The Ryen Russillo Podcast - NBA 3s and Blowouts. Plus: Voice of the Chicago Bulls Adam Amin, Living a Dream, and Life After ESPN.

Episode Date: January 1, 2021

Russillo shares his thoughts on some early trends from this NBA season, including the amount of blowout games (2:30). Then Ryen talks with Adam Amin of Fox Sports and TV play-by-play announcer for the Chicago Bulls about his career with ESPN, leaving to call games with Fox Sports, behind-the-scenes broadcasting stuff, finding the "right amount" of preparation leading up to a broadcast, realizing a lifelong dream of becoming the play-by-play announcer for his hometown Chicago Bulls, and more (12:30). Finally, Ryan answers some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (1:00:50). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

happy new year it is the ryan rossola podcast and we are broadcasting live started at 8 a.m on new year's day getting ready for these bowl games and kyle just want to check in with you real quick i know you're available you stayed in like an adult, it sounds like. Popped a 2015 red blend. Felt pretty good. What is that look? I know people aren't going to see it, but maybe it's just your look, but sometimes I'll say something

and I look at your face and I'm like, what's going on here? No, it's never dismissive. I'm a huge Kyle fan. I always want to make sure I'm... Oh, really? You think. I'm a huge Kyle fan. I just always want to make sure I'm on. Oh, really? You think that I'm not a Kyle fan? I don't know. That's not how I want to bring in 2021, bro.

All right. I just want to make sure I understand. It's like a red blend. What is this guy an idiot? I don't know. No, no, no, no, no, no. Guys are demanding more, Kyle. They would like you to fill in full time and not have

me be here so uh we're not going to do that today we're not going to do that today but we are going to set you up with today's podcast schedule as much as i love the bowl games by the time you know we're taping this again really early out here on the west coast and the games are about to start i don't want to do this and then there's so many people that listen to it not right in the moment, especially your holidays. Some of you guys are probably sleeping one off here a little bit. So I didn't want to talk about these bowl games that, you know, 50% of the audience, the games could be over by the time you're listening to this.

So even though with Bama, Clemson, Ohio State, Notre Dame, I know the matchups are obviously Bama, Notre Dame. It is kind of funny that you're thinking there's more people rooting for Notre Dame today than probably ever before, considering how many people can't stand Notre Dame and their brand. And then you have Ohio State-Clemson where it's like, wait, do I root for Dabo or do I root for Ohio State fans? Although Clemson fans admit, release the drafts aimed at me from the title game last year. Because I know I saw some of them as Clemson got off to a good start

knowing that I was talking about LSU all year long. So I'll do a big wrap-up of it all on Monday. I don't want to make this super dated and start talking about college football matchups that are going to be over by the time some of you guys listen to this. So we're going to have Adam Amin on who has had an incredible career

already at a very young age. He's the full-time voice now for the Chicago Bulls on television, also part of the NFL on Fox. So he's the guy that I worked with at ESPN for a long time. He's got an incredible story. So I want to do that, kind of leave an ESPN, do something a little bit different. We'll do life advice at the end, but just a quick weekend plus now observation of the NBA. All right. This isn't even a flagrant three or incidental content. It's just a three point study. So a little bit of math here, but not really anything crazy. It's actually numbers.

It's not even math. Okay. So as we've seen all of these blowouts going into games a couple nights ago, 25% of the games were decided by 20 points or more league average last year was 17%. We brought this up before there's just nights. Yes, there are close games, but there's way too many nights you're like, this team's down 40 again, and it's happening all the time. I have multiple theories. We can talk about the quick turnaround.

I know some will only say that's the only reason, but it's just not the same. I mean, some teams haven't played in forever, and other teams played 70-plus games out when you're talking about the Lakers and the Heat. So I don't know that it's just turnaround. It could be new pieces. I think defensive rotations are a mess for some of these teams with new pieces. You know what else is kind of just sneaky, weird that I

keep seeing all the time? Inbounding. Why the fuck is inbounding so hard for you guys? The big guy will be standing at the baseline ready to inbound after a make and everybody's gone. I'm seeing it constantly where they don't have their inbounds set up. I don't even talk about like inbounds against the defense. I'm talking inbounding to set up your offense after a make when everybody else is gone and there'll be just somebody standing there or there'll be one guy picked up full court. And then it does happen where, you know, all right, the backup guards picking up our guard full court because he's playing 18 minutes and it's hoping to get a contract again. So now he's going to go all out. All right, fine. I got it. Now I need to bring up somebody else. But sometimes no one's there. And that's just a

little thing. And I still think there's an obsession with trying to make backcourt and now dangerous play. I cannot believe how many times crossing half court, we see somebody pass it backwards where it's just maybe was it? No, it was close to being back or it that's, this is, it's only like the last year plus that I've seen it. Okay. Three pointers right now, Toronto, and this is part of my other blowout theory is that the threes, it's just some nights, the other team that makes a ton that just, that's why you're having blowouts too. This is part of it toronto leads the league taking 46 threes a game they're taking 46 a game we have five teams over 40 attempts from three a game never had that before toronto 46 portland 41 milwaukee 40 atlanta 40

golden state is fifth at 40 attempts as well and they're only making 33 considering the other wings made none curry actually had a bad shooting start, so they've been a little bit better. Orlando is last right now in the league at 27 three-point attempts per game. That's last. 27, again, is the lowest amount of threes taken by a team in this season so far.

That would have been ninth most in the NBA just five years ago, and that's another point. Even though we all realize that the three-point thing hasn't happened overnight, the way it escalates is still new. five years ago. And that's another point. Even though we all realize that the three-point thing hasn't happened overnight, the way it escalates is still new. It's more and more and more. Five years ago,

three-point leaders, teams, by attempts, Golden State was number one in the league at 32 attempts per game. They're 14 behind Toronto in just five years. Now, is Toronto going to shoot

46 all season long? Probably not, but we're going to have multiple teams over 40 attempts. Five years ago, we had three teams over 30 attempts. Milwaukee was last in the 2015-16 season at 16 three-point attempts per game. Let's look at field goal attempts. This is something else I've been talking about with individual players having high usage rates, running every single play for them. Okay. And I don't know if this is analytics or I don't know if it's just smarter. I don't, you know, it could be a bunch of

different things. Hey, why are we having secondary and tertiary players handling the basketball more? Why don't we have the main guy handle the ball more? Okay. I'm down with that, but let's also look historically at understanding what more threes mean, meaning more points. The five most efficient offenses we have in NBA history, that's point per 100 possessions. That's not hard. It's not weird. It's just how efficient are your offenses. The league average for the top five are all the last five seasons.

Not exactly in order, but again, the five most efficient offensive NBA seasons have been the last five seasons. So you throw in more threes, the efficiency part of it, and the shot rate has gone up again. And I'm not talking like Wilt Chamberlain and Bullet Bob Pettit, where guys are taking like 109 shots a game on average. But in 10 years ago time, you look at Golden State, they led the league in field goal attempts, 86 per game. Five years ago, Boston led the league at 89 attempts per game. This year, Detroit is leading the league with 95 shots per game. We're up almost 10 in less than 10 years and about 6 in just 5 years. So it's going quicker. Maybe that'll cool down a little bit. I mean, we had some really crazy years where you had teams in the 90s averaging at the bottom end 70 shots per game.

And now here we are at 95. I've gone through all the league averages. I've looked at all this different stuff. If you look at the league average of three-point attempts today, it's 35 attempts per team per game, making 36%. 10 years ago, it was half of that. 18 attempts per game, league average. So that's all the teams. How many threes are you taking?

On average, 18 attempts per team per game. It's double the 35. Want to know what rate they made them at? Like, hey, they're much better shooters. Guys are much better shooters now. I would accept that the shot making is beyond anything we've ever seen. It's not arguable.

The make average is the same. League average for three-point makes 36% now. Ten years ago, league average, three-point makes 36%. More people are taking them, but more people aren't making them. I looked at the bull season, 96-97, so physical. League average, 36% from three. I was shocked when I looked that up. So free throw attempts, it's been about the same.

It's all around 23, 24 attempts. So, oh, more stuff gets called, more bullshit gets called. But because guys are taking more threes, so I think more bullshit gets called, but since there's so many threes, that that counterbalances the bad calls that are made for tricking officials all the time

with the fact that there's guys chucking. So guys are chucking. They're not making them more, but possessions have gone up because they're taking threes. You're taking them quicker. Points are raising. And I think with all these points, you add it all up. That's why we're seeing some of these blowouts and some guys could be really tired and some guys could be over it. And some guys could be like, this team's brand new and we're playing for draft picks already uh there's a bunch of reasons but i think that's part of it i want to do this real quick before we get to adam amin though and that is i want to thank every one of you for downloading

subscribing spreading the word about this podcast and it means a lot to me just to see how well it's gone because I was kind of over it after the radio thing and I knew I still had some time left in my contract I didn't really know what I was going to do but I wasn't I didn't really care I just knew I'd figure something out and to have this podcast be this successful and pretty consistently be I just think rooting for number three, rooting for third place is a loser move. But we know the deal that between Bill Simmons and Big Cat PFT, those guys are just crushing. But I think it's pretty consistent that this is generally always once an episode comes out, it goes to third. And that makes me feel great because after ESPN and after the radio thing, even though i had some

time left and then i still resigned with them and was contemplating doing it again i was like i don't know i was kind of all over it and pursuing some other things but this has been a lot of fun it's energized me again and it has everything to do with you people um caring about this podcast as much i didn't i hope i didn't complain i know i complain about players every now and then i complain about um you know an article i can't believe this guy said this. I mean, that's, that's, I hope the limitations of my complaining, there's some stuff that happened in the middle of the year that, you know, was, was kind of a weird stretch for me. Um, and I'm, I'm not gonna, I've thought about rehashing it all, but I don't really feel like I want to, because I think people have much bigger complaints in life than I do. And I hope through this pandemic and how much this year has sucked, whether it's situation at home, having to explain stuff to your kids, you know, having a wife or a husband that you love, but yeah, you'd also like to get a break every now and then. And, you know, you're in the house all the time and you can still care about that person a lot,

but you may be a little bit more independent and you're just like, ah the time, you still care about that person a lot, but you're maybe a little bit more independent. You're just like, there's a lot of time with this person. And then those of you that have lost somebody that you care about in a very unexpected way with everything that's going on with this pandemic and sacrifice that you've had to go through. So I know that I haven't had to deal

with any of those things. And so I really hope I didn't ever come off as I was complaining about how challenging this year has been. Because it's all challenging for us in different ways and some people far more than others. So I just never felt like, and I'm not even knocking anybody who's been complaining all year on social media. It's not what I would do. But if that helps you cope and get through this and feel like a part of community, that's cool. It's just I never wanted to do that because i ultimately know my complaints aren't even close to registering compared to others so that was um that's kind of how i looked at this year and let's uh let's try

and make this next one better all right so thank you again okay in a bit we're gonna have adam amin nfl fox and the Voice of the Bulls. I know it's been a tough year for a lot of people, but at least professionally, our next guest has had an incredible run. Adam Amin, who I worked with at ESPN. Didn't see a ton because he's a guy out on the road, but got to know him from a distance.

Always been incredibly impressed and not surprised by... I imagine, Amin, at some point, you're sitting here going, all right, Fox Cubs game in May. You're from Chicago. You're named the Bulls lead voice June. And then in August, you're named to the NFL Fox team. I know the business enough to know that all of this stuff had to be in play at some point. But let's talk about a year, man.

I mean, you must, you must be embarrassed and not wanting to like, like everybody's having such a bad time and you're sitting here going, this has been the best professional year of my career. It's, there's this weird guilt, right? Like it's, I don't know. I, I, I'm sure the term survivor's remorse gets used again. It's not really a survivor's thing in this particular case, but the, but the concept sticks, like there is a level of guilt that I've held on to all year. And again, I'm happy. I'm thankful. I'm grateful. I am very appreciative of everything I've stumbled upon the last nine months or so. But I keep thinking to

myself, is there some kind of karmic balance that's going to take place where I'm just going to get my ass kicked for the next 10 years of my life because I lucked out or whatever in a really, really tough year for a lot of people. And I had my own issues, obviously, during the year like everybody else did. But I got this weird sense of guilt for the last nine months just thinking, you don't deserve this. All these other people are dealing with a lot of rough stuff and you don't deserve to have anything good Like it's just this weird guilt that i've kind of walked around with and it's it's a balancing act, right? Like you try to take joy in like the moments themselves And in little accomplishments and benchmarks like you would in any other normal year, but it comes with this weight

So it's been a strange year and that's not any reason to pity me or anything like that It's just a weird feeling over the course of the last you know majority of the last year you were at ESPN for 10 years right I mean about a decade there I you know it doesn't have to be to the to the day so what is what is that like at least for you because I knew when I grew up that's where I wanted to work in some version of whatever it was I was trying to do. And if I went to sports, it was like, okay, that's where I want to work. You're there. You're calling these massive games. You're, what, 30?

You just turned 34? Yeah, a couple weeks ago. So that's 24 years old to be at ESPN. And I think for a lot of us walking around, you kind of see the guys that are a franchise, almost this made men deal where it's not a big number, but then you think, okay, well, could I be doing Monday night football by the time I'm 40? Could I be doing, I know Wimbledon is something you're interested in, NBA finals, you know, you never know. Although, you know, when you get these jobs, you don't really want to give them up. So what was that decision like for you? Yeah, it was, it was hard to try to make a transition because you put in all this time, right? You know what this was like.

And I became a fan of yours through SVP and just kind of listening to two normal people talk about sports in an intelligent fashion. So I became a fan of your guys, but like, I understood that path because I see that path for you. I saw that every, everybody who's left or people who haven't left that path is there. You go in, when you see the four letters, you're like, all right, this is the pinnacle. This is what I've waited my entire career for. This is what I've waited a good chunk of my life for. I want this. I want to be here. And in a lot of ways, that will reign true for a long time because people associate that brand with their first instinct about sports. It's one thing to work at Fox. We don't necessarily get tagged as Fox people. We get tagged as NFL guys. Because my Sunday, if I'm sitting on the couch,

my Sunday is dedicated to watching NFL games. So I just associate dudes or women who work NFL games as NFL people. You don't worry about the network. When you work at ESPN, you are associated with ESPN, the brand. And part of that, I'm sure, is because you're working in a lot of different capacities. I worked seven or eight, nine different sports while I was working at ESPN, six or seven of them consistently throughout the year. And you get associated with that brand. So there's some value, I think, for a lot of us, especially those of us who came out in college in the mid-2000s, late-2000s. For a lot of us, that's what we knew as sports and media. That was the combination and

the crux of it. So for us, it's like, man, we got to get there. If I'm not working at ESPN by age whatever, then I'm not setting myself up for a great career. If I'm not doing this by X amount of time, then I'm not going to have the type of career that I want. So you associate ESPN as the pinnacle of that. And understandably, because they have this massive swath of inventory and a lot of major events and a lot of major games. You mentioned a handful of them and I was lucky enough to work in a couple of those capacities on the ladders there. But you associate that with being it. And then it's weird to kind of be presented with an option. You know, like it's weird to be presented with

something that isn't what you've associated with that, that, that circle. And that was weird. That was weird. Okay. Well, what was that like? I mean, how much can you share with us and how the timeline plays out? Because your deal's up. We know how it works. You get a few months. For those that understand it, I'll just set it up a little bit. Maybe play-by-play is a little different,

but the way our contracts work, and it's not even specific to ESPN, is that it's almost like the home team has this advantage because they can start negotiating with you before your deal is up. And then if you don't come to an agreement, very few people do

in the very beginning of that part unless they absolutely love you or you're going to take less and stay longer. Then you can go talk to other people and kind of shop it all around and then you can bring it back to ESPN. But, you know, you kind of know, you'll know very early on of what the interest level is either for you outside those doors or inside those doors. I think, yeah, I'll give you a little calendar then. So for me, my contract runs out at the end of May of 2020, right? So we have a period where you can only talk with ESPN. It's like an exclusive negotiation period. Hey, ESPN is for, it's like first rights for a player, right? You're technically a restricted free agent. Yeah. People are under the impression that we're just, you run out your contract and you're good to go. These little periods may turn us into restricted free agents for a small portion of time.

So during that restricted period, it was hard, right? Pandemic's getting into the early stages. You know budget cuts are going to come. You know money's going to be an issue. And again, I'm not saying necessarily for me, but just in general. Right. It's a bad time to be a free agent in sports this summer. Absolutely. So I'm definitely worried and I'm going, all right, what's this going to look like?

So we finally start to get into some negotiations and talks come April. And this is a month into the pandemic. We're not even doing anything. So I'm just like, hey, whoever is willing to give me a job at this point, I think you just have to go with. Now, whether that's naive of me or wrong, you're being a little humble. I mean, you're being a little humble about like, there was a market for you, but I was, I was petrified. There's a part of me that is scared because I'm still like, I don't know what my standing is in this business, you know? And that's, that's one thing about ESPN and it's not their fault necessarily, you won't really get a true feel for where you're at because the machine is so damn big. There's so many gears and there's so many layers. And I had like nine bosses that I was reporting to over the course of a calendar year. So you

never really know where you stand. And that I think is by design. And I think part of that is by structure. And you get to a point where you're like, all right, what's going to happen here? We're going back and forth. I wanted to know a role. Hey, do we have a role? Do we know what I'm going to be doing for the next five years of my life? I'd like to know. The money is going to be there. I'm not worried about chasing dollars, all right, where we're compensated well. The money will be fine. I'm a single guy. I don't have kids. I don't have a mortgage. I don't have college funds to worry about. So I'm not worried about that. Yeah. But don't do that negotiations because they'll actually bring it up and they brought it up to

me once. And I went, so wait, I'm supposed to make less. Cause I don't have any kids. What does that mean? And I'm like, I'm telling my agent, I was like, obviously we're not going to discuss that as a negotiation piece, but I'm not, that's the, that gives you the sense. They'll bring it up. So you don't have to as the point. Exactly. Yeah. I was more worried about just like, what am I going to be doing? What, what's, what's the profile? Am I going to be on the NBA more? You know, that was the big thing for me. I wanted to, I wanted to keep growing on college football. I wanted to grow bigger on the NBA and everything else after that was kind of gravy. I wanted to grow bigger on the NBA. And everything else after that was kind of gravy. I wanted to minimize my portfolio a little bit. And the Bulls thing started to come up

in the previous months because I'd been filling in. I'd been one of a handful of fill-ins. And now I knew, okay, that's a real possibility. Being the Bulls guy is one of the few local jobs I would even consider giving up a chunk of national work because it's my hometown. It's the Bulls. I grew up on this team. The arena is a mile and a half from my apartment.

So that's a factor now. And I'm like, what is going to take place in the next month to figure out what my job is going to be? And then Fox comes in and I've had a good relationship with a lot of people at Fox for several years as you do as well. You just run into people at dinners, meetings, you go out and take a meeting, you meet people through events and things like that. And they were basically like, listen, we actually have an NFL role for you. And if you want to do that, and I'm like, yeah, don't stop talking. Basically, I'm like, that's it. That's what I want. I want to do the NFL. I want to do Major League Baseball. I want a chance to do playoff games, baseball and football. And I want the flexibility to do the bowl. So we go back to ESPN and say, Hey, there's

an opportunity here to do this. Is there anything you can do to match it? Or what are you thinking? And I don't think, and again, I don't think this is their fault, but they really didn't commit. And that's okay. I'm not upset about that. I think it would have just been a status quo type of thing if I'd stuck around because everybody's in flux This year, right? So now this huge opportunity comes up. I would have been stupid to turn it down It was already everything that I was kind of leaning towards anyway less work, you know Focused on a few on fewer sports and and just really locking in on pro sports more than anything else I'm, like yeah, that's, that's it.

And it wasn't, you know, it was an amiable breakup, I guess, for lack of a better term and a good parting and a better situation. And I think everybody was happy in the long run. Yeah. I would imagine even ESPN would go,

this guy's getting NFL Sunday games. He's bulls. He grew up in Chicago. Like, I don't know that we can give him the package and it's not a reflection on how they felt about you. Cause they don't give you opportunities at a very young age on big national broadcasts. So everybody knew your talent, everybody. So I think we both know that as we talk it out. All right. So NFL, are you assigned? Cause I was, I was researching this. Are you the

number three team? Is that, is there a depth chart? Do you walk up to like akib talib and say what's up five although actually talib would be the wrong guy to do that too so i do now i do i don't need somebody snatching my chain at this point uh my non-existent chain no akib's by the really fun by the way um i don't think we're the number three team i think if there's if there's a hierarchy it's one and two and then the rest of us okay i think that's fine i think it's buck aikman i think it's uh burkhart and daryl and then it's like 3a 3b 3c whatever order we are that's the nice thing though i think we all get swings at like a good game you know like yeah you and shloer are terrific so i mean you know i know that's that's your team like me and me and kenny like kenny albert and his crew is going to get a good game once every couple of weeks chris meyer

is going to get a good game once every couple of weeks. Chris Meyer is going to get a good game once every couple of weeks. And by the way, that's the difference of the NFL compared to college football. Every game has value. There's an inherent value, at least for the first 12 weeks of the season, in every game. And then you've got to find it for the final quarter of the year. But there's inherent value in all of these games. So it's easier to kind of contend with the hierarchy concept. There's not really a hierarchy after one and two on the NFL. Whereas on college, there is a distinct, like there's maybe five really important college football games a week. And you only get one of those five games if you're on the CBSA crew, the ABCA crew, the Fox A crew, whatever it is.

the Fox A crew, whatever it is. The difference between prepping for the once-a-week drive-by versus prepping for a full, again, it's usually 82 games, Bulls, but being the guy with the team as opposed to somebody dropping in and learning about a team that week and then maybe never seeing them again. There's a lot more inside stuff, I think. I don't focus as much on numbers to, to deliver a story for the local stuff because fans see it, you know, like, Hey, the guy scored 33 the other night. That's all you really need to know. Do you really need to know if he was shooting 54% from the

floor or 42% from the floor? Not necessarily, but I want to know the type of shots that he's getting. I want to know the type of matchups that he's working on. When you parachute in for these games, you're really, you know, for us, I haven't seen Carolina since week two. I'm got, we have Carolina, New Orleans for week 17. So I'm going back over my Carolina notes, but a lot of this is going to be stat stuff. And a lot of this is going to be major headlines and then trying to get pieces of each of those breaks. So Christian McCaffrey has only played three games. What are the three or four lines that branch off that main headline for the Panthers this year, right?

Kaywon Short has been hurt each of the last two years. Well, does that affect them up front? He's a two-time Pro Bowler. Well, then we could talk about Derrick Brown and his emergence in the second half of the year. And these are all things that Panthers fans know. You almost approach doing the national game as if you're introducing that team to the opposing fan base. So that's kind of the concept I've been going with.

Today, I'm prepping for Bucs-Bulls. I'm prepping the Bucs the way I would prep for Bulls fans to learn about the Bucs if they don't know something. They already know Giannis is really good. But do they pay attention the other night when they hit 29 threes? Probably not. So we'll make sure we let them know,, Hey, you know, four nights ago, three nights ago, they hit an NBA record 29 threes. Giannis only scored nine points and they beat Miami by 48 points. So we're kind of like that. All I need to give you as a Bulls fan

is that that's kind of how we structure the national preparation. Like I'm going to introduce, let's say I'm doing Bucks Bulls nationally. I'm going to introduce Giannis to Bulls fans the same way that I would do on a local broadcast. But instead of introducing, uh, or instead of talking about Wendell Carter Jr. in an inside perspective, the way Bulls fans know him, I have to introduce him to Milwaukee fans the same way that I'm introducing Giannis to Bulls fans. So that's kind of the mental perspective that we're kind of going in with in terms of preparation and what headlines we're looking at and how we're introducing people. I don't know that you would have enough time, so I don't know what the answer to this is. I did play-by-play one year. I prepped way too much. I wasn't very good at it. It wasn't what

I wanted to do. I think I probably could have figured out something at some point, wasn't what I wanted to do. I think I probably could have figured out something at some point, but I think you have to really, to be great at play by play, you can't screw, you can't be half in it. You know, you, as you know, you know this and you're great at it. So would you make sure you watch the most recent opponents game? Like the bulls opponent, do you make sure? Cause you could say, Hey, I'm going to do this every time, but I don't know that it's even realistic, especially with the NFL part of this for you. It's not, it's not to me. And I'm not, I'm not a guy who goes back and watches a ton of game film or like even for the NFL games, like goes back and watches like the entire broadcast copy. I try to watch like the

first handful of drives. I want to know what the other broadcast crew was at least thinking about looking at where was their head at headline wise. give me the first couple of drives to give me some information okay this guy's out this guy was heard here's how it affected them early and then i'm looking at like highlight packages and reading game stories and trying to fill in where i need to go because i know i've got a great first off i got a great partner in mark schlaer so he's really detail oriented yeah he's been doing it a long time so i mean exactly and he's and he's a film rat like he's a film So he's really detail-oriented. Yeah, he's been doing it a long time. Exactly. And he's a film rat. He's a film junkie.

He's just an awesome guy, too. So you like Mark when you spend time with him. So it helps. Exactly. Easy to get along with. And I trust him to man that side of evaluation.

I trust that if you tell me that they're playing a too-deep shell and that really hurt them against this wide receiver set. I'm not going to look at it. I trust you. I will set you up for that. With Bulls and Bucks,

I'm not going to go back and watch game tape. I'm going to watch highlight packages. The NBA puts these 10-minute highlight packages together of every game. It's great. You get a great sense between that reading and knowing your base knowledge of the NBA and these particular players. And I've covered these teams for a long time, four or five years now at this point. get a great sense between that reading and knowing like your base knowledge of the NBA,

these particular players. And I've covered these teams for a long time, four or five years now at this point. So I have at least a base of knowledge that I can work off of you. I can't go through every single game, two hours and try to navigate through it. I think it's inefficient. I think it's taxing. And I think there's a certain point that most fans just don't care. They just need the game. And I'm trying to give them the most amount of elements possible in case this becomes a great storyline. But I'm not going to go deep on DJ Wilson today.

You don't have to. I'll tell you right now, you don't have to. You don't have to worry about it. He and his 12 minutes a game, I'm not going to go super deep. Dante DiVincenzo, I'm not going to go into his every single game that he's played in three years, but I know Bulls fans

will be more intrigued by the fact that he was a teammate of Ryan Archie Diacono, and he was part of two national titles. Arch won MOP one year, and then DiVincenzo won MOP the other year.

That matters to a bulls fan or that's interesting that's that's connective do you think maybe we're looking at you could do like hey for bulls fans that are worried about archie diacono's look like clearly there's a deal here with the white nova guys where diva chenzo's got kind of this like extra and an eight mile look and so just now now that you understand arch, now you understand deep and Genzo a little, you know, so I just, I think any type of hoodie look or any type of like,

you look like B rabbit about to throw down. I would say workshop it a bit. You might want to change it a little there. Okay. This is something I've been asked by an editor to do this because they, they know how much I league pass, but I have a, I have a belief. First of all, okay, this is not, this is a dream gig. Okay. This is a league pass. But I have a belief.

First of all, okay, this is a dream gig, okay? This is a dream gig. You were filling in. But, I mean, to get the call at 33 years old, you're like, hey, as a Chicago kid, do you want to call Bulls games full-time on TV? I mean, what happened when you got that call? I cried. I legitimately cried.

I knew it was a possibility so like there's there's just because you look at the depth chart i i think it was more i think it was more just like knowing that we were filling in and i know they were looking at some point at some point this guy neil funk's gonna go like he's not gonna want to do this forever and he's he just turned 74 yeah uh two days ago like he just had his birthday the other day. And I know he wasn't going to want to do this forever, but until I became a second-year fill-in, I didn't think this was a real job. I didn't think this was a real profession when I was 18,

let alone I didn't think the Bulls game was a real job when I was 33. I never thought of anybody other than Neil Funk or Jim Durham or Wayne Larrabee or Tom Doerr calling these games for the last 30 years of my life. And by the way, for younger people that hope to one day be a play-by-play guy, there's a little bit more turnover in the last year or so, but these become 40-year jobs. Yeah. These jobs don't pop up, and that's the part of it where you go, all right, good luck with your dreams of calling NBA games, but

it's an unbelievable life. You think some kid in Southie right now even considers anybody to be the next voice of the Celtics other than Mike Gorman? Mike's not going to do this forever either, but try to tell that to anybody in Boston. They can't even picture anybody other than, I mean, it's hard enough without

Tommy, but I don't think people can picture anybody other than Mike calling Celtics games. That's going to be a very odd transition when Mike steps away, whenever he decides to, and somebody else has to step into that chair. You just don't think of it when you're part of the provincial nature and the regionality of, of pro sports. You just have your guys. Like those were my guys. Neil was my guy. sports. You just have your guys. Those were my guys. Neil was my guy. Jim Durham was my guy growing up. And now for the concept of like, yeah, you want to be the next guy? And I'm like, how the hell is this even a possibility? So a year ago when this started to become a discussion, I was like, oh, shoot, I actually have to make this a consideration.

That goes back to the contract stuff. Like I actually had an opera. There were options out there. And that's the weird thing too, right? And I know I'd be curious what your kind of journey was like in this sense too. Cause I think it's part of it's by design, part of it's by structure. You don't really think there's a life after ESPN.

You know, like people who have been in there for a long time kind of feel like, hey, there might not be much going on outside of this. This is pretty good place to work which it is and then all of a sudden these options are presented to you and they have emotional connectivity and and professional ease like i said i live a mile and a half from the arena like that's a big i've never had a year like this where i could be at home for a stretch of a week and a half and i know we're obviously doing all the games from home now uh even, even the road ones, but normal circumstances, we'd be like, I'd still be doing games down the street, at least half of them. So I've never had

a professional opportunity before. So I don't think there are a lot of kids out there. A lot of people in their, in their towns that think about these as real jobs because they're guys are their guys. And when that changes, it's a strange transition. I remember trying to break in and then i would always go why does every fucking guy have three of these jobs why can't you just have i just want one why is it that why do you have to be the studio host but also have a radio show and your account like why do you have to have three and that's what's weird about the eggs i know but but that's don't mix the industry. So weird in that if you're not doing like more than one thing. And as far as radio goes, like when I was doing radio and then every now and then it's like something else would come up and I was supposed

to work on this other thing that was going to be in-house. And I was really excited about it. And I outlined the whole thing. And I think it was Kevin Wilds when he was working behind the scenes. And I really thought I'd let him down because I put together some things and he was like, look, let's just throw some money at something and put you in front of a camera and figure these things out. And then it would be like, okay, now football started and I'm going to be working seven days a week until January. Like I just am going to be while I'm also trying to keep on the NBA because the five day a week radio part is just, I don't know that anything's as time consuming as that that's why i always kind of think and i'll maybe this is a studio guy that was doing radio every day when

when a pr person will talk about how like adam amin called like this game on thursday and then sunday he had to do this game and it was and i just go you know what you're just prepping for play-by-play all right like yes i understand it's a little bit, like Joe Buck did a World Series and then he did week four. And you're like, Joe Buck can do it, okay? Joe Buck, like the really good play-by-play guys can do this. It's not so, I don't know.

Maybe I just sound bitter with that whole thing. To me, it's all process-oriented too. I think that's part of it. And you said, like, to be really good, Bob Costas had this great quote many years ago. And he said, play by play is a very easy job to do adequately. And your mileage may vary on that statement, but I think that's overarching. That's a fair statement. Adequately to passively do this job, I don't think it's exceptionally hard to do. I think to do this really, really well at the highest, you know, Mike Breen level of doing this job, you have to be dedicated to it in a way that I don't

think people necessarily understand. And I'm, I'm sure this part of this is pumping ourselves up and making, no, but there's a performance part of it. There's a real performance. It's theater. You like, you can go see the understudy and it's going to be a fine musical. It's going to be a fine performance. It's going to be okay. and you'll have a good time with your girl and you'll argue at dinner and argue over parking anyway. But if you go and you see Kristen Chenoweth in Wicked and you watch her do her thing, or you watch Jeff Daniels do To Kill a Mockingbird,

you go, what a performance. That's memorable to me. And we don't get those every single night. Not every performance, so to speak, is memorable. But you have to be prepared for something that may end up being memorable. Okay, so I want to ask you that then. Do you have stuff you write where you go,

okay, this is going to be my go-to? I've never written a thing down that I've ever said. Not once. So if it were a big, this isn't going to happen in this year, but if it were a big, if it were like, this isn't happening this year, but if it were a big Bulls playoff win, you wouldn't,

you wouldn't think of a couple lines that may be, would sound good. I would think of like what the theme is. And I, and I have done that for like national championship games, did the final four, a couple of years on the women's side in college basketball. And I just wrote down like,

what was the theme of Notre Dame season that year? Like when Arike hit that game winning shot a couple years back their theme was they had more ACL tears than losses on the year like Muffet McGraw went through four players that had an ACL injury in the prior you know 14 months and somehow they battled back to win a national championship now did any of that get said in like the biggest moment of the game no because the games are tight right down to the stretch. And when the shot goes down, I don't have time to look down at my notes or like, Hey, what was that clever thing that I was thinking about saying? I don't have time for that. So everything there has been fairly organic. I've been thankful in that sense that most of these games that have had major stakes, they've been pretty decent games, but yeah, do you like

consider things? Do you maybe write down notes the way you normally would? And I'll highlight... But not one-liners. But not one-liners. I've never once written down for the first time and whatever, whatever, this has happened or the improbable or the impossible or some perfect word. I've never once written something like that down. And I think when the moment's big, you can't have that type of thought process. You have to be organic. Now, if it's a 30-point blowout, yeah. In the second half, I'm probably thinking like, all right, what do we want to talk about? What is something that we could say? But I've never... Even in those blowout moments, I've never

gone, oh, I've got it in a commercial break and wrote it down and said, all right, when the buzzer hits, we're saying that. I've never once done that. And I don't think I ever really want to start doing that. You definitely think ahead, but I've never written anything down specifically. Okay, so I want to get back to this Bulls thing because this is my Editor League Pass idea. He wanted me to put together all 30 broadcast teams, player that they're contractually obligated to build up on the broadcast.

When I know, when I know when I'm sitting at home being like this guy, isn't that good? Like I look, I was, I was watching the rockets. I'm watching the rockets a lot. I was trying to figure them out.

DeMarcus is out there for like two minutes and the guys in the broadcast, like this is the best he's looked in years. I'm like, he's been on the team. He's been on the team for three minutes. He's played five games counting the preseason and he's played 12 minutes in some of those games dude so who is that is there is there a guy on the because let me set this up again so i don't feel like i'm putting adam in a bad spot yeah

context is fine the job of nba broadcaster is part of the n product. Okay. And I would say with the challenges this year, it is obvious. Everybody has cranked it up even a bit more. So it's, it's beyond being a Homer. Like when I heard the first story, when I first started working with some of the Celtic stuff and I'd heard a story that there were some complaints that Tommy Heinsohn wasn't supportive enough. Okay. I was like, are you kidding me? Andmmy cranked it up for like the next decade where it was you know it was it didn't met orion green was going to be getting an all-star snub so i i get what the job is and it's somebody like me who watches i would say probably as much as anybody in all these different broadcasts and it'll just start to like okay here these guys go

they're talking about yeah they're talking about, I think it is off the charts early, early parts of the season. But I also know like when I had to do the NBA, not had to, got to do the NBA draft or got to host the NBA combine, or I actually did a play by play for the Celtics a couple of times. You know, you have to fill out these forms. You have to be approved by the NBA offices. And I've been lucky enough to have a good relationship with them.

So there's no part of it, but they're definitely like, we don't want, we don't want you coming on talking about the product and bashing it all the time. And you would never do that. I would imagine, especially even more so as the hometown guy. But I think that that is part of the understanding of this job. I think part of it for us and listen, there are writers here in Chicago and I'm sure there are in Boston and every big city, you know, every big NBA city across the country that, you know,

there are writers that are like, these guys aren't critical enough. These guys, you know, like they're, they're complete homers. I don't think I'm a Homer. To me, a Homer is somebody who does not give credit to the other team when credit is warranted. And I don't think a homer builds up guys even though they don't necessarily deserve the full build-up. And again, mileage may vary on that, but I don't think that constitutes a homer. I think a homer is just like, my team's great, your team sucks, your team's players are terrible,

they're all garbage human beings, and they don't deserve to be on the same floor as the guys wearing their jerseys. That would be a little harsh, yes. That's, that's, that's like the, the extreme level of homerism. Like I'm, I think we're like Stacey King and I, I think are actually decently critical of individual plays and, and bad habits. But I don't, I agree with you. I don't think we're sitting here going like, Oh, this guy doesn't deserve to be picked up for a fifth year option or man, auto Porter jr. Is not playing playing well enough that's a waste of 28 million bucks this year you know now granted porter is playing out of his mind to start the season so yeah we're praising him for sure

yeah it's funny because i've actually liked the way he started the year oh yeah he's been he's arguably arguably been like the second best player but it's a good point like you're you're looking at probably a challenging season here with the bulls it started off even worse and you know you can't do a year-long podcast of is zach levine a one because you know eventually like every bulls fan knows what the what the hope could be with zach levine and what the reality probably is that's staring him in the face but that's not really your job you know and i don't know i like when there are national blowouts um i wouldn't say that i'd rather have a close game but sometimes when je when Jeff Van Gundy and those guys, and it's gotten a little critical now.

We're like, oh, they're just doing a podcast. I go, yeah, but Jeff will be talking about topical things, but that's the national broadcast, national audience, first time maybe seeing these teams. The other team's up 30 anyway, so who cares? I don't really think that that's not really the role for you other than maybe once or twice a season because it would just be weird, right?

I agree. Like any topics we get into big picture, and we've had a blowout game here the first couple, we talked about the Atlanta Hawks. I give a lot of credence to Atlanta, who, by the way, got off to a great start this year. We were like, hey, they had the most cap space in the offseason. Look at all the moves they made.

This is a completely different lineup around Trey Young now. And we got to break down the opposing team a little bit. For us, am I really going to get into Lowry marketing's contract stuff? I might mention it on a broadcast and be like, the extension didn't get done. Lowry's obviously playing. This is a broadcaster would, would hope to say this home fans have a good sense for the machinations and the ongoings about contract stuff. They're having those debates on Twitter during a game. They're having those debates on, you know, on Twitter and chats after the game. And that's fine. And our, our crew, again, we work in an nbc sports affiliate like our pre-game show is really solid like jason goff is a national radio host yeah he brings that sensibility to a tv pre-game and post-game show and says like this guy's got to play better they

they i think if we combine all of our broadcasts together all of our sections pre half post and the game broadcast and we do a little crossover segment too i think between all of our broadcasts together, all of our sections, pre, half, post, and the game broadcast, and we do a little crossover segment too. I think between all of us, we have a good mix between our reporters, hosts, and broadcast team of building guys up, giving them the props when they're due, giving the other team plenty of love as well, and being critical of both teams when it's warranted,

and then giving you all of that peripheral stuff that's important to the machinations of the league with all of these elements of the broadcast so that actually takes a bunch of pressure off me because we have really good people working as our reporter and casey johnson and our pre pre and post game crew with you know will purdue kendall gill jason goff those guys are very critical of guys when they don't play well. And they probably are very nurturing and, uh, kind of building up of guys when they do play well. What's going on with my man, Wendell Carter, AKA Wendell Hudson, Wendell Hudson, the man, the myth, uh, truly a myth now, uh, back-to-back double doubles before the game yesterday, uh, banged up his hip against Washington a little bit. And I think he saw what Daniel Gafford put together.

And, you know, because Gafford had to play minutes. His marketing was out because of health and safety, right? So Gafford's coming in, playing the five. And Carter is looking at him going, oh shit, this guy's like fired up to play minutes. I think that's been the biggest shift under Billy Donovan. It's a 10 man rotation. I don't think he's played more than 10 players in a competitive game yet.

So it is a fairly tight rotation and there's three or four guys that are all outside looking in. And I'm not saying Wendell was going to be one of those guys, but I think he saw Gafford's minutes with a lot of energy the other day and thought, Oh shit, I got it. I got to step up. So he gets hurt in the third quarter, comes back or has a great third quarter, gets hurt, comes back in the fourth and has a couple of good plays. I think there's potential, but that's been the word that's been used around Wendell for each of the first two years of his career. He's been hurt a bunch. I mean, he's

played 44 and 43 games the last two years. That's not enough. It's not enough of a sample size to really know if he's worthy of the next year option, although I think the Bulls picked it up. On the rookie deals, you'd be horrified to not pick him up. Yeah, on the rookie deal. I think it was enough to get him on that fourth-year option. But frankly, I don't know if he is a starting five just yet. I think he can be, and I think there's plenty of flashes to show he can be, but I think I need to see it because if you turn him into the sixth guy or the first big off the bench, that's pretty good considering the product, you

know, the production levels, but I don't know what type of volume you're going to get when you're playing him extended minutes. He's still got to get bigger. He's still got to play a little bit stronger. Those have been the criticism, uh, criticisms of him. And I think those are rightful for the time being, but I I'm rooting for the kid because I think he's got a lot of potential. He's got a lot of bad habits defensively. Sags when he should be stepping up, steps up and tries to help out when he should keep an eye on his own man.

I think he's still breaking out of a lot of bad habits over the course of the last two years. There's so much high pick and roll now in this league. Some of these young guys that can't figure it out. I mean, even older guys. These are guys that don't do this in college, which I didn't really realize. It didn't really click to me

until I started paying attention on a more day-to-day basis. A lot of quotes from 19, 20, 21-year-old NBA players are like, oh yeah, we didn't do that in college. And it's granted their one year that they played in college, but oh yeah, we didn't do that. We didn't run this pick and roll this way,

or we didn't play out on a shooter like this. We didn't step up on a guy 25 feet away. We just kind of sagged off him. I'm like, oh, these guys don't understand the concepts yet. That's a league-wide thing with a lot of the young guys. I always wanted to be a little like Horford. I just think the way he saw the game,

it wasn't like I thought he was going to be 20 and 12 dunking all over people. That's just not who he was. I just loved at a young age the way he saw the game, so that was the kind of thing that jumped out to me, but if you he was going to be 20 and 12 dunking all over people that's just not who he was i just loved at a young age the way he saw the game so that was the kind of thing that jumped out to me but if you're not going to be out there so was the kobe white zach levine thing they're going to keep this going because i the way i've looked at it and they're playing a more now together right billy is than they ever did before right yeah he's so white starting now and and they closed a couple of games together last year, but they never started together until this year because Zach was hurt at the end of last season

when Kobe got his one start. So I think it took three or four games for Kobe to figure out what Billy Donovan is looking for in that position and what his skill set kind of matches up to. He's not shooting particularly efficiently from three-point range, but he might hit 200 threes this year.

And the other day, 10 assists for the first time in his career. So I think he's starting to get a little bit more of an understanding, but I think the biggest element is Levine because he scored 25 a game last year. He's proven it, right? He's proven, I can go out and get you 20 every night.

I can get you 30 on a lot of nights and maybe I can get you 40 once in a while. And that's what the great scores in this league do. Maybe not the elite of elite, like the Hardens of the world. No, there's no doubt. He gets you 30. But Zach's proven he can get you 30. I think he's gotten to a point where he's like, you know what? We got a lot of veterans coming off the bench. These guys can score. Thaddeus Young can score when he's got mismatches against a second unit, you know, small forward. Garrett Temple can play defense

on an opposing team's best guard. I don't have to necessarily take the challenge there, but I'll take it in the fourth quarter on Westbrook when I have to guard him. And I think he's realized he doesn't need to be the guy in terms of doing everything. He doesn't have to score every big bucket. He doesn't have to defend every big play, but he's got to pick his spots. And so far, I think he's picked his spots really, really well. And if that continues,

I think Kobe can become a consistent point guard. He's got a lot of turnover issues still, but that's getting better. And I think there's a real possibility for this duo to be a 35 to 45 point a night, 10 assists per night combined duo. And they did that a couple of games ago. They combined for 40, 12, and 10. That's great. If you get that out of those two out of your starting backcourt and your veterans put together decent performances, Porter gives you something, you get some defense from all around, that's a good mix. That's all I think the Bulls really need right now. And I'm not saying they need to win 40 games.

I'm saying to be better than they have been. I think this is the start. This is a good starting point to winning 30 games in a year. So you think, I just can't, I guess I can't get over the idea of being this close to the arena, growing up rooting for these teams, being a huge kid. Your first thing with Fox, calling a Cubs game. I'm bringing this interview full circle if you haven't been able to figure it out. I can sense the bow being tied.

Yeah, right. And just putting it all together and going, like, I don't want to say, because all of us are, we're not all the same, but we can be in the same that you're like, okay, but what's the next thing? What's the next thing? Are you already at 34? Like, all right, I'm, I'm good. I doubt you are, but I almost want you to, as somebody who's a little bit older than you to go, don't start freaking out about what the next thing is, considering the year that you just had. This is the first time in my, in the, in the 10, 11, 12, 15 years, whatever, I've been kind of, kind of really focused on this job? This is the first time in the 10, 11, 12, 15 years, whatever, I've been really focused on this job. It's the first time that I've gone,

you can take a breath for a while. This is a hell of a setup, man. Ian Eagle's my guy. Ian Eagle's the guy who got me into the business. He's the guy who taught me how to operate. And he had the type of setup. He called me back, by the way, in 2003. I found his phone number. I just started in Boston. And I was like, hey, this guy's great. And I called him and bugged him and he talked to me. And so that's an Ian Eagle. Not a lot of guys do this. He's that dude. And he does that. You could call 50 broadcasters who are under the age of 30 right now, and they would all tell you the exact same thing about Ion. But I always loved his setup. I thought his setup was so great. You call the NFL, you call a local NBA team, you do some national stuff for the NBA,

and then various other things. For me, that's baseball. I love baseball. I love doing the national baseball games. So I always hoped, I was like, man, maybe I could have a setup where I'm doing NFL, NBA, MLB, and then taking a couple weeks off in between seasons and getting a month off over the course of the year. Wouldn't that be great? And you never again, like I said before, I never really considered that to be a real concept until it became a real concept.

So I'm blown away by this. Do I want to move up on NFL and MLB? Yeah, of course. We all want to call a Super Bowl or a World Series. I'd love to call the NBA Finals or something someday. But I'm not worried about it for the first time in a while. And that's weird. In the sense of... I have South Asian parents.

My mom's still with me. She had a lot of pressure trying to constantly work hard. All this stuff that I've done, the way I've operated for most of my life has paid huge dividends for me. So I haven't really known any other way to do this. And for the first time, I can give myself a break and say, you don't need to do six hours of game prep for Bulls Bucks. You really don't. You don't have to go all in on every single game. You have to pace yourself and figure out what's important that night.

I'm learning how to be an adult. I think I'm saying that personally and professionally. I'm learning how to be an adult. I'm learning how to prioritize things. I'm learning how to figure out what's important now, what's important later, what's not particularly important, and what can I hold off on until a little bit later down the line. And figuring all this stuff out is a

new experience. And I'm happy to have it. And for the first time in a long time, I can take a breath and just be like, hey, things are okay. You're doing okay. And that hasn't always been the case. Your story isn't complete for people to learn about you the first time without understanding your family. And I know we've talked professionally how great this has been, and I don't mean to be a downer. I know it probably will be, but losing your father recently. But understanding his story and his backstory and coming from Pakistan

and essentially fulfilling the American dream for his boys and leaving your brothers behind and you being born here. And then I think all of us that have a connection with our father, depending all different upbringings, especially with sports, for those of us that make it a career, I know there's times where I'm like, Oh, I hope my dad's proud. I know he is. I know he is. What was it like for you to kind of fulfill his goals for deciding to do something that dramatic with his family? I'll never fully know if it, and I think that's what you were kind of alluding to, right? You never fully know, but you have this level of faith like that, hey, I think I've done the things

that he would have been happy with and he would have been proud of. He was the person in my family that was the least skeptical about me going into this. And that's not because anybody thought it was a dumb move or so. I wasn't capable. It was, this is a cutthroat business. It's a competitive business. And I was a smart kid growing up. I worked really hard and I got really good grades. And every year it was, you really need to start thinking about biology and going into pre-med and all this. The South Asian background, it's a good stereotype to have, but it is a stereotype. It's doctor, lawyer, engineer, and various peripheral jobs around that.

And that's about it to be considered, quote unquote, respectable. essentially entertainment and performance art and, and sports and something that's a little further away in terms of cultural connectivity for having like in a real adult life. My brothers were a little, we're very skeptical about it. Like you're a smart kid. You can make some money, you know, very early. Why are you doing this? My mom was skeptical. You should be a doctor. That's the only way, like you're going to get married or whatever, like shit like that. And my dad, my dad, I've told this story before, but I'll say it again. I went to... I was home for Christmas when I was in my first year working at a small town radio station in Iowa. There's like 3,000 people in this town. I'm making 12 grand a year.

And I'm isolated in a town that gets 80 inches of snow over the course of the winter. So I come home for Christmas break. My dad's sick. My mom goes, Hey, dad's sick. Can you go? Can you take me to this wedding? Will you be my date to this wedding? I was like, Yeah, sure. That's fine. I'm not doing anything. Sure. I'll take it. So I go to this wedding. And right before we walk in the banquet hall doors, my mom stops me and goes... And she's speaking like in urdu but like i'll say it in english she goes you're i basically told some of my friends that you're in med school and just go with it like are you fucking kidding me like i have to lie to who knows how many like

middle-aged pakistani women now who probably all have daughters because this is the type of culture that we're in. They all have daughters who are like, he's going to be a doctor. And like, whether the daughters care or not, I don't know. The middle-aged women, though, are like, yeah, we need to get this kid. We need to snatch this kid. So I'm like, I don't want to do this. So I told one person I was going into epidemiology. I don't want to do this. So I told one person I was going into epidemiology. I told one person I was going into cardiology, radiology, whatever ology I could come up with. And I had to lie to,

I think, six different people that night. So that's the type of pressure that we're under. My dad was the one guy who's like, whatever you do, I'm going to support you. Don't half-ass it. You cannot half-ass it. And he was the hardest working guy I knew, immigrant story, all of that. You have to go full bore on it. And if you do it, I think it'll be okay. And he was the one person in my family initially that never stopped giving me that unwavering level of support. And that meant a lot to me. And for him to see the fruits of his labor, and it's laborious, like 40 years in Pakistan, white-collar job, good background, good money, all that. Marries this poor young woman from a smaller village.

They have three kids together. He decides he wants to go do something else and make a better life for himself and the family. And this is the American dream type of thing. Eight years, they were separated. They didn't have any contact other than a couple of letters a year across the globe and that was it You couldn't you can't waste money on a collect call of the 1980s so Finally, he makes this makes enough money sends from my three brothers sends from my mom They finally reunite I can't imagine what that was like for my brothers not having their dad in their formative years And then I had a full 31 year 30, 30-year, whatever it was,

31-year relationship with him and got to get the best of him. And I'm thankful for that. And I think having him, having brothers that eventually came around to the idea that I was doing something that was right for me, having my mom eventually come around to that idea and just know that I was happy doing what I was doing, it's meaningful.

And I don't know if it'll ever fully register because I never really got to have that conversation with him. I never got to tell my dad, Hey, I'm going to be calling bulls games every night. And you're going to sit on your couch and watch. I never got to realize that fully, but I think, I think I know, I think I know what, what that would have meant to him. Yeah. There's, there's no question. And I think there's always something where you go, well, he was proud of what you were already doing before because you're doing it at a really young age

and you're calling national championships on ESPN and not even 30 years old. So whatever dreams he had for you, I'm sure he already fulfilled them. Hey, this has been a lot of fun. I'm glad we get to catch up this way. And I can't wait to watch you on these Bulls broadcasts. if you start talking up you know the 12th guy just now everybody will know so has to be the next guy you gotta get devon dots in some minutes man like this guy reminds me of

like a younger quicker ronnie harper that was that was always my favorite that was always my favorite with Heinsohn was just whoever the new draft pick was. You'd be like, this guy's a lot like Satch. Stacey drops. You know what? I got the answer, I think. I think I got the answer.

Stacey drops young Pip for Chandler Hutchinson once in a while. Because he'll do something. I do like Chandler Hutchinson. I will admit. I love Chandler Hutchinson. Yeah, he's a great motor, works his ass off on defense,

and then in the open floor, he flies. Open floor. Open floor, it's awesome. But I was like, so I enjoy when Stacey gets into, I ain't calling him young Pip. I'll say that right now.

But Stacey's allowed to because Stacey played with Pippen, so he's allowed to use that. Chandler Hutchinson will be available now in 97% fantasy leagues instead of like 99% after this podcast. It is at Adam Amin, and this has been fun. Thanks again.

Thanks, brother. 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. Let's finish with life advice. Lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. Okay, Ryan, real quick. Been married eight years, two kids, met in Dallas, but we moved back to where she's from in the East Coast. So here's my deal. My grandfather, completely out of the blue, must have had his Christmas carol Scrooge moment and sent everyone in our family five grand. Whoa. You ever get a check like that, Kyle? Definitely, definitely not.

Yeah. All right. So this is one of the most generous monetary gift I've ever received. The most, right? Here's the deal with our finances. We both make good money and have no debt. She is a nerd saver, and I'm on the free spirit spender side of things.

About two years ago, I broke down to her demands and allowed her full control of finances. All the money goes into one account for bills and groceries, et cetera, and she sends me an allowance of sorts for cash and gas for the month in a separate account. Ouch. I would hate that.

I would get divorced immediately. I'm not saying get divorced, but I'm just... Okay. So five grand shows up and she immediately is like, let's put it in the house savings fund or let's fund our kids' college 529 fund for the year, but it only takes a few months to save five grand for the house fund and the kids' 529 fund always gets their money. All right. So it sounds like you guys are doing all right. If only it takes a couple of months to save that kind of money. Uh, first off, she has stuck up her nose at my family, our entire marriage and disapproval because she comes from a family with zero skeletons or dysfunction. I looked, there's nothing. Wow. Okay. Uh, she's quick to label money. So I can't spend it. Uh, like I referee in high school football, make about

two grand a season. So she has been volunteering that money to pay for Christmas. So basically every time you make a dollar, it's already assigned to something else based on her decision. And you apparently have zero input on this whatsoever. I trust with, I trust my wife with our money. So no issues there,

but I'm tired of being broke with a free few hundred dollars in my bank account. Like I was when I was 19, Ryan, how do I 3d chest a situation to make it a it her idea to let me deposit the check into my account? Thanks. All right. Well, let's back up a little bit.

That would obviously really, really drive me crazy. But I'm wondering if perhaps you have done some things with money that has made her go, look, this is the deal now. This is how it's going to go. Now, saving money is better than spending it. As we all know, when you're younger and you want the freedom to be able to make big decisions, really the only way you can do it, unless somebody else is helping you pay for it, which is very few people out there. But with freedom of decisions, it's usually like, hey, I've saved five grand. I can move somewhere else. I can sign a lease. I can do the deposit in first month and I'm good to go.

When you're broke all the time and you sit there and complain about, I don't have any options. I'm stuck here. Okay, well, did you save any of your money or are you buying sneakers all the time? All right. So I would look at this and wonder if you did anything that put you in this arrangement. Because the other problem that you're going to have here is you've been married eight years. All right. You said two years ago you broke down to her demands.

That means six years of marriage and knowing each other before that. I don't know if you just have these terrible spending habits and this is what was better for the family. Or if she's really obsessive. It might be a little bit of both. Or maybe I'm assuming too much here. But the bigger problem is, is now that you're married and you've been allowing this to happen

for a couple of years, this would be like two clans in the woods in the olden times. And I don't know, Viking, pick an era. I don't care. But, you know, your clan is just hanging out, foosball, whatever. And then the clan across the creek,

you know, maybe they've got a higher vantage point and they're setting up a fence and then they have these wooden sticks pointed at you and you just keep watching and watching. And at this point, you're like, wait, are they going to invade us? Because if we, it gets probably too late. You've lost this land war is what I'm telling you. So since this is what the deal is now for two years,

there's a problem. If you haven't done anything responsible, but you've agreed to this arrangement, and then you come back at her saying, hey, I'd actually like to blow this five grand on something fun, and I don't know what you'd want to spend the money on. That would be a bigger part

of the decision-making process here. But she may be like, who's this guy? Who are you? Because you've already accepted this. You put yourself in this position. I don't know exactly the root of the cause of it all, but now you're in it. And so if you fight back on it, she may be like, hey, wait, you've been cool with this for the last couple of years, and now you're going to fight back a little bit.

It would be great if all this stuff could be handled in just a sit down, mature conversation. I've referenced numerous times to make a point. It's great when you just make one point, not a million points. If you're a manager and you're trying to give somebody who works under you advice, make one point, don't make seven. The whole, hey, I'm going to start positive, finish negative, start positive sandwich or start negative. And then you lose the person, start positive. You know, all this stuff. Or always leave on a positive note.

You know, it'd be great. We would do some of that stuff back in the ESPN days. And they'd go, yeah, no one got the segment. And this was bad. And this interview was bad. And this question by our standards was the wrong way to do it. But loved your passion. Loved your passion on it.

You're like, what? Like, oh, okay. So it sucked. All right. Got it. No problem. So, um, I would just take one swing at it and go, Hey, I don't, I'm not, I'm a grown man. I'm not comfortable with this. I, I shouldn't have a few hundred dollars in my, my bank account. Okay. Like this isn't going to fly. And you're going to have to be stern about it to get her to realize how serious you are about this. But chances are she's in charge here and you've let it happen. And maybe it's because you didn't see it coming

or you did something that, you know, I'm not trying to get on your case here. I'm just trying to understand like why it was six years of marriage. And then two years ago, you guys decided to do this, but saving for a house is a lot cooler as much as it's nice every now and then, you know, I gave my sister some money and I said to one of them, I go, Hey, do something for yourself that you wouldn't do otherwise. And it wasn't like a huge amount of money. It's just something you would do for your siblings. Right. And I go do something

with it that you wouldn't otherwise do, you know that's in your shopping cart someplace, clothing or whatever, just do it. She was like, no, I'm saving for a house. I went, okay, no problem. Because saving for a house is actually a lot cooler. Good luck. This next one here is a dilemma that we run into every now and then for guys doing stuff. It's pretty vague. We'll get to it. All right. Love the show. Okay. Don't use my real name. Troy. He's going to want to go by Troy. This falls in line a bit with the hilarious last episode about people being weird

with money. And I need your advice. I have a friend I've been friends with, a buddy I've been friends with the seventh grade. Call him Tom. We're 35 now. So friends since middle school. Same middle school, same high school. We both even went to the same college. Great school. Lifelong dream for both of us. Always been very close. He was a groomsman at my wedding. I'm a gigantic Lakers fan being from SoCal and he likes to be a contrarian so he hates the Lakers. He loves the Yankees, Cowboys, Bulls.

Puke. Not specific to any of those but that's one of the most atrocious combos you can have. The only thing that makes it a little bit worse is if you threw in Duke basketball. He's probably rooting for Alabama today, by the way, too. All right. So back in

2012, we were drinking and I said one day LeBron's going to become a Laker before he retires. I was maybe or mainly taking a hopeful shot that it would happen as the Lakers are terrible post the Kobe Powell run along with some liquid courage slash faith, he adamantly disagreed. This led to a bet between friends for $500, a lot for us at the time. Handshake, yes. We even created a note on our iPhones to make it even more official, or so I thought. The day LeBron signed, I sent him a screenshot of the note and I said, I accept Venmo. I was excited about my victory and 500 bucks coming my way.

He basically pretends the whole thing was never official, claiming he wasn't serious, even after multiple reminders from him about the bet, most notably when LeBron went from Miami back to Cleveland. So that means over the six year stretch, it was brought up in conversation. To this day, I've not seen one penny to $500 and the outlook is bleak that it will ever happen. Seemings for the most part, he sort of laughs it off whenever it comes up. Side note, it should be known that a buddy we have in common

makes sports bets with him, and he says he pays up half the time. Not a good sign. You should pay your bets. All right. Unless it's just something, you know, ridiculously stupid. You know, whatever. It's become somewhat of a running joke

between me and the other guy, so it doesn't entirely surprise me. So what do you think I should do? I've been sort of whatever about it at this point. Should I be serious and actually say, hey, man, I thought this was official. What's going on? Or just forget about it. At the end of the day, I won't let something like this get in the way of a friendship. It's 500 bucks. And ultimately, he's been a good friend through the years. When he wrapped up med school and officially became a doctor, yes, you read that, right? He's a doctor. I really thought his newfound financial outlook would bring me my winnings, but alas, it is not. I've never been one to count someone else's money.

And at any point he said, hey, that's a bit of a hit right now. I'll pay it off. Bet at some point. I would absolutely understand. It's more of his dismissive attitude about it that annoys me, almost trying to make it seem foolish, which in all honestly does hurt. This is especially the case when I would have paid the bet had it not gone my way. Okay, not an uncommon dilemma. I mean, as I said earlier, you should pay your bets, but there's probably something stupid we've all done. I'm like, all right, dude, I know I said that, but I'm not really doing this. But this seems a little bit more specific. You wrote it out in an iPhone note. It's been brought up numerous times. Then it happened. He's annoyed

with you because he's annoyed he lost. So I don't even know that it's about the 500 bucks, but I would really let this one go. You said he's been a great friend. You've known him since middle school. He was in your wedding. And if you keep hammering on this, he's wrong. You're right.

But if you keep hammering on this, you're going to lose him as a friend. And that's not worth 500 bucks. So that's how I would look at it. There's really not much more to this. It's pretty simple. Do you want to lose him for $500? No, you don't. You've made all these points that he just every, we all have one, maybe even more than one thing that you're like, you know what? Priscilla could be a little bit better at this. I don't expect to be perfect. This is a fucked up thing that he has going on.

And it sucks. Like he should pay you the 500 bucks. You were right. You were right across the board, but it's not worth losing a friend over. So stop bringing it up. That's about it. Because he doesn't want to pay you. And if he does pay you,

if you keep on with this and he finally gives you that 500 bucks, he's going to be so pissed at you. Even though you're right. He sees it completely differently. He thought it was something annoying, stupid. It's not a real thing, and it happened. And since he hates the Lakers too, then he's even more annoyed about it.

He doesn't want to pay you this money, and he's going to get really pissed about it if he has to, again, even though he's wrong. So don't lose the friend over something like this, especially as you get older, man. It's hard to have those go-to guys as you start getting into yourirties and into your forties and they're worth more than $500. Okay. Life advice, rr at gmail.com. All right, everybody, we'll be back to wrap up. Here's what I'm going to do. I'll do a big college football wrap up thing. We'll have the nice national title game set. And then of course, the rest of the regular season will be done for the NFL. So we're going to have a huge, huge football for you. Football Monday for you.

So please subscribe. Spread the word. The Podcast. Spotify. Ringer. Podcast Network. Thank you.