The Ryen Russillo Podcast - NBA Midterms: The East, Bobby Marks on Blowing Up the Nets In-Season, and CFB Top 12 RankingsDraft Episode for Nov 09, 2022

Episode Date: November 9, 2022

Russillo opens the show with NBA Midterms (just go with it) for the Eastern Conference (0:44), before talking with ESPN’s Bobby Marks about how the Nets should move forward after a disappointing start to the season, the pros and cons of "blowing up" the roster, a surprising start for the Jazz, how the Knicks missed out on Donovan Mitchell, the best young NBA players, and more (26:02). Next Ryen gives out his updated rankings of the top 12 teams in college football (1:00:39) followed by Worst Take (1:06:39) and Life Advice (1:15:52). Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Bobby Marks Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

today's podcast we're doing a long open on the eastern conference nba midterms you're going to run through just observations a bunch of stats so it kind of getting you caught up again i need to get myself caught up as well so that's's what I did. Hopefully it helps. It is long. Bobby Marks on Woody blow up the nets now in season that the Mitchell trade regret. We'll talk about a bunch of young guys as well and hiring coaches for teams that you're hanging on by a thread. We've got life advice, worst take and our college football top 12. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. Winner is here. So be prepared and get almost and our college football top 12. Total yes. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol and select markets.

Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Instead of just a traditional open with no games last night, I'm going to do NBA midterms. Now you're thinking, wait a minute, midterms. We're like 10 plus games in. That's ridiculous. But if you think of the NBA as eight semesters, then yeah.

Or four semesters, excuse me. Four semesters, 20 games. Yeah. All right. So we're about midterms. It was just an exercise for me to get caught up on everything I needed to do and then share it with you. Buckle up. It may go really long. We'll go by seeding in the East. We're doing the East today. We'll do the West later, shortly. Okay. Milwaukee, they're nine and one, just lost recently to Atlanta. Is this the best Giannis has ever been? This is somebody who turns, what are we talking, 28 here coming up in December. The usage rate, now for those playing along, usage rate on ESPN.com and usage rate on Basketball Reference can be different at times. I don't know if that's a lag in calculating the active players in the current season. So sometimes that could be part of it, but he's creeping around

40 for usage rate, which would be behind only Westbrook and Harden. And then Kobe has one in there. And you know how I feel about that. I don't like it when you're up there. It means you're a little bit more predictable. And honestly, Giannis can be as predictable as anybody, but you're still sort of helpless to it because he's just going to get fouled all the time. So I don't know if that'll hold up. I doubt it will. There's no Middleton still.

Pat Connaughton's been out, which speaks to kind of their top six, where I look at their top six, and then after those six, I'm like, I don't really love it here. But we know that they're actually going to, despite not having their full rotation and an 8-9 that you love, their top three guys barely play over 30 minutes.

And that's Drew, Brooke, and Giannis. And it's like 32 down to Brooke, who's barely at 30 minutes. Their offense is still not great, but they're three points better than anybody else defensively. They're really, really good, and there's a chance they're going to get even better. The Giannis thing is still absurd with him,

but I would say it's a concern of the Houston thing because history tells us that those teams don't really do well in the playoffs because you spend 80-something games watching one guy have the ball the whole fucking time. But that's not really the case in Milwaukee. I think it's a necessity right now, but not necessarily who they'll be.

Cleveland, 8-2. That's with Darius Garland out six games. Mobley was a question mark for me despite loving him because he basically never makes any mistakes, and he just does everything well. Some of the pass is still the help defense uh the one-on-one defense it's all it's all incredible with him but he was throwing it um if you check in either of the boston games like and he's been doing it he'll get some nice post position and he's got this soft jump hook too so you're like okay now like if you're really going to be this guy that we're all freaking

out about all the time, what are you going to show us offensively that's a real go-to and that's harder to defend? And he's been showing that more and more. And Mitchell is in the MVP conversation, which is just a nice way of saying he probably won't end up winning this thing. But this is peak Mitchell. It's peak Mitchell on defense, which has always been frustrating for me because he is a big guard.

We've gotten into this argument before because he's not that tall. His wingspan is 6'9". He's thick as can be, and he's athletic as can be. There's no reason for him to ever be a below-average defensive player, none whatsoever. And really, defense, as we all know, it's up to you. How good or bad do you want to be on defense? The truly, truly elite may be the most gifted, the anticipation, studying all that stuff.

I think it's basically selfish and a bad personality trait when you're terrible on defense, unless you're just a big trying to play the screen or these dropped and then defend the alley-oop, which is just, you know, think Enos Kanter. All right? you know, think Enos Kanter. All right. So Cleveland eight and two and they still haven't had Garland for a good chunk of the season.

So all of it's worked out. It's really good. They could be even better. Boston. The big thing that jumps out with me is Tatum. Now, when you look at some of the advanced stats, not that everything's perfect here. It's always kind of this funny path for some of the great players. There'll be a rookie sophomore season where this top pick who like, hey, do we have a

guy? Could this be a guy? And then you'll see some of the PR stuff. You're like, wait, he's around like 14 and 15. Like, how come it's low? And that's what Tatum was like 15. It kind of tells you maybe an average player. I'm not sure if it's got the same now.

And we know that it obviously favors big guys that don't play a ton of minutes that rebound rate and have a high field goal percentage. And that's the Hassan Whites side story in 12 seconds all right so for tatum it was like 15 and 15 and then it goes to like 21 you're like oh all right you know a guy on the right side of 25 you know 21 20 he's at like 27 now 28 28 now if you're rounding up a little bit then you're starting to talk about a real MVP candidate. I think last year there were times where I'm like, are we ready to anoint Tatum as a top five player? It felt a little soon. You start going through that list. You're like, okay, who is he jumping in here? Now it feels like a certainty. There's just another level of

him and the way he's played, the way he shot the ball, the extra free throw attempts. He's playing two contact, which we talked about all off season. He's been incredible. And like the box score plus minus stuff, if you don't want to listen to PER, he was in that four to five point range. So far this season, it's 7.5. The wind shares per 48 when you're over 2. That.2, that's like really, really special stuff. So there you go. The offense is great for Boston. The defense isn't. It's 18th. There is something at least to look to with Rob Williams coming back, but they were incredible across the board statistically last year. So still pretty good about where they're at and their options, but the defense hasn't been as good.

All right, Atlanta. They're actually your fourth seed today. They were four and three, went to seven and three. 12th in offense, 14th in defense. They were 26th in defense last season. They were a very disappointing team last year. They beat New York. They beat New Orleans.

They beat Milwaukee. The New York win was the one that probably we'll get to New York a little bit later. We were like massive comeback. I love Okongwu. He's not starting, but I wonder how that Capella Okongwu thing will play out.

I just really like him. AJ Griffin had 24 the other night against the Bucks. Bogdanovich still isn't playing. So Hunter's still kind of the same. I actually like Jalen Johnson more of the minutes that I've seen him this year than last year, which is fine, but that's also off coming, not loving him necessarily at Duke. The thing I always keep paying attention to is like, okay, how are they using the DeJounte

Murray-Trey stuff? They're doing a good job of splitting this, which may not really tell us much anything. They're doing a good job of splitting this, which may not really tell us much anything. DeJounte will ride out a good chunk of the third, then the fourth, and then Trey comes in, and then they obviously have to close the game together. Here's what's crazy. Trey Young's usage is actually higher this season than at any point in his career, which I thought was going to be impossible with DeJounte on the team. This team is last in passing.

That's it. They pass the ball the least number. It's not assist. It's not assist ratio, any of that kind of stuff. They pass the ball less than any other team in basketball on a game-to-game basis. How many passes do you average per game? Houston is usually down there in some of these passing categories, but Atlanta is actually last in this specific one.

So the defense is better. There's some uptick in some of the rotational guys that I like. I'd like to see Hunter be a little bit better. Maybe it's never going to happen. I should stop thinking about it. But the Young and Murray thing, I think they're doing a good job with it. It gives you another really elite attacking offensive player, but I'm blown away by some of the other numbers that I looked at there.

All right, keep it moving. Toronto, the fifth seed. Their offense is average. They're ninth in defense. But what they're really good with is their clutch numbers so far this season, which they're absurd. They're like 145 points per 100 in clutch situations. If you've watched them in a close game, They're absurd. They're like 145 points per 100 in clutch situations.

If you've watched them in a close game, the way they crank up their defense is actually pretty impressive. So the clutch net and all the clutch stuff is incredible for them. But as of now, this is kind of that collection of those 500-ish groups here in the East. Siakam, much like Tatum, another level, but he's going to be out two weeks. 25-9-8, 48% overall, 34% shooting, and the eight free throw attempts per game, which can really bump up some of those analytics stats for you. Scottie Barnes, the shooting and assist numbers are up, but he's actually playing less minutes.

He's down about four minutes per game. I think that's probably because OG Ananobi has played all 11 games this season, which is always an interesting part. The thing that you don't like about Toronto is that half court's always been an issue, but their fast break points are number one in the NBA. Then there's a different transition point number there

where I think they're number two um so collectively when you look at some of the other numbers here for them there's a lot of good stuff in there and we love the length and boucher's like a real guy and achua's had his moments so they have a lot that they can throw at you. I'd expect that they're going to be on the better side of this 500 ish area that they're kind of stuck in right now very early. Okay, Chicago. They had these awful starts in the first quarter, which you

covered before. They're 6-6. Good wins. Miami, Boston. They split with Toronto. I don't know if the Nets is even a good win. DeRozan's still awesome with five less field goal attempts per game, but more free throws. I don't know if the Nets is even a good win. DeRozan's still awesome with five less field goal attempts per game, but more free throws. I don't know that that'll hold out, that he's going to have five less shot attempts per game, but that actually speaks to him and trying to get the other guys more involved. Or maybe it's just a little blip here, 10, 12 games into this. So that's good

news. Let's look at some of their numbers here. They're the worst clutch offense in the East, which is even worse because it's 28th in the league. Their offense just isn't that good. The offensive range is just not happening. Levine's missed four games

Lonzo's been out they gave these positive updates but with no timeline this week the Vooch trade man he shoots it he's rebounding it like crazy but it still just sucks because you now wouldn't trade Vooch or you wouldn't trade Carter straight up for him you wouldn't trade Fran straight up for him and you wouldn't get a top

four protective pick in 23 for Vooch and I respect what Chicago was trying to do, but that trade's going to kind of haunt them now. It's just not good enough on offense for me to get all that excited, although they should definitely be playing a playoff series. Let's talk about the Pacers, 5-5. A little surprised about it. 7th in offense, 26th on D, negative point differential. They beat the Heat without Butler. They almost beat the Nets back to back. They beat them the first time, and then they came

back from like 24 down to make that one weird. They started one and four, so it's a little bit of a positive here. Halliburton solid, 22, 10, and five. The 50 and 46% shooting splits, 46% from three, incredible for him. And Matherin is second only to Apollo in rookie scoring at just under 20 a game. They play fast and they make threes. They have four guys shooting 40% or more on threes, 27 attempts total. So there's 27 attempts on four players there

that are making 40% of their threes and they pass the basketball. So a little surprising there for the Pacers. Kind of curious how that will hold up. The Knicks average offensively and defensively. Rebounding is okay. The starting group has been getting crushed. So I don't know what's going to happen there.

There'll probably be some kind of change. But if you look at the differential with the starting group that comes out, and I believe that was the same five that are starters that were in the Atlanta game where they got smoked. There could be some changes coming. Uh, Randall's been better than he was last year. So he's, he's kind of in between, why did we sign this guy and MVP chance at the free throw line two years ago? All right. So he's been better. Uh, the problem was even when he was good, it was get us through all these late game possessions. He doesn't necessarily have to do that anymore.

And you don't want to do it anymore because it wasn't really working out all that much. Brunson, more minutes, more shots, bigger numbers, points and assist totals. The usage is actually down from where he was because when he was allowed to go in, well, allowed is the wrong way to put it, but when he would go in and to run the offense without Luka,

all those possessions were his. They've got a bunch of guys, right? There's a Hardenstein-Mitchell conversation there. They're still trying to figure out these rotations. There's all these guys that play like 20 minutes. They're getting them in there. They're still trying to figure out these rotations. There's all these guys that play like 20 minutes. They're getting them in there.

Toppin gets his minutes, depending on the matchup and the lack of size they're going up against. But I think the real concerning part is I wanted R.J. Barrett to be better because I thought there was just a thing I saw from him where it was taking a next step, and I haven't necessarily seen that. His life should be a little bit easier with Brunson being as good as he is. That should allow. It shouldn't take away from RJ. That should allow him to get out there. But there's just Fournier still playing minutes. When you look at their stat log, it's like,

oh yeah, there's all these guys that play all these minutes and they still haven't quite figured it out, which I'm sure Thibodeau's losing his mind over. Okay, the ninth team in the East, Washington, 24th on offense, 21st on defense, 24th in net rating. This team has the number one percentage of their points from two. That's 59%. Boston on the other side is the last in percentage of points from two, 43% to put 59% into context there. Porzingis has played well. I think he shoots it well still. The three's not exactly where you'd want it to be with that number. I think it's going to still. The three's not exactly where you'd want it to be with that number. I think it's going to go up. He just looks really healthy. He looks like he's moving

really well. And they have a really good scoring top three with Kuzma and Beal, who you just pencil in for 25 plus a game. You just need another guy for this team to pop. And I don't know who that's ever going to be. I don't know if it's ever going to be Rui. Denny has zero double-figure scoring games this season. Kispert's hurt all the time. And Johnny Davis, their lottery pick, is in the G League, struggling. So long-term, if you're looking at the Wizards, you're like, are any of these actual draft picks that we spent some resources on, and are any of these guys actually going to pop?

And early returns are, let's just say, concerning. Number 10 is Philly. This is the most disappointing team in the East. I'm going to go here for a bit. Blake, everybody here. I'm so sick of fucking tricking myself into liking them and I know it's early and if

I go on some massive rant, then this will be used later on because I seem to have a string of going off on something and having immediately the opposite happens. But then longterm I'll be like, yep. See, I told you guys,

uh, there's so much I liked about what they did this off season. Let's go through it because I knew, I knew exactly what I was looking for because of what I've seen from them when they play. They're just lazy. This is a lazy fucking basketball team. Sorry I swore twice during the Sixers segment, but I'm just frustrated on your behalf, Philadelphia. And let's run through it. Okay, offense 11th, defense 16th,

who cares? They're 26th in rebounding, right? They run the second most isolations, Dallas number one. By the way, Dallas is running a ton of isolation this year. They're like almost 17 possessions per 100. Number one in the league last year was just under 12. And again, if you're thinking, wait a minute, it feels like there's more than 16 isolations in a Dallas game. The way they track it is a little bit different. Okay. So Philly runs the second most isolation, but their screen assists are 24th. Their loose balls received per game on offense last. If it's a loose ball on their end of the court,

nobody's going for it. Okay, what about defense? A little bit better on defense, but overall, they are 28th on loose ball recoveries. Lakers are last. They're 29th on contested twos. They're 24th on contested threes. They are last on contested shots in the NBA. They have the second worst clutch field goal percentage. It's early. they have the second worst clutch field goal percentage.

It's early. They're a lazy team that hasn't figured out, like for the life of me, a team that is collectively, these guys have never done anything. I mean, Doc's got a ring. And there's always this balance of like, if you're a coach, like, do I get on my guys? Is that the kind of personality that I have with this team?

Do I have to get on them to get a result? Or do I have to keep telling them they're awesome all the time? And everybody's different. Some kids, if you're a high school coach, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Like, man, if I get on that guy, he kind of goes in a little bit of a funk. Or wait, this guy's in a bit of a funk. I got to tell him he's in a funk and he's being soft and whatever were the words you want to use. And now he's going to respond because he's going to get mad at me and take it

out of the opponent. All of us are different. I don't know what to do with Phil. Can you tell him being hard? Like, Hey, what the fuck guys? Again,

I swore again, I apologize. Um, Harden has, um, is now at nine seconds per possession. That's second behind Luka. Stop me if you heard that one before.

The Maxie thing might be one of the slight positives because Maxie has more touches than everybody in the NBA except for two other guys. So when Harden, full-blown Harden, I was like, well, how's that going to affect Maxie? Maxie gets more touches because he moves, right? This basketball team doesn't move that much. And so the Maxie part of it, at certain nights, it's great.

Harden, this is his third straight year at 33% from three. And I wonder if he, instead of hunting fouls, just shot the basketball, if he'd be back to that kind of 36,37 range from three that we've seen during his prime. So the Harden-Maxey thing worked out okay. That's the one positive. They were 1-4, went to 4-2. They beat Phoenix, but Chris Paul did leave the game. And Embiid's missed four games.

So the however part of this is that they're probably still going to end up having a decent record, but the results that we've seen so far, you can point directly to all those numbers of like, hey, do they do this well? We're all the hustle stats and they're near the bottom in all of them, which is not surprising when you watch them play.

You thought I was finished? I'm not. Brooklyn, from one and five to go three-2 in their next five, they're 4-7. Offense is 13th. Defense stinks, 22nd. Kyrie's missed three games. Durant's played in all 11. Simmons has missed four. The Dallas-Luca

thing drove me crazy watching that game. Simmons not defending him. Yes, he got him in switches. Durant was the assigned defender on Luca. What is Simmons doing there if he can't? No one stops Luka. But the one thing we learned, as great as Mikael Bridges is a defensive player, when you watched it play out in that series last year, he is basically putting a quarter in this Luka slot and going for a ride outside of the pharmacy. The only thing you can

hope to do is contest L Luca with somebody who's big. All right. And if he gets burnt, fine. But you can't have somebody just beat physically. And with Simmons, you're like, isn't this what you talked about on the podcast about how fucking awesome you are defensively? Swear jar. And he doesn't even guard him. And then he was benched.

He played 16 minutes in that game. So we've already been through a million of the Nets stuff. I'm getting closer to being like, I think I'd trade these guys in season. Joe Harris doesn't look right. Claxton's been nice. But there's just not,

there's not, look, we've talked Nets a ton and we're going to do it with Bobby Marks. All right. A couple more teams to go. Miami's 12th in the East right now. This offense that I've never liked, and I still cannot believe that this team finished the number one seed last

year. 21st in offense, 17th on defense. They were fourth on defense last year. So the offense has always been a little concerning. Butler's already missed a couple of games. Lowry's played all 11. Bam's played all 11.

It's really seven guys. You know, you throw Struess, you throw Vincent in there, Dedman maybe. Duncan Robinson is 34% overall shooting, and he's a defensive liability. And that's contracts starting to look like it's going to sting a little bit because it feels like they can't. He's not really part of this rotation the way he was in the past when he was hitting everything. They don't shoot the ball well. They don't take a lot of free throws. They're not shooting it well from three. They were first from three last year. This year, they're 20th. When things are going right, it's the Butler ISOs. It's the BAM shot creation for either himself or on rolls. It's Lowry making threes. It's Struess having a nice night

maybe to cover for one of the other guys. When it's bad, you're looking at him going, how does this team score with the elite teams? Charlotte, 28th on offense, 13th on defense, 27th in shooting overall. Lomelo, zero games. Rozier's missed seven. Hayward has missed

three. He's been okay. The center stuff, which was laughable last season has been better because of Nick Richards playing more Plumlee's the starter but it feels like Richards more of the guy the problem here for them is the draft picks like are any of these guys going to

give you anything book nights played the numbers aren't good Kai Jones he jumped from 3.7 minutes per game last month to 6.5 minutes per game in November. Positive sign. Mark Williams, G League stuff.

They were actually 3-3, now they're 3-8. Detroit, 26th on offense, 29th on defense. Third most pick and roll behind Memphis and Atlanta, but their points per possession on pick and roll is average. Cade is better. I think he is. Yes. I'd like the numbers to be a little bit higher than 31%

from three the last couple of years. I think when you look at this team, you just go, okay, is Cade going to be good? Yes. Does Ivy have a chance? Yes. It can be sloppy sometimes. I'm not worried. Duren is a real thing. Yes. Bay is better than last year when he was super disappointed, but he's still not shooting it from three as well. Bogdanovich is good for them because he can shoot and he can catch and kind of dribble penetrate a little bit. So there's some things here where

I go. It's really about liking some of the young players. And as of right now, I like some of those young players, but they have been getting stomped. Orlando's 15th in the East. They've actually not been getting stomped as much. They have eight clutch losses, which is three more than any other team in the NBA. The offense is 19th. The defense is 25th.

They're another high-frequency pick-and-roll team. They shoot it pretty well, but they're dealing with their own injuries. When you're a lottery team that's maybe going for Wimbanyama in this entire deal, I'm not going to get super concerned with you. Although I would say from a talent standpoint, there's a chance.

And sometimes that chance works out where you're like, look at all these young, talented guys and it's awesome. And then other times you're like, it's Towns and Wiggins and you're going, is this really going to be the foundation of something great in the future?

And it wasn't, and the other side of that for Minnesota is TBD. But Orlando's still in that hopeful phase, same as Detroit, so I'm not going to sit here and start breaking down whether or not they run too much isolation, because it doesn't matter. Okay, those are your NBA midterms in the East. We'll do the West soon. The NBA season is underway, and it's the perfect time

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Because I think I saw you talking about it. And after I kind of listened and I felt like, yeah, he's right. At the Nets, you probably just try to figure out a way to salvage this for assets and move on so what what's your premise right now if you're back running the nets what would you do with this team well i think the first thing i would figure out what i'm doing at head coach right i mean i i would just give it the jock jock on and let it like play out um and see where this team is in the offseason. And if you've got to go in a different direction because you've gutted it

and you're going the Will Hardy route in Utah, one of these younger coaches, that's why I'm a little bit... Take everything else with Ema going on. Why I'm like, why are you going to throw... He's a good coach. Why are you going to throw up a Hail Mary? And a year from now, he might not be your guy. Right?

Like, that's kind of like, I feel like it's a shotgun marriage. So I think for me, I mean, it's been four games. Hey, they're competing. Right? I guess you could say they're playing hard for Jacques Vaughn. I would probably just leave it there. And I think the second thing is, and you got to figure out what you're doing with Kyrie. Right? Like you're there in, you're out like for both sides here and like this suspension is going to be up by the weekend they're going out west is he going to be on the

court has he hit the checklist the six-point checklist whatever that is um and if he's not you you know he's going to be a free agent, send him home, right? Like just send them home and just ride out what you got right now. And if the Durant situation explodes, then you deal with it from there. But, um, I think those are your, probably your two big things here. Um, they're not going to be, you know, kind of where Milwaukee is or Cleveland and then Simmons, like what is going on? Like the Ben Simmons thing. where Milwaukee is or Cleveland. And then Simmons, what is going on?

The Ben Simmons thing, and I said it in the offseason, how this team goes is based on Ben Simmons, Joe Harris, and Seth Curry, guys who were coming off either offseason surgeries here. We're going to get just 20 minutes of Ben Simmons every night and three points and four rebounds and two assists here. There's a lot to unpack there, but I do think you'll get to a point when you're

4-7 going into the New York game. You could be 4-8. You go out west. You could be, I don't know, 5-12, 5-13. Eventually, you're going to have to rip the band-aid off here. I just wonder if it's worth even going through the rest of the season. Normally, I wouldn't even ask that question. I'd go, hey, you still have a chance with this

kind of talent. Let's see what happens. Simmons isn't even close to being what he was when he was still a pretty flawed player. They benched him at the end of the Dallas game. Like that Dallas game, I even touch on it in the open. That Dallas game was so frustrating for me, watching Simmons actually not be the guy guarding Luka and KD. You're asking KD to be the initial defender. Granted, there were switches where they got reassigned to the whole thing, but the assignment defensively, they didn't want to put Simmons on him.

We saw a lot of the same stuff against Giannis. You're like, look, if you're not around as a guy at this body type to at least try to get in the way, nobody's stopping these guys, then what are you doing here? And then Jock didn't even go back to him because they wanted the spacing, which Nick Claxton even recently had just mentioned i mean his own teammate was like yeah when he's not out there it's a lot easier for me which i thought was pretty revealing and rare well yeah i mean you saw it in um you saw it in uh washington on friday and then you saw it at the end of Charlotte. Right. Like, like even in the Dallas home game,

the game, they lost in overtime. Like, you know, like you can't like, like everything is downhill. Like Ben Simmons is almost watching him as like a defensive back was given a 15 yard cushion.

Right. Like it's just, and that's kind of, yeah. I mean, from an offensive standpoint, you know, we can go down the list of his flaws,

but you know, at least, you know, defensively like steals, rebounds, get out and go. And you know, it's,

it's almost like a detriment to, you know, it's a $35 million detriment that you got for two more years. Like you, we could like, we could blow this all up and Kyrie can go somewhere and Durant, maybe you trade or something, but you're still going to have Simmons there. I don't see the value for him all of a sudden. Does San Antonio take a flyer on what he's got left or teams like that? I just don't see it right now. right now. And that's another thing, as I said, like you got to like the Simmons thing is a big thing that nobody's really talking about because he hadn't played until that Dallas game. Yeah. Because you owe the picks on the hardened deal. Like it just makes it so much more

complicated for them. And, you know, there's a big difference between saying, oh, all right, let's blow it up now. Okay. You know, we're not going to be good. We'll be 10 games under 500. All right. Everybody gets to work and it's not realistic to say, okay, give me your best offers around the league by the end of the day, wanting to do something and then doing something that makes sense. But they are really, really stuck. They're stuck in a way that's different than other teams. And I don't know if getting ahead of it is the right call. I don't know that it would necessarily be deemed impatient because they've been patient about certain things. But now if you, in theory, have all three guys coming back for a long stretch,

Harris will look better eventually. Is there enough there to hold on to? But then at the same time, if you try to ride this out, are you going to be left getting nothing back for guys that are going to get mad again at some point and want out as bad as it's been. Well, and then the other thing, Ryan, is when is the 15-game Durant injury coming? There's a track record there that there's going to be a lump of games that he is going to probably miss here.

Maybe he doesn't, but the wear and tear of his 37, 38 minutes is going to take a toll on him. And yeah, it's easy for me to say, you don't have to draft picks to blow it up here. It might be another front office that's going to be building this roster back together here. I went through it in post-Boston stuff where we hung on for dear life trying to salvage something. And we hired Lionel Hollins because we thought it was like that veteran coach that can kind of – that Hail Mary type approach there. And I just look at it this year like this is a really good – has a chance to be a really good draft.

You're not going to get a number one pick because Houston has the right to swap with you. Um, you could get, you know, you could get a high pick, you know, with what you already have.

I basically, if this thing bottoms out here, you could have the third pick in the draft. You could have the second pick in draft. Who knows what happens in the lottery, maybe the eight or nine here. But, um,

I think eventually that, you know, you're going to have to let go of, I said, the ghosts of the trades from the past. Eventually, you can't worry about what you owe Houston for the health of the organization, and you're just going to have to move forward here. You mentioned the Lionel Hollins hiring. I want to stay on that and kind of just if there's any stories about, you know, the baseball thing used to be like when you bring in a tough guy, the next guy has to be pro player.

And then if he's too soft, you need a baseball manager that gets on these guys' asses. And it feels a little bit like guesswork. I think the Kenny Atkinson-Steve Nash has an interesting parallel to that. That's why I don't have really any sympathy for the players. Nash was the guy you actually, in theory, wanted instead of Keddie. Then you got him. You couldn't handle that.

I don't know what's going on with the E-May thing. There was people last week around the league were like, hey, they're hammering out the final parts of this contract here. And then it doesn't happen. Is it guesswork? Is it the interview convincing you is it input like what is that moment like when you're trying to figure out not necessarily the x and o's guy the personality guy that's the right fit to get a little extra out of a lineup that maybe is disappointing i think it's i mean for that process it was so reactionary for us because we had Jason, you know, the Jason Kidd situation was, you know, you know, Jason didn't want to be there.

He wanted to go to Milwaukee. We traded him for two second round picks. Right. And now you've got like, by the way, can I jump in there? What's that like? I mean, the players get upset. What's it like when the coach goes, you know what? I'm out of here?

Well, you know, it's funny. I mean, that was in 2014. I look back on that because there were so many different, like, there were so many different tipping points. And we were just, the practice facility, like we were doing like a new, like a grand opening of like the buildout, right? And I remember like seeing seeing Jason in a corner by himself. I'm thinking, you didn't really want to be a part of this. And then the night of the draft and all that stuff. But you could tell it had soured. And there was already some type of relationship with Milwaukee.

So there was some back-channeling, I guess you could say. And it was one of those firsts for me where you get on a conference call with the NBA on a trade of a coach. And you're getting two second round picks back. But it was so reactionary because we're holding on for dear life of that trade. And at the end of the day, we rushed. At the end of the day, we rushed. Wynald was coming off, I guess, a few years back with that Memphis team with Zach and Tony Allen, those hard-nosed, basically squeezed everything out of it.

And you're thinking like, yeah, this guy, we brought him in, we put him on the board, he showed us what he could do with this roster, and you kind of bought in, and he's a good coach. But you almost needed kind of like a softer player development guy because eventually you're going to have to rip that roster apart. Like Darren and Joe and Garnett was still there. Brooke was still there. So you thought that he could fit with that,

but it just didn't work. Where the year before, we went through, when Jason Kidd got hired, we went through a pretty thorough process of interviewing coaches. And then one day, Billy came in and goes, yeah, I think Jason Kidd's our guy. And I'm like, well, didn't he just stop playing two weeks ago? What happened here? So that's why you see these teams now, man. They bring in 25, 30 guys because they're just, I mean, you're going through the thorough process. A lot of it is you're trying to get information that other teams do. Like that's

like, you know, Utah brings in a lot of guys because you're trying to like steal, like what other teams are doing here. But, um, you know, in that case in Brooklyn, we, you know, that was a rushed, you know, it was a rushed decision. That was a rushed decision. Let's stay with Utah. You are Danny Ainge. You're Justin Zanuck. You trade your players out.

Now you're 9-3, and you're the one seed in the West. What is it like when you're talking long-term, planning for the season? What are those meetings like? Because it's like, hey, this is kind of awesome, but not really. You know, it's funny. I remember, I guess it was mid-September after they did the Bogdanovic deal with Olenek and talking to people close to that organization.

And I said, all right, who's next? Conley, Clarkson, Beasley? And they're like, no, no, no, 25 games. They said, give us 25 games to see where this roster is. We're at, whatever, game 12 or 13 right now, and I'm thinking 25 games might be like 15 and 5. They are like

that starting pitcher that a team trades for and goes through the lineup, strikes out seven guys in the first three innings. I want to see them go through the line. Teams are going to scout them a little bit differently. They're going to get teams a second time, a third time.

I'm going to see if teams figure out. But they've got one of the great, like, there's not a number one, I don't think Mark is a number two guy, but they've got the greatest number three to ten roster, right? With Mark and Sexton and Clarkson, Beasley, Olenek, Horton Tucker, guys like that. I don't know what you do if you're like 25 and 15 and you get a good package for Conley and Clarkson and you can get draft picks maybe.

I don't think the Lakers come back and visit, something like that. But, man, that's a tough – you're going to have revolties in the streets of Utah here because it's almost like that Orlando team from way back when Doc Rivers took over where nobody really expected. I think they were like 42-40. They finished. They were the eighth seed here. And you're almost like if you're going to be not in the victor sweepstakes like these two and

nine teams here you're almost like better off just letting us ride off right out and if you get a deal you get a deal if not you've got a nice baseline um to kind of work off going into you know into next year yeah because then you could say well you know we'll have all these picks and we can trade for the next guy but it's just it's just tough when you're in the markets that we all know are kind of designated as the cool you can trade for the guy but if there's two years left on the deal you you have a problem in a month and a half or a year you know it is like ryan when paul george got traded um from indiana to okc and they went out and got bogdanovvic and Thaddeus Young and guys

like that. And they had that nice run. They lose to Cleveland, I think. And then we're all like, all right, what's next? Right? That's the hardest thing. When you exceed expectations and you're like a 7 or 8 seed, I guess Utah maybe

does fall back a little bit. Now you're thinking like your fan base is thinking like all right how do we get to three how do we get to two and that's that's the hardest part like when you're building these rosters and everything okay let's let's now take that from the mitchell tree um yeah if you're the next you have to be sick to your stomach i'd imagine internally uh from what i had heard and I think our information is pretty much aligned here that the Knicks thought they could kind of wait this

out. There wasn't real competition and then Cleveland makes the deal. I loved it for Cleveland to be totally fair because I've watched a lot of Mitchell because I like him so much. I thought he was really frustrated there towards the end and I disappointed that it leaked into his defense, especially when you look at that Dallas series. I thought it was kind of gross and that he can when

he's frustrated force the issue offensively but now that he's happy has probably a better fit around him he doesn't have to deal with all the stuff that probably got stale with him in Utah I mean this guy's incredible and I still despite last year like I think of my all NBA voting I had him like 17th you know I had him as there was one guy that missed it, and then it kind of came down to this Butler-Siakam-Mitchell thing, and I couldn't put Mitchell ahead of those guys considering where the teams were. So he still was really good.

Now he's at another level. If he keeps this up, I don't know what all NBA team he's going to be making, but I can't, well, I don't know, but I can guess there must be some nasty days with the Knicks, considering what I had heard about the split of, no, we can wait this out, not give up our assets. We'll get Mitchell because there's no competition, and then we'll use the assets for the next player. When my point would be, you can get cute with it, but if you think there's another level above Mitchell that's available for this price, do this now and then add to Mitchell. And I'm sure there are people on both sides of that that

are with the Knicks. And one side is probably a little more frustrated with the other. Well, I think there was some easy day or easy minutes during that 37-15 run in the fourth quarter. I mean, you're sitting there watching that firsthand. And I thought with Donovan, top 25 player, but probably closer to the back end, right? Not a top 15 guy. He's defending. The big knock on him, certainly defensively, probably maybe the ball sticks a little bit.

But there's been moments where he's probably defended better than I've seen him in Utah. If you're New York, I. If you're New York, like, like I think if you're New York, you got to go through this exercise again. And I think if you had a, probably a little bit more, if I, if I was the owner and I was more hands on, I would probably sit down with my front office and be like, all right, walk me through the Mitchell, what happened and why we missed. Right.

So when the next Donovan Mitchell doesn't, what comes about, like, we don't like, are we hoarding onto these picks too much? Do we value the picks too much? Um, Quinton Grimes.

I mean, God, he can't even get on the court cause he's been hurt. Um, like our younger players, like where are we with our younger players here? Because like the picks are the picks, but you know,

three of them are protected here. And I think for New York, I think they became a little bit cautious. You hit it right on the head. People that I've talked to, they always thought Utah was going to come back to them. Back to New York, right? Yeah, New York.

Cleveland somewhat came in the back door a little bit here and put that package together here. But guys like that don't become available a lot. I don't know if there'll be one of those guys available this year. Maybe they will be. Maybe there'll be that disgruntled young player. But here's the thing with the Mitchell thing, which is crazy. Four years left on his contract.

Player option in four years. So you were going to get him for at least three in the prime of his career to put him next to Brunson. And Cleveland, I loved it for Cleveland at the time. I was texting with people in that organization when they did it. And I said, remove the picks from the equation here because that's starting in 25. I said, at the end of the day, you traded basically for your first-round pick, Obagi, and Laurie Marketing for Donovan Mitchell because you didn't have Colin

Sexton last year because he was hurt for most of the year. You have to look at it from that perspective here. It's worked out for both teams. It's really one of those rare trades that, at least for now, it's been a win-win for both teams. Do you think there's going to be...

The next few years are going to be full of picks that are unprotected, that are going to be swaps, and there will be a correction to this correction? Where I felt like, hey, trading a couple picks that may land in the 20s, who gives a shit? Just do it. And now teams can't give them away quick enough. Yeah. And there's going to be some really weird drafts where you're going to go, wait, what happened? And I wonder if it's a bit like, again, it's a weird analogy. It's almost like my thoughts on environmental

issues. Like nobody's really going to wake up until their faucet starts spouting brown water right like nobody's gonna wake up until a hurricane hits florida in november right right it's gonna be like maybe this maybe there are some issues here okay and those far more serious than the nba draft picks but i think there's gonna be some awakening where like, why am I giving three picks and two swaps when like this team ended up with a number one player like three years in a row? Again, we're still removed from it, but the market is what it is. It doesn't feel like it's changing.

I don't know that the market will change until it's like right in front of our faces going, man, was this a colossal screw up? Yeah, I think eventually there will be. I mean, there's only, what, nine teams that control their draft picks, I think, nine or 10 teams in the next seven years. I mean, when you look at teams that, between Oklahoma City and Houston and certainly Utah,

you mentioned 14 first round picks in seven years, which is ridiculous here. Eventually, there will be a market correction. When that's going to be, it could be 2025. I mean, I don't think it's going to be in a year from now, but yeah, I mean, there will be a time where we wake up and be like, what just happened? And you kind of had it right in front of you all along.

Let's talk about some of the young guys from those draft picks. How did you feel about the number one pick before this draft? Granted, Chet's not playing, so that's not entirely fair. Where were you on Paolo Jabari? Where are you now? The thing that concerned me with Jabari

was the guard play in Houston. I mean, that's my... He the guard play in Houston. I mean, that's my, he should be used to it. I feel bad for him. It's like the same. He's got the Auburn guards,

a better version of the Auburn guards. That's my thing. Like, like some nights he's getting what? Three attempts. I mean, he, I was looking at his numbers.

He's shooting. I think like 55% of the shots are threes. Like he's like, that's 55 of his shots are threes like he's like that's my like porter and green getting him involved is my big concern because there are some nights when jalen comes down and just like i mean like 18 on the clock and it's things going up already right um i think jabari will be fine but i just think like when you pick a guy that high, you've got to sit your point guards or your guards down and be like, hey, he's part of our future here. He's just

not a castaway here. I think he'll be fine. Paolo, playing with Wagner, Wendell Carter, I like that front court here. Probably more mature than you think. He's acting more mature.

Usually you label guys as the developmental guy. You can put him as a top starter right now in the league here. Chet, certainly with the injury. I like... Certainly Keegan Murray in the summer has probably been better than what we've seen in the regular season now i think it's a little bit fast for him i think you know he was hurt in the beginning shane sharp's been there's been good moments you know and i mean like that's an interesting and i we talked about this before

went on so duane washington who's his uh trainer in canada works out with a lot of guys during the draft process i got to talk with him a lot of guys during the draft process. I got to talk with him a lot, pick his brain. Cause really it was like the man of mystery. And he's like, Bobby, I'm telling you,

he's like at this age, he's better in Shay. He's better than RJ. He's better than all these guys. He's like, he just got it. He's got to be in the right situation. Like he's,

and I think in Portland, he is in the perfect situation to the point. Like we were talking nets and I was like right situation. And I think in Portland, he is in the perfect situation. To the point, we were talking nets, and I was spitballing. I'm like, can you imagine? What would happen? I'm going to throw a hypothetical at you here. What would happen if things really go in the shitter in Brooklyn here? Would Portland pick up the phone and say, you know what?

We'll give you Jeremy Grant, Josh Hart, and Shaden Sharp for Kevin Durant. And what would Portland say? What would Brooklyn say, you mean? Yeah, what would Brooklyn say? And two picks. You know, they got to, like, that's like, and I'm important, I got to like, like, like that's like, and I'm important.

I'm thinking like, you know, like that's, that's pretty enticing here. Let me, let me talk this out with you. Okay. Cause I'll admit with sharp, you know, the, the times that I'm doing and, you know, like, look, I do my own draft stuff just cause I got sick of reading everybody else's and, you know, we have our wins, we have our losses on it. I had a hard time with him because the access of what i could see yeah the eybl stuff was was very different from the guy this guy is a dynamic player and yet when i watched him in that stuff i'm like this guy already has like the james

harden shit down where he was just i said but worked, but I still didn't necessarily really like it. And then once Mike and Joe took him, I thought, okay, wait, like if Schmitz, who we both really liked. Schmitz had the answers to the test before anyone else. Yeah, that kind of made me go, this guy had better access to him than teams did. And I would also say there was a couple teams that were really smart,

who I would put in the smart category, great track records, who when we were talking out throughout the course of the season, hey, what order do you have it? Two teams in particular would include Sharp in that first group. And I was like, wow, okay. But again, for me, I'm not going to any of the showcases. I don't know. I'm only watching whatever I can watch from that UIBL stuff, which wasn't like he made a lot of shots, but it was very weird the way he played.

I don't know if you saw any of it, Bobby, but it was oddly like both impressive and unimpressive. And now considering his age, you know, he just had a birthday in may and the stuff that like these little glimmers, but it doesn't mean we know what he is either. Right. You know? So that's so back to, I probably still saying no, I'd probably still say no if I'm the nets,

but if it's, I don't know if it's no better towards the trade deadline yeah yeah I mean that's I mean I'm just hypothetical what about you would you say yes to it if you're the Nets today probably not today because I probably think I can probably get something better down the road but if I

have like if I'm forced to do something and that's the best deal and I want to just cut bait I probably would you know February not early you know early November here and that's the best deal and I want to just cut bait, I probably would. February. Not early November here. Look, there's probably some Trailblazers fans listening to us right now after a couple of sharp highlights being like, we wouldn't do it.

It's like the Scotty Barnes from the summer. Toronto fans were like, I thought I was getting people were going to pick up my lawn when I mentioned Scotty Barnes and Kevin Durant together. Like, okay, I get it. Youant together. Like, you know, like, okay, I get it.

You love them. Yeah, that's a good one. Um, would you rather have Kate or Paolo? Probably Paolo. Kate, you know,

I'm watching, you know, Detroit and I love how people say, man, this team plays hard. Like, yeah, they're one of these up-and-coming teams.

And they did. They played hard at the end of the year. I mean, I think they only lost four out of the 24 games. I tweeted it by 10 points or more. They've been getting the shit kicked out of them this year. They've been non-competitive. I think five games they lost by 10 points or more out of 10. And in the OKC game, Monday night,

it was a layup line in the first half. Just not like... And then they came back and won here. I like Cade, but I think where Paolo is right now, I think he's ahead. I think he is. I don't know if he's just non-assertive sometimes in Detroit. The Bogdanovic

piece, you get a good player. What happens with Sadiq Bey? It's just funky there for me. I like what the talent could be, so I'm not down on it. In the open, mentioned you know i'd

like to see kade's shooting numbers be a little bit more representative of what he was in college um i think he has stuff that other guys don't have like other guys can score other guys can make shots but i think his control of a game is something that's that's pretty rare but yeah it probably feels like palo's maybe a little bit more like on the dynamic scale of like whoa what the hell was that which can trick you into thinking a player is better than the other one you know what the one thing I like about him he's got

an edge man like he's got an edge you know like for the number one pick he's got like a little chip on his shoulder there um who would you rather have Booker or Shea Gildress Alexander pick. He's got a little chip on his shoulder there. Who would you rather have? Booker or Shea, Gilchrist, Alexander?

Probably Devin. I think it's the right answer. Shea's played well. He's played and you look, there's a lot of 30 plus nights up there. I want a full body work. I mean, he's played and you look, there's a lot of 30 plus nights up there. I want a full body of work. I want a full, I want

70 games out of Shea. That's what I want. I want to see him finish a full season here in Oklahoma City. I don't want to see him on the shelf come February. I want to see him

a complete season here. The one young kid that's played really well is Matherin in Indiana. And I think when Indiana did the Brogdon trade, and he didn't get much for him. He just got fillers and dice and a future too. I mean, what it did was it just cleared out a spot, right? Like it cleared out a spot for Hal Burton and Heald, expand their minutes for Heald,

and it just gave Matherin more of like an opportunity. He'll probably be in the starting lineup sometime. You know, I mean, he's playing 25, 27 minutes a night here. He had a little bit of a, not a dud, but one of his lower scoring games the other night against a night here. He had a little bit of a, not a dud, but one of his lower scoring games the other night against New Orleans here. You look up, it's 25, 26 every night for him.

Yeah, they're not. It feels like they're bringing him off the bench because it's worked and hey, whatever. We're not going to be very good, even if the record is decent here. There's no reason why he's not starting other than hey this has worked right now and i think he's you know to say hey he's 40th and scoring or 44th or whatever but he's

the personality part of him was the least concerning thing and his personality translates perfectly to the nba like he's just like i don't fucking care what you guys think you are, who you think you are, all this stuff. I'm here to kick your ass. And that's how he played in college and why there's dudes that are so talented, but it's like, okay, but does the personality part of it,

is that going to be a positive or a negative for him? With Matherin, to me, it was never really a question. And that's exactly what you're seeing from him. Well, and the thing too is he's he's so much mature, more mature. You know, I think, you know, he's 21, 20, you know, he's, he's placed so much more mature. Like his story is like, they basically dropped them off in Mexico, you know, at one of these academies and basically, you know, the kid was homesick. I mean, I had talked to him for a while.

You know, his brother dies when he's in a bike accident um you know he finds his way to arizona um so he's more i think he's just more mature than a you know a 19 year old coming into the league as a you know as a rookie he also killed it in the interviews like everybody that i talked to like hey favorite interviews must have been the guy who was prepping him okay so you were prepping him what was that like 60 i had 60 guys this year i had a lot of guys um you know it's it's some some guys you got to go through one or two he was great i mean like i really you know like you really want to just dig in on like being on his own in which he was for a while um and i think that just that's just a translatable feature right like that's just you know like yeah i mean the incident at arizona you know i guess

what at the end of that tcu game that a lot of people made it, you know, like you want to dig into that, right? Like what happened? And he was very upfront and honest about it. Um, he was good. I mean, he was, um, he was, he was high level and that hell, I mean, that helped him move up, you know, up the boards there. Yeah. The one thing that I'd always heard was that he would be like, I have no choice. I have to be successful. And it was a really specific thing that he was doing. Because I feel like there's so much coaching that goes on where it's cliched and vague and reveal nothing because you don't trust the kid. And to me, that's so insulting to the kid. And granted, there are some athletes that need a little bit more of the handholding depending on what their life experience was. And look, look i mean we're just talking about different education levels but i think it's a disservice so many

times and i'm glad you do it the way you do it where it's like hey hone in on the specific things and and be revealing you know what i mean be revealing in that way and and honestly if it feels more genuine you have a better chance than going in there like i'd hear story you know some 18 year old kid being like i'm here to win championships and you're just like okay cool like yeah like you know i interviewed um i mean i'll say i mean cam um cam thomas in the nets um i worked with him a lot last year and i said like oh yeah like um who do you think you you know who do you who do you play like it's like yeah damien lillard and i was like all right like let's you know come on let's pull back here you know like don't turn you

don't want to turn off people right like you don't want to turn off like people when you go into these interviews you it's it's good to be confident but i don't want you to say like you know like i could be like damien lillard i don't you're. You don't play like him right now. You're not at his level right now. So I do think, as I said, it's good to be confident, but I do think you have to kind of pull back a little bit too. Honestly, for Cam Thomas, what I know about him, Lillard's like his safety comp.

I'm surprised he didn't say. Well, I'm like a little Isaiah Thomas. That's the one thing with the nets with the with jock taking over like cam was in like the witness protection program right like he finally came out in the uh the last three games here and they've given him an opportunity but he is um he is not short on confidence to say the least no he is not he's not i did when he when he had the instagram thing free cam thing like right is everybody's getting fired and all this stuff's going on you're like hey man i get it you want your minutes let's pick a different time to uh to do this this was always a pleasure man so thanks for doing it hopefully we do it again this season. Thanks, Bobby. I appreciate it. Thank you. Okay, my college football top 12 and we'll take a look at how the committee

rankings came out. I guess I feel like doing this on Wednesday now, even though we do have worse take coming back. I'm going to do it on Wednesday because I want to compare it to how the committee does it on Tuesday nights. No surprise here. Everybody should have Georgia won, although I can't help but notice that other people like,

how do you vote another team number one in the country after what Georgia did to Tennessee? They held the number one offense in college football without a touchdown or a 20-yard game for 55 minutes in that game on Saturday. So we know that was dominant. game for 55 minutes in that game on Saturday. We know that it was dominant. When you have wins against the committee's number five and number six teams and it's dominant, I don't know how an AP voter has Ohio State won. Apparently, that Clemson voter not doing it again this year or this week. Then the coaches pulled two number one votes there for Michigan.

It doesn't mean you're wrong, but it kind of means you're wrong. Ohio State, I'm moving them down to two. I told you that was going to happen after the winner of Georgia and Tennessee. And there's really not much to add to all that. I think it is much like the committee. I don't know how you put anybody ahead of Michigan. I wouldn't do it with TCU. The only weird thing is if it had been Tennessee and a really close loss,

could you have talked yourself into keeping a team like that ahead of undefeated Big Ten teams that haven't had the toughest schedule so far? The strength of schedule stuff is worse for Tennessee of really any of the ones that we're looking at here among the top, depending on what strength of schedule you're

looking at here. But I don't really know that you can do it. Michigan's got the number one statistical defense in college football. So Georgia, Ohio State, Michigan. They have TCU for, I have Tennessee for number two strength of schedule. You know what we can stop, though? And I was texting with a dear friend about that this weekend. Can we stop with the LSU comps? Tennessee was weird.

Because what? Their offense was really good, but their defense wasn't. They got a quarterback from another school that all of a sudden they were magically LSU comps, Tennessee was weird because what? Their offense was really good, but their defense wasn't. They got a quarterback from another school that all of a sudden they were magically LSU. As I said three years ago during that LSU season, when you look at their defensive stats, one thing that was a little misleading is that some of the overall numbers weren't very good, pretty average in a lot of areas for a team you're wondering if they can win a national championship. So I would point to that too. But when you looked at the game to games, you'd be like, a lot of times they're up 20, 25,

and then they give up a ton of yards and points later on. That's kind of stupid. It's like Vandy, I think, and then Ole Miss, and even Alabama where they were really in total control of that game in Tuscaloosa, and that the final score looked like a one-score game, and they gave up 41 points. So LSU was like misleadingly worse game and they gave up 41 points so lsu was like misleadingly

worse statistically than they were on defense and then they compare tennessee to be like oh maybe they're going to be them well all you have to do is beat bama at bama stomp georgia in the sec title game 37 10 um embarrass oklahoma by putting 63 up on them in the semi-final and then be in total control of clemson after an early blip in that game and beat them by a couple scores. So yeah, just do all those things and you'd be just like them. All right, that turned into a weird historical LSU segment. I'm not apologizing for it. I originally had TCU five. I'm just going with it. I think Oregon's better than them. Sorry, I just do. I know they've lost. They have Oregon sixth behind Tennessee.

So we have the next three teams the same, but I have them in a different order. So I got Tennessee four, Oregon five, TCU sixth. If Oregon played TCU tomorrow, neutral field, I'm picking Oregon. So the one loss, I'll be able to get through it. Number seven, I like the committee have LSU there.

I mean, in a weird way, you're going, wait, so how do I handle Bama? I have no problem putting Bama ahead of USC. They have USC eighth. I have USC ninth. And you know what I did is I moved them to tenth. So Bama, we've been over this and I'm going to need them to lose a few more games before I'm ready to write off the dynasty.

Like I said, I had USC 9th. I decided to switch them with UCLA. USC beating Cal, 41-35 at home. They don't have a single win against a ranked team. The only ranked team they played was the loss at Utah, which could have gone the other way.

It didn't. They're 95th on defense and opponents yards for play. They have the better QB than UCLA. They have a far worse resume and a much worse defense. So I decided to change that around and I put UCLA ahead of USC, which is not, let's see here. Yeah, everybody has USC, the coaches, AP, and the committee. Okay. I put Utah 11th ahead of number 12 Clemson when I finished this out. And as I did that, ahead of number 12 Clemson when I finished this out. And as I did that, I sat by myself and thought about what I did. I reflected on that moment. I go, hey, look, just because Clemson got stopped by Notre Dame and the QB thing is still ridiculous. They still have a good defense.

I can't have them behind Utah with the two losses. So I moved Clemson 11, although all of us are just like, I was going, wait, am I voting them 12th? Again, not a real vote. Don't get too worked up. Am I putting them 12th because I'm just kind of sick of it? Yeah, but that's unfair. That's what a loser would do. Don't be like that. Be true to the form of what you're trying to do here. So I got Clemson 11, Utah 12, others. UNC has nothing on its resume. I need one win that I feel kind of good about. I got none of those. We've touched on Ole Miss here a bunch, but this is where it's going to get fun. This is where it's going to get really fun. It's going to be a reminder of what we are looking at with the 12 team playoff when you're like, cool, this team has a chance to play for

a national championship despite doing nothing impressive for 12 games. Time for worst take. Again, the podium is Arenas on Giannis. It is Bart Scott, which is definitely looking bad. And then we put Perk's Lakers back court back on there. Although Lakers are pretty good defensively. Is a chance perk could be right about this uh i'm not talking about i don't know they're 12th so i guess it's not that great uh i don't know just just something to be cautious of and then we've got the laurie marketing one for sir rud, where he went crazy

on the who's got next thing. Markkinen's like an all-star right now. I don't know if that one will play. He still has time for that one. You know what I'm going to do? Why don't we give it to you first, Kyle, if you have a nomination for this week, and then we'll take a look at it. And then I'm going to suggest something very personal here on the show. Well, I mean, for the Laurie Markkinen, it's NBA midterms already. So, I mean, it's not starting to form, right? Yeah, true. Just that was a joke there.

This one, I mean, I'm not a huge college football guy. I will admit when it's fun, it's fun. And God damn it, that was fun, LSU, Alabama. And your buddy, Danny Cannell, are we sure beating Bama is such a great win? They're two plays away from being a 5-4 football team. I don't know. Was that specifically for you, or is that just what he likes to do? I haven't paid

so much attention to him, but this year, with the worst take and stuff I have been, he's in my rotation of like, alright, we'll see what Danny Cannell said. We'll see what Acho said. Bart Scott's on the left. I'll just put in Bart Scott on Twitter to see if he has any more awesome clips. But what the hell is that about i you know it's kind of it's a bit like you know the bama tennessee game was one of the most fun games you could ever have like it was

just that much fun and the first thing he and clatt did was found a way to shit on it and i dump that's crazy right you just go that's crazy all right. You just go like, all right, whatever. Like, I don't know that I've ever, Ohio State, Michigan is this awesome game. Like, would I go, well, you know, cool, but not as many draft picks. Not as many draft picks as you'd be led to believe. Like, I just, I don't know.

I mean, we actually used to do this segment with Cannell that was pretty funny. It was just kind of like worst dude ever. And then it would be like, hey, I won the lottery. We'd be like, yeah, but what about the taxes dude you know and just be like whatever sorry so i didn't mention that uh is it a bit like is it a bit it's not a bit right he believes it and it's a bit okay you can ask him in person everything all at once yeah i will are you afraid he's a former pro athlete he seems like a really nice guy i don't know is he not uh you wouldn't tell me here if he wasn't so no he is he's a nice guy and he seems like a really

nice guy believe it or not he's actually not confrontational at all like he's a very difficult like it's hard to argue with him away from the stage because he'll just be like okay yeah pre and post tape is like fuck this guy's awesome yeah right even during tape he's great too it's just like you thought usually guys will turn it off it's like you know the the smile like will go fall away or something you'll be like oh you won't believe what the fuck happened at espn yesterday or whatever it's not like never none of that it's always like super nice pre and post he's like seems like the same guy all the way and then he just throws out some crazy shit i don't know he

does yeah it's a very weird weird dynamic i think at the root of all of the stuff where it comes into the conference stuff in college football i think it actually speaks to like this competitive nature thing where he's an acc guy clatt is actually a big 12 guy going back to colorado because i remember when i pointed out how biased like all the guys were like everybody thinks it's ESPN I was like it's all the ex-players like Desmond Howard not afraid to say some ridiculous shit like he had Michigan back in the playoff I think when they had a second loss just to leave an SEC team out um when Ohio State got smashed by Purdue and then Ohio State won the Big Ten Championship Klatt was just like yep it's you know Gus was like all right well any debate for you on the playoff he's like not for me and it was like literally other normal person goes, there's no way this team is getting in the playoff.

And that's exactly what happened. So as I've spent a lot of time on this, and the reason I did that rant, it was back at ESPN a bunch of years ago. Because I was like, I was just sick of like, we're the problem. Like, it's just us. It's we're the problem. It's all the ex-athletes that can't let it go. Who get pissed about another conference supposedly being artificially cropped up and they beat everybody so um that's where i think it defaults to but the reason i always bring up the big 12 thing is that i think it was awful announcing or somebody that was like rossillo

goes at other people and then like the first thing they said was you know like they just weren't on my side they were going like well klatt was at the big 12 not pac-12 because it was colorado and i you know as you're as you're doing live radio and you're just going off you're like okay whatever and yeah like i don't i don't hate another conference i don't hate another conference i can hate arguments from it but i i think those guys hate the sec and it bleeds into the way they talk about it more so than you know like what they're accusing everybody of I feel like they are all collectively far more guilty of so you know again I've done that far too many times yes to save a third open today what do

you think it's crazy right it's crazy right uh yeah I guess it's almost like I'm desensitized to it all right I thought i would have you with this one guess not i should have known better to come at you with a canal take that i won't you'll ban skip i'll be at danny i'm not gonna do any more of those no i want a better reaction next time florio hat like you when you say the florio acha thing like it's just people send them to us every other day yeah like i almost feel like it's not fair it's like playing with belfort you know you. You just can't. You're going to play with Chicago?

What are you, a dick? Okay. I'm nominating myself again, and I think it should replace Perks. The Tua thing is aging really badly. So bad. There was a NBA math has a site.

It was QB math it was like total points added total yards added at quarterback and he's number one in those statistically he's so good he's number one in qbr when you're over 80 in a qbr that's nuts he's completing 70 of his passes the touchdown interception split is 15 to 3 he He's number one in yard. So it's not like he's just dinking and dunking yet. I didn't think he was good in week one. I thought he was bad in the first half against Baltimore. They had six touchdowns. I didn't think he was very good against Buffalo. I didn't think he was very good in the Cincinnati game. And then he got hurt, right? So then it was like, are you allowed to criticize him? Cause everybody feels bad

cause he got hurt. All right. I thought he was terrible against Pittsburgh. And then when you look at the full scope of what he's actually been statistically, I'm like, all right. So I think it should be, I'm nominating myself. Here's what I said. I'll say something that I don't think is going to be popular with Miami fans. will be it's going to be popular miami fans do you want me to get aggressive you want me to share a take i'm afraid to share something you think about at home and write down in your legal pad and go i can't say this after week one i'm gonna say i feel like two is a backup that was after week one it was this exercise of something i don't want to say out loud but it thought popped in my head but i'm gonna say it out loud and then i said it out loud and then he threw for six touchdowns next week so i think it should be on the podium i think it should replace perk i I said it out loud and then he threw for six touchdowns next week. So I think it should be on the podium. I think it should replace Perk. I would agree with you.

And I think that's a really good checks and balances really shows you we care about this thing. Yeah, I think it was crazy. And even at the time, I don't like I really don't like Dolphins fans. I was cool with the Bills being good and, you know, the Jets. I don't know. But I didn't. I never wanted the Dolphins to be good. And even though I was hoping that you were right.

But even when you said, I think Bill took a big dump on to like a week before that and i was just like i don't know guys i really hope you're right but it feels like this is exactly the opposite of what's going to happen once you say this because we're right didn't look good but it's just the way you said it and bill said something like pretty inflammatory the week before i was just like i don't know guys i feel like this is going to come back to bite me so um i think you're right. I would vote, since it's just two of us, I'll vote to put that on there. We'll

take Perk back off, because he was number three anyway, right? Yeah. Let's take it off. We'll leave the other two on. You want details? Fine. I drive a Ferrari. 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have 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. Life advice. The email is lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. There may need to be an additional addressing of a topic that's become very controversial on the emails. Kyle submitted plenty of emails. He's like, do we need to talk about this?

So we will save that topic for after because we don't want to derail it like I just did during Worst Take where I did another SEC rant that half the audience has already heard seven times um but the audience is growing all the time so they tell you to repeat yourself a lot judge judy they'll tell you the case five times before it's over yeah yeah right there was some mike and mike stats they'd said like they'd been on for 12 years and they said 50% of their audience was in the last 12 months. And I was like, what? I don't know if I believe that or not. Every now and then they would throw us a radio stat and you'd be like, yeah, that's not true. They're always coming up with new ways to do stats and stuff. And it's like, oh, actually, we've been doing it wrong.

There's actually 70% less than what we thought. We were doing it wrong. Sorry. This actually counts for seven times instead of one and just a weird loophole you know it's just uh stats are they're always changing and everybody wants to use the best stats so they'll find the weirdest way to do it so yeah i would i would agree with that from blocked to relationship, you tell me. Huge fan of the pod. 30 years old, 190, taller than Tom Cruise. See, guys are catching on, man.

Little community here. All my friends think my pickup basketball comp is Chris Paul. Sorry, Russillo, but I hate CP3. So I like to think of myself as Boris D. I'll play at my own pace. Insane court vision. Mean baby hook. Not sure why I'm reading the rest of this now. So I used to live with a really good friend of mine for a few years he had this girlfriend who was clearly out of his league

and she and i always got along long story short they broke up and after a year and a half my buddy went down the deep end trying to get her back which led to her blocking him me and our other two roommates on insta facebook Facebook, and our phone numbers. Jesus Christ, she blocked all of the roommates? The core four. The core four went down. You guys were restricted access the rest of the way. Why the phone number?

Like, was anybody texting anybody? Maybe there was a group chat for a meetup somewhere one time, and she's like, yeah, that's done too. Um, all of this happened about two years ago. And my friend moved to a different city far away. No, this is going for context.

We were still great friends and he's doing well, but deep down, I'm sure he still misses her. His ex-girlfriend still follows me on LinkedIn. However, and likes all of my posts. That's funny. The last resort, LinkedIn. Been there.

The last resort. I bet you forgot about LinkedIn. She did. How many posts are guys doing on LinkedIn on an average? It's all garbage. It's all garbage. Whatever it is, it's all garbage.

So she likes all of his posts on LinkedIn. And recently, as I'm walking in a bar the other night, she was walking out and gave me a huge hug and said,

SO, all caps, good to see you on the SO. I feel confident if I reached out on LinkedIn to get her number, she would be down to get a drink.

Should I make a move? Will this permanently damage my friendship even though he moved away get her number, she would be down to get a drink. Should I make a move? Will this permanently damage my friendship even though he moved away? Yes. He probably would be in my wedding, so keep that in mind. Not this one. I feel like this is a rom-com script,

but love some advice. Love the pod. Okay. The way the title of this led was that I thought like this is a real, you're ready to just flame on your buddy's relationship here, who would be a core guy to be in your wedding party because she liked a couple updates on your digital resume. I thought you were a little further along in the game than this. And clearly she's out of like, you know, I'm guessing like she's out of your league too.

So that's why you'd be willing. I mean, that's again, all the calculation. Like I would never do that to my buddy, uh, except I do it for her. Cause that kind of email doesn't usually ever talk to me.

Um, I would, if the front, like you said, the friend was already bummed out slightly still like why would you again we know why you would want to do this to him or why you would do this to him i just need a little bit more evidence that it's worth you jeopardizing all this shit more than linkedin and one hug kyle yeah maybe she just liked your shit because she wanted you

to endorse her creative writing skills on linkedin maybe she just liked your shit because she wanted you to endorse her creative writing skills on LinkedIn. Maybe she just hoped you'd get the hint and that you'd endorse all of her skills or something. That aside, if you were going to make the move... Maybe he works at PetSmart and she loves animals. Maybe. Maybe she was really passionate about what you were posting. So my thing is if you were going to make the move, you should have a little something a little more in that bar in that moment than like be like so whatever you're going to open with on linkedin um you know i'd say if you are going to make that move again

like maybe just go to that bar if maybe you're if you want to see her i wouldn't reach out on linkedin um i i don't know this is this is messy already but um i don't know if maybe you're if you want to see her i wouldn't reach out on linkedin um i i don't know this is this is messy already but um i don't know like maybe you're maybe you're a thought maybe you're not even gonna date her though like that's the other thing like if it's like uh nobody's ever gonna know except us and everybody who listens to this podcast like you know maybe it is okay i don't know but uh i definitely wouldn't be thinking about getting into a relationship especially if you're would like to remain friends with your with your friend so i don't know. But I definitely wouldn't be thinking about getting into a relationship, especially if you would like to remain friends with your friend. So I don't know.

This is all weird. And it sounds like maybe he went a little bit weirder during that breakup than he let on to you. Because it's not a normal thing to block the dude everywhere and his friends everywhere. So especially if the friends weren't weird, I would wonder if your buddy got a little bit strange when they called it quits.

And that could definitely be something to consider regardless of how hot she is. I like what you did there, Kyle. Very much a vet move. You should have stayed on it that night. You should have used the hug as like an impact, a decision impactful thing in that moment because it would have been then more organic. You're talking a decision, you know, impactful thing in that moment. Cause it would have been then more organic.

You're talking, you're catching up, you're shooting the shit. Now, if you hit her up on LinkedIn, does that mean you're still blocked from everything else? And that's the only access. I mean,

great. She could have, I'm sure he's checked. And again, you could still be blocked. Cause she just forgot to undo it all. Exactly. That's usually the case.

Yeah. Which isn't like a terrible sign. Um, but then, you know, terrible sign um but then you know to go hey you know follow up for a couple shooters and sidecars in the moment as opposed to ah hey what's going on like just was thinking about you as i was updating linkedin again a week later the thing you could do even though i'm not sure how much i want to help the guy out is you could just hit her up and be like, I have a question I have to ask you. I'm dying to know the answer, whatever. And, um, you know, and then it's like, you, it might be a little weird to like the mystique of, can I get a cup of coffee and ask you about

it? Then she'll be like, what the fuck is this? And then you come in sort of playful guy, like down for just being playful buddy, where it's like, why the fuck is this? And then you come in sort of playful guy, like down for just being playful buddy, where it's like, why did we all get blocked? Unless you already know the answer to that too. But like, if you don't, that's a good conversation starter. And then you should be able to pick up pretty quickly based on the answers and the vibe. If you have any kind of chance whatsoever. But again, I'm not sure a hundred percent want to help you because you just don't give

a shit about your buddy at all. You don't. And you don't have any evidence that you should even pursue this. Here's the way you can sort of trick yourself into thinking it's not bad karma, though. If that's the place where she will maybe be again, maybe. And if you like that bar that you ran into, or maybe that's your spot for like a month. Not like I'm not saying go there every day. I'm saying when it's natural to go out, you're like, you know, then it's like, oh, I was in a bar and she walked into it. It's not like now there's no LinkedIn paper trail. There's no fake question and coffee. It's like, I was just minding my business and she showed up. And then it's sort of a fun thing. You're like, oh, will she, won't she come in today? If it's like a Friday night and that's

your place. But outside of that, you know, you're kind of going to be doing a bad thing. And even if you end up hanging around at that bar hoping that she'll walk in there, you're sort of doing a bad thing. But I think you could sort of trick karma into just circumstantially putting her into your life rather than following up on LinkedIn. That's another episode we're working on.

Karma tricks. Kyle's going to be- I got so many t-shirts, man. I hate that I've got no t-shirts to bring to Denver. I wish we had a few. I've heard there might be some sort of swag,

but t-shirts are the best. We're going to make Kyle write in the EP of Karma Tricks podcast season one. Just give me shirts rights. That's all. Just give me shirts rights. Done.

You can have that one too. Okay. Wife is working overseas and I may sell my company. 30 years old. 6'2", 220. Give me shirts right there. My wife is English, but she grew up here in the USA and went to college here as well. She's been able to go back for at least a month a year, spend time with her extended family her entire life. And she's always wanted to work in London for a little while before settling down and having kids. Opportunity came up within her job to move over there this summer, and I supported her. I would rather her do this now for two years than resent me for not letting her do it 10 years down the road. She's been over for three months and I'm just now able to come visit for a month before I go back. Pretty much this will be how it goes for

the next two years. Every three months, I go over for a month. Every six months, she has about four weeks or so. She can come back and split up however. All right. So he gets to go over for a month every three months. Every six months, she can use up four weeks. With FaceTime, constant communication, et cetera, this isn't that terrible, but I also think it would be very cool and fun to live in London for a few years pre-kids. Her and her best friend have moved over at the same time as her are able to travel Europe together every weekend. They aren't going to my wife's family's place in the country,

just outside of London. Of this, I am very jealous. So, all right, they're really maxing out. However, I started up a company this year with a close friend, and it's going quite well. I'm very busy with this. We plan on raising our Series A in January or February. The main dilemma I have is that we received a good buyout offer recently

that would get our investors a nice little profit along with both my partner and I out mid seven figures after tax. Cool. Whoa. All right. So again, let's read that sentence. The dilemma I have is we received a good buyout offer, get our investors a nice little profit along with a net, both my partner and I out mid seven figures each after taxes.

Well, I miss my wife and leaving the startup life to go hang out in London would be fantastic. I don't think we should take the offer. It's not retirement money. I have no idea if I'll ever have another idea that has great traction like this one does ever again. Our main competitor recently raised a $40 million round, which is why we are in quote hot demand. My business partner wants to soldier on and go for it. I do as well. I just want to back up that I'm not fucking up my marriage over a few shekels. And this

is a rational way of thought. Cheers. All right. Really good problems to have here. Well, I'm not any kind of fortune tellerer or whatever i just wonder i don't know what exactly it is that you do you're not sharing that with us okay is it anything that could get fucked over in the next couple years right because there's a bunch of signs that tell you things aren't exactly great coming coming up i don't you know i don't know how bad it's actually going to be none of us do if i did i would prepare but i don't know i. I don't fucking know. So my first thing would be like, okay, is there any chance you cash out? You're talking a lot of money. I mean, you're saying it's not retirement money, but it's money. If we're talking millions of dollars here, five, six million dollars, could you be putting that into the

next thing? Could you be putting it aside for whatever? Could you have cash reserves for the next big investment if all of a sudden everything's on sale and you have cash to burn? So that would be something. But the other thing I would ask you is this startup that you're doing, like, is this your passion and something you want to grind and do for a really long time, then you'd be right to turn it down. You know, sometimes when I hear like startup guys touch on something, it's like, do you even care about this product? Do you care about the service? Do you care? Or do you feel like you sort of found some little niche thing you're hoping to sell in two plus years? And I feel like that's a lot of it. And you're just kind of like, yeah, I'm just starting this thing. Hopefully somebody will

go ahead and buy it. And here you are where somebody wants to go ahead and buy it. And you're figuring out, wait a minute, we don't even necessarily want to sell it. So whatever it is that you're doing, you're far more educated than me than guessing at what it is. And it's simply the decision of, do I feel like economically things are going to be strong enough for the next couple of years that our company will still grow and that we could get to that next tier of money where it starts to become FU money. And if you are down for that grind and your partner and you are aligned and it's about, every day is about this company and all this stuff, because you're going to have plenty of free time with your wife overseas, then I admire that. And I would be the person to be like, just keep grinding.

You're 30. Keep grinding because the rest of it's going to be that much better if I continue to grind now. I haven't really touched on the wife part of it because I think that part of it's awesome. I would love to have this set up. My wife is gone all the time. Sweet. She's deciding to do something for her that she wants to do now.

You're really asking yourself the same question. So if you're cool as you've been cool, allowing this to happen and allowing feels kind of like, you know, weird word today's, but we get the point here, right? Well,

not giving her a hard time about it. Basically. Yeah. You are supportive of this decision for something that's unique and would be an absolute non-starter for other couples. I'd be like, yeah, if I can stay there as long as you want. You have, this is a negotiation, right? Like you've done something for her, which is pretty extreme and been like, all right, cool.

I'll work through these couple of years. And if you don't want to sell your company, I think that would be like the conversation going like, you know what? I'm not going to be able to move over there right now. You know, I'm, I'm thinking the long haul. I'm not just cashing out for the millions now, which is what, you know, most people would do because clearly you are super into this and maybe you have it wired perfectly. And you know, the, the reason you got that offer is because it was a low ball offer and somebody is trying to fuck you over. You know what I mean? Like all these things are in play here, but I would think it would come down to that,

that it's pretty simple that if you've been supportive with her doing something that's very unique and can be challenging for most relationships, she has to be able to reciprocate that with your vision of what you want to do. And I think you're kind of halfway there already, to be honest with you. I don't know how she could tell you, Hey, that's bullshit. You're not selling your company and moving to London with me because it would be totally unfair i was a bad sign yeah right it'd be unfair of of you to say to her hey it's bullshit you want to move to london because you're not really ready you guys are what you're 30 so you're about the same age i'm just assuming or maybe she's a little bit younger like do all this stuff now because the end will be a

lot better um a couple questions that i don't even know if there are answers to if he wants to sell and his buddy doesn't can he just basically sell half this company to this buyout thing and they'll wait his buddy out is that how it works or is it like you know if i don't want to sell we're not selling like is it not even his choice is my question he said his buddy doesn't want to sell he doesn't his buddy doesn't want to right his buddy and he and the buddy agree you got that right but if he decided he did want to sell because i mean that's what he's saying he's like maybe i just want to take the company like sell the company and then plot while i'm in london with all my you know swimming in my money for six months and figure

out what i want to do i'm saying if he did decide to go that route can he even do it if his buddy's like fuck you no i'm not doing Like, can he just sell his percentage of the company? Or is it like, is that not an option? I guess I'm saying, I'm wondering if it's even an option for you, because you know, if your buddy's like definitely not going to go with it, and it's not, and you know, going to torpedo any sort of deal,

then maybe you don't even have to worry about it. But, so, you know, I'm sure we don't have an answer to that. And, you know, if you're good with, you know, I guess my thing, I'd be like, you know, European men. She's that's it. But outside of that. Oh, wait, you'd be worried. You'd be worried about the European men.

Yeah, I think so. I mean, especially if she's getting it. You know, she's going everywhere. She's getting, you know, she's getting Italian propositions. She's getting French propositions. German propositions. Probably a little more aggressive. Don't sleep on the Germans. Yeah. I don't know. I think it's just,

you know, I think when you go away, sometimes it's just, it's easier to like do something wrong. I don't know when you're away for like long periods of time. I just think it's probably easier to do something wrong. And, um, I don't know. I would just be, I would just be worried about it, but it sounds like he's going over there every month or every three months, he said? Every three months. For a month at a time? I don't know. Why can't

you go for a couple months and just see if you'd like to live there? I don't know why you could take a month off every three months. What is that, quarterly or something? Why can you only get a month every three months? Why can't you just put them together and work on the phone at weird hours and just see if you even like it?

Sounds like you have a lot of disposable time anyway. Yeah, you both have great things going on right now. So I would just stay on the path of whatever you're doing. The rest of it we'll figure out. Like why can't you just move to London? What if she loves it there? And she goes, you know, eventually I want to move. Why can't you just move to London? What if she loves it there? And she goes, eventually I want to move. Why can't you do that in four years

and just move there and be there and do all the stuff that you necessarily want to do now? I got to add a little thing here. He sent in a sweaty, topless pic of himself. I have no idea. Normally, it'll be like, hey, I'm in shape. I'm not in shape. When guys are sending shirtless pics of themselves, this guy just sent it.

Oh, just like a fin at the end? Yeah. It's attached at the bottom, yeah. Well, what do you think? I think he wants you to say something other than just here it is. It looks good, man. All right, you look good. Yeah.

All right. Hey, you don't cheat either, pal. You'd be good as well. You is. It looks good, man. All right. It looks good. Yeah. All right. Hey, you don't cheat either, pal. You'd be good as well. You're over here by yourself too. Those are some big numbers. God,

220. He doesn't look 220 in this picture, but 1500 pound club. That's not fucking around. All right. Uh, let's address something here that needs to be addressed on the podcast. The standing up on the plane thing

has basically taken over the feed. I don't know which one to grab. Oh, we'll do this one. All right. People are super pissed. I mentioned, and again, I'm always window.

The one time I was in the aisle recently, I stood up as the plane had landed to pack my bag up and the woman behind me was like, can you move your ass out of my face? And I was like, I stood up as the plane had landed to pack my bag up. And the woman behind me was like, can you move your ass out of my face? And I was like, yeah, no problem. And then she was like, keep looking straight ahead.

Like she was really, she was an aggressive. She knew what she wanted. Yeah, yeah. And it was so ridiculous that I sort of just laughed it off. I was like, whatever, I'm not entertaining this. And people are losing their shit that I stand up on a plane. Again, to emphasize, the plane had landed and it made its way to the gate. Somebody eventually has to stand up. You're right. No one can stand up in the window or aisle seat because it's fucking insane. stand up in the window or aisle seat because it's fucking insane um but somebody has to stand up eventually to pack your stuff get your stuff out of the overhead uh and i i'm blown away that people

don't quite understand that like yeah like all right i'll stand up and stretch out because i'm in the aisle um but no people just not having it. So here we go. This guy said, full alert. It's a way to explain it. Okay. You said it was almost as bad as clapping when the plane lands. I push back on that one.

All right. Here's a way to explain to Ryan how bad it is using his own rationale from an old life advice, the Chipotle hot sauce bottle thief. We talked about like Tabasco or Cholula, everybody taking it. Essentially, standing on the plane is selfish, bold, underlined. As nice as it would be, there's simply not enough room for all

150 passengers to stand up and stretch their legs after the flight. Sure, Ryan, I want to stretch my legs too, but that doesn't mean it's my right to stand up when the plane lands and stand in the aisle. Also, when you stand in the aisle, you're blocking people in rows behind you, meaning to hurry off the plane to catch a connecting flight. And if you say that's not, oh, whoa, Kyle says he doesn't care. Nobody cares about you at the airport. That's it. I'm done. And if you say that's not your problem, that's bullshit because you cite the simple fact that

quote, act like they're better than you if they're five rows ahead of another person or get the window seat when it's merely luck. So while, yes, it's fine if one dude takes the Tabasco bottle that's sitting out at Chipotle, but what if everyone thought they could do it? And yes, it's fine if you stand up in the plane lands, Ryan, but what happens when everyone thinks they're entitled to it? Hope to hear you explain this on the pod and put Ryan's head in the pretzel because I couldn't be more shocked. Here's the thing. Eventually, somebody needs to stand on the plane. No one needs to take the Cholula bottle.

Right? Yeah, that's an easy one. That's an easy one to tell. Right. As far as the connection, at what point did you assume that because I'm standing up, I just box everybody out, fucking Rick Mahorn style? Sorry, dude.

I'm in 20. I stood up to stretch. You're in 28. You're not going to Orlando tonight. Fuck you and your family. Now, if somebody plans it out and ask, ask the flight attendants, Hey, I have this connection. It's not going to happen. Whatever, whatever. I've seen that guy take so many fucking L's getting off the plane in my life and I would gladly stay in my seat. Okay, cool. You're going to move up a handful of rows. All the people in the front don't give a fuck about you.

Not saying it's right, but it's what happens. And I'd also submit this. I think that I'm losing my shit connection person is lying half the time anyway. And I'm still telling you I would stay in my seat and get out of the way because it doesn't really fucking matter to me. None of this really matters that much. When I stand up, I don't stand up to rush forward. We've already talked about how much that person sucks. Same as the elevator where they get on before you get off and you're like, first time on one of these? Fun,

huh? I'm pretty excited. Look at all these buttons. The same thing with plane. You're like, oh, cool. You moved up from 32 to 26. Man, what's the rest of your week going to be like? This is going to be amazing. But yeah, I've run into a lot of the people going like, oh, my connection, my connection. Or my other thing is the security gate where everybody cuts you. You know how many times I've had them be like, yeah, okay, go ahead, go ahead. You're going to miss your flight. Everybody's trying to do the same. And then you show up and the guy's at your flight. That's happened to me a bunch of times too. You're like, are you serious? You mauled your way through that entire thing.

And then your flight was even. So I think what's happening here in this email is that you think you're making a ton of good points and the extra points you're making for me, my side of it, making your argument worse. I will submit again when the plane lands and it's at the gate and i'm in the aisle which almost never happens and i decide to stand up at some point because everybody has to fucking leave i don't see anything wrong with that for you suggesting

that everybody can't do it yeah no shit no shit middle middle and window guy can't really stand up. That's we get it, man. Geometry. It all makes a ton of sense. I'm not addressing this anymore. I got a few things. I'll do it with you here now, Kyle. I don't know how much more time

we got on this one. I'm going to be short. I like that the guy was standing up for all the sitters out there, but I just don't think he went about it the right way i'd say a couple things uh like a it's just straight up ass to face nobody likes it nobody likes it and there's really not a great way around it uh two it always ends up like i agree with you you say you gotta stand up to be efficient with the exit process but i think it's's always, no matter, like, it's like 10 minutes before they open those doors, it seems like, you know?

After the light dings and they're, you know, getting the unloading the bags or whatever. It's like, it's 10 minutes of that before anyone like seems to move. And I feel like it's like red lights. My dad loses it

because we're at red lights because you can see the red light. There's 10 cars in front of you and everybody gets off their gas after the other one. He's like, if everybody just went at the same fucking time, you know, we'd all be moving. There'd be no traffic, but because people aren't paying attention or whatever, it's still like you still 10 cars back and you don't get through the green light, the green light for another minute because you're watching everybody decide to hit the gas. And that's still what it's like,

no matter whether they're standing for the full 10 minutes, whether you're standing two minutes before it's time to grab your bag, you're still not going to get to go until the people in front of you go is my point. And so there's just a bunch of ass and face to, you know, to pretty much be out at the same time, because it's like, you have to count on everyone else to do it correctly. Nobody ever does it correctly. So there's just people in 36, you know, in 36 B with ass in their face. That's all I mean. Or me, which who's a respectful, yeah, respectful sitting guy in, in a, with an ass in his face. And, you know, it's just, and it's an ass. It could be an ass from anywhere in the world. Really. It's could be, you know, could be a huge ass. It could be

a stinky ass. It could be a hygienic ass. It's just, it's, it's just, there's really nothing you could do about it. So I just think that, you know, if you stood up a minute before, how long does it really take to get your bag? Are you, maybe you're going to grab your jacket out of it or stuff your jacket into it if you're changing weather conditions. But other than that, like how, how much do you really need? Maybe get your charger situated, get the book squared away, but you know, it's not 10 minutes. That's all I mean. I mean, I think there's a respectful amount of time that you could be standing. That's all I mean. And listen, it's not illegal so you know i just i just know if it isn't i just think differently uh yeah i don't know i mean at some point you have to get up and

get your stuff from the overhead so the question is what point that's what i mean stretching your legs and like you already had somebody's arms all over your arm for the however long the flight was and yeah you're fucking right if i'm going to europe and it's seven hours with my legs the war these knees have been through hey man we're all different i knew you were gonna get crushed but i i think that guy's points were the wrong points that's all i'm just at a loss i'm at a loss for thinking that you would you would have overhead stuff and you would sit until there's this magical like it's really make-believe this perfect moment where it's like i did not impede anything there was no violation of personal space which has already happened on the entire flight in first place and you're like okay now i shall stand to keep this perfect this perfect train of efficiency it's like merging well it doesn't happen like by the way your father's red light

thing is psychotic to begin with too like if if everyone were aligned that if it hit green, the entire line would take off. Yeah, shout out to self-driving cars, dude. Yeah, that's psychotic. That would never work. Everyone would crash. But you'd be better off eventually at some point standing up getting your stuff out

to keep that line moving. Yeah, I just disagree. We're not, it will no longer be debated. Save the emails. We're not, we've already spent too much time on this. Fair.

But I may get an aisle just to stand up way earlier. Just look around. And wear a shirt that says my name on it or something just to see kind of the reaction. Because that's the first time a woman had ever said anything to me about it that way. Well, we don't speak up often. That's the thing. Yeah, but she had... There's a lot going on there.

I'll just leave it at that. She probably speaks up a lot. Okay. We'll be back on Friday. We'll talk a lot of NFL. Might do the West Coast midterms Friday. Could do it next week. I'm not sure.

It's not like it's the end of the world if I do it a couple games later. Sometimes professors are different, how they schedule things out. Thanks to Kyle as always. Ryan Russo, the podcast for Inger Spotify. Outro Music