The Ryen Russillo Podcast - NBA Conference Finals Picks, Golden State’s Luka Problem, and a Suns Postmortem With Logan Murdock

Episode Date: May 17, 2022

Russillo makes his picks for Celtics-Heat and Warriors-Mavericks (0:28) before talking with The Ringer’s Logan Murdock about the uncertainty surrounding Warriors-Mavericks, the Jason Kidd renaissance, Celtics-Heat, Erik Spoelstra, what happened to the Suns, Deandre Ayton’s future, and more (19:47). Finally, Ryen answers some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (54:58). Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Logan Murdock Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm going to pick both conference finals. I'm going to react to the reaction of Pat Beverly just smoking my guy on TV for two straight days. Logan Murdoch is going to talk Western and Eastern Conference finals with us. And he also did a piece on the Suns. And we have an extended life advice for you. So get ready. How's it going, everyone? I'm doing great.

Thanks for asking. It's been not even 48 hours since one of the worst Game 7s I've ever seen. I think a lot of people that listen to this podcast, listen to Bill's podcast, you probably already heard me. I don't know that I was great on that pod. It wasn't because I was so upset. I i just didn't really know there wasn't really a

counter for what happened so why come up with one why try to come up with one so i didn't so i'm going to make a statement about statements uh after this but first i want to pick both conference finals we start in the east okay so i think you guys have heard me enough now that you, you, you, you probably could guess I'm going to pick Boston against Miami. All right. Uh, this is a very odd, wide open conference finals. Uh, we, I still don't know that we fully comprehend what we had throughout the teens. And that was starting with Miami. I mean, you can even go back to Boston, putting together that big three. It just felt different. People were less pissed about it because the players were older. I also think there may have been,

not that I always agree, there's this anti-Miami stuff that I used to hear when half the lineup was from Miami on radio, but that might've been a bit anti-Miami when people were so upset. And maybe they were just so anti-LeBron because he was the number one guy, right? So if we go back to the first incarnation of LeBron's big three with Miami, and then what started happening with Golden State and LeBron going back to Cleveland with that group, although Love and Kyrie, it still doesn't feel to the level of Wade and Bosh. And then again, once you have Steph, KD, and Klay, that takes you all the way through 2019. And so that became the norm. That became the norm for us as basketball fans of like,

okay, well, who do I expect to win? Well, who are their three guys? I mean, even when the Lakers grabbed Anthony Davis, the entire conversation was built around, okay, yeah, but who's the third? expect to win well who are their three guys i mean even when the lakers grabbed anthony davis the entire conversation was built around okay yeah but who's the third and then i think what we had to do was look around and saying well if the thirds are no longer the the three guys on each team are somewhat diminished whether it's clay not playing for two years um lebron being with only one other guy with anthony davis looking around Milwaukee going, okay, is Drew Holiday somebody who counts? Because if we look at the most recent championships, I guess we could argue Drew Middleton and Giannis last year. Maybe it would have been Paul Booker and Phoenix, or Paul Booker and Aiton and Phoenix.

And even in Toronto in 2019, I'm not percent sure that one like registers a big three, even if we, you know, after Kawhi and Lowry, Siakam, I mean, you know, then I start feeling like we're just trying to name a third guy on some of these basketball teams. So something that became the norm with how we try to project who was going to win an NBA title for all those years, like it almost took, I still feel like there are times just like, Hey, remember now, that's not really what we have. And again, maybe we still have Milwaukee, if you understand the point. But it's not this overwhelming title-like powerhouse trio of players that we were very conditioned to having for 10 years.

So that's why when you look at these four remaining teams, Boston's got their two. Miami's got two. Lowry, at this point, with his hamstring, if you watched him at all in that Philly series, that's major, major concern. Dallas, we're not going to get to three. And Golden State, in theory, has three guys with Green, Clay, and Steph, but Clay hasn't played that well.

So I think the talent disparity between Boston and Miami is significant. And I also feel like when you look at what Boston did against Giannis and Kevin Durant, it should be easier against Jimmy Butler. And Jimmy Butler, by the way, has been insane. If you look at the traditional numbers from where Butler was two years ago when they were in the finals, the numbers are up dramatically for Butler. I mean, right now he's 29, 8, and 5, I mean, right now he's 29, 8, and 5, but the advanced stuff is way beyond.

The advanced stuff is like a massive jump from when Butler looked like one of the best players in the league two years ago, carrying that team to the NBA Finals. Now, my counter to that would still always be they played Atlanta and they played a super messed up Philadelphia, but Butler still was the engine that made this thing go, and I still obviously really like Bam a lot. But if you look at what Boston did against Katie and Giannis, Giannis, this is holding Giannis to 34, 15, and 7 in a seven-game series. But his shooting percentage was 46 and 23%. He was at percent uh against chicago and he's 55 percent

this season he was 57 last season so holding yannis to those traditional numbers doesn't seem like you did anything but that he was 46 and the assist started to dip off a little bit too there at the end um that's actually a win for any team defending yannis let's look at durant durant played 55 regular season games this year he He's 52 and 38% from the floor and three. Against Boston, he was 26, 6, and 6, which is down from like 30 points a game in the regular season, but he was at 39% overall and 33%. So Boston has shown, and now that they get Rob Williams back, that they can gear up. Again, it's not like they stopped Giannis, but they made him less efficient, which is the entire goal. Butler's still going to get a ton of points.

They need to make him less efficient. And I also think when Bam diced up the interior of Boston two years ago in their conference finals, Boston did not have the size options that they have now. So, I'm picking Boston. Dallas is kind of like Western Conference Boston. They were 16-18 late in December. They traded bad contracts for bad contracts. And as Bill and I covered this

at length on Sunday night, it did not dawn on me that it wasn't about who was coming in. It was that you no longer have to pretend that Porzingis is a number two option on the basketball team. And they've always been really good offensively. I would not argue, even though Dallas had the greatest offensive efficiency number we'd ever seen two years ago, that that's the greatest offense that I've ever seen. It was kind of a rising tides thing that's happened with so many

of these offenses. And the fact the league has been a lot easier to score in, not so much the first half of this season, but this is something that's been happening for a while. We've talked about it. When I look at Dallas, I go, it's a completely different team now because they actually buy in defensively. They know their assignments. Luka, by the way, who got torched in those first two games against Phoenix, where you're like, man, this is actually bad. What are you going to... That changed.

It changed entirely. Here's another thing that Dallas did. Dallas attacks Chris Paul worse than Pat Beverly on television. And we'll get to that in a second. Don't worry about it. his man he's defending is setting the screen so that you're going to get caught up trying to defend all of this stuff. And usually it just means you're undersized, especially against Luka. The top five games in the last 10 years of Chris Paul's playoff career where he was used in pick and roll, five of those games were in this series. And it was after games one and two. So it's all the other ones, leading from 13 times to 24 times they did it to him in game seven. They did it to him 24 times in game seven, and he was not up for it. You know what else? No one who's small is up for it against Luka

because it doesn't matter. That's the craziest thing about the Luka injury at the beginning because I was like, I don't know, man, that calf injury looked bad. Even when he came back, he looked a little banged up. But to remind us all, you're like, okay, but Luca doesn't exactly need burst and quickness and quick cutting. He just has so much size. So even Mikael Bridges, who is a really good defensive player, both at the rim, switching, you know, perimeter, like after a while, he's just like, yeah, you're just going to go for a ride here, man. There's not much you can do. He he decides to put you in the mixer, it's over. And when I think about Golden State's matchups with this, I'm not sure. I'm going to say it this way.

I know what they're probably going to try to do, but I don't know what Golden State's going to do to try to counter it because, I mean, it's fairly obvious they're probably going to target some of the smaller wings. Does that mean Draymond gets involved quicker with Luka? Is that a mistake because then you're getting him in a switch and then Luka's switched up with somebody else? You know, there's some of this pre-switching stuff that you can try to do

that some teams are really good at, but it's not always easy to do because you're trying to do something ahead of what the other team is doing. And if they don't do it, then you could be out of position on top of everything else. So we'll see. It feels like a Dallas pick based on all the stuff I just said. And there's also a part of me with Golden State. It's like, okay, I know they're undefeated at home.

Now they have a home court advantage because they have the best remaining win-loss record. But should a team be down like 50-plus to somebody and then still feel like, yeah, that team will win the title. But then, you know, Dallas, Dallas didn't look like they were going to be winning an NBA championship the first couple of games of that Phoenix series. So this is new. It's uncharted territory. It feels very new for me, something we haven't felt in a long time, where there's not this one remaining team with the personnel, the headlining personnel that goes three deep that you're like,

oh my gosh, how's anybody going to beat those guys? Because Klay's not Klay right now. And even Steph's shooting numbers haven't been terrific. And Draymond has zero interest even looking at the rim. He doesn't even want to keep teams honest. And that might get really weird against Dallas. It's a total coin toss for me. I've sounded like I'm arguing Dallas for the pick.

I'll go ahead and take Golden State, but I don't feel great about it at all. Final thought here. A lot of people have reached out. A lot of people reached out, checking on your guy. It is appreciated. I mean, I have guys who don't even know me that well, being like, hey, what the hell's going on with this Chris Paul thing in you? And I'm

like, well, you felt like such a loser being like, I'm a huge Chris Paul fan. I've made some very strong arguments on his behalf, which I felt like I had real evidence for, but there's another group that thinks he's like the biggest choke artist of all time. And now he's got some stuff on his resume, including the worst game seven I've ever seen that would tell you that I've been wrong this whole time. I've been living a lie. Nobody feels good when you say that out loud, right?

So, yeah, a lot of texts from friends about this. So, you know, we're good. We're going to be good over here. Could I work myself into why a couple of the 2-0 series losses aren't that bad? Could I do that? Now's not the time. Now's not the time to do that. Could I, like a phoenix from the ashes, in a couple months?

I tell you, I felt like doing it after watching the Pat Bev clips. I'm not going to lie. I mean, have we ever found somebody better for television? And those clips are getting sent to me all day being like, how mad are you? I go, well, what do you want me to do? I'm a going to lie. I mean, can you, have we ever found somebody better for television? And those clips are getting sent to me all day being like, how mad are you? I go, well, what do you want me to do? I'm a grown man. I'm not going to stew with anger. I do that enough for other reasons.

But what, like, what do you want me to do? Pat Bev, who hates Chris Paul, being invited to go on TV after Chris Paul and the Suns blow this 2-0 lead and have the worst game seven I've ever fucking seen? Can you imagine? TV, after he got done that first day, they were like, hey, do you want to come on and shit on any other players that lose in the playoffs? Done, man.

And yeah, I'm not going to take Pat Bev's side in any of this because I know he just doesn't like Chris Paul. And the fact that he would act like Chris Paul sucks. It's like, dude, he gave you 42 and like 35 minutes last year in game six and bounced you and you shoved him and you didn't play for the Clippers after that move. So like, where,

where's, where was that last year? You want to, you want to, you know, circle the wagons now I get it. And then I guess Beverly came back on Saruti. He's on again today.

He did round two today. And then I guess Beverly came back on Saruti. He's on again today. He did round two today. I mostly saw the clips today, but I think it was get up, the usual, his first take again. I think JJ was on. And here's the thing. Yesterday was kind of fun. I was a little annoyed by it.

I think you were. But I think generally people enjoy it. They're like, oh, this is kind of fun, even if they realize that he's completely biased. He's doing something different. Yeah, I was thinking, this is kind of fun. Even if they realize that he's completely biased, like I was doing something different. Right. Yeah. I was thinking like,

did ESPN find their new LeVar ball? Like he just goes on there and says the craziest shit and like, it gets everybody pissed off, but everybody was talking about it. So I guess, you know, I'm not going to tell them how to do television. It probably worked.

Um, for a television, for television, this is absolutely a no brainer. Right. Home run. This is how television works. Yep.

And, and that's why LeVar Ball was on show after show saying his son was better than Michael Jordan. Until ESPN was like, okay, enough. I would hear about some of LeVar's requests towards the end and the guys that were in his camp in the beginning and then towards the end, they're like, now we think he's just fucking with us.

LeVar will call and be like, I need this and I need this. And they'd be like, okay, fine. We'll send you this and we'll do this. And they would call back 20 minutes later, change my mind. I need this. And they were doing it for him for a little while. And then I think LeVar tried to see what he'd get away with.

So anyway, back to your Pat Bev stuff. Can I say this too, though? You've seen the LeVar Ball, LaMelo Ball AT&T commercial. I've completely done a 180 on the Ball family after that commercial. That commercial is fantastic. When he's like at AT&T trying to win a month, he's like,

ain't nothing he can't do. It's amazing. Anyway, yes, Pap Ev, like today, here's the thing though. He goes on yesterday. He's great. It's fun. Everybody's laughing. They know it's kind of tongue-in-cheek. They know he's mostly wrong too but it doesn't really matter if you're wrong on that show but then the next day when you do it

again like your flaws sort of start coming out a little bit more it's like when you date someone for a long period of time you're like oh wait she's actually terrible like she doesn't she's not good hygiene she's not clean um like you just kind of see some of the warts and that's what we saw today with pat babb i mean for example like you know he's talking about how you know everyone in the league wanted to play the suns in round one and like you know he didn't need a good nice rest before playing chris paul but he needed to like go to bed at 8 p.m when he was playing steph curry but then like right after that he's like i would give harden the supermax and any other team if philly doesn't get you know give it to him is going to give him the supermax and jj reddick corrects him as like well actually only philly

can give him the supermax like they're just like little things that he's getting exposed on. And I thought Van Lathan had a great tweet. He just said simply Pat, that blew a three one lead today because he did like he had all the momentum yesterday. And he just did a little bit too much by coming back today. I know he said that Chris Paul, because he gets state farm ads. That's why he gets calls in the game and stuff. Here is look, I can't win. If you don't like Chris Paul, you want to hear from me right now.

So I'm not a great guy to talk to about Pat Bev. But it has been a cycle of texts and check-ins and phone calls from people and also like attachments. Did you see Pat Bev do this? How mad are you? We're on to the conference finals, folks. Not on your radar. 24-hour rule we have moved on we shall see what happens after this i will say ryan i'm happy that people are reaching out to you though because they what do they say you know like when you're at your

lowest point you find out who your real friends are and it sounds like you got a lot of great friends they were all checking in so i'm happy for you dude i feel actually like a bigger loser so many people are reaching in it's it's it's not it's not what what you said is nice and that would be great i felt like a much bigger loser after the fact of like jesus do people think i'm this fucked up about it and i guess they did i guess they did i don't know it's. It's good to be known for something. Is it? Yeah, you're the Chris Paul guy. So, you know, I think anyone who watches basketball is more on your side than they are Pat Bev's side.

It's just that we see Twitter and we see everyone clowning on everybody. But I don't know. And by the way, his quad was hurt. Yeah, exactly. Give him a pass. Come on. Next year. All right.

Let's talk with Logan Murdoch. The playoffs are heating up, and you can make every game feel like Game 7 on FanDuel Sportsbook, an official partner of the NBA. Throughout the playoffs, all customers can place a no-sweat same-game parlay each week. You'll get up to $20 in free bets if you don't win. FanDuel has so many ways to play, and best of all, when you do win, you'll get paid faster $20 in free bets if you don't win. FanDuel has so many ways to play. And best of all, when you do win, you'll get paid faster than a fast break. Okay, let's take a look at the same game parlays for tonight. We got some odd boosters.

You guys ready for that? Jimmy Butler and Bam each score 15 or more points. Tyler Hero makes two plus threes. That's paying out at plus 250 up from 175. Gosh, that feels like a lock. That might have already happened with the game not even starting. And on the other side, the odd boosted here on this one, the Hulu NBA boost.

Tatum, Jalen Brown, Grant Williams, each to make two plus threes. That's plus 220 up from 155. All right, so if we look at now the line here, Miami is favored in this game. Boston's favored for the series, and Bill covered that really well on Sunday night, by the way, coming off that tough physical game, 7-7 series with Milwaukee. The rare road...

Well, not a road dog, but to be favored in the series, but a dog in Game 1 coming off of that. All right, so Victor Oladipo, minus 130 to score 10 or more points. Make one or more

three. Anybody make any sense here? Could be. P.J. Tucker's usually make one or more three. Anybody make any sense here? Could be. P.J. Tucker's usually good for one corner three, minus 350. Yeah, he's made a three in every playoff game so far, except for three. So, yeah, that's pretty good. And then first quarter total points, over, under, under 49 and a half. All right, let's stay with that.

See if Boston's exhausted and Miami's trying to feel out of defense that's far superior to what they've faced the last two times through. Okay, so those are a lot of options with even a little bit of research. So, enjoy. New to FanDuel, just download the FanDuel Sportsbook app and sign up with the promo code Ryan. So they know that I sent you. That's R-Y-E-N.

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or visit panduel.com forward slash RG in Colorado, Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, New Jersey, PA, Virginia, or 1-877-770-STOP in Louisiana, 1-800-270-7117. For confidential help, Michigan, 1-877-8-HOPE-NEW-YORK or text HOPE-NEW-YORK, 467-369-NEW-YORK. Tennessee Red Line, 1-800-889-9789, Tennessee, or visit 1-800-GAMBLER.net, West Virginia. Logan Murdoch, ringer, has a piece out on the Suns. We'll probably spend a little time on that. Of course, the real one drops Monday nights with Roger Bell. All right, I opened up today going, hey, it's wide open.

There's no one that's horrifying to go up against. We can sit here and rank the teams and all that kind of stuff, but the Dallas-Golden State one is tough, I think, for a lot of people because I don't want to be dismissive of Dallas. And then it's like, wait, are they actually just this awesome? And is it actually maybe a bad matchup for Golden State? Then I'm like, okay, but Golden State's at home. Phoenix also kind of fell apart. So there's a ton of uncertainty for me on this one. I pick Golden State. I don't feel great

about it. I feel more certain about the Eastern Conference, but let's start with the West. I was talking to Rajah about this earlier this week, and I don't have a good gauge on this Mavs Golden State series either. Now, on paper, Golden State should win. It's not even a question. But when you look at it, there are some faulty pieces right here because Luka is one of those guys, and I see him with 18 LeBron, with this year's Giannis, or maybe last year's Giannis, where it is a one-man show, but it really doesn't matter because that one man is so good they're gonna put luca in the post he's bigger than um then he's everybody the guy he's bigger than everybody he's right other than looney or porter maybe maybe right but i wouldn't trust

looney on luca and i'm not gonna trust porter on long stretches luca so then what do you have you're gonna put dream on on them i don't know because they're put Draymond typically on the big because they play so small. The Warriors play so small. Then you're going to put Wiggins on them. As Roger said, Wiggins is light in the ass. So we'll see what happens on that one. And then you go down the line, you go put Poole on them. No, you're not going to put Poole on them. Then you're going to switch them on to Steph. That's going to be hard. So they're going to have to figure out their Luka thing. I don't know if that's playing zone. I don't know if that is just trapping Luka every time you see him. It's going to be a tough, tough matchup.

It could go five games. It could also go seven. I don't know. Yeah, because I'm with you. If you go team for team, and that's why I'm always going to struggle with a team like Dallas because I usually don't like the ISO-heavy teams with the one guy, but the one guy is also interested in letting other people eat and that's a little different than the high usage rates that we have with other

players at times I feel like Luca actually does want to get other people involved and Jalen's development has eased the burden of him feeling like it's every single time so but if I go down like the list and I'm like wait I'm at player number four maybe and it's it's every single time. But if I go down the list and I'm like, wait, I'm at player number four maybe and it's Jordan Poole. And who's player number four who I think is as talented as Jordan Poole in Dallas? It's going to be hard for me to figure out who that fourth guy is. And I'm not going to sit here because Spencer Dinwiddie went off in game seven

and act like everybody loves Spencer Dinwiddie all of a sudden. Who, by the way, played terrible in the last series against Phoenix, for the most part. If you go look at his overall performance, he didn't play well. One other thing, though, Ryan, two things. One, I've been concerned about is we haven't talked about this for a while, but Lucas Health does have a calf injury, which is something to look at. I don't know.

I thought he was fine at this point.'t know it's something i that's i thought he was fine at this point i think he's fine it's just it's just it's just hard and the second thing is to your overall point about the mavericks they're a team that you can't quite figure out until you do and it reminds me a lot of that 2011 mavs team where we didn't really we couldn't put a finger on them and we couldn't really kind of figure them out um they beat portland and they went and beat la they sweeped la and then they um ended up they beat a young thunder team and then they ended up playing the the heat and then we kind of figured it out oh man this team is special in hindsight but in the in the in the uh during the run we didn't we we couldn't really figure them out this team the mavs, I just feel like they are kind of cut from that cloth

where they're not supposed to be here necessarily on paper, but I think when we go out and we kind of have the benefit of hindsight in the next few months, we're going to see, oh, this team was better than we thought they were, and we didn't have any answer for them. Yeah. No, I can totally see it. The 11 comp is perfect because you were never going to run through the rosters of the Miami Heat at that point and then run through Dallas's roster and

feel like oh yeah yeah no it's close so you know I don't know who to go with next um and they figured some weird quirky stuff out the shooting they had enough shooting all of a sudden out of nowhere they changed up what they were doing defensively and you know I think maybe LeBron's first run through also played in that storyline there a little bit. So that's not going to be the case with Golden State here. But if we look at Golden State, there's also an argument to be made of like, so I'm going to pick a team to get to the finals that was down 50 to Memphis without Ja. So shouldn't that be some sort of red flag?

I don't know if the Mike Brown thing means anything. He's been with his team forever. I know watching the game, whether it was them coming back and winning game four, and then what happened in game five, I was like, is he letting these guys kind of do whatever they want and they're not implementing maybe zone a little bit sooner or any of this kind of stuff? I don't know if that's fair or not. Game six, I thought Golden State would win it. I thought they'd win it a little bit easier. They had to turn it on late there. So I can't tell. Shouldn't the Memphis thing be a bit of a red flag without Jod too? I think this time I don't I don't I don't I don't know if, you know, if you were to ask me after the first round, you know, after Denver, I would say, oh, yeah, it's going to be Warriors Phoenix going into the Western Conference finals.

And, you know, it's going to be a post on this team. And a lot of that has to do with the guys that we expect to play well, haven't played well during the post season. Steph hasn't shot the ball well at all. He didn't play well in that closeout game. If he plays well and Clay plays well, they blow the, they blow the Memphis out, but they haven't been as consistent on that end. Pool has been targeted on defensively on switches. At times, they look a bit old. At other times, they look like, oh, they're supposed to win these games. But I don't know, man. And I think on the one hand, the Mavericks playing the way they play against

Phoenix gives me pause and is like, hey, man, they could actually, they could probably beat Golden State. But then the institutional, the institution that is Golden State is like, oh, well, Golden State should win this series. It's really a different balancing act. And I really don't know where to go here, Ryan. I have no idea. I think the first game is really going to tell us a lot about how this series is going to go.

And we're going to see because the great equalizer to everything Golden State does is Luka. And they're going to have to figure something out with defending him. Yeah, he's going to go off. I mean, it's going to be horrifying for stretches. They're going to feel like there's nothing they can do. The light in the ass comment about Wiggins is spot on because the same thing with Bridges. Bridges is a great defensive player. You got no chance.

You're going for a ride. And Wiggins, who I think at times we felt like finally he figured out the defensive side of this and I still don't think it's consistent enough with him. So Golden State's going to get into some really bad switches and Luka's going to dominate and they're going to win some games that way. But, um, you hope that Golden State, if you're rooting for them on the other side can start, you know, running crazy and actually being small by wanting to be small. Cause there's like another thing I'm thinking about big picture wise with basketball, where I feel like you need a five out lineup you kind of like, even if you have a center

and someone, but if you don't have some kind of five out lineup to get you ready for the playoffs, I think you're building your team wrong. And it's a lot easier said than done going, hey, we want a traditional center that we can hang with for 82 games the regular season that we can match somebody else's size with but we also want this small ball thing that we have um i at least know with golden state like their small ball thing is going to be second nature to them where i phoenix doesn't have that option they just they just never did yeah it's funny because the the warriors uh going small ball this season was pretty much out of necessity. They don't really have a traditional big on the roster, right? They just have Looney is their biggest big. And I was watching film of Looney from 2018. He looks like a completely different person. He looks like as skinny as me in 2018. Now he's bulked up and become a center. He's played really well, but they're going to the Warriors are going to win if they put Draymond at at the five and they just figure it out from there. That's just that's what they have to do. Now, the problem lies where the problem lies is when, you know, Steph is not shooting well and when Clay isn't shooting well.

And I remember when I looked at this series against Memphis, I saw a team that could, that knew they could outsmart Memphis at the end of the day, when the chips were down, they figured that out. Um, and even if they weren't playing their best basketball, I'm not going to say that, you know, like that Dallas is just,

just meant to beat them. But I think Dallas is going to be a lot, a lot more prepared down the stretch than Memphis was. And that's going to be something to say. The Warriors played like shit the first two games against Memphis and probably should have been up 2-0 in that series because of

all the mistakes that Memphis made down the stretch. I don't know if Dallas is going to make those, but it's going to be an interesting series. The battle of the small ball is going to be really, really fun to be an interesting series. And the, the battle of the small ball is going to be really, really fun to watch in this series. Yeah.

There are going to be times. Luke is the biggest player on the floor. Yeah. And he's playing a point. Right. You're right. Okay. Let's go over to the East.

This one, I feel a little bit more certain about. I like Boston. I like him as far as having more depth with top end scoring and having more options to throw at Bam, who really crushed them on some of those just plays where he would trail the ball to the rim. It was just horrifying. They couldn't do anything with it.

And I think Miami played an awful Atlanta team and a Philly team that was a total mess. And Boston slowed down Durant, slowed down Giannis. So on paper, I feel much stronger about this one. Yeah. So this is interesting. I actually don I feel much stronger about this one. Yeah. So this is interesting. I don't have, I actually don't have a pulse on this one. I think that on the one hand,

I see that the two best players in the series are on Boston, which typically shows that, Hey, Boston's probably going to win the series. However, I'm just not. And I know we just talked about going small ball and things like that, but with Robert, do we have a, do we have a gauge on where Robert Williams is going to be in the conference finals?

Because the Boston kind of needs their front court against a guy like Bam Adebayo in the battle of the front courts. I don't have a, I guess I'd give the edge to Boston, but I'm not quite sure. It's going to be a tough series. Miami has home court advantage. That's going to play a big role in this series. If Boston wins, it has to be in six, in my opinion. That means they've got to take one in Miami in the first thing.

It's going to be a tough series. I think it's going to be a long series. I don't have a pulse on it, though. Wait, so you think Jalen and Tatum are both better than Butler? Yeah, I do yeah I do I do I think that Jimmy Butler is a really great player he's a really really really good player I think the ceiling is bigger um with Tatum at this point in his career I do I really do I think that he's to no argument on Tatum I guess basically I'm saying you I was surprised you thought Butler was better than Jane or that Jalen Brown's better than Jimmy Butler Tatum I'm not surprised I'm saying I was surprised that you thought that Jalen Brown is better than Jimmy Butler.

Tatum, I'm not surprised. I think you can make the argument. I think you can make the argument in that. The way they've been playing, their two best guys I think are better than Miami's two best guys. I'll say that, yes. That's cool. I just feel like Butler

a bit on a tear here, but again, it might be opposition to her a little, although he did have moments in that Philly series where it didn just feel like Butler, you know, a bit on a tear here. But again, it might be, you know, opposition her a little. Although he did have moments in that Philly series where it didn't feel like it mattered, you know. I think the thing with Jimmy, though, which is fun, is he needs an adversary. And I think in the last series against Philly, he had that. And he plays super well when he has his back against the wall.

And he has a team that he necessarily against the wall and he has a team that he necessarily doesn't like or he has a problem with a certain team i'm not gonna say that he doesn't have that against boston but i know in philly that that puts an extra angst into him and that gives him an extra battery in his back i still stand by it though i do think that in the series i i do like jalen and and uh and jason over over that the two in Miami. Yeah. No, that's fine. And then you add in the Lowry piece of it all. Your interactions with coaches, where would you put Spoh?

My interactions with coaches with Spoh, I think he's right at the top of the list. Obviously, he's in the Eastern Conference, but I think that he is a guy that everything you've heard about him is his first class. I remember even during the pandemic, I heard that he was a guy that for some of the guys that that weren't getting paid, you know, that weren't getting paid like the younger guys, maybe in the video room. And during that time, they were probably on that weren't having staff positions, but were getting paid hourly. He was fronting the bill for them.

He was making sure that they were taken care of during the pandemic. And everybody that works under Spoh and everybody that has been under Spoh has said that he is one of those guys that really is a class act and is one of those guys that is really respected. I think if you put the top three most respected coaches down the line I think it's Pop I think it's Spoh and um right now I think that it's that it's Kerr you know if you put if you have to go down the line of the guys that people respect and Spoh is just one of those guys I think because he's in Miami he may not get as much pub as the other guys but he is one of

those guys as well respected in this league yeah the kid's story but he is one of those guys that's well-respected in this league. Yeah, the Kidd story, though, is pretty crazy because when he got brought in after the Nets and after the Bucs, you were kind of like, I wonder where he's going to go with this. Yeah. I just don't think Jason Kidd was somebody at the time that people thought like, oh, well, he has to get another shot. He'll be terrific. It was kind of like, eh, I don't know. You know, it didn't

seem like it vibed that great and the exits didn't seem all that great. Not that usually coaches leaving at some great time to be celebrated. I do think there's some staff people that, you know, I'm a big fan of with Dallas as well, but at what he's done in Dallas with a group that just never really played defense and they figured this all out. Like, I'm not trying to say Spoh, I think Spoh is the best coach in all of basketball. But the kid resurgence is probably one of the more surprising coaches stories this year. Well, it started in the bubble when he was on the Lakers staff and, you know, he got that LeBron co-sign. That was huge for him.

And to the point where, you know, there's some reports of LeBron wanted him to be the coach of the team if he wasn't. You know, and some other people say he probably was coaching the team behind the scenes with the Lakers during that bubble run. And I think that over the last few years, you know, he's had this resurgence as an assistant where guys just, you know, you have a different relationship with guys when you're an assistant coach. It's a bit more intimate relationship with guys. You can, um, you have to, you talk to guys a lot more when you're an assistant,

you go over, you, you have a lot more one-on-one time. And I think his time with the Lakers really served him. Well, anytime that you have a guy like LeBron that gives you a co-sign, it will give you a set for most times. It'll give you a second chance.

And I think he's making the most of his, what is this? His third chance right now. He really, I think I don't, it's, it's, it's to your point,

Ryan is really, it was hard to see him come back to this point because just of the, just, we don't realize the monumental flame outs he had in both Brooklyn and, and Milwaukee. And to see him now just have this resurgence of, I, we talk about that clip in game seven, where he's literally barking out defensive orders to his guys and they are

listening to him. You know, they seem like they're playing really hard for this guy. And that's a great sign, especially in the first year right now. And as long as he has buy-in from Luca, he is good. And one other thing he's feeling

himself he was talking big shit subliminally about carlisle i don't know if you saw that clip but he's talking about how he gives he didn't he didn't mention carlisle by name but he's saying yeah man the previous uh the previous coaching staff wasn't letting these guys rock and wasn't letting these guys cook you know i'm letting these guys just figure it out on their own that's what i like to do with my basketball team i like to let them figure it out oh kid is feeling himself right now it's it's been definitely an interesting uh interesting uh time for him right now but you also brought up another good point though too when you think about like the dynamic of the head coach and like you know i know everybody's writing about mark jackson again right now. And the biggest thing, well, I don't know. We'd pick a topic on Mark.

But one of the other major problems people had with Mark was that he didn't want to be threatened by anybody on his staff. So it was like, hey, we need to bulk up your staff. You need to listen to people and help them make you an even better coach. And it was like, nope, I don't want to do that. I think as a former player, and I can imagine Kidd as one of the greats we've ever seen, it's like, why do I have to listen to all these younger dude assistants who aren't me? Why would I have to listen to any of those guys? And I think that Laker staff was loaded

with Kidd and a couple of the other assistants, and he grabbed a few of them. And it makes me think that there's, you know, a guy like Jason kid, I expect him to have a massive ego. He should have an ego, but if you have some really smart people with you, especially when you're like, Hey, let's tweak this. Let's try some of these tweaks. Like, I feel like the game doesn't tweak itself enough. Um, and sometimes you kind of just are who you are and these are your available players. Like Bill and I were talking about Milwaukee and what they could have done different.

And he brought up a good point of like maybe taking Allen out and putting Carter in. But then I'm like, okay, but you kind of are who you are rotationally at times. But I think the former players, it probably takes them a little longer because they've never had their ass kicked, where the lifer assistant is more willing to buy in for working with a group because that guy's had a fight for everything

uh his entire life well it's interesting right because obviously jason kidd is a hall of fame um a hall of famer uh is one of the best point guards of all time. But he had a dose of that, what, humble pie, I guess, where early in his coaching career, it didn't end well. It didn't end well. There's a lot of anecdotes as to why that didn't end well. But he was on the outside looking in, man. as to why that didn't end well. But he was on the outside looking in, man.

I can't tell you how important that Los Angeles Lakers tenure was for him because it really got him back in because there's a world where Jason Kidd is in the Mark Jackson sphere where he doesn't get an opportunity again, where he doesn't get that second chance or, you know, get the Tom Thibodeau second, third chance of, of improving yourself and kudos to him for adjusting into year one. We'll see what happens down the line. We'll see what happens with this team, but he's done really well so far. Yeah. I mean, as we were talking this over to us,

remembering Maren Fader's book on yannis which is terrific in that there's these kid anecdotes we're just like this guy sucks yeah yeah but that but also it's it's the thing is though is like as long as you have buy-in from your best player who is luca you're fine you know why did carlisle who is also one of the best coaches to ever coach basketball, why did he play? Why did not work out with him in Dallas? Because Luka Doncic was like, nah, I know I can't deal with this anymore. As long as you have buying from your top player, you're good because Luka is going to be there, God willing, for a long time. And you got to make sure that that has that buying-in. Kidd has found a way to get that buy-in. I think that's something that he learned,

man, because he had buy-in from his last two stops from who? From LeBron James and from Luka Doncic. He learned a lesson. There you go right there. As long as you do that, you'll be fine. I think that as long as he continues to keep his relationship

with Luka solid, he'll be straight straight you have a piece up on the ringer um talking about the phoenix suns it's now been uh a day plus i i touched on in the open uh what do you make of what happened we were talking about this to to start this pot a little bit, man. And I have a thing about – I'm just trying to regroup on this because I'm still just flabbergasted, Brian. I have this thing about teams that stick their chest out all season and don't back it up. It's a real pet peeve of mine. It happens every year.

The Clippers in 2019. The Cl a real pet peeve of mine. It happens every year. The Clippers in 2019. The Clippers probably had about like seven of those. Yeah, the Rockets 2017, 2018, 2019. A lot of teams that Chris Paul is on really stick their chest out and they don't back it up in the postseason. That was just really hard to watch. And it was crazy because we're starting

to get these stories that are trickling out about the locker room and DeAndre Aiden and all these things. And that wasn't just about how they crumbled down the stretch. And that wasn't the team that I saw a month ago. I was out in Phoenix about a month ago. I was there for the first couple of games in their series against New Orleans. And they just they seem like a really tight knit group, you know, that that could weather a lot of storms and something just when they got punched in the mouth in that game six against Dallas, man. I think in hindsight, that was a big deal. That was a really big deal, because when I was watching it, I'm like, oh, they got blown out. was a big deal that was a really big deal because when i was watching it i'm like oh they got blown out similar to how i saw the um the uh grizzlies uh warriors blow out right where it was just like oh this is an i felt like that was an anomaly they'll figure it out when they get home you know

this is just okay the team got hot um you got it got up the game got away from you you'll figure it out next one with the grit with the uh sons that was just embarrassing on all levels, man. You won 64 games. You guys were the deepest team in the league. You had a guy like Devin Booker. I was listening to your pod with Bill. I really like Devin Booker. I thought he's the people's champ.

He is the guy, the young kid that everybody, every Hall of Famer in the league loves. He has all the right cos-signs from kd from lebron from kobe he has all these co-signs and it just it was very disappointing for him just to like not go out swinging i don't know how you come back from this bro i don't know i don't know how you you do this i don't like because this was supposed to be the year where this was supposed to be the fuck you year where you lose and you say fuck you i, I'm going to just go all out, balls to the wall, and we're going to figure this out.

And I think that that was the biggest mistake that they had because we talk about injuries. This team didn't have the legs to get far in the postseason because they used all those legs during the regular season. You can make that argument. And that has always kind of, at least in recent memory, bitten a lot of teams in the ass where, you know, you think about the 73-9 Warriors where by the end they're great.

They're kicking people's ass in the regular season. They're making all these statement games. And when it comes down to it, they just don't have it for whatever reason. And I think I saw that with the Suns. And it's really disappointing because this was supposed to be the team that was going to the finals, that was going to make it happen. Chris Paul was going to win a ring. Devin Booker was supposed to be that dude. And it just didn't happen. They got a little Hollywood, man. They got a little

Hollywood at the wrong time. You have some quotes from James Jones on DeAndre Ayton's future that are pretty ominous here, right? He says, well, he'd be a free agent, so i can't talk about the future but we basically do want to figure something out and grow with him but like is is jones the general manager here is he playing it where he already knows what sarver wants to do and he like he has to be careful about what he says here because it's ultimately going to be a money thing here and if that's a money thing i just can't believe that a team would walk away from the asset without trying to figure out a way to supplement the asset moving out so that's interesting to me man because i asked him that question in april you know i asked him that question in the in the first round and aiden

was playing really well but it didn't seem in the moment like a ringing endorsement right and didn't read like it yeah yeah it didn't feel like it was like, Oh, okay. And then, um, and my thing with Aiden is I might be on the, on the side of maybe, I mean, this is yesterday before all this stuff came out. I was on the side of like, yo, give them the max and figure it out later. If you guys want to run this back, um, if you guys want to run this back, there's no center that you can get with your cap space better than Aiden right now, unless you do a sign and trade. It's really difficult to figure that out. But looking at the landscape of guys that do what Aiden does, it's really hard to find a guy like that that teams are willing to part with. And I think I still feel that way, but they got to figure that out. They have to because whether a trader of some sort. But if you take away Aiden, who has played, you know, has had some bad stretches. But when he was good, I think about game six against the Mavericks, he he graduates and starts to play really well and Chris Paul starts to, just with age and things like that, hisin. I don't see another guy right now that you can get for him. This has all been fumbled.

This is not this negotiation has not been good for either side, in my opinion. I don't know the resolution resolution to this, but they got to figure this out, man, because they need a front court guy like Aydin. You can't replace him with JaVale McGee and Biambo and think it's just going to be all right. It's just not. I think he's going to be one of those guys, when he leaves the roster, they're going to feel that. And it's going to be interesting to see what happens.

I don't know what this team is going to look like, Ryan. Do you have any idea what this team is going to look like next year? If it weren't for Sarver, I tell you it's going to look the same, and they're going to add some other pieces. I think they need a Tyus Jones type that can supplement Chris Paul for longer stretches. And that's why I thought why Paul's hand injury was going to be a blessing in disguise because that way, all right, well, it wasn't going to be hurt in the playoffs because he was going to get this month break. And I was so pumped for Booker because what I've always liked about him, because all the years

where he had initiate the offense before they had better players that he's capable of, you know, getting your offense going and running it and setting things up for other guys. Like he's capable of being that guy because he's had to do it in the past. So they still kind of held serve for a really long time, even with Paul out. And then I thought, okay, go Paul, be refreshed. Like, I'm just going to sound like I'm making excuses for him. There's no question. Something's wrong with Chris Paul in this series.

There's no, there's no doubt. And so if you have to now, if you're telling me, well, hey, he was hurt last year and had to get surgery after the finals. He got hurt here. You have to factor that in. You're right. So even if I love Chris Paul, now I have to just give up and admit that you have to have better support. You have to have a much better plan to try to keep it. support you have to have a much better plan to try to keep as much as i love that chris paul story that i tell about okc all the time where he showed up and billy donovan's like we're gonna arrest you

you're gonna coast you do this with our young guys for a year and then we're gonna get you somewhere where you need to go and chris paul's like nah fuck that we're playing hoops and they make it to the playoffs like that's the chris paul that i love but it's also maybe part of the problem now at 37 where all right cool you were completely like i don't think but it's also maybe part of the problem now at 37 where, all right, cool. You were completely like, I don't think that it's a wiring thing. And this is why I'll just argue it. I think there's a wiring thing with Harden that I'll never respect. I don't think that's what Paul has, but unfortunately now they both have all these awful playoff performances that if you want to fuck with my argument, you say well hey it's to say you

can't stand hard and you love chris paul you're getting the same result every single time you may be getting similar results but i don't think you're getting them for similar reasons and that's the argument that i will say more forcibly in the start of next season but i'm gonna lay out now for a while it's funny because at the beginning of this season, I remember talking with Rah, and we were talking about Chris Paul. And Raja made up the same argument you did as having another type of point guard like that. I took it a step further.

I said, man, you should play Chris Paul about not 50-something games, but maybe like 60, 65, play him 20 minutes a game, sacrifice some wins, maybe win, like, play them 20 minutes a game, sacrifice some wins, maybe win like instead of going for 64, maybe go for like 51. And then you can have more of those Chris Paul performances in the postseason like you did against New Orleans, right, where he scores 19 in the second

or in the fourth quarter of a game one series, right? Or he does have one of those games like he did in that closeout game. But while he did have those games in his postseason, he also had games where after a first half of basketball, he has his hands on his knees and just dog tired. And it's just, just can't, it doesn't seem like he has, just isn't in shape enough to be able to,

to, to keep going. And I think next year, they're going to have, if they're going to try to run this back, they're going to have to have less of Chris Paul until it's time to go. Because we're just not at this point right now in this career. He's about to be 37, 38. And it's going to take a toll. And also as we go to that point, Devin Booker has to step up.

He has to take another level of his to take, get, take his name to another level to where it's not Chris Paul's team. Everything is not dictated by what Chris Paul does. And everything is not dictated by what Chris Paul does. And Devin Booker, it it's like when Magic took over from Kareem in the 80s, where it was Kareem's team. He's the captain and everything, but nah, I'm going to take this.

Don't even trip. I got it. I have to become an MVP. That's what Devin Booker needs to do for this Suns team to continue to be a title contender. They are a fascinating team that when it's good, you're like they've got this big, malleable player in Aiton who can actually get out on the perimeter and defend. They don't go to him a ton, but he's always able to finish decisions. They're super efficient. And even if Jay Crowder is your fifth guy, like you do a lot worse than that. And now they've got the backup picks at your fail and Biambo and, you know, sham it. If you let them kind of handle a little, he can get hot at the right time.

And when it's bad, you're like eight and can't hang onto the basketball bridges can get zero points. You don't even notice Booker. See, I do like Booker a lot, so I don't want to turn. But then it's like J. Crowder. I don't really trust. I trust when they're down. I trust a three from him with like seven minutes left in the game, not with two minutes left in the game. Yeah. And then you've got to.

It's funny. Like you juxtapose that with Golden State, right? Where they play like shit. Like play like shit throughout the Memphis Grizzlies series. Right. But like when Golden State plays like shit versus when Phoenix plays like shit, I trust Golden State to figure it out more

if that makes sense in their worst game. There's too much variance with the Suns, right? When they're good, they're like, oh my goodness, this is a fucking freight train. I think I remember seeing that in some of the New Orleans series. It was like, oh my God, they are so good. And then when they're bad, it's like game seven.

It's like, are you serious? Blow this thing up. At least when the Warriors do it, it's like, oh, okay. At least in the last two minutes, they're going to at least show some heart. It's never been blow this up with the Warriors. And back to the original point as we finish here, if it were a different ownership, I would assume, And by the way, Tyus Jones is just somebody who I

love as a backup point guard. He's still on the books for like 8 million for Memphis. So like, he's not going anywhere. I'm just trying to think of that, that guard that you could let kind of do this hybrid thing. But I would imagine everybody would come back and they would go, Hey, we just won 64. We still have a very young core and then chris like we don't blow this up the whole point is you hope to have a team like this and even if we want to get cute with the eight and it's not a max he isn't we cannot find a player like him to to slide in we can't use those resources too much of this talk and back and forth man for like and it's it's typical phoenix sun stuff and i get a firsthand like bit of this like doing the pilot raja but

it's it's just too much of like talking and like too many question marks around this team right now if if any other team loses it's like all right bet we come coming next year. Sign him. Figure it out. We're going to do this. It's just too much talk right now, man. And this is the second straight year where this is just too much. I don't trust the Phoenix Suns at this point. I don't know if I probably should have throughout the season. But I don't trust them next year.

And I think with the way they're set up, there's a chance they're going to blow it up. And I think they're going to end up like, I just don't trust that front office. I don't. I think James Jones has done a great job, but I think it's above James Jones's head, if that makes sense. Like,

I think that he's done a great job building this team, but he could be a victim of some higher powers, you know, if you know what I mean. And I, that's always been the way how it's been with Phoenix when you talk about when the Colangelo

years where they have built these great teams and these great training staffs and sustained success, but the only thing that kept them from being a San Antonio Spurs type organization was ownership. And this is going to be a test for them this offseason.

This is a big offseason for the Phoenix Sun, not just for next year, but for years to come. Great work. And I think the James Jones point you make are terrific because that's how that quote read. When I read that, I was like, that's a weird way of saying this. All right, that's Logan Murdoch. Check I read that, I was like, that's a weird way of saying this. Yeah. All right.

That's Logan Murdoch. Check out his piece up on the ringer. All the work that he does here. He's terrific. The Raja every Monday, the real ones podcast. And we'll catch up with you again soon. Thanks, man. Thanks, bud.

Talk to you soon. You want details? Bye. I drive a Ferrari 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in theriolet. 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. Okay, a couple of life advice things that I want to get to before we dig into them. There was all sorts of reaction to the extended podcast life advice that we did, which was to be expected. First and foremost, the guy that sent in the email followed up and said how much he appreciated it, which meant a lot. Because I know that, you know, I probably came off a little harsh with that. And I think that there are people that when they, like nobody wants stuff to be hard.

So to have a guy be like, yeah, you know, it's, it's kind of hard. And like this probably, you know, the odds are not in your favor. That's going to work out, which I don't love that. Maybe that was the overriding message because I kind of, like I'd said, I think numerous times as well. I love that the opportunity even exists. And if you find your lane and you do a thing and it comes together for a couple of years and you find a way to monetize it, it's like the greatest feeling ever because you're doing something you're passionate about and you bet on yourself and all those things that I am all for and will tell people to do all the time. But I also want to be

super realistic about just, and I think a lot of it is my annoyance sometimes too when I'll talk to just other people that I am friends with and I'm kind of like, yeah, like I don't really know when, how soon you'll be able to monetize this. So I don't know that you start planning it that way. So I thought it meant a lot to me that the guy that sent in the email appreciated the segment so much because other people, some people loved it. Some people did not love it. Um, but the guys that we were talking to specifically were like, Hey, cool. You know,

thanks. Thanks for letting us do this. And by the way, you know, he did a little followup too. He's like, I hope I didn't come off in the first email completely delusional. Like right now it's just something fun and we're just trying to figure it

out. And, um, that actually made me feel better about, you know, where they're at with everything. But I just, I don't know.

We got so much feedback on it that sometimes i swear we could do like post pod shows like wrap ups i know other shows do that stern and all those guys but it's crazy how much something like that'll happen and then you think like god we could just talk about this forever but you know i don't think we're gonna do that anytime soon yeah we could do like a talking dead version like how they used to do that post-show but like just for life advice. But I will say really quickly after we did that segment, I thought about you

because, you know, we basically talked about how difficult it was and almost, not saying it's not worth it but like how hard your path is going to have to be to actually make this worthwhile.

And I thought about telling that to young Rosillo and you'd have been like, well, I don't fucking care. I'm going to do it anyway. So it's all about your mindset. Yeah, look, you could have, every single person told me not to do anything I've done, which I mean, it's sort of my deal. It's just now I don't, don't try that. You're like, okay, fine. So anyway, uh, Kyle, how's it going?

It's going well. I would just say, just say um I was thinking about it was sort of like one of our first life advices that got subtraction was your thing with salt you know remember how like you said you use the data girl that didn't like cook with salt and it's like it sounds like if you have like chemistry is like the salt and food so if you have that you at least have the salt you're at least going somewhere so if you if it's obvious that you guys have chemistry that's really like that's like the base of it anyway so everything else has to like kind of go really well and fall into place but if you have chemistry you're at least cooking with salt so i think that's good jeez how about that you like that wow yeah that was that was really good man thanks appreciate that uh okay dog sitting

advice 511-175-29 celebrated many many in elementary school birthday parties at trenton Uh, okay. Dog sitting advice. 5'11", 175, 29. Celebrated many, many elementary school birthday parties at Trenton Thunder Games in the late 90s, early 2000s. Well, sounds like I may have invited you to one in 2002. Friend of mine had a business trip last week in Phoenix. Nice resort, lazy river golf course. Do people, do adults get real fired up about lazy river options at resorts? Well, don't you?

They have one in Vegas where you can drink in it. So I think yes. If it's like an alcoholic one. Yeah. Not one that serves alcohol. No, you don't have to be an alcoholic. You don't have to, bro. You're just sick.

This is only for alcohol. This is only, which lane are you oh okay you get a bracelet yeah yeah that's fine all right all right uh i'm gonna put a life jacket on you for the whole weekend by the way all right cool thanks um more than that yeah yeah no wear it when you leave the pool. Thank you. Yeah. It's good to bounce off the shed. Conveniently scheduled around the one-year wedding anniversary, they were excited at the prospect of going together as a couple and asked if I'd be open to watching their dog for a week, to which

I gladly accepted. I own a condo in New England. It's a two-floor situation where I own and live on the second floor, and the renter lives on the first floor. Look at this guy putting away equity. Separate unit, separate owner. There are a lot of dogs in the neighborhood. I worked day shift full time with a girlfriend who would be available that week

with the exception of Tuesday until 1. The dog was dropped off on Monday night. I went to work at 6 a.m. on Tuesday. The girlfriend showed up at 1 on Tuesday. And one or both of us were with the dog the rest of the week. On Sunday morning, we found this note attached tape to my front door. I will start with asking repeatedly,

I love dogs, but, this doesn't make any sense, that first sentence, but I think this is what the attempt is. Because you already know it's not going to go great if there's a note. I will start with asking repeatedly, I love dogs, but nonstop three underlines barking for no reason is unacceptable. I work six days a week, 12 hours a day. I cannot tolerate the noise every few hours home. Please handle. It woke me up at four or 7 a.m.

every few hours home, please handle. It woke me up at four or 7. AM. Well, Hey man, if you're still sleeping, yeah, yeah.

You're doing 12 hour days, but you're sleeping in doing it wrong. I don't know. Matt's not checking out. I think as soon as I saw the six days, 12 hours a day thing, I'm like, yeah,

maybe, but I don't know. Are we counting commutes in there, pal? We must be. Come on. I just immediately was starting to be dismissive of the complaint. It felt like there was a lot of

rounding up going on. I cannot tolerate the nuisance of every few hours. Woke me up, blah, blah, blah. Didn't stop until I left at 1pm. It echoes right over my home. Thank you.

So, basically, this guy's your tenant, right? What's the debate? I mean, it's a one-off. You say, hey, my fault. Dog's in a new surrounding here. It won't happen again because, by by the way it's not going to happen again and this guy's gonna have to i don't know be more efficient with his 12-hour days i guess i don't know the notes kind of a mess too so when the notes a mess

i you know there's nothing that hurts your argument worse than a poorly written email or text when you write something you're like what the fuck were you writing you're like oh you know i'm sorry bad i'm bad at grammar uh i don't know this is a quick one quick ruling here i don't what's you didn't get the dog it's a guest it's your your house conversation over what if it was a baby? What are you going to do? Probably not leave it for six hours. I guess that's fair. Look, the bottom floor, top floor thing,

I've never understood the bottom floor people. Do you think no one ever walks? Do you not walk in your apartment? Do you not close doors? Do people not come in and out? There's stuff. There are people that lose their shit over the years and all the places I've lived where they just, I was like, so you think you're never supposed to hear footsteps?

That's what you think you signed up for? That seems like a lot. Now, granted, sometimes I was totally at fault the entire time, but there are other times I get older. I'd be like, I don't think it's supposed to be zero noise ever heard. I agree. I used to live under some furniture rearrangers though. And'd be like, I don't think it's supposed to be zero noise ever heard. I agree. I used to live under some furniture rearrangers, though. And it was like, I could tell the difference.

Like, it was like, all right, maybe the guy's got a heavy, heavy foot. You know, I could see that. But then it was just like, I mean, it was like, all right, that's a couch. That's like their apartment is changing every week. It seemed like Sundays they like to get after and just move stuff around. So I think there is a difference. But yeah, you should be able to tell the difference as well. Well, the irony here is I have my dog barking in the background right now.

So I guess... Yeah, I just saw you muted. I was like, that must be a dog thing. Yeah, we got some people working outside and they... Listen, dogs bark. It is what it is. Like people that get mad about dogs barking, they shouldn't be barking all day. But you know, they bark.

If that annoys you, it is what what it is we've kind of got lucky though where our dogs don't really wake us up in the morning like our dogs would sleep until noon if they could so just depends on the dog but i would say this is a temporary thing i wouldn't worry about it too much i agreed and also like there's you said like a poorly written note how about just a mean note in general is like the greatest way to hurt your cause i think would have been better if you could if you if uh if you're the other guy, if you could like knock or something and just have a conversation. Because I mean, I haven't gotten, I haven't been left too many notes, but I remember in our old ringer office, a different office like left us a note

and we were like, all right, well, let's make sure we do exactly the thing they're upset about because we didn't like the way that happened at all. And I'm not, I'm not saying that was the right response, but just kind of a mean or like upset note is just seems like the worst way to get your point across. So if you're thinking about leaving a note, I just don't think it's going to go the way that you want it to go. That's all I'm saying.

Unless it's like a sorry note or a thank you note, I wouldn't leave a stop doing this note if you could help it. So kinder notes, or maybe in place of a note, aler approach that's what i mean i think notes are only good in certain ways and it's definitely not a change your actions like don't leave like a cease and desist note you know what i mean like where you're just like stop this or else i'm not saying like an actual season but it's like it has the errors of a cease and desist

note be like oh you're telling me be a note it's just it's not it's not a great medium for what you're trying to do here that's all i'm saying all right um yeah no i remember i remember when i first started working at ringer and then after like two weeks my desk was missing and i was like oh this is nice sets a good tone was there a note in place of the desk didn't think you were using this so no my stuff though the stuff that had been on the desk. Didn't think you were using this. No, my stuff that I, the stuff that had been on the desk was left on the floor. The desk was gone. Because there was,

I don't know, there was kind of like, oh, this guy's here now. And then there was the conversation about me coming in more often. And I was like, yeah, I don't know that I'm going to be coming in a ton, you know?

Somebody just saw that as an opportunity and they were like, all right, well, we're still up. And then it was like, oh yeah, I'm going to be coming in a ton. I just saw that as an opportunity and they were like, all right, well, you're still up. And then it was like, oh yeah, I'm definitely not going to be stopped by a ton now. You guys just took my desk. I've been here two weeks.

Well, then he would just come in and be like, I'm just going to sit in the studio, I guess. It's like, all right, hopefully nobody has to use in the studio an hour before Ryan's podcast because now that's where he's writing his notes. Good job, everyone. Right. I have some guesses.

Probably a couple of guesses. I'd probably do all right if you gave me three guesses. All right. I'm glad you're still not mad about it. All right. I'm glad you're still not mad about it then. Because it was like, hey, we're putting a desk in here. We know you're not going to have your own office because you're going to hear a lot.

He's like, no, I didn't expect to have my own office. That's totally fine. Because the ESPN office stuff was like a big deal. That was a huge deal. And then it felt like radio just kept giving all theirs to first tape. And you were like, what is going on here? Like, these these guys aren't even here and they've got two primo offices oh yeah we used to set up meetings in kellerman's office because he was never there kellerman had a full-blown furnished office whole deal wasn't there ever ever used to eat lunch in there it was actually pretty private it was nice yeah because he was never there but you was like a lounge yeah because

it would always no it wasn't a lounge it's just a regular office because it used to be my office and i switched sides because i wanted to be on the other side um but there was like this weird thing if you didn't have an office they definitely didn't want you to have one you know because they didn't they didn't want to like have whatever the standard of somebody having an office they wouldn't be like oh now rassilo has an office and then you should have seen when I had Kellerman's old office and I had that office, there was more foot traffic.

So obviously I wanted to go where there were less people. Um, and sometimes I'd leave the door open and the number of TV people that came by that didn't have offices because there's way more people on TV at ESPN. And so say somebody had been an anchor like 10 plus years, they see me with a full blown office, even though at that point I'm like, Hey, I'm one of like four people that are actually in Bristol every day. That's on the lineup. And there's like eight offices. So why wouldn't I like, there's no reason why I wouldn't have had one at that point. And then I'll never get one TV guy like does a, like an old man thing where he leads inside of the threshold of the open doorway and like taps his fingers. He's just tapping away. Pretty spacious in here. He's like, oh, look at you. Look who got an office. And the whole time I just want to be like,

this is about you not having one in building four. Yeah. All right. Well, that's the thing is they're not even close to each other. If a TV person was to have an office in the radio area it wouldn't make any sense like kellerman's office was there but he was he was never there so it didn't even make sense anyway it didn't matter no it's because steven a had one because steven a had one then kellerman had to have one but kellerman wasn't even doing radio yet so that's why we were like wait how come we're losing another office here but then it was like yeah but we don't want to give an office to like this person below that so yeah i'll admit when i came back up after two years or excuse me two weeks at the ringer and then i walk in and sit at my desk and set up the laptop and start

prepping for the show all my shit's in the corner i go well okay i think okay that was the one in the titus and tate office right next to ours right yes yes i was like oh hey kyle do you know who this was or no i don't know are you aware of think it honestly, I don't think it was as deliberate as he thinks. I think that like that was the floating desk. And then I think they just kind of hired another person that needed a desk all the time. And they were like, well, this is the one that's going. So I figured they thought Ryan was okay with it. But new shout out to Spotify. Now no offices. No one has an office. It's like a library style. Just get in where you fit in. Very open. Yeah.

I'm still learning how to work with that, but it's fine. Yeah, I would. That would drive me crazy if I couldn't get alone time prepping for a radio show every day. All right. So that was that was talking desks, offices too, which I don't think

he didn't ask. That's all right. We gave it to you. Yeah. I don't know if you can help with this one, Kyle. I don't want to make any assumptions. 29 57170 310 Bench 57170 310 Bench. That's a lot, dude.

That is a lot. 12-hour workday as well? Good for you. Six days a week. Currently living in my hometown. Small? Good for you. Six days a week. Currently living in my hometown, small town about an hour north of Atlanta. Hot Atlanta, the locals call it. I'm employed by a company. I'm going to be a little more vague for this guy for his own benefit.

I'm employed by a company based in the town. As far as the day-to-day goes, great job. 15-minute commute, laid- laid back work environment i'm extremely close with numerous co-workers um he puts in another detail here which i'm going to leave out do you want to get busted uh all this comes with a caveat however and that caveat is that i'm grossly underpaid not for the area uh keep in mind, small, bordering on rural town, but I believe I'm underpaid based on my skills, aptitude, overall value I can bring to a business.

Most of us think we're underpaid. This has never been much of an issue. I overlook the pay because I do enjoy the workplace so much. I'm single, no children. I'm able to supplement my pay through side projects such as officiating basketball in order to live a comfortable life financially. So he's not hurt for cash, but you know what?

Just because as a non-kids-no-wife guy, every now and then I could feel like that was sort of being baked into the offer and the price a little when I was younger. And I would just be like, it's not my fault I'm trying to keep the carbon footprint down. Yeah. Like, you know what?

I'll actually, yeah, let me take less. No, you're right. I don't have to buy diapers. No, I'll take less than that person. Just do my part. Yeah. Like, you know what? I'll actually, yeah, let me take less. No, you're right. I don't have to buy diapers. No, I'll take less than that person. Just do my part. Yeah. Oh, that person's show no one listens to? Yeah, I'll take less than that person.

I don't have any kids. All right. Basketball official on the side. That sounds like a terrible thing. I don't know why you'd want to be an official unless you're like an NBA official making a ton of money. All right. So a week ago, sorry, I'm doing a bad job getting to this point. A former coworker of mine forwarded a job posting to me at her new employer. I rarely look for other jobs, but I decided to see where this

would lead now. And I'm sitting on an offer nearly 20,000 more than what I make in my current day job. So that's good evidence there that our guy was or is underpaid. There's one issue, drug test. Okay. We'll be talking PEDs here with this massive bench. I'm embarrassed to even say that it's a factor. This isn't Michael Scott one time at a concert type situation, great call. I'm also not getting stoned every single day, but I do enjoy a couple pulls from the weed pen while I enjoy a Michelob Ultra and watch hoops

in the evening. All right, so you like to smoke weed. I've not accepted the new job offer. I do not want to leave my current employer because of the reasons listed in the beginning of the email, but that type of raise is hard to pass up. I've been told the drug test can be done on the first day of employment, which would put me anywhere from three to four weeks clean by the time the test is taken. The problem is if I were to fail at that point, not only do I lose my new job, my current job is also long gone at that point and I'm left with nothing. So my conflict is take the new job and risk it all for the pay bump or just stay comfortable and happy where I am. As noted, I'm extremely embarrassed to even be in this situation with love and vice on

the risk of a drug test dilemma. Tips on giving me a better chance of passing if I go that route. He says this in the email, parentheses, Kyle. Sorry. And even the general aspect on leaving my comfortable job that I'm happy at for a new position, mainly just for the financial gain. All right. On just the raise part of it,

I get it. If you're at the new job, you're making 20 grand, but you're miserable and you like your current or former setup, I get it, but I don't know. I mean, you're the one that said it was a huge raise. And depending on where you're at, 20 grand can be a big lifestyle bump. As far as the drug test, this is not my expertise here, but only from having buddies... Kyle, should I just go to you on this one? Well, it sounds like you got something to say here. What are you going to say? Well, they would always tell me about the tea. What was it? Golden Seal? It was something that you could buy and you would flush your system out and it would only take a couple of days. I do remember when my friend went to go buy it because he was getting a corporate gig. And, you know, he's sitting around drinking this awful tea for like 24 hours.

It's like a gallon. Right. It's a gallon of the stuff that you have to make. But I remember he went to like the local head shop where, you know, back then teenagers would be like, did you see that bong they have in the window? Like, you know, like that was actually entertainment before, you know we became destigmatized uh the last 20 years but he went in and was like hey do you have you know whatever and the guy was like yep and then he pulled it out from like behind the counter because it wasn't like point of say it wasn't like right there i don't even know if that makes any sense the way i just phrased that. And he was like, all right, so this will get my, I'll be clear in two days.

And he said like the wrong thing. And the guy put it behind the counter. It was like, I can't sell it to you. Yeah, because it's not a weed pipe either. It's a tobacco pipe. It's just, you got to say the right thing. I mean, this sounds like it was years ago. It's for tobacco.

This isn't for grinding my tobacco. This is 20 years ago. Yeah. This is 20 years ago. That's right. He said weed. It's a, that's for tobacco. This isn't for grinding my tobacco. This is 20 years ago. Yeah. This is 20 years ago. That's right. He said weed. It's exactly right, Kyle. Okay.

So, Kyle, three to four weeks out from if you just shut it down, what is it? 30 or 60 days in the system? I thought it was, yeah, I thought it was 30 days. I mean, and also like, here's the good, you got to wonder. It's 2022. Are they testing for wheat? Do they want to make sure that you weren't like, you know, doing other shit like two days ago? You know, like, are you sure it's for wheat?

Two, do you know what kind it is? Are they going to take like a hair thing? I mean, I don't know if it's a one and done. If they're just like, we just want to see if you've done, if you smoked weed in the last, you know, six months or whatever. If it's a hair thing, I mean, I don't know. But I mean, four weeks, you're fine. I mean, I had a guy, one of my good friends was on probation and just couldn't stop smoking weed.

And he was like, you know, drinking like vinegar and just doing all this weird stuff. It was just way too important to him for stop smoking weed. I mean, I thought it was crazy, but four weeks, you're fine. Get a special thing. I mean, get the tea, spend some money or whatever,

but also, you know, you can just drink like a couple gallons of water and just run a little bit harder in your reffing gigs. And I've heard like a red meat burger will do something for you too. I don't know. But four weeks, if you just take a little, a couple of precautions, you're fine. And then, but I don't understand why this would only happen one time. But I'm surprised places are still testing for weed anyway, given that it's pretty much decriminalized most places and it's legal a bunch of places. So I'm surprised if they were testing for weed,

but I don't know what kind of place you work either. I don't know if you're like an air traffic controller or something. No, it's not that. I would wonder if this is going to happen. Either just stop smoking weed if it's that important to you to make 20 grand more to start. Or I would wonder, is it really a one-time thing and they're not going to randomly drug test? I don't know. I thought that way of doing things was over for normal jobs, but I guess not.

The one-time drug test? Yeah, I don't know. I remember a radio station a long time ago that I worked at. There was another guy that we were getting started with, and he was freaking out. So he went and did the whole tea thing, and he was freaking out because it went from filling to full-time gig quicker than his timeline was going to have him. So he's like, I can't believe I'm going to lose this job because of this. And then, of course, he was like, how come you're not worried? I was like, I actually't believe I'm going to lose this job because of this. And then of course he was like, how come you're not worried?

I was like, I actually just don't, I don't smoke pot or anything. And he's like, you went to Vermont. I know, I know. Uh,

Kyle or Steve, you have anything to add to this? No, I mean, I'm not a, I wasn't a big weed guy, not a big weed guy now, but don't,

I just did a quick Google search and they have these things that you can do that are like five day detox cleansers. Are they just like fraudulent? I mean, it's like a hundred bucks. No, you can get it done in two days,

Steve. THC detox kit and you get like some test strips and then you could know whether or not you're, you know, it's still in your system. Isn't that the way to go?

I don't know. Or am I being duped here? I don't really know. I've seen a guy do it in two days. I mean, it seemed like he did it like, you know, even in one day. I don't know if he was messing seen a guy do it in two days. I mean, it seemed like he did it even in one day. I don't know

if he was messing around with tests or whatever, but it can happen. It's really about how determined you are. If you've got plenty of time, I wouldn't worry about it at all. But, I mean, you could get it done in two days, I think. I've seen a guy drink like four gallons of water and take some vinegar shots and do everything. He's like, all right, I gotta run.

He's like running before probation. It works. So, I mean, you can get it done if you got four weeks i think you're fine he's staying hydrated he's working out yes he's like man that guy loves vinegar he's in here again apple cider vinegar that's the one like i just i just like to pickle stuff guys yeah you guys don't have a home pickling kit it's weird yeah i don't know how much more we could say to this i don't know if we helped but yeah yeah yeah i don't know if we helped anybody today really uh well if you feel good about it can you just tell your boss you got an offer and if you're gonna take it anyway maybe maybe you'll get like what if he gave you half as much as a raise to

stay and you don't even have to worry about this that would be a win-win-win jesus i feel like such an idiot that should have been the first thing we all said. Well done, Kyle. There you go. Kyle, spirit award for Kyle today. Cooking with salt. Keep smoking. Keep smoking weed. Get about a 10-gram bump. Don't have to go work in the new place. No drug test.

Leave the vinegar at home. All right. That's life advice. Lifeadvicerr at Gmail. Thanks to Kyle who crushed it today and Steve. Yeah, that'll do it. Please subscribe. right that's life advice life advice rr at gmail thanks to kyle who crushed it today and steve um yeah that'll do it please subscribe ringer spotify you Outro Music