushed that up into the last day i was like no i'm gonna

opt in and stay here um because kairi thought there was another contract out there longer term form somewhere else so all this stuff's going on and it felt like a little bit of a pushback in the power play by ownership to say, no, actually Marks and Nash are going to stick around. But they had to get off to a good start. They didn't. They're terrible so far. Nash actually went 94 and 67 with his team.

Every time I see that record, I'm honestly impressed. I'm like, wow. That's actually really good considering. The Katie Kyrie Harden group, they played 16 games together. And you move out Harden for a guy who plays and another guy in Ben Simmons who doesn't play. You have Kyrie, who is a Hall of Fame, waive the five-year waiting period distraction. This guy cannot help himself.

All right. This guy cannot help himself. And the latest controversy of tweeting, but not saying he promoted, he had this nasty back and forth. Nick Friedle covers the team known for a while about what he was endorsing and what he wasn't. Antisemitic movie with themes that, you know, been debunked. If you want to go and read about it, you can. I always feel like there's different levels of intelligence that we can have where I think one sign of intelligence is being less impressionable. And I know when I was younger, I could be impressionable about things because you're just kind of going through experiences for the first time. Now, yeah, you can be smart. You can be great at math. You can read some books. You can think you're smart. But as you get older, you hopefully become less impressionable, you would think. I mean, there's also another version of it. You don't want to be absolutely unimpressionable. Nothing ever makes you change your mind about anything. But Kyrie reminds me of that buddy who you're just gonna like do you see these

these emails he sends us and then you start talking to that buddy a little bit less just like what happened to that guy like oh I think he moved to like Utah or something or I don't know Michigan like not downtown though like yeah does anybody talk to him like no not really the difference here is that Kyrie's probably the greatest I've ever seen dribble basketball and as a small player finish at the rim so that's why we keep paying attention to him despite him not being able to stop being the ultimate it's unbelievable I mean I'm almost out of things to say about him as a person and I'm not really all that interested in trying to figure out what motivates his opinions,

his thoughts, because I just think he's one of those guys that actually thinks his sign of intelligence is learning something new that day and thinking he's sharing with the world as if he's the enlightened one. So coming into this year, you've got Simmons who's sort of ready to play, but he isn't. He's missed the last couple games. I'm not telling you Steve Nash is the best coach. I would point out, though, that everybody says he was a terrible coach. I ask this of the people that played, that have had better coaching

than the rest of us have ever dreamed of. You guys did this for a living. And then there's this dismissive, oh, he got outcoached, this guy got outcoached. But what happened? What specifically happened with Nash? Point out to me the things he does

that makes him an awful coach. People can point to minutes with Durant in the series, the playoff Celtics last year. I'm like, I don't know. You have extra time off in the playoffs. All right, Durant played like 40 minutes in games. All right. Isn't that kind off in the playoffs. All right, Durant played like 40 minutes in games. All right.

Isn't that kind of what the deal is here? Did it feel like they had a cohesive offense? Did I tell you how often those guys played together? No shit. And honestly, even last night's game, it's always going to be an ISO heavy offense because you have two of the best ISO on-ball creators we've ever seen in this game.

So you're going to default to that sometimes. But the funny thing about it is these guys wanted Atkinson out for actually coaching them. So Kenny Atkinson, who was not going to command the room the way Steve Nash would, he wants to coach these guys up. They don't like that. So Nash was brought in more because of his personality and hoping to be somebody that they would respect or listen to. You know, Nash trying, trying to get through to these stars that were just indifferent about it all the time. I mean, look, I don't want to go on a hardened rant here again, but we're talking about somebody when we try to figure out

what's wrong with them in the playoffs. You're like, his competitive nature is wired such that he's okay playing like shit on purpose to get his way when i think of the great basketball players not all but i think most of them would have a hard time going out there at night going i actually want to play bad and have everybody see it so he's out because his players didn't play. That's it. That's all there is to it.

I mean, they still almost made it to an Eastern Conference Finals if Durant's foot's behind the line. So now we pivot to the EMEA Udoka news. I've talked about this a lot regarding, well, I've done two segments, so it's not like it's been constant. Two segments on his suspension from the Celtics. At the time, and I still do today, feel totally comfortable with what I've been able to piece together about what went down and that the suspension was warranted.

And what I'd said at the time was, you know, there's this category where it's like, what? Like, this guy do something illegal? And then there's this kind of vague category and all this stuff. And then there was another group initially when it first, first happened,

we're asking all sorts of questions, kind of the wrong questions and almost taking EMA's side immediately without any information whatsoever. As you could just tell, the people were talking about it a little bit earlier on. So now that we're farther removed from it, and I really apologize in the sense that I kind of feel like I have to be vague a little bit about it too, because it's just, it's not on the record stuff.

It's, I don't know that I'm ever a hundred percent on anything, but I feel pretty confident that some of the earlier stuff, some of the rumors aren't all entirely true. And that in the corporate structure and the way things work, and you're basically running an organization with a team president, that there's a standard that you have to hold yourself to. And Imei didn't. And whether him accepting the suspension was hoping for some sort of payout later on, which is always kind of the underlying reasoning for any of these decisions, I never

thought he was going to be the Celtics head coach again. And even though I feel very comfortable in saying this guy totally fucked up, like I said the other two times I've talked about it, I do believe in second chances. And I think all of us, all of us should want society to give us a second chance. But it feels a little quick, doesn't it? It feels a little quick.

And that's going to be the backlash. It's going to be like, wait, what happened? And there's going to be, I don't know if anybody's going to come out and get the story 100% right. I don't know which versions I entirely believe. And I actually just hate doing this to the audience because not only I'm trying to be fair to every angle of the story, but I'm also in a way going, well, I remember what I heard when it first, first happened, but I wasn't sure. And then, you know, I know what I've heard now.

When somebody is getting a second chance this quickly after something that deals with a relationship that was consensual at work, but the dynamics of it made it something that you're going to end up losing your job over. Like, well, how long are you supposed to wait this out? And yes, not 10 games into the season feels a little quick. But would February make you feel better? Are you cool in June with it? Right? I don't have the answer to that. I don't know what that imaginary date is that exists where the public reaction would go, okay, now I'm okay with the second chance.

And me saying I have an open mind about his next opportunity, I'm admitting to you I don't know when that start date makes all of us feel better. I don't know what that, I don't know. I don't know that, I think we always are asking like, well, okay, now enough time has passed. It's all kind of imaginary. It reminds me a little bit of, you know, the college football player. Say it's in the SEC.

He gets kicked out of a school. He's a five-star recruit. All the other fan bases go on message boards and laugh. And then he ends up on your team and you're like, sweet. Like, no, you shouldn't do this. You shouldn't do this. And then you're a fan and you're like, well, might give us a better chance to win. And we've been reminded time and time again, that's how sports work. And really, that's how our society works. But if E-May ends up with the job, from a basketball standpoint, I wonder what that moment's going to be like when he says to Kyrie or KD or Ben Simmons, he says, what the fuck are you doing? Because he's going to do it. I like that he challenged his players last year with Boston, but I also think Boston's players have a completely different personality, a completely different level of buy-in that gives them a stable franchise. The problem for E-May, if he has this job, is when he's asking his players, what the fuck are you doing?

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See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Tales from the couch. This one focuses on three games from last night. We'll start in Phoenix. No DeAndre Aiton, 84-73 heading into the fourth quarter. Minnesota is going into last night's fourth quarter plus seven in fourth quarter point differential. That's number one in the NBA.

They've won every fourth quarter they've had this season. And they did so again last night, but not enough. Phoenix started the fourth all bench squad. Jacques, Cameron Payne, Torrey Craig. I'm actually still sort of like, I don't know, Shamit, Damian Lee. And then for Minnesota, they had a little bit more of a combination.

18 point lead down to a two point lead, 87, 85 Suns. And guess what? All the starters came back in for Phoenix. About, I don't. About eight or so minutes in, I think. Towns, they tried to split up Gobert and Towns a little bit. None of it really mattered. Gobert sat for

two-plus minutes. It was very brief. 620, came back around four minutes left. And then it turned into a Chris Paul takeover. So it was a nice little night at the Rosillo Casa, getting to watch that again. Before Gobert was taken out, Chris Paul went at him, dropped coverage, Gobert went too deep.

And Chris Paul likes going at Gobert. But you know who he likes going at even more is Carl Anthony Towns. So he hits that mid-range against him. Paul hadn't really been scoring much at all, but he hadn't been turning the basketball over until he finally got called for one late. He got called for a technical,

but that's just his viceness. Raw. DMX style. All right. So then Chris Paul drives on Carl Anthony Towns. Towns backpedals like he's 100 years old on the play, and then as he skips the pass to the corner for a three,

Cam Johnson three, he ducks. Like Towns also was like scared by the pass it was just a bad looking play and again it goes back to this one scout that I'll never forget when Towns was coming out I said you know he moves pretty well he goes yep straight line he can run

he goes he's not an athlete and that's his biggest issue he's actually not a super athletic guy like some of these other big guys that we see that have these perimeter skills. Then it just turned into a constant take advantage of Carl Anthony Towns night. Bridges went right past them.

18-6 run with the starters in for Phoenix. They just kept going at them. They would use Cam Johnson to screen Chris Paul's defender, get Paul to switch on Towns and even with Gobert behind Towns, it just didn't matter because Towns was always going to lose at the point of the attack and then once the game was kind of over they switched it again and Towns for whatever reason like decided to pick up Paul at

half court started like trying to pressure him in this stretch too where Towns is so frustrated he took a ridiculous step back three that was really kind of forced 13 14 seconds left on the shot clock um so there you go Chris Paul's numbers for this year down. And we had mentioned this when we did the over-unders. Paul's three-point shooting from two years ago to last year went from 40% to 32%. It's now at 23%, overall

shooting 36%. But the decision-making was the difference. Hey, this is where they're weak. We are going to exploit it. We waste less possessions. And so, yeah, I still think Phoenix is going to be really good. They did this again without Aiton last night. And Phoenix's defense right now is the fourth best in the league. Their offense is the second best.

Minnesota's number 24th in offense as of this morning, and they're eighth in D. Minnesota still has the best fourth quarter offensive efficiency. I think they'll figure some things out. I guess I just don't like that they don't have a true hierarchy offensively. And at times, defensively, they still will be exposed because of some of the other guards that will go at them. You know, again, like it's going to happen whether Towns and Gobert are out there

or, you know, Towns getting switched that many times. It was fairly obvious what they were trying to do. Let's go to Brooklyn. Chicago gets the win, 108-99, 31-19 in the fourth quarter. Chicago's had this awful first quarter thing going on defensively. They're the worst first quarter defense in the NBA still after last night.

The runs that these other teams put together. Boston looked like they were going to have a forfeit at halftime. Credit to Chicago for coming back and winning that basketball game. Boston didn't miss anything in the beginning of that game. Tatum looked like fucking LeBron's younger, cooler buddy for a stretch.

Chicago's only down two after the first because Durant went off. I'm always kind of looking like, all right, are there any tendencies? If you watch the team a couple times in a row in a very short amount of time, not like doubling Kevin Durant is a new thing, but I felt like the Pacers were really selling it out after the catch of coming at him like almost a

hard high school. That kid's way better than everybody else double team, which is obviously fair for characterizing Durant as well. The Pacers had tough matchups there defensively. They had Jalen Smith on them at times in that game where the Nets had lost to him. That almost blew that lead to him earlier this week. They had James Johnson who we know he's tough. We know he's going to fight, work hard, but athletically he's just not going to be able to keep up.

I felt like there were also moments where they were doubling the shit out of him. Durant didn't matter he went off he had 10 of 10 free throws in the first half the real story offensively at least for Brooklyn this one Kyrie didn't score in the first half that's the first time in four years he had four total points I think his first bucket went in about like the 10 minute mark

in the fourth quarter and no Ben Simmons no Ben Simmons I swear to God there's going to be a TNT broadcast and Ben Simmons no Ben Simmons I swear to God there's going to be a TNT broadcast and Ben Simmons is going to be in a leather tuxedo watching the game and the broadcaster again 2027 is going to be like

man look at Ben Simmons can you imagine what this lineup will look like though when he's at the five I mean how many fucking times are you going to keep doing this anyway it's been covered on this podcast today so I think that's enough of Ben Simmons. So he's not around. And when the Nets offense

isn't working and when it's working, it actually kind of looks the same. You have two of the best ISO creators ever. So there's going to be a lot of ISO heavy possessions. And when those ISO guys

don't make their shots, then we'll all be sitting at home and like, oh, they're not moving the basketball around. I mean, look, the problem is that when you know it's heavy ISO guys, the other guys just, it's human nature. You become less interested as a teammate. That's why the Golden State Warriors offense is the most beautiful thing of all time because everybody's engaged. They play through the entire possession. I love it. I love it. I love it. But it's very typical

of when teams don't reposition themselves. They don't really know what the fuck they're doing. It's early in the season. They're not sure what the rotation is. Now you've got the interim coach in here and the next guy is supposed to solve all these things. It's going to be ISO heavy when it looks good too. But there's just a lot of non-ball movement. And then maybe even the bigger problem, really,

because I'm not going to worry about the Nets offense long-term when everybody's playing, I would think, the defense, just the layup line the entire time. Zach Levine, 20 points in the fourth quarter. He's at least top 10 heat check guy, right? When he's got it going, you're like, man, this dude has it going. Is he higher? Am I allowed to have a top six heat check list? I don't know what it is off the top of my head. There's no way he's any worse than a top 10 heat check guy. I'm not even sure 100% what it means, but I think we all know what it means without specifically defining it. I still like some of the Nets players.

I like Claxton. I like the way he runs, and he sets a million screens, and he rim runs, and he rolls hard. He's a very different player from what he thought maybe he was as a basketball player when he was at Georgia, and he deserves a lot of credit for that. The problem is defensively, they don't have enough around the rim. And it just turns into this nonstop layup line.

Dragic got it going. He had 15 off the bench. So there you go. Offensively right now, Brooklyn's 19th. Defensively, they're 28th. That's not good. There's only 30 teams. Chicago's 26th on, or 22nd, excuse me, on offense.

10th on defense after last night. Okay, the last game that I'll get to, this is a really nice win for Miami against Golden State. 116-109 at home. They crushed them in the fourth quarter, 30-15 heat comeback. And this was, when you say coaching clinic, it makes it sound like one guy was doing stuff that the other guy didn't understand.

I'm pretty sure Steve Kerr's seen a 2-3 zone before. I'm not sure if Jordan Poole has. What the fuck, man? We like Jordan Poole on this podcast. The Heat come out at 2-3 and it just messed Golden State up. It was all of a sudden like Poole just stopped playing basketball. He's like, I can shoot it from here.

I don't know. I'm just standing here. It's a zone, man. I don't know what to do. You've got to keep attacking. The attacking is different, but it was just like all of a sudden everything shut down. They have to bring Curry back. Golden State was trying to go small. Green at the center.

Moody in that group with Clay. Let me double check what I had here on that smaller group. Green, Curry, Clay, Moody, and Poole. Okay, there it is. Bam was awesome. And it wasn't necessarily because Golden State was small,

but Bam still causes you a problem. The way Curry's gravity moves everything around and fucks everybody up on defense. I don't know why I'm swearing a lot. It's late in the pod. Bam has a different kind of gravity where he's so dynamic with either initiating his own offense as a one or two strong dribble guy or on these cuts.

And that block he had last night that pinned it up and Struis goes the other way to lay up. That's like highlight DVD season stuff from him. Miami moves the basketball. I I'm, I'm never going to dev deviate from liking the talent of five teams in the East better than Miami, but they're just smart. They know their roles. It's a nice little reminder of like, yeah,

that's why this team wins more games than I think they're going to win every year because I look at the talent. I'm like, all right, there's some guys I like, but shit. It's kind of a drop-off. How deep can they really go? Everybody kind of gets it. Everybody kind of accepts drop-off. How deep can they really go? Everybody kind of gets it. Everybody kind of accepts who they are,

and Butler had an incredible spin and one into the lane, set up the defender really well. Wiggins was part of that group too later on, so there you go. I know you were dying to see the substitution on the two different small lineups, but I just want to be thorough. Wiseman had nine minutes where he looked completely lost, five minutes against Charlotte in the overtime game. He had this clumsy handoff

to Klay Thompson that there was a turnover and Klay actually was pissed. I'm pretty sure Klay was pissed at Wiseman. When Wiseman doesn't have to think, and it's the same thing I saw in a very limited time at Memphis,

when he doesn't have to think, he's a much better basketball player than when he has to think. When he has to think, it's when he screws up. And it's really tough as the big to play against the lob and the drive. It's really hard, but you've got to make a decision or you've got to take that step foot forward towards the drive, bait him into making a decision before you know you're actually going

to retreat. It actually works all the time. Try it. Pick up basketball. Jab step at the guy with the ball. Retreat to the other man on the two-on-one when you're on defense. I'm telling you, it's going to work all the fucking time. James Wiseman. You're asking a big guy to do any of this stuff. It's really hard. He's so incredible in these bursts and these flashes, but the rest of it has been kind of disappointing.

Do we want more stats on them? No. You know what was nice, though, is because Miami hasn't shot the ball well at all this season. They were 25th them. No. You know what was nice, though, is because Miami hasn't shot the ball well at all this season. They were 25th in overall field goal percentage, 18th in three. That was a veteran win against a Golden State team that's just not defending.

I'm not worried about it yet. That's Tales from the Couch. I'm excited, man. I haven't talked to this guy in a long time, Frank Isola, who also has got a pretty heavy resume. NBA radio every morning with Scal, 7 to 10 a.m. Eastern. We see him on ESPN, Around the Horde, Pardon the Interruption. And for today's purposes, guest network studio analyst for the Nets.

Good to talk to you, man. Good to see you again. Ryan, good seeing you, man. You're living the good life. You've got your windows closed so you don't show the sun coming up because you, man. Good to see you again. Ryan. Good seeing you, man. You live in, you know, you live in the good life. You got, you know, your windows closed, so you don't show the sun coming up. Cause you don't want people to get jealous. You got the whole thing working. No, I like it when I get feedback because of this room and how bad it looks. People

like, this is what happens. I think it looks pretty cool. It actually, I don't want to give you a location away, but it kind of looks beachy. That's all I'll say. Okay. All right. Sounds good. All right. All right. Let's do this. Nash is out. What was your first reaction? Unlike Kevin Durant, I was not shocked. I think when the best player on the team reportedly

had come out over the summer and said, the coach and the GM have to go or I'm going to be out of here. It was probably bound to happen. I think it was a last-ditch effort probably by Sean Marks to try to salvage this. It's funny. I had heard on Saturday night they you know, they lost Indiana. They did not play well. Indiana shot 23 of 46 on threes.

There were points in the fourth quarter where the Nets just stopped competing, including Kevin Durant, and that hadn't been the case really for most of his time with the Brooklyn Nets. And I heard after the game that Steve Nash really got after the players, including Kevin Durant, a little back and forth between the two of them, which is good, you know. You play like crap. It doesn't look like maybe you're giving maximum effort. You're getting called up by your coach. And what happened on Monday night, Ryan?

They played pretty well. Now, they did have a 24-point lead in the first half, 19 in the second. Indiana did tie it late. They tied it up at 100, but the Nets went on a 7-0 run, did a good job defensively, and more importantly, they got the win. I thought it was a complete effort. Kyrie played well. Kevin Durant played well. But I would guess that this came down sometime either before or right around Saturday, especially with that performance. Things were trending in the wrong direction. I don't think it's Steve Nash's fault.

I think it's, you know, everything that went on over the summer had a lot to do with it. The roster clearly isn't good enough. So I'm not, I'm certainly not surprised. I think, you know, we've covered the league long enough. You could kind of sense when this could be happening. It's disappointing. But I always say when a guy gets fired, the good thing about it is now the players, now it's on you guys, because we know how it's never, you know, the players, especially the player empowerment era, you know, you never have to take accountability. But now the players do.

Now that the coach who played in the NBA two-time, MVP, who apparently everybody liked, he's now out. He's taking the fall for what happened this season. I talked about it in the open. And I always feel like whenever the coaching is brought up, you're like, oh, this guy sucks. I'm like, okay, why?

What specifically does he do that gives his team, puts his team at a disadvantage against all the other coaches? And I feel like no one's ever that specific about it. Do you have anything? I mean, you're this close to the team. Do you have specifics? Do you feel like Nash struggled? Well, I would say this. I think when he had his entire roster, which I think if you look around the league, when players are healthy, the team, especially when you have good talent, the team seemed to be better. So if you go back to two years ago in the playoffs, Boston was a team, things were starting to fall apart there with Kemba Walker, but the Nets smoked them in five games. That was a gentleman's sweep. Then in the next round,

they destroyed Milwaukee, the eventual champions in the first two games, but James Harden got hurt. Then Kyrie Irving got hurt in game four. And then Kevin Durant had a great series, but really game five, six, and seven, he was unbelievable. And of course his toe was on the three-point line. If that doesn't happen, they go to the conference finals. I have a feeling they would have beaten Atlanta, maybe not beaten Phoenix in the finals by then. But that's how good that team was when everyone was together. And last year, with Kyrie's vaccination status, James Harden being out of shape and not really into it most of the season, they were in first place until Bruce Brown, I think it was Bruce

Brown or James Johnson, rolled into Kevin Durant, trying to take a charge. Kevin Durant injured his knee. The season goes down the drain. They did finish seventh. They were in the playing tournament and then got killed by Boston, even though they should have won that game one. So I thought when the whole group was together, it was actually pretty good. But the Harden one is the biggest one, Ryan, because the players wanted James Harden there, which meant Karis LeVert out, Jared Allen, more importantly, gone. You bring in Harden, who played like an MVP when he first got to Brooklyn. That playoff run, I give him credit.

He had a hamstring injury. He tried to play in the last couple of games, just wasn't good enough. But then last season, he kind of checked out. And then the guy that you replace him with doesn't play. And then this season, you've watched the games. Ben Simmons has a long way to go. There are times when it's four on five on offense. There are times when the Nets have the ball offensively and you can't see him because it looks like he's hiding because he doesn't want the ball.

So you go from kind of, you know, Jared Allen, Karis LeVert to James Harden, MVP to invisible Ben Simmons. Like you're just decreasing in talent all the way around. And that's what you have now at two and five start under Steve Nash, two and six now overall. How annoyed was Harden with the Kyrie dynamic? That's, you know, I had heard that that was the biggest issue there, that that was a huge factor. And I think Kevin Durant kind of not being around after he got injured probably had something to do with it as well. I think, you know, Kyrie, no one's trying to question his talent offensively. Defensively, you'd like to see him get at it a little bit more. But, you know, at some point, Kyrie Irving has to take accountability here.

He kind of, you know, wore people out in Cleveland, certainly wore people out in Boston, and it's happening here in Brooklyn. And if you go back to June, the Celtics make it to the finals. I don't think that Kyrie Irving thinks, wow, they made it all the way to the finals without me. I think that Kevin Durant is thinking, wow, the Warriors made it to the finals without me. And I think everything that happened to Kevin Durant in terms of asking to be traded is related to the Warriors winning the championship. I think he was bummed out when the Nets got swept. But I think what really sent him over the edge was the Golden State Warriors winning.

Because at that point, he's thinking, man, they went not only back to the finals three years after I left, they won a championship without me in a year where I didn't win one playoff game. Yeah, let me stay on this then. Because, I mean, there's all this stuff I want to do and jump around. I want to talk marks. I want to talk ownership. I want to talk about email. But, okay, let's stay on Durant.

I've loved this guy for the longest time because I always felt like all these personalities that are crafted. And, like, I believe, for the most part, I'm like, I know exactly who that guy is. Flaws and everything. But I love it. I love that it always felt real. I love that he loved hoop. But, yeah, I mean, I think it's almost impossible to not be sensitive when you're at the top because you're getting so much shit all the time. Like, I've always had this theory now for years that this generation has access to hate in a way

that no other athletes have ever dealt with okay so it fucks them up and if you look at the the campaign ads last year's like every ad is about like going against the haters or the doubters and all this stuff and it's it's these these marketing campaigns that are playing off this constant hate that they feel so i have sympathy for the star even who feels like he has these lives that we all trade for that. It's just, it's, it's tough for these dudes. All right. Having said all that, Durant signed up for the Kyrie thing.

People were trying to tell him, don't do this. Didn't want to listen. They didn't want Atkinson because he was on him and he didn't have the resume. They bring in Nash because he has the resume, but he's not going to be on him and all this different stuff. I want this Durant thing to go better, but I can't help but I have to stop liking him so much and realize this dude deserves so much of this blame.

What is going on with KD, man? I think you're right about the social media stuff. Um, you know, you go through it. I'm sure, you know, when you post a podcast, there's always going to be a couple of people that start killing you. You know, I go through it. Certainly we're older than Kevin Durant. It still stinks when people are criticizing you and now you multiply it by whatever the number is. And the guy, what I never understood about Kevin Durant, when you're a free agent, you have your right to go wherever you want. And I think you have to understand you're going to face some criticism when you go to a team that A,

had already won a championship, but just beat you in the playoffs. But you went to Golden State and you won. And if you would stay there, even post-injury, because remember, all they still would have been able to draft all those players. They would have been in a great position. 30 years from now, not a lot of people are going to say, oh, all right, well, he did go to Golden State. That's the only reason he won. He went there, took the criticism.

He just should have stayed with it. But to your point, all right, now you want to leave, which, again, is your right. I think a lot of times these players, and I kind of experienced this in New York when I covered the Knicks with Stephon Marbury. The guy that's not from New York thinks, well, I'll go with Kyrie because he gets New York. He's a New York when I covered the Knicks with Stefan Marbury. The guy that's not from New York thinks, well, I'll go with Kyrie because he gets New York. He's a New Yorker. It doesn't really work that way. The guys that understood New York were Patrick Ewing, who's from Jamaica and went to high school in Boston. Wolf Frazier's from Atlanta. Willis Reed was from Louisiana. Larry Johnson was from Dallas, Texas. You don't have to be this idea that, well, he's a New Yorker. He gets how it works. No, if you're overly sensitive, sensitive to

criticism. And if you're a little flaky, which I think is a nice thing to say, you know, a fair thing to say about Kyrie Irving, it's really not going to work out. I never understood. And you just kind of touched on it. You're leaving Steph Curry. Let's get this straight. Now you're going to leave Steph Curry to take a chance now with Kyrie Irving, who he and LeBron, even though they did win, it seemed like LeBron had had it with him, obviously in Boston, the thing went in the toilet. It never seemed to make any sense why he did that. And I think he's probably not so much regretting going to Brooklyn. I think it's more about who we teamed up with because the one thing about Kyrie, and we're seeing it now with the social media posts that he had,

and you know this, Ryan, it's always something with Kyrie. Always. It's been that way before he came to Brooklyn. It's been that way here. Ghosting the team, vaccination status, injured, unhappy, you name it. There's always something with Kyrie. And it's frustrating and exhausting after a while. Yeah, I just, look, Durant left Golden State because he couldn't believe that they love Steph more.

And, I mean, figure it out. You know, right. And Steph, like, when he's done, I will consider him the greatest teammate of his generation. You can't do better than that guy because of the buy-in, because of the non-bullshit factor, and the fact that every time he's on the floor, your team is that much better. Yeah, and I've said this before.

If you look at guys that have stayed with one team, so that eliminates Michael Jordan, one team for their entire career and one championship, you'd have to put Steph now in a group with Tim Duncan and also Dirk Nowitzki, Kobe as like the greatest franchise players. I'm talking stayed the whole time there and think about what Tim Duncan did. Took less money. Steph for a long time was making great money from a personal standpoint, but not really an NBA standpoint and embraces everyone. He took

a backseat to Kevin Durant while he's racking up all these championships. And that's why he was probably crying last year in game six in Boston when they won the title and was the MVP. He probably figured nobody thought I was going to get back to this place, but I kept working. Here I am a champion and a finals MVP. Yeah. And that's what I hate. Like, I hate the idea that Durant at the end of this, we're going to go, Oh yeah.

Remember when he like derailed his age seasons from 31 to 37? Yeah. I mean, there's still a way, again, with the extension of years remaining and the way this thing's going now, I'm not predicting anything in this league. Let's get back to Kyrie then. Does anyone like him anymore? Does anyone have his back? Maybe not publicly.

I think there's some people that might. I think the net organization, a lot of I think, um, I think the net organization, a lot of people in the organization, they were happy that he took that social media post down. I think they're, I think they wish that he would apologize. I don't believe, you know, there are some people out there that watch that documentary since Kyrie promoted it on social media. Cause the only reason we know about it is because by the way, he promoted it. I know it was a big hangup over that word. And a lot of people said it was kind of long, a little tedious, a little boring. I'm not so sure he watched the whole thing. Why he just

doesn't come out and say, I was told about this documentary. When I heard about it, there were things that I found interesting. I didn't watch it. I didn't realize it had all these horrible things in it, all these anti-Semitic tropes. If I knew that, I certainly wouldn't have posted it. I apologize for that. Come on, Ryan. People would have accepted that. They would have understood that. People tend to be forgiving in something when that comes up. He's still a relatively young guy. Everyone makes mistakes. But he kind of dug his heels in. He said he was going to stand by it. Then he deleted the post. So that part of it, he's got a lot of people upset with him. I know the Players Union released

a statement, didn't mention Kyrie's name. The league released a statement, didn't mention Kyrie's name, but the owner of the team did come out. And don't you find it funny? So Nick Friedel is questioning Kyrie and a lot of people were criticizing Nick Friedel. Nick Friedel is asking Kyrie these questions because the owner of the team came out and criticized Kyrie. That doesn't happen very often. Nick Friedel's doing his job by asking the question. The league also sent out a statement. This whole thing with questioning why the media is asking questions,

they wouldn't be doing their job if they weren't asking him questions about it. Yeah, I mean, it's ridiculous. And Kyrie was trying to come off as this intellectual combative thing. It was just like, no, you're in a corner right now. People are pissed. Don't you think he knows that? Don't you think he knows he's in a corner? I don't know what he knows. I don't really want to get into this debate,

so let me argue with Nick Friedel over the word promotion. You just want this on Instagram to make yourself a star. The conversation was going in a pretty bizarre place, I thought. Yeah, but honestly, predictably so. Okay, Sean Marks. The target's on him now. I'm going to zag. I think if you have a chance to put this group together,

every team would have done it. I think the Jared Allen trade stinks because Jared Allen's a nice player. I have no, you know, Karis Laversa talented player. I'm not that interested. If that means you're going to get James Harden, fine. I remember when the Harden-Simmons deal went through,

initially some of the reaction was, holy shit, they got Curry and they got, you know, more depth from Philly. Philly ruined their own depth. But it's nice that Harden actually plays. So I'd still say the win went to Philly on that one. And Harden was going to just make it even grosser every time he went out there in a Nets uniform on purpose. I mean, the guy looked like he was throwing games there towards the end.

So we can nitpick. We can talk about picks in the 20s. We can do that. I'll give you 10 minutes on giving you a case for Sean Marks being a disappointment, but it keeps coming back to what I said in the open. These guys don't play. They don't play enough. So they wanted Atkinson out. Marks listened to him. Was he supposed to keep Atkinson there? They tried to pivot personality with Nash. Okay, fine. Like, I don't know. I don't know. I feel like I'm on an island a little bit being

like, are we just trying to find somebody else to blame other than players? Yeah. And I would say this too, in Sean Marks defense, I think, again, I thought two years ago, I thought the Nets were the best team. I think that was their opportunity and then injuries impacted it. Just like last year, I thought Milwaukee healthy. I thought they were the best team. Obviously the injury to Middleton, that derailed their season as well. So I think there are some good moves that he's made. I think he was certainly boxed into a corner with Ben Simmons, but at some point you got to put it on the players and, you know, Giannis Antetokounmpo over the summer, after accomplishing everything that he's accomplished, two MVPs, a finals MVP, he goes to play with his national team. So he wants to play more basketball. He wants to get better. Ben Simmons, when he had that awful

playoff series against the Atlanta Hawks, he could have played for the Australian national team. He elected not to, which to me, that's somewhat alarming. Kevin Durant went and played for the US national team and he's got nothing to prove. And he helped us win the gold medal, but he loves to play. And that's the thing that worries you about Ben Simmons. You know, Ryan, after the first couple of games of the season, you could hear it in Steve Nash's voice and see it in his face, and I thought the same was true of Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. They were almost shocked at how poor Ben Simmons was and how little intensity there was and how much athleticism he had lost

because, you know, we're all using the excuse, well, he hadn't played since June of 21. All right, well, Zion Williamson hadn't played in 533 days you know what zion williamson did every time he got the ball on opening night he caught it and he said i'm gonna go to my left i'm gonna elevate it the basket i'm gonna score over you and if i miss the shot i'm gonna beat you to the rebound and put it back in that's what he did ben simmons played like he hadn't played in five years he doesn't play with any intensity the other night against against Indiana on that Saturday night, he had a game where he had nine points. I think it was nine points, nine rebounds, eight assists, a Draymond Green kind of line. You know what the

difference is? And it's a slightly big difference. Draymond Green plays hard on every possession. He talks on defense. He's fighting. He gets the ball and he moves it. We know that Draymond Green can't shoot just like Ben Simmons. We know that he really doesn't want to get fouled and shoot free throws, but he makes an impact. And that's the thing for Ben Simmons. How he went from being a solid player, a defensive player, wasn't he an all-NBA player?

I get it. He's not going to lead the league in three corners. That's fine. But come on, man. You've got to play a little bit harder than what you've been playing. That's for sure. I mean, we are two NBA soulmates on this one. I just don't know how much more I should do on the Ben Simmons, but it's not going to stop me.

He's been awful this year. Awful. That Zion game was horrifying for a Ben Simmons stock guy, okay? Because Ben Simmons, at his worst, is still supposed to be this awesome defensive player. When he went on with J.J. Redick and Tommy Alter, I loved that they got him, but I left that interview and i was like oh my god this guy's

not only getting worse he's delusional because he was like you know i do all these other things i'm so good okay well then be a fucking defensive stopper zion dominated him from an alpha standpoint where design didn't even care and you you're right. The left shoulder thing. I brought it up. He did the same move every time. And all Simmons could do was be helpless or foul him. In the Milwaukee game, when I was watching some of the cross matchups, I'm like, isn't this supposed to be your thing? Like nobody's going to stop Giannis, but it's all about making it a little bit harder.

Like when I look at Donchich, I go, there's no Donchich stopper, but I just need somebody to impede the progress a little bit harder. When I look at Doncic, I go, there's no Doncic stopper, but I just need somebody to impede the progress a little bit. And whenever I see somebody talk about Simmons and go like, oh, why can't he be more like Draymond or the one that was popular a couple of years ago, be like, he's just like Giannis. And you're like, man, next time just tweet, I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. Because there is personality to this. There is confidence. And maybe is confidence right and and you know maybe his confidence is shot and that's what we're seeing but this version of him is so much worse than even a non-ben simmons like i'm not i'm not i'm not down with it i've heard too many stories that we had the anonymous scouting thing that we did last year where one guy absolutely

nailed it where he goes he's going to take these pictures of himself working out and shooting and he's gonna be doing this he doesn't do any of the shit lsu they used to say hey let's work on this gym time wide open he wouldn't show up to it you know like all of this stuff keeps happening at every single stop and i still thought he was a valuable guy in the nets because i'd go he doesn't have to do anything offensively he's going to cut he's going to be a taller bruce brown he's going to play defense. Now he's not even doing those things. Maybe the sliver of sympathy I have for him is like, man,

I think this guy's shot right now, confidence-wise. I feel the same way. I think you and Brian Scalabrini, my radio partner, are definitely basketball soulmates because he said the same thing when he heard him on that podcast. Brian had said something last year. We made a big deal over Ben Simmons, you know, wearing all these like wacky clothes on the sideline during the playoffs.

And every day it was like, hey, he might be back the next game, might be back this game. And Brian's point was, you know, you tend to hide when you're on the basketball court, yet you're trying to be the center of attention when you're on the bench. And it is kind of like a strange way of going about it. I had heard. He's more intense. He's more intense cheering than he is when he plays in the games. Oh, he looked. Hang on the bench. And it is kind of like a strange way of going about. And I had heard. He's more intense. He's more intense cheering than he is when he plays in the games. Oh, he looked, hang on a second.

He looked relieved and he looked kind of happy that he wasn't playing last night. So I think there definitely is something going on there where he doesn't, he doesn't seem to enjoy it. You watch the games. There were some possessions where he's hiding. And when you, when you thought like I did, all right, you're going to come to Brooklyn. You know, you're going to play, you know, play a certain role and you're playing with Kevin Durant. Think about this. He's probably never going to play with a

player like Kevin Durant. So if it's not going to get better from here, who's it going to get better with Kevin Durant? Very light. If, if Ben Simmons gets traded 10 more times over his career, he may never play with a teammate as great as Kevin Durant. And he's just not making enough of an impact. And when you know, Kevin Durant said, I'm not going to babysit him. Steve Nash had said he has to work his way through his mistakes. Yes. Take a shot.

Miss the shot. Who cares? Just be aggressive all the time. And you mentioned the Luka Doncic play. Back-to-back possessions. Kyrie Irving, who that game competed, by the way, did a better job defensively in a switch on Luka than Ben Simmons did on those two straight possessions.

Luka just, Luka kept waiting for contact. It wasn't coming. Next thing you know, he's at the rim. He just laid it in. He kind of looked like, really? That's really all you have right now? Yeah, it's bad. It's bad.

And it's covered intensely on this podcast. There's still a bunch of other things I want to get to. Where are you on the EMEI UDOKA hiring? It's kind of unprecedented that it's suspended. I have a funny feeling with the Celtics it might cause some tension

in their locker room. I think that their star players are probably thinking, hang on a second, he can't coach us, but he's allowed to coach another team. Not only that, but a team in our division. Again, I think it's a Hail Mary from Sean Marks. Eme Adoka was there. Seems like Kevin Durant likes him. Kyrie Irving seems to be okay with him. But I'll tell you this, and Brian Scalabrini said this today on our radio show. Eme Adoka gets in the face of Jason Tatum. And I don't think Kevin Durant is worried about that. What's going to happen when he gets in the face of Ben Simmons?

Because now, maybe Steve Nash was doing that publicly. Steve Nash went out of his way to tell everyone, let's be patient with Ben Simmons. So maybe he was doing that behind the scenes. But Brian said Emei Udoka is going to get in Ben Simmons' face. Maybe he needs that. I have no idea. But I'll be interested to see how that all works out. Yeah.

Cause it's going to happen. It's going to happen. Uh, God, I feel like I'm repeating a lot of the open here. Cause I brought up a lot of this stuff. I was listening. I was,

I'm stealing your material. Don't, don't kill me for that. Okay. Don't be so good. Then you, people only steal from people that are good. So take it as a compliment.

Let's, uh, let's ask this question. Can this team still be good this year you know what Seth Curry came off of ankle surgeon he was a huge player for them last year the guy you know you talk about he's awesome he's the opposite of Ben Simmons like he goes out there he plays hard he's gotten better every year he doesn't you know it was he was Steph Curry's little brother. It's amazing. He's got the name on the back of the jersey that says Curry. I still think he's underrated in a lot of ways. So you got him. Now, Joe Harris has been out since November 15th. He's only played

about five games, I think, this season. It's been a little bit slower for him. He's had some moments, but I also think they need to add some girth. I don't know. Opening night, we're talking about Zion. Valanchun has killed them. They need a big guy. Do you want to go get Dwight Howard? Do you want to get Derek Favors? I don't know who's out there. They probably, you know who they could use? JaVale McGee. He's not available, but that's kind of a guy that

they could use, kind of like a live body under the basket that can get some rebounds and throw some elbows. I know this sounds insane. And this is my pushback on, I feel like this way in football, basketball, all those sports we talk about all the time. There's just nothing funnier than when a baseball,

the team has no bullpen. Like, oh, this manager sucks. You're like, does he? What are his options in the seventh inning and so when i look at the roster i go the o'neill things the slam dunk you know harris hasn't looked great it's going to get better patty can still shoot curry's coming back at some point sumner's getting early minutes now for him and he showed some stuff last night watson obby's legitimate rotation guy yeah uh especially defensively and he showed some stuff last night. Well, it's an obvious legitimate rotation guy, especially defensively.

And he works his ass off when he's out there. I've even had moments last year where I like Kessler Edwards, where I go, Hey, you know what? Like not a bad pickup. I'll submit that. I think people are, I think some of the Sean Mark stuff, I don't know. Like if I'm looking at stepping back and looking

at the entire picture, I go, I don't, I don't know. I'm not stepping back and looking at the entire picture, I don't know. I'm not as anti-him as other people, I guess is my point. I just think they could use a little bit more size. I think that's the one thing that's missing on the roster. I do think they made a smart move. Last year, they had older players on the team with Blake Griffin, LaMarcus Aldridge. They weren't playing.

Guys like that age, they don't really want to deal with it. So they went with a much younger group, which I don't have a problem with. The Lakers are doing the same thing. But I just think they're missing a big man, which would help. I don't know. It's not like you could just find them, but that's what they need. Yeah. Okay.

Who did you pick in the finals before the season started? I picked Milwaukee, and I believe I made a mistake, and I picked the Clippers because everything you're hearing, you would know better than me. Why does everybody love the Clippers so much this summer? Because I'm an idiot. That's why. Yeah, but you weren't alone.

And by the way, it's kind of early to be writing them off. I guess I just felt like the big thing. I think his knee is worse than what people are letting on. He spends a whole year out, and now he's back, and already he's out of the lineup. It just seems once you get in that cycle, it seems like it's never ending with that. That's why it's so refreshing to see Giannis. So you watch the Giannis game against the Nets.

You know, they played two weeks earlier than that in an exhibition game, and Giannis should not have done this, but Kyrie dribbled past him. He kicked his foot out to try to kick the ball. Instead, he kicked Kyrie in the shin. Kyrie fell, loose ball. Giannis gets the ball, rolls on it and rolls into Kyrie. So Kyrie, rightfully so, was ticked off. Two weeks later, they play the regular season game. Giannis is not going to crap out of everybody. So there's two kinds of players, guys that are always like missing games for whatever reason. And then you got this guy who just seems to be getting better every year.

He doesn't care if he's friends with guys in the league. He goes out there. Sometimes for me, a little too much. I don't think he's trying to be dirty, but he's not going to crap out of guys. I got to be honest. It's somewhat refreshing because with all the guys that miss games, he's out, DNP, load management, and there's Giannis just getting better every season, just going up and up.

It is remarkable. And I do think there's something to the international player versus the American player. If you look at the list of all the players that have been pissed and demanded stuff, have we had the international guy? Look, it's going to happen. There will be the international guy that goes,

hey, I'm awesome. Screw this place. I'm out of here. But I think Giannis just has a different story and there's a different level of appreciation. He's the greatest development story in the history of the league on top of everything else.

And I'm with you. I mean, we spend how many years watching this league and when it comes down to it and I'm, you know, it's, it's not like a, I love so much of the analytics, but I don't know how much it ever quantifies the foxhole guy. And if I was GM said, I just want all foxhole guys, like a cool three dudes. We don't have to defend because they can't shoot. Okay. Maybe I'm insane, but just to have the face of your franchise not give a shit about all of the stuff that doesn't really matter is one of the most refreshing stories in like today's american sports and ryan it's also we know the guy loves to play he was so thrilled to play for his national team

first of all he gets to play with his two brothers, which is a big deal. It means a lot to him to stand there before the game and the Greek national anthem is being played. He was disappointed that they didn't win. Two weeks later, he's in training camp. A week later, he's in Abu Dhabi. A week later, 10 days later, the season started. There's no missing games. I got to watch while I'm tired because we've had this crazy schedule. It's none of that nonsense. And, you know, the other day, you know, when they show the, it's like the red carpet now at the NBA, they show the players walking into the locker room and there's Giannis walking and he's got the big smile on his face. And there's Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. They both have their heads down. They don't look like they're the happiest guys.

You see him beat. He always seems to be happy. Lucas seems to be happy. He seems to be happy. I'm not saying that American players aren't. I mean, Steph Curry seems to have a smile on his face most of the time as well. But I thought it was a pretty interesting image of Giannis walking into the building. And then right after that, we showed Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving. They didn't look too happy. Yeah, I love the guy, man.

I just think it's impossible not to like i always say if you don't like yannis you don't like puppies ice cream and pizza i mean come on man the guy's the most like he's and you ever spend time with him we got to hang out with him he gave us a half hour interview uh brian scalabrini myself about a month ago could not have been a nicer guy he just is a sweet guy. Everything about him is great. He loves playing in this country. He loves the NBA. He loves his family. It's really refreshing. Before the season started, you make your rounds, lucky enough to talk to people to do it for a living. There was a common theme that I was sensing from a lot of guys I talked to that Phoenix was going to suck. The hangover was too much. That game seven loss. Me too. Oh, you were

on that train too, huh? Yeah. I hate, I hate being wrong, but I think I was wrong about that one. That's for sure. Okay. I, as a big Chris Paul guy who unfortunately when it's all said and done, I'm going to have to stay with the he's the greatest winner who never won thing. And look, the Game 7 one is tough for me. Yeah, you never know. But people are joking that it's like my ex calling me at 2 a.m. and me waking up the next day seeing the missed call going, oh, my God. And then I check in and she's like, sorry, that was a mistake. That Phoenix is doing it to me again.

I picked Golden State to come out of the West because I just thought there's no way they're going to. I just felt like, look, they're going to be better. They will be better. They've gotten off to a slow start. We don't need to get into a ton of that. But should I be concerned or maybe, I don't know, is it possible that we can take Phoenix serious as a contender again? Because I don't think anybody will.

Why not? I mean, Devin Booker keeps getting better. I think the biggest thing will be Chris Paul. He's going to wear down by the end of the season. But Cam Johnson has gotten off to a good start. Now they have played mostly home games, number one, but would also fed into it. If you remember opening night, they're getting killed by Luca and Dallas. And I was like, see,

I told you this was going to mess them up. And then ever since then, all they've done is play pretty well. And that's why. So right now in the West, you don't know about Kawhi and the Clippers. The Warriors are struggling. You think that they'll be able to get it back. Who knows about Luka and the Dallas Mavericks, the Denver Nuggets. The West is really wide open. You know, to me, there are better teams overall in the East.

The West is open. I also thought about Phoenix. Well, they kind of went for it last year. What, they went 64 regular season? And what was the number that they won last year? I kept thinking, well, they won't do that. What I don't understand is you start Cam Johnson. Why can't Jay Crowder just come off the bench?

What's so wrong about you're still going to be a rotation player for them? I found that part a little odd. Maybe that'll come back to haunt him and haunt the Phoenix Suns a little bit, but I didn't think there was anything wrong with that. Start Cam Johnson, bring Jay Crowder off the bench, but he wasn't going for it. I didn't like their depth. So far, the depth has been better.

Biambo with Chris Paul is a completely different guy as they had him start last night with eight and out, but I didn't think they could afford to not have those Jay Crowder minutes. Whatever you think about Jay Crowder, because I think there's still a little part of me that's like, do I trust him in a really big

spot? But shit, when you're the fourth or fifth guy, how much am I really supposed to trust you? So I thought, wait, you're just going to let this guy sit this whole thing out. And you're not even going to like, what's like, you're still hoping to wonder what that asset would be.

I've, you know, I'm a broken record about this. I wish they could bring in like a real point guard, you know, cause campaigns kind of a roller coaster and, you know, Damian Lee's really a two. Um, but you know, he was, was good early. Don't you think they'll revisit maybe Kevin Durant at some point?

It could potentially. Well, now we're talking breakout video for the podcast here. Do you think it could get that bad? I don't know, but it does seem, you know, it seems like when that was put on pause by the Brooklyn Nets and they must have told Kevin Durant, listen, there's nothing out there. We're not giving you away. Let's come back. Let's, you know, start the season together. Let's revisit it,

revisit this whole thing down the road. There's no reason to do anything in October, November, but you know, once a lot of these guys who signed contracts become eligible to be traded, that's when it will all open up again. So I think right now, come on, everything has to be on the table. Now that could all change with E-Mail Doka because you mentioned before,

you're bringing E-Mail Doka and you're not bringing E-Mail into Rebuild. You're bringing E-Mail in to try to salvage everything. But again, it's early November. Things could change in a couple of months. Awesome catching up, man. Let's do it again. All right.

Enjoy the great life that you have, I should say. Have? All right. Tell your whole gang over there I appreciate it. Yeah, of course. Anytime. Take care. Bye.

It is time. Actually, Monday is time for my college football top 12. I can't wait towards the end of the season. You're like, yeah, that team would be in a playoff or a national championship. And their best win is at Syracuse. I don't know who that is.

Clemson was the home, so don't worry about it. We're not making a Clemson joke. Okay, I'm going to be a little quicker with this. The college football playoff came out last night, so I'll kind of go back and forth on it. I still have Ohio State number one. It's their last week at number one. Whoever wins Tennessee, Georgia's jumping them. They just are. I don't love

the struggle against Penn State for a long time, but division opponent, let's apply conference rules here, and they did pull away a little bit later. Lesser teams, really good lesser teams, if that makes sense. That'll end up being that one loss. Like, ah, damn it. Now we're still chasing it. Ohio State figures it out,

pulls it out. College football playoff committee had them number two. Georgia, I have two. Committee has them at three. Tennessee has, well, I've got Tennessee three. This is all a coin toss to me. And honestly, I feel like I'm holding onto the Ohio State thing a little bit longer than I should. But Tennessee's number one in the committee's

eyes because my joke would have been that the committee likes Alabama as much as I like Christian Bale content. But the committee has Bama six. So I'm sure the committee, in their eyes, they're weighing the win against Bama more than anything else. but I would have thought like would they move them ahead of an undefeated team

I guess they didn't want to do that that's fine alright whatever let's also pay attention to this Kentucky gets stomped this week against Tennessee 44-6 UK is now 2-3 in SEC play Levis had three picks

they still have Georgia at home. When this starts coming down to playoff seeding, or if there's going to be a weird, could Tennessee be the other team in from the SEC thing? If they were to lose to Georgia, Georgia beats Bama. Bama's eliminated. All these different hypotheticals.

And again, along with what else from the four other conferences that matter, that Kentucky and again, along with what else from the four other conferences that matter. That Kentucky win that people think is good and why Ole Miss got a bunch of love in the beginning, which was totally, I thought, too much, that might end up being something later on. Or look, at the end of the year,

I don't care how many top 25 resume wins you have, I want to know how many wins you have against the current top 25. And obviously expanding that out to like the top 50 can give you a better thing, but we can sit here. I'll do it later in the season. I'll play a bunch of games and sell you on these teams, even though, you know, I just, I'll do an SID thing where I'll be like, Oh, look what we did against teams in the central town zone, noon kickoffs. All right. I have Michigan for the committee has them five. And aside on the Michigan State controversy here, if you didn't see it,

you'd be surprised to listen to this podcast, but after the game, Michigan beats them 29-7. Michigan State's not good. They're one and four in the East. We've seen the video of the Michigan State players beating on a Michigan player, and I think there's another one as well, and they've both lawyered up. I don't know why multiple

guys try to beat on the same dude all the time. It sucks. It's no excuse. The Mel Tucker one is so much not a thing. A fan reaches over, goes and touches the ball head. He's pissed off and he swipes at the guy's hand. Doesn't mean anything. I dipped into Michigan Michigan State Twitter.

That was, I never want to go back. Holy shit. Like, you want to be mad at Mel Tucker right now? Okay, fine. Should it be fired? Give me a fucking break. I know he got 10 years and 95 million. He was big time coach of the year.

I know he's barely been there, but give me a break. Like, basically it all just turns into Michigan fans thinking this, and then Michigan State fans turn that. So, you know, I'm not going to poison the rest of America with it. Okay, I have Bama fifth. The committee has them sixth. I have TCU sixth. The committee has them seventh.

I have Clemson seventh. The committee has them fourth. How are they ahead of Michigan? Well, I guess, based on the answers that we heard from the committee, they like the wins against Wake, Florida State, NC State. Their arguments, they're 5-0 against teams above 500. Michigan's only 2-0. Real simple.

Who would you pick? Who would you pick right now? I don't like Michigan's resume either. And it felt like there was a little bit of this punishment for the non-conference resume stuff happening, which I'm cool with. I'm cool with. But we're getting to that point of the season

where it is frustrating when you feel like, how much have you really done? And they blasted Penn State, by the way. They were home, and Ohio State wasn't, so that's a little different there. But I went into it. I had Clemson sixth. I'm fine with my Bama thing.

It doesn't matter. I had Clemson sixth. I'm like, wait, why am I putting them ahead of TCU? TCU's resume is better. You're falling for it again. You're falling for it like so many of us do despite not wanting to or blaming other people for doing the exact same thing. I'm like, no, I'm putting TCU 6th

and I'm going to put Clemson 7th. That leaves me with Oregon at 8th, same as the college football playoff rankings. I have USC 9th. So do the college football playoff rankings. I'm not going to keep saying that over and over again. UCLA, I have them 10th. Committee has them 12th.

I have Utah 11th. The committee has them 14th. They have Ole Miss 11th. Again, very established Ole Miss position on this one. The committee has LSU 10. I'm going to keep them at number 12 in my rankings. A couple notes here. LSU was 15th in the AP, 17th in the coaches poll behind Penn State.

I would ask you this. Which wins do you like more? Purdue, Ohio, Auburn, Central Michigan, Northwestern, Minnesota, or beating Ole Miss at home? I know some of you say, wait a minute. You spent this whole time talking about not liking Ole Miss at home. So I know some of you say, wait a minute, you spent this whole time talking about not liking Ole Miss. I like that win against Ole Miss better than I like any of those Penn State wins.

But apparently the coaches, the coaches and those that vote do not. You want details? Fine. I drive a Ferrari. 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you 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. Today's Life Advice is presented by Modelo. Modelo knows it takes fight to be a full-time fan. There will be good days and bad ones, but when you love what you'll do,

you'll never work a day in your life. Modelo celebrates those who treat being a fan like it's their full-time job. That's why it's the official beer sponsor of the college football playoff. Modelo, brewed for full-time fans, brewed for those with a fighting spirit. Visit OrderModelo.com to shop delivery or pickup options for Modelo near you. Drink responsibly. Beer imported by Crown Imports, Chicago, Illinois. Life advice.

The email for submissions, lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. After I made it more specific and then repeated the address, the spike in submissions has gone quite up it's kind of like you know leaving your your number a second time before we had that invention called cell phones okay a little cleanup here on the show when we talked about the old female uh that was 60 that had interest in our guy. He wrote a very funny email. I didn't get the reference. Me neither, actually. I didn't get the 6-12 reference.

And that's an erection. So that's on me. Look, I'll tell you. As I get a little bit older, I'm not going to be 100% cool all the time. I'm not going to get every single fucking reference. I try, but every now and then I'm going to have a whiff. And it's like older it's just what happens you can you're going to have you know

you're not going to know how to say a rapper's name it's a nightmare i'm staring it down uh i think the most disappointing thing is kyle you're my boner guy i guess so i'll put that one in my pocket i guess and i don't know if that's weird to say, but yeah, probably is weird. Yeah, I just, it wasn't a forgettable movie. It just, I don't know. It just wasn't like, I don't know. When did that movie come out? Like 2008?

2009? I just, I didn't Forgetting Sarah Marshall, right? Yeah. Maybe it was 2012. I don't know. It's an awesome movie. It is an awesome movie. It's an all-time movie. I just didn't, you know, I don't remember everything. Yeah. I don't know. It's an awesome movie. No, it is an awesome movie. It's an all time movie. I just didn't, you know, I don't remember everything. Yeah, I wouldn't. And if it did come out in high school, I guarantee I didn't go back to school.

Be like, oh, dude, went from six to midnight. Like that wouldn't have been one of my that would have been one of my things that's burned in my brain. So I'm sorry. You're right. I should. I think once once I saw the first or second tweet, I did remember. But sorry. Do you still want to be my boner guy or do i have to change it no dude i mean listen my linkedin's not that like full you know i just decided to take uh some of my old jobs off of

there so yeah i'll put boner guy on there okay then good we had a lot of uh follow-ups on the foot race thing i I don't know. I still think there's a spin-off there somewhere. I'm not sure I want to add another day to the schedule, but Kyle, are you down for doing all follow-up emails? I don't know. I don't know. I'd like to try out our hot bench style segment before we

do that, but you know. Hot bench. Yeah, I like that. Hot bench. I'll go through the emails and then send them to you wow kick ass dude like I sense I sense less passion in the tone of that statement okay here's one uh from Steve C it says my wife's about to have our first kid should I ask my boss for paternity leave he doesn't have kids and he's Italian. Plus he's kind of a dick. Nice. What is paternity leave for Spotify? Dude, I've heard it six months. And not only have I heard it six months, which is very tempting. It's also you can take two months and then fuck off for four months later.

You could use the summer as, I got to use the other four months, is what I've heard. I heard it's six months, too. I honestly don't know. You sound enticed to have a kid. You sound like, look, reproducing alone six months off. Would you take the full six months? You know, I got to say maybe. I don't know. I guess

it would depend on, you know, what's the basketball season. Is it football season or basketball season? I guess it really depends. But I don't want you to, because we both know the answer is absolutely fucking 100%. Yes, I'm taking all 180 plus days. Well, I know you're... I have my Well, that's what Meredith did, right?

From the office. She said, I have my third kid just for the paternity leave. There you go. Good reference. There's a guy who I worked with. I didn't work with. I barely knew him, but he tore up his knee. And the work was like, how long are you going to be out?

And he was like, well, I don't know. They're like, well, a couple of weeks to be back. He was like, what can I do? They're like, well, you know, disability leave for whatever. I mean, he tore up his knee playing sports. And he was like, well, what is it? Eight weeks?

And they're like, well, it's eight weeks. But what are you going to do? He's like, yeah, I'll take that. Guess who didn't get re-signed. All right. But you know, there is a lesson in there. I would want you, first of all, shocker, it's not up to me. If it up to me i don't give a shit sir rudy takes

six months and a day off we'll find out in about two weeks if you're still yeah well he's arrangement no he's doing no i love the guy but like i wouldn't ever go hey dude you know i know paternity leave like you don't know me that well if you actually think that i would do that like i could i could go no i mean we'll see in two well if you actually think that I would do that. I could go. We'll see in two weeks if you're okay with just me and you doing the show again. We'll find out. We'll find out after Denver. I think post-Denver

we're going to be coming back at level 10 friendship. It can't be level 10 until we do something here in LA. We could start. Maybe we get joining rooms or something, but we'll lock the door obviously between us leaving it open would be another level that would be something hey buddy you asleep what's the most scared you've ever been getting some nachos you want to double up okay let's get to the questions here uh but yeah i

think saruti is doing the first couple months and coming back thing and then leaving later on. Well, he's tiptoeing on how to still do World Cup content and not have his wife and new mother being like, are you kidding me? He's like, no, it's World Cup. And by the way, in this phase, the kid doesn't even want to hang out. Correct, or would remember.

How many life advices can you miss? You just have to be to be imprinted right you just imprint on the kid and then you're good for a while anyway imprinting what you read are you reading some nurturing books what's going on it's like a first first first people couple people they see right that's that's just got to be in that group and then uh i don't know it doesn matter. I'm taking six months. You should speak Spanish two years is what I heard. As soon as you can. No, just start. No, seriously. Okay.

All right, here we go. Here's a basic one. Dude won't take the hit. 5'10", 190, 27 years old. I was your stereotypical 3 and D white high school hooper, Aaron Craft. Aaron Craft was the word grit in sneakers. He was my hero. We also look shockingly similar.

I've got a friend, let's call him Greg, who I've considered one of my closest friends just a few months ago. Okay, we were in each other's weddings, but now I can't stand him. I'm trying to distance myself from this dude, but he won't take the hint. I moved a few hours away at the start of the year,

and Greg has come to visit a few times for golf weekends. Everything was fine until we set up a weekend-long match with a shirt from my club's pro shop, $80 max. So I think what they're saying is they set up the match for the shirt. Okay, whoever wins gets the shirt. It's out of $80. Go buy the other guy's shirt. All right.

Dude's playing for shirts. Better than playing for skins. Get it? Golf joke. Got it. Got it. Got it. Yep.

We went out for the first round on Saturday and that's when it all fell apart. The pro shop cashier was one of the younger kids who was very oblivious and didn't give a shit and rang Greg up thinking he was a member

and didn't charge him a green fee. While I was checking out, Greg grabbed a golf glove. Read that one out loud fast. I can't believe I got that the first time. And walked out of the clubhouse without paying for it. So Greg here just fucking five-finger discounted himself. So he doesn't get charged.

I'm just talking out loud now. Fucking guy shows up, not a member, doesn't get charged for green fees because it's a young kid behind the thing and then he stole a golf glove i'll admit something happened to me recently on the whole uh um what the hell's the sauce what the fuck is the hot sauce not tabasco sriracha oh my god no no no no no can't, I can't believe I'm not remembering this. What is the hot sauce? No, what's the hot sauce that everybody likes? Is it CH something?

Mine is, I'm crystal. Chalupa? Chalua? Chalula? Yeah, one of those. Tapatio in my house. I'm Louisiana though. Yeah, anyway, this podcast is losing its steam here so

remember we talked about whether or not it was okay to steal the entire bottle because it'll provide you to go things when you go to chipotle and i was like well everybody kind of does that i went to a very common place that i go to and the girl that rung me up was like seven dollars sir and i knew it wasn't seven dollars there's no way it's seven i told her up was like, $7, sir. And I knew it wasn't $7. There's no way it's $7. I told her, I was like, there's no way it's $7. I was like, are you guys doing a promotion? She was like, no, you did the this, this, and this. I was like, yeah.

She's like, $7. And I was like, you know what? They fuck up my order half the time I'm here anyway. So I was like, all right. We'll see where this goes. Yeah, I was like, fine. Here you go. I gave her a chance.

I gave her the out. And then I justified it in my head. So I thought back to the Chipotle hot sauce thing and I went, you know what? I'm not going to I'm not going to. I don't think it's the same thing but whatever. What the fuck am I talking about today? Cholula.

There you go. Okay. Back to this guy stole the glove. So he walks out of the clubhouse without paying for it. I walk out mortified to find him bragging about his free round and glove all I said to him was that if he really needed a glove I have

extras and I'd happily give him one the next day we finished in a tie on the 36th hole so what did you guys do play 18 back to back alright days they're tied on the 36th. Proceed into a tiebreaker.

I offered to play an extra hole, but he just wanted to do a putt to determine the winner. I ended up winning and he spent the next hour bitching about how unfair it was, how he should have played another hole and that he shouldn't have to buy me a shirt. He ended up buying me a shirt, but that wasn't the end of his bitching. Just the worst type of loser. I felt pretty gross about the theft of a $15 glove due to just be given a free round and his shit attitude after losing. The competition had been friendly and uncontentious the whole weekend. All right, so we're talking back-to-back days.

Jeez, you really hung out with this guy a lot. Maybe that's the problem. And he's a thief. There have been other things that had popped up over the years that made my wife and I discuss our relationship with Greg and his wife. Wait, you guys just had a couple's off where y'all talked about greg and the relationship survived maybe you should be pumped he wants to golf with you uh again i don't know what you're referencing here so i'm gonna go ahead and you know defer to you on this one just a little zinger for you buddy don't worry about it

but ultimately we decided nothing had been serious enough to call off our friendship. You guys had to have a fucking meeting about it? That weekend was the last straw, though. After we say goodbye, I haven't answered a single call, and our text ratio is currently 13-2. Now I'm in on the emailer again.

That's over the last past month. I don't really want to confront the guy. I was hoping he'd just accept a long-distance Irish goodbye, but he keeps texting and calling. How do I get this guy to leave me alone? P.S. I went back to the club after he left and paid for his gloves. Real Samaritan here. All right.

Yeah, this guy sounds like he sucks. I mean, then to argue, hey, I don't want to play the extra hole. Let's do putt. Then he thought he was going to beat you, obviously, in that. And then you beat him, and then he bitches the whole fucking time. It sounds like he doesn't have a ton of friends, man. So he will just keep reaching out. He'll just keep reaching out.

Right? We talk about with text ratios here. At some point, you have to go. It's a pretty simple rule, man. I fuck up texting. I do. And sometimes it is a legit mistake because I'll be like,

oh, damn, a lot of stuff's coming in, moving around, thoughts. God never stops thinking. Sometimes it just gets distracted in my own imagination. But if it's somebody you are supposed to be texting with, like, there's one thing

when it's the random text, I'll get it from somebody and I'll go like, oh, wait, let me think about that and then I'll get back to him and then I'm like, I fucked that one up. But if it's somebody who's like, somebody like a constant correspondence and there's'll go like, oh, wait, let me think about that and then I'll get back to him and I'm like, I fucked that one up. But if somebody who's like

a constant correspondence and there's specific questions that actually are supposed to be answered and those are being ignored, everybody sees those. The first sign of a relationship not working out is when you're going like, oh, hey, does he text you back? No, not really. Okay. There you

go. So this guy, in this case, it sounds like you want to completely cut him off you don't care about the history you don't care about any of this stuff there's clearly other things fine here's what's great you have something very specific to point to so instead of the kind of like slow play ghosting of the male buddy you can if you want. It's going to be a little confrontational. 5'10", 190, 27. Not worried about it. You can point. If this bothers you this much, then you've got to say something. You can be like, hey, here's what happened.

Here's how I feel, and now I'm sick of it. Don't want to talk to you for a while. Maybe he cools off. Self-reflection time. You know what? Or maybe he gets pissed because he sounds like a hothead, and he gets mad at you, and then you're like, cool. I even have more of a justification here instead of dancing around the whole thing. Yes, it is super easy for the people who do not know the other

people, have no attachment, no emotion whatsoever to tell everybody else what they're all supposed to do. But you don't want to hang out with this guy already. Although it said just not that long ago, everything was fine. I don't know. I think it's a bit of a blow up. You have a reason to be mad. You can just tell him about it. Maybe he'll calm down. Or maybe he will calm down and then repair whatever needs to be repaired. Whatever. Word.

I think I know what this is. I had a good buddy, Joseph, back when I was before high school, really. We kind of fell out around high school, but you know, our moms were good friends. They worked together. We loved hanging out. And, but our, our, our parents kind of knew not let us do two sleepovers in a row. They just kind of knew not to do it. We always wanted to do it. And then by, you know, the next like mushroom dude, I don't want to watch you play runescape anymore. Now I don't, I don't want to do this. I don't want to look at your fucking dad's baseball cards.

And then we're like, then by the, you know, the afternoon of the second day, we're like actually like fighting with each other. And I'm spending like, I'm spending whole hours in another part of his house when I'm staying over his house or, you know, whatever. And after a while, my mom was just like, I'm not, I'm picking you up at 11 o'clock tomorrow. Don't try to pull this shit where it'll be easier if you just stay over another night because this shit doesn't work out.

It's just with you two guys, a day is the max. And I think maybe a day might be the max with you two guys because now you're not, it seems like it was fine before. He doesn't get why you're not into this. And I think you just had too much time. Like you said, it was like the 36th hole of day two

that's just you don't sleep over two nights in a row man I think that may be what it is man that was good that's unbelievable Kyle the two night sleep over theory we have something new we're gonna have you're gonna have to hang on to that nugget you're gonna apply it to other emails in the future

that was awesome oh thanks man going to apply it to other emails in the future. That was awesome. Oh, thanks, man. Nothing to add. It's so good. Rosillo, stop talking. Next one. Oh, okay. Another shave my head or not thing.

Me versus my wife. Okay. A little twist on this. My wife and I disagree on whether or not I should shave my head. I'm 41, 5'9", 150. Okay. I think shave my head. I'm 41, 5'9", 150. Okay. I think that's important. Yeah, he's a smaller guy. No offense, but

those are the numbers we've been given and that influences how I'm going to feel about this. My pickup team is great if I'm the third best player, just like Bradley Beal. The beach body is pretty strong. Okay, he sent a picture.

150. I can't imagine. It doesn't look good. He looks awesome. He's jacked. I mean, he's ripped up. And he's next to a wheelbarrow. It looks like these guys are putting together a retaining wall with some cinder block.

They got rakes. They got some sort of mesh thing that they're probably doing to prevent weeds. They got kind of a little saw there for branches. This guy's into it. All right, so as I zoom in, it is thinning up top. It just is.

Okay. I'm sure it looks bad coming out of a pool. And guess who took the picture? It appears to be his wife from a balcony from up top, which is an asshole move. I know it's your wife, but it's an asshole move. Okay. Because those of us that had to go through it and then sees that first picture from the top, it is horrifying. My first time was I was 26. I was in the outfield during a night game, probably some fucking promotion that they made me do something for.

And there was baseball lighting down. And I'm like, what is going on there because you don't know you're like oh it's thin but you all you do is feel hair but you get this baseball stadium lighting down on it and then i see a picture and then somebody's like and it's you're just like oh my god you was like, dude, I'm going to be famous. This is going to suck. Okay. So don't like the picture angle. Love your body, dude.

Looks great. Question one is, do I let her decide or is it my decision? Question two, based on the pick, is it time to go or not? In case you were wondering, she says keep the hair. I say get it over with. I'd like to

think that we've moved off body shaming, but I still think there's some lanes we don't care about anymore you know i love when you do this you can't call anybody fat right you can't and that's good that's good i don't want to i don't want to go around calling everybody fat you know what am i fucking 12 with a blow pop i don't't want to do that. But if you suggest somebody is unhealthy at a certain number of LBs,

then it's like, how dare you? Right? I've long said the skinny guy nobody gives a shit about. Although that seems to be, I don't know what you guys have heard on the old internet. Seems some posts going around about tall skinny guys where their stock is up lately. It's been a new thing I've noticed the last few months. So maybe there's some sensitivity to that as well. There's all sorts of things.

Leg day guy. That's what no one cares about. Somebody posted a picture of me the other day. And then a girl said, oh, ever heard of leg day? And I was like, ever heard of accepting people's bodies? What do you do in your spare time? Shame? Successful podcaster's legs? Is that what you do?

Because I'll be over here on this side of the room. The bald guy, Lane, doesn't exist. Fuck the bald. nobody has a problem with it nobody ever sticks up for anybody else no one's ever done a post being like hey you know what hurts you know every now and then yeah i'll admit it be like oh no shit people are mean on the internet okay so this poor guy again it's a bit of a rant but this poor guy you know you got your loved one taking a picture from

fucking luxury suites here now here's the thing she says keep it he says get it over with so this thing did a real 180 on us at the end is the rant irrelevant no you got it he says, get it over with.

So this thing did a real 180 on us at the end. Is Lorraine irrelevant? No. You got it. You listen. It's too late now. Can't go back and rewind it. It's up to you.

It is your body, your choice. Okay? It is up to you. I should have done it years before I did it. And when I finally did it, I was like, oh, that's over with. I'm going to fucking pretend. Going to the same salon. She's like, oh, do you want a two on the side now?

I'll do this up top. And you're like looking, going, oh, this doesn't look so bad. You're like, no, dude, it looks terrible. Looks terrible. I don't think it looks that bad. I think this picture is really bad. I don't think it looks that bad. But it's up to you, man. It's up to you where you'll have this moment of comfort. My only fear is though, is that on the smaller side, I would ride that shit out forever. I would. But you're already married and you're fucking jacked. And you look like you're

pretty handy. So you get a lot of things working out for you. But I would tell her're already married and you're fucking jacked so and you look like you're pretty handy so you got a lot of things working out for you but I would tell her that it's going to be your choice right it's your choice and that you don't need I don't know you know she although look that's the other thing too she likes it

maybe ride that out as long as you need to there you go I don't have anything to add I just have one question if he did decide to go maybe ride that out as long as you need to. There you go. I don't have anything to add. I just have one question. If he did decide to go like, like a very small buzz, would it come?

Like if he didn't like it, would it come back to where he, where, where he's at right now? Or is it like, is it so fragile that once you buzz everything off, it's like, you're not going to get back to this, you know,

70% of you. Let's say he's at 70% right now. If he does buzz it and it's like, don't like that, maybe I'll stave that off for a couple more years. Can he get back to 70? Maybe it'll be like, you fucked up, you're at 68% or is it going to be like, this isn't coming back? Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. Are the stakes low enough to just try it or no? I think it's pretty standard science that the hair to whatever level it is now would come back if you grew it out immediately but there was one buddy from uh my crew at uvm who was lacrosse goalie and during the hazing incident they shaved his head and just never came back oh my god yeah just never came back kid was just walking around campus fucking bald people thought it was parents weekend when he came by like oh my god as a sophomore yeah i mean it's a horrifying tale i don't know if it's the stress from being hazed that night

or what but like dude shaved her head and then everybody's shit was growing in and this didn't jesus christ yeah i don't know all right well one in a million you know there's always that so yeah right there's always that those those dna ladders work in mysterious ways is that guy okay do you know have you heard from him or yeah no he's fine he's hanging out yeah honestly if there was one guy that was going to go bald in college and be cool with it i think it was him okay Okay. Yeah. All right. Well, that's good. Didn't have a choice.

So that's great. He always, he always kind of walks a different path, but yeah, that shit never came back. Gosh, like, wait,

what? He's just bald now. Like, what's up? Just changed his character. I mean, yeah, honestly,

I should get him on the podcast. That'd be an interesting interview. Okay, I think we've done enough today. Yeah, we nailed it. Today's life advice was presented by Modelo. The fighting spirit means never giving up, and that's why Modelo is brewed for full-time fans, the ones willing to travel to games and who thrive under pressure. Modelo,

especially all, is a crisp Pilsner-style lager that set the standard for authentic Mexican beer. And for true full-time fans it's now the official beer sponsor of the college football playoff modelo brewed for full-time fans brewed for those with a fighting spirit visit order modelo.com to shop delivery or pickup options for modelo near you drink responsibly beer imported by crown Imports, Chicago, Illinois. Thank you, Kyle. Thank you to all of you for riding this episode out. And we will talk to you on Friday.

Ryan Masool, podcast for Spotify. Outro Music